Megumi Of Ten Shadows: CH035

-CHAPTER 35-

-FUSHIGURO MEGUMI POV-

A smile of exhilaration filled my face as wind broke with my every move.

BAM! BAM! BAM!

Growl. Both Gyokuken and Koso let out as they dodged my blows but could not see the swiping kick I had swerved to when I predicted the previous hit would miss.

Bam!

It wasn’t really fair, seeing how strong I was compared to the two of them but I needed to see the height of my power after my ‘enlightenment’ against Jogo.

And what power it was…

“Is this all you guys have!?” I yelled out with a smirk and threw a ‘bring it on’ gesture at them.

It was simply put, addictive. Blood pumped through my veins, and nothing stood in my way, and I felt invincible even without using CE to further enhance myself…

Yet, even with this I knew I was not even that powerful yet in the grand scheme of things… My eyes hardened. I’ll have to keep improving until I reach the heights of this world… Until I become strong enough to defeat the Strongest.

The wolf’s and tiger’s gazes met for but a moment before they both came to a decision and Gyokuken backed off as Koso rushed closer roaring as he activated his ‘Burning Mode’.

Tch. I clicked my tongue because fighting him like this without my clothes burning beyond recognition was pretty annoying. Guess that couldn’t be helped.

Cursed Energy bloomed to life as I covered my hands up to my shoulders in the CE of my shadow realm- enhancing my already reinforced stealth capabilities.

Crack! I cracked my knuckles rushed towards the roaring maw of the burning bipedal tiger both of us quickly exchanging a mixture of blows but easily blocking and throwing a new one.

BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

“HAHAHAHAHAHA!” A laugh full of joy escapes my throat as we throw punches and kicks to our hearts content.

It was savage brutal yet had a certain skill to it that only other skilled people could spot.

BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

My enormous strength clearly shook him with each hit, but my loyal tiger held strong as he suffered from my blows, showing his immense experience as he dodged a few blows and landed some too.

“Roar!” Koso lets out as throws a straight kick and I easily parry it with my right hand and throwing an uppercut straight at his jaw.

Bam! Koso’s eyes roll back as he is lowly desummoned from being unconscious as my perception slows and my thoughts flow at lightning speeds.

Now why would you attack such an obvious kick that I could see coming from a mile away? …That is unless you wanted me to block it! My eyes widen as my senses tingle and almost instinctively I dodge-

SLASH!

-the Abyssal Claw by a hair’s breadth that Gyokuken had fired from inside the shadows.

My smile turns into genuine happiness. He figured it out! Attacking from a place that practically no one can reach was a game-changer for a battle.

After all, Gojo was the only one I had seen whose attacks could penetrate the veil separating the real world from the shadow dimension.

“You dare use my own spells against me?!” I quipped with a laugh as in an instant I had drop down into the shadows as well-

“Bark!”  Gyokuken attacks, not giving me any time to think as he attacks in quick succession trying to overwhelm me with his blows in close quarters.

I move like a leaf in the wind as I dodge them, using his own frame against him as I redirect his hands at the precise moment he makes a move to attack the Abyssal Claw. 

After all, you need to at least flick your fingers to fire it and given that I created that attack I know when someone was going to fire it off. 

I cleverly maneuvered around him and his blow, his strength is in fighting opponents equal or bigger than his size and a skilled small opponent can easily spot his weak spots. 

Unfortunately this type of weakness was such that it couldn’t be solved easily, after all he couldn’t really make himself smaller right? I guess we have more areas to improve in…

“Agh!” I grunt as I wrapped my arms around him and huff out a breath as I use my strong legs and arms to lift.

Gyokuken’s eyes widen in panic as his centre of gravity suddenly shifts, trying to struggle out of my grip to no avail as I-

BAM!  Gyokuken’s head bashes against the dark shadowy liquid floor, creating ripples in the normally still water. To others this would just be like a shadowy ocean and they would drown in it but for me and my Shikigami this was no different than a normal floor.

While his brain was in jumbles from the collision, I quickly got out from underneath him, enhancing fists with even more CE and threw a haymaker straight at his snout.

BAM! 

Gyokuken also turns back into shadows as he is unsummoned, and I plop back down on the shadowy floor summoning a bottle of water from the shadows.

Gulp. Gulp. Gulp.

“Hah!” I breathed out, wiping an imaginary sweat from my forehead. “That hits the spot.”

Then I curiously looked around at my surrounding, remembering that I hadn’t really explored this aspect of my ability much beyond of just storing things. After all, I can’t really bring other people in here normally- just a restriction of the technique.

The only way to bring someone in here was by using my Domain Expansion and well... what would be the point? They would just straight up die from the lack of oxygen even if somehow they didn’t sink and drown.

Except for the shadowy ground, the rest of the place was just a copy of the real world gymnasium I was sparring inside. Only everything was made of black and darkish colors.

After some more minutes of exploring my Shadow Realm, I once again sat back down yet still didn’t exit. Because I think this place was the perfect playground to test my other abilities.

Well’s Unknown Abyss. Made by a Ten Shadows user centuries ago after the Zenin clan lost the technique to bind Cursed Spirits to themselves. And for a weak technique it fulfills its objective adequately.

You get a hundred times more versatility and freedom of movement by being able to create useful- albeit significantly weaker -Shikigami combos that don’t get permanently destroyed even after they’re killed and for a very little CE cost. 

And unlike Totality, these Merged Beasts are instantly created according to the user’s wishes at the cost of them being weaker.

There was a “Base” Shikigami and then there was a “Layer” Shikigami. The “Base” Shikigami worked as a physical vessel and would only inherit some physical traits from the latter while keeping almost all of its original strength- Still much weaker than original. Meanwhile the “Layer” Shikigami worked as a battery, filling the “Base” with its unique abilities (albeit weaker) which would be inherited by the resulting Merged Beast.

Though in the end, the user can decide what abilities they wanted the Merged Beast to have. It was all about keeping it balanced or else the summoning itself would fail.

So for example if I took Koso as a “base” and added Nue as a “layer”, the resulting Shikigami would still have 60% of Koso’s strength with the ability to fly with wings or maybe shoot lightning from Nue. Or if I used Nue as a “base” the merged form could have a bipedal body with Nue’s ability to fly and shoot lightning.

The more powerful the “base” the more “layers” you can put on it. Like how Sukuna was able to paste both Koso and Madoka onto Nue’s Totality to create Agito.

It had its flaws but it was still useful and most of all- its use depended solely on the user’s creativity. Another place where the Canon Megumi failed…

I shook my head in slight disappointment. In a way this was a Digimon fan’s wet dream.

Already I had a dozen different combinations that I could think of on the spot. But I also knew this came with its own restrictions like everything in Jujutsu.

The main restriction with this was that only two Shikigami could be combined, atleast normally, as only Gyokuken (my only Totality) currently had enough strength to be able to bear two Shikigami as a Merged Beast. But I guess that would solve itself with time.

The second weakness was that they would always be individually weaker than a normal Shikigami. That made it clear that this extra technique was just to use in places where conventional Shikigami weren’t the best choice.

But of course, when have I seen a “how it should be” and didn’t try to make use of it in another and a better way?

I joined my hands in handsign- acutely different from the rest. And within my mind I imagined the two Shikigami I wanted, and merged them. Taking what feature I wanted and discarding those that I didn’t.

A million white rabbits on a grassy field…

A single red owl-like bird flying alone in a thunderstorm…

“Merged Beast Summoning.” I muttered in concentration- this was my first time performing this so I had to get used to it before I could effectively use this in battle. “Chirpings of a thousand birds… [Chidori].”

Chirp! Chirp! Chirp! Chirp! Chirp! Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!

A small, barely the size of my hand, white feathered owl-like bird appeared from the shadows in my hand, a wooden mask very similar to Nue on her face as hundreds and thousands of her copies started appearing in en masse all around me.

Woosh~!

Chirp! Chirp! Chirp! Chirp! Chirp! Chirp! Chirp! Chirp!

“Hahahaha!” I laughed out in amazement as the birds flew around me like a tornado. Chidori is a pretty simple Merged Beast in hindsight, it is based upon Nue and given the full abilities of copy from Rabbit Escape in exchange for having no electric limit. But it still has a lot of room for potential growth.

I patted the small bird on her head as the amount of birds surrounding us kept growing without limit. While this could be powerful in its own right, I didn’t really saw myself using it much like this so I thought of improvements.

I thought of the exact wording before saying outloud. “I vow that from now on and till the death of [Merged Beast Chidori], only a thousand copies of Chidori could be summoned and if killed they would be unable to be recreated, and in return the thousand remaining birds can perform a Binding Vow and receive an equal amount of strength in return for giving up their lives during an attack.”

Tens of thousands of birds just popped into smoke as the Binding Vow settled down, leaving only a thousand as they chirped and flew around me. While this meant that in the end there was only a limited amount of time I could use Chidori, it would let me hit with the same power of Mei Mei’s Bird Manipulation… which was said to be able to kill any one except Gojo… 

I had effectively gained a thousand free silver bullets for practically free. After all, Chidori’s Binding Vow does not consider their individual counterparts in it. So I could still use Rabbit Escape and create however many copies I like of him.

Though it would be interesting to see if a Totality of Nue and Rabbit Escape would still bear this Binding Vow. Can a Binding Vow reach past the death of a Shikigami?

It was curious thought, but one that I would have an answer for sooner or later.

I chuckled, seeing how far I had come already. Just casually copying the technique of a powerful First Grade Jujutsu Sorcerer like its nothing… No wonder others say that Ten Shadows is a very strong technique without even knowing about Mahoraga.

Though I can’t really experiment with Chidori anymore since she was a limited amount now so I couldn’t really say how hard of a hit she would give.

“You’re now too precious to be wasted on fodder.” I cooed at the small bird, patting her head of feathers as she chirps in happiness.

But it really wasn’t that hard to think of more combinations for my Shikigami.

I cracked my neck, unsummoning Chidori. “Let’s get cracking shall we!”

…

-Two Weeks Later-

-3RD PERSON POV-

“-UTAHIME!” Gojo yells out as he dashes towards the grumpy and annoyed looking scarred woman dressed in a shrine maiden outfit. 

An impish grin wide on his face, as he repeatedly pokes and annoys her. “Did you miss me? Of course you did! Someone weak like you wouldn’t be able to live more than two seconds without me protecting you after all! HAHAHAHA!”

“Gojo.” Utahime grunts, gritting her teeth as if she wanted to throttle him before swallowing her anger and acting as if he didn’t exist. Turning to the more sedately walking group and lightly bowing towards the leading Yaga. “Principal Yaga, I’m honored to receive you at our school for the Exchange Event. I hope you had an easy travel.”

Formalities have to be done even if this was a confirmed yearly event… Bureaucracy was such a chore. Gojo thought, annoyed. Acting as if this didn’t happen every year…

Yaga nods, his dark glasses gleaming in the morning sky, as he gives a light bow. “I’m honored to have received the invitation. And the bullet train bought us here without any hassle or interruptions… I believe Principal Gakuganji is inside?”

“Yes, he is. Bug he apologises for his his tardiness as in his words, the sun today doesn’t agree with him. Let me lead you to him.” Utahime nods, idly counting all the students but raising her eyebrow as she finds one missing. 

Turning and asking quizzically to Gojo. “I believe we sent you the list of the students that would be participating in the event so why is there a student missing?” 

In an effort to keep the event fair, the schools exchanged the information of how many participants will be coming from both sides so they could equal it while they had the time.

“Well, in his words he had to go to the washroom…” Gojo shrugged, yet his lips quirked up in a smile as he looked in a random direction sensing the small, yet invisible to others, eruption of familiar CE in the distance.

I’m pretty sure Megumi is having more fun than me right now! Gojo sighed. Being an adult really sucked didn’t it?

Atleast he could annoy Utahime to pass the time… And that always brings a smile to Gojo’s face.

…

-FUSHIGURO MEGUMI POV-

Gulp. Gulp. I swallowed the whole can of soda in but a few seconds, crushing it with my fist and throwing it in a perfect arc straight into the trashcan as I turned towards the voice that had stopped me.

“-What did you just say?” I ask as a smile slowly stretches across my face, looking straight into the dark eyes of the muscular man with a man bun standing across from me.

He looks at me seriously, as if searching for the secrets of the universe itself, bringing his one hand forwards, he asks.

“What kind of woman is your type?”

Now that… That is the type of question that would end in an exhilarating fight. 

…

A/N: We’re finally here! The Kyoto Sister School Exchange Sub-Arc is a go! Other than that how did you like my explanation of “Well’s Unknown Abyss”? I know it was the name of the specific merged beast but I decided on making it the name of the extra technique itself (as it fit the theme). 

Also while I have a few combos thought up, please suggest some combo mergers that you thought of and I'll try to show a few of them in the story!

…

[EDITED FOR SPELLING MISTAKES]