Late February, 2010.
A bitter winter wind swept through the outskirts of Tokyo.
Inside a pitch-black alley, a boy dressed in a middle school uniform pulled his coat tighter around himself and let out a helpless sigh.
After muttering a curse about the damned weather, the boy adjusted the half-price bento he had just bought and continued down the narrow, unlit alley.
It was simply too cold.
Cold enough that he’d almost instinctively chosen this deserted shortcut because it would get him home much faster.
Under normal circumstances, there was absolutely no way he would willingly set foot in a place like this.
The reason was simple.
This was the world of Jujutsu Kaisen!
That’s right.
The boy’s name was Sherlock, and he was a genuine transmigrator.
Normally, being sent to another world should have been a good thing.
After all, who wouldn’t want a second chance to rise above the crowd and live however they wanted?
There was only one problem.
Sherlock absolutely did not want to transmigrate into a world as completely insane as Jujutsu Kaisen!
Talking tough online was one thing.
Actually living here was another.
What ordinary person was seriously going to run up to Sukuna and start throwing hands with him?
Did they really think they were Gojo Satoru?
What kind of body was supposed to survive being carved apart by the King of Curses?
Forget everything else.
The moment Sherlock remembered some of those infamous scenes from the manga, he had immediately accepted that Gojo-sensei was built different.
If Gojo ever called himself weak, Sherlock figured he’d have to put on a dress right then and there, because apparently he was the delicate one.
And even setting aside the story’s completely unhinged plot, simply living in Tokyo was enough to make Sherlock question his life choices.
Fly Heads were everywhere.
Those ugly little low-grade curses might as well have been part of the local wildlife.
But even that wasn’t the biggest problem.
The biggest problem was that Sherlock had never actually been a dedicated Jujutsu Kaisen reader!
He had transmigrated years ago, gone through elementary school, and was now about to graduate from middle school.
Yet the only things he could clearly remember about the series were memes, spoilers, iconic panels, and whatever nonsense had gone viral online.
As for the actual plot?
His memory was practically useless.
Following the timeless rule of play stupid games, win stupid prizes, Sherlock had already planned out his future.
Once he turned eighteen and officially became an adult, he would sell the house his late parents had left him, take the money, move to some quiet little town, and spend the rest of his life staying as far away from the jujutsu world as possible.
If fortune really smiled on him and he somehow ended up living the ridiculous life of a dating-sim protagonist surrounded by four adorable adopted sisters, well…
That wouldn’t exactly be terrible either.
Because if you gave someone a choice between throwing punches with Sukuna or becoming the protagonist of a romance game, Sherlock was pretty sure more than half the population would choose the latter.
Even if that was cowardly thinking.
Sherlock was happily imagining his future life as a carefree dating-sim protagonist when a gigantic shadow suddenly stepped out of the darkness ahead.
The thing was enormous.
Nearly the size of a truck.
Its general shape resembled a dog, but that was where the similarities ended.
Most disturbing of all was its mouth.
Instead of opening horizontally, a massive vertical slit ran down its face and stretched nearly halfway along its body.
“Hungry…” A warped voice came from the creature.
“So hungry…” “Eat…” The broken words were barely coherent.
The curse looked like someone had taken one of the zombie dogs from Resident Evil, enlarged it several times, then decided it still wasn’t disturbing enough.
Sherlock stared at it.
He didn’t panic.
He simply sighed.
“Seriously, I have absolutely no interest in fighting things so ugly they’ve crossed over into abstract art.” Before the last word had even fallen, Sherlock disappeared.
No sound.
No flash.
His figure simply vanished from the alley without leaving the slightest trace behind, as though he’d never been there at all.
Less than a minute later, another person appeared where Sherlock had been standing.
White hair.
Sunglasses.
The newcomer casually raised one hand and flicked out a sphere of blue light.
In an instant, the truck-sized zombie dog was crushed and erased, reduced to little more than scattered ash.
Yet the white-haired man didn’t leave.
Instead, he lowered his sunglasses, revealing a pair of brilliant blue eyes that seemed to stretch endlessly like the open sky.
Those eyes slowly swept across the alley.
He examined the surroundings for quite some time.
Then a bright smile appeared on his face.
“Now that’s interesting…” With those words, the white-haired man turned around and casually walked away.
Elsewhere, inside a fairly spacious detached house, a figure suddenly appeared in the previously empty entryway.
It was Sherlock.
He glanced at the protective charm hanging on the wall beside the entrance and let out another helpless sigh.
Only then did he remove his shoes and walk inside.
Still muttering complaints under his breath, he switched on the heater, tossed the bento onto the table, and immediately crawled beneath the kotatsu.
That’s right.
As a transmigrator, Sherlock naturally had a few special advantages.
Back in elementary school, he had already awakened both cursed energy and an innate cursed technique.
And his cursed technique was powerful.
Ridiculously powerful.
It also fit him strangely well.
The entire ability could be explained in three simple words.
Flying Thunder God.
But Sherlock valued his life far too much to show it off.
Not only did he rarely use his cursed technique, he deliberately suppressed his enormous reserves of cursed energy whenever possible.
After all, he was someone who had already crossed the boundary between life and death once.
Whatever shadow that experience had left upon his soul had produced an absurd amount of cursed energy, enough that even Sherlock had no idea where its upper limit might be.
And that was exactly why he’d chosen to keep his head down.
Sherlock genuinely had no desire to fight those grotesque things that were unpleasant enough just to look at.
He certainly didn’t want to test his luck against Sukuna either!
Getting reincarnated into Jujutsu Kaisen was already unlucky enough.
He’d lost his old life, his old home, and everything familiar to him in the process.
Why in the world would he voluntarily involve himself in the jujutsu world’s endless mess?
Especially when it was filled with conservative old fossils who seemed professionally dedicated to making every situation worse.
If Sherlock had that much free time, wouldn’t going to a fan convention be better?
If he got lucky, maybe he’d even have the chance to directly support one of his favorite creators.
He could consider it repayment for all the unofficial scans and pirated material he’d consumed before transmigrating.
Thinking about it that way, Sherlock suddenly felt that being sent into this world wasn’t completely unbearable.
Feeling much better, he pulled out his phone, entered his information on an event registration page, and conveniently adjusted his age a little.
Once everything was done, Sherlock climbed out from beneath the kotatsu with a satisfied expression and finally started eating dinner.
If there was one thing about life in Japan that Sherlock genuinely couldn’t stand, it was winter.
Every year when the temperature dropped, he found himself desperately missing the powerful central heating he’d enjoyed in his previous life.
Compared to that, huddling around a kotatsu felt almost primitive.
After finishing his bento, Sherlock thought for a moment before decisively choosing to sleep right where he was.
His bedroom would be freezing anyway.
Why abandon the warm kotatsu?
The more he thought about it, the sleepier he became.
With a contented smile, Sherlock closed his eyes.
He had absolutely no idea that when he opened them the next morning, his peaceful little life would already be racing straight off a cliff.
While Sherlock sank into a deep, peaceful sleep, Gojo Satoru had just walked out of the alley elsewhere in Tokyo.
He glanced at a screenshot saved on his phone.
Then he dialed the Gojo family residence.
“Clan Head.” A calm, steady voice came through the phone once the call connected.
Gojo’s expression immediately became slightly awkward.
He had only formally succeeded as head of the Gojo clan the previous year, and he still hadn’t gotten used to people addressing him so stiffly.
Without bothering to comment on it, Gojo sent over an image extracted from nearby surveillance footage.
Then, in the clear, cool voice befitting the bearer of the Six Eyes, he gave a simple order.
“Find out everything you can about this kid.” His brilliant blue eyes narrowed slightly.
“I want the full report by tomorrow morning.” With that, Gojo ended the call.
The cold expression on his face gradually disappeared.
In its place was a faint smile filled with unmistakable anticipation.