16 - 12 - 1982
The name Karahashi Kagura is very rare.
Karahashi (唐橋) - Ten strokes of kanji for 'China' and sixteen strokes for 'bridge'. A chinese styled arched bridge.
Kagura (神楽) - Nine strokes for 'Gods' and thirteen strokes for 'music'. Mind and soul; comfort and ease.
A dance to please the gods. A form of devotion.
Despite Fukushima prefecture holding the highest number of people with the surname, there are less than 100 people left who share the surname Karahashi written with the same kanji used since Sugawara no Ariyoshi founded the clan in the heian period.
Of course, their sister clans - all descendants of the Sugawara, such as the Takatsuji, Gojo, Higashibōjō, Kiyooka, and the Kuwabara clans face the same problem. Well not all, actually. Last time she heard, the Takatsuji, and the Gojo have been dealing with the decline with an iron grip.
And the Kuwabara no longer have to deal with anything since the severely declining clan ended in 1928 after the last clan head died in prison for shooting someone else's wife.
The Kiyooka with their mostly middle aged and elderly members prefer to lay low while sticking close to their mother clan - Gojo. The Higashibōjō have no more aristocracy left after their centuries old spat with the Gojo and the Takatsuji left their power in shambles, their remaining few clan members now live quietly in Kyoto, forgotten by the jujutsu society.
The Karahashi though, they are in a relatively good position. The merit of being the oldest clan founded by the direct descendant of Sugawara no Michizane aids greatly to their still standing prestige and aristocracy despite their declining numbers of talented sorcerers in the past few generations. The current head of the clan - her eldest uncle, the strongest of their clan, followed closely by her own father - the second strongest, are the rare exceptions of the decline.
The Karahashi stand neutral despite their sister clans tearing each other apart all around them.
Kagura understands why.
Power, and greed for power can turn blood of blood against each other within the blink of an eye. The fate of the Higashibōjō clan after their struggle for power with the Gojo is a stark reminder as to why the middle path is the best for their clan.
Kagura doesn't holds any affection for their sister clans. Or any of the big three clans for that matter.
The before Kagura did. Dreamy eyed for the fabled ethereal blue of the Six Eyes, and heart full of fantasies of the unimaginable force of nature that the Limitless is.
The Kagura from before was fascinated by the Gojo clan - or rather, the legend of the godlike sorcerer who held both the Six Eyes and the Limitless, centuries ago.
But the Kagura now hasn't been the Kagura from before in the longest time and she could care less for a pile of ash in an urn sitting in the sacred tomb of the Gojo clan's estate.
She doesn't remember when exactly a line was drawn between before and now. She vaguely remembers lazing on the engawa chewing on her sticky red bean paste mochi one hot summer noon when suddenly, she stopped chewing and stared blankly into the blazing summer sky for a brief moment before thinking - oh. Oh, this is my life now.
It's strange how similar they are, the Kagura from before and her. Sometimes she doubts the Kagura she used to be before that fateful noon was ever a different person. And yet sometimes, sometimes a rare stark difference is thrown at her face and she thinks, I can't believe she used to be me.
One of the greatest differences between before and now is her aversion towards the jujutsu society.
Despite being raised in a noble clan of said society, the concept is so foreign and terrifying to her that every time she locks eyes with a grotesque figure resembling a lovecraftian lovechild, she just wants to scream.
They are everywhere. Lurking in the shadows outside the clan's estate walls. Hanging from the branches shading the road the clan's driver takes everyday to drive her and her cousins to school. Crawling along the hallways of their school like it's their natural habitat. Sitting on the shoulders of burdened adults, and lost, struggling youths as the amalgamation of their unspoken despair and sorrow, sucking away their life forces like leeches.
It nearly makes her forget of a world with no cursed spirits, cursed energy and jujutsu society from a long lost memory. She wonders if that world was ever real, or is it just another line drawn between the before and now to accentuate one of the few differences between the Kagura from before and she has.
Despite her stomach churning every time she has to step a foot outside her sanctuary - the clans estate, over the course of a year she quickly learns to school her features into neutrality and steels her poor heart.
She has to, because when she passed out with a scream after coming face to face with her first cursed spirit at the age of eleven - just a month into her awakening, her concerned parents imprisoned her with the shrine maidens of Tenjin-sama - formerly Sugawara no Michizane - for the entire summer break and her father went on a rampage on every single cursed spirit within a 5 kilometer radius of their family compound.
Her consolation was mochi as dessert after every lunch and Miko-san's top grade karaage during her prison time.
That was last year. And yet by her sheer bad luck, word has spread among the remaining of their sister clans, the Zenin and Kamo clans about the second young lady of the Karahashi clan fainting from fright upon seeing a weak cursed spirit.
Which brings her here, sitting in the Kamo clan's great hall by her father's side, joining the annual inter-clan meeting. Her father being subjected to the backhanded attempts at shaming and criticism of the old farts with sticks high up their asses for apparently overreacting.
She feels no shame for her fright or for passing out from coming face to face with the distant cousin of a sleep paralysis demon. Instead, guilt eats away at her for the harassment her poor father is being subjected to because that one little fit of fainting has now given them an opening to attack him, and in the process, shame their clan.
Her father seems to think of himself as anything but 'poor' in the given situation, since he shrugs with a lazy grin as he lounges against a pillar with Kagura pressed to his side and lightly says, "My Kagurahime is my treasure. I never let her bare feet touch the ground until she was nine. And you think I'd let those filthy things walk free after they scared my kid badly enough to make her pass out?" A light tone with a dangerous tilt around the corner.
A Zenin elder she hadn't bothered remembering the name of snidely comments, "At this rate, you might end up raising a weak, spoiled girl who will only bring shame to your clan once she enters her husband's household."
She feels the way the loose sleeves of her father's haori drapes over her like a shield and his arm squishes her to his side. She peeks up at his face with unease, her uncle sighs helplessly in the background just as the grey of her father's eyes turns an impossible shade of steel, and his grin widens like the cat that swallowed the canary.
"Yeah, I get it. I've spoiled my girl rotten so the fault's mine. Rather, I should've thrown her into the pit with grade 1 cursed spirits since she could walk. Toughen her up with a healthy dose of tough love and all. My bad, my bad." An exaggerated faux sigh of regret leaves him as he shakes his head as if truly what a shame!
The hall falls silent and Kagura's heartbeat quickens with anxiety as all eyes snap to them - her father who just poked a polar bear with a hot iron rod and her, barely reaching his chest and buried under the pine green silk of his haori.
Time seems to stretch on for eons until the Gojo heir snorts and ruins the tense mood. Everyone slowly relaxes but tactfully, no one says a word of reprimand to the current Limitless holder.
The Zenin elder bristling with anger harrumphed gloomily but bites his tongue - not wanting to open that can of worms, and Zenin Reiji- dear kami, if the Zenin clan had a technique that allowed them to dice up their target with sight alone then her father would've been reduced to atoms on the spot.
Because who doesn't know of the shameful existence of the Zenin family's stain on their oh so noble prestige? Oh rather, the stain on Zenin Reiji's pride.
One of the rarest cases of Heavenly Restriction unseen since the Kamakura period was born in Zenin Reiji's household. His eldest son, Zenin Toji.
Born without a lick of cursed energy and the ability to even see cursed spirits, Zenin Toji's very existence was a great blow to their pride. For a clan full of fanatics of the Ten Shadows technique that valued their kin based on the quantity of their cursed energy, it's no surprise that they'd rather have Toji martyred in a 'training accident' than for him to walk free outside, like a billboard sign of the Zenins' shame.
Kagura knows from her memories of before Kagura, that a few years back there was a rumour going around of Reiji trying to uproot the cause of his headache by throwing his teenage son into a pit full of cursed spirits of grade 2 and above. He must've failed, or rather the tales of Zenin Toji's monstrous physical abilities weren't born out of thin air, because months later the black sheep was seen running around doing missions for the clan while sporting a nasty scar on his face.
The Zenin denied the rumours, Reiji didn't even spare a word of explanation and everyone turned a blind eye until the matter was swept under the rug. No one wants to talk about it and get into bad terms with the Zenin. But everyone practically knows what goes on behind closed doors. It's an open secret after all.
She doesn't dare look in the direction of the Zenin again.
Her uncle coughs into his fist awkwardly and sends a pointed glare to her father. Her troll of a father just shrugs and then focuses on carding his fingers through her dark hair like a mother cat grooming her kitten. She chooses not to comment on it despite it messing up her neat braid, only because the motion soothes her.
The impatient Kamo clan head resumes the meeting and things go back to normal as if the events of the past half an hour never occurred.
While the clan heads and elders keep droning on, Kagura tunes them out and peeks at the Gojo heir from a gap between her haori shield. The lanky highschooler whispers something to a younger boy who looked like a slightly smaller carbon copy of him and openly snickers. Again, no one seems to notice this - the Gojo head doesn't even glance at his son's antics.
Kagura wonders if having a cursed technique automatically grants a pass to all sorts of tomfoolery. Maybe not. Maybe it's an exception carefully made only for the Six Eyes and the Limitless, just like how it might've been for the fabled Ten Shadows technique. Or how it is with the Blood Manipulation of the Kamo.
The pale, messy haired Gojo heir suddenly snaps his head to the side, meeting her eyes just as she is about to look away, and catches her off guard by sticking his tongue out while going crosseyed.
Kagura gapes at him, her face forming a .O.
In the next moment the teen bursts into laughter at her face, and for a moment she wonders if the blue of those twinkling eyes were a shade deeper then perhaps she would've caught a glimpse of what the legendary Six Eyes might've looked like.
The younger teen beside him elbows him lightly just as the Gojo head finally sends a warning glance in their direction since frankly, he's just being too loud to actively ignore any longer.
Thankfully he shuts up, but that mischievous smirk never leaves his lips. He throws a playful wink at her incredulous face and then seemingly forgets about her existence entirely as he turns his attention back to bothering his more composed carbon copy.
Kagura now understands the pained and resigned look on the younger Gojo. If she had a sibling like that, she would've looked like this too.
A gentle tug on her long braid catches her attention and she looks away from the Gojos.
Her father looks down at her with a questioning look on his face and with both brows raised. Not wanting to explain the matter of her just having been subjected to a certain heir's tomfoolery, she beams up at him innocently and he seems to forget whatever he had been curious about because he ignores the ongoing conversation to squish her cheeks lovingly, much to her uncle's exasperation.
Hours later when the annual meeting ends and the clans leave according to their ranks of aristocracy, the Karahashi are one of the first to leave. She feels the burn of Zenin Reiji's venomous gaze burning holes on her family's backs. But her father - her silly carefree father just swoops her up on his shoulders and loudly declares an invasion on the kikufuku mochi's of the local confectioneries.
Her uncle sighs at his brother's antics for the umpteenth time of the day, but she catches his fond smile.