Bloody turquoise eyes | JJK x OC

Canto XXVII - A Promise Worth Keeping

The night in Shibuya had completed its second revolution around the clock for three-quarters of an hour now, the city was dead, scarred, and incinerated by the battle that was drawing to its silent end. Everywhere you looked, the view was met by buildings about to collapse, debris poured onto the dark streets that blocked the passage. The war for humanity had cut short the celebration in its soul, the fictitious horror of Halloween turned into all too real fear among man-eating beasts and unscrupulous demons, the stench of death hovered in the air together with sulfur. Hope became a utopian concept when watching the desolate land extend in the middle of the most famous district of the Japanese capital, especially if you peered at it from an elevated position such as the top floors of an apartment building or astride a flying broomstick. The feeling of emptiness that came from admiring such devastation left a destabilizing weight in the sharpshooter's stomach.

Mai had detached herself from her group immediately, as soon as she crossed the threshold of the curtain. The student from Kyoto found a stakeout at the top of a ruined building overlooking the imposing expanse of barren ground. She was cautious in moving for fear that the floor under her feet might inadvertently give out as she made her way through the rubble of the ceiling that came down.

Looking out from the hole in the wall, she raised her gaze to the sky in search of a bluish torch, the signal agreed upon with her companions, but could not find it. "Not yet..." she snorted as she took off the shoulder strap of her rifle and took it in her hands, while the revolver was collected in her right hip.

She knelt comfortably on the floor with her back resting on the only solid support and her rifle held upward while waiting for the long-awaited signal. Her mind mulled over in her thoughts with her heart beating wildly from the anxiety of the moment, her nerves on edge ready to snap at the slightest noise, she would be lying to herself if she said she wasn't terrified by the situation. She hated being alone during missions, and when Mechamaru's posthumous words urging his companions to stay away from Shibuya came to mind,

Gabriele's stories seemed to materialize in front of her like hallucinations. The fear that a cursed spirit could emerge from behind that corner that she kept watching out with the tail of her eye gave her shivers.

"Shit..." she said to herself, her head falling like dead weight behind her arms as she curled into a fetal position. Her thoughts focused on the boy involuntarily, it was not easy to convince the angel to remain under the care of Dr. Shoko, if he was aware that she was now left alone between enemy lines he would have come to the rescue in flight despite his wounds. Then, as if her mind wanted to play a trick on her, her imagination highlighted a detail that made her blush brightly. "Why did he have to be shirtless..." Mai hid behind her hands in embarrassment, still frames of the foreigner's statuesque body like snapshots in her brain, defined as if chiseled on marble in the pursuit of perfection, which then the signs of time have scratched the surface but not its beauty, in fact, they enhanced it even more. Added to his beaten dog look as he watched her walk away towards danger, there was no escape for the gunslinger, she had fallen in love with him beyond the point of no return, probably since that night in Kyoto. Oh God, what would her family think of her?

Suddenly the sound of moans echoed in the void up to her ears calling for attention, Mai raised her head and turned towards the infinite field, she noticed two spots in the distance too small to distinguish with the naked eye. The student pulled up her jacket and pulled a rangefinder from her belt. Looking through the monocular, the shooter spotted a head of pink hair that was impossible to miss. Yuuji Itadori's disfigured face filled the reticle of her rangefinder, the dried blood around the gash in his cheek accentuating the ivory white of his teeth in a predatory snarl.

"Beware of Itadori. Stay as far away as possible." The exorcist's warning became present in her mind.

Shifting her vision to the left, Mai noticed a person on the ground with a sprained and swollen ankle squirming and throwing dirt balls at the sorcerer in desperation, tears running down his seams. Suddenly Itadori raised his fist with the intent to hit him, stopping halfway when the helpless person raised an arm in the air to protect himself. Nonetheless, the sorcerer showed no mercy as he kicked him hard in the abdomen, causing him to leap a few meters to the left. Mai held down the button on top of the rangefinder for three seconds to activate a continuous scan, aiming the reticle over the teenager.