"You stay here, Akira. I'm just running to the corner store. I'll be right back."
Hayashi Ori left at 9:00 that night. She said she'd be back soon.
It was not a human voice.
In seventeen years of life, he had never heard anything like it. But in that instant, every hair on his body stood on end, and instinct screamed one thing at him:
Run.
Run now.
His sister.
There was light at the end of the alley. Not a streetlamp, but something bluish and sickly, like the glow of rotten fireflies.
And beneath that light stood... something.
Ten feet tall. Humanoid. But its limbs were twisted, like they had been snapped apart and crudely jammed back together, the joints stretched in reverse. Its head took up half its body. It had no face, only a mouth - split from one side of its head to the other, packed with rings of teeth like a meat grinder, like some deep-sea predator.
It was wearing a hoodie Hayashi Akira recognized.
Pink.
His sister had bought it earlier that week.
Akira's mind went blank.
"Sis...!"
He charged.
The cursed spirit lifted its head.
That faceless thing turned toward him, and somehow Akira could feel it grinning.
A second later, he was airborne.
Not by his own choice. That twisted hand had clamped around his throat and hurled him into the wall.
Bang!!!
Every step it took made the ground tremble.
He could only watch as that hand reached for him again.
It grabbed his head, hoisted him up, and left him hanging in midair.
His vision started to blur.
His breathing started to fail.
And in the final moment before his consciousness sank into darkness, Akira saw it.
He saw a river.
A boundless river of light.
Countless tributaries branched through it, countless forks, countless possibilities.
In one branch stood an old man with pink hair atop a mountain of corpses, his eyes weary and full of mercy.
That was Itadori Yuji - the one who survived to the end, the Tiger Sovereign.
One of those branches rushed straight toward him.
And he understood everything.
He saw another version of himself sitting in front of a computer, staying up all night to catch the latest chapter, thumb sliding over a glowing screen.
On that screen was a title:
Jujutsu Kaisen
Then he saw that other self's heart suddenly stop, saw him collapse across the keyboard.
Boom!!!
Every image shattered.
He knew the thing choking him was called a cursed spirit.
He knew that pink-haired old man was Itadori Yuji's future self. He knew the twin sisters were Mimiko and Nanako. He knew a man named Gojo Satoru would be sealed away. He knew a place called Shibuya would become Hell.
He knew he did not belong to this world.
He knew he had already died once.
He knew this:
Those memories, that knowledge, that experience - they were his now.
Past life and present life had fused into one.
Not struggle.
A fist.
One punch crashed into the cursed spirit's wrist.
A spray of blood exploded out.
The cursed spirit shrieked and released him.
Akira hit the ground, dropping to one knee and gasping for air.
Several ribs were broken. His back felt like it had been split open. But he stood.
He looked at the cursed spirit.
Then...
It turned and ran.
Akira froze for half a beat.
Then he dropped to his knees and rolled the body over.
It was not Hayashi Ori.
Just a stranger wearing the same style of hoodie.
Not dead. Only unconscious from shock.
He laughed, and it sounded almost like crying.
Not his sister.
Akira got to his feet and staggered deeper into the alley.
He needed to go home.
He needed to make sure his sister was home.
He ran out of the alley, across the street, up the apartment stairs, shoved open the door -
Then he laughed.
"I'm fine," he said, his throat rough as sandpaper. "I just... went for a run."
Ori frowned. "A run? You're drenched. Go shower. I saved you some dinner."
"Yeah."
Akira stepped into the bathroom and shut the door.
He stared at himself in the mirror.
Seventeen years old. Black hair. Dark eyes.
He looked down. Thankfully, he was dressed all in black. Even after coughing up blood, the stains hardly showed.
Then he looked up again at the reflection.
The reflection was looking back at him.
Two lifetimes of memory tangled inside his head. Thirty years from the last life. Seventeen from this one. Loneliness in one. Family in the other.
Suddenly he remembered a line he had read a long time ago.
A line from an old book.
"Only today do I know that I am myself."
Facing the mirror, Akira said softly,
"My name is Hayashi Akira."
"I have always been myself."
He kept staring.
The person in the mirror was smiling.
"Alright."
He turned on the shower and washed his face.
He still did not know the timeline.
He did not know what he could change.
But he knew one thing:
From today on, he was not just Hayashi Akira anymore.
He was someone who knew the story.
Someone with a cursed technique.
Someone who could summon Heroic Spirits.
Akira lifted his head and looked at the moon.
"Sis," he called, "is there any dinner left?"
"There is! Serve yourself!"
"Coming."
He dried off his face and walked out of the bathroom.
A bowl of noodles steamed on the table.
His sister sat on the couch watching TV without looking back. "Tomorrow's Saturday. Come to the supermarket with me."
"Sure."
Akira sat down and picked up his chopsticks.
He remembered the visions he had just seen. The river of time. Endless possibilities. The Tiger Sovereign's weary, merciful gaze. The sword that had never appeared within the three rings of light.
And also -
Among those countless tributaries, one belonged to him.
Where did that branch lead?
He did not know.
But one day, he would see it.
"Akira, what are you waiting for? Eat before it gets cold."
"Yeah."
He lowered his head and took a bite of noodles.
They were still hot.