Chapter 8

Kaia sat at breakfast with Shoko a few days later at the end of term. The cafeteria was empty save for the two of them. The rest of the first years were still asleep, the third years were still on missions, and Gojo and Geto had only recently gotten back from their mission and were still recovering. Kaia didn't know much about it, but judging from the look on Shoko's face, it didn't go well.

"Everything okay?" Kaia asked.

"I'm worried about Satoru and Suguru," she said. She fiddled with her cup, spinning it in circles so the tea sloshed around. "The star plasma vessel—she was killed."

Kaia's mouth felt dry.

"They failed their mission?"

"Yeah. Almost died too."

Kaia looked down at her little bowl of fruit and rubbed the back of her neck, unsure of what to say. She didn't know much about their mission, only random details she gathered in passing, but she knew it was important. Like… End of jujutsu society important. So the fact that they were all still sitting there must have meant that despite their failure, things worked out okay.

"I'm sure they're fine now though. Gojo and Geto are on another level. Nothing can really touch either of them," she tried.

"I appreciate your faith in us, Murakami," Gojo's voice drawled from behind her. Kaia didn't bother looking over her shoulder because a moment later he settled into the seat next to her while Geto sat beside Shoko. Her thigh brushed against Gojo's and she shifted over a bit to give his ridiculously long legs some room. He didn't have any food with him and instead plucked a strawberry from her own bowl.

"Seriously?" Kaia muttered.

"I heard you were in Okinawa," Geto said when Gojo surprisingly enough didn't immediately start teasing her. She looked away from the fruit bowl that Gojo was currently picking at and focused on where Geto was beside Shoko. His face was bruised and there was a nasty cut on his bottom lip. In addition to that, he had a bandage around his left wrist and seemed to only be able to keep his head propped up by resting it against his right hand.

"I was. Had a mission to scope out the old family house," she said. She tried really hard not to stare at Geto, she did. But she had never seen him so beat up before. She couldn't believe it, but she actually felt a little worried for him.

"Find anything interesting?" he asked, still leaning on his hand and watching her with a tired look in his dark eyes.

"Nah," she lied, choosing to look at her bowl of fruit instead.

"That's not what I heard," Gojo teased. Kaia glanced up at the white-haired boy, just as he stole more fruit from her and popped it in his mouth.

"And what did you hea—oh my god!" Kaia gasped when she looked directly at Gojo for the first time. She put her hand over her mouth that now hung open thanks to her slack jaw and tried to mask her expression. She didn't mean to freak out. Really, she didn't. She just didn't realize how bad of shape Gojo was in.

There was a still healing, pink scar at his throat. A large, jagged one that was so very angry looking and surrounded by blotchy bruises in varying shades of red, purple, and blue. No amount of reverse cursed technique could fix those bruises. Something that serious would take time. She couldn't see much else because his uniform hid the rest of his body, but Kaia could see other bruises along his cheekbones, eye sockets, and some along the cuffs of his sleeves. If she was being honest, it looked like he was recovering from a brush with death.

"Damn, I must look like shit to get that kind of reaction from you," Gojo quipped.

"What happened? Are you okay?" she asked, eyes still darting across his face and body.

"I liked you better when you were giving me a hard time," he said. His voice was bored and she could feel him stiffen beside her, suddenly giving her much more room on the bench.

"Gojo, you shouldn't be just waltzing around like this. You should be in the infirmary or something! You're hurt and—"

"Thanks for the strawberries," he said, voice now tight as he pushed himself away from the table and stalked out of the cafeteria. Kaia watched helplessly as he walked off. Had she said something wrong? Was he seriously that irritated by someone recognizing that the great Satoru Gojo was injured? What was she supposed to do? Not act like he looked like he was about to keel over? Was that it? Would that have saved his precious little ego?

"What the hell," Kaia demanded.

"Don't mind him. He's just not used to people worrying about him," Geto said. He offered Kaia a small, but kind smile.

She sighed and ran her hand through her hair.

"What about you? Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," he said as he continued to wear that tired smile. "I should check on Satoru though. Please excuse me."

He was gone after that and then it was just Shoko and Kaia alone again. As soon as he was gone Shoko groaned and rubbed her eyes.

"I tried my best to heal them. I really did. But they were both in such bad shape—Satoru especially. I think he used reverse cursed technique on himself because otherwise, he would be dead. I'm really worried about them, Kaia."

Kaia pursed her lips into a thin line and reached across the table to touch Shoko's hand.

"They'll be okay. They're the strongest. They just need to recover from their bruised egos," she tried with a weak smile.

"Yeah. I guess."

"You probably should keep a careful watch on them though. I don't think they'll let anyone else get close. You're like a sister to them, right?" Kaia asked. She was fairly certain it was true. The three of them were in the same year and there was an unspoken bond that was born amongst classmates. As much as Ijichi, Haibara, and Nanami could drive Kaia insane, she loved them dearly and would do anything for them, and she knew that went both ways. Surely, Shoko felt the same way with her classmates.

"I used to think so but they're acting so weird. I know I'm not as strong as them, but I have my own value," she said. She pouted her lips and looked at the floor as she tapped her fingers on the table.

"Shoko, I hate to break it to you, but you're probably the most valuable person at the school. I don't know any other sorcerers that can heal people the way you can," Kaia pointed out when her roommate refused to lighten up.

"I guess that's true," she hummed. She tucked her short hair behind her ears and looked Kaia in the eye after she cleared her throat. "Any plans for the summer break? I think Gojo and Geto are staying here. You?"

"Nah, I'm going home. I miss my family. I actually have to get going soon, but I was hoping to see Nanami and Haibara first. What about you?" Kaia said as she picked at her remaining fruit.

"I'm going to go home for a week and then come right back. I need to get back soon and keep working on my reverse cursed technique," she said. She still frowned and fiddled around with her tea. Kaia wished there was something she could do or say to make her friend feel better, but it was clear Shoko was just going to need some time.

"Hey, I'm going to try and find some of the others before I get going. I'll see you in a few weeks, okay?" Kaia tried.

Shoko looked at her and smiled without it reaching her eyes.

"Definitely. Have a safe trip home. Hopefully, they'll have fixed the girls' dorms by the time you get back."

Kaia said goodbye and returned to her dorm to grab the small duffle she had of personal belongings. She checked her watch and saw she had a little over an hour to make it to the station. She was quick to check the common room and cafeteria for her friends, but they weren't there. Frowning, Kaia decided she'd check the boys' dorm. It was on the way out anyway. It would suck if she couldn't at least say goodbye to Nanami, even if it was only for a few weeks.

As she turned down the hall that led to the boys' dorms, she ran face first into the main person she'd been looking for.

"Ow!" Kaia whined, rubbing her forehead. "God. You're built like a brick wall, Nanami."

"And you're not? I think you've got more definition in your abs than I do."

"I appreciate that," she said. She shot Nanami a grin and readjusted her duffle. "I was coming to say bye you to guys before I head out. You just wake up or something?"

Nanami shrugged and fell into step next to her, walking away from the dorms and heading for the main hallway that led to both the common room and cafeteria.

"No, I went for a morning run and needed to shower. Haibara stayed up late last night, so he's still sleeping and Ijichi went somewhere earlier. No clue where though."

"Noted. Well, say bye to them for me. Try not to miss me too much over break," she said casually.

"Will you be gone the whole time?" he asked, looking at her over his shoulder.

"I think so. My sister starts college soon and I don't know how often I'll see her after that. And I was hoping to spend time training with my parents again. My mom's a better trainer than Yaga could ever be and my dad… Well, I was hoping he could help me with my cursed technique."

"Makes sense. I think I'll actually be here the whole time," he said. He nodded at her and said an easy, "but if you get bored, give me a call. I know I'll be bored out of my mind here. It sounds like it's just going to be me, Gojo, and Ijichi."

"Really? Ieiri said Geto might be staying too."

"I think he was planning to, but after the mission he wants to see his parents," Nanami said under his breath, like he didn't want to talk about Gojo and Geto's failure too loudly. She understood.

"Makes sense. You could always come out and visit me too. Bring Haibara. Contrary to what that freaky ass house in Okinawa may suggest, my family is actually pretty normal."

Nanami smiled at her and patted her on the back.

"I say this with nothing but love, Murakami, but I don't believe you."

She laughed and playfully shoved his arm.

"Whatever! Have fun with Ijichi all break, Jerk!"

He kept that smile on his face as she made her way over to the main door of the school, waving goodbye and telling her to be safe. She'd miss her friends but she was ready for a break and to spend time with her family again.

Home sweet home here she came.

Kaito Murakami felt the grin on his face stretch from ear to ear when his youngest daughter walked through the front door of the house. He got to her before anyone else did and he wasted no time wrapping an arm around her shoulders and hugging her close to his chest. She laughed and hugged back, squeezing tighter than he thought she was capable of.

"Welcome home, Sweetheart," he said.

"Thanks, Dad."

"Kaia!"

Kaito released his daughter when Maha barreled into the room and yanked Kaia into a backbreaking hug. She babbled about how she didn't know if Kaia was going to come home for summer break and how happy she was to see her little sister before going to college, but then she stopped when Ren lingered in the threshold between the kitchen and dining room.

Ren's green eyes were bright and she had a bittersweet smile on her pale face as she looked at the scene.

"Hi, Kaia. I'm so—"

Just as Maha had barreled into Kaia, Kaia barreled into Ren. She held her mother tightly and buried her face in her shoulder, mumbling out soft, half-broken apologies about how terribly sorry she was for ignoring her for so long. Kaito watched quietly from where he leaned against the sink as his wife's eyes watered and she apologized back and peppered kisses on top of Kaia's head.

He still didn't know what happened in Okinawa, but it must have really shaken her to make her act this way. Kaia always loved her family, but this display of affection wasn't common for her. Even more, setting her stubbornness aside to apologize was also unlike her. Whatever she experienced must have truly terrified her.

"I wasn't expecting you home for another day or so," Kaito said after Ren released their daughter.

"Yeah, things have been a little weird at the school since—uh. Nevermind. I'm not sure if I'm supposed to mention that," she said, wearing an all too familiar sheepish smile.

Kaito chuckled and shook his head.

"It's okay. We already know about the star plasma vessel. I'm surprised the mission was a failure since Satoru Gojo was on it," he said.

"The boy with cursed manipulation was on it as well, right?" Ren asked.

Kaia nodded and said a soft, "yeah. That's Suguru Geto. They almost died actually. I don't know what happened, but Gojo was in really rough shape this morning and he was acting weird. Well, I mean. Weirder than normal for him."

"So you are friends with the Gojo boy," Ren hummed. She shot a smirk at Kaito and he held back the urge to scoff. "Powerful ally to have on your side."

Much to Kaito's relief, his daughter's lip immediately curled.

"We're not friends. He's insufferable," she deadpanned.

"Can't be that insufferable if he came all the way out here to save your life," Maha teased. She winked at Kaia as she said it and Kaito found himself frowning once again. He didn't like what his wife and eldest were insinuating. Not one bit.

"Yeah, because he has freakish godlike powers and Yaga told him to," Kaia muttered. "Can we not talk about Gojo? I have to put up with him enough at school as it is. I'd like to pretend he doesn't exist while I'm home."

"Fair enough. Come on, I have something I want to show you," Maha said. She grabbed Kaia's hand and dragged her out of the room, leaving Kaito alone with his wife. He continued to lean against the sink and could feel the counter dig into his low back. He crossed his arms and stared Ren down, knowing full well that he was pouting the same way his daughters did when they didn't get something they wanted.

"What?" Ren asked with a laugh that made it obvious she knew damn well why Kaito was looking at her the way that he was.

"I don't like what you're insinuating," he said quietly. He didn't want to risk Kaia overhearing them even though he was relatively certain she was out of earshot.

"I'm not insinuating anything," she said, voice shooting up an octave.

"No? Nothing at all?"

She sighed but kept a big smile on her face as she closed the gap between them so she was directly in front of him with her arms casually laced around his neck.

"Kaito," she hummed. "Satoru Gojo is one hell of an ally. You know that. He's the boy with Six Eyes."

Despite the fact that he was pouting and despite the growing displeasure in his gut, Kaito indulged Ren and rested his hands around her waist.

"You're right. He is quite the ally and I'm fine with that. I'm fine with him just being an ally," he said in a low voice.

Ren chuckled and shook her head.

"What do you think I'm getting at?"

"I think you're getting at climbing the jujutsu social ladder. I think you're suggesting that Kaia pursue something with the boy in hopes of elevating her status, and by proxy, the family's status," Kaito said without missing a beat.

"Kaito. Darling. Love," Ren drawled sarcastically. "I say this because I care about you and our family, but there is not a damn thing on the face of this planet that could elevate the Murakami name. Nothing. All of jujutsu society thinks that we're untouchables and that's that. But…"

"But?" Kaito repeated, feeling his brow furrow.

"But Kaia aligning herself with Satoru Gojo could only help. And if say, oh I don't know. A marriage occurred—"

A sound that was some sort of cross between a choke, a gasp, a snort, and a sob came out of the back of Kaito's throat but Ren continued anyway.

"—Then that would be just fine! I would dare say that it would even be good for us!"

"We're not doing this. Leave it alone, Ren. I mean it," he said lowly.

She rolled her eyes and said a bored, "fine. Just something to keep in the back of your mind."

He pulled away with a shake of his head. He would do no such thing.

Kaia panted and wiped away the sweat that beaded along her hairline. The air was hot in the courtyard despite being shaded by trees, and the insects buzzed all around her in the most irritating manner possible. She rested her hands on her knees and tried to catch her breath, muscles sore from the circuit training her mother had just put her through. Missions had nothing on Ren Murakami's training programs. Nothing left her more exhausted than an extended workout session spearheaded by her mother.

"You're out of shape," Ren drawled. Her green eyes were sharp as they focused on where Kaia was laboring for breath. "What on Earth have you been doing all term?"

"Missions," Kaia mumbled.

"Mm. And you're only a Grade 3 sorcerer, which means your missions aren't particularly challenging. No wonder you're so out of shape. I don't know how you expect to get promoted without being in peak physical condition."

"Yes, Mother," Kaia said as her mother continued to reprimand her for not being more on top of her physical fitness. She tuned her out as the rant went on and on, picking at her fingernails and twirling a lock of hair around her finger. But then her mother's lecture was cut short by her father joining them in the courtyard.

"Give it a rest, Ren. She's not listening anyway," her father said. He nodded at Kaia. "You're gonna do some training with me, Kiddo."

Kaia's brow quirked and she exchanged a glance with her mother. That was unusual.

"Really?" she asked.

"Really. I know Yaga thinks you lack control and I'm inclined to believe him," her father said.

Kaia sighed in the most dramatic way possible as her mother's voice echoed behind her, scolding her for being so weak in such a critical area of jujutsu sorcery. She couldn't get a break, could she?

"I've gotten better!" Kaia whined, pain shooting up her ear as her mother tugged hard on her lobe before going up the stairs into the house. She muttered to herself the whole way up about stubborn daughters and annoying husbands.

Her father smiled fondly despite her mother's irritated words and waved Kaia to come closer to him. He was in a pair of joggers and a white t-shirt, so unlike his usual attire of slacks and button-downs. He must have really been planning on kicking her ass.

Kaia obliged and stood in front of him with her arms crossed, whole body still burning from the last circuit she'd done.

"What?" she asked.

"I know you say you've gotten better and I actually believe that. But I'm willing to bet that you're only better with your cursed fire. That right?"

She bit down on the back of her bottom lip and nodded. She didn't like where this was going.

"Well, that's good. Your cursed fire can be devastating if you don't have a good handle on it, but that's something your mother can help you with. I want to help you with your other technique."

She was going to be sick.

"No, Dad. Please. I don't want—"

"I know it's hard and I know it's scary, but you've inherited an incredible technique that will serve you well if you can just tap into it. If my father could do it, then there's no reason why you can't."

That horrible vision she had back in Okinawa played itself on the back of her eyelids. The scene of the little boy with copper hair and the man beside him possessed by the clan's technique in front of that disgusting pond. She found herself furiously shaking her head without even realizing it.

"But did your father master control of the technique because he prayed at those shrines?" she blurted.

Her father's eyes widened in surprise.

"Kaia…"

"I was in Okinawa. I saw the shrines and the artwork in the house. Did you try to destroy one and hide the evidence in your closet? Because I saw it. There were four on the grounds. Four. One of them was in a cemetery. That's not normal, Dad. Especially not for someone as superstitious as you."

Her father grabbed her shoulders tightly and leaned down to look her directly in the eye with big brown irises.

"Listen to me," he said firmly. "I want you to forget everything you saw there. The shrines, the art, the house—everything. There is nothing of value there, Kaia. Nothing at all. Thinking about that place will only bring you pain. You don't need those ridiculous shrines to master your technique. And you certainly don't need to pray to anything. You just need to rely on yourself and your sense of control."

She swallowed the dry lump in her throat and nodded. She doubted that she would ever be able to forget what she'd seen in Okinawa, but she would try for her father's sake.

"All right," she said quietly.

"Good," he said. He let go of her and crossed his arms. "I want you to ground yourself as much as you possibly can. Think of Maha, your friends at school, whatever you have to do that keeps you grounded in reality. Even thinking of Yaga's detentions might be a good idea."

She blinked dumbly and gave him a sheepish smile.

"Yeah, I know all about the detentions."

"Sorry," she squeaked.

"Mhm," he hummed, clearly not believing her. "Regardless, think about all of those things. Even the uncomfortable or humbling moments. Maybe a moment you needed to rely on one of your classmates to help you out of a bad situation. Okay?"

She closed her eyes and did as instructed. First, she thought of Maha. She thought of all the times she'd stolen her sister's clothes, their endless bickering, and late nights spent talking about boys and gossip. Then she thought of Nanami and the missions they'd gone on together and the comfort she always felt when they'd been assigned as partners. She thought of Haibara and his stupid endless smiles, and she thought of Shoko and the smell of her cigarettes first thing in the morning. And surprisingly enough, she thought of detention with Gojo and the way he'd been so amused by the cursed corpses despite them kicking his ass.

"Okay, now I want you to activate your cursed moon technique but keep thinking of all those things as it comes over you."

Her stomach churned in fear. She didn't want to do it but she told herself everything would be just fine. The few times she'd purposefully activated her cursed technique was when her father was around, and he had always been able to bring her back.

She swallowed her fear and activated her cursed moon technique.

That terrible coldness washed over her. It was akin to diving into a cold pool, only worse somehow. Worse because the sensation wasn't entirely unpleasant. It actually felt good on her sore muscles, but it was so awful because she knew she would lose herself.

She could feel her consciousness slipping away from her.

"Ground yourself, Kaia," her father said, though his voice sounded so far away.

She did. She pictured Maha and Nanami. Smelled Shoko's cigarettes and heard Haibara's laughter.

She hung on a bit longer, consciousness still just barely within her grasp.

"Good. Now open your eyes," her father instructed.

She did as told, bracing herself for the oversaturated world that awaited her behind the eyes of her cursed moon technique. Only when she opened her eyes, she saw none of that. No trees of the courtyard, no house on the hill, no father nearby.

Instead, she saw infinity.

The breath was knocked right from her chest. She saw everything, but it wasn't enough. It was incomplete. It was missing something. Or rather, it was missing a person.

Gojo. It was missing Gojo.

Pain bloomed behind her eyes and she yelped, hands going to her head and squeezing it as if that could make it all stop.

"Kaia?" her father asked. "Ground yourself."

She couldn't. It was too much. She was on the edge of infinity. Whatever the hell it was that possessed her when she activated her technique was fixated on Gojo's domain. It couldn't let go of the unlimited void. It wanted more. Wanted everything.

It wanted him.

She felt tears slide down her cheeks from the pain in her skull. Her head was going to explode. She couldn't bear it any longer.

"Kaia, come back to me, Sweetheart," her father's gentle voice called out to her.

The magic words worked. The relief, comfort, and familiarity of the words from her father and her parents' longstanding pet name for her broke the spell. The thing behind her cursed moon technique left her and she could breathe again, pain in her head gone. When she blinked the world around her into existence, she saw a bright blue sky and her father's frame above her.

"You okay? You were doing so well," he said softly.

Kaia nodded and pushed herself up from the ground.

"Sorry, I need a minute," she said.

She didn't wait for permission to leave and instead booked it up the stairs of her house and made a beeline for Maha's room, hurrying through the kitchen and narrow hallway. She shoved the door shut once inside, not even bothering to say anything to her sister who was seated at her computer.

"Kaia?" Maha asked, voice hitching in confusion.

Maha's room was cleaner than Kaia's and composed of monochromatic grays and light wooden furniture. It was more calming to be in Maha's room than it was to be in Kaia's, what with all the obnoxious purples in Kaia's room, but that wasn't why she was in there. She was in there because Maha had a phone in her room. And between using the phone in the kitchen where anyone could hear her and using the phone in Maha's room, the choice was clear.

"What are you doing?" her sister asked when Kaia hadn't responded.

"Sorry, just give me a second," Kaia said. She picked up the phone and dialed the number she memorized her first week at school and patiently waited for an answer.

Which thankfully only took half of a ring.

"Hello?"

"Sho!" Kaia said in relief. "It's Kaia. Are you still at school?"

"Oh, hey! Yeah, I'm here. Why? What's up? Coming back so soon?" Shoko's voice was easy going and she seemed out of breath, almost like she was preoccupied, and Kaia could imagine that she was smoking.

"Please tell me you're with Gojo," she said right away.

"Uh, not yet. I was going to grab lunch with him in a bit. Why?"

"Could you find him now? I need to talk to him," Kaia said. She pinched the bridge of her nose and imagined the pain behind her eyes.

"I don't know where he is and it could take some time to find him. But I could give you his number instead?" Shoko asked, exhaling what Kaia guessed what cigarette smoke.

"That would be great. Thanks," Kaia said.

Shoko gave her the number and Kaia wrote it down on a blue sticky note sitting on Maha's white computer desk.

"You gonna tell me what's going on?" Shoko asked.

"I'll tell you when I get back," Kaia said. "Thanks again."

She hung up and did her best to ignore the curious look on her sister's face. Maha said nothing, but her eyes were narrowed in suspicion, her legs were crossed, and she interlaced her fingers in her lap as she watched Kaia's every movement. Kaia didn't let it deter her though. She could handle Maha better than she could handle her parents anyway.

She dialed Gojo's number and sat on the floor, propping her knees up and leaning her elbows on them as she waited.

Ring! Ring! Ring! Ri—

"Hello?" Gojo's smooth voice filled her ears and Kaia couldn't deny the overwhelming sense of relief she felt.

"Hey, it's Murakami. Do you have a minute?"

There was a long pause before he responded and Kaia honestly wondered if the bastard had hung up on her.

"…Hello?" she pushed, about ready to hang up and redial him.

"Murakami! Where'd you get my number? Missed me so much you couldn't even go one day without me?" he teased.

Kaia rolled her eyes so hard that they damn near went into the back of her head.

"I'm ignoring that. I need to talk to you," she said quickly. "What the hell did you do to me?"

"I don't follow," was all he said.

"I mean your domain. I tried to activate my cursed moon technique today and when I did everything got weird and all I could see were scraps of your infinite void," she said quietly, turning to the side so she didn't have to deal with Maha's watchful eye.

"Really? Damn, that's hilarious," he drawled between breathy laughs.

"Gojo!" she hissed. "It isn't funny!"

"I mean, it's a little funny."

"Not helping!"

"Oh, relax. I'm sure it's fine. Little weird though since I haven't used my domain on you in months," Gojo said. He sounded supremely unbothered and she could just imagine that stupid smirk on his face.

"Seriously? That's it? That's all you have to say?"

"Well, I don't know what you want me to do about it, Doll. You're kinda far away and last time I teleported that far, I fell asleep on your floor. I'm sure it's fine," he said, yawning at the end.

Her cheeks flushed.

"What did you just call me?"

"Doll. Did you prefer something else? Maybe princess? Or babe? Oh, I know. What about kitten?"

"God, I hate you," she groaned.

"Keep telling yourself that. We'll see what's going on with your technique in a few weeks when you get back to school. Sound good, Bunny?"

"Don't call me that!" she shrieked, spare hand flying up to her face that she could feel was beet red. Even the tops of her ears felt warm.

"Ooh, you like that one, huh? Noted."

She scoffed and slammed the phone on the receiver as hard as she possibly could, gritting her teeth so hard that she might as well have cracked a tooth. Her face was still hot and her heart was still fluttering around in her ribcage when she summoned enough courage to finally look at Maha.

Her sister's brows were delicately raised and the corner of her mouth curled upward in an all-knowing smirk.

"What was that?" she asked.

"It was Satoru Gojo being an insufferable jackass is what it was!" Kaia said, though she knew her blushing face did nothing to deter whatever the hell it was that Maha was thinking.

"Uh-huh. Because I have never seen you get flustered over a boy like that before," she said, her smirk steadily morphing into a grin.

"It's not like that," Kaia complained. She pushed her hair back when she finally felt her face start to cool off. "And you've never seen me flustered over a boy because I've never really even talked to a boy before."

"That's not true," she said.

"Right, the last boy you saw me with was Reiji and we saw how well that worked out," Kaia said, words leaving her mouth before she could think any better of it.

She realized she fucked up the minute she looked at her sister and the smile was wiped clean off her face. Kaia held her breath and wished she could go back in time or grab all of the words out of the air and shove them back in her mouth but it was too late.

"Wait, Maha, I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by that. It just—"

"No, I understand," Maha said, face still crestfallen. "So there was a problem with your cursed technique?"

She hesitated, still feeling awful. "…Yeah. I don't know what's going on, but for some reason when I used it, all I could see were scraps of Gojo's domain—which isn't normal, by the way."

"That's weird. Did you tell Dad?"

"Absolutely not. He'd lose his shit," Kaia said. She continued to mess with her hair, shoving it out of her face and twisting it around her fingers. Her mind was moving a million miles a minute and she just needed it to slow down. She pulled her legs to her chest and rested her chin on her knee as she looked at Maha.

"What were you doing before I barged in here? Looking at colleges?" she asked.

Maha's pretty brown eyes twinkled.

"I was looking at prices for a flight between here and Trinidad," she said.

Kaia blinked and then burst into laughter, pain in her head and anxiety around her cursed technique evaporating.

"You and this Trinidad obsession!" Kaia said between bouts of laughter.

Maha didn't even look embarrassed. She simply shrugged and waved Kaia over to help her look at plane tickets with her. And for a few blissful minutes, everything was normal and dreadfully perfect.

Kaia dreamt of the same house. The dilapidated one with peeling paint and narrow hallways. The same lullaby played in the distance, the old woman singing a baby to sleep, telling a tale of a mother going away and a father going to stay.

The ugly stench of rotting meat filled her nostrils just like last time. She winced against it and pulled her shirt above her nose to protect against the smell. The house closed in around her until all she could see were wooden floors and tight hallways that seemed to disintegrate when her hands touched them.

Her bare feet squelched as she walked across a thick liquid into the main area of the house. She tasted a metallic tang on the back of her tongue the further she walked. The lullaby got louder as she continued to put one foot in front of the other until it blared against her eardrums as she stood in the middle of an empty room with a single chair in it.

Tears sprang to Kaia's eyes. She didn't want to see the person in the chair. She didn't want to see the lifeless corpse but her legs carried her onward of their own will.

She shook her head as tears fogged her vision. The old woman singing until she thought her skull would explode.

"No—" she whimpered, legs walking her around the chair until she stood in front of the figure, feet coated in thick, sticky blood.

Her voice died at the top of her lungs.

The figure was illuminated only by a single beam of moonlight, but it was all Kaia needed to recognize the person in the chair.

It was her.

Her auburn hair was plastered to her forehead in sweat, her lifeless green eyes stared into nothing, and her limp body slouched in the chair until her hands touched the blood-soaked floor.

A hot, unbearable stinging sensation bloomed at the hollow of Kaia's throat the longer she looked at her corpse. Her hand shot to her neck in disbelief as her eyes focused on the ugly gash in the middle of the body's throat. Her neck had been cut from ear to ear, and rich red blood stained the front of Kaia's shirt.

The pain worsened in her throat and when she pulled her hand away, she saw it was now coated in her own blood, shiny in the moonlight.

She screamed.

Oh, how she screamed and screamed and—

"Kaia!"

Kaia choked on sweet oxygen and grabbed her neck with both hands, searching for any damage to her throat. She felt around for wet, sticky blood but her fingers were dry and she felt no pain anymore.

"Kaia! Sweetheart, it was just a nightmare."

Kaia blinked as her light was flicked on and her mother came into view, dark hair pulled back into a messy ponytail. She sat on the edge of her bed and held her shoulders, looking intensely at where Kaia was still touching her neck.

"Oh. Sorry," she said as she took in a sharp breath.

"Are you all right? You've never had nightmares like that before," her mother said gently, tucking Kaia's hair behind her ear.

"I'm okay," Kaia deflected. "Go back to bed, Mom."

Her mother hesitated but nodded and eventually left Kaia alone again. She sighed and settled deeper into her bed, rubbing her neck. She didn't know what the hell those dreams were or why they were suddenly plaguing her, but she hoped that's all they were. Dreams and nothing else.

Kaia forced herself to go back to sleep and thankfully dreamt of nothing but blackness.

Author's note

Leave some feedback with a review if you're able! Always the highlight of my day when they show up(: see y'all next week!