Coping.

There is a discord for this fic. It has Live Updates about chapter progress and when they are completed, pictures for characters, lots of tidbits about the story, among other things. Join at https: // discord.gg / aWZ9qX9mAW

Also, apologies for the delayed update. As the Goated among you would know or if you joined the discord, you'd know that the Elden Ring DLC came out on the 20th. So that stole my life for a while lol.

But I have beaten all the bosses and got everything that is to be gotten so I've gotten it mostly out of my system, BTW just needed to brag about how I was among the first to beat the final boss lol, that fucker was a bitch and half.

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The next day.

Megumi was staring at a card that was laying on the table in front of him, he had a dead expression on his face.

The card was a sorcerer ID, his new one. After Akari made her report, it seems like Jujutsu Headquarters worked fast. On the ID it had his name and picture with some of his details.

With big bold letters it said "Grade 2 Sorcerer", his survival and exorcising of the grade 1 cursed womb had jumped him from a grade 3 sorcerer and straight to a grade 2.

He heard someone talking but between his inner thoughts and brooding, he could barely hear them.

"-gumi. Meg-... MEGUMI!" A pair of hands slammed down at the table in front of him, causing him to jump.

He looked up to see Tsumiki who looked at him with concern in her eyes.

"Megumi, please talk to me. I'm worried sick ok?"

Megumi looked her in the eyes and deflected. "I'm fine Tsumiki, I'm just tired." 

"No you're not! Listen, they told me what happened there, it wasn't your fault ok? No one could have predicted that there was a cursed womb, and even then. You're still alive and you managed to take it out! A 1st grade curse!" Tsumiki tried to cheer him up by mentioning his accomplishment, this worked for a moment as he allowed himself to be happy for a moment before the face of Asahi came to his mind.

The blood flowing down his mouth, his flames sputtering out, his body going limp and then his final words.

"Oh… Guess this is it, hope you live Fushiguro-kun."

It haunted him.

A soft pair of hands held him by his chin and lifted his head, forcing him to look into the eyes of their owner, Tsumiki looked into his eyes for a moment before her mouth shifted into a breathtakingly warm smile.

"Tell me. What's on your mind?"

"Nyx is gone."

"Yeah, he is. But it is the burden of the living to keep going after losing their loved ones, Nyx is gone yes, but it is now your burden to keep going on. It's what he would've wanted."

"Okay…"

The hands then pulled him to a tight hug, it was warm and within it all the worries of his life seemed to just fade away. The two of them stayed in that pose for a while, neither saying anything yet it was as if too many words were told.

They fell asleep on the couch, cuddled up together as within that warm room, all the troubles of the world faded away.

A few minutes later a bright flash of blue appears within the room, though Megumi and Tsumiki were oblivious. The flash faded away revealing Gojo, who was about to say something but then saw the two siblings cuddling on the couch.

A warm and honest smile appeared on the older man's face as he took a blanket and covered the two with it, and he then teleported away.

…

"So you lost a teammate huh? It's unfortunate but there was nothing you could've done." Kusakabe stated as he was sharpening his blade, they were in the middle of a lesson in maintaining your blade.

"But I was there, I could have done something! … I could've saved him." Megumi was downcast at what he perceived as his own failure.

"No you could not, look at me Megumi. If he died then it was his mistake, you should not be at fault for someone else's sloppiness. From what you told me, he left the cursed womb still alive when he turned to you?" The gruff man questioned.

Megumi simply nodded in response which caused the older man to grunt as he dipped his blade into some water and took it back to the grinding stone.

"Then he was completely at fault, and before you say anything. Yes he was, he was the more experienced sorcerer. And it's Sorcery 101, you never turn your back on a curse unless you are sure they are dead."

Kusakabe then recalled a mission that he carried out back in his youth. "Lost a partner too one time, to the same mistake no less. Poor bastard assumed the curse was dead after he cut off its legs. Just for it to turn around and cover him head to toe in acid, he died in seconds."

Megumi seemed a bit disturbed at that story.

"My main point bein', it ain't your fault kid. He made a mistake and died, you just have to make sure you don't make the same mistake and carry on with your life. Be better, be wiser, be more willful than you were yesterday. That's all any of us can do."

…

"So, tell me. What happened in that building?" 

"Why are you asking me, didn't they give you a report?" Megumi was slightly tense and defensive.

"Well yeah~, they did. But I wanna hear it from you!" The white haired man exclaimed theatrically.

"... fine."

Megumi went on to explain what happened during the mission, from taking out dozens of 4th grade curses, half a dozen grade 3 curses, a grade 2 and finally beating a 1st grade cursed womb by dragging it within his abyss and ripping it to shreds within it by employing Divine Dog: Totality.

"Ah, I see impressive. You took out the cursed womb and figured out how to employ your inventory into attacks. That's pretty impressive, must be why the Jujutsu Headquarters wouldn't shut up about you on my phone." Satoru mused.

"... Did they now?" 

"Yeah! They were all like, 'He has to report to us right now!' and 'When will he be ready to go on another mission!', I just told them to get lost and if they try to get in touch with you, I'll nuke the nearest Jujutsu tech building." The white haired man laughed out.

The younger boy grew a smile on his face before muttering out "Thanks Satoru."

"You're welcome."

They sat in a comfortable silence for a moment before Gojo spoke up.

"Do you wanna talk about it?" 

"Sure…"

They sat in silence for a moment before something nudged Megumi's hands. Turning to it, he found it to be Blizzard. He quietly pet the now lone dog who then shuffled closer, placing his large head within the boy's lap.

"Yeah, I miss him too, boy…"

Blizzard whimpered in his lap for a moment before drifting off to sleep.

"It's just… in that moment, against the cursed womb. After it got Asahi, it was all so sudden. I-I froze up. And Nyx saved me."

"... I'm not going to lie to you and say that it was fine for you to freeze up, but in the end it doesn't matter. The world of sorcery doesn't wait for anyone, you need to be better, stronger and faster. You froze up now, so the next time something like this happens, you need to react faster and faster." Gojo explained.

"You lost a teammate, it's unfortunate but it's the true reality of our world, the weak are left behind as the strong lead the way." Gojo looked into Megumi's eyes before uttering words that shook him to his core.

"A man that used to be my Best Friend once told me it is the burden of the strong to carry the weight of the weak on our shoulders as they cannot do the same for themselves, it is your burden as well Megumi."

"You might've failed today, but next time you need to be so much stronger that the curses hide and pretend to be dead in your presence." Gojo declared.

Megumi's eyes shook for a moment as the reality of those words sunk in, then his eyes steeled themselves. His cursed energy surged in response to his will.

"Yes, you're right. I need to be stronger so that this never happens again."

…

A few days later, at 6 pm.

Megumi was swinging Kage at the air, sweat could be seen dripping down his face. His hands had calloused severely from holding the grip so hard for so long, drops of blood could be seen building up within his grip.

His blade was glowing with a supernatural light, his cursed energy had completely covered the blade as it burned a deep black.

His grunts of excursion turned into grunts of pain until he couldn't hold the blade anymore, it slipped from his hands as he fell to his knees in exhaustion, the blood that was once squeezed within his grip now flowed freely, staining his hands and the ground beneath him a deep crimson. 

"Damn it… I can't stop yet." Megumi pulled himself to his feet with shaking knees and started walking towards a nearby fallen tree and sat on it, he then looked towards the sky to witness the setting sun.

Looking at the tree trump on the side you would see that it had been cleanly sliced in half, that being the reason why it fell in the first place.

"I was wondering what that noise was, it was you, Megumi." The boy looked down to see Shoko walking up to him.

She was smoking a cigarette, she was sporting a white lab coat over a blue turtle-neck sweat shirt and darker navy blue pants that reached just above her ankle. She finished her outfit with cream-coloured high-heeled shoes. Her hair was also much longer than before and the lines under eyes seemed to convey that she had not had enough sleep.

[Image (In Discord)]

The older woman looked him up and down before she said, "Damn, you look like you've had just as much sleep as me. Are you doing ok kiddo?".

"I'm fine, but why are you here? Shouldn't you be at med school right now?" Megumi deflected.

"I'm on break right now, I heard what happened from Satoru so I came here to check on you." She held his bleeding hands with her own and channelled her reverse curse technique through them.

The flow of positive energy flowing through his hands began as his pain and exhaustion began to also fade away.

"... Thanks." Megumi muttered as he took back his hands and rubbed them, immersing himself in the warm feeling of the positive energy.

"Hey, Megumi. Take this." He saw a hand reach out to him with a lit cigarette between two fingers. Shoko had taken her own and passed it to him.

"Really?" Megumi asked incredulously.

"Really. Life is short and it's a bitch, we're Jujutsu Sorcerers, no point in trying to act human. If you can battle with monsters beyond human comprehension, you can smoke a little before you're 18." 

"Ok then…" The raven-haired boy grabbed the cigarette and started smoking it, coughing for a bit but quickly getting used to it. Shoko simply sat next to him then took out another one for herself and joined him.

Tension slowly left Megumi's body as he relaxed in a quiet silence with Shoko, simply enjoying the sunset and their shared company.

"You wanna talk about it?" 

"No, not really."

"Hmm… 'kay."

Megumi finished his cigarette as he threw it to the ground and stomped on it. They spent some more time in a comfortable silence.

"... You got another one?"

"What happened to being too young?"

The younger boy grunted and recalled "'no point in trying to act human', right?"

Shoko snorted before she took out another one and lit it before she gave it to him. 

"Thanks…" 

"No problem."

…

"You sure you wanna stay for this Shoko?" Megumi asked as he brought his hand up in a pose. 

"Well I'm curious on how your subjugation ritual works Megumi, besides I have full confidence that you'll take it out easily." Shoko said as she leaned on a nearby boulder that had been cut down to size by Megumi earlier. 

On top of the same boulder was Nue ready to take off to the skies and provide support to any combatants. Gamma was on top of a nearby tree, hiding in wait with some sharpened branches that were premade at the ready to attack the next shikigami. Blizzard was on his lonesome sitting in attention at his master's side.

"If you say so." 

'This Universe might not be the same as the original one, I tried to summon Round Deer a few days ago to rush getting RCT since it would have saved Asahi. But it didn't work, the summoning ritual failed.' Megumi thought as he remembered his repeated attempts to summon Round Deer.

'Looks like whatever sent me here doesn't want me to take any shortcuts, I have to get through and subjugate all my Shikigami in order. Max Elephant then Rabbit Escape, after that Piercing Ox and Round Deer. Then Tiger Funeral and finally the biggest headache; Divine General Mahoraga.'

Megumi shook his head to dispel those thoughts and laid one hand on top of the other and adjusted his fingers to create a shadow puppet of an elephant head.

"Max Elephant." 

His shadows morphed and exploded in size, it shifted ahead of him and grew even further in size. Then the shadows exploded revealing a gigantic beast.

Max Elephant is a huge Pink elephant with Black markings on its forehead, the top of its head, its back, and its knees. It had long sharp tusks that were ready to impale any reckless opponent and its trunk had water dripping out of it.

The Elephant let out a large trumpeting sound to announce its arrival, before looking directly at its summoner, Megumi, and charging with its tusks pointed at him.

The boy readied Kage and jumped to the side, allowing the charging beast to just miss him by an inch, Gamma, not allowing this overreach pass him by without punishing it grabbed a spear and threw it at the elephant with blinding speeds. The spear that was preloaded with Megumi's cursed energy pierced deep within the beast's hide, wounding it but not enough to do any lasting damage.

The elephant was angered and turned around, before coiling its trunk for a moment and then letting loose a veritable tide of water that threatened to wash away a chunk of the forest. The attack was aimed at Megumi who was still the closest and had Blizzard with him to boot. 

However, Nue did not stand by as he dived towards his master and grabbed him by his shoulders and lifted him away and over the tide. Blizzard, not needing to be ordered, jumped away onto a tree branch for a moment before jumping from it over the wave causing the branch to break from the force.

The elephant, not wanting to give its opponent a moment of rest, charged forward again towards the Toad knowing that he was the only one within range at the moment and was the only one to damage her. 

But before it could reach, Megumi dropped on top of it with his blade glowing a vibrant shadowy Black with added sparks of electricity flowing through it with the help of Nue and stabbed right into the top of its front shoulder.

The elephant cried out in immense pain, as with Megumi's level of cursed energy reinforcement, electric burst damage from Nue, momentum and his physical strength, the blade bit deep within its body as its hilt touched the hide of the beast.

The beast was brought to its knees as the damage done by that attack was critical, almost crippling it entirely with a single well placed blow.

Taking advantage of his opponents moment of weakness he flipped a finger of his from its place pointed towards the elephant and pulled it upwards, beneath the beast an abyss opened as from within it, the great serpent lashed out and bit deep into its victim's body, its venom flowed rampantly around as he pulled the beast down and slammed it into the ground.

Choosing to go overkill and confirm the kill as his master pointed out that you should never assume an opponent is dead and make sure, he channelled cursed energy into his technique and called out his newest gained ability.

"Divine Dog: Totality." 

'I can't keep Totality up for as long as I want like I can keep my normal shikigami up, I'm not as used to the drain and the technique yet but eventually I should be able to sustain it for as long as I wish.'

Blizzard who was already running towards the action spontaneously grew in size and morphed into a bicolored bipedal wolf that jumped from his location and landed on top of the elephants head smashing it into the ground before jumping off, grabbing the beast's head with its two hands and Pulling back, struggling for a moment before the head was ripped from the victim's shoulders.

The elephant went limp for a moment and then started to fade away into dust, dropping Megumi who was on top of it to the ground.

Claps rang out in the forest as he turned around and saw Shoko clapping for him.

"Good work Megumi, that was almost scarily efficient. You and those shikigami of yours are a real unit." Shoko almost had a wistful look on her face, seeming almost nostalgic.

"Thanks." Megumi said as he wiped blood from his blade and then stored it back within his shadow in its sheath.

"Welp, I gotta go now. It's getting pretty late and I need some sleep." Shoko said as she put out a cigarette by stepping on it.

She came up to him and pulled out a new cigarette box before handing it to him. "Here, take this. If you ever feel stressed and need to take the edge off, there's no harm in doing so."

"I… Thanks Shoko, it's appreciated." Megumi put the box away into his shadow for later use.

"Bye, 'Gumi. Talk later!" The brown haired smoker said as she walked away.

He watched her walk away for a moment before he walked towards a large tree and sat down cross legged and started to meditate.

He focused within his technique into the very essence of his shikigami and into the inner workings of how Totality functioned. 

The ability to infuse the essence and power of another shikigami, another being into another perfectly was something completely unheard of outside the Ten Shadows technique and for the past few days he's been trying his best to understand how it works.

After a few hours, it became night and he could barely see, he had long unsummoned all his shikigami except Blizzard who he removed Totality from as it was draining. He was about to give up until it finally clicked.

The combined effort of channelling how Totality felt to use, his talent and experience with his technique over the past few years and using a previous example as a framework, he finally grasped the way to a new application for his Ten Shadows.

'This is all thanks to you, you fucking King of Conveniences. Without you using the Ten Shadows to its fullest extent, I would never have even thought of this.'

"Incarnation: Divine Dog."

Using what he remembered of Sukuna using the abilities of Mahoraga and Max Elephant without the need to manifest the shikigami as inspiration and through his hard work, he finally managed to unlock a new facet of the Ten Shadows that was never before seen.

On the top of Megumi's head, his hair shifted and moved a bit before 2 black wolf ears popped up, his teeth became sharper, his body grew more muscle as his eyes changed and shifted.

Suddenly he could hear all the sounds of every animal and creature within a mile, his sense of smell becoming hundreds of time stronger as when before he couldn't smell anything interesting his nose had picked up the sent of Shoko's perfume and could now instinctively tell which way she went purely from smell alone and finally where before he could hardly see anything, his new eyes picked up on every movement as he could almost see as well in the dark as he could in light.

"It worked! This'll be very helpful in fights and any other situation that might need some extra utility. Although I can't channel Totality into Blizzard right now so this technique is probably utilising Nyx's essence to Incarnate his abilities and form into myself."

He got up from his place and started looking around the world with a brand new perspective, Blizzard didn't seem to understand how his master grew ears like his but he could sense that his brother's essence flowed through his master as it once did through himself, which alone made him very excited.

Megumi then deactivated Incarnation, his new ears and minor transformations shifting away. 

"Hm, let's try this now." The former wolf boy closed his eyes.

"Incarnation: Nue."

His back started to shift and morph for a moment before a pair of large orange wings erupted from his back, completely ripping his shirt apart. However, Megumi could hardly bring himself to care.

"Haha, it worked!" Megumi then looked down at Blizzard's excited face before asking him.

"Do ya' wanna fly boy?" 

All he got in response were excited noises.

"OK!" Megumi grabbed the dog who had shifted to be much smaller at his whim so he could be grabbed and be held within his hands easily and flapped his wings.

Once, then twice then countless times as he took off to the skies with his loyal hound in hand while laughing his heart out.

"HAHAHA! LET'S FUCKING GO!"

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Author's Note; Please Read!

I think this might be one of my favourite chapters so far. Turns out watching someone die infront of you can be traumatising, who fuckin' knew?

And about the 'nerf' to the Ten Shadows as I know some of you might call it. Call it whatever you want, but it isn't really a fun or interesting story if he just skips all his other Shikigami to get to the really OP ones.

He's already not that much weaker than current Manga Megumi as far as I'm concerned, no need to rush things just cuz some people want a power fantasy where everything goes right for the heroes. So yeah, this change is staying. Don't worry, he's still really strong but he's not skipping everything to get RCT.

Also, after some deliberation. I've decided to Retcon the Ten Shadows being able to be seen by anyone, in retrospect it was kinda stupid and someone did give a better alternative.

Tsumiki can now see and interact with curses but has absolutely no ability to exorcise them, at most she can be a window but she has no interest in doing so.