One and Only

Ch. 6 Homesick II

  Gojo, Suguru, and I took the lead, running down the mountain side towards the swarm of curses. Shoko decided to keep to the back for a more supportive role. Suguru summoned a large lizard-like curse.
"Take care of the weaker ones," he instructed. Allowing the lizard creature to run free.
  A horde of smaller Curses came rushing towards the 3 of us, but the curse that Suguru summoned got to them first. It's tail swung rapidly, throwing the creatures against trees and farther into the forest. It's sharp teeth sunk into the flesh of a few, happily ripping away at them.
The lizard was able to make a path for us to slip further down the mountain, closer to some of the more powerful monsters. A group of roughly 15 curses came charging towards us. I ran forward, surprising my classmates from my sudden increase of speed. I spun the staff around my body to gain momentum for a powerful first strike, steadily increasing my cursed energy to pour into it.
  My mother created this staff to help with controlling and redistributing my own cursed energy through both myself and the staff. She created a weapon that would allow me to use more of my technique closer to its fullest potential. Without it, I could use maybe up to 35% before my muscles began to tense and rip, but with my staff I am able to pour out up to 40%.
  The curse that was leading the pack jumped towards me, I planted my dominant foot onto the ground and turned 180°, making the creature crash into the ground that was behind me. As I turned I let my staff slip down my right arm, extending my reach to double of what it was. I harshly twisted my body the rest of the way and grabbed the base of my staff with both of my hands. The staff hit the neck of the creature, the momentum I was able to build up caused the staff to tear through its fat neck and sent its head flying into a nearby tree. With the foot that I had rooted into the ground, I launched myself above the other Curses and  spun the staff over my head before bringing it down onto the next in line curses head, this time using my jujutsu to mow down another 3 creatures.
  As I was focused on my 5th curse, hitting it with a wave of cursed energy from a palm strike, another one jumped at my back. Before it was able to scratch at me, Gojo kicked it in its face. The impact making the monster fly back into a tree, a branch piercing through its abdomen. 
  "Hey, you're not too bad!" Gojo called out to me as he exorcised the bleeding curse.
  "Thanks," I replied, sending a front kick to another oncoming curse.
  Suguru ran ahead of us, knocking down another 3 curses. A throwing knife whized past his head, striking a curse between the eyes. Shoko walked up and stabbed it with a dagger that she carried, the curse evaporating from being killed. Gojo, Suguru, and I caught up to her and faced the left over curses that were now being wary of us.
  "There's still a big bunch closer to the bottom," Gojo said with a smirk. "Looks like they're runnin'."
  "Well," Suguru said. "We just gotta chase them down." He switched the lizard curse out for a crow-like curse.
  "This one can exorcise the curses that are hidden throughout the trees," he explained.
  "So that we don't have to worry about an ambush," I finished his sentence.
  "Exactly," he said through a smile.
  "Well, where's the fun in that?" Gojo half joked.
   "Satoru, is the main target still within the cluster?" Shoko asked.
  Gojo scanned the base of the mountain once more before giving his answer.
  "I don't see it down there, but it does look like there's a couple more third grades waiting there for us," he finished.
  "Great," I said, pushing some of the stray hairs behind my ear. "Suguru, can't you summon another curse to take care of them so that we can go search for the stronger one?" I asked the man beside me.
  "My crow takes up a bit of my cursed energy, so I can't summon another one right now," he explained. "So we'll just have to make do."
  "What? You're not getting tired, are you?" Gojo said as he leaned towards me with a teasing smile. I placed my hand on his face, at least I think I did, pushing him away.
  "No," I replied. "But I want to hurry up and get this over with. We've already been out here for 5 hours." I said as I looked at the small watch on my wrist. We arrived at roughly 10am, and it was already 3pm. I didn't want to be out here after sunset, who knows how many other curses would pop up.
  "Then I guess you'll just have to be a little quicker." Gojo said.
  "Excuse me, but weren't you the one who only took down 1 curse?" I shot back.
  "If I recall, that was the curse that I, the Great Gojo Satoru, saved you from," he said with his arms crossed over his chest. Letting out a stubborn 'hmph'. I couldn't help but chuckle at the childish behavior.
  "Yeah, yeah," I replied, deciding to play along. "Thank you, O' Great Gojo Satoru, what ever shall I do without ye?" I said with a curtsy to the man. I stood up to see Gojo with the biggest grin on his face. That's when it hit me, this was the first time I actually joked around with him. My ears turned red from embarrassment. Gojo looked too cute with that smile on his face. His sunglasses were off so I could see the genuine excitement and amusement in his eyes.
  "Not to ruin this touching moment," Shoko cut in, "but we do still need to take care of those curses." She said pointing at the monsters that were now running down the mountain side.
  "Why don't you two," Suguru said, catching both my and Gojo's attention, "go after the ones farther down. That way you two can keep flirting and bonding over killing some Curses, hmm?" Suguru joked. I gave him a playful punch to his arm, he rubbed the spot defending himself by saying how he was just helping us out.
  "You don't wanna spend quality time with your good pal Satoru?" Gojo said playfully, his chest leaning in on my back. Although I was taller than the average Japanese woman, Gojo still had a few inches on me. I started to walk away from Gojo, causing him to fall forward a bit. I just made a face at the man, signaling him to hurry up.
  "As much as I would love to spend my, very precious and valuable, free time with you," I replied to the man, "I would also like to take care of the curses. I don't really care who I go with, just as long as it's done soon." I finished, getting ready to sprint down the mountain, yet again.
  "You're not gonna run ahead and leave me behind, are ya'?" Gojo asked somewhat jokingly.
  "I dunno, maybe you should try to keep up with me," I shot back at him.
  "Or," he paused for a moment, "you could carry me!" I let out a small laugh at his dumb idea.
  "What? Tired already?" I said, using his own teasing statement against him. Although he wasn't showing it right now, Gojo was absolutely elated that he finally got me to joke around with him. He didn't want to ruin it by pointing it out, so he just kept on with the banter. His next goal was to start getting me to call him by his given name.

  Gojo and I had made it to the bottom of the mountain, exorcising another 16 or so curses that were on the way. Now, we were currently fighting about 3 semi-first grade Curses. I was focused on one that's technique sent massive Shockwave through our bodies, paralyzing us. Gojo was taking care of a rather annoying one that dug around underground, waiting to grab our legs and pull us under. Both of the curses keeping us distracted from a third that was trying to run away, using the rivers current to get further away from the fight.
  I was hit by another Shockwave, my body tensed at the current ruppling through me. I tried to make my cursed energy flow through my body to quickly break out of the paralysis, but the monster was already jumping at me trying to land an attack. I felt the collar of my undershirt get yanked back, Gojo had used his reversal technique to send the monster flying. The force of the impact caused the monster to deactivate its cursed technique. I could hear the other creature digging around underground, so I speared my staff into the ground. I could hear the pained cries of the monster. Gojo was quick to head towards it. He pulled out my staff, bringing the mole-like curse out along with it. He finished it off, it's purple blood splattering the ground before disappearing. The curse that he pushed away was already charging back towards me.
  "Heads up!" Gojo yelled, throwing my staff back at me. I caught it then quickly spun around, my staff landing right into the side of the curses face. The force was enough to knock it towards the river. The loud and tall splash gave me enough cover to run at the creature, jumping high while swinging my staff downwards. The blow landed on the top of the monsters skull, a loud crack rang through the air. The body soon disappearing, the river water raining back down.
  "God damn, that thing really is heavy," Gojo walked up to me. "How the hell do you swing it around so easily?"
  "I'm just used to it, I guess," I answered back. "Do you see the third one anywhere?" I asked him.
  Gojo took of his sunglasses again, scanning the area that the last curse ran towards.
  "No I don- wait, I see Suguru and Shoko." Just as he finished, I saw them both sprinting towards us.
  "Are you two alright?!" Shoko yelled out. Both she and Suguru stopped infront of us.
  "We're fine, don't worry. Are you guys okay? You look like shit," Gojo asked the pair.
  "We ran into a couple more curses than we thought," Suguru replied.
  "Not to mention we were chasing one down for a while. Asshole kept getting away from us," Shoko said.
  "There was a curse that just ran down the river, did you two see it?" I asked them.
  "The one that looked like a slug? Yeah, we took care of that one," Suguru replied.
  "Alright, that's one issue solved," Gojo said. "But what was that about one that kept running away?"
  "There was one that looked like a big ass tree, kept using branches to block us off and hide." Said Shoko.
  "Something was off about it too, it's cursed energy was way too powerful and intense for just a first grade." Suguru chimed in. "It was also kind of intelligent, used the natural covering of the forest and had some traps waiting for us." He finished.
  This entire situation just seemed.. off. All of the curses that we had ran into kept running away while a fight was going on, but led further and further away from the trails and forested areas. Not to mention I've had anxiety for the last hour. Something wasn't right, but I brushed it off as just nerves from having to fight so many curses at once.
  "This seems way too orchestrated." We all turned to Gojo, waiting for him to finish his statement. "We were led hours away from the nearest town, and the curses seemed like they were just trying to buy time for something. However, I can't figure out what that 'something' is." He finished.
  There was a loud crash that came from back toward the trail, the 4 of us whipped our heads around to see smoke and heard trees falling over some distance away. We were getting ready to run when my phone began to ring. I fished it out of my pocket to see the displayed number, my heart dropped into my stomach.
  "Hello?" I answered in a shaky tone.
  "Mai-sama!" Dazai was the one who called, I could here screaming and cries in the background. His voice was a panicked blur.
  "Dazai, please calm down! I can't understand what you're saying!" I yelled into the phone.
  "Mai-sama please return to the estate immediately! We're being under attack!" He yelled out.  That's when it all hit me, the smoke was coming from the same direction as to where home was.
  The next words he spoke contorted my face into one of pure panic.
  "Please, hurry! Some of the guards have already been killed! Himeko-sama is trying to defend the estate!"