Chapter 3: The Power behind Words

"Toge Inumaki… your cursed technique is truly fascinating…" In the middle of the night, sitting cross-legged on his bed, Yuki's eyes were focused on his hands. 

He slowly opened them and brought them together until both hands made contact. 

Smacking his lips, Yuki opened his mouth, activating his quirk. 

First, add resistance to fire.

"{Flame resistance}."

Others may not be able to see it, but through Yuki's eyes, it was clear as day. Through his quirk, the cursed energy seeped out from his mouth, before wrapping around him, causing him to glow a light blue which only he could see. 

Yuki squinted his eyes. 

"{Flames… gather}." 

Once again, cursed energy sprouted, but this time, guided by his thoughts, the cursed energy that was spoken was directed to the middle of his open palms. 

The cursed energy that was initially blue, soon sparked orange and red.

Soon enough, a small ball of flames hovered over his hands, due to the application of Flame resistance, even though the fiery ball was close, his body still remained unharmed. 

Beneath his bedside light, Yuki looked around the room as the small sizzling orb was lighting up the entire area. 

"You know… I had my doubts in the beginning. The cursed technique of the Inumaki clan seemed so OP, the very concept of it was so cool, but…" looking back, Toge Inumaki was the only person from the clan that was introduced.

When he used cursed speech, Toge usually gave out commands, but most of them were usually in physical terms. 

{Stop}, {Don't move}, {Run away}, {Sleep}, {Return}. 

As for the attacks such as {Get twisted}, {Plummet}, {Explode}, {Get crushed}, and {Blast away}, Toge's cursed energy would be expelled from his throat, the energy would wrap around or make contact with his opponent. 

It was just such a shame that it was only used very little in the show, because there was so much potential for it. 

Think about it, any word or action you say will happen, and all he had to do was say it. But there was a slight catch to this technique, is that the stronger the opponent, or if the output, the cursed energy that Toge summons, is far too much for him to handle, there was a backlash in the technique which causes him to cough up blood or end up with a sore throat. 

This was the reason why he carries around throat medicine to reduce the harsh effects. 

But, besides these commands, what about other words? 

Whether it be nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs and so on, weren't those words too?

By using Cursed Speech, what's stopping the user from casting words that deals with healing, words that causes damage, words that influences the environment and weather, words that contain elements in them? 

What about words that go even beyond, words such as reviving, growing missing limbs, or even resurrection? 

After all, no matter how powerful the meaning behind a word is, in the end, it is still a word. A word one can casually say without blinking an eye. Granted, that the word still does contain such power in it's meaning. 

Looking down at the flame in his hands, Yuki softly whispered again. 

"{Cold resistance}." just like before and many other times, the cursed energy that was leaked soon wrapped around his figure. 

Staring straight into the flames, his mouth opened. The snake's fangs making another appearance yet again. 

"{Flames turns to ice}." and without another second to delay, the sizzling orange and red soon morphed into a cool icy blue.

Now, a block of ice landed into Yuki's open palms, barely feeling the cold due to him activating a command which allowed his body to be resistant to the cold. 

Feeling the rough texture of the ice, Yuki was silent. "Your cursed technique is so much more, Toge, is it because that by limiting yourself to just saying ingredients in order to avoid having your ability to hurt anybody, in exchange for that your vocabulary was halted, or was it the issue with the word needing too much cursed energy to activate?"

You and your clan have such amazing abilities, but maybe, it was the issue of your... imagination? Just Toge alone was refraining himself to speak words directly to not have anybody be cursed, but the cost of it… 

Even before his quirk was shown to the outside world, because of the System, Yuki was able to practice the ability in the System's very own training grounds located in his mindscape.

At first, Yuki himself, curious with the potential of the Inumaki clan's technique, started practicing it, but the results still amazed him. 

He also found out that pronouncing some words seems a bit tricky to cast, for example. There are Homophones, words that sound the same, but have a different meaning or spelling. 

For instance, the word 'Flower' could also be mistaken by others such as 'Flour' if spoken in a sentence. But there is a difference. One is a blooming plant that grows in a grassy field, and the other is material used in dough to make food. 

It took some time, but Yuki managed to overcome this problem through practice. If he says a certain word, all he had to do was think strongly and focus on the very meaning of the word he wants to convey just as the cursed energy was being formed and then being projected out. 

He is far from perfect, but at least in this way, he will be able to avoid the wrong commands being brought out into existence. 

This cursed technique… is truly special… 

Only one person that Yuki can think of who could possibly match or understand the power behind this quirk well was that person, the woman who can also impose rules with her command, Star and Stripes... 

He won't lie, he was filled with so much excitement in this lifetime! 

Well, time to put an end to it... Yuki smiled fondly at the cube, "Alley-oop!" he tossed the icicle into the air, turning to press his back against the bedsheet. 

The ice that was thrown soon reached the ceiling, and then made a descent. 

Still having that same smile on, he lifted his right hand up, performing a swiping gesture with his fingers. 

"{Multiple dismantles}." the flowing cursed energy soon turned into tiny microscopic blades! 

The ice that was originally falling was soon slashed into oblivion as fine crystals fell from above. 

Under this scene, Yuki was grinning like mad. 

"Unlike Toge Inumaki, with the System supplying me a good amount of cursed energy in bulk, I won't have any problems saying some words. Speaking of which, I should check on how the other characters are doi-"

Yuki's eyes were soon drawn to his bedroom's door.

"Let me check on, Yuki. I think I heard something coming from the room…"

"Oh, don't worry, honey. I'm sure he's already gone to sleep."

"I know, I know, but just in case. You know with the amount of crimes happening around the area, you can never be sure."

Hearing that the voices were coming near, Yuki turned to his side. "{Sleep}."

And with that, he was soon knocked out. 

He'll get better, it's just a matter of time, all he needed was time. 

But one complaint that Yuki had was where was this power when he got thwarted by a damn scalper!

++Chapter End++ *Gifted with power, the boy still complains about a scalper??*