As I stood in the ruins of my last attack, alone, I looked at the remains of the one thing that tied me to this body's old life, its house, or apartment, rather, 'same difference.'
No longer could I possibly leech off this guy's hard work for a couple of months before being evicted.
'Oh man,' I thought sadly, realizing I had just blown away my ticket to months of free loading.
That was, of course, until I remembered the gravity of the situation. 'Right, Mahito.' I thought in a moment of clarity, instantly killing any joviality in my thought process.
With that in mind, I swiftly resumed the flow of cursed energy in my body and turned from the ruins, before dashing full speed in the opposite direction I hit Mahito earlier.
Because I was damned if I was going to fight him twice in one night.
(Timeskip 5 minutes)
It was only after 5 minutes of solid full-speed sprinting that I finally felt confident enough to stop and gather myself. 'Okay, let's start with what I know.' I'm in JJK, and I have cursed energy and a technique that lets me crack space and generate huge shockwaves behind it. 'And uhh that's kinda it.' I mean it made sense I was here for all of 7 minutes, 5 of which were spent running and the other 2 were spent in life-or-death combat.
I did the one thing I could think of to gather more information about my circumstances and padded my pockets. Or I would have had my left arm not still be dangling painfully by my side. Instead, I patted my right pocket and found this body's phone. 'Jackpot,' I intoned in my head, as I turned it on.
A modern phone with cellular data will tell him every th-
What's my passcode?
'Ah man, c'mon, can't anything be easy?' I complained internally, before glancing at the date and time: 19:37 pm Oct 31.
'Oh… oh no,' The realization washed over me like a frigid avalanche of dread. After all, there was only one city that Mahito was in on Halloween. 'Fucking Shibuya, that is sooooo not fair.' I whined in my head.
'This is… salvageable?' I told myself, but it feels more like a question than a statement. The unease lingered as I put my phone back into my pocket. I was probably going to sell it 'cuz I can use it. 'So I'm in Shibuya, and my phone's no good, so that's just great.' I sighed before reaching for my left pocket with my right arm.
My luck, it seems, had not run out as this body had died with its wallet in its pocket, and it somehow didn't fall loose during the entire confrontation. 'Who thought cuffed sweatpants with zipper pockets would be beneficial for once?' I considered while pulling at the shirt and pants that were a size or two small for me.
'Seriously, it's like he dresses for being a different size,' I fished the wallet out of my pocket before opening it. 'Uhhh, that's weird,' I took in the photo of "me" and saw a black-haired, short Japanese boy, which was odd considering I had long silver hair. 'Did my soul change this guy's body? I mean, it makes sense, all things considered, about souls in Jujutsu Kaisen.' I put my hand under my chin and thought a moment longer before ultimately letting the topic drop. I had much bigger concerns at the moment.
'Now, how do I survive Shibuya?' At the moment, that was the only real question plaguing my mind. 'Well, first things first, I need to get a better grasp on cursed energy and my technique.' My eyes drifted to the name on my ID in my pondering.
Shinji
Newgate Shinji.
'Shinji is a pretty fir-' My thoughts came to a screaming halt as I reconsidered my family name. 'I'm sorry, Newgate? Like Whitebeard Newgate? The one piece is real Newgate?' And thinking back it honestly made an embarrassing amount of sense given my technique, whatever it was called.
'Okay, well, if I'm right and I do have the powers of the gura-gura no mi as a cursed technique, then I have a very bright future, assuming I live.' I paused again, 'scratch that, even if I do have these powers, ability in JJK is 80% decided at birth through talent.' I felt a cold sensation wash over my hand as it went alight with my uniquely colored cursed energy.
I stared at its flickering form for a moment, 'Thats not exactly true, however. You could put anyone in the same body as Sukuna with the same talent, but I can guarantee you that no one, irrespective of how hard they work, would come close to 80% of Sukuna's power.' I thought to myself, thinking back to how much Gege had glazed Sukuna in canon.
'Regardless, I need to get better, and fast too.' I swivelled my head, idly noting the nearly empty street and lack of civilians. 'I also need to write down everything I can remember about cannon, pronto.' I toyed with my cursed energy, seeing how it reacted when I tried to move it in all kinds of ways.
'Especially since the greatest backshot taker of the modern era, aka the "planman," is up and about.' The thought made me pause in my surveillance of the surroundings. 'Am I part of his plan?'
Now that thought really stood out, because it made way too much sense. A really big soul in the body of a guy with a small soul? Yeah, sounds like an incarnated sorcerer to me. Wonder if that's what I was? I doubt it considering any of the fragmented memories of my old life seem to be in the modern era as well, but you never know with Kenjaku.
'That's not important right now,' I refocused on the task at hand. 'How do I get as strong as possible as fast as possible?' The question lingered as a weight settled as I considered the only way I knew of shortcutting mastery.
Binding Vows.
I could incur a permanent cost to increase my abilities in the short term. This came with its own set of problems, however, because I was not about to permanently nerf myself unless it was the very last case scenario.
'Plus, I want to see how far I can go just with my own powers.' That also brought me pause, 'What do I want?' So far, this new life of mine has been a chaotic shit storm, but I was genuinely excited about the notion of a magic system and pushing the boundaries of it.
Disengaging from that line of thought, I redialed in to how to gain strength fast. There was another method that was used quite often.
Learning mid-fight.
It was no secret that in JJK, the biggest jumps in power happen inside fights, slow growth outside of it, and rapid, explosive growth in fights. Take Gojo, for example; he was only seriously challenged twice in his life. And what happened both times, he unlocked RCT and did things with a domain that Kusakabe, the strongest grade one and a barrier expert, called impossible.
And that's not mentioning Yuji or Sukuna.
Black flash and binding vow merchants, both of them.
It made for some of the most ridiculous power climbs in anime, 'and now I get to do that only starting from nothing, great, great.' I let out a long breath, coming to terms with the fact that if I wanted to live in this forsaken world, I would have to fight constantly just to have a chance at being at a high enough level to live the next like 3 hours.
'Well, no time like the present.'
Timeskip (15 minutes later)
'All things considered, I'm not too shabby.' I thought nodding to myself while staring at the car I had just made a permanent fixture of the wall out of.
'By allowing cursed energy to surround my body, I can increase my physical stats, not to the same point of reinforcement, but it's something.' The car groaned, metal shearing and bending against itself. 'But, with my technique, I think I'm going to call it fault line from now on, I can radically increase my attack power, enough to where punching a car throws it into a wall.'
'What's more interesting is my cursed energy itself. It feels like it's… vibrating? I have no clue if that's what normal cursed energy feels like, but my gut tells me it means something.'
My attention was drawn to the lamppost right next to me, and with a sudden burst of inspiration, I put my hand on it and channeled cursed energy into it. The whole post started to shake and vibrate, cracking the concrete it stood in. 'Now that is 100% not normal.' I thought to myself in awe of the shaking post, 'But what happens if I-' I changed how I channeled the energy to the tips of my fingers and concentrated the flow there.
The post stopped shaking, but where my fingers made contact, the vibration was far more intense than before. 'Fascinating,' I thought to myself, 'It seems like kashimo, my cursed energy, has a unique "aspect" that vibrates. Freaky.'
I pulled my hand off the lamp, and it stopped vibrating instantly.
'What?'
That's not how physics works.
Vibrations take time to stop, even if they're anchored in concrete. Speaking of concrete, the concrete at the base of the pole was closer to sand than concrete.
I wasn't given much time to think about it as I heard a woman's shriek down the road.
I turned my head in the direction in time to see a woman turn the corner while running as fast as she could, stumbling slightly.
A couple of seconds after she rounded the corner, while bolting straight at me, A huge lizard curse rolled around the corner while staring dead at the woman, and consequently me.
It was tall, 5 meters at least, and looked like an early form of Shin Godzilla, a purple fleshy, gekko-like head with meter-long, sharp thin teeth, that wasn't rotating like the rest of its body. At the neck, its body was segmented, and that part was rolling with two legs. There was another segmentation at the midpoint of its torso where its other legs were also rotating, but at a different rate.
It stopped dead, in the middle of the wide street, the rotating segments clicking into place, before it roared. The sound was a blast of pure sonic force. It started to charge its body, slithering as low to the ground as it could on its giant legs. The force of each step cracked the pavement with thunderous steps, far faster than the woman was running.
I ran full speed to meet it. Not to save the woman, mind you. While I would have saved her no matter what, the main reason for my reckless charge was that there was one thing I needed right now more than anything.
Experience.
I needed to fight right now. If I didn't no way in hell would I even have a snowball's chance in hell at living through the night, much less living through the culling games.
My whole frame came alight with my vibrating cursed energy. The monster and woman seemed to slow slightly, and my charge became a blur of movement as I accelerated.
I cleared the distance between us in a second. My fist slammed into the underside of its jaw,
Crack
Space shattered just before the point of contact, then responded in kind. The wave of force that threw the curse into the air shattered the windows of the buildings surrounding us. And I heard a scream from behind me as the blast knocked the stumbling woman onto the ground.
The flesh lizzard flew back into the air, 10-maybe-20 meters into the air, roaring in pain the whole time.
That's when the strangest thing happened.
The two segments of the legs started to spin in opposite directions. And fast.
It started to fall before its helicopter legs kicked into overdrive, spinning faster still. They kept accelerating until they started to generate a localized tornado around them. The gale force winds that kicked off it forced me to brace, so as not get flung away, like that woman behind me was.
It snapped its snout in my direction and glared at me with big, beady, slit eyes that I could swear were wishing my death.
'Give me a damn break,' I cursed at the absurdity of the situation, 'Not once did I ever see or hear anything about a Beyblade helicopter curse.'
The curse was apparently not so pleased with the idea of me mocking its form in my own thoughts as it roared in fury. It tilted its body towards me, slowly pivoting its body to face mine. Its propulsion followed suit, launching it straight at me with increasing speed.
It opened its maw wide, huge teeth opening ominously, aiming to bite me in half or swallow me whole.
I focused more of my cursed energy in my legs on instinct, jumping to the side, shattering the asphalt at my feet, but not triggering my technique. I moved faster than I had ever and the curse missed by miles.
It corrected its flight path, pulling up as its legs dug into the road, creating a trench as it passed before pulling up to try again.
I recognized this and pumped even more of my cursed energy into my legs before jumping right at it.
I cratered the concrete underneath my feet for a meter, rocketing straight towards it. I had underestimated it, however, leaving my arc just below its tail.
A shark-like smile etched itself onto my face, 'What comes up,' I thought while grabbing with my right arm its tail flying by.
'Must come-DOWN!" I redirected all of the cursed energy I could control into swinging the curse with all my might into the ground.
It's back collided thunderously with the ground, and it roared in fury and agony, its legs stopped by the ground. The concrete underneath the curve is bevelled.
'Now's my chance!' I thought seizing the opening while the curse was weak to land a cheap shot right to its ch-
Its segmented body twisted.
Its front left leg cracked like a whip, and I redirected all of the cursed energy I could control into strengthening my left side.
I was punted from my spot and rocketed into a storefront.
I punched through the first wall and bounced off the hard flooring once before landing in a ball pit.
I could still hear the roars of the curse as I fell into the pit.
Unsurprisingly, it was harder to get out of that ball pit than it was to fight Mahito. I waded my way out of the pit, pulling myself over the edge, wincing at the bruise that was surely forming from that last impact.
'Now I see, just flowing my energy enhanced my body, but by concentrating the flow, I can selectively enhance or "reinforce" parts of my body to be way stronger.' The idea made me pause as I stopped to consider, 'But what about Yuta? He was able to reinforce his whole body at a time and not suffer any nerfs to his reinforcement.'
'A problem for another time,' I thought, refocusing on the curse at hand. It was rushing straight at me, uncaring of the concrete in its path. My eyes swept to my right, locking onto the steel pipes that made up the part of the kids' playhouse where we landed. I reinforced my legs with cursed energy and dashed at them, ripping two of them from the playhouse.
I grinned despite myself, 'it's perfect,' I thought, and it was, measuring about a meter and a half long, sturdy and hollow. The curse was 10 meters away now. I turned and slammed the pipes against the other pipes in the jungle gym.
A loud ringing started to emanate from them. I concentrated funneling an enormous amount of my cursed energy into the pipe in my hand.
My vibrating cursed energy amplified the sound. Resonating to a fever pitch, soft distortions in the air where the sound waves were traveling. The curse skidded to a stop, throwing its head back- and destroying the roof above it- and I assume roaring? I couldn't hear over the sound of the metal pipes.
I adjusted my grip on the vibrating pipe, holding it like a javelin while pumping more energy into it to maintain the resonance. My right arm drew back.
I stepped forward and threw with everything I had, reinforcing my right arm through the entire motion while keeping my left clamped to my side.
The pipe spun through the air, vibrating so intensely the air around it seemed to shimmer.
It struck the curse's open mouth—
—and shattered.
Metal fragments sprayed everywhere as the hollow pipe collapsed against those needle-like teeth. The curse flinched, shaking its head, but the damage was minimal. A few broken teeth. Some lacerations in its mouth.
Not even close to fatal.
'Shit.'
The resonance stopped. The curse's eyes locked onto me, and I could see the exact moment it decided I was going to die.
It charged, legs spinning up to full speed, body low to the ground.
I had maybe three seconds.
My eyes darted around the playhouse—foam padding, plastic slides, climbing nets. Nothing that would stop that thing. My right hand closed around the second pipe still wedged in the jungle gym framework.
Two seconds.
The curse was fifteen meters away, closing fast, mouth open wide enough to swallow me whole.
I ripped the pipe free and didn't bother with the javelin technique this time. Instead, I held it lengthwise in my right hand and started running straight at it, pumping energy into my legs.
One second.
I jumped—not away, but up and over—vaulting with the pipe held horizontally in my right hand. My left arm screamed in protest as my body twisted mid-air, but I kept it pinned to my ribs.
The curse passed beneath me, jaws snapping shut on empty air.
I came down on its back between the two rotating segments.
The moment my feet touched its flesh, I drove the pipe down with both hands—yes, both, because fuck my shoulder, this was life or death—and stabbed it into the segmentation point where its upper and lower body met.
The pipe punched through flesh and wedged between the segments.
The curse shrieked, its rotation stuttering, the upper and lower halves trying to spin in opposite directions but now locked by the pipe jammed between them.
Metal groaned. The curse's body twisted violently, trying to dislodge the obstruction.
I didn't let go.
Instead, I funneled every drop of cursed energy I had into that pipe.
The vibration started immediately. The metal sang, the resonance building, and I felt it conduct directly into the curse's body. Its flesh began to shake, the vibration spreading from the point of contact outward.
The curse's shriek reached a fever pitch. It thrashed wildly, its legs windmilling out of control, but I held on with my right hand white-knuckled on the pipe, my left arm uselessly dangling as fresh agony shot through my shoulder.
The vibration intensified.
I watched in morbid fascination as the curse's flesh began to separate at the molecular level. Cracks spider-webbed from where the pipe entered, blood vessels bursting, muscle fiber tearing apart.
The curse's body was tearing itself apart from the inside out.
It tried one last desperate maneuver—spinning both segments in the same direction, trying to throw me off through sheer centrifugal force.
I activated Fault Line.
CRACK
My right fist, still gripping the pipe, shattered space. The shockwave traveled through the pipe, into the curse's body, and, amplified by the existing vibration, it created a cascading failure.
The curse's spine snapped.
Its segments separated, the upper body launching in one direction while the lower crashed into the other.
I hit the ground hard, tucking into a roll that I absolutely didn't stick, nearly falling back into the ball pit.
My left shoulder screamed. My vision went white for a second.
When I could see again, I looked up to find both halves of the curse disintegrating into black particles.
Dead.
I lay there for a moment, breathing hard, my entire body aching. My left arm was completely useless now—I couldn't even feel my fingers anymore, just a hot, nauseating throb radiating from my shoulder.
The pipe clattered to the ground from where the curse's upper body had been, bent nearly in half.
'Okay,' I thought, staring up at the night sky once more. 'Note to self: get my shoulder looked at—shit feels pulverized.'
I forced myself to sit up with my right arm, keeping my left cradled against my chest. Every breath hurt. My ears were still ringing from the resonance.
But I was alive.
I could still hear distant screams. Curses roaring and moaning.
Shibuya was still happening.
Which meant I had a long, long night ahead of me.
I looked down at my left arm. The shoulder was swollen to twice its normal size now, already bruising dark purple. I couldn't lift it more than a few inches without wanting to vomit.
'This is going to be a problem,' I thought distantly, then barked out a laugh that turned into a cough. 'Understatement of the fucking century.'
I used the car behind me to haul myself upright, standing on shaky legs. The woman from earlier was long gone—smart of her. The street was empty except for shattered glass, cracked pavement, and the fading particles of a dead curse.
I took one last look at the destroyed playhouse, then turned toward the sound of distant chaos.
'Alright. Round two. Let's see if I can actually survive this.'
I started walking, my right arm supporting my left, each step sending jolts of pain through my shoulder.
But I was moving forward.
That was something.
.
.
.
Authors Note
Okay, that was a long one and pretty info heavy i'm playing around with my style a touch and chapter lengths. Let me know what you thought of it and how I can improve.
Have a wonderful day.
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