Jujutsu Kaisen: False Dawn

Night clung to the city like a second skin.

Ren lay flat on his tatami mat, arms spread wide, his breath shallow as if just attempting Reverse Cursed Energy had taken something vital out of him. Maybe it had.

"Dead," he muttered. "Just absolutely, spectacularly dead."

Moments earlier, he'd tried—again—to use RCT. Just a small cut on his hand. Something minor. A warm-up. The idea was simple: will your cursed energy into healing.

Except nothing happened.

No warmth. No repair. Just a stubborn little cut and a pile of wasted cursed energy.

Ren groaned, dragging his hand across his face. "I have manga knowledge, dammit. This should count for something."

But theory wasn't understanding. And understanding wasn't mastery.

After failing at RCT, he figured he might as well swing big.

So, next up: Domain Expansion.

Or rather, a simple domain. The very basics.

Ren had cleared his apartment floor. He'd burned incense. Sat in position. Tried to align the flow of his cursed energy, muttering a focus mantra.

He even said, "Domain Expansion!" out loud like an idiot.

What followed wasn't enlightenment.

It was a nosebleed.

A literal nosebleed.

"I look like a high schooler who saw his first hentai," he mumbled, still laying on the floor, nostrils bleeding, cursed energy whimpering from overuse.

Ren wiped the blood with his sleeve and stared at the ceiling.

Time was ticking.

Yuta would arrive any day now.

Which meant Rika.

Which meant Jujutsu High would change.

And Ren? Still Grade 4 garbage at best.

The window of opportunity—to reach out to Yuta, to maybe trick him, or make a Binding Vow—was closing.

Soon, Yuta would become untouchable.

And so Ren sat up, fingers trembling from fatigue, and laughed.

"What am I doing trying to reverse engineer healing or spatial reality? I haven't even kidnapped a new curse yet!"

That thought. That stupid, dark, ironic thought made him laugh harder.

"God, I'm a lunatic."

He stood. Stretched. Popped his back with a wince.

Time to go curse hunting.

---

He dressed in old clothes—a faded hoodie, loose jeans, and a cap low over his eyes. Something Ren had figured out: when you're walking around in the sketchy parts of Tokyo, looking like someone who's given up helps you blend right in.

No one looked twice.

He avoided the main roads, sticking to cracked alleys and crooked streetlamps, pockets of the city where negative emotions swirled like cigarette smoke.

He passed a rusted vending machine buzzing faintly and a man urinating on a wall who didn't even look up.

And then, he found it.

An old noodle stall—closed, decayed, forgotten.

The air smelled stale, like wet metal.

And hovering just beside the back wall, there it was.

A curse.

Floating.

It was fish-shaped—about the size of a housecat, with translucent scales and a grotesque, almost cartoonishly wide face. Buggy eyes. A lopsided grin. Its tail flicked slowly, keeping it afloat like a grotesque balloon.

"Oh… you're perfect," Ren whispered, taking a slow step forward.

The fish-curse blinked at him, unbothered. The dumb thing didn't even flinch.

Ren crept closer.

Cursed energy pulsed faintly through his fingers, lighting up with a dull red hue as he prepared to snatch the thing with both hands.

One more step.

And—*whap!*

The tail slapped his wrist with surprising force, knocking his hands away.

"Ow—hey! What the hell?!"

Ren stepped back, rubbing his hand. It stung.

The fish-curse floated backward a few inches, still watching him.

And then—Ren laughed.

"You just slapped me. You actually slapped me."

His grin widened. He wiped his nose. "I love you already."

The curse blinked slowly, unaware of its fate.

Red threads flickered into existence around Ren's fingers.

He launched them.

They snapped out like silent darts, twining around the fish-curse's bulbous body mid-air, locking it in place.

It wriggled. Tried to float upward.

But the Red Stitch held.

"Gotcha," Ren whispered.

And then, without hesitation, he tucked the bound curse under one arm like a squirming football and turned around.

No one had seen him.

No one cared.

The streets were empty.

Only the sound of his footsteps echoed through the alleyways as he walked back home—hood up, cap low, dragging the cursed energy prize he'd hunted down in the dark.

---

He reached his apartment before midnight.

He locked the door.

Threw a towel over the windows.

Placed the floating fish on the floor, still cocooned in red string, and crouched in front of it.

It wriggled like a sack of eels.

"Well, Kai," Ren said, poking its forehead gently, "you were version one. This little freak?"

He grinned.

"This is version two."

He cracked his neck.

Time to begin testing.

---