DUST ┄《 gojo s. x oc. 》

一.

It was a 'normal' day.

As far as normal could go for her, anyways.

Through heavy lashes, all she could see was red. Vibrant, invasive splashes of crimson coating every surface dull pupils could find. And she knows that those talisman weren't supposed to be this shade.

Worn-out yellows and oranges could only be distinguished in her eyes from their shades being lit by what she assumed to be candles. Hundreds of candles. The room should be unbearable hot by the flickering flames unwaveringly scorching its floor with wax, yet her fingertips remains iced.

Everything grows only muffled in her ears; even when the higher-ups of the jujutsu world routinely wrap her cracked throat around lies and the truth they seek. Relentless in their path, Yin couldn't do much other than drown in a reality created by repetitive walls and brain-washing exorcisms.

Again, and again. Again, and again. Again, and again. They never stopped until her days blended into an incoherent mess, filled with hunger and her sanity clocking away. Even when not an inch of her skin was left untainted by burgundy, she could not answer their interrogation.

Because, how does she confess to crimes she's never committed? How would they exorcise someone who is not a curse?

They couldn't, as much as they wanted to.

Yet she still aches for their mistakes, bleeds for their wrongdoings, sees for their blindness.

"Yin Ketsuyuki."

Her bloodied gaze continues to be glued to the floor, fixating onto the shadow casted by the light from a crack. How different the light was in the crack, aureate and blinding like a late summer sun. Even the looming shadow that blocks a significant portion of it couldn't halt its glimmer.

Greedily, she breathes in the crisp air, filling her lungs with something that isn't the smoke of melted candles. In a room where silence precedes, even her deep inhale was a tell-tale sign of stubborn life.

The gruff man bearing squinted eyes, as well as a questionable combination of a moustache and a goatee, kneeled before the chained sorcerer. Amongst the sorcerers coming in and out, she finds his shadow the most remarkable.

One who bears a gruel face and a good heart.

"Here is your uniform," In his embrace, was a set of uniform she swears she's seen at least once, on someone she used to know. How long has her vision been accustomed to the red sight? She wonders, now that even the white blouse seems like a blossom-pink.

Dried lips couldn't muster a word, or rather, couldn't be bothered to. And he only realises the reason for delayed reaction a little too late, transfixed by the tattered state she was in.

The jujutsu world's fangs always bites into those who doesn't deserve it, he thinks to himself. And yet, hypocritically, he prays that the chained girl does not bear hostility once he frees her. Tension lingers still.

Hesitantly, the stern man continues the cold conversation, "if you will, become my student. The higher-ups will free you from this torture if you do, and you will have everything you need for living."

Piercing, somber eyes strike into his eyes, ineffable. The crosses in the windows to her soul instilled a primal fear in him; the fear of the unknown. Yet he held a hapless faith in what she could be — simply from the chains and cursed weaponry he saw being taken out from the room, broken.

Having a class already consisted of prodigies and potential never seen before, Yaga knew strength when he saw it. Masamitchi Yaga knew Yin Ketsuyuki when he saw power.