[Unfortunately, Jujutsu Kaisen is not some feel-good shonen manga.]
[There are no blind spots in the attack. Not for you. Not with the reflexes of an ordinary human. Whatever gap exists, your eyes are too slow to find it.]
[The Cursed Spirit's violet-green mucus rains down like a monsoon. It isn't water. It's acid laced with Cursed Energy, and the instant it touches skin, the effect is hot oil poured over a wax figure. Blistering, Dissolving, Flesh sloughing away in sheets.]
[The pain is beyond what any normal person could endure.]
[An ordinary human would have blacked out by now. But Bearing Insults and Heavy Burdens triggers passively, right on cue.]
[Pain reduced by thirty percent. Not a mercy. A punishment. Because it keeps you conscious through injuries that should have granted you the kindness of oblivion. You watch your own flesh peel away, wide awake.]
[The killing blow, though, doesn't come from the front.]
["Hold still. Block properly."]
[Naoya's irritated voice, right behind you. Then a palm sheathed in Cursed Energy, hard as iron, slams against your back.]
[He's using you as a shield. And as a battering ram.]
[His legs drive forward, shoving your ruined body at terrifying speed straight into the Cursed Spirit's attack range. Acid sprays in sheets. Your body catches every drop. Behind you, Naoya closes the distance to its core without a scratch.]
["Die, you worthless thing."]
[He's talking to the Cursed Spirit. He's talking to you.]
[A fist packed with Cursed Energy hammers through your back. Spine and ribs shatter with a wet crack as it punches clean through your chest.]
[The fist keeps going, momentum unbroken, and obliterates the Cursed Spirit's core on the other side.]
[Not the acid. Not the burns. This single blow through your chest is what kills you.]
[The Cursed Spirit lets out one final wail and dissolves into black ash.]
[Your body crumples like a deflated balloon. Blood gushes from the hole in your chest, soaking the dirt beneath you.]
[Vision blurs. In the last seconds of your life, you watch Naoya Zenin flick blood from his fingers and inspect his expensive silk kimono with open disgust.]
[A single drop of your blood has stained his cuff.]
["Tch. Revolting."]
[The Zenin prodigy doesn't spare you a glance. He just keeps dabbing at the stain with a handkerchief, brow furrowed like someone scrubbing a scuff off new shoes.]
["Trash is trash. Two years, and your blood still reeks. Cost me a good outfit."]
[As your consciousness slides toward the final dark, footsteps pound in the distance.]
[Zenin reinforcements.]
[First to arrive: the Hei. Uniformed, radiating waves of formidable Cursed Energy. The clan's elite combat unit.]
[Close behind: the Kukuru Unit. Black masks, hollow eyes. Men born without Cursed Techniques, trained to obey and nothing more.]
["Young Master Naoya!!"]
[Ranta Zenin of the Hei takes one look at the carnage and goes pale. He flickers to Naoya's side in an instant, face tight with panic.]
["Are you hurt? We should have been here sooner!"]
["Any injuries? Where the hell is the medical team?!"]
[They swarm the blond boy like planets orbiting a sun, fretting over him as though a single hair out of place would be a national crisis.]
[You lie half a meter from their feet.]
[Not one of these so-called clan elites lets their gaze linger on you for even a second.]
[A Kukuru Unit member, eager to prove his loyalty by edging closer to Naoya, finds your not-quite-dead body in the way. He kicks you aside.]
["Move." A glob of spit punctuates the word.]
[You draw your last breath. And in the eyes of Naoya Zenin and every soul in the Zenin Clan, there is not one shred of regard for you as a human being. A stained shirt bothers Naoya more than your death ever will.]
[You died.]
[Simulation complete.]
Touma's eyes snapped open in the rooftop shadows. He sucked in air like a drowning man breaching the surface.
Pain throbbed in his chest where the fist had gone through. His skin still prickled with the ghost of acid burns.
But it wasn't the body's memory that made him tremble. It was the cold. A marrow-deep chill that had nothing to do with fear.
Rage. The kind that comes from being ground into dust so thoroughly that even your death doesn't warrant a second look.
"A shirt... ha... haha... My life wasn't worth one shirt."
Low laughter spilled out of him, thin and jagged against the night wind. The kind of sound that made the dark feel darker.
He remembered the flow of Cursed Energy. Remembered the exact arc of Naoya's fist. And carved every second of that hatred into a place where nothing would ever erode it.
The blood-red Simulator panel erupted before his eyes, flickering wildly. Text surfaced through the glow.
[Simulation Evaluation:]
[In the world of jujutsu, begging earns nothing. Among the Big Three Sorcerer Families, even less.]
[Congratulations. You inherit the following:]
[1. Two years of infiltration memories within the Zenin Clan.]
[2. Trace experience in Cursed Energy manipulation: You possess no Cursed Technique, but prolonged exposure as a living punching bag has taught your body how Cursed Energy moves.]
[3. Cards acquired: Cursed Energy Allergy (N) and Bearing Insults and Heavy Burdens (R).]
[4. Cursed Energy increased. Your base Cursed Energy now scales with simulation count. Current Cursed Energy: 10 (5 x 2).]
[Rewards distributed!]
Warmth flooded through him in a single wave.
Touma felt it. Faint, barely a trickle, but undeniably real. Power stirred inside his body for the first time.
Cursed Energy.
The one currency that mattered in this world.
His base reserves were pitiful. Probably below average even among ordinary people. But double pitiful was still double what he'd had before the simulation, and the difference between zero and something was the difference between drowning and treading water.
The simulation had compressed two years into a handful of sentences, but the memories played out behind his eyes like a film reel on fast-forward. Every day. Every bruise. Every overheard conversation.
In those two years, he'd gathered more intelligence than any servant had a right to possess. The Big Three Sorcerer Families. The inner workings of the jujutsu world. Jujutsu High. All of it, filed away.
Touma Hayase didn't have many virtues he'd brag about. But his memory was flawless.
And he never, ever forgot a grudge.