Megumi slams hard into the ground by Maki.
Gojo was laughing out loud, while the other members of the team merely groaned out in sympathy. They've all just been beaten by Maki aswell in a hand to hand in combat and could understand how the black-haired, moody boy was feeling.
Maki really was too powerful.
"Gojo!" Shouted Utahime at Gojo inappropriate reaction. "Stop laughing! He's your student, you're suppose to encourage him, not belittle him!"
"But I am encouraging him!" Continued Gojo laughing like a maniac. "That was hilarious! Hey! Megumi! Keep doing that!"
All the faculty members and students were standing in a semi-circle watching as the training sessions unfolded. Everyone was present and were obligated to participate outside the sparring matches near the Kyoto Sister School. Since danger lurked around every corner and enemies were getting stronger, the teachers thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to drill them new acquired skills or reinforce old skills.
Yuji couldn't help but feel a bit empathy seeing how Megumi was mercilessly defeated like that. It must have been rough to not only have been beated in such a quick way, but also at being ridiculed by his own teacher, out of all the other persons.
Well, that was just Gojo being himself.
And it hadn't been only rough for Megumi, but for everyone aswell. Many students were simply tired, bruised up or out of breath since they've been battling since morning non-stop against each other while the teachers helped them and gave advice on how to improve.
"Megumi, you could have done better against her if you gave a bit more effort." Said Nobara.
Megumi manages to stand up, and groans at her. "Says the one who just got beaten up by her two minutes ago."
"Yeah, but I've lasted far more longer than you." Retorted the brunette back at him. "You lasted like a couple of seconds!"
"Hey, don't be so harsh on him, Nobara." Defended Yuji him. "We've been training since morning, it's normal that he's out of energy."
"Big talk coming out of someone who hasn't even battled against someone and just been watching." Accused Nobara him and then an idea poped into her head. "Wait a minute, why don't you go and challenge her? And why is it that when it comes to combat, you always get a free pass?"
"Hey, I don't get free pass at all, I have to train with Gojo everyday!" Yuji said.
"Yeah, yeah, you always keep saying that." Nobara crossed her arms. "How do we know you tell the truth?"
Now every students eyes were set on Yuji as they heard their loud conversation. They all noticed too that Yuuji never participated in the training. The flustered boy could only helplessly stare at their sceptical faces as he struggled to find the right words. Didn't they really believe what he just said?
"Why don't you show what you've been training in secret, huh?" Quipped Todo and flexed his big muscles. "How about a one versus one with me, bro?"
"There would be no point in doing that." Gojo intervened, noticing how riled up the students were. "They have both studied different and strong techniques, and are evenly matched. Still, if I should guess who would win, it would be Yuji. But the battle would drag on for too long to prove the point."
"See?" Yuji said, with a triumphant smile. "I'm not lying."
The same silence hung in the air. Everyone still had their supsicions whether that was true or not.
"But of course, if you don't believe that Yuji is being equally trained, then perhaps a little demonstration would help." Gojo ended up saying and the next thing he does, before anyone could guess, is charging towards Yuji who narrowly escapes his unexpected attack.
"Whoa!" Yuuji said out of breath and jumped backwards, moving away from him to create distance. "Are we really going to do this now? Right here?"
"Yes!" Gojo replied and took a fighting stance. "Don't hold back. I'm not holding back either."
A smile crossed against Yuji's face as he raised his clenched fists that flowed with cursed energy and took a stance.
"Everyone," Mei Mei clapped her hands and everyone's attention was on her. "Take a seat. This will take a while."
Mei Mei leads the team and gestured for them to sit on the ground while she leaned against a tree, under the shadows away from the sun. She surpressed a smile at hearing the whispered conversations between the students. Everyone watched with anticipation as the student and teacher set themselves in front of each other. They made sure to give them enough space and even made bets on who would come out succesful.
"I'm betting 500 yen that Yuji would be defeated in less than a minute." Murmured Toge at Panda.
"Well, I'm doubling that sum that he will be defeated in less than a second." Retorted the black and white haired animal.
"Yeah!" Joined Miwa in a loud, hushed tone. "No offense to Yuji, but Gojo would totally best him out. He'd easily win from anyone. He's just so cool."
"It's good to bet some money on who's going to claim victory here," Quipped Mei Mei as she listened with great amusement at their students mumblings. "But mostly, watch and learn. On the look of Gojo's face, he's about to unleash hell on this boy."
"Don't hurt him too much, Gojo!" Yelled Utahime at the white haired sorcerer.
"Of course he's going to hurt him." Replied Mei Mei at her with a raised eyebrow. "What do you think that happens when you're face to face against a foe? They're not going easy on you and they certainly are not going to show mercy."
"She's not wrong." Replied Yoshinobu sitting crosslegged with his gitar. "On the battlefield any means to defend yourself or any means to win is justified in the end. In these circumstances it doesn't matter whether you play fair or not, it's the one last man standing that counts."
Utahime just mildy groaned but agreed with the old man's statement. She'd battled against vicious curses and enemies using barbaric techniques against her. The scar on her face was enough prove to remind her of that.
"Both students and teachers." Said the old man. "Observe and learn."
At his advice, the soft whispers admit the pupils fadded away and everyone had their eyes glued on the two sorcerers ahead of them.
Yuji took a deep breath.
He was wide awake and could feel his heart madly thumping. He couldn't hide the fact that he felt pretty nervous. He sparred with Gojo during any free time available of the day to the point of exhaustion and remembered very well all his tricks and techniques he'd used. With each session he was getting better at dodging and predicting his attacks, but Yuji always had a feeling that Gojo was surpressing his full potential. With that realization in his head, Gojo appeared in front of him more unsparing and relentless, and that was saying something.
Gojo suddenly flew at him, without any warning, as he pulled his fist backwards with cursed energy directly aiming at him. It was all Yuji could do to evade his powerful punch as he quickly duck and rolled away in the nickel of time. Gojo slammed with terrible impact on the ground, creating splits and cracks and scattered heaps of earth in the air. The blunt force blowed a huge current of air, leaving Yuji wide eyed and breathless. He barely avoided that attack by a hair and if he didn't... Well, he would have ended in the hospital for a couple of days.
Or a couple of months.
But Yuji wasn't going to give up. He was going to give everything he had in this fight as he got up on his two feet.
"Come on, Yuji! You're already out of breath?!" Gojo smiled broadly and prepared another attack incoming. "That was just a warm up!"
"I know! I thought you were pretty easy going on me!" Yuji lied smoothly.
This time Yuji was smart enough to not stand still like an idiot but to storm right back at him. Yuji lunged forward, directly at Gojo, feet first. He plants his feet in the air, directly aiming at Gojo's grinning face, but was too slow and passed him. Gojo effortlessly dodged his assault by merely jerking his head to the side. The boy landed with a heavy thud on the ground, but quickly turns to face his adversary, and conjecture a new fighting stance.
Yuji rushes at him, delivering a flurry of kicks and punches, planting each one in any vulnerable area he detected as Gojo defended his blows. Everytime Yuji kicked or punched him, he always backed off before bombarding his teacher with another load of assaults. This proved to be effective as it made Gojo stagger backwards and left Yuji room to think for ways to beat him. There had to be somewhere a weak spot on the white-haired sorcerer.
"Come on, Yuji!" Shouted Nobara. "You can beat him!"
"Yeah, bro!" Joined Todo the brunette.
Unlike the other two, a student thought otherwise.
"You can do this, Gojo!" Encouraged Miwa his idol as Utahime looked at her in dissapointment at her cheering.
Yuji continued this hit and run strategy for a long time, but eventually the fatigue was slowly catching him. His own breathing turned ragged, his arms and legs turned heavier and his attacks were not as accurate.
Gojo noticed his slower pace and immediately took advantage of this. After another sequence of his hits, Gojo manages to counter his attack by swiftly kicking him in his side. Grunting, Yuji wobbles backwards as he gripped the left part of his body. Gojo left him no time to recover as he leaped toward him.
Yuji succedeed at sidestepping his incoming attacks, but Yuji and everyone else could see that Gojo was getting dangerously closer with each swing at him that only kept coming faster.
Ultimately, Gojo punched as hard and just as fast at the same spot he kicked him earlier. Loudly Yuji grunted out in pain, but had no time to emite a sound as his attack was followed with another brutal punch at his stomach. It forced all the air out of his lungs.
Yuji wobbled backwards, as his eyes swam with blurred visions and tripped clumsily over his feet, which made him fall on the ground. Gojo mercilessly takes another swing, at his head this time, but he manages to duck away at the last second. It caused Gojo's fist to connect with the ground, slamming at it with twice the force than previously, making the ground crack so hard it almost reached the students and teachers who could only gasp in bewilderment.
Yuji rolled away from his teacher and made a dash towards the large rocks. But this sanctuary was abruptly taken away as Gojo launched a powerful blast of his cursed energy at it. The rock exploded in huge pieces, dropping down from the sky as Yuji was busy avoiding being crushed by the rocks and even the spectators were moving away from the scene.
With an apprehensive glance, Yuji turned back towards his mentor and was about to unleash his own blasts of cursed energy. He felt Sukuna raging inside him at his easily defeat against Gojo and felt his uncontrollable fury rise.
Red cursed energy surrounded Yuji which only grew intenser by the second while Gojo at the opposite side did the same. The tiny sizes of cursed energy that they created grew quickly in an enormous size, sucking the air out as it was ready to be launched at, but it got stopped by a loud gitar sound.
Everyone jumped at the tone of the crisp note the old man played. The sound produced by the strings were emitting strong vibrations that grabbed everyone's attention and instantly made them calm.
The two sorcerers seized their attacks and the energy that was pulsing vanished as quickly as it appeared.
The demon inside of Yuji also diminished and the rage he felt decreased instantly. The soft melody Yoshinobu played made his head filled with temper turn it into a place of calmness and tranquility.
"The fight is over." The old man said.
Gojo just shrugged at the old man's command, even though he would have barely called that a fight, but did what he said. On the other hand, Yuji catched his breath and relaxed his muscles out. He rubbed the painful parts on his body that Gojo striked. Blue bruises and muscle aches would unquestionably follow up the next day and Yuji was definitely not looking forward for that.
But still, Yuji would say he held his fair ground and even managed to hurt the blindfolded sorcerer.
Maybe he didn't win. But he remained alive.
Gojo and Yuji stopped with fighting, and bowed against each other.
"Wait, wait what?" Nobara asked with a raised eyebrow. "But, who won?"
"Yeah," Said Mai equally confused at her. "The match wasn't over."
"Yuji won." Yoshinobu simply answered. "He survived for more than a half hour."
"Half an hour?" Nobara replied. She couldn't believe that the match lasted that long and her doubt vanished as she looked at her own clock and saw that indeed a half an hour has passed.
"But how is that winning?" Momo eyebrows shot up. "Sure, Yuji managed to fight agains Gojo, but we could clearly see that Gojo was dominating the match. Yuji was definitely close at losing if it weren't for the fact you ended it."
"He simply wins by surviving." The old man replied. "You all do. You are all students in training and its normal that you wouldn't win. The best you could do is to survive as long as possible as you can before assistance arrives. You could train all day and night to grow stronger, but that won't suffice to win. It is only when you work together as a team that you'll achieve victory much sooner and quicker than being on your own."
Momo was about to open her mouth, but Maki steps in and cuts her off. "Thank you for the lesson. We still have much to learn."
"And you will." Utahime said. "Even at my age, I'm constantly learning something new from myself and from others."
"Yeah, Utahime. "Snorted Gojo. "You certainly have a lot to catch up."
"And you certainly have a lot of damage to repair after the idiotic stunt you pulled!" Snapped Utahime right back at him, pointing at the rock were some parts landed at shrines and ponds.
"Oh, he wouldn't have any problems paying the impairments back." Giggled Mei Mei, knowing very well Gojo's wealth status.
As the teachers assembled together, so did the students who were talking in a friendly banter with each other as teens would do.
"Well, you managed it quite well back then." Nudged Nobara playfully at Yuji's side. "It was far more impressive than watching Megumi."
"Hey, I heared that." Retorted Megumi back.
"Well, the only way to get better is to fail harder!"
And with that Nobara sweeps his feet out from under him, causing him to fall on the ground. This made Gojo laugh uncontrollably loud which made Megumi's mood turn sour.
With her tongue sticking at him, Nobara runs out of the training area, before Megumi could get to her.
"You are so dead, Nobara!" Megumi swore under his breath. "Oh, I'll make you fail more times than I did!"