Kaede and Maki were heading towards where they believed the others were, moving through the rubble left by the battle. Both were silent, but the tension in the air was palpable. As they walked, a bright light and a thunderous sound interrupted their progress.
They stopped abruptly, turning their heads toward the source of the blast. In the distance, a purple explosion streaked across the horizon like a comet, disintegrating everything in its path. Gojo's technique, Purple, had just manifested with overwhelming force. Kaede squinted, his expression shifting from confusion to awe.
"That..." Kaede thought, carefully observing how the devastation spread in the distance. The traces of cursed energy emitted by the technique still resonated in the air, like an echo of its colossal power. He knew what Satoru Gojo was capable of, but seeing it in action, even from that distance, was something else. "Is that really capable of such destruction?" he wondered silently. Although he had full confidence in his own abilities, he couldn't help but compare what he had just seen to his own limits.
Maki, standing next to him, also looked in the same direction, impressed by what she had just witnessed. "That was... Purple, right?" she murmured, a mixture of respect and fear in her voice.
Kaede didn't respond immediately. In his mind, a question began to form. "Miyako is also a user of Limitless... could she do something like that?" Although he knew that she and Gojo shared the same technique, he couldn't help but wonder to what extent Satoru had mastered it.
Kaede clenched his fists, aware that Miyako's return could bring greater surprises than he had anticipated. I'll have to speed up the plans, he thought, now conscious that Miyako needed to explore her abilities.
"We shouldn't stay here," Maki interrupted, refocusing on the present. "We don't know if there are still curses nearby."
Kaede nodded, keeping his thoughts to himself. As they walked, his mind continued to race, analyzing what he had seen and what still remained to be done. He knew this was only the beginning of something much bigger.
Kaede and Maki finally arrived at the building where the others were. The atmosphere was charged with uncertainty and fatigue after the recent events. As soon as they crossed the door, almost all eyes turned to them.
Mai, noticing Naoya's presence, was the first to move. She hurried towards him with a look of concern. "Where were you?" she asked, her voice tense with surprise. Before she could say anything else, Kaede gently patted her head, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"What makes you think I'd just sit idly by?" he replied with a casual tone and a slight smile. It was part of the character he had assumed, the one Naoya would represent in that moment.
Mai frowned, her gaze quickly shifting from Kaede to Maki. She seemed annoyed by something, and Maki could feel the discomfort in the air. Not fully understanding why Mai was looking at her like that, Maki averted her eyes and excused herself hastily. "I'm going to treat my wounds," she said, making a slight bow and heading towards another part of the building.
Mai continued to watch Kaede, but he simply smiled with that characteristic arrogance of the real Naoya, hiding his true intentions behind a layer of false familiarity. "Looks like we're all gathered here," Kaede said with a faint smile, while his mind was already calculating the next steps. He knew that with each move, he had to act with even greater caution.
Miyako was sitting in the garden, enjoying the soft warmth of the sun while chatting with Ayaka, Aiko's best friend. The conversation between the two was light, filled with laughter and shared memories. Ayaka, with her bright smile and cheerful voice, was a comforting presence, but for Miyako, maintaining that facade was becoming an increasingly heavy burden.
"Well, Miyako, I have to go now," Ayaka said after a while. "I have some work to attend to, but it was great seeing you again. I'll catch up with you soon."
Miyako smiled warmly, mimicking Aiko's natural gestures. "Sure, take care," she replied as she raised her hand to wave goodbye.
Once Ayaka was far enough away, the smile on Miyako's face disappeared completely, like a mask crumbling all at once. She rubbed her temples, letting out a tired sigh. "It's exhausting to keep up this pretense..." she muttered to herself. She didn't understand how Kaede could make it seem so natural, hiding his true self without barely showing any cracks.
Carefully, she pulled out a small, worn notebook from her clothes. She had kept it hidden for a long time, and it was her way of studying in secret. She moved swiftly to a more secluded part of the garden, where she knew she wouldn't be disturbed. Once there, she sat on the ground and began flipping through the pages, each filled with handwritten notes.
The notebook contained notes she had taken from the old scroll on Limitless and the Six Eyes. That was the legacy of the Gojo clan, and she, as a user of those abilities, had been thoroughly researching the secrets discovered after her death. But now, there was something specific that captured all her attention: Purple.
Miyako frowned as she reviewed the descriptions. Purple... a technique that was neither simple nor easy to master. It was a combination of the two poles of cursed energy: Red and Blue. Each on its own was immensely powerful. Blue compressed space with a gravitational force that pulled inward, while Red expelled everything outward with a destructive blast.
But Purple was different. It was something beyond the combination of those forces. Instead of simply adding the two extremes, it created an "imaginary mass." An entity that didn't exist in traditional space but functioned in an abstract dimension, erasing everything it touched from existence. Purple didn't just destroy; it completely erased anything in its path, leaving no trace behind.
It was as if reality itself disintegrated upon contact with that force.
Miyako studied the notes intensely, trying to grasp every small detail. Her experience with Blue was extensive, Red not so much, but Purple was on a completely different level. How could anyone even imagine manipulating something so abstract? That thought made her feel small compared to the magnitude of the power Satoru had demonstrated.
"Could I ever create something like that...?" she asked quietly. Though she had the Six Eyes and the same technique, she knew her mastery was still not at Satoru Gojo's level. But the idea of being able to match or even surpass that feat filled her with a mix of anxiety and ambition.
The words in the notebook, though helpful, were not enough. She needed more information, more practice, more control over the energies that made up the universe of cursed techniques. And, above all, she needed to understand if her capabilities could reach that terrifying limit.
After all, if she wanted to face Satoru one day, she needed to master Purple, and who knows, maybe even improve her Domain Expansion... though so far, I haven't been able to use any of that, she thought with some frustration. She couldn't wait for the day she could leave that place.