『Felix Karl Grimm』
"This is pretty snazzy. Could do with a bit more ballistic weaving though."
I looked at myself in the mirror while wearing my new Jujutsu High Uniform; it didn't look too different from Megumi's, completely unadorned, but I was free to customize it to my liking. It was a long-sleeved black top and black pants; they even gave me free shoes that fit me pretty well. All of it was pretty durable and comfortable, which was the most important thing.
Of course, not as durable as my carbon ballistic weave clothing, but I didn't know how to make those from scratch, so I'd have to make do with these.
"Well, that doesn't matter too much when you have reinforcement to take care of it, no?"
Gojo commented offhandedly from the side as I gave him an exasperated look.
"Right, I'm still trying to get out of that mindset. Besides, I haven't gotten the whole reinforcement thing down yet."
He smirked lightly before stretching his arms and adjusting his blindfold with palpable excitement
"Whelp, now that you look the part, are you ready to go?"
"Yeah, let's go."
The question of where we were going was obvious; I was going to be taking up Gojo's offer of sparring and showing off my abilities to my new 'teacher'. He wanted to see my capabilities firsthand before he started teaching me. He led me out of the room and around the massive complex of the Jujutsu High before arriving at a clearing, but surprisingly, we weren't the only ones there.
"...What are they doing here?"
Sitting on the bleachers were Yuji, Nobara, and Megumi. Yuji and Nobara were holding straight-up bags of popcorn and bottles of Coke while Megumi was eating a sandwich. Seeing my confusion, Yuji raised an arm into the air.
"Gojo-sensei told us he'd be testing you himself and told us we could watch; he even bought us popcorn."
Nobara nodded alongside him, and even Megumi dipped his head slightly.
"Yeah, I wanted to see it for myself too."
"Well, I can't deny I was curious."
I shrugged my shoulders. I wasn't exactly camera shy, I saw my slaughter fests on television one too many times already. So I just stretched my arms and nodded.
"Alright, let's do this then. Also, Sensei, I hope you won't use your broken barrier and actually give me a chance here."
Gojo smiled brightly and started stretching his legs too.
"Of course! I'm not here to bully you after all, I'll give you a fair shot. Make sure to show me all you've got."
Standing at a distance of 10 meters between us, I felt the pressure. This was Gojo Satoru I was in front of; I didn't have my overture, but I doubted it would make a difference here. I had my doubts about whether Gojo was the type of teacher to go easy on you. I had to keep Superhuman slotted in just to not die, so the other Ability Slot was Seraph Tracers.
Snap!
"Whoa! Knights! So cool!"
"Shikigami? So many at that?"
"Nice."
With a snap of my fingers, 25 Black Knights with Greatbows manifested in a semicircle around me. At the same time, I used my foot to hide the Golem Core burrowing into the ground beneath us.
In a single motion, my large seraphic wings burst out from my back, and I kicked off the ground, approaching Gojo with great speed alongside a volley of 25 great arrows.
"Interesting."
"!!!"
In response, even faster than my wings, Gojo stepped closer to me with his fist reeled back, aiming for my solar plexus. I only had a single moment to respond; my momentum was too high for an instant stop, so I made a quick decision.
Crack!
"Ohh!"
I summoned a black knight between Gojo and me with its shield already raised. And the moment Gojo's fist met the shield, it made a horrible noise as it dented inwards and cracked.
Let me tell you, I was NOT as durable as that shield.
Drawing his fist back, Gojo hit the Black Knight with a sidekick that threw it away, but I used the opportunity to slash at him with my wing, even still, he stopped it with his hand as if catching a fly and maintained his nonchalant smirk.
"Is this all? I'm getting bored. Reversal Cursed Technique: Red."
My eyes widened as he pointed his hand at my body with my wing still in his hand; it glowed a menacing red, and I felt like my life was about to get cut precariously short at this moment. My mind ran at a thousand miles a second before forming a response.
'Way of the White - Force!'
Channeling my energy as fast as possible, I formed an explosion of raw force around my body at the same time Gojo released his red and countered the force just a little. Instead of being torn apart, I was simply sent flying, far. Over 200 meters.
"Woah! What the hell sensei!?"
"Gojo-sensei!!!"
"Yikes."
My organs felt like they were doing a somersault, but I managed to right myself midair using my wings and stared at Gojo, who was standing still with an amused look. I felt indignation boiling in my guts as I glared down at him. While I knew how much weaker I was, I still had my own pride as the Reaper of Night City.
So I flew.
I started flying in a circle around the clearing, building up speed with my wings, breaking the sound barrier, and creating violent turbulence. But I sped up even further, approaching Mach 2 before diving towards Gojo like a spear cleaving through the sky, aiming to hit him with my wing.
"Interesting."
Instead of dodging, he braced himself and reinforced his body, but just before I hit him, I actually swerved off course, and instead the ground below opened into a giant gaping mouth belonging to the golem core. The entire air show was just a distraction to catch him off guard.
The jaws closed around Gojo, who looked only mildly surprised as the teeth just broke on his body like a man trying to bite steel. But I was not done with just that, I circled behind him with my remaining momentum and landed on one of the Golem's teeth before bracing my wing, as if I was executing an Iai move. Normally, this wouldn't work in the slightest, but these wings weren't real wings. They were pliable and made of energy.
'Seraph Flash!'
Far faster than any sword draw I could do, the wings that were designed to make me fly into space blurred in a sweeping motion towards Gojo who simply leaned back and avoided it. A sharp slicing sound was heard as the wing cut through where his head used to be moments prior.
"Whoa, that was close. You sure are full of tricks, aren't you? But are your wings all you're gonna use? Because I'm starting to get bored."
Taking on Gojo's provocation, I switched abilities and created several Infernal Chains that ripped through the ground and aimed towards Gojo with their barbed ends. At the same time, the upper half of the golem bored out of the ground and punched towards him.
But all of a sudden, he vanished, a space of blue appearing in his place made it impossible for me to move my chains away before they pierced the golem instead of him.
"Tsk, annoying."
I turned around to see Gojo standing behind me with his hands in his pockets.
"Come on, you can do it, keep trying. If you can land a proper blow on me, everyone's meals are on me!"
As my eye twitched, I heard encouraging shouting from the side.
"I have no idea how, but you got this, Grimm! Fight!"
"Yeah, you'll make a pretty girl really happy if you land a blow on him! Momma needs kaarage!"
I facepalmed before glaring at Gojo, who seemed wholly amused.
"Let's do this then."
✧―✧―✧―✧「」✧―✧―✧―✧
『Felix Karl Grimm』
"Uuu..."
"Wow, you look like a mess."
"You think...!?"
Nobara slapped me on the shoulders as I slumped against my seat in class and gave me a thumbs-up. She looked far happier about me landing a hit on Gojo than I did.
"Well, you should be happy, you managed to secure us all a meal from Gojo-sensei. He is loaded, so he'll buy us whatever we want."
"Food does not make me any less battered."
Despite spamming Heal with whatever else remained of my energy, I still felt like a ragged cloth after Gojo wiped the floor with me for close to an hour straight as I cycled through my more usable abilities, from trying to hit him with frostbite to actually scoring a hit with precognition.
Which actually landed me with a great ticket.
Feat Achieved! Impress Gojo Satoru during your spar
+1x Gold Ability Gacha Ticket
The only reason I've yet to tear the ticket is because we had class right afterward so Gojo could point out what I was doing wrong during my fight and such before dismissing us and leaving us in the class.
"Speaking of, what even is your Cursed Technique? You used a lot of different things, ranging from Shikigami to ice and even wings."
Megumi sat in front of my seat and gave me a serious look while Yuji joined the other side of my desk, making all 4 us huddled around my desk as if we were playing a card game.
"Yeah, I mean, I have no idea what a Cursed Technique is, but Fushiguro only used those wolves while Kugisaki used her nails. But you used so many different things."
Kugisaki shot him a look before pulling out a hammer with a heart in the front and spinning it in her hand while giving me a glance.
"What he means is, my Cursed Technique is named Straw Doll Technique, I can resonate things, and use voodoo stuff. If I get a body part of my target, for example, I can hammer straight into them from afar. Now what's yours? Don't hold out on us!"
All three of them looked at me expectantly, albeit Megumi with slightly less enthusiasm. And I thought about how to make the Chaos Gacha sound more comprehensible to them. I wasn't all about hiding it after all; I had the backing of Gojo with me.
"My Cursed Technique is named Chaos. Whenever I accomplish feats that are considered impressive by the world, my Cursed Technique grows, either giving me more Shikigami, Cursed Tools, and Extension Techniques. For example, the wings I used against Gojo-sensei were the Seraph Tracers, you can guess what they did. In fact, my spar with Gojo-sensei actually gave me a feat, wanna see what it gives?"
Hearing my abridged explanation, Megumi fell into thought while Yuji stood up from his chair with visible enthusiasm.
"For real? That's so cool! It's like a video game with quests and rewards! Man... this sucks, I don't even know what mine does. Hopefully mine will be even more badass."
Sorry buddy, it won't.
"Well, what are you waiting for?"
Nobara crossed her arms and tapped her foot impatiently. I shrugged my shoulders before reaching under the desk and tearing the golden ticket in half.
Rolling Gold Ability Gacha...
An Uncommon Ability!
[Ember]
|Uncommon Ability|
Allows you to produce and control moderate flames that can be shaped into a variety of attacks like fireballs and fire arrows.
Raising my eyebrows in surprise, I let fire cover my hands for a moment.
"A mediocre fire cursed technique, pretty good."
Megumi's mouth opened in an 'o' shape while Nobara whistled an impressed tune, and Yuji nodded.
"That's pretty cool."
"Extremely cool."
I looked between the two and couldn't help but wonder if they were sharing brain cells or something. Or brain cell in this case.
✧―✧―✧―✧「」✧―✧―✧―✧
『Felix Karl Grimm - Tomorrow』
Life in Jujutsu High was not that bad, at least from what I've seen so far. The freedom was almost endless; you could leave the building practically whenever you wanted, as long as you followed curfew, and there was a library building to study Jujutsu in. And that I did, although I have yet to manage to apply the theory I've learned from it. I planned to ask the Dealer about the whole compatibility deal tonight.
Something else I also made sure to do on my third day in school was to talk with my fellow students, all 3 of them.
Megumi was rather interested in my cursed technique and was relatively happy to have a sane(or so he thinks) person in his grade to associate with, while Nobara and Yuji were fun to talk to. Yuji was a naturally cheerful fellow and easy to get along with, while Nobara certainly had a personality.
And for some reason, she seemed to gravitate to my side way more than the other two, constantly throwing me looks and trying to provoke some reactions from me. And honestly, I had no idea if she was flirting or if she was just like that.
Unlike Junpei's mom, she was not a desperate widowed housewife.
Today did not have any classes as both Gojo and Kusakabe were busy off doing missions. So today was mostly spent lazing around and getting to know each other as apparently both Nobara and Yuji were pretty new here too which made me have doubts about the timeline, which was shortly fixed this late afternoon. The sky was uncomfortably cloudy with a gloomy mood, and not for no reason.
As we were watching Itadori run laps around the track, comparing times with me(despite my Brazilian and Kure genetics I was far worse) we were approached by an assistant manager and told about an emergency.
Apparently, in West Tokyo Eishuu Juvenile Detention Center, there was an unidentified, potentially special-grade curse womb that needed to be taken care of immediately. And we were the only people available so they were sending us 4 to take care of it.
And that was how I figured out the part of the timeline I was in.
Good grief.
A/N: Gojo takes Grimm to Pound Town. Grimm may be an experienced mercenary and ice-cold, blooded killer with Brazilian and Kure genetics, but Gojo is one hell of a monster; he was not even close to trying against Grimm, though Grimm did manage to surprise him a few times with raw ingenuity rather than power. Did you guys like their spar? I'd love to know.
Time for the Cursed Womb arc! You just know Grimm was never going to stay out of trouble for long. This is quite possibly going to be the biggest hurdle he has ever faced in his career and it will definitely be great to see what Grimm can do when he is truly pushed to his limits.