The weather outside was radiant. Asou Akiya chose to stand at the entrance of the welfare institution and bask in the sun.
His features were refined and delicate, his brows and eyes gentle. The aura of aloof isolation had melted away, replaced by an optimistic warmth that invited goodwill from others. Even as a slender boy not yet grown, one could already foresee the sort of young man who would one day draw the admiring gazes of the opposite sex like moths to a flame.
This was not entirely a mask.
It was merely the most advantageous posture for survival: a deliberate choice not to summon curses through malice.
Ever since learning that this was the world of jujutsu sorcery, he had resolved, from the very marrow of his bones, to become a bright, positive child. He would provoke as little resentment as possible, keep far from conflict, and strive to be nothing more than a harmless, unobtrusive puff of warm air within the walls of the welfare institution.
There was no other way.
Cursed spirits were drawn to those who overflowed with negative emotion.
Cursed spirits were generally divided into five grades.
The weakest were the flyheads; then came fourth-grade, third-grade, second-grade, first-grade, and finally special-grade cursed spirits.
Take the ubiquitous flyheads as an example. Their threat was minimal; they could rarely kill outright. At most, prolonged exposure might cause discomfort or illness in the human body. Even an ordinary person armed with a professionally imbued cursed tool could dispatch them with ease.
Leaning against the wall, Asou Akiya recalled the grotesque forms of cursed spirits from the original anime while quietly observing the passing cars and pedestrians. Yokohama was densely populated; low-level spirits like flyheads undoubtedly infested the city.
He carefully replayed the scene of the day the entire Asou family had died, trying to recapture the near-death haze in which the original owner had glimpsed a cursed spirit.
If his guess was correct, he might yet awaken the talent of a sorcerer.
"Seeing" was the most fundamental requirement.
Though most ordinary people would never once behold a cursed spirit in their lifetimes, the heavens had still granted them six possible opportunities:
Under normal circumstances:
1. The brink of death.
2. Exposure to an area of extraordinarily high cursed-energy concentration.
3. Standing within the interior zone of a sorcerer's barrier, known as an "account."
Under exceptional circumstances:
1. Acquiring the rare glasses-type cursed tool that almost never circulated outside the jujutsu world.
2. Becoming the vessel for a curse's incarnation.
3. Having one's brain structure altered by the special-grade cursed spirit known as the Real Person's technique, "Idle Transfiguration."
One had to be careful, of course; each of these six paths could just as easily become six spectacular ways to die.
Having arrived in this jujutsu world whose plot he knew by heart, and having survived the most perilous opening phase, the next step was to decide his path forward: would he live among ordinary people, or would he step into the world of sorcerers?
If he chose the ordinary route, the year was 2004; he was effectively a regressor who had returned from 2024.
Twenty whole years of foreknowledge.
The advantages were immense, the path to wealth almost guaranteed. Once his ventures succeeded, he could simply hire sorcerers as bodyguards.
For instance, the future first-grade sorcerers Nanami Kento and Mei Mei, both of whom would one day be short on cash.
If he chose the sorcerer route, there remained one year until Gojo Satoru, Geto Suguru, and Ieiri Shoko entered their first year at Jujutsu High; two years until the events of Jujutsu Kaisen: Hidden Inventory / Premature Death.
The early stages carried manageable risk; the later stages were a lottery of death. To survive all three years alongside that particular cohort would already count as miraculous fortune.
The reason the mortality rate soared so high was painfully simple: your classmate would be Gojo Satoru.
Gojo Satoru, possessor of the once-in-five-centuries "Six Eyes" and the "Limitless" technique; the genius sorcerer of his generation; the most celebrated heavenly prodigy in the jujutsu world; the young master of the Gojo Clan, one of the ancient and exalted Three Great Families that had endured for a thousand years. It was common knowledge that, barring an untimely death, he was fated to become the strongest sorcerer of the modern era.
Behind that towering cascade of glorious titles lurked danger that swirled around him like a maelstrom.
From the moment he drew his first breath, a bounty exceeding one hundred million had been posted for him on the dark web.
Before he had even come of age, he was already regarded by those millennium-old schemers as a mortal threat to their hearts.
Countless plots, assassinations, and shadowy maneuvers had been woven around Gojo Satoru. Until the day he fully became "the strongest," every weakness he possessed would be magnified and scrutinized. The upper echelons of the jujutsu world had never stopped searching for a leash.
Clearly, to stand beside Gojo Satoru as a classmate without strength was nothing less than courting death.
Asou Akiya weighed profit against peril, interrogating his own soul again and again, simulating question and answer like a man arguing with his reflection.
[Will I enter the jujutsu world?]
[Yes!]
[Why choose to become a sorcerer?]
[Because I want to see a world that is different, scenery that is different. I want to stand close enough to touch the sorcerers with my own hands. I would rather die knowingly, clearly, on a battlefield I myself foresaw, than be dragged one random day into an invisible disaster and vanish without a sound.]
[Which method of "seeing" cursed spirits is best?]
[All of them. Try them in ascending order of danger until one succeeds.]
[Do I possess an innate technique?]
[Probably not. I cannot gamble on that. Sorcerous talent reveals itself before the age of ten. This body definitely has none. The only possibility lies in techniques acquired later: Reverse Cursed Technique, for instance. Or, more than a decade from now, when Mahito is born, I could study his psyche, replicate Yoshino Junpei's tragic path, and extract an innate technique from Mahito himself… then enroll in Jujutsu High and gain protection.]
[Am I willing to endure years of feigned bullying, to suffer in silence until that day arrives?]
[I am not.]
[Can I escape Mahito's murderous rage afterward?]
[I cannot.]
[Can I guarantee that, face-to-face with Mahito, my transmigrator's soul won't be detected as abnormal?]
[No certainty at all.]
[Excellent. That route is effectively sealed.]
Asou Akiya curled his fingers and tapped his forehead, decisively discarding the solitary quest to confront Mahito.
Immediately afterward, an almost greedy excitement surged up as he constructed a far more beautiful premise:
[I was born in 1990, the same year as Geto Suguru and Nanami Kento. Suppose: just suppose within the next year I manage to "see" curses. Do I enroll next year and become Geto Suguru's classmate, or the year after and become Nanami Kento's?]
[The latter is safer. Avoid the Star Plasma Vessel escort mission, then retire from the jujutsu world unscathed.]
[Shameless, but brutally effective. The higher-ups would never fix their eyes on me. I could be the junior who needs looking after by Gojo Satoru, Geto Suguru, and Ieiri Shoko, while simultaneously being the classmate that Nanami Kento and Haibara Yu feel compelled to protect. I would live inside the plot, taste it fully, and forge real friendships with every character I love.]
[But—!]
[But—!!!]
Asou Akiya froze, stunned by the roar of refusal rising from the depths of his chest. Emotion crashed over him like a wave. His heart pounded wildly; scalding blood flooded his pale cheeks.
This body thrummed with vitality, with life: a youth miraculously granted to him a second time.
[A young man's youth must not be squandered.]
The sentence rang like a thunderclap inside his skull.
He could no longer remember what he had been doing the last time he was fifteen.
[This is the only youth I get to live again. The only youth I am ever allowed to step into.]
[That is the youth Gojo Satoru himself cherishes!]
More precious than money, more precious than power, more precious than any reborn soul's frantic scramble for wealth and glory!
A cursed spirit once said that, under certain conditions, one minute spent standing still beside Gojo Satoru was worth more than the entire lifetimes of thousands of ordinary humans.
Then what, pray tell, was the value of Gojo Satoru's three years of youth?
An inestimable treasure!
Asou Akiya's reason crumbled like dry earth before the words "inestimable treasure." A man who owned nothing suddenly discovered the greatest hoard in existence lying almost within arm's reach.
And he could find not a single argument to refute the hunger clawing at his heart.
The hunter had yet to choose his prey; he stood empty-handed, not even a snare prepared, and already the most radiant treasure in the world lay exposed before him, its lid flung wide, no lock upon it. The contents inside were snow-white, soft, curled gently as though breathing in faint, living slumber.
So close!
How could it possibly be this close!
Why did it not know to guard itself?!
That treasure blazed with light, immaculate, waiting for him one short year from now.
Slap.
Expression blank as winter stone, Asou Akiya struck himself across the face, forcibly shattering the vision of the future. If he ever dared voice the thoughts that had just surged through him, the entire jujutsu world would roar with laughter. Those ancient tangerines perched atop their thrones of power would point at his nose and mock his delusional arrogance.
A weakling who could not even see cursed spirits, daring to covet the man who stood at the apex of the jujutsu world.
Utterly laughable.
The pretty lie that "all men are equal" held no water in the world of Jujutsu Kaisen.
No matter how many times one repeated the righteous creed that sorcerers existed to protect the common folk, it rang hollow. The possession of cursed energy meant infinite possibility. Compare the jujutsu world to a cultivation realm and the Three Great Families to golden-core clans, and the truth became stark: cursed energy was the spiritual root. Those without it were mere mortals. Do not think the analogy excessive. The potential of cursed energy was vast beyond measure; when a world contained bosses who could live forever, the sheer weight of time shattered every preconception of power.
Now, Asou Akiya had finally clarified his position: an ordinary person, moderately clever, with the faintest sliver of a chance to metamorphose into a sorcerer. His greatest assets were his intimate knowledge of Jujutsu Kaisen's plot and twenty years of future history.
How, then, to climb the social ladder in the shortest possible time and seize the reins of his own fate?
First: become a sorcerer.
[Life Plan, Step One: "See" cursed spirits.]
So he decided.
All things are hardest at the start. If he could not manage this first step, he would obediently live out an ordinary youth, earn his financial freedom, adopt orphaned sorcerer children in the future, and approach the jujutsu world as their foster father.
But if the first step succeeded,
Asou Akiya's gaze darkened. A thread of madness crept between his clenched teeth.
In his previous life he had feared this, feared that, suppressed the heart that refused to accept mediocrity, and played the yes-man before parents, elders, teachers, bosses. Was he truly going to cower again in this life?
If he was going to set a goal, let it be the highest possible, let it tower into the heavens, let him chase it with everything he had!
Was not the ultimate aspiration of everyone in this world Gojo Satoru himself?
Gojo Satoru's three years of youth were the pivotal turning point of the entire jujutsu world. The divine child was about to descend among mortals, to taste joy and sorrow alike. And whoever managed to occupy even a single corner of that divine youth would leave their mark upon the god himself.
[Shall I… just… try?]
To gamble on the very thing the higher-ups of the jujutsu world had failed to achieve, the thing that made even Geto Suguru feel inferior, the thing that would blow the roof off the Gojo estate if they ever imagined it possible, something a transmigrator armed with the full script and desperate ingenuity might, just might, pull off.
The stake was nothing more than his own life.