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look what I did to him. I used your body to do that. your best friend was killed by your hands.
kenjaku let his spirit out of the dark corner it was in to gaze at the carnage he left behind.
Kenjaku, the name filled him with hate. unforgivable using his flesh to pierce his best friend's heart. his flesh, taken back from Death and puppeteered around. the only crack in the great Saturo Gojo's defense. he liked to think Saturo was okay without him, he so desperately wanted Gojo to hate him. it would be easier for both of them. it would be gentler on Satoru if he just hated Suguru. but his first death had confirmed it. confirmed his worst fear and his greatest wish, for better and for worse, Saturo Gojo didn't hate Suguru Geto. and he still doesn't. didn't, Geto reminded himself, oh, if only Gojo did not bear such a curse.
if Gojo didn't bear such a curse his broken body wouldn't be sprawled at his feet. because that's where it was. the life had faded from Satoru's once pulchritudinous eyes and left the irises pale measures of their former beauty.
he dropped to his knees and scrambled to his friend's form. tears came to his eyes and fell as a sob fell from his lips. kenjaku allowed the sound of Satoru's crunching skull to ring in his ears. maniacal laughter followed it. he reached an unsure and shaking hand out to touch Satoru's face.
a mortal allowed the gift of touching a god would consider themselves powerful, but all Suguru felt was hopeless.
maybe in another life Gojo had been given more than sterile worship, and he had killed Geto in Shinjuku and kissed his hollow body and rotten soul.
maybe in another life Gojo had been given a little more love and Geto's goodwill hadn't been tarnished with bullets and suffering.
Perhaps in the life where satoru Gojo was raised with a little more kindness, he wouldn't be lying dead, he wouldn't have died still holding trust for an unworthy cause.
because perhaps if he had been given more love, the day suguru left him in Shinjuku would have been the day Gojo let him go. he thought Gojo hated him, deep in his heart he hoped Satoru hated him. Satoru should hate him because if he didn't, well if he didn't, then Geto had torn out the heart of his best friend, and the man had continued to allow him to run rampant in his soul. he wasn't a selfish man, he had only wanted what was best. he devoted his future for a better world for them and for his daughters and haibara and the lonely child born to save the world. he couldn't allow one friendship to weaken his resolve.
he still kept Gojo in his heart, he just couldn't keep him in his head. his traitorous heart longed to go back, and if Gojo still did think about him with love rather than hate, it would have meant Geto could have returned. it also meant he could never think about his youth with fondness again because Satoru Gojo would always have a slash where his heart should be. if he harbored anything but hate, then the wound would never heal, and they would both know it was because Satoru Gojo took whatever love he could get and clawed and clawed and clawed onto it until his nails were bloody and ragged.
If Gojo did hate him, Geto could believe he was a kind person. so with most of his heart and all of his head, he hoped satoru Gojo could begin to hate him.
but he didn't. he had allowed Geto a death by his very own hand. his own death was a gift, it wasn't violent, it wasn't painful. Gojo had given him a last moment, and assured him his family was safe. Gojo had allowed him to rest knowing he tried as best he could and with an assurance of sincerity.
except Gojo would claw at what he had even if death tried taking it, and it turned out he couldn't stand that his body was to be turned to ash. if only his best friend only hated him, then he wouldn't have been choked and suffocated with his love.
In a life where his best friend received the love he deserved, he wouldn't’ve resorted to letting his body be broken and his skull crushed in hopes of redeeming him.
Or maybe he would, but Suguru Geto hated to think his very own best friend was doomed in every life he lived.
Had they been there before? Will they be there again? Was it destined to repeat, again, and again, and again?
Over and over, did Geto infect his best friend with mortality rather than gift it?
In each life, how many times had it happened already?
Were they somewhere, in another life, eating dinner? In another life, was Gojo across from him laughing at his own joke, alive and perfectly fine?
No matter the answer, in their current life, Gojo lied on the dirty ground with no pulse. covered in dust and blood, Gojo wasn't allowed a merciful end. It was cruel and he was probably in pain. And Geto himself was alive. Gojo had killed him just to hand him a gun and tell him to shoot.
Psyche and Eros and Orihime and Hikoboshi were allowed to be reunited. Were sorcerers so damned they all must be sentences to be eternally apart? What had they all done to deserve it? It must have been horrible. No, warranting a life so mean was impossible.
"oh Saturo, come on you can do it. heal yourself.” He whispered the words like they could change that Satoru Gojo wasn't hand picked for tragedy from the very first moment he opened his vibrant blue eyes.
he let more tears escape his eyes, more crying sobs fall from his lips. he gathered Satoru up in his arms, brought his head close to his own heart, so he could hear his heartbeat. if only the own beat of his heart would encourage Satoru's to follow its lead. he couldn't just leave him on the ground. No, he deserved better. He always deserved better.
satoru would say he was getting sentimental, but he would gladly take anything if it meant words would tumble from his mouth.
"don't worry, it's alright. you're okay."
Suguru Geto forfeited his right to console Gojo Satoru when he failed to rise above the filthy parasite, but at the very least Gojo should be consoled.
he tried so hard to save Satoru the first time around. he wanted a better world where children aren't cut down before adulthood. the love from his best friend wasn't enough to sway him to accept the guarantee of a gruesome, anguished death. saviors must be strong, unwavering. Satoru always made him waver. If satoru had been by his side he would have wavered in his mission. He wasn't a selfish man back then, he left Satoru to save him from the treacherous world. besides, he couldn't have come anyway, no he refused to make Satoru his exterminator. In no world would he fall so far as to consider his best friend a mindless weapon.
but now he was selfish. He thought death might have made him that way, but it would be a lie. He was selfish because of Gojo satoru. Satoru had all the power in the world, but no one’s love. Suguru had given him companionship, and in return Gojo had irreversibly allowed Geto Suguru to taste divinity.
Now selfishly, suguru Geto cradled his best friend on the dirty, wicked ground. What approved the dirt worthy enough to soak up his best friend's blood? The fair thing would have been for the very earth to deny Suguru's iniquitous flesh the coup de grâce.
Yes, the Heavens should have protected her son, but it could have been that she too had her hopes placed on Suguru’s care for her son. If it was true, then Satoru’s divine parent was just another he failed. It could have been a punishment.
Maybe she was mourning her son like a loving mother, and she couldn't bear to descend to the mortal plane. Did she hate him for killing her son? Did she see Geto's hands move to strike her child? Did she cry for her one and only child on the earth? Did she see her baby die, or did she look away? Did she feel passive disappointment that her creation failed, or was she planning the extinction of humanity as punishment at that moment?
Geto thought to himself that it wouldn't be so bad. the world didn't save his one and only best friend, it was only right that the Heavens punish them all for it.
Did heaven just want its champion back? yes, maybe that’s why the sky and the stars watched as it’s kith and kin was killed, it only wanted to take Gojo back into its embrace. Years ago he would have been filled with rage thinking of the mere injustice of that inkling of an idea. but he was older and tired and he, the carnal perpetrator, still laid his heinous hands on something so precious. he could only let more tears fall at the thought that satoru’s otherworldly ancestors would betray him, too.
No matter what invisible force may have watched, it hadn't changed that Geto's hands were the last Gojo felt. there was no mystical influence. no being or deity that guided his hand, he alone was the betrayer. nor could anyone grant miracles that weren’t bloody and dead.
it really all was quite unfair, Gojo had allowed himself to be touched and the very last thing he ever felt was a strike. It proved that Heaven still loved to deny it's only child compassion. and so in the dirt covered with blood and brain matter and sin, he'd take what wasn't his, and lay a gentle undeserving palm on Satoru's soft skin. he'd cradle his friend's face with a perfidious hand and caress his cheek with bloodied knuckles.
"it's okay Satoru, it's okay." He could provide gentleness, but it wouldn't grant retribution.
He rocked Satoru back and forth as if it would soothe the gaping wound in his head. he handled him gently, as if Suguru wasn't the one to split his head open. the brain matter was still on the rock, the murder weapon itself. The gore had splattered like some kind of putrid mock halo.
the thought made him more sick than any curse that had touched his tongue and met his insides. he gagged. no, he refused to dirty Satoru. never ever could he infect Satoru with anything unclean.
he turned away to throw up, but he was sobbing so badly he couldn't stop choking. choking and sobbing and throwing up: an undignified end. it was one he deserved, it seemed ironic that he'd choke on nothing but himself after years of ingesting filth. the still warming body in his embrace proved it. Satoru had allowed Suguru to touch him, to hurt him, and he had failed to prove himself worthy of the permittance. he was weak, he let the parasitic bastard in his skull win. he did it to Satoru, he let it happen.
He turned back to Gojo’s cooling corpse and found one last thought rattled in his heretic mind.
The culprits needed to be held accountable for the unforgivable act.
he was in control now. it would be a betrayal for the fourth time if he allowed the filthy thing that killed Satoru to keep existing. The first betrayal, he could now understand, was leaving, once for losing, and on that day: for failing when Satoru himself had granted him the opportunity for redemption.
he adjusted his grip on Gojo's body and delved back into his mind, where the bastardous being still hid. Suguru found the thing's hiding spot in the most remote part of his brain. He imagined his mental forces dragging it into the open. what he found was not an easy surrender, but Kenjaku pulling him into it’s own hellscape. It felt like tumbling out of bed and onto the unforgiving floor.
when he jumped to his feet he found only a ruined landscape. He found the remnants of a once beautiful forest, but now all that was left was rot. the grass was dead, and the foliage was black and shriveled. the trees that weren’t reduced to stumps were overtaken with sickness and twisted into masses of fungus.
the ugliest part of it by far was the thing standing across from him; cloning his every feature save for a poorly done set of sutures.
"get out."
the imposter grinned. "Why's that?"
"you know quite well why."
"Oh my, you must be referring to what happened to the six eye user."
"his name is Satoru! and he's a person, he was a good man. he tried to help the jujutsu world. he didn't deserve this."
"maybe he did, maybe he didn't. who cares? Either way, I used your body to do it. not that there’s anything you could have done to stop me, but it makes your flesh just as guilty as mine."
"He’s my one and only best friend. and you killed him. that means you have to die!”
"where was all this fight when I was bashing your one and only's head in hm?"
winning back control felt like sinking into wet mud. it sucked him in and tried to drown him. all he could do was yowl and claw and struggle against the intruder. something worked because when he escaped from whatever pit kenjaku had dragged him into, it was only his panting breaths that remained.
when he returned to his body Gojo was still motionless, and there was still one sinner responsible.
but death wasn't the aby for his evil, only the rightful destination.
he had abandoned everything Satoru was once, and then twice in death, and he refused to betray him again.
how do you kill a god? A god's power rested in the faith of their followers. Although he had never lost faith in Satoru Gojo, Suguru Geto had only ever loved the mortal side of his best friend. The second way to kill a god was to take their power. Satoru had given his willingly so Suguru could redeem himself. He had ripped his beating heart out of his chest to present to Geto, and all he had done was crush it. But a broken heart does not cause the downfall of a god, only a man.
even if he could bear the thought of his best friend facing death alone, even if his soul didn’t yearn to be back with its match: the world was empty without him, there was no reason to stay.
before he could accomplish his demise, the cursed boy somehow found his mentour’s death site. He approached with his drawn katana. Geto felt the tip of the sword touch his forehead.
"step away from him."
"no, I need one more moment with him. he's my best friend, don't you know? I missed him."
"I'll give you another chance to get away from Gojo."
"I just need another minute with him," Geto stroked Gojo's face when he said it, "and I'll end everything here."
"fine. just give me my sensei's body."
he didn't say anything at all, just took another shaky breath.
"you were allowed rikas last moments. I need these ones. It's important to me, don't you understand?"
"you don't deserve them, all you did was make everyone suffer."
"I know, he didn't deserve it. but I can't just leave him for death to ravage."
"I wish it didn't have to be you. In fact; I hate you."
“it shouldn't be me, but he doesn't have anyone else.”
suguru traced his features. he started with brushing his knuckle over his brow and nose. the path led him to Gojo's once transcendently right eye. he slipped it shut and placed a kiss on the closed lid. the left was treated with the same respect. he cupped Gojo's cheek and mandible before moving to run his finger tips down it.
another time, he may have wondered if the okkotsu boy was watching. but he didn't mind if anyone saw proof of his devotion this time. In fact it was the last thing he would ever do in life. vaguely it made him want to hold satoru closer and whisper how sorry he was, that Satoru would would earn such a magnitude of his love only to be too dead and bloody to reciprocate. Even if Life doubted Suguru's love, he hoped death whispered into the ear of Satoru: he does love you, you don't have to wonder again. Look there, you'll be together soon.
But he finally reached Gojo's lips. they were always so flossy and lustrous. no breath exhaled from them, but their beauty would have been striking even in death. it was ruined with the blood that oozed from his mouth while Suguru's very own hands kill him.
he stained Satoru. oh, he had sworn not to soil Satoru's hallowed body.
he turned to throw up again, but nothing was left to expel. everything that caused the rotten feeling in his guts was all himself.
he gathered up his robe, and he tried wiping some of the blood off. Satoru should die clean, yes he really should, he allowed Suguru a clean death. even though suguru should have been something Satoru looked upon with disdain, he allowed Suguru a quiet death. He laid Suguru to rest with his very own hands. He trusted Satoru with his death and in return Satoru trusted him with his life.
Suguru didn't remember death. All he remembered was the all encompassing sorrow when Kenjaku used his face and his tongue against his family. he hoped death was gentler with satoru than it's immortal sister.
He still half expected the skies to open up and smite him, but maybe heaven wasn't a vengeful mother. Or perhaps she had cast out Satoru like Hera to Hephaestus, his willing mortality a shame too ugly to allow in a place of cold indifference and beauty. was man’s touch so grievous that a god must accept he would be shut out lest he too become mortal? If it was true then the Six Eyes must have been angry that Gojo would allow himself to be touched by something less divine.
Maybe the Heavens were still mourning the death of her little boy, or maybe she trusted Suguru Geto to take his rightful place beside her child in death.
Maybe, maybe, maybe, so many possibilities. Gojo loved so fiercely it killed them, that was the only thing that was undeniable.
Suguru stripped himself of his kesa and folded it under his precious friend’s head. he closed his eyes and mentally surveyed which curse was capable of giving him the swiftest death.
he deserved much worse than a swift death: pain a thousand times for what his own hand did to his best friend. but he was selfish; the half of his soul that survived longed for its lost half. his heart was torn up anyway, it wouldn't have held in the face of its loss. it was a palpable yearning, like something really was pulling him. his soul didn't care the punishment his body deserved, only that it was ripped to shreds when it's dearest companion was stolen.
the true comeuppance would have been to stay with Life solely to endure the agony of loss, but he paid it no mind. he wanted to be with Satoru in death as quickly as he could accomplish, a swift death would grant the reunion he so desperately craved.
he looked over at Satoru's mutilated body one last time. it didn't matter that his beauty had been maculated, in life and in death Suguru needed Satoru to be the last image his eyes drank in.
suguru let one last prayer to Satoru's mother fall from his lips.
“I know I killed your son. I don’t deserve it, but I need you to let him hear me.” he closed his eyes and rested his forehead against his one and only best friend’s to whisper a plea. “It could be a paradise or a wasteland, just let me rest with you."
but the only god that would have seen him as anything valuable was no such thing, clutched in his arms, dead and willingly pulled from the heavens.
he closed his eyes while he rolled onto his back. the sky only would have sullied the last dazzling image he should have been forbidden from.
he couldn't see, but he knew where Saturo's hand would lay at. his bloody fingers encased Gojo's stiff ones.
his body ached even more laying down. his spirit was punishing his treacherous body: the heart that beat while stopping Satoru's, the brain that stole away his breath, the hands that broke him to pieces beneath them.
he let more tears slip from his eyes. was this how much pain Saturo was in when he died? oh he wished it wasn't true, but he couldn't quite delude himself with the knowledge of all that Saturo Gojo was, taunting him. reverse cursed technique users could hardly be killed from anything other than decapitation.
Gojo didn't use his reverse cursed technique, he thought Suguru would pull through, he believed it until every last atom had the life stolen from it.
It meant he died still thinking Geto suguru could redeem himself. he would have felt everything from a bashed in skull like he had. He died with the utmost faith Suguru wouldn't let him down, like he always had, like he never would again.
No, he was killed because he believed with all his heart Geto suguru would be strong, and he had paid the price in blood.
his all seeing eyes, his impenetrable infinity, the force that could stitch organs back together, Saturo had discarded it all for the sake of a curse. it really was true, only Gojo could bear such a curse. In his life Suguru Geto considered himself a kind person. everything he did was for the sake of good. even the deaths he caused were born out of sympathy. sorcerers would be free from the death and gore of a cursed world. but now Suguru understood, he was a curse to Saturo.
Geto took one more breath and allowed the curse that would serve as his executioner to take form. it shouldn't hurt too bad, even if it did, it was still never enough to repent. never enough to atone for smashing Saturo's brains. He had stolen all of Jujutsu society's hope, but that was not his most despicable transgression. he didn't care about them, they were a hopeless cause. the jujutsu world was a pit of decay and misery. the man in his arms was it's best source of substantial life and Geto had stamped it out. he had now doomed countless people. but that offense only paled in comparison to the real devastation.
the true sin was stealing the breath from Satoru's lungs and spilling his blood. the misery Gojo's death would bring, it didn't even matter. no one would mourn Gojo the man, never the man, only Gojo the Savior. None of them cared about Satoru like he had. He did. Always. After death, in life, in hell.
Death would be the very last thing he ever did with Gojo.
the curse raised its disgusting limb, and he heard the its blow cut through the air.
instead of a fatal strike all Suguru felt was a warm weight pressing into him.
his eyes shot open to see that an alive Satoru was clinging to his body. the killing blow never came, Saturo had deflected the swing with raw cursed energy. His curse was sent away, back to the void where it would wait until its captor summoned it again, as soon as its master saw the atrocity he had committed had been undone.
Saturo was wrapped around like his body was trying to burrow into him. he had protected Geto with his own flesh and blood.
Geto shot straight up and returned the embrace. he pressed his face into his neck. Some other time he would squeeze as tight as he could but his shaking limbs would only allow so much force.
"Suguru, is that really you?"
"Yes, yes it's me, Saturo."
he started to sob again. "Saturo, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to, I would never do that to you."
"it's alright."
he pulled Gojo back by the shoulders. "it really is you?"
Geto ran his hands over the now completely smooth flesh and tilted his face around to better inspect it. it really was remarkable, the rct didn't even allow for a scar.
Gojo laughed. "yeah, come on the only way to kill me is to cut my head clean off. you know that.”
the cursed boy had briefly interrupted their reunion before Gojo assured him of his liveliness and ordered the boy to breathe before working himself into a fret.
He guided him a few feet away from Geto and explained: “Do you want to be back at the school? I'll be there back just a second, alright! I have some things to take care of still, sorry for a scaring you, really! I'll explain everything later, promise!”
after the cursed child was situated Gojo pulled Geto back into the embrace. he wasn't ready to let go, he missed his best friend.
Long after sartoru’s spilled blood had dried was when anyone else occurred to him. in his grief he hadn’t taken into consideration two others that relied on him. He stood and offered his hand to Gojo but the man was already searching around. Probably for his bandages, his tired brain still provided him. Or his glasses? Did he still like wearing glasses?
“Satoru?”
“Mm?”
"my daughters?"
"they came to me after you had been hijacked. they're up in Hachinohe. they refused the sorcery life."
"I appreciate you trying to keep them out of it, Saturo. thank you."
"sure."
there should be more to the story. when did they contact him exactly? why was satoru being so vague? perhaps he was making a bigger deal than it should have been.
“Aha!” He watched Gojo find his pitch black blindfold near a smashed piece of ground and dust it off. "I can bring you to them right now."
"you're not exhausted?"
Gojo shrugged and put his hands on his head. it would have looked infinitely more carefree if bits of brain matter and viscera didn't cling to his white hair.
"wash your hair first, Saturo. that's no way to present yourself to children anyway."
did he still have the right to scold Satoru? he was certain he squandered that privilege on the fateful day in Shinjuku, but he had been proven wrong once already. he could hardly believe taking his body back only after breaking open Satoru's skull would gain him any privileges back.
but he was a selfish man that was foolishly chosen by an untouchable one. the familiarity felt good. he craved the warmth Satoru's friendship gave him.
"yeah right, no way I'm seeing them. I would just pop you in and leave."
"and why's that Saturo?"
he looked taken aback. how strange, Saturo was always so full of himself.
"no reason."
it wasn't hard to read satoru even with the blackout blindfold concealing their ethereal shine, he was lying. If he had any more energy to spiral, he might try to find the meaning behind his best friend's new trait.
The urge to reach out overtook him, and he vaguely wondered if Gojo's infinity would still automatically go down for Geto’s touch.
As Gojo drew a circle in the dirt to teleport them to his daughters, with his covered eyes and his hoarded secrets clinging to him, even though he had just tugged his own soul back from death, Suguru had one more realization dawn on him. he didn't want to realize it; in fact, when he did: his heart sank, and it was almost like he was back mourning Satoru's broken corpse on the dirty ground. he just couldn't help the creeping sense that they still lived in a world that delighted in seeing its strongest crushed to dust.