Gazing Up at the Moon from Within the Abyss

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"Once in a lifetime!!"
"Raise your hand if you timed your entry into the livestream perfectly!"
"Thank goodness I lived to see the era of full-immersion holograms—anime livestreams like this are incredible."
"The official teaser only said ‘a brand new project’ and ‘an unknown if-line,’ not a single spoiler."
"Is it just me or is the screen still black?"
"Wait, there’s sound—"

The screen remained black, but a line of subtitles appeared, followed by a voice:

“No matter if one is human or not, once you receive love, once you give love, it is equivalent to willingly stepping into a cage woven of thorns, never able to break free again.”
“To look up at the moon from the depths of the abyss is only to fall deeper into the mire.”

"Is this the opening narration?"
"Beautiful voice!"
"My whole life has been ruined by young male voices… gentle and pure, lingering at the end with a hint of playfulness—I'm smitten."
"Go on, keep writing!"
"I’m already looking forward to seeing the owner of that voice, friends."

A sudden, wet sound—something stabbing into flesh—then a muffled groan.

Then, uncontrolled, pain-filled cries.

"?! Don’t die!"
"Oh no, I just fell in love at first sight!"
"I was mentally prepared for ‘Jujutsu Kaisen is a dangerous, unreasonable world—anyone can die,’ but getting stabbed like that still hurts. Who understands."
"It’s been confirmed before, jjxx is only a nominal producer this time, production team don’t mess with us!"
"Huh? jjxx is still alive?"
"Alive."
"That’s a sad piece of trivia…"

Then, the black screen brightened.

A recording studio.

"Recording complete, Yuki, good job. ‘Takashi’ is wrapped!"

The recording director turned on the mic in the control room and spoke to the person inside the booth.

Through the soundproof glass, the person inside looked up and nodded at the people outside.

Yuki Ieiri.

The voice actor for "Takashi Ogasawara" in the anime.

With that one glance, the assistant in the control room couldn’t help but sigh, "Ieiri-kun’s looks are enough to star in a pure love movie."

But the recording director suddenly told his nephew, "Don’t get too close to him."

The assistant: "Huh?"

"So it was just a recording… false alarm."
"!!"
"Blond hair, blue eyes, a wolf-cut, pure features, but with a red mole on his lower lip—strangely alluring. I declare—she’s my new waifu!"
"New character? I’m in."
"What does ‘don’t get close’ mean?"
"My first reaction is, in Jujutsu Kaisen, this must be background for a doomed victim…"
"Reminds me of my dear Junpei, sob!"
"It’s an if-line, can the death flags be kicked aside?"

While the director and assistant exchanged a couple of words, Yuki Ieiri had already left the recording booth and casually picked up the phone on the table.

A new message popped up instantly.

[To Yuki Ieiri:
Congratulations, you have passed the preliminary selection for Tokyo Metropolitan Jujutsu Technical High School. Please bring your resolve to die and report to the school by 9:00 PM on April 1.
On behalf of the Jujutsu Sorcerers, I welcome you to the ‘Exorcise Sukuna’ squad, and I guarantee—
Your name will definitely appear on the hero’s gravestone.
P.S.: Remember to write your will.]

Yuki Ieiri: "?"

April 1st—April Fool’s joke?

And by the content—"resolve to die," "your name will be on the gravestone," "write your will"—it’s obviously a suicide mission.

Director: "What’s wrong?"

Yuki Ieiri snapped back, "Nothing, just a spam message…"

But as he looked up, semi-transparent lines of text flashed before his eyes.

Yuki Ieiri: "……"

"The livestream even has subtitles, nice."
"The new character’s full name is out—Yuki Ieiri!"
"The pronunciation of ‘Yuki’ is ‘yuuki’."
"It means ‘snow’."
"Is this foreshadowing he’ll die on a snowy day? (Honestly, jjxx has me marinated, I’m always wondering how the characters will be tortured)."

Yuki Ieiri: "…?"

The barrage seemed oblivious to the message, only discussing him.

Yuki thought of something and glanced back at the others in the control room.

As expected, they showed no reaction at all.

No one but him could see the continuously refreshing barrage of comments.

"Alright, I’ll call you Snowy Waifu!!"
"I’m so in."
"Guess how he’ll die."
"What’s with you guys? Don’t like the new character?"
"Not dislike, just that in Jujutsu Kaisen, the earlier a character dies, the less likely their character gets ruined (spoken from the bloody experience of Gojo and Fushiguro stans)."
"If waifu gets killed by the plot, it’s actually a blessing! Hahaha! (unhinged)"
"jjxx gave me PTSD."

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Jujutsu Kaisen…

Yuki Ieiri recalled the message, which also had the word “Jujutsu” in it.

Had he been hit by a hallucinatory curse?

He was used to it.

His original surname was Sakuragawa.

The Sakuragawa clan was ancient, conservative, and deeply superstitious.

They wanted to predict the future without limit, depending on prophecy to guide their path.

By coincidence, in this somewhat supernatural world, the clan head acquired the corpse of a yokai that could predict the future.

The creature was called a “Ken.”

Just as eating mermaid flesh grants immortality, eating the flesh of a Ken grants the power of prophecy.

But this prophecy came with a restriction: you could only foresee the future at the moment before death.

Thus, each person could only prophesy once.

After all, one only dies once.

The Sakuragawa clan was not satisfied and searched for a mermaid.

Eating mermaid flesh granted immortality—thus, they could offset the Ken’s curse.

But mermaid flesh was highly poisonous to most humans.

The head of the family gathered all the children aged six to eighteen and had them eat the mermaid flesh, unknowingly.

A selection—the only survivor could eat the Ken’s flesh.

Of the twelve present, only one survived.

It was not Yuki Sakuragawa.

He coughed blood, was declared dead, and later crawled out of his own coffin.

Perhaps fate favored him, letting him die and return a little late.

From then on, he gained an immortal body, forever frozen at eighteen.

So—

Not even a curse could kill him.

To be precise, even if he died, he would revive.

Inevitably, Yuki Ieiri’s attitude toward his own life became chillingly indifferent.

…

After the recording, Yuki was free to leave work.

The sky was overcast, as if rain was imminent.

Yuki walked home, putting on his headphones.

He watched the barrage in silence, occasionally letting out a soft chuckle.

"Why can’t Yuki laugh in my ear, even just once!?"
"Come breathe on my bed, give me a hundred grand, toss in a Jade Dog as an apology, black or white, and throw in an adult Fushiguro Megumi."
"Taking everything, I see."
"Adult Fushiguro Megumi…"
"Obey the law."
"Haha!"

The teasing tone of the comments suddenly shifted—

"Wait, am I seeing things or is the black mist behind Yuki getting thicker?"
"Camera just switched—so many curses…"
"Is the plot finally starting?!"
"The surrounding curses are so agitated, I’ve never seen a scene like this before."
"Chills down my spine."
"This is no small event…"

Curses?

Yuki stopped walking.

Wait, something was wrong with his surroundings…

Was this an alternate space, or had he crossed over?

Meanwhile, inside an abandoned building nearby—

Yuji Itadori, holding the Slaughter Demon, sliced off a curse’s arm with swift precision.

Not long after entering Jujutsu High, Yuji had just saved a child held hostage by a curse.

Before he could relax, the slit under his eye suddenly snapped open.

"—"

The blood-red pupil rotated, fixing in a certain direction.

At the same time, the dismembered curse began to rage.

A row of blister-like lumps grew along its spine, splitting open in an instant to form barbs, purple-black blood releasing a stench.

Nobara’s brow furrowed.

The curse’s aura was intensifying… evolving?!

Impossible!

On the other side, a hideous mouth appeared on Yuji’s cheek.

Sukuna’s deep, exhilarated voice rang out: "What a surprise—"

"Smack!"

Yuji slapped his own face hard.

"Resonance!"

Nobara quickly finished off the rapidly evolving curse, then turned and yelled:

"Can you focus for a second? Idiot… hey!"

Dark lines began to flicker on Yuji’s face.

Countless mouths bristling with fangs sprouted from his cheeks, the backs of his hands, his neck, all howling the same phrase in a frenzy:

"Eat him!"

"Eat him! Eat him—"

Nobara immediately realized something was wrong.

Yuji tried to clamp his hands over them, but there were too many—it was completely out of control.

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He reassured his comrade, "It’s fine, Nobara, give me a moment, I can suppress his agitation."

"It’s not just you, Yuji, idiot, there are other curses too!" Nobara shouted.

She looked out the window.

Crawling on the ground, scaling the walls, flying curses huddled together in layers, each one shrieking.

Purple-black cursed energy kept leaking from their bodies.

Dark clouds pressed down on the city, nearly blotting out the sky and light.

The massed curses looked like demons from hell.

It was nothing short of a living nightmare.

And their target was the golden-haired boy at the end of the road.

Grotesque, inhuman curses crept close, their murky eyes all focusing on a single person.

Tangible obsession surged; frenzied cursed energy churned.

The blond youth’s face remained calm.

Nobara Kugisaki could hardly believe it, murmuring, "What is going on here…"

Downstairs.

Megumi Fushiguro abruptly stood, tense all over, summoning Jade Dog: "Sensei!"

Gojo Satoru, blindfolded, was already on his feet, his Six Eyes seeing everything.

"Well, this is a situation even a battle-hardened teacher finds surprising…"

"Sensei!" Megumi called.

The white-haired teacher chuckled, "Don’t worry, I am the strongest, after all."

"(Screaming) (Crawling) (Kicking away curses) (Hugging Gojo Satoru tight)"
"Such a major scene…"
"Like a twisted Hyakki Yagyo."
"We want to know too—does Yuki have a special constitution?"
"It just turned into this all of a sudden?!"
"Such a creepy, eerie scene, the livestream camera just panned overhead, what a sight…"
"Feels more like… ten thousand ghosts bowing."
"Mainly, look at Yuki’s expression."

The golden-haired, blue-eyed boy faced this "hell" without fear.

He simply looked curious, raising his hand—

A black and gold butterfly-shaped curse fluttered its wings, hovering over his fingertip.

That seemed to be a signal—

In front of him, the curse mob that had paused now surged like a torrent.

Without hesitation, they rushed at Yuki Ieiri in a mindless frenzy!

"……"

In that instant!

Something seemed to stir within his body.

Yuki thought to himself.

A subtle sense of connection, as if something had linked inside him.

Several thick, black-red barbed whips suddenly shot out from behind him.

Covered in countless sharp teeth, they triggered a vortex of violence—

Space warped.

The brutal, terrifying whips moved with terrifying speed, savage and bloody.

Like alien creatures, the whips darted among the curses surging toward Yuki.

They showed no mercy, harvesting every curse in their path.

To onlookers, it was a display of utter ferocity.

Some curses didn’t even get a chance to scream before they were shredded.

In the blink of an eye, the air was thick with blood mist.

The fragments of curses became a foul, rain-like haze; a single drop of purple-black blood landed on Yuki’s cheek.

He instinctively stepped back.

"—"

And bumped into a cold body.

A pale hand, veins bulging, reached out from behind him.

The next moment, razor-sharp, black fingernails gripped his cheek.

Forcing him to tilt his chin up.

At the same time, a shadowy figure emerged from the darkness behind him.

At this close distance, Yuki could feel his icy breath.

The whips just now had been this stranger’s weapon.

In the wide street mirror, part of the figure was reflected—

Beautiful, striking, jet-black;

At the same time, damp, chilling, deathly pale;

Utterly lifeless, yet hauntingly handsome, silent and cold.

Like a black-red mandrake nourished by flesh and bone, surviving in hell.

The chat exploded.

"?!!"
"Muzan?! Is this real?!"
"No wonder it was a secret new project, even the Demon King makes a cameo?!"
"The production team is really delivering!"
"Is there more we, the audience, don’t know about?"
"Everyone, this pose between the two right now… I’m taking screenshots like crazy!!"
"Queen Ghost #1 makes her grand entrance!"