Bodies Bound

He Lives

"What do you plan on doing with him, Master?" I asked Gojo.
"I'm going to train him up. He'll be good to go by the time of the sister school event."
"I see. Then why have you brought me here?" I feared the worst with his intentions.
"I just thought you'd like to know that he is still alive."

I nodded and Gojo began speaking to Itadori.

"You're a head above the rest when it comes to close combat, Yuji. So what you need to learn right now is how to control cursed energy, as well as the bare minimum of jujutsu knowledge."

I perked up with Gojo's idea of training him, and if he was letting me sit in then maybe I could try learning how to control my cursed energy again without too much help.

"What's wrong?" I furrowed my eyebrows at Gojo's question, I didn't think that anything was wrong.

"Oh. I figured that you'd be the best person to teach me, so I'm just happy. I'm weak, and I couldn't save anybody. Worse, I nearly killed Fushiguro. As I am now, I won't be able to face them. I want to become strong. Teach me to be the strongest." I thought Itadori's speech was adorable. I liked that he was determined to be strong for his friends.

"You've got a keen eye."
"Sensei. You're the one who called yourself the strongest."

It was silent for a moment as Gojo realized what Itadori meant..

"Okay! You see those drink cans over there?"
No I do not.

There were two crunching noises.

"The green one I hit with cursed energy, and the yellow one I hit with a cursed technique."
"I see. I don't get it."

Oh dear. I'm sure Sukuna hates the child he's been stuck with.

"Well... Think of cursed energy as electricity, and cursed techniques as appliances. Electricity itself is hard to use right? That's why we run electricity through appliances to achieve various results."
"I got it!" Itadori seemed enthusiastic after Gojo's explanation. "In other words, I'm about to learn a very, very good cursed technique?!" Oh, I thought he understood, it appears I was wrong.

"No. You can't use cursed techniques." I could feel Itadori deflate with the way Gojo broke that news to him. "Setting aside simple shikigami, and barriers, cursed techniques are fundamentally etched into your body from the day you're born. So the power of a jujutsu sorcerer is roughly 80% innate talent."

I'm pretty sure I could hear the child's brain frying with all of the information he was being fed. Apparently Gojo could too because he asked if Itadori was alright.

"No. I thought I'd just be able to pull off thunder or fire or a power bomb or something."
"You can pull off a power bomb. Ohnita's right?"
"This sucks. I wanted to pull off a Spirit Gun, or Bankai, or Rasengan, or a Dodon ray. I wanted to fire off a Kamehameha."

I didn't recognise any of the things he was listing off but they all had funny names. I could hear him rolling on the floor with a fit of disappointment.
"Um, lets just ignore the things you can't do! We're going to enhance your strengths. We'll get you to imbue your fighting style with cursed energy. I'm way more scared of someone who can force their way through with just the basics than I am of inferior jujutsu. Like I just said, your talent for close combat is top-notch."

Itadori gasped and it sounded like he stopped whining. "But wait! I can already do that!"

"Get up."

Gojo sounded defeated and disappointed at the same time. It was somewhat funny because the child was frustrating him by rolling on the floor.

"Back then, I somehow managed to get a hang of it."
"Then give it a try. Hit me here, not that you actually can."

Gojo gently guided me a few steps away from him and then I heard him move back to where he was standing before.

"Don't blame me if you get hurt." Itadori said.
"Just hurry up and do it." Now it was Gojo who was whining.

There was a small whoosh of air and a thudding noise.
"That didn't have any cursed energy behind it."
"How!?" Itadori shouted at Gojo.
"Negative emotions are the source of cursed energy. In the incident you're referring to, you were probably brimming with anger and fear."

Itadori made a sound of understanding.
"So you have to be constantly flipping out to use cursed energy? Now that you mention it, Fushiguro is always a little bit snappy."
"Not like that. Everyone is trained to produce cursed energy using the faintest sparks of emotion. They've also trained on how to not waste cursed energy when emotions are flaring too. There are several methods to train this. I'll be having you use a pretty exhausting one."

"Like what?" Itadori sounded nervous at this new information brought by Gojo.
"Watching movies."
"Watching movies?"
"Yep. Everything from masterpieces, to C-grade horror films and terrible French movies. You'll be watching them nonstop as long as you're awake. Of course, you won't just be watching them. You'll be watching them with this guy."

I could feel the presence of a cursed object.

"What's with the cute, creepy doll?"
"It's a cursed corpse made by the principal."
"Ah, I knew it. It has his sense! And? I don't understand what you're getting at here."
"Don't be hasty now, you'll see soon."

There was another thudding noise and I heard Itadori yelp.

"That cursed corpse will wake up and attack you, just like that, if you don't keep pouring a set amount of cursed energy into it. Like I said, we have all kinds of movies available here. Heart-throbbers, thrillers, exciting ones, sad ones, comedy, and even ones that'll make you feel disgusting. Your first goal is to watch an entire movie, from start to finish without waking the cursed corpse. This trains you to maintain a steady output of cursed energy, no matter what you feel. You can't use too much or too little. I have it set to the faint level of cursed energy you can produce right now, but it'll steadily start demanding greater output, so don't let your guard down."

I heard Itadori muttering after Gojo told him all about what he was going to be doing, but I couldn't hear what he was saying.

"What do you want to start with? I recommend this one. The heroine's annoying, but she dies spectacularly in the end."
"Spoiler. I say we start off with action!" Itadori stopped talking as a thud was heard. The cursed corpse must've woken up and hit him. He yelled out after and threw the doll to the ground.
"Hey. Even if you're irritated, keep the cursed energy steady. (Y/n)-chan, come sit down on the couch."

Gojo wrapped his hand around my arm and guided me to the couch. I sat down quietly and listened to them talk about the movies. Eventually they decided on one and Itadori sat down on the couch too. It was tense and Itadori ended up getting punched in the face again by the cursed corpse.

Itadori complained about it hitting him when he was drinking his soda.

"Okay, I have some business to deal with. Just hang in there. Oh, wait. Did you talk to Sukuna when you were dead?"
"Talk to him?"
"When he fixed your heart, did he propose any conditions or contracts?"
"Oh... I think we did talk about something. But I can't remember what it was."
"I see. (Y/n)-chan, come along."

I got up and walked the two or three steps to where Gojo was standing and we left the room. We left the school grounds and were picked up by Ijichi. Gojo helped me into the transportation and we started on our way.

Everything was silent for a while until Ijichi spoke up. He was only talking to Gojo as he would never dare to talk to me.

"We have a bit of time before your appointment with the principal. Do you want to stop anywhere?" He asked.
"It's fine. I'll show up early for a change."

All was quiet and still. I looked past Gojo, off towards his left side.

"Stop the car."
"Huh? Right here?"
"Go on ahead."

Gojo said once we were both out of the car.

"H-Huh? You're not testing me right? You're not gonna hit me if I actually go on ahead; will you?"
"Just what do you think I am?"
"O-Oh, well in that case."

I heard tires screeching as the car drove off without us. We stood in the middle of the road and waited. Gojo pushed me away from him a little bit.

"Watch out (Y/n)-chan."

There was a screech of joy from above us, and then a loud crash.

What's this?