Shien woke up at 6 a.m. sharp, his dreams full of images and memories of a life he had not lived, yet somehow remembered. His mother was a woman in her late teens—Sayo Ishigori, one of his father's concubines and his mother. Sayo draped his yukata on him, she smiled at him and gave him hug. If it weren't for the electricity, you could mistake the Zenin compound for a time capsule from Edo Japan, along with all its culture and tedious traditions.
Shien closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing for a few seconds before channeling the energy from his gut throughout his body and preventing it from leaking. He put on his slippers as he was led out the door of the quarters he shared with his mother.
Chujuro Zenin stood outside, old and stooped, but his eyes still glinted with mischief.
"I can see that Shien-sama has mastered control of his cursed energy."
Shien gave him an appraising look before nodding. "Your surprise offends me, JiJi!" he said, walking past him without breaking a stride. He moved with poise and grace far beyond a three-year-old.
Shien was born into some anime world—he knew that much from the way people looked—though which anime, he did not know. He had been thrust here by an omnipotent being with a gift and fragmented memories of a world he had never lived in. Shien could remember his favorite TV shows, his favorite food, the football team he cheered for, yet he could not remember what his name was before all of this.
Chujuro walked behind him as they went to the curse pit for Shien's first trial. Shien knew he had incarnated here, his body enhanced by the super soldier serum, making him far beyond human in every capacity. Why he was brought here, he did not know.
This world was dark and full of terrors. Negative emotions gave birth to vicious, hellish creatures that devoured humans. An entire society of sorcerers exorcised them. It was like Harry Potter, but remove the wands and increase the trauma.
A sorcerer's worth was determined at birth by the amount of cursed energy he had and the cursed technique he would develop. It did not matter what anyone did—eighty percent of all you ever are, or ever will be, was determined by that in this jujutsu society.
Luckily for Shien, he was born with the highest cursed energy in recorded history—so high that his very birth had broken the fragile balance that once existed. The eternal battle between curses and sorcerers had become bloodier due to his existence.
Jujutsu society worked on balance, and his birth had disrupted it, just like another baby had sixteen years ago. Not that the Zenin—one of the most powerful sorcerer families—cared about a few thousand civilians dying. They believed they had finally unlocked their trump card, that all their scheming and inbreeding had paid off.
Shien had seen flyhead cursed spirits, the weakest of the bunch, and even they made him quiver with fear—not that he would dare show it. Devilish creatures born from his worst nightmares. This clan revolved around strength, and Shien's superhuman senses could pick up on the subtle facial cues of his kin. An ounce of weakness and they would tear into him like sharks on chum.
Cursed energy was this world's equivalent of chakra or chi—except it was capped at birth, as was output. A sorcerer, through rigorous effort, might increase his efficiency, but for most that was easier said than done.
Chujuro had been teaching him to control his cursed energy and prevent it from leaking. Usually, such lessons would be reserved for sorcerer children who had awakened their techniques, but Shien's sheer amount of cursed energy—and the potential he possessed—meant the clan was eager to turn him into the weapon he was destined to be, as quickly as possible.
Shien was twice as large as a child his age should be and ten times as wise but the clan paid no mind. It was expected of him now .
The clan hopes were pinned on him, Shien curse technique had not awakened but the clan head and the father Shien was sure it was going to the ten shadows technique .
The only technique that could best their clan rivals the Gojos. The only thing that they knew as of now was that aside from Shien massive cursed energy reserves and intelligence was that his cursed energy seemed to have a volatile almost explosive quality to it .
Shien's mother walked a few paces behind Chujuro, and she was the only woman who truly loved him, a scared teenager sold off by her clan to become a concubine of the head of the Zenin, all so her family could win his protection.
Her greatest blessing was giving birth to Shien, elevating her position from one step above a whore to potentially the highest position a woman could rise to in this Confucian clan, because the Zenin cared about power above everything else and a mother who produced a powerful heir became useful.
Sayo's eyes brimmed with tears as Shien was about to undergo his first trial, and as scared as he was he would not let his mother see him afraid, because he knew that in this clan even a child's fear could be treated as weakness. He gave the old man a haughty stare before walking past him and going to his mother, squeezing her trembling hand with strength that did not suit his age.
"Mama, don't be scared, I will be back."
Shien stood in front of the door to the pit, marked with hundreds of paper seals layered over one another like the scars of old battles, each talisman inked with hostile intent meant to restrain what waited inside. "If you are in trouble I will step in, child, so try not to die," Chujuro said with his toothless smirk, and Shien simply controlled his breathing, exhaling through his nose until his lungs were empty and filling them up again slowly, because he had learned it somewhere in the army, in a life he could not fully remember.
Before he could go back to pondering the meaning of his existence, Chujuro opened the doors and shoved him inside the pit, and the moment Shien's feet hit the damp stone floor he felt terror clamp around his heart, because the stench and the pressure in the air made it clear that this was not just a test, it was a place where people had died and where fear had soaked into the walls.
There were multiple cursed spirits in the darkness, not one, and Shien realized that immediately when he heard movement from different corners of the pit, scraping sounds from the left, wet dragging from behind, and something like nails tapping stone from above, as if the ceiling itself held a presence waiting to drop.
The first curse crawled into the weak lantern light and Shien's stomach lurched, because it looked like a human body that had been assembled wrong, skin stretched too tight over uneven bones, one arm too long and dragging across the floor as it moved, with a face that sagged like wax melting off a skull.
The second curse followed it, smaller but more disgusting, a swollen mass of flesh with too many mouths opening and closing along its sides, each mouth lined with broken teeth and leaking dark saliva that splattered onto the stone. The third curse remained half-hidden in shadow, yet Shien could still see its outline, a thin figure crouched unnaturally with joints bent the wrong way, its head tilted as if it were listening, while behind it two more shapes shifted and breathed like animals, their bodies pulsing as if packed with worms beneath their skin.
The curses did not roar like beasts from a story, and that made them worse, because their voices carried mundane human misery twisted into something sick. One of them started to howl in a voice that sounded like an old man crying in his sleep, repeating the same line over and over as if stuck in a loop.
"Why won't anyone help me, why won't anyone help me, why won't anyone help me."
Another curse muttered in a cracked whisper, as if talking to itself while remembering something stupid and ordinary.
"I forgot my keys, I forgot my keys, I forgot my keys."
A third curse tilted its head toward Shien and spoke with irritation, like a person snapping at a stranger on the street.
"Don't look at me, don't look at me, don't look at me."
Shien continued his breathing technique while the animal part of his brain screamed, because this was like a rollercoaster where logic told you that you were safe but the body refused to believe it, except there was no seatbelt here and the monsters were real. He could see how macabre and disgusting they were as they moved closer, with bodies stitched together in places as though different parts had been forced into one, with growths pulsing along ribs and shoulders, with skin that looked wet and diseased, and with smells that made his eyes water, like sour meat and stagnant water and rot all mixed into one nauseating cloud.
Shien's courage vacated him quickly as he felt his knees trembling and his teeth beginning to chatter, and he hated himself for it, because he could imagine the Zenin looking down on him, he could imagine their cold smiles, and he could imagine how they would tear into him the moment they sensed weakness.
A prayer half remembered surfaced in his mind from a life lived in another world, not because he was religious but because fear had a way of pulling words from the deepest parts of a person.
"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil."
The curses reacted to his voice, because curses were born of negativity and fed by it, and the moment they noticed a living child standing in their cage their movements sharpened, their hunger turning focused as they began to circle him like starving dogs. One of the spirits leaned forward with its neck stretching too far, and its mouth widened into a grin that showed teeth like shattered glass.
"Fear," it whispered, tasting the word as if it were food. "Fear, fear, fear."
Shien swallowed hard, forcing his breathing to remain controlled as his cursed energy surged inside his body like a flood pressing against a dam, because he knew that if he let it leak too much the clan would sense it outside the pit and judge him, yet if he held it too tightly he might freeze and die. He steadied himself with everything he had, fists clenching, eyes fixed on the closest curse as it crawled closer, and he forced his legs to stop trembling, because Shien Zenin refused to be eaten like prey in the dark while the clan waited above to decide if he was worthy.
Then a door within him clacked open, and realization filled his brain. Knowledge that seemed to have always been there became apparent to him and the fear in his hear melted away.
Shien laughed.
"HAHA—HAHAHA…" he cackled, staring at the shapes crawling through the dark. "I don't think you ugly buggers understand…" His smile widened into something that didn't belong on a cherubic face. "I'm not locked in here with you…" He leaned forward slightly, eyes bright with cruel excitement. "You're locked in here with me."
Cursed energy poured out of him in a way it never had before, thin wisps as fragile as spider silk whipping through the air in invisible lines, and Shien knew in his heart that only he could see them. The curses hesitated as the temperature shifted and the shadows began to tremble, their bodies pulling back on instinct even while hunger drove them forward.
Shien's grin sharpened.
Then he snapped his fingers.
BOOM.
Chujuro quickly opened the door, fearing the worst, only to find Shien cackling manically. Before he could speak, Chujuro heard another snap, and purple flames surged across the pit like a wave, consuming the last Grade Three curse and reducing it to cinders.
Chujuro's eyes widened as he took in the destruction. The entire pit had been cleansed, the seals scorched, the stone blackened, and not a single cursed spirit remained. This was not how the trial was supposed to go.
They had meant to scare the boy before commencing his training in earnest, to show him the reality of curses and hammer discipline into him early, yet Shien stood in the center of it all completely unharmed, smiling like he had enjoyed it.
To awaken an innate technique at three was unheard of.
Chujuro swallowed, then straightened, forcing his shock down.
"I am leaving to inform Naobito-sama," he said quickly. "Shien-sama, return to your quarters and await your father's summons."
He turned to leave immediately, because this was no longer a simple trial, and the clan head had to hear about it at once.