Unknown POV
The darkness wraps around me. I've pulled every blind shut. I don't want to be take any chances being seen. My hands won't stop trembling as I sit on the edge of the bed, the springs creaking under my weight.
"I'll kill them, I'll kill them all. They'll regret this," I mutter, the words so quiet I barely hear them. My voice cracks.
"Whose gonna regret it?"
Inside voice. That's what I've been calling it, this nagging presence that's been with me since I started running three days ago. Maybe it's the stress. Maybe I'm finally cracking under the pressure.
"All of the higher ups. The directors, the clan heads, all of them," I reply to inside voice, my fingers digging into my thighs. "Every single one of those bastards."
"Hmm, why?"
Why? The question makes my blood boil. My cursed energy flares involuntarily.
"They put an execution order on me! On me! Because I experimented on a few non-sorcerers! You've got to be fucking kidding me!" The words explode out of me, and I have to force myself to lower my voice. "I was trying how much stress it would take for people to evolve to sense their cursed energy. This execution order is an overreaction!"
"Hmm, it does seem a bit much."
"I know!" I yell into the void of the hotel room.
A long silence stretches out. I say I'm going to make them regret it, but how can I, with that monster Gojo Satoru around. Crap.
Before that, I need to handle my own safety. Right now I'm following a rumor, I heard in underground curse user circles, Geto Suguru is recruiting curse users. I can get protection if I find him. All I have to do is that.
"So, what anime is your favorite?"
The question is so unexpected, that it breaks my train of thought.
"What anime is my favorite? Inside voice, why are you asking me this?" I ask back, genuinely confused. "I'm sitting here planning revenge against the entire jujutsu society, and you want to know about anime?"
"It's an important question," inside voice affirms. It's then that I notice that inside voice doesn't quiet sound the same.
"Is it?" I scoff, running my hands through my greasy hair.
"Of course, it's the most important question you could be asked," the voice replies, it's filled with indignation, almost offended. "Now come on, tell me."
I shift uncomfortably on the bed. Something feels wrong with inside voice. I hear it now more than ever.
"I don't really watch anime, inside voice, you know this. I've been too busy. Besides anime is childish."
Again it all goes quiet.
"Inside voice?" I ask into the void.
I blink.
In that fraction of a second, everything changes. The blinds shoot up with a violent snap, light flood the room. I throw my arm up to shield my eyes, momentarily blinded. When my vision clears, my blood turns to ice.
Standing in front of me, is a teenager. He can't be more than fifteen. Dark blue hair falls in bangs that frame his face. He wears a green trench coat, the coat tails swaying slightly despite the absence of any breeze. Dark sunglasses hide his eyes completely.
"Yo," he says, raising up his hand in a casual wave. "I'm inside voice. Now, what did you just say about anime?"
Crap. Jujutsu sorcerer. How didn't I sense his cursed energy?
My body moves on pure instinct. I immediately raise my hands, my fingers already forming the first sign of my cursed technique. If I can just summon my shikigami, I can-
The world blurs.
Before I can even get halfway through the sign, he's there. He doesn't teleport, I can see the motion, barely, a streak of color crossing the space between us. His hand connects with mine, not hard enough to hurt, just enough to completely disrupt my concentration and break my hand sign.
"Now, now," he says, and I can hear the grin in his voice. "Answer my question first. I'll even forget the fact you called anime childish."
I desperately try to get a read on his cursed energy, my senses straining to gauge his power level, to predict his next moves. But there's... nothing. Not a lick of cursed energy.
Panic takes over. I pivot on my heel and strike out with a haymaker punch, putting all my physical strength and what cursed energy I can muster behind it.
Another blur of motion.
"Come on, man, think hard. I'm sure you've watched at least one."
The voice comes from behind me now. I spin around, throwing a wild backhand. I expect to meet skin, so I brace myself, but... nothing.
"Swing and a miss."
He's sitting on the rickety hotel chair now, one leg crossed over. He picks at something under his fingernail. What is this? What kind of cursed technique am I dealing with? Teleportation? No, there's always that blur when he moves. Is he just impossibly fast? Some kind of speed enhancement technique?
My mind races through possibilities. If he won't let me form hand signs, I can't summon my shikigami properly. Without them, I'm just a mediocre close-combat fighter against someone who moves faster than I can properly see. Crap.
"I know what you're thinking," he says, tilting his head slightly. His sunglasses shift slightly but not enough to reveal his eyes. "How am I this fast? What's my technique? How can someone have such good taste in clothes?" He chuckles at that last one. "I could explain my cursed technique to you, but that would give me a boost, and you wouldn't want that, would you?"
He uncrosses his legs, and stares me down.
"So tell you what," he continues, spreading his hands in a magnanimous gesture. "You give me one anime, just one, that you enjoyed, and in return, I'll tell you my cursed technique and give you a ten-minute head start."
I feel my cursed energy shift involuntarily, responding to something beyond my control. A binding vow. My eyes widen behind my disheveled hair.
"That's... that's insane," I breathe out. "Why would you-"
"Tick tock," he says, tapping his wrist where a watch would be. "Offer expires in ten seconds. Ten... nine... eight..."
My mind goes blank with panic, then races frantically. An anime. Any anime. But my mind keeps coming up empty. My entire life has been devoted to jujutsu sorcery, to my research, to pushing the boundaries of what cursed energy was. When would I have had time for...
"Three... two..."
"I accept!" I shout, feeling the binding vow snap into place like shackles around my soul.
The boy's grin widens. "Excellent choice. Now then, name your anime."
I think desperately, my mind racing backwards through my life. Before I was a jujutsu sorcerer, before I discovered my cursed technique, before I become who I am. Back when I was just a child.
There's something there, in those few years of normalcy, when I hadn't begun to see things no one else could and got sent to one psychologist after the next. My mother's arms around me, warm and safe, as we watched... something. It was definitely anime, I remember the style. What was it? The memory is so faded.
What was it? Crap. What was it? There was a boy... a robot boy... crap.
"Astro Boy!" I yell toward him, winging it, though I think I'm right. "It was Astro Boy!"
The teenager's face lights up with genuine delight. "Oh, that's a classic! Excellent choice. The 1963 version or the 2003 remake?"
"I... the old one."
"Even better. You know, Tezuka is basically the godfather of manga. Astro Boy walked so that every other shonen protagonist could run." He nods along with his exposition. "Alright, a deal's a deal. My cursed technique is actually pretty simple. I can manipulate the perception of time."
"What?" I don't understand.
"Think of it like Einstein's train and lightning thought experiment."
"What?" I repeat, feeling increasingly lost.
"Oh, you don't know what that is?" He scratches his head in an exaggerated gesture of frustration. "This is why you should have paid attention in school instead of dissecting people."
I want to say I was not dissecting people, that came after they had died from the stress, so I was actually dissecting corpses but I remain quiet.
"Let me simplify it for you. I can make your senses lag behind your actual body in time. For example, if I slow down your visual perception, I appear to move much faster than I actually am. The funny thing is -" he taps his temple "- your brain can't really differentiate between perceived time and actual time. If you see everything moving faster, your body instinctively slows down to match your perception. It's not a perfect one-to-one ratio, but eh."
He says shrugging his shoulders before continuing. "I also need to touch you first, before I can manipulate your perception. Did that in the dark while we were talking by the way? Don't know why you did that?"
In the dark? Yes, it makes sense. I still can't sense any cursed energy coming from him. How does he do it? I can't stop myself as my experimental mind, voices my thoughts.
"Your cursed energy, why can't l sense it?"
"Ah, ah," he interrupts, waving his finger at me. "The vow was for information about my cursed technique, not my cursed energy control. Though I wouldn't mind explaining that too, but..." He makes an exaggerated show of looking at his bare wrist. "Your ten-minute head start began about twenty seconds ago. Tick tock."
The words strike me. I'm wasting precious seconds. I turn and bolt for the door, yanking it open so hard I tear one of the hinges loose. The metal screams in protest, but I don't care. I'm already running down the hallway, my feet pounding against the worn carpet.
As I run, my mind works frantically to process what he told me. Perception manipulation. He makes my senses lag behind reality. But he said senses, plural. Did he affect all five of mine, or just vision? How much did he slow them down? How much is my body lagging behind without me realizing it?
I can sense no cursed energy from him, none at all, but a technique like that should cost enormous amounts of cursed energy. He's young, probably still a student. His cursed energy refinement and output shouldn't be good enough to offset the costs of such a technique. Unless he's some kind of prodigy, on the likes of Gojo Satoru.
That means he probably only manipulated one sense to conserve energy. I could hear him fine, so my hearing isn't compromised. Besides vision is the most logical choice, it would have the most dramatic effect on combat. So to counteract it...
I close my eyes as I run, relying on my other senses and my memory of the hotel layout. My hands form the necessary signs, and I feel my cursed energy flow outward. Three shadows materialize behind me, my shikigami, finally. Each one was on the level of a grade 2 curse.
"Two of you, stay here," I command, feeling them come to a halt through our cursed energy connection. "Stall the boy. Buy me as much time as you can."
They respond by staying rooted to their spot, ready to intercept the boy. The third continues running alongside me. A savage smile spreads across my face. My shikigami are synchronized to my maximum speed.
If that boy was telling the truth about his technique, then my actual body isn't as slow as my perception suggests. By using my shikigami as a pace guide, I can compensate for the perception lag.
I turn to my third.
"Run as fast as you can to the stairs."
I feel my shikigami nod, then it speeds up, leaving me behind, but not by much. Good. My body isn't probably lagging a lot behind my actual senses. Closing my eyes works. I speed up to join my shikigami.
We reach the stairwell door. My shikigami wrenches it open, and we plunge through, taking the steps three at a time. My feet barely touch each landing before we're flying down the next flight. Sixteenth floor. Fifteenth. Fourteenth.
Why did I have to pick a room so high up? It seemed like a good idea at the time. Now it just means more distance to cover.
Tenth floor. Ninth. My legs burn, but I push harder.
Seventh floor. This is it, maximum safe jumping height for me. My shikigami doesn't hesitate, crashing through the window in an explosion of glass. I follow, enhancing my body with cursed energy, feeling gravity take hold as we plummet.
We land on a building instead of the streets as I was expecting. I hit the rooftop hard, rolling to dissipate the impact, but my ankle screams in protest. Definitely twisted, possibly sprained. Crap. Would be nice to know reverse cursed technique.
Doesn't matter. I force myself up and keep running, my shikigami leading the way as we leap from building to building.
I don't know how much time has passed. My breathing comes in ragged gasps, and sweat pours down my face. But I'm still alive, still running.
Then I feel it, a shift in my cursed energy. The binding vow trembles and breaks. The ten minutes are up.
No. No, no, no.
At the same moment, I feel both of my rear-guard shikigami die. Obliterated. Those two together should have been able to handle most Grade One curses, maybe even a Semi-Grade One sorcerer if they worked in perfect synchronization. Crap.
I push harder, my legs screaming in protest. My remaining shikigami bounds ahead. Just keep running. That's all I can do.
Then I feel it.
The cursed energy envelops me, no, not just me, it spreads all around, covering street after street. I stumble, nearly falling off the edge of the building I'm crossing.
This isn't possible.
This level of cursed energy... it's beyond anything I've ever felt.
A special grade? Did that boy call in Satoru Gojo?
Against every instinct, against all logic, I open my eyes and turn toward the source.
My mind goes blank.
Flying above me, is a whale. A creature of beauty and terror. Its body stretches across the sky, translucent white-blue flesh rippling with dark blue patterns. Dozens of dark pink eyes dot its form.
A special grade curse? No, not a curse.
My gaze surges upward. Someone is standing on top of it…the boy.
The wind from the whale's movement whips his coat around him dramatically, but his hair somehow remains perfectly styled.
A shikigami.
"Yo," he calls down, his voice carrying impossibly well despite the distance. "Your shikigami were pretty ugly, but leaving them to die like that? Come on, man. Treat them with some respect. They died for you, and you didn't even look back." He shakes his head in disappointment. "First, it took you way too much time to think of an anime, and now this. I'm sure your taste in women is just as bad. Good thing I didn't ask that."
He steps off the whale.
He falls, his coat billowing around him. One moment he's in the sky, the next he's on the rooftop, the concrete cracking under the force of his landing.
I need to close my eyes. Cut off the visual perception manipulation.
"Don't close your eyes," he says, I can hear the grin. "It makes things boring. Remember what I told you? I can manipulate temporal perception, and my only restriction was touching you once. That doesn't mean I can only manipulate it once."
My blood runs cold.
"I can choose how many senses to manipulate and by how much, pretty much whenever I want. You thought you were smart, figuring out it was just your eyes. So I played along, kept it simple, even dialed it back a bit to make you feel clever." His grin spreads so much, I almost think his skin is going to tear at the edges of his lips. "How about we crank it up?"
The world explodes into motion. Inside the hotel room, everything aside from the boy was stationary. Outside however...
Everything moves at impossible speed. Cars on the street below streak by. Pedestrians look like they are running. Even the clouds race across the sky like they're in a time-lapse video. How much time is actually passing by? A minute per second. Ten. An hour.
"Wi** a**'t i*," the boy says, but the words are too fast, too distorted. My hearing is affected now too. Everything sounds like it's being played at ten times speed, high-pitched and incomprehensible.
This is all just perception, I tell myself desperately. My actual body hasn't changed. I just need to ignore what I'm seeing and hearing, trust my other senses..
The thought is cut short.
I don't see him move. One moment he's standing there, the next my shikigami dies, torn apart by something I couldn't even perceive. Wind howls around me, displaced by movements too fast for my lagged senses to process.
Then I'm on the ground. How did I get on the ground? Three seconds later, the pain catches up, my sense of touch has been slowed down too, a devastating blow to my stomach and another to my nose. Blood flows freely, the taste of copper filling my mouth, but I can't taste it.
It takes a little but I finally do and with it comes the smell of blood as well. Taste and smell, have been compromised too.
A shadow falls over me. The boy stands there, looking down at me with that ever-present grin.
He reaches up and pushes his sunglasses down slightly, the movement is normal, did he return my perception to normal? It doesn't matter, I can't fight back. My resigned gaze lands on his eyes. Two orbs of dark pink stare back.
"Name's Toki Tsukumo, your executor. My favorite anime is Code Geass."