2: My Special
Negative emotions, what an interesting and special thing.
Daniel, or rather, Sukuna now, felt the heaviness in the air, an aggressive thickness of clear malice mixed with fear, anger, rage, and despair.
A whole range of feelings that would undoubtedly have generated a high-grade cursed spirit, even a special grade if you were optimistic, or at least that would have been the case in his old world.
In this new world? They remained there, almost static, simply flooding the environment.
How boring.
He heard a dozen or more brats crying and screaming, he could feel their fragile spirits being oppressed and their will beginning to fracture, it was irritating.
He wanted to go back to sleep, although he knew it was impossible at this point. His consciousness was now fully active and he could no longer return to his previous state of conscious rest.
It would have been better to remain "asleep" until he was 4 or 5 years old, it was unfortunate but he supposed he would have to live as an infant for some time, even so, he preferred not to have more than a dozen brats crying around him.
"Let's see if this works," he opened his mouth slightly and began to suck in.
In his life as Itadori, he had done much to survive, training had been the basics, stealing and learning techniques from others too, but above all, he had experimented a lot.
Playing with the rules, bending them, probing the limits, and searching for loopholes.
One of those loopholes was achieved thanks to a special binding vow. Sukuna was a monster with an absurd amount of cursed energy and Itadori barely scratched the average, this was a great disadvantage.
To solve this, he came up with an idea.
Cursed energy comes from the sorcerer's negative emotions and under normal circumstances, a sorcerer can only use the cursed energy they themselves generate from their emotions.
So what would happen if a sorcerer could turn the negative emotions of his surroundings into his own cursed energy?
So he made a binding vow with himself, it was a deal he didn't think would work but it actually did.
It gave him a way to manipulate the negative emotions of the environment and consume them within himself to turn them into cursed energy for his own use.
The only thing he sacrificed was his ability to feel love.
It sounded foolish, but in reality, love was something truly unique and special. Sacrificing it completely was like tearing out his own heart.
One might wonder if it was worth it. Well, under normal circumstances, he wouldn't have done it, but he had added an extra condition.
If he managed to defeat the King of Curses—the most powerful sorcerer in history—in a solo battle without any help, then he would be able to regain his heart.
If he lost even once, he would lose his heart forever.
Well, he had won, and regaining his heart had been so euphoric that he ended up acting like a fool, which led him to die.
He felt the negative emotions slowly beginning to enter him but abruptly stopped and opened his eyes, confused.
No one could notice it but one of the toes on his left foot had turned to stone.
"Huh? What's this?" He hadn't felt it before because it was something new, a different energy.
One that seemed to passively surround the entire world, present in every part of it in a strange way. He studied it carefully, realizing that this energy was slowly but progressively absorbing the negative emotions.
Eroding their existence and causing them to blend into itself, contaminating them in a sense—perhaps it would take several years, but eventually, every negative emotion would be wiped from the environment.
Now he understood why cursed energy couldn't exist in this world.
It wouldn't have been possible for him to notice if he wasn't so familiar with negative emotions and their effect on the environment.
He began to think, trying to remember.
"Natural energy?" The name came to his mind along with vague images of toads.
It seemed he wouldn't be able to use his unique ability until he found a way to avoid or counteract the unexpected side effects that consuming such contaminated negative emotions would have on his physical body.
"How annoying,"
even so, this was an opportunity, it was time to experiment a little.
As the calmest infant in the room, his mother had laid him down in one of the cribs in the shelter while she helped other mothers soothe their children.
He carefully checked that no one was watching, then slowly closed his eyes.
He began to feel this thing called "chakra" pricking his existence carefully.
While he had felt the difference when he was still dead, feeling something like a soul and doing so with a body of flesh and bone were two different concepts.
And thanks to that, he realized a problem.
"All my control..." he knew how to manipulate cursed energy.
He didn't know how to manipulate chakra.
That didn't mean he couldn't use his abilities; he had practiced with them so much that they had become completely second nature. He could still force their activation if necessary, although he didn't know if this could bring about unknown consequences.
So trying to play it safe was the best course of action, at least until he learned to use this new energy source to power them correctly.
Which was undoubtedly annoying but he could accept it.
He continued probing, feeling his body little by little.
The being seemed to have kept its word so far; he had arrived in this world with everything he had obtained as Itadori Yuji.
At the same time, there was something extra, a kind of strange organ similar to a circulatory system.
His new energy, chakra, traveled through it naturally and passively.
"What was it called?" While he remembered general things about Naruto, the technical aspects, such as the deep function of chakra, were things he didn't fully remember beyond some vague images.
"Chakra network," he recalled, a very good character had broken or was born with a defective chakra network or something like that, right?
It was a guy with big eyebrows.
"Rock Lee," the name came to mind easily once he had something to relate it to.
At the same time, some images of the boy appeared, images of his possible future.
How interesting, but he didn't get too distracted thinking about it, he still needed to solve the small problem in his foot.
Once he correctly self-evaluated, he began to manipulate his chakra carefully.
Although playing it safe was the plan for the future, right now he needed to deviate from that plan a bit to fix the mess he had caused.
Soon the chakra began to act, and dark tattoo-like marks started appearing on his body and face, an extra pair of eyes formed beneath his original ones.
Slowly, the two pairs of eyes opened lazily, blood-red pupils illuminating for a moment, but the next instant the chakra seemed to slip out of his control and the changes vanished along with any marks.
"Tch!" It was irritating but he had achieved his goal.
He felt how he could move his left toe again, now once more of flesh and bone.
When he began to consume Sukuna's body, he stole everything from him, absolutely everything.
He had won, he ceased to be the "imitation" and became the real thing.
He supposed it made sense then that his sensei had confused him, certainly he and Sukuna had looked very similar in the end.
Although he didn't have four arms or two faces, not that he complained, he preferred the "normal" appearance.
"I have to practice." Physical and spiritual energy.
The spiritual part was vaguely similar to cursed energy; using something like "emotions" to generate energy was something he could understand, and thanks to that, he could use those small similarities to manipulate it more easily.
The physical energy was something strange, it was born from the body and used the body's energy to act, he still couldn't say if this would make its use easier or harder.
And of course, the combination of both, chakra, manipulating both energies together to create something "superior."
It seemed he wouldn't get bored training, at least.
But for now, he needed to rest a bit; it seemed his physical changes required physical energy to take effect. Who would have thought?
His small baby body had gotten quite tired just by fixing something small.
Well, he still had something to do inside himself, so he would take this opportunity to finish what he couldn't in his previous life. Besides, not having to listen to those irritating cries was just an advantage he would take without hesitation.
So, he slowly closed his eyes and let his consciousness delve deep into his soul.
.
.
.
Then he opened them again and smiled.
He took a deep breath, the smell of meat and blood clear in his nostrils.
"Ugh, this place still stinks!" he grimaced, carefully inspecting his surroundings before his eyes widened slightly with excitement upon finding something unexpected.
"So there you were," he exclaimed, looking at the space above his head with a wide smile spreading across his face, the doubt that had begun to arise within him finally answered.
Ever since he regained consciousness and laid eyes on the new world he found himself in, he had felt that something was off.
Where was all his 'cursed energy'? While he hadn't possessed much as Itadori, once he began to devour sukuna, he had felt the King of Curses energy becoming part of him, greatly increasing his natural reserves.
The being had promised to send everything he "had" with him. That, of course, should have also included his former reserves of energy, right? He didn't know exactly how the conversion from cursed energy to chakra would work, but he felt there shouldn't be too much of a difference.
At least, not to the extent that he would feel as if he didn't even have 5% of his reserves as Itadori.
But now that he had entered this place, he understood it instinctively.
"An infant's body couldn't withstand so much energy inside or it would explode." Who would've thought? His new body was actually a fragile vessel.
And so, the being had done something to preserve his health and at the same time fulfill her part.
It had placed all his 'cursed energy', now converted into chakra, within his inner domain, hiding it deep within his soul.
"Eh, doesn't this make me a- what was it called?" He thought until the word came to his tongue.
"Jinchuriki! Tch, this is really ironic." Of course, it wasn't entirely the same; his "chakra" wasn't sealed nor could it be detected by others. After all, it was in his inner domain, in his soul.
He knew from the moment he understood the situation that if he wished, he could release it all instantly, making it merge with his "natural" chakra reserves easily, meaning the ones his mortal body was born with in this world.
Of course, as a consequence, his chakra networks would probably explode, along with his baby body.
That was because he didn't have the chakra control to avoid it or a body strong enough to withstand it.
At least, not for now.
"But releasing it little by little is possible," thus the only burden that had been bothering him disappeared.
He had too many techniques with a colossal energy cost; if he only had the minuscule reserves his new body had been born with, then it would have been nearly impossible for him to use most of his abilities—making the whole matter of switching his "advantages" a bad joke.
Of course, if he had really been that unlucky, he could still have overcome it thanks to his special ability to consume negative emotions and convert them into "energy." But given the existence of natural energy, doing that always carried the risk of turning parts of his body into stone.
Undoubtedly, a small disadvantage he would have to find a solution for in the future—though for now, he could ignore it as long as he was careful.
A bigger disadvantage, and one less easy to overcome, was the need for a constant presence of negative emotions in the environment. In a world where natural energy gradually eroded such emotions over time, it would be difficult to find suitable places that hadn't already been "contaminated" by natural energy.
On the other hand, there was also the option of using the negative emotions generated by others, but that would mean causing people to feel those emotions in large quantities in the first place—which again, was too troublesome.
With all that in mind, he was glad he didn't have to rely on that ability and could simply depend on the monstrous amounts of energy he had so painstakingly earned.
"Looks like I can relax. I just have to practice diligently and everything that was mine will return naturally."
With a sincere smile, he began to walk through the sea of blood toward a mountain full of bones and skulls. His foot stepped on one, turning it to pieces, and he started to climb the slope with slow, measured steps.
As he walked, he couldn't help but hum a song that had stayed in his memories for a while. His humming echoed through the place until his feet carried him to the top. To the throne.
"You're my special~" he smiled, pleased to find himself face to face with his "gaze."
"I'll have to make a few changes, decorate the place a bit—though I like the theme. Fitting for a demon king, don't you think?" he said, casually pointing at some parts of the space before turning his gaze, his eyes focusing on what was "seated" on the throne.
"Not a word? No? Well, I suppose that's only natural… after all, you don't have any mouths left to speak with." he mocked.
Before dying, he hadn't been able to properly digest his meal.
It was fortunate then that the remains had stayed in his "stomach," still fresh.
He looked at the body full of bites, just a half-eaten piece of flesh, and couldn't help but chuckle a bit, a single red eye looking at him with perhaps a fraction of remaining will.
"Itadakimasu!" He put his palms together in prayer for a second before leaning in and starting to chew.
This was his triumphant feast after all.
.
.
.
Note:
A second chapter more focused on explanation, Over time I will explain more things, everything in due time, for now I think it is a good point to start the story, I don't know when the next chapter will come out.