Chapter Text
The summer heat was disgusting.
Suguru walked down the wooden corridor of the school, trying to ignore the awful taste in his mouth. He’d had to take down two curses that morning. Nothing special, just some gross things born from people. But the taste of them lingered on his tongue like a dirty rag. He swallowed dryly, trying to get rid of it but it sat there in his throat.
It didn't matter how many times he brushed his teeth or how much water he drank. That feeling of swallowing something that shouldn't exist never really went away. The cicadas were screaming outside, a noise that made the headache behind his eyes thump in time with his pulse. Everything was too loud, too bright, too hot. He just wanted to go back to his dorm, turn the fan on high and sleep for a week.
He checked his phone again just to have something to do with his hands. Yaga had called him. Just him. That was the part that was bothering him.
Usually when Yaga wanted something he wanted the strongest. Which meant Suguru had to drag Satoru along with him. Satoru was probably off somewhere buying sweets or terrorizing others, completely unbothered by the heat or the curses or the rules.
Suguru felt a flicker of annoyance in his chest. It wasn't that he hated Satoru, Satoru was his best friend. It was just that sometimes, being the responsible one felt like a punishment. Satoru got to be careless because he was untouchable. Suguru had to be careful. He had to be the moral compass, the one who remembered the rules, the one who kept repeating that the strong exist to protect the weak until he actually believed it. Today though, walking alone through the empty school, that motto felt heavy.
He reached the end of the hallway where the shadows were deeper. He stopped for a second to fix his uniform. He couldn't walk into Yaga’s office looking like a mess. He smoothed down his jacket, ran a hand through his hair, and took a deep breath. He hated not knowing what this was about. Was there an emergency? A reprimand? Had the higher-ups decided to throw another impossible mission at them? Being a sorcerer meant your life wasn't really your own. You were just waiting for the next call, the next fight, the next tragedy.
He stared at the wood grain on the door, wishing for a second that he could just be a normal high school student who worried about exams and girls instead of monsters.
But he wasn't normal. And he had a job to do. He pushed that ugly feeling down into the pit of his stomach where he kept everything else. He put on the face he always wore. He raised his hand and knocked on the door. He waited for Yaga’s voice, ready to agree to whatever terrible thing was asked of him, because that was what he did. That was who he was.
“Come in.”
Suguru slid the door open and stepped inside. The first thing he noticed was the temperature. It was significantly cooler in here. Yaga was sitting cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by an odd scattering of colorful felt and cotton stuffing. He was a terrifying looking man but he was currently sewing a button eye onto a bright green cursed corpse that looked like a mutated bear. The contrast used to make Suguru smile when he was new. Now it was just another weird thing in a life full of weird things.
“Sit.”
Suguru knelt on the cushion opposite him. He rested his hands on his thighs and waited.
“You look terrible.” Yaga said, finally stabbing the needle into a pin cushion and looking up.
“It's the heat, Sensei.” He put on his usual polite smile, the one that made adults trust him. “I'm fine. Just a little dehydrated.”
Yaga stared at him for a second too long. He didn't buy it but he didn't push it either. He reached to his side and picked up a thick manila envelope, sliding it across the low wooden table toward Suguru. It stopped inches from Suguru’s knees.
“I didn't call Satoru for this. He’s too loud. He lacks subtlety. This situation requires patience. Which is why I’m giving it to you.”
Suguru looked down at the envelope. Patience. That was just a nice way of saying Satoru would get bored and blow something up so Suguru had to do the boring legwork. He picked up the envelope and undid the string clasp.
Inside were photos. Grainy, zoomed-in shots taken with a telephoto lens. They looked like paparazzi photos or evidence from a stalker. He shuffled through them. The subject was a girl. She was wearing a standard high school uniform. Navy skirt, white shirt, loose ribbon. She was pretty, objectively speaking but her expression in every single photo was blank. Not angry, not happy. Just empty. She was walking down a street. Waiting at a crosswalk. Sitting on a park bench.
“I don't understand. Is she a curse user? She looks like a civilian.”
“Look closer.”
Suguru squinted at the second photo. The girl was standing near a vending machine. Behind her, hovering near her shoulder, was a blur. To a normal human, it would look like a smudge on the lens or a trick of the light. To Suguru, it was unmistakable. It was the distorted shape of a low-grade curse. It looked like a deformed slug with too many eyes. But it wasn't attacking her. It wasn't digging its claws into her neck or whispering despair into her ear. It was just floating there. Almost like it was napping.
He flipped to the next photo. Another curse, this one looking like a tangle of wet hair, was wrapped loosely around her ankle while she walked. She didn't seem to notice. She wasn't dragging her leg, she wasn't in pain.
“They don't attack her. Why?”
“We don't know. She has no cursed energy output that we can detect. She can’t see them. She’s a non-sorcerer. But for the last three weeks, curses have been gathering around her. They follow her home. They sit with her in class. And they don't do a damn thing.”
Suguru lowered the photos. The image of the girl… completely oblivious, walking around with monsters clinging to her like stray dogs… was disturbing. It went against the natural order. Non-sorcerers were prey. Curses were predators. They didn't coexist peacefully.
“Your mission is surveillance. Find out why. Is she a vessel? Is she unknowingly manipulating them? Or is she something else entirely? Observe her. Get close if you have to. But keep a low profile. If she is a threat, we need to know before she realizes what she can do.”
“Understood.” Suguru said quietly. He looked at the girl's face in the photo one last time. She looked so lonely. It was ironic. She was probably the loneliest person in her world yet she was never actually alone. She was surrounded by the very things Suguru spent his life killing.
He slid the photos back into the envelope and stood up. “I'll head out now.”
“You have her address and every information about her in the envelope.”
Suguru nodded and started to walk.
“Suguru.” Yaga called out just as he reached the door. Suguru paused, hand on the latch. “Don't engage unless absolutely necessary. We don't want to spook her.”
“I know.” Suguru said, forcing a smile that felt tight on his face. “I'll be gentle.”
He stepped out of the office and back into the suffocating heat of the hallway. Great. A babysitting gig for a girl who was essentially a magnet for filth. Again. He sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. He really needed a cigarette.