Reverse Curse Technique or RCT.
A miraculous feat of curse energy manipulation that inverts the very nature of curse energy itself. Outside a domain, and perhaps even including it, this is single-handedly the most difficult skill to learn.
To invert the very nature of curse energy, to heal instead of hurt. That takes more than pure manipulation of curse energy; it needs a deep understanding of Jujutsu and more than that, a chance encounter.
If only I could have pulled it off.
If so, then perhaps I wouldn't be dying right now.
Sigh...
Ever wondered how it feels like dying? To be in a state where you neither belong to the living nor are gone enough for the underworld to take you.
It feels like drowning.
Like getting slowly sunk into a bottomless, boiling, dark, deep body of water. If you're lucky, then you might see light slowly fade away. If you're not, then darkness has already consumed you to the point there is no way back.
Perhaps it's the part where the reaper, instead of taking us to the other side of the river, ends up throwing us in to fend for ourselves.
My body first felt like it weighed a ton, even after the dark suffocation of water around me, I felt hot. Like burning hot as in I was inside a boiling cauldron.
Sinking deeper, slowly and agonisingly.
If the way to hell was like this, I didn't wish to see the place myself. However, I doubt the man up there sitting on his throne has patience for someone like me in his heaven.
Hehe... funny, almost.
Yeah, I beat Mahoraga, pulled it off somehow, had the fight go my way, but what's the point of doing so when I am not breathing to tell the tale.
Sinking in darkness while the light of the surface increasingly fades. No fight left in the body to reach out for it once more.
What am I to do.
On top of that, there was also this burning sensation all over me.
And yet...
Even after all that.
I wished for a miracle, for something to flip the table and say you're not allowed in hell just yet. Just once.
A miracle... that's what I wanted at times like this.
And perhaps the big man up there heard me, perhaps he too wasn't ready to end my suffering just yet, or just way too excited about keept watching me break some more bones, the burning sensation, as if I wasn't sinking in a sea of fire, vanished.
Replaced by a soothing cold.
I felt the boiling water lose its temperature, as if nursing my burns. I felt a tremor run past me as the light on top brightened, ever so slightly.
My descent into the abyss halted suddenly, and now I found myself at a bypass.
Above me was light, below darkness. It was easy to let go, descend down and be at peace, or I could struggle and face the light. Reach out for it.
What an impasse I stand at. Truly.
I for once felt at peace. If not choosing means I could stay here in silence and calm, I'll rather have this.
Slowly the cold sank into my body, freezing my burned wounds. In any other case it might have been a death sentence; however, currently, the cold was the only thing keeping me alive.
A miracle indeed.
I felt like the heat of my body mixed with the cold outside, both diminishing each other at each other's expense. Keeping me safe. Keeping me alive.
Something shook inside me...
A memory cracked up at times like this...
"It's simple, curse energy is negative in nature, so to get positive energy out of it, what do we do in maths, multiply two negatives..."
How easy it is to say that... I tried hundreds of times and couldn't do it when my life depended on it.
But.
I recalled how it felt to be healed after winning inside a domain, by Mahoraga's sword. My mind once again went to the mixing temperature of my burning body and the freezing ice outside.
Perhaps it was indeed a miracle that even after so much, I once again reached out for my curse energy once more, deep down inside me, and asked.
Follow this feeling.
The current around me suddenly got violent. Energy twisted, curse energy collided into curse energy.
Trying to find that feeling of healing.
Crack...
I heard something. I honestly heard something. It wasn't my mind playing tricks.
So I continued...
Another crack.
My body felt a strange sensation. The heat stabilises the cold. Both mixing into nothingness, blending into me to fix me.
And then...
It shattered.
Into a million pieces, everything shattered and I fell down with a thud. Gone was the boiling water, or the freezing chill, gone was the light above me and darkness beneath.
And slowly, and steadily. Gone were the burns, the pain, and the scars.
Smoke drifted out of me like a man rising from the ashes of his death. My gone eyes seemed to regain vision. All the haze was cleared.
Teeth grew back, blood seemed to magically appear out of nowhere inside my streams.
My skin regrew, hair grow back. Lungs could take air without pain, without feeling like they were pooling with my own blood.
My curse energy felt different, not like armour or a weapon in my hands, but like a soft pillow, or a lover's hand caressing me.
Deep breath in, once more to be certain I wasn't dreaming. This was real.
I saw I was surrounded by ice. Real ice, not the one I was hallucinating on my deathbed.
For confirmation, I even touched it, and more than the touch itself, the feeling that my hands were sensitive again felt exhilarating.
Slowly the dead burned skin was shed away, what surfaced was unblemished tender skin as if recently grown. Which it did.
"Seems like I did it huh…"
A grin threatened to break out of me, no. Not threatening, I was already grinning, in fact. I was laughing.
"Man I feel alive!" I slowly raised my arms wide, taking everything the world has to offer with close eyes. Feeling it, living it.
Cold air of Shibuya grazed through my bare body, the ice occasionally giving me chills, yet the curse energy around me kept me warm, comfortable.
"RCT… Reverse Curse Technique. God knows how but I figured it out." I felt like I was on cloud nine. The comfort of RCT was immense, only those who had once felt it could understand the feeling.
It was like being reborn.
'No wonder Satoru Gojo felt so high after the first time using RCT. This stuff was addicting.' I giggled.
Even unknown to me, RCT cast upon oneself was so potent that it didn't just heal wounds, bring a person back from the gates of hell, however, it also removed fatigue. Something which I had stored in tons ever since I came to this world.
I took my sweet time. Enough time for my high to settle down. The excitement of not dying, to learn something which is considered the pinnacle of jujutsu sorcery like this was exhilarating.
If only I had figured this shit out like 10 minutes ago.
How did I even survive those 10 minutes was the real question. My domain definitely bore most of the burnden for me by that last trade I did.
Damage at back was increased exponentially in exchange for the potency of frontal damage. I was facing the meteor while Mahoraga wasn't.
Then there was that boy, what was his name again, I can't quite recall, but the blonde was completely gone. Evaporated.
Both Mahoraga and that boy's body took the major brunt of that attack. I somehow was sheltered behind them and barely survived.
If being burned to death slowly and not instantly was called surviving, that is.
Sigh.
Finally out of my high horse, of being alive and more sturdy than ever, I looked around me.
The place was wrecked, no wonder there, I knew what I was doing when I asked Jogo to give me his best. The signs of burns were clear enough.
However, what confused me was the ice. "From where did ice come into this equation?"
Jogo's reverse technique, nah can't be, I no longer have that after I used the sacrificial trade.
So the only person in JJK with an ice technique came to mind.
"Uraume?"
But why would she help me? There was no reason for her to do that.
I observed the place again. This didn't look like she was helping me exactly. How does freezing the entire place while leaving me to freeze to death make sense as helping me.
"…"
My thoughts suddenly came to a halt when another cold breeze ran past me and now I wasn't using RCT to not notice.
The chilly night breeze rattled every bone inside me as I shuddered. It was cold as f*ck.
I looked down only to realise that I was standing in the middle of the street, absolutely naked.
All my clothes were burned away.
"Shit…"
Did I laugh like a maniac all naked in the middle of the street.
My hands snapped to my groin, eyes darting sideways to find something, anything to cover before I was tomorrow's headline alongside all the destruction in the city.
'Naked Terrorist spotted in an exhibitionist act after committing city-wide bombing…'
Nope… that's the last thing I need.
So I darted with both hands, covering everything I could with them, in search of clothes, and to save my modesty.
xXx
A/N : How was it, did you like it. I tried to make it look like this circumtances have forced him to learn RCT. Which was truth, and part of the reason he was alive was luck as you guys have connected.
But can you image where that Luck originates? Its should be right in front of you guys. Guess and tell in me in the comments.
Would appreciate stones if you can spare any. Thank you.
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