Chapter Text
A cartoonish pop! rang through the bamboo forest, loud and entirely unsuited for the sudden, violent displacement.
Fushiguro Megumi hit the ground hard and rolled forward a few metres before he caught himself. He sprang to his feet then, bringing his hands up into the Divine Dog sign, his eyes darting frantically across the clearing.
A second ago, he had been mid-battle with a Semi-Grade 3 Curse that had been lurking around a meat processing factory, shut down and abandoned after several unexplainable freak accidents.
And now he's here, in a quiet bamboo forest, unable to feel any curse energy besides his own. The air smelled like rain and clean earth.
Megumi lowered his hands just slightly, though no less vigilant, as he took in his new surroundings. Looking closer at the bamboo, they've got thick brown lines—outlines. Like a drawn cartoon.
He caught a glimpse down and blinked, stunned at the outlines lining his hands. Not just that, but his fingers have become simplified, slightly stubbier, though no less long. He turned one hand front and back, studying it, then curled his fingers.
Spotting a small pond ahead, he glanced at his reflection and squeezed his eyes shut for a long moment. He opened them, and still the outline remained, and the rest of him had become simplified too, like a cosy cartoon.
Just where is he?
Then, a spike in energy gripped the air, and Megumi's blood froze to ice, a primal instinct telling him not to move or risk death.
Internally, he reprimanded himself harshly. Such an immense power, untapped and broiling—it was almost comparable to Gojo-sensei, or Okkotsu-senpai. How could he have missed curse energy, and for it to sneak up on him like this?
However, to know whether it was better to stay and fight or to run like hell, he had to see what had caught him.
Like prey, he craned his head slowly, sapphire eyes flitting around to spot the cause, only to find a small, pitch-black cat now taking the space by the pond. Its large, round eyes blinked up at him in question while its tail swished side to side slowly.
"1-1Neko?" Megumi can't help but blurt out. He stared at the cat; it stared back. It sure didn't look like a Curse.
He spread his senses, assuming that his eyes were deceiving him. And yes, there was another presence beside his own and the—strangely sentient—cat, one alarmingly as powerful but much, much further. Likely even beyond the bamboo forest.
His muscles were still locked tightly and unable to fully relax. The sheer depth of the cat's energy was like an internal reservoir, or even a vast, bottomless ocean of power.
That would mean that Megumi could lose to a cat, and wasn't that a bitter thought?
The black cat tilted its head and meowed.
Except, its 'meow' also came with words: "Are you friendly, human?" Said the cat, its voice echoing in his mind. Not in Japanese, but a foreign one—Mandarin, perhaps?
The better question, then, was how Megumi could understand it.
Blinking, Megumi suddenly wondered if this was all just a dream and he had been knocked unconscious by the Curse he was fighting, his body now left vulnerable.
But the fall had hurt, and his side continued to ache from colliding against a staircase during the fight. Not a dream then.
"I need to get out of here." He sighed, not answering the cat, and turned to the trees. His best shot was to get out of this forest first, hope for civilisation, or cell service, and go from there.
The cat meowed again. "1-2Da-ge, are you lost?"
Megumi ignored it and walked off. Yes, he was lost, but what could a (magic?) cat do?
He heard little footsteps follow him, before the sound was replaced by heavier steps, of shoes crunching over grass.
Wait...shoes? Megumi stopped and looked over his shoulder.
He had only glanced away for two minutes, but when he looked back, the cat was gone and replaced by a young boy—a human boy—with fluffy white hair, large, expressive green eyes and a small mouth. He was dressed in muted blue traditional clothing with baggy black pants and flat shoes.
And on his head, a set of large cat-like ears, the fur inside various shades of green. The boy looked just eight years old. Maybe even younger.
Most importantly, that powerful energy remained, though the cat was missing, now originating from this boy. (Was this a curse technique?)
"Da-ge, you're lost, am I right?" The boy spoke in Mandarin. Again, curiously, Megumi understood it just fine.
"Y-yes," Megumi admitted. The boy blinked and canted his head to the side, much like the cat before.
"You're a foreigner?"
Megumi nodded.
The boy smiled then, bright and happy, and ran up to him. "My master should be able to help you. Come with me!"
While Megumi recovered from processing everything that had happened to him until that point and wondered what a young boy was doing all alone in a forest, the boy grabbed Megumi's hand with a surprisingly strong grip for such a tiny hand.
He began pulling them in the direction towards the north. As they made their way out of the forest, the boy continued to chat, shooting questions that ranged from polite curiosity to invasiveness.
"Hey, Da-ge, how old are you, by the way? You're a big kid, right?"
"...I'm fifteen."
"Whoa, that's old! I'm ten." The boy said, puffing out his chest. "My name's Xiao Hei, what about you?"
"Fushiguro."
"1-3Fu Hei?" The boy—Xiao Hei—giggled, "Sounds a lot like my name. I'll call you 1-4Da Hei then!"
"I'd rather you not."
Xiao Hei didn't listen to him as they exited the forest and reached a clearing. Ahead was a small, traditional Chinese home atop a patch of raised land. There was old training equipment to the side, including a pull-up bar and some boulders used as weights.
In the air, there was the smell of roasted duck and Sichuan peppers.
Xiao Hei tugged on his hand harder and pulled him along, mouth practically watering. "Hurry up, slowpoke! Master is making lunch!"