Yurui The Cursed One

Steam rises from the gaps between my armour. The plates across my chest pulse weakly with each breath. My limbs have returned to something close to their proper length, though one arm lies twisted beneath me and refuses to move.

I do not even know where all the extra material went. There must have been enough flesh and tissue growing from me to fill a truck.

I’m not sure I even want to know.

Maevis crouches beside me.

Her fingers travel along my jaw, then down my throat. She feels the armour as though examining the shell of some insect she found beneath a rock.

I stay perfectly still, holding my breath and praying she does not find anything that piques her interest. And to think that just a minute ago, I thought I was hot shit.

“Remarkable,” Maevis says.

I force myself to meet her gaze. There is no fear in her expression—only that thin smile and the same terrible fascination she reserves for anything worthy of her full attention.

Strangely, I take comfort in it. Maevis may be cruel, but she knows what she is doing, and right now, I need to believe someone does.

“Am I dying?” I ask, my voice shaking.

“No.”

A pause.

“Probably not.”

A chill passes through my chest.

Maevis pats my cheek and rises.

At the far end of the classroom, Kika is still crouched over Yashiro, shielding her with her body. One wing hangs unevenly behind her. The other is gone, leaving that entire side of her uniform soaked in blood.

She watches Maevis approach, then folds herself even tighter over Yashiro.

“Stay away.”

Kika tries to sound brave, but the words come out quiet and unsteady. She tightens herself around Yashiro, shielding her with her own battered body.

Maevis continues toward them.

“I said stay away from her.”

“I heard you.”

Maevis crouches and reaches past her. Kika swats at the approaching hand, but she has lost too much blood. The movement is slow and clumsy. Maevis catches her wrist without even looking at it.

“I am not the one who tore off your wing or hurt Yashiro.”

Kika’s eyes flick toward me.

I wish she looked angry. I could endure anger. I might even prefer it.

But there is no anger left in her face. Only fear. She watches me over Yashiro’s body, eyes wide and wary, as though waiting to see whether I will hurt them again.

My stomach knots as I remember that only a few minutes ago, I had enjoyed seeing that fear. I had imagined taking Yashiro apart—her fingers first, then her arms, her legs, and finally her eyes. Worse, I had tried to make her submit to me, as though overpowering her would somehow make her mine.

Fuck. Even remembering it is humiliating.

And it had all been far too vivid to dismiss as something the transformation had put inside my head.

Maevis presses her free hand against the ragged remains of Kika’s shoulder. Kika tries to pull away, but Maevis holds her still.

Something shifts beneath the ruined flesh.

Kika sucks in a sharp breath as a pale shape pushes from her back, slick with blood and folded tightly against itself. It unfurls slowly at first, then all at once.

Dark veins spread through the thin membrane, carrying colour outward as the crumpled surface stretches smooth. Countless fine white scales bloom across it until a new butterfly wing hangs behind her, trembling and dripping wet.

Within seconds, there is no scar or lingering damage—not even as much as a single tear along its delicate surface.

Kika lets out a long breath as Maevis releases her wrist, then reaches back and runs shaky fingers along the wing’s edge, as though she expects it to collapse beneath her touch.

“There,” Maevis says without an ounce of emotion.

Kika stares at her restored wing, then slowly raises her eyes to me. Her arm tightens around Yashiro as the fear returns to her face.

Maevis could only heal physical wounds, leaving the psychological impact of the ordeal untouched.

“Miss Maevis.”

A boy kneeling beside Arisa lifts one blood-soaked hand.

“She’s losing too much blood.”

His voice is small, as though he has already given up hope.

Maevis turns toward them and crosses the classroom at an unhurried pace, seemingly unconcerned by the amount of blood pooling around Arisa. Several students have gathered around her near the front wall. Her skin has gone gray, and the jackets pressed against the stump of her arm are already soaked through.

Her severed hand lies several feet away. Nobody has dared touch it.

Maevis steps over the cracks in the floor and kneels beside her. She lifts Arisa’s ruined arm, examines the stump, then turns one eye toward me.

“To think you even managed to injure Arisa this badly. You’re on quite a roll today, aren’t you?”

I cannot tell whether Maevis is impressed or disappointed. The fact that either seems possible unsettles me more than it should.

She presses the severed hand against Arisa’s wrist and holds it there. Thin red strands emerge from the torn flesh on either side, stretching across the gap and knotting themselves together. They pull the hand toward the stump until bone scrapes against bone and slides back into alignment. The wound seals from the center outward, leaving only a dark line around Arisa’s wrist.

Arisa’s fingers twitch, drawing a collective breath from the students gathered around her. Her eyes flutter open, settling first on Maevis before moving past her to me.

She immediately pulls her restored hand against her chest, cradling it protectively.

I look away.

Sophie lies unconscious among the displaced desks, with Sophia and Kamila kneeling beside her. Blood clots in the hair at the back of her head, but the steady rise and fall of her chest tells me she is still breathing.

Maevis follows my gaze but gives her only a cursory glance.

“The nurse will suffice for that one.”

Sophia looks up at her, eyes glazed. “ But you healed everyone else.”

“They needed it.”

“But she hit her head. She hasn’t even woken up yet !”

“She’ll be fine.”

“But she—”

Maevis does not bother looking at Sophie again. “Because if her condition were serious, I would have healed her already.”

Sophia’s mouth closes, and the classroom lapses into a silence even heavier than before.

Maevis turns away and walks back toward me. My body tightens with every step she takes.

I brace my good hand against the floor and force myself upright, retreating until my back strikes the wall. My other arm hangs uselessly at my side, the armour split around the shoulder.

Maevis stops just beyond my reach.

I almost laugh. As though either of us knows where my reach ends anymore.

“Yurui,” she says, in the low, careful voice someone might use to soothe a dangerous animal.

I don’t like the way my name sounds in her mouth.

I press my good hand against my chest, feeling for movement beneath the armor. Nothing shifts beneath my palm, but the stillness inside me no longer feels reassuring.

“What are you going to do to me?”

I’m not sure whether I dread her answer or hope she has an actual solution to my predicament.

Several students look over with sudden interest.

Maevis tilts her head.

“What do you think I am going to do?”

“Put me in one of your laboratories.”

Across the room, Kika’s arm tightens around Yashiro.

Maevis’s smile widens by a fraction.

“You are much smarter than people give you credit for.”

Panic tightens around my throat. I press myself harder against the wall.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”

The refusal comes out weaker than intended, my voice cracking halfway through.

“No?”

“No.”

I draw my legs beneath me, half expecting to find another limb where none should be. There are only two, though both shake as I push myself to my feet.

Maevis simply watches me rise. Her complete lack of concern frightens me more than any attempt to stop me could have.

“You think I don’t know what Miracle Inc. does?” I ask. “You think I’m stupid enough to believe you’re going to help me?”

“If you haven’t noticed yet, I have already helped you.”

She gestures toward the ruined classroom.

“Had I arrived a little later, you might have grown through the roof.” She smirks, ” And if that had happened, I might have had to put you down.”

Well, of course she would, the bitch was probably hoping for that to happen, waiting for as long as she could before making her grand entrance and saving the day. Just as she always does.

A few students glance upward at the cracked ceiling.

“I didn’t ask for this.”

“Oh, sweetie.” She looks at me as though I have said something painfully stupid. “Believe me, nobody does.”

I hate it so much when people talk to me like that. It was one thing to get abused physically, mentally even, but intellectually? She was taking shots at my castle now. And to my horror, she was actually tearing down the walls.

“I’m not something to be picked and prodded by some rich scumbags in their fancy white coats.”

Maevis studies me.

The pause lasts just long enough to make me sweat a little.

“Of course not.” Maevis’s smile widens by a fraction. “Locking someone as valuable as you inside a laboratory would be terribly wasteful.”

I hate her so fucking much.

I hate her smile. I hate this ruined classroom and everyone staring at us as though Maevis and I are the only two creatures left inside the whole world.

Most of all, I hate that she may be the only person who can help me.

“What the hell is happening to me?” I ask, unable to keep the desperation from my voice.

“I do not know.”

Her answer catches me off guard. Somewhere along the way, I had convinced myself that Maevis knew everything—or perhaps I had simply needed to believe she did. If she understood what was happening to me, then there was still a chance she could fix it.

Hearing her admit otherwise makes my situation feel far more real than it did a moment ago.

Her gaze travels over the armour covering my shoulders, lingering on the split around my useless arm.

“I have several theories,” she says. “None that I would trust without examining you properly.”

“No examinations.”

“Then you may wait until another face grows from your throat and ask for its opinion.”

My fingers unconsciously curl against the armor covering my chest before I can stop them.

Maevis notices.

Of course she does. She wouldn’t be Maevis if she didn’t, after all.

“You cannot control the transformation,” she continues. “You cannot reverse it, and you have no idea what provokes these changes.”

“I’ll learn.”

“Perhaps.”

She takes another step toward me. I flatten myself against the wall, ready to shuffle sideways, but she stops just beyond my reach.

“Where?” she asks. “At home? Alone in your room?”

I say nothing.

“And what will you do when you lose control again? Crawl beneath your bed and hope you stop growing before you bring the entire building down around you?”

My jaw tightens.

She is trying to frighten me. The problem is that she does a very good job of it. Not that she needed to put in a lot of effort after what just happened mere minutes ago…

I remember my body spreading across the classroom, forcing itself into every inch of available space, the claustrophobia alone would be enough to give most people a heart attack. But then, as an icing on the cake, I recall the second face laughing its lungs out beside mine, and the terror that tore through me as it died.

Even now, part of me expects to feel it breathing beside me.

“What do you want?” I ask.

Something in Maevis’s expression brightens.

There it is.

Not concern. Certainly not kindness.

Her eyes narrow, and satisfaction settles across her face

“I want to offer you a future.”

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