The first thing he was aware of was the smell.
It was a sharp, chemical scent that clawed at the back of his throat. Antiseptic. Sterile. The smell of a place scrubbed clean of life, not one that nurtured it. It was a smell he knew, though the last time he'd smelled it so acutely, he'd been visiting a comrade whose arm had been severed by a particularly nasty cursed spirit.
'Did we win?' was his first, groggy thought. 'Is that why I'm here?'
Todo Aoi tried to open his eyes, but the lids were heavy, gummed together by exhaustion and something else. A profound, bone-deep weakness that felt… disgusting. His body, his true body, had been a temple of honed muscle and explosive power, capable of moving faster than the eye could track. This vessel felt like a poorly made replica, a puppet with its strings cut. Every breath was a conscious effort, a rasping draw of air that scraped against a dry throat.
He forced his eyes open.
A sterile white ceiling greeted him. Fluorescent lights hummed overhead, their glow harsh and impersonal. He turned his head, a movement that sent a dull throb through his skull. The room was small, occupied by another bed empty and a chair. A window showed a slate-grey sky. Nothing about it was familiar.
The last thing he remembered was not a hospital.
It was the quiet of a tatami-matted room. The scent of sandalwood and brewing tea. The weight of ninety-eight years on his bones, a comfortable, earned weight. The faces of his grandchildren, their own children at their knees. He had closed his eyes, surrounded by family, by the legacy of a life lived without regret. He had breathed his last, content. A complete victory.
'So why…?'
He tried to sit up. A lance of fire shot through his ribs, and a deeper, more pervasive ache bloomed across the entire left side of his body. He collapsed back onto the thin pillow, gasping. This was not his body. This frail, broken thing was not the vessel of the great Todo Aoi, master of Boogie Woogie, a man who could shatter concrete with his fists.
Panic, a sensation he hadn't felt in decades, began to prickle at the edges of his consciousness. He focused inward, past the pain, searching for the core of his power. He found it a faint, guttering spark where a roaring inferno should have been. Cursed energy. It was still there, but it was a trickle, a shallow stream where an ocean had once raged. It was like trying to drink from a dried-up riverbed. The sensation was horrifying.
He had died. He was sure of it. This was not some near-death experience. His soul had moved on. And it had been placed here. Into this weak, injured boy.
A sudden, intrusive image flashed behind his eyes, the blur of a black luxury car, the panicked yelp of a small animal, the desperate, foolish lunge of a body that was not his own.
"Ah, you're finally awake!"
The voice was cheerful, clinical. A nurse in crisp whites entered the room, her shoes squeaking on the polished floor. She moved to his bedside, checking the IV drip connected to his arm.
"How are you feeling, Hikigaya-kun? You gave everyone quite a scare," she said, her tone practiced and pleasant.
Todo stared at her. 'Hikigaya-kun?' The name meant nothing. It was a label slapped onto this empty vessel.
"Wh–khhh…t?" He opened his mouth to speak, to demand answers, but all that came out was a dry, cracked croak.
"Don't try to talk too much," the nurse said, patting his hand. "You took a serious hit. Just rest. The doctor will be in to see you shortly."
She finished her checks and left, her squeaking footsteps fading down the hall. The name echoed in the silence she left behind. 'Hikigaya.' 'Hikigaya.' 'Hikigaya.'
It was a key, and it turned a lock in a door he hadn't known was there. A pressure built in his skull, a foreign presence that was both him and not him. A residue. A memory that was not his own. A soul, fractured and incomplete, clinging to the flesh it had been torn from.
A need, sudden and overwhelming, seized him. He had to see. He had to know what face this name belonged to.
Ignoring the screaming protest of his muscles and bones, he shoved the thin hospital blanket aside. He swung his legs too thin, too pale over the edge of the bed. The cold floor bit into his feet. Using the IV pole as a crutch, he hauled his broken body upright, swaying dangerously. Each step was a monumental effort, a battle fought against gravity and agony. The few meters to the small bathroom attached to the room felt like a marathon.
He finally reached the sink, gripping the cold porcelain to hold himself up. He forced his head up and looked into the mirror.
A stranger stared back.
Pale, almost sallow skin. A mess of black, unruly hair. Dark, deep-set eyes that held a profound weariness, a cynicism that felt decades old. There were bandages wrapped around his forehead, and a spectacular bruise bloomed across his cheek and temple, shades of purple and yellow. He was gaunt, all sharp angles and prominent bones.
This was not his face. This was the face of a boy who had never known a day of true strength. A loner. A cynic.
'Who the hell is this?!' Todo thought, a surge of disgust and frustration rising in him. 'This weakling… this is my vessel now?!'
But as he stared, the feeling intensified. That tug in his mind. That other presence. It was faint, like a whisper from the bottom of a deep well, but it was there. Melancholic and resigned. It was the soul of the boy in the mirror.
'Hikigaya Hachiman.'
The name arrived in his mind not as a memory, but as a fact. His name. And with it, a flash of thought, clear and sharp as broken glass
"If I had to save a dog or a person, I'd pick the dog. A dog won't blame you for saving it later."
Todo recoiled from the mirror, the cynicism of the thought feeling like a physical blow.
'What kind of person thinks like that? What kind of heart beats in this chest?' Todo questions in a curious tone.
And then, the memory answered.
It was a crisp afternoon. The sun was out, but it offered little warmth. Hikigaya Hachiman was walking home, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his bland jacket, his gaze fixed on the pavement three feet ahead. He was composing another cynical monologue about the pointlessness of social clubs when a blur of brown and white fur shot across the path ahead, a silver leash trailing behind it.
A high-pitched, frantic yapping. A small, fluffy dog, terrified.
From the other direction, the low growl of a powerful engine. A sleek, black car, turning the corner. Too fast.
The math was simple, instantaneous. Dog. Car. Intersecting vectors. A splatter of red on asphalt.
Hachiman didn't think. There was no grand internal monologue about heroism or sacrifice. There was only a deep, instinctual revulsion against the outcome his cynical brain had just calculated. His body moved before his mind could catch up, before it could voice its usual complaint about trouble and effort.
It wasn't a graceful, heroic dive. It was an awkward, sprawling lunge. He scooped the panicked dog Sable, its name was Sable, he'd heard a girl shriek it into his arms, curling his body around it in a pathetic attempt to shield it.
He saw the wide, terrified eyes of the driver for a split second—a girl with long, black hair, her face a mask of shock. The shriek of tires trying and failing to find traction.
The impact.
It wasn't a clean hit. It was a glancing blow, but it was from a ton and a half of speeding metal. It felt like being hit by a giant's club. A crack loud, internal, as a rib or two gave way. The world spun, a dizzying carousel of sky, pavement, and the underside of a car. He tasted blood and asphalt.
The last thing he felt before the darkness swallowed him wasn't pain. It was the warm, trembling weight of the dog, safe and whining, still clutched against his chest.
"Ghhuhhh—haaaghhh…"
Todo came back to himself, leaning heavily against the sink, breathing raggedly. He had felt it. The impact. The fractured bones. The bizarre, self-sacrificial calculus of the boy's mind. There had been no thought of reward, no expectation of gratitude. Only a pure, illogical, and absolute refusal to let something innocent die.
'This guy's heart… it's different,' Todo mused, a slow manic grin spreading across his new, unfamiliar face. The cynicism was a shell, a fortress wall built around a core of something stubbornly, foolishly pure. It was a ideal, twisted and warped by loneliness, but an ideal nonetheless.
He understood that. He, who would move heaven and earth for a true brother, who valued the ideal of a worthy comrade above all else, could respect a heart that would break its own body for a creature it didn't know. It was stupid. It was reckless. It was the act of a true sorcerer.
"Interesting," Todo whispered to the reflection. The eyes that looked back still held Hachiman's weariness, but now there was a new light behind them. A flicker of appraisal. Of interest.
'To throw your body in front of a car for the sake of a dog… that reckless, unthinking devotion! I, Todo Aoi recognize the fire in your chest. Hikigaya Hachiman!'
He managed to stumble back to his bed just before the doctor arrived—a tired-looking man with a clipboard.
"Hikigaya-kun, good to see you awake," the doctor said, not looking up from his notes. "You've been out for two days. You're a very lucky young man. Concussion, two cracked ribs, severe bruising, and a lot of scrapes. It could have been much, much worse."
"Hn." Tōdō just grunted, staying in character. Talking felt like a risk.
"We'll need to keep you for observation," the doctor continued. "Three weeks, to be safe. Monitor the head trauma. After that, you'll be on crutches for a while. Your parents have been notified, they're out of town but will be here tomorrow. Your sister has come by every day."
Sister? Parents? More pieces of a life that wasn't his. Todo simply nodded.
The doctor left, and the quiet of the room returned, now filled with the weight of this new reality. Three weeks in this sterile cage. Three weeks in this weak body.
The silence was broken by a hesitant knock on the door. It creaked open, and a girl peeked in. She had warm, brown hair styled in loose drills and eyes that were wide with a mixture of anxiety and guilt. She was holding a small, well-groomed dog in her arms the very same brown and white dog from the memory.
"U-um… Hikigaya…kun?" she stammered. "I'm Yuigahama Yui. You… you saved my Sable. I just… I wanted to thank you. And see if you were okay."
She offered a shaky, deeply apologetic bow, the dog whining softly in her arms.
This was it. The classic, mundane, post-accident interaction. Todo knew what was expected. The boy in the reflection would probably mutter something like "It's fine," or "It was nothing," or, more likely, something self-deprecating and cynical to make the uncomfortable situation end faster.
But Todo Aoi was not Hikigaya Hachiman. He had never been good at subtlety.
He sat up straighter, ignoring the twinge in his ribs. A wide, brilliant smile split his face a expression this face had probably never made before.
"Worry not!" he boomed, his voice still rough but filled with a new, bombastic energy. "The act of saving an innocent life is its own reward! To see the grateful face of a beautiful maiden is merely a glorious bonus! Your little brother there is a fine creature! He has the eyes of a warrior!"
Yuigahama froze mid-bow. She slowly straightened up, her mouth slightly agape. She blinked several times, as if trying to clear a hallucination. The dog, Sable, tilted its head and let out a confused little "boof."
"I… uh… wha…?" was all Yuigahama managed to say. The script had been torn up and thrown out the window.
"Hahhrrhahaha!" Todo laughed, a hearty, rolling sound that seemed to startle even the medical equipment. "Do not trouble yourself, Yuigahama-san! A few weeks in this bed is a small price to pay for a bond forged in the heat of battle! You, me, and the brave little Sable we are comrades now!"
He struck a thumbs-up pose, which sent a fresh spike of pain through his ribs. He winced but kept the grin firmly in place.
Yuigahama stared, her face cycling through confusion, shock, and a dawning, bewildered amusement. "O…kay…," she drawled slowly. "You, uh… you hit your head really hard, didn't you, Hikigaya-kun?"
"A small price!" Todo declared again.
She stayed for a few more minutes of utterly baffling conversation, where Todo referred to her dog as a "four-legged shikigami" and asked if Yuigahama herself had ever considered training in hand-to-hand combat, before making a hasty, confused retreat.
Alone again, Todo's grin faded. The effort of maintaining that persona was exhausting. The clash was jarring. He, a man who had faced down Special Grade curses, was now reduced to the body a high school boy with a body like a twih in a hospital room. The sheer mundanity of it all was a heavier weight than any injury.
...The day passed in a blur of bland meals, nurse checks, and the oppressive quiet. His new "parents" came—a worried-looking couple who spoke in hushed tones. The woman had short, practical brown hair and wore glasses that magnified her anxious eyes. She clutched a handkerchief, her words tumbling out in a nervous rush.
Parents. Hachiman's thoughts about them flickered through me sometimes, like echoes in a house I'd just moved into. Detached, ironic, almost resentful yet underneath it, a thin warmth that refused to die out.
His father… quiet, unreadable. A man of few words, more newspaper than human presence. His mother… sharp, watchful, carrying the family forward with that constant push, the kind that irritated him, but kept him tethered.
Hachiman described them in his own head like background furniture necessary, but unnoticed. And yet, as I sifted through his memories, I could feel it. That stubborn thread of love he would never admit aloud. He thought himself cold, distant. He wasn't.
I couldn't help but scoff not at him, but at myself. In my old life, family was a word without meaning. Bonds? I forged them in battle, in brotherhood. Blood ties? I never had the chance. To feel irritation at a nagging mother, or to share silent mornings with a father… those were luxuries beyond my reach.
And here I was, sitting in a body that carried all of it. The faint ache of disappointment, the hidden comfort of belonging.
"Hikigaya," I muttered under my breath, smirking despite myself. "You're more human than you ever gave yourself credit for."
"Hachiman! Oh, thank goodness you're awake," she said, leaning over the bed. "We came as soon as the hospital could reach us. How are you feeling? Does it hurt terribly? The doctor said you were so brave." Her voice was laced with a mother's genuine, flustered concern.
The man beside her, Hikigaya's father, was taller and quieter, with a weary but kind face. He placed a hand on his wife's shoulder. "Now, now, let the boy breathe. He just woke up." He offered 'Hachiman' a small, strained smile. "The important thing is you're alright, son. Don't worry about anything else. Just focus on getting better."
Todo, navigating uncharted waters, gave a stiff nod. "Your concern is… acknowledged. The vessel is damaged but the spirit is undimmed. I shall… get better." The words, a strange mix of his formality and the situation, seemed to confuse them, but they wrote it off as shock and pain medication.
Later, a girl with sharp, intelligent eyes and hair tied in two careful tails his "sister," Komachi visited. She didn't have her mother's nervous energy; instead, she marched in with a teenager's brand of pragmatic concern, though he could see the genuine relief in her eyes.
"Sheesh, Onii-chan," she said, plopping into the chair beside the bed. "You really know how to get a girl's attention. Getting hit by a car is a pretty extreme way to skip school, you know." Her tone was teasing, but it lacked its usual sharp edge. She looked him over, her gaze missing little. "You look like crap. But… less like dead crap than before, so that's an improvement."
Todo, intrigued by her directness, responded in kind. "A warrior's scars are a testament to his battles, little sister. This…" he gestured to his bandaged head, "…is merely a new badge of honor."
Komachi blinked, then a slow grin spread across her face. "Whoa. Did that hit to the head finally knock some cool into you? That's the least pathetic thing you've said in, like, ever." She stayed for a while, filling the silence with light chatter about school and home, her presence a strange, comforting anchor in the surreal storm of his new reality. He found her sharp wit and underlying care oddly touching.
He navigated it all with a modified version of his bombastic personality, dialed down just enough to be written off as post-concussion eccentricity.
Finally, night fell. The hospital grew still, bathed in the dim, blue-ish light of the moon filtering through the window.
Todo lay awake, staring once more at the sterile white ceiling. His mind, however, was far from still. He sifted through the fractured pieces of Hachiman's memories—the loneliness, the sharp observations of a world he felt alienated from, the deep, hidden yearning for something genuine.
"This world is quiet," Todo murmured into the darkness. "Peaceful. No cursed energy rots the streets. No sorcerers die in the shadows."
He held up his hand Hachiman's hand pale and slender. He focused inward, past the weakness, past the pain, to that guttering spark of cursed energy. He willed it forth.
It responded.
A faint, shimmering aura of deep blue energy flickered around his fingertips, like captured starlight. It was weak, yes. But it was there. And as he focused, drawing on a lifetime of experience Hachiman's body had never known, the light grew steadier, brighter. It pulsed with a potential this world had never seen.
"But that quiet never lasts," he whispered. "Energy attracts energy. A spark can start a fire. And if this 'Hikigaya' kid's soul still lingers in me, with a heart like that… then maybe I'm meant to fight again. Maybe this isn't an end. It's a new beginning."
A smirk, one that belonged entirely to Todo Aoi, spread across Hikigaya Hachiman's face. It was a expression of defiant anticipation.
He addressed the quiet presence, the lingering echo in his own soul.
"Oi, Hikigaya. You saved a life without a second thought. You have the instincts of a true brother. A little twisted, maybe. A little broken. But the core is there."
The cursed energy around his hand flared, casting dancing shadows on the hospital room walls.
"Let's see what kind of brother you'll be."
A life complete, a final breath taken,
A soul adrift, by new fates awakened.
From strength to frailty, a world serene,
Yet a flicker of power, a pulse unseen.
The quiet is a lie, a momentary grace,
For a new battle awaits in this unfamiliar place.