The streets of Orario never truly slept.
Even in the early hours, when the sky held a dim cobalt hue and most taverns were quieting down, there was movement.
Street sweepers clearing away last night's excess. Merchants wheeling carts into the plazas.
Hushed voices of early adventurers making their way to the Dungeon, their armor clinking with barely restrained anticipation.
Toji Fushiguro was already awake. He always was.
He didn't dream anymore, not since the day Gojo Satoru's fist ended him. Not since the blinding light and the stillness that came after.
Some might call this world a second chance.
He didn't.
It was just another place.
...
He sat at the edge of a fountain in a quiet corner of Daedalus Street, eating grilled meat skewers that hissed faintly in the morning air.
The food here wasn't bad. Richer than he remembered from his past life. Less bitter, maybe. Or maybe his senses had dulled.
People gave him space. No weapons. No emblem. Just a long black coat, a sharp gaze, and that presence, coiled and ready like a venomous snake.
It had been 6 days since he'd joined Hecate's Familia.
If you could call it that.
She didn't seek his loyalty, and he didn't offer it. A deal, plain and simple. She gave him the right to enter the Dungeon legally. He didn't ask for more.
But the Falna...
It hadn't changed anything.
He'd felt the pulse of it, the divine touch that marked others. But it didn't sink into him the way it should. It clung to the surface, curious but rejected, like trying to water a stone.
He wasn't surprised. His entire existence had been an anomaly. The Heavenly Restriction that granted him monstrous strength at the cost of cursed energy had always made him different.
Apparently, that still held true, even in this world.
Still, he grew. Even now. Muscles coiled tighter. Reactions sharper.
He felt it, through bloodshed, through movement, through instinct. He grew not by divine will, but by carving his own path through danger.
...
Toji moved through the market like a ghost, unseen until acknowledged. He paused at a weaponsmith's stall, his eyes scanning the blades.
None of them suited him.
Too heavy. Too ornate. Too slow.
He preferred to work with what the moment gave him, a knife, a wire, a broken staff.
But still, his hand drifted over a short blade with a wrapped hilt and a narrow, curved edge. Almost like the ones he used in his old life.
He remembered a night, long ago, blood-slick and silent.
The corridor had been dark. Concrete walls. No sound but his breath and the drip of a leaky pipe. A target lay ahead. A cartel boss surrounded by layers of human meat shields.
Toji slipped in, unseen, unfeeling.
Twelve men dead in less than a minute.
He remembered the smell of oil and blood, the faint rustle of cloth as he cleaned his blade on a guard's coat. Not out of respect, just habit.
Back then, he lived by rules. Get in. Kill. Get out. No attachments. No hesitations.
He kept telling himself it made him free.
But it hadn't.
Not really.
There had been one moment. One break in the fog.
Her.
He didn't even remember her name anymore. That haunted him more than anything.
But he remembered the way she used to sleep with her arm draped across his chest.
The way she'd hum tuneless lullabies while feeding their son.
The way she looked at him like he wasn't a monster.
That small, fragile piece of his life had been real.
And then it was gone.
Taken.
No. He gave it up.
He let it happen because he believed nothing good could ever last for someone like him.
He blinked, the sword fading from view as the vendor asked if he wanted to buy it. Toji didn't answer. He just walked away.
He had errands.
Not for himself. For Hecate. Minor stuff. She didn't demand his loyalty, but she did send him on the occasional task. Said it was part of "earning his keep."
Today, he was to deliver a sealed envelope to someone in the Guild.
He didn't ask questions.
...
The Guild hall was efficient chaos. Paperwork flew. Quills scratched. Adventurers argued over Dungeon quotas.
Eina Tulle stood in the middle of it all, poised and composed, her half-elven ears twitching slightly as she spoke with a panicked new recruit.
Toji waited.
She noticed him immediately. Everyone did.
He handed her the envelope.
Her eyes flicked over it, then back to him. "You're the one who joined Hecate's Familia recently, right?"
He nodded.
"I was actually going to ask to be assigned to you. Not many people go into the Dungeon alone. And not many survive."
"I'm not most people."
She didn't flinch. "So I've heard."
She handed him a scroll. "This is your Dungeon log form. You need to submit updates regularly. Also, I'd like to go over the basics, monster types, safety exits, recommended loadouts—"
"No need."
"It's standard procedure."
"I said no."
She met his gaze, calm and firm. "It's not for you. It's for the people who'll have to clean up after you if something goes wrong."
That gave him pause.
He took the scroll.
"You're persistent," he muttered.
"I'm an advisor," she said. "It's my job to keep fools like you alive."
That earned her the faintest twitch of his lips.
Not a smile.
But close.
Later, he wandered into the Hostess of Fertility again.
Not for food. Not for rest.
He didn't know why he came.
Habit, maybe.
The place buzzed with the afternoon crowd. Adventurers swapping stories. Waitresses weaving between tables with practiced ease.
Syr greeted him again.
"You don't talk much," she said, handing him a plate of roasted meat and potatoes.
"I talk enough."
"Still sitting alone?"
"Still breathing."
She chuckled. "Well, if you ever want company that doesn't involve stabbing something, let me know."
He didn't answer.
But he didn't leave, either.
...
On a small walk...
He caught her watching him later. The tall one. Silver hair. Eyes like moons. Beauty that didn't seem to belong to this world.
Freya.
Their eyes met.
He felt it immediately, pressure, curiosity, something ancient and heavy.
But he didn't look away.
He never did.
She smiled, faint and mysterious, then turned back to her wine.
Interesting.
He made a note of her.
Not as a threat.
Not yet.
Just... interesting.
She is... similar to Syr...
Maybe more than that...
...
As the sun dipped behind the city walls, Toji found himself near Babel again.
He watched adventurers filter in and out. Some eager. Some broken. All of them chasing something.
He lit a cigarette.
The smoke curled around his face as he stared at the massive tower that led into the Dungeon.
He remembered the first time he killed someone.
He was thirteen. A knife in the dark. A man who had it coming. A clan member, his uncle.
He remembered the adrenaline. The silence. The way the world seemed to slow down.
He hadn't felt anything.
He still didn't, most of the time.
But there was something about this place. This city. This Dungeon.
It scratched at the parts of him he thought were long dead.
Not hope. Not redemption.
Just... curiosity.
What would this world do to him?
And what would he do to it?
...
That night, he stood atop a roof overlooking the pleasure district. The city pulsed with life below, dancers, drinks, laughter, lies.
He closed his eyes and listened.
A woman screamed in joy or pain, he couldn't tell.
A merchant cursed in a back alley.
A couple argued over coin.
A goddess eyeing a white rabbit.
It was all the same.
Living.
Surviving.
He breathed in the night air.
Toji Fushiguro had died once.
He'd lived a thousand lifetimes in the shadow of that moment, the moment he took his last breath.
Now, in a world of gods and monsters, he didn't know what he was becoming.
But he would find out.
And he would leave a mark.
Not out of pride.
Not for legacy.
Just to prove he existed.
Even if only for a little while longer.
...
Toji didn't sleep.
He never needed much, but more than that, he didn't trust the quiet.
Stillness had always been dangerous in his old life. It was where memories crept in.
He stayed on the rooftop until the moon passed its zenith, then descended, boots whispering against stone as he landed in an alley behind a shuttered bakery.
The city was quieter now. Not silent, but muffled, as though holding its breath.
Toji walked.
Not with purpose. Just... to move.
His steps took him near the Guild again, where lamplight flickered in the windows of a nearby office.
Curiosity tugged at him. He rarely felt it, but this world had a way of making even the smallest things itch at the corners of his mind.
The door creaked open.
Inside, Eina sat at her desk, surrounded by scrolls and reports, her glasses slipping a little down her nose.
She looked up, surprised. "You again."
"You work late."
"So do adventurers who don't know what the hell they're doing."
Toji stepped inside, folding his arms. "You always talk like that to your charges?"
"Only the suicidal ones."
He leaned against the wall, eyes half-lidded. "Thought you were supposed to be helpful."
"I am. That's why I'm staying up reviewing everything about the Dungeon's lower floors, because I know you'll ignore every warning I give you otherwise."
Toji watched her, mildly amused.
He was starting to like her. Not in the romantic sense, those parts of him had long since withered, but in the way one might appreciate a blade that didn't dull easily.
"I can survive."
"You think that's enough?" she said suddenly, standing. "You think being strong is enough in the Dungeon? I've seen adventurers with ten times your power dragged back in pieces because they didn't plan. Didn't think."
Toji said nothing.
Eina's hands trembled slightly as she rolled up a scroll.
"I had a friend. A spear-user. Fast. Smart. Always said she'd never die in a place like that. She vanished past the thirteenth floor. They never even found the body."
"I don't care about dying," Toji said flatly.
"I figured," she snapped. "But someone might care about finding what's left of you."
"...Care for me huh..."
He turned to go.
"Wait," she called out, softer now. "I didn't mean, just... let me help, okay? It's what I'm here for."
Toji paused at the door.
For a long time, he didn't speak.
Then, over his shoulder:
"I had a son."
Eina blinked.
"In my last life. Boy. Black hair. Eyes like mine." His voice was distant, hollow. "I walked away from him."
She didn't respond.
"I thought it would keep him safe."
A long silence passed.
And then: "Did it?"
.
.
.
"No."
He left before she could say anything else.
Is he crazy? Or he just messing around?
He doesn't care what she think.
It just... if there really is someone waiting for him to comeback.
They will be the only one.
So, now, why even bother....
...
The sky began to pale.
By the time the Dungeon's gates opened, Toji stood among the first wave of adventurers filtering through Babel Tower.
The air grew cooler as they descended into the depths, and the quiet anticipation of the morning gave way to the raw hum of something ancient.
He passed through the early levels easily.
The monsters here were nothing. Kobolds. Goblins. The occasional War Shadow. He moved like a blade through smoke, fluid, untouchable.
A dagger plucked from a fallen corpse became his temporary weapon, but he didn't need it.
He crushed a kobold's skull with one hand.
Snapped a goblin's neck with a twist.
Other adventurers watched him from a distance, some in awe, others in unease.
He didn't look like a Level 1.
But the plates and ranks meant nothing.
They never had.
The deeper he went, the more he remembered what it felt like to be a predator.
This wasn't unlike the missions he used to take, dark corridors, hidden threats, the taste of adrenaline sharp on his tongue.
And yet...
He paused in a corridor lit by the flicker of phosphorescent moss, standing over a dying War Shadow.
Its body twitched, dark mist curling from the wound.
Toji crouched, watching it fade.
He remembered a girl he'd once killed. Sixteen. A spy from a rival faction. She'd cried before he slit her throat. Said she didn't want to die. That she just wanted to go home.
He'd told her nothing before the knife opened her throat.
Because words didn't matter.
Only the mission.
Now, standing over the remains of the creature, he wondered if maybe she'd been telling the truth.
He rose without a sound and moved deeper.
...
The fight came on the seventh floor.
A Silverback, hulking and fast, burst from behind a collapsed wall, scattering weaker adventurers in every direction.
Toji didn't dodge.
He stepped into its swing, grabbed its wrist mid-arc, and slammed it into the stone floor with enough force to crater it.
The beast roared.
Toji's eyes narrowed. He gripped the dagger tighter, leapt, and drove the blade through the roof of the monster's mouth. Blood sprayed.
Then stillness.
The other adventurers gaped.
One of them, a red-haired swordsman with a crooked grin, gave a low whistle. "Damn. That thing gave us hell last week."
Toji just kept walking.
The blade stayed lodged in the Silverback's skull.
He didn't need it anymore.
Hours later, he sat on a stone ledge near a surface-bound checkpoint, his coat torn and bloody, his hand bruised, his expression unreadable.
He didn't feel tired.
But something in him... shifted.
He remembered her again. His wife. Her smile, her laugh, the way she'd tug his ear when he was being difficult.
She would've hated this world. Too chaotic. Too full of gods playing with mortal lives.
Or maybe she would've liked the bakery down the street from the Guild. The one with the cinnamon rolls.
Megumi would've loved them.
He closed his eyes.
He remembered carrying his son on his shoulders through a rainy market, both of them soaked, laughing as they shared a skewer of grilled squid.
That version of him had been almost human.
Almost.
...
Toji returned to the surface as twilight bled into gold.
He passed Eina on her way out of the Guild. She saw him, eyes scanning for wounds.
He gave a slight nod.
"Still breathing," she said.
"Barely."
She hesitated. "Dinner?"
He didn't answer.
But he didn't say no.
That night, they sat at a quiet table in the Hostess of Fertility. Syr served them with a wink. Mama Mia eyed Toji like she expected him to break the table.
He didn't.
He ate quietly, listening to the stories around him. Adventurers laughed. Argued. Bragged. Lived.
He was silent.
But when Syr brought out dessert, cinnamon rolls fresh from the oven, he paused.
Took one.
Bit into it.
Sweet. Warm. Familiar.
Something tugged in his chest.
He didn't smile.
But he didn't leave either.