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The harsh November wind bit at Choso’s ears, despite the thick fabric of his collar. He had to squint to look ahead, or else his eyes would dry out and tear up, and leave frozen trails across his cheekbones. The body temperature of his vessel, below that of a normal human, had been causing him considerable discomfort, and adding frost-bitten skin to his numb extremities and stiff joints would be an undesirable outcome.
Choso licked his cracked lips, scanning the horizon for any signs of life. After circling the barren no-man’s-land and making their way through the city’s east, he and Yuji had come across a curse desert, where the only movement between the empty frozen streets and hulking structures of glass-shattered high-rises was the late autumn bluster.
Behind him, Yuji seemed to be faring slightly better, his face buried within the neck of the jacket they had pilfered from the remains of a clothing outlet only a day before. His eyes were staring blankly in front of him as he walked, and despite the looseness of his facial features, his shoulders were tense.
The two hadn’t talked much since embarking on their hunt for the straggling curses of Shibuya. The path away from the center of the destruction had been rife with large curses as well as swarms of low-grades, and since entering the neighboring wards, that number had slowly dwindled.
Despite having known each other for less than a week, they worked together seamlessly. Reading the body language and subtle signals of Yuji’s combat style reminded Choso of his blood-bond with Eso and Kechizu, and only cemented in his mind and heart that his brother was Kenjaku’s spawn—though something greater than their failures of Choso’s Death Painting blood-kin.
It was through this deeper sense that Choso knew for sure that his brother felt drained of his energy. They hadn’t rested since sunset the day before, and the chill of the night had made its way to their bones. Hours upon hours of walking in the winter weather had proved both exhausting and unkind. He slowed down to fall in step with Yuji.
“Brother,” he said softly, voice muffled slightly by his collar. “You require rest. I suggest we take a break before heading further east, to clear our heads and restore our energy.”
His brother blinked, and then looked up at him. “Yeah,” he said, stifling a yawn. “Not a bad idea.” He blinked again and shook his head as if to clear it. “Are you hungry, Choso?”
Choso considered his answer for a moment. As a reincarnated cursed object occupying a vessel, much of his energy originated from the dispersed embodiment of the Death Painting Womb. However, despite his ability to use reverse cursed technique, it could only go so far. The human body needed things like air and water to maintain its function, and could not subside off of cursed energy forever. After the drastic blood loss he’d suffered lately due to the nature of his cursed technique, it was very likely he’d have to acquire sustenance.
“Though I don’t feel hunger or exhaustion to the same degree as a human,” Choso replied, “this vessel is still human. I believe a meal would improve my stamina.”
“I see,” Yuji said, looking ahead once again. “I guess I didn’t realize that your body was technically someone else before.”
Choso was silent for a moment, knowing that Sukuna was at the forefront of his brother’s mind. Yuji’s appreciation for all life, though a touch naïve and an incredibly painful thing to bear, was something that Choso thought important enough not to challenge. “Yes,” he said. “Do you recognize anywhere we could stop?”
For the next half-hour, they meandered down the various intersections and smaller roads off of the main street. A majority of the buildings had suffered various degrees of structural damage, even so far off from the center of the chaos, and the sidewalks and alleyways were deserted, bereft even of birds and strays.
The air of the narrow alleys carried the stench of abandoned detritus and the scents of day-old curse residuals. It made Choso’s stomach churn; he made the decision to stay on the main street from then on out.
Soon enough, they came across a storefront, display windows shattered inward into the building—a common sight around the city, resulting from the violent air displacement caused by the expansion of a real-world domain. Indecipherable advertisements, ripped to shreds and singed at the corners, gathered in the doorway and fluttered weakly in the wind. The bodies of plastic mannequins, covered in dust and rubble-ash, were splayed across the tiled floor in a mockery of displaced corpses. Their clothing was ripped by splinters of glass and wood, but from the exterior, it seemed the rest of the shop was untouched. Stragglers and looters hadn't made it this far as of yet.
Choso couldn’t sense any active cursed energy residuals nearby, but he had Yuji keep watch outside nonetheless while he climbed through one of the broken windows to check the aisles hidden from sight. Glass crunched under his boots like packed snow as he made his way down towards the rear of the room.
As he moved past the line of dormant registers, he readied his hands, engorging his veins and increasing the bloodflow within them. He felt warmth return to his face as his blood seal manifested alongside his spiking cursed energy, and his footsteps echoed through the space, muffled crunching that shifted to the sharper sounds of rubber against laminate.
As he was about to reach the back wall, barely illuminated by the flickering of fluorescents overhead, he heard a skittering sound, just barely present against the sound of his heart pounding in his ears. Choso froze for only a second before whipping around the corner, hands meeting at a point as blood flowed to his fingertips, blooming warm and red between them—
The beady red-ringed eyes of a large, startled rat stared back at him from the floor.
Choso stared back at it in shock for barely half a second before the creature squeaked and bolted into a crack between the floorboards, leaving behind the new subject of Choso’s interest. He sighed, the muscles in his back and arms going slack as he released his technique. As his poison-tinged blood dripped down his fingers and onto the floor, a heavy weariness seated itself on his shoulders while he took in the scene.
The body of a human lay face down against the aisle. Their hands were splayed forward, as if attempting to protect their skull from debris—though, judging from the chunk of concrete ceiling splattered with dried blood and gray matter covering the upper portion of their neck and torso, they had been unsuccessful. More recent wounds and bruising dotted their exposed ear and fingers. One of the latter had been gnawed off.
“Everything alright in there?” Yuji called from outside.
Choso took a moment to look at the scene before him. He wondered who this person was; if they had siblings or children, or if they had lived alone with no one to miss them. He knew for a fact that Yuji would do the same, tenfold, and he decided instantly that he would not expose his brother to more human death. They were tired, exhausted, and hungry. Yuji had had nightmares about the events of Shibuya for what little time he'd slept, and as the elder of the two, it was Choso’s job to protect him from sources of additional pain and distress.
“Yes,” he called back after a moment. “The rear of the structure is unstable; I suggest we not wander past the aisles. Otherwise, it is safe to come in.”
As he listened to the sound of Yuji carefully climbing through the window, he grabbed at a stack of blankets wedged beneath a shelf of souvenir items. The weaving felt scratchy and cheap between his fingers, but it would do.
He covered the body carefully, making sure both to hide it from sight, should Yuji decide to not heed his warnings, and to protect the corpse from the bloody whims of rats and scavengers. He hoped that it would be enough until the city could start recovering their dead.
Picking up a small stack of the other blankets, Choso headed back to the front, where his brother had started to sift through the various shelves behind the registers. After wordlessly handing Choso a protein bar and a bottle of water, Yuji helped him lay out the blankets in vague semblance of a mattress, hidden from view of the window and the cold bite of the wind.
Choso lay down first, and almost instantly felt the pull of sleep as he shut his eyes. As his mind began to drift, he felt the warmth of Yuji's back against his own, and despite the circumstances, he found himself beginning to relax.
Though his two younger brothers were gone despite his oath, knowing that his youngest was safe beside him was enough to quell his anxieties for now.
Choso slept for only about five hours, at the end of which he was awoken with a start, the vestiges of an age-old memory of his sobbing mother at the mercies of a skin-stitched monster starting to fade. His fingers were stiff with cold, and condensation clouded from his mouth as he exhaled. He sat up and saw from the orange tinted light shining off the high rises surrounding them outside that it was about late evening. Soon the temperature would drop much more. He decided that finding thicker clothing should be made a priority.
Beside him, his brother was curled up into his blankets, dead to the world. His breathing was deep, and he looked at peace—Choso hoped that he could stay that way for a little longer.
While he had eaten a few hours before, he decided to take inventory of the concessions and small refrigerators in the register lines that they had passed over earlier. He grabbed a backpack from a hook off of one of the shelves, and filled it with protein bars, bags of freeze-dried processed fruit, and water bottles.
As Choso reached to pull one more water bottle from a top shelf, a few of the other drinks caught his eye. Though he could read the characters on the labels through the memories of his vessel, the names did not spark recognition. He settled down to study the labels, hoping to maybe find something that would provide them with energy or nutrients for the journey ahead.
Most of the drinks contained high amounts of processed sugar, which he had found to sometimes make him ill, though he knew Mahito had a fondness for such things. A few of them contained additives such as antioxidants, vitamins, and caffeine, the latter of which came in the form of cans of tea, coffee, and energy drinks.
He sat and read labels, choosing from those that sounded promising and discarding those that did not, until Yuji stirred awake. After stretching out his arms with a pop and a yawn, he noticed Choso sitting and made his way over. “What’ve you got there?”
Choso squinted at the label in his hands, trying to decipher the small characters against the shine of the can. “I am trying to decide what is worth bringing with us. It would be best if we were to carry our food and water from this point on, as it is unlikely we’ll come across another place that hasn't been pillaged.”
“I see,” Yuji said. He pointed at a tall can in Choso’s “ask Yuji for input” pile, sporting a brown label printed with black and green text. “Oh, Nobara got me into this one. I'm usually not really a coffee guy—energy drinks are more what I’m used to—but this one tastes really good. Have you tried canned coffee before?
“No,” Choso said, studying the label. Kenjaku had preferred to offer tea.
“Here, try it,” Yuji said, grabbing the can and passing it over to him while grabbing one for himself. “Coffee has a lot of caffeine, and these espresso ones have enough to get your blood running and clear your head when you wake up—"
He took the can from Yuji, and popped the tab as his brother continued speaking, a touch of fondness pervading his voice. A strong earthy smell rushed over his senses with a hiss, and as Yuji opened his own can, Choso took a small sip—
He choked, startled at the intense bitterness. Yuji’s eyes widened in panic.
“Do you not like it? I should have warned you, espresso can be a bit strong; some people aren't a fan—"
Choso cleared his throat with a soft smile. “Yuji, no worries. I do like it; the taste and the strength of it just surprised me.” He bowed his head slightly. “Thank you for sharing it with me.”
Yuji stared at him for a moment before he let out a laugh, and smiled, a spark lit in his tired eyes. “I'm glad I can share it,” he said. “Though if you want something else, let me know. But we should get moving soon—the curses are more likely to be out tonight, and if we're lucky we may be able to make some progress towards the east—"
Choso nodded and took another drink from the can, this time slower and much more carefully. As the undertones of chocolate and roasted nuts glided smoothly across his tongue, he realized at that moment—despite the harrowing circumstances around them and the exhausting days likely to come—he felt at peace in a way he had never experienced.
Gone were the decades of vague awareness, grounded only by the ties to his blood-kin Death paintings. This—the pleased tilt of his brother’s head as he basked in the dusklight, the small waves of contentment imbued into his residuals—was something beyond the bounds of Choso’s existence up to the current moment.
This was worth living for.