Chapter 1
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The forest was dark and deep. A young man wearing a strange, old-fashioned kimono slowly opened his eyes. The unfamiliar surroundings left him completely bewildered.
His head throbbed with a dull, confused. The sensation of rough, damp earth beneath his palms was violently, undeniably wrong.
"What... what is this?" His voice was a dry croak. He pushed himself up, his movements clumsy and uncoordinated. His gaze swam in and out of focus.
He patted his own chest and face, confirming he was physically present. This wasn't a dream. The texture of the coarse kimono fabric was too vivid, the chill of the evening air too sharp.
"Where... where am I? What happened to me?" Panic, cold and slick, began to coil in his gut. He wasn't in his room or any city park he knew.
This was a proper, dense forest, the kind from period dramas. Had he been drugged? Kidnapped? He was just Subaru Natsuki, a nobody.
He scrambled to his feet, heart hammering against his ribs, and turned a frantic circle. No sounds of traffic, no city lights.
Only the eerie rustle of leaves and the distant call of an unfamiliar bird echoed around him. "Wasn't I just sleeping? How did I suddenly end up here? This can't be real."
The clothes sealed it. He ran his hands over the fabric again. This wasn't just old-fashioned; it was a specific style. A kimono.
Why would kidnappers go through the trouble? None of it made any logical sense. A deep, primal fear began to edge out the confusion.
If this wasn't a kidnapping, then what was it? His mind, trained on a diet of fiction, whispered terrifying, impossible possibilities.
[DING! CONGRATULATIONS, HOST, ON SUCCESSFUL DIMENSIONAL TRANSMIGRATION. THE TEMPLATE EXTRACTION SYSTEM HAS BEEN ACTIVATED. CONGRATULATIONS, HOST, ON RECEIVING ONE TEMPLATE EXTRACTION OPPORTUNITY. PLEASE CHECK.]
The voice echoed in his skull, so sudden and mechanically clear that Subaru physically flinched. He stumbled back against a tree trunk.
"Who said that?!" He spun around, looking for a speaker, a hidden camera, anything. But there was only the forest.
The voice hadn't come from outside. It had resonated inside his head, as clear as his own thoughts. A system? Words like "dimensional transmigration" and "template extraction"?
"What are you?" Subaru whispered aloud, his voice trembling. "What's happening to me? Is this... some kind of hallucination? Am I dead?"
The silence of the forest offered no answer. But an interface flickered into existence before his eyes, transparent yet undeniable. It hovered in his vision, unaffected when he squeezed his eyes shut.
[HOST, I AM HERE.] It responded to his unspoken question. It was real. This was really happening.
The absurd, storybook scenario was unfolding for him, Subaru Natsuki. The panic didn't recede, but it fused with a staggering sense of surreal recognition.
"System..." he breathed out, the term feeling ridiculous and terrifying. "Are you... real? Did you bring me here?"
[AFFIRMATIVE. HOST HAS BEEN TRANSLOCATED TO A NEW WORLD-STREAM AS PER PROTOCOL.] "A new world..." The confirmation sent a fresh jolt through him.
It was one thing to suspect, another to have it stated as fact. A more fundamental terror took hold. He was irrevocably lost.
"Which one? Where am I now?" [ACCORDING TO SYSTEM SCANS, THE HOST IS CURRENTLY IN THE WORLD OF DEMON SLAYER: KIMETSU NO YAIBA.]
The name landed like a physical blow. Demon Slayer. Subaru's breath hitched. He knew the story, the characters, the danger.
It wasn't just any world. It was a world where people died gruesomely in the dark. The forest around him suddenly felt infinitely more threatening.
Every shadow was a potential hiding place for fangs and claws. His prior life seemed like a paradise lost. He was in a horror story.
"A world with demons... and I'm just... me," he muttered, his fear crystallizing into cold dread. He was powerless. Completely, utterly powerless.
If a demon found him here, alone in the woods at dusk, he was a free meal. Nervously, Subaru scanned the deepening shadows.
His imagination painted monsters behind every tree. Freshly transmigrated, he felt smaller and more vulnerable than ever before.
"Wait..." he said, a desperate thought cutting through the dread. "You said something about an extraction opportunity. A template?"
As if waiting for his cue, the system interface updated in his vision. > HOST: SUBARU NATSUKI. CURRENT WORLD: DEMON SLAYER. EQUIPPED TEMPLATE: NONE. TEMPLATE EXTRACTION CHANCES: 1.
A lifeline. One single chance. In the logic of the stories, this was the pivotal moment. This decided everything.
Would he die as a nobody, or would he get the power to survive? His survival instinct screamed at him. This was it.
"System," he said, his voice firmer, charged with desperate hope. "Use the Template Extraction chance." [DING! TEMPLATE EXTRACTION COMMENCING.]
A large screen, glowing with cool blue light, materialized before his eyes. It was semi-transparent. Countless images and symbols began to flash on it.
Silhouettes of heroes, iconic weapons, glowing sigils flashed in a blinding torrent. They appeared and vanished far too fast for him to track.
Knowing this was random, Subaru felt his stomach clench. He had never been particularly lucky. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.
"Okay, okay, just this once!" he pleaded aloud, hands clenched. "Luck, don't fail me now! I don't want to become a demon's snack!"
He stared intently at the flashing screen. "Give me something good. Anything that lets me survive. Please!"
The frantic flash of images began to slow. The cascade decelerated from a raging river to a swift stream. His heart pounded in his ears.
The stream slowed to a crawl. Images lingered: a man in a yellow tracksuit, a boy with spiky hair, a pirate with a straw hat. Each flickered past.
Then, it stopped. The screen cleared, displaying a single, full-color image. A man leaned casually against a wall.
He had stark white hair in unruly spikes. A black fabric blindfold was wrapped around his eyes. He seemed to look directly at Subaru with a faint, knowing smirk.
He radiated an aura of effortless, absolute superiority. [DING! CONGRATULATIONS, HOST, ON OBTAINING THE SATORU GOJO TEMPLATE.]
For a moment, Subaru just stared. His brain struggled to process the name and face. Then, it hit him.
A wave of pure euphoria smashed through his fear. "Satoru Gojo." He said the name aloud, testing its reality. A hysterical laugh bubbled up.
That Satoru Gojo. The absolute strongest sorcerer of the modern era. The man with the Six Eyes and Limitless. The power that could halt infinity itself.
The ceiling. He had drawn the absolute ceiling. "I'm set," he whispered, then louder, a grin splitting his face. "I'm really, truly set now!"
"With the Satoru Gojo template, I have nothing to fear! In this Demon Slayer world, I can walk wherever I please!" His terror was momentarily forgotten.
Visions of invincibility replaced it. "Even if Muzan Kibutsuji himself comes, he'll have to figure out how to touch me first!"
[TEMPLATE INTEGRATION INITIATED. STAND BY.] Before Subaru could revel further, a new sensation bloomed within him. It wasn't painful, but profoundly strange.
It felt like cold, clear water was poured directly into his mind. It washed away the fog and sharpened everything to a razor's edge.
Knowledge that wasn't his own settled into his consciousness. Instincts, principles, a fundamental understanding of Cursed Energy took root.
At the same time, his perception of the world shattered and reformed. The forest around him didn't just become clear; it became transparent.
He could see individual veins on a leaf ten meters away. He could count dewdrops on a distant spiderweb. He perceived subtle air currents and shifting earth.
Most unnervingly, he saw it all in a perfect 360-degree sphere. The tree behind him, a root to his left—all presented with flawless, simultaneous clarity.
There were no blind spots. "Is this..." Subaru breathed, turning his head slowly. "The perspective of the Six Eyes... 360-degree super-vision. This is insane."
He willed the system panel back. > HOST: SUBARU NATSUKI.
CURRENT WORLD: DEMON SLAYER. EQUIPPED TEMPLATE: SATORU GOJO [INTEGRATION: 1/100].
TEMPLATE EXTRACTION CHANCES: 0.
The euphoria dampened slightly. 1/100. He hadn't gotten the full package. It made sense—such power couldn't be handed over instantly.
But 1% of Satoru Gojo had to be better than 100% of ordinary Subaru. "Let's see what 1% can do," he muttered, focusing inward.
He could feel it now: a new energy coursing through him, cool and potent. Cursed Energy. Etched into his being was the blueprint of Limitless.
He understood its principles—the manipulation of space through infinite series. Hesitantly, he willed the simplest application to activate.
The change was subtle but immediate. The sensation under his feet vanished. He looked down. He was standing on the air.
An infinitesimal, infinite gap existed between his soles and the forest floor. A pebble was suspended, trapped in that same impossible space, unmoving.
"This is Infinity," he said, a grin spreading. "Automatic, neutral infinity. Nothing touches me unless I allow it."
Emboldened, he tried to reach for more. He focused, visualizing the negative space, the attractive force of Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue.
He strained, pouring his will and nascent Cursed Energy into the concept. But nothing happened. No crushing vortex, no pull of gravity.
He tried again, thinking of the reversal, the repulsive force of Red. Again, nothing. "It seems at 1% integration, I can only use basic, passive Infinity," he concluded.
He wasn't terribly disappointed. It was a defense that made him virtually untouchable here. What demon could bypass an infinite space?
He deactivated the technique. With a slight stumble, his feet made solid contact with the earth again. The pebble clattered down.
He felt a slight, negligible drain on his stamina. A fainter dip in his reservoir of Cursed Energy occurred. Thanks to the efficiency of the Six Eyes, the cost was minimal.
A new question arose. This was Jujutsu Kaisen power. Cursed Energy came from negative emotions and curses. This world had demons and Breath.
Where was his Cursed Energy coming from? "System," he asked. "When I used Infinity, I was using Cursed Energy, right?"
"How do I have it? How does it regenerate here?" [DING! AFFIRMATIVE. THE HOST UTILIZED THE TEMPLATE'S NATIVE ENERGY SYSTEM.]
[UPON TEMPLATE INTEGRATION, THE HOST'S BODY WAS RECONFIGURED TO GENERATE 'SPECIALIZED ENERGY' EQUIVALENT TO THE TEMPLATE'S POWER SOURCE.]
[THIS ENERGY POOL CAN FUEL ANY ABILITY THE TEMPLATE POSSESSED. REGENERATION OCCURS NATURALLY OVER TIME, ENHANCED BY THE SIX EYES' EFFICIENCY.]
Subaru nodded slowly. So his body itself was now a factory for Gojo's power. He didn't need external curses. He was the source.
He looked around the darkening forest with new eyes—literally. The crushing fear was gone. In its place was a wary caution.
It was underpinned by a solid foundation of confidence. He was Subaru Natsuki, armed with 1% of the strongest. He was no longer prey.
A cold, logical part of his mind, sharpened by the Six Eyes, began to assess. He was in a kimono in the woods.
He needed shelter, water, and information. He needed to find civilization and figure out when in the Demon Slayer timeline he was.
He took a final look at his system screen, at the [INTEGRATION: 1/100] tag. This was just the beginning. He had a long way to go.
But for now, it was enough. "Alright," Subaru Natsuki said to the empty forest, his voice steady for the first time. "Let's see what this world has to offer."
With the Six Eyes piercing the gloom, and Infinity a silent shield around him, he chose a direction. He started walking, leaving the clearing behind.
The adventure, for better or worse, had truly begun.
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