Chapter Text
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Chapter 1
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October 31, 2018 | 8:50 PM Shibuya Station, B5F – Fukutoshin Line Platform
The 0.2-second Domain Expansion was over.
Within that infinitesimal sliver of time, Satoru Gojo had flooded the consciousness of every non-sorcerer on the platform with roughly six months' worth of information, a calculated effort to prevent long term damage. They stood like mannequins, their brains fried into a temporary vegetative state. But for the transfigured humans birthed from Mahito’s cursed technique—there was no mercy.
Gojo moved like a blur of light blue. He didn't use the Limitless. With unrivaled efficiency, he wove through the paralyzed crowd, his hands tearing through the flesh of hundreds of the transfigured humans. He decapitated, crushed, and dismantled them with raw physical strength, ensuring not a single civilian was caught in the crossfire.
After 299 seconds of opening his domain, a thousand disfigured corpses laid cooling on the platform. Gojo stood in the center of the carnage, his breathing heavy, his mind throbbing with the residual feedback from using Unlimited Void.
Then, a heavy, wet thud echoed against the blood stained tiles.
At his feet sat a small, fleshy cube, its surface covered in closed eyelids. It was an unassuming thing; contradicting its ancient and oppressing presence.
"Prison Realm: Gate Open."
The cube unfurled, its eyes snapping open to fixate on him. Gojo’s mind immediately started to calculate escape.
"Hey, Satoru. Long time no see."
Gojo froze. Any thought of movement or escape abruptly stopped. The Six Eyes, the eyes that never lied, were screaming the impossible. A fake? A transformation technique? No... it’s really him.
As he experienced the rush of three years' worth of memories spent with his only friend, Suguru Geto, the prison realm seized its opening. The fleshy cube expanded, its jagged, internal geometry unfolding to latch onto its intended target.
It's already been a minute in Satoru Gojo’s mind, Kenjaku mused, watching the sorcerer’s pupils dilate as the prison realm attached itself to his limbs, incapacitating him. "You shouldn't lose yourself in thought, not in the midst of battle, Satoru."
I can’t sense any of my cursed energy, Gojo realized, his limbs heavy and unresponsive. I can’t get my body to move either. Is this... checkmate? He looked up, his voice dropping into a dangerous, icy tone. "So, who the hell are you?"
"I’m Suguru Geto," the man replied with a mocking tilt of his head."Don't you remember me? How sad."
"Your body and cursed energy, all the information provided by my Six Eyes is telling me you are Suguru Geto," Gojo spat, "but both my heart and my soul know otherwise. Now answer me already! Who the hell are you?!"
The man smiled. "Creepy~... How could you possibly tell?"
With a casual motion he reached up and pulled at the stitches running across his forehead. With a sickening, wet slide, he lifted the top of his skull like a lid to reveal a living, pulsing brain fitted with its own mouth smiling creepily at him, a movement replicated by Suguru’s body.
He stepped closer, the brain within the skull throbbing. "Tell the truth, you didn't have Shoko Ieri dispose of Suguru Geto’s body that day, did you? An odd time for you to show consideration. Thanks to that, I was able to obtain this body with ease.”
Adding on with a mockingly gentle tone, as if to comfort him, he said,”You needn't worry, I'll release your seal eventually. A hundred... no, maybe a thousand years. You're just too strong to be let loose, and you're in the way of my current plans."
"Have you forgotten something?" Gojo countered, his gaze piercing. "Who do you think beat the crap out of that body before I eventually stepped in and killed it?"
"Yuta Okkotsu, huh?" Kenjaku laughed softly. "I don't see the appeal in the boy that you do. Copying techniques unconditionally and a bottomless well of cursed energy, both of those were the effect of binding the soul of his most beloved. I’m sorry to say this, but Yuta Okkotsu can never replace you. Goodnight, Satoru Gojo. Let us meet again in the new world."
"Goodnight or not," Gojo commanded, his eyes fixed on the body of his friend. "It's time for you to wake up already. How long are you gonna let it keep using you, Suguru?"
Suddenly, Geto’s own right hand flew up, clutching his own throat in a desperate struggle. Kenjaku’s eyes widened as he unexpectedly began to laugh. "Incredible... this is definitely a first."
"Hey, Geto!" Mahito’s voice drifted over from the paralyzed bodies of the civilians, as he finally regained control of his body.
Kenjaku looked back, still grinning as he attempted to fight his own hand off his throat. "Mahito, take a look at this! You once said that you thought the soul exists before the body does but look at this!"
"Are we gonna do this or not?" Gojo interrupted, his voice flat with an uninterested expression. "The view sucks and I’m just bored."
"I was gonna enjoy this sight a little bit longer," Kenjaku replied, finally settling the hand on his throat with his other hand. "But you’re right. I wouldn't want anything to happen."
"Gate, Close."
The eyes of the Prison Realm snapped shut, plunging Gojo into total darkness. Satisfied with the situation, Kenjaku picked up the now silver cube and went out to find both Choso and Jogo. Once he located them, standing like statues in the aftermath of Gojo’s domain, he woke them from the effects of the domain with a triumphant smile.
"Now you're all awake," Kenjaku stated, his voice smooth and confident. "And now for our next course —"
The Prison Realm in Kenjaku’s hand dropped to the floor as cracks started to line every inch of it. The once-silver box turned to a blinding gold, its presence and pressure fracturing the floor beneath it. The spectators consisting of Mahito, Kenjaku, Choso, and Jogo immediately lost their grins and sense of calm as the box continued to crack and glow.
The Prison Realm was spewing its previous contents. The absolute rules of the object dictated that it could only contain one entity at a time, and the weight of Satoru Gojo’s existence was forcing a violent eviction of the host it had held for millennia.
A figure was thrown from the breach like a cannonball, skidding hard across the blood slicked subway tiles before rolling to a stop in a tangle of dust and shredded orange fabric that seemed to have once been a jacket.
Then he pushed himself upright. He was young, with three whisker-like marks on each cheek. His blonde hair caught the dying light of the flickering subway lights, and behind him, several spheres of absolute black that floated in a perfect arc. His cross-shaped pupils focused within their gold irises, scanning the room with a practiced calm.
A dry heat bled from his skin, radiating until the damp station air felt like a desert. The pungent scent of iron from the disfigured corpses was eclipsed by ozone of the same intensity. With a sharp exhale, he stood fully upright, and the remaining fragments of the Prison Realm dissolved into the tiles like ash.
Miles above, every sorcerer within the Shibuya curtain felt Gojo's presence vanish. What replaced it was something none of them had words for; a deep heat spread through the city like sunlight through cracked earth.They didn't know what it was.
But every single one of them momentarily stopped what they were doing.
In the depths of the station, all the curses had the same thought: “The ritual to seal Satoru Gojo was completed, but at what cost?”