The air outside the clan compound tasted different.
Not cleaner—that would imply a purity, a refreshment that this new atmosphere decidedly lacked. This was something else entirely. A thin, metallic bitterness carried on the winter wind, the kind that settled on the tongue like licking old copper coins and made the back of the throat tingle with a phantom memory of blood and ozone. It was the taste of a world un-filtered, un-sanitized by the ancient wards and pervasive rituals of the Gojo estate. For the first time in years, the immense, oppressive stone walls were behind me. Their pale, weathered silhouettes sat like the ancient, bleached bones of a long-dead leviathan against the bruised plum and grey of the early morning sky, shrinking with every step I took, yet their spectral weight seemed to follow me, a ghost-limb of confinement.
It was strange. I had imagined this moment countless times in the secret, desperate theater of my mind—freedom, separation, severance—a triumphant, breathless launch into a new life. But the reality of it sat on me the way a heavy, sodden wool cloth suffocates a fire. Damp. Smothering. Too real, too dense with unspoken consequences. This wasn't a flight; it was an expulsion, a carefully managed exile, and the distinction was a stone in my gut.
"Walk," my guardian urged, his voice a low, neutral frequency. He tapped my shoulder once—not harshly, but with a firm, impersonal pressure that I couldn't pretend to miss. It was a punctuation mark on my hesitation.
Kazuo Uemura. Gojo's chosen watcher, my newly appointed leash. A man with a posture so straight and uncompromising it felt as if gravity itself had politely decided to avoid touching him out of sheer respect for his rigidity. He wasn't particularly tall, just unnervingly vertical. His presence didn't expand outward to fill space; he wasn't like Satoru, whose very existence bent the air around him with the gravitational pull of his confidence and unspoken dominance. Kazuo didn't radiate power; he radiated obedience, a kind of flawless, polished subservience to a system he clearly believed was his only anchor in a chaotic world.
He was the kind of sorcerer who followed rules not out of moral conviction, but because the rules were a shield, a suit of armor that protected him from the burden of original thought. The kind of man I needed to avoid disappointing, because his disappointment wouldn't be emotional—it would be procedural, and procedures were far harder to argue against.
Even now, he kept a precise three steps ahead of me, his head making minute, calculated turns as he scanned everything: alleys choked with shadows, rain-slicked rooftops, the impersonal glint of passing cars, the faces of pedestrians lost in their own mundane dramas. His cursed energy was a testament to his character—thin, tightly controlled, compressed from a potential aura into a narrow, lethal needle that only pierced the world where he consciously directed it. It was efficient. Soulless.
I found myself wondering, with a spike of petty irritation, if he even breathed for pleasure, or if each inhalation was a measured, tactical decision.
"Your pace is uneven," he stated abruptly, the words cutting the cold air like a shard of glass. He didn't turn his head.
"I'm thinking," I replied, the defensiveness in my voice barely masked.
"That's the problem."
He didn't look back, but the dry, utterly humorless tone in his voice suggested it wasn't a joke, merely a clinical observation. An uneven pace was a variable; variables introduced risk; risk was unacceptable. I didn't respond. I didn't have the luxury of lashing out, not with the fragile newness of my situation feeling as stable as a house of cards in a draft. Not yet. Not until I understood the hierarchy, the unspoken rules, and the precise limits of this new, conditional life.
We crossed a long, utilitarian pedestrian bridge that arced over a busy highway, a concrete ribbon leading from the modern, steel-and-glass heart of Tokyo into its older, more visceral districts. Below, the river of traffic roared, a constant, husky exhalation of the city. I pulled the strap of my small, worn travel bag closer to my chest, my fingers tightening around the coarse fabric until my knuckles ached. Inside were the only possessions the clan had deemed non-threatening enough for me to take. A few changes of simple, functional clothes. A single book of poetry—a small act of rebellion I'd managed to conceal. Nothing that spoke of my past, my lineage, or my potential. It was a curation of erasure.
Funny, I thought, how quickly a life could be reduced to a collection of weightless, insignificant things. All the training, the history, the silent battles fought within the confines of my room, all of it distilled down to this bag, and this bitter air.
Kazuo finally slowed his relentless march at the end of the bridge, where the modern city began to fray at the edges, blending into a labyrinth of narrow streets and flickering, outdated neon signs that buzzed like sleepy insects. "Your new residence is ahead. Temporary, until Gojo-dono finalizes long-term arrangements. Do not become attached."
The way he said it—Gojo-dono—carried a specific, deeply ingrained respect, a reverence that felt anachronistic. It was the polar opposite of how Satoru himself spoke, the man whose name he so formally honored.
Satoru didn't care for honorifics. He barely cared for conventions, treating protocol and ancient tradition like an annoying mosquito—visible enough to swat away when it buzzed too close, but not worth any actual consideration or effort. The clan elders feared him for that insolence. They despised him for the unassailable power that allowed it. And I, in the secret, shameful corner of my heart, admired him for it. That defiance was a language I desperately wanted to speak.
Maybe that was why he had offered me this exit. Maybe that was why he hadn't laughed, hadn't even blinked, when I finally, tremblingly, revealed the true nature of my Cursed Technique to him and him alone. Maybe that was why he had called me "interesting" with that wide, unnervingly unbothered grin, as if I were a particularly clever puzzle box and not a living, breathing disaster.
Or maybe, a more cynical part of me whispered, he just fundamentally disliked the clan's ossified structure and seized every minor opportunity to pick at its foundations, and I was merely a convenient loose stone. All three explanations were equally possible.
The building Kazuo pointed toward with a minimal chin gesture was a three-story apartment block, a study in urban anonymity. Not impressive, but not decrepit either. Just ordinary. Almost painfully, aggressively so. Its white exterior paint was washed out and streaked with the grime of seasons, and the wrought-iron stair rails were scabbed with the faint, orange-brown rust of a neighborhood forgotten by rapid development. A solitary vending machine, glowing with garish primary colors, hummed beside the entrance like a cheap, obedient guardian spirit.
Kazuo gestured with a flick of his wrist. "Inside."
I entered. The hallway was dim, smelling faintly of lemon-scented detergent and the underlying, melancholic scent of old wood polish. A thin trail of warm air from a hidden vent contrasted sharply with the morning chill clinging to my coat. Kazuo followed, his footsteps so preternaturally quiet on the linoleum floor that the silence itself felt unnerving, as if I were being trailed by a ghost.
"Second floor," he directed, his voice flat.
We climbed the stairs. The metal rungs groaned and creaked under our weight—mine light and hesitant, his precise and minimal. At the end of the stark, narrow hallway, he produced a key, unlocking a plain wooden door with a soft, definitive click. He then stepped aside, ceding the threshold.
"This is your space," he stated, the words devoid of any sentiment. A simple declaration of fact.
I stepped inside, my shoes making a soft scuffing sound on the thin, beige carpet.
It wasn't large—a single narrow bedroom just visible through an open door, a small, boxy living area with a low table, a kitchenette counter with a single-burner stove, and a single window overlooking the quiet street below. The furniture was basic, clean, and utterly unpersonalized. A beige sofa, a beige table, a beige lampshade. It looked less like a home and more like a storage unit for a person, a waiting room for a life yet to be determined. It was a canvas of nothingness.
I placed my bag down on the floor, the sound a dull thud in the stifling quiet.
Kazuo remained in the doorway, a silhouette against the hallway's gloom. He spoke again, his tone clipped and businesslike, as if reading from a manual. "Curfew is at nine. Not a suggestion. If you plan to leave the building for any reason other than designated training or assignments, you will notify me beforehand, stating your destination and estimated return time. If you feel cursed energy fluctuations above Grade 3 in the vicinity, you are not to engage. You will retreat immediately to this location and contact me. You have my number. Memorize it."
I nodded, the motion small and tight. "Understood."
"You are not part of the clan anymore," Kazuo added, and for the first time, his dark, unfaltering eyes seemed to truly pin me in place. "But you are still under Gojo-dono's authority. That means your safety is prioritized, but your independence is conditional. Your actions reflect upon him. Do you understand the distinction?"
"Yes," I repeated, the word tasting like ash.
His gaze held for a moment longer, dissecting me. "Your honesty yesterday. It surprised him."
I blinked, thrown by the personal note. "Satoru?"
A muscle in his jaw twitched almost imperceptibly at my casual use of the name. "He doesn't merely admire talent. Talent is common. He admires transparency in a world built on secrets." Kazuo's expression didn't change, but the intensity of his stare deepened. "That is the only reason you are here, and not in a sealed room deep beneath the estate. Don't waste the opportunity his… curiosity… has afforded you."
And with that final, loaded statement, he turned and left, sliding the door shut behind him with a whisper of wood on wood.
The lock clicked into place with a sound like a falling guillotine.
Silence poured into the room, cold and heavy, filling the space where his presence had been. It was a thick, suffocating quiet, broken only by the frantic thrumming of my own heart.
This is it, I thought, the words echoing in the hollow of my mind. I'm outside.
Outside the clan. Outside the suffocating, gilded cage of tradition and expectation. Outside the four walls of the room where I had hidden my Cursed Technique for years, a secret beast I dared not let anyone see. Outside the weekly cleansing rituals that felt like they were scouring away my individuality, the sneers of my more accomplished cousins, the harsh, whispered debates about my usefulness, the long, shadowed hallways echoing with a legacy I was never meant to inherit, a weight I was never strong enough to carry.
Freedom was supposed to feel… lighter. Like shedding a leaden coat.
Why, then, did it feel like I was drowning in this vast, open ocean of nothingness?
I moved to the bedroom and sat on the thin, firm mattress placed against the wall. Its worn springs pressed uncomfortably against my thighs. I leaned back, my head connecting with the wall, and stared up at the ceiling. No intricate family crest was carved into the wood. No hidden Gojo mon was embossed in the plaster. No subtle surveillance talisman was tucked into the corner of the ceiling, its paper edges quivering with invasive intent.
Just a plain, white, slightly textured surface, broken only by a cheap, frosted glass light bulb fixture.
I closed my eyes, but the emptiness behind my lids was just as vast.
For a long while, I did nothing but listen—to the distant, rhythmic growl of traffic, the soft, melodic chimes of pedestrians' phones, the faint, persistent hum of the vending machine outside. It was a cacophony compared to the profound, watchful silence of the clan compound. Yet, this new, urban noise was somehow… comforting. It was the sound of life, oblivious and unconcerned with my existence. It made the constriction in my chest feel a fraction less tight.
Still… the leaden weight remained. An unfamiliar sky pressing down on an unfamiliar room, containing an unfamiliar future.
My fingers drifted unconsciously to the inside of my left palm—to the place where my Cursed Technique always simmered, invisible but disconcertingly alive. A faint, familiar warmth pulsed there, a second, secret heartbeat. A potentiality waiting for a trigger.
He called it interesting.
Satoru Gojo's voice, light and annoyingly amused, echoed in my memory as if he were standing right beside me. I could almost see him, slouched against a pillar, blindfolded and grinning.
"Trying to hide your cards from me? It's rude, y'know? And more than a little pointless."
He was right. Hiding my CT had changed nothing within the clan; it had only made me a mystery, and mysteries in that world were either solved or eliminated. Revealing it to him, however, had changed everything outside it. It had been the key to this cell door.
I exhaled slowly, a long, shaky breath I felt I'd been holding for years. I wasn't used to breathing freely. The air in this small apartment felt too large, too thin for my constricted lungs.
Minutes passed. Maybe hours. I wasn't sure. Time in this sterile room seemed to stretch and warp like rubber—elastic, unfixed, strange without the rigid scheduling of the clan's day.
Eventually, a restlessness I couldn't ignore pushed me to my feet. I went to the window, fumbling with the stiff latch before finally wrenching it open.
The cold city air rushed in immediately, a brisk, tangible force that brushed against my cheeks and stirred my hair. The world below went about its business, a living tapestry of ordinary lives. People walked with purpose or leisure, their conversations rising and falling like scattered, human waves. A deliveryman argued good-naturedly with a shop owner. A group of schoolgirls laughed, their uniforms bright spots of color against the grey. Tokyo moved with a rhythm I had never been allowed to join before, a dance I had only ever watched from a soundproofed box.
For the very first time, I was seeing it not through a barrier of clan walls or the tinted, armored windows of a clan car. I was seeing it as a person. Not a possession. Not a future tool or a potential asset to be managed.
Just… a person.
The thought was so simple, yet so profoundly revolutionary that it made something sharp and painful twist in my chest, a knot of long-suppressed yearning finally breaking free.
A disbelieving laugh broke from my lips—quiet, a little broken. "I really made it out, huh?" I whispered to the empty room.
The silence, this time, didn't disagree. It simply held space for my incredulity.
I rested my elbows on the cool concrete of the window frame, leaning out slightly. My eyes traced the jagged horizon, where the skeletons of skyscrapers broke the flat winter light like a row of uneven teeth. Somewhere in that immense, sprawling skyline, I knew Satoru Gojo was also wandering, utterly carefree, probably hunting down some exclusive limited-edition pastry, ignoring a dozen pressing responsibilities, and turning the delicate balance of the Jujutsu society upside down simply because he felt like it, because he could.
He wasn't someone who subscribed to the romantic notion of saving people. He found the concept tedious and fraught with messy emotions.
But he didn't mind helping them, on occasion, when it amused him, or when it served to disrupt a system he held in contempt.
Maybe I had simply fallen into that category—a temporary curiosity, a diverting puzzle. A way to subtly flick a pebble at the clan's fortified gates.
And yet…
The memory surfaced, crisp and clear. Yesterday, in the stark interrogation chamber, when he had finally taken off his blindfold and looked at me—really looked at me, with those impossible, boundless Six Eyes—his usual air of casual amusement had sharpened, just for a single, suspended heartbeat. It was a flash of genuine, unadulterated focus. As if he hadn't just seen my Cursed Technique, but had recognized something in me. A spark of defiance. A point of divergence in a predetermined path. A fundamental refusal to be trapped, even by my own nature.
"It's a shame," he had murmured, the playful tone gone, replaced by something quieter, more introspective, "that the clan never bothered to look closely enough to see what you could become."
That line replayed in my head now, a mantra, a beacon, a threat.
What I could become.
Not what I should become, the narrow, prescribed path of a clan member. Not what they wanted me to become, a useful component in their machine.
What I could become. The sheer, terrifying, open-ended potential of it.
The thought felt dangerous. It was thrilling. It was utterly terrifying.
A sudden shiver wracked my body, partly from the cold air, partly from the vertigo of that unbounded future. I closed the window, the pane of glass sealing me back into my sterile new world. If I stayed here too long, trapped with the enormity of my own thoughts, I'd sink into the quicksand of my anxieties and never climb out. Action, however small, was the only antidote.
So I grabbed my coat from the bag and stepped back out into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind me. The lock engaged with a soft sound. Kazuo was nowhere in sight—but I could feel him. Not his physical presence, but the faint, needle-thin thread of his cursed energy, a nearly imperceptible sensation lightly brushing the back of my neck, a psychic leash. He was observing from the shadows, from a rooftop, from some other vantage point sorcerers were trained to utilize. Watching. Always watching.
I walked down the street, the soles of my shoes making soft, rhythmic taps on the pavement. The scents of the city were a complex symphony: the greasy, comforting aroma of yakitori from a street vendor setting up his cart, the sharp tang of exhaust fumes, the underlying dampness of concrete and cold earth. Stores were opening their metal shutters with a rattling clatter. An old man with a face like a kindly walnut slowly and methodically swept the front steps of his tiny tobacco shop. A young child, bundled in a bright red jacket, broke away from his mother's hand and ran across the sidewalk, giggling as he chased a 100-yen coin that had slipped from his grasp and was rolling away.
Everyday life. It unfolded without grandeur, without cosmic significance. It was… peaceful.
A chilling question followed the thought: Would my presence here ruin that peace?
The question carried a familiar, metallic bitterness, the same as the morning air. I wasn't naïve. Sorcerers weren't designed for stability. Our world was a dark ecosystem that revolved around death, curses, violence, grief, and impossible expectations. Peace for us was never a permanent state; it was a brief, precious exhale before the next inevitable, violent plunge into chaos. My very nature was a magnet for that chaos.
Maybe that was why I cherished the sight of this quiet, normal street more than I ever could have cherished the most exquisite garden within the clan compound.
At the corner, I stopped by a small, green-painted bench beside the entrance to a public park. A large, leafless ginkgo tree cast a intricate web of long, stark shadows across the pavement, a temporary tattoo drawn by the low-hanging sun. I sat, my breath forming thin, ghostly clouds in the cold air that hung before my face and then dissipated into nothing.
"Is this what freedom feels like?" I murmured to myself, the words stolen by a passing breeze.
No answer came from the empty bench beside me—but the silence that responded felt gentler this time, less judgmental.
A stray cat, a calico with one torn ear and an air of weary dignity, padded over from beneath a bush. It sniffed my shoe with bureaucratic disinterest, then looked up at me with large, bored, yellow eyes. Slowly, I reached down and scratched behind its ear. Its fur was surprisingly thick and warm, a small furnace of life against my cold fingers. It leaned into the touch for a moment before deciding it had bestowed enough of its presence upon me and wandered off.
Compared to the cold, calculating relationships of the clan, even this stray's brief, transactional company felt more real, more honest.
Minutes turned into longer moments. The city moved around me in its steady, relentless flow. I watched. I listened. I breathed. For the first time in my life, the world didn't demand anything from me. No rituals to observe. No obligations to fulfill. No silent, critical surveillance to endure.
Just existence. Simple, unadorned being.
It felt… incredibly fragile. As if a single sudden gust of wind, a single misstep, a single flicker of cursed energy from a passing spirit, could shatter this delicate glass bubble of normalcy.
I didn't know how long I sat there, tracing invisible circles on the cold, slatted wood of the bench, when the phone Kazuo had given me—a simple, black, utilitarian device—vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out. The screen glowed with a single line of text.
Where are you?
I sighed, the brief illusion of solitude popping. Freedom, it seemed, came with a detailed terms and conditions agreement, and Kazuo was its chief enforcer.
Outside. Just walking. I typed back, my thumb hovering over the send button for a second before pressing it.
A pause. The three little dots appeared, pulsed, and disappeared. Then:
Return within 20 minutes. You have an appointment.
Appointment?
The word sent a jolt through my system, a mix of dread and sharp curiosity. My stomach tightened into a cold knot. An appointment with whom? Gojo's doing? A final piece of paperwork for my exile? Or had the clan intervened already, demanding a follow-up, a re-evaluation? Perhaps it was the Jujutsu High? The message was infuriatingly, typically Kazuo.
My fingers hovered over the screen, poised to type What appointment? but I stopped myself. He rarely explained things he didn't feel obligated to explain, and questions were often seen as a challenge to his authority. Information was a commodity he doled out sparingly.
I stood from the bench, the cold having seeped through my coat. I began walking back the way I came, my pace now deliberately even, measured. The stray cat watched me from a safe distance under the bush, its eyes half-lidded, as if it knew my peace had been interrupted.
The wind seemed to grow colder, biting at my exposed ears and nose, as if ushering me back toward my designated cage.
As I neared the anonymous white apartment block, I felt a distinct, subtle ripple of cursed energy. It was small, controlled, a deliberate probe—not a threat, but a notification. A sorcerer's version of a cleared throat. Kazuo emerged from a shadowed alleyway between two buildings, his hands buried deep in the pockets of his dark coat, his expression as unreadable as stone.
"You're punctual," he observed. It wasn't praise, just another data point.
"You gave me 20 minutes," I replied, my voice neutral.
"Some don't listen. They test the boundaries immediately." He said it with the air of someone stating a universal, disappointing truth.
"I'm not some," I said, a flicker of defiance in my tone that I couldn't quite suppress.
His eyes flicked slightly toward me—not with approval, not with disapproval, just a bare acknowledgment of the statement. "Good. Come."
He turned without another word and began walking. I fell into step behind him, the familiar three-step gap re-establishing itself automatically.
We didn't go far—just around the back of the building to a small, secluded parking area hidden from the main street. A sleek, black, non-descript sedan waited, its engine purring with a low, expensive hum. The rear passenger door was already open, an dark, inviting maw.
Kazuo gestured with that same minimal, efficient wrist movement. "In."
"Where are we going?" I asked, my feet rooting to the spot.
"To meet someone."
"Who?"
"You'll see."
And that—the deliberate, infuriating vagueness—was unfortunately enough to tell me the answer wasn't optional, and my curiosity was not a factor he was required to consider.
Taking a slow, steadying breath, I ducked my head and stepped inside the car. The interior was immaculate and smelled of leather polish and cold air. Kazuo closed the door behind me with a solid, muffled thump, sealing me in. I heard the faint sound of him getting into the front passenger seat.
The engine's hum deepened slightly. The car began to move, smooth and silent as a ghost, pulling out of the parking space and navigating the narrow backstreets.
I stared out the tinted window. The world I had just begun to taste slid past, a blur of grey and muted color. The sky above remained a flat, featureless sheet of gray, holding all the secrets I had yet to uncover, all the challenges I had yet to face.
My first day outside the clan… and already, a new, unseen current was pulling me forward, away from the brief, fragile peace of the park bench and the stray cat.
It wasn't fear that tightened my chest this time as the car accelerated, merging into the relentless flow of Tokyo traffic. It was a low, simmering anticipation. A sense of convergence.
Something was beginning. A new chapter, a new test, a new set of rules to learn and navigate.
And I wasn't sure if I was ready—if I would ever be ready for the maelstrom that was life as a sorcerer, even an exiled one.
But for the first time, staring at my faint reflection in the glass, superimposed over the passing city, I felt a spark of something other than resignation.
I was willing.
For the first time since I could remember… I was willing to see what life would throw at me next.