Cursed Eyes (Itachi in JJk)

Satoru let out a shuddering breath. The pain was secondary, an afterthought. What mattered was the how.

His mind raced as his body struggled to respond. His Limitless was no longer active. It could not be. He had felt a breach, an unraveling of his technique. More importantly, there was the clear evidence of failure, the proof of vulnerability, driven through his torso like a cruel joke.

Curse Technique: Obstacle Remover.

This was not the first time he was tangling with the Indian Deity Curse Spirit. He had beaten it up multiple times over the past couple of years, yet the stubborn curse was just as elusive as Kenjaku with its ability to teleport by conceptually removing the obstacles in its way.

The curse had tried to do the same to Infinity the first few times they met, but his Infinity had proven too much for the conceptual technique to grasp. So what changed? What suddenly made it possible for a technique that had proven impossible to work on him suddenly become possible?

There was only one thing that could make the impossible possible, that could twist the world if you were ready to pay the price: a binding vow. He was not aware curses could do that, but that was a miscalculation on his part. It was not often one met a special grade with the capacity for thought as old as Ganesha.

His breath hitched, vision flickering as his eyes drifted up to the smirking deity and the woman who had danced around him with such pointless attacks. Had they known? Had they truly predicted the exact way to stop him? Just how long had they had this in the works, and why was it that even while the woman slowly walked up to him, cautious he had something in his sleeve, Ganesha remained in place with his hands locked in the hand seal?

A grin stretched across Gojo Satoru's face. The woman's eyes widened in response as she picked up speed.

"Oh, that is it?" Blood trailed his chin. He had definitely lost at least a lung and part of his heart with the spear of twisted root. However, his reaction couldn't be more different from what they had expected judging by the look on their faces.

There was a widespread misconception about him. A belief that he was overly reliant on Infinity, that without it, he somehow became vulnerable. It was a comforting delusion clung to by the ignorant, and the foolish who had no real grasp of his true power.

However, Infinity wasn't a crutch. It was a filter. A measure of how seriously he needed to take a fight. The moment it was stripped away wasn't a sign of weakness. It was a reminder and a signal to stop holding back so much.

He didn't falter. He didn't retreat at the supposed reminder of his mortality. He was Gojo Satoru, the strongest sorcerer of the modern era, the Honored One. He stepped forward with a demented grin on his face.

The root lodged in his gut cracked as he pushed against it, pain searing but distant, and irrelevant. His feet tore free from the ice in an explosion of force, shards flying in every direction. The woman's eyes widened even further, the only tell of her surprise. She tried to halt her momentum, but she must've known how futile the effort was because she braced herself for impact immediately.

Too late

His foot planted, and he pivoted, swinging a brutal backhand. She moved to dodge, but she had underestimated the sheer speed of his counterattack. His hand connected with her side, and the moment it did, he let loose with an explosion of Red to increase his striking power.

A shockwave ripped through the air, sending her flying like a ragdoll. She crashed through trees, splintering wood and tearing through the earth before finally slamming into a boulder, cracking it on impact. Dust clouded the air, but he wasn't watching.

He was already moving. Gojo Satoru didn't simply run; he appeared right in front of the Deity class curse. Ganesha barely had time to react before he was upon him.

Ganesha remained frozen. Its inhuman eyes had widened just as much as the woman's. Its trunk wavered like it wanted to say something, yet its four arms remained locked in that hand sign.

Realistically, it had every advantage. Their sneak attack and trap had worked. Satoru was wounded, the root still partially embedded halfway into his chest and had taken a part of his lung and heart with it. His Limitless was compromised. Infinity had been rendered finite. It must've taken them years to plan and prepare for this moment: to bait him, to exploit his arrogance, his certainty in his own invincibility. The plan had worked.

And yet...

It had simply not accounted for him. He was wounded, his technique faltering, but if they thought that made him weak, then they were about to be very, very disappointed.

He was still Gojo Satoru and they were not ready for what that meant, for Gojo Satoru was more than his Limitless.

His fist blurred. A straight punch to the gut, deceptively simple but devastating in force, as once more there was an explosion of force at the activation of Red on impact. The very air around his knuckles distorted, rippling with compressed energy.

Boom.

Despite the ridiculous height and weight discrepancy for the Deity-class curse was almost as big as a house and weighed as much, Ganesha's elongated and distended stomach bent around his fist.

The curse's massive frame lurched backward, prayer beads snapping, tusks rattling as its body absorbed the force. It wasn't enough to kill it, not even close. But it had hurt it. Enough to distract it from its pose, and more than that, it was enough to make Gojo grin as he felt a flicker.

Just in time.

In that same moment, a hulking figure burst out of the earth meters away from him and slammed a massive white fist into the side of its head in a ridiculous blur of motion, but unlike its first attack, this time the new assailant was forced to halt as its fist met the full power of Infinity and its attack was rendered null.

He slowly turned his head to the side and looked into the eyes of the third curse, the one that had struck him from deep within the earth, only to be faced with protruding eye stalks that curved upward in place of eyes. A white armored faceplate with black markings that revealed only teeth.

He could feel just how surprised the curse was. They had not expected him to figure it out this quickly. Something most people tend to forget: before gaining Limitless at six years old, Gojo Satoru was already heralded as a genius with just the six eyes in his arsenal.

He slowly pulled the root out of his chest while still looking into the face of the striped and giant, heavily muscled curse with a single hand. The other hand had been wrapped in a white cloth and hidden from the world.

As he pulled the length of wood out, he focused on the thought of pulling the eye stalks out of the creature as well, in a gruesomely violent act, and laced that thought, that intent, with the full brunt of his not so insignificant cursed energy.

Killing Intent.

Fear flooded the curse as it immediately jumped back, leaving Satoru standing alone once more. Blood dripped from his lips, and the hole at his side pulsed with pain as organs and blood tried to find their way out. But it didn't matter. The length of wood was in his hand now, and his Reverse Cursed Technique went to work. He had been manually pumping his heart for the last minute. Now he felt it regrow, alongside his obliterated lung as well.

The technique slowed as it finished dealing with the major organs and began to regrow muscles and reknit skin, till all that remained of the previous damage was a hole in his shirt and a little drop in his cursed energy.

He wiped the blood that had trailed down his face and took a step forward, while his other hand reached up and pulled away the eye wrap from his face. He faced his three recovered opponents who were eyeing him warily with a smile and his eyes glowing like two headlights.

"Now let's try that again."

His three opponents were spread out before him, wary now. Ganesha had recovered, his arms had returned to the same position, and he was now rooted on the spot once more, locked in place with hands still forming the murda that had turned the impossible into reality.

Ganesha it seemed had not learned from the previous exchange. Unfortunately for them, Satoru had.

Whatever binding vow it made forced it to be within eyesight of him. If not, it would not be this close to the fight. And it forced the curse to stay immobile and in a single spot, all for a superpowered Obstacle Remover that was enough to bypass Limitless.

The white-haired woman, bruised and battered from his earlier strike, rubbed at her cheeks tenderly while sending him a glare. She spat out a wad of blood mixed with fragments of broken teeth. Satoru watched her cursed energy invert and twist upon itself to become positive, then saw as her injuries slowly mended and teeth regrew from the empty gums. Reverse Cursed Technique and enough cursed energy reserves to use it with impunity. How rare.

The third curse, the hulking brute with the eye stalks and a hand still wrapped in cloth, shifted its stance, trying to decide whether to press the attack or retreat.

Gojo clicked his tongue. "Come on now, you went through all this effort just to take me down. It'd be a shame if you suddenly got cold feet at the first sight of resistance."

The brute snarled, a guttural, inhuman sound then the woman spoke. "Take your restraints off, Hanami. It would do us no good to be held back."

"I shall do as I will!"

A disturbing spike of pain and anger filled words shot straight into his skull, and Satoru frowned in response before tilting his head in interest. Special-grade curses taking orders from curse users? That was a first.

Despite its original response, the curse reached out and ripped off the bandage with its free hand, revealing another limb. This one was black with white markings and a red bulbing flower at the shoulder, an inverse to the rest of the body.

Satoru felt it clearly when it happened this time: the glitch, the disruption, as his technique was deemed an obstacle and was removed. His smile widened in response. He didn't need it anymore. He cracked his neck to the side. Infinity had served its purpose by giving him the time to heal.

The curse fired something from its hands at blinding speed, but his eyes caught the movement instantly. The Six Eyes flared, breaking down the incoming projectiles in real time. Small, crimson objects, like glistening red fruits, hurtled toward him. They weren't just physical; they pulsed with greed and were designed to siphon cursed energy on contact.

Lethal, especially without his limitless active. Smart. Unfortunately it was way too slow for the speed at which they fought.

He tilted his body slightly, just enough. The fruit-like curse projectiles screamed past him, close enough to barely graze the air beside his face, and vanished into the distance.Then the curse lunged forward after it.

It was fast, absurdly fast for something its size. Satoru was faster. His hand flicked up and he caught its blow with an open palm, but the frontal assault had been another distraction.

Four wooden balls had been fired from behind the curse, and they floated above him. He didn't know what they did, but his eyes told him the moment they were about to activate whatever technique was imprinted into them. He spun, the curse still in his arms, and he flung it upward in a timed move that could not be replicated by anyone without his visual prowess.

In the fraction of a fraction of a second, the technique in the wooden balls activated. The curse slammed into it. There was not enough time for the curse to stop the attack, not enough time for it to dodge out of the way, so it was hit with the full brunt of its own technique.

Four wooden spikes shot out simultaneously and buried themselves into the curse, erupting in a shower of steaming purple blood and a scream as the curse was impacted with its own technique.

Satoru smiled. "So that's what those do?"

The curse released the technique and began to fall back to the earth, but Satoru was already waiting for it.

His fingers curled into a fist, and a subtle application of Blue activated once more. The air twisted violently, space itself compressing in an instant. The curse spirit barely had time to react before its body was yanked toward him by an overwhelming force. It slammed into Gojo's outstretched hand, and he gripped it by the neck, the impact sending tremors through the ground.

The cursed spirit let out a strangled gasp, then Gojo lashed out with the curled fist with another application of red and with a sickening crack, the brute's body contorted unnaturally, bones shattering beneath his blow as well as the sheer repulsive gravitational force.

The curse was sent flying back, half of its body destroyed in a blow that had pulverized everything it hit while sending the curse on a crash course toward Ganesha's immobile form. Ganesha's eyes widened until a wall of ice erupted from the ground, cushioning the blow as the curse crashed into it.

Satoru focused on the woman as she refocused on him in an instant. Her act of protecting Ganesha had drawn his attention once more. He crouched, and she took a step back in response. A heartbeat later, he burst into motion, cratering the ground beneath him as he lunged forward.

Then, he saw it: the narrowing of her eyes, her brow furrowing in concentration. Her open palm moved to her lips with an almost serene focus. Her retreating was a feint. Her chest expanded as she inhaled deeply, and Satoru knew. Curse technique.

"Ice Formation: Frost Calm."

She exhaled sharply, a chilling fog billowing from her lips, a swirling storm of freezing air that consumed everything in its path. The very temperature of the air plummeted, the frost creeping up his arms and legs, encasing the ground beneath him. The world around her turned a pale, shimmering white as the freezing fog spread like an encroaching blizzard.

Everything in front of her was captured within the swirling mass: trees, boulders, the very earth itself, all frozen in place as if time had stopped. The air crackled with the unnatural cold, and the woman took a breath of relief, her chest heaving as she peered into the ice in search of her opponent.

Gojo Satoru was without his limitless, and she had drawn him in with a feint, which meant that he was caught in her Frost Calm. They had ridiculously underrated him, and his capability to fight regardless of Limitless, however, it had all worked out well in the end.

That was the thought running through her head till he placed one arm around her shoulder and brought his face low and beside her own, with another hand above his eyes blockin the glare of the sun. He stood beside her like they were friends, as he also peered into the ice. "Do you think he's still in there?"

He asked conversationally before turning to face her at her silence. Her dark eyes were wide saucers as she stared back at him. A slight smile tugged at his lips, and before she could recover, he drifted even closer and whispered into her ears, his voice almost amused.

"Nice try."

Teleporting mid-combat was not a technique Gojo often needed to use. It was difficult to pull off, and the required precision demanded focus he was rarely forced to exert. But she had made him do it. Depriving him of Limitless, she had pushed him to the point where he had no choice but to respect her abilities and tactics.

She moved, but in the next heartbeat, her body was slammed into the ground with brutal force. This close, she didn't even see what hit her. She tried to recover by rolling on the floor and scrambling back to her feet, but Satoru appeared before her in an instant. Before she could react, his fist slammed into the side of her head, sending her crashing backward into the ice formation she had sprouted to trap him.

She slammed into it hard enough to crack the glaze, yet she still tried to retaliate, lashing out with a blind blow one that Satoru had already slipped past. His knee collided with her ribs, cracking bone. She gasped, the air driven from her lungs, and he wasn't done.

His hand shot out once more, grabbing her by the outstretched arm. He spun her around, twisting the limb behind her back with brutal force. She screamed, but he shoved her face-first into the ice, breaking what she had cracked and grinding her cheek into the broken surface.

She struggled, but Satoru didn't let up. He twisted her arm harder, hearing the sickening pop of her shoulder dislocating.

"Impressed, yet disappointed," he muttered, dragging her back. With a flick of his wrist and a pivot, her body was lifted into the air and slammed back down. The ground cracked beneath her as he released her, letting her crumple like a ragdoll. She barely had time to catch her breath before his boot was on her throat, pinning her to the ground.

Gojo leaned in close, hands in his pocket and his voice bored. "You're not a fighter in the truest sense of the world," he noted as he pressed down on her. "Your techniques are well honed, practiced, and powerful, yet there is an edge missing…" He trailed off as he sought the correct word. "I guess if I was to put it simply, you use your technique like you're always waiting for someone else to finish the job."

Her eyes widened in surprise, and he knew he was correct and had hit the mark. "Disappointing."

Tendrils of roots burst from the ground a split second later, converging on Gojo from all sides, but he had grown bored of this farce. He had faced the trio and found them wanting. The only interesting thing had been their initial attack, catching him off guard with the removal of his Limitless. Yet that had proven to be the extent of their strength.

He didn't even blink as the multitude of twisted and gnarled roots rushed at him. Instead, he raised a hand above his head and called out, "Cursed Technique: Blue," and the world seemed to bend with the technique's activation. The air twisted violently once more, and space itself compressed in an instant as everything not solidly nailed down was pulled to the Blue rapidly forming orb above him, including the tendrils of roots that were forced to change direction and were pulled into the compressed space.

Ice cracked and was slowly pulled up as it was broken into pieces, drifting upward into the technique as Satoru poured more cursed energy into it, increasing its output. The wind picked up in an instant, blowing roughly and scattering what Blue didn't pull. He allowed the Blue orb above him to slowly drift higher, as he pointed his second hand up and toward it, while looking at the trio scattered around him.

Only one person present had an idea of what he was about to do. Ganesha's eyes widened, and it trumpeted out in a roar, "Stop him!"

"Curse Technique: Red."

A second ball of energy formed above him as his cursed energy pulsed outward. The very air trembled at his presence, space itself quivering as if the world sensed what he was about to unleash. The Red ball slowly drifted upward as the two combatants both the curse and the curse user moved to attack him.

He rolled his neck as he raised his hand in full above his head, the fingers twisting into a familiar hand sign. The Red ball of repulsion kissed the Blue ball of attraction, and the result was something that should not be possible.

The deity curse moved for the first time, breaking its own Binding Vow in a desperate act of self-preservation. The moment it did, Gojo smiled as he called out, the feeling of Limitless once more settling like a familiar cloak on his shoulders.

"Hollow Purple."

The world turned violet.