Chapter Text
Premise: baby Yuji dreams of the future.
Etalon - an optical cavity created from two parallel reflecting surfaces
1
At first, Yuji and his grandfather dismissed it as nothing out of the ordinary. Kids had silly dreams they take to be reality all the times. Like being able to fly through the air by doing the frog strokes, or realizing you were completely sans clothes while taking the final examination test.
And back then, he was only eight. What did he know?
The first dream was short anyway. He lived… perhaps… a day or two in it. He only vaguely remembered it now. It was… Monday… probably. He went to Sendai Elementary School on Monday. The cafeteria served broccoli, which he hated, and chicken nuggets, which he loved because his grandfather would only ever let him have them maybe once a month. Yusuke from two tables down his seat wanted to trade broccoli for Yuji's chicken nuggets. What did that potato head with jelly legs take Yuji for?! A spaghetti brain? Who'd take that deal?!
Yusuke was insistent though, and Yuji didn't shove the nuggets into his mouth quick enough for a tussle not to break out in the middle of Sendai Elementary School cafeteria. Over cafeteria chicken nuggets! His homeroom teacher called grandpa because of it, and he ended up getting no chicken nuggets for the month. Or the next month.
The injustice!!
When he woke up, it was Sunday after the winter break. Grandpa nagged at him to pack his schoolbag for tomorrow. Yuji always forgot to pack his bag til the last minute and then got yelled at by grandpa first thing in the morning for it. He remembered almost nothing of the dream except some vague, unexplained irritation for Yusuke from two tables down. He was eight. He had other things to occupy his eight years old baby brain… like moping about going back to school after weeks of sleeping in a warm cocoon made out of the fluffiest blanket grandpa could afford on his retirement pay til 10 in the morning and watching Ash Ketchum chuck an under-leveled Pikachu at Elesa's Zebstrika in the newest episode of Pokemon Best Wishes.
Why would you do that Ash??! They are both electric types! Pikachu was clearly outmatched! Somehow, Ash pulled a win anyway, which proved that shonen rule of cool always trumped jan-ken-pon power logic. Always!
Then Monday came. The cafeteria served broccoli, which he hated, and chicken nuggets, which he loved. He sat eyeing the golden nuggets lovingly. Five! Five nuggets! That was 400 yens at the local KFC where his grandpa usually took him! 400 yens!
Then Yusuke from two tables down yelled out in that annoying, shrill, nasally voice of his.
"Hey, Yuji!"
Before he could even stop to think about it, Yuji shoved the chicken nuggets, all five of them into his mouth. The broccoli on the same tray went flying. He was going to get yelled at for it, but it was worth it! Nobody messed with his chicken nuggets! His cheeks ballooned cartoonishly like a squirrel in a Disney movie as his jaws worked furiously to a spattering chorus of "Ew! Yuji, that's gross!" "Urgh" "Yuji, slow down!"
Yusuke gaped while the cafeteria lady rolled her eyes and made a face at him. His homeroom teacher looked vaguely alarmed as she started to move. He kept chewing, kept chewing, kept swallowing. Or rather he tried.
Eight years old didn't typically have such big mouths that could take five nuggets in one go, or esophaguses that could squeeze through the barely chewed through doughy paste coming from five nuggets mushed together, or stomachs durable enough to…
The point was, two minutes after Yuji's heroic endeavor to thwart Yusuke from two tables down's frankly disgusting attempt at daylight robbery, his stomach squeezed threateningly, his throat seized, his mouth, which was beginning to strain under the rather abnormal workload, started to slow, and then the chicken paste started… going… up… his pipe.
It came out in a mustard-colored torrent worthy of classic Halloween horror movies, the type grandpa didn't let him watch because he still wet the bed until he was 4 years old and grandpa just never let him live that down! What a mean old person grandpa was!
His chicken, which was previously golden and shiny and crusty and beautiful, sprayed the air in front of a horrified audience consisting of Yusuke, the cafeteria lady, his homeroom teacher… and the rest of his classmates that weren't quick enough to vacate the splash zone around Yuji.
His homeroom teacher called his grandpa while Yuji held a trash can in the school infirmary, emptying the rest of his aggravated stomach juice into its plastic-lined bowel.
Grandpa came, worried now instead of vaguely annoyed. He still didn't remember the dream even then. He was rather busy mourning his chicken. Why?? The injustice! It was all Yusuke's fault!
His teacher talked to his grandpa. He heard only smatterings through the infirmary door. Grandpa came in to take a look at his flushed face, glazed eyes, and cracked lips from one too many heaving.
"Oh, Yuji. Why'd you do that? I always told you to chew thoroughly and swallow slowly. Slowly, boy!"
He sniffed, holding the trash can like a koala with a crush on… a trash can.
"I'm sowwy."
No, he wasn't trying to act cute. His throat just hurt… a lot.
"I just really like chicken nuggets."
"Oh, Yuji."
Grandpa took him home early, taking the city bus. Halfway to their home, the bus took a right. He peered curiously at grandpa until they were let down.. in front of… a KFC with a red and orange flashy banner announcing 'Winter's End Promotion! Get your delicious chickens for the low, low price of 1,999 yens for a whole full party bucket!'
Yuji bounced in place like a jack-in-the-box, both eyes shining, his horrible ordeal just hours before completely thrown to the back of his head.
A whole! Bucket!
He only ever got that at Christmas!
He turned to look at grandpa for confirmation. His grandpa sighed as if surrendering.
"You can have one. One piece! And no more, boy! Or it will be another trip to the hospital. We will put the rest in the fridge. You can have it this week if you behave. Are you going to behave, Yuji?"
Yuji nodded his head so quickly things started to swim a little in his vision. Of course, he was going to behave!
His grandpa sighed again, thoroughly defeated, even as a ghost of a smile tugged the corner of his mouth. "Kid act like I never feed him, I swear. Ok you can go in… Slow down, Yuji! Or you are going to fall and smash your face!"
That was how it started…
… the nighmares of a future… Yuji's future.
Every kid dreamed of becoming their favorite hero at least once in their life. Boys or girls. Didn't matter. Every kid wanted to see themselves in their favorite hero. Son Goku was a long time national favorite. He was oldie and goldie. Sailor Moon. Oh yes, and not just the girls wanted to be a warrior of love and justice with extra sparkles on top. Yuji respected that. He would totally rock a mini skirt too if it came with the power to punt planet-sized bad guys around like a weirdly-shaped bowling ball down the cosmic lane. When the power level was over nine thousand to the power of infinity plus one, it no longer mattered whether one was wearing skirts with high heels or baggy martial artist pants with combat boots. You respected the power, whether in skirts or in pants.
Grandpa Wasuke's was Joe Yabuki… of Ashita no Joe's fame. Unbelievable? Yes. Contrary to appearance, that cantankerous, meanie, stingy, old grandpa was actually a kid once too. Truly the universe was full of mysteries.
"He's got guts, boy! You gotta have guts to stand your ground in the boxing ring!" That's what grandpa said before telling him to have better taste in reading materials. Yuji did try. He thought Joe was pretty cool too. Just that… he didn't have any flashy attacks! Just… lots of punches. Yes, punches were good too but you gotta have style and every body knew flashy attacks were where it was at!
Like Rasengan or.. or… Gatsuga Tenshou! Think about it! If Joe could just shoot a Rasengan into the dirty liar Jose Mendez's guts and then upper-cut him with a Getsuga Tensho from his boxing gloves, wouldn't it be so super duper ultra cool?! Grandpa said no, that it marred the purity of Joe's determined heart. But he was old school like that.
What about Yuji's hero? Did he have a favorite? Was it Naruto? Or was it Ichigo? He actually already kinda looked like them, didn't he? The happy can-do, physically gifted, surprisingly responsible kid with the short wild hair. His pink hair was all au naturale too. His grandpa was on fixed income. They didn't have popping powder pink hair die every month kind of money. He was totally a shoo-in for either Naruto or Ichigo, wasn't he? He even liked both of them a lot too.
But no… Yuji… didn't really have what you would call a hero.
He did find a 'hero' that he saw himself in though. Hero, in quote marks, being the operative word here. Hero, in quote marks, in the technical sense, because it was his story being told, not necessarily because of… anything else.
It was a horror story.
The name?
Nagai Yume. Long Dream.
Tetsuro Mukoda suffered from a mysterious condition. Every night when he slept, his dream showed him living a second life. These lives were vivid to him. His experience of it could not be distinguished from his real, waking life from his senses alone. At first, the dreams were short. Then, they lengthened. A few days. Then weeks. Then months. Then years. Then decades.
He started to have difficulty telling which side of him was real, which was the waking world.
Centuries then.
He developed amnesia. Even admitting himself into a hospital, he often woke up disoriented and convinced he was kidnapped. He had a life! He had a family! A wife! Children! Grandchildren even! Why would he admit himself into hospital when his family yet waited for him…
…in the dreams.
Millennia.
His dreams were millennia long now. He only experienced this time in a dream. In the 'waking' world, only a night had passed.
What happened to a man who woke up from such dream? What happened to the body of one whose brain believed wholeheartedly that it was living millennia?
Soon, he no longer looked human.
What happened to a man who woke from an eternal dream?
The thing that woke up one last time didn't think of itself as human. Such antiquated term for puny, dimensionally-challenged creatures its kind used to be… billions of years ago. It believed it had temporarily slipped into a space time fissure and appeared here. Ah well, so it went with one who could traverse the dimensions at will. When it finally fell asleep after a day wreaking havoc in the hospital, its body underwent the final metamorphosis. Prismatic crystals made from an unidentified matter erupted first from its brain before metastasizing to other parts of the body.
Soon, even the hospital bed was covered in the thing.
As the sun came up and light filtered through the window of Tetsuro Mukoda's hospital room, there was only crumbs of crystals left where an ordinary man once was.
When Yuji was ten, some thugs started calling him the Tiger of West Junior High. Correction, he was nine and a half. How did a nine and a half year old even get that sort of name from teenage delinquents? It started when he transferred to West Junior High from Sendai Elementary School at nine years old, two years early.
This was what his teacher told grandpa Wasuke: "He's too advanced. He aced every single test we put him under. I understand this is highly irregular. Grade skipping really isn't recommended for the sake of the child's emotional development. No matter how much of a prodigy he is, it's not healthy if he can't form bonds with his peer group. But at this rate, it's impacting other children in his same class. Yes, we have put Yuji in the most advanced class we have, but even with that, he's making other students feel like… well… like they should be a grade below. It's frankly getting to their parents too. I'm sorry, sir. It really isn't his fault. Yuji is a great kid. Maybe he can make friends who can keep up with his academic performance in Junior High."
So went the transfer. He did make some friends in the new school. He had always been a bright, happy kid, easily popular with his peers. The older girls of West Junior High thought he was cute as a button, and relatively harmless compared to the boys. His pink hair was soft and fluffy, and he let them put pins and bows on it with nary a complaint.
The boys, on the other hands, weren't fans. Teenage boys often had tender egos. Being shown up by a literal nine years old? Not cool. Most boys only stopped at poking fun at Yuji now and then for letting the girls treat him like their child-sized dress up doll though. But there were always some boys.
About four months into the new school year at West Junior High and after the midterm exam where Yuji's test score tap danced on the heads of everybody else in his grade, Yuji got ganged up outside the school gate. The girls ran to get teachers. But Yuji was done before the teachers arrived. The delinquents were in groaning heaps on the floor. Being thrashed by a nine and a half years old… who was already thrashing them academically? They might as well have died as far as those chuunibyo boys were concerned. Social death was just as legit as actual death. Well, unless it wasn't a nine and a half year old that thrashed them but… some sort of inhuman monster!
Thus, the Tiger of West Junior High. They cleverly omitted the fact that said kitten - tiger! the delinquents insisted - still had two pale pastel green bows in his pink hair in the midst of thrashing kids three and four years older than him.
Unfortunately for the delinquent boys, none of the arriving adults believed their words. A nine and half year old against five boys aged thirteen to fourteen? The conclusion on who thrashed whom was made before the teachers even got to the scene.
And then, two days after that incident, Yuji Itadori skipped school for the first time.
January 13th, 2013, Yuji left home for school in the morning as usual at 6:30 AM on the dot. His house in the west wing of Sendai City was only two blocks away from the nearest bus station, from which it would take but five stops for him to arrive at the gate of West Sendai Junior High. All in all, assuming no accident or cinematic police car chase through the streets, his trip from home to school should take no more than fifteen minutes at most. Sixteen minutes and thirty-two seconds, if the bus driver, one Jiro Yokoyama who was a twice divorcee at 47 years old with an unhealthy pachinko addiction and a fondness for cheap booze that did not help, drank more than his usual daily allotment of discounted Ozeki One Cup the night before and slipped on his way to work without breakfast.
At 7:15 sharp, the first class started, without Yuji.
At 10:30, his homeroom teacher phoned his grandpa to ask if Yuji wasn't coming to school today. The teacher had been expecting it to be honest. The poor baby. Ganged up by a bunch of delinquents who thought beating down on a ten years old made them look like strong, big men somehow. An orphaned ten years old with only his grandpa as his sole family member at that! And then they had the temerity to lie about it all afterwards! Calling the child a monster and painting themselves as victims! What a bunch of no-good rascals! Had they no shame?!
It would be very understandable, said the teacher over the phone, if Yuji wanted to take a few days off of school to calm down. A week even! Yuji's excellent academic performance more than allowed him a much needed rest after that terrible ordeal! Meanwhile, she insisted, she and the staff members of West Sendai Junior would do everything in their power to tamp down on this bullying problem. It wasn't often that Sendai got such a star student after all, most of them preferring to move to inner Tokyo schools in Kanto instead of staying in an outskirt city in Miyagi. Not that she faulted them for looking out for their future, because those prestigious inner Tokyo schools really did have better rates for university inclusion and after school job prospects but still! Saying this with all the pride of a generational Sendaian, their school was pretty great too if they just gave West Sendai a chance! With just Yuji's inclusion, West Sendai Junior might actually have a hope of going up not one, not two, but three ranks in the informal bull fight ranking list that every parent in Japan kept in mind while perusing the options for their baby's future.
Three ranks! Three!
To this, poor Wasuke only had one answer for her.
…Just what in blazes are you talking about?
Taking a moment to collect himself, he said. Yuji left for school this morning.
And then pausing for a beat as he digested that. Are you saying… that he's not at school right now?
.
.
.
To clarify, Yuji's dreams were and weren't exactly like Mukoda's. For once, he never dreamed of living any life other than his own, just… temporally accelerated. If his life was a movie, then in his dreams, the movie was put on fast forward. 1x speed. 2x speed. 3x speed. It also wasn't an every night occurrence. Albeit, it seemed the frequency as well as how far along the plot he got were progressing.
An eight year old had no frame of reference to even begin to understand what was happening to him was abnormal of course, let alone communicate this abnormality to the adults around him. From Yuji's perspective, it just felt like… he had all the time in the world.
Summer lasted almost forever, and he felt everything, heard everything, tasted everything, touched everything deeper, longer, more. Teachers were forever patient, explaining the same lessons to him once, twice, sometimes even thrice, until he could recite them by rote. He had forever to do homework too, which got easier and easier, because he was getting so much attention.
Grandpa Wasuke nagged at him so so much. He remembered thinking, was this that old person's disease the TV talked about? Al… something? Grandpa nagged at him like he forgot he already nagged at him about the same thing three times before. Make your bed, Yuji. Don't forget to water the plants, Yuji. You burnt the spaghetti, Yuji! I told you to keep an eye on it while I'm on the can!
But then he would also take Yuji to the horse farm on the outskirts of Sendai a lot more often, sometimes in a row, and so all was forgiven. Yuji loved the soft serve ice cream at the farm. He would spend all his pocket money on it, and ate every flavor available until he threw up. He never really got that good at shooting archery in the farm range, but seeing the horses amazed him every time.
And then, when summer finally passed and the cold settled in, grandpa would take him to see the statues at the snow festival. He loved drinking sweet milk tea with his cold, numb hands from shoveling snow in the morning. Grandpa would look at him with a face like he couldn't believe it. It's sticky and disgusting, he said while nursing his horrible, bitter coffee.
Adults were so weird sometimes. Or maybe it was grandpa who was the weird one.
In spring, he liked to go out to the empty fields around Sendai, to the park where he could catch crayfish in the creeks. It was such a shame that all the moms and pops shops had to close down after that one big mall came to town. But the mall also had a movie theater and an arcade on the top floor, so maybe he could forgive it.
Childhood for Yuji was long and sweet. He was loved. He was a child who grew from the soil of love. There was nothing to question. Nothing was wrong. All was as it should be.
Then one day, childhood ended.
No, the delinquents had nothing to do with it. They were completely innocent of the misfortunes that followed. They just happened to be there at the wrong time.
In his dream, for the first time, Yuji watched his grandpa Wasuke, who was his mother, father, best friend, and sole family for as long as he could remember, which was far longer than his ten years of age might suggest, grew weak and died.
He woke up. His grandpa was alive and nagging at him, as usual. He went to sleep, and saw his grandpa cold and still and pale like his flesh was made from old cement on a hospital bed. The scent of stale, untouched food wafted in the air. He heard the sounds of panicking nurses through muffled ears. The flowers he brought to cheer grandpa up fell on the floor. Yellow kiku, for good health and longevity. That was what Setsuko Sasaki from the occult club said it meant.
Where was he?
He woke up. He heard grandpa stirring in his bedroom down the halls.
He went to sleep. They said they were going to cremate grandpa and here was some paperwork for him to fill out because at 15, Yuji was still a minor and the government was going to have to get involved.
He woke up…
How could a ten years old even begin to grapple with something like this?
For the first time, there was a discrepancy. Wasuke was alive, then dead, then alive, then dead. Which was true?
Yuji held his grandpa's grizzled hand one morning before going to school, his chest filled with things he had no words for. How could he even put this to words? How…? What was it even? What was this? What was the name of this thing? This… what?
"Grandpa," he said to Wasuke before stepping on the bus. "Are you going to be okay?"
"You are going to be late for school, boy," answered grandpa with sleep still in his voice instead, like he didn't hear his grandson's quiet, fearful question at all. "Remember what I said about them hoodlum boys? If they try coming at you again, you just holler real loud and run for the nearest teacher! Don't try to be tough and fight them or something like that! You might have gotten lucky one time but a pipsqueak like you won't even be a mark on the fist of a proper yankii."
Yuji sat on the bus three seats from Jiro Yokoyama, watching the street signs fly by slowly in early morning Sendai. Stop number 1. Stop number 2. Stop number 3.
A pale winter sunbeam hit the the sign of stop number 4. Aoba-Dori Station. School was the next stop over. Aoba-Dori was a four minute walk from that big E-Bean mall that caused all the moms and pops shops to close down. It got a theater and an arcade on the top floor and a big Kikuya Manga store on the third. Yuji had a packed lunch box, some pocket changes, and a head and heart filled with toothy, thorny, sharp, uncomfortable things he couldn't even begin to put a name to. It was a match.
Yuji pulled his beanie down so it covered the top of his rapidly reddening tips of the ears, stood up from his seat, hefted his school backpack, walked pass an absent-minded Jiro, and stepped down the snow-crusted street of Ichibancho.
.
.
.
Grandpa Wasuke Itadori did not, in fact, call for a city-wide manhunt courtesy of Yuji's homeroom teacher, but it was a close thing.
A junior high school student skipping school was probably a tale as old as the first school was ever built. But Yuji had never been anything but a good kid. Your quintessential perfect neighbor's child. He was also Wasuke's sole living family after a lifetime of poor choices and poorer attitude left Wasuke with very few people who still remembered him, let alone remembered him with any degree of fondness.
He could not, absolutely could not, lose this one good thing he had left too.
It took the better part of the day, but eventually, he did find Yuji, in a park two blocks away from home of all things. He sat on a swing, watching the sun go down while nursing a bottle of 100 yen Kirin Afternoon Milk Tea with puffy eyes and red ears.
Relief crashed in Wasuke's chest.
"YUJI!"
He made a run for the boy on wobbly legs, slipped on the snow, almost fell on his face.
"YUJI!" He cried again as he got up, heedless of the cold, sharp pain blossoming in his ribcage and in his knees. His pants were drenched in melting snow.
"Gramps?" The boy looked up, saw him, cried out. He had crusted up snot from his nose and a milky ring around his cracked lips. "Gramps!"
Wasuke made the final dash, threw his arms around the stupid, stupid boy. "YUJI!"
"Gramps!" cried Yuji, for lack of anything else he knew to say.
In the half a day since Yuji decided skipping school was the answer to his encroaching start of life crisis, he had figured out a few things about himself.
One. Yuji could see the future. Or, at least, this was what he believed to be the case. In truth, it was only one of the possibilities. Though his understanding of the phenomenon that had been happening to him for years now was rudimentary at best, on an instinctual level, the boy could tell that these dreams he had weren't so simple. They were too real, too vivid that it was even possible for the boy to initially believe he was just living life on extended mode.
Rather, it was less that they were dreams made up of a mind gazing into the future, and more the memories of someone ruminating of a beautiful past.
But if that was the case, then the real answer was too cruel for a child that had known nothing but love and joy since birth.
Was he a person dreaming of being a butterfly? Or was he the butterfly dreaming of being a person?
He rejected it, he decided. It was not any sort of conscious decision that a ten year old could arrive at all on his own, but one made on an instinctual level, borne of his own reflexive understanding that these were, in fact, no dreams at all.
If he had any choice, any agency of himself, then he chose this reality, this one, where grandpa was real and warm and giving him the biggest hug and yelling at him til he was red in the face. Which led to…
Two. Grandpa wasn't dead, like his dreams showed him. But grandpa would die, because this was what his dreams had shown, repeatedly. It was just a matter of time.
"Gramps," he said, cutting across Wasuke's worried ranting. "You can't die"
"Hah?"
"I forbid it!" He said with all the determination and solemnity a ten year old could muster. "I forbid it!"
"What are you on about now, you infuriating brat!" Grandpa's face went red, then white, then pink, then red again. "Are you cursing your grandpa to an early grave right after scaring him half to death!?? You skipped school, Yuji! I looked for you everywhere! Look at my shoes! Look at my knees!"
"Grandpa, you are old. It wouldn't be an early grave."
"Brat!"
Then as if the idea just occurred to him. "Is it those rotten delinquents?! Did they threaten you? What did they tell you, Yuji? Did they tell you they were going to hurt me or some nonsense like that? You tell grandpa right now and I will take care of them! I swear it! Think they are such hot shit, threatening my grandson like that! I might be getting on my age, but I'm still Wasuke Itadori and I'll make them remember it!"
Then he launched into some long-winded, spit-flying, fiery rant about how bad he was back in the old days and he still got the scars to show for it. His generation grew from the ruins of war, didn't those brats know? Well, they would know now! Think they were men, didn't they? Bullying a ten years old kid! Well Wasuke was going to show them what being a man was all about!
The entire time, Yuji thought.
He was alive.
He was warm and animated. He smelled of bitter coffee and old people smell. The scraggly fur trim around the neck of his five-decade old military-issue parka got in Yuji's face every time he moved his arm spiritedly to demonstrate how he was going to wring the necks of those no-good rascals.
He was alive.
The dreams were wrong. There was still time. The world he saw in which his grandfather was lost to him, he was bigger and taller and just graduated from junior high. There was still time. He could change it, changed what the dreams showed. He had to believe he could.
They went home. Grandpa bough him milk tea from that fancy new place Ocha no Igeta that sold a palm-sized take-away cup for 500 yen. They made burgers for dinner, Yuji helping by watching the gigantic patties brown and sizzle on the cast iron pan and sprinkling salt and pepper on top at just the right time.
Grandpa made a call, smoothed things over with the school and asked for a few more days off. They watched TV til late at night, switching between Shabekuri Double Oh Seven and and Ametalk where one comedian made fun of another for not liking Dragon Balls and having limp noodles for arms. Yuji fell asleep in grandpa's lap while thinking about how he was going to convince grandpa to go to the hospital for a checkup. Grandpa was such a stingy old geezer who didn't believe at all in wasting money and time on these new generation coddling practices like going to the hospital for regular checkups every year or silly, soft stuff like that. He was the type to believe he could walk off any and all sickness if he just gritted his teeth and stubborned it out long enough.
Ya gotta have true grit, boy! That was what he always said.
He had to be dragged like a stubborn mule to the doctor the last time he had a stomachache so bad it turned out his gall bladder almost necrotized inside of him. A stomach bug, he called it! Probably because he ate that meat that was right on the expiration date.
But this time, Yuji would make him see. Despite all of his tough man talk, grandpa Wasuke was secretly a real softie. He would make grandpa go to the hospital where the doctors were going to find what was wrong with grandpa years earlier than in his dreams, and then they would fix grandpa, and then Yuji could tell his dream. See, you were wrong. You were just dreams after all, dreams that I could change if I worked hard enough at it.
He had to believe it, he thought as he fell, once more, into what he called the dreams.
In it, he saw his life going by so quick. He was eleven, then twelve, then fourteen, then fifteen. A strapping, young lad that turned heads. He saw his grandpa grow weak and die, saw himself suddenly whisked into a dark world he never thought existed but also thought make a lot of sense.
It was incredible to think, how quickly life could happen. The span between Wasuke Itadori's passing and what would be the one definitive turn of Yuji Itadori's life was a mere four months. Or, in the scale of Yuji's dream, barely a rotation of the Earth.
Wasuke's death was just the curtain call of his childhood. What happened next would be when the true nightmare began.
Halloween Night, 2018, Shibuya, where a million souls winked out of existence in the blink of an eye.
Ư̷͔̘̮͔͙̬̪̯̝̘͈̫̜̹̐̀̇̈́̍̓̏͋͛̈̉̈́̄̈́̈́͋̌̎͗̎͆̃̊̓͋͐̓̋͊̎͌͌̊͑͘̚͜͝͠͝͝͝͠͝ͅ ̶̡̨̢̡̧̳̲͓͎͕͉̭͈̟̲̩̬̠̺͉̗̮̹͎̜̣͖̘̺͙͚̲̼̠͔̱̯̾̏͛͘͜͜͜Ŗ̵̟̫̪̮̻͇͎̤͔͓̣̯̠̗̜̪̋̿̊̈́̄̀̈́͗͑͒̈́̈̈͋́͗̒̎͒͊͒̔̈́̔̋͌̓́̂̌̂̀͑͌͘̚͜͜͠͝͝͝ͅ ̵̨̛̣̤̩̲̬͎͇͈͔̗̦̀̈́͗̇̂̃̓͛̃̃͋̊́̍̂̈̈́́̀̇̆̌̚̕̕͘͠͝͝M̵̡̨̘͚͇̘̼͎̳͕͕̻̩̺͉̩͉̼̟̜͕̭̫͓̯̮̦̫̻̼̃Y̶̡̡̧̙̣̘̞̙̤̩͈͕̤͍̦͇̥̜͉̰̳̜̱̬̳͖̜͔͕̤̺̥͎͚͈̞͒̋̐̔̈́̂̌͑̈́́͑̽̂͐̽͑̒̈́͛͗̅̽̇̽̔͒͌͗͒͋̄̀̌̽͘͘͝͝͝ ̶̧̨̡̨̨̢̡̘̦̠͙̗̳̝̭̩̦̞̘̺̥͓̻̰̞̫͎̘̤̝͉̘̣̅͆̒͋̃̏̓͐̀̌̃͒̓̆͛̒͊̑̍͛̀̒̕̚̕͘͜͜͝S̴̡̢̡̨̡̢͚̜̯͙͓͓͍̱̜̻̲͍̮̞͓̰̦̹̯͚͍͖̥̜̝͕̻̥̻͙̩̙̀̍̒̄̌́̑̓͛̓͜P̵̨̛̛̻͇̎̓͗̓̈́̅͗̃͆̊̊͊͌͆̈̌̍́̾͑̐̐̍͋̂͒̉̎͂́̑́̉͑͒͘͝͝Ę̴̛͕̩̦̗̮̜̰̘̣̤͕̤̱̑̀̉̀̆̐͗̍͐̉́͗̎̐̾̍̊̕͘͝͠C̷̢̧̧̛̣̱̘̠̥̤͖̹̣̱͎̤̮͍̩͎̤̟̻̲̬̣̺͎̓̈͆̓̒́̀̊̈͗̾̽̏̌́̈́̐͛̃̀̒̓̕͘͝͝͝I̵̭̟͔̬̱̦͖͈̻͆͒͑̉͂̈́͑̿͐̓̚͝Ą̴̨̡̠̺͚̣̞͍͉͚̣̺̗͍̗̭̩̫͓̝͙̥̘͙͍̣̣̘͕͍̻͔͚͓̲̞̹̾̒̌͂͐̑̾̈́͘L̸̨̢̨̨̢̛͇̝̻͙̖͉̹͓͎̗̰̼̰͈͈͚̻̥̩͈̻͎͙͕̜̼̫͈̗͖̳͍̩͓͇͌̐͂͒̌͑̿̆͊̇̈́̀̒͑̽͑̃̈̿̑̌͗̏̀̊͘͜͜ͅŹ̴̨̢̳̪͕̳͖̬̣̪̪̘͖̱̬͕̠̟̹̗͙̩̘̳̤̼̖͎͔̥̙͕̟̝̅̾̓̈̃͋͂́̄͊̆͊̆̅̏͆͑̌̆̀̏̾͂͌͗̕̕̕͘͠͠͝
End 1
A.N: Start playing King Gnu's SPECIALZ for the ending.
I was unconvinced by JJK Modulo, so here I am. Contrary to the tone of the first chapter, this will 'mostly' be a comforting slice of life story where a 15 year old Yuji has the power of Modulo-era Yuji, but then decides that no, he doesn't want to become that bad-end adult self of his. So once Wasuke passes away, he shreds Sukuna's finger, says no to fate, goes to break his brothers the nine cursed wombs out of jail, and absconds with them into the deep wilderness where he builds a home farm, grow rice and sweet potatoes, and makes spaghetti for Choso-nii. Also there might be jujutsu world civil war happening in the back ground where Yuji throws out the bomb that he's the final product of Noritoshi Kamo, the 10th cursed womb, and the only to ever be born. And no, he doesn't want anything to do with that particular custody case. He just wants to chill and live the good life with the fam. K, thanks, bye!