New World, New Jail, Same Goal 3

The team of 1 useless, 2 servants, a pet, a hologram of someone and shifting useless master slash powerful pseudo-servant had a plan.

"Do we all agree that this is our only actual chance of winning?" Cu asked, knowing the answer was yes.

"Why even ask, we don't have a choice?" Olga quipped.

"It's for the feel, motivation and all that." Cu added.

Ritsuka who was the key to this plan didn't really feel like saying yes. Why?

"Uh, am I really going to fight berserker?" Ritsuka asked.

"Not you, but that servant in symbiosis with you, and you don't have to fight him, just survive long enough for us to get through as the Archer is distracted with your fight." Olga clarified.

"A stealth mission to assassinate someone stronger than the strong berserker. Right, very motivating." Ritsuka deadpanned.

Cu sighed and looked at Mash.

"Well, she's also important, but the first step is to figure out your noble phantasm and hope it's what I think it is." Cu shifted the attention to the pink haired demi-servant who was busy playing with Fou.

"How do we do that sir Cu?" Mash asked, readying herself at the mere mention.

"Uh, direct confrontation?" Cu said, what better teacher than experience, no?

...

"This is going to take a while, isn't it?" Ritsuka asked.

"Not if she learns fast." Cu added, "Stay back a bit, we're going to start immediately, faster this gets done, faster we can rest and be ready for the plan."

With that, Olga and Ritsuka walked a few kilometers away, none of them wanting to really speak alone. Ritsuka because of what Sukuna said about her being dead already and Olga out of severe guilt and probably because he just saw his head get pierced through and his brain matters splat on her face.

They both had issues not with each other, but with each other. If that makes sense.

Ritsuka was the first to break the silence.

"Um, director, how is your day?" Ritsuka started, awkwardly, horribly, it was so bad even Sukuna cringed.

Olga, the queen of not really being good at social interactions, replied just as worst.

"Thank you." She said, but it surprisingly wasn't out of social ineptness. "You... back then, saved me, so I'm saying my thanks for that." She further clarified.

"Oh. Oh. Yes, you're welcome." Ritsuka scratched his head.

"And, that was horrible. Obviously my day was bad." Olga bit back almost immediately, the dere feeling gone and replaced by tsun.

"I-I didn't know where to start, I never really spoke to you before..." Ritsuka explained.

"You barely know Mash?" Olga countered.

"She's cute..." Ritsuka continued to fumble.

"HAHHH?! AND I'M NOT? IS THAT IT?!" Olga, furiously retorted.

Ritsuka tries to come back and their dumb conversation would continue so let's get to someone who's doing much more important stuff.

F/TJ

Inside the soul, Sukuna was currently looking inside his shadows, the Ten Shadows (10S) storage was accessible through any shadow, the ones including the soul included. In here laid a bunch of stuff, but most importantly was the 2 souls he got, judging by their composition they seemed to be a partial manifestation, they're connected to something bigger, like a sort of hivemind?

"The talk from that hologram person was interesting." Sukuna mused.

"I exist in here, as a legend, a divine spirit he called me and this possession is called a pseudo-servant? Still stupid to call me a servant, and if I have the time, I'll change that to something much more memorable." Sukuna said, then took one of those souls and undid the CE wrapping, the soul tried to escape but unfortunately for it, he already erected a barrier throughout, preventing it from going anywhere, if Sukuna even let go.

"Now them you fine piece of fragmented soul, what can you do?" Sukuna asked.

"Speech?" He asked.

"Then do you function like one would a Shikigami at this form?" Sukuna further tried to probe. "I guess I'll test that sometime, the real meat is identifying more about this mana thing."

Seeing some paper and pen in the shadow storage, causing Sukuna to let out a minor chuckle, he took them and began writing his findings.

Contrary to expectations, Sukuna was a well learned scholar.

"Mana is a neutral energy as opposed to the predisposed negativity of Cursed Energy, but the way they can be applied should be similar. My second attempt from before failed due to lack of understanding in Mana, not because it was impossible."

"So, I should start my test by controlling whatever Mana I can, small movement of the local Mana should suffice."

Beginning his tests, he shifted his feelings from CE to Mana, feeling less of the evil and cold icky feeling to a bland warmness. Then, when his confirmed that he does in fact suddenly have these, he looked to their source.

It was in a sort of circuit like pattern, and he didn't know if he had a lot but the actual bulk of it came from a sort of ball, a generator or something similar in image.

A core so to speak.

"Mana seems to be similar in that the amount you're born with is innate, I have no comparisons for mine, but if I were to compare it with my CE, my mana is equal or slightly more. I don't remember having any of this, so it must be something that happened as I arrived in this world, my existence already being something in here is also another point to note, am I who I am or am I the me that they've talked about?"

Moving away from philosophical ideas, he tried to move the mana and found success, it was similar to how CE moved after all, just a different sensation.

Just like that, he now had an above average mana control.

Next would be to try stuff he would usually do with CE in mana, for example, a simple reinforcement.

Circuitry lit up in his arms, and he felt his power increase, clenching his arms with force enough to crush a stone to dust.

He took it one step above, he tried accessing CE, and run it through, but it was promptly rejected by mana.

He stopped the experiment and continued to write.

"Just like with me and this body, the mana itself denies the moving of CE past it, the mana acts like it is superior to CE itself like it's just a mere branch of mana. Then, would making cursed energy go through the same pathway as mana work? The denial happens when cursed energy wants to past through, not exactly rejecting it all around."

He went back to his arm and as mana reinforced his arms, he channeled CE to the same pathway, and to his delight, it worked. CE and mana flowed together seamlessly but it cannot pass through. He clenched his arms and grunted in pain.

Sukuna broke his own hand.

A feral grin came to his mouth.

"Discovering power is truly an ecstatic feeling." Sukuna said, as he gathers an idea from that pink haired girl his host has been eyeing.

"If I remember right, she pulsed her mana rapidly, almost like a burst. Is that a technique or just sign of her inexperience?" Sukuna mused, he used RCT to heal his arms and promptly tried Bursting his Mana around his arm.

And, to his pleasant surprise it really was stronger.

He got to his paper.

"The mana output is directly related to the increase in reinforcement, similar to CE but different in that this apparently wasteful usage bring about more explosive power than it does for CE. If anyone does this with CE, they are going to run out in a few punches. A black flash is a lot more useful than attempting this burst of mana with cursed energy."

Sukuna paused. Looked to the his hands and wondered.

"Is there a variant of black flash for mana? Black Flash was a distortion in space that occurs when cursed energy is applied within 0.000001 seconds of a physical hit. When a sorcerer is able to achieve this, their cursed energy flashes black, and the destructive power of their strike is equal to a normal hit to the power of 2.5 and has the fortunate bonus of boosting output, almost a sort of rejuvenation. If I can pull this off with mana, will my understanding of it increase?" Sukuna quietly considered fighting purely with mana just for it.

In the end, Sukuna closed the book, and placed them back, it seems his experimentation would have to wait. The pinkie seemed to be done with her business.

F/TJ

Mash and Cu were resting after their well fought spar.

"Senpai! Director!" Mash lit up upon seeing them, Olga had her arms crossed while Ritsuka also did, though it seemed more like he was chilled.

"Are you okay Senpai?" Mash asked, much to his dismay.

"Yeah, just felt a bit chilly suddenly, nothing serious." He tried to brush it off, but if it wasn't obvious they were in a really warm place. Like, burning hot place.

But, Mash was also socially inept and shy, so she took that as that and they now proceeded to rehash their plans.

"Are we all clear with what we need to do?" Cu asked, for the final time.

"Yes!" Olga, Mash and Ritsuka all agreed in unison.

"If we succeed then you guys will be going back home and this poor overworked me can finally return to the throne." Cu added, leaning on his staff.

And so, after a few more hours, they went to step 2 of the plan, to meet and initiate a fight with Berserker.

"Are you ready Master? You or rather your feisty roommate might have your hands tied a bit, but if it works long enough just run for it, okay?" Cu tried to ease up the worries.

"You can do it Senpai!" Mash tried to cheer.

"Just run if you can't handle it, no one's going to expect too much from you." Olga said more in worry than lack of expectations.

Ritsuka looked at the forest where Berserker was an readied himself.

"I'm ready." Ritsuka informed Cu.

"Okay, I'm sending some light show!" Cu said as he wrote in runes and a fire ball shot forward, hitting nothing but making a large noise.

This was for both Archer and Berserker.

In a few seconds, the most guttural, savage roar came to assault their ears.

"RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!"

And a loud crashed came a few meters away from them, standing like a bulky meaty monsters of gray skin, the immortal berserker.

Heracles.

Ritsuka gulped. Everyone else ran. Archer rushed to see what the hell was Cu cooking.

"Give."