Chapter Twenty-Two: After the Mission and Approaching Death
What the hell is this place?
The thought was a groggy, formless protest that swam up from the depths of unconsciousness before he could even shape it into words.
—The sound barely left Obito's lips as he opened his eyes with difficulty.
The act of opening his eyelids felt like prying apart two slabs of wet, heavy clay. There was resistance, a gritty discomfort, before light—soft, diffused light—flooded in.
Light was coming from the window behind the curtains.
He could see the outline of a window, sunlight filtering through thin, cream-colored curtains, painting the room in a gentle, late-afternoon gold.
While he was feeling his body lying on the bed, the size of his body, and covered with a thin blanket.
The sensations registered slowly, one by one. The firm support of a mattress beneath him. The light weight of a cotton blanket over his legs and torso. The slight, medicinal smell in the air—antiseptic and clean linen.
But it was strangely warm.
A consistent, gentle warmth enveloped him, not from the sun, but from the room itself. It was a clinical, controlled warmth, the kind maintained by central heating in a place that valued patient comfort.
He took a deep breath and began trying to make his eyes adjust.
His lungs filled with the clean, sterile air. The breath hitched slightly, a reminder that his body had been idle for a while. He blinked, the world a blur of soft light and pastel colors.
But before he succeeded in that, he heard a female voice coming from his left side before footsteps heading towards him.
The footsteps were soft, rubber-soled shoes on linoleum. Squeak… squeak… A calm, unhurried sound.
"It seems you've finally woken up. You were on the verge of death, boy."
The voice was female, definitely, but he didn't recognize it. Not from his memories, nor from Obito's previous memories. He had no knowledge of its owner.
The voice was female, definitely, but he didn't recognize it.
It was a mature voice, slightly husky, with a tone that blended professional detachment with a faint, underlying weariness. It wasn't unkind, but it wasn't warm either. It was the voice of someone who had seen too many people on the verge of death.
He couldn't determine her features, but she was definitely wearing white clothes resembling a doctor's clothes.
His vision was still blurry, but he could make out a white coat, the shape of a stethoscope around a neck, the outline of a figure standing beside his bed.
—Am I in a hospital, or was I taken to Kyoto Academy to be treated?—
*He wasn't capable of concluding anything except one of two conclusions. The logic was simple: injured sorcerers get medical attention. The question was where**.
But contrary to what he thought, he was in fact now in the nursing office of Tokyo Jujutsu High School, not Kyoto Academy.
The decor was a clue he couldn't yet parse. The room was spacious, clean, but with an old-fashioned, almost rustic wooden desk and shelves lined with both modern medical texts and ancient-looking scrolls. The vibe was less 'sterile hospital' and more 'clinic run by a very unusual doctor.'
He was now in the private nursing room of the doctor, Shoko Ieri, who was looking at him while taking a puff from her cigarette before releasing a cloud of smoke as if trying to forget something bad.
As his vision cleared, he saw her. A woman with short, dark hair, tired eyes with prominent dark circles, and a cigarette dangling from her lips. She wore a white lab coat over casual clothes. She looked like she hadn't slept in a week, but her gaze was sharp, assessing.
—This boy came to her by being injured with a serious injury, injuries to the head and nervous system. He could be in a critical condition.
She had been briefed. Grade Three student. Osaka Factory incident. Near-total cursed energy depletion. Severe neurological strain from an overclocked innate technique. Multiple physical traumas. Prognosis: Uncertain.*
She didn't even know how this young man managed to wake up at this moment, but she noticed his body movements; he had definitely woken up.
The slight shift of his head, the blinking, the deeper breath—these were conscious actions. Not a coma patient's twitches.
And that was interesting, at least for her.
Shoko Ieri was a woman profoundly bored by many things, but anomalous recoveries piqued her professional curiosity. She was a reverse cursed technique user, a miracle worker in a world of curses. Even her miracles had limits, and this kid should have been pushing them.
Even her reverse cursed technique couldn't heal everything.
Reverse cursed technique could regenerate flesh, mend bones, purge poisons. It was less effective on purely neurological damage, on brain fatigue, on the deep, spiritual exhaustion that came from burning one's soul as fuel.
The amount of damage that was in his nervous system was enough to make him fall into a coma.
His brain had been a computer running a thousand complex simulations while on fire. The hardware had nearly melted.
The probability of him regaining consciousness was very low, less than 30%, and the surprise was that he managed to achieve it.
She'd given him the standard treatment: stabilize the body with reverse technique, use cursed energy-infused IVs to nourish his core, set up talismanic arrays to soothe his fried neural pathways. Then, she'd waited. The fact he was awake and lucid (or at least, asking questions) was the 30% outcome hitting the jackpot.
"Where am I? What is this place?"
The young man's voice was raspy, dry, each word an effort. It was full of hesitation, but also... it sounded relieved, as if he had found himself in a safe place.
The young man's voice, for her, was full of hesitation, but it also seemed relaxed, as if he had found himself in a safe place.
She raised an eyebrow slightly, taking another slow drag from her cigarette. Puff… exhale. The smoke curled towards the ceiling. Relaxed? After what he'd been through? Interesting.
She was surprised, but when she thought about it, maybe he thought he was in Kyoto Academy, so he didn't seem afraid.
It was a reasonable assumption. He was a Kyoto student. He'd wake up in a medical ward, assume it was his school's. It would be a familiar, safe context.
She told him as she approached her desk, "You are in Tokyo Jujutsu High School."
She said it flatly, watching for his reaction. It was always informative to see how people processed displacement.
After informing him of that, she heard a sound resembling collapse and astonishment, but it didn't last long.
From the bed came a soft, choked "Huh?" followed by a sharp intake of breath, then silence. The sound of mental gears grinding to a halt.
She also didn't care about the meaning of this sound; at least she was very busy.
She really was. The dark circles under her eyes weren't just for show. The Osaka incident had been a mess. Three critically injured students, one Grade One curse exorcism to clean up after, and the subsequent paperwork had been a nightmare that violated her sacred overtime boundaries.
The dark circles around her eyes from staying up for several nights, in addition to using the reverse cursed technique, had made her uninterested in continuing to talk or know what a person in a coma was babbling about, especially if that young man was just a 16-year-old child.
She stubbed out her cigarette in an overflowing ashtray on her desk with a final tssk. She had reports to fill out. His awakening was a data point to log, not the start of a heartfelt conversation.
—
Obito managed to hear the woman's words well. He was in Tokyo Academy. This meant he was now in the place where the manga events began.
The realization was a cold splash of water on his groggy mind. Tokyo Jujutsu High. The main stage. Where Yuji Itadori would eventually eat Sukuna's finger. Where Satoru Gojo teaches. The epicenter.*
This same academy that gathers the story's protagonists. In addition to that, this meant Satoru Gojo was also in this place.
Gojo Satoru. The strongest. The man with the infinity technique and the personality of a chaotic, overpowered god. He was somewhere in this building, or on campus. The thought was simultaneously terrifying and absurd.
—This is insane.—
His description of the matter this way was logical, at least for him. His life was a poorly written isekai fanfiction, and he'd just been teleported to the capital city of the plot.
But there was something Obito wanted to ask her, even if his voice was intermittent and he felt as if he hadn't had water in a long time.
His throat was parched, each syllable scraping like sandpaper. He swallowed, which hurt.
"How long... was I unconscious?"
The words came out in a dry croak.
The sound stopped and the flipping of pages that was coming from the woman, then he felt there was a period of sighing before she said:
She didn't look up from the file she was reading. She took a slow breath, as if calculating, or perhaps just steeling herself to deliver bad news.
"A month. You've been unconscious for a month."
She said it with the same detached tone one might use to state the weather.
First, the thought of a simple thing, which was the word 'month'. For a full minute, the place fell silent.
The words hung in the air, heavy and absolute. Sixty seconds ticked by, marked only by the soft tick-tock of a clock on the wall and the distant sound of a bird outside. Obito didn't move, didn't breathe. His brain was processing, rejecting, then re-processing the information.
Then finally, a sound of astonishment came from him, followed directly by a dazed look as he opened his eyes, ignoring the light coming from above him.
"A month?! Was I out for a month?!"
His voice was stronger now, laced with genuine shock and disbelief. He tried to push himself up on his elbows, but a wave of weakness and dizziness forced him back down with a soft thump against the pillow.
Of course, Obito didn't realize his true condition.
He'd been asleep. How bad could it be?
His body had reached its maximum stages of endurance before transferring to this body.
The original Obito's body was a flimsy foundation—untalented, poorly conditioned, neglected. He'd built on it with a few weeks of Kyoshi's brutal training, like trying to construct a skyscraper on sand.
This body was weak from the start and didn't possess talent, and a week was all he got from training, plus a few other days to try to train his body.
It was a pitifully short boot camp. He'd learned to hold a knife and not trip over his own feet. He hadn't built endurance, resilience, or a deep well of cursed energy.
This period was short, insufficient to build a complete body, let alone a body that was asked to use cursed energy with high efficiency in a place of pressure full of the oppressive cursed pressure of a Grade Two and Grade One curse.
The factory had been a pressure cooker for seasoned sorcerers. For him, it had been like throwing a teacup into a hydraulic press.
The matter was insane, in addition to fighting dozens of different Grade Three curses.
Each fight, each dodge, each surge of Sharingan-enhanced perception had been a withdrawal from an already overdrawn account.
All these things made the body reach its maximum limits. But this wasn't the only problem.
Physical damage was one thing. The body could, with time and Shoko's reverse technique, be patched up. The real problem was the software crash.
—
The thing that made Obito remain unconscious for a full month wasn't just the physical effort; it was the mental effort.
His brain had been the true battlefield.
The Sharingan had been working non-stop, in addition to that, all its features were activated.
Enhanced vision. Cursed energy perception. Predictive movement tracking. And finally, the mimicry that enabled him to replicate skills that were in his mind for a continuous period of time.
Seeing cursed energy accurately, seeing and predicting the opponent's movement, and finally, there was the mimicry that enabled him to mimic skills that were in his mind for a continuous period of time.
He hadn't just been using the Sharingan; he had been flooded by it. It was an overwhelming data stream his untrained mind was never meant to handle.
And that while controlling cursed energy to the maximum extent.
Simultaneously, he was trying to manage his own cursed energy output, a complex task akin to controlling respiration and heart rate manually during a sprint.
That raised the sensory pressure to the maximum possible extent, which directly brought him to a moment where he was close to his brain exploding completely.
The combination was neurological sabotage. Sensory overload plus executive function overload plus extreme stress. His brain had essentially suffered a systems-wide meltdown, a psychic stroke.
It was good that he was brought to Shoko, who used cursed energy to cool his brain and prevent it from exploding, in addition to using cursed talismans and tools to ensure he didn't lose his life.
Shoko Ieri's treatment had been as much computer repair as medicine. She'd used reverse cursed technique not just to heal tissue, but to gently 'reboot' neural pathways, to siphon off the built-up, stagnant cursed energy clots in his mind, and to apply stabilizing talismans that acted like spiritual cooling pads on a overheating CPU.
If Obito had realized all that, he would have lost consciousness again from the severity of his proximity to death.
Ignorance was, in this case, a blessing. Knowing how close he'd come to being a vegetable would have been its own kind of trauma.
But he finally decided to ask another question, but the woman said before that:
She pre-empted him, her eyes still on her paperwork.
"Your body won't be in good condition. You've been bedridden for over a month. It's good we used some cursed tools to make sure it wouldn't deteriorate. So if you continue today, you might return to a good state, but you may need time to get used to the body's weakness a bit."
She spoke as if reading from a manual for post-coma care. It was practical, unvarnished.
And as if she anticipated his thoughts. Of course she did that after treating many shamans who were in the same condition, and some of them were worse and close to death.
She'd seen it all. The first thing survivors asked after a brush with death: When can I move? When can I fight again? When can I leave? Their bodies were cages, and their spirits were already rattling the bars.*
Therefore, she realized the young man's desire that he wanted to leave and know when he could move.
She didn't need a doctorate in psychology to see the restless look in his eyes, even through the grogginess.
—Does this mean I have to stay unable to move for a longer period?—
Thus, Obito continued lying down for a full day before feeling his body improve little by little.
He was able to move his body again, and the next day, he had stood on his feet unsteadily and finally decided to leave the nursing room.
The process was slow and humiliating. Sitting up took five minutes, accompanied by head-spinning dizziness. Standing required leaning heavily on the bedside table, his legs trembling like a newborn foal's. Walking to the door was a marathon of shuffling steps, each one a negotiation with gravity and muscle atrophy.
But Shoko said, "You should be mindful that you are in another school, so behave well."
She didn't look at him after that. She was busy looking at a lot of medical forms as if studying them with great precision, as after saying that, she returned to reading again.
She didn't look at him after that. She was busy looking at a lot of medical forms as if studying them with great precision.
She waved a dismissive hand in his general direction, her attention already consumed by the next line of a report on cursed energy depletion rates. Her message was clear: You're ambulatory. You're not my problem anymore. Don't cause trouble for my colleagues.*
—
On the other hand, Obito was astonished when he left the room. He was now in Tokyo, and he had spoken with a main character, Doctor Shoko Ieri, the character capable of using the reverse cursed technique, even before Satoru Gojo.
He stood in the quiet hallway outside the infirmary, leaning against the wall for support. The reality was sinking in. He'd just had a conversation with Shoko Ieri. A supporting character, but a crucial one. A healer. Someone who existed in the background of the story, keeping the main cast alive.
Not only this, but she had treated him. His body was definitely weaker than it was after he had been immobilized for a month.
He looked down at his hands. They were pale, the muscles less defined. His arms felt thin, insubstantial. He took a tentative step, and his leg muscles protested with a soft, aching burn. He was a shadow of the desperate fighter from the factory, and that fighter hadn't been impressive to begin with.
He wondered during this period while lying in bed about what had happened against the factory curse and what also happened to the people who were with him.
The questions had haunted the edges of his consciousness during his waking moments in the infirmary. Did Nanami win? Are Kasumi and Mai alive? Did the support team get wiped out?*
The answers from Doctor Shoko were clear:
When he'd managed to ask her during one of her brief check-ins, she'd answered with her usual cigarette-accompanied brevity.
"Kento Nanami eliminated the factory curse. Also, Kasumi Miwa and Zenin Mai returned to duties a week before you. Their conditions were different from yours."
She'd said it while noting his pupil response with a small penlight. Click. No further elaboration.
He knew where the hint was when she continued talking, but in summary, Kasumi's injuries were more physical.
Broken arm, internal bruising, lacerations. Severe, but straightforward. The kind of damage reverse cursed technique was very good at fixing, given time and rest.
While Mai's physical condition was much better, but in terms of cursed energy, she had consumed a huge amount of cursed energy from her body.
That was a deeper, more insidious damage. Cursed energy depletion affected the soul, the spirit. Recovery was about replenishment, meditation, and waiting for the well to refill naturally. It couldn't be rushed with healing techniques.
Which also made her take a shorter period in the end.
Mai had been conscious within two weeks, discharged after three. Kasumi took a bit longer for the bone to fully set, but was mobile sooner. Obito, with his neurological cocktail of disaster, got the grand prize: the one-month coma.
It seemed he was the only one who was exposed to the greatest amount of damage.
The realization was bitter. He'd been the weakest link, and he'd paid the highest price for surviving. The irony wasn't lost on him.
Therefore, he was forced to sigh and began walking in Tokyo Academy through the corridors.
The halls of Tokyo Jujutsu High were quiet, almost eerily so. It was class time, or perhaps a mission period. The traditional wooden architecture was serene, sunlight streaming through paper-screen windows, casting long, peaceful shadows on the polished floors. Creak… His own unsteady footstep on a floorboard was the loudest sound.
He was looking at the field. The place was empty, as if there were no people except Doctor Shoko.
He made his way to a side door and pushed it open, emerging onto a covered walkway that looked out over the school's central training field. It was vast, empty, and silent. No students sparring, no teachers instructing. Just neatly raked sand and distant trees.
—
About the empty field with no one present, Obito stood alone. He looked at the empty space and took a deep breath.
The air here was different. Clean, with a hint of trees and earth. No rust, no blood, no oppressive cursed energy. Just silence and space. He filled his lungs with it, trying to wash the memory of the factory's metallic stench from his senses.
His body, which had been much weaker than it was, was a simple and quick matter, even without Doctor Shoko telling him that.
The weakness was a tangible thing. A lightness in his limbs that was not agility, but emptiness. A constant, low-level tremor in his hands. He felt hollowed out.
But there was something that didn't change.
*A core, deep within him, felt different. Not weaker. Altered**.
The cursed energy in his body became easier to control.
A thing that during the mission in the factory was unimportant became something he focused on at this moment.
Something that during the mission in the factory was unimportant became something he focused on at this moment.
Back then, cursed energy was a wild, terrifying thing to be unleashed in panic. Now, in the calm, he could feel it like a second circulatory system, a river of potential power flowing through channels that felt… clearer. Wider.
In his intensity, he focused on the areas of the middle of the stomach and the solar plexus and the navel. That was the place where cursed energy resided.
He remembered Kyoshi's basic teachings. The core. The seat of cursed energy. He closed his eyes, shutting out the empty field, and turned his attention inward.
He tried to move this energy in his body.
He didn't push. He didn't force. He simply… willed it. He imagined the energy as water, and his intent as a gentle current.
The energy in Obito's body moved with precise control.
It responded. Not with a surge, but with a smooth, obedient flow. He directed a trickle from his core down his right arm. He felt it, a warm, tingling sensation tracing a path along his meridians, reaching his fingertips. He opened his eyes and looked at his hand. Nothing visible, but he felt it. The control was effortless, instinctive.
If there were any Grade Two shamans who were surprised by this mastery, a question would also come to them:
—For how many years has this child been training to reach this level?—
The control he was exhibiting wasn't that of a novice who'd fought a few battles. It was the control of someone with a deep, intuitive understanding of their own energy pathways, something usually gained through years of disciplined meditation and practice.
Of course, if they knew the answer was just over a week of battles, they would have been astonished.
They would have called it impossible. A fluke. A latent talent suddenly awakened. They wouldn't have understood the crucible.
The battles weren't enough for a person to reach this level.
Normally, they'd be right. Training was gradual. You built control through repetition in safe environments.
He needed to approach death in addition to means they couldn't imagine.
But Obito hadn't had safe environments. He'd had life-or-death moments where precise control meant the difference between a severed artery and a near miss. His brain, under the Sharingan's influence, had mapped every micro-movement of energy in his body during those moments. It had been a brutal, high-stakes education in cursed energy anatomy.
But for Obito, the means were clear.
The means were: near-death experiences, a supercomputer eye recording every failure and success, and a month of unconscious neural consolidation where his brain re-wired itself around those experiences.
He activated the Sharingan, and his eyes turned red.
He focused, and with a familiar, internal click, the world washed in crimson. The tomoe spun lazily in his irises. There was no strain this time. No headache. Just clarity.
He felt the changes and improvement in his cursed energy became greater.
In the red world, his own energy flow became a luminous network of red lines under his skin. He could see it with perfect clarity. The channels were wider, cleaner, more defined than he remembered. The 'damage' from overuse had been healed, and in the healing, the pathways had been… optimized.
At the same time, he felt some pain, and his head, which had been repaired, was suffering a little to keep the technique active, but he ignored the pain.
A faint, distant throb behind his eyes, a ghost of the former agony. It was manageable. A reminder of the cost, not a barrier.
He wanted to get used to it. He realized that he had to go beyond the point of being affected by pain and find a way to try to improve his tolerance.
Pain was data. Discomfort was a teacher. If he was going to survive in this world, he couldn't afford to be crippled by a headache every time he used his best weapon.
—These changes are very big.—
He measured his cursed energy and found it was at least 60% greater than it was before.
He measured his cursed energy and found it was at least 60% greater than it was before.
*The month of forced rest, of being fed cursed energy through IVs and talismans, of his body and soul recovering from the brink, hadn't just restored him—it had overcompensated**. Like a muscle that tears and heals back stronger.
Not only this, but the ease of control was much greater.
Before, manipulating cursed energy was like trying to direct a fire hose with his mind. Now, it was like guiding a gentle stream with his fingertips.
And finally, he tried to reinforce himself with cursed energy, and that happened in less time than before.
He willed the energy to coat his arm, to reinforce the muscles and skin. A shimmering, translucent aura of red-tinted energy flickered around his forearm. It happened almost instantly. A thought, and it was there.
Before, he needed two or three seconds to reach a certain point of reinforcement, and in situations that were close to death with the help of the Sharingan, that could happen in less than a second.
But that had been adrenaline-fueled, panic-driven, inefficient. This was calm, controlled, and sustainable.
But now he was in a calm situation, and even while activating the Sharingan, he didn't dramatically increase his mastery and reinforcement because he wanted to test his own strength.
He let the reinforcement on his arm fade, then focused on a single point: his index finger. He concentrated a dense point of cursed energy at the tip.
And he discovered that he was now able to increase reinforcement and reinforce specific points of his body in less than a second.
Fzzzt.
A tiny spark of red energy crackled at his fingertip for a fraction of a second before he released it.
"This is amazing. Can I really do that?"
*He whispered to himself, his voice full of wonder. He flexed his hand, watching as the faint red aura obediently coated it again, then receded. It was responsive. It was his**.
He was wondering in astonishment. True, that wouldn't be enough for him to surpass the place where he was dying in the mission, but these changes now in a safe environment began to seem like a huge leap.
*He wasn't a Grade One sorcerer. He wasn't even a competent Grade Two. But compared to the trembling, clueless boy who had entered the Osaka factory? The difference was night and day. From a liability who could barely hold a knife to… well, to someone who could now flow**.
For a person who didn't know how to fight a little over a week ago.
He looked out over the empty training field again. The sun was lower in the sky, casting long shadows.
A small, grim smile touched his lips.
He had survived the factory.
He had survived a month-long coma.
And against all odds, he had emerged… stronger.
Not strong enough.
But stronger.
And in the world of Jujutsu, that was everything.
He took another step, his footing a little more sure.
The path ahead was still shrouded in the terror of the plot he knew, the threat of Maki Zenin, the looming presence of Satoru Gojo, and the general horror of his existence.
But for this single, quiet moment, standing in the sun with cursed energy humming obediently under his skin, Obito felt something he hadn't felt since arriving in this world.
A fragile, tentative sense of… possibility.
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End of Chapter.
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