Chapter Text
“There exists no separation between gods and men; one blends softly casual into the other.”
-Proverbs of Muad'Dib
Dune Messiah, Frank Herbert
***
Born with powers cradled in every inch of his body, Satoru Gojo knows no limits. For what limits can be set to a man who was undoubtedly picked by the gods themselves? With all the power in the world, the strongest sorcerer known to man, Satoru Gojo is unstoppable.
This is what everyone upholds to be true. A man known as the pinnacle of jujutsu sorcery.
A man blessed by the heavens, but a man all the same. Satoru Gojo is such a man. Wielding both the Six-eyes and Limitless Techniques, it is Gojo who reigns supreme. A god among men.
“But… It looks like just being strong isn’t enough.”
A man destined to live with a bounty on his head; red string leading from his pinky to a cataclysmic event waiting to upturn the world he knows. Built and molded to be the pillar that upheld tradition, the cornerstone of power in the new age. A man whose technique not only repelled curses, but humans alike. His value and worth, based only on those divine powers that led him to unexplored heights. To the top of the mountains where oxygen is so scarce; no one can breathe but him. His domain shrouded in inevitable loneliness, a place only he can access and live to tell the tale. All this masked by a charismatic, almost childish, outlook on life to hide behind.
“Are you the strongest because you’re Satoru Gojo? Or are you Satoru Gojo because you’re the strongest?”
Suddenly the loneliness had become far too tangible. A punch to the gut by the hand of the boy whom he had hastily tried to tie the other end of the red string to. The one who had looked past the powers, the one whom Gojo had believed to be able to live up to the role of being the strongest with him, abandoned him. And thus, Gojo’s fall from grace had begun.
***
Sorcerers, Monkeys. Strong, Weak. Righteous, Evil. Humans, Curses.
“You could do it, Satoru. You’re trying to convince me that it’s impossible… when you yourself could do it.”
Two sides of the same coin? Shrödinger’s cat. Half alive, half dead. Pick a side, but which is right?
Born with the pressure to succeed, could it be that all along Gojo had upheld a world that did not give as much as it took?
Atlas too held the weight of the heavens aloft his shoulders. And a singular distraction was all it took to realize how ‘unshakable’ is not an adjective that pertains to anyone.
“I’ve always believed love manifests the most distorted curses.”
Gojo felt like Icarus. He had flown too close to the sun, paying no heed to the warnings that spewed from all over. Engrossed by the beauty of the boy who was the one he’d chosen, the one he would choose time and time again if prompted, he who shone brighter than the full moon.
Together they were the strongest. And they could have been forever… had the world not been so cruel. Had it given the white-haired teenager a little more, despite it having seemingly given him all the power it had to offer, just a little more.
Call it selfishness if you will, but perhaps a little more and the wax that held his wings would not have melted and sent him plummeting into the ocean of sorrow and forsakenness that gurgled in his throat as he tried to learn how to draw a breath once more.
“It’s just that in this world… I couldn’t truly be happy from the bottom of my heart.”
His heart was projected onto the screen, a film only the black-haired teenager would be allowed to watch if he decided to. Perhaps Gojo had been wearing rose-tinted glasses all along because as it turned out, that boy was never one for films anyways.
How could he have been so blind? The one who had been steadily climbing to the summit with him would now never bask in its warmth. He had lost his footing along the way, and Gojo had failed to notice.
Or maybe they had never been climbing together in the first place. Perhaps he had been alone since time had begun to pass. As Father Time wrapped his cold hands around their throats, coaxing them to pay no attention to what He hid behind closed doors. Happiness is fleeting, but in the moment it always seems as though it will never leave.
Could it be that he had been running the race alone all along? As he who was entrusted with powers beyond compare stretched out his hand to pass the baton, there was no one there to grab it.
Alone. Again?
Failure tainted his every move. Even his otherworldly powers could not have saved him from this loss. The red string was pulled taut and it dug into his flesh as his disdainful future seemed to get further from his control with each step and precaution he took to wrangle it back. Silver scissors marred by the blood of the unsuspecting innocent inched its way closer, preparing to catch The Strongest off guard and bury itself deep within his already suffering heart.
Omnipotence guilt. Having been given all the power in the world; destiny putty, ready to be molded by him in whichever way he pleased, Gojo had destroyed it all. Had he said too much? Had he missed the signs that glowed neon yellow and begged him to slow down?
Given the stars as his paper, and at his fingertips all the ink he could grasp without spilling, he had tried to write beautifully with grace and power. But Gojo had never been good at cursive.
“Emerge from darkness, blacker than darkness. Purify that which is impure.”
Righteousness. The quality of being morally right or justifiable.
All along he had been walking a path with a red carpet rolled out beneath the soles of his feet. As he followed that red string wherever it led him, leading him through dark alleys, past sights that would mar the meaning of right and wrong, and beyond worlds that would coax him into compliance with little lies, the red string pulled and Gojo had no choice but to follow.
Never one to need luck as he assured victory as a logical sequence. Yet he had not seen the holes in the path the carpet had covered, the ditch waiting at the end is a lions’ den crawling with uncertainties beyond his control. But if he, the one bestowed with the Six-Eyes and Limitless, fell in and could not climb his way back out then who would be there to save him? For if heroes stumble, who will be there to catch them?
Perhaps, to put it simply, he was not the boy he was meant to be. The flames that glowed burned down to embers of potential. Had his divine rights been upheld by those around him, never to truly belong to him? Had they praised what he did not deserve? He wielded the strength of the gods, yet it seemed as though given everything, in the end, he did not have anything at all.
Could it be possible for a man to be nothing and everything at once?