His room had only what he deemed to be strictly necessary. Gabriele was never one to own many things, to begin with. In his infancy at his mother's house, his room was devoid of any personality, nothing but ugly and tattered furnishings accompanied him by the cold nights, with a thin blanket, too short to cover him whole, to keep him warm. So when the principal asked him what he wanted for his living quarters, he requested only a bed, a small table, and a lamp. That was how deep the roots of misery have sunken. He responded with an incredulous grin, informing him that basic furniture was already included with a tiny cooking area and if he had anything outside of the ordinary to demand, to just call him.

Well, he had something in mind.

A gentle gurgling distracted him from his train of thought. He got up from his dim-lit desk, a few paces and he stood before the moka pot calling for him. He turned off the stove, the aroma of coffee dispersed in the moonlit room strong enough to reach deep inside his nostrils, despite his deteriorated sense of smell.

After pouring himself a cup, Gabriele marched back to the desk, taking small sips on the way. He sat on the wooden chair, the half-written letter was there waiting to be filled with the latest status report. During these weeks he went together with Megumi and Nobara on a couple of missions on the outskirts of Tokyo, the city was nothing like he had ever seen before. Gabriele thought Rome was big, but Tokyo was twice as large and twice as tall, the lights of the skyscrapers shone in his pupils as he crossed the busy roads. The curses also seemed like an entirely different breed of monsters, much more aggressive than their overseas counterparts, due perhaps by the higher concentration of cursed energy.

He settled the cup to the side and took the pen in his hands. He began to write down the report as soon as the point hit the paper. Three lines in and his mind was wandering in memories it shouldn't bring back to the surface. Fleeting images and sounds, he remembered half of his face submerged in a warm substance, his nostril and mouth flooded with a metallic taste as weeps echoed in the room, oxygen barely reached down his lung through his sliced open trachea.

A sigh came naturally as the discomfort that followed, Gabriele couldn't go further with the letter, so much it had bothered him. The chair creaked under his weight, itchiness took his neck by assault the moment he leaned back.

You shouldn't drink coffee, it's late

'I wouldn't sleep anyway.' Gabriele drank the remaining coffee in one gulp, then proceeded to unwrap the bandages around his throat. One by one the bends came undone, the awful reality of his condition unearthed for the world to see. A crooked scar traveled across the skin ear to ear, it carved out his neck to the point it looked deformed if watched from the side, especially with the missing Adam's apple.

Does it still hurt?

'No, it doesn't. What is up with you today?!' Gabriele replied in a bitter tone while he rubbed gently over the scar, wearing bandages all day long galled it a bit.

I'm worried about you

Of course, they'd be. He got up from the chair, there was some clean gauze ready to be used together with the ointment he procured at the pharmacy, all stored in the bathroom cabinet. He opened the door, the mirror greeted him with his ugly portrait reflected on it, the scar seemed to taunt him as he got closer, sneering at his dismay. Gabriele hated it with a passion, his expression furrowed just by the look of it, a sentiment that despite all the years that passed with it permanently marking his skin showed no signs to quell.

He took what he needed from the cabinet and stormed out of the bathroom. The gauze rapidly went by as it enfolded around his neck, by the time he reached the bed, only the tiny roll was left in his hand.

'Shit.' Gabriele lay down on the mattress, didn't even make the effort to take off the uniform the bastard gave to him. As soon as his head rested on the pillow, all the tiredness he didn't know to have, hit him like a truck.

You've changed

'How come?' He asked without much thought.

Not long ago you wouldn't have dared to speak a word with the likes of them

Now you sleep under the same roof

The exorcist turned on his other side, trying to ignore the entity manifesting behind his shoulders. Their pearly arms became more opaque as they crept around his neck, fingers soothingly brushing against his cheek. He accepted it in a sense, he knew they meant no harm, not that they were capable of doing so. 'Get to the point.' His inner voice was harsh, even though he leaned more into their touch, mentally scolding himself for longing for physical contact.

You're growing past your indoctrination

'You don't know half of it. I wouldn't be here if my faith was somewhat faltering. I'm here because they trust that I can bring the mission to completion.'

Then why tell them about our family?

'The more cemented in truth the lie is, the easier it is to act accordingly.' He closed his eyes, and the feeling on his cheek soon faded. Gabriele knew beforehand that once his eyelids open, a pair of turquoise eyes seeped in blood will stare back at him. He broke apart his eyelids slowly. He was right.

He was met by an ethereal presence, their face shared many similarities with his own, like gazing at the pond's reflection. They looked extremely malnourished to the point he could count the bones, their eyes deep sunken in their sockets, and their cheekbones were also very pronounced. The long straight black hair, darker than the night itself, heavily in contrast with their complexion, covered the skeletal appearance down to their midsection.

No, there must be something else

Their bony fingers gradually reached toward the sides of his head, they were cold, so much that he was afraid his body heat could melt them. 'I have nothing to hide...' he argued, but still he did not oppose them.

I thought lies were considered sins

Their eyes easily dug through his pupils, staring directly at the pit of his soul. They already knew what was troubling the young man, but they would prefer if he was the one to say it, to let out the inquietude he was feeling. His thoughts were clashing with each other, and doubt took hold of his mind with an iron grip. Slowly they brought his head close to their chest, a hand caressing his hair as they held him dearly. The conflict inside him cast a curtain of fog, his vision still not clear of the reality around him. Wreck havoc among the heathens, the words of his master sounded so pretentious that dwarfed any other thought. He wasn't ready yet.

'I'm sorry for using your ability without your permission back at the airport. I was afraid they would have attacked me if I came off vulnerable.' They looked at him surprised, the exorcist was drifting off to sleep in their embrace. They smiled, perhaps change was just behind the corner, it was only a matter of time.

Gabriele woke up to loud thuds resounding in his room. He hardly fought to open his eyes, they seemed to be stitched shut for how incredibly arduous it was, even moving a muscle felt like an impossible task to accomplish. The warm sensation of the sunshine on his skin was comfortable at least.

The exorcist managed to sit up in spite of his half-asleep state, yet his eyelids refused to grant him sight, his body was desperately calling for him to get some water as given away by the dry tongue, and together with all that, the loud thuds continued with a certain persistence. He heard someone talking from outside, their voice was muffled by the walls and his hearing wasn't connected yet with the rest of the world. Is someone trying to get to him?

'What's goin-' the door abruptly slammed against the wall, waking up the exorcist all at once.

"WAKE THE FUCK UP! WE GOTTA GO!" Nobara came through his room, not caring about the door that she had just broken off its hinges. "Go? Where are we going?" Gabriele swung his legs off the bed, just in time to get hit by a heavy object right on his nose bridge.

"Are you out of your fucking mind?! That hurt a lot, you know?!" The exorcist complained, blood dripped out of his left nostril onto his lap. He glanced at the object she probably threw at him, it was a tourist guide for the city of Kyoto with plenty of bookmarks sticking out of its pages, outside the doorway there was a backpack and a pink trolley. Did she plan a whole itinerary?

"Less whining, more moving. We got a bullet train to catch." Nobara looked around the room, no luggage in sight. "Did you pack your stuff?"

"Of course, I packed my stuff!" He responded instinctively. The exorcist froze immediately thereafter, he never believed that one day he would ever experience something as close as a connection buffering in real life. Gabriele gulped, taking a long time to formulate a reasonable explanation for the already fuming girl glaring daggers at him. "Did I pack my stuff?" That was all he blurted out.

. . .

"Oi! Wait a moment! Where are you dragging me?!" Protested the young man while Nobara yanked him out of the room by the ear. "No way in hell I'm going to wait for you to prepare your luggage. You're lucky you had your uniform already on, otherwise, I'd have made you crawl to Kyoto butt naked."

"Wait! Wait! Let me shower first!"

~ 10 minutes later ~

"What?!" Nobara dropped the blood-stained tourist guide on the pavement, Gabriele instead felt his soul leaving his body altogether. He had convinced the girl to let him pack his bag with essential stuff for the trip and at least wash his face before she could tear his ear off his head. The exorcist had to fill it in such a rush while she was watching him with resentment that he wasn't even sure of what he had put inside. All that effort, all the pain he endured to be punctual for the rendezvous.

"Why are you all empty-handed?!" All of that, for nothing.

"What are you doing with all that luggage?" Panda asked them. In fact, every one of the other students was wondering that. "What do you mean? We're going to Kyoto, right? For the exchange event with our sister school in Kyoto?" She glanced at them incredulously, the exorcist could perceive the itinerary she had wasted hours if not days on shattering into thousands of pieces.

"It's an exchange event with our sister school in Kyoto." The animal clarified, "Held in Tokyo." There, the bomb has finally been dropped.

"NO WAY!" Nobara screamed at the top of their lungs, "What did I make all this preparation for, then?! I was totally ready to go sightseeing!" She pulled the poor foreigner next to her by the collar, the only one who was kept in the dark like her. "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME ANYTHING?! DO YOU ENJOY SEEING MY DREAMS GET CRUSHED?!

Megumi limited himself to watching them arguing from afar with the second-year, for once saving his eardrums from being overstimulated. "Am I not the only one whose mind is getting bombarded with nonsensical gibberish, right?" Maki consulted her classmates.

"Salmon."

"Yes. You'll get used to it, Maki-senpai." Megumi said.

"It's held by the school that won in the previous year." The cursed corpse explained to his underclasswoman, who immediately let go of the exhausted exorcist to target him instead. "Then don't go winning, you idiots." She yelled at him much as she did with Gabriele.

"We weren't in it last year. Only Yuuta participated to make the number match up." Panda's voice struggled to come out, "That was prior to freeing Rika." Maki stepped in, gaining the undisputed attention of the other girl. "Apparently, it was an overwhelming win. I didn't see it, though, since it was held in Kyoto." So it was his fault, uh?

Nobara twisted the tourist guide into a makeshift megaphone, she'll make sure the mysterious Yuuta Okkotsu hears her lashing out even from far away.

Maki looked away from Nobara's childish antics, she heeded the sounds of footsteps approaching them within her earshot, which alerted her survival instinct to a maximum degree. "Hey!" She called her classmates, "They're here." As if it was written in a movie script, the heads of the Kyoto students appeared over the horizon. The girls immediately focused their sight on the Zen'in spearheading the group. Strangely enough, Megumi couldn't find Toudou among the crowd of unfamiliar people.

"Oh look, it's everyone from Tokyo together. You went out of your way to greet us? Disgusting." Mai began by mocking them, striking a nerve in Nobara already. "Shut up. Hurry up and hand over the cake box, the yatsutashi, kudzu noodles, and the buckwheat cookies." Kugisaki ordered deadpan.

"Salmon." Inumaki affirmed.

"You guys hungry?" Panda questioned his classmates.

Mai checked through the Tokyo students for a particular person, a subtle smile soon arose on her visage. "What a shame, I couldn't wait to see your new classmate again, but it seems like he's gonna miss the event." She commented. Nobara scoffed, not only was she dead wrong about Gabriele being their classmate but also downright blind.

"MAIII!" A petite blonde girl groaned, tugging the annoyed Zen'in's arm. "You're telling me the totally hot foreigner isn't here anymore?!" Megumi instantly began to search for their exorcist friend, and with the realization that he was nowhere to be seen, soon came the anxiety that something unpleasant was about to happen. "Fushiguro, where's the preacher?" Maki questioned him.

"I don't know, but I got a bad feeling about this."

A shadow was cast over the Tokyo students' group, automatically their heads went up to the bright sky, shielding their eyes from the blinding sun. Little by little, the initially tiny dark point in the cloudless light blue stretch got bigger, they stared in horror as the mysterious object took the shape of a human falling straight down at great velocity. "Panda! Catch him!" Megumi shouted. The cursed corpse shortly positioned itself on the fall trajectory, making small adjustments whenever needed. It wasn't sure it could catch him, judging by how fast he was going.

80 meters until impact:

The body made no signs of moving.

Time remaining: 0:00:04

Survival rate: 43%

50 meters until impact:

The body suddenly turned, the human now expected to land face-first on the ground.

Time remaining: 0:00:03

Survival rate: 18%

20 meters until impact:

Something is forming behind his shoulders, not nearly fast enough to make a difference.

Time remaining: 0:00:015

Survival rate: 5%

Spread thy wings and fly away, Seraph

An impetuous flap of wings generated strong gusts of wind, slowing his rapid descent just enough to land on his feet without breaking any bones and thus postponing his untimely departure. Everyone stared in awe as the three pairs of wings on the exorcist's back gradually vanished into nothingness. "Esposito! What happened?" Megumi and Nobara quickly scanned the young man head to toe, he was physically proven but didn't have any visible injuries on him.

"I've... I've been teleported... away from you..." the thoughts in both the Japanese teenagers mimicked Gabriele's elaborated breaths to perfection. While staying in Japan, the Italian finally had the time and the volunteers to practice his unique technique, now he was capable of manipulating four people's thoughts at once without a single error.

"First they declined my specific request to let you join the exchange event." A familiar voice made Megumi snap his head in the general direction of its source, Toudou made his way past his classmates careless of brushing against their shoulders. "I thought I was being reasonable. A 5v7 (he counts himself twice) competition can only end up being boring to me. Then they told me Okkotsu wouldn't be here either, which makes me twice as annoyed by their decision." The goliath cracked his knuckles. The exorcist shifted into his fighting stance by lowering his barycentre, a sudden acute pain in his legs made him lose his balance, bringing him to his knees.

He may have stuck the landing without destroying his femur in the process, but it still wasn't beneficial to his legs.

"I may not fight you at the exchange event, but I will fight you right here, right now."

"Okay, now. Let's not fight amongst ourselves." An adult woman came up the stairs to their left, she clapped twice to claim her and the Tokyo students' attention. "My goodness, these children." She glowered the exorcist on the ground, and he glared back at her. She frowned at him, pretty much every old sorcerer had a reason or two to hate him, not that the feeling wasn't mutual, on the contrary.

"So, where's that idiot?" The older woman asked the Tokyo students.

"Satoru's late." "As if that idiot would ever show up on time." Megumi helped Gabriele get on his feet again. "Is referring to Gojou as an "idiot" a kind of inside joke in the Jujutsu world?" The foreigner genuinely posed the question.

"No one said "idiot" referred to Gojou-sensei, but at this point, it's safe to assume that his idiocy has become common knowledge." Speaking of idiots, the noise of wiggling wheels announced the much-anticipated arrival of the dumbass himself, the almighty Gojou Satoru, in all his glory. Gabriele could hardly believe that the number one spot on the Church's blacklist was occupied by such an immature person. "Sorry for the wait!" He drifted the cart to a full stop, "I was on a business trip overseas. So I'll now hand out souvenirs." He then proceeded to give each one of Kyoto's students some protective charms.

"And for everyone from Tokyo, we have this." He exhibited the metal box on top of the cart as he struck an unnecessary pose. "Seriously, today is the weirdest I have ever seen him being, and that's saying something." Nobara agreed with him, jet lag may be at fault here but, in every way you look at it, an overexcited adult is damn creepy.

The box began shaking on its own, the exorcist was taken by surprise, then surprise turned into curiosity and curiosity turned into uneasiness, white sparks flying off his fingers, whatever it was inside that cart had an insane amount of cursed energy. A cursed object? Or a powerful cursed spirit?

The box violently swung open, his hands unexpectedly went ablaze with the divine essence, the flames soon covered his entire forearms in such an intense color he could hardly see his limbs beneath. Never in his life had Gabriele met a curse... No, a demon of this caliber. Father Candido was right, some ominous being has awakened from its slumber.

"Hey! OPP!"