"This is a story about how I'll die."
The air shifted.
Underneath Sugisawa High, in a locked chamber most didn't even remember existed, something began to stir.
Three talismans peeled themselves from the stone floor, crumpling in slow motion — like paper rejecting prayer. The room pulsed once, twice. The candles extinguished on their own, leaving only the sound of a slow, wet heartbeat.
Thump.
The Cursed Womb: Death Painting was awakening.
Not by accident. Not by summoning.
But because time had allowed it to.
In a warded apartment on the edge of Shinjuku, Gojo Satoru opened his eyes mid-nap, sunglasses askew. His hand twitched, knocking a bottle off the coffee table. It shattered on the ground.
The air suddenly smelled like rotted cord and amniotic fluid.
"...Yo."
He stood up, Infinity activating with a snap.
"Who let that thing out the freezer?"
At Jujutsu HQ, alarms flared — not with sound, but with cursed pressure.
Monitors cracked.
Cursed signatures tangled.
A senior board member collapsed as data on the Death Painting cursed wombs overloaded the room.
"The talismans failed," someone barked. "No recorded CE triggers—this wasn't an attack!"
Another added, pale, "Something... called it forward. Like a pre-recorded event finally executing."
Kenjaku stood at the edge of a rural cliff, hands tucked into his coat. Cursed spirits roamed behind him — dumb, twitching, awaiting his orders.
He smiled faintly.
"Ah. That cursed womb's finally waking up. A little off schedule, but time always breaks around him."
His gaze turned southeast, toward Kyoto.
Toward Akira.
"He'll come. He has to."
Akira stood in front of the temple pond, watching distorted koi circle beneath frozen surface tension. He hadn't slept in two days. Echoes whispered behind his reflection.
Kido Sougen — the handler — approached, coat heavy with new orders.
"Suit up. HQ wants you in Tokyo."
Akira didn't look back.
"Why?"
The room was colder than usual — not in temperature, but presence. The kind of chill that seeped from the walls, old curses sealed too deep to scream.
Akira stood with hands in his pockets, shoulder against the cracked pillar, eyes shadowed under the flickering ceiling lights.
Kido Sougen — scarred, sleepless, the man who hadn't smiled in a decade — stood before the projector, arms crossed.
On-screen: a satellite veil feed of Tokyo Jujutsu District 7, where civilian reports had begun describing "untraceable CE surges" and "mass nausea near a high school."
"We detected a cursed object fragment somewhere in the area," Kido said, voice flat. "Small — barely Class 1 at most."
Akira didn't look up.
"Why me?"
Kido didn't blink.
"Because you don't ask questions when we send you into hell."
Silence. Akira let out a dry breath through his nose.
"I do now."
Kido turned off the projector.
"Consider it therapy. There's a void forming in Tokyo's spiritual axis. Something… inconsistent with standard cursed development. Your technique bends time — you're our best gauge to measure distortions."
Akira narrowed his eyes.
"You want me to scan a hole in the world. Alone?"
Kido didn't move.
"Not alone. You'll be met by a contact from Tokyo — possibly Gojo himself if things spiral."
"That supposed to reassure me?"
"No. It's supposed to keep you from running."
Beat.
Kido walked forward, placed a small obsidian-colored talisman into Akira's hand. It was cold — like something ancient had touched it before him.
"This is a shackle token. If you see something… abnormal, crush it. It'll trigger a temporary suppression field HQ can track."
"So it's bait."
"Everything we do is bait, Rensetsu. The question is… what do you attract?"
—
Akira walked out of the room not five minutes later.
The sky was just starting to bleed orange. His Echo flickered in a puddle outside — a half-second ahead, tilting its head toward Tokyo.
"Feels familiar," the Echo whispered.
"Like what?"
"...Like something that should've stayed dead."
Akira didn't reply. He just walked.