Dreamscape
He was ten years old again.
The floorboards were wet.
The light above flickered, humming like a broken insect. His mother sat in the corner of the old apartment, legs pulled to her chest, lips cracked and silent. She stared past him, not seeing.
The blood near the sink was fresh.
He looked down at his own hands.
Not small. Not young. They were the hands of a man who had killed. Who had suffered. They held a knife—old and chipped, just like always.
The room shifted.
Now he was in a field. A thousand headstones. The sky overhead was cracked glass, and crows flew backward. Among the graves, one stood open—unfinished. His name wasn't carved yet. But the date was there.
The year was now.
---
Voices from the Fog
"Kishibe."
A whisper.
Soft, almost human.
He turned. The field was gone.
Darkness stretched endlessly. A hallway with no doors. Just smoke rising from the walls, and shadows that pulsed like breathing lungs. He stepped forward, barefoot. No blood now. Just ash.
A figure stood at the end of the corridor. Small. Bright.
"Riko?"
Her voice was faint. "You tried."
"I failed."
"No," she said. "You stood."
He opened his mouth to answer—
—but the hallway broke.
---
Severance
Pain returned—not in his body, but in his soul.
Severance stirred. He could feel it writhing inside him like a beast in chains, clawing at his ribs. It didn't recognize dreams. It only knew cut. Even here, in this fog, the cursed technique was awake. Hungry.
It wanted release.
But not on enemies.
On him.
He dropped to one knee, panting. "Not now," he growled. "Not in here."
Severance laughed back. A sound like metal tearing.
You keep cutting, boy. Even when there's nothing left but yourself.
---
A Door
Then—
A hand touched his shoulder.
Warm. Real.
He turned, and it wasn't Riko. It wasn't Toji. It wasn't Gojo or Geto or Yaga.
It was no one he knew.
But she looked like someone he once loved. Maybe a memory. Maybe a lie.
She smiled.
"You're still alive. That means something."
He wanted to believe her.
But as the smoke began to thin, he looked down at his hands again.
They were empty.
---
Reality Begins to Return
In the real world, Shoko's hands trembled as she pressed another glowing patch of cursed energy against his chest. His vitals jumped. A flicker on the monitor.
"Kishibe?" she breathed. "Come on…"
His eyelids twitched.
His lips moved—
And in the faintest voice imaginable, the first word he said wasn't help or pain.
It was:
"…Riko?"
Shoko's breath caught.
Geto looked up.
Gojo turned sharply.
---
Between Breaths
He didn't open his eyes.
But the world around him shifted again.
He was somewhere colder now. The apartment again? No—too quiet. No hum of traffic. No leaking sink. Just silence thick enough to choke on.
There was no knife this time.
Only his bare hands.
And they were shaking.
He looked down and saw them covered not in blood—but in ash.
And he knew exactly what had burned.
He looked up.
The shrine was still standing.
But Riko's body lay at the steps.
Unmoving.
Unblinking.
His knees hit the ground before he even realized.
---
"Why wasn't it me?"
The wind in the dream howled like a curse. His own voice echoed against itself.
"Why not me?"
He saw himself again—the real Kishibe. The adult. The sorcerer. Standing just a few feet away, staring back with dead eyes.
The other Kishibe said nothing.
He didn't need to.
The silence was accusation enough.
---
Voices Outside the Dream
In the real world, Geto sat at the edge of the infirmary bed, eyes hollow, one hand loosely resting on his wrapped ribs.
"Is he…?" he asked.
Shoko didn't answer. Her cursed energy glowed dull and strained. Her hands were cracked and pink from overuse.
"He's not stable," she said finally, voice dry. "Severance did more damage than the stab wounds."
Geto's brow furrowed. "His cursed technique is hurting him?"
She nodded, wiping sweat from her brow.
"It's like his technique doesn't just cut what's around him. It cuts into him, too. The more he used it… the more it tore into his nerves, his organs, his soul."
Gojo stood in the corner. Quiet. Face unreadable beneath the blindfold. Not even breathing hard.
"He stood up anyway," Gojo murmured.
Geto turned to him. "What?"
"He stood up," Gojo repeated, softer this time. "After all that. He stood in front of her… when I couldn't."
Silence followed.
Even the machines felt quieter now.
---
One More Step
In his dream, Kishibe rose again.
His legs screamed.
His heart felt like it was split in half.
But he walked to the shrine. Walked to the girl's body. He sat beside her, the sky above still falling apart. And for the first time since he was a child—
He cried.
There was no audience. No enemy. No shame.
Just grief.
It bled out of him like poisoned smoke.
And the shrine bell, untouched, rang once.
---
Reality: A Whisper Between Worlds
"—shibe."
A sound.
It tugged at his chest like a thread.
"…Kishibe…"
Was that Shoko?
He turned his head. Or thought he did. The world tilted.
He felt warm fingers against his temple. A cooling sensation near his ribs. Then the high-pitched whine of cursed energy flooding through veins frayed and half-dead.
Then—
A voice. Quiet. Trembling.
Gojo's.
"…You stubborn bastard."
Kishibe didn't open his eyes.
But he smiled, just barely.