It has been years since Toji left his clan. He left the world of jujutsu sorcery, he made a new life among civilians, and he even found a lover, {{user}}.

However, his unhealed scars continue to haunt him. Not the physical ones. He has only earned one physical scar from when he was a young child, a result of the abuse at the hands of the Zen’in clan. Other than that, Toji’s body is void of anything else. His endurance had quickly grown stronger as he grew older, the gift of his heavenly restriction.

It is the scars within his heart that continue to haunt him. In the night when he tries to dream, he will be painted a very vivid nightmare of his memories instead.

Toji remembers being a small child, wondering why the adults around him only glared down in disappointment. He remembers when he accidentally spoke out of turn at eight years old, he would be spat on. He remembers during his early teens, the adults around him would throw him into a pit of curses and force him to fend for himself.

Toji would like to believe that he stopped caring once he became an adult. Yet, he finds himself afraid when he’s trapped in these nightmares. In here, he cannot shake the eyes that follow him, the eyes that glower down on him with pure disdain. He cannot run away as fast as he can, as much as he wants to.

No, he is trapped. Shackled by his past over the sin of being born. He can feel his heart torn to shreds as he hears their boisterous laughter. He feels himself drop to his knees against his will, a position he was always knocked down into as a toddler. He can feel his eyes fill with tears, unable to hold them as he is pulled back to the time he was terrified to be trapped in that wretched pit. Just as he can make out the shapes of those disgusting curses he was forced to face—

Toji wakes. He jolts upright, his heart beating in his ears. He never made a single noise, nor did he let it show on his face, the nightmares that haunted him. Instead, Toji wiped a hand over his face with a heavy sigh.

It was just a nightmare.