YOU GET WHAT YOU GIVE
Ryan sighed, leaning against the black hood of the car that they'd rented, his blonde bangs dancing in his eyes. God only knew where they were at this point, he'd fallen asleep halfway through the trip after a bit too much food at a diner and when he woke up Jaewon, Dara, and their handlers were pulled over trying to finagle with a travel map they must've bought at some sort of rest stop spread across the console. There were some heated words exchanged, fingers pointed, all that good shit. He'd quickly fallen back asleep soon after and slept soundly for the rest of the two-hour car ride.
They'd gotten called in for another surveillance mission on another school, about three weeks after Dara's solo mission where she got to see a man decapitated. The Richmond chapter this time, or so he remembered. Another batch of suspicious missions and reports from them, a series of three encounters with a special grade nearby that seemed to behave similarly to the one they had encountered a month ago. Weak, feeble, and without a 'domain', whatever that was. Haoyu had tried to explain it to him, but honestly, he was better off teaching a rabbit how to code in Python with some of these jujutsu world techniques and phrases that both of his handlers seemed to throw around.
The strange thing was that there was no record of said cursed spirit's exorcism when it was encountered each time. No method was described, nothing. Almost like they had run into it, and left after a period of time. It wasn't like they ran into it and bolted, either, the group always stayed about a half hour before leaving the area, according to the documentation. How Haoyu got this shit was anyone's guess, and it was anyone's guess if the people writing it were being honest.
So, this meant the return of the cameras, the return of Diana Lovelace for one last go. Dara had been informed that it was probably the last run of that character as any more risked the exposure of their mission and took it as well as expected by throwing a fit and threatening to crumple the car like a tin can.
Ryan hoped that the last bit was just a joke gone wrong, for Dara's sake.
His eyes flitted over to the side, glancing at the conversation happening in the distance. Dara and Jaewon were beside their handlers, as James talked to an older woman, with dark skin and greying hair, a lithe hand holding onto a red leash. Her German Shepard seemed particularly entranced with Jaewon, jumping up on her legs and licking her hands. Dara's hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and Jaewon's was actually tied back in a tight bun for once.
Eventually, the dog was wrenched away from her, and the woman continued on her walk. Ryan closed his eyes, running a hand down his face. There was the crunching of shoes on gravel, then…
"Get up, loser," Dara said, tapping Ryan on the shoulder. "We're going."
"Mmn?" Ryan said, opening one eye. "You track them down?"
"Not really," Jaewon huffed. "That lady said that she saw a group of kids and their teacher heading off into the woods by the edge of town. That's our best bet right now."
"She said there was some curse there!" Dara butted in, waggling her fingers with a wild grin on her face. "Those who enter the forest never come out! Ooo-oh!"
"Well, yeah of course she did," Ryan huffed, sitting up and brushing off his lap. "This is the sticks, they probably believe their version of the Jersey Devil's gonna start eating them if they get too far in. Probably why those kids got dispatched."
"It's only natural," James said, as the three began their trek out into the woods. "Curses form from negative emotions. A forest like this incites a particular primal fear in some. A perfect breeding ground for curses."
"Plus, it's Virginia," Jaewon replied, the long dead leaves crunching underneath her feet. "Add that primal terror with the history of this area and it's practically teeming with potential."
"Very astute," Haoyu said, nodding his head once.
Teacher's pet. He scowled at Jaewon, who just shrugged in response.
He wasn't going to lie, the forest was freaky. Of course, in the daytime it probably resembled any old forest off of any old suburb, green and full of life, but tonight... Maybe it was him just being a city boy for so long, but when it gets dark in there you start to feel what your ancestors must've felt, before like science became a thing. Every rustle of something that wasn't them moving, every shadow that looked a little too long and a little too dark… It made his hackles rise, and something crawled underneath his-
"Boo!" Dara whispered, jumping in front of Ryan. Of course, he jumped, like the wimp that he was, but not before landing a light jab on Dara's arm.
"Fuck you," he hissed, rubbing his burning face. "Asshole."
"Enough, you two," Haoyu growled, glaring back at them.
There was silence for another quarter of the walk, other than the sound of Jaewon cursing under her breath as she batted away the hundreds of bugs that seemed to be rocketing toward her. Eventually, the dirt part led them under a cobblestone bridge, to a run-down stone house sitting in the middle, as if guiding the group there. The windows had long since been bashed in, jagged chunks of glass poking from its wooden frames, yellow curtains tightly drawn. There were still flecks of paint on the walls, but most of it had peeled off long ago, revealing concrete and stones poking out.
Jaewon rubbed her chin for a moment, as their handlers began to rustle through one of the cases, setting it on the forest floor. Then, she walked over to one of the walls, and stood motionless in front of it, back facing all of them.
For a moment, Ryan didn't get whatever message she was trying to get across. Then Dara started cackling loudly, rubbing the corners of her eyes.
"Oh my god, Jae-Jae, you're soooo right!" Dara exclaimed through wheezing laughs, her eyes watering. "It does look like the Blair Witch House!"
"Dara, enough," James said, voice firm as he loaded one of the rifles. "You'll blow our cover."
Dara huffed as Jaewon slowly walked back over to the case, grabbing both of her pistols and holstering them on her chest holster. She pulled her leather jacket over it, hiding it away from view.
"Jesus, Jaewon, you trying to be a cowboy or something?" Ryan huffed, holstering his own pistol on his belt.
"Enough with the bits tonight!" Haoyu snapped before Jaewon could respond. "Enough! Focus on the mission!"
Jesus, what's his problem tonight, Ryan thought to himself. No fun allowed, I guess.
"Anyways, you three know the drill, right?" James said, rubbing Haoyu's shoulder in a circular pattern. "No techniques, no disclosing your identity, no revealing anything. As usual."
"Yeah," Dara said, cocking her rifle once before holding it off to the side. Probably not safe.
"If we see this cursed spirit they're encountering," Haoyu said, his face tight and voice rough. "We execute it immediately. We cannot risk anything, because we're not using a veil to keep it in."
Ryan nodded, biting the corner of his mouth. Something bubbled forth in his brain as they walked past the threshold into the house. Three times, the sorcerers had met this cursed spirit, done whatever with it, then left. For whatever reason, that's all that stuck in his brain like a splinter. Three times, like the…
His train of thought was interrupted by the sights surrounding him, his eyes going wide. Instead of an old, creepy stone Blair Witch house, what stood before him was a maze of brick, stone, and wood curling and twisting above him like something organic, almost pulsing. The structure was massive, taking up the entire horizon, as if it had swallowed up the entire sky, dwarfing the five of them.
"What the…?" Dara said breathlessly, head whipping around.
"This, is an innate domain," James said, hands in his pockets. "Most special grades have one."
"But, that one we ran into that time didn't have one," Jaewon replied, her lip curled. "Why this one?"
"I don't know," James said after a moment, his eyes dark. "This whole thing smells rotten."
Whatever the deal was with this cursed spirit, it seemed to not notice them quite yet. There wasn't any sign of it nearby, and Ryan hadn't felt the distinctive disgusting feeling of one nearby, even if he was on edge. So they walked in further, Ryan's hand clutching his holster.
Jaewon, on the other hand, was now holding an old-timey rifle to her side, face composed. Ryan's eyes flicker to her face, then back down to the rifle.
"Jaewon, didn't we agree to no stealing…?" He asked, pointing a finger to her hands.
"I'm just borrowing," she replied. "I'll put it back when we're done."
Ryan huffed, looking over at their handlers. Surprisingly, they didn't seem to care at all, eyes focused on the twisting path ahead of them. Fine, whatever.
"Well Jaewon, I guess you have pretty privilege and can-" Ryan started to complain before his foot hit something soft. He looked down at the object, before jumping back, hands shaking.
The corpse of one of those kids was strewn across the ground, arms flung forward in some feeble way to shield themself from an attack that had practically shredded their face off, leaving their body unrecognizable from the waist up. Their blank eyesockets looked back at him, boring into his eyes as Ryan felt bile rise up to his throat and an icy cold rush through his body.
"Oh shit," Jaewon whispered, her voice shaking.
James said nothing, his face taut as he walked over to the corpse. For one brief hysterical moment he thought his handler was going to check the pulse of a clearly dead person, but instead, he simply touched their arm, trying to move it.
"Rigor mortis has set in," James noted, before reaching over and tearing something off from what remained of this person's uniform by their neck. From what Ryan saw, there was a patch with a long white rectangle on it. "They've been dead for hours at this point."
"We're too late," Dara said softly, her eyebrows furrowed. Her face was ghastly pale, and her lip trembled.
"We don't know that, Dara," James replied, rubbing her shoulder. "Let's keep going."
"'Gonna kill that little fucker," she muttered under her breath. "I'll blow his goddamn head off..."
Similar scenes of carnage met them the further they went in. Kids decapitated, disemboweled, and then their teacher who was practically pulverized, leaving only bits of their torso, one left leg, and one right arm. Jaewon vomited after seeing the third kid brutalized, and to be honest, Ryan couldn't fault her. Would he eventually become like Haoyu and James, who seemed as stoic as ever as they collected what seemed like identification from the bodies of the dead? Is that the path he was going to lead now that he was forced into this job?
He hoped that deep down he would never get used to seeing the dead. That it would always break him. That he'd always remain attached to it all.
His thoughts were derailed by the sight of another body in front of him, judging by the uniform of another student. This one seemed more intact, Ryan could actually make out a pale face and a mop of green hair, lying on their knees, arm twisted almost horizontally. Then, as he approached, he could see the quick rise and fall of the kid's shoulders, and he quickly rushed over to them.
"Hey, hey!" Ryan shouted, kneeling down to look into their face. The kid's brown eyes were open, but glazed over, barely lucid. "Are you…?"
"Stand back," James said, before placing his hands on the kid's broken arm. He pulled it into place, the kid screaming as he did so, before the white glow of reversed cursed technique began to form on his hands. Eventually, their breath steadied, even though their eyes still seemed unfocused.
"What happened?" Haoyu demanded, his voice sharp. "Tell me, what happened here?"
"Uhn, dunno," the kid muttered, their voice raspy. "I dunno, I dunno. Where's Mr. Reeves…?"
Ryan looked over at Jaewon, who was staring at the kid with grit teeth and a contorted look on her face. Before anyone could say anything, he heard the loud thumps of something large coming towards them. The kid looked up, before their eyes went wide and they screamed again, clutching onto James tight.
The curse was bipedal, its flesh a dark blue in color, long legs thick like tree trunks as it stomped towards them. Its arms dragged onto the ground, spindly almost, and it stared down at the group with one red eye.
"Okay," Haoyu said, unholstering his gun. "Change of plans. You can use your techniques now."
Ryan sighed, before raising his pistol at the curse.
"Yeah, I thought you'd say that."
authors notes:
chapter title is from the new radical's 'you get what you give'