Notes: The beginning of the end.

Chapter 14

12 Years Ago

"Wow, I had no idea this place would be so huge!" Amanai said with awe.

The place she was looking at was the massive underground complex in which Lady Tengen resided. Buildings circled in descending tiers around a dead tree tied with ropes and seals in the middle. It must be where Ryomen Sukuna was sealed. The tree looked sickly, and Suguru could practically feel the death, despair, and pure evil emanating from the center of the underground. He wasn't so sure he was awed by the place. It looked rundown, standing in stark contrast to the pristine exterior where he had left Satoru behind to deal with the assassin.

Looking around, he didn't see any acolytes. Why was no one there to greet them and escort them to Lady Tengen? "I can't go any further," he admitted to the girl from where they stood near a long flight of stairs leading toward the center of the basin-like cave. "Only those invited in by Lady Tengen can enter. But it looks like these stairs head down toward that dead tree in the middle. Maybe she resides close to it?"

Amanai seemed to finally sense the evil within the place as well and shuddered. "I don't know…"

"You'll be protected by Lady Tengen until it's time for the assimilation," Suguru told her reassuringly. He considered for a second, then continued. "Or you can turn back. We can leave this place and you can return to your life with Kuroi."

Amanai looked at him nervously. "How can you even suggest that?"

Gazing out at the underground chamber which sprawled before them, Suguru explained. "When we were assigned this mission, Satoru compared the assimilation to death, and said if you don't want to assimilate, we could call the whole thing off. Even if Lady Tengen turns against us or Sukuna breaks free of his sealing, we're going to guarantee your future. Because we're the strongest."

The girl appeared thoughtful. She had seen the two of them perform many feats she could consider great, but the risk of letting Sukuna free… was it worth it, even with their guarantee? Suguru wondered if that was what she was thinking.

Tears began to form in her eyes, overflowing and sliding down her face. "I'm so glad that you gave me this choice," she choked out. "And that you humored me the past few days and took me to some fun places, Satoru especially. I know he didn't like me very much, and he lost a lot of sleep watching out for all of us. I wish I could stay with everyone a little longer." She looked up, wiping dry her tears as her expression turned resolute. "But I need to stay and do my duty."

Suguru's expression fell. But he also felt some small relief. Despite Satoru's own personal convictions, he worried Sukuna might be too much for even the two of them. "I see. You're a brave girl, Amanai."

She smiled up at him through her tears. "Thanks!"

A resounding crack split the air. Suguru's mind could only think it sounded like a tree being felled or a nearby lightning strike. An unfamiliar acrid tang filled the air. Blood spurted from Amanai's temple and the girl fell sideways, landing just before the staircase. Dark blood pooled around where her head lay resting on the ground, eyes open and staring.

"Riko?" Suguru asked. It was the only thing he could think to say for some reason.

"All right, mission's over. Time to wrap things up now."

Turning to face the speaker, dark brows rising in disbelief, Suguru saw the assassin who had stabbed Satoru earlier. He held a weapon the necromancer rarely saw wielded by anyone but foreigners. A small cloud of smoke had yet to fully dissipate around the recently discharged gun. "How… how did you get here?" he asked in disbelief. There was no way he had gotten past Satoru, right?

"How?" The man seemed genuinely confused by the question for a moment. Then his expression shifted into a viscous smirk. "Oh, I get it. You see, I'm here because I killed Gojo Satoru."

A flood of emotions rushed through Geto Suguru at that moment. Disbelief, shock, horror, grief, fear, anger. His best friend of the past eleven years was gone.

Gone.

Gone.

Rips in dimensional space appeared all around him, some of his strongest and toughest demons and devils emerging to do battle. "Then die!"

The man replaced the weapon he had used on Riko and swapped it for some knives, chucking a few of them almost casually at Suguru as he spoke. "As someone who possesses no mana whatsoever, I'm an invisible man. A barrier can't tell the difference between me and a tree falling through it in a thunderstorm. But there is one problem. As soon as I hold a magic weapon or tool, the mana from it makes me visible."

One of Suguru's larger demons, similar to the fanged worm he had used earlier, opened its maw and charged the assassin. Suguru stood in a semi-crouched stance, prepared for combat as it went on the attack.

"Whoa, slow down." The man hadn't stopped smirking the entire time he spoke, and it was pissing Suguru off. The demon crashed into the wall behind the assassin as he dodged it effortlessly.

"Let me continue. You see, I have this creature that can store objects and use it to carry my tools. To prevent it from making me visible, I have it collapse itself within its own body and keep it in my stomach. An invisible man has invisible guts after all, right? That's how I can move through even Tengen's barriers while carrying magic tools or artifacts. And that's why I used a normal sword at first. I need to stay invisible if I'm gonna sneak attack the Six Eyes. I could have started with the Star Plasma Vessel, since she was the real target, but it was going to be risky exposing myself to the Six Eyes like that, so I had to-"

"Shut up!" Suguru roared. He was so angry he was shaking. The way this man was talking… maybe it hadn't been idle bragging and he really had… really had killed Satoru. Suguru could hardly begin to fathom the idea of his strong, proud, untouchable friend losing, but the fact that this man was here and Satoru still hadn't arrived chasing after him lent credence to that possibility. "It's Heavenly Restriction, right? Like us mages, revealing certain information can give you an advantage. I get that. Just die already!"

A heavily scaled snake-like demon with wings emerged, and Suguru directed it at the assassin. The man pulled out a blade from the storage creature wrapped around him once again and sliced it right down the side, rendering it unusable. It began to disintegrate immediately.

He cut it open with just one attack? Suguru thought in shock. That armored snake was one of the strongest in my repertoire.

"Necromancy, huh? I wonder what happens when you die. Do they all appear and run wild or remain trapped in the void forever?" He gestured with one hand, beckoning. "Got any mages to throw at me? Killing them is my specialty after all."

"Hey." A figure swathed in shadows appeared behind the assassin and the area around him shaded over. "Am… am… am I pretty?" the vaguely female form asked, jaws opening wider than any human's had a right to in order to reveal pointed teeth.

"An innate domain with a binding vow that cannot be broken until the question is answered." Suguru could still hear the assassin speaking, though he stood outside the wraith's scope of attack. He had brought it forth, after all. "Well, let's see. You look interesting but… you're not my type."

He said the last line with a look of smugness and absolutely no fear. As the wraith moved in to attack with a rusty blade, he pulled out a dagger which glowed the brightest white Suguru had seen in any magical weapon and deflected all the attacks with a casual grace before finishing off the wraith.

Suguru worried about getting in close. He was no close-combat slouch, but against someone with Heavenly Restriction, he doubted his skills would be enough. Leaping backward, assisted by some flying demons, he drew forth his greatest asset. "Hokori!"

The undead green dragon roared as it emerged from a massive rip in space above the dilapidated underground city below. At Suguru's command, it deployed its domain expansion, the black walls reaching out to ensnare the assassin.

Suguru sighed and relaxed slightly. Surely even Heavenly Restriction wouldn't be able to counter the poison within the dragon's domain. Instead, his eyes widened as the domain shattered and the dragon lay still, fizzling away into nothingness. The assassin waved his hand as though the toxic fumes had been some campfire smoke blowing in his face.

"That wasn't very nice."

As he began to call forth more undead from the other dimension, hoping to overwhelm his opponent with sheer numbers, the assassin suddenly stood right in front of him. Suguru reeled back too slowly. The glowing white dagger ripped into his chest from left shoulder to right hip and then right shoulder to left hip. Blood leaked from the twin gashes, and he gasped, stumbling backward and falling to the ground, his chest in pure agony. All the undead he had summoned vanished as if his magic had suddenly failed him at the first slash of that dagger.

"I don't usually give cruel deaths. I'm an assassin, not a torturer. But I'm not sure what will happen to your undead if you die. I'd rather avoid the trouble for now. Be sure to thank your parents. Or curse them," he added as an afterthought. He kicked Suguru in the side of the head as he lay on the ground and snorted. "You two with all your blessed talents lost to a monkey like me who can't even use magic. Never forget that, if you live."

Suguru was starting to get dizzy. Was it the blood loss or the kick in the head? A combination of the two maybe? The assassin seemed to have a sudden epiphany. "Oh, I remember now. Megumi means 'blessings'. And I'm the one who gave him that name."

Before he could be tempted to surrender to the blessed pain relief of unconsciousness, Suguru rolled his head to the side. Riko's body was being picked up effortlessly by the man, who unceremoniously shoved her corpse into storage along with his weapons. "Amanai…" he whispered. His eyes fluttered closed. His chest was burning. Blood was oozing from the wounds, not spraying. The man had not given him an easy death, wanting to get clear of the premises in case Suguru's collection of undead went out of control at his passing.

He moved a trembling hand up to touch the wound and hissed at the added pain. Shoko… If only I could do what you do. She had tried many times to teach the self-healing spell that came so naturally to her to him and Satoru, but her explanations never made any sense to either of them. Even as he thought of it on the brink of unconsciousness, he couldn't focus the mana into either his hand or direct it through his body to heal his chest from the inside. His blood continued to slowly ooze from him as he lay half-paralyzed.

Finally, he was able to turn himself onto his stomach and begin dragging himself toward the inner barrier. Perhaps some of Lady Tengen's acolytes would find him and take him to a healer. Slowly and painfully he dragged himself, but the barrier at the edge of the steps would not accept him. Only Amanai would have been able to pass through.

It was too much effort to try to flip over onto his back again, so he remained laying on his wounds, painful as the position was. Had the assassin also murdered Tengen's acolytes? It was entirely possible he had either snuck in beforehand or taken a number of them out before reaching Suguru and Amanai, causing the rest to flee for their lives. "Satoru, it looks like I'll see you soon after all," he muttered, unable to cling to consciousness any longer. "I'm sorry, Sho."

xXxXx

The body, only slightly bloodied, fell to the floor in Kong Shiu's office. The leader of the Guild of Assassins nearly dropped his pipe as Fushiguro Toji announced, "The corpse of the Star Plasma Vessel, Amanai Riko. All in one piece too."

The scarred woman who had requested the hit smiled in approval. "Indeed. You'll receive all the money we promised soon and a little something extra for your troubles. I didn't carry it on my person, of course."

"How kind of you, leader," Toji replied. He had incorrectly assumed the woman was the leader of ARM instead of the fools who had been taken out by the two mages he had just defeated in order to assassinate Amanai.

The woman didn't bother correcting him.

"Is the extra really necessary?" Kong asked, not wanting Toji to get ahead of himself.

The woman shrugged. "If he succeeded, he likely took out the Six Eyes and necromancer. That works in favor of my future plans, so I consider it money well-spent."

Toji grinned but didn't thank her again. No doubt the assassin planned to stick around the guild hall for once while he awaited his payment, all so he could gamble it away and begin the cycle anew. Hopefully he'd remember to send some home to his family this time, Kong thought.

xXxXx

It was dim. The sun was barely lighting the western horizon. But now that Gojo Satoru's Six Eyes had returned to functioning, the world glowed with mana all around him. Groaning, he lifted himself from the now dried pool of blood he had lain in for what appeared to be several hours. He felt numb. The magic he had failed to grasp his entire life had only been reached as he hung to life by a thread over the chasm of death. Now it was his.

He realized he was floating in the air, looking down at the destroyed courtyard which was to have been his graveyard. The cloud of insects had long since dissipated into the surrounding forest, having served their purpose, though some appeared to have flocked to the congealing puddle of his blood on the ground below.

Still hovering meters in the air, he looked down at his slashed haori and shirt, at the rips in his pants where the dagger had plunged in and out. The lacerations in his flesh had closed to the point of no longer bleeding, but puffy and inflamed lines of flesh marred the wounds he could see - no doubt the same applied to the throat wound he couldn't see as well. Dried blood caked his entire front. Looking up at the darkening sky, he somehow knew that this time it would work and formed the seals. "Red."

The ball of red-hued divergence blasted away from him, shooting high up into the sky. Satoru laughed. "Yes, yes!" He was truly a god now. Before, he had only been on the precipice of that final ascent to godhood. Looming death had pushed him beyond his old limits. An old religious text came to mind. "Throughout Heaven and Earth, I alone am the Honored One."

He wondered if this was what it felt like to be intoxicated - his low tolerance for alcohol was caused by the Six Eyes, so he never allowed himself to drink past the point of the slight swimming of his senses. A whole new world of magic had been opened to him. He thought about the closely guarded secrets not even all the Gojo elders knew of. He was allowed to know them, as the one who was to master the greatest of the innate magics of his clan for the first time in over four hundred years, but few others were privileged with such knowledge.

Suddenly, he sobered up. Well, he wasn't intoxicated, but if that was the closest analogy he could come up with, he figured this was what sobering up felt like as well. The fight with the assassin came rushing back to him. The man had been heading toward Amanai.

Satoru descended from the sky and began walking, then jogging, then running further into the barrier, toward the place Tengen resided. Hopefully he had bought Suguru and Amanai enough time to get to the inner barrier. Once Amanai was past it… No, the man had passed through the outer barrier somehow. Maybe he would be able to pass the inner one as well.

"Suguru!" he shouted, half-flying through the twisting corridors.

He stumbled to a halt as a short figure stood in front of him, backlit by the torches of the inner chamber. The woman before him appeared to be in her sixties, graying hair pulled back in a severe knot behind her head. Her eyes though; they were ancient and knowing and stared at him with reproach. She held a cane in one hand, but did not appear to be leaning heavily upon it.

"The Star Plasma Vessel is dead," she stated. "And with her death, this barrier will fall when my own time runs out."

So this was Lady Tengen. Satoru hadn't expected her to be so… normal looking. "Where is Suguru?" he demanded, not caring what she had to say on anything but that matter.

Her eyes narrowed and met his own, not fazed by his uncovered Six Eyes. No doubt she had met several mages like him in her long life. "Do you realize what this means? The severity of your failure?"

"I…" he trailed off. He had been confident to the point of cockiness going into the mission. Still, he had kept his guard up for the entire journey, only resting the few times Suguru had insisted. But he had dropped that careful guard, thinking them safe within the barrier. "The barrier failed, someone besides us got through," he accused the ancient woman.

Her shoulders slumped. "No. The barrier did not fail, but that man was forsaken by mana. I could no more stop his entry than I could prevent a stone from being thrown through. Such things are rare and not able to be accounted for. It is unnatural for a living being to be rejected entirely by mana."

Did this mean she didn't entirely blame him? Satoru decided to ask his earlier question again. "Where is Suguru?"

Tengen's expression softened. "He yet lives. My remaining acolytes are tending to his wounds, but they are severe. I fear even with their careful tending, he will not survive the journey back. But he needs further healing than can be provided here."

The last of Satoru's high came crashing down and fear consumed him. "What do you mean?" he croaked out.

The formidable old lady looked sorry for him and turned. He knew to follow, and she continued speaking along the way. "Half of my acolytes were slain attempting to stop the assassin's entrance. After their deaths, the rest fell back. I do not fault them, child, for if even you fell to him, they stood no chance. What happened next is not known to me, but from the destruction in the underground city, it appears your companion fought the assassin as well."

Satoru clenched and unclenched his fists, some of the dried blood on his hands chipping off a bit as the skin stretched. So Suguru hadn't been able to save Riko either. Tengen must have ended up allowing both of them access through the inner barrier, as he was able to pass through, following in the old lady's wake. He had thought only the Vessel would be allowed to do so. The barrier-holder led him to one of the less run-down buildings in the city, far from the enormous dying tree that the city was built in tiers around. A few acolytes bowed and hustled out of one of the rooms, allowing the two of them to enter.

The interior of the building was in much better shape than the exterior. Suguru lay on a comfortable-looking futon, his skin an ashen hue that did nothing to ease Satoru's fear for him. His eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow, but he lived. A glimmer of hope flickered to life in Satoru's heart.

The white-haired mage rushed to the futon and knelt beside his best friend, the closest thing he had to a brother in truth. "Suguru?" he asked quietly, reaching out one blood-crusted hand to touch the dark-haired mage's, which lay still and pale at his side. He had been stripped to the waist, and white strips of cloth covered his entire torso. Blood was seeping through the bandages in diagonal lines.

His friend made no response.

Tengen approached, cane tapping on the tatami mats. "As you see, his state is precarious."

Satoru placed one hand lightly on the bandages. His friend did not stir. Narrowing his eyes on the wounds, he focused with the sort of intensity he never had before in his life. For what seemed like hours, but was in reality only minutes, he strived with all his might to extend the healing he had only just discovered for himself to Suguru.

Nothing happened.

Visibly deflating, he sighed and removed his hand. It appeared his new talents could only go so far without proper honing. He flinched, not expecting Tengen to speak again. He had almost forgotten she was there.

"If I drop the barrier, I will be unable to resume it." Oh, she was back to that again. It seemed like a distant issue to Satoru, more concerned with saving the life of his friend. "It was a joint effort eight hundred years ago. I am only able to continue holding it due to my immortality magic."

"He should be dead," Satoru said, his voice flat. "Sealed up for eight hundred years. Or was he truly a god?"

Tengen pursed her lips. "He was not a god. But his magic was powerful. He was blessed with great mana, but wielded it only to sow destruction. He was mortal, but used… unsavory means to extend his own life. Regardless of the fact of his mortality, there is something behind that barrier. Whether it is living or not… it appears you shall be finding that out soon enough."

Satoru didn't argue. He and Suguru had both felt the evil of this place. It was only natural to attribute it to the sealed one. Suguru's eyelids flickered and Satoru leaned over.

Tengen continued speaking. "When the time comes, you may return to this place, but not before. You are not welcome here, Gojo Satoru."

Eyes blazing and temper flaring, the white-haired mage turned to tell the old lady off when a weak voice spoke his name. "Satoru?"

He glanced down quickly and met Suguru's half-lidded purple gaze. "I'm here," he told his friend, putting one bloodied hand over his.

Suguru smiled then, such a smile of joy mixed with relief despite the pain he must be in. "You're alive… I'm so glad… You look terrible though."

A broken smile flitted across Satoru's face. "You don't look so great yourself," he replied. "Will you be able to ride? We need to get you back to Shoko as fast as possible."

Suguru groaned and attempted to rise, using his elbows as leverage to sit upright. The movement strained the wounds on his abdomen and he would have fallen back against the pillows if Satoru had not placed a steadying arm behind him to help him. The white bandages darkened as blood seeped through their many layers. "I… don't think I can… sit a horse alone," he admitted, gasping. A sheen of sweat had appeared on his forehead just from the effort of sitting up with assistance.

"When the time comes, we will return here and defeat Sukuna," Satoru promised Tengen. After all, he and Suguru had agreed that they would face him if Riko hadn't wanted to assimilate. He then picked up his friend and carried him from the room. Half in a daze, he passed through the underground city and the maze of corridors around it, back to the surface. The sun had now fully set and the stars shone bright. A sliver of the moon was faintly visible behind a cloud.

Both horses still waited patiently where they had been tied earlier in the day, munching on the freshly grown spring grasses. Carefully, Satoru placed his friend in the saddle, using Limitless to keep him steady as he floated up behind him. "Lean back against me," he ordered. "We're going to travel as fast as you can manage. Tell me if it's too much."

Grasping the reins of the other horse in his left hand, he used his right to guide his own mount toward the center of Nara. Suguru gasped with pain with every breath at their initial pace, but did not ask Satoru to slow down. The white-haired mage did anyway, though he worried over the time they would lose. When the horse they were riding tired and no amount of goading would get it to continue at their former speed, he carefully switched mounts and led the tired horse behind them.

They were able to keep this up for more than a full day. Then the horses refused to go any further and stood still, both exhausted and unwilling to continue. Night had fallen again. Would it be better to wait for them to rest or try to carry Suguru back to the Gojo estate on his own two feet? The necromancer had mercifully passed out within the first hour of their trek - due to pain or blood loss, Satoru didn't know.

Placing two fingers to his neck as Shoko had taught him, Satoru felt his pulse. It was faint and seemed weaker than before. Satoru pulled on his white hair, half of which was discolored red from his own blood. He was running out of time. And he himself was bordering on passing out at this point.

He had slept little the past four days, and lying near-death while he healed himself hardly counted as rest. Healing had not replenished the blood he had lost either. He slumped against a tree and pulled Suguru alongside him to share his warmth, draping a blanket from the packs on the horses over them and eating a small bit of dried food. He managed to help Suguru get some water down as well when he slightly roused from his unconscious state. The necromancer didn't say anything though. He merely lay there swallowing the water before closing his eyes and passing out again.

When Satoru's eyes snapped open, the sun beamed down, stinging his still-tired eyes. He checked Suguru's pulse. It was even more faint than before. Panic swept through him and he hurried to get the horses ready to travel again. The beasts had rested long enough that they no longer balked at his commands. Still, it would be another day or two even at their current pace.

If only he could properly warp space. He had tried, but only moved a meter or so from his starting location. At that rate, they were better off traveling by horse; the beasts would tire slower than he would, hopping across space meter by meter using his warping.

"Satoru?" The voice was so quiet he could hardly hear, even though it was near his ear. But he didn't dare slow the horses' pace now at this crucial time.

"Yes?" he replied.

"Tell Sho… that… I love her." his friend gasped out.

Satoru bit down on his tongue to keep tears forming in his eyes from falling, needing a moment to compose himself before he could reply. "You'll tell her yourself as soon as she fixes you up," he insisted.

"I'm sorry… Satoru…"

"Don't be," the white-haired mage told his friend softly. "It isn't your fault. It was my fault I couldn't stop him in the first place."

Suguru did not reply.

Terrified, Satoru lifted a trembling hand to check his pulse once more. It was barely there. His heart sank. In that moment, he somehow knew that even if he could warp space to reach home instantaneously it would be too late.

A minute later, the faint aura of familiar blue surrounding his best friend slowly began to fade away into nothingness. A few minutes after that, rips in space opened all around him and the undead poured forth, as though it had taken them time to realize they were now free to leave the other dimension when they pleased. Satoru extended Infinity to protect the small group from them, but the horses were frightened and refused to continue on while the rampage lasted. He noticed the dragon was not among them, nor any of his friend's other strongest soldiers. All of them must have been expended in his own fight against the assassin.

As the undead rampaged, some flying into the sky, others running to the forest around them, still more trying to break through Infinity, Satoru clenched his jaw. He could no longer stop the tears forming in his eyes from sliding down his cheeks. He sat shaking, silently weeping, until the last of the undead gave up trying to attack him and meandered off to do who-knows-what elsewhere. It was as if Suguru's death had given them a new lease on life, unbound from the space between worlds he always kept them in.

When he finally arrived home late the following day, the only warmth his best friend's body maintained was from where he still leaned against him.

They were a frightful sight, arriving covered in blood in the dark of night. It had taken the guards a moment to realize who they were. Naturally, the whole of the estate was awakened upon seeing the poor states of their future clan head and candidate for king. Satoru's mother clutched him to her in an embrace, heedless of his blood-crusted clothes and body, weeping openly. His father's face showed some concern as well, until the five elders made their way over and were briefed on the situation. In their presence, his expression shuttered and he hid whatever emotions he felt.

Kento said nothing, face drawn with despair where he stood near Satoru as his mother clutched at him. Yu was crying openly, tears rolling down his face. He had always idolized Suguru. Shoko though, that was the hardest for Satoru to bear. She practically threw herself over her betrothed's body, as though she could bring him back even from death with her healing. After her work was done, she knelt at his side clutching one of his limp hands as though waiting for him to return, tears drying on her cheeks. In the end, she was given a sleeping draught disguised as a drink so they could take the body away to be cleaned. "He'll be back, I healed him," she kept insisting until she dropped off to sleep.

Despite his poor mental and physical state, Satoru slept soundly after he had bathed. His skin felt scraped raw. It had been difficult to clean off the days-old dried blood. Clan healers had carefully examined him afterward, but found nothing amiss with him besides the still-raw scars on his throat, chest, and thigh. His smaller head-wound from the dagger had healed entirely already - likely due to it not being inflicted by the same weapon as the others.

No doubt word from the healers about his success at healing magic would reach the elders within the hour. The sound of pacing feet outside his door must be his mother's, he thought. In no mood to speak with her, he buried himself in blankets and waited for sleep to take him. Likely, the only reason he was able to sleep at all was due to the immense amount of stress and strain his body had endured over the past week. Its overwork demanded rest, so he slept and mercifully did not dream.

Notes: I hurt myself writing this one. In the manga/anime, Gojo and Geto were at Jujutsu High, so help was close by. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case here.

I may have noted at the beginning that this chapter is the beginning of the end, but it's not even close to the end of the story. That being said, it's definitely a big turning point and catalyst for events yet to come.