Sorcerer Killer in Westeros [Toji SI]

[Fanfictionlord]

The sky was annoyingly bright today.

That was the first thing Toji's mind registered as he lay on his back, staring up. Even more annoying was the heavy feeling in his body.

None of his limbs listened to him. He felt weak. Weaker than he'd ever been.

"Tch." He clicked his tongue.

Weak.

The word disgusted him more than anything. Ever since he had walked out of the Zenin compound, no one had dared call him that. He'd put every bastard who tried six feet under the ground.

But facts were facts.

There was a hole in his torso—a perfect circle of nothing, bored clean through his gut from front to back. His insides—at least whatever remained of them—were visible at the edges, shredded by whatever purple blast that Gojo brat had thrown at him.

Even breathing hurt. Every inhale scraped across his chest like broken glass.

He was weak in every possible way, and his time was running out. Call it a killer's instinct. He could feel it in his bones.

As he lay there, waiting for death to claim him, a woman's face floated through his mind.

His wife. Sakura Fushiguro.

He hadn't thought about her in years. He had buried those memories so deep he'd almost convinced himself they belonged to someone else. But now, lying in the dirt with half his body missing, the memories came flooding back.

Her beautiful face. Those long dark locks. The way she laughed. The way she held his hand while walking through the market. The way she looked at him—not with fear or pity like others, but with something he'd never known before she came into his life.

Love.

He didn't deserve it. He knew that even then. But she had given it anyway.

And then she died, entrusting him with a child he never asked for and never knew how to raise.

"Megumi."

The name surfaced in his head.

The boy wasn't like him. He was talented, having inherited the Ten Shadows Technique—the very technique that made the Zenin clan what it was today. They would kill to have one in their midst again. He'd be valued, protected, and trained to be one of the strongest jujutsu sorcerers of the era.

That's what Toji had told himself when he sold the kid like merchandise.

He'd told himself it was for the best. That he—a killer and a gambler—was unfit to raise a child. Same for Tsumiki. She was better off without him.

But those were just excuses to rationalize his actions. In reality, he'd bailed because it was easier than fucking it up.

Now he was dying and the kids were still out there carrying his mess.

A bitter sigh escaped his lips.

Maybe... he really did deserve to die.

As he was lost in his thoughts, the sound of footsteps drifted in from the distance, approaching him.

Toji didn't need to turn his head to know who it was.

Gojo Satoru. The Gojo clan's golden boy. They'd never been subtle about the Six Eyes and Limitless making a comeback. Toji had heard the rumors for years. They called the brat a once-in-a-generation freak, declaring to the whole jujutsu society that he'd be the strongest sorcerer of the modern era.

Toji had heard that kind of talk his whole life. The Zenin clung to the same logic. To them, talent was decided at birth, and strength was measured by inherited techniques.

Toji sort of agreed with them. And for that very reason, he loved taking the heads of the talented ones the most—just to see the look on their faces when they realized the guy taking their life didn't have a drop of cursed energy.

He thought Gojo Satoru would be the same. So when the commission to take the brat's head landed in his hands, he accepted it without a second thought.

And oh, man—when his blade pierced through the boy's throat, he savored the look of shock in those eyes. Those star-like eyes everyone kept praising.

The expression on the brat's face when he realized that his clan's prized Limitless was as fragile as paper against him still sent a wave of satisfaction through whatever was left of Toji's body.

For a brief moment, the sorcerer destined to be the strongest of the modern era looked just like any other human. He could bleed and die. All at the mercy of Toji's blade—a blade wielded by a man with zero cursed energy.

His only regret was not chopping the brat's head off when he had the chance. Instead, he had walked away, sure the job was done.

Who'd have guessed the kid would figure out Reverse Cursed Technique on death's door and bounce back?

In the end, Toji ended up helping him get even stronger.

That part… even now, lying here, pissed him off.

"Tch."

Maybe there was some truth to those rumors.

Perhaps Gojo Satoru really was meant to be the strongest of this era, if he wasn't already.

The footsteps stopped.

A shadow fell across Toji's face.

Toji looked up, meeting eye to eye with Gojo Satoru, now standing directly over him.

His white hair shifted faintly in the breeze as he stared down at Toji's crumbling body. His Six Eyes were filled with detached calmness—completely different from the arrogant brat he had been in their previous confrontation.

'Did he get humbled?' Toji wondered for a second.

He dismissed the thought just as quickly.

That edgy dialogue the brat had said before throwing that purple blast at him was still fresh in his memory.

'Throughout Heaven and Earth, I alone am the honored one.'

That didn't sound humble.

So it was probably the opposite. Gojo Satoru had climbed to a whole new level of arrogance.

'The brat thinks he's a god now.' An amused grin tugged at Toji's lips. What an irony. It reminded him of himself not long ago—that certainty that nothing could touch him, that no one could stand against him.

It was exactly that arrogance that had led him to this state.

He knew the brat was bad news when he came back from the dead. He could have run away. Gojo Satoru wouldn't have been able to catch him—Toji was faster. But he didn't. His pride as the Sorcerer Killer wouldn't let him.

He didn't believe some snot-nosed brat who hadn't even grown hair down there could ever be his match. So he decided to tank what was probably the kid's strongest attack head-on and paid the price for it.

And now... Toji saw the same arrogance in Gojo Satoru.

Maybe it'd be the reason for his downfall too. Who knows.

"Still alive?" A calm and detached voice drifted into Toji's ears.

Toji let out a faint breath that might've been a laugh. 'Yeah, the brat's lost his mind.'

He didn't answer right away. His throat was as dry as a desert and his lips felt cracked. But his eyes remained fixed on Gojo.

Silence stretched between them.

Then Toji spoke. "I've got a son."

His voice was barely a whisper, his throat burning with every word as he tasted the metallic tang of blood pooling at the back of his mouth.

"Megumi." As he continued, Toji's vision started to blur at the edges. "He's getting sold to the Zenin clan soon. Do whatever you want with that information."

The words hung in the air.

Toji didn't know what he was hoping for by telling Gojo this. Maybe the kid gets a better shot this way.

But the Six Eyes brat didn't owe him anything. If anything, they were enemies. He'd tried to kill the brat less than an hour ago. So this was a gamble—the only kind Toji had left up his sleeve.

Gojo was quiet for a long moment.

Toji couldn't read his expression from this angle; the sun was behind him, turning his face into shadow. But he could feel those Six Eyes staring down at him, analyzing and processing.

Then the brat spoke in that same detached tone. "I see."

That was it. He only said two words. No promise or reassurance. But in that moment, Toji caught something in his eyes—a flicker of understanding, maybe, or just curiosity.

That was all he needed.

His eyes closed, and then the world went dark.

Toji Fushiguro—the man known as the Sorcerer Killer, the Ghost of the Zenin—ceased to be, killed at the hands of the strongest sorcerer of the modern era.

...

Westeros, 284 AC — The North, a small village in Bolton Lands

Toji found himself floating in an endless void. There was no sense of direction, no up or down, no body to anchor himself to reality. Even his thoughts felt distant, as if they belonged to someone else.

He just mindlessly drifted from one place to another.

After an unknown amount of time, he felt a strange pull tug at him, and he instinctively drifted toward it.

'Where the hell am I?' His consciousness stirred, sluggish and confused. There was some strange liquid pressing down on him from all sides. He tried to survey his surroundings, but his vision was unresponsive.

There were sounds above him. A woman screaming, and another voice talking with urgency.

Then something shifted.

The woman above him screamed again, louder this time, and the liquid pressurized and surged. There was a rush, and he was moving.

His entire world contracted. He felt his skull compress, his shoulders fold, his entire form contort to fit through a gap that seemed impossibly small.

Before he could process it, everything changed.

A searing light pierced through his closed eyelids, sharp enough to make his entire body twitch in response. Cold followed right after, hitting his skin like countless tiny blades stabbing into him all at once.

Toji gasped as air rushed into his lungs violently. The sensation felt foreign and painful.

His limbs flailed on their own, completely out of his control. His senses were overwhelmed. There was too much to process all at once. His ears rang, filled with a chaotic mixture of sounds that refused to form into anything coherent. His head throbbed as if the world itself had been flipped upside down.

Everything was unbearably bright, deafeningly loud, and freezing cold.

A sudden urge to let out a cry hit him. It was reflexive, and Toji almost gave in, but he managed to clamp down on it at the last second.

Crying? Him? What a joke!

Slap!

A raw wail tore out of his throat as he felt stinging pain on his butt.

As his body was turned upright, Toji forced open his tearful eyes. His vision, still blurry and unfocused, caught sight of a looming figure above him.

At first, it was nothing more than a distorted shape, far too large and impossibly close. But slowly, details began to form.

It was an old woman, her hair gray and her skin weathered like old leather. Strangely, he was being held in her arms.

Toji glared at her. Or at least, he tried to. His body barely cooperated, his face failing to convey even a fraction of the hostility he felt. Still, he pushed as much murderous intent as he could into the stare.

The bitch had just slapped him on the butt!

And worse, he had cried!

He, Toji Fushiguro. The Sorcerer Killer. The man who'd walked off wounds that would have killed anyone else had been reduced to tears by a single slap from an old woman who had one foot in the grave.

The old woman seemed amused by his reaction, letting out a soft chuckle. She turned her head slightly and spoke to someone else in the room.

Toji only saw her lips move. His hearing was still offline. All he heard were muffled vibrations, as if he were underwater.

A soft, feminine yet exhausted voice replied from somewhere nearby.

The old woman nodded and smiled faintly before shifting her grip. Toji felt himself being wrapped in something warm, blocking the biting cold against his skin. A moment later, he was lifted and passed into another pair of arms. They were trembling but held him with more care and gentleness.

Toji's blurry vision tilted upward.

The face that came into view was that of a young woman, her features soft despite the exhaustion etched into them. Golden-brown hair clung damply to her forehead and neck, strands sticking to her flushed skin. Sweat glistened faintly under the dim light as she panted.

The woman was beautiful. And she had just gone through something extremely laborious by the looks of it.

But what took his attention were her eyes.

Emerald green, filled with an emotion he was familiar with and unfamiliar with at the same time.

'Why is everything so fuckin' huge?' Toji thought, trying to distract himself from the look the woman was giving him.

At first, he dismissed it as part of the overwhelming sensory overload, but the more his mind stabilized, the more glaring the detail became.

Looking down, he caught a glimpse of his hands. They appeared different from how he remembered them. Although his vision was still a bit blurry, he was sure his hands weren't that small and chubby.

Suspicion started to tug at him, and as he mentally retraced the chain of events, a new possibility began to take shape in his mind.

The towering figures weren't giants.

He had shrunk!

'I've… become a goddamn baby?!' Toji was completely baffled.

The absurdity of the situation made him question his sanity. He wasn't the religious type. He didn't believe in reincarnation, rebirth, or any of that metaphysical nonsense. Only the weak clung to such fantasies.

For a moment, Toji wondered if he was under the influence of some technique. But he dismissed it just as quickly. All of this was far too detailed for a technique. No cursed technique could be this flawless.

Then was he really...?

A variety of emotions surged through him all at once: disbelief, denial, wariness, irritation, and at last, warmth.

'Wait… warmth?' Toji was jolted out of his thoughts.

It wasn't coming from the woman holding him—his now supposed mother—nor from the cloth wrapped around his body.

The warmth was inside him, nestled somewhere deep in his chest. His attention snapped inward on instinct, and he willed it to move.

A small wisp of the warmth separated from the core in his chest and began to travel slowly down his arm.

It flowed like liquid heat through his underdeveloped limb before gathering at his palm, concentrating there for a brief moment before his focus wavered and it scattered.

For a split second, Toji's mind went completely blank.

Then it hit him.

'…Cursed energy.'

 

[king7marble]

How very interesting. Someone actually remembering toji

 

[KingNecron101]

Interesting.

Toji with Cursed Energy working narratively will depend heavily on the character arc (since Heavenly Restriction is his whole thing), but I can see it be an interesting avenue to explore in terms of character development

 

[IbnAurum]

Lmao, for him of all people to be reincarnated with CE
Academically he may understand CE, but he's in the same boat with fellow Westerosi in regards to using it, so... idk what might arise from that unique perspective

 

[NutakuFan]

I want this to continue. Plz update! Also, recently I've found the reversed sexual morality genre, so...y'know.

 

[some one]

Academically he may understand CE, but he's in the same boat with fellow Westerosi in regards to using it, so... idk what might arise from that unique perspective

Click to shrink...

I am pretty sure there was a point where he did study cursed energy while he was in his clan in an attempt to fit in or gain it himself before he understood it was impossible , so he might have a decent academic grounding at the cost zero practical know how on how to apply it , CE is very intuitive so just because he knows about something and even has a theoretically full understanding doesn't mean he'll be able to do it

 

[Fanfictionlord]

The forge fire had burned down to sullen embers. Harren set his hammer upon the anvil as the final ring of steel faded into the smoky dark.

It had been a long day, and a good one too. Seven horseshoes, six plow-blades, and a fistful of nails for old Marta's leaking roof.

Harren's arms ached from the long labor, yet he welcomed the burn. Pain was coin, and coin was bread, and bread was life. The long winter had taught him that much, if nothing else. It had dragged on for years now, longer than any Harren could remember. His cellar stood nearly empty; the last of the salted pork and barley had gone weeks past.

Only the rare merchant caravans, daring the deep snows and the outlaws that followed them, brought grain or dried fish, and at prices that could bleed a man dry. But at least they kept his family from starving.

Harren wiped his soot-black hands on a scrap of leather and turned back to the forge. The coals glowed a sullen red beneath their crust of ash. He raked them together with care, added fresh coal, and covered all with a thick layer of damp ash from the bucket. The heat sank to a low, steady mutter.

In the North, blacksmiths never let a fire die if they could help it. Starting one again at dawn took half the morning. It was the very first lesson his father had taught him when he began learning the swing of the hammer and the man had been one of the wisest men Harren knew, before the gods took him.

Harren checked the shutters, tested the bar across the door, and hung his hammer on its hook. He swept the floor with a birch broom until the packed earth was clean of filings and scale, then carried the slag out back and dumped it onto the growing pile behind the smithy. The snow had buried most of it, but he could feel the crunch of old iron waste beneath the fresh fall.

Then he barred the door behind him and stepped into the night.

The wind came howling off the wolfswood, slicing through his wool tunic like a knife. Snow crunched under his boots. The sky hung low and pale gray, promising more snow before morning.

Weeping Ford lay quiet beneath the grey sky. A few dozen small cottages huddled along the frozen banks of the now-frozen Weeping Water, their thatched roofs sagging under drifts. Thin smoke rose from every chimney.

Harren walked the narrow path between the huts, pausing as he passed the place where old Tom's cottage stood. Though stood was a generous word for it now. The roof had collapsed a fortnight past, and no one had bothered to clear it.

The lad had gone south to the war and never came back. His wife had wept for a month, then taken fever and died. The cottage had stood empty since, slowly dying of neglect.

It was not the only one.

A year had passed since the Usurper's War ended, since the stag replaced the dragon and Robert Baratheon claimed the Iron Throne. But the North still felt the wound.

Near half the able-bodied men from Weeping Ford had marched away. A few had come back—Harren among them—but most had fed the crows on the Trident or died of fever in some muddy camp. Too many empty places at the hearth. Too many widows with hollow eyes, scraping together what they could, selling what they had, doing what they must to keep their children breathing.

Harren pulled his collar higher and walked faster.

He thanked the old gods every night that he had been able to return alive.

He still remembered the day Bolton's men had ridden up the Weeping Ford road with their flayed-man banners and read the levy order aloud, demanding every man of age. Refusal meant treason. And in these parts, treason was often worse than death.

Lyra had been heavy with child then, and the very thought of leaving her alone, with no end to winter in sight and a child due any day, had terrified Harren. Westeros was a hard land for widows, and it would only be worse under lands ruled by the Leech Lord, known for his cruelty.

He had considered fleeing to Essos with Lyra. He had some old ties across the Narrow Sea, thin though they were. But exile had its own price. He would be a stranger in a foreign land, a hunted man if he ever set foot in the Seven Kingdoms again. Worse, the journey itself was long and perilous, no road for a woman heavy with child. Too many risks, too many ways for it all to end in ruin.

So he had done what men must when no good choices remain. He had hardened his heart, kissed Lyra's brow, and breathed in the scent of her hair as though he could carry it with him to battle. "I will return before the child quickens," he had told her. "If the gods are cruel and I do not, go west to your kin in the Westerlands."

Gods knew how much his heart had ached as those words left his mouth, knowing full well that she would rather die than seek shelter with the house she had left behind. But at that time, it was the only thread of hope he could offer. His brother Owens had not yet earned his place at Winterfell.

He had not looked back when he left. Some part of him feared that if he did, he would never find the strength to keep walking.

South he went, with spear in hand and dread in his chest.

He had sold his sword in the Westerlands once, in the days when he still dreamed of spurs and knighthood and a place at some lord's table. The dreams had died long ago, but the skills remained. They had served him well at the Trident. When the lines broke and the river ran red, he fought like a man possessed. Steel rang on steel, men screamed, and the current carried the fallen away like driftwood.

In the end, he came through it with a gash along his ribs and a cough that clung to him for two long moons.

But he had survived, and that was more than most could claim.

Lyra had been waiting when he returned, standing in the doorway with her belly full and her eyes brighter than he had ever seen them. She had thrown herself into his arms without a word and did not let go for a long hour.

That was among the most beautiful memories of his life, second only to the day he wed her.

After a few minutes of walking, Harren reached his house.

The cottage stood at the edge of the village, where the trees thickened towards the Wolfswood. It was small—one room, really, with a loft for sleeping—but it had a solid stone foundation laid by his father and fresh thatch Harren had put on himself the spring before the worst of the snows.

It was not much, but it was his. Lyra had braided herbs over the door for luck.

The shutters were closed tight against the wind, and warm light glowed through the cracks. Lyra would surely have the hearth high and something hot waiting. His wife always did.

He pushed the door open, and the cold followed him in like an unwelcome guest. He stamped the snow from his boots quickly and shut the door again, letting the warmth wrap around him.

Lyra sat on a low stool by the hearth, their son bundled in her arms. Firelight painted her in soft gold, catching in the loose strands of her golden-brown hair that had slipped from her braid.

Harren felt a smile tug at his mouth.

Lyra had been far too consumed with their son since the moment he drew breath, and Harren could not blame her. The lad was beautiful in a way that still caught him off guard.

His small face carried Lyra's soft features—the same gentle curve to the jaw, the same small nose—but his eyes were something else entirely.

Pale and bright, clear as shallow seawater under a summer sky. A blend of Lyra's green and Harren's own deep blue, yet different from either. And already a fine crop of golden hair covered his head, bright as new straw even at three moons old.

Lyra had sulked for a week when it first showed. Harren knew why. Her grandfather had the same hair, and the old bastard had left nothing behind him but bruises and bitter memories. But the resentment had never touched their son. If anything, it made her cherish the boy more fiercely, as though the gods had handed her a piece of blood worth keeping.

Harren shrugged off his heavy coat and hung it on the peg by the door.

Lyra glanced up at the sound. She seemed tired, faint milk stains spotted the front of her woolen dress, but she gave him a small, genuine smile.

"You have come home at last, husband," she said softly. "I feared you would be spending the night at the forge. Come, warm yourself by the hearth. It must have been a long day. I shall fetch your stew."

"Every hour away from you and Torhen feels long, my love," Harren answered, stamping the last snow from his boots. "But the work had to be done. Old Marta needs her roof sound before the next heavy snow, and the gods know she has little enough coin. I could not turn her away."

He crossed the room, bent, and kissed the crown of her head. She smelled of woodsmoke, rosemary, and the faint sweet warmth of milk. "How fares our boy this night?"

She shifted the bundle so he could see.

Torhen, surprisingly, was not asleep as he usually was at this hour, but he looked to be drifting toward it, his eyes half closed.

"He has begun demanding more milk of late," Lyra said, a note of pride warming her measured tones. "I swear he will be a right proper giant when he grows. Bigger than his father, even. He might even earn his spurs one day!"

Harren gave a low chuckle. "Already planning his future, are you? He is but three moons old, my love. Give the lad time to fill his swaddling before you make him a knight or a lord's man."

"A mother may dream, husband." There was a pause, then Lyra's face brightened. "Look," she said, shifting the boy upright. "Watch this."

Before Harren could ask what she meant, she cupped Torhen's cheeks in both palms and gently squished them together until his little mouth puckered like a fish pulled from the river.

"Who is my little winter rose?" she cooed. "Who is my little snowflake?"

Harren braced himself for the usual annoyed glare their son always gave his mother when subjected to such treatment. Instead, Torhen simply rolled his eyes in a way that looked almost bored, then went still, as if suffering his mother's affection with great patience.

Lyra let out a soft laugh, rocking him gently. "You see? He is improving. He did not give me that look of his this time."

For a moment, Harren could only stare.

His son was a strange babe. Everyone in the village said so, though they were kind enough not to say it to Lyra's face.

He never laughed, never smiled. Harren had heard that was normal enough for infants, but what struck him was how little else the boy ever did.

Torhen cried when he was hungry, and he cried when he needed changing, but even that seemed less raw. Yes, raw. As though there were no feeling behind it.

The only emotions he seemed to express with any regularity were displeasure and annoyance, as though the world had disappointed him and he was waiting to see if it would do better.

Sometimes, Harren wondered if he had passed that to his son. He had been much the same before Lyra came into his life: a hard and cold man who had learned too young that feeling was the first step toward hurting. It had taken years for Lyra to thaw him and teach him that warmth did not always burn.

Perhaps the boy would also thaw in time. Or perhaps he would not. Either way, he was Harren's son, and Harren would love him even if he never smiled.

The urge to touch the boy's cheek rose up so fast that Harren moved before he thought.

Torhen's little head turned with startling speed. Small gums clamped down hard on Harren's thumb.

No teeth yet, thank the gods, but the pressure was still impressive for a creature who had never eaten solid food.

Harren let out a low sigh. He shook his hand but did not pull away at once.

"It seems all the sweetness belongs only to his mother," he muttered, half amused, half wounded. "Does the lad not like his own father?"

"Do not be like that, husband," Lyra chided, though her tone was gentle. She freed Harren's thumb with careful fingers and tucked the blanket closer around the boy. "He is only three moons old. You are gone from first light until the stars are out. How is he to know you yet? Once the winter eases and you can sit by the hearth more often, I am sure he will come around. Blood calls to blood, my love. He is yours as much as mine."

Harren considered her words and then nodded.

She was right. The boy was barely out of the cradle. Of course he was not yet old enough to form any real preference. It could only be that Harren had not spent as much time with him as Lyra had—something he fully planned to remedy once the worst of winter passed and he no longer had to chase every order that came his way. Though that day did not seem to be arriving anytime soon.

Maybe after a few more namedays, he could show the lad the sword. Boys loved to fight, and the bonds forged through steel and sweat were seldom weak.

He smiled at the thought.

Lyra rose, still cradling Torhen. "Good. Now wash the soot from your hands and face. I shall warm the stew. You carry the whole smithy with you tonight, husband. Small wonder why Torhen bites you."

Her words pierced him for a moment. Harren almost considered changing his clothes, then dismissed the thought just as quickly.

He was a smith's son himself. How could his own blood turn against the honest scent of coal and iron?

...

For Toji, life as a mewling infant was a mixed bag.

On the upside, he didn't have to lift a single finger to get things done. Most of his days were spent sprawled in a rough wooden crib, drifting between sleep and boredom while the world moved around him.

When he shit or pissed himself — which happened far more often than he cared to admit — a half-hearted cry was all it took. Lyra, the green-eyed woman whose cunt he'd crawled out of, would come running to wipe his ass and change his swaddling.

If he cranked the volume to signal hunger, she'd appear even faster, hoist up her woolen dress, pull out a breast, and shove it in his mouth.

Toji had sucked on plenty of tits in his previous life. Bigger was always better, he used to think. But only in this life did he realize that tits that could fill your stomach were in a league of their own. The milk was sweet, rich, and warm. It tasted better than ninety percent of the things he had ever put in his mouth.

It had been over a month since he had become a baby, and over this time, Toji had come to genuinely like Lyra. To show how much he appreciated her, he even bothered remembering her name.

She would have been perfect if only...she did not subject him to a humiliation ritual every other hour.

The woman would pinch his cheeks, squish his face or plant kisses all over it whenever she felt like it. She ran fingers down his nose, bounced him in her arms, and pressed his tiny hands against her cheeks while cooing like a halfwit. Sometimes she just stared at him and drooled, grinning like an idiot who'd won a lottery.

These were only a few of the many things she did to him. There were even more humiliating acts she carried out.

What unnerved Toji the most was that she did all of this while cooing and beaming!

He had repeatedly shown his displeasure by giving her the most intense glare he could muster, but it never seemed to have any effect. If anything, his glares only made her eyes sparkle brighter and earned him extra rounds of cheek-squishing and kisses.

Eventually he stopped resisting. There was no point. He simply treated the humiliation as a price he had to pay for her services.

The man who called himself his father, however, did not get the same treatment.

He was out of the house for most of the day, likely working. And when he returned at night, he would try the same coddling shit Lyra did.

Toji could put up with Lyra. She was his personal maid. She fed him, cleaned him and kept him warm. But a man? And one who smelled of sweat and burnt metal?

The answer to that was obvious.

Toji's response was immediate and consistent: he bit the bastard's fingers every single time. It was another way he had discovered to express his displeasure. A huge step up from a mere glare, but just as ineffective. In the end, he still wasn't spared from the humiliation. Weak gums against calloused skin wasn't much of a weapon. But unlike Lyra, he did not forgive the man. He would extract his revenge in due time, when he had grown up.

Not while he was still so pathetically weak.

Weak.

That single word summed up every downside of this new life.

Toji had never felt this pathetic. Even when he'd been lying on the ground with a hole punched through his chest.

If back then he had zero strength, now he was in the negatives.

His vision went blurry if he tried to focus beyond a few feet. Voices still sounded muffled most of the time. His arms and legs jerked around like a dying fish on land. He grew tired just after half an hour of being awake, faster if he concentrated too hard or moved too much.

He could not even hold his own damn head up without feeling like his neck might snap!

Toji was pissed.

He had gone from having a body that could go toe-to-toe with the strongest sorcerers without a drop of cursed energy… to being stuck in this soft, flabby, useless sack of meat that couldn't even roll over without running out of breath.

Everyday, Toji found himself wishing he could gut whichever son of a bitch was responsible for all this.

The worst part wasn't even the weakness itself. It was that he could not do a damn thing about it except lie there and wait for this lump of meat to grow on its own.

No amount of training could make his neck muscles stronger as a goddamn baby.

And even when the body did grow, he doubted he could ever reach his former heights. Not without Heavenly Restriction, and he held no illusion that he would be getting it back. That warm, sickly knot of cursed energy in his gut had made sure that path was completely cut off.

One could say the only way to regain anything close to his former strength was to rely on that very warmth. To rely on cursed energy. The very thing he had spent his whole life spitting on.

The irony was bitter and it only fed into his growing frustration.

...

Two more uneventful months crawled by. Toji's life had become annoyingly monotonous, and he was starting to hate it. He either spent his days lying in his crib while Lyra did all the chores around the house, which was more like a cottage given its size, or getting humiliated by her when she was not doing chores.

She talked to him endlessly, even though his hearing was still shit and half her words sounded like they were coming through water.

One night, Toji had had enough, and the sorcerer killer, with great reluctance, decided to...compromise.

Tch. Compromise. He hated that fucking word.

It hadn't been an easy decision. Toji had looked down on jujutsu sorcerers his whole life. All that chanting and hand sign bullshit. All that talk about inherited techniques and bloodline superiority. They spent years meditating and refining their little energy tricks, and he could still walk over most of them without any of that. Even to take him out, it had taken their strongest sorcerer.

And now he had to become one of them.

It left a sour taste in his mouth. Toji felt like he was trading his favorite knife, the one that fit his grip perfectly and had never failed him, for some shiny new blade he did not even know how to hold.

But did he have any other choice?

Well there was indeed one. He could always chose to remain a weakling forever.

But Toji despised that even more than cursed energy or sorcerers. More than anything!

In the end, it was just picking one poison over the other. So he picked the one that made him stronger.

...

Toni had always lived by a simple rule: study your enemy until nothing about them surprises you.

He had spent years watching jujutsu sorcerers, killing them, learning every weakness they had. He had never used cursed energy himself, but he knew more about it than most sorcerers ever would.

The first thing any sorcerer had to learn was keeping their emotions in check. Cursed energy was born from negative emotions, and even a brief spike of anger or fear could cause it to surge and leak uncontrollably.

Toji had exploited that weakness countless times. His Heavenly Restriction alone was often enough to panic jujutsu sorcerers who relied too much on their cursed techniques — in other words, most of them.

Once their emotions went to shit, their control followed soon after. And then he would just drive his spear into their chest.

Job done.

Cursed energy refinement was a direct extension of that same principle. So was output, flow control, reinforcement, and sensing.

But Toji decided to skip straight to output and flow. As an assassin, he already had a near perfect grip on his emotions. Years of life and death fights had carved that control into his instincts. It had not disappeared just because he now had cursed energy. Though he usually prefered to be expressive, especially when he was dissatisfied with something.

Even during Lyra's humiliation sessions, when his annoyance was at its peak, not a trace of cursed energy leaked out of him. Practicing what he already knew would just waste time. He was not about to sit there meditating like some monk.

Output was trickier. His body was weak and underdeveloped. Asking it to handle any real strain would be stupid. Channeling too much cursed energy through it might break something.

So he played it smart. Instead of raw volume, he focused on efficiency.

He pulled thin threads of cursed energy from the lump in his abdomen and gathered them at his fingertips, one strand at a time, weaving them into a dense ball until he hit his mental limit.

It felt like threading a needle with his brain. It was a slow and frustrating process, but perfect when he had nothing else to do all day.

To train flow, he tried to move those threads as fast as he could, switching between hands. Left to right, right to left, back and forth. Though he would hit his mental limit faster that way.

But nothing came without a cost.

Toji had always been aware that there was something off about his brain. It was far too developed compared to his body.

From the moment he was born, he could think with frightening clarity. Observe, analyze, and even refine and manipulate cursed energy.

That level of cognition should not have been possible for a newborn with barely formed neural pathways. His reincarnation might have something to do with it. Whatever the cause, he wasn't about to complain. It was an advantage, and Toji welcomed every advantage he could get.

Even so, it had limits.

Output and flow control demanded intense concentration, precise visualization, and unwavering intent.

After just a few minutes of training, it felt as though he had moved a mountain using nothing but his thoughts. The strain was immediate and exhausting, leaving him dozing off more than usual, which he already did pretty often.

And each session left him intensely hungry. It got to the point where he had to nearly double his milk intake just to keep up.

After a few days, he realized he could not keep going like this. He had to adapt, and adapt he did. Instead of training whenever he felt like it, Toji set a fixed schedule for himself. He limited himself to two sessions a day, one in the morning and one before sleep. That gave his mind time to recover, allowed his body to adjust, and cut the hunger down to a manageable level.

Though even if it had not, he did not think Lyra would have minded. If anything, his increased appetite seemed to delight the woman.

She actively offered to feed him more often, sometimes even when he had not cried for it, as if his appetite was something to be encouraged and taken pride in.

Toji appreciated her thoughtfulness and rewarded her by no longer glaring at her during the humiliation rituals she called affection. The sorcerer killer felt like being generous for once.

Life was getting on track again, until...his hearing got better.

...

Author's Note : For anyone who wishes to read ahead and support my writing, here's my Patreon.

Also, if you have any questions about the story, feel free to ask. I'll do my best to answer without spilling any spoilers.