[Before Gojo could erupt, you turned your gaze to Geto.]
["As for Geto's Cursed Spirit Manipulation, it looks like simple summoning on the surface, but it's actually a technique that requires subduing a Cursed Spirit before you can command it."]
["Though I am curious about one thing..."]
[You leaned forward slightly and asked the question that made Geto's pupils contract.]
["Since the principle involves swallowing Cursed Spirits to subjugate them... that taste, like choking down a rag soaked in someone else's vomit, how exactly do you stomach it?"]
[Dead silence.]
[Yaga's jaw hung open. The chalk slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor.]
[Shoko sat bolt upright, staring at you like she'd seen a ghost.]
["You little..."]
[Gojo wasn't angry. If anything, his teeth flashed white in a grin. The look of a hunter who'd spotted new prey.]
["Sitting there the whole time without a peep, and you were studying us like specimens under a microscope?"]
["Your presence is so low we instinctively tuned out your gaze... Gutsy move."]
[You settled back in your chair, pushed your glasses up, and slipped back into that harmless expression.]
["Demonstration complete."]
["Though I should note, hardware limitations prevent me from perfectly replicating Gojo's Limitless, and I can't swallow Cursed Spirits the way Geto does. Not yet."]
["But give me enough time, and there are no secrets in this classroom."]
[Your words convinced all four people in the room, Yaga included. But only you knew the truth was a fifty-fifty blend of fact and fiction.]
[Phantom Night Parade could extract technique data from everyone present, yes. But at your current level of mastery, a full analysis took far longer than you'd implied.]
[Especially against Special Grade sorcerers like Gojo and Geto. The decryption work would be staggeringly slow.]
[Everything you'd rattled off so casually came from three years spent as a trainee Assistant Manager in your previous simulation, living alongside them, observing them day after day.]
[Gojo and Geto never saw you as a combatant, but they acknowledged your value in intelligence gathering. To them, you were an accessory, much like Shoko. Useful when the occasion called for it.]
[Yaga, the educator, placed greater weight on your technique's potential. He pressed further.]
["This reading ability of Phantom Night Parade... does it work on Cursed Spirits as well?"]
[A beat of thought, then he added the clarification, perhaps concerned that someone so freshly awakened might lack the foundational knowledge.]
["Entities like the one you killed that night."]
[You pretended to consider the question, rubbing your chin before answering.]
["I believe so. Before I killed it, I could feel information flowing through its Cursed Energy. But after it died, the signal vanished..."]
[Your answer didn't surprise Yaga. It only reinforced his assessment of your technique's value.]
[Not everyone could reach the Special Grade heights of Gojo and Geto. For the vast majority of sorcerers, Grade 1 was the ceiling of a career.]
[And Yaga saw in you the clear potential to reach it.]
[Your technique, even measured against the full roster of Grade 1 Jujutsu Sorcerers, was remarkably versatile.]
[Yet even after displaying that potential, Gojo and Geto showed no signs of true acceptance. The quest remained incomplete.]
[As missions and training accumulated over the weeks that followed, you began to understand why.]
[Your technique was impressive in theory. In practice, standing next to those two left you with nothing to do.]
[The moment a mission began, Gojo and Geto seized control of every engagement. Under their overwhelming firepower, there was no room for your analysis to matter.]
[Even investigative work like tracking Residual Cursed Energy to locate Cursed Spirits became pointless. Those eyes saw everything before you could open your mouth.]
[The handful of encounters with Curse Users played out the same way. To them, you were an accessory. A trinket that might, conceivably, perhaps, prove useful someday.]
[It wasn't that they didn't consider you a companion. Gojo never believed he needed help from anyone. Geto saw protecting the weak as his personal duty. Neither placed you on equal footing.]
[You had no quick fix for this. The gap in raw power was an objective, immovable fact.]
[But you didn't waste that year.]
[Spending the vast majority of your time alongside them, you poured countless hours into analyzing Gojo's, Geto's, and Shoko's techniques. You reached the point where you could perform crude, unpolished versions of each.]
[Without the Six Eyes, your copied Limitless couldn't hold for even half a second. You lacked the processing power to run the precise calculations and the efficiency to squeeze every drop from your Cursed Energy, let alone the sheer reserves to brute-force it.]
[Whenever Gojo caught you collapsing from exhaustion after another failed attempt at replicating his Limitless, he'd stroll over, pat your shoulder, and offer his condolences.]
["Don't worry about it. Short-lived can still be cute."]
[Replicating Cursed Spirit Manipulation brought a different set of problems.]
[On one hand, your proficiency was too low to control higher-grade Cursed Spirits, compounded by the fact that you still hadn't built up a tolerance for that revolting taste.]
[On the other, the issue was rooted in how Phantom Night Parade itself operated.]
"How Phantom Night Parade operates?" Touma paused at that line, caught off guard.
[In nature, Phantom Night Parade functioned similarly to the Simulator. It existed as a carrier through which you replicated other techniques. This meant that when Phantom Night Parade deactivated, every technique running through it shut down as well.]
[For Cursed Spirit Manipulation, the implications were devastating. You could use the copied technique while Phantom Night Parade was active, subjugating and commanding Cursed Spirits. But the moment you switched it off, every spirit you'd stored was purged. Gone.]
[Still, on a relative scale, the Cursed Spirit Manipulation replica performed far better than the Limitless copy. At minimum, you could temporarily subjugate low-level Cursed Spirits and use them for reconnaissance.]
[And compared to both, Phantom Night Parade's replication of Reverse Cursed Technique was by far the smoothest. The output still lagged behind Shoko's, but you were, without question, the second person at Tokyo Jujutsu High capable of using Reverse Cursed Technique on others.]