Later that day:
Kate went to her job, and Leon was alone in the home. He was inside his room, sitting cross-legged in the air, held up by Infinity. He'd been learning how to fly properly.
He was thinking about what to do next, especially his physical training. The treadmill was a no-go, and running around faster than a car in the public park didn't seem like the best idea.
He went to the living room, sat down in front of the computer, and started looking for some places- any places that would work.
'Huh? A junkyard?' He thought as he scrolled past a post. It was some dumping site for old vehicles, up north by the river that flowed through the city. It was an isolated place, exactly what he was looking for.
Leon suddenly put his hands together, making the sign for Divine Dogs. His shadow extended beneath his legs, and two dogs jumped out of it, a lot smaller this time.
They looked like two young puppies. "That day, when I stopped those robbers, I felt a tug from the Shadow Dimension. Did you two want to come out that time?" he asked with a smile.
And as if they could understand him, they barked at the same time, running at him and nudging his legs with their fur.
"What? As I said, I didn't forget about you-" 'Wait, I can understand them?' He thought. Nothing was vocal, but he could sense what they were trying to convey.
"Alright, alright… How about I give you names? You know, to make up for that," he spoke as he got down and started patting them.
"Woof!" "Woof!" Both barked at the same time.
'Hmm, what to name them? Wait, are they boys or girls?' He thought and then checked. (A/N: Don't ask how.)
'Okay, black's a boy and white's a girl…' "Okay then… I've got it. You'll be Night, with black fur born of the night.
And you, little girl, will be Frost… See, your fur and my hair are pretty much the same." He pointed at his head. Both dogs happily jumped into his arms and started playing with his hand.
"Alright, go back for now. I'll call one of you in a minute…" he said, and the two dissolved into a dark shadow.
He then changed into something sporty: a tracksuit and a hoodie with his dark round sunglasses. Grabbing his shoes, he opened the window to his room and, standing on the ledge, jumped up, doing a few backflips, landing on the rooftop.
That was a jump from the third floor directly to the fifteenth. 'That felt easy,' He thought and put his shoes on, then picked up his pace.
He jumped from the other edge of the roof. Bringing his hands together, he thought, 'Divine Dog: White.' "Come out, Frost."
This time, a lot bigger, Frost appeared beneath him, carrying him on her back. She landed on another roof, as light as a feather, and Leon said, "You know where I want to go, right? So run as fast and light as you can."
Leon barely had a second to think when they both blurred with the sheer speed that Frost suddenly picked up. She blitzed past the rooftops, sometimes leaping above two or three buildings at once.
Soon they were away from the residential area, and Frost was running through the woods. Getting near the river, when they were finally out of the city, Frost jumped down and ran along the river to the north, where Leon wanted to go.
"I know you can go faster, Frost." He leaned forward, tapping her neck. "Woof!" she replied and, picking up a gust of wind, dashed like the blowing wind itself.
"OHHH YEAH!!! Now that's what I'm talking about." 'Now that we're out of the city…' He thought and spoke, "Frost, stop!"
She suddenly broke her momentum to a complete halt, and all the kinetic energy they were carrying pushed forward; a shockwave of wind and dust pushed further away from where they stood.
"How about we race there?" he asked and made another hand sign: Divine Dog: Black, jumping out of his shadow.
Both Night and Frost were similar in size. "If I reach the junkyard first-" He was about to say the conditions when both the dogs looked at each other, barked once, and started running ahead of him.
"Huh? So, trying to cheat, huh? Well, doesn't matter to me either way." He got down, taking a sprinting posture.
This was the first time he was going to use every ounce of his strength. He tightened his muscles, gritted his teeth, and, enhancing himself with Cursed Energy, pushed forward.
The dogs were already out of his line of sight, but it didn't matter much as he was running several times faster than he'd ever run before.
After a few minutes, his dogs finally came into view, and he increased his speed again. When he felt his breath hitching and his lungs stinging with sharp pain, he finally felt as if he was pushing himself.
So, Leon didn't stop. Finally catching up to the two, he said, "You guys are slow!" and dashed forward with greater speed.
He hadn't even realized that he was destroying the very ground he was running through, pushing dirt and stones aside by the sheer momentum he carried. The two dogs looked at each other again and picked up their paces too.
Finally, after about an hour of running, they reached the old junkyard. At the end, the dogs had beaten Leon by a few seconds.
Their endurance simply outmatched his. He ran faster for a while, which was a bad idea since both Night and Frost ran at a constant speed and beat him at the last moment.
He was on the ground, sitting as he panted for his dear life. "Haah, haah… I might need a set of new lungs."
"Are you guys not tired?" He looked at the two pups, sitting as they happily wagged their tails. "Woof!" They barked with the same enthusiasm, clearly not tired.
The junkyard, as he'd hoped, didn't have anyone else. There were all kinds of vehicles dumped there, from old cars to boats and even one small farm plane.
Leon started by testing his physical strength. With enough Cursed Energy enhancing his strength, he was easily able to lift even the heaviest-looking vehicle there.
So, using some old thick steel ropes he found on a broken crane, he tied a few cars together. It was so tight that the metallic frames themselves were bending under it.
He tried to lift a big truck, but it broke down in the middle. 'Maybe it was old? How does Superman do it without breaking them, though?'
He then tried something else. Extending Infinity to a larger area, enough that he didn't plow through the metal by its sheer weight, he was finally able to lift the big bundle of cars.
Under its weight, he finally felt some pressure. "Hugh!" Grunting a bit, he threw it onto a bigger pile.
"That was around 14 tons, I think." 'Might go a bit further, but my arms are starting to hurt now,' He thought and decided to change his training regimen.
He brought down the tied-up pile of vehicles from before, removed a few loose ones, and tightened them up more.
He was now on the ground, bench-pressing almost 9 to 10 tons of old junk metal. "75, 76, 77… 99, 100…"
'I can do more…' He grumbled and went for more. After several more minutes, "998, 999, 1000… HAAAH!" With a loud roar, he tossed the pile aside and sat up.
"Damn!" He tightened his fist, gritting his teeth because of the rippling pain that was almost spasming his muscles.
It was time for his abilities now. Leon then practiced using Amplification and Dismantle, unrestrained, to his maximum capabilities.
After a few hours, everything on the Junkyard was a rubble, save for the tied-up pile of cars and a few big pieces of metal that he'd saved as his weights.
The rest of it was either cut down into tiny pieces or combined into different shapes. Leon sat, slumped on a big metallic ball.
He noticed that whenever Blue was used, it always tended to make spherical shapes if it attracted any objects to it.
He wanted to see if he could control that and maybe try to give them the shape of large weapons. A big spear of metallic junk was the only thing he managed to make.
Blue, being one of the easier techniques to learn, was very hard to control and manipulate. And Dismantle was, well, Dismantle; the more he used it, the better he got at it.
'I'm beat,' He thought. It was the first time he'd pushed himself this hard outside the mindscape.
There was still some time before sunset. 'Wait, why don't I do that then?' A thought crossed his mind.
"Night, Frost, come over here!" He called out to the Divine Dogs, who were play-fighting by the river, sometimes pushing each other in the water and sometimes catching some fish.
He jumped down from the ball and looked at the two, who were now sitting in front of him, looking at him expectantly.
"Let's tame a few other shadows," he said, at which the pups jumped in excitement and then jumped back, making a few meters of distance from him.
After a while:
Leon was now resting on the ground, tired from fighting the new four shadows. The Divine Dogs were playing around by his side.
He'd easily defeated the Great Serpent and Toads. It took a bit of effort to defeat Nue (Owl), as it could fly high at insane speeds, change its size at will, and then attack with lightning strikes.
Then there was the easiest one to defeat but the trickiest to catch: the Rabbit Escape. They used shadows to disappear and reappear and clone themselves multiple times.
So, finding the real one was a hassle. The Six Eyes finally traced the actual rabbit, and he successfully tamed that one too.
Leon tried to push his luck and summoned the Max Elephant. The pink giant absolutely thrashed him, especially with the water attack that almost flooded the entire place.
Infinity didn't allow the attacks to even touch him but he didn't have enough attack output to defeat it either.
He could have taken help from the Divine Dogs, as they were the strongest yet. But seeing how the elephant clearly outclassed him, he didn't feel like he deserved to tame it yet.
What he didn't know was that it was his own Cursed Energy level that made the elephant that strong. But luckily, he could forcefully send it back.
Which would have been impossible if it was the Divine General. He was glad he hadn't even thought about that one.
Leon did notice how each of the shadows he fought were significantly stronger, faster, and some even bigger than how Sukuna had explained they would be.
He looked at the two dogs, who, being so friendly to him, he'd overlooked how strong they were. He was lucky these two were tamed by default. Also, he'd have hated to have to hurt them.
Leon looked around; the whole place was painted orange by the setting sun over the horizon. The forest, river, and even the junkyard that was now just rubble, looked strangely beautiful.
'I better get back,' He thought. The dogs dissolved into shadows, and he made another hand sign. "Come out, Nue!" he said as the bird jumped straight into the sky, right from his shadow.
He jumped, making a sizable crater in the ground, and landed lightly on the big owl's back. They then flew back to the city.
Later that night, when Leon and Kate were having dinner, Kate brought something up. "Did you hear about that giant wolf people saw in the town today?"
"A giant wolf in the middle of the city? No way," he replied, sounding a bit excited.
"Yes, there was this guy screaming on of his lungs in a news channel, that he saw a white wolf jumping atop the buildings, sometime in the afternoon," Kate replied, shrugging her shoulder.
"Maybe." He shrugged too and added, "I'm more surprised that they keep getting surprised when crazy stuff happens all the time."
"True… Although, I do want to know how petting a wolf would feel like. Is that strange?" Kate asked.
"I guess not. They might be just big pups with a bit of carnivorous tendencies, that's all," Leon replied and thought, 'Should I show them to her? Nah, not yet.'
That night, the training went pretty much the same. Satoru's martial arts lessons and then some demonstrations and explanations about Limitless and the Six Eyes.
Then there was Sukuna, who instructed him to start fighting using the shadows too and alternating between engaging himself and using his shadows.
That would work as a better tactic in a pinch. The fight training with the two started out pretty tame, when Sukuna hit him with something called Black Flash that knocked the lights out of him first, then obliterated him.
With every battle and every death in his mindscape, he could feel himself growing stronger and faster, better at using his abilities and manipulating Cursed Energy.
The next few days passed with the same routine. He would alternate his studies and physical training; if he studied for the whole day, the next day he'd go back to that junkyard for another one of his insane training sessions.
He'd opted for a more discreet way of traveling there; good thing they didn't see his owl too, that day.
And his training at night in the mindscape went pretty much the same in those days. Satoru and Sukuna were relentless, and he got stronger each time he woke up from that mindscape.
At present:
It was Sunday afternoon; tomorrow was the day he'd finally go to his new school. And today was the day for his study session.
"Leon! Lunch is ready…" Kate called him from the kitchen. He closed the book he was reading with a pen as its bookmark. 'Thermodynamics' was written in bold letters on its cover page.
Leon gave a long sigh. 'Can't this guy be more obvious?' He thought, still seeing that same car parked in front of the building where Kate's apartment was.
He'd felt it a few days ago. Someone was observing his every movement- well, what they could see at least.
'Whatever they want, I guess they haven't tried to do anything since I keep disappearing for no reason,' He thought and got up, then closed the window, mumbling, 'Perverts.'
After lunch, he helped Kate clean up around the house. Well, he did most of it using Infinity and Blue at a small scale.
Kate knew about his abilities and was cool with it as long as he didn't hurt himself, which she stopped worrying about after seeing him use his abilities casually.
Around late afternoon, Kate was peacefully asleep on the couch. She'd come home late the night before. Leon, wearing a grey hoodie with blue pants, walked towards her and covered her with a blanket; a smile tugged at his lips.
He left a sticky note on the table that said, "Going for a walk in the park. Will be back before sunset," with a peace sign and a smiley face.
He put on a pair of running shoes his dark shades and normally walked out of the building's main door.
The town was as busy as always. The road to the White House was always the same, full of cars and vehicles with USA's flag dangling on the front. (A/N: Just came up with random stuff. I don't know much about Washington, D.C.)
He pretended to look around, making sure the ones in that car noticed him. 'Three guys, huh,' He thought, sensing the ones in that car.
He slowly strolled towards the nearby park. It was a public walkway with well trimmed grass fields and some trees here and there, all surrounding a big pond.
After walking for a bit, he sat on a wooden bench nearby. Two of those guys had followed him to the park; their car was parked just on the road near the park.
'How should I do this, then? Ah well, I can just play along.' He thought to himself.
The two men now stood in front of him, both dressed similarly in black suits and pants; one had black hair, and the other had greyish-blonde hair.
"Ah, do you need anything from me, misters?" he asked, his voice a bit shaky.
...…. To be continued!!!