[ Limbo ]
Death is rarely clean.
For those whose souls linger, those caught in the friction between their final breath and the Great, yet unknown beyond, there exists Limbo.
It does not look like a void where there's only nothingness, nor does it look like a place where the bible depicts a haven for souls to rest eternally.
Instead, it's a transition and a decision.
To Satoru Gojo, it was an airport bathed in the sterile golden light of a sunset that never dips below the horizon. Where he reunites with his deceased friends, allowing him to find closure before proceeding on to the afterlife
In this space, time wasn't present, and the only direction was a choice. According to his friend Nanami, Gojo can head south to return to his old self or head north to start anew.
Gojo interpreted that as staying the way he is and continuing in the afterlife as Satoru Gojo, where he might find the others' true selves waiting for him on the other side. Or, stepping onto a flight of sorts which might lead to a new version of himself, maybe reincarnating into a world where, perhaps, just perhaps, the weight of being the strongest no longer follows.
After what felt like hours staying in his Limbo, Satoru stood up from his seat with a heavy sigh, a small but genuine smirk on his lips.
The conversation with his friends had been a rare gift. He looked at Suguru, Nanami, Haibara, Prez, Amanai, and the others.
"Well, that's it from me," he said, his voice light but certain. "It was nice talking to you guys here in this place where who we are supposed to be, our ideals, and responsibility don't matter. But I've got to make a choice, I can't stay here forever."
He didn't wait for a tearful goodbye, that wasn't his style. Instead, he turned his back to his friends, who watched on with smiles on their faces as his tall silhouette framed against the northern gate.
"Ja ne~"
With a nonchalant wave of his hand over his shoulder, Satoru Gojo walked away. He headed north, not because he was running from the man he had been, but because he had finally finished being him.
For twelve years, Satoru had been the ceiling of his world, he attained what a perfect sorcerer could have been, the one who held up the sky so that others, especially those he cared about, wouldn't be crushed by the burden. To go south was to remain that pillar, to carry the pride of being the 'strongest' into an eternity of peace. He didn't doubt it would be comfortable, but it was a suit of armor he was tired of wearing.
His goal was not just to be strong, but to reform the Jujutsu World by raising students who could take over and build a better society. Now that he had done and finished his part, it's time to move on.
'I've lived long enough, it's time to let the kids take the wheel.'
As his footsteps echoed against the polished floor of the terminal, the air and the surroundings began to change and shift.
He chose north because he wanted to see what existed on the other side of 'strength' and the burden that came with it. He wanted a life where a sunset was just a sunset, not a reminder of a future he had to maintain.
Ultimately, he chose north because he finally trusted the world to turn without him. For the first time since that summer in 2006, Satoru Gojo wasn't looking back to see who was following, he was looking forward to seeing who he could become, where he may no longer be 'The Honored One' in a new world.
As he reached the gate, the golden light of the airport began to dissolve into a blinding, pure white. He didn't look back as he didn't need to.
In the final silent moment before the light became everything, Satoru Gojo smiled. 'I'm finally free…'
He closed his eyes as he fully embraced the light that engulfed him.
As the white light swallowed him, Satoru felt his very existence begin to stretch. It wasn't painful, but it was overwhelming. Like being pulled through a narrow straw and then scattered across a vast space.
He felt his memories flicker, the salt of the Okinawa sea, the smell of incense at the school, the weight of responsibility on his shoulders, all of it compressing and expanding all at once.
Then… he just blanked out, and there was nothing.
A vacuum of silence so absolute it made his ears ring. A momentary suspension in a void that felt like the pause between time.
What he felt next was a rough surface beneath him, the cold temperature, and the sudden rush of noise.
It wasn't the familiar sounds of Tokyo that he knew. Instead, it was a loud bustling cacophony produced by a large number of people passing by, conversing in a language he couldn't quite put a finger on, and conducting daily business in a crowded square.
'Where am I?'
Opening his eyes slowly, the first thing he noticed was how massive the people passing by on the streets were, with his eyes wincing due to the sunlight bathing his face.
He tried lifting a hand to shield his eyes, but then he noticed a problem.
'What the…' His entire body was snug and bound tight in cotton. 'Am I in a swaddle blanket?'
He paused incredulously for a few seconds, then began struggling against the tight wrapping. After much effort, he managed to pop one hand out of the tight cloth.
He stared at his hand that had finally popped free. It was… tiny and absurdly chubby. It was the sort of pale little limb that belonged to… a baby.
'No way.'
He flexed his fingers, or tried to. His motor control was pathetic.
'I reincarnated,' he realized. 'I interpreted what the north gate entailed correctly, but why do I still have my memories?'
'Didn't they say that after Limbo, the soul was supposed to be washed of its memories before a new beginning?' He searched his mind for an explanation. 'Wait…'
'I never crossed the Sanzu River,' he thought. 'In the airport, I just walked through the gate. Is that why? Because I skipped the ritual of forgetting?'
A sudden, horrifying thought struck him.
'Wait. If I'm a baby… and I have my memories… that means I'm going to have to be parented.' He imagined a stranger cooing at him, or worse, the indignity of being airplane-fed mashed carrots.
'Sukuna should have just cut me into smaller pieces. This is a much more creative hell.'
He closed his eyes again, but this time, trying to sense something. If Limbo had been generous enough to let him keep his memories, maybe his other luggage had tagged along too?
First, he searches for that familiar spark, the cursed energy rooted in his gut.
'There.' It didn't take long before he felt it. It was faint, but it was undeniably there. A small flickering flame of cursed energy sat in his stomach, and it was slowly getting bigger.
'My cursed energy level is quite pitiful here, but it does seem to increase, albeit it's pretty darn slow.' Gojo assumed that it might be because it's still adjusting to the natural laws of wherever this is he ended up reincarnating to. 'Man… I was kinda looking forward to not having this with me.'
Living a normal life was mainly the reason why he decided to go north, he should've just picked south if he knew this was what would've happened.
'Well,' he sighed internally. 'Since I'm stuck with it, I might as well check the rest of the luggage.'
Next, he tried to 'feel' the Six Eyes. What he didn't know was that it was already working. As he opened his eyes again, the blurry world of a newborn snapped into unparalleled perception. He wasn't just seeing the people passing by, he was seeing the microscopic fibers of his blanket and the atomic-level texture of the surrounding structure of the square.
'Still as intrusive as ever,' he thought, his tiny brow furrowing. 'I forgot how much this hurts without a blindfold. Worse is that my brain is too underdeveloped for this.'
He closed his eyes again, which doesn't turn off his biological ocular trait since it is a permanent passive ability of his, closing his eyes does reduce the sensory overload and prevents mental fatigue.
Even with his eyes closed, he can still 'see' in a way, but the information felt foreign to him. There was something in the air… not exactly the cursed energy he was used to, but something his Six Eyes were already beginning to categorize.
'My Six Eyes are adapting to whatever laws this world uses for fuel,' He thought exasperatedly by the implication of what this meant. 'Don't tell me this world is just as messy as the one I left behind. If there are threats here too, I'm going to crash out. Am I just destined for greatness? Give a guy a break, I just wanted to be Satoru.'
He signed internally.
'Well, let's see if the crown jewel made it too,' he thought, temporarily putting the predicament behind his head.
By 'crown jewel', he didn't mean his balls, but Limitless and Infinity. He can still feel something down there, so he already knows he's still a man.
Finally, he tried to instinctively trigger Infinity.
He focused on the space between his skin and the cotton fabric of the swaddle, attempting to bring the concept of 'Achilles and the Tortoise' into reality.
A tiny, nearly invisible ripple shivered in the air. For a fraction of a second, the pressure of the cotton against his chest eased, held back by an infinitesimal gap. Then, his head throbbed with a sharp ache.
He immediately let go and began gasping for air.
'Still have that one too, that means Limitless is as well,' he noted, his heart hammering against his ribs. 'But this body is a total junker. If I try to use more of Limitless now, I'll probably fry this tiny brain of mine before I can even crawl.'
He lay there panting on the doorstep for a few minutes, one chubby hand still out of the swaddle.
Just as he was settling into the frustration of his new limitations and the 'knock off' reincarnation he had gotten, the door before him suddenly opened with a creak.
Gojo turned his head slightly towards the noise.
On the other side of the door was… a bald woman?
Gojo felt the woman's gaze. Even with his eyes closed, his Six Eyes mapped her out in two foreign swirling masses of golden and a darker shade of crimson energy that he had not felt before. It was not Cursed Energy; instead, it was a mix of something ancient and vile at the same time.
The former was more prominent and the latter was more tamed.
Behind her, a young black man stood wearing red robes.
"Master?" the young man asked. "So this is what you've sensed? A foundling left at our doorsteps?"
The 'master' didn't respond immediately. She and Satoru were staring at each other eye to eye, she had a look of genuine confusion on her face, while he stared back with interest and boredom.
'This baby shouldn't be here,' she thought. 'The sacred timeline has no record of this in our universe.'
She reached out with her spiritual sense to see what her eyes couldn't and what she found astounded her.
The energy within the 'baby' was thick with negativity, an energy that felt hauntingly similar to the Dark Dimension's power she herself drew upon to sustain her life.
But that's where the similarities end, the structure was entirely different. While her power was a parasitic borrowed energy, the energy in this baby wasn't consuming him, he was the source.
"The soul of this baby shouldn't be here Mordo," she answered the young man at last, her voice sounding so serene to Satoru. "The sacred timeline in our reality didn't show any arrangement for this."
'They're speaking English?' Satoru thought. 'Heh, I'm proficient in English, French, and German besides Japanese, so it looks like I wouldn't need to learn another language. Why did she say my soul shouldn't be here though? Uhm, pardon me, but I went through the limbo express, thank you very much.'
He tried to say the last part, but what came out of his mouth was adorable mumblings.
"Meebaagoo~ gurgle, puh oooo ba gaa~"
"A talkative one," the Ancient One remarked, her eyes twinkling with a mix of amusement and wariness. She felt the intelligence the baby has in his eyes, with her spiritual sense, she also understood what he wanted to convey, but that made her even more confused.
The black youngster, or Mordo, Satoru heard the bald woman addressing him as, stepped forward, his brow furrowed as he looked at Satoru. "Master, if he wasn't shown as part of our timeline, does that mean he is a threat to our reality? Should we leave him, or… dispose of him?"
Satoru frowned and narrowed his eyes at Mordo. 'Hey man, I don't know what your problem with babies are, but you better watch it, this baby ain't no pushover.'
'Also, I just got here! What's with the 'timeline' talk? You're the ones wearing robes in a damp alley, weirdos.'
"No, Mordo." The woman responded lightly. "While he isn't part of our timeline, he's not rejected by the laws as well, he's neither a threat nor a local of the multiverse…"
Mordo's brows scrunched up in confusion. "What does that mean, master?"
"...For now, we shall shelter this baby." She didn't answer his question as she reached down to lift Satoru.
Mordo nodded, following whatever decision she decided.
Gojo didn't even have to think. His instincts reacted before his conscious mind could, triggering Infinity.
The woman's fingers stopped exactly two inches from his chest. She pushed, but her hand stayed suspended in mid-air. To her, it felt as if the space between her palm and the child was expanding at an infinite rate. No matter how much she moved her hand, the distance remained the same.
A smile adorned the woman's lips. "How amusing, he's denying me."
She didn't try to force the physical barrier again. Instead, her form shimmered with a faint translucent glow as she shifted her hand's frequency into the Astral Plane. By detaching her touch from the physical dimension Gojo was manipulating, she simply reached 'through' the infinite space.
Her hand solidified again as it made contact with the swaddle.
Mordo watched on with amazement, his master never failed to amaze. Such a technique requires high mastery over the astral dimension after all.
Satoru felt a tugging sensation as he was hoisted up.
'Oh, that's new… Is she a ghost or something?' he thought, his tiny head beginning to throb as he forcefully deactivated Limitless. 'Of course, the first person I meet has a cheat code. Fine, have it your way, Baldy.'
He felt his eyes growing heavy, he's getting sleepy from the usage of his Infinity and well, because he's a baby.
Before he fell into slumber, however, he heard the woman talk again.
"The future has just received a blind spot," the woman said, her serene voice dropping into a more serious one as she turned back into the building. "I will use the Eye of Agamotto. We will see if this 'baby' is here as someone we shouldn't worry about or a threat to the reality we're protecting."
'The Eye of Avocado..? Wha…' Satoru drowsily thought as his eyelids fluttered closed, sleep finally claimed him.
...
Author's Note: Hello everyone! I'm excited to share a new story idea I've been heavily invested in lately: Marvel Gojo Universe.