9

There's so much blood.

Red, red, spilling over and pooling on the asphalt ground. The crimson liquid spreads and spreads and continues spreading without end, splattered everywhere, everywhere.

There's blood soaked into the edge of her flower-printed kimono. There's blood liberally coating her shoes. There's blood painted over her ankles.

That's Isao-san's blood.

… And right now Isao-san's decapitated head is still looking up towards her, forever frozen with that strange, unreadable expression etched over his features.

Distantly, Shiki can hear a choked, retching sound coming from the young chauffeur beside her. She doesn't blame him, considering all the blood–

Something prickles uneasily along her skin, as she finds herself staring fixedly at the macabre scene laid out before her. Utterly transfixed, and unable to turn away. There's a strange feeling in her chest, something unspeakably tight but also utterly weightless at the same time that it frightens her. It frightens her so, so very much–

Or rather, it should frighten her.

… It's difficult to articulate what she's currently feeling in this moment, exactly, but Shiki is acutely aware that there's a distinct lack of that certain sort of rabbit-quick panic racing in her pulse, even though she does feel the pounding of her heartbeat thundering in her ears. But it's not quite the same, it's–

It's strange.

No, not strange.

It's not right, Shiki thinks. Realizes, with a sort of dawning comprehension, as the young chauffeur beside her makes a panicked noise that's all terror and little else. A subdued non-reaction like Shiki's is most definitely not right, but… but Shiki can't help the way she feels.

She should be crying. Shiki knows she should be crying, screaming. That's the proper response when someone dies right in front of you, right?

… Is she sad? Shiki… Shiki is more surprised than sad at the moment, as harsh as it sounds. But that's the cold truth of the matter. She doesn't –she didn't really know Isao-san, despite their brief exchange earlier. Yes, Shiki felt like she understood him a little better after he'd tried explaining himself, but evidently it wasn't enough to make her truly feel.

Still. Shiki knows knows knows that she should be in hysterics right now, just like the young man next to her. There's something vaguely tight in her throat, but not constricting. The tears stubbornly refuse to come, even though they should.

… What's wrong with her?

Isao-san had been fighting to protect her! And here Shiki is, more numb than sorrowful as she literally stands in his blood. The blood he'd spilled protecting her, even. How can she possibly remain so utterly impassive to that?

Is this "shock?" … It must be, right? … Does this mean that the severity and magnitude of everything would catch up to her all at once later?

Shiki inhales. Exhales. Runs through the mental exercises that Kiyohira-sensei had painstakingly taught her, and feels her heartbeat settle into something approaching calm as she sharpens all her senses into a razor-sharp focus.

Later. She'll worry about all of this… later. Assuming that she'll still be alive to do so.

The little girl steadfastly ignores the strange scent in the air (the smell of blood), determinedly clears her mind of the shocking abruptness of Isao-san's demise (his eyes are still staring at her), and pays absolutely no heed to the wet warmth splattered over her bare ankles (Isao-san's blood, that's Isao san's blood–!).

Steady breaths, in and out. Her eyes aren't stinging, even though she's admittedly a little lightheaded at the moment. Shiki still doesn't feel any urge to cry. For some reason, the tears just stubbornly refuse to come, even though they should, and this is probably another sign that Shiki is an awful, awful girl. The tightness in her throat eases undeservingly with every steady intake of breath, until it fades into something near-unnoticeable.

… There's no terror. There's no mind-numbing fear, no panic. There is no trepidation accompanying every pulse of her too-steady heartbeat.

There's just blood.

Just death.

Shiki blinks, slow and deliberate. And around her, the clarity of the world dissolves into something distorted. Flickering, as hundreds of eerie red lines overlay her reality once more.

But despite countless eldritch red lines spiraling everywhere over the asphalt ground, around the railings and even up the cliffside bordering the mountain road… in front of her, Isao-san no longer has any red lines glowing upon his body. Isao-san is dark. Wholly, utterly dark.

That makes sense, because Isao-san is dead.

"What a cold-hearted little ojou-sama you are, Gojo Shiki."

Shiki looks up.

It's a woman, one whom she does not recognize. Pale-skinned and dark-haired, like so many other people living in this country. But there's a wild light in this strange woman's eyes, something that gleams with an almost poisonous sheen as she emerges onto the asphalt road and steps forward, carelessly dropping a lumpy object to the ground–

A doll?

A… headless doll.

Shiki's gaze flickers briefly towards Isao-san's decapitated head by her feet, then refocuses on the strange woman once more.

"Are you ignoring me? Well, I guess it's fine if you're too terrified to speak." The woman smiles, vicious and sharp. "Makes it all the easier for me!"

"S-Stay back!"

Shiki blinks in surprise, as the young chauffeur suddenly shoves his way in front of her with an unexpected burst of courage. He's pale-faced and trembling, clearly still terrified out of his mind –but for some reason, he interposes himself between Shiki and the curse user advancing on them without hesitation. His arms are slightly spread to the sides, an openly protective gesture meant to shield the girl behind him, but it's a futile effort, and all three of them know it.

The woman laughs derisively. "Step aside, kid. Your precious little ojou-sama's guard just killed off the rest of my crew, so I'm not exactly in the most forgiving mood right now, if you catch my drift. I'm only giving you this one chance to run off with your tail between your legs like the useless dog you are."

The young man stiffens from the threat. Then, softly, "… Even a dog knows what loyalty is."

Something in the woman's expression shutters and darkens at those words, before she openly scoffs at him. "Tch, like I care. If that's what you think, then you can just die for your master!"

Unlike Satoru-oniichan –or even Isao-san– Shiki's cursed technique is not one that can conveniently block attacks coming her way. Which means that when the woman brings out a handgun and levels it in their direction, Shiki promptly kicks the chauffeur in the back of his knees, before dropping to the ground herself. The first round of bullets go wide.

Then she grabs the back of the young man's coat and yanks, cursed energy coiling down the length of her body to augment her motions as she roughly rolls the both of them over. By some minor miracle, they manage to reach and hide behind the smoldering wreckage of the totaled car with only a few scrapes and bruises, rather than any bullets perforating their bodies.

For now.

"Sh-Shiki-sama," the chauffeur stutters, eyes wide. "Shiki-sama, you need to–!"

Whatever he's trying to say is promptly cut off as another round of bullets hits the metal wreckage from the opposite side right at this precise moment. The young man jumps, nerve-wracked and panicked from the gunshots. Shiki sympathizes, although there is a detached corner of her mind insisting that this is no time for panic, if you cannot keep a cool head on your shoulders in the middle of combat, then you will die.

… That voice in her head sounds suspiciously like Kiyohira-sensei, come to think of it.

"Trying to hide? That's not going to work!"

Right, this is no time to be getting distracted.

Shiki is not carrying any weapons on her. She hadn't thought that she would be needing anything of the sort –never mind that a sword was long and unwieldy to carry around for a child in the first place– but clearly that was an oversight on her part. A very severe oversight.

The jagged piece of too-hot metal that Shiki manages to pull out from the car wreckage burns her hands, but the little girl grips tightly onto it regardless.

"Look, I'm not in the mood to be playing around," the curse user's voice sounds again. Closer, closer, closer. "So just save us all the trouble and–"

Shiki lunges forward.

You're talented, Kiyohira-sensei had said to her before, only once. But you're young. And talent is not always enough.

The curse user is fast. Not as fast as Kiyohira-sensei or Isao-san –but certainly much faster than Shiki, even with cursed energy enhancing her movements as she'd been taught to do. Red lines flash before her eyes, but the woman moves far too quickly for Shiki to even attempt cutting with her improvised weapon. Shiki's first strike catches the curse user on the shin instead. The woman hisses, and there's a loud crack–

Gunpoint. Leveled directly at Shiki. The barrel is pointed at her, she needs to move–

But in the next moment, Shiki finds herself utterly blindsided by a sharp burst of pain exploding over her ribs from a lightning-fast kick. The blow is harsh enough that she's bodily launched through the air. Just like what constantly happens when she's training with Kiyohira-sensei –but rather than hitting the wooden floorboards of the training room, Shiki is skidding over the open asphalt road instead.

It hurts. Her back is on fire, bits of gravel and who knows what else digging into her inflamed, bleeding skin.

"Shiki-sama!"

"So easy. You've gotta learn to pay attention to more than just my gun, little ojou-sama!" Shiki has barely managed to right herself again when the curse user is on her in a whirlwind of movement. The girl raises her impromptu weapon just in time to block another harsh kick, but finds herself disarmed between one moment and the next as she's mercilessly knocked to the ground.

"Hm. Yeah, no wonder you've only got the one guard –you're definitely no Gojo Satoru." The woman's words are a condescending drawl as she peers down at Shiki, "Your 'Eyes of Severance' might allow you to cut anything you see, but if you don't have the physical ability to actually cut anything, then clearly it's useless."

A blade flashes down on the last word. Involuntarily, a soft gasp is pulled from Shiki's lips when the knife stabs cleanly through her right shoulder and directly into the ground beneath her.

It hurts –hurts. Much more than any training session with Kiyohira-sensei ever had.

"H-How do you know that?" the young chauffeur's voice sounds distantly from the side. Disbelieving, incredulous. "There have yet to be any official records made of Shiki-sama's abilities!"

"Oh, please," the curse user sniffs. "A new ocular curse… you think there's really any chance of keeping something like that a secret? My client wasn't exactly shy about providing me with details, y'know."

"Your client…?"

"Ah-ah! A lady's lips are sealed," the woman mimes zipping her lips. "There is such a thing as 'client confidentiality,' I'll have you know."

Pale fingers reach down to dab none-too-gently at Shiki's bleeding shoulder, and the little girl flinches involuntarily from the abrasive touch.

"I really wouldn't recommend moving, little ojou-sama," the curse user says casually. "Or pulling out that knife by yourself, for that matter. Might make it so that you'll never be able to move your arm again, y'know?"

The woman raises her hand, fingers bright with Shiki's blood. With her other hand, she brings out…

… another doll?

Inexplicably, Shiki finds herself remembering the headless doll that the woman had dropped earlier when she'd first made her appearance.

Headless.

Headless, just like Isao-san. Then, did that mean…?

"My cursed technique," the woman states with visible satisfaction, "Is called Doll Link. It requires blood from an injury dealt to a target by my own hand, and a doll as the medium. Thereafter, any injury that's inflicted onto the doll is then reflected onto the target's body. Neat, isn't it?"

Before her eyes, the woman forms a seal and grips her doll tightly with a bloodied hand –Shiki's blood– and then there's a sharp spike of cursed energy in the air that leaves absolutely no doubt as to what's happening, as the woman completes the ritual for her curse.

Shiki doesn't feel any different, but a chill runs down her spine at the sight regardless.

"My client wants you alive, so this is just for insurance," the curse user waves her newly-cursed doll in front of the girl's face. "So be good and just stay where you are, m'kay?"

Without waiting for a response, the woman rises from where she's pinned Shiki to the ground and turns in the direction of the trembling young chauffeur.

"Well, you've had your chance to run. Any last words?"

Move.

Everything in her body hurts, her shoulder most of all. Shiki's heart pounds inside her chest, thump-thump-thump, and it's… it's frustrating. It's frustrating beyond words, to be so easily outmatched and utterly helpless–!

Shiki raises her left hand, and her fingers close around the hilt of a knife. The very same knife that the curse user had used to stab through her shoulder entirely –the one that she hadn't bothered retrieving.

Move. Move!

"… Why are you doing this?"

"Really? Is that how we're going to play this?" The woman sighs exaggeratedly at the young chauffeur's question. "… Well, everyone needs to eat. And I've got just the two loveliest little daughters to care for as well, y'know? Can't leave them to grow up by themselves in the middle of bumfuck nowhere forever, and I'll finally have the money to move them into the city when this job is done."

"Just for that, you think –you think murdering is the answer?!" the young man sounds near-hysterical. "Even children?"

"Get off of your high horse," the curse user retorts sharply, dark eyes flashing. "What sorcerer hasn't killed before? 'Murderer,' hah. Do I need to remind you that your ojou-sama's bodyguard just killed my entire team?"

The young man flinches back. "E-Even so, that's still–!"

"You're so fucking boring," the woman rolls her eyes. "I know your type. Self-assured and self-righteous. Whatever. I'm done wasting my time talking with you here, just–"

With a sudden shout, the young man charges headlong at her.

"You fool–"

No. Not a fool.

The chauffeur had seen Shiki pulling herself upright behind the curse user. He'd seen her, and instantly made the decision to draw attention towards himself. A bullet finds its mark in his side and he crumples with a pained shout, but not before he reaches the woman. Not before he lunges at her and bodily tackles her to the ground.

Shiki swings her appropriated knife across the flailing limbs, slashing through the curse user's ankles in a single stroke–

The woman screams–

The chauffeur bowls headlong into her, grabbing at the doll in her hands–

The woman tightens her hand into a fist. Shiki chokes at the sensation of a phantom hand crushing her body.

She can't move. She can't breathe. She can't–!

"Shiki-sama!" the young man roars, somehow successfully pinning the hissing, spitting curse user beneath himself in the panicked struggle. The power of desperation, perhaps. And abruptly, the invisible pressure lifts from Shiki's body, and suddenly she can breathe again. "I have the doll! Please, you need to–"

BANG.

… Brown eyes. Dark brown, almost black.

It's such an inane, irrelevant detail to be focusing on. But in the split second that Shiki looks up and makes direct eye contact with the young chauffeur, that's all she can notice.

And then a bullet wound appears directly in the middle of his forehead, accompanied by a gory splatter of red.

The young man falls.

… She doesn't even know his name, and now he's… dead. Dead, like Isao-san. Because of her.

"You're fucking dead!" the woman roars, her face contorted in rage. She sits up, shoving the chauffeur's listless, bloody corpse off of her disgustedly. Corpse. That's right. He's only a corpse now –even though he'd been living, breathing, fighting only mere seconds ago. Shiki can see it. She sees it all so clearly. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, my legs, my legs–!"

The woman's head snaps towards Shiki in the next heartbeat, eyes alight with incandescent fury. "How dare you!"

She raises her fist threateningly–

No. No, the woman is not just raising her hand. She has the cursed doll again.

"Cut my ankles, will you?" The curse user's hands twist viciously at the doll's legs, and Shiki drops to the ground like a stone, as an agonizing pain lances sharply through her legs without warning. Eerie lines glimmer unnaturally before her eyes, bright and pulsating–

"Maybe I should just rip off your legs," the woman hisses viciously. "Or how about an arm? What do you think about that, ojou-sama?"

The doll's right arm bends backwards at an impossible angle. There's an audible crack that comes from Shiki's right arm correspondingly, accompanied by another dizzying burst of pain that threatens to overwhelm her senses.

A soft, pained sound falls from Shiki's lips.

"My client might want you alive, but they never specified in what condition," the woman glares spitefully, hatefully. Then smiles. "So I won't pull your head off like I did that bodyguard of yours. But disobedient girls need to be taught a lesson."

… The agony that flares anew inside her body is white-hot, searing. It makes it hard to formulate any coherent thoughts, makes it hard to concentrate–

But despite every new pulse of torturous pain that curses Shiki's fragile body, somehow she notices something… flickering, in the air.

Shiki's world is a world full of deathly red lines; that much hasn't changed. But… there's something more to it, now. Cracked lines cover the entirety of the ground that she's bleeding out onto, but there's undeniably something more to the countless lines spread out before her, twisting and spiraling up into the open air.

Blood trickles down the length of her torn shoulder, pain flaring unevenly down to her bones. But somehow, the pain only registers as a distant afterthought to her now, as Shiki finds her attention wholly consumed by the new lines coalescing in front of her eyes.

"… Yellow."

"Hah? What's that?" The woman's voice rings mockingly between them. "Is this finally too much for you? Losing your little mind over there, ojou-sama?"

The doll's right pinky is summarily and mercilessly crushed. Correspondingly, Shiki is vaguely aware of how her own right pinky turns purple and blotchy with a sick-sounding snap, falling limp in a way that a normal finger has no right to be.

But she sees it, finally sees it with crystal-perfect clarity in this moment–

A yellow line. That distinct yellow line swirling through the air, glowing brightly as it connects Shiki to the doll in the woman's hands. She sees it so clearly. Clearer and clearer still, with every passing second.

Open and close.

… She understands it, now.

"Your technique," Shiki says, her voice a soft whisper, "Is yellow. Like sunflowers."

"… The hell are you on about?"

Shiki ignores the woman.

At this point, the little girl has long lost count of all the injuries that her body has suffered. Her right arm is useless. Three fingers on her left hand have been crushed similarly to her pinky, her thumb included, leaving her unable to even hold the knife properly. Everything hurts, hurts, so much worse than any training session she's ever experienced. But Kiyohira-sensei's voice echoes steadily in her head, telling her things like Drop your weapon and die, and somehow Shiki finds the strength to grip the knife tightly in her hand even despite the blinding pain.

Then she raises her arm, and cuts.

The yellow line vanishes instantly beneath the point of her blade with little fanfare, dissolving into nothingness.

(It might just be her imagination, but for a single moment, Shiki feels so light. As if there have been invisible shackles chaining her body all this time that finally, finally disappeared.)

"… And what was that supposed to do, little ojou-sama?" For all the woman's bravado, there's still the faintest note of something just slightly uneasy trickling into her voice. But it disappears quickly enough, and her next words are confident with arrogance. "Just stay put and sit tight. There's nothing you can do, all your guards are dead and I'll have backup arriving soon enough. Don't worry, though, I've got no plans to kill my meal ticket."

Wordlessly, Shiki slowly rises to her feet, swaying unevenly from the pain. Something grinds with sudden, needle-sharp agony in her ankle when she attempts to put pressure on her left foot, which nearly sends her straight back to the ground. Shiki instinctively catches herself on her right hand, and the entire length of her arm burns.

But it doesn't stop Shiki from standing back on her feet once more.

"Are you a glutton for punishment or something?" The curse user sounds baffled by the resistance she's seeing. "What part of stay put and sit tight is so hard to understand?"

The woman twists the doll's leg–

But nothing happens.

There's no additional, inexplicable pain. Shiki's leg does not contort unnaturally. And even though she's limping as she slowly makes her way towards the curse user, Shiki does not falter.

"What…?" The woman frowns. Crushes the doll's legs in her hands again, and hisses when Shiki remains wholly unaffected. Her fingers tighten over the doll, tighter and tighter and tighter still –before it finally dawns on her: Shiki is no longer beholden to her cursed doll technique.

Her jaw drops disbelievingly. "… How the fuck did you… y-you can negate cursed techniques? How?! That's not your technique!"

Indeed, Shiki's cursed technique is certainly not the negation of other cursed techniques. Instead, Shiki's ability revolves around the perception of death, and most everything that exists in the world is flawed. Trees and rocks and flowers. Humans.

Cursed techniques are evidently no exception.

Beginning and end. Open and close.

The woman curses, and fumbles behind her frantically as Shiki slowly approaches her. She whips out her handgun, points it towards Shiki's legs, and fires without hesitation–

But nothing happens. Empty clicks ring out into the silence, and a distinct horror finally flashes across the woman's features at the realization.

The curse user had no more bullets, no weapons that she could use. Shiki was no longer hostage to her cursed technique, either. And the curse user was immobilized –the tendons in her ankles had been severed earlier, so there wasn't even any way for her to run. Her scuffle with the nameless chauffeur had not left her entirely unscathed, either.

The situation was no longer in her favor.

But no self-respecting sorcerer gives up without a fight, even a curse user. Especially a curse user, perhaps. Shiki tilts her head to the side, easily dodging the empty handgun that's thrown at her, and watches impassively as the woman determinedly struggles, rising to her elbows and attempting to drag herself away.

It's a futile effort, and both of them know it.

Shiki's trail of bloody footprints come to a stop directly in front of the curse user, cutting off any chance of escape.

"Don't do this," the woman says hurriedly in a rush, before Shiki even has a chance to open her mouth to say anything. "You don't want to do this, trust me. I-I surrender! I surrender, okay? Surely you have questions that you want to ask me?"

… Not really. As Shiki looks down upon the curse user, there aren't really any questions that come to her mind. All she can think about is how the chauffeur had tried desperately to defend her, even despite his own terror. How the young man had fallen like a puppet with its strings cut, a bullet dark in the middle of his forehead. The strange expression Isao-san had looked at her with, right before his head fell off. And the satisfaction that had lit up in the woman's eyes at their deaths, manically gleeful and utterly unrepentant.

Even now, Shiki still doesn't feel the urge to cry. But there's something inside her chest that's… strangely, incomprehensibly hollow.

The curse user squawks when Shiki's only response is to raise the knife in her hand without a word.

"Wait, wait, what the hell?!" she bursts out. "Look, I'm sorry about the bodyguards if that's what you're pissed about, but it was just part of the job! I wasn't even going to kill you! And I-I'm more useful to you alive, don't you realize that?!"

"But I want to kill you," Shiki tells her simply.

This statement promptly kills off any further protests from the woman as she stares up at the little girl with wide eyes, stunned into silence.

For a brief moment, the silence stretches endlessly between them.

"… 'Civilian child from a regular background' my ass," the woman finally says, dark eyes fluttering shut as a bitter smile curves across her lips. "Hime-sama, you fool."

Shiki raises her knife. There's a slight tremble in her hand, likely the result of multiple bruised, broken fingers.

The little girl pauses. Then, thoughtfully, the way she'd remembered the woman saying to the young chauffeur earlier, "Any last words?"

"Nah," the curse user's smile widens. "… Just make it quick, will you?"

The knifepoint in Shiki's hands immediately stills, then slashes down.

…

It's… easy.

… As easy as Shiki has always secretly suspected it to be. There should be resistance, she knows. When a blade cuts through flesh, there should be resistance. When it hits the bone, there should be resistance. And a knife-blade is short, much too short to fully cut through a grown person's body, anyways.

But none of that matters, in face of Shiki's technique. Her knife slips easily into the cracks of those red lines, slashing through cleanly with no resistance at all, as flesh and bone alike parts easily beneath the tip of her blade. Immediately, Shiki's senses are overwhelmingly assaulted by the heavy, pungent scent of blood as the curse user –falls apart, for lack of a better descriptor.

With a wet, fleshy splatter, the woman's body is neatly detached into six separate, uneven portions spread all over the asphalt ground.

It's…

It's bloody. Blood, there's so much blood. It's all so gory, so messy, and it's… there's… there's so much. Did a human body really hold so much blood? The woman's blood is red-black and thick, and Shiki thinks she sees something dark and fleshy spilling out from the woman's open chest cavity onto the ground. She doesn't know what it is.

Shiki continues staring.

It's bone-chilling and macabre and disturbing, the sight before her. The sight of a human sliced to pieces like this. But somehow, drawn by a strange impulse that she can't quite name, Shiki finds herself slowly crouching down and reaching out with a single hand to dip her fingers into that red-black blood spilling everywhere.

Warm.

The blood is warm. It's so warm. And unlike how it appears on the ground, pooled together and dark, when Shiki draws back it's clear to see that the woman's blood shines a bright crimson upon her skin.

Almost as bright as the countless red lines pulsating in the world around her.

Shiki stares blankly at the blood on her hands. The blood that she'd spilled. The blood that she'd chosen to spill.

"Ah," she startles, finally realizing– "I… broke my promise."

Right, her promise. She'd promised Kento-ojichan, hadn't she? But everything today had just happened so swiftly, so suddenly, and Shiki hadn't… she hadn't really considered…

Promise me you'll be careful, Kento-ojichan had asked of her. Promise me that you'll live.

… But this wasn't anything like that. This wasn't –this hadn't been some life-or-death situation, where it was kill or be killed for Shiki. Maybe it had been for Isao-san and the nameless chauffeur, but… not for Shiki. The curse user had made it abundantly clear that she hadn't planned on killing Shiki. Yes, she'd inflicted all manner of torturous injuries on Shiki using her doll technique, but she hadn't tried to kill her.

And Shiki consciously chose to kill her regardless.

… Maybe it's something about that look in the woman's eyes, she thinks to herself. That visible satisfaction she'd noticed when the woman had gracelessly dropped Isao-san's headless doll to the ground and crushed it underfoot. Or maybe it was the way the curse user had shot the young chauffeur viciously, with her expression bared halfway between a snarl and a smile.

Curse user. Shiki knows the term. This woman was a sorcerer who used their technique to kill and do harm to others, and clearly had no compunctions about the morality of doing so. Who actively enjoyed it, even.

Or maybe, maybe it doesn't have anything to do with any of that at all. Maybe Shiki is just trying to make excuses for herself. That might also be it. Maybe Shiki is just attempting to justify her decision in the aftermath. But it won't change the truth of what happened –that Shiki chose to kill someone. Another human being.

Would Kento-ojichan forgive her for it? … Shiki knows that Kento-ojichan loves her, but something like this… she doesn't know. She really, really doesn't know. What would Kento-ojichan think about Shiki, if he knew that she hadn't used her ability to kill curses or protect herself, but instead to stain her hands with another person's blood?

… Quite literally so, even.

Abruptly, Shiki hurriedly stands up and straightens, although the sudden movement causes her to sway unevenly from a bout of dizzying, lightheaded vertigo. There's a fresh burst of pain from somewhere in her legs, but Shiki decisively ignores it.

She needs to… she needs to leave. Yes. She needs to find help. Shiki is currently stranded on a mountain road in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by three dead bodies and probably several more somewhere a little ways off from the roadside, and she needs to… leave. Hadn't the curse user mentioned something about reinforcements being on the way, too?

Shiki is heavily injured, and only armed with a bloody knife. She's completely lost and doesn't have a phone. The chauffeur probably doesn't have a phone, either, because Shiki doesn't remember seeing him with one, and anyone in their right mind definitely would've tried calling for help when they found themselves under attack. So.

The little girl carefully limps her way back over to Isao-san's cold, headless body. Stumbling slightly, she claps her mangled hands together in front of her as best as she can, determinedly ignoring the accompanying spike of pain as she bows respectfully.

"Please excuse me, Isao-san."

Thankfully, Isao-san does have a phone on him. Shiki opens the flip-phone, and pauses as she realizes that she… doesn't really know what to do. She's never actually used a phone before, although she knows the general gist of it? Input the numbers and press 'call,' right?

It's a good thing that Kento-ojichan had previously made sure that Shiki memorized his number–

–Shiki doesn't want to call Kento-ojichan. The brutal realization comes to her, swift and sudden in its paralyzing intensity.

… There's only one other number that she knows by heart, then.

The little girl slowly sinks to the ground on shaky legs, gingerly attempting not to aggravate any of her injuries as she carefully presses the buttons on the phone. It takes a few tries, since her hands are inexplicably trembling again, somehow. Likely from a combination of pain and exhaustion.

The little girl glances to the side as she sits down. Isao-san's head is still lying there, crusted with blood, and it's…

It doesn't feel quite right, to just leave him there like that. Shiki hesitates, then before she can second-guess herself, gently reaches over and picks up his head.

It feels… strange. Shiki feels strange.

She tries not to think too much about it.

(Isao-san's skin is cold beneath her bruised fingertips. Goosebumps prickle over her skin.)

The dial tone from Isao-san's phone rings, rings, rings against her ear. A static sound that's almost hypnotic in the bloodstained silence, to the point that Shiki almost finds herself nodding off–

Then, there's a soft click from the other end.

"If this is about me forgetting the curtain, I know already, okay? Yaga-sensei already chewed me out for it earlier! Low profile, whatever, yadda yadda ya–"

"Satoru-oniichan," slips out from Shiki's lips automatically at the familiar sound of her cousin's voice, before she's even really registered saying anything at all.

There's a distinct pause from the other end of the line, followed by a surprised, "Shiki? What are you… wait, why do you have Isao's phone?"

"Isao-san was assigned to me when I left the compound earlier," Shiki responds. "Satoru-oniichan, we were… attacked, in the car ride. Everything's a complete mess right now. I, um, I really don't know what to do anymore."

"Attacked?!" Her cousin's voice raises sharply. "What in the world just –hang on, not right now, Suguru, my cute little baby cousin is calling me– sorry, ignore that bit. You said you were attacked? Are you still alright?"

"Yes. A little roughed up, but I'm fine, Satoru-oniichan." Of course she's fine. Shiki is the only person left who's still alive, after all.

"… Y'know what, I think I'm going to have to be the judge of that." Satoru-oniichan clicks his tongue, clearly dissatisfied. Then, demandingly, "Where's Isao? Is he still with you?"

Shiki reflexively glances down, where Isao-san's decapitated head is currently resting on her lap. "… Yes?"

"Okay. Can you give the phone to him?"

"…" Belatedly, Shiki realizes that she probably should've mentioned this at the very start of their conversation, "Isao-san is dead."

"He's WHAT?"

.

.

Shiki's sense of time blurs, after that lengthy phone call. Maybe it's a few minutes, maybe it's an hour. But eventually, she looks up to see Satoru-oniichan crouching down in front of her, and–

And it's so silly.

Shiki hadn't cried when Isao-san's head was ripped off in front of her. She hadn't cried when the nameless chauffeur had been killed. She hadn't cried when the curse user had used her doll technique to inflict all manner of injuries onto her body.

But the instant that Satoru-oniichan appears before her, suddenly her eyes start watering.

Hilariously enough, her cousin's cheery smile promptly melts into an expression of horror at this. "Why are you crying?!"

Shiki doesn't know either! The little girl sniffles in a vain attempt to stem the tears as she stutters, "I-I'm so-rry–"

"Shit, this doesn't look good." A dark-haired young man appears behind Satoru-oniichan. Geto Suguru-san, Shiki vaguely recalls. Satoru-oniichan's classmate. "There's way too much blood, I'm surprised this hasn't attracted anything yet. C'mon, we should–"

Geto-san's terse, businesslike tone cuts off the moment his eyes land upon Shiki, and he blanches.

"Is she holding someone's head?!"

… It's not so much an actual question as it is an outright aghast exclamation. Stunned incredulity. A question that does not require any real answer, not when the truth is there to be seen. Shiki and Satoru-oniichan both glance down simultaneously to where Shiki is still cradling Isao-san's head over her bloodstained kimono, and her cousin promptly makes a face.

"Yeah, I think I'm siding with Suguru on this one," he tells her. "What the hell?"

"Language," Shiki blurts out, instinctively channeling her inner Kiyohira-sensei. "I don't know, I just… it didn't feel right to just leave Isao-san there like that on the ground? And I… didn't really know what else to do."

Towards the end, even Shiki can tell that her faltering explanation is a little lackluster. But she doesn't really… she doesn't really know how to explain it, or what she'd been thinking at the time. What possessed her to pick up Isao-san's decapitated head and hold on to it?

But she didn't… she couldn't just leave him like that, either. So what had she been supposed to do?

Satoru-oniichan stares at her for a long moment, clearly unimpressed. "Well, for starters, this is highly unsanitary–"

"Satoru!"

"–and, secondly," her cousin continues on without skipping a beat, "Usually you don't want to stick around a sorcerer's corpse unless it's to dispose of the body. Sometimes the cursed energy gets a little… hm. Volatile, should we say. It doesn't always happen, but there's a reason why there's procedures for these things. Vengeful spirits and all that, y'know?"

"Oh," Shiki nods. "… What do we need to do for all of the… bodies, then?"

"You are not going to do anything," Satoru-oniichan says firmly. "On the other hand, I am going to be making a few calls to get a cleanup crew here. And to figure out who the hell thought it was a good idea to let you leave with only Isao for protection like this."

Shiki thinks for a moment, "Kiyohira-sensei said that Isao-san was a 'Special Grade One.'"

The white-haired teen snorts, "Are you kidding me? He's barely a Grade One! I could beat him with both hands tied behind my back–"

"Is this really the time for this?" Geto-san breaks in sharply. "Look, I get that you're pissed at the guy, but he's dead and your little cousin looks like she's about to start crying again. We need to get moving, Satoru, we've still got a mission after this. And if we stick around here any longer, then we're not going to have enough time to take a detour to the school for Shoko to take a proper look at her injuries."

"Yeah, you're right." Satoru-oniichan grumbles. Then leans forward, easily picking Shiki up in his arms, though he is careful not to jostle her injuries too much. "… And drop the head already."

The little girl glances down at Isao-san's head. That curious expression, those unseeing eyes…

"Shiki. The head. Drop it."

The girl hesitates, then carefully holds out the bloodied head towards Geto-san. "Um, would you mind putting Isao-san back with his body, please?"

It's hard to describe the expression that flashes across Geto-san's face in this moment. Something that's almost… disturbed. Pitying?

But… but Shiki doesn't want to throw Isao-san's head like, like some temari ball! Shiki might not really know or like Isao-san all that much in the first place, but that just seemed to be wildly disrespectful.

"… Alright, give it here," Geto-san finally says with a sigh, and cautiously takes Isao-san's head from her hands. He turns and stiffly places the head on top of Isao-san's body.

A head resting atop the stomach… the sight looks so weird, so jarring, but it's better than having Isao-san's head roll around listlessly on the ground.

"Thank you, Geto-san," Shiki says politely.

"… Don't mention it," the dark-haired teen responds. Then smooths out his expression, giving her a small, soft smile that's probably meant to be reassuring. "Well. With that out of the way, let's get going now, okay?"

Shiki curls closer to her cousin as she attempts to offer back a small, tremulous smile of her own. "… Okay."

.

.

Extra.

.

"Alright, spill. What's wrong with her?"

Satoru sniffs. "Excuse you, there's nothing wrong with my adorable little cousin!"

Geto Suguru levels a thoroughly unimpressed look at his –unfortunately– best friend. Part of him almost wants to shove the idiot straight off of the back of the airborne curse that they're riding on, courtesy of Suguru's own Cursed Spirit Manipulation. But such a childish act would be completely useless against Satoru's Limitless, not to mention how he's currently still holding Nanami's little niece in his arms.

The girl had finally grown tired enough to fall asleep against him. It would almost be a cute sight, seeing the two of them cuddled up together like this –if the girl in question weren't covered head to toe in blood and scarred with a distressing number of injuries.

Gojo Shiki might've appeared to be perfectly fine on the surface when briefly conversing with them earlier, but Suguru didn't need the Six Eyes to tell that those injuries did not look good.

Still.

"Your 'adorable little cousin' was drenched in blood and holding onto a man's decapitated head like there was absolutely nothing wrong when we found her," Suguru says flatly. "You call that nothing wrong?"

Satoru shrugs, "I'm not exactly happy about it either, and I'm not saying that this is a good thing. But… she's definitely going to see worse once she becomes an active sorcerer, Suguru."

Suguru closes his eyes. Takes in a deep breath, and firmly reminds himself that, despite that mask of endless cheer and flippant devil-may-care attitude, Gojo Satoru isn't exactly 'normal' himself, either.

… Is this what it means to grow up in a sorcery clan?

Suguru still remembers when he'd first met the little girl. Nanami's niece. Their kouhai had been uncharacteristically panicked, when discovering that his sole remaining blood relative had suddenly vanished without a trace from the hospital. They'd even suspected that it was the doing of some high grade curse, initially, before eventually discovering that the true culprit was the Gojo Clan.

He recalls encountering the little girl, when Satoru had snatched her out of the hospital. Thin, frail, looking as if a good gust of wind would blow her away like the small dandelion tuft that she'd resembled. White hair, the sort of pure snow-white that he'd only seen in Satoru before –and eldritch blue eyes.

Cursed blue eyes.

But even despite those eyes, she'd seemed like a sweet child, completely unlike a certain someone with the Six Eyes. Shy, soft-spoken. And the way Shiki had clung to Nanami, the affection between them… all of that had been genuine.

It's difficult to reconcile what he remembers with the image that had been seared into his mind today: A white-haired young girl, sitting serenely in a sea of blood as calmly as you please, with a fucking decapitated head in her arms.

… The curse user's body they'd found only a little ways off from her had been sliced neatly into six different pieces. Suguru might not be entirely clear on the particulars of the girl's technique, but he's heard enough from Satoru to be aware that it revolves around 'cutting lines.' Seeing the result of it being used on another human like this… it's…

If the Suguru in his first year of Tokyo Jujutsu High had walked in upon this scene, he'd probably have lost his lunch immediately, and be plagued by nightmares for a good month or so thereafter.

Really, it was almost a relief, when the girl had started crying in front of Satoru. At least she can still cry. But even so, something about this entire situation still left Suguru feeling unbalanced, off-kilter and out of sorts.

He sighs.

"I bet Nanami's going to have a field day when he finds out about this," Suguru mutters under his breath, one hand coming up to rub tiredly at his forehead.

"No bet," Satoru remarks dryly.

"… So, what's next?" Suguru side-eyes the other teen. "I doubt you'll be good with just letting things rest like this."

Yeah, no. Satoru isn't the type of person who grows attached to others easily, being the walking disaster that he is. But for some reason, he honestly seems to have taken a shine to Nanami's niece, even though he's definitely not someone who likes children. That would probably be Haibara –but then again, Haibara likes everyone.

Regardless. Maybe it's because Satoru relates to her, somehow, for having cursed eyes just as he does. Or maybe it's because he relates to her on some other level entirely; as far as Suguru knows, normal children raised in a normal background typically do not adjust well when abruptly thrust into the world of sorcery.

Heck, even Suguru himself had quite the learning curve to struggle with, and he'd been able to see curses since the day he was born. Not to mention, he'd been a grown teenager with his own fair share of experience under his belt, upon his introduction to the jujutsu world.

Shiki might've been raised normally, but considering what he'd witnessed today, there's absolutely no doubt in Suguru's mind that she is very much not normal. He idly wonders if Nanami has realized this about his young niece yet.

… It's not necessarily a bad thing, not being normal. Just… honestly unexpected, regarding Shiki in this context. And mildly concerning. Or outright alarming, depending on how one chose to look at it.

Satoru stretches, although Suguru notes that he is careful to avoid shifting the girl who's still fast asleep on top of him.

"Well. First things first, we're going to get Shoko to take a look at her," Satoru nods. "Since there's no way I'm leaving her at the school by herself and Nanami's out, I figured that we could just bring her along with us on our mission after that. Then, I'm going to–"

"Wait, hold up," Suguru holds up his hand, already feeling another headache budding at his temples. "… Are you being serious? You want to take a six year old kid along with us when we're supposed to be guarding the Star Plasma Vessel? Shouldn't we be dropping her off with your clan first or something?"

"No," Satoru promptly responds. "This isn't the first time that my clan's majorly screwed up regarding Shiki's protection. If they think I'm going to hand her back over again so easily, they've got another thing coming."

Suguru frowns. "Look, I get that there's something… sketchy, with whatever's going on in your clan right now, and I understand why you have your reservations. But I really don't know about taking a kid with us on a mission like this, especially not one that's so important. Can't you just leave her with Yaga-sensei, or something?"

"Yaga-sensei isn't going to be around, he's off doing something with his dolls," Satoru shakes his head. "'Sides, I mean, like. If we're going to be playing bodyguard anyways, adding Shiki here won't hurt, right? Or are you saying that you can't even protect a six year old kid?"

Suguru glares, albeit without any real heat. "… I know what you're trying to do, and it's not going to work."

His friend flashes a quicksilver smile. "C'mon, Suguru, it'll be fine! You really think anyone can get past the two of us?"

He huffs, feeling an answering smile rise involuntarily to his lips in response. "… Alright, fine, we'll do it your way. But you're going to be the one explaining this entire debacle to Nanami, got it?"

"So cruel," Satoru laments with a bright grin.

Suguru rolls his eyes.

.

.

…

.