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{3rd Pov}
Akari was not human.
That much, at the very least, he had already figured out.
There was no point denying it anymore after everything that had happened. The way he could sense things, the way he had fought, and most importantly, the way he had eaten that ghost without hesitation made it very clear.
The real question now was something else entirely.
Which world was he in?
His first guess was obvious.
Jujutsu Kaisen.
It was the most well known example he could think of from his previous life, especially when it came to curses, spirits, and supernatural combat involving energy systems that normal people could not perceive.
So naturally, that was where his mind went first.
If that assumption was correct, then there was something very important he needed to confirm.
Cursed energy.
If he could feel it, control it, or even just detect it, then that would at least support his theory.
So he decided to try.
He focused inward, trying to sense something within himself. At first, it felt vague and unclear, like trying to grab onto something that was not fully tangible.
But then, slowly, he began to notice it.
A strange sensation.
It was difficult to describe properly, but the closest comparison he could come up with was that it felt like cold water flowing through his body. Not physically, but internally, like something circulating through him in a steady and quiet stream.
It was unnatural.
And once he noticed it, it became easier to focus on.
Instinctively, or maybe just through sheer will, he tried to control it.
To grab onto it.
To make it respond to him.
And the moment he did that—
the light above his hospital bed flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then again.
Akari blinked, slightly surprised by the reaction.
‘Huh?’
He looked up at the light for a moment before shifting his attention back to himself.
‘I was pretty sure cursed energy did not behave like this,’ he thought, recalling what he knew from before.
‘At least, not in such a direct and obvious way.’
That kind of reaction felt off.
Different from what he remembered.
But then again, there was another possibility.
‘Maybe I am just using it in a way that was never properly shown in the original series,’ he considered, trying to rationalize it.
After all, not everything in a world had to match exactly with what was shown.
There could be differences, hidden aspects or simply things that were never explained.
Still, something about it did not sit completely right with him.
And that only made him more curious.
He stopped channeling his cursed energy outward and instead decided to test something more important. He needed to know whether he had only one innate cursed technique or if there were multiple abilities he could access.
Before doing anything reckless, he paused and carefully looked around the room. His eyes scanned the corners, the ceiling, and the walls, checking for any cameras or monitoring devices that might catch what he was about to do.
Thankfully, there were none.
At least, none that he could see.
Satisfied for now, he focused again.
This time, he imagined something simple.
A flame.
He pictured it clearly in his mind, concentrating on the image as if trying to force it into reality. He directed his energy toward his hand, specifically toward the tip of his finger, and willed it to manifest.
And then it happened a small flame appeared for real.
It flickered softly at the tip of his finger, glowing with a faint blue color, almost like a candle flame but slightly more unstable.
It did not feel like normal fire, and it did not produce much heat, but it was definitely there.
Akari’s eyes widened slightly.
This immediately made him feel excited.
Not just a little, but genuinely thrilled at the confirmation.
He quickly stopped channeling his energy, and the flame vanished just as easily as it had appeared, leaving no trace behind.
‘That makes two cursed techniques,’ he thought, trying to keep his excitement under control while analyzing the situation logically.
But he was not done yet.
He wanted to test further.
Without wasting time, he tried something else.
This time, he imagined a droplet of water forming in his hand.
Again, he focused.
Again, he directed his energy.
And once more it just worked.
A small droplet appeared on his palm.
But it was not normal water.
It was pitch black.
Completely dark, with no reflection or transparency, as if it absorbed light instead of reflecting it.
The moment it formed, Akari felt a sudden wave of exhaustion hit him. It came out of nowhere, heavy and immediate, forcing him to stop channeling his energy almost instantly.
He cut off the flow.
The droplet fell from his hand and landed on the hospital bed.
And then something strange happened.
A faint black aura began to surround it.
It was subtle, but noticeable enough that he could not ignore it as the hospital bed was now radiating the Cursed Energy.
Akari stared at it in disbelief.
‘Did it just turn into a cursed object?’ he wondered, his mind racing as he tried to process what he was seeing.
From what he remembered, creating cursed objects was not supposed to be that easy.
It required skill, knowledge, and decades of experience.
And yet he had just done something similar by accident.
But then again, he was not human.
And maybe that changed everything?
'However, something is definitely wrong,' he thought, his expression tightening slightly as he tried to make sense of the situation.
His gaze slowly shifted upward toward the light bulb hanging above him.
The moment his eyes fixed on it, the light began to flicker erratically, responding directly to his attention rather than any electrical fault.
That alone was strange, but what followed made it even more unsettling.
As he focused, almost instinctively, a desk in the room began to drag across the floor with a low scraping sound.
There were no visible forces acting on it, no physical contact—yet it moved clearly under his will.
It didn’t resemble a typical cursed technique.
There was no familiar flow or sensation that he associated with cursed energy.
Instead, it felt closer to telekinesis, something more direct and less structured. Still, he couldn’t rule out the possibility entirely.
His cursed technique might simply be telekinesis, and since he was currently inhabiting someone else’s body, having access to multiple techniques—similar to how Kenjaku operated—would not be impossible.
'In fact, the fact that I can do so many different things so freely probably means this isn’t cursed energy at all,' Akari thought, narrowing his eyes slightly as he analyzed the situation further.
'It feels more like the kind of spiritual energy ghosts use in those horror movies—less refined, but more instinctive.'
Testing this further, he turned his attention toward the door.
His eyes shifted subtly, as if something within them had activated.
It almost resembled x-ray vision, though it wasn’t exactly that.
Through this altered perception, he became immediately aware of something far more disturbing—dark, dense auras scattered throughout the hospital.
They weren’t faint either.
Some were weak and scattered, but others were heavy, oppressive, and unmistakably present.
Among all of them, one stood out the most—a particularly strong and concentrated presence coming from the hospital’s parking lot.
The realization sent a brief chill through him, though he maintained his composure.
However, just as quickly as he had accessed this ability, his body reacted.
A wave of fatigue hit him.
It wasn’t the sharp, throbbing headache that typically accompanied overuse of such fictional energies.
Instead, it was a dull, draining exhaustion, as if his energy reserves had been directly depleted without any buffering or resistance.
He exhaled slowly, steadying himself as he processed both the abilities he had just used and the cost that came with them.
‘Uh, yeah… better clean up the evidence,’ he thought, quickly deciding not to leave anything out of place.
Focusing again, he used his newfound telekinesis to move the desk back to its original position, carefully aligning it exactly where it had been before, as if nothing had ever happened.
Once he was satisfied, he stopped using the ability.
The moment he did, his body gave out slightly, and he dropped back onto the bed with a weak, dull thud.
As soon as his back made contact, a strange sensation spread through him.
It felt warm and soothing, almost like he had sunk into a hot spring rather than a simple hospital bed.
‘My energy is recharging this fast?!’ he thought in disbelief, his eyes widening slightly as he focused on the sensation.
He could clearly feel his strength returning—not just physically, but something deeper, something tied directly to his soul or whatever this new energy source was. The exhaustion from earlier began fading at a noticeable rate.
He stayed still, observing carefully, and within roughly five minutes, his entire reserve of spiritual energy had fully recovered.
There was no lingering fatigue, no side effects—just a complete restoration as if nothing had been drained in the first place.
That was when realization struck him.
His eyes shifted slightly toward the bed beneath him.
‘So the bed I turned into a cursed object is actually absorbing spiritual energy from the surroundings and feeding it back to me,’ he thought, piecing things together quickly.
‘That would explain the rapid recovery rate.’
The implication of that made him pause.
‘That means either I’ve somehow become some kind of glitched, overpowered character like Yuji from Modulo… or this isn’t JJK at all,’ he continued, his thoughts turning more serious as he analyzed the situation.
There weren’t many logical explanations beyond those two possibilities, at least none that made sense with what he knew so far.
After all, even cursed spirits typically had clear limitations.
Having two techniques could still be explained.
He was currently inhabiting someone else’s body, so inheriting that person’s ability alongside his own wasn’t entirely unreasonable.
But anything beyond that?
That crossed into something completely absurd.
‘Of course… there’s also the possibility that after devouring that cursed spirit, I somehow acquired its technique as well,’ he considered, narrowing his eyes slightly as he tried to remain rational.
‘But seriously… how broken does that make this? How glitched can this even get?’
‘Only if I can get some proper information related to Jujutsu Sorcerers… and there’s also the possibility that Cursed Spirits might try to recruit me for whatever grand plan they’re involved in,’ he thought, his mind feeling strained—not physically, but mentally—as he tried to process the sheer absurdity of his current situation.
The more he thought about it, the more ridiculous it sounded, even to himself.
His thoughts became increasingly irritated, and almost as if reacting to that spike in emotion, the light bulb above him suddenly short-circuited with a sharp flicker before going completely dim.
‘Fahhh…’ he thought, momentarily speechless as he stared up at the now lifeless bulb.
Thankfully, it didn’t explode dramatically like in those exaggerated movie scenes, or that would have drawn even more unnecessary attention.
The room fell slightly darker, though still faintly lit from outside sources.
A few moments later, a nurse entered the room, likely having noticed the sudden issue or coming in for a routine check.
The moment she saw the non-functioning light, her expression shifted to mild confusion and annoyance.
“It stopped working again? I swear these lights just give up whenever they feel like it. I’ll have to call the electrician again,” she complained under her breath, clearly used to dealing with such minor but frequent inconveniences.
After that, her attention turned toward Akari.
“Akari-chan, you’re not feeling any discomfort, right? Or would you like to be shifted to another room?” the nurse asked gently, her tone soft and professional, completely unaware of the actual cause behind the malfunction.
Akari gave a small, polite smile in response, though internally he felt a bit guilty for unintentionally breaking the light bulb just because he lost control of his emotions for a moment.
‘Basically, if I get angry, it releases that cursed—or whatever this energy actually is—and at the same time, I can exert some level of technopathy along with telekinesis,’ Akari thought, trying to organize his understanding in a more structured way so he wouldn’t lose control again.
“Onee-san, I am alright. I just wanted to know… can I go to the toilet?” he asked, speaking in his soft, slightly high-pitched voice of an elementary school child.
The nurse giggled lightly at his tone and nodded without hesitation.
“Hai! Let’s go, Akari-chan,” she replied cheerfully, clearly finding nothing unusual in his request.
Finally, he managed to step out of his room.
The moment he crossed the doorway, his senses immediately picked up something strange.
Without even needing to focus too hard, he could tell that a dark aura had spread throughout the entire hospital.
It wasn’t just present in one area—it was everywhere, thinly but consistently layered, like an invisible mist as he had observed before.
What made it even more unsettling was the scent attached to it.
It carried a faintly sweet smell of the death, meaning hospital was habited with more ghosts than he might have expected.
As he walked beside the nurse, maintaining a normal pace and expression, his eyes subtly scanned the surroundings.
That was when he noticed something standing next to an old grandmother sitting quietly in the corridor.
A dark presence lingered beside her, shaped vaguely like a human figure but lacking any clear features.
Its body seemed to be made of black haze, constantly shifting and dispersing, as if it couldn’t fully maintain a stable form.
It was completely different from the ghost he had encountered earlier.
He could clearly see that it was taking something from the old grandmother, slowly drawing it away in a way that wasn’t immediately visible to normal people. Akari narrowed his eyes slightly and made a quick, unrefined guess based on what he was observing.
‘Is that… lifeforce?’ he thought, unsure but increasingly convinced as he continued watching.
‘This thing feels different from the other beings I’ve seen so far… it’s not the same at all.’
Then something else clicked in his mind.
‘Wait…’ he paused internally, his attention sharpening as he began scanning the surroundings more carefully without moving his head too much.
He quickly noticed that similar entities—those same hazy, humanoid figures—were present throughout the hospital.
However, there was a clear pattern.
They were mostly attached to either elderly people or individuals who looked physically weak, exhausted, or already close to collapse.
That detail made his expression stiffen slightly.
Even if they were cursed spirits, it didn’t make sense for them all to look almost identical.
From what he knew, cursed spirits usually had variation in their forms, appearances, and presence.
Seeing so many of the same type clustered around specific kinds of people felt unnatural and raised even more questions.
As he continued thinking, the nurse’s voice interrupted his train of thought.
“Akari-chan, we are here,” she said gently, stopping in front of the restroom.
He paused for a brief moment, glancing at the door as he pushed his thoughts aside for now.
“Thank you,” he said politely before stepping inside.
Once inside, he dealt with the situation quickly.
Somehow, despite technically being something closer to a ghost inhabiting a body, his physical functions—like basic excretory processes—were still working normally.
He didn’t fully understand why that was the case, and honestly, he didn’t have enough information yet to even begin analyzing it properly.
Still, from a practical standpoint, it made things easier.
‘Well… whatever the reason is, it actually helps me blend in as a normal human,’ he thought, shrugging it off for the moment.
‘So I guess I don’t really have a reason to complain about it.’
As he was inside the toilet, with no one around to observe him, he naturally slipped into deeper thought.
‘Those things are either the product of some cursed technique… or they aren’t cursed spirits at all,’ he thought seriously, trying to approach the situation logically instead of jumping to conclusions too quickly.
He went over everything he had observed so far—their appearance, their behavior, the way they interacted with people, and the specific individuals they were attached to. One by one, he compared each detail, trying to find a consistent pattern that could explain their existence.
After carefully analyzing all of it, something finally clicked in his mind.
‘All of them were sticking close to extremely old people or those who were visibly sick or weak… which probably means they’re connected to death in some way,’ he thought, his expression gradually turning more focused.
‘In that case… they’re not just random spirits. They’re more like harbingers of death… or in simpler terms—Shinigami.’
The realization made his thoughts shift direction immediately.
‘If that’s true, then this isn’t Jujutsu Kaisen,’ he continued, his mind racing as he started connecting this new conclusion with other possibilities.
‘And if I’m not mistaken, spirits like these—ones associated with death, lingering around the weak and the dying—appear in quite a few anime settings…’
He paused for a brief moment, going through examples in his memory.
Then one name stood out clearly.
‘Most notably… Dark Gathering,’ he concluded, his eyes widening as the idea settled in.
His mouth opened slightly in surprise as he realized the implications of that possibility.
In Dark Gathering, just like in Jujutsu Kaisen, spirits roam freely around the world, existing alongside humans without being noticed by most of them.
However, unlike cursed spirits—which are born from the accumulation of negative human emotions—the spirits or ghosts in Dark Gathering originate from the souls of dead people.
Their existence follows a completely different system.
The strength of a ghost depends on several factors, not just one.
It is influenced by the way the person died, the amount of resentment or attachment they carried at the time of death, and, most importantly, how many other ghosts they have consumed after becoming a spirit.
Yes, in Dark Gathering, ghosts are capable of consuming one another. Cannibalism among spirits is not just possible—it is actually a core part of how they grow stronger.
In fact, unless they are powerful place-bound spirits tied to a specific location, most ghosts do not last very long on their own.
Typically, they begin to dissipate within 49 days of their existence. The only way for them to avoid disappearing is by consuming other ghosts or, even humans, allowing them to sustain and strengthen their existence.
That detail made several things much clearer.
This was exactly why the entity that attacked Akari earlier had immediately targeted him.
The moment it noticed him, he fulfilled whatever conditions were necessary to become prey in its perspective.
And at the same time, this also explained something else.
Akari himself, being a ghost that had taken possession of a physical body, existed in an unusual state. Because of that, when the encounter happened, he was not simply a victim.
Instead, he was also a valid predator.
That was why he had been able to consume that ghost instead. It wasn’t some random anomaly or his special cursed technique as he had previously thought instead it followed the rules of this world.
And as a direct result of that action, he had grown stronger.
For him such a conclusion made sense, and after having finished becoming the thinker he became the doer and flushed the toilet.
Akari was honestly grateful that he had been reincarnated in Japan.
The last thing he would have wanted was to end up in a place like America and be forced to rely only on toilet paper for basic hygiene.
As someone raised with Asian habits, taking a bath daily and using water in the toilet was completely normal for him.
It was something he was used to, something that felt natural.
Thankfully, aside from the slight difference in the toilet’s shape and structure, nothing else had changed in that regard, which made things a lot easier for him to adapt to.
After finishing up, he stepped out of the restroom.
The nurse was still waiting outside, and she gently guided him back to his room without any suspicion.
With her assistance, he climbed back onto the bed—the same bed that had already been altered by him and turned into what he believed was some kind of cursed object.
Lying down again, he allowed himself to relax slightly as his mind continued working.
‘If I’m not wrong, then I’ve basically turned this bed into something like a personal domain,’ he thought, trying to interpret what he had unintentionally created.
It wasn’t exactly the same as a domain expansion from Jujutsu Kaisen, but the concept felt somewhat similar in function, at least on a basic level.
From what he understood so far, ghosts possessed certain abilities that could be activated once specific conditions were met.
These conditions varied depending on the ghost itself.
Some ghosts developed abilities directly based on how they died or the circumstances surrounding their death, forming very specific and rigid powers.
Others, however, seemed to have more flexible control over their spiritual energy, allowing for a wider range of applications.
Akari exhaled slowly, deciding not to push himself any further for now.
‘For today, I should just rest,’ he thought, recognizing that he had already done more than enough experimenting for a single day.
‘Tomorrow, I’ll explore the hospital properly… observe those ghosts more carefully and confirm whether my assumptions are actually correct or not.’
With that plan in mind, he closed his eyes, letting his body rest while his thoughts gradually settled.
To be continued...