Work Text:
Voices
There are these voices that haunt Yuuji.
Some sound like a friend he once loved, still loves, who cried out to the world for help, for mercy;
“I don’t even know what’s right or wrong anymore!” the voice wails,
Echoing in his mind so loudly that sometimes Yuuji feels as though volume might be what finally kills him.
Other voices carry this eerily peaceful tone, a low rasp of a voice usually much more vibrant;
“Itadori,” and there’s something about the lack of bite behind it that dredges up these old feelings of dread and despair,
The same ones that welled up the first and last time he heard his name uttered like that aloud.
“Tell everyone, it wasn’t so bad!” and Yuuji goes numb.
But amidst the myriad of voices there’s this one in particular that wreaks havoc on Yuuji's mind:
“You’ve got it from here.”
The familiar, soothing lilts of the voice are infected with this breathless resignation, and Yuuji cries.
He sobs and sobs until he’s gasping for breath, lungs burning as though hell itself had taken up residence in his chest.
Because he knows, he knows,
Despite the way those words were laced with faith, they’re a lie.
It's a cruel deception of final words,
Because the truth stares back at him in the form of the countless bodies laid dead at his feet.
It speaks to him with every new voice that joins the cacophony of others in his mind,
Every soul he’s failed to save;
A constant reminder that no he very much does not have it.
That voice once said to him, “It’s not about faith, I’m an adult and you’re a child, I have an obligation to look after you.”
So Yuuji curses his childhood, curses his youthfulness, his naivety, his inexperience, his incompetency,
And as the voices continue to drown his mind with languishing harmonies Yuuji thinks,
What’d I’d give to be an adult, because maybe, just maybe, I could’ve protected others the way they protected me.
Every moment of Yuuji's day is infested with these voices,
But it’s alright, he supposes, it’s what he deserves.
Yuuji vows to every soul taken from this earth because of him, a vow of penance:
I’ll atone for my existence, the existence that cost you yours; I’ll be sure to take on your suffering too.