Kai Nakamura was 28 and already tired of being alive.
Not depressed — just tired.
The kind of tired that comes from six years of debugging the same unreadable codebase for a company that would replace him with an intern tomorrow if the budget allowed it.
He lived alone in a one-room apartment in Saitama.
Rent was cheap.
The walls were thin.
The fridge hummed louder than his thoughts.
That night he'd pulled another 3 a.m. shift.
Burnt coffee in a mug that said "Best Bug Hunter 2019" (a joke gift he never threw away).
Phone buzzing with unread Slack messages.
He stood up too fast.
Vision tunneled.
Foot caught the chair wheel.
Ten concrete stairs.
Neck first on the seventh.
No dramatic last words.
Just one quiet, clear thought as the world went black:
"I never actually tried."
Then white.
A voice like broken glass wrapped in velvet.
"Respawn ticket accepted. Three wishes, salaryman. Make them count before I get bored."
Kai floated in void. No body. Just mind.
Across from him hovered a shadow wearing someone else's smirk.
He didn't panic. He calculated.
"Which world?"
The shadow laughed.
"Jujutsu Kaisen. Born 1998, Japan. Same year as the pink-haired finger-eater. Timeline starts before canon kicks off. Choose wisely."
Kai knew the power system. Knew the deaths. Knew the bullshit power scaling.
He knew exactly what he needed.
"Wish one already used on intel," the shadow reminded him.
"Wish two: perfect cursed energy manipulation. Total internal control — flow, shape inside the body, efficiency, output, everything."
"Granted. You'll treat CE like it's your own heartbeat."
"Wish three: cursed energy reserves ten times Sukuna's peak."
Long silence. Then slow, delighted clapping.
"No technique. No bloodline. No domain blueprint. Just an ocean and perfect fingers to stir it with. You're going to be hilarious."
A finger snap.
Light swallowed him.
He came back screaming — tiny lungs, furious and cold.
Hands lifted him. Wrapped him in thin cloth.
A tired woman's voice: "Boy. No name. Sendai Municipal Orphanage intake."
They named him Kaito.
Just Kaito.
He didn't cry again after that first minute.
Adult mind in infant body.
He remembered everything.
The orphanage was plain. Two stories. Peeling paint. Small yard with a rusty swing.
Overworked staff. Government checks. Normal kids.
Kaito grew up quiet.
At two he already spoke in full sentences.
At three he beat older kids at shogi by seeing moves six steps ahead.
At four he fixed the creaky gate latch perfectly on the first try — no tools, just angles and pressure.
The matron called him "the precise one."
He didn't smile.
He just filed it away.
At six he felt it for the first time.
Rainy afternoon. A low-grade curse — twisted, eyeless, smelling like wet regret — slipped through the fence.
One of the little kids screamed (felt the malice, couldn't see it).
Kaito moved without thinking.
Small legs carried him forward.
Fist clenched.
CE — endless, calm, waiting — surged from his core.
Perfect line. No wasted motion.
Knuckles wrapped in invisible silk. Compressed at impact.
Crack.
Curse burst like overripe fruit. Black sludge sprayed and evaporated in the rain.
The kids stared.
Kaito stared at his hand.
Inside him wasn't a spark.
It was an ocean.
Deep. Still. Bottomless.
Ten times Sukuna.
No strings. No shadows. No fancy eyes.
Just volume.
And control so perfect it felt unfair.
The matron came running. Saw sludge but no monster.
Hugged the kids. Checked Kaito.
"You okay, sweetheart?"
He nodded once.
No one saw anything supernatural.
To them it was a weird weather thing. A bad dream.
But Kaito knew.
That night he sat on his futon, legs crossed, while the other boys snored.
CE flowed out smooth as water.
A marble-sized sphere hovered above his palm.
He rotated it. Compressed it. Expanded it.
Zero waste. Zero effort.
He made a fist.
The sphere collapsed into his knuckles — reinforcement like armor made of thought.
He exhaled.
Somewhere in the same city, a boy with pink hair was probably laughing at cartoons.
Kaito didn't know him yet.
But he would.
And when that day came, Kaito would be ready