The wooden sword felt like an extension of my arm now, as natural as breathing. Three days had passed since I erased that pathetic Grade 4 curse by the torii gate, and the quiet rhythm of my new life had already settled into something almost peaceful. Almost. Because peace, in this world, was only the space between curses.
I rose before dawn again, slipping out of the small room my mother called mine. The tatami mats were cool under my bare feet. At ten years old, my body had grown taller and leaner, shoulders beginning to broaden with the promise of the adult frame Yoriichi once possessed. The power inside it was anything but childish. Cursed energy flowed through me like sunlight trapped in veins, steady and endless. Transparent World let me see it all: the faint blue-white threads of my own energy, the gentle pulse of life in the garden koi, even the microscopic cracks in the wooden beams where negative emotions from the city occasionally seeped in.
I stepped into the courtyard. Cherry blossoms were in full bloom now, pale pink petals drifting lazily on the morning breeze. I took my stance in the center, bare feet planted on cool stone. No one was watching. Good. I didn't need an audience yet.
"Sun Breathing," I whispered, voice soft as always. The words weren't necessary—muscle memory from a life that wasn't originally mine took over—but speaking them grounded me.
First Form: Dance.
My body moved. The wooden sword sliced upward in a fluid arc, cursed energy igniting along the blade in faint golden-red flames that didn't burn the wood but made the air shimmer with heat. The slash was perfect, carving an invisible path through the falling petals. They parted around the strike like water around a blade, none of them singed. Control. That was Yoriichi's gift, absolute control.
I flowed into the Second Form: Clear Blue Sky. The sword whipped in a wide horizontal circle, energy flaring brighter. A low-grade fly-head curse that had been lurking near the garden wall—drawn by the faint resentment of a neighbor's argument last night—popped into existence with a wet hiss. It never stood a chance. The technique erased it mid-lunge, negative energy dissolving into harmless golden sparks that smelled faintly of wisteria and ozone.
I didn't stop. Third Form: Raging Sun. Fourth Form: Burning Bones, Summer Breeze. I cycled through all thirteen forms twice before the sun crested the roof tiles. Each one adapted seamlessly to cursed energy; where Sun Breathing once countered demonic regeneration, here it shredded cursed techniques at their core. The Transparent World showed me the weak points in every flow of energy, letting me strike with surgical precision even at this age.
Sweat beaded on my forehead, but my breathing remained even. The flame-like birthmarks on my left forehead and cheek glowed faintly warmer, a subtle crimson pulse only I could see in the mirror. My hair—long, black at the roots with crimson tips reaching past my shoulders—swayed loose, untied like it had been when Yoriichi trained as a child. The hanafuda earrings my mother had given me clicked softly with each movement.
Only when the sky turned fully gold did I lower the sword. The courtyard was pristine. Not a single petal out of place. My mother's voice drifted from the engawa.
"Yoriichi? Breakfast."
She stood there in her simple yukata, dark hair pinned neatly, a faint smile on her face. Her name was Aiko—Tsugikuni Aiko. In this world she was thirty-seven, a Grade 3 sorcerer whose inherited technique was little more than a weak barrier that could repel Grade 4 curses on a good day. The family had once been a minor branch tied to the Kamo clan centuries ago, back in the Heian Era when jujutsu was raw and the King of Curses still walked free. After Sukuna's defeat and the scattering of the great clans, they fled the politics, settling in Kyoto's outskirts to live quietly. My father—her husband—had been stronger, a Grade 2 who took on missions for extra money. A special-grade curse ended him seven years ago. The official report called it "regrettable collateral." She never spoke of the details, but I could sense the scar in her cursed energy whenever she thought of him.
I bowed slightly and joined her at the low table. Rice, grilled fish, miso soup, and pickled vegetables. Simple. Nourishing. I ate in silence, the way Yoriichi always had—observing more than speaking.
"You've been training harder lately," she said gently, pouring tea. "The neighbors mentioned seeing strange lights by the old shrine again. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"
I met her eyes. Maroon, calm, unflinching. "A small shadow lingered there. I removed it."
She paused, chopsticks halfway to her mouth. For a moment, something like awe flickered across her face before she masked it with a mother's worry. "You're only ten, Yoriichi. Most children your age can barely sense cursed energy, let alone exorcise anything beyond Grade 4. The Kyoto school scouts usually visit families like ours right around now. But… your energy feels different. Warmer. Like sunlight on water."
I didn't deny it. There was no point. She had felt the difference since the day the template fully settled into this body. My cursed energy wasn't inherited from the Tsugikuni line; it was something newer, purer, fused with techniques no one in this world had ever seen. Sun Breathing didn't rely on inherited bloodlines like the Big Three clans—the Gojo with their Limitless and Six Eyes, the Zenin with their Ten Shadows, the Kamo with Blood Manipulation. Mine was skill incarnate, honed across lifetimes that ROB had grafted onto my soul.
"I will be careful, Mother," I said quietly. "The world needs shadows removed."
She reached across the table and brushed a strand of hair from my face, fingers lingering on the birthmark. It warmed under her touch. "Your father used to say the same thing. He dreamed of sending you to Kyoto Jujutsu High one day. Said you had 'the spark of the old heroes.' I thought he was just being proud. Now… I wonder."
Kyoto Jujutsu High. The sister school to the one in Tokyo. Tucked in the sacred lands here in Kyoto, it trained the next generation away from the capital's politics. I knew the layout from the stories I'd read in my old life—training grounds hidden by barriers, principals who answered to the higher-ups, students who would one day fight in the Goodwill Event. If I joined early, I could accelerate my growth. But revealing myself too soon risked drawing eyes from the Big Three. The Zenin clan especially would see a child with my potential as either a tool or a threat.
No. I would wait. Master the fusion first. Develop the Domain Expansion that already whispered at the edge of my mind, a vast, golden-red barrier where Sun Breathing became absolute. Guaranteed hits. No escape. A world of eternal noon where curses burned away like demons under the rising sun.
After breakfast I helped her clear the dishes, then slipped out again. This time I headed deeper into the city, toward the old shrine district. Kyoto's streets buzzed with normal life—tourists snapping photos of temples, salarymen rushing to trains, schoolchildren in uniforms laughing. None of them saw the layer beneath: cursed energy hanging in the air like smog, thicker near crowded intersections where human negativity pooled.
I kept my own energy suppressed, a trick Yoriichi had mastered instinctively. To outsiders I was just a quiet boy in a simple haori, wooden sword tucked at my side like a training prop. But Transparent World painted everything in sharp detail. A Grade 3 curse slithered through an alley two blocks away, feeding on a businessman's exhaustion. Another, Semi-Grade 2, lurked near the river, drawn by old battlefield resentment from the Sengoku Period.
I ignored the small ones. Today I sought something to test my limits.
It found me instead.
Near the abandoned storage temple at the edge of the district, the air grew heavy. Negative emotions coalesced into something stronger—Grade 2, with hints of Semi-Grade 1 potential. It manifested as a hulking figure, eight feet tall, body made of twisted rebar and concrete from a recent construction site collapse. Multiple arms ending in jagged claws. A maw that drooled black sludge. Its cursed technique was simple but brutal: it absorbed physical impacts and returned them amplified.
It roared when it sensed me, the sound echoing only in the jujutsu spectrum. Normal people nearby shivered and hurried on, blaming the wind.
I drew the wooden sword. No fear. Only focus.
It charged. I activated Transparent World fully. Its weak point glowed—a pulsing core of cursed energy in its chest, where the original victim's grudge had crystallized.
Sun Breathing, Fifth Form: Setting Sun, Twin Dragons.
I blurred forward. The sword traced twin arcs of golden flame, cursed energy roaring like a furnace. The curse swung a concrete arm. I slipped inside its guard, the strike passing harmlessly through the space my perfect reading of momentum and flow created. My blade pierced the core.
The curse screamed. Concrete cracked. Black sludge evaporated in bursts of sunlight. It tried to counter, absorbing my strike and hurling it back, but Sun Breathing's nature burned through the feedback loop. The returned force met my own flames and shattered.
One final form: Thirteenth Form—the original technique that once incinerated the Demon King. Adapted here, it wasn't a single slash but a dance of thirteen overlapping strikes in one breath. The curse disintegrated entirely, its body flashing into golden embers that scattered on the wind. Residual energy lingered for a moment, then faded.
I stood alone in the empty lot, breathing steady. The wooden sword wasn't even chipped. My haori fluttered once, then settled.
Not bad for a child's body. But I could do better. Stronger. Faster. When the time came for real threats—Sukuna's fingers awakening, the Culling Games, the Shibuya Incident years from now—I would be ready. No hesitation. No loss.
A presence brushed against my senses then. Distant, but sharp. Somewhere toward the center of Kyoto, near the barriers of Jujutsu High itself, another sorcerer had felt the ripple. Not hostile. Curious. A scout, perhaps. Or a teacher patrolling. Their energy was controlled, Grade 1 level at least—precise, like a blade held at rest.
I suppressed my own signature further and turned homeward. They wouldn't find me today. Not yet.
Mother was waiting when I returned, worry lines etched deeper around her eyes. She had felt the disturbance too. "Another one?" she asked.
I nodded. "It won't trouble the district again."
She pulled me into a hug, her arms trembling slightly. "You're carrying too much already. The world of sorcerers… it devours the strong and discards the rest. Your father thought he could change that. He died trying."
I rested my head against her shoulder, the calm aura of Yoriichi soothing her without words. Inside, though, my thoughts raced. ROB had dropped me here with no safety net. No system. No allies guaranteed. But the template was perfect. Sun Breathing fused with cursed energy created something the jujutsu world had never seen—a technique that didn't just exorcise curses but purified the negativity at its root, turning malice into harmless light.
That night, after Mother slept, I sat alone in the courtyard under the stars. The moon was full, silver light mixing with the faint glow of my cursed energy. I closed my eyes and reached inward, probing the edges of what could become a Domain.
A faint barrier flickered around me—small, unstable, no larger than the courtyard itself. Golden-red walls shimmered into existence for three heartbeats, etched with sun motifs and flame patterns. Inside, floating embers danced, and the ground cracked with molten light. The air tasted of summer noon. Then it collapsed. Too early. My body was ten; my soul carried centuries, but the raw cursed energy output needed refinement.
I smiled faintly. Patience. Yoriichi had waited years to face Muzan. I could wait years to face this world's monsters.
Somewhere far to the east, in Tokyo, the balance of power was already shifting. A man with Six Eyes had declared himself the strongest. Special-grade curses stirred in the shadows. Fingers sealed in cursed objects waited for vessels. But here in Kyoto, under cherry blossoms and quiet shrines, a new sun had risen.
I stood, sword in hand, and began the forms again. Slower this time. More precise.
The embers within me burned brighter.
The world of jujutsu would soon feel their heat.