Chapter Text
“When we die, I want to be first.”
The statement startled Gojo, the ease with which the words tumbled from Geto’s mouth contrasted so starkly with the meaning and it left him reeling as he sat up in the bed and looked at his friend.
Geto, for his part, hadn't even bothered to pause the movie nor his snacking, as he chewed on a few popcorn kernels like he hadn't just opened the floodgates to some deep philosophical conversation that Gojo was woefully unprepared to have.
“Okay?” The younger man continued, eyebrow raised as he glanced towards his friend expectantly. Then gave a small smile and nod as Gojo gaped at him, brows furrowed as he processed.
Eventually, Gojo settled on snorting and rolling his eyes. “Yeah, sure Suguru. I'll make sure to get that request in with the cursed spirits.” He offered up finally before muttering under his breath about Geto being weird. The pair continued with the movie like Geto had simply commented on the weather, or made a strange request for dinner.
The statement however continued to bother Gojo through the night. What had brought it on? What had it meant? Most importantly why? And yet, despite his concern and curiosity, he couldn't bring himself to ask. It felt charged, dangerously close to addressing that pointedly unacknowledged current between the two of them. There was the fear that if he started picking at it, the entire thing would unravel.
As it turned out, the whole thing unraveled anyway. Amanai Riko changed everything, and not in the way Gojo had thought she would.
In Okinawa they had once again come dangerously close to opening a box that couldn't be closed again. Geto's fond and concerned look shot across the kitchen as he tried to convince Gojo to get some rest, the assurance that he didn't have to be the pillar for everyone all the time, and that Geto was more than capable of taking watch for one night. It was a fruitless endeavor, and Geto just sighed and shook his head with a disappointed roll of his eyes, trailing a hand across infinity as he passed back out of the kitchen to get some sleep himself, since Gojo refused. “One of these days you're going to run yourself into the ground like this.” He warned before disappearing down the hall. Gojo just laughed obnoxiously and shook his head.
No, instead, Gojo watched as the house of cards fell around him. Pain coursing through his veins like fire as he swam in a pool of his own blood. Honestly, the following day was a blur in his memories. He remembered vaguely the sense of complete euphoria, followed by a hollowness that he wasn't quite sure he could ever forget. The limp body of Amanai Riko cradled in his arms as he carried her away from a building, the sounds of thunderous applause setting his teeth on edge as Geto met him with surprise and something hidden just beneath the surface that Gojo had never seen before. “You’re late Suguru…” he started out dully, before pausing and tilting his head. “Well, actually, I guess you got here pretty quick.” He stated as he approached, the girl in his arms draped in white and heavy in a way she shouldn't have been for such a small frame. “After all, there are several star religious groups in the city.”
“Satoru… is that you…?” Geto’s voice wavered, like he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing, couldn't believe that Gojo was in fact standing before him until he met those tense blue eyes, for once not hidden behind glasses. “... What happened?”
“I see you already saw Shoko.” Whether it was a deliberate side step or just a comment, even Gojo wasn't quite sure, and Geto allowed it.
“Yeah. She was able to heal me. I'm feeling fine again.” He answered cautiously, gaze turning to the body of Amanai in Gojo's arms. “But that doesn't change anything here. Does it.”
There was something in his look that made Gojo want to flinch away from it, truly made him do the unthinkable. “Yeah, I screwed up pretty badly on this one. You're not the one at fault.” He took accountability, credit for all that had gone wrong on this mission and absolved Geto of any responsibility. He couldn't stand the look of guilt on Geto’s face, of sorrow, of that quiet sort of anger that always took Gojo by surprise and confused him. He didn't know what to do with it, how to react when Geto’s anger wasn't directed at him, or at the very least, didn't lead to a fight.
All Geto did was turn on his heel, seemingly ignoring the statement and all that it might have meant. “Let's head back.” and that was that. Like there was nothing left to say or do.
Gojo didn't follow as the applause droned on like the buzzing of flies, it set his nerves on fire and for once, he wasn't quite sure what to do about it. “Suguru!” He called out before offering a long pause. “Should we… kill these guys?” The uncertainty wavered in his voice as he stared on, seeing more than he should and yet nothing at all. “The way I am I doubt I'd feel anything.”
“No.” Geto answered quickly, not bothering to turn around for a moment. “There's no point.” but the words rang hollow as he continued to explain. “It looks like they're only common believers here.” He answered as he turned to face the crowd once more, and Gojo. Who had taken the answer without explanation and passed him. “The higher ups who know about our world have probably fled already.” Gojo wasn't sure if he was explaining for him, or for himself at this point. Wasn't sure it mattered. Geto had said no and that was enough. “And unlike the bounty, they won't be able to talk their way out of this. The organization had problems to begin with. It'll be dissolved soon enough.”
The more he explained though, the less Gojo understood, and he paused once more in the hallway, back to Geto. “No point huh?” He paused, tasting the words and finding them lacking. “Does there really need to be any point to it?” The point was it would make them stop, make the applause stop. The buzzing in his ears. He didn't see the way Geto tensed, his own rage barely concealed under the surface, but he witnessed it nonetheless. He could feel it, just as he always could. Six eyes never let him miss it.
“It's very important that there is.” Geto answered, his convictions and morals warring with that rage. “Especially for a jujutsu sorcerer.”
They didn't talk about it again after that. In fact, they didn't talk much after that. Not until it was too late.
Everything changed. Gojo, having experienced death and found it terrifying, poured everything into getting stronger. Dying had taught him Red, had showed him a vision of Purple, and being ran through had taught him fear. He trained Infinity to be active always, automated what he had once had to do manually and trained his cursed technique to recognize danger regardless of cursed energy. What had been an amble to the top had turned into a sprint for the peak. If he got strong enough, it wouldn't happen again. He would be untouchable, and he'd never have to see that look in Geto’s eyes again.
Geto, for his part, stopped talking to Gojo. Not in totality of course, but there were no more late movie nights, no more quiet asides, or even fights. They were busy, sure. Both of them out more often than they weren't on jobs, and even more rarely back at the same time. But even when they were there, both at the same time, both with some free time, it was like Geto was worlds away, holding Gojo at a distance. Polite answers to questions as he lied through his teeth whenever Gojo questioned him on how he was doing. For all that Gojo played the part well, he wasn't an idiot. He could see the weight loss, the ever deepening circles under Geto’s eyes, the bone deep weariness that seemed to be settling into his friend with a fury. But every time he asked, he was met with easy dismissal and more lies. He didn't know what he'd done to cause this rift until he remembered an old conversation, bizarre and half discarded in the depths of his memory.
“When we die, I want to be first. Okay?” Geto's voice rang clear through his mind. Was that what this was about? Surely it couldn't be. Gojo hadn't actually died, sure. He'd come close, so close even he couldn't tell if on a technicality he had. But he was still here, so it didn't count! Right?
He'd been just about to confront the man about it, demand answers. He missed his friend, and this was slowly killing him. He'd resolved to plead if he had to, show a rare vulnerability that he wasn't certain even Geto had seen of him. He was going to get to the bottom of this. But Geto was gone. He'd gone AWOL. Killed a bunch of people according to the report, and disappeared. Yaga said he killed his parents. And the whole world stopped turning on axis and started freefalling through space.
No, they didn’t talk about it until it was much too late.
“Suguru! Explain yourself!” Gojo shouted across the crowd, the bustling street between them a shield. For who, Gojo wasn’t quite sure. Was it for Geto? To protect him from Gojo’s anger? His mission. Or was it for Gojo, to protect himself from the heartbreak he felt, the pain that nestled itself behind his ribs and made it hard to breathe when Geto was mad at him. Truly mad, as he evidently had been these last few months. This past year maybe? Amanai Riko had changed things, had changed everything, and the man standing before him, his hair left down and free, was as good as a stranger to him.
“You already heard it from Shoko, that’s all there is to it Satoru.” Geto answered, his tone as even as ever, more guarded somehow.
It didn’t make sense. Of course Shoko had explained it, what Geto had told her. But it just didn’t make any sense. ‘The strong exist to protect the weak’, Suguru had insisted, a mantra he had repeated time and time again. That Gojo had fought against for years. ‘It’s important that killing have a point’ he had said, insisted upon when Gojo had wanted to burn the world to the ground. Who was weaker than non-sorcerers? What purpose could this possibly serve? How had they even gotten here? His mind reeled as he tried to make sense of it. Raged as Geto refused to explain it.
“So you’re just going to kill every non-sorcerer?” Gojo cried. “And your parents?”
“I can’t allow my parents to be a special exception. Besides, I don’t consider those people my family anymore.” The words that came from Geto’s mouth carried his tone, his inflection and accent. But they sounded nothing like him. It was the antithesis of everything his friend had ever thought. Had ever believed. Gojo simply couldn’t wrap his head around it. He knew something was wrong. Had known for a while, but Geto had shut himself away. Why had Gojo let him? How had he let it get this bad.
“That’s not what I was asking you!” he finally shouted, rage filling his voice as he refused to close the gap between them. It felt like a wall stood in the way. A ravine, impassible and invisible to anyone but himself. “I thought we weren’t allowed to kill when there’s no point to it!”
“There is a point, and a cause.” Geto answered, and Gojo could hear the start of a fight in his tone. “And significance too”
“No there’s not!” Gojo all but shouted back. Half begging for an explanation. “You’re really going to kill all non Jujutsu sorcerers now?” He questioned, like it was stupid. Which, to be fair, it was. “You know that’s impossible! There’s no point in chipping away at something you can’t possibly achieve.” His own desperation was on full display, his anger, confusion, all of it, as he half flailed about in the busy street. He would have hit someone if it hadn’t been for infinity keeping them all away, a little bubble that no one passed through, all of them avoiding him without even realizing they were doing it.
“You’re so arrogant.” Geto started out, confusing Gojo even more if that were even possible. “You could do it yourself, couldn't you Satoru? Yet you would try to convince someone else that it’s impossible to do something, which is possible for you.”
Gojo wanted to scream, he wanted to cower, he wanted to shake Geto until he saw sense. He was talking nonsense, and even if it was true on a technicality that Gojo could kill all non-sorcerers. Of course he could, it would be a blink, a snap of his fingers and he could rip them all apart on an atomic level. It wouldn’t change anything. More would be born, more would die. What was the point?!
Geto finally turned around, rage in his eyes and something that felt so akin to betrayal that Gojo nearly took a step back. “Do you think you’re the strongest because you’re Satoru Gojo? Or are you Satoru Gojo because you’re the strongest?” The man questioned, leaving Gojo reeling all over again. Confused and lost.
“Just what are you trying to say…” Gojo growled, the statement brushing up against his pride dangerously as he tried to figure out if it was an insult, a question, a statement, and what the hell any of it could possibly mean.
“If I were able to become you for a moment, this foolish ideal would become a lot more grounded and real don’t you think.” Geto’s tone never wavered, hardly a hint of emotion behind it, just cold facts.
Gojo was shocked, staring across the crowd to his once friend with wide eyes and anger, betrayal and loss clear on his face. How had they gotten to this point? How had Geto decided they were so far apart? Were they truly, that far apart?
“I’ve made my decision. Now it’s just a matter of doing the best I can to achieve it.” Geto stated, like he was saying he was going to learn a new language, take some medal in a sport, not commit a genocide, and turned his back on Gojo once more.
It was a breath too long. He knew it would be. Knew he’d be too slow on the uptake as he raised his hands to release his technique, to complete the mission that had been handed to him. But Geto was gone, disappearing into the crowd.
“If you want to kill me then kill me.” his voice rang out, suddenly tired and worn, and Gojo couldn’t. He’d known, somewhere deep down, that he couldn’t long before he’d ever confronted Geto. That if it came down to it, abilities be damned he wouldn’t be able to kill his best friend. His only friend. “There would be a point to that...” His heart broke. Suguru was asking to die. Had this all been his fault? How could he have let this happen? What was the point in being the strongest if you couldn’t even protect your lo- your friend.
Things changed after Geto left. Of course they did. Gojo changed. He’d always held some disdain for the higher ups, the stagnating elders of their world, but as he realized what had happened to Geto, how this had been allowed to happen, all but primed and forced by the elders hands, it slowly turned to contempt and festered into a brewing hatred. He could kill them all, sure. It would mean something, it would have a point and a purpose and significance just like Geto said his did. But it wouldn’t change anything. New idiots would take their place, and teach kids the same idiotic ideologies that they’d been taught, and the cycle would continue in perpetuity. Instead, he followed the morals that his friend had once preached. The same morals that he had loathed once himself. Repeated Geto’s matra so many times it engraved itself in his soul. ‘The strong exist to protect the weak.’ ‘It’s important that killing serve a purpose.’ He became the strongest, reaching the pinnacle of his own abilities, reached heights that the others had never even dreamed of. He did it alone when he should have done it with Geto. He became a teacher at Jujutsu High, the teacher Geto should have been. If the others wouldn’t do it, he’d do it himself. He would change the world from the ground up. Single handedly if he had to. He’d do it for Geto, for Haibara, for Nanami. The system had failed more people than it had helped, and Gojo had learned how to rebuild it. It started with future generations.
It started with Fushiguro Megumi, with not letting a 6 year old boy be sold off to the Zen’in clan. Not letting whatever youth the boy had left be stolen by a cruel life for his bloodline and potential. It started with not letting anyone go through what his generation had. No more star plasma vessels, no more Haibara Yus, no more Geto Sugurus or Nanami Kentos, no more Gojo Satorus. No more dead children, no more pushed past their limit teens, no more idols and pedestals and crushing expectations. He couldn’t give them a normal life, but he could try. He would try. He wouldn’t let anything steal youth from young people.
In the end, he wasn’t sure it was going to mean anything as he saw Geto stumble down the alleyway at Jujutsu High, Hair loose and skin stained a deep red, muttering to himself about Rika and next time before collapsing against the wall holding his shoulder like it would fall off if he didn’t.
“You’re late again as usual, Satoru.” The man sighed with a smile as he slid down the wall, collapsing to his knees.
Gojo had never seen him so worn down, so resigned and yet so… Happy wasn’t quite the word for it, but the man seemed oddly at peace.
“To think you’d be the one here at my end.”
As if he could be anywhere else. As if this hole that had been left in his life, this pressure beneath his ribs that never abated, not with time or distance, could ever let him be anywhere else.
“Are you going to make sure my family is safe?”
“Every last one of them managed to escape to safety.” Gojo offered with furrowed brows, though a tightness in his throat made it hard to get the words out. “The ones in Kyoto, they were under your command?” He knew the answer already of course. He didn’t have to ask, but he didn’t know what else to say at the end of it all.
“Yes. They all were.” Geto answered, resting his head back against the wall as he finally looked up at the man before him, “I’m a kind person unlike you, Satoru. You sent those two assuming that I’d defeat them, didn’t you? To set Okkotsu off.”
He wasn’t wrong, Gojo had done that. But there was more to it, and at the end. Geto deserved to know the truth. “I trusted you to be yourself.” He offered up with half a shrug, like it was obvious. “I trusted that a man with beliefs like yours, wouldn’t kill off a young sorcerer without reason…” He hadn’t been wrong. It brought both relief and grief in their own rights. Somewhere in there, buried deep behind convictions and personas, Geto was still the boy he’d known.
“Trust huh?” Geto answered with a half hollow laugh. “I didn’t think I had any of that left in me, after everything I’ve been through.” His voice was tired and tight, and Gojo didn’t need Six Eyes to understand what it meant. “Return this for me will you?” He offered, tossing a small card Gojo’s way.
It was Okkotsu’s school ID, it’d been misplaced in his first fight. “Was the elementary school your doing too?” Again, Gojo knew the answer. He didn’t need to ask, and perhaps he was just stalling for time in doing so.
“It was.” The soft smile never left his face.
“I can’t believe you…” Gojo just sighed and stared at the man for a long moment. “Tell me, do you have any last words?” The statement tore his heart to pieces anew, but he had a duty, and Geto would die with or without his interference. Better here and now, by the hand of a friend, then later by the hands of the elders.
“No matter what anyone tells you, I hate those monkeys.” Geto started out, and for once Gojo couldn’t question the statement. “But. I never held any hatred for those at Jujutsu High School. I just couldn’t wear a heartfelt smile, while living in this world.”
Gojo believed him. He knew, he understood, he had for a while now. He’d figured it out, pieced together the puzzle that had been left in the wake of everything and he finally got why Geto had done what he had, how he’d been pushed to those limits and beyond. A world without non-sorcerers was a world without curses, and in a world without curses, sorcerers didn’t die fighting them. There would have been no need for the star plasma vessel. No loss like they had experienced. They could have just been normal kids. But he found he didn’t have the words to express that. “Suguru…” was what he ended up settling on. Just the man’s name, as he stepped forward and crouched before his old friend. “I love you…”
Geto didn’t bother to hide his shock before all but blushing, turning away with the most genuine smile Gojo had seen on his face in a while. Since before Amanai Riko. “The least you could do is curse me in the end.” His voice cracked and he sounded like he couldn’t quite get enough air to talk.
“Love is the most twisted curse of all. You should know that better than anyone, Suguru.” Gojo answered softly, the man’s chest stilling before he’d even finished his sentence.
As it turned out, that was truer than anyone could have expected, and Gojo’s love cursed Geto. It cursed them all, and doomed the world.