A/N: Welcome to my latest story: Potential Man. Here we go with this one. Next three chapters are up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) already if you want to see them early.
December 12th 2018
There were twelve days until the time of the challenge now. Gojo had been training harder than he probably ever had in his life, and I could see the effects. Now he managed to open his domain nine times in quick succession thanks to progress he made with his Reverse Cursed Technique. He had spent many an afternoon just watching Shoko use her RCT on healing others, and then watching Okkotsu and I practice with our domains, and even just watching Round Deer do what it did by existing.
It wasn't just that. His hand to hand was sharper than ever. Two weeks ago, he had shown up to our hand to hand practice and said he wouldn't use his technique at all. He'd eaten a punch or two from Itadori in the beginning— he still won though. But now he won even more convincingly. All of us— Itadori, Panda, Hakari, and I, could scarcely lay a hand on him when we fought and that was without even using the Infinity for defence.
Gojo was a monster, but there was still a real chance that he would lose, and that was what this mission was for.
"I still don't think this is a good idea," Kirara said, looking unsure.
"Shake," Inumaki added.
"I agree with you guys. Gojo-sensei isn't going to be pleased that we're having this meeting behind his back but we need a plan in place for if he loses. We need to have a plan B. It only makes sense," I said.
"I'm with Megumi here. Only a foolish gambler puts all his chips on one hand," Hakari said.
"So what do you think we should do?" Itadori asked, returning all the attention to me now. I was getting a firsthand view of what strength meant in this world. I had gotten stronger now. So strong that I beat Okkotsu more often than not when we fought. There was no doubt I was Special Grade now. And now everyone seemed to defer to me in recognition of that. It probably wasn't just strength though. Okkotsu himself was plenty strong. My strong personality probably played a role in it as well, but all the personality in the world wouldn't matter if I didn't have the strength to back it up.
"First, we need to decide what we do the second Gojo-sensei loses— in the unlikely situation that he does," I said.
"Easy. You and I team up on Sukuna and put him down. I cannot imagine him beating Gojo-sensei without being heavily wounded. He's strong but the two of us together when he's weakened should have an easy time of it," Okkotsu said.
"We still need to deal with that ice user," Itadori said.
"I can handle that," Hakari said. Everyone nodded there. No one doubted his strength— especially when he got on a roll.
"But what about Kenjaku? We can expect him to not be close to the fight just in case Gojo-sensei wins. And we need to kill him to put this whole thing to an end," I said.
"Maybe me, Choso, and Maki could go after him," Itadori said.
"We can't beat him," Choso said, looking at the wall and clenching his fist.
"Yuki couldn't beat him," I said.
"Maybe she could have if she had used her own domain against him instead of relying on Tengen," Choso said.
"So a Special Grade with some help for dealing with the cursed spirits," Maki surmised.
"Who even knows how many he could have? With the way things are in Japan, there are more and more of them spawning every day. We don't know how many he's collecting, but he'd be stupid to not be taking advantage of that right now," Okkotsu said.
"At least six special grades have formed in Japan since September," I said, dropping the bombshell.
"What?" Hakari asked.
"The Higher-Ups had a monitoring system in place that piggybacks off Tengen's barriers. It's what lets them know where to deploy sorcerers to deal with threats before they become too dangerous. With the scarcity, however, they only ever used it for the most dangerous and waited for the less dangerous ones to develop into actual threats before making the decision to allocate precious resources— sorcerers— to deal with them. Special Grades used to be the highest priority but with Gojo-sensei sealed, and both the Tokyo school and clans ignoring their requests, the threats went ignored," I said with a shrug.
"How do you know this?" Kirara asked, speaking for the first time from their place at Hakari's side.
"They sent requests to the Zenin clan. Got around to reading them after I beat Naoya. Not like there was anything we could do about them at the time so I left it all alone. There's only so much we can pay attention to at a time," I said. It hadn't been a particularly hard choice to make. The Higher-Ups had powerful sorcerers under their payroll. If they wanted to get rid of the cursed spirits so badly, then they should have sent Gakuganji and their enforcers after them instead of Principal Yaga.
Itadori looked far from pleased, but everyone else nodded in understanding. In a lot of ways, he was the most idealistic of us.
"Rika and I should be able to handle the cursed spirits and Kenjaku ourselves," Okkotsu finally said.
"He beat Yuki, a special grade herself, and was able to survive her final technique somehow. Plus he has who knows how many special grades under his control now," Maki said. Was it just me or was that worry I could make out in her eyes?
"The answer is simple, isn't it?" The voice that spoke out now didn't belong to anyone in the room. But it was achingly familiar. Gojo-sensei pushed down from above, the wooden ceiling exploding before him as he floated down into the room.
The splinters floated to the ground slowly, under the influence of his Limitless. He was somehow getting even better with his technique.
"Sensei, we were just..." Itadori began, trying to come up with an excuse. I scoffed.
"Coming up with a plan for if you lose to Sukuna," I cut in. He'd clearly been listening to us for a while, and Gojo was many things, but stupid wasn't even close to being one of them.
"Look at my cute little students not even placing any trust in me anymore," he said, not even managing to sell the disappointed tone he was going for.
I just gave him a deadpan look. "It's a last resort. We think you'll win of course. If we didn't, we'd never let you fight him alone," I said.
"Let me?" he asked with an amused look on his face. He was probably wondering how we thought we were 'letting' him do anything.
"You'd have to kill me to keep me away from that fight if I thought you were going to lose," I said to him, putting all my sincerity out there for him to see. Because if Gojo didn't stand a good chance as he did right now then I would have forced him to turn it into an ambush. Me, him, and Okkotsu. We could beat Sukuna with the sheer weight of numbers. Force him to have multiple things to focus on. Take his domain out of the running by making it a four-way domain clash, ensuring that all four domains would fail, and then force him out. Get Mahoraga to adapt to Comedian while the three of us did our best to keep him off balance and make it impossible for him to take out the Divine General.
I was tempted to push for that plan still, but sparring with Gojo told me just how seriously he was taking this. The progress he was making— Okkotsu and I were growing stronger, but even together we were no match. Every step we took felt like it was matched with a leap from him. Cheating fucking Six Eyes.
"Hmm," he said, and then turned away from me.
"Like I said, the answer is simple. Only one person here has a technique made for dealing with multiple opponents at the same time, and a tool to allow him to deal with anything that Kenjaku could still have held in reserve, as well as a shikigami specially made for dealing with cursed spirits," he said.
"You want me to fight Kenjaku?" I asked, shocked.
"You scared?" he asked, turning to me and tilting his head.
"He beat Tsukumo. She was special grade for longer than I've been alive."
"Yet, you're stronger than she ever was by my estimate. You'll be even stronger by the time the duel comes. When I face Sukuna, Kenjaku should be plenty distracted. Move in on him the second my fight with Sukuna starts and the threat of me winning and coming for him will prevent him from giving it his all. Is there any other advantage you need to secure victory, Megumi?" He turned in my direction, leaning down until his forehead was practically touching mine.
"Personal space, you creep," I said, pushing at his forehead or at least trying to. My hand just stopped before I could make contact.
"No," he said, and I could feel his breath on my face. It smelled of nothing. Nothing at all.
"Are you going to be ready?" he asked me.
"To kill a body jumping creep? Sure. Sign me up for that any day."
**December 18th 2018**
Once it was decided that I would be the one facing Kenjaku and dealing with him, my training sessions had changed in form. While Okkotsu and I still practiced with domains half the time, we also took turns practicing with Gojo. That was what led to today's breakthrough. It was moved by my questioning of Gojo around the fight with Sukuna that was coming.
"Choso says that Kenjaku can open a domain without closing it in a barrier. Inumaki says Sukuna did the same back in Shibuya," I had said to him nearly a week ago.
"I'm aware. The terms of a domain clash are still the same whether one domain is open or closed. The person with a more refined domain wins," he said.
"Yes. But what if you could make yours open as well. An open domain Unlimited Void would be too strong and dangerous for Sukuna to even think about facing without using an anti-domain technique," I said.
"The sure hit won't work if both domains are open together and evenly matched," he said, placing his hand on his chin.
"Sure. But then it becomes a race to see who can force the other to close their domain first. If it becomes a question of reserves and outlasting the other, we know the Six Eyes are pure cheating and you'd win with ease. Sukuna would know that as well. So then it becomes a question of who can beat the other in the hand to hand. My money's on you," I said.
He looked like he was seriously considering it for a minute or so and then he shook his head before ruffling my hair and walking away.
It turned out that from that day he had been working on making his domain an open one. The fact that it had taken him nearly a week to have any success with it showed that it was an ungodly level of difficulty— that task. And I would be facing someone whose skill with jujutsu was advanced enough that he could do something that took a Six Eyes user days to figure out. And this wasn't just any Six Eyes user. This was Gojo Satoru. The superlative. The man, the myth, the legend. The pinnacle of modern day sorcery.
Needless to say, the trepidation that had formed in my stomach as a lead ball got all the heavier.
Today's breakthrough had come in the form of an eye that formed behind him, ripping my domain to shreds with its presence, but before I could get a good look at it, the eye dissolved to dust.
"That was it!" I screamed in excitement.
Gojo looked down on his hands with something I couldn't place on his face.
"Painting on air, huh?" he asked himself.
"So do you have it now?" I asked.
"I do. Now let's get back to work," he said, taking his fighting stance. I nodded and formed my fingers into the requisite symbol. The Divine General announced his presence with the same stillness in the air that had been there the very first time I summoned him.
We shot at him as one.
**December 21st 2018**
"Hey," I said, walking into the room Shoko had claimed for herself in the Zenin compound. She was a bad teacher when it came to explaining the Reverse Cursed Technique, but she was still the best user we had in our group so when Okkotsu and Gojo had had questions they had gone to her for guidance. I had abstained from it but now there was a question in my mind that I doubted I could address without getting her help. I'd asked Okkotsu already and he had said he couldn't see how it would be possible. She was my next point of call before I went bugging Gojo as he prepared for the fight of his life.
"Megumi-san. What do you want?" she asked, blowing out from one of her trademark cigarettes. In the ashtray next to her, there were already dozens of stubs there. I looked at them with a grimace. She went through four packs on a light day for her. Considering the Zenin clan was hosting, I wondered how much this addiction was going to cost me. Well, probably not more than Hakari and Panda's appetites would.
"I have a question," I said.
"Well, obviously. Not like you would have come here for the joy of my company, would you?" I watched her, trying to figure out if that was genuine resentment on her face or just sarcasm.
"At least you don't need constant healing like the rest of them do," she continued with a sigh.
"Come on. Take a seat. Not like we have all day," she said. I, on her behest, took the seat right opposite her. Her eyes had shadows that were impossibly deep. Especially when one considered the kind of effect that mastering Reverse Cursed Technique had on the body's need to rest. I wondered just how little sleep she'd been getting and for just how long.
"I have a question about positive energy and cursed techniques," I said.
"Pursuing reversal?" she asked.
"No. I have that figured out already. What I want to know is if it is possible to maintain a regular cursed technique and then use positive energy at the same time. For example. If I use my shadow to hold down a cursed spirit, can I use it as a vector for applying positive energy to the curse?" I asked.
"Hmmm. Well, you would need to be able to pass your positive energy through the space occupied by your regular cursed energy without one cancelling the other, but that is just a matter of control and something that should be possible. But what makes it implausible is that you cannot mould both positive energy and cursed energy at the same time. Think about it like trying to look both left and right at the same time. Maybe you can stretch your eyes to the point where you could feasibly have both in your sights, but your brain will still only compute one image and ignore the other. That is just the way things work. Moulding positive energy and regular cursed energy at the same time is even harder than that because it is not just trying to focus on two hard things at the same time, but also doing so while realising that if they come in contact with each other then the cursed technique itself will shatter into a million pieces. Positive energy can be corrosive like that," she said, making a show of lifting her hand. Nothing happened and I took that to mean she was trying to show what would happen if I tried to do both at the same time.
"Noted. Thank you," I said, feeling disappointment bubble in my gut. That would have been one way to deal with the cursed spirit army that Kenjaku would bring to bear. It seemed I would have to do things the old fashioned way.
"Hold on," she said. And then I stopped short of her door. She took out a wad of papers and began to write on them, her hand blazing across the space.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"My classmates were Satoru Gojo and Suguru Geto. I am not entirely lacking ambition, you know? I came up with my own theories for how my talent for positive energy could be applied in combat against cursed spirits en masse beyond just touching them and pumping their bodies full of it. Of course, I had to abandon most of my practice once Geto went rogue and then I was practically locked up in the school because the Higher-Ups felt I was too useful to risk losing to Geto's madness," she said. I was shocked at the last bit more than anything she had said.
"They feared that you would have joined him?" I asked.
"There is nothing I wouldn't have done for my boys," she said, thrusting the papers into my hands. I looked down to see them full of equations and scribbled diagrams. That had been fast.
"That is the best I can do for you. If you can't figure it out then you can never really learn it," she said, shooing me away after that.
"Thank you," I whispered before opening the door and then coming face to face with Itadori.
"Itadori?"
"Megumi?"
A/N: And another training chapter bites the dust. Only one more before we get the showdowns, I promise. I doubt I'll write the Gojo and Sukuna fight though. We followed Megumi's POV all the way here and I probably will stick to that. It's also not like I can write a better Gojo v Sukuna than the one Gege gave us (except the offscreen ending).Next three chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.