Chapter 1: A Second Chance

1807 - 211 years before the culling game

The inside of the cave was barely illuminated by the dying fire in its center and darkness would surely soon prevail. An old, withered man sat slumped against the cave wall and any observer would assume him to be lifeless, aided by the thick bloodstains soaking his kimono. The only signs that this fate had evaded him so far were his rough breathing and tight grip still on the katana in his right hand. He would soon, like the fire, fade away.

Chikao had lived far longer than he ever expected too but was still filled with many regrets and the failure of his goals, the long time he'd been given had proven too short or perhaps it was his old age bearing frailty upon him which ultimately caused his current predicament. Yes, age had not been too kind and after 106 years of strain-filled life he couldn't even muster up the reverse cursed technique enough to stop his bleeding and heal his wounds. The wounds he'd sustained against that evil, wicked sorcerer.

He'd dedicated his whole life fully to his goal of exterminating the evil curses and curse users plaguing Japan and to bring balance and stability in doing so. No matter how much he tried and worked towards his goal in his century of life, more and more would just pop up in their places. Out of any sorcerer in recorded history, he exorcised the most curses, but still it was an uphill battle. He believed that there had to be some source of all the evil, something that just compelled curses and men towards vile actions, but in the time he had, he just couldn't crack it.

His great battle had concluded and, unfortunately, he lost. It wasn't a glorious end, and he just managed to escape away to this cave so that he could live out his final moments in peace and solitude instead of in the presence of the evil he loathed so much.

Staring into the fire, Chikao Tansui was prepared to die.

Suddenly, his peace was disturbed by the loud echo of footsteps somewhere closer to the entrance of the cave. Chikao realised it must have been the sorcerer he was battling; he'd found him. Further tightening the grip on his sword, he was ready to make one last stand against the sorcerer even if he died. He intended to go down fighting.

"Now, now. There's no need to try and fight me anymore. You already lost, though I'll admit, you did better than I would've thought." The smug voice of the sorcerer echoed throughout the cave as he finally stepped into the light provided by the fire. He was tall and well-built, dominating Chikao's own stature. He had short, spiky black hair and a deep scar ran through his forehead. The man, like himself, was also adorned with a few wounds, though notably less severe.

"You bastard! I can still fight!" Chikao released his grip on the sword and instead moved his right palm on top of his left forearm with his fingers against his bicep, his left hand came under his right forearm and his fingers rested just short of his right elbow "Domain expansion-"

"Please, I know that you are in no condition to perform a domain expansion, you haven't even been able to heal any of your wounds." Being written off like that infuriated Chikao, although he knew that he was right, he couldn't pull out his domain in his state. "You know, my proposal still stands, you can have a chance to redeem yourself. A chance to accomplish what you haven't been able to over the last century."

'I've already accepted my death, I may have my regrets but I shouldn't have even made it this long. I should have died against that curse user 30 years ago."

"But you didn't, you survived because you were strong."

"I may have been, but I still would've lost if I didn't get lucky."

"There's no point dwelling on that now, you can have another chance. Perhaps, you were just born at the wrong time to accomplish your mission."

"No that's not it, I just wasted it. I was chasing the wrong leads and this is where it got me. Besides, your proposal is pure evil, I couldn't take that."

"Whether you like it or not, you're going to die here and I will remain. My plan will go ahead with or without you. If you think it's so bad, then you can try and stop me, then you can do whatever it is you desire with your second chance. All you have to do is agree."

"You know, if I go through with this, I will come after you and I will kill you."

"We'll just have to see about that… You can try, but I can't guarantee you'll succeed."

"Tell me one more thing, is Sukuna a part of this plan?"

"You'll just have to find out for yourself."

Chikao let out a sigh in frustration, the sorcerer's plan was terrible and he knew it could only bring bad things but on the other hand he knew that if he agreed he could work against the sorcerer and his plan. He was sure that he had no other option at this point.

"Fine, I agree. But first tell me, what is your name?"

"Kenjaku."

November 3rd, 2018 - Third day of the culling game - Tokyo No. 2 colony

Chikao sighed as he sheathed his katana and sat down, he'd barely been back for 3 days now but he was glad to find that he'd returned to around the level of strength he had in his prime. His great cursed energy reserves and physical attributes allowed him to dispatch any curses he encountered with the same ease as breathing or walking.

He avoided other "players" so far, but tried to gather information on them stealthily. He intended to uphold his values, even within the current circumstances. That meant that many of the competitors, who were clearly there against their volition, were off the table. He would only fight the ones who held malicious intents, took pleasure in the killing or attacked him first.

On another note, Chikao found the modern age to be rather strange. The unusual tall structures littering the city was a surprise and the clothes he wore were certainly different to the ones around at his time. These clothes must've been made from something like wool, and were designed completely differently from the traditional ones in the past. He wore long black pants, a black sweatshirt and white sneakers. He'd probably need to find some different clothes soon though, as he wasn't sure how well he could fight in these ones.

In terms of his physical appearance, Chikao was surprised to see that he looked remarkably similar to how he looked when he was younger. He had the same dark brown hair and eyes that he had in the past and a fairly similar facial structure, and it appeared the body he incarnated into was probably early to mid 20s in age. He remembered that by incarnating he took another person's body, something that weighed on his mind especially since he could tell that however Kenjaku had incarnated them, the original individuals were gone and couldn't be brought back. He had to remind himself that Kenjaku would have still gone through with this whether he was a part of it or not, and the man may very likely have died anyways. He would just have to make up for it by getting revenge on Kenjaku and making a positive impact with his second chance.

It was getting late, and he'd need to find a place to hide away so that he could get some rest without having to worry about getting attacked whilst sleeping. Even though he'd been fighting by himself for almost a century of life, he had to admit it could get pretty lonely and here some allies would certainly be nice to have. Maybe, he would have to find a player or two who would be a good fit to team up with, though that may be easier said than done, and they'd have to earn his trust enough.

So far, when he'd needed to rest, he would just use an inconspicuous room in one of the surrounding buildings and barricade the entries. He decided that would probably still be the best course of action and got some much needed sleep.

November 6th, 2018 - Sixth day of the culling game - Tokyo No. 2 colony

Chikao decided that getting caught up on some of the knowledge and discoveries made after his time would probably be beneficial and might prove useful in a fight or just navigating the modern world. Through a short bit of surveillance he discovered a nearby bookstore, and was glad to find that it hadn't been raided yet. The bookstore proved to be a gold mine for information and he'd taken several of the texts to read up on.

Chikao currently sat by the edge of what he assumed to be some kind of dock, and was comfortably reading a book on science. He quickly found himself fascinated by the growth of knowledge in his absence, and it appeared that the world had developed rapidly since. Things not understood in his time, and explained away as "magic" or the work of one kind of mystical entity or another, were now broken down into fundamental concepts that were easy to grasp. He also had to wonder about the progress made in the field of jujutsu sorcery over that period, but no knowledge on that seemed publicly accessible.

He found great pleasure in the familiar sounds of the ocean's waves crashing against the land. It brought him a sense of calmness and worked well to ease his mind as he read. He was glad to discover that the "colony" he was in had a decently large area of the ocean included, not just for his enjoyment of it, but it would be greatly useful if he got in a fight. Unfortunately, the water seemed to be full of cursed spirits which he would probably have to deal with soon, but on the positive side it seemed to deter a lot of other players from the area which allowed him to have it mostly to himself.

He still had to figure out what to do about getting points, the idea of killing other players still wasn't resting too well in his mind. At least he had 13 more days to find a way to get some points before he had to worry about the consequences. Within that time, he was sure he could get it done.

Instantly, Chikao's thoughts were cut off as his senses piqued, someone was coming at him from behind and fast. He sprung up and managed to dodge to left just in time to stay clear of the cursed energy enhanced punch aimed directly at the back of his head. He jumped back further to get a good look at his attacker and was met with the sight of a man he hadn't seen around here before.

The attacker appeared to be around the same age as Chikao's current body and had long cyan hair which, on the top, was tied into two buns, and at the front formed bangs. The man's eyes were a matching colour to his hair and he had a couple of strange zig-zag lines just underneath each of them. He was wearing a fully white outfit which obscured his whole form with the exception of his hands and head. The man's right hand was still outstretched from the punch and his left hand gripped some kind of staff.

The man retracted his hand and quickly turned to face Chikao, revealing the wide smirk on his face. "If you were able to dodge that then you must be at least somewhat strong."

"Or are you just slow?"

"Nah, that can't be it. No one I've fought so far has been able to keep up with me, so I must be decently fast."

"Right. Are you, by chance, an "incarnated" player?"

"How did you know?"

"Well, I myself am incarnated and I think I can just tell when I see another. Can't really explain it though, just a feeling. Tell me though, what's your name?"

"Hajime Kashimo, and you are?"

"Chikao Tansui, and why did you attack me?"

The man gave Chikao a confused look for a couple of seconds before responding. "Are you stupid or something? That's kinda the point of this competition, you know, to kill other players. But I'm personally more in it because I enjoy fighting. Unfortunately, I have yet to fight anyone who was really exciting, but I think you might be a little fun."

"If you can keep up that is." Chikao had learnt over his years of fighting that one of the easiest ways to get his opponents to fight poorly and make mistakes was to insult their ability and, in doing so, anger them. That was his intention here but it only seemed to get Hajime more fired up.

"Well, I'll just have to show you then!"

With that Hajime rushed forward, grabbing his staff with both hands preparing to land a powerful downwards strike against Chikao. At the same time, Chikao quickly drew his katana and blocked the heavy blow.

A/N: I suck at writing introductions and exposition and think that I'm definitely going to have to come back to this again later and touch it up. I struggle with writing it in a way that feels properly engaging and I think that's something I'll have to work on and any advice there would be greatly appreciated.

There's a few things I wanted to quickly address and clear up with regards to the story and how I'm writing it just so it makes a bit more sense:

The format I write names in the story is first name then last name as is the norm where I come from. In Japan it's the opposite so it's last name then first name. Here I just preferred to do it how I'm used to and I'll generally prefer to call characters by their first name as opposed to their last name if I'm just throwing one name out their so, for example, instead of casually calling Satoru Gojo by Gojo, I would call him Satoru.

One thing that I wanted to show a little bit of here is how an incarnated player would be confused by the modern world and how they'd interact with it. It irks me a little bit how there's all of these incarnated players in the culling game and yet we don't really see any of them react to the vast differences with the world compared to their time period, which seems a little odd.

Also, the main character's name is Chikao Tansui. "Chikao" is a Japanese first name which means "clever and wise" and I think it's just a nice name and hints that he's a smart person. "Tansui" in Japanese means freshwater and I chose that to reflect his affinity for water through his water manipulation technique, which my plan for is a bit broken and I may have to balance it a bit more. I plan to explore more about his origin throughout the story and already have that planned out.

Lastly, I'm taking several creative liberties here, as is the beauty of fan fiction, and changing and adding certain things to fit better with the narrative here. So there is plenty of fresh content, clarifying stuff that's ambiguous in canon, and altering some things to be a little cleaner. With several of the more major choices, I'll probably make those very clear and why I've made them.

That's all I really have to say about this for now, any feedback would be greatly appreciated and I'll make sure to take any advice provided. If anyone has any questions or concerns, I'll be happy to answer them, just let me know. Thanks for reading