If someone had told me a week ago that I'd wake up inside Jujutsu Kaisen, I would have laughed. Then I would have asked if Gojo was really that pretty in person. Then I would have laughed again because obviously that's ridiculous.
Well. Here I am. And yes, he is.
But let me back up.
My name is Ren. Just Ren. No tragic last name, no dead parents, no dark prophecy hanging over my head. As far as I can tell, I got isekai'd into this world because some cosmic entity rolled a dice and said, "Yeah, put him there for the chaos." And honestly? I'm not even mad.
The first thing I noticed when I woke up in a cramped dorm room that smelled faintly of old tatami mats was the floating gacha wheel in front of my face. You know the kind, those shiny, anime-style roulettes with stars and sparkles and a big red button in the middle that says "PULL" in aggressive font.
I stared at it for a full minute.
It blinked at me.
"You're not real," I said.
The wheel spun once on its own, landed on a single gray star, and a clown nose materialized on my face.
So that's how I learned about my new "cursed technique."
---
The second thing I learned was that Gojo Satoru finds everything hilarious.
I'd been at Tokyo Jujutsu High for exactly three hours. I'd met Principal Yaga (terrifying, like a buff Santa who could kill you), I'd seen Megumi (resting brooding face, exactly as advertised), and I'd somehow already been recruited to help move boxes because "new students carry things, it's tradition."
That's when Gojo appeared.
Not walked. Appeared. One second there was empty air, the next he was leaning against a pillar like he'd been there all along, blindfold tilted just slightly, smile wide enough to threaten national security.
"New face!" he announced. "Are you the gacha kid?"
I froze.
"How do you already know about that?"
"Principal Yaga's security cameras caught you screaming 'WHY A CLOWN NOSE' in your room at 3 AM. Also, you still have it."
I touched my face. The clown nose was still there.
I'd been walking around with a bright red clown nose for three hours. Nobody told me. Not Megumi. Not the upperclassmen. Not even the janitor who gave me a weird look but said nothing.
These people were monsters.
"That's my cursed technique," I said flatly, ripping the nose off. It dissolved into sparkles. "I roll a random effect every day. Sometimes useful. Mostly stupid."
Gojo's grin somehow grew wider.
"Show me."
"Now?"
"Yes now."
"I already used my roll for today. I got the nose."
"So roll again."
"That's not how it works. Once per day. Or after defeating a curse. It's— look, it's gacha rules, okay? I don't make the rules."
Gojo tilted his head like a curious cat.
"What if I beat up a curse for you right now? Would that count?"
"That's not— you can't just—"
But he was already gone. A gust of wind. A distant scream from somewhere on campus. And then, twelve seconds later, he was back, dusting off his hands.
"There. Defeated a grade four curse near the vending machines. It was shaped like a sad bento box. Roll."
The gacha wheel appeared in front of me, spinning unprompted. Gojo leaned in so close I could see my own terrified reflection in his blindfold.
"No pressure," he said.
The wheel slowed. Clicked past a four-star slot. Past a five-star. Landed on—
Three stars.
A puff of smoke. Something heavy dropped into my hands.
It was a rubber chicken. Bright yellow. Squeaky. And absolutely brimming with cursed energy.
Gojo snatched it from me, squeezed it once, and the resulting squeak sent a shockwave through the courtyard, cracking a nearby bench and launching a flock of very confused crows into the air.
"THIS IS AMAZING," he declared. "I'm keeping you."
And that, dear reader, is how I became Gojo Satoru's personal chaos gremlin in less than five minutes.
---
The rubber chicken incident drew an audience.
Megumi emerged from the shadows (he does that, apparently) with his usual expression of mild annoyance.
"What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything. He did." I pointed at Gojo, who was now squeezing the chicken repeatedly and laughing as small craters formed in the dirt.
"That's cursed," Megumi said, watching a particularly loud squeak crack a window.
"That's the gacha," I replied. "Welcome to my life. It's been three hours."
Yuji Itadori showed up next, dragged by Nobara, who looked like she'd been mid-sentence when the shockwave hit. Yuji's eyes went wide when he saw the chicken.
"Whoa! Is that a weapon?"
"It's a rubber chicken," I said.
"It's a rubber chicken weapon," Gojo corrected, finally setting it down. The chicken sat there, innocent and terrible. "Ren here has a cursed technique that gives him random items and effects. Like a lottery. But funnier."
Nobara crossed her arms.
"So he's useless?"
"Hey—"
"He rolled a clown nose earlier," Megumi said. "Wore it for three hours without noticing."
Nobara burst out laughing. Yuji at least had the decency to look sympathetic, though his lips were twitching.
"I'm right here," I said.
"That's the best part," Gojo agreed.
---
Here's the thing about the gacha wheel. I'd figured out a few rules during my first chaotic night in this world.
Rule one: One free roll per day, resetting at midnight.
Rule two: Defeating a cursed spirit grants an extra roll immediately.
Rule three: Rolls range from one star (useless cosmetic) to six stars (potentially reality-bending).
Rule four: The wheel has a sense of humor. A cruel, cruel sense of humor.
That first night, after the clown nose incident, I'd rolled again because I'd panicked and kicked a tiny curse that looked like a moldy grape. (It counted. Barely.) The roll gave me a four-star effect: Temporary Grade 3 Physical Enhancement for thirty minutes.
I'd spent those thirty minutes doing jumping jacks in my room because I was too scared to go outside.
So yeah. Not exactly hero material. Yet.
But after the rubber chicken, Gojo decided I needed "field testing." Which is how I found myself standing in an abandoned warehouse at 7 PM, surrounded by first-years who all looked way more capable than me.
Yuji had his fists ready. Nobara had her hammer and nails. Megumi had his shadows and his resting stoic face.
I had a rubber chicken that was slowly deflating.
"The mission is simple," Gojo said from his perch on a support beam. He'd tagged along "for observation," which actually meant "for entertainment." "Low-grade curses have been gathering here. Nothing above a three. Good training for all of you. Ren, you're on chicken duty."
"I don't know what that means."
"Squeeze it when something gets too close."
"That's not a strategy!"
But the curses had already noticed us.
They emerged from the shadows, little blobby things with too many eyes and too many mouths, all chattering in that horrible half-language curses use. Grade fours mostly, with one grade three that looked like a melted umbrella wearing a tie.
Yuji moved first. One punch, and two of the blobs dissolved. Nobara followed up with a nail that ricocheted between three more curses like a pinball of doom. Megumi summoned his dogs, and the shadows came alive with fangs and fury.
I stood there. Holding my chicken.
A small curse, literally the size of a soccer ball with one big eye, peeled away from the group and rolled toward me.
"Uh," I said.
It opened its mouth. It had way too many teeth for something that small.
I squeezed the chicken.
The squeak that came out wasn't the shockwave from before. It was worse. It was wrong. It sounded like a dying goose mixed with dial-up internet and someone stepping on a Lego. The curse froze, its eye vibrating, and then it just... fell over. Unconscious. Maybe traumatized.
The gacha wheel appeared above my head.
Bonus roll triggered!
It spun. One star. Two stars. Three. Four. Five—
Five stars.
A card materialized in my hand. On it was written: "Body Swap — Target one ally within ten feet. Duration: 30 seconds. Good luck!"
I looked at the card. I looked at my teammates. Yuji was elbow-deep in curse guts. Nobara was laughing maniacally. Megumi was—
Megumi was standing right next to me.
"I have a bad feeling," he said.
"Sorry," I said. And I activated the card.
---
The next thirty seconds were the most confusing of my life.
Suddenly I was taller. My hair was spikier. And I was staring at my own body, Ren's body, which now had Megumi's soul inside it, judging me with my own face.
"What did you do," Megumi said through my mouth. His voice sounded wrong coming from my throat.
"I didn't mean to!" I said through his mouth. "It's the gacha! It's random!"
Yuji turned around, saw us, and immediately doubled over laughing. Nobara took one look and screamed "BODY SWAP?!" so loudly that the remaining curses actually retreated in confusion.
Gojo was recording. Of course he was recording.
"You have thirty seconds!" he called down. "Make good choices!"
Megumi-in-Ren's-body tried to summon a shadow. Nothing happened. I tried to punch a curse and nearly dislocated Megumi's shoulder because I had no idea how to control his physical strength.
We spent the entire thirty seconds flailing. A curse headbutted me (Megumi's body) in the shin. Megumi (my body) threw the rubber chicken at it in desperation. The chicken squeaked, the curse cried, and then— pop.
We swapped back.
Megumi landed on the ground, gasping. I landed next to him, also gasping. We stared at each other.
"Never," Megumi said, "do that again."
"No promises," I replied honestly.
From above, Gojo's laughter echoed through the warehouse like a beautiful, terrible song.
---
We finished the mission. Yuji handled most of the remaining curses while Nobara provided commentary and Megumi sulked. I contributed by accidentally rolling another one-star after stepping on a curse's remains, this one gave me neon green hair for the rest of the night.
By the time we got back to campus, I looked like a radioactive broccoli, my chicken was half-deflated, and I was pretty sure Megumi was plotting my demise.
But Gojo clapped me on the shoulder (hard) and announced to everyone within earshot: "Ren is my favorite student now. Don't tell the others."
"There's literally four of us," Nobara said.
"Four favorites. Ren is just the most favorite-est."