Chapter Text
Mai was sitting in the farthest table of her favorite cafe. She had just finished an easy solo mission but still didn’t want to come back to school yet, so she took advantage that the window manager had an errand to do to spend a bit of time eating junk food alone and far away from the stressful word of sorcery. She had ordered her favorite burger and a melon soda float full of whipped cream and topped with cherries, as well as fries smothered in ketchup and mayonnaise. Nothing could make that Friday afternoon go bad…
A foul smell invaded Mai’s nose as a mysterious and disheveled customer arrived. Something about that customer seemed off to Mai, specially how people didn’t even move nor pay attention to his presence. He was tall muscular and had a flowing grayish blue hair, as well as a loose plaid shirt. Mai inhaled deeply as the man approached to her and sat next to her and began to grab her fries with a nonchalant demeanor as he eat them. Mai felt weird about that young man approaching in such way and while she was armed, a pang of fear made her doubt about getting her gun out to fend herself off. Something wasn’t right about this man, something was off. It was almost like if he was not… a person?
Mai panicked. Yeah. That man was not a person, let alone human.
“Excuse me, young lady, are you Mai Zenin?” Asked the inhuman creature who was comfortably sited by her side.
Mai wanted to scream and cry, but the fear was so much she could only mumble…
“Are you a curse?” Asked Mai frighten.
She had never seen curses so complex and human like as that one. As far as she knew the more complex and intelligent was the curse, the more powerful and destructive, making that curse definitively a special grade.
“Curses have names too, sweetheart. Mine is Mahito.”
Another man dressed in monk robes and a thin scar on his forehead arrived to the cafeteria, proceeding to greet Mai smiling as if he were someone she already knew. Mai recognized him immediately as Suguru Geto, which almost prompt her to scream as she had believed that he was dead. Was this man an impersonator or something? And following Geto there was another humanoid curse, which only had one eye and in his head instead of hair there was some kind of protuberance resembling to a volcano.
“My dear Mai! It has been a while, just let me order my food and we can chat like the old times.”
Mai was about to run but before she could do anything the cyclop curse spoke.
“If you move, I’ll roast everybody here to death, including you.” Said the one eyed curse as his hand held a fire.
Mai froze in the act, sitting herself as Geto and the curses approached to her and took a sit nearby.
Suddenly Geto took out of his tunic something Mai had believed she had lost long time ago. It was a small notebook they gave her to take notes in classes, but she had started using as diary to vent about everything she hated of her life as well as writing her best kept secrets. Mai had thought she had lost it after her last school vacations, likely thrown away to the bin by someone else, but now that eerie Geto guy had it in his hands.
“You know, in my free time we found this and we read it for a bit.” Said Geto.
“You hate your sister, don’t you?” Asked Mahito smiling with fake innocence.
“What I think about her is not of your business...” Said Mai, trying hard to sound brave, but failing it.
“Of course it is! The existence of your twin sister oppress you and you oppress your sister by existing alone… It is Maki’s fault you cannot be a good sorceress.” Exclaimed Mahito in a childish tone.
“I don’t care about being a sorceress. I just want to be at peace…” Answered Mai sincerely.
“Peace? Being an unpaid servant to a bunch of unwashed bastards is peace?” Asked Mahito.
Mai sighed.
“It is better than being send to missions.” Said Mai at verge of tears.
“You wrote here that you are frighten of your father when he arrives home and that wherever he is present you become a husk of yourself. It does not matter the effort you put into yourself, he ends acting like if your existence was a mistake.” Said Mahito pointing to one of the pages of the notebook as Geto held it.
“Don’t mention that asshole! I hate him!” Growled Mai, letting her tears spill as she pronounced those words.
“You wrote that he called you and your sister “a failed abortion” before leaving to school and that your mother instead of bringing you comfort as she used when you were a little girl she asked you to not bring shame and hang out with inappropriate males. That’s not a way to call a sweet pretty girl like you, Mai.” Said Mahito feigning compassion.
Mai could not help but cry silently as she remembered the fateful day where she was forced to leave the Zenin Compound to go to Jujutsu Tech. The insults, the coldness, the mockery…
“Also, here says that your cousin mocked you for crying and pleading your uncle to not send you that sorcery school as well as how that ugly drunk just slapped you for asking him for mercy. That must have been hard…” Mahito voice was sweet, almost sympathetic, but Mai knew better than to trust in the embodiment of all the ills of humankind.
“This is a waste time. We should just burn down this thing already, she won’t help us at all.” Shouted the volcanic curse.
Mai sweated in cold, frighten by the idea of being burned alive by such horrible being.
“Hey, easy Jogo! The girl still a bit confused, but I know she will accept our deal if we explain her…” Said Mahito trying to calm down his friend.
“What deal?” Asked Mai.
“Well, as a student of Kyoto Jujustu Tech and niece of the leader of a powerful clan you could bring us a good deal of information about the movements inside the school as well as whats the deal with your family and how can we exploit their weaknesses.” Explained Geto, as he bite part of the dessert he had ordered at the cafe. It was a strawberry parfait covered in corn flakes and chocolate sprinkles which looked almost comical in the hands of someone so wicked as Geto.
“Are you gonna torture me?” Asked Mai panicked, thinking about those spies movies where the hero captured by the enemy was viciously tortured in exchange of information and how the hero always was rescued after suffering the worst torments in silence. Mai knew she was not a hero and that for her, it was not even necessary to be tortured so she could confess everything they wanted, at that point was so afraid that she could do it for free.
However instead of beginning the brutal interrogation, Geto just laughed along Mahito and Jogo with a hint of complicity.
“No, no. We are gentlemen, we don’t want to torment a lady as lovely as you. Quiet the contrary, we want to make a fair exchange. Some kind of deal to put thing in simple words…” Explained Geto.
“The deal is simple. You pass me all the information you can about both Kyoto and Tokyo Jujutsu Tech as well as the information regarding to your family and I promise I’ll undo the connection you have to your twin sister, so your cursed technique can be full. Meanwhile, we promise we won’t attack any of your classmates nor your sister until the deal is complete…” Said Mahito smiling in a devilish way.
“And everything would be assured by a binding vow so both achieve what we really want.” Concluded Geto, as he held his spoon.
Mai just laughed, not because she was having any fun, but because how absurd it was to receive such kindness from such foul beings as that curse. Geto and the curses watched perplexed Mai’s nervous laugh without knowing exactly what to make of it.
“I don’t understand, what’s so funny…” Said Geto a bit disconcerted.
“Whatever, humans are weird, we should get rid of her.” Interjected Jogo.
“Come on, Jogo. Maybe she knows a nice joke and that’s why she is laughing like that!” Chirped Mahito.
“Your kindness, that’s funny. How can the worst things that humanity has to offer be so kind towards me? That’s absurd! Fucking absurd!” Shouted Mai trying hard to repress her nervousness and laughter.
Yeah, how it was possible that the curses that were usually so destructive and unkind to almost everybody, suddenly offer her make her wishes come true? None one had ever promised her something as useful and impossible as freeing her from the invisible chain that kept her tied to her twin and the idea of those curses not harming her classmates was something too good to be true… Something had to be a trap.
“If we are the kindest persons you know, then you must not know any kind person.” Said Mahito.
“Shut up, you are not the kindest persons I know! ” Shouted Mai losing her fear a little, but suddenly regained her composure as she saw Jogo head fuming and his single eye watching her with contempt.
“Still, you believed that we were kind. And that is kinda sad.” Pouted the blue haired curse.
“Anyway, how can you undo the connection I have with my sister? That’s impossible, it would require a the death of one of us.” Explained Mai frustrated. Then she panicked. Where these maniacs planning to kill her sister?
Geto was able to read Mai’s terrified expression and answered.
“Relax, babe. We won’t kill her unless she interferes with our goals.”
“Maybe, for you both to be free, I just have to make a little change in your soul.” Suggested Mahito.
“As if it could change…” Scoffed Mai at Mahito.
“You know, I have a technique that can totally reconfigure the soul of whatever person at will. Just look…” Said Mahito as he put his hand on Mai’s left hand.
Suddenly Mai felt like an electric current running on her body and as she felt how her left hand began to deform itself into a weird flipper like limb. The fear she felt was so raw and authentic that she could not even scream, but as soon as she felt that pain, soon her hand turned back to normal, like if nothing had happened.
“I can turn souls and the body that contains them to putty in my hands and I can end that the tyranny of fate that forced you and your sister to be “incomplete”. Just accept my offer be our spy and you and Maki will never be incomplete again.” Explained Mahito smiling.
Mai was scared, but also knew that what they were offering was something unique that none one else could give her and that if she declined their offer she would likely die on the spot.
“I’ll do it. I’ll pass information about both schools as well as from all the members of my clan. Just, promise to never harm my friends from school nor my big sister.” Agreed Mai.
“Okay, deal done.” Geto said, sealing the binding vow and marking it as the beginning of the macabre contract.