"Red stitch" - Chapter 12
Kai twitched inside the fish tank, legs curled under his segmented body like he was playing dead. But Ren knew better.
The curse wasn't dead.
Just... dumb.
"Kai," Ren sighed, tapping the glass. "You're supposed to react. Flinch. Fight. Do something."
Kai buzzed once. Then settled again.
It was day three of Ren's newest experiment.
The first day had been simple: exposure.
He'd infused Kai's body with cursed energy directly—threading lines of his own aura into Kai's twitchy frame. The curse hadn't resisted. Hadn't accepted. Just absorbed.
Each time, Kai rolled over like a slug, shaking, trembling... but never dying. Never retaliating.
"It's like injecting your own soul into Jell-O," Ren muttered. "You're not made to hold anything. But you're not breaking either."
And that was what got him thinking.
---
"I can make vows with myself," Ren said aloud, walking in slow circles around the tank. "But not with Kai. Because Kai's too stupid to agree."
He rubbed his chin.
"So what if I made a vow that doesn't need him to agree?"
The next morning, he sat on the floor, notebook in hand, drafting phrases like a spellcaster looking for a loophole in reality.
Every time he tried to create a direct override or forced link, the vow collapsed. Too vague. Too ambitious.
But he knew cursed energy obeyed structure—*intention*.
So Ren began to think smaller. Sharper. More brutal.
Finally, he whispered it under his breath:
"For the next 20 seconds, my cursed energy will begin to contaminate and override any cursed energy it touches. In exchange, I cannot stop the process, and my cursed energy consumption is tripled during this time."
He waited.
Nothing.
He tried again. Nothing.
Hours passed. Different variations. Tweaks to phrasing. Adjustments to his internal focus.
Still nothing.
Until Day Five.
---
Ren had barely slept. Coffee cups littered the table. His eyes were ringed in red, hair sticking out in messy clumps.
Kai floated lazily near the top of the tank.
Ren sat cross-legged, cursed energy coiled tight in his core, and whispered the vow again—this time with a few new words:
"Contagion. Overwrite. Fusion."
The vow clicked.
He felt it in his blood—like static rising along his spine.
His body lurched forward as cursed energy poured into his hands, more aggressive than he'd ever felt it.
It was working.
He reached toward the tank and let his fingers brush against Kai's body.
The reaction was instant.
Kai spasmed, his wings exploding outward as the cursed energy collided.
Ren pushed deeper, forcing his own flow into the creature's core.
It screamed—not a sound, but a psychic shriek, something that made Ren's vision blur.
But he didn't stop.
He couldn't.
The vow wouldn't allow it.
---
And then something happened that he hadn't predicted.
Kai's body rippled.
Its legs twitched in opposite directions. Its form buckled inward—like melting wax caught between hands of fire and ice.
Ren watched, wide-eyed, as Kai's form burst apart into black, oily mist.
Unfiltered cursed energy rushed from the collapse in a violent plume—
And slammed into Ren's chest.
He gasped.
The cursed energy—raw and poisonous—wasn't attacking.
It was entering.
Absorbing into his circuits. Through his arms. His back. His heart.
He fell backward, limbs twitching, convulsing on the apartment floor as the lights in the room flickered.
Pain followed. A low, crawling agony. Like insects made of glass crawling through his bloodstream.
But with it came something else.
Awareness.
---
He didn't pass out.
He lay there for what felt like hours—though it was less than ten minutes—trembling as cursed energy coursed through his system like boiling ink.
And when the shaking finally stopped, he sat up slowly.
His body... hurt.
But his cursed energy?
It was different.
Thicker. Wilder. Tinted with something else.
He looked toward the tank.
Kai was gone.
Completely gone.
No remains.
No cursed body. No energy signature.
Only Ren remained.
And a faint buzzing in his chest.
---
He staggered to the bathroom mirror.
His face looked pale and worn down—but his eyes... they shimmered faintly under the flickering light. A ripple of cursed energy danced over his knuckles without prompting.
It responded to him now—like a second skin.
Not stable. Not controllable.
But it was there.
And part of it wasn't his.
"Kai," he said, touching his chest, "you really were the key."
He laughed once, tired and hoarse.
Then dropped to his knees, breathing heavily.
That night, Ren barely slept.
But not from fear.
From excitement.
I have a cursed technique!
"Red stitch"