Sebas was falling. Through a void that smelled like burnt toast and existential regret.
He'd been alive for roughly forty-five seconds in his new super duper strong existence, and he'd already spent forty of those seconds screaming. The other five were spent thinking about whether Gregory the parrot missed him.
Gregory did in fact not miss him.
Then the void spat him out like garbage and Sebas found himself plummeting through solid concrete.
Not INTO concrete. THROUGH it.
Through a ceiling. Then another ceiling. Then another. Each floor of whatever building he was falling through offered him a brief glimpse of confused civilians before he smashed through the next one like a human cannonball with no plan and one shoe.
Floor 1 — office. A man holding coffee watched Sebas fall past him. The coffee was no longer in the mug. It was on the man.
Floor B1 — some kind of commercial area. A woman screamed. Sebas screamed back. He just felt it was polite to match the energy.
Floor B2 — pipes.
Floor B3 — more pipes.
Floor B4 — darkness and a bad vibe.
Floor B5 — Fukutoshin Line Platform, Shibuya Station.
Sebas hit the train tracks like a meteor wearing one shoe. The ground CRACKED. Dust exploded outward. A shockwave rattled the platform. Somewhere, a vending machine fell over.
He lay in the crater for a moment, face down, arms spread, vibing.
"...Ow," he said, even though nothing hurt. It was a spiritual ow.
He lifted his head.
And walked directly into the single most intense moment in jujutsu history.
Here is what Sebas did not know:
He did not know that ten minutes ago, Gojo Satoru — the strongest sorcerer alive, the man whose eyes could see the fabric of cursed energy itself, the walking natural disaster with white hair and a personality that made everyone simultaneously want to punch him and protect him — had fought four special grade cursed spirits at once. And won.
He did not know that Gojo had exorcised Hanami by crushing the tree spirit into the wall like someone squishing a bug on a window.
He did not know that Gojo had activated his Domain Expansion for 0.2 seconds — ZERO POINT TWO SECONDS — and incapacitated every single person and curse on the platform.
He did not know that Gojo had then spent the next 299 seconds — roughly five minutes — systematically killing every single transfigured human in the station while the cursed spirits lay stunned. Over a thousand of them. Alone. While exhausted. Like a man doing the dishes after cooking a seven-course meal for people who didn't even say thank you.
He did not know that after all of that — after the fighting, the domain, the five minutes of non-stop murder — Gojo had finally stopped. Breathing hard. Guard slightly down. For the first time in the entire night, the strongest sorcerer was tired.
He did not know that THIS was the exact moment Kenjaku had been waiting for.
A small cube had appeared behind Gojo. The Prison Realm. A fleshy, horrible thing with a massive bleeding eye that opened and locked onto Gojo like a cursed security camera.
And then — from the shadows of the platform — a familiar figure had stepped forward.
Geto Suguru. Or rather, the body of Geto Suguru, being worn by the ancient curse user Kenjaku like a second-hand jacket. Stitched forehead. That smile. That horrible, knowing, thousand-year-old smile.
Gojo had frozen. Not because of a technique. Not because of a binding vow. Because standing in front of him was his best friend. The man he had watched die. The man HE had killed. And for one moment — one single, devastating moment — Gojo's brain stopped being the brain of the strongest sorcerer alive and started being the brain of a man who missed his friend.
One minute passed inside his head. Memories of high school. Of laughter. Of a bond that had broken the world.
The Prison Realm took hold. The fleshy mass surged forward and latched onto Gojo, wrapping around his body, dragging him downward. His cursed energy — gone. His techniques — sealed. The strongest sorcerer in the world, trapped by a cube and a memory.
Kenjaku smiled.
Jogo watched, satisfied.
Mahito giggled like the freak he was.
Choso stood silently, blood-related issues on his mind as always.
The seal was nearly complete. Gojo's body was being pulled in. The most devastating moment in the history of jujutsu sorcery was happening right now, right here, on this platform—
And then some guy with one shoe climbed out of a crater in the train tracks and said:
"Yo, gang. Where am I at?"
Silence.
Not the normal kind. The kind of silence where the UNIVERSE pauses to make sure it heard correctly.
Sebas stood at the edge of the platform, dust in his hair, one shoe on, one shoe in another dimension, shirt torn, looking around the underground station like a tourist who got off at the wrong stop.
He looked left. Broken pillars. Unconscious civilians. Rubble. Fire damage.
He looked right. More rubble. A dented vending machine. What appeared to be scorch marks on literally everything.
He looked forward.
A very tall, very pretty man with white hair was currently being EATEN by some kind of fleshy cube monster. The man's eyes — impossibly blue, even behind the tattered remains of a blindfold — were wide. With confusion. Because even in the process of being sealed inside a cursed pocket dimension, Gojo Satoru's brain had enough bandwidth to think: "Who the FUCK is that?"
Next to the cube stood a man with long black hair and stitches across his forehead, smiling like someone who had just completed a thousand-year plan and was very pleased with himself. Behind him, a short angry volcano with legs. A blue-grey patchwork dude who looked like he'd been assembled by a toddler with clay. And a goth-looking guy with blood under his eyes who seemed like he was going through something personal.
Sebas processed none of this.
"Yo," he said again, waving with one hand. "Is this Shibuya? I was trying to get to a Tesco."
Nobody responded.
Kenjaku's smile flickered. In a thousand years of planning, across hundreds of bodies, through wars and betrayals and schemes that spanned centuries — not ONCE had he factored in "random shoeless man falls through ceiling and asking for directions to a Tesco."
"Who..." Kenjaku started, his voice still carrying that silky, ancient confidence, but with a new undertone of "what is happening," "...are you?"
Sebas opened his mouth to answer.
Took one step forward.
And ATE it.
His one remaining shoe — the left one, the cursed survivor of the ROB incident — found a patch of blood on the platform floor (thanks, Choso) and decided that grip was for quitters.
Sebas's foot went forward. His body went backward. His arms windmilled. He made a noise — a horrible, undignified noise, somewhere between a goose and a man falling down stairs — and SLAMMED onto his back so hard the platform cracked a second time.
Right in front of Gojo.
Right in front of Kenjaku.
Right in front of every cursed spirit on the platform.
During the sealing of the strongest sorcerer in the world.
He just lay there. On his back. Staring up at the ceiling he'd fallen through. Five neat holes, one per floor, leading all the way up to the night sky.
"...I meant to do that," Sebas whispered.
Gojo — GOJO SATORU — half-sealed inside the Prison Realm, body being consumed by a cursed flesh cube, in the middle of arguably the worst moment of his entire life — looked down at Sebas.
And snorted.
The kind of snort you make when something is so stupid your body bypasses your brain entirely and just REACTS.
"Pfft—"
Kenjaku's eye twitched.
"Did you just LAUGH?" Kenjaku said, his ancient composure cracking for the first time in roughly four centuries.
"No," Gojo lied, still being sealed. "Something was in my throat."
Jogo had seen enough.
He didn't know who this human was. He didn't care. They were in the middle of the most important operation in cursed spirit history — the sealing of Gojo Satoru, the one obstacle between cursed spirits and true dominance over humanity — and some RANDOM MONKEY had fallen through the ceiling, asked for a Tesco, slipped on blood, and made the strongest sorcerer LAUGH during his own sealing.
This was going beyond disrespect.
"I'll handle this," Jogo said, stepping forward, his volcanic head flickering with barely contained fury. "This insect—"
"Ooh, a talking candle," Sebas said from the floor, not getting up. "Wicked."
"—will be REDUCED TO ASH."
Jogo raised his hand. Cursed flames erupted — concentrated, furious, the kind of fire that melts steel and turns bone to memory. He didn't hold back. He didn't need to. This was a regular human. This would take less than a second. This was beneath him but he was going to enjoy it anyway because this "human" had just called him a talking candle.
He fired.
Direct hit. The explosion ripped through the platform and sent debris flying in every direction. Dust and smoke billowed outward like a volcanic eruption — fitting. The heat warped the air for fifty metres in every direction. Mahito shielded his face. Choso didn't bother. Kenjaku watched with mild disinterest.
Any normal human would've been vaporised. Not just dead. GONE. Erased. Not enough left to fill an urn.
The smoke cleared.
Sebas was still on the floor. Same position. On his back. Arms behind his head now, like he was stargazing.
His shirt was slightly warm.
"Huh," Sebas said, patting his chest. "Toasty."
Jogo's single eye went so wide it looked like it was trying to leave his face.
"WHAT—"
Sebas sat up. Stretched. Yawned. He looked at Jogo. Really looked at him. Tilted his head left. Then right. Squinted.
"Yo..." Sebas said slowly, standing up and circling Jogo like a man examining a really ugly ornament at a car boot sale. "Why is there a weird-looking goofy dwarf here?"
The words landed like a Domain Expansion to Jogo's ego.
His flames sputtered. His fists clenched. His single eye twitched so hard it looked like it was buffering.
Even Mahito — MAHITO, the most annoying creature in existence — went "oh damn" under his breath.
"I am JOGO," the cursed spirit seethed, heat rising off him in visible waves. "A special grade cursed sp—"
"Nah because hold on," Sebas interrupted, leaning in uncomfortably close to Jogo's face. "What ARE you though? Genuinely. Like... are you a candle? A angry little volcano from one of them kids' science projects? The baking soda and vinegar ones? Because you've got that energy. That energy of a paper mache mountain in a primary school that didn't win the fair."
"I WILL BURN YOU TO—"
"You look like if someone microwaved a garden gnome and it came out mad about it."
"I—"
"You look like a Yankee Candle that gained sentience and chose violence."
"STOP—"
"You look like if Mount Vesuvius was five foot two and had anger management issues."
Jogo SCREAMED. Just a raw, primal, volcanic SCREAM of a being who had existed for centuries and had never — NEVER — been this disrespected by someone.
Kenjaku, for the first time in a thousand years, did not know what to do.
Gojo, still being sealed, was shaking. From trying not to laugh.
And then — mid-thought, mid-chaos, mid-everything — Sebas tilted his head and said:
"You know what would be kinda funny—"
The world stopped.
Everything. All of it. Frozen. Like someone had pressed pause on the universe's remote and gone to make a cup of tea.
Jogo's flames — frozen mid-flicker. Kenjaku's unsettled expression — locked in place. Mahito's stupid grin — paused. Choso's brooding — on hold. Gojo, mid-seal, caught between dimensions — completely still. The Prison Realm's fleshy mass — motionless. A piece of rubble that had been falling just hung there in the air like it forgot what gravity was.
Sebas stood in the middle of all of it, hands on his hips, one shoe on, thinking.
"Right," he said aloud, to nobody, because everyone was frozen. "So this angry little garden gnome volcano fella wants to fight. And I COULD just flick him into the sun. Easy. Boring. I didn't get every power in existence to be BORING."
He paced around Jogo's frozen form. Leaned in close. Flicked his frozen volcanic head. It made a little ting sound.
"What if..." Sebas said, grinning the grin of a man who was about to do something profoundly unnecessary, "...I give this guy a REAL fight?"
He paused.
"Hmm something"
"From Minecraft."
He paused again.
"First thing that came to mind. We're going with it. WWMD."
He snapped his fingers. Reality cracked around his hands like glass.
"I'm gonna make a zombie."
Beat.
"Not just ANY zombie. THE zombie. The zombie that God himself would look at and say 'that's a bit much, innit.' The zombie equivalent of bringing a nuclear warhead to a pillow fight."
He reached into the fabric of reality — casually, like reaching into the pocket of a jacket he hadn't worn in a while — and pulled.
A Minecraft zombie materialised in the middle of Shibuya Station's Fukutoshin Line Platform.
Six feet tall. Green skin. Dead eyes. That classic, haunting, beautiful groan:
"Uuuuuuuhhh."
It stood there. Arms outstretched. One braincell bouncing around inside its blocky skull like a DVD screensaver that never hits the corner.
"Beautiful," Sebas said, wiping a fake tear. "But NAKED. And I don't send my boys out naked."
He waved his hand.
Full Netherite armour appeared piece by piece. Helmet — dark as a black hole's browser history. Chestplate — forged in the literal depths of hell. Leggings — dripping with "I am not here to negotiate" energy. Boots — for stomping and nothing else.
All enchanted gear.
The zombie looked like the final boss of a game that hadn't been invented yet.
"Better. But we're not done. Not even CLOSE. Because I want this man—" he pointed at frozen Jogo "—to suffer. Not physically. EMOTIONALLY. I want him to fight something he literally cannot kill and I want him to slowly realise that fact over the course of several hours."
Sebas reached into reality again and pulled out ten rings. Not any rings. Dark Souls rings. The most absurdly defensive jewellery stack in gaming history.
He began putting them on the zombie's fingers like a man proposing to chaos itself.
"Ring of Steel Protection." Click. "Physical damage absorption. For when volcano boy punches you and hurts his own fist."
"Magic Stoneplate Ring." Click. "Magic absorption. Just in case."
"Flame Stoneplate Ring." Click. He looked directly at frozen Jogo. "This one's for YOU, science fair volcano. This one is PERSONAL. I want you to hit this zombie with your best fire attack and I want the zombie to yawn."
"Thunder Stoneplate Ring." Click. "Lightning absorption. Nobody here uses lightning but I believe in being prepared."
"Dark Stoneplate Ring." Click. "Dark absorption. Because overkill is underrated."
"Speckled Stoneplate Ring." Click. "This one boosts magic, fire, lightning, AND dark absorption. Belt AND suspenders AND a third belt, baby."
"Spell Quartz Ring." Click. "Even MORE magic absorption. At this point I'm just being rude."
"Flame Quartz Ring." Click. "EVEN MORE fire resistance. I want this zombie to swim in lava and ask for bath toys."
"Thunder Quartz Ring." Click. "More lightning absorption. This is art now. I'm an artist."
"Dark Quartz Ring." Click. "And that's ten. Full set. Every finger DRIPPY. This zombie is wearing more jewellery than a rapper at an awards show."
Sebas stepped back. Admired his creation. A full Netherite Minecraft zombie with ten Dark Souls rings stacked on its rotting fingers. It looked like the physical manifestation of "this is unfair and I do not care."
"...Not enough."
Because OF COURSE it wasn't enough. This was Sebas. Half-measures were for people who wore both shoes.
"Resistance IV."
A golden shimmer washed over the zombie. Its Netherite armour pulsed. Every type of incoming damage was now reduced to a light suggestion. A polite request. A damage post-it note that the zombie would read and ignore.
"Regeneration V."
A second shimmer. Pink particles floated around the zombie like cursed confetti. Any damage that somehow — SOMEHOW — made it through the Netherite, the ten rings, and the Resistance IV would be healed so fast that the damage itself would file a complaint with the universe for wasting its time.
Sebas looked at his creation.
An immortal. Unkillable. Absolutely brainless. Walking. Netherite, fully enchanted. Tank. With ten rings of pure defensive absurdity. Resistance IV. Regeneration V. One braincell. Zero mercy. The survival instinct of a cockroach and the intelligence of a brick, but unkillable.
"One last thing," Sebas whispered, leaning in close to the zombie's ear.
"You see that ugly volcano-head dwarf over there?" He pointed at Jogo. "The goofy little angry one that looks like a melted action figure?"
The zombie's dead, empty, soulless eyes slowly — mechanically — rotated toward Jogo.
"Uuuuuhhh," said the zombie.
"Chase him. Never stop. Don't think — not that you can. Don't eat. Don't sleep. Don't look at anything else. Just chase that angry little fire-headed freak until the sun explodes or I get bored. Whichever comes first. That is your ONLY purpose. Your entire existence. Your reason for being. You are a heat-seeking missile shaped like a dead man in armour. GO."
The zombie groaned in what Sebas chose to interpret as enthusiastic agreement.
"Good talk," Sebas said, patting its Netherite chestplate. "Make me proud, son."
He stepped back.
Cracked his neck.
Unfroze time.
The world snapped back like a rubber band.
Jogo's flames resumed. Kenjaku's face finished being unsettled. Mahito's grin completed its cycle. Choso continued brooding. Gojo continued being sealed.
Everything was exactly as it was one frozen moment ago — except now there was a six-foot Minecraft zombie in full Netherite armour standing three feet in front of Jogo, staring at him with the empty, hollow, unblinking intensity of something that had been given one job and was going to do it until the heat death of the universe.
"Uuuuuuuhhh," said the zombie.
Jogo blinked.
"...What is—"
The zombie lunged.
With the janky, arms-outstretched, head-forward sprint of a Minecraft mob that had spotted its target and was now operating on pure, undiluted, single-braincell aggression.
Directly at Jogo.
"WHAT THE—" Jogo blasted it with fire.
The zombie walked through it. The Flame Stoneplate Ring glowed. The Flame Quartz Ring glowed. The Speckled Stoneplate Ring glowed. The Netherite armour didn't even get warm. The zombie's expression did not change because it did not HAVE expressions. It had one face and that face said "I am coming for you and I do not know how to stop."
"Uuuuuuuhhh," said the zombie, still sprinting.
Jogo hit it again. Harder. Full power. An eruption that shook the entire platform.
The zombie's health bar flickered. Regeneration V healed it before the flicker finished. The zombie didn't slow down. Didn't flinch. Didn't acknowledge that it had just been hit with an attack that could level a city block.
It just kept coming.
"WHAT IS THIS THING?!" Jogo screamed, backing up for the first time in his entire existence.
Sebas sat on the edge of the platform, legs dangling over the tracks, watching.
"Art,"