His head was fuzzy and throbbing, his limbs ice-cold.
Tinnitus, thirst, utter weakness throughout his body.
Without a doubt, these were symptoms of massive blood loss.
The wound... is in the abdomen...
A penetrating wound... internal organs are probably damaged too...
At this rate, I'll die before long...
As a jujutsu sorcerer who had achieved Special Grade status through unparalleled mastery in the crafting and use of cursed tools, Hii Kōri could still accurately assess his own injuries even with his mind in such a fog.
At the same time, this battle experience—practically carved into his soul—immediately prompted him to make the correct response: use the Reverse Cursed Technique.
That was a technique that multiplied "negative" cursed energy by "negative" cursed energy to produce "positive" cursed energy, which could then be used to heal injuries. If one's control was precise enough, even minor damage to the brain could be repaired.
But...
...It won't work? Ah, did I exhaust my cursed energy before this...
Recalling the purple radiance he'd seen just before closing his eyes, Hii Kōri resigned himself and stopped trying to circulate his cursed energy.
He'd fought that bastard Gojō Satoru for so long—it made sense that he had no cursed energy left... Wait, no?!
Before he "closed his eyes," he'd clearly taken that bastard Gojō Satoru's full-power Hollow Technique: Purple head-on. Whether he even still had an upper body was questionable. Where would a "gentle" injury like a penetration wound come from?
...So it's not that my cursed energy is used up. This body simply has no cursed energy to begin with.
Realizing this, Hii Kōri—lying face-down in a pool of blood—forced his eyes open.
His vision... was completely blurred. Everything overlapped like a Silver Chariot accelerating after shedding its armor, and of course, he couldn't make anything out clearly.
Except for the hand stretched out before him—a slender, small limb that didn't match the body he was used to, its fingers digging deeply into the ground with startling clarity.
"Guh—"
Blood bubbled up from deep in his throat.
He didn't want to die.
There were still so many research topics he hadn't tried, so many inspirations he hadn't realized...
He hadn't even taken his revenge yet...
Both soul and body trembled and screamed with this unwillingness.
As if responding to his struggle, Hii Kōri suddenly felt a warmth spread across his chest.
The numbness in his abdomen began to fade. Only then did he register the hard object pressed against his chest, and the extraordinary "life force" within this new body—far exceeding that of an ordinary person.
A cold forge. Various equipment and finished products hanging on the walls. Coal piled in the corner. As his vision gradually steadied and he looked around, this was the scene that greeted him—familiar yet foreign.
An old-fashioned smithy. Not one of the over two hundred workshops he owned worldwide.
Even if he had, out of nostalgia, set up a few more traditionally styled workshops, he would never have chosen equipment as inefficient as these antique models.
Then his gaze fell upon two figures lying in blood—figures that seemed to pierce his heart with pain.
Probably this body's parents.
Breath... none. Even at a glance, the blood loss was clearly fatal. Absolutely no saving them.
Considering the traces around... it was probably murder...
The culprit's trail... nothing.
Jujutsu... as expected, unusable as well.
So I've been reincarnated into someone else's body...
Having reached this conclusion, Hii Kōri wasn't particularly surprised.
In a word, he'd read all kinds of manga, novels, and watched dramas to gather inspiration for crafting cursed tools. The concept of "isekai reincarnation" wasn't especially hard for him to accept.
"Well then... is this what saved my second life?"
Ignoring the pain tearing through his body, he laboriously turned over and pulled the hard object from his chest—a pendant—holding it before his eyes.
Not only had it "resonated" with him just now, but it was likely because of this pendant that the life force within this body—though not effectively utilized—had sustained its vitality, giving Hii Kōri the chance to awaken in this new vessel.
A mixture of spiritual energy and life force... I feel like I've seen this setting somewhere... Ah, it's 'chakra,' isn't it? The energy system from Naruto...
So, this family is from the Uzumaki clan? Normally, ordinary people wouldn't have this level of life force...
How did someone who could create or possess something like this die so cleanly?
Feeling the energy released from the pendant, Hii Kōri's thoughts—which should have been heavy and dulled by massive blood loss—seemed to lighten somewhat.
No, not an illusion. He really was improving.
The contradiction between his "agile thinking" and his body's weakness was jarring, like swimming with lead weights tied to his feet.
Is it because my 'soul' is too mature compared to my body? After receiving treatment or adapting to the body, my mind can ignore the physical weakness to some extent...
He'd always been the type to let his thoughts run wild, and in this situation, it was even more so.
Likewise, "inspiration" tended to gush forth at times like this.
"Alright, let's give it a try—"
Not generating positive cursed energy by multiplying negative with negative, but directly using "positive" life force to heal.
Cursed energy is energy generated from negative emotions. Anger, hatred, disgust, jealousy—these negative feelings are the trigger for cursed energy. Jujutsu sorcerers, without exception, train to produce cursed energy from the smallest sparks of emotion.
Even after changing bodies, with Hii Kōri's perception of energy and his precision control, it wasn't impossible to generate cursed energy from scratch. But for healing an injury of this magnitude, cursed energy squeezed out on short notice would be like trying to put out a house fire with a cup of water.
Although he remembered that techniques in the Naruto world—including medical ninjutsu—required chakra to activate, for treating physical damage, plain life force should work just as well.
Besides, Hii Kōri didn't know any "ninjutsu" anyway.
In any case, if he could sense and perceive the life force in his body, there was no reason he couldn't mobilize and direct it.
Incoherent, meaningless mutterings escaped his mouth, bubbling up with the blood froth, as he clumsily attempted to mobilize the life force that had lain dormant in this body.
Stagnant, sluggish, viscous—but even so, that power began to circulate according to his will.
Slowly, slowly, a faint green fluorescence emerged from the vicious wound piercing his abdomen. Internal organs, flesh, and skin visibly began to heal.
Each breath still carried the rusty-sweet taste of blood, but the pain in his abdomen had subsided.
"That should do it..."
The damage to his organs and flesh was healed, but the massive blood loss was another matter. This was his first time using such a self-healing technique; Hii Kōri couldn't yet restore blood quickly.
But though he was still weak, he was no longer in mortal danger. He wouldn't die again just minutes after opening his eyes in his post-death transmigration.
Forcing himself to turn over, Hii Kōri crawled bit by bit through the sticky blood to the wall. Sitting up, he pursed his lips and laboriously raised a small hand caked with semi-coagulated blood, weakly clenching his fist a few times.
This feeling of being filled with lead was absolutely terrible.
Going from his original body—that of a master cursed tool user honed through countless trials—into the body of a five or six-year-old child was like forcing himself into a wetsuit several sizes too small. It was only natural for his soul to feel intensely uncomfortable.
Combined with the weakness from massive blood loss, being unable to control his body effectively was only to be expected.
But his problems definitely didn't end there.
When he'd mobilized his life force earlier, Hii Kōri had noticed something. This body was honestly quite awkward.
It wasn't just the difference in sensation from shortened limbs. It was a more subtle disconnect between "spirit and flesh."
Like trying to solve a multi-tiered Rubik's cube while wearing thick insulating gloves.
"It's probably because the original soul lingering in this body hasn't completely dissipated yet..."
Hii Kōri speculated thus, maintaining consciousness through his mumbled mutterings.
Though it was speculation, he was fairly confident in it. Both the undignified struggle while "dying" and the heartache he felt upon seeing those two "stranger" corpses indirectly proved this point.
Then, he made up his mind.
"I need to eliminate this hidden danger promptly..."
The problems he faced at the moment were countless, but among them, the soul remnant in his body was of paramount importance.
As for feeling guilty about occupying a child's body? Was he joking? Hii Kōri was a jujutsu sorcerer.
Jujutsu sorcerers—the straightforward understanding is people who use jujutsu.
But what's called "jujutsu," in the conventional sense, actually refers to the "innate techniques" imprinted on sorcerers' brains from birth. These are things determined at birth, impossible to learn.
And there aren't many cursed energy techniques that can be learned—like secret traditions passed down through families—in the jujutsu world. This is why, whether they possess innate techniques or not, jujutsu sorcerers must master various forms of taijutsu.
From this perspective, jujutsu sorcerers are quite different from the onmyōji of conventional fiction who scatter talismans. If you really want to compare them to something, they're closer to "mutants"—superpowered beings.
He didn't even need to cite other fantasy works about societies of superpowered beings as evidence. Just within the jujutsu world he actually inhabited, the number of people who had become anti-human criminals for various reasons was considerable.
As for cursed energy being generated from negative emotions—among a group of people who drive superpowers with negative emotions, how could there be any universally recognized saints?
Besides, even if Hii Kōri's soul hadn't seized this body, this child would have died anyway. Might as well let him make use of the remains.
As for whether he could eliminate the other's soul...
He'd been lurking in the jujutsu world for over twenty years as an evil old bastard. Was he no match for a five or six-year-old child?
And so, his consciousness began to sink...
***
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