1st Peron POV Shinji
The three of us stared down Yuta and Rika, and for a second, no one moved a muscle.
Then Uro threw her hand forward, and with a pulse of her reversal and a loud boom, she was standing next to a shocked Yuta. I kicked off a vibrating leg to join the fight.
Yuta moved to bisect her, but she pulled at the sky, and his sword bent, its path traveling over Uro harmlessly. She pressed her other palm against his torso, and the sky shattered, sending him careening backwards.
Rika moved to strike Uro while she was off guard, but I backhanded the specter as I flew past to catch up to Yuta. Space fractured, and the specter of the queen of curses shrieked as she was sent flying.
I kept flying past Uro and caught up to Yuta as he flew. The signature white sphere of my technique surrounded my right fist. I threw a devastating upper cut to his sternum as I caught up to him, cracking space.
He vomited spi and was sent flipping into the air. Only to be sniped out of the air by a large pink beam of cursed energy. He was knocked down and through two buildings, collapsing both into rubble.
I moved to keep the pressure, but a pulse of RCT from Yuta was all the warning I would receive before he shot out of the buildings as they were collapsing.
I held out a fester in front of me and shot several eggs out of the blade's edge. They exploded just a couple of meters in front of me, staggering his charge. The explosion threw his sword just enough for me to close the distance and slice at his chest.
He recovered almost instantly, blocking the slice with a hasty block. As a result, his blade was thrown off by the vibrating cleaver. My other hand dropped the hand sign for pulse perception, a white sphere enveloping it.
I leveled a hook to the side of his head, pivoting my body 90 degrees. His head seemed to bend around the sphere, and he pivoted alongside me before space cracked, and he was launched back towards Uro and Ryu.
It was a trick I had learned during training with Uro, where I could delay the release of my technique and forcibly carry my opponent along the sphere's circumference.
Yuta bounced once before righting himself, sliding back before grabbing his head. Uro moved to teleport next to Yuta, but the spectral form of Rika launched a surprise hook to the side of her head.
Uro stumbled, and Rika leveled another punch at Uro, but she pulled the blow wide with her technique. Her other arm lashed out with a lightning-fast jab, which made Rika reel her head.
She jumped, spun, and used her technique to accelerate her turn as she launched a jumping spin kick to Rika's head. Rika reeled back, and Uro slammed a haymaker into the queen of curses' head.
Yuta regained his bearings, just in time to blur from where he was standing and dodge a beam of pink cursed energy. It carved through the earth, and I had to take a side step to dodge the beam.
I rushed forward, kicking off a vibrating leg again, and appeared a meter in front of Yuta. He swiped at me, and it would have taken my arm off if I hadn't met the slash with one of my own from Fester.
The vibrating blade of Fester rang against Yuta's blade. My arm reeled back slightly as did his, and I tried to sneak a slash across his chest by flipping my wrist and cutting at his chest.
Yuta swayed back, and Fester cut his pristine shirt open, but no blood was drawn. He tried to retaliate with an upwards slash, but I jumped back a couple of meters, smirking.
I don't think he felt it, but I shot several eggs inside his shirt, all primed with my technique to explode at a moment's notice.
I focused, I activated ground break, but channeled far more vibrational energy into the meter-by-meter square area in front of Yuta. The ground was pulverized instantly, turning to dust, before exploding upwards from the force of the ground break.
The result was a makeshift smoke screen of dense dust, all flooded with my cursed energy. I had learned this technique after one of the more intense spars with Uro after she learned her reversal.
But while obscuring the opponent's visibility is a plus, the true benefit came from the fact that they were so surrounded by my cursed energy, they were unable to track me from within the cloud.
Which bought me just enough time to vibrate my leg and dash to the right of Yuta. I stopped abruptly about 20 meters away, and I forced and detonated the eggs on the left side of Yuta's shirt.
A white sphere surrounded my right hand as part of the smoke cleared, and Yuta was thrown to the side. I smirked, and the distance between Yuta and me vanished in an instant. I punched his solar plexus, and space splintered.
Yuta's eyes shot open, and spit flew from his mouth as the air was knocked from his lungs, and he rocketed backwards, a ring of displaced air trailing him.
Two pink beams of cursed energy carved through the road to my sides, flying to catch up to Yuta, before curving wide, looping back, and shooting Yuta straight down and back at me.
I could feel his RCT working overtime to fix the internal damage to his body, with healing so much damage in such a short time frame with his famously lackluster efficiency…
Well, if I could drain him of CE before he could connect to Rika, then we could speed up this whole diplomacy thing.
Yuta righted himself in the air, positioning his katana in front of him in a wary guard.
I closed my eyes, expanding the range of pulse perception, and sensing Yuta's exact presence and form. I held fester in line with Yuta's right arm, vibrating it and my leg to the point of a high-pitched whining.
I took a deep breath in, "Maximum Output: ."
My eyes snapped open as I reached the edge of my perception before it caught up and snapped back around me. I saw the clear sky in front of me, and the world was silent for a moment.
BOOM
Before a loud "boom" washed over me, I turned around, and three-quarters of Yuta's sword was spinning through the air, and a spray of blood was just barely visible from behind him.
It happened so fast, I didn't have the chance to shoot eggs inside him with Fester.
I winced, maybe that was a touch–
Yuta spun and threw the remainder of the blade at me. I blinked, and the blade was centimeters from my neck.
I threw my head to the side, and a cut along my cheek opened instead of in my neck.
This fuck–
He charged a small purple beam of cursed energy and fired it at me.
I aerostepped to the side before stopping my momentum against a platform of cracked space and shooting off it straight at him.
He kept falling, and I landed on a platform of cracked space and swung Fester straight at his chest.
His right arm rotated and stopped the swing at my wrist, and his left lashed out with a blurring jab. I leaned to the outside, narrowly dodging the blow and breaking Yuta's contact with my right wrist.
Yuta used his shifted weight to level a roundhouse kick to my abdomen. I blocked with my knee before slamming the handle of Fester into the side of his neck. He kicked up his elbow and knocked my strike high.
His right fist punched forward, and I head-butted the blow. There was a sick crunch, and his fist reeled back. My right elbow slammed down onto his shoulder, cracking space and punting him to the floor.
Only for him to be smote by another pink beam of cursed energy from Ryu.
I dropped next to his downed form as the beam cleared. I could feel the sheer amount of RCT he was using now. "Okay, look, I know this is going to be really hard to believe, but this is all–"
"Give me everything," I heard his tired voice say from the smoke of the attack, "Rika."
A soft pink glow came from his left hand through the smoke, and an undescribable flood of pure cursed energy came from his lying form. "Oh come on, I'm just trying to tal–"
A huge spike of cursed energy was all the warning I got before a huge, hot pink beam of cursed energy erupted forward. I narrowly dodged to the side with a vibrating kick, steering around him with pulverized road.
I had expected to catch him off guard with my speed, but…
He was staring straight at me, with a weird set of tattoos around his mouth.
"Don't Move"
My whole body ceased at once.
I didn't tense up; all the movement just… left my body.
His fist crashed into my head in a strong haymaker that sent me flying back a couple of meters.
I righted myself, free from the effects of cursed speech. I glared at the boy, watching with amusement as he rubbed his throat. The tattoos disappeared from his mouth as he started to talk, "I've been grossly misinformed on how much cursed energy you possess."
I smirked, "That's not all you've been misinformed about." I said as I raised my hands in a placating manner, "Look, I'm not your enemy; everyone here is just a little trigger-happy, is all!"
He narrowed his eyes at me, "Do you honestly expect me to fall for that?!"
"I'm being honest, swear!" I called back, sweat dropping. This whole thing felt more like a hostage negotiation than a fight. "Look–"
A shrill, broken scream from Rika stopped the conversation right there. Yuta and I snapped our heads in its direction, only to see Rika's arm fly off, disintegrated at the shoulder, Uro's open palm hovering over the joint.
Yuta moved, even faster than before, a streak of movement. I vibrated my leg and kicked off as fast as I could to catch up to him.
We arrived at the same time, and as he threw a punch to the back of Uro's head, I pulled the offending shoulder back with my left hand before it could land. His head turned my direction with wide eyes, and a white sphere encased the hand holding Fester.
I slammed an upper cut to his ribs full force. Now that he was connected to Rika, I wasn't concerned with holding back.
Space fractured and broke for a meter and a half in all directions, as blood spewed from his mouth, and he vanished backwards along with a series of buildings around him. All of it was unilaterally carried in a wave of pure destructive force.
Rika slithered out from Uro and flew in the direction of Yuta with a painful scream of, "YYyUUuuTTAAaaaA!!"
Uro moved to chase, but I put a hand on her shoulder. "I need you and Ryu to hold off that shikigami, or whatever it is. I'll take Yuta on alone."
She gave me the most deadpan look I have ever seen, "You want him too?" I blinked, slightly confused at what she just said. A confusion, it seems she picked up on as she asked a clarifying question, "You want to recruit him, right? Jeez, is there no end to your greed?"
I snorted in amusement, "I wish I could poach him, but I don't think that will be possible." Now her brow furrowed in confusion, so I continued, "Remember how I told you there were some 'reasonable' people in Jujutsu society?"
She nodded, so I continued, "Well, he's one of them, so I need you and Ryu to hold off that shikigami of his while I take him on alone. If you beat the shikigami, feel free to help, but until then, leave him to me. I'll talk him down."
She grunted and crossed her arms under her chest, "Why can't we let Ryu hold back the Shikigami, and we fight him together?"
As tempting and fun as that sounded, I just told her that we weren't going to recruit him, so if Uro got pissed, she might just try to kill him. And with her reversal, she might actually be able to do just that.
So I walked forward until her left shoulder almost touched mine, and placed my left hand on her shoulder, looking her dead in the eyes. "Because, there's something strange about that one, and I need someone I trust with my life, so please… would you?"
She held my stare for a good second or two longer, eyes darting around my face before she closed her eyes and sighed. "Fine, but you owe me, okay?" She replied softly, walking past me and brushing our shoulders together.
I heard a loud POP behind me, as I felt Uro teleport over to where Ryu was currently. It would definitely be easier to fight 2v1, but I really didn't want to have to worry about Rika getting a hold of either of their techniques.
I shuddered at the thought of Yuta firing constant granite blasts.
I took a deep breath, considering my options, and the most glaring flaw in my kit.
Pulse perception.
Or more accurately, the need for me to hold the hand sign constantly, because if I got dragged into hand-to-hand, one hand down, I think I would lose instantly. I need to get faster in terms of hand-to-hand, even if I was only slightly slower than Yuta.
I grinned, 'Then I guess I just do what I do best, and bully him with knockback.'
My punch launched Yuta outside of my sensing field, so I sent a pulse of cursed energy out like a sonar. And sure enough, a hundred meters or so down the road was Yuta's telltale giant cursed energy signature.
I focused, concentrating a huge amount of curse energy into my leg as I raised it slightly. It started to shake like crazy, becoming closer to a blur of movement than a defined limb. I took a deep breath and exerted full control over my leg's vibration.
My leg became progressively clearer through the vibrations as it started to hum. My leg became perfectly visible through the vibrations, and a high-pitched squealing came from my leg.
I assumed a running stance on one leg and slammed my vibrating leg downwards.
I exploded forward, and I could feel my body strain against the force of the acceleration. The world went silent, the city being devastated by the shockwave of my momentum. I also learned from last time and made sure my pulse perception stayed centered on me, even as my heart raced.
I crossed the distance between Yuta and me in a fraction of a second. Rika was a smudge of grey next to Yuta, but she could never catch up to my speed. Yuta was able to cross his arms just before I slammed into him with a flying kick.
Space splintered, and he catapulted even further down the road. I kept my momentum, and I used Quake to speed up even further, flying parallel with the road while pulverizing the ground at my feet to steer at extreme velocities.
I noticed Yuta had equipped two full arm bracers and a scimitar to replace his old, broken Katana. The tip of his sword shone a dark pink, and a beam just as fast as Jiki's railgun shot straight at me.
I steered right of it as the beam exploded behind me. He fired another beam, and I steered left of it. Compared to Ryu, this was nothing.
He fired another beam, but it was aimed in front of me this time, and as the road exploded into smoke in front of me, I dashed straight through it. Just in time to see a parked car right in front of me.
I threw my back against the road to slide under the car, but it exploded on top of me from another blast of cursed energy from Yuta. Time slowed as my reinforcement desperately concentrated in my head.
I watched the explosion expand right above me, and I cleared the car just before it exploded, sending me flipping through the air. I righted myself with a singular aerostep, noticing how close Yuta was flying to the buildings on his right.
I smirked, slamming the tip of Fester into the side of the building and forcing it to ripple outwards, slamming into Yuta's side before exploding and sending him down a road to his right.
I used ground break on a flying piece of debris from my last ground break, and shot after Yuta like a bullet. I vibrated Fester to a fever pitch and sliced at Yuta across his chest. He blocked with his scimitar, but in a conest of raw force, I would never lose.
Our blades rang out thunderously, and Yuta was sent skipping along the road again. I could feel Yuta's body brimming with a constant flow of RCT as he righted himself.
I pressed forward, landing in front of Yuta with a downwards cleave of Fester.
Yuta swayed, letting the cursed tool pass in front of him harmlessly. He moved to cut my arm off with his scimitar, but I activated my technique, and the ground at his feet exploded upwards. He was sent a couple of meters back, and I charged a silver oscillating beam of cursed energy.
He thrust his hands forward together to try to 'catch' the beam, but the beam's vibration caused him to misjudge the beam's path, and it moved to its true target.
Yuta's head snapped back as the beam impacted just above his left eye, tearing a portion of the skin of his forehead off. I used his momentary stun to dash under him with a vibrating kick to the road.
I grabbed both of his legs, momentarily dropping the hand sign for Pulse Perception, and slamming him into the road. I tried to maintain pulse perception without the hand sign, but it was like trying to hold onto water, and it slipped through my grasp.
Yuta impacted the road with a harsh crash, the ground rippling out from under him as he vomited blood, and his scimitar was ripped from his grasp. He bounced, and I threw his leg down with my left hand to flip him into my right overhand.
I tried to follow it up with a swift slice down his chest, but his left hand caught my wrist, twisting and wrenching Fester from my grasp as I winced. I tried to grab it with my left hand as it fell, but his knee came up to knock my grab aside.
I used his block to throw a left hook to his liver and feign a right hook to his face. His left arm flew up to block the blow with his forearm, but I slapped his hand at the wrist, knocking his arm down and pivoting into an elbow to his chin as I stepped in.
I sent a straight jab to his nose, but his right arm slapped the blow aside and jabbed at my chin. I just barely rolled my head outside, dodging the blow, and using the pivot to send a left uppercut to his chin.
Yuta's right hand caught the punch, the bracers clenching around my hand like a vice, and he used it to pivot into a jumping roundhouse to my head.
I turned and threw my back level with the road, narrowly dodging the kick as it passed right over me, before I used Yuta's vice-like grip to throw him into a grocery store. He stared at me as he flew away, tattoos growing on his face.
My eyes flew open, and I desperately reinforced my ears while creating the best barrier of sound vibrations outside my ears as I could.
Yuta's words fell on deaf ears, as I continued to charge forward. I gathered my technique with both of my hands and used a quick thunderclap to obliterate the building behind him and send him flying through the debris field.
I reached forward and grabbed a chunk of debris twice my size before hurling it straight at Yuta. He crossed his arms to block, but the chunk ripped his guard open, leaving him open to the next chunk that I sent careening straight at him.
I pelted him with three more similarly sized chunks, each chunk exploding off him and sending him flying back even faster still. I jumped between falling pieces of debris.
He threw a preemptive punch straight at my head, and I smirked, using a platform of cracked space to pivot and slide past the punch as I flew at breakneck speeds. I slid past perpendicular to him and slammed a hook into his ribs.
BLACK FLASH
Black and red lighting erupted from the impact, and Yuta vomited more blood. He flew back from the impact, and I retained my momentum, flying alongside him and slamming an uppercut into his chin that cracked space and rocketed him into the sky.
I aerostepped up and behind him just as he started to fall, my right hand cocked back and alight with cursed energy.
I took a deep breath and punched forward with all my might.
BLACK FLASH
Another series of black lightning spewed forth as my punch slammed into his head and his eyes whited out.
Yuta was sent flying down and into a building, destroying it from roof to foundation. I used Quake and Aerostep to land on the ground in front of him and conveniently right next to Fester. I slammed my foot down on the handle, kicking it into the air where I caught it.
I felt weirdly… clear at the moment.
Even more than when I hit my first black flash. But what's more, and what's even more confusing, is that I could feel another set of vibrations, outside of my own.
My eyes landed on Yuta's downed form as RCE flooded his body again, and he started back to his feet. It felt like it was coming from him.
No, that's not it…
It was coming from somewhere else…
But it was definitely coming from Yuta, or more accurately, something inside Yuta. It felt…
Well, I really don't think there's a word for how it felt, but it felt like…
Like he was going to expand his domain.
My eyes shot open as I noticed that Yuta had taken my small moment of distraction to hold his right fist in front of his face and his left in an open palm, face up.
"Domain Expansion: Authentic Mutual Love"
Ahh, fuck.
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A/N:
Aaaaand done, this is only part one of the chapter part 2 will open with Ryu and Uro vs Rika. I know that its been a while, but tbh I've been going through some mental things, and nothing has really come to mind so I only really wrote when I felt I would be writing the best quality. This will not be the norm going forward btw.
Anywho, I hope you guys enjoyed, and also that last little thing at the end with the other vibrations, that is a reference to a spoiler for Modulo about Dabura's technique. If you want to know, leave a comment, and I will respond and let you know. But yes, this will be the truest alternative to observation Haki in combination with pulse perception.
I hope you have a great night, and I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know if you did and what I can do to improve.