Chapter 6: Japan 6
Hector followed behind Yuji, sparking up a cig while they walked down the fancy engawa of the dorm building. The luscious garden's plants occasionally creeped onto the walkway, further emphasising the beauty of the school grounds.
Catching a whiff of the herbaceous scent of cigarette smoke, Yuji's nose briefly twitched before being turned around as stated, "Those will kill you, you know." Gesturing at the tobacco locked between Hector's lips as he continued to walk backwards down the path.
Nonchalantly shrugging, Hector responds, "Not like it'll matter. Chances are Curses will kill me first."
'Even if it could kill me,' He thought.
The reason he was treated as a prodigious talent in his clan, one worth every sorcerer in the McTavish clan dying for. Was because of his ability to use Reversed Cursed Technique, the first in his clan's history to grasp the obscure way to manipulate cursed energy.
While the McTavish's Inherited Technique is up there with the best of them, it comes with an equally heavy drawback. The law of equivalent exchange, if you will.
Cursed Smoke dramatically shortens the lifespan of the sorcerer.
As a general rule, the only gases that the Cursed Technique can affect are the one's harmful to the human body. Which is why you'd never catch a Cursed Smoke user usinging area as a conduit.
For the most part, Cursed smoker users use tobacco smoke to fuel the technique, but in moments of crisis they'd always up the ante. In pinches, they'd always use increasingly harmful gases in hopes they might survive the encounter.
There was even a record of one sorcerer during world war one that used mustard gas to fuel his curse.
The constant exposure to these chemicals takes a heavy toll on the user's body, hence the reason for the unusually short lifespans.
But Reversed Curse Technique counteracts this problem. With it Hector won't be plagued with a short life, and he is able to use many kinds of harmful gases with little to no problem. All it takes is a few sessions of RCT to cleanse the toxins from his body.
As Hector and Yuji made small talk, Fushiguro trailed behind them, making sure to keep a close eye on Hector even as Kugisaki chattered away in his ear about the latest fashion products.
"Here we are." Yuji states, stopping at a trio of doors around the back of the building, "Fushiguro's the one furthest away, mines is the one in the middle. That leaves this one for you."
"Cheers mate" Hector said, fiddling with the doorknob to open it, he then turned to face the small group of students, "I'll get unpacked then. Meet you guys out front in ten?"
Waving Hector off, Yuji responds, "I can't speak for these two, but I don't mind giving you a hand with unpacking." Looking at his two companions he asks, "You guys in?"
Fushiguro looked a bit perturbed at helping Hector, but Yuji's innocent pleading gaze made the ration part of his brain give way, shrugging Fushiguro says, "Alright" before glancing at the lone girl of the group.
Darting her eyes between the three boys, Kugisaki chastised, "Imagine asking a girl to do manual labour. It's no wonder you're not popular with the girls."
Shocked, Yuji blurted, "I don't get it? What's wrong with asking that? Fushiguro, am I stupid or something?"
Sharking his head in a way that already told Hector his answer to Yuji's last question, Fushiguro calmly said, "You are stupid, but so is Kugisaki."
"Huh?"
"Ha!?"
"Come on, let's get this over with." He muttered, following Hector inside the room, his previous apprehension gone after his companions' nonsense.
When he entered the room, and realised that no one had followed him in, he performed a 180 to see Kugisaki grabbing onto Yuji's shirt like a street thug. No doubt because of something he unintentionally said.
Reversing back to the hall, he split the two up before they were locked in an argument for the next hour and dragged them both into the room.
Blatantly checking out the room, Yuji nodded, "Looks the same as mine, tsk, Gojo-sensei brought me here before I could even grab my stuff."
Glancing at Hector's bagless self, he asked, "Talking about that…Where is your stuff?" His words capturing the attention of the other two, as three pairs of eyes lock on to the red-haired sorcerer.
"In my suitcase" Hector replied, fishing out a talisman from his pocket, holding it between his finger dumbly for a moment before realising that the barrier might fuck Mimic's shit up if he's summoned.
"Does the school's barrier have some kind of anti-curse ability imbued in it?" He asked his classmates.
While Kugisaki stood there confused at the question, and Yuji one hundred percent had no idea what he was talking about, it was left to Fushiguro to give him an answer.
Albeit hesitant to divulge sensitive information to a recently converted curse user, Fushiguro chose to trust in his maddening teacher, as well as Principal Yaga.
"From what I know, the barrier doesn't have any self defence mechanisms that could harm curses. Though it will alert the faculties of any cursed spirit that breaches the premises." Fushiguro answered while examining the talisman from a distance.
"...The barrier sounds quite shite to be honest." Hector crassly responded, honestly he was surprised that the barrier for one of the most prestigious jujutsu schools in Japan. His initial impressions make the barrier seem a bit like an over glorified alarm system.
Not having much to defend against Hectors accusations, Fushiguro weakly adds, "...The barrier is more specialised in concealment…"
The new knowledge never managed to impress Hector either though, or Yuji, who even with his limited knowledge of jujutsu was underwhelmed at the fact all the school's barrier does is hide stuff.
"That's boring. I expected spirit guns and dodon rays to start firing at any curses that entered." Yuji disappointedly said, weakly waving his arms about in a way reminiscent of the two fictional attacks.
Over the whole barrier thing, Hector shrugs, "Guess there's no harm if I do this then." Channelling his cursed energy into the taliman, it shone brightly before Mimic's chest-like body crashed to the ground in the centre of the room.
Dumbly looking around, Mimic took note of the other presences in the room before he quickly sprang to Hector's side, letting out a guttural growl as Hector tried to pry open its maw filled with razor sharp teeth.
The three student's all had different reactions to the curse that acted like a dog chomping down on its favourite shoe.
Megumi was prepared to attack it the moment it tried any funny business, the moment Mimic materialised his hands were already forming one of the many, widely varied jujutsu hand signs.
Nobara's eyes narrowed as she remembered the curse that miraculously vanished during the confrontation yesterday, the realisation dawning on her that the curse was somehow tamed by Hector.
Yuji just thought Mimic looked cool, and was already approaching the murderbox with an outstretched hand.
Bad move.
While Hector was a few steps away, unpacking all of the stuff he'd been keeping in his new room, Yuji's hand dangled in front of Mimic's face like a bit of bait. Being an unfamiliar presence to the curse, Mimic took the bait - hook, line and sinker.
Or at least tried to.
With inhuman speed, Yuji managed to whip his arm out of the cursed maw before its serrated edges could mutilate him. A metallic clang rang as Mimic's jaws came to a close, as Yuji scuttled back a few extra metres for his own safety.
"Did I forget to tell you that he bites?" Hector nachlantly said as he plunged his arm shoulder deep in the same curse that nearly removed Yuji's arm.
"No!" Yuji shouted, repeatedly patting his arm and warily looking at the curse, then saying with more surprise than mirth, "You could've warned me!"
Clicking her tongue, Kugisaki reprimanded, "What were you expecting? If you try and pat a dog you don't know chances are they'll bite. Nevermind a fully fledged curse!"
"Fine! Fine, I get it." Yuji replied before glancing at Mimic out of the corner of his eye and muttering, "I'll pat it eventually…" showing zero regard for his personal safety.
"What was that!" Kugisaki snarled, making Yuji look away in ignorance.
As Hector was putting his clothes in one of the drawers he listened to Yuji and Nobara dive head first into another argument, and couldn't help but think school life here might not turn out to be as bad as he thought.
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