Yurui The Cursed One

“There is one possibility that would explain this perfectly, as unlikely as it is,” Oba says out of nowhere. He has completely stayed out of the conversation so far, and for a few minutes I had almost forgotten that he was there.

I turn toward him, brow furrowing. “Oh? And what would that be?”

“Yeah, tell us,” Marcus chimes in, his voice full of sarcasm.

“It would make perfect sense if she’s stacking.”

That gets everyone’s attention. From the looks of it, I’m the only idiot in the room who has no clue what that means.

Marcus immediately shakes his head. “Hell no. No fucking way. There has to be a limit to how lucky one person can get.” He looks around at the others. “Right, guys?”

Maya lets out a deep sigh and tells him to behave.

Before things can spiral any further, I interject.

“Actually, I’m not really that lucky. If anything, I’d consider myself pretty unlucky. The only thing that ever went right for me was academics, and that’s about it.” I pause. “Hell, lately I’ve even been screwing that up too.”

Marcus grabs his face with his hands, his eyes going wide:

"Oh my god, seriously? You've got the smarts too? Did you get blessed by a God or something? How is this fair ?"

I ignore his whining entirely. “So what exactly is this stacking thing ?”

I try to sound unconcerned, but the slight tremor in my voice betrays me.

“Blessings.” Oba replies deadpan.

I stare at him, dumbfounded.

“You can have more than one?”

His eyebrows rise. “You didn't know that?”

No. Of course I didn't know that.

Why would I?

Until just a couple of days ago, having a blessing had felt so far outside the realm of possibility that I’d never even bothered researching them. Not even a little. Having one had been about as relevant to my life as worrying about which mansion to buy.

Now that I think about it, that was probably rather irresponsible of me. Then again, I’d always made a point of avoiding topics that were likely to get under my skin. I already had enough shit to deal with as it was. And well, what do you know, it turns out that you can have MORE THAN ONE BLESSING. Like seriously? Apparently, while Mom and I were deciding whether there was enough rice to justify eating twice in one day, other people had been wandering around with several miracles tucked inside them.

Maya chimes in, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Yes, actually, a few of the current captains, some vice captains, and even officers have multiple blessings, though it’s pretty rare overall."

Disgust creeps upon my face.

Bitch, I didn't even have food most of the time, and you are telling me that all the while there were dozens of people walking around with multiple blessings? Doesn’t even sound that rare. The concept of fairness must be completely made up, as I don't see how this should be allowed. Are there no universal laws that maintain the balance and equality of the universe?

I guess I was frowning too hard as Maya immediately steps in to comfort me.

"Hey, don't be upset. More doesn't mean better, and while it's true that on average having more blessings makes you stronger. That's not necessarily the case all the time. You could have two extremely weak blessings that are worse than an average blessing, or you could have a single blessing so strong that it surpasses anything that multiple blessings could achieve"

Narun laughs. “Exactly, more doesn't automatically mean stronger.”

“Sureee, that sounds exactly like something a person with several blessings would say.” I eye him suspiciously.

Marcus snorts. “She's got you there, buddy.”

Maya bumps him with her shoulder.

Narun ignores him. “A strong single blessing can outperform several weaker ones.’’ He reiterates again. ‘‘Maevis is the obvious example.”

Marcus nods

"A great example. A single blessing, but it's so overpowered even people with three or more blessings are terrified of her- heck, scratch that, everyone's terrified of her."

I look up. “You guys know Miss Maevis?”

They look at me as if I’ve grown another head. Instinctively, I glance at my shoulder to make sure I haven’t. Thankfully, there’s nothing there, but after what happened at school today, I wouldn’t put anything past myself.

“Of course we know Maevis," Marcus says with a tone someone would use to talk to a toddler. ”Who doesn’t know her?" She’s only like one of the most, if not the most famous blessed in the whole city.”

I knew Miss Maevis was pretty famous and fairly high up the ladder as far as the Blessed went, but judging by everyone’s reactions, I seemed to have severely underestimated just how much so. Even Maya was looking at me as if there were something fundamentally wrong with me.

“I never knew she was that famous," I mutter under my breath, looking down as my face grows hot with embarrassment.

Marcus gives me an incredulous look. “Come on, she’s a fucking legend! What do you mean you never knew she was that famous?”

I stare at the ground, feeling stupider than I have in my entire life.

“You know, when she’s your teacher, she just feels... normal. Like, you go to school and expect to see her there every day. Sure, I knew she was special and all, but I never really thought of her as some kind of legend.”

Everyone in the room turns to look at me as if I’ve just grown five heads.

Marcus is the first to speak. “Maevis is your teacher?” He asks sheepishly.

“Uh-huh.”

He stares at me for another second. “I have so many questions I don’t even know where to start.”

Judging by his expression, he genuinely means it.

At this point, I’m not sure what to make of any of this either. Apparently, something I’d considered completely ordinary until five minutes ago was anything but.

Maya's eyes narrow slightly. “Was she the one who brought you here?”

I hesitate.

Well, there’s not much point pretending anymore. They’re going to find out eventually anyway.

“Yes.”

Narun's expression has gone from curiosity to open disbelief, while Marcus looks between Maya and me as though he is waiting for one of us to explain the joke. Even Oba has stopped whatever he had been doing near the wall and turned his attention toward me.

I shift my weight across my feet, already regretting the decision to tell them.

It was going to come out eventually. That had been the entire point. Better now than after I had spent a week hiding the fact that not only had Maevis used her personal connections to get me into the Security Force, but had even driven and delivered me personally herself.

That logic had sounded considerably more convincing before everyone started staring at me.

Maya teasingly sticks out her tongue. Well, of course she knew. Maevis had practically hand-delivered me here like some damn parcel. Now that I knew just how famous she was, it felt pretty stupid to have assumed Maya wouldn’t connect the dots.

Marcus finally breaks the silence. “Maevis brought you here herself?”

“Yes,” I reply curtly

“As in, she drove you here herself?” He asks, looking bewildered.

I glance at him. “Do you know some other meaning of brought?”

Narun snorts, but Marcus barely seems to hear me.

“Wait. So, you are telling me that she’s your teacher, you know her personally, and she actually brought you here herself?”

“Yes?” I say, raising a brow.

He stares at me. “You really didn’t think any of that was worth mentioning?”

I frown. “Not particularly.”

That earns me another round of looks.

I can already feel my face beginning to warm again, which would already be irritating enough without Marcus staring at me. So I turn my attention toward one of the dents in the reinforced wall and pretend to be really fascinated by it all of a sudden.

I just can’t catch a break, can I? Of all things, I certainly didn’t expect to be hounded over my high school teacher, but hey, that’s just how my life goes, I guess.

Maya is quieter than the others. She watches me for another moment before asking, “Was making you a third officer her idea?”

There it is.

My stomach tightens. I’d known this part was coming sooner or later.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “She was the one who offered me the position, and then got the ball rolling, but I have no idea as to how she did it.”

I mean, I technically didn’t.

“So she put your name forward ?”

“I would assume so,” I reply with my head down.

Marcus and Narun exchange a glance.

I shove my hands into my pockets before I can start fidgeting with them again. “Look, if you're wondering whether I got handed the position because Maevis told some office shmuck to do so, then yeah, that's probably the case.”

Marcus blinks. “I wasn't.”

“Well, you should have been.”

That finally gets a laugh out of Narun, and even Maya’s mouth twitches before she manages to hide it. Turns out I’m the only person bothered by the obvious case of nepotism.

“Nobody said you didn’t deserve to be here,” Maya says.

“I've had my blessing for WHOLE two days.” I gesture at myself, increasingly exasperated.

“Yes.”

“I can’t even use it at will,” I continue, increasingly aware that I’m starting to sound like I’m unloading on a therapist.

“Yes.”

And just like a therapist, she keeps her expression perfectly calm while feeding me the kind of useless non-answer that makes me want to rip my hair out.

“I didn’t even know you were supposed to warm up before transforming until twenty minutes ago,” I say, continuing what has somehow turned into an impromptu therapy session.

Maya only gives a small nod, apparently seeing no reason to disagree with me. I keep watching her for a moment, half expecting her to follow it with something reassuring, but she seems perfectly content to leave it at that.

“You’re really not going to help me out here?”

Her eyebrows lift. “With what?”

“I’m practically making the case for why I shouldn’t be here, and all you are doing is smiling and nodding." I almost shout out of frustration.

Maya rolls her eyes, looking very unimpressed by me.

“You’ve had your blessing for two days, Yurui, what do you expect ?”

I wave my hands around. “I don’t know, not this !“

“That’s my point.” She shifts her weight against the wall, looking far less concerned about any of this than I feel. “You keep talking as if you were supposed to wake up knowing how everything works.”

I scramble for something to throw back at her, only to come up empty. She’s right, much to my annoyance, so I only end up mumbling something incoherent.

Maya glances toward the others before looking back at me. “You don’t know how to control it yet. Fine. You don’t know how security forces does things. Also fine. That’s what training is for.”

“It still seems like there should have been a few steps between a student who has no idea what she’s doing and a third officer of Miracle Inc. security forces.” I fold my arms, unwilling to let the point go.

“There usually are,” Maya admits, and the ease with which she says it does absolutely nothing for my confidence. Before I can point that out, she continues. “You got fast-tracked. Fine. It happens.” Maya gives a small shrug. “That doesn’t mean anyone expects you to suddenly know what you’re doing just because somebody stamped ‘Third Officer’ on your card.”

I study her, still not entirely convinced.

“You’re going to have to learn faster than most people,” she adds. “Probably make a few more mistakes too. That’s why you’re here training with us instead of being handed a uniform and sent out the door.”

Put that way, it sounds considerably less insane. Not sane, exactly, but at least somewhere within the realm of reason.

I look down at the floor, dragging the edge of my shoe along one of the scratches in the reinforced surface. After hearing Maya put it so plainly, my whole little spiel suddenly sounds embarrassingly immature. Like I’d worked myself up over something everyone else had already accepted without a second thought. I couldn’t help but resent her a little for just standing there and letting me make an idiot of myself in front of everybody.

Marcus, who has mostly recovered by now, leans his shoulder against the wall. “Besides, if Maevis personally brought you in, somebody much higher up the food chain than us already decided you were worth the trouble.”

I glance at him.

“I’m just saying. She’s known you longer than we have. We’ve barely known you an hour. If she thinks you belong here, that’s that. End of the story.”

Annoyingly, that might be the most reassuring thing anyone has said to me so far. Coming from Marcus, of all people, only makes it worse.

I give him a hard look before he can get too pleased with himself.

He catches it almost immediately. “What?”

“Nothing.”

The suspicion on his face says he doesn’t believe me, but thankfully he lets it go. Probably for the best. I’m not particularly eager to admit that the idiot has managed to make more sense than I have for the second time today. All I can do is hope that the rest of the day goes over better than this.

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