the eyes and the teeth

A/N: I didn't expect to create OCs for this universe, and yet here I am. I'm having fun with this character, so let me be. I plan to read the manga soon, so everything I know about this universe comes from watching a handful of episodes from the anime.

I love the potential of this universe and its characters, it's just that it falls short on what I expected from a "dark and gritty" world. In short, for a world where power is based on negative emotions, they look fine. So this is an attempt at grounding the world into something darker, from the perspective of an OC.

I took my liberties with this world and real-life mythology, coming from the severe lack of an Ao no Exorcist anime season 3.

"In jujutsu fights, it's always a matter of who's the bigger monster."

A curse is exorcized and a domain is made. Between that, a funeral is held and a promise is broken.

"Death is a ripple in an ocean, and life is the wave that comes after it."

This is your second funeral this year, and the summer season hasn't even passed. You watch the casket be lowered into the ground. It's a deep mahogany with gilded gold lining the edges of its lid, expensive and luxurious, and you believe it's lined with velvet and diamonds inside. Only the best, of course, for disturbed corpses such as this.

"May you finally rest, for all eternity, Chorakumon-in."

The casket rumbles and shakes, and Chorakumon-in's corrupted spirit rattles and wails inside. It's a terrifying experience for anyone, but not you. Not for anyone attending this funeral. You're all dressed in regal garbs, costumes really, from the Heian era, with paper charms strung around your necks.

This is just another off-day for the average modern-day sorcerer, which you are not.

At least, not yet.

"...go seek refuge in the light."

You make out the final phrase of the chant whispered by the older sorcerers around you, and Chorakumon-in's rattling and wailing dies down. The casket finally reaches the bottom of the pit. Afterwards, it's quiet.

Finally.

The ritual burial is over, and it's not even noon. The last one lasted the entire day, because the spirit was stubborn and wanted anything but to be buried in the place of its birth.

It's good that Chorakumon-in's spirit wasn't out for vengeance or blood, it was simply heartbroken and summoned to the right place at the wrong time. Whoever summoned her was up to no good, but not destruction. They just wanted to cause a little chaos, some inconvenience for the people of this small mountain town, your hometown.

Spirits and curses don't usually manifest here, not with the grand temple your family manages, not with the long line of sorcerers sworn to maintain the balance of good and evil in this part of Japan.

Balance good and evil? If anything, you think they should just rid evil for good, take out curses at their roots, end the corruption before it can even begin.

But that's not important now, because it's a Saturday today, and on Saturdays you–

"Don't leave yet. Stay."

The elder of the group, your grandmother, spoke in a stern tone. The rest of the ritual participants go their separate ways, and your grandmother stares at your frowning face.

"It's Saturday." You tell her, but she shakes her head and taps her cane on the ground.

"Learn."

She moves up her kimono sleeve and reveals her arm, which is decorated with an ancient script, you think, because you can't make out the words on her skin.

"Watch."

She taps on her skin with two fingers, and the ink lifts from her skin. The script begins to morph and glow, before transforming into a black, beady-eyed lizard. You've seen this countless times before, but it amazes you all the same.

"I know, Grandma."

She taps her skin again, this time with three fingers, and the lizard morphs into a bird.

Again, with four fingers, the bird transforms into a spear.

And again, with all five fingers, the spear transforms into a shield.

"See."

She tells you as the repeats, alternating between numbers, and you think it's a hopeless case because you aren't tattooed and you won't ever be because your father forbids it.

So you tell her, again, "Father won't allow it."

She taps a finger on the exposed skin and the ink returns, it flows quickly like water. She looks at you and scowls. She remembers this conversation all too well. You've had this conversation many times and she knows how it will go.

She tells you, again, "Your father is my son."

But it doesn't stop her from trying to sway you. Because in this family, your grandmother is alive and well, and she is still the head of the sorcerer family, so it's her word that's final. No one else's.

She narrows her eyes at your frowning face and dips the tip of her cane into the ground.

"And it is only tradition."

She lifts her other sleeve, fully painted in black ink, and taps two fingers thrice. The color gushes out of her body and swirls around her like a whirlpool. You haven't seen this technique before, and you think she's showing it because she's out of cards.

"Watch."

She tells you again, as the ink around her moves towards the pile of dirt beside the pit. She moves her hands nimbly, like she was moving through water, and the ink envelops the pile. It lifts the dirt high up and forces it into the pit.

"Horimono: Donburi Soshinbori."

The ink morphs into the character for "seal", and glows and burns itself into the ground. It disappears, and your grandmother's exposed arm is left clean of the black ink.

"Be silent for all eternity, Chorakumon-in." She says.

You sometimes saw your grandmother's arms clean of ink and marks, but days later they would be bandaged, and soon after she would wear the previously erased tattoo on her skin again. You know it hurts, the way these tattoos are made, but your grandmother and some other family members only had this to say:

"Paper is flimsy and tears easily. Fabric is heavy and bulky. Our skin is convenient. It is stronger, better."

But you had argued, "Paper doesn't bleed, and fabric doesn't feel pain."

What a clever child you are.

"The pain forms you, molds you. Our body is a canvas. Our hearts, marble. Our souls, clay."

You don't understand what they mean by that, and you have no interest. Because you don't want to be like them, you don't want to be a sorcerer who spends their days seeking out curses to exorcize and spirits to tame. You don't want to lose your weekends to chasing out ghosts and purifying burials. You want to–

That's right. You made a promise for this Saturday.

"Can I go now, Grandma?"

She narrows her eyes at you. "And where exactly will you be going?"

She should already know the answer, because you've been doing this for the past three Saturdays.

"Wait for the Akkorokamui to appear."

She grumbles as a reply, and you're already stepping away from her before she says anything else. She can show you all the techniques passed down in this family and even her own personal style of manifesting those techniques, but you made a promise and you always keep your promises.

"There you go again, with that flower-picking boy."

You hear her say. Her memory of him plucking the wildflowers outside your gates is still vivid in her mind, and you don't know why. Those flowers weren't anything special. They were weeds. Pretty, but still weeds.

"It's too early for the Akkorokamui, and the sky is too bright."

She tries to dissuade you. You know she's disapproved of him since the day you introduced him to your family, and you want to know why. He's your friend, your very first friend outside of this family.

"See you later, Grandma."

You walk away from her before she tries anything else.

"He will never understand this world."

She says for a goodbye.

You frown.

And your grandmother was right, she always was, and you want to hate her for it. Because twelve years later, you didn't expect her words to ring louder and truer than they had before.

"Farewell, Tatsuya."

You stand before his grave, a simple stone in an ocean of gravestones in this city cemetery, and wish you were there at his wake or his burial, or even the first week of his being underground. But was he even buried? Was he given a proper casket, and was he allowed the proper funeral rites when he wasn't even–when he was... was...

...when he was mangled and beaten, before being swallowed out of existence by a cursed spirit?

When all that remained left to identify him was a left hand with a tattoo of a dragon curled around an arrow, the first and only tattoo he had, the first tattoo you've ever done on another person–

Did your grandmother's spirit turn into a wrathful ghost and ensured you never forgot her words? Did she want to make sure you were on the proper path of a true sorcerer? Did she plan this? Did she do all this just for you to feel this way, to resent this life you're living and unlock the highest potential any sorcerer could obtain?

Those questions have plagued your mind ever since you heard of his death–his untimely, unjustified, unreasonable death.

Tatsuya was a human being who had no connection to any curse or any spirit. He was completely normal. Completely plain. Completely human.

Your grandmother was strict, a traditionalist in every sense of the word, but she wasn't heartless. She wanted you to be a sorcerer, and so you did. She wanted you to inherit the technique, and so you did. She wanted you to become a good sorcerer, and of course you did. So who–no... What would do such a thing?

You dedicated the younger years of your life to this. You trained, endured, suffered, and survived. But all you wanted was... it was simple. All you wanted in life was...

Tatsuya–you loved him, and he loved you.

All you wanted in life was simple, and anybody could have it.

But why not you?

"I'm sorry."

The apology tastes tangy and bitter in your mouth, like you've just coughed up blood. It feels like a cleaver against your stomach, a sharp blade pressing but not cutting. You want to cry at this moment, cry and rage in this pool of gravestones, make noise loud enough to disturb any ghosts that linger here, so that you have an excuse for lashing out. You weren't being emotional, you'll say to the elders, you were just luring out ghosts to exorcize because you can't wait until they become curses–which they likely eventually will.

Kill the curse at its root, purge the ghost at its birth.

You wonder how Tatsuya felt as he died, if he held any feelings of remorse or regret. Or even fury. Or if he even felt a certain yearning, a sadness or longing. Because if he did, and that would be the worst that could happen, you would have to... you should be able to...

You don't want to kill him.

You don't want him to be involved in this world of spirits, even after death.

"Find your peace, Tatsuya."

So you hope deep in your chest, in the fist-sized cavern of your heart, that he died quietly.

"You are important."

You don't hope that he died thinking of you.

"You are loved."

You hope he died thinking of love.

"Please don't haunt me."

You press your hand against the engraving of his name.

"But if you do, tell me who did this, and I will end them for your peace."

You know Tatsuya wasn't the type to seek vengeance, but people's ghosts can become their complete opposite once they've crossed the other side. You wouldn't put it past his ghost, so you hope, you sincerely hope that it won't be the case for him.

"Sorry to interrupt, but don't you already know what did it?"

You turn to the man a few gravestones away, the one who said he'd accompany you because he was "a good senior who supports their juniors through rough times" and that he'd keep quiet and allow you to mourn and grieve in peace.

"Senpai."

You blink at his nonchalance, at his casual expression, at how he tries to look meek and shy. You've heard from the elders that he's a trouble-making, no-good sorcerer who's too powerful for his own good, and that you'd learn a thing or two from him about maximizing your potential as the inheritor.

"He's too powerful for his own good, so you ought to learn from him, else you're better off severed from the family completely. He's as stubborn as a child, just like you. So you should get along well."

Satoru is the last of the Gojo family, at least that's what you know, and the fact that he's able to walk around the rules is a testament to his power. You just didn't expect him to be, well, the way he is.

Too carefree. Too easy-going. Too amused. Too bored.

"You don't have to ask his ghost, not even for permission."

You sigh. "This is how I grieve, senpai."

He promised he'd give you the silence.

"For three days straight?" He tuts like he's scolding a kid. "You might summon him if you do, and you don't want that."

"He wouldn't want that. So let him have his peace."

He... might have a point. Maybe Tatsuya's spirit is at peace. Maybe he did die without any regret or anger. Maybe he died a good kind of death. But what good is it when they've died by a cursed spirit's hand?

"He doesn't even know about this... world."

To a certain extent, you envied Tatsuya and a lot of other people, that they can live without knowing about spirits and curses, who find enjoyment in speculating the supernatural when the supernatural is part of your daily life. But you would never wish for him to be a part of it, you would never wish for anyone to be, really.

"All the more reason to keep him out of it." Despite his bluntness, he does have a point. "Dying isn't anything pretty, but I bet his afterlife is."

His afterlife.

"So let him have it."

It's nice to know someone else from this world of spirits and curses can sympathize with you, even if only a little.

"'Cause you've got a Jorogumo to find."

Yes, you do.

"And kill." He adds quickly, laughing to himself.

You take one last look at Tatsuya's gravestone, and promise.

Of course.