Chapter 5: Chapter 5
I woke up and yawned loudly. I stretched out before sitting up with a grin on my face. Today marked my 10th birthday and the end of my first phase of training with Yuki. As I got into a seated position on my bed, I wondered how much longer it would be until Yuki picked up Todo to start training. I had noticed recently that she had picked up her "What type of girl do you like?" catchphrase, so I figured it wouldn't be too long now.
I began to circulate my cursed energy, feeling as it raced around my body like F1 drivers completing a circuit around a course. Even though my reserve of cursed energy hadn't increased at all, my mastery over cursed energy manipulation certainly had. After all, Yuki was always pushing me into battles of attrition where I was at a disadvantage, so I was forced to find ways to get the same effects with less cursed energy. I wouldn't say that I am anywhere near the level of Sukuna or Gojo, but I was proud of what I had accomplished.
Once I had finished my exercises, I got up and grabbed my cursed tool. Over the years of me pumping my cursed energy into the weapon, it had finally become a fully-fledged cursed tool. I wasn't exactly sure what cursed technique it would take on, but once I took hold of the weapon, I could feel the technique dwelling within it, a technique that was mine for the taking if I chose to do so. For now, I just focused on what it was, a size manipulation technique. It allows the wielder to manipulate its size to do more damage or to make the range longer.
I guessed that this size manipulation technique was a result of my innate Creator technique leaking into the creation of the cursed tool slightly over the years. In the end, I decided to take the technique out of the tool. I felt something pass from the tool to me, something like a small pocket of energy or a token that was now stored inside my body. I knew that I could access it and shape it however I wanted, but I held off on doing so. Instead, I turned my attention back to my cursed tool. My robbing it of a technique just turned it into an ordinary, above-average cursed tool.
With that done, I left my room and walked out to the courtyard. There, I saw Yuki waiting for me. Beside her were eight immobile bodies all lying on the ground with their hands bound and bags over their heads. I felt excitement and disgust clash for the seat as my dominant emotion as I walked closer. There was no escaping the fact that I would have to kill these people to extract the essence of their techniques so that I could shape it myself. The years I had spent with Yuki desensitized me to pain and bloodshed, but I had never taken a life.
I had always wondered how I would feel when I reached this moment. However, as I stood above the bound bodies, I found that it was excitement that won out in the end. I looked up to Yuki to find her face set into a neutral expression. It was hard to read what she was thinking, but that turned out to be unnecessary as she spoke her thoughts.
"There is nothing to be ashamed or guilty about. This is the way our world works, the strong consume the weak. View this as a step in the process of ending the cycle of viciousness if you want." Yuki said in a surprisingly gentle tone as she handed me a knife.
I nodded at her words before keeling and stabbing the knife through the captives' heads one by one. Every time one died, I could feel that same spark of energy pass to my body. It wasn't the technique itself, but the essence that made up their techniques all passed to me. Soon, it was over, and the last captive was dead. I could feel nine tokens of energy inside of me, each one stored and ready to be used. If I wanted, I could create any technique in the series right now, but I held off in favor of using them to forge a new body first. I stood up while the scent of blood filled my nose.
Despite being okay with the death, it still wasn't a pleasant thing, so I moved away quickly. Once I was back inside, I was able to breathe more easily. Yuki soon joined me, sitting at the table beside me. Turning to look, I could see that she had Garuda pile the bodies by the door so that I could easily access them for the next step of the process. Before I interested with the bodies once more, I reached inside myself and used the true function of my innate technique for the first time.
I took out four of the energy tokens and fused three of them together. As I did so, I felt the endless possibilities open before. I shook off the feeling of wonder and focused on what I wanted the technique to do, fuse two or more objects together to create something stronger. Then, I imbued that quality into the combined three tokens. Once it was done, I rocked backward as information rushed into my brain. I suddenly felt everything around as distinctly separate objects. It was an odd feeling to be acutely aware of the division between everything around me.
Yuki remained silent all this time, her notebook in hand, watching me. I turned to the bodies and strode toward them. Amongst the pile was a corpse that had not been one I killed. It was the corpse of a ten-year-old boy, and it would be the catalyst for what I was about to do next. I placed my hands on each of the eight bodies that I had killed in turn, marking them. Then I placed my hand on the chest of the dead boy and willed them all to merge together.
The flesh, muscle, and bone slid away from the corpses of the curse users I killed, forming a bloody river that led to the boy's corpse. There was a sound of shattering bone and tearing flesh as the raw bodily materials compacted on themselves before flowing into all the openings in the boy's corpse. I watched in fascination as multiple things conjoined into one. It felt right to my new senses. Watching the individuality being stripped away in favor of the power of a conjoined form made me feel instinctually happy.
Once the task was done, I tried to break up the Merging cursed technique back into the three tokens I had used to create it, but I found that I was unable to. The technique was now counted as a single token. I sighed at the not-totally unexpected turn of events, but that didn't mean I was happy about it. Once the cursed technique was gone, my new awareness of separation and desire for things to be conjoined went with it. I shook my head to rid it of any lingering thoughts as I looked down at what would be my new body. It was still the body of the boy, but the muscles seemed to be much more numerous and compact, while the handsomeness of the face clearly increased as well.
The problem was that it still looked like the previous owner, so I took one token and crafted a technique to fix that. I imbued the token with the ability to shape any flesh that I was touching before creating the technique. Like before, I suddenly felt the presence of a new sense that I never had before. The presence of my flesh no longer seemed sturdy but as easy to manipulate as clay. I crouched down and shaped the body to look like a younger dark-haired Arima from Tokyo Ghoul, except a bit more handsome. Once that was done, I took the technique and transformed it back into its raw essence token state.
When that was done, I placed my hand on the body and willed six tokens to enter it. I used the power of four of them to expand the cursed energy reserves of the body, while I used two to increase the output. That left with one last token remaining. I quickly used that token to create a technique that would allow me to breathe my life force into a new, dead body and take it over. I also crafted a single binding vow for this cursed technique. Which was that I can only use the ability once, with the technique being used upon its activation. In exchange, I would also be able to take my innate technique with me into the new body.
Once all that was done, I took a deep breath blew out gently, and activated the transfer technique.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone