Aichi Prefecture, the Katō residence.
After the media storm had fermented for days, the address of the murder-arson was quietly added to the "Window's" watch list.
A Window operative arrived in time to witness the birth of a cursed spirit. Grade confirmed: second-grade. Report filed upward to the higher-ups—the General Affairs Department. From there the task was delegated to whichever sorcerer happened to be free.
The jujutsu world was perpetually short-staffed. Summer was peak curse season. Second-grade sorcerers—the backbone of the profession—were either en route to missions or already knee-deep in them. The assignment was downgraded one level and handed to a third-grade.
After a hard fight, a third-grade sorcerer with a Tokyo Jujutsu High pedigree finally exorcised the newborn second-grade spirit.
He staggered out of the Katō house, drenched in sweat, and complained to the auxiliary manager waiting outside. "It's already hot as hell today, and that thing could spit fire. Strong bastard. Heat on top of heat—I nearly passed out from heatstroke."
Beside the black van, the auxiliary manager bowed and offered a bottle of mineral water. "Thank you for your hard work."
The third-grade sorcerer yanked open the door, collapsed into the air-conditioned back seat, and came back to life. He muttered under his breath, "Can we stop giving these shit jobs to Tokyo High alumni?"
The auxiliary manager—trained at the same school—pretended not to hear. He knew it was impossible. To negotiate better treatment with the higher-ups, you needed to be at least first-grade. Anything less and they wouldn't spare you a glance.
First-grade was the openly acknowledged ceiling of the jujutsu world. The heads of the Three Great Families all sat at that level.
Japan had exactly two schools that trained sorcerers: Tokyo Jujutsu High and Kyoto Jujutsu High. Kyoto was the conservatives' fortress—safe, cushy, reserved for those with bloodline backing. Commoners without pedigree rolled the dice: if luck smiled, Tokyo High scouted them and sent an invitation. If not, they died young, devoured by the curses their own power attracted. Wild sorcerers who lived to adulthood were rarer than hen's teeth.
When the higher-ups dumped tasks, Tokyo High graduates often drew the short straw: missions where the intel was garbage, or the spirit turned out far stronger than advertised, or everything went sideways because someone upstairs couldn't be bothered to double-check.
In short, Tokyo High sorcerers died at rates that made international mercenaries look safe. If the pay wasn't good—and the higher-ups did pay on time—half the sorcerers in Tokyo would have quit years ago.
Retiring to become a Window operative or auxiliary manager was a decent fallback.
The catch: once you stepped off the front line, it was almost impossible to step back on. Cursed energy was tied to the spirit.
Abandon the fight and your strength plateaued forever.
Your status in the jujutsu world slid downward.
You lost the right to sit at the same victory-drinking table with the comrades who once trusted you with their lives.
Who didn't want to be the hero who saved humanity from the darkness?
The problem was: it was too hard.
Too exhausting.
In the end…
the only things left pushing you forward were a sorcerer's conscience and cold, hard cash.
Inside the van, the auxiliary manager brought up the case again. "The Katō incident has generated terrible public backlash. The two who died were boys—blunt-force trauma to the back of the skull. They were already gone by the time the ambulance arrived. I saw the online discussion: someone made an anonymous tip-off right before the fire started. That's why fire and medical got there fast enough to save the mother and daughter stabbed upstairs."
The third-grade sorcerer slapped a bandage on his own scrapes, too used to pain to bother with a hospital. "I'm a sorcerer, not a cop. Why should I care? Maybe one of the killer's own people grew a conscience."
"The scene was freakishly clean," the auxiliary manager replied, easing the van onto the prefectural road that would eventually lead them back to Tokyo. "Professional hitman. No fingerprints, no fibers, no murder weapon left behind. If they hadn't caught him red-handed, this would've fermented into a decades-long cold case and birthed a first-grade spirit."
The sorcerer's face darkened. "First-grade spirit? Are you messing with me? Why'd I only see a second-grade?"
"Because summer is peak fire season," the manager explained calmly. "National dread of fire could've birthed a first-grade. The fact that the case was cracked in hours and public sentiment was steered positive kept it down to second-grade."
Death by stabbing, not fire.
Killer in custody.
That was the only reason the newborn spirit had been "only" second-grade.
The young sorcerer had nothing to say to that. The memory of the flame-spitting curse made him loathe the human murderer even more.
Exhaustion finally won; his head lolled sideways, and he passed out clutching the cursed tool borrowed from the school.
Summer offered no holidays.
More people → more negativity → a terrifying number of curses.
This was the daily life most sorcerers faced now that Japan's population had crested its historic peak.
[Cursed energy residue.]
In a back alley of Yokohama, Asou Akiya was testing his newly acquired skill. He focused cursed energy into his eyes until faint trails appeared—recent paths left by cursed spirits.
[Exactly like the anime. Dark pigment splashed along the road. Third-grade trails are noticeably thicker than fourth-grade.]
After dozens of experiments he could now distinguish flyheads, fourth-grades, and third-grades by the intensity and volume of the residue.
He had yet to encounter a second-grade.
Low-grade residue usually lingered about twenty-four hours; higher grades were still unknown. The golden window for tracking was within the first day.
[To spirits, it's residue.
To sorcerers…]
[The technical term is cursed energy scent.]
Asou Akiya smiled and glanced at the vivid crimson trail he himself left behind. He liked the color.
[Mine is bright, almost gaudy—like real flame. Lasts longer than forty-eight hours.]
[No need to fuss over terminology. The modern jujutsu world uses whichever it prefers. When Geto Jack massacred 114 villagers, the higher-ups' official report called it "cursed residue." In the movie, twenty-seven-year-old Gojo Satoru sniffed out Geto's trail and called it "cursed scent."]
[Wouldn't surprise me if, to the higher-ups, curse users and cursed spirits both smell like garbage.]
[Reasonable discrimination.]
He walked on until he reached the riverbank, dipped his fingers into the flowing water, and released a pulse of cursed energy. The current diluted it instantly, washing the scarlet away.
Running water could erase cursed scent.
No wonder the Japanese treated crossing a stream or river as passing from this shore to the next.
It actually worked!
In the spirit of thorough research—and before he had even committed any crimes—Asou Akiya had already catalogued every known method of erasing cursed energy traces.
He thought rationally:
If he ever found himself in seventeen-year-old Geto Suguru's shoes, how would he dispose of the bodies and vanish without a trace?
The murder of 114 ordinary humans is a capital offense.
The motive—"they were ignorant villagers who harmed sorcerer children"—is meaningless to the higher-ups. Their cold-bloodedness far exceeds anything Geto Suguru ever imagined. Arguing human rights with a room full of political animals is a joke. The cleanest way to shut them up would be to knock out the auxiliary manager, dump every corpse at the feet of a cursed spirit, and let the spirit take the fall. It can't talk, but no one will listen.
As for the cursed scent a sorcerer leaves behind?
Asou Akiya spread his hands in his mind.
That's proof of a fierce battle, isn't it?
At that point, if the Gojo Clan stepped in to shield him and Geto showed even a little humility, he would walk away unscathed.
Because everyone knows a special-grade with Cursed Spirit Manipulation could not possibly have "fought desperately for hours" against spirits and still left an entire village dead except for two little girls with potential.
The higher-ups only want a plausible excuse on paper.
They have no interest in driving Geto Suguru into becoming a curse user—who willingly manufactures their own enemies?
[What if it were me instead?]
A chill settled in his stomach.
Power is the only reason they would compromise.
He is not special-grade.
No Gojo Satoru will rush in with the full weight of the Gojo Clan to bail his best friend out.
Reference character: Kusakabe Atsuya.
A sorcerer without an innate technique is forever barred from Domain Expansion.
Ceiling: first-grade.
The higher-ups do not show mercy to first-grade criminals.
[I would never kill only as a last resort. If I ever did…]
Asou Akiya stared at the flawless blue sky.
[Between fifteen and seventeen I would have more than enough time to master weapons. I would reinforce my body with cursed energy and kill with cold steel—no cursed scent left on the bodies. Feed every corpse to cursed spirits if possible. If no spirit is handy, call Geto Suguru, get the two girls to safety, then summon an unregistered spirit to pulp the remains.]
[As classmates, Geto would come to investigate once he heard the complexity of the situation. But when the higher-ups summoned us, he would he cover for me?
If I chose to defect, he would refuse to supply spirits.
If I chose to stay, he would ask how I planned to survive interrogation.]
[The higher-ups do not simply ask questions.
The best way to interrogate a sorcerer is to impose a Binding Vow.]
[A vow that I cannot lie.]
[…Lie, and die.]
His pupils dilated.
The most terrifying thing about joining the jujutsu world was not murder, not weakness,
but the inability to lie to the higher-ups.
He carried too many secrets.
One slip of the tongue and his life would no longer be his own.
Geto Suguru could survive his massacre.
Asou Akiya could not.
Same year, same class as Gojo Satoru, same commoner background—yet infinitely easier to crush.
Summon him once to headquarters and they could slap several unequal vows on him on the spot. They would never waste a perfect surveillance piece that could watch both Gojo and Geto.
How to escape that fate?
He was too weak.
Weakness was a flaw.
What usually compensates for a sorcerer's flaws?
Physical prowess? Cursed tools? Money? Connections?
Yes and no.
All of those require time.
Asou Akiya's face twisted.
In the prime of his youth, his absolute bottom line was: I will not become a spy.
Don't talk to him about double agents.
Gojo Satoru could expel him with a single word and give him no chance to explain.
Sunlight danced on the river's surface, reflecting a black-haired boy with red-rimmed eyes and clenched teeth.
"Is this reality too?"
After everything he had paid, he still wasn't qualified to be Gojo Satoru's classmate.
The sky stretched endlessly above him.
Did the only safe path mean keeping his distance—enrolling a year or two behind, as a harmless kouhai?
He didn't crave to be Gojo's best friend.
He only wanted to share the same classroom, the same fleeting youth, to taste ordinary happiness amid a road paved with sorcerer bones.
For that, he was willing to walk farther than most.
Was he asking for too much,
or had he simply flinched before the danger of the jujutsu world?
But he had no way back!
The letter would arrive at Tokyo Jujutsu High on May 1 next year!
Asou Akiya's thoughts tangled into knots. He bared his teeth and snarled at himself, "Think! Where is my advantage?"
"Step outside the board. I am not a player—I am the audience."
"I, Asou Akiya, a young male sorcerer, fifteen years old next year, entering Tokyo Jujutsu High. No innate technique, average cursed-energy reserves. From any conventional angle, I will never be outstanding combat personnel."
"So—what other identity could I possibly have in their eyes?"
"Someone with my personality… suited to become an auxiliary manager?"
"I, Asou Akiya, Gojo Satoru's classmate, destined after graduation to be Gojo Satoru's personal auxiliary manager?"
Something was missing.
He forced himself into God's perspective and stared down at "himself."
This person is young, reserved, polite and quiet after enrollment. Never shows the slightest discomfort at dropping from honor-student to "below-average." Keeps a friendly but distant attitude toward all three special-grade classmates.
Always watches Gojo Satoru and Geto Suguru's antics from the sidelines with a faint smile.
Chooses the quietest corner of the dorm, far from Gojo and Geto.
On the surface, full of distance.
This person never skips class, trains like a monk, treats Nighteye-sensei with perfect respect—yet secretly writes Gojo's and Geto's disciplinary reports for them.
Treats all male classmates equally, but quietly favors Gojo Satoru…
Dissonance.
From above, this person looks like he is acting out the perfect, harmless classmate.
Acting?
Acting for whom?
A commoner sorcerer fresh to the jujutsu world who doesn't befriend Geto Suguru, but instead "flatters" Gojo Satoru?
In any Jujutsu Kaisen doujin circle, that screams conspiracy. No one who shares a classroom with Gojo Satoru is ever simple.
The crucial point he had overlooked slammed into place. A shiver of breakthrough raced up his spine.
If the higher-ups already plan to use me as a convenient pawn,
why not become someone else's pawn first?
One fish can feed two people.
One chess piece cannot serve two boards.
Take the exact path the higher-ups want to force on me—and take it before they can force it. Leave them no road left to walk!
"I, Asou Akiya, orphan sorcerer, am… a piece secretly placed by the Gojo Clan.
My mission: as Gojo Satoru's classmate, stay low-key and cautious, and watch over the Gojo Clan's precious young master on his first time living away from home."
"Gojo Satoru is the unrivaled heir, surrounded by servants since birth, hand and foot waited on.
He has never lived alone.
Currently in his rebellious phase, he loves opposing his family at every turn. The Gojo elders are worried sick.
So they chose me to be their inside man at Tokyo Jujutsu High.
To prevent the young master from discovering my identity, I must hide it perfectly.
At the same time, the Gojo Clan—terrified of his tantrums—will swear on their lives that Asou Akiya is not one of theirs, even if the higher-ups come asking."
Asou Akiya's eyes blazed. He whispered to the river, "Asou Akiya will deny it. The Gojo Clan will deny it. That doesn't mean the higher-ups will believe the denial. They will dig deeper into Asou Akiya's every move."
"I understand jujutsu common sense."
"I know the Gojo Clan young master will enroll next year."
"I prepaid dessert VIP cards a full year early because I know he loves sweets."
"I make occasional trips to Kyoto, as if attending training and reporting."
"I know standard massage techniques, I can make milk tea, I can drive."
"I am perfectly ordinary—
but behind me stands one of the Three Great Families.
They cannot interrogate me.
They cannot order me to betray Gojo Satoru.
My body already carries harsh Binding Vows set by the Gojo Clan.
Force me to speak and the vows will kill me.
My death would offend the Gojo Clan.
Killing Gojo Satoru's classmate would enrage Gojo Satoru himself.
Any malice the higher-ups direct at me will have to stay within 'reasonable' limits."
This was his lifeline.
The only lifeline a commoner sorcerer could have.
"Use the Gojo Clan to overawe Jujutsu Headquarters!"
Jujutsu Headquarters can exist without a single Gojo on its roster,
but the real apex of the jujutsu world will always have Gojo blood in the room.
As long as no core power struggle is touched, Headquarters must give the Gojo Clan face.
They will follow the oldest rule: everyone sees through the charade, no one ever speaks it aloud.
Those fossilized elders will quietly reclassify Asou Akiya from "disposable orphan" to "someone's carefully placed insider."
Asou Akiya kept running the logic against canon.
The Six Eyes cannot read the soul, cannot read the heart, cannot read the exact wording of a Binding Vow.
Proof: when Yuji came back from the dead with Sukuna's secret vow sealed inside him, even twenty-eight-year-old Gojo Satoru could only guess at its contents.
[So the vow itself can be a complete fabrication.]
The smile that had begun to bloom on his face vanished just as quickly.
Half-measures would kill him.
He would never bet his life on whether Headquarters had some ancient technique to inspect vows.
So he did it properly.
He pictured himself alone, walking through the torii gates of the Gojo estate in Kyoto, kneeling on the polished engawa before the clan head who would never actually appear.
Then, facing the flowing river that would carry his words away, he raised four fingers to the sky.
A lone boy, swearing to the water and the wind.
"While I attend school, I shall never confess my true origins."
→ Hide that I am a transmigrator.
"While I attend school, I shall, as a classmate, help Gojo Satoru learn to live on his own."
→ Fulfill the duty of a classmate.
"While I attend school, I shall protect Gojo Satoru's growth.
His youth is my youth.
His life is my life.
I will treasure him more than anyone else,
revere the noble soul he was born with.
I am the one who chases his light;
he is my faith in everything beautiful.
Any sorcerer who harbors malice toward the bearer of the Six Eyes is my enemy."
→ Foresee fate, walk alongside fate, bear witness to fate.
He pressed his palm over his racing heart.
The sensation was so close to love it frightened him,
yet for the first time in two lifetimes he spoke the naked, honeyed truth.
"If I ever break these vows—"
"Then let me, Asou Akiya, die without burial!"
The river kept flowing.
The vow took.
A unilateral Binding Vow, sworn by a sorcerer upon his own soul,
silently locked into place.
…
Kyoto.
Deep within the Gojo Clan grounds that no map records.
In a silent courtyard older than most nations, the white-haired boy everyone already called the strongest suddenly sneezed three times in a row.
"Young Master?"
The maid outside the shōji flinched, but kept her forehead to the tatami.
From inside came only the sound of the new summer movie playing again.
The setting sun bled through the shōji, painting the dim room in molten gold. On the projection screen, a moving castle drifted across the sky, its iron legs clanking like distant thunder. Magic sparkled; an old woman grew young again; a wizard with gentle blue eyes reached for an ordinary girl and pulled her into the air. When Howl looked at Sophie, his gaze was no longer lonely.
Beyond the screen, another pair of blue eyes watched without blinking.
The Six Eyes—colors no human spectrum could ever mix—shimmered like frost on a winter lake, cold light rippling across impossible facets. They had broken the world's balance the day their owner was born.
Beside the futon lay the torn packaging of the film:
Howl's Moving Castle –Official Release: November 20, 2004.
Watching it months early was the least impressive privilege the young master of the Gojo Clan enjoyed.
For someone raised with the caution of "hold him in the mouth lest he melt," most of his life had been spent inside these walls, training, waiting, growing stronger than anyone needed to be.
He did not feel lonely.
Only bored.
To the Six Eyes, the world held no magic—only endless cursed energy, clear as thermal imaging. He could not turn them off. Every person carried their own swirling cloud of negativity; every second, torrents of information flooded his brain and drained it again.
Fourteen years old, white-haired, eyes too beautiful to be entirely human—cold, divine, untouchable.
Then he opened his mouth, and the boy returned.
"Someone just cursed me from afar, huh?"
Gojo Satoru's intuition was never wrong.
Three sneezes in a row for no reason?
Six Eyes confirmed the courtyard air was clean, his body healthy, cursed energy flowing perfectly.
Assassination attempts were weekly sport. Curse users loved blaming their miserable lives on him; they muttered his name like a prayer in reverse. One of them might have finally landed a long-range technique.
Long-range was the only explanation—the Gojo estate was enormous, and his quarters sat at the very heart of it.
"Which curse user managed to slip through the family barrier? I told those old geezers the wards are ancient and full of holes. Looks like I'll have to keep Limitless active for a while…"
He grinned—pure, radiant, the expression of a child who had just found a new toy.
"I'm not someone random trash gets to curse and walk away from."
"Don't die of backlash before I find you, okay?"
His smile widened, innocent and terrifying.
"I'm gonna crush you myself."
—-
[Mini Theater]
Asou Akiya: From today onward, I am no longer alone. My backing is the Schrödinger's Gojo Clan. Pleasure to work with you all.
Gojo Clan: We don't recall having anyone by that name.
Asou Akiya: Think harder. Maybe you will.
Gojo Clan: …
Asou Akiya: Don't worry, I'll take good care of the young master for you =v=
Jujutsu Headquarters: You're just bluffing with borrowed authority.
Asou Akiya: Nope. The Gojo Clan won't admit it, and neither will I.