Juchu Kaisen - 38 (Patreon)

A/N: Content Warning: lots of blood and anatomical descriptions

Chapter 38

Shoko’s cursed energy capacity was average, which was a shame. Still, much could be done with her limited means. I had personally witnessed powerful Jujutsu Sorcerers whose stores of cursed energy were hardly any greater than the average amount, and they used that energy to great effect.

In the sport’s field, I supervised Shoko as she squatted, a large Helper bug on her shoulders. Her legs shook as she slowly pushed herself up. She was nearing failure.

“One more,” I said.

It took her an agonizingly long time before she managed to push herself up.

The Helper bug jumped off from her shoulders. “Activate your Reverse Cursed Technique.”

I cast my focus inside of her body, listening as her abused muscle cells replenished their energy. Fibers connected, becoming even stronger. Shoko kept at it for several seconds before shouting, clutching her stomach as she doubled over.

I took a deep breath through my nose, smelling the hormonal changes inside of her body. Her gut had released ghrelin en masse, indicating extreme hunger with an equally extreme suddenness, enough to cause her physical pain.

In short, she needed food.

She wasn’t quite nailing the additive power of the Reverse Cursed Technique. Matter creation ex nihilo was an energy guzzler to be sure, but it seemed like she had subconsciously capped that power. Perhaps to prevent herself from running out of cursed energy.

Shoko fought through the pain, sending the Reverse Cursed Technique into her gut. Her body did the rest of the work as it produced a formless slurry of highly bioavailable nutrition in her stomach. The added weight in her stomach numbed her hunger, enough to allow her to refocus on healing her body.

She was making this process unreasonably dramatic, in my estimation. Then again, my only frame of reference to Reverse Cursed Technique users were Special Grades who were monsters in their own right.

Shoko had the potential, but I doubt there would ever come a day where she could be considered a monster. She just didn’t have that drive in her.

It was sad, but it wasn’t something I could teach.

“Teira!”

Gojo and Suguru were jogging up to us, Gojo grinning widely.

“We’re training,” I told him.

“First of all, I know what you’re really doing. You’re trying to monopolize Shoko! You can’t do that anymore now! I’ve taken an interest in her too.”

“I found her first,” I growled. “So back off. You never would have paid her any mind if it hadn’t been for my association with her.”

“That may be so, but that still doesn’t give you the right to hog her!”

 Shoko straightened, groaning as she did. “I’m hungry. And I feel kinda sick. I think… I made food…”

Gojo raised an eyebrow. “When you say you made food, do you mean—“

“Inside my stomach.”

“Ew! That’s so gross!” Gojo laughed. “And I didn’t even know that was possible!”

“Why wouldn’t it be?” I scowled at him. “If you can regenerate a hand from nothing, then obviously, making nutritional paste shouldn’t be beyond your power.”

“Sure, but isn’t that kind of extrinsic to the human body?”

“The nutritional paste was reverse-engineered from human tissue. I think,” I hummed in thought. “Protein, lipids, carbs. These things do exist in the human body.”

“But… why?” Gojo asked. “Why even bother?”

Indeed, that was the question.

“I’m hungry,” Shoko moaned.

I opened up a portal and pulled a slice of cake out from it, handing it to her. Shoko’s eyes glittered as she grabbed the plate, and the spoon on the side before digging in while standing.

“Teira, don’t think I don’t love our friendly rivalry,” Gojo said, “But are you sure you don’t want me brainstorming with you? I mean—you can just hog her, but don’t go crawling to me for help afterwards.”

His Six Eyes couldn’t do anything that my own senses couldn’t do better, at least when it came to monitoring the physical world. He wasn’t bringing anything special to the table. Besides his power of Reverse Cursed Technique.

And Reverse Cursed Technique output…

That wouldn’t make Gojo any stronger. He could already imbue it in his Limitless. All output would do was simply allow him to heal.

It might be grating if he figured it out before I did, but the societal benefits couldn’t be understated.

“Fine,” I said.

“Don’t I get a say in this?” Shoko asked. “Hello?”

“What are we doing?” Gojo asked.

“I’m trying to speed up her muscle growth,” I said. “She’s rather pathetic at the moment. The Reverse Cursed Technique should allow her to bulk up in a week or so.”

“Wait, what?!” Shoko yelled.

Was she worried about how she would look? Natural. A young girl like her would normally have such concerns. “You won’t look like a bodybuilder,” I said. “Such physiques usually aren’t attainable to women without the use of steroids. Yes, some performance enhancing drugs do promote recoverability, but you won’t exactly be shattering your innate physical limits without a concerted effort to do exactly that. Now keep squatting.” I had my Helper Juchū jump on her shoulders again and she groaned at the sudden weight. “We’re not stopping until you run out of Cursed Energy.”

“But what about the… thing?” Gojo whispered to me conspiratorially. The healing beam?

“That can wait,” I said. “We can figure out how she does it in time, but for now, Shoko isn’t really in a position to explain anything,” I looked towards Shoko. “Good hustle, Shoko. This time, we’re going up to eleven.” Then back to Gojo. “You’re welcome to help her train, of course.”

“Eeeeh,” Gojo spun on his heels. “Later. Have fun, losers.”

Suguru shook his head. “You’re being a little too self-serving, Satoru.”

“Who else is gonna serve me?”

Finally, they left.

I turned to Shoko. She was on her eleventh squat. “Good job, Shoko, good job. Keep pushing.”

000

I made her run. I made her lift.

I made her stretch, too. To the point that she could rival a contortionist for flexibility.

And of course, I made her fight.

The strength training gave her mobility. The stretches gave her flexibility. In an afternoon, she had forged a body worthy of a rookie combat athlete on the high school level. Not quite a Jujutsu Sorcerer, of course, but she had gone from zero to this.

I punched her in her stomach, a Black Flash exploding from the contact.

She threw up orange nutritional paste that would have splashed on my arm if I hadn’t stepped back in time.

She doubled over, and threw up more.

She shut her eyes forcefully. “It’s gross…” she growled. “Tastes gross… oh god—hyeukh”

The sight and taste of the ‘food’ that her Reverse Cursed Technique had made for her had clearly driven her over the edge.

I had been curious to see what its color would be. I could sense her insides, but I couldn’t exactly send a Juchū into her oesophagus.

It was a rather unappetizing slurry, dotted with chewed up cake.

“Get up,” I sighed. “Now you’re just throwing up to throw up.”

“Throwing uUUUPHYEUGH—“

I rolled my black orbs. “This is embarrassing, Shoko. Get up.”

She shakily got to her feet, wiping the throw up on her sleeve. Gross.

I raised my fists.

Reluctantly, she did the same.

I grinned slightly at that.

Shoko wasn’t impressive or mentally monstrous by any means, but her one saving grace was that she didn’t complain enough to just give up.

I was eager to see how far I could push that.

000

“Here,” I said, giving her a scalpel.

We were in my room. Helper Juchū had covered the walls and floor with plastic tarp. Shoko stared at the scalpel.

She took it.

“What… do I do with this?” she looked it over.

“Whatever you want,” I said. “With yourself, or with me. Though I’d prefer it if you did something.”

She opened her mouth, letting out a brief sound. “Ah… that’s… crazy.”

“No, it’s practical,” I said. “You’ve shown a decent ability to recover from bruises and muscle soreness, but nothing on cuts or focused damage. It’s time you explore that aspect of your power. Both to learn its limits, and to grow accustomed to the knowledge that you’re very sturdy.”

“Teira… I think I’m scared.”

I took the scalpel from her gently. “Do you want me to make an incision?”

I could sense her heart beating faster and faster.

“It’s a very sharp blade,” I said. “You’ll barely feel anything. That’s how sharp it is.”

She closed her eyes.

Then. She gave a brief nod.

“Give me your arm,” I said quietly.

She gave me her right forearm.

I drew back the sleeve on her pyjama.

Her breath hitched.

Her eyes were still closed.

“Small cut?” she squeaked.

I caressed her forearm gently, trying to make her feel more comfortable. “Small cut. I promise.”

I carefully brushed the tip of the scalpel over the skin on her forearm, creating a cut barely a centimeter long, thin enough to only form a pearl of blood.

“Did you feel that?”

“It’s done?” She asked, and opened her eyes to see the blood on her arm. “Oh. Oh.” Her pupils dilated. I could smell the endorphins. The dopamine.

She activated the Reverse Cursed Technique.

The wound sealed in a near instant.

I rubbed my thumb over the pearl of blood to reveal the unbroken skin underneath. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?” I smiled.

She giggled. “No. It wasn’t.”

“Are you ready for more?” I asked.

“Bigger cut?”

“M-hm?”

“Fine,” she nodded. “I think I’m ready.”

“Okay.”

I dragged the scalpel down the length of her entire forearm. Her flesh bloomed slightly from the half-inch deep gouge, blood pulsing lazily out of it. In seconds, her entire arm was drenched in cherry red arterial blood.

“Oh,” she said numbly.

She was stunned.

“Focus!” I shouted.

She tensed, and immediately made to heal the wound. The sharpness of the scalpel was such that this wound barely took any more effort than the first cut to heal. She sealed the canyon shut in seconds.

“That was… weird,” she said, her face blushing. She was breathing heavily, too.

“The worst part will be overcoming the pain,” I said. “There’s no getting around it. It’s better to overcome pain than to do away with it entirely. Pain is there for a reason. Still, the more you injure yourself and put yourself back together, the more your body will truly be yours. That is my first gift to you, Shoko.”

She laughed. “I don’t… know what to say…”

“You don’t have to say anything at all,” I said, placing the scalpel in her hand, closing her hand and holding it with both of mine. “You don’t even have to thank me. And I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“For making you do this.”

I pulled her scalpel-holding hand into my throat.

Blood sprayed all over her shirt.

I collapsed. “Help,” I gurgled.

“Oh my god!” she let go of the scalpel and kneeled down. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god—what, what do I do?!”

I grabbed her by her wrist shakily and rasped. “Use… healing… beam…”

She started hyperventilating.

I slapped her on the face. “Focus,” I rasped. “I’m dying.”

My blood pressure started dipping, which made the spray of blood less intense than I wanted it, so I used the Reverse Cursed Technique to generate more blood.

She finally focused on her Healing Beam.

It was… clumsy. Goodness, it was worse than clumsy.

It was like calling on rain to fill a bucket. Only a small portion of it went into it. The rest went everywhere else. She was hitting damaged cells and healthy cells alike, and I could sense the feverish intensity in her efforts. She wasn’t focusing.

This was pathetic.

I sat up straight, still bleeding. Shoko yelped and stumbled back on her butt. I furrowed my brows, thinking. “You’re really quite bad at this.”

“Teira! What the hell was that?!”

“An emergency situation,” I said, gesturing at my still-bleeding neck. “I would have died, by the way. You’re really quite bad at this. It bears repeating.”

I needed her to know it, without a shadow of a doubt. So that she would try to get better.

Shoko’s expression seemed to… deaden. She averted her eyes from me and nodded.

Something felt off about that. I immediately regretted my words. Or was it my actions? Had I pushed her too far?

I staunched the bleeding with Reverse Cursed Technique, healing myself entirely. “But you can get better.”

The deadness in her expression melted away, and her eyes widened. Progress.

“You can,” I said. “But it’s up to you. I can’t teach you output, Shoko. It’s your skill. But I can’t imagine a more regrettable thing in the world than for someone to have this power… and yet fail to save someone right in front of them.”

The same way I had failed to save Michiko.

Maybe that was why I was pushing Shoko so hard—so that she would never carry the same curse as me.

“Did that… happen to you?” Shoko asked.

I nodded. “A long time ago.”

“I see.”

“Listen closely, Shoko,” I said. “As Jujutsu Sorcerers, our job isn’t to heal the wounded or cure the sick. Our job isn’t even to save civilians in danger—it’s to exorcise curses. Our purpose is to kill. Cursed energy ties us to this purpose. But you’re free of this imposed destiny. You can heal the wounded. You can cure the sick. You don’t have to do it, but you can do it. That means you can protect those closest to you. The way I couldn’t.”

She didn’t say anything for almost a minute.

Then, finally. “Do you think it’s possible to be strong and not have an ego?”

I… shook my head after some thinking. “Confidence is important.”

“I think… what I have goes beyond not having confidence,” she said. “I don’t know how to explain it. I guess… I can begin with my mom. She made it her life’s mission to convince me that I was worth nothing. I can’t remember any conversation with her that didn’t end in her dragging me for… anything, really. It’s almost impressive how dedicated she was in tearing me down. Even now, I can’t imagine her having anything nice to say to me.”

What a terrible person. To do that to one’s own daughter…

“I can’t even… remember anything specific,” Shoko chuckled. “I wish I was able to come up with an example or something, but my brain just won’t let me. It’s like, whenever she goes on her rants, I just shut down or something. I know I’m not… worthless or anything like that, but when I imagine myself doing something cool and impressive like helping people… or saving their life… or being thanked…” she grinned as tears welled in her eyes. “I don’t know. I just see black. Nothing at all. I literally can’t visualize myself amounting to anything at all. But… I’ll keep trying. Even if I secretly think that your efforts are wasted on me.”

I put a hand on her knee. “I’m not the one making the effort, Shoko. It’s you.”

She nodded.

“And I can imagine you being impressive,” I said. “Easily, in fact.”

I hadn’t been able to see it before, but I was beginning to make it out now, the details increasing by the second.

The abuse she had suffered was unenviable, but her mindset was… special. Time would tell whether it would help her or hurt her. Time and my own best efforts to rebuild the tatters of her ego.

“So why don’t you just stake your faith in my imagination? Just for the time being?”

She dried her tears and nodded.

“Alright. Back to work, then. I’ll open up my leg this time and I’ll offer you commentary. You good to continue?”

She nodded eagerly.

…a little too eagerly, in fact.

000

“It’s just negative times negative.”

Satoru sat atop his bed while Suguru was on the floor of his room, cross-legged and concentrating deeply. “I don’t know what that means, Satoru.”

“You don’t know basic math?”

“I mean—I don’t know what that means in terms of Jujutsu.”

“Maybe you should focus on attaining the Black Flash, first?” Satoru tilted his head. “Starting on the Reverse Cursed Technique while you haven’t even mastered fundamentals is like running before learning how to walk. Or even taking off into the sky. Really, it’s kind of impossible.”

Suguru opened one eye. “Then how did Shoko learn it?”

“Eh. Freak prodigies like that aren’t unheard of,” Satoru shrugged. “We’ve both seen her go, dude. She’s… lackluster to say the least. She’s just being carried by raw talent the likes of which even I don’t have,” Satoru laughed.

Because it was funny. In joining Jujutsu High, Satoru had honestly expected to just effortlessly lord over everyone else. The more he saw, the more he witnessed, and the more he heard from the grapevine—that an upperclassman in Kyoto had the Domain Expansion as well—the more he learned how behind he really was.

And the more inspiration just tumbled in without end.

Joining Jujutsu High had been the best decision of his life. He loved every second of it. Even being targeted by the upperclassmen were, in retrospect, a valuable experience to him. One he had learned much from. There was nothing quite like seeing yourself through the eyes of an outsider.

“That’s big of you to admit,” Suguru muttered.

“I’m arrogant—not delusional!” Satoru protested hotly. “I know when to admit defeat or inferiority! I just usually never have cause to.”

Suguru chuckled. “Just the fact that you’re not even exaggerating your words proves that you’ve lived a wild life.”

Satoru pushed off the bed and landed on his butt right in front of Suguru. “And what about your life, my new bestest friend? Don’t think I haven’t noticed you holding out on the class. You’re strong. How come?”

Satoru had debated on how to broach the topic with subtlety, but over time, his impatience had gotten the better of him.

Suguru chuckled helplessly. “Nothing gets past you two, huh?”

Two? “Teira?”

“She didn’t tell you what I could do?” He looked down and grinned. “I really appreciate that. I must thank her the next time I see her.”

Now, he was curious. “I mean, I know of your cursed technique.”

“Cursed Spirit Manipulation,” Suguru said. Behind him, he opened up a portal, allowing a dog-sized Grade Four curse in the shape of a worm through. “Like the name suggests, I can manipulate cursed spirits.”

“Like they’re your personal Digimon. And when you’re not calling on them, they’re in a virtual space.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Suguru said. “Although… I’ve yet to find an upper limit for how many I can take.”

Oh.

Oh! “Wait—but isn’t there a Grade limit?”

“I don’t know,” Suguru said. “But this one is my strongest,” he said, opening a different portal, allowing a bigger creature through.

The portal was the size of the ceiling above, and all that left it was an enormous snout so large that it was already bearing down on them from above.

Grade One.

The snout retreated back into the portal, and it closed.

“How strong is it?” Suguru asked. Satoru grinned at the ridiculous question. Self-taught Jujutsu Sorcerers were just too damn cute! Especially when they had talent!

“Eh. It’s a small fry. Grade One. If you’d brought out a Special Grade, I might have been surprised.”

“Teira says I’m… Special Grade,” Suguru said. He chuckled, a little helplessly actually. “I’d never call myself that—I have way too much shame to do that.”

If Teira said it, then it had to be true. Class One, then? He was clearly a competent Jujutsu Sorcerer if he was battling curses, certainly outstripping the incompetency of a Class Zero—like that one kid in the elementary school portion of campus. Definitely not Class Two.

“What are the conditions?” Satoru asked him. “For manipulating curses?”

“Well, I… I don’t know. It’s strange. The weaker ones, I can just gesture at, and they’ll turn into these small orbs that I can just swallow.” He stuck his tongue out in disgust. “They taste horrible. Anyway, once I’ve eaten them, I can control them. For the stronger curses, like the one I just summoned, I had to weaken them first. If a curse dies, they also just disappear.”

“No Nurse Joying them back to life, huh?”

“Unfortunately not,” he said. “I also think that the more curses I eat, and the more I master Jujutsu, the easier it will be for me to exorcise any curse. At the start, I had to fight even the weak ones before I could absorb them. I’m guessing if I can maybe unlock the Reverse Cursed Technique, or hit the Black Flash, or do any of those bigshot Sorcerer things, I can start absorbing Grade Ones without issue.”

Satoru pinched his chin to think. “Sounds plausible. It definitely won’t hurt, of course. So… no one taught you any Jujutsu before you arrived here?”

Suguru shook his head. “Experience and trial and by error taught me everything I currently know. That, and observing how curses did things. I figured at the time, since curses used cursed energy, it wouldn’t hurt.”

“You weren’t wrong,” Satoru said. “But you probably picked up a whole laundry list of mistakes and bad habits. Ah, screw it—we’ll do some early-morning training, too. If you want, of course.”

Suguru grinned widely. “I was going to ask you, actually. I just… didn’t know how to. Or if you’d even bother.”

…He actually did have quite a bit on his to-do list. The final puzzle pieces of Falling Blossom Emotion were just about to fall into place. Then, he’d have an anti-domain technique to counter Teira’s ridiculous Domain Expansion. What did she call it, again? The Scarab-Faced Goddess’ Necropolis, with a sure-hit attack that was deceptively simple—a bug in your windpipe.

And he still had to master barrier techniques in order to unleash his own Domain Expansion. And he didn’t even have long-distance teleportation yet, either!

Or a Hollow Purple that required less gestures!

But Suguru looked so excited! And Satoru had already made the offer. He couldn’t take it back, now.

“Of course, I would!” Satoru patted him on his shoulder. “Isn’t that what friends are for?”