Chapter Text
So, apparently coming back to life at 29 felt a lot worse than at 17. It sucked ass, Satoru thought, and not in the sexy way.
Physically, he had a headache the size of Honshu. He was also pretty sure that his bones were literally cracking with every movement he made with either his neck, waist, or arms. Mentally…
Well.
“You’re looking awfully grumpy for someone who just defeated Ryoumen Sukuna,” Shoko said, walking in with a clipboard. Though the bags under her eyes were deeper than usual, she wore a warm smile that Satoru couldn’t help but return.
“Eh,” he said, rotating his arm with a proud grin, “you and I both know I can’t take much of the credit this time. How are our young heroes doing? I wanna go see them!”
Shoko’s eyebrows flew up. “For someone who looked like a KitKat less than half an hour ago, I’m surprised you’re even moving about.”
Satoru grinned. “I don’t even feel sore anymore.”
Shoko rolled her eyes.
“Oh, just take the compliment,” Satoru said. “I know it’s been awhile since I’ve needed your healing, but wow. I feel better than new! Your reverse cursed technique is really something else.”
Shoko gave him a strange look, eyebrows scrunched together. “What are you talking about? That was all you.” She set down the clipboard and pulled a cigarette from her breast pocket in one smooth motion. “I never even set foot on the battlefield.”
Satoru frowned. With a raised eyebrow, he asks, “Yuuta, then?”
“Wasn’t him either. He was a little busy trying to stay alive against Sukuna.” Shoko was now wearing an unimpressed expression, eyes slightly narrowed. It was only years of knowing her that told Satoru that she was concerned. “Are you trying out humility for once?”
“Hey. Great Teacher Gojo regularly exercises humility for his students to look upon, admire, and follow!” Satoru said, pouting until the tension in Shoko’s shoulders faded.
He laughed to go with the flow of a hard-fought battle—war, really—finally won. No point in worrying others during a time meant for celebration, after all.
Still, the thought nagged at the corner of his mind that hadn’t rested since his one and only failed mission.
It didn’t matter how impressive his cursed reserves were: His last Hollow Purple had exhausted the majority of his cursed energy, and after being sliced in half, he would have lost access to all cursed energy from his stomach. To heal himself severed in multiple places…
His reverse curse technique would’ve had to be running even while he was unconscious, which would be considered impossible. And if it were possible, his cursed energy would have still been flowing in a broken cycle due to lack of access to his gut.
Even Hakari’s jackpot mode had a time limit. Satoru’s own brain was close to literally melting after his repeated attempts to circumvent burnout from his cursed technique. If his reverse cursed technique ran automatically, even while he was unconscious, what was the extent of its physiological effects on his body?
The door to the infirmary slid open with a bang, pulling him abruptly from his thoughts. Satoru only had the chance to blink once before he found himself with an armful of pink and black.
“Gojo-sensei!” Yuuji exclaimed, wrapping himself more tightly around Satoru. “I knew you would win. I knew…”
He was crying.
When was the last time someone cried for Satoru?
“Yuuji-kun,” Satoru said, placing a hand on Yuuji’s head. “I said I’d win, didn’t I?”
Yuuji’s answering smile seemed brighter than the rising sun in the window beside him. It cemented Satoru’s decision to Not Worry for now. There were a million and one emergencies they would eventually have to address in the aftermath of the Culling Games anyway.
Now was the time to finally take joy in victory after what must have been a long few months for his students.
Sukuna hadn’t gone down easy. Before Yuuji took the opportunity to finally open his domain, the King of Curses had met Satoru’s gaze one last time and said, with more teeth than smile,
“1000 years is a long time…I bet you wouldn’t last 100.”
What did he mean by that? Satoru had thought. He’d dismissed it at the time as the desperate, manipulative rambling of someone who knew they had lost, but his last words would stay with Satoru for days and then years after that final battle.
With most of the higher-ups dead or out of commission, everyone naturally expects Satoru to become the next principal of Jujutsu High.
Satoru refuses, obviously.
“Absolutely not!” he declared. “Can you even imagine the mountains of paperwork that’s going to be dumped on the principal after the multiple shitshows these past two months? No thanks!” Plus, him taking over the Tokyo branch of Jujutsu High would probably give Gakuganji an early heart attack.
Luckily, Shoko sighed and stepped up, as she always did. The other clans were likely to oppose her new position, but there was little they could do against Satoru’s full endorsement, especially after the fates of the previous higher-ups.
“But you’ll be staying as a teacher still, right?” Yuuji asked.
“Duh,” Satoru replies. “We’d be a bit understaffed otherwise.”
“About that…I’d like to help out!”
“Hm?”
Yuuji’s eyes were filled with pure, spirited determination. “I’d like to become a teacher at Jujutsu High!”
Satoru stopped, his smile fading as his gaze became serious.
“You sure you don’t wanna just go back to being a civilian?” Satoru asks, quietly. “This was never your burden, Yuuji. You’re free of Sukuna now. You can do whatever you want.”
In response, Yuuji looked at him as if he were crazy. Is that what I get for showing some concern for once? Satoru thought, definitely not offended.
“Gojo-sensei,” Yuuji said, slowly, “You said it yourself: there’s a shortage of teachers—of sorcerers in general—here. After everything that I’ve been through these past few months, how could I just turn my back on everyone now?”
Pride flares in Satoru’s chest, warm and satisfying, because this was what he had worked and fought for in the past decade. Yuuji’s words reflected the exact mindset and values he wanted the next generation of sorcerers to have. And with Yuuji as a teacher…Satoru had no doubt it would accelerate the arrival of the future he wanted to see.
Still, he needed to make sure that Yuuji understood that he didn’t owe the jujutsu world jackshit—it was the other way around, if anything. Yuuji was a good kid, and Satoru had seen one too many sorcerers die fighting for a change they’d never live to see.
Yuuji deserved a long, happy life—not the short, isolated road of a sorcerer.
“We’d be fine,” Satoru said, flippantly. “But I can’t promise you’d be. You got dragged into our mess, and you’ll be dragged into worse ones if you stay. Don’t worry about us. Shortage or not, this place’ll be fine because I’m here, and I’m the s—”
“Don’t you ever get tired, holding everything up by yourself?”
It’s so unlike Yuuji to interrupt him that Satoru freezes for a moment, shocked.
“After Shibuya,” Yuuji continued, and he’s not looking at Satoru anymore. He’s looking down at his hands, eyes dulled by memories that Satoru should have been there for. “After I—after everything. Everyone talked about you a lot. They blamed you for Shibuya, blamed you for what came after Shibuya—and yet, they still thought that only you could fix it all. Hell, I thought that everything would be okay if we could just get you out of that damn box.”
“Well, you all thought correctly,” Satoru said. “All of it. I did kick Sukuna’s ass, and Shibuya was the result of my shortsightedness—”
“No!” Yuuji said, eyebrows furrowed. His hands tremble slightly as he looks back up. “That’s not what I mean. What I’m trying to say is that you were the only person everyone thought of—for blaming, for problems, for everything. That’s not…That’s not a responsibility or burden that any one human being should have to bear.”
“Sure, but I’m not just a human being, Yuuji,” Satoru replied, genuinely concerned about Yuuji’s concern. “I’m the strongest sorcerer there has ever been in centuries. Not even Ryoumen Sukuna could kill me. You’re…not seriously worrying about me? ”
“Being the strongest doesn’t mean you’re not human,” Yuuji said. “It doesn’t mean you’re just some tool to fix everyone’s problems. You’ve protected us all for so long. Isn’t it about time you had some help?”
Satoru stared, stared, and then stared some more. He stood there, silent and staring until Yuuji began to shift uncomfortably, but that earnest expression never left his face.
Finally, a laugh bubbled out from Satoru’s lips. The force of that laughter grew until he was bent over, clutching at his stomach.
Yuuji yelped as Satoru suddenly slung an arm around his shoulders, pulling him up more than down to ruffle his hair.
“You know what?” Satoru said, “I think some help would be nice.”