Chapter Text
" Nineteen days."
The angel speaks from the side of the Hana girl's face, and wow, he didn't think there would be a time where seeing a mouth speak from someone's cheek didn't follow with a bunch of angry curse snark.
They were seated in a common room of sorts; everyone who could be here was. Shoko, Kusakabe, the second and third years, plus Yuji, and a bunch of other people, Satoru didn't recognize, or sadly did. Like the curse? Human? Whatever he was that killed way too many people in Shibuya for everyone to be all buddy buddy with him, but apparently it's just dirt under the rug now. In summary, this was an all-hands-on-deck situation.
"Operation send Satoru Gojo's consciousness back twelve years into the past so he could stop the world ending without ending his world." with the now extended title,
"-In apparently nineteen days."
"Nineteen days?" He questions.
"That's how long you have for this to work. No more, no less." She informs him solemnly.
Oh.
Okay, that should be fine. The mission was no more than a week, so that was more than enough to stop that situation, and it's not exactly as if he had planned to stay forever. The only issue there was that Suguru had lost it a year later. If he had to leave in exactly nineteen days, he had no way to ensure that wouldn't happen if he hadn't stopped the mission from going south. But you know, Suguru losing it wouldn't be his biggest issue if he does fail, so maybe he should just focus more on the not-failing part.
"Why?" Yuji pipes up, clearly concerned that the time frame isn't enough to stop what is currently happening since he has no real knowledge of what he is trying to prevent.
"While time would not have been passed for Gojo, the prison realm was still only processing him for those nineteen days, so it could only warp limitless for the amount of time it had it for." She explains, "It's part of the binding vow we needed a risk that was equivalent to his life, without him actually giving his life."
A chorus of different forms of understanding rings throughout the room.
"However," She goes on, "this will have the opposite effect than what will usually happen while time would usually pass for us, and not you, time will be passing for you but not us."
"And this is vital information because?"
"Due to your strength level, the prison realm will once again be planted onto the floor once you enter, and since no time or a minute at most will pass, none of us will move the box. The only things not affected in any way by what will happen once you go back are you and the prison realm. No matter what happens in nineteen days, the prison realm will still be here with you inside it. Once they end, you will need someone to let you out."
Satoru nods his head at her to continue, even though he's not a hundred percent certain he can see her.
"You will need to tell Ieiri-san's past self on the off chance that this doesn't work and you're somehow still stuck in here the exact date, time, place and the location of the heavenly spear that you can not in any way destroy this time around because we may not be able to to find you, if the past aliens with your future she'll most likely be the only one still here to release you." The angel informs him.
Satoru nods once. "Tell Shoko I'm locked in the box. Got it, anything else?"
"Satoru Gojo, if this works and you succeed, everything that has happened in the past twelve years of your life will only be remembered by you." She warns, "This war, your past, every moment since that very day will be memory only for you."
"What?!?" A group of people shot up in alarm.
"If I change this," Satoru begins, already understanding what she means; hell, he had guessed this is what would end up happening anyway. It would be better for them to hear this from him than her. "This would not have happened for you guys; there would be nothing for you to remember because it would not have existed."
Once he finishes his sentence, he turns and watches in real time as the weight of what he's doing settles on everyone's shoulders.
He's going back to change everything that has affected the way their lives have played out for the past year, decade for some, and if he succeeds, everything they've gone through will no longer exist for them. It would be nothing but another burden carried by Gojo alone.
"You can't-" Yuji begins to protest before Satoru cuts him off, "I have to."
"So what, we're all just going to forget each other? Everything we've gone through together just gone?" Yuta asks voice wavering. He's scared. Gojo realizes his friends mean everything to him, and this mission sounds a lot like he's about to lose them.
His concerns are valid but competently unneeded, besides the fact that Yuta won't know he had lost them, so really it won't matter in the long run. There is no way he planned on not finding every single one of his students and carrying on his dream in this changed time. He tells him exactly that.
"While the hardships may be different, you'll still grow into your strength together. There's no way in hell I'm going all the way back there to change." He reassures him, and yeah, it's a bit cheesy and out of character, but they won't remember this anyway, so he can be as corny as he wants.
"And what about you?" he asks, "You'll be okay with carrying the burden of this time all by yourself?"
Oh, Yuta, bless him, all he's done his entire life is carry burdens on his own. What was one more?
"I'm going to have to be." He answers, leaving no room for argument in his tone.
Upon seeing the look on his face and realizing this is not an argument he was going to come on top of Yuta, although unhappily, he backs down.
The room sits in silence, clearly uncomfortable with what has to happen, but unable to deny that it needs to for the greater good.
"Are you ready?" Hana asks, cutting the tension, turning to him after setting the prison realm on the ground.
Here goes nothing.
"Let's do this." Satoru rolls his shoulder behind him and begins to walk forward before a voice stops him.
"Sensei!" Yuji calls, causing him to turn around, and when he does, he's met with the beaming face of the boy and smiles in a different way from his upperclassmen.
"Hmm?"
"Good luck!" He exclaims.
Afterwards, it's like a domino effect, every student behind him lets out their own words of "encouragement".
"Don't die!"
"You got this, Gojo!"
"Salmon!"
"Make the past your bitch!"
"Don't fuck this up, you idiot."
Gojo smiles softly at them, cheeks warming. Why the hell are his cheeks warm over half assed words of encouragement.
"Yeah, I got this."
He turns forward, facing the prison realm, Shoko standing next to him, pats him on the shoulder, cigarette hanging from her lips.
"Don't fuck this up, yeah."
"Me?" He grins at her as she rolls her eyes, scoffing lightly as she steps out of the way.
"Alright, open her up."
Behind him, he hears the angel repeating those very words that trapped him in the realm the first time around, and he tries very hard to focus less on what happened last time and more on getting a minute to pass in his brain so the damn thing opens.
When the prison realm snaps around his limbs, he doesn't fight it this time and is a lot more comfortable in it, which is a plus!
"Remember Nineteen days and tell ieiri-san where to find you." The angel reminds him to set the book down once she places the binding vow to change the conditions of the prison realm, so it can send him back through time instead of keeping him in a weird loop of it.
"Gotcha." He nods his head; he really hopes she moves now. He doesn't have any issues with the girl, but he'd rather see this version of students one last time.
Thankfully, she's seemingly satisfied and moves out of his field of vision, where he can see that his students had, in fact, moved so they could see him off.
The last thing he sees as the prison realm slowly closes around him is the reason he does what he does; it's not like he could turn back now, but seeing his reason for doing what he does and noticing the two missing reasons. He knows this is something he wants to do.
Something he has to do.
The last thing he hears before what may be the last time from these people is.
"Good luck, World's kinda counting on you not fucking this up." Shoko waves down at him.
"No pressure!" Yuta adds quickly in an attempt to make it better.
And then the prison realm closes and the world goes dark.
Satoru came to with a knock at his door.
“What?” He mumbles, rubbing at his eyes, dazed, he didn’t mean that as a “come on in”. He didn't even mean to say that out loud, but whoever was at his door thought it was because it opened.
“Satoru, why are you asleep at twelve in the afternoon?” Suguru opens his door, scolding him when he catches sight of him on his bed.
Satoru's eyes widen as what's happening finally clicks.
Suguru opened the door to his dorm.
The dorm that he lived in from 2005 to 2009, Suguru opened that very door.
Satoru looks down at himself, and his teenage body stares back at him.
It worked. Satoru thinks to himself in disbelief.
“It worked!" He beams.