The journey back to Tokyo was a disorienting, stomach-lurching affair. Satoru, citing the urgency of the situation, opted for his teleportation. For a few nauseating seconds, the world dissolved into a smear of impossible colours and screeching spatial distortion before snapping back into a cold, sterile reality. We were standing in a bleak, concrete room deep beneath the grounds of Jujutsu High, the walls covered in overlapping paper talismans that seemed to drink the very sound from the air.
Yuji Itadori, who had woken up just moments before the trip, stumbled and looked around, his eyes wide with a mixture of awe and terror. He was processing everything with the frantic energy of a man who had just discovered the world was a lie. Curses were real. Sorcerers were real. And the genocidal demon king currently residing in his soul was, apparently, very real.
He looked at the three of us: Satoru, the impossibly powerful and cheerfully insane teacher; Megumi, the gloomy, injured boy he had tried to save; and me, the quiet, red-eyed girl who hadn't said more than ten words to him but had looked at him with a strange, unnerving intensity.
I watched him, my own thoughts a swirling vortex. My inner self, was having a complete meltdown. Yuji Itadori is real. He's right there. This is it. This is the start of the greatest shonen story of the era, and I'm a part of it!
But my soul, who had lived and trained in this brutal world for sixteen years, was filled with a profound and weary sorrow. I knew the path this kind, smiling boy was now forced to walk. It was a path paved with suffering, sacrifice, and a death sentence hanging over his head. He was a hero, yes, but in the world of Jujutsu, being a hero was just a more poetic way of being a tragedy.
Satoru left us there, taking Yuji to be formally assessed and, more importantly, to argue with the Jujutsu higher-ups for his life. Megumi, leaning heavily on me as his injuries still ached, was escorted by another teacher to the infirmary. I was left alone in the quiet, talisman-sealed hallway, the silence a stark contrast to the screaming chaos in my own mind. The story had begun, and I had played my part exactly as fate seemed to demand.
Later that day, Satoru found Megumi and me in the infirmary, where Shoko was giving Megumi a proper check-up. He walked in with that same infuriatingly casual grin, as if he hadn't just returned from a battle of wills with the fossils who ran our world.
"Good news!" he announced. "I managed to get your new friend's execution indefinitely suspended!"
Megumi, who had officially requested the suspension, looked relieved, the tense line of his shoulders relaxing. I felt nothing but a grim sense of inevitability.
"So, he's got two options now," Satoru continued, holding up two fingers. "Be executed immediately. Or, find all twenty of Sukuna's fingers, absorb them, and then be executed. We're letting him choose! See? We're benevolent!"
It was a cruel choice, a death sentence disguised as a stay of execution. But it was also Satoru's masterstroke—a gamble to turn the world's greatest threat into its most powerful asset, and to nurture another sorcerer who could one day stand by his side.
Yuji, of course, chose to live.
He was officially enrolled as a first-year student at Tokyo Jujutsu High. The next day, Satoru, Megumi, and I showed him to his new dorm room. It was right next to Megumi's.
"Surprise!" Satoru said, flinging the door open. "Your neighbour is Fushiguro here! Oh, and the second-years are a bunch of fascinating weirdos, you'll love them. Especially the guy who only speaks in rice ball ingredients. And our little Aki-chan here is their unofficial queen." He winked at me.
I ignored him, my focus on Yuji. He looked around the small, simple room that would now be his home and his prison, a complicated expression on his face. He was taking the first step into a world from which there was no escape.
As Satoru and Megumi discussed the logistics of moving his things from Sendai, I stepped forward. It was time to assume my new role.
"Itadori-kun," I said, my voice quiet but firm. He turned to me, surprised. "I am Gojo Aki, a second-year. I am your senpai." I gave a small, formal bow. "Welcome to Jujutsu High. This place is not like a normal school. The training is brutal. The missions are dangerous. And what you carry inside you… it makes you a target for everyone. But you are not just a vessel. You are now a student here. One of us. If you need help, ask for it. If you are struggling, say so. We are your comrades now."
It was a formal, almost cold welcome, but it was also a promise. A promise that we saw him, not just the monster he contained.
Yuji, for the first time, gave a real, genuine smile, the brightness of it seeming to push back the gloom of the dorms. "Right! Thank you, Gojo-senpai!"
Watching them, the two first-years, Yuji and Megumi, I felt a strange pang. I saw the beginning of a legendary friendship, the formation of the story's central trio, once Nobara arrived. My inner fanboy was thrilled. But the soul of Aki felt a profound sense of isolation. I was their senpai, their mentor, their guardian with knowledge of a future they couldn't comprehend. But I could never truly be one of them. My path was different. I was the oracle who had to watch the heroes on their journey, forever separated by the weight of what I knew.
That evening, Satoru found me in one of the training halls. I was sitting in the dark, trying to meditate, to silence the roaring chaos in my mind.
"You're thinking too loud," he said, his voice startling me. He was leaning against the doorway, his blindfolded gaze fixed on me. "Your Cursed Energy is all over the place."
"It's been a long day," I replied, not opening my eyes.
"Tell me about it," he sighed, walking over and sitting down in front of me. "The higher-ups are already trying to find a way to circumvent my suspension of Yuji's execution. The old ghouls are terrified." He was quiet for a moment. "That was interesting back there. In Sendai. Sukuna…"
I tensed.
"He noticed you," Satoru continued, his voice now serious, analytical. "Not just as another sorcerer in the room. He singled you out. He said you 'reek of death.' The Six Eyes saw his interest in you. It wasn't the same way he looks at me with rage, or at Megumi with potential. It was… curiosity. Like a biologist finding a strange new specimen he wants to dissect."
He leaned forward slightly. "So tell me, Aki. What do your Eyes see when you look at Yuji Itadori?"
It was the most dangerous question anyone had ever asked me. I had to tell him the truth of what my eyes saw, without revealing the impossible truth of my foreknowledge. I took a deep breath.
"It's… a paradox," I began slowly, choosing my words with the care of a bomb disposal expert. "I see two souls, layered over each other like transparencies on an old projector. They share the same physical space, the same life force. The lines of death are a complete mess, a knot I can't even begin to unravel. It's not like one is a parasite on the other. They are… intertwined."
I paused, gathering my thoughts. "Killing one would mean killing the other. But their natures… they're fundamentally different. Yuji's soul is bright, warm, and resilient. But Sukuna's… Satoru-nii, his lines are wrong. They're not just lines of death, of a simple end. They're lines of… absolute termination. Like they're designed to sever not just a life, but the very concept of that life ever having existed. It's a power that doesn't just want to kill. It wants to unmake."
Satoru was silent for a long time, processing my words. What I had described was a power that rivaled my own Black technique, but born of pure, ancient malice.
"I see," he said finally, his voice grim. "A walking contradiction. A vessel who can suppress a god. And a god whose very nature is to unmake reality." He looked at me, a new, heavy understanding in his eyes. "This makes you more important to this situation than I realized. Your eyes can see things about their connection that even I can't. You are no longer just Yuji's senpai, Aki. You are now our primary barometer for the King of Curses."
The new role settled on my shoulders like a lead cloak. I was no longer just a student, no longer just a prodigy. I was an oracle, a living diagnostic tool for the greatest threat the world had ever known. And in the mind of that threat, I was now a fascinating specimen to be investigated.
The next morning, Satoru announced he was leaving for a few days. "I've got to go pick up our third and final first-year! She's a real firecracker, you'll love her."
He left me there, standing at the school gates with Megumi and Yuji. I watched Yuji as he attempted some basic Cursed Energy control, his cheerful determination a brilliant, defiant light against the apocalyptic future I knew he was now at the center of.
The story was no longer something I was watching or trying to survive. I was now a central pillar in the fight to keep it from collapsing, and I had a terrible feeling that the entire, fragile structure rested on my shoulders.