DODGE THE WHEEL
- Thread starter BrunofanofK
- Start date
- Crossover
Aaaah, I was wondering if you were alright, guess it was work that kept you from showing up Bruno, but I really liked this!
Maaaaan, Kenjaku should've really read Greek Myth way better, he basically recreated Pandora's Box! Welp, hope they managed to buy enough time, because now the entirety of the Jujutsu Community will be on their ass. Kinda surprise they also became a Philospher , but oh well, they are an old hand at magic, learning how to magic better would be of no issue to them.
That and Megumi leveled up! Wonder if his Technique got upgraded after Ghost Immortal Sukuna graciously made a big donation to Megumi's Sorcery Fund, what kind Elders!
Though I wonder how Yuji, Satoru and Geto are faring.
Anyhow, nice work!
Maaaaan, Kenjaku should've really read Greek Myth way better, he basically recreated Pandora's Box! Welp, hope they managed to buy enough time, because now the entirety of the Jujutsu Community will be on their ass. Kinda surprise they also became a Philospher , but oh well, they are an old hand at magic, learning how to magic better would be of no issue to them.
That and Megumi leveled up! Wonder if his Technique got upgraded after Ghost Immortal Sukuna graciously made a big donation to Megumi's Sorcery Fund, what kind Elders!
Though I wonder how Yuji, Satoru and Geto are faring.
Anyhow, nice work!
Thank you for the chapter, Elder! It feels like I've read the holy scripture that xianxia cultivators usually ponder for years. Mysterious and incomprehensible. Do I understand correctly that the main character somehow improves his body and therefore soul in order to get closer to Prometheus? It reminded me of the self-destructive methods of body improvement, consisting of a cycle of damage and regeneration. Did I understand correctly that the main character uses the same principle, imitating the image of Prometheus hidden in his spark, discarding everything unnecessary when restoring his body, which is simultaneously an expression of the soul and therefore improves his soul?
I feel that if I knew better the myths and the original work from which you took Greek cultivation, then I probably wouldn't have so many questions.
What really deserves criticism is that you overestimate the readers' knowledge. Often I have to use the search, because you miss important details, assuming that they do not need explanations, sometimes I do not even know what to look for. This also applies to worlds. I had to Google to find out more about the characters and the world, since the text was obviously written for those who know enough about them. I don't do that. Usually this is not so important, since fan fiction is almost always read by fans of the original, but not in your case. Considering moving through different fictional worlds during the course of the story, not all readers will be familiar with the world you are writing about by default. It would be better if you assumed by default that the reader is not familiar with this world and gave the necessary explanations.
I feel that if I knew better the myths and the original work from which you took Greek cultivation, then I probably wouldn't have so many questions.
What really deserves criticism is that you overestimate the readers' knowledge. Often I have to use the search, because you miss important details, assuming that they do not need explanations, sometimes I do not even know what to look for. This also applies to worlds. I had to Google to find out more about the characters and the world, since the text was obviously written for those who know enough about them. I don't do that. Usually this is not so important, since fan fiction is almost always read by fans of the original, but not in your case. Considering moving through different fictional worlds during the course of the story, not all readers will be familiar with the world you are writing about by default. It would be better if you assumed by default that the reader is not familiar with this world and gave the necessary explanations.
Hmm taking another look at the last chapter I have to wonder just what the effects of two hero's being born into the world will be? I mean it seems like Megumi's breakthrough had an effect across the whole world and no doubt Zagreus's will have just as much an effect. It's definitely interesting and I hope we get know just how the jjk world will change from this.
- Pronouns
- ImBuda
In virtuous sons that is something that happens when you Ascend through the heroic and tyrant realm, proclaiming your half-step to godhood and in the process leaving a Mark through Legends for the future generation to follow
- Location
- Brazil
Considering explaining this during the story itself might be a little difficult I will anticipate something.
Much like the Sophic Realm, reaching the Heroic Realm instantly grants all cultivators a 'package' of powers. these are: an unique excellence from where a hero creates their epithet, the affection of a single heavenly Muse that marks his heart and inspires them, heart flame that lit their spirit from within giving them the signature burning eyes, a 'heroic sense' which allow them to truly see and immune to the impositions of natural law.
Due to Rher's 'blessing' granting Zagreus his virtue he ended with a split foundation, part Greek part FaH cultivation. The fact he killed and feasted on the soul of a New God doesn't help either. To mitigate this Zagreus used the Book of Enlightenment to mend his split foundation together. That is why instead of a normal Muse, his Anima became a heavenly daemon akin to a New God, similar to Socrates' own.
Aside from that Zagreus is a pretty normal heroic cultivator though, he is just privileged with perspective. As I stated, all initiated of the Orphic Faith are baptized by the memory of Dyonisus' death at the hands of the Titans and the depredation of the Mother (Hera). Unlike the secondhand experience provided by a philosopher's rhetoric, it is like they were Dyonisus. That is why Zagreus took on his name. This granted him firsthand experience of the Silver, Bronze, and Heroic ages.
Zagreous foundational mystery is Dyonisus' [Wheel Turning]. Heroes are [defiant souls] who defy greater imposition. Due to the circumstances of his first Labor, escaping the Prison Realm, where even the Wheel itself is halted to standing still, Zagreus's Muse manifested with the power to defy the diminishment of the world caused by the Wheel (samsara) and gives Zagreus inspiration and guidance to manifest Silver Age wonders even in a World of Iron. This allowed Zagreus to refine his starlight marrow into a second-grade version of Prometheus' Ichor. This is his [unique excellence], Hope shines the brightest in adversity.
You have to keep in mind that a Titan is to an Olympian what an Olympian is to a Man. Prometheus is an existence of a Golden Age, while both are liquid refinement the difference between his Golden Ichor and Zagreus's starlight marrow are like the gap between gold and silver.
Oh this is going to be fascinating to see also makes me very curious about Megumi and how things will go for him especially since he has a split foundation as well.
JJK 9
- Location
- Brazil
"Hey, Megumi-chan! I'm so glad you finally came to spend some quality time with your big brother! I could cry! You finally came back to the Gojo clan where you belong." Gojo says while spinning melodramatically while fake blowing his nose in a napkin.
"Am I whose little brother now!?" Megumi answers in indignation.
"Ha!" Satoru cried while holding his hands to his chest as if hurt, "Your tenure among the savages of the Zenin clan had made you into a delinquent! Sorry, sensei. I have failed you!" To empathize, Gojo cries in his sleeve like an abused single mother.
"Oi. Are you picking a fight?"
"Has anyone ever said to you that you sound just like Zagreus when you are angry? The new hairstyle just drives the point home." Gojo answered with a toothy smile.
It grated Megumi how his self-appointed big brother knew just what to say to mollify him. After the juvenile detention incident, Megumi and Tsumiki woke up to realize part of their hair had turned the royal blue that Zagreus displayed. What he once mentioned as the marking bearing by new blood of a Higher Power. The side effect of his starlight marrow overdrive.
Tsumiki herself got a beautiful curtain of blue inside her normal jet black, creating the illusion the color changes depending on the angle. Megumi as always got the short end of the stick and ended up with the top of his head bright blue. Only Itadori liked it and he is suspect due to the fact they now matched.
He is so getting back at his old man once he is found!
"Hehe. It suits you indeed. Feeling the pressure after Yuji showed you up during the jujutsu chunin exam?"
"Don't call it that."
"I don't know. It's kind of fits. Plus, it was Zagreus who coined this term."
Of course he did.
"Beggars can't be choosers, plus things have become quite heated in the Zenin clan?"
"Anything I should know about?" Despite the light tone, it wasn't a suggestion.
Naoya pretty much tried to kill him, for once. "I had a disagreement with Naoya so Naobito-san thought it best to get me out of his hair until things simmered down." He owned the man to not tattle his dirt laundry to his official biggest rival. He already has his hands full managing that mad house. No wonder he drinks like Zagreus had in those memories when he was trying to drown himself in the bottom of his cup.
"Is that so?"
"Yes."
"Really, really?"
"Really, really."
"Pink promise?"
"What are you, a child?!"
"Well, okay then. Not like I would skip this opportunity. It is pretty rare for you to demand training. So, what do you want to start with?"
"Be my safety net while I tame Mahoraga," I said as seriously as I could.
"You serious?" There is no longer any humor in his voice and his glasses fell to his nose, revealing his piercing eyes.
"We are not doing this again. I know the risk but… I am not blind. Things are rather tense. Everywhere. I know protecting the youth is pretty much your virtue, but I have no intention of hiding behind your skirt."
"Don't misunderstand, Megumi. I am happy that you finally are taking jujutsu seriously but to be honest I didn't expect you to be ready for it until you were at the peak of Sophic realm. Zagreus talked to me about what to expect, your split foundation would cause your virtue to behave like two different muscles. You could even advance as a philosopher and as a jujutsu sorcerer at different rates."
"…it is not like this topic never cropped up under our roof either. Zagreus… father laid to me my options as he knew them. But that is why I know there is no hard rule preventing me from taming Mahoraga. The records of the Zenin clan conveyed extensive observations about every detail they had about it. I think I can do it?"
"You think? Do you want to gamble your life on basic feelings?
"I can do it. I need to. It is not like my enemies will wait for me to master cultivation… plus you can always blow it up with one attack so I can retry."
"And who is treating things like a video game again?"
"I know, but… when I was born the gods gave me a weapon. That is how Zagreus defined the ten shadows. I have to master it before anything else as if it was my own body. I even understand your pride as the one that pioneered the equivalent to the Sophic Realm for sorcerers, but Mahoraga is the only thing that will allow me to follow you on the incoming stage."
"And this has nothing to do with Tsumiki resolution to fight alongside you?"
"… it might be partially responsible, yes."
"Well, at least you are honest. I think I do owe you an explanation about the poor shit show the supposed leaders of jujutsu society have displayed lately. Come in."
"You aren't the only one that grew up, Satoru. I long have mastered means to use my cursed spirits to remote surveillance. The Vulcan head-cursed spirit, the plant-cursed spirit, and the patch face are all working with the responsible for Zagreus's disappearance. And while they don't coordinate directly with the higher-ups it is clear that among these curse users helping them, we will find the missing link from the Kamo family."
After the fiasco at the detention center, Gojo took Geto on a world tour collecting powerful special-grade spirits he found while searching for Zagreus. After his first fight with Jogo and summary rescue by the tree-cursed spirit inadvertently gave Geto means to plausible deniability. During Nanami's attack against the students, Geto released two of his foreign special grades against the Kamo clan.
This gambit paid off. They unearthed the forbidden fruits from the late Yaga's breaking through in corpse manipulation.
Zagreus had mentioned his concept only once, but there was so much venom in it Gojo knew to be wary. Human Hydra – a chimera born of the successful fusion (marriage?) of the bodies between compatible souls. It seemed like the current generation picked up the macabre bad habits of their most infamous ancestor, Noritoshi Kamo.
The 'successful' samples were things of nightmare, powerful enough to give pause to the average sorcerer with its multiple cursed techniques. Worst of all was the hint of left-over rhetoric so unlike Zagreus's own. There is zero chance of being him, thankfully, due to the fact whoever was behind this had privileged access to his research on the soul and its qualifications.
They were attempting to recreate Zagreus's unique soul pattern comprised of eleven specific souls. Zagreus would never do such a thing, this is something Gojo knows with authority. While his six eyes had noticed his unusual aura years ago Zagreus had always been close-lipped about this topic. The only answer he got was haunted by a cursed festival, not unlike a jar of poison ritual.
Chances are the one responsible for our grief is a blast from Zagreus's past or some immortal sorcerer. Either way, when you add to it the patch-face cursed spirit army of transfigured humans it becomes clear what he had to expect.
Whoever was behind this would spring their all-out assault here. This was a trap- no, a war. Naobito Zenin was summoned for this operation but he failed to appear and is not picking up the phone either… he is most likely dead. It seemed like Shibuya really would become a battlefield so he gathered his army.
This is a pincer attack, that is why he took the liberty to gather his own army. The grade-one sorcerers on his corner have received the heads up to the incoming trouble. Geto is the king piece of the board, it wouldn't surprise Gojo any if they tried to kill him to release all his curses on Shibuya, that is why he is getting VIP treatment.
Now Gojo would be the queen piece, the strongest piece used as a sacrifice too tempting to ignore.
He would turn the trap right back on them!
A part of him felt sorry for putting Megumi through all that pointless training for him to just sit this one out but this is different from the normal job as a sorcerer. That is why all juniors are being put on the back, where Yuki can keep an eye on them. Nobody is allowed to take away the youth from the young.
That includes my cute little third-year students as well, Hakari and Yuta are strong. So, it was best to have them leading their juniors out of danger while we adults take on the heavy burden.
Hopefully, by the end of it, Zagreus will be back so at least Megumi will have something cool to show off.
"Oy, oy, oy! Are you kidding me?" Gojo says while pulling away his headband. Zagreus once mentioned that his Six Eyes granted him the privileged perspective above his station, equivalent to his captain of the Sophic Realm. It was more like he had a hero's discerning eyes, maybe even further.
That is why he could not dismiss the bull shit he was seeing. He knew from Nanami's report that the Patch-face cursed spirit, Mahito, was trouble. His speed of growth was alarming. And from what he was seeing someone else took notice of it as well.
Even a beast can grasp virtue and cultivate by eating, humans as well, it is our lowest nature commonly shared. What is preventing a cursed spirit from doing the same?
In the same way, the Six Eyes allow me to see the Parthenon Zagreus built inside his soul as a monument to virtue, and being witness to the ten towering loading bearing principles that sustain it… and their sinister sin behind their grandeur.
Accursed is the cannibal.
The teacher I respect the most in the world told me gravely, like a ruined drunk warding off a boy from his first cup of wine. He confided in me how it was something unknowingly forced upon him when he was nothing but a citizen. The monstrous 'festival' of Fear and Hunger promoted by uncaring Higher Powers at the expense of mortals.
Zagreus confined all deepest secrets of the soul to me in the Hope I would find a divergent path from the one he had been unknown set in the invisible hand of a god. It was different from the expectation of being the strongest.
It was a choice, a new option paid for with the suffering of one who charted the unknown dark and bore the scars to prove it.
In all my privileged life I had never once been cursed with a choice before. My path had been set to the peak since the day I had been born.
He invests in me the privilege and responsibility to shape the future by charting the path for those who will come after. This was a happiness that shocked the very core of my [Endless Soul]. I knew then and there how to make a more humane path toward a brighter future.
This didn't mean the option Zagreus tried to bury and hide wouldn't still be available for those daring and wicked enough to fest on the totality of another's soul to the point of denying them an afterlife. It was like that curse was created just to offend him on the deepest level possible!
This goes beyond sinking your teeth into another's influence, the little punishment game we did to tally the score of victory and defeat against each other. What he called the trial of Hunger. The shame in Zagreus's eyes was more than enough to drive it home. There are lines humans shouldn't cross.
And now this upstart little shit dares to unearth said secret and darken Zagreus's legacy forever more! A foundation made from [Changeling soul] marred by the fear and hate humans bear toward each other is decorated with fourteen macabre totems made from still screaming amalgamations of souls from all know types arranged in a perfect symmetry of dread.
He is powerful in ways even he couldn't understand yet the battlefield itself serves to make up for his inexperience. I am in my element when I am alone, this is my [Curse]. One of the ten that define the existence is known as [Satoru Gojo]. Abiding in them grant great strength, even serving as leveraging points to widen the interpretation of my innate technique, but defying them compromise said strength.
Curses and blessings are fundamentally the same, especially when gods are involved.
"What are you smiling for? You won't live to see another day. Didn't I make it clear when I killed your Vulcan head and the tree-hugger friends of yours? Or do you think that the third time is the charm?"
"Jogo and Nanami's sacrifices were all for this moment, Satoru Gojo. Let me show you what a true curse is made of!" His influence rises up like a chaotic hurricane made of thousand-thousand tortured cries, every unaware sleeping soul of the countless unwitty hostages caught in the riptide of his influence were instantly turned into transfigured humans… Zagreus probably would be able to save them through the reversal of the moonscorch virtuous technique but I can't gamble on it.
"Is that so?" I spread the wings of my own influence, and the purity of purpose and [direction] of Endless Soul stop the advance of Patch-face's tide-cursed energy could like it was a wall, coating the unaware civilians in a mantle of inviolable infinity.
The boundaries of my soul are clearly defined, marking the shape of my [Mandala Intention]. I have been trained to surpass monsters like Mahito born out of unholy soul desecration. By knowing the nature of the soul, it becomes easier to bid it to multiply by following its intended direction. It even allows for the development of an innate domain and virtuous technique/innate technique, the semantics being secondary to the fact they are the purest form of self-expression.
The multitude of souls may grant multiple excellencies but balancing them in a stable way is difficult. Only [idle transfiguration] would allow for it to bid his soul to multiply in such a reckless manner. But this is not enough.
[Nobody is allowed to take away the youth from the young.] I summon the Curse of my Blue Spring. The ever-recurring theme of my life which I return to again and again, staying the same as others move on and grow for both better and for worse.
The blue I summon doesn't manifest compression of space, but time by means of expanding the interpretation of my [Limitless]. Mahito became a sitting duck, stuck by a sphere of time dilation, all his alacrity made useless by his over-bloated soul, he is still incomplete like a cursed womb. Compared to the ordered and perfectly streamlined foundation of Zagreus, he is still too new to his new power.
Time to end this, and Gojo has all the time in the world to be thorough.
"Nine points. Polarized Light. Crow and Shomyo chant. The gap between within and without."
Mahito was erased without a trace. A monster like that could not be allowed to live… and yet.
A blade made of flesh endowed with the puissance of [Endless soul] cut through my infinity, it is the instinctive familiarity of pitching myself against Zagreus in his heroic and tyrant timing that allowed me to adjust my infinity into a compressed shield to overwhelm said attack to a dead stop.
I turn toward the resurging Mahito. "Ha! You blocked even that! He wasn't kidding when he said you were that strong!"
"Trying to buy time? What a childish trick! I already saw through your trick. [Rewind], all events that happen in the past become undone, replacing those with events that didn't happen for the scenario to be applied in the present."
The way Mahito withered was all the confirmation he needed.
"Did you really think I would trip up over some Causality manipulation? Whoever trained you knew Zagreus was limited by the boundaries of the rules of nature and used you as a guinea pig in an experiment to surpass him by subverting the Samsara that governs the Wheel Turning.
"You underestimate me at your own peril, cursed spirit! Within the cool down of this technique, I can easily destroy you!"
Mahito believed it too, taking distance while commanding his transfigured humans to attack me. The situation is made worse by the train filled to the brim with transfigured humans heading this way. What an annoying bastard.
This will take longer than I thought. Worse, he is evolving at a scary speed as well. A sacrificial paw or plot to make me lower my guard?
"Tall talk coming from my baby brother I surpass in cultivation. The last time I lost sight of you, you almost died! This whole mission is set to go fubar from the start. This time I will protect you without failure." Tsumiki retorts.
"You? Protecting me?" Megumi asks in incredulity.
"Okay, Yuji-kun. Why don't we give them some space? Family businesses are no one else's business!" Yuki says while dragging Yuji along while he watches fascinated as the siblings verbally tear each other apart, paying no mind to their audience.
"Stop being selfish, Tsumiki! You can do a lot more by helping from the hear than you ever would as a front-linker. You aren't cut for it!"
"Look who is talking. Do you really think you could ever beat me right now? I am literally worth five of you put together!" Tsumiki retorts, mentioning her standing as a 4th rank philosopher. Over the two years since Zagreus's disappearance, she has grown on her own to fill his shoes and her last confrontation with the autonomous cursed corpses awakened her starlight marrow same as him.
"You know standing isn't everything! You are no good at martial cultivation! I can, indeed, hand your ass to you." Megumi retorts venomously.
"You dare Megumi? I am more than happy to have a trial of spirit right here, right now, then!"
"Interesting," a baritone and sinister voice make itself know. "Why don't you let me test it then?"
Megumi felt a chill run down his spine and a lead weight drop in his gut; he could never forget this voice and the sinister cursed energy associated with it. He turned to he the King of Curses had somehow taken over Sukuna and his power was overwhelming, almost double of Zagreus. Far more than the four fingers he previously had. Eighteen, nineteen maybe?
Not only that, the world literally fell around his ears as thousands of cursed energy signatures flared to life lit a true festival of the underworld. What the hell was happening? And where the hell is Yuki?!
Tsumiki made good of her previous words, with a flick of her hand she leveraged her rhetoric to slam me with an invisible unrelenting force that dragged me away from the line of sight of Sukuna. The previously dormant starlight marrow flares to live at full throttle once again, giving Megumi the sharpness of sight to follow their exchange even as his body struggled to keep it up.
With his pneumatic sense, Megumi saw a hundred invisible blades close in on Tsumiki from all sides. Zagreus could have dodged this but her sister can't. His heart felt like bursting from his chest as his sister was cut down right before his eyes… yet, Tsumiki is a philosopher, and her rhetoric is as profound for a citizen such as himself as the clouds in the sky.
Despite his common sense telling him Sukuna's overwhelming output should have diced her into ribbons, she endured his assault with nothing but shallow cuts to show for it. She her hand forward, attacking the flabbergasted King of Curses with her manifested Ivy intention, gripping his arm and snaking it up to his neck.
Leveraging the rules of nature, the very concept of Motion, she closes in on Sukuna with speed that outstrips her standing to knock Sukuna's teeth to the back of his mouth with the power of our shared foundational virtuous technique.
Sukuna didn't stop his slash barrage at any moment yet Tsumiki injuries closed themselves off just as quickly as Sukuna delivered them. That is when it clicks, [Achile's package]! The control over the principle of Motion grants supernatural speed and an inviolable body. Only Gojo-sensei ever injured Zagreus as far as Megumi knew, the fact Sukuna was brute forcing his way through it shows he is a monster of the same weight class. No wonder Tsumiki was so confident previously.
And that is why she put herself between the two of us. Tsumiki's first principle.
[With the time I have to curse someone, I would rather think about people precious to me.]
Sukuna cuts through her Ivy intention but the severed vine tightens around his arm and sinks its teeth into his cursed energy, glooming as his arm withers and rots away through the power of the Wheel Turning. He first motioned to rip it away then think better of it and abort his move, severing his arm with his own cursed technique. Tsumiki exploits this moment of indecision and vulnerability for all that it is worth it to close in and they both punch each other with everything they had.
As the two are pushed away from each other, half of Sukuna's face is rotten off and Tsumiki is literally puking her guts out.
This entire exchange happened in the time it took him to raise his arms up to summon Mahoraga. Megumi knew he wasn't qualified to enter this battlefield, but even then, this wasn't news. He would not abandon Tsumiki! He would rather die!
"WITH THIS TREASURE I SUMMON EIGHT-HANDLED SWORD DIVERGENT SILA DIVINE GENERAL MAHORAGA!"
He was evolving fast but Gojo comes closer and closer to nail the Achille's heel of his causality manipulation through each interaction. Mahito was running out of time and pushed into a corner. His prepared army of autonomous cursed corpses was summarily crushed by a wall of Blue Lapse stationed at the rails just before in embarked. Every new inventive attack is brushed aside with contemptuous ease and he was both, running out of cursed energy and losing control of himself as the souls he consumed went berserk.
"Five seconds, that is how much you can rewind time and rewrite events. Did you really think you were at my level because of it? It is nothing but an annoyance since you can only affect yourself." Gojo lectures as he shoots down the transfigured humans with mini blue spheres that compress the transfigured humans into the size of a pinball once they enter their bodies, exploiting the same rules Mahito did which state a person's body works like a domain. Cleaning the house while scaring the unaware civilians away from their confrontation.
"Everything I have to do is react during the moment when the changed past meets with the present. You are running out of cursed energy and your soul is fraying. You are nothing but a distraction, how dull."
"Aaahhhhh!" Mahito screams as the shadow of his impending death pushes him over the edge, granting him the insight of the truest essence of his being. "Instant Spirit Body of Distorted Killing!" he screams triumphantly as asserts control over his self and ascends to a new state, his flesh morphing to match his enlightened state of being.
At the same time, Mahito felt the urgency of countless signatures showing that Yuki's plan was finally in motion. He couldn't help but smile. "How the tables have turned, Gojo Satoru. What are you going to do now? Help your friends or exorcise me?"
"Hm, ha ha ha. You speak as if it was even a question. You are the source of the army of autonomous cursed corpses, you have to die tonight for this war to truly end. Leaving you be would give you time to feast on the souls of the civilians, a pathetic ploy for a second wind." The smile on Gojo's face was truly cruel then, a promise of murder. "Let me enlighten you before you die. What true jujutsu looks like."
And as the keystone of this heaven-violating monument is a foundation of longing.
Saudade – a mix of nostalgia, yearning, and fondness.
You can love a flower in full bloom but you cannot ask it to understand you. That is the one feeling that crosses the chasm separating Gojo Satoru and everyone else.
The virtue that strives for a perpetual blue spring.
Gojo no longer looked anything resembling a human being, more like an Old Testament angel, not that he could ever contextualize. Gojo had become a truly ineffable existence to all who behold him. Not that Mahito could tell, the moment he crossed his gaze with Gojo's he was trapped by its endless possibilities in a torrent of information.
"By all means, be afraid!" Somehow Mahito was still allowed to think to himself that Gojo was somehow smiling. The smile of a true curse.
This was his last thought.
Now they test this lesson for all that it is worth against the king of curses.
If Megumi would be honest, he has no place here. He managed to tame Mahoraga by the skin of his teeth, bending the rules of the exorcism to their breaking point and making a mockery of it by cheesing the fight by perfecting his domain through trial and error until he could one shot it after Gojo confirmed Mahoraga doesn't keep his adaptation from previously exorcism attempts.
It is okay though, sorcerers are scan artists. There are only victors and defeated at the end of the day.
He is not arrogant enough to think he can win a clash of domains with the king of curses. Not until Mahoraga has adapted Sukuna's technique. As he couldn't even keep up, he subjected himself to supporting Tsumiki and Mahoraga with rabbit escape and Chimera beast Agito while keeping himself safe inside shadows, cheap shooting Sukuna with piercing water wherever he saw an opening.
It would be nostalgic if it wasn't so damn terrifying. Sukuna definitely trying to kill Tsumiki but he never once attacked me with anything but crippling blows. He is getting more and more impatient as the battle progresses though, as if he was the one running out of time. Even though Tsumiki was the one being pushed to the brink of what father's starlight marrow can bring out.
They had no chance of reinforcements tough. Shibuya became a pandemonium as open warfare seemed to have taken over every street they came across. From jujutsu sorcerers to cursed spirits, curse users, cursed corpses to members of the jujutsu family. Everyone seems to have chosen Shibuya as the place where they would settle their differences. And Sukuna was crushing them like ants in his wake.
That is when Sukuna had enough. The melody of his heart told me he was uncertain about it even as it promised destruction on a unparalleled level.
"Domain Expansion: -
Megumi emerges from the shadow ready for a desperate clash with Sukuna empowered by some binding vow, when Tsumiki tackled him with Gojo-like speed, trying to escape the King of Curses' range in a mad dash.
Malevolent Shrine!"
That was when the world was undone, the last thing he saw was his shikigami closing in on Sukuna. It was as if the world was being disintegrated, a giant cloud of smoke overtook Shibuya just centimeters from the two siblings.
Tsumiki reached her limits, stumbling at such terminal speed she had to use her body to shield Megumi as the two skipped over the pavement like a stone throw across a lake, sparkles flying high with each contact.
Megumi was the first to recompose himself as he persisted in watching Sukuna's grim work. He was still standing with difficulty as the whiplash from Tsumiki's mad dash fissured his spine, and he had to reset some bones and fingers. Yet a surge of hope overtook him when he saw Mahoraga emerging from Sukuna's domain expansion.
That was when he hit him with a fire arrow so powerful the world was engulfed in flames.
This… was so fucking unfair!
Tsumiki! He has to take his sister and run.
He turned toward her, and that is when Megumi found himself face to-face with Sukuna himself. He grabbed me by the jaw and forced one severed finger down Megumi's gullet, forcing him to swallow it. As the finger went down Megumi's throat, Yuji's connection to Sukuna's soul was severed as it found a new 'vessel'. Sukuna's cursed energy surged as he seized control and wrested Megumi's soul back, making him a prisoner in his own body.
Megumi spoke with a voice not his own, "Didn't I tell you, brat? We would see something interesting." Sukuna gloated from inside Megumi's flesh, rejoicing in his victory.
Yuji's face spoke of the desperation of becoming the instrument of such devastation and the death of his friend. Sukuna was about to kill him when he was cut off by a hysteric cry of euphoria from Tsumiki Fushigure.
She was laughing. Laughing at him. Her eyes spoke of cathartic release from worry at the same time she told the King of Curses he was the butt of this joke.
That moment of utter confusion at her bolt of madness was preceded by a feeling of foreboding dread.
That was when a sound like shattering glass came from within Megumi's soul, followed by a ravenous flame sinking its teeth on his soul, seizing his cursed energy a crushing it underfoot, dousing the King of Curse's taint from within.
Sukuna screamed.
Or, as simplified by modern lingo, dignity.
The right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in morality, ethics, law, and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable rights. The term may also be used to describe personal conduct, as in "behaving with dignity".
Megumi Fushiguro who experienced the deprivation involved in being an unwanted child, looked down on with either pity or scorn by strangers for being a helpless burden on society, had the meaning of this virtue carved into his soul for as long as he could understand the world for what it was.
It was simple, really. As the best and most profound truths tend to be. When something is parsed clearly it can be understood even by a fool.
The basis of human interaction was avoiding violating someone else's dignity. The most basic rule to get along with strangers can be described as reciprocity.
'I will not kill you, so please, don't kill me either.'
From this humble spring, all social contracts follow. You expand from 'kill' to whatever more you want, through this process both parties can make this 'rule' a reality. Like a binding vow.
Of course, rules are only real if breaking them carries consequences.
Megumi is sure those who break said rules or act arrogant enough to think themselves above it are living a rose-colored existence where they do scarcely anything but exist in revel and jubilation of their perceived power and sense of self-importance.
That is why he will kill any and all such individuals every time he comes across them. Sure, he never killed anyone, but this is due to his own subscription to the rules of society more than anything else. He will make the treat and mean every word spoken, so far nobody has ever tested his limit. A little bit of pain was all it took.
Megumi Fushiguro is someone incapable of forgiveness. Both Zagreus and Tsumiki endorse this antisocial trait as the expression of his kindness.
They affirm his character. His dignity as a person is wanted and appreciated.
The King of Curses is not like most people. He exists in the same that uniquely excellent existences such as Satoru Gojo and his adopted father exist.
If he wanted to defeat him then he could not allow himself to be ordinary!
No. To begin with, Ryoma Sukuna intends to violate his captain's virtue by taking over his body and enslaving his soul with a bitten bridle.
He would rather be dead this suffer this humiliation! The virtue inside his soul would not allow it!
In a confrontation between cultivators of virtue, the monument cultivators built inside their souls could be broken down like any other man-made wonder. Done properly, with the right intent, for the right reasons, pushed by the right motivations you could even do it to yourself.
Megumi has a split foundation. Half Greek cultivator, half jujutsu sorcerer. His innate domain is a mess split down the middle, apart a foundation enforced on him by the curse of the Zenin clan, another a foundation made from materials he searched and built from truths he internalized and tempered in light of the greater natural mystery endowed to him.
Cultivation is a self-expression of the self. A split foundation is either the source or manifestation of a split Ego. Only a fool would take this lightly and ever since Zagreus grew aware of it when Megumi's cursed technique manifested, he treated this as a serious medical condition.
Through early instruction, he was always taught to never let these two circuits crosswire themselves. They are like two different muscles and this situation is risky enough as it was due to its rarity and chaotic circumstances. In the worst case, if a demon were to be born out of his heart, Megumi could be forced into doing away with one-half of everything that he was in order to keep on living.
He had to make sure the break would be as clean as possible.
He was told what to expect. As the soul sheds off the walls of his innate domain, an immense amount of spiritual energy would be released. Shedding either internalized truth that directs said principle or the binding ancestral curse as it is unraveled, releasing the accrued energy that makes said network function. A tired exhalation capable of filling the air with nearly as much vitality as a newly minted hero would emit during his ascension.
Zagreus, reliable as always in his crooked sort of side-ways manner, instructed how Megumi could get his life indemnity in case he was to be forced into this situation.
Divine Dividing - ascension is a provocation of natural law, in order to successfully bid your soul multiply to surpass a thousand men put together, heaven demands a thousand men fall in turn.
Ascension and fall are chained together.
You are born again.
The world is… better.
No longer dimly lit by cruelly burnished bronze, it's lit by defiance of noble souls. The lands are defined by great men and great women, cultivated as you cultivate your vines. Among them you find friends. Among them you find brothers.
One among them is your favorite.
You have nothing you can give him in support but your own senselessly beating heart, and so you do. He takes even that and improves it. While it beats in his chest, it burns. It takes on his shade. It becomes something glorious. It becomes something triumphant.
For the first time, you feel something in the senseless beating of your heart. You experience passion.
This is Megumi's trump card. He reached back to it and pulled the way a trapped would dog chew on his own limb for the sake of preserving his life, his loved ones, and his virtue.
For the sake of his dignity.
As the ancestral curse of the Ten Shadows unraveled, deafening him as it crumbled, he gathered it all and used it as tinder. He hoped the starlight marrow endowed to him by his adoptive father, a force of unstoppable refinement capable of facilitating any purpose as long he knew what he wanted. Where he was headed.
His goal was simple, if Sukuna liked human meat so much then he shouldn't complain about what happens when he is the one being eaten.
Time to reenact a time-honored family tradition.
[This son of raging heaven in hunger will devour you!]
Megumi sank the teeth of his influence on Sukuna's soul. It provided the spark needed by Megumi to lit his own virtuous spirit from within.
Megumi burned and kept burning. With the conviction, he would rather die than live another instant as a prisoner in his own flesh. He would rather die than allow the King of Curses free reign over the mortal world through his body.
Once Greek fire started burning it won't go out until it reduced everything it touched to cinders.
Megumi gambled it all on a miracle.
When a man was born, the Fates wove his destiny and swaddled him in it. Your reality was fixed. Whether you were the lowest of the low Citizenry, or a captain of the Sophic realm, the ceiling was the same.
It might as well be his destiny to become Sukuna's vessel. So his only hope is to break free from it entirely.
The line between mortality and divinity was drawn at the precipice of the Heroic Realm. In defiance of preordained fate, a cultivator reaches beyond their mortal standing to grasp the first handhold of their brazen epic, breaking free from the constraints of destiny that chain every man and woman like a shacked ball and chain.
Megumi barreled head first over the macabre monument to [Evil] the King of Cursed built inside his soul, his innate domain. He burned his life away and made himself a lion capable of enduring the worst retaliations the king of cursed could throw at him. And he ate.
Megumi spread the wings of his influence and sank them into Sukuna, breaking them underfoot and tearing them apart like strips of flesh.
Sukuna's cursed energy should be all right to overwhelm his infant soul but the flames of his life gave him all the [time] he needed to digest the King of Curses. He didn't care if he died. Gojo's final lesson reverberated in his mind. Every sorcerer dies with regrets and alone. If he could just stop Sukuna from harming his friends and family by his life's price then he would happily make this trade without regrets. Even if he died alone, it was fine. Every man stands alone when ascending the stairs toward raging heaven. ****************************** ** MEGUMI CURSE EATER ** ****************************** -//- [AUTHOR'S ROOM] Yeah, so I got sick and his chapter got relayed. Fortunately, I recovered. Now we see how Gojo's refinement differs from a normal Sophic. While Zagreu's influence is obvious, it was more restrained and directed. Kenjaku's plan for Mahito was good but he lacked contest of Zagreus' final goal for Gojo's refinement. We also see how Megumi skipped an entire realm. There were a lot of moving parts to it, but he attempted to use Mahoraga about eight times in cannon. He would not hesitate to pull a stunt like that if Tsumiki's life was on the line.[/time]
"Am I whose little brother now!?" Megumi answers in indignation.
"Ha!" Satoru cried while holding his hands to his chest as if hurt, "Your tenure among the savages of the Zenin clan had made you into a delinquent! Sorry, sensei. I have failed you!" To empathize, Gojo cries in his sleeve like an abused single mother.
"Oi. Are you picking a fight?"
"Has anyone ever said to you that you sound just like Zagreus when you are angry? The new hairstyle just drives the point home." Gojo answered with a toothy smile.
It grated Megumi how his self-appointed big brother knew just what to say to mollify him. After the juvenile detention incident, Megumi and Tsumiki woke up to realize part of their hair had turned the royal blue that Zagreus displayed. What he once mentioned as the marking bearing by new blood of a Higher Power. The side effect of his starlight marrow overdrive.
Tsumiki herself got a beautiful curtain of blue inside her normal jet black, creating the illusion the color changes depending on the angle. Megumi as always got the short end of the stick and ended up with the top of his head bright blue. Only Itadori liked it and he is suspect due to the fact they now matched.
He is so getting back at his old man once he is found!
"Hehe. It suits you indeed. Feeling the pressure after Yuji showed you up during the jujutsu chunin exam?"
"Don't call it that."
"I don't know. It's kind of fits. Plus, it was Zagreus who coined this term."
Of course he did.
"Beggars can't be choosers, plus things have become quite heated in the Zenin clan?"
"Anything I should know about?" Despite the light tone, it wasn't a suggestion.
Naoya pretty much tried to kill him, for once. "I had a disagreement with Naoya so Naobito-san thought it best to get me out of his hair until things simmered down." He owned the man to not tattle his dirt laundry to his official biggest rival. He already has his hands full managing that mad house. No wonder he drinks like Zagreus had in those memories when he was trying to drown himself in the bottom of his cup.
"Is that so?"
"Yes."
"Really, really?"
"Really, really."
"Pink promise?"
"What are you, a child?!"
"Well, okay then. Not like I would skip this opportunity. It is pretty rare for you to demand training. So, what do you want to start with?"
"Be my safety net while I tame Mahoraga," I said as seriously as I could.
"You serious?" There is no longer any humor in his voice and his glasses fell to his nose, revealing his piercing eyes.
"We are not doing this again. I know the risk but… I am not blind. Things are rather tense. Everywhere. I know protecting the youth is pretty much your virtue, but I have no intention of hiding behind your skirt."
"Don't misunderstand, Megumi. I am happy that you finally are taking jujutsu seriously but to be honest I didn't expect you to be ready for it until you were at the peak of Sophic realm. Zagreus talked to me about what to expect, your split foundation would cause your virtue to behave like two different muscles. You could even advance as a philosopher and as a jujutsu sorcerer at different rates."
"…it is not like this topic never cropped up under our roof either. Zagreus… father laid to me my options as he knew them. But that is why I know there is no hard rule preventing me from taming Mahoraga. The records of the Zenin clan conveyed extensive observations about every detail they had about it. I think I can do it?"
"You think? Do you want to gamble your life on basic feelings?
"I can do it. I need to. It is not like my enemies will wait for me to master cultivation… plus you can always blow it up with one attack so I can retry."
"And who is treating things like a video game again?"
"I know, but… when I was born the gods gave me a weapon. That is how Zagreus defined the ten shadows. I have to master it before anything else as if it was my own body. I even understand your pride as the one that pioneered the equivalent to the Sophic Realm for sorcerers, but Mahoraga is the only thing that will allow me to follow you on the incoming stage."
"And this has nothing to do with Tsumiki resolution to fight alongside you?"
"… it might be partially responsible, yes."
"Well, at least you are honest. I think I do owe you an explanation about the poor shit show the supposed leaders of jujutsu society have displayed lately. Come in."
-//-
RECORD OF THE INCIDENT ON OCTOBER 31, 2018 AT 7:00 P.M.
A curtain with a 400-meter radius as cast centered at the Tokyo Department Store Toyoko branch.
-//-
"So, it finally started. How sure are you of this, Geto?"RECORD OF THE INCIDENT ON OCTOBER 31, 2018 AT 7:00 P.M.
A curtain with a 400-meter radius as cast centered at the Tokyo Department Store Toyoko branch.
-//-
"You aren't the only one that grew up, Satoru. I long have mastered means to use my cursed spirits to remote surveillance. The Vulcan head-cursed spirit, the plant-cursed spirit, and the patch face are all working with the responsible for Zagreus's disappearance. And while they don't coordinate directly with the higher-ups it is clear that among these curse users helping them, we will find the missing link from the Kamo family."
After the fiasco at the detention center, Gojo took Geto on a world tour collecting powerful special-grade spirits he found while searching for Zagreus. After his first fight with Jogo and summary rescue by the tree-cursed spirit inadvertently gave Geto means to plausible deniability. During Nanami's attack against the students, Geto released two of his foreign special grades against the Kamo clan.
This gambit paid off. They unearthed the forbidden fruits from the late Yaga's breaking through in corpse manipulation.
Zagreus had mentioned his concept only once, but there was so much venom in it Gojo knew to be wary. Human Hydra – a chimera born of the successful fusion (marriage?) of the bodies between compatible souls. It seemed like the current generation picked up the macabre bad habits of their most infamous ancestor, Noritoshi Kamo.
The 'successful' samples were things of nightmare, powerful enough to give pause to the average sorcerer with its multiple cursed techniques. Worst of all was the hint of left-over rhetoric so unlike Zagreus's own. There is zero chance of being him, thankfully, due to the fact whoever was behind this had privileged access to his research on the soul and its qualifications.
They were attempting to recreate Zagreus's unique soul pattern comprised of eleven specific souls. Zagreus would never do such a thing, this is something Gojo knows with authority. While his six eyes had noticed his unusual aura years ago Zagreus had always been close-lipped about this topic. The only answer he got was haunted by a cursed festival, not unlike a jar of poison ritual.
Chances are the one responsible for our grief is a blast from Zagreus's past or some immortal sorcerer. Either way, when you add to it the patch-face cursed spirit army of transfigured humans it becomes clear what he had to expect.
Whoever was behind this would spring their all-out assault here. This was a trap- no, a war. Naobito Zenin was summoned for this operation but he failed to appear and is not picking up the phone either… he is most likely dead. It seemed like Shibuya really would become a battlefield so he gathered his army.
This is a pincer attack, that is why he took the liberty to gather his own army. The grade-one sorcerers on his corner have received the heads up to the incoming trouble. Geto is the king piece of the board, it wouldn't surprise Gojo any if they tried to kill him to release all his curses on Shibuya, that is why he is getting VIP treatment.
Now Gojo would be the queen piece, the strongest piece used as a sacrifice too tempting to ignore.
He would turn the trap right back on them!
A part of him felt sorry for putting Megumi through all that pointless training for him to just sit this one out but this is different from the normal job as a sorcerer. That is why all juniors are being put on the back, where Yuki can keep an eye on them. Nobody is allowed to take away the youth from the young.
That includes my cute little third-year students as well, Hakari and Yuta are strong. So, it was best to have them leading their juniors out of danger while we adults take on the heavy burden.
Hopefully, by the end of it, Zagreus will be back so at least Megumi will have something cool to show off.
-//-
[FUKUTOSHIN LINE PLATFORM, 8:40 P.M. TOKYO METRO B5F]
"Oy, oy, oy! Are you kidding me?" Gojo says while pulling away his headband. Zagreus once mentioned that his Six Eyes granted him the privileged perspective above his station, equivalent to his captain of the Sophic Realm. It was more like he had a hero's discerning eyes, maybe even further.
That is why he could not dismiss the bull shit he was seeing. He knew from Nanami's report that the Patch-face cursed spirit, Mahito, was trouble. His speed of growth was alarming. And from what he was seeing someone else took notice of it as well.
Even a beast can grasp virtue and cultivate by eating, humans as well, it is our lowest nature commonly shared. What is preventing a cursed spirit from doing the same?
In the same way, the Six Eyes allow me to see the Parthenon Zagreus built inside his soul as a monument to virtue, and being witness to the ten towering loading bearing principles that sustain it… and their sinister sin behind their grandeur.
Accursed is the cannibal.
The teacher I respect the most in the world told me gravely, like a ruined drunk warding off a boy from his first cup of wine. He confided in me how it was something unknowingly forced upon him when he was nothing but a citizen. The monstrous 'festival' of Fear and Hunger promoted by uncaring Higher Powers at the expense of mortals.
Zagreus confined all deepest secrets of the soul to me in the Hope I would find a divergent path from the one he had been unknown set in the invisible hand of a god. It was different from the expectation of being the strongest.
It was a choice, a new option paid for with the suffering of one who charted the unknown dark and bore the scars to prove it.
In all my privileged life I had never once been cursed with a choice before. My path had been set to the peak since the day I had been born.
He invests in me the privilege and responsibility to shape the future by charting the path for those who will come after. This was a happiness that shocked the very core of my [Endless Soul]. I knew then and there how to make a more humane path toward a brighter future.
This didn't mean the option Zagreus tried to bury and hide wouldn't still be available for those daring and wicked enough to fest on the totality of another's soul to the point of denying them an afterlife. It was like that curse was created just to offend him on the deepest level possible!
This goes beyond sinking your teeth into another's influence, the little punishment game we did to tally the score of victory and defeat against each other. What he called the trial of Hunger. The shame in Zagreus's eyes was more than enough to drive it home. There are lines humans shouldn't cross.
And now this upstart little shit dares to unearth said secret and darken Zagreus's legacy forever more! A foundation made from [Changeling soul] marred by the fear and hate humans bear toward each other is decorated with fourteen macabre totems made from still screaming amalgamations of souls from all know types arranged in a perfect symmetry of dread.
He is powerful in ways even he couldn't understand yet the battlefield itself serves to make up for his inexperience. I am in my element when I am alone, this is my [Curse]. One of the ten that define the existence is known as [Satoru Gojo]. Abiding in them grant great strength, even serving as leveraging points to widen the interpretation of my innate technique, but defying them compromise said strength.
Curses and blessings are fundamentally the same, especially when gods are involved.
"What are you smiling for? You won't live to see another day. Didn't I make it clear when I killed your Vulcan head and the tree-hugger friends of yours? Or do you think that the third time is the charm?"
"Jogo and Nanami's sacrifices were all for this moment, Satoru Gojo. Let me show you what a true curse is made of!" His influence rises up like a chaotic hurricane made of thousand-thousand tortured cries, every unaware sleeping soul of the countless unwitty hostages caught in the riptide of his influence were instantly turned into transfigured humans… Zagreus probably would be able to save them through the reversal of the moonscorch virtuous technique but I can't gamble on it.
"Is that so?" I spread the wings of my own influence, and the purity of purpose and [direction] of Endless Soul stop the advance of Patch-face's tide-cursed energy could like it was a wall, coating the unaware civilians in a mantle of inviolable infinity.
The boundaries of my soul are clearly defined, marking the shape of my [Mandala Intention]. I have been trained to surpass monsters like Mahito born out of unholy soul desecration. By knowing the nature of the soul, it becomes easier to bid it to multiply by following its intended direction. It even allows for the development of an innate domain and virtuous technique/innate technique, the semantics being secondary to the fact they are the purest form of self-expression.
The multitude of souls may grant multiple excellencies but balancing them in a stable way is difficult. Only [idle transfiguration] would allow for it to bid his soul to multiply in such a reckless manner. But this is not enough.
[Nobody is allowed to take away the youth from the young.] I summon the Curse of my Blue Spring. The ever-recurring theme of my life which I return to again and again, staying the same as others move on and grow for both better and for worse.
The blue I summon doesn't manifest compression of space, but time by means of expanding the interpretation of my [Limitless]. Mahito became a sitting duck, stuck by a sphere of time dilation, all his alacrity made useless by his over-bloated soul, he is still incomplete like a cursed womb. Compared to the ordered and perfectly streamlined foundation of Zagreus, he is still too new to his new power.
Time to end this, and Gojo has all the time in the world to be thorough.
"Nine points. Polarized Light. Crow and Shomyo chant. The gap between within and without."
[HOLLOW TECHNIQUE: PURPLE!]
Blue is still blue, and I can still use it as a foundation for my strongest technique. Mahito was literally deleted from existence, I had struck both his body, soul, and innate domain. What Zagreus called the shattering of the ego.
Mahito was erased without a trace. A monster like that could not be allowed to live… and yet.
A blade made of flesh endowed with the puissance of [Endless soul] cut through my infinity, it is the instinctive familiarity of pitching myself against Zagreus in his heroic and tyrant timing that allowed me to adjust my infinity into a compressed shield to overwhelm said attack to a dead stop.
I turn toward the resurging Mahito. "Ha! You blocked even that! He wasn't kidding when he said you were that strong!"
"Trying to buy time? What a childish trick! I already saw through your trick. [Rewind], all events that happen in the past become undone, replacing those with events that didn't happen for the scenario to be applied in the present."
The way Mahito withered was all the confirmation he needed.
"Did you really think I would trip up over some Causality manipulation? Whoever trained you knew Zagreus was limited by the boundaries of the rules of nature and used you as a guinea pig in an experiment to surpass him by subverting the Samsara that governs the Wheel Turning.
"You underestimate me at your own peril, cursed spirit! Within the cool down of this technique, I can easily destroy you!"
Mahito believed it too, taking distance while commanding his transfigured humans to attack me. The situation is made worse by the train filled to the brim with transfigured humans heading this way. What an annoying bastard.
This will take longer than I thought. Worse, he is evolving at a scary speed as well. A sacrificial paw or plot to make me lower my guard?
-//-
"Why did you separate from Shoko, Tsumiki? Are you tempting the fates?" Megumi protested.
"Tall talk coming from my baby brother I surpass in cultivation. The last time I lost sight of you, you almost died! This whole mission is set to go fubar from the start. This time I will protect you without failure." Tsumiki retorts.
"You? Protecting me?" Megumi asks in incredulity.
"Okay, Yuji-kun. Why don't we give them some space? Family businesses are no one else's business!" Yuki says while dragging Yuji along while he watches fascinated as the siblings verbally tear each other apart, paying no mind to their audience.
"Stop being selfish, Tsumiki! You can do a lot more by helping from the hear than you ever would as a front-linker. You aren't cut for it!"
"Look who is talking. Do you really think you could ever beat me right now? I am literally worth five of you put together!" Tsumiki retorts, mentioning her standing as a 4th rank philosopher. Over the two years since Zagreus's disappearance, she has grown on her own to fill his shoes and her last confrontation with the autonomous cursed corpses awakened her starlight marrow same as him.
"You know standing isn't everything! You are no good at martial cultivation! I can, indeed, hand your ass to you." Megumi retorts venomously.
"You dare Megumi? I am more than happy to have a trial of spirit right here, right now, then!"
"Interesting," a baritone and sinister voice make itself know. "Why don't you let me test it then?"
Megumi felt a chill run down his spine and a lead weight drop in his gut; he could never forget this voice and the sinister cursed energy associated with it. He turned to he the King of Curses had somehow taken over Sukuna and his power was overwhelming, almost double of Zagreus. Far more than the four fingers he previously had. Eighteen, nineteen maybe?
Not only that, the world literally fell around his ears as thousands of cursed energy signatures flared to life lit a true festival of the underworld. What the hell was happening? And where the hell is Yuki?!
Tsumiki made good of her previous words, with a flick of her hand she leveraged her rhetoric to slam me with an invisible unrelenting force that dragged me away from the line of sight of Sukuna. The previously dormant starlight marrow flares to live at full throttle once again, giving Megumi the sharpness of sight to follow their exchange even as his body struggled to keep it up.
With his pneumatic sense, Megumi saw a hundred invisible blades close in on Tsumiki from all sides. Zagreus could have dodged this but her sister can't. His heart felt like bursting from his chest as his sister was cut down right before his eyes… yet, Tsumiki is a philosopher, and her rhetoric is as profound for a citizen such as himself as the clouds in the sky.
Despite his common sense telling him Sukuna's overwhelming output should have diced her into ribbons, she endured his assault with nothing but shallow cuts to show for it. She her hand forward, attacking the flabbergasted King of Curses with her manifested Ivy intention, gripping his arm and snaking it up to his neck.
Leveraging the rules of nature, the very concept of Motion, she closes in on Sukuna with speed that outstrips her standing to knock Sukuna's teeth to the back of his mouth with the power of our shared foundational virtuous technique.
Sukuna didn't stop his slash barrage at any moment yet Tsumiki injuries closed themselves off just as quickly as Sukuna delivered them. That is when it clicks, [Achile's package]! The control over the principle of Motion grants supernatural speed and an inviolable body. Only Gojo-sensei ever injured Zagreus as far as Megumi knew, the fact Sukuna was brute forcing his way through it shows he is a monster of the same weight class. No wonder Tsumiki was so confident previously.
And that is why she put herself between the two of us. Tsumiki's first principle.
[With the time I have to curse someone, I would rather think about people precious to me.]
Sukuna cuts through her Ivy intention but the severed vine tightens around his arm and sinks its teeth into his cursed energy, glooming as his arm withers and rots away through the power of the Wheel Turning. He first motioned to rip it away then think better of it and abort his move, severing his arm with his own cursed technique. Tsumiki exploits this moment of indecision and vulnerability for all that it is worth it to close in and they both punch each other with everything they had.
As the two are pushed away from each other, half of Sukuna's face is rotten off and Tsumiki is literally puking her guts out.
This entire exchange happened in the time it took him to raise his arms up to summon Mahoraga. Megumi knew he wasn't qualified to enter this battlefield, but even then, this wasn't news. He would not abandon Tsumiki! He would rather die!
"WITH THIS TREASURE I SUMMON EIGHT-HANDLED SWORD DIVERGENT SILA DIVINE GENERAL MAHORAGA!"
-//-
Mahito shot his mutated arm forward like a barrage of lances as new limbs grew from each other like cancer. This forced Gojo to evade but his main target was the civilians blind to his presence. He impaled them, breaching the veil of protection and protecting them from his Idle Transfiguration.
He was evolving fast but Gojo comes closer and closer to nail the Achille's heel of his causality manipulation through each interaction. Mahito was running out of time and pushed into a corner. His prepared army of autonomous cursed corpses was summarily crushed by a wall of Blue Lapse stationed at the rails just before in embarked. Every new inventive attack is brushed aside with contemptuous ease and he was both, running out of cursed energy and losing control of himself as the souls he consumed went berserk.
"Five seconds, that is how much you can rewind time and rewrite events. Did you really think you were at my level because of it? It is nothing but an annoyance since you can only affect yourself." Gojo lectures as he shoots down the transfigured humans with mini blue spheres that compress the transfigured humans into the size of a pinball once they enter their bodies, exploiting the same rules Mahito did which state a person's body works like a domain. Cleaning the house while scaring the unaware civilians away from their confrontation.
"Everything I have to do is react during the moment when the changed past meets with the present. You are running out of cursed energy and your soul is fraying. You are nothing but a distraction, how dull."
"Aaahhhhh!" Mahito screams as the shadow of his impending death pushes him over the edge, granting him the insight of the truest essence of his being. "Instant Spirit Body of Distorted Killing!" he screams triumphantly as asserts control over his self and ascends to a new state, his flesh morphing to match his enlightened state of being.
At the same time, Mahito felt the urgency of countless signatures showing that Yuki's plan was finally in motion. He couldn't help but smile. "How the tables have turned, Gojo Satoru. What are you going to do now? Help your friends or exorcise me?"
"Hm, ha ha ha. You speak as if it was even a question. You are the source of the army of autonomous cursed corpses, you have to die tonight for this war to truly end. Leaving you be would give you time to feast on the souls of the civilians, a pathetic ploy for a second wind." The smile on Gojo's face was truly cruel then, a promise of murder. "Let me enlighten you before you die. What true jujutsu looks like."
"Domain Envelopment: Unlimited Void!"
Mahito's innate technique allows him to see and interact with souls, be it his own or that of others. That is why he understood what was truly happening as Gojo's flesh unraveled to reveal the monster within, using his own body as the canvas to manifest his innate domain in reality. Mahito knew then and there he was looking at self-expression of perfection he himself was too tainted by foreign souls ever match. The narrower the path, the further it goes. Like a tower piercing the heavens instead of a tsunami blanketing the earth.
And as the keystone of this heaven-violating monument is a foundation of longing.
Saudade – a mix of nostalgia, yearning, and fondness.
You can love a flower in full bloom but you cannot ask it to understand you. That is the one feeling that crosses the chasm separating Gojo Satoru and everyone else.
The virtue that strives for a perpetual blue spring.
Gojo no longer looked anything resembling a human being, more like an Old Testament angel, not that he could ever contextualize. Gojo had become a truly ineffable existence to all who behold him. Not that Mahito could tell, the moment he crossed his gaze with Gojo's he was trapped by its endless possibilities in a torrent of information.
"By all means, be afraid!" Somehow Mahito was still allowed to think to himself that Gojo was somehow smiling. The smile of a true curse.
This was his last thought.
-//-
Despite our early argument, Tsumiki and Megumi are no strangers to fighting side by side. One of the lessons imparted to them was the cost of true cooperation between souls, and how difficult it is the higher a cultivator grown into a uniquely excellent existence.
Now they test this lesson for all that it is worth against the king of curses.
If Megumi would be honest, he has no place here. He managed to tame Mahoraga by the skin of his teeth, bending the rules of the exorcism to their breaking point and making a mockery of it by cheesing the fight by perfecting his domain through trial and error until he could one shot it after Gojo confirmed Mahoraga doesn't keep his adaptation from previously exorcism attempts.
It is okay though, sorcerers are scan artists. There are only victors and defeated at the end of the day.
He is not arrogant enough to think he can win a clash of domains with the king of curses. Not until Mahoraga has adapted Sukuna's technique. As he couldn't even keep up, he subjected himself to supporting Tsumiki and Mahoraga with rabbit escape and Chimera beast Agito while keeping himself safe inside shadows, cheap shooting Sukuna with piercing water wherever he saw an opening.
It would be nostalgic if it wasn't so damn terrifying. Sukuna definitely trying to kill Tsumiki but he never once attacked me with anything but crippling blows. He is getting more and more impatient as the battle progresses though, as if he was the one running out of time. Even though Tsumiki was the one being pushed to the brink of what father's starlight marrow can bring out.
They had no chance of reinforcements tough. Shibuya became a pandemonium as open warfare seemed to have taken over every street they came across. From jujutsu sorcerers to cursed spirits, curse users, cursed corpses to members of the jujutsu family. Everyone seems to have chosen Shibuya as the place where they would settle their differences. And Sukuna was crushing them like ants in his wake.
That is when Sukuna had enough. The melody of his heart told me he was uncertain about it even as it promised destruction on a unparalleled level.
"Domain Expansion: -
Megumi emerges from the shadow ready for a desperate clash with Sukuna empowered by some binding vow, when Tsumiki tackled him with Gojo-like speed, trying to escape the King of Curses' range in a mad dash.
Malevolent Shrine!"
That was when the world was undone, the last thing he saw was his shikigami closing in on Sukuna. It was as if the world was being disintegrated, a giant cloud of smoke overtook Shibuya just centimeters from the two siblings.
Tsumiki reached her limits, stumbling at such terminal speed she had to use her body to shield Megumi as the two skipped over the pavement like a stone throw across a lake, sparkles flying high with each contact.
Megumi was the first to recompose himself as he persisted in watching Sukuna's grim work. He was still standing with difficulty as the whiplash from Tsumiki's mad dash fissured his spine, and he had to reset some bones and fingers. Yet a surge of hope overtook him when he saw Mahoraga emerging from Sukuna's domain expansion.
That was when he hit him with a fire arrow so powerful the world was engulfed in flames.
This… was so fucking unfair!
Tsumiki! He has to take his sister and run.
He turned toward her, and that is when Megumi found himself face to-face with Sukuna himself. He grabbed me by the jaw and forced one severed finger down Megumi's gullet, forcing him to swallow it. As the finger went down Megumi's throat, Yuji's connection to Sukuna's soul was severed as it found a new 'vessel'. Sukuna's cursed energy surged as he seized control and wrested Megumi's soul back, making him a prisoner in his own body.
Megumi spoke with a voice not his own, "Didn't I tell you, brat? We would see something interesting." Sukuna gloated from inside Megumi's flesh, rejoicing in his victory.
Yuji's face spoke of the desperation of becoming the instrument of such devastation and the death of his friend. Sukuna was about to kill him when he was cut off by a hysteric cry of euphoria from Tsumiki Fushigure.
She was laughing. Laughing at him. Her eyes spoke of cathartic release from worry at the same time she told the King of Curses he was the butt of this joke.
That moment of utter confusion at her bolt of madness was preceded by a feeling of foreboding dread.
That was when a sound like shattering glass came from within Megumi's soul, followed by a ravenous flame sinking its teeth on his soul, seizing his cursed energy a crushing it underfoot, dousing the King of Curse's taint from within.
Sukuna screamed.
-//-
Dignitas.
Or, as simplified by modern lingo, dignity.
The right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in morality, ethics, law, and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable rights. The term may also be used to describe personal conduct, as in "behaving with dignity".
Megumi Fushiguro who experienced the deprivation involved in being an unwanted child, looked down on with either pity or scorn by strangers for being a helpless burden on society, had the meaning of this virtue carved into his soul for as long as he could understand the world for what it was.
It was simple, really. As the best and most profound truths tend to be. When something is parsed clearly it can be understood even by a fool.
The basis of human interaction was avoiding violating someone else's dignity. The most basic rule to get along with strangers can be described as reciprocity.
'I will not kill you, so please, don't kill me either.'
From this humble spring, all social contracts follow. You expand from 'kill' to whatever more you want, through this process both parties can make this 'rule' a reality. Like a binding vow.
Of course, rules are only real if breaking them carries consequences.
Megumi is sure those who break said rules or act arrogant enough to think themselves above it are living a rose-colored existence where they do scarcely anything but exist in revel and jubilation of their perceived power and sense of self-importance.
That is why he will kill any and all such individuals every time he comes across them. Sure, he never killed anyone, but this is due to his own subscription to the rules of society more than anything else. He will make the treat and mean every word spoken, so far nobody has ever tested his limit. A little bit of pain was all it took.
Megumi Fushiguro is someone incapable of forgiveness. Both Zagreus and Tsumiki endorse this antisocial trait as the expression of his kindness.
They affirm his character. His dignity as a person is wanted and appreciated.
The King of Curses is not like most people. He exists in the same that uniquely excellent existences such as Satoru Gojo and his adopted father exist.
If he wanted to defeat him then he could not allow himself to be ordinary!
No. To begin with, Ryoma Sukuna intends to violate his captain's virtue by taking over his body and enslaving his soul with a bitten bridle.
He would rather be dead this suffer this humiliation! The virtue inside his soul would not allow it!
In a confrontation between cultivators of virtue, the monument cultivators built inside their souls could be broken down like any other man-made wonder. Done properly, with the right intent, for the right reasons, pushed by the right motivations you could even do it to yourself.
Megumi has a split foundation. Half Greek cultivator, half jujutsu sorcerer. His innate domain is a mess split down the middle, apart a foundation enforced on him by the curse of the Zenin clan, another a foundation made from materials he searched and built from truths he internalized and tempered in light of the greater natural mystery endowed to him.
Cultivation is a self-expression of the self. A split foundation is either the source or manifestation of a split Ego. Only a fool would take this lightly and ever since Zagreus grew aware of it when Megumi's cursed technique manifested, he treated this as a serious medical condition.
Through early instruction, he was always taught to never let these two circuits crosswire themselves. They are like two different muscles and this situation is risky enough as it was due to its rarity and chaotic circumstances. In the worst case, if a demon were to be born out of his heart, Megumi could be forced into doing away with one-half of everything that he was in order to keep on living.
He had to make sure the break would be as clean as possible.
He was told what to expect. As the soul sheds off the walls of his innate domain, an immense amount of spiritual energy would be released. Shedding either internalized truth that directs said principle or the binding ancestral curse as it is unraveled, releasing the accrued energy that makes said network function. A tired exhalation capable of filling the air with nearly as much vitality as a newly minted hero would emit during his ascension.
Zagreus, reliable as always in his crooked sort of side-ways manner, instructed how Megumi could get his life indemnity in case he was to be forced into this situation.
Divine Dividing - ascension is a provocation of natural law, in order to successfully bid your soul multiply to surpass a thousand men put together, heaven demands a thousand men fall in turn.
Ascension and fall are chained together.
You are born again.
The world is… better.
No longer dimly lit by cruelly burnished bronze, it's lit by defiance of noble souls. The lands are defined by great men and great women, cultivated as you cultivate your vines. Among them you find friends. Among them you find brothers.
One among them is your favorite.
You have nothing you can give him in support but your own senselessly beating heart, and so you do. He takes even that and improves it. While it beats in his chest, it burns. It takes on his shade. It becomes something glorious. It becomes something triumphant.
For the first time, you feel something in the senseless beating of your heart. You experience passion.
This is Megumi's trump card. He reached back to it and pulled the way a trapped would dog chew on his own limb for the sake of preserving his life, his loved ones, and his virtue.
For the sake of his dignity.
As the ancestral curse of the Ten Shadows unraveled, deafening him as it crumbled, he gathered it all and used it as tinder. He hoped the starlight marrow endowed to him by his adoptive father, a force of unstoppable refinement capable of facilitating any purpose as long he knew what he wanted. Where he was headed.
His goal was simple, if Sukuna liked human meat so much then he shouldn't complain about what happens when he is the one being eaten.
Time to reenact a time-honored family tradition.
[This son of raging heaven in hunger will devour you!]
Megumi sank the teeth of his influence on Sukuna's soul. It provided the spark needed by Megumi to lit his own virtuous spirit from within.
Megumi burned and kept burning. With the conviction, he would rather die than live another instant as a prisoner in his own flesh. He would rather die than allow the King of Curses free reign over the mortal world through his body.
Once Greek fire started burning it won't go out until it reduced everything it touched to cinders.
Megumi gambled it all on a miracle.
When a man was born, the Fates wove his destiny and swaddled him in it. Your reality was fixed. Whether you were the lowest of the low Citizenry, or a captain of the Sophic realm, the ceiling was the same.
It might as well be his destiny to become Sukuna's vessel. So his only hope is to break free from it entirely.
The line between mortality and divinity was drawn at the precipice of the Heroic Realm. In defiance of preordained fate, a cultivator reaches beyond their mortal standing to grasp the first handhold of their brazen epic, breaking free from the constraints of destiny that chain every man and woman like a shacked ball and chain.
Megumi barreled head first over the macabre monument to [Evil] the King of Cursed built inside his soul, his innate domain. He burned his life away and made himself a lion capable of enduring the worst retaliations the king of cursed could throw at him. And he ate.
Megumi spread the wings of his influence and sank them into Sukuna, breaking them underfoot and tearing them apart like strips of flesh.
Sukuna's cursed energy should be all right to overwhelm his infant soul but the flames of his life gave him all the [time] he needed to digest the King of Curses. He didn't care if he died. Gojo's final lesson reverberated in his mind. Every sorcerer dies with regrets and alone. If he could just stop Sukuna from harming his friends and family by his life's price then he would happily make this trade without regrets. Even if he died alone, it was fine. Every man stands alone when ascending the stairs toward raging heaven. ****************************** ** MEGUMI CURSE EATER ** ****************************** -//- [AUTHOR'S ROOM] Yeah, so I got sick and his chapter got relayed. Fortunately, I recovered. Now we see how Gojo's refinement differs from a normal Sophic. While Zagreu's influence is obvious, it was more restrained and directed. Kenjaku's plan for Mahito was good but he lacked contest of Zagreus' final goal for Gojo's refinement. We also see how Megumi skipped an entire realm. There were a lot of moving parts to it, but he attempted to use Mahoraga about eight times in cannon. He would not hesitate to pull a stunt like that if Tsumiki's life was on the line.[/time]
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Now Zagreus just needs to koolaid man his way out of Pandora's box and bring hope to the world. Not sure how kenjaku can pull off his plans now Zagreus has escaped, megumis eaten sukuna, and Gojo has beaten mahito. Uh offhand can his tengen plan still work? Cause if he can pull off making even like an incomplete god of Japan out of them then it could be an appropriate boss battle for gojo, Zagreus, and megumi to struggle in?
- Pronouns
- ImBuda
Im pretty sure that instead of ten principles inside his soul to refine his understanding and his thinking soul, he has ten curses made from his own experience, live and manifestation of the form of his soul, each of them similar to the Celtic idea of geass or a binding vow, and by fullfilling the conditions within one self he can increase his power and redefine his curse technique by showing his own understanding of himself.I suppose that in order to enter and increase the power of the realm one has to understand the essence inside his soul and it's relation to his own nature, which is the reason Zagreus asked for Gojos help, because the origins instead of being greek were made from the remmants of fear and hunger and gojo due to his enlightment was perfect to refine the process
The MEGUMI CURSE EATER at the end seems to not be formatted correctly, at least not if it was supposed to show up like it did last chapter.
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I literally tried everything but this format somehow never corrects itself. I will try something different later but if someone know about it and can help, they would be appreciated.
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that is the scariest thing about Kenjaku, he reverse-engineered the ascension to Old Gods we see undergone by Logic and Fear and Hunger gods just from clues from Yuki's memories and his own knowledge. What is important is his final goal, not the friends he made along the way.
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Hmmm, really hoping the next world is a Sci-fi one, or at least close enough, have you read shadowrun? Maybe worm?
Space whale gods working with unfathomable principles of maybe-science seem like a good place to train paradox logic or do impossible heroic feats against creatures of 'myth'.
Space whale gods working with unfathomable principles of maybe-science seem like a good place to train paradox logic or do impossible heroic feats against creatures of 'myth'.
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Cu Chulain had a lot, and I mean a LOOOT of geas, from never eating dog meat to forfeiting a fight against any man of certain nationality. It was what made the most sense for Jujutsu sorcerers. With the knowledge about the nature of souls Gojo forged this next realm since he loved jujutsu itself, being one of his passions.
Awesome work as usual Bruno! Looks like Sukuna really didn't know his target, and got Burned for it. Technically there might , might be one last finger, one last Hurrah for Sukuna, but I think he might cut his losses short.
Curious what powers Megumi will get, and what Kenjaku is up to. Also Biblical Angel Satoru was awesome. Mahito fucked up.
Also, do you have a destination in mind after JJK? Or is it just Zagreus surfing the cosmos? Kinda stumbled onto a neat horror RPG on Steam, and wanted to share. Little Goody Two shoes looks interesting! That and the chance to pulp a demon is always awesome.
Curious what powers Megumi will get, and what Kenjaku is up to. Also Biblical Angel Satoru was awesome. Mahito fucked up.
Also, do you have a destination in mind after JJK? Or is it just Zagreus surfing the cosmos? Kinda stumbled onto a neat horror RPG on Steam, and wanted to share. Little Goody Two shoes looks interesting! That and the chance to pulp a demon is always awesome.
That makes me really curious to see where he'll take things next especially with both Megumi and Zagreus giving him example for the next realm.
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I have been thinking about either Gundam, or Star Wars Episode I. The ideological conflict with an institution like the Jedi Consil while doing heroic things through the galaxy sounds like a really interesting conflict. Similar for Gundam but more focused on war.
After that, I was thinking of Mushoku Tensei, followed by a more action-focused setting like Worm or the Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous.
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I feel they'd body d&d if they faced anything except gods in their own realms. Though maybe he could counter invade hell. That'd be fucking awesome.
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- Brazil
You have to honour the Greek pantheon you descended from.
Honouring them just so happens to align with having an alternate giant robot form, or if you're lacking, driving a giant robot in space world war.
Honouring them just so happens to align with having an alternate giant robot form, or if you're lacking, driving a giant robot in space world war.
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Gundam would be awesome! Don't me wrong, Star Wars left its imprint on the culture of today, but I feel that we had a bit too much Star Wars, you know? Dune would be interesting to explore with its Destiny and what not, but those books are kinda long, and from what I heard anything past that the original author wrote is kinda jank.
Mushoku Tensei would be interesting to see, Rudy seeing someone who made at Isekai would prolly make him try to match. That and maybe curb some of his worse tendencies.
Dnd I know jack about. And Worm? Its interesting, but there is already so much Worm stuff. Kinda got tired of Taylor as a protag. If it was Greg on the other hand? It would be interesting to see.
Anyhow, good work. I guess we still have stuff to do in JJK, and I curious to see how Kenjaku will try to weasel his way out of this one.
Still recommend Little Goody Two Shoes! It's gorgeous game, really nails that 80's to 90's Anime Look, and the story does have some moments that will hit you in the feels.
In case it wasn't obvious its my newest brainrot, I like the main heroine, and wish there was someone the beat the shit out of the antagonist, especially since the world is based on the grimmer fairy tales out there, so you can tell they are making people suffer just for the heck of it.