Five years changed everything and nothing.
At fifteen, Kage Zenin stood on the edge of Tokyo's underground fighting scene—a world that existed in the margins, where jujutsu sorcerers, curse users, and desperate civilians bet money on violence that would never make the evening news.
He was looking for a ghost.
"You sure about this?" Gojo asked from beside him, hands in pockets, his height now towering over most adults despite being the same age as Kage. "Underground fights are dangerous. Not the fighting part—the people who run them."
"I need to find him."
"Toji Fushiguro hasn't been seen by jujutsu society in months. Rumor says he's taken contracts with curse users, maybe worse." Gojo's Six Eyes glowed faintly behind his sunglasses. "What makes you think he'll train you?"
"Because he's the only person who can teach me what I need to learn."
Five years at Tokyo Jujutsu High had transformed Kage. His body had filled out with muscle, his cursed energy reserves had deepened exponentially, and his techniques—both Abyss and Photonic—had evolved into something that made even the higher-ups nervous.
But he'd hit a wall.
Every technique he developed relied on cursed energy. His enhanced senses, his shadow manipulation, his light inversion—all of it became useless if he couldn't perceive cursed energy signatures. And there were enemies in the world who existed outside that perception.
Enemies like Toji Fushiguro.
"He's going to hurt you," Gojo said quietly. "Not might. Will. Toji doesn't do gentle training. He breaks things."
"Then I'll heal." Kage adjusted his blindfold, which had become more of a fashion choice than necessity over the years. "I'm tired of being predictable, Gojo. Every fight, I rely on the same strategy: sense cursed energy, adapt, counter. But what happens when I face someone with zero cursed energy? Someone I literally cannot perceive?"
"You have me backup you up?"
"And if you're not there?"
The question hung heavy between them. They'd grown into their roles over five years—Gojo as the strongest, the deterrent, the one everyone relied on. And Kage as... what? The second strongest? The one who could counter most techniques but struggled against unconventional threats?
He refused to be defined by limitations.
"There." Kage's enhanced hearing caught it—the sound of bodies hitting concrete, the roar of a bloodthirsty crowd, the absence of cursed energy that marked one fighter as distinctly inhuman.
Or rather, distinctly too human.
They descended into the underground arena, and Kage felt the shift immediately. This wasn't jujutsu society's controlled violence. This was raw, unregulated, lethal. The crowd's cursed energy signatures were a mix of curse users, rogue sorcerers, and civilians so desperate they'd bet their lives on blood sports.
And in the center of the makeshift ring, moving like death itself, was Toji Fushiguro.
He'd aged, but not in the way normal people aged. Toji looked sharper—leaner, more dangerous, carrying himself with the confidence of someone who'd stopped caring about consequences. His opponent was a curse user, judging by the malformed cursed energy, and stood no chance.
Toji moved. Three strikes—throat, solar plexus, knee—and the curse user collapsed.
The crowd erupted. Money changed hands. And Toji stood in the center of it all, his absence of cursed energy somehow more oppressive than anyone else's presence.
"He's gotten better," Gojo observed. "That's terrifying."
"That's what I need to learn."
Toji's gaze found them in the crowd—or more accurately, found Gojo, since Kage's lack of cursed energy signature made him nearly invisible to non-visual identification. For a moment, surprise flickered across his face.
Then he grinned.
"Well, well. The Six Eyes user and the blind kid. This is either a raid or a really weird family reunion."
"Neither," Kage called out, pushing through the crowd. "I want to hire you."
"Not interested in babysitting jujutsu students."
"Not asking you to babysit. Asking you to train me." Kage stepped into the ring, ignoring the crowd's sudden interest. "Teach me to fight without relying on cursed energy perception. Teach me to be dangerous to things I can't sense."
Toji studied him with sharp eyes. "You're serious."
"Completely."
"Why? You're already strong. I've heard stories—Special Grade sorcerer at twelve, mastered Black Flash, developed a technique inversion that even the Gojo brat can't fully counter." Toji's smile was sharp. "What could I possibly teach someone like you?"
"How to fight when all of that fails." Kage's voice was steady. "You're the Sorcerer Killer. You've beaten jujutsu users stronger than you by being unpredictable, by existing outside our rules. That's what I need."
The silence that followed was heavy with evaluation.
"Alright," Toji said finally. "But I've got conditions. First, if you want me to train you, you need to prove you can handle it. Land one hit on me. Any technique, any strategy. Just one clean hit."
"And if I do?"
"Then I'll teach you everything I know about fighting as the weakest person in the room." Toji's grin widened. "But you won't. So let's get this over with."
Kage's shadow exploded outward.
The fight. Underground arena.
Toji moved like water—fluid, adaptable, impossible to predict through cursed energy alone because there was no cursed energy to track.
Kage's Abyss technique struck empty air. His Photonic flash illuminated nothing but Toji's afterimage. His enhanced senses screamed warnings half a second too late as Toji appeared behind him, blade against his throat.
"Dead. Reset."
They reset. Kage tried again—this time using shadow constructs to create a perimeter, limiting Toji's movement options. But Toji simply jumped over them, his physical prowess transcending what should be humanly possible.
"Dead. Reset."
Again. Kage combined both techniques, creating a zone of alternating darkness and light that should have been disorienting. Toji walked through it like it didn't exist, reading Kage's movements through pure observation and combat experience.
"Dead. Reset."
Fifteen attempts. Fifteen failures. Kage's cursed energy reserves were depleting, his body was accumulating minor injuries, and Toji looked barely winded.
"You're too dependent on your technique," Toji observed, lowering his blade. "Every attack follows the same pattern: sense the environment through cursed energy, manipulate shadows or light, assume that's enough. But you're not looking at me. You're looking at where I should be based on spatial awareness and sound."
"I'm blind. That's all I have."
"Bullshit. You've got spatial awareness, air pressure sensitivity, enhanced hearing, and an analytical mind. But you've spent so long compensating for blindness with cursed energy perception that you've forgotten how to use your other senses without that crutch."
Toji sheathed his blade. "Here's your problem: you fight like a sorcerer. Calculated. Controlled. Always three steps ahead. But calculation takes time. By the time you've analyzed my position and formulated a response, I've already moved."
"Then how do I fight you?"
"By fighting like I do. By reacting instead of predicting. By trusting your body to know what to do before your brain catches up." Toji's expression turned serious. "You want me to train you? Fine. But it's going to hurt. And you're going to hate me before we're done."
"I already hate you."
"Good. Hate's honest." Toji turned to the crowd. "Arena's closed for the week. Anyone who complains can fight me."
No one complained.
Training. Week one. Hell.
Toji's training methodology could be summarized as: break everything Kage relied on, then force him to adapt.
He started by binding Kage's cursed energy—not suppressing it completely, but limiting his ability to perceive through it. Suddenly, Kage couldn't "see" cursed energy signatures. Couldn't map his environment through shadow manipulation. Couldn't use his techniques as sensory crutches.
He was truly blind.
"Welcome to my world," Toji said cheerfully. "Now fight."
The first day, Kage lasted thirty seconds before getting demolished.
The second day, forty-five seconds.
By the end of the week, he could maintain defensive posture for five minutes before Toji found an opening.
"You're learning," Toji observed, pressing an ice pack against Kage's ribs. "Slowly. Painfully. But learning."
"Learning what? How to get beaten up efficiently?"
"Learning to trust senses you've been ignoring. Your enhanced hearing isn't just for cursed energy—it can track footsteps, breathing patterns, weapon draws. Your spatial awareness isn't just cursed energy mapping—it's understanding how air moves when bodies displace it." Toji lit a cigarette. "You've been using high-tier abilities as substitutes for basic skills. I'm teaching you the basics."
"By breaking my ribs?"
"By breaking your assumptions. Pain's the best teacher."
Kage wanted to argue, but couldn't. Because Toji was right. Five years of relying on cursed energy perception had made him lazy. Strong, yes. Effective, absolutely. But predictable.
And predictability got you killed.
Week two. Progress.
Something shifted.
Kage started feeling the fights instead of analyzing them. When Toji attacked, instead of trying to sense his cursed energy (impossible) or predict his trajectory (too slow), Kage just... moved.
His body remembered patterns from five years of training. His enhanced senses fed information directly into muscle memory without conscious processing. And slowly, painfully, he started landing blocks. Deflections. Counter-strikes that almost connected.
"There!" Toji's voice carried approval after Kage managed to dodge three consecutive attacks. "That's what I'm talking about! You're not thinking—you're reacting!"
"It feels wrong. Like I'm guessing."
"You are guessing. That's called instinct." Toji pressed the attack, forcing Kage to maintain that reactive state. "Sorcerers overthink because cursed energy gives them time to. But I don't have cursed energy, so I can't waste time on analysis. I see, I react, I adapt. That's survival."
Kage's shadow twitched—a phantom response from years of relying on Abyss. But he suppressed it, focusing instead on the whisper of cloth moving, the shift in air pressure as Toji's fist approached, the minute changes in sound that marked his opponent's positioning.
He sidestepped. Toji's punch missed by centimeters.
"Good! Again!"
They trained until Kage's body gave out, until his enhanced healing couldn't keep up with accumulated damage. Shoko would have a fit when she saw him. Gojo would probably lecture about recklessness.
But Kage was learning something irreplaceable: how to be dangerous without cursed energy.
How to survive when everything he relied on failed.
Week three. Combat.
"You're getting attention."
Toji said it casually, but his cursed energy—or rather, his lack of it—carried tension. They were in his safehouse, a cramped apartment that smelled of cigarettes and weapon oil.
"What kind of attention?"
"The Zen'in kind. Word's gotten around that you're training with me. Naobito's pissed. Thinks I'm corrupting his 'investment.'" Toji checked his weapons with practiced efficiency. "He sent scouts first. Now he's sending assassins."
"How many?"
"Four. Maybe five if he's feeling ambitious." Toji's smile was cold. "They'll come tonight. Try to retrieve you by force, kill me if possible. Standard clan politics."
Kage should've been worried. Four or five Zen'in assassins were nothing to dismiss—they'd be elite sorcerers, experienced killers, armed with clan techniques and zero mercy.
Instead, he felt excited.
"So we fight them?"
"We fight them," Toji confirmed. "Consider it your final exam. Everything I've taught you about fighting without cursed energy reliance? You're about to use it against people who'll kill you if you screw up."
"Sounds educational."
"Sounds suicidal. But I like your enthusiasm."
They prepared in comfortable silence. Toji laid out weapons—cursed tools he'd collected over years of mercenary work. Kage tested his techniques, making sure both Abyss and Photonic responded despite the cursed energy binding Toji had maintained.
"Question," Kage said as darkness fell. "Why are you helping me? Teaching me? You hate the Zen'in Clan. I'm a Zen'in."
"You're a kid from the Zen'in Clan. There's a difference." Toji lit another cigarette. "Besides, you remind me of me at your age. Angry. Desperate to prove you're more than what they say you are. Willing to do anything to escape the name."
"Did you escape?"
"Physically, yeah. Psychologically?" Toji's laugh was bitter. "I still take contracts that screw with jujutsu society. Still define myself by opposition to what I came from. So no. Not really."
"That's depressing."
"That's reality." Toji crushed out the cigarette. "But maybe you'll do better. You've got something I never had—people who actually give a shit about you. That Gojo kid, your friends at Jujutsu High. They're anchors. Use them."
"Even if being close to me puts targets on their backs?"
"Especially then. Strength isn't isolation, kid. That's just loneliness wearing a tough guy mask." Toji's expression softened slightly. "Don't make my mistakes. Don't push away the people who care just because it feels safer."
Before Kage could respond, he felt it—the approach of cursed energy signatures. Multiple. Hostile. Moving with the coordinated precision of trained assassins.
"They're here," he said quietly.
"Then let's give them hell."
The fight. Rooftop.
Five Zen'in assassins materialized on the rooftop, their cursed energy signatures marking them as experienced Grade 1 sorcerers. Kage recognized the techniques—Projection Sorcery users, shadow manipulation variants, cursed tool specialists.
Dangerous. Professional. Sent to kill.
"Kage Zenin," the lead assassin said, his voice flat. "You're ordered to return to the estate. Resist and we're authorized to use force."
"What about him?" Kage gestured to Toji.
"Toji Fushiguro is to be eliminated. Naobito-sama's orders."
"Funny," Toji said, drawing his blade. "I've got orders to kill anyone stupid enough to try. Let's see whose orders stick."
The assassins attacked.
Two went for Toji, three for Kage. The rooftop exploded into violence—cursed techniques colliding, weapons clashing, the controlled chaos of sorcerers who knew exactly how to kill each other.
Kage moved like Toji had taught him—reactive, fluid, trusting his senses beyond cursed energy. One assassin tried to use Projection Sorcery to teleport behind him; Kage heard the displaced air and had his shadow waiting. Another tried cursed tool enhancement; Kage's Photonic flash disrupted the cursed energy flow, turning the weapon into useless metal.
The third assassin was smarter. Stayed back. Used ranged cursed technique attacks. Forced Kage to divide his attention.
"You've improved," the assassin observed. "But you're still Zen'in. Still predictable. Still—"
Kage's Black Flash caught him mid-sentence.
The assassin flew backward, crashing through the rooftop barrier. Kage didn't wait to confirm the kill—spun immediately to block another attack, his body moving on instinct while his mind stayed three steps ahead.
Toji, meanwhile, was dismantling his two opponents with surgical precision. No cursed energy. No special techniques. Just pure combat skill, weapon mastery, and the kind of situational awareness that came from surviving hundreds of life-or-death encounters.
One assassin fell. Then another.
The remaining three assessed the situation and did what smart fighters do when outmatched: they retreated.
"Tell Naobito," Kage called after them, his voice cold, "that I don't take orders from the clan anymore. I'm done being his weapon."
They vanished into the Tokyo night.
Silence settled over the rooftop, broken only by heavy breathing and the distant sounds of the city below.
"Well," Toji said, checking his weapons, "that was educational."
"You're bleeding."
"So are you. We match." Toji sat down heavily. "You did good, kid. Fought like someone who's learned to survive outside comfortable parameters. That's rare."
Kage sat beside him, feeling the exhaustion settle into his bones. "They'll come back. More of them. Better prepared."
"Probably. But by then you'll be stronger." Toji paused. "You should go back to Jujutsu High. Staying with me just makes you a target."
"I'm already a target."
"Then don't make it easier for them." Toji stood, stretched. "You got what you came for—training that'll keep you alive when cursed energy fails. Now go back to your friends before they worry themselves sick."
"What about you?"
"Me?" Toji's smile was sharp. "I've got a contract coming up. Something big. Probably stupid. Definitely dangerous. The kind of job that'll either make me rich or make me dead."
Warning bells went off in Kage's mind. "What kind of contract?"
"The kind I can't talk about. Client confidentiality and all that." Toji's expression turned serious. "But Kage—last piece of advice. When strength means choosing between being alone or being vulnerable, choose vulnerable. I chose alone and look where it got me. Forty years old, sleeping in safehouses, taking murder contracts to feel alive."
"You could stop."
"I could. But then what? Go crawling back to jujutsu society? Pretend I'm anything other than what I've become?" Toji shook his head. "Some paths you can't walk back from. But you—you're still young enough to choose different."
"What if I'm already too far down your path?"
"Then you fight like hell to find your way back." Toji offered a hand. "Go home, kid. Learn from my mistakes. And next time we meet, try to make it less violent."
Kage took the hand, let Toji pull him up. "Thank you. For everything."
"Don't thank me yet. My training has a habit of getting people killed." Toji's smile was sad. "But for what it's worth—you're gonna be stronger than I ever was. Just make sure you're strong for the right reasons."
They parted ways on that rooftop—the Sorcerer Killer and the Special Grade sorcerer, two Zen'in outcasts who'd found something like understanding in violence.
Kage made his way back to Jujutsu High as dawn broke over Tokyo, his body aching, his techniques refined, and Toji's warning echoing in his mind.
Strength means choosing between being alone or being vulnerable.
Choose vulnerable.
Tokyo Jujutsu High. Morning.
Gojo was waiting at the gate.
"You look like death."
"Feel like it too." Kage accepted the support Gojo offered, let his friend help him walk toward the infirmary. "Toji sends his regards."
"I'm sure he does. Along with several new bruises and what looks like a stab wound."
"Assassination attempt. Zen'in Clan sent people. We handled it."
Gojo's cursed energy spiked with anger. "They sent assassins after you?"
"After both of us. Toji and I fought them off." Kage paused. "Gojo, am I becoming like him? Like Toji?"
"Define 'like him.'"
"Cold. Isolated. Defining myself through opposition to what I came from. Pushing people away because vulnerability feels dangerous."
Gojo was quiet for a long moment. "You're worried you're becoming the Sorcerer Killer."
"I'm worried I'm choosing the same path he did. Power over connection. Strength over vulnerability. Being alone because it's safer than letting people in."
"Are you?" Gojo's voice was gentle. "Pushing people away?"
"I came back, didn't I?"
"You did. After three weeks of radio silence that had Shoko threatening to hunt you down and Suguru worrying himself into an ulcer." Gojo stopped walking, turned to face him. "Kage, listen. You're not Toji. You're not isolated. You're here, letting me help you to the infirmary instead of insisting you're fine. That's vulnerable. That's connection."
"But I want to be strong enough that I don't need help."
"Everyone needs help sometimes. That's not weakness—that's being human." Gojo's Six Eyes caught the morning light. "Toji's mistake wasn't being strong. It was thinking strength meant not needing anyone. Don't make that mistake."
They resumed walking, and Kage felt something loosen in his chest. Fear, maybe. The terror that he was becoming his own worst nightmare—powerful but alone, free but empty, strong but broken.
"Thanks," he said quietly. "For waiting. For caring enough to worry."
"That's what friends do. Even when you're being stupid and training with murder hobos."
"He's not a murder hobo. He's a highly paid professional."
"That's literally the same thing."
They bickered all the way to the infirmary, where Shoko took one look at Kage and unleashed a tirade about recklessness, stupidity, and teenage boys who thought they were immortal. Suguru appeared with food and concern in equal measure. And despite the pain, the exhaustion, the new scars both physical and psychological, Kage felt... happy.
He was home.
Not the Zen'in estate—that had never been home. This was home. These people who cared enough to yell at him for disappearing, who worried when he was gone, who welcomed him back despite everything.
Toji had been right. Strength wasn't isolation.
It was this. Letting people care. Accepting help. Being vulnerable enough to admit when you needed support.
The prodigy and the pariah had stood together against the clan.
But only one of them had people to return to afterward.
And that, Kage realized, made all the difference.