In Jujutsu Society, where Cursed Energy and the strength of one's Cursed Technique reigned supreme, those without talent often had a hard life.
And in the eyes of clans with a thousand years of history, clans that regarded Cursed Energy as everything, a child without it was worth less than a dog.
Toji would never forget that day.
The weather had been beautiful, the sun bright. The Zenin Clan's old wooden corridor gave off a warm, dry smell in the sunlight. He watched light spill through the gaps, casting golden shafts across the floor.
He stood there, waiting.
Waiting for someone to tell him he could awaken a Cursed Technique, that he could produce Cursed Energy, that he could become a real, worthy person who deserved the surname Zenin.
No one came.
He waited a long time. Long enough for the sunlight spilling through the gaps to move from east to west. Long enough for those golden shafts to turn into dark red afterglow. Long enough for him to finally realize-
No one was coming.
A pair of rough, cold hands, utterly devoid of warmth, seized his shoulders from behind.
Their grip was so strong that his shoulders made a faint sound beneath it, like bones groaning. Those hands lifted him off the ground, his feet dangling like a kitten caught by the scruff, powerless to resist.
He struggled.
He kicked, twisted, and tried to pry away those iron-clamp fingers. But he was too weak, his body too small. Before that man, he was like a toddler challenging an adult.
"Don't move."
The man's voice was low, heavy, and utterly emotionless.
"These are the clan head's orders."
The clan head's orders.
A few casually spoken words had decided the rest of his life.
He was taken to that place.
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