A/N: Welcome to my latest story: Potential Man. Here we go with this one. Final chapter is up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) already if you want to see it early.
Sadly, absorbing Kenjaku even while Moonlit Regret was active did not give me infinite cursed energy. It gave me a shit ton of the stuff, taking me to what counted as full for my reserves before this fight and then some. My output rose as well, but to a lesser extent. Mahoraga returned to my shadow as I rose, dropping my own domain as there was no need for it. The cursed spirits that had inhabited his body had been absorbed as well. If there were any others still lurking about, they weren't keen on moving for me. So I called down Nue and climbed onto its back.
The fight with Kenjaku was over, but that did not mean that things were completely solved. There was still the fight between Gojo and Sukuna to consider. I started dialling Ui-Ui even as I allowed Round Deer's positive energy to finally begin working on the wounds I had considered too low priority to work on while we fought. The lack of skin on my left arm didn't hurt much since I'd numbed it, but it was atrocious to look at.
"Ui-Ui here," he said, answering the call.
"Report," I called.
"Satoru Gojo has fallen in combat against Ryomen Sukuna. The battle plan has advanced to phase four," he said crisply. I felt my heart drop into my stomach. Phase Four. That meant Gojo had lost. Okkotsu and Rika had lost as well. Itadori, Choso, Higaruma, Panda, Maki — their states were unknown as they bridged between phases three and four. I wanted to scream. All that training Gojo had done. How much better he had gotten and this was still the state of things. The difference between Gojo and Sukuna was just that wide? Or had Takaba's body made that much of a difference? I looked down at my body. Things were bad here, but I could still fight. Mahoraga had grown stronger with the fight with Kenjaku.
I had Kenjaku's shadow now as well as the others. I was stronger than I ever was, so why was my heart still beating like I was in combat? Why was the phone beginning to feel slippery in my grip? Why did I feel like I just wanted to end the call and go back to the colony? Leave the burden to the others. They had found a way to do it in canon. They had won back then. They would find a way to do it now as well, surely.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath before breathing out.
"Inform the others that I am inbound. I will be at the drop-off point you used earlier. I need you to take me to Shinjuku," I said with a clear voice that felt like it was coming from someone else. It felt distant from me. Because how could my voice be so crisp when it felt like I was being chased by a pack of jackals.
"Uh-hum, sister said I should tell you that teleports cost double now." All the fear in my body disappeared, replaced with cold rage.
"Is she fucking kidding me? Pulling this kind of shit now? Does she know what Sukuna will do to her if she wins?" I asked, near screaming into the phone. Anger was a good thing to pour fear into, I realised.
"Shall you be paying or not?" he asked after I had spoken, in that same calm, slightly amused voice of his.
"Whatever," I said. The nerve of that woman to pull this kind of shit while Sukuna was tearing through my friends. I landed on the ground and found Ui-Ui already there with that placid smile on his face. It hit me then.
"She said that so that I'd get angry and be more focused for the fight against Sukuna, didn't she?" I asked.
"Of course. Sister knows how to work with people the best," he said.
"Fucking creepy kid," I muttered, before placing my hand in his outstretched one.
Reality blurred and I was now standing in the middle of a ruin.
"She'll still take the extra money though. Costs of doing business," he said, and was gone before I could clap him over the ear. Shinjuku had never seen days this bad, I knew. I took a deep breath. Mei-Mei's stunt had done a good job of taking my mind off the fear I had felt. Now that I was here, I could feel it all coming back to me.
Above the battlefield floated the iceberg that I knew Hakari and Uraume battled on top of. I could sense the cursed energy of the combatants as Sukuna and the others clashed. I stepped towards them before a different thought hit my mind. Uraume was a powerful sorcerer. A special grade in their own right. The fact that they were stalemating with Hakari, who had beaten Kashimo and gotten stronger since then, was enough to drive that home.
A detour was necessary. I banished the part of my mind that said I was just prolonging the inevitable as Nue rose from my shadow with the Orochi totality engraved. I stepped on its back, rocketing upwards. We soared past the iceberg, and I got my first glimpse of Hakari. His clothes were ripped in several places, but his flesh was unmarred. Uraume, by contrast, was completely pristine.
"Let's piss Sukuna off a bit, shall we?" I whispered to myself as I jumped off Nue's back, landing on the iceberg with them.
"And who are you supposed to —"
I rocketed straight at them as Mahoraga rose from my shadow. I was the distraction, and they swept their arm once, creating a rushing blast of ice that aimed to encase me. Piercing Ox rose in front of me, sprinting at the ice with horns poised to do maximum damage.
Mahoraga came around from the other direction. They tried enclosing him in ice as well, but the Divine General had since adapted to that element in its whole. He swept through the attack, and with a single swipe removed their right arm. They tried stepping backwards, ice building, but the Divine General just ran them through completely with the sword of extermination.
To their credit, they did not die immediately.
"Megumi? What?" Hakari asked.
"Gimme a sec," I said, bringing my hands together. A really small domain with very little power applied to it to save as much cursed energy as possible formed around Uraume and me. There was nothing they could do with the constant positive energy of the sword of extermination wreaking havoc on their control.
Mahoraga pulled back his blade and stepped back as my shadow caught them.
"Your sacrifice will not be remembered," I told them as they were consumed, adding their power to mine.
"What the hell was that?" Hakari asked as the domain fell. He looked irritated, marching towards me. He near slipped as the iceberg began to crash to the ground. It had been previously held up by Uraume's technique, clearly.
"Hold on," I said before replying, inverting my cursed energy into positive energy and then applying it to my technique. Uraume's shadowy form rose from my own shadow and squatted down, planting its hands on the iceberg that had begun to descend and arresting its momentum.
"Okay, now I can talk," I said.
"What the fuck?" he asked.
"The others are getting their asses kicked by Sukuna, so sorry if I interrupted your bonding time," I said. He just scowled at me.
"How long do you have left on your jackpot?"
"Two minutes and fifty-one seconds," he said in a clipped voice, looking far from pleased, but not challenging me either. I guess taking out the person he'd been having trouble stalemating in a matter of seconds made him wary. That was good.
I took out the phone from my pocket and dialled Ui-Ui again.
"Sister says —"
"Not now," I cut him short.
"I need you to tell Todo to get the others out of there. I'm coming in hot and heavy with a birthday present for Sukuna," I said.
"Wha —"
"Now," I said, and cut the call.
"Hakari, I'm going to need you to lock the fuck in. This thing is going to crash into the ground at the speed of sound while we ride it and Sukuna will be on the other side of it waiting for us. There's a chance we take him out with this, but it's not a big one," I said.
"What?"
"Brace yourself," I barked, and then the iceberg whose momentum had been stalled for the past few seconds suddenly began to fall again. Except that it was moving much faster this time. I stepped next to Mahoraga and beckoned Hakari over while Yorozu moved out of my shadow. Her trademark Liquid Metal encased the four of us a second or so before the iceberg made impact.
From within the orb of liquid metal, it felt like nothing had even happened. When the orb parted to let us out, it was like Shinjuku had been hit with a missile. At the centre of the crater we stood. The crater extended far out, so far that I could not see anything outside of it from here. I did not need to though. Because my enemy had been hit dead on by the iceberg and so was here with us. Sukuna dug himself out of the earth, and to be honest, he looked a mess.
Two of his arms were missing — his left top, and right bottom. Half the skin on his face was gone. The skin on the rest of his body was not much better. There was a blade embedded in his chest that I easily recognised as Okkotsu's. So Yuta had accomplished something at least. With no warning, Itadori was suddenly at my side. Todo's technique, no doubt.
"What can you tell me?" I asked him, heading off the questions he was undoubtedly going to ask.
"He used Takaba's technique somehow with a binding vow. He can heal himself no matter what. That's how he beat Gojo-sensei. He just kept fixing his brain as they used their domains over and over again. Gojo-sensei ran out of his RCT after eleven domain expansions, but Sukuna could just keep going. Sensei was able to fight him without his domain for a bit and force him to use even more cursed energy before he lost. Then Yuta-senpai faced him and forced him to expand his domain another three times. His cursed energy reserves are nearly out so he can't expand his domain anymore. But he can still heal his body with Takaba's technique. We need to just keep doing damage until he can no longer fix himself and then that should be it," Itadori explained, the words coming out of him so quickly it was like word vomit.
My gaze was fixed on Sukuna all the while as his body just fixed itself. The skin repaired itself and then the arms regrew.
"Fighting him is like fighting Mahito. It doesn't matter how much damage you do, he'll just fix it, and he isn't even using Reverse Cursed Technique most of the time," Yuji said. I nodded again.
"Can you —" I began.
"Yes, I can hurt him," he said. I nodded.
Things were not as bad as I feared then. This was a winnable battle.
"Here's our strategy. We hit him until he stops getting up," I said.
Higaruma, Choso, and Todo had also returned to the battlefield. Angel flew above us all, gazing down at us with wrath in her eyes.
"Is Okkotsu-senpai —?" I asked.
"We don't know. Rika just took his body and left," he said. So there was some hope on that front. Well, on the front of him being alive, not on the front of him coming back to help in this fight. Ideally, we wouldn't even need him.
"You think that silly plan will be enough to deal with me, Megumi Fushiguro?" he asked with a smirk, body fully healed.
"Let's see then," I said.
"Todo, formation A," I said this time, voice louder. Todo would be the lynchpin of this plan. Formation A required him to stay in the rear and watch the battle. His IQ would allow him to see when the best opportunities for swaps arose and make them. Everyone would be forced to adapt to his swaps as they happened, so most of us had done some training with him in anticipation of this eventuality. Anything we hadn't mastered yet, we would figure out in real time.
Yorozu stretched out her hands, encasing both Mahoraga and me in the insect armour.
I contemplated adding Kenjaku to the mix, but it was probably better if I kept my cursed energy reserves as close to full as possible.
We all sprinted at Sukuna, and the King of Curses saw the approaching horde and he opened his arms wide, inviting the challenge. There was a disturbance in the air and I just barely managed to sense the approaching cursed energy in time. I ducked underneath the slash. Mahoraga stepped behind me, taking it in his armour and continuing on. His wheel began turning as he moved in front of Itadori and took another slash head on. Adapting to Sukuna's cursed technique before he expanded his domain would be ideal.
Most likely, he would stop using the slashes in ways that Mahoraga could intercept to make sure that the Divine General was not too well adapted to his technique for when he reached it. Itadori reached him first, and Sukuna ducked out of the way of a punch before I suddenly found myself in Itadori's place. Clap.
My knee was already rising before I had even fully adjusted to my sudden positioning. It landed right in his stomach mouth. I felt a surge of cursed energy and was just as suddenly at the back of the group. Mahoraga had taken my place. Clap. The slashing attack tore a good chunk off the Divine General's face but the wound was already healing, and even better the wheel was turning. The sword of extermination was blocked with two clasped hands above the King of Curses' head. Clap.
And then Itadori was in Sukuna's face instead, fist lashing out. Sukuna managed to adjust better this time, beginning to anticipate the swaps. He made sure to dodge Itadori's fist. His return blow hit nothing but air. Clap.
His head turned in Todo's direction, but he was forced back into paying attention as Higurama swept at him with the glowing blade that I knew would kill with a single stab. Sukuna also knew this and gave Higaruma's executioner's blade a wide berth, dodging out of the way of sweeping attacks. Clap.
The slashes that would have turned the lawyer to minced meat hit Mahoraga instead as the Divine General barrelled through them to begin his own onslaught. Clap.
I was back in the fray. I joined our shadows together, taking control of his movements for a second and holding him still. His cursed energy fought against mine and it was a testament to how severely his reserves had been depleted that I did not immediately lose the tug of war. Higaruma was swapped with a piece of debris and he brought the blade so tantalisingly close to the King of Curses that I had begun tasting victory for a second. It was not to be, however. His body warped, becoming much shorter, and the blade that would have buried itself in his heart missed his head by a distance.
And then I felt the flare of cursed energy. Clap.
Hakari took my place and my shadow was torn from Sukuna's as his slashes would have torn me to shreds. The Gambler took the attack and was then replaced by Itadori as Sukuna's form returned to his base. Clap. The King of Curses was forced to block Itadori's punch this time, and I could see it in real time just how the punch hurt him. The second one tore through his guard with a shower of black sparks and hit his gut so hard that he was coughing up blood. Clap.
Mahoraga was taking even more slashes head on. Clap. Higaruma was suddenly there, blade aimed for Sukuna's chest. Clap.
Sukuna was already turning for the next attack, but nothing had happened. Higaruma was still there. His blade was barely stopped by a hand that grew out of the King of Curses' chest and was cleaved from the rest of the body the second before impact.
"You insects are beginning to annoy me," he snarled, but that wasn't what I was focused on. That had been a desperate gambit. He wouldn't have done something like that if we weren't close. We could win this. Clap.
I took Higaruma's place and punched him in the face. At least I tried to. His raised arm was slapping my fist away before I could make contact and then he lurched as a spear of blood tore through his chest where his heart and Yuta's blade had been. The piercing blood had clearly been concentrated to an insane level, tearing a hole straight through his chest and giving us all a view of the other side.
Yuta's blade was torn away by the force.
"Domain Expansion: Malevolent Shrine," he said, and it took me a second to notice his arms coming together in the seal as he lurched forwards.
"Domain Expansion: Dance of a Thousand Shadows," I countered with my own domain, expanding it so quickly that only one slash had managed to hit me before Sukuna's forced hit was disabled. Fuck. I could feel the force of his domain weighing down on mine already. Mine wouldn't last more than a few seconds against his, but that didn't matter. Because the goal had been to interrupt his sure hit just for long enough.
A/N: I guess I was wrong. There's still one more chapter in this story. Do keep in mind that MC is coming at the tail end of the battle. Sukuna has cycled through an amped Gojo and Yuta, and then faced the others for a while before this. Last chapter is up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio). You can toss a few my way to read it earthly or just if you've enjoyed the story.