One more prologue chapter to go, and then I'll decide what I want to do with this potential fic.
The first time Percy Jackson meets Gojo Satoru, he knows that he's going to end up decking him in the face.
And his day had started off so well too.
Well... more or less.
He'd woken up in his new room in the Jujutsu High dorms - it was only his second day out of the orphanage - and realized that he had about five minutes to put on his uniform and get to class before he was late.
Exactly three minutes later, he was bolting down the stairs - idly noticing the name tag on the door across the hall and realizing distantly that someone had probably moved in the night before - before sprinting to the classroom Yaga had shown him when he'd dropped him off a couple of days ago.
He had no delusions about being a model student or anything - in this life or any other, honestly - but showing up late on the first day was just downright pitiful.
"Sorry, I'm late!"
"Ah, Jackson-san." His new teacher - Hora Shoji, Percy remembered - greeted him from his desk near the door. "You're not late. We were just running through introductions."
Percy had angled his head around the room, and caught sight of his two new classmates seated side by side.
The boy with bangs was the first to lift a hand, a polite smile on his face. "Geto Suguru."
The brown-haired girl beside him pointedly didn't smile, but she still gave a half-hearted nod in his general direction. Her eyes had bags under them like she hadn't slept all night. "Ieri Shoko"
Percy grinned and waved back at Suguru and Shoko both, utterly undeterred by the lukewarm greeting.
"Jackson Percy."
"And I am Hora Shoji, and I will be your instructor through your first year at Tokyo Jujutsu High. You may address me as Shoji-sensei."
"Hai, Shoji-sensei" The three of them echoed back dutifully, and Percy slipped forward to take a seat."
The man nods back firmly. "Now then-"
And that's when the door slid open, and Gojo Satoru stepped into the room.
It might be a little mean-spirited, but Percy can't help his first thought at the sight of him.
What a douche.
The Gojo Clan's prized heir struts into their midst with all the confident flair of a peacock and the attitude of somebody who's already clocked the fuck out a good long while ago and would rather be anywhere else.
It makes for a grating mix, but Percy doesn't exactly think much of it. He doesn't know enough of him to form an opinion, not even by reputation - but that ambivalence only lasts until the white-haired, blue-eyed late show lowers his sunglasses (indoors, really?), takes a dismissive look (that lingers a second longer on him, Percy notices) and then opens his mouth to speak.
"
This is what I have to put up with for the next four years?"
Charming, eh?
Shoji-sensei clears his throat loudly.
"Gojo-san. It's a pleasure for you to join-"
"Let's count them off." Satoru ignores their sensei entirely, which is
rude - Percy's done worse, but it was the principle of the thing - and starts taking a pickaxe to Percy's opinion of him by pointing to Suguru first. "That one eats curses."
Suguru doesn't flinch, but it's a near thing. Percy's mood begins to sour.
Then Satoru points at him.
"That one's got some nice cursed energy, great, but the most boring cursed technique I've ever heard of."
"You'd be surprised," Percy answers flatly, but he's promplty ignored, and Satoru on Shoko in the next breath.
"And this is the one who doesn't even
have a cursed technique." He pauses. "But you did figure out the reverse cursed technique, though.
Allegedly."
"
Allegedly." Shoko agrees dryly, supremely unbothered by the white-haired boy's clear judgment.
At least at first - Because Satoru doesn't shut up there.
"Eh." He shrugs at last. "Almost useful. If only you had the technique to go with it, you'd actually be half-what impressive."
Shoko flinches.
Really, it could barely be called that. If the reaction was any more muted, it wouldn't have existed at all.
But just for a moment, Satoru's barb - Almost useful - had landed, and Shoko had
flinched.
Percy wouldn't have noticed it if he hadn't been looking for it like a hawk, but he was and he did.
That's it.
The next second over, his ordinarily flexible sense of patience snaps like a twig, and his curse energy rises up and up and
up like an inexorable tide.
The effects are immediate.
Shoji-sensei gasps and almost topples over. Shoko nearly face-plants onto her desk, and Suguru stiffens noticeably.
And Satoru blinks, shoulders twitching almost imperceptibly before he slowly turns to stare at Percy. Celestial blue meets sea green, and Satoru almost immediately
grins.
"Well, well."
He looks
thrilled, and not in anything resembling a good way, and his cursed energy comes roaring up out of nowhere in an invisible burst to clash against Percy's own.
"Did I hit a nerve?"
Their power makes the room tremble. The walls shake and the windows rattle in their panes, and Percy distractedly notices Shoji-sensei quickly slipping out the door, face pale and beaded with sweat.
Neither of them backs down or pays his retreating form any attention, though Satoru does scoff derisively.
"Not really." Percy says, eyes narrowing pointedly "But you're sure putting a lot of effort into trying, Gojo-san. That's pretty mean-spirited of you."
"It is? Well, it's not really fair to blame me for that." Satoru answers back with false nonchalance., something endlessly sharp in his eyes. "You'd be cranky too if someone told you you'd have to spend the next four years and beyond carrying the next generation of
deadweight."
He pauses and makes a show of thinking deeply, turning his head this way and that, before smiling nastily.
"Oh no, hold on, you wouldn't. Because that's
you."
Percy matches his unpleasant grin with one of his own
Deadweight?
Him?
"Really? That's a bit uppity of you."
Satoru smirks, and his eyes seem to glint that much more. "I'm never wrong."
Again, what a
douche.
"And you'd bet your life on that one?"
There's something in Percy's words there, an implication he doesn't bother hiding, and Satoru's grin grows so wide it has to border on painful as he closes the distance between them until they're nearly chest to chest.
"You're sure you want to get your ass kicked this early,
weakling?" Satoru taunts with false cheer, teeth barred and six-eyes gleaming behind his sunglasses.
Right to the fight, then?
Good.
"'Get my ass kicked?'"
Bitch, please.
"Nah. I'd
win."
And that's the scene Yaga arrives to.
"
Enough!"
...
"Contemptible conduct! I'll never see its sort again, do you hear me?!"
Credit where credit is due, Yaga's resulting lecture borders on legendary. The dressing down is on point, the disappointed ranting inspiring - truly, this is his true calling.
Though the veins Percy can spy bulging in his neck as he roars at them probably don't mean anything good for his future health, but he isn't about to point that out.
It's a little odd that their class teacher isn't the one chewing them out, merely standing in the background like a forgotten ornament and occasionally nodding in half-hearted support like it's a reluctant afterthought, but Percy kind of gets the impression that the man is a bit of a pushover - the type to leave the discipline and the messy bits of teaching to someone else whenever he could get away with it.
The fact that he and Satoru are both significantly more powerful than him probably plays a part too.
And speaking about the resident prick, he looks utterly bored if anything at all, whereas Percy is at least pretending to be ashamed.
He isn't, though.
He really, really,
really isn't - he didn't even get to throw the punch that Satoru was just about begging for.
"Get out of my sight." Yaga finally finishes sternly, and Satoru manages to shoot him a bemused parting glance that turns into a smirk in Percy's general direction the moment the man is out of earshot.
"Later, weakling."
Percy glowers back at him.
What a
jackass.
...
They disperse a little while after they get back to class. Satoru turns the corner without a single glance back - apparently, he lives off-campus - and Shoko rushes in the opposite way with a hasty, quiet goodbye.
Percy finds himself walking back to his dorm side by side with Suguru.
"That was pretty intense, Jackson-san"
"Percy."
Suguru blinks.
Percy shrugs.
"Use my first name. I don't mind."
"Ah. Then please, call me Suguru."
I was already doing that in my head, Percy thinks with some amusement, but he extends his hand anyway. Suguru takes it solidly.
"Done." They break apart. "And yeah, it was, but Gojo just... sort of rubbed me the wrong way, I guess."
Which is the understatement of the century-
"You mean he was an asshole."
- and Suguru
clearly knows it.
Percy almost misses a step and trips forward, a surprised snort escaping him all on its own before he glances. Suguru raises an amused brow.
He chuckles "Yeah, he really was."
That's why he'd been so quick to jump up against him, and why he'd almost thrown caution to the wind and nearly started duking it out with him right then and there.
Gojo Satoru might have been a big shot in the Jujutsu world, but it took him five minutes to prove that he was a generic hot-shot jerk. Hugely arrogant, massively self-absorbed, and liable to step on anyone around him if he finds no pushback that forces him to back the hell off.
It's been one class, and Percy kind of hates him already.
That's honestly a little impressive.
Still, he doesn't feel like ranting about all that now - Suguru seems to be the calm sort and it'd be liable to get awkward
fast - so he scrambles for a way to change tracks.
Wait, hold on-
"What he said about your cursed technique - you... uh, absorb curses?"
Percy is very careful not to say
eat, and he is genuinely curious.
Suguru's expression still falls a little.
Which is fair enough, really - eating curses sounds like an absolute shit time for anybody, but Percy would rather he
literally stab himself in the foot than say that aloud.
"Yes. If I defeat a curse, I can subjugate it with my Cursed Spirit Manipulation and call on it later." The other boy hesitates features hooded. "It's not that different from calling on Shikigami - only I have more than most, and there's no limit to how many I can add, I think"
Percy blinks.
"None?"
Suguru shrugged. "I haven't found one yet, and I've been at it for years now."
On second thought-
"That sounds incredible."
He's not even lying - curses or no, an army at your beck and call is still an army. Percy would
know - and it must show because Suguru's expression brightens noticeably.
"I suppose." He says quietly, but pleased nonetheless. "And your technique-"
In response to the obvious prompt, Percy lifts a hand. A brief flicker of cursed energy, a familiar tug in his gut, and a spinning orb of water condense into being a few inches of his skin.
It still feels like something else entirely to be able to do this again.
Suguru hums appreciatively.
"Cursed Water Manipulation," Percy explains - unimaginative, but it does the job. And he knows he can do a
lot more with it than most anyone can first imagine. "I create and control water - and I'm pretty sure I can control water I don't create as well, though it takes a little more effort."
Barely any, in theory, but that he doesn't share. It's good to keep a few cards up your sleeve, and he has plenty.
"I see." Suguru stares at the orb curiously for a few seconds more.
Then he looks up at him and smiles warmly.
"That sounds pretty cool too."
And just like that, Percy makes a friend.
...
The next week and a half passes with its ups and downs.
Percy and Suguru get to know each other - great. He learns that his new sort-of roommate - they don't share because there's plenty of space to go around - is studious, neat, an only child and the only sorcerer in his family.
He also learns that he prefers savory foods over sweet - horrifying - that beneath the polite facade is a seriously more laid-back and paradoxically judgemental smartass determined to match Percy tit for tat - awesome - and that dragging him out of bed before eight on a weekend to train their cursed techniques results in truly breathtaking levels of resting bitch face syndrome and ends with him siccing a flying manta-ray curse on Percy the size of a school bus.
Freaking
hilarious. He swears he's going to do that once a month for the rest of their lives just to laugh at the look on Suguru's face.
Maybe once a
week.
On the other hand, Percy and Shoko do not get to know it's other. The only girl in their year group - and there aren't that many to begin with across all of Jujutsu high, and certainly none he knows well enough to speak to - isn't
unapproachable or anything, perfectly cordial even, but she doesn't put much effort in conversing with anyone bar the bare minimum and Percy gets the impression that trying to invite her into his and Suguru's conversations is only going to annoy her.
He still occasionally does it anyway, because he lives to be contrary and occasionally self-sabotaging like that and he owns his compulsiveness like a champion.
And on the other,
other hand, Percy and Satoru
absolutely do not get to know each other.
For a week and a half, the two seem to silently and aggressively agree to ignore one another's existence. In class, they take the farthest seats available from one another. Neither looks at the other, neither speaks to the other - heck, Percy hasn't seen his face in full since that first day and vice versa.
The passive-aggressive 'I'm ignoring your very existence' energy between them could probably manifest a special-grade curse all on its own.
"It's like watching my in-laws get together and pretend to play it cool." Suguru leans over and whispers to Shoko once, which actually nets him a startled laugh. "It's so
dumb."
Percy scowls at them both and discreetly flips Suguru off.
...
The impromptu ceasefire between him and Satoru officially comes to an end the next day.
"Next week, we begin physical conditioning and hand-to-hand spars," Shoji-sensei explains after a lecture on the very basics of curtains, and then seemingly hesitates. No one misses the way his eyes flicker between Satoru and Percy "With rules, of course."
"Naturally." Satoru drawls loudly.
"Perfectly clear." Percy smiles agreeably.
Shoji-sensei doesn't look assured.
Smart man.
Suguru just sighs, and Shoko looks like she wants to get to bed.
"You're all dismissed."
The three of them are ambling their way back to the dorms, Suguru having successfully lured Shoko into a conversation on the basics of her technique - the fact that healing was something that potentially anyone could learn was something Percy found very interesting - when Satoru quite literally dropped out of the sky in front of them.
"I said it before and I'll say it again." The smarmy showboater shoots a smirk at them as he stands to his full height, stretching his arms up and popping his shoulders like he has all the time in the world. "Reverse Cursed technique is something, but it's useless without an innate counterpart. One half-decent grade two curse and you're history."
"That might be true." Shoko seemingly agrees, only this time there is something in her tone.
Impatient and weary and just a little teensy bit
angry.
Percy would applaud her for it if he wasn't too busy glaring at Satoru to notice.
"What do you want, Gojo?"
"A fight."
What?
"What?" He and Suguru ask at the same time
Is he serious?
Even Shoko looks surprised.
"I don't like your attitude." Satoru declares, and Percy's jaw drops even as Suguru actually begins to choke on air. "I've decided to do something about it."
His attitude was the problem?
"You want to fight me?"
Satoru grins. "Scared?"
No, actually. He's freaking
thrilled - Just imagining the feel of Satoru's nose against his fist when he breaks it is giving him the warm and fuzzies.
"Tomorrow, after hours so no one gets in the way. Right here in the training grounds." Satoru sounds as excited to put him in his place as Percy knows he feels. "And hey, since I'm feeling
extra generous, I won't even use my curse technique. Hand to hand, enhancement only. That way, you have half a chance of actually landing a hit before I make you regret ever being born."
Really?
Percy's just about to tell him exactly where he can shove that condescending crap, only Shoko decides to jab him in the ribs and steps up on his right, smiling in that practiced, unbothered way of hers. "I'll referee."
Suguru leans in on his left, arms crossed his chest. "And I'll keep a lookout,"
And that should be the end of that.
Only, Percy notices something strange.
There's an odd look that flickers across Satoru's features when his friends step up on either side of him, backing him up, and it's feather-light and fleeting but not any less real for it.
He doesn't rightly recognize it, but when he sees it... Percy feels his excitement dim, though he can't quite put a finger on why.
In the end, the oddness passes, and Satoru stays only long enough to let out an oddly toned "Good" and smirk at him - but even that familiar gesture feels a little off now.
Then he turns and walks away.
...
"Take the handicap."
Yeah, that's exactly how his and Shoko's first non-class-related conversation starts.
"What?" Percy asks, and she looks to make sure that Satoru is really gone before turning back to him with as close to a determined look on her face as he's ever seen.
"Take the handicap."
He frowns.
"I'm not worried."
"You should be. What do you know about his cursed technique?"
"Basically nothing." He admits, a tad sheepishly.
"Yeah, I figured." She says, before pinching the bridge of her nose and letting out a tired sigh. Yeesh, that was an almost Suguru post-rude-awakening level of exasperation. "It's called Limitless."
...
Seriously?
"Is
everything about this guy pretentious?"
Behind him, Suguru laughs.
Shoko's lips pull upward. "It's an inherited technique, and it's not something anyone can just fight willy-nilly - even a cursed-energy monster like you. It gives him the power to play with space itself like putty, and one of its applications gives him the closest thing to complete invincibility that could possibly exist. There's maybe one or two cursed tools in the Japan and two ultra-rare, near impossible-to-master techniques that can get through it, and there's no way you're going into this with any of them."
He frowns as he takes that in - invincible, huh? He's seen something like that way before and still managed - and she must sense the thought as soon as it forms because she actually gives him a stern look.
"Trust me,
take the handicap. You're going to have a hard enough time putting up with his six eyes as it is."
"His what now?"
"His eyes. They're not a technique, but they're an intrinsic inheritance that compliments his. They let him see cursed energy and different vectors of perception ordinary scrubs like the rest of us flat out can't."
"And that's a bad thing?"
She nods.
"The six eyes are famous for being the ultimate jujutsu bargain bin cheat code. They let him see his cursed energy with such detail that he knows how to use it with maximum efficiency. You've got more than him - you've probably got more than
anyone, period - but he can still use less to do more."
Ah.
"That
is bad."
"No shit" She drawls dryly. "You're still new, even if your stats are so high you're doing things you have no business doing. You can't control your cursed energy past the bare minimum - We've all felt it - and if you go against Gojo passively bleeding so much of it off, he
will outlast you. Hell, he'll probably outlast you either way, but if you can get a better grip on your output you'll at least stay in the ring long enough to put up a good fight."
"That sounds great." Percy smiles at her and does his best to radiate his complete confusion outwards like a wave. "How the heck do I do that?"
"Meditate before the fight?" Suguru offers from behind them, and Shoko shrugs.
"Probably won't hurt, but it's not likely to make some world-changing difference. These things take time, and you're going to be duking it out tomorrow. With as much energy as you have, you at least won't embarrass yourself too badly even when you do lose... Maybe."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," Percy says dryly, but his mind is already whirling a mile a minute.
Everything she's seeing is gold-tier advice, he can recognize that much. And as much as it grates on him, if Satoru's six eyes do give him that kind of an advantage and he's even a little competent, then she's not wrong about Percy's odds either.
The thing is, he
really wants to kick Satoru's ass. Which just begs the question-
"Hypothetically speaking, how could I master cursed energy control in twenty-four hours?"
Shoko laughs in his face.
And see?
That's a challenge right there.
...
The next day, the three of them wait just they're sure that Yaga and Shoji-sensei have left the grounds to make their move. It's almost dark out by the time they head for the training field.
Satoru is waiting there, standing ten feet away with his hands in his pockets and looking like his birthday has come early.
"You showed up."
"Sure did." Percy agrees.
"I was beginning to think you'd chickened out.
"You wish."
There's a sigh, and then Suguru gestures and summons his Manta-ray curse to act as a sentinel. The giant of a curse circled the air above them twice before it soared higher and took up guard duty.
There. All ready.
There's a silence after that, thick with tension.
Percy stares at Satoru, anticipation thrumming in his veins.
Satoru stares back.
"So." Shoko raises a hand. "Do you two need a countdown, or-"
Without another word, their cursed energy
explodes and they lunge for one another full-tilt.
Percy takes the first move, swinging for his opponent's head, Satoru sidesteps the blow and grins. The force of it sends a wave of wind and pressure outwards that smacks against the nearby trees and makes the wood groan tellingly.
Satoru's left fist shoots for his face, and Percy rears back and tries to kick him in the ribs with vicious force, but his right arm raises in a guard and he takes the impact without flinching. Before Percy can throw another hit, he suddenly snakes behind him faster than he can keep him in his line of sight, and Percy immediately throws himself forward, tucking and rolling right before his opponent's foot connects with his head.
"Not half-bad." Satoru's smile is all teeth. "Now let's have some
fun."
A minute into the fight and it's blatantly obvious that Satoru is more skilled. Percy's no slouch in hand to hand, and he's spent a childhood scrapping with curses, but Satoru's movements are the kind of refined grace that speaks of years of practiced work and effort.
Fair enough - He's still not going to lose.
.
Percy ducks under his next blow and immediately growls in frustration when he realizes that Satoru absolutely let him dodge that strike solely to gloat down at him with that smug look on his face. Instead of rising to the bait in a leap, he drops down and kicks out with a sweep trying to topple him.
Satoru honest to god laughs as he leaps over the kick and lands behind him, and Percy has to scramble to throw himself up before a foot cracks down where his head just was. Below, the earth splinters and caves in around it.
"What did I tell you?" The Gojo heir taunts. "
Weak."
And on and on it goes.
It's about five minutes later when Percy comes off his initial adrenaline burst and recognizes firsthand the difference in efficiency Shoko had warned him about.
He's not flagging, and he's not running out of cursed energy anytime soon, but Satoru is still outpacing him with less output. He can sense the difference, the same way he can suddenly feel the power that wafts off of
him unnecessarily with every other movement.
No matter how far Percy pushes, drawing on his near-limitless cursed energy, Satoru draws in just the same way and somehow still stays two steps ahead.
More tellingly, Percy hasn't managed to land one truly solid hit. Not
one.
It's dumbfounding. It's
infuriating.
But it forces him to
think.
Cursed energy - He's losing so much and he needs to stop it.
Right, how would that work?
... Yeah, he has no idea. Beyond the basic 'negative emotions equal power' - and he's channeling plenty of them right now - Percy knows nothing.
He barely deflects another punch, and discards that useless line of thought for another even as Satoru crows one thing or the other...
Cursed energy is power. It's what lets him make himself faster, stronger, more durable.
It's also what fuels his cursed technique, what lets him control or create more water, however much he wants.
And... there's something there. A connection he's not quite seeing.
He throws another jab at Satoru, knowing it's not going to land, but this time he doesn't mind. He's barely even focusing on the fight anymore.
Percy feels like he's on the verge of a
breakthrough.
From the top - his cursed energy gives him water, making it his to create or shape or control.
If you really boiled it down...
Cursed energy was his power. But his power was also
water.
(Water is his birthright. Water is his
soul)
... Water is his to
command.
And therefore, in a really roundabout way, so is his
cursed energy.
Click
He can almost hear it when the pieces snap into place. His cursed energy is suddenly
there, just as copious and overwhelming, but also far more malleable.
It's just
water.
And Percy
knows water, from the very soul and up.
It's akin to being a leaky faucet. He's the faucet, and he's been leaking all this time without ever being aware of it.
So he plugs the
fucking leak, through sheer force of will.
And it
works.
The next time he throws himself at Satoru, the air itself threatens to burst around him. He catches sight of those widening blue eyes as he's propelled forward, and Satoru only just manages to lift up his arms to defend against the wild haymaker that comes his way.
"Wha-!"
It hits him like a freight train, and Percy hears his half-stunned, half-hurt gasp as it lifts him off his feet and blows him back some twenty paces in a blink. The cursed energy that lingers in his still-clenched fist feels like he's cradling a sun - some of it tries to leak away, to escape his grip, but Percy pulls most of it back in immediately, imagining every mote, focusing on every
drop, building back into a stream and cycling through his fists.
And wouldn't you believe it?
The cursed energy heeds his command.
Isn't that something?
Percy cackles, and leaps up into the fight, snapping all of his attention back into his goal.
Smacking the smugness out of Gojo Satoru!
He soars up with the force of his jump, farther than he'd intended now that his strength is
far more responsive than ever before before, and then he descends just as quickly as he rises.
This time, Satoru doesn't duck or weave or dodge with his easy grace -
No, this time he outright
throws himself out of the way, and only just manages to avoid Percy as he descends fist first and drives his fist into the ground.
He's not going to lose!
Impact!
The ground shatters. The air explodes.
For the second time in as many weeks, his vision whites out, replaced with a cornucopia's worth of black and red sparks. His cursed energy, tamed just seconds-before, sings, and his brain promptly ascends to another level of roaring existence.
This feeling... it's the absolute peak of
everything.
When it fades, an eternity and an instant later, he finds Satoru gaping at him like a fish out of the water. Somewhere behind him, Suguru and Shoko are doing the same.
Percy smiles at him - and only him - like a shark that's caught the scent of blood. He slowly draws his arm out of the ground from where it's been buried halfway up to the elbow, utterly focused on the mix of uncertainty and sheer
delight Gojo Satoru is starting to regard him with.
"Let's try this
again."
And he
lunges.
...
NEXT CHAPTER: THE POWER OF THE SEA VS THE LIMITLESS! Percy and Gojo unleash their techniques!
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