"In about a day or so." Satoru continued, shrugging. Larkin seemed frantic, but the man was likely worried over nothing. After all, an unspoken portion of his Binding Vow with Kairos essentially implied that the big blue bird couldn't and wouldn't try to kill him; disabling the ship seemed like a pretty good way to do that, actually. Therefore, the ship was well-enough to take them to the Craftworld, but not well-enough to get them anywhere else, which was a fair enough trade. The Daemon likely was just making sure that they couldn't try to escape. "The Eldar don't seem to be in a hurry about pulling us into their little Craftworld thing. So, we got plenty of time to burn."
"What will you do?" Larkin asked, sighing as he stepped away from the console and ran a hand across his face in clear and abject frustration and no small amount of fear – not for himself, but for his daughter. Satoru would've told him not to worry if he was certain, but he wasn't; the reality of the situation was that neither he nor Larkin knew anything about these Eldar creatures and that they were, quite literally, jumping headfirst into the unknown, relying only on their wits and creativity to escape alive, because those were the two things one needed more than strength and power in a place where one knew absolutely jack shit.
Satoru sat down on the floor and crossed his legs together. "I'm going to train, for the lack of a better word. I'll need to understand that True Negative Cursed Energy field better and hopefully weaponize it somehow. Or, at the very least, figure out how I can use it to my advantage."
Of course, it was already very useful against any Sorcerer, considering the aura itself was so freakishly abhorrent that just walking up to a Sorcerer with it activated would pretty much be a death sentence. Still, it was Cursed Energy and, like all Cursed Energy, could be used for more than just looking pretty and walking around with or for punching things with. The problem was that he was totally unfamiliar with True Negative Cursed Energy; it was something totally new, something no one else had ever seen or even conceived before, an entirely new source of power. But that also meant he'd be treading on a path that no one else had ever taken, a path that no one else even knew existed. Frankly, this was the sort of thing that he, the Honored One, arguably the strongest sorcerer ever born, was qualified of doing.
"Then... I'm... I'm going to check the armory for more weapons." Larkin said, shaking his head and sighing. Briefly, he eyed the rifle that was still slung across Satoru's chest, which – Satoru would readily admit – he'd honestly forgotten about. "Having weapons wouldn't be terrible, I think, especially when we're entering a xeno vessel. There was an armory the last time I checked, but I've never been inside it."
Satoru nodded. "Yeah, you go ahead and do that. I'll just be here."
Larkin was right. Having actual weapons would be very useful. Sure, his Cursed Techniques were incredibly powerful, but there were moments, Satoru figured, wherein he would have to approach a problem differently or deal with a foe by shooting it, instead of blasting it apart with Blue, Red, or Purple. Good thing he still had the laser rifle, because he'd be devastated if he lost it. After all, Satoru had been a child for... most of his life, actually, and having an awesome laser rifle that can go pew pew pew at anything he pointed was and has been one of the things he'd always dreamed of having. And now he had one and Satoru definitely wasn't letting go... not unless a better weapon showed itself, one that shot a bigger laser or a super death rocket of some kind.
Right... where the hell was he?
Oh, yeah, experimenting with True Negative Cursed Energy.
Breathing in, Satoru turned his attention inwards, into the rolling sea of Cursed Energies in his gut, and he altered it as he'd done before, shifting and turning it into something else entirely, but similar all the same. Having already performed the act once before, Satoru found it was much easier this time, to convert his existing Neutral Cursed Energy into True Negative Cursed Energy, an act that, for a lack of a better word, was akin to flipping a boat and continuing to sail anyway. It was an impossible thing and yet it happened, because Cursed Energy, by its very nature, was a force that defied nature; it saw reality and all the natural laws of physics and said, 'not on my watch!' and, thus, came forth the mysteries of Sorcery and all the bullshit that came afterwards. However, this... Satoru mused, whatever it was he'd done, whatever it was he'd discovered, it wasn't something that anyone could just do on a whim; in fact, he was quite certain of the fact that, without Six-Eyes, he wouldn't be able to do this at all, let alone conceive its possibility.
His world shifted. And every single microbe in the entire vessel died, reduced to ashes and dust as Satoru's immense Cursed Energies all turned negative, becoming a bottomless pit of darkness and despair, the antithesis of life itself, the end of Jujutsu. Satoru gritted his teeth, beads of sweat rolling down the side of his face. Boy oh boy, this sure as hell didn't get any easier than last time. If he had to put it into numbers, this was almost ten times harder than the comparatively simple act of creating Reverse Cursed Energy. In fact, Satoru was rather certain of the fact that his conversion was, at best, highly inefficient. At the very least, however, the overwhelmingly unpleasant and uncomfortable feeling that'd once overtaken him, body, mind, and soul, was now lesser than it had been – not by a lot, but enough that Satoru could, at the very least, focus on more than the pain and discomfort it brought. Specifically, he turned his full attention towards actually manipulating the stuff he'd brought out of himself.
Shit... this fucking hurts!
And it did, but not in a physical sense. No, the pain came from somewhere deep within, down to his very soul. Six-Eyes narrowed and, as Satoru turned his gaze further inwards, he found that True Negative Cursed Energy was, in fact, gradually burning out his soul with every passing moment. That meant two things: one, he couldn't activate this power for long, because he'd die otherwise. Two, Larkin and Tanya had no souls... which was... disturbing or they had inverse souls, which was also not nearly as weird as it sounded. After all, there were plenty of beings who lacked souls, like Nanami, who clearly sold his soul to the workplace, because even his damn Cursed Technique was work-related.
Anyway, the more plausible scenario was a naturally-occurring Heavenly Restriction of some kind, similar to what that piece of shit Toji had, but for inverse souls, sacrificing all potential for typical or otherwise normal sorcery in exchange for their ability to survive constant exposure to True Negative Cursed Energy.
Whatever the case, that particular mystery honestly had nothing to do with him, but it was interesting. As it turns out, there was so much out there that no one else had discovered yet, things that would've uprooted Jujutsu Society, beings that would've made the likes of Ryomen Sukuna, the King of Curses, look like a toddler with a matchstick, and powers that could threaten entire worlds, not just buildings or cities. Satoru, despite himself, shuddered with excitement.
He reached and held out a metaphysical representation of his hand, which he used to scoop out a small portion of the True Negative Cursed Energy that now gathered in his gut; it was akin to reaching into a black, bottomless abyss where nothing could exist, and taking out a tiny portion of it for experimentation. Looking closer, Satoru noted that it wasn't quite annihilation on a spiritual or material scale, not a true emptiness, at least.
So, if, for instance, he shot out a stream of pure True Negative Cursed Energy at a foe, it would likely only render them inert or unconscious, but not quite dead – or, at least, not immediately. The nature of True Negative Cursed Energy, as the antithesis to life itself, meant that it would kill just about anything it touched or anything that touched it, but it was a drain, not a hole; it killed slowly, gradually sucking the life out of anything that was exposed to it.
Scary.
Honestly.
Behind the grin, Satoru was afraid. This was the sort of power that could, if used incorrectly, lead to the deaths of... an innumerable number of people... too many to think about. And that was because he now saw and realized its full potential. If channeled through and into the Realm of Infinity, its life-draining aspect could, and quite possibly will, be multiplied... an infinite number of times, creating a drain that could potential suck the life out of an entire planet within moments, potentially an apocalyptic technique.
That sort of thing was scary to think about.
Still, if he could control it properly and apply it in moderation, then it could also become a weapon that was even greater than Hollow Technique: Purple – far greater.
His smile faded and Satoru turned ever inwards. The world around him flowed much faster, but – by his reckoning – only an hour had passed since he began meditating and it seemed like Tanya and Larkin had distanced themselves from him, most likely because, even to them, his version of True Negative Cursed Energy was incredibly disturbing. Fair enough. It must've been a similar experience to standing right in front of a Sorcerer with an incredibly large reserve of Cursed Energy, overwhelming; only, instead of being overwhelmed by intense negative emotions like fear and dread, they were overwhelmed by the absence of emotion, the absence of feeling, of sensation.
Right.
Focus.
Luckily, his soul was pretty strong; and so the corrosive nature of True Negative Cursed Energy wouldn't really affect him that much for a while. A rough estimate told him that he'd be able to maintain this state for another five hours, before things became irreversibly dangerous and his soul would no longer regenerate naturally. Four hours left to go, Satoru mused.
The tiny scoop of True Negative Cursed Energy in his metaphysical palms swirled and twisted at his command. It wasn't any harder to control than Neutral Cursed Energy, which was a relief, but it was not quite the same, either, where Neutral Cursed Energy was malleable, like clay, True Negative Cursed Energy flowed like slick tar, which he was able to manipulate only through a very clever application of Limitless, something that really didn't take much effort at all. And so, through Limitless, Satoru then began filtering trace amounts of the stuff and very slowly channeling it into an actual physical expression, much like Red and Blue, capable of affecting the physical world.
Satoru sent it into his pointer finger, which he held up before him, containing the barest flicker of True Negative Cursed Energy. And, when Six-Eyes opened, Satoru beheld a gray sphere, about the size of a baseball, very briefly appearing right over his pointer finger, before disappearing. He frowned. It wasn't gray, no. It just didn't have a color at all. Or, rather, it was the opposite of color, which appeared gray, but wasn't quite gray.
His grin, right then and there, would've torn apart his lips if his self control had been any lesser.
He'd done it. He'd done something with it. Satoru still wasn't entirely certain just what it was he'd done exactly, since this was an entirely new aspect of his power, but he did it! Of course, there were a lot of things he needed to work on. Its efficiency, for instance, was absolutely abysmal. That flicker of True Negative Cursed Energy, if converted into Neutral Cursed Energy, would've been more than enough to produce a Blue of not inconsiderable size and power, enough to coat his arm with for a punch. But that was an issue of familiarity and control, something he'd solve soon enough. The next problem was that he hadn't been able to maintain it. His goal was to create an expression of Limitless using True Negative Cursed Energy, not just a bubble that popped about a moment immediately after it came about.
And a whole host of other problems.
But, none of it could compare to the fact that he, Gojo Satoru, once again, achieved the impossible.
"Ah, I should probably get some rest."
And then, Satoru released the tight hold he'd kept over his True Negative Cursed Energy, turning it into Neutral Cursed Energy once again, and promptly puked blood.
AN: As always, advanced chapters are available on my (Pat)reon!