Chapter Five: The First Mission
For another person, if they were transported to another world, they would likely start in a beginner's area. There, they would train a little, grow a bit stronger, so they wouldn't die at the very start of their first mission while still at level one.
But for me, there was something called "Fate" that delivered me to this particular spot.
Tokyo Water Park. A famous area teeming with people coming to play in the water. If I had imagined myself in a slice-of-life world, I might have enjoyed coming here with a girlfriend (if I could ever get one). But alas, now I was here with a girl, not for romance, but to exorcise curses.
"You need to be careful. This mission, according to the management, is Grade Three, but things could potentially go wrong."
The girl's voice beside me as we passed through the entrance gate was unnervingly clear. Her eyes, a sharp, focused blue, scanned everything with a seriousness that suggested she didn't want to miss a single opportunity to scrutinize the place.
Unlike the carefree characters from manga and anime, she seemed… I don't know how to describe it, but at the very least, intensely grave.
Inside, after we entered the water park, the humid, chlorinated air hit my face. A cacophony of laughter, splashing, and cheerful shrieks filled the space. Crowds of people in vibrant swimwear played without a care in the world. If only they knew a curse was lurking somewhere here.
The moment I was lost in that thought, I began recalling the crucial information given to me by Kasumi Miou, the blue-haired girl.
The mission briefing mentioned disappearances, along with detected cursed energy activity in this area.
Honestly, as I wandered around and saw someone water-skiing, grinning on a floating platform, I couldn't comprehend where such a concentration of cursed energy could possibly come from.
After all, cursed energy stems from human fear and negative emotions. But this place, with laughter echoing from every corner… I really wanted to know how it had harvested enough negativity to spawn a curse.
Unbeknownst to Obito, there had been numerous incidents here.
Miou, who received the mission first, had also obtained extensive information about this place—bizarre disappearances. Furthermore, some of the barrier technicians had picked up traces of cursed energy here.
The volume of cursed energy wasn't excessively high, hence its classification as Grade Three. She herself was a Grade Three jujutsu sorcerer. The school's manager had sent her. Simultaneously, she was informed she would be going with a partner. When she saw his picture on the file, the boy looked terribly weak. No muscle tone to speak of, but he also seemed… oddly calm. She agreed, even though her agreement wasn't strictly necessary for this assignment.
Anyway, this area was dangerous, and she had felt it from the moment she first arrived. Not only because she had considerable experience dealing with Grade Three curses, but also because she adopted a serious professional demeanor when on the job. She stopped being her usual self and decided to be more composed.
On the other hand, her partner was Obito Zenin, from the Zenin clan, one of the three great jujutsu families. There shouldn't be any cause for concern.
Of course, that assumption was natural for her—that the person beside her was strong and trained. Unfortunately, she didn't know he had inhabited this body for just over two days and barely knew how to fight at a level that was primitive compared to the monsters called curses, let alone fight against someone trained in curse combat.
Unfortunately, Miou remained unaware of this, so she said in a quiet, earnest voice, "We should split up now. You head towards the main water park grounds, while I'll go to the aquarium viewing hall."
She didn't say another word and walked away. It wasn't because she was cold, but because she wanted to be professional. This was her method of being a quality jujutsu sorcerer.
"She really just left me."
Obito thought this as he watched the girl depart. He had no idea where she got this confidence in his ability to handle things alone.
He looked at the sprawling water park complex, at the people laughing everywhere, and the sounds suddenly seemed to mute around him as he stood isolated in the middle of it all.
"Should I just run away from this place?"
This was the crude plan he ultimately settled on. He wanted to live and had no desire to die again. Frankly, he didn't even know if he had died in his first life or not. But at this moment, he didn't want to risk testing interdimensional reincarnation. It might be… who knows, the world of Attack on Titan, where people get eaten by giants, or the world of Berserk, ruled by a cruel causality.
At least the world of Jujutsu Kaisen had a unique power system and offered some methods, however slim, for survival. But in those other worlds, he'd undoubtedly be a regular person. He wouldn't have the power of the Titans, and he'd have some connection to fate… which he certainly wouldn't have on his side.
The water park looked utterly normal from Obito's perspective, especially since he was still convinced this place couldn't possibly foster a dangerous curse. This was just a wishful fantasy so he could earn some mission money and get out safely. But he was also fairly certain it wouldn't be that easy.
Anyway, more than an hour passed. He moved among the crowds, observing the flow of human emotions. As a cursed energy user, he used his own energy to sense the emotional aura of the humans. So far, he found this place entirely incapable of generating a curse of any significant level. The happiness quotient here was far too high for such a thing.
It didn't last long before he felt a vibration from his phone. He lifted the device and looked at the name. It was his current teammate, Kasumi Miou.
"Hello? Did you find anything?"
I was about to say something, but I heard the phone erupt before I could—the sound of rushing water, a heavy splash, and finally, a sharp cry coming from a girl.
"Get down here now! It's in the food storage area in the lower section of the park!"
Then, the line went dead.
I didn't think the girl had hung up; it was more likely the phone had fallen from her hand while she was fighting something.
Obito stood frozen, his eyes darting around the cheerful scenery, and finally landed on the exit gate. He was on the verge of leaving, his feet carrying him almost to the threshold before he stopped.
"Dammit. If I leave like this and abandon the girl, and by some miracle she survives, doesn't that mean I fled the mission without doing anything?"
He wasn't a ninja on a mission; he was a sorcerer. So there was no Hokage to have him executed on the spot for desertion. But if he ran, it meant he would definitely be punished. And if the higher-ups found out, they might send him off to be deleted next time by assigning him a Grade One or Special Grade mission. That wasn't far from the truth, especially since in two years, Special Grade curses would be popping up everywhere.
There was no way out.
Obito turned around after a park employee gave him a curious look, probably thinking the young man was leaving. But abruptly, he dashed back into the heart of the water park.
As he ran, Obito's mind raced frantically about what he should do.
"I can't leave. The higher-ups can do really dangerous things if they discover I ran. And if this girl survives, she might hold a grudge, and I'm definitely not strong enough to handle any trained jujutsu sorcerer."
Unbeknownst to Obito, in that moment of intense, panicked thought, his body activated on instinct. His eyes, which were dark brown, flickered and shifted to a deep red, where patterns resembling tomoe wheels—the Mangekyo Sharingan—swirled into existence. At the same moment, the people Obito rushed past couldn't clearly perceive his movement because he was moving too fast. A blur of motion, he leaped over a low fence, his feet slapping against the wet concrete with a rapid pat-pat-pat-pat. Guided by a mental map formed from a single, fleeting glance at a park directory, he remembered the location of the food storage area in the lower section of the park.
His heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat of pure terror. The cheerful music from the park speakers now sounded like a grotesque, mocking carnival tune. The smell of sunscreen and fried food, once mildly pleasant, turned cloying and nauseating.
He skidded around a corner, his shoes squealing (SCREEEECH) against the damp tile. A family with inflatable ducks stared at him, the father's smile fading into a look of bewildered alarm.
"Sorry! Sorcerer business!" Obito yelled over his shoulder, the excuse sounding utterly ridiculous even to his own ears.
The path descended, leading away from the brightly lit main areas into a more utilitarian section. The noise of the park faded, replaced by the hum of industrial air conditioners and the distant, echoing drip-drip-drip (plink… plink… plink) of water from a leaky pipe. The walls here were bare concrete, stained with moisture. The air grew cooler, carrying the faint, sour smell of mildew and cleaning chemicals.
THUD.
A heavy impact reverberated through the corridor up ahead, followed by the distinct, wet sound of something large sloshing in water.
Obito's breath hitched. The Mangekyo in his eyes spun slowly, granting him enhanced perception. He could see the faint, malignant swirl of cursed energy leaking from a heavy metal door labeled 'Storage B – Perishables.'
His hand, which had been trembling, slowly clenched into a fist. This was it. The beginner's tutorial was over. The boss fight had begun, and he hadn't even gotten to practice the controls.
"Okay, Obito," he whispered to himself, his voice a dry crackle in the silent hall. "Just… open the door. Peek. Maybe it's just a really angry tuna. A cursed, Grade Three tuna. You can handle a fish, right? Right?"
He reached for the cold metal handle. The sound of his own swallowing was deafening in the quiet.
With a final, despairing thought about his life choices—both in his previous existence and this one—he turned the handle and pulled.
The door opened with a long, agonized C R R R R E A A A K.
What greeted him wasn't a giant tuna.
The storage room was vast, cold, and dimly lit by flickering fluorescent strips. Massive industrial shelves lined the walls, stacked with crates and sacks. But the center of the room was dominated by a large, sunken drainage basin, usually empty. Now, it was filled with murky, churning water that glowed with a sickly, phosphorescent green—the visible aura of dense cursed energy.
And in the center of that basin, rising from the water, was a grotesque, pulsating mass. It looked like a bloated, translucent bag of flesh, studded with half-a-dozen unblinking, human eyes that swiveled independently. Several long, whip-like tentacles, ending in hooked barbs, lashed around the room, smacking against metal shelves with loud, resonant BANGS and CLANGS, sending boxes tumbling.
One of those tentacles was currently wrapped around the ankle of Kasumi Miou, who was dangling upside down near the ceiling, her blue hair swaying. Her phone lay shattered on the wet floor below. With one hand, she was channeling a thin, crackling blue energy—her cursed technique—trying to sever the tentacle, but another limb kept swatting at her, disrupting her focus.
"Took you long enough!" she shouted, her voice strained but fiercely composed, even while upside-down. "It's a Grade Two! The information was wrong!"
"Oh, fantastic," Obito muttered, his knees feeling like jelly. "A surprise upgrade. Just what I needed."
The curse's main body gurgled, a sound like a clogged drain trying to swallow something alive. All its eyes rotated and focused on Obito, standing frozen in the doorway.
A tentacle, dripping with slimy water (drip… splat), whipped towards him with terrifying speed, cutting through the air with a sharp WHOOSH.
Instinct, fueled by sheer panic and the unnatural clarity of the Sharingan, took over. Obito didn't think; he threw himself to the left. The barbed end of the tentacle smashed into the doorframe right where his head had been, sending chunks of concrete flying with a CRUNCH.
He hit the ground hard, rolling on the cold, wet floor. The impact knocked the wind out of him (Huff!).
"Don't just stand there! Distract it!" Miou yelled, conjuring a larger bolt of blue energy and firing it at the curse's main eye. It struck with a sizzling ZZZAP!, causing the creature to shriek—a high-pitched, watery wail—and momentarily loosen its grip on her.
Obito scrambled to his feet, his mind blank. Distract it? How? Throw a rock? Tell it a joke?
Another tentacle came for him, a horizontal sweep aimed at his torso. The Sharingan tracked its path, the world seeming to slow down. He saw the individual barbs, the sheen of cursed mucus. He dropped to the floor again, feeling the appendage pass just inches above his back with another violent WHOOSH.
"This is insane!" he yelled, crawling behind a pallet of drink cans. "I don't have a technique! I don't have a weapon!"
"Use your cursed energy! Reinforce your body! Anything!" Miou responded, now free and landing in a crouch on a high shelf. She was breathing heavily, a cut on her forehead dripping blood. She looked down at him, and for the first time, her perfectly professional mask slipped, revealing a flash of utter confusion. "You're a Zenin! Do something!"
Right. The Zenin. Known for their formidable physical prowess and heavenly restriction. This body supposedly had the potential for that. But how did one activate it? Was there a secret phrase? 'By the power of family trauma, I summon thee?'
He focused, trying to push the swirling, anxious energy inside him—his cursed energy—to his limbs. It felt like trying to direct smoke with his bare hands. A faint, sputtering dark aura flickered around his fist, then died.
The curse, recovering from Miou's attack, seemed to decide the weird, flailing boy was the easier target. It retracted its tentacles from Miou and focused all its ocular attention on Obito. With a wet, sucking sound (SHLOOP), it began pulling its bulk from the drainage basin, water cascading off it in gallons.
"Oh no," Obito whispered. "Nononono…"
Miou saw the shift in focus. "Hey! Over here, you overgrown sewage backup!" She launched two quick energy projectiles. They struck the creature's back, causing it to flinch but not turn around. Its primary goal was now clear: eliminate the confused snack in the corner first.
One tentacle shot out, not to strike, but to wrap around the pallet Obito was hiding behind. With a horrific screech of metal (GRIIIIIND), it lifted the entire pallet, cans and all, and flung it across the room. It crashed into a shelf with a deafening, catastrophic BOOOOOOM, sending a rain of canned coffee and soda everywhere.
Obito was left exposed, crouching in a puddle, staring up at the dripping, multi-eyed horror now looming over him. The smell was overpowering—rotting seaweed, stagnant pond water, and something metallic, like blood.
The curse raised a single, thick tentacle high above its head, preparing for a final, crushing blow.
Time seemed to stretch. In the hyper-detailed view of the Sharingan, Obito saw everything: the droplets of greenish water falling from the tentacle, the contraction of the muscle before the strike, the absolute malice in those spinning human eyes.
This was it. He was going to die in a food storage room, killed by a sentient plumbing problem. What a stupid, undignified end.
A surge of something hot and raw erupted from his core. It wasn't skill. It wasn't trained technique. It was pure, unadulterated survival instinct, fueled by the injustice of it all—transferred to a deadly world, given a legacy body with no manual, and now about to be squashed before he could even figure out the basic attacks.
"I REFUSE!"
The words tore from his throat, raw and loud. The dark aura around him didn't just flicker; it exploded outwards in a wild, untamed wave. The red patterns in his eyes spun violently.
The tentacle came down.
Obito didn't dodge. Instead, his reinforced fist, shrouded in that chaotic black energy, shot upwards to meet it.
The impact wasn't a clean cut or a magical blast.
It was a sickening, wet SMASH.
Cursed energy, raw and uncontrolled, met the dense, gelatinous flesh of the tentacle. The force of the blow wasn't enough to sever it, but it was enough to deflect it. The barbed end slammed into the floor next to him, cracking the concrete and sending up a spray of filthy water.
The recoil traveled up the tentacle, causing the main body of the curse to wobble unsteadily. It let out a confused gurgle.
For a second, there was silence, broken only by the drip… drip… of water and Obito's ragged, desperate gasps for air. He stared at his own fist, smoke-like cursed energy dissipating from it. It throbbed with pain; he'd probably broken a few bones.
From her perch, Miou stared, her blue eyes wide. That… was not a refined jujutsu technique. That was a toddler having a tantrum with the power to level a house. But it had worked.
She didn't waste the opening. While the curse was disoriented, she gathered her energy, her hands moving in a precise, practiced pattern. "Don't let up!" she commanded, her voice regaining its sharp edge.
Obito, his body screaming in protest, saw the curse's eyes start to refocus on him, this time with a deeper, more agitated hatred. He had managed to annoy it. Great.
He pushed himself up, his legs shaking. "Okay," he panted, addressing the monstrosity. "Round two. But I'm warning you, my next move is… running away very strategically!"
He didn't run. Instead, he did the only thing his adrenaline-flooded brain could think of. He reached down, grabbed a fallen, dented can of coffee from the wreckage, and with a grunt (Hnngh!), hurled it at the curse's largest central eye.
The can flew in a pathetic, wobbly arc.
It bounced off the rubbery flesh with a soft thonk and fell into the water.
The curse blinked all its eyes slowly, as if processing the sheer audacity of this insult.
Then, it roared, a sound that shook the very shelves and made the light fixtures sway.
Miou facepalmed, the sound of her hand meeting her forehead a soft, despairing smack. "Idiot!" she hissed.
But Obito's ridiculous act had done one thing: it had given Miou the half-second she needed to complete her technique.
"Cobalt Binding: Chain Link!"
Blue chains of solidified cursed energy erupted from the shadows around the curse's base, snapping around its tentacles and main body with a series of sharp, crystalline CLINKS and CLANGS. The creature thrashed, but the chains held firm, sinking into its ethereal flesh.
"Now!" Miou screamed, jumping down from the shelf. "Its core is exposed! In the center of its mass! Hit it with everything you've got!"
Obito looked at the squirming, bound curse. The 'core' she mentioned was a small, dark, pulsating orb visible through the creature's semi-transparent skin. He looked at his bruised, probably broken hand. 'Everything he had' wasn't much.
But the chains wouldn't hold forever. He could see them straining, cracking under the curse's violent struggles.
There was no choice.
Gritting his teeth, he funneled every last drop of fear, frustration, and absurd anger into his good hand. The dark aura returned, more concentrated this time, swirling around his clenched fist like a miniature, violent storm.
He ran forward, ignoring the screaming pain in his body, the cold water splashing under his feet (splash, splash, splash). The curse saw him coming and redoubled its efforts, one partially-free tentacle whipping towards him.
The Sharingan predicted it. Obito dove under the swing, sliding through the grimy water on his knees. He came to a stop right in front of the bound, heaving mass. The core pulsed right before his eyes, a black heart beating with pure malice.
He didn't shout a cool technique name. He just put all his weight, all his will to live, into one desperate punch.
"Just… disappear!"
His fist, wreathed in chaotic, inelegant cursed energy, plunged into the curse's gelatinous body.
There was a moment of resistance, then a sensation of popping, like piercing a giant, rotten fruit.
SQUELCH.
The world erupted in a silent burst of dark purple energy. The curse didn't scream; it simply dissolved, its form unraveling into wisps of malevolent smoke that were quickly sucked into the void left by its destroyed core. The binding chains shattered into blue motes of light. The murky, cursed water in the basin lost its glow, becoming just ordinary, dirty water.
The sudden silence was absolute, broken only by the frantic dripping from pipes and Obito's own harsh, wheezing breaths. He was on his knees, his arm buried up to the elbow in the rapidly dissipating remnants of the curse. He yanked it back with a wet shluck sound, staring at the goo covering his hand.
He had done it. He had actually, somehow, defeated a Grade Two curse.
He then promptly turned to the side and threw up.
Hurk… blergh.
From behind him, he heard the soft squelch of wet shoes on concrete as Miou approached. She stopped a few feet away, looking down at him with an expression he couldn't quite decipher—a mix of shock, appraisal, and lingering annoyance.
She tossed a small, clean towel from a nearby supply shelf at him. It hit his shoulder with a soft whump.
"Here," she said, her voice back to its cool, professional tone, though a hint of something else—bewilderment, perhaps—lingered at the edges. "Clean up. The manager will want a report. A Grade Two appearance in a Grade Three zone is a significant discrepancy."
Obito wiped his mouth, then his hand, with the towel. "A report," he repeated dully. "Right." He looked up at her, his Sharingan having deactivated, leaving his eyes ordinary and exhausted. "So… did I do okay? For a beginner?"
Miou crossed her arms, looking at the wrecked storage room—the smashed shelves, the scattered cans, the puddles of water and dissolving curse residue. She looked back at his battered, vomit-stained form.
"Your form was atrocious," she stated bluntly. "Your cursed energy control is nonexistent. Your decision-making was… bizarre."
She paused, a very faint, almost imperceptible twitch at the corner of her mouth.
"But you didn't run. And you landed the final blow. For a first mission with an incorrect threat assessment… it's passable."
It wasn't praise. It was a factual assessment. But from the ever-serious Kasumi Miou, Obito would take it. It was better than being dead or fired.
He struggled to his feet, his body one giant ache. "Great. Passable. Can the 'passable' part include a long, hot bath and about three days of unconsciousness?"
"After the report," Miou said, already turning to leave, her shoes making crisp, definitive taps (tap, tap, tap) on the wet floor. "And medical clearance. Come on. We need to notify the maintenance crew for the non-sorcerers to clean up this… mess."
Obito limped after her, leaving the cold, dripping storage room behind. The cheerful sounds of the water park seemed to filter back in from a vast, impossible distance. He had survived his first mission. He had no idea how, and he felt like he'd been run over by a truck, but he had survived.
Now, he just had to figure out how to do it again, preferably with less vomiting and fewer surprise grade escalations.
The door to the storage room swung shut behind them with a final, hollow CLUNK, sealing away the evidence of the battle—except for the lingering smell of chlorine, mildew, and something faintly, unfortunately, reminiscent of rotten seafood.
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End of Chapter.
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