(The author is very nice, so feel free to make cameos wherever you like, but you might end up turned into a meme and posted in the author's notes.)
(Some plot points contain trace amounts of poison, but nothing lethal. If you really can't take it, you can ask the author to pump your stomach.)
(Thank you for reading my novel. Love you all.)
Dusk settled over the Edo period, and a faint scent of blood hung among the wooded hills.
A boy sat on a blue-gray stone beside a stream, his thin white robe stained with a little dirt and mud. His hair was tied high in a round bun at the back of his head. His face was turned slightly to one side, the last rays of sunset tracing its almost impossibly exquisite contours. Purple markings spread from the corners of his eyes, like sunset hues brushed onto his pale skin, lending him an uncanny beauty.
Several bodies lay scattered behind him, mangled beyond recognition.
"This level of strength isn't nearly enough..."
The boy scratched his pale blue hair, his brow furrowed in frustration. His name was Hajime Kashimo. Seventeen years ago, he had died in a hospital ward from blood cancer. When he opened his eyes again, he had become Hajime Kashimo from Jujutsu Kaisen.
Not during the Culling Game, but four hundred years before the story began.
Since he didn't want Sukuna slicing him into mango chunks, he had started roaming around picking fights at thirteen. After fighting his way to this day, he was finally a little stronger than the original Hajime Kashimo.
"Well? Did you enjoy yourself?"
Someone approached over the fallen leaves, his footsteps light as a cat's. A suture line snaked across his forehead.
Kashimo didn't even lift his eyelids. "I thought the people you found would have some skill, Brain."
The man's movements paused for a moment.
"This body isn't suited for combat." Kenjaku's voice was calm, as though he had long since resigned himself to that nickname. "If you wish to fight..."
"I should've fought you when you were using your previous body." Kashimo cut him off, finally turning his head to look at him with those purple-rimmed eyes. "You could put up a decent fight back then, couldn't you?"
Kenjaku didn't answer.
Kashimo didn't mind and continued on his own. "Forget it. Where's that Six Eyes you mentioned?"
"With the Gojo Clan."
"I know he's with the Gojo Clan." Kashimo hopped off the stone, the hem of his white robe swaying in the twilight. "I'm asking where he is. Kyoto?"
Kenjaku lowered his head slightly.
"This generation's Ten Shadows user is there as well."
Kashimo walked up to him and stopped. The boy was almost half a head shorter, and when he tilted his face up to look at him, his eyes shone startlingly bright, as though something burned within them.
"I'll kill them for you," he said. "You can do whatever you want with your Culling Game plan. But you have to teach me every Barrier Technique you know."
Kenjaku fell silent for a moment.
"Is this a deal?"
"It's a Binding Vow."
Kenjaku suddenly smiled.
The suture line twisted slightly with the movement, but the smile itself was genuine-the satisfied smile of someone who had landed a bargain.
"I accept."
He agreed so readily that Kashimo raised his eyebrows in mild surprise.
Looking at the boy before him, Kenjaku had worked everything out. The Six Eyes and Ten Shadows were indeed obstacles. Having someone willing to remove them for him couldn't be better. As for his knowledge of Barrier Techniques, even if he taught the boy everything, that didn't mean he would manage to grasp a domain.
He had nothing to lose from this Binding Vow.
Twilight closed in, and the mountain wind grew cooler. Kashimo walked past him, his white robe vanishing into the shadows of the woods.
Kenjaku remained where he stood, gazing at the bodies that no longer looked human. He didn't move for a long time.
Kashimo wasted no time.
Cursed energy flooded his legs, and his figure stretched into a pale blue afterimage as he raced through the twilight toward Kyoto. The wilderness four hundred years in the past was even wilder than he had imagined. A few cursed spirits popped up along the way from time to time, only to be shredded by the cursed energy spilling from his body before they could even get a clear look at him.
But he soon sensed something wrong.
The woods were too quiet.
The insects had stopped chirping, the birds had fallen silent, and even the rustle of wind through the leaves sounded as though something had seized it by the throat.
Kashimo stopped abruptly, his feet plowing two shallow furrows into the ground. He glanced around, casually picked up a wrist-thick stick, weighed it in his hand, and slung it over his shoulder.
"Come out." He lifted his head and called into the silent woods. "I've got road rage. I don't feel like waiting."
Before his words had faded, a branch cracked overhead.
Kashimo looked up.
A hulking white figure stood atop the crown of an enormous tree. Its entire body was deathly pale, its muscles knotted, but two twisted dead branches protruded where its eyes should have been, pointing hollowly at him.
"...Hanami!?"
The name practically burst from Kashimo's mouth.
Was what Jogo said in the manga true? They really fucking reincarnated every hundred years?
"Humans... eliminate..."
Hanami spoke in a voice like dry wood scraping together. In the next instant, countless branches erupted from every direction, weaving a seamless net that descended over him.
Kashimo pushed off the ground and flipped onto an incoming branch, sprinting upward along the wildly growing vines. Branches burst behind him, splinters flying, but he didn't slow in the slightest. Within a few breaths, he was right in front of Hanami.
Cursed energy surged into the stick, and he swept it straight at Hanami's face.
The blow knocked Hanami's massive body off balance, sending it listing to one side. Kashimo tossed the stick aside, reached out to grab one of the dead branches protruding from its eye sockets, and used his momentum to swing his fist hard into its left cheek.
One punch.
Hanami's head snapped to the side.
Kashimo spun with the motion, delivering a whip kick that tore through the air and slammed into its abdomen.
Hanami fell from the treetop and crashed into the ground, gouging out a shallow crater. It struggled to climb back up, half its face completely caved in. Wood chips and purple blood seeped from the cracks.
It raised its hands and began forming a seal.
"Domain Expansion-"
Before it could finish, its head exploded.
That was the special property of Kashimo's cursed energy: Sure-Hit Lightning. After just three successful strikes, enough charge accumulated to detonate the target from within.
Hanami's headless body swayed where it stood.
Kashimo leaped down from the treetop and retrieved the now-cracked stick. Landing before Hanami, he stared at the stump of its neck, which was still trying to heal, and silently raised the stick again.
One strike.
Two strikes.
Three strikes.
Only when the white body had been reduced to an unrecognizable puddle of purple gore did he stop.
The woods fell quiet again.
Kashimo tossed aside the stick, now broken down to half its length, and brushed the wood chips from the hem of his robe.
"...A waste of time."