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Gojo Satoru had no intentions of being sealed. When he answered the call to protect the people inside Shibuya, he had a general idea of the opponents he was going to face and the Prison Realm they hoped to trap him in. He also knew that, without a doubt, he could kill them all.
Of course, no one had prepared him for Geto Suguru or the creature inhabiting his best friend’s skin. No one in their right mind would have thought to warn him because they didn’t know. Gojo would have gone to Shibuya anyway. He would’ve faced his best friend’s animated body regardless.
But it would’ve been nice to know.
Maybe he wouldn’t have been sealed. That momentary shock, the two seconds that can change the tide of war itself, may have been the difference between his concealment and total victory. He can’t be sure of it, and he knows better than anyone that to dwell indefinitely is to effectively kill the psyche itself. He’ll be worse getting out of the Prison Realm than when he was put in. If his assumptions are correct, then he’s going to be on his best physique when his students open the back door of the realm.
Gojo silences his mind. He cuts off his thoughts of Geto Suguru, the what-ifs, and the future, and focuses on the present. The Prison Realm is dark, small, and gratingly loud. As a holder of Six Eyes and Infinity, Gojo is difficult for the Prison Realm to restrain and comprehend. He can’t get out by any means, so the realm itself isn’t weakened. He assumes that the manifestation of its difficulty is in the churning sounds all around him where the sides of the realm turn like cogs on a machine, but he can’t be sure until enough time passes. It’s possible that the realm itself will never be able to fully comprehend him. Which would be hilarious if it weren’t for the fact that the noise is going to drive him insane.
There are a few things he knew about the realm before he even entered Shibuya, but it’s limited to what’s been researched outwardly rather than what's been revealed by people who have been inside of it. For example, time doesn’t pass in the Prison Realm, or if it does, it’s incredibly distorted. Whatever is inside is unable to break out, whether from the realm taking away cursed energy and techniques itself, or physically restricting movement itself. It exists as a half-way domain, meaning it technically doesn’t belong to any one person as the realm is a separate creature itself.
He prods the “floor” with one of his fingers absently. His heart is pounding and his veins are thrumming with anxious energy. It feels like he’s moving fast, but without going anywhere at all. Like a plane ride, except he’s watching the land and sky shatter into a million pieces and whip by his window. And it’s not that he’s an anxious person or that his psyche breaks easily, but he has the incomprehensible sensation of his mind scattering, running away with his thoughts.
It’s not a pleasurable experience by any means. However, he’s not being actively tortured, so he considers that an absolute win.
No torture.
His heart picks up the pace, and his breathing grows shallow.
No torture.
Something isn’t right.
Gojo doesn’t want to be hurt, obviously. It should go without saying. The anxiety he’s experiencing has to be the impact of the sensations of time stopping and shattering while he moves without it, or it moves without him. The human body and mind are simply not able to fully comprehend the complete stoppage or distortion of time, so they panic and try to save themselves the best they can. That he understands.
What he doesn’t understand is the way his throat is starting to catch on each breath, and how his heart is racing beyond the raised levels of innate panic. His energy levels aren’t depleted, so he knows it can’t be from exhaustion. In all honesty, he feels fine outside of the assessed symptoms, which is why it’s so odd.
Then he stops breathing.
Oh no, don’t worry, he tries. His hands find his neck and scratch to relieve the pressure clogging his airway. His torso twists around and he spits out copious amounts of saliva to somehow get even a little bit of oxygen through. He curls his hands into fists and beats his chest and stomach.
Gojo has never had the displeasure of being choked. He did almost drown once when he was young and undergoing early-age sorcery training courtesy of the Gojo Clan, but that was a very different experience to what he’s enduring now. Back then, there had at least been something and someone — water surrounding his head and body, people waiting to drag him to the surface before he died completely, and most importantly, his natural-born technique.
Satoru now, twenty-two years after that week-long ordeal at age six, drowns without the water, the people, or his technique. He has nothing but the faux strangulation, the lack of air getting through his throat, and he wants to scream, but all he can do is cough. He can get none of the carbon dioxide he expels back, so his diaphragm cramps in response.
He wishes that had taken the opportunity to stand and stretch his legs ten minutes ago because currently, the only thing he can do is curl into a tight ball while every bit of his body is lit on fire. His fingers nearly bend without his will. They grip, tear, and yank every part of him and the realm they can get their hands on. His head hurts from the lack of air and the clumps of hair he’s already pulled out, and his eyes are stinging from leaking tears and the nails scratching his skin and poking his eyeballs.
The tips of those nails are turning purplish-blue, and the color is slowly traveling down his fingers to the first knuckle joint. He coughs painfully into his pale, blue-tinted hands. Blood settles on his palms to add a little fun to the canvas his body is becoming.
If he weren’t dying from asphyxiation, he would find the colors incredibly funny. Maybe he’d laugh, or even smile! Red, blue, and their mixture purple. Hilarious. He couldn’t have made a better joke itself. But it's not funny. He doesn’t laugh and he doesn’t smile. Gojo torques in restless agitation and panic, and more blood spurts from his cough. His lungs simply have nothing to expel, so it takes chunks of his body that can be gotten rid of: his blood and saliva.
Satoru stares up at the dark expanse above his head, shrouding the grating cogs embedded in the “ceiling”. He doesn’t know if he can reach the top if he’s fully standing, or if scratching at it for long enough would make the realm give way. Gojo knows that’s not how domains and realms work. He knows.
Yet panic makes rabid dogs out of rational people.
His fist slams into the edge of the tight realm. It’s airtight. That’s why he’s suffocating — he’s used up all of the oxygen and carbon dioxide already.
Mind scattering as time and hypoxia strangles his body and brain, Gojo comes to an important secondary conclusion after discovering the “airtight” property of the Prison Realm: under no circumstances is the prisoner going to die.
He flattens on the ground, his knees bending to give his legs room to stretch upwards since there’s not enough length to hold his entire height lying down. A second later, he’s pushing himself over and digging his nails into his scalp again.
In his twenty-eight years of life, Gojo Satoru has never felt so incredibly helpless and useless as he does now.
His coughed-up blood and saliva run down his chin and dribble on his uniform. His fingers dig into the bare skin of his arms, and he has nothing more to do than pray that the world will have mercy on him. Maybe each time he blinks his eyes, he’ll open them to something other than the churning cogs of the Prison Realm.