Judas, juda-ah-ah! Judas, Juda-ah-ah!
With a catchy song looping on a frantic mental playback, Yoichi officially lost it.
His eyes were on the Akashic Records, his initial concern replaced by a manic, beaming grin.
"I love you! You beautiful book!"
He began kissing the leather binding with exaggerated fervor, holding it up like a trophy for the gods to see. Akio retreated a step, her expression shifting from shy to deeply concerned.
"Are you okay?" she murmured, watching the child treat the book like a holy relic.
"You're acting... a bit odd."
"I'm very sorry, Fushiguro-san!" Yoichi blurted out, dropping into a polite bow.
"Please, excuse my earlier misconduct!"
This is the mother of the potential man himself and the main reason why Toji had avoided child support.
But she's supposed to be gone.
So why is she here?
"Oh, no worries! Please, stand up," Akio said, offering a shy, waving gesture.
Her smile was warm enough to melt the last of Yoichi's manic energy.
"I wasn't offended," she added softly.
"If anything, you gave me quite a start! It's nice to have some company in a place as still as this."
Hearing her easy forgiveness, Yoichi let out a heavy sigh of relief, his shoulders finally losing their tension. But as the adrenaline faded, a different kind of anxiety took its place: he was a fraud.
In his past life, he hadn't even finished the Culling Games, let alone the final arc.
Yoichi was what the community called a "fake fan"—someone whose knowledge was a messy patchwork of YouTube Shorts and frantic social media spoilers.
He knew Gojo had fallen and that Sukuna had turned the series into "JuJumptsu Kaisen," but the actual details?
They were a blur of "nonsense" theories.
Staring at Akio, his mind spinning with half-remembered debates about Mahoraga and the Inverted Spear of Heaven, feeling as though he had been struck by a "Reading Comprehension Curse" in his previous life and left him with a mountain of spoilers but zero context for the world he now stood in.
Pushing his curiosity deep down, Yoichi decided to play it cool as the scorching pain earlier was gone, this clusterfuck of events made him calm a little. He had to stay sane.
"Akio-san," Yoichi asked, looking around the wide forestry. "Where are we, exactly?"
"To be honest... I don't know," Akio admitted, her voice barely a whisper. "I've been traveling through this place for what feels like a long time, but it never ends. I haven't seen a single soul until I ran into you."
So she doesn't know it either...
The silence broke with an archaic hum.
The Akashic Records came alive, its pages performing a frantic schliff as they turned toward a specific chapter.
Another anomaly? Yoichi watched as the book tore itself from his hands and floated into the distance like a compass needle.
Right. You're the boss.
"It's... floating," Akio commented, her eyes wide with simple wonder. "How pretty."
"It's a guide," Yoichi corrected, his "adult" brain already calculating the risks of following a sentient book.
He started running.
"Come on, Akio-san! We can't lose it!"
Yoichi struggled to keep up, his white pajamas clinging to his sweaty skin.
The excitement had worn off, leaving him huffing and exhausted.
Can you wait for a bit?!
They reached a clearing dominated by a strange, industrial-looking facility. But the building wasn't the main attraction. A lone figure stood in the distance, watching them.
"Look! A person!" Yoichi cried out, though his voice died in his throat as they got closer.
He blinked, rubbing his eyes until they smarted. It wasn't possible.
The man standing there looked like a statue carved from muscle and malice.
Beside him, Akio let out a choked sob, her eyes reddening with instant recognition.
Toji Fushiguro.
The name thundered in Yoichi's head.
The man who had walked away from the Zenin clan and changed the course of history was standing right in front of him.
So this is the aftermath of the Apple logo treatment...
It was 2007. Toji had been dead for a year—killed by a teenager who "watched an ad" to unlock an RCT respawn. Gojo Satoru had cheated death, and Toji had paid the price.
But the mood didn't care about the canon timeline. Toji Fushiguro was standing there, radiating the same pressure that had nearly ended the Jujutsu world's golden boy.
Akio broke. She ran toward the silhouette with a desperate, lunging speed, her cry echoing across the empty field.
Toji remained rigid, a dark shadow against the white facility, his eyes unreadable as he looked down at the wife who had died years before his own end.
"Please don't be a dream," she whispered, her body trembling with a sob. "Please don't let me wake up."
How? was the only word in Yoichi's head.
He knew Toji's story—the abandonment, the misery, the desperate need for recognition that turned into a life of cold-blooded mercenary.
Toji stood there, looking at Akio as if she were a ghost he was afraid to touch.
"I'm a killer," he rasped, his voice heavy with the weight of a decade of sins. "I spent my life hating the world for not seeing me. I was on a path that only led to a grave."
He touched her cheek, his thumb catching a tear. "But you... You were always the light. No matter how deep I sank, you were the only thing that made sense. I don't believe in the heavens, but standing here with you... I don't know what else to call this."
And they said Shakespeare dead...
Yoichi rolled his eyes at Toji's surprisingly poetic outburst.
But the joke died as a massive realization took hold. His eyes sharpened, scanning the environment, the box, and the couple.
First Mamaguro, now Toji.
The pattern was undeniable.
As soon as they die, they come here.
The boredom he'd feared for his second life evaporated. He looked at his small, five-year-old hands, then back at Toji.
He didn't know who officially held the deed to this place, but he was highly inclined to believe this was his world.
If that "stupid god" had dropped him here, there had to be more to his kit than just being a landlord for dead sorcerers.
Standing in the grass with eyes closed, he began to contemplate the torturous feeling earlier on.
He felt safe enough to reflect.
After all, Toji Fushiguro was standing right there—who would be suicidal enough to interrupt the Sorcerer Killer's family time?
A moment of peace led Yoichi to reflect deeper, sparking an agitated search for answers until the thoughts raced toward a single, world-altering conclusion.
Is it a Cursed Technique?!
Adrenaline flooded his mind at the mere possibility.
A CT represented the ultimate power-up in this cursed reality, a ticket to the big leagues.
Every nerve ending seemed to tingle with newfound potential as the prospects of a unique technique took hold.
However, a heavy silence followed as the mental searching continued. No spark of Cursed Energy answered the call. No innate CT etched itself into the mind.
The realization struck like a truck.
So it's not a Cursed Technique? Then... what is this?! Did that god truly just torture me or what?!
A frown emerged from his face, duking out his frustrations over. Rules dictated that techniques be manifested by the age of five or above.
A threshold which he already crossed.
The void where power should have been remained hollow and mocking. This wasn't the path of a sorcerer.
The logic was there, but his five-year-old brain was currently fried.
Ah, forget it! I'll play the detective later...
The sun was blocked out by a massive, looming shadow. Yoichi opened one eye to see a pair of sharp eyes bearing down at him. Toji had detached himself from Akio, his posture relaxed but his presence still screaming danger.
"You're a weird one, brat," Toji replied with his hands in his pockets.
"I've seen sorcerers play with their energy before, but yours... It's like a liquid under high pressure. It's sloppy, but it's dense. Uncomfortably dense..."
He tilted his head, a faint, dangerous smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"More importantly—how the hell did a kid in pajamas beat me to this place? You don't look dead enough to be here."
Yoichi scrambled to his feet, but instead of answering the question, he went on the offensive. He walked straight up to the Sorcerer Killer and began pinching his sides and arms with a thoughtful expression.
Squish... Poke... Squeeze...
"Hmm, impressive density," Yoichi commented, looking like a tiny, pajama-clad doctor. "Are you sure you're dead? The marbling on these muscles is top-tier."
Toji's eye twitched. He stood perfectly still, his brain struggling to process why a toddler was currently auditing his physique.
For the first time in his life, the man who broke fate was completely speechless.
"You've got a lot of nerve," Toji finally rasped, looking down at the kid.
"Are you trying to see if I'm edible, or do you just have a death wish?"