Five people were gathered in a single room. The light just peeked from the window and shone onto them.
In the corner of the room, a single bed had been placed where a woman in her late twenties with short black hair and deep black eyes stood, almost like an ever-encompassing void. She held a small child close to her chest, the child couldn't have been more than a few months old. Next to her, a man in his early thirties with dark hair and blue eyes stood, looking nervous as he looked at the woman holding the child.
On the opposite side of them in the other corner of the room stood a tall man with light grey hair and deep scrutinizing red eyes. The man was old; he looked about the age someone would be forced to go into a retirement home, yet his posture stood firm, confident, bordering on arrogance.
His gaze lingered on the child in the woman's arms.
Next to the man were two other people, each with striking similarities to him. One was a woman in her forties, and the other was a man. Both stood about as tall as the old man next to them, though the man's stance was more relaxed and his dark red eyes showed no sign of emotion. The woman, however, was only two heads shorter than the men standing beside her. She had red hair, but her eyes were an uninvolved gray. Her expression looked expectant, betraying no other underlying emotion. She stood with her hand on her chin while seemingly in thought about something.
As the light from the rising sun beyond the frame of the window started to intensify, the old man spoke the first words that had been uttered in the room, which had been previously silent for minutes.
"So, that's him? I'll be honest, I didn't think you had it in you, Kitamura." He looked at Kitamura while continuing to speak and consequently insulting the man "You have such little cursed energy yourself that I for sure would have thought that your offspring would be a disappointment such as yourself, but color me pleasantly surprised, he has far more cursed energy than any child of the Masayoshi clan has seen in decades." The man said with a small smirk on his face. Meanwhile, the dark-haired man, Kitamura, merely looked annoyed. This didn't faze the old man in the slightest as he slowly approached the small child held by the woman and looked into its eyes. Vibrant red, just like the direct bloodline of the Masayoshi clan once had, paired with his eyes also was his small red hairs that were slowly beginning to grow.
As the man inspected the child further, he once again opened his mouth to speak, but this time addressed the woman holding the child.
"I knew it was a good idea to bring in a spouse who would be able to bear a talented child, wouldn't you say so, Kamo?" he said with a crooked smile showing his misaligned teeth.
The woman, Akemi replied.
"Don't make it sound like I married Kitamura just to further your receding bloodline, old man. And don't start getting any funny ideas in your head now that you know that little Shimada here has some potential as a sorcerer. I won't allow you to just use him as you see fit. This is my child, my son, not some trophy you can gloat about that will bring back the former glory of the clan or whatever other nonsense that's already filled up your head." She said with a scowl adorning her features.
The old man didn't look fazed; he simply stared at the woman. His glare lasted a full minute before he spoke.
"Don't get ahead of yourself, Kamo. While you are in this clan, disrespecting an elder, much less a clan head, will not be tolerated." He replied in a cold tone. The other two people by the window looked worried. They knew from experience that the clan head and Akemi didn't get along, but they knew from experience that angering this old man was not something a wise person would do. While he may be old, he is still the clan head, and that title doesn't appear out of thin air.
"Well, the child has potential, but we'll have to see if he develops a technique before I can make any further judgments. In either case, the child will be taught about Jujutsu and its society, and once he reaches an appropriate age, he will begin training to become a sorcerer. I won't let his talents go to waste; the Matsuno family would otherwise surely fall into ruin." He said, staring out the window with a stare that seemed reminiscent, as if he were remembering better times.
"You two, get back to work. I'm finished with my business here." He said to the two people by the window.
And as such the stifling conversation ended, and every party except the two parents (Kitamura Masayoshi and Akemi Kamo) left the small room.
The Masayoshi clan, a sorcerer clan dating back hundreds of years, built upon the strength of the first Masayoshi clan head, whose jujutsu prowess 500 years ago had steadily declined in both wealth and power, due to a simple reason: the children born in the clan's walls had less and less potential as sorcerers as the decades went by, and so a once formidable sorcerer clan, with multiple high-grade sorcerers within its ranks, had fallen to such a point that now most of the clan's members were low-grade sorcerers and some did not even have the potential to be a sorcerer, opting instead to leave the clan's walls and pursue ordinary lives in society, away from jujutsu.
As it currently stands, the clan has only 20 or so members left who are still residing within its walls. Only a handful of these members surpass Grade Three in potential as sorcerers. To remedy this, the clan tries to bring in women with high potential in their field to bear children to the clan's men.
But alas, it's not an easy task. Finding a Jujustu sorcerer these days is rare, and finding one who is willing to marry into the declining family is even more challenging.
The clan simply had nothing to offer them, and so the plan bore no fruit.
Until Akemi Kamo, that's.
The woman who fell in love with Kitamura Masayoshi while on a mission to exorcise a grade-two cursed spirit.
She willingly married into the Masayoshi family and accepted to bear the responsibility of furthering the Masayoshi clan's bloodline.
And after a few years, finally, for the first time in decades, a child with an inkling of potential as a sorcerer was born.
It was a day the clan head would look fondly back on, because it meant a new beginning in the saga of the Masayoshi clan. The birth of the one who will bring change to the old and ruined clan.
The destined child.
Shimada Masayoshi
When I was five, I awakened my cursed technique for the first time.
I was reading one of the many books in the Masayoshi clan's library, a simple book about the flow of cursed energy.
As I finished reading the book, I got up to put it back where I had taken it from. Suddenly, the book disappeared from my hands and appeared in its original place.
It was a confusing experience, as I hadn't meant to use my cursed technique at that time. I had always thought that my technique would manifest when I faced a situation where I absolutely needed it to awaken, but the way it happened was so anticlimactic it was almost funny.
After that, I rushed to tell my mom and dad, and the elder later came to see me in my room of the compound.
He wanted to appraise my technique and see what it was. I was also interested; I had an inkling of what my technique did after experiencing it once, but I couldn't say for sure.
He looked at me expectantly as I held my small arm out in front of me and tried to recall the feeling of when I first used it. I closed my eyes and concentrated, and after a few seconds of nothing happening, a burning sensation crept up my small palm.
When I opened my eyes I saw small blue and vaguely see through hexagon shapes lining my palm.
"Ho?" the elder exclaimed looking at my palm in anticipation. Sweat started trickling from my brow, from the weight of his expectations.
I held up my palm for him, and he slightly raised his eyebrow.
"Place something in my hand" I said.
He did exactly that: he took out a pocket watch from his pocket and placed it in my palm. The second he did so, the pocket watch disappeared and reappeared in the air right in front of him. As it started to fall out of the air, he quickly caught it.
"Hmm. I think I understand. If my theory is correct, that is indeed a good technique." He said, looking at my palm as I slowly lowered it, and the hexagon shapes disappeared. Then he looked me straight in the eyes, and I shrank back a bit. His presence was always intimidating; he wasn't a Grade One sorcerer for nothing.
"So, what do you want to call your technique? We'll have to update our records, as this technique has never been recorded in our clan before."
I looked at him while raising my hand to my face and cupping my chin; after a moment of contemplation, I replied to his question.
"I'd like it to be called Displacement" I said as I looked at him to gauge his reaction. After all, it was a rather simple name, but I thought it fitting, simple and to the point.
"Yes, that's appropriate" he said as he looked at me with a small smile on his face. He reached out and patted my head while continuing, "I look forward to your growth in the future, little Shimada. If you need anything, don't hesitate to talk to me. I'll do my best to help you with whatever you need." He turned around and left me alone in my room.
The elder seemed happy for the first time in a long time. It was probably because I was one of the only four people in the current family with a cursed technique. He seemed to think I had potential.
I kind of expected him to be excited, ever since I had become aware of his existence I always remembered the looks I received from others in the clan, their treatment of me seemed like they were walking on eggshells around me.
The Masayoshi clan, I have read about our history in the many books in the clan's archives. It is not surprising to me in the slightest that I would be heralded as the next step in the Masayoshi clan's future. The sorcerer lineage in this clan had slowly died out over the ages, from being a respected clan about 400 years ago, it has become nothing more than a shadow of its former glory.
The clan is no longer at its former stature in reputation, and our clan finances have plummeted due to a lack of talented sorcerers.
After all, most of the money earned through mission work is brought in by the Elder himself, who is the only member of the clan capable of taking on high-ranking curse missions to earn the money.
Lower-ranked curses don't pay nearly as well as those higher up in the hierarchy, so the clan relies on the elders to shoulder most of the financial burden.
It's likely in the future, If i turn out as talented as they expect me to be, I will be the one helping the Elder with bringing in higher ranked curse excorsism requests to the clan.
It has been about two years since I discovered my technique; I've been studying jujutsu and the jujutsu society ever since.
I was an insanely curious child, and I would stop at nothing to learn about something, and Jujutsu interested me very much.
It was the thing I practically lived and breathed for.
So far, I've been able to discover what my technique does. Displacement is exactly what it sounds like: moving something from its original position to an alternate position in the space I perceive. However, it's much more complex than that.
What I have learned about this placement is as follows.
1. The act of "displacing" an object itself has very little CE cost on my part, and I can keep displacing things almost all day without running out of my cursed energy. However, the cursed energy usage increases as the object's weight increases, so I can't just displace the earth itself even if I want to. The cursed energy spent for heavier objects is an exponential increase; for example, when I try to move a book, it takes almost no CE at all, but when I try to displace my desk, it takes about twenty times more than the book.
2. Displacement Is activated by contact, I can't use it on something I dont come into contact with, for example I can use displacement on my hands and touch an object, and displace it to my desired position that way. So far it works with any part of my body, legs, arms, head, you name it as long I make contact with the desired object with a body part I had used Displacement on, It will work.
It also works on anything I'm holding, such as a knife. For example, if I hold a knife, I can spread the displacement from my palm to the knife. Then, in turn, I can choose whether to displace the knife or leave the little displacement hexagons where they are. And I can use the knife itself as a means to use displacement. If I swing the knife at something, I can displace the object that came into contact with the knife.
3. The blue see-through hexagons that appear when using Displacement are like miniature portals, anything that it comes into contact with can immediately be teleported to another location, where those same hexagons show up and the object comes out of.
4. When using Displacement on an object, I don't have to move it anywhere.
I can just use Displacement on that object, and it will disappear entirely.
What I have found out is that the object doesn't actually disappear; it's just stored "somewhere". The portals seem like representations of where the object is being sent while in the middle of the act of displacement.
Basically, it means that for every time I use Displacement, there are three steps involved.
Firstly, when Displacement is activated on an object, it gets sent somewhere.
Secondly, when choosing where to displace the object, it pulls the object from "somewhere".
Thirdly, the object manifests itself in the precise location I want it to be after coming out of "somewhere".
Steps 2 and 3 happen instantaneously, as fast as I think the object is already where I want it to be; there's no time delay between the object being transferred to "somewhere" and then being pulled out of the portals into the real world.
5. There is no time limit for how long an object can stay in "somewhere" and I can manifest the object into existence, anywhere in my line of sight, as long as I remember what the object is that is stored in "somewhere".
I chose to name this aspect of my technique "Inventory"
6. There seems to be no limit to the amount or weight of items I can store in Inventory. If I use my technique for the purpose of storing something, I can theoretically store anything. But storing the objects and pulling them out has a CE cost according to the weight or size of the object. So while I theoretically could store something like a planet in inventory, I would need to have a ridiculously large amount of CE, which I do not possess, at the current moment with my CE reserves. My maximum weight for an object I can store is 1000 kg, which may increase as my CE reserves increase as I age.
7. I can "launch" objects out of Inventory, While using Displacement, I tested this aspect of displacement extensively, and I have concluded a few things: To move things in Inventory, to be able to launch them out of the hexagon portals while using Displacement costs me CE.
The CE cost, is correspondent to the speed at which I launch the objects at, Each time I decide to do It costs me CE.
For a one time use my maximum speed seemed almost instantenous, but that might mean It just traveled at a speed that is far beyond the means which I am able to comprehend. But while fast, such an attack is inneficent, because while the object launched is frightengly fast, If i use all my CE up on one such attack there's no point.
As such, I have devised launching an object at an approximate speed of a bullet to be more efficient, as it minimizes the impact on my CE reserves. Currently, if I launch objects at the speed of a bullet nonstop, I can maintain the output for about five minutes before my CE reserves run dry.
8. I later realized that when launching objects, the CE cost is also impacted by the weight of the object being launched at my enemy.
As such I have realized that Displacement in and of itself is a highly CE extensive technique.
Let's say my cursed energy reserves are "10,000 units"
Then it goes something like this, Using Displacement to move an object costs "1 unit"
That 1 unit then gets multiplied by the CE it takes to move or store an object of that weight. So let's say a small rock is equivalent to 1 unit. This means each time I am simply displacing a small rock, it costs me 2 units of my CE reserves. Then if I want to launch the said small rock, it uses an approximate amount of CE for the speed and weight once again.
Let's say that the speed of a bullet costs another 5 units, then 1 unit gets added on because of the weight of the rock.
At the end It means to launch a small rock at bullet speed using displacement takes me approximately 8 units of my maximum CE reserves. the weight and size of an object increases this exponentially.
I decided to name this attack
"Open Gate"
In conclusion, Displacement is a very complex ability, despite it's simple function.
I theorize that this is not the full capability of this ability; there might be more uses I have yet to discover.
Two years later, news broke that the "Honored One", the child born with both the Six Eyes and Limitless cursed technique, had killed a Grade One cursed spirit on his first assigned mission at age nine, the same age as me.
Satoru Gojo, the child who broke the balance scales the moment he was born, I've heard his name mentioned several times while living in the Masayoshi clan; he's practically famous.
Most seem to be under the expectation that once he grows up he will be crowned as the strongest of the modern era.
From what I have read about the Gojo's family inherited technique, I am also in agreement, as it has been recorded in history that the only people able to stand up to a Limitless and Six-Eyes user are the Zenin Clan's Ten Shadows and the King of Curses Sukuna himself.
I smirk to myself; I wonder if I'd like to meet Satoru Gojo and see how my knowledge of jujutsu holds up against his.
While Limitless seems far better than Displacement on paper, I would like to see the result in play out in reality.
First fic, sort of. I have written before, but that was like when I was 12 and my understanding of everything in life was severly lacking.
I won't say my writing has improved that much, in fact I still think my writing is ridiculously bad, but I did want to have a shot at a fic once again, at least to try and polish my skills.
Be sure to leave a review and tell me what you think.
Updates wont be regular at all, but I will try to finish the story.
English is not my first language btw :P