Note:

Flashbacks and thoughts in italics

I do not condone or encourage any behaviors in this story. It is simply a fictional story.

"The Art Of Water"

CHAPTER 13

thirteen steps to nowhere

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To put it plainly, she hadn't the faintest idea where on earth they were taking her this time. Ah. Taking on these missions is something she does without much contemplation. She does speculate if they assign her these with even less thought. Kasumi sniffs, her eyes on the balloons slipping the hold of a crestfallen child and dotting the sky. She was back in her suits and pants at her own request. As you guessed, kimonos have been getting in the way.

It only sucked three times: the first, the second, and the fifth time.

The first time, her element spiralled out of hand, nearly submerging a city. However, magical enchantments for constructing barriers and curbing disasters were there to save the day. It was a debacle they foresaw. In the second instance, she almost killed herself. Last but not least. The fifth time, she made it out of a crumbling building by a hair's breadth, covered in blood and the odour of rotting curses, clinging to life. She'd been better at her job ever since. This was her thirteenth time. Kasumi blew a wisp of hair out of her face as the car glided through the snowbound turves. She'd been paired up with Yasha, who had carried her home each time Miwa thought she would be a side dish for the curse's happy meal—mostly because she knew him the most among her peers and cousins who were either slightly older or younger than her. All professional sorcerers. Once the tenth one came around, he ceased chaperoning her, stating it was on her to save her ass herself. She'd been classified as a Special Grade now. Might as well live up to the title.

The windows rolling by were misty, the machinery noise from a nearby factory bringing her back to the weighty conquest ahead. Don't let emotions run wild. She picks her cuticles as they pass bus shelters and no smoking posters.

During this time, her brothers are working on their cursed energy in Yakushima. It had begun just three months after hers. The corners of her eyes crinkle in concern, thinking of the little one, Mizuki.

At this time of the day, her twin is likely clinging to his master's feet, expletives pouring out of his blubbering mouth, begging for them to stop subjecting him to plight. Brother or not, Katsuki never missed a chance to ridicule her whenever she spoke about the pains she braved to tame her technique. He needled her for being a bundle of nerves, drawing a contrast to his gallant being, going so far as to declare he could do without ice packs. He had eagerly set out on his first magical endeavour, having shot a self-assured smile her way.

Now, you know what despair feels like. No pain, no gain. Practice makes pain. Endless pain! She believes that smile's off his face as of now. If he's a human being getting his ass handed to him by Ashiyas, he'd rather be mewling like a baby.

An eerie aura tainted the place she had stepped onto, hinting at a curse. Despite the January weather, her garments were hot and itchy on her skin, and the flavourless candy she was munching on amplified her boredom. She discarded the candy into the nearby bin, not wanting to risk queasiness. She found herself clipped with a smug grin on her face, so pleased with the act that she momentarily forgot about the revolting sweetness on her tongue.

Nonetheless, her face falls, caught off guard by a new feeling. Enduring the merciless gut cramps without doubling down becomes her immediate struggle. Is it the food I had in the morning? With a start, she becomes aware of the liquid slipping from her slit, tracing her inner thighs. What? Her period is two weeks away, and she has never had an irregular cycle.

Her instructor speaks in his thick Japanese dialect as they traverse the walkway side by side. All the while, she tried not to think about something that had occupied her mind lately. Decluttering her mind mandates chucking away things she doesn't need, like him. Instead, ponder the agonizing trajectory of her derrière as it hit the ground during the wrestling matches with her cousins, or Mai's snoring serenades after her mango pudding raid from the fridge, or Todo's endless monologues about different kinds of women, anything but her own bridge-side adventure. Let's call it "the bridge day!" for convenience. Don't be amazed; Miwa's approach to decluttering often involves adding distractions.

Under the frescoed ceilings, she meanders along the spotless floors strewn with pillows. Kasumi is hyper-aware when her nipples swell against her bra. Much like her throat, they grew sore, and then, out of the blue, Kasumi was struck by a pounding headache. What the hell?

Every corner was sprinkled with sacred Shinto ropes, hanging dolls, and talismans; the entire setup appeared questionable as if it were veiling a holy rite. Miwa's hands instinctively found the katana strapped to her back. No one knew she had it with her, hidden under her bed when she arrived home, soaked in rain on "the bridge day." Hopefully, Himawari wouldn't scold her for trying to give herself a fever from the rain. Rain was water, and water was her.

She liked it. How they all treated her like someone who could take a pounding, not a fragile little thing they should try to keep from harm's way.

The dense smoke of burning incense clung to everything. It lent a crisp ambience to the pools and ponds with the ecosystem underneath. Despite being advised to rely more on elemental sorcery, this time, Miwa felt compelled to bring her old blade along after the prolonged separation.

It was an object from the past, a reminder of her failings. Despite all that transpired, she couldn't bring herself to part with it. She might not have to. The katana ushered in a touch of the ordinary, which almost felt unsettling, as though she were attempting to elude her destiny when she shouldn't. This reflection was something she intended to shroud. It must remain unseen by all. What is she even trying to run away from?

BANG!

The door closes behind Miwa, and she pivots around, her ponytail whirling aside. Her katana glints as she takes it out of the sheath, the blue of her eyes sharp upon the metal. This is definitely fishy.

She inhales, willing her powers to rush out of her wrist in a snap, to feel it flowing like blue blood through her veins. Nothing. She feels nothing. Eyes wide with sudden exasperation, she tries again. There's no cursed energy, no Akira to call upon.

Kasumi bears the emptiness inside her with patience, trying all over again. This time, she chooses a different place after roaming around, searching for any other opening. Not a single one. She clears out what appears to be a living room or lobby of any furniture or article, then fills a clean mug with water and splatters it around the space. She grimaces, not thinking further about what she is doing. Be that as it may, it's the procedure for what she's about to do. After removing her shoes and socks, her feet make steady taps, drawing a rhombus on the floor. She pauses every two minutes to tie and untie one long strand of her hair onto her wrist. She doesn't even know if she's doing it right as her limbs move peculiarly, making mad gestures and tricky symbols she had seen in the book. She had found it in the dusty library in one of the treehouses Yasha had shown her if her memory serves her right. And the first time she did it, somehow, it had worked. Her cursed energy kickstarted, propelling her out of the balcony and into the river below. Should it be done in a closed space like this? What if it's a one-time trick?

However, all of that doesn't matter in the end, as it only takes her two hours of using up all her tricks to realize that her sorcery doesn't do shit inside these doors. The closed walls were starting to suffocate her.

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Outside the impenetrable windows, patches of Pampas grass rolled out for the sunlight to play, and a train passes in the distance. Polka dots on the horizon catch her gaze, likely schoolboys bunking classes to hang out after lunch. Nostalgia billed and cooed from the sight.

Her sense of reality begins to waver as consciousness drifts in and out, isolation adding to her heavy heart. As the remaining bits of her patience ebbs away, she picks up the large stones in one of the natural ponds nearby and chucks them at the windows. Nothing happens. As if untouched by her frustration, the glass stays motionless and perfect. She screams defiantly, kicking the windows until she loses the sensation of her feet, but all in vain. Her cries for help fall on deaf ears. Nobody sees or hears her. Before she notices it, she's collapsing to the floor.

Shoes. Long legs clad in high-waisted pants. Kasumi saw very little in her fuzzy field of view as she lay there on the ground like she had been attacked with a blow to the head from someone with a grudge. Undoubtedly, that was not the case. She sees the still-burning cigarette crushed beneath their feet on the floor as they advance towards her. Every inch closer has her wincing and squirming. They're tall, like him—what in the world am I thinking! Am I even being myself?

This is not good. I should run. Something is wrong with me.

I should be exorcising curses, but it appears I would need one of those myself. Because right now, Kasumi's virgin lips quivered, weeping for his cock.

She had plucked the clothes off her body and brought her hand up her chest, blushing in a heat that was never there. It felt like a fire had been lit inside of her, her mind assaulted with obscene, vulgar thoughts of her vagina being filled to the brim with a hot appendage, breaking into her deepest parts, making her folds clench and slick when it is given to her like the universe was about to end. Hard and pulsing with want.

A raw need eclipses inside her, and she can only gasp at how stupidly staggering it is. It is concerning when she knows she is addicted before it even begins. It shielded Kasumi from the light of coherence, setting her on a fire reeking of insanity.

It felt newer than the pair of kitten heels she got on her 7th birthday. Kasumi had never felt this way before.

As her legs wobbled, she couldn't stop her unrestrained hand from going between her thighs to touch, stroke and soak. She found herself putting all the carnal gestures she didn't know she could produce into use.

Lechery had burst inside her, tinting her skin from pale to crimson-like leaves in autumn. Kasumi mewls and sniffles, her face contorting from blind desire, with a thirst to be filled, a need to cure the emptiness, to feel and scream like the crackles of a million fireworks on New Year's Eve. The pops had begun when they showed up, snapping her—even if for a second—from the daze back to sanity, allowing the ghosts of questions like what the flying fuck she was doing in a place like this to haunt her. Instead of doing my job, I'm getting off on the floor, half-naked.

"Ngh. What the—I wan—wantchuu." Her vision fogged up with her whine. "Gimme. Can't take it anymore." Really? When she finally gets her voice, that's the only thing her tongue could twist out?

Kasumi yelped when his face came into her view, his flushed, magnetic form. Red peonies bloom from the seeds he had sown in her memories. She feels his form seeking to be painted in her lust. He was the man of her dreams. The perfect prince she can dream all she wants but never pursue. Gojo Satoru.

She's done for.

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