A strange village

Kugisaki's hometown was Scorpion Village, a small mountain village near Tono City in Iwate Prefecture.

Since Kugisaki had requested leave herself, this did not count as a mission. There was no car to take them there, so the two traveled by train.

After getting off the train, they continued on foot along a remote mountain path, with Kugisaki leading the way.

"After all this time, this road is still just as miserable as I expected."

Walking along the muddy mountain trail, Kugisaki spoke with unmistakable disgust.

Rihito did not find that surprising.

In the original story, she had hated the insular, hostile village, its ignorant residents, and her mother's irresponsibility.

She had not gone to Tokyo to enroll at Jujutsu High.

She had gone to escape the countryside, find Saori in Tokyo, and live entirely for herself.

But that escape was only temporary. Sooner or later, Kugisaki would have to face what awaited her.

Just like now.

"Kugisaki, would you tell me about your life back home?"

Rihito suddenly asked.

The cedars lining the mountain path stood tall and dense, breaking the sunlight into scattered flecks.

Kugisaki did not answer immediately. Loose stones crunched beneath her feet.

"What's there to tell?"

Her tone sounded less like a refusal than uncertainty about where to begin.

Rihito did not press her. He simply slowed his steps, keeping half a pace away from her.

The distance was neither too close nor too far. It kept her from feeling interrogated while making it clear he had not dropped the subject.

After another two hundred meters or so, the mountain path narrowed, and branches jutting from the shrubs on either side occasionally scraped their sleeves.

Then Kugisaki suddenly raised her hand and snapped a dead branch blocking her way, using far more force than necessary.

"Do you know what villages like this are like?"

Her voice sounded perfectly calm, as though she were answering an ordinary question.

But Rihito could hear something forced in it.

"Everyone knows everyone. Everyone's business is everyone's business. What you wear, who you talk to, what time you get home-someone's always keeping track for you."

As she spoke, Kugisaki tossed the broken branch beside the trail.

"When I was little, I didn't want to stay in the village. All I wanted was to get out. My mom said it was shameful for a girl to go running around outside. I ignored her."

"What happened then?" Rihito asked.

Kugisaki's steps faltered.

"Then I met Saori. She'd moved here from Tokyo. Unlike a little brat like me, she'd seen the outside world. She told me all kinds of things I'd never heard before."

A rare softness entered her voice, but only for an instant.

"But the village couldn't accept her."

Kugisaki abruptly quickened her pace, as though venting something.

"Those people said she was 'corrupting' the village kids. Said she wasn't a respectable woman."

"A bunch of ignorant bastards, gossiping behind her back and pointing fingers. They drove her out."

She paused, as though steadying her breathing.

"The day Saori left, I went to see her off. She told me, 'Nobara, you have to go to Tokyo someday. Live the life you want to live.'"

Kugisaki's voice suddenly grew quiet.

"So I did."

Rihito listened in silence.

The original story had offered scattered details about these events, but reading those words and hearing them from the person who had lived through them carried entirely different weight.

Kugisaki's reasons for hating this village had never been abstract.

Insularity, hostility toward outsiders, ignorance.

Behind each of those words lay a specific hurt.

Her grandmother wanted to keep her close, her mother thought she was a "disgrace," and Saori, the only person who understood her, had been driven out of the village.

At its heart, her move to Tokyo had been an escape.

An escape from a world where everyone made her decisions for her into one where she could decide for herself.

"What about your grandmother?" Rihito asked.

Kugisaki's steps faltered again, longer this time.

"...The old hag is a different story."

She said nothing more, but her tone had noticeably softened.

Rihito did not ask any more about her grandmother.

He could tell that Kugisaki was already making an exception by sharing this much.

She had probably never told anyone about those old village memories. After all, she never spoke of her past at Jujutsu High.

Either she felt that, having followed her all this way, Rihito had earned the right to know, or she had kept those words bottled up for so long that they would rot inside her if she did not tell someone.

Whichever it was, it meant Kugisaki trusted him more than she herself admitted.

The mountain path curved ahead.

Kugisaki suddenly stopped, and Rihito stopped with her.

He followed her gaze.

In the mountain hollow, dull gray rooftops lay scattered among the green trees.

A stone marker stood at the village entrance. Moss covered most of its inscription, making the words illegible.

Scorpion Village.

There was no cooking smoke, nor any sound of voices.

Though it was broad daylight, the entire village was unnaturally quiet.

Rihito discreetly shifted his hand, while Kugisaki slipped one strap of the bag stuffed with nails off her shoulder.

"Let's go," Kugisaki said.

Her voice had regained its firmness, as though the mountain wind had carried their earlier conversation away.

The two entered the village.

The houses on either side of the stone-paved road had their doors shut tight. Empty clotheslines hung beneath the eaves. Several had already snapped, their loose ends swaying gently in the wind.

Kugisaki remained silent, walking faster and faster.

Rihito followed close behind.

She rounded a half-dead persimmon tree and headed toward an old wooden house.

The door stood ajar. A fresh crack marked the frame, as though something heavy had struck it from inside.

At the sight, Kugisaki paused for an instant, then reached out and pushed the door open.

The room was dim. Pieces of a shattered wooden basin lay scattered across the tatami, water stains mingling with dark red marks.

A small, frail elderly woman lay curled in a corner. Blood had soaked through most of her gray kimono, and her disheveled, graying hair covered her face.

"...Old hag?" Kugisaki's voice trembled slightly.

She rushed over, knelt beside the old woman, and reached for the pulse in her neck.

The moment her fingers pressed down, her shoulders visibly relaxed.

She's still alive.

But a second later, an even deeper stiffness took its place.

Her grandmother had several ragged wounds across her body,

the worst stretching from her lower leg all the way up her thigh.

Flesh gaped open, its edges blackened, as though something had corroded them.

Standing in the doorway, Rihito's expression grew visibly grave. These injuries did not look much like the work of a cursed spirit.

He rapidly ran through the types of jujutsu he knew: corrosive attacks, blackened wound edges, lingering toxins...

Jujutsu High's archives contained similar records, but they all seemed connected to that kind of being.

At the thought, Rihito's heart tightened slightly.

Just then, the old woman's eyelids fluttered and opened a sliver.

"...Nobara...?"

Her voice was as thin as a thread about to snap.

Then she saw the figure behind Kugisaki. Her pupils contracted sharply, and her aged hand seized Kugisaki's sleeve with such force that her knuckles trembled.

"Run..."

Kugisaki held her hand, her voice betraying neither anger nor relief.

"Who did this?"

The old woman did not answer.

Her gaze passed over Kugisaki's shoulder and fixed directly on Rihito.

A few seconds later, her lips moved.

"...A curse user."