The walk home took twenty minutes. Fuin followed the same route he always did; past the convenience store, left at the intersection with the broken traffic light, then through the residential area where the houses got progressively older and more run-down. The Unmei family home sat at the end of a narrow street that dead-ended into an overgrown lot.
The house was two stories, traditional Japanese construction with a tile roof that had seen better days. Several tiles were cracked or missing entirely. The wooden exterior walls needed repainting. The once-dark brown finish had faded to a weathered gray in places. The front gate hung slightly crooked on its hinges. He pushed it open and it scraped against the concrete with a familiar grinding sound.
The small front garden was entirely dirt now. His mother had tried to maintain it when his father first got sick, but that had been two years ago. Now only a few stubborn weeds grew between the stones of the pathway leading to the entrance. A rusted bicycle leaned against the side of the house, one tire completely flat.
He unlocked the front door and stepped inside. The genkan was cluttered with shoes. He added today's shoes to the collection and stepped up into the house proper.
The living room was to his left. It had been converted into a makeshift bedroom for his father six months ago when the stairs became too difficult. A hospital bed dominated the space, surrounded by medical equipment; an IV stand, oxygen tanks lined up against the wall, a bedside table covered in pill bottles and medical supplies. The television sat in the corner, rarely used anymore. The coffee table had been pushed against the far wall to make room for a wheelchair that his father could barely use.
His father was awake. He lay propped up on pillows, his body thin beneath the blankets. He'd lost a significant amount of weight over the past year. His face was gaunt, cheekbones prominent, but his eyes were still sharp. They tracked him as he entered the room.
"You're late," his father said. His voice was weak but clear.
"I was held up a bit at school," Fuin said. He set his bag down by the doorway.
His father's expression didn't change. He'd been a jujutsu sorcerer before the illness took him. Not a particularly strong one, Grade 2 at his peak, but skilled enough in the Unmei family's sealing techniques. He understood what he was talking about without needing explanation.
"Grade?"
"Three. There was a special-grade relic fragment hidden in the school storage room."
His father's brows creased almost imperceptibly.
"Are you alright?"
"Mhmm. It wasn't difficult, father."
His father nodded slowly. He didn't ask for details. He'd seen his cursed energy reserves, had helped him test his [One Percent] technique three years ago. He knew his son was more capable than most adult sorcerers. It was one of the few things they didn't need to discuss.
"The fragment?" his father asked.
Fuin pulled it from his pocket. His father studied it from the bed, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"Special-grade," he confirmed. "Fragment of something larger. Probably broken off during an exorcism or containment failure." He paused, breathing carefully. "We have the materials in the sealing room to seal it. You can place it along the bottom shelf in the sealing room."
Fuin nodded. He'd been thinking the same thing.
His mother's voice came from the kitchen. "Fuin? Is that you?"
"Yes."
She appeared in the doorway, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She was in her mid-thirties but looked older, the stress of the past two years showing in the lines around her eyes and mouth. Her hair was pulled back in a practical ponytail. She wore simple clothes; a worn sweater and comfortable pants. Nothing fancy.
Her eyes went to the cuts on Fuin's dusty uniform. Her expression tightened slightly, but she didn't comment on it immediately. Instead, she looked at his father, checking his condition with the practiced eye of someone who'd been doing it multiple times a day for months.
"How are you feeling?" she asked.
"Fine," his father said. His eyes moved slowly across the ceiling.
'He's probably bored out of his mind.' Fuin thought to himself.
She turned back to Fuin. "Go wash up. Dinner will be ready in thirty minutes."
"Okay."
Fuin picked up his bag and headed for the stairs. His mother's voice stopped him.
"Fuin."
He turned.
She was looking at his dusty uniform with worry on her face. "Be more careful."
It wasn't a question about what had happened. She didn't ask those anymore. She'd learned early on that Fuin was involved in things she didn't fully understand, things related to his father's old work. She accepted it the same way she accepted that her husband was dying, with pragmatic resignation and a determination to maintain whatever normalcy she could.
"Mhmm," Fuin grunted in response.
He climbed the stairs to the second floor. The steps creaked under his weight. The house was old, built by his great-grandfather back when the Unmei family had been more prominent in the jujutsu world. That had been three generations ago. Since then, the family had declined steadily—fewer sorcerers born with significant talent, fewer connections to the major clans, less money, less influence.
His room was small and sparse. A futon in the corner, a desk with his schoolwork scattered across it, a bookshelf with a mix of school textbooks and older books he'd found around the house. The window looked out over the overgrown lot behind the house. He could see the separate building in the backyard from here; the sealing room.
It was a small structure, maybe three meters by four meters, built from the same traditional materials as the main house but reinforced with sealing talismans that had been maintained for decades. The talismans were fading now, their ink growing pale, but they still functioned. The sealing room was the last real remnant of the Unmei family's heritage.
He changed out of his school uniform and into casual clothes. He washed the cuts on his arms in the bathroom; they had already scabbed over and were already starting to heal.
He had twenty-five minutes before dinner.
He went back downstairs and slipped on his outdoor shoes, then crossed the backyard to the sealing room. The door was heavy wood reinforced with metal bands. A complex sealing formula was carved into the frame, and paper talismans hung from the lintel. Fuin placed his hand on the door and channeled a small amount of cursed energy into the seal.
The lock clicked open.
Inside, the sealing room was cool and dark. Fuin pulled the chain for the overhead light and a single bare bulb flickered to life. The room was lined with shelves, and on those shelves sat wooden boxes of various sizes. Each box was marked with sealing formulas, the characters painted in black ink that had been reinforced with cursed energy.
Thirty-four boxes in total.
Thirty-four cursed objects that the Unmei family had sealed over the generations. Some were dangerous cursed tools. Others were fragments of destroyed curses that retained enough cursed energy to be hazardous. A few were cursed items that had been confiscated from curse users.
The collection was impressive for a family of their size. Not as extensive as the major clans, but respectable. It spoke to what the Unmei family had once been; a medium-sized jujutsu clan with an expertise in sealing techniques. They'd been called upon by other families and independent sorcerers to contain dangerous objects.
That had been before he was born though.
Now the sealing room was just a storage space for relics of a better time. The objects inside were valuable, but selling them would require connections to the jujutsu world that the family no longer had. Not to mention, his father refused to sell them anyway. He was stubborn about the proof that the Unmei name had once meant something.
He walked along the shelves, reading the labels on each box. Most were dated, some going back fifty years or more. The oldest was from 1947, sealed by his great-grandfather. The most recent was from 1996, four years ago, sealed by his father before the illness made his active sorcery life impossible.
He found an empty box on the bottom shelf, smaller than most of the others. It had been prepared but never used, the sealing formula already inscribed on the interior. He took it down and set it on the small workbench in the center of the room.
The workbench held the tools of the sealing trade; brushes, ink, paper, carving tools, and several reference books. The books were old, their covers worn, their pages yellowed. They contained the Unmei family's accumulated knowledge of sealing techniques, passed down and refined over generations.
He opened one a book. The text was dense, written in a mix of modern Japanese and older classical forms. Diagrams showed the proper construction of sealing formulas, the flow of cursed energy through the characters, the methods for containing different types of cursed objects.
He'd looked at these books before, but only briefly. His father had shown them to him when he first demonstrated his absolute talent in jujutsu sorcery. But he had been focused on understanding his own cursed technique at the time and on testing the limits of [One Percent].
Now, looking at the books with fresh eyes, he decided to read them. The Unmei family might have declined, but their knowledge hadn't. It was all here, preserved in these texts.
With his understanding of cursed energy manipulation, he could learn this. He could earnestly say that only a few jujutsu sorcerers had a similar understanding of cursed energy as him. When he first discovered his [One Percent] technique, he had used it to continuously try and perform Black Flash. Each time he failed, the next chance for it would go up by 1%. Due to this, he had performed 102 Black Flashes. Most sorcerers never achieve even one, but due to the nature of his technique he kind of cheated.
The result was a powerful control over his cursed energy and understanding of it. He even managed to get into a kind of habit of performing black flashes. It was easier for him to pull it off naturally now. This gave him confidence to learn these sealing techniques. He could become proficient in sealing. Maybe even skilled enough to surpass what his father had achieved.
He pulled the special-grade relic fragment from his pocket and set it on the workbench. He opened the prepared box and studied the sealing formula inscribed inside. It was a standard containment seal, designed for objects with moderate cursed energy.
He picked up a brush and ink, then began reinforcing the existing formula. The process required precision, each stroke had to be exact, the flow of cursed energy through the brush had to be controlled and steady. Too much energy and the seal would be too rigid, potentially cracking under stress. Too little and it wouldn't contain the object properly.
He worked slowly, methodically. The characters began to glow faintly as the seal activated.
It took fifteen minutes to complete the reinforcement. When he finished, the formula glowed with a soft blue light that gradually faded to a dull shimmer. He placed the relic fragment inside the box and closed the lid. The seal engaged immediately, locking the fragment inside and suppressing its cursed energy.
He labeled the box with the date and a brief description; "Special-grade relic fragment, origin unknown, recovered from elementary school basement", then placed it on the shelf with the others.
Thirty-five sealed objects now.
His mother's voice called from the house. "Fuin! Dinner!"
He closed the book and returned it to the workbench. He'd come back later, after dinner, and read more. Maybe he'd start with the basics, work his way through the foundational theory before moving on to advanced applications. His father's illness was progressing slowly but inevitably. The doctors said he had maybe a year left, possibly less.
A year was enough time to learn sealing techniques. Enough time to master what his father could no longer teach him directly.
He turned off the light and left the sealing room, making sure the door locked behind him. The talismans fluttered slightly in the evening breeze, their faded ink still holding power.
Inside the house, his mother had set the table. Dinner was simple; rice, miso soup, grilled fish, pickled vegetables. She'd portioned out a smaller serving for his father, softer foods that were easier to eat.
They ate together in the converted living room so his father could participate. His mother talked about her day at work; she had a part-time job at a local shop, nothing glamorous but it brought in enough money to supplement his father's disability payments and keep them afloat. His father listened, occasionally commenting, his voice growing weaker as the meal progressed.
Fuin ate in silence, thinking about the sealing room and the books and the thirty-five cursed objects stored there. Thinking about how his father had once been strong enough to hunt curses and seal dangerous objects, and how that strength had been stolen by an illness that no amount of cursed energy could cure.
After dinner, Fuin helped his mother clean up. His father had fallen asleep in the hospital bed, exhausted from the effort of staying awake through the meal. His mother adjusted his blankets and checked his IV before returning to the kitchen.
"You're going back out to the sealing room, aren't you?" she asked.
Fuin nodded.
She didn't tell him not to. She just looked at him for a long moment, her expression unreadable, then nodded. "Don't stay up too late. You have school tomorrow."
"I won't."
He returned to the sealing room with a flashlight and one of the reference books. He sat at the workbench and began to read, the pages illuminated by the beam of light in the dark room. Outside, the evening deepened into night. The house settled into its familiar creaks and groans. His father slept. His mother finished the dishes and began preparing for the next day.