Kyoto never raised its voice unless it had to.
In the early hours, when the sky still hovered between indigo and grey, the city was restrained rather than asleep. Temple bells rolled over tiled rooftops, trains whispered across distant tracks, and wind threaded through narrow streets with the patience of something that had outlived empires.
Hagane Sora liked that kind of quiet.
"It doesn't expect anything from you or gives trouble," he once muttered while leaning against the orphanage balcony, watching the horizon pale. "That's what makes it best."
From the courtyard below, one of the younger boys yelled, "Sora-nii! You're supposed to help with breakfast!"
Sora didn't move.
"I am helping," he replied lazily. "I'm supervising the sky. If a bomb drops I will yell 'Bomb'."
"Nothing like that will happen. You simply like to laze around."
"That's a strong accusation before 7 a.m."
He eventually went downstairs grumbling.
---
The orphanage had been his home for as long as this life stretched back. A modest building near an aging shrine in northern Kyoto, it leaned slightly to one side as if burdened by memory. Sora sometimes wondered whether buildings grew tired the way people did.
"Don't slouch like that," the caretaker, Ms. Hayashi, scolded one evening.
"I'm not slouching," Sora answered, shifting just enough to appear compliant. "I'm conserving energy."
"You're sixteen, not eighty. Expend the saved energy."
"Age is a mindset. I don't wanna do anything. "
She sighed. "One day you'll have to work properly."
"Define properly."
She never won those exchanges.
To most people, Sora looked half-asleep even while standing. Tall, dark-haired, eyes perpetually narrowed as though evaluating whether effort was worth the trouble. He preferred silence, but he didn't avoid conversation. If someone approached him, he engaged easily—sometimes too easily.
"Why do you always look bored?" a classmate asked him once.
"I'm not bored," Sora replied. "I'm thinking."
"About what?"
"Whether you're about to say something important."
The classmate never asked again.
---
Sora remembered another life.
He didn't talk about it because there was no one he trusted enough to listen without suspicion. Fluorescent lights alongside Office desks. The comfort of a world where monsters were fictional and safety was assumed. He had died there without drama and without meaning.
Life wasted.
Then he had opened his eyes in Kyoto.
For ten years, nothing contradicted the possibility that this life would be just as ordinary.
Until the incident at the shrine.
---
He had been ten when the air around him grew heavy and his Senses were ringing.
Warning him of hidden danger.
He remembered standing near the stone steps, staring at something no one else seemed capable of seeing. The priest walked by humming softly. A delivery truck passed on the street beyond the trees. Everyone and everything was same as usual.
But the curse stood in front of him. Unseen by the Priest walking up the steps and the birds alongside the steps.
The curse was a small creature. Amalgation of fear of small things.
Sora felt fear from the tiny horror.
The priest had gone in the shrine. No creature was present except for him and this thing.
The creature moved.
He felt his feet feet were glued to the stone. Probably from surprise or fear, he didn't know really.
The creature propelled itself towards Sora's head.
Sora turned his head to the side but a scratch was still made.
He suddenly felt sluggish as if he was drowning in quicksand.
The fear triggered something inside him answered.
Unknown information surged and took it's root in his mind.
Silver surged from his arm, liquid and cold, gathering between him and the curse before hardening with a sound like metal striking stone. It radiated a Cursed aura.
He stared at his own hand. "You've got to be kidding me."
The curse lunged.
"Fine," Sora said under his breath. Locking his gaze on the cretin. "You want a piece of me then I will also take a piece of you."
The metal shifted according to thoughts he hadn't consciously formed, reshaping into a bat mid-swing. The impact vibrated through his bones. He stumbled, adjusted, bashed again.
When it ended, the shrine looked untouched.
Sora looked at his trembling hand, where silver receded into skin as if nothing extraordinary had occurred.
"My Peacefull will not be peaceful anymore," he said quietly. "I need to get stronger."
He was ten years old when he stopped believing in security.
---
Sora formulated a training plan for himself.
He had increase is efficiency to conserve Cursed energy, create techniques to properly utilise his innate technique and the most important--
Domain Expansion.
That was a must.
Sora checked the date to find which part of the story he is now in.
He remembered that Yuji was born on 2003. Doing quick maths, he was able to tell that the story started in 2018.
He hadn't watched the show that much.
Other than some tid bits here and there, he hadn't seen any episode or read the Manga.
Regretful. He would read it and watched the whole goddamm show if he knew he will arrive in jjk.
Sigh.
The year he is in--2013.
---
Sora was now 11 years old.
A good amount of time has passed since his first encounter with a Cursed spirit.
His last was right now.
Sora was in the orphanage eating lunch with the children.
Sora believed that he didn't have talent for multitasking. But today was quite a demanding day.
A curse had appeared the neighboring building. Don't know why.
The curse was as intelligent as a toddler. Barely able to form sentences.
Its first choice of action was to harm the children.
But it chose to attack me first since I had higher level of cursed energy radiating from me.
Wrong choice.
The moment it passed through the walls attacked, its fate was sealed.
Cursed liquid metal surged from my sole and wrapped around the arms and legs of the curse spirit.
Then more liquid surged from my body, directly caging the Cursed spirit in a sphere.
The curse spirit was not happy. It threw tantrums in the sphere, mumbling" I wanna eat!" or " Me hungry!". A easy foe for ordinary Sorcerer.
However there was a problem.
The walls were shaking and the Cursed energy for maintaining the Sphere increased.
Now it's screams were prominent.
Then it clicked-
Its innate technique must be similar to the salmon guy.
Sora needed to act quick. He estimated the curse to be grade 4 but it's innate technique worried him.
"Natsu look! a plane going is going by."
Sora tricked the plane loving 8 years old.
"What! where is it? I wanna see."
Natsu, a innocent child believed the lie and abandoned his food for the plane. He turned to the window and opened to look outside.
Sora reacted as he threw the curse spirit outside. He made spikes inside the sphere and penetrated the cursed spirit.
And the next moment, as If confirming his suspicion, the sphere was destroyed with a sonic blast.
This sound was heard by the ordinary people as well.
Natsu was eagerly looking outside but found no sight of a plane.
Disappointed, he was going to complain.
Well, until the blast made him jump in fright.
"Waah. Its a bomb! Bombs are going to fall"
Ignore this. It was another kid, Satoshi who was timid and a bit cowardly.
My joke was most probably believed by only this one.
Cursed liquid metal surged from my body and flowed downwards.
I wanted to check if the curse spirit was gone or not.
Sora could use the metal as a sixth sense of sort. Making it viable for collecting information.
In the grassy courtyard, a small part of the grass was gone.
In the eyes of the ordinary that is.
In Sora's eyes, there was a curse spirit almost dead.
Almost because it did not dissappear.
Making the liquid metal pointed, he stabbed the Spirit.
Then it started to turn to dust.
Well that was fun.