"You heard me?" the boy asked in an indifferent tone before taking a few more steps toward Jin. "I asked a question," he insisted while staring at the duo.
Jin showed no fear in the face of the obvious hostility emanating from the young boy through his cursed energy aura.
He advanced nonchalantly toward the latter until he stood right in front of the young sorcerer.
"Did no one ever teach you how to speak properly to adults?" Jin simply replied after establishing eye contact with the boy's hypnotic eyes.
The boy froze for a brief moment.
Throughout his life, this was the first time the young Satoru had been openly reprimanded by an adult other than his father.
As the holder of the Six Eyes, he had been raised with the utmost care by those around him. After all, he was destined to stand at the pinnacle of jujutsu in this era.
A status that led Satoru to live bathed in the attention and expectations of others, because they saw him as something other than human.
A weapon.
Thus, the young Satoru was disarmed by the sudden words of the stranger before him.
There was no murderous intent, only a clearly disapproving tone.
The child honored by all had just been reprimanded like any ordinary boy his age would have been when acting impolite.
A unique situation for Gojo.
'Is he insane? Doesn't he know who I am?' he thought as several questions flooded his mind.
However, an emotion unknown to someone at the top of the food chain was born in the young Gojo's heart.
Interest.
Unlike his future at Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College, the current Satoru had never yet met anyone he deemed worthy of being his equal.
The combined use of Infinity and Blue was already enough to handle most conflicts he encountered in his daily life.
The very idea of meeting a sorcerer who cared neither about his identity nor his talent had never crossed his mind.
This version of Satoru was mentally unstable because loneliness gnawed at him from within.
"Sigh… Don't get involved in adult business anymore," Jin muttered while heading toward the exit of the alley.
He walked with a nonchalant stride.
"Master!!" Tsubaki shouted as she transformed into two traditional sickles connected by a chain.
(Image)
Bing!
"Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue," Satoru muttered as his small fist struck the two blades.
'So that's it? Blue…' Jin thought while frowning mid-air.
Blue.
It is an application of Infinity that Satoru Gojo can use with great mastery thanks to the Six Eyes he has possessed since birth.
According to Jin's understanding of this technique, Blue is an application of the concept of infinity. However, it is centered on the infinite convergence of space toward a single point.
This idea may seem strange to someone ignorant of physics, but it remains ingenious.
'Even though Tsubaki isn't complaining, she must have felt the enormous force of that damn kid,' he thought while regaining his balance in mid-air before landing a bit farther from Satoru.
Blue functions similarly to Infinity, compressing existing space and thereby forcing everything within a certain radius to fill the void created by Satoru's actions.
The convergence of infinity toward a point results in a form of pseudo-telekinesis, or even a form of spatial manipulation.
Jin sees this spatial phenomenon as a manifestation of the concepts of "negative numbers" and "negative distance," because it forces real space to compensate and fill a zone under Blue's influence.
This zone caused by Gojo's Infinity is supposed to be impossible; that's why space tries to repair it by creating a suction phenomenon.
"Interesting. You applied the concept of infinity to yourself to hit harder and improve your speed," Jin declared while adjusting his glasses without taking his eyes off Satoru.
Satoru seemed surprised that Jin had managed to block his attack, but the man's next words surprised him even more.
'There's no doubt anymore—this man really recognizes me,' Satoru analyzed while putting his hands back in his pockets in a relaxed manner.
But his young, inexperienced face couldn't completely hide the thousands of questions swirling in his mind.
As an innate and hereditary technique within the Gojo clan, it's not impossible to obtain information about Infinity.
Toji is proof of that.
However, Satoru didn't understand why the man before his eyes treated him normally while knowing his true nature.
He is the holder of Infinity and the Six Eyes. How could someone remain so nonchalant after getting on his bad side?
Jin was becoming a real enigma for Gojo.
Now that he understood the stranger's act wasn't born of ignorance, Satoru's interest in Jin grew even stronger.
"You're not attacking again? Yet you were very aggressive for no good reason," Jin asked while wearing a displeased expression.
"Why should I need a reason to crush a noisy insect?" Satoru replied after the man's remark.
The young boy's cursed energy manifested even more after his words, while an unbearable little smile drew itself on his youthful face.
The kind of smile anyone would want to rip off by force.
'So he's attacking purely on a whim,' Jin understood while also unleashing his cursed energy without restraint in response to the young Gojo.
Ryomen Sukuna and Satoru Gojo.
Even though these two characters seem diametrically opposed, they have an enormous number of things in common.
For example: both know the loneliness tied to the title of "the strongest."
Claud recalled an interview with the author of Jujutsu Kaisen. Gege Akutami had received a question about the "romantic" aspect of Satoru Gojo with the opposite sex.
The author of the hit manga gave a somewhat strange answer:
"Gojo can't be faithful to a woman."
What does that have to do with his unique personality? Simply because he no longer saw "humans" as fellow beings.
A strange answer, but strangely similar to Sukuna's mindset, who made no distinction between human meat and animal meat.
"You're still distracted," Satoru declared while manifesting a blue sphere.
The ground and nearby trash cans began to be pulled in and sucked toward the cursed energy, which soon took on a blue hue.
"Cursed Technique Lapse – Maximum Cursed Energy Output: Blue!" he said in a loud voice.
(Image)
An incantation.
This thought quickly came to Jin's mind as space warped in the alley under the power of Blue.
"Master, you must react!" Tsubaki's voice rang in the shikigami user's mind.
"Can we launch a soul resonance?" Jin asked while running around Gojo to avoid the blue sphere pursuing him.
Thanks to the use of the Flee skill, but also his high agility stats, Jin could move fast enough to create distance between himself and the attack.
Unfortunately, he saw no opening.
Gojo's eyes remained fixed in a direction close to his position.
"M-Master, our souls are compatible, but… this is our first time together," Tsubaki muttered while timidly tapping the spiritual space between their two souls.
"I'll be gentle, so switch to Cursed Sword mode immediately and use the puppet!" Jin ordered after destroying debris flying toward him.
Even though he had managed to dodge Blue, Gojo could still attack him with rocks resulting from the consequences of his subsequent attacks.
"You know about Infinity but still come at me?" Gojo declared while frowning at his opponent.
A hint of disappointment flickered in his hypnotic eyes after judging Jin's act as stupid.
As far as he knew, nothing could pass through Infinity.
"The Infinity is a formidable defense, but it has several weak points," he thought while slicing through a rock hurled at him by Blue's spatial manipulation.
Indeed, Jin had few means to strike Gojo. That's also one of the many reasons Jin had never considered taking the bounty on Gojo.
Yet he still intends to bet.
"Soul Resonance!!!"
"Soul Resonance!!!"
(Image)
"My Domain Expansion prohibits all violence, so I can forget about the guaranteed hit within it, but I still have one option!" he thought inwardly.
Jin's soul manifested wildly, enveloping him like a sphere.
"What…" Satoru muttered as his eyes observed an unknown phenomenon.
A shining sphere surrounded by more frenzied cursed energy than ever.
"I don't think soul resonance would bring a power-up in cursed energy output… well, you should stay focused, kid~" Jin declared while tightening his grip around Tsubaki.
Immediately after his words, Jin's shadow shot toward Gojo like a spear.
(Image)
"What—"
slash
A drop of blood trickled from Gojo's nape.
"Hm… indeed, you're not aware of Domain Amplification," Jin simply noted without concerning himself with Satoru's stunned expression.
Unfortunately, Satoru didn't have enough knowledge to understand the masterful act unfolding before his eyes.
Jin had switched between his innate technique (Tsubaki) and his Domain Amplification.
An act qualified as divine by Kashimo.