Chapter Text
December 2015
“I expected this visit eight years ago. Kept expecting it for a few years after too. Or maybe I was just hoping.” Suguru extricates his legs from under his covers, sitting up on his bed to face his late-night visitor. Intruder, strictly speaking, but Suguru’s never had any delusions of being able to keep this particular man away from anything he has set his sights on, including his own person. He’s never really wanted to. “You’re late, Satoru.”
Satoru doesn’t so much as twitch. He’s lounging on the windowsill, long legs bent at an uncomfortable angle and arms curled loosely over his knees. It’s a lazy posture that doesn’t suit the situation or the men stuck in it, but Satoru does what Satoru wants, always and forever.
There’s nothing lazy about the startlingly bare eyes that are watching Suguru, their blue blazing like a newborn nova.
Suguru indulges him. He looks his share too.
Satoru looks well, but that’s no surprise. Adulthood was never going to be unkind to him, and Suguru is more exasperated than anything by the painful prettiness his features have settled into, the last of his tender youth chiseled into cutting beauty. It hurts to look at him, but Suguru has spent nearly a decade hurting one way or the other for this man, because of this man, and this, too, is familiar.
“I never did ask,” Satoru says, not a twitch or breath to betray his intent before the words are out.
Something about his tone makes Suguru’s spine shudder straight. He can’t put his finger on it. It’s nothing familiar though, and that alone is jarring. Forget the years, forget the distance, forget the broken bonds—Satoru isn’t someone whose tones and moods he should ever not know.
His mouth is uncomfortably dry when he asks, “Ask me what?”
A tilt of the head, the motion chillingly eerie—more machine than even animal.
“If I asked you to stop—not demanded, just asked—would you? Stop this, come back, stay.” A flicker of a smile, there and gone; it was almost sweet. “I might even beg, Suguru, because it’s you.”
He’s tempted to play the fool. To question and obfuscate.
Prolong the inevitable.
But he’s done that, once or twice, and they were, none of them, any better off for it. Satoru’s face, from the blank pall on his features to the silent fire in his eyes, doesn’t invite it either, and it’s somehow more effective than the trembling, hissing fury he threw at Suguru the last time. Back then, his cursed energy lashed out as violently as his emotions raged, and Suguru withstood it all with barely a waver, but he finds he can’t summon that same cavalier ease now, when Satoru feels like a hollow sphere carved out of the fabric of the world, his cursed energy as still as his body.
“I’d never make you beg,” he says honestly. “You know the answer, Satoru, but I’ll indulge you. I have nothing but admiration and respect for sorcerers. I love you. But a world that takes our youth and our ideals to chew them up and spit them out—that is not a world I can abide. As long as those monkeys live, that won’t change. I can’t give you what you want.”
“I see.”
Satoru doesn’t sound disappointed. He doesn’t sound like anything at all, and Suguru finally consciously realizes that that’s exactly what’s so jarring about this. There’s nothing to know, nothing to read, because Satoru is feeling nothing, showing nothing.
The terrible emptiness on his face is belied only by the madness leaking out of the edges of his eyes, and Suguru’s more familiar with the latter than the former.
“Are you here to kill me, Satoru?”
There’s a stirring then, a restless ripple along the deceptively lazy curl of those limbs.
“Not you,” Satoru says softly. His eyes are still fixed on Suguru; they’ve yet to blink. “But there’s a future that can’t come to pass. I need to kill that, no matter what. You understand, don’t you? You’ve said it yourself—you’re kind, unlike me.”
Suguru raises an eyebrow. “I don’t remember saying that, but it’s true enough. You’re making even less sense than usual though.”
“Am I?” That smile again—sweet and fleeting. It doesn’t suit the terrible emptiness layering the rest of Satoru. “It’s better that way. Ignorance is bliss, sometimes.”
Satoru finally unfolds himself from the windowsill, climbing into the room proper, and Suguru matches him, rising from the bed and straightening to his full height. His underwear isn’t the attire he’d have chosen for this particular confrontation, but Satoru does have a tendency to subvert expectations in the worst possible way.
“This is it then?” Suguru asks. “I won’t make it easy for you.”
Satoru doesn’t quip back, doesn’t smile, doesn’t falter—not even when space distorts all around them, special-grade curses clawing their way out of the rippling tears.
It doesn’t change a thing, of course.
It was never going to.
June 2016
“Satoru! Explain this!”
It’s not easy to gauge the expression of a blindfolded man whose mouth has three regular settings, all of them varying shades of mocking, but for the past several months, Satoru has made it even harder to figure out, let alone understand, what the hell is going through his head.
Masamichi’s unsurprised when the reaction to the report he dropped on Satoru is more of the same—a whole lot of nothing.
“Tragic,” Satoru says tonelessly. “But she was, what, ninety-six? Man, those old fossils really live long.”
“Respect the dead!” The rebuke just earns Masamichi a placating gesture, but at least Satoru finally looks up at him instead of continuing to pretend to pay attention to what looks like the folders on the most recent batch of students. “This is the fifth higher-up to die in the last six months.”
“The fifth to die of natural causes,” Satoru points out idly, tipping his chair back to radiate insolence better. “I don’t see what’s there to explain. Death comes for us all—even I’m not immune. The great equalizer.”
Masamichi strangles the semi-permanent urge to wrap his hands around Satoru’s throat and squeeze.
“Don’t play the fool with me, Satoru. Something’s going on and you know it.”
“Do I?” Satoru asks mildly. “If you say so. But it’s fine, isn’t it? They’ve got plenty of other fossils to fill the ranks. It’ll take a while to really thin the numbers.”
It’s true.
Objectively, it’s true.
The first couple of deaths barely caused a stir. Every subsequent one has been a stronger ripple in the delicate balance of their world, and sooner or later—likely sooner—they’ll become shockwaves. Masamichi is prepared.
The man now staring up at the ceiling like he doesn’t have a care in the world is long past the need to prepare for anything.
“Are you doing this?” Masamichi isn’t proud of how quiet it comes out, his voice briefly unrecognizable even to himself.
Satoru stills for a moment, and even with the blindfold, Masamichi can feel those eyes zero in on him. The weight of Satoru’s attention has only grown over the years, and it’s likely only a fraction that now settles on Masamichi, but even that sinks in deep until his bones feel leaden with it.
“Assassination isn’t really my style, is it?” Satoru asks.
It’s not an answer.
“A year ago, I would have agreed,” Masamichi tells him, bracing his hands on the table and leaning in, unamused by the way Satoru tracks his movement with an exaggerated tilt of the head. The weight in his bones doesn’t change, no increase or decrease. “Then you went and killed Suguru.”
“Are you complaining about that?” There’s laughter in Satoru’s voice—the sharp, cutting kind. It’s the only way he laughs these days. “He’s had a standing execution order since 2007, you know. The higher-ups have been pestering us about it for just as long. You should all be happy.”
“Satoru!”
“Yaga-sensei,” Satoru returns evenly, “what exactly are you accusing me of?”
Masamichi grinds his teeth till his whole jaw hurts like a bitch. Satoru’s expression, the telling lack of one, makes it clear he won’t find answers here—not the ones he wants and not the ones he should seek all the same.
“You’ve changed,” Masamichi tells him. “I don’t know when or why, but you’re not the Satoru I know.”
Satoru smiles. It’s startlingly sincere.
“Maybe,” he says gently. “But I’m the Gojou Satoru you need. I can promise you that.”
April 2017
A low, long whistle makes Yuuji freeze from head to toe.
He stares for a beat longer at the groaning body at his feet before surveying the others scattered around the alley. Everyone’s alive and breathing. No one’s conscious. Yuuji doesn’t do this usually, doesn’t let it get this far. But he’s never had to, the delinquents and wannabe gangsters running away after they take a few of his punches.
But this was a bigger group, and one of them had a knife. They were confident, and Yuuji was angry, and now he knows what sharp metal feels like bending in his fist while cutting through flesh.
They’re all still breathing, all still unconscious; the whistle came from none of them.
Yuuji whips around, fists up in a fighting stance. The left one hurts, the long cut slicing through the meat of his palm a wet pulse. It’s sticky and hot too, blood seeping out from between his fingers and trickling down his wrist, but Yuuji knows he can fight with it. He already has.
It’s dark already, a flickering streetlight barely lighting up the mouth of the alley.
But the man who melts out of the shadows seems to glow with his own unholy light.
Maybe it’s the hair—the purest white Yuuji’s ever seen on a person. It’s nothing like the grey that’s taken over what’s left of his grandpa’s hair, but there’s no way this man is that old anyway. He’s young.
He’s older than Yuuji though, clearly an adult.
Shit, it’s an adult.
“They’re alive!” Yuuji blurts out. “I didn’t—”
—kill them, he doesn’t finish. Even thinking the words feels surreal. Of course he didn’t. Of course he wouldn’t.
The man smiles like he heard them anyway, his strangely glossy lips curling up into a broad grin. It’s friendly enough. Yuuji can’t really bring himself to relax, though he lowers his arms, letting them hang loose and ready at his sides.
“You don’t seem the killing kind,” says the stranger.
Yuuji swallows thickly. He opens his mouth and closes it, not sure what to say. There’s the urge to defend himself—to explain and excuse. But none of the scattered words in his head feels fully honest, even the bits that are true.
They tried to stab him, but he snapped the knife in half and drove his fist into the would-be stabber’s gut hard enough to send him flying into the alley wall.
They cornered him, but he saw it coming and let it happen.
They started it, but Yuuji’s been wandering around after school for hours, winding around the shadiest parts of town with the full knowledge of what would happen if he just lingered long enough.
There’s no one waiting for him at home, again. His grandpa’s been spending longer and longer periods hospitalized, and Yuuji knows that, one day soon, he won’t come home at all. His grandpa won’t admit it. The doctors and nurses all talk around it. But he knows.
“It’s late, you know,” the man says like he’s read Yuuji’s mind. “A kid like you shouldn’t be out at this hour. Who knows what kind of trouble will come calling.”
A throaty groan sounds from behind Yuuji, and he can’t help glancing over his shoulder. The guy who made the noise is still on the ground, curling into an even tighter fetal position.
He looks back at the stranger and finds that the guy’s grin has widened into an unsettling slash. He raises a hand, the pad of his index finger settling on the bridge of his glasses. It’s lowered, exposing eyes that seem light and bright even at this distance.
Yuuji stands very still as he and the bodies behind him are surveyed.
“But trouble’s already found you,” the man says. “Did you fight them alone?”
“…Yes.”
“Impressive.” He sounds sincere, which really isn’t what Yuuji’s expecting. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” Yuuji says on reflex; his throbbing hand calls him out on the lie, but Yuuji bites his tongue.
The man doesn’t seem fooled, his grin turning crooked. “Don’t lie now. There’s no shame in getting a little beat up fighting six people all alone. Like I said, it’s impressive. They look older too. You’re, what, a middle-schooler?”
Yuuji’s tempted to lie. He can pass as a high-schooler if he has to.
But he’s also wearing his school uniform.
He nods.
The man takes a step forward.
Yuuji steps back, freezing when the heel of his shoe brushes something that flinches away with a groan.
A blink, and the man is just there, kneeling in front of Yuuji.
He’s freakishly tall. It was clear when he was standing, but it’s somehow more obvious now that he’s on his knees in front of Yuuji and only barely looking up at him. This close, even in the shadows cloaking the alley, Yuuji can tell that his eyes are blue—the kind of blue he’s only seen on a screen, gleaming with the colors of the sea.
It knocks the breath right out of his lungs.
And he doesn’t react in time to stop the man from grabbing his injured hand and raising it to eye level.
There’s another low whistle. Yuuji flinches, pulling his hand back. It doesn’t budge. The stranger’s grip is deceptively light, long fingers curled delicately around Yuuji’s wrist, but there’s absolutely no give to it.
“Hey,” Yuuji croaks. “Let go.”
“That’s a nasty cut,” comes the reply, like the guy didn’t even hear Yuuji. “You should get that looked at.”
“Let go.”
A stronger pull, Yuuji letting up on some of his typical restraint.
His hand still doesn’t budge.
And that—that’s never happened before.
The man looks like he barely noticed the protest or the resistance, examining Yuuji’s hand with those weirdly bright eyes. They flicker up, meeting Yuuji’s stare and crinkling at the corners.
Yuuji’s throat clicks dry when he swallows.
The man’s free hand dips into his pocket, and Yuuji tenses on instinct, keenly aware of what happened just minutes earlier when another guy reached for his pocket, but the man just pulls out a handkerchief, its white nearly as bright as the hair on his head.
Yuuji clues in a second before the fabric touches his skin.
“Wait!”
The man freezes, blinking quizzically up at Yuuji. “I’m just going to clean it. It’ll only hurt a bit.”
“That’s not…” Yuuji shakes his head, tugging his hand back again and somehow surprised when it still doesn’t move. “It’ll get dirty.”
The man laughs, a sharp bark of a sound. The grin his mouth settles into is unsettlingly sharp. “You really do have the strangest priorities.”
The fabric is pressed to the cut, the blood sopped up with light, gentle pats. It stings, but that’s barely noticeable. Yuuji’s more concerned about the dark stain spreading across the white cloth. His blood looks more black than red.
It’s a sweet but useless gesture. The more blood the man wipes away, the more spurts from the cut. Yuuji’s whole hand is a mess.
Then the man sighs and presses the handkerchief to the wound, hard enough to make Yuuji hiss through clenched teeth. That earns him the full force of those bright blue eyes, and maybe blood loss is getting to Yuuji, but he could swear those eyes are actually, literally glowing.
“Who are you?” he asks.
“Gojou Satoru, at your service,” the man answers, both hands now wrapped tightly around Yuuji’s wounded one. “Do you know who I am?”
“No?”
“You don’t sound very sure.”
“No,” Yuuji says firmly. “Why would I?”
“Why indeed,” Gojou echoes softly. “Can I ask you a question?”
“That’s all you’ve been doing this whole time!”
Gojou chuckles. His hands are warm around Yuuji’s, burning as hot as the cut.
“That’s fair,” Gojou says. “This isn’t like those questions though. It’s very important.”
Yuuji swallows again. His heart is beating faster than it did during the fight, and there’s something in the air that lines the insides of his throat with serrated ice each time he drags in a breath.
He doesn’t like this.
Whatever Gojou’s about to ask, the question blazing in those eyes and tucked behind his smile—it’s nothing Yuuji wants to hear. He’s not sure where that certainty comes from, but he knows it’s only matched by the certainty that he needs to hear it anyway.
“What is it?” he whispers.
Gojou’s eyes bore into him, their blue living and lashing.
“Itadori Yuuji,” he asks, “do you want to save the world?”