Archive of Our Own ^beta

Gojo Satoru is many things.

The strongest sorcerer of his age. A teacher. The head of the Gojo clan. The holder of six eyes.
A weapon.

 Satoru is many things but he’s never been just human.

The entire Gojo clan was outranked when Gojo Satoru was born. Satoru came into this world with a piercing cry, pale and gleaming with blood. (Is it ironic or just tragic that's how he will leave this world too?) They say the earth trembled and the morning sky was bathed in purple light when he was pushed from his mothers womb. When Satoru opened his eyes for the first time, the clan cried tears of joy and relief for no one had seen eyes like that in four centuries but his mother wept with grief. 

(2000; six years before Satoru attends Jujutsu High School.)

The world burst into a cacophony of sound like the popping of a bubble. Satoru’s head pounded like a dirge, he tried to open his mouth to scream but his body wouldn't move. He couldn’t move his hands or even work his throat to scream. He couldn’t even blink. Invisible chains ripped into his skin causing angry raw welts.
Satoru was kneeling in an open field, his eyes burned and body ached. The sun was harsh and burned at the pale skin his mother had worked so hard to keep pure. For as long as Satoru could remember he was above everyone else, he was a walking example of Jujutsu perfection.

Perfection doesn’t have bruised knees or red chapped skin.

“Look at Satoru Gojo, bound and bleeding under the sun like a prisoner, tch.” the man sneered. “We waited four hundred years for you.” The man stretched his arms over his head, blocking the sun from Satoru’s eyes for one brief moment. “You don’t get to disappoint.” Those words rang in Satoru’s ears. It was a sentiment that had been repeated again and again by the clan.

The cursed energy of this man was familiar, like a book in his family’s library he had been forced to read and once he finished, he immediately forgot everything but the cover. Tall. Young. Pale hair too muddied with blond to be considered pure white. Eyes brown and plain. Forgettable and in the Gojo clan it’s one of the worst things you can be.

“You can see me,” the man snapped. Cursed energy flared like a wildfire and with a crossing of fingers, energy condensed into a sheer red orb in his hand. “So why can't you stop me!?” The red energy blasted into the earth beneath Satoru’s feet in a crash that ripped the earth open. Satoru trembled. Shrapnel spewed from the earth, blooding and bruising his body further.
“Why are you doing this to me!?” Satoru cried, his voice breaking with fear. His parents would never allow this. The clan would never hurt him.
“I told you. You don’t get to disappoint Satoru. I’m going to keep hurting you until you stop me.” The man stalked up to Satoru and gripped his chin harshly and leaned down. “Tch. You know, I almost feel bad for you but then I remember all the times the clan used me to learn about Limitless. Hurt me. Tied me up. Used me for research. All so they could learn more to help train you.” The man’s fist came down imbued with cursed energy and blasted it into Satoru’s stomach, his breath was pulled from his lungs and mixed into the morning air.

Fear pumped through Satoru’s veins.

“Come on, don’t be shy.” The man pulled back and watched him with his head cocked.  “Show me your red boy.”

The invisible cursed chains around his hands dropped, the binding around his mouth dissolved and he could finally open his mouth. The rest of Satoru’s body was still bound, blood dripped off his pale fingers onto the grass with a soft plunk. Satoru gasped and coughed up bloody spittle. The world blurred but Six Eyes kept him from truly being able to block it all out. “You can't do this to me! I’m special,” Satoru pleaded or cried. The difference was lost on him.

“Who’s going to stop me? You?” the man laughed and shook his head, sighing. “I’m waiting! If you can't stop me, a lowly pawn with half a technique, how are you going to protect the world? Bad things are waking up Satoru. Your time is up.” Cursed energy converged and plummeted into his chest—just before the cursed blow could land, cursed energy welled up inside Satoru’s core and with a crossing of his finger, a small blue orb appeared. Satoru connected himself and the tree behind him, together to pull him away from this place but his blue was shattered by a blast of red cursed energy.
“I said show me your red!” the man roared as he rained down blows.  “Where is all your power? What use are your precious eyes if you can't even stop me. Pathetic.”
Satoru felt like his body was splitting apart. Hot tears poured down his face, otherworldly eyes able to see everything and stop nothing. “I’m trying! I am,” Satoru cried. “The clan said I’m not ready, that my body needs to catch up to my brain,” he tried to explain to this man. “I won't disappoint. I am going to be the strongest!”

“You think you get a break cause you’re small? Tch. You’re even more spoiled than I thought Satoru,” the man said his name like it left a bad taste in his mouth. “I told them all that they were too soft with you. Treated you too preciously, because do not forget just like me you are made to be used.”
The sun burned red into Satoru’s skin. “I’m going to make sure you never forget this lesson.” The man was holding something in his hand, it burned with cursed energy, roiling like angry snakes. The man grabbed Satoru’s arm ripping at his sleeve to expose untouched skin and unceremoniously pressed the cursed object into his skin.

Satoru's skin burned and he could see it before he could feel it.
The horrid cursed energy ripped through his cells. Dark energy flooded his every synapses. Pain came second to the knowledge of what was happening but once the pain started it didn’t end. Not until the world blurred into a blissful darkness and with it the pain finally blurred as well.

Satoru woke up in darkness.
His skin burned and Satoru stared at his ruined branded shoulder, covered with white bandages. The room was flooded with cursed energy, covering the floor like hungry dogs waiting to devour him. Water and a hot assortment of savory smelling food laid across the room, steam pillowing into the cold air. The only thing keeping Satoru from jumping up and devouring the food was the sea of cursed energy between him and the food. It seeped into the cold wood floors like a poison. Everything he could see was swimming in cursed energy like the strawberry soaked cakes Mioka brought him on Sunday’s.

The room was bland but sleek. Hard wood floors and dark walls, a single bed with a table across the room. The food taunted him. Moonlight cast a stray beam of light, severing the darkness like a blade. Satoru was on the bed with his knees pulled to his chest, so he dropped a leg and reached out his foot until his toe pushed over the edge—cursed energy surged and he ripped his leg back quickly. Gurgling echoed through the silent room and hunger clawed at Satoru’s stomach, his head pounded and his eyes ached. Satoru wanted to go home. He couldn’t stop staring at the sea of curses waiting at the foot of the bed. Every facet of their energy laid bare to him and it overwhelmed him.

It drained him.

Satoru always wore glasses ever since his older sister Mioka (who’s five years older than him) had come home from school late with her hands clasped behind her back. Satoru was glowering, slumped over a cushioned chair with a platter of mochi balanced on his stomach. Mioka brandished a rectangular box wrapped in intricate dragonfly paper, topped with a perfect red origami rabbit and a violet iris. “I got these for you Satoru,” her voice was high and breathy with excitement.
“You’re late,” Satoru whined through a mouthful of seasonal grape mochi, a headache drumming harshly at the back of his skull as he bit into the soft purple treat. “I had to go to the shrines with Touma-san instead of you and he never lets me take snacks in the car,” he grumbled, ignoring his sister’s brown eyes.
“Don’t be grumpy Sato! I brought you a present, that's why I was late, silly,” Mioka giggled. “I heard the clan talking about it and well I know you’re particular about these kinds of things so I got you a special pair from France before they could get you something ugly.”

That caught Satoru’s attention.

Satoru sat up and sat the platter on the table beside him, shoving a mochi in his mouth, he grabbed the intricately wrapped present. Mioka was obsessed with origami and she left animals and flowers in his clothes pockets for him to find. Satoru pulled open the golden ribbon holding the rabbit and iris in place and promptly ripped the dragonfly paper open. Revealing a mustard yellow box with LV embossed on top, greedily he opened the box to reveal another box—huffing with the delay he opened the box. A shining pair of glasses glinted in the light, sleek frames with a line of gold and a LV at the hinges. The lenses were pitch black and round like the mochi’s he was just stuffing his face with. Satoru paused and looked at the glasses in a perfect box surrounded with ripped paper and to his sister and back again. “Well?” she questioned. “Do you like them!?”
“They’re so cool,” he breathed.
“Oh good! I had them specially made for you,” Mioka gushed and sat down on the floor and took a mochi from the platter. “Dad took me to the city to order them a month ago. I’ve been so anxious keeping this from you Sato! It’s going to make your head feel better and it’s going to make you look so cool,” she professed before popping the whole mochi in her mouth and smiled at the flavor.
He picked them up excitedly and placed them on his face ceremoniously. “Be my mirror, how do I look?”
“Like one of those Hollywood actors in spy movies.”
“Cool.”

The door slammed open and pulled Satoru from his thoughts of home, why hasn’t anyone come for him? He’s special and they’re letting him be hurt in a boring room no less.
“Tch. Your food is getting cold, Sato.”
“Don’t call me that!” “I’ll call you whatever I want until you can stop me Sato.” Satoru’s blue eyes watered as they glared viciously at the man holding him prisoner. Cursed energy welled up in Satoru’s core, his fingers crossed, a piercing blue orb appeared and all the curses pummeled to the void space left by the technique. “Tch. Even I can do that but I’m happy to know you’ll be eating dinner tonight.”
“You can’t keep me here! The clan is going to look for me,” Satoru screeched, his throat raw with anxiety.
“Of course they will, you are their greatest asset after all,” the man said simply. “I’m counting on it actually.”
“What do you want from me!”
“You just don’t listen do you? I told you. You are going to be here until you stop me,” the man spoke with a hard look in his eyes. “You have no choice but to be the strongest Gojo Satoru."

Satoru stayed in that room for three days before the man opened the door, revealing a long hallway of closed doors. The man was holding a stack of dark folded clothes. “Get dressed.” And with that he dropped the clothes onto the floor, the stack of clothes slumped messily over the curse stained floor. He stared at the pile of cloth and decided at that very moment he would refuse to adorn his body with clothes so sullied and ugly.

No.

He’d rather wear the clothes his mother had picked out for him and Mioka had placed a red origami rabbit in the chest pocket of his jacket. Even though his clothes were crunchy with blood and dirt and his sleeve was ripped off. They were still his. He used a weak technique of blue to scatter the clothes down the long dark hallway and slumped back onto the bed, climbing under the thin covers.
Satoru was so cold.

Satoru knew his parents loved him.
They told him such, at least once a day but then it was almost always followed up by a new requirement of his training. Or that he was to see another specialist because his headaches were keeping him from being able to attend his lessons. So he had learned to be weary when he heard those three words. There was always a condition attached to love that left a sick feeling in his stomach and Satoru hated feeling sick.

“Get up and get dressed.”
“No.” Satoru glared at the man standing in the doorway.  “No?”
“No,” Satoru confirmed with conviction.
“I thought you were smarter than this Sato,” the man drawled as he rolled his shoulders.
“You’re just a failed me,” Satoru snapped. “You're jealous I’m better than you and I’m only eleven!”

A red orb flared into existence and shattered the bed from underneath Satoru, leaving him bruised on hard splintered wood.

The man ripped Satoru from his room with a weak tethering of blue. The impact was thwarted by Satoru’s own blue but he was so, so tired from his exposed Six Eyes that he still crashed into the floor instead of the glass window he was rushing towards. He groaned from the impact and glared at the man leaning against the doorframe.
“You’re going outside.”
“You can't make me!” Satoru yelled petulantly even though he knew the truth.
“Tch. Are you certain of that Sato?” The man pushed off the door and walked leisurely down the hallway. “Are you ready to stop me yet?”

Satoru raged.
He screamed and ripped at his hair, his voice pierced his eardrums and the cursed energy flared in the room dangerously. Hot tears poured down his face as Satoru wailed like the child he was.

Light pierced Satoru’s eyes harshly. The field was green, the grass billowed softly in the wind like a scene from those Studio Ghibli movies Mioka loved so much. Satoru was laying at the edge of the field, a forest of ancient gnarled Yakusugi trees behind him. The man was sitting in the grass beside him. “What a dishonor to inherit Limitless,” the man snorted with a hollow laugh. “To be forced to wield half a technique.” The man seemed to pause like he was tasting the words that were coming out. “…The clan told me I’d been born to further a great power and with my body and my talent, they would be able to learn how to better train you,” the man confessed with a slumping of his shoulders. “When the clan asked, my parents gave me up like I was nothing. I tried to convince myself my entire life that if I just worked hard enough I’d be able to make my power my own. I’d show them all that I’m more than a body to be studied.”

Satoru couldn’t explain the sinking feeling in his stomach at the man’s words.

The man leaned back onto his elbow and looked up to the sky. “Ugh. I was convinced I would unlock the secret of Limitless with my intelligence and unfettering hard work. Because the world can’t hate me that much to have given me this ability and no way to overcome it, right?” He looked down to Satoru like he might have the answer. Almost hopeful. “Tch. I told myself so many pretty lies only for it to turn out that they were all right. Limitless is limited and I am just a stepping stone to the monument of strength you will become.”

The man made him train. Everyday. Until he was trembling and his body was worn out beyond any movement from the constant use of cursed energy.
Satoru would cry himself to sleep. He would cry so much that the man had started leaving fresh pitchers of water by his bed at night. He had never felt so lonely and hurt and confused. Because sometimes the man would speak and it felt like he was pulling words from Satoru’s very soul.

Satoru’s branded shoulder was starting to heal. The man had applied ointments and bandages deftly but refused to acknowledge Satoru’s whining while he did so. “My mother is going to have a heart attack. All her hard work ruined. Im ruined!” Satoru bellowed and tears started prickle in his aching eyes.
“A scar is not ruination but it is a reminder.”
“Of what? That I’m ugly now.”
“It’s a reminder that even with all your gifts and all your talent you are not invincible Sato. It is better to learn that lesson early on.”

Satoru had hated everything he was experiencing with all his might, so how could he feel a kinship to the man?
He hated the pain. Hated the bland walls and the hard floor he had to sleep on for the first few nights he was here. He hated the clothes he was forced to wear. He hated the smell. He hated the unrelenting training and he especially hated the lectures. The man was surprisingly conversational and with no other entertainment or stimulation Satoru was forced to listen.

If Satoru secretly started to understand some of what the man was actually saying, he’d never say so out loud. And if the way the clan treated the man had turned his stomach and twisted his brain into knots that was only for him to know.

Satoru woke up to a sweet smell. His body was so sore from training that even the man had relented yesterday to let him rest. Satoru wouldn’t admit it out loud but he had actually been improving. His understanding of Limitless was expanding. He was getting stronger. The strain of his body was still there but he felt more controlled and the idea of getting better, stronger. That excited Satoru. Lifting his head from his crumpled pillow, he opened his eyes to a heart stopping sight.

Sitting on the table gleaming in the morning light laid a perfect slice of strawberry pound cake and folded beside the plate were his glasses—Satoru burst from the bed in a tangle of covers and ran to the table—staring down he reached out reverently, afraid they would disappear. Cool metal touched his fingertips and he surged to grab them and placed them on his face.
Finally.

The world around him softened. Tears poured down his face as he stuffed the strawberry cake into his mouth. Giggling through syrup soaked bites. Satoru’s fingers were sticky and his face was hot with tears but he actually felt happy for a moment.
Honestly he’s been thinking and the clan doesn’t have to know who kidnapped him. Satoru could easily just say he had never seen anyone. He doesn’t like the man but he couldn’t help feeling that he didn’t want to see what the clan would do to him if they ever found out.
Hadn’t the clan done enough to the man? Satoru thought so.

The field was bathed in red light not from a cursed technique but from the setting sun. Satoru dodged the fist coming for his chest— he couldn’t use blue, he was too drained. The man’s fist only just missed his body.
Satoru panted and held up a hand in the air. “Stop! I’m t-too tired.”
“Really Sato? You did so much better yesterday.”
“I had cake yesterday!”
“You can’t rely on cake to win.”
“It helps!”

Time had a funny way of blurring.

Satoru had started to look forward to the next day. He could feel excitement building inside him when he finally understood what he was being asked to do. He loved getting better, getting stronger. He had never really cared all that much for his teachers before. They were boring. They never pushed him. They never made him think.

Satoru is a light sleeper, so the sound of his door opening woke him up immediately. “Sato, I know you’re awake,” the man implored while leaning up against his open door.
Satoru glared and whinged. “Who’s fault is that? I just barely fell asleep.”
“I want to tell you something,” the man said seriously.
“Can’t it wait til training?” Satoru asked grumpily.
“…No.”
“It better be interesting,” Satoru huffed.

“I am sorry Sato,” the man confessed. “And I’m even more sorry that the only way I knew how to teach you was to hurt you. I have failed you in every way.”

“No wait! What are you doing?” Satoru cried confusedly. “Why are you saying this?” He scrambled to his knees, the sheets catching his legs in tangles. “—My name is Gojo Takahiro and I’m twenty one years old. I have a little sister and a baby brother who I love more than anything. I can never atone for what I’ve done, you are more than a weapon, Sato. I am sorry I treated you like one.”

“What are you doing?! Stop it,” Satoru screamed. “I don’t want to hear this.”

“I-I am happy I got to meet you,” Takahiro spoke softly. “You are going back home Sato.”
“No I’m not,” Satoru huffed.
“Yes you are.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“.”
“Tch. I want you to remember my name, okay,” Takahiro huffed. “The clan will tell you a lot of things about me when you return but I need you to remember what I just said to you. I am truly sorry.”
“I don’t have to tell the clan anything! They don’t need to know, y-you can just go somewhere else! I won't tell them anything,” Satoru promised, pleaded.
“Sato, they already know that's why I’m here. I thought we’d have more time and I could explain but…” Takahiro's brown eyes looked into his. “I'm out of time.”
“I don—” Cursed energy detonated in the room like a bomb. In a blink of an eye the world devolved into chaos. The clan was here. Takahiro smiled. “It was always going to end like this, Sato.”

He watched in horror as a blade imbued with cursed energy burst through Takahiro’s chest— a splatter of warm blood burned Satoru’s skin.

“Oh, Satoru! We finally found you! Are you okay?”