A Bad Joke and a Key - Chapter 11
Ren stared at the filthy, twitching curse inside the shoebox he'd hastily duct-taped shut.
Its wings buzzed faintly under the lid, and every now and then, one of its many hairy legs scratched against the cardboard.
He'd brought it home.
Like a pet.
A disgusting, oozing, twitching, half-sentient ant-spider thing.
And he was going to study the hell out of it.
---
"Alright," Ren muttered, setting his notebook on the table, "time to give you a name."
He pulled the tape back slightly, just enough to peek inside. The curse stared at him with bulbous eyes, twitching softly.
He nodded sagely.
"Kai."
He smiled.
"Why Kai? Because…" He paused, proud of himself. "You're the key."
The curse blinked slowly, its wings twitching.
"Yeah, that joke was awful," Ren admitted aloud. "But it's staying."
---
DAY ONE – TESTING BEGINS
Ren cleared the living room floor, pushing back his table, chair, and stacking cushions in the corner. With chalk and dried ink, he made a crude ring of protection—not to bind the curse, just to agitate it slightly if it tried to leave.
Kai sat in the center, wings folded, twitching occasionally, silently.
Ren crouched low and circled him slowly.
"Alright, let's start with stimulus response. Threat test first."
He struck a match and brought it close to Kai's side.
Instant reaction. Kai hissed and scrambled back, wings buzzing.
Ren made a note. "Aggressive reaction to flame—instinctual fear response intact."
Next came cursed energy contact.
He gathered a small pulse into his index finger and extended it.
Kai twitched immediately, his front legs raising defensively. But what came next surprised Ren.
Kai started to mirror the movement—tilting his head in sync with Ren's finger, swaying just slightly, reacting to every motion.
Ren's eyes widened.
"You're not just seeing it—you're syncing to it?"
That gave him an idea.
---
He whispered his next vow:
"For the next two minutes, I will attempt to synchronize my cursed energy with the target. In return, I must maintain physical contact. Breaking contact early will cause backlash."
He reached out, placing his hand gently on Kai's hairy back, ignoring the involuntary shiver of disgust.
The vow activated with a cold grip.
A low, vibrating pulse hummed through Ren's hand.
Then—*click*.
Kai jolted, and Ren nearly jumped back, but held firm.
He felt it—Kai's cursed energy vibrating against his own. Not resisting. Echoing.
Like trying to tune two strings to the same frequency.
It was unstable. Slippery.
But it was there.
When Ren finally pulled back, the feedback snapped like a rubber band. Pain zipped through his forearm, and he dropped to one knee—but he was grinning.
It had worked.
Kai could be tuned.
---
DAY TWO – CLOSER CONNECTIONS
The second day was noisier.
Kai had started tapping against the glass of the repurposed fish tank Ren placed him in. More curious. More reactive.
Ren watched closely as he began tagging Kai with light ink seals—basic paper strips with symbols from his manga memories. They were meaningless to a real jujutsu sorcerer, but Kai responded anyway.
At one point, Kai bit a talisman, chewed it like it was paper, then spat it out and turned his back.
Ren laughed. "You've got opinions now?"
He sat cross-legged on the floor with his notebook in hand, scribbling notes.
Observations:
- Kai recognizes specific cursed energy frequencies.
- Tags influence emotional state—unclear how or why.
- Contact-based energy sync possible for up to 12 seconds before energy destabilizes.
Theories:
- Low-level curses may act as natural conductors of cursed energy under correct parameters.
- Kai might be trained—conditioned—to carry and channel cursed energy.
- With enough reinforcement, Kai could become a true familiar.
---
Ren began whispering to Kai softly—talking, humming, waving energy in small pulses.
He wasn't sure if Kai understood.
But he responded.
And more importantly, Kai never attacked. Never once tried to escape. The closest it came was twitching violently during one of the cursed tag tests.
Ren reached out again—this time without a vow—and pressed two fingers to Kai's forehead.
No backlash.
No explosion.
Only a soft vibration.
A murmur between souls.
---
That night, Ren sat in the dark beside the tank.
Kai rested upside-down on the glass lid, wings slowly folding in and out.
Ren sipped instant coffee from a chipped mug, feeling the ache of strain in his shoulders, but with a full heart.
"This is it," he whispered. "This is how I win."
He looked over at Kai.
"You're disgusting. Ugly. Barely alive. But you're my key."
He chuckled.
"Still a bad joke."
Kai twitched, like it had understood.