Megumi x Y/n | Set In Stone

19 - Black Flash

(Back to your POV)

The moment the elevator doors opened, you raced through the hallway to the doors leading to the pool. You were closely followed by Megumi, who ran to Panda and immediately asked about Maki.

"She got dragged underwater really fast and hasn't come back up," He explained, "She's been under for a minute and twenty seconds."

"Shit, so she's running out of air fast. Y/n, is there anything you–"

He turned to see you had already created the white, luminescent map. You observed the pool's shape, which seemed to be an infinitely deep hole. Inside was a glowing red figure, representing the curse with a much smaller white speck, representing Maki. 

You broke a pair of chopsticks, concentrated cursed energy into the one in your dominant hand, and brought it down on the red dot. The red dot seemed to go down deeper and separated itself from the white dot.

So it's retreating, You observed. You looked to the white dot and your heart skipped a beat when you saw it wasn't moving.

She's unconscious.

You didn't waste any time taking off your school jacket and diving into the seemingly shallow pool. The moment your eyes were underwater, you could see the vast innate domain of the curse, making the pool seem infinitely deep. 

You swam down as fast as you could, searching for Maki. The water pressure was making your ears hurt, but you pushed on. 

It didn't help that there were other unconscious people in the pool; it made it hard to differentiate between strangers and Maki.

Finally you saw a figure in the middle of the pool, far down, wearing a dark navy jacket. You swam down and grabbed Maki's jacket collar, pulling her up by it.

Up above you, you could see someone else had jumped into the water. You recognised the familiar black hair and blue eyes. He could see you were struggling, so he swam down to meet you and helped you pull Maki up to the surface.

You breached the water's surface, panting. "Take her out of the pool," You said to him. He nodded and asked, "Are you ok?"

"Yeah."

He pulled her with him to the edge of the pool and got her out. Before you could see if she was ok, something wrapped around your leg.

Shit.

You were pulled underwater to meet the curse, far below the water's surface.

You concentrated on creating the map and it surprisingly formed in front of you; you didn't expect it to work underwater. You took out a needle and poked the red dot a few times, using cursed energy. 

Several holes appeared in the curse's skin, causing purple liquid to burst out and mix with the water. Through the cloudy purple water, you could still see the curse's glowing eye staring at you. 

The curse used a second tentacle to fully wrap around your body, cutting off all your movement. Your arms were pinned down and the map disappeared.

You tried to scream when a sharp pain shot through your whole body. The curse had pierced your skin with teeth on its tentacles.

Suddenly, a dark shape flew through the water and bit into the tentacles holding you. The tentacles were completely severed from the monster's body, causing them to fall off you and disappear.

You looked up to see Megumi above you who had made a shark shape with his hands. The shark below you continued to attack the curse.

You formed the map again and concentrated cured energy into the needle. You brought it onto the red dot hard and fast. Right before the needle hit, you saw the cursed energy in the needle change colour.

Black flash.

The curse seemed to explode instantly into clouds of purple, but this time when the clouds cleared up, there was no glowing yellow eye glaring at you. The curse had been exorcised.

You felt someone grab your hand, so you looked up; Megumi was dragging you up to the water's surface. When your head was above water, you gasped for breath.

Megumi was staring at the puncture marks covering your body. He could see the ones puncturing the uniform on your shoulders and neck and his eyes widened.

You were struggling to tread water; you were in extreme pain and your blood was clouding the water a bit. You were still breathing heavily, trying to get oxygen into your system.

He noticed this and pulled you to the pool's edge with a hand around your waist. You looked to see the others; Panda and Toge were watching you and Megumi, and Gojo was grinning widely at you. It was the first time you'd seen him smile since before the mission, which made you feel a bit better.

When your eyes landed on Maki, you felt a wave of relief wash over you. She was sitting up, coughing up water.

Megumi helped you get out of the pool and you collapsed in front of the four of them, falling to your knees. You were physically exhausted, hurting all over and tired.

"Great job, L/n-san!" Gojo said, impressed and proud, "That was a grade one curse and you exorcised it pretty quickly! And you can use black flash too!?"

So that wasn't a special grade!?

You nodded weakly. Megumi had his hands supporting your shoulders, more concerned about your physical state. He helped you into the taxi when you all left.