Chapter 117: The Power of Hekishin
Tokyo Jujutsu High, Underground Training Ground.
The space beneath the school was colder than the surface.
A few dim incandescent lamps buzzed overhead, casting pale light across the wide chamber. The concrete walls were scarred with blade marks, impact craters, scorch lines, and old Cursed Energy burns. Every mark was a record of someone's training, someone's arrogance, or someone's poor life choices.
Most of them, naturally, belonged to Satoru Gojo.
Masamichi Yaga stood in the center of the arena.
He had removed his jacket, revealing thick arms packed with muscle. In one hand, he held what looked like a ridiculous plush doll.
It had round ears, button eyes, and stubby little limbs.
At a glance, it seemed harmless.
In reality, it was a Grade 2 Cursed Corpse.
A weapon built through Yaga's Cursed Technique.
Gojo and Suguru had already retreated to the highest row of the spectator seats with great self-awareness. They sat side by side, still holding their unfinished kikufuku like two shameless front-row spectators waiting for a show.
"Suguru," Gojo said around a mouthful of dessert, "how many minutes do you think he lasts?"
Suguru narrowed his eyes slightly.
"Yaga-sensei's Taijutsu is solid. With a Grade 2 Cursed Corpse supporting him, this won't be easy."
He paused, thinking back to the abandoned building.
"Yami's explosive power is terrifying, but he has no Cursed Energy. If Yaga-sensei keeps his distance and turns this into a battle of attrition, Yami will be at a disadvantage."
Gojo leaned back, interest flashing behind his sunglasses.
"But?"
"But I don't think he used his full strength earlier."
On the arena floor, Yami casually tossed the worn guitar bag to the side.
Unlike Yaga, who had already lowered his stance and prepared himself for combat, Yami stood almost too naturally.
His hands hung at his sides.
His breathing was calm.
He looked less like someone about to be tested by a veteran sorcerer and more like a student waiting for the rain to stop.
That lack of posture made alarm bells ring in Yaga's head.
No openings.
Yaga's eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses.
How?
Even a top-class martial artist had moments where the body relaxed, where muscles shifted, where weight distribution exposed an angle to exploit.
But Yami did not.
He stood there quietly, yet somehow seemed to blend into the entire training ground.
It was not a defensive stance.
It was something stranger.
Something more complete.
Yaga's expression hardened.
"Then let's test you."
He threw the plush doll into the air.
"Go."
Cursed Energy poured into the doll.
Its button eyes glowed red.
The tiny plush body expanded violently, swelling in midair until it became a massive bear over two meters tall. Thick arms stretched out, claws forming at the end of its paws, and a low growl rolled from its throat.
"Roar!"
The Cursed Corpse slammed down toward Yami.
Its paw was the size of a water tank, and the force behind it was enough to flatten a small car.
"Watch out!" Suguru shouted before he could stop himself.
Yami did not even look up.
He tilted his body.
Just a little.
The massive paw tore past his face, close enough to graze the tip of his nose.
Not a single strand of hair moved.
Yaga's pupils tightened.
Fast reaction?
No.
That was not reaction.
That was prediction.
Yami had moved before the strike had fully committed, as if he had already known the path of the attack.
Transparent World.
Yami's gaze passed through the Cursed Corpse's outer shell.
For a fraction of a second, the world peeled itself open.
Cursed Energy flow.
Joint movement.
Core structure.
All of it became visible.
Compared with the monsters he had fought in 2018, this Grade 2 Cursed Corpse was almost too easy to read.
"Too slow," Yami said.
His voice echoed lightly through the training ground.
Then he raised one finger.
A simple motion.
Clean.
Almost lazy.
He flicked the Cursed Corpse in the chest.
Snap.
His fingertip struck the exact location of its Cursed Energy core.
The movement looked like he was brushing dust off someone's shirt.
The result was anything but gentle.
Boom!
A dull, heavy impact exploded through the arena.
The giant bear, over two meters tall and weighing several hundred pounds, shot backward as if it had been hit by a speeding truck.
It carved a brutal arc through the air before smashing into the alloy-reinforced wall dozens of meters away.
Another boom shook the training ground.
A huge crater dented the wall.
The Cursed Corpse slid down from the impact site, twitched once, then deflated like a punctured balloon.
Its Cursed Energy core had been destroyed.
The arena went silent.
The remains of the doll flopped onto the floor with a soft, pathetic thud.
The kikufuku in Gojo's mouth fell out.
He did not notice.
"Hey, hey, hey."
His sunglasses slid down the bridge of his nose, revealing those brilliant blue eyes.
"Are you kidding me?"
Gojo leaned forward.
"One finger? He flicked away Yaga-sensei's Grade 2 Cursed Corpse with one finger?"
Suguru inhaled sharply.
"That level of pure physical strength…"
His eyes stayed fixed on Yami.
"It's beyond human limits."
Yaga stared at the crater in the wall.
Cold sweat rolled down the side of his face.
If that finger had struck his chest just now, his ribs would not have cracked.
They would have exploded.
"You…"
Yaga swallowed.
When he looked at Yami again, the last trace of doubt had vanished from his eyes, replaced by deep wariness.
"What kind of monster are you?"
Yami withdrew his hand and shrugged.
"Yaga-sensei, that was just basic physical force."
"Basic?"
"As long as you concentrate the strength of your entire body into one point and release it in an instant, it's possible."
Yaga's mouth twitched.
Like hell it was.
He had practiced Taijutsu for over twenty years. He still could not flick away a several-hundred-pound Cursed Corpse with one finger.
The worst part was that Yami seemed sincere.
That made it even more irritating.
Yaga took a slow breath and forced himself to calm down.
"Ordinary Taijutsu tests are meaningless for you."
His voice became serious.
"Yami, I admit your physical strength is exceptional. But battles in the Jujutsu World are not decided by strength alone."
Yaga stepped forward.
"Cursed Spirits use strange techniques. Curse Users use traps. A true Special Grade can deploy a Domain Expansion and force you into a guaranteed-hit situation."
He stared directly into Yami's eyes.
"If you meet something like that, close-quarters combat without Cursed Energy will put you at a disadvantage."
Yami did not interrupt him.
"So show me."
Yaga's tone grew heavier.
"Do you have a technique that can break a deadlock in one blow?"
A sure-kill technique.
Gojo's eyes immediately lit up.
"Oh?"
Suguru also leaned forward.
On the arena floor, Yami smiled.
"As you wish."
He did not retrieve the guitar bag.
He did not pick up the ruined steel pipe.
Instead, he raised his right hand and curled his fingers as if gripping an invisible sword.
Gojo blinked.
"What's this? A performance without props?"
Yami closed his eyes.
"Total Concentration."
The air changed.
A faint crackling sound spread through the arena.
At first, it was almost inaudible.
Then it grew sharper.
Faster.
Like electricity racing along a wire.
It was not Cursed Energy.
It was blood.
Yami's blood was flowing at impossible speed, rushing through his veins with such force that his body itself became the engine.
His heartbeat climbed violently.
His body temperature rose.
The air around him twisted with heat.
Thunder and sunlight seemed to gather inside his flesh.
Half explosive lightning.
Half scorching sun.
Yaga instinctively stepped back.
For the first time, his body told him a clear and simple truth.
If that strike landed, he would die.
No Cursed Energy.
No technique formula.
No domain.
Just a human body, raised to an absurd peak.
"Thunder Breathing, Seventh Form."
Yami opened his eyes.
In those red pupils, golden lightning and crimson flame seemed to overlap.
His right hand, still gripping empty air, swung forward.
The movement was too fast for the human eye to follow.
"Honoikazuchi no Kami."
Boom!
There was no Cursed Energy fluctuation.
But the moment Yami swung, the explosive acceleration of Thunder Breathing and the scorching force of Sun Breathing overlapped perfectly.
The air tore apart.
A deafening sonic boom erupted inside the underground chamber.
A white shockwave wrapped in dark red heat shot forward like a shell fired from a cannon.
Boom!
The shockwave slammed into the special steel plate at the far end of the training ground.
That plate had been designed to withstand a full-force strike from a Grade 1 Cursed Spirit.
Under the impact, it bent inward.
Then twisted.
Then screamed.
A jagged crack several meters long ripped through its surface.
The edges of the wound glowed with dark red scorch marks, burned by extreme air friction alone.
Hekishin.
A physical counterpart to Black Flash.
An ultimate strike that overlapped supersonic shockwaves with a sword swing, creating a momentary spatial distortion through raw physical force.
The current Yami could not trigger it with perfect certainty yet.
But compared to the near-miraculous probability of Black Flash, his chance of producing Hekishin was already much higher.
Its only flaw was that it did not originate from Cursed Energy.
It would not pull the user into the Zone like Black Flash.
There was no all-around boost afterward.
No awakening-like state.
Only destruction.
Pure, unreasonable destruction.
The training ground fell silent again.
This time, even Gojo did not speak.
He stared at the torn steel plate, the Six Eyes behind his sunglasses calculating the speed, angle, force, pressure, and impact of that strike.
"No Cursed Energy," Gojo murmured.
"Just compressing physical force to the limit, then releasing it through a supersonic swing…"
His grin slowly widened.
"It produced a shockwave almost like a Cursed Energy burst?"
The grin stretched wider and wider until it looked almost unhinged.
"This guy…"
Gojo's eyes shone with a terrifying excitement.
"He really is a complete monster."
Suguru glanced at him.
"Satoru, you look far too happy about that."
"Of course I'm happy! This is amazing!"
Yaga, meanwhile, looked like a man whose entire educational philosophy had just been assaulted and left in a ditch.
He stared at the ruined steel plate.
Then at Yami.
Then back at the steel plate.
Only one thought remained in his mind.
Passing Taijutsu teacher?
This was not a teacher.
This was a walking human artillery cannon.
"Yaga-sensei."
Yami lowered his hand and turned toward him with a calm smile.
"Does this count?"
Yaga was silent for several seconds.
His throat moved.
"Satisfied?"
The word felt too small.
Too weak.
Too normal.
He was more than satisfied.
He was deeply concerned for the future of every wall, floor, training dummy, and insurance document on campus.
Finally, Yaga exhaled.
"Yami."
His voice had grown hoarse.
"You pass."
Gojo immediately started clapping from the spectator seats.
"Congratulations! Welcome to Jujutsu High, human railgun!"
"Don't call him that," Suguru said.
"Physical monster?"
"No."
"Teacher Steel Pipe?"
"Absolutely not."
Yaga ignored them and looked at Yami with solemn eyes.
"No. Passing is not enough."
He straightened his posture.
"Tokyo Jujutsu High is honored to have someone like you join us."
At that moment, the system's voice rang in Yami's mind.
[Ding!]
[Congratulations, Host. You have successfully convinced Masamichi Yaga.]
[Phase One Task: Integrate into Jujutsu High, completed.]
[Reward: Identity Forgery completed. The system has automatically generated a perfect household registry and background file for the Host. The higher-ups will be unable to detect any abnormalities.]
Yami's smile deepened.
Step one was complete.
He now had a place in Jujutsu High.
A legal identity.
Access to the school.
Access to the people he needed to save.
And next…
Yami glanced toward the spectator seats.
Gojo was still grinning like a kid who had found a new toy.
Suguru was watching him with calm curiosity, but there was a deeper question hidden in his eyes.
Yami flexed his fingers.
Next, it was time to properly train the two people once known as the strongest.
.....
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