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You knew that God was real, because you’d met him.
In this age, there were many Gods who were worshipped across countries and continents. In the years you’d been travelling, fighting for causes that you believed in as long as it provided you shelter and warm food to eat, you were sure you’d encountered stories of over a hundred different Gods. You couldn’t claim any of them to be false, but there was only one you were unequivocally sure was real, and that was one Gojo Satoru.
Gojo Satoru, known as the Enlightened God, presiding over strength and successes, viewed as the indomitable one. You could claim any other God as false as much as you wanted, until you were blue in the face if you so desires, but you couldn’t prove that to be true just as much as nobody else could prove that your God was a false one. Just because you knew him to be real, didn’t mean that anyone else knew that, just as you didn’t know of theirs.
It wasn’t your place to comment on them, but you did offer for each person you encountered a prayer. Many didn’t accept, but those who did, you made sure to follow through. After all, everyone needs strength sometimes, we all need to find successes in our lives. Whether he ever followed through, you couldn’t be sure. Maybe just the thought that someone had reached out into their faith without expecting anything in return, that a higher power had been petitioned for assistance, was enough to provide the strength that they needed. You’d usually moved on before you could see any potential results.
You were never around all that often, it’d been a long time since you were involved in a true conflict. Local bandit groups, petty thieves, and the occasional sole murderer - that was more your deal. With your trusty sword in hand, and spells at your fingertips, they were the sort of missions that the average guard wasn’t able to pursue because they were bound to their town’s borders, lest they leave the town undefended in their absence. But you were bound to nothing but your faith, and it was that faith that had blessed you with the powers you used to fight for worthy causes. Or, causes you viewed as worthy anyway.
You rarely killed if it could be avoided. Prison for those who kill others, help for those down on their luck, bandit troupes disbanded as peacefully as you could manage. Their Gods would pass judgement on them, or someone with more conviction than you. As long as you did what you viewed to be right, you were content with your life as it was.
You’d met Gojo Satoru when you were seventeen years old, as you fled your village that was crumbling in a vicious blaze.
You’d retreated at your mother’s insistence, leaving behind everyone you’d ever known, and hoping against hope that someone would find you. The river was safe, the flames wouldn’t catch you there. You stood there as you wailed, cold waters licking at your calves, wishing that someone would come to you.
Praying for their strength, for them to be able to survive despite their poor odds, and make it to you. Of all the Gods who could’ve appeared, maybe you shouldn’t have been surprised that it was him.
“They won’t make it to you.” His voice said, softer than you would’ve expected from someone like him. There were many tales of his battles won, of the things he’d been capable of when he was a mere mortal. The Strongest Warrior of his kingdom, undeafeatable, incomparable to anyone else of that era, or any after it, comparable to an incredibly small few before him. Gojo Satoru, with his deathly white hair and pale complexion, blue eyes that were supposed to be able see more than any other - the ability he’d been gifted upon his ascension. After all, to be truly indomitable, you must be able to see your opponent on all levels, to be able to consider all approaches. He wasn’t just handsome like the stories said, he was truly radiant.
The fall to your knees wasn’t dramatic. It was an involuntary reaction the moment you span to face him and realised who precisely was talking to you. A deity right there before you. Your clothes became wet, and would drip for hours after, but in that moment it didn’t matter. A God was before you.
“Don’t do that, I’m not those old geezers who believe in devotion like that. Stand.” He insisted, and you were starkly reminded that he had been around your age when his tale first began to spread. Born stronger than others, different in a way that was obvious from the moment he first drew breath.
“I- why are you here?” You managed to ask, hardly able to keep your voice from trembling.
“Because you prayed.”
It was such a simple answer, one that felt far too small for how grand this moment felt.
“You said-”
“They won’t make it to you. I’m sorry.” Never would you have thought a God capable of offering an apology, especially for something he had no hand in causing.
“Then I’m alone, and I have nothing.” You whispered. Not truly talking to him, more so to yourself, but it had to be said aloud because you couldn’t bare to hold that feeling inside of you. The grief that engulfed you in that instant felt just as consuming as the flames still licking at the wood and cloth that had formed the village you’d grown up in.
“Not nothing.” Gojo Satoru replied. You lifted your eyes from the water running across smooth stones at your feet, unsure when you’d even lowered him, and found his hand extended to you. He helped you to the bank, and crossing the river felt symbolic. When he took his hand from yours, it was left warm while the rest of your body crept with a chill from the water. He presented his other hand then, but this time it wasn’t empty, there he held a blade.
“I’m giving this to you. You prayed for their strength, but there was nothing I could do. So instead, I’ll grant strength to you. Your cries were pure of heart, and so I know you can be trusted with this.”
You took it from him, reverent in how you handled it, inspecting the craftsmanship of the incredible blade. Your father had been a blacksmith, you knew a legendary quality blade when you saw it.
“With what?” Your eyes lifted to see how he’d respond, but he was already gone. So, you had to guess, really. You’d been given some sort of task, and you would’ve expected it to feel heavy, the weight of trust from a God. Instead, it granted a warm comfort that has kept you going for fifteen long years since that night. You use the strength that he granted you to do good, to help those you can as often as possible. He’d claimed that your call for help was pure of heart, and so you tried to keep that purity in every choice that you made - not to fight for your own gain, or for those who were corrupt, gaining from the suffering of others, but for those who truly needed what only a lone sword could grant.
You owned nothing but the supplies needed for travel, your clothes and armour, and the sword that he gave you that day. The only life you’ve ever taken was from a man who stole that sword, who had tried to use it to kill you. The worst and final choice he ever made was to draw your blade against you, and he learned the hard way why you deserved to wield it.
Pure of heart didn’t mean lacking sin, at least as far as you viewed it. It meant to choose to do good at every opportunity, even if choosing to look the other way served you better.
You never saw him again. Each night you prayed for his continued blessing in your work, his support when you may need it, but in those fifteen years never once did you glimpse colourless hair or those vibrant blue irises. Your only comfort was the soothing weight of a purpose he’d granted you when you’d needed it most.
When you entered the kingdom of Osmaria, you’d shivered, as if someone had stepped over your grave. As you stood on the battlefield, the final solder standing, you understood that it was you who had done so. You’d entered your own burial ground the moment you passed its gates.
Never in all your time serving as a devotee of Gojo Satoru had you ever attempted to assist in a conflict of this size. The king of Osmaria was corrupt, draining his citizens for all they could give to feed his own greed. Those close to him only aided in his efforts, hoping they would be rewarded in time for their blind loyalty to his cause, that they would share in the lavish life he envisioned for himself. Seeing the people of Osmaria on their knees, drinking from dirtied waters and sharing half loaves of moulded bread filled you with a righteous rage you’d never experienced, one that you couldn’t put into words. Every ounce of it flooded your body and steeled your resolve. You would not leave this kingdom until it was free, unless it was in a casket.
You’d not truly expected to get to this point, facing the king himself, the tip of his blade pointed at your chest.
“It’s a shame really. You could’ve been such an asset for my forces, and instead you’ve killed each and every man I had clad in the perfect armours, and forced me to dirty my own hands with your filth.” Came his voice. King Kenjaku, a monster if ever you’d seen one. Looking at him, you finally believed with all your chest in the existence of at least one other God. His fingertips were blackened, markings trailing up his arms and as you faced him, you watched them grow up his neck as well.
The markings of a devotee of Sukuna Ryomen, the two-faced God of brutality, and insatiable hunger. He took and took until he could take no more, using whatever means to achieve his goal of only one thing - to be the pinnacle of greatness, eliminating anything in his path, leaving only those he deemed worthy alive. It was in a battle with him that Gojo Satoru had secured his ascension, dying a warrior’s death against one of the only creatures comparable to him.
“View me how you wish, but I am not a monster,” Kenjaku said, “I will allow you your final words.”
And so, with the breath that would be your last, you chose to pray a final time.
“Thank you for all you have done for me, Enlightened One. Your hand has guided me in all I’ve done since the moment we met. You gave me purpose when I had nothing left, and certainly would’ve starved, or chosen to throw myself into the flames that killed those nearest and dearest to me. Grant me strength a final time, so I might die a death as honourable as yours.” With trembling hands, you gripped the handle of your sword.
“You want to die fighting?” Kenjaku asked, laughing as he shook his head. “As you wish.”
The battleground trembled beneath your feet, and suddenly the cold air felt warmer, and you felt a hand close around yours.
“Did you really think I’d let you do this alone?” Asked a boyish voice that you remembered so clearly from fifteen years ago, the night your journey began. His lips ghosted over your temple, and your hand steadied in an instant, your body regaining its strength as if you’d been rested and healed by his touch.
“I’ve never done anything alone. You’re there in everything I do.” You replied, smirk tugging at your lips. His visage faded then, but he’d already given you everything you needed. A reminder of just what you stood for at your darkest hour.
You raised your blade before Kenjaku had a chance to prepare his defence. Your attacks came in a flurry like they never had, your armour feeling weightless even as it protected you from his clumsy, frenzied blows. You’d already felled a hundred men in this battle, and yet nobody would be able to tell that from the way you moved with precision, as if encumbered by nothing, lifted by your faith and devotion.
Just as the sun set on the day of war, your blade cut through the flesh of Kenjaku’s neck, and sent his head rolling across the bloodied grass. You fell to your knees as you heaved a deep breath, strength fading from your body that you were sure had never truly belonged to you.
When your eyes lifted to watch the oranges of the sunset turn to deep blues, they also found your God breaking the horizon. Not so unlike the day you’d met.
“I thought I told you I don’t need you to kneel?” He teased, and he offered his hand to you just as he had on that fateful day. You only shook your head, and accepted his assistance. When you stumbled forward another step to collide with him, arms tight around his body, he didn’t send you away, if anything he behaved as if he’d expected it.
“You never told me what my mission was. I.. hope I’ve done work you consider worthy.” You whispered, forehead pressed to his collarbone.
“There was no mission. But I have never been more proud of someone, in my many years.” You’d been seventeen when you met, and now you were thirty two - older than many of those who’d died in your village fire. Older than Gojo Satoru had been when he died his honourable death.
“But..”
“They say a God gives nothing without expecting in return, I know,” he confirmed before you could truly finish your thought, still battling with the idea that you’d been living an aimless existence without truly knowing it, “but I want something in return that I couldn’t ask you for then. I was waiting for you.”
“For me to what?”
“To see it.”
All this time you’d been praying, following what you believed his mission for you could possibly be, all in hopes of.. what? Acknowledgement? Praise?
Or something else, perhaps.
Your eyes met his.
“You figured it out. Clever thing.” He murmured. Of course, he’d known all along what you needed. What you’d truly been searching for. Someone who saw you, whose pain could understand yours, who would stand beside you and provide you with what you needed - a rock to lean against, so you could find your own strength.
“Me?” You asked him in what was almost a whisper.
“If you’ll have me.”
And when your lips met, it felt perfect. Like your whole life had been leading to this moment. You’d survived where his tale had once ended, and when his warmth consumed you, you knew you’d never feel cold again as long as he was at your side.