Satoru Gojō
Satoru Gojō had his eyes closed behind his black tinted glasses. He was tuning out the lecture from his principal.
"—Special Grade or not you cannot just ignore orders!"
It wasn't like the lecture was directed at Satoru anyway.
After Satoru had saved the Jujutsu Sorcerer from the—from the—Curse? Satoru was hesitant to use that word. What he felt was unlike curses he had previously encountered—he and the Sorcerer were immediately pulled into the principal's office for lecturing.
It wasn't directed at Satoru—he was a child so he didn't "know better" according to the principal—so he didn't care to listen.
He had more important things to think about.
"Toujours et toujours," the Curse whispered. It traced a thumb along his cheek.
His cheek tingled from where it had touched him.
It sounded like French, he thought. Toujour et toujour… what does that mean?
"—The Gojō Clan was very clear that he wasn't to leave without their permission—"
Toujour, toujour, toujour. Satoru drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. Did it originate from France? There was that huge massacre not too long ago. They never found the Curse responsible, only that—
Satoru froze.
Only that it left a very powerful signature—one that was hot to touch.
Like the Curse Satoru had encountered.
"—Already too few Special Grades and you jeopardized a promising Sorcerer for the next generation—"
A Curse strong enough to kill thousands within seconds. It would make sense, then, why it was able to touch Satoru despite him using his Infinite ability.
But then why did it leave? Why didn't it try to attack us when I showed up?
If it was so strong—
"Toujours et toujours," the Curse whispered. It traced a thumb along his cheek.
Satoru's brow creased. The memory replayed again and again in his mind.
Why… was it so gentle?
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
2005, Lilly
Lilly kept to herself the next couple of years, not wanting to accidentally harm anyone else.
There was a hidden society based in Japan. They hunted things called Curses—personifications of spiritual pressure—and called themselves Jujutsu Sorcerers.
From their perspective, Lilly's natural aura felt inhuman, they could only conclude she was a Curse. Her body was human, but her soul wasn't, which caused the contradiction.
Any time I return to the physical plane, I'll have to completely hide my signature, concluded Lilly.
To be on the safe side, she also limited the times she left. The Sorcerers weren't bad people, and she was reluctant to murder anyone on his side.
Her adopted son, Yūta, had a higher-than-average spiritual pressure which made Lilly think he was meant to be a Jujutsu Sorcerer. He was clearly a protagonist—or antagonist—and the only thing special about that world was the presence of Curses and Sorcerers.
His power was growing nicely, but Lilly had been encouraging more growth by mixing in her raw spiritual energy into his food. It was slow, but it would help increase his overall power.
I'll have to train him for combat, too.
Not for a while—and only so long as he wanted to learn. For now, Lilly wanted him to enjoy a peaceful, warm, and loving childhood. Children in Japan normally began pre-school education around three, but Lilly was perfectly capable of homeschooling him. She'd start sending him to public school next year—the normal age in Japan for children to begin their elementary education—that way he could learn to socialize with his peers.
He was already bright for his age—Protagonist Standard™—which made teaching him all the easier. Lilly began an early introduction into multiple languages, knowing he'd have a better time becoming multilingual if she started early. She mostly stuck to Japanese for him, but she would use ASL while she talked to him a lot. She would switch to either French, English, and Mandarin every other day.
It was cute when he started fusing the languages—speak half in Japanese and the other half in French. The way he pronounced his rs was adorable because he rolled them like a drum beat.
Lilly made sure to take ample videos of it.
A good portion of her attention was dedicated to Yūta, but she did not neglect other things that caught her interest.
The café would always be a delight when a visitor showed up. She loved listening to new stories and making friends.
But what really ate up the rest of her time was an experiment she started.
Curses were personifications of spiritual pressure. The more power it had, the more refined its form became. Lilly hadn't encountered any beings that were capable of speech, but she figured that could be rectified.
From what she had gathered from that Sorcerer's memories, he had encountered one powerful Curse that was able to utter a single word—Die.
She theorized that power could correlate to intelligence and stability.
That was pretty standard—a lot like leveling up pet monsters, really.
Lilly had power. She had a lot of power.
And even better, she knew how to transfer that power.
According to the memories of the Sorcerer, the Jujutsu Society ranked Curses from Grade 4 to Special Grade.
Grade 4 - The weakest; a tire iron was plenty to deal with it.
Grade 3 - Slightly harder than Grade 4; handgun or something of similar power recommended.
Semi-Grade 2
Grade 2 - An average Sorcerer would not come out unscathed.
Semi-Grade 1
Grade 1 - Even a tank might be insufficient.
Special Grade 1
Special Grade - Every Sorcerer who was not Special Grade would be SOL.
It took several brief outings until Lilly found the first two subjects for her experiment.
One, a nekomata.
Two, a tsukumogami possessing a wagasa.
She captured them in special cages built to restrain demons—courtesy of Madam Merlin many lifetimes ago—and kept them in her living room. The two creatures Lilly had captured were both Grade 2; which meant they were reasonably dangerous for the average Sorcerer.
Wonder if I can get them to Special Grade? Lilly pondered as she pushed bits of her energy into the food she was preparing.
She was taking a risk trying to power level an unstable creature.
But hey, what was the point of living if she couldn't tango with Death?
Maybe she'd get to stay dead long enough to wipe her memories clean when she resurrected. That'd be neat.
The nekomata was about the size of a pitbull, had dark fur, three eyes, and constantly snarled. Every time Lilly approached the creature it yowled and tried to swipe at her. It still ate the food she prepared for it, but it did so with a vicious vigor.
The tsukumogami was trickier to feed. It had no mouth, so Lilly had to hold out her hand in the cage until it started to absorb some of her power. It kept trying to cut off her hand when she did that—and succeeded a few times when she was distracted—which made it irksome.
Let's see how far you can go.
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
Yūta, to her delight, started to approach the caged creatures all on his own after the first month.
"Why are we keeping them?" he asked her.
"To see if we can befriend them," she answered.
"Why?"
"It's always nice to make friends, dear."
Yūta hugged her. He barely came up to her waist, he was so tiny and precious. "They don't seem very nice."
"Maybe not now," she admitted. "But we won't know if it's possible unless we try."
"Okay. Do I have to be friends with them?"
"That's up to you, sweetheart. Do you want to?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. Why don't we both start feeding them together then?"
"Mn, okay."
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
2006
"Why?"
Its voice was garbled, distorted.
The nekomata's fur has lightened in color since Lilly started to feed it her own energy. It had doubled in size the past year, and it looked like it was in the middle of growing a fourth eye.
"Why what?" Lilly asked, not looking up from the couch where she was knitting. She was preparing another sweater for Yūta. He hadn't gotten out of his wanting-to-match phase with her (yet) so any time Lilly made a sweater for herself she had to make the exact same one for him.
"Why… feed? Why… keep?" it growled, its two tails lashing. "Will kill… will kill…"
"Why do you want to kill us?" Lilly asked instead. "Wouldn't it be better if we got along? I can take care of you, you know."
The nekomata hissed in response.
"We'll see," she mused, her ruby eyes narrowed as she looked at it. Its spiritual energy had grown considerably, but she wouldn't call it a Special Grade yet.
It was nice to know that they could learn how to speak if given enough power, though! That was progress.
"Mommy, I'm home," Yūta called out, rushing inside. "Look, I painted at school today!"
"Oh did you sweetie?" Lilly set down her knitting supplies to look at the picture Yūta was holding out to her. "This is so lovely! May I hang this on the fridge?"
"Uh-huh! Can you take me to a park this weekend? I wanna paint flowers."
"Of course, honey."
"Oh wait—" Yūta grabbed the picture and hurried to show it to the caged creatures. "Look guys! The leaves are turning colors now."
"Will kill," spat the nekomata, the wagasa whirling around angrily in its own cage.
"That's not nice," said Yūta. "I thought first words were supposed to be stuff like Mom or Dad."
"Everyone's a bit different, darling."
"I guess so."
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
A month later
Lilly was washing dishes in the kitchen, glancing up every so often to watch Yūta. Her son had taken a seat outside the nekomata cage.
Yūta held out a plate of halibut. "Dinner time."
"Hate you," hissed the nekomata.
Yūta frowned. "I wish we could be friends."
"Why?" demanded the nekomata. "Will kill you. Will kill you!"
"Mm-hmm." Yūta cocked his head. "If you stopped saying that, Momma said I could take you out for walks and stuff."
The nekomata grew very quiet. "... Walks? Outside? Outside?"
"Yeah!"
The nekomata slowly lowered laid down. "Out… want… out…?"
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
Another month later
"Mommy, can we take them outside?"
"Well they have gone an entire month without trying to cut off my hand, and haven't said anything about killing us," Lilly mused. "Sure, why not?"
Yūta's dark eyes glimered. "Really? Can I let them out?"
Lilly shook her head. "No. Better safe than sorry, please stand back while I do so, okay?"
"Okay."
As soon as Lilly opened the cage, the nekomata dashed out. She grabbed it by the collar, slammed it down on the ground and pushed its nose into the carpet. It grumbled something incoherent. She leaned down to whisper in its ear.
"See here," said Lilly. "You think you're stronger? Remember I'm stronger. You think you can hurt my son before I cut off your limbs? Try it. Behave yourself, little Curse, and you won't have to return to that cage."
It hissed out slowly. "Will… be good. Be good."
"Good little curse," she cooed, releasing her grip. "Oh, my dear umbrella, you don't need me to threaten you, do you?"
It twirled.
"Fantastic," she said cheerfully, taking it out of its cage and resting it over her shoulder. As soon as she touched the Curse she noticed that its spiritual energy was drastically more different from the nekomata.
Both curses had noticeable malice to them when she took them in. As they had grown stronger, that malice had diminished. It wasn't on the same level as the beginning, but it was still noticeable when she touched them.
The nekomata's malevolence had dulled, but it was still present enough that Lilly didn't feel comfortable completely trusting it yet. From a sharp knife to a dull knife—still a knife!
The tsukumogami that possessed the wagasa, on the other hand, had almost no malice left. As if it transformed from a knife to a spoon.
Lilly wondered what made them so different. Was it the type of curse—the type of creature—or something else?
She didn't know, but she'd be interested in finding out.
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
For the first week since being freed the nekomata stalked them in the shadows, only coming out to eat.
Second week it started to sit upside down the ceiling and watched them unblinkingly. Yūta and Lilly would speak with it, but it never responded which made for some one-sided conversations.
Third week and it started to give one-worded responses.
It took another two months after being let out of its cage, consistently fed Lilly's spiritual energy, and socialized, but the nekomata finally started to positively engage with Yūta and Lilly.
The tsukumogami possessing the wagasa, thankfully, was not nearly so difficult to deal with.
The tsukumogami was a red wagasa. When Lilly first picked it up, it was red and black, but over time its black handle lightened to white and it developed a white floral pattern on its oiled paper. It liked to hover around Lilly, and every time Lilly stepped outside it rushed to her hand.
It behaved more like a cute puppy rather than a scary Curse.
It even started to project a small, feminine voice. No one would have suspected that not too long ago it had been responsible for several murders and had regularly tried to chop off Lilly's hand when she went to feed it.
Its malice was entirely gone after a month of being out of the cage. Lilly felt completely comfortable letting it roam around unsupervised. In fact, she had even become fond of it.
"Would you like a name?" she asked it.
"Yes," it said.
"Would you like a gender?" she asked it.
"Yes," it said.
"Do you've a preference?"
The wagasa quivered. "I don't know."
"For now," Lilly gently said, "May I call you Ame?"
"Ame," it repeated, a hint of joy in its tone. "I'm Ame."
"Yes you are. Would you like to interact with the human world?"
"Is that possible?"
"It is. You are a being of pure spiritual energy—a curse, this world would call—and you need physical energy—otherwise known as vitality or life—to be seen by humans here. There's plenty of that in the human world. I can show you how to harness it for yourself and create a form to be seen."
"Please," it said.
"Me, too," came the nekomata, the large two-tailed cat stepping out of the shadows. It had been listening to their conversation since the start.
Lilly smiled faintly at the cat-cruse. Two long, thin, tails flicked side by side. It had grown to be roughly the size of a full-grown tiger, had four red eyes, and its once black fur lightened to a soft dandelion color. Its malice was not entirely gone, but it was restrained.
Controlled.
"Okay," she agreed to. "I'll give you a name once I see the form you create. Is that acceptable?"
"Yes."
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
Lilly confirmed curses could be more than mindless blobs of energy. The stronger they were, the more intelligent they became. They were capable of learning, and most importantly, capable of forming friendships.
She wasn't certain if it was something exclusive due to her spiritual energy, or if anyone with enough spiritual could upgrade and "tame" them.
She figured the next step in her experiment would be to see if Yūta could do the same.
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
Yūta was able to open any door and have it lead directly back home. It was a blessing Lilly had given to him. All he needed to do was touch a door handle, want to go home, and viola. He'd be walking through that magical red door that lead to the cafe.
Because of that, Lilly did not often pick Yūta up from school. But every so often she liked to transform herself into an adult and wait for Yūta at the front of the school like the other parents. Sometimes they'd go for walks, or go out eat. It was a nice change of pace.
That day, Lilly decided to take her son out to the movies. She met him outside the school, and his face lit up when he saw her. He ran to her, stopping short of hugging her.
He had reached the age where he was shy about hugging his mom in public. Especially in front of his classmates.
Respectful of that, Lilly did not force the affection. Instead, Lilly leaned over to carefully tuck one of Yūta's bangs behind his ears. "Do you want another haircut soon?"
"Yeah, I don't like it when it gets my eyes," he said.
"Okay." Lilly held out her hand. When they went out he had to hold her hand. Lilly needed to be able to instantly take them away from danger and that was easiest if they were already touching. "Would you like to see a movie tonight?"
"Yeah."
"Got an idea for what you want to see?"
"Wizard Tales!" he chirped.
"Wizard Tales it is," she promised.
"Ah, before I forget—would you be open to helping me out?"
"Of course!" he said enthusiastically.
"I want to try another experiment," she said. "Would you be willing to try to feed another Curse your spiritual energy? I want to see if you can grow and tame one on your own."
"I can try," he said.
"Thank you, my dear boy."
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
It took a week of hunting across Japan before Lilly found a Grade 4 curse that she felt comfortable letting Yūta raise. It took the form of a tiny black and white bird that Lilly genuinely could not tell if it was meant to replicate a ryūkyū minivet or a Japanese wagtail. They were pretty hard to tell apart.
Either way it was small enough Yūta could hold the cursed bird in the palm of his hands and the worst it could do was peck at him with its tiny little beak.
The nekomata had grown fondest of Yūta in the past year and Lilly felt reasonable confident that it would eat the bird if it got too feisty with him. The nekomata hadn't taken a name or gender, yet.
Lilly had a feeling it was wanting Yūta to pick out its name.
Which was pretty cute.
She loved seeing the "big scary monster" curl around her baby boy when it thought she wasn't looking.
It was also adorable how grumpy it was when Lilly brought back the bird-curse for Yūta.
Jealous! It was jealous.
Lilly showed Yūta how to infuse his spiritual energy. He was a quick learner, able to pick it up within a week of her showing him. From that point on, the bird stayed in his room and he tended to it on his own.
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
Next chapter is the Star Plasma arc & Lilly's next meeting with Gojō.
I think we'll hit the anime start before chapter 10.
Answer: Cursed Techniques with gun as a backup.
Question: Curses can take the form of mythical creatures—most commonly Japanese given their origin—so what kind of curse would you want as a pet (if you could tame it)?
Reviews are love!