Being A Sorcerer Meant Risking Life And Limb,⠀⠀it Meant Putting Yourself Second And Dedicating All

I like to mess around and find out and that’s my exact problem

Shoe department in a Tokyo department store, 1999.

@kusattainu⠀웃⠀plotted starter!

when she was sent over the school uniform she'd be wearing as a student at tokyo prefectural,⠀cementing that she'd be leaving the lush green for miles that'd a younger her had grown so sick of seeing⠀(⠀she deserved to see more than the same village faces,⠀their condescending ways a thorn in her side⠀),⠀her grandmother allowed her to go shopping in shinjuku as a dual treat and apology.⠀wary of the upper echelons,⠀the big dogs in jujutsu society,⠀she'd initially hidden the letter of recommendation from nobara:⠀under the impression that what she didn't know wouldn't hurt her⠀(⠀hoping that one day she would come to understand why the village functioned the way it did,⠀why the villagers were the way they were,⠀how tradition kept them on the fringes,⠀yes,⠀but ultimately safe⠀)⠀and she hoped and prayed to any ancestor that'd hear her out that this was the best course of action to take to protect her granddaughter.

[⠀...⠀]

but nobara was too much like her obasan, ⠀too headstrong and not easily swayed by the opinions of others,⠀nor petty tricks, ⠀a near perfect reflection.⠀a reminder of how her elder acted in her bygone youth.⠀in brash teenaged excitement does she done one of many carbon copies of her official school uniform,⠀double-checking herself and how she looks in the mirror,⠀a hand's nimble fingers carding through recently dyed tresses.⠀gloss-slicked lips upturn into a triumphant smile as once brown eyes⠀(⠀man,⠀these contacts sure stung while being put in!⠀)⠀twinkle with the promise of keeping their shine:⠀no matter the glitz and glamour of the city proper.⠀ nobara wouldn't be so easily sucked into assimilation,⠀not like how so many who moved away did⠀—⠀her sights were set more internally,⠀her mind's eye always more so focused on the appearance and being of self,⠀overall.

the tohoku shinkansen makes quick work of bridging the distance between nobara and her destination:⠀mylord,⠀a shopping mall in shinjuku with a knack for attracting young shoppers much like herself.⠀the ride is relaxing enough to where she's soon lulled to near-sleep by the steady rock of it,⠀exacerbated by the early 2000s' j-pop playing through her headphones.⠀soon enough,⠀this would be her life⠀—⠀living it up,⠀sticking it to city curses⠀(⠀'⠀they can't be so tough,⠀'⠀she surmises⠀),⠀showing the higher-ups not to underestimate the likes of countryside sorcerers⠀—⠀and oh,⠀what a life it'll be!

to say that kugisaki nobara was excited for this new development in her life,⠀wherein independence would be wholly in her grasp after being watered so delicately by her grandmother:⠀her roots⠀(⠀her potential as a jujutsushi carefully cultivated into what it was⠀)⠀finally growing after a period of stagnation,⠀brought forth by the somewhat unfavorable⠀(⠀until she got sick of village life⠀)⠀conditions she found herself in,⠀was an understatement.⠀finally,⠀she was allowed to blossom on her own terms and she wanted to keep it that way.

it happens in a blur:⠀her unboarding,⠀briskly leaving the train station with the trusty help of her dated smartphone's GPS⠀(⠀really,⠀she couldn't wait to invest in a new one, this one's camera quality sucks!⠀), staring a bit doe-eyed and marveling a bit at her sight of the city's ward, people bustling around her, before moving on to the mall:⠀she wasn't in tohoku anymore.⠀soon enough,⠀shopping bags weigh a bit heavily on her arms⠀(⠀where was a boyfriend when you needed one???⠀)⠀and what's in them is any other teenaged girl's correct guess.

she doesn't feel like the odd one out here.

it was deliberate,⠀her choosing to stick out like a sore thumb.⠀when she dyed her hair,⠀the villagers,⠀who long held her grandmother in high regard,⠀stared at nobara like she sort of grew an extra head or two.⠀trading her lush natural brown hue for a seemingly eccentric shade of ginger:⠀the outgoingly spirited young girl,⠀with the ancestrally wise obasan,⠀seemed astute in the choice that conformity in regards to long-held village customs and ways of living was something she'd hold an aversion to.⠀always.

perhaps,⠀this was her rebelling and lashing out against the bulldozing of saori's home years prior after she'd left,⠀having been ostracized and run out by their stupid views on outsiders.⠀nobara had been devastated and enraged by this,⠀but she was a growing and in-training jujutsushi:⠀she'd have to settle for pouting,⠀angrily scribbling in her diary,⠀and keeping her emotions on a regulated leash⠀—⠀lest cursed spirits would fester near.

she was never the odd one out.

just set apart,⠀consecrated by her bloodline's inheritance of their technique,⠀by her status as a jujutsushi.⠀to non-jujutsushi others she was the outlier,⠀but who gave a damn about what they thought?⠀she wears her pride in her heritage,⠀in what's been passed down,⠀overtly.⠀it's an integral part of her:⠀makes up a big chunk of who she is.⠀it helps that her new school uniform grounds her in a way that exacerbates that pride.⠀it's a good fit on her and it isn't gaudy.

any other,⠀regular-degular non-jujutsushi human looking at her would assume she attends a private school⠀(⠀they aren't wrong in a sense⠀).⠀to them,⠀city folk:⠀she'd perhaps just be another country girl who got fed up of seeing rolling plains of green,⠀the lack of opulence to be seen there instead of here,⠀a budding assimilationist who'd readily toss herself to the wind because she'd become enamored with skyscrapers and convenience of walkability.

they had her pegged wrong.⠀

to the trained eye,⠀to another jujutsushi,⠀it'd be wholly evident that she's wearing a personally custom-made uniform because she'd be soon to be set to attend only one-of-two jujutsu educational institutions as a student.⠀she's all smiles as she walks into the nearest konbini,⠀shopping majorly over,⠀it was time to stock up on her personal stash of snacks before sightseeing and eventually heading back home to tohoku.⠀tokyo would see her again,⠀soon enough.⠀it's with a pep in her step that she flounces up to the cash register,⠀yen in hand,⠀dumping her allotted treats and flashing a friendly smile at the person working the register today.⠀

a keen eye catch their name-tag and gaze soon zooms in on their face.⠀she was much like her obasan,⠀too much,⠀one would argue:⠀astute to a trained degree.⠀

jujutsushi knew their own.⠀she looks around,⠀they're the only two in the konbini.⠀good,⠀she feels less scandalized when she takes back her bagged goods from them,⠀leaning in she asks:⠀“⠀ne,⠀suiren!⠀you wouldn't happen to be a fellow jujutsushi,⠀would you?⠀”⠀

wara ningyō are a popular kind of katashiro made of straw [ ... ] wara ningyō are used extensively as wards against evil. they are combined with something from the recipient of the curse, such as a piece of hair. this transforms the doll into a substitute for the intended target. long nails are pushed through the wara ningyō, harming the subject as well as the doll.

#waraningyo is an independent, privately selective, mutuals only, headcanon and lore-heavy rendition of kugisaki nobara from akutami gege's 呪術廻戦. delicately crafted by meenah and re-est. dec 2023.

before she could even put a name to a face, nobara had already decided that she had a bone to pick with special-grade tōkyō jujutsu tech 2nd year okkotsu yūta. in retrospect, this wasn't at all hard to do. before he had gotten back from wherever he'd been overseas early, his name had lingered in the mouths of the other 2nd years: the residuals of his cursed energy may as well have had lingered in the hallways, too.

his accomplishments during last year's goodwill event with their sister school were spoken of with an undercurrent of pride, and even fushiguro held a deep respect for him: but nobara wasn't impressed.

if anything? she was mildly annoyed. call it a petty annoyance at his thrashing those kyōto hasbeens so good that the succeeding year's goodwill event had to be held on tōkyō's turf instead of where she wanted to sightsee and try new foods, and she'd be lying to herself if she said she hadn't felt a flare of pride, but still ...

it's annoying: the way he walks past her in between classroom transitionings without so much as an inkling of the setback he's put her through ( she was on a slightly fixed schedule and he ruined it! ), the way she catches him during co-training smiling sheepishly and rubbing his head while talking to maki-san, panda, and inumaki-senpai from across the training grounds, the way he's so nice ( he reminds her of itadori in that regard ) that it makes feeling even an inkling of annoyance at him? feel like a slight against him despite what he's unintionally ruined for her, the way he can't tell when a girl's got a bone to pick with him even if he doesn't necessarily know her.

what's even more annoying is that she doesn't necessarily know him, so it's a petty annoyance nobara is feeling and that annoys her more, but even still? she's decided he's earned her ire for making it so that she wouldn't be able to explore all kyōto had to offer a countryside girl, an outsider, like her. she's decided that, for his transgression of annoying her, that he must make it up to her.

so, it's in between classroom transitionings where she catches him at the water fountain that she decides on confronting him, a hand on her hip and stamped down annoyance hidden behind tight, pursed lips as she approaches him. she introduces herself as casually as she can muster as a friend and kouhai of maki-san's, to which he replies in kind, he inquires: you're kugisaki-san, right? and it annoys her that he's being formal with her where he doesn't have to be. kugisaki is just fine, no honorifics are needed. he doesn't hear itadori nor fushiguro using them, does he? okkotsu is his own person, though, he'll do what he will.

pride blooms in her chest, though, at her sensei singing praises to his current class. she has been doing somewhat well in her studies, a little better than itadori, even with the cirruculum something she's getting used to. pride blooms in her chest, and — — — no, no, no! she couldn't forget why she had cornered him at the school's water fountain, couldn't forget the annoyance that had festered before pride had even deigned to take root with his honeyed words.

“ hold that thought, okkotsu. i've got a question: did you ever stop to think about the types of students that'd be filtering into gojō-sensei's class this coming year? what different kinds of walks we've taken just to end up in the same place anyway, where we're from? do you even care? ”

❝ oh , that's a hell of a coincidence ! but anyone who's friends with maki - san is a friend of mine . ❞ the special grade quickly forms his lips into a much warmer , welcoming smile as opposed to the serious expression he'd been wearing before when he comes to the understanding that this is a kouhai of his fellow classmate , not to mention probably one of the students gojo - sensei specifically requested he look out for . good luck or coincidence , he's content with the matter , blade settled over his shoulder in a thick black sheath . ❝ okkotsu yuta , maki - san's classmate . and you're kugisaki - san , right ? ❞ as soon as he suspects her offense , he's quick to explain himself ; ❝ gojo - sensei had nothing but good things to say about his new students this year . ❞

@waraningyo

♡'d. 웃 feat. ieiri shōko!

午後2時,  平成30年8月17日,  tōkyō jujutsu tech. 

the smell of antiseptic is what greets her as heels turn to walk her down the halls of the infirmary wing of tōkyō jujutsu tech while well on her way to ieiri-san. in dainty hands is a hall pass clutched, as well as a hand written note, given to her by gojō-sensei.

she's been down these halls more times than her pride allows her to admit, muscle memory leading her swiftly. in no time, nobara is poking her head inside one of many rooms: one of which ieiri-san just happened to be working in diligently,  sat hunched over a work desk, reading something rather intently. 

intuition and the material reality of being part of jujutsu society  —  i mean really being part of it!  — tells her that the older sorcerer is reading a death report.

perhaps one of many that she's shuffled viewing throughout the day. it comes with the job, of course, and nobara particularly feels no way. well, that was a half a lie. she had cared once, about death reports, when itadori was killed on their retrival mission to the eishu detention center in west tōkyō.

she'd been put out of commission early in during and cursed her own shortsightedness in not being properly prepared, concerned more about sightseeing and stuffing her face with new foods rather than making sure that she was properly equipped to fight against the thrall of curses tōkyō threw  — and would continue to throw  —  in her path. 

what is she, being tested yet again?  just who knew, really?  she passed the initial that reaffirmed her place among her peers as a student and that was all that mattered in the end. she passed the one that marked her crazy enough to fit snugly in this shadow society with flying colors. 

a few dyed strands of ginger are tucked behind an ear as she hands over the note. her individualized assignment this day had been fairly simple, to him at least: she was to sit in,  listen to ieiri-san explain the theoretical framework of using reverse cursed technique, watch her demonstrate such, and jot down notes. truly, though, this was easier said than done:

reversed curse technique is extremely complex and even healing  — something ieiri-san was one of few people known to be adept at — was a concept it'd take years to learn. nobara supposes that that's why her sensei has her trying to get a hang of it now while she was still a second-year, blooming still with so much promise.

still though, nobara finds a chair in the nearest corner of the room, plops down in it to sling her bookbag off her back, rummage around for a sparkly blue gel pen and a notebook, and she flips it open to find a page to prepare to write on. should be easy enough, right? hah, fat chance of that!

either way, she's attentive as she can be while eyes track ieiri-san's rise from her desk, to her shuffle over to pulling open a drawer full of manilla folders and neatly tucking the latest report into that folder, to her eventual walk over to the table she'd prepared for nobara's professed lesson: pulling the drawsheet back to reveal the immobile cursed corpse underneath.

gross ... technically speaking: it was distinct from the cutesy creature type of cursed corpses nobara knew principal yaga to fashion. this was more human-like in appearance, probably meant specifically crafted to invoke anatomic familiarity. deliberate lacerations were made on its body: deep gashes in its arms, legs, and hands meant to simulate grievous injuries but they pale in comparison to the reality of a sorcerer doomed to a curse. there's usually not much to recover and an intact body is a blessing.

blog is practically cleared out now save for messages, inactive followers, and likes. i’m so giddy! i wonder how okay it is for me to reply to old stuff? nobara’s muse is exceptionally high and i’ll be online in a bit to write here, but now all i’ve got to do is clear out my thread tracker. likewise, a commission for her is in the works that i’m absolutely excited for.