Chapter Text
To the Benefit of Only One - Chapter 1
Shifting Balance - Chapter 1: Kage Adachi
The beginning of the life of the one who's birth swayed the balance of the world in equal measure as Satoru Gojo, who was second in talent only to the two Strongest Sorcerers to ever walk the face of the earth, wasn't like that of any other. His childhood stained with blood and bathed in the world's foulest shadows.
A boy who bore knowledge no one should know and cursed with the legacy of his blood.
Jewel of Plenty . Jewel of Turning Back on the Road . Mirror of the Deep
Before the sun crested the horizon, 9th December 1991. The Adachi Household
On a couch, lounging before a thick CRT-TV, was a two year old boy. Barely a foot tall with pale and clammy skin contrasting his messy, straight black hair; he looked ill to say the least, which wasn't helped by the misery contorting the infants face.
This was Kage Adachi, son of Akane and Hiroshi Adachi and two days ago was his birthday.
Then he had happily played with his friends and eaten enough cake to make an adults teeth ache, his grin had been the very definition of 'child like joy,'. Now though, suffering from a migraine that wrenched him from his slumber and frowning at the news with apathy, the boy looked the part of that joys antithesis.
Never before had he ever had a migraine and Kage had to say that he truly wished that the world had been kind enough to not have given him such an experience.
The world, as one would expect, paid no heed.
It'd been three in the morning when the toddler had awoken, fuzziness clouding his vision and pain shooting through his temples and since then he'd done everything he could think of to diminish it. From distracting himself with his morning routine, holding ice cubes from the freezer against his head to even helping himself to the contents of the medicine cabinet; nothing had worked.
And so, he'd resolved instead to ignore it, hoping that focusing on something else would at least let him ignore the pain. With it now being five -two hours since he'd woken to this constant agony, the sun still not quite above the horizon despite the winters earlier dawns- the boy had pretty much given up on that plan working, instead just settling on avoiding anything that'd make it worse and waiting for it to pass.
Through the open door too the hallway, Kage heard his parents room open. Never having been awake this early before, he hadn't know that his father started his day bright and early for his morning runs - something Kage himself couldn't imagine doing, considering he'd do anything to stay tucked under his covers asleep right now.
Who'd choose to be awake at this time? The boy had to feel like chisels were being driven into his skull to do so and his dad actively chose too, what was the matter with that man?
As the boy questioned his fathers early bird lifestyle, the man walked into the living room, dressed in a winter tracksuit and a pair of sneakers in one hand the man stuck his head into the living room with curiosity. The patriarch of the Adachi household double taking when he saw his two year old son awake at this hour.
"Kage?" the man intoned in surprise, sitting down next to the boy and dropping his shoes lightly on the carpet in front of him, "You good bud?" the question only being answered with a grunt. The man, light brown hair, dark eyes and a more tan complexion -a rather appealing gentleman in his early twenties- pulled on his sneakers and frowned in concern at the young boy.
Placing a hand onto the boys shoulder as he leaned in and gave him a half awkward smile, the weariness from yesterdays late shift and the early morning making him look haggard.
"Thanks for getting up and dressed," the man said, "saves us the trouble y'know...".
Fair was fair, the two year old hadn't ever gotten prepared in the morning by himself before, but for some reason it still rubbed him the wrong way to be thanked for such basic things.
Prepared for his run, he stood, ruffling the hair of his son as he went, and walked out the room. Kage could hear the front door opening and closing soon after.
As the morning wore on, his mother too awoke, he had heard her grumbled complaining when his father had gotten up at his horrifically early time but it was at seven in the morning when she truly rose from her own slumber.
She'd gone to his room, found it empty and then came to the living room with a bit of haste in her stride (likely unnerved by her sons empty bedroom) when she too found the boy awake and watching the television, she visibly deflated in relief and sat next to him as well. Her long black hair fresh from the shower and dressed in her office uniform -her jacket slung over her shoulder and a hair brush in one hand.
They'd talked, but with the boy doing everything to fight off the slowly fading pain in his head, it'd been stunted and flat, something that clearly worried her (sending a pang of guilt down the boys spine, something he'd wanted to apologise for immediately, yet couldn't bring himself to say).
Both of his parents worked, however with a son as young as himself, they'd adapted their schedules in order to best manage both their employment and their son in a rather admirable display of efficiency between the two of them. Every day they switch between one of them bringing Kage to day care (and thus starting their shift late and ending late) while the other came home just in time to pick the boy up and go home (starting early in the morning and ending in the early afternoon).
It was his fathers turn to start early and pick him up, having not returned from his morning run -his work jumpsuit being stashed at work and him cycling in- and thus it was his mothers turn to drive him in. She'd brushed his hair, adjusted his cloths and then smiled down at him -strained with slight worry from his disposition- before leading him out to the car early thanks to his own early start this morning.
He'd been ferried down the drive, his hand in hers. Once they got to their beat up family truck, he'd been picked up and placed gayly in the booster seat in the back.
The drive was restless, head in his hands, nursing the small remnant of the migraine, he could see his mother glance back at him through the rear-view mirrors, her brown eyes meeting his green whenever they caught the other looking.
She was worried about him, which was why she was checking on him so often, and the boy himself was ashamed of having her worry for him, the reason behind his own constant glances. The strange distance the sudden shift in Kage's disposition created was palpable.
So, instead of confronting the issue, Kage instead thought about everything and anything else he could aside from that.
For example: Kage didn't really know what his parents did for work. He knew that they both did different things, from his fathers jumpsuit he'd guess it was in some field involving utility, but if he was a plumber or electrician, he didn't know. His mother, on the other hand wore suits, ties and long skirts or pants, speaking to a more office oriented position.
'...For the 90's, was it normal for Women to work in Japan? He didn't really know the state of the Economy, but he did know that it wasn't that bad compared to what it'd be in the future, especially 2008. Did that mean that they weren't well off? No, it was likely just his mother, she was really head strong and responsible, so she likely insisted to work even if there was some kind of social stigma arou-'
Kage's train of thought ended rather abruptly when he realised what exactly it was that he was thinking.
'2008'? 'Social Stigma'? 'Economy'? What the fuck was he even on about?
(Where had he heard any of those before?... where had he ever heard the word 'fuck' before?)
This was the moment where Kage, for the first time, noticed that something had changed within himself on a much deeper level than a simple migraine.
For a long moment he simply considered what the hell was going on. In retrospect he'd been acting weirdly all day and now he'd just thought a bunch of random words that he -at least thought- he knew the meanings behind.
(And referring to 2008 like it was something he knew everything about and not seventeen years in the future)
'Economy' being one he especially shouldn't know, with the two years old boy's thoughts on the matter being -it's the rate a nation or region produced and consumed their goods and services as well as the stability and value of their currency- and he knew that definitely shouldn't have been something he could just know.
He'd never even learnt about anything like that, ever.
There was no way that he'd picked this up from a single morning of watching the news (which he had barely done, merely staring at the colours as he focused more on his pounding head) and this unexplained knowledge upset something deep in his stomach... he had to prove if this was at least real, that he had just randomly thought something that actually had meaning...
(The boy, at least part of him, hoped that it was just the delusions of a child).
His previous need to focus on anything aside from how he'd upset his mother thrown aside in his worry, he spoke up.
"Hey Mom, what does 'Economy' mean?" the boy said into the silence of the car. She glanced at him with a baffled look over her shoulder for a second, sitting as they were at a red light, before she chuckled to herself.
Shaking her head she said "News got you confused?" assuming his silence and terse attitude came from his early morning watch of the news and him getting frustrated at not understanding it, she answered blithly "It's just how much money is worth, and how much stuff it can buy. Think of it like that,".
While much less technical in her explanation (likely due to the fact that she was describing it to a two year old) her words matched quite closely to his own.
Kage bit his top lip, what did it mean that he suddenly knew a bunch of things that no one had told him.
The boy was silent for the rest of the ride.
Parking the car outside the small strip of shops along one of the backstreets of their neighbourhood, businesses who's bottom floor was the storefront and the upstairs an apartment, Kage was led inside by his mother. Through the bakery they went, past the smell of freshly baked pastries, and too the back door leading upstairs.
Once they climbed up the steep and narrow staircase, they found themselves inside day-care. The parent who's apartment this was, a woman who's husband and oldest son worked the bakery downstairs, greeted Mrs Adachi -who then left after giving Kage a quick peck on the cheek- and left him to be taken care of for the day.
There were seven other children, all gathered in a little cordoned off section of the apartments living room -with colouring pens and toys galore- while the woman looking over them would duck in and out of the room as she busied herself with housekeeping.
While not exactly a professional set up, Kage thought, it was understandable considering the family was running this operation out of pocket - only running the day care because she was close friends with all the parents who's children she was looking after.
It was routine, at this point, as Kage walked over to the other children, yet something was different.
Whatever had changed within the boy, (whatever let him know things he shouldn't) was now proving to be a rather firm hinderance to his socialization.
Kage realised, in retrospect, that before now he'd spoken in shorter sentences and thought with far less eloquence than he was today, and while -for whatever reason- he'd suddenly gotten much more adept cognitively, his peers weren't as fortunate.
So as Kage sat amongst the children around him, he found that it was frustratingly difficult to talk, play or even interact with them. For a reason beyond him, just trying to level with them felt strikingly immature.
(He was a child, why did he care about being immature. Thoughts like these would have never crossed his mind before, what was the matter with him).
And so, after some time (barley fifteen minutes, Kage felt far too embarrassed to try more than that, his cheeks and ears blushing bright red as he tried to fit in with a group of infants) he decided that it was a lost cause and abandoned his friends to sit alone in the corner.
It was a decision that was reciprocated by the children who, while likely not aware of it themselves, had noticed something was different about him and how awkward he'd become, avoiding him and his newfound strangeness.
And so, that was how the middle of Kage's very strange day went, sitting in the shadow cast by an arm chair, in the apartment of a family friend who may well have been a stranger.
Yet it was during those long hours into his drawn out stay, that he came to discover something...
Playing with a transformer and a power ranger -sound effects coming out the corner of his mouth as he did- he'd muttered something that he'd never heard of before to make the transformers punch cooler, tossing the red ranger back quietly as to not draw attention to himself.
"Black Flash!" he muttered under his breath.
Picking up the figure, he continued to play and, embarrassingly in hindsight, it took him about thirty seconds to ask the all important question.
What's a Black Flash?
The application of Cursed Energy to a physical blow within one trillionth of a second of contact, Cursed Energy can flash black, raising the power of the strike by the power of 2.5.
'Cursed Energy?' the boy thought, confused, but in that moment the boy's mind became clear -the last dregs of the migraine dissipating and the fogginess he didn't even know covered his mind cleared like a puzzle piece slotting exactly into place- as something seemed to reveal itself behind his eyes.
And then followed the deluge.
Knowledge within overlooked memories availed themselves and Kage gained access to all aspects of the intellectual property known as 'Jujutsu Kaisen,' in his minds eye.
The boy was flabbergasted. For whatever reason, his mind was flooded with information about the manga, anime adaptation, mobile games and light novels that wasn't due to be released until almost thirty years into the future.
And so the boy spent a good deal rest of his time at day-care, simply confused with the information going through his mind...
Kage's mind had been a maelstrom since his sudden acquisition of the memories to do with Jujutsu Kaisen and it wasn't until almost the dead of night that he could calm himself down enough to truly consider what it is that had happened.
Arms spread, pyjama's wrapped over him and half covered by his duvet, the boy pondered.
Until Today Kage had been living a completely normal life, no matter what way you looked at it he was a completely average two year old. The only thing he could think of that was different was that -while most children held some kind of familial resemblance to their parents- he looked nothing like his mother and father.
Their more rounded features, their less sharp bone structure, their lighter hair and deeper skin and not to mention his emerald eyes and their dark ones. But aside from that, he was rather typical for a child.
However while that may be the appearance from the outside, there was something slightly strange on the inside.
Now that Kage actually thought back on his past, he could actually notice something that was certainly atypical. He would be unusually adept at everything he tried on his first try, be it walking, talking, writing or drawing, he'd taken to it like a duck to water.
A sensation the boy would liken to riding a bicycle after not riding for years. Not that the boy had ever ridden a bike, being two and all, but that would be the closest comparison he'd think of.
But that was it. While Kage had never ridden a bike, that was the first metaphor he'd thought of and the feeling in his chest made it feel as if he wasn't thinking it on a whim but based upon experience. Experience he didn't have, because he'd never ridden a bike.
Rolling over, pulling one of his pillows from behind his head and hugging it close to his chest, the boy bit the nail of his thumb as he continued to wrack his brain.
What did all of this mean? That was what the boy had to think about. He couldn't keep getting bogged down with the strangeness of it all and had to look at this purely rationally - that is if he wanted his answers that is.
His history of being able to do anything he wanted on the first try despite never having done it before in his life.
A Migraine this morning.
Followed by him perfectly going through his morning routine despite having to forced through it everyday before.
Then he'd watched the news and thought of information he had no right to know.
And finally, at day-care, he'd felt embarrassed to talk to his fellow children and also gained the full length and breadth of Jujutsu Kaisen's media revealed to his mind like some demented forgotten memory.
What could he take away from this?
Well, objectively speaking, the most logical answer was some kind of personality disorder. That or he'd just gone batshit insane, believing that you suddenly gained general knowledge from nowhere and also happened to have the memory of a multi-national sensation beamed due to be released in over two decades beamed into your head wasn't exactly something a sane person believed.
But Kage didn't think he was insane. If you were to ignore the fact that he believed his rationality to be self evident, there was actually several pieces of objective data that proved that the strange occurrences were actually real and not just a figment of his own mind. For one, how had he known what an 'economy,' was without being told?
Furthermore, his new predisposition to just know things now, his change in attitude and his previous familiarity with several things he'd never experienced before (to him at least) made the idea that he was just insane implausible.
His next idea was for more out there; while he was by no means a Buddhist, or religious in general, perhaps this was some kind of evidence for reincarnation being real?
While complete unfounded and strange as a concept, the boy was leaning towards this being his answer to the strangeness that was today. Inheriting the memories from someone else who'd lived somewhere in the future...
To be honest, he wouldn't be able to confirm it until it got to around when JJK got released, to hard confirm if he was truly a reincarnated person.
The general knowledge he'd gotten wasn't really that reliable and only really came and went as he thought without restraint. It was less something that he could actively draw upon but something he just instinctually knew in his gut. So waiting for an event to happen ahead of time wasn't plausible, with the only thing he knew the hard dates for being the manga...
Sighing and rubbing his arm over his eyes, only one thought echoed in his mind once he was convinced he'd found his answer to his very strange day. 'Why'd his reincarnation have to be useless?' the information he had was either too vague to take advantage of, or a manga that was going to be popular once he was in his thirties...
"Fucking hell," Kage rolled over and shoved a pillow over his head, what a waste of time. He was going to catch up on the sleep he'd lost to this shit.
And then years passed him by, life falling back into a set routine -a familiar rhythm- with Kage's newfound revelation in tow.
At the age of four, Kage was enrolled in a local elementary school, having lost any connection with his peers due to his shift in demeanour, his relationships were further burdened with the transition into a new institution.
Under the understanding that, should he try to inform anyone of his situation regarding his new found memories, he wouldn't be believed, Kage began to take his memories for granted. It was a simple fact of life that was neither good nor bad, simply being.
But soon, three years after his influx of memories from his past life, Kage would again be confronted by the supernatural, assailed by a second revelation -not born from his rebirth, but instead his lineage.
Jewel of Plenty . Jewel of Turning Back on the Road . Mirror of the Deep
Midnight, 15th December, 1994. Kage's bedroom
Monsters were real.
To the layperson, should they look on the boy and somehow know his thoughts, they'd be rather disturbed. A five year old laid out flat on his bed, arms and legs spread like a starfish, alone, staring wide eyed at the ceiling and thinking about monsters? That was definitely abnormal.
Silence hung in his bedroom, once a relatively clean and ordered space, now a monument to chaos. Dirt tracked across the carpet and stationary strewn across the floor alongside sheets of messily scribbled upon pieces of paper and card.
Yet, despite the boy being on his lonesome, the room was alive with motion. Crayons rolled about the floor, papers crumpled under unseen weight and a glass of half drank water rattled off of his bedside table to the floor with a jolt and clatter.
The boy paid it no mind, after all to him, he wasn't the only one in his room.
"Woof!" an energetic bark shot through his temples, and looking to the side, Kage saw a jet black dog staring back up at him, play bowing onto it's front paws and it's tail wagging this way and that. It was a Shikigami, his Shikigami.
The twin of the black dog, a white dog, lay it's head on his lap and looked at him with concern out the corners of it's eyes.
What was before him was proof of something most absurd, proof that Jujutsu Kaisen wasn't just a story who's author likely hadn't even been born yet, but instead the world he now lived in.
What the fuck.
It'd all started earlier today, in the morning. In the yard where his elementary school held it's recess, Kage had been sat off to one side and scribbling into a notebook he'd been bought by his parents for his fifth birthday and drawing the building before him.
And then, with no warning, grotesque forms availed themselves to his sight. Dozens of monsters warbling off in the middle distance, looming over the other children at his school and retreating every time his vision fell onto them (they were scared of him, not that he'd known that in the moment).
Cursed Spirits.
It was a concept within Jujutsu Kaisen where the titular 'Cursed Energy' congealed over time into beings of concentrated negativity. Curses unto the world, who's bodies were formed through that wholly negative energy.
His reaction, he thought, was appropriate to the world suddenly being filled with monsters.
Recoiling in disgust the boy had gawped at the lumbering forms and scurrying figures of the curses. Survival instinct, however, had quickly overtaken his shock and he'd ran to go inside.
Only for his panicked sprint to be blocked by one of the teachers.
They'd asked him if he was ok, reminding him that if he wanted to go inside to use the restroom that he should inform one of the teachers before hand (the school being small enough that one or two teachers could oversea all of the children from kindergarten to Grade-5 without much issue, thus knowing if they were all there or not) as if putrid monsters weren't infesting the grass field like they were in some twisted facsimile of pokemon.
It had thrown him through a loop to such an extent that he found himself sitting back down in his corner wide eyed, observing the thirty or so children from ages four to eleven as they played and socialised amongst themselves as if the giant blobs of flesh and drool didn't exist.
Thirty minutes passed and recess came to an end, they were all herded inside, Kage being the last in -so caught up in his thoughts as he was.
They couldn't see them.
It was the only conclusion that made sense, that or he was seeing things, but when one such creatures brushed it's bulbous form past his leg with a sensation like tree bark and scabs, he dismissed the notion.
There was about five Curses across the classroom his final lesson was held in, the smallest was about the size of a small dog and the largest being twice his own size; he dared not look at any of them directly and instead only sent furtive glances out of the corner of his eyes.
(Kage thought, his hand stroking the fluff at the dop of the white dogs head, knowing now that these were the creatures that Gege Akutami depicted, that the man -through no fault of his own- failed to capture the pure malignance of their existence. He would liken the pallor of their skin to a corpses and the shape of their forms to bulging tumours. Cursed Spirits are revolting).
He was now no longer able to hold his attention on the subjects at hand, distracted by the small creatures that ducked in and out of the room at their own leisure, leering at them like particularly juicy cuts of meat.
Was he hallucinating? He desperately reconsidered the option.
If not, then what were these creatures? The idea that these repugnant and clearly malicious (one particularly small fly head hadn't stopped it's solitary quest to gnaw through the side of one of his classmates heads, causing the girl to massage her temple in pain - definitely malicious) had surrounded him without him knowing was deeply perturbing.
Worst of all, there was nothing that Kage could do.
And so for the rest of the day he sat in his seat near the back of the cramped classroom ignoring the low level curses as they came and went; pondering just what these monsters could be.
On the drive back home at the end of the day, he would get his answers.
Winding through the streets of the neighbourhood, Kage lost in his own world in the back seat as his father drove their family car with sluggish hands. His late shift the previous day gouging deep bags into his eyes and slouching his shoulders in inattentiveness. Soon, halfway home, they stopped at a four way intersection.
Once the light turned green his father began to accelerate the car and just at that moment, a large curse -the size of cow he'd say- with six legs and puss draining from great cysts across it's form, walked from the sidewalk and into the road. Blocking the road and directly in their paths.
Kage, seeing the creature with dozens of teeth and emanating a revolting musk he could smell through the windscreen, feared for his life.
"Stop-! Ghh!" Kage tried to call out to his father before they lurched forwards into the gross amalgam of limbs and sinew, but he was too late in his warning.
(He remembered early in the manga in one of the volume extras, just after Yuji and Nobara exorcised their first curse together, that Gege said that curses at particularly low levels of Cursed Energy could turn intangible at will and move through solid objects.
Kage, who at the time hadn't even known what was before him was a Curse, didn't know this and thought he was about to die in a head on collision with a puss filled cow thing).
The Curse choose to become intangible instead of indulging in being hit by a car -even if the mundane object would do no damage to it- causing the car to drive right through it. To the boy however, all he saw was the monster's bulk blurring towards him, moving through the car like it wasn't there, until it filled his vision with it's form (and his nostrils with it's miasma - it smelt really bad).
And what followed was the moment that contextualised his experiences until now, and told him that he lived in a world he thought was fiction.
In that moment of panic and shock, thinking the monster would hurt him or his father, his hands had flown up on instinct and something deep within his gut (his Cursed Energy flowing from passive reserves throughout his body and into active output in his naval), he activated his Innate Cursed Technique for the first time.
The patriarch of the Adachi family spluttered slightly, looked in the rear-view mirror as he accidentally stalled the car -ignoring the sharp honking from cars behind him- and snapped around to look at his son in the back, who had suddenly screamed for absolutely no reason.
"Wh-! Are you 'lright? Kage you good?" twisting in his seat, his father tried to make eye contact with him.
Yet his effort wasn't reciprocated by Kage, who's body was pressed back into the back of his seat, his eye's locked onto a patch of empty air in the backseat.
Or, that is what it appeared to Kage's non-sorcerer father, to Kage, who's hands had flown together into the shadow puppet of a dog's head on primal impulse, he was now locking eyes with a pair of twin dogs. Liquid Shade dripping from their fur from the shadow -his shadow- that they'd just emerged from.
One white and one black, red symbols across their foreheads and about the size of a wolf, the two canines panted at Kage with excitement. The white one moving to lick his face and the black -having been summoned on the edge of the seat and jostled by the cars sudden stop- was flat on it's back in the foot well and rolling about presenting it's stomach for patting.
(Needless to say, white's tongue slobbering over his face, Kage didn't give his father a response quickly).
These were Gyokuken.
The Divine Dogs of the Ten Shadows technique, the Cursed Technique inherited by both Megumi Fushiguro and Yuuka Okkotsu and usurped by Ryomen Sukuna. They were real and they had been sitting next to him in the back seat of his family car.
Kage had been absolutely speechless (and spluttering as white's pink tongue continued to assault his face, despite his protests) his father resumed driving despite his son's lack of answers. Looking back at him in concern every now and again until they finally reached home.
Right now it was... Kage rolled to his side and looked at the blue clock mounted on his wall... around eleven at night and he was still not any closer to getting any sleep as he was when he'd first gotten to his room. And, in all honesty while his existential crisis was the main reason, these two menaces weren't helping him any.
Cautious that his only proof that he wasn't insane would disappear, Kage hadn't moved to dismiss either of the two Dog Shikigami, so for the past few hours the dogs had flanked him and moved unseen as the afternoon had dragged off into night.
Which he was coming to regret somewhat, the little devils flaying his nerves as he tried to think (how had a paw print gotten onto his ceiling, he really wanted to know) . And, as a result of his unresponsiveness to their pestering, they had taken to finding their own means of entertainment.
Unfortunate with them being just as invisible as the Cursed Spirits and all.
When he'd gotten home, they'd jumped out the backseat and trodden on his dads feet, they'd dashed around the front garden like they owned the place and, once his mother came home at around six, they had tried to eat his food off of his plate at dinner. Even now, they were the cause of the mess across his room.
Well, the Black dog was, the White Shikigami dog was currently laid out across the bottom of his bed -it's head rested across his thighs- while the black one tore across his room in great circles. It bumped into this and that, bounding here and there while panting with it's pink tongue flopping this way and that as it ran.
Kage laid his arm over his eyes.
The moment that he'd laid his eyes on the animals he'd recognised them and he was still reckoning with what that meant.
For one, that meant the monsters he'd been seeing were Cursed Spirits, considering that was the only explanation that he could think of that answered both how he could summon dogs out his shadows and what the invisible monsters were.
Ten Shadows, Cursed Spirits, Cursed Energy. That was all fiction, it wasn't real, it was causing him no end of mental anguish trying to reconcile his own existence now that all three had proven themselves to exist.
What did it mean from him if he existed in a world he thought was only a story? Was he real? What even were these memories that he had lived mostly pathetically with for the past three years?
Kage's frown deepened, and Gyokuken white's face shifted from his thighs and onto his stomach, the canine nudging it's head under his hand and looking up at him out the top of it's eyes.
Sighing and indulging the dog with a scratch under the ear, he decided it'd be best if he just slept on it, he wasn't going to be making any progress any time soon anyway.
When he woke the next morning, the dogs were gone. Though the traces of their existence were still obvious in their absence, a large indent in his mattress right next to him from where white had laid itself and the chaos that black had left in it's wake.
It'd seem that he couldn't keep them summoned when he was asleep.
(That made sense, he remembered how Gyokuken: Kon -the totality of Megumi's dead white dog with it's surviving twin- had been dismissed when Megumi passed out when fighting the finger bearer. Kage had to consciously focus on keeping his Shikigami summoned).
After cleaning up after his dogs mess, Kage went through the motions and, once again, found himself in that very same school yard.
Curses, born from the negative emotions of the students and teachers of the establishment coiled around the children like monstrous barnacles, distasteful parasites. Kage had, for his part, tried his best not to think about the recent developments in the... unnatural he'd been having, but -once he again was left with nearly forty minutes to waste away- he decided to try out his new found abilities.
Frowning to himself, Kage wrapped his right hand over the top of his left, forming a dogs head and tried to activate his Cursed Technique, muttering "Gyokuken...".
A gust of wind blew through the grass, ruffling his hair, nothing.
Kage blinked down at his hands... maybe it was his mittens, it hadn't worn them in the car when he'd summoned the dogs yesterday, where the heater had been on full blast, so maybe they were getting the way. With his mittens now off, Kage huffed out a breath to concentrate -the respiration sending a plume of fog into the winter air- before he again chanted "Gyokuken".
Kage could see tumble weed bouncing along in his minds eye...
What the hell was he doing wrong! Kage grit his teeth in frustration (sending a quick glance up and -yup, curses were still real, he definitely hadn't imagined them- why weren't the dogs coming out his shadow?
Frustration bubbled and settled in his gut.
And then, as his emotions boiled, the boy had an idea. It was because of his lack of control of Cursed Energy that he couldn't use his technique. Yesterday, in the car, he'd followed his instincts by accident in a moment of fear and everything had fallen into place, but now he had to do everything himself, he had to actually try and use his reserves.
In that moment, Kage's quest changed from 'Use Cursed Technique,' and into 'Use Cursed Energy,'.
For the next ten or so minutes, Kage fooled around, crossed legged on the cold winter grass, trying his best to feel for the same esoteric energy within himself that he had the day before. Ironically, none of the meditation esque strategies worked to achieve this goal, and instead it was when recess was about to end and he was on the cusp of shouting in frustration that he first successfully accessed his Cursed Energy.
Something warm spluttered out from his gut and was shoddily guided into his fists as he swung them in petulant anger - stopping and starting on it's slow and far from fluid journey. A spark of orange-ish energy fluttered around his fists as his eye's snapped open from their scrunched closed state.
He watched in awe as the energy coiled around his fist, the emotional use of his energy staining it an unstable orange hue (hadn't that happened to Yuji... that was anime only right?) but as he focused on keeping it a consistent middling level, it soon calmed from twin raging bonfires and down into two stable blue flames.
Jarring, it was jarring. At least at first, the sight of blue fire, coated in ink like black highlights around the edges, looking exactly like it did in the show - but around his hands?
A fly head landed next to him and that jarring feeling gave way to giddy excitement.
Kage raised an open palm over towards the curse, it was barley a foot away from him, and aimed it with his other hand coiled around his wrist. Imaging what Gojo did to that can in season one (as well as the Detention centre Curse's entire move-set) he tried to fling out his Cursed Energy in a ranged attack.
A woosh and a pop, his Cursed Energy lanced out in a wave of blue light, the bolt of eldritch energy crashing through the curse and gouging a small hole out of the dirt behind it.
Now he could work with this, a grin spreading across his lips as he marvelled at the splattered form of the curse -bleeding foul smelling purple blood- turned to dust and floated away.
And like that, Kage gained the greatest fulfilment he'd every felt in his short life. For as long as he explored the depths of Jujutsu, the loneliness he felt deep in his hear born from his unnatural being would be warded off.
So he began to explore, to experiment and to pry into the deepest confines of his Technique and his Cursed Energy. He came to love curses.
Jewel of Plenty . Jewel of Turning Back on the Road . Mirror of the Deep
Two in the Morning, Mid February, 1995. The Back garden of Kage's Home
Months had passed since he'd gained knowledge of his existence within the world of Jujutsu Kaisen -or one operating somewhat similarly to it- and Kage was hitting a brick wall... both literally and figuratively. More specifically, his houses brick wall facing the back garden.
In many regards, the boy had made a lot of progress in terms of Jujutsu, using his knowledge from the show to make leaps and bounds others likely wouldn't in his situation. Par for the course, he had a wellspring of knowledge describing the highest level of Jujutsu in explicit detail, it'd be a bit embarrassing if he couldn't manage this much.
However, while his initial plunge into had been largely successful, he was reaching a dead end now that he was reaching the more advanced applications of his technique.
The basics of Cursed Energy manipulation, the activation of the Ten Shadows and Summoning of his Shikigami as well as his subjugation rituals (he'd only began one, not finishing it for obvious reasons). All of them had been covered and understood by the boy.
However one aplication was out of his reach, being the ability to summon a Shikigami's abilities without actually summoning the Shikigami. The most obvious examples which came to mind being the times Megumi borrowed rabbit escapes cloning ability in his domain or Sukuna's piercing water.
He'd failed to achieve it. In fact, he'd been failing badly.
What he'd been trying to achieve was the recreation of Yuuka Okkotsu's (Yuta's granddaughter in JJK Modulo) 'Savage Jaw Strike,'. It was the ability summoning of Gyokuken, were you make you hands act the claws/jaw of the dogs. In practice making your nails and Cursed energy sharper and more crushing.
Meaning in both slashing and two handed blows are greatly buffed. Essentially allowing you to have you finger nails act as deadly weapons.
Sol (Gyokuken white), barked over to Stella (Gyokuken black) who had snuck through a cracked wooden board in the wall of the back gardens shed and was now -from what he can tell- hunting rats. That fucking guy, the boy heaved a sigh as he relaxed his posture and turned to face the two playing Shikigami.
No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't draw out the ability of his Shikigami, perhaps because he simply wasn't familiar enough with the process of summoning or the mindset needed, but nonetheless, the failure was upsetting.
Facing the wall, Kage's hands and bloodied finger tips again took their stance as he prepared to continue.
Kage again brought his hands together into the hands sign of his dogs, chanted "Gyokuken," prepared to strike, and unleashed a clawed slash with his nails straight into the brick wall.
He felt his fingers crack under the impact, his nails skidding painfully across the hard surface.
Again, he made the hand sign, chanted, readied himself and struck.
And again, and again.
This was the one thing he was good at, the one thing he had fun doing, why couldn't he-
Biting his lip, rubbing his eyes, the child again made the hand sign, chanted and struck.
Objectively, the young prodigy's progress was unprecedented. Only the most talented of Sorcerers could progress so quickly, yet none before him had done so as young as the boy. Only two months since his awakening as a Sorcerer and his Cursed Energy reinforcement equalled that of some Grade-2 Sorcerers. His advancement through his technique was, similarly, absurdly swift.
However, to the boy who only had his family and his new pets alongside his technique, it was not enough; especially considering when he had the progress of the strongest Sorcerers in the modern era pictured clearly in the back of his head to use as his measuring stick. Simply put, the only thing the boy could think to fend off his building isolation was the pursuit of Jujutsu.
His parents growing concern over his lack of connections be damned.
And so, as he failed to make any more progress, the boy decided to go for drastic measures.
Jewel of Plenty . Jewel of Turning Back on the Road . Mirror of the Deep
Midnight, End of February 1995. Kage's Bedroom.
He'd had enough.
Kage was at his wits end. Perhaps he should have focused more on reinforcing his fundamentals before going into more advanced applications of his technique, but no. No he wasn't going to do that. It didn't matter that it might not be the right move, he'd spent so long on it that, at this point, it was much more personal than just what was the smartest move.
There was no world where he'd move on from this before he got savage jaw strike.
However, despite that, his lack of progress was eating away at him. For a while this (loneliness) frustration bubbled behind his eyes, but he'd then thought of a way to kill two birds with one stone.
Why not just subjugate one of his Shikigami?
Guaranteed progress alongside the perfect opportunity to learn a new application of his Cursed Technique, what wasn't there to love? Perhaps going into live combat wasn't the smartest idea considering that he was still five and had been a Sorcerer for a shorter time than end of season 1 Yuji, but what could you do?
It was just a frog anyway, the first and -probably- easiest to subjugate
(After the Megumi V. Todo fight -in the extras- there was a list of the Ten Shadows Shikigami which showed Gamma (Toad) numbered at #2t. It was pretty small against the inverse guy -only about waist height- and the largest it ever had been was about five foot during the detention centre arc where it was used to retrieve Kugisaki from the curses attacking her... it was easy pickings).
So, when Kage was sure that his parents were asleep, he crawled out his bedrooms window as quietly as he could and into the back garden, ready for a fight.
He'd thought about arming himself, perhaps with a knife from the kitchen or something like that, but that would defeat the entire purpose of the subjugation, so he instead entered this combat empty handed.
"Gyokuken," hands clasped together and taking deep breaths, Kage made the hand sign and summoned his two loyal dogs, who flanked him on either side. "Support me," was his short command, and the two dogs hunched into combat readiness, baring their teeth as they to readied themselves.
Before he began, he ventured into the shed using the same path that Stella had -navigating through the near pitch darkness with great difficulty- to pick up a plastic tarp. Dragging it back to the house, he draped it over to his parents window to prevent them from seeing what he was about to do next.
Two flash lights were then laid out on the ground amid the grass, taken from his homes laundry room and meant for black outs, the thin blades sending long and sharp shadows between the pale white light of their rays. He could see now, at least, there wasn't anymore he could do, so he began.
"With this treasure, I Summon:-" his hands weaving into the face of a Toad, Cursed Energy began to spring off of his form. Just like it did when Megumi summoned Mahoraga, yet it was much different from what Kage thought the Divine Generals aura would be. Kage wouldn't call the feeling of Gamma's subjugation weak, instead he'd say it was subtle, subdued even.
The shadows cast by the torch light deepened as liquid shade began to rise from it. Ignoring gravity, thick droplets fell upwards and into a ball of darkness which ebbed and waned like the ocean; soon enough Kage reached the point of no return, and the Subjugation Ritual took full effect. This would not end until he or the Shikigami were dead. "Gamma,".
As he spoke it's name, the floating ball of liquid darkness took shape, becoming a pure black statue of an immense toad that -after hanging in place for a moment- fell to the ground with a wet plop. Once it landed, it's form gained colour, and the six foot tall toad, Gamma, of the Ten Shadows looked down on him.
Pure black eyes, a dark green hide and a tan belly. A black oval sat on it's front, it's inside a bright white with a symbol depicting the 'Mirror of the Deep,' tattooed front and centre.
Did Kage expect the Toad to be six feet tall and about four foot wide? No. Did that change anything? Also no.
He'd kill it all the same and he'd figure out how to use ability summoning. There was no other option that he would accept.
For a long second silence reigned, Kage glaring at the Shikigami as it loomed over him some dozen feet away, his twin hounds growling as the tension built. It's giant form cast a great shadow on the fence behind it and it's deep black eyes regarded the three of them dispassionately.
Then, rather smugly (how did a toad look smug) it let out a deep ribbit and struck.
It's tongue, thick and rubbery like a bungee cord, snapped to one side of the garden, grabbing a plant pot to Kage's right before thrusting it's whole body in one great motion. The porcelain tub was thrown towards the boy and the pin dropped.
"Shit!" Kage ducked under the plant pot, his two dogs darting out to attack the Shikigami, the boys attention (however) was instead on the pot. It was careening through the air and towards the far side of the garden, a flight that would surely break it, and with it, his fathers hard fought pea shoots.
Cursed Energy reinforced his feet and he leapt to the side after the projectile. Stats, however, were not dependant on Cursed Energy alone, so while his rather advanced level of Cursed Energy reinforcement for his age did launch him, the other half of the equation was his physical body, which was that of a five year old. In other words, his CE reinforcement was let down by his weak body.
So while the few strides he took were impressive, kicking up dirt and chunks of grass as he ran, it wasn't fast enough to get to it in time.
But he didn't need to get to it, he just had to get within range to use that.
Kage retched his feet from under him and slammed it flat on the ground mid stride; the shadows beneath his feet bubbled and then shot forwards into the light, ending directly bellow where the pot would land. The plant fell into his shadow (and adding weight onto his back) with no issue.
While that was nice and all, Kage's body caught up with its momentum and -with his foot slammed down mid sprint- he had no footing to recover with and instead rolled across the ground in a painful thud. Thankfully, Cursed Energy reinforcement saved him from anything too serious, but the rough landing did knock the wind out of him.
Darting his head up to look to the other side of the garden, where the Shikigami were busy having a fight to the death.
Gamma shot out it's tongue at one of the dogs, either catching it or missing. Should it manage to bind one, the other twin would swoop in and snap at the tongue, causing it to reel it back in panic. It'd seem that Gyokuken was enough to keep Gamma occupied, but they weren't making any progress.
Yet the Toad wasn't dumb, it'd seem, seeing it's strategy to just eat one of the dogs was failing, instead of binding them it instead resorted to hit and run tactics. It used it's legs to jump over one as they lunged at the toad and flailed it's tongue like a whip at the other as it did so, forcing them both to keep their distance.
A perfect stalemate...
But just as it hopped over Stella, Kage joined the fight and broke that balance, his fist coated in a blue inferno of his Cursed energy. He cocked back a punch and uncorked it -putting all the momentum behind his dead sprint from the other side of the garden into the single strike.
A ring of blue energy exploded from the strike, his Cursed Energy -used at it's Maximum Output- enhancing his limb and flowing into Gamma in a haymaker, which rattled Kage's bones. It skidded back, it's body skipping like a stone and crashing into the house. It's back sending a dull thwack throughout the garden before it fell forwards onto it's stomach amid the flower beds.
Gamma's mouth opened, red blood pouring out like a waterfall, the Shikigami staggering -and failing- to return to it's feet from the strike.
...well he'd expected it to take a couple more hits then that. It didn't bode well for him if one of his support Shikigami was this weak.
Both Sol and Stella were dismissed, Kage letting them fall away by purposefully loosing focus on them. Kage had to give his Shikigami active willingly, and that stole a bit of his focus away, so to be able to fully focus on one thing he returned them too the shadows.
Instead he closed his eyes and focused on what he could do to achieve his other goal for this Subjugation.
(And, unknowingly, achieved the second condition to succeed in activating ability summoning. Using the ability of a Shikigami counted as summoning the Shikigami in full. One cannot summon multiple instances of the same Shikigami and, as a result, if you wanted to summon a Shikigami's ability, the Shikigami cannot already be summoned when you tried to draw on the abilites.
This was not considered by Kage, who was hamstrung by his knowledge.
Knowing Sukuna could summon both Mahoraga and the Dharma Chakra wheel, he didn't consider that summoning his Shikigami would disrupt his attempts. As to him, ability summoning and Sukuna using Mahoraga's wheel being one and the same.
However, in years to come, the distinction between ability summoning and Sukuna summoning Mahoara's whell would become clear to see).
Kage brought his hands together into the hand sign of a dogs head, chanted "Gyokuken: Savage Jaw Strike," and splayed his fingers. His nails extended and the Cursed Energy coiling around his hands roared into the shape of two snarling dogs heads.
Grinning Kage loomed towards the Shikigami, as it tried to get to it's feet and flee. Finally success.
Juju-Sanpo: The day after
(GabFr: Jujutsu Kaisen Parody)
Just after Gamma's Subjugation, Early February 1995. The Adachi households living room
"I'm sorry..." Kage said, his head down.
His mother, newspaper open and frowning heavily didn't respond, his father instead spoke with a deep and unimpressed intonation. "For?..." the man said, sipping a cup of black coffee as he did so.
The boy closed his eyes and straightened his back "Waking you up when you have work in the morning," his mother turned the page of her newspaper. Silence hung heavily and Kage knew they were waiting for him to continue.
"And for sneaking out at night,"...
"An-And for putting a tarp over your window!" the boy really was grasping at straws now, he couldn't think why else they'd be mad.
Just after the boy had finished off Gamma, he'd been startled by his parents slamming open the back door and staring at him, crouched over the flower bed, tarp over their window and flashlights lighting up the garden. A strange sight to be sure.
He'd been ferried off inside by his mother as his father tided up after his son, they'd sat in silence in the living room until his father came back almost three minutes later with a hot cup of coffee looking absolutely livid.
Taking a peak from under his eye lids, he saw his father take another sip from his cup and narrow his eyes at him.
Kage couldn't think of what else he'd want him to say.
Silence hung, with Kage fidgeting in place as his parents (either staring through his soul or at a news paper, which was worse? He didn't know) continued to scrutinize him. Sighing, his father sat back onto the couch, spreading one of his arms over the backboard. "Just go to your room and think about what you have to be sorry for,".
A lance of guilt and panic (and a little bit of indignation) shot through Kage's spine as he -on instinct- bowed slightly at his father and scampered off into his room.
The two adults left behind were silent for a moment.
"Damn," was his mothers first words, folding the newspaper into her lap, "ain't his rebellious phase a little early?" earning a little chuckle from her husband.
Rubbing the bridge of his nose, the man seemed to try and banish and early morning headache "I just want to know where my pea shoots are..." earning an eyebrow rase from the woman.
"He stole you pea shoots?" her question was filled with her bafflement.
Shaking his head the man sighed "The whole damn plant pot, I couldn't find it anywhere back there. Why'd he even do that?"
Kage lay in his bed, summoning his Shikigami and cuddling up to them. He felt heavy, his bottom lip quivering slightly, this was supposed to be a moment of victory for him! He'd figured out how to use ability summoning and subjugated Gamma, but now he was just sad.
Guilt weighed him down and-
Actually... Kage had been reinforcing himself for a bit now, why was that?
The five year old wracked his brain, until he opened his eyes in shock. Darting up in bed (earning a startled yip from both of his dogs) he jumped down onto the floor and opened the depths of his shadow and expelled everything inside.
Emerging onto the ground of his bedroom was a plant pot.
Shit, how was he going to get that back outside?
A good question, one for another day, as the boy shuffled the Pea shoots into the corner of his room and returned to bed. He was too tired to deal with this.