Another year passed, quiet and unremarkable.
Tomogui and I watched as the other children began to control their cursed energy, not only that but most of them already began manifesting their cursed techniques. The kids who manifested their cursed techniques were evaluated, not all the kamo clan members inherited blood manipulation, although it was the most common technique in the clan.
None of this had to do with us though. Although we had gained the ability to perceive and manipulate cursed energy, we had not manifested a cursed technique. We had nothing.
No random memories explaining my cursed technique, no sudden enlightenment on how to use my cursed technique, no matter how long I sat still and listened inward. Everything remained static, other children manifesting a cursed technique and leaving while we remained in this residency.
I heard rumors from servants when they thought we weren't listening. Children who awakened were sent to the clan training hall, trained in the fundamentals of jujutsu, combat, and taught techniques only available in the Kamo clan. I wasn't invited. Neither was Tomogui.
It wasn't an insult. It was worse.
It was indifference, they looked down on me.
I thought about my old life—the dull, grey hum of existence, the years spent waiting for something to matter. And now, even here, in a world where people could bend reality with will alone, I was still stuck watching from the outside.
Maybe this was my fate. A life spent adjacent to meaning. Close enough to understand it, too far to touch it. Boredom stretched before me like an endless corridor with no doors.
At night, I lay in my futon and practiced basic cursed energy reinforcement.
The books said cursed energy flowed naturally through the body, like heat bleeding from a flame. Reinforcement wasn't about force—it was about saturation. Letting energy seep into muscle, bone, skin.
I have come to learn that Reinforcement is a lot more complicated than gojo made it seem in the anime. Maybe it's because sukuna was engraving the muscle memory of jujutsu which caused yuji's quick growth with reinforcement.
However I don't have sukuna to help me engrave that jujutsu knowledge, meaning I have to keep practicing reinforcement, and learning how to put more cursed energy into my body.
Perhaps it's because of Tomogui and I sharing one soul, but the both of us share the same pool of cursed energy, and from what I can sense I have a lot more cursed energy then the people in our clan.
Still without a cursed technique, just having a lot of cursed energy, or being skilled in reinforcement will not be enough. I do not have yuji's overwhelming physical strength, so without a cursed technique, I will at maximum reach Kusakabe's level.
It felt horrible. The realization that nothing extraordinary would arrive on its own. That I might spend decades like this, fully aware of my limit.
Maybe this is all there is, I thought.
A slow, creeping life of nothing.
And yet, buried beneath the irritation, something waited. Hoping I would manifest a cursed technique, that I wouldn't be fated for some worthless life again.
Futago paced the room restlessly, unaware that his reflection in the cabinet glass lagged half a step behind him—then drifted sideways when he stopped.
He pressed his palm against the floor, channeling cursed energy the way the books described, not noticing the way the shadow beneath his hand stretched in the wrong direction.
Across the room, Tomogui watched him quietly.
"Still nothing?" Tomogui asked out loud.
I exhaled. "Nothing."
He nodded, as if that answer had been expected. "We'll get there eventually."
Maybe, I thought. Or maybe not.
I shoved a wooden block aside with my foot. It slid, then turned slightly on its own before settling. I didn't notice. Neither did Tomogui.
The mirror image of me reached down and pushed it the other way.
That night, exhaustion won. I fell asleep with cursed energy still circulating clumsily through my body, uneven and unfocused.
And somewhere between one breath and the next, something shifted.
Not loudly.
Not clearly.
When I woke up, all that anxiety and stress was completely gone… Because finally it happened, my cursed technique manifested.