Chapter Text
[Loop 0]
“Prison Realm… Gate, open,” the sound made his breath hitch.
The crimson cube expanded and captured Gojo Satoru, his cursed energy being suppressed to the extremities it almost made him dizzy. Although his body was bound, he couldn't put his focus on it at all.
“Yo, Satoru,” a sweet voice that haunted his dreams echoed from behind him. Heart beating wildly, eyes wide, labored breathing not out of weariness but by pure grief and disbelief.
That sweet, sweet voice that purred his name in a certain way, a call that was only for him and only him; who always seemed to know what to say to make him feel human.
His one and only.
His Suguru.
It's only ever been him.
But now he's gone.
So, for Satoru to hear his voice in the middle of this ruined station filled with corpses of transfigured humans and special grade curses…
“Long time no see”
He has the same lilt in his voice whenever he converses with Satoru.
‘But that's impossible! Is he a fake?’
His chest hurt from the phantom pain of loss of his other half. Against all reason, Satoru turned back to look at him.
A kaleidoscope of memories flashed right before his eyes. His youth, their story, their collapse. How they were never even given the chance to be young, forced to stand at the pedestal above others, and his only company was him.
Geto Suguru.
The only one who could stand beside him in a world full of eyes pointed at him like a dagger, watching his every move, waiting for him to slip. It was only Suguru who became his haven, his devotion, his peace.
‘Is this a transformation technique? No, it's really him.’
The dead could not come back to life and he has outlived many of his seniors and juniors. Walking alone, he realized that in the end, he'll be the one bidding them farewell, left behind because of their mortality.
He doesn't see himself the same as everyone. No, he doesn't see the world the same as any others. He is a god walking amongst mortals with their fickle lives, watching them grow from a seed or plucked too early before their full bloom.
And yet…
This person before him had risen from the grave to haunt him.
He's still as beautiful as the day he lost him.
‘No. This isn't his Suguru. But everything down to the way he walks, talks, and acts, everything is as it was.’
He couldn't muster any strength nor cursed energy leaving his struggling futile. This cube is draining him of power slowly as it tightens its hold over him. Is he done for? He can only feel the anger start swelling up at his chest.
Satoru glares at the fake in front of him.
“Who are you?!” He has never felt so vulnerable in front of a foe before, even when he was against Toji. Back in December, it was his final act of mercy that enabled him to act. But right now, paralyzed by this suffocating grief and these shackles threatening to swallow him whole, he cannot think rationally.
“I'm Geto Suguru. You forgot about me? That really makes me sad?” his playful voice asked in faux sadness.
No, no. He cannot ever forget him. He couldn't even try; he tried to, but he couldn't.
He's shaking, his gaze piercing at the fake Suguru.
“According to my Six Eyes, they indicated that you are Geto Suguru. But...
My soul denied this!
Answer me quickly. Who exactly are you?”
He cannot accept such a thing. This impostor talks about how he took Suguru's body after he didn't let Shoko dispose of him properly. It was deliberate, how they described this event just to capture him.
Satoru will be sealed for a hundred, no, thousand years and he's never going to be able to escape it. But he trusts his students, he knows they'll be able to find a way.
“Goodnight Satoru. Let's meet again in the new world”
The prison realm closes in and is wrapped around his body.
‘Perhaps this is penance for loving Suguru. He can only ever be free of this once he has decided to let him go.’
◇◇◇
[Loop 1]
Gojo Satoru stepped through the shimmering curtain at 20:31. His shoes clicked on the concrete of the Avenue Underground. Thousands of civilians were pressed against the glass, their screams vibrating.
‘Huh? Wasn't I just sealed?’
The screams of the civilians permeated the air. It was loud and chaotic with over a thousand of them fighting their way through to find an escape.
His body felt like a bag of bricks, he can still feel the drain of being sealed weighing heavy on his soul. The amount of cursed energy he has, the same as after his 0.2 second domain and 299 seconds of killing transfigured humans non-stop.
After that, he was bound by the flesh-like cube and it cancelled out his cursed energy, muscles aching with how tight he was held by its tendrils.
‘Time has turned back to when I stepped inside the outer barrier. Then, those special grades are already waiting for ambush’
Gojo Satoru couldn't believe what was happening. Was it real? An illusion? A trap? Or just a sick view of a possible future. If so, he's disgusted at the savage disrespect over Suguru's corpse.
He needs to end this quickly.
He hurriedly steps above the crowd, speeding through the tunnel in order to exorcise the cursed spirits as soon as possible. Satoru halts in place, a phantom sensation of an invisible force weighing him down to slow his progress. It seems he needs to change his tactics.
The white-haired sorcerer clears his mind and walks, the weight he feels vanishes as he goes down the path at the same leisure pace as he did the first time.
By 20:40, Gojo lands on the Fukutoshin Line Platform (B5F) and is immediately confronted by the special grades Volcano Curse, Nature Curse and the Death Painting surrounded by civilian hostages.
He blitzed toward Jogo, his hand coated in a lethal concentration of Blue. He aimed straight for the volcano-head, intending to vaporize it, its concentration enough to take a chunk out of the curse before it fizzled out not to hit any civilians.
It seems that force is keeping him strict with the timeline but it would let him do whatever he wanted in battle. He lets out a bloodthirsty smile.
“HAHAHHAHAHA”
The curses are unsettled by Gojo's wicked laughter. Maybe the rumors of his insanity are true, after all. Even the people panicking were scared of how he is acting.
Hanami takes a punch from Gojo, its domain amplification negating the damage as much as it could. But in the face of the strongest sorcerer, it was reduced to nothing with nothing but infinity as the sorcerer's arsenal against it.
Yes, just like last time.
He turned to Jogo and Choso with eyes promising their certain deaths, he lunged. In an instant, the Death Painting was beheaded with a purely calculated Gojo's Cursed Energy enhancement ripping his head off his shoulders, maximizing his Six Eyes to adjust his strength on subduing a high-durable curse.
“Hmm? It didn't disappear? Oh yeah, Nobara and Yuuji did report something like that about the death paintings.” He perched one of his foot on the Death Painting's severed head.
“I should take this back to Shoko, she'll appreciate the study material.”
Jogo was in shock at how inhumane this sorcerer could be. His lone eye was wide with unexplainable emotions that a normal cursed spirit should've had. Gojo's musings was interrupted by the sound of an approaching train, so he announced, directed at the civilians, as he knows they can see the death painting's head beneath his foot.
“Let's play a game, everyone! Anyone on the approaching train's side will be my next kill! Just like this thing. So, who's first?”
Satoru knows destroying the Tree Curse's wood blocking the upstair path would only create a bottle neck of escaping civilians into the barrier invisible to their eyes, which would only lead to a stampede.
People immediately moved into the other side passing through Gojo's relaxed demeanor. This angered Jogo and was about to start killing people but Gojo blocked his path. Just as he was about to kill Jogo, the train opend and flooded the station full of transfigured humans, causing further panic on the still surviving civilians.
“This again? How boring.”
“You! Gojo Satoru, you bastard. You're even more a curse than I am!” Jogo's head exploded in a localized eruption. They hear Mahito coming from the sea of transfigured humans attempting to reach civilians on the other side. Both special grades didn't expect what he did next.
“Domain Expansion: Unlimited Void”
Just as last time, he opened his domain for exactly 0.2 seconds and elected to rip through the number of transfigured humans instead of focusing his cursed energy against the special grades. He's already wasted enough of it the first time and it carried over with him in his regression.
It took 277 seconds to take all of the transfigured down. It was faster and there were fewer casualties he couldn't save that the first wave of monsters was able to get through.
He has to catch his breath yet again. Two domains in one night and lots of troublesome curses.
‘Now to deal with these special grades—’
A familiar step resounded the platform.
“Prison Realm, Gate Open,” Gojo Satoru's breath hitched. The events from the first round flashed through his mind. His eyes are shaking, his hands clammy from chills.
A mistake.
“Yo, Satoru.” That familiar purr of his name took a punch at his heart. He turned back.
The prison realm has captured him for the second time tonight as his heart shook with the ghost of his youth.
His teeth bared into a snarl, “Shut up! You're not Suguru!”
It looked at Satoru with Geto’s eyes, its expression soft, mimicking the exact face Suguru used to make when they were teenagers fighting over a video game.
"You always were too soft, Satoru," Kenjaku said, using Geto’s exact vocal cadence from their second year at Jujutsu High. "That's why you couldn't save me."
You couldn't save me.
The words stabbed into Satoru’s chest like a cursed tool. His brain stuttered. The Six Eyes tried to process the scene, matching this Suguru against his memories of 2005 to 2007. It was a 100% match. His heart shattered all over again.
Those nightmares that haunt him every night since Suguru left, is unfolding right before him.
Logically, he knows Suguru is dead and this impostor is just puppeteering him. But it's still Suguru's body.
And his brain is used to reacting, calculating, and replaying memories caused by Six Eyes. Now, his very strength is his weakness.
“Goodnight Satoru. Let's meet again in the new world”
Truly…
Love is the most twisted curse of them all.
◇◇◇
[Loop 2]
Gasp.
Shit. Satoru is back again from when he entered the outer curtain. His mind, his body and his curse energy reserves are still reeling from the strain of the two iterations.
“It's a timeloop, huh. And the loop condition is when I get sealed. Che, so much for the strongest, getting sealed twice is a mark on my record. Beating me from the afterlife, Suguru, you really are cruel,” Satoru mutters in a forlorn voice.
The citizens continuous cry of his name is grating his ears. It reflects how he described the world to Suguru before.
Everyone around him, calling for his name for salvation, while others are shouting it out in anger or in fear. People always need something from him and they expect him to give in at any moments notice. Looking back, he couldn't help but pity his child self who only wanted a playmate but was avoided by other children, their parents probably warning them off from interacting with him.
He pities the little Satoru who can only watch by the gap of a slightly opened shoji door how other children laugh as they play.
He envies the Satoru who is still a student of jujutsu high, freely interacting with Shoko and Suguru. Hanging out with them during their free time or skipping school to game in the arcade.
He resents the Satoru who let his Suguru break down without doing anything to help him. This is the version of himself he hates the most, for being so ignorant in Suguru's anguish and for letting Suguru's defection affect his friendship with Shoko.
This is his destiny, to be the Strongest.
He hates his current self who can only be a pedestal overlooking the city lights beneath his feet.
Hakari Kinji, Okkotsu Yuta, and now Itadori Yuuji.
These three are on their way, climbing the steep stairs of this tower he's on. Someday, these strong individuals will surpass him and will never feel alone.
Even his little gremlin Megumi.
The hill is even steeper for him but Gojo trusts that with Yuuji in his year, he'll come out of his shell and start his journey from aspiring to surpass Satoru.
He has been standing at the same spot for a couple minutes when he felt a strong force push him towards the path he already journeyed.
And so, he starts walking once more carrying the weight of the world and this fragile heart that kept beating for someone near yet far away.
‘Here we go again… ‘