Jujutsu Kaisen: False Dawn

Two weeks.

Fourteen days.

Ren marked them with tally lines in his notebook, scratched into the paper in the quiet hours after training. It had become a ritual now—a moment of acknowledgment.

Of survival.

And of growth.

---

The first week hit like a hammer.

Every morning, Ren woke with sore arms, burning legs, and eyes heavy with fatigue. But he moved. No complaints. No excuses.

He trained in his apartment until the walls felt too close. Then he trained outside—at the old, forgotten shrine, where only the wind and rustling trees watched him.

---

Week One: Foundations

The first seven days were for brute repetition. The kind of training that broke your mind and rebuilt it cell by cell.

He drilled cursed energy control until his fingertips bled—literally.

But on the seventh day, it happened.

His fist.

Coated.

Fully.

The cursed energy didn't sputter, didn't wobble, didn't leak like a broken faucet.

It held.

Stable.

Compact.

Controlled.

He stared at his glowing fist for a full ten seconds before it flickered out—but not because it failed. Because he let go.

He timed it the next day.

Twenty seconds.

Twenty seconds of fully stabilized cursed energy flowing across his knuckles and arm. It was clean, focused, and sharp. Still far from battle-ready—but it was something.

He clenched that same fist and whispered, "Finally…"

---

Red Stitch Evolved

Red Stitch wasn't forgotten during all this. It became part of his movement, part of his rhythm. He'd learned to fire threads outward in bursts—five crimson tendrils like claws from each finger, grabbing at whatever was in reach.

He hadn't even meant to, not at first.

It started by accident.

He reached for a pen.

A red string launched from his hand, latched onto it, and yanked it straight into his palm.

His eyes widened.

And then he smiled.

"Web-slinging," he muttered. "Great. I'm Spider-Man now."

It was crude, clumsy, and unpredictable—but it worked.

He began training with it intentionally.

He launched strings at rocks, at trees, at plastic bottles. Pulled them in. Caught them. Bounced them off walls. Used two threads at once, three, even five.

Eventually, he could fire one to a nearby post, latch it to the wood, and swing himself forward a few feet—not far, but enough to prove the principle.

No, it wasn't perfect.

But it was useful.

And it made Red Stitch feel like something more than a trick.

It was becoming a tool.

---

Every night, Ren collapsed into bed, soaked in sweat, bruised from failed landings and cursed energy backlash.

But he fell asleep with a smile.

Because every night, he was a little stronger.

---

Reflections: End of Week One

Ren sat by the shrine's stone steps, watching clouds drift overhead. His fingers toyed with threads of cursed energy, weaving them between knuckles in absent patterns.

"If Jujutsu High gave me a grade now," he murmured, "I'd probably be Grade 4."

He scoffed.

"Maybe even barely Grade 4."

He wasn't being modest—just realistic.

He couldn't fight a real curse head-on. His stamina was too low. His technique was still experimental. His cursed energy output barely qualified as threatening.

"But…"

He stared at his hands.

"These fists are mine now. These strings are mine. And no one gave them to me."

He'd earned them.

Hard way.

Four weeks of relentless effort.

Ever since waking in this world—two days of confusion, and then four weeks of nonstop training.

No friends.

No backup.

Just him. Knowledge. And grit.

And if that only made him Grade 4?

So be it.

---

Week Two: Knowledge as a Weapon

The second week was for refinement.

And vows.

Ren leaned harder into theory—using his manga knowledge as a crutch to fill in the cracks of his lack of talent.

He crafted mini-binding vows every morning. Temporary. Harmless. Smart.

One reduced his cursed energy consumption only while walking. Another increased sensory perception at the cost of physical strength for ten minutes.

Another let him launch his Red Stitch threads faster for five seconds—but left him with a two-minute cooldown.

None of them were powerful.

But they were new.

He was writing techniques JJK had never shown.

Using rules that no one in this world had yet thought to exploit.

Because he was working from a library that hadn't been written here yet.

A cheat?

Maybe.

But it didn't feel like cheating when your arms were shaking from fatigue and your cursed energy ran dry halfway through the day.

This was survival.

And it was paying off.

---

By the end of the second week, Red Stitch had evolved again.

Faster. More responsive.

He could use threads to catch flying stones mid-air.

He could link two points and create a tight "wall" of cursed thread to block simple attacks.

Even weaving a short net became possible.

And yet—

On the fourteenth night, sitting alone by candlelight in his apartment, Ren muttered the words under his breath:

"Still too slow…"

---

Final Reflections

He lay on his back, watching his cursed energy swirl gently around his hand.

"I'm training every day."

"Yuji got stronger in days."

"Yuta? Stronger in one."

"They didn't grind like this. They didn't live like a machine."

He turned over in bed, bitter laughter in his throat.

"Talent is so unfair."

"But…"

He reached out, twirled a glowing thread of red between his fingers.

"…I'm still here."

"I'm still growing."

And I'm not done.