The massage chair was purchased. An absurdly high-end model with more settings than a spaceship, currently en route to his sparse dorm room. The sheer, hedonistic pointlessness of it, bought with a card that could probably fund a small coup, gave Michael a perverse thrill. It was his first official act of "Gojo-funded whimsy," and it felt like rebellion.
Three days had passed since the card changed hands. Three days of furious, obsessive research.
His laptop, a sleek new machine that didn't stutter when he had twelve tabs of Tracen Academy curriculum, equine physiology papers, and Twinkle Series regulations open, was his constant companion.
He was dissecting the path to becoming a trainer with the same intensity he'd once used to theory-craft anime power systems.
It was a mountain of information. Practical horsemanship (or horse-girl-manship), advanced nutrition, biomechanics of high-speed turns, psychology of elite athletes, the byzantine bureaucracy of the racing association... He'd known it would be hard, but the sheer volume was daunting.
How do you cram a four-year specialized degree into a few months? he thought, rubbing his tired eyes. Answer: you don't. You cheat. You get forged in by the strongest sorcerer alive.
The theoretical was giving him a headache. He needed to move.
The main training field at Jujutsu High was vast and empty in the late afternoon. He wasn't trying anything fancy with his technique today no tree explosions, no misguided ocular enhancements. Just the basics. Feeling the flow of cursed energy, practicing the smooth, controlled channeling of it into his limbs for simple reinforcement.
Speed drills, agility ladders he'd fashioned out of rope, push-ups with a subtle kinetic push to increase the resistance. It was mundane, foundational work. The kind of thing the original Michael probably did in his sleep.
He was in the middle of a set of explosively-enhanced squat jumps, the dirt cratering slightly under his feet with each launch, when he heard voices cutting through his focused breathing.
"...definitely overkill. The entire archive didn't need to be incinerated, just the cursed object."
"Salmon."
"Hey, a clean sweep is a clean sweep! No complaints from the client!"
Michael landed softly, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his arm, and turned.
Three figures emerged from the path leading from the main gates. The sight of them was like a splash of cold water, shocking him out of his single-minded training fugue.
There was Maki Zen'in, tall and athletic, a long black ponytail swaying, her signature glasses perched on her nose. She carried a wrapped weapon case casually over one shoulder, her expression one of mild annoyance. Beside her loomed Panda, his familiar black-and-white bulk a comforting, surreal presence. Bringing up the rear was Toge Inumaki, his high collar zipped up to his nose, his platinum blonde hair distinctive even from a distance.
Huh. The thought arrived, simple and clear. I haven't seen them at all.
In the whirlwind of his own death, rebirth, injury, and Teio-induced panic, he'd completely failed to notice the absence of the main cast. They must have been on an extended mission since before he'd woken up in the shrine. A week-long assignment, at least. It explained the eerie emptiness of the school beyond the staff.
Then, a more urgent thought followed: Act. Now.
The old Michael knew them. Was friends with them, according to the fuzzy, dream-like memories that had been surfacing scenes of sparring sessions with Maki where mutual respect was communicated through grunts and bruises, of appreciating Panda's strange, cheerful wisdom, of sharing quiet, wordless companionship with Inumaki.
He couldn't be "not-Michael" with them. Gojo was one thing; the man lived for entertainment and things that amuse him. These were his peers. His cover with them needed to be the "recovering, brain-damaged, but fundamentally the same" Michael.
He schooled his features into what he hoped was the old Michael's version of neutral acknowledgement a slight frown, a nod as they approached.
Panda saw him first, raising a paw in a wave. "Oh! Michael! Heard you got yourself mangled. Looking less mangled now!"
Maki's sharp eyes scanned him, assessing his condition with a practitioner's gaze. "Jaeger. Ijichi was sputtering about a Category-Kai misclassification. Surprised that you even You survived. Good." It was about as warm a greeting as she gave anyone.
Inumaki offered a silent thumbs-up from behind his collar. "Bonito flakes."
Michael gave a single, sharp nod back, mirroring Inumaki's economy. "Zen'in. Panda. Inumaki." He kept his voice low, a little gravelly from disuse and exercise. "Mission?"
"Waste disposal," Maki said, dropping her weapon case with a thud. "Some cursed cult was hoarding corrupted manuscripts in a vault in Nara. The higher-ups wanted it sanitized."
"Tuna mayo," Inumaki added, shaking his head slightly.
"Which someone," Panda said, jerking a thumb at Maki, "interpreted as 'reduce the entire mountain vault to slag.'"
"It was the most efficient method," Maki retorted, crossing her arms. "The curse was woven into the foundation. Burn the foundation, burn the curse. You're just upset because you wanted to 'read the ancient texts for historical context.'"
"Kelp," Inumaki said, nodding in agreement with Panda.
Panda put his paws on his hips. "Knowledge is power! And some of those illustrations were... intriguingly blasphemous!"
Michael listened, staying silent, letting the familiar dynamic wash over him. The memories fit. This was their rhythm. He offered another grunt, this one conveying a vague 'sounds messy.'
Maki's gaze lingered on him a moment longer. "You're moving stiffly. The side?"
"Healing," Michael said, tapping his ribs. "Shoko's orders. Light work only."
"Smart," Maki conceded. "A dead sorcerer is a useless sorcerer. Even one who can take a Special Grade mountain deity with him." There was no praise in her voice, just a statement of fact. Coming from her, it was high recognition.
"Speaking of light work," Panda boomed, clapping his paws together. "We need to shake off the road dust. A few light spars? You up for it, Michael? Or are you too fragile for the Panda Special?"
A spark of alarm shot through Michael. A spar? With them? He could handle the kinetic reinforcement, maybe, but his actual combat style, his instincts... they'd be all wrong. The old Michael fought with a precise, efficiency. He, Nicholas, fought like a scared nerd who'd watched too many superhero movies.
He was about to grunt a refusal, to cite doctor's orders again, when Maki spoke up.
"Don't be an idiot, Panda," she said, though there was no real heat in it. "He just said light work. Besides," she looked at Michael, a faint, almost imperceptible smirk on her lips, "I want him at full strength when we next spar. I have a new technique I'm developing to counter that whip-strand thing you do. I need a proper test."
Michael met her gaze and gave one more, final nod. This one felt more genuine. "Later, then."
"Sounds like a plan! We're gonna hit the baths. That vault was musty." Panda lumbered off, Inumaki following with a quiet "Mustard leaf" wave.
Maki paused, hefting her case again. "Get your rest, Jaeger. The school's quiet enough without you adding to the casualty list." With that, she turned and followed the others.
Michael stood alone in the training field as they disappeared into the school buildings. The tension drained from his shoulders. He'd done it. Passed the first, unexpected test. They'd seen the stiff movement, the quiet demeanor, and had chalked it up to injury and recovery. The cover held.
But Maki's words echoed. "That whip-strand thing you do.."
He looked down at his hands. He could store and release kinetic force. He could reinforce his body. But the true core of his inherited power, the manifestation of will, the thing that defined the original's fighting style... that was still a mystery. A whip-strand thing.
He had the financial backing of a god. He had a cover that was holding, for now. He had a goal that glittered with promises of honey drinks and sunshine.
But to protect any of it, to be worthy of the challenge in Maki's eyes or the investment in Gojo's card, he needed to unlock the real Kinetic Will. Not just the battery. But the conductor as well.
The quiet of the school after the second-years' return felt different. It wasn't the empty silence of before, but a lull, a space between storms. Michael felt that tension in his own muscles. He had the money. He had the cover, however fragile. He had the goal.
But Maki's words "that whip-strand thing"—laid bare the gap between what he had and what he needed. He had the engine's power. He lacked its steering and its true form.
He couldn't put it off. Not with the shadow of Shibuya on the calendar, not with the thought of that dark aura clinging to Teio's light. As dusk painted the sky in deep blues and purples, he found himself walking back up the mountain path to his private, already-damaged clearing. The shattered pine and scarred earth were a testament to his first, clumsy steps. It was the right place for the next ones.
Gojo's offhand description echoed in his head. "You convert that stored kinetic juice, mix it with your cursed energy and this is the key bit your intent, your "will", and you make it... tangible. You give your imagination a physical form. Usually as black, whip-like thingies. Very edgy...."
"Whip-like thingies," Michael muttered to the twilight woods. "Right. So not just raw force. Structure. Form. Control."
He started with the basics again, warming up not his body, but the energy within it. He moved through simple forms, letting the kinetic energy flow to his limbs, enhancing strikes and blocks. His body remembered more than he did; the footwork, the pivots, the way to shift weight for maximum leverage it was all there
He let the instincts guide him, focusing on the feeling of the energy itself, its weightless density, its potential.
After a solid hour, sweat cooling on his skin in the mountain air, he stopped. He stood in the center of the clearing, breathing deeply. This was it.
He focused inward, finding the familiar click of the Kinetic Reservoir. The stored energy from his practice hummed within him. But this time, he didn't think about pushing it into his fist or his legs. He thought about extension. He thought about Gojo's words: "You give your imagination a physical form."
He held out his right hand, palm up, and willed. He imagined a strand of darkness, thin and flexible, snapping from his skin like a black extension of his own nerves.
For a second, nothing. Then, something gathered in his palm. But it wasn't a strand.
A patch of darkness pooled on his skin, about the size of a drink coaster. It wasn't solid; it looked unstable, shimmering like hot asphalt, a puddle of pure shadow. It felt cold and strangely inert.
Michael frowned, staring at it. "What... is this? This isn't a whip. This is a... a stain."
His disappointment was sharp. His intent the clear, specific image of a whip had been rejected. This was a failed manifestation, a formless blob of willpower. A surge of frustration washed over him. Useless.
The goopy patch on his palm seemed to react to his spike of negative emotion. It quivered.
Then, without any conscious command from him, it moved.
It didn't lash out like a whip. It erupted. The dark patch shot forward from his palm, hardening and stretching in a fraction of a second into a thick, four-inch cone of solidified black energy. It wasn't elegant or controlled. It was a brutal, triangular spike, like the horn of some primitive beast.
It happened too fast. The spike grazed the air just beside his head.
He felt a line of fire bloom across his left cheek. A sharp, stinging pain.
"Ah—!"
The shock was total. He hadn't willed an attack. He'd just been annoyed at his own failure. He stumbled backwards, his balance gone, his focus shattered. The spike, connected to the unstable patch on his hand, jerked with his movement before dissolving into black mist.
His heel caught on a root. He fell hard onto his backside, the impact knocking the wind from his lungs with a pained grunt. He sat there in the dirt, one hand pressed to his stinging cheek. His fingers came away smeared with a thin line of blood.
He stared at the red on his fingertips, then at his now-empty palm. His heart hammered against his ribs.
That wasn't a technique. That was a reflex. A dangerous, uncontrolled reflex born from frustration. The "will" part wasn't about polite construction. It was raw intent, given shape, and his frustration had shaped it into a weapon that turned on him.
He took a shaky breath, the cold evening air searing his lungs. The cut on his cheek throbbed.
"So," he whispered to the darkening clearing, his voice unsteady. "It's not just what I picture. It's what I feel. The will has to be clear. Unambiguous. Or it gets... messy."
He pushed himself to his feet, wincing. The lesson was painful, but it was a lesson. He wiped the blood on his trousers. He had a lot to learn. And he was going to get cut in the process.
The sharp pain in his cheek was a focus. The smear of blood on his hand was a reminder. He couldn't afford to be vague. His will had to be absolute, a command, not a suggestion.
Taking a steadying breath, he ignored the sting and focused again. This time, he pushed aside the frustration, the disappointment, the lingering shock. He pictured it with crystalline clarity: not just a "whip," but a specific, simple form. A single, smooth line of condensed intention, extending from the point between his knuckles. He didn't just want it, he defined it.
The energy responded. This time, there was no unstable pool. A thin, precise line of pure black unfurled from his hand. It was darker than the gathering night, seeming to drink the fading light around it.
It was about as thick as his index finger and extended six feet before tapering to a point. It hovered, motionless, connected to him by an intangible thread of focus.
A slow grin spread across his face, momentarily stretching the cut. "There you are."
He reached out with his other hand. The tendril felt... strange. It wasn't cold or hot. It had a texture, but not one he could compare to any material. It was solid, yet it hummed with a latent, kinetic energy. It felt dense, like a rope woven from shadows, yet it had a slight, almost rubbery give when he pressed it. Most of all, it felt real. Tangible. An extension of his own nervous system.
He pulled a small notebook and pen from his pocket. The cover was already scuffed. Flipping it open, he saw pages filled with his own rushed handwriting from earlier days 'Kinetic Reservoir. stores motion/impact. CE conversion rate approx. 1:1.5? Efficiency loss...' and 'Physical reinforcement. multiplier effect is non-linear. Diminishing returns at high output - risk of tissue strain.'
He turned to a fresh page, pen flying.
'Will Manifestation - Tendril Form (Primary). Observation 1: Material properties defy standard physics. Appears as solidified CE with kinetic charge. Texture feels like high-density, semi-elastic. Sensation: direct tactile feedback loop - feels like extended proprioception.'
Satisfied, he tucked the notebook away. Now for the fun part.
He focused on the tendril and willed it to extend. It shot outward like a striking snake, slicing through the air with a faint whirr. He kept pushing, his mind racing to keep up with the sensory input coming back along the line. Ten meters. Twenty. The tendril thinned slightly but remained coherent. Thirty.
Forty. At around sixty meters, he felt a distinct strain, a mental friction like trying to hold a heavy weight at arm's length for too long. The tendril's form began to waver, the tip dissolving into faint motes of black energy.
He let it retract, the strain easing. "Elastic limit, or control limit? Need more data on that. But sixty meters... that's not nothing." The potential for mobility alone was staggering.
Next, strength. He looked at the same moss-covered boulder he'd shoved earlier. This time, he wrapped the tendril around it, weaving a crude harness. He planted his feet, took a breath, and pulled.
The tendril tightened, biting into the stone. With a grinding roar of rock on earth, the boulder shifted, then lifted clear off the ground. He held it there, suspended, for a few seconds. The weight transmitted back through the connection was immense, a steady, heavy pressure in his mind, but it was manageable. He wasn't just lifting with his back; he was lifting with his will.
"Conservatively... five tons? Maybe more." He set the boulder down with a controlled thud, dust billowing around its base. A laugh escaped him, short and exhilarated. "Okay. Okay, that's seriously cool."
Control was the next frontier. He dismissed the first tendril and tried to summon two. They sprang from his palms, easier this time. Then a third from his shoulder, making him jump at the unexpected sensation. A fourth from his knee. Each new strand added to the mental load, a spreading sense of attention being divided. He could make them move in unison, but independent, complex motions writing different words in the air, for instance caused immediate, confusing feedback. The tendrils jerked erratically.
"Too many inputs," he muttered, letting all but two dissolve. "Parallel processing needs work. But the potential for multi-tasking..." His mind, ever the analyst, began sketching applications. Defensive web. Coordinated strikes. Environmental manipulation.
He spent the next hour in a state of focused play. Tendrils sprouted from his elbows, his back, the soles of his feet. He used them to vault into the lower branches of a surviving pine, to swing in a wide arc across the clearing, to delicately pluck a single leaf from a high branch. Each experiment was logged mentally, cross-referenced with his growing understanding of the Kinetic Reservoir's ebb and flow.
The initial cut on his cheek had stopped bleeding, a thin scab forming. As full darkness finally claimed the mountain clearing, he stood amidst the evidence of his training scuffed earth, a displaced boulder, faint grooves in tree bark from errant tendrils.
He was exhausted, mentally drained from the constant focus, but a solid, warm satisfaction sat in his chest. He settled onto a fallen log, the rough bark digging into his thighs.
In the darkness, the single black tendril extending from his hand seemed to absorb the faint starlight, an inky cut against the night. He watched it, the earlier excitement cooling into a more analytical curiosity.
Size.
It was a simple question. If will shaped the form, could he control the scale?
He willed the tendril to retract, feeling it flow back into him like a reeled-in line. Focusing on his fingertip, he imagined not a whip, but a thread. A single, precise filament of intent.
A thin, dark line emerged. It was no thicker than a piece of twine, maybe an inch across. It hovered, practically invisible unless you were looking right at it.
"Huh." A quiet sound of satisfaction. So he could refine it. He pushed the concept further, trying to envision a strand as fine as a human hair. The thread thinned, becoming a near-invisible wisp, but maintaining its solidity.
The mental effort to maintain something so fine was oddly greater than for the thicker tendril, requiring a sharper, more focused concentration. The limit seemed to be less about power and more about the precision of his own mental control.
He let the hair-thin strand dissolve and instead produced five of the inch-thick threads from his fingers. They wavered in the air like the legs of a strange, dark insect. He directed them towards a mid-sized rock. One thread looped around it and pulled. The rock shifted slightly. Two threads got a better grip and managed to roll it over. It wasn't until all five threads worked in concert, weaving a net of force, that he could lift the rock to the same height the single, thicker tendril had managed with ease.
"Trade-off," he murmured. "Precision and cutting potential for raw lifting power. Makes sense."
Cutting potential. That was an idea. He turned his attention to a broken branch lying nearby, about as thick as his wrist. He extended a single, inch-thick thread and brought it down against the wood in a swift, controlled motion.
There was no dramatic sound. No crack of splintering wood. The thread simply passed through the branch as if it weren't there. Two clean segments of wood thudded to the forest floor.
Michael blinked. He hadn't put much force behind it. The thread wasn't vibrating or glowing. It had just… cut. He repeated the experiment on a thicker piece of deadfall with the same result a smooth, almost surgical separation.
"Kinetic energy concentrated to a monomolecular edge?" he wondered aloud, the technical guess coming automatically. "Or is it the will itself that defines the edge? If I believe it can cut…" The implications were quietly terrifying. This wasn't just a tool for grappling or lifting. It was a scalpel. Or a garrote.
He let the threads vanish, the clearing falling into deeper shadow without their dark presence. A low, appreciative whistle escaped his lips. The session had yielded more than he'd hoped for.
Standing up, he stretched, joints popping. A wave of exhaustion, both mental and physical, washed over him. It was only then he noticed the deep silence of the mountain night, and the distinct, pungent smell of dried sweat, pine resin, and damp earth clinging to him.
"Yeah," he said to the empty woods, his voice rough. "Definitely time to call it."
He started the trek back down to Jujutsu High, his mind still buzzing with data elasticity coefficients, tensile strength comparisons, cutting mechanics. But the overwhelming thought was one of concrete progress.
The warm, electric buzz of discovery carried him most of the way back, right up until he pushed open the side door to the dormitory wing. The sterile hallway lights were blinding after the darkness. And he became acutely, painfully aware of his own state. His clothes were smeared with dirt and sap. His hair was matted with sweat. He smelled like he'd been wrestling a bear in a compost heap.
A figure was coming down the hall from the opposite direction Ijichi, holding a stack of folders, his glasses reflecting the ceiling lights. The assistant manager's steps faltered as he got closer. His nose wrinkled almost imperceptibly.
"Jaeger," Ijichi said, his professional tone strained. "Late night… training?"
"Something like that," Michael replied, trying to sound casual and not like a swamp creature that had just crawled out of the woods.
Ijichi's eyes darted to the fresh, thin scab on Michael's cheek, then quickly away, as if afraid of asking. "I see. Well. The communal baths are still open for another hour. I would… strongly recommend making use of them." He gave a tight, pained smile and hurried past, the faint scent of lemon polish from his suit doing little to combat the earthy aura Michael carried with him.
Message received.
Michael shuffled towards the bathhouse, the satisfaction of his breakthroughs now mingling with the sheer, physical need to get clean. The mysteries of Kinetic Will were fascinating, but they could wait. Right now, his most immediate mission involved hot water and a lot of soap.
He sank deeper into the steaming water of the Jujutsu High bathhouse, the heat working into his sore muscles. The cedar-scented air was thick with steam, blurring the clean lines of the tile walls. It was the first true stillness he'd allowed himself since waking up in the shrine.
And in the quiet, a thought surfaced, cold and clear amidst the warmth.
How am I this comfortable?
He wasn't just living in another person's body. He had taken it. Hijacked a life mid-sentence. A man with a name, a history, connections, had died, and Nicholas William Bond had just… slid into the driver's seat. He'd panicked about being caught, he'd felt awe and fear at the power, he'd even felt a flicker of guilt lying to Hana. But a deeper, moral horror? A profound sense of violation? It was absent.
Maybe I'm just a terrible person, he thought, watching the steam curl toward the ceiling. Or maybe… it's because he was already so empty..
The memories that had trickled in weren't vivid scenes of a rich life. They were impressions: stern discipline, cold mountains, the weight of familial disappointment, the grim focus of a soldier. No laughing friends, no passionate loves, no warm family dinners. Just duty, rigor, and a final, lonely stand on a mountain.
"Did you even leave anything behind to miss?" he murmured to the empty bath. The water muffled his voice. "Or were you just… a well-made tool waiting for a different user?"
The thought made his head ache, a dull throb behind his eyes that wasn't from the heat. He wasn't mourning a person; he was trying to solve a riddle of a ghost. The original Michael Jaeger seemed less like a full human and more like a vessel all capability, no content.
He took a deep breath and slid down, submerging his face. The world became a silent, hot blur. Bubbles escaped his lips, racing for the surface.
Alright, he thought, the decision forming in the muffled silence. You died doing your job.. You left a shell. I'm in it. I can't be you. But I won't just erase you either..
He broke the surface with a gasp, pushing wet hair from his face. The plan felt right, a gesture to balance the scales of this cosmic theft.
"Tomorrow," he said aloud, his voice echoing slightly off the tiles. "I'll find a spot.. A quiet one. Make a marker. Nothing fancy. Just… an acknowledgement.. Michael Hanz Jaeger was here. He did his duty. Then he passed the torch to the weirdest possible successor." He managed a weak, self-deprecating smile. "I'll honor the shell by filling it with something you never got to have. A life. A stupid, complicated, maybe-even-fun life. That's the deal."
It was a bargain made with a ghost, but it settled something in him. He wasn't just a stowaway anymore. He was a successor, however unorthodox.
The decision had just crystallized when a sharp, jarring buzz cut through the steam-hushed peace. It was his phone, the cheap burner, vibrating against the wooden bench where he'd left his clothes.
A mission? Now? After days of being sidelined, of Gojo's cryptic training and his own secret agenda planning?
He heaved himself out of the bath, water sluicing off him, and padded across the cool floor. He grabbed the phone, the screen glowing in the dim room.
It wasn't a call. It was a priority text alert from the Jujutsu High dispatch system, the formal, clipped language unmistakable.
ASSIGNMENT ALERT – PRIORITY 2.
SORCERER: Jaeger, M. H.
LOCATION: Shibuya Ward, Koen-dori.
TARGET: Unregistered Cursed Spirit (Estimated Grade 2). Manifestation linked to repeated public disturbances – auditory hallucinations, localized panic episodes.
DETAILS: Spirit is mobile, evasive. Shows intelligence avoiding major sorcerer patrol routes. Presence causing destabilization in dense civilian area.
MISSION: Locate and exorcise. Minimum collateral damage. Civilian safety paramount.
SUPPORT: Ijichi, K. will deploy veil at your signal.
ACKNOWLEDGE RECEIPT.
He stared at the screen, water dripping from his hair onto the plastic casing. A Grade 2. In Shibuya. Not the apocalyptic event he dreaded, but a real, live well, undead mission. His first official outing as Michael Jaeger, sorcerer.
His thumb hovered over the screen. The ghost of the original Michael would have acknowledged without a second thought. The new one, the nerd with the horse-girl dreams and the cosmic debt, felt a fresh wave of anxiety, cold and sharp despite the lingering heat from the bath.
But underneath the anxiety was something else. A thread of grim curiosity. This was the other half of his world. The reason he needed to get strong.
He tapped the screen firmly.
ACKNOWLEDGED. EN ROUTE.
He looked at his reflection in the misty mirror a young man with a healing cut on his cheek, unfamiliar scars on his torso, and eyes that held the resolve of two very different people.
"Alright, Jaeger," he said to his reflection. "Let's go see what we can do."
[NEXT DAY]
The black sedan cut through the early morning traffic towards Shibuya with the silent efficiency of a shark. Inside, the atmosphere was a familiar blend of Ijichi's tense professionalism and the low hum of the engine.
Ijichi adjusted his glasses, his eyes flicking between the road and a tablet mounted on the dash. "The pattern is consistent but erratic. For the past four nights, between 10 PM and 2 AM, localized panic episodes occur along a one-kilometer stretch of Koen-dori and the adjacent Miyashita Park. Descriptions from affected civilians those coherent enough to give them mention overwhelming fear, hearing whispers or screams no one else can hear, and a sensation of being watched. No physical attacks yet, but the psychological toll is mounting. The local police are attributing it to 'mass hysteria' or bad drugs, but our sensors picked up the cursed energy residue."
Michael stared out the window at the blur of Tokyo. "A Grade 2 smart enough to stay off the main radar. Playing with people's minds instead of tearing them apart. Nasty."
"Precisely," Ijichi nodded. "Its avoidance of typical patrol routes suggests either a degree of innate cunning or prior experience with sorcerers. Your task is to enter the area, draw it out, and exorcise it before its activities escalate or cause a public catastrophe. I will deploy a veil the moment you confirm engagement. Remember, Jaeger, civilian safety is the absolute priority. The secrecy of jujutsu is secondary to preventing loss of life."
"Understood." Michael's mind was already working, running scenarios. An intelligent curse. Psychological warfare. It was a different kind of problem than a mountain of rage and teeth.
A comfortable silence settled for a few blocks before a thought, born from his binge-reading of jujutsu protocols, nudged at him. He shifted in his seat.
"Hey, Ijichi… question."
"Yes?"
"Aren't sorcerers supposed to operate in pairs? Especially on assignments in dense urban areas with an unknown, intelligent target?" He kept his tone casual, observational. "I know I've been… out of commission, but even I remember that being Rule Number One in the 'How Not to Die Horribly' handbook."
Ijichi's grip on the steering wheel tightened minutely. He was silent for a long moment, the only sound the purr of the engine. When he spoke, his voice was carefully measured.
"That is the standard operating procedure, yes. For safety and tactical redundancy." He cleared his throat. "In your specific case, given your recent… convalescence and the nature of your last solo assignment, Assistant Manager Suzuki did submit a formal request to be assigned as your partner for this mission."
Michael's eyebrows shot up. Hana requested this?
Ijichi continued, a note of bureaucratic fatigue entering his voice. "The request was reviewed. However, given the non-combat, intelligence-gathering and support-heavy nature of Miss Suzuki's recent missions in Kyoto, and the assessment that this Grade 2, while clever, is within a recuperated Grade 1 sorcerer's capabilities, the higher-ups deemed partner assignment… unnecessary for resource allocation purposes."
Michael heard the unspoken words. They're testing me huh.. Seeing if I'm still broken or still functional at best, Or they're saving Hana for 'more important' work. Or both.
He also realized, with a slight pang, that he'd almost gotten used to the idea of her sharp, observant presence at his side. The initial terror had faded, replaced by a wary respect. Her absence on a mission that played to her analytical strengths felt… like a pointed omission.
"I see," Michael said finally. "So it's 'prove you can handle a simple one alone' time. And Suzuki gets to keep sorting archives or whatever in Kyoto."
Ijichi's silence was confirmation. He glanced at Michael in the rearview mirror. "Do not interpret it as a lack of confidence, Jaeger. Merely… procedural efficiency." He didn't sound like he believed it himself.
Michael let out a short breath, not quite a laugh. "Right. Efficiency." He looked back out at the approaching skyline of Shibuya. "Well, no pressure then. Just me, a sneaky nightmare-fueled ghost, and a few thousand unsuspecting civilians. What could go wrong?"
Ijichi didn't answer, but his knuckles were white on the wheel. the car was soon brought to a silent stop in a narrow, shadowed service alley a few blocks from the main disturbance zone.
He turned in his seat, his face a mask of professional concern. "Jaeger. Remember the parameters. Locate, engage, exorcise. The veil is ready on my signal. Do not underestimate a curse that chooses to manipulate rather than maul. Its intelligence is its primary weapon."
Michael pushed the door open, a wry smirk on his face. "Intelligence, huh? Well, let's hope it's not smarter than the guy who forgot to pack a decent lunch." He gave a two-fingered salute. "Don't wait up, Ijichi. If I'm not back by dawn, tell Gojo to put my massage chair in his office. He'll appreciate the irony."
Before Ijichi could muster a reply to the bizarre remark, Michael was gone, melting into the foot traffic of a side street with a casual stride that belied the tension coiling in his gut.
Alone, he pulled out the mission tablet, re-reading the sparse details as he walked. Hallucinations, panic… and the smaller, clipped addendum he'd glossed over before: 'Linked incidents: three attempted suicides (one successful) and four cases of severe, self-inflicted property damage within the affected radius over the past 72 hours.'
"Lovely," he muttered, stuffing the tablet away. "So it's not just scaring people. It's pushing them over the edge. Cheery."
The operational area was a one-kilometer stretch of urban jungle a mix of bustling commercial streets, quieter residential lanes, and the green strip of Miyashita Park. A Grade 2 curse with a range like that wasn't just strong; it was diffuse, its influence seeping into the environment. How the hell am I supposed to find the source? Play emotional hotspot hide-and-seek?
His own cursed energy perception was still rudimentary. He could feel the general, ambient negativity of the city a low-grade psychic smog and he could sense powerful sources if they were right on top of him.
But pinpointing a clever, hiding curse in this maze? It was like trying to find a specific fish in a murky, storm-tossed ocean with a flashlight that only worked underwater for two feet.
He stuck to the route Ijichi had outlined, his senses stretched thin, walking the periphery of the recent incidents. The neighborhoods were normal on the surface people shopping, chatting, living but he caught the edges.
A woman suddenly clutching her head and hurrying away with a pale face. A man staring blankly at a store window, his knuckles white on a shopping bag. The curse was here, working its poison, and he was blind to it.
Frustration gnawed at him. He was about to turn a corner back towards the main drag when a building at the end of a dead-end lane snagged his attention.
It was an old, two-story structure, squeezed between newer apartments. Its windows were boarded, plaster was peeling in large sheets, and a faded, unreadable sign hung crookedly over the door. It wasn't on Ijichi's map.
It was just… there. And something about it felt wrong. Not a blazing signal of cursed energy, but a lack. A quiet spot in the humming background noise of the city, like a hole in the static.
"Off-script," he murmured to himself. "Always go off-script."
He crossed the empty lane and tried the door. It was unlocked, the metal handle cold and gritty with rust. It swung inward with a groan that echoed in a deep silence.
Inside, it was a tomb of dust and forgotten things. The air was stale and cold, smelling of damp concrete and decay. Faint light filtered through cracks in the boarded windows, illuminating swirling motes of dust. The ground floor was a cavernous empty space, littered with broken furniture, collapsed shelves, and decaying cardboard boxes that had once held… something. He took a careful step forward, the crunch of grit under his boot deafening in the quiet.
No birds, no insects, no sound of traffic from outside. Just the oppressive, waiting silence.
Okay, he thought, his hand drifting unconsciously to where a weapon would be if he carried one. This is definitely a place where bad things happen. The question is, is the bad thing home right now?
He moved further in, his eyes straining in the gloom. The absence of sound was worse than any noise. He climbed the creaking stairs to the second floor, each step a loud protest in the silent building.
The upper level was a warren of small, empty rooms, their doors hanging off hinges or gone completely. Nothing but dust, shadows, and the heavy feeling of being watched by the walls themselves.
He pushed open the last door at the end of the hall. Another empty room. Just more dust motes dancing in a sliver of light.
Then, a rustle.
Every muscle in his body went tight. He spun, eyes scanning the dark corner.
A low, threatening growl answered him. Not a curse. A dog. A skinny, mud-colored mutt, standing protectively over a small, squirming litter of puppies in a nest of torn newspaper and rags. Her lips were pulled back, showing yellowed teeth.
The tension drained out of him so fast he felt almost dizzy. He let out a long, shaky breath. "Whoa. Okay. Just a concerned mom. My bad, totally my bad."
He kept his movements slow, raising his empty hands. "Easy there. Not trespassing. Well, technically I am, but not for, like, property reasons. More 'existential pest control' reasons. You get it."
The dog's growl deepened, but she didn't advance.
Michael's mind, ever the chatterbox even in tense situations, kicked in. Right, peace offering. What do I have? He patted the pockets of his uniform jacket, hating the stiff, high collar as always. "Stupid uniform. Can't breathe, can't carry snacks... wait."
His fingers brushed against a slightly squashed, wax-paper-wrapped bundle in an inner pocket. His emergency baloney sandwich, smuggled past the school's dubious cafeteria. He had a major soft spot for animals, and a major dislike for going hungry.
"Alright, look. A treaty." He carefully unwrapped the sandwich, the smell of processed meat and cheap bread filling the dusty air. He broke off a piece of the baloney and tossed it gently toward the dog, well away from the pups.
The growling stopped. A black nose twitched. The dog crept forward, snatched the meat, and wolfed it down, watching him with slightly less hostile eyes.
"See? I'm one of the good weirdos," Michael said, breaking off another piece. He was about to toss it when the air in the room changed.
It wasn't a sound. It was a pressure drop, a sudden, profound cold that had nothing to do with the temperature. The hair on the back of his neck stood up.
His body moved before his brain caught up. Pure, ingrained instinct a gift from the original occupant took over. He didn't think; he lunged forward, away from the doorway.
Behind him, with a sound like cracking stone and wet cement, the concrete floor bulged. It didn't break. It flowed, forming into a thick, grey, human-like arm that shot out from the surface, fingers grasping at the space where his neck had been a half-second before.
He hit the ground in a roll, coming up in a crouch, his heart hammering against his ribs. The discarded piece of baloney lay on the floor where he'd been standing, now pinned under the grotesque, stony fingers.
The dog let out a terrified yelp and scrambled back into the corner with her pups, vanishing into the shadows.
"Well," Michael said, his voice a lot steadier than he felt as he stared at the arm now slowly retracting back into the seamless floor. "Guess we found the tenant. And it doesn't like sharing sandwiches."
His mind went quiet, the internal chatter vanishing. Training took over not Gojo's absent-minded advice, but the hours of brutal, self-inflicted trial and error in the mountain clearing. His senses, sharpened by cursed energy, screamed at him. The room wasn't just a room anymore; it was a hostile entity.
He didn't see the next attack. He felt it a ripple of malicious intent through the floorboards, focused not on him, but on the corner.
The pups.
Without a sound, two black tendrils snapped from his back. He didn't have time for finesse. He willed them not into ropes or whips, but into wide, flat bands, like strange, living ribbons. They shot across the room, weaving over and under each other in a flash, forming a dense, basket-like net just as the concrete beneath the dog's nest erupted.
A second stony hand, larger than the first, clawed up from the floor, crushing the nest of newspaper to pulp.
But the net was already closing, scooping up the squirming, yelping puppies in one smooth motion. Michael yanked his will back, and the tendril-net recoiled, depositing the furry bundle safely behind him near the doorway.
The mother dog, who had been frozen in terror, suddenly found her courage with her babies safe. She let out a furious snarl and launched herself, not at Michael, but at the stone arm still embedded in the floor, biting and scratching at the unfeeling concrete.
"Not the time, girl!" Michael yelled, diving sideways as a third arm, this one from the wall, swiped at his legs. He hit the ground, rolled, and came up facing the center of the room.
The walls and floor were bleeding concrete now. More arms, some twisted and malformed, pushed out from every surface, grasping blindly. The air grew colder, thick with a psychic weight that pressed on his temples. Whispers, the same ones that had driven people to panic on the streets, began to skitter at the edge of his hearing wordless, despairing murmurs.
"Okay," he breathed, kinetic energy already flooding his limbs, his tendrils retracting to hover around him like protective serpents. "So you're a possessive little homebody who doesn't like visitors. Or puppies. Noted."
The curse was a ghost in the machine of the building. Every time Michael lashed out with a tendril, aiming to snag a stony limb and rip the core from its hiding place, it would dissolve back into the floor or wall with unsettling speed, only to reform elsewhere. He punched a crater in the floor where an arm had been, but it just oozed out of the ceiling above him. It was like fighting smoke made of concrete.
Ijichi's warning echoed in his head: mobile, evasive.
"Alright, you slippery little–" he grunted, ducking another swipe. The mother dog was barking furiously, circling his feet, a chaotic ally. The puppies were a squirming, terrified bundle under one of his arms, secured by a hastily woven net of will.
The priority clicked into place, clean and simple. The mission parameters were clear: civilian safety first. To him, that included four tiny, blind balls of fluff and their pissed-off mother.
"Screw this," he muttered. He scooped up the still-growling mother dog with his free arm earning a nasty scratch down his wrist for his trouble and turned on his heel. "We're leaving! Eviction notice is hereby postponed!"
He bolted for the staircase, kinetic energy flaring in his legs. He took the stairs three at a time, the dogs a chaotic, barking, whining bundle in his grip.
"I'm trying to save you, you ungrateful flea-bag!" he snapped at the mother dog, who was trying to wriggle free to get back at the curse.
He hit the bottom floor, sprinted past the scattered debris, and burst through the front door into the grey afternoon light of the alley.
Relief flooded him. Out. Get to Ijichi, get a veil up, regroup–
He took two running steps into the alley and skidded to a halt.
The cold, stale air. The smell of damp and decay. The boarded windows.
He was back in the ground floor of the abandoned building. The doorway he'd just charged through now led to another dark, empty room instead of the outside alley.
His blood ran cold. "What?"
He spun. The front door was still there, hanging open, showing the same slice of the grimy alley he'd seen from inside. He took a cautious step towards it, then another. He crossed the threshold.
And was immediately standing back in the center of the dusty main room, facing the staircase he'd just descended.
The mother dog stopped struggling, letting out a confused whine. The puppies mewled.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," Michael whispered, dread coiling in his stomach.
This wasn't just a curse that hid in walls. It had woven itself into the space. The building itself was the trap. An endless loop.
A floorboard splintered behind him. He didn't need to look. He dove forward, the dogs held tight, as another stone hand shattered the space where he'd been standing.
He was cornered, with a handful of innocent lives to protect, inside a haunted maze with no exit. "For the last time, shut up and let me think!" Michael hissed at the snarling dog tucked under his arm, his eyes scanning the impossible geometry of the room. The puppies squirmed in their dark net, a chorus of frightened squeaks.
Before the dog could answer with another growl or a bite, the air in the building dropped ten degrees. Their breath plumed in thick, white clouds.
The skittering whispers in the walls the sounds of fear and despair it had harvested from the streetssuddenly stopped. Then, they rushed together, merging into a single, viscous voice that dripped from the ceiling and oozed from the floorboards.
"Sssstay… play… you belong to the houssse now…"
The concrete and plaster of the far wall shuddered. Then it bulged, swelling outward as the curse pulled more of itself into the space. It wasn't just an arm or a grasping hand. A torso, thick and lumpen like poorly carved stone, pushed into the room. Two more sets of arms, four total, unfolded from its sides with the grating sound of rock on rock. Its head was a featureless, smooth bulb, but a wide, jagged crack split across where a mouth would be. It looked like a brutal, unfinished statue of some multi-limbed titan, radiating a cold, possessive malice.
Michael stared, a cold knot of professional assessment forming in his gut alongside the fear. Okay. Upper body manifestation. Four limbs. Control over the local environment. Definitely not a simple Grade 2. Someone screwed up, Again!!
The mother dog, however, saw none of this. She saw the thing that had threatened her pups. A raw, protective fury overrode her animal fear. With a final, violent twist, she broke free from Michael's grip, her claws raking deep lines across his forearm.
"Hey! No! Don't—!"
It was too late. She hit the ground and launched herself across the room with a raw, guttural roar, a brown-and-white streak of pure, dumb courage aimed straight at the stony abomination.
The curse didn't even move its main body. The concrete floor in front of the charging dog simply… opened. A jagged maw of splintered wood, shattered tile, and morphing cement formed in an instant, lining a gaping hole that led into impenetrable darkness below.
The dog had no time to stop. She vanished into the hole.
There was a single, sickening CRUNCH. A sound of bones and flesh being pulped between immense, stone jaws.
The hole sealed itself, the floor becoming smooth and unbroken once more. A moment later, a few feet to the left, the floor rippled and spat out the remains. The back half of the dog, a ruined mess of blood, fur, and intestine, landed with a wet thud. Then the front half, the head completely bitten off. The pieces slid across the dusty floor, coming to rest near Michael's boots.
Silence. The oppressive cold remained. The puppies in the net had gone utterly quiet.
Then, from the featureless head of the stone curse, a sound emerged. A wet, clicking, stony giggle. "Hehehe… sssilly animal. Ssstupid. No one leavesss."
Michael didn't move. He didn't look away from the brutal scraps on the floor. The warm blood was slowly soaking into the toe of his boot. The mother dog's final, furious snarl seemed to still hang in the frozen air.
All the frustration, the confusion, the analytical detachment he'd been clinging to since he arrived in this world… it evaporated. Burned away by a cold, pure, and utterly familiar fuel: negative emotions.
Rage, hot and sharp. Guilt, cold and heavy he'd been holding her, he should have been stronger, faster. A profound, weary disgust at the pointless, cruel waste of it.
The cursed energy within him didn't just hum; it boiled. The Kinetic Reservoir, fed by his own escalating panic and now this fresh, violent injustice, filled to a painful pressure.
He slowly, carefully, set the net of trembling puppies down in the relative shelter of a crumbling doorway.
He straightened up and turned to face the curse. His expression was blank, wiped clean of the earlier sarcasm or fear. His eyes, however, held a glint that was entirely new—a focused, predatory calm.
"You're right," he said, his voice quiet, almost conversational, cutting through the stone thing's giggling. "No one leaves."
He raised his hands. Not in a gesture of defense, but of creation. Of intent.
Black tendrils, not two or three, but dozens, erupted from his back, shoulders, and arms. They weren't the controlled, measured strands from his training. They were thicker, sharper, vibrating with the kinetic energy he was forcibly channeling into them. They lashed the dusty air like the limbs of an angry god.
"But you," Michael said, taking a step forward, the whispers of the house seeming to recoil from him, "you don't get to stay either."
The curse's giggling stopped. Its four stone arms rose, and the floor around Michael began to churn, ready to birth more concrete jaws.
Michael didn't wait. He gave his will a single, brutal command:
Tear. It. All. Down.
The cold, possessive laughter of the stone curse curdled in the air, mixing with the coppery scent of blood. The ruined pieces of the dog lay at Michael's feet, a final, brutal punctuation to its short, brave life.
Yeah. He was pissed.
A white-hot wire of pure, unfiltered rage snapped inside his mind, burning away the last threads of analytical caution. With a wordless roar that was more Nichola's pop-culture-fueled frustration than Michael's stoic discipline, he charged.
His body, powered by a surge of cursed energy and raw emotion, closed the distance in a blink. He didn't think of technique, of form, of the sorcerer's arts. He thought of the stupid, pointless cruelty of it, and he swung his fist, aiming to smash that smooth, mocking stone face into powder.
The curse didn't move.
His fist passed through empty air.
The entire massive, stony torso vanished, dissolving like a mirage. In its place, the wall he'd been standing next to warped. The plaster and lathe contorted, stretching and tearing to form another giant, jagged-toothed maw, this one lined with splintered wood and rusty nails. It lunged, aiming to bite him in half.
Instinct. He couldn't dodge. He was overcommitted, mid-punch. So he pushed.
He focused every ounce of cursed energy he could muster, every joule of kinetic force stored in his Reservoir from days of constant, subconscious accumulation, and channeled it all into his outstretched arm. His fist didn't just punch; it became a piston, a wrecking ball wrapped in a crackling nimbus of black-and-purple energy.
He didn't pull back. He shoved his amplified fist into the oncoming mouth.
The result was instantaneous and devastating.
The curse's manifested jaw detonated. A shockwave of pure force erupted from the point of impact. Shattered teeth of wood and nail became shrapnel. The wall behind it vaporized into a cloud of dust and splinters, revealing not the outside night, nor another room, but… another nearly identical, dusty, derelict space. A mirror image of the one he'd just destroyed.
Before the dust could even settle, the mangled edges of the hole began to move. Plaster regrew like accelerated lichen. Broken beams knitted themselves back together with a sound of grinding stone. The space was healing itself, erasing his violent outburst.
"Tsk."
The sound was a release valve, letting out a fraction of his boiling anger. He couldn't afford this. Blind rage was a liability. He'd seen it, knew it from a thousand stories. Yuji Itadori had to learn to channel his rage, not be consumed by it, to touch that pinnacle of power.
Todo's lessons were echoes from a future-past. Anger was the core, yes, but unfocused rage? That just disrupted the flow. He'd mimicked a Divergent Fist on a whim, a cheap trick. Against a spatial curse that controlled the very battlefield, it was nothing.
His eyes flicked to the net of whining pups. Without a second thought, a thick black tendril shot from his shoulder, wrapped around the bundle of energy-woven darkness, and yanked it towards him.
He caught it and immediately encased it in a second, then a third layer of interlocking tendrils, creating a sturdy, protected cradle that he secured against his chest. The puppies' warmth seeped through the constructs, a tiny anchor of life against the pervasive deathly cold.
His emotions were a storm grief for the animal, fury at the curse, cold dread at their situation. But beneath it, a new layer was forming: a disciplined, analytical frost. He cherished animals. It was a stupid, soft thing in this brutal world, but it was his. And this thing had taken one. But to avenge it, he had to be smart.
Attacking blindly was a certified death wish. He had no real battle experience. The original Michael's muscle memory was just that memory, not instinct. He felt the gap in his own skills, the terrifying lack of foundation.
Okay, genius, he thought, the voice in his head a familiar, sarcastic blend of both his selves. You're in a warped space. A pocket dimension, a cursed funhouse. You don't know the rules. So you test the rules.
He had one major resource left: the kinetic energy he'd been stockpiling for days. Since his rebirth, he'd kept the Reservoir on a constant, gentle siphon, absorbing the micro-impacts of walking, the sway of trains, the faint vibrations of a living city. He'd been curious about its limits. Now, he was about to find out.
With a thought, he opened the valve. Not all of it, but a steady, powerful stream. The energy flooded his limbs, not with the destructive focus of his punch, but with pure, exhilarating mobility.
He moved And bounced.
He kicked off the floor, and the world became a blur. He shot towards a wall, pushed off with his feet, twisted in mid-air, and careened towards the ceiling. It was clumsy, wild, uncoordinated a grotesque parody of every anime hero's graceful aerial combat. He was all frantic power and zero finesse, like a rookie Deku using Full Cowling for the first time, all smash and no style.
Thud-crash-thwip! He ricocheted around the room, a human pinball wrapped in a cradle of cursed-energy tendrils and puppies. He was testing it.
Testing everything. How fast could the curse reshape the room? Did it have a limit? Could it make a mouth appear on a surface he was currently touching? Was there a pattern, a weakness, a core?
As he blurred past a window that looked out onto a void of shifting brickwork, he shouted, his voice echoing weirdly in the morphing space. "Come on! Is this all you've got? A fancy room and a cheap ventriloquist act? I've seen scarier things in a kid's bounce house!"
The cold in the room intensified. The whispering voices returned, layered with new fury. "Sssstop… moving… you are of the houssse… be sssstill…"
A section of the floor he'd been aiming for liquefied into a pit. Michael fired a tendril to an opposing wall, swinging wildly over the gap. A ceiling beam detached, spearing down towards him like a blunt lance. He kicked off it, using the impact to add more kinetic energy to his Reservoir even as he altered his trajectory.
He was a chaos agent in its ordered, predatory space. He wasn't fighting it yet. He was bothering it. Provoking it. Learning it.
And in the back of his mind, the calculations began. The original Michael's tactical coolness meshed with Nick's genre-savvy. Spatial manipulation. Environmental control. The 'house' is the curse, the curse is the house. You don't exorcise a room by punching the furniture. You find the foundation and you bring the whole damn thing down.
But first, he had to find the foundation. And to do that, he had to survive the increasingly violent, personalized fury of a haunted house that really, really hated it when its guests wouldn't hold still.
[END OF CHAPTER]
---
Writer/Entity - man I hate writing so much...