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CHAPTER START---
---Tokyo Jujutsu Tech Eastern Forest, 9 AM…
Strolling through the forest, Kusakabe rolls his shoulder before taking a sip of his coffee. Enjoying his drink and dreading what he was hearing.
While he's wearing a tracksuit, coffee in his right hand, and Katana in his left, he wasn't ready for training today.
Not because he didn't want to, but because they arrived back on campus after midnight, and he still wanted to get some sleep.
But he knew his new student was particularly excited about today's lesson.
After all, seeing Nanami perform a Black Flash had gotten the boy eager to learn all he could about it.
On the ride back to campus Kusakabe simply told him, 'It's like a critical strike in a video game, it just happens, I'll explain more tomorrow', and now as he's approaching Taiyo's training area for today, he realizes he should have explained more.
With each step, he closes in, and can hear the sound of stone breaking, rhythmic and always at the same volume, non-stop.
"What the hell are you doing?" he asks, reaching a clearing and seeing Taiyo on the other side of a shallow river.
The boy was punching a boulder, leaving massive cracks and an ever-deepening crater in it, stained with blood along with his hands.
Taiyo stops his punches and turns around, allowing Kusakabe to see that he's only wearing his shoes and a pair of shorts.
"Mostly practicing my punches," Taiyo says as he walks over to the river and soaks his hands for a moment. "I was trying to do a Black Flash, but I guess my critical strike chance is less than the 0.2 percent chance you mentioned."
Kusakabe sighs as Taiyo stands up, revealing that his hands are already fully healed. "You've been out here throwing hundreds of punches, seriously?"
"And not a single Black Flash. Is there a trick I don't know?"
"Something like that," Kusakabe casually leaps the few meters to the other side of the river and begins walking to the treeline, where Taiyo had brought a cooler. "Lesson time. Take a seat."
"Alright, teach me something new," Taiyo says as he grabs a can of orange juice and sits across from Kusakabe in the shade. "I couldn't find anything in the books about Black Flash, so, what's the secret?"
"There are no secrets," Kusakabe says. "Nobody can perform a Black Flash at will. You can think of it like a critical strike, but it's more like a divine blessing from Jujutsu itself.
Those who perform it take a step closer to the depths of Cursed Energy, gaining a deeper understanding of Cursed Energy and Jujutsu, entering a flow state where they can intuitively comprehend their Cursed Energy better.
It can awaken new aspects of Jujutsu to you, or more commonly, push you one step beyond what you were seconds earlier. Performing a Black Flash causes a surge of Cursed Energy through your body that does this, and helps refine your ability to process Cursed Energy, making you more efficient and slightly expanding your pool as well."
"Damn, so to get to the top, you need to do this at least once, right?" Taiyo asks while staring down at his hands. "Unless you want to spend decades to understand yourself better."
"For studying Jujutsu and Cursed Energy, I can't think of anything better than a Black Flash to help you understand your potential. Especially since each Black Flash brings you 120% of your current potential, stacking multiplicatively. So Nanami experienced that multiple times."
"Ok, so," Taiyo thinks about it for a moment. "Instead of 100% of his strength, the final hit had 170% power?"
"Exactly, but it was far greater than that," Kusakabe says. "Aside from this power increase and the mental changes it brings, Black Flash also acts as a critical hit, increasing the power of the Black Flash itself by up to the power of 2.5"
"So if his attack had a strength of 10, it can potentially become 316?"
Kusakabe snaps his fingers. "Exactly, and why are you so good at math?"
"My mom was a data scientist. She worked remotely for a company abroad," Taiyo shrugs. "She was also my teacher."
"Ahh, right," Kusakabe then raises his hands and releases small amounts of Cursed Energy from his palms for Taiyo to see. "Now look at this, this is what is needed for a Black Flash."
He then brings his palms together for the Cursed Energy to merge, and with precise controls, he controls each portion of the energy to flow against each other for a moment, before they both flow in the same direction and become one motion.
"AH, so I was wasting my time punching the rock?"
"Exactly," Kusakabe says. "A Black Flash can only happen when your Cursed Energy clashes with the Cursed Energy of something or someone else. Gojo spent quite a while trying to figure out how to perform it on command after he mastered his Six Eyes and Limitless."
"Even he couldn't figure it out?"
"It's not that he couldn't figure it out if he knew the variables, after all, he is Satoru Gojo," Kusakabe says. "But the Six Eyes weren't able to collect enough useful information for him.
He learned that the clashing Cursed Energy matters, as does the temperature of the air, the wind, the mood of both people, the humidity, the Cursed Energy circuit in each person's body when the clash happens, and what he presumed to be a trillion other variables he couldn't quantify.
The only things that we know for sure, is that both targets need to have Cursed Energy for it to work, and when a Black Flash happens, there is a slight desynchronization between the Cursed Energies at the point of contact, within an impossibly slim time frame."
"How narrow is that time frame?"
"Gojo assumed it was something like 0.00001 seconds."
"Hmm," Taiyo rubs his chin, and he does some math. "So if Nanami's ratio strikes raises his attacking power from 10 to, let's say, 40. Then him hitting a Black Flash takes that 40 to just over ten thousand."
"The power of 2.5 isn't an exact science," Kusakabe says. "That's just an estimation of the upper limit, but as I've just explained, Black Flashes are famously inconsistent. And if it brings other things with it, then the power could potentially be decreased during that process."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, if you couldn't heal, and you got hurt, then landed a Black Flash, there would be a greater than zero chance that it would jolt your Cursed Energy circuit and unlock your potential for RCT," Kusakabe says. "But it can't awaken anything you don't have, so it helps you bring out your maximum potential. It doesn't add to it in that way."
"That makes sense," Taiyo says. "So, when did you do it?"
"My first one when I was a student, working on my New Shadow Style: Simple Domain," Kusakabe says. "Simple Domains are just a lesser version of a Domain Expansion. You usually clasp your hands together and make a Binding Vow to not let your feet leave the ground, and in exchange, it removes the 'sure hit' effect of a Domain Expansion.
But it only removes the homing effect. The attacks themselves can still hit you, but they'll be weakened depending on the strength of your Simple Domain."
"So that's why the rocks were falling slower," Taiyo says.
"Exactly, but the New Shadow Style, means you've programmed your Cursed Energy to automatically puppet your body to perform actions, allowing you to not rely on your senses of conscious mind to act, temporarily surpassing human reaction speed."
"And that's the one you can't teach me?"
"Yeah, unless you make the binding vow, that is."
"I'm not giving up any life force to anyone," Taiyo says. "But Ino said he can use Simple Domain, and when we were leaving the hospital he kept going on and on about how yours was different."
"Oh, that," Kusakabe sighs. "My Simple Domain is closer to a Domain Expansion in what it does."
"How?"
"Well, Simple Domains usually only extend 1m -3ft- around you, enough to fit one person and allow them to swing a sword. Even Gojo hasn't been able to change this.
But I can extend mine up to 5m -15ft- around me, enough to cover allies around me from enemy attacks.
But I can also program the Cursed Energy to have me counterattack anything that enters the Simple Domain or to attack any enemy who enters."
"So your body and sword become the sure hit effect, and you can create it then expand it to get them within range, and let your Simple Domain guide you, damn."
"Yeah, and since I'm the only person who can perform it without Binding Vows, I can create it and freely walk around and fight in it, so instead of being stuck in place waiting for the enemy's Domain Expansion to end.
I can cast my Simple Domain, expand it to include the enemy, then go kill them."
"No wonder everyone says you're the strongest Grade 1 Sorcerer," Taiyo says with genuine amazement in his voice. "You really are the perfect person to learn from. Too bad you can't teach me that New Shadow Style."
"But I can teach you everything else," Kusakabe says. "Assuming it doesn't require an Innate Technique, or Reversed Cursed Energy. I wasn't born with either of those."
"You never told me about your Black Flash, by the way," Taiyo reminds him.
"Oh right, the first one was when a Cursed Spirit was too fast for me. I used my Simple Domain since it makes me react instantly to anything that enters. When it got close, I attacked with a kick and performed a Black Flash.
In an instant, I had a much better understanding of Barriers, programming Cursed Energy, and Simple Domain.
I still barely survived that mission, but a few weeks after that, I used my new understanding to create my current Simple Domain."
"Oh, that reminds me, Master Tengen. What's her story?"
Kusakabe shrugs, "Thousand-year-old immortal Jujutsu Sorcerer. Maintains the highest-level and undetectable Barriers all around Japan, the type that even Gojo can't see because it's considered part of the natural world.
Those barriers strengthen the Curtain Barrier I'll be teaching you later. That's the one we use before exorcising curses on missions. It hides anything weird going on inside from people and acts as a tool to smoke out Cursed Spirits, so they're easier to find."
"Awe man," Taiyo says excitedly as he smiles, looking up at the clouds. "There is so much I don't know that I don't even know. This is the best."
Kusakabe smiles, happy to see that his student is simply enjoying being a student instead of trying to grow up too fast, especially considering he's a Special Grade.
"You know, your efficiency is already halfway decent," Kusakabe says. "You can already outdo Nanami and I at that, so I think we can start working on your Immolation, after I teach you Curtain and Simple Domain so you can handle missions properly."
"And I need to work on my close combat a lot. A career in archery and sports shooting didn't really make me a good fighter."
"You've been doing well so far, but yeah, you could use more experience," Kusakabe says. "You sure you don't want a sword?"
"And have to carry it everywhere and always remember to bring it. No thanks," Taiyo says as he grabs a snack from the cooler.
"Hey, can I ask you something?"
"You just did."
"Smartass," Kusakabe says, looking at his student, more serious than before. "Why do you want to be the strongest?"
Taiyo opens his pack of chips, looks over at Kusakabe, then speaks plainly as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"For love and gratitude," he says, confusing his teacher…
END CHAPTER---
Discord: discord .gg /eHuxNeZfyS [Come chat with me]
pat.reon: Keanu_Eugene [Read ahead & support me]
You.tube: @KeanuEugene [Giving away all my writing knowledge]