Darkness. Deep, absolute darkness—the only ruler of this place. Into it seeped a silence so heavy it felt solid, until something shattered it.
Plop!
Plop!
Plop!
Water droplets, falling at irregular intervals onto the stone floor. The only sound in the room. The only sound in the world, down here.
The floor and walls were stone slabs—worn ones, cracked and pitted. Holes and crevices ran through everything. Moss and mold had colonized every surface, fed by the absurd humidity that soaked the air.
Had anyone been capable of seeing in the dark, what they found would have shocked them deeply. The room was filled with rusted torture instruments, every last one of them.
But of course, nobody capable of seeing was present.
Nobody should have been present at all.
Right?
Zoro
"I'll never be like you, I'll never be like you."
One week.
A full week spent in this place.
"I'm risin' up, and I'm ready to fight you, ready to fight you."
Every day brought fresh beatings—delivered by Natsugu's men, because naturally, he couldn't be bothered to handle it himself.
"I'm all in, I've seen you before, you all are the same. You're just another going up in the flames. And if I'm dying in the fight, it'll be while I'm bringing you down to the grave."
The pain was genuinely unbearable. Any normal person in this situation would have been either dead or completely broken long ago.
"I see who you are, you are my enemy. My enemy, you are my enemy."
Anyone who saw this right now—face down on the ground, hands bound in chains, body in tatters, singing—would have reached the same conclusion. Gone mad.
"I see who you are, you are my enemy. My enemy, you are my enemy."
If only it were that simple. The Haki training had done exactly what it was supposed to—forged the mind into something that madness couldn't find purchase in. Not even close.
"I see who you are, you are my enemy. My enemy, you are my enemy."
With nothing to pull attention away from the pain, the playlist from the old life had become the only available distraction.
"I see who you are, you are my enemy. My enemy, you are my enemy."
Nothing to eat but moss, insects, and whatever rodents managed to slip through the cracks. Nothing to drink but the thin trickle of wastewater collected drop by drop from the walls.
"This ends now. Wohohoho, wohohoho, wohohoho."
Desperate, by every reasonable measure. And yet—not even close to the limit. Another month of this was survivable. But there were more important things to deal with. A brother to go get.
"This ends now. Wohohoho, wohohoho, wohohoho."
In their considerable stupidity, they hadn't bothered moving the swords somewhere unreachable. No cursed energy coming off them—they must have written them off as junk.
"This ends now. Ready to fight you, ready to fight you."
The swords were sitting just on the other side of the door. And thanks to the torturers' negligence, it was known that Haruto had left on a mission.
"This ends now. I'm ready to fight you, ready to fight you."
Getting up was a slow and painful process. The body was not in good shape. But the Haki?
The Haki had only grown.
Black substance enveloped both hands. A sharp jerk on the chains.
CRACK!
They came apart without resistance. Only the door remained.
"This ends now."
Yes. This ends now.
BOOM!
The old door didn't hold. It flew off its hinges and slammed into the wall.
Stepping out calmly into the corridor. A guard—torturer, more accurately—stood just outside, frozen. The shock on his face bought all the time needed. Before he could act, a wave of Conqueror's Haki was already on its way.
'Go on. Eat it.'
Fwish!
Fwish!
Thud!
Eyes rolled back, foam at the mouth. Stepping over the body, retrieving the belongings propped against the wall to his left.
Wado Ichimonji.
Shusui.
Enma.
That was the order they were collected in, and the order they returned to the hip. The moment they were back in place, something lifted—a weight that had been sitting there unnoticed the entire week, gone instantly.
Only one thing remained.
"I'm coming, Toji."
---
Discretion has never been a strong suit. Never trained for it, so perhaps that was to be expected. But one of the many things to be grateful for about this body is the complete absence of cursed energy.
In this world, cursed energy is everything. Even for a non-sorcerer, detecting someone without it—especially someone actively trying not to be noticed—is genuinely difficult.
For sorcerers who rely primarily on cursed energy perception to navigate? Effectively impossible. The one exception, of course, is Gojo Satoru—but counting him in any calculation is somewhat unfair. The Six Eyes place his sensory range in a category of its own, arguably the greatest in recorded history.
So as long as approach came from behind without noise, detection wasn't a concern. Every person crossed along the way was knocked unconscious with Conqueror's Haki. Exhausting—using the body alone wasn't an option, physical endurance being at its lowest—but necessary. There was no time to spare.
The route covered far more of the estate than expected. The distance from the Kukuru headquarters turned out to be considerable.
The dungeons.
The residential houses.
The ponds.
The training grounds of the other two units.
The entire estate, crossed from one side to the other, before the destination finally came into view.
The infirmary. A familiar place by now—familiar enough, honestly, to qualify as a second bedroom alongside the dormitory.
According to what had been communicated (with every intention of breaking the spirit, obviously), Toji was here being treated—if that word even applied—for serious injuries sustained during the mission.
"Well. Here goes nothing."
The door opened.
"Toji?"
"…"
---
"You are my special."
Toji was found. And the words to describe what was in front of me simply didn't exist.
Eighty percent of his body was covered in bandages. Bloody ones. Deep cuts, broken bones, damaged organs—the full accounting was almost too much to hold at once.
Standing there looking at him, only one thing was felt.
Anger? No.
Resentment? No.
Guilt? No.
Disgust. Pure, uncomplicated disgust—directed entirely inward. How many times had the promise been made? To protect him. To always be there. And here was the result of that promise.
A state where the Heavenly Restriction was the only thing that had kept him alive. A state where lifting him onto the back had to be done with careful deliberation, slowly, because a wrong movement could finish what had already been started.
And now: the streets of Tokyo. Wandering. Singing what was meant to be a lullaby but had become something closer to a way of managing what was happening inside. Running from the Zen'in clan with no plan and no destination—only a hope. The hope that somewhere out there, good people still existed.
Knock knock knock.
"I'm coming," a woman's voice called from inside.
The door opened. Tsukumo Hyo stood on the other side.
"I need your help."
"…"
"I'm begging you."
"…"
(…)
"Sigh! Very well. Come in."