Eyy here's another little bit I wrote to kind of flesh out the between stage when I was trying to figure out who Gojo and Yuuji would be in 2023.
ao3 user dickidsjnl left a nice review wanting to see more about this period of their lives so I thought I'd go ahead and post it here 🥰🥰🙏🙏
Disclaimer, it is just as rough as the previous little snippet but here you go. 🪦
Yuuji comes back to him in a rush of blood and torn flesh, the Prison Realm ripped wide open around him. He spills to the ground, lies motionless in the gore and rotted corpses like something stillborn for a moment that stretches endlessly, infinite.
Gojo can't make himself move, can't breathe. His heart doesn't beat. He is too late, and the reality of an existence without Yuuji unmakes him, severs his last tenuous ties to sanity. If this is the end he will take the world with him.
And then the sensations - the lights and the sounds and the reality of a whole wide world around him again and all at once - assault vulnerable senses and Yuuji sucks in a wet, choked breath and begins to scream.
Gojo drops to his knees beside him, hands hovering and mind static. He's never hesitated to touch Yuuji before but now he can't move, terrified to make whatever is happening worse. Brown eyes stare blindly up at him, shaking hands a shield between them. There's blood on Yuuji's face.
To his Six Eyes, Yuuji is a black-green miasma of foreign cursed energy, hateful and dark. He's overflowing, a tempest in a teapot, porcelain cracking under the pressure. In moments all of that energy will explode outwards with a devastating force and shatter its vessel with it.
He won't let that happen. Yuuji is returned to him. Gojo will not allow him to be taken again.
Hesitation forgotten, he gathers Yuuji into his arms and between one breath and the next they're in the sky, far over the school where nothing and no one can touch them. The air is biting cold and Yuuji clings to him and wails, overwhelmed by the sensation after such a long deprivation.
"I'm here now Yuuji," he says, voice slow and firm. "I'm here but you have to let go of the curses." Yuuji shakes his head, face hidden in Gojo's shoulder, but he’s hearing him. He's reacting to him. "Let go, Yuuji. I'm here. Just let them go. It will be okay."
He presses his lips to Yuuji’s head and closes his eyes, tries to visualize feeding Yuuji his cursed energy, imagines filling Yuuji from his toes to the ends of his hair. This is the way things are meant to be.
"Let go of it Yuuji. Let me in."
Yuuji tears the lid off of the teapot.
The cursed energy engulfs them immediately, a howling maelstrom, violent. It’s tangible enough for Gojo to feel it, to recognize the curses Yuuji had stolen it from. Patchface. Mt. Fuji-Head. Kenjaku itself.
Gojo killed them, each and every one, but they've lingered, tormenting Yuuji in his isolation for months that formed years in the same way malignant cells metastasize into cancer.
Yuuji’s tears are hot on his skin, his lips open against his throat. His cries are beginning to curve around the edges, trying to shape Gojo’s name.
All this time, Gojo has been burning, a being of rage, incandescent. The anger is deeper than his bones, molten where his marrow should be, the kind of all-consuming fury that leaves behind only ash, only madness. A devastating wildfire with a single purpose.
His cursed energy flares around him, incinerates every remaining trace of the malignant curses and then roves further, seeking any hint of a threat, any signs of life nearby. Nobody will threaten Yuuji, not ever again.
Gojo will wipe out every sentient being on the planet to keep Yuuji from harm..
His power is just beginning to brush against others, far below, when Yuuji’s voice brings him abruptly back to himself. Clarity returns in a single, decisive blow that leaves him disoriented for a moment. Yuuji says his name again.
“I’m here,” Gojo says, and it’s a reminder to himself as much as it is to Yuuji. He’s here, and Yuuji’s here. They’re together again. The people in the school beneath him helped him to save Yuuji. Those that stood against him are already long dead, no corpses left to rot. There is no threat left.
“...hurts,” Yuuji tells him, his voice small. “‘s too much.”
Gojo hums softly, more a vibration in his chest than any real sound, and adjusts the barrier of Infinity around them, warps reality until even sound waves can’t reach them. The howl of the wind dies away, leaves them in a bubble of perfect, still silence. The only sound is Yuuji’s wet, uneven breathing and the thunk thunk of their twin heartbeats.
He can hear Yuuji’s heartbeat. Nothing has ever been more beautiful.
They stay like that for a long, long time, Yuuji trembling in Gojo’s arms, gradually steadying his breathing to match Gojo’s carefully controlled breaths. He strokes his hand over Yuuji’s broad back in slow, firm strokes, feels the heat of him, the shift of powerful muscle under dirty fabric. He’s so solid, and Gojo can’t stop touching him, wouldn’t be able to if his life depended on it. He will never be able to stop touching Yuuji again.
Eventually, Yuuji lifts his head. He’s more aware now when he meets Gojo’s gaze, his eyes hazy but present. There are gouges on his face, harsh wounds at the corner of his mouth and over his brow. They’re deep, their edges ragged tears, and blood spills from them in sluggish sheets to mingle with his tears and paint his face in scarlet smears like a grotesque mask.
He is the most incredible thing Gojo has seen in all his life. He is beautiful, perfect; he is real.
“Tell me what you need,” Gojo says, voice whisper soft.
Yuuji’s lip trembles. He licks at it, doesn’t seem to notice the taste of his own blood.
“Take me home? Wanna go home.”
“Okay,” Gojo says quietly. “Okay.” He curls his hand around the back of Yuuji’s head, gently guides him forward to tuck him against Gojo’s chest again, against his heart.
Thinking about how kaiser and isagi have similar eye colors. Thinking about how they see the field the same way, get the same amount of data..its just their personal beliefs that really diffrerentiate them and their backgrounds.
Thinking about how Kaiser literally means king and Micheal means gift from god. While isagi means pure and righteous/sportsman like and yoichi means first son.. like they both have parellels in their names even to being first or a gift but Kaiser feels like he's a king, but Isagi doesn't have that lense and sees things as they truly are/is much more humble.
To extrapolate on this, I want to bring up this picture drawn by the mangaka after the match against Barcha
This is so interesting because based off of the soccer balls in this picture, Kaiser seems to have come from poverty while Isagi from privilege. Kaiser is surrounded by flowers, cushions and kingly robes (even a crown on the bottom left) while Isagi just has his sports bag and clothes. A spotlight is shining down on Kaiser and Isagi is commparitively left in the dark. Even the chaise lounge itself is more fancy on Kaiser's end and simple on Isagi's
On the other hand, while all of Kaiser's things are artfully arranged, Isagi's clothes are carelessly strewn about on the arm of the couch and on the floor. While Kaiser has his foot resting on the dirty, worn-down, and patched-up soccer ball, Isagi is just sitting calmly and focused, looking straight ahead and ignoring his ball. Even though his soccer ball isn't exactly pristine, it still looks new and well taken care of. Kaiser's is so run-down, it's fully brown. And at the same time, Kaiser is sitting in a languished position... While all the while staring at Isagi out the corners of his eyes
And, of course, "the haves and have-nots"
This, to me, speaks of a deeper inferiority complex at play, which is better explained by this comment I found by the OP of a Reddit post:
The full conversation with Yukimiya is this btw, featured in Chapter 171:
As TheBatStin said, it does sound as if he's talking from a place of understanding
Both Isagi & Kaiser are truly two sides of the same coin. While Kaiser's story seems to be rooted in insecurity, I don't recall Isagi ever being jealous of someone and is constantly ready to forcefully change himself on the dime. Though Kaiser believes himself to have fully risen above it, he's still displaying signs of seething envy even now. On the other hand, no matter how much Isagi hates another person, he still shows a deep sense of admiration and respect towards any skills and positive traits they have and is straightforward about acknowledging them
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