A/N: Welcome to my latest story: Potential Man. Here we go with this one. Next three chapters are up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) already if you want to see them early. Since I just started a new story, there's a cheeky discount on said patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) page for anyone interested.
This had to be some sort of world record. Fastest sorcerer to get themselves killed by their own cursed technique. That is—if you didn't count Megumi's time in this body, which I sure as hell was not going to. Fuck. I banked to the left sharply and avoided the deer at the last minute. The good news was that it was not an especially fast creature. If I was trying this with something like Piercing Ox, then it wasn't going to go well by any means. I should have been able to run circles around this creature, but the problem was that it disrupted any attempt to use cursed energy to enhance my physical attributes.
Any attempt I made to control my cursed energy failed, the power source slipping through my fingers like water through a basket. Any attempt to gather it, to control its flow, to do anything. It failed. So I was left with only my physical stats with no cursed energy enhancement. That meant I could outrun it but not run circles around it. And there was no chance in hell I was going to manage to do any damage to it. Maybe if I had Itadori's physical attributes. Maybe then I would be able to do something, but not as I was now.
Shut up, I commanded myself. That's giving up. We aren't quitting. We gave so fucking much for this chance. We fucking killed Megumi for this. If we came here to lose to a fucking deer, then we might as well never have even fucking tried in the first place. This thing wasn't unbeatable. Sukuna found some way to tame it, and he's neither Yuuji nor Maki. He used his cursed energy, damn it.
That meant there was some way to do it. I twisted around its latest charge and ran straight down the field as fast as I could. I could hear its lumbering steps as it was left behind by my sudden burst of speed. This was not sustainable, of course. Not by any means, but I just needed distance to think. When I reached the end of the field, I turned to look at the creature. Three hundred meters that were closing rapidly. That was all the distance I had been able to create. That was fine.
Trying to manipulate the shadows would be pointless. The creature would unravel the cursed energy once it got that close. But summoning shikigami? That was fair game. I snarled and formed the shape of a dog with my fingers. I felt my cursed energy slip through my fingers again. Fuck. Two hundred meters.
I tried it again. Tried gathering the cursed energy. Nothing. Fuck. The second I had a certain amount gathered, it just slipped through. Like trying to store water in a basket.
Wait. Maybe that was the trick. Fuck control. I had cursed energy right now. If I tried to control it to achieve something, Round Deer's positive energy would cause it to collapse. So what if I didn't try to control it?
I brought my fingers together. "Domain Expansion," I intoned. The shadows at my feet thickened as I poured all my cursed energy into it. Fuck control. Just do this one thing. The shadows thickened and spread for a second, and then I felt it all shatter. I dropped to my knees as I felt the feedback from the attempt hit me right in the head.
The deer was so close now. Fuck. I stared at it as it came. I needed to do something. But what the fuck could I even do? Just look at me here? Mocking Megumi for never becoming what everyone said he could be? Was I any better? No one had even had any expectations of me when I'd been alive. Potential? I never had any of that.
I was just a failure. The worst kind of failure. Megumi was a surprising failure. Everything was set up so he could succeed… be more than he was. I was the exact opposite. The expected failure. My parents had seen it when they'd abandoned me. The orphanage had seen it when it gave me the name it had. Every prospective parent who had turned me down had seen it. The whole world had seen it. The whole world but me. I was a failure. The worst kind, because I genuinely believed I could be more. That I could ever be more than what I was. And I couldn't. I'd never be able to. That was just the truth of the matter.
Failure. I hated that word. I hated myself. Hated myself more than anything else. The deer was still coming. I punched the ground as I felt my snarl build. Fuck me. Fuck me. Fucking fuck me. Failure. That was all I was. All I would ever be. What had I been thinking? I should have just ridden in the back of Megumi's head like a good little bitch. I would have kept him company while Sukuna tore his friends apart.
I stopped hearing the sound of pounding hooves. The deer had stopped. I looked up at it. It was just there, standing still. I felt a strange strain in my body. My cursed energy. Fuck. There was so much of it. Between the deer and me stretched a single shadow. Shadow possession. One of the first techniques I'd theorized using my own cursed technique for.
I formed the shape of an elephant with my fingers. I did not call for the elephant. I did not summon it. I demanded its presence, and the world complied. Max Elephant trumpeted its presence to the heavens. And then, with a single blow, it sent enough water to drench the deer and send it skidding along the ground. I formed the shape of a bird next. Nue. She screeched her own existence, and from her wings came enough electricity to kill a man. It coursed through the deer, paralyzing it, but it still breathed. There was only one way of finishing it.
I formed the shape of the dog. White and black came together, and a dog the size of a wolf grew from my shadow. It was a savage, unkempt thing. Where Megumi's dogs had been cute in a way, well-groomed and whatnot, this one had shaggy fur and claws that stretched far and wicked. I did not need to order it. My shikigami were extensions of my will. It jumped for the paralyzed deer and went straight for the throat. It had to dig through pounds of muscle with teeth and claw, but it took only a few seconds for my dog to rip out its throat.
I felt the technique change as I acquired another one of the Ten Shadows for myself.
I formed the shape of a deer with my hands, and from my shadow came Round Deer. She grew from the shadows behind me and remained right there. I felt the small nicks and wounds I'd incurred while running around, as well as the internal exhaustion in my muscles, disappear. I was basically good as new. And I still had my shikigami summoned. There would be no better time than now to claim Piercing Ox as well. Him, I had a plan for.
His trick was that he could charge endlessly in a straight line, and the longer he charged for, the stronger the attack in the end. If I used my shadow possession to hold it still the second I summoned it and began the ritual, I could pile on attack after attack from Max Elephant, Nue, and Divine Dog. With these three together, I could do enough damage to put it down.
And then there was Round Deer to keep me fresh throughout the process. It was a good setup, all things considered. And it wasn't like I had anything to do right now. Doing this would also ensure that the only shikigami I had left to tame were Tiger Funeral and Mahoraga. Megumi hadn't been able to learn much about Tiger Funeral because the Gojo clan records Satoru had been able to give him hadn't included much about the shikigami other than its name and a vague description of its appearance.
The Zenin clan would have better records, so I'd probably just wait till Maki killed them all before going to rifle through the libraries or records for what I needed.
I formed the symbol of an Ox's head with my fingers and then the incantation— "With the sacred treasure of the Ten Shadows, I summon and challenge Piercing Ox."
Just like with Round Deer, the Ox seemed to rip itself out from my shadow some distance away. It wasted no time in beginning to charge, but before it could move more than four steps or so, I caught it with my shadow. My fingers had come together into a copy of the seal Gojo used to activate his domain and it just felt right. Speaking of things I could feel, I could feel the Ox as it strained against my binding. Unlike Round Deer, keeping him still wasn't simply a matter of wanting it. It was like holding on to a red-hot iron by the part that had just been taken out of the fire.
It was like a tug-of-war. That was the best way to describe it. I was holding the Ox back, preventing it from moving, while it was doing its best to drag itself, and thus me, in the opposite direction. It was both mental and physical at the same time—the strain between us.
I near flinched and let go at the resistance, but I was stronger than that—if barely. "Now," I snarled, and my shikigami went on the offensive.
Max Elephant led the barrage, a deluge of water knocking the ox backwards and forcing me to stretch my shadow even further to keep it still. Nue dove down from above, delivering thousands of volts of electricity, while Divine Dog Totality moved from side to side, attacking at its flanks and neck with claws and teeth.
All the while, I kept it still with my shadow buried in his. Piercing Ox was a very durable shikigami, taking several attack barrages before finally succumbing and falling to the ground dead. I let out a sigh of relief as I fell to my knees. I could feel my internal understanding of the Ten Shadows expand as Piercing Ox added itself to my roster of shadows. 8/10 now.
I felt my body aches and pains disappear as Round Deer pushed its head against my back. I remained there on my knees, though. Round Deer had done nothing for my cursed energy, which felt more than slightly depleted. It was like I was fully spent of the internal energy source.
"There you are," I heard the voice come from the distance. I looked over at her. Zenin Maki, my brain told me. Hadn't she been unconscious just a few minutes ago?
"How are you up and walking already?" I asked her.
"Doesn't matter. Come with me, I've been looking for you," she said.
"Looking for me? Should you even be moving around?" I asked, pointing at the bandages on her body.
"Old man Naobito was hurt same as I was, and do you know what that means?" she asked.
"It means that you should probably still be with Shoko-san getting your wounds checked out," I said as she had finally managed to close the distance between us. How interesting she was. The cursed energy I could sense from Shoko, or even from my shikigami, was nowhere to be found in her. She was like a blind spot. A wound in reality. She grabbed a hold of my hand, and my first thought was… strong.
She pulled me after her, and there was little chance for me to resist her force. I came along, and as I moved, my shikigami followed my intention and melded back into my shadow. I noted that my cursed energy felt slightly buoyed by this. Did the shikigami return some of the cursed energy used in their summoning when they were recalled? Interesting. Would that have been the case if they were killed or destroyed instead?
Well, killed would turn them into totalities, yeah? I had one totality so far, the Divine Dog. And I could imbue it into any of my other shadows when summoning them.
"Ouch," I said as I felt enough force applied on my wrist to make the bone creak. "What the hell, Maki?"
"Good, you're out of your head now."
"Shito is here, and he explicitly asked to see you. He's been to the medical bay and will be waiting for us in the conference room for Class 1."
"Uhhhh… who's that?" I said. She sighed, turning and looking at me with a scowl of annoyance on her face. At least I guessed it was annoyance.
"Did that idiot Gojo even teach you anything? Shito is the lawyer the three great families use. If old man Naobito left a will, then it would have been with him. And if he's here looking for you, then it means he left something to you," she said.
"So? What do I care for what some old Zenin did?"
"He was the Clan Head, dum-dum. Think with that head of yours. He could have left you useful cursed tools, or better yet, the headship of the Zenin clan itself."
"You're the only Zenin I've spoken more than five words to. Gojo-sensei told the clan to fuck off, remember?" I asked, even if I knew exactly what would happen next. No need to play out as more informed than I should have been. Not until I was strong enough that any questions sent my way wouldn't matter.
"Won't matter. You have the Ten Shadows. You didn't grow up in the clan. You don't know the sheer reverence the clan speaks of the technique with. If Gojo had given you over to the clan when you first manifested the technique, you would have been raised to be the Clan Head no matter what. Bloodlines, family, those things don't matter to sorcery clans. Only cursed techniques matter, and you won the genetic lottery for that one," she said. I remained silent, not wanting to mention or discuss the bitterness with which she spoke. It did make sense, I guess. She had grown up in the Zenin clan without a cursed technique at all and suffered for it. I had been born with the technique the Zenin valued above all, and I was just spurning the clan.
Looking at her now, there was one thing I was near certain about. Maki didn't hate the Zenin clan. Not truly. Not even after everything it had done. That would, of course, stop being the case when they killed her sister, but I wondered if I had to do that. I knew what was coming. Did I have to let Mai die for canon to remain? Mai's life meant we would never get full potential Maki, though. But then again, full potential Maki hadn't done all that much to change the fate of the series. The Zenin clan, Naoya, Sukuna. Those were the only fights I could remember her having any impact in. The first two didn't matter, and the last… well, if Sukuna took this body, then it would only be from my cold dead hands.
"Even if I decide to accept it, whatever the old man left me, tell me Maki—will the Zenin clan step aside and let me claim anything of value? Not to talk of the Headship of the very clan itself?" I posed the question to her.
She looked over. "You have the Ten Shadows, you have your domain, you are Gojo's student. Those things matter. Then there's your friendship with Noritoshi Kamo. The clan can't just overlook you like that," she said.
"You didn't answer my question."
"They will do their duty. The Zenin clan prides itself on accepting tradition and duty. The tradition is that the Head of the Clan decides the Heir. There was no Heir at the time Naobito croaked—no official one at least. So that means whoever he designates is the Heir. If that's you, then there's nothing the clan can do about it," she said. I just silently scoffed and followed her. Maybe if I didn't know what would happen in canon, then I would have believed her. Tradition only mattered to the Zenin when it gave them an excuse to claim power over others.
We finally reached the conference room and Maki pushed the door open. I followed in her wake. The man jolted to attention as soon as I walked in. He was a short man with grey hair and a grey beard. He looked smarmy. That was the best word I could come up with to describe him.
"Oh, good. Here you are. As you are mentioned in the Last Will and Testament of Naobito Zenin, you have a right to hear it. He decreed that upon his death, the headship of the clan, the clan's accounts, holdings, cursed tools, and knowledge be entrusted in Naoya Zenin," he said first. Maki scoffed a near silent "Fuck" to my side.
"However, if at the time of his death, Gojo Satoru was to be either dead or otherwise mentally incapacitated, then the agreement with Toji Zenin would come into fruition, and headship of the clan along with everything else will be vested in Megumi Fushiguro, who shall take up the name Megumi Zenin," he said.
I looked over at Maki to see her smiling brightly.
"So I'm the Head of the Zenin clan? Just like that?" I asked the man.
"Yes, in name. However, you must take measures to exert your dominance over the clan. I advise you to introduce yourself to the clan and take up the position sooner rather than later to discourage any foolishness," he said. I nodded, a plan coming into mind.
A/N: Remember when Megumi first uses his domain? In the fight with the Finger Bearer? Think of this awakening as similar to that one. Cursed energy is powered by negative emotions, and when you overflow with emotions you can do some pretty extraordinary things. Yes, I am taking a few creative liberties with the timeline of things. Think of it like the new soul fighting Megumi for control caused Megumi to wake up later than in canon so the changes stem from that. Next three chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.