NOVEL NEXT Chapter 14: Awakening?
There is a discord for this fic. It has pictures for characters, lots of tidbits about the story among other things. Join at https: // discord.gg / aWZ9qX9mAW
Glory to my chief Proofreader; Solare for he is the one who points out mistakes and acts as my favourite wall to bounce ideas off of.
This is the other half of chap 13 that I cut cuz it got too long lol, this will happen more so get used to it.
PS: I listened to 'Children of the Elder Gods' on repeat while making this chapter, hoping I channelled the right energy. Enjoy, also listen to the 'Old Gods of Asgard', their music is fire.
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The insides of the building were slightly unsettling, it had an air of normalcy but any sorcerer would be able to sense the deeply ingrained cursed energy within each inch of the halls of the mansion. Before long they landed their eyes upon another trio of cultists, this time curse users from what their cursed energy reserves indicate.
"We will not allow you two to interfere with the ritual, this world is broken and needs to return to its true form." One of the cultists with blonde hair tied in a ponytail and a blindfold said as she pulled out a blade, coating it with cursed energy.
"Chaos shall take this wretched world and bring true unequivocal equality!" An older man with greying hair said as he powered up his cursed technique causing him to grow in size twice, his muscles bulging out unnaturally.
The third cultist didn't say anything, instead opting to merely raise his hands as 2 steel balls floated around his head, ready to be thrown around.
"That is not up to you lunatics to decide. Blizzard, rip the swordswoman to shreds. Izumi, you take the Mute with the floating balls. I got the old man." Megumi ordered as he readied himself to rush forward and slice the cultist to pieces.
The loyal hound blurred ahead with the help of his dead sister's essence, fulfilling him through Totality. The cultist clashed with the Shikigami, blade to claw but before long the superior strength and agility of the beast overwhelmed her and pushed her to a corner.
"Okie dokie!" Izumi rushed forward, dodging the Mute's balls like a ballerina on the dance floor and reached him within mere moments and clashed with him as he used his balls to defend himself while dodging backwards, the sorcerer chasing him with unreal grace.
Megumi flew ahead powered by his wings and sliced forward, the old man decided to forgo all defence and instead just attack, punching the blade head on. Surprisingly with a mix of his unnatural muscle and cursed energy reinforcement, the blade didn't cut through his fist and instead just dug in slightly.
A smirk came to the fanatic's face but it was wiped away as Megumi's wing gained a coat of cursed energy that hardened and formed a brilliant edge that dug into his side and the surged with an electric burst, the electric charge slightly paralysing the cultist and bringing him to his knees.
"New Shadow Style: Reforged Moon"
Megumi had perfected his new ability that he used prior in a more rudimentary form, a derivative of his masters "New Shadow Style: Hazy Moon", using the core concept of hardening cursed energy and using it to substitute a blade. And incorporating it with his wings to form 2 hardened bladed wings that prove to be invaluable in battle.
Not allowing his opponent to recover in the slightest, he then pulled back Kage and proceeded to slice the cultist's head off in a single clean swing, blood splattering on himself once again staining his hair a deep crimson.
Turning to his teammates, and got ready to help them but realised that it wasn't needed as they had already finished their battles shortly after him.
Shortly after cornering his opponent, Blizzard had overwhelmed her and disarmed her before spearing her right through with his claw and pulled to the side, nearly ripping her in twain.
Izumi jumped and danced around his opponent, covering him head to toe in small gashes and cuts. In a moment of desperation, he had thrown his ball towards the graceful sorcerer. Who in a show of skill and dexterity slid underneath it and used his momentum to slice the Mute's leg off at the knee, crippling him and proceeded to jump from his prone state and pierced him through the neck instantly taking him out.
"Good, let's not waste time and finish this." Megumi called out to his comrades and jogged towards the heart of the compound where he felt the greatest concentration of cursed energy.
They reached a double door that when opened revealed the last of cultists, the room resembled a church but instead of holy imagery, they had hostages tied up with cultists waiting above them ready to kill them at the slightest movement.
On the middle end of the hall they saw a man wearing a red priest's attire on a podium who started speaking, "Welcome, Honoured guests! To the birthplace of our Monarch's Dynasty, if you were planning on interfering I'm afraid you were too late, for all the preparations are complete!"
Looking around at the hostages Megumi had only one thing to say.
"Fuck."
The cultists had them cornered as they all knew that if they tried to attack, the hostages would be slaughtered. Izumi had a grim expression on his face as he recognised the hostages, they were the villagers, it seems that the cultists worked fast and captured dozens of them; looking closer you could notice an odd Tattoo burned onto their forehead.
As if things couldn't get any worse, the head priest pulled out a small wooden box and from within it he pulled out a small object covered with talismans and seals, an object that immediately became clear and recognisable to both sorcerers as the priest removed the seals.
"This fucking lunatic, is that- SUKUNA'S FINGER!" Megumi cried out in surprise.
Izumi was not much better than him as they both had sweat fall down their necks. The cursed energy of the finger already leaking out and permeating through the room, the malevolent energy being unlike anything either sorcerer had felt before. It was Pure Unadulterated Evil as within it lies a fragment of the King of Curse's very soul.
"So you recognise our Monarch's glory? Then rejoice, for today you shall witness his return to this mortal plane!" The mad priest said as he fully unsealed the finger, revealing it to the world the purple waxy mummified finger.
"Cheer my children for today our lord is reborn! Take the lives of these lambs and offer even yourself to our Monarch, tonight he shall return through my body as a sacrifice for his Divine form! MAY CHAOS TAKE THE WORLD!"
The cultists heeded their masters words an immediately started the slaughter, blood flowed through the air as the hostages turned sacrifices and lamb to the slaughter died on mass, shortly after slaughtering their sacrifices they proceeded to commit suicide with fanatical smiles, they all died while chanting their mantra.
As all they all died, the Tattoos that were burned onto their faces started to burn once more with a crimson hellish inferno.
"May chaos take the world. MAY CHAOS TAKE THE WORLD! MAY CHAOS TAKE THE WORLD!"
"Stop them! KIll the head priest before he eats the damn finger!" Megumi cried out utterly overwhelmed and afraid of the complete worst case scenario; the early Resurrection of Ryomen Sukuna, in a body that he would have complete and utter control over.
He summoned all his shikigami, consequences and cursed energy drain be damned, he and Blizzard blurred ahead towards the priest to kill him before he could swallow the finger.
But they were half a second too late as the madman swallowed the finger with an insane laugh, as they reached him and ran him through twice. Kage went through the madman's right eye and shortly after ripping his brain apart, Blizzard's claw speared through the cultist's abdomen no doubt rending the cultist's inner organs to shreds.
Yet, instead of merely dying, the cursed energy of the now dead priest's body surged and exploded out of his corpse, sending the two flying away.
"Fuck."
The cursed energy of the hall started shifting and moving and started to coalesce towards the dead corpse of the head priest. All the negative energy born of the madness, depravity and suffering within these now cursed halls seeping into the corpse.
For a moment nothing else happened, and then the corpse shuddered and shook as if trying and failing to move. And then from the hole within the cultist's abdomen a large misshapen arm emerged and grasped the ground, then another arm emerged.
And then a third arm emerged. And within a mere second a large body exploded and flew out of the corpse.
It was a large man, he had half crimson hair and half grey hair from the head priest's body. He had malformed tattoos around his hideous body, and 3 deformed arms. His face was a grotesque abomination with two halves barely connected to each other with a pair of eyes on each half on his face, counting up to 4.
Megumi's combined desperate effort to stop Ryomen Sukuna's awakening had worked, but he hadn't managed to be fully reborn as the vessel was both incompatible and utterly broken making it an unfit vessel for The King of Curses to inhabit.
The destruction of the vessel at such precise timing had allowed the information of The King of Curse's body to be reformed but not of the soul which caused the malformed abomination to be born.
But, with the combined effect of the cursed energy within Sukuna's finger, the suffering and negative energy within the halls of the compound, the sacrifices of the cultists and hostages and the pure belief of said cultists.
A Special grade Land God cursed spirit had been born.
Megumi didn't allow himself to stay shocked for long as he ordered all his shikigami to attack and then turned to Izumi and all but shouted orders at him, "Stay back and buff me, if you see an opening go for it but stay back and support me above all else!"
He had then run off not bothering to listen. He rushed ahead to attack the cursed spirit, Izumi immediately channelled his cursed technique, beginning to dance with unbelievable grace.
In the distance, Megumi's body glowed with a faint pink glow as his cursed energy surged, the effect of 'Rhythm Enchantment' taking place immediately as his cursed energy output increased by 25% and his mind cleared up, all emotions blurring as he sliced ahead with his blade.
The special grade spirit turned to him and threw 2 of its arms at him sloppily, from them arcs of sharp cursed energy flew out. A warped, sloppy imitation of the true King's Cursed Technique that was easily avoided.
With his enhanced cursed energy output, he flapped his wings once with great strength immediately flying above the slashes and continuing his charge. Blizzard, who was already ahead of his master, reached the spirit and started clashing with it, the false King's fingers grew malformed claws that matched Blizzard's own.
From the curse's side Max Elephant fired a tidal wave of water, trying to overwhelm the spirit but it lifted its third arm and pointed at its assailant and fired a tidal wave of flames of its own, the flames turned the water into vapour as the fire continued towards the Elephant and burned it severely, Megumi immediately desummoned the Shikigami to save it from any further damage.
Shortly after this Megumi arrived and sliced towards the false king with Kage which found its mark digging deep into the curse's hand but the curse cared not, as it simply grabbed the blade that was hilt deep not allowing Megumi to get away.
It then moved the arm that still held the flames burning within and was about to shove it in Megumi's face but a tongue came in and grabbed it pulling the hand away as the flames misfired towards the ceiling, the blast going straight through and into the setting sun sky.
In a fit of rage and desperation Megumi balled his fist and punched towards the curse while its arms were held down. An action that would have otherwise been worthless if fate hadn't been on the Raven haired boy's side.
Sparks of black lightning flowed along Megumi's arm as it landed on the false king's abdomen, from it an explosion of Black Lightning fired out making the curse's body bend with the blow and fly away, losing the arm that held on to Kage.
"BLACK FLASH!"
As the curse flew through a wall, heavily damaged, the ceiling and walls fell apart from the impact as well, revealing the outside world in all its glory.
The world from within Megumi's eyes had changed, things that never made sense to him before had all coalesced together, it was as if he had been Reborn anew. Even through the layer of blood that covered his eyes and coloured his pupils a deep crimson, the world had never been more vibrant to him.
"The world, it truly is beautiful isn't it?" The awakened sorcerer looked towards the rising moon and setting sun representing a cycle of death and rebirth.
The curse crawled to its shaking feet and looked towards the boy with a sense of rage and fear.
Taking in the view of the false king being brought so low, the sorcerer laughed out almost sounding insane.
"HAHAHA, That's a nice look you got there curse. I never tried this before 'cuz I didn't think I could pull it off before but what the hell am I right? Might as well try no?" He brought his hands up chuckling like a mad man.
"After all, I can see it all clearly now. The True Essence of Jujutsu."
He brought his hands together, his fingers intertwined with his thumbs touching together at the top and chanted with all his heart, as if declaring his victory to the very Heavens above.
"DOMAIN EXPANSION: CHIMERA SHADOW GARDEN!"
The abyss that was normally confined within his shadow exploded forwards, the ground beneath them being reformed into his will. The abyss overtook the area around them, it captured every living being around.
Then the shadows underneath their feet surged upwards around them and closed around them forming a barrier around them blocking out the skies.
Izumi fumbled and stopped channelling his cursed technique from shock as he looked around and muttered, "You serious? A domain expansion, at our age?"
The curse was overwhelmed and was looking around in complete disbelief, unable to comprehend what was happening around itself.
"HAHA! It's malformed, unstable and barely held together but it worked!" Megumi cried out, his arms spread as he laughed like a madman.
He then brought his hands down and looked down at them before commenting, "Looks like it's barely incomplete too, it doesn't have a sure hit effect…"
Looking back up at the curse, he cemented his will with a demented grin, "But it'll do for a fraudulent curse like yourself."
Even though it couldn't fully comprehend the sorcerer's words, the curse could understand that it had been insulted and rushed ahead like a mad dog, abandoning all sense of false royalty.
"Who do you think you're rushing at you filthy mut? Step back." he waved a hand at the oncoming curse and as if from thin air, a tsunami of Rabbits appeared from the void and flooded towards the curse sending it flying away.
"Hm, let's get creative shall we?" Megumi said while standing still as the abyss around him moved and shifted to cover him then shrinked into nothing, making him disappear from sight.
When the curse stopped itself, it looked around madly trying to find its opponent only to not be able to find any and start to throw out flames and slicing arcs of cursed energy wildly around as if trying to break its prison, but it was all in vain as a voice sounded out from behind it.
"Behind you, dumbass."
A frosty Greatsword pierced through the curse, its icy power biting deep into its body as Megumi leveraged his body and used cursed energy reinforcement to send it flying into the air.
Multiple Gammas appear from the abyss and throw out their tongues, grappling the curse and holding on to all of its limbs, keeping it suspended in the air as an easy target as it struggles in vain to free itself.
"Heh, like shooting fish in a barrel." Megumi raised his hands up and channelled one of his many abilities.
"Incarnation: Max Elephant."
Instead of growing any Elephantine features, a hole appeared in each of his palms as from within them torrents of water sprouted out and slammed into each other. He then slammed his hands together forcefully, the water from his palms converging and compressing.
'Time to rip off both Choso and Sukuna, AT THE SAME TIME!' Megumi had a devious grin on his face as he called out the name of his stolen technique.
"Convergence: Piercing Aqua!"
A thin stream of compressed water fired out from Megumi's hands cut the curse's right leg off before flowing around wildly and cutting some of the tongues of the Gammas and setting the curse free onto the ground.
"... Ops? Well I see why Choso never really killed anyone with this thing, as strong and useful as it is, aiming with it is a pain in the ass." Megumi rubbed his neck with slight embarrassment though his grin hadn't left his face.
"Oh well, time to finish you off huh?" Megumi looked upon the broken curse with a slight sense of pity before turning around and walking off.
Behind him the abyss shifted as two Great Serpents formed and started devouring the broken curse alive, the domain fading away shortly after.
"Oh hey Izumi, nice to see you were safe! Well done on the mission, if you ever feel like it hit me up. I'd love to team up again, that or if you wanna move up to bigger places in the world than the backwater villages in the mountains." Megumi said as his shikigami were unsummoned one after the other.
"Uh, yeah I'm good and I'll keep it in mind, you ok? You look.. Half dead." Izumi said with a blush, utterly shocked but flattered at his compliment.
"Hm? Oh yeah never better, I did run out of cursed energy though. And I am about to pass out, catch me plea-" Megumi was cut off by him doing exactly what he said he would.
Thankfully Izumi caught him in time and took him back to Akari so they could regroup and leave as the mission was done on their part.
…
A day later.
When Megumi woke up again he found himself in a soft bed with the heavy smell of anaesthetic, groggily pulling himself up he rubbed his eyes to be able to see clearly.
"Where the fuck am I? I got the curse right?"
"You finally woke up huh?"
Turning around he saw Shoko sitting at her desk to his right smoking a cigarette reading off a clipboard.
"You're in my infirmary at Tokyo Jujutsu tech, you also got the curse. Congrats on your domain and exorcising a Special grade Cursed Spirit by the way."
She put down the clipboard and looked at him with a proud smile.
"Huh, so that was real. Cool." Megumi said, looking at his hands in surprise.
Shoko got up from her desk and walked to him, before announcing "They're talking about making you Officially a Grade 1 sorcerer too, the Zen'in clan's pushing for Special Grade but that's probably not gonna happen."
"Hm, Neat." Megumi said, taking it all in.
"It is neat, but I think this calls for a celebration no? Here." She offered him a cigarette from her pocket.
"Aren't you a doctor? Well you're not wrong though." Megumi questioned but didn't refuse as he just grabbed it and touched it with his finger, a spark of electricity flying off it and lighting up the cigarette automatically.
"Huh.. Didn't know I could do that… Cool! Must've been the Black Flash." Megumi concluded before taking a drag out of the cancer stick as he sat up straight, not bothering to question it.
"Probably." Shoko just said, not surprised in the slightest.
And so they had a comfortable silence as he relaxed from the mission and its aftermath.
…
Half an hour after the team left the village.
A lone woman walked through the broken husk of the village, she reached the main compound and marvelled at the dead corpses around. She didn't seem affected by the monuments to madness and misery surrounding her.
Within moments she arrived at the main hall and witnessed the piles of dead villagers sacrificed in the name of a false god and walked past them, shortly reaching the defiled body of the head priest and smiling at the sight.
"Looks like you weren't the one after all Mendez, can't say I'm all that surprised but you did waste one of his fingers and now Jujutsu Headquarters probably has it." She looked at him in disdain before walking off towards the broken wall.
She reached a crater which a fight must've taken place prior to her arrival according to the residual cursed energy marks left around. She sighed and pushed her Black hair back, revealing a scar going along her forehead as if it had been stitched a long time ago but scarred over with time.
"Ah well, it seems that trying to incarnate Sukuna through sacrifices and belief doesn't work, I suppose Yuji will have to do for now."
She looked around for a while and then started walking away with a smirk, "It has been a rather interesting experiment though, and I did find out more about an interesting piece, Megumi Fushiguro huh? How intriguing..."
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Chapter notes:
This is probably my best chapter yet but let me know what you think.
Love it? Hate it? Lemme know!
Maybe I should address the elephant in the room huh? The spark from hands came from a spontaneous mutation in his body that came from repeated merging and contact with the 'Essence' or soul of his Shikigami.
IG this makes Incarnation a more biological process than I first intended but it does fit what I envision so I say let me cook for now lol. And we do know that Curse/Human hybrids exist and are possible thanks to Choso and the cursed paintings, so I decided to take a bit of a creative liberty here and make a change to what the OG canon made possible.
Btw sum to note is that had Megumi not stopped him and destroyed the vessel by destroying the brain and inner organs most importantly the stomach which removed the vessels ability to channel cursed energy or use RCT, Sukuna would have actually awakened in a vessel he had full control over.
Nobody would've known as he would slaughter everyone within a mile radius and he would've been put together with the help of kenny, pretty much everyone would have died lol.
Rituals and Belief have always been a big thing in Jujutsu, there are a lot of things that we don't know about the inner workings of this world as Gege never really explained things like this. In the end, this was made to have a fun plot and story so it won't be completely accurate to canon lol.
Good thing Kenny doesn't know the experiment was a success right?
Oh and also…
Megumi ≤ 3 Finger Sukuna