had gege not written yuuta taking over satoru’s body i would’ve been satisfied with the 236 send-off but right now it just feels like we had no closure for satoru at all and i think that’s why its such an upsetting read.
there was not a single word from any of the characters about the state of his physical body after they switched yuuta back, or whether or not they’re gonna hold a funeral service for him, despite having shown megumi at the cemetery for tsumiki. and when you take into account that not a single one of the characters expressed any sort of grief or at the very least some level of sadness over his passing you can’t honestly be surprised that we expected he was leading it up to a proper explanation in the final chapter. it’s just unrealistic to say we should’ve assumed gege was done with gojo when he did nothing to tie the loose ends of his death, the ones he only added AFTER the fact
✰ gn!reader x gojo ✰ angst/fix-it fic, ft. shokohime ++ ermm i had this idea at 5am and had to write it idk.. jjk 248 spoilers ahead + mild inspo from this fanart 🤓 posting today so i don’t have to think about how stressed i am for tonight’s 249 leaks hah.. enjoy ✰
shoko firmly presses her hand down against his chest, nimble fingers splayed out across the muscle. even through the fabric of his shirt, seeping past the latex material of her gloves, she can feel just how cold—
“shoko, please—“
“just another minute,” she huffs out in frustration, her sunken eyes squeezed shut as she tries to pull her focus back to the task at hand. the cigarette hanging loosely from her lips threatens to slip out, and she relaxes her jaw to slide it from one corner of her mouth to the other. “utahime…”
“i told you, already… i gave you my all.”
shoko grumbles something under her breath, adjusting the press of her hand. utahime sighs before peering over at you, taking notice of how you hold yourself on the other side of the room. your trembling hands pulling a white fabric over the head of a man who knew the law, yet your worried eyes are stuck on him — a man who knew the inner machinations of your very soul.
“shoko, don’t you think—” utahime starts, her arms lowering to her sides as she tears her gaze away from you.
“i said give me another minute,” shoko snaps again, her hand now pressing against his chest with a pressure that should be considered painful to the receiver; she wonders, for a second, if the dead can even bruise.
utahime sighs before lifting her arms again, honing in on her cursed technique once more. she closes her eyes, saving herself the heartbreaking sight of the two colleagues in mourning.
it’s hard — avoiding looking at satoru’s eyes. the once bright blues you used to love so much were now dimmed to a dull grey as he lay on the operating table, completely lifeless. it’s hard, because if you’re not looking at his eyes, you’re looking at his bandaged abdomen, the very source of his undoing. so you instead shift your gaze up to shoko's face, noticing how the crease in her brow only tightens with every passing second.
she looks exhausted.
utahime activates solo forbidden area, and past the sounds of the traditional instrument vital to her ritual, you're sure you can hear a faint buzzing sound. the hum of shoko's technique is loud in your ears — or maybe it's the sound of your anxious heart, since you're only able to watch as shoko tries to kickstart satoru's own.
she healed his body to the best of her abilities, aided by the buff from utahime. putting him back together was easy, but reanimating corpses is beyond her. then again, satoru has come back from the dead once before... maybe if she could just give him a little push; get his heart to pump just one time.
(if only she could reach her hands in and breach the flesh and bones of his chest, grab the vital organ herself and give it a firm squeeze— she could always stitch him back together, if she did.
or perhaps, he could do it himself.)
a heavy sigh breaks past shoko's lips, and your eyes are now back on her hand on satoru's chest. you can see her arm trembling; distantly, you wonder if she'd ever used her technique as tirelessly as she is right now.
"shoko..."
"can you—" shoko sighs, about to snap at you again, but then her eyes meet yours and her response is instantly defused. she knows it can't be easy for you to see this, either. to see the sight of her trying so hard to revive your one and only; all while such attempts are futile.
even then, shoko cares too much about satoru to not at least be a little stubborn about it.
she swallows roughly, gaze shifting from you over to utahime. how utahime's arms sway as she moves with a delicacy shoko would have found awe-inspiring on any other occasion. but right now, shoko can't help but selfishly think — can you move faster? is there not more you can do for me?
yet she, too, is at her limit.
shoko feels a tightness in her throat as the reality of the situation finally dawns on her, after so long of denying it from herself. it settles in her bones and she unknowingly clenches her jaw in frustration, her teeth almost cutting clean through the cigarette in her mouth. she wants to yell out, to slam her fist on satoru's chest hard enough to get his blood pumping herself. she wants to do more— more for him.
she starts to wonder if she should have trained more. she knows her own limits, and yet she can't help entertaining the idea of reaching inside the very source of the cursed energy in her body, grabbing it by the shoulders and shaking it hard. slapping it across the face until it brings satoru back.
the jujutsu world isn't done with him, their strongest. shoko isn't done with him, her dearest and oldest friend.
utahime opens her eyes when she picks up on shoko's silence, and she notices the way the younger woman seems to have given up. almost like a deflated balloon, shoko's arm relaxes first, then the crease in her brow is smoothed out. her eyes meet utahime's and there's a mutual understanding between the two, a silent conclusion they've both come to.
slowly, utahime lowers her hands once more, and her eyes are back on you. you were quick to pick up on the silent exchange between the two women, eyes darting frantically as you looked between them both and then back on the corpse lying on the table. you want to cry out, to scream with all your might and tell them to keep trying—
but alas, you can't. you've cried so much at this point your throat can only muster raspy phrases. broken syllables stitched together to form what you think should sound like a word, but is actually just the moans of a heartbroken widow to anyone who hears it.
shoko frowns, avoiding your gaze when she sees the way your expression falls once more. she'd not only failed satoru, but she failed you — she gave you the false hope that this was anything she was even remotely prepared to handle.
she hears a sniffle break past your lips, a weak whimper as you try to speak, but utahime is quick at your side. she gently grabs your shoulders, turning you away from the sight. shoko removes the gloves on her hands, brushes the hair out of satoru's forehead. she closes his eyes.
shoko then grabs the cigarette in her mouth and puts it out, setting it down on an ashtray nearby. she stares at the string of smoke above it, how the dull gray matched the irises of a man who was supposed to be blue. all bright blues like the sky on a clear day, like the ocean — now, instead, they were gray like the clouds on a rainy day; gray like the smoke of a cigarette that's been put out.
she lifts the fabric bunched around his waist, pulling it up and over his head, and then she stares. with a defeated sigh, she rests her arms over his and leans her head down, pressing her forehead against his chest.
"i'm sorry," shoko whispered, squeezing her eyes shut. she is so tired of losing the people around her.
she feels a hand on her back, and instantly realizes that it's your hand. you were comforting her, instead of it being the other way around. she easily recognized it to be you, because your palm always had such a distinct warm feeling; it was like that same warmth that satoru always carried in his heart. she feels it spread throughout her back, reaching her cheeks, her forehead—
shoko stills, body going completely stiff. you're quick to lift your hand, thinking that you startled her, but before you can get a word in she's shushing you. she's then lifting a hand up, commanding complete silence from the other two people in the room, and she turns her head to press her ear against his chest. she closes her eyes again, hoping and praying that what she felt was real...
and that's when she hears it.
a heartbeat.
tagging: @twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat @softgirlgonehaywire @elusivemoon @mysugu @cinnamoneve @lovelyless-fiction @anthoosies @forest-hashira @satosugucide @triviahct @feelingtoosilly @byemho @majikuriboh @n0tt0daymfs @tojisbimbo for the satoshoko best friend ism :3
okay wait im still putting my thoughts together but… it is actually quite sad (like. very much so) that satoru’s entire character from the very beginning of his story was about breaking these vicious cycles in the jujutsu world and moving past being just a powerful sorcerer— that he just wanted to humanize himself and move past the title of The Strongest to simply become Gojo Satoru, only for his body to still be weaponized even in death
not to mention only 2-3 people were shown mourning for him and then they dragged his body off to move on to the next course of action. in his “afterlife” moment he expresses how he still felt as if people didn’t see much to him beyond his status as a special grade sorcerer despite also feeling loved by them at the same time. can we please just let him rest
