"You give me your powers... and you just... move on?"
He looked between them, searching for the trap.
"What's the catch? There's always a catch."
Gojo's smile transformed. The theatrical smugness melted away, replaced by something that reminded Dante uncomfortably of his high school calculus teacher explaining why math was beautiful. His head tilted slightly, fingers spreading in an explanatory gesture.
"It's not a gift. Think of it more as an... imprint. A synthesis."
He took a step closer. The white void seemed to pulse in time with his words.
"What you are now, what you died as, that ordinary human who killed twenty-one men to avenge his sister? That's the foundation. We're building a temple on top of it."
Sukuna made an impatient sound in the back of his throat. All four eyes rolled in perfect synchronization.
"He's being poetic again. Let me translate."
The teenager crossed his arms, his posture radiating casual cruelty.
"We pour our essence into you. The vessel. In doing so, we become unbound from this place. You become the living echo of what we were."
One tattooed hand waved dismissively at Gojo.
"He gets his tearful reunion with the boyfriend he murdered. I get my throne in whatever passes for an afterlife. You get to live again in a body that won't break if someone looks at it funny."
His smile was all teeth.
"A perfect transaction. Everyone wins."
The boyfriend he murdered.
Dante filed that horrifying detail away for later. His brain was already operating on overload, and adding domestic drama between literal monsters felt like too much.
He looked at the plain wooden door to the east of him. His future. Then back at these two impossible beings offering him a second chance wrapped in nightmare fuel.
Fuck it. I'm already dead anyway.
"Okay. Do it."
Their hands descended on his head again. This time, the gentle pressure transformed into something that made his first death feel pleasant by comparison.
Oh god.
It wasn't pain. Pain was too simple a word for what happened next. His mind became a floodgate, and they were the ocean crashing through.
From Gojo came precision. Mathematical beauty rendered as sensation. Dante's consciousness expanded violently outward, perceiving layers of reality he'd never known existed. Energy flowed around him in patterns too complex for words, following rules that made physics look like kindergarten addition. The Six Eyes opened inside his skull and showed him everything, all at once, in overwhelming detail.
This is what it's like to be untouchable. To be honored. To be alone.
Then Sukuna's essence hit him like a sledgehammer to the temple.
Raw. Primal. The pure, intoxicating pleasure of destruction rendered into muscle memory. His hands remembered the weight of invisible blades that could carve reality apart. His body knew the feeling of being a natural disaster given human form, unstoppable and inevitable. There were no complex equations here. Just the brutal, elegant simplicity of violence perfected over a thousand years. Cut. Kill. Consume. Repeat. The freedom of being a monster who'd stopped pretending otherwise.
This is what it's like to be the king. To take what you want. To never apologize.
A thousand years of combat experience tried to compress itself into ten seconds of subjective time. Techniques and counter-techniques. Victories and the rare, humiliating defeats. The feeling of Cursed Energy flowing through channels his body didn't have yet. The taste of fear from enemies who'd just realized they were about to die.
Too much.
Too fucking much.
Dante's knees buckled. He stumbled backward, hands flying to his head as if he could physically hold his skull together. The migraine that lanced through his brain made his stabbing feel merciful. His vision whited out, then returned in stuttering flashes.
A sound escaped his throat. Somewhere between a groan and a scream.
When his vision finally cleared, he was on his hands and knees. Gasping. Shaking.
Both of them were watching him with clinical interest.
"Okay."
The word came out ragged. He shook his head, trying to organize the chaos now living rent-free in his mind.
"I think... I think I got it."
I absolutely do not have it.
His head felt like someone had poured concrete mix into his ears and let it set. But underneath the pain, he could feel it. The knowledge. Sleeping. Waiting for him to figure out how to use it.
Gojo let out a soft laugh.
"You'll figure it out. Eventually."
Dante managed to get back to his feet. His legs felt like they were made of string, but they held. He looked at these two impossible beings who'd just turned his soul into their joint real estate project.
They were about to disappear. Fade into whatever came next for monsters too powerful to die quietly.
Something that might have been gratitude swelled in his chest.
"Thank you."
Both of them went still. Like they hadn't expected actual appreciation.
Dante cleared his throat, pushing through the awkwardness.
"Before I go. One last thing."
He met Gojo's blindfolded stare, then Sukuna's four burning eyes.
"One piece of advice. From each of you."
Gojo's expression transformed. The confident, untouchable teacher melted away, replaced by something that looked achingly human.
His hand came up, fingers running through his white hair.
"It's simple, really."
His voice had gone quiet.
"Cherish the people you care about while they're still there. The world has this nasty habit of taking them away when you're not looking."
His blindfolded face tilted down slightly.
"Don't let your strength isolate you from them. Don't assume you'll always have time to say the things that matter. Don't convince yourself that being the strongest means being alone."
He paused. When he spoke again, his voice was barely a whisper.
"Don't kill the person you cared about the most because you were both too stubborn to find another way."
Jesus Christ.
Sukuna made a dismissive sound, breaking the moment.
"How touching."
All four eyes locked onto Dante with laser focus. When he spoke, his voice carried the flat, practical tone of someone explaining how to field strip a rifle.
"Abuse. Binding. Vows."
Each word hit like a hammer.
"Reality is a system of rules. Laws that govern what's possible and what isn't. A contract made with yourself, enforced by your own life, is the ultimate loophole."
His smile was cold. Calculating.
"The greater the sacrifice, the more reality will bend to your will. Cut off your arm for ten minutes of invincibility? Reality will honor that trade. Blind yourself for a single, unavoidable attack? The universe will make it so."
He leaned in slightly, his presence overwhelming.
"Never forget that. Power has a price, and you're the only one who can set it."
Dante absorbed both lessons. Gojo's heart-wrenching wisdom about connection and loss. Sukuna's brutal pragmatism about sacrifice and strength.
Two sides of the same coin. Both of them embedded in his soul now.
He nodded slowly.
"Got it. Don't be an isolated asshole, but also don't hesitate to mutilate myself for a power-up."
Gojo snorted. Sukuna's mouth twitched.
Dante turned toward the plain wooden door. His future. His second chance. He took a deep breath.
Then he turned back one last time.
His breath caught.
They'd changed.
Sukuna no longer wore the body of a bored teenager. He stood taller now, his form expanding into something truly monstrous. Four arms, each corded with muscle and covered in intricate tattoos that seemed to move in the light. His face had sharpened into something inhuman, beautiful in the way a tiger is beautiful.
Gojo looked younger. His blindfold was gone, replaced by dark, round sunglasses that somehow made him look more confident.
He radiated absolute certainty.
Neither of them spoke. They just looked at him. The King of Curses and the Strongest Sorcerer. The Monster and the God.
Both raised one hand in a small, final wave.
Dante's throat felt tight. He gave a short nod back, committing their faces to memory.
Then he turned and walked through the door.
It closed behind him with a soft click that sounded like the end of the world.
===
The white void was silent.
Gojo and Sukuna stood in the space where Dante had been moments before. The door was gone. Their legacy was walking toward whatever came next.
Sukuna's four arms crossed over his chest. His expression was unreadable.
"Do you think he'll be alright?"
Gojo let out a soft laugh, his shoulders relaxing. When he spoke, his voice carried absolute confidence.
"He'll be fine. We're the strongest, after all."
His grin widened behind the sunglasses.
"Our legacy won't be a pushover."
Silence settled between them. Comfortable. Two warriors who'd finally reached the end.
Then Sukuna spoke again.
"It would suck if he didn't end up in a world with Cursed Energy."
Gojo froze.
The thought had never occurred to him.
Not once.
They'd just poured their entire existence into a kid and sent him into the cosmic lottery with no guarantee the universe he landed in would even support what they'd given him.
Five seconds of absolute silence.
Then Gojo forcibly relaxed, waving one hand in a dismissive gesture.
"Nah! It'll work out. No use worrying about it now! The kid's already gone. What's done is done!"
Please let there be Cursed Energy. Please, please, please.
He turned and started walking south. Toward the subway platform. Toward Suguru's waiting smile.
"Gojo."
He stopped. Didn't turn around fully.
"What?"
Sukuna's voice was quiet. Serious in a way it hadn't been since they'd met in this place.
"It was a good fight."
Gojo stood still. The words settled into him like stones dropping into deep water.
A genuine smile touched his lips.
He didn't look back. Just raised one hand in a final, casual wave as he continued walking toward his ending.
Sukuna watched him go. Watched the Strongest Sorcerer he ever faced fade into the image of a subway platform where someone who'd loved him was waiting.
Then the King of Curses turned north. Toward the stone staircase. Toward whatever throne awaited him in the next world.
The void faded to black.
Two gods went to their rest.
Their legacy walked alone into the unknown.
***
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