The Inumaki Clan Prodigy [Jujutsu Kaisen]

As soon as Jogo heard the words, he was crushed, like a giant had just squeezed him in its palm. His arms and legs were reduced to bloody lumps of flesh by the force as his own maximum technique continued to hurtle towards the city and his two attackers.

Before Jogo could regenerate his arms and legs, he was commanded to shoot into and through the building he was standing atop. But this time, the words came from the boys mouth. While the damage was concerning, it wasn't what Jogo was worried about the most.

What he really wanted to figure out was this maximum technique. He refused to believe it was as simple as crushing his limbs as that could've been done by a regular command, even if more cursed energy would've been required. So what did it do?

As Jogo threw the large stone slab crushing him under its weight aside, many more similar debris having crashed onto him after being blasted into the building, his body was crushed again. But due to Jogo not having time to recover from the previous crushing, this one mashed up his entire body below his chest.

Jogo dedicated all of his focus to healing from the attack which distracted him from the katana piercing his heart. The brat twisted the blade up before cutting his way out of his body through his shoulder.

Jogo went to blast him with more fire but was commanded once more.

"Twist." The arm Jogo had raised to fire his technique with was suddenly twisted into nothing as the kid swept his blade low, cutting off both of his newly regenerated legs, causing Jogo to flop forward.

As he fell, Isamu kneed him right in the eye, sending his small and visually weak body away, flying into a wall. Fortunately for Jogo, this wasn't a 1 on 1 fight.

Before Ismau's could fall up on the curses vulnerable position, the man with the black eyes dashed out from the shadows and buried his machete in the brats back, chopping from his right shoulder to around his chest area.

The brat threw his head back, head butting the man behind him before turning and punching him clean in the nose with his non-sword hand. The man's machete and short sword clashed with the brats katana, sending sparks to and fro.

Jogo summoned his cursed energy to take advantage of the brats districted state but was unable to do anything before he was crushed again. Just like every other time, the brat didn't say anything, leading Jogo the believe it was the work of his maximum technique.

Judging from the name of the technique and the way a single command continued to activate led Jogo to believe the technique forced the target to be subjected to the technique in 10 second intervals. If that was true and assuming there was no time or number limit on the technique, Jogo was on a timer.

If the brat was able to keep him from healing the damage from the maximum technique, it would eventually kill him. Maybe in two or three commands even. Not that the fight wasn't already on a timer.

——

Isamu dashed and clashed as he and the man faced off on nearly equal footing. Isamu got faster and stronger with every clash as his cursed energy efficiency grew while the man seemed to speed up as well. Was he not going all out before?

The man wielding the machete and the stolen Maya while Isamu met him at every turn with Saraswati. During their clashes, Isamu would scrap the ground or cut the air, sending earth spikes or waves of fire towards the man.

Isamu sent a wave of flames towards him before lunging towards where he was about to dodge. The man blocked the powerful thrust with both blades in an x shape before flicking the katana up.

The man slipped under Isamu's guard, stabbing Maya into his gut. Isamu grabbed his arm before stabbing his own blade into the man's gut. He smiled, blood trickling from his mouth as he chanted.

"New Shadow Style: Simple Domain." Thanks to the flow state Isamu was able to skip the hand signs and crouching usually needed for simple domain. Isamu brought his head forward, slamming his head into the man's and forcing him back.

He left Saraswati embedded in his stomach as he was forced to let go of Maya. Isamu's gripped the short katana with his right arm and using his own body as a sheath, he drew the sword.

"New Shadow Style: Noon Eclipse Sword Drawing." Isamu's hand lashed out at speeds far exceeding any technique he'd performed in the past. Instead of only slashing 8 times in total, as was the standard for this technique, with the help of the flow state and his far better control over cursed energy, Isamu's was able to break through his former ceiling and push the technique to 12 total slashes.

Due to Maya's range, Isamu's was unable to cut clean through the man like he may have wished. Instead, he had to settle for very deep cuts all across his torso and arm. The first 8 were directed at his vital organs while the remaining 4 succeeded in cutting his left arm clean off.

With that, Isamu commanded him to plummet, forcing him into the ground and pinning him there for a bit. Not that it mattered how long the command kept him there, Isamu's only needed a little time.

Isamu's calmly looked up at the sky, watching the meteor come crashing down. It was still hundreds of feet in the air so he still had some time. Isamu was surprised at how slow the meteor was, even if Isamu started running right now, he'd have more than enough time to move out of the way. It must've been the curses first time performing a maximum technique.

On one hand, Isamu was glad the meteor wasn't faster or more powerful, it gave him a higher chance at winning. But on the other hand, the hand of the sorcerer in Isamu, was disappointed. Ever since he'd became a sorcerer, Isamu worked to refine every aspect of sorcery available to him to the furthest extent. Nothing he did was half assed.

Even his maximum technique, a technique he used for the first time only a few minutes ago, was more refined than most people's regular techniques. Some of it was pure talent, granted. But the majority of it was dedication. He didn't even try something without pondering on it for days, weeks, or even months ahead so by the time he actually did it, he knew exactly what he wanted and how to get there.

He also did this with other people's techniques. When he witnesses a technique for the first time, his mind instantly jumps to ideas of how to improve it, how to use it in more effective ways, how to extend its abilities to become more powerful.

Most of the time it was just useless ideas that never came about. Sometimes he'd suggest Megumi or Nobara do a certain thing with their technique to see the outcome. On rare occasions, his thoughts even inspired ideas for his own technique and how to further improve that.

So when he saw this unrefined, half assed excuse of a maximum technique, something inside Isamu pushed him to improve upon it. It was an entirely selfish desire. One that had no real use other than curiosity at the outcome. But Isamu figured he'd been selfless enough for one life time. It couldn't hurt to indulge just this once, right?

So, looking up at the fiery face of the building sized meteor, Isamu opened his mouth to command the entire thing. To temporarily clam the technique as his own so that he may improve it. So that he may turn it against its master and show them how much of an utter waste they were. Show them what they could've done, what they could've been, if only they were more talented. If only they were more driven to succeed.

"BECOME MINE!!"

——

Toga Inumaki's gaze shifted from the bandaged and bloody form of Maki, an IV attached to her arm and Shoko leaning over her intently, to the night sky hanging over shibuya. More specifically, the large meteor falling from the heavens.

Shoko and Yaga also turned their attention to it, watching in horror as it got closer and closer to the ground. But before it could make impact, two words rang through the city.

"BECOME MINE!!" The words echoed through the destroyed landscape, everyone in the city hearing them but none were affected. No, the target of the command was very clear.

Toga watched on, admiring a level of mastery over the Inumaki inheritance that he would never reach himself. Elsewhere, Kusakabe, Nobara, Megumi, Noabito, Nanami, Choso, Mahito, and even Geto joined Toga in his viewing.

The meteor, the size of several buildings, rapidly shrank as its density increased several times over. Its speed increased as well, unnaturally so as its flight path also changed before it finally made contact at several times its original velocity.

——

Jogo watched as he was compacted again, his body barely able to heal fast enough to prevent his death via crushing. He had no idea how it was possible, how could that brat take his technique? How could he command someone else's cursed energy? Was his authority so great?

Setting that thought aside, Jogo began to wonder how the meteor had become so much more deadly. It was at least 10 times faster and much more dense. Jogo figured he would've been able to transform the technique into something like this, given enough time to refinement his skills. But for the brat to not only clam the cursed technique as his own but improve it to this level in such a short amount of time was unimaginable to the Jogo of a few seconds ago.

As the meteor made impact, as Jogo's body was crushed by the technique at the same moment his former technique struck his body head on, he wondered why he was unable to reach that level.

It wasn't a lack of potential. He had a great technique and more than enough cursed energy to back it up. So why hadn't he reached that level. The level a kid with less cursed energy and less experience with the technique could reach in a second?

Jogo realized his folly the moment before his death. Numbers. When one is given a number or the odds they have to succeed, they tend to set limits around those numbers. So when Jogo asked Geto his strength in comparison to Sukuna and was given a hard number in return, he subconsciously put limits on his potential around that number, it infected his thoughts. A curse of numbers. A curse of comparison was his downfall.

——

Isamu was blasted backwards as was every building in a several block radius as the meteor slammed into its own creator, many times too fast to even think of dodging. As Isamu was smashed through several buildings, barely able to dodge the chunks of street and metal from caving his skull in, his throat exploded.

His entire neck expanded and popped like a blood balloon, exposing his spine to the world. Blood leaked into his throat, stopping any attempt to suck in air. Right before he passed out from the blood loss, lack of oxygen, and pain, Isamu felt a wave of cursed energy flood his body.

As soon as it became Isamu's it was multiplied against itself and transformed into positive energy. In only a brief second Isamu's form was returned to its peak, his blood drenching his body the only sign he was ever injured in the first place. He reviled in the feeling of cursed energy in such great amounts entered his body.

Due to the curse not spending a lot of cursed energy before its death by its own technique, Isamu inherited much of its maximum cursed energy pool, about 45%. From what Isamu could tell, each of these high level cursed spirits had slightly more cursed energy than Yuta.

Meaning at the moment, his cursed energy equaled about 40% of Yuta's maximum while his own maximum was about 150% of Yuta's if you didn't count Rika's ability to refill Yuta's reserves. Overall, Isamu felt great as he dug himself out from under the rubble and walked towards the center of the massive crater.

The man with the black eyes joined him, somehow surviving the attacks well, not that Isamu was complaining. The man wasn't in very good shape however. His torso was covered in burns, his left eye still gouged out curtesy of Isamu, he had a few stab wounds on his right shoulder and arm while his left arm was missing entirely, a piece of rebar was imbedded through his liver while Saraswati was still nailed through his gut.

But judging from his ready position and the machete in his hand, he was far from done. Isamu smiled ear to ear, stray blood leaking through his teeth.

Maximum Technique: Echoing Command. It was a concept Isamu had thought about for a while and it was only now that he could bring it to fruition. Basically, Isamu picked a command for the opponent to be subjected by, after that they would be subjected to that same command every 10 seconds for no additional cost from Isamu.

But there were two main limitations. One, the initial cost of the technique was 5 times that of a regular command. Meaning it was only after the 5th or 6th command that Isamu started getting more damage per cursed energy than he would've gotten if he just commanded them 5 times. So Isamu had to be careful not to waste energy.

If his opponent could only survive 3 commands, it would be more cursed energy efficient to just command them 3 times. But if they'd die in 15 commands, it was best to use the maximum technique and save cursed energy.

The second and more detrimental limitation was the damage drop off. When you make a sound with an echo, the echo is always quieter than the original sound. This concept leaked into the technique, leading to every command after the original to be 5% less powerful than the command before it. Meaning the technique was limited to 20 commands and would gradually get weaker.

Overall, it was a decent maximum technique with some use but not something Isamu saw himself using a whole lot. It was best used at the start of fights against strong opponents but it was rare Isamu knew how strong his opponent was before combat, meaning he was just as likely to waste cursed energy as he was to actually get value out of the technique.

Isamu had to admit, his maximum technique was pretty unnecessary and a pretty big waste of energy. He definitely could've killed the cursed spirit without it, even if it did speed things up. But it wasn't really about the results, it was about learning how to do it in the first place. Manipulating cursed energy was so instinctual while in this flow state that it made it much easier to do basically anything.

In jujutsu, if you did something once, it would become far easier to repeat the feat due to the technique or move becoming, at least a little, engrained into your body. So once the body has done it once, it will be easier to do when it was actually needed even when in a non flow state.

But if that was the only logic he was basing his actions around, Isamu would use his maximum technique again on the man and make future uses even easier. But Isamu was going more off feel. Whatever was more fun, more satisfying. And defeating this man in such an easy and quick way wouldn't be very satisfying.

But he still wanted to learn a few things. First on his list was a domain expansion. The peak of sorcery. If he had one of those, he probably would've beaten the plant curse without needing black flash. But Isamu got the impression that wasn't the best move at the moment. One, he didn't have another curse laying around to refill his cursed energy pool so the cursed energy drain of a domain would actually be relevant. And two, it probably wouldn't work on the man.

A domain expansion traps everything with cursed energy in the domain before subjecting it to the sure hit effect while everything without cursed energy is left out of the domain. So if he used a domain on this cursed energy-less man, it would be more detrimental than beneficial. Isamu thanked his lucky stars Kusakabe decided to plant that little nugget of info in his brain during his apprenticeship.

So, with that not being an option, Isamu would try to learn the second thing in his list. Domains, maximum techniques, and extensions were all pretty rare in the world of jujutsu sorcery. But even rarer than them were, in Isamu's opinion, the hardest technique to learn, even if it wasn't the hardest to master.

Cursed Technique Reversal.