'Ah, fuck you murphy...' Shuichi thought as sweat rolled down from his temples.
"Yo! Aren't you the one that put that talisman in the graveyard~" The white haired teenager said in a sing song voice. But under that seemingly nonchalant tone was a hidden serious and the threat of elimination.
"G-Gojo Satoru?" Shuichi spoke with a planned slip up in his voice, trying to make it seem like he was panicking.
'It'd hardly be beneficial for me to lose my cool in this situation. I'm confident I can last again them for long enough to gain an opportunity to escape...' Shuichi thought while eyeing the glasses wearing teen.
"Ho? You know me! Seems like I'm more popular than I thought! I already knew that though~" Gojo continued. "That's a peculiar flow of curse you got there." He said lowering his glasses.
His crystal blue eyes gazed at the baffled man.
"How can you absorb cursed energy like that?" He asked pinching his chin with his hand.
"It feels as if you're a cursed spirit..." The man from behind him said. Shuichi looked at him, only to figure out he too had reserves equalivalent to that of Gojo's. There was no doubt in Shuichi's mind that this person was Geto, Gojo Satoru's friend.
"Ha-ha... surely you jest..." Shuichi said with deliberate nervousness. Although he was nervous in reality, he amplified and exaggerated the feeling to appear even more nervous.
A sorcerer's natural ability to keep his negative emotions in check came in clutch with this. Though they could probably figure something wrong, as not many sorcerers are in fact capable to this. But any experienced sorcerer needs to have such an ability, or their simply incompetent to be a sorcerer. Cursed Heart at this moment became Shuichi's favourite technique.
"Ho~ Why are you so nervous~ Have you perhaps done something bad~~" Gojo Satoru asked, putting his face a bit too close to his while doing so.
"U-um..." Shuichi didn't reply.
As he understood it, curse users were not seen in a positive light to begin with. Not to mention Gojo had said something about a talisman in a graveyard. Surely he had already figured out that he was the one who put that there.
"Hmmmmmm. Aren't you going to reply?" Gojo said, taking off his glasses completely to reveal his six eyes.
Just as Shuichi was about to say something, a gigantic figure whizzed past him, a long and slender snake like being that seemed to hold endless power and vitality.
Hurriedly, he turned back.
There he saw the cyclopean curse, who had fully healed at thus point, entangled by a giant glorified snake, an eastern dragon of Chinese origin.
The gigantic dragon held onto the curse, it's slender white body pinned it down with untold force, preventing the curse from making hand seals or produce any movement to trigger its cursed technique.
But that was not the thing that surprised him...
'A special grade...' Shuichi grimly thought. What he had been fighting before was a first grade curse. He had thought that the cursed energy it contained was pretty high for a first grade spirit and was borderline special grade, yet it seemed like he had made a blunder in his analysis.
A first grade curse and a special grade curse, there is simply no comparison in between. Even going by sheer cursed energy amount, the special grade dwarfs the first grade's reserves by at least 10 times, and that's only the bit that he could sense.
At this point, he also realized another important fact.
'They've been hiding their cursed energy.' Looking at Gojo and Geto, the cursed energy they were showing on the outside was in no way comparable to that of the special grade curse he was seeing, in fact, it was just a cut above the first grade one.
That meant that they had both concealed their cursed energies. Which was pretty common, but the thing is, their hidden cursed energy reserves were higher than Shuichi's total reserves.
That... kind of hurt his pride...
"Doesn't seem like he's going to reply. He looks way too surprised." Geto said tersely.
"Well~ We can just take him in then. He needs to answer our questions after all~ Not to mention he's a curse user~" Gojo said with a cocky smile.
Hearing their words, Shuichi broke out of his stupor. Feigning a confused and nervous look, he asked.
"What? What do you mean take me in? I haven't done anything wrong as far as I can tell?" He asked.
"Is that what you think? What about the talisman you put up in that graveyard?" as soon as the question came out of his mouth, came Gojo's quick reply.
'It probably won't do any good trying to feign ignorance. As a six eyes user, he can tell cursed energy differences at the atomic level, whatever that means. It probably means that I can't lie my way out of this.' He thought and spoke, "Are you talking about the curse attracting talisman?" He asked.
"Yeah~ That was you wasn't it? It's good that you don't try to play dumb!"
"I mean, yes, I did put that there. But that was only to attract curses to a single place and not crowd the entirety of Tokyo you know? Curses can cause serious damage wherever they are, I thought to eliminate them before they had to chance to." Shuichi said.
"OH!" Gojo said, smashing his fist on his hand as if he understood some supreme truth of life.
"I see, I understand. Regardless though, the higher ups don't take nicely about your actions." Gojo said, his mocking tone still not leaving his words.
"Gojo, stop playing with him. We're going to take him in regardless. He's a curse user isn't he?" Geto smiled as he berated Gojo.
After Shuichi confessed to have put up the talismans to prevent curses from causing damage, Geto already formed a somewhat favorable impression of the teen. It was not to the point of supporting him, don't misunderstand. He would still beat the shit out of him if he acted suspicious of tried to attack them in any way, it was just good enough for him to actually save the man from Gojo's relentless pursuit.
"Moooou~ Try not to have too much fun!" Gojo barked back.
"Wait wait wait! What do mean take him in regardless? I haven't done anything wrong!"
"Oh? You don't know do you?" Geto asked.
"Know what?"
They quieted down for a second, most likely trying to decide whether it would be good to tell Shuichi or not.
But since they weren't that worried about him, they decided to speak without worries.
"Roughly two months ago, the Jujutsu world suffered through a drastic change. The power of curses increased dramatically and the balance of the world was flipped upon it's head." Geto replied; continuing on, he explained. "Not only that, the sheer numerical difference before and after the 'curse explosion' as we decided to call it, was astronomical. It is to the point that the sorcerers are getting overwhelmed."
"So that's why the higher ups ordered for all unidentified curse users all over Japan to be recruited into the Jujutsu community. If not, they are to be imprisoned~ Though the order was made in the first place thinking that a curse user was involved in the curse explosion~" Gojo said.
Hearing their explanation, Shuichi's blood chilled down for some unknown reason.
'Isn't... isn't that around the time I transmigrated here?' Shuichi thought with seriousness. 'Not long after transmigration, I made my two techniques, and after that the atmospheric cursed energy started to thin out. But that was only in Tokyo. The other cities probably went through an increase in cursed energy. That's the reason I felt the cursed energy to be so much denser in Saitama!'
"I see." Shuichi said to the two people in front.
Now that he realized they were going to bring him there, he was a bit skeptical about going with them willingly. If he became a Jujutsu sorcerer, all sorts of trouble would come his way.
Putting aside the matter of killing curses, since he kind of does that already, he would probably suffer immense hurdles put by the Zenin clan. With his abilities, Shuichi held no doubt he was going to get at least a second grade. Call it confidence or pride, but he was sure of his own strength.
Seeing someone from their clan that they had just kicked out, now becoming a second grade sorcerer, someone that was among the upper echelons of the jujutsu society was hardly something that the Zenin clan would be able to digest. The elders of the clan were just petty like that.
Not to mention the elders that were part of the higher ups.
He didn't want to imagine what they would imagine when they heard about him becoming a sorcerer. The most probable reaction would be doubt and then, that doubt would eventually turn into anger and disgust(as if he didn't already get enough of that); eventually leading to assassination attempts.
As confident as Shuichi was in his abilities, he did not wish to deal with the assassins the Zenin clan would send for him. Especially if they somehow managed to convince someone like Toji.
He wasn't called the sorcerer killer for nothing.
Shiver*
For a split second, Shuichi shivered. He hoped a situation like that didn't arise in the long foreseeable future.
(A/N: Foreshadowing? Nah, probably not.)
"So..." Shuichi tried to say something; the only difficulty being that he didn't know what to say. He thought of escaping the barrier, but the problem in this case was the fact that the barrier didn't have an exit.
While killing the curse that made the barrier would shatter the barrier and get everyone out, that was also out of the question.
The curse was being entangled by a special grade dragon! Shuichi didn't want to have to deal with it as of now. Perhaps if he had reverse cursed technique to fasten his healing and plenty of time to spend in order to adapt, he wouldn't be afraid of fighting the curse, and with the aid of his new technique, he might even win! But as of right now, he scratched the idea out of his list.
Even if he miraculously did escape, he wasn't confident in being able to dodge them to safety.
"So what now?" He asked.
"That's what we're about to figure out." Gojo said, only this time, there wasn't a hint of mockery in his tone. His figure adorned a more serious temperament as he dashed forward, his arm cocked back and ready to deliver a chop to the back of his neck.
Sensing the immediate danger, Shuichi moved in an instant, crouching below the attack and jumping back with curse infused legs to widen the distance.
"What the hell, man?" He yelled.
"I can tell your micro-expressions you know? And you seem awfully reluctant to simply go with us."
'Oh right. Of course he can do that.'
"Need any help?" Geto asked from behind Gojo.
"Help? Hahahaha~ Of course not." Gojo said while shaking his hand in front of his face. "After all, he's weak~"
Hearing the blatant insult, Shuichi was silent.
The pendant on his neck glowed.
"Then..." Shuichi said, making the two special grades' look at him. "...Seems like we're doing it this way."
Shuichi's hands morphed into a very peculiar shape of a hand seal.
'It's time for a sorcery fight!'
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To be continued~
A/N: I'm not too satisfied with the way the chapter turned out. I was hoping for something more dramatic but nothing came to mind that seemed illogical. I could make things more dramatic easily but most of the situations I thought up seemed straight up absurd or idiotic.
Anyway, I purposefully extended this chapter so you need to wait for another chapter to see the fight! Sometimes my genius... it frightens me...
Anyway, comment what you think along with what kind of development you're hoping for in the future. I might just add something if I see a good enough idea~
Also, no random quote today.
Cheers~