A/N:
Hey guys, sorry for the lack of updates over the past couple of days. I wasn't really happy with how that last chapter played out, so I spent a bit going back to the root of the characters and the plot of the story, and realized I was stressing a bit too much.
Anyways, I have decided on one of the love interest-if I even do more than one, which, if I did it would be with another incarnated sorcerer, since they have different norms, and that would be the only way that works-that love interest is Takako Uro If you want to know why my reasoning will be at the end of the chapter with a mini-rant.
With that being said, thank you for your patience. Enjoy the chapter.
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Yuji ran straight at Kenjaku, yelling, "GIVE GOJO-SENSEI BACK!" Kenjaku merely smiled at the boy, his shadow extending under Yuji. The boy slammed onto his back for seemingly no reason.
"You like it?" He asked condescendingly, "You thought you were falling into that cursed mout,h right?" The boy got to his feet in a near instant. Charging back in and once again screaming.
I saw Kenjaku smirk once more, and his shadow started to bulge, and I aerostepped, tackling Yuji to the ground as a swarm of centipedes engulfed where Yuji just was.
I slid with Yuji in my arms and yelled at Todo, "TODO YOU HAVE TO RUN, I CAN'T FIGHT KNOWING MY BROTHER IS SO VULNERABLE AT THE MOMENT!"
He looked enraged, opening his mouth to talk, but I opened my mouth and continued before he had a chance, "AS YOU ARE RIGHT NOW YOU WILL ONLY HOLD ME AND YUJI BACK, GO RUN AND GET HELP THIS ISN'T A NORMAL SORCERER THIS IS SUGURU GETO A SPECIAL GRADE SORCERER." His eyes widened and his teeth grit.
He was clearly unconvinced, so I continued this time with a softer tone, "Without your hand, you can't activate your cursed technique, right?" He nodded hesitantly while staring at Kenjaku.
"On top of that, you're losing blood and fast, trust me, brother, I'll take care of Yuji." I said, sneaking a glance at the sky and seeing a young blonde girl on a broom with a lantern on the end.
The lantern flashed twice, and a volley of arrows descended on Kenjaku, who backstepped, avoiding them entirely.
"Did you really think that I couldn't sense those two?" He asked me, tilting his head and smiling. His smile twisted, and he asked, "Don't you know me better than that?"
I paused, because what the hell was this guy yapping about? "…No?" I hate how it sounded more like a question, but I was genuinely confused. He never said this in canon. In fact, right now he should be monologuing about Uzumaki and how he could use Idle transfiguration as a result.
A flash of blue hair told me that Miwa was here finally—and we were sooo saved now—She activated a simple domain and swung her sword at Kenjaku, channeling every swing of her sword, past and future into this one swing.
He caught it with no difficulty in his left hand. His right hand started to activate Uzumaki and I aerostepped towards him, my body humming slightly. I could not let him use Uzumaki with Mahito—the curse's deformed head appearing in the air.
It was my turn for my charge to be interrupted by a shoulder check from a white-haired sorcerer. My flight path was thrown wildly off course, and I rolled on the ground for a couple of meters before righting myself.
The white-haired sorcerer—Uraume, my mind supplied me—was crouched, frost pooling in their hand. I aerostepped from my spot as fast as I could, just in time to see the area I just been in flash frozen.
I looked to where Miwa was and saw Kusakabe standing in the path between Kenjaku and Miwa, pushed back a couple of meters by the force of Uzumaki. Behind him was also a huge, monstrous Panda and Utahime.
I gave Uraume my full attention again, and she? He? Scowled at me only for her eyes to widen and her to jump from her current crouched position, a flash stream of red taking her immediate place.
I swerved my head back to Yuji to see a pale-faced man with black pigtails shaking with anger while glaring at Kenjaku. Todo was also ignoring my asking for him to run, standing behind Yuji, using his belt as a makeshift tourniquet to stop the bleeding from his hand.
The curse in front of Yuji—Choso—opened his mouth while staring at Kenjaku, "You…You…How dare you—HOW DARE YOU MAKE ME FIGHT MY LITTLE BROTHER ITADORI YUJI!" His shaking voice finished in a furious yell beyond belief.
"ANSWER ME, NOROTOSHI KAMO!" He yelled again at Kenjaku's faint smirk. Uraume rejoined his side while shooting me a death glare. I winked back.
Her face flushed in rage, baring her teeth at me. And I smirked, hearing Choso clap his hands together and blood erupting at Kenjaku, Uramume nudged him out of the way and caught the piercing blood in her hands.
Choso stopped his attack and sent another piercing blood, this time at the ground around Kenjaku and Uraume. He used the blood to send the ground they were standing on into the air.
I aerosteped at it using the ground as cover and punched it, activating my technique and obliterating the ground they were standing on. Choso sent another wave of blood at them, acting as thousands of bullets.
I aerostepped to the side to dodge the volley of blood bullets. Kenjaku summoned a flying manta ray curse and flew away, weaving through the many bullets. I noticed Uraume completely off guard and falling, and aerostepped again at her full speed.
I slammed my fist into her stomach and space fractured, the shockwaves traveling through her body and punting her into the ground a plume of dust and debris exploding around her and obscuring her from view.
The dust cleared in an instant as she waved her hand, bleeding from the corner of her lips. "If I didn't reinforce my instincts on instinct, that would have been quite tricky to heal." The hole in her hand that Choso made healed, and she wiped the blood from her mouth.
Only for her to cough up a mouthful of it a second later. My smirk turned into a shark-like grin, Choso's blood was poison, and you had to have incredibly good RCT to cleanse poison.
I threw my hands up and behind my head, creating a spatial fracture in the palms of my hands and shooting at the ground 15 meters in front of Uraume. I activated ground break on landing to kill my momentum, but this time I diverted the shockwave to the right in front of me and channeled more cursed energy into it.
The result was the ground in front of me and under Uraume rippled like water, 5 meters high, Uraume riding the wave uneasily. The ground abruptly slammed level, and was still for a moment.
Before the ground before me exploded upwards into torso-sized boulders shot at bullet-esque speeds.
Uraume was similarly shot into the air, hit by more than a few of the rocks. She rushed to make a platform of ice under her feet, but I had already aerostepped right at her.
Her left hand stayed down, frost forming and shooting under her feet. Her right hand aimed squarely at my face, and had I slowed down to hit her–or if that was ever my intention–I would have been squarely impaled by the ice she formed.
Instead, I used ground break and landed on a rock behind her, transferring my momentum into the rock and destroying it. Using that and another aerostep, I rushed straight at her back.
She turned on a dime, left hand flying up to make a hasty barrier of ice. I punched it and space ruptured, the shockwave knocking her head back and her off balance, even despite her blocking.
Her right hand was already moving to point at me. I aerostepped sideways, pulverized the ground at my feet, and used it to orbit around Uraume at max speed. I used the momentum to carry me up and into a devastating spin kick to the side of her head.
Her eyes tracked my movement, but her body, weakened by the poison, was a step too slow to react.
Kicking her head felt like kicking a pillar of tungsten and cement; her reinforcement still outclassed mine. I activated my technique, and she was sent careening back towards where Kenjaku was now standing after knocking Choso back at Yuji.
She stumbled to her feet, holding her head with her shaky right hand. Her nearly unfocused gaze landed on Choso, Yuji, Panda, Kusakabe, and the Kyoto team and threw her hand lazily in their direction.
I was already in motion to intercept, but they were already flash frozen into a spiked iceberg, Yuji being the only one not nearly as frozen.
Kenjaku turned his head and opened his mouth to talk before summoning a curse from his shadow to catch the sniper bullet, no doubt shot by Mai.
I considered trying to break the frost with my cursed energy, but thought it better not to, considering that if I did that, I might shatter the bodies of those present in the ice.
Instead, I focused my attention on the slowly approaching Uraume. She looked more than a bit dazed, her hand still on her head, but she was righting herself more with each step.
"That technique of yours," She started mist at her feet, and my eyes widened, before I back-handed the air in front of me, cracking it. Ice shot from her foot in spike forms, only to be met with the shockwave of my technique, imploding them backwards.
The showave tosseled her hair, and she continued, "It makes shockwaves and vibrations from those cracks you make, right?" She resumed her approach, breaking into a high-speed sprint right at me.
I aerostepped at her and slid under the spear of ice she formed to meet my charge. But this was the same person who was trained by Sukuna; there was no way she would fall for the same trick twice.
So I cracked space with my right hand, sending me backwards while spinning like a top. I extended my legs and swept her, right as she turned ice already impaling where I would be had I maintained my slide.
Her torso fell, and I rotated, cracking space with my hand–something I would now call quake–and spun parallel to the ground in place. I used the momentum to throw a devastating haymaker into her chest, pouring every ounce of my being into the punch.
BLACK FLASH
Black sparks erupted, and she was sent catapulting into the sky once more. I used quake and aerostep in conjunction to meet her rise in the sky, a blur of motion. I slammed a double-fisted hammer blow to her head. Trying and failing for a black flash.
She was sent careening into the ground beside Kenjaku once more. The ground exploded where she impacted, and she struggled even more to get to her feet. She stumbled looking for her footing once she got there.
Yuji had broken free from the small amount of ice holding him and was now beside me. "What's the plan?" he asked me, and as I turned my head to ask him the same question, another wave of ice was thrown at us.
I was a touch too slow this time, Yuji having taken my focus for all of half a second, but that was an eternity in combat. Luckily, there was a flash of blonde hair, and the incoming ice became sparkling specs in the sky.
In front of us stood a beautiful blonde-haired woman, wearing a black and gold accentuated qui-po with form-fitting jeans. She was tall, and the bands on the side of her head leveled at eyebrow level, highlighting her bright pink eyes.
Said eyes were locked on me for a moment before she turned her head and started talking to Kenjaku, "So, Geto, are you finally going to answer that question I asked you all those years ago?" She asked, bending forwards slightly and blowing him a kiss, "What kind of woman is your type?"
Kenjaku smiled, "Tsumiko Yuki," he said eagerly.
Yuki smiled and asked, "Do you remember the ways to get rid of cursed spirits?" She paused for a moment before continuing, "Regardless of the method, it represents the next step in evolution for humanity; the next step will be getting rid of cursed energy entirely."
"You're wrong," Kenjaku replied flatly and without pause, "You'll optimise cursed energy." He said with finality and absolute certainty.
She turned to Yuji, who waved his hand in front of his face–signaling his ignorance–she turned to me and gestured for me to give my opinion. I could stop this spirited debate and charge in, with Yuki and Yuji, we might have a chance.
Is what I would say if Kenjaku couldn't open his domain and kill everyone here whose name doesn't rhyme with smoji pitadori.
With that in mind, I took the moment to rest and recoup some cursed energy, while giving my honest thoughts. "Don't look at me, I agree with him." And so did Darwin, after all, cursed energy was a huge evolutionary advantage, and heavenly restrictions were incredibly rare and maybe tied to one genetic line.
It was infinitely more probable that everyone eventually became a sorcerer and learns to use cursed energy than everyone losing it.
Kenjaku grinned wickedly, "Exactly, and besides, I thought you gave up on that path 12 years ago."
Yuki sighed disappointedly, in me or at the failure of her plan, I had no clue. "I did I went back overseas to try and complete my original goal," she shook her head again before continuing, "there's a problem with your optimisation plan. Sorcerers are rarely born outside of Japan, so tengens barriers should be integral to your optimisation plans. But how will the outside world respond?" She asked rhetorically.
She answered her own question before either one of us could, "They–one freedom-loving one in particular–would see it as an existential threat to themselves." She took a breath, "They would attack and invade Japan–there would be nonstop war–such a world is not conducive to my ideals," she finished her rant.
Kenjaku laughed, laughed at her declaration, "And what makes you think I care about your ideals?" He smiled, and Yuki's eyes narrowed. He opened his mouth to talk again, but was interrupted by Uraume vomiting up more blood and the ice around us collapsing.
"What's wrong he asked." He asked, annoyed. Uraume coughed, "Poison, and that boy with the shaking cursed energy, it's messing with my insides." She gritted out, and Kenjaku sighed.
"It seems our time here comes to a close," He looked up and smiled, "Idle transfiguration." He intoned, slamming a hand on the ground, and a pink symbol appeared on the ground.
I was already in motion using Quake and Aerostep to sling myself at my maximum speed, only to meet a hastily formed–but weak–ice wall. I slammed through it and was greeted by the massive fist of a Curse from Kenjaku's shadow.
I was sent rolling back, skidding between Yuji and Yuki once more. Choso stepped up now, having warmed his body with flowing red scale. I got to my feet as Yuki asked what happened to Mahito.
Even with the risk of a domain insta-kill, I had to try and stop him from starting the culling games, because…
'Huh, why do I want to stop this?' I thought, I mean, those people in the hospital with the cursed objects inside them: they were dead. Full stop, there was nothing anyone could do for them now,
"He absorbed him," I answered, panting slightly. Yuki clicked her tongue and muttered something about remote technique activation.
"I should be thanking you, Itadori Yuji. After all, a curse's proficiency stops growing once absorbed by my technique." Kenjaku said beining to monologue once more. "And you too," He said, looking at me.
'What?' I thought, how the hell did I help him?
"You showed me an even better way to do this; you're the first of your kind, an incarnated sorcerer who completely erased the host soul." My blood ran cold. There was no way I was an incarnated sorcerer, because I have memories, and they are not from this world or anytime period before this.
So that meant one thing: this fucker was lying through his goddamned teeth.
One look at the vile smirk on his face was all the confirmation for my theory that I needed. I bared my teeth; this fucker had just as little clue where I came from as I did, but was purposefully lying to make it seem like I was on his side.
"You see, like thousands of other sorcerers from the past, he made a deal with me to be incarnated into the new era through being stored in a cursed object. But in his incarnation, he took it a step farther erasing his host soul and removing their weakness to soul-based attacks. Bravo, I must say." His smile was devilish, and I'm sure it mirrored the grin he had when he sealed Gojo.
'Son of a–', a cursory glance at Yuki, Yuji, and Choso told me that they were all giving me sideways glances. Yuki's feet shifted slightly, getting ready to pounce on me, I was sure.
Choso's rage was the least concealed, his face snarling lightly. Yuji looked confused and slightly hurt, but refocused on Kenjaku and the prison realm. Kenjaku continued his rant, "That's not all, there were those who also had a technique, but their brain wasn't structured for Jujutsu." He pulled a knot of sealing ribbon out of his robe.
"So I restructured their brain to be able to perform Jujtusu and for those who had absorbed the cursed objects, I made them into suitable vessels–but thanks to my silver-haired compatriot, they are now also the only soul present in the body." He finished while reiterating my seemingly willing participation in his plans.
He pulled the knot undone. I would have rushed to stop him again, but I think if I moved too fast, Yuki might turn me into paste. "There, I just undid the seal on those cursed objects. Now they will wake up, and the thousands of them will push each other–and Jujutsu–to new heights."
"Thousands?" Yuki said questioningly, more to herself than anyone else, before continuing, "You really think that people will start to kill each other simply because you give them power?" she asked genuinely.
He sighed disapointedly, "Your questions are getting shallow, do you really think me so stupid as to not consider such a basic step in my plans?" Yuki went rigid at his blunt rudeness. He continued regardless, "Naturally, I made contracts with curses over my thousand years as well, of course, those all became null and void when I got this body."
His shadow exploded outwards, tendrils of shadows foaming up into the forms of thousands, no, millions of curses. He held up the prison realm, "Can you feel it? The golden age of Jujutsu has returned."
Yeah ,that was all I needed to hear. I knew my chance when it came–and around people who issued execution orders like they were something on sale–I was not going to take my chance after Kenny over there just declared me a traitor to Jujutsu society at large.
What I get for trying to help, I guess.
I used Quake and Aerostep flying away at max speed, a look behind me told me that Yuki had jumped after me, and was right on my ass.
I Aerostepped again, blasting her back before she could grab my ankle, and sending me flying even further into the air. I looked back again in time to see her pike-like curse roll into a ball that she kicked at me.
I too was a fan of soccer, so I flipped and axe kicked the thing into the ground, aerostepping again, flying as far away from Shibuya as I could.
To hell with Sukuna and me having to fight with Yuji all night, I was not staying to fight every capable sorcerer on the scene while dealing with a mountain of curses.
And as I flew into the night, an odd thought crossed my mind. Despite everything, tonight had been… fun. Everything in my past life told me that the thought was insane, but there was no point in lying to myself or holding onto the ways of my past life.
This was the most dangerous time in sorcery history, save for the Heian era; there was no time for second thoughts. So I looked to the night sky, filled with stars as I flew above the majority of the light pollution, and grinned.
Excited for what and who I might fight tomorrow.
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A/N:
Aaaaaaand done, wow, I'm honestly way happier with how that chapter played out. I tried to be faithful to Uraume and Yuki to the best I could and thought I did pretty well. Maybe Uraume didn't glaze Sukuna enough, though, so idk.
Okay, now for why I had Shinji be separated from Jujutsu society. The main reason is that I want him to make his own path, and when they found out that he was just like the other culling games players, they would have hunted him all the same. If you don't think that's the case, please commentment why, and we can have a good-spirited debate over it.
Now onto Uro and the other possible, who is female Kashimo, the reason I chose those two is that they thematically represent conflicts Shinji must have with himself and overcoming them. Plus, I really like their character designs, and Kashimo was a femboy from the start, so it's not even my fault, really. Plus, Gege isn't exactly the best at writing women who aren't a copy of Toji.
If you want to know more about what those conflicts are, stay tuned, but that's all for now. I apologize again for the break in uploads. I was also working on another fic, which I won't be posting for now, but is the force in JJK love interest being a female Gojo.
Anyways, have a great night, I hope you enjoyed.