I woke up drowning.
Not in water, in nothing, like the world had been scooped out and replaced with static, and my brain was trying to process sensory input that didn't exist anymore, my hand shot to my throat before I was even fully conscious.
Skin, whole, unbroken.
I sat up too fast and nearly threw up.
Trees, I was in a forest, not the Tokyo suburbs where Toji had, where he'd-
Nope, not thinking about that.
I pressed my palms against the dirt, felt the dampness seep through my fingers, real, this was real, the trees were real, the weird humid air was real, the fact that I could breathe at all was pretty damn real.
"Okay," I said out loud, because the silence was making my skin crawl, "Okay, you're alive, that's, uh, that's good."
My voice sounded wrong, scraped raw, like I'd been screaming, maybe I had been, I didn't remember much after the blade, just cold and then more cold and then,
Here.
I tried standing, my legs shook, since when did my legs shake, I was Satoru Gojo, I didn't shake, I didn't stumble against trees like some civilian who'd never thrown a punch in their life.
Except Toji had killed me, so maybe I wasn't as untouchable as I'd thought.
I shoved that thought down hard and focused on breathing, in, out, in, out, Suguru used to make fun of me for forgetting to breathe during fights, said I was gonna pass out one day from sheer stupidity, he'd probably laugh himself sick if he saw me now, clinging to a tree trunk and doing breathing exercises like a total rookie.
Thinking about Suguru made my chest hurt worse than dying had.
I pushed off the tree and made myself look around properly, the Six Eyes were going haywire, feeding me more information than I knew what to do with, every leaf, every shadow, every microscopic shift in the air, it all crashed into my brain at once, normally I could filter it, but right now, right now I was barely keeping it together.
And there was nothing.
No cursed energy, not a single trace, I'd been sensing cursed energy since I was a kid, it was like background noise, always there even when you weren't paying attention, but here, total silence, the Six Eyes kept trying to latch onto something, anything, but it was like trying to grab smoke.
I pooled cursed energy in my palm just to make sure I still could, blue light flickered across my fingers, weak and unstable, but there, I nearly laughed, or cried, maybe both.
"Not broken," I muttered, "just, somewhere else."
Great, fantastic, I'd died and woken up in, what, the afterlife, some kind of curse technique gone wrong, a fever dream while I bled out in that alley?
I started walking because standing still was worse, my body felt off, like gravity wasn't pulling quite right, lighter maybe, or maybe I was just messed up from the whole dying thing, hard to tell.
The forest went on forever, I tried to make a plan, something logical and smart like Suguru would've done, but my thoughts kept skipping around, where was I, how did I get here, was this permanent, could I get back, did I want to get back?
That last one sat heavy in my gut.
Back to what, exactly, the Gojo clan breathing down my neck about marriage prospects and producing an heir, more missions against special grades while the higher-ups sat on their asses and criticized my methods, watching Suguru get quieter and quieter, pulling away into whatever dark place he'd been living in lately?
Back to Toji Fushiguro eventually hunting me down and finishing the job?
I picked up my pace, walked faster, started jogging, the trees blurred past and I let them, let the Six Eyes process the visual data without really thinking about it, just moving, moving, not stopping because if I stopped I'd have to think about the fact that I'd died and maybe that should matter more than it did.
Voices up ahead, I slowed down, suddenly aware that I had no idea how to explain, well, any of this, my uniform was still on, somehow, the Tokyo Jujutsu High jacket and everything, blood-free, which was weird, shouldn't there be blood?
I crept closer, keeping low, two guys at a campfire, middle of the day, which seemed dumb from a practical standpoint but what did I know, one of them was talking with his hands, all animated and excited, the other looked like he'd rather be literally anywhere else.
"...the Hunter Exam is the real deal, I'm telling you," Hand-Talker was saying, "my cousin's friend's brother took it last year and said it changed his whole perspective on life."
"Your cousin's friend's brother," Tired Guy said, "really."
"Better source than your gut feeling that we should just give up and die in our hometown."
Hunter Exam, I filed that away, tried to make sense of it, some kind of test, the way Hand-Talker said it sounded important, capital letters important.
"People die in that exam," Tired Guy said, "like actually die, not metaphorically."
"So, better than this."
I almost laughed, yeah, I could relate to that.
Screw it, I stood up and walked out of the bushes, hands up so they could see I wasn't holding anything, both guys jumped, and Hand-Talker grabbed a knife from his belt.
"Hey, uh, sorry," I said, going for harmless, not sure I pulled it off, "I'm super lost and you're the first people I've seen in, I don't even know how long, I'm not gonna rob you or whatever."
They stared at me, I stared back, this was going great.
"Lost," Tired Guy finally said.
"Very lost, like, extremely lost," I rubbed the back of my neck, which was something I did when I was lying and I really needed to stop broadcasting that, "any chance you could point me toward, I don't know, civilization?"
Hand-Talker narrowed his eyes, "where you coming from, dressed like that?"
I glanced down at my uniform, right, that probably looked weird, "school?"
"What school has uniforms like that?"
"A really pretentious one," I said, which was actually true, "look, I can pay you for directions or whatever, I just need to-" I patted my pockets, empty, completely empty, "okay I can't pay you right now but I'm good for it later, I swear."
Hand-Talker burst out laughing, "you're either the worst liar I've ever met or you're actually telling the truth."
"Probably both," I admitted, then, because I had nothing to lose, "so this Hunter Exam thing, what is it?"
The question seemed to catch them off guard, Tired Guy, the one who'd been skeptical this whole time, frowned at me, "you don't know what the Hunter Exam is?"
"Not from around here."
"Where are you from?"
"Tokyo," I said automatically, then realized that might not mean anything, "look, I'm just trying to figure out where I am and where I'm going, you mentioned something about an exam, sounded interesting, that's all."
Hand-Talker looked at Tired Guy, who shrugged, then Hand-Talker launched into this whole explanation about Hunters being elite, having access to restricted areas and information, basically being able to do whatever they wanted with no oversight, the exam to become one had a pass rate of like one in ten thousand.
One in ten thousand, those were terrible odds.
For normal people, anyway.
"So where do I sign up?" I asked.
Both of them stared at me like I'd grown a second head.
"Just like that?" Hand-Talker said.
I shrugged, "got nothing better to do."
That was partially true, mostly I was thinking about the part where Hunters could go anywhere, do anything, no elders or higher-ups controlling everything, that sounded, good, really good, actually.
Tired Guy sighed like he already regretted this, "exam registration is in Zaban City, we're heading there now if you want to tag along, but we're not responsible for you."
"Works for me," I grinned, felt it pull at my face wrong but didn't let it drop, "I'm Satoru, Satoru Gojo."
"Takeshi," Hand-Talker said, finally putting the knife away, "this is Riku, fair warning, it's a three-week walk to Zaban City and the exam doesn't start till we get there, you sure you're up for that?"
Three weeks, three weeks to figure out what the hell was going on with this place, why the Six Eyes kept picking up something that wasn't cursed energy but wasn't nothing either, three weeks to get stronger, make sure I didn't end up with another blade through my throat.
Three weeks to forget what Toji's smile looked like right before he killed me.
"Yeah," I said, "I'm sure."