Chapter 29: When the Shameless One Meets the Transparent World
"Isn't this a little unfair?"
Satoru Gojo stood at the center of the training room with one hand in his pocket and the other lazily beckoning Yami forward.
His handsome face, now free of the usual blindfold, wore that same infuriatingly casual smile.
The air around him seemed perfectly still.
There was no obvious surge of Cursed Energy, no grand display of pressure, and yet the absolute sense of untouchable distance radiating from him was more despair inducing than any visible defense.
This was Limitless.
The paradox of Achilles and the tortoise made real.
By manipulating Cursed Energy at an absurdly precise level, Gojo created an infinitely converging space around himself. No matter how close an attack got, it would be slowed forever, endlessly approaching without ever truly arriving.
"An insurmountable barrier..."
Yami repeated the words softly.
Shiranui hung loosely in his hand, its tip lightly brushing the floor.
Unlike when he had faced Sukuna, there was no violent killing intent pouring out of him now. At this moment, he was calm to the point of stillness.
During those earlier meditative sessions, what he had refined was not just his body, but his mind.
Absolute control over his breathing.
Absolute quiet within himself.
"Haa..."
A stream of white mist flowed from Yami's mouth and nose, condensing instantly in the cool underground air.
He did not unleash Thunder Breathing's explosive speed.
He simply raised his sword and settled into a stance that looked plain, balanced, and utterly free of waste.
Sun Breathing, First Form: Dance.
"Oh?"
Gojo tilted his head slightly, clearly amused.
"That's a very orthodox opening stance."
He did not move.
He did not even pretend to defend.
"Come on. Show me what you've got."
In the next instant, Yami moved.
There was no thunderous shockwave.
No dazzling burst of light.
This strike was defined by one thing alone.
Speed.
So fast that no afterimage had time to form before the blade was already in front of Gojo's face.
Clang!
A crisp metallic sound rang through the room.
But it was not the sound of steel striking flesh.
It was duller than that, heavier, as if the sword had collided with an invisible wall of glass.
The edge stopped just a few centimeters from Gojo's nose.
An unseen barrier.
No matter how much force Yami pushed into the strike, the blade could not advance even one inch further.
"This is Infinity."
Gojo grinned and even leaned his face closer, as though mocking the distance between them.
"How does it feel? Pretty hopeless, right?"
Yami said nothing.
He held the sword exactly where it was, but his gaze was no longer focused on Gojo's face.
His pupils shifted ever so slightly.
In the depths of those dark red eyes, something flickered.
That was the hint of comprehension he had grasped during meditation.
The first, unstable seed of the Transparent World.
In that black and white stillness, everything flowed.
Everything revealed itself.
And now, in Yami's eyes, the Infinity before him was no longer an impossible wall.
It was a structure.
A formula.
An intricate, endlessly layered flow of Cursed Energy.
And if there was flow, then there was rhythm.
If there was rhythm, then there was a path.
And if there was a path, then there was weakness.
"Sun Breathing..."
Shiranui began to hum in his hand.
Flames ignited along the once black blade.
But unlike before, they did not burst outward violently. Instead, they compressed themselves onto a single line, tightly bound to the sword's edge.
The surrounding air began to distort.
That distortion resonated strangely against the Limitless space before Gojo.
"Hm?"
The smile on Gojo's face faded by a fraction.
He could feel it.
Maintaining Infinity had suddenly become slightly more costly.
Only slightly.
To anyone else, the change would have been negligible.
But this was Infinity.
The strongest passive defense in the world.
A near perfect technique whose maintenance cost, in Gojo's hands, was almost zero.
And yet Yami's blade had caused even the slightest fluctuation.
That alone was outrageous.
"So that heat is interfering with the flow of Cursed Energy itself...?"
The thought flashed through Gojo's mind.
Before he could examine it further, Yami's second strike arrived.
Sun Breathing, Second Form: Clear Blue Sky.
The blade traced a perfect circle, like a burning sun rising into existence.
Again, the strike was blocked by Infinity.
But at the exact instant the blade touched the barrier, Yami's wrist trembled.
Not out of strain.
Out of control.
The sword edge began vibrating at terrifying frequency, thousands of micro oscillations in a single instant.
Combined with the concentrated heat of Sun Breathing, that vibration rode along the current of Cursed Energy and drilled straight into the inner workings of Infinity.
Zzzzzzt.
The absolutely still space in front of Gojo emitted a high, piercing resonance.
Gojo's pupils contracted.
He saw it.
In front of Yami's blade, the supposedly inviolable Infinity had rippled.
It was only a momentary disturbance.
But it was real.
"Got you."
Yami's voice suddenly sounded beside him.
The two were already face to face, yet the words seemed to bypass space itself and explode directly inside Gojo's mind.
I'm going to get cut.
That absurd thought flashed through the mind of the strongest sorcerer alive.
Almost on instinct, Gojo tilted his head back.
Swish.
A few strands of silver white hair drifted down through the air.
The training room fell into absolute silence.
In the corner, Yuji's mouth dropped open so far he did not even notice the popcorn spilling from his hands.
What had he just seen?
Gojo sensei.
The invincible Gojo sensei.
Had just gotten his hair cut.
"..."
Gojo slowly raised a hand and touched his forehead.
There was no blood.
At the final instant, the deeper layers of his defense had still prevented the blade from reaching skin.
But the hair had undeniably been severed.
Which meant one thing.
For that brief instant, Yami's sword had truly cut through Infinity.
"That genuinely surprised me."
Gojo lowered his hand.
The first emotion on his face was surprise.
Then delight.
Then something close to exhilaration.
It was the excitement of seeing possibility.
The thrill of finding an opening in something that had seemed absolute.
"How did you do that?"
In an instant, he was back to sounding like an overly curious child. He leaned in far too close, staring at Yami with bright, fascinated eyes.
"You don't have Cursed Energy. But you still managed to interfere with my technique."
He tilted his head.
"Was that just swordsmanship? Just heat and control?"
Yami slowly sheathed Shiranui.
Click.
The faint red light in his eyes faded.
A deep wave of exhaustion crashed over him immediately.
That final strike had come at a price. Even forcing himself into the most primitive threshold of the Transparent World had nearly drained him dry.
"It wasn't interference."
He took a slow breath to steady the blood roaring through his body.
"It was following the flow."
"Following the flow?"
"Any technique, as long as it exists, has movement."
Yami pointed lightly to his own eyes.
"I still can't see yours clearly. Not completely."
"But for an instant, I felt the breathing of your Cursed Energy."
He looked down at Shiranui's hilt.
"If I follow that breath, then even Infinity has gaps."
Gojo froze for a second.
Then he burst out laughing.
"Hahahaha!"
The sound rang through the room, wild and delighted.
"Breathing with Cursed Energy? That is such a weirdly perfect way to describe it."
He laughed so hard he nearly bent over.
"If those old geezers researching countermeasures and output formulas heard that, they'd probably drop dead on the spot."
Eventually, he straightened again.
This time, when he looked at Yami, the playfulness in his eyes gave way to something much more serious.
The brilliant blue of the Six Eyes seemed to look straight through him.
"Yami."
His voice was lower now.
"Do you understand what that means?"
Yami remained silent.
Gojo answered anyway.
"It means that if you keep honing this..."
"One day, you may truly be able to cut through anything."
His tone sharpened slightly.
"Space."
"Concepts."
"Maybe even fate itself."
The room grew still again.
The words lingered in the air.
Yami tightened his grip on the hilt.
Fate.
He thought of Yoriichi Tsugikuni.
Of tragedy repeated over generations.
Of the people who, in this world too, were always being crushed beneath some cruel, prewritten ending.
Yuji's execution.
Shibuya's future.
Everything that was supposed to go wrong.
If that was fate, then he would cut it down.
"Sensei."
Yami raised his head.
His eyes were calm again, but something inside them had hardened into resolve.
"Those things are too far away."
He glanced toward the corner of the room.
"Right now, I just want to know if we can pause Yuji's special training."
Gojo followed his gaze.
In the corner, Yuji was currently being dragged across the floor by Jukai and beaten so badly his screams had degraded into high pitched piglike shrieks.
"Gojo sensei! Yami! Help me! This teddy bear is actually trying to murder me!"
Gojo looked at the scene for a second.
Then waved a hand with complete insincerity.
"He's fine. It's training."
He nodded to himself.
"It's helping him learn emotional control."
Yami let out a quiet sigh.
Then, after a pause, he looked back at Gojo.
"By the way, sensei."
"Now that this part of my training has produced results..."
His fingers slid lightly along Shiranui's hilt.
"Shouldn't we move on to the next stage?"
Gojo raised an eyebrow.
"The next stage?"
"Practical combat."
Yami's voice was calm, but it carried a restrained hunger now.
"Cutting air and hair is getting a little boring."
He lifted his eyes.
"Do you have anything sturdier?"
The smile on Gojo's face deepened instantly.
"Oh?"
That was no longer the smile of a teacher testing a student.
That was the smile of a man who had just been offered something extremely fun.
"Something durable?"
He rolled his shoulders slightly and stepped forward.
"Perfect."
.....
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