Chapter Text
The first thing Yuji noticed was the smell. It clung to the inside of his nose and throat, metallic and thick, the unmistakable scent of blood that had been sitting out in the open for too long. For a few seconds he did not move. His head throbbed where it rested against the ground and something tacky had glued strands of his hair to the surface beneath him.
He opened his eyes slowly. The sky above him was clear.
Blue stretched endlessly overhead without smoke, without ash, without the distant glow of burning buildings. The brightness hurt his eyes. Yuji squinted at it as if the answer might be written somewhere between the clouds that were not there.
That was wrong.
The last sky he remembered had been darker.
His thoughts refused to line up properly. When he tried to pull on the memory it slipped away, leaving behind scattered pieces instead of a clear picture. A city in ruins. The pressure of cursed energy so heavy it made breathing painful. People screaming somewhere far away.
He pushed himself up with a groan.
His hand slipped.
Yuji looked down and saw red smeared across his palm. Thick and dark where it had dried, wet where it had not. Some of it had soaked into his sleeve, stiffening the fabric. More coated the ground around him.
Blood. A lot of it. For a moment he simply stared at it. Something he has been doing since the Shibuya incident, the massacre.
Then the rest of the world began to come into focus. Buildings stood upright. Windows were intact. No collapsed streets. No bodies. Even the air smelled clean apart from the blood around him. There was no smoke drifting through the wind, no sickening scent of death lingering over everything.
His chest tightened. This was not the world he remembered.
He forced himself onto his feet, ignoring the way the movement made his vision blur for a second. His body protested immediately. Something along his side burned with sharp pain and the back of his head throbbed each time his heartbeat picked up.
He took a slow breath.
He remembered the chaos there. The screams. The way the night had swallowed everything whole.
He remembered standing helpless while the impossible happened.
Yuji clenched his hands.
He remembered watching Gojo die.
The image flashed through his mind so vividly that for a moment it felt like he was back there again. White hair stained red. A body cut cleanly in half. The absolute certainty that the strongest sorcerer alive had fallen.
And then there had been the other thing.
Suguru Geto’s face.
But not Suguru Geto.
Kenjaku. The parasite that had been wearing that body like a costume while calmly setting the world on fire.
The Culling Games. Yuji dragged a hand across his face, smearing more blood along his cheek without noticing.
Something about this situation felt completely wrong. His memories were there, sharp and painful, but the path that should have led him here was missing. He could not remember how the fight ended. He could not remember what had happened after everything collapsed.
It was like waking up in the middle of a story that had skipped several pages. Yuji took a step forward.
“Where do you think you are going?” The voice cut through the quiet air.
Yuji froze.
Slowly he lifted his head.
A tall figure stood a short distance away, hands loosely in his pockets as if this were the most normal situation in the world. Bright white hair caught the sunlight, almost glowing against the blue sky. Yuji stared.
His mind refused to accept what his eyes were showing him.
“Gojo… sensei?” he said.
The man tilted his head slightly, a crooked smile forming as if he found Yuji’s expression entertaining.
“Wow,” he said. “You look like you saw a ghost.”
Yuji did not respond.
Because that was impossible.
He had seen it. He had watched it happen. That moment had burned itself into his memory so deeply that even thinking about it made his chest ache.
Gojo Satoru was dead.
Yet here he stood.
Yuji felt strangely calm as the thought formed in his mind.
Ah.
I must be dead.
“No, you are very much alive.” He gave Yuuji a quick look from head to toe "Kinda".
Yuji blinked.
Right. Apparently he had said that out loud.
His breathing became uneven as his thoughts tried to rearrange themselves into something logical. Maybe this was a hallucination. Maybe his brain had finally snapped under the pressure. That would make sense. It would honestly explain a lot.
His gaze drifted past Gojo.
And then it landed on another figure standing nearby. The calm shattered instantly.
Black hair tied back loosely. The familiar shape of the face that Yuji had seen countless times before.
Suguru Geto. Or rather the thing that had stolen his body.
The hatred that surged up inside Yuji was immediate and overwhelming.
Kenjaku. The name echoed through his mind like a warning bell.
Yuji moved before thinking.
His feet carried him forward in a sudden burst of motion, closing the distance between them in seconds. His fist swung with all the force he could muster.
The impact cracked loudly through the air.
Geto’s head snapped sideways as Yuji’s knuckles slammed into his face.
Pain shot through Yuji’s hand but he barely noticed it. His other hand grabbed the front of Geto’s uniform, dragging him forward as rage poured through every inch of his body.
“I will kill you,” Yuji growled.
For a moment everything went still. Then someone grabbed his wrist.
The grip was strong enough to stop him instantly.
“Hold on,” Gojo said, his voice no longer playful. Yuji tried to pull his arm free but his strength faltered halfway through the motion. Up close he could see Gojo clearly now. No wounds. No exhaustion. No blood.
Just irritation.
“You wake up covered in blood in front of our school and the first thing you do is punch my friend,” Gojo continued. “That is a pretty bold introduction.”
Yuji’s gaze snapped back to Geto.
The man had already straightened up, one hand touching his cheek where Yuji had hit him. There was a faint bruise forming but otherwise he looked more surprised than angry.
That reaction made Yuji hesitate. Kenjaku would never react like that. So human.
Before he could think further his vision tilted.
The adrenaline that had carried him this far vanished all at once, leaving behind the full weight of his injuries. His legs felt weak and the world began to blur around the edges.
“Oi,” Gojo said sharply.
Yuji barely heard him.
The last thing he registered was someone catching him before he hit the ground.
Then everything went black.
When Yuji opened his eyes again the ceiling above him was unfamiliar. White lights glowed softly overhead. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic instead of blood. For a moment he simply lay there, trying to remember how he had gotten here. Fragments of the earlier confrontation drifted back slowly.
The sky.
Gojo.
Geto. No. Kenjaku.
Yuji sat up abruptly. Pain shot through his side immediately.
“Relax,” a voice said from nearby. “You are going to get another concussion.”
Yuji turned his head. A woman sat beside the bed, calmly finishing the process of wrapping a bandage around his arm. Her brown hair fell loosely around her shoulders and she looked about his age, maybe a little older.
He stared at her.
“You are staring,” she said without looking up.
“Ieri-san?” Yuji asked. She paused briefly.
“That is my name,” she replied. “Do I know you?”
Yuji’s mouth opened but no words came out. That was not right either.
Shoko Ieiri was supposed to be older. Not by much, but enough that the difference was obvious. The person sitting beside him looked younger than he remembered.
A chair scraped loudly somewhere in the room. Yuji turned his head again. Gojo was leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, watching him with an expression that had lost every trace of humor.
“Finally awake,” Gojo said.
Yuji swallowed.
His mind felt like it was trying to solve a puzzle with half the pieces missing.
“You died,” Yuji said suddenly. Gojo blinked once.
“That is a strange greeting.”
” Yuji continued, his voice rough. “You fought and you… you were cut in half.”
Silence filled the room.
Gojo’s expression shifted slowly from confusion to something sharper.
“That did not happen,” he said flatly. “It did,” Yuji insisted.
Memories pressed against the inside of his skull, vivid and painful. “Kenjaku used Geto sans body,” he said, pointing weakly toward the door as if Geto might still be standing outside. “He started the Culling Games. Everything went to hell.”
Shoko finished tying off the bandage and leaned back slightly.
“Culling what?” she asked. Yuji froze. Gojo pushed himself away from the wall.
“You are going to start explaining,” he said. Before Yuji could respond the door opened. A large figure stepped inside, his presence filling the room with quiet authority. Yaga looked between the three of them before his gaze settled on Yuji.
“I heard our guest has finally woken up,” he said.
Yuji stared at him. Another piece of the puzzle slid into place.
Except it made the picture even more confusing. Because the man standing there should have been older and dead too.
Yaga pulled a chair closer to the bed and sat down.
“Let us start with something simple,” he said calmly.
“Who are you?”
Yuji hesitated. His head throbbed again as he tried to understand what was happening.
There was only one explanation that made even a little sense, and even that sounded insane.
“I think,” Yuji said slowly, “I might have traveled back in time.”
The silence that followed was heavy enough to crush bones.