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It’s finally over. A sky, drenched with the pink hue of faded bloodstains on white cloth, littered with tiny fragments of clouds, lays overhead the wreckage. Smoke elevates from all the debris; split open boards, like disfigured bones, cracked and smashed down piles of stone and concrete, under a faint layer of dust.
As the pink fades into purple, somewhere, down below, footsteps echo in an alleyway, their sound is unevenly stubborn.
“Wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Truly the power to change the world!”
Slowly, painfully, he makes his way forward. He wants to reach forward, he feels himself lift up his arm. He can’t, it’s gone. The remains of his clothing hang loosely, his dark hair in his eyes. Why must this trek be so pitifully lethargic?
“If I had Rika, there would be no need to stick around gathering curses.”
He’s smiling. Smiling when it’s finished. Over. Done. Smiling like false pretence is the last thing he can cling onto. And to preserve what? It’s too late for pride, that euphoria has long been beaten to death, and in the most grotesque of ways…
“Next time, next time I’ll obtain her!”
He squeezes his eyes shut, clutching onto the bleeding stub at his side. The red is oozing out like honey from a rotting hive. It feels as though it is everywhere; on his face, his clothes. He can smell the metal, taste the pools of iron at the back of his throat. If only it didn’t hurt do much there would be a way to drown everything out. To fall away, and start again.
Geto’s smile falters as he catches a glimpse of white in the sunlight. Of course there would be no second chance.
The adrenaline is gone, and the pain is even sharper, splitting him open from the shoulder like a thousand daggers. Geto feels his legs slowly numb as he slumps against the wall, sliding down, down , down…
Funny how some dreams end in defeat.
“You’re late,” Geto says, his gaze unfocused, “Satoru.”
He can’t look, it’s humiliating, and yet he feels himself growing warm, dazed and numb. The sunlight at the corner of his vision is blinding. It’s those blue eyes, staring at him, like the weeping skies of spring, like the ice over a frozen lake in the winter. Those eyes, the image of which he has long buried in the back of his mind. The eyes of a friend Geto had never truly let go of.
“To think you’d be the one here at my end.”
Ironic. Very ironic. Wonderful, even.
Gojo is still, unmoving. It’s Suguru. Suguru bloody, Suguru dying, Suguru defeated. Gojo can’t stop staring, transfixed by the sight of the man he had once called a friend. Suguru, whose betrayal has been haunting him for so long.
The six eyes see everything. Every fold on Suguru’s clothes, every drop of blood staining the fabric. Every scratch, every cut, every bruise. Every bit of blood, of ripped open tissue, covered by Suguru’s hand. The bleeding won’t stop. Gojo finds himself wishing for it to stop, wishing so hard for it to stop, wishing so hard he could make it stop-
“Is my family safe?” Suguru asks. Gojo sees every slow and agonising breath he takes, how the setting sun illuminates his face, his eyes, his messy hair, faint drops of blood everywhere.
“Every last one of them managed to escape,” Gojo replies, keeping his tone nonchalant and his demeanour stoic, “The ones in Kyoto were under your orders too, right?”
Suguru leans back, turning away from Gojo.
“Yeah. Unlike you I’m a kind man.”
His eyes now obscured by shadows, the smile remains engraved on his face, turning bitter.
Gojo stays still. A kind man? After killing so many innocent people? After starting a war? After leaving him?
What kind of kindness is that? What kind of kindness would rip into a man’s soul in this manner, tearing away his lifeline, eating him out from the inside? Liar, traitor. And yet Gojo believes him.
“You sent those two assuming that I’d defeat them, didn’t you? To set Okkotsu off.”
Partially.
“I trusted you,” Gojo replies. Why does it feel like the wrong and the right thing to say simultaneously? A statement neither true nor false?
“Trusted that a man as principled as you wouldn’t kill off young sorcerers without a reason,” Gojo adds. And he was right, wasn’t he? Suguru hadn’t killed any of his students. And yet he did have a reason, he was going to kill, that was the plan.
Perhaps Gojo was simply desperate enough to believe the delusion he created.
“Trust, huh?” Suguru smirked, his voice bitter like the blood at the back of his throat.
“I didn’t think I still had any of that left.”
Trust. Something the two had shared, that defined the bond between their souls. Trust had kept that bond alive, and the hope Gojo clung unto after everything. Training sessions, jokes, teasing, sleepless nights talking. The warmest of friendships and the tightest of bonds. It was the only one. Trust was like the event horizon Gojo had crossed, and was now speeding towards the singularity as everything around him crushed him. How could Suguru have forsaken something so sacred to the both of them? There was no way. Or maybe Satoru simply refused to believe it, because trust was the one thing he wasn’t willing to break in himself?
“Return this for me, will you?”
Suguru tossed Gojo Yuta’s student card. Satoru caught it effortlessly, his fingertips numb.
“Was the elementary school your doing too?”
“Yeah.”
“I can’t believe you.”
Gojo felt everything slowly go numb.
“Any last words?”he asked.
Geto was quick to reply. He was prepared for this.
“No matter what anyone says, I hate those monkeys.”
Of course he did. Suguru was still honest, still firm in his beliefs, even on the verge of death.
Geto’s grip on his own shoulder tightens. He squeezes, involuntarily, and blood trickles from under his fingers. Hands stained red, almost as if they were dipped in that beautiful sunset.
“But I never held any hatred for those in Jujutsu High. I just couldn’t wear a heartfelt smile in this world.”
“Suguru-“
Gojo feels the numbness in him crack. He takes a few steps forward, crouching down. Everything comes pouring out like water from a broken damn. Words flooded his mind, breaking everything. There is so much he wants to say. There is so much he doesn’t want Suguru to know.
Why did you have to go if you didn’t hate anyone? Why didn’t you talk to me? Could I not have brought that heartfelt smile onto your face? What led you to believing the weak to be worthless? What could have prevented this? What could I have done? Were we not enough? Am I only lying to myself? Was everything we had nothing to you? Then why have I not forgotten? What have I been holding onto all this time? Why does it hurt so much? Why does it hurt so much? Why does it-
“I love you.”
There’s a beat of silence. One beat of two hearts. Suguru’s eyes are wide. The wind seems to still.
And then he smiles, and Satoru feels his soul soar into an endless sky. An infinity, burst into fire.
“At least hit me with some curses before the very end,” Suguru laughs.
Satoru stands up. The smile on Suguru’s face is truly everything in this moment. Only with Satoru could it ever have been heartfelt. He wishes that smile would never fade.
The slash is loud. He has to end it and he does. Suguru’s body falls to the ground. Satoru’s heart shatters into pieces.
He doesn’t register himself fall to his knees, nor does he register the feelings of the rough fabric of Suguru’s yukata in his fist. He doesn’t register the blood coating his hands, something that will never wash away.
Satoru feels a choked scream die in his throat. He’s shaking. He can’t stop it. His eyes are stinging, the tears are pouring down his face like rain. He can’t breathe.
The world is finally still.