I am so sorry for coming back after so long only to offer such a short and measly chapter. Please forgive me, and if you stick around after this, I promise things will pick up and be exciting again! Thank you for your patience and support!

Chapter Four

Curses Can Be Cute, Too!

The last book slid in between its brethren with a little thock, finishing off her pathetically small library that took up only half a shelf in her new bedroom.

Rei turned away from her neatly lined books and shut the battered suitcase that she had taken from her closet in her old house, sliding it underneath the wooden bed frame perched in the center of the room. Now that she was unpacked (which hadn't taken long at all, given her lack of things), she climbed to her feet and surveyed the area.

The room she'd graciously been given at Jujutsu High tried to disguise itself as humble, but it was still twice as large as any other bedroom she'd had before, almost like its own apartment. A kitchenette took up one of the corners and a half-bath with a sink and toilet the other. A closet lined the wall where the door to the hall stood, and opposite was a sliding glass door that led outside, overlooking a neat stone path lined with fragrant bushes and small plants she hadn't had the chance to observe properly yet. It was comfortable, and it was peaceful. No signs of monsters or curses or bloodstained carpet or gore-spattered walls or—

She clamped down on that line of thought as her stomach roiled in a familiar wave of nausea. Fushiguro had assured her that she was safe from any curses at the school, but she wished that safety extended to the curse of her own memories as well.

She sat down on the edge of her new bed and brushed back a stray wisp of black-and-white hair that had escaped from her bun. Another reminder that within the span of a week, everything she had ever known about the world had been uprooted, lit on fire, and trampled upon. Her hair still shocked her sometimes when she saw it, but she was slowly getting used to it. Slowly.

Distantly, she wondered if she would ever get used to anything ever again.

She was distracted when the door across the hall opened. She'd left her own bedroom door open, under the impression that she wouldn't have any neighbors to worry about since the compound had been empty and quiet when Gojo had shown her to it earlier that day. But then she remembered the young sorcerer's mischievous grin and the way he'd told her "I think Fushiguro would agree with this new living arrangement," and suddenly it all clicked when Fushiguro himself stepped out into the hall from the opposite door.

He spotted her instantly, perched on her bed with a sheepish expression, and it only took him a second to reach the same conclusion. "Gojo."

She nodded and wiggled her fingers. "Hey, neighbor."

He was dressed in a loose, long-sleeve shirt as black as his hair and gray sweatpants, his feet bare and his eyes drooping. He looked like he'd just woken up from a dreadfully long nap. He stood on the threshold of her room, still out in the hall, but his gaze appraised her space.

She sat, self-conscious, and drummed her fingers on the soft pink blanket she'd brought with her from home. "It's not much, but, well, you were there." She flushed slightly. "You saw how little I brought with me."

"It'll fill," he said. He frowned once the words left his mouth. "I mean, if you stay a while."

She nodded. "Were you sleeping?"

"Yeah. I had to go out on a mission last night after we got back from your place. I didn't get back until this morning."

"A mission?" she asked.

He shoved his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants. It was such an innocuous movement, but he was so cool and collected that her eyes were drawn to it like magnets. She was beginning to realize that everything he did was effortless, even just standing in her doorway barefoot and sleepy. She averted her gaze again.

"Jujutsu sorcerers often get called upon to deal with curses," he said. "Mainly, to exorcise them."

Her mouth quirked. "You guys do exorcisms?"

"Not in the sense you're thinking, but the concepts are similar. Sorcerers use their cursed energy and techniques to dispel a curse, particularly if a curse has gotten strong enough to target humans." Her gut pinched at the reminder. "The grade level of the curse determines which grade level of a sorcerer gets dispatched."

She tucked that piece of information away for later, still hung up on something else. "You've mentioned that thing before. Cursed…techniques?" He nodded. "What are those?"

He scratched his heel with one of his feet, his lips pursed. "It's complicated to explain, but if you choose to start learning more about jujutsu, then I can teach you. As of now, just think of cursed techniques as special skills. Some can be learned, like how you learned to read, and some can be innate, like your instinct to eat or drink water—things that you were already born with."

"Well, what's yours?" she said. "What kind of technique do you have?"

He leaned against the doorframe. "My technique is different. Mine was inherited. It's been passed down from generation to generation for a long time."

She raised her eyebrows. "So…what is it?"

"It's called the Ten Shadows Technique. It allows me to summon up to ten shikigami."

"Shikigami…" Her eyes widened. "The familiars you had. The dogs and the giant owl."

He nodded. "Divine Dogs and Nue."

She ran the tip of her finger over her bottom lip, thinking. "So, you can just summon them? From nothing?"

"Not nothing," he said, shaking his head. "From shadows."

"From…oh, that makes sense. Ten Shadows Technique. Duh," she said, more to herself than to him, but he grinned faintly. "Yes."

He shifted against the doorframe, and she patted the spot next to her on the bed. "Come. Sit. Unless you have somewhere to be?"

He shook his head, hesitating only briefly before he shuffled in and perched on her mattress, his back straight and leaving a wide space between them that she could only describe as proper. She hid a smile by pretending to scratch her nose.

"So." She clapped her hands on her knees. "Shikigami." She said it as if it were a normal, everyday thing. "Right. Cool." She nodded. "Up to ten. Nice."

He watched her, amused. "Yes." He hesitated slightly again. "I could show you if you'd like. I could summon the dogs for you."

She blanched, her hand finding the scar on her chest. "Would they attack me?"

He shook his head. "Never. Not unless I willed it."

She let out a breathy laugh. "Well, don't will it. Please."

A faint smile curved his lips as he removed his hands from his pockets. He slotted them together, his long, pale fingers clasping, and her mouth went a little dry as he said, "Divine Dogs."

Between one blink and the next, two dogs the size of wolves melted from the shadows in the corners of her room, one black and one white. Red symbols decorated their foreheads, and their glowing eyes settled upon her with an unnerving intelligence and curiosity that no normal animal should have been able to possess. She fought the urge to shrink back as the white one yawned and licked its jowls, revealing razor-sharp canines capable of mutilating both curse and human.

Fushiguro held out a hand, and the black dog went straight to him and sat. He rubbed between its ears, and the dog's pink tongue lolled out of its mouth as its tail wagged. She stared, not quite able to piece together that these same dogs had attacked a curse barely a week ago with all the ferocity of a savage beast. Now, they just looked like normal hounds.

Cautiously, she held out a hand to the white dog as Fushiguro had done. The hound sniffed at her fingers before giving them a tentative lick. Its tongue was wet, rough, and felt so utterly normal. She kept her hand outstretched as the dog licked her again, and she giggled when it flopped down at her feet. She ran her fingers over its coarse fur and smiled at the tendrils of white she brushed across. She used her other hand to point at the white in her own hair. "We match."

The dog huffed and rolled over at her lame joke.

"That one's always been the more dramatic of the two," Fushiguro said. The black hound had rested its head on his knee, and his fingers rubbed between its ears absently. The dog closed its eyes, content.

"They're both so cute," she cooed, switching her attention to the black hound since the white one clearly thought she was unfunny. Its tail thumped on the floor, and the white hound huffed again. She could almost imagine it rolling its eyes at its brother.

She and Fushiguro continued to stroke the black hound in comfortable silence. She was loath to ruin what felt like the first peaceful moment she'd had in days, but her mind was bubbling with questions.

"If your technique is inherited," she said, "does that mean your whole family is sorcerers?"

He kept petting the shikigami, but she noticed the small frown that twisted his pale lips and the sudden rigid set to his shoulders. "Mostly. Some aren't, though. But I don't have contact with them anyway."

She got the sense that he wasn't willing to say more, so she changed topics. "And Gojo…he's a teacher here at the school?" At Fushiguro's curt nod, she leaned back on her elbows, taking a break from petting his shikigami dog—another thing she supposed she would get used to with time. "Huh. He doesn't seem very, uh, well…"

"Mature?" Fushiguro supplied.

He glanced over at her as she cringed. "I mean, that's not—"

"He's the most immature and annoying man on the planet," Fushiguro said in a deadpan voice. He scratched under the Divine Dog's chin, and it whined happily. "But he also happens to be the strongest sorcerer."

It looked as if saying the words brought him no pleasure, but she could hear the undercurrent of respect in his voice. She sat back up, intrigued. "The strongest? How?"

"His own inherited techniques are very powerful," he said, "and the amount of cursed energy he possesses only adds to his strength."

She wondered if that was how the teacher was able to see despite wearing a blindfold all the time. She swung her feet, thinking, until Fushiguro muttered something beside her, and the Divine Dogs instantly disintegrated back into shadows. She blinked. "Will things like that ever become normal to me?"

He gave her a slight smile as he climbed to his feet. "Maybe."

"Are you leaving?"

"Just to make dinner," he replied, heading toward her door. He kept his back to her, scratching the back of his head as he walked. "Have you eaten anything yet?"

"Instant ramen." She flopped back on her bed. "I guess I'll see you tomorrow morning, though, right? When we meet with Ieiri, Gojo, and Principal Yaga?"

"Yeah." He glanced over his shoulder and gave a small wave. "See you tomorrow, Nagatsuka."

"Later, Fushiguro."

He disappeared back into his room and shut the door. She debated reading one of her books, but she couldn't bring herself to get back up. She curled on her side and watched the fireflies wink in and out of existence outside the glass door, tiny little stars burning out before being reborn again.

She was asleep before she knew it, and dreamed of stars and curses.

Again, I'm sorry for such a short and uneventful chapter - I'll do better going forward!

Until next time!