25 Fighting

Booom~

Tak-tak-tak-tak-tak~

The sound of supernaturally fast and hurried footsteps, along with an apparent disregard for walls echoed in a giant labyrinthean structure.

The gargantuan walls and the bizarre geometry that seemed more non-euclidean than anything was uncanny to look at.

Boom~

With another explosive sound, the lean figure of a man jumped out from a freshly created hole in the wall.

'God dammit!' Shuichi cursed in his mind as he ran across a gigantic hallway that suddenly curved upwards to collappse in on itself.

"Where are you running to~" A cocky voice sounded from behind him, making Shuichi twitch his brows in frustration.

But suddenly, with any prior warning, his body was pulled back from an intense attractive force. A phantom 'pull' that pulled in everything around him backwards.

Swoosh~

With a small guest of wind flashing past his ears, Shuichi was fllung backwards towards an overwhelmingly powerful adversary. One that he had no way of touching.

Gojo Satoru walked out of the hole Shuichi had created while blasting through, his hand extended towards his rapidly approaching figure.

Reeling back his other fist, Gojo swung it with an impulse of cursed energy towards the non threatening figure rag dolling towards him.

'Hell...' Shuichi cursed in his mind.

Making a small platform below his feet with cursed energy, a sudden forceful push came from his Shuichi's legs as he flipped around in the air.

Baam~

Gojo's fist impacted his arms that had now been crossed in front of his chest, the impact far more powerful than what the cursed energy let on.

Kuh!~

Shuichi felt his insides twist and turn inside out.

It was a surreal feeling unlike anything he had ever experienced before. The impact of the punch pushed his body back with powerful force, yet another 'pull' prevented his body from moving too far, as if a rope of invisible attractive force had been bound to his organs.

It felt nauseating.

However, the barrage of attacks was far from over.

With Shuichi still in the air, with his mind and thoughts in disarray, Gojo reeled his fists back and unleashed a continuous stream of punches that impacted Shuichi's body.

Having nothing to protect him from the strange sorcery of the enemy, Shuichi materialised a thin but sturdy layer of cursed energy over his body while reinforcing his body to the limit.

Bam bam bam bam bam bam bam~

It felt as if hundreds of punches had rained upon him, which in reality was not so much.

The nauseating feeling was again felt, this time in overwhelming waves.

The pendant on his neck glowed once again.

Immediately, his cursed energy underwent a change, like a switch suddenly being flipped on.

Gojo's fist landed once again, yet just upon the moment of impact the air compressed to make a singular large explosion.

Boom!

Whoosh!

Crash!

The air seemed to have been ripped apart as ripples of invisible curse spread in the vicinity. From the far end of the deranged corridor, Shuichi's figure rose from the dust, panting heavily.

Pant~ Pant~

'Holy crap! I felt as if I was going to die!' Shuichi thought as a bead of sweat rolled down his forehead. His face and other parts of his body brimmed with creeping pain that spread down to the bones, piercing to the far ends of his being.

'Nevermind. I am dying.'

Gojo stopped for a moment, clenching his fist and opening it up a few times.

'What a strange feeling of impact. It felt like the blue was pushed back by his cursed energy.' Taking his hand to his face, he removed his glasses completely, putting them into his pockets as he did so.

Shuichi stabilized himself on the ground, channeling cursed energy through his body in waves with the increased heartbeat of the cursed heart.

Obviously he had not been able to do it beforehand, the stress of the situation made Hard to Kill trigger to adapt to the environment.

He looked towards his pendant that again glowed in an eerie blue light.

'Gojo Satoru is strong. Insanely so. As of right now, I can't think of any way to defeat him.' He clenched his fists and got into a fighting stance.

'The only chance I have is to get past that 'Infinity' of his through the process of adaptation. But that would only hold true if the adaptation could reach completion in the first place.'

Breaking out of his thoughts, Shuichi ran in a mad dash towards his opponents, his legs carried by the insane influx of curse in his body. Propelling him to blinding speeds.

As if on queue, Gojo Satoru also began to run, albeit on a slightly brisk pace as if he was taking a normal morning jog.

'If his infinity works in the way I think it does.' With thoughts going through his mind, Shuichi jumped high up in the air with his hand in a throwing motion. 'Then there's only one thing I can try.'

With a herculean effort by his arms, a spear materialized midway through his thrown, going towards Gojo at an even faster pace.

Whoosh~

Boom~

However, the spear which would have been fatal for any other sorcerer stopped dead in it's tracks before the white haired teenager.

The air pressure generated due to the sudden stop cracked the floor behind him, yet didn't stop Gojo from jogging ahead.

"Nice throw!" He said while offering a thumbs up.

With impressive agility, he snapped the spear from the air, materializing a thin film of infinity around his hand to stop the cursed energy from reacting.

"Heh~"

Boom~

His throw, strangely propelled by cursed energy immediately broke the sound barrier. Whizzing past Shuichi who had twisted his body midair at the last moment, the spear destroyed the wall behind him.

Tch~

Shuichi clicked his tongue in annoyance, a small trail of blood flowing down his cheek. Landing gracefully on the ground, his pendant shone once again, and with it a change suddenly occurred around him.

The dirt on the ground, the stone below him and the very air itself changed and began to radiate cursed energy.

Instantly, Shuichi's own cursed energy plummeted down, almost getting emptied out.

'Time to get serious.'

Whissh~

His legs moved with vigor, enhanced by cursed energy, they propelled him all over the labyrinthean structure with speeds overtaking that of a sports car.

Left, right, up, left, right, down, the hallways looped endlessly; some of them turning inside out and outside in, crashing into themselves and imploding outwards to a subjective void of enhanced concrete.

~~~

A/N: The italics [xyz] would be the narrator in jjk.

~~~

[Gojo Satoru's Infinity, the neutral form of the limitless technique divides a finite layer of space infinitely. It is the Zeno's paradox brought out into reality, an impossibility manifested and made possible through cursed techniques.]

Another booming sound was heard, and with it a lean figure of a teenager appeared close to Shuichi; matching his speed with relative ease.

The cursed heart began to beat senselessly, sucking in the ambient cursed energy from the environment to fuel his reserves.

And with it, a powerful intent, an aura of cursed energy began to spread from his body.

[The Infinity is a mathematical concept of infinitely converging series that terminate to zero. As per the current situation, the only way for Shuichi to win was to adapt to the technique and bypass it entirely.]

A multitude of cursed aggregates assembled in the air, taking various shapes of weaponry, some of spears, some of swords, some of halberds, some of various assortment of guns.

And with a simple hand gesture, they began to fore, all of them surpassing Shuichi's speeds by a large margin.

Boom Boom Boom~

Whisssssssh~

Sounds of hundreds of explosions sounded as various cold weaponry and bullets made of entirely cursed energy impacted the various walls of the structure. Gojo Satoru, the main target of the assault twisted his body in ways that seemed impossible, stepping across the air, propelling his body with blue all over the place.

[Not even his third technique that he had created just one day prior was able to do anything about infinity.]

Bursting through a wall Shuichi turned around making a small platform behind him to jump off of.

And the moment Gojo went through the hole, he jumped towards him.

[Yet there was just one critical flaw in Shuichi's Hard to Kill]

"You're way more interesting than you look!" Gojo Satoru yelled as his fist, devoid to infinity but enveloped by blue impact Shuichi's curse enhanced fist.

Just then, another explosion sounded as both of their bodies ragdolled away from each other.

Landing onto the ground, Shuichi heaved a sigh of relief. "And you're more annoying than I gave you credit for."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

[Hard to Kill makes the user adapt towards something in an exponentially decreasing manner. The higher you adapt, the slower the adaptation gets]

Shuichi inhaled heavily, the air around him shifted in unison, gathering around him, further covering the thin armor film that enveloped his body.

[Although he had already adapted somewhat to the convergence of limitless, blue. It was only to the extent of changing the partial nature of his cursed energy to cause repulsion whenever it came in contact with blue. In fact, it was unable to completely neutralize blue]

Gojo Satoru peered at him, intently studying the changes that were taking placem the glowing pendant, the shifting air, the very ground itself and at the centre of it all, Shuichi.

[However, the neutral form of limitless was an entirely different thing. Even if Shuichi spent his entire life adapting to the infinity, he would never be able to cross it. An infinith part of adaptation would still be unable to be fulfilled. Even an infinitesimally small part of infinity that remained would still be considered infinity]

"Let's do this then." Shuichi said, his arms in a battle stance as his eyes focused upon Gojo's figure.

"Agreed." Gojo replied as he put his hands into his pocket. Something that managed to tick Shuichi off even more.

'Calm down. Concentrate.' he thought.

[As such, there was only one thing that remained that he could do.]

'Gojo Satoru's Infinity is up at all times, so whenever I attack none of my attacks can reach him.'

He stepped forward, the air around him shifting as if in preparation for something. And then, with a loud cracking noise, the ground beneath him split apart as his figure appeared directly in front of Gojo without a moment of delay.

Reeling his hand back, he punched the layer of infinity that laid between him and his opponent.

And as expected, the fist stopped just before his face.

Bam~

And as if on queue, Gojo's fist landed square on Shuichi's jaw, making an incredibly crisp sound that rattled the surroundings.

Then without stopping, a flurry of attacks were thrown at him, over and over and over again in the matter of a few seconds; rattling Shuichi's mind, dazing him in the process.

'The only time when the infinity of Gojo Satoru is down is when he attacks with his fist.' thought Shuichi as fist body was flung through the air in slow motion.

'The limitless technique slows down everything that comes close to him. Yet it doesn't seem to work in the opposite direction. Gojo should be able to very well touch the other party without the infinity layer disrupting him.

'But that's only if the punches are amplified by another aspect of limitless, the negative "blue". Although he can interact with things outside of his infinity, he can't seem to have his hits be as amplified.'

Shuichi's body turned instinctively in the air to land on his feet. And just upon his descent, Gojo was again on him, ready to land a hit.

However, Shuichi's lips held a small tug.

'The reduction in damage makes him amplify his fists with blue, that make even mundane attacks strong enough to obliterate most people.

'But with my cursed energy repelling his blue, he now has no choice but to turn it off, otherwise he would suffer damage even through the infinity whenever he hits me.'

The air around Shuichi shifted, coming just before his figure, the epicenter of which was the place Gojo's fist was going to land at, his torso.

[Gojo Satoru's blue stemmed directly from his body. And facing direct repulsion, even though it was nowhere enough to neutralize it, made some strain on Gojo's body.

[Leaving blue aside, the normal hit he could make with his infinity turned on was about 40% of his normal power, it was a problem that arose due to Gojo's unskillfullness in utilising the cursed technique.

[And judging Shuichi to be a troublesome opponent based on his precieved powers, Gojo had decided to turn both blue and infinity off, a judgement that stemmed from the boundless confidence in himself; and the fact that he knew he could take care of Shuichi without problem.]

'Release!' Shuichi commanded mentally.

The pendant on his neck glowed, and the air that had been compressed at the single point spun and released a devastating explosion.

Boooooooooom~

Crash~

Shuichi and his surroundings had been left completely unharmed, with the only real signs of the explosion being in front of him where the explosion had somehow directed itself towards.

"Hoooooh~" Shuichi exhaled a bit, and then immediately adopted a dead serious expression.

"Man~ you have some tricks up your sleeve~" Gojo Satoru said, walking out of the destruction realtively unharmed.

The right side of his uniform had been badly damaged with noticable damage being done to his right fist and body. Burns were all over his arm and a bit of his torso looked damaged.

"Then..." His cheeky tone suddenly vanished, now replaced by a strangely powerful and serious temperament. "I guess I'll take care of you seriously."

'Its coming!'

Whisssh~

With a guest of wind, Shuichi was blasted off of his feet and taken into the air. And immediately, he face was slammed into the ground, and using his legs as a leverage, Gojo began to drag his face through the concrete.

Craah craah craah~

Running across a long hallway that then travelled straight upwards, Gojo threw Shuichi at the wall with just as much intensity.

Crash~

Without wasting any time, he was then again on top of him, ready to throw a punch.

~~~

Smack~

"Weak!" Naobito yelled as he backhanded Shuichi across the training field.

Falling down upon the ground, Shuichi slumped over, pain coursing through his body.

"If you can't bear pain, then you don't deserve to be in the family!" Naobito yelled. "Stand up, you lowlife!"

With shaky steps, Shuichi stood back up.

Seeing this, Naobito nodded.

"I wouldn't be here if not for your father's last request. You know what it was? It was to make a sorcerer out of you." His eyes gazed at him condescendingly. "But trash is trash."

~~~

'Compared to the ruthless thrashing by Naobito, this can barely be called appropriate.' Shuichi though amidst the rubble, looking at Gojo who had cocked his fist backwards.

The left side of his face was badly scarred with some skin dangling right off.

'Pain tolerance is the first thing taught to a sorcerer. One wouldn't want to freeze up during a fight. Yet even then, Shuichi had always had low amounts of it.

'However, this has changed with Hard to Kill!' propelling himself to his feet, Shuichi reeled back his arm and threw his fist right at Gojo.

[The last plan Shuichi had thought of to counter Gojo didn't arise from a technique at all. Instead, it was something wierdly inherent.]

Gojo prepared to retaliate, knowing that the attack wasn't going to hurt him.

However...

Skssh~

Triiinshhhhh~

A sudden flash of a black light occurred, and with it cracks of lightning and a turbulence in the very fabric of space.

Vrmmm~

The air hummed in vibration, shuddering at the display of sheer might.

A black flash!

[Black flash, a heavenly phenomenon that warps space itself. Compared to the infinity that divides the space an infinite amount of times, black flash that can simply warp that space can bypass the limitless barrier that is the Infinity.]

Gojo flew back out from the tunnel. His arms crossed before his torso.

[Of course, there is no way to transfer all of the force. Instead, the only thing that gets bypassed from the infinity is the 'effect' of the black flash, meaning a vibration that travels across space will stun the enemy!]

[Absolutely unblockable, no matter the amount of protection one has!]

Shuichi stood in the hole for a second, relishing the new power he could feel. The completely new sensation and understanding of the very nature of the world and cursed energy.

"Impressive!" Gojo said in the same cheeky voice.

And then, he disappeared...

Only to reappear behind him.

And then...

Smash~

~~~~~~~~~~~

A/N: Yes, my hand is fine, thank you for asking(Slight sarcasm).

Other than that, I'm back. Although my finger is still there and didn't need to be cut off, it still needs some physiotherapy and stuff. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Upates will be irregular though as I haven't had the time to write too many chapters and I will be having exams just 10 days later. And these will be continuing on for like 2 months so I would barely have any time to write chapters in between.

Oh well, let's hope for the best.

Cheers~

Random Quote of the Day: "The Opportunity of defeating the Enemy is provided by the Enemy himself." - Sun Tzu, the Art of War.