#of how we confronted ourselves during long dark nights and passed onto our children the hopes of the future we ourselves will never see

[millyditty]

I think perhaps my FAVORITE part of this entire piece

Is how it circles around right back to Gojo’s journey as the Enlightened One and the lessons he learned from losing the person he loved most, and how it lands squarely in showing a perfect glimpse of the different paths we can take in response to the world

In text

In the work

The person he loved most of all

Gojo’s strongest connection to his own humanity

We can choose power for power’s sake, choose to limit our humanity and become truly monstrous, dismiss the connections that may limit our power but allow us to become greater than our earthly limitations, surround ourselves in our displays of power over others

Sukuna did so LITERALLY

Segmented himself to survive a mortal death because he is

In every true way

Alone in his sacred cruelty

He is his own legacy of power

Even the one connection he vaguely shows a response to is merely his inferior and their tie is still rooted in his power, his might, his cruelty and his inhumanity, his ability to sacrifice others for more, more, more

There is a REASON the only one that is presented as a peer and equal to Sukuna is somebody equally as monstrous, someone that violates the bodies of others even after they die, somebody who manipulates and plays with the lives around him like game pieces

Sukuna’s only ~tie is one who will sacrifice themselves for him completely, and that is in reality no great and true tie between two separate beings

It never can be

After all, you learn as you realize how much the world needs to heal from what we’ve all done to ourselves—

There are ALWAYS enablers even for the most monstrous

There’s the path of despair

The loss of our idealism and the anger of our frustration, the utter betrayal of learning that your own adults are the monsters they told you to stand against when they read your bedtime stories, the descent into our own worst instincts because we lose our own hope, and the way that we fail those that depend on us

When tested

When pressure was applied to his sacred code

Geto crumpled

And yes, he absolutely failed his daughters

Not on purpose, not because he didn’t love them

But because he lacked a vision deeper and more balanced between hope and realism and so could never get farther than lashing out at the upper layers of the system despite how much power he ~really had

He gave them no true foundation

Because he had none himself

And Geto wound up being used and discarded just as much by another predator even after his own mortal death as cruelly as the world used him and others like him as a kid

And then

Finally

There is the path of loss and of wisdom

The path of stubborn and realistic hope

The path of patience and of acceptance

Isolated by his power, literally murdered and reborn and forever segmented FROM the world by all that he came from and would never be able to leave behind, Satoru chose the path of understanding of his own limitations

He KNOWS that power isn’t the answer

He sought connections constantly to his own humanity whether it was a comedy movie or a sweet snack or simply holding close and making sacred the memories of the one he loved and lost and accepted he could never bring home, sought those that needed him and took them under his wing despite his own severe issues with the system around him, because he knew he did not have the final answer and could NOT do it alone

Where Sukuna chose power, Satoru really genuinely chose the world and the future and what he believed in

Where Geto fell to despair and the anger of lost idealism, Satoru got back up and knew that the answer would not and could not be so simple

The system must be torn asunder

Not just the pieces on the board you can see

Not just by ignoring the big picture or the small

Satoru didn’t fight his own fall because he ~actively wanted to die, although I do believe he was very ready to die after an incredibly lonely and isolating and exhausting life and losing the person he loved most, but because he knew he couldn’t stand alone

(And yes, there was a reason he chose the date, and a reason he wore the outfit he wore, a reason he shaped and made pageantry in many ways of what he knew could very well be his last showing of power as Gojo Satoru, and my god is his journey beautiful and devastating in ways that just KILL me in the best way.)

And that’s okay

He knew if he didn’t get up

His kids would

He didn’t go to his death because he thought he was the answer, insist that he wouldn’t lose because he thought his body was unbeatable

He went because he knew he’d given all he could to the ones that he KNEW and had faith would find the answer, because he actually believed in Something Bigger than himself or an an easy answer

And he knew Yuuji had the seed of enlightenment within him needed to understand that middle path that lies between the paths of the power and the path of humanity, that Yuuji already recognized the base of what he’d seen but still had to grow up to understand

It’s one of my favorite ~small things about this work since the very first chapter, how we see the makings of true compassion beneath hopeful idealism in Yuuji, how Yuuji brings it immediately out of Megumi even when Megumi does his best to be a hardass cranky grumpy pants as soon as their paths cross

It’s in how Yuuji ~sees him more than anybody else, in how he reacts to and listens to Gojo in ways that nobody else within their world does other than Geto himself so many years before the world tore them apart, in how we see the numerous reflections of Gojo and his mannerisms in Yuuji in addition to the other students since their paths crossed and connected

If Geto is his most tragic loss, Yuuji is his greatest blessing— and is proving that blessings will go farther than any curse anyone could cast

Sukuna created an immortal cursed life, transformed and manipulated the limitations of his body to keep the legacy of his cruelty and power alive

After the catastrophic deaths

After the soul shattering losses

Yuuji brings out the best of those around him in a way that Gojo, for all of the weight carried by his power and family name and his ~destiny, never was able to reach out and bring out the best of the person he loved most

Yall

This shit is fucking HEALING