Chapter Text
They say he’s born to be a god.
He was born with eyes wide open, knowing of the world and not yet understanding it. The six eyes have lived within him, almost as a singular entity. A notorious power, the six eyes hold opposing meanings, both oppressive and benevolent. A blessing and a curse. A bounty and a reverence.
At the vulnerable age of five, a half-decade-old bounty on his head, he believed he was learning what it meant to see.
Blind with pain and frustration, he’s pulled into the lap of his mother, too weak to fight it beyond the haze of another excruciating migraine. His teachers have been pushing him more each day. She digs a little too hard into his yukata, her chest pressed against his back as she leans down to whisper.
He knows better than to fight, so he stills as she imparts what she believes to be wisdom. “To be the six eyes, you must look. You must never live blindly. Look, Satoru,” her hands cup the bottom of his chin, forcing him to sit straighter. “Look far beyond the imaginable, and grasp it. Not only must you take it, you must understand.”
He nods despite his hatred of her, despite his lack of trust in his family. He nods because he knows some of it is true, he is the six eyes, and he cannot afford to be blind.
A child revered as a god, an adolescent raised to obey and defend, and a man poised with the backings of arrogance. Satoru should’ve known better than to think he was omnipotent. He should’ve known better than to believe his mother, his family, the upholders of the six eyes, even for one second.
He has been willfully foolish since fifteen, since Suguru, since seventeen. He knows two things that have come to be true: one, he has lived blindly. Secondly, he is not a god. It is not the first time he’s realized this.
He stands, wasted from battle underneath oranges and reds. He aches under encompassing blue, swallowing the sun as dusk fades into night and thick, black smoke billows off in the distance. Satoru was blind to this, unable to prepare better, and not for the first time.
He was blind to see how he wasted, blind to see that he was leaving.
It’s disgraceful. To not be seen at all. To not be seen by the closest thing to an all-knowing power. The six eyes are perfect, but he is imperfect. He is Gojo Satoru because he possesses the six eyes, but he is not the six eyes because he is Gojo Satoru.
Suguru said something like that once, he thinks. He never quite entertained it till now, with the ghost of a man he thought he knew standing in front of him, and the ruins of a school he’s supposed to want to protect.
They don’t speak, standing mere feet away from one another, unhurried and defeated respectively. Hands in his pockets, he stands and stares as rivulets of blood seep and seep from Suguru’s side; open and obliterated by Yuta and Rika, safe in another part of the school.
“What’s that?” Suguru drawls, relenting as he places a bloodied hand against the stone of the school’s protective walls. Satoru shares a glance, blue upon purple, before looking away again. His gaze scans Suguru’s frame, the soles of his sandals turn the stone red. Suguru chuckles, low in his throat. He sits down, slumping against the wall. There’s a barely traceable sign of pain etched into his movements; that, and the twitch in his brows. He swallows, tilting his chin up in a last show of arrogance. “Cat got your tongue?”
They’ve spent twelve years apart from one another. That’s more than a decade, and not one single word. Satoru finds he only has a few. He wills himself to call on him, to speak him into existence, he breathes and he says, “Suguru.”
He sees it. On the edge of the world, in the inevitable pull of death, some of him surfaces. He smiles, blood-stained teeth, and for a moment, fifteen. The Suguru he met, the Suguru he knew before it all fell apart.
Well, he thought he knew him. He knows less these days. His mind halts, stained by the brightness of blood, and the steady ooze of it, washed darker in the fabric of his kesa. With nothing to do but breathe, he crouches. Violet eyes follow his descent, slow and purposeful, devoid of apprehension and an openness for what lies beyond. For as little as he knows of Suguru, Suguru knows less of Satoru.
He never meant for it to be that way. From the moment they met, a small part of Satoru changed. He tried to ignore it; he tried to convince himself that Suguru was simply another sorcerer, not dissimilar from those who worship his family.
Halfway through their first year, Suguru found a place by his side; he was safe, he was different, and Satoru was gone. It wasn’t until their third year that he realized with a sinking feeling, that Suguru had never felt anything similar. The defection, the killings, the distance, and now; The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons.
Satoru could hate him, he could kill him without pause, without struggle; he went after his students, who’s to say he doesn’t deserve death? He could, he could, he could. Instead of all of it, he pulls black fabric down from his eyes, letting it rest against his neck. Suguru stares back as he’s looked over, unburdened by the weight of the six eyes.
Satoru’s hand twitches against his leg, and instead of reaching for what he wants he says, “I love you.”
The reaction is immediate, purple eyes blowing wide, his whole body twitches with a notion of disbelief. Satoru swallows, somber and unsurprised that he doesn’t believe it, never having gotten a chance to tell him or let him feel it. For a moment, it’s silent between them. The heaviness of summer humidity, the trill of insects, and the strain of Suguru’s breath fill the gaps.
Satoru thinks he’s going insane when the man across from him giggles. Until, he looks up, and there in the face of everything he’s ever known is Suguru, lightened with laughter. He smiles against his will, small and coy across his face. Suguru grins at the sight of it. “That’s what you have to say? Now of all times, Satoru?”
Satoru shakes his head, his laugh airy. He turns and sits beside Suguru, unbothered by the red pooling around him.
“It’s true, though.” he says softly, and for now, he harbors no hurt, anger, blindness, no betrayal. He’s fifteen again, sixteen maybe, sat next to his best friend and hopelessly drawn in.
He expects the silence that it earns him, knowing it’s not an easy thing to be loved. He expects silence when Suguru has always been the more private of the two; the one who thinks, watches, and waits, the one no one knows is hurting until it's too late. What he doesn’t expect is the slump of a body against his side, a head pillowed on his shoulder, an openness and vulnerability Suguru’s never shown before.
Satoru stills and relaxes all in one moment, any “protest” he wouldn’t have had, dying behind his teeth. They continue in silence, a momentary peace to the inevitable, a pause to the puddle of blood growing steadily beneath them.
It scares him. He wants this peace, he craves it without the threat of death upon the only person he’s ever trusted and been betrayed by. He’s losing the chance to speak. In a short while, it will be over, and now, he’s faced with the silence that preludes a permanent period of unspoken words.
He breathes, hoping the movement will jostle Suguru, that he won’t have passed. His breath is quiet but ragged, a steadiness to the unsteadiness a dying breath gives.
“I’m-” he begins, humming to work through how to parse his words. “How do I say this without sounding formal?” Satoru remains silent, his head tilted in his direction.
He waits and quietly acknowledges. “I’m glad that you do,” It almost sounds like a thank you until, “I never thought - it’s nice to be loved.”
Satoru swallows, not knowing what to say so he nods. Suguru turns, slow with the state he’s in, trying to catch his eyes.
“It’s nice to be loved by you, Satoru.” Satoru knows then that it’s the end of the beginning. It catches in his throat; and suddenly, the cracks he’s worked to keep from shattering, do. Words unspoken pass between them and Suguru groans softly as Satoru maneuvers him down further. Suguru leans into the hands that guide his back, that cup his head, gently placed against the legs of the one who loves him.
“I don’t understand you, you know.” Satoru says, something grave in his voice.
“That’s alright. I never expected you to.” Suguru hums.
“What does that mean?” Suguru can hear the ire in his voice, kicked up and lingering in the air like sand. He’s annoyed because he doesn’t understand. Suguru sighs with the feeling of hands in his hair, on his scalp.
“When I defected,” he coughs, too weak to wipe the blood that leaks from his mouth. Satoru does it for him without pause, as if practiced. He goes back to combing through his scalp. “I didn’t expect, nor need, any of you to understand.” The hands stop, stalling in their movements.
“But, it was what I had to do. It had nothing to do with you or Shoko.” It’s what he needed to do to survive, and as much as he wanted them to understand, they were never going to.
“It - Suguru, yes it did. We were your friends, your best friends,” he exclaims, hands running through black silk again. Suguru nods in his lap. Blue darts down to his face and Suguru stares back, unabashed.
He tries to take in as much of Satoru’s face as he can; pretty eyes and imperceptibly freckled skin, the slope of his nose, his lips, and the distressed pull of his brows. He takes him in, and he hopes he can take as much as he wants into the next life. He wants it all.
With as much intention as he can muster, he looks deeply into Satoru’s eyes, and says with all and none of the remorse in the world, “You were. But, I had to survive.”
Satoru swallows and tries to hide his agony by replacing it with anger.
“Satoru, I needed to.” he says, cool and placid as still water.
Satoru gasps and tries to hide it as a scoff, tearing his eyes away. A little bit of Suguru cracks at the tears that spill off Satoru’s chin, down, down, down, onto his clammy skin.
“We could’ve been there. I know I was selfish, and-” his voice is clear where Suguru thought it might’ve been watery, his hands are still, where Suguru expects them to be unsteady.
“I know I missed the signs, I missed it all,”
Suguru shakes his head, refuting any blame he’s trying to put on himself. “I didn’t want you to notice, Satoru. There was nothing that could be done.”
Satoru fumes underneath him, a laugh bubbling out of his chest. He can’t control it when it slips out. “Honestly, Suguru, fuck off.” It’s cold, laced with venom, and were he not on the cusp of death, it might’ve pissed him off.
“I’m sorry. I am, Satoru.” he says it with as much conviction as he can, to get him to believe, to let him know none of this was his fault.
Harsh breath is expelled from a grief-tightened chest above him and Suguru shuts his eyes against the stream of expletives, each one of them losing power as they’re pushed from clenched teeth. In the mess of it all, following a barely held back sob or maybe a shout, their hands find one another’s, clasped tight. It’s the last rush of energy Suguru has as his body drains of blood, as he feels more cold than he ever has, as he loses the cold to feel nothing at all.
Satoru fights a constant battle, keeping the sobs that want to rise in his chest at bay by biting into his lip, over and over again. At some point he wins, his body settling for the steady stream of tears that fall down his face. When he looks down, Suguru smiles, closing his eyes against the hands that comb through his hair once again.
When his breaths are shallow, when his grip on life wanes with the newness of the moon, he opens his eyes. He opens his eyes, the physicality of it no longer innate, but chosen with meaning. One more time; he wants the sight of Satoru to be his last, and Satoru’s the last living reminder of him.
Suguru opens his eyes because he can’t do much else. He sees Satoru and-
It is gruesome as much as it’s quiet. He watches every moment as he passes, as his pupils dilate and fix, as they lose all motion, as his face slacks, and Suguru becomes a shell of who he once was.
Without sound, his body jolts, eyes screwed shut, face agonized. He curls in on himself and leans over Suguru’s corpse, shoulders shaking. His hands claw desperately in the fabric of his kesa, they pass under his head, through his hair. They brush through it, pitch-black rivulets passing through his fingers. They tremor over his face, cradling his head and brushing rapidly cooling skin.
Tears loosen the dried, cracked skin on his lips and for the first time in years, he sobs. The only sound found in the quiet, the insects seem to pause around him, open, undisturbed air as the last twelve years break his chest open.
He finds time in the loss of the summer humidity, as the air turns cooler, and night fully sets in. It’s been a few hours; possibly more. He isn’t sure. The cold weight against him should feel wrong, it should feel foreign. He doesn’t want to let go, and yet he can’t physically look down.
That’s the funny thing. He’s fortunate he doesn’t have the will to look down. He possesses the six eyes; they will show him all he needs to know.
He should get up soon.
Time passes without meaning, without feeling. Satoru dissociates and reemerges hours later. The night gets cold, colder, and then starts to warm. Obsidian sky lightens as dawn makes demands of the moon, brighter as the sun waits for its turn in the sky. Satoru stares and aches for the pull of a curtain, for blackness to return, to stay hidden and undisturbed. His breath rattles in his chest, aching as he pulls breath in and out.
Without looking down, he places his palm over Suguru’s chest, certain, but searching anyway. The six eyes can do more than see. They sense. There is no life behind his skin, muscle, and bone.
Devastation comes each time he confirms Suguru’s death, yet, he keeps trying. He knows it's childish, the hope. Suguru’s death wasn’t abnormal. He died of blood loss, from trauma to the body. There is no technique, no loophole, no miracle, that will bring him back. Satoru shifts minimally, a pinprick of feeling that wakes his limbs, long gone numb. Dissociation calls for him once again. He gives in, staring but unseeing, as a sliver of orange breaks up deep blue, and fades.
When he comes to, he can’t see the wall in front of him. His eyes fix and narrow as his view expands and the six eyes come alive. His vision is minimal in the eyes that rest in his skull, but he can see everything within a few miles, more if he wants to push it.
The other eyes focus, pinpointing different areas around the school searching for abnormalities. Limitless washes over his skin, over the corpse in his lap, and he knows without a doubt that something is wrong. The curses lingering around him and Suguru are small, they’re meaningless. He knows this, doesn’t fear it, doesn’t think much of it.
His body, the six eyes, limitless, know differently. His hands twitch, scooping beneath Suguru's knees, underneath his back. Satoru breathes and sees past the grade threes nearing them, he sees and sees and sees. He extends his vision far, enough to reach nearly half a mile, before the six eyes halt, capturing every angle of a woman. She stands there, wiry and somewhat tall, seemingly out of place at the top of the mountain. More than that, she can sense him. It isn’t immediate, black hair swishing as she looks to her left, and-
Red eyes dart up and over as if meeting the six eyes she can sense, but not see. She smiles, though it doesn’t reach her eyes. Without a word, she begins walking, as if pulled in their direction. Satoru knows her path, and he can feel her intention. Ignoring the prickling that makes his skin sweat at her slow pace, he grips Suguru harder, expecting the stiffness as he stands. He doesn’t have time.
With no feeling in his limbs and a knowing in his soul, he walks out of the alley. Suguru’s head hangs off his arm, unsupported in his haste. He pulls limitless in close, close enough to leave only an inch of air between them and the world. She’s coming; and for what, Satoru doesn’t know, but he has an idea.
He leaves behind the last of his sanity, the blood volume of the other half of his soul, and the threat of someone strong enough to cross Tengen’s barrier with ill intent. At the end of the alley, he looks left. She is on his right; ten, maybe fifteen feet away, unmoving and staring at him, at the body he carries, at all the blood. Her face is blank, unseeing. Behind his ability to remain calm and the protective barrier of limitless, panic warms his skin, and his stomach drops. She begins to smile and that’s when Satoru warps, blinking out of existence.
Shoko is alone.
Among the others, she is considered weak. Sure, she has value. Her presence, her technique, and her value are only as good as her ability to heal those stronger than her. She’s an essential resource, a healer.
That’s why she came, and that’s why she’s still here. The higher-ups, Yaga, the grade one and the special grade sorcerers, and everyone below them, they all need her. Shoko’s technique is a nonrenewable resource. It’s not treated that way.
It’s funny, really. How did Yaga say it? How did he describe her like she mattered to them and then make her feel like she was a stranger all in one breath?
That’s right.
“An extremely valuable asset.”
She likes to think she got over feeling unimportant to them. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stand. She wants more. She doesn’t show it, not since she was seventeen; back when she would occasionally smile, or laugh at one of the boys’ idiotic ideas.
They treated her differently in the beginning. They didn’t flirt, or ignore her on the basis that she was a girl and seemingly without value. Sorcerer heritage never mattered. They got along, and that was that. Life seemed normal for two years, and then Suguru started to decline.
She and Suguru are more alike than she realized. She noticed. She noticed the sour mood, the dark circles, his lack of personal hygiene, and trips to the bathroom at two a.m. to choke up whatever curse was keeping him awake. She noticed it all and she never did more than she needed to.
They were friends, but she wasn’t going to intrude. He’d never intruded when she was adamant about being left alone. It was good that way; easy, uncomplicated even. Besides, she was the extra addition to the notorious Satoru and Suguru. Shoko had friends, or so she thought. Life became complicated, and she was left alone.
She is alone.
Yaga is with her. It’s Friday night. She’s working overtime.
“Yaga, you know I don’t work on Sundays.” she drones, bored with the paperwork she’s sifting through. The school leaves her more mess than any one person should be responsible for.
He huffs, nodding fervently, an undercurrent of worry hurrying his movements. “I know, I told them that,” he starts. Shoko stops and looks up, a wisp of a smile lifting the corner of her mouth. She doesn’t feel it.
“Go on.”
He glares in her direction and relents in as many seconds. He sighs again, his exasperation greater when it comes to her and Satoru. “I can ask them to add a bonus this month if you take Sunday.” he offers. She shuffles through a stack of papers, frowning at the print on it. Without looking up, she nods.
“Sure.” Yaga sighs and swallows, grateful without the argument. He sits down on the edge of her desk and hums, his back broad and facing away from her. There’s something he wants to say to her, but she can tell he doesn’t quite know how to say it. Now it’s her turn to sigh.
“Yaga. You’ve given me more work to get through. Say what you need to.” she says, prompting him to get it over with. He turns, glancing over his shoulder.
Something conflicted passes over his face. This time, he pushes a sigh out through his nose, shoulders set and arms crossed over one another.
“Suguru attacked the school this afternoon,” he says, voice grave. Her pen stops, the ballpoint of it pressing down harder as it bleeds.
“He’s been planning this for a long time it seems. We’ve got all hands on deck, but I sent Satoru out to deal with him.” Her attention shifts, messy medical forms fading in the loud blaring going on in her head. Yaga continues, somehow oblivious to the gravity of his actions, of the school’s.
“That’s why we need you for Sunday, injuries and casualty reports, if we need them,” he grumbles, running a hand through short, cropped hair. “I don’t know. It’s a mess.” he frowns when she says nothing, looking over his shoulder again. In the same second, she’s standing, palpable fury burning beneath her skin.
“Are you fucking insane? Did you actually send him? Satoru, of all people?” her voice rises, incredulous. She leans over the desk into his space. The old man is senile. He’s lost it. “Yaga!?” she can catch the moment he realizes, though it fades quickly. He looks away from her eyes, guarded in shadows. His body tells a different story. It doesn’t lie. Where there is shame, there is certainty. Something like disbelief tastes bitter in her mouth; one more chance to believe in those greater than her, crushed under his soles.
“Shoko,” he starts, careful. “With what’s going on now, inevitably, they will meet somewhere in the middle.” his voice is soft where it's firm. He speaks with consideration, and Shoko thinks she doesn’t care for it. She doesn’t need what she’s never been given. She’s a resource, a tool, she’s expendable to them. She doesn’t want one fucking bit of fake consideration.
“Get out.” she grits, furious.
He jolts, his face growing dark. She speaks again before he can. “I don’t have the time, nor the energy, to explain to you why this is a horrible idea.” she presses off the desk and points towards the door.
“Take your marching orders, and get out so I can deal with mine.” she leaves no space for him to argue, knowing she’s trapped him. He was always a little too obedient with the chain of command, only willing to advocate for them when it didn’t cost him.
When he stands, he frowns. It etches into his features. “Okay. Sunday, then.”
It’s over. No fuss. Shoko expected as much. She’s going to run through her pack of cigarettes this week. She watches him go, the heels of his shoes clacking on polished concrete.
With a rush of energy, the lights flicker and die.
She hears Yaga’s shoes stutter against the floor before she realizes what’s happened. The office floods with an excess of energy, overbearing, though infinitesimal in existence. She rarely feels this. An undeniable and unique feeling. She can’t explain it; it contradicts itself.
This energy, Satoru’s limitless. Heavy where it is light, everywhere where it’s nowhere. He has a firm grasp on it, she knows. After years of mastery under his belt, he doesn’t let it expand freely for just anything. Shoko remembers the first time she felt it. He was nineteen and nearer to a god than any given sorcerer in four hundred years.
The lights buzz and pop, flickering on as they release against the pressure.
There, in the space between her desk and the door, is Satoru. Within his arms, lies Suguru. Yaga stands mere feet away from them, his energy spiking. All is void for a few seconds, chaos roiling in the small space, stirring up dust.
“Shoko,” he says, stepping forward with purpose. Yaga moves from his path as if commanded, unable to fathom the current situation. He moves around her desk, maneuvering himself around the office to fit the body hanging off his arms. He steps to one side, he avoids hitting Suguru’s head against the wall; he steps around a chair, and he avoids knocking the legs that hang over his arm against it.
She follows without a word. She follows flecks of dried blood, the stench of iron, and the swish of long, black hair over one arm. When they reach her exam table, he bends, careful as he sets Suguru’s corpse down onto brushed steel. Now free, his hands bite into the lip of the table. One palm is stained red, his fingernails are caked with blood. She looks down, and she sees what’s left.
His body is stiff, all three of his limbs are bent into the position he died in and then was carried in. It’s been six hours since he died, she reckons. His left arm is gone, a bloody, gaping mess of a wound. Below it, livor mortis appears, his skin painted in splotches of blue and purple. It’s hard to tell though, with all the blood.
She mirrors Satoru, leaning over the table slightly. His eyes are half-lidded and cloudy. Without saying anything, she meets the eyes boring into her skull.
“What do you need?” she hears herself say. Her voice is even. Satoru’s face twitches, beginning to open his mouth when the sound of Yaga’s footsteps catches their attention. Slow and solemn is he, eyes trained on the slump of a body. Satoru shakes his head, swallows, and rocks forward on his heels again.
“I need you to prepare him for cremation. I’ll be back before you do,” he says directly, looking straight into her eyes.
“Yaga, you need to hear this,” he turns back to Shoko and then looks away. With his eyes on Suguru, he swallows again, pushing air out through his lips in a rush.
“There’s someone powerful on the grounds who got through the barrier. I don’t know how or what she wants, but she’s powerful.” Yaga’s attention finally diverts from Suguru, and he nods. Satoru copies his movements and runs through the details, his hands grasping harder and harder into the table.
“I need to go.” he grimaces, looking down at Suguru again. He’s unable to look at them any longer. Neither of them can get a word in. With one stained palm, he presses it to Suguru’s cheek, pulls away, and warps.
There are three of them here, then two, and then Shoko is alone. Yaga stands across from her. He moves to the side of the table, standing in the spot Satoru stood in. Neither of them speaks. Shoko thinks he might be mourning. She doesn’t bother asking.
“I’ll let the higher-ups know to cancel the execution order, and confirm his death.” he says quietly, stepping away from the table. Shoko shakes her head. She forgets he’s not looking at her when she does.
“Don’t bother,” she says, apathetic, as it settles over her skin. It’s a state she’s often in; familiar like a place you’ve been to before, but don’t recognize immediately. It’ll prepare her for the next few hours.
“There’s no need.” she drones, catching his eyes when he turns to meet hers. “Satoru has asked me to prepare him. At least let him have this, since you sent him after his best friend.” she cuts, heels clacking as she moves to wash her hands. She doesn’t look to see what he thinks of her words; instead, she dries her hands. He’s out the door when she reaches for her gloves.
Satoru won’t be back for a few hours. She has work to do.
Satoru has no idea where he is when he warps. There’s snow and it’s summer in Japan. His breaths come heavy. It’s cold. He can see the silhouette of the mountain range, the sky dark once again. So, he’s not in Japan then. It doesn’t matter much as his throat narrows, and he gasps, eyes watering.
With a stumble, he feels his knees go, hitting snow-covered ground as he kneels. His vision blurs and his breaths come quicker. They pitch and pitch, his chest heaving under the influx of panic that fills his chest. His groans come second to his ears, seemingly outside his body as he gives way to the beginning of his downfall. He claws into the snow beneath him, rehydrating the blood on his hands and under his nails.
The snow bleeds beneath him, vibrant vermillion as he scrapes and scrapes. His nail snags on rock and cracks, bleeding anew. He doesn’t feel it under the roil of nausea climbing in his throat.
Why, why, why? Is this his destiny? Does he deserve this? He gags, hunched over himself. His sleeves and pant legs are wet from melting snow. At fifteen, he might’ve accepted this as his destiny. Mother said power as the six eyes was a blessing. He had a duty, an obligation to the world, and to the family. His only priority is to be the six eyes. That was before. When he had his family on both sides, telling him what to think, and what was best. He resented it; and yet, there was no other place for him. There was no one else. No one until he was fifteen, until Suguru.
His chest stutters, pulling his stomach tight. He successfully breathes through another wave of nausea, a hand on his stomach, his forehead resting against frigid snow. The cool air doesn’t help, it feels like he’s overheating. His hands shake as he places them down. He can’t open his eyes against the onslaught of distress wrecking his body. With both hands pushed into snow and rock, he rises. His ascent is too fast. The snow is too red. The minute he gives in, his body takes hold, and he vomits. The world goes black for a few seconds as he gasps and heaves, wind whipping against his skin. The panic remains, thundering in his chest.
The grief commandeering his body holds him together and tears him apart at the same time; frustration joins alongside it. He groans and it turns into a shout, yelling among the trees. He pushes himself up into a kneeling position, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Sobs escape his lips. They come harder when he looks around, an agonizing sort of nothingness all around him.
The world has given him something virtually close to unlimited power. He’s the most powerful sorcerer in all of Japan, the wielder of six eyes and limitless; the first one to do so in four hundred years. It should be enough; they said it would be enough. He shakes his head. That’s not what he wants. Satoru has wanted more since he met Suguru. He’s always been greedy, maybe even spoiled. That worsened over the years. Suguru never cared that he was the six eyes, that he was revered.
Suddenly, the power started to matter less.
Suddenly, all he wanted was to talk to the other boy in his small, first-year class. He stole glances, he glared when his gaze was felt and met, and he ignored the swoop in his stomach at the sight of him.
Suddenly, he wanted to speak to him. Satoru wanted to spar with him, study with him, he wanted to eat with him in the shared dorm kitchen. It wasn’t long until he wanted to be friends with him. After that, and in even less time, he wanted more than friendship. He was greedy and he wanted Suguru. All the power in the world isn’t enough to give him what he wants.
What’s the point of having it, if he can’t have him?
Exhaustion weighs heavy when he returns to the school. It’s morning in Japan now. The summer humidity can’t reach him in the protective seal of limitless.
Across the other side of the world, it’s still dark and cold in unknown mountains. He starts at the bottom of this mountain, a long line of stairs before him. The cold remains on his skin as he walks, and he feels sensation only. The brush of dried fabric on skin, the ache in his knees from kneeling on mountain rock for three hours, the bitterness in his mouth.
So, this is it. He will go through life’s everyday motions, and he’ll feel. The kids will remain safe so long as he’s here. He will survive until he can’t anymore. His family will be proud. There’s nothing and no one left; so he will do what needs to be done.
The stairs up the mountain are miles long, if not longer. Tengen’s barrier and their location are advantageous, sitting neatly at the mountaintop, and surrounded by trees. Kyoto is much the same. Satoru reaches the halfway point, pulling his blindfold back over his eyes. He runs a hand through his hair and shifts on his feet. There aren’t any missions for him to go on until Tuesday. He needs to get through this, put Suguru to rest, and then he can crash.
He remains on high alert, wary of the woman lingering only hours ago. In the daylight he can’t feel her presence, only the remnants of curse energy she’s left behind, pungent and sharp where it sticks like glue. He can sense living beings in the school, students in one building, and faculty scattered among the others.
He looks for Shoko, the six eyes extending onto the main campus and veering west, reaching and reaching until he finds her. But, there's - he can’t feel her, there’s nothing. He stops, frowning as he reaches further, feet on solid ground. Her energy is completely hidden. Satoru feels unease growing under his skin for the second time today. He’s about to warp when he feels it. Within that tiny office, underground, and on the west side of the school, her energy explodes.
She’s a beacon of cursed energy, building and building. He’s adept at recognizing individual signatures of cursed energy. This is Shoko’s, but at the same time, it isn’t. It’s greater and deeper. The look of it is what makes his decision to warp for him. Her cursed energy boils, spiking off into sharp points as rolls. It’s completely black whereas it was once lighter, greener. There’s a wall of her cursed energy in front of the office doors, a warning if he’s ever seen one. It parts around limitless and her energy spikes against his, before giving away. It isn’t defensive; Satoru remains on guard anyway.
He turns the doorknob and steps inside. There, in the center of her cursed energy, it spins laterally like the whirl of a storm on its side. He can’t register what he’s seeing as she looks at him, poured over the exam table. She presses her hands to Suguru’s chest. There are medical instruments on every tray in the office, buckets on the floor, and a monitor on her left.
For a moment, all he can see is blood, more and more of it. He sees the slope of Suguru’s body, the slow thump of a heartbeat on the monitor, and the intubation tube down his throat. He sees - it’s minimal, but it’s there. His feet move on their own, stopping just before the table. Suguru’s chest crests and falls in a steady rhythm; his left arm is flushed, whole, and on his body.
Shoko keeps her hands there, staring straight at him as he stares at her. Her face is shadowed, dark circles deep under her eyes, her skin a weakened pallor where she expends more and more cursed energy. Suguru is alive. Or rather, his heart has been restarted, the process of decomposition reversed. Satoru steps back from the table. He shakes his head.
“Shoko,” he croaks.
“No,” she says, and her energy spikes again. Satoru sees her stumble, one hand lifting off Suguru’s chest. “It’s - he’s almost done.”
This is wrong. The feeling is worse than he imagined it would be. Suguru’s death is final; no human should be able to come back twelve hours after death. The heart monitor dulls in his ears, slow but steady. Shoko pushes forward, cursed energy repairing his cells and correcting broken bone, tendons, muscle, and skin. He knows without a doubt that this is wrong. He knows and he doesn’t stop her.