Chapter Text
“Here lies a toppled god-
His fall was not a small one.
We did but build his pedestal,
A narrow and a tall one.”
-Tleilaxu Epigram
Dune Messiah, Frank Herbert
***
If not strong, then what? Weakness is not an option.
One burning soul came crashing to the ground. Icarus is no longer falling for Icarus is dead.
Lucifer cast from the gates of heaven.
A phoenix burnt to ashes with nothing reborn but the shell of what once was; what could have been.
***
Suddenly, something switched in him and understanding flooded his senses. To be unoccupied with the dirt beneath his feet, to create a world in which the black-haired boy who was long gone might have enjoyed enough to remain by his side, Gojo must turn to the method those behemoth higher ups held so dear. To beat them at their own game was to turn to teaching, to wield his students as weapons in his arsenal in order to tear apart the very society that upheld him as their great wonder.
With the world refreshed, now viewing it in a new light, Gojo outstretched his hand and reached for the ink he had long ago been given, snatching the stars that whizzed by as his paper once more. He had been practicing his cursive.
His life had been upturned, but the red string tying his being to a world of horror had not frayed. If anything, he could feel how it rubbed into his pinky with his every move. How it burned his skin raw and reminded him of the sorrow that would inevitably come from the cataclysmic event that sat watching him patiently, looming over the horizon. The event he could feel nearing with every part of his being. But it was as though it was a shadowy figure he could catch a glimpse of from his peripheral vision, only to turn in that direction and see nothing at all. Instead left with only a constant uneasy feeling in his gut. He felt like he was walking on eggshells, always wondering when he was going to take one wrong step and detonate the landmine that would explode and consume all in its wake.
The silver scissors gleamed in the sun, blinding him at times as the light bounced off and hit his eyes. They too waited, poised and raised ready to sink deep into the already maimed heart of the man who had been given the world.
***
How can a man truly be himself if all he has ever known is what he is told he is?
Were human beings not meant to coexist, to mingle, with those down the totem pole that upholds the hierarchy of power in the society that is known?
Gojo found himself pondering such questions when the string felt as though it cut off his circulation. But Satoru Gojo was neither man nor god. Therefore, to occupy himself with such philosophical questions was aimless, fruitless, as it threatened to consume his mind and drive him to the brink of insanity.
Riddled with a cauldron in his soul that brewed concoctions beyond anyone’s worldly understanding, Satoru Gojo could not bear to occupy himself with the dirt beneath his feet.
But perhaps that was his first mistake. Maybe not. Maybe it was instead simply another error to compute and add into the system that was about to short-circuit and explode.
Given the world as his gavel, its people as his puppets, and more power in his eyes alone than one could ever dream to accumulate by the end of their sub-par lives, Satoru Gojo had still fallen.
Trapped in the Prison Realm.
Alone. Again.
Perhaps the black-haired boy had been nothing but a trigger to the destruction that had long since been accumulating, nothing more than a catalyst pertaining to the chemicals that rushed through his world and made up his life. The destruction that was only held back only by an ego larger than life itself. An ego that was like a security blanket, wrapping its comforting arms around the white-haired man who never really got to grow up.
***
Flaunting the rightful confidence that he alone was more than enough, Gojo had entered the Shibuya Station. It seemed as though he called upon the world to watch him, to marvel at the man who would save them once more.
Coursing through his body and etched into his skin lay power beyond any seen before. But, in a flash his life fluttered by, the one he thought had long been dead now stood before him, and there was nothing that power could do to stop him.
There lay stitches in his head. Off came a part of his head. Blood dripped around the cranium this creature held in his hands.
This isn’t him.
It can’t be. It can’t.
Please, don’t let this be him.
It is him, isn’t it.
It is, and the abomination that lay mere feet away was his doing.
Selfishness had led to his demise. Personal feelings had led to the body not being disposed of properly. Look at where love had gotten him.
All of a sudden Satoru Gojo understood all too well why walls are built around one's heart. A fortress is needed; one where no one can enter and mar. But it is far too late for that.
All the power in the world and here he lay, the Almighty Man had fallen.
A chuckle escaped his lips, one last feeble attempt to wrap that now useless pride around his body like a life vest. A laugh that conveyed that careless and worriless facade he upheld even in his last moments. One last jab at the world. The night sky is empty. There are no more stars to write on to alter the course of destiny.
With that, the walls of the Prison Realm had closed up and swallowed the immeasurable pride belonging to Saturo Gojo. Down the hatch he went and the one whose mere birth had shifted the cosmos was no more.
Farewell, black-haired boy.
Good night, white-haired boy.