CHAPTER 12 – BEFORE BEING A CURSE.
The smell of antiseptic filled the hallway.
The lights were too bright, reflecting off the polished tiles until everything almost looked white.
I adjusted the badge on my uniform again, fingers fidgeting with the pin.
Intern Nurse .
I stared again at the words for a moment.
Stretchers rolled past me down the corridor.
Doctors hurried by.
Somewhere nearby a machine beeped in a steady rhythm.
The hospital was loud.
Chaotic.
Alive.
But to me—
It felt like a dream.
My eyes drifted toward the nurse's station where several nurses moved calmly through the rush, their hands steady as they checked charts and prepared medicine.
For a moment…
My thoughts drifted somewhere else.
A different hospital.
A smaller one.
And a much younger version of me sitting quietly in the waiting area with my legs swinging off the chair.
I remember watching someone walk through the hallway with calm, confident steps.
My mom.
She wore the same white uniform.
Every patient she passed seemed to relax the moment she spoke.
"Patients shouldn't struggle," she would say softly while giving the medicine or injection.
I used to watch her with wide eyes.
To me, she looked like a hero.
Someone who could make pain disappear.
Someone who helped the sick.
And somewhere in that small waiting room, I made a quiet promise to myself.
I want to be like her.
Back in the present, I stepped forward with a wide smile.
A senior nurse handed me a chart. "Start with the patients in beds one to four."
"Yes, ma'am."
I moved from bed to bed, checking vitals, administering medicine, and helping the patients settle in. Some of them smiled and thanked me when they were discharged.
New patients arrived just as quickly.
Days turned into weeks.
Weeks turned into months.
Before I realized it, two months had passed, and I was officially made a permanent nurse.
The work was busy. Patients were often in pain, so sometimes they grew impatient or angry. But I learned how to calm them down, just like my mom used to.
"Please relax," I would tell them gently.
Most of the time, it worked.
Sometimes I made small mistakes and the doctors scolded me, but the other nurses always supported me. They helped me learn, laughed with me during breaks, and reminded me not to worry too much.
It was tiring work.
But I liked it.
Helping people felt… right.
Then one night, a new patient was brought in.
He was badly injured.
Stab wounds covered his body, and blood had soaked through the bandages the paramedics had wrapped around him.
He had likely been in a fight.
Or someone had tried to murder him.
But the strange thing was that no family member ever came to visit him.
In fact, I wasn't even sure if he had any.
Days passed, yet no one asked about him.
No police came.
No questions were asked.
No case was filed.
The hospital admitted him like any other patient, and I was assigned to take care of him.He was given a private room.
But there was something unsettling about him.
It was his eyes.
Whenever he looked at someone—doctors, nurses, even the other patients—it felt wrong.
Cold.
Distant.
As if he wasn't looking at people at all.
The way someone might look at a stray dog on the roadside.
Not with anger.
Not even with hatred.
Just quiet indifference… like we were lesser beings.
I tried not to think too much about it.
Patients came in all kinds. Some were kind, some were difficult, some were simply… strange.
So I treated him the same way I treated everyone else.
He rarely spoke.
Sometimes he would ask for water.
Sometimes nothing at all.
But every time he looked at me, I felt that same strange feeling… like I was being observed rather than spoken to.
Still, I continued my work.
Days passed.
His wounds healed quickly. Much quicker than I expected for someone who had been stabbed that many times.
The doctors said he had a strong body.
I thought so too.
One night, while I was changing the bandages on his side, he suddenly spoke.
"…Come relieve me."
I paused, thinking I had misheard him.
"I'm sorry?" I said softly. "I didn't hear you properly."
He looked at me with those same cold eyes.
"I said… relieve me."
For a moment I didn't understand.
Then he grabbed my wrist.
Hard.
My body froze as he pulled me toward the bed. His grip was far too strong for someone who had been stabbed only days ago.
"W-wait—!" I struggled, trying to pull away.
But he didn't let go.
My heart started pounding as I pushed against him, trying to break free.
"Stop! You can't—"
He forced me down, his expression calm, almost bored.
And then he said with a wicked smile something that made my blood run cold.
"Patients shouldn't struggle."
The same words my mother used to say.
Hearing them from his mouth twisted something inside me.
Anger.
Fear.
Disgust.
I struggled harder.
My hand fumbled across the metal tray beside the bed—
And closed around the scissors used for dressing wounds.
Without thinking, I swung.
The scissor drove downward.
I aimed straight for his groin.
The blades connected with my target.
One of his ball drops on the bed.
He released a sudden, raw shout of pain as his grip loosened for a moment.
But the moment didn't last.
His expression changed.
Rage replaced the pain.
Before I could move, his fist slammed into my face and I crashed to the floor.
A hand closed around my throat.
He lifted me slightly, choking the breath out of me as his eyes burned with fury.
"You damned curseless monkey," he snarled.
"How dare you hurt me?"
His grip tightened.
"You like playing the nurse so much?"
My vision blurred as the room spun.
His voice lowered into something colder.
"Then being a nurse will be your suffering."
The world faded after that.
The lights above me blurred.
The beeping machines stretched into a long, distant sound.
And then…
Darkness.
The next thing I remember—
I was no longer human.
I had become this grotesque creature.
A twisted thing wearing the shape of a nurse.
From what little I overheard afterward… the man who attacked me walked free.
No punishment.
No arrest.
He disappeared as if nothing had happened.
But something inside me had already broken.
The anger stayed.
At first I was weak.
Barely more than a whisper drifting through the hospital halls.
But slowly… strange things began happening.
Patients reported seeing things.
Equipment moved on its own.
People heard footsteps in empty corridors.
I think…
I was the reason.
And eventually—
The hospital shut down.
_.
Now, as the heat from the blast consumes me, my twisted form begins to dissolve.
My rationality returns and memories surface one after another.
My mother's gentle voice.
Her smile.
The hospital hallway.
My first badge.
Is this what they mean… when they say your whole life flashes before your eyes before you die?
The one who freed me from this curse…
I can see him through the smoke.
He has surrounded himself with walls, protecting the girl beside him.
For the first time in so long…
I feel calm.
"Thank you."
A wide, gentle smile spreads across my face—
A real one.
And with that thought…
Everything fades.
_________________________________________
The assistant sorcerer stood outside the hospital grounds, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.
The veil still covered the building.
Everything inside was silent.
Too silent.
He checked the time again, debating whether he should report the situation to Masamichi Yaga, the principal of Tokyo Jujutsu High.
Maybe something had gone wrong.
Maybe an incident had already occurred inside.
Just as he was about to make the call—
BOOM.
The explosion shook the building.
"…That's it."
He immediately pulled out his phone and dialed.
"Principal Yaga," he said the moment the call connected, panic visible in his voice."There's been a major explosion inside the hospital. The veil is still active, but something definitely happened."
There was a brief pause on the other end.
"I'm on my way," Yaga replied.
About twenty minutes later—
A car pulled up in front of the hospital.
Masamichi Yaga stepped out first, his tall figure calm but serious as he looked toward the veiled hospital.
Two students stepped out behind him.
One had striking white hair and an almost carefree expression.
Satoru Gojo.
The other stood beside him with his hair tied back in a ponytail, his posture much more composed.
Suguru Geto.
Both clothes are little damaged, possibly they were on another mission before coming here.
All three of them looked toward the hospital entrance.
The air still carried the faint echo of the explosion.
Just as they stepped closer to the gate—
The veil covering the hospital dissolved.
It faded like mist under sunlight, revealing the damaged building beneath. Cracked windows. Smoke drifting from the upper floors. Dust still falling from the entrance.
Everyone's eyes turned toward the front gate.
It slowly creaked open.
A boy walked out first.
Calm.
His chest was pushed slightly outward, shoulders straight, as if he had just accomplished something big and was quietly proud of it.
Behind him followed four brutes, their upper bodies bare, muscles thick like carved stone.
Each of them carried one corner of a stretcher balanced across their shoulders as they walked in perfect step.
Lying on the stretcher was a girl.
Her uniform was messy, her hair disheveled, and she had raised both hands to cover her face.
Probably out of embarrassment.
The strange procession moved quietly through the hospital gate.
The assistant sorcerer blinked in disbelief.
Behind him, the white hair boy leaned slightly to the side, peeking past Masamichi Yaga.
"…Well," he said casually.
"That's not what I expected."