Kyandi: Greetings everyone, I'm back and I bring with me my OC, Inari. Say hello, Inari.
Inari: I do not understand why, but if you insist. Hello Inari.
Kyandi: …That wasn't what I meant.
Inari: Then what was it?
Kyandi: Never mind. I love you and I know I'm the one that made you this way, but…you're clueless.
Inari: If you believe so.
Kyandi: I do. Anyway, we'll get right on into the chapter.
Inari: Chapter?
Kyandi: I'll explain later. Everyone, enjoy and review. Say the line I taught you, Inari.
Inari: Boys are from Mars; girls are from Venus. A girl has a vagina, and a boy has a pen –
Kyandi: Not that one.
Inari: Oh, right. When in doubt, pluck Gojou-sensei's nu –
Kyandi Definitely not that one!
Inari: I see. Kyandi-sama does not own Jujutsu Kaisen?
Kyandi: Perfect!
Chapter 2 Adjustment Period
As much as Gojou wanted to throw Inari and her fox companion directly into training with Yuuji, the first week after retrieving the girl saw them seeing to her health, which was far worse than Gojou had first thought. When she had said that Kyuubi was the only thing keeping her alive, she had meant it. She was horribly emaciated, her organs struggling to continue to work. The only good thing was her hydration levels, so it was just a matter of fattening her up and getting her back to functioning order.
They quickly found out how hard it was to do just that when her body quickly burned through any calories they fed her. Even when she slept most of the day, she burned through it as if it was nothing. For the first week, she remained on a constant stream of nutrient rich IV fluids.
Then there was her hygiene.
It took several baths before the orange color of her hair came through, bright and lush, and before they got a clear look at her fair skin. They discovered quickly that the girl's hair grew like wildfire. In order to deal with all the knots, they found, they cut it all off at chin length. By the end of the next night, it was dragging on the ground once more.
Gojou made the mistake of commenting on how she could grow like crazy that way, but couldn't heigh wise, patting her on the head like a child or pet.
It was how they found out that Inari's fangs were venomous.
Gojou spent the next four days throwing up after Inari managed to surprise him and bite him. Inari swore he would be fine for, while she couldn't stop her fangs' production of venom, she could adjust the output and level of toxicity. She had gone with one of her lower levels of strength. Not that Gojou felt any less sick for it.
As the days of that first week ticked by, Inari started to fill out a little more each day, her appearance improving as her health did. Soon, the girl was exploring everything she could in the limited space given to her, climbing over things like they were nothing and sniffing everything placed before her.
One such day, while they had lunch with Nanami, Yuuji commented on how she was like a little kid or animal, seeing the world for the first time. Inari ignored the comment in favor of the double helping of rice she had been given to try to fill her over growing appetite.
Kyuubi, who laid in a smaller form at her feet, raised his head. "Remember, cursed human, I raised her myself. She has a high intelligence and is always hungry to learn, but she lacks the common sense of humans because I, a cursed spirit, am not human and never cared to learn your ways. She knows all I know of humans, and, admittedly, despite my long existence, that is not much. What is common sense to us cursed spirits, is not the same as to what is common sense to you humans."
All eyes turned to Inari as the girl focused on chewing her food thoroughly. Swallowing the bite, she held out the now empty bowl to Gojou. "May I have seconds, please?"
"I did teach her proper manners, though. So many humans lack them these days." Kyuubi added, lowering his head once more.
For the next several days, Inari built strength, spending her days with Yuuji as he watched his movies and occasionally got punched by the corpse doll given to him by Gojou. When she wasn't there, she was with Gojou, the man putting her through exercises to slowly rebuild her stamina. With a constant stream of food and sleep, Inari recovered quickly, gaining more and more speed in her movements as she regained muscle and fat.
It became apparent that, though tiny, Inari moved like lightning and struck like it too, usually taking a chunk out of her target as she darted away. She'd had plenty of practice with her cursed techniques in the years of surviving on her own. To add to it, she thought much like an intelligent animal that had been caught in a corner.
Gojou was sure that she would make a good guard for Yuuji and a last resort precaution against Sukuna.
For a month, Gojou worked with Inari while Nanami taught her common sense lessons, not trusting Gojou to be the one to do it. Gojou took up calling Inari "Kit" as well, much to the small teenager's displeasure. When she tried to bite him again, she found she could only bite the air around his arm, chewing to no avail. With a huff, she declared that she hated him and spent the next hour under a table to avoid head pats and Gojou calling her adorable.
"One of these days, she's going to rip your throat out while you sleep." Nanami had warned Gojou as the blindfolded man tried to coax her out with the promise of treats.
"She won't do that. Will you, Kit?" Gojou asked, holding out a hand with a chocolate in it. Inari swiped at his hand with her claws, missing when he pulled it back. "It's not my fault that she's head pat height."
Gojou ducked to the side as Inari threw her show at him. "Go die. I'm not a child."
Nanami shook his head as he watched Gojou continue to try to get her to come out. "You should never have children."
A sentiment that Inari and Yuuji agreed with.
A month later, Gojou left Inari and Yuuji in the hands of Nanami while he handled business overseas. It was how Inari found herself standing before a movie theater with Yuuji and Nanami, sporting her new modified school uniform. Unlike Nobara's, Yuuji had been surprised to find that she had gone with shorts-like bottoms, a cropped and sleeveless version of the top, and toeless, calf-high boots over toeless, thigh-high stockings. Her hair had all been bundled into a bun and tied with a red ribbon. The only equipment she carried was a belt with two large pouches on the back. One contained paper talismans and the other writing utensils.
"It's a gruesome scene," Nanami warned when they stood before the door. "Are you two prepared?
"I can smell the blood from here." Inari replied.
Nanami nodded, leading them pass a couple of police officers. Inari noted the disapproving way one of them looked down at her and then up at Yuuji.
Do they know what I am, she inwardly asked Kyuubi.
No, Little One. Remember, even other sorcerers have a hard time telling until they see me.
Inari nodded to herself, speeding up to catch up with Nanami and Yuuji. In the hall outside the doors to the theatre room where their reported corpses lay, Nanami adjusted his glasses. "Can you see it? These are the remnants of cursed energy."
"Nah, I can't see it at all," Yuuji admitted bluntly.
"I can." Inari's eyes followed the trail of footprint-shape spots leading away from the scene of the crime. Raising her nose, she gave the air a sniff. "It smells faintly of the sewer."
Yuuji looked down at her, shocked. "Really? How come you can see, and I can't?"
"That's because you're not trying to see it and she is," Nanami told him. "Usually, we can confirm curses by sight like it's second nature to us. When you exercise technique, you leave traces behind. We call them "remnants". However, they're faint compared to things like cursed spirits. Please strain your eyes and look closely."
Yuuji focused harder, squinting his eyes before exclaiming as the footprints appeared before his eyes, too. "Oh! I can see it!"
"Of course. An independent man must be able to realize something's presence before seeing it. Migawari-chan did despite all her time isolated away in her cave," Nanami told him.
"You know, it would be nice if you could, like, give praise to encourage improvement or something." Yuuji complained.
"I don't praise or speak ill of people. I conform to the truth and judge by that. That is the way I am." Nanami gave Inari's head a single pat as he passed her. "Once upon a time, I thought society was the same, but…you don't need to hear that story, right? We'll follow the remnants."
Yuuji smacked a fist into the other palm. "Alright! Let's go all out!"
"No." Nanami instantly doused his enthusiasm. "If it can be done casually, let's do it casually."
Inari silently followed the two males, occasionally sniffing the air as they walked. Yuuji, ahead of her, turned to Nanami as they climbed stairs. "Nothing appeared on the surveillance camera, right?"
"Yes. Apart from the victims, there was only one boy." Nanami replied.
"So, the culprit is a cursed spirit?" Yuuji asked.
Inari took another sniff of the air as they reached the top of the steps. "I can certainly smell one's lingering scent here."
"It's not impossible that they boy did it, but identifying that boy is the police's – "
"Cursed energy."
Both Nanami and Yuuji turned at Inari's warning, following her eyes to where a cursed spirit stood across from them. Yuuji instantly moved to deal with it, but Nanami stopped him.
"Stop. I'll clean this one up. You two deal with that other one over there." Nanami gestured to another one behind them, half hidden behind a corner. "If you think you can't win against it, call me."
"Aren't you looking down on me a bit too much?" Yuuji fumed at the suggestion. "I can do it without Inari's help."
"It's not a matter of looking down on you or not. I'm an adult and you two are children. I have a duty to prioritize you over myself."
Inari wasn't sure she agreed with Nanami's statement, but she remained silent. When in doubt, say nothing. Not something Yuuji understood.
"If you're gonna treat me like a kid," Yuuji complained. "I'd rather you just look down on me."
"He can always do both." Yuuji shot Inari a glare, the girl confused as to what she did to deserve the look.
"You've escaped death many times." Nanami unbuttoned his suit jacket to give him access to his weapon. "But that doesn't mean you've become an adult. Finding more fallen hair on your pillow…your favorite stuffed bread disappearing from the convenience store…"
"What is a convenience store?" Inari questioned lowly.
Nanami continued as if he hadn't heard her question. "The accumulation of little despairs…that's what makes people adults." Inari's head tilted to the side as Nanami drew a seal wrapped weapon. "My technique can forcibly produce a weak point in whatever opponent I'm face with. Keep 7:3 as is. When it makes the target's length a line segment, if you're able to land an attack on that "point", it'll be a critical hit. I can inflict damage on things of a higher grade than me and if it's something with weak cursed energy, I can bisect it with this blunt sword. Are you listening?"
Yuuji and Inari looked back at Nanami, Yuuji snapping, "Ah! You were saying that to us?"
"Apparently, though I don't remember a word he said." Inari was only half paying attention.
"Is it okay to reveal that kind of stuff?" Yuuji asked.
"It's a technique that's okay to reveal and it's an opponent it's okay to reveal it to. And it's good if revealing it misleads the opponent, right?" Nanami kept his attention on the creature before him. "There's merit to it. The "contract" of "showing one's cards". Raises the effectiveness of the technique. Just like this."
Inari watched as Nanami effectively severed the legs from his target. Yuuji was too amazed by the technique that he almost forgot about his own. He quickly corrected his mistake, Inari just standing by to watch since he had been so sure he could do it without her. Her eyes traveled from one creature to the other. When Nanami approached his target to deliver the final blow, Inari approached him, reaching up to tug on his sleeve, bringing him to a stop.
Nanami glanced down at her. "What is it, Migawari-chan?"
"It's…odd. Look there." Inari pointed to one of the spirit's limbs.
Nanami followed her gesture, finding a watch latched into place there. Surprised by the discovery, he pulled his phone from his pocket to take a picture of it. He then turned to stop Yuuji before he could kill his own target.
Yuuji turned to look at him. "What is it this time?"
"Wait before you deliver your finishing blow!" Nanami ordered.
"Why is that?" Yuuji drew a blank on why he should.
Nanami held up his phone. "Look at this. I took a picture of my opponent."
Inari stared up at the phone curiously as Nanami showed Yuuji the picture. Both ignored Inari as she suspiciously poked the back of the phone with one claw.
"Isn't it impossible to take pictures of cursed spirits?" Yuuji asked as Inari tapped on the phone case.
"Please calm down and listen," Nanami told him, waving Inari's hand away. "What we are fighting…"
"They were humans." Inari finished.
With that horrifying revelation, they took the two creatures and returned to the school, leaving the now dead things for Ieiri to examine. When she was done, she gave them a call, Inari glaring over the side of the table at the device.
"They're humans. No…maybe it's best to say they're ex-humans." Ieiri told them. "They're the same as the three people in the movie theater. Their bodies were forcibly contorted with sorcery."
"If it's just that, I could have noticed it from the beginning." Nanami replied. "The two people we were fighting were filled with cursed energy, just like cursed spirits."
"That just sounds like an effect of the culprit's technique. There are traces of tampering around the brain stem. Disturbance of consciousness is likely…it was probably to produce a state of confusion. If they were even able to tamper with the brain, it's probably possible to reconstruct a human who can use cursed energy. Because the relationship between the brain and cursed energy, is still like a black box – unknown."
Both Nanami and Yuuji focused in on Inari as, like a cat cautious of something unknown, she carefully reached out to tap the phone, yanking back quick in case it tried to bite her. "How did you get her in that small slab?"
Yuuji would have laughed if he didn't feel so bad.
"Oh, right," Ieiri's voice sounded once more. "Is Itadori listening?"
"Ah, yeah," Yuuji pulled his attention from Inari.
"Loosely, their cause of death is shock from having their bodies contorted. You didn't kill them. Don't be mistaken by that. Ieiri assured him.
Inari's eyes turned to Yuuji as a little relief showed on his face. "Yes…" Nanami hung up then. "Either way, their deaths weigh heavily on me. Even so…this hobby is just too terrible."
"I have not spent much time around other humans, but even I can agree." Inari remarked as she picked up Nanami's phone to look it over.
Nanami looked between the two. Yuuji was openly upset and while Inari didn't show it on her face, the way her knuckles turned white as she gripped the phone, showed that she wasn't as unaffected as she seemed to be. They were both capable of feeling anger on behalf of those they didn't even know.
"The remnants themselves were a bluff…we must have been enticed." Nanami stood to his feet. "This person is skilled. It doesn't look like we'll finish this casually. Let's go all out."
"Yes!" Yuuji jumped to his feet, agreeing.
"Yuuji," Yuuji turned to Inari as she spoke. She held out a mint-green version of Nanami's phone. "Gojou-sensei gave me this. Can you show me how to work this witchcraft slab?"
Yuuji couldn't help a smile as he took the device to explain its most basics functions to her. While he did that, they met up with Ichiji to discuss their plan of action from there. Nanami tacked a map on the wall and begun to mark reported sights of remnants.
When he was done, he turned to them. "We've obtained reports of remnants with the help of a "window". They seem to be linked to recent cases of missing persons and unnatural deaths around the area. With this, we can narrow down the location of the culprit's hideout."
"If you had merely let me go, I could have tracked him down for you. I have a sharp nose and his scent." Inari pointed out from where she crouched on the bench next to Yuuji, her arms wrapped around her legs. "I already told you…he smelled like a sewer."
"No. You don't know enough about the outside world to navigate it discreetly," Nanami told her.
Inari frowned, though she couldn't argue his point. While she sulked, Yuuji perked up. "We can just step right in there, right?"
"No." Nanami gave a curt shake of his head. "There's still some uncertainty. I will continue my investigation, so I will give you and Migawari-chan a different job. The boy who was in the movie theater…Yoshino Junpei. It seems he's classmates with the victims. They attend the same school."
"And? I thought we agreed this was the work of a cursed spirit, not a human." Inari remarked.
"The surveillance cameras were placed only in the passageway you see on the screen, but, yes, from his appearance, I thought it was unlikely he'd be a curse specialist. However, since he's related to the victims, it's a different story." Nanami explained.
"Curse specialist?" Yuuji asked.
"A malignant sorcerer in other words," Nanami clarified. "Since I've entrusted the protocol to Ichiji-kun, I'll leave the investigation into Yoshino Junpei to the three of you. Migawari-chan," Inari looked up at him. "Try to keep the questions to a minimum if you will. We don't need you to overwhelm Ichiji-kun."
"I will try. I am still learning how to be a part of society," Inari replied, rising to her feet to hop off the bench and follow Yuuji and Ichiji. "Can we get something to eat? I am starving."
"You're always starving," Yuuji joked. "It's a wonder you're not fat as well as short."
Inari frowned at him. "What was that phrase Gojou-sensei taught me for when I'm displeased? Oh, right! Fu – "
Ichiji quickly covered her mouth, cutting her off. "How about we don't repeat anymore of what that man teaches you?"
Inari was clueless as she was dragged from the room, Yuuji calling for Nanami to be careful.
END
Kyandi: I really wanted to have you refer to the phone as "hocus pocus, witchcraft shit", but you wouldn't know the reference and you don't curse.
Inari: What reference?
Kyandi: I'll show you later. It's funny.
Inari: Alright.
Kyandi: Since the opening drug on too long, we'll cut it short here. Everyone, enjoy and review. Inari?
Inari: We will be back soon?
Kyandi: Perfect, Inari. Bye-bye, everyone!