The pain didn't register.
There was no moment of agony, no desperate scream clawing from his throat. Just a single instant of awareness, bright, violet, endless.
Then came the collapse. Hollow Purple. Space folding, crushing, annihilating. It was more than an attack; it was erasure.
He felt his body stop before his brain could understand it was dying.
And yet, in that instant, in that nothingness, he was smiling.
Figures, he thought. If anyone could kill him, it'd be that monster.
A flash of white hair. Blindfold. Infinity.
Then black.
There was no tunnel of light, no blooming warmth. No regrets. He hadn't earned that kind of ending.
He hadn't even wanted it. He had no reason to fight anymore, not for the clan, not for Megumi, not even for himself.
So why?
Why was he still thinking?
He became aware of silence first. Not peace. Not oblivion. Just... silence. Heavy and endless. For a long time, if time still existed, there was nothing.
Then he felt it.
Weight.
Not emotional. Physical. His body.
Flesh.
He was lying on something, stone? His fingers twitched, brushing across a surface that felt rough, uneven.
There was warmth. Not the burn of cursed energy, not the sterile heat of a battlefield, real warmth. Sunlight.
Eyes snapped open.
Blinding white-blue above him. A sky. A real sky. No static. No storms. No dark clouds bleeding cursed energy. Just... blue.
Toji sat up.
His breath came out steady. Too steady. His chest rose and fell like he'd just woken from a nap, not death.
Muscles that had been torn apart minutes, hours?, ago, flexed with the same deadly precision as ever. His heartbeat was calm, sharp, focused.
Alive.
This wasn't reincarnation. He knew death. This wasn't it.
What the hell is this?
The alley he sat in was tight and old. Moss crept along the bricks, and rust bit into old pipes lining the walls.
A broken crate beside him reeked of something sour. Somewhere nearby, someone shouted in a strange dialect. Children's laughter followed.
Toji's eyes scanned for threats by reflex. His brain tracked exit points, escape routes, potential enemies. A young couple walked by the alley's entrance, carrying bread and talking softly.
No weapons. No spiritual pressure. No cursed energy at all.
He reached back over his shoulder. The cursed spirit was still there, slumbering in the crevice of space that shouldn't exist, mouth shut, hoarding his arsenal like a greedy beast.
Its presence clung to him like shadow, familiar and wrong at the same time.
If it was still here... then this wasn't heaven. Or hell.
Something else, then.
Toji stood, brushing dust from his pants. His clothes were the same as before, black, loose, functional.
Stained at the edges with old blood. There was a rip at his side from Gojo's last hit, but the wound beneath was gone. Not healed. Erased.
It wasn't just his body that had come through. It was everything.
He stepped into the street.
And froze.
The city was alive.
Sprawling towers, stone roads, bustling markets. Banners fluttered in the wind, and ornate symbols he didn't recognize hung above shop signs.
People wore armor and robes, laughing and shouting in accents he didn't know. Vendors sold swords, potions, glowing blue stones.
In the distance, towering above it all, was a structure so vast it cut into the sky, a spiral tower of impossible size. Its walls shimmered with enchantments. And beneath it...
...was something deep. Vast. Hungry.
His hunter's instincts flared, eyes narrowing.
That's no building.
That's a nest.
He didn't understand this world. Didn't know its rules. Didn't care.
But something in that tower wanted blood.
And Toji Fushiguro had just come back from the dead with nothing left to lose.
He cracked his neck, the corners of his mouth twitching into a low, humorless smile.
If this was his afterlife... he'd make it interesting, even if it would end soon and send him back to hell.
...
He walked.
Each step drew strange looks. Not fear, at least not yet, but curiosity. He didn't wear armor like the others.
No emblems. No visible weapons. Just a tall, silent man in black, eyes sharp enough to cut through stone, presence heavy enough to draw silence in his wake.
A group of adventurers passed him by. Teenagers, maybe early twenties. They laughed too loudly, their weapons still too clean. They glanced at him, then looked away.
He was used to it.
The city was larger than it first appeared. A maze of districts, bridges, and winding stairs, each part packed with life.
It smelled of sweat, steel, and spice, real life, not the cold rot of cursed battles. People were bartering, bickering, boasting.
The sounds layered over each other until it became white noise.
No one noticed that Toji didn't fit.
Or maybe they did, but chose not to say anything.
At one point, a child ran into him, barely up to his waist. The boy stumbled back, wide-eyed.
Before he could cry out, his mother yanked him away with a nervous apology, not even glancing at Toji as she dragged the kid down the street.
Smart woman.
Toji kept walking.
Eventually, the street ended in a wide, open plaza. And in the center of that plaza stood a gate.
Massive, reinforced, buzzing faintly with enchantments.
Adventurers filed in and out, flashing what looked like papers or tokens to the guards, uniformed men in breastplates marked with some strange sigil.
Beyond the gate, the earth yawned open.
A staircase descended into shadow.
The Dungeon.
He didn't need to ask. He knew. Whatever this world was, whatever strange dream or purgatory he'd landed in, it centered around that hole.
That darkness. It was the same instinct that had driven him to hunt sorcerers, to fight cursed spirits bare-handed, to spit in the face of gods.
Down there... things would make sense.
He moved toward the entrance.
A hand slapped across his chest.
"Hold it," came a voice.
Toji's eyes dropped to the hand. Tanned. Gloved. Belonged to a man with a helmet, bored eyes, and the slouch of someone who'd spent too many years babysitting idiots.
"Where's your license?" the guard asked. "No entry without proper Familia registration or a guest pass. You new?"
Toji didn't respond.
The man raised a brow. "You do speak, right?"
Toji tilted his head slightly. "What's a Familia?"
The guard blinked. "...You serious?"
Before he could answer, another guard leaned in. "Hey, you from outside? Like, way outside? You look like the type."
Toji's expression didn't change.
The first guard sighed, stepping back. "Look. The Dungeon's not a playground. Only licensed adventurers get in. You wanna go down there, you'll need to join a Familia and get a Falna."
"Falna," Toji repeated, testing the word on his tongue.
"A blessing from a god. Think of it like a... stat sheet. You grow stronger by fighting, training, leveling up. No Falna, no entry. Them's the rules."
Toji stared past him at the staircase.
The depths called.
And something inside him, some bone-deep hunger, some whisper from the old world, ached to answer.
He didn't care about rules.
But he wasn't suicidal. Not yet. Not until he knew the shape of the game.
"Where do I find a god?" he asked flatly.
The guard blinked again. "They find you, usually. But... try the Hostess of Fertility. Good food, loose lips. If you're lucky, you'll catch the eye of one of the deities slumming around town."
Toji turned without another word.
He didn't thank them. Didn't look back.
But as he walked away, the guards exchanged glances.
"Guy gives me the creeps," one muttered.
"Yeah," the other said. "And he's not even a Level One."
...
The streets shifted as Toji moved deeper into the city.
Gone were the wide-open plazas and market stalls. The buildings here leaned closer together, casting longer shadows.
Signs hung from crooked posts, painted in languages he didn't know, but he understood enough.
Taverns. Inns. Pleasure dens. A place where names were forgotten and coin did the talking.
He followed the smell, rich, savory, spiced with meat and hearth smoke.
The Hostess of Fertility was louder than he'd expected. A low-slung, ivy-covered building tucked between a weapon shop and an alchemist's den.
Lanterns glowed warm at the door, casting golden light over a sign carved with laughing faces and full mugs.
He stepped inside.
The warmth hit him first, followed by sound.
Laughter, clinking mugs, chairs scraping against wooden floors. The scent of ale and roasted meat filled the room.
A bard plucked a lazy tune in the corner, mostly ignored.
The place was packed, and every soul in it looked like they'd either just come from the Dungeon or were halfway drunk enough to forget it.
Heads turned as he entered.
Again, no emblems. No armor. No weapons.
Just a man built like violence, with eyes that didn't blink and a presence that hushed conversations like a storm rolling in.
A waitress, blonde, green-eyed, pretty in a farmgirl kind of way, approached with a practiced smile.
"Welcome to the Hostess of Fertility! Sit wherever you—" She froze.
Her eyes met his, and for a moment, something unreadable passed across her face.
"...You're new," she said softly.
He nodded.
"Looking for food? Or something else?"
"A god," Toji said.
The smile didn't falter, but her voice dropped an octave. "Lot of them pass through here. Looking to join a Familia?"
"Don't care which."
Now her smile twitched, just a little. "That's not how most people do it."
"I'm not most people."
She seemed to believe him.
"Wait here," she said, turning toward the back.
Toji stood where he was. He could feel the looks again, like insects crawling across his skin. Adventurers sizing him up. Men deciding if he was a threat.
Women trying to figure out if he was worth the risk.
None of it mattered.
Minutes passed.
Then a door opened, and the waitress returned, with someone else.
She was short. Barely up to his chest. Dressed in simple robes, midnight blue and gold trim, her long black hair flowing like ink.
A goddess, no question. Not because of her clothes or the aura that rolled off her like perfume, but because her eyes didn't look at him like a person. They looked through him.
Like a being who knew the weight of centuries... and still found the present amusing.
"So," she said, stepping close. "You're the one causing a stir."
Toji didn't speak.
She smiled. "No armor. No weapons. No fear. I like that. What's your name, stranger?"
"Toji Fushiguro."
The name meant nothing here. He liked it that way.
The goddess nodded slowly. "And what do you want, Toji Fushiguro?"
"Power," he said simply.
She tilted her head. "And what will you give in return?"
He met her gaze, unwavering.
"Everything else."
The goddess studied him, that smile still playing at the edge of her lips. It wasn't kindness, it was curiosity. Like a cat sizing up a blade.
"Everything else," she echoed. "That's quite a bold offer, considering you haven't even asked who I am."
Toji didn't blink. "Doesn't matter. If you're strong enough to give me what I want, that's all I need to know."
That brought a laugh out of her, sharp, ringing, genuine. Not many people could surprise a god.
"You're a dangerous man," she said, eyes gleaming. "I like dangerous men."
Toji didn't respond. He wasn't here to flirt.
"I'm Hecate," she said finally. "Goddess of magic, crossroads, secrets... and a few other things people like to whisper about when they think I'm not listening."
She offered her hand.
"Swear loyalty to me, and I'll give you the blessing you need. Falna. A Familia. A path into the Dungeon."
Toji looked at her hand. Then at her.
He didn't kneel. Didn't bow.
But he took it.
A thin pulse of heat rippled through him the moment skin met skin. Not painful, just old.
Like touching something buried for centuries. Hecate's eyes flared for a moment, glowing faintly violet.
Then it was done.
"You're mine now," she said, voice lower, almost a purr. "And you've got something... interesting buried in you. I wonder what it'll become when it's dragged into the light."
Toji stepped back, rolling his shoulder once. Nothing felt different. He didn't expect it to.
"I'll arrange the paperwork," she said, already turning. "You'll get your license by morning. Then you can throw yourself into the pit with the rest of the fools."
He was already moving toward the door.
"Toji."
He stopped, half-turning.
Hecate's voice dropped. "Be careful what you kill down there. Some monsters don't stay dead."
He didn't answer.
By the next morning, he had what he needed: a thin metal plate stamped with Hecate's insignia, and a leather-bound document listing him as a probationary adventurer, Level 1, untested, unranked.
Didn't matter.
He wasn't here to play the ranking game.
He was here to see what this world had to offer... and whether it had the strength to break him.
The Dungeon awaited.
And Toji, silent, dressed in black, still weaponless, stepped through its gates without hesitation.
The earth swallowed him whole.