The afternoon sun beat down on the training grounds, relentless as always.
Tetsuya cycled through his katas, violet energy flickering around his fists with each strike. Missile Fist after Missile Fist streaked through the air, slamming into the reinforced dummies with sharp cracks.
His movements were mechanical now. Muscle memory carved deep through years of repetition.
Even his cursed technique felt easy to use now. Soon enough, he'll be able to send dozens and dozens of them.
Then he felt it.
A presence approaching. Deliberate footsteps on the paved stone floor.
Tetsuya stopped mid form, turning sharply.
His body tensed instantly, cursed energy humming beneath his skin, ready to reinforce at a moment's notice.
A Hei member walking toward him. Alone.
'Am I...in trouble? fuck me'
Ranta Zenin.
Tetsuya's mind raced.
His fists clenched.
'Is a Hei member about to end me? Ranta was shown to be nice, but he is a Zenin after all. A divergence from canon?' Tetsuya's thoughts raced more and more with each step Ranta took.
'Is Ranta in the end, secretly an Aizen archetype?'
Ranta stopped a respectful distance away. His hands were loose and at his sides, and his expression was neutral but not unkind.
"Hard at work as always, huh Tetsuya kun." He greeted with a slight nod.
Tetsuya forced himself to breathe, bowing shallowly in return.
"Ranta san. Good evening."
Ranta's shoulders relaxed slightly at the response. The boy wasn't hostile. That was something. Even friendly enough that he didn't consider him an actual superior.
"I was passing by." Ranta said casually, gesturing toward the dummies. "Saw you training. You are surprisingly competent for your age."
Tetsuya blinked, caught off guard.
'A compliment? From a Zenin of all people? Jeez. I think I'm going to cry.'
"...Thank you, Ranta san."
Ranta stepped closer, eyes flicking to the dents on the dummies.
"Missile Fist, right? Same as Jinichi san." He paused, then added, "You've got good control of it. Most kids your age can barely use their cursed energy."
Tetsuya said nothing, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Ranta continued, voice measured, almost instructional.
"Keep at it, Tetsuya kun. You've got potential."
He walked away without another word, hands tucked into his sleeves, footsteps fading into the distance.
Tetsuya stood there, staring after him, utterly confused.
'What the hell was that? Is this some kind of observation thing? Testing me? Reporting back to someone?'
He couldn't fully relax.
Tetsuya exhaled slowly, shook his head, and returned to training, then went to bed. Too bad he found no sleep.
The full moon hung fat and bright in the night sky, casting pale silver light across the small garden behind Tetsuya's quarters.
He sat cross legged on the smooth stone edge of the garden path, head tilted back, staring up at the moon.
The estate was quiet. No sounds of training, no servants bustling. Just the faint rustle of leaves and the distant hum of cicadas.
Tetsuya lowered his gaze, staring at his hands.
Small. Still a child's hands, despite everything.
The only difference now was that these fingers felt like his own. Had felt like his own for a long time.
'It sure has been a long time since I woke up in this body. What? five years?'
He flexed his fingers, violet sparks dancing faintly across his knuckles before fading.
His thoughts drifted, as they often did on nights like this.
Canon events.
The timeline he remembered from the manga, the anime.
How much had already changed?
'Jinichi seemed in a bad mood yesterday. More than usual. Wonder what that was about.'
'How many things are going to go as planned?' He thought, his mind going into all sorts of what ifs.
'Is Megumi going to actually be competent this time? Wait. What if Toji never dies? What if the plasma vessel never dies? Wait.' Tetsuya snorted, a grin tugging at his lips.
'What if Sukuna is somehow a female? Would she have four malevolent ti-'
A crow cawed loudly from a nearby branch, shattering the thought.
Tetsuya blinked, the absurd mental image dissolving instantly.
"Right. Focus." He muttered to himself, shaking his head.
His thoughts drifted back to more serious territory.
His cursed technique.
Missile Fist.
At the start, he'd thought it was simple. Straightforward. Same as Jinichi's. Fire violet projectiles, hit things hard, done.
But the more he trained, the more questions piled up.
'If reverse cursed energy exists, and it's application on a technique causes its reversal.'
He stared at his palm, brow furrowing.
'What would even be a reversal of Missile Fist? RCT can heal brain damage, reverse burnout, do all kinds of ridiculous shit. So what's the opposite of launching destructive projectiles?'
Absorption? Pulling energy in instead of pushing it out?
Creating barriers?
'No.'
'There's no guarantee that the reversal would be about the destructive aspect of the technique. But more importantly. Would my technique have its own Hollow purple equivalent?' Tetsuya paused, resting his chin on his left hand.
'Hollow purple is the application of the reversal and the regular aspects of the Limitless technique. Pushing and pulling in a sense.' Tetsuya paused, frowning.
'Destruction and....What? Healing? Anyhow. Those two would probably cancel each other out anyways. That's not it. Gotta think of something more complex. Or maybe something less simple? Ahh. So many questions.'
Tetsuya didn't know.
'Come to think of it, how exactly do binding vows work? Are they like Nen contracts from hunter hunter? Flexible, psychological, based on conviction? Or are they rigid? Universal laws enforced by... what, the universe itself?'
He'd seen them used in the manga. Nanami's Overtime. Sukuna's pacts. Yuji's... well, not really. In his case, the opposite could be argued for.
Regardless. Understanding something conceptually and actually doing it were two very different things.
'Sure. Rct is caused by the supposed multiplication of regular cursed energy, with cursed energy. Two negatives for a positive. But what the fuck does that even mean?'
'Can I even make a binding vow? Would it work the same for me?'
Questions kept piling up, one after another, spiralling endlessly.
Curse technique reversals. Binding vows. Domain expansions. Simple domains. Maximum techniques.
All things he knew existed.
None of which he understood well enough to use.
'Fuck me. I know the rules exist, but not how to play the game. Where is my system? A power up would be really convenient by now.'
Tetsuya threw his hands up in defeat, exhaling sharply.
A yawn crept up on him, jaw cracking.
He rubbed his eyes, stood slowly, and stretched.
"Enough for tonight. At this point, I'll burn out my noggin. No domain necessary." He muttered to himself.
The moon watched silently as he slid the door open, stepped inside, and disappeared into the darkness of his small room.
Tomorrow, he'd train again. Not like he had a choice, to be fair.