Chapter Text
Suguru stirs slowly, the faint light of morning casting speckled shadows across his bedroom. He stretches lazily as he rises, rubbing his eyes. As he pads down the hall, he hears the soft clink of ceramic from the kitchen.
He’s not entirely surprised to find Hibana already awake, nursing a mug of tea as she leans against the countertop.
Her eyes meet his, and she dips her head lightly in greeting.
“Morning,” she says softly, bringing the mug to her lips once more.
Suguru blinks a few times, still fighting off the remnants of sleep.
“...Morning,” he murmurs tiredly in return. His gaze falls to the pot of tea on the stove, then darts back to Hibana, flickering with silent question.
Again, she nods, and Suguru pours some tea for himself before settling at the table. A soft sigh falls from his lips as his hands curl around the mug, savoring the warmth against his palms.
Silence settles over the kitchen, as it has most mornings. Today, though, it’s… different. The tension between them has ebbed, replaced instead by a quiet uncertainty.
They don’t know how to talk to one another, a fact that becomes harshly apparent without the girls awake to bridge the gap. Until yesterday, they hadn't even tried.
Suguru sips his tea, his thoughts caught on the events of the previous night. While the details of Hibana’s encounter with the curse elude him, Suguru does know one thing for certain—she’s grieving. That look in her eyes… it held an aching familiarity that left him unsettled, unable to stop himself from wondering grimly what—or whom—she had lost.
Then, the sound of Hibana’s voice, quiet and heavy, pulls him from his somber reverie.
“Mimiko and Nanako,” she starts slowly, gaze fixed on the mug in her hands, “they’re… jujutsu sorcerers.”
It’s a statement rather than a question.
“…Yes,” Suguru answers after a moment, glancing toward her from his seat at the table. “They are.”
She blinks, her expression inscrutable. “And… you’re a jujutsu sorcerer,” she continues.
“Yes,” Suguru affirms again, tone flat.
She taps the rim of her mug idly with her index finger. “And you all can see… curses,” she says, the foreign word leaving her lips with faint uncertainty.
This time, the word hangs in his throat for a moment. “...Yes,” he confirms finally, voice low.
Hibana’s expression grows pensive, and Suguru catches the faint twitch in her jaw, as if there’s something else she wants to say. But she doesn’t speak, not for a while.
Finally, she sets her mug, now empty, on the countertop. Her gaze is fixed on the hardwood floor of the kitchen as her next words leave her lips.
“Are they in danger?” she asks quietly, almost resignedly—like she already knows the answer but wants to delay its finality, if only for a moment.
Suguru’s grip on his mug tightens, and a faint sigh falls from his lips. For he too could soften the inevitable—say no, not much, not yet—but the truth is that it will come, one day. Likely sooner than either of them hopes.
“They’re jujutsu sorcerers,” he says finally, voice heavy with the burden those three words carry.
That seems to be answer enough for Hibana. Her expression dims, and she nods, slow and shallow.
“Can you help them?” she murmurs then, her eyes meeting Suguru’s with a quiet, searching intensity.
Suguru doesn’t answer right away. A sort of aching feeling he can’t quite put a name to twists low in his chest.
Can he help them?
Memories rush, unbidden, to the forefront of his mind. His gaze grows as cold as the tea left in his mug.
He can teach them, he can train them—sure, he can help them. But can he help them when it matters most?
Crimson blooms on the floor of the corridor. He was too slow, too late—
“I’ll try,” he says, voice low and torn at the edges. “I’ll try.”
He doesn’t elaborate, and Hibana doesn’t push. Maybe she knows it’s the only honest thing he can tell her. Maybe she, too, recognizes the look in his eyes—the look of loss, of grief, of guilt.
She turns, rinses her mug, and sets it in the drainboard. Then, without another word, she walks away.
Suguru tries, he really does.
He’d made up his mind that morning in the kitchen—he would train Mimiko and Nanako in jujutsu. Teach them to control their cursed energy, hone their techniques, survive.
He realizes quickly, though, that conveying the intricacies of jujutsu sorcery to five-year-olds is far easier said than done.
“Think of cursed energy like… a river,” Suguru begins—the tenth analogy he’s used this afternoon. Mimiko and Nanako gaze up at him intently, seated cross-legged on the grass in front of him. They’re tucked away in a quiet alcove of the park, surrounded by towering cedars. A sinking feeling settles in Suguru’s stomach as the girls’ brows furrow. They’re trying their hardest to follow along, but he can tell by their identical, squinting expressions that his explanation is likely to prove unsuccessful yet again.
Suguru sighs resignedly, deciding to continue regardless. Maybe, this time, something will click.
“Your cursed energy… it flows through you,” he says, motioning vaguely with his hands. “But you have to control it. Direct it.”
Mimiko and Nanako exchange a glance, then look to Suguru once more.
“If there’s a river inside us,” Mimiko asks, tilting her head, “where are the fish?”
Suguru blinks once. Twice.
“...There are no fish,” he says finally, resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose.
Their faces fall ever so slightly, and a pang of guilt flickers through him.
He’s doing his best, but following the path of their thoughts feels like stumbling blindfolded through a city he’s never known. Every word he utters, they twist into something else entirely—candles to shadow, wind to whispers, rivers to fish.
At this point, he isn’t sure who’s more lost.
There’s a long stretch of silence, finally broken by Nanako’s voice.
“Did they die?” she asks, fingers curling around a dandelion as she pulls it from the earth.
Confusion wells in him for a moment before he realizes she’s also talking about the fish.
This time, Suguru really does pinch the bridge of his nose, exhaling slowly.
“...Never mind,” he mutters, shaking his head. “Forget about the river.”
A faint frown tugs at her lips, but she nods, the dandelion limp in her palm. She looks at it for a moment, then lets it fall back to the grass.
“Okay,” she says quietly.
Suguru takes a deep breath.
“That’s enough for today, I think,” he murmurs, helping the girls to their feet.
Mimiko and Nanako don’t protest. In fact, they look almost relieved.
Together, they trail out of the alcove as the sky fades to dusk. The walk back to their apartment is quieter than usual, and Suguru can’t help but feel as though he’s let them down.
Forget about the river.
That night, Suguru lies still in the dark, eyes cast toward the ceiling. His hands clench and unclench against his sides, and something gnaws at his gut, sharp and aching.
Forget about the fish.
Days bleed into weeks as the season turns colder. The first frost comes, unbidden, on the advent of December.
Mimiko and Nanako stand on the sofa in the living room, their noses pressed against the window pane as they trace patterns on the fogged glass.
The barest hint of a smile flickers on Suguru’s face as he watches the girls. It’s hard not to let the sight soften him, if only for a moment.
“I thought I told you two to get your shoes on,” Hibana calls wryly, appearing in the threshold of the room. “We should get to the store before it’s too busy.”
Instantly, Mimiko and Nanako spring from the sofa, running toward the front door.
“Coming!” they chirp in unison, yanking their coats off the rack and pulling them on haphazardly as they slide their feet into their shoes. Suguru, too, stands from the sofa, joining them at the door.
Once they’re all ready, the girls dash out of the apartment, eyes glittering with anticipation. Mimiko grabs Suguru’s hand, pulling him along with her. He’s startled, expression momentarily disoriented. Mimiko giggles, her small hand warm against his own.
Suguru doesn’t let go.
As he’s dragged down the hall, he catches sight of Hibana, who pulls the door shut, locking it behind them. A sort of wistful smile curls across her face as her silhouette grows more distant. Then, with another tug to his arm, he turns the corner, and she disappears from view.
“We got the eggs, right?” asks Nanako, scrutinizing the crumpled shopping list in her hands. “And the milk? And the—?”
“We got everything,” Mimiko interrupts, drawing out the words. “You’ve asked a million times already.”
“...I’m just checking,” Nanako mutters, holding the list a little more tightly. “What if something fell out of the bag?”
“Nothing fell out of the bag, I promise,” Hibana assures her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “And if it did, that just means we get to go shopping again.”
Placated, Nanako seems to relax. She nods, tucking the list into the pocket of her coat. “Alright,” she says, voice softening.
Beside them, Suguru adjusts the strap of the grocery bag on his shoulder as they walk through the bustling city streets.
They pass a convenience store decorated with twinkling lights. A bright display in the window catches Mimiko’s eye.
“What’s… Christmas?” she asks curiously, sounding out the unfamiliar word.
Hibana pauses, and Suguru stops, too.
“It’s… a holiday,” Hibana explains, sounding rather unsure herself. “Some people exchange gifts and eat cake.”
Given how rural and isolated her village was, it’s no surprise she doesn’t know much more than that. Christmas has grown in popularity across cities, but it doesn’t carry much cultural weight outside them.
Suguru, raised in the countryside himself, hadn’t grown up with it either. He’d heard of it in passing, but it had never meant anything to him.
At least, not until he’d started at Jujutsu Tech.
The entire Shinjuku skyline glittering, the city alive with laughter and music. A crowd gathered beneath towering billboards, faces flushed with holiday cheer. Suguru weaves through the streets, yanked forward by an urgent hand around his wrist. His gaze falls on white hair poking out from under a lopsided Santa hat—a smile, wide with joy, brighter than any of the lights surrounding them…
His gaze darkens, lips drawing into a tight line.
“That sounds fun,” says Mimiko, eyes wide and earnest, still transfixed by the festive display. Nanako nods in silent agreement, observing the storefront curiously.
Suguru swallows down the bitterness spindling its way up his throat. He shifts his gaze to Hibana, who watches the girls with an expression he can’t quite parse.
Eventually, her gaze drifts from the girls to the convenience store, bright and joyful.
“Yeah,” she murmurs. “It does.”
The encroaching winter brings with it something else—curses.
They crawl up the bones of empty buildings, fester in back alley gutters, gorging on the despair and loneliness just beneath the holiday facade.
Suguru sees them. All of them.
And he knows the girls do, too.
They’ve seen curses their entire lives, but never quite so many.
A city like Sendai, with its dense population, breeds far more curses than any rural village. And winter is notorious among jujutsu sorcerers—the season of decay, of grief. Curses thrive in the ache of it.
It’s unfair, really.
Then again, Suguru thinks, pushing a black orb between his teeth:
Nothing about the life of a sorcerer is fair.
He hides a grimace as the acrid taste stains his tongue. This one burns like shame, coating his throat in blood and rusted iron.
For a moment, he stands in the alley, backlit by a single flickering streetlamp, as he waits for the nausea to pass. Finally, the curse’s energy settles, and the pit in his stomach grows.
“That,” he says, gaze cast toward the pavement, “is my technique.”
Behind him, Mimiko and Nanako say nothing.
He’d decided, earlier that evening, to take the girls with him as he exorcised a curse—not to fight, but to watch. He thought it might be more useful to them than another hollow analogy he barely understood himself.
Jujutsu sorcery is both incredibly abstruse and remarkably intuitive. Call it talent, or instinct, or misfortune—sorcerers possess an intrinsic ability to feel cursed energy long before they can name it. Just as you don’t need to know the mechanics of a gun to pull the trigger, they don’t need to grasp the depths of their power to use it.
Techniques can be refined—sharpened, shaped—but the capacity to activate them is innate.
And Suguru has suspected, for some time now, that the girls are suppressing it.
It’s not uncommon, particularly in children who grow up without any other sorcerers to guide them. They know they’re different; they see and do things others can’t, and that makes them targets—of animosity, scorn, fear.
Suguru thinks back to Kurokawa. The villagers, ignorant and cruel. The cell they’d been locked in.
He can’t help the anger that simmers in his chest.
It doesn’t help that they’ve had a traumatic encounter with a curse. One Hibana refuses to talk about.
They’re holding themselves back, for—
Suguru forces the thought from his mind, refocusing on the task at hand. The point of all of this is to show the girls what he couldn’t put into words: jujustu is terrible, and ugly, and unforgiving. But it’s theirs.
It’s theirs.
A small voice breaks the silence at his back.
“Do you always… have to eat them?”
Nanako.
Suguru blinks, brows furrowing.
It’s not a question he expects—so, naturally, it’s one she asks.
His jaw twitches, gaze still fixed on the cold asphalt below.
“Yes,” he answers, flat and weary, “I always have to eat them.”
Again, the girls are silent. Suguru wonders, then, what they’re thinking. How they’re feeling. But he doesn’t ask. He lets the silence linger, lets them grow accustomed to its weight.
That silence, he thinks, offers more than his words ever could.
Do you always have to eat them?
The question has burned in the back of his mind ever since the girls witnessed his technique in action.
It’s ridiculous—the answer is yes. Of course it’s yes.
Exorcise, absorb.
That’s how it works.
Over and over.
That’s how it’s always worked.
Suguru peers into the well, small fingers curled around the weathered stone. Below, the dark water churns, swelling upward as if compelled by some unseen force. Beneath the surface, a shimmer of scales appears—koi gliding in the depths. Occasionally, one jumps from the water, rising like a small sun, fiery and golden, before plunging back into the well.
Suguru is enraptured, eyes wide as he leans in. The water continues to swirl until the koi are dancing just beneath him, so close he could reach out and touch them. They’re beautiful, and Suguru nearly forgets how to breathe. A foreign feeling overcomes him, a profound, aching need. Suddenly, he feels so empty. So… hungry.
And the koi—the koi are so alluring, flitting through the undulating water. So tantalizing.
Suguru moves before he even realizes it.
He reaches down, plucking one of them from the water. It struggles, twisting in his grasp, but Suguru doesn’t let go. Triumphantly, he examines it, eyes glittering with awe and anticipation. That aching feeling sings in the pit of his stomach.
His lips close around the koi. In that instant, its form wavers, slipping from flesh into something else, something heavier, humming against his tongue. It disappears down his throat as he swallows it whole.
Suguru staggers, hands pressed against his lips.
It’s wretched.
His body burns as the koi descends, splintering into a current that tears through him, a river raging where no river should be. It’s vile, leaving him slumped over the well, stomach rolling.
And yet, he’s still so hungry.
His hand dips back into the well, pulling another koi. Another. He can’t see through the blur of his tears, but still he finds them, trembling so violently he can no longer feel their struggle as they writhe against his palm.
He swallows each one—every one, in all its agony.
His fingers turn white as he clutches the mouth of the well, now empty. He retches, the bitter taste of vomit staining his mouth as his body fights to expel what he never should have consumed.
He stays like that, sick and crying, until the last of his strength leaves him. His eyes slip shut, and darkness swallows him.
Suguru’s jaw tightens.
Since that day, so many years ago, the hunger had never really ebbed.
He learned about the existence of curses, what fueled his need for consumption. Learned to fast before a mission and the best way to bury the rancid taste on his tongue in the aftermath.
Over and over.
But he never learned this.
Almost a week later, he goes out again. Alone.
Exorcise, absorb.
He’s passing by the train station when he feels it—a curse’s presence. He pauses, gaze cutting toward the building. Through the bustling crowd of commuters, it locks eyes with him, half a body pulling itself across the street. It stills for only a moment before lunging toward him, talon-like nails scraping against the concrete in a stilted rhythm as it drags its shredded torso forward—far too fast for something without legs.
That is the mission.
Suguru lets it chase him, darting back through the city streets as he lures the curse away from civilians. His breath fogs in the air as he ducks into a narrow alley, face stinging from the bite of the winter wind.
The curse reaches him moments later, slamming into the wall before rearing forward, its grotesque face contorted in rage.
Suguru exhales, lips drawing into a hard line.
“Alright,” he says, voice low, “that’s enough.”
His arm stretches forward.
Exorcise.
The curse thrashes as his technique takes hold, pulled apart and forced together. Its scream dissolves into a low hum as the dense black orb of cursed energy settles in his palm.
Over and over.
That familiar pull surfaces—the instinctive, nauseating drag toward his mouth. The hunger coils in his gut, sharp and insistent.
Do you always have to eat them?
Suguru doesn’t lift his hand. He doesn’t move at all. He just… stares.
Seconds pass.
The orb doesn’t dissolve, or disappear. It remains exactly where it is, heavy against his palm, still humming softly.
Suguru’s lips twitch. The hunger gnaws at him, relentless.
He’s always consumed them. Always. There was never a reason not to—never even the thought of an alternative. Absorb, endure, move on. That was the rule. That was the way things were.
And yet—
Nothing happens.
The orb doesn’t vanish. It doesn’t punish him for waiting. It simply exists, inert in his grasp.
Suguru gazes down at it for another moment, expression inscrutable. A sort of hollow pressure builds in his chest, a buzzing dissonance beneath his skin.
His grip tightens, knuckles whitening. He feels—he doesn’t even know what he feels. Doesn’t know what it means.
But the orb is still in his fingers, and the world hasn’t ended.
Though, Suguru thinks, maybe it has.
Because, for the first time, he realizes something:
There has always been a choice.
It could mean nothing, he tells himself, even as his heart denies it. It doesn’t change anything. He must absorb curses to grow stronger—there’s no way around that.
But all those nights he’s spent sick, sweating, miserable—curled up like a dying animal on the floor of his dorm room—if he could have been spared even some of them…
No. He can’t—he can’t think like that. Can’t think about any of this.
Suguru shoves the orb into his pocket, swallowing down the bile in his throat.
He takes the long way back to the apartment, as if more distance might keep it all from catching up to him.
“Higher, higher… perfect!”
Mimiko tugs on the hem of Suguru’s shirt, small fingers insistent, directing him like a foreman while he balances on a chair.
They’re decorating for Christmas Eve—Hibana’s idea. The lights snake along the perimeter of the ceiling, dipping where the tape doesn’t quite hold.
Nanako watches with her chin in her hands, ever attentive. “They’re crooked,” she says.
“They’re charming,” Mimiko corrects.
Suguru exhales through his nose, the corner of his mouth twitching despite himself. He adjusts the strand anyway before securing it with the last of the tape.
“There,” he says. His gaze falls toward Hibana, who rises from the couch, crossing the room to plug the lights in.
The room fills with a soft, warm glow. Mimiko and Nanako gasp, eyes twinkling even brighter than the lights above them.
A soft smile crosses Hibana’s face.
“They’re beautiful,” she says, gently running her fingers through Nanako’s hair. “You two did a great job.”
Suguru feels her eyes land on him as he steps down from the chair.
“You three,” she adds after a moment.
It sounds a lot like thank you.
Suguru’s expression flickers, gaze lifting briefly toward the lights—uneven, imperfect, still holding.
He dips his head, a slight, careful nod.
It looks a lot like you’re welcome.
KFC comes next—his contribution to this celebration. Suguru places the bucket on the table, fingers already stained with grease. Mimiko and Nanako stare it down with an almost frightening level of anticipation. Hibana looks intrigued.
“Fried chicken on Christmas… it’s a tradition in the cities,” he explains.
Mimiko and Nanako don’t answer, mouths already full.
Hibana studies the bucket almost curiously, like a cat examining a new toy. She tries a piece of chicken, brows raising in satisfaction.
“It’s good,” she says, wiping the crumbs from her lips. “It’s… delicious.”
“Come on, Suguru, we have to get to the KFC before it closes—it’s delicious. Divine. A national treasure, I tell you…”
Suguru’s expression tightens, almost imperceptibly. His chicken lies half-eaten on his plate.
They end the night with the strawberry cake they’d made earlier—a little lopsided, a touch too sweet. No one complains.
Mimiko’s nose gets smudged with frosting, and Nanako laughs so hard she nearly falls off her chair.
Suguru observes them with an inscrutable gaze, eyes flickering between warmth and something harder—hope and sorrow warring silently behind them.
By the time the cake has been reduced to crumbs, the girls are sluggish. Hibana tidies up in the kitchen while Suguru carries them to bed. After tucking them under the covers, he stands in the doorway for a moment, listening as their breaths even out.
Finally, he retreats to his own bedroom, shoulders tense as he closes the door behind him.
Suguru can’t sleep. He tries, but each time he closes his eyes, they snap back open.
With a heavy sigh, he pulls himself up, running a hand down his face. He swings his legs over the side of the bed, moving with quiet, measured steps as he makes his way toward the kitchen.
Long shadows stretch across the walls. Only the Christmas lights are still on, casting the room in a muted glow. One strand dips toward the floor, tape peeling under its weight.
He means to grab a glass from the cabinet, drink some water—like it could soothe the storm churning within him.
But he stops when he sees Hibana seated at the table, needle and thread in hand.
Spread before her is a uniform—his uniform, from Jujutsu Tech.
Suguru freezes, every muscle in his body tensing.
“What— Why are you touching that?” he asks, voice low and strained.
Hibana startles, looking up at him with surprise that quickly bleeds into apprehension.
“It was torn—there was a button missing,” she says quickly. “I just thought I’d… fix it. For Christmas. For you.”
Suguru’s gaze darkens, lips narrowed in a hard line. “It’s not yours.”
“I—” Hibana swallows, frowning. “I know. I’m… sorry. I was just trying to—”
“To what? Help me?” Suguru snaps, eyes flashing. “You can’t help me. You can’t do a thing to help me.”
Hibana’s expression falters. The sewing needle drops from her hand. “I’m sorry,” she repeats, a weak sort of murmur. “I thought it would… I’ve been trying to—”
She looks away.
“...I didn’t mean to upset you,” she whispers.
A sharp laugh escapes him, short and humorless.
“Upset me?” he says. The words are bitter as they leave his lips. His gaze falls back on the uniform. Memories crash through his mind—Riko’s smile, Haibara’s laugh, Nanami’s choked sobs in the morgue, mocking blue eyes glinting in the corridor.
Something hot coils in his chest.
“You think this is what I need? You think— you think stitching a button is going to make any of this better?”
“I didn’t say that,” Hibana answers, voice breaking.
“You didn’t need to.” Suguru’s voice rises. “You’ve been doing this since we got here—trying to smooth things over like you have any idea what’s going on.”
He steps closer to the table. Hibana flinches.
“You don’t,” he continues, voice cold. “You don’t understand jujutsu. You don’t understand them. And you don’t understand me.”
Her head lifts at that, eyes stinging with hurt. “I know I’m not a sorcerer—”
“No,” he says, jaw clenched, “you’re not.”
Hibana’s lips pinch, breath hitching as she presses her hands together in her lap. “...That’s not fair,” she whispers.
Suguru scoffs. “Believe me, nothing about this is fair.”
He snaps forward, grabbing the uniform and pulling it off the table. Above them, there’s a soft tearing sound as the tape fails. One strand of Christmas lights peels free from the ceiling and drops, bulbs shattering on the floor. Half the room goes dark.
Silence stretches between them, ugly and suffocating.
Suguru’s gaze burns.
“...Don’t fool yourself into thinking this made you part of it,” he says, voice barbed as he gestures toward the fallen lights. “You’re just a monkey playing house in a world you don’t belong to.”
The moment the words leave his lips, something in the room wilts. Hibana goes still.
“...You should go,” she says, voice low. Even the darkness can’t obscure the fragile look in her eyes.
Suguru’s lips twist into a sneer. “You should go.”
He turns abruptly, before she can say anything else. Before he can say anything else.
The door slams shut behind him.
The cold hits him all at once. Suguru doesn’t know where he’s going, just that he has to be anywhere but here. He staggers away from the apartment, uniform clutched in his hands.
Everything aches—his head, his chest, his stomach—worse than any curse has ever left him. Like his anguish is tearing through him from the inside out.
He finds himself in the park, collapsing on a weathered wooden bench, breath stilted as he presses the heels of his hands into his eyes.
Suguru shudders once, then again. He folds in on himself, fingers buried in the fabric of his uniform like it might anchor him to something stable. The night hums on around him—distant traffic, holiday festivities, the faint echo of laughter drifting from somewhere he can’t see—but it all feels far away.
He doesn’t know how much time passes—minutes, hours—only that it’s not enough to make it hurt any less.
Then, the sound of two frantic voices cutting through the darkness yanks him from his stupor. His heart lurches.
“Mimiko?” His voice is rough as he wipes his face with his sleeve. “Nanako?”
The girls are running toward him, still in their pajamas, hair knotted like they’d just rolled out of bed. Mimiko is crying, tears running down her face. She stumbles, and Nanako catches her arm without slowing.
Suguru is on his feet immediately. “What— what are you doing out here?” he asks, voice low and urgent.
“There’s—” Mimiko gasps. She can’t get the words out, doubling over as she sobs.
Nanako holds her, desperate as she looks up at Suguru. “There’s a curse. At the apartment,” she finishes, voice shaking.
Suguru freezes.
“...Where’s Hibana?” he all but whispers, dread spindling up his spine.
“Inori-chan told us to run,” floats Mimiko’s voice, her face buried in Nanako’s shoulder as she sniffles. “She told us to find you.”
Something inside Suguru goes cold.
She stayed.
He’s already moving, summoning the curse without conscious thought. Cursed energy ripples through the air as the manta ray unfurls from nothing, vast and silent.
“Hold on,” Suguru orders, hauling the girls close and leaping upward. The curse catches them as they launch into the sky.
Below them, the city blurs, wind roaring in his ears. Suguru’s jaw tightens.
Not again.
The thought hammers through his skull.
Not again, not again, not again.
Sirens wail in the distance. The manta ray dips, banking hard as they grow louder. Lights strobe against the buildings ahead—not the soft glow of Christmas but the harsh red and blue of a disaster already in motion.
The smell hits them next, thick and acrid, staining his throat. Suguru’s stomach drops.
Then, the apartment comes into view.
Flames lick up the side of the building, windows shattered, smoke billowing toward the sky in heavy plumes. Fire trucks crowd the street below, hoses already unfurling as police officers push back panicked residents. People spill onto the sidewalk in half-zipped coats, shouting, clutching pets, children, each other.
Not again. Please, not again—
He forces the manta ray lower, landing hard at the edge of the street. The girls cling to him, trembling, as the heat washes over them. Suguru stares in horror as their apartment is consumed by the flames, charring and splintering as it crumbles before them.
And then—
The explosion rips through the building.
The ground buckles violently, a concussive wave of fire slamming into them, robbing the air from his lungs as glass rains down like shrapnel. Nanako screams, and Mimiko clings to him, sobbing into his sleeve.
Suguru reacts on instinct, eyes wild as he scoops them both up, head ringing. He runs until his body burns, until the air thins enough for him to breathe again.
They collapse in an alley, hidden from the street. Suguru drops to his knees, shaking.
Nanako struggles furiously against his grip, trying to twist free. “We have to go back!” she screams. “We have to go back!” Tears stream down her face, bleeding where a piece of glass had sliced her cheek.
Suguru only holds them tighter, chest heaving.
“We need to go!” Nanako wails, small fists pounding against his arms. “She’s still in there! She’s— she’s still there!”
Mimiko is sobbing violently, gasping her name between choked breaths.
Still, Suguru can’t speak, clutching them close to his chest. The sirens wail on in the distance, and smoke drifts through the alley, stinging his eyes.
In his mind, he sees her—bent over the table, needle in hand, trying to make something broken whole.
His head bows down, forehead pressing onto the unforgiving pavement as his body trembles, shaken by a grief he can’t contain any longer.
He left. She stayed.
And now, he knows, with horrible certainty:
Hibana Inori is dead.