The dust settled in the clearing as Jiki and Kenjaku looked impassively at each other. At least Jiki did; Kenjaku was all smiles. There was a terrifying quality to it. A carefree recklessness that hid a calculating mind, and it was eerie on the woman's face.
Greed.
He had not taken Kenjaku for a particularly greedy person, which meant there was another angle he was missing.
"You see," Kenjaku said softly, voice thick with fascination, "it took me centuries. Centuries of research, experimentation, failure, and refinement to discover the precise methods to alter and modify my brain, to make it capable of holding multiple cursed techniques. Even then, even with all that time and mastery, there are still limits. Still boundaries.
And yet… here comes a child. A child with an innate ability to copy techniques.
But that wasn't what truly intrigued me. You're not the first nor the only one with the ability to copy techniques. Even in this modern era, there's that interesting boy touring Africa too. No, what caught my attention was that you also possess other innate cursed techniques, ones that aren't simply offshoots or variants of your primary ability. And so I began to wonder… how?
How do you store them? How do you hold so many at once, when even the greatest sorcerers can only bear one? It took me many, many long years. Countless nights of watching, probing, unraveling every little thread you left behind. But eventually, it clicked.
Unlike other sorcerers, whose cursed techniques are engraved into the body, into the brain, yours are different.
Yours are imprinted in your eyes.
Your eyes, child, are the storage. They are the vault holding your multiple innate techniques. A true, unparalleled mutation. Something even beyond the Six Eyes. And do you know what that means?"
Kenjaku's grin spread, slow and wolfish, eyes gleaming with interest, intrigue, and the slightest bit of hunger.
Jiki stared back impassively as he tried to use his RCT to heal his left eye, but he could instinctively feel that his mastery of it wasn't nearly enough to fix such a complex and complicated organ like his Sharingan. He already knew the spiel Kenjaku was speaking. There were differences, little as they were, but he was not blind to the overwhelming similarities.
"The things I could do with them, multiple techniques in the same body alongside my brain, at least for as long as your body lasts before growing old," Kenjaku finished with a lazy shake of his head as Jiki stared him down. So far, Kenjaku had not begun to use RCT to heal his hand, which meant two things: either his capacity for it was low or nonexistent, which Jiki didn't think likely, or more possibly, he understood clearly how fast Jiki was.
Before he could do more than heal, Jiki could close the distance, and as proven earlier, close combat for most against him was a death sentence.
Kenjaku looked up to the sky and admitted easily, "I'm not oblivious to the bind you've put me into. In my danger ratings, you were always somewhere slightly below Satoru Gojo and above Tsuki. So I knew if I somehow didn't manage to kill you with a sneak attack, I would lose."
Soft brown eyes drifted down to him. "And I was right. But unfortunately for you, I never fight fair," Kenjaku finished with a laconic smile, and Jiki felt the hair at the back of his neck rise as something struck him from behind.
He ducked low at the last second, and with his hands against the ground for balance, he instinctively lashed out with a high kick that deflected the weapon upwards. At that same moment, he looked into the grinning face of his attacker.
The first thing he noticed was the intense eyes. The skin around the eyes had what seemed like protruding veins. He would've mistaken his assailant for a Hyuga if not for the sharp electric blue orbs that stared back at him. His opponent grinned, and what Jiki had assumed were veins revealed themselves as simply burn marks. The man shifted his stance before lashing out with the staff that Jiki had deflected once.
Jiki rolled and gave himself distance before flipping back to his feet with a frown. This had gotten more complicated.
"Oh, he's not Sukuna, but he has pretty good instincts for a sorcerer of this era."
Jiki's brow eased at that slip-up. In a second, he had learned that, for some reason, the new sorcerer was looking for Sukuna and was also not a sorcerer of this era. With that information, he could divert the sorcerer's attention to Yuji and leave him free with enough time to kill Kenjaku. Unfortunately, that meant he would be leaving Yuji in the hands of an unknown sorcerer. A suboptimal decision by any stretch.
He glanced at Kenjaku, and he could tell that the body-hopping sorcerer had come to the same conclusion and was looking at him with calm eyes. It seemed like bringing this sorcerer here to save him was a gamble on his part. Whatever true plans Kenjaku had for Sukuna and Itadori Yuji, Jiki doubted they had much to do with the new sorcerer.
"Oi, instead of staring at each other, tell me your name." The sorcerer called out with a cocky tone as he rested the staff he carried on his shoulder, while his second hand rested on his hip. His blue hair was partitioned into two ponytails above his head and shaped like horns.
"Gojo… Gojo Jiki," Jiki whispered quietly as he rapidly calculated how to get himself, Yuji, and Todo out of here in one piece while lacking an eye against what seemed like the two of the strongest sorcerers he had faced in his short life… He had beaten worse odds.
"A Gojo, eh?" The stranger asked rhetorically as he scratched at his chin. "I killed a lot of you in my time. I don't think I ever met any truly interesting one." The man turned back to him with a smile. "Something tells me you're going to be different. Anyway, my name is Kashimo. Hajime Kashimo."
"While the introductions have been fun, I would very much like us to move this along, Kashimo. I'm bleeding out here, and the moment I decide to switch my curse energy from negative to positive, our dear Jiki here is going to kill me. So, if you please?"
Kashimo gave Kenjaku a glare, a glare that Kenjaku deflected with an eyes-closed, innocent smile. A split second later, Kashimo blurred forward and swung his staff in a decapitating strike at Jiki's head.
Jiki took a single step back, and it whiffed past him. Then he lunged forward at a low angle and buried his foot into Kashimo's chest.
He felt it a split second later, the static shock of electricity running through him. His muscles spasmed, but he was already moving on. Using Kashimo as a fulcrum, he jumped back, spun midair in a single motion to reorient himself, and dropped down with an axe kick right onto a surprised Kenjaku's head.
Yet, despite how surprised Kenjaku was, the body-hopping sorcerer was an old hand at combat, and he immediately put a stop to his attempt at using RCT to heal his hand. Instead, he intercepted with his uninjured hand to block the axe kick. Unfortunately for Kenjaku, Jiki had anticipated it, seen it even, and predicted it.
In one smooth movement, he spun midair, twisted his hips, and lashed out with his free leg, burying his shin into the side of Kenjaku's face and sending him flying away. The moment his feet touched the ground, he moved to follow but skipped back a second later as a lightning-charged staff buried itself in his path.
The next second, Kashimo was there with a grin on his face. "I'm your opponent, Gojo Jiki."
Kashimo gripped the staff and ripped it out of the ground, electricity arcing around him as he lowered his stance. "Let's see if you're worth the trouble of Kenjaku waking me up too early."
The air crackled as the two of them stood across from each other. Kashimo twirled his staff, the electricity dancing around it like a viper, the sharp scent of ozone filling the clearing. Jiki stood firm, sweat trailing down his brow, his single eye narrowed, blood crusting along his cheek where the missing eye had been.
"You know," Kashimo said, his voice light, almost cheerful, "I thought Sukuna would be the one to get me riled up. But you? You're starting to look interesting."
Jiki remained silent, his chest heaving. The pounding of his heart echoed in his skull. The world felt like it was tilting; his depth perception was skewed, but he couldn't let it distract him. Not when Kashimo's entire body was practically humming with curse energy.
He was not sure if that was his curse technique or not, but considering it had been near constant, Jiki was almost certain it was simply a property of his cursed energy. It was a rare thing, for someone's cursed energy to bear a particular property, but it was not unheard of. Unfortunately, he was not given much time to think about it.
Kashimo lunged forward, the ground cracking beneath his feet as he rushed toward Jiki, his staff swinging in a horizontal arc. Jiki sidestepped, narrowly avoiding the strike, but Kashimo was relentless. Another swing, this one aimed low, forced Jiki to leap. As he did, Kashimo's fist shot forward, knuckles crackling with electricity.
The blow connected with Jiki's ribs, sending a shockwave of cursed energy through his body. Pain seared through his flesh, and his muscles convulsed involuntarily. Jiki gasped and instinctively buried his elbow into the overextended forearm, but Kashimo reacted quickly, a knee driving up into his gut.
Jiki's vision blurred. He was flung backward as he lashed out in the same moment with a foot to Kashimo's face to stall him from a follow-up attack as he was sent crashing through the remains of a stone wall, debris scattering around him. Dust and stone scraped against his skin as he tumbled, finally skidding to a stop inside a house.
"Oh? Not dead yet?" Kashimo's voice echoed, and Jiki forced himself up, clutching his side. Blood dripped from his lips, staining his teeth red. He glanced at Kashimo to see him spitting out a wad of blood as well as realigning his broken nose. His Sharingan was struggling in the face of the anomaly that was Kashimo. Predicting Kashimo's movement was proving to be more difficult than he expected. The reincarnated sorcerer's body was alight with lightning in a way that Jiki had found annoying in his past life, the one time his squad had been sent to assassinate the Fourth Raikage.
He was outputting so much lightning that it masked the actual electrical impulses, muscle contractions, and other physical tells the Sharingan was known to look out for. On the cursed energy side, Kashimo was also a first for Jiki. He had never had to decipher cursed energy movement as erratic and sporadic as Kashimo's due to the lightning property it held.
But the main problem was Kenjaku. Not because the body-hopping sorcerer was particularly dangerous, but his presence alone left Jiki distracted.
"He's tougher than he looks," Kenjaku remarked from his perch atop the rubble, eyes gleaming with wariness. "But don't let him fool you. He only has one eye now. Unlike the six eyes, he needs the two pair of eyes for his most powerful techniques."
Jiki remained stoic while Kashimo smirked. "One eye, huh? A handicap, then?"
"I know what you're thinking, Kashimo, and don't be stupid. He's already adapting to you even with a single eye. He managed to sneak an attack through your last two strikes. It's only a matter of time."
Kashimo frowned for the second time, and Jiki noted it. He disliked taking orders. "Fine." Yet he accepted this again for some reason. What was Kenjaku holding over him, and how could he use it to his advantage?
Electricity crackled, and in the next second, Kashimo closed the distance once more, his staff whistling through the air. Jiki barely raised his forearm in time, the staff slamming into his guard, the impact rattling his bones. He gritted his teeth, muscles straining.
The next strike slipped past Jiki's guard, slamming into his collarbone with a sickening crack that drove him to his knees. A follow-up kick shot toward his face, but he twisted away just in time, rolling and flipping back to his feet. He barely managed to skip back, but Kashimo gave him no room to breathe. The lightning-clad sorcerer was on him like a wild beast, relentless and untamed.
Kashimo lunged forward, striking with fists, elbows, knees, feet, and staff, every limb was a weapon. Jiki deflected and diverted, weaving through the onslaught, but he could feel it: the creeping drag in his limbs, the faint lag in his reactions. He was slowing down.
The next attack came like a thunderbolt. Kashimo's knee crashed up into Jiki's jaw, snapping his head back with brutal force. The world lurched, spinning, and before Jiki could gather himself, Kashimo's fist buried itself in his gut. Agony exploded through him as a surge of electricity tore through his body, muscles locking and trembling.
"You've noticed it, haven't you?" Kashimo said, finally pausing, an amused smile spreading across his face. "You're getting slower."
Jiki gasped as he skidded back, his muscles locking up, his cursed energy flickering as his body threatened to shut down. Kashimo was right. He was. Every attack Kashimo landed left a lingering touch of electricity in his veins, slowing him down. Kashimo grinned, twisting the staff and slamming the end of it into Jiki's throat.
However, more than his combat prowess, in another life, Uchiha Itachi had been heralded as a prodigy not just for his skill in close combat but for the deadly precision of his ocular abilities. That reputation had quietly followed him into this life. And yet, throughout their clash, Kashimo had shown no care for that fact. He had maintained eye contact without hesitation, either oblivious to the abilities that came with the Sharingan or simply too reckless to care.
Jiki didn't particularly care which it was.
With a wide-eyed glare, he unleashed a genjutsu package. There was no finesse or subtlety, and he watched as it slammed into Kashimo's mind like a brick through glass. He had not bothered with finesse, not against the wild, jittering, epileptic surge of Kashimo's cursed energy. He didn't expect the illusion to last more than a second.
He didn't need more than that.
Kashimo froze, his body locking up as his psyche was hurled into a moment of agony, enduring what it meant to be tied to a cross and stabbed a hundred times.
Move.
At that same moment, Jiki's hands shot up, gripping the staff with iron resolve. His body twisted, and this time his kick wasn't aimed to strike, it was aimed to disarm. The sole of his foot crashed against Kashimo's fingers wrapped around the other end of the staff, forcing the lightning-wreathed sorcerer to instinctively let go.
Without missing a beat, Jiki spun the metal staff in a sharp arc and whipped it into Kashimo's midsection. The impact sent the other man hurtling backward, crashing through air and dirt.
Jiki seized the moment. He didn't waste the precious breathing space. He slammed the staff point-first into the ground, feeling the charge bleed out of him, the electrical current that had slowed and dulled his body sinking deep into the earth. Not all of it drained away, some stubborn sparks clung to his muscles, buzzing faintly, but they were no longer enough to hinder him.
By the time he looked up, Kashimo was already sprinting toward him again, relentless as ever. But Jiki had made his decision. He had drawn this battle far enough, and pulled Kashimo far away from where the unconscious figures of Yuji and Todo lay.
It was time to end it.
His Sharingan's inability to fully predict Kashimo's movements was only one part of the problem when it came to facing the reincarnated sorcerer. The greater challenge came from something far simpler but far more crippling: his sudden loss of depth perception. With only one eye, gauging distance became a constant struggle, especially against a close-quarters monster like Kashimo. Every misjudged range, every miscalculated strike left him open.
Jiki knew he had to change the game.
His hands slammed together with a sharp clap, and without hesitation, his fingers blurred into motion. Hand sign to hand sign, flowing seamlessly as he molded cursed energy in patterns no sorcerer of this world had ever seen. Tiger. Snake. Monkey. Boar. Horse.
He drew in a deep breath.
Just like chakra, cursed energy was born in the gut. He kneaded it, shaping it, feeling it surge within him. Sparks flared to life, the heat building, the raw energy shifting into flame. Then, without pause, Jiki pressed his fingers to his lips and exhaled.
Fire Style: Great Fire Annihilation.
Kashimo only had a split second for his eyes to widen before Jiki breathed out a literal sea of fire that moved like it was alive. A massive torrent of fire that roared out, sweeping across the battlefield like a living inferno. The ground hissed as the grass withered and the earth scorched black.
Jiki kept the jutsu up for two more seconds before he broke it, and watched the fire spread without his input. He didn't have time to check and confirm if he had killed Kashimo with that blow; instead, he spun on the spot to where Kenjaku was and was met with the smiling face of Kaori Itadori as the woman clapped.
The sound was taunting, the meaty thwack of palms slapping against each other. Kenjaku smiled down at him. "That was riveting and exciting to watch in the extreme, your fascinating usage of curse energy, and your critical decision-making skills. Have I mentioned that watching you fight is a marvel? Because it truly is."
He was too late. He blurred forward, but Kenjaku was expecting it. The body-hopping sorcerer lazily swung his hand down theatrically and Jiki found himself buried face-first to the ground again. "Kashimo played his role beautifully. Hopefully, he survives your sea of flames… If he doesn't well, I guess that's one more binding vow I don't have to keep."
Jiki forced his head up despite the immense pressure wailing down on him as he glared up at his opponent with a single eye. Kenjaku fearlessly walked up to him with a smirk of satisfaction. Then he saw the barest hint of a smile on Jiki's face.
Kenjaku had made a mistake from the beginning.
A simple misconception. That he needed both eyes to activate the abilities that came with the Sharingan. It was a misconception stemming from a lie. Years ago, the Gojo clan had sought to document his powers for safekeeping. They promised protection and secrecy, and Jiki had handed over the details they requested. Only he hadn't been entirely honest. He mixed in half-truths and outright fabrications.
Before he was a sorcerer, he had been a ninja. He lied and twisted the truth as easily as he breathed.
"I cannot use my ocular abilities if I lose an eye." he had told them with a straight face and had watched them write it down, for safe keeping.
He left out the part that the restriction affected only the Susanoo. When Kenjaku attacked the Gojo clan, he was nearly certain the sorcerer must've found a way to those records. Now he was certain. If Kenjaku hadn't, he would have assumed Jiki's eyes worked like the Six Eyes, operating symmetrically and without fail. Then there was the statement Kenjaku made early on:
"A fair trade. An eye for a hand."
Jiki needed his two eyes for the Susanoo, but there was a technique he had only used with a single eye for years. And he had allowed Kenjaku to get close enough that he could hardly dodge.
"Amaterasu."
Kenjaku's eyes widened as his body spontaneously combusted as Amaterasu's flames ate at them. The body hopping sorcerer screamed. It was a raw and primitive sound straight from the throat of Kaori Itadori. Amaterasu burned faster than he had ever seen them do before, like something was fueling them. He felt that gaze on him again.
A gaze that stared into the very depth of his being in approval.
The pressure on Jiki lifted a second later, and he sprang to his feet without hesitation. His gaze locked onto Kenjaku, and for a brief moment, his own eye widened ever so slightly. Amaterasu flames, the black fire that was said to burn unquenched for seven days and seven nights, had vanished without a trace. He could not focus on how Kenjaku had managed to counter it so quickly. It did not matter now.
Even for the split second that it lasted, the damage had been done.
Kaori Itadori was unrecognizable. Her skin was a grotesque mask of charred flesh and melted contours. Her eyes had burst from their sockets, empty and hollow, yet against all odds, her heart still beat. And Kenjaku, he was still in there, alive.
It was time to rectify that.
In less than a heartbeat, Jiki closed the final distance between them and drove his right fist deep into Kenjaku's midsection. But the impact alone wasn't enough.
He shifted his footing with precision and slammed his left hand beneath Kenjaku's ribs.
With a twisting motion of his knuckles, Jiki tore through charred skin and liquefied fat, pushing his fist relentlessly deeper right into the very core of Kenjaku's being.
That was when it happened.
Jiki's single eye widened, his breath catching as something inside him clicked. He felt it. The flow. The rhythm. It wasn't through sight, not anymore. It was pure sensation, humming through his nerves and bones. The perfect alignment of cursed energy, the unshakable harmony of body, mind, and spirit.
0.000001
His cursed energy converged, folding in on itself, sharpening into a singular point.
Then it came.
A burst. A violent crack of black lightning tore through the air, nearly blinding him as the Black Flash detonated. Time itself seemed to stagger. Kenjaku's silent scream froze mid-air, his body folding and warping as the sheer force of the blow rippled through him. His limbs snapped back, his torso crumpled, and then Kenjaku was blasted away, slammed backward with such ferocity the ground buckled beneath Jiki.
Jiki stood trembling, his chest heaving with ragged breaths, his body aflame with power. Cursed energy surged like a storm through his veins, crackling under his skin, and he felt it now, his eyes. The mangled organ. It throbbed with the flood of energy rushing through him, and in that instant, he understood.
In response, the ruined tissue began knitting and reshaping, the torn pathways repairing themselves thread by thread. Light pierced the black. Shapes returned.
The world snapped back into perfect, crystal clarity. A grin stretched across Jiki's face as a low, ragged chuckle slipped from his throat and past his lips. His eyes, both of them now, were wide and intense as he barely suppressed the laugh that threatened to break free, trembling on the edge of madness.
Was this it? Black Flash?
A foot displaced air, a subtle shift in pressure, and Jiki tilted his head in response as an injured and surprised Kashimo came into sight. Jiki's smile widened.
"Time for round two." He whispered to the reincarnated sorcerer.