The absolute monster that erupts out from beyond the treeline and charges at them like a freight train with a grudge looks like the unholy prehistoric spawn of a Komodo dragon and a chameleon that got cloned back to life in Jurrasic Park, complete with rows of bristling spines trailing down its gargantuan back and along its tail, distended eyeballs hanging from its jowl like a mane, and two stacked jaws full of spearlike teeth so massive and crooked they actually seem to prevent it from snapping it's maw shut.

Both of them.

Lovely.

The funny thing is that, as far as most curses go, it isn't the most hideous of its kind Percy had ever seen - though to be fair, that bar is already so low to the ground it's practically a tripping hazard into hell.

So-

A mission that starts with a plethora of cursed victims no one can explain, a friend's childhood history that inspires genuine homicidal urges, and now a curse the size of a small house bearing down on them with murderous intent, the rotten miasma of its cursed energy near-flooring and well into first-grade level.

Yeah, Percy's week is off to a great start.

Behind Kazuha, the curse roars and rises up on its hind legs, sweeping a taloned limb through the air in a deadly arc to her fleeing back, ready to carve her into chunks.

Percy gets there first.

Trusting Shoko to get her aunt out of dodge, he slides into place just before the talons arrive. The curse hisses in palpable confusion when instead of flesh, its claws ram into and stall against the wall of water that had spontaneously risen between them.

It rears back to try again, but Percy doesn't give it a chance - he crouches down and leaps straight up, soaring above the dangling eyeballs - and wow, he takes it all back, this thing is gross - over its snout, clearing the top of its head before he kicks off another burst of water mid-air and lands on it's muzzle.

Then he clenches his fist and punches down.

Logic dictates that Percy - being about the size of a particularly large fly in comparison to this thing - shouldn't be able to do much of anything to it with just a fist.

Logic is also, in his expert opinion, entirely overrated - and likely died a long time ago.

His fist meets poison-green scales, and his cursed energy detonates like a landmine that blows even the air around them away. The curse's muzzle buckles inwards, the force driving its skull right into the ground as its forelegs legs collapse out from underneath it.

Dirt and stone are violently gouged beneath its flailing bulk as it screeches in pained outrage, but it's not out for the count yet.

"Tough bastard, aren't you?"

Percy goes to hit it again, but something moves in the corner of his vision and his instincts scream. He jumps back just as the spines lining its back burst out in a shower of messy gore and lance right toward him, curving and whipping about like violent tentacles as he bounds out of their range.

He grimaces through the splatters of purple blood as he angles himself to land away from them, hits the ground running and starts circling its flank - It's stuff like this that makes him miss his sword.

The curse's myriad eyes twitch and spin in their sockets when its spines fail to shred him before a half dozen of them seem to sharpen and focus on him in its periphery. Its head snaps up and around faster than Percy expected it to be able to move, and its lower jaw unhinges.

He spots something shifting at the back of its gullet, and his eyes widen.

"Wait, seriously-?"

A torrent of steaming liquid erupts out of it and he ends up throwing himself to the side again as what can only be the curse's equivalent of acid rains down where he'd standing a second ago. The scent of it is noxious on the nose and painful, the ground where he'd been standing begins to bubble and warp beneath it and the grass at the edges of the splash zone actually lights on fire.

Right. Finishing this now.

For a second, he's tempted to try and control the acid - giving this thing a taste of its own medicine would be fitting, really - but something in his gut violently recoils at the thought of potentially using his power on something so disgusting.

Instead, he goes another route.

He glides to a stop behind the curse, and slams his foot against the ground. His cursed energy shoots down his leg, past the sole of said foot and deep underneath the earth.

There's a half-second delay, and then the earth heaves upwards and splinters open as a veritable geyser explodes out from underneath the curse with all the pressure of a rocket achieving lift-off. The curse gets off one ear-piercing screech as it gets propelled upwards into the air, colossal bulk and all, before Percy throws out a hand palm-first and uses the same move he'd pulled on Satoru during their very first spar.

Water pools into an orb inches off his skin, the pressure inside of it builds for just a beat, and then he lets it rip as a jet that carves up through the air before it meets the descending curse and carves straight through it like a hot knife through butter, tearing it into uneven halves.

And done.

Percy lets himself smile victoriously as the remnants crash down on either side of him, already wilting away into nothingness as exorcised curses always did.

"Under a minute. Not too shabby."

He'd like to see Satoru or Suguru beat that-

"Percy!"

Shoko's yell is laced with genuine fear, and his victory turns to ashes on his tongue as he whirls on the spot.

She's on the ground, cradling a limp Kazuha's head on her lap, and at first, he fears the worst - before he notices the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest.

His relief is still short-lived, however, because it doesn't take him more than a second look to pinpoint exactly what it is that has Shoko in the most distress he's seen from her yet.

Beneath the dirt, the grime, and the myriad of blossoming bruises and scrapes she must have picked up bolting through the woods, Kazuha's skin has gone an all too familiar shade of unnatural white, and she doesn't stir no matter how much Shoko's hands tremble against her scalp.

His friend turns to stare up at him in an entirely unrestrained panic, but Percy can't do anything but stare back helplessly.

There's nothing he can do here.

Kazuha's been cursed.

...

The clan compound hadn't been left untouched in the wake of the curse's attack.

By the time they get back to meet up with Suguru, Satoru, and Shoji-sensei, there are dozens of clan members running around desperately trying to clear up this and that, and Kiyohira himself seems to be having a fit regarding half the main wing - or rather, the complete lack thereof.

Apparently, the curse had torn through the western gate - which Percy hadn't even known existed - and rampaged across the grounds leaving poison and ruin in its wake, blasting its way into the main house and out the other side.

Then it somehow caught sight of Kazuha, for whatever reason, and left in pursuit.

The rest was obvious.

It was just bad luck that neither Satoru nor Suguru were in the compound when it happened, but that didn't matter in the slightest right now.

They don't stop to explain any of it. Percy and Shoko drop Kazuha off in the infirmary, side-step Kiyohira furious snarling and immediately get back to the others.

"We have a problem." Percy declares as they step into the room, and Shoko slams the sliding door shut behind them.

"You think?" Suguru stares flatly, then he looks over his shoulder and winces. "Shit, Shoko, We just heard-"

"Don't bother." Shoko shakes her head, eyes blank and distant. "Seriously. Do not."

Suguru grimaces and nods firmly.

"Okay."

"We've been investigating the curses in the village," Shoji-sensei explains warily, dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief. "The number of disappearances is... worse than what I had anticipated, and we ran amok of three first-grade curses."

"It was no big deal," Satoru mutters derisively, and Suguru jabs him with his elbow.

"We tracked a few more on the far end of the village," Suguru explains. "And by the time we were done... so was the mess here. Can you not wake your aunt up yourself?"

Percy slumps - he had just asked the same question - but Suguru hadn't caught him shaking his head behind Shoko's back in time.

"The one person I woke up tried to tear his own face off within five seconds of getting up." They all wince "I'm not risking that with her."

The finality in her voice is sobering - and then Satoru pipes up.

"On that note - Kenji's dead."

...

Percy blinks and tilts his head in confusion.

"Who?"

"Yeah, that was my reaction too."

"Satoru!" Suguru snaps "Show some tact!"

"What? It's not like you remembered who he was either!" Satoru throws his hands up in exasperation and turns to Shoko - who's looking a lot less confused and a lot more panicked, if subtly. Her expression is the kind Percy recognizes as being forcefully calm and her fists are clenched by her sides so tightly that the knuckles are nearly bone white against her skin. "He's the guy you woke up yesterday. They say the curse got a handful of people, but they were just in the way."

His eyes gleam with a grim kind of interest.

"It went after him specifically. Swallowed him whole and everything."

There's a pause as they all process that.

The implications... aren't good.

"So..." It's Suguru who raises his voice next, panning his eyes "Shoko wakes the guy up, he goes insane, and in less than a day, a first-grade curse targets and kills him. Just like that?"

"And don't forget, in a clan compound too. This place isn't anything special - no offense-"

Satoru says this to Shoko, who stares back at him flatly.

"You cannot fathom how little I care."

"-But there are wards to repel curses around, and that thing ignored them entirely. That doesn't just happen." He grins meanly, in that way Percy still hasn't been able to break him out of. "This is turning out to be interesting!"

"Interesting. Riiight." Shoko's answering drawl is caustic, but it's not aimed at Satoru. It's not aimed at any of them, truly. "That's one word for it."

She glances back at Shoji-sensei.

"We need to find whatever it is that's causing this - that's the only way we figure out a way to get my aunt back on her feet and us the hell out of this shithole."

"I have an idea about that, too."

Four sets of eyes round on Satoru at once, who looks supremely smug.

"Are you seriously withholding information just to be dramatic?"

Suguru is starting to look apoplectic. Even Percy's tempted to smack him this time.

"Satoru-"

"Fine, fine. You guys are no fun." He pouts for a second, and Suguru's fingers start twitching. "I saw something, with my eyes. When we were heading back, right after we took care of the curses."

"'Something?'" Percy prods, and Satoru shrugs.

"I don't know what it was, but it was far, far out, and it looked like a flare of residual cursed energy." He pauses and nods meaningfully, "And it looked familiar, too - almost exactly like the cursed energy inside the downed sorcerers."

He points his thumb in the direction over his shoulder, and Shoko's eyes narrow like a hawk.

"There's nothing there. Just wilderness, and-" She pauses. Percy feels himself tense. "There's a small cave system that opens up over the hills. We used to go there on day trips before I left."

Satoru snaps his fingers and smirks.

"And there we go. Lead, found. The point goes to me."

"This... is promising," Shoji-sensei admits before he shakes his head and startles them all. "But we can't all head out. There's still unusual curse activity in the village, and gods forbid another attack on the compound. Geto-san, Ieri-san, you'll stay. Jackson-san, Gojo-san, you're with me."

"What?"

Shoko doesn't say a word, but Suguru's immediate indignant response is loud enough for both of them.

This time, though, Shoji-sensei's prepared for it.

"Your technique makes you the first line of defense and an invaluable force multiplier in the event of another attack - or are you willing to leave this village and the injured here undefended?"

That shuts his friend right up.

"I didn't think so." Shoji-sensei nods firmly, and. His hand instinctively goes to the katana he had slung over his shoulder as if to check it was there one last time. "Let's not waste time, then."

He strides for the door. Satoru raises an unimpressed eyebrow at his retreating back.

"He sounds all confident and righteous, but just you watch. The second anything worse than a grade two shows up, he'll be cowering behind us."

Suguru closes his eyes and bows his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. "You'll never get better."

"Nope!" Satoru agrees cheerily, and then he walks out after Shoji-sensei.

Percy lingers behind just a little and steps up next to Shoko.

"Hey. It's going to be fine." He tries to put as much reassuring confidence as he can fit into his words. "We're going to figure this out."

"We'd better." She agrees after a long minute, but it's halfhearted at best. "She's the only one to come out of this clan worth a damn."

"That's not true."

She frowns. "What?"

"There's you too."

...

They stare at each other in silence.

"You're so freaking corny."

He smiles sheepishly, "Yeah, I heard it as soon as I said it."

He still means it, though, and he gets the sense that they both know it.

She sighs and shakes her head, something flashing in her eyes too quickly for him to follow.

"Just don't get killed out there, you idiot, and watch the other two while you're at it."

"Please. I've got the survivability of a cockroach, Satoru's borderline invincible, and Shoji-sensei knows what he's doing. We'll be fine."

That finally nets him a laugh, if just barely.

"If you die, I am going to make so much fun of you for that."

Percy grins.

"Duly noted."

...

Getting to the caves as the sun set was the easy part. Sprinting the five or so miles from the village outskirts to the spot Shoko had marked out hardly counted as a light workout - not with their lifestyle.

It was navigating inside of the caves that was the real trouble.

The tunnel they started into ran deep, and it trailed down the farther in they went. The air was damp with moisture, and the stone beneath it was uneven and dangerous. An ordinary person would have had to worry about slipping and breaking their neck - the three of them had to worry about a whole other kind of problem.

"Are we getting any closer?" Percy whispers to Satoru, craning his senses in as much as he can.

There was something off here, an odd trailing down the back of his spine that he recognized as the presence of unfamiliar cursed energy, but it was muted.

Almost suspiciously so.

Beyond that, he had nothing. It wasn't him who was born with the extra-special vision.

"Close enough," Satoru answers, gaze peeled dead ahead. The blue glow of his six-eyes was almost searing against the darkness they were marching into, so bright that even the torchlight they had didn't do much to take away from it. "We're getting close - oh."

They turn around another bend, weaving around a row of twisted stalagmites, and step right into a nightmare.

The cavern alone is enormous and awash with light, a sharp orange glow radiating out from the rows of torches someone had lit along the walls. There are stalactites descending down from above, shadows shifting over them from the flickers flames, and beneath the lowest hanging of those them are the bodies.

"We found the missing victims," Percy says, a little dumbly, because what in the twisted hell is this?

There are dozens and dozens of them crammed against the cold weathered stone, and curses are growing on them - ugly, maggot-like creatures in various shades of black and purple and grey, their twisted little forms burrowing against human flash and leaving trails of slime and muck as they flowed over and piled up against the victims's skin.

The smell of it alone is something Percy's never going to forget.

"This is something else." Satoru's murmurs, a sickened kind of fascination lacing the words. "There's cursed energy inside of them... the same as the others... and it looks like it's yanking their own out and feeding it to the flyheads."

He pauses, blinks, and tilts his head back in disbelief.

"Yikes. It's like they're being farmed for cursed energy."

Shoji-sensei suddenly gasps, and Percy and Satoru glance back at him. They watch the blood drain from his face in real time as Satoru's words connect the final pieces of whatever puzzle had been running through his head.

"Gods... I know what this is."

His voice trembles and the expression on his face is the first of its kind Percy has ever seen from him - complete and utter existential terror.

"I know what's doing this."

"What?"

"That would be me."

The cursed spirit is already behind them by the time Satoru and Percy whirl around, which is a feat in itself.

It looms over them with four eyes and long back hair that extends all the way down to the back of its legs, and a face that looks like a blank-grey puppet head that'd been split in two. Its light-colored kimono shifts in an invisible breeze as it hovers down until its four-toed feet are only inches off the ground, and its hands stay behind its green hems as it spreads its arms in what can almost be called a greeting.

None of them are fooled.

"Special-grade cursed spirit," Shoji-sensei whispers in despair, and his hands go limp with despair. "Tamamo-no-Mae Incarnate."

"Well," A sibilant, raspy voice emerges from beneath the mask, absolutely dripping with malice. The way the four eyes roam over them is little better. "It is good to be recognized."

Then a wave of nigh-overpowering cursed energy roars into being, and all hell breaks loose.

...

Next Chapter: Shit hits the fan at near-terminal velocity.

The mood this entire chapter:

View: /ykcXGJ1

Shoko externally:

View: /BJauyFI

Shoko Internally:

View: /G34ycwb

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