Gifted • Inumaki Toge

t w e l v e

Shiro paced back in forth in her small dorm room. The only noise she could hear was the tik tok of the clock as she gazed up. 

4:15pm 

She wonders if it was just needless worry. Maybe Aya simply forgot to call her back. 

Her eyebrows furrowed as she imagined the worst possible scenario in her head. No. What if she's in trouble? It wasn't like her little sister to not respond to her texts or calls. And she had called her about three separate times after she woke up in the morning. Each call led straight to Aya's usual cheerful voicemail. Maybe I should call Sayuri... 

Sayuri, Shiro's old wet nurse and caretaker from when she was young. Compared to her unattached father and complicit mother, Sayuri was probably the closest to what a mother would be to Shiro. 

Shiro gripped her phone as she started to search for Sayuri's contact information. After what seemed like forever, she finally scrolled down to her name and pressed call. 

... ring ... ring ... 

Her anxiety was shot. Why isn't she picking up? She thought as her call went straight to voicemail. 

Goddammit. She mentally cursed as scrolled up through her contact list.

... ring ... ring ... 

Agian, there was no answer. Frustrated and anxious, she searched again in her list for a new name. 

... ring ... ring ...

It was the same. A couple of anxiety inducing rings all straight leading to voicemail. 

She hurriedly grabbed her jacket and practically ran out the door. Something was definitely wrong. She called Aya, Sayuri, and her parents and the probability of none of them picking up her phone call was close to 0%. In fact, her father had been desperately trying to get into contact with her since she left home. At the very least, that man would have answered the call.

She had a bad feeling and her gut intuition was telling her to hurry. She wasted no time trying to wave down a taxi. She glanced down on her phone. 4:30pm.

She hoped she was wrong. She hoped that she was just overthinking things and that there was a rational explanation for this. She practically yelled her compound address to the taxi driver and ushered him to hurry. In the car she felt her mouth get dry from the anxiety and cold sweat cover her back. 

Aya and her little brother Yuu were her pride and joy. She was happy they didn't hold the same cursed abilities as herself and were able to lead a normal life. And luckily, as insane as her father was, he didn't force them to do the impossible. She had heard a little bit about Maki and her sister Mai's family. Shiro was simply glad her two siblings didn't receive the same fate. 

As the taxi driver stopped by the familiar tall oak tree, she practically pushed the money into his hand. 

"Keep the change!" She yelled and hurriedly pushed the door open. With a slam she started running towards the front entrance. When she reached the front door, she felt it. It was a powerful cursed energy coming from the inside of the compound. 

The feeling of dread arose inside of Shiro as she banged on the front door, while simultaneously ringing the doorbell. C'mon, c'mon! 

No one was coming to answer the door. She gritted her teeth as she looked around for another entryway. Her eyes fell over to the large oak tree and made her way over up the tree, before jumping onto the side of the compound wall. Standing on top of the wall, her eyes narrowed. The curse energy she sensed lingered all around the compound, but the strangest thing of all, was that there was not a single person in sight. 

The usual guards near the entrance was no where to be found, and the usual servants walking around were also missing. The usual bustling compound was a complete ghost town. 

What the hell. Her body shook as her mind went back to her siblings. Aya! Yuu! 

She immediately jumped down from the wall and started searching for her missing siblings. Somebody has to be here... 

Shiro felt her eyes grow hot before wet tears fell down her face. She needed to find somebody. Somebody to just tell her what was going on. 

She opened a screen door and gaped at the room in horror. The room was inked with blood. Splattered all over the walls and floor. Shiro was not a newbie when it came to blood as her career as a jujutsu sorcerer came with plentiful of injuries itself. But this scene was something right out of a horror film. Shiro couldn't think. Her mind went blank as the worst of the worst scenarios played out in her mind. No. There was no bodies. They have to be alive. For her own mental sake, they just have to be. 

Despite her rocky relationship with her parents, she never wanted anything bad to happen to them. All she wanted was to be able to live her live for herself. As she let out a quiet sob, she slammed her fist onto the wall. The force itself was enough to put a hole through the drywall. 

"So you came after all." A smug voice called out to her. 

Shiro whipped her head around to face the figure behind her. Angrily, her fist shook before throwing a piece of drywall in her hand at the said figure. 

It only chuckled in bemusement as the drywall went through its body. "Unfortunately this is only a hologram." 

"Who the hell are you." Shiro practically snarled. "What the hell did you do to my family?!" 

The hologram itself was simply a grey figure, with no identifiable face nor body. Shiro's eyes trailed down to the small projector the figure was coming out of and almost destroyed the thing on the spot. But, she needed answers, and she wouldn't get any if she gave into her desires. 

Another feminine chuckle came out from the figure. "You can call me Ray." Said, delight still lacing every word. 

Shiro stayed quiet. Anger still boiling within her. 

Taking Shiro's silence as a cue to keep going, she continued, "As for your family... well... they were simply in the way." 

"I'll fucking find you." Shiro growled, eyes glaring at the grey figure. "I'll fucking find you and destroy you myself." 

Despite unable to see the figures face, Shiro was sure it was grinning at her. A sick twisted grin. 

"Well... child of Kronos... I'll be waiting." It almost giggled with glee, before the device self destructed. 

As the device destructed, Shiro collapsed onto the ground as she sobbed into the blood stained floor. Why is this happening? Who is that? What did it do to her family? What does it want from her? She had so many questions, but no answers. No answers at all. 

All she could do was cry and sob as she continued to bang the floor with her small fists. And there she stayed for the best of the night, simply crying her eyes out before eventually falling asleep within the ghosted compound that was once the bustling Asami compound.