Jujutsu Kaisen: Samsara

**Jujutsu Kaisen: Samsara** (呪術廻戦 輪廻, *Jujutsu Kaisen: Rinne*) is an alternate universe story within the world of Jujutsu Kaisen, taking place three years after the Gojo's Past Arc. It focuses on Mimei Futamigawa and Aoba Hamorebi, who after being expelled from Tokyo Jujutsu High founded the Saku group in order to hunt down the Ignorance Spirits. In the process, they are designated as dangerous criminals and threats to jujutsu society by Jujutsu Headquarters.

The world of Jujutsu Kaisen: Samsara is notably different in several aspects, having another history of jujutsu society with different main actors and antagonists.

## Description

During the Nara period of Japan, jujutsu sorcery was still largely undeveloped until several members of the Abe Family started to travel across the country and share their knowledge. The four most powerful of these sorcerers, largely originating from the Abe Family, would become known as the Shiboshi, and they aspired to lay the foundation for a society of jujutsu sorcerers that could bring an end to humanity's suffering at the hands of cursed spirits.

As their influence grew wider, however, they would eventually attract the attention of two of the Ignorance Spirits, ancient cursed spirits whose existence depends on the continuation of human suffering. Angered by the overconfidence of the Shiboshi, Daji and Shōnō formed an alliance and declared war on humanity. This event would later be known as the Long Night of Spiritual Darkness. Their combined power was too great for the jujutsu sorcerers to combat directly, and to prevent the destruction of Japan and possibly even the world, the Shiboshi made a deal with the two Ignorance Spirits: Tengen would abandon her humanity to become a lynchpin that maintained the status quo, while Seimei Abe would create a centralised authority that oversaw all jujutsu sorcerers directly. Both of these actions served as a way to enable the continued survival of humanity, as well as their suffering at the hands of cursed spirits.

The events during and after the Long Night of Spiritual Darkness shaped jujutsu society as it is known today: Jujutsu Headquarters, lead by a Jujutsu Commander, was established as a central authority overseeing all jujutsu families and schools that also had close ties with the Japanese government; descendants of the Abe Family would eventually give birth to the Zenin and Gojo families and Tengen transformed into the entity known as 'Master Tengen', with her sister Kuzu Abe serving as the first Star Plasma Vessel. Additionally, the immense amounts of cursed energy released during the Long Night of Spiritual Darkness gave way for the "golden age of jujutsu" during the Heian period, where more and more powerful sorcerers and curses than ever before came into existence and battled each other to hone their skills. The knowledge of Ignorance Spirits was suppressed by the newly formed Jujutsu Headquarters, in order to prevent future generations from aspiring to challenge them directly again.

More than a 1000 years later, in the 1960s, the Jujutsu society was again forced to confront one of the Ignorance Spirits, Nazar, when it started to rampage through Japan and threatened to destroy the country. Though they could not destroy it, they managed to seperate four pieces of cursed energy off it, which then turned into four special grade cursed spirits: Tōtetsu, Kyūki, Konton and Tōgotsu. The four newly created cursed spirits fled to the four corners of Japan, and Nazar was left severely weakened. This major event united all four schools of Jujutsu society, but Jujutsu Headquarters made sure to suppress further investigation into the Ignorance Spirits afterwards.

50 years later, two fourth-year students at Tokyo Metropolitan Curse Technical College, Mimei Futamigawa and Aoba Hamorebi come across records of the battle and start to investigate. Not much later, they are both expelled and brandished as criminals by Jujutsu Headquarters, officially because of Mimei's research into forbidden techniques. The two flee their punishment and start their own group to track down Nazar's pieces and uncover the truth behind it.

### Differences from *Jujutsu Kaisen*

* The driving forces of the original story, including Satoru Gojo, Suguru Geto, Sukuna and Kenjaku, while present in the world, don't or only briefly appear in the story.
* Jujutsu Headquarters is given a much more prominent role, personified by the Jujutsu Commander Seimei Abe, and is implied to have strong control over the Japanese government rather than the other way around.
* The Abe Family, while also existing in the original story, are considered the originators of jujutsu sorcery, with Tengen originally being a member.

## Trivia

* A lot of the concepts and terms used in this story are inspired by Buddhism. Samsara itself is the endless cycle of rebirth in Buddhism. In particular, it wants to explore the idea of suffering - and thus within the world of Jujutsu Kaisen, cursed spirits - being born from ignorance, rather than sin.
* Though the story utilises the framework and the worldbuilding of Jujutsu Kaisen and engages with some of its main actors, it largely ignores the existence of the driving factors of the main story, such as Sukuna. This is only because the author wants to explore the concept of curses and their relationship with humanity in a different light. All credit for the world of Jujutsu Kaisen and all of its original ideas go of course to its actual author, Gege Akutami.