The first thing Fujima Ren noticed was the smell.
Antiseptic. Sharp enough to sting the back of his throat.
He opened his eyes to a pale ceiling washed in sterile white light. A hospital room. Blue-striped sheets covered him. An IV needle was taped to the back of his hand, clear fluid dripping steadily from a bag above.
…A hospital?
The memory came back in fragments.
A sewer tunnel. Damp concrete. Echoing laughter.
A blue-haired cursed spirit with stitches across its face grinning wide enough to split its skull.
"Idle Transfiguration."
"Composite soul."
That grotesque laughter again—warped, delighted.
Ren's breath hitched.
Huge hands—too large, too wrong—closed around him. Around all of them. Bodies crushed together. Bones splintering. Flesh folding and fusing. Screams overlapped until he couldn't tell whose voice was whose.
He shuddered.
"You're awake?"
The voice was light. Almost cheerful.
Ren turned toward the window—
—and froze.
A blonde girl hovered outside, seated casually on a broom as if gravity were optional. Twin buns perched atop her head. Her black dress fluttered in the open air.
She drifted through the window without ceremony.
Ren stared.
He'd lived in this world for over a decade.
This was the first time he realized it wasn't normal.
Which meant the sewer hadn't been a nightmare.
The stitched-faced curse. The pain. The transformation.
Real.
More memories flooded in.
A street torn apart by a rampaging cursed spirit. Civilians screaming. A woman shielding her child as rubble fell. Ren running. Throwing a punch—
—and seeing his own arm.
Massive. Brown. Veins bulging grotesquely.
The same arm as the monster he'd just sent flying.
Ren jerked upright and glanced at himself now.
Normal.
Human.
He exhaled slowly.
The blonde girl floated closer, blue eyes bright.
"Thanks for saving me," she said with a clear, uncomplicated smile.
Ren frowned faintly—then remembered.
She had been falling. Struck midair by debris. Plummeting. He had moved without thinking.
The last thing he remembered was her terrified expression rushing toward him.
Her hair. Those twin buns. Hard to mistake.
"I'm Nishimiya Momo," she said. "What's your name?"
"Fujima Ren."
He glanced around the room. "Where am I?"
"Hang on."
She pulled out her phone and tapped quickly.
"Utahime-sensei? He's awake. Yeah—the survivor from the incident. The one who… changed."
Changed.
Ren looked at her.
Child? That word had been used.
She looked younger than him.
Footsteps approached. Quick, controlled.
The door opened.
A woman in red-and-white shrine maiden robes stepped in. Black hair, composed expression—though tension lingered beneath it.
"I'm Iori Utahime," she said with a polite nod. "Instructor at Kyoto Jujutsu High. Semi-Grade 1 sorcerer."
Kyoto Jujutsu High.
Sorcerer.
The words meant nothing—and everything.
Utahime didn't waste time.
"We need to know how you survived that curse's technique," she said. "Please. It may help us prevent future casualties."
Curse.
So that was the word.
Ren hesitated.
As she spoke, something surfaced in his mind—not memory, not quite instinct. Understanding.
"My Innate Technique," he said slowly. "It manifested during the attack."
Utahime's gaze sharpened.
"It allows me to interfere with probability. To tilt outcomes—subtly. In my favor."
He swallowed.
"The curse fused multiple souls together. Twisted them. Reshaped the body based on the instability between them."
He could still hear it shouting the term in manic delight.
"Composite soul."
"That's what it called the result. It merged more than a dozen people. The power multiplies. But the rejection between souls causes collapse."
Utahime's expression didn't change—but she understood.
Ren continued, voice steady.
"During the transformation, my technique activated. The odds of retaining my core consciousness were… negligible."
He didn't give a number.
"I survived anyway."
Silence filled the room.
Nishimiya blinked. "That's… insane."
Utahime's eyes remained fixed on him.
"The universe itself exists because of improbable collisions," she said quietly. "Life is statistically absurd."
Her gaze sharpened further.
"And you can manipulate that threshold?"
Ren didn't answer directly.
He pushed himself up from the bed.
His muscles felt heavy. Dense.
He placed his palms against the mattress—
—and the world dropped.
A loud crack split the air as the bed frame shattered beneath him. Ren hit the floor in a mess of splintered metal.
For a second, no one moved.
Ren blinked up at them from ground level.
"…Cheap construction?" he muttered.
He planted his hands against the tile to stand—
CRACK.
The floor fractured outward in spiderweb lines. Ceramic split under his palms as if pressed by hydraulic force.
He lifted his hands slowly.
Two clear handprints were embedded in the floor.
The room went silent.
Nishimiya hovered a little higher.
Utahime's composure slipped, just slightly.
Ren stared at his own fingers.
That strength.
He knew it.
"The curse's power," he said quietly. "I think I retained it."
Utahime didn't interrupt.
"During reconstruction," Ren continued, piecing it together aloud, "the fragments of the other souls collapsed toward a stable center."
His eyes darkened slightly.
"Me."
The theory the stitched-faced curse had preached echoed back.
The soul shapes the body.
Multiple souls create multiplicative strength.
Ren flexed his fingers.
The air felt lighter around him.
"I'm still a composite," he said.
Not boastful.
Just stating a fact.
And somehow—
that was worse.