Prologue
I tried to live a relatively… simple life, right? Sure, I had a thing for magic. Just a little — and even calling it magic was a stretch. It was more like my favorite mutation carried over from my "last" life. The first time around, it was the straightforward life of a doctor in an equally straightforward world that didn't particularly like paying the people who were supposedly saving lives. The second time, I ended up in the famous and not-exactly-peaceful world of Marvel — but even there, I found a way to settle in more productively and profitably. Billionaires and multi-millionaires are more than willing to shell out serious money to feel a little younger or push their deaths back a few years. I was no saint, and that was precisely because I knew that sincere, selfless kindness almost never pays.
At some point, I felt it — that I was… and wasn't "myself" at all. The memories, the soul, the synchronization — all of it left a deeply unpleasant aftertaste. As if these memories and this personality reminded me of someone, distantly. That someone had been so utterly insignificant that I couldn't "remember" this fragment of déjà vu from anywhere within my own recollections.
"I must have really pissed off Kami-sama or Akuma. Someone up there holds one hell of a grudge against me to call this… lucky?!"
The last word dripped with sarcasm. The whole sentence practically oozed poison and resignation. There I was, lying on a comfortable mattress, tucked under a blanket, neatly laid out on traditional Japanese tatami. I stared blankly at the ceiling and tried to figure out what kind of joke this was — and if it really was a joke, I wanted to wake up from it as soon as possible.
Useless.
I pinched my cheek a couple of times, pressed a hand to my chest over my heart, and drew a demonstratively deep breath in a half-hearted attempt to suppress the emotional explosion building inside me. Tired, nearly desperate, not bothering to hide any of it, I quietly got up and walked to the mirror on the desk.
A small figure stared back at me. Short, neatly kept hair, slightly spiked. Seven years old — him, or rather… me, now? The hair was that wretched, nauseating, absolutely awful dark green wheat shade. Even at this age, he had somehow convinced his father to dye it — to show off his "elevated" status among others. His "aristocratic" standing. Different from the rest. The real black color was already pushing through at the roots in tiny dark locks.
"I'm Naoya — the Zenin clan's bastard. Pleasure to meet you."
The world of *Jujutsu Kaisen*. And I was a minor, insignificant little piece of work in this world, doomed to die a pathetic death. Twice, at that: once as a human, and once as a curse. Why was I… relatively… doomed? Simple. The problem wasn't so much me specifically, but rather that the Zenin clan was a genuinely half-rotten institution that believed prosperity was only possible by following medieval traditions to the letter. As if the year 2000 wasn't just around the corner — as if it were still the Edo period, when everyone was supposed to love and revere samurai, and women were nothing more than tools or objects for continuing the bloodline.
As one of the three great Jujutsu families in Japan, the Zenins favored those who possessed enormous reserves of cursed energy. Because of that, the clan rejected anyone who lacked it. To put it plainly:
"Got cursed energy? We need you. Barely any cursed energy? You're dirt beneath our feet."
That was actually the part I found amusing. Toji Zenin was living proof of just how hypocritically and stupidly this clan squandered the potential of those who operated without cursed energy. The Heavenly Restriction allowed one to trade cursed energy for extraordinary physical capability — and that capability alone was more than enough to level this four-hundred-year-old clan in a single day.
The mirror reconstructed a familiar face. "He" was watching me from the other side. Sullen, bitter, resentful. Like a child. As it should be.
"What's the core problem with you and this entire clan, Naoya?"
I needed an invisible interlocutor — someone to ask the obvious question about such a complex system. Well, complex for some. For me, it was nearly self-evident. This clan underestimated human potential. There was no need to keep trying to develop an art that this clan was no longer truly capable of advancing.
"How many 'sorcerers' here can construct their own spatial layer — a Domain Expansion? None. There's no point being angry at facts that you already know."
And so we arrive at the fundamental framework of this world's existence. Curses and cursed energy.
Cursed energy is born from negative emotions that circulate naturally through the body. Every human being releases cursed energy in one form or another, and curses are the manifestation of that energy into cruel, merciless, terrible creatures that exist solely to spread destruction and death — because that is their instinct, their nature. It's difficult for something to be "peaceful" when all it has ever known is pain, suffering, hatred, fear, and grief. To them, those emotions are "love." We are them, in a sense. The cycle of curses being born and killed will continue for as long as humans feel these emotions. One "genius" had already proposed solving the problem by eliminating those who couldn't control the leakage of that energy — but there was still time before it came to that.
The foundational basics, remembered. Now the central question remained.
I was genuinely curious: what exactly was I, and what was I supposed to do now? Was I a curse? I hadn't simply "pushed aside" the young soul — I had absorbed it. And yet, I didn't feel any particular "negativity" urging me to throw a proper bloodbath here. Though, admittedly, that had been my first instinct. So then… a curse? No. No, no, no. Something else. I couldn't quite pin it down.
"What a fascinating phenomenon…" I stared at my open right palm.
The soul is the body, and the body is the soul. In this world, that was a fact — but facts can be altered when circumstances shift in ways no one can anticipate. I didn't reject myself. I accepted quite calmly that I was Naoya Zenin. Yes, I despised myself, this clan, and my future — but at the same time, it offered a genuinely interesting experience. Something inexplicable stirred awake inside me.
Excitement.
I needed a challenge. I needed to see what would come… next. I wanted to find out how far I could go, how high I could climb.
I wanted to look beyond — beyond the limits of my soul, my body, my ambitions. My motivation was straightforward: I didn't want to die. And the one well-established method of not dying was to adapt to whatever was coming. To seize your own fate in a cold, steely, unforgiving grip — shape it, change it, make it yours. Who knew? Maybe this clan wasn't entirely beyond saving.
"Ironic… I'm willing to come to terms with your soul and your body. I'm willing to adapt to survive. To build something new. But this clan will never — not under any circumstances — want to adapt to anything new. The whole hierarchy of elders who can't let go of the past irritates the hell out of me. Great ancient traditions and customs… *Pff-hehe…*"
So, the timeline. Today was May 8th, 1998. Maki and Mai wouldn't be born for another four years. Eight years from now, in canon, Satoru Gojo would die for the first time at Toji Zenin's hands, and a year after that, Geto would crack. Another ten years beyond that would bring the fateful reunion and the "mini-war" to restore the world's balance, and so on. Where did the precise knowledge come from? Memory was a remarkably interesting thing. By pushing blood through the temples in reverse, one could create a kind of "rewind" through past events. You only needed to know where to look and where to draw from. Staying too long inside the Soul Mirror could cause bloody coughing, nausea, and vertigo. Blood carries memory. My magic — or mutation — could read it, and since the body was the soul, reading something like that wasn't particularly difficult anymore. I had never called my craft magic, but calling it a mutation felt equally inaccurate — because I had developed this… *talent*… honestly, diligently, and with an extreme sense of personal responsibility. Yes. Talent.
I bit my index finger until it bled, just to test whether my personal experience, skills, and instincts were still intact. That knowledge should have carried over. A small drop of blood rose into the air above my fingertip — suspended, as if weightless. A small snap, and it burst into a tiny flash of light. Good. Blood listened to me, both inside and out.
I couldn't help finding it funny — the fact that *this* Naoya had lost consciousness almost immediately the first time he'd encountered the clan's "mistake." The aura had been so overwhelming that he couldn't bear it and simply chose to surrender? Not even the mind — the body itself had forced him to switch off. Did this staunch misogynist genuinely believe he stood on the same level as Gojo and Toji? Seriously?
*"The sin of the insignificant is ignorance of power."*
The hatred and fury in my heart and soul were nearly spent — not just because this was now "our" body, but because, as already stated, the very existence of this society and the Zenin clan's culture had *created* this. Environment and surroundings shape behavior, character, and the definition of what is "right." Only truly strong individuals can go against the system and attempt to find a different path, different solutions, a different choice. A face and words may express the obvious ugliness — but it is the final choice that matters more than any words. That would be my strategy, my game. I would play my predictable role. At seven years old, I couldn't make any significant changes.
At least, not yet.
But small ones? Nearly invisible ones? Entirely possible.
"Well then! Time to take a look at this magnificent *patriarchy*!" My false, chipper, cheerful voice did its best to mask the absolute revulsion underneath. A familiar expression slid onto my face on its own — light, effortless, the fox grin that had always come so naturally. I never understood why everyone confused it for a snake's smile.
*— A brief note from the Author clarifying the start of the story's timeline. How old was Gojo during the small flashback with Toji — the one where the little "Six Eyes, Invincible Genius" saw him — and during Naoya's flashback, when he accidentally encountered Toji's "pathetic" soul? No specific ages are given for these characters in canon. Those scenes were created for the obvious purpose of atmospheric buildup.*