Chapter 4: Bloom
In the blink of an eye, it was done. As Junpei’s soul was kneaded by Mahito, it began to change shape—from that of a non-sorcerer to that of a sorcerer.
Junpei, who already possessed enough cursed energy to see Mahito, lacked only one thing: the structure of the brain. The talent of a sorcerer—being able to sense cursed energy and control it himself.
As the treasure forcibly raised by that irregularity called [Idle Transfiguration] revealed itself,
the hidden talent of a boy began to bloom.
“Huh? Huh?”
The boy himself, Junpei, was thrown into a level of confusion he had never known before.
The moment Mahito placed a hand on his head, Junpei began to sense the true form of cursed energy, along with the feeling that his brain had been scrambled and mixed up.
A world he had never been able to see before spread out before his eyes.
The ominous aura surrounding Mahito in front of him. It was nowhere near as overwhelming as Mahito’s, but a considerable flow of it was wrapping around Junpei’s body.
“How did you do that...?”
“I just adjusted your brain a little. Now you can sense and use cursed energy too.”
Junpei looked down at both hands with trembling eyes.
When he flexed his fingers, he could feel power rippling through them with a faint vibration.
“How does it feel, seeing what you couldn’t see before?”
“It’s amazing..... There’s really this kind of power inside me.....”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself. This is the most basic of the basics.”
Then Mahito pulled something small from his pocket and, in an instant, stretched it out into a pointer. It was grotesque, with bulging veins standing out across its surface, but Junpei didn’t pay it much mind.
Like a teacher, Mahito tapped the pointer against his palm and began drawing on the ground. Junpei, who had been touching himself here and there and moving around in wonder, soon fell into concentration.
“You’ve only taken your first step. To use the cursed energy flowing through your body, you need knowledge that lets you control it. There are communities of sorcerers where you can learn jujutsu, but since you awakened through an exceptional method, you’ll be learning from me from now on.”
“Understood.”
“Cursed energy is power that arises from negative human emotions. All humans are born with cursed energy above a minimal level, but only a few have enough to perceive and use it. Humans who can use ‘jujutsu’ as a power source are called jujutsushi.”
“I understand that jujutsu is a kind of power that comes from emotion. But how exactly do I use this cursed energy?”
“There are many things you can do with cursed energy. You can simply release it to strike an opponent from a distance, or use it to strengthen or heal the body. But even then, it still doesn’t escape its root as formless ‘power.’ The element that breaks through that limit is what we call a ‘technique.’”
“A technique...?”
“To use an example from human electricity, it’s simple enough. Electricity can do all sorts of things, but if you send it through a specific device, you get a result. A technique is what gives the cursed energy you possess a clear ‘form’ and grants it an effect. This includes simple barrier techniques and shikigami techniques, but in most cases it refers to the ‘innate technique’ engraved into the body at birth. What I did to your brain was done with my technique.”
“Then what about people who aren’t born with a technique? Is there no other way to learn one?”
“In those cases, they can still manipulate cursed energy in various ways, but there’s nothing distinctive about it. Anyone who can handle cursed energy can do those things. That’s why talent matters for sorcerers. The talent called an ‘innate technique.’”
So even if you could handle cursed energy, if you didn’t have an innate technique, you were basically useless. Junpei felt a little discouraged by that, but at the same time, he held on to hope.
Just awakening this power was already a plus. But now he wanted more. He wanted a technique of his own.
With a pounding heart, Junpei asked Mahito,
“Then... do I have a technique?”
Mahito grinned and nodded.
“Congratulations. You hit the jackpot. You do have a technique.”
------------------------
The moment a sorcerer becomes aware of their technique is never fixed.
The relationship between cursed energy, techniques, and the brain is still an unknown field. There is evidence suggesting some degree of connection, but no proof has yet been found that can neatly systematize and establish it. The same goes for the moment of awakening. In most cases, people realize a technique that naturally emerges from emotional fluctuations, but exceptions always exist.
Junpei, whose talent had been awakened by another person, was the latter. Having lived as an ordinary person, he knew nothing about jujutsu or cursed energy, and he had no idea he even had a technique. If not for Mahito, he would have let that dormant power rot away until the day he died.
“You can already use your technique from the moment you awaken cursed energy. Focus, and think of pouring cursed energy into the technique. The technique engraved in your cursed energy will reveal its nature.”
Following Mahito’s guidance as he touched his head, Junpei moved his cursed energy. He didn’t understand the theory clearly, but he could feel it. A circuit engraved into the body at birth. Following its guidance, he rotated the cursed energy flowing through his body!
Just a little more. Really, just a little more..... The more desperately Junpei wished for it in his heart, the more fiercely the cursed energy began to surge.
The conditions were ready. All that remained was to trust his own talent and let his body move naturally. The more he concentrated, the more he thought he could hear a gurgling sound in his ears. He took that as a good sign and poured even more effort into controlling the cursed energy.
After a long while of closing his eyes and contemplating his inner self, he finally found the thread.
The hot, sticky sensation felt from one corner of his chest and head. The source of negative emotion. In his mind, Junpei reached out toward it and soon succeeded in grasping it.
The moment he seized it, information flowed into Junpei’s mind. As if it had always been something he could do naturally, his body and brain rapidly adapted and guided their master down a new path.
The activation of a technique, the blooming of talent. He moved on to the next stage.
In the instant Junpei’s eyes flew open with a flash, his hands were already forming a hand sign.
Soft and subtle, just like the nature of his technique, he raised his middle and index fingers while curling the rest, lifting them beside his right eye.
Under an uncontrollable current of air, Junpei’s mouth opened and spat out the activation word.
“Sediment Moon.”
Under its master’s will, the cursed energy flowing through the technique took on a clear shape.
A small jellyfish appeared in the air in an instant.
Its translucent body, glowing with a faint blue light, was striking. But upon closer inspection, its appearance felt strangely unsettling.
The pattern wrapped around its tentacles glowed with an ominous yellow, and among the fluttering tentacles protruding beneath its body, one especially large pair was fitted with vicious spines.
Seeing the liquid dripping from those spines, Junpei vaguely realized the true nature of his technique.
“Junpei’s technique is poison?”
While the jellyfish floated softly over Junpei’s hand, Mahito spoke.
“You can secrete poison refined from cursed energy through the shikigami’s tentacles. As for the level of poison, the size of the shikigami, and how to control its strength, you can learn those little by little from here on. I can teach you the sensory parts that ordinary sorcerers spend time figuring out, so you’ll be able to fight in no time.”
“Ah...”
“Junpei, you have talent.”
The words carried a meaning as dangerous as the poison of [Sediment Moon], but to Junpei, Mahito’s praise sounded sweeter than anything else.
I did it. I did it. I have talent.
“Poison is a pretty rare and excellent technique. And on top of that, you can summon a shikigami without using a talisman as a medium. If you apply it well, it’ll become a terrifying ability that combines offense and defense and even hides a dagger in its sleeve.”
“That much?”
“Remember what I said earlier—that cursed energy is power born from negative emotions? That means cursed energy has a negative nature. So it isn’t suited to healing or restoration. But if you multiply this negative energy by negative energy again and turn it into positive energy, healing becomes possible.”
“Cursed energy really is mysterious. It sounds almost all-powerful.”
“Of course, that’s only in theory. The process of creating this positive energy is called [Reverse Cursed Technique], and it’s so difficult that even most strong people would struggle with it. Still, if you succeed, you can heal injuries, and that creates a huge gap between you and sorcerers who can’t use [Reverse Cursed Technique]. The natural enemy of those who use [Reverse Cursed Technique] is poison. Detoxification requires an even more precise and complex form of [Reverse Cursed Technique].”
The more Junpei listened to Mahito’s explanation, the more exhilarated he became. If the explanation was right, then it meant he could go up against those Wolverine-like freaks who could reattach a severed arm. Of course, he was still just a fledgling, so there was no way he’d be fighting monsters like that anytime soon.
But there was a clear difference between “I can’t” and “I’ll be able to someday.” The more he trained and climbed higher, the more he would turn impossibilities into reality.
As he learned the mysteries he had never known, he savored the joy of learning for the first time in a long while. It felt like the long-suppressed hunger for knowledge and achievement was screaming all at once.
It wasn’t bad.
Mahito patted the trembling Junpei on the shoulder, then leaped up and lay back down in the hammock again.
“With this, you’re a sorcerer. That’s enough for today. If I told you everything at once, your head would hurt, and it wouldn’t be fun, would it?”
Apparently, that was the end of today’s lesson. Still, Junpei had no regrets. He had gained far more than he had expected.
Junpei bowed his head politely, turned around, and headed for the exit.
Mahito’s playful voice followed after him as he walked away.
“If you get bored waiting, I’ll give you homework. The factors that determine a technique’s power are ‘cursed energy’ and ‘technique precision.’ Research the latter. And don’t forget to practice maintaining a steady output of cursed energy.”
“Th-thank you.”
When Junpei was no longer visible, Mahito burst out laughing.
“Foolish boy. Once he climbs high enough, it’ll be so much more satisfying to break him.”
-------------------------
“That’s way too disgusting.”
After ending his call with Ieiri Shoko, Itadori grit his teeth.
The thing he had fought was not a curse. It was a human who had been stripped of form by the culprit behind the incident.
Deliberately twisting its shape into something as grotesque and warped as possible so that a sorcerer would exorcise it, then tampering with the brainstem to plunge it into a state of confusion.
There wasn’t a shred of dignity left in it.
“This kid can really get angry on someone else’s behalf.”
It’s rare to find a sorcerer who can grieve over the death of a stranger they’ve never even met. That’s because people who handle cursed energy, which carries a negative nature, often have plenty of negative emotions themselves.
That was why it was common to find people whose sense of good and evil was blurry, and not uncommon at all to find people whose personalities were twisted to an almost horrifying degree.
For example, one of the Three Great Families...
“Just thinking about those guys pisses me off.”
Putting that aside, Nanami, who had seen every kind of filthy thing, found Itadori’s reaction refreshing.
It had been a long time since he’d seen a sorcerer this untainted—or even just a civilian, for that matter. At the same time, it stirred up a kind of nostalgia that reminded him of someone, but he didn’t find it unpleasant.
“That remnant itself was a bluff, and we were lured in. What a remarkable operator. This isn’t something that’ll end with a half-hearted response.”
“So that means...”
“Let’s move with vigor.”
“Yes, sir!”
I just hope there aren’t any more victims.
Nanami thought that as he rolled the tension out of his shoulders.
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