There were three gigantic beasts inside of this oversized humid forest filled with nothing but monsters, trees the sizes of giants, and him. I can't see them no matter where I look as there are only trees, rocks, bushes, or stray animals who reserve themselves from making me their prey. I closed my eyes, allowing my other senses to take over. I may not be able to see them, but I can sense them using everything else. One was twice the size of an elephant. The other two, although similar in size, weren't as worrisome.
He was behind me and a bit towards the right, so somewhere around 5 o'clock of my position. It had the size of two elephants, but the body of a lion. And it had left its hiding spot.
With an ear-bursting roar, the lion-elephant explodes in my direction with a dash. All four of its legs worked in tandem to reach my position in mere seconds. It charged its paw and readied a swing, preparing to slice me into pieces with its sword-like claws. I did nothing but smile.
The lion swung and the sharp sound of air escaping in every direction was just as loud as the piercing roar from before. The lion then carefully examines my position and its eyes pop out in shock. I was no longer standing there, and the Lion had never once made contact with my body. He then noticed my shadow on the ground and that was when he looked up.
"Gum-gum!" My entire right arm then pulls away from my body behind, stretching further and further away from me. With another smile, I stare at the giant lion-elephant down from above. His eyes still popped out in shock. "Pistol!" My arm then retracts in mere moments as it flew towards my body.
"Alongside that, I'll use this as well!
"Armament Haki: Hardening!" An invisible coat of armor then wraps around only my hand as I hadn't yet learned to properly coat my whole arm.
The lion's entire body then gets lifted off the ground as my punch made contact with his face. Tears then began to shed from the lion's eyes as it got sent flying into the trees it was hiding behind. The two other beasts then both jumps at me from behind while I was distracted by the Lion. However, I already knew they were there. And so…
My body turns into a bright red color as steam began to emit from my body. And as the two gigantic creatures, one looked like an alligator and the other resembling a blue ape of some sort, both swung down onto my location, only to come to the same conclusion as the lion had a few moments prior.
"Gear Second!"
Both the beasts then began making a run for it as they ran in the same direction that the lion flew in, almost as if they were following the lion's example of being blasted away. I then held my laugh back with a smile once I made that realization.
I then kick off the tree behind me and landed in front of the path that the two beasts were traveling in. I was faster than the two of them, so I was now ahead of them. Hitting the brakes on their run, they both began to back-paddle away, but I wasn't allowing that.
"Gum-Gum! Whip!" I then stretch my left leg out and, as if kicking a ball, kicked the two beasts in one hit. Of course, imbued with Armament hardening on my foot as well.
I then heard clapping behind me. This chill that comes with his voice every time he spoke: Rayleigh.
"Well done using your Observation." He was an old man with white hair and glasses. He was also rather tall and muscularly built, but also rather slim. He's also the man that has been kicking my ass every time we fought in his sparing sessions.
"Rayleigh! I knew I had sensed you earlier! How's the food?"
"Ah, yes. They're ready now," he said while walking away. "That's what I came here to tell you—"
Before Rayleigh could even finish his sentence, Luffy had already dashed in the direction of the singular pillar of smoke coming from somewhere inside the forest. A few minutes before Luffy's encounter with these beasts, he was complaining to Rayleigh that cooking takes too long and that he'd rather eat the meat as it was. Scolding Luffy about how raw meat isn't a good source of food, Rayleigh gave Luffy the idea of hunting down the three beasts that have been making hunting rather difficult for the two of them as they ate every other creature they ran across. After half an hour of hunting, Luffy was able to give the three a good lesson on being too greedy. Being completely oblivious to the fact that he was the greediest on this island.
"Well, well. I guessed you deserved it after being this proficient at using Haki just 6 months in," said Rayleigh while observing the starved, red-shirt boy demolish the piece of cooked meat on a bone into fine particles.
"This isn't as good as Sanji's, but meat is still better than anything that's not meat!" Luffy then throws the bone back into the fire and grabbed Rayleigh's meat on a bone.
"Oi!" Rayleigh shouted as Luffy hesitates no second into eating Rayleigh's food.
It was still around the morning when that of Gojo arrived on a completely different island. The sun still barely peaking over the horizon as the dark blue skies slowly turn into a cool shade of cyan. The clouds began moving at speeds that would trouble any navigator as clouds at those speeds only mean one thing: A storm.
"So… What the hell is this?" A lone voice reverberates through the dark corridor through metallic bars that encapsulated him in a cage: Another prison for Satoru Gojo.
My blindfold seems to have been taken away from me, but at least they left my clothes. While sitting on the floor, a quick glimpse around the room made it pretty clear that he had been locked up and thrown behind bars. Both the ground and walls were made of a brick compound—although the ground seemed to be of lower quality than the walls. It was damp and honestly rather musty. There was an open window to allow the wind to rush in. It was rather big, but not big enough to fit a grown man. A kid could probably crawl through without issues though. A perfect hole for Mei-Mei's brother to fit through—
Cursed energy… I feel it from somewhere in this place. Wait, thinking back on it. What happened to me? I collapsed in a cafe. And looking outside, it's a bit brighter now. Is it still the morning?
Chained up, Gojo checks his cursed energy reserves and came to a startling realization. His six eyes weren't deceiving him. He had nearly run out of cursed energy within him.
"That's impossible. My eyes should've been limiting the amount of curse energy usage for my technique Limitless. So why am I so low on cursed technique? Retracing my steps, from the moments before I ended up here, not just in the prison cell, but before I ended up on this island. Before this, I was in Shibuya fighting four special-grade curses, Mahito, that one tree named Hanami, that one curse using Disaster Flames, and that cursed womb guy who uses Blood Manipulation. Nothing was out of the ordinary. During that time, I used a Domain Expansion for approximately 0.1938 seconds, long enough to kill as many transfigured people as possible without harming the humans around us. That was also when I fell into his trap and was sealed by the person who stole his body.
But looking back on it, nothing was inherently strange or abnormal. My eyes worked perfectly then, so why? When did my eyes stop reducing my curse energy output?
The special grade object, Prison Realm, then invades Gojo's mind once more as he continues to ponder. And that was the moment when he realized what had happened.
"It's affecting my Six Eyes…! They're refusing to work because it believes I'm dead! I can sense, see, and do everything ocular, but anything relating to my innate cursed techniques has all been but nulled. All because the Six Eyes want to embody a new host, but cannot do so due to its current attachment to me."
So this entire time, I've been dwindling my curse energy reserves without being aware of it. And that certain realization then causes Satoru Gojo's eyes then widen.
How exactly am I here then? Was I physically transported here? If so, then the box's effects should no longer be bounded to me and my techniques should work just fine. But because the effects of the Prison Realms barrier are still present, that should mean that my physical body should be going through the same process. Making me vulnerable.
The sound of doors opening then silences my head.
Standing within the frame of the wooden door was a male who stood approximately five feet ten inches tall. His body was lean and muscular—it would be an incorrect assessment to say that he was weak. His face had the complexion of a man entering his late twenties, and his head harbored white hair with dark grey eyes. Entering the room, he took off his black captain's coat to expose his white t-shirt underneath, throwing the coat above the door to hang.
"So you're the man going around impersonating me, huh?" He said in a low but superior demeanor. His voice and attitude automatically ticked me off, but I was not allowing that to get the better of me he pulled out his flintlock pistol. With me in my current state, I couldn't do anything to him.
"The fact that we look alike can't be helped," I replied, leaning back against the walls of the cell. "Having another person in their 30s with white hair. I guess freak coincidences like these are bound to happen every once in a while."
"Feak coincidences, huh?" He then moves his hair out of his face to get a better look at me. Exposing a deep slash above his right eye that had healed into a scar.
More than anything, I was impressed by his composure not to jump straight to the gun and shoot me.
"I… heard you talking. In this room… alone… while I was sitting out there waiting for you to come to," he then glanced over his left shoulder. "You going to explain to me who you were chitchatting with?" He spoke quietly and slowly, all while grabbing the only chair in the room to sit in front of my cell. He then leans against the chair and slammed his gun onto his thighs.
"I was just mumbling to myself. There wasn't anyone else in the room, you ain't got to worry about that."
The man then raises an eye and looks out the window, "Anyone out there?" he asks, grabbing his flintlock pistol and pointing towards the blue skies outside.
I simply shake my head, denying the possibility of anyone being out there. "Ah, speaking of which. Where are we?"
"Nuh-uh. I'm doing the questions here. You are to either stay silent or respond. You can start asking some of your own questions once you're out of the cell. Now. Let's start with a simple question: How did you get here? And where's your ship?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, I simply showed up here. Where I was before… I don't think you'd believe it even if I were to tell you."
"This is the Grand Line. Anything flies here," he said while clutching his fists together into a ball.
Grand Line, huh? Aside from giving this island a flashy name, it now confirms that I'm outside of Japan. But, funny enough, we both speak fluent Japanese, so I guess geography doesn't matter a whole lot here.
"Now, mind elaborating on this, "Six Eyes" of yours?" The man then gestured towards his own eyes as if to help guide me.
"Huh? Oh. The Six Eyes. It's an inherited technique passed down the Gojo lineage. I am the current bearer of this technique. Although, I am having difficulties utilizing it at the moment."
The man then stares at Gojo silently while tapping his left foot against the cobblestone floor. A pleasant breeze of wind then slips its way into the room which causes the man to close his eyes and take in the gentle current. He was completely relaxed. Even if I did pose a threat to him, he saw no need to be wary. Either he's strong enough to play ignorant, or just plain dumb.
After about two minutes of pure silence, while still keeping his eyes closed the man finally spoke. "My name is Brent Tupheasant. Captain of the Black Leviathans and current King of this island, Desire Island."
Wait, the island is called Desire Island? "If the island is called 'Desire Island,' then what's the 'Grand Line?'"
His right eye then opens as if shocked at what I just said.
"You're telling me you don't know what the Grand Line is?"
I nod my head.
"Hoh boy. Then you ain't know what you got yourself into, do you?" The man then yawns as he stretched his entire body. He took one final good look at me before standing up. Calmly placing the chair back where he found it and walked up to my cell. He then aims his gun in my direction and a flash of light was all that enveloped me. And right at that moment, I felt cursed energy rushing in all directions.
My eyes adjusted to the flash from the gun's barrel rather quickly, but I couldn't hear anything. Or, more so, I didn't hear anything. I can hear the man's footsteps walking away from the cage, but not once did I hear a bang or a boom. The closest boom I heard was the sound of the bullet colliding with the wall behind me. He had aimed the barrel away from me.
"You have grit, I'll give you that. Didn't even flinch." After that comment, he didn't talk again until he got to the door. "I'll be back by noon. I have a meeting to attend. If you'll excuse me." And after grabbing his captain's coat, the door closes and his figure disappears.
Going back a few minutes, before the start of our conversation, when I first sensed that wave of cursed energy, something felt off. Within a sorcerors body, cursed energy is constantly flowing. Whether it be going in or out, it is a system that is almost entirely automatic. We as a human species continuously radiate and emit curse energy in the form of negative emotions—emotions such as stress, anxiety, or fear. Because of that, all of the emitted cursed energy thrown into the world will eventually become attracted to similar cursed energies, to the point where they eventually build up and form what we now know as Cursed Spirits.
Naturally, that means that the inverse is also true. The human body will always consistently be taking in cursed energy, building that cursed energy within themselves. Many skillful sorcerors can train themselves to gather cursed energy more efficiently, a common skill that needs to be held especially true for users who contains vast amounts of curse energy, much like Yuta Okkotsu.
However…
"Now, mind elaborating on this, "Six Eyes" of yours?"
His acknowledgment of my rambling from beforehand caught me off-guard and nearly derailed my train of thought. While our conversation was happening, I had been doing one thing, over and over and over with no success.
"Huh? Oh. The Six Eyes. It's an inherited technique passed down the Gojo…"
During our conversation, I came to a troubling conclusion: I am unable to properly gather cursed energy. The natural flow that many jujutsu sorcerers relied on had completely stopped for me. I, too, should naturally be giving cursed energy over time, but in this case, it's not happening at all. I'm also unable to forcefully gather curse energy into myself. It's as if the world refuses to acknowledge my existence entirely. Which, if the world continues to keep this up, might not get to exist for that much longer as I am nearing my wit's end.
A flash of light then enveloped Gojo before their conversation came to an end. The man then leaves
Gojo then knocks the back of his head against the wall of his cell while leaning back and stared out the window towards his left. The clouds that traversed through the skies were so puffy and the skies themselves looked so pure in the sun.
Now left alone, he had nothing to do except ponder what was to happen next. As of this moment, Satoru Gojo is on the same level as that of an average citizen. And that made him furious.