Tokyo suburbs.
A standalone house on a plot of land so large it felt almost offensive.
The suit-and-tie real estate agent had been bouncing along the dirt road for the better part of an hour.
He looked at the man standing by the gate — muscles threatening to burst clean through a faded green tank top — and his heart quietly started pounding.
“Mr.
Fushiguro, the previous owner was a retired sumo wrestler, so the yard and attached dojo are especially spacious.
It’s just…
the house itself has some years on it.
As you can see…”
He never got to finish.
Toji had already jumped out of the car and kicked the dojo’s thick wooden door open.
He stomped across the solid floor, listening to the echo roll back through the empty space, and grinned.
“This is it.
Big enough, sturdy enough, and enough room for me to cut completely loose.”
He turned, slapped a freshly signed ten-million-yen check onto the hood of the agent’s car, and the crack of it rang sharp in the open air.
“Renting it.
One year, upfront.”
He had money.
He finally had money.
No more watching the faces of those black market bastards.
No more scrounging at pachinko parlors.
This money was clean.
The reward of righteousness.
Megumi Fushiguro and Tsumiki sat side by side in the back seat.
Through the car window, two pairs of eyes stared out at a yard choked with waist-high weeds, stretching almost half the length of a sports field.
So big.
Megumi watched Toji move around the sprawling grounds.
In the past, the first thing this man did when he got money was head to the black market racetrack.
Or find some underground bar and drink himself unconscious.
Today he’d actually brought them house hunting?
And his opening move was to rent a place that looked like an abandoned dojo?
“Megumi!
Tsumiki!”
Toji spun around, planted both hands on his hips, and flashed a grin that he clearly thought looked heroic.
“Out, both of you!
Starting today, this is our new training ground of youth!
Come feel the pulse of this land!”
He swept an arm at the weed-choked yard, full of wind and thunder.
“Megumi!
First mission: follow your dad and pull every single weed in this yard before dawn.
Call it morning training.
Tsumiki, you’re on logistics and supervision!”
Tsumiki swallowed and quietly gripped the hem of Megumi’s shirt.
Megumi sighed.
Tired.
Just let it all burn.
Even if Toji used to be a hopeless piece of human trash, he was now a piece of human trash missing a brain stem.
And yet, what was this strange, crawling sense of security?
Once the keys were in hand, Toji shifted into a higher gear entirely.
Moving?
That crumbling rental held nothing worth carrying except mold and cockroaches.
He tucked Megumi under his left arm and Tsumiki under his right and charged like a whirlwind straight into the largest shopping complex in Tokyo.
Two hours later.
The movers looked like they were about to die.
They hauled mountain-sized loads of supplies into the rooms and out into the yard with the hollow expressions of men who had accepted their fate.
“Careful!
That’s the premium whey protein I handpicked!
Spill one gram and you’re desecrating muscle itself!”
Toji stood at the doorway conducting the whole operation.
“Right — those ten cases of chicken breast go in the double-door fridge!
The 500-kilogram squat rack goes dead center in the yard!”
Megumi stood in the middle of the living room and stared at the pile of green fabric on the floor.
His eye twitched.
It was an actual mountain of green fabric.
Fifty full sets.
Full-body spandex suits.
Adult sizes through children’s sizes.
Every single one accounted for.
They even came with orange knitted leg warmers, thoughtfully included.
“What,” Megumi said, pointing at the pile, his voice carrying zero inflection, “is this?”
“Our battle robes!”
Toji snatched up a child-sized suit, held it against Megumi to check the fit, and flashed a blinding white smile.
“Breathable, sweat-wicking, incredible stretch.
Wear it and every pore on your body will feel the call of the wind.
Starting tomorrow, this is the family uniform.”
Tsumiki covered her face.
Her shoulders trembled.
She was starting to miss the dad who didn’t come home for weeks at a time.
At least back then she didn’t have to dress like a green blowfly that had somehow achieved spiritual awakening.
“I refuse.” Three words, flat and cold.
“Refusal denied!”
Toji seized Megumi with one hand and lifted him straight over his head.
“There is no retreat on the path of youth!
Tonight’s training schedule is already set.
100 push-ups before bed.
You’re not sleeping until every single one is done.”
Megumi’s limbs kicked at the open air.
Put me down!
What in the hell happened to this muscle-brained idiot?!
He would genuinely rather face the vicious thugs who came collecting black market debts than do 100 push-ups.
Late night.
Training ground.
Megumi lay flat on the mat, soaked through with sweat, his two thin arms shaking like leaves in a gale.
“Ninety-eight…
ninety-nine…”
“Too slow!
Megumi!
Your muscles are weeping!
They are begging for more tearing, more rebuilding!”
Toji stood off to the side in his green spandex suit, doing a one-handed handstand.
His other hand was flipping through a copy of Child Nutrition.
“One hundred…”
Megumi hit the mat face-first and didn’t move again.
That’s it?
Toji shook his head.
The physical condition was genuinely terrible.
Back in Konoha, four-year-olds were already running 2 full laps around the village.
The reform plan, it seemed, was going to be a long road.
He carried Megumi back to his room, tucked the blanket around him, then turned and walked back out to the yard.
The moment he stepped outside, every trace of fanaticism left his face.
What replaced it was absolute calm.
Toji sat cross-legged on the open ground and closed his eyes.
A body under Heavenly Restriction.
Not a trace of Cursed Energy.
That was this world’s iron law.
But in that other world, this same body had been a perfect vessel for Chakra.
The meridian map of the Eight Gates lit up behind his eyes.
He needed to recover his strength.
Fast.
The Star Religious Group wouldn’t let things go quietly.
And those old men at the jujutsu college almost certainly had their own angles.
To protect Megumi and Tsumiki, he needed absolute power.
The Eight Gates.
Toji turned his focus inward, pressing his consciousness against the limiters buried deep in his body.
BOOM.
Something moved.
A thread of energy, faint but extraordinarily pure, carried here from another world entirely, stirred in his meridians and began to flow.
Chakra.
It was real.
It was actually there.
The amount was laughable, less than a brat on his first day at Konoha’s Ninja Academy.
But for a body under the Heavenly Restriction, this was nothing short of a miracle from the heavens themselves.
The Heavenly Restriction rejected Cursed Energy at every level.
But this Chakra, born from the fusion of physical and spiritual energy, it accepted without resistance.
His eyes snapped open.
His hands blurred through seals.
Clone Technique!
A soft POP.
A puff of white smoke.
A phantom that looked exactly like Toji materialized beside him, slouching slightly, looking a little underenthusiastic about its own existence.
Toji grinned.
In the ninja world, this was the most basic technique imaginable.
Littered across every academy classroom.
Any Genin could see through it in a second.
But in the jujutsu world?
Everyone here sensed through Cursed Energy.
That was the only frequency they knew.
Picture it: Satoru Gojo standing there with his Limitless cranked wide open, looking unbearably smug, and then realizing the Toji in front of him is a ghost.
By the time it registers, the real body has already come around behind him, and one clean, youthful straight punch lands right across that insufferably arrogant face.
A beautiful image.
Toji dispelled the clone and stood, rolling his joints out one by one.
His bones crackled like a string of firecrackers.
His body’s compatibility with Chakra was extraordinary.
The Heavenly Restriction had cut him off from Cursed Energy entirely, but in doing so it had left his physical potential without a ceiling.
One month at most.
He’d have the Third Gate open again.
And when that day came, Special Grade Cursed Spirits, the strongest sorcerer, whatever else this world wanted to throw at him, he would smash every last one of them to pieces with the iron fists of youth.
➤ Next: The Star Plasma Vessel Mission Begins