Jujutsu Kaisen: Tickless

Timeframe: One week after the temporal plague outbreak.

Location: Tokyo Jujutsu High, and the spaces between seconds.

Akira woke up mid-sentence.

"…I didn't say that," he muttered.

But the conversation around him continued like he had. Momo was beside him, talking about Kyoto updates. Miwa and Panda walked a few paces behind.

His hands twitched.

Why is my sleeve torn?

He looked down.

Blood. Not his.

Then—snap.

Darkness.

He woke again — different hallway.

No Panda. No Miwa. Just Kido Sougen, standing like a statue across the corridor.

"You failed," Kido said.

Akira blinked. "What?"

The hallway bled black static at the edges.

Kido took a step forward, but his body cracked like a shattered mirror. From the cracks, another Akira stepped out — same eyes, but redder. Tired. Bitter.

This one spoke low, venom in every syllable:

"You shouldn't be the one alive."

Akira's breath caught. "You're not real."

"Neither are you."

The lights flickered. The walls folded into themselves.

Morgue – Tokyo High

Shoko slammed her fists on the desk, medical reports scattered. "This is not just CE trauma anymore."

Gojo, arms crossed, raised a brow. "You look like shit."

"I just watched a corpse whisper in Akira's voice," she snapped. "Our timelines are bleeding, and I've got bodies aging in reverse. Some have two brains. One from now. One from a timeline that never existed."

Gojo's smile faltered.

"And Akira?" she continued. "His cursed signature is splitting. It's like there's something feeding off his technique. Evolving."

Gojo rubbed his chin. "An echo?"

Shoko shook her head. "No. An echo doesn't have a heartbeat."

Gojo blinked.

Then said, quietly, "I'll keep him close. But you…"

"I'll dig deeper," Shoko muttered. "I already am."

She tapped the corner of her desk — a sealed envelope marked 'Echo Womb - Classified Scroll, 1850s'

Inside Akira's Mind – Dream State

He stood in a mirror field. Every direction: his face.

Some younger. Some older. Some scarred. Some dead.

One version limped forward, jaw cracked sideways, eyes glazed.

"The domain's calling us," it whispered.

Another, clad in torn robes, muttered, "The mausoleum is almost complete."

Then the one with red eyes, the rogue echo, said:

"I don't need you to stabilize. I need you to shatter."

Akira tried to run. But the ground was liquid memory — it clung to him, wrapped around his legs like regrets made flesh.

The rogue echo stepped forward. A parasitic glow pulsed in its chest — an unnatural knot of cursed energy, evolving.

It wasn't an echo anymore.

It was becoming something else.

"You made me to survive one second. But I learned how to steal all of them."

Observation Yard

Gojo stood beside Akira under the twilight veil.

"You're unraveling," Gojo said, almost casually.

Akira didn't respond.

"There's something inside you now. I can feel it when you walk past. You're leaking seconds you haven't lived."

Akira's voice was low: "If it's inside me… can I cut it out?"

Gojo tilted his head. "If you can figure out which version of you it's living in."

Akira's shadow stretched behind him — longer than it should've. Too long. Too wide.

And at the far edge… it moved on its own.

HQ Council Chamber, Remote Veil Feed

The Kyoto-Tokyo Goodwill Event had been officially canceled.

Not because of politics.

Not because of curses.

Because time was bleeding in the open.

Every veil across Japan flickered like a corrupted VHS. Entire neighborhoods repeated sunsets twice in one day. Grade 2 curses were spawning with memories they shouldn't have — like they remembered being killed before.

The Board issued a containment protocol. But no one said what everyone was thinking out loud:

"Akira Rensetsu is the epicenter."

Tokyo High Infirmary

Momo Nishimiya arrived in Tokyo unannounced.

Not via cursed transport. Not via broom.

She walked.

Her eyes bloodshot, hair messier than usual, her cursed energy low and irregular — signs of prolonged residual feedback exposure.

Shoko: "You walked through four temporal scars to get here?"

Momo: "I saw him… looping. From the outside. Akira."

She didn't explain further.

She didn't need to.

Because all over Tokyo, anchors were slipping. And Momo had witnessed one of Akira's echoes walk into her classroom three days ago — and bow like it remembered her.

That echo said:

"I'm not him… but I still care about you."

Cursed Spirit Council, Hidden Forest

Jogo, Hanami, Dagon, Mahito — all present. For the first time, since the anomaly was born.

And Kenjaku sat among them. Not in Geto's robe — but in a new face.

A smiling one. Kind. Almost fatherly.

"Now that we've seen what one broken second can become," he said, "imagine what happens when we force the rest of him to awaken."

Mahito grinned, eyes wide. "So… what do we break next?"

Kenjaku replied, "His reason. His body's a cage for an echo that's already stronger than any Domain I've seen. We don't kill Akira."

Hanami rumbled, "Then what?"

Kenjaku's voice was gentle:

"We let his Domain stabilize. And make sure he's not the one in it when it does."

Tokyo Tech, Midnight

Akira jolted upright in bed.

His nose bled. Again.

Seconds flickered in the room like moths — moments that hadn't happened yet.

One echo was staring at him from the mirror.

"You're not in control anymore."