The light breeze brushed against Ryosuke's face as he lay on the roof of his high school, eyes half-closed.
He liked this place—far from the noise of the classrooms, the teachers, and the endless chatter of his classmates. Up here, everything felt calm. Yet, something was different that day.
A strange sensation of suffocation, like an invisible weight pressing down on his shoulders, unsettled him. He sighed, let his thoughts drift, and eventually dozed off.
"Ryo-kun, what are you doing up here?"
Ryosuke's eyes snapped open in surprise. A boy from his class was standing next to him, his face filled with concern.
"We've been looking for you for hours, you know? Math class started twenty minutes ago."
Ryosuke sat up with a yawn, looking slightly embarrassed. "Sorry, I wasn't feeling great… I needed to get away for a bit."
The boy shrugged. "You'd better make up for it on tomorrow's test, or you'll fail again."
"I know, I know," Ryosuke replied with a faint smile.
But as the boy turned and walked back toward the rooftop door, Ryosuke glanced toward the horizon.
"I guess I'm the only one who can see this…"
A strange screen floated in front of him, like a hologram suspended in the air. Its letters glowed with a bright blue light.
When he had dozed off earlier, Ryosuke had a bizarre dream—if it could even be called that. It felt like he was living an entirely different life.
Upon waking, that feeling hadn't left him. It felt like a memory from a previous life. Like in the novels he used to read—he had been reincarnated.
As for why those memories were only returning now, the screen floating in front of his eyes likely had something to do with it.
Ryosuke frowned, confused.
The words on the screen chilled him:
[Welcome, Host. You have been brought into this world.]
He blinked, stunned. "B… brought? What the hell is this?" he muttered to himself, glancing around. No one in sight.
Before he could truly think through what it all meant, the message changed.
[Choose a card as your starter gift.]
Just below the message, several cards appeared, hovering in the air like leaves drifting in the wind.
Ryosuke hesitated. This couldn't be real, right? And yet, curiosity outweighed fear. With a slight pause, he reached out toward one of the cards.
The card he chose shimmered faintly and flipped over.
Overhaul (Rewritten) was written on it.
The name echoed in his mind. Overhaul… Wait… isn't that… isn't that from My Hero Academia?
What did "rewritten" mean?
Overhaul—the quirk of Kai Chisaki, able to disassemble and reassemble matter with a single touch.
Suddenly, a surge of energy rushed through him. A torrent of information about the power he had just obtained seemed to etch itself into his soul. It all flooded his mind at a staggering pace.
He staggered slightly but managed to stay upright. The confusion began to clear, replaced by an astonishing clarity.
He now understood what this version of Overhaul—"rewritten"—was all about.
"Incredible…" he whispered, stunned.
But before he could fully process the shock, the screen shifted again:
[Congratulations. You have chosen: Overhaul.]
At first, Ryosuke thought it was a hallucination, but now he knew it was far more than that. He had truly received a power from a reincarnation system.
A Godfinger.
And not just any power. One he knew well—from fiction.
But that still wasn't the craziest part of all this. As the power etched itself into his mind, Ryosuke understood that he hadn't just been reincarnated…
Before he could get lost in thought, the message changed once more.
[Good luck. Perhaps you'll become a great jujutsu sorcerer.]
With that, the screen vanished.
Yes, he had been reincarnated into the world of Jujutsu Kaisen.
Jujutsu Kaisen. He knew this world.
Just like My Hero Academia, it was a manga. A terrifying universe, filled with curses, deadly battles, and jujutsu sorcerers fighting to survive—and to save the world.
But now, it wasn't just a manga to him. It was a brutal reality he had been living in for 15 years.
Ryosuke looked at his slightly trembling hands.
"So this is cursed energy… I need to stay calm. This world is dangerous, but with Overhaul… maybe I can be more than just a background character or cannon fodder."
The sound of the rooftop door opening again startled him. The same boy from earlier stepped out.
"Seriously, Ryosuke, are you planning to stay here all day?"
Ryosuke quickly glanced toward where the screen had been. But… nothing. It was gone.
He shook his head. "Sorry, I'm coming."
"You okay? You look weird."
"Yeah, yeah… just a bit tired." Ryosuke forced a smile. "Let's go."
---
Ryosuke sat at the back of the classroom, but his mind was elsewhere.
While the math teacher scribbled equations on the board, he couldn't help but notice the faint, blurry shapes lurking near the windows.
Curses.
Creatures he never could've seen before—but since encountering the system, it was like a new sense had awakened within him. A third invisible eye, able to perceive the unseen.
At first, he tried to ignore them, convincing himself it was all just a bad dream. But the more he watched, the more real they became. Still, these curses, small and lacking distinct features, seemed harmless. They floated around the room, indifferent to the students and teacher, completely detached from their world.
Ryosuke sighed.
Hard to focus on a quadratic equation when curses were slithering between the desks.
He closed his eyes, trying to shut that "third eye." The creatures vanished from view, but their presence lingered—somewhere deep in the back of his mind.
"Ryosuke?" The teacher's sharp voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "The answer to the question?"
The muffled laughter of his classmates brought him crashing back to reality. Embarrassed, he muttered an excuse and avoided meeting anyone's eyes.
"Make an effort, Ryosuke."
But Ryosuke ignored him. His mind wasn't on class today.
My p@treon: p@treon.com/Hemlet (remplace a to @)