4 years ago
On my way home after classes at the end of the week, I stopped by the small bakery I usually passed to buy fresh croissants.
My parents loved the ones filled with custard cream — their favorites, because those were the ones they had eaten during their honeymoon in France. For them, that taste was a small memory of a happy time. For me, it was simply a familiar Friday ritual.
Stepping out of the bakery, I took a deep breath of the cold winter air and looked up at the sky.
Snow had been falling for several days straight without stopping even for a moment, and the drifts along the roads had already begun to rise almost to the level of the first floors of the buildings. For Kyoto, weather like this was a real anomaly. The city services could barely keep up with the buried streets, and for the road workers these days had turned into a true nightmare.
But for children, it was nothing less than a celebration.
On a small playground near the road, a group of elementary school kids were running around.
Although…
When I looked closer, I suddenly realized there was nothing joyful about their game.
Several boys had surrounded one kid and were pushing him, kicking him, and shouting things at him while laughing.
A sense of justice flared inside me instantly, like someone had injected adrenaline straight into my blood.
I walked toward them without hesitation.
"Hey!" I called out loudly.
The group of bullies turned around.
And the moment they saw a high school girl, all their bravado vanished.
"Run!" one of them shouted.
A second later they scattered in different directions, leaving their "opponent" lying in the snow.
I stepped closer.
"Hey… are you okay?" I asked, crouching beside the boy who was curled up on the ground.
Once he realized the danger was gone, he slowly got to his feet. He brushed the snow and dirt off his clothes and then looked at me.
And that was when I first saw his eyes.
Sky blue.
Unusually bright.
"Thank you," he said, bowing politely.
"Huh? Oh… it's nothing," I replied a little awkwardly.
What surprised me wasn't so much his gratitude as the way he carried himself. For a boy his age, he was far too calm.
Too composed.
He didn't look frightened. He didn't look angry. There was barely any sign of pain on his face, even though he had clearly been beaten only moments ago.
Standing before me was a calm, slightly battered boy who, judging by his bluish fingers and reddened cheeks, was freezing.
I hesitated for a second, then took off my scarf.
"Here."
I gently wrapped it around his neck.
He looked at me with a strange expression.
"You're weird," he suddenly said.
I blinked.
"That's called kindness. K-I-N-D-N-E-S-S," I said instructively, pronouncing the word syllable by syllable, deciding that perhaps simple human decency was something unfamiliar to him.
Only now, remembering it, do I realize how foolish I must have looked back then.
The boy continued to stare at me attentively, as if trying to see something invisible.
"Your aura… is strange," he finally said.
At the time, I decided that the strange one here wasn't me.
It was him.
Since then, that boy met me at that very spot every Friday.
Sometimes he arrived earlier and simply stood there, watching the falling snow. Other times he appeared at the exact moment I stepped out of the bakery.
But he always came.
"Why do you buy those croissants every time?" he asked once, finally breaking our usual silence.
"My parents will be happy if I bring them home," I answered without even thinking.
He fell silent.
I glanced at him and suddenly realized something strange: all this time, he had never once talked about his parents. In fact, he barely spoke about himself at all.
But I didn't dare ask.
Every time the conversation accidentally drifted toward family, a certain expression appeared on his face — quiet, almost imperceptible sadness.
So I simply stayed silent.
Instead, I observed.
And over time, I began to notice a few things.
He was always neatly dressed. In fact, his clothes were different every day, as if he could easily afford a good wardrobe. He never looked hungry and never once asked for food. And after that first time, I never saw any bruises or signs that he had been beaten again.
From all of this, one conclusion seemed obvious: he definitely had somewhere to live, and whatever problems he had, they weren't about survival.
But there was still one thing that kept bothering me…
"Why do you keep talking about my aura?" I asked one day, finally deciding to voice the question that had been troubling me for a long time. To be honest, I didn't really expect a reasonable answer. His stories about monsters, invisible creatures, and strange things supposedly existing right beside us had long since convinced me that his imagination worked far harder than that of most kids.
The boy looked at me with his usual calm expression and, after a short pause, replied:
"Because when I'm near you, my eyes don't hurt."
I let out a quiet snort.
Of course.
What was I even expecting? A strange question gets a strange answer.
For children, living inside their own fantasies was perfectly natural, so over time I stopped taking his stories seriously. I simply listened — sometimes playing along, sometimes just nodding quietly.
A few days later, the weather finally calmed down. The snowfall stopped, the streets were cleared, and Kyoto gradually returned to its usual, steady rhythm.
That Friday, I walked the same route as always. On the way, I bought croissants as usual and headed toward the small playground where we normally met.
But this time, he didn't come.
I waited.
First ten minutes.
Then twenty.
Almost an entire hour passed.
Eventually, I let out a heavy sigh, stood up from the bench, and began walking home, deciding that he probably just couldn't make it today.
And then—
"Wait!"
I turned around.
The same blue-eyed boy was running toward me along the path.
"Hi," I said when he finally stopped in front of me. "I thought you weren't coming today."
I smiled at him, trying to hide the sudden wave of relief I felt.
He looked at me carefully and suddenly said,
"Lean down."
The request was strange, but I obeyed and bent slightly toward him.
The boy stepped closer and carefully placed a small pendant around my neck.
I looked down.
Hanging from the thin cord was a strange pearl — uneven, almost deformed, with an unusual, almost living shimmer on its surface.
"What is this?" I asked, examining the pendant.
"A gift!" he replied quickly.
And then something unexpected happened.
He looked embarrassed.
It was the first time I had ever seen him like that — not calm, not distant, but genuinely embarrassed.
"Oh? A gift?" I repeated, still not quite understanding why he had done it.
"I'm leaving," he said, avoiding my gaze. "Everything I had to do here is finished."
For a moment, he lifted his eyes toward the sky.
"Don't worry. It won't snow anymore."
I frowned slightly.
He was saying strange things again.
"You're leaving…?" I asked quietly.
My own voice sounded unexpectedly sad. Only then did I realize that the thought of him disappearing somehow upset me.
"Keep it," he said, pointing at the pearl hanging around my neck.
"Okay…" I replied, still not fully understanding what was happening.
"I have to go. Bye."
He turned and began to walk away.
I silently watched him, following his figure as it slowly disappeared along the snow-covered path.
I drew in a breath, about to call out to him—
But at that moment he suddenly stopped.
Turned around.
And said only one word.
"Satoru."
It was the first and the last time I saw him smile.
After that, we never met again.
Present Day
Bright sunlight tickled my eyelids, and I slowly opened my eyes.
For the first few moments, there was nothing but a blurry haze before me. I blinked several times, trying to bring my vision back into focus. Gradually, vague shapes began to form the outline of a room — but what I saw only deepened my confusion.
The room was unfamiliar.
I tried to sit up.
The very next second, sharp, overwhelming pain shot through my entire body, as if every muscle and bone had suddenly decided to remind me of their existence. Fragments of memories flashed before my eyes — blood, screams, cold steel — and I felt a heavy knot rise in my throat.
No.
That couldn't be real.
Trying to convince myself that everything that had happened was nothing more than a terrible nightmare, I pinched my arm several times, hoping to wake up.
But the pain was too real.
And the world around me was far too solid.
My heart tightened painfully.
Clinging to the last thread of hope, I opened my mouth, about to call for my parents.
But only hoarse, incoherent sounds escaped my throat.
Panic washed over me like a wave.
I tried to stand abruptly, but my legs betrayed me. Losing my balance, I fell from the bed onto the floor with a dull thud.
The crash echoed through the room.
Footsteps immediately sounded behind the door.
Even more frightened, I instinctively began crawling in the opposite direction, trying to get as far away from the entrance as possible.
My heart pounded so fast it felt like it might burst out of my chest. My lungs tightened painfully, and every breath became a struggle. A deafening noise rang in my ears, and tears blurred my vision.
"You're more resilient than we thought," a calm female voice said behind me.
A moment later, another voice followed — this one sounding far more concerned.
"Utahime, don't just stand there — help."
I turned around at the moment one of the girls carefully touched my shoulder.
And then I recognized her.
She had been there.
In that alley.
When—
The memories of that night crashed over me again with full force, and I lost control, falling into hysterics as I desperately tried to pull away from her hands.
"Calm down, you're only hurting yourself," the short-haired girl tried to speak gently as she cautiously stepped closer.
But every step she took only made my panic worse.
Acting on pure instinct, I started flailing my arms, trying to push her away — and in that moment my wounds reopened.
"Utahime, don't just stand in the doorway! Do something!" the brunette snapped nervously at the girl standing in the doorframe.
She only crossed her arms.
"That thing was brought here by Satoru," she replied coldly, throwing me an openly hostile look. "So let him deal with it. I'll go call him."
"There's no need to call anyone…"
A new voice sounded from the doorway.
Utahime flinched.
Standing there was a white-haired boy wearing a blindfold.
"Satoru…" the short-haired girl sighed in relief. "Finally. She's only making things worse for herself. Calm her down."
She stepped aside to let him pass.
"Relax. I won't hurt you," he said quietly.
The boy slowly lowered the black blindfold from his eyes.
And when I saw his face…
I recognized him.
Satoru.
He carefully reached his hand toward me.
And before I could say or do anything, the world plunged into darkness once again.
Some time later
The next awakening was no less sudden or painful.
My body felt as if it were burning from the inside out. The wounds throbbed and tightened so fiercely that a cry escaped my lips before I could stop it.
"What's wrong, Shoko?" Satoru asked immediately.
"I… I don't know," the short-haired girl replied, clearly confused. "I can't do anything. Reverse technique doesn't work on her. The energy just… disappears."
She touched the wound on my thigh again.
For a brief moment, I saw a bright flash of light, but it vanished just as quickly as it appeared.
The wound kept bleeding, stinging painfully.
I clenched my teeth, digging my fingers into the mattress, trying to distract myself from the pain.
Only then did they notice that I was conscious again.
Satoru reached his hand toward me once more.
But this time, I pulled away.
"Don't you dare… knock me out again," I rasped.
Shoko let out an amused snort.
"She's got some spirit."
Satoru simply smiled.
"Alright."
"Satoru?!" the girl beside him exclaimed in surprise.
She was staring at my wounds.
And the reason for her surprise was obvious.
They were closing on their own.
"You did well, Shoko," he said calmly.
His reaction was surprisingly restrained, almost casual, as if nothing unusual was happening.
However, Shoko and I stared at each other at the same time.
"I-it wasn't me…" the girl muttered in confusion, quickly raising her hands as if trying to prove she had nothing to do with it.
"The Seventh Child…"
A hoarse, creaking voice sounded from the depths of the room.
I turned my head.
Across from the bed, behind the teenagers, stood an ancient-looking old man. His face was deeply lined with wrinkles, and his entire body — from his ears to the corners of his lips — was adorned with numerous metal piercings that glinted strangely in the lamplight.
"Tatenokami?" Satoru asked, glancing at the old man questioningly.
The man slowly nodded.
"Thanks to the energy absorption technique, the host's body is capable of regenerating itself," the old man said calmly, as if giving a lecture. "And it does so without any conscious effort."
"But the Tatenokami clan's innate technique is the Divine Dome!" the girl beside him protested confidently.
Satoru tilted his head slightly, as if gathering his thoughts.
"The Tatenokami family legend speaks of the 'Seventh Child,'" he began slowly. "A child born once every seven generations… roughly every one hundred and sixty years."
He looked at me.
"Children like that were usually raised as sorcerer killers. Cursed energy barely affected them, and thanks to their absorption technique, their bodies became almost invulnerable."
A heavy silence filled the room.
All eyes were on me.
I could almost feel their gazes physically — as if every person in the room was trying to see something in me that even I didn't know about myself.
The tension became unbearable.
"Did you all lose your minds or something?" the words slipped out of me nervously. "What techniques? What cursed energy? Where are my parents?!"
My voice came out louder than I intended.
Panic began rising inside me again, tightening around my chest and making it hard to breathe.
The room started spinning before my eyes.
And the next moment, Satoru had to use that strange technique on me again.
The world fell into darkness.
***
When I woke up the next time, the old man — whose name, as it turned out, was Yoshinobu — was already waiting beside me.
He was the one who first told me about the existence of the sorcerer world.
About curses.
About sorcerer clans.
And about my own bloodline.
He also told me that the man who killed my parents was Fushiguro Toji.
And that I had been incredibly lucky — because that night, Gojo Satoru had been nearby.
I didn't stay in the infirmary for long. My wounds healed at a frightening speed, right before everyone's eyes, as if my body itself refused to acknowledge the injuries.
After that, I was given a room in the dormitory.
And assigned a mentor.
He taught me the basics of controlling cursed energy, told me about the history of the sorcerer world, and patiently explained things that were obvious to him but completely incomprehensible to me.
But despite all of that…
I wasn't allowed to leave the dormitory grounds.
The only place available to me was a small backyard behind my room.
Though to be honest, I didn't resist.
The fear of that madman who had killed my parents hadn't disappeared. And along with it came a heavy, suffocating emptiness.
I sank into a deep depression.
Closed myself off from everyone.
And slowly began to lose the will to live.