"You saw the curses, right? They're almost everywhere. We've got a basement full of 'em in our clan," Naoya said, waving his hand like it was an obvious fact.
"Yes," I nodded. "But what are curses exactly?"
He sighed, loud and theatrical. "You really are starting from zero, huh…"
He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, like explaining this was physically painful.
"Alright, listen up, brat. Curses are basically the vomit of humanity's emotions."
"…Vomit?"
"Yes. Spiritual puke. People are constantly scared, angry, anxious, jealous—whatever pathetic emotion they're choking on. That shit leaks out of them, mixes with cursed energy in the environment, and eventually it forms something ugly."
I listened, carefully.
"Give it enough time, and that negativity grows legs. Becomes a curse. Like a living disease made of bad feelings. Some look like bugs. Some look like nightmares."
"Hm."
"They're classified by grade—Grade 4 is the weakest, Special Grade is the highest. Though honestly, that system's outdated garbage. There should be another rank above Special Grade called 'Naoya Grade,' since I could end the world anytime I felt like it."
Makima blinked, completely unfazed. "Right. So, about sorcerers—are they classified the same way as curses?"
She didn't even acknowledge the world-ending nonsense. Her tone was flat, curious.
Naoya clicked his tongue, clearly annoyed she didn't take the bait. "Yeah, same thing. Sorcerers are ranked too. A Grade 2 sorcerer is generally stronger than a Grade 2 curse, and so on."
"What about the curses in the basement?" she asked.
"Mostly Grade 4 to Grade 2. Sometimes we get a semi-Grade 1, but they're rare. The ones down there are for training, so they're weaker than usual."
"I want to see a Grade 2 curse. See how strong it really is."
Naoya shrugged. "Go see for yourself."
Makima frowned. "But I could die."
He gave a lazy smirk. "Ahh, best-case scenario."
"…"
Makima walked up and suddenly hugged his leg. "Please, Father… don't you love me?"
Naoya froze.
For a moment, it was like time stopped. Not because of any technique—just sheer discomfort.
His eye twitched. "Don't pull that crap with me."
Makima didn't let go. She tightened her grip around his leg like a barnacle made of guilt and weaponized cuteness. "You're my dad. You're supposed to care if I die."
"Tch." He looked down at her, then away. "Stop trying to manipulate me. It won't work."
It was already working. She could tell.
Naoya groaned and rubbed his temples. "Fine. I'll let you see a Grade 2 curse. But if you cry, scream, or pee yourself, I'm dropping you in with the Grade 1."
Makima looked up at him, deadpan. "Understood."
Makima blinked—then felt wind slap across her face.
They were already outside.
???
Huh?
When did we leave?
That was her first coherent thought. Her second came with a full-body chill: How the hell is he this fast?
Goosebumps ran up her arms. The sheer speed at which they were moving—vaulting effortlessly across rooftops, air slicing past her face like knives—was inhuman. No, worse. It was disrespectful to physics.
She clung to Naoya's back like dead weight, her tiny fingers gripping his shirt while her brain struggled to catch up. The city blurred below them. Lights streaked by. Her ears rang with the rushing wind.
Naoya abruptly stopped mid-jump, landing softly on the edge of a high-rise. His expression unreadable, scanning the skyline.
Makima took her chance to breathe—then to speak.
"I thought we were going to the basement. Why did we leave the clan?"
She looked around for the first time, properly taking in the city below.
Tall buildings. Digital billboards. Electric trains in the distance. Everything gleamed with modernity. This wasn't the grim, stuffy compound she was used to.
It's different.
Faster.
Shinier.
Definitely not 1980.
She didn't say any of that out loud. But Naoya noticed her silence.
"What, never been outside the walls before?" he muttered.
Makima shook her head slightly. "Not… here."
He scoffed. "The clan's a roach nest. I hate it too."
She turned to look at him, her voice quieter. "Then why are we here? Where are you taking me?"
Naoya cracked his neck, eyes still scanning the horizon. "You said you wanted to see a real Grade 2 curse, right?"
"…Yes."
"Then we're going hunting. Not the basement crap. I'll show you what an actual curse looks like. The kind that eats people."
Makima didn't respond immediately. She was processing—everything.
"Lead the way," she said softly, brushing the wind from her face.
I didn't need to pretend awe—Naoya's speed had genuinely shaken me. It felt like teleportation. The wind had cut into my eyes, into my lungs. It was real. Just impossibly fast.
No devil in my old world could move like that. Not without a price.
This world is unfair in a different way.
Eventually, he stopped at an abandoned building. Half its windows were shattered. The rusted sign read something about pachinko. Whatever that was.
He gestured casually toward the darkness inside.
"Grade 2 curses can cause school-building level of destruction," he said. "Not the brightest things, but some get clever. Even a Grade 3 can pull off hostage-taking if it gets lucky."
Not smart. But still dangerous.
I stood at the threshold of the building, eyes adjusting. Then I saw it.
The curse lumbered forward—ugly in a way that offended nature itself. Red, bloated, skin like stretched gum over swollen muscle. It had the general shape of a hippo, if a hippo had six glowing eyes and a mouth that reached from chin to chest.
It drooled something black. The smell was wrong. Like rot and rust mixed with burned hair.
"Are you still curious? Did you see it? Can we go now?" Naoya asked, bored.
He wasn't even looking at it. The thing was stomping forward like it wanted to level a house, and he looked more interested in his nails.
But I couldn't stop staring.
This… this is born from fear?
I felt a twinge in my stomach. Not fear. Not disgust. Recognition.
Devils, in my world, were born from human fear.
Curses, here, seemed born from human negativity.
Different ingredient. Same factory.
But curses…
They lacked elegance. Devils could embody abstract terror—a Gun, a Control, a Future. They wore symbolism like armor.
This thing? It looked like someone's childhood trauma fused with roadkill. A six-eyed hippo dipped in arterial red, drooling psychic filth.
Primitive. Direct.
Almost disappointing.
"Yeah, I got what I wanted. We can go."
As we prepared to leave, I asked, "Won't you kill it?"
"I don't want my hands to get messy," he said with that classic Naoya shrug—half laziness, half aristocratic contempt.
…
We jumped from rooftop to rooftop, Tokyo passing beneath us like a moving circuit board. The wind was sharp again, but I didn't mind it this time. I was thinking too much.
Until—
He stopped. Abruptly. Like he sensed something important.
I landed beside him and followed his gaze…
A pizza shop.
He stared at it like he'd just discovered a sacred shrine.
"…We're getting pizza," he announced.
"…Okay."
I tilted my head. "What's pizza?"I had to pretend I didn't know—it was the first time I'd heard of it in this body, after all.
He looked at me like I was stupid.
So we dropped down to the street.
Just like that, we walked into the neon haze of a greasy Tokyo pizza joint. Naoya, of course, had to order every kind of pizza they had. I usually go for more traditional meals — sukiyaki, soba, things that don't come in greasy boxes — but I didn't mind. I ordered a classic pepperoni.
Naoya ate twelve pizzas.
12
He even stole a slice from mine, muttering something about how it wasn't good for my health and how I'd get fat. Then he stood up, brushed imaginary crumbs off his shirt, and said he was going to the toilet.
The bell above the door jingled.
I looked up mid-bite, expecting another couple or some noisy teens.
What I got instead… wasn't that.
First came a woman. She looked normal — too normal. Short hair, average build, plain clothes. The kind of woman you'd pass on the street and forget five steps later. If it weren't for the stitches across her forehead, I might've done just that.
Then something shorter stepped in — shaped like a man, but not really. A volcano for a head, with glowing lava cracks and a single molten eye. He scanned the room like he wanted it to burn. The air around him dried out instantly. My slice of pizza wilted in my hand from the heat.
After him slithered a thing that didn't walk so much as drag itself. Small, hunched, twitching, soaked and misshapen, trailing seawater and slime across the floor. Its glassy eyes blinked unevenly, like it didn't understand electricity.
The last one… towered.
Tall, with brown bark-like skin veined in black. Where its eyes should've been, branches curled upward like antlers.
I stared, frozen mid-chew, trying to make sense of what I was seeing.
Then the woman — the one with the stitches — gave a polite smile to the cashier and said,
"Table for one, please."
And that's when it hit me.
The other three… weren't human.
They were curses.
"Tch… I hate places like this," Jogo muttered, looking around with clear disgust. His molten eye scanned the humans like they were filth beneath his boots.
"Burrr… purrrr… purrrr," gurgled the cursed womb. Dagon tried to speak, but only wet, warbled noises came out, splattering seawater on the tiles.
"Yeht evah ynam stnalp ereh," Hanami said cryptically, eyes drifting toward a plastic ficus in the corner.
"HANAMI, STOP TALKING—NO ONE UNDERSTANDS WHAT YOU'RE SAYING!" Jogo snapped.
That's when they noticed her.
A little girl. Sitting alone. Four years old, with straight, jet black hair that framed her face in a sharp, chin-length bob—one long bang falling over her eye—and golden eyes that gleamed too intelligently for her age.
She was just… staring at them.
In fact, she looked amused.
Makima's gaze passed over each of them slowly. Her small hands folded neatly in her lap.
Then, she spoke. Calm. Clear. Cold.
"You're all quite noisy."
People nearby glanced at her, puzzled. It looked like she was talking to the air.
The woman with stitches raised an eyebrow, intrigued.
"And you are?" she asked, voice smooth.
Makima tilted her head slightly, a faint smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
"None of your business," she said, as casually as if she were telling someone the time.
Jogo squinted at the girl like she'd just crawled out of a sewer and insulted his mother.
"What did you say, brat?"
Makima didn't blink. She blinked less than Hanami, and Hanami didn't even have pupils.
"You're loud. And ugly," she said simply, tilting her head. "Like a microwave with legs."
Jogo stepped forward, steam curling off his arms.
"I should reduce you to ash."
Makima looked him up and down.
"You look like a rejected takoyaki. Sit down before someone mistakes you for a kitchen fire."
"What?!"
"You heard me. Volcano-kun."
Kenjaku — Kaori — pressed a hand to her mouth, stifling a laugh. Jogo looked offended. Hanami was… contemplative. Dagon was… still wet.
Kenjaku crouched down slightly.
"You're interesting. What's your name?"
Makima leaned on the table, cupping her cheek like a little princess with a loaded gun.
"Mama says don't talk to strangers."
"Fair."
"…But I don't really listen to her. It's Makima. I'm four. What's your excuse for being that ugly?"
Jogo snapped.
"Alright, that's it—!"
He raised his hand, the air instantly warping with heat. Flames flickered around his fingers, and the lights above cracked as molten cursed energy surged.
For the first time, Makima blinked.
No, she froze.
The pressure hit her like a truck. Her tiny body stiffened. She couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
Her instincts screamed.
This wasn't like that annoying Grade 2 she saw once.
This wasn't "ugly lava-head."
This was real.
Her skin prickled. Her vision warped. The sheer heat on her face felt like it would melt her eyes in her sockets.
In that exact moment, she understood:
She was going to die.
And then—
A voice cut through the rising flames, calm and completely unimpressed.
"I leave you for one second," Naoya muttered, stepping out of the restroom, towel still in his hand. "And you're already fighting someone who could solo 99% of the world."
..................................................................
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