A/N: Welcome to my latest story: Potential Man. Here we go with this one. Next two chapters are up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) already if you want to see them early.
Credit where it was due, most people would have panicked at losing an arm. They would have clumsily back-pedalled and while they did so, Mahoraga would have run them through with his sword and ended the fight right there and then. Kenjaku did not do that. He leaned in with the attack. His hand repaired itself the second the blade passed, showing a skill with the Reverse Cursed Technique that was comparable to Shoko's or Gojo's, and he slammed it against the Divine General. His cursed energy output rose to a level that was beyond anything I had ever seen before and he sent Mahoraga flying, half his chest missing.
He scowled at me now, his previous bemused expression was now nowhere to be found.
"I had been saving this for Satoru Gojo, just in case. Forcing me to use it here is something else. Well done, Megumi Fushiguro, you have reached a level most sorcerers never do. You have forced me to use my final cursed technique," he said. His words washed over me, but I cared little for them, in truth. Most of my attention captured by the sheer amount of cursed energy he had at his disposal. This was like Yuta when he fused with Rika. Boundless. Just like Hakari when he hit a jackpot. What the hell was this?
"I can see the confusion on your face, and I will give you an answer before I give you a quick death. Fear not, however. Your body will be in good hands when you pass. This technique is called Moonlit Regret. The Hereditary Cursed Technique of the Fujiwara Clan. For one hour out of every twenty-four, the user becomes a King in this world. Infinite cursed energy and infinite output. In this state, nothing can stop me," he said, and I gulped against my will as he said that.
One hour. Yuta was a monster when fused with Rika and he could only do that for five minutes. Hakari in his jackpot was basically immortal and that was only four minutes. This monster would remain like this for an hour? That was why he wasn't rushing. In this state I couldn't beat him. I just couldn't beat him.
And the standard workaround strategy of waiting for the buff to run out would be useless here. An hour? That was basically an eternity as far as a fight was concerned.
"So you understand the depth of your predicament now," he said, smile wide.
"Come, entertain me before you die. Do not go quietly into the night, Megumi Fushiguro. Let us curse each other with all that we have," he screamed the last words out, bringing his hands together and cracking them before springing at me like a bullet from a gun.
He drew his fist back so quickly that the air around it began to shimmer with heat before it rocketed forwards, tearing through Yorozu's top half entirely. Half his arm was gone in the impact but it regrew in a matter of seconds. What the fuck was that?
There was nothing I could do about the first punch that set my head a'ringing, so I just moved on. I blocked the follow up knife hand and felt like I had still been hit regardless. He kneed me in the chest next, forcing me to take a step backwards.
His cursed energy reinforcement was unlike anything I had ever faced before. Even Yuta when fused with Rika did not hit this hard. Fuck. Tiger Funeral reached him next. He grabbed its wrist and then dragged it forward before committing to a backhand punch that sent the shikigami spinning backwards and away. Fuck it.
Nue, my ace in the hole, struck with all the force of a thunderstorm, and Kenjaku just stared upwards, weathering the attack like it was not even jolting. The lightning flowed through his body and then into the ground leaving him near unscathed from the attack. Whatever damage he incurred fixed itself right before my eyes. Fuck.
There was only one way to explain this technique. It was the precursor. The technique that had run so techniques like Hakari's or Yuta's relationship with Rika could walk. They were just pale imitations of what this was. Kenjaku strolled forwards like he had all the time in the world, and in some ways he did. In others though, he didn't. He was running on a clock. Gojo could beat Sukuna and could show up at any moment to make things very inconvenient for him because trump card or not, he'd lose.
But then I didn't know how the fight between Gojo and Sukuna was going, and he did to some extent. Something he had seen in that fight made him comfortable using his trump card against me. I didn't want to think about what that meant for Gojo's life— I just didn't. No. I would trust him to deal with Sukuna. He would win. He was fucking Satoru Gojo, and I had made sure he was stronger than he had ever been. He would win. And he trusted me to do my job here. I had to win.
And the more this fight progressed, I could only see one way to do that. I rose to my feet and stared straight at him.
"Domain Expansion: Dance of a Thousand Shadows," I barked, slamming my hands together.
"Domain Expansion: Womb Profusion," he said a shade of a second later and slammed his own hands together in his unique hand sign. My barrier clashed against his open domain, creating a temporary stalemate.
I breathed a sigh of relief as the tower of cursed spirits formed within my field of pure, encompassing darkness. The tower then began to glow, bringing some light into this world that actively refused it. I could feel his domain as it contested with mine for dominance. Second only to Tengen when it came to domain techniques, there was a good chance he would win with time, but I didn't care. Even without my sure-hit, my domain was still more deadly than most. All of it was my technique.
"Impressive that you have managed to go from not being able to form a complete domain to this level in such little time," he commented lightly, looking around my domain with an assessing gaze.
"This is where you die. Keep looking," I said, and then locked him in place with my shadow. It felt like he had punched me in the nose again as I staggered backwards. He'd just broken through my hold like it was nothing.
He closed the distance between us, following with a punch to my face. Mahoraga rose from the shadow at my feet, blocking the punch and arcing out with sword of extermination. He seemed to lean out of the way with inhuman grace like Mahoraga had been wading through jello. And then his foot lifted from the ground and slammed into the Divine General's midsection.
It caved in his chest, sending him rocketing backwards. There was no holding back here. If I managed to do some damage to him, I could make his domain fail and then my domain's sure hit would…
I fell to my knees as the barrier that made up my domain shattered into a million pieces flowing into the air like wisps of smoke. Kenjaku's sure hit felt like having a bomb blow up right next to me. My arm was gone, once more, and the rest of my body did not feel much better, but I was able to have the presence of mind to move my feet into position, creating a barrier out of my cursed energy. Kenjaku's sure hit struck once more, and this time it felt more like being slightly concussed by a far away bomb. Still hurt like a bitch, but not so much that I could not focus. Gama rose from my shadow, multiplying himself with every motion. The original stayed with my cursed energy shroud, protected from the worst of the domain while the copies spread out. They hopped out in all directions, multiplying with every hop and continuing to move. They never managed to make it all that far before being destroyed but they kept multiplying and multiplying until one finally survived more than a single hop. One hundred metres.
Round Deer's positive energy was directed to my brain first and foremost to heal my burnt out cursed technique before it began working on my body. Once enough of my hand had recovered for me to bring my hands together again, I intoned, "Domain Expansion: Dance of a Thousand Shadows."
The barrier was much larger this time. I formed it by switching around the parameters, using more cursed energy and diluting the strength of the sure hit to create a barrier that should stretch out for a hundred metres. Now, there was no danger of my barrier being broken by Kenjaku's sure hit. I looked up at him and smirked as he fought off Mahoraga's continuous aggression.
The Divine General was heavily wounded, but he could still move and if he could move then he could fight. There was no room for saving trump cards now. I had seen his and now I had to meet it with mine. Both Kashimo and Yorozu rose from my shadow next.
Shadow turned to electromagnetic phenomena as Kashimo moved for the man that had set the Culling Games into motion while Yorozu's shadowy form began to be encased in liquid metal that formed her famous insect armour. Kenjaku dodged out of the way of an arching stab from Mahoraga and looked over at the both of them with what I had to believe was a shocked expression on his face— what other emotion could it be.
Kashimo struck first, screaming out thunder that hit Kenjaku and forced his body backwards. He flipped in the air before dragging his feet along the ground to keep his position. Body beginning its transformation, Kashimo was faster than he had ever been in his life. Fingers shrouded in lightning raked through Kenjaku as they clashed and this one he could not ignore the way he had ignored Nue's electricity. He let out a grunt even as he tried to retreat from the electromagnetic phenomenon that was Kashimo.
Of course, retreating from one put him in range of the other. Yorozu's metal claws ripped through the front half of his robes. His wounds knitted themselves together almost instantly but he grabbed on to the hand that had wounded him and dragged it out of place to force the armoured shadow closer to himself and then he did something that I struggled to even describe.
Kashimo continued on heedless while I forced Yorozu to return once more. I felt my reserves drop again as I manifested her essence as a shadowy construct. Could I do it maybe three or four more times? Perhaps. If I didn't use any other cursed energy but then my domain was a constant drain on that as it fought Kenjaku's for dominance. At least this time I had the upper hand. He couldn't concentrate as closely on the domain clash while fighting off multiple special grade threats. Mahoraga returned to the battle. Healed this time but I had him take the back seat while Kashimo and Yorozu led the attack.
Kashimo screamed with the force of thunder, creating a blast of concussive force that the plague that was Kenjaku had to block with crossed arms. Yorozu formed her insect armour again and moved in to close combat. I watched the way Kenjaku grabbed a hold of Kashimo's wrist as he attacked from close range, and then the shadowy essence was struck still. Then the same shimmer in the air appeared as Kenjaku drew back a fist and then tore through the shadow. His fist had been torn off by the impact, but he had come out the better for it. Kashimo was gone, and my cursed energy was seeming less and less sufficient for the fight that was coming but I had figured it out.
"You use your gravity technique to freeze them still and then you use your own gravity technique on your arm. You draw it back using gravity to pull it in that direction before you reverse the direction and then strike with the force of enhanced gravity," I surmised.
"Something like that," he smirked. I didn't allow any of my satisfaction to show on my face. If the technique was gravity based then Mahoraga had already adapted to part of the technique with that altercation earlier. I could use him and as long as he managed to take more than a single blow, then there was a good chance he would fully adapt to whatever he was doing.
Yorozu's insect armour left her body and then flowed over the Divine General, shrouding him in a casing that enhanced his speed, strength, and most importantly durability. Yorozu remained by my side.
The wings of the insect armour propelled Mahoraga forwards, and this time, Kenjaku actually had to try to move out of the way of the blade that coursed with positive energy. I had multiple win conditions and I just needed one to come through. Mahoraga's sword of extermination was like a blur as he moved it in every which direction, almost seeming to anticipate where Kenjaku would dodge to before he did. He had adapted, I thought with a smile.
Adapting wasn't just a defensive process, was it? His fist followed his blade as he took advantage of the wolverine-esque claws that the insect armour had formed for him around his other fist. Kenjaku had already sustained and healed several cuts from that deadly second weapon. Every attempt he made to stop Mahoraga with his gravity technique failed. The Divine General had adapted to that particular use.
And without it, he wasn't trying that offensive trick. Perhaps the cursed energy manipulation required was too complex for him to do it while engaging with a moving target. This was my…
My domain popped like a balloon this time, and Kenjaku's sure hit struck. I'd managed to create the shroud of cursed energy that was Falling Blossom Emotion in less than a second this time, but it did no good for Yorozu. She was gone in a burst of shadow. The insect armour protected Mahoraga from the first hit and his wheel spun. That was the third, or was it fourth spin in this domain? We needed him to adapt to this as well. Fuck.
I directed Round Deer's positive energy to my brain, ignoring the wounds that had near brought me to my knees once more. It took close to thirty seconds this time as Mahoraga and Kenjaku fought with his domain constantly battering the Divine General all the while.
"Domain Expansion: Dance of a Thousand Shadows." This time I kept the parameters of the domain much the same as default, not trying to completely encase Kenjaku's range with my own domain. Instead, I was going to amplify the strength of my sure hit with a single gambit in mind.
Expanding my domain for a fourth time in this fight had taken me to the point where I doubted I had the cursed energy left for one more expansion. Or rather to fight after doing one more expansion. Even if I did have the cursed energy, there was the fact that I hadn't been able to get my RCT past the point of being able to do five expansions in a row. The brain just could not take more than that. Then there was constantly feeding my cursed energy to Round Deer to turn to positive energy sapping my reserves as well. It was just a matter of the one thing I did not have— time.
If I gave Mahoraga time, I knew he would adapt to the point where he would be able to defeat Kenjaku with some ease. With the liquid metal armour, I doubted he would lose in a single attack so that was one win condition, but even if I waited for that to happen, my domain would fall before his did. Beating him in a domain clash was beyond my skill, clearly. So when my domain fell, his domain would fall upon me. I could stave it off with simple domain for a time, but Yuki had shown that Cursed Womb Profusion as a domain was not the sort to be held back for long.
Falling Blossom Emotion was a better fallback, but it would only last so long. I couldn't move while using either so escaping the range of his domain while I did so was not possible. There was only one way for me to win this.
"I want next," I said out loud, forcing Mahoraga to disengage. The Divine General jumped backwards, standing next to me while Kenjaku's punch hit nothing but air.
I sprinted straight at him and he smirked. He avoided my sweeping high kick, the physical difference between the two of us apparent even from the first exchange.
"You have that body's memories, yes?" I asked as I slapped his knife hand to the side and tried to drive a knee into his chest.
"Yes, and?" he asked, stomping on my left foot as I was too slow to draw it back. He punched out and I managed to bend at the waist to avoid it.
"That means you know Shoko-san?" I asked, standing straight and then being forced to commit to a block of a straight kick that caused several micro-fractures in my arm. Positive energy healed it near-instantly.
"The prodigy of Reverse Cursed Technique, sure. Is this an attempt to distract me so you can run out the time for my technique?" he asked with a smirk on his face. He tilted his head to the side, avoiding my straight punch and burying one of his own into my stomach, forcing bile to rise to my mouth. I swallowed it, not going to bear the indignity of throwing up before my enemy.
"No chance of that. I just wanted to make sure you remembered the person whose technique would kill you," I said, forcing a smirk on to my face. Just like I expected, he did not want to see what it was that I had planned. He twisted my head a full 90 degrees with a wicked backhand before grabbing my neck with his other hand.
I felt the gravity technique take hold, making it impossible for me to move. He lifted his other hand into my view and I knew what would come next.
"Implode," I forced the word from my mouth as I unleashed a supernova. He had been in the middle of drawing his hand backwards when the technique hit. Shoko was one of the few people in the world who could use Reverse Cursed Technique on others. Okkotsu could as well. I didn't have the required affinity with it, but Round Deer did. Reverse Cursed Technique healed the sorcerer it was used on most of the time, but positive energy was still the antithesis to cursed energy.
When used on cursed spirits, it could kill them. When used on sorcerers, it would do barely anything because the body had natural defences against that sort of thing. If it worked naturally then sorcerers would have been using it against each other all the time.
But any defence could be overloaded with enough force. Let's say if someone turned all the cursed energy they had in their body to positive energy and then sent it straight into someone else who was maintaining physical contact with them. Even in that situation, it would probably not achieve all that much. But then what if the situation was that both sorcerers were in the middle of a domain clash? In that case, a strong enough sorcerer could take the positive energy into their body but not let it affect their activated domain. But what if all those conditions were true and then the sorcerer was a brain in a body that only maintained control thanks to their cursed technique?
Well, they would have to make a choice. Lose control of your body for a few seconds while the body purged the foreign positive energy? Not an option in combat with a divine general just waiting in the wings to run you through. Or lose your domain for a few seconds before you could activate simple domain and heal your brain enough to re-expand it? Anyone with a brain would choose the latter.
With only seconds to decide, Kenjaku did the logical thing. It just so happened to be the wrong thing.
My sure hit struck the moment his domain fell, freezing him still. In my domain my shadow did not just affect physical movement. My earlier binding vow meant I could now perceive the soul of the struck sorcerer as well, and I held on to that as tight as I could.
All his cursed energy reserves, all his control, all his power did not matter. Because here I was king.
I dropped to my feet as his hand went limp. He was trying to find a way out of this, I could see it in his eyes. There was none.
"Goodbye Kenjaku. You were truly strong," I said as my shadow began to consume him.
A/N: And that's a wrap. Next chapter is Sukuna, and then maybe an epilogue if we deal with him quickly enough. Thank you for sticking through this if you have. Next two chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.