Bloody turquoise eyes | JJK x OC

Canto XII - Let the Rain Wash thy Blood

With the sound of raindrops in the background, the exorcist now wandered inside a deserted parking space, using his phone's light to navigate the rather dark place.

"This way, please." He heard a voice next to him, turning left the exorcist shone the light on the Kyoto teacher Utahime Iori, shielding her eyes with her hand. "Would you turn that off? It's not that dark."

"Oh, yes. Sorry..." He put his phone away.

"I imagine Gojou has informed you all about the mole, right?" The young man nodded, "Good, we think there are two or more people feeding intel to the curse intel. One has to be highly ranked, even higher than the principals, we can't do anything about that. The other is someone feeding information to that higher-up... today's target."

"Muta Kokichi." Gabriele interrupted, noticing the distress in Utahime's voice. He can't even begin to fathom how hard it has to be for a teacher to find out one of their students is actively betraying them after they gave them all to guide them towards a righteous path. He may have sounded cynical in bluntly pronouncing his name while she danced around it, but it has to be clear, they weren't after her student. They were after a semi-first-grade sorcerer who allegedly shared classified information with the enemy, thus putting everyone's lives in peril.

"Precisely..." said the woman with a veil of melancholy.

"He's still only under suspicion, so after apprehending the suspect we need to conduct an interrogation." Utahime walked back to a dark green car, opening the door on the driver seat: "Hop in, it won't be a long drive but with this rain, it's better if we go with the car."

And so they went, the first five minutes of the ride were submersed in awkward silence with the older woman glancing at Gabriele through the rearview mirror from time to time. Her point finger drummed on the wheel on tempo with the windshield wipers, the exorcist was watching outside the window in the backseat. Just the fact he sat behind meant he wasn't very keen on conversing, was he angry at her? She got upset at the thought, but she couldn't bear another second of silence in this car. She was about to speak, yet she blocked instantly, not having any concerns to voice. What could she talk about? About the mission? He's very smart, if he had any doubts he would have already asked for clarification by now. Family? Better leave it out. Work? How boring was she? Then it clicked...

"I'm sorry..." she said, the sudden apology made the exorcist shift his gaze to the person in front, eyebrow cocked on his forehead.

"What for?" he asked, curiosity taking over his mind.

"I've been... rather judgemental of you during the exchange event. You're a good kid with a good head on your shoulders, I shouldn't have let my prejudices about your affiliation get a hold of me. You're not like the other exorcists..."

"Stop it..." He cut her off, Utahime glanced at the mirror again in concern, Gabriele was now looking down at his shoes, gripping the fabric of the uniform's pants with an indecipherable expression on his face. "Everyone keeps saying I'm not like other exorcists... it feels humiliating... Just what makes you think I'm different from any of my comrades? Is this because I'm barely 17? What kind of standards do I have to meet to convince you I'm one?" he abruptly lashed out, probably even himself wasn't aware of how emotionally pent up he was. The car stopped at a red light, Utahime took a few seconds to pick her next words with caution as they waited. The truth is always the best option, she told herself.

"Back in 2006, Gojou was just a second-year student at the time, twice as arrogant as he is today." She began, "He and his best friend were handed the very important task to escort the Star plasma vessel to Master Tengen, a middle school girl by the name of Riko Amanai. The end goal was to merge the two so that the former couldn't ascend to a new state and thus become hostile to humanity. However, two groups were after the vessel, a group of curse users named Q who wanted to kill Riko to secure the ascension, and a religious group of commoners who venerated Master Tengen as a deity called Time Vessel association. They wanted to kill Riko to preserve the purity of Tengen, and at the very end they succeeded in their intent."