The Strongest | ɢᴏᴊᴏ ꜱᴀᴛᴏʀᴜ

Chapter 47

Four men are standing in front of me, dressed in dirty sorcerer's uniforms. They look beaten up and hurt, but there's the feeling of cursed energy. They brought cursed spirits here?

"Get out," I say to the bartender over my shoulder and add to the other people in here, "All of you."

As they all get to their feet, I'm starting to mumble the words to cast a curtain. The few people from the bar scramble past the men, who let them through until the doors swing shut behind them, and we're alone inside my curtain. Me, four huge men, and - I count - six third-grade cursed spirits. Whatever the men are doing, the curses aren't attacking them. Harvesting our powers, huh? So that's what they're trying to achieve here. They can see cursed spirits and apparently control them to some extent.

Fighting humans is a whole different experience from fighting curses. Lower-grade curses don't think, but their cursed energy makes it harder for me to exorcize them. Humans don't have cursed energy, so they're easier for me to defeat, but they're smart. Besides, killing a human... that's way different from exorcizing a curse. I'm just lucky that I didn't switch out of my clothes after we got back from the warehouses because that means I still have my knives on me, including the one I took from the other guy.

"You killed four of our men," one of the men shouts as he's coming at me.

I slip away from him in the last second and slam my hand with cursed energy into his stomach at the same time as a curse comes running at me from the other side. My hand catches the curse, and I stop it. My cursed energy flows from the hand in the man's stomach to my other hand. The man falls to the ground, and the spirit vibrates against my hand as my cursed energy threatens to exorcize it.

From the corner of my eye, I can see one of the men pulling out a gun, so pull my knife out of my holster with my free hand, imbue it with cursed energy and throw it. It lands in his throat, and as he crumbles, the blood makes a real mess. Damn it, I was trying to keep this clean. We're in a hotel bar, after all, and someone will need to clean this up.

But that's two men down, and, as I stab it with another knife, one cursed spirit. The next things happen so fast that I don't even know in what order they do. I exorcize two curses, leaving three. One man gets up from the ground and stumbles toward me, throwing up blood. Another man comes up from behind me as I'm busy fighting off a curse, and he grabs me by the throat, holding me so close to his body that I can't move one bit.

"Hold still, pretty girl," he growls into my ear, and I can feel two things against my back: his gun and his erection.

Throwing my head back, I slam it against his nose and hear the crack as it breaks. His grip on me loosens just a little, but it's enough for me to let go of the curse in front of me and lean out of the way as it opens its mouth to eat me. Instead, it snaps at the man holding me and bites his head off right over my shoulder. I'm sprayed with blood on the side of my face, but I don't have time to wipe it off before exorcizing this curse, too.

"You'll pay for that!" the last man standing shouts, but he's hiding behind the remaining two curses.

I almost feel like laughing. They came here thinking they could avenge their friends who threatened and took my friends hostage. We came to get revenge on them. You can't get revenge for revenge; that's not how that works. They came here expecting a "pretty girl" who makes an easy kill. They found me instead. I pity them, really, but they dragged the wrong people into this. And to top it all off, they made me miss the hour-mark. I should have been back with Gojo for fifteen minutes already. Instead, I'm here, covered in blood and sweat and cursed spirit, and I have to listen to this stupid man saying stupid things.

"Come on, then," I provoke him.

But he doesn't come forward himself. He sends both curses on me at the same time. What a shame. I think he's trying to wear me out. I assume he doesn't know that I have a good reason for getting out of here alive. I won't die. Not today. Not before I can tell Gojo that I'm in love with him. And I especially won't be killed by lower-grade curses. I'm better than that. If a special grade didn't kill me, this won't either.

When the curtain lifts, I'm already sitting at the bar again, pouring myself another scotch. My eyes are fixed on the clock, watching the seconds tick by one by one. I'm waiting. Tick, tick, tick. I sip at the alcohol and feel the pleasant burn on my tongue. Gojo was right; this is a good drink. I swirl the liquid in the glass and listen to the ice clink. Tick. Tick. Tick. The bar is so silent that it's almost creepy. I wonder what the people outside are thinking. Where did the bartender go, and is he coming back? Even if the fight is over and they can't see the exorcized spirts, they can see the four dead men in here. And me, peacefully sipping at my drink. Tick, tick -

The door bursts open, and I smile without turning around. I'd recognize that cursed energy anywhere. Out of a million sorcerers, I'd be able to pick this one out. Two sorcerers are here, too, but their cursed energy feels farther away, so they're probably waiting outside of the bar, probably taking care of the people and their questions. Gojo seems to be relieved to find me so calm and unharmed because I can hear him hesitating for a moment before coming closer to me. He sits down on the stool next to me.

"I'm sorry," he says. Finally. That makes me look at him. Gojo sees the cut on my face from earlier, he sees the fresh bruises I got, the blood that I tried to wipe off, and the red marks on my neck, but he doesn't comment on them. He doesn't baby me, he doesn't say I should be more careful or that I needed help. He only says, "I'm sorry I hurt you and made you feel like I didn't believe in you. Because I do. I believe in you more than I believe in anything else."

I shrug. "You were right, though. If I was such an easy target for them that they found me..."

Gojo shakes his head, and there's a smile on his lips that makes me frown. "No, I wasn't." He looks around the room. "Look at what you did. I wasn't right the slightest bit."

Now I have to smile myself. I slide him my glass, and he grins. "No vodka martini today?"

"Just drink," I snap, but I'm still smiling. "More are coming."

Gojo nods. "I know. That's why we're here."

Just then, our lovely colleague opens the door and interrupts our moment. "Couldn't you two do that later? There's about ten of them coming, everyone with two cursed spirits."

We both get up and nod. I wouldn't have wanted to tell him here anyway. Well, here maybe, in this hotel, where this kind of started. But not here in this bar, surrounded by death. Soon, though. Very soon.