Toji Fushiguro knew what death felt like. Cold, creeping, the slow fade of consciousness. He had embraced it willingly, falling beneath the overwhelming power of Gojo Satoru. His last thoughts were of his son, Megumi, hoping that the boy would forge his own path, far from the blood and violence that had shaped Toji's life.

But death, as it seemed, was not the end.

Toji's eyes snapped open, his breath coming out in shallow gasps. His body felt small, weak even. He could feel the sun's warmth streaming through a nearby window, and the gentle breeze from outside brushed against his skin. Yet, the sensation felt alien, unfamiliar, as if his body wasn't his own.

"What the...?"

Sitting up quickly, Toji scanned his surroundings, his mind racing to make sense of what had just happened. He found himself in a cramped, dimly lit room—if you could even call it that. It looked more like a cupboard. Wooden shelves, dust-covered and filled with cleaning supplies, lined one side of the room, and a small, makeshift bed was crammed into the corner. His heart raced, confusion clouding his senses. Something wasn't right.

Toji raised his hands, staring at them. They were too small—pale, fragile, not the rough, battle-scarred hands he was used to. His body, too, was that of a child, far younger than Megumi had ever been.

He staggered toward a cracked mirror hanging on the wall. The face staring back at him wasn't his own. Instead, a messy mop of black hair sat atop his head, unruly and wild. His skin was pale, and a jagged lightning-shaped scar marred his forehead. Piercing green eyes blinked back at him, full of confusion and fear.

"What kind of joke is this?" he muttered under his breath, his voice much higher than it should have been.

Memories—no, fragments of memories—began to flood his mind. Bits and pieces, snippets of conversations, words, images. It was like someone had opened a floodgate, letting a torrent of information flow in all at once. He gripped his head, groaning as his brain struggled to piece everything together.

"Harry Potter?" he whispered, the name coming to him like a half-forgotten dream. He stared back at the reflection in disbelief. This was Harry Potter. He was Harry Potter.

Toji slumped against the wall, letting out a deep breath as the weight of the situation crashed down on him. He remembered the books—the Harry Potter series. They had existed back in his old world, though he hadn't paid much attention to them. Fiction, fantasy, nonsense meant for kids. But now, he was here, inside the body of this famous boy wizard.

"What kind of sick reincarnation is this?"

His instincts told him to panic, to find some way out of this twisted situation, but the part of him that had lived through battles, blood, and death remained calm. He had survived worse things than being trapped in a child's body. He could survive this too.

He took a deep breath, focusing. His mind snapped back into that old, familiar state of clarity. First, he needed to assess the situation. He was seven years old, living in what he vaguely recalled to be the cupboard under the stairs at the Dursleys' house. He knew how his life was supposed to unfold from here—years of torment and mistreatment at the hands of his so-called relatives, before eventually finding his way to Hogwarts.

But none of that mattered right now. Toji wasn't going to follow the same path as the Harry Potter in those books. No. This was his life now, and he wasn't going to let it slip away like his last one had.

He felt something stir within him, something familiar yet distant. It wasn't cursed energy, but he still felt power pulsing beneath his skin. His heavenly restriction—it was still intact. His physical prowess, his senses, the incredible strength that had once made him feared as the "Sorcerer Killer"—all of it remained, but tempered by the smaller, weaker body of a child. And yet, even though cursed energy was absent, there was something else, something new.

Magic.

He could feel it, dormant but present, like a second heartbeat. Magic was real in this world. And he had it.

A smirk crept onto Toji's face as realization dawned on him. His heavenly restriction had given him unimaginable physical power in his previous life, but now, in this world, he had something else to play with—magic. It was a new weapon, one he had never wielded before, and the thought of it excited him in a way he hadn't felt in years.

Living by his instincts and fighting for survival had been his entire existence before. But now, in this world of wizards and magic, he had the chance to live differently. He had the power to carve out his own path. He could live for himself.

Toji pushed himself off the floor and walked to the door of the cupboard. He placed his small hand on the handle, testing its resistance. Locked, of course. But a locked door wasn't going to stop him.

He braced himself, took a deep breath, and pushed. The door rattled but didn't budge. He grinned. If his strength had been fully unleashed, he could have torn this door off its hinges without a second thought. But he had to be careful. He was still a child—he had to play this smart.

A flicker of memory resurfaced—something about wizards being able to perform accidental magic when they were emotional. He focused, drawing on that new sensation of magic that lay within him. He reached for it, willing it to bend to his command.

The door lock clicked softly, and the door creaked open.

Toji's grin widened. It had worked. This magic… it was going to be fun to learn.

He stepped out into the hallway, moving silently as his sharp eyes scanned his surroundings. The house was quiet. The Dursleys were likely still asleep, unaware of what had just been set in motion.

Toji took one last glance at the cupboard, the place where Harry Potter had suffered in silence for so many years. But he wasn't Harry Potter, not anymore. He was Toji Fushiguro—a man who had defied death and now, with both heavenly restriction and magic at his fingertips, he was going to live this second chance to the fullest.

As he turned and walked down the hallway, his heart pounded with a sense of freedom he hadn't felt in a long time. This world didn't know what was coming. He was going to master this magic, learn the ways of this world, and make it his own.

Because this time, Toji wasn't living for anyone else.

This time, he was going to live for himself.