NOVEL NEXT Chapter 12: Balance.
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January, 2014.
"Blizzard, catch!" Megumi threw a great sword towards Blizzard who caught it with his mouth and swung it, severing the head of a curse. Said curse was a 2nd grade curse that was part of an infestation that Megumi was sent to clear.
Megumi himself had manifested the Nue Incarnation and had just speared a curse with one of his wings that was enhanced with cursed energy, normally it would be impossible to do so as the wing wouldn't be sharp or strong enough to pierce a curse directly.
But with an improvised application of the Swordsmanship learned from Kusakabe, he had managed to form a sort of armour made of cursed energy, using his teachings and practice from his master and his wings as guidance for the cursed energy, he had succeeded.
With a flick of his wing he had then sent the curse flying towards another in a burst of electricity taking both curses out of the fight. He had turned around to Gamma who had ensnared 3 curses in his uncannily long tongue and thrown them into the air, Megumi readied himself and flapped his wings with great strength and called out to Blizzard.
"Give it back!" The Great Sword was thrown back just in time for Megumi to reach a metre above the curses and catch it, flowing his electricity through it and swinging in a wide arc as he dove down. The swing slicing the curses in twain.
Not wasting a moment he used this momentum to drive his blade into a first grade curse that was just tackled and thrown into the air by Max Elephant, impaling right through the curse as he kneeled on the ground to take a breath.
A second grade curse tried to attack him in his moment of weakness but from his Hoari a single Rabbit jumped out which then turned into a wall that shielded him from attack, the curse wildly slammed itself onto the regenerating wall in futility but it had not paid attention to the Elephant beside it who just slammed it with its trunk throwing it away before it sprayed a wave of water at it, knocking it and a few other curses prone.
The wall of rabbits faded away to reveal Megumi who was holding up his Greatsword in front of him with both hands before flowing cursed energy through it. In response the blade shone a brilliant Blue that showed the magnificence of the stars as frost began building along its edge and icy mist flowed around it.
Megumi pulled back the blade and seemingly swung it at nothing, yet from the brilliant shine of the Greatsword a slash of icy energy flew out towards the curses and exploded on impact. The bitter frost of the blade's instantly ends the life of the cursed spirits.
He looked around for a few moments still alert before he released the breath he was holding and fell back on his knee, unsummoning his shikigami leaving Blizzard as a backup in case he missed a curse while scanning the building with his senses.
"Ah, it's finally over, I swear there's been so many curses lately. Thankfully I asked Satoru for a cursed tool to add to my collection for missions, didn't know he'd go all out with it and give me a Special Grade Cursed Weapon."
He stood back up and brandished the Greatsword and looked at it properly as the energy feeding it seized and its glow faded away revealing the blade in all its glory, it was a brilliant deep blue and seemed to be made of pure ice, its hilt was made of solid polished rock.
[Image (In Discord)]
"'Dark Moon Greatsword' eh? It is infused with a curse technique to boot, some kind of ice cursed technique, Satoru said it was made back in the Heian Era and was claimed by the Gojo clan back in the Edo Era." He placed blade into his shadow and hissed as he grabbed his arm, it had been sliced by a cursed spirit early in the fight and with the adrenaline fading away the pain was coming back to him.
"Shit that hurts, I should get to Shoko. She'll heal this quickly and I can make it to that sports festival that I promised Tsumiki I would go to, I gotta cheer for her and her team in that sprinting competition." .
…
"You should really be more careful, 'Gumi. Wasn't this just a normal mission with just some 2nd grade curses?" Shoko said as she was patching him up and wrapping a bandage around his arm. Before she held it and started channelling her reverse cursed technique.
The warm glow of her positive energy soothed his pain, he could almost feel his body mending together as his tissues connected back again. The energy then started flowing from his arm into the rest of his body as any bruises, cuts or fatigue simply faded away.
"You'd think so wouldn't ya? It had two grade one curses, one of them caught me off guard. It's how I cut my arm in the first place, besides that there were almost a dozen 2nd grade curses. They keep fucking up the classification of missions and curses." Megumi said as he rolled his shoulder to try and get his blood moving into the arm faster and loosen it up.
"That's what I'm hearing from almost every sorcerer that comes around here, seriously they better get their shit together because this is getting insane." Shoko revealed as she sat in her chair and leaned back as she sighed.
Megumi was about to reply before the door of the infirmary flew open revealing Gojo Satoru wearing his sunglasses indoors.
"MEGUMI! I just came back from saving a couple of kids from a weird ass curse that wanted to be their mother or something. How've you been! I hear you messed up and got hurt against some weak 2nd grade curses~." Gojo exclaimed as he made his appearance.
The raven-haired boy growled in annoyance as he turned around to the taller man and shouted back at him.
"Well easy for you to say, you goddamned hack! You were born overpowered, I have to work for it! Besides, not all of us just have the six eyes to be able to notice when a 1st grade curse is sneaking up on themselves by hiding between three 2nd grade curses and jumping me."
Megumi was fuming in anger and frustration, not only on Gojo but most on himself as he held himself to a higher standard and would not allow himself to fall behind and stay weak.
"Tch, I need to learn Reversed cursed technique as soon as possible, I can't just rely on Shoko everytime I fuck up and get myself hurt."
There was silence for a moment before Gojo spoke up. "Well I taught you how the Reversed cursed technique works, didn't I? You just need to get good and do it!"
"EXPLAINED IT? You didn't explain anything, it doesn't make sense!" Megumi was a bit butt hurt over his inability to master and figure out how to use RCT.
"Oh, you explained it to him did you? How'd you do that, no one ever understands it when you try to." Shoko was interested in how he would describe it to his student.
"Eh? Ok then, so the reverse cursed technique heals wounds and regenerates flesh by transforming negative energy into positive energy. Cursed energy is not suitable for healing living things because it originates from negative emotions. While reversal works on the idea of multiplying a negative by another negative to make a positive, lapse utilises cursed energy to create techniques. Unlike cursed energy, which is centred in the stomach, this reversed process is controlled by the brain."
Gojo snapped his fingers and a whiteboard that already had some explanations regarding reverse cursed technique, no doubt being the same one that he used prior to try and explain it to Megumi.
"Most users of the reverse cursed technique are limited to self-healing. While self-healing is more effective than mending others, producing positive energy is an even more uncommon skill. The basic distinction in application is one of the causes. Another is that the treatment may be rejected by the recipient's body since it is incompatible with their cursed energy. The recipient may not respond to conversion or they may reject the healer's tainted energy. As such, the efficacy of using the reversed cursed procedure to heal others varies from situation to instance."
He then pointed at Shoko and declared "Unless you're Shoko, that is, who can use RCT on others more effectively than others can on themselves, She's just special like that!"
To which she just smirked smugly, he then went on to conclude by flipping the board to reveal two giant equations he had written prior.
If Negative x Negative = Positive
Then Cursed Energy (-) x Cursed Energy (-) = Positive Energy (+)
"And that's basically how RCT works!" Gojo declared seeming very proud of himself.
Shoko was much less impressed, simply commenting while resting her head on her hand "Wow that's a shit explanation."
The comment had instantly taken the winds out of the white haired man's sails making him deflate.
"Well, it's not completely bad as its core idea is correct, but the thing is you're over complicating it. RCT is a natural process that anyone with good cursed energy manipulation could conduct but not everyone has the processing power to fuel such a mathematical way of producing it."
She then demonstrated by closing her eyes and holding hands out, each had an amount of brownish cursed energy and then she brought them together. This caused the energy to flow into itself and combine, the glow of both sources of energy not smashing into each other but simply combining as if it was a natural occurrence as the light brown colour of her cursed energy reversed and became a dark blue.
"I don't expect you to understand it or be able to do it anytime soon but keep it in mind and try to think it through. Don't force nature, simply allow it to take its course." She explained as she didn't forcefully stop her energy flow and simply allowed it to disperse around her, the brilliant aurora of mixed energy making her already gorgeous visage become almost unreal.
"Thanks Shoko, I'll keep it in mind."
…
A few hours later.
Saitama Urami East Junior High.
The roar of the crowd was almost deafening, Megumi was slightly overwhelmed but he was enjoying himself. Besides him was Blizzard who he had kept summoned although he had shrunk him to a size small enough to hold him in his arms.
The change in size had not bothered the loyal hound in the slightest as his tail was wagging fast enough to become a blur and make a slight wind blow into Megumi's hair. Although thankfully it seemed like nobody noticed his odd pose and swaying hair.
The girls around him had awed looks on their faces with blushes on their faces as they were gossiping amongst each other.
Megumi's growth spurt had continued as he became around 5'5 feet tall, he had lost some of his baby fat around his face and grown some muscles that began to show through the shorts and T-shirt he was wearing.
In short he had become a middle school girls' dream boy, not that he noticed or cared for it, as his tastes were more mature because of his mental age.
"Did you have to bring Blizzard too? Everyone's looking at you Megumi." Tsumiki complained with a pout as she walked to him, she was wearing a white T Shirt and shorts with an arm band that had 'Leader A' on it as she was the leader of her team in the sprinting competition.
The sounds of gossip increased as she talked to him, no doubt the rumours were growing by the second.
"Who's he?" "A secret boyfriend?" "He's so cute, it's no fair." "He's so tall, and look at those muscles, is he a highschooler?"
Tsumiki started blushing at the attention and gossip, especially the first one, before turning around to the onlookers and declaring "He's my brother!"
Most of the gossiping stopped at that except one person from the crowd who whispered "Oh forbidden sibling love, how taboo!"
Tsumiki's blush turned to a glare as she scanned the crowd and growled out "Which one of you weirdos said that?"
No one said anything as they all looked at each other with faux suspicion. But before anything else could happen an organiser declared the event was about to start causing everyone else to disperse and leave to go to the stands.
Megumi just laughed a little before urging Tsumiki to ignore it all and go do her best.
"I guess you're right, wish me luck." She sighed and was about to walk off but Blizzard all but jumped out of Megumi's arms and into Tsumiki's.
She laughed a bit as he licked her face in excitement, his tail going from simply wagging into a helicopter wag as if he was trying to fly through it alone.
"Even Blizzard believes in you Tsumiki, you'll do great. I just know it." Megumi declared with a smile. She smiled back and jogged away to get ready and join her team.
And so the event started, at first Tsumiki's team struggled but when it came to her turn to run she left all other contestants in the dust, perhaps a testament to her blood.
It was a relaxing, fun day with many happy moments.
Or atleast, it should have been.
Megumi felt an unusual amount of cursed energy appear within his detection range, 3 signatures in fact. Two of them weren't of much concern but the third one was, it was a huge concentration of energy, it felt as if it wasn't merely a singular signature but as if countless others layered over each other around a blindingly bright purple core.
The two smaller signatures came into sight first, they were from a pair of girls. One had long caramel hair tied back into a bun and the other had short black hair set in a bob cut with a symmetrical fringe.
The blonde one talked first "Wow there's a lot of monkeys around today huh? This kid better be worth it Geto-sama."
"Nanako don't call them that while we're around them, what if they hear you?" the girl with black hair chastised what seemed to be her sister.
"Ehhh? The monkeys have already left to go cheer for whatever event this is, there's nobody around Mimiko." argued back to her sister.
Before they could continue bickering, the third signature arrived and sounded out. "Now, now, Nanako, Mimiko, no need to worry about those filthy monkeys. We have better things to do." a tall man with long black hair told the two.
""Whatever you say Geto-sama."" the twin sisters said at the same time.
Mimiko's brown eyes are framed by eyelashes, and her short black hair is styled in a bob cut with a symmetrical fringe above them. She is dressed in a black sailor outfit with a light-coloured scarf, black shoes, black knee-high socks, and a black skirt that falls past her knees. She also has a doll with a rope around its neck and numerous sutures.
[Image (In Discord)]
Nanako has her twin sister's brown eyes and has long caramel hair that she twists back into a bun. She's dressed in an indigo mid-thigh-length skirt and a beige cardigan over a white button-down shirt. She also has on brown loafers and a pair of baggy white socks.
[Image (In Discord)]
Megumi's eyes narrowed as he looked the trio up and down, Blizzard who was in a smaller form had jumped down from his arms and grew dramatically in size reaching his full height and growled in response to the danger he and his master sensed.
"Geto Suguru, what brings you here." Megumi finally said, breaking the silence.
"Ah, so you already know who I am then? Good, that saves us some time." The older man just smiled wide in response to his layered hostility and reserved posture.
Suguru is a tall, slim, and muscular man with long black hair that falls down his back and is only partially tied up in a man bun. His black eyes are narrow, and his bangs sometimes hide his left eye. His earlobes are big enough to fit somewhat bulky circular earrings. He wears black yukata robes over a gold-coloured kāṣāya outfit. His zōri sandals and white tabi socks complete his monk outfit.
[Image (In Discord)]
"Saves you time for what exactly?" Megumi said as he readied himself to summon his shikigami or draw a weapon from his shadows.
"No need for any of that Megumi-kun, we aren't here today to hurt anyone. We're just here so I can have a chat with you." Geto tried to disarm the situation.
He went on to explain "Have you ever questioned the current state of the world? Where us great Jujutsu Sorcerers must work in secret in order to protect commonplace society? Great power must be used for great ends after all!"
His expression then twisted as he declared "It's a nonsensical paradox! Why must it be the Burden of the Strong to care for the Weak? The apex of creation is forced to halt its own path of evolution, it is utterly deplorable! It's high time we reconsider our plans for survival!"
Megumi's expression twisted as he realised where he was going with this and why he was here in the first place "You're trying to recruit me into your crusade to 'Create a perfect world of Jujutsu' by killing all non-sorcerers aren't you."
Geto's expression serene turned into a demented smile as he spread out his arms and let out a hearty laugh "Yes, that's it exactly! Why should the strong bow before these filthy Monkeys who can't even use Jujutsu?"
"Well, unfortunately for you, it's impossible, even if I were to join you we couldn't hope to achieve your goals since Satoru would stop us effortlessly." The younger boy denied his ambitions.
Yet his denial had the opposite effect as the curse user simply cackled in laughter in response "You really don't know do you? It's not your fault since you wouldn't have access to the statistics or have the same view I and the rest of the Jujutsu society do."
Megumi grimaced, caught off guard by the man's jubilation "What are you saying?"
"In the last 10 years, the amount of casualties on sorcerers has more than tripled in Japan with a lesser extent worldwide at only double. And the cursed spirit sightings have also increased by a similar amount, with their quality and quantity increasing tremendously." Geto explained, looking like he was enjoying himself.
Sweat started to drip down Megumi's face as a horrifying thought came to mind that he wanted to refuse. "Is there a rest stop between now and the fucking point?" He growled out, knowing yet denying the truth that he thought of.
Geto grinned before declaring "Since your birth Fushiguro Megumi, the very balance of the world of Jujutsu has shifted towards the side of humanity, much like Satoru before you! That is why I know that if you join my cause it will go from a dream into possibility, together we can create a Paradise!"
As soon as those words hit Megumi it felt as if the weight of the heavens fell down on his shoulders, all the signs that he overlooked and willfully ignored came back to him instantly. From the wildly inaccurate mission analysis, the overwhelming increase in cursed spirit activity, to the countless number of Jujutsu sorcerers that were injured and had to be healed by Shoko.
"Oh… Guess this is it, hope you live Fushiguro-kun."
To the death of Asahi Takahashi during their mission when the curse that they took out inexplicably became a cursed womb and evolved beyond what it should have. All these revelations flowing into his mind made his body feel as if it had been splashed with ice cold sea water.
"Megumi? I didn't see you in the crowd, why are you still- oh…" Tsumiki walked to her brother, not noticing the trio facing him until it was too late.
Megumi's body blurred as he all but sprinited from his place to stand in front of Tsumiki, his cursed energy firing up wildly, as his shadow burst up and exploded with all his tamed shikigami being automatically summoned.
Geto didn't react much to the display of hostility as his expression twisted from a grin to a reserved smile that hid barely restrained hatred.
"But alas, it seems your loyalties lie very clearly. Very well, I suppose it's time we make our exit." Geto said as uncannily like Megumi a void opened up beside him and a tear in the fabric of space revealed a giant bird curse that walked out and opened its enormous beak.
The three of them climbed into the curse's open beak but before it closed, the older man turned around and looked Megumi in the eyes and spoke his final words.
"Farewell for now Fushiguro Megumi, we shall meet again. And hopefully next time, you'll know to be on the right side with the rest of your race."
With that the man left, leaving Megumi to stir in his revelations. Countless thoughts ran through his brain as he tried to think of something to say or do after everything, but all of his thoughts compiled into one word at the end.
"... Fuck."
Author's note:
Yes, I gave him the Dark Moon Greatsword from Elden Ring.
No, I have zero shame.