renascence

SUMMARY

Geto Suguru dies twice; Gojo Satoru exploits a technicality.

NOTES

i wrote this while listening to JANE DOE by kenshi yonezu non-stop. enjoy!

See the end of the work for more notes.

You remember.

The boy in the stolen ID card could be you, eleven years ago. Young, naive, cursed with a fate he didn’t ask for. You flip the plastic between your fingers, the words special grade catching your eye.

You remember: you were once called that. A title worn by gods among sorcerers. It was springtime then, the warmth of the sun perfect for a walk amidst the blooming sakura trees, petals falling in slow spirals, catching in your hair.

He once told you, “If she says no, the whole thing gets called off.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

You laughed, incredulous about the idea, but there’s an exhilaration to it, too. The mere possibility of seizing control, even a fraction, felt intoxicating. He had always possessed this talent, you realised (as if he hadn’t enough already), for making the impossible seem inevitable. For making you want things you should not want. You told him, “If you decide that on your own, it might mean you have to fight Tengen.”

He looked at you over the rims of his glasses with those half-lidded eyes, brilliant in all its arrogance, its allure, and said, “What, you scared?” Your scowl must have been answer enough, because he grinned, wide and infuriating. “It’ll be fine, Suguru. It’ll all work out somehow.”

The words of a man who bent the world to his will.

And you believed it, too. You two were the strongest, after all.

You left, and still, you believe it; believe those words, cling onto them for dear life, white-knuckled around the memory of that grin, because you would be dead otherwise.

All Riko ever wanted was to be the Star Plasma Vessel. Her unbidden destiny was all she knew, and she lived it with an ambitious delight. Until she realised there was a life out of this, a brief glimpse into normalcy you’ve given her — you remember it well, that moment. The image of it seared onto the back of your eyelids, impossible to blink away.

Once you taste freedom, a reality outside fate, you can’t pretend ignorance again. That terrible, terrifying knowledge will haunt you, stuck in the back of your throat like a curse you can’t swallow, a hunger that can’t be sated.

Weren’t you the same? Blissful in your repressed ignorance?

It sickens you, using her memory like this. To twist it into permission you were never given. She died, never having this choice you now reach for. What right do you have to take it for yourself?

And yet.

You once decided to defy the world for the sake of one girl’s freedom.

It sickens you, more than the bilious curses you devour, more than the grotesque theatre of your technique. But survival is no longer optional. You must live. For your sorcerer family who needs you. For Mimiko and Nanako. How can you liberate them while you remain fettered in a cage of your own making?

Perhaps, it is time for another girl’s freedom.

It turns out freedom looks like a tiny, little, red thing; a drop of blood on your palm. Red like the power to repel, like the power to heal. With a glass of water and a gulp, it should slide down your throat, easier than the curses you swallow.

But your mouth is dry. The little thing rests alien on your tongue, dry and heavy and bitter. Just do it, you think, but the glass of water is too distant, and all at once you’re Tantalus, reaching for receding fruit. Counting down: one, two, three, and: curl your tongue back to your throat, launching it like a catapult. Swallow. The poor thing’s stuck, and that familiar, rising bile makes you want to hurl. Hand on mouth, breathe through your nose, keep it down, and swallow.

Down it goes.

Then: up, up, up. Hand on mouth, breathe through your nose, run to the sink, and heave. Purge yourself, like you always do, and what you expel this time is a tsunami of black ooze, searing your guts, throat, mouth. You heave again, a film of tears in your eyes, and it feels never-ending, a monumental task to regurgitate yourself: a lifetime of pretence.

Worse than swallowing curses, you think.

But you’d choose it every time.

The Six Eyes don’t lie. Even obscured, I recognise you. Your body. Your cursed energy, that signature I could pick out of a lineup of a thousand sorcerers. Strutting along the grounds of Jujutsu Tech like you’re on a Sunday stroll, with your so-called family trailing behind, as though there isn’t a directive to execute you. As though you belong here still. Smiling coyly as you take my student’s hands in yours — both of them, very sincere, very touching — and I can practically see you spinning your recruitment pitch. As though he’d go with you.

I step in. Obscured, I sense you. You nod and wave at me, tilt your head and leer with that haughty grin — your grin, the one that used to mean challenge and camaraderie in equal measure. And as I get closer, I sense something more, something different threading through your cursed energy. A dissonant note in a familiar melody. A beautiful yet deranged stranger. Not the Suguru I know, and yet, here you are, declaring war, and my heart sinks.

Ten years of this charade we’ve been playing, and now it ends.

It’s the 24th of December, and your appointed executioner arrives. What awful timing you have.

What awful timing I have, to be late. Ten years late, but who’s counting?

You slump against the alley wall, with your arm plowed through, blood dripping in steady rivulets, and I think: you look like the man who killed me. The thought of what I have to do now, what I’ve always known I’d have to do, kills me. The least I can do is look you in the eye.

The world slows down to a fraction of a second as I take you in. Six Eyes, unimpeded: not the murky, self-devouring storm I watched walk away, but swathes of incandescent cursed energy, radiant and defiant and alive, even in your final moments. And I realise: you’re different. The Six Eyes don’t lie — never have, can’t start now — and it tells me it’s your body, your cursed energy, but I see you, see that unmistakable dissonance encompassing your deteriorating figure. The breathtaking incandescence of a supernova. Not the Geto Suguru I knew, but a devastatingly beautiful stranger. A beautiful stranger and a handsome old friend, simultaneously, impossibly, in the same bleeding body.

You flinch when I look at you. I know what you’re thinking: that you’d rather suffer my rage and hatred than this awe, this breathless wonder. But what rage? What hatred? You won’t find it, because it was never there. Not then, and not now. Ten years ago, I let you walk away. I was a coward then, a weakling who didn’t have the strength to destroy you. Ten years later, and I’m stronger than I’ve ever been, the strongest there is, really, and look at me, still making the same damn choice.

The directive was clear: execute Geto Suguru, the worst curse user. But technicalities are such beautiful things, aren’t they?

So. Here’s one last charade, for you:

“Any last words, Geto Suguru?”

You scowl; there it is: the hatred you’d braced for. “Don’t call me that.”

I sigh, hating myself for it, but I repeat the question: “Any last words before your death, Geto Suguru?”

The light dawns on your face. A glimmer of hesitation, of unbelief. Then, clearing your throat: “I regret nothing.”

Reaching out, killing Infinity, my hand on your bloody cheek. And you lean into it, pressing into my palm, mouth parting on a shuddering breath that shouldn’t do what it does to me. Your surrender blurs my vision, (Six Eyes still crystal clear; human eyes, not so much) and the final, remaining threads of my restraint crumbles: my arms around you, feeling viscid fabric and cool skin, my breath ghosting your neck, and the tremor betraying my voice in the most mortifying way: “I wish I had more time with you. You, like this.”

Gently, you push me away, laughing, and oh, there’s that lovely flush in your cheeks. “You should at least curse me a little, in the end.”

I smile. “There’d be no point to it.”

Your mirth fades, lips quivering, a minute detail, and I know you’ve caught it; you hate when I use your words, your philosophy, against you. My hypocrite.

But the thing is, I am one, too.

My body moves on its own, leaning in, my thumb wiping away tears and blood on your lip, my eyebrows posing a question, one I should’ve asked long before you left. You nod in answer, and I’m grinning like an idiot, frantic, ten years of want propelling me forward until I taste the blood in your mouth and it’s perfect. Your hand grasping my neck, my hand sweeping away the hair sticking to your jaw, cradling you. A groan and a whimper, unsure whose it came from, unconcerned with propriety, uncaring of anything but this.

The Six Eyes tell me you’re Geto Suguru, but when I pull away, I see someone different.

“From now on, Geto Suguru is dead. What should I call you?”

You take a deep breath, and answer: “Sumika. Call me Sumika.”

NOTES

estrogen would save her fr. also imagine my surprise when i looked up “sumika” (from ao no sumika) and found out it was not just a name, but a feminine name. it’s canon.

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