Ino Takuma was running out of time. The elderly curse user with the weird eyes was just about done her strange ritual, and despite the strength difference between himself and her apparent grandson, the latter was proving to be a stubborn obstacle.
He tried switching his attack patterns, and would even score several devastating hits; but somehow, the wall of a curse user just wouldn't go down. Even when Ino scored a blow that pierced a hole directly through his arm.
"For the love of God, just go down already!" He cried, smashing an elbow into the side of the man's head, knocking him aside just long enough that he could make a lunge for the grandma-
Just to be tackled several feet away by that annoying fucking grandson again!
With a grunt, he ripped the man's arms off of his own, and sent him hurtling back with a haymaker infused with cursed energy. The man rolled to a stop next to his grandmother, spitting out teeth, yet still remained poised to fight.
It seemed he was just about to rush towards Ino once again, until the elderly lady paused her muffled chanting.
"Enough," She spoke, "It is complete."
Ino could only sigh. What a pain, he was willing to bet she had made some crazy binding vow and ritualistic combo that would strengthen her grandson. Cautiously, he put up his guard, unsure of what exactly to expect, until the grandma spoke again, drawing his eyes away from the younger curse user.
"There is no point. You will lose, now." An ominous presence alerted him back to the blonde weirdo he'd been fighting, finding that his appearance had drastically changed. Without skipping a beat, Ino activated his cursed technique, propelling a deadly spinning drill to try and take out the curse user from down range. "Toji Zenin!"
The drill was caught from midair with blinding speed, revealing the grandson's strange half-shifted state. It seemed down the middle, the man's old appearance was merging with that of a narrow-eyed, raven haired man with sharp features.
'He's… turning into someone else?' Ino thought. 'Just- just who is this guy? Some famous Jujutsu Sorcerer?'
The transformation was complete in seconds, and in the place of the sad-looking unimpressive curse user before, stood an intimidating man with a predatory aura. Muscles pulled the fabric of the curse user's sweater tight, unveiling a powerful physique with broad, mountain-like shoulders. And his stance… It screamed of danger, Ino had to move first before this man could utilise his cursed technique!
Wreathing his fist in cursed energy, Ino moved to engage the enemy-
There was no chance to react. One second, the grandson was standing next to his grandmother, the next, his mask was violently ripped from his face; his cursed energy immediately decreasing into a weak hum.
'What?'
Ino turned his head in order to react to the sudden rush of movement, only for a fist to clobber the daylights out of him. A firm grip took hold of his shirt before the blow could knock him off the roof.
Then, a series of unimaginably powerful strikes barraged his face, each fist rattling his skull and brutalising his flesh in an unstoppable flood of punches.
Ino was unconscious before he even reached the ground.
Ino's bloodied body made contact with the roof with a quiet thud , before it was suddenly and inharmoniously kicked off the side of the rooftop .
"Grandmother, what do we do?" The curse user, now possessing the body of the legendary Toji Zenin, asked.
"W-what.. What d-do.. What do we do now?" A violent stutter overtook his speech, his head twitching minutely as if he were possessed.
The grandmother paid no mind to the occurrence, her gaze preoccupied with disdainfully looking at the bloodstains left by the sorcerer they were fighting just moments prior.
"With Gojo Satoru sealed, there will be no one capable of stopping you. Before the Jujutsu headquarters can coordinate a more powerful response, go down and kill as many Sorcerers as you can."
A short bout of silence followed.
"...Grandson?"
"Huh? Where the- What the fuck is this?" The low, raspy voice of Toji Zenin spoke. He turned, facing her. "Who the fuck are you?"
The elderly curse user leapt several feet back, her hand flying up to her necklace of prayer beads as a cold sweat overtook her body. No. No, this wasn't possible.
She specifically resurrected the body apart from the soul in order to avoid situations like this!
"Is this a dream?" The resurrected Toji spoke in stupor, turning his head to survey the skyline of Shibuya. "No… That can't be right..."
Then the sorcerer killer erupted into a fit of harsh laughter.
"Fuck! Of all things, this? This is where I end up? "
The curse user, Ogami, took a cautious step back. The worst case scenario, the absolute worst scenario imaginable! If this was the real Toji Zenin who had reawakened; her chances of survival were close to nil in a direct confrontation. Though, if she tried to attack him while he was in this state of confusion…
While Toji ran a hand through his hair, pacing and battling with some unseen mental turmoil, Ogami unsheathed a sleek, coppery ornate Japanese shortsword with a gilded hilt; The Small Fox Blade, a special grade cursed tool-and her most valuable, most prized weapon.
With a quick charge of cursed energy, Ogami utilised Toji's distraction to launch the sword towards him, the blade spinning through the air in a parabolic trajectory at bullet speed; testament to its power.
She withdrew a second, less flashy looking blade from her robes as she charged towards Toji with every ounce of cursed energy her aged bones could muster.
As expected, Toji was aroused from his musings by the sword cutting through the air towards him, and he caught it without a second thought.
Ogami grinned. "Hah, you fool!"
Cursed energy was channelled into her own blade, as she reached Toji and began swinging upward to disable him. Toji had fallen for her trick.
Kogitsunemaru 小狐丸 , or the Small Fox Blade , was a special grade cursed item which, among other things, granted its user the ability to surgically cut the soul. Ogami's technique was very closely intertwined with soul sorcery, yet despite the fact, she was still unable to perceive the soul itself. If a vessel were to ever be overtaken by the soul she resurrected, taking the enemy down without killing the body would be difficult without the ability to sever the soul. The sword was one of its kind, really, and worked in tandem with her technique. It would be the only way for her to revive her grandson while killing Toji Zenin, once and for all. Once she'd wounded him, she'd run him through the chest with the blade!
It also had a second, more passive ability. Once the sword had chosen a user, it would bind itself with their very soul; anyone besides that user would be paralysed if their hand were to make contact with the sword handle. Its previous user had been assassinated by her, making her the Small Fox Blade's newest owner. While its passive enchantment was more of an insurance so that the weapon could not be stolen, who would have known it would serve her now; in this roundabout way.
As her second blade cut through the air, on a straight trajectory for Toji's exposed hide, the elder witch grinned with glee. Ogami would be the sorcerer to kill Toji Zenin for the second time!
CLANG!
Her blow was deflected, Toji using the Small Fox Blade to halt her swing in an almost casual twist of his wrist.
"W-what!?" Ogami sputtered, frozen by shock. "The Small Fox Blade paralyses any who use it besides its owner! H-how, how-" With one hand, Toji cut off the older woman's rambling by wrapping a hand over her mouth, large fingers wrapping around her skull and immobilising her. He appraised the blade in his other hand with an unimpressed hum.
"Guess it liked me more."
There was a flash of bronze, then Ogami knew no more.
"Naobito! Maki! Withdraw!" Nanami yelled, his powerful voice easily carrying throughout the vast domain. Next to him, Megumi stood in a crouch, standing on a bed of swelling shadowy mass as he focused all his energy in creating an opening in the Special Grade Curse's tropical themed barrier.
Closer to the shore, the second year martial arts expert Maki and the elder projection sorcery user, Naobito Zenin, immediately retreated in response to Nanami's call.
The Special Grade curse they were locked in battle with, a tall, musclebound curse armoured in chitinous plates as if it were a macabre cross of an octopi and crustacean, watched them leave with detached caution. It evaluated their movements, preparing for the dark haired sorcerer's inevitable domain expansion.
Surely they didn't believe that boy, weakened as he was, would be able to overtake Dagon's own; perfected domain, right? He'd been able to cancel out Dagon's sure-hit, but it was only a matter of time before the child's cursed energy ran dry.
But then, Dagon felt it. A hole was made, penetrating the impeccable barrier that encapsulated its domain. Those sorcerers were attempting to escape!
A sense of urgency overtook the curse, as it charged through the seawater of its domain. It could not let them escape, not after what they did to Hanami!
But the group of sorcerers did not leave, recoiling surprise as the opening they were moments away from entering was suddenly occupied by a mysterious figure. First came a set of muscular arms, draped in a loose fit grey sweater as they cut through the thick sludge created by Megumi's technique.
From the rift emerged a head topped with a mop of black hair, atop an angular, intimidating visage. Broad shoulders erupted from the opening, followed by a wide torso; the baggy clothing failing to disguise the figure's considerable musculature. Then the rest of the man followed, until the tall, taller than even Nanami , man stood among the sorcerers.
The man had his arms raised, as if in celebration, and a deep rumble of laughter emanated from his throat as he emerged fully.
Dagon halted its charge, appraising the new combatant wearily. They had summoned another sorcerer instead of escaping. Why? And how was this new combatant masking their cursed energy?
"Huh? W-who the hell are you!?" Maki yelled, moving into a battle position only for the man to all but materialise in front of her. A powerful grip overtook her own, wrenching the Playful Cloud 遊雲 from her hands.
"I'm borrowing this," the man said, a statement and not a request, as he sent Maki flipping through the air with a simple wave of his arm.
While Maki grappled with the shock of the man's superior strength, to her of all people, the mysterious sorcerer turned towards Megumi, who flinched back at the eye contact.
He held an awkward gaze with the black haired Ten Shadows user for a few seconds, before looking away. Instead, the man stepped off the raised platform the group stood on, choosing to taunt Dagon as he swung the special grade weapon in a lazy figure eight. His voice, a deep baritone with an underlying rasp to it, spoke once again. "You got all expenses-paid crab boil here? Just for me? You shouldn't have. "
"No cursed energy... You aren't even worth my time." Dagon spoke, its voice amplified by the ambient effects of his domain, as it prepared to obliterate the intruder with a manually targeted Death Swarm.
Then, suddenly, the ocean was split between Dagon and the sorcerers, as the black haired man leapt forward with such speed and force that not even the Special Grade could react!
A resounding shockwave vaporised the surrounding water and turned it into a fine mist, as the curseless black haired menace spun a kick into the crustacean curse with such force that the creature was sent hurtling through its own domain.
The crab-like curse had no chance to recover before its attacker seemed to materialise right above it, striking it down with the maroon coloured sectioned staff hard enough to create a crater in the beach; a mushroom cloud of sand shooting into the air.
The curseless sorcerer grinned something sharp and demonic, spreading his arms out and laughing with glee as he fell back down towards the Earth.
Dagon swiftly recovered from its place in the crater, driven by panic by the unstoppable blitz of the zero cursed energy sorcerer- was that even possible? - thrusting out its arms to command a wave of lesser sea creatures to barrage the sorcerer while he was airborne- only for each of his summons to all be eviscerated by a sphere of death.
The sorcerer whirled that cursed tool, the three sectioned nunchaku, with such speed and ferocity that any creature that'd entered the range of his wingspan was turned into red mist. Like a mass of rotating saw blades, the sorcerer chewed through his army of sea creatures until he had reached the water once again.
Another laugh came from the sorcerer as he continued mowing away at the flood of Dagon's onslaught, charging forward and cutting a path through the horde at such a rate that eventually; a creature was caught between his teeth. He bit down on the shikigami viciously, spewing its remains to the side as he cackled."Mmmn, I fucking love sea-food!"
With an earth shattering BOOM , the sorcerer split the sea once more; parting the depths, turning both water and sea creature to mist as he appeared before Dagon. The Special Grade disaster curse, among the strongest of its kind, recoiled in fear as the sorcerer swung his weapon with speed that it could not track!
An unstoppable barrage of blunt force assaulted Dagon, who could not defend itself from a full-body bruising that pulverised its chitinous armour head to toe- turning their surroundings into a salty ocean spray.
Dagon let out a monstrous, desperate scream as it summoned its largest apparition, a veritable sea monster borne of the tales of legend; a monstrously massive isopod, beyond the size of any creature on Earth. The ocean swelled with its arrival, submerging both Dagon and his assaulter as two bug-like eyes each the size of a building appeared before them both.
Capitalising on the distraction, Dagon commanded the water to pull him away from the sorcerer, whilst the titanic beast plummeted forth towards the attacker. Simultaneously, he channelled his cursed energy reserves to repair the damage the sorcerer had inflicted on him; any longer of an assault and he truly may have died just then!
The black haired man grinned, something wide and vicious, just as Dagon propelled himself clear of the water.
The Special Grade curse locked eyes with the group still on that boy's strange technique, before commanding the water to propel him towards them at full speed. Whilst their strongest card was occupied, he would deal with the rest; to ensure that they do not seize the opportunity to give a second attempt in escaping his domain. If he could reactivate his domain's sure-hit, victory was guaranteed!
The shikigami he had summoned would be enough to occupy that man, perhaps not for long, but long enough for Dagon to-
Water beneath Dagon, abyssal in its depth in order to accommodate the titan Dagon called upon, detonated outward in a shower of ocean water and massive purplish innards. Dagon dragged his eyes down at what felt to be a torturously long effort as he locked eyes with the black haired sorcerer once again, inches away from his face as the sorcerer somehow outran the explosion of roach guts caused by the man's own attack.
"Crack a crab, bitch!"
"You…!" The aquatic curse could only sputter, before the sorcerer's bare hand wrapped around his neck, Dagon's exo skeleton shattering under his outrageously strong grip. Then, one handedly, the sorcerer battered Dagon's skull with the Playful Cloud , the Special Grade curse unable to stop the relentless assault.
Dagon could only choke out a wet and continuous scream, its arsenal of beasts depleted while each blow that rained down on its face inflicted catastrophic damage, causing its titanium-like exo skeleton to crumple as if it were aluminum.
Then, after several gruesome seconds of a brutal beating that sent violent arcs of purple blood into the air, the tropical domain shattered; their humid surroundings melting into the subway station where Dagon had first engaged the sorcerers.
Naobito, Megumi, Maki and Nanami could only stare open-mouthed, as the Special Grade curse which was moments from killing all of them fell to the ground, straddled by the mysterious sorcerer who'd appeared from Megumi's escape plan. A deep chuckle rumbled from the man's throat, as he stood up from where sat on the curse's abdomen.
Which raised the question…
Whose side was this monster of a man on?
His first thought, when he stepped off the disintegrating corpse of the Special Grade aquatic curse, Dagon, was 'Man I am taking this reincarnation shit, really, really well.'
And he was, wasn't he?
Well sure, initially there was a bit of confusion at first; and he hadn't recognised the scene nor the old lady that was up on that rooftop with him right away, but he'd say he caught up to the situation pretty quick.
When he had come to be on that rooftop, he was overcome with a sense of familiarity that probably was not very customary when body swapping, or world swapping, for that matter. His first instinct was to of course to question whether he was dreaming or not, because like, is reincarnation ever anyone's first guess? Maybe he'd just gone batshit insane.
The clarity of the world around himself, draped in a dark cloak of night that his enhanced eyes saw through as if it was a thin sheet; the crisp autumn air tickling the inside of his nostrils with such saturation that it almost felt like he could taste the coming winter on the tip of his tongue. The breeze that came from this altitude tickled his bare skin, and despite its ineffectual chill against his strengthened flesh, goosebumps climbed up his neck from the tactile sensitivity he bore against its breath.
Everything felt so real, realer and fresher than it's ever been. If that made sense, which it probably didn't.
His senses then were just so alive that he didn't think he could recall a time he'd ever been so… aware, of everything.
Toji fucking Fushiguro. Who would've guessed. In the middle of Shibuya too, like, really?
Strangely, when he thought of his life before he'd woke up in the flesh of Toji fucking Fushiguro , he could not put a face nor name to any of the figures in his life. Scratch that, he couldn't even remember his family, if he had one. Really, despite the common knowledge, skills and habits one builds from living an urban lifestyle, he just couldn't remember any single specific thing from his past life; not even what he was doing before he'd woken up in Toji's body. (Had he died? It was chilling to think of, but he could not recall his latest moments in his previous life at all- it must have been something instant.)
Well, there was one thing he could remember with impeccable accuracy.
Jujutsu Kaisen. Basically the biggest anime hit in the world since Attack on Titan ended. Since the second season's animation in late 2023, it was all the internet could talk about. Every second meme or post on any one of his social media feeds, back then, was about Jujutsu Kaisen. Even those who were completely averse to anime, had been touched by the biblical media flood that the show had inflicted upon the internet.
And really, how convenient that he remembered just about every detail; down to the manga's long awaited ending.
Now that he was in the universe itself.
Offhandedly, he decided not to ponder the circumstances of his arrival here too much. Maybe this was some obscenely well crafted hallucination on the verge of death, or reincarnation was real and some unfathomable cosmic law chose him of all people to be reborn here; not as any newborn but as the resurrected Toji Fushiguro; the one who left it all behind, the sorcerer killer; all in a stolen body.
Anyways, questioning his appearance here would sooner drive him mad than lead him to any answers. Which is, again, why he decided not to think about it; letting the overwhelming battle instincts of this body, which spoke to him clearer than his very own thoughts , lead him to dispose of the grandma curse user (He'd never killed someone before. Wasn't it supposed to be heavy hitting? It really didn't feel like anything special when he lopped her head off) and let the lust for battle lead him off that roof top and through the city streets.
He used that granny's sword to slice his way through hordes of transfigured humans, the amorphous creatures unable to stop his charge as he carved through them like a rabid bull through a kindergarten. Uh. Weird analogy. Again, weren't these real people just a short while ago? It really shouldn't be so easy to kill , it's not like he'd ever done it before.
Except for the countless times that hehad.
...Whatever. As he let the constantly pull of battle and violence lure him down into the subway, he tried to hurry as he figured he was probably on his way to that crab curse's domain expansion, as Toji had gone in the anime.
And he realised, well, wow. He was gonna be meeting with Jujutsu Kaisen characters. Like, soon. Cool.
' … One of them was Toji's, er, my son.'
"Fret not, Megumi." he had spoken then, his voice raspy and deeper than it had ever been before, just as he bisected a transfigured human blocking his path at the waist. "Your bum ass father is coming to save the day."
And he did get there, awkwardly standing at the edge of the void-like barrier, scratching his head as he waited for Megumi's Chimera Shadow Garden to make an opening. But really, he hadn't been prepared for the rush of emotion, and incredibly disorienting memories that swept through his body and mind when he entered through the intrusion, and looked over to Toji's son.
His son.
Megumi certainly hadn't recognised him, understandably so as Megumi's jackass of a father had practically abandoned him when he was too young to remember. Though, Toji certainly had cared deeply for Megumi; he could tell by the swell of sheer affection and pride that pulsed within his chest just from looking at the Ten Shadows user. It was enough to make him sway on his feet, enough to make the corner's of his vision darken; it was an overpowering emotional pulse that resonated so deeply, that felt so instinctual it threatened his physical balance. It was dizzying, to feel so strongly for someone he'd never met. Except, again for when he had; this was his boy.
Ugh, what was it that Kenjaku had said? The soul is the body, body is the soul?
...Toji supposed he was pretty much right on the mark.
Anyways, a crazy fucking battle later, where a wild, unbridling power that flowed through every cell in his body had all but taken over, allowing him to strike with enough force to turn an entire beach into a fucking crater, the adrenaline high was finally beginning to die down. He was actually a little bit familiar with fighting from his previous life, that he was sure of, but that was normal fighting. Two teenagers scrapping over meaningless shit fighting, two guys in a ring with gloves fighting, the occasional casual "hey wanna throw some super light not painful at all jabs at each other for like five mins haha" fighting. Certainly not the kind of fighting that caused the ground to tremble, that could pulverise sea-monsters in single blows and travel at speeds that made him out-run the very sounds he made. He was familiar to fighting, but certainly not to the extent of being able to dominate a battle against a Special Grade.
It was as if Toji's body perfectly remembered how to do battle, even with himself at the wheel.
Because in the end, he had beaten Dagon, the Special Grade disaster curse, to a pulp, with nothing but a pair of fancy nunchucks (without destroying them this time!) Absent-mindedly he wondered where that fancy bronze sword went, realising he must have had dropped it somewhere along the way.
Stepping off of Dagon's disintegrating corpse, he gave the Playful Cloud a quick flick of the wrist, dispersing the cursed blood from the special grade weapon. He could feel the gazes of the sorcerers he had inadvertently rescued burning into the side of his skull. Uh. What was he supposed to say? He had to play it in a cool, nonchalant, true Toji style.
Drawing in a deep breath, he formulated something of a script in his head.
He turned his head towards the group, pointedly not looking at Megumi as he fixed them with a cocky grin. He wiggled the Playful Cloud in his hand. "Yo. You still want this back?"
Complete and utter silence.
"...Er, that's fine with me, i can keep it if y'don-"
"How are you here, Toji?" Naobito bit out, not a trace of his drunken demeanour present. He locked eyes with the old man, some part of him impressed by his lucidity in the absence of his entire right arm, though he supposed he was probably stumping the blood flow with cursed energy, or something. The elder's stance was tense, every muscle in his body wound tight. It seemed out of the entire group, only Naobito knew who he was-which was a relief, considering Kento Nanami was right there and he wasn't sure how much the man knew about the guy who'd brained his high school senior.
Right, not guy. 'Me.' He is Toji, Toji is him.
He couldn't shake off the impostor syndrome no matter how hard he tried.
"You haven't gotten any younger, old man." The words rolled out of his mouth naturally, oozing confidence that didn't reflect his internal freakout. "Y'look like you've seen a ghost."
At that, Maki seemed to twitch subtly, her hands flexing in the absence of her weapon. Naobito's eyes narrowed. "Because I am looking at one. You are meant to be dead."
He stuck out his tongue, cocking a fist against his hip as he rolled his eyes. "What can I say? That six-eyed brat has lousy aim."
"I saw your corpse. Half of your torso was carved out."
"Nothing a band-aid can't fix."
Suddenly, Nanami cut in.
"Zenin, explain! Who is this? What is your relation to this man? And why… Why can't I sense any cursed energy from him?"
"He's dead is what he is!"
He tuned the group out, looking over his shoulder to face a short, pale skinned one eyed curse with a strange leopard printed cloak and a volcano-shaped head. It had appeared in almost an instant, escaping the notice of all other sorcerers in the room somehow; but not his. The curse was on a knee, clutching the disintegrating hand of Dagon. Slowly, Jogo's singular eye turned in its socket to lock with his own. Ah.
"Pft, don't look at me. " He scoffed nervously. "It was er, like that when we got here."
Jogo, the volcanic curse, was widely considered to be the strongest of the disaster curses. Besides Satoru Gojo, and Ryomen Sukuna, it wasn't really known if any sorcerer in Jujutsu Kaisen could withstand his sheer firepower and speed; since those were literally his two only real match ups in canon. As a matter of fact, he was fairly certain he was a really, really bad option to fight with this curse. Power and speed was its specialty. All he could do was hit hard. What could really he do against a volcanic blast? Against a meteor?
...Hah. Dodge, maybe? Panda had managed it.
"These are the ones that killed you, Dagon?" The curse rasped, just as the last of its comrade's flesh evaporated. Cursed energy began to seep from it, a hot presence filling the station-like the underbelly of a volcano.
"Oi, really I've got no idea what happened to that guy, maybe he drowned or somethi-"
Jogo then appeared in front of Nanami, whilst the blonde sorcerer was locked in an argument with Naobito. "One."
In the official release of Jujutsu Kaisen, this was the moment Jogo torched Kento Nanami, crippling him and putting him in a heavily weakened state where he was easily killed an episode or two later.
In this moment however, where He, some ordinary man from the year 2024 had merged with the body of one Toji Fushiguro, Jogo did not have the chance to activate his technique; as his fist trucked directly into the curse's wide face at a bajillion kilometres an hour and sent it, or him, whatever, into the wall on the opposite end of the station.
He shook out his fist, now shoulder to shoulder with Nanami as he squared his back. "Focus up, sorcerers. This is a special grade goblin we're dealing with."
Nanami stared ahead, wide eyed. "Where did it… I didn't see it move?"
Then, atleast to the others, Jogo suddenly appeared before him, his hands posed as if he were Goku charging a kamehameha. Hah, nerd. Wait, shit, that was probably bad.
He wrapped his arms around Nanami's torso, bodily lifting him before shooting off from his place, just as a powerful blaze came alive in place of where Nanami and he had been standing a second prior.
In the corner of his eye, he saw Naobito use his technique, Projection Sorcery, to try and stutter into motion behind the curse. The older sorcerer's movements were lagged, presumably due to his injuries, but he still moved at an erratic speed that was difficult to track. But not impossible.
He saw Jogo turn and nonchalantly raise a hand in Naobito's expected trajectory.
Again, he found himself launching off the ground and tackling the older man away from the path from a four-way blowtorch finisher. He didn't know what possessed himself to move when he did, since this guy was canonically a total asshole, and Toji didn't hold any fondness for him personally. But he supposed that maybe somewhere in the inky void that was Toji's chest, he still had something of a moral compass, leftovers from a life he only half remembered. Whatever, the man could face justice later, and not at the hands of some genocidal disaster curse.
Flipping in the air, he unceremoniously dropped the older Zenin onto the ground with a little more oomph than neccessary, turning to face the curse that had just then begun to move towards Maki, who was still looking towards him- her mouth agape. Next to her was Megumi, every bit as awe-struck although his stoic expression hid it much better.
"Damn it, kids!" He kicked off a pillar, leaving Naobito in his dust as he shot across the room and drop kicked Jogo just as his hand raised itself a hair away from Maki's face. No barbecued Maki in this timeline.
"Fuck is wrong with all of you? You tryna fuckin' die!?" He couldn't help but yell, as he deliberately paced to ensure that he remained between Jogo and the group. Shit. This battle was beyond any of them, the state they were all in from Dagon's domain. "If you're just gonna stand around, get the fuck outta here then!"
"You don't have any cursed energy," Jogo began, stepping out from the crumbling wall he had kicked him into. "Yet your strength eclipses all other sorcerers in this room. How?"
Heavenly pact, dumbass.
"I'm a trench bodied bitch." He sneered, unfolding the Playful Cloud as he spun it in preparation for battle. He began to regret taking his time with Dagon, as fun as that one sided beatdown of a fight was. He wasn't really thinking, in the time between killing that cursed grandma and breaking into Dagon's domain, but he'd somewhat hoped to get the hell out of dodge before Jogo showed up. How unlucky, he was there for maybe 30 minutes, tops, and he was already facing off against one of the strongest hitters in the verse. Truly, this was our Jujutsu Kaisen. "Let's just fight, man."
When Toji was young, perhaps eight years old or even younger; he was thrown into the Zenin clan's punishment pit after refusing to acknowledge a clan elder as his superior. The elders of the clan fully expected the civilian adjacent child to perish in the pit, as there was a particularly dangerous curse trapped within it at that time.
It was a curse with several knifelike appendages, each limb ending in a blade that glowed with searing heat. The entire curse's body was draped with fire and steam, a testament to the intense temperature its body produced. It would be no issue for a trained sorcerer of course, but no child should have been able to survive it, alongside the rest of the horde also in that hole.
Toji, at eight years old, had slaughtered that curse with its own detached limb.
It hurt a lot though. The heavenly restriction Toji, or he supposed He , was born with traded cursed energy in exchange for heightened senses, strength, speed and durability. Heat was finicky however, as there was only so much flesh could do to withstand it, even with superhuman toughness.
So what did that tell him, when fighting a curse that could turn an entire city into a magma pool?
He narrowly leapt out of the way of the stream of fire which turned the wall behind himself into molten slag, his legs blurring as he fought to move faster than the wisps of flame that licked at his heels. He could see Jogo staring at him, almost concomitantly, as he waved a hand, to and fro, to command another searing blast of heat that would raise the station temperature by several degrees.
It told him to not get hit.
In the corner of his eye, he noticed the sorcerers grouping together again, seemingly debating their next course of action; poised as if they were getting ready to rejoin the fight. Really, these guys treated this situation as if there was time to be sitting around talking!
If they wouldn't leave, he only had one other choice. He'd have to take Jogo, and this fight, away from here.
Fire curses were tricky to deal with, he knew that much. Not to mention, Jogo was mentioned to be the fastest of the disaster curses.
He counted his lucky stars; because as it turned out, Jogo wasn't as fast as Toji.
The volcanic curse raised both arms, presumably to summon another attack, but Toji did not give him the chance. Focusing a surge of strength in his legs, he crossed the service platform in only two long strides, before clocking Jogo across the face with the Playful Cloud.The special grade weapon, in conjunction with his natural strength, hit the poor curse with such power that he practically disappeared into the darkness of the lower levels of the subway tunnel.
He followed the curse's trajectory, slamming as many strikes as he could into his body as the two combatants travelled at practically sonic speeds in a descent through the tunnel. He could see the curse's eye widen, as he began to take the battle more seriously. The curse wrapped his arms with a cloak of cursed energy as he attempted to match Toji blow for blow.
Tha-donk! Another powerful slam of the Playful Cloud into that strangely shaped head of his, and Jogo seemed to have had enough.
"Disaster flames!" A violent eruption shook the earth, and he only had bare moments to react. In the blink of an eye, concrete and mortar was incinerated with the activation of Jogo's technique. There was nowhere to run.
His only defense against the unstoppable wave of magma was to spin the Playful Cloud at sonic speeds, creating a helicopter like shield beneath his feet as negative pressure sent him hurtling through the air. A blast of pure lava collided heavily with his back, sending a wave of furious agony through his body as it carried him through several layers of earth; until the ground itself collapsed, revealing the night sky above.
Midair, he adjusted to drive a heel into Jogo's jaw, the curse moments away from hitting him with another heatwave.
Utilising the volcanic curse as a spring, he hopped from one collapsing plate of asphalt to another, before landing in the middle of an open street.
"Ah, shit!" he cursed, contorting his torso as he fought against the pain ravaging the flesh of his back. The back of his sweater was in tatters, edges singed or melted onto his skin in a gruesome fashion statement. "Fuck!"
On the surface, the street was pandemonium. Evacuation sirens wailed from every block, mingling with the panicked shouts of security staff as waves of civilians tried to funnel through the choke points toward the nearest barricades. Abandoned cars jammed the intersections, their windows fogging and breaking from the rolling waves of heat that bled from Jogo's body. Red and blue emergency lights strobed through the haze, painting the cracked pavement in flashes as law enforcement did their best to channel the waves of panicked citizenry.
Toji staggered from the crater first, half-melted soles dragging molten glass behind him. The pain in his back was a gnawing furnace, but his eyes swept immediately—not for Jogo, but for the civilians still sprinting in blind herds through the smoke.
Jogo burst up a heartbeat later, shattering a bus in half as molten stone cascaded off him. A fresh wave of screams rose from the panicked crowd as the air increased in temperature by several degrees. The curse's single eye glinted, and he flung out an arm-heat coiling in his palm like the heart of a dying star.
"Fuck no."
Toji shot past him in a blur, sneakers cratering asphalt. He ripped a food stand off its bolts grounded into the cement mid-run and whipped it up like a discus. The makeshift shield intercepted Jogo's blast midair, exploding into slag, the close-range shockwave slamming into Toji's chest and hurling him bodily through the windshield of a taxi.
He kicked free of the glass before the fire could chase him down, snagging a stumbling old woman by her collar on the way out and hurling her toward the arms of a uniformed guard. For a millisecond that stretched into infinity, Toji wondered what these people were thinking. What they were seeing. How was the government explaining this event? What did the people think of streets suddenly filling with lava, cars suddenly exploding in flames with no explanation? Could any of them see the source of firey death, in that spotted cloak and dark under-alls, above their heads? He certainly didn't envy the poor fuckers that were going to deal with the fallout of this mess.
Playful Cloud spun in his hand like a windmill, its impact ringing against Jogo's cloaked shoulder as he hammered the curse sideways into the skeletal frame of a convenience store. The building's glass front detonated outward as the curse plowed through racks of goods and erupted out the back wall into the alley beyond.
Toji landed in the street again, chest heaving, just as a cluster of civilians broke from a bottleneck in the street. Jogo's flaming skull-face loomed above them as the curse shot into the air, molten fire dripping from his jaw.
Toji vanished from their view, reappearing at the curse's blind spot. His heel connected with the back of Jogo's head, slamming him face-first into a delivery truck. The cab imploded, fuel spilling like water across the street. Toji saw the spark forming in Jogo's throat and made his call in a single heartbeat—he wedged two hands beneath the truck and heaved, the curse still imbedded into it.
Metal screamed, and the entire vehicle flipped end-over-end into the air, detonating like a firebomb above the panicked civilians instead of at their level. Shrapnel whistled down, embedding in the asphalt, but the people on the street lived to keep running.
"Keep moving!" Toji's voice bellowed through the smoke, the kind of raw command that drilled straight through fear. His slightly singed arms shook with adrenaline, but he didn't falter. Holy fuck.As civilians rushed down the road, Toji fought to steady his breath- the pressure to perform immense. Now, he wasn't just fighting for his own life, but for the people that evacuated--shouldn't they have been gone already!? Just his luck that the subway tunnel had taken them somewhere in Shibuya where the evacuation was still ongoing, yeah, that was just perfect.
Jogo staggered out of the fallen wreck, coal-colored teeth of fire gnashing. Toji didn't give him room to gather. He blitzed across three car roofs in a heartbeat, every step caving steel, before smashing Playful Cloud in an arc into Jogo's skull. The force carried them both across the road and into the surface of an office tower. The impact spiderwebbed up forty feet of concrete, the top floors sagging as glass rained onto the street below.
"MOVE IT!" Toji roared again, suddenly there on the road, grabbing people and physically throwing them to the other end of the crosswalk as the building came down on the street. His other arm suddenly flew as he spun around, swinging the Playful Cloud in a brutal hook that intercepted Jogo, sending the volcano curse hurtling across the block. The curse plowed through a row of parked taxis and embedded deep in the concrete support pillar of the station entrance across the street with a shockwave of glass and metal.
For a moment, the only sound was the shriek of twisting rebar and the panicked stampede of civilians finally clearing the avenue. Then the ground shook again as Jogo's flames pulsed hotter, the air distorting around him.
Toji spat, rolling his shoulders, ignoring the sting of every blister and burn. His eyes flicked once toward the stream of evacuees pouring out of the disaster zone, now behind his back- the road properly emptied. His shoulders sagged with relief, his breath coming out staggered- not from exhaustion, but from sudden ease. Shit, that could've gone really, really bad.
"I can't afford to waste time with you," Jogo said, audibly popping his jaw back into place as he peeled himself from the pillar Toji kicked him into. "The longer I stay here… That idiot Mahito, if he gets to Sukuna's vessel before me…!"
"Yeah, we both got places to be. Wanna wrap this up?" He bit out, the slightesthint of tears of threatening his eyes. Fuck. Toji's body may have remembered how to fight, but pain tolerance wasn't something that so easily carried over. That was more of a mindset thing, he realised. His back burned something crazy, crackling with pain with every movement he made- and now his bare forearms were badly singed, the brief exposure to extreme temperatures taking their toll on his poor skin. The wind beat at the exposed skin of his back, properly burned raw from Jogo's earlier attack in the subway. He had to end this, fast. He didn't know how much more of that kind of punishment he could take, before the damage reached an untenable point.
Pivoting into a low stance, concrete buckled underneath his feet as he prepared to launch himself at Jogo with every ounce of strength he could muster. But then the curse made a sign with its hands, a demonic grin splitting its face in two as the curse uttered a single chant.
"Domain Expansion," Jogo spoke, voice throbbing with such power it rattled the very Earth. "Coffin of the Iron Mountain! 鉄山の棺 !"
"Man, fuck this shit!" He swore, as he was suddenly enveloped by an enormously intense heat; his surroundings replaced the menacing glow of the inside of what seemed to be a volcano. Really, Jogo!? Weren't domain expansions some kind of trump card, to use when your back was against the wall? They could've just kept going at it!
The heat distorted the air, draping Jogo in a wickedly menacing aura as the curse raised its spindly arms towards Toji. "Burn."
Instantly, the spot where Toji stood was enveloped with an unstoppable eruption of lava, whilst molten boulders barraged the spot at once.
Jogo grinned, holding his domain a little longer to appreciate the charred form of his enemy, the curseless human, while his sure-hit attack died down. But there was nothing left in the space he'd incinerated the heavenly restriction user. The volcanic curse blinked, wondering if he had overdid his attack to the point the human had been atomised, only for a jaw crushing force to impact his jaw, again!
Without pause, the Playful Cloud slammed itself into Jogo's head repeatedly, blinding the curse as his large eye all but exploded underneath the weight of the relentless assault.
"How!?" Jogo screamed, forcing the black haired fighter back with an outward swell of fire. Impossible. Within his domain, all attacks should be guaranteed to hit! "You're in my domain, how'd you not get hit? "
"Fuck, its hot in here," Toji hopped from foot to foot, his face flushed as he wiped an arm against his forehead. "Dunno. Guess your aim is just ass regardless?"
With that, he charged towards Jogo once more, side stepping another eruption of rock and flame as he did his best to close the distance. If he was able to break Dagon's domain by beating the shit out of it, the same should work for that bastard, Jogo!
He just had to get close enough to do it!
"Get over here you fuckin' midget!" Toji bellowed, acrobatically manoeuvring through a series of flame attacks before he landed at Jogo's side. The curse's singular eye, now healed, widened as Toji drove a limb of the Playful Cloud into its stomach. He didn't let up, immediately unleashing another barrage of attacks that sent magma and rock flying up from their position.
The two chased each other, Jogo attempting and failing to meet Toji blow for blow as the curseless fighter dominated the battle in close quarters. The curse attempted to use a hailstorm of molten rock to halt Toji's assault, only for the man to eviscerate the barrage with a blindingly fast series of swings of his cursed weapon.
Lava rained from the sky, debris from the destructive battle, and Jogo cried out in shock as Toji bodily restrained it; then used it as a shield from the onslaught of magma. In defiance, the volcanic curse slammed a curse infused fist into the side of the man's head, rocking it back violently.
Then two gunmetal eyes met Jogo's and the next moment- all it knew was pain.
Toji sent Jogo into the air with a sonic cone inducing hit to the curse's jaw, breaking it for what had to be the tenth time in a row. Suddenly, the disaster curse's flight was arrested as it appeared to levitate in place. Flame exploded from the craters on its head, a manic expression overtaking its face.
Its arms glowed red like forged iron, as two massive limbs of molten rock materialised from the volcano's walls and shot forward towards him, hands large enough to grip office buildings. Toji's heart raced as the fists rushed across the battlefield, so large and mighty in their power that it was impossible to dodge.
With no other option, Toji clumsily stuffed the Playful Cloud into his waistband, before plunging both his hands into the plate of rock he was standing on. His muscles flexed powerfully, taut against the sweater he wore as he threw his arms upward with as much power as he could muster, blocking the two massive fists with an equally massive plate of igneous rock.
The ground swayed beneath his feet, the surface of the volcano disturbed by the massive force of the world's largest and most destructive table flip ever, which collided with Jogo's attack with such raw power that a blinding explosion erupted from the point of impact. The platform he'd thrown up exploded into a million pieces, but it successfully neutralised Jogo's special move; the aforementioned curse watching a dozen metres away with a look of total shock on its face.
The curse, in an exercise in futility, attempted to rain another barrage of meteors upon Toji's position; only to cry out in surprise as the curseless Zenin appeared before him, dozens of metres in the air, within a fraction of a second.
Toji grinned like a wild animal, as he crossed the space between them in a single bound. "EAT SHIT!" He screamed, unfolding the Playful Cloud and all but caving in Jogo's skull with it; in a blow so powerful it pulverised the Earth beneath them, sending an eruption of lava that spilled over the edges of Jogo's volcano. Hundreds of metres of magma reached up towards the sky, as Jogo's head deformed with a wet crunch under Toji's immense strength.
The strength of the blow was so great, the molten surface they stood on deformed into a bowl shape; the contents of the volcano erupting all at once from the sheer force exerted by Toji's finishing strike. Jogo's head caved in similarly, the strange volcano-like structure of its crumpled into itself in a gross explosion of purple blood and flesh turned into mulch.
The domain around them rapidly fell apart, revealing the more or less destroyed avenue the two were standing on no more than ten minutes ago. Toji noted that no trace of Jogo's destructive domain was observed in the environment, affirming the fact that Jogo's domain did not impose itself upon the real world the way Sukuna's did. That was a relief, the volcano had looked rather large; Jogo could have immolated the entire district if that damage was reflected in the real world.
Toji cleared his throat, coughing out a few times as his lungs readjusted from sweltering, boiling temperatures to regular cool air. His skin stung uncomfortably, but the ambient temperature of Jogo's domain hadn't damaged him as much as the direct and grazed hits from earlier did.
Holy shit. Did he really just do that? Did he just defeat not one, but two disaster curses each within thirty minutes of each other?
Was Toji Fushiguro really that fucking strong? He personally owed an apology to every power-scaler and Toji glazer he'd ever gone after online, they were right-throwing hands was the meta. What a monster.
A hoarse noise could be heard from Jogo, a few feet away from where he lay in a bed of crushed asphalt. The curse hacked and coughed, its cursed energy swelling as it attempted to heal its grievous wounds.
Less than a second later, Toji was standing over it; roughly inserting one end of the Playful Cloud into its mouth.
"Y'move, or try anything," Toji warned, his voice a low, dangerous rumble; the type of tone the Him from before never used, but Toji used with just about everyone he'd ever interacted with, "I'll stir your brains, or whatever's in that weird head of yours, like mochi."
A shaky, steam-filled exhale came from the disaster curse, as its teeth clacked against the special grade weapon. Toji took that as acceptance then.
"So," He began, almost conversationally, "The fuck're you guys tryin' to achieve, with this shitshow? You can talk, and you're smarter than your average pile of goo, so you curses have got some kind of plan, a purpose for all this, right?"
Really, there was no point in interrogating Jogo. He knew the purpose of the Shibuya incident, he knew Kenjaku's plans, and he knew why the disaster curses went along with it.
It was all for appearances. Because he could feel the cursed energy signatures from before watching. They must have caught up, then.
"This world…" Jogo began, its singular eye unfocused as it stared somewhere off into the space behind Toji. "It… it stinks! It stinks of rot, of dishonesty, of liars! You humans, you don't understand just how, how disgusting, how revolting it is to watch you from the outside! An entire life, an entire civilization built on lying, cheating, hating and killing each other, it's a wonder any of you can even bear to look at one another!"
A sort of zeal glimmered in Jogo's pupil, the temperature in the air rising dramatically as the curse began to ineffectually push back against Toji's weapon. Toji just shifted uncomfortably. "Uh, wasn't asking for an ideological monologue, dude."
"That's why, that is why…! You humans do not deserve this world! Us, the curses, we are the raw, unfiltered manifestations of man's purest emotions, of the true face of humanity! We curses, we are the true humans." Then, the curse gripped the Playful Cloud with both its hands, its palms glowing a rich orange as the ground next to the two began to melt and turn to slag. "Even if I am not there to witness it, in the end, the era of curses will come! For the most ultimate form of humanity to reign freely! Sukuna! Sukuna will see it through! "
Uh oh. With his free hand, Toji ripped Jogo's cloak open, seeing the tapestry that held ten of Sukuna's fingers missing. 'Shit!'
"Where are they!?" Toji yelled, knocking Jogo's head against the concrete hard enough to fracture the ground. "The fingers; where'd they- Where did you put them?"
The curse only grinned, its charcoal teeth glinting as a dangerous light burned in the back of its mouth. Jogo's body began glowing, a ray like the sun exploding from his eye socket as its immense cursed energy output shifted from trying to regenerate its wounds to charging this massive, last ditch attack.
Fuck. Was Jogo really pulling a Final Flash on him???
He withdrew the Playful Cloud from Jogo's maw, turning to run as far as possible from the blast radius until he made eye contact with Megumi, just across the street.
The Ten Shadows users' eyes were wide, likely wary of the unknown man who'd brutalised two disaster special grade curses back to back, and his hands were poised to summon his shikigami in case of an attack, despite his obvious exhaustion. Toji, with his enhanced sight, could pick out the colour of Megumi's eyes even from the distance between them. A rich, dark blue, oceanic colour; a colour that was directly reminiscent of his late wife, a spitting image of Megumi's mother. What a beautiful colour it was.
Again, his chest throbbed almost painfully over the sight of his own flesh and blood, an affection that was so raw and real that it was confusing. It was as if he was incapable of separating Toji's memories and experiences from his own, as if he had lived his whole life as Toji rather than only the past half hour or so. Megumi Fushiguro, his son , a blessing from the heavens on a soul undeserving. If he left Jogo here, Megumi would be caught up in the blast, alongside the other sorcerers not too far behind.
He dropped the Playful Cloud , rushing back to pick up Jogo in both arms. The curse was boiling to the touch, as if he were hugging a burning log. He grit his teeth, his eyes unable to produce tears that didn't evaporate instantly from the outrageous temperature generated by the curse.
Toji leapt off the street, reducing the ground to rubble as he bound up the side of a residential building; Jogo's mere presence in his arms detonating glass and melting metal panels. His legs beat like an engine beneath his body, carving divots in the side of the building as he ran up several stories in a matter of seconds.
The flesh on his arms blistered, prompting Toji to clench his jaw as he summoned every ounce of willpower in his soul not to drop the disaster curse; who was now glowing a radiant yellow; like a light bulb.
He finally reached the final story of the residential building, Jogo's body now torching the air with such intensity his luminosity illuminated the streets below.
Toji landed on the rooftop with his knees bent, an animalistic snarl on his face as he summoned every last inch of strength he could draw from this body of his. He spun once, clutching Jogo by the back of his neck, the sensation felt as though he was gripping a molten rod with his bare hand , then spun again. And again, and again, building more and more momentum as the contents of the rooftop were rapidly and violently torn from it as a result of the wind pressure generated by Toji's spin.
Then, with a pivot of the heel that fractured the surface of the rooftop as if it were a pane of glass, Toji pitched his arm forward with all his might; his muscles rippling as his arm swung forth with such velocity a sonic clap detonated from the point of which his hand released Jogo.
The disaster curse, harbouring the latent raw destructive energy of a nuclear bomb, almost disappeared with the speed of which it was flung into the sky; its glowing form punching a wide hole through every cloud on its way. In the blink of an eye, it seemed to join every other star in the night sky, a bright orange glint an untold distance away.
Then, Shibuya ward was consumed by a bright flash; blinding anyone unfortunate enough to have been staring directly up into the sky. Toji protected his eyes with both arms, the flash so bright he was certain for a fraction of a second he was able to see the bones through his own flesh.
Then, the flash died down, replaced by a supermassive orb of fire that eclipsed the night sky. It swelled menacingly at first, pulsing with an ominous, terrifying power, before a brief blast of heat ruffled Toji's hair. Then came the sound.
At first, it was like a deafening clap of thunder, prompting Toji to smack his palms over his ears instead of his eyes, before a constant roar began to rattle every window within a dozen kilometres of the area.
The explosion was massive , its brightness so great that the entirety of the city was bathed in an orange light. Distantly, Toji wondered if Jogo's power was visible to the non-sorcerers, if everyone could see the second sun in the sky right now. They were quite visible to him, though he didn't know if that was thanks to his acute senses or not.
Something in the back of his mind rattled at that observation, as he remembered all the online discourse about how, supposedly, Toji was said to sense curses, not actually see them. But he saw Jogo, and Dagon, with all their pristine details; down to their very colour schemes. Could the original Toji see curses in such detail? Did it even matter if he did, or if he didn't? Because, well, how on Earth was he supposed to know? Wait, hadn't Maki been explicitly stated to see curses?
The curses he could remember in the vast, disorganised bank that was Toji's memories, he could also recall seeing visually, in their full glory. Though he wasn't sure if that was how Toji had seen them- Ugh, how utterly confusing.
It was beginning to become difficult to differentiate the barrier between his, and Toji's memories. Really, it was beginning to become difficult to substantiate the difference between him and Toji. Had they merged, in the instant he'd arrived in this body?
...Was there even a him anymore, to begin with?
He knew he'd lived a relatively short, but well-lived life. He could remember the world of 2024, and maybe the near two decades leading up to it. But the details of what his life entailed in that were scant, and far in-between; he couldn't put a name, face, or even a personality to the figures that he'd met throughout his foray through living- the details just alluded him, as if trying to peer through foggy glass. He could remember some of his likes and dislikes, his interests, passions he'd held and the skills he'd cultivated, but he couldn't quite capture the people that had been around him then.
Toji's mannerisms, battle instincts, and strength had carried over without a hiccup. Was he really was just the original 'character'; with an additional set of memories-and morals? How did one define a person's identity? By experiences, or by some other unquantifiable quality?
He drew in a long breath, his sharp features illuminated by the ambient orange glow overhead. His arms stung something fierce, and the flesh of his palm was so devastatingly burnt he wondered if it would ever look the same again. The pain was there, but the rush of endorphins spiking his blood made the agony seem like some far off memory.
It wouldn't do him any good to continue through this train of thought, or else he'd be thinking himself in loops for days, perhaps weeks. It wasn't at all his decision to get dropped into this body, into this universe, into this situation , but what else could he do but just… roll with it? If he wanted to make good on his continued existence here, he had to come to terms with the facts. There was no room for denial, or confusion; he had to nip such doubts in the bud before he split his head in two.
Taking in a deep breath, he squared his shoulders, the wind beating on the exposed flesh of his back, thankfully more or less healed. Jogo's explosion overhead had finally begun to die down, the last of the shockwave wearing itself out as the lights of Shibuya flickered in the wake of its dying breaths. With Jogo gone, and the blast averted, he'd just prevented like, thousands of deaths, hadn't he?
It wouldn't do much good to gas himself up too much though. He was far from done, Jogo had somehow managed to send off Sukuna's fingers without him noticing. What a pain. Two disaster curses was one thing, but Toji really couldn't see a way to match up against a fifteen finger Sukuna. That was the kind of opponent that even He, Toji, probably couldn't do much against.
Yeah. Toji. That was right.
"I'm Toji." He exhaled. And an imaginary weight washed off his shoulders like water, and he'd never felt ever more comfortable in his own flesh.