Chapter 42

Megumi could swear that the woman was a fraud. He observed her, even as he stood in the corner of the room, his attention fixed on her like an eagle watching its prey. She reminded him too much of his father: a hulking mass of muscle and scars, half-asleep on the visitor's couch. for Toji Fushiguro calling it sleep was subjective; he had seen the man go from dozing off to killing three men in a second.

But it wasn't their lethality that drew his comparison; it was their shared sense of nonchalance. They both exuded an aura that said if the world would come crashing down, they would shrug off the weight before lighting a cigarette, in the woman's case, or wandering off to find a horse racing station that had somehow survived the apocalypse in Toji's case.

Clack.

He turned his head to the window and saw a crow—not just any crow, but one he could sense was packed with cursed energy. It was a legitimate cursed spirit with multiple eyes with a similar pair of wings. The sound that drew his attention was Its beak hitting the window pane. It cocked its head at him in a human-like motion and he was forced to note the red in the black bird's eyes. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, and the crow was gone.

A hallucination? He hadn't slept for three days now, too fired up while planning and executing the kidnapping of the supposedly strongest healer. He could feel the toll it was taking on his body. Unlike his father, Megumi was more studious, refusing the oblivion of unconsciousness, especially with the woman hovering over his sister's still form.

The woman remained hunched over, eyes closed, hands over his sister's head. He wasn't sure what she was doing; part of him suspected she was just wasting time. His senses picked up a shift in her cursed energy, possibly her activating a technique, which kept him from calling her out just yet.

Knock knock knock.

The sound drew his attention away from the woman, and his gaze drifted to the shut door. The nurses had been explicitly instructed not to interrupt them, especially since Toji had made it clear, and he doubted they would defy the scarred man to his face. Even in the supposed safety of the hospital, Megumi couldn't relax; his father's training had ingrained a deep vigilance into his very bones.

Knock knock knock.

The repeated knocking echoed through the room, twisting the healer's face into a frown. That was enough to spur Megumi into action. He couldn't let the woman use this interruption as an excuse for failing her task. He was on the verge of seeing his sister smile again.

He remembered Tsumiki's scolding voice and the furious pout when she returned from school to find the living room in disarray or plates piled in the sink. Her scowl alone could motivate a lackadaisical Toji Fushiguro, to tie an apron around his neck and scrub dishes with only a grumble.

Megumi crossed the room and opened the door, ready to tell off whoever was disturbing them. His words caught in his throat as he realized the visitor, whom he initially mistook for a nurse at the wrong patient room, was actually a teenage girl. She couldn't have been much older than him, dressed in a matching blue turtleneck sweater and a short skirt.

Her wide black eyes met his with surprise, her hand frozen mid-air where it had been poised to knock again.

Megumi was momentarily entranced by the innocence in her expression—her big black eyes, her long black hair flowing down her back. He might have lingered longer on her appearance if his attention hadn't been drawn to her other hand and what she held: a sheathed katana.

Realization dawned on him, widening his eyes, just as hers flicked into the room before narrowing back on him. In an instant, she moved, striking like a darting snake with a swing of her still-sheathed sword. Reacting instinctively, Megumi stepped back and rolled, his hands clapping together to form a seal as he called out, uncaring for collateral damage at that moment.

"Ten Shadows: Max Elep-"

His shadow surged and flowed as the shikigami began to form, but he had underestimated the girl's speed. She moved with zero hesitation, uncaring of the technique he had activated. She slipped past his still-forming shikigami and swung the sheathed blade toward him. As he struggled to roll to his feet, he knew he wouldn't be fast enough to evade the blow.

The blue-laced wooden sheath of the blade stopped inches away from the side of his head, halted by a massive hand that had grabbed it.

In less than a second, Toji had woken up, crossed the room, and intervened in the fight. Ignoring the fact that his father was a monster in his own right, Megumi swiftly shifted his hands. His original summon had been interrupted, but he still had enough curse energy for another summon.

Toji stared down at the girl with uncaring, yet slightly curious eyes. She seemed familiar, but he couldn't recall why. It was a shame because he usually remembered women better than men. Regardless, it wouldn't save her here.

He lashed out with an axe kick aimed at her head, but before it could connect, someone appeared in front of her, catching his leg with a forearm and stopping the blow from pulverizing her into the ground.

The miniature crater that formed beneath the white-haired boy who caught Toji's foot testified to the strength of the blow, accompanied by a shockwave that shattered the room's windows and shook the building's foundations. Toji grinned as he stared into familiar, malevolent red eyes once more. Only this time, the owner returned his gaze with a thin smile.

"Ho," Toji drawled as he looked at Gojo. "Long time no see, brat."

…

He knew he had grown, and with that knowledge, finally believed himself a somewhat physical match for the monster that was Toji Fushiguro. If he pushed his reinforcement to the highest level, allowing his cursed energy to permeate the very essence of his being, he should have stand a chance. He had estimated the man's strength to be somewhere around the third or fourth gates, but he was drastically wrong. It was closer to the sixth or seventh. The levels in strength that came with every gate release were not incremental. They were exponential.

Toji finally lifted his leg and took a step back, staring down at Jiki with a mix of curiosity and amusement. That single blow had nearly flattened him to the ground; he was certain his limb bore micro-fractures despite how much he had enhanced it at the exact moment the blow landed.

But Jiki didn't show any pain. Instead, he slowly lowered his hands to his sides, stilling the limb to stop it from shaking. Toji was like a shark in water; any hint of blood or weakness and the man would strike. Dismissing the discomfort as a mere illusion, Jiki reminded himself that pain, like all things, was transient. His mind replayed the strike—it had been a killing blow, despite Toji's apparent nonchalance. The man hadn't held back the same way he did when they fought the first time.

Toji had planned to kill Emi with that blow. It was a deviation from his usual methodical approach, implying a significant reason behind it.

His gaze shifted to the sickly girl on the bed whom Shoko was trying to heal. Was she Toji's daughter? No, she lacked the predatory Zenin features that the younger boy shared. but whatever their connection, it had forced Toji to act in a way that was out of his psych profile. Which proved she was the aberration that caused the shift from his usual method.

Standing centimeters apart, both exuded nonchalance with vague smiles, yet were primed for violence. Jiki poised to attack, Toji ready to evade—a curious juxtaposition until Jiki glanced at Toji's left hand. A hand that should have been lost, but like everything about the man, his heavenly restriction had turned his regeneration up to twelve and had restored it.

Jiki had faced opponents with immense regeneration before, each with a weakness—lack of cursed energy/chakra to keep it up or vulnerability to intense flash bursts of heat that cauterized whatever injury. He wondered, what was Toji's?

"You've grown taller," Toji remarked, not that the compliment mattered much, considering the man still had at least a head over him.

"You've grown a hand," Jikicountered, and he watched the other man lift the limb to flex superhuman muscles that defined his physique.

"It wasn't easy," he admitted.

"Can you regrow a head?" Jiki mused, observing the movement reflected in Toji's eyes. Emi moved from behind him, unsheathing her sword, a direct response to Toji's earlier intent to kill her. She aimed for the younger boy, who was quickly shaking off the surprise that was his presence.

Toji's eyes tracked her briefly, solidifying his thought of a familial connection with the boy. Emi posed no threat to him, so his attention hinted at a protective instinct for another.

Allowing his gaze to momentarily drift, Toji lashed out with a backhand strike—a blur even to Jiki's Sharingan. Emi, anticipating the blow, positioned her blade between herself and Toji. The impact should have sent her flying, but she uttered a single word.

"LOCK."

She froze in place as Toji's fist halted upon contact with her blade, yet the force of the blow continuing unabated, shattering the wall beside her and revealing the night sky bathed in moonlight. The impact must have triggered a circuit, as the room's lights flickered and then went out. The new hole in the wall was dangerously close to the unconscious girl, prompting Shoko, unflappable as she was, to hastily disconnect her from the multitude of drips and connections.

Jiki blinked, his mind racing to decipher what he had just witnessed. Emi should have been dead, punished for her audacity. Yet here she stood, still frozen. Instead of dwelling on it further, Jiki acted. He launched a flying knee at Toji's face, but the man recovered faster than expected, catching Jiki's knee aimed at his throat with his palm.

"Get this out of here, Toji," the unnamed boy behind Toji shouted out, and a smile crept onto Toji's face. In that moment, Jiki realized his mistake. He was the one caught mid-air without leverage this time. Toji adjusted his grip, seizing Jiki by the ankle, and Jiki instinctively relaxed the muscles in his body, knowing what was coming.

Toji pivoted and flung Jiki out of the gaping hole in the wall like a professional shot-putter. Jiki shot through the air, his body spinning as he sailed toward the nearest building. But even mid-air and disoriented, his Sharingan calculated the distance to the nearest building and the best angle to land, aided by his slowed perception of time. As he approached, he twisted in mid-air and tensed his body, his muscles ready as he slammed into the opposite building feet first, with the soles of his feet sticking to the cracked surface with his cursed energy.

Despite gravity's pull, he crouched on the vertical surface, defying physics through chakra wall-walking—a skill he had reverse-engineered since his rebirth and mastered since his first confrontation with Toji.

Raising his head, body perfectly horizontal against the building's surface, Jiki stared back through the gaping hole from which he had been hurled. Toji met his gaze, surprise giving way to a predatory grin before the scarred man took a running stance and moved. Each thunderous step cracked the ground as he charged, ignoring the now-unfrozen Emi. The force of his leap left another crater in the ground behind him, further compromising the building's structure, but he didn't care as he shot after Jiki with a grin that was all teeth.

Jiki's sharingan heightened his perception, allowing him to think and calculate faster than a regular sorcerer. He timed the moment perfectly, recognizing the speed at which Toji moved—too fast for Amaterasu, the black flames he could conjure, though now was not the time to unleash them.

He had been using his mangekyo rapidly over the past few days, and Goro-san's interruption of his conversation with Shoko had prevented his regular checkup. Already, he could feel a throbbing at the back of his eyes. He hadn't reached the stage of being cursed with blurry vision yet, but he wasn't far off.

Relaxing his body, Jiki shut off the flow of cursed energy to his leg and allowed himself to fall, just as Toji sailed over him. Swiftly, he gripped the man's leg, feeling his muscles burn and bones strain under the weight of halting Toji's monstrous momentum. With a powerful effort, he swung down, using gravity and a pinpoint application of Tsunade's strength technique to push his arm to its limit, sending Toji crashing to the street below like a thunderbolt sent from the heavens.

Toji's senses were as inhuman as Jiki's, perhaps surpassing him in some aspects, but his eyes lacked the precision of the Sharingan. Helpless, Toji plummeted like a falling comet, smashing into the ground with earth-shaking force, obliterating everything around him in a cloud of dust. The scarred man disappeared into the dust and debris his fall created. With any luck, the blow had been enough to kill him. Yet not even Jiki believed he could be that lucky.

Meanwhile, Jiki landed atop a street lamp, dismissing the futile task of searching through the swirling dust cloud for Toji. Instead, he fixed his gaze on the room from which he had been forcefully ejected.

Inside, Emi and the unnamed boy were engaged in conversation, an unexpected sight amidst the turmoil. Shoko stood between them, cigarette dangling from her lips, radiating an eerie calm amidst the chaos of battle and youth. Whatever they were discussing didn't seem to be going well but before Jiki could attempt to decipher their conversation by lip-reading, the sound of footsteps in the settling dust diverted his attention.

Toji had survived the brutal fall. Not unexpected, yet Jiki couldn't help but feel a twinge of disappointment. He had hoped to decisively end the fight early, but Toji's resilience only reinforced the man's reputation. Suppressing his feelings, Jiki locked eyes with Toji as he emerged from the dissipating dust cloud, moving with deliberate and ominous intent.

His hands were at the back of his neck as he tried to work out a kink on his shoulders, and a smear of blood was drawn from the side of his lips to his cheeks. For all the scarred mercenary seemed unbothered, he could not have gotten away without a scratch, especially not with the utilization of Tsunade's technique.

A familiar segmented purple curse with a baby's face was wrapped around Toji's torso once more. He had discarded the shirt he had on a couple of minutes ago, revealing his scarred and muscular physique, only held back by the muscle shirt he wore underneath.

"You've grown stronger," the man noted with some surprise in his voice.

"And you still refuse to die, despite my best efforts," Jiki replied. The man acknowledged the statement with a sharp smile before he swung something that Jiki was only just noticing from his other hand. A chain.

The chain streaked through the sky, nearly invisible against the darkness of the night. Jiki crouched to avoid it as it whistled overhead, narrowly missing him before lashing out towards the building behind him. With the immediate threat passed, Jiki straightened to his full height, staring down at Toji, who seemed unfazed by the missed attack. Why was the scared man still so confident?

The scrape of metal against brick rang out behind him and Jiki jerked into action. Instinct took over as he moved before his brain fully registered the danger. He darted sideways, intending to leap off the pole, but the attack caught up with him faster than he anticipated.

What should have pierced his back and possibly his heart instead found his left back. The blade anchored at the end of the chain tore through a light gash through his skin, slipping past his reinforced flesh and embedding itself into his scapula, perilously close to his heart. Ignoring the pain and trauma, Jiki jerked his body free from the blade, landing heavily in a crouch on the paved ground. He glanced back at the chain and blade, now coiled around the building.

It seemed impossible. Despite the darkness obscuring his vision, he had calculated the chain's length, but it had still caught him off guard. It didn't take him much to figure it was a cursed tool—a chain capable of extending its reach, akin to the Third Hokage's adamantium Bo staff, albeit lacking its powerful summon. A special grade curse tool. Just how many of these heavenly-defying treasures did the man have tucked into the inventory curse?

He had been saved by experience; his mind had flashed back to a familiar memory. It was a land perpetually shrouded in rain, where his ANBU squad ventured under whispers of a god-like ruler now in control of the country of eternal rain. They had moved with caution through the dense foliage, alert to every rustle and shift in the air, knowing they were in enemy territory. Then, without warning, a sickle and chain swung silently from a tree, its deadly arc slicing through the air with unexpected precision. The ambush had been swift and lethal, catching them off-guard from an angle they hadn't anticipated, nearly claiming his life.

Jiki remembered the panic that had coursed through him then, the desperate fight to evade the deadly chain, the sickle flashing in the darkness like a shadowy specter and striking from an unpredictable angle—around a tree. Already, his mind raced towards formulating an optimal counter for the attack. With a deft tug, the chain and blade were swiftly retracted back to Toji, the scarred man's control over his cursed tool evident in the fluidity of the motion.

Jiki's attention shifted between his own injuries and those inflicted upon Toji. Despite the pain and the wounds they now shared, Jiki acknowledged the tactical gambit Toji had executed with a sober and respectful nod. They stood now on equal ground, both marked by the exchange.

Despite Jiki's usual reluctance to find joy in combat, a faint smile tugged at his lips, reflecting Toji's unrestrained grin. Was he beginning to find some perverse enjoyment in this fight? Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, a place that bordered the impure world, he could almost hear Kisame's laughter echoing faintly.

…

In a dimly lit room illuminated only by a single lantern at its center, elderly men and women gathered, their faces obscured behind seal-etched curtains as they discussed grave matters.

"I don't think we can deny it anymore. The boy is the real deal," the first voice began cautiously.

"Surely there's nothing to fear, it might—"

"There was no mistaking that," another voice cut in sharply. "We cannot bury our heads in the sand any longer. We all felt it."

A heavy silence fell over the room, the weight of truth settling upon them as they all turned instinctively in the same direction, a synchronized gesture that spoke volumes.

"He's growing too quickly. At this rate, he'll become a greater threat than even Satoru, we know what to expect of the six eyes and limitless, but the boy is... unnatural, unconventional" someone muttered, their concern palpable.

"So what do we do? We're still in the dark about what exactly we're dealing with. None of us are old enough to have faced the old ones," another voice reasoned.

"I have," a voice, devoid of emotion, interjected, drawing all attention. It belonged to the oldest among them, not an official elder but respected nonetheless. The meeting took place in The owners domain, and that act granted It the authority to speak, one It rarely used but when It did, It used it decisively.

"I know the secrets of what they truly are. I walked the earth at the fall of the epoch when Antediluvian curses so powerful they were regarded as deities and gods began their eternal slumber," It continued, It's voice commanding attention despite its lack of volume.

The room grew even quieter, anticipation hanging in the air as she spoke again, unaffected by their unease.

"So listen carefully when I tell you, ignore the boy. Turn your eyes away from his form, and resist your greed and fear. He is not what you'd expect from a sorcerer of this age. If he truly draws the attention of things best forgotten and sealed, he should be ignored lest he is forced unknowingly to wake that which has grown fat off worship and obeisance.

With its message delivered, the presence in the room gradually receded, its departure lifting a weight from their collective shoulders as they felt its attention shift elsewhere.

However, the old men and women remained seated in the dimly lit room, their minds and hearts guarded, deep in contemplation and strategizing. They plotted headless of the words of one older than their sum total.