𝐒𝐎𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐔𝐃𝐄 [JJK x OC]

10: Star Plasma Vessel

______________

Ayako Kamo

???

An acrid smell hit my nose as purple blood gushed from the neck of a slain curse. It wasn't like human blood; rather than metallic, it smelled more like bile left to fester in the sun. Fitting, I suppose, curses are little more than the refuse of humanity's souls; their every fear and weakness manifest.

There are more of them now; at least, that's what Yaga and Geto say. Something to do with the increasing number of disasters during this year. Truthfully, I can't tell the difference. A 100 curses or a 1000 curses, to me, is all the same. Perhaps the others aren't wrong when they call me detached.

This odious smell, how many sorcerers have died, drowned in this scent? How pitiful those people must've been to be born without the strength to justify their existence, to exist for no other reason than to die. There could be nothing more pathetic than wilting flowers that were never witnessed. What is the point of such an existence? There isn't any.

I still remember my first season of cherry blossoms when I was a child locked away in my temple. When the season passed and the forest returned to normal, a sea of vibrant green, I couldn't help but be disappointed. I sat outside for hours staring at the trees, hoping they would bloom again to that entrancing pink. They didn't, of course. Such transient beauty, I abhor it.

I knew they would fade because my eyes told me they would. Their ultimate fate, their death, these eyes laid it bare to me from the day I was born.

I've always known there's no point in concerning yourself with a thing destined to fade...

I don't...

I can't...

'What I witnessed wasn't uncommon. It was the natural order of things, the laws of nature, the flow of fate neither can be changed. I've always known, always.' Those words I tell myself, my mind keeps drifting towards them.

I'm empty; I lack something integral to humanity. I've known it ever since that day.

Ever since that day.

______________

3rd person

August 2006 (Five Days before The Merger)

Traffic jammed one of the many rodes leading out of Toykos's bustling metropolis. Cars barely moved, and only in staggered motions did the sky begin to dim, leaving only the yellow and red tints of tail lights to illuminate the way ahead. Within one of those countless cars, an all-black company car, sat two young women, two sorcerers being chauffeured to their newest mission. An old abandoned mansion that stood at the very fringes of the prefecture, one said to be haunted that few ever emerged from. However, to the sorcerers, that story was as generic as possible, and their lives of grinding tedium become all the more noticeable in their work post-graduation.

A screen flickered to life as Utahime opened a laptop and positioned it so she and Mei Mei sat alone in the vehicle's backseat. Utahime coughed into the sleeve of her Miko, the clothing that denoted her lineage as a shrine maiden, "Ahem," The sudden noise garnered the grade 1 sorcerer's attention, who had been texting someone throughout the entire car ride.