Jujutsu Kaisen: False Dawn

Red Thread of Survival - Chapter 23

Three more days.

Three. That's all I had left before the deadline I set for myself would come crashing down on me like a guillotine.

I wasn't afraid. Not anymore. I had seen what was possible. I had tasted results that should've been impossible with my cursed technique. Red Stitch. A cursed technique barely worth mentioning in any shounen story. But now? Now I was turning it into something monstrous.

Because I was desperate.

Because I had no other choice.

And so, I laid there on the mat again, staring up at the cracked ceiling of my dim apartment. My hands rested on my stomach, fingers twitching unconsciously. The threads... they were moving. Inside me. My cursed energy was flowing better than it ever had. The crude internal circuit I had spent days crafting was holding steady. Sloppy, unstable, flawed—but functional.

1900%. That's the number I came up with when I measured my cursed energy usage versus the efficiency from before.

It didn't even feel real.

But I wasn't done yet.

Not even close.

I had three days left. And in those three days, I had to push further.

No, I had to finish it.

A single thread.

That's what I needed now.

A single red stitch that wove throughout my entire body like a cursed puppet's control lines. From my stomach, the core, it would spread up to my spine, then branch out—to my arms, to my legs, to my head.

Like a crude stickman made of blood-colored thread.

And if I could do that…

If I could do that, then everything would change.

Day One.

It was like trying to thread a needle while blindfolded, underwater, and on fire.

The moment I started pushing the red stitch through more than just one limb, things got unstable. The thread would misalign, or worse, double back on itself, creating tangles of cursed energy that sparked and frayed like short-circuits. Once, it even backfired so badly that I nearly coughed blood.

Still—I didn't stop.

Every time I failed, I felt something. Something new. I was learning, even as my body trembled with exhaustion. The control over my cursed technique… it was growing. Bit by bit.

I began to feel each part of my body like a terrain to be mapped. Nerve by nerve, I guided the cursed thread—slowly, carefully—like a surgeon operating on himself.

I couldn't see the threads, not truly. But I could feel them.

The pulse of cursed energy.

The tension between its push and pull.

And I was beginning to understand something no one had ever taught me: my cursed technique wasn't just a weapon. It was a language. And I was starting to read.

Day Two.

I stopped using my fingers entirely. They were too twitchy, too unreliable for the delicate work I was doing. Instead, I focused everything on sense—pure, cursed energy sense. Every inch of my attention was focused inward. I stopped eating. Stopped speaking. I drank only enough to not pass out.

I lost track of time once. Maybe twice.

Sleep came in bursts, broken and jagged.

My body screamed.

But my cursed energy hummed.

The thread was growing longer. Stronger. I had mapped my torso, my spine, both arms. The legs were the hardest—they required me to lay completely still, not even twitching. But I kept trying.

Every time I failed, I started over.

It was hell.

But it was my hell.

Day Three.

I pushed the thread into my legs, tracing each muscle, wrapping around my bones like a second nervous system. I could feel it, like a faint vibration under the skin.

The moment it all connected—the moment the last red stitch linked from stomach to spine to head, shoulders, arms, and legs—I felt it.

It was like my blood had caught fire.

But it didn't hurt.

It didn't hurt at all.

I opened my eyes.

And for the first time since coming to this world… I felt complete.

—

Ren sat in the center of the apartment, cross-legged, breathing slow and shallow. His skin glistened with sweat, his shirt damp and clinging to his thin frame. His eyes, once dulled from exhaustion, now shimmered with clarity.

And then—without a word—cursed energy burst from his body like a detonation.

It wrapped around him in a perfect sphere, a shell of crimson energy. It moved like a living thing, pulsing, weaving. His skin glowed faintly under it.

Ren's body was now coated entirely in cursed energy. No breaks. No unstable flares. Just pure, stable cursed energy coating his form.

And he smiled.

It wasn't a grin of arrogance or glee.

It was the quiet smile of someone who had fought tooth and nail just to breathe in a world that wanted him dead.

He didn't say anything at first.

Then, slowly, softly, he whispered to no one:

"…It worked."

And he laughed—just once.

A short, breathless laugh that echoed in the empty apartment.

Because for the first time…

Ren wasn't surviving.

He was beginning to live.