Chapter Two:
It happened in an instant. One moment, a blinding white light from his laptop; the next, he was somewhere real, and the cold hit him hard. Stone pressed against his hands and one side of his face. Kai's mind struggled to catch up. Bits of information – sights, sounds, smells – rushed in, too much to handle all at once.
Stone. Cold. Pressure: 1.2 kg/cm² estimated against right cheek. His thoughts, at least, tried to find their usual groove. Air temperature: low, maybe 10-12° Celsius. Humidity: high, almost like fog. Smells: damp earth, old leaves, a sharp electric tang… ozone? His mind, always looking for order, started to list things out, trying to make sense of the sudden, strange mess.
He pushed himself up. His arms and legs felt heavy, slow, like they weren't quite his. A dull ache pulsed behind his eyes, out of sync with his racing heartbeat. Minimal effort to move, yet heart rate is high. Adrenaline, shock. Likely both. Mist curled around him, thick and white. It swirled when he moved, showing parts of huge, old stone pillars that vanished into the dark sky.
Location: Unknown. How I got here: Unknown, must have been instant. Was in my Suginami apartment, 11:47 PM. Now: outside, stone place, heavy mist, night. He stopped that train of thought. A cold, sharp feeling, like dread, cut through his analysis. This isn't a dream. Dreams aren't this clear, this detailed. The feeling… it's too real.
He looked up. The stars. They weren't the dim, hazy stars he knew from Tokyo. These were countless bright sparks scattered across a pure black sky. He didn't recognize any of the patterns. The sight was amazing, but also scary in how strange it was.
Then he saw the structure in front of him. It rose out of the fog like something from an old, impossible story. Two giant stone gates, worn by weather and time. Faded, complex kanji were carved into them – kanji his mind, with a sudden shock, knew. Not from school, but from hours and hours staring at his computer screen. Old paper talismans, dry and fragile, clung to the dark, heavy wood. Thick ropes, like the ones at shrines, were tied around parts of the gate. They seemed to almost glow with a power he could nearly see.
Jujutsu Koutou Senmon Gakkou. Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College.
Impossible. The word formed flatly in his mind, but everything in him screamed that it was true. This wasn't a dream. The cold of the ground seeping into his school pants was too real. The rough stone under his shaky fingers was too distinct.
And the energy… He'd felt the ground hum before the white light. Now, it was more than a hum. It was like a heavy pressure everywhere, a living thing in the air. He felt old sadness in it, and a strong, sleeping power that made his skin prickle. It was Cursed Energy. Pure, strong, all around him. He didn't just know it was there; he felt it, like a deep note vibrating in his bones. It was a feeling he'd never had before, but somehow… it felt a little familiar, like a part of him that had been asleep was now wide awake, suddenly and roughly.
If this is Jujutsu High… then what am I? The question felt huge, terrifying. He was Kai Sato, a seventeen-year-old from Suginami who liked anime. He wasn't a sorcerer. He wasn't a character in a story. He was… lost in a nightmare that had come to life.
He stayed there, crouched on the damp stone. It felt like a long time, but it was probably just a few minutes. His mind raced. Isekai? Sent to another world? Some kind of crazy prank? Am I in a coma, dreaming this? He looked at each idea, but none of them fit how real everything felt. His breathing was quick and shallow. If anyone could have seen his face in the dim, misty light, it would have been blank, frozen. He was trying to process too much. The world around him had just broken every rule of science he knew.
Slowly, carefully, he got to his feet. His legs felt wobbly. He noticed something odd about his balance, like his center of gravity had shifted. He felt… taller? The thought was quick, confusing. He pushed it away. Shock, he told himself. He needed information. He needed to watch, listen. He needed to survive.
He took a shaky step toward the massive gates. His old school shoes crunched on fallen leaves and dirt. The air got colder. The only sounds were the distant, sad hoot of an owl and water dripping from somewhere in the mist. The kanji on the gates seemed to flicker with a faint light, like a warning, but also like an invitation.
Logically, I should find someone. Find out what's going on. Ask for help. His inner voice sounded calm, but it was the kind of calm before a total system failure. But who? And what would I say? 'Hi, I think I fell out of my world into your anime. Got a map? And maybe a bus ticket home?' A hysterical laugh almost escaped him. He forced it down. Control. He had to stay in control.
He looked around. The gates were an entrance in a high wall that stretched off into the mist on both sides. Past the gates, he could just see the dark shapes of old Japanese buildings. Their layered roofs stood out against the starry sky. It looked exactly like it did in the anime. Perfectly, chillingly, so.
He felt something new then, beyond the Cursed Energy in the air. A specific point of it, moving. It was far off, inside the school grounds. Faint, but definitely there. A sorcerer? A curse? His fingers twitched, like he wanted to reach for his notebook to analyze it. The thought of how useless that would be was a fresh stab of pain. His notebook, his laptop, his whole world… it was all gone.
He had to move. Staying out here, easy to see, wasn't smart. But where to go? He only knew the layout of Jujutsu High from certain scenes in the anime, not a full map.
He felt strangely light, almost disconnected from his own body, even as the cold reality sank in. It was like that old feeling, of the world not quite sticking to him. Only now, he wasn't quite sticking to himself. When he moved, it felt like he was controlling a machine he wasn't used to. His limbs felt longer, his steps different. He brushed his bangs from his eyes – something he always did – but his hand felt bigger. His fingers felt different against his forehead. He frowned. Confusion cut through his analytical haze. What was that?
He decided to walk along the inside of the wall, keeping it to his right. He hoped to find a less obvious way in, or at least a place to watch without being seen right away. The ground was rough, covered in mossy stones and twisted tree roots. He stumbled once, twisting his ankle. He bit his lip. Clumsy. My coordination feels off.
He was rounding a huge, gnarled tree. Its branches looked like bony fingers reaching into the mist. That's when he saw it. Not a person. Something that made him stop dead, his heart pounding. A small, calm pond. Its surface was a perfect, still mirror, reflecting the strange stars. And in that mirror, he saw a stranger.
The stranger was tall. He stood straight, not slouched like Kai always did. His school uniform – Kai's uniform – looked different on him. It fit better, stretched over broader shoulders. The face… it was Kai's face, but not. The dark, almond-shaped eyes were the same, but they looked sharper. The face itself was more defined, the jaw stronger. The pale skin stood out against the raven black hair, which fell across his forehead with a kind of stark neatness, not just messy. He looked… strong. Older. Like one of those intense upperclassmen from a sports anime, not the quiet, overthinking Kai he knew.
Kai stared. His mind went completely blank for about ten seconds. The internal analysis machine had finally crashed. His hand rose, slowly, to touch his own cheek. The reflection did the same. The stranger in the water was him.
This… this is not my body. The thought wasn't a question. It was a slow, dawning, terrible certainty. The feeling of being taller, the weird balance, his limbs feeling different – it all clicked with what he was seeing. What happened to me? That white light… had it done more than just move him? Had it changed him? Remade him? The idea was huge, terrifying. It added another layer of impossible to an already impossible situation.
He was still trying to process it, staring at his own unfamiliar face, when another feeling cut through his shock. It was sharper this time, closer. The clear, unmistakable feeling of strong Cursed Energy. And it was coming towards him, fast. It moved like it had a purpose, and power. Someone was coming. And he was standing here, changed, terrified, an anomaly at the gates of a school for sorcerers, in a world that was only supposed to be a story.
His wish for a world with clear rules and real consequences had come true, it seemed. And he had a horrible, sinking feeling he was about to find out just how harsh those consequences could be.