February 12, 2018. Clear. Tokyo Jujutsu High.
"This feels pretty good, doesn't it?"
Satoru Gojo reclined lazily in a chair, a cup of takeout lemon tea in hand. He was surrounded by walls plastered with talismans, where dim, flickering candlelight was embedded into the stone. This was a specialized room at Jujutsu High, designed specifically to suppress cursed spirits and various cursed objects.
In another timeline, both Yuji Itadori and Yuta Okkotsu had been intimidated and enlightened by Gojo in this very room. Furthermore, the space possessed a unique barrier that ensured any conversation held within remained strictly confidential.
Currently, Gojo's eyes were uncovered. His azure gaze was full of relaxation. In this enclosed space, shielded by a powerful barrier, he wasn't bombarded by the useless, cluttered sensory information of the outside world. For the first time in a long while, he could let his Six Eyes out for a bit of fresh air.
Fuuuu...
With a long, heavy exhale, a plume of white mist escaped Hasegumo's lips. "Today's quota of Gratitude Punches... complete."
"I've wanted to ask you this for a long time." Gojo sat up, setting his tea on a small side table. He turned his gaze toward Hasegumo, who was shirtless. His upper body looked as if it had been meticulously carved by a god; the muscle definition was nothing short of perfect.
Though Gojo had stepped up his own training lately, he was still stuck with a six-pack. He'd consulted a doctor only to be told that such things were determined by genetics—no amount of training can change the biological number of muscle bellies you're born with.
Ahem. Gojo shook his head. Now isn't the time for that.
Ever since witnessing Hasegumo's movements up close, Gojo had become convinced that his friend's technique had reached the absolute peak of human potential. Yet, he couldn't understand why, even at this level, Hasegumo insisted on throwing ten thousand straight punches every single day, followed by deep meditation.
Gojo had even secretly timed him. When Hasegumo first started, it took him one hour and thirteen minutes. Six months later, it was one hour and eleven minutes.
Today, it was still exactly one hour and eleven minutes. No change at all.
"With your current physical strength and martial arts realm, ten thousand punches a day shouldn't be giving you any more gains. An hour a day is thirty hours a month, three hundred and sixty hours a year. That's enough time to do plenty of other things. Is it just a warm-up? Or does that technique of yours require constant repetition?"
Hasegumo beckoned him closer. Gojo leaned in, listening as Hasegumo whispered mysteriously, "Actually, every time I throw a punch, a certain part of my body gets a little bit longer."
"If you're talking about your lack of shame, I believe you," Gojo deadpanned, looking at him with utter disdain.
Hasegumo let out an awkward laugh and stretched, his joints popping like a string of firecrackers. He sat cross-legged on the floor, rubbing his chin. "I'm not lying to you. I'm talking about power."
"Ever since that first punch ten years ago, I realized that something which had been binding me was slowly coming undone."
"By throwing those punches with a heart full of gratitude, it took me about six years to completely shatter that shackle."
"It's like I opened a Limiter. Every punch makes my physical strength and Cursed Energy just a little bit stronger than before."
"And the most important part? I can feel that there is no upper limit to this growth."
"I knew your Cursed Energy was getting ridiculously high—you're literally condensing pure energy into physical matter during fights. But a Limiter? Who do you think you are, Saitama-sensei? If that's the case, why the hell are you still meditating?" Gojo was genuinely stunned. "According to your logic, if you just punched non-stop from morning to night, you'd eventually be able to blow up the Earth with one hit."
"If I live long enough, maybe," Hasegumo explained. "As for meditation, it's necessary. You've felt my speed; it has already surpassed the limits of human perception. Even I only half-understand how I've reached this state. But there is one thing I'm sure of: I must maintain a perfect balance between my mental realm and my physical strength."
"While I can infinitely increase my physical power through punching, the side effect is that my body outpaces my mind. If that happens, I lose my greatest advantage: my speed and the Domain I developed specifically to match that speed."
"No matter how strong you are, it's useless if you can't hit your target."
"Besides, these aren't just 'simple' punches. Each one has to be thrown with sincere gratitude. It's mentally exhausting. At my current level, I can't actually keep it up from dawn till dusk."
"Maybe when I'm old and the world is at peace, I'll try punching indefinitely to see if there really is no ceiling."
Hasegumo rambled on, dropping what sounded suspiciously like a series of death flags.
But the joys and sorrows of men are not shared; Gojo only found the noise irritating. Since becoming a sorcerer, he had never heard of anyone increasing their total Cursed Energy through mere "cultivation." Cursed Energy was supposed to be emotion-driven—a non-linear spike that only occurred after experiencing significant trauma or change.
Infinite growth... Being born in the same era as this guy... Gojo truly felt sorry for the curse users and spirits of this age.
"I'm starting to feel a bit of a sense of defeat here..." Gojo muttered to himself.
"What was that?" Hasegumo glanced over.
"I said, what do you mean a Domain 'developed to match your speed'? You totally ripped off Netero! And for that matter, how the hell is your Domain an open one without a closed barrier?" He was met with Gojo's complaints and the cold scrutiny of the Six Eyes. "Just hurry up and meditate. We said we'd meet at ten, and it's already noon. Is that old fossil Tengen going senile?"
...
By two in the afternoon, Gojo was bored enough to start swearing. Just as Hasegumo was finishing his meditation, a very old female voice echoed through the room. It was hard to describe—it sounded as if she were speaking through a throat full of thick phlegm, making the listener instinctively uncomfortable.
"Apologies. I am late."
"A little longer and we could have just met in our coffins." Gojo hated people who lacked a sense of punctuality. If he'd known, he would have stayed home and played video games until Hasegumo called him. "You're the one who set the time, yet you're the one who's late? Also, can you please clear your throat?"
"My sincerest apologies."
As the footsteps approached, Hasegumo finally got a look at the most mysterious man—or woman—in the Jujutsu world. Standing before them was an elderly woman with white hair. Her features bore a faint, haunting resemblance to Riko Amanai, the girl Gojo had once failed to protect.
In the original timeline, Tengen should have evolved into an entity with a head resembling a square bin. However, due to a certain "evil deal" with Kenjaku, her status had been somewhat restored, preventing her from becoming a curse-like existence.
"I became preoccupied while researching Cursed Tools." Perhaps not expecting Gojo to mock her so brazenly, the "Grandmother" version of Tengen offered an apology that sounded anything but sincere. With an air of weary resignation, she pulled out a chair and sat across from Gojo.
Her movements were incredibly slow, like a frail woman in her eighties. Anyone else would have worried she'd collapse at any second.
Neither Hasegumo nor Gojo moved to help her. They simply watched her settle in. She cleared her throat with a wet, raspy cough. "I trust you both understand the gravity of the situation."
"What's so grave about it? In the end, a previous head of the Gojo clan—who didn't even have the Six Eyes—managed to seal those two curses alongside a fossil like you." Gojo waved a hand dismissively. "Just send Kumo. One punch each. Honestly, you could send ten of them and it wouldn't be enough to keep him busy."
"Don't dump everything on me, you bastard," Hasegumo snapped, arching an eyebrow. "Those are Nuclear Cursed Spirits. What if I don't kill them in one hit and the damn things self-destruct?"
Tengen watched them bicker before raising her hands to quiet them. "It is not that simple."
"Back then, the two did not appear simultaneously. We only had to face one at a time."
"The intel on their techniques was teased out by Gojo Yu, and it worried me even then."
"I have lived for over a thousand years, yet I have never seen two techniques with different names possess identical properties."
"I have a premonition: if the two of them manifest together, something unprecedented will happen."
"It all comes back to those damn politicians," Gojo said, taking a sip of his tea. "If they hadn't pulled that disgusting stunt, there wouldn't be this massive surge of fear regarding nuclear contamination... and my buddy Yamagami wouldn't have been dragged into this."
"My question is: why seal them instead of killing them?" Hasegumo interjected. "Furthermore, if a non-Six Eyes Gojo head could do it with your barrier, there's no reason Satoru can't do the same now."
"Their Cursed Energy reserves are infinite," Tengen explained. "Curses are beings made of energy. At the time, there was no Special Grade sorcerer with the means to destroy their physical forms entirely in one strike."
"If you cannot erase them instantly, the nature of Little Boy and Fat Man allows them to fully regenerate their bodies in less than a heartbeat, with zero side effects."
"That intel cost the life of a Special Grade sorcerer."
"As for the sealing, it relied on Gojo Yu's space-time technique. Though he lacked the Six Eyes, he was a genius who achieved a 'Penrose Stairs' effect through his technique, isolating the space where the barrier was released and severing it from reality. That was the only way to lock them away permanently."
"Satoru's technique is powerful, but it cannot replicate that specific effect."
"'Permanently'?" Gojo wasn't pulling any punches, immediately pointing out the flaw in her words.
"That..." Despite being a thousand-year-old entity, Tengen couldn't help but feel a twinge of embarrassment. "Based on our assessment of the world back then, we didn't think such weapons would be used again. We assumed the ambient fear would be insufficient to reconnect with the curses in that isolated space."
"We did not anticipate this happening," Tengen continued. "The massive influx of negative emotion will awaken their consciousness. Given the nature of their techniques, breaking the seal is inevitable. Moreover, given the nature of nuclear energy, even if they lack a complex consciousness, they will be far stronger now than they were then. If anyone can kill them, it must be you two."
"If even you fail, humanity may face an extinction-level crisis."
"Furthermore... regarding Tetsuya Yamagami, I will pull the necessary strings to resolve his situation."
"You sure know how to put people to work, you old fossil." Gojo and Hasegumo locked eyes, and Gojo smirked. "Fine. Let's hear your plan."
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