At an empty alley detached from the main road, shrouded in total darkness, something makes its way through the building.
It's a disfigured being with no clear indication, mumbling meaningless noise from the place seems like a mouth. The only thing that showed anything resembling a body part on its body is the clapping on its back, along with countless limbs at its lower half.
That thing is one of many being here all the time, existing alongside humanity since the beginning. Yet, despite that, most of these things never truly took off beyond their purpose as the remains of human darkness.
Without a mind or even a clear though, acting all instinct, it frantically moving around the alley looking for a clear way out
[SHIIN ~]
With a clean sound, the being was sliced in two parts and quickly disintegrated, marking the end of its unremarkable existence. And behind where the thing was, there's a shadow figure of a young girl.
The girl has long-blue hair and the same color eyes, wearing office-like clothes that bear a dark-colored tone, taking a striking stance with her katana on the right hand.
"Phew, another one down…"
After confirming that the being is struck down completely, she exhaled in relief and stood up. What she's been doing just now is to exterminate a curse, the being that reigns over the world in darkness, as a sorcerer in-training.
Curse spirits, being that born from human negative energy, were deemed to be destroyed by any means, even if it didn't do anything yet at the time, due to their nature to harmings others with their presences and nature.
But, as part of their nature, they cannot simply be killed by any normal means as they possess no actual body. To truly exterminate them, another curse energy is required to actually be tapped with their body, which doesn't normally come by in any normal human.
And that's when sorcerers, those who can freely use cursed energy in various ways, come in, such as with Kasumi Miwa right now.
As the curse spirit disintegrates, Miwa suddenly sensing another presence just right above her and subconsciously falls back behind. Right on cue, another shadow fell down on the spot she once was, revealed itself to be another curse spirit which looks just like the earlier one.
Not only that, many shadows appeared alongside the curse spirit, a total of 4, now floating before Miwa who had returned the katana in the case.
"5 in total… Just like in the mission."
Let out a thoughtful whispering, she looks back to the curse spirit with an indifference look. Both parties just stare at each other (?) for a while, seemingly waiting for others to act first.
In the end, the curse spirits have decided to move first as they now speed up toward Miwa, who's now immediately taking a ready stance with her hand on the katana hilt, eyes locking on the 4 curse spirit.
By the time the curse spirits almost touch her, Miwa has already drawn her blade. Instantaneously, the body of all cursed spirits have been shredded to pieces mid-air, as they quickly disintegrated into nothing.
This is her fighting technique,
With this, she can fight at the frontline against curse spirits despite having no innate curse technique, earning herself a living with her brothers while in school, which she's doing right now.
"Hah… That's the last one."
After checking the alley for a bit more for further clarification, as a normal procedure touted by her school, she can finally truly rest that her work has truly finished.
Miwa then sheathed her katana back to the case, she slowly walked out of the alley while also paying utmost attention to the surrounding, where's now infested with curse energy.
Originally, this place is the main gathering location of drug users and was slowly filled with curse energy with their resentment about everything in everything, resulting in the manifestation of curse spirits.
Still, despite being infested with curse energy, the curse spirits born from it are relatively weak and the location itself doesn't prove to pose a threat in any way, to the point that no one even bothers to cleanse this place until her.
"Mission completed…"
Miwa let out a sigh of relief as she checked the mission details on her phone. She checked the mission reward again, and silently frowned at the tiny bit of money the mission offered.
Despite her status as a sorcerer, in truth Kasumi Miwa is just a relatively normal girl.
She has nothing going up with her sorcerer career, no innate technique, no background, no promised destiny or anything…
She's just a girl surrounded with bad luck, born into a rather lackluster family. Her father already left their family in spite of their poverty, leaving only her and mom to work for their own, to the point of her leaving school altogether just to have a bit more money for daily life.
If she didn't see a curse spirit on that fateful day and was recruited by an unnamed sorcerer, she wouldn't even know how to multiply…
And yet, despite having some potential, she quickly realized that her power is nothing compared to others on the same footing. She has no innate technique, no quirks of fighting, no talents in planning or anything.
In short, in the eyes of the sorcerers, she's just a useless pawn, and everyone started to detach from her altogether… By now, beside some that she considers "closest" and her family, she has no one else by her side.
Not only that, since joining the sorcerer school, she has to work her way in every mission that she could afford, considering her lackluster strength, and have since worked tirelessly just for her two brothers to study at school…
In all honesty, this whole thing is stressing her out, and she can barely hold herself together with each passing second. Even with the group chat, which she found entertaining for now, she still can relieve herself from the duty…
"… No use to regret right now…"
With a distant look, she reluctantly turned around leaving the curses alley, not even bat an eye to the surroundings…
In another universe…
Outside of a residence, lying on the driver seat, is the man wearing sunglasses and a pilot hat, lying on his seat looking at the resident.
"Haizz…"
Shinji Iwakura let out a heavy sigh, he remembered back about the past while waiting for "her" to return…
His life, since beginning up until now, has nothing noteworthy in the slightest.
He has a simple family, studies in a normal school, and has a girlfriend for a while before she's gone abroad…
And then, everything changed.
One day, while he's just lazing around, one of his schoolmates suddenly calls out to him for a meeting.
Feeling a bit reluctant, but considering that he himself had no better things to do, he set off to the location.
But waiting for him at the place, is a beauty no words can truly describe her in detail.
"Hey, Shinji."
She walks up to him with a rather attractive hip sway, one that he subconsciously avoids to look at. After some brief exchange, he finally realizes that the girl is someone in the same class as him, and was once his girlfriend's friend back in the day.
"… Why do you call me here?"
He asked her with a rather concerned voice, considering that he's now facing a model, one that has already attracted every single eye around them by now.
"Well then… Do you want a job?"
"A job…?"
That was their first meeting, which started a whole new chapter in his life…
… Or at least that's what he thought at that time, but clearly it didn't!
Rethinking about her offer back then, he can't help but feel that she just wanted a personal servant and doing all of the heavy work for her…
Although the salary she's promised him is quite generous, the amount of work she dumped on her is too much, to the point that he didn't even have time to enjoy himself with the money he rightfully earns.
Recently, with the group chat, he finally had some place to express his feelings to, albeit not much. Well, not like he has better things to do…
"Hey Shinji!"
"Eek!!!"
A familiar voice suddenly calls out his name, which startles him and makes him accidentally press the car horn. After some moments, he finally realized the girl just outside the window, who looked at him with a confused look.
"You okay?"
"Eto, I'm fine… By the way, are you done with what's in there, Saki-san?"
"Yeah, call the clean-up gang please. The place is quite a mess."
"… Roger."
With an "already-given-up" expression, he took out his phone and made the calls to the others while the girl, Saki Tokiwagi, just smiled by the window…