Chapter Text
In her dream like state, memories flood her mind.
Rin almost doesn’t recognize the girl. She looks identical to Rin but with a slightly older aged body and full head of white hair. She is wearing a high end white top and red bottom red silk kimono. She is dressed to perfection, hair pulled back filled with combs and accessories. She walks with a distinctive gait with her restrictive sandals and a single branch of cherry blossoms. She is parading down the street, followed by dozens of courtesans and servants. There are thousands of people at the edge of the streets admiring her beauty. Each step she takes, she gently swings the branch to each side of her, dispelling cursed energy around the townspeople. She makes her way to the town’s square where the large clans heads will meet her; the Zenin, the Gojo and the Kamo.
The town square is large and filled with silk fabric decorations, as expected of a festival. The cherry blossom trees that surround the square are in full bloom. In the center of the square is a large canopy, where there are three large ornate chairs. The three clan heads sit each one, the elderly Gojo head dawning a white kimono with blue accents. The Zenin to the left, a black kimono with navy blue accents. Lastly, the Kamo clan to the right. The man was wearing a navy blue kimono.
The parade stops at the edge of the square with the girl continuing to make her way to the three clan heads. She stops in the center of the square and gives a bow.
‘It’s always a pleasure to see you again this time of year,’ says the Gojo Head. He raises his hand to signal for her to raise.
‘And to you’ she says raising her head, ‘you look good in health. ‘ She makes eye contact with the white kimono. ‘I’m glad to see that the potpourri bag helped.’ He smiles at her.
‘You do always have a way with medicine that even our top sorcerer’s can't replicate.’ Her eyes wander to the Zenin clan who whispers to the servant beside them. Nothing to say to her. She then looks over to the Kamo clan head. He had dark hair slicked back and a short mustache. He gets up out of his seat and walks towards the girl. He stands in front of her and reaches to kiss the top of her hand. Lips still pressed to her skin he looks up, ‘pleasure to finally meet you,’ he says in a deep dark tone. Their eyes meet then her gaze traces his face, studying the scar across the man’s forehead.
‘Noritoshi Kamo,’ she speaks coldly.
Rin quickly sits up, still groggy. Her head pounds as she hunches over, bringing her hand to her temple. ‘Glad to see you again,’ says a female voice. Rin looks over to see that she is in a hospital bed surrounded with a half opened curtain. Shoko walks closer to her, wearing a doctor's coat over her uniform. Although she was only a first year, her mastery of reverse curse technique gave her many opportunities to run the clinic at the school. ‘How are you feeling,’ she asks, now standing beside Rin.
‘I-I’m fine I think. Just my head really hurts.’ The last thing she remembers before passing out was her and Nanami being surrounded by the cursed fish swarm.
‘They say they found a civilian who could see cursed spirits. Imagine my surprise it was you.’ Shoko reaches her hand out to Rin’s forehead. ‘You’re fever’s gone at least.’ She sits down on the bed looking at Rin. ‘After you passed out Nanami brought you here to the school. He stayed here for a week, wanting to be here when you woke-‘ Rin’s eyes grew wide in surprise.
‘A week?’ She said in shock.
‘8 days actually. Geto and Gojo wanted to check on you too but I didn't let them in. I don’t want the higher ups to associate you with them.’
Rin looks down at her hands. ‘That makes sense’, Rin thinks to herself, ‘why would they be worried over a stranger. ‘
‘When you were brought here,’ Shoko continues, ‘you were overflowing with so much cursed energy and your hand was burned pretty badly. I healed you hand but I couldn’t do anything about the amount of energy you had. We just had to wait for your body to adjust, I guess’ Shoko stands back up and walks to the window as she lights her cigarette. She takes a deep puff and looks back to Rin. ‘Principle Yaga wants to meet you,’ she deadpans.
The next day, Shoko checks back on Rin. She goes over her vitals. ‘Everything seems fine, how do you feel today?’ Rin looks over herself. She feels good as new. She looks up and smiles to Shoko, giving her a thumbs up.
‘Better than ever,’ Rin states as she gets out of the bed.. She looks down to her gown. ‘So, um,’
‘Oh, right right. I brought some of my spare clothes for you.’ Shoko walks over to her desk and opens the drawer, pulling out a duffle bag. ‘Sorry this is the smallest outfit I had.’ She sits the bag down at the door of the bed. ‘I’ll be outside the door when you're done.’ She steps out, closing the door behind her.
Rin removes the medical gown from herself and opens the bad to see a sundress and change of undergarments . She pulls out the outfit and steps into the sun dress. It’s still a little big on her, but it is a much better fitted than the boys clothing she’s used to. The dress itself is a soft cream color with lavender flower print. She grabs the slippers under the bed and slips them on, walking toward the door to Shoko.
‘Okay I just need to convince Yaga that I can be helpful. I'm sure that the display in front of Nanami was enough.’
She opens the door to Shoko leaning on the wall to her right. She leans up off of the wall and extinguishes her cigarette on the window seal. With Rin following her down the hallway, they make their way to Principal Yaga’s office. Rin’s heart beats fast with nervousness.
They stand in front of the office door. They hear a muffled conversation through the door as Shoko knocks on the door and speaks. ‘Hey it’s me, she’s with me now.’
‘Come in,’ shouts a stern voice. Shoko reaches down to open the door but before she could the handle turns and a person steps out. Rin’s eyes catches theirs, she sees that it is Nanami.
‘Glad you are okay and feeling better,’ Nanami says as he hold the door open for the ladies. He bows slightly. ‘Principle Yaga will see you now.’ Shoko sees that Rin is nervous and gently grabs her hand. She leads Rin inside the door. Nanami shuts the door behind them, leaving the girls.
The room is dimly lit by paper candles and lanterns with traditional Japanese paper walls. Shoko guides Rin down the two rows of columns leading to the back of the room. As Rin and Shoko make their way, a small platform is lit by taller candles. A large muscular man sits at the center, surrounded by some oddly shaped stuffed animals. Both of them stop in front of the man. Rin feels even more nervous now, she can feel the man’s eyes measuring her up as she looks up at him. She sees that he is wearing sunglasses, has short spiky brown hair and some short facial hair.
‘Hello, I am Principal Yaga. Glad to see that Shoko has checked you over.’
‘As I reported earlier,’ Shoko says as she crosses her arms, ‘Rin was unconscious, had minor second degree burns on her left hand and was overflowing with cursed energy. Even when she was unconscious. I used RCT to heal her hand and her body naturally absorbed the excess cursed energy.’
Yaga takes his hand and rubs the bottom of his face, rubbing his facial hair. ‘Yes Nanami had also reported that she managed to exercise a curse as well.’ Rin looks down to her feet and rubs her thumbs together. ‘From what I was told she seemed to have some cursed absorption technique. That is quite rare.’ He looks over to Rin. ‘Rin,’ he says as she shoots her head up to look at Yaga. ‘They said your name is Rin?’
‘Y-yes my name is Rin.’
‘What is your family name? Are you associated with any of the clans?’ She shakes her had no. ‘Clanless? That will make things easier if you are wanting to become a sorcerer at this school, as I was told.’
‘Will I be able to?’
Yaga runs his hand through his hair. ‘Lets see what you can do.’ As Yaga pulled his hand back down from his face, Rin notices that one of the plushies around Yaga starts to move. ‘This is part of my cursed technique.’ The stuffed animal walks closer to Rin. It appears to be a small green plush, a mixture of a bear and a frog body. Rin looks over to Shoko. Shoko takes a few steps back, mouthing ‘you got this ‘ towards Rin.
Rin closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She stands in a slightly wider stance, bringing her hands to her chest closed fisted. She focuses around her and can feel the opposing cursed energy surrounding her. She envelopes herself in her own. Keeping her eyes closes as she tries to focus on plush walking towards her.
Shoko watches as Rin is covered in white cursed energy, enveloping her full body. Shoko noticed that there were some spots of excess cursed energy on Rin. Two points at the top of Rin’s head and a third at the base of Rin’s spine. Almost tail like.
Rin snaps her eyes open. As the doll leaped, Rin quickly reaches for the doll. As soon as the doll came in contact with Rin’s cursed energy, the doll stilled in the air for a moment. Rin’s energy sucked Yagas cursed energy out of the doll. She felt her hand warm slightly as the energy touched her skin and was absorbed . The doll falls to the ground limply. Rin releases the energy around her.
‘Interesting,’ shouts Yaga as he gets up from his platform and walks towards the girls. ‘You managed to extract my cursed technique without even harming the souls inside the doll.’ He reaches down to the doll and applies his energy to it. As he stands back up, the doll revives and walks back to the platform ‘You definitely have potential for a sorcerer. I can see why Shoko and Nanami recommended you.’
‘So I take it she passed,’ Shoko says as she steps up closer to Rin. Yaga and Rin both looked over to her.
‘Ah yes,’ he states as he walks closer to Shoko. ‘I do have some other details I need to go over with you, but Rin.’ He turns to face her. ‘I’ll have one of the 1st years give you a tour. You may leave.’
‘Thank you,’ Rin says excitedly as she gives Yaga a quick bow and heads back to the door. She walks back with a smile on her face, overflowing with excitement. ‘I can’t believe it worked,’ she thinks to herself. ‘All of our planning worked out great! Almost too well.’ Rin opens the door to find Gojo leaning on the door frame, arm above his head.
‘Great to finally meet our new student,’ he purrs. He greats her with a smile and a wink. Geto stands behind him, hands in pockets.
‘Heard we needed to give the new student a tour of the school,’ Geto says as he steps beside Gojo. Gojo turns around to Geto, as he does, Rin grabs onto Gojo’s arm and locks their arms together.
‘Yes please,’ she manages to squeak out.
