2018

I sat back in my seat, stretching my arms over my head to ease tension in my back. The last 60 or so hours had been grueling, but worth it for the two days off in a row I'd earned. Being an EMT in a big city like Tokyo was a demanding job, but it was close enough to my dream career while disguising my abilities.

It turned out that Rio knew even less about the world outside my woods than I did, even at six. He'd simply assumed that healers still lived in their little cottages and people came to them for a miraculous recovery. I might just be the greatest healer of this age, but I couldn't share Rio's gift.

I plucked at my favorite sweater. It wasn't great for this mild weather, but it did go well with my bright red and gold tengu mask. I always wore this mask for Halloween, though the long-nosed mask was usually meant for boys. I would laugh if that were the only reason people mistook me for a kid, or worse, a guy.

Most people thought of me as an unusually willowy boy due to the fact that I'm barely 160 centimeters without many curves. Until I spoke, that is. I always just tried to shrug it off, there are things I love about this body. Sports had made me strong, and that I delighted in. I slid the mask onto my head without covering my face, and closed my eyes, waiting for the transfer in Shibuya Station.

My mini-nap aborted minutes later.

"Tori!" Rio hardly ever started conversations, but this time I knew why. I felt something. It felt like a skim of oil in a puddle, and I had just been dipped into it.

I looked around frantically, but most of the people on the train reacted like it was just any other Wednesday night. There were some who were frowning, and I was tempted to smile. I had never actually met anyone who was sensitive to spirits like I am. One passenger gaped open-mouthed. I braced myself.

"What the hell was that, Rio?" I thought furiously as I gathered my things, "Well?"

"A curtain." Rio's voice was low, and I was sure if he had the ability to stand next to me, he'd be frowning right along with the rest of them. "A barrier. I don't know more than that. Hopefully, it'll allow us to catch the next train and leave this place."

"If it doesn't?"

"A problem. When will we arrive?"

The train slowed, the LED signs showing that the Shibuya stop was next. "Now." I said it aloud, but quietly.

"Shit." Rio swore vehemently in my mind. "Try to get to your connection. It may still be nothing to worry yourself over."

The train slowed, and my eyes widened impossibly. I'd never, ever seen this many people jammed onto a platform, and once I took the train to Shibuya for Christmas Eve. I suddenly felt very ill, as if that barrier that we'd felt had done something more substantial.

"Pull on your mask, please. I have a bad feeling," Rio's voice sounded scared, and that frightened me more than anything. Nevertheless, I followed the suggestion as the train halted. I had the feeling I was not going to make it to the party.

Although the train had stopped, everyone seemed immobile. I stood and turned my head. My eyes glued to a boy in dark blue and red with sharp pink hair and an aura I could feel even inside the train.

"What is he?" I watched him dash away followed by a tall woman and a child. "Rio?"

"Tori. We have to go. Now. I don't know what the boy is exactly, but he feels like a cursed spirit. The others are definitely Jujutsu Sorcerers. If the curtain is their doing? We're in trouble." I started to fight my way to the doors, pushing and cursing the people who were colliding in thier panic.

At the doors, I moved a staring woman out of my way, exiting the train. People swarmed the platform, most in costume, making it a scene from a nightmare. "Now what? What's going on, Rio?"

"Get as far from people as you can, the barrier will probably let you know if you may not go past it. We're going to leave if we can." Rio's voice had changed; it was hard and confident. He was trying to make me feel better, and I appreciated it, but I had been tossed head first into a pool, and I had no way to make heads or tails of the situation. "As to what is going on…" Rio's confidence faltered, "I have no idea, Tori. We have much to discuss, but my priority is leaving here, both of us alive. I need you to find a spot out of the way of prying eyes where you can cast a shadow. I will teach you a technique that will allow me to help you more fully. So, run. Find me such a spot."

I picked a direction, and ran. The way the boy had gone was relatively free, so I went that way, too. Carefully, I looked for a spot out of the way. The stairwell the small disparate group had used was illuminated by a fitful bulb, but it was strong enough to cast a shadow. "We're here, this is the best I can do."

"Spread your hands to the light, fingers flexed, thumbs crossing each other. Make a shadow."

I followed his instructions, "This is not the time for shadow puppets, Rio."

A shadow not unlike a bat flickered into existence in the light, and I held it, "Call me forth. Rio, the Mischievous Demon. You must say it just like that."

"Rio, the Mischievous Demon." I felt like I was calling a dog. A form oozed out of a suddenly too-solid shadow. The man from my childhood memory materialized. Taller than me by a considerable margin, with the same over-long nose from my mask. I gaped at him, unable to stop my frantic heartbeat. This was… "Rio?"

"In this form I can be killed, Tori, so please concentrate and we will talk later." His voice was like falling rocks and just as unstoppable. He promptly smiled, "Take my hands."

I liked this part of Rio, and I played along with a half-grin, "Okay. Will it hurt?"

He laughed quietly, "Just don't let go."

The world flickered, and then my shoes squished in a puddle of coagulating blood. "Oh my god." I pulled off the mask and it dropped with a wet clatter. "What happened here?" I backpedaled out of the puddle just to step on a disarticulated… was that a hand? I couldn't help but vomit. My stomach twisted with acid. I swallowed hard, "That hand? That's not right." I looked up and Rio frowned at the mess.

He nodded, "I have never seen anything like it. Never, and I've been a warrior for nearly two hundred years."

I gagged again, some of the bodies were severely deformed. Most were also the color of rotten vegetables and just as slimy. In fact I couldn't look anywhere, they were all twisted! Plus there were more random body parts. Some sliced, others ripped or maybe blown off. I lifted my eyes so that I wouldn't have to see the carnage, and searched for a sign, "We're on the sub-floor between A and B. You can teleport at will? Can you get us out of this place?"

"I was trying to go up." He spat off to the side, "Tori, you must use your training and keep it together so we can leave. I am not nearly as strong as I am in the flesh." His eyes slid over the massacre again, "The good news is that the curtain has dropped. I wonder which side did it."

The sounds of a person moving down here made us both quiet. Rio touched my shoulder, pointing to a strange looking person with extreme scars over all his exposed skin. He was smiling, poking around a vending machine before crudely stuffing himself into a photobooth. He lay in it, his long glacial hair hanging into the muck on the ground until footsteps interrupted his strange play.

Rio and I backed away, slow and quiet, to crouch behind a bench. I blanched as I felt more fluids seep into my jeans. It was a terrible shield, but the patchwork… I guessed he was what Rio had called a cursed spirit, didn't glance their way.

"He killed all these," I gulped but continued in the barest whisper, "these things. I think they used to be humans. That one is wearing a watch." I latched onto Rio for support, "How are we still alive?"

Rio shook his head, his mouth in an angry line, "Everyone has a weakness. Not everyone is as good at sensing an aura as you or I." He directed his attention to another walking corpse, the source of the footsteps.

He, for it was definitely male, was missing most of the soft tissue of his left side above the waist. The right side had blonde hair stuck in clumps around a solitary eye. Off-white suit pants that ended in dark leather dress shoes completed the horrifying picture. The corpse turned.

From a darkened corner, other disfigured ex-humans shambled toward the man. My eyes prickled as the man stumbled to a stop.

"Fwoo," he groaned through the wreckage of his mouth. "Malaysia." His head fell back, "Yeah, Malaysia. Kuantan would be nice." His voice had a used up quality due to whatever he'd gone through to get here, but I could hear the sad wistfulness too.

Tears dripped off Rio's fingers as he held a large hand over my nose and mouth to muffle any cries. The patchwork spirit leaned out of the photobooth as the man stepped forward, moving at a faster pace to meet with the wave of deformity. A weapon of a type I was unfamiliar with swung with strength and precision. The ex-humans fell like wheat before a scythe.

The patchwork spirit scrambled out of the booth. He stood in his draped clothing and watched the man work. Finally, he held out a hand, stopping the other man with a press of his fingers.

"I didn't know you were here," said the burned man.

The patchwork spirit tilted his head, "Yup. The whole time." He smiled, and it seemed to be more gentle than his earlier amused grin. "Wanna chat? We have history, after all."

The man's good eye just stared. It seemed to me that an eternity passed, and I imagined the man's thoughts. Maybe the strange confluence of past and present. I had seen it before. Death was a constant ride-along in the life of an EMT. All of my fortitude spent, I sniveled in Rio's grasp, my heart aching for this unknown person.

Sudden thudding steps sounded again and Rio squeezed me tight. The spiky-haired kid from earlier ran down the stairs, stopping in surprise at the sight of the tableau we'd been watching. "Nanamin!"

"Itadori," the man's tortured voice identified the kid. His head swiveled slightly toward him, and his remaining muscles tried to smile. "You've got it from here."

The boy screamed, and the patchwork spirit answered, but I didn't hear them. Patchwork dropped the burned man to the ground with a swipe and a manic grin. I could not contain my cry of despair as the man's head met the floor with a sickening crunch.

I barely heard the crash of bodies as the Itadori kid attacked the patchwork spirit. Rio tried to drag me away, but I clawed at his hands and arms. The others were gone now, and finally there was a person I could help.

"We should go! He died bravely!"

"He is not dead!" I screeched, "You coward! We can save him!" The insult had shocked Rio enough to loosen his grip. I scrambled toward the ruined man, already using my training to look for signs of life. I looked at the man's head where it had landed on the concrete, it was surprisingly whole.

"I think he must be like me," I mused under my breath as Rio strode toward me. I wiped off my tears with a back hand, and then felt his pulse points. I didn't feel anything, so I tilted his head, and positioned my hands above his heart. "I want to save him."

Rio shook his head, "We could save thirty humans with the energy we'd have to give this guy! Tori, listen!"

"I will not," I did my count, "If I only save one, I want it to be him."

Rio knelt next to me, "If that's your wish, dear one. But this will hurt. And it will likely make me unable to do anything but go back to sleep. You'll have to drag this unconscious man topside. Alone."

CPR is about the hardest thing to do while talking so I nodded once. I wasn't letting him go; if I could get his heart beating again that was. I hoped the damage was as it looked, mostly external. Grimly I continued my count and tuned out everything else.

The feel of a body under your hands when you're engaged with life-saving procedures is different. For me it was like having an EKG in my veins. I could nearly feel his heart engage when it did. I lifted, and checked his breathing. Nothing. With no wasted movement, I tipped his chin with one hand and locked my mouth over his. I gave him two hard breaths, pulling back, my mouth smeared with blood. I hoped he was clean, or saving his life would mean taking my own.

A rattling wheeze greeted me and I looked at Rio with a sense of satisfaction. I had gotten his important bodily functions fixed. He was resilient, even more so than I. I rested my hand on his chest feeling his heart and lungs working while I steadied herself.

"If his brain can take over, we still have much to do."

I frowned. Rio sounded angry. I have saved hundreds of people. Men being the highest percentage of customers by far. I gritted my teeth and laid a hand on Rio's thigh. "Just heal. We both have much to talk about once it's over. Do your job."

"Attend." Rio lay his hands on the burned chest, "These burns are horrific. So, feel your energy pool in your stomach. Pour in all the emotions that can't help now. Anger, fear, helplessness…" Rio gave an encouraging smile, "Good, now push that energy into a cord. As soon as you get it formed, I'll take it. We've done it before."

His voice was mesmerizing, and the cord formed in my mind, turning my will into a creator. I felt him snag my energy and it began to spool out like a ball of yarn tossed downhill. It was painful, and I could feel my body start to pull back.

"Give it to me. Imagine your end result. This man. Whole."

It felt like taking a toy from a determined dog. I forced myself to only think of the man. His muscles. The missing eye. Veins, blood, skin. I felt Rio's concentration, folding our energy together to make something shining and beautiful. Willing this man's body to respond. To use this incredible force to remake.

It started slow, but then his bones snapped into place. Muscles and veins, flowing over them like water. Blood from formerly cauterized vessels turning everything red and blue. Skin wrapping over it all and even the plumping effect of fat and the shadowing of new hair growth.

The man's eyes snapped open as he let out a loud gasp. His eyes rolled back and I slumped over him, content that my job was done. I felt my energy recoil, and a deep ache in my core. Even my arms and legs felt like lead.

"I must return. He will likely live. Get him somewhere safe." Rio disappeared as I struggled to keep my eyes open.

AN/ 160 cm is about 5'2. Yes, Tori has a small boob complex. All Nanami, Itadori, and Mahito words and most of their actions were lifted directly from the manga. Thanks for reading!

A big shout out to Mosevic the Great, and no, I'm not just saying that.