Jujutsu Kaisen: Tickless

Location: Cursed Ruin near Tokyo's outskirts — formerly sealed

The cursed site was breathing.

The walls of the abandoned temple flexed like lungs, soaked in temporal bleed. Objects shivered, time stuttered. Candles lit, then unlit. Footprints unwalked themselves.

Nobara's hammer was already in her hand. "This place reeks."

Megumi scanned the shadows. "There's something here that doesn't want to be remembered."

Panda shifted. "I'm not even flesh and I feel it."

Nanami stood beside Ijichi at the perimeter, watching the students enter. "If Akira's in there… they're not ready."

"Then why send them in first?" Ijichi asked.

Nanami didn't answer. He was already drawing his blunt sword.

Inside the domain fracture

The echo fog was thick. CE particles looped around like corrupted snow.

Then they saw him.

Akira.

Standing still. One eye twitching. The air around him fractured — like he was standing behind cracked glass no one else could see.

"Yo!" Nobara called. "Akira, you good?!"

His head tilted.

Then another Akira stepped out from behind a broken pillar. Same face. Same hair.

Different smile.

Then a third Akira, crouched like an animal, hands twitching. Blood on his knuckles.

Megumi's instincts screamed.

"This isn't a joke. That's not CE residue — those are fragments."

The first Akira spoke — voice layered, like four tracks at once.

"Do you know what it's like… to watch her die in thirty-seven different seconds?"

He blinked — and time rewound.

They were outside again.

Megumi gasped. "What the—?"

Nobara gripped her weapon harder. "We just walked in…"

Then they heard Akira's voice again — but this time, inside their heads.

"No escape. We all die in one of these."

The domain fractured.

Echoes manifested.

One Akira fought with fists — brutal, instinctive. Another wielded an hourglass-shaped blade. One bled reversed cursed energy like steam. One screamed wordless fury, its jaw cracked wide open.

The fight begins.

Megumi opened with divine dogs, sending both forward.

One echo was already behind him. "Too slow."

Megumi took a hit to the gut — a rewound punch — as if the strike had landed before the attack was thrown. Time corrected itself around the damage.

He coughed blood and dropped.

Nobara screamed and activated Resonance — the nail pinned one echo in place.

Another stabbed her from the side — the echo had traded places with a different second.

She went down, gasping, eyes wide.

Panda roared and tackled the assailant, using his Gorilla Mode to smash one echo into the stone. It shattered into glitching seconds.

But another stepped in.

Akira Prime — the one in control — raised his hand and whispered:

"Let this second shatter."

Panda's arms broke backwards, the sound sickening. He dropped.

Only Maki remained standing.

She moved through the chaos like a blade — cutting down echoes with relentless precision.

But they kept coming.

Her weapon sliced one in half — it reversed and became whole again.

"Bullshit!" she spat.

Akira flinched — briefly — at her voice.

She stepped forward.

"You're not a monster. You're Akira. You remember me, right?!"

Silence.

Then the real Akira blinked.

"I… I didn't mean—"

But his mouth jerked like a puppet yanked mid-sentence.

Another voice — deeper, layered with others — took over.

"You're too late for anchors."

The echoes collapsed into him.

A blast of cursed energy knocked everyone unconscious.

Outside the veil

Nanami rushed in as the barrier failed.

He found Megumi bleeding from his mouth. Panda unconscious. Nobara curled on her side, eyes twitching.

Maki was on her knees — barely alive.

And in the middle of it all?

Akira.

Crouched.

Weeping.

Blood leaking from his ears. Nails cracked. Hands shaking. His cursed energy was eating his own body.

"I'm not… the one who should be alive…"

Nanami stepped in front of him.

"Then why are you?"

Akira looked up — one eye completely black with echo corruption.

He collapsed.

Elsewhere…

Kenjaku watched from a cursed mirror.

"They're breaking him down faster than I thought."

Jogo stepped from the shadows. "Should we accelerate?"

"No," Kenjaku smiled. "Let them bleed first. Let Gojo come too late."