[The words came out half-whispered, dazed, carrying the disbelief of someone who'd just been blindsided by fate's sense of humor.]
["I didn't expect this. Not this technique."]
["What's wrong with this technique?"]
[You were surprised by his reaction.]
[Between Gojo and his command over infinity, Suguru Geto and his legions of thousands of Cursed Spirits, and your own ability to copy anything that existed, you'd assumed the ceiling for absurd techniques had already been reached.]
[These two dogs were impressive, sure, and irresistible to a child, but making the "strongest" wear that expression seemed like overkill.]
["What's wrong? Are you playing dumb or do you genuinely not know?"]
[Gojo snapped back to the present. He glanced at Megumi, who was lost in dog-petting bliss, then moved to your side and dropped his voice, a rare weight settling into his tone.]
["You know why the Gojo Clan and the Zenin Clan have such bad blood?"]
[You shook your head.]
["Way back in the Edo period, maybe even the Keicho era. The head of the Gojo Clan at that time had the same loadout I do. Six Eyes plus Limitless."]
[He tapped a finger beside his own eye, a wry smile playing at his lips.]
["A monster on my level."]
["And the head of the Zenin Clan at that time wielded the same technique this kid's carrying. The Ten Shadows Technique."]
[He paused. His gaze drifted back to the two seemingly harmless Divine Dogs, and something complicated moved behind his eyes.]
["Their match ended in mutual annihilation."]
[Your pupils dilated. Your voice pitched up before you could stop it.]
["Mutual annihilation?!"]
[You looked toward Megumi. Both dogs were competing for his attention now, and the boy had one arm wrapped around each. The white Divine Dog panted with its tongue lolling out, goofy and content. The black one swept its tail against Megumi's shins.]
[The absolute defense of Six Eyes and Limitless, the pinnacle of jujutsu, had fought to a draw with a technique whose summons looked like oversized pets?]
["This is the thing the old man at the Zenin Clan has been dreaming about getting his hands on."]
[Gojo reached out and closed his fist around empty air, as though snatching an invisible thread of destiny.]
["These two Divine Dogs are the starter kit. The ceiling of this technique... might have the potential to kill me."]
[His delivery was light, but the gravity etched into his profile said everything. He wasn't joking.]
["I see..."]
[You inhaled slowly, a storm raging behind your ribs.]
[No wonder Toji had called this his trump card against the Zenin Clan.]
[Trump card was an understatement. This was a nuclear warhead still inside its silo, waiting to grow up.]
[You watched Megumi, half-buried under affectionate dogs, his face finally showing the unguarded, genuine smile of a child his age, and the weight in your chest doubled.]
[Six years old. He had no idea what sat on those narrow shoulders. A power heavy enough to shake the entire history of jujutsu.]
["Alright! Unboxing complete!"]
[Gojo clapped his hands together with a crack so loud both Divine Dogs dissolved into black mud and vanished into the shadows. Megumi's arms closed on empty air. He looked up, crestfallen.]
["Now that we've confirmed it's the Ten Shadows Technique, we're going to have to scrap the whole plan and start over."]
[Gojo pushed his sunglasses back into place, restored to his punchable, insufferable default, and strode over to thoroughly wreck Megumi's already disastrous sea-urchin hair.]
["Also, this proves one thing."]
[He raised a thumb, flashed a blinding grin at both of you.]
["That deadbeat Toji really did leave us one hell of a surprise this time!"]
["Let's move, Megumi! If we don't get back soon, the water Tsumiki put on is going to boil dry! Tonight I'm eating Hayase into bankruptcy!"]
[You stood where you were, watching the last light of the setting sun filter through the dissolving Curtain and fall across their retreating backs.]
["Hey, Satoru, slow down! And that card is yours, remember? If you max it out, that's your money!"
---
[A scroll reeking of ancient mildew, its edges yellowed with age, landed unceremoniously at your feet.]
[If the old guard at the Zenin Clan had witnessed this, they'd have hemorrhaged on the spot. Documents containing the Big Three Sorcerer Families' most closely guarded secrets were being tossed around like scrap paper, courtesy of Satoru Gojo's complete lack of reverence.]
["Here. This is the Gojo Clan's most detailed strategy guide on the Ten Shadows Technique."]
[Gojo sat cross-legged on a nearby stone step, a lollipop clamped between his teeth, words half-garbled around it.]
["They were rivals, after all. The technique that took out my ancestor in a mutual kill? The elders back home picked it apart down to the bone. Funny thing is, when it comes to the Zenin Clan's hereditary technique, our records are probably more thorough than theirs."]
[By moonlight and the glow of the field lamps, you unrolled the document.]
[Taken at face value, the Ten Shadows Technique held the power to use shadows as a medium, summoning ten Shikigami of entirely distinct forms and abilities.]
[The starter guides, Divine Dog. Nue, for aerial reconnaissance and lightning strikes. Great Serpent, lurking assassin from the dark. Toad, with its long tongue for restraint. Max Elephant, crushing pressure and high-powered torrents. Rabbit Escape, nearly impossible to pin down. Round Deer, capable of Reverse Cursed Technique healing. Piercing Ox, unmatched in straight-line destructive force. Tiger Funeral, still shrouded in mystery...]
[And then the last one. Its name alone, brushed in ink on aged paper, bled dread and despair through the page. The ultimate trump card representing absolute taboo and annihilation: Eight-Handled Sword Divergent Sila Divine General Mahoraga.]
["Besides the two Divine Dogs you get for free at the start, the rest you have to earn by fighting them yourself inside the shadow world. Think of it like a solo dungeon boss fight, if this were a game."]
[Gojo pointed at the pitch-black shadow pooling beneath your feet.]
[His words led into the most dangerous aspect of the Ten Shadows Technique: "Taming."]
[The sorcerer had to enter a ritual of pure, unassisted single combat. No outside help. Only their own strength and whatever Shikigami they'd already tamed could be brought to bear against each new Shikigami in its feral, rampaging state.]
[Only by defeating it in a life-or-death struggle, completing the taming ritual, could the sorcerer claim it as part of their shadow and summon it freely.]
[A brutal system of survival of the fittest. A path of advancement reserved for the strong alone.]
[But what shook you even deeper, what drew grudging admiration from somewhere in the pit of your chest, was the technique's most domineering and tragic mechanic: Technique Inheritance. Or perhaps more accurately, Destruction and Fusion.]
[In the conventional understanding of jujutsu, if an ordinary Shikigami was destroyed, the sorcerer could simply reconstitute it by gathering Cursed Energy and summoning it again.]
[The Ten Shadows Technique played by different rules. Once a tamed Shikigami suffered a fatal blow beyond its threshold in combat, once it was truly destroyed, that Shikigami died for real. It could never be summoned again.]
[Yet the brilliance of the Ten Shadows lay in what happened next. A destroyed Shikigami didn't simply vanish into nothing.]
[Its Cursed Energy core, the special abilities it possessed in life, didn't dissipate into the ether. Instead, they crystallized into pure technique-rules and were fully inherited by the surviving Shikigami.]
[That was why, for a technique that ostensibly summoned ten different Shikigami, the Gojo Clan had filled an entire volume of records.]
[The text documented not only how the Ten Shadows Technique's Shikigami changed based on the total Cursed Energy the user channeled into them, but also catalogued several different Zenin Clan bearers of the technique across generations, recording how the destruction of specific Shikigami had affected inheritance patterns and resulting abilities in the survivors.]
[Armed with the intelligence Gojo had provided, you began attempting to clear this dungeon within the simulation state of Phantom Night Parade.]
[Between your formidable hand-to-hand combat skills and battle instincts, the earlier Shikigami proved challenging but never insurmountable.]
[Rabbit Escape, Nue, Great Serpent, Toad, and Max Elephant fell in sequence. Their tamings completed one after another, until you came face to face with a beast that didn't believe in rules.]
[The moment you formed the hand-shadow to summon Piercing Ox and initiate its taming ritual, what greeted you was a linear charge so violent it tore the air itself apart.]
[A bull the size of a small truck. No tricks, no subtlety. It charged in a straight line with inexhaustible stamina.]
[But the Ten Shadows Technique's design granted it acceleration without limit. At peak velocity, those razor horns became an unstoppable lance.]
[In that split-second of mortal exchange, you made a tactical call.]
[You summoned Nue, hoping to use its electrified wings to harass Piercing Ox from above, disrupting its line of sight long enough for you to find an angle of attack from the flank.]
[You underestimated the sheer velocity of pure, distilled violence.]
[The instant Nue dove to unleash its lightning strike, Piercing Ox accelerated with a force that defied physics. In that single heartbeat, it broke the sound barrier.]
[Blood and black shadow-fluid detonated in midair. Your pupils contracted to pinpoints as you watched Nue, your companion through battle after battle, get impaled and shredded by those massive horns without a shred of contest. Its dying shriek ended in a pool of black sludge that would never take shape again.]
[A destroyed Shikigami. Under normal circumstances, a devastating loss for any sorcerer. But under the Ten Shadows Technique's rules, brutal and merciful in equal measure, death was not the end.]