Satoru Gojo is the pinnacle of strength and standing at the apex of the jujutsu world comes with a price paid in lonely hours and haunting memories.
Not so long ago the now-empty spot beside him was occupied by someone capable of reaching out through Infinity and keeping up with his pace; another name worthy of standing equal to his.
A best friend he killed with his own hands.
The Night Parade of a Hundred Demons happened almost a year ago.
Suguru Geto is supposed to be dead.
--
“So what actually happens when in assumption the body dies, but turns out the soul does not?”
A story about second chances.
[Additional Warnings in Author's Notes]
Chapter 1: One Mind
Notes:
i’ll cut straight to the chase. some of you might be familiar with the title of this work, because i’ve been posting it monthly for half a year before it disappeared a few days ago, along with my account.
i don’t know the cause; whether it’s a result of a spiteful report, a glitch, i have no idea. i e-mailed the ao3 team asking if there is a way to recover a lost work since i knew someone who faced similar issue in the past. we both got a negative answer.
i can’t begin to tell you how devastated i am. as a writer i’m supposed to find the right words, but some situations just leave you speechless. i’ve shed tears while writing this thing. i lost bookmarks, both on my fic and of those that i saved. most importantly, i lost beautiful comments that were my greatest motivation. the frustration that i feel cannot be expressed.
i did make a promise to finish it though. i’m incredibly shattered, but i want to continue. i will post each of already-shared six chapters every week so that hopefully it can regain traction and at least some of my readers can find their way back to it. i made minimal changes in some sentences to make them flow more nicely, but nothing major. i'll have to rewrite some of the author's notes, but everything else stays basically the same, i’m just adding this one to explain the situation.
hopefully i won’t have to go through this again.
see you next time.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
“Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”
– Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
—— ᴑ ——
Over the course of his life he had spent a lot of time thinking about the deaths of others, but gave little thought about his own, except that it was inevitable and fucking nigh.
He always knew he’d go out in battle. That much was certain, crystal clear from the first time he fought a curse. For a jujutsu sorcerer there was hardly any other way. Either being blown to shreds during an encounter with a more hefty spiritual being or, less common but not that surprising, running yourself ragged.
Some couldn’t stand the strain and left. The weaker ones (the wiser ones).
One could assume that dealing with that carnage on a daily basis would serve as a hardening process, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Scars did appear, sometimes ignored, sometimes strenuously concealed up, yet reaching so deep they made bones rattle. So deep he could almost deceive himself into thinking they weren’t there at all, because every time he looked into the mirror he was accustomed to seeing more of a soldier than a mortal man. It was easier to deal with, to swallow another profanity tasting of emesis and feces, if he pretended there wasn’t an issue to begin with.
Children born with innate talent to use cursed techniques were considered competent, eligible, but young minds exposed to so much cruor and cruelty were prone to fracture. That’s just how it was. You were supposed to surround yourself with ironclad walls and keep your fear at bay by any means necessary. Someone had to do the dirty work and if you allowed your qualms to become too loud, if you let your guard down, cracks started to show on barricades and your intricately woven fortress commenced to crumble and you were as good as gone.
