"Huh...?"
With a heavy thud, her body hit the ground. Sitting exactly as she had landed, Miwa Kasumi stared blankly at the alleyway before her, her expression dazed and slow to catch up. "Did she... kill it?"
She killed a Special Grade curse? With just that single, effortless swing?
"Are you okay? Are you hurt?"
Amber, worried by the loud, unforgiving 'thump' of the impact, looked down at Miwa, who was still seated on the ground.
Miwa found it hard to reconcile the figure before her—a girl with concerned eyes and an exquisitely delicate, pretty face—with the image of the girl who had just been wielding a scythe that looked comically larger than her own body.
Could someone so slender really lift a scythe that seemed to weigh hundreds of pounds?
Then again... she is a Jujutsu Sorcerer. I guess it's not that strange after all?
"I... I'm fine."
Gulping down the relief of having narrowly escaped death, Miwa looked into the girl's eyes, the color of a deep ocean, feeling a flicker of confusion.
She could have sworn the girl's eyes were red earlier.
Must have been a trick of the light, she decided. Probably just the blood everywhere messing with her vision.
Thinking this, Miwa pushed herself to her feet, taking another good look at the girl standing before her, who was a full head shorter.
(Miwa Kasumi: 169cm, Seele: 149cm)
Looking closely now... she wasn't just delicately pretty. She was more beautiful than any celebrity Miwa had ever seen, so much so that it made Miwa wonder if they were even from the same world.
"Oh... wow..."
The strange sound escaped Miwa's lips before she could stop it.
"Hmm?"
The reaction left Amber momentarily bewildered. But looking closer, the blue-haired girl with the weird bangs and the sword did seem familiar.
This was definitely Miwa Kasumi, right?
The poor girl everyone kept thinking had some hidden plot significance, only for it to turn out she was basically nothing in the end.
"If you're fine... then Seele will be going now?"
Amber didn't harbor any particular fondness for her. If she was being honest, the only characters in Jujutsu Kaisen she'd ever really liked were Nobara Kugisaki and Satoru Gojo. Pity Nobara bit the dust, and Gojo ended up turning into a KitKat.
Speaking of which, she wondered if the main cast ever managed to beat Sukuna in the end.
Thinking about this, Amber made to continue on her way to find food, but Miwa finally snapped out of it. "Wait! Um, are you a Jujutsu Sorcerer?"
"A Jujutsu Sorcerer?"
Amber looked at Miwa strangely.
She'd just easily taken down a Special Grade curse. What else could she be?
Miwa, however, interpreted Amber's confusion differently.
She concluded that this girl clearly had no concept of what a Jujutsu Sorcerer was—a wild innate technique wielder who had somehow, self-taught, figured out how to use cursed energy to exorcise curses.
She's a genius!
"Monsters like the one just now are called curses," Miwa explained, fueled by gratitude towards her savior and a desire to build rapport with a potentially powerful future classmate.
"It's a Jujutsu Sorcerer's duty to exorcise them."
She continued her impromptu lesson, "Both sorcerers and curses have grade rankings..."
Watching the girl diligently explain the basics, Amber finally realized: Miwa thought she was a complete newbie.
Ah... well, she supposed she kinda was.
"Um..."
Finally spotting a gap in Miwa's monologue, and feeling the gnawing hunger in her stomach plus the sheer inappropriateness of this alley for a long talk, Amber tentatively suggested, "Should we go get something to eat first?"
"Ah! My apologies!"
Miwa snapped out of her lecturing fervor.
Owing to the life-saving debt, and despite her usual penny-pinching habits, Miwa insisted on paying for the meal.
She quickly fired off texts to her group, letting them know the curse was handled and that they might have a new classmate on their hands.
Over food, they exchanged names. Miwa then launched into a more detailed explanation of the jujutsu world—covering assistant supervisors, the Higher-Ups, Jujutsu High, and more—holding nothing back.
Why was she so trusting of Amber? Wasn't she worried Amber might be a curse user?
First, Amber had saved her life. Second, Amber looked young. And third... a child this adorable simply couldn't be a bad person, right!
Unaware of Miwa's internal reasoning, Amber simply ate her meal and listened attentively. Seeing her focus so intently made Miwa's heart swell with affection. This girl was an angel, just like her little sister!
She was so strong, yet had none of the usual arrogance that came with power. Instead, she was gentle and considerate.
The thought that they might become classmates made Miwa like Amber even more.
After listening, Amber decided to bring up the issue of the orphanage.
"A curse? It's certainly possible," Miwa said, thinking it over after hearing Amber's theory. "I'll talk to an assistant supervisor. If we can find residual cursed energy at the orphanary, we can confirm it's a curse and set up tracking."
Then, a thought struck her. "Seele, when did you awaken your technique? Or when did you first notice you were... different?"
"Ah... today," Amber replied.
"Oh, tod—TODAY?!"
Miwa was floored. Awakening today and managing to slay a Special Grade curse on the very same day? Could such a genius really exist?
"Mhm."
Amber saw no reason to hide it. "Seele has had a... birthmark? on her chest since she was born. It was only today that it started giving Seele a strange feeling. It let her see the curse, and then... another me briefly used Seele's body to help deal with that scary curse."
"!?"
Miwa completely lost her composure.
A strange mark on the body? The emergence of another personality? This sounded exactly like an Incarnated Vessel.
This was no trivial matter.
According to jujutsu regulations, an Incarnated Vessel was no longer considered human.
They were to be—no, must be—exorcised according to the standards for curses. In other words, this girl before her was now an extremely dangerous target.
The warm, fuzzy feelings Miwa had just moments ago vanished, replaced by a cold sweat. This was far beyond the pay grade of a mere Grade 3 sorcerer like herself.
Once her classmates and the assistant supervisor arrived, Seele was definitely going to be taken into custody!
Seeing Miwa stammering, lost for words and sweating bullets, Amber finally connected the dots.
The backstory she'd just cooked up was basically handing her the same treatment as Yuji Itadori. The only difference was that the one who 'Incarnated' into her wasn't Sukuna.
Amber wanted to explain, but before she could get a word out, the shop door opened. In walked a brawny, scowling young man, maybe in his twenties, with a scar on his face and his hair tied up in a bun.
His eyes scanned the room, landing immediately on Miwa and Amber before he stomped over towards them, his face like thunder.
--+--
T/N: While I am an inexperienced Translator, I have a Patreon! While it may seem empty as of now, webnovel will get 3 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
[email protected]/AspenTL
If you guys wanna check it out.