Chapter 196: Threads of Fate
Ren sat calmly on the edge of the bed, hands resting loosely on his knees. His breathing was steady but deeper than usual, as if every inhale carried weight. His lips curled into a faint smile, though his eyes were sharper than before...
"Well, the binding vow isn't perfect—only because I can't perfect it until I complete the other part of Red Stitch, the Sword part… Should I start on it? Should I take a break before starting? Hmm. Well, it's not like I don't have time. I do have time… right?"
But the moment the thought slipped out, something dark coiled beneath it.
"Do I have time?"
Ren realized a question that had lingered since the day he arrived in this world, but now it came roaring back with clarity.
"Honestly, nothing should go wrong… But things always go wrong. Something always happens. Someone or something always comes up. This world itself…"
Ren's brows furrowed slightly as he stared at the empty space before him.
"I didn't realize this before. Or maybe I did, but never connected the dots. This world is more dangerous than the JJK world. I don't remember there being monsters—like Emperor Sutoku and other weirdly strong curses, they were never talked about in the manga or anime…
This question even applies to me loosely. I'm also part of this weirdness. Red Stitch was never a cursed technique in JJK. Before, I thought it must have been lost or forgotten, or it was too weak for Gege to mention it…
But maybe I'm just noticing these weird little details right now because I copied my own Red Stitch—and with it, the understanding of the details and their importance, so I'm now seeing these details differently. This isn't just a small discrepancy. This whole world itself has differences."
Ren stood up slowly, his bare feet silent on the wooden floor, and walked to the balcony. The door slid open with a soft click, and the cool night air drifted in. Outside, the full moon hung large and silver over the skyline. It looked beautiful. But Ren's mind spiraled deeper and deeper.
"The scary thing about this is there's no logical explanation. Or at least, I haven't figured it out yet. The only explanation I can come up with is something vague…
Fate
Gege barely mentioned it in the manga, but it was there—hints, little fragments. Could it be something like that? Unknowns. Unseen forces always reacting... The thing is, I'm not the only one suffering from this."
He leaned on the balcony railing, looking up at the moon, its glow a pale echo against the storm of thoughts inside him.
"Gojo… He was like me in a weird sense. When he was young, his power grew at a ridiculous rate. He was destined to be the strongest. But Toji, the only man who could have killed him, almost did when Gojo was a teenager. Later, Gojo also somehow got sealed. His life looks like a chain of impossible coincidences. The least likely things just kept happening to him, like he was unbelievably unlucky… even the last fight with Sukuna, who pretty much made a new technique to end Gojo that was even more impossible, no? Ok, maybe Gojo just had a tough opponent…"
Ren's hands tightened on the cold metal railing…
"Let's think about Geto… But wait, he was no different. He was planning for months, gathering as many curses as possible, and was one of the strongest at his peak; all he needed to do was get Rika… and Geto should have gotten Rika against Yuta; in all sense, he should have won... But no. He lost and died. Unlucky again?
Maybe…
Then Toji. Against teenage Gojo, Toji should have won. He was the strongest when he was alive. No one could hold a candle to him; Toji was a hard counter to all sorcerers... But Gojo somehow got back up, achieved 'the core of cursed energy,' whatever that means, and then ended Toji. That's not luck anymore. That's just impossible... but the problem is the list goes on."
He looked down, the city lights blurring beneath his gaze.
"Sukuna… same story. A thousand years as a cursed object. Coming back, he should have been unstoppable. Kills Gojo. And yet Sukuna still dies... in fact, the way Sukuna died was weird. Somehow Yuji was able to match him because of black flashes? and punched Sukuna just hard enough that he fell out of Megumi…
And even Sutoku—he could have beaten almost anyone right now, maybe even Gojo, but just happened to meet me. His worst opponent. And he died. And me? I've almost been killed again and again. Somehow I keep surviving. Is this all just coincidence? That every strong person always meets an end in a very unlucky way?"
The thought sat like lead in his chest.
"But what are the chances?"
His breath fogged faintly in the moonlight.
"This even happens to weak people, ones like Mahito. He should have won almost every fight, but he ended up against his worst matchup—Yuji and Todo. Even Mahoraga, summoned after hundreds of years, somehow faces the only being that could beat it at that moment: Sukuna. This keeps happening. Everyone suffers from this weird phenomenon."
Ren's eyes flickered with a sudden realization.
"Wait… maybe not everyone. It never happened to Yuta Okkotsu. Why? What makes Yuta different from everyone else?"
He straightened slowly, the cool air biting at his skin.
"Rika…" he muttered aloud. His voice was low but carried into the night.
"Yes. Yuta had Rika. No one else had something like Rika. Maybe that's why Yuta never got hit with this weird phenomenon. No… no. Yuta did get hit by it in the Culling Games. He was jumped, trapped in an unbelievable disadvantage. But Yuta won because of Rika."
Ren's heart beat faster as the threads of his theory wove themselves together.
"Wait. I'm alive. I win most of these phenomena. Is it because of Rika too? Could it be…?"
The pale light of the moon glinted in his eyes as his mind raced.
"What if there's someone… no. Something. Watching. Calculating. Taking out everyone. If this theory is real, then it makes sense why Yuta in the manga rarely faced this problem. And why even I don't face it much. If it's Rika… then it's simple. Rika is a one-of-a-kind curse. She messes up the calculations done by… something. It makes sense how Yuta had seemingly gotten a good life—always winning, always surviving. Yes, Yuta was a genius, but there's something deeper here."
His palms were damp now, gripping the railing tighter.
"The things Yuta does later on… are insane. He should have died at the end of JJK. But no. He lived. More than that. It was stated Yuta had the best ending."
Ren exhaled, his theory burning through his veins like fire.
He hadn't realized his face had gone pale.
"Rika…" he muttered again.
The sound felt like a thread being tugged somewhere unseen.
Ren drew in another deep breath, but his hands trembled slightly.
"If someone—no, something—is watching, calculating, pulling strings… if that's true, then Rika is the anomaly. The disruption. The reason the pattern breaks. The reason Yuta lived. The reason I'm still alive."
His mind spun faster, every detail snapping into place like puzzle pieces. He could almost feel the shape of something vast just beyond the edges of perception.
The night was silent. The moon above gleamed like an unblinking eye.
Ren stood there, staring at it, and whispered, "Who—no—what are you?"