Megumi
He held her hand and refused to let it go. She was warm, her limbs slimmer than he remembered, and her veins pulsed beneath the surface of her skin all too clearly. It was not the kind of thing he would've noticed previously, or even paid attention to, but it was there now, proof of her coma, yet also proof she had overcome it and had woken up in truth, and this time it was her, not some centuries-old sorcerer putting on a mask.
He wondered how devastating that reveal would've been later. How long had the sorcerer planned to keep up the disguise? Another week, another month? A year? What was even the purpose of luring him into that lie, and what would the consequences have been if he did not have the divine general in his corner... Literally. He thought to himself, sparing the Shikigami in the corner a brief glance.
Mahoraga stood comfortably in the shadows as always, quiet as it preferred, but always with that heavy and constant sense of menace and lethality around the pale giant. Megumi found it amusing how comforting that particular sense of danger felt. Not for the first time, he thought of his teacher. It was almost like he was with Gojo-sensei once more, but unlike the strongest sorcerer of the modern era, his shikigami did not see the need to blunt his danger by acting friendly and cheerful. It was a creature that did not seem to care much for what people thought of him, unlike Gojo-sensei.
It was a frightening thought and power to wield, and yet Megumi could not find it in himself to feel fear or worry.
Tsumiki moved, and Megumi shifted his complete attention to her once more, watching her lips slip open, her voice a whisper in the quiet of the room. She was sleep talking. He could not make out the words fully; the little he could hear was not Japanese as he knew, it was older than regional Japanese, and she spoke it with a hint of an accent. There were some similarities with modern-day Japanese, but enough for him to know she should have no reason speaking it with any fluency.
His dark eyes focused on her, staring at the wisp of a girl beneath the covers. Her sudden and strange fluency in ancient Japanese was not the only change; there was a greater one, and one of the reasons he held on to her hand. Ever since his fight against the incarnated sorcerer who had possessed his sister, and his desperate usage of his domain expansion, he had refined his cursed energy usage and sense.
It had been a startling thing to find out; the effort had been horrendous and should've killed him according to Shoko Ieiri, when she came to check up on them. It had been a near thing, and the only reason he had not died had been because Mahoraga's presence in the domain had blunted some of the pressure as the Shikigami fought.
Megumi had come out of that battle with a refined and complete domain expansion, not that anyone other than the Shikigami knew. A sorcerer without a trump card was a fool, and Megumi had been growing wise over the past few weeks.
Tsumiki turned once more, returning his attention to her and to the feeling under her skin, one so prominent he didn't need to hold her slim fingers to feel.
It was a hum, a certain texture that had been absent. All humans had cursed energy; from children to adults, they all possessed the ability to create negative emotions. The difference between civilians and sorcerers was in the brain and the amount of cursed energy present. The average human brain did not possess the ability to process the energy their body created, which would've allowed them to use and see cursed energy and curses. Before the coma, Tsumiki had been the same; now...
"I can't be certain." The older woman's voice came out hoarse, rough from smoking so much recently, and she turned to look at him. Brown eyes surrounded by dark bags. "If Satoru was here, he could've confirmed, but as he isn't so I can only make a guess. The sorcerer stayed in your sister long enough to change her body and brain, to optimize it for her usage. You might've succeeded in exorcising her, but those changes are still present, including what I believe is a cursed technique engraved on her brain. That I'm pretty sure of. It's her soul I can't speak for."
Someone knocked on the door, and without a reply a nurse opened the door and stepped in. Megumi took in her features, dark and narrow. A Zenin, one of the in-house maids that had been assigned to Tsumiki after she moved into the clan.
"I greet the 27th Clan head." The maid called out in a low bow, hands stretched and clasped before her; then she smoothly stood up and walked in, and behind her was a more familiar figure. Another woman, older, with wrinkles and her hair packed up and behind her. Maki's mother. She did the same greeting, only giving a single glimpse at the Shikigami in the corner. For a non-sorcerer, she had keen senses.
The nurse maid briskly moved forward to Tsumiki's side, and placed her palm on her head and frowned for a few seconds, a frown that grew harder. Megumi almost regretted calling the woman in, but he knew he could not hide it, not if Tsumiki was to stay in the clan.
"She's stable," the nurse said. "Exhausted, but stable, as I'm sure, Ileri-sama, non-clan-bred as she is should've been able to confirm." A bias against outside members? A week ago, Megumi would've cautioned her, but now he barely rolled his eyes. She was not an outlier. The woman paused, frowning at her own readout. "But I'm picking up cursed energy. A lot of it. That shouldn't be possible; I was in charge of her care, and certain she was a non-sorcerer."
"Now she is," Megumi replied flatly.
The nurse stared back at him, and he could see the wheels turning behind her eyes as she came to a conclusion. He had called her here to confirm it, not to argue it. She straightened up at once, her hand clasped before her in a bow. "Congratulations, Clan Head."
Megumi simply stared at her with half-lidded eyes, knowing how fast the news would spread. Tsumiki being a sorcerer was going to make her stay on the clan grounds easier; at least she would not have to face the curses that roamed outside.
There was a flex of cursed energy, as the Kogane that was bound to Tsumiki immediately appeared in a puff of rapidly dispersing smoke to the shock of the maid and older woman, but Megumi did not rise from his seat; he simply shifted his eyes to meet the Kogane's own.
"A new rule has been added to the Culling Games, and has been termed Rule 9. Player Hajime Kashimo has spent a hundred points to add a rule that states that players can now view information about other participants."
Megumi blinked, that made things easier.
"Kogane. Check Tsumiki. Is she still registered?" Megumi asked, hope alive in his heart that he had managed to get his sister out.
Kogane's expression didn't change, but its body did, lengthening into a screen that held hundreds of names; then it automatically scrolled down faster and faster before coming to a stop on Tsumiko Fushiguro. Megumi's hand skipped a bit, his heart tightening into a vice, but all hope was not gone because the name flickered. Then again, faster, the characters glitching and reforming and glitching again like a signal losing its connection to whatever fed it.
"Processing," the shikigami said, and its voice had a stutter in it that hadn't been there a second ago. "Participant: Tsumiki Fushiguro. Participant: Yoruzu. Conflict. Conflict. Entry registered under name: Tsumiki Fushiguro. Entrant: Yoruzu. Status of Yoruzu: deceased. Status of Tsumiki Fushiguro: alive. Conflict. Con—"
"Kogane," Megumi said.
The shikigami didn't answer, it just kept repeating its words like a broken radio, and the flickering began to slow, then stopped entirely. Kogane's expression was frozen mid-glitch, and no matter what he said after that, it just stared at him in silence, with that broken, half-formed flicker of Tsumiki's own name still hanging in screen.
Megumi stared at the broken Shikigami before letting out a sigh of annoyance. Then he glanced at the confused women before moving his eyes to Mahoraga, who didn't seem particularly surprised at the outcome. Tsumiki was stuck in some strange limbo. He could not say for certain its result, but he should not have been surprised; after all, he remembered Master Tengen and Shoko's advice.
They needed to end the Culling Games, which meant finding Mahito, but that was not his job. His job was finding Angel and rescuing Gojo-sensei. With Gojo-sensei's help, finding Mahito should be a breeze. Killing the Shikigami should be even easier.
"Fine," he muttered quietly, mostly to himself as he forced himself up from the seat he had been on. "Doesn't change anything, I guess." He turned to Mahoraga, just as the Shikigami took one terrifying step out of the shadows, revealing his pale form and winged eyes to the two women. "Let's go find this, Angel."
Then he turned to Maki's mother, who was taking Mahoraga's presence well, with a bow, while the nurse sat on the ground, eyes wide and nearly hyperventilating.
"I greet th—"
"Take care of her," Megumi cut the woman off. Just as Mahoraga got to his side and walked past him, nearly ripping the door open with its strength. Then Megumi followed after the Shikigami's muscled back. He didn't know where the Shikigami was heading. Which particular territory? Neither did they know where the incarnated sorcerer was, but Megumi followed anyway because he trusted the Shikigami.
___
The city disappeared into a blur beneath my feet as I hurled myself through the sky like a guided missile, only to slam into the side of a building. My force and momentum were hard enough to shake its foundations, while my left hand dug into the side as I braced before throwing myself forward once more, Megumi tucked under my arm like a barrel, his favorite spot whether he admitted it or not.
The wind came alive, and my winged eyes fluttered in it, calculating trajectories, while a major part of my brain was busy doing something the original Mahoraga did not do much of. That is, thinking. To my greatest shame, I could not exactly remember the exact colony Angel was in presently. My memory of canon at this point was clear enough about the major details; however, minor details like locations and colonies had unfortunately not been a big concern of mine, and once more it had come to bite me in the ass.
All I remembered was that Angel had the ability to gallivant around colonies without any care in her hunt for her Disgraced One. I had a theory on how she did it. There had been no explicit rule that players could not move from colony to colony; the only problem was the barriers. So all Hana had to do was unleash a miniature Jacob's Ladder to tear a hole through a barrier, then she would simply fly through Japan till she reached another colony. So if I was lucky, she could even be outside a barrier now. If I was lucky, Kenjaku would trip on his feet and fall headfirst into a Hollow Purple.
I was not lucky.
Which meant I had to find her the hard way. Colony hopping. The problem was that whichever colony we entered, we were going to be trapped in it, especially since Yorozu never had the opportunity to make her Rule 12.
I landed hard on a rooftop parking lot, took three quick steps till I was at the ledge, and hurled forward once more.
I could simply follow canon. After all, Megumi had not been the one to find Angel. She had been the one to find him. So maybe that was all I needed to do. Enlist Megumi in the Culling Games officially, and wait for her to come find us. I remembered her host, Hana, knew Megumi. So we could simply wait her out... Unfortunately for that plan, I did not like waiting. Not when Kenjaku was in the background alongside Mahito.
The second option was, we could gather the hundred points ourselves and recreate Yorozu's original rule, the one letting a player enter any colony freely. After that, another hundred points should give us the ability to locate any player.
The problem was that the Culling Games had been running for weeks now. Everyone worth finding would be hiding, hoarding points, trying to stay alive, and too cautious to show themselves. Which meant I needed a colony full of players who didn't bother with hiding, players strong enough that hiding was beneath them.
A massive grin cracked across my features as I shifted directions, pivoting the moment my feet touched a roof and ran, leaping between cracking rooftops, crushing through whatever stood in the most direct line, until finally I jumped over a building and onto the main road, my feet digging through asphalt, creating trenches as I came to a stop before the Colony.
The black barrier stood before us, humming and near silent, and despite my ability to perceive everything, the barrier blacked me out completely. I could not see inside it.
I dropped Megumi beside me, and he landed on his feet. He shook off the disorientation of travel faster than usual these days, which made me reminisce about his first time. Oh, they grow so fast. His black eyes were narrowed and determined, hand loose and ready as he stared at the barrier.
"Is she here, or are we just trying our luck?" he asked, and when he was met with silence, he turned to me with a look of exasperation on his face, as he beheld the massive grin I gave him. Then I slapped him over the head, and he fell forward and face-first into the barrier with an aborted scream.
There was no need to enter together when the barrier was going to split us anyway. All that mattered was finding him fast, but I was not worried. Megumi would survive, at least long enough for me to find him, or if he faced anything too strong, he would create a commotion big enough to draw my attention, so I took my own step forward, ignoring the cursed spirit that had been trailing us from the moment we left the compound.
"Welcome to the Sendai Colony."