Bloody turquoise eyes | JJK x OC

Canto XXVI - A Fleeting Reunion

A flash of fresh pain washed over the young man‘s back. As he reached with his digits the exposed gashes stretching across his lower trapezius, the soft touch of coagulated blood sent a sting of pure fire through his system. Gabriele tried hard to keep his expression neutral, Nitta told him earlier that his back was costellated in glass, it took four minutes to extract the shards one by one but some of them were embedded too deep and wounds too narrow to be removed without the necessary instruments. He was smart enough to understand that excessive movement meant risking opening up healing injuries, flying was therefore out of option.

Gabriele put Hoshi down on her feet, now on one knee, he communicated with his hands that they would have to walk for a while.

 “Can you do it?” he asked. 

The little girl nodded, though, reading beyond the head gesture, it was clear as day that she was quite scared still.

“It's alright. We're in this together.” he ruffled her hair afterward, but his eyes accidentally landed on the right side of her head, the side of the surgery. Gently he guided Hoshi to turn her head leftward, it jumped immediately to his eye the absence of the hearing aid sitting in her auricle. Questions about where the cochlear was came by consequence, the child however was just as clueless as he was, perhaps it fell while they were in mid-flight, or maybe right after that crash. Gabriele let out a sigh as he palmed his forehead, things weren't going as smoothly as he had anticipated and these minor inconveniences were starting to get a bit frustrating.

Asashiro misread the annoyance in his gaze with anger. Sensing she was the one at fault, that she made the angel angry by losing her hearing aid, the child was overwhelmed with guilt, she pinched her finger and thumb together and brought them to her forehead as a couple of sniffs forced out of her nose. 

Gabriele caught her just as she was about to lower her head, looking at her with a serious expression: “Don’t apologize.” He then stood, offering a hand for her to hold on. With a hint of his head, the two began their march down the expressway route, the sounds of farby sirens accompanied their steps as little by little the adrenaline in the teen’s body wore off and left its place for different sorts of aches to take over.

With each step, a new pain sprouted somewhere in him that made it difficult to walk steadily.

Gabriele gritted his teeth tight but he kept going, glancing from time to time at the kid beside him and his other hand engulfed in essence, he couldn’t simply shake off this nervousness of curses lurking in the shadows.

After making the corner, the deserting exorcist caught sight of the tollgate like an oasis in the desert, his pain vanishing for a moment under the placebo effect’s influence of a promised restoration. He squeezed Hoshi’s hand to tell her they had finally arrived, only hundreds of meters separating them from a safe shelter.

Suddenly the road quaked under their feet as three large creatures barred their path. Hoshi screamed as she rushed behind Gabriele summoned his holy fire, ready to fight. He observed these beasts, abominations with grotesque heads just as big as their torsos, decorated with inexpressive grins and bulging eyes like chameleons. They possessed multiple, girthy arms capable of snapping one’s spine with ease, equipped with protuberances resembling spikes-covered clubs attached to one of their hands. Ignoring the pain, the angel challenged the three creatures with a death glare, waving the pearly flames to whichever tried to close the gap.

“Stand behind me.” He used his thoughts manipulation on the child for lack of better options. However Hoshi, amid a hysterical cry, was too frightened to get what was going on in her head. 

With their backs against the metaphorical wall, Gabriele stared the monsters directly in their eyes, had they been transfigured humans they would have already attacked, bizarrely enough the essence burned all the same which made him conclude that they shared the same cursed energy. Clones? No, none of them was the true source of this energy, they seemed… artificial. Then if there were any kind of cursed spirits this close to Dr.Ieiri, he was sure the sorcerers would have exorcized them instantly. Which means…