Chapter Text
The world was impossibly bright, colors blending into each other like the information endlessly flowing into his brain all at once.
He stumbled, fell.
The ground has never felt more warm.
“Satoru!”
He deserved some rest.
—
“Sensei!”
Where.. am I?
“Gojo-sensei!!”
He couldn’t see anything again, save for the familiar pools of cursed energy swirling around. There were three people in front of him— no wait, four. Is that a panda?
“Satoru!”
A talking panda?
“Sorry?” He blurted out, utterly disoriented.
Did they just call him sensei?
“Are you okay?”
He instinctively jumped away from the voice’s source, sensing an overwhelming amount of cursed energy surrounding him. In contrast, one of them had no cursed energy at all and the alleged panda had three different energy signatures in its body.
“Of course!” He answered immediately out of habit, and under the suspicion that he was not supposed to be here. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because you suddenly froze in the middle of the lesson. Are you just messing with us again?” The girl with no cursed energy asked.
“Okaka,” the other student (if he’s a teacher, then they’re definitely his students) muttered, and Gojo could almost feel the energy lying dormant in the tone of his voice.
Eh, still not the weirdest dream he’s had. Yet, at least.
“Yeah, I think so too.” The sweet boy with an abnormally terrifying aura stood up, and suddenly, his hand was filled with warmth. “I’ll call Shoko-san, you stay put okay, sensei? Wow, you’re probably right, Inumaki. His hands are really cold.”
Inumaki.
“Shake.”
“Pfft. Can he even get sick?”
“C’mon, Maki, of course he can.”
Maki.
“He’s human like us, you know?”
Human, huh?
“Tell me that again after seeing him on a mission, Yuuta.”
Yuuta.
“Satoru, are you really alright?” The panda asked him again, still the only one who used his first name. He wondered what kind of relationship he had with him.
On a more pressing note, however, he needed to find out his name first.
He felt the temperature of the room, noticing the subtle smell of the sun.
“Ah, yeah. It’s probably just the summer heat,” he lied. “Thanks..”
Fudge. What else was he supposed to call him?
“Panda.”
A brief silence filled the air, not an uncomfortable one, though. That, for starters, was new. Nothing like the quiet, empty temples he called home.
“If you say so.” Panda leaned out of the doorway. “Oi, Okkotsu!! Come back! Satoru says he’s fine.”
Gojo inwardly sighed in relief.
“Hah. Told you he was just messing with us,” Maki crossed her arms, smirking. “So, you gonna continue the lesson or are you going to send us to train again?”
“Uh...”
He glanced at the blackboard behind him, recognizing most of the equations scribbled here and there.
It was a good thing Satoru actually did his homework. His physics ones, at least.
“Where’d I stop?” He asked, playing it off.
“Tuna, tuna.” Inumaki gestured towards the right side of the board. Gojo didn’t miss the way he glanced at Yuuta when he came back in.
“Mhm! Anyway, going back to acceleration...”
His thoughts flew as he resumed the discussion, capable of discussing the topic in his sleep, settling on one fact above everything else.
What were the odds?
His name was actually Panda.
—
“Sensei, did I do something wrong?”
“Hmm? No, why?”
“I feel like you’ve been avoiding me lately,” Yuuta frowned, turning his gaze to his feet as they walked. “Was it because I slipped during training yesterday? I’m sorry, I’ll try to do better—“
Man, was he a bad teacher. Or rather, bad at acting as one.
He just couldn’t seem to relax with such an ominous presence looming over them whenever the black-haired boy was around.
“I’m sorry. It wasn’t your fault at all, Yuuta. I’ve just been.. kinda out of sorts, recently.”
“Huh? Why?”
This was a really long dream. Guess I’ll be staying here for a while.
Can’t go worrying the kids.
“Eh, ‘s nothing! I just don’t want you to get hurt again. Why don’t you start training with me instead of Maki tomorrow?”
“Really?” Yuuta beamed, the dark cloud following him pausing as he stopped. “But aren’t you like, super busy?”
“Nah, it’s good. I can handle it.”
He paused.
“After all, I’m the strongest.”
Huh. Where’d that come from?
Wherever it did, it somehow felt..
Right.
“Yeah, yeah. I know, sensei. Good night!” Okkotsu waved at him as he headed for the dorms, the katana slung across his back bouncing with each step. “See you for training tomorrow!”
He looked up at the dorms. They seemed very familiar.
“See you, Yuuta-kun!”
—
Gojo put down the students’ individual profiles as someone walked into the room, hoping that he had the permission to take it from the file safe.
“Didn’t you already read through all of that at the start of the year, Satoru?”
Yaga. Finally, someone he recognized.
“Yeaaaaaaaaaaah...? Though I might’ve missed something, sensei.” He shrugged. “I just wanted to be sure.”
Yaga furrowed his brows at him. “You just wanted to be sure?”
“Yep!” Satoru scanned Yuuta’s report again, thinking out loud. “Hm. So he’s a Special Grade. Rika.. oh. No wonder. That makes sense.”
“Satoru,” Yaga cut him off.
“Yeah, sensei?” He said, bandages looped around his throat as his eyes danced along the text, swaying from side to side.
Sensei. Uncertainty. Exposed eyes.
“Do you need a break?”
“What for?”
Maybe the students were wrong, after all.
“Ah, never mind,” Yaga exhaled. “Just remember to put them back this time, okay?”
Gojo gave him a sharp salute. “Hai, sensei! You got it!”
Yaga paused as he reached the door, turning around slightly. He rubbed the back of his neck, a small smile gracing his stoic face.
“Uh, Satoru?”
“Mm?” Gojo hummed.
“I’m glad to know you still see me as your teacher after all these years.”
Gojo stopped himself from saying, but you are?
“I mean you could be strict at times but I’m pretty sure we’re even after everything, sensei,” he said, thinking about all the times he and Suguru—
Wait, where was Suguru?
“Hah. Well I’ll be damned,” Yaga chuckled. Gojo Satoru, apologizing?
“Ieiri wanted to see you, by the way. Maybe you could pass by the morgue before leaving for your next mission?”
“What? Oh, okay.”
Yaga sighed with a little laugh, shaking his head.
“Take care, Satoru.”
Where was he?
“You too, sensei.”
—
Satoru made quick work of the stairs leading to the dark hallway, skipping up the steps.
A morgue? Since when did we have a morgue?
He followed Shoko’s residuals, stopping in front of a stained, white door. He gulped.
This must be it, then.
“Shoko—?”
“Gojo. Finally,” she said, arms half buried in someone’s digestive tract. “Woah, are you okay?”
He held a hand up to his mouth as he gagged, bile rising up his throat. He swallowed it down, trying not to look at the other bodies around them.
“I’m fine,” he replied once he stopped feeling like throwing up, which took longer than he’d like to admit. He knew Shoko was a healer but how could she possibly handle that many
He doubled over, breath hitching.
Right. Don’t think about the bodies.
“Have you been staying up again? You know I can see your eyebags without the bandages.” Shoko took off her gloves, pushing a chair towards him.
He gratefully slumped into it, willing the room to stop spinning. “Yeah,” he answered. It was true, anyway.
“Wow.” His eyes widened as Shoko suddenly leaned forward, staring at him. “I haven’t seen those bad boys in a while. What’s the occasion?”
“Uh. I was reading?”
“Reading? You?” She laughed, and Gojo’s jaw dropped slightly in shock. He’s never heard her laugh before, at least not like this, without a hint of sarcasm or bite. “You’ve been making Ijichi dictate your reports to you for ages.”
So Ijichi was here too! What about—
His train of thought skidded to a halt as Shoko narrowed her eyes at him before pulling out her stethoscope and pinning it on his chest and back, swirling him around with the help of the swivel chair.
“Hey—!”
“Is this a cut?” She said, prodding the gash along his arm from his last mission that he never bothered to cover. It would heal after a few days, anyway.
“Yeah?” Why did she seem so shocked?
“Felt nostalgic yesterday, Gojo?” Shoko teased. “You haven’t had a wound in years.”
Huh? That’s impossible.
She must’ve recognized the confusion on his face, because the next thing he knew, Shoko was sticking a thermometer into his mouth.
Definitely not a good sign. He winced as she flashed a light onto his face, closing his eyes and shielding them.
“Eye sensitivity too,” she muttered. “Something up with your RCT?”
But he couldn’t use reversed cursed technique? And as far as he knew, she was the only one in the school that could.
“And seriously, did you let down your infinity on purpose? That Special Grade should’ve been a piece of cake for you.”
My what, now?
“God, you’re just like Suguru. I’m fine, Shoko.” He groaned. “Where is he, anyway? Haven’t seen him in like two weeks. Long mission, maybe?”
She stared at him, feeling her heart sink to the ground.
“Yaga was right,” she muttered, tucking away the stethoscope and the evil medical flashlight. “Maybe you do need a break, Gojo.”
“Stop kidding around, Shoko,” he chuckled nervously, something uncomfortably pooling at the base of his stomach. “Where is he—?”
Her next words were like getting rammed into a wall by a curse.
“He’s gone, Gojo. You know that.”
Gone? What does she mean, gone?
Shoko sighed, gently laying her palm on his hair, fingers caught between its pale strands. “Just, get some rest, okay? You know where to find me.”
What was he missing?
—
Suddenly, he was thrown into the abyss, memories floating around him like bubbles in the sea. There were millions of them.
Nanami?
He stared at Kento’s empty room, as still as a screenshot. No trace of his junior left behind.
Gojo lifted his arm, his movements slowed by the depths he was drowning in, reaching.
He’d recognize that silhouette anywhere.
Suguru!
Satoru watched as he walked away, disappearing into the crowd.
Where are you going?
But more importantly..
His eyes burned into the back of his older self, an unanswered question lingering at the tip of his tongue.
Why wasn’t he following him?
—
“Any last words?” He heard his own voice ask, surprised to hear it tremble.
At least, before he looked down.
Blood was splattered across the wall, trickling down to the spot where Suguru sat, one arm less. His hair was down, strands plastered to his sweat-slicked face.
“I’ll always hate those monkeys, but it’s not like I hated anyone from the college.”
Monkeys?
“It’s just that in this world, I couldn’t laugh from my heart at all.”
What the hell was he saying?!
“Suguru.”
Do something, goddammit! Satoru yelled at himself, helpless. He’s going to die if he loses any more blood!
He was consumed by dread as his lips moved, seeing the shock and peace on Geto’s face as he laughed.
“At least curse me a little at the very end,” Suguru said, and then he was
gone.
—
“Sensei? Are you okay?”
Satoru jolted awake, feeling something warm trickling down his face.
“Oh my God, is he crying?”
“I think he is.”
Suguru.
“Was the movie that sad? I didn’t even tear up!”
“You totally did, Itadori. Megumi, too.”
“Did not, Kugisaki!” Itadori protested at the same time Megumi said, “Nonsense.”
“Gojo-sensei.” One of his (new) students— Megumi— stayed behind as Itadori and Kugisaki walked ahead, excitedly beaming at the city’s scenery. “Is something wrong?”
Can’t go worrying the kids.
“Nope!” He said, quickly wiping away his tears. “Now, where are we headed?”
“You’re the one who decided to tour them around Tokyo, sensei,” Megumi frowned before bringing a hand to his chin in thought. “I think you said we were going to Roppongi next?”
Roppongi? The place was crawling with curses. Why on earth would he bring them there?
“Exactly! Thanks, Megumi-kun!”
“Seriously,” Megumi sighed disappointedly, catching up to Kugisaki and Itadori.
He exhaled shakily, rebuilding his composure before following them.
Well this was certainly becoming one of his weirdest dreams.