prelude - asbestos.
a/n. this chapter is kind of just a word dump of the context to set up who this OC is & a bit of her personality. also! im newish to writing, i just decided i was upset w/ everything that happpened rhat i want THESE FELLAS to be happy T_T so i literally started writing out of spite
It was hard to breathe.
Each breath felt manual, and she feared if she stopped thinking, her breathing would follow. Concrete lungs took in air, and a chill ran down her spine. She was cold. Like ice had been injected into her veins and sunken into her flesh.
Her back was pressed against concrete, and legs rest against her chest as she clasped her hands around her knees, hugging them tightly. It was sunny— so sunny that it shone through the smoky air. Bright ribbons of light streamed down from the beaming sun above, and they kissed her skin and hair. She was so cold.
She unwrapped herself and flattened her back against the crumbled structure, tilting her head upwards to stare at the sky above. It was greyish-blue, smothered in clouds of dust. She missed its once brilliant blue, the blue that reminded her of the ocean. Closing her eyes, a nostalgic smile graced her lips.
Himari loved the ocean. She grew up near the ocean, and it was her provider, her family, her friend. In Hokkaido, her father had been a fisherman. The bright blue skies would signal a bountiful day ahead of them, and she remembered standing by the beach as her father's boat departed, her mother gingerly stroking Himari's hair as her father waved and smiled.
The ocean would lap at her feet as she bounded across the sandy terrain, and she would shriek as the cold water swallowed her feet and ankles. Seagulls would circle and peck at tourist's abandoned food, and she would stare out at the ocean.
She opened her eyes. It was city. Crumbling city.
When rural town sorcerers had been called to the scene, it was apparent that something was incredibly wrong. Her mother had told her that trying to help was a bad idea. "It's not safe honey," Her mother begged. "Stay right here, and let others handle it, please."
Himari wondered if Hokkaido was crumbling too.
Part of her wished that it was fine— that Hokkaido was preserved, and the oceans and the markets and her childhood were untouched. The other part knew that wasn't possible.
Gojo Satoru was dead. Sukuma had returned. Geto— or whatever was inside Geto— was last seen grinning. It was an inhuman grin. Sinister, cold, and uncanny.
Himari took one moment to draw in a deep breath, feeling her chest expand with air. Then, she sharpened her gaze on a nearby transfigured human and got into a crouching position, readying herself to launch forwards and past it.
Breathing out, Himari steeled her nerves and shot past the transfigured human. A heavy weight rest upon her shoulders as she ran, and she made the mistake of glancing at its face.
They were so desperate. They were in pain, and they were desperate grasping at anything around them, pleading to be put out of their misery. They flailed their deconstructed arms against nearby buildings, knocking apart the structure even further. Dust, asbestos, and dry wall scattered from each swing.
She wished she could help them, but she was bleeding from a gash on her shoulder and her ankle was beginning to swell: those who took time to pity the lost were those who ended up dead.
The destruction blurred around her as she channeled her cursed energy into her movement. Silence had blanketed the city now, the transfigured humans and cursed spirits had dispersed into a much wider area, and it was unsettling to hear such absence of life.
Himari had one goal. She needed to reach her parents. She needed to make sure they were okay.
As she stepped around debris and desecrated bodies that lay unclaimed, unburied on the floor, she stopped to take a breath. It was hard to breathe. She was cold, and it was so hard to breathe. She never really thought about the aftermath of destruction, when people think of destruction— they think of the falling buildings and the screams of terror, but they don't think of the aftermath.
The air heavy with chemicals, it became a wrestling match to squeeze air into her lungs. Himari coughed, and brought her fist to her mouth. She tasted blood. A metallic flavour tracing her tongue, and when she withdrew her arm, splotches of blood painted her skin.
Fuck.
Taking a moment to recuperate, a light breeze trickled by her and a small whimper escaped a nearby structure. The remnants of a park.
And the whimper of a child.
Himari clenched her jaw. She was a first year at Hokkaido Jujutsu High. The highschool itself was small, with the highest grade sorcerer being the principal Ren Uzumaki, who was a semi grade 1 sorcerer. The limited staff and student body resulted in the school nearing shutdown, with funding decreasing each year as the Zenin family cash flow focused more on its Tokyo and Kyoto counterparts. Still, Hokkaido Jujutsu High had instilled values in her that her weary body begged her to ignore.
She could ignore the ones already gone, but she could not ignore the ones who had a chance.
Approaching the red plastic tube slide, each step she took felt unnerving, like stepping towards a burning forest fire. She could feel a relatively low amount of cursed energy from within the slide, and she figured the child was able to see the curses and had crawled his way into the tube to hide.
"Hello," She called out softly. Her voice was coated in honey as she attempted to coax the source of the whimpering out from the playground. "Where are your parents?"
Reaching out to place her hand on the outside of the tube slide, she let her lips from a smile.
"I'm not here to hurt you," Himari reminded him. "I'm a jujutsu sorcerer, we help people."
A silence settled over the playground, when a meek voice called out from within the slide.
"Mommy and daddy are gone. We're playing hide n seek!"
It was a high-pitched voice, perhaps a little girl? She pondered this as she took in the information she had been given. The child within the slide had been playing a game with her parents. Himari was almost certain this child's parents were dead.
"Maybe I can help," She offered. "I'm super good at hide and seek! I just need you to come out of there."
"Do you want to play with us?" The voice called back, with a giddy undertone to its question. Himari smiled warmly, moving to the front of the slide and crouched down to peer into the entrance.
"Sure, I'd love to."
At that moment, it felt as if an immense flood cursed energy had crashed into her, and she stumbled backwards. A great pressure rest itself on her shoulders, and she felt the earth beneath her begin to spin. A domain? She glanced around her as she bounced backwards, planting her feet into the ground.
One.
It was grotesque. An amalgamation of human body, and insect. The child she had previously spoken to was embedded into the centipede's exoskeleton, its human head twisted upside down to appear as the head of the curse, and its several arms awkwardly bent at the elbows to make up each leg. Its skin was a dark green, with hair hanging from its head akin to a beard.
The child was smiling.
It clapped its two front legs— arms?— and began to sing-song.
"Play! Play! Play!"
Two.
Himari furrowed her brow and raised her fists to the air. Her right shoulder was still caked in dried blood, and her ankle limited her movements heavily. The domain engulfing her and the curse was large, but it felt incomplete. The curse was still immature, and Himari knew that meant that she had a chance.
Three.
The curse skittered towards her, its limbs squelching against the grass terrain.
It's fast.
Himari leapt out of its range as the centipedal creature lunged at her previous location, its hind limbs extending towards her as she wove out of the way. The child let out a pierching screech in protest. "Why won't you play with me," It begged, venom dripping from each word. Its voice almost had an echo to it. "Play with me! Play with me! You promised to play with me!"
Four.
Quickly, she began her hand signs for her cursed technique before hesitating. In her past experience, Himari was never able to truly manage her own cursed energy. It was too much for herself, and even a few seconds of time weave caused days of wreckage upon her body.
But she couldn't fail. Not now. She could rest after, but she needed to live. She needed to see her mother again.
Speeding through her hand signs whilst leaping backwards, the immense pressure exerted on her from the domain made her movements feel clumsy. Her limbs were heavy, and each dodge strained her.
"Time wea—"
Five.
In five seconds, Himari was pierced through the stomach. The centipede skewered her with its hind limbs, and tossed her against the nearby swing set like a ragdoll.
This is what it's like to be a second rate sorcerer.
It was almost blissful, to be welcomed by the warmth of her blood pooling around her after she had just been so, so cold. A cough wracked her body, and she could barely muster the energy to crawl. Crawl where? She didn't know. The centipedal creature bounded towards her, a grin still on its lips as it began to cheer.
"I win! I win! I win!"
Several of its limbs began to pierce her body, and she could feel nothing but blinding pain.
I shouldn't have skipped Uzumaki's classes. She reprimanded herself, as her consciousness began to drift further and further from her physical being. In all my life, I never did anything great. And now I'm dying, unknown and alone. I never got to see my mom again.
She pleaded with herself to get up, to move, to do anything, but her body remained still as the creature tore through her flesh.
I want to change things. This isn't right— none of this is right.
The world was silent. And then everything screamed.
Binding vows.
Binding vows are the foundation of the jujutsu universe. It's a pact made with oneself, or with another being. They are contracts created by cursed energy, with the promise that following its restrictions would be rewarded. To gain something, another must be lost in the process. The world was confined by these laws.
Time Sorceress Himari was not an exception.
Her cursed energy flooded her system, and reversed in the fraction of a second. In exchange, Himari was wiped from this universe's timeline. She will never exist again to her parents, her friends, her colleagues.
Himari wakes with a jolt, a stretch, and then a scream.
If at first, her brain didn't recall her injuries— her body definitely did. Her ankle was still swollen from being twisted, her shoulder had been dislocated with blood decorating her gash wound. Her skin adorned several bruises, and she moved her hand to grasp at her chest and stomach.
What previously was a gaping hole, was sealed.
"I'm intact," She muttered, the soot and chemicals that had previously carved holes in her lungs seemed to be missing. "Life-threatening injuries are gone, mildly inconvenient ones aren't," Himari noted. It seemed a bit silly to her— why reverse her death but maintain injuries.
A pounding head ache took hold of her skull, and she moved her uninjured arm to block the sun from obscuring her vision.
Where am I?
Looking around, Himari spotted the red tube slide, and the swing set that had been welcomed her fatal end. They were different, though. The red tube no longer housed the centipedal cursed spirit. Glancing past the fences housing the little playground, she furrowed her brow at the sight of buildings and houses. Normal buildings and houses, standing tall and proud— unbothered. Like nothing had happened.
She blinked.
She rubbed her eye, and blinked again.
From her stunned state, she hadn't noticed the child behind her back until she felt a finger prodding at the back of her head. Himari wearily turned to stare, and the child pointed at her— almost accusatory.
"My mom and dad think you're weird," the child declared.
An exasperated sigh from a nearby man and an embarassed yelp from a woman followed the child's statement, and Himari felt a smile begin to form.
"We're so sorry!" The mother rushed to fix the situation, and the father ruffled the child's hair after scooping the young boy into his arms. "Sosuke here just says things without thinking. Are you okay? Do you need to go to the hospital?"
Himari laughed and attempted to stand up, only to find that her ankle betrayed her and she winced at the immediate pain. "I can manage," She responded, "What year is it?"
The father raised his eyebrows and glanced down at the child in his arms, almost as if he agreed with the child's previous statement. There was a brief silence broken only by the loud ringing of a school bell, alerting everyone that school was out and children would soon flood the playground.
"2006."
Himari looked up at the sky, grasping her bloodied shoulder.
She had ten years to change the world.
jujustroll!
a/n starting from chapter 1 & onwards, i'll be writing some cute lil jujustrolls to end each chapter (depending on the tone of the chapter lol). if you have any questions i'll also be answering them there ^_^