Yurui The Cursed One

A laugh slips out of me, thin and humorless. “You expect me to believe that?”

“No. But I expect, for you to at least hear me out.”

She turns toward the rest of the class.

“Everyone else, sit down.”

For several seconds, the room remains frozen.

Arisa cradles her restored hand against her chest. Sophia and Kamila stay beside Sophie, while Kika kneels protectively in front of Yashiro. Every eye in the room is fixed on Maevis.

Her smile fades.

That is all it takes. The hesitation vanishes, and the room finally stirs into motion as students pick their way through the wreckage, stepping around broken tiles, overturned desks, and the blood drying between them. Sophia and Kamila lift Sophie between them and carry her toward the nearest intact seats. Across the room, Kika helps Yashiro stand, keeping one arm around her waist until Yashiro pulls free.

Her legs nearly buckle without the support, but she catches herself against a desk. Her uniform is torn and streaked with blood, dark bruises already circling her throat where my hand had been. Strands of white hair cling to one side of her face as she carefully avoids looking at me. I wish she would. Even a glare would be easier to endure than the deliberate way she keeps her face turned away. Kika guides her toward a chair and remains close after she sits, one newly formed wing trembling behind her, its surface still damp and wrinkled.

My gaze eventually drifts toward Sophia instead. Blood has dried beneath her nose, and despite everything else going on, the sight gives me a small, vindictive flicker of satisfaction.

Maevis turns her attention back to me.

“Miracle Inc. has people trained to deal with situations like this.”

“People?”

Maevis pauses. It is slight, but long enough for me to notice.

“Yes.”

“They possess abilities that make them particularly useful. Some less conventional than others.”

I glance down at what my body has become. “You mean people like me.”

Maevis’s gaze drops to the gory heap of my collapsed extra limbs. “Among others.”

A bitter laugh escapes me. “And I’m supposed to take your word that they won’t treat me exactly like everybody else did?”

Maevis shrugs. “No. You’re supposed to recognize that you don’t have much choice. You can run, certainly. And then what? They catch you within a week and treat you like a specimen. Cooperate, and they treat you like an asset.”

I stare at her. “And that’s supposed to be the good option?”

“Compared to being a specimen?” Maevis meets my eyes. “Yes.”

I look away. There is nothing I can say to that.

I hate that I can’t argue with her.

Maevis’s gaze drifts briefly toward Arisa, then Kika and Yashiro, then drops to the gory heap of my collapsed extra limbs.

“You still fail to grasp the seriousness of what just happened here?"

I look down to the ground.

“I mean… I lost control for a bit. But it wasn’t that serious, was it?” I glance around the ruined classroom. “It’s not like anyone died or anything.”

“You grew too large to fit inside a room with a thirteen-foot ceiling,” she says. “The average blessing offers little more than a minor advantage—a stronger body, sharper senses, faster healing, and the like. Useful, certainly, but hardly extraordinary.”

Her eyes move over what remains of my transformation.

“Your body changed repeatedly in the space of a few minutes. It adapted to every injury and produced whatever it needed to keep you alive. The sheer scale of the transformation would be remarkable by itself.”

“Remarkable,” I repeat, looking at the blood covering the floor.

“I didn’t say it was pretty.” Maevis meets my eyes. “But it has more potential than any blessing I have encountered in a very long time.”

The room has gone still, the entire class hanging on Maevis’s every word.

“You want to study me,” I say. “That’s what all this talk about my potential is really about.”

“No. I want to recruit you.”

For several seconds, I am certain I misunderstood her.

“Recruit me for what?”

“Miracle Inc.’s security forces division,” Maevis says it as though the answer should be obvious. “They need people capable of confronting threats ordinary officers cannot.”

Someone in the back of the class lets out a loud cough.

I stare at Maevis, waiting for the joke to reveal itself, but her expression never changes. The offer is so absurd that she might as well have offered me part ownership of the city. People from my district do not become Miracle Inc. security officers; we are the people those officers are sent to keep in line.

They came from old money, military families, corporate dynasties—different roads leading to the same kind of life, where the best blessings, the biggest homes, and a future already laid out for them were simply things they grew up expecting. More importantly, they had enough money and influence behind their names to do almost anything they wanted in broad daylight without ever having to fear consequences.

People from the slums do not become officers, we disappear whenever said officers get bored of maintaining the “peace”.

I search Maevis’s face for some sign that she is mocking me, but find nothing.

“You can’t be serious.”

“I assure you, I’m completely serious.”

My gaze shifts across the classroom, taking in Kika’s newly restored wing, Arisa clutching her healed hand, Yashiro sitting rigidly with her bruised throat turned away from me, and Sophie’s motionless body.

“After what I did to them?”

Maevis follows my gaze.

“What you did is precisely why I am making the offer.”

Kika jerks halfway to her feet, her face flushing with anger.

“You’re seriously rewarding her for this?”

Maevis looks toward her.

Kika’s voice falters, but she continues.

“She attacked us. She tore off my wing. She even tried to kill Yashiro.”

Yashiro’s eyes shift toward her.

“I can speak for myself.”

Kika looks at her.

“But—”

“You’re making a scene. Sit down.”

Yashiro barely raises her voice, but Kika immediately goes still and lowers herself back into her seat.

Yashiro turns toward Maevis. Her face is composed again, though her hands remain hidden beneath the desk.

“Are you certain you understand what you’re doing? Roa—” Her eyes cut toward me. “Yurui is hardly suited to a position with that much responsibility.”

She turns back to Maevis, her expression settling into a pleasant smile.

“Can you imagine what would happen if she lost control on the job?”

I would like to say her words bounce harmlessly off my new armor. They do not. My heart sinks to the very depths of my being, leaving me unable to breathe for several long seconds.

Apparently, the armor does not protect against emotional damage.

Noted.

Maevis pauses, and the fact that she actually seems to consider the question does not help to improve my confidence.

“Control can be taught. Power like hers cannot, and a power like hers is exceedingly rare.”

“You don’t know that she can be taught.”

“Someone once said the same about you.”

Yashiro looks away from Maevis. An unfamiliar emotion flickers across her face, then vanishes before I could even get a good look at it.

Maevis turns her face back at me.

“So, what do you say? You only get one shot at this.”

“And if I refuse?”

Any deal that sounds too good to be true usually is. Even the biggest idiots in the slums know that much. And this one is far too sweet not to have something rotten buried underneath.

The classroom goes still again.

Maevis does not threaten me. She simply begins listing the facts.

“You assaulted several students. You caused extensive damage to academy property. You underwent a hazardous biological transformation using an unregistered blessing in a crowded classroom—one we must consider contagious until proven otherwise.”

“Contagious?” I swallowed.

“I said potentially.”

My skin crawls beneath the remains of the armor.

“Local authorities will have no idea what to do with you,” she continues. “The academy will not allow you to remain without serious safeguards in place. Now that your condition is known, no ordinary hospital will admit you, and no institution in Miracle City would be willing to accept responsibility for letting you walk free.”

She steps close enough to touch me.

I do not retreat.

Not that I didn’t want to, there was nowhere left to retreat to.

“Miracle Inc. can shield you from prosecution,” she says. “They can provide housing, training, medical supervision, and compensation.”

She smiles

“Trust me, most people would kill for an opportunity like this.”

I know. So would I—and that is exactly why I’m skeptical about it.

No offer this generous comes without serious strings attached, assuming it isn’t an outright scam to begin with. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole thing was merely a ruse to make me willingly walk into a Miracle Inc. laboratory and save them the trouble of dragging me there.

“What exactly are you offering me?”

“An assessment,” Maevis says. “If that goes well, training and a position within Miracle Inc. Security forces.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

Her smile does not move. “Then we discuss our remaining options.”

The remaining options. She didn’t explain what those were, and she didn’t need to. I could make a pretty good guess.

I look down at my armored hands. One still refuses to move properly. A few minutes ago, that same hand was strong enough to easily lift Yashiro from the floor.

“You keep talking as though this whole thing can be controlled.”

“Anything can be controlled with proper training.”

“Uh-huh. So you don’t actually know.”

“Well, I don’t really have anything to go off of, not until I’ve examined you properly.”

Examining me, there it is. Revealing her true intentions already.

“And I’m supposed to follow you into Miracle Inc. headquarters and trust that I won’t be dragged off into some lab inside a basement immediately afterwards?"

“No,” Maevis says. “You are supposed to decide whether coming willingly gives you better odds than waiting for someone less accommodating to come and collect you.”

I hate how easily she says it. I hate even more that she is completely right.

Her hand rises toward my damaged shoulder. I slowly stand up to meet her halfway, as a sign of trust, I guess. To show that I’m willing to cooperate, at least until I figure something out. I flinch as her hand makes contact with my flesh, but she places it against the cracked armor, purposefully avoiding any gaps that would expose actual living tissues. Every muscle in my body locks beneath her touch.

Warmth spreads from Maevis’s hand, sinking through the armor and deep into the flesh beneath it.

The change begins at my shoulder. The rigid plates soften and draw back into my skin while the joint twists beneath them. My useless arm jerks as the bone slides into place with a satisfying click. Torn muscle pulls itself together, and feeling returns in a burst of pain sharp enough to buckle my knees. I attempt to stand, only to lose my balance again.

Maevis catches me before I fall.

The warmth continues downward, steadily dismantling everything my body has built. Claws retract into ordinary fingers. Spikes sink beneath my skin. The armor peels away plate by plate until bloodied scraps of my uniform settle against bare flesh once more.

By the time Maevis removes her hand, I am recognizably human again.

Mostly.

“There,” she says. “That should hold until we can determine what to do with you.”

I flex my newly restored fingers. “You know, I didn’t exactly do it on purpose.”

“That does not make the result any less inconvenient.”

Her gaze passes over what remains of my uniform. The blouse hangs from me in blood-soaked strips, and I would rather not know how much of the mess belongs to me.

“You will also need to change before we leave. I’ll arrange something suitable.”

“We’re leaving today?”

Maevis gives me a look that suggests this should have been obvious. “Meet me at my car after the final bell. You know which one?”

I nod. “The white sedan.”

Of course I know it. Everyone does.

Maevis’s car has been a subject of fascination since she first arrived at the academy. Apparently, there is something deeply scandalous about a former Miracle Inc. director driving an ordinary white sedan instead of some floating palace plated in gold.

Ordinary by their standards, anyway. I wouldn’t be be surprised if one of its doors cost than my entire apartment.

“Good,” Maevis says. “Yashiro will be joining us, so do try to get along.”

My eyes move toward her before I can stop them.

Yashiro turns away from both of us and looks out the window, apparently finding the skyline far more interesting than the fact that she will soon be trapped in a car with the girl who nearly strangled her.

Maevis returns to the front of the room. “Now, unless anyone else intends to undergo a violent biohazard of a transformation, I would like to start the lesson.”

Nobody answers.

I make my way back to my desk, stepping around blood, shattered tiles, and the collapsed remains of limbs my body apparently had shed away. The desks nearest mine have been dragged toward the walls, leaving an empty circle around my seat.

Subtle.

The chair creaks when I lower myself into it. For one anxious moment, I imagine another leg punching through my hip and reducing my desk to splinters, but nothing happens. I pull my chair closer to my desk and relax my elbows on the hard surface as I held my face in my hands.

Maevis resumes teaching as though we have merely returned from an inconvenient fire drill. The rest of the class passes in a blur of half-heard words and murmurs that never quite become quiet. Students keep glancing toward me whenever they think I am not looking. Some appear frightened. Others disgusted. A few stare with something uncomfortably close to envy.

Yesterday, most of them could barely remember my name unless they needed someone to humiliate. Now none of them can stop looking at me.

Somewhere mixed in with the fear and anxiety, their attention sends a swirling feeling of goodness flowing through me. I hate to admit it, but I haven’t felt this amazing in a very long while. I couldn’t believe it, but arguably for the first time in my life I was actually excited about my future.

Beneath the desk, I press a hand against my chest. The armor is gone. All I feel beneath my palm is warm, soft skin, and, most importantly, complete stillness.

The memory of my own deformed face begging me to kill it rises from somewhere deep inside my mind. I shove it back down. Now is not the time to think about disturbing little details like that. I have bigger problems to worry about.

When the final bell rings, I will walk willingly into Maevis’s white sedan and let her take me to the headquarters of the organization that ruined my life.

Perhaps she will teach me to control whatever this is. Or perhaps she will strap me to a table and cut me open. I am beginning to suspect those possibilities are not mutually exclusive.

The thought terrifies me.

It also excites me far more than it should. When you’ve spent your entire life with nothing, even the smallest possibility of something better becomes impossible to ignore.

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