The village had gotten weird recently, Fumi noted with a brief glance at a shadow at the edge of her vision.
Nobara held her by the hand and dragged her along with the bull-headed stubbornness she knew and loved the other girl for.
Another jerk of movement at the corner of her eyes drew her attention and made her shrink further into her turtleneck sweater as they walked toward the park.
The shadows had grown darker; recently nightfall came faster than usual and lasted even longer. Their normally weird neighbors had grown even weirder. It seemed like every day their uncanny smiles and laser-focused attention on her and Nobara seemed to grow by the day.
The few people in the village she and Nobara had deemed the normal ones had grown erratic and irrational, case in point why they were going to the park. The suddenly empty park with only four boys and moving shadows, she realized with surprise.
The moment they crossed the threshold to the park, the four playing boys snapped their heads to them all at once. The inhuman nature of the movement forced her to hide behind Nobara.
Nobara, unknowing or maybe uncaring of the why, stood straight, arms folded, and stared down the four bigger boys.
They all shared the plain brown hair and black eyes of countryside folks. They were also kids who had been avoiding them ever since the last time Nobara beat them up for pranking her.
Over the last few weeks, they had grown bolder, angrier, more wrathful, with more spite in them than their skinny frames could seemingly hold.
"Which one of you took Fumi-chan's shoe?" Nobara asked with all the authority her thirteen-year-old frame could muster.
The four boys looked at them with an eerie and glassy stare that revolted her.
"You're not going to answer, huh?" she barked out while rolling up the sleeves of her shirt and walking forward. Fumi made to grasp at her clothes to stop her, but the bigger girl was too fast.
Squaring up to face the biggest boy, she asked one more time, her voice low with anger.
"If you don't tell me who took Fumi-chan's shoe, I'm going to break your ugly nose in."
The boy remained quiet and still, while his eerie eyes started twitching. His breath got harder. The whole scene finally got to Nobara, and she took an unconscious step back, the same moment the boy's hand snapped forward to grab her.
Her scream was cut short as a sudden monstrous presence pressed down on the area. The air felt heavy she realized as she struggled to draw in a single breath, while her limbs suddenly lay paralyzed.
"What are you doing, boy?" Those five simple words cut through the pressure like a knife, and she could suddenly breathe once more. Hands on her knees and hair over her head, she forced as much air as she could into her lungs before forcing herself to look up once more.
A long white-haired teen held the bully by his arm a few inches away from Nobara's wide eyes.
She had not even seen him move. He held onto the increasingly clear-eyed and shocked boy's arm with a sweatshirt-covered arm while his face was tilted to the side, not even looking at the altercation he just stopped.
Fumi allowed her eyes to follow his and saw he was looking at the mountain range that surrounded their village. The same mountain range old granny Kugisake warned them from entering. For some reason, the sight of it this time in the fading sunlight sent a chill down her spine, and she could feel her limbs getting heavy once more.
"I'm certain there's something going on in your village now, Aiko-san. Do you think I should call Satoru?" The white-haired older teen's voice cut through the pressure once more as he turned his head away from the mountain and faced them for the first time.
The sight of red orbs slowly spinning in a sea of black shocked her out of her frozen state.
"If you deem it important, Jiki-kun," came the response from a woman walking up to them with two bags in her hands and an exasperated look on her face. The black hair and amber eyes drew her attention once more. She knew that look.
"Aiko-Chan!" Nobara shouted excitedly before recovering from the past few seconds like they never happened and springing up to run at the older woman.
Fumi's wide eyes went from the smiling Aiko to the confused older brown-haired bully, the white-haired teen who had a contemplative expression on his face as he looked at the boy in his grasp, and finally, the mountain range that suddenly seemed normal once more and wondered if she was the only sane person here.
xxxx
Ever since he stepped foot into the town, he could tell something was off. It wasn't just the brief spike of cursed energy that he felt at first.
It was the atmosphere of the village. He had been to a few villages like this before. Villages on the outskirts of major towns and cities. Villages that still stuck hard to centuries-old traditions and beliefs.
Beliefs they molded and that molded them in turn. In this small village, he felt it more keenly than ever. His presence in the village seemed to have stirred something.
The few people they had seen either stared at them with caution or heavy mistrust. Even the seemingly familiar form of Aiko didn't seem to be enough to break that air. Yet for the animosity he had experienced, it all had the tinge of mundane dislike. Till now.
The scene they had stumbled upon while heading toward Aiko's family house changed everything. He could feel the twisted cursed energy in the boy; he could almost taste the putrid flavor of grief, desire, and hate.
Whatever had sunk its claws into the boy seemed to have done it without any real care or finesse. It had seemingly puppeted his form and used the body as a node to control the three others.
His eyes wandered to the side and the overbearing presence of the mountain seemed to loom no matter where you were in the village.
A rapid movement drew his attention as he looked to the side and at the girl with her brown hair stuck into two ponytails. She gave him a nervous glance once more before catching his eyes and snapping it forward once more.
Aiko had taken to walking ahead, drawing the attention of the other brown-haired girl, instead of allowing her to pester him with questions about his hair. It left him stuck behind with the more quiet kid.
The girl had seemed perpetually nervous and shy in the few minutes he had known her, and it took him a split second to remember her name.
"Fumi right?"
He asked as he walked beside her, while she fidgeted with her arms and gave him an unsure nod.
For some reason, he found himself leading conversations in this new life more than he liked. But he liked the thought of taking the long walk to Aiko's house beside a nervous wreck even less. He glanced at her clothes and noted the different quality compared to the other rougher fabrics and clothes he had seen on others so far.
"Been in town for long?"
"Not really," came her reply a few seconds later, and after another glance at him, she continued, "My dad took us to Tokyo after I was born, but after my mom–" she stuttered for a second before bravely soldiering on, "We came back, and we've been here ever since."
This village had a way of drawing back the people that escaped it, he noticed with a frown.
"Sorry for your loss, I don't suppose you know someone with an even better knowledge of the village?" He asked.
"Granny Kugisake knows," The girl suddenly spoke up with a bright cheer. "She has been here the longest, almost as long as Granny Kimiko. She also makes the best sweets and tells us scary stories of the mountain god to scare us away from the range."
A Mountain God?
He sent another quick glance at the range once more. He doubted it. He had not heard of any actual deity so far, and he was not sure of their presence in this new world.
He also had to admit he had not actually started his studies officially, so the probability he was missing something was there. Granny Kugisake then, that was where he was going to get better information on the village.
"We are here," Aiko stated as they got to the end of the street. They stopped at a small single-story building with a farm or small garden, he reassessed, just to the side of it.
"Alright big sis Aiko, I'll let grandma know you're here," The other girl with a lighter shade of brown hair called out. "I still have a score to settle with those four bastards," she added, slamming her fists together.
"I would advise against that," He said as he walked up to them. He had dispersed the cursed energy in the boys by sending his into the boy that acted as a node for the technique. But He was not certain it had completely lost whatever control it had over him.
Her cheeks turned red as she looked at him, she gave him a single nod before grabbing onto her friend and running off. He looked back at their retreating figure in surprise. Had he said something wrong? Looking back at Aiko, she had a knowing smile on her face as she looked back at him.
"What did I do?"
"Nothing Jiki-kun. Other than being yourself," She stated before turning around and walking up the stairs to press the doorbell.
She had been happy since they got here, he noted. Happy enough that he had noticed she smiled more often. The fact that he had something to do with it made him feel a tingle in his chest.
*Ding Dong*
The bell only had to ring once before he heard a footstep walk towards the door.
It opened up to reveal a small older woman with shrunken features and an ominous smile.
"Miss Kimiko?" Aiko questioned in surprise as she saw the woman. The woman's disquieting smile grew wider as she saw Aiko.
"Aiko-chan. We've been waiting for you for a while now." The older woman looked behind her and met his gray gaze with an annoyed frown. "We didn't expect you to bring a guest along."
The more she spoke, the more certain Jiki was that something was horribly wrong. She had planned for Aiko's return despite how spontaneous it was, yet she had not predicted him?
He sent a pulse of cursed energy out and noted hers were of an average size but even darker in texture. He had learned to taste the different flavors of cursed energy, and hers was a malevolent shade that was bolstered by another.
"We?" Aiko asked, still surprised.
"I've been checking up on and taking care of your parents while they've been sick, but since you're here, I'll leave you to it," the old woman said before walking out without giving Jiki another glance.
They entered the house to see it was remarkably clean and well taken care of. They finally met Aiko's parents in the living room where they sat, looking at the television with unseeing eyes.
"Father? Mother?" Aiko called out as she walked towards them. There was no movement from either of them, and Aiko rushed towards them with tears in her eyes. Once again Jiki found himself out of his element and was not sure what to do, so he stood at the threshold and watched his favorite person in the world cry.
xxxx
Sun rays filtered into his bedroom as the next day began, and he forced himself awake from another dream that featured a blue-eyed and white-haired Mikoto. He had still not come to terms with the revelation and had locked up the thought of it for another time.
Slipping out of his bed, he made a few stretches to work out the kinks in his muscles. It was the work of a few minutes to take a quick shower and dress up in a black short-sleeved shirt and shorts.
He walked downstairs knowing Aiko was already up, and judging by the way she was talking and cleaning up her parents, she might've never given herself the chance to rest.
Instead of breaking her concentration, he continued his walk and stepped out of the house. Something was wrong with this village, and he was going to find out what it was.
He stood under the early morning sun before taking a breath and coiling his cursed energy in a feat of control impossible for most people. A split second later, he sent it out in a wide pulse that exploded with him at the epicenter.
Most of the cursed energy he picked up had the sense of an unawakened human, but a few of them had a slight tang of what he was dubbing corruption to them. Yet, he couldn't run around breaking down doors on mere suspicion.
A second later he finally felt Nobara's own. It was surprisingly more active than anybody would've expected from a kid in the back ends of nowhere. But he knew the activity for what it was. Cursed technique usage.
Fumi told him that the person who would have the best idea of the village was a Granny Kugisake. It was not a big stretch of the imagination to think Nobara stayed with her grandmother.
With a destination in mind now, he moved. A blur later he was jumping from roof to roof. Slipping past the few people who decided to look up and ignoring the remaining. This was the first time he had gone roof-hopping in years, but he had not lost the feel for it.
His run took him further away from the village and closer to the mountain range. This close, he could see the house he was running to. It had the old architecture that spoke of an old clan that refused to completely let go of its roots, even in modern-day Japan.
This high up, he was able to see further past the forest that bordered the house, and his attention was drawn to the giant straw doll that stood alone in the midst of old and broken-down buildings. The straw figure was weighted down by steel chains wrapped with cursed seals, as well as giant nails that anchored it further into the ground.
He ignored it and continued his run to the mansion. There would be time to investigate the strange structure later.
The moment he landed in the compound in a crouch, his instincts sent out a signal to his brain like he had touched a live wire.
A split second later and four cursed energy-enhanced projectiles came at him from the four cardinal points with a solid boom of the sound barrier breaking in their wake. The projectiles moved at such speed that he knew a single solid hit would render him dead.
His gray eyes instinctively split and morphed into its three-tomoe form, with the aid of its enhanced perception and slowed cognition, he saw the projectiles with better clarity.
Spikes.
Four cursed energy-enhanced barbs of pain and agony. He spun to the side just as the first one got to him, dodging the implement of murder, and watched how it blew past him, before carving a trench through the forest that demarcated the house from the mountain range.
The second one was directly behind the first, and instead of dodging, he flicked his feet up with as much reinforcement as his leg could take, kicking the projectile up.
The third one forced him to tilt to the side, even as it tore a small gash in his side before it continued on its journey into the forest. His eyes calculated the speed the fourth one was moving at, and he knew he could not dodge it.
Not this close; instead, he spread out his hand and arrested the motion of the falling second spike before spinning his body on the spot and swinging it in an arc that deflected the last spike into the sky and towards the mountain range.
The force of the blow sent a vibration up his hands, and he could feel it lose feeling for a few seconds. The force of the last spike slamming into the mountain range sent an explosion through it and forced a small, localized rock slide.
"Tch, stubborn Gojo brat refused to die."
The grumpy voice forced his eyes back to the house just as it opened, and an old woman stepped out. Her hunched form was being aided by a walking stick, while her formerly brown hair had lost its luster and turned a gray-white held in a ponytail. Yet her brown eyes had lost none of their spark.
He remembered the quote: 'Beware an old man in a profession where men usually die young.' A quote that held water in both his past life and unsurprisingly in this one too.
He stood with the spike in his hand and prepared to launch back at the woman before a familiar brown-haired petite girl burst out behind the older woman and turned to face her with a scolding wag of her hand.
"Stop it, grandma, that is the boy that came over with big sister Aiko."
This was the grandma Kugisaki then. He smoothly transitioned from a throw and instead buried the spike into the earth and twitched his palms to see the damage. Fortunately, motion and sensation slowly returned to the hand.
"Oh, shocking. How could I have known that with such a shock of white hair coming at us like a missile?"
The older woman called out with a dry tone and an exaggerated look of surprise. She was definitely not fooling anybody with that.
"I knew you forgot." Nobara reached out and hugged her with a smile. Jiki was forced to look back at them and reassess his opinion of the girl and her innocence.