In the cafeteria, a skew of students had woken up rather earlier and had stumbled upon each other and joined Maki and Shohei for breakfast.
Itadori, Nobara, Panda, Maki, and Sho encircled a small table, chatting through spoonfuls and occasionally spilling mouthfuls of food through laughter. The students landed on how they got stupid scars like from childhood accidents.
"And so after probably 20 minutes, Shohei finally decides to stop peeing his pants over the idea of getting in trouble by the adults and checks the spare rooms at the outskirts of the property," Maki regaled, no smile on her face but a glint of anticipation in her eyes.
"I'm sitting in the closet, and I'm ready to pee my pants from that feeling you get when playing hide and seek no matter what," Maki continued. "I didn't hear the door to the room open, and this clown decides to cheat and use what he learned from his first ever cursed energy sensing lesson to check the room and see me in the closet."
"You didn't say that was cheating when you and Mai were making up brand new rules," Shohei defended himself, chuckling, ensnared by the insignificant story he did not expect Maki to have remembered.
"That's besides the point. The kicker is that you thought it would be funny to scare me. Little did you know I'd end up bringing an uppercut from hell since I was squatted down," Maki chuckled.
"Shoulda kept my mouth shut," Shohei laughed. "I almost bit off my tongue," Shohei said, sticking out his tongue and showing the faded pink scar streaking across it.
"I say we all thank Maki for her valiant effort to shut Shohei up permanently," Nobara cackled buoyantly, slapping Itadori on the back.
"Thank you Kugiskai," Maki said, sneaking Shohei a sassy leer.
Shohei stuck his tongue out at her, and before Maki could lunge across the table and pinch it with her chopsticks, Shohei's alarm rang and he sprung up from his table.
"That's for me to ship off," Sho said, waving goodbye to all his classmates. Shohei shuffled over to Maki and pecked her a kiss goodbye. "I had fun guys."
Shohei and Satoru had both arrived simultaneously at the practice facility. When they entered the area and their coats were off, Gojo immediately judo tossed Shohei to the ground, no warning given
"Just a little taste of what's to come if you don't stop this train of pain from building up steam," Satoru said, chucking at Shohei's indignation while on the ground. "I'll be blocking more than dodging today, fyi."
"Good to know," Shohei heaved, standing and unsheathing Iguana Talon.
They fought, Satoru no longer purely dodging, but mixing in simple dodging, blocking, and parries. There was rarely a strike back from Satoru, but he did attempt several measly counter jabs.
Shohei felt much more at ease not having to chase down Satoru to be in range to strike, then only to miss them. Hitting Satoru and having him simply box up to block was infinitely simpler, but significantly less of a workout than running around. But being at ease was an issue in this training's case.
As Sho tried and failed to capitalize on what he thought was an opening in Gojo's guard because he couldn't jar him with enough speed, Shohei halted the fight.
"Why'd you stop?" Satoru asked.
"I feel like I'd be at least a little more successful in landing a Black Flash if I could drop Gravity Field and holding up Shooting Star in the atmosphere, I'd be less distracted. Besides, Gravity Field is slowing me down," Shohei explained, wiping away sweat pooling on his forehead again.
"Well that's just the thing isn't it?" Satoru insisted, pointing to Shohei as if he just hammered the nail on the head. "You're forgetting all my original teachings when we started when you were little. You'll always be distracted in battle, and the distraction could be infinitely more risky like defending a bystander or flanking enemies. You don't have the luxury of the Six Eyes automatically running your cursed reverse curse energy, so training Gravity Conductor to perform tasks as second nature is brilliant. We developed your Gravity Field so heavily, not so you can fight like the average sorcerer with a shield around you, but to give you a means of conserving energy for Gravity Conductor and Stygian Void. It also serves as a means to ready you to fight unlike almost any other. After all these years you're a physical unit and your opponents don't have a means of reading your moves when you fight without cursed energy."
"I still don't get where you got the idea of fighting without cursed energy from," Shohei scoffed at the ridiculous idea, sure that Maki was the only case like that, and Satoru hadn't known Maki back then.
"Just inspired," Gojo muttered. "But you need to train hard so fighting is easy. Think of it now. If you can master fighting with cursed energy and have your moves be unable to read, then you would basically have your physical capabilities doubled and moves still untraceable."
"Then let's do it," Shohei said. "Let's train cursed energy reinforcement right now too. It'd even give me another thing to concentrate on rather than being distracted from training."
"That wouldn't be the best right now," Satoru said. "It defeats the point of Gravity Field, wastes cursed energy, and if we eventually get to casting a Domain, then I want you to have max cursed energy to spend a lot of time with it open."
"Fine," Shohei sighed. "I'll train it another time. Let's keep going."
And the family resumed their sparring, having at each other. After not even an hour of a sad fall back into routine combat, Shohei felt his mind slipping back to his morning spent with Maki and the others. As he chuckled in his head after repeating several of Itadori and Panda's stories, Shohei figuratively smacked himself.
"Satoru," Shohei grunted, shooting a heavy jab into Satoru's elbow.
"Yes?" Gojo said, parrying.
"I'm feeling my mind slip away," Shohei said. "And I don't mind what it's going to," he continued, remembering Maki's grin. Satoru sighed, seeing the shimmer of joy that shone in Sho's eyes when he thought of Maki.
"I'm happy seeing you happy, Sho. Don't ever leave your relationships in the dirt for jujutsu life. Especially with Maki, she's crazy and will kill you. What helps me sleep at night is not my strength, but me trusting that all you students are either strong enough to face what is to come or that you will be strong enough one day."
"You might be thinking back on peaceful times with Maki and your friends, but deep down you're really worrying about them when danger rears its ugly head. You gotta have faith they all are strong or are getting strong enough to not be your weakness. Just like how you promised me."
"Thank you Satoru. That makes me feel better," Sho said, slashing at Satoru's throat with Iguana Talon. "But I still feel like I'm gonna phase out of combat again."
"Well," Satoru chirped, jabbing back at Shohei. "If you need something to focus on since this feels too simple, then try reading my cursed energy flow as best you can. I'll try to suppress it as much as possible, so predict my moves as best you can. Even if it means fighting less offensively, try to predict."
Shohei nodded, and as focussed his hyper aware cursed energy sensing onto Gojo, suddenly blinded. Satoru's cursed energy was somehow more potent than the average sorcerers, giving it a brilliant alien luster.
Seeing as cursed energy reserves were a make or break factor for jujutsu sorcery, and Satoru Gojo was the peak of jujutsu sorcery, he possessed arguably the most amount of cursed energy. The only other one to maybe have more was his fellow special grade sorcerer and student, Okkotsu, but Satoru had developed a virtually infinite recycling process of it with his Six Eyes, leaving him unrivaled once again.
Soon, the blinding mass of cursed energy was smothered, leaving it rippling around the perimeter of Satoru's body. The energy contorted around the man's body perfectly, leaving no trace of where Satoru intended to strengthen the most to either block or strike.
Shohei was beyond thankful that Satoru wasn't particularly aggressive in that day's sparring. Previously, when Gojo was just dismissively reinforcing himself when fighting, he and Shohei could fall into a rut of even keel combat because Shohei was able to follow along. Now, Shohei practically couldn't predict a single move of Satoru's. If the man chose to attack Sho, he could deceive him at every strike and faint if he wanted to.
This new obstacle of Shohei did its job astoundingly. For the remainder of their time, Shohei was giving his 100% effort of tracking the most minute fluctuation in Gojo's energy and accidentally had an adverse reaction.
Shohei was so locked into combat that his mile wide range of cursed energy sensing collapsed inward to no more than a ten foot diameter surrounding him. This accidental technique removed Shohei's natural inkling for being distracted. To Sho, it was like the world of noise and clatter he grew up ensnared by went silent for the first time ever and he had the instinctual desire to pursue only one goal at a time. It felt like a foil to his natural state.
This new discovery set his left eye ablaze, light leaving a trail of streaking plasma like a commit. As for his right, it developed an absence of light, contorting a small diameter of space around it into a spiraling void.
"Well that's new," Satoru commented, taking several back steps as Shohei pursued him with hooks and jabs so precise they were slipping through his guard and landing where his chin and nose should have been, but were replaced by infinity.
Surprisingly enough, the more Sho focused on Satoru, the more he in a way caught the jump on him after being outclassed for a short time. The sort of tunnel vision Shohei had gained, in a way, picked up the slack that Gravity Field was forcing onto Shohei. It gave him a perceptive edge and let him track the minute fluctuations of cursed energy as if they were clumsily masked.
The final hours of training ran their course and the timer rang throughout the room, halting the metaphorical brothers. Shohei went to comment on his major progress of the day, but felt what could only be described as a muscle cramp in the individual fibers of his eyeballs.
"Son of a bitch!" Shohei yowled, dropping to his knees by the surprise torment. The peculiar effects of each eye disappeared. Shohei dropped his focus and his range returned to its natural scope.
"What?" Satoru asked, too casual while seeing Sho drop to his knees in pain.
"My eyes!" Shohei growled through gritted teeth. His hands hovered in clawed uselessness, as touching his eyes simply made the pain worse.
"Yeah. Those are what's in your skull," Satoru muttered. "What is your point?"
"They're cramping, you smart ass!" Shohei yelled, his breath hitching as he failed to calm down. ''I was focusing so hard that my range of sensing was zoning in on you. That tunnel vision must be why."
"Well keep up the good work next time. You were gaining some ground on me," Satoru encouraged. "Maybe don't use it for ten hours straight next time, but let's experiment with that next weekend. It could be a really handy tool for you if it gives you laser focus like that every time. Did you sense my cursed energy any easier after zoning in?"
"Yes," Shohei muttered, the spasms sluggishly residing. "I gather if I can familiarize myself with it, enemies not versed in hand to hand as much as me, or someone with sloppy or too bold of reinforcement, their moves might as well basically be broadcast to me. Even yours were readable, but you are holding back after all."
Satoru clapped his hands together, cheering, "That's better than I expected to hear! And don't be so humble Sho, I'm impressed you kept up with my moves."
Shohei sat up and through squinted eye lids saw the tall man stride over to his possessions in the corner of the room. He pulled out a thin parchment scroll and tossed it into Sho's lap when he returned.
"There are plenty of examples of hand signs in that scroll right there," Satoru said. "If you manage to not go blind tonight, look through that and try some combinations until one strikes a cord. A hand sign is key for the expansion of a Domain."
Shohei pitched the scroll back mockingly at Satoru for his joke, completely missing the throw. Shohei chuckled, "I know plenty about hand signs. I had to develop my own for more specific applications of Gravity Conductor. I've even got several one handed signs down if that helps any with my Domain signs."
"Of all the sorcerers I know or have seen, I'm the only one to cast with one hand, so I wouldn't bother for now," Gojo said, unconcernedly picking up the scroll several feet behind him.
The two wished each other goodnight and parted ways. Satoru disappeared into the night. Shohei meandered to the second-year dorms, not to his own room, but Maki's.
He knocked, and when bid inside, he entered.
He strolled into the room, sprawling onto the bed, and said, "What's up, lovely."
"Don't you look like a victim," Maki said, pulling her feet from underneath Shohei's chest and continuing to eat her bag of chips.
"I am. Can I have some?" Shohei agreed, opening his mouth for a chip.
Maki leaned over and dropped several into his mouth. Shohei recoiled and forced a swallow.
"God damn, Maki," Shohei coughed, sucking the pungent vinegar taste off his tongue as he paced around the room.
"Shoulda warned you it was extra seasoned salt and vinegar," Maki chuckled under her breath. "How was training?"
"Um. Fine," Shohei hesitated. He laid beside Maki and closed his eyes to rest them for a moment.
"Don't lay right on my pillows you pig!" Maki scolded, tearing the pillow from underneath Shohei. "You smell like my bag of salt and vinegar chips."
"Yeah yeah," Shohei sighed, not fighting back as he laid still as a log on the bed.
"Are you actually alright?" Maki asked offhand, seeing Shohei was extra placated. "Any breakthroughs?"
Rubbing his temples, cheeks, and all around his eye sockets, Sho sighed, "Kind of. In a way. No Domains were erected, but I accidentally developed a new technique. It might have well destroyed my eyes after though."
"That's fun," Maki said.
She slipped herself behind Sho and laid his head in her lap. She took hands from his face and placed them on his chest. She resumed the massaging of his face, ears, and scalp for him.
"Thank you," Shohei whispered, melting at her touch, fully dismissing his Gravity Field.
His lesson of trusting others' strength crossed his mind as he looked up at Maki, his stars locking with her own golden irises.
"I love you," Shohei said.
"You better," Maki said, patting his cheek. "I'm treating you to a massage on my clean sheets after you've sweat a couple pints of salt water."
"Thanks again," Shohei said. Maki nodded with a smirk, brushing his bangs from his face. "I have a question though."
"Shoot," Maki said.
"Do you think I'm more of a weakness of yours now that we're together?" Shohei asked.
"No," Maki said shortly, seemingly not giving the answer a thought at all. "If anything you're a strength of mine. If you consider me to be a weakness of yours, then you're calling me weak and you can leave."
Maki pinched his nose firmly at this last sentence, but released it and cupped his cheek. She stooped over and placed a kiss on his lips.
"I hope to be a strength of yours too," she sighed, taking in Sho's sight.
Shohei felt a blush creep across his face. Despite Maki always giving him affection, she did not kiss him as much as someone as enamored as he would like. But Maki reserving her kisses made them all the more special.
Maki had her own small blush arise at the sight of Sho's own. Sho knew she hated being flustered herself, and that made him try all the harder.
"I'm glad we're on the same page," Shohei said, electric that she already had the view he had recently adopted. Sho caressed her jaw as light as a feather and rolled from the bed.
"Go shower," Maki dismissed, wiping her lips. "You taste salty."
"I thought you liked salt snacks," Shohei teased, accusingly pointing a finger at her as he backed out from the room.
"Goodnight Shohei," Maki growled, but as soon as Shohei turned the corner and shut the door, she traced her jaw where he had so tenderly touched.
