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Chapter Two

Something Inside the Heart

In one of their old houses, there had been a piano.

It was an ancient thing; the black lacquer had been peeled away in strips, one of the pedals hadn't worked at all, and several of the keys were missing entirely.

"The previous owners must not have wanted to take it with them," Rei's mother had surmised upon moving into the small country house. "Can't blame them. Pianos are hard to move…"

Rei, five years old and curious as a cat, had instantly fallen in love with it. Each key made a different sound, and she'd spend hours seated on the cracked leather bench, pounding away to her heart's content. It was fortunate their neighbors weren't so close, or else she might've received several noise complaints.

But what she loved more was watching her mother play. She would take a seat on the bench after dinner and pull Rei into her lap, and Rei would watch and listen, mesmerized, as her mother's slim fingers flowed over the keys.

Even with its derelict state, the piano still produced beautiful music—or maybe it was Rei's mother who had drawn such sounds out of it. She'd start with a happy number, bouncing Rei on her lap and causing her to shriek and giggle before the songs grew more somber. Lullabies, sweet and slow and sad, and Rei would drift into sleep nestled against her mother's chest, surrounded by her warmth and the melodies that she coaxed from the instrument.

That had been Rei's favorite home. They hadn't been able to take the piano with them when they moved again, a year later, and they'd never had another one since. Sometimes she wished that they had never left, that she and her mother could stay in that little house surrounded by mountains, and play lullabies forever.

She woke up with the distinct sensation of moving. The roof of a car was above her when her eyes cracked open, and bright tunnel lights filled her vision. She was draped across the backseat, someone's jacket over her, and two men sat in front, conversing in low voices. When she grasped at consciousness with weak fingers, pain filtered in, setting her body on fire to the point where she blacked out again, and she knew no more.

The next time she woke up, she was in an infirmary bed. She thought she heard a piano playing, and she opened her eyes.

There was no piano. Only a sterile white room drenched in sunlight. She squinted her eyes, wincing when her head began to ache. She tried to sit up, but only succeeded in letting out a tiny groan when her left arm throbbed.

"Easy," said a woman's voice. Rei saw through slitted eyes a young woman in a lab coat standing near a filing cabinet across the room, a manila folder in her hands. Her tired brown eyes met Rei's. "Your left shoulder still isn't fully healed. You shouldn't try moving it."

Rei attempted to speak, but all she emitted was a weak gasp. The woman pointed to the bedside table near Rei's right arm. "Drink."

There was a paper cup of water. Rei thought she might drop it as she brought it to her lips, she was so shaky, but she managed to drain it all in one long pull. She was parched, her whole body shook with pain, and she had no idea where she was. Panic began to set in after she put the cup back on the table, but she was distracted when the woman walked over to her.

"Rest," she said. Her dark eyes held purple bruises underneath them, but she gave Rei what she assumed was an attempt at a comforting smile. It didn't comfort her at all. "You'll need another round of healing for your shoulder before you're okay to leave."

Rei glanced at her pulsing left shoulder in confusion. It was swathed in so many bandages that it looked twice its normal size. She frowned, struggling to remember what had happened to her.

She heard the piano again. One of her mother's lullabies drifted to her, distant and melancholy, and before she knew it, she was lost to unconsciousness.

When Megumi woke up, it was well past noon, and he was starving.

He rolled over and sat up, sighing at his sore muscles and rubbing at a furious knot in his neck. His clothes were on the floor, caked in dried blood, and his hands were littered with small cuts and bruises. It only took a few seconds before memories of the night before flooded back to him.

A high-grade cursed spirit and a girl named Rei Nagatsuka. He sat on the edge of his mattress, thinking, but it made no more sense now than it had then. A Grade 1 curse attacking a human and attempting to take another one? Higher-grade curses possessed higher intelligence, sure, but something about the curse made him think it hadn't been acting of its own volition. And its talk of bringing the girl back to something it had called Master…

He dressed in the clean extra of his Jujutsu High uniform and moved to make a small breakfast in the kitchenette of his dorm. He cooked and ate quickly, his nerves already tingling, jittery. He had to remind himself that things were more than likely all right; Ieiri would've let him know earlier if something had happened to the girl overnight.

Still, that didn't stop him from leaving his dishes as they were as he hurried out of his dorm and toward the main compound of Tokyo Jujutsu High. His feet had just taken him to the path leading to the infirmary when a voice rang out behind him.

"Oi! Fushiguro!"

Megumi turned with a frown. "Gojo Sensei? What are you doing here? I thought you were running some errand."

Satoru Gojo walked toward him on long legs, dressed in his usual sorcerer's uniform and waving with a wide grin that Megumi had become wary of over the years. His teacher was young, only in his late twenties, but his hair was white and shone like pure snow in the afternoon sunlight. His eyes were hidden by a simple black blindfold, but Megumi still felt the weight of them as Gojo caught up to him.

"Ijichi called and said you had an interesting night," said Gojo casually as if they were simply discussing the weather. "I came back as soon as I heard." He gestured up the path. "Were you going to check on the girl you rescued?"

Megumi shifted, uncomfortable, as they started walking. "I just happened to be in the area when the curse showed up at her home. I only did what was required of me under jujutsu regulations to try and exorcise the cursed spirit."

"Also meaning that you rescued her."

"Sure."

Gojo hummed, his hands in his pockets. "Ijichi said it was a Grade 1 cursed spirit?"

Megumi nodded. "It was strong. My shikigami could only keep it at bay."

"At least it wasn't special-grade. You got lucky."

Megumi thought back to Rei Nagatsuka covered in her dead mother's blood. "Hardly."

They arrived at the infirmary and entered. Shoko Ieiri, the school's healer, looked up from a stack of paperwork at her desk and glanced over them with exhausted eyes. Megumi thought there was a faint trace of liquor on the air before Ieiri climbed to her feet and brushed back her long brown hair.

"Gojo; Fushiguro," she greeted. "I assume you want an update on the girl?"

At their nods, she gestured them after her as she walked toward the area of the infirmary filled with cots. All of them were empty except for one on the far end, nearest the windows, where a prone figure lay sleeping.

Rei Nagatsuka was unconscious when they approached. Ieiri had wiped most of the blood from the girl's hands and face, though she still looked worse for wear. She was pale with a sheen of sweat coating her skin, and her breathing sounded raspy. Her left shoulder was wrapped under multiple layers of white bandages stained with pink.

"I'll have to change those again," Ieiri said with a sigh.

"I thought you said you could heal her?" Megumi said. "She was attacked by a curse. Your reverse cursed technique heals injuries from curses and non-curses alike."

Ieiri sighed again, this time sounding perturbed. "I can heal her, yes, but the stronger the cursed injury, the more cursed energy I have to expend to heal it. I'm only using small quantities at a time in case another injured sorcerer comes to me. I don't want to waste all of my cursed energy in one go."

Gojo had gotten closer to the girl and was now examining her. "What is this?" He lifted up a chunk of her hair. Megumi remembered how it had looked at the café—long and raven-black. But in Gojo's hand, the last four or so inches of her hair was bleached white. "This part of her hair has residual cursed energy on it. She didn't do this herself."

"When the curse grabbed her, it held her up by her hair," Megumi said.

"Well, strong curses can alter appearances," Gojo said, setting down her hair again. He glanced to Ieiri. "Has she woken up yet?"

Ieiri shook her head. "Not yet. She'll be grateful, though; she'll be in a lot of pain for a while. Normal medicine doesn't work as well on these types of injuries."

Megumi looked at the healer. "What about that scar on her chest I told you about?"

"What scar?" Gojo asked before she could answer. "You didn't tell me about a scar."

Megumi turned to him. "Remember when I told you I found something worse than one of Sukuna's fingers? Well, it was only partly true." He gestured to Rei Nagatsuka. "I think I did find one of the fingers, along with something else." He hesitated. "I think there's a finger inside of her."

Megumi could feel Gojo staring at him. "What?"

"You've shown me the Sukuna fingers we have here at the school," Megumi said. "I remember the feel of their cursed energy, so I know what to sense when I'm out looking for more of them." He nodded to the unconscious girl. "When I touched the scar on her chest last night, I felt the same cursed energy. It was faint, but it was definitely the same thing."

Ieiri nodded. "The scar on her chest is imbued with cursed energy. That was one of the first things I confirmed." She pointed to Rei Nagatsuka's chest. "If someone stored a cursed object inside her, then they sealed it carefully. My theory is that the stitches used on her had a seal written on them. I don't know how, but I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility, either."

Gojo was silent, his face carefully blank, but Megumi knew his teacher was shocked. "And you think another sorcerer sealed one of Sukuna's fingers inside of this girl?"

Ieiri shrugged. "We won't know for sure until I open her up."

"When she wakes up," Megumi said sharply. "I want her consent before you start carving her open. If she gives it."

Ieiri waved him off, looking disappointed. "Yes, yes, I know."

"So, we wait," Gojo said. "Until she wakes up." He nodded to Ieiri. "We leave her in your hands, then."

Ieiri escorted them to the doors. "If you see Yaga, let him know that I have a preliminary report ready for him." She waved. "See you later, boys."

Megumi and Gojo left the infirmary in silence. Unbidden, Megumi pictured the bloody girl in his arms while they sat in that moonlit field: "Just let me die." Her whispered words sent a chill down his spine, exacerbated after having seen her in that bed, after imagining the horror of someone opening her up and stuffing a cursed object inside of her. Did she know what it was? Did she remember who had done it? Did she even know?

He'd thought about how her smile had reminded him of Tsumiki's, that that was the only similarity the two girls shared, but he had been wrong. Rei Nagatsuka had something else in common with Tsumiki, too. They were both cursed.

He glanced sidelong at Gojo, at the school for jujutsu sorcerers around them. He remembered Rei Nagatsuka and how he'd wished for her to live after bringing her to Ieiri. How that feeling of wanting to save her had bubbled inside of him so desperately, so strongly.

How that feeling made him wonder if he wasn't cursed in his own way.

The next time she awoke, it was either dawn or dusk. The windows were screened and tinted in such a way that it was almost impossible to tell; all she knew was that the light was dimmer now than it had been before, and the infirmary where she laid was crawling with shadows.

The unease that had been curled in her stomach, slumbering, unfurled itself like a stretching cat and began to climb up her throat as she pushed herself onto her elbows. Her left shoulder twinged, but the bandages that she vaguely remembered being there before were gone, replaced only with some gauze and surgical tape underneath the sleeve of the light blue shift she wore.

Her head was fuzzy with static, making it hard for her to think. Where was she? How had she gotten here? What had even happened to her? Memories darted out of her reach every time she tried to get close enough to grasp one. She couldn't help but feel that it was a warning: Don't think back. Don't remember. You don't want to.

There had been a woman before, she thought. A doctor of some kind. There was no sign of her now, or of anyone else. She was alone in the stark room, though it was less harsh now. Dark bamboo wood paneled the floor and the lower halves of the walls before meeting bone-colored paint on the upper halves, stretching into a high-beamed ceiling that looked almost like a temple roof in its architecture, though the numerous cots and medical equipment spoke more to a medical center.

She sat up more, wincing at her aching muscles. It felt like she had been thrown straight through a concrete wall. She rubbed at the back of her neck, pushing past the warnings in her mind to try and recall something. She'd been at the café, and then she'd gone home and eaten dinner with her mother…

The memory slammed into her so forcefully that she doubled over and physically retched. Bile stung her throat as her stomach cramped around nothing, the images rushing forth in a torrent of gore and terror: her mother, ripped open and bleeding on the bedroom floor, Rei screaming and crying over her, trying to put her back together, and the monster lurking in the corner, dark and horrible and pulsating with a sick energy that had turned her stomach and choked her senses.

She began to heave with sobs as panic kicked in, sending her into hyperventilation. Her mother couldn't be dead. A monster couldn't have attacked them—monsters weren't even real. She was dreaming, or hallucinating—something. She gripped her hair. Anything but—

She looked down at her hair and squeaked. The ends had been bleached white, contrasting sharply with the black of her natural hair—her normal hair. The monster had grabbed her hair, had held her up by it while the blade on its tongue had been embedded in her shoulder, slicing through nerve, tendon, and muscle. The monster. The monster that had tried to take Rei once she heard a commotion from her mother's bedroom and walked in, just as its blade-like tongue had been tearing open her mother—

She screamed.

And kept screaming.

She thought her lungs would give before the door to the infirmary slammed open, revealing the doctor woman she had seen before and the boy she recognized instantly as Megumi Fushiguro—yet another reminder that the nightmare she had woken up to was now her reality, and that everything was horribly, frighteningly, terribly real.

"No," she sobbed as she stared into Fushiguro's eyes. "No, please, no…"

"Fushiguro," the woman said. "You should go."

The boy nodded. Without a word, he was gone, and Rei didn't know whether to be relieved or terrified as the woman approached her, smelling faintly of cigarettes and alcohol.

"You need to calm down," the woman said as Rei continued to sob, "or I'm going to have to sedate you. Do you understand? Relax. Breathe."

The words barely penetrated through her hysterics. She'd seen her mother get murdered by a monster, and this woman wanted her to be calm?

She didn't see it happen, but in the next moment, a needle jabbed her arm. She wrenched herself away from the woman with a snarl that bordered on inhuman, too late. She'd already been sedated.

"You…bitch…" Rei hissed, but she was already going under.

She slipped under the darkness and knew no more.

"Pretending to be asleep won't get you anywhere, you know."

Rei cracked open her eyes and glared at the figure sitting by her cot that she had become aware of five minutes ago, but the look was wasted on the young man wearing a black blindfold. She had no idea how he knew she was awake if his eyes were covered, but she sat up against her pillows anyway. Her shoulder no longer hurt; there was only a vague sense of discomfort as she studied the white-haired man at her bedside.

"Who are you?" she demanded. "Where am I?"

"Satoru Gojo," he said with a small wave. "You're in the infirmary at Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College, or better known as Tokyo Jujutsu High."

"A school?" she repeated skeptically. The dark long-sleeve shirt and pants he wore resembled the clothes that Megumi Fushiguro had been wearing, so she guessed that made some sense.

Only some.

She glanced at her shoulder and swallowed. "That thing… My mom…"

The Gojo man frowned. "I'm sorry. There was nothing that could've been done."

Tears burned in the corners of her eyes. There were plenty of things that could've been done, she thought bitterly. The monster could've chosen anyone else to attack but them. It could've kept her mom alive and taken her too like it had tried to do to Rei. Her fingers fisted in the blankets.

"What was it?" she forced herself to ask. "The monster?"

"A high-grade cursed spirit," he said, surprising her. She hadn't expected him to answer. "Non-jujutsu sorcerers like yourself aren't able to see them unless in dire circumstances. Even then, it's still iffy to actually see a curse without any cursed energy."

She stared at the backs of her hands. "Cursed energy?"

"The energy jujutsu sorcerers use for spells and techniques."

She vaguely remembered Fushiguro and the way he'd controlled some sort of familiars. "Like magic?"

"In a way."

She shut her eyes. A migraine was beginning to spread to her temples. "Why?"

Gojo sounded confused. "Why what?"

"Why her?" Her voice broke. "Why did that thing—that cursed spirit—kill my mom?"

The chair creaked beneath his weight as he shifted. "I don't think I have a satisfactory answer to that."

She shook her head like it could dispel all the horrible images crowding in her mind. "Fushiguro? Is he okay?"

"Perfectly," Gojo said. "Would you like to see him? He's been anxious for you over the last few days."

"Days?" Her eyes snapped open. "How long has it been since I got here?"

His lips pursed. "Four, five days? You were in and out of consciousness the whole time while your shoulder was being healed."

Her panic was resurfacing. "What-what about my mom?" She couldn't bring herself to say my mom's body. "My school? My house? The police? Have I been reported missing, or-or—"

"We took care of it," he said with a wave of his hand. She didn't know who he meant by we, but her panic subsided just a bit. "Your school was contacted and told you were going on an extended vacation in the wake of your mother's…unexpected death. We have people in the police to keep the records quiet." He paused. "Attempts were also made to find other family members."

"You won't find any," Rei said. "They're all dead. It was just my mom and me."

And now she's gone too, she thought, her chest caving in on itself.

"Get me out of here," she said suddenly. The room was collapsing, becoming smaller and tighter, folding in on her. "Please. I need to leave."

"We can go outside for air," Gojo said, standing quickly. "Do you—?"

She slapped his hand away and stood. She was wobbly, but she could stand on her own. She followed him out of the infirmary and stepped into a tranquil, twilit mountainous compound. Temples sprouted from the trees like little wood and stone flowers, and the bricks beneath her slipper-clad feet looked old and worn, adding to the feeling that she was somewhere ancient and otherworldly. In a sense, she guessed she was. She'd awoken in a world where monsters and magic were real, and she was utterly lost and alone.

"Fushiguro," Gojo greeted behind her. She turned and saw Megumi Fushiguro—the boy who had saved her, she realized with a twist in her gut—walking toward them, dressed in the same navy-colored uniform as the night she had met him. Gojo waved. "Look! She's awake!"

He gestured to her as if to say "Ta-da!" Fushiguro, to his credit, just looked unimpressed.

"I can see that," he told Gojo. His dark blue eyes shifted to Rei, but she noticed that he kept a careful distance from her. "How's your shoulder?"

She rolled it before shrugging. "Stiff; a little sore; but fine."

An awkward silence stretched between them as Rei glanced away, unable to meet his gaze. She tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth, choosing to stare at the darkening horizon instead. Fushiguro made no move to speak either, only adding to the discomfort.

Gojo none-too-subtly cleared his throat. "Well, I'll leave you both to it. Fushiguro, make sure to explain the situation to her. Bye!"

He departed quickly, and then it was just Rei and Fushiguro. Her savior. She wanted to burst into laughter. Who knew that the cute boy from the café was some sort of wizard and had rescued her from being kidnapped by a monster? Her lips twitched. Perhaps something in her brain had snapped and now she was a madwoman. She certainly felt like she was in a hallucination.

"Well," she said, breaking the silence. "A sorcerer, huh?"

"Gojo Sensei explained what I was? What this place is?" he said, not moving.

"He told me, but he didn't explain," she said. "I'm not sure if an explanation would make things better or worse, though."

He nodded. "I understand. I'll do my best to answer any questions you may have."

A starling fluttered out of a nearby tree and took to the sky. She watched it, not speaking, until it had disappeared from sight.

"What now?" she said, more to herself than to Fushiguro.

"Arrangements were made for your mother," he said hesitantly. "I can take you tomorrow if that's not too soon."

She sighed. "Stop."

She sensed him staring at her in confusion. "Stop what?"

"Feeling guilty." She scuffed her slipper over a pebble. It grated over the path and left a chalky white mark as she fiddled with it. "I can hear it in your voice. You feel guilty for not saving my mom, right?"

He was silent for a long moment until he said, "Yes."

"Don't." She finally lifted her head and met his eyes. Her face burned but she had no idea whether it was from suppressing her tears or something else, or both. "You saved me. Thank you."

His eyes shifted to the star-speckled sky above them. The color matched his eyes perfectly. "Still. I'm…sorry that I couldn't save her, too."

"Still," she echoed him. "You risked your life to save mine."

He said nothing, but his face looked faintly pink as he kept his gaze on the stars.

Before she could say anything else, a new voice cut in. "Rei Nagatsuka?"

She and Fushiguro turned. A broad-shouldered man with close-shaven black hair faced her. Sunglasses covered his eyes despite the hour, but Rei could only stare at the upright and walking stuffed green bear at his shin that watched her with a sentiency she had no way of explaining.

"Yes?" she said, her voice coming out an octave higher than normal.

"Come with me," the man said. "You too, Fushiguro. We have much to discuss."

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