"Hey... Wake up."
A hand tapped his shoulder gently. Adrian Hayes blinked his eyes open, his vision blurry. The sky above was a bruised, dark purple, and the air tasted heavily of ozone, smoke, and burning metal.
A woman in her late thirties was kneeling beside him. Her face was smudged with black grease, her clothes torn and covered in dust, but her eyes held a profound sense of relief and pity.
"What... What happened?" Adrian muttered, trying to push himself up.
The reality of his surroundings hit him like a physical blow. Ahead of him, Manhattan was a warzone. Billowing columns of black smoke choked the skyline. Cars were flipped, smashed, and burning. Shattered glass blanketed the asphalt like snow, reflecting the fires of burning buildings.
The woman tapped his arm, her eyes glistening with tears. "It's over. They did it. They actually did it."
"Who?" Adrian asked, his mind completely blank.
"I don't know all of them," she wept. "But it was Captain America... He's the one who saved us from the Grand Central Terminal."
"Captain Ame—"
Adrian's voice froze.
Boom!
A splitting, agonizing headache ripped through his skull. The world spun violently. He staggered backward, clutching his temples as a flood of alien memories crashed into his brain. He wasn't just a random survivor. He was an orphan. A university student. A fanfiction reader from Earth who had died and reincarnated.
"This..." He groaned in sheer terror. "I'm Adrian Hayes... and I've been in the Marvel Cinematic Universe this entire time!"
Adrian looked up. Towering over the wreckage of Midtown was a glittering, damaged skyscraper. The massive gilded letters on its side were unmistakable: STARK.
Shit! Adrian cursed internally, panic seizing his chest. What is a regular mortal like me supposed to do here?! This universe is a death trap!
It wasn't just the Chitauri. His mind raced forward. Ultron is going to drop a city from the sky in a few years. And after that... Thanos. The Snap.
He frantically checked his body. Wait. I just recovered my memories. There has to be a cheat! A golden finger! System? Status? Anything?
Silence. He tried to feel if there was any hidden magic, mutant X-gene, or super-soldier serum in his veins. Nothing. He was just a regular, fragile human.
"Hello? Are you alright?" the woman asked, snapping him out of his panic.
Adrian forced a nod. "Yeah. Thank you."
He didn't waste time. He began navigating through the wreckage, his boots crunching on glass. He knew the timeline. Very soon, the Department of Damage Control (DODC) would arrive to lock down the city and clean up the alien debris. That exact cleanup operation would ruin Adrian Toomes, turning him into the Vulture.
Adrian hissed at the thought. He didn't want that kind of illegal, high-stress life, but without power, how could he possibly survive the Mad Titan?
An hour later, exhausted and emotionally drained, Adrian sat down on the grass of a ruined stadium field alongside hundreds of other refugees. The air was thick with quiet sobbing. He could see the sheer, unadulterated terror in everyone's eyes.
The world had changed today. Soon, the government would be forced to confirm the existence of Gods and Monsters, cementing the Avengers as Earth's primary defense.
Adrian smiled bitterly. He had actually met Steve Rogers earlier during the evacuation, back before his memories returned. Captain America had been his idol in his past life, but Adrian hadn't been able to say a single meaningful thing to him. He had just been another terrified face in the crowd.
The walk home to the outer boroughs is going to be brutal, Adrian thought, staring down at his worn-out shoes. He couldn't even bring himself to admire the Avengers right now. None of these refugees knew what was coming. Only he knew the horrors the future held. He needed power. Real power.
I can't give up, he thought, clenching his fists until his knuckles turned white. There has to be a way.
Scrraaaaaatch.
A sudden, sharp rattling sound echoed from a dark alleyway just ahead of the stadium borders.
Adrian stiffened. Don't be curious. This is the real world now. Curiosity gets you killed. It's probably just a gang looking to rob people in the chaos. Just walk away.
"Ahhh! No! Please!"
A child's scream pierced the alley. It was filled with pure, visceral terror.
Adrian's heart clenched. Fuck it.
Ignoring every instinct of self-preservation, he lunged forward. He snatched up a heavy, rusted iron bar from a collapsed fence, gripping it tightly. He had taken a few self-defense classes in college. It wasn't much, but it would have to do.
He rounded the corner into the alley, expecting to see a looter.
Instead, his breath caught in his throat.
Standing over a puddle of blood was a monstrosity. It stood over six feet tall, its grotesque, bulbous body covered in a sickening gray hide. Its stomach was split open, lined with a dozen blinking, mismatched human eyes. Below the eyes, a massive, jagged mouth on its abdomen curled into a sickening grin. Two razor-sharp, muscular tentacles whipped through the air behind it, one of them dripping fresh crimson.
On the ground lay a woman. A massive, hollow hole was punched clean through her stomach. Her fingers twitched weakly toward a little boy trapped against the brick wall.
"H-He..." the woman whispered, her eyes rolling back as her body went completely limp.
The monster licked the blood off its tentacle, letting out a wet, mechanical screech of absolute ecstasy.
Adrian didn't think. He rushed forward, grabbed the petrified boy, and slapped him hard across the face. "Run! Get out of here! Run!"
The boy snapped out of his trance, screaming as he bolted out toward the stadium. Surprisingly, the monster didn't care about the boy. Its twelve stomach eyes all spun in their sockets, locking completely onto Adrian.
Swish!
The first tentacle lunged at a blinding speed. Adrian twisted his body, raising the iron bar to block.
Clang!
The sheer kinetic force sent him flying backward. He hit the asphalt hard, coughing up a mouthful of blood. He forced himself back onto his feet, his muscles screaming. The monster reared back, preparing to launch both tentacles at once.
Adrian took a deep breath. If I'm going to die in this cursed universe, I'm going out swinging.
Recalling his past-life knowledge of combat, he forced his mind into absolute clarity.
Instead of waiting, he burst forward. As the tentacles whipped toward him, Adrian threw his weight into a hard slide across the pavement. The tentacles scraped inches above his hair, slamming into the brick wall behind him.
Adrian popped up right in front of the creature's massive, toothy abdomen. He swung the iron bar with everything he had.
Thud.
The monster didn't even flinch. It absorbed the blow completely. Its twelve eyes twisted downward, staring directly into Adrian's face. With a casual flick of its mass, the creature backhanded him.
Adrian flew sideways, his head smashing violently against a stone dumpster.
Crack.
Blinding white light and fresh blood flashed across his vision. He fell to his knees, gasping for air, his skull throbbing. Great. That's two freaking headaches for the day.
He looked up weakly as the shadow of the monster loomed over him, its jaws opening wide.
So this is it, Adrian thought bitterly. I die on day one. Damn you, whoever brought me to this godforsaken world...
[DING!]
A sharp, digital chime echoed directly inside his soul. Time seemed to grind to an absolute halt.
[THANK YOU, HOST.]
[THE WORLD'S NEGATIVE EMOTIONS AND CURSED ENERGY ACCUMULATION FROM THE INVASION HAVE REACHED A CRITICAL THRESHOLD.]
[CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE AWAKENED THE 'JUJUTSU KAISEN TEMPLATE SYSTEM'.]
Suddenly, a violent, freezing torrent of electricity erupted from the base of Adrian's spine, flooding his entire nervous system. The agonizing fatigue vanished instantly.
The gaping wound on his head stopped bleeding, his cellular energy skyrocketing.
The monster stopped, its twelve eyes widening in sudden, instinctual fear. It flinched backward, sensing a terrifying shift in the air.
Adrian smiled, a manic, breathless grin spreading across his face.
He lunged. His agility was no longer human. He ducked under a desperate tentacle strike with effortless grace and drove a heavy, reinforced fist straight into the monster's face.
BANG!
The creature screeched in agony, its heavy body skidding backward across the alley. It lashed out in a blind rage, throwing a flurry of strikes, but Adrian weaved between them like a ghost, his mind completely puzzled yet exhilarated by the sudden development.
I need to end this bastard right now, he thought.
[HOST HAS AWAKENED AS A GRADE 3 SORCERER. INSTINCTIVE MANIPULATION OF CURSED ENERGY GRANTED.]
[BEGINNER PACK REWARD UNLOCKED!]
[CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE ACQUIRED THE: SIX EYES (RIKUGAN).]
Instantly, Adrian's eyes stung with a searing, burning heat. He was forced to slam his eyelids shut.
When he opened them, the world was completely different.
An overwhelming, infinite stream of information flooded his brain. He could see the mass of the air molecules. He could see the structural stress points in the brick walls. Most importantly, he could see the swirling, toxic purple flow of Cursed Energy leaking from the monster.
Shit!
Because he was distracted by the sudden visual overload, a tentacle slammed directly into his chest. Adrian sailed through the air, his back crashing into the brick wall with enough force to leave a spiderweb of craters in the stone.
He stood up, coughing slightly, but his body was perfectly intact. He could instinctively manipulate his small pool of Cursed Energy to minimize the impact down to zero.
Adrian focused his gaze. His eyes—now a brilliant, glowing cerulean blue that shimmered like boundless skies—gleamed in the darkness of the alley.
He lunged one final time. The monster, overwhelmed by the sheer pressure radiating from the boy, reacted a second too late. Adrian coated his iron bar in a dense shroud of raw Cursed Energy and swung it like a guillotine.
BOOM!
The impact exploded through the alley. The monster didn't even have time to scream. Its body bounced off the walls, purple, corrupt blood spraying across the pavement before its entire physical form dissolved into a harmless, evaporating black mist.
[YOU HAVE LEVELED UP!]
[HOST IS NOW: LEVEL 2 (GRADE 3 SORCERER)]
[YOU HAVE BEEN GRANTED A 'BRONZE CARD'. DO YOU WISH TO OPEN IT?]
Adrian let out a long, ragged breath, staring at the translucent, glowing blue system window floating in front of him.
He had done it. He had awakened. A JJK sorcerer with the Six Eyes in the middle of the Marvel Universe. Just maybe... I can actually survive this place.
Meanwhile, completely unaware of the ripples he was causing, far away from the smoking ruins of Manhattan...
In a secluded, candle-lit sanctuary in Kamar-Taj, a woman dressed in flowing yellow robes suddenly paused. The Ancient One lowered her hands, her eyes widening in profound shock as she stared at the mystical astral maps floating before her.
"Strange..." she murmured, her voice trembling slightly. "A universal tear? No... something completely foreign has just entered our reality's flow."
Deep in the cosmic realm of Asgard, an old man with a golden eyepatch sat upon his grand throne. Suddenly, Odin's eyes snapped open from his light slumber, his grip tightening on his spear, Gungnir. He felt an abrupt, volatile influx of a brand-new energy originating from Midgard.
And far out in the infinite expanse of deep space, a gargantuan, celestial figure with six burning red eyes drifted silently among the stars. Arishem the Judge paused. His cosmic consciousness zoomed across lightyears, locking his gaze directly onto a small blue planet.
A new spark of energy had just been birthed. And when the time came, he would judge whether it was worthy to exist.