Special Rank Curse

Yuta woke up early, as always. Faint morning light filtered through the half-closed curtains of his room. The room was silent, broken only by the soft creaking of the old wooden floor when Yuta got out of bed. His room was his world - spacious, but cozy. The shelves along the walls were filled with books and records, here and there were his works of clay and plasticine. In the corner on the table lay a sketchbook with drawings, next to a box of colored pencils.

He stood up, stretched and headed to the bathroom. After washing and combing his hair, he put on a warm sweater that his mother had given him last Christmas and went out into the living room. The house was warm and smelled of cinnamon - as always, his mother was cooking something delicious early in the morning.

"Yuta, are you up yet?" her voice came from the kitchen.

"Yes, Mom. What are you cooking?" — Yuta looked into the kitchen, seeing her making pancakes.

— Your favorite with berry syrup. Go, breakfast is almost ready.

The kitchen was the heart of their home. A large table with a wooden top, windows with curtains that Mom decorated for Christmas, and a garland on the cabinets created an incredibly cozy atmosphere. Yuta sat down at the table and turned to the window: a quiet winter street was visible through the glass. Snow, like soft fluff, covered the roofs of houses and trees. The yard was empty, except for the neighbors' cat, who left tracks on the white surface.

— Are we going skating tonight? — he asked when Mom handed him a plate of pancakes.

— Yeah, your sister has been talking about it all morning, — Mom smiled. — Are you sure you don't want to go somewhere during the day? They say there are discounts at the store.

— Not today. I just want to spend the day at home. I still have some plasticine left, I want to try making something new.

After breakfast, Yuta returned to his room. He opened a drawer of his desk and pulled out his modeling kit. The figurines he created were his little passion. He liked how images that had previously only existed in his imagination were born from the soft mass. Today, he decided to make something wintery - maybe a snow wolf.

"I'll start with a sketch," he muttered, sitting down at his desk.

There was his sketchbook on the table. The sheets were filled with both finished drawings and rough sketches. Yuta loved to draw nature - mountains, rivers, forests. But today he was drawn to something unusual. He drew a wolf with long fluffy fur covered in frost and eyes in which icy lights were burning. His paws seemed to melt the snow under them, and his long tail left a frosty trail behind it.

 "Now we can sculpt," he said with satisfaction, looking at the drawing.

His fingers worked quickly and skillfully with the plasticine. The white and gray mass came to life under his hands. The wolf became more and more detailed, and after a couple of hours it looked like a real one. Yuta carefully placed it on the shelf next to his other works.

"You're handsome," he whispered, smiling.

He then picked up one of his books. It was a collection of short stories he had recently bought while browsing the bookstores. His attention was drawn to the story of a boy who, like him, loved to create things with his own hands.

Time flew by, and it was getting dark outside. Yuta walked over to the window and opened it slightly, letting in the cool winter air. The streetlights came on, the snowfall became heavier, and it seemed as if the world had sunk into a soft, calming silence.

"Yuta, we're leaving soon!" his sister's voice reached him.

Yuta smiled. This day was going the way he liked - quietly, with hobbies and books, but a fun family adventure at the skating rink awaited him. He felt the warmth of home stay with him even as he pulled on his jacket and gloves, preparing to go out into the winter city. But suddenly there was a call on the phone. 

Yuta immediately picked up the phone, if it was Gojo then it meant that he decided to joke about him. It was the authorities, they also knew that Yuta did not like phone calls, and if they called then it meant something serious, he immediately answered the call. 

A cold but polite voice came from there - Hello, Yuta Okkotsu, I apologize for interrupting you from your business, but we have an emergency situation here. - The man paused. 

Yuta answered reservedly - continue. 

The voice from the phone continued - We were informed that in the Hokkaido prefecture, in the city of Abashiri, in the famous Abashiri prison, a cursed womb was spotted. In such cases, we usually turn to Gojo Satoru, but at the moment he is not in the country, so you are our best option. 

 Yuta began to analyze - "It was 1500 km from Tokyo to Abashiri, even if they hired a private plane and sent first-rank sorcerers, Yuta was a better option, if a private plane would take more than two hours to get to Abashiri, then Yuta could get there in more than an hour or maybe even less. There is still a chance that first-rank sorcerers won't be able to cope with this cursed spirit.After all, the cursed womb that grows or changes most often turns out to be a curse close to a special rank or even a special rank. They can't cope without me here."

Yuta had made his decision. He replied in an encouraging tone, "I'll leave immediately. I'll call you when I get to Abashiri." He walked up to his family who were about to leave and said with a smile, scratching the back of his head awkwardly, "I'm really sorry, but it looks like I can't go with you today, there's an emergency at work, they can't handle it without me." 

Yui pouted and asked, not wanting to let her brother go - maybe first to the skating rink and then to work? 

To this, Eiji turned to Yuta approvingly, "Your job is very important, son, many lives depend on you, don't be late." 

Yumiko only wished him luck with a worried expression. 

-----

The cold walls of the prison froze the air just as fear froze those who were still alive. 

 15-year-old Yuta Okkotsu stood in the darkness and chaos, looking up at the thing that towered before him. Eight meters of pure terror. It was humanoid, but no one would dare call this monster human. Three eyes lined up in a narrow row on its face, watching the boy with frightening attention, as if assessing its next victim.

This was a curse of a special rank. A creature whose existence meant only pain and death. As Yuta stood face to face with it, his thoughts returned to what he had seen when he entered the prison.

The floors, the walls, even the ceiling were covered in blood. The sticky smell of death hit his nose, making his stomach clench. Entrails lay on the floor like forgotten toys, dripping into the mush from the bodies of those most unfortunate. Most of the victims were criminals, yes. Murderers, rapists, those who deserved harsh punishment. Yuta thought they deserved to die, but what Yuta saw here was just a senseless massacre.

A shrill scream came from the depths of the prison, and then it was cut off abruptly. Yuta closed his eyes for a moment, feeling his fingers tighten around the hilt of his sword. He was too late for this man.

The entire prison seemed like a toy house next to the monstrous monster. The corridors seemed like narrow tunnels through which the monster walked, crushing everything in its path. But it had not yet reached the headquarters of the guards and staff, and Yuta knew that he would not let it do so.

The monster moved forward, its footsteps thundering like the beats of a giant drum. Its mouth, more like a crack in the ground, opened, and a hideous roar echoed through the hall. Yuta, holding back the urge to cover his ears, straightened up.

"Finished?" His voice was surprisingly calm.

The monster rushed at him with unexpected speed. Yuta easily managed to dodge, dodging the giant hand that smashed the remains of someone's leg across the wall. The boy jumped, landing on the fragile bars of the second level. The steel surface creaked under the monster's weight, but held.

Today is not my day, Yuta muttered, raising his sword.

He gathered a huge amount of cursed energy into his katana and fired it in an arc at the monster. The monster's cursed technique allowed it to acquire the properties of the things it was. Its body was like metal, but this did not prevent Yuta's attack from leaving a deep cut across the monster's chest. The monster roared in pain, because due to the property of Yuta's cursed energy, that attack corroded its body, it swung its limbs, trying to get the boy. But Yuta moved quickly and deliberately, as if dancing between fatal blows.

However, with each blow and each jump, a small voice sounded in his head.

"Why did this have to happen today?"

The monster attacked again, and Yuta almost lost his balance as he dodged. His boot slipped in a pool of blood, but he righted himself, leaning on his sword.

"I really hate surprises," he whispered, jumping away.

The monster seemed to realize that he had not met an ordinary victim. Its three eyes narrowed, and a smirk appeared on its face. It rushed forward, faster than Yuta expected. Its claws struck the floor, but the boy managed to jump onto the remains of a metal beam.

"He's smarter than I thought," flashed through Yuta's mind.

Yuta ran along the walls like a tower, leaving cuts on the monster's body that ate away at its body. The curse tried to get the boy many times, but each time Yuta dodged at the last moment, as if mocking it.

Yuta could have killed it earlier, but a curse of a special rank is rare, he wanted to fight it for a long time.

 Yuta understood his strengths and weaknesses, he had never fought with someone equal to him, for him all his fights were boring, it was like a professional player playing with a newbie, after two or three times it starts to get boring. 

But also because he had never met anyone more or less equal to himself and won due to a huge advantage in strength, speed and technique, huge reserves of cursed energy and so on. 

He had no experience fighting those who were equal or stronger than him in anything. So he decided to play with him a little more, but soon he got tired of it, because the curse's attacks were predictable and slow for him. 

He decided to end this fight. 

He retreated to the roof of the prison and gathered cursed energy and a sword, when the curse chased him, he quickly cut off the curse's leg, but the curse's leg began to recover at that moment. Yuta ignored this and went ahead and chopped off the other leg, the eight meter curse fell on its stomach and began to writhe in agony, its legs were unable to recover quickly due to Yuta's cursed energy eating away at its legs. Yuta approached the agonizing monster and looked at its agony one last time before chopping off its head.

Yuta stood in the middle of the empty space, breathing slowly. The dust of the curse fell on his shoulders, mixing with the blood and dirt.

Silence.

Only now did he realize that his boots were soaking wet. The smell of the prison was still unbearable, and he knew that this day would haunt him in his dreams.

The survivors looked at him with disbelief, gratitude, and fear. He knew that none of them would forget that a seemingly ordinary teenager had cold-bloodedly chopped off the head of a monstrous monster that had recently caused a massacre here.

But for Yuta, it was just another day. Another battle.

Another ruined evening.

 -----

Yuta, returning home after reporting to his superiors, looked at the evening winter sky, small snowflakes were falling from the sky, Christmas was approaching and LED strips were visible on the houses everywhere, the streets were decorated in a Christmas style, garlands decorated with LEDs were hanging on the Christmas trees everywhere. The street was bright, such a contrast to what was happening in the prison at this time.

Yuta chuckled and thought - "as if it was just a dream."

--

A man calmly sitting on a monstrous bird of enormous size descended from the sky into the maximum security prison where a massacre had recently taken place. He was a young, tall, slender man with long black hair, partially tied at the back, and the rest of his hair fell down his back. He was dressed in a black yukata, over which he wore a golden kashaya robe. His monk's robe was complemented by white tabi socks and zori sandals.

 It was Suguru Geto, one of the three special-ranked magicians.

He looked at the place where many monkeys died with great pleasure, their suffering, their agony and death were like a Christmas present to him.

Geto looked at the place where the battle had recently taken place, grinned and said, "This disciple of Gojou is not bad, I must remember his name, ah, what was his name?" He said thoughtfully, "Oh yes, Yuta Okkotsu."