There were people who died dramatically.
Screaming. Fighting. Begging for one more breath, one more moment, one more chance to fix what was broken.
Then there were people like him.
He died standing up, leaning against the sticky, laminated counter of a twenty-four-hour convenience store, the smell of burnt coffee and cheap, lemon-scented disinfectant clogging his lungs. The flickering fluorescent light above buzzed like a dying insect, casting a sickly pallor over the racks of sugary snacks and glossy magazines. His phone vibrated in his pocket for the fifth time in ten minutes—another reminder, another shift, another obligation stacked neatly on top of a body that had already given everything it could. The vibration was a dull, persistent thrum against his thigh, a sound he'd come to associate with dread.
Just ten more minutes, he told himself, the thought a weak ember in the cold ash of his mind. Just ten more minutes of not moving, and then I'll get on the bus. I'll make it to the library.
That thought had become a mantra. A lie repeated so often it had worn a groove in his consciousness, sounding like truth even as his body screamed otherwise.
Nineteen years old. Second-year community college student. Six part-time jobs.
Morning janitor at the corporate offices, where he emptied trash bins filled with the remains of overpriced lunches. Afternoon library aide, shushing students while his own textbooks gathered dust. Evening grocery stocker, the repetitive thud of cans a monotonous drumbeat. Night shift cashier here, under these buzzing lights, smiling at drunken customers and lonely night owls. Weekend delivery driver, navigating traffic in a beat-up sedan that smelled of old fries. Online tutoring in the stolen slivers between, when his eyes could still focus on a screen through a haze of static exhaustion.
He was smart enough to know this was killing him. He could feel it in the constant, bone-deep chill, in the way his thoughts moved through syrup, in the sharp, stitching pains that sometimes lanced through his chest. He'd looked it up, of course. Chronic stress. Adrenal fatigue. The body's long, slow scream for mercy.
He was desperate enough to do it anyway.
Because he wanted more.
Not money—not just money, though money was the oxygen he was constantly suffocating without. He wanted proof. Proof that the universe hadn't already decided, the moment he was born to a struggling single mother in a cramped apartment, that he was disposable. He wanted to claw his way out of the invisible pit he'd been born into, to feel solid ground under his feet, to look at a horizon that wasn't just the next shift, the next bill, the next meal. He wanted it even if the cost was etched in the purple shadows under his eyes, in the tremor in his hands, in the hollow echo where his hobbies and friends used to be. Even if it cost him sleep, sanity, and eventually—
His vision blurred. The world softened at the edges, the harsh lines of the store melting into a watercolor smear. The cheap Styrofoam cup, half-full of tepid, bitter coffee, slipped from his numb fingers. It hit the linoleum floor with a sound that was both sharp and dull—a crack, then a wet sigh. Brown liquid spread like a confession, like a stain he absolutely did not have the time or the energy to clean.
"Hey—you okay, man?" a voice asked, filtering through the cotton wool filling his ears. It was the trucker who came in every Thursday for a lottery ticket and a energy drink.
He tried to answer. His mouth opened, his tongue a dry, heavy thing against his teeth.
Nothing came out. Not air, not sound.
A weird, fluttering sensation bloomed in his chest, a frantic bird trapped behind his ribs. His heart stuttered once—a painful, missed-step lurch. Twice.
Then it simply… stopped.
The frantic bird went still.
No dramatic last words. No final gasp, no reaching hand. No cinematic flash of memories—no childhood birthday parties, no first kiss, no triumphs. Just the overwhelming, mundane texture of exhaustion.
No regrets spoken aloud. They were all there, of course—a dense, tangled knot of them—but they had no voice left.
Just one final, dry, ironic thought drifting through the static haze of his crumbling mind:
Guess I worked hard enough after all.
Silence.
Not darkness. Not light. Not the tunnel, not the pearly gates, not the warm embrace of ancestors.
Just… a profound, absolute nothing.
No body. No breath. No pain. No weight of bones or ache of muscle. No time—no sense of seconds or hours, no yesterday or tomorrow.
He floated, or the concept of what 'floating' once meant applied, in a void so complete that even the idea of orientation felt like a memory of a foreign language. There was no up, no down, no left, no right. No sense of self beyond a core of awareness, a lone, fragile thought in an infinite sea of nonspace.
Am I dead?
The thought echoed, not against walls, but into the boundless absence, stretching and thinning until it was just another part of the silence.
Then—
"Oh, don't look so disappointed."
A voice. It spoke from everywhere and nowhere at once, vibrating through the fabric of the void itself. It was smooth, cultured, and deeply, terminally amused, like a god who had long since grown bored of pretending to care about the ant farm.
Light bloomed in the nothingness. Not a blinding, holy radiance, but a controlled, almost clinical illumination. In its center, a figure coalesced from impossible geometry and cosmic nonsense—shifting angles that hurt to perceive, colors that didn't have names, all resolving into a form wearing what looked suspiciously like a plush, dark bathrobe stitched from swirling galaxies and nebulae. The being had no discernible face, just a impression of focus, of attention, as it examined him like a particularly interesting spreadsheet.
"Huh," it said, the sound a ripple in the stillness. "Yeah. That tracks."
"…What?" he managed. His voice, or the thought that shaped itself into communication, sounded distant, thin, like a radio signal from a far-off star.
"Cardiac arrest. Severe exhaustion. Chronic stress. Malnutrition. A tragic, but frankly predictable, systems failure." The being snapped its fingers—a sound like a collapsing star—and glowing lines of diagnostic text, flowcharts, and vital-sign graphs scrolled through the void around them. "Six concurrent employments at nineteen years of age. Minimal familial support. No financial safety net. A textbook case of societal erosion."
The being winced, a human mannerism that seemed both practiced and utterly alien on it.
"Oof. The bureaucratic grimness of it all."
He frowned, the emotional shape of the gesture forming in his awareness. "You're… very casual about this."
"Please," the being replied, a hint of weary professionalism in its tone. "I oversee the transition of trillions of consciousnesses per second across a multiversal spectrum. Yours was tragic, yes—but in a quiet, administrative sort of way. The kind we file under 'Preventable, Systemic.'"
"…Am I dead?" he asked again, needing the confirmation.
"Very. Critically, irreversibly deceased. Cellular shutdown is complete."
"Like—no coming back? No miracle?"
"Oh, you're well past the return window," the being said, conjuring a small, ethereal hourglass that instantly emptied. "That physical vessel is currently the subject of a rather mundane argument between two underpaid paramedics and a liability lawyer representing the convenience store's franchise owner. The discussion revolves around whether you were on the clock. Quite sordid."
He exhaled slowly. Surprisingly, the lack of lungs didn't stop the impulse or the sensation. A ghost of a sigh in the void.
"…Figures. Even my death is a paperwork problem."
The being tilted its head, a galaxy shifting on its shoulder. "You're taking this exceptionally well. Most are screaming by now. Or weeping. Or attempting to negotiate."
"What's the alternative?" he asked, his tone flat, the numbness of his life solidifying into a kind of resigned clarity. "Screaming? Crying? I spent my whole life tired. Dying is just… quieter. The final shift ended."
For the first time, the being looked genuinely, mildly uncomfortable. The swirling stars on its robe slowed their dance.
"Right. About that." It cleared its throat, a sound like grinding tectonic plates. "There's been a mistake. A rather significant one."
He laughed. A sharp, brittle, humorless sound that cracked the quiet. "Of course there has. Why would my luck change now?"
"No, truly. A cosmic-scale filing error." The being snapped again, and the void transformed. Now it was filled with shimmering, interconnected scenes: vast, endless libraries with scrolls that wrote themselves, crystalline structures humming with probability data, branching rivers of fate that glittered and split.
"You," the being stated, pointing a nebulous finger at a specific, tangled thread, "were statistically and destiny-assigned to be born into a high-wealth, high-stability lineage. Generational assets. Top-tier private education from cradle to university. A life of curated opportunity with zero systemic financial stress."
The scenes shifted, zooming in. A private hospital room, all soft lights and quiet efficiency. A well-dressed couple in a heated, whispered argument. A single, physical document—a birth record—being misfiled into the wrong cosmic stream. The image of the infant, his essence, was physically placed into a bassinet in a different, crowded, underfunded ward.
"…Due to a moment of divine distraction during a celestial audit, your soul's assignment was misrouted," the being finished, the scenes dissolving. "A clerical error. It happens more than you'd think. Not often, but… well, you're statistically improbable, not impossible."
He stared into the void where the visions had been.
Then he started laughing.
Not a soft chuckle. Not a polite giggle.
It was the kind of laughter that comes from a place so deep and broken that it sounds like sobbing, raw and jagged and utterly without joy.
"So," he said, the words punctuated by these harsh, breathless barks of sound, "let me get this absolutely straight. I worked myself into a literal grave. I died leaning on a counter that smells of fake lemon and despair. Because some… some cosmic intern in the soul-distribution department can't file a damn form correctly?"
"Hey," the being said, a flicker of divine indignation in its voice. "I didn't say it was an intern. It was a fully accredited Karmic Scribe. A very stressful quadrant, I'll have you know."
"Was it a stapler problem?" he snapped, the anger finally rising, hot and clean after the long numbness. "A misplaced comma? A typo in the cosmic SQL database? Or did the universe just decide to screw me over for its own afternoon entertainment?"
The being sighed, a wind that swept through the void. "You're angry. It's a valid emotional response."
"Wow," he said, flatly. "Nothing gets past your omniscient perception, does it?"
There was a long, heavy pause. The silence stretched, not empty now, but charged with potential.
"…I can offer compensation," the being said, its voice shifting to something more formal, more transactional. "A reconciliation for the administrative oversight."
That got his attention. The anger cooled, hardened into sharp focus.
"Go on."
"Option one," the being said, waving a hand. A vision appeared: a life of stunning, effortless ease. A penthouse overlooking a city. Summers on yachts. A face recognized and respected. A body healthy and strong. "Reincarnation on your native Earth. Immediate insertion into the highest possible stratum. Wealth beyond want. Social and political influence. Perfect, enduring health. You would never need to work a day in your life unless the whim took you. A guarantee of peace, comfort, and safety."
It was beautiful. It was everything he'd killed himself trying to scratch the surface of. It was… a gilded cage. A script already written.
"…And option two?" he heard himself ask.
A slow, wide grin spread across the being's non-face, a curve of supernovas and event horizons. It was a grin of pure, unadulterated interest.
"Chaos."
The void shuddered. With a sound like tearing silk, a massive wheel materialized before them. It was colossal, etched with glowing, ever-shifting symbols and names that pulsed with the essence of their worlds. He could feel the weight of them, the stories, the pain and glory:
Lord of the Mysteries. A sense of intricate rituals, ancient secrets, and lurking madness.
The Beginning After the End. A flavor of reclamation, magic, and royal burden.
Reverend Insanity. The cold, relentless scent of calculation, sacrifice, and ultimate selfishness.
Warhammer 40,000. An overwhelming tide of Gothic horror, eternal war, and cosmic despair.
Marvel. The crackle of chaotic power, bright heroes, and earth-shattering conflicts.
DC. The weight of myths, gods among men, and fundamental dichotomies.
Shadow Slave. A chill of relentless survival, gothic horror, and a hierarchy written in blood and fear.
"You spin," the being said, its voice a delighted whisper. "Where it stops, you go. Full, unmediated immersion into that reality. Real physical laws. Real stakes. Real danger. Real, permanent death should you fall. No reset buttons. No plot armor granted by me."
He stared at the wheel, its segments a kaleidoscope of destinies each more terrifying and magnificent than the last.
Then scoffed. "You're joking."
"I never joke," the being replied, the amusement deepening. "I observe. I administer. And on rare occasions, like this one, I entertain."
"…If I die again in one of these… places?"
"You cease. Fully. Finally. Your consciousness is not rerouted. The experiment concludes."
"…If I suffer? Worse than I already have?"
The being shrugged, galaxies rippling. "You have a high tolerance, as demonstrated. But these worlds… they specialize in novel forms of agony. Yet, they also contain heights of meaning, power, and existence your old world could barely imagine."
He closed his eyes—a meaningless gesture, but a necessary one.
Earth. Rich. Safe. Comfortable. A long, quiet, predictable life. A monument to the error corrected. A peaceful void of a different kind.
Boring.
Predictable.
Empty.
A final, quiet surrender.
The ember in him, the one that had driven him to work six jobs, that had wanted more than just survival, that had chosen the grind over giving up—that ember flickered, not with exhaustion, but with a faint, defiant heat.
"…I choose the wheel."
The being blinked, its form flickering in surprise. "Really? Most in your situation—"
"I worked six jobs because I wanted more than what I was handed," he said quietly, the words solid, certain. "Not just more stuff. More self. More proof that I was here. If I get another life… a real one, after all this… I don't want it to be a cushy apology. I want it to mean something. I want to earn it. Even if it breaks me."
The being studied him, its gaze a physical pressure scanning the contours of his soul.
Then it smiled again, wider, more genuine.
"Oh," it breathed. "I like you."
The wheel began to spin.
It made no sound, yet it screamed with the potential of infinite narratives. Names and symbols blurred into streaks of colored light, a whirlpool of destinies. He saw flashes: a swirling cloak of eyes, a monarch on a throne, a grinding mechanical hulk, a shield emblazoned with a star, a bat-silhouette against a moon, a gauntlet set with gems.
Faster and faster.
Then, with a final, decisive click that echoed through his core, it stopped.
SHADOW SLAVE.
The void seemed to darken, the ambient light leaching away to something colder, older. The very non-air felt heavier, pressing in with a faint, whispering dread.
"…Of course," he muttered. "The nightmare world. The one with the relentless grind baked into its very cosmology."
"An excellent choice!" the being said, clapping its hands with a sound like colliding planets. "A world of brutal, personal survival. A social hierarchy determined by the horrors you survive. Monsters born from the depths of fear and memory. You'll begin as a Sleeper after your First Nightmare. It will be… formative."
"…You're enjoying this a little too much."
"Immensely! It's the most interesting thing to happen in this sector in eons. A clerical error with a spine. Delicious."
"Figures. My cosmic caseworker is a drama addict."
The being raised a finger, its tone shifting to one of theatrical gravity. "One more thing. A parting gift. Because I feel… especially bad. And because I'm invested now."
An ancient scroll, its parchment seeming to be made of solidified shadow and old blood, appeared between them. Glowing, mercurial runes shifted and swam across its surface, waiting for a will to shape them.
"You may choose your Aspect. A fundamental, defining power for your new life."
His attention sharpened to a razor point. "My Aspect?"
"In the world of Shadow Slave, Aspects are granted by the Spell after the First Nightmare. They define your path, your abilities, your very nature. They grow with you: Dormant, Awakened, Ascended, Transcendent, Supreme… and, in legends, Divine."
"…Divine?" he asked carefully. "You'd allow that?"
"The rules permit it as a potential," the being said, leaning in conspiratorially. "But with a caveat. It cannot be an instant, uncontested win condition. The Spell of that world, and the world itself, would reject a blatant cheat. It must have rules, costs, growth. A narrative."
He smirked, a real one. "I wouldn't respect it if it were easy. I've had enough of things being unfairly hard. I want something fairly hard, for once."
"Good. Then write. Shape your divine principle."
He took the scroll. Not with hands, but with intent. He thought of his old life. Of exhaustion as a constant companion. Of the curses of poverty, of circumstance, of a body and mind pushed too far. He thought of systems—of shift schedules, of grade point averages, of the cold calculus of survival. He thought of power—not the kind waved around, but the kind earned in the dark, silent hours, the kind built piece by painful piece.
"I don't want to be born a king or a god," he said, his will flowing into the runes. "I don't want an Aspect that just makes me powerful. I want one that lets me learn power. That forces me to understand it. To earn it, one nightmare at a time."
The runes flared with a fierce, black-violet light. They rearranged, burned away, and reformed into a new declaration:
Aspect: Cursed Sovereignty Symbolisms
Rank: Divine
Description: The bearer is a living archive of cursed energy and esoteric technique. Upon the successful completion of each Nightmare and advancement in Rank (Dormant to Awakened, Awakened to Ascended, etc.), the bearer manifests a unique set of seven 'Cursed Technique Cards'—blank slates imbused with the potential of a hostile, arcane system.
From each set of seven, the bearer may select and inscribe two Cursed Techniques, drawn from the vast and perilous arsenal of the Jujutsu Kaisen reality. Techniques may range from innate talents like Ten Shadows or Limitless, to shikigami summoning, to barrier creation, to the devastating arts of Idle Transfiguration or Disaster Flames.
The chosen techniques scale in power and complexity with the bearer's Rank. A technique manifested at the Dormant stage is a seed, a faint echo. At Awakened, it becomes usable. At Transcendent, it approaches its legendary potential. Mastery is not granted; it must be practiced, understood, and fought for.
All techniques consume resources—cursed energy, which the bearer must learn to generate and control, often at great personal risk. The more powerful the technique, the greater the toll on body and soul. Reversal techniques, domain expansions, and ultimate applications are locked behind profound comprehension and spiritual evolution.
No technique manifests at full, world-breaking potential instantly. Power is a language to be learned, syllable by painful syllable. The path is one of endless study, adaptation, and struggle against the very curses one wields.
The scroll combusted, the ash swirling into his form, imprinting the law of this power onto his soul.
"…You are utterly, magnificently insane," the being said, its voice thick with fond admiration. "To tie a Divine Aspect to a process of perpetual learning and struggle… to choose a power system known for devouring its users from the inside out…"
"High praise, coming from you."
"You realize some of these techniques have wills of their own? That they can twist your soul, or demand prices in sanity or memory?"
He met the being's gaze, his resolve solid as forged iron. "So does poverty. So does exhaustion. I'm familiar with hostile systems. At least this one offers a fighting chance in return."
For a moment, they laughed together, a strange harmony in the void.
For that moment, the nothingness felt… almost warm.
"Well," the being said, its form beginning to dissolve back into the ambient light. "Time to suffer productively. Do try to make it interesting. I'll be… watching."
"Story of my life," he replied. "Or. My death. Whatever this is."
The void collapsed in on itself.
The comfortable nothing was violently ripped away, replaced by a rushing, howling darkness that was not an absence, but a presence—a cold, sentient, and hungry pressure.
And somewhere far away, in a world where humanity huddled behind great walls, dreaming of cursed suns and trapped in an endless, bloody game…
A variable was added.
A new piece was placed on the board.