A month had passed since Tomogui landed his Black Flash.
It showed.
Not in the way most people would expect. He wasn't louder. He wasn't more aggressive. If anything, he felt… muted. Like the world had been turned down a notch and he was stuck listening to static where excitement used to be.
Right now, he was sitting across from me on his bed, legs crossed, eyes half-lidded as we both focused on the movie in front of us.
Bored.
That was the word that kept sticking.
Stage 3 was focused on learning more about cursed energy control/efficiency and the unique barrier technique of the 3 great clans "Fallen Blossom Emotion".
Unlike the earlier stages, the instructor barely involved himself. He only answered questions—if you asked. Otherwise, he sat at his desk in silence, as if the responsibility of improvement had already been handed back to us.
We weren't even required to train in the Stage Three hall. If we wanted, we could do the training at home.
The method of training our cursed energy efficiency/control was actually something I was familiar with from the anime. An animated training doll calibrated to react to the instant cursed energy flow became unstable.
It was the same doll Gojo had yuji train with in the anime, and like the anime, we were supposed to constantly output a set amount of cursed energy into the doll while watching films, making sure the emotions we felt would not interfere with our cursed energy control.
'I guess this is where Gojo got the idea from, the Gojo and Zenin clan probably use this method of learning cursed energy control'
The dolls were issued to us directly and allowed to be taken home. The doll was supposed to be returned to the stage 3 Instructor after you passed stage 3. There would also be a fine if the doll was damaged while you had it, but that was pretty much impossible unless you actively struck.
So that's what we did.
At home, seated in front of the television, movies playing one after another, the doll sat beside us like a coiled threat.
For us, it was meaningless.
After Tomogui's Black Flash, our cursed energy efficiency had already stabilized at a level that made the exercise redundant. I'm confident that in terms of cursed energy efficiency we already surpassed the instructors.
The doll never moved. Not once. Even during loud scenes or sudden emotional shifts, our cursed energy remained compressed, smooth, and instinctively regulated.
The second half of Stage Three focused on Fallen Blossom Emotion, the defensive barrier technique passed down through the Three Great Clans.
Although the Clan surprisingly taught this technique, it was extremely difficult to learn. The instructor didn't even learn it and from what I've heard no one in the clan can use it. Thankfully ancestors recorded the technique in a book. People who entered stage 3 were allowed to read the book for 2 hours while being monitored. The monitoring was to stop anyone with malicious ideas of copying the book.
Apparently when you join the Kamo clan private army (Similar to the Hei and Kukuru of the Zenin), and have enough contributions you are given unrestricted access to the book on Fallen Blossom Emotion.
The clan probably wanted to show off the benefits from joining the clan's private army and encourage everyone to work hard for them. They probably never expected anyone like us, who could actually learn it in that session.
It wasn't just the black flash that allowed us to learn it so quickly, our immense reserves gave us more opportunities to practice the technique before forgetting. We also shared memories meaning that while one of us was studying the book, the other could write everything down from far away.
'If someone found the plagiarized manual of Fallen Blossom Emotion we made, we would be in a lot of trouble. Which is why we took a little inspiration from Light Yagami.'
If someone did ever bother opening that cabinet where we hid the book with force, a small incendiary would light it on fire, and unlike light yagami's world, a world where cursed techniques exist mean a small fire wouldn't be enough to burn the entire house down, just destroy the book.
Unlike Simple Domain, in which the user manifests their own domain to nullify a domain expansion's sure-hit effect, Falling Blossom Emotion shrouds the user in cursed energy that counter-attacks the moment a domain's guaranteed hit makes contact. The cursed energy defends the user automatically, countering any attack with equal force to nullify it.
Cursed energy flowed outward in a thin, circulating veil, reacting automatically to incoming cursed techniques. The moment foreign cursed energy made contact, the barrier interfered at the point of impact—disrupting activation, dulling precision, or rejecting the technique entirely before it could fully manifest.
It wasn't an absolute defense.
'It helped to defend against the sure hit effect of a domain expansion, but when naobito used it against Dagon, it did nothing to defend his punch'
*Tomogui, lets practice Fallen Blossom Emotion for the rest of the day*
After checking whether Aiko was around to watch, Tomogui and I began practicing Fallen Blossom Emotion. Even though we trust her, it's easier if no one knows that we learned it/plagiarised a book on it.
And that summarizes all the things that occurred in the last month since the black flash, well except one thing…
Later at midnight…
I was standing.
The ground beneath my feet was smooth, glassy, and cold. It reflected my appearance too perfectly, my blue and green eyes blinking, my now black shoulder length hair.
The space around me was vast and dim, lit by no visible source. Yet despite there being no visible source of light, there was illumination radiating across this space. Rising from the mirrored floor were 10 pedestals. Stone bases, evenly spaced, each supporting a tall pane of glass. One large mirror, the other smaller.
There were 8 pedestals that barely reached my waist, 1 mirror that was at my chest, and the final mirror was even bigger than me.
Mirrors.
Each of the pedestals were encased in a thin shell of transparent crystal, pristine and seamless.
Within a few, faint images were suspended—half-frozen moments of motion. A step mid-stride. A hand raised in the beginning of a technique. The echoes of phenomena, captured and preserved, not moving unless I focused on them.
It was silent.
I exhaled. My breath fogged the glass beneath my feet for a split second before vanishing entirely.
"…Again," I muttered.
This wasn't the first time.
Since Tomogui's Black Flash, I've been waking up here. Not every night, but often enough that coincidence had stopped being convincing.
I turned slowly.
At the center of the domain stood the tallest pedestal. Its mirror was larger, clearer—and occupied.
A figure stood before it.
The figure had a similar build, and it gleamed from where the eyes should be, one eye green the other blue. Besides the build and eye colors though, this figure shared no more similarities. It was pure black, it was like a shadow somehow stood up.
When I raised my hand.
It didn't.
My movement reflected beneath my feet, but the figure displayed by the mirror remained still.
A mirror that did not mirror.
I looked back at the 10 pedestals, the 1 mirror with a shadow, and the other 9 that were empty.
This was my innate domain.
The thought surfaced naturally, settling into place with disturbing ease.
Sorcerers were said to possess them from birth—mental landscapes shaped by cursed technique and identity. Most never saw theirs consciously. Some only brushed against them in moments of extreme stress.
I'd crossed the threshold.
"If this is my innate domain…" I murmured, my voice dull and flat in the still air, "…then this pedestal, it must be where the phenomena I 'memorize' are stored"
I declared while approaching the smaller of the middle sized pedestal, the biggest pedestal seemed to create a mirror for me, but I couldn't figure out what that part of the technique did, or how to use it.
As for the 8 smaller pedestals and the large pedestal with my own reflection, I couldn't figure them out.
"…I'll figure you out eventually,"
'As for the name, I'll call it Chiral Plane'
I reached out again, letting my fingers hover over the surface of the glass.
I blinked. Then suddenly the mirrored expanse dissolved. The crystal pedestals, the shadowed figure, the suspended phenomena—all gone.
I was back. My bedroom ceiling, the faint glow of the streetlight through the curtains, the soft hum of the refrigerator in the distance.
I glanced at Tomogui, asleep on the bed beside mine, face calm as ever. The faint glow of a mark on his shoulder pulsed softly, just as it always did when he slept.
It had only started appearing after his Black Flash, we have theorized what it could be, and we came to an agreement. It may very well be Tomogui's own cursed technique awakening.
Chiral Reversal is a technique that we both believe to have been engraved onto my soul, however because of the unique connection between our souls, he could also use the technique, albeit with some setbacks.
We also confirmed that the technique did not belong to him, as he did not get drawn into the innate domain of Chiral Reversal.
The mark growing on his shoulder was similar to what happened to me when I awakened my cursed technique, the way my eyes changed from brown to green and blue heterochromia.
Slowly, Tomogui stirred beneath the covers. His movements were lazy at first, but deliberate, and then his eyes opened. The faint glow of the mark vanished entirely as if acknowledging his wakefulness. He sat up, still half-asleep, hair falling across his eyes, the room bathed in the pale streetlight.
Before either of us could speak, a soft knock came at the door. Aiko stepped in, her expression full of worry. "You two," she said gently, "the clan is calling… all members aged eight to fifteen. They want everyone to meet at the front of the training hall stage 1"
I watched Tomogui shift fully awake, why would the clan bother calling all the younger generation out?