"Are you the strongest because you're Gojo Satoru, or are you Gojo Satoru because you're the strongest?"
That was a question that had been asked of him years ago. One that, even years later, he still didn't have an answer to. The question was a low blow, designed to hurt him - not physically, for Geto had not managed that feat yet, but psychologically.
Geto was one of the few people who knew so much about his original isolation and objectification in the Gojo clan, for right from his birth he was deemed different. With that question, Geto had questioned his identity and sense of self, and the shock of that had frozen him for long moments.
Perhaps it would've kept him frozen and indecisive in some way if Jiki had not been there to stand by him. He grinned as he appeared on the city's outskirts, meters above the ground, and watched the two figures that stared up at him.
Gojo Satoru bore the weight and burden of the strongest easily because he knew that soon enough, he wouldn't have to bear that weight and burden alone. Just long enough. Very soon, he won't have to run over at the slightest danger to their all-too-fragile world. He won't be run ragged and forced to worry about what his very unlikely but still possible death would mean to those that he shaded beneath his wings.
Soon.
So with that final thought, he waved down at the two figures before calling out, "Hello!"
He didn't receive an answer. Perhaps they didn't hear him, he mused, a hand on his chin with playful contemplation. So he began to drift down into the sparse forest that littered the outskirts of Tokyo.
"You made me come too far just to give me the silent treatment, you know." His feet touched the ground as he finished his analysis of the duo, one a curse and one a sorcerer.
"A special grade deity class curse and a special grade sorcerer against little ol' me," his grin widened. "I'm flattered. Still, it's presumptuous of you to think you can win when one of you has been running away at the faintest sight of my presence for the last few years."
The curse bristled. It was a giant humanoid curse, bigger than a house and with an elephant's head that bore long, dagger-like ears that shot out of its side. Its tusk was short, and its trunk was coiled inwards, yet uncoiled and let out a low hum of irritation.
Its slanted eyes stared down at him with something close to hate while its four arms clenched and unclenched themselves in anger, the prayer beads wrapped around its arms rattling with the motion.
"Prideful as always, art thou not, Gojo Satoru?" the curse asked rhetorically, its voice a heavenly bass that made its humongous stomach vibrate in response. The way it spoke was old. Archaic. As expected of one of the oldest curses in the world.
"Perhaps," Satoru admitted as he gave a shrug that dripped of arrogance, "but it is a pride well earned. Or have you forgotten the first and last time we crossed paths and how useless your vaunted technique was against me?" he jibed in return a grin on his lips. There was an explosion of cursed energy as Ganesha, a special grade deity curse older than the name Japan, bristled once more at those words.
The golden vest jacket that wrapped around its torso shook with the explosion of energy. Not even the environment was spared, as the grass it stood on curled inward. Yet Gojo simply grinned at the fruitless act.
"Bold art thou to speak thus, when thy kin has brought ruin upon this world. A thousand years hence, at but a glimpse of my shadow, thou wouldst have fled in terror. Yet now—"
"Now, here I stand, and all you can do is talk." Satoru waved the bristling curse off with a hand as he shifted his attention from the apocalyptic curse spirit to the white-haired woman at the other end of the clearing.
They were spaced out so that they each stood at opposite sides of the clearing, leaving Gojo between them - not that it mattered or he was even bothered. "You, I'm not so familiar with," he noted with another tilt of his head as he stared at the figure.
It was a woman. Young, with white hair and scattered blots of red. She had uncaring brown eyes that didn't quite mask her nervousness, yet the fact that she stood and looked in his face spoke more than enough of her strength. Worried, but not scared. Like she had seen stronger and was only vaguely impressed.
Her white and black monk robes moved with the wind that Ganesha stirred up, yet not even that was enough to reveal her other hand hidden in the robes. His eyes peered further. Beneath the white and black monk robes, past her undergarment and her well-shaped figure. Past skin, muscle, and bones.
Eerie blue eyes looked deeper into the source of her strength, and what he saw fascinated him. He had seen this once, but not this was more advanced. "You're not a sorcerer of this era, are you?" he mused, the question completely rhetorical, yet she was gracious enough to answer him anyway.
This was a sorcerer from the Heian era using the body of a random person as a meat puppet, much like what Yoruzu had planned to accomplish. Which meant he had to find a way to get rid of her without killing the body. He grinned. A handicap always made things more fun.
"He anticipated you would figure that out the moment you saw me. But you're correct, I'm not."
"By he, I assume you're talking about Kenjaku."
She replied with a polite nod before speaking, "I do not want to fight you, but you're a threat Gojo Satoru. One that can hamper my lord's return. So however little the possibility, there stands a chance that right here and right now, I can kill you."
Satoru felt his brows raise at the audacity. Even more than what his sight spoke of, those words stamped the fact that this woman, whoever she was, was not a sorcerer of this era.
Even the strongest rogue curse users that had littered the world before his birth had gone scrambling the moment he opened his eerie blue eyes as a child.
Yet here was someone who stood before him and promised to kill him. Such pride, he mused, and what other way to meet such than to match it. His hands slipped into his pockets, and he began a slow walk forward. "You should've brought more curses along then, but regardless let me see what you've to offer."
She nodded at him. A heartbeat later, she was racing towards him, her feet kicking up dirt with every movement. She was fast, he noted, as she came within a foot of him and lashed out with a single kick aimed at his head. Despite how redundant the act was, he dodged to the side as her kick whiffed past his head. She was fast, but not nearly fast enough.
She recovered from the miss quickly as she smoothly transitioned into a jab, then another that he sidestepped, then another that he simply tilted his head to the side, causing it to whiff past his head once again.
Despite how futile and useless her attacks had proved to be, how much he tried to show her the distance between them with a jovial grin on his face as he dodged and spun past numerous blows that rocked the air and cratered the ground - the white-haired woman didn't seem the slightest bit unruffled. The reason was clear.
She was penning him in, like a wolf leading a deer off a cliff. The cliff in this scenario was the waiting Ganesha. The curse had not moved from its spot, its four arms spread out wide like it planned to hug him the moment he came close enough. Despite how furious it had been when he had poked at it, it was suddenly as calm as a lake, and in the midst of dodging the woman's blows, he found himself wondering what exactly they hoped to accomplish.
Ganesha's technique could not work. Not this atrophied version it possessed now. It was—suddenly, it seemed like whatever the duo had been waiting for finally clicked.
Satoru drifted close to Ganesha, and the curse moved, its cursed energy coming to life. For that split second that it did, Satoru shifted his attention in full to the special grade deity curse. He had calculated the distance between the woman and him and had discarded her as a threat.
Yet instead of an attack from the deity, it slammed its hands together and called out its technique with that same reverberating voice.
"Cursed Technique: Obstacle Remover."
There was a glitch, a malfunction, and a failure that forced Satoru's eyes to widen from beneath his eye wraps. The duo were not done.
"Cursed Technique: Ice Formation."
He looked down and his feet were encrusted in ice. A split second later, something entered his range with speed. His eyes drifted down to the soft earth that he stood upon and watched in complete slow motion as a root speared out of the ground fast enough to blow dirt and soil into the air and buried itself into his side.
The sharp pain as it pierced his skin forced his eyes to widen further, as did the feeling of organs rupturing, flesh ripping, and skin tearing as the spear of wood made its way out of his back.
He was not given the grace to stagger. Instead, he looked down at the point of contact, where ice froze his leg to the ground. Then his eyes drifted further up to where the spear had gored him.
The pain was a distant thing, hidden beneath confusion. "Impossible," he found himself whispering as his eyes drifted to the elephant-headed curse that had its four arms locked into a hand sign. It was still, unmoved - yet there was a smile on its face, barely hidden beneath the trunk. A smile that spoke of satisfaction.
"Thou art going to die here today, Gojo Satoru."
X
Todo pulled his fist out from the guts of whatever he just killed. The clearing they had been in had been transformed into a slaughterhouse - the original spar that had been put on hold when monsters fell from the sky. Now they were applying what he had thought his newfound brother.
"W-What are these?"
Yuji whispered, and he turned around to face the younger boy, projecting an air of confidence and surety at the same moment. "It does not matter, my brother. All that matters is finding the rest and leaving the forest. I'm sure Gojo Satoru is on his way," he proclaimed with surety - even though he knew it was a lie.
He had felt the simultaneous explosion of cursed energy farther off as well. Felt the thickness of it and knew for certain: Gojo Satoru won't leave that to come here and face these small flies. But his brother didn't need to know that, and everyone was always soothed by the thought that the strongest sorcerer was coming.
Yuji gave a shaky nod, as his eyes drifted to the body beneath him. Yellow and green mottled skin, a distended face that still wept blood even in death. Red, pulsing blood.
He needed to distract Yuji before he thought too much about what that might mean, so without further ado, he clapped his hands together to draw attention as he called out, "Come now, my brother, off we go!" He began to walk, leaving the clearing filled with broken bodies that bled red. "Noritoshi and Toge are the closest to us, we should be able to regroup with them soon."
The moment he crossed the clearing, his bloodstained back toward Yuji, his affable expression shifted into a frown.
"hOmE, HoMe, seND mE HOmE!"
"KNivEs arE fOr CuTTInG nOT cOOking!"
New warbling screams rang out. The forest was infested with hundreds of whatever these creatures were. He had a good suspicion about what they faced. Despite how impossible it should be, curses did not simply bleed red, and they most certainly did not leave bodies behind. The conclusion was clear to anyone with a smidgen of his IQ. It was a good thing his brother had not realized it yet.
"Where to now?" Yuji asked from beside him. The younger boy was still trying to wipe his blood-stained knuckles. Wide puppy-brown eyes looked up at him, and he gave a boisterous grin in reply.
"Onwards, my brother. I can feel where Toge and Noritoshi are fighting." It was a fight he was certain the two students were winning against the monsters. The monstrosities had proven simple. No real tactics beyond swarming their enemy.
No real fighting skill beyond making use of their inhuman strength and robust physique. Their lack of cursed energy manipulation meant that they were like naked fishes in a barrel - an act that opened them up to be brutally attacked by cursed speech. Todo found himself idly wondering if anyone was keeping count of how many they killed as well. A grin came to his lips as they continued to walk in the direction of the other two students, while more of the monstrosities crawled out from underneath tree shrubs and beheaded old trees.
He knew at least one person that might be.
X
Maki ran towards her sister, while the girl had a steady two-handed grip on her huge revolver. She stared down the length of the barrel, down to the moment her sister pulled the trigger. Then bang!
She saw the bullet heading straight for her, but she didn't change course, she didn't stumble, falter, stop, or dodge. She continued forward till she was inches away from the bullet, then ignored it as it drifted wide, streaking past her to slam into the head of one of the monsters behind her.
Mai ducked, and Maki rolled over her sister's back to lash out with a bone-shattering kick toward the monster that had tried to sneak up on Mai. The blow obliterated the front part of the monster, while the force of the blow threw its ragged body back, blasting away multiple creatures that had been trailing behind the lead monstrosity. The moment her feet touched the ground, the two girls moved in eerie synchronization. Back pressed against each other, they spun around, changing targets.
Her physical attacks could kill them even when she turned off the gates and depended on online her posthuman physique. This meant that whatever they were, they were not curses, hence the term - monsters.
Maki had created distance by knocking back the monsters that were now on Mai's end, and her sister made ruthless use of the opportunity offered. Back straight, spine stiff, gun drawn, she began to shoot, mowing down the still-scrambling monsters with ruthless efficiency.
Maki focused on her opponents - the ones that had been trailing behind her originally. Her first swing was from the ground up, and it bisected the first one from the left waist to the right shoulder. The one after tried to dive at her while she was open. She released a single hand from the grip of the soul-split katana and buried it into its face, cracking it open like a watermelon and disabusing it of that motion.
The next monster didn't care for what she had done, nor for the splashes of blood that still filled the air. Instead, the single heavily muscled monstrosity tore right through the dead and headless monster's midsection with a screech, as it dived to bury its limb into her stomach. It would've been an easy thing to dodge, even as damaged as she remained by her sister's cursed technique.
Yet dodging meant leaving Mai exposed. The very thought of it was Impossible.
She swung down as fast as her heavily burnt and injured arms could, sword singing as it made its way to the monster, but she knew she would be too late. They both knew that and if the monster was human, she could imagine the utter expression of gloat that would've been on its face.
The claws pierced her stomach, struggling for every inch it took to bury itself past her superhuman physique. Mai's technique had wrought damage on her body - burnt, destroyed, and loosened the skin in a way that made her defense a smidgen of what they used to be.
Yet it didn't matter. The monster was only able to bury its claws for a couple of inches and barely past skin when her still-free hand gripped it by its forearm. The memory came to her.
A malevolent grin. Surprise, acknowledgment, then praise. "A sorcerer should at least be able to sacrifice this much."
Then her blade finally arrived, splitting the monster straight in the middle. She ripped the claws out of her midsection and threw it to the side. It had not buried deep, fortunately. Even as weakened as she was, the curse was no Ryomen Sukuna.
Mai's gun roared once more, and Maki barely had time to move before another bullet screamed past her, blasting through the skull of a curse lunging from the side. She didn't look back - didn't need to.
The bond between them was fresh and delicate like an injury that had not healed well, one that had been reopened and was slowly healing properly now.
However, she trusted Mai's aim as much as she trusted her own strength.
Blood spattered the ground, some of it hers, but she didn't slow down. Pain was a given. The moment she stopped to acknowledge it would be the moment she lost.
Another monster came for her - grotesque and misshapen, moving like a rabid beast, its limbs bent unnaturally as it leaped. She didn't give it the chance to land. The split-soul katana sang once again as it carved through the air, severing both of its arms mid-flight. It crashed down, howling in pain, but Maki's boot silenced it, crushing its head into the dirt before it could so much as twitch.
Behind her, Mai's gun clicked empty.
"Cover me," Mai whispered as she moved into a crouch.
Maki didn't answer. She didn't need to.
She pivoted on her heel, lunging forward to intercept another incoming wave. These were bigger. Something about their battle drew them.
One swung at her - faster than the others - but she met its charge head-on, parrying with the flat of her blade before twisting her wrist and driving the blade's tip into its throat. She had been forced to change the way she fought considering her injuries. Skill instead of strength.
Another came at her from the right. She felt it before she saw it, reacting purely on instinct, her body moving before her mind could register. She ducked low, sweeping its legs out from under it, then drove her heel down, crushing its spine with a sickening crack.
Mai was already reloading. She slammed the cylinder shut and fired over Maki's shoulder, her bullets weaving through the chaos, each shot was a death blow
Maki grinned. This was it. This was how it should've always been. How they should have always fought. Not against each other, but together.
There was a lull in the fight as all around them were bodies, and not a single enemy stood tall.
Maki exhaled sharply, flicking the blood from her blade. Behind her, Mai fired into the mass of scattered bodies at the slightest hint of a twitch with cold efficiency.
Then for a brief moment, all was still.
Then Mai spoke, breaking the silence. "You're bleeding all over the place, idiot."
Maki huffed in response, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. "It's just a scratch."
Mai snorted. "Yeah? Tell that to the hole in your stomach."
Maki just grinned, ignoring the burning pain. "It's not too big, plus we're not done yet."
"Not if you drop dead and die we're not," Mai bristled. "Come on, let's keep going. Whatever is happening is happening everywhere in the forest. We need to regroup with Mechamaru and Megumi."
Mai began to hurriedly strut forward, her injuries tamer considering how much Maki had held back. Despite the harsh way she spoke and acted, Maki spotted the worried and complicated glance the other girl sent her way every few seconds, and that alone was enough to keep her grin on her face.
They might not be there yet. Their relationship was still a fragile thing, one that had been hurt and broken once, but they had taken the first steps, and that was what mattered.