Fragility (Jujutsu Kaisen)

~ Chapter 28 ~

Sachiko brought her hand closer, a smug smile creeping onto her lips. In an attempt to fight back, he thrusted the knife up, and it lodged straight through the middle of her hand; she glanced at it before ripping her hand off it and grabbing the knife harshly. She threw it away from them, and his eyes shone with fear this time. "You killed them. I had only just reunited with them. Then you took them away. You killed my mother and harvested her as though she was a pig at slaughter."

"Just kill me then!" He yelled. His eyes kept glancing at the doorway behind them, hoping one of his comrades would come through to save him, but the fighting had slowly died down, and she knew that they had been victorious.

"Did you think I would let you die without suffering?" She said sweetly. The words that ran off her tongue did not feel like her own. All the grief and anger that had festered in her heart made its way to the surface to take over for a few brief moments. She reached forward and plucked a small sharp twig from one of the vines across the ground.

She slowly forced it into the small wound on his chin, making him wince and then hiss in pain. His eyes pressed together as she twisted as though putting a screw into a piece of wood, her teeth gritted, taking some of the anger that seeped out of her. The cursed power flooded her as she used it so slowly that you couldn't see it from the outside, but she had forced tiny vines to enter his bloodstream.

At first, he couldn't feel anything, but then his shoulder started to hurt, his skin got clammy, and he could feel the artery in his neck enlarging as his blood pressure increased. His eyes flicked back and forth from her face to the doorway, his fingers clawing at the ground and his legs kicking, trying anything to get away from her.

"Are your eyes hurting?" she questioned menacingly as his blinking increased. He could feel a build-up behind his eyes, but Sachiko could see the small veins turning green as she infected them. His eyes burst with a pulse of power, and two beautiful red flowers emerged from his sockets. His screams carried through the building, and the footsteps of her friends could be heard as they rushed to the noise, finally finding her.

"Sachiko, what are you doing?" Yu asked quietly as he stared at her. Sachiko didn't even glance at him as she answered that she was delivering justice; the look on her face was nothing he had ever seen. A look of pure murderous intent and joy in hearing the man's screams. "You're torturing him."

"He killed us, so many of us." She said, her voice different from her own. Yu glanced at Nanami, who was reflecting his own concern. Yu placed a hand on her shoulder, "He deserves this. I am their vessel. They no longer have the ability to revenge themselves."

"Sachiko, show mercy." Nanami said. The vine stopped travelling, and the man's screams died down as his body became numb, but then his life was over. A small tree came shooting out of his chest where his heart was and through Sachiko's thigh, but she didn't even flinch. Yu gasped as he went to help her up, but the pain that she was feeling snapped her out of whatever trance she went into.

She pushed herself up and stood up, the small tree sliding out of her thigh, some leaves and branches snapping off. Yu held her shoulder as she glanced at them both. Each boy had a few scratches and deeper cuts, but she was the most injured of the three. Blood slowly filled her shoe from both her lower back and thigh. She wiped her hand across her forehead leaving a thick trail of blood from her open wound. "I would like to go home now."

The two boys sat in the hallway of the hospital. Sachiko had fainted on her way there from blood loss and an adrenaline drop. They had been patched up while Sachiko had to go into surgery to clean her wounds and get them stitched up. The assistants and some Jujutsu Sorcerors attended the site of their attack to clean up and get the identity of the curse users.

Fast footsteps made their way past the short heel of a woman's shoe, but then a male's foot stopped right in front of them. Yu glanced up, his eyes drooping and dark undereyes growing, but he sat up to attention once he recognised the glasses on his upperclassman. Nanami slowly looked up but sank back into the wall with his arms crossed. "I know first years are meant to try and challenge themselves, but this is a new level. I'm guessing this was Sachiko's idea, though..."

Neither of them said anything as they stared at Satoru, who kept a straight face.

"I see, going down together," he said, a slight smirk on his face. They looked at him surprised, expecting him to be angry with them, but he almost seemed proud. Yu asked why he wasn't angry. "It seems Sachiko was just using some of her newly found free will. I won't hold her back, but thanks for going with her."

He smiled and placed his hands in his pocket before turning around and entering the doorway in front of them. The door swung open, and Sachiko stared at a woman with a happy smile, which grew as she turned to Satoru. The pair shared a loving kiss as the door swung back closed.