Floating Like a Lilo ── Itadori Yuuji (✓)

07 AN EYE FOR AN EYE

I TOOK A KNIFE AND CUT OUT HER EYE,
I TOOK IT HOME AND WATCHED IT WITHER AND DIE

girl with one eye,
florence + the machine

     This world is a line running along the edge of the universe, swerving around stars and thinning out in the midst of sunny skies and porcelain clouds. You feel eternity in motion, in unrelenting rains and waves of sunshine pouring over your head when the warmth of your parents' empty hugs do no more than widen the gap in your heart.

     And right now, the world centred in on Eishuu Juvenile Detention Center where the rain becomes more vicious as you think. It's the day after Harajuku and this atmosphere that has swallowed you up whole feels different to the daze from yesterday; tension swallows the air around you, thick and unforgiving as you struggle to breathe in the darkness.

     An emergency had broken out at the juvenile detention center, and all four of the first years were dispatched to handle it - it was just as Gojo had said; this was likely your test. The dispatcher's words go through one ear and out the other, but you heard some bits. Your mission was to verify and rescue any survivors left inside with the cursed womb that appeared on the site.

     "Our window verified the cursed womb three hours ago. Once 90% were evacuated, they made the call to seal off the center. Citizens within a 500-meter radius have been evacuated as well," Ijichi-san says idly, hands resting behind him in his suit.

     You blink, realising you had dazed off again, "Ijichi-san, I have a question. What's a 'window' here?"

     "A window is a member of Jujutsu Tech who can see curses. They aren't sorcerors though."

     Huh, maybe I should be one of those people, you wonder briefly.

     "Let's continue," He says, undeterred, and guides you and the others to Detainee Block 2. "At present, five detainees remain there with the cursed womb. If this cursed womb is the type that metamorphoses, we predict it will become a special-grade cursed spirit."

     You shiver upon hearing that word, knowing it means something dangerous. Your eyes meet Kugisaki and Fushiguro, both of whom also have a hint of terror inside their hues.

     "I must reiterate this to you: do not fight under any circumstances," Ijichi fixes his eyes which rest close to the ridge of his eyes, "If you encounter a special-grade cursed spirit, your options are to either run or die. Please just listen to your fears. Do not forget that your mission here is strictly the verification and rescue of survivors."

     He pauses as soon as someone's terrified cries haunt the air; everyone turns and in the distance, the police hold back a teary-eyed woman. You find your nails digging into your palm, as if wanting to imprint crescent-shaped bruises. She calls out for her son, Tadashi, in such poignant agony and you hate it. You hate it so, so much.

     This is the world you're trapped in, full of death and death and death.

     For a moment, you're that little girl again and the web of lies is cut-throat as it spindles a veil around your skin, warping the beauty of the universe and helping demons emerge from the darkness. Mother's eyes are blacker than the ebony spat in the spaces between stars. She calls for you, as if that woman being barricaded by the police was now suddenly her.

     Come back to me, she whispers. Finish what I started.

     A second later, you fix your expression, forcing a plastic smile onto your face.

     Fushiguro puts his hands together, fingers forming the outline of a dog. His pupils narrow as he calls out his shikigami, "Demon Dogs!"

     From the slither of his shadow, a white wolf-like dog emerges playfully; the purity of its fur is brighter than the blackness the darkness of Fushiguro's shadow conveyed. As white as sclera of a dead man, or the wishing bones of templar skeletons, the wolf howls upon being summoned.