Chapter 8
Plan first, then act.
The vow bought him abundant time to prepare.
He had to perform so convincingly that the moment Jujutsu Headquarters laid eyes on him, every petty scheme would die in their throats.
Even if the Gojo Clan sent a real attendant, that person would pale into a shadow beside him.
Asou Akiya smiled, slow and thoughtful. Conspiracy hid between his teeth; youth and maturity tangled in the curve of his lips. A strange, exhilarating urge to perform rose in his chest.
There was a saying that fit him perfectly now:
The best hunters always appear as prey.
Against the treacherous jujutsu world, he crafted an entertaining persona:
a cunning marionette.
The marionette spoke words not its own, robbed of freedom.
Yet this particular marionette had quietly seized every string and now pulled them itself.
Let the jujutsu society witness the power of wisdom…
Throughout summer vacation, the streets of Yokohama bore witness to the "Asou Akiya Study Tour."
"This! I want to learn this!"
At a patisserie he begged for unpaid work, eyes shining, just to master the art of cookies.
"Massage? No problem at all—never underestimate a teenager's strength!"
In a massage parlor he rolled up his sleeves, a thin layer of cursed energy coiling around his forearms, refining the techniques he had once practiced on his parents.
"Onee-san, please teach me nail care!"
At a nail salon he wheedled the female staff, then held out ten perfectly shaped fingers to the professional manicurist. "I have this friend who's hopeless at trimming nails—super lame. We made a bet. When school starts I'm gonna give him the most beautiful manicure ever."
"Lipstick? No, lip balm—which brand is best? Could you explain matte versus glossy?"
At the cosmetics counter he chatted easily with the saleswomen, then let a male clerk test shades on the back of his hand.
"Public bath… back-scrubbing? Uh… pass."
He lingered at the entrance, pinched his chin, and decided the pure-hearted high-schoolers of Jujutsu High probably couldn't handle that level of intimacy.
"I heard you're a legend at writing apologies."
He cornered a notorious underclassman delinquent, smiling sweetly while pressing a wallet of summer-job earnings into the boy's palm. "Teach me, senpai! I'll pay anything! I want copies of every single apology you've ever written—and I especially want to study the mythical ten-thousand-character fight apology!"
"People in Tokyo say 'Nice to meet you' like this, right? I might transfer there next year—I don't want to sound like a total hick."
He showed up at the home of a classmate who had moved from Tokyo to Yokohama, carrying handmade caramel cookies, cheeks pink with shyness, begging for accent lessons.
Open mouth, close mouth—repeat, repeat, repeat.
He threw himself into it with blazing enthusiasm.
He burned like a forge fire, determined to temper himself into steel.
Whenever the black-haired boy focused on one thing, an indescribable charm radiated from him—eyes luminous, attitude so infectiously positive that peers surrendered and hardened adults found themselves unable to refuse.
Japanese society prized politeness and distance, the art of never troubling others.
Yet the ones who could shatter that distance and still make people gladly help were the true masters of society.
To become the better, stronger "self" in his heart, Asou Akiya stepped far outside his comfort zone and sprinted toward becoming a social butterfly.
Busy days made time slip like water through fingers.
A date he had tried to forget was approaching.
End of 2004.
An event so "big" it would be etched into global disaster history.
He dared not speak it aloud. Every syllable, every breath, he crushed deep in his chest.
To voice it felt like inviting unprecedented calamity—like becoming the target of hundreds of thousands of vengeful souls.
December 26, 2004.
The unprecedented 9.3-magnitude earthquake off Indonesia.
290,000 dead.
Utterly, fundamentally,
impossible to change.
In his previous life he had only glimpsed the horror through a female forensic pathologist's video testimony. Sent to Indonesia for DNA identification, she said she had seen hell on earth: over five thousand bodies laid out in a field, swollen beyond recognition, skin sloughing off, impossible to tell color, nationality, or race…
All she could do for the dead was give them back their names.
[There are no gods in this world.]
[If I could save 290,000 lives… after I died, would the world of Jujutsu Kaisen at least let me become a Buddha?]
Asou Akiya inexplicably wished this cold, cursed world could be that merciful.
Because the mere thought of it made the human heart soften into warm, aching mush, made the soul secrete scalding liquid.
[If I had Gojo Satoru's power, I would fly to Indonesia right now. I would stand at the epicenter of the tsunami and watch humanity bloom—radiant, blinding—in the middle of hell.]
[But I don't. I can't even afford a plane ticket.]
[The cry I raise against catastrophe is so faint. Even if I screamed until my throat tore, how many of the strong would bend down to listen to the weak? How many would actually reach out a hand?]
["Protect the weak" is beautiful rhetoric—
but its greatest premise is that you must possess both kindness and overwhelming strength.]
[Geto Suguru is not strong enough.]
[Fushiguro Toji is not kind enough.]
[Yuki Tsukumo is missing abroad, probably living for herself. No good.]
[Kenjaku doesn't give a damn about ordinary humans.]
[Ryomen Sukuna inside twenty fingers just rolled his eyes at you.]
In a flash, countless names of the mighty streaked across his mind,
and finally stopped on one:
Gojo Satoru.
The divine child who, this year, still did not understand human feelings.
Confusion and disbelief crashed over him.
Why was he pinning such enormous hope on someone he had never even met?
Gojo Satoru had a peculiar trait: his outward personality shifted with every age.
Unlike most strong people who grew colder and crueler with time, Gojo moved in reverse.
The younger he was, the stronger the divinity—almost inhuman.
As a small child, one careless glance was enough to send curse users fleeing in cold sweat.
In the original story, even Zen'in Toji was momentarily stunned the first time he saw the Six Eyes of the Gojo Clan.
That single glance back held nothing but divine indifference.
You could safely pray to the future cool, handsome Gojo-sensei,
but you absolutely could not expect the current Gojo Satoru to harbor any desire to save the world.
From childhood he had killed humans and spirits the way others drink water.
He lacked a moral compass.
He was aristocracy perched at the very apex of society's pyramid.
Asou Akiya tasted a hundred conflicting emotions.
He kept asking himself—
why trust Gojo Satoru?
Are humans born good?
Are humans born evil?
That was exactly the answer.
Because Gojo Satoru was the only one among all the strongest
who still had the possibility of choosing to become good.
Because deep in Gojo Satoru's soul (deeper than arrogance, deeper than the Six Eyes) there exists the rarest, most precious thing in this dusty world: pity.
If Asou Akiya could truly stand before the fourteen-year-old Gojo Satoru,
if he could whisper even a fragment of his foreknowledge into that bored, divine ear,
there is a very high chance the boy would charter a plane on a whim, just to see whether it was true or not, and fly straight to the sea north of Sumatra.
And then?
Could a Gojo Satoru who only understood "Blue" protect himself while trying to protect others?
Could the gravity he commanded cancel the kinetic force of a tsunami that blotted out the sky?
Asou Akiya closed his eyes.
He saw it clearly: the white-haired boy standing in mid-air, Limitless pushed to its limit, cursed energy burning out like a dying star.
Exhaustion finally wins.
He falls.
The black water swallows that slender silhouette whole.
Two years early, on the edge of death, he comprehends Reverse Cursed Technique for the first time.
Drenched, battered, utterly alone, he crawls ashore.
["Hey, don't underestimate me!"]
Asou Akiya could almost hear the fourteen-year-old's careless, defiant voice ringing across the ocean.
["I didn't do it to save anyone. I just thought it'd be interesting, got it?"]
So impossibly arrogant.
And yet the only one in the entire world.
Asou Akiya laughed—soft, wet, crystalline tears at the corners of his eyes.
"I understand you," he whispered, gentle as if coaxing a spoiled prince, pushing the deadly whim far, far away.
"May the seas around you always be calm."
"Who understands your whims better than I do? Who understands the solitary supremacy of the honored god-child better than I do?
You are so good—so unbreakable that I can only sigh in admiration. You surpass millions upon millions of ordinary men."
In the bathroom, he turned the shower to cold and stood beneath it fully clothed.
Cold water doused the mortal fire that wanted to save the world.
Black hair plastered to his forehead, the boy stood ramrod straight and recited, voice hoarse, the ancient words from the Analects:
Zai Wo asked: "If a benevolent man were told, 'There is benevolence in the well,' would he go down after it?"
Confucius said: "Why should he do that?
A gentleman may be sent, but not trapped;
he may be deceived, but not ensnared."
Save others only after you have saved yourself.
Every life bears its own responsibility.
You must carry your own fate; you must never gamble away someone else's.
Year's end.
In a Kyoto temple, Asou Akiya lit incense for the dead and donated every last yen of his disaster-relief savings to Indonesia.
High above, the Buddha of Mercy gazed down with a serene, impassive face.
The faithless believer murmured the Pure Land sutras while his unstable cursed energy—fed by a sudden surge of grief, rage, and powerlessness—rippled outward into the winter night.
…
After this, the restless aura that had clung to him since transmigration finally settled.
Back at the children's home, Asou Akiya slipped quietly into the group. He sat on a low wooden bench with all the other parentless kids, watching the annual New Year's Eve Kohaku Uta Gassen on the old television, red team versus white team, songs and applause filling the common room like temporary warmth.
January 10.
He sat in a dim internet café booth and opened the official website of Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College.
The page was laughably bare—clearly designed to scare off anyone who wasn't supposed to find it.
No address. Just a single recruitment phone number tucked in the corner.
On his second birthday in this world—his fifteenth—Asou Akiya dialed the number he had dreamed of for so long.
He leaned close to the cheap microphone of the flip phone, lips barely moving. The faint whirr of computer fans mixed with his clear, pleasant boy's voice.
"Hello, is this recruitment? I saw the information on the website."
"I just turned fifteen—prime of youth, brimming with cursed energy, and I desperately want to join the jujutsu world."
"You're asking why I chose Tokyo Jujutsu High?"
"Because the person I want to meet is there."
"I'm not lying. I admire the divine child of the Gojo Clan. I heard he's enrolling this year. I'm really looking forward to becoming his classmate…
Would you like to register my name and address? Asou Akiya. Orphan. Current residence: St. Love Children's Home, Yokohama. No innate technique. Everything I know about the jujutsu world is secondhand rumor."
The black-haired boy's eyes curved into perfect crescents, answering every question with the unruffled grace of a model student.
When the stern male voice on the other end finished, he added softly,
"Today is my birthday, Yaga-sensei. Could I get a birthday wish?"
Silence.
At Tokyo Jujutsu High, first-year supervisor Yaga Masamichi suddenly felt a migraine coming on.
Divine child of the Gojo Clan? Calling me sensei already? Casually asking a stranger for birthday wishes?
This kid is definitely a problem child—with backing.
I've never met him, yet he recognized my voice the instant I spoke.
What kind of cursed year is this?
First a Gojo Clan young master who demanded enrollment,
then a Cursed Spirit Manipulator who had already tamed a second-grade spirit before even applying,
then a girl who mastered Reverse Cursed Technique on her own—something no one had done in decades.
"Happy birthday, Asou-kun," Yaga relented.
"It's Akiya-kun," the boy corrected gently.
"…Akiya-kun."
A vein throbbed on Yaga's forehead. His fists were already itching.
"I am Yaga Masamichi, first-year supervisor at Tokyo Jujutsu High. I am not your teacher yet. That was the school's public number. Add my personal cell later. I will visit your residence within the week. Prepare for the entrance examination."
"I await your arrival," Asou Akiya replied, calm and unhurried. "My physical technique is terrible. I've never had professional training. Please go easy on me."
Click. Call ended.
In the dim booth, Asou Akiya sat motionless for a long moment, as if savoring a satisfaction that had arrived years late.
His presence was quiet and refined—from the bridge of his nose to the line of his jaw, every feature matched the current aesthetic ideal for youth. Pointed chin, the kind of face that would still turn heads twenty years from now.
He couldn't afford new clothes, but the secondhand down jacket donated by some charity looked impeccable on him—wrinkles ironed out, light color perfectly suited to his frame. Shoulders and waist in ideal proportion, spine straight with the restrained dignity that only good upbringing gives.
He should have been the honor student at school,
the obedient son in a middle-class home,
spending winter break with parents who were proud of him.
["You must walk, step by step, down the path your parents hoped for you."]
He murmured the line to himself, voice soft, as though it were both promise and apology.
That final psychological suggestion finally crumbled.
At fifteen, Asou Akiya shattered the last shackles of his old life.
He still wanted credentials—but ones he chose himself.
He still wanted success—but only on a path he could believe in.
Justice had nothing to do with him.
Evil would not dictate his will.
Youth had smiled on him; naturally he would be a little willful, a little happier.
The black-haired boy exhaled slowly.
On the screen in front of him were piles of interview-prep pages; the notebook on the desk was crammed with every possible question the school might ask and his perfect answers.
He dragged the mouse, closed tab after tab, until only the default blue-sky desktop remained.
If life was the grandest MMORPG ever made,
he had finally logged in with a priceless starter account.
Now he would raise it properly.
Every ounce of effort he poured in would come back a hundredfold, a thousandfold, in intoxicating achievement.
He slipped on headphones, plugged in the USB drive, and opened the document he had been filling for months.
[Life Goal, Step Three: Earn living expenses for the new school term.]
In his previous life he had been a bookworm, a classic humanities kid. From world classics to trashy web novels, he had read everything. With light-novel taste twenty years ahead of Japan, writing one decent story was child's play.
Perhaps inspired by the ridiculous love-triangle lies he had spun last year, he had grown addicted to the act of creation—to breathing souls into characters.
Title decided.
Protagonist: the dread demon king "Jie" from Japan's Heian era, feared by all.
The strongest demon king reincarnates into a modern, ordinary family. Eccentric, antisocial, yet chooses to become a great onmyōji.
The story follows his invincible crusade against wraiths, the endless misunderstandings that dog him, and the cunning, old-schemer methods he uses to solve every problem.
In Akiya's telling, Demon King Jie is neither good nor evil.
He possesses the cold detachment of one who has seen through the world,
and the tolerant understanding of one who still remembers being human.
He knows human nature cannot withstand real testing.
Dreams of saving the world shatter easily.
An onmyōji must reach toward the light during the demon-hour at twilight, purifying the evil in men's hearts—
and that requires a heart of iron.
In the classic anime Yu Yu Hakusho, the antagonist Sensui fell from the side of human justice to the side of demons, hating humans for being crueler than monsters, choosing instead to protect the few kind-hearted yōkai.
Sorcerers must beware the same collapse of faith.
Twenty-eight-year-old Gojo Satoru once said:
Sorcerers should learn to be greedier.
Never entrust your beliefs to others.
When a sorcerer dies, they die alone.
…
Title:The Strongest Demon King Reincarnated as a Modern Master Onmyōji
Tagline:
"I will save people because Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva made me a promise.
How rotten humans are has nothing to do with me.
At most I'll be kind to the nearly-extinct good ones.
In short, I will save exactly 290,000 lives.
With the one chance to attain Buddhahood,
I will trade for the right to meet the person I love again in our next lives."
—Author: Spectator
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The Analects of Confucius
Zai Wo asked: "If a benevolent man were told, 'There is benevolence in the well,' would he follow it down?"
Confucius replied: "Why would he do such a thing?
A gentleman may be sent, but not ensnared;
he may be deceived, but not hoodwinked."
(Explanation:
Zai Wo is asking, "If you tell a truly kind person someone fell down a well, will he jump in to save them?"
Confucius answers: Don't be stupid. Go look first—if you can save them, save them; if you can't, don't throw your own life away too.
You can trick him into running over, but you can't trick him into dying pointlessly.
Blindly sacrificing yourself for others is not admirable.
To save anyone, first keep yourself alive.
We over-glorified "die to save others" for decades—that's exactly why people now freeze and watch others die.
Every life is a responsibility, not only to oneself.
You may lay down your life for justice,
but never treat life as meaningless.
You must live up to that responsibility.)