You lean back in your creaky armchair, the ghost of a smirk on your face as Momo stares at you, utterly bewildered. “But how?” she presses again, gesturing wildly between you and Seiko, who’s across the room dramatically blowing a smoke ring at the ceiling. “You two argue about everything. How the hell did you even get together?”
Seiko doesn’t look over, just flicks some ash. “It’s a long story full of poor decisions. Mostly his.”
“Fine, fine,” you chuckle, holding up your hands in surrender. “I’ll tell you how I met your terrifying grandmother. But you’re not going to believe it.”
The present day fades, the colors softening and bleeding into the past…
You weren’t anyone special. Just a second-year high school student with a healthy curiosity about the unexplained, which is why you spent your afternoons in the dusty, cramped room of the Occult Research Club. The day it all started, you and your friends cracked open a strange, lacquered box you’d found in the storage shed. Inside, resting on faded velvet, was a single, desiccated black finger. The air grew heavy, and a strange symbol seemed to pulse faintly on its surface. The club president, ever the dramatist, declared it one of the legendary twenty fingers of Ryomen Sukuna. You all laughed it off, a macabre souvenir. You left it on the club table, promising to examine it properly tomorrow.
Life, however, had other plans. A call came—your grandfather was fading fast. The hours at the hospital were a blur of sterile smells and hushed voices. You held his hand until there was no more warmth, and then you were in the administrative office, your own hand numb as you signed the papers that made it all official.
That’s when you saw her.
Leaning against the hallway wall just outside the office was a young woman. She had snow-white hair tied in a messy, practical bun and wore red, rectangular glasses that couldn’t hide the sharp intensity of her gaze. A blue baseball jacket was slung over her shoulders. She was smoking right under the ‘No Smoking’ sign, utterly unconcerned.
“You,” she said, her voice low and direct, cutting through your fog of grief. “The kid from West High’s occult club. You have a box. Where is it?”
You blinked, too tired for games. “Who are you?”
“Seiko. That’s not important. The box you found today. It’s dangerous. You need to give it to me. Now.” She stepped closer, and you noticed she wasn’t much taller than you. But the pressure coming off her was immense.
You sighed, rummaging in your school bag. You’d grabbed the empty box on your way out of the clubroom, thinking you’d return it to the shed. “Here. Knock yourself out.”
You tossed the lightweight box to her. She caught it, opened the lid, and her stern expression froze, then cracked into something darker. “It’s empty.” Her eyes snapped up to yours. “Where is the contents?”
A cold knot formed in your stomach. Your friends. They must have taken the finger after you left. “The clubroom,” you said, the words tasting like ash. “My friends… they probably have it.”
For the first time, you saw a flicker of genuine alarm on her face. “You have got to be kidding me.” She crushed her cigarette under her sandal. “Those idiots have opened a beacon for every hungry spirit and yokai in the prefecture. We have to go. Now.”
She didn’t ask. She commanded. And without knowing why, you followed. Not because she was beautiful, though even in your stunned state you could see that. You followed because in her urgency, you saw the gravity your friends had missed. The two of you burst out of the hospital and into the twilight, running toward the school.
And as you ran, she gave you the barest explanation, breath steady despite the pace. “I’m a spirit medium. That finger is a curse artifact of catastrophic power. It doesn’t just sit there. It calls out.”
Meanwhile, your friends gathered around the clubroom table, the strange finger between them. They were laughing, poking it with a pencil, debating on how to test its “power", not seeing the yokais in the corners of the room already appearing....