The door opened with a hiss of sealed air, and Xavier didn't need to look up to know someone important had entered. The atmosphere changed—pressure creeping across the room like gravity suddenly remembered it had a job. He sat on the edge of the narrow cot, sore ribs stiff beneath layers of tight bandaging, head still throbbing from whatever treatment they'd given him.
But when the man stepped into full view, all of that faded. White hair. Black blindfold. A long pale coat over a lean, black uniform. He wasn't tall in the way that loomed, but tall in the way that you noticed. Effortlessly confident. Xavier's stomach dropped the second he saw him.
It was him. Gojo Satoru.
Xavier felt a rush of heat in his spine. He knew that name. He knew that face. That voice. That posture. He'd seen him before—on a screen, in ink and animation, standing atop battlefields with the weight of the world under his heels.
And that meant only one thing: this wasn't just another country. This wasn't a fever dream or hallucination. This was Jujutsu Kaisen. Somehow, impossibly, he was inside the universe of a story he used to watch, a world built on fear, curses, and blood.
Gojo shut the door behind him with one hand and leaned casually against the wall. His arms crossed, and a smirk curled the edge of his mouth. "So. You're the kid who torched a Grade 2 like it was a campfire and left nothing but ash."
Xavier forced his body not to react. His face remained neutral, his voice calm. He couldn't give away anything. No recognition. No panic. No slip.
"I guess so," he said simply.
Gojo tilted his head. "Name?"
"Xavier."
"Just Xavier?"
"For now."
Gojo grinned like he liked that answer. "Vague. Mysterious. I respect it."
He pushed off the wall and started pacing, not like someone who was nervous, but like someone who was giving his thoughts room to stretch. "You're not on any jujutsu registry. You've got no cursed energy signature, no technique, and no ties to any sorcerer family we know. But somehow, you managed to annihilate a cursed spirit without so much as a scratch—until after the fight, anyway."
"I didn't mean to do it," Xavier said. "It just happened."
"You're not the first to say that. But the thing is, whatever came out of you wasn't cursed energy. It wasn't reversed, it wasn't innate. It was…" Gojo paused. "Clean. Like the opposite of a curse."
Xavier didn't respond right away. He didn't want to say too much. Couldn't afford it. Every word he gave was a thread someone might tug on.
"I don't know what it was," he said at last. "But it wasn't something I planned."
Gojo circled to Xavier's right, then leaned on the wall again. "Where are you from?"
"Out west," Xavier replied. "Nowhere important. I move around a lot."
"Anyone looking for you?"
"No."
"Family?"
"Not anymore."
Gojo watched him silently for a few beats. "Convenient answers."
"They're the truth."
"Maybe." Gojo turned his head slightly toward the ceiling, as if listening to something only he could hear. "Or maybe you're just good at hiding the truth."
Xavier shrugged. "If I was, I probably wouldn't have passed out bleeding in the woods."
That actually made Gojo chuckle. "Fair enough."
The blindfolded sorcerer took a few casual steps toward the door, but his tone remained analytical. "The energy you used didn't just kill that curse—it erased it. No cursed residue, no core, no recovery. It was like watching rot dissolve under sunlight."
Xavier stayed quiet, his hands resting on his knees. He remembered the way it felt—whatever that force was. A burning pressure that erupted through him at the edge of death, not born of hate or rage, but of necessity. It wasn't violent by nature. It was just… absolute.
"I felt your burst from miles away," Gojo said, breaking the silence. "That doesn't happen unless someone's making a statement."
"I wasn't," Xavier said. "I was trying not to die."
"Even worse," Gojo muttered. "Instinct without understanding is a dangerous mix."
Xavier looked up at him fully for the first time. "What do you want from me?"
"Right now?" Gojo raised a brow. "Answers. Later? Maybe potential."
"And if I don't give either?"
"Then I'll keep you alive until someone above me decides you're not worth the risk."
Xavier held his gaze. "Not exactly comforting."
"This isn't a comforting world."
Gojo finally moved toward the door, fingers brushing the handle, but before leaving, he turned back one last time. His voice had softened, just slightly, but his words carried weight.
"Whatever's inside you doesn't belong here. It doesn't align with any cursed system I've seen, and believe me—I've seen it all. This isn't a mutation. It's something foreign. Something other."
Xavier stayed still, jaw clenched. Gojo couldn't know how right he was.
"I'm going to speak to Principal Yaga," Gojo said. "Try to convince him you're not a ticking time bomb. Stay quiet. Stay calm. And don't explode."
Then he was gone. The door shut behind him with a quiet finality.
Xavier leaned back against the wall and exhaled. His whole body ached—not just from the fight, but from the effort of staying composed. Every moment of that conversation had been a performance. He hadn't let on that he recognized Gojo. Hadn't slipped up by asking about curses or terminology. Hadn't panicked when Gojo guessed that something inside him wasn't native to this world.
He'd told no lies, but nothing useful either. No names, no cities, no family. Just smoke. A fog that couldn't be tracked or confirmed.
Because if he ever told them the truth—that he came from another world, one where they were all characters in a story—he'd either be labeled insane or dangerous. Either one ended badly.
No. He'd stick with the story. No home. No one looking for him. A drifter who just so happened to awaken something terrifying.
He looked down at his hands again.
That energy had come from somewhere inside him. It wasn't cursed, but it was powerful. And no one here understood it.
Which meant if he wanted to survive, he'd have to be the first one to figure it out.
Before they decided to cut him open to see what was inside.