This wasn't a dream. The school uniforms, the layout—it all looked… familiar.
My eyes flicked through the classroom window again. There, near the back, was a pink-haired kid. Sleeping like the world wasn't about to explode around him.
My stomach dropped.
…
…
…
No.
No way. That… that was Itadori Yuji.
I froze, fingers digging into the doorframe hard enough to hurt. My pulse thudded in my ears.
No, no, no— this couldn't be happening.
"That's impossible," I muttered under my breath. "It's—It's just some kid who looks like him. Yeah. Pink hair exists. Happens all the time. Coincidence."
A dry laugh escaped my throat. "You've gotta be kidding me. Out of all the worlds… why this one?"
I stumbled back a step, hand pressing against my chest. My heart wouldn't slow down. The air felt too thick, too real.
"Jujutsu Kaisen…?" I whispered. "No, that's fiction. That's a show."
I slapped my cheek Hard. It stung.
Still here.
Still breathing.
"Shit."
I leaned against the wall, trying to breathe, but my mind wouldn't stop spiraling.
Curses. Sorcerers. People dying like background extras. Even the strongest ones ended up cut in half offscreen.
And me? I wasn't a fighter. I was just a scammer who laughed at people's misery and sold them fake blessings for rent money.
I looked down at my hands—smaller.
No system menu popping up to save me.
Just me—Arata, a useless scum bastard in a universe that eats humans for breakfast.
My vision blurred for a second. I wiped my face with my sleeve, forcing a shaky laugh.
"Perfect. Absolutely perfect." My voice cracked halfway through.
"First I die in a plane crash, now I get reincarnated in the most suicidal timeline ever. Next thing you know, I'll trip over Sukuna's finger on the way home."
I slid down the wall until I was crouched on the floor, head in my hands.
"…I'm so screwed."
Then, suddenly—pain.
A sharp, burning stab hit the back of my skull, like a nail being driven straight into my brain.
I gasped, eyes widening, and the hallway spun. My knees buckled.
"Gah—what the hell—?!"
When I forced my eyes open, I wished I hadn't.
There, crawling out from the corner like a wet spider, was something utterly wrong.
A black, pulsating lump of flesh with too many eyes, dragging a slick trail of filth behind it.
A curse.
I shouldn't have been able to see it. But I did.
"Holy—" I stumbled back, hands shaking. "No, no, no, no, this can't be real—"
The thing twitched. Its eyes—all of them—locked onto me. Before I could scramble away, a malformed limb, whip-fast and sharp, lashed out directly at my chest.
There was no impact. No tearing of flesh.
Instead, a sensation of pure, cool transformation.
Where the curse's limb should have pierced me, my torso simply dissolved into a swirl of beautiful, spectral blue flames. The attack passed harmlessly through the fire, and for a split second, I could see the curse's claw silhouetted inside the cyan light of my own body. There was no pain—just a bizarre, weightless feeling, like a part of me had momentarily become air.
The curse recoiled with a shriek, its limb sizzling where it had touched the flames.
The blue flames that were my chest surged outwards, cascading over my shoulders and down my arms. They clung to me, a second skin of living fire.
"What—what the hell is this?!" I breathed, staring at my flaming hands.
The curse hissed, its form wavering. It lunged again, a desperate, panicked attack.
Instinct took over. My hands shot out, and the blue fire flared from my palms.
It hit the curse.
The black flesh sizzled and shrank, the eyes rolling back as if being burned away from the inside. A scream—wet, gurgling, inhuman—echoed off the walls. Then the thing collapsed into a purple fire before fading away.
I fell backward, panting, my body trembling. The flames dimmed but didn't disappear. They clung to me like a second skin.
"What… the hell… just happened?"
My hands glowed faintly blue as I stared at them.
"Hah… regeneration? Blue fire?" I tilted my head, a manic grin spreading across my face. "What is this, the Phoenix Fruit? Don't tell me I've got Marco's damn power…"
The flames suddenly flared up violently, responding to my excitement. I yelled, waving my arms as the walls began to scorch.
I forced myself to breathe, to focus. Slowly, the flames dimmed and folded back into my body.
My heart was still pounding, but the fear was gone—replaced by something else.
Hope.
A weak, greedy kind of hope, but still.
"…Maybe I'm not completely screwed after all."