When Neo leaves, he starts walking in a certain direction, but after a while, he stops in the middle of the street.
One minute later, four black, seemingly armored cars appear—clearly belonging to some secret organization.
When the drivers notice someone in their path, they start honking frantically, trying to make Neo move out of the way.
But Neo doesn't even flinch, forcing them to slam on the brakes with all their might. The moment they stop, the agents jump out of the cars, shouting at him.
Agent 1: What the hell is this, kid?!
Agent 2: You can't just stand in the middle of the damn road!
But in the next instant, all the cars are sliced clean in half, silencing them immediately.
Neo then speaks.
Neo: Weren't you looking for me?
A wide grin spreads across his face before he finishes.
Neo: Well, here I am.
Seeing what he did to the armored cars, the agents break into a cold sweat, taking slow steps backward until, finally, they turn and start running for their lives.
Neo freezes, his grin fading into a confused expression as he wonders.
'Why did they run just from that?'
Neo's original plan was simply to get S.H.I.E.L.D.'s attention and have a conversation with Nick Fury—offering to help them fight curses... for a price, of course. But now, with these agents fleeing so suddenly, the situation is just ridiculous.
Sure, he expected slicing the cars in half to scare them a little—that was the whole point. He wanted to make sure they didn't think they could intimidate or suppress him.
But after this reaction, all he can do now is wait for them to contact him, which—because of his miscalculation—might take weeks.
Frustrated, Neo decides to head downtown to cool off a bit.
He hails a taxi and rides to the city center, hoping to find something interesting to keep himself from killing someone out of sheer frustration.
After a few minutes, he gets out of the taxi and starts wandering through the crowded streets of New York.
A few minutes later, he sees a rather troublesome piece of news.
"TONY STARK IS MISSING"
Neo looks at the headline and mutters.
Neo: So the story is beginning… This is going to be a problem.
As he walks through New York, Neo senses hundreds of thousands of people and curses. Among them, a few sorcerers are mixed in, while most of the curses lurk in alleyways or sewers.
Neo has always been a bit lazy, so he doesn't go out of his way to hunt down curses that attack people. However, he's not so heartless that he would ignore someone being attacked right in front of him.
For about two hours, he wanders aimlessly through the city, occasionally helping someone who's being attacked by a curse.
Then, after all this aimless wandering, something very strange catches his attention.
Without a second thought, he starts running toward a place filled with cursed energy—so much of it that Neo can tell it's just two steps away from giving birth to what could be the first Grade 1 curse.
Curious to see what could be generating so much cursed energy, he picks up the pace, sprinting toward the source without hesitation, despite how far it is from the city center.
After about twenty minutes of running toward the location, Neo arrives at an alleyway with a metal door at the end.
With an expressionless face, he mutters:
Neo: This is clearly the entrance to a clearly illegal place.
Giving up on questioning it, he steps closer to the door.
Once he's standing in front of it, he knocks.
Five seconds later, a voice responds.
???: What's the password?
Neo hears this and replies:
Neo: Open this damn door, or I'll cut you in half.
The man behind the door was about to say that this wasn't the password when, out of nowhere, the door before him split in two. Just as he was about to turn around and yell that someone was breaking in, he suddenly felt himself falling to the ground. When he looked back, he saw his own body.
Neo steps through the "door" and follows a corridor. At the end, he finds a literal underground arena filled with people dressed in all sorts of attire, waiters serving drinks, and more.
And it looks like he's walked straight into the middle of a fight between... CURSES!?
Neo is stunned by what these people are doing, but what really surprises him is the fact that everyone can see the curses.
This means they can create even the most basic type of cursed tools.
Which means the world is slowly adapting to Jujutsu. But Neo isn't sure whether that's a problem or not.
Without caring about the trouble he caused at the entrance, he randomly takes a seat and watches the arena, his gaze fixed on the battling curses.
A curse with a human head and a centipede-like body launches a relentless attack on another curse, which resembles a flaming horse.
The spectators shout frantically at both creatures, some using glasses to see them, others wearing monocles, and some likely relying on contact lenses.
But it doesn't take long before the flaming horse rises and erupts in flames, killing the centipede and leaving everyone in shock—except, of course, for Neo, who had already sensed the difference in their energy levels.
Just as the champion turns to face the crowd, he suddenly stops abruptly. Then, without warning, he bolts toward a passageway and vanishes into the darkness of the corridor.
Moments later, an announcer appears in the middle of the arena and begins to speak.
Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, that last fight was truly tough for our Flaming Horse, but he emerged victorious, moving on to the next round!
He gestures toward one side of the arena and continues.
Announcer: Our reigning champion of human fights, a man who can lift a car with a single hand, the great destroyer, the one and only... THE GREAT ANNIHILATOOOOOOOOR!
The crowd erupts in ecstasy as the gladiator's name is announced, and then he steps into the arena.
Annihilator is straightforward—standing at 2.40 meters (7'10") tall, with short hair, massive muscles that would put even a bodybuilder to shame, and scars covering his entire body.
After introducing the fighter, the announcer turns to the other side of the arena to present the challenger.
Announcer: And on the other side, from my perspective, a suicidal man—someone who barely stepped into the underground arena and is already challenging our champion! The likely loser of the night, it's him... HADEEEES!
But unlike the champion, who was praised, "Hades" was met with loud boos.
Meanwhile, Neo was completely stunned. That man calling himself "Hades" had a Heavenly Restriction—Neo couldn't even sense his presence, as if he wasn't there at all.
Hades was a tall man, standing at 2.00 meters (6'7"), with long hair reaching his back and, most notably, hundreds of scars covering his entire body.
Something else caught Neo's attention the moment Hades stepped in—the strong possibility that all the human fighters in the arena were slaves.
Why that assumption? Simple. Both fighters in the arena had shackles on their legs, meaning they were either still imprisoned or had been before arriving here.
Just as the fight was about to begin, Neo felt something strange. He slowly stood up, sensing that someone was watching him. Almost on cue, two large men approached him.
Man 1: Our boss wants to have a little chat with you about the door incident.
Without much concern, Neo followed the men down an elegant hallway leading to a door at the far end.
When the door opens, Neo sees an extremely refined office, adorned with several seemingly expensive paintings, well-crafted armchairs, and a liquor cabinet stocked with a variety of drinks.
At the center of the room, behind a highly ornate desk, sits a man impeccably dressed, reading through some papers. However, the moment Neo enters, the man stops reading, looks up at him, and speaks.
Francis: A pleasure to meet you, Mr.—
Francis gestures politely with his hand, prompting Neo to introduce himself. Neo responds.
Neo: You can call me Sukuna.
Francis doesn't seem to mind the unusual name and continues.
Francis: Do you realize what you just did?
As the door opens, Neo finds himself in an opulent office adorned with expensive paintings, luxurious armchairs, and a well-stocked liquor cabinet.
At the center of the room, behind an ornate desk, a sharply dressed man is reading through some documents. The moment Neo enters, he stops, looks up, and says:
Francis: A pleasure to meet you, Mr.—
He gestures politely with his hand, inviting Neo to introduce himself.
Neo: You can call me Sukuna.
Francis doesn't question the strange name and simply continues.
Francis: A pleasure, Mr. Sukuna. But... do you even realize who you just messed with?
Neo, still indifferent, barely pays attention as Francis continues.
Francis: You've tangled with a group that has direct connections to the Crime King. So, we're giving you two choices.
He stands up, opens a drawer, and pulls out a revolver, placing it on the desk in front of Neo.
Francis: The first option—you end your suffering now. Or...
With a subtle hand gesture, the two henchmen behind Neo crack their knuckles.
Francis: You can suffer a whole lot before you die.
But, defying their expectations, Neo calmly stands up and speaks.
Neo: I prefer the option where you wire fifty million into my account, or I won't save your asses from the mess you've created.
Francis furrows his brow, confused.
Francis: If you think a threat w—
Neo: Five.
Francis, now irritated, orders:
Francis: Kill him.
The guards nod and move in.
Neo: Four.
The two men position themselves behind him.
Neo: Three.
One of them grins and says:
Henchman 1: Come on, kid. You'd better learn your place.
Neo: Two.
The guards raise their fists.
Neo: One.
BOOM!
______________________________________________
Meanwhile, Hades—or rather, Adrian Mendonça—had just defeated the Annihilator, leaving the entire crowd in stunned silence.
At first, Adrian seemed to be losing, constantly forced to retreat and dodge. But suddenly, he shifted gears, attacking with brutal precision and chilling efficiency. In less than a minute, the Annihilator was on the ground, his arm shattered, his nose broken.
Adrian's strategy was simple: analyze his opponent's movements. After a few minutes of observation, he noticed a pattern—whenever the Annihilator unleashed a flurry of punches, he always lunged forward.
Waiting for the perfect moment, Adrian timed his move. As soon as the Annihilator charged, Adrian met him with a flying knee to the face, breaking his nose instantly.
Dazed by the pain, the Annihilator staggered. Adrian seized the opportunity, landing a decisive strike that broke his arm, then pinned him to the ground, delivering dozens of punches to his face until he passed out.
For Adrian, who had been trained since childhood by his father, it was nothing.
Ignoring the roaring applause, he turned and headed back to his cell.
As he walked through the corridors, his eyes scanned the grim reality of the prison. Malnourished children, pregnant women, elderly captives, and even animals—all waiting to be sold off to some unknown fate.
Adrian, a 25-year-old man, had been raised and trained by his father, a former MMA fighter, supposedly to follow in his footsteps. At least, that's what his father had told him. But when Adrian turned fifteen, his father sold him as a gladiator.
That's when Adrian learned the brutal truth—his "father" had been training him from birth not as a successor, but as a product for the black market. Since then, Adrian had fought in countless underground arenas.
Back in his cell, he thought about what had happened three weeks ago. One night, he had woken up with an overwhelming sensation of strength. When he opened his eyes, he realized he was three times stronger than before. The world itself felt different.
Confused, he began testing his new abilities. His instincts had sharpened to an almost supernatural level, and his five senses had intensified dramatically.
From that day forward, he had tried to escape, only to be intercepted by individuals who wielded a strange energy in their hands. Overpowered, he was captured once again.
For days, he had been planning something big—a ful—
BOOM!
His thoughts were interrupted as the ground trembled. A massive skeletal beast emerged, devouring prisoners one by one.
Relying on his enhanced instincts, Adrian ran with all his might, maneuvering through the crumbling prison like a parkour master. But just as he landed a step, the floor beneath him collapsed.
In a moment of sheer desperation, he flexed every muscle in his body—and did something he never thought possible. He performed a double jump, just like in a video game.
There was no time to process it. He landed, turned back, and locked eyes with the soulless gaze of the skeletal monster.
A cold chill ran down his spine. Without hesitation, he bolted toward the arena.
The spectators were baffled by Hades' sudden return. But before they could ask what was happening, the skeletal beast burst through the stands, unleashing a bone-chilling roar.
Panic erupted. People ran for the exits.
The creature seemed to grin, then opened its mouth wide. From within, a massive, putrid energy beam shot forth, incinerating everything in its path.
Seeing an opening, Adrian leaped, aiming to strike the monster's skull—but instead, he phased right through it, crashing into the ground.
Seeing Adrian's pathetic attempt to harm it, the skeleton turns its hollow gaze toward him and slowly raises its arm. Realizing he is about to die, Adrian closes his eyes.
And then...
Nothing.
Absolutely nothing happens.
Opening his eyes hesitantly, Adrian sees a boy standing in front of him—he looks about fifteen, with white hair and dark markings covering his body. The boy is effortlessly holding back the skeleton's massive fist.
Before Adrian can even process what's happening, the boy speaks.
Neo: "You're not gonna land a hit on this big guy like that."
At that moment, a massive gash appears across the skeleton's ribcage. Neo finishes his sentence.
Neo: "You need Cursed Energy for that."
He turns to look at Adrian.
________________________________________________________
HEY GUYS! If you're enjoying my fic, please send some power stones!
Sorry for the delay in posting chapters—I haven't been feeling too great, so I had to slow down a bit. But now things are heating up for Neo! The first Grade 1 Curse is here… will it actually be a problem, or not?
If you didn't like something, noticed a mistake, or have any tips, just let me know—I always read and reply! Remember, this is my first fic, so I'm still learning.