Chapter 4: Galactic Mermaid


Somewhere in Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College.

Deep inside a temple, in a room only the chosen few can enter was a large shoin room. On the center was a long low table with five cushioned seats on each side, moderately distanced with its neighbors. The other end served as its entrance while the further end contained a translucent partition, a byobu. On each side of the partition were three candle lamps of descending lengths, the brightest source of light in the otherwise dimly lit room.

The shadow of the person sitting on the other side of the byobu could be seen.

"Welcome." The shadow began. A man's voice ripened with age, it was as soft as it was subtly commanding. "I am pleased you've all come despite the short notice."

He addressed the ten attendees. Two were the principals of the two branches of Jujutsu College.

On his left. Gakuganji Yoshinobu. Principal, Kyoto Metropolitan Curse Technical College.

On his right. Yaga Masamichi. Principal, Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College.

Beside Yoshinobu was two of the Gosanke, the representative of the Kamo family and the Zen'in family head, Zen'in Naobito.

On the other side, near Masamichi was the head of the Gojo family, Gojo Satoru.

It was fascinating, he thought, that of the five reputable clans, three had sat themselves beside the Gojo boy. Perhaps, it was due to the limited sitting arrangement or perhaps it was because of their affiliation. For one, the Inumaki representative acquainted himself with Satoru without any hesitation.

The dichotomy of perspective had never been so obvious at this moment. He wondered how they would act in the face of the upcoming revelation. Would they let go of their differences and stand in a united front or would the fragile peace between the powerful clans become even more delicate and fracture completely?

"I have called you here for one important discussion of a matter, that of which previously known only by seven."

Gakuganji Yoshinobu's drooped eyebrows rose.

"Of the seven, Master Tengen is one."

Zen'in Naobito laid his gourd, sobering.

"Two are dead."

Behind his sunglasses, Yaga Masamichi's eyes narrowed.

"And of the living four, I was given the privilege of passing on our greatest secret. One we all once vowed to take to our graves."

Gojo Satoru, who was slouching, leaned on the table.

"We have all decided to pass on this knowledge to a select few and so we are here. I hope you will not abuse this sign of trust."

Satoru called it bullshit. That old man invited Jujutsu High's principals, that alone assured the information was not meant to be classified. With the addition of the Gosanke and well-known sorcerer families, anything he'd say was good as a public announcement.

Yet Satoru did not take this opportunity to mock. He held his silence. Of all the Higher Ups, he was the only one Satoru could not talk back to. He was half of an ally mainly for what he doesn't say or do in light of Satoru's progressive views. When the unstated de facto leader of the highest authoritarian body of the Jujutsu society was not protesting, few dared to point otherwise. The old man might not be the strongest but the weight of his words carried the repercussions Satoru desired to affect.

But of all the Higher Ups, he was definitely someone Satoru does not want to become when he grew old. That old man was extremely melancholic it drove the younger him nuts.

"From this moment on, the world you know is forever changed."


"You sang near Shiodome, didn't you?"

"Yep!"

"Did you know one of them investigated because of that?"

"No," Mari dragged the O as she rummaged her memory, "Nope." Just as soon as she popped the word, a suspicion sank.

"You encounted a sorcerer, didn't you?"

"Yep!" When it mattered, Mari was honest.

Atsushi palmed his face and groaned. "We were so good at hiding our tracks until you came along. Can I send you away?"

Mari eyes teared up, "you don't want me anymore?"

"I never wanted you in the first place."

"Ugh." Mari staggered and fainted on the chaise lounge sofa. "Hirocchi," she wailed, "you won't throw me away, would you?"

Hiroki, Atsushi's older identical twin but the total opposite in manners and style, laughed on his spot near the floor to ceiling glass window. The Tokyo skyline sparkled like stars as the city welcomed the night.

"It can't be helped. Sooner or later, we would be discovered." Hiroki's curtain bangs shadowed his face. "The last report from the team in Hokkaido was a bust."

Mari met Hiroki's brown eyes across the room. "We need their cooperation. The Calamity Spirits had awakened and it is on the move, not that the latter is our responsibility. Still, we are surrounded." He slowly reasoned. "It would complicate things further if they discovered the Calamity Spirits first. Besides, using their innate offensive abilities would make our task easier."

"Tch." Atsushi harrumphed.

"So," Mari clapped her hands, "You could say me meeting up with one of them is destiny!"

"No, you messed up." Hiroki shot down. "Sorry, sis."

Atsushi who was leaning on a bar top guffawed.

"You guys are ganging up on me two to one, huh. Well, not that you're wrong." Mari stopped her theatrics. "I admit on my error." She held her palms up. "No excuses. I was bored and wanted to have fun with everyone."

"Look," Atsushi began pacing, "I don't have a problem with you doing what you do best but really, Mari-neechan." He stopped in front of her. "Gojo Satoru?"

Mari blinked, "Ooooooh." Then, she shut up. How far Atsushi's information went, she didn't know. The best way to keep one's cards hidden was to keep silence. Unnecessary information always unveiled the desperate secrets people feared to share.

"Gojo Satoru?" Hiroki's eyebrow scrunched.

"Yes." Atsushi tapped his foot with his arms crossed. "He was sighted around the area the day after Mari-neechan's performance."

"So?" Mari and Hiroki asked at the same time.

"He may be the strongest," Hiroki was calm when he explained, "but if he isn't aware of our existence he'd only chuck it up to the overly fantastical imagination of an observer. To them, Jujutsu sorcerers, we are nothing more than humans."


"The case of Club Erato in Shiodome," Satoru pointed out while balancing the back ends of the chair he was sitting on, "is a great example, I believe."

Masamichi clasped his fingers deep in thought.

Ijichi hesitated, "the report on the heavenly light?"

Five heads swiveled in varying expressions of intrigue. Ijichi lowered his eyes and desperately controlled the urge to wiggle his butt because for one, it would be an embarassment, and two, he was standing.

"I reread the report of the Window and," Ijichi sweated as he recounted, "he described the light as almost heavenly or airy like ah--"

"An enticement." Satoru finished and set the chair back straight.

Bang. A loud noise in a hushed room of colleagues.

"Covering all your senses and drowning you with sensations. Uwaa, how insidious." There was a tilt at the edge of Satoru's lips, a depreciating grin that prompted a question from another member in the room.

Nanami Kento who was leaning on an armchair asked, "did you get the chance to pinpoint the," he paused, even on his stoic face conflict could be detected, "user?"

Masamichi tapped the open folder on his table, never taking his eyes off Satoru. "His report concluded no anomalies."

Satoru shrugged. "That's before I knew there is something to look for."

"So, your Six Eyes failed you." Ieiri Shoko's raw observation beside Nanami brought heavy silence to the room.

An implication that the Gojo Satoru failed at a task, which happened albeit rarely such as that case of Master Tengen's vessel ten years ago, was bad news. If even the strongest Jujutsu sorcerer couldn't detect this new whatever this shit the Higher Ups dropped on their laps, then nobody could.

"Well, I did sense something," Satoru defended himself. He was sitting properly now but then he leaned forward, his elbows rested on his knees, his thumbs supported his chin while his fingertips met. "What it was, was not danger," he explained his thoughts on the night he met his fiery maiden. The fiery maiden he might possibly encounter again and maybe when he did see her, he'd be the one leaving a cheque behind.

Gojo Satoru was amused by the thought for some reason. "The sensation is similar to a concentrated cursed energy. For a non-user, the body could feel the tension in the air, even see the cursed spirit. It was like," he paused to emphasize his following words, "overwhelming euphoria. I won't explain what that is because you guys ain't virgins and ya get the gist--oh, I forgot about you Ijichi." Satoru cackled at the end.

"Satoru."

Satoru dropped his teasing and slumped on his chair, arms dangled on the sides. His long feet sprawled as he said, "it was harmless, nothing alarming so I didn't see anything suspicious to report but that was how it felt." And more, he silently added. However, that last part was private, intimate, and reek of vulnerability. Gojo Satoru would not admit that he had let himself be swept away, surrendered in a way he never had, all because he decided it was harmless. That he was safe.

"There is no use in grasping at straws especially with the breadcrumbs from Gojo's investigation." Nanami stood and fixed his suit. "I will put a team to investigate the club with the hallmarks presented to us. Frankly though, this group sounds troublesome. It is in everyone's best interest if they reach out to us first rather than us flushing them out. And from what the Higher Ups shared, they likely know who we are than we are them."

"Yes," Masamichi nodded. "Ijichi will prepare the materials to be distributed to all active Jujutsu sorcerers."

"This is the highest priority of all levels." Masamichi stood and announced. "Report any suspicious activities regarding the exorcism of cursed spirits. If such exorcisms were not caused by cursed energy, report immediately. It is most likely that the one responsible call themselves medium, users of positive energy."

"What a time to live in," Shoko's dry remark earned various forms of agreement.

Satoru stared at the ceiling. He'd been wishing it, a change in the way things were but he did not expect it would come in a way that would shake the very foundations of Jujutsu itself.

When Jujutsu sorcerers thought, Higher Ups included, that they were all that stood between humanity and certain doom, they were slapped with this new reality.

They were not the only ones protecting the world.

Talk about existential crisis, eh?

Masamichi's last command was, "Do not kill but do not hesitate to apprehend."


"Thank you very much," Atsushi bowed on the entrance of the sushi shop somewhere in Ginza district. He hefted the takeout and checked the time.

Four o'clock.

It took longer than expected. His favorite restaurant would be closed by the time he arrived there, better come back tomorrow.

He sighed and rummaged his pocket. He caught a candy with melon flavor, unwrapped and ate it. He frowned, the flavor was too mild for the stench that lingered on his taste buds.

A fairly strong curse was around.

He followed where his nose led him and when the urge to retch hit him he stopped. Atsushi moved his head side to side.

On his left, huh.

Atsushi sometimes didn't understand why he bothered to go where he won't be able to act. He supposed it was an instinct to seek out the problem and "cure" it. Yet, he could do nothing. His abilities lied on a different area and not the kind that can vanquish curses with a flick of a finger or a slash of the sword.

He wasn't a Jujutsu sorcerer, though at times he wished he was. Jujutsu sorcerers were the only ones who can exorcise curses with their abilities. Mediums don't have such advantage except when they were blessed to do so.

Atsushi stopped on a corner. There was a car in front and from the looks of it, a veil was in place.

The curse was being taken care of.

His help is definitely not needed now.

Atsushi stared at the gravel, torn between leaving and staying. The former would mean an earlier return to home while the latter meant a waste of time.

The choice was taken from him when he saw the veil lifting.

It was done.

Atsushi ran a hand on his hair, a nest of brown curls he couldn't tame so well unlike Hiroki could with his, and was turning to retrace his steps when a familiar voice called out his name.

"Kamiya-san?"

He froze.

With one hand on his pocket and his other hand clutching the take out, he faced the source.

"It is really you, Kamiya-san, fancy seeing you here. Do you make it a habit of passing dark and abandoned places?"

She was a woman of tall stature, with a fringe and a long black hair tied into a ponytail. Atsushi was of the opinion that she was more attractive without her glasses than with it but they were not close enough for him to comment. Even then, it was her choice, for reasons she wasn't required to share to him.

Besides, it was the confidence she oozed that attracted Atsushi to Zen'in Maki. Though his admiration was something he also kept in check. He was older than her by four years, after all.

"I was looking for a short cut," Atsushi replied with a slight grin, the dimple on his cheeks peeking out and transforming his delinquent look into an innocent flirt. He seldom smiled outside his familial circle so only select individuals knew he could have such a boyish expression on his usually pissed off face.

"And like I said last time, don't. You should go where the light is." Maki nodded at her companion, a boy of average height with a sweater covering the lower half of his face.

Inumaki Toge. From the Inumaki clan. Cursed Speech. Semi grade 1 Sorcerer.

Unlike Mari, Atsushi made it a point to know all active sorcerers not because he wanted to meddle but because he and his brother were in charge of Japan. It would be a grave mistake if he won't take into account the greater power they shared space with.

"I'll escort you back."

"No need, Maki-san. I'd feel bad holding you up from your business. Anyways, I'm older than you and a man. I think I'm safe."

"Nonsense." Maki neared him and patted his shoulder although he was taller than her by a few inches. "There are monsters in the dark who don't choose any gender or age."

"You've scared me so many times I've grown numb of them," Atsushi's dull reply made Maki smirk. "You should really heed my warnings, Kamiya-san. Not only am I doing it because it is dangerous but you're also one of the few I bother to warn."

"Yes, yes, I am truly grateful," Atsushi mumbled. There was a dip on his stomach, a fluttering which he didn't reveal outwardly. His facial expression remained bored.

In the middle of their walk, Maki suddenly said, "Kamiya-san, you know I have a twin sister, right?"

"Yes." They first met because he had mistaken her as Zen'in Mai.

"What do you think of her?"

"Huh?"

"That was too direct. Forget that. Instead, what do you think of tsundere girls?"

No matter how she phrased it, isn't the rationale behind still the same?

"I don't like your sister, if that's what you're asking." Atsushi was blunt. Mari did nag him to be honest in his opinion when it comes to relationships.

"I see." Maki was quiet. At last, they reached the main walkways. "When the time comes, I hope you won't play with her feelings."

Maki waved goodbye.

Atsushi watched her disappear on a bend.

"I won't."

Even if you didn't say it, I won't because she was your beloved twin sister though you don't wear your affections on your sleeve.

Avocado smoothie was the food Atsushi associated Maki with and when she mentioned her sister Mai, the taste of a slightly sweetened avocado shake would come to mind.

Ah, Atsushi suddenly craved an avocado smoothie. Should he dropped by a supermarket?

In the shadows, Maki waited for Atsushi to leave before following him on a safer distance. Her little spying actually commenced on a spur of the moment when she discovered Atsushi's presence near the exorcised building she and Toge were in.

The memo they received from Ijichi while on the way to the building had surfaced in her mind. Coupled with the almost coincidental meetings she had with Atsushi on curse-centric locations, a suspicion was born.

If her suspicions were incorrect, that would be best, if proven right, then she had no other choice but take him under custody. They sorely lack information and interrogating him would surely lend a wealth of knowledge they'd need to determine the threat level of these mediums.

Maki paused when her phone flashed, Gojo Satoru was calling.

Maki kept Atsushi's figure in her vision as she answered the blindfolded-baka's call.

"I heard you're following an interesting birdie." Satoru said by passing the greeting.

"Yes. I'm on his tail now."

"Great! What's this boy got to get you so hot?"

Maki's eyebrow twitched. "Nothing. However, in light with the upheaval lately, his actions were suspicious."

"Hmm, such as?"

"For one, he seemed to know a curse's location, especially the concentrated ones."

"He might be a potential Window."

"With no cursed energy present? Sensei, I believe you encountered one of these mediums recently, you be the judge." Maki was annoyed. "Still, I think Kamiya Atsushi requires a level of observation--"

"Wait, Kamiya?"

On the other side of the line, Satoru, who was lounging on his office with his feet on top of his desk, paused from scanning the document on his hand.

"Yes, Kamiya Atsushi."

"Heh, fascinating."

She was called Kamiya too.

"Where are you?"

"Subway. Transferring from Ginza line to Shimbashi."

"Shiodome."

"Yes?"

Satoru grinned. "You're going to Shiodome."

To go to Shiodome from Ginza, they had to ride the Ginza line and transfer to Shimbashi station. Yurikamome line's route passes Shiodome district.

It was a stretch but somehow his fiery maiden might still be in Shiodome and this Atsushi would lead them to her.

"Don't lose him, Maki. I'll be joining you."


:Writer's Notes:

Man, this is too sloooowww, I was planning on an under-10 chapters so I won't be tempted to drop the story but I was already writing Chapter 7 yet no end is in sight! Maybe this is why I hit a slump writing mid-chapter? I knew what I had in mind but the words just can't seem to fit so I decided, let's publish Chapter 4 and see what happens. I usually reread the chapter to be published and edited them on my own, peace if you still spot grammatical errors and if that puts you off, welp, I can't force you to continue, can I?

Now, we finally get to know what Mari-chan's kind is called and also some hints of their goal. I wonder, did it read like an info dump or just right? Let me hear your thoughts (and if you don't have any, that's fine too).

:The Playlist:

1. Galactic Mermaid - Carole & Tuesday anime ver.

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see you in the next chapter

thank you for reading!