Yuki Tsukumo was not what he had expected.
"Ho, come on. Don't tell me you're a prude."
Jiki held back a sigh as the woman saddled up beside him and began to nudge him with an elbow, a big grin on her face. He turned to Master Tengen, but the immortal sorcerer had their face hidden in a cup of tea, though somehow Jiki was certain the old sorcerer was laughing at him.
"I know Satoru is tasteless, but I heard you were at least more interesting, so come on and tell me." She shifted until she was seated directly in front of him with her legs crossed over each other and her chin resting on her hand and she leaned forward.
"What kind of girls do you like, Gojo Jiki?"
Jiki blinked as he realized how intent the special grade sorcerer was on that question, which inadvertently made him actually give it some thought. What kind of woman did he like? Such things had never been a priority, such emotions needless. However, he had liked a girl once. A kind and considerate girl who had unlocked the Sharingan even before him. He remembered her brown hair always tied into a ponytail and her black eyes that always held warmth for him. Her happy smile that brought light to whatever room she found herself in.
The first person he killed during the Uchiha's massacre. That it was a mostly painless death filled with a dream that she would've loved to make a reality didn't change that fact.
Yuki must have somehow sensed the dark path his thoughts had gone because she leaned back a second later with narrowed eyes like she expected an attack.
His phone rang, cutting through his brooding thoughts like a blade. He immediately took to his feet, happy with the distraction, and walked a bit farther from the duo before he answered the call, bringing the device to his ear.
"Gojo Jiki here."
"It's Tsumiki." The speaker said curtly. "It's begun. Toji is on Kenjaku's trail. I'll keep you up to date."
"Alright," he replied, nodding along, dropping the call a second later.
"You've got Toji Fushiguro hunting Kenjaku, eh? Now that's interesting."
Jiki turned back to face the duo without any expression on his face and he gave a simple nod in response. Apparently he had not walked far enough away if they could hear his conversations so easily. Gone was the wariness in Yuki's eyes. All that remained now was just curiosity and interest, while Tengen's face was a block of Ice.
"I heard his kid was enrolled in Tokyo Jujutsu High. However, I didn't know you maintained connections with the Sorcerer Killer." Yuki continued, musing to herself. "I wonder what kind of woman he likes?"
Jiki blinked at where the woman had spun the tangent to, then gave out another sigh at the ridiculous thought process most special-grade sorcerers possessed. Instead of falling into the rabbit hole that was entertaining such thoughts or discussions, he immediately asked her a question before she remembered the one she had asked him.
"Why are you here?" He began, drawing her attention back to him. "News about you is generally scarce, but enough to let us know you generally don't like returning to Japan. So what brings you here today?"
Yuki watched him for a bit, and he watched as her generally flippant character and mannerisms slipped away as she suddenly focused, her eyes darkening and her hands clasping over each other. This was the special grade sorcerer that even the higher-ups avoided dragging into their mess for fear of pissing her off enough to make them a problem. Instead, they had allowed her to wander off and do whatever she wanted.
"It's not very well known, especially since I'm always away. However, I am an alumnus of this school. In fact, I was born in this very place." She said, gesturing to the space around them. The Tomb of the sky corridor. "
"My life was a scripted thing, where I was raised in these hallways till I was ten, it was a life where I was groomed and prepared for my role as a star plasma vessel." Her eyes drifted as she trailed off.
Jiki raised a brow at the new information, which was the equivalent of his eyes widening and his jaw dropping open in surprise for him. Yuki gave a grim smile at his look before she continued.
"Puberty hit me early, and as I grew older, I began to crave something else, something more than a simple life beneath the school grounds and acting as a caretaker to Master Tengen till the day I was old enough and Tengen needed me to refresh his immortality. So one day, I simply decided to explore outside the confines I had been placed in. That simple act brought me to the world above and kickstarted my wanderlust. It's been a couple of years since then. However, with all that has happened and has been happening, I'm not blind to the fact that some part of this is my fault."
"Peace, child." Master Tengen said immediately with a hand wave. "I've told you already. This is fate. This is as it should have always been. You had no desire to become one with me, and I made a vow to never force any star plasma vessel to do it."
"But if I had stayed behind and completed my duty. A duty I was born and bred for, you would not have had to go searching for another. That child, Riko Amanai, would still be alive. You would be more human than cursed spirit, and Kenjaku's mad plan about the merger would be dead." Yuki countered with a scowl.
"It would be dead only for another five hundred years. Kenjaku is patient. Sooner or later, this was always going to happen. This cycle would only end with Kenjaku's death. You had no true fault here." Tengen spoke like a parent consoling a child.
Jiki looked between the two at what sounded like a familiar argument. This was not the first time Yuki was coming here, it seemed. Yuki's scowl eased as she turned away to look to the side, allowing her long hair to obscure her features as she continued.
"Anyway, I heard about the attack and decided to come back and check up on Master Tengen. We might have a lot of differences, especially when it comes to my status as a star plasma vessel. If I could turn back the hands of time, I might have picked this same path, so I don't know why this whole thing pisses me off so much. However, Master Tengen was more than just a master to me... so I came back."
Jiki thought about it for a few seconds before replying. "Master Tengen is right." Yuki turned to him with a raised brow to match his previous look, so he raised up a hand to forestall her words as he continued.
"The act of merging with Master Tengen is perceived as a noble sacrifice made to uphold the world as we know it; however, when the person making the sacrifice is unwilling, then it's no longer a noble deed. It would mean committing a worse kind of act than simple murder to uphold a society, and any society that needs such a sacrifice is not a society that deserves to stand." He thought of his own sacrifice, of his own sin, by forcefully sacrificing his clan members for the sake of peace. His personal sin.
"Satoru and Geto understood that." Jiki continued before he could allow those memories to come to the forefront. "They were ready to turn back whenever Riko Amanai said so. The true problem was never in Master Tengen evolving past humanity. The true problem is the one person who plans to use Master Tengen's evolution for his own benefit by forcing a merger."
"Kenjaku." Yuki agreed, yet unlike what he expected, there was no bile or hate in the way she said the name. Instead, all Jiki could sense from those words was curiosity.
"Yes. He escaped me once because of Kashimo's ingenuity. But I can promise you with every fiber of my being." His fist tightened as he remembered the fight before he made an effort to relax. "The next time we meet, I will kill him." This time, he turned to Master Tengen with a nod. "I promise you."
There was silence in the chamber for a few seconds before Yuki broke it with loud barking laughter. All the seriousness she had carried herself with earlier had been discarded, and she had returned to the bumbling, hot-blooded woman he had met earlier.
"You really are something, Gojo Jiki. Such a hardworking guy who isn't afraid to get his hands dirty." She tilted her head and smiled at him. "If you were five or ten years older, I would be asking you to grab a cup of coffee with me."
Then she let out a sigh as she continued, "Unfortunately, I'm not as shameless as that mercenary, money-grubbing woman. Nevertheless, I'm glad I got to meet you today, Gojo Jiki. I really am. Ever since Geto... let's just say I've been worried about influencing young special grades too early. However, with you... I can see why most people hold you in such high regard."
"Thank you. How long would you be staying?" Jiki asked out of curiosity. Yuki Tsukumo was a special grade sorcerer, perhaps the second strongest one after Satoru before his own birth. Kenjaku had also talked about her, and some part of Jiki, the part of him that sought the sensation of another black flash, ached to spar with her.
"Not too long, unfortunately," Yuki replied with a faraway look in her eyes. "I'm working on something right now, and I would have to leave soon."
"I see." Jiki noted. He smoothly rose to his feet and gave the duo a curt bow. "Then I would leave you two to it. Classes should be over now, and I have to see Nanami-sensei. It was nice to meet you once again, Tsukumo."
He spun around and began to retrace his steps just as Tsukumo called out from behind him. "Oh, that's true. Greet Nanami-kun for me!"
Jiki simply waved an affirmation without looking back as he walked off.
x
Tokyo Jujutsu High had multiple training grounds, way more than the students needed, but nobody was complaining, especially considering that a great majority of them were affected by the attack on the school.
The training ground behind Tokyo Jujutsu High was the only one that somehow managed to survive the disaster. It stretched out under the late afternoon sun. Its carefully maintained surfaces bore only the scars of countless practice sessions and mock battles instead of the utter destruction the others had suffered.
Jiki saw Nanami Kento standing at the edge of the main sparring area, his usually immaculate appearance slightly disheveled from a day of intensive training with the remaining students. He looked around but didn't see any of the students, so they must have left earlier, and the older man had decided to continue with his instead.
A few meters away from the man, Jiki made an effort to make sure his footsteps were audible, which prompted Nanami to tilt his head to check up on who was sneaking up behind him. "I've been looking for you." The blonde-haired man said as he spotted Jiki, before he turned away, hands in pockets as his gaze continued to survey the training ground.
Jiki came to a slow stop beside the man before speaking. "Master Tengen called for me." Nanami nodded his head like he already knew that.
"Was your meeting eventful?"
Jiki shrugged in response before replying. "We didn't part on the best terms the last time, so this time was better. I also got to meet an interesting character."
Jiki could tell Nanami was somewhat curious. In fact, that was why he mentioned it, but the stoic man bore the weight of his curiosity easily and kept it in check. There was silence as they stood side by side, the wind ruffling their clothes. It was a companionable silence, the type you were never in a hurry to end. However, like all things, it ended.
"Satoru told me you finally managed to land a black flash. I suppose congratulations are in order."
Jiki shrugged it off before replying. "It is nothing to brag about. People have landed black flashes at younger ages than I did. I'm nothing special in that regard."
"You're correct about that," Nanami agreed easily. "The sparks of black do not choose who to bless. However, there are those chosen by it regardless."
"That is awfully contradictory, isn't it?" Jiki noted with a soft smile.
"It is." Nanami nodded in agreement, his voice as stoic as always. "However, it doesn't detract from its accuracy. It is a warning and praise at the same moment. A call for caution and an exaltation in the same breath. It lets you know that anybody can be blessed with the sparks of black, as long as you possess curse energy. However thin, there is the possibility of landing a black flash. Nevertheless, it doesn't detract from the fact that some people are just particularly... lucky in that regard."
"People like you?"
"Perhaps. The probability of landing four black flashes in a row is so infinitely small that none have been lucky enough to match it. The previous record of landing three in a row was created by some forgotten sorcerer in the Edo era. However, like you stated earlier, hitting a black flash is nothing too special. It is how you make use of it that makes you special."
Jiki kept quiet as he allowed the older man to continue speaking.
"Most people land the black flash in a moment of desperation. At a point where, if they didn't land it, the possibility of their deaths were near certain. It is a fact that makes it rarely utilized by the monstrously strong. The only anomaly to this is Satoru, which should come as no surprise. Satoru does not land black flashes because he needs to. He does it just for the fun of it." Nanami shook his head in exasperation before continuing.
"Satoru aside, this means that when regular people land one, while in the zone, their first instinct is to attack. To start or continue a barrage of attacks to force back or kill their opponent. This is where you differ, for you are not weak, Gojo Jiki. And while you might have been somewhat desperate in a two-on-one fight against enemies I would have most likely die in seconds against, your genius and ingenuity shone through. Using the zone to create your domain instead of attacking is unheard of. So congratulations, Jiki. Now you're truly a monster standing side by side with Satoru."
Jiki took the praise for what it was. It might not have seemed like one, especially with the straight face the older man kept up, but Jiki could tell it truly was one. Jiki allowed his eyes to drift from the field to the older man and watched him observe his own hands, which reminded Jiki of the fact that Nanami was without a domain. A not uncommon fact, yet after hearing about how Jiki had managed to create his, it must have left the man feeling conflicted in some way. That thought must have gnawed at him multiple times.
'What if I had attempted forming a domain with the boost gotten from a black flash instead?'
However, Nanami was a resilient man, and Jiki could physically see him shake off the thought with a shrug as he spoke once more. "Satoru informed me that you're trying to land one once more, even knowing you're not one favored by the sparks of black. With your strength, you do not need it as desperately as it seems you search for it, so the question is, why?"
Jiki allowed his gaze to fall back on the field before he answered. "My domain is unrefined. Anytime I try to refine it further, it calls forth images... that are hard to stomach. Actively hampering my effort to refine it. I would probably still be able to complete its refinement in a couple of months. Nonetheless, that timeline is too slow. We have Kenjaku lurking about with Itadori captured and possibly being turned into Sukuna's vessel any moment now. Landing another black flash would allow me to refine it infinitely faster."
The older man was quiet for a few seconds, then he adjusted his glasses and began to walk forward, his stride eating up the pace till he was in the middle of the field, leaving Jiki behind. It was only when he got to the center that he turned around to face Jiki. The wind ruffled the older man's hair as he pulled on his tie, slipping it from his neck and wrapping it around his fist.
"I generally dislike this part of the job. Overtime. It's past six. I should be at home now, sipping tea after a hot bath and watching my favorite show. However, I'm a teacher, and my job is to teach." He punctuated his sentence by tugging on his tie with finality, ensuring it was tightly bound around his hand. Only then did he continue. Jiki's eyes widened as curse energy suddenly erupted around the blond-haired man in waves, as his curse energy rose explosively to over 120%.
"It is a good thing we fight in similar manners," Nanami continued, heedless of Jiki's surprise. "We're both very technical and precision-based fighters. The only difference is my overwhelming innate durability, so hopefully that will allow this fight to last long enough. And finally, this is my binding vow. It is called Overtime. At any given point in time, I fight with only 80 to 90 percent of my cursed energy. This means that anytime I work overtime, past the stipulated agreed time in my contract, I am given a boost that places my curse energy at over 120 percent, one that lasts for as long as the fight. Do you know why I'm telling you this?"
Jiki gave it a split second of thought before replying. "You're fulfilling another binding vow, the Joho no Kaiji. You're revealing your hand."
Nanami nodded, his face still stoic and his eyes hidden behind his shades as the fading sun reflected off the glasses. He reached for the blunted short blade he carried strapped to his back as he replied.
"Correct. I will be fighting you with everything I have today, Gojo Jiki, with the full intention to kill you. Believe me when I say that. If I see a chance to kill you in this fight, I would take it regardless of the resulting outcome. Do you understand?"
Jiki simply nodded as he stepped into the ring with a twitch on his lips. He believed him, and that was enough to send fire down his spine as he came within arm's reach of the blonde-haired man.
"Good. Now it might be improbable, but not impossible. There is an infinitely small chance I can help you achieve that state once more. An artificially fueled black flash. So brace yourself, Gojo Jiki."
Jiki braced as he shrugged off his kimono, allowing it to settle on his hips, and a soft smile spread across his features as he began to calculate what he could use. Amaterasu and its variations were out alongside ninjutsu, which left only taijutsu and whatever quick genjutsu he could utilize in a fight.
"I'm ready."
Nanami struck an instant later.