4 Cursed energy/Flames

She woke up, drenched in sweat but otherwise unharmed. Not a single burn mark on her skin, the fire, as hot as it was, didn't burn her. The injury on her neck however, still remained as a memento of the incident.

Looking at her arms, she noticed they were intact and not burned. The surprise was temporary as the sharp pain radiating from her neck quickly overwhelmed all else.

'I'm such an idiot. I play with fire, and this is what I get. A fucking burn.' She thought. 'Look at the state I'm in.'

Her hands were a mess. Dried up blood gathered under her broken fingernails while parts of those fingernails remained stuck in her skin. 

'How do I even explain this away without looking like a schizo? Its not like-' Her thoughts were interrupted.

Two sets of heavy footsteps nearing her door jolted Naoko up from the floor. But before she even got the chance to get up and move, the sliding door burst open, revealing two young men wearing the same uniform as all the other servants.

Seeing Naoko sitting on the floor with a large gash on her neck, the two men shared a look of confusion.

"Is it really her?" The shorter of the two men asked.

"It has to be, you felt it too right?" 

"But that kind of cursed energy coming from a kid like her?" 

The taller man remained quiet, focusing his attention on the little girl in front of him. For the second time in his life, the man understood that appearances are meant to deceive.

'What frightening cursed energy.' He thought. 'She's young so she probably doesn't hold much, but what she does is beyond anything I've ever seen.'

The man stared into Naoko's eyes for far too long. Inside her pitch black pupils, he noticed two small embers violent enough to burn him and the entire estate down to the ground, if only given a reason to.

"Hey, are you ok?" The other man asked, seeing his partner frozen in place.

Startled by that question, the man took a step backwards.

"Yea, all good." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, you know who she is right? Come on, help me out here"

"Yea." He replied while approaching the little girl. "You're Naoko right?" 

Naoko only nodded her small head.

"We're just going to get you treated, ok? That wound looks pretty nasty." He said, pointing at Naoko's neck. "It hurts, doesn't it?" 

"Be careful. Use cursed energy when you approach." The second man warned.

Doing as instructed, he coated his body in a thin layer of cursed energy before approaching.

Naoko looked at the man while looking deep in thought.

'So it's cursed energy. I was right, it is a curse… But, for something so vile, it really is beautiful' She thought, mesmerized by the man's blue shroud of dancing energy.

"Naoko, can you stand?" The man closest to her asked.

To answer his question, Naoko got up and planted her feet firmly on the floor to prevent herself from falling over.

"Woow, you sure are capable, as expected from Naobito's daughter." He said with a smile.

"Ranta what the hell are you doing?" The second man sternly said.

"S-sorry! Could you come with us?" 

Naoko only nodded again.

She looked at the man in front of her. He had wide, light colored eyes and disheveled black hair that he wore in a low ponytail. He looked naive, but kind. Meanwhile, the man at the back was muscular with wildly spiky hair, he on the other hand, looked cold and stern.

She decided to follow the men to wherever they took her. After all, there wasn't much of a choice if she didn't want to find just how strong cursed energy can make a person.

The two men began making their way towards the infirmary of the house with Naoko in tow. They didn't want to carry the young lady so they just let her trail behind them.

After a bit of walking, they reached the infirmary.

"Ranta, what brings you here? Your eyes stopped working again?" A woman dressed in a white lab coat asked, seeing the men entering the infirmary.

Ranta scratched at the back of his head while giving an awkward smile.

"It's about her actually." He said while shuffling out of the way to reveal Naoko.

The woman looked blankly at the little girl for all of two seconds, after which, her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

"The head's daughter? What the hell did you do?" She asked, looking at the wound.

"We didn't do anything!" He interjected. "We sensed a strong fluctuation in cursed energy and then we went to look, but we only found her s-" 

"Ok. I get it, stop talking please." She interrupted. "Poor girl, it must hurt right? Come here, let's put some bandages on you."

The woman took out a tweezer while Naoko walked up to a bed in the infirmary.

'Are they gonna heal me with some special superpowers? That's exciting.' She thought.

Unfortunately, all that excitement was put out when the woman approached her with a pair of tweezers and a flashlight. 

"Oh dear, this looks bad. Just what happened?" She said as she looked towards Ranta specifically.

"Why are you looking at me? I don't know."

She pinched the spot between her eyes and sighed.

"You're useless. Just get out of here." 

Ranta gave his partner and the doctor a reluctant look.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" She asked.

The men shared a look of confusion before realizing their blunder.

"We have to go report this. Now." 

"Fools." The doctor sighed. "I hope you don't end up like them."

She then pointed the flashlight at Naoko's wound and started tweezing every piece of nail she could find in there, just so they didn't cause an infection. Through this, Naoko didn't even flinch.

'She was suffocating. But why?' The doctor thought.

To get some answers, she prodded Naoko's cursed energy with her own, sending only a strand across to connect the two.

As soon as her cursed energy made contact with Naoko's, the end of her strand started burning, and soon, the fire started spreading through her whole strand. Instinctively, she cut off her own cursed energy to stop the flame from spreading any further.

Beads of sweat formed on the woman's brows as she trembled at the thought of her own cursed energy incinerating her from the inside.

'What the hell is that? That's not cursed energy.'

She gulped down and continued the treatment, wrapping bandages around Naoko's neck.

"That's it. You can go now." She said while walking to her desk.

Naoko didn't have much of a reaction.

'Why is it that when I use cursed energy, I get set on fire, but when that man uses it, he's fine? Is it a matter of control? Mastery? Does it happen to everyone?' Were just some of the questions racing through her mind as she went through the whole ordeal. 

Through it all, she unconsciously circulated her cursed energy though her body, something which became a habit after doing it for years. This caused her to unintentionally burn the foreign cursed energy entering her body, nearly killing the doctor.

"Thank you." She said, bowing to the doctor and returning to her room.

'What a creepy kid.' The woman thought while giving her a warm smile.

*

The Zenin family's ideals are twisted and warped. As one of the three major sorcerer families in Japan, they value powerful cursed techniques above all else, casting away those they see unfit, no matter their actual combat ability.

The two men that found Naoko were standing across from the clan head, detailing their report. The doctor from the infirmary was also there on special request to give more details about the situation.

"Hahaha!" Naobito Zenin burst into laughter. "So she set herself on fire? With her own cursed energy?"

The three present shared looks of uncertainty.

"I wouldn't say that. I prodded her and…" She trailed off.

Naobito stopped laughing and raised a brow while taking another swig from his gourd.

"And what?" He questioned.

"Well, her cursed energy… It doesn't seem like she used any technique to ignite herself, but more like the cursed energy that flows through her is fire itself."

"That's unheard of!" Ranta spoke up against the absurd claim, because as far as he was aware, cursed energy was just that, energy, it shouldn't be anything else.

"I know… It's just, that's what I saw." 

"I'm with Ranta here, the idea sounds preposterous." The bigger man said.

Naobito caressed the ends of his mustache while thinking of a solution.

"We should settle it then." Naobito cut in. "Let's go see her."

*

Naoko was on the floor again, carefully moving her cursed energy around. Slowly, she extended the tip of her index finger and moved a small amount of energy through her arm, then through her hand, eventually, it all condensed in the tip of her finger, threatening to burst out.

With a thought, she released it to the outside. Small flames began wildly swirling around her finger. It felt excruciatingly hot, but it didn't burn her skin.

'Fuck. What is this thing?'

She grit her teeth and winced through the pain in hopes of getting volatile flames under control, but to no use. It seemed like the more pain she went through and the more she tried to battle it, the more intense and aggressive they became.

At one point, it got so bad that she had to fully extend her arm away from her face just so the fire wouldn't reach it. Still, the flames danced and hopped around, spreading from the initial tip of the finger to her elbow.

The pain got worse and worse, making the effects stronger and stronger. Naoko grit her baby teeth so hard she could almost hear them cracking under the pressure.

"AAAAAAAAA"

She tried getting her breathing under control to mitigate the effects but the pain was just too great on her small body.

In that moment, sensing a shift in cursed energy as they were walking, Naobito activated his cursed technique. Projection Sorcery.

His technique allows him to divide one second of time into 24 separate instances, like frames in a video. From there, he can trace the movements he wants to complete in those 24 frames using his mind, and the technique will carry through with those movements with the restriction that they have to be somewhat tied to physics. So, no flying or jumping twice in mid air. Thus, this technique allows users to move at inconceivable speeds and makes Naobito, its user, the second fastest sorcerer.

He started barreling towards Naoko's room and reached it before the others could even see that he was gone.

He slammed the sliding door open only to find himself in the path of a raging inferno.

"Fascinating." He said as he looked at the hellfire consuming his daughter's arm. "A special trait."

As though unbothered by the flames, he walked towards Naoko and grabbed her arm with his hand. Then, he began pushing out small amounts of blue cursed energy into it. Instantly, the cursed energy he released ignited into flames and began to spread to his skin.

Instead of stopping his cursed energy flow to stop the spread, Naobito released a mass of cursed energy into his hand. At first, it started burning just like the rest, but as the quantity and the output increased, it began overwhelming the flames. Slowly, the blue energy fought against the fire in a deadly tug of war until it engulfed them entirely, effectively beating them into submission and successfully snuffing the flames out.

As that was happening, the other 3 people arrived in front of the door and quietly observed the scene in front of them.

The doctor already knew about the abilities, yet, seeing them with her own eyes was a completely different thing. Meanwhile, the non believers shuddered where they stood as they saw Naobito quell the flames, something they knew very well they couldn't replicate.

After a few moments, their looks shifted into those of confusion. Not because of the never before seen cursed energy, rather, they were confused over if what they had just seen could be considered an innate technique. For that, they could only wait for Naobito's verdict.

"Ranta!" He yelled, startling the poor boy.

"Y-yes!?" He stammered out.

"Take her. She's a part of the Hei." 

"P-pardon?" 

"Are you deaf? I said, she's part of the Hei now. Take care of her." 

'The fuck's a Hei?' Naoko thought. Today was just too much for her to handle.

"Yes sir!" Ranta said.

Ranta and his partner picked up Naoko and began transporting her to the Hei headquarters in a different building while the doctor tagged along to make sure she was fine.

Naobito, on the other hand, remained behind to look at Naoko's room. The floors were charred while multiple unidentifiable items were burnt to ashes.

'It doesn't burn her, but it burns others.' He thought with a wide smile on his face. 'She's an indispensable asset.'