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People die. They’re born and they pass away every single day, within the blink of an eye. Even thinking about it makes one shudder - to think millions are leaving this world forever with every ticking second, unstoppably, always. Death is the only constant in the universe, the only thing that has been there since the beginning of the universe, with no exception, and will be until the end of time itself. Death is the only thing that’s certain and inevitable. Death is the only thing you’ll ever share with every single person who’s ever existed on Earth. It binds and connects humanity, the one shared experience they’re all slowly marching towards.
Fushiguro Megumi was familiar with death. Oh, how well he was. Just like every jujutsu sorcerer, he was forced to witness it from a young age, quickly learning to ‘just live with it’. It happens. There’s nothing that can be done. Everyone dies. Sorcery will never exist without casualties - he’d been told over and over, since childhood, like a mantra to help him cope, creating a safe bubble of the illusion that it was all normal and he shouldn’t be affected.
Megumi nodded and went along with the lessons from the elders and higher ups, but secretly, he was never quite on board with this idea. It made his little brain itch since he was nothing but a kid that had no business pondering over death but was meant to be as carefree as a bird, playing and rushing to the ice cream truck with his parents’ money, or wondering what he’ll be having for lunch. He was instead troubled by those thoughts, because death made him angry. He wasn’t okay with the indifference jujutsu society showed towards it. He was filled to the brim with anxiety, rage and a suffocating sense of injustice as he watched sorcerers die young, their chances and hopes and dreams being ripped away from them, and other sorcerers pretending it was completely ordinary and nothing to beat themselves up over on the long run. Megumi hated it. He was burning with fury. He hated the fakeness of it all, he hated that it wasn’t right, and mostly he hated that he couldn’t do a thing to make a change.
Gojo knew. He was well aware of his distress, his turmoil, and he’d tell him multiple times that he was right, and that he feels the same. He always rushed to assure Megumi that he shared his view of death, but would gently caress his hair - despite Megumi huffing in annoyance and pushing his hand off - and explain why he should never get drastic with the sense of rebellion because it could easily lead him to a wrong path he won’t be able to return from. He talked about curse users and that most of them became what they did because they rebelled against the system, turning their backs on innocent people who needed them. Megumi would listen carefully and think sadly that Gojo-sensei probably had some kind of bad experience or memory involving curse users and going against the system, so he’d nod quickly and give his word that he’d never resort to something so abhorrent.
As he stood amongst the ruins of Shinjuku, though, the marks of Sukuna gradually disappearing from his skin, the scent of dust, smoke and blood filling his nose and the image of immense destruction with a mangled corpse in the center coming into his vision, he couldn’t think of anything else besides the unfairness of loss. His eyes opened wide, like a frightened cat’s, staring down at the mutilated body as icy cold dread started to take over him more and more. He shuddered, nausea coming in flows as he recognized thick white locks, memories that weren’t his own raiding his mind with the sheer force of an avalanche. A pair of eyes resembling waves of bioluminescent water staring into his own four red ones, arms that once hugged him to keep him safe from his nightmares embracing him one last time, despite knowing that it wasn’t him in that body.
‘Forgive me, Megumi.’ he had whispered before a stomach-churning sound of slicing interrupted him.
Megumi dropped to his knees, the ground suddenly wobbly underneath his feet, unable to keep his balance as he struggled to breathe. His mind screamed ‘No, no, no!’ over and over because the sight was surely nothing but deception, surely it couldn’t be real, how could it be? He refused to believe it was Gojo, because Gojo couldn’t be dead, he couldn’t lose, he was the strongest for god’s sake! He was invincible and untouchable, he couldn’t even get a scratch from the most dangerous monsters of the world, the most menacing curses in existence couldn’t do as much as get close to him.
Gojo has always been the strongest. A legend, something so overwhelmingly powerful it was impossible to even wrap the mind around it. He never failed, never lost, and certainly couldn’t die at another sorcerer’s hands. He wouldn’t be so weak. So stupid and incautious. He wouldn’t be so utterly careless to allow himself to lose and leave everybody behind. Leave Megumi behind…
Megumi’s mind was frozen as he crawled forward to get a better look at Gojo. He was lying flat on his back, blood that had poured from his mouth slowly drying on his jaw, the gaping wound on his waist where he’d been sliced in two by Sukuna’s Shrine still bleeding faintly, despite most of it already having thickened. His legs were a few feet away from his torso in a pool of red, and he had an empty look on his once bright face that had Megumi sick to his stomach. He wanted to yell and throw up and curse everyone in the world, burn every higher-up to ashes, scream at them to wake up, but his mind and heart still couldn’t move from the icy shock they were stuck in. His body, moving on autopilot, slowly started to tremble as his hands cradled the face of the man that had once cradled him, the very same pair of hands that killed him just minutes ago. Azure irises that once sparkled with joy and mischief stared back soullessly into Megumi’s own black ones that had started to pool with tears somewhere along the way, big, hot droplets falling onto Gojo’s cooling cheek, mixing with the dried blood.
His body convulsed and he fell forward, hands never once letting go of Gojo as he collapsed on the ground sobbing like a baby. Fits of desperate cries tore violently from his lungs, the ugly mix of screaming and gasping for air. He wailed like the child that he was still, a child that had lost once again, failed by the world and the closest thing he had to a father.
There were no words, just the sounds of agony of an orphan slowly quieting as his breath ran out, his throat ached with soreness and his eyes became dry and swollen. He closed them, hiccuping as he begged and prayed silently for anything otherworldly to just make him fall asleep.
So long to all my friends
Every one of them met tragic ends
‘Come on, Megumi-kun, don’t be so bitter!’ he teased. ‘You’re way too young to act so annoyed at the world, you can do that in your teens! Just have some fun!’
‘No!’ Megumi huffed, pushing a hand off of his shoulder that was obviously clueless of personal space.
‘You’re gonna love it, trust me!’
‘N-O!’
‘Just this once.’ he pleaded, grinning like a fool, only to earn an eyeroll and a muttered ‘ugh, fine.’
With every passing day
I’d be lying if I didn’t say
That I miss them all tonight
‘Heeey, tadaima*!’ he announced loudly, in that aggravatingly, stupidly joyous tone of his, causing Megumi to jump and look up, his face lighting up at the sight.
‘Sensei! Okaeri**!’ he ran to him on his little legs, rushing into a welcoming pair of arms, hearty chuckle filling his ears. ‘You took so long!’
‘It was an important mission, Megumi-kun. Very dangerous curses.’ he explained, putting the child on his knee. ‘You see, remember what I told you about grades? This was above grade 1!’
Megumi’s tiny hands reached under the soft fabric of the blindfold, tugging it off while listening, eyes big and curious.
‘How is that possible?’ he asks eagerly.
‘Some curses are so dangerous and powerful that they beat even the highest rank of sorcerers.’ he said, letting the blindfold fall off, blue eyes looking warmly into black ones.
‘But they can’t defeat you, right?’ Megumi asked, voice small. ‘You’re the strongest, aren’t you, sensei?’
He grinned, ruffling his hair affectionately.
‘Damn right I am.’
And if they only knew what I would say
If I could be with you tonight
I would sing you to sleep
Never let them take the light behind your eyes
One day I’ll lose this fight
As we fade in the dark, just remember you will always burn as bright
‘Sensei, why are you so sad?’ he asked, climbing up on the couch next to the man on the balcony, making him drop his gaze from the setting sun onto him and smile wretchedly.
‘It’s nothing, Megumi-kun. Don’t worry.’ he whispered softly, his hand coming up to mess up his hair as if it was muscle memory, a movement he did almost mindlessly.
‘But sensei, you’re always the one to yap about communicating our feelings and whatever else you like to tell me when I’m sad.’ Megumi reminds him, causing him to snort a little with laughter at the eight year old’s choice of words.
‘You sure you’re just eight?’ he snickered quietly before sighing. ‘I just really miss my friend, that’s all.’
‘Ieiri-san?’ Megumi asked, to which Gojo shook his head sorrowfully.
‘Me and Ieiri-san had another friend way before I met you. He was my best friend, my one and only. We were the strongest together when we were in school.’
‘Was he really as strong as you?’ Megumi asked in awe.
‘Almost.’ he smiled.
‘What happened to him?’
‘He got really angry and left Jujutsu High.’ Gojo explained. ‘I haven’t seen him since. Nobody really has.’
‘I’m your friend though.’
Gojo looked down at him. ‘I know, kiddo.’
Be strong and hold my hand
Time has come for us, you’ll understand
We’ll say goodbye today
And I’m sorry that it ends this way
‘Put more cursed energy into it, Megumi-kun. Let it flow through you. Control it, don’t let it control you. Don’t snap.’ Gojo’s steady voice instructed him.
‘Demon Dog White won’t come out!’ Megumi grumbled, raising his fists once again.
‘Because you need to use more of your cursed energy. You’ll feel it once you begin. Concentrate, and your shikigami will obey you.’
Megumi closed his eyes, trying his hardest to do as he was told as he formed the hand sign Gojo-sensei showed him in the textbooks about the Ten Shadows Technique. He couldn’t see the way his whole body started to glow blue through his eyelids before attempting to summon the shikigami once again, so they only shot open when he heard Demon Dog White howl behind him.
‘You did it!’ Gojo cheered. ‘You did it, Megumi-kun, see, I told you you could!’
Megumi rolled his eyes. ‘It’s not that big of a deal-‘
‘It is!’ Gojo gushed excitedly. ‘You’re getting better every day, I swear! I’m so proud of you, kiddo.’
Megumi smiled softly.
Sometimes we must grow stronger
And you can’t be stronger when I’m gone
When I’m here no longer
You must be stronger
‘Help her!’ he sobbed. ‘Sensei, we have to help her…’
‘It’s okay.’ he hushed, his voice soft and his hand gentle on Megumi’s shuddering back as gut-wrenching cries shook his thin, bony body. ‘It’s okay, breathe.’
Megumi curled up on his bed and bawled, his hands clutching the bedsheets as the nightmare still lingered, filling his mind with images of his beloved step-sister, unmoving in her cursed comatose state.
‘We have to help her…’ he weeped quietly, and Gojo rubbed his back.
‘We will. We will, somehow. We’ll figure it out, I promise.’ he murmurs softly, trying to soothe the boy’s sobs as panic wracked his body mercilessly. ‘Come on, take a deep breath.’
Megumi’s cries eventually died down as Gojo started to sing the familiar song he always did when Megumi was in distress, the gentle strokes on his back and the soft sound of his voice lulling him back to sleep.
If you promise not to cry
Then I would tell you just what I would say
If I could be with you tonight
I would sing you to sleep
Never let them take the light behind your eyes
I failed and lost this fight
Never fade into the dark, just remember you will always burn as bright
Megumi laid on the dusty ground, eyes shut tightly to protect him from the gruesome sight, his hands clasping Gojo’s motionless form as tears poured from his eyes unstoppably, his voice trembling as he hummed the melody, his mind confined in grief and his body losing will to fight.
The light behind your eyes
The light behind your eyes
The light behind your eyes
The light behind your eyes
The light behind your eyes
The light behind your eyes
The light behind your eyes
The light behind your eyes
The light behind your eyes
The light behind your…