It happened a couple of years ago. When young Satoru, out of nowhere, suddenly decided to ask his brother Hiroyuki to spar.
It was just a casual spar between two siblings and was made with no hidden intent.
Well, there is an intent but it's not that big— just a mild curiosity of a young child who couldn't hide his interest.
How could he do that anyway? Given the lifestyle revolving around the Gojo Clan.
Ever since Satoru was born, everyone around him has told him that he is extremely special. That he is going to be someone great in the future. Destined to be the very strongest.
A pretty reasonable thought given that it's always been like that for every bearer of Six Eyes.
However, Satoru himself is somehow conflicted with all of that statement.
Six Eyes makes its users inherently genius. That's why, despite his young age, Satoru possesses a level of awareness and maturity unparalleled by anyone of his age. Given such a fact, it would make sense how, as time passed by, he noticed the peculiarity that his Brother possessed.
Thanks to his eyes, he can see lots of things even if he wants it or not. But when it comes to his brother, for some reason... he can see nothing about him. Whenever he tries to gouge Hiroyuki out, all he sees is a 'pulsating static'.
Nothing more than that.
Or at least, that's how Satoru likes to describe it.
That fact paired with other feats such as... Defeating even the adults with almost no effort, hailed as an unparalleled genius of his generation, cool personality, and that 'Hidden Power'.
For a young mind like Satoru who was always isolated inside the house, void of any normal interaction from kids his age, there is nothing that could be as cool as that. For him, that was the epitome of sheer 'power' and 'epicness'.
Like the superheroes he always watches on TV that hides their powers away and only shows it when needed.
In any case, that's what led Satoru to ask his Brother for a spar. All of it is so that he can know more about Hiroyuki, to see how much work he should put in before he can become just like him.
That's it. That's pretty much the reason for it. A pretty simple and adorable reason... that unfortunately grew into something else entirely.
Going into the spar, Satoru didn't expect to win. He fully accepted the fact that he was only doing this to gather information, that's all.
But at the end of the day, Satoru isn't that much of a slacker either.
He trained hard for years and was the best among his peers as well. Like Hiroyuki, he is also undefeated in every fight and won all his evaluation tests so far.
That's how talented he is.
So with such a fact, imagine Satoru's expression when the spar ended, and what he only found was... emptiness. It was as if he just stared in front of a void.
He found nothing at all.
Well, how could he even find something when all his brother did during the fight was jump around and smack his head over and over again until the end of the match? Like that one annoying kid in the arcade who only spams that one button to defeat his challengers.
That's all he did.
And to make matters worse, Satoru gave everything his all during their spar.
He used the Six Eyes and Limitless technique without holding back at all. But, despite doing that, he did not even manage to touch at least the hem of his clothes.
Does that even make sense?
He has a Limitless technique that allows him to control the very fabric of space itself and Six Eyes that can observe Hiroyuki's movements as precisely as possible. Yet he did not even touch his clothes? That's just plain ridiculous.
That's what Satoru thought to himself after that fight.
Overall, one thing was made apparent at the end. The difference between the two at that moment was so huge, that Satoru did not even have a way to measure it.
Of course, as stated, it was already within expectation that he would lose... but not this horribly.
In the end, Satoru also worked very hard and took pride in his own skills. And that very pride was shattered and was not even recognized by his brother so he can't help himself but be annoyed.
That's why, not allowing the results of their first match to be the conclusion, fueled by his first loss, Satoru trained even harder after that and asked for a rematch a couple of weeks later.
Unfortunately, the results remained the same. He lost one-sidedly again.
He got back up and trained once again after that, then asked for another rematch. But the ending remains the same.
Then again, and again, and again... As their spar sessions went on, Satoru eventually lost his strong admiration for his brother.
Well, the admiration was still there, but unlike before, it wasn't the strongest feeling anymore. He doesn't look at his brother as someone he admires and aspires to be, but as a giant mountain, he wants to challenge and climb instead.
Going forward with each match, Satoru reached new heights.
But for each defeat, he falls even harder than before. It doesn't matter that much though since he always goes back up and goes even higher.
And it seems that he never planned to stop until he reached the very top.
Which leads us all to the current day. The day when Satoru vowed to finally make a difference in this never-ending repeating conclusion.
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Upon getting into their usual fighting spot, both parties immediately started the fight. They already fought so many times they didn't even need any signal to begin anymore.
Satoru immediately rushed towards Hiroyuki. Infusing both his hands with CE, he then threw a punch toward his brother's face. That punch is so fast a normal person could probably not even react to it.
swoosh~
Regardless, Hiroyuki easily dodged his attack by simply leaning backward. But it seems that this is not the end of it cause immediately after this, Satoru followed it all up by throwing in a flurry of punches and kicks.
swiish~!
swoosh!
wooosh~!
"I thought you'd show me something new today?" Hiroyuki said in a pretty nonchalant tone as he kept dodging every attack that his younger brother made.
A fact that irritates Satoru very much.
"..."
But unlike before, he didn't show it up. He didn't even reply to his Brother as he just kept all his focus on his attacks. He's even utilizing his Six Eyes to its maximum output just to make sure that each of his movements is as precise as possible.
"Curse Technique Amplification-"
In the midst of their battle, Satoru after missing one of his punches, noticed that Hiroyuki was put in a pretty unfavorable position. His mind raced in that one second.
"Lapse Blue!" After making one quick calculation, without even missing a beat, he immediately activated one of his Curse Techniques.
"Woah"
Hiroyuki who was still mid-air, suddenly felt a strong distortion towards the space around him. Then, not even a second after that, he suddenly saw a couple of giant rock debris from multiple directions, converging toward his position.
'Is he trying to crush me?' Hiroyuki laughed inwardly as he entertained such thought.
Clearly not fazed even the slightest even though he was just a second away from being crushed and entrapped in between rocks and debris.
Well, such a thing is impossible to happen anyway.
And sure enough, as the rocks reach his position, infusing one of his hands with enough CE, he quickly destroys it all with just a single swift motion. Turning all of it into dust.
Actually, not all the debris was destroyed.
Hiroyuki purposely left one intact. It's all because he still has no way of getting out of his situation due to Satoru's technique, constraining his movements mid-air.
That's why leaving one piece of debris to get a foot-holding, he stomped on it and launched himself out of Satoru's CT range.
"Tch!"
Satoru immediately followed his brother's movements and tried to use his CT again on him.
However, he was a bit late this time because Hiroyuki's feet already touched the ground. And instantly as that happened...
!!!
He disappeared from his sight.
He still missed his brother's movements even with full utilization of the Six Eyes.
And the next thing Satoru knew, Hiroyuki was already standing behind him.
"It seems that you haven't learned a single thing from our last fight." Wearing a mischievous smile on his face, Hiroyuki muttered as he raised his right fist in the air.
Swoosh!
Not even giving his younger brother a moment to react, Hiroyuki threw it toward Satoru's head. Of course, he didn't put too much strength into it since he did not intend to harm him that much, but just for the sake of teaching a lesson, he made it strong enough to hurt much more than usual.
But, weirdly enough, even though Satoru was about to get smacked in the head, and knew fully well that he had no way of dodging it, a similar mischievous smile crept up on his face.
???
A fact that confused Hiroyuki for a bit.
Usually, whenever the situation of their spar turned out like this, Satoru would have a panic and horrified expression. But for some reason, now it's different.
But it seemed that it wouldn't take him that long to know the reason for it. Because as his fist was about to touch Satoru's head...
"Hmm?"
An unknown force stopped him, halting his fist in mid-air.
_______ To be continued... _______