- Location
- washington
So how many new sorcerers are there due to energy bending? Has Zagreus used his book knowledge and cultivation stuff to write down experiences they can live through his notes to give to jujutsu high?
DODGE THE WHEEL
- Thread starter BrunofanofK
- Start date
- Crossover
JJK 4
- Location
- Brazil
All languages are united by a singular purpose, to convey and to be heard, from one soul to another. The sounds may differ, but the intent remains the same.
The Shard of Babylon leverages this principle and bridges the gap between souls by using a culture's foundational myth as a door for all the other languages recorded in it.
I don't know if said shard was a product of gods, heroes, or philosophers but I know there are many of said shards spread across the Free Mediterranean.
Rhetoric can be manifested through three means: invoking rules of nature, principles, and lived experience. The last one is how the Epics of Heroes get recorded and are told. Using the voice of their soul, philosophers tell stories worth hearing by giving the listeners the privileged viewpoint of a true witness.
I didn't know if I could reproduce something at the level of a lesser natural mystery but I knew it would be worth trying. Using the Book of Enlightenment written by the sages of Ma'habre as a reference, I worked on this project during my tenure at Wan Shi Tong's Spirit Library.
To this day I can't point out what the Book of Enlightenment even did to me. All I can attest is the profundity of said experience. One-time use carrier of a natural mystery. Even if I had to rewrite all the content of the Shard of Babylon every time, I want to grant someone the blessing of universal translation, the results speak for themselves. The universal translation is a priceless gift.
Besides, if I could reproduce a lesser mystery then what else could I achieve with said skill? Something like true skill books capable of inserting the foundations of any proficiency into the reader? Hell, I might even be able to awaken a person's soul through a holy text! The possibilities are endless.
So that is what I did. While I did my best to absorb all the content of Wan Shi Tong's Spirit Library, I also broke it apart and distilled it to its essence even as I practiced its content so I could imprint the lived experience in threads, books, and papyrus capable of imparting a measure of my skill into any reader with an awakened soul. And let me tell you, they went a long way into smoothing the hassle of supervising Megumi's and Tsumiki's education.
This becomes relevant when you introduce the concept of computer language into the mix. The babel shard works in everything considered a language, and while it is nothing like a universal code breaker, it facilitates the transmission of information that wants to be heard. The cause for this is how barrier techniques are deployed. The programming of barriers to be precise.
Yeah, the Shard of Babylon never got the braille update; learning mudras was a hassle by the way. But the important thing is that it still serves as a guide for the soul to find a way to be heard, expanding a person's understanding and limits of communication. I even wasted one of my Shard of Babylon replicas just to see what Gojo could pull out from it, something that paid dividends over the years.
Even if I mix and match different languages into a barrier technique inscription from different founding principles, I can still make said Frankenstein work as long as the meaning is transmitted seamlessly. This is the second factor which made me the best barrier user in history. Suck it Tengen!
This allowed me to work on existing barriers, either mending or improving them. Giving them new features. Archimedes' Golden Thread was designed as a prediction engine, most of my money actually comes from the royalties paid for by the adherence of these features to the barriers that support Jujutsu Society. The ability to monitor and predict the flow of cursed energy and the appearance of curses also serves to observe anomalies brought about by outside factors. In fact, due to how essential Tenge's barriers are to support all barrier-related techniques, from mantles to domain expansions, it was easy to set up a recording system of what happens inside them. I can then faithfully reproduce said record using an empty barrier as a medium.
That is how I got myself in the awkward position of having to grill Gojo for instigating the special cursed spirit Rika to manifest for almost ten minutes in Yuta's very first mission! Gojo watched the replaying record of Rika's manifestation beside the other dignitaries like a child caught elbow-deep in the cookie jar. I even managed to reproduce his sassy ass from outside the mantle due to my familiarity with his cursed energy. He certainly liked to act ominously when nobody is looking, that is why people see him as the Douman despite my foreigner ass!
"That sink-or-swim teaching style of yours needs some serious work," I commented in a deadpan voice.
"I can explain." He argued.
"You have no room for excuses!" accused one of the faceless higher-ups. "We entrusted Okkotsu to you precisely to avoid this kind of situation." Another pipped in, these vengeful geezers fully intended to tear Satoru a new one for all the grief he constantly causes them.
Unfortunately for them, Satoru Gojo was Satoru Gojo.
"Well, I hadn't really planned on making any excuse, though." Replied the heir of one of the three families with casual disinterest.
"Are you messing with us? The whole town could have been destroyed if vengeful spirit Rika was left to roam freely!"
That was when I was forced to interfere, "Alas, I don't think we can keep Rika's current qualification after this event."
As I said it, the looping record shifts from the cursed spirit to the fleeing sorcerers in training. More so, there is a moment where the spirit of the girl manifested and contacted the young Yuta Okkutsu.
"I wouldn't dare to claim more experience in matters of spiritual evocation than the illustrious presents," I lied, "but this is not how a vengeful or obsessive ghost owes to behave. At all."
Seeing his chance, Satoru steps in.
"There is only one thing we know about Rika so far: she doesn't make sense. Everything surrounding her is abnormal, we can't hope to control something we can't understand. That calls for some trial and error."
Satoru got them there and they all knew it too. Yet, it is the nature of shamans to curse one another. Nobody can leave others to have the final word.
"Don't forget that Okkotsu hidden execution is only on hold." The faceless bastard piped menacingly to Gojo.
Gojo was about to retort with a treat of his own when I stepped in.
"Unfortunately, I can't in good conscience support any rash decision surrounding Rika after what I saw today. The point of the execution is to deny Rika her tether to the world, but this was made under the assumption she became a cursed spirit on her own. If this was the case then her spiritual corpus would show clear signs of such taint. This means the chances of her being the cursed one between her and young Yuta have skyrocketed. Has anyone made any background check on the boy?"
The total silence was answer enough.
"You people can't be serious," I complained as I massaged my nose in exasperation.
"Even so, if what you say is true and Okkotsu is the curser, then what is the problem with executing him then?" asked another faceless manager.
Satoru pipped in, "The conditions. There is no shame in suffering exchanged between enemies, to the point we sorcerers practically codified them as rules of jujutsu because of the underlying assumption the caster will be cursing others in anger and hatred. But there is no curse as twisted as love, the conditions and implicit binding vows involving Rika might lead to unpredictable consequences. In the worst case, Yuta might become a cursed spirit of similar magnitude after his death due to the binding vows connecting the two of them!" Gojo explains with triumphant realization.
"Precisely. If any of the dignitaries present were to take a binding vow assuming the responsibility for such a scenario then I am willing to support the execution though. Anyone? There is any among you willing to take on such a burden then?" I propose, giving them an out I knew they would never take due to their cowardice. That is how they got old in a profession so many die young after all.
The resulting silence was answer enough.
"It is decided then, we will keep on in an attempt to solve the mystery behind Rika and Yuta. Thank you for your continuous support!" Gojo boasted as he sauntered out of the room.
God damn it, Gojo! Why am I always the one combing through ruffled feathers?
I can't believe Gojo talked me into this. Spiritual mediumship is a rare talent among sorcerers and it is ill-suited for the violent exorcism favored by jujutsu sorcerers, but Rika's situation calls for a level of finesse that is hard to come by. So Geto's little sect of followers looked like the most promising option.
"You possess a truly wonderful power and it is my belief that such great power should be deployed to a great purpose in turn." Geto starts, turning that forked tongue of his to make the head of the boy; maybe I did too good a job teaching him. "Do you have any doubt about our current world? A world where sorcerers sacrifice their lives for the sake of a status quo? I am sure you have seen for yourself the tool this life takes in your new friends. Let's build a bright future for those we love together, Yuta!" Geto already has the boy in a hug as he preaches to him with tears in his eyes, yet despite the over-the-top performance, it was clear how the friendship talks rocked the lonely Yuta.
I wasn't the only one who noticed it either.
"Care to give my student some space, Geto?" Gojo complained as he literally pried the two apart with an exasperated expression. For someone as stuck in the past as Gojo, this sleazy cult leader side of Geto is something he never got used to; it reminded Gojo he was the only one among his friends that never changed in ten years. "And stop trying to put ideas in his head as well!"
"My, my, don't be like that Satoru. This cold shoulder hurts, you know? Especially when I went out of my way to help Yuta here once I heard about his situation." Geto retorted, calling back why the three of us had come for Geto searching for his assistance. More specifically, the jujutsu resources he has at his disposal in his cult followers.
"You are going to help Rika and me?" Yuta asked in guarded hope.
"But of course! Sorcerers protect the unwitty population, but who protects sorcerers? My life's goal and mission are to help and give support to all sorcerers! It must have been hard, right Yuta? To live by yourself all this time, isolated and hated by your power. This is a haven for sorcerers, our doors will always be open to you. Please, don't hesitate to think of us as a second family!" Geto says without losing any steam, already glued to him like a barnacle once again.
I really can't fault Geto here, Yuta is such an easy mark. It wouldn't take much to make him eat from the palm of one's hand. Unending power combined with desperate naivety, is a terrifying cocktail. This is the reason I had Gojo being his main supporter.
"Boys, don't get distracted. Remember that I am here just as a supervisor for Jujutsu Tech, I won't take part unless Rika goes off. Don't underestimate the danger of the situation, while there is little risk for the both of you, I can't say the same for all the weak sorcerers involved." I bring the gravity of the situation for all three of them.
Rika is a menace to ordinary people, and I won't be around forever. My most impactful actions have been guided by this simple truth. I even tried to impart this to the two of them as well, but it is hard to treat Chuunibyou syndrome when the power backing it is real. Gojo and Geto are a pair of goofballs at the end of the day, which makes their power all the more sinister when they deem to display it.
In that context, it becomes easy to understand how the people of Olympia could genuinely love Bakkahos despite the Tyrant Riot's proclivities. Living under the thumb of a Tyrant is better than living under the siege of a thousand would-be despoilers. My 'it is what it is' approach to life is far less worrying for the established powers than the Six Eyes threatening to kill all higher-ups wherever he is upset or Geto's little private army of curses and loyal sorcerers. Geto's execution is toothless nowadays because Jujutsu Tech doesn't know if they could even pull it out!
On the other hand, I mostly keep my opinion to myself as I quietly work to make life easier for most people in the Jujutsu Society. If there is one thing this whole adventure has driven home is that humans are the same no matter where I go - it is up to me to decide if this is a good or bad thing.
It is not like I don't go off or can be unreasonable or push personal agendas, but these are not so openly subversive as the rest of my fellow special-grade sorcerers. People are willing to simply look the other way to what they see as indiscretions or know to hold their tongue when I step over their toes. They compare my behavior to people around them with far less power than me and consider my restraint as a virtue.
"So Geto, who did you get to do this job again?" Gojo asks.
"Our little religious group keeps some users of Séance Technique on hold for spiritual sessions as they represent a health chunk of our incoming. A lot of rich m-
I looked at Geto with a serious expression, there is a reason I don't bring Megumi or Tsumiki here that often. It is hard enough to give Mimiko and Nanako a M-pass due to their trauma; and boy, wasn't it a misadventure to explain this to Megumi and Tsumiki? But it is something else entirely to actively foster such a behavior.
"A lot of rich money-making people desperate to talk with their dead relatives, a miracle only a sorcerer can perform!" Geto saved at the last second more out of respect for me than consideration for mortal crude souls. Well, it is what it is.
"This is a rather special case, you know?" Gojo replied, worried.
"Relax, I am the person who understands the unique relationship between soul and body the most. I recruited some serious backup to avoid any incident." Geto bragged.
"Understand the most? This goes a bit beyond humble brag here." Gojo retorted.
"Everyone knows Zagreus doesn't count-
"Hey!" I protested but Geto went on undeterred.
"As he exists in a standard of his own, especially as he taught me everything I know. But my cursed technique reversal and extension technique give me a unique advantage in the field. That is how I came to gather so many sorcerers under me in the first place."
"Yeah, you live up to your moniker as the black-hearted Buddha, but what about Yuki?" Gojo said those words and immediately came to regret them.
"All these years and you still haven't learned to talk properly." Geto retorted as they both stared my way. Feeling pity for me!
"As if I need consolation from a pair of boys! Guess what kids? Sometimes relationships simply don't work, no matter how much both parties may want it otherwise. Yuki and I were too set on our ways to walk beside each other for the long haul."
"Was it painful?" Gojo asks without any hesitation, this isn't a topic I talk about often after all.
"Gojo! There is a limit for irreverence!" Geto reproached without losing a moment, scandalized by his friend's callousness.
"It is ok. It's part of an elder to offer guidance through experience. If Gojo bothered to ask it was because he yearned to know for himself. It is rare as it is for him to look before he leaps, I have to take every chance I get to set him straight." There are ominous implications to my word and Geto take on a contrived expression, regret at words said at a moment of passion that scarred Gojo forevermore. "I loved Yuki. Hell, I still do, no matter how bitter our parting was. Virtues and vices don't invalidate one another, no matter what anybody else says. It hurts, but it hurts so good I would kill anyone who dared to trample these memories. A bittersweet and nostalgic aftertaste."
And I still bore hope. That this time apart will bring us closer. Cultivators are hopelessly greedy existences, as they become more of what they are, good and bad, in every metric worth measuring, so do the highs of awes and deep of their woes increase. Triumph is followed by Tragedy, a cultivator's pain, like all the rest of their soul, is more than a non-cultivator's. They could spit blood like they'd been run through with a sword if another's words hit their ego in just the right place, at just the right time, among just the right people. Something Gojo learned from first-hand experience.
Are you Satoru Gojo because you are the strongest or are you the strongest because you are Satoru Gojo?
Turned out infinity can't protect against emotional damage, to this day Gojo can't answer this question with sincerity and conviction. It exists as the knot at the core of his soul. The answer to who he is behind unending power. Only Geto could have delivered such a blow and a day doesn't go by where he doesn't regret his actions. The sight of Gojo swallowing his hurt while gathering every scrap of self-awareness to convey to his only friend how much he meant to him must have been a truly ugly sight.
Yet Geto was saved precisely by this truth. The reality of the hurt his actions would cause for those he proclaimed to fight for was what prevented him from walking beyond the brink. They are why I placed my faith in him. The reason Geto backed down is because he decided he cared more for those he loved than he resented those who hurt them.
It isn't much, but even the most basic truths can have profound ramifications as their effects compound as Time marches on. Virtues and Vices can only be measured by men through the consequences they leave behind. Performative Excellence.
"I take it your spiritual medium doesn't intend to let himself be possessed by Rika, right?" I ask, just to change the topic. Dispel the heavy ambient these questions and memories brought to the surface. The sorry and beaten boys I first met are now powerful and influential men striving their best to be virtuous in actions and thoughts. I accept some level of deference as a senior but they owe to meet me at eye level. Geto is getting beaten like an irresponsible boy if he takes this lightly, and he knows this too!
"I guarantee you, we are going above and beyond for Rika and Yuta's sake. I recruited an entire team of sorcerers handpicked for their techniques to ensure things go smoothly. From the instrumental user of [Séance Technique], capable of contacting the dead and summoning their body and soul's information, a [Cursed Corpse] user prepares a vessel by replicating Rika's soul information from physical information from her remains, then inputs that information in the cursed corpse core. I even arranged for a user of [Solo Forbidden Area] and [Resonance] expert to improve their basic performance. They are performing at 200% percent!" Geto declares with pride, lifting Yuta's spirit with hope.
It is no coincidence Geto gathered so many curse users under him. Yuki already dedicated her life to understanding the soul and heavenly restriction. What they lacked was an understanding of the body, or to be precise, its relationship with the soul, something I had unraveled in my time as a grave keeper.
The body is the first factor, a terminal that allows the phenomenon we call the soul, the second factor, to manifest. Even if each possesses unique particularities, as the soul literally exists in mystery, being unobservable, there is a constant feedback loop of information through the process of resonance, a phenomenon already well-known to sorcerers as they exploit it to curse each other. This leads to two consequences, first, the body and soul become a blueprint of each other, body's information equals soul's information. Second, this continuous feedback loop gives rise to the third factor, the mind; what sorcerers dubbed as [innate domain].
This neatly explains the phenomenon of the shards of sin caused by soul deterioration as well as the how and why of soul damage and the need for a corresponding organ to heal or transfer taint. Something expanded by the excellence of the [Blank Soul] and its mastery over the Vitruvia's mysteries.
We already had enough pieces of the puzzle to guide ourselves toward a satisfying answer. Geto managed to adjust and expand the interpretation of his technique to affect humans by taming the heart demons through Cursed Technique Reversal. Innate Domains are the foundation of innate techniques, existing both in the mindscape and in the brain. By exploiting the phenomenon of resonance Geto managed to create new sorcerers through his extension technique; far more useful than hollow purple too. Geto's [dominating soul] found its calling.
Ironically then, our greatest triumph would be the cause of my and Yuki's falling out. Geto had no interest in Heavenly Restriction as it just inflicts a painful existence on sorcerers or curses the world with another 'super-monkey', as Geto puts it. Yuki, for all of her contributions, was hopeless when it came to implementing energy bending in practice. Her [Endless soul] made her an unorthodox prodigy but also alienated her from the beaten path; the same boat as Gojo really.
This means when she decided the best way forward was to sever humanity from cursed energy entirely through the power of Heavenly Restriction, she sort of ran into a wall as both Geto and I disagreed. While more accessible, as only one in one hundred sleeping souls is even remotely ready to be awakened and all my research so far only managed to bend the rules of nature to a one in ten, I still hold the soul as more precious than the body.
They are for religious reasons, I guess. Giving in to her cause would be giving up on cultivation of virtue, on the Thief of Flame's transgression against heaven. Both my experience with not-Aqua and the tenets of Orphic faith lead me to favor the soul as the most enduring software while the body as an all-important but ultimately discardable hardware. The fact she would need a high number of energy benders like Geto and myself to pull off such a plan was another bottleneck as she would flood the world with billions of Tojis. His heavenly restriction was a literal cheat code even worse than Gojo's six eyes due to its limitation of one unique user being allowed to exist at a time.
Things might not be perfect but this would be rocking the boat for pitiful results. Demons would just migrate from without to within humans, they needed a better solution that wouldn't result in a brutal culling or open warfare. When someone becomes another's master, they claim for themselves part of the responsibility for all victory and failure. One Toji Zenin already did so much damage, that I wasn't willing to take responsibility for the actions of billions of them.
Lost in musings as I was, the ringing of my cellphone came as a surprise. It was the emergency ringtone as well. Geto and Gojo looked on curiously as I clicked my tongue in disdain.
"What happened?" Gojo asked.
"Sessho-seki (Killing stone) seal just broke, as the one that has set the monitoring barrier, intelligence in convoking me to deal with registered Special Grade Cursed Spirit, Tamamo-no-mae," I explained to the three. That was strange, it was not supposed to happen until 2022.
"Oh, lucky! That sounds like a fun time. Should we postpone this for later then?" Satoru proposed shamelessly.
"No way! One, Yuta is your responsibility. Remember? Two, Geto is still technically a criminal, the higher-ups are already nervous with the sheer quantity of people he has under him, and adding a special grade would just aggravate his position for little benefit."
"Three, you want to do it by yourself. You greedy bastard! Does your hunger have no limits?" Gojo cuts in, seeing right through me.
"You always get the fun cases. I am inching for a proper fight against something capable of putting real resistance."
Gojo gesticulated as if hurt, making an exaggerated motion toward his heart. "That hurt right here, you know? Did things get stale between us, are you tired of me already?"
I just rolled my eyes at his middle-graded level shenanigan. "You know what I mean."
"Right, in the end, we never truly tried to kill each other, no matter how serious we fought. As you said, some virtues can only be learned at the tip of the sword. But you are setting yourself up for a disappointment though, most special grades can't live up to the name." Despite Gojo's infantile antics, he is surprisingly keen about some matters of his interest. That is, battle.
I have been a captain of the Sophic Realm for almost two decades now, and I refined myself enough to feel ready for the next realm. Now I just need a challenge worth telling stories of to start my Epic. A certain level of restlessness and wanderlust has settled in. Something my once-student-turned-junior can easily recognize as he is always on the prowl in search of a challenge.
"Only the two of you could talk so casually about special-grade curses, you know?" Geto intersects himself in the conversation with a disapproving tone, an old routine between him and Gojo. The fact I am being lectured as well shows I had perhaps spent too much time around Satoru, to the point my standards got skewered by his own perception. "There are only fourteen registered ones to begin with and any movement from one is cause for concern. Please, treat this more seriously."
"Me, being lectured by two hunts who can barely take care of themselves. What is the world coming to? Fine, I will be careful. Satoru is probably right anyway and I am crushing it without that much difficulty." I say as I manifest the tuxedo, top hat, and rabbit ears of Rher's rabbit mantle.
"Bye-bye! Remember to buy us a souvenir on your way back." Satoru says dramatically.
I just rolled my eyes at his theatrics and walked myself toward the nearest corner. At the end of the day, Rher's dimension operates in the same line as the Blind Maiden Cult's (Artemis) Blind Eye Turned little disappearance trick exploiting the observer effect. It is fitting, even. One is a god of full moon while the other is a goddess of new moon.
The boundary between dream and reality is a curse. That is the truth at the core of Jujutsu. Rher is the dream, humanity's collective subconsciousness suffocated by a wood road, and I am the dreamer, the one capable of freely moving through it using golden gates. The use of sigils and pentagrams becomes unnecessary for coordinates when a certain level of competence is achieved, even if I can only use it for backtracking.
Mostly a middle-of-the-road chapter, but at least you know what Zagreus is up to. He managed to make skill books and even replicate the Shard of Babel. It also shows more of how he affected Jujutsu Society, what Geto was up to, and how they developed over the years. Next chapter will be the application of said infodump.
The Shard of Babylon leverages this principle and bridges the gap between souls by using a culture's foundational myth as a door for all the other languages recorded in it.
I don't know if said shard was a product of gods, heroes, or philosophers but I know there are many of said shards spread across the Free Mediterranean.
Rhetoric can be manifested through three means: invoking rules of nature, principles, and lived experience. The last one is how the Epics of Heroes get recorded and are told. Using the voice of their soul, philosophers tell stories worth hearing by giving the listeners the privileged viewpoint of a true witness.
I didn't know if I could reproduce something at the level of a lesser natural mystery but I knew it would be worth trying. Using the Book of Enlightenment written by the sages of Ma'habre as a reference, I worked on this project during my tenure at Wan Shi Tong's Spirit Library.
To this day I can't point out what the Book of Enlightenment even did to me. All I can attest is the profundity of said experience. One-time use carrier of a natural mystery. Even if I had to rewrite all the content of the Shard of Babylon every time, I want to grant someone the blessing of universal translation, the results speak for themselves. The universal translation is a priceless gift.
Besides, if I could reproduce a lesser mystery then what else could I achieve with said skill? Something like true skill books capable of inserting the foundations of any proficiency into the reader? Hell, I might even be able to awaken a person's soul through a holy text! The possibilities are endless.
So that is what I did. While I did my best to absorb all the content of Wan Shi Tong's Spirit Library, I also broke it apart and distilled it to its essence even as I practiced its content so I could imprint the lived experience in threads, books, and papyrus capable of imparting a measure of my skill into any reader with an awakened soul. And let me tell you, they went a long way into smoothing the hassle of supervising Megumi's and Tsumiki's education.
This becomes relevant when you introduce the concept of computer language into the mix. The babel shard works in everything considered a language, and while it is nothing like a universal code breaker, it facilitates the transmission of information that wants to be heard. The cause for this is how barrier techniques are deployed. The programming of barriers to be precise.
Yeah, the Shard of Babylon never got the braille update; learning mudras was a hassle by the way. But the important thing is that it still serves as a guide for the soul to find a way to be heard, expanding a person's understanding and limits of communication. I even wasted one of my Shard of Babylon replicas just to see what Gojo could pull out from it, something that paid dividends over the years.
Even if I mix and match different languages into a barrier technique inscription from different founding principles, I can still make said Frankenstein work as long as the meaning is transmitted seamlessly. This is the second factor which made me the best barrier user in history. Suck it Tengen!
This allowed me to work on existing barriers, either mending or improving them. Giving them new features. Archimedes' Golden Thread was designed as a prediction engine, most of my money actually comes from the royalties paid for by the adherence of these features to the barriers that support Jujutsu Society. The ability to monitor and predict the flow of cursed energy and the appearance of curses also serves to observe anomalies brought about by outside factors. In fact, due to how essential Tenge's barriers are to support all barrier-related techniques, from mantles to domain expansions, it was easy to set up a recording system of what happens inside them. I can then faithfully reproduce said record using an empty barrier as a medium.
That is how I got myself in the awkward position of having to grill Gojo for instigating the special cursed spirit Rika to manifest for almost ten minutes in Yuta's very first mission! Gojo watched the replaying record of Rika's manifestation beside the other dignitaries like a child caught elbow-deep in the cookie jar. I even managed to reproduce his sassy ass from outside the mantle due to my familiarity with his cursed energy. He certainly liked to act ominously when nobody is looking, that is why people see him as the Douman despite my foreigner ass!
"That sink-or-swim teaching style of yours needs some serious work," I commented in a deadpan voice.
"I can explain." He argued.
"You have no room for excuses!" accused one of the faceless higher-ups. "We entrusted Okkotsu to you precisely to avoid this kind of situation." Another pipped in, these vengeful geezers fully intended to tear Satoru a new one for all the grief he constantly causes them.
Unfortunately for them, Satoru Gojo was Satoru Gojo.
"Well, I hadn't really planned on making any excuse, though." Replied the heir of one of the three families with casual disinterest.
"Are you messing with us? The whole town could have been destroyed if vengeful spirit Rika was left to roam freely!"
That was when I was forced to interfere, "Alas, I don't think we can keep Rika's current qualification after this event."
As I said it, the looping record shifts from the cursed spirit to the fleeing sorcerers in training. More so, there is a moment where the spirit of the girl manifested and contacted the young Yuta Okkutsu.
"I wouldn't dare to claim more experience in matters of spiritual evocation than the illustrious presents," I lied, "but this is not how a vengeful or obsessive ghost owes to behave. At all."
Seeing his chance, Satoru steps in.
"There is only one thing we know about Rika so far: she doesn't make sense. Everything surrounding her is abnormal, we can't hope to control something we can't understand. That calls for some trial and error."
Satoru got them there and they all knew it too. Yet, it is the nature of shamans to curse one another. Nobody can leave others to have the final word.
"Don't forget that Okkotsu hidden execution is only on hold." The faceless bastard piped menacingly to Gojo.
Gojo was about to retort with a treat of his own when I stepped in.
"Unfortunately, I can't in good conscience support any rash decision surrounding Rika after what I saw today. The point of the execution is to deny Rika her tether to the world, but this was made under the assumption she became a cursed spirit on her own. If this was the case then her spiritual corpus would show clear signs of such taint. This means the chances of her being the cursed one between her and young Yuta have skyrocketed. Has anyone made any background check on the boy?"
The total silence was answer enough.
"You people can't be serious," I complained as I massaged my nose in exasperation.
"Even so, if what you say is true and Okkotsu is the curser, then what is the problem with executing him then?" asked another faceless manager.
Satoru pipped in, "The conditions. There is no shame in suffering exchanged between enemies, to the point we sorcerers practically codified them as rules of jujutsu because of the underlying assumption the caster will be cursing others in anger and hatred. But there is no curse as twisted as love, the conditions and implicit binding vows involving Rika might lead to unpredictable consequences. In the worst case, Yuta might become a cursed spirit of similar magnitude after his death due to the binding vows connecting the two of them!" Gojo explains with triumphant realization.
"Precisely. If any of the dignitaries present were to take a binding vow assuming the responsibility for such a scenario then I am willing to support the execution though. Anyone? There is any among you willing to take on such a burden then?" I propose, giving them an out I knew they would never take due to their cowardice. That is how they got old in a profession so many die young after all.
The resulting silence was answer enough.
"It is decided then, we will keep on in an attempt to solve the mystery behind Rika and Yuta. Thank you for your continuous support!" Gojo boasted as he sauntered out of the room.
God damn it, Gojo! Why am I always the one combing through ruffled feathers?
-//-
"Nice to meet you, Okkotsu-kun. My name is Suguru Geto." Geto says genially as he invades young Yuta's personal space.
I can't believe Gojo talked me into this. Spiritual mediumship is a rare talent among sorcerers and it is ill-suited for the violent exorcism favored by jujutsu sorcerers, but Rika's situation calls for a level of finesse that is hard to come by. So Geto's little sect of followers looked like the most promising option.
"You possess a truly wonderful power and it is my belief that such great power should be deployed to a great purpose in turn." Geto starts, turning that forked tongue of his to make the head of the boy; maybe I did too good a job teaching him. "Do you have any doubt about our current world? A world where sorcerers sacrifice their lives for the sake of a status quo? I am sure you have seen for yourself the tool this life takes in your new friends. Let's build a bright future for those we love together, Yuta!" Geto already has the boy in a hug as he preaches to him with tears in his eyes, yet despite the over-the-top performance, it was clear how the friendship talks rocked the lonely Yuta.
I wasn't the only one who noticed it either.
"Care to give my student some space, Geto?" Gojo complained as he literally pried the two apart with an exasperated expression. For someone as stuck in the past as Gojo, this sleazy cult leader side of Geto is something he never got used to; it reminded Gojo he was the only one among his friends that never changed in ten years. "And stop trying to put ideas in his head as well!"
"My, my, don't be like that Satoru. This cold shoulder hurts, you know? Especially when I went out of my way to help Yuta here once I heard about his situation." Geto retorted, calling back why the three of us had come for Geto searching for his assistance. More specifically, the jujutsu resources he has at his disposal in his cult followers.
"You are going to help Rika and me?" Yuta asked in guarded hope.
"But of course! Sorcerers protect the unwitty population, but who protects sorcerers? My life's goal and mission are to help and give support to all sorcerers! It must have been hard, right Yuta? To live by yourself all this time, isolated and hated by your power. This is a haven for sorcerers, our doors will always be open to you. Please, don't hesitate to think of us as a second family!" Geto says without losing any steam, already glued to him like a barnacle once again.
I really can't fault Geto here, Yuta is such an easy mark. It wouldn't take much to make him eat from the palm of one's hand. Unending power combined with desperate naivety, is a terrifying cocktail. This is the reason I had Gojo being his main supporter.
"Boys, don't get distracted. Remember that I am here just as a supervisor for Jujutsu Tech, I won't take part unless Rika goes off. Don't underestimate the danger of the situation, while there is little risk for the both of you, I can't say the same for all the weak sorcerers involved." I bring the gravity of the situation for all three of them.
Rika is a menace to ordinary people, and I won't be around forever. My most impactful actions have been guided by this simple truth. I even tried to impart this to the two of them as well, but it is hard to treat Chuunibyou syndrome when the power backing it is real. Gojo and Geto are a pair of goofballs at the end of the day, which makes their power all the more sinister when they deem to display it.
In that context, it becomes easy to understand how the people of Olympia could genuinely love Bakkahos despite the Tyrant Riot's proclivities. Living under the thumb of a Tyrant is better than living under the siege of a thousand would-be despoilers. My 'it is what it is' approach to life is far less worrying for the established powers than the Six Eyes threatening to kill all higher-ups wherever he is upset or Geto's little private army of curses and loyal sorcerers. Geto's execution is toothless nowadays because Jujutsu Tech doesn't know if they could even pull it out!
On the other hand, I mostly keep my opinion to myself as I quietly work to make life easier for most people in the Jujutsu Society. If there is one thing this whole adventure has driven home is that humans are the same no matter where I go - it is up to me to decide if this is a good or bad thing.
It is not like I don't go off or can be unreasonable or push personal agendas, but these are not so openly subversive as the rest of my fellow special-grade sorcerers. People are willing to simply look the other way to what they see as indiscretions or know to hold their tongue when I step over their toes. They compare my behavior to people around them with far less power than me and consider my restraint as a virtue.
"So Geto, who did you get to do this job again?" Gojo asks.
"Our little religious group keeps some users of Séance Technique on hold for spiritual sessions as they represent a health chunk of our incoming. A lot of rich m-
I looked at Geto with a serious expression, there is a reason I don't bring Megumi or Tsumiki here that often. It is hard enough to give Mimiko and Nanako a M-pass due to their trauma; and boy, wasn't it a misadventure to explain this to Megumi and Tsumiki? But it is something else entirely to actively foster such a behavior.
"A lot of rich money-making people desperate to talk with their dead relatives, a miracle only a sorcerer can perform!" Geto saved at the last second more out of respect for me than consideration for mortal crude souls. Well, it is what it is.
"This is a rather special case, you know?" Gojo replied, worried.
"Relax, I am the person who understands the unique relationship between soul and body the most. I recruited some serious backup to avoid any incident." Geto bragged.
"Understand the most? This goes a bit beyond humble brag here." Gojo retorted.
"Everyone knows Zagreus doesn't count-
"Hey!" I protested but Geto went on undeterred.
"As he exists in a standard of his own, especially as he taught me everything I know. But my cursed technique reversal and extension technique give me a unique advantage in the field. That is how I came to gather so many sorcerers under me in the first place."
"Yeah, you live up to your moniker as the black-hearted Buddha, but what about Yuki?" Gojo said those words and immediately came to regret them.
"All these years and you still haven't learned to talk properly." Geto retorted as they both stared my way. Feeling pity for me!
"As if I need consolation from a pair of boys! Guess what kids? Sometimes relationships simply don't work, no matter how much both parties may want it otherwise. Yuki and I were too set on our ways to walk beside each other for the long haul."
"Was it painful?" Gojo asks without any hesitation, this isn't a topic I talk about often after all.
"Gojo! There is a limit for irreverence!" Geto reproached without losing a moment, scandalized by his friend's callousness.
"It is ok. It's part of an elder to offer guidance through experience. If Gojo bothered to ask it was because he yearned to know for himself. It is rare as it is for him to look before he leaps, I have to take every chance I get to set him straight." There are ominous implications to my word and Geto take on a contrived expression, regret at words said at a moment of passion that scarred Gojo forevermore. "I loved Yuki. Hell, I still do, no matter how bitter our parting was. Virtues and vices don't invalidate one another, no matter what anybody else says. It hurts, but it hurts so good I would kill anyone who dared to trample these memories. A bittersweet and nostalgic aftertaste."
And I still bore hope. That this time apart will bring us closer. Cultivators are hopelessly greedy existences, as they become more of what they are, good and bad, in every metric worth measuring, so do the highs of awes and deep of their woes increase. Triumph is followed by Tragedy, a cultivator's pain, like all the rest of their soul, is more than a non-cultivator's. They could spit blood like they'd been run through with a sword if another's words hit their ego in just the right place, at just the right time, among just the right people. Something Gojo learned from first-hand experience.
Are you Satoru Gojo because you are the strongest or are you the strongest because you are Satoru Gojo?
Turned out infinity can't protect against emotional damage, to this day Gojo can't answer this question with sincerity and conviction. It exists as the knot at the core of his soul. The answer to who he is behind unending power. Only Geto could have delivered such a blow and a day doesn't go by where he doesn't regret his actions. The sight of Gojo swallowing his hurt while gathering every scrap of self-awareness to convey to his only friend how much he meant to him must have been a truly ugly sight.
Yet Geto was saved precisely by this truth. The reality of the hurt his actions would cause for those he proclaimed to fight for was what prevented him from walking beyond the brink. They are why I placed my faith in him. The reason Geto backed down is because he decided he cared more for those he loved than he resented those who hurt them.
It isn't much, but even the most basic truths can have profound ramifications as their effects compound as Time marches on. Virtues and Vices can only be measured by men through the consequences they leave behind. Performative Excellence.
"I take it your spiritual medium doesn't intend to let himself be possessed by Rika, right?" I ask, just to change the topic. Dispel the heavy ambient these questions and memories brought to the surface. The sorry and beaten boys I first met are now powerful and influential men striving their best to be virtuous in actions and thoughts. I accept some level of deference as a senior but they owe to meet me at eye level. Geto is getting beaten like an irresponsible boy if he takes this lightly, and he knows this too!
"I guarantee you, we are going above and beyond for Rika and Yuta's sake. I recruited an entire team of sorcerers handpicked for their techniques to ensure things go smoothly. From the instrumental user of [Séance Technique], capable of contacting the dead and summoning their body and soul's information, a [Cursed Corpse] user prepares a vessel by replicating Rika's soul information from physical information from her remains, then inputs that information in the cursed corpse core. I even arranged for a user of [Solo Forbidden Area] and [Resonance] expert to improve their basic performance. They are performing at 200% percent!" Geto declares with pride, lifting Yuta's spirit with hope.
It is no coincidence Geto gathered so many curse users under him. Yuki already dedicated her life to understanding the soul and heavenly restriction. What they lacked was an understanding of the body, or to be precise, its relationship with the soul, something I had unraveled in my time as a grave keeper.
The body is the first factor, a terminal that allows the phenomenon we call the soul, the second factor, to manifest. Even if each possesses unique particularities, as the soul literally exists in mystery, being unobservable, there is a constant feedback loop of information through the process of resonance, a phenomenon already well-known to sorcerers as they exploit it to curse each other. This leads to two consequences, first, the body and soul become a blueprint of each other, body's information equals soul's information. Second, this continuous feedback loop gives rise to the third factor, the mind; what sorcerers dubbed as [innate domain].
This neatly explains the phenomenon of the shards of sin caused by soul deterioration as well as the how and why of soul damage and the need for a corresponding organ to heal or transfer taint. Something expanded by the excellence of the [Blank Soul] and its mastery over the Vitruvia's mysteries.
We already had enough pieces of the puzzle to guide ourselves toward a satisfying answer. Geto managed to adjust and expand the interpretation of his technique to affect humans by taming the heart demons through Cursed Technique Reversal. Innate Domains are the foundation of innate techniques, existing both in the mindscape and in the brain. By exploiting the phenomenon of resonance Geto managed to create new sorcerers through his extension technique; far more useful than hollow purple too. Geto's [dominating soul] found its calling.
Ironically then, our greatest triumph would be the cause of my and Yuki's falling out. Geto had no interest in Heavenly Restriction as it just inflicts a painful existence on sorcerers or curses the world with another 'super-monkey', as Geto puts it. Yuki, for all of her contributions, was hopeless when it came to implementing energy bending in practice. Her [Endless soul] made her an unorthodox prodigy but also alienated her from the beaten path; the same boat as Gojo really.
This means when she decided the best way forward was to sever humanity from cursed energy entirely through the power of Heavenly Restriction, she sort of ran into a wall as both Geto and I disagreed. While more accessible, as only one in one hundred sleeping souls is even remotely ready to be awakened and all my research so far only managed to bend the rules of nature to a one in ten, I still hold the soul as more precious than the body.
They are for religious reasons, I guess. Giving in to her cause would be giving up on cultivation of virtue, on the Thief of Flame's transgression against heaven. Both my experience with not-Aqua and the tenets of Orphic faith lead me to favor the soul as the most enduring software while the body as an all-important but ultimately discardable hardware. The fact she would need a high number of energy benders like Geto and myself to pull off such a plan was another bottleneck as she would flood the world with billions of Tojis. His heavenly restriction was a literal cheat code even worse than Gojo's six eyes due to its limitation of one unique user being allowed to exist at a time.
Things might not be perfect but this would be rocking the boat for pitiful results. Demons would just migrate from without to within humans, they needed a better solution that wouldn't result in a brutal culling or open warfare. When someone becomes another's master, they claim for themselves part of the responsibility for all victory and failure. One Toji Zenin already did so much damage, that I wasn't willing to take responsibility for the actions of billions of them.
Lost in musings as I was, the ringing of my cellphone came as a surprise. It was the emergency ringtone as well. Geto and Gojo looked on curiously as I clicked my tongue in disdain.
"What happened?" Gojo asked.
"Sessho-seki (Killing stone) seal just broke, as the one that has set the monitoring barrier, intelligence in convoking me to deal with registered Special Grade Cursed Spirit, Tamamo-no-mae," I explained to the three. That was strange, it was not supposed to happen until 2022.
"Oh, lucky! That sounds like a fun time. Should we postpone this for later then?" Satoru proposed shamelessly.
"No way! One, Yuta is your responsibility. Remember? Two, Geto is still technically a criminal, the higher-ups are already nervous with the sheer quantity of people he has under him, and adding a special grade would just aggravate his position for little benefit."
"Three, you want to do it by yourself. You greedy bastard! Does your hunger have no limits?" Gojo cuts in, seeing right through me.
"You always get the fun cases. I am inching for a proper fight against something capable of putting real resistance."
Gojo gesticulated as if hurt, making an exaggerated motion toward his heart. "That hurt right here, you know? Did things get stale between us, are you tired of me already?"
I just rolled my eyes at his middle-graded level shenanigan. "You know what I mean."
"Right, in the end, we never truly tried to kill each other, no matter how serious we fought. As you said, some virtues can only be learned at the tip of the sword. But you are setting yourself up for a disappointment though, most special grades can't live up to the name." Despite Gojo's infantile antics, he is surprisingly keen about some matters of his interest. That is, battle.
I have been a captain of the Sophic Realm for almost two decades now, and I refined myself enough to feel ready for the next realm. Now I just need a challenge worth telling stories of to start my Epic. A certain level of restlessness and wanderlust has settled in. Something my once-student-turned-junior can easily recognize as he is always on the prowl in search of a challenge.
"Only the two of you could talk so casually about special-grade curses, you know?" Geto intersects himself in the conversation with a disapproving tone, an old routine between him and Gojo. The fact I am being lectured as well shows I had perhaps spent too much time around Satoru, to the point my standards got skewered by his own perception. "There are only fourteen registered ones to begin with and any movement from one is cause for concern. Please, treat this more seriously."
"Me, being lectured by two hunts who can barely take care of themselves. What is the world coming to? Fine, I will be careful. Satoru is probably right anyway and I am crushing it without that much difficulty." I say as I manifest the tuxedo, top hat, and rabbit ears of Rher's rabbit mantle.
"Bye-bye! Remember to buy us a souvenir on your way back." Satoru says dramatically.
I just rolled my eyes at his theatrics and walked myself toward the nearest corner. At the end of the day, Rher's dimension operates in the same line as the Blind Maiden Cult's (Artemis) Blind Eye Turned little disappearance trick exploiting the observer effect. It is fitting, even. One is a god of full moon while the other is a goddess of new moon.
The boundary between dream and reality is a curse. That is the truth at the core of Jujutsu. Rher is the dream, humanity's collective subconsciousness suffocated by a wood road, and I am the dreamer, the one capable of freely moving through it using golden gates. The use of sigils and pentagrams becomes unnecessary for coordinates when a certain level of competence is achieved, even if I can only use it for backtracking.
-//-
[AUTHOR'S ROOM]
Mostly a middle-of-the-road chapter, but at least you know what Zagreus is up to. He managed to make skill books and even replicate the Shard of Babel. It also shows more of how he affected Jujutsu Society, what Geto was up to, and how they developed over the years. Next chapter will be the application of said infodump.
I guess ol' Zag wants someone to rumble with....careful what you wish for Zag, you just might get it.
In other news Jujutsu got an Upgrade and discovered the wonderful world of Programming and Prediction Algorithms! Man, must it hurt to not have paid attention in Highschool.
Though I am curious, how does Zag collect his Royalties? Binding Vow with the Clans that took his Ip that force em to pay ? Curious what clan lines his pockets the most. Also in Jujutsu world, how much for a Shard of Babel? I imagine it must be quite the expensive little thing.
Cult Leader Geto will never not be funny, I can imagine him as one of those televangelists, but his exorcisms are actually real most of the time.
Nice though @BrunofanofK I've been wondering what are some worlds you'd like to see Zagreus go to but likely won't end up happening for varies reasons?
- Location
- washington
is completely dominating a legendary figure worthy of getting into the heroic realm? Like if he beat tamamo in a single hit because that might be what happens.
- Location
- Brazil
I mostly decide after the arc is mostly done. The goal is to lock seamlessly with each other and keep some level of danger or plot relevance.
- Location
- washington
I figure avatar was largely picked to give zagreus meaning and some levity from the horrors of termina? Offhand would tyrants completely bulldoze one piece as a setting?
That's nice but not what I asked?
- Location
- Brazil
I was thinking about the Eminence in Shadows with a comedic spin of Zagreus playing the straight man in the middle of madness, thinking his new student is 'soft in the head' and need adult supervision.
- Location
- Brazil
His new student has taken chuunibyou syndrome to such an extreme that reality warps just so he can look cooler.
This is an interesting story. And you have some really nice prose hindered by a significant need for more editing passes to catch word transposition and homonym errors. Tread and Thread. Crow and Crown. Many others. It's just a massive speedbump that drops me out of the story even though outside the errors the sentences themselves are very interesting and well thought out.
- Location
- Brazil
this is one of the most infuriating aspects of English for an outsider coming in, and it passes unnoticed by most autocorrectors too. thanks for the review.
JJK 5
- Location
- Brazil
The race for divinity possesses as many names as there are tongues to describe it. Every cultural sphere possesses its own divine ladder built by its honorable ancestors and paragons, and every man who dares to climb it possesses their own interpretation of what scaling it even means in the first place. The only intersecting line capable of giving them a middle ground is the concept of cultivation, the process of biding the soul to multiply, and that consequential ascension is a provocation of natural law that incurs the wrath of Heaven.
I am sure Gojo will be remembered as one such Paragon, the idealized icon of a Path of refinement for a Yamato soul born under the rising sun. I am not so lucky though - the Greek path is already obscured by mystery faith but my foundation tainted by the Mad Moon God only added more variables. I don't know what separates me from a moon-scorched monster, a 'new god' like the Heartless angel, and an ascended divinity like the God of Fear and Hunger.
I suspect the interloper that saved me from Rher in our confrontation might have been a new Ascended god, but the steps between men and existence such as she elude me. That is ok though, the ways of cultivation are not a perfected science, at a certain point every man is blindly following his gut feeling toward the heavens. It is enough that I know that it can be done, now it is up to me to unravel said knot and pull the curtain of opaqueness concealing divinity.
I also suspect those existing above fully intend to obstruct the path to the heavens in jealousy and build dead ends and false shortcuts.
Was there only one true way forward, a single golden road, or were there many? Could it be that every gate to heaven was made of horn? Or were they one and all of ivory?
My very first thought worth the air wasted sharing it disagrees - No matter the tribulation, there is always a way forward.
That is an edict of my own soul, even if there is no way forward, I will open one. Rher might have intended to obstruct my way by marking me but I will make his strength my own and use it as a guide to the heavens itself because he failed to kill me when he had the chance - What doesn't kill me only make me stronger.
The Greek soul exists in three parts and all three are king inside the soul. But beyond that, each awakened soul possesses an intrinsic [nature] that exists a priori. Even mine own.
Knowing the right question is half of the equation.
How does one define a [Tormented] soul? Such souls are fated to endure suffering but they are also endowed with the capacity, the promise, to not only survive it but also bloom in adversity. Its enduring nature makes it especially well attuned with one's [Hunger], a man's lowest nature shared with every beast – plus, what it takes to sate it, to prowl, hunt, and devour.
To cultivate is to refine. In my career as a blacksmith, how did I bring the truth hidden inside crude substances to the surface? By treating it with heat, by tempering it. Heat purifies and forces true value to emerge to the surface while light reveals flaws and hidden deeps once obscured by crude substance.
I tired of shying away from Rher's scornful flame, so I seized it in hand in the hope of making it my own someday. Even if it meant skirting the path of profanity.
A virtuous beast is to a cultivator what a normal animal is to a man. But what about a monster? If the existence of empirical evidence shows that some unique beasts are capable of outgrowing the natural order itself and ascending beyond its impositions while at the same time threatening to upend it, then what such a man who does the same thing should be called?
Demonic Cultivation.
I can't deny that the path ahead is suspect at best, but I can't argue with the results.
The backstroke of lighting smites me down as soon as I enter what was supposed to be Tamamo-no-mae's manifested innate domain, the imperial palace. Alas, I have been preparing myself to face the fury of the heavens for almost two decades by now. This familiarity alone allowed me to feel said attack coming by reading its preceding 'spark' before it had even started, and as a result, I responded just barely in time.
Although I am born and will die a son of Raging Heaven, I will never be a willing slave ever again.
Tempered by moonlight, the true shape and essence of my soul is illuminated and my flesh shifts from within to follow it in kind through their resonance. I walk through the thunderous explosion, parting clouds of ozone and obscuring heat to reveal a suit of shining scales laid out in the Irezumi style right underneath my ruined sorcerer uniform.
Back at Prehevil, I devoured the essence of a legendary salmon sea serpent captured in a talisman. In Hunger, I claimed some of its nature for myself- no, I used it as a catalyst to bring my nature to the fore. It was not the raw increase of Magnitude most obvious at ascension or ordering by rounding out of outer imperfection brought by Time. This process deepened my vital essence as it used it as a medium to manifest its true nature with stark clarity - Motion.
My suit of scales fits my frame like a tailored skin-tight jacket reaching up to my neck, leaving only a singular line of bare-naked human flesh from Adam's apple, chest, abs core muscles down to the groin. Its chromatic colors shift from a gradient of purple to blue until it reaches a tortoise at the extremities of the limbs.
The attack also destroyed the choker used to conceal a cross stigmata right under the throat chakra that opened itself to reveal a monstrous mouth filled with serrated teeth. Just in time as well, as a second assailant released a concentrated discharge of raw cursed energy from his vintage pompadour hairstyle. "Granite Blast!"
Despite the monstrous appearance of its throat maw, the sound released by it couldn't be sweeter even in its macabre grandeur. A swan song so compelling even the very air took it upon itself to redirect the attack toward a third assailant, a naked woman wrapped in a cloak of blue sky.
My process of transformation was far from over though, once a sorcerer discovers the true essence of their soul their body is forced beyond its biological confines to express said enlightenment. It can't be stopped or reversed as long as one is alive due to the resonance between body and soul. Only I stand as an exception to this due to the capacity for infantile regression of the [puer aeternus] from Dionysus's mystery faith.
But right now, there is no reason to hold back, my attackers showed a level of power unheard of among modern sorcerers. People of such level of talent sure would have achieved some notoriety even among the most exclusive circles. This was an ambush from curse users against Jujutsu Tech so any accusation from them would be dismissed as outlandish. I can go all out in this form without fear; there is a reason that nobody had ever witnessed and survived to tell the tale (aside from Satoru Gojo).
The [Salmon-snake rune] was far from the only trinket I carelessly sank the teeth of his influence on. The [Hardened heart], [Small thing's amulet], and even the [Leechmonger ring] were found at the top of the market tower. Even the [Soul devour necklace], [Betel's stone], [Ring of wraiths], and [Yggaegetsu amulet] were eventually consumed throughout the years as their effects lagged behind my body and soul refinement. In the end, every tool's purpose is to assist in the performance of something the body isn't capable of performing on its own. If they could no serve as tools then they served as sustenance, as guides to illuminate the direction my soul had yet to grow towards.
The third eye of illumination of the light chakra opens. Less perceptible to the flesh, yet felt with stark clarity through the lens of pneumatic sense was the ravenous nature of my Hunger once I consumed the [Leechmonger ring]. Its capability to leech life from the injuries inflicted on others found purchase in the stomach chakra, giving me the means to make his hunger known along with a macabre stomach tattoo. Same as all sorcerers, proper performance requires perfect bodily harmony. Whatever the eye could perceive, it could present in stark clarity, and I could eat.
It was no coincidence the eye looked so much like the Gojo clan's Six Eyes. Over the years I sank the teeth of my influence on him numerous times as we exchanged blows. The Mind was also tempered to the breaking point by the Unlimited Void, testing the limits of healing through positive energy manipulation, to the point that despite a philosopher's otherwise perfect memory, my recollection of it exists as an opaque unbroken experience.
Alas, said third eye possesses some additional features. When the sky dancer twisted the space itself to redirect the energy bean back to me our eyes crossed and I scoured her mind with the memories of torment by sharing in my lived and borrowed experience as a sip from the Tyrant Riot's cup. Thoroughly stunned, the sky dancer was defenseless against the spirit canon moonscorch bean attack released from my third eye, being swallowed by the sick blue-green flames.
This didn't dissuade the others, on the contrary. The blond lightning staff master charged in with a feral smile. I obliged him in kind, my legs shifting to something akin to the hindlegs of a quadruped and my arms became subtlety longer. Both are covered by my suit of coruscant blue scales and black claws for nails. In this form I can run in all four and back to two just as easily, the animal alacrity of all predators I ever ate manifested.
We close the distance and our first exchange of blows had so much energy involved that it cratered the surrounding mimic of the imperial palace displayed out as a labyrinthic innate domain of Tamamo-no-mae.
I could feel the cursed energy lightning property of the
[strongest sorcerer of his age-]
Trying to ride my own pneuma as current to strike my body, but the [Soul devour necklace] protective properties against otherworldly powers found purchase in my root chakra, giving my scales an unnatural sheen, protecting my body much like a Faraday cage as only a fraction of it breach my defense and I had far worse from Iroh and Azula besides.
Striped of the advantage granted by his cursed energy unique trait, the
[The God of Lightning - Raijin]
Has to fall back to his battle prowess and cursed energy output to seize the advantage. Alas, by the way, he was flung like a rag doll by our first exchange of blows I simply can't see this happening. My victory was decided the moment the Wheel started Turning.
By being twice tempered in Greater Mystery I was forced to confront the necessity to make such questions my own. As unique excellent existences, even cultivators of the same mystery faith can be radically different. It wasn't enough to use them as a source of inspiration for virtue, I had to truly incorporate them as extensions of myself.
Now the eight-spoked dharma wheel is gone, reforged as a ten-spoked well resembling the [Argead Star] that symbolized Alexander's family, shining so bright it was visible even to the mortal eye as it does its work, burning and mending as it turns. Each spoke is a pneumatic chamber and the manifestation of one of the rules of nature that I had made mine own, ten in total.
To progress past the Sophic Realm a cultivator must internalize a thousand-thousand truths—the rules of nature that will serve as the framework for their cultivation going forward. When a Hero stands against a terrible horror and strikes it down with a sword made of iron, every truth of the world as they know it is behind that swing.
Using Yuki's innate cursed technique, [Star Rage], as a reference point by observing its operational principles, I developed means to distill all truths I internalized inside my soul in pure power capable of underpinning the rules of nature.
The Divine Divide is the heavenly scale that governs ascension, every rise is preceded by a correspondent fall. As cultivation defies natural order heaven demands that for a man to rise above one thousand men put together then first one thousand men must fall in turn.
I have been directly blessed twice by Higher Power and gorged myself in all sorts of cultivation resources until my soul retched in nausea. I know the worth of my soul and be it providence or by merit I am cut from superior material than the rest, elevating me above the average man at our very starting base.
As a captain of the Sophic Realm I have risen above one hundred and ten men as decreed by the Divine Divide that Heaven uses as scales. When I swung a punch like I was a hundred and ten men layered over one another in a single skin to strike down the arrogant man calling himself a thunder god, it was not unlike how Yuki herself breaks reality through overwhelming virtual mass. That is how I break through Gojo's infinity. Overwhelming the Six eyes capability to manifest infinity and forcing Gojo through the indignity of using his prized family defense as a mere superb armor or risking it all by adjusting it using a binding vow to make an inviolable shield out of infinity.
Gojo fucking loves it too. Every single second of vulnerability, uncertainty, and pain. Griffon was right about violence – it tells a story. It was only in the heat of our most violent moments that we bared our hearts to one another in full. Not because we desired it, necessarily, but because we had no other choice. And Satoru Gojo has run out of men to remind him of his limits, to serve as a mirror to show him who he really is.
[Hajime Kashimo],
Turned out to be cut from the same clothes as the strongest sorcerer. He was smiling ear to ear at me despite me blowing his left arm clear off and almost taking half of his left side, leaving him a blood ruin in our first exchange. He came here to be challenged just as much as he came to challenge me. His eyes are clear and free of resentment, it is like he is a child again. Who is he really?
It was somewhat uncanny; I grew too used to the sickening looks of admiration or resentment from the pacified weak. It is such an elitist trail of thought that a part of me feels sick at how truthfully it resonates with my virtuous heart. The truly strong need no validation outside of themselves, they know themselves, and their worth because they tested their limit. This is what means to have character. The weak and harmless can never truly be virtuous because they simply lack the strength to perform any act of virtue or vice. They just project and live vicariously through the strong. This is the ugly truth that changed Geto's life course. Giving these people the same power as Toji? I would be making pandemonium, Yuki!
I have lived away from 'civilized' society and its amenities and rules for so long a part of me went feral. Like a domesticated beast awakened to its ancestral instincts. Nanami would probably reprimand me for spending so much time with Gojo that I started picking his bad habits.
"[Mythical Beast Amber]!" screamed the man out of his time with a savage smile. He found a place good enough to die, with worth enough company. His lost flesh was being reconstructed by pure electricity. It was as if he had become a tribulation lightning hound, discarding off his flesh and blood and exchanging them for the storm.
That was when the fourth contender decided to make herself known. Like an off-brand T-1000, she attacked me with a chainsaw whip made of liquid metal, cutting through the lavishly decorated Ooku dimension. I dodged the worst of the salvo easily enough without moving back and the subsequent wall of drilling spears was bent aside by the [Achille's armor] as if they were made of harmless foam even as sparkles flew high as she attempted to flay me with her liquid metal.
Far more interesting, the Raiden charged forward. There was no warning or cessation from one movement to another, one moment he was half a football field from me, and the next she had closed said distance. He brought his staff to bear like a baseball bat and I countered with a blow of my own, my entire forearm lighting from within to reveal my bones as I attempted to burn him to cinders with [moonscorch].
The resulting clash was inconclusive, his flesh had been consumed by his own technique but I was also pushed back, getting blown through three entire rooms before I reasserted myself by sinking my talons in the polished wood. My sorcerer uniform is a mess, basically just keeping my pants down to my knees and [Nature's Bounty] holding my hair in a bum.
At that time, the user of [Construction] sorcery rejoined the frame. This time clad in armor mimicking insect functionality to make herself into a behemoth, she charges on with murder in her mind and joy in her heart. With a casual gesture, the poison ivy seed sprouts to life and entangles her from every direction, starting with her wings. Despite the obvious strength such a suit grants her, it is useless without leverage, she made to cut herself free with liquid metal but I had already closed in when he was halfway through.
I will never get tired of the speed boost granted by the pseudo-gravitational effect of manifesting negative series in reality. The way my own bones rattle from inside my flesh through every blow as I punch like a Gatling gun with fists clad in tortoise radiation is a childhood power fantasy made real. The operational principle behind Nanami's 7:3 technique mixed with Archimedes' Golden Thread like a glove as well, creating weak points for me to exploit as I keep on attaching. Due to the chaotic architecture of this place, I am forced to resort to Toji's little double jump trick by getting hold of the atmospheric difference through means of rhetoric.
Her armor crumbled through my savage attack, she tried to reassert control and counter but I had seized the advantage and I never give any quarrel to my enemies as a matter of pride. As bad as my battery of blows is the searing hit settling on her bones is far worse. I knew intimately how brazing moonscorch was, even if the pain from my tempering is by now just a memory.
That was when another granite blast engulfed the both of us. What an eyesore, just when things were getting good! I could just ignore it or retreat but I don't like to fall back, so instead I surfed the Golden Thread between us to use my mastery over motion to gently seize his energy blast and redirect it back to the bug armor sorcerer, sending her caressing down the bizarre geography of this innate domain.
"Instead of a four-on-one, wouldn't you guys be doing better by yourselves coming one at a time?"
"A sweet offer but we all had our hands forced in this matter, you simply are too sweet for most people's blood, do you see?" The biker admitted as he adjusted his topknot.
"You are rather relaxed for someone without resorting to wounding your opponent, do I look that laid back to you?" These people are way too strong and quirk to form such a coalition by themselves. Someone is pulling the strings.
That was when the Raijin rejoined the frame, piercing the air like an arrow released by Indra himself. He got horns and three eyes now as well, he cocks his hands back and releases an honest to god laser beam at me. It seems he has full control over any electromagnetic phenomenon.
Now that is interesting! I manifest fifty hands of my carrion intent and set them on Mr. Sweet Tooth while I brace myself up to take the bull by the horns. Not only to just survive it but bring it down to heel, to seize it in hand and crush it!
My rhetoric rises up like a thousand whispers in the forum as I invoke thousand-thousand truths and wrap them around myself as a cloak. When Kashimo's bean made contact the surroundings instantly went up in flames. I smiled savagely as I held on, the excess energy being redirected to the ground, yet I couldn't help but smile in triumph as I held on to a force of nature and tore it apart, dispersing it in a savage rent by spreading my arms wide.
I was bleeding all over, and there was smoke coming from my arms but I had done it. The Raijin got really worked up as well as he spun his golden staff like a wheel with his electric arm, we closed the distance again and his time neither of us cared for interlopers. I still held the upper hand as he was forced back by the sheer power behind every blow, but the man was an experienced fighter and tenacious besides, he adjusted, reacted, intercepted, and countered, using his staff more like a spear. We entered a frenetic dance of death.
Despite his superior range I had already taken the measure of his fighting style and framed it under the design of my perfect symmetry. The Golden Thread divined the current of the battle and I followed it in such a natural way that it was as if I knew Kashimo's every move before he did it and always reacted with the most optimal counter to press my advantage ever further.
Lightning danced freely through each exchange of blows to the point even I had started to feel its burden in my body yet I relished such an opportunity; maybe Nanami was right and Gojo really gave me permanent brain damage, because I am having fun here!
Far too soon, our dance comes to closure as I break through Kashimo's resistance and seize him in hand the same way I did his attack, striking his mind and soul through his storm body as a medium. I impaled his stomach, delivered an elbow to the chin that sent him reeling, and finished my combo with a reverse one-inch elbow strike that broke the sound barrier, sending him flying.
Impressively enough, he was not down to the count yet, it seemed his technique would keep his body boing until he ran out of cursed energy. Said that the truth of the matter was that he was slowing down. I looked for my other attackers and they weren't faring any better, the exhibitionist managed to save herself with the reverse curse technique but the moonscorch got her good and she started to flay apart under the radiation sickness, she isn't Gojo Satoru after all, and Rher's scornful light is as dangerous as any poison. Besides Gojo, only Hikari's jackpot mode ever managed to brush off its effects.
Misses Bug Terminator isn't faring much better yet she sort of came more prepared for this and is limping back toward the fight intent to give me her all.
I almost feel bad for Mister Topknot, he is giving his all but, in the end, it is not how much cursed energy one has but how well one uses it. I disperse my hands of pneuma, they had pummeled him enough as it is. Time to get some answers.
This fight is mine to win… how drown. Gojo was right, this was a disappointment that ended way too soon.
"Now, now. You are making me feel embarrassed, Zagreus. That shameful lingering hunger of one who didn't get his fill enough to feel himself full is the reason I came here in the first place. You certainly don't play with your food though, but at least let me give you a nice dessert to finish things on a good note, shall we?"
Honestly… I had pegged him right from the get-go. While absolutely self-centered these are all people who climbed to the top of jujutsu ladder. Fighting me is its own reward for them. That sounds absurd but the human spirit and hunger are not reasonable by nature.
I look out for the returning Kashimo, he is nearing his end. "Zagreus, did you become the strongest sorcerer, or where you born this way?"
Ha, I see now.
"That is not what you really want to know, is it? if you want a proper answer then ask a proper question." I answer the Raijin. It was enough.
"If you never know weakness how can you interact with others or even show kindness? I couldn't do it. Others were brittle pieces of dirt to me." He confessed finally.
"I was indeed born weak, but I know what you are talking about. It is a matter of standing. No man truly becomes the strongest by mere chance, Kashimo. It requires purpose, even if it is toward something they alone can see. The higher a man climbs more elevated his view from others. The virtue of the weak, the ugliness of the weak, and the perspective of those walking this path will differ. But now tell me something. Why do you think someone stronger than you wouldn't see you the very same way you did others beneath you?"
Questions are half of the puzzle. I left the Raijin to his wondering and turned toward the Construction technique user. "And you, do you have any request before we finish this?"
"How vexing, I wanted Sukuna to be the one to kill me! And yet a part of me finds this to be a dissatisfactory end – how sinful! To think I turned out to be this kind of loose woman! Very well then, I will give you all of my love! You know it, don't you? The ultimate strength and the solitude it brings!" Screams the construction master in jubilation.
I look at the lagging sky manipulator, she is limping toward the conflict even as she trembles in fear. The radiation sickness will do her in soon enough and she knows it too in her heart. Unlike the others, she bore open resentment in her eyes, also fear, and envy.
Why do humans worship power?
The one throughline that connects them all together is the rejection of common sense and the common ground it grants to others. In this sense, they all represent an extreme but true face of humankind, deprived of any makeup. All of them have their own virtue that pushes them above the common riffraff even as their alienation made them succumb to their vices. They are an unsightly loot yet I can't bring myself to look away, this is the true face of mankind. This is what humans truly look like, our raw nature in full display.
They are all pursuing something yet they are pinning their hopes in me to show the way. How vexing, I never thought myself exceptional. Not when the memory of Dionysus's torment at the hand of the Mother and the madness of Rher's influence displayed how weak I was. I simply moved forward unconcerned about petty matters.
I guess this too is the gift of proper context. Yet sharing it through words alone is beyond my power, even with the Shard of Babylon. I can only convey it indirectly, through action. Virtue is performative excellence, the experiences and choices that shaped me to be the man I am today can only be known through firsthand experience.
So be it.
I manifest my first ten hands of carrion intention born from my soul's foundation. The wine-dark, tortoise-shaded hands of pneuma unfurl behind my back like a lotus flower, each one making a mudra corresponding to one of the ten towers of load-bearing principle residing inside my soul and the dormant essence they are made of. These ten hands then dissolve and melt together into a halo of coronation light painted in the colors of the ten souls I submitted to my own soul.
By making a binding vow with myself forfeiting the use of my first ten hands of manifested intention, I managed to reforge them into [Mandala Intention]. There is a reason sorcerers can't simply manifest their techniques inside of their enemies – the body is the very first [Domain] a soul owns. My Mandala Intent exists as a unique [simple domain] available to those who know the true shape of their souls. It operates like a reception tower, it reinforces the magnitude, motion, and time of the resonance between body, soul, and innate domain.
By merely manifesting it I am granted the same 120% status boost resulting from Domain Expansion while also serving to contest territory from other barrier techniques as a byproduct of existing. Said that this is merely a stepping stone, Griffon and Sol aren't the only cultivators capable of cheating their way into powers beyond what their standing would infer. The body is the one Domain every Tyrant has to fall back to in lien of everything else, I stumbled upon an echo of the fourth Realm.
A pair of mad men are having an argument. Each of them believes they are the greater king and that the other is their lesser. One of them is ruler of a grand marble city, and the other commands the shadows that lurk in every corner that the light won't touch. Tell me, which of their domains is greater, and which of them is lesser?
This is a breakthrough in sorcery I owe to director Yaga – the secret of his autonomous cursed corpses lies in the discovery of compatibility between souls. Depending on their [nature] a soul can be resonant or dissonant with other souls, be it by luck, the spontaneous course of nature, or the invisible hand of my divine daemon, the ten essences I got dubbed into incorporating as part of myself ended up arrayed into perfect symmetry to optimize resonance while exploiting dissonance in a way capable of fostering growth by forcing my [Tormented] soul to endure and adapt. After all, while the idea of cultivation is a climb, the experienced reality of cultivation is a brakeless chariot ride toward the bottom.
Thanks to this, the only thing that remained was for me to develop a way to manifest it outward, even if only indirectly. Fortunately, this was viable with my experience dealing with the opaqueness of natural mysteries. The Mandala is the archetype of the [Self], as I already came to know the true shape of my soul, all that remained was to display this enlightenment indirectly, through a symbol to stand for it.
It took me years to perfect it, but I can't complain about the results.
The first man is king of only one humble city. Within its borders he reigns supreme, but only within its borders. The second man is king of every shadow, in every kingdom and beyond them, too. The domain that can be marked on a map is ever less. The domain that exists in every corner, no matter how small a part, is always more.
"Domain Expansion!" Screamed the sky dancer in defiance.
"Domain Expansion!" Proclaimed the Raijin in pride.
"Domain Expansion!" Proposed the connoisseur in hunger.
"Domain Expansion!" Declared the love chaser in passion.
Making the Kalesvara mudra with my two hands of flesh and blood I proclaim my domination toward the heavens. I might not be at Bakkho's level just yet, but by starting early I might just make it by the time I enter the Tyrant Realm.
"Domain Expansion – Monochrome Crucible!"
Domain Expansion is the most supreme technique of any jujutsu user. It is achieved by expanding one's innate domain with cursed energy while using a barrier to construct it inside a separate space. The caster then imbues their cursed technique within the barrier to complete the expansion, allowing them to deploy their ability all throughout the domain. That is why the more a sorcerer understands himself, his cursed technique, his innate domain, and the boundaries of his own soul, the clearer he can define the rules of manifestation for his domain, boosting its quality.
After getting peppered by Hollow Purple for the better part of a decade, I was bound to figure out how the jujutsu concept of [Extension Techniques] might be applied through the lens of my foundational mystery. The [Wheel Turning] deals with the dichotomy between Life and Death as they succeed each other as the samsara spins. For the longest time I had used them as separate pieces but now I finally managed to assemble a complete picture – feeding Life with Death and Death with Life like an Ouroboros eating its own tail.
As the four sorcerers enclosed me from all cardinal directions with their domain's outer shell, their sure-hit attack was rebuffed by my own domain, but I didn't move to overwhelm them just yet. It wouldn't do to kill them too quickly after all. Even the dead own some respect and deference.
Do you know what a Tyrant fears more than any distant divinity or thunderous tribulation? A Tyrant fears subjugation. Tyrant fears the world outside of their domain. Even more than that, they fear the world inside of a greater Tyrant's authority.
My domain can be called exceptional in three ways. First, I can open a domain without closing a barrier, a divine ability equivalent to an artist painting on air without a canvas, or holding water without a vessel. The second factor is that by anchoring said open domain to my Mandala Intention, which is in turn anchored to my body, I have an ambulatory domain whose coordinates are root to my person. Third, the dynamic feedback from the body, soul, and innate domain caused by the Mandala Intent allows for adjustment of the conditions of the domain on the fly instead of the rigid pre-programmed before each activation.
This is why Gojo "graciously" conceded the title of 'best barrier user' since I was the one to develop it, even if he eventually learned to adapt it to his own domain.
As a captain of the Sophic Realm, I have a domain range of one hundred meters radium, ten for each step I took in the sophic realm as the entirety of what remains is used to maintain the Mandala Intent and its effect.
The sure-hit effect of my domain is deceptively simple. The most basic way a Tyrant boosts himself – by magnifying every aspect of myself at the expense of every aspect of everyone else within my domain by leveraging the dual dichotomy of the [Wheel Turning]. Not an instant killing move but a mere setup for greater things to come.
A curtain of darkness fell over reality, sucking all color and vitality from it as the world itself and all existing in it are recast in washed-out pitiful colors as their strength is sapped away to feed a solitary and proudful star. Each second under it was withering as if Krono's touch manifested its effects at an accelerated rate of years through seconds.
By the way, normal barriers are weak to attacks from the outside.
The barrier raised by the combined effort of four veteran sorcerers was crushed under my dominion and the endless Ooku itself was soon to follow but this alone won't be enough for these sore, lost souls. They came here looking for an expectable after all.
While my domain is manifested, its energy drain effect elevates me from the power of one hundred men put together to that of one thousand, putting me on eye level with a captain of the Heroic Realm. This is not my limit though – due to its nature my domain is a pseudo perpetual engine at the expense of others. Add to that the flexibility of my domain's conditions and I can then make use of the newly acquired strength of one thousand-thousand men to expand my range even further. One kilometer, elevating me to standing of ten thousand men put together – the baseline power level of a captain of the Tyrant Realm.
Of course, there are restrictions to this that prevent me from keeping my domain going all hours of the day beyond the practicality of becoming an ambulatory calamity. The body of a mortal is simply not meant to withstand such power; to be precise, the limits are rooted in my own virtuous heart. Even the essence of the [hardened heart] is pushed to its limits. In the end, it all comes down to these three parameters – Magnitude, Motion, and Time. Ten minutes of hero time per day that I can compress into one minute of tyrant time. This is my limit and even then, it took me years to perfect and polish my domain and physical conditioning to reach this level.
Times like this make me test the worth of my effort. This is what I tyrant sees when he looks down. So feeble, Griffon might have had a point when he questioned the worth of the climb for such a bleak sight. With my breath I could flayer them down to the bones, with my voice alone I can crush their spine, my mere gaze is withering in its intensity. I could tear them apart with ten thousand hands of manifested intent and it would be more effort than what they deserved. The idea this can even be called a fight at all is absurd, even Satoru Gojo is forced to play a game of cat and mouse to endure the one minute I am the uncontested strongest.
And yet…
I manifest [Zagreus], the sword that shares my name, flesh, and will. As an extension of my being, its magnitude was equally boosted. I use it as it was intended, an amplifier to my foundational technique. It cast off heat and stark light in relentless shockwave currents, yet somehow, paradoxically, it drew everything around it into its gleaming surface.
I swung it once in a circular motion.
It was like holding a star or a black hole, it devoured the wind itself, to the point of being a sword of silence, returning everything to nothingness. There weren't even ashes left, and even Tamamo-no-mae's innate domain was cleaved in two.
The space between dream and reality is a curse, to these souls departing this mortal coil I offer a last kindness at the liminal boundary. A choice – stay who they are or discover a new side of themselves. This too is part of the mystery of the [Wheel Turning].
"Gate open." Declared an unmistakable voice, so familiar and tender it brought back memories of a thousand tender moments, countless caresses, of unforgettable years. All brought to bear with stark clarity through a mind more than a match to ten thousand mortal brains put together.
A Tyrant's existence is no different from ours. Only more, for better and for worse. A Tyrant in their domain might seem to be a god, but that doesn't make it true. They can be maneuvered against. And they are still fallible - to greed, to pride, and to fear.
Whatever my third eye could perceive, it could present in stark clarity. The [Prison Realm] was a barrier class special grade cursed object capable of sealing absolutely anything or anyone inside of an inescapable pocket dimension as long as its conditions were met – one minute within its range.
Ah, standing where only tyrants are meant to stand while bearing a beating heart endowed with virtue might have been a mistake. All the pains of a man grow with him as he becomes more. Even as I move to run out of the prison realm's range and destroy it, I know it is too late.
No man can outrun his own endlessly wondering mind, least of all a philosopher worth of the name.
What damned me was that siren's deceptively sweet voice, belonging to the woman I last loved. That I still loved, be it due to compatibility or as a byproduct of the bolstering of emotional heights granted by cultivation. I could not help but ruminate over the damming implications – that some impostor dared to use her form against me, that she is being controlled somehow, and worst of all, unforgivable to the grave, that she betrayed me!
My senses were no better, I tracked her down with everything I had, passing a scan through her like a fine comb with all my senses. No matter how deep I looked, she was indeed Yuki Tsukumo. Except, she got a Craniotomy and decided to fasten her skull cap with strings and my tripartite soul screamed in one voice that she was an impostor.
Either way, it doesn't matter. When the prison realm enclosed its snare around me, I knew I had lost.
Because you can't spell Jujutsu Kaisen without jumping. I believe Kenjaku's decision of sealing Zagreus instead of Gojo is self-explanatory, you cannot argue with pure power. Sukuna can't compete in terms of domain clash and can't keep up with a tyrant even with dimension-cutting dismantles. With Yuki's body Kenjaku has access to all of her memories, and first-row seat to all of his bullshit. It was easy for him to adjust his plan knowing how Zagreus works. Kenjaku's biggest strength has always been its infiltration and information-gathering ability granted by its body snatching.
While Yuki herself was stronger than canon due to the completed research on body and mind, Kenjaku had her beaten in canon while she had prep time, backup, and intel. Give two of those to Kenjaku and he can make up for the difference, Yuki isn't Gojo, she is on the level of Yuta.
Some heroes ascend in triumph, others in tragedy. With a name like that, it was easy to know which one Zagreus would be.
We also start to see what the cultivation of virtue looks like in the world of Fear and Hunger. The nature of a soul was crucial to new and old gods born from humans. Even Gojo and Yuki used this insight to cultivate their Endless souls. And now Kenjaku knows about it too!
I am sure Gojo will be remembered as one such Paragon, the idealized icon of a Path of refinement for a Yamato soul born under the rising sun. I am not so lucky though - the Greek path is already obscured by mystery faith but my foundation tainted by the Mad Moon God only added more variables. I don't know what separates me from a moon-scorched monster, a 'new god' like the Heartless angel, and an ascended divinity like the God of Fear and Hunger.
I suspect the interloper that saved me from Rher in our confrontation might have been a new Ascended god, but the steps between men and existence such as she elude me. That is ok though, the ways of cultivation are not a perfected science, at a certain point every man is blindly following his gut feeling toward the heavens. It is enough that I know that it can be done, now it is up to me to unravel said knot and pull the curtain of opaqueness concealing divinity.
I also suspect those existing above fully intend to obstruct the path to the heavens in jealousy and build dead ends and false shortcuts.
Was there only one true way forward, a single golden road, or were there many? Could it be that every gate to heaven was made of horn? Or were they one and all of ivory?
My very first thought worth the air wasted sharing it disagrees - No matter the tribulation, there is always a way forward.
That is an edict of my own soul, even if there is no way forward, I will open one. Rher might have intended to obstruct my way by marking me but I will make his strength my own and use it as a guide to the heavens itself because he failed to kill me when he had the chance - What doesn't kill me only make me stronger.
The Greek soul exists in three parts and all three are king inside the soul. But beyond that, each awakened soul possesses an intrinsic [nature] that exists a priori. Even mine own.
Knowing the right question is half of the equation.
How does one define a [Tormented] soul? Such souls are fated to endure suffering but they are also endowed with the capacity, the promise, to not only survive it but also bloom in adversity. Its enduring nature makes it especially well attuned with one's [Hunger], a man's lowest nature shared with every beast – plus, what it takes to sate it, to prowl, hunt, and devour.
To cultivate is to refine. In my career as a blacksmith, how did I bring the truth hidden inside crude substances to the surface? By treating it with heat, by tempering it. Heat purifies and forces true value to emerge to the surface while light reveals flaws and hidden deeps once obscured by crude substance.
I tired of shying away from Rher's scornful flame, so I seized it in hand in the hope of making it my own someday. Even if it meant skirting the path of profanity.
A virtuous beast is to a cultivator what a normal animal is to a man. But what about a monster? If the existence of empirical evidence shows that some unique beasts are capable of outgrowing the natural order itself and ascending beyond its impositions while at the same time threatening to upend it, then what such a man who does the same thing should be called?
Demonic Cultivation.
I can't deny that the path ahead is suspect at best, but I can't argue with the results.
The backstroke of lighting smites me down as soon as I enter what was supposed to be Tamamo-no-mae's manifested innate domain, the imperial palace. Alas, I have been preparing myself to face the fury of the heavens for almost two decades by now. This familiarity alone allowed me to feel said attack coming by reading its preceding 'spark' before it had even started, and as a result, I responded just barely in time.
Although I am born and will die a son of Raging Heaven, I will never be a willing slave ever again.
Tempered by moonlight, the true shape and essence of my soul is illuminated and my flesh shifts from within to follow it in kind through their resonance. I walk through the thunderous explosion, parting clouds of ozone and obscuring heat to reveal a suit of shining scales laid out in the Irezumi style right underneath my ruined sorcerer uniform.
Back at Prehevil, I devoured the essence of a legendary salmon sea serpent captured in a talisman. In Hunger, I claimed some of its nature for myself- no, I used it as a catalyst to bring my nature to the fore. It was not the raw increase of Magnitude most obvious at ascension or ordering by rounding out of outer imperfection brought by Time. This process deepened my vital essence as it used it as a medium to manifest its true nature with stark clarity - Motion.
My suit of scales fits my frame like a tailored skin-tight jacket reaching up to my neck, leaving only a singular line of bare-naked human flesh from Adam's apple, chest, abs core muscles down to the groin. Its chromatic colors shift from a gradient of purple to blue until it reaches a tortoise at the extremities of the limbs.
The attack also destroyed the choker used to conceal a cross stigmata right under the throat chakra that opened itself to reveal a monstrous mouth filled with serrated teeth. Just in time as well, as a second assailant released a concentrated discharge of raw cursed energy from his vintage pompadour hairstyle. "Granite Blast!"
Despite the monstrous appearance of its throat maw, the sound released by it couldn't be sweeter even in its macabre grandeur. A swan song so compelling even the very air took it upon itself to redirect the attack toward a third assailant, a naked woman wrapped in a cloak of blue sky.
My process of transformation was far from over though, once a sorcerer discovers the true essence of their soul their body is forced beyond its biological confines to express said enlightenment. It can't be stopped or reversed as long as one is alive due to the resonance between body and soul. Only I stand as an exception to this due to the capacity for infantile regression of the [puer aeternus] from Dionysus's mystery faith.
But right now, there is no reason to hold back, my attackers showed a level of power unheard of among modern sorcerers. People of such level of talent sure would have achieved some notoriety even among the most exclusive circles. This was an ambush from curse users against Jujutsu Tech so any accusation from them would be dismissed as outlandish. I can go all out in this form without fear; there is a reason that nobody had ever witnessed and survived to tell the tale (aside from Satoru Gojo).
The [Salmon-snake rune] was far from the only trinket I carelessly sank the teeth of his influence on. The [Hardened heart], [Small thing's amulet], and even the [Leechmonger ring] were found at the top of the market tower. Even the [Soul devour necklace], [Betel's stone], [Ring of wraiths], and [Yggaegetsu amulet] were eventually consumed throughout the years as their effects lagged behind my body and soul refinement. In the end, every tool's purpose is to assist in the performance of something the body isn't capable of performing on its own. If they could no serve as tools then they served as sustenance, as guides to illuminate the direction my soul had yet to grow towards.
The third eye of illumination of the light chakra opens. Less perceptible to the flesh, yet felt with stark clarity through the lens of pneumatic sense was the ravenous nature of my Hunger once I consumed the [Leechmonger ring]. Its capability to leech life from the injuries inflicted on others found purchase in the stomach chakra, giving me the means to make his hunger known along with a macabre stomach tattoo. Same as all sorcerers, proper performance requires perfect bodily harmony. Whatever the eye could perceive, it could present in stark clarity, and I could eat.
It was no coincidence the eye looked so much like the Gojo clan's Six Eyes. Over the years I sank the teeth of my influence on him numerous times as we exchanged blows. The Mind was also tempered to the breaking point by the Unlimited Void, testing the limits of healing through positive energy manipulation, to the point that despite a philosopher's otherwise perfect memory, my recollection of it exists as an opaque unbroken experience.
Alas, said third eye possesses some additional features. When the sky dancer twisted the space itself to redirect the energy bean back to me our eyes crossed and I scoured her mind with the memories of torment by sharing in my lived and borrowed experience as a sip from the Tyrant Riot's cup. Thoroughly stunned, the sky dancer was defenseless against the spirit canon moonscorch bean attack released from my third eye, being swallowed by the sick blue-green flames.
This didn't dissuade the others, on the contrary. The blond lightning staff master charged in with a feral smile. I obliged him in kind, my legs shifting to something akin to the hindlegs of a quadruped and my arms became subtlety longer. Both are covered by my suit of coruscant blue scales and black claws for nails. In this form I can run in all four and back to two just as easily, the animal alacrity of all predators I ever ate manifested.
We close the distance and our first exchange of blows had so much energy involved that it cratered the surrounding mimic of the imperial palace displayed out as a labyrinthic innate domain of Tamamo-no-mae.
I could feel the cursed energy lightning property of the
[strongest sorcerer of his age-]
Trying to ride my own pneuma as current to strike my body, but the [Soul devour necklace] protective properties against otherworldly powers found purchase in my root chakra, giving my scales an unnatural sheen, protecting my body much like a Faraday cage as only a fraction of it breach my defense and I had far worse from Iroh and Azula besides.
Striped of the advantage granted by his cursed energy unique trait, the
[The God of Lightning - Raijin]
Has to fall back to his battle prowess and cursed energy output to seize the advantage. Alas, by the way, he was flung like a rag doll by our first exchange of blows I simply can't see this happening. My victory was decided the moment the Wheel started Turning.
By being twice tempered in Greater Mystery I was forced to confront the necessity to make such questions my own. As unique excellent existences, even cultivators of the same mystery faith can be radically different. It wasn't enough to use them as a source of inspiration for virtue, I had to truly incorporate them as extensions of myself.
Now the eight-spoked dharma wheel is gone, reforged as a ten-spoked well resembling the [Argead Star] that symbolized Alexander's family, shining so bright it was visible even to the mortal eye as it does its work, burning and mending as it turns. Each spoke is a pneumatic chamber and the manifestation of one of the rules of nature that I had made mine own, ten in total.
To progress past the Sophic Realm a cultivator must internalize a thousand-thousand truths—the rules of nature that will serve as the framework for their cultivation going forward. When a Hero stands against a terrible horror and strikes it down with a sword made of iron, every truth of the world as they know it is behind that swing.
Using Yuki's innate cursed technique, [Star Rage], as a reference point by observing its operational principles, I developed means to distill all truths I internalized inside my soul in pure power capable of underpinning the rules of nature.
The Divine Divide is the heavenly scale that governs ascension, every rise is preceded by a correspondent fall. As cultivation defies natural order heaven demands that for a man to rise above one thousand men put together then first one thousand men must fall in turn.
I have been directly blessed twice by Higher Power and gorged myself in all sorts of cultivation resources until my soul retched in nausea. I know the worth of my soul and be it providence or by merit I am cut from superior material than the rest, elevating me above the average man at our very starting base.
As a captain of the Sophic Realm I have risen above one hundred and ten men as decreed by the Divine Divide that Heaven uses as scales. When I swung a punch like I was a hundred and ten men layered over one another in a single skin to strike down the arrogant man calling himself a thunder god, it was not unlike how Yuki herself breaks reality through overwhelming virtual mass. That is how I break through Gojo's infinity. Overwhelming the Six eyes capability to manifest infinity and forcing Gojo through the indignity of using his prized family defense as a mere superb armor or risking it all by adjusting it using a binding vow to make an inviolable shield out of infinity.
Gojo fucking loves it too. Every single second of vulnerability, uncertainty, and pain. Griffon was right about violence – it tells a story. It was only in the heat of our most violent moments that we bared our hearts to one another in full. Not because we desired it, necessarily, but because we had no other choice. And Satoru Gojo has run out of men to remind him of his limits, to serve as a mirror to show him who he really is.
[Hajime Kashimo],
Turned out to be cut from the same clothes as the strongest sorcerer. He was smiling ear to ear at me despite me blowing his left arm clear off and almost taking half of his left side, leaving him a blood ruin in our first exchange. He came here to be challenged just as much as he came to challenge me. His eyes are clear and free of resentment, it is like he is a child again. Who is he really?
It was somewhat uncanny; I grew too used to the sickening looks of admiration or resentment from the pacified weak. It is such an elitist trail of thought that a part of me feels sick at how truthfully it resonates with my virtuous heart. The truly strong need no validation outside of themselves, they know themselves, and their worth because they tested their limit. This is what means to have character. The weak and harmless can never truly be virtuous because they simply lack the strength to perform any act of virtue or vice. They just project and live vicariously through the strong. This is the ugly truth that changed Geto's life course. Giving these people the same power as Toji? I would be making pandemonium, Yuki!
I have lived away from 'civilized' society and its amenities and rules for so long a part of me went feral. Like a domesticated beast awakened to its ancestral instincts. Nanami would probably reprimand me for spending so much time with Gojo that I started picking his bad habits.
"[Mythical Beast Amber]!" screamed the man out of his time with a savage smile. He found a place good enough to die, with worth enough company. His lost flesh was being reconstructed by pure electricity. It was as if he had become a tribulation lightning hound, discarding off his flesh and blood and exchanging them for the storm.
That was when the fourth contender decided to make herself known. Like an off-brand T-1000, she attacked me with a chainsaw whip made of liquid metal, cutting through the lavishly decorated Ooku dimension. I dodged the worst of the salvo easily enough without moving back and the subsequent wall of drilling spears was bent aside by the [Achille's armor] as if they were made of harmless foam even as sparkles flew high as she attempted to flay me with her liquid metal.
Far more interesting, the Raiden charged forward. There was no warning or cessation from one movement to another, one moment he was half a football field from me, and the next she had closed said distance. He brought his staff to bear like a baseball bat and I countered with a blow of my own, my entire forearm lighting from within to reveal my bones as I attempted to burn him to cinders with [moonscorch].
The resulting clash was inconclusive, his flesh had been consumed by his own technique but I was also pushed back, getting blown through three entire rooms before I reasserted myself by sinking my talons in the polished wood. My sorcerer uniform is a mess, basically just keeping my pants down to my knees and [Nature's Bounty] holding my hair in a bum.
At that time, the user of [Construction] sorcery rejoined the frame. This time clad in armor mimicking insect functionality to make herself into a behemoth, she charges on with murder in her mind and joy in her heart. With a casual gesture, the poison ivy seed sprouts to life and entangles her from every direction, starting with her wings. Despite the obvious strength such a suit grants her, it is useless without leverage, she made to cut herself free with liquid metal but I had already closed in when he was halfway through.
I will never get tired of the speed boost granted by the pseudo-gravitational effect of manifesting negative series in reality. The way my own bones rattle from inside my flesh through every blow as I punch like a Gatling gun with fists clad in tortoise radiation is a childhood power fantasy made real. The operational principle behind Nanami's 7:3 technique mixed with Archimedes' Golden Thread like a glove as well, creating weak points for me to exploit as I keep on attaching. Due to the chaotic architecture of this place, I am forced to resort to Toji's little double jump trick by getting hold of the atmospheric difference through means of rhetoric.
Her armor crumbled through my savage attack, she tried to reassert control and counter but I had seized the advantage and I never give any quarrel to my enemies as a matter of pride. As bad as my battery of blows is the searing hit settling on her bones is far worse. I knew intimately how brazing moonscorch was, even if the pain from my tempering is by now just a memory.
That was when another granite blast engulfed the both of us. What an eyesore, just when things were getting good! I could just ignore it or retreat but I don't like to fall back, so instead I surfed the Golden Thread between us to use my mastery over motion to gently seize his energy blast and redirect it back to the bug armor sorcerer, sending her caressing down the bizarre geography of this innate domain.
"Instead of a four-on-one, wouldn't you guys be doing better by yourselves coming one at a time?"
"A sweet offer but we all had our hands forced in this matter, you simply are too sweet for most people's blood, do you see?" The biker admitted as he adjusted his topknot.
"You are rather relaxed for someone without resorting to wounding your opponent, do I look that laid back to you?" These people are way too strong and quirk to form such a coalition by themselves. Someone is pulling the strings.
That was when the Raijin rejoined the frame, piercing the air like an arrow released by Indra himself. He got horns and three eyes now as well, he cocks his hands back and releases an honest to god laser beam at me. It seems he has full control over any electromagnetic phenomenon.
Now that is interesting! I manifest fifty hands of my carrion intent and set them on Mr. Sweet Tooth while I brace myself up to take the bull by the horns. Not only to just survive it but bring it down to heel, to seize it in hand and crush it!
My rhetoric rises up like a thousand whispers in the forum as I invoke thousand-thousand truths and wrap them around myself as a cloak. When Kashimo's bean made contact the surroundings instantly went up in flames. I smiled savagely as I held on, the excess energy being redirected to the ground, yet I couldn't help but smile in triumph as I held on to a force of nature and tore it apart, dispersing it in a savage rent by spreading my arms wide.
I was bleeding all over, and there was smoke coming from my arms but I had done it. The Raijin got really worked up as well as he spun his golden staff like a wheel with his electric arm, we closed the distance again and his time neither of us cared for interlopers. I still held the upper hand as he was forced back by the sheer power behind every blow, but the man was an experienced fighter and tenacious besides, he adjusted, reacted, intercepted, and countered, using his staff more like a spear. We entered a frenetic dance of death.
Despite his superior range I had already taken the measure of his fighting style and framed it under the design of my perfect symmetry. The Golden Thread divined the current of the battle and I followed it in such a natural way that it was as if I knew Kashimo's every move before he did it and always reacted with the most optimal counter to press my advantage ever further.
Lightning danced freely through each exchange of blows to the point even I had started to feel its burden in my body yet I relished such an opportunity; maybe Nanami was right and Gojo really gave me permanent brain damage, because I am having fun here!
Far too soon, our dance comes to closure as I break through Kashimo's resistance and seize him in hand the same way I did his attack, striking his mind and soul through his storm body as a medium. I impaled his stomach, delivered an elbow to the chin that sent him reeling, and finished my combo with a reverse one-inch elbow strike that broke the sound barrier, sending him flying.
Impressively enough, he was not down to the count yet, it seemed his technique would keep his body boing until he ran out of cursed energy. Said that the truth of the matter was that he was slowing down. I looked for my other attackers and they weren't faring any better, the exhibitionist managed to save herself with the reverse curse technique but the moonscorch got her good and she started to flay apart under the radiation sickness, she isn't Gojo Satoru after all, and Rher's scornful light is as dangerous as any poison. Besides Gojo, only Hikari's jackpot mode ever managed to brush off its effects.
Misses Bug Terminator isn't faring much better yet she sort of came more prepared for this and is limping back toward the fight intent to give me her all.
I almost feel bad for Mister Topknot, he is giving his all but, in the end, it is not how much cursed energy one has but how well one uses it. I disperse my hands of pneuma, they had pummeled him enough as it is. Time to get some answers.
This fight is mine to win… how drown. Gojo was right, this was a disappointment that ended way too soon.
"Now, now. You are making me feel embarrassed, Zagreus. That shameful lingering hunger of one who didn't get his fill enough to feel himself full is the reason I came here in the first place. You certainly don't play with your food though, but at least let me give you a nice dessert to finish things on a good note, shall we?"
Honestly… I had pegged him right from the get-go. While absolutely self-centered these are all people who climbed to the top of jujutsu ladder. Fighting me is its own reward for them. That sounds absurd but the human spirit and hunger are not reasonable by nature.
I look out for the returning Kashimo, he is nearing his end. "Zagreus, did you become the strongest sorcerer, or where you born this way?"
Ha, I see now.
"That is not what you really want to know, is it? if you want a proper answer then ask a proper question." I answer the Raijin. It was enough.
"If you never know weakness how can you interact with others or even show kindness? I couldn't do it. Others were brittle pieces of dirt to me." He confessed finally.
"I was indeed born weak, but I know what you are talking about. It is a matter of standing. No man truly becomes the strongest by mere chance, Kashimo. It requires purpose, even if it is toward something they alone can see. The higher a man climbs more elevated his view from others. The virtue of the weak, the ugliness of the weak, and the perspective of those walking this path will differ. But now tell me something. Why do you think someone stronger than you wouldn't see you the very same way you did others beneath you?"
Questions are half of the puzzle. I left the Raijin to his wondering and turned toward the Construction technique user. "And you, do you have any request before we finish this?"
"How vexing, I wanted Sukuna to be the one to kill me! And yet a part of me finds this to be a dissatisfactory end – how sinful! To think I turned out to be this kind of loose woman! Very well then, I will give you all of my love! You know it, don't you? The ultimate strength and the solitude it brings!" Screams the construction master in jubilation.
I look at the lagging sky manipulator, she is limping toward the conflict even as she trembles in fear. The radiation sickness will do her in soon enough and she knows it too in her heart. Unlike the others, she bore open resentment in her eyes, also fear, and envy.
Why do humans worship power?
The one throughline that connects them all together is the rejection of common sense and the common ground it grants to others. In this sense, they all represent an extreme but true face of humankind, deprived of any makeup. All of them have their own virtue that pushes them above the common riffraff even as their alienation made them succumb to their vices. They are an unsightly loot yet I can't bring myself to look away, this is the true face of mankind. This is what humans truly look like, our raw nature in full display.
They are all pursuing something yet they are pinning their hopes in me to show the way. How vexing, I never thought myself exceptional. Not when the memory of Dionysus's torment at the hand of the Mother and the madness of Rher's influence displayed how weak I was. I simply moved forward unconcerned about petty matters.
I guess this too is the gift of proper context. Yet sharing it through words alone is beyond my power, even with the Shard of Babylon. I can only convey it indirectly, through action. Virtue is performative excellence, the experiences and choices that shaped me to be the man I am today can only be known through firsthand experience.
So be it.
I manifest my first ten hands of carrion intention born from my soul's foundation. The wine-dark, tortoise-shaded hands of pneuma unfurl behind my back like a lotus flower, each one making a mudra corresponding to one of the ten towers of load-bearing principle residing inside my soul and the dormant essence they are made of. These ten hands then dissolve and melt together into a halo of coronation light painted in the colors of the ten souls I submitted to my own soul.
By making a binding vow with myself forfeiting the use of my first ten hands of manifested intention, I managed to reforge them into [Mandala Intention]. There is a reason sorcerers can't simply manifest their techniques inside of their enemies – the body is the very first [Domain] a soul owns. My Mandala Intent exists as a unique [simple domain] available to those who know the true shape of their souls. It operates like a reception tower, it reinforces the magnitude, motion, and time of the resonance between body, soul, and innate domain.
By merely manifesting it I am granted the same 120% status boost resulting from Domain Expansion while also serving to contest territory from other barrier techniques as a byproduct of existing. Said that this is merely a stepping stone, Griffon and Sol aren't the only cultivators capable of cheating their way into powers beyond what their standing would infer. The body is the one Domain every Tyrant has to fall back to in lien of everything else, I stumbled upon an echo of the fourth Realm.
A pair of mad men are having an argument. Each of them believes they are the greater king and that the other is their lesser. One of them is ruler of a grand marble city, and the other commands the shadows that lurk in every corner that the light won't touch. Tell me, which of their domains is greater, and which of them is lesser?
This is a breakthrough in sorcery I owe to director Yaga – the secret of his autonomous cursed corpses lies in the discovery of compatibility between souls. Depending on their [nature] a soul can be resonant or dissonant with other souls, be it by luck, the spontaneous course of nature, or the invisible hand of my divine daemon, the ten essences I got dubbed into incorporating as part of myself ended up arrayed into perfect symmetry to optimize resonance while exploiting dissonance in a way capable of fostering growth by forcing my [Tormented] soul to endure and adapt. After all, while the idea of cultivation is a climb, the experienced reality of cultivation is a brakeless chariot ride toward the bottom.
Thanks to this, the only thing that remained was for me to develop a way to manifest it outward, even if only indirectly. Fortunately, this was viable with my experience dealing with the opaqueness of natural mysteries. The Mandala is the archetype of the [Self], as I already came to know the true shape of my soul, all that remained was to display this enlightenment indirectly, through a symbol to stand for it.
It took me years to perfect it, but I can't complain about the results.
The first man is king of only one humble city. Within its borders he reigns supreme, but only within its borders. The second man is king of every shadow, in every kingdom and beyond them, too. The domain that can be marked on a map is ever less. The domain that exists in every corner, no matter how small a part, is always more.
"Domain Expansion!" Screamed the sky dancer in defiance.
"Domain Expansion!" Proclaimed the Raijin in pride.
"Domain Expansion!" Proposed the connoisseur in hunger.
"Domain Expansion!" Declared the love chaser in passion.
Making the Kalesvara mudra with my two hands of flesh and blood I proclaim my domination toward the heavens. I might not be at Bakkho's level just yet, but by starting early I might just make it by the time I enter the Tyrant Realm.
"Domain Expansion – Monochrome Crucible!"
Domain Expansion is the most supreme technique of any jujutsu user. It is achieved by expanding one's innate domain with cursed energy while using a barrier to construct it inside a separate space. The caster then imbues their cursed technique within the barrier to complete the expansion, allowing them to deploy their ability all throughout the domain. That is why the more a sorcerer understands himself, his cursed technique, his innate domain, and the boundaries of his own soul, the clearer he can define the rules of manifestation for his domain, boosting its quality.
After getting peppered by Hollow Purple for the better part of a decade, I was bound to figure out how the jujutsu concept of [Extension Techniques] might be applied through the lens of my foundational mystery. The [Wheel Turning] deals with the dichotomy between Life and Death as they succeed each other as the samsara spins. For the longest time I had used them as separate pieces but now I finally managed to assemble a complete picture – feeding Life with Death and Death with Life like an Ouroboros eating its own tail.
As the four sorcerers enclosed me from all cardinal directions with their domain's outer shell, their sure-hit attack was rebuffed by my own domain, but I didn't move to overwhelm them just yet. It wouldn't do to kill them too quickly after all. Even the dead own some respect and deference.
Do you know what a Tyrant fears more than any distant divinity or thunderous tribulation? A Tyrant fears subjugation. Tyrant fears the world outside of their domain. Even more than that, they fear the world inside of a greater Tyrant's authority.
My domain can be called exceptional in three ways. First, I can open a domain without closing a barrier, a divine ability equivalent to an artist painting on air without a canvas, or holding water without a vessel. The second factor is that by anchoring said open domain to my Mandala Intention, which is in turn anchored to my body, I have an ambulatory domain whose coordinates are root to my person. Third, the dynamic feedback from the body, soul, and innate domain caused by the Mandala Intent allows for adjustment of the conditions of the domain on the fly instead of the rigid pre-programmed before each activation.
This is why Gojo "graciously" conceded the title of 'best barrier user' since I was the one to develop it, even if he eventually learned to adapt it to his own domain.
As a captain of the Sophic Realm, I have a domain range of one hundred meters radium, ten for each step I took in the sophic realm as the entirety of what remains is used to maintain the Mandala Intent and its effect.
The sure-hit effect of my domain is deceptively simple. The most basic way a Tyrant boosts himself – by magnifying every aspect of myself at the expense of every aspect of everyone else within my domain by leveraging the dual dichotomy of the [Wheel Turning]. Not an instant killing move but a mere setup for greater things to come.
A curtain of darkness fell over reality, sucking all color and vitality from it as the world itself and all existing in it are recast in washed-out pitiful colors as their strength is sapped away to feed a solitary and proudful star. Each second under it was withering as if Krono's touch manifested its effects at an accelerated rate of years through seconds.
By the way, normal barriers are weak to attacks from the outside.
The barrier raised by the combined effort of four veteran sorcerers was crushed under my dominion and the endless Ooku itself was soon to follow but this alone won't be enough for these sore, lost souls. They came here looking for an expectable after all.
While my domain is manifested, its energy drain effect elevates me from the power of one hundred men put together to that of one thousand, putting me on eye level with a captain of the Heroic Realm. This is not my limit though – due to its nature my domain is a pseudo perpetual engine at the expense of others. Add to that the flexibility of my domain's conditions and I can then make use of the newly acquired strength of one thousand-thousand men to expand my range even further. One kilometer, elevating me to standing of ten thousand men put together – the baseline power level of a captain of the Tyrant Realm.
Of course, there are restrictions to this that prevent me from keeping my domain going all hours of the day beyond the practicality of becoming an ambulatory calamity. The body of a mortal is simply not meant to withstand such power; to be precise, the limits are rooted in my own virtuous heart. Even the essence of the [hardened heart] is pushed to its limits. In the end, it all comes down to these three parameters – Magnitude, Motion, and Time. Ten minutes of hero time per day that I can compress into one minute of tyrant time. This is my limit and even then, it took me years to perfect and polish my domain and physical conditioning to reach this level.
Times like this make me test the worth of my effort. This is what I tyrant sees when he looks down. So feeble, Griffon might have had a point when he questioned the worth of the climb for such a bleak sight. With my breath I could flayer them down to the bones, with my voice alone I can crush their spine, my mere gaze is withering in its intensity. I could tear them apart with ten thousand hands of manifested intent and it would be more effort than what they deserved. The idea this can even be called a fight at all is absurd, even Satoru Gojo is forced to play a game of cat and mouse to endure the one minute I am the uncontested strongest.
And yet…
I manifest [Zagreus], the sword that shares my name, flesh, and will. As an extension of my being, its magnitude was equally boosted. I use it as it was intended, an amplifier to my foundational technique. It cast off heat and stark light in relentless shockwave currents, yet somehow, paradoxically, it drew everything around it into its gleaming surface.
I swung it once in a circular motion.
It was like holding a star or a black hole, it devoured the wind itself, to the point of being a sword of silence, returning everything to nothingness. There weren't even ashes left, and even Tamamo-no-mae's innate domain was cleaved in two.
The space between dream and reality is a curse, to these souls departing this mortal coil I offer a last kindness at the liminal boundary. A choice – stay who they are or discover a new side of themselves. This too is part of the mystery of the [Wheel Turning].
You will find a spring on your left in the Unseen halls,
And by it the cypress with its luminous sheen.
Do not go near this spring or drink its water.
You will find another, cold water flowing from Mnemosyne's lake;
Its guardians stand before it.
Say: "I am the son of earth and starry heaven, but of heaven is my birth."
I am parched with thirst and dying: quickly, give it to me;
The cool water flowing from Mnemosyne's lake."
And they will give you water from the sacred spring,
And then you will join the Heroes at their rites.
This is darkness, folding you within it.
This is the end.
I was about to pull back my domain before it could touch real space when my withering weight unearthed a box covered in sutras carefully hidden in a fold of paradox logic inside the barrier.
"Gate open." Declared an unmistakable voice, so familiar and tender it brought back memories of a thousand tender moments, countless caresses, of unforgettable years. All brought to bear with stark clarity through a mind more than a match to ten thousand mortal brains put together.
A Tyrant's existence is no different from ours. Only more, for better and for worse. A Tyrant in their domain might seem to be a god, but that doesn't make it true. They can be maneuvered against. And they are still fallible - to greed, to pride, and to fear.
Whatever my third eye could perceive, it could present in stark clarity. The [Prison Realm] was a barrier class special grade cursed object capable of sealing absolutely anything or anyone inside of an inescapable pocket dimension as long as its conditions were met – one minute within its range.
Ah, standing where only tyrants are meant to stand while bearing a beating heart endowed with virtue might have been a mistake. All the pains of a man grow with him as he becomes more. Even as I move to run out of the prison realm's range and destroy it, I know it is too late.
No man can outrun his own endlessly wondering mind, least of all a philosopher worth of the name.
What damned me was that siren's deceptively sweet voice, belonging to the woman I last loved. That I still loved, be it due to compatibility or as a byproduct of the bolstering of emotional heights granted by cultivation. I could not help but ruminate over the damming implications – that some impostor dared to use her form against me, that she is being controlled somehow, and worst of all, unforgivable to the grave, that she betrayed me!
My senses were no better, I tracked her down with everything I had, passing a scan through her like a fine comb with all my senses. No matter how deep I looked, she was indeed Yuki Tsukumo. Except, she got a Craniotomy and decided to fasten her skull cap with strings and my tripartite soul screamed in one voice that she was an impostor.
Either way, it doesn't matter. When the prison realm enclosed its snare around me, I knew I had lost.
-//-
[author's room]
Because you can't spell Jujutsu Kaisen without jumping. I believe Kenjaku's decision of sealing Zagreus instead of Gojo is self-explanatory, you cannot argue with pure power. Sukuna can't compete in terms of domain clash and can't keep up with a tyrant even with dimension-cutting dismantles. With Yuki's body Kenjaku has access to all of her memories, and first-row seat to all of his bullshit. It was easy for him to adjust his plan knowing how Zagreus works. Kenjaku's biggest strength has always been its infiltration and information-gathering ability granted by its body snatching.
While Yuki herself was stronger than canon due to the completed research on body and mind, Kenjaku had her beaten in canon while she had prep time, backup, and intel. Give two of those to Kenjaku and he can make up for the difference, Yuki isn't Gojo, she is on the level of Yuta.
Some heroes ascend in triumph, others in tragedy. With a name like that, it was easy to know which one Zagreus would be.
We also start to see what the cultivation of virtue looks like in the world of Fear and Hunger. The nature of a soul was crucial to new and old gods born from humans. Even Gojo and Yuki used this insight to cultivate their Endless souls. And now Kenjaku knows about it too!
LiamOfOrmonde
67% lewd. Oh my!
- Location
- Florida Sometimes
I thought he only gets people's abilities, and not their knowledge?
- Location
- Brazil
Kenjaku's technique sees body and soul as one and the same. They get it all, that is a low-key super powerful side-effect of his technique people often disregard in comparison to his ability to have multiple cursed techniques.
LiamOfOrmonde
67% lewd. Oh my!
- Location
- Florida Sometimes
I mean that Kenjaku gets people's techniques and the comprehension to use them he doesn't actually get their knowledge. When he first took over Geto he didn't know what Geto's personality was like so he stayed away from everybody when he infiltrated Jujutsu Headquarters so his cover wouldn't be blown before he got what he wanted.
- Location
- Brazil
he stayed away because Geto was supposed to be dead, so walking as a dead especial grade curse user carries a lot of scrutiny.
- Location
- Brazil
Yeah, Kenjaku's goal is to create chaos even he can not control. He will play the ultimate game of among us with Yuki's body.
What Zagreus did to the four isn't different from what Sukuna did to Jogo and Kashimo. the main difference is the greek lens through which he interpreted said phenomenon.
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Y'know, while I hate Sukuna since the moment he laughed with Mahito about Junpei's death, I really like Kenjaku, even if he's arguably a bigger monster; I guess it's because he reminds me of Orochimaru, who is my favorite shonen villain, while I expected Sukuna to go the Kurama route until that point and then got hit hard by the confirmation that no, he's actually evil and has never been human.
Anyway, great chapter as always, I love seeing the growth of the MC, specially since his growth in power is connected to his growth as a person, really rare to see that.
Anyway, great chapter as always, I love seeing the growth of the MC, specially since his growth in power is connected to his growth as a person, really rare to see that.
- Location
- washington
beating four special grades then escaping a inescapable prison would definitely let him go hero. Wonder what hes got that might let him out.
- Pronouns
- ImBuda
Although I really want to see Zagreus escape the cosmic egg he is trapped in, I really want to see how much the other characters have evolved with his help. Is now Gojo strong enough to use his domain expansión as sukuna? What did he get by watching Zagreus babel shard and understanding his mysteries? And the other characters? Is there any cultivators whithin them??
Also, now that we are entering the heroic realm I would prefer that Zagreus takes a longer time to Ascend now. One or two small realms per world will be more than enough and due to the fact that cultivation as a hero involves creating feats of strength, each of them being a really important event or a long quest will make them gain more narrative power and mistery, so using some time of the story to make them more narrative impressing will probably be better to develop their strength and reduce the pace until the original story develops more.
Also, now that we are entering the heroic realm I would prefer that Zagreus takes a longer time to Ascend now. One or two small realms per world will be more than enough and due to the fact that cultivation as a hero involves creating feats of strength, each of them being a really important event or a long quest will make them gain more narrative power and mistery, so using some time of the story to make them more narrative impressing will probably be better to develop their strength and reduce the pace until the original story develops more.