pomegranate ink | y. okkotsu

xi

a/n: welcome to part two of pomegranate ink!!

Death. That was the only thing you were truly aware of; you could feel it choking you, your screams left soundless, caught in an unwilling throat. Your friends — kissed by death. A boy — his eyes like death. Death, death, death, its sweet fragrance permeating the room and touching your skin like a lover. In the end, all things came back to this: death. In the end, all things came back to this: him.

"So," Naoya said critically. "I have to take you along with me."

"Well, uh, yeah, I guess so. Didn't you volunteer for this?" you said. He scowled, the tips of his ears turning red.

"Only because I was forced to! There's not that many Grade 1 sorcerers around, and as you know, I'm a Special Grade 1 sorcerer," he said.

"Uh-huh," you said, unimpressed.

"My father knew having positive ties with your family would be helpful, but obviously he wasn't going to waste the time babysitting you on this little mission, so he sent me instead," he said.

"Okay," you said.

"But I can hardly understand it!" he ranted as you followed him to his car. "I mean, you're rather beautiful, and you're engaged to Noritoshi Kamo, and it turns out you could heal if you wanted to! So what use do you have for fighting, woman?"

"What use do you have for fighting, woman?" you mocked under your breath, making your voice high-pitched and smarmy. He glanced over at you.

"What was that?" he said.

"Nothing, Naoya, sir," you said. You would do well not to get on his bad side, considering he was technically going out of his way to supervise you.

At the moment, you were only a Semi-Grade 1 sorcerer. In order to achieve full Grade 1 sorcerer status, you needed to complete missions with other sorcerers of rank. Depending on your performance during said missions, you would either be given increasingly more difficult missions on your own, or you'd remain a Semi-Grade 1 sorcerer forever. Provided you did well, you'd be given a final test of sorts, the task to exorcise a grade 1 curse or higher alone, and you'd then be assigned the rank of Grade 1 sorcerer.

Even as a Semi-Grade 1 sorcerer, you were already higher than the vast majority of sorcerers. Utahime Iori, the head teacher of the Kyoto school, was only a Semi-Grade 1, which spoke to the respect that the rank demanded.

Naoya Zenin was a Special Grade 1 sorcerer, which was a bullshit rank made up by the Zenin clan so that they could feel special — at least, according to Maki, who you trusted to know about such things. He was no stronger than any normal Grade 1 sorcerer, and indeed probably weaker than some. But it remained that he would be the one reporting back to the higher ups about your performance during your first mission as a Semi-Grade 1 sorcerer, so you could hardly remind him of the fact that he was just another man with an over-inflated ego.

At the moment, you were the highest ranking of your friends. Maki and Yuta were both Grade 4 sorcerers, though this was more a formality than anything. Maki was stopped from advancing through the ranks by the very man you sat next to right now; she had run away from the Zenin clan, and because they could not claim her success as their own, they blocked her from achieving any at all. Yuta had been stripped of his Special Grade status once Rika had been exorcised, although something told you that this was not a permanent development. Even with Rika gone, he still had more cursed energy than anyone you had ever encountered — an infinite amount, almost, and his signature was still as deathly-creepy as always. Toge was still a Grade 2 sorcerer, although you predicted this would change soon, and Tullia and Panda had recently been promoted to Grade 2 as well, in wake of the Night Parade.