The one who reads the stars speaks, their voice a declaration of what's to come.
"The White Calamity will soon walk among us, incomplete."
"Sever his anchor, and his mind will splinter."
"Leave the wound untended, and the splinter will become a chasm."
"From that chasm, the Great Disaster shall be born."
"——And all of Vollachia will be consumed by fire."
To any other wolf of the empire, such words would be heresy. A provocation demanding a swift and silent death.
But not to him.
Stargazers do not lie. They speak only what is written in the celestial tapestry—the immutable patterns of inevitability. These are not warnings; they are truths yet to unfold. To ignore them is to invite ruin.
He does not ignore them. He cannot.
Stripped of his throne, his authority rendered dust by the coup, he is himself incomplete. Yet, he listens.
What does it signify?
The White Calamity... Is it a single entity? A legion? A series of cascading events? He discards no possibility.
Already, Vollachia festers. Civil war simmers beneath the surface, threatening to boil over. The borders fray. Famine and collapse are not distant threats, but patient predators circling the wounded empire. His Divine Generals, loyal only to the true throne, will not bend to a usurper. Without him, without a true successor, the empire is a body without a head. Chaos is not a possibility; it is a certainty.
His death would unleash it. His survival, should another interfere, would merely delay it. The outcome remains unchanged.
All paths, all possibilities, converge upon a single, cold truth. The fate of the empire is not a matter of chance, nor of will, nor of desire. It is a grand calculation, a tapestry of inevitability woven long ago.
And its focal point... is him.
And he, the deposed wolf, accepts the burden.
——————————————————————————
There is a creed etched into the soul of Satoru Gojo, a philosophy as simple as gravity and as complex as the cosmos.
Strength is a mandate. Responsibility is a burden for the strong alone. And connection… connection is a vulnerability one can scarcely afford.
To him, true power was the engine of the world. Those blessed with it had no business wasting it on noble sacrifice. And the weak? Those who could not keep pace were destined to fall away like dust in the wind, left behind not out of cruelty, but necessity. In the stark calculus of his world, there were only two kinds of people: those who were irrelevant, and the vanishingly few who could stand in the glare of his sun.
The strong decide. The strong endure.
He was never just another sorcerer, bowing to the will of those fossilized elders. He was a law unto himself. A natural disaster in human form. The very concepts of arrogance and ego, distilled into a vessel of flesh and bone and limitless power.
It sounds like the genesis of a villain. And perhaps it would have been.
If not for one man. Suguru Geto.
If Satoru Gojo was a tidal wave of cursed energy—a vast, unstoppable swell poised to scour the world clean—then Suguru was the shoreline. The one immovable point that gave the tide its shape, its reason. The one who tempered the cataclysm and kept him from washing away everything.
Gojo was the strongest. But Geto was the anchor that moored his soul to the earth.
And now… what remains?
The anchor is gone. The shoreline has eroded into nothing.
He is adrift in a future he never chose, a world warped and alien. Strangers look at him with eyes full of recognition, yet he wears a face they only think they know. The man they seem to remember is a ghost, and the man who remains is a stranger to this world.
This was not the future he was promised. This was not the world they were meant to thrive within.
But even the man who commands Infinity cannot bend destiny to his will.
That role, it seems, belongs to someone else.
——————————————————————————
Darkness.
Thump-thump.
A void absolute. It did not just steal the light; it devoured sensation.
Thump-thump.
The only metronome in the abyss was the frantic pulse in his ears, a desperate rhythm against the suffocating silence.
Was this true darkness, or the shadow of something far more final?
No. This was an erasure of perception itself. The Six Eyes, which perceived the very fabric of reality—the flow of energy, the whisper of a soul—saw only an endless, profound nothing.
Priestella. The name, given by the man in the visor, Aldebaran, echoed in the ruin of his thoughts. What happened in that city was a catastrophe. But a wet warmth slicking his side screamed of a more immediate problem. Blood.
Under any other sky, Infinity would have forbidden the wound from ever leaking as it was currently. His own power would have halted the blade before it kissed his skin.
But the Limitless had been exhausted unlike ever before, the familiar hum of Cursed Energy just out of reach amidst his current state. The sensation was not just foreign; it was a violation.
It wasn't the sting of defeat that gnawed at him, however. Defeat was a bitter pill, but this… this was humiliation.
The architect of his ruin: a smirking thief wearing the face of his dearest and closest friend. A curse-user parading in stolen flesh, who had the audacity to claim he had slain Geto with his own hands.
What burned hotter than the sacrilege, hotter than the wound bleeding freely into the void, was the chilling truth that lurked beneath it:
He had been holding back.
The Domain Expansion, the desperate scramble, the illusion of a hard-won fight… it was all a performance. A test. A game.
If that thing wearing Suguru's face had truly wanted him dead, Gojo knew with sickening certainty he wouldn't be bleeding in the dark.
He would already be gone.
And that, for the man who was once the undisputed strongest, was a fate far worse than death. To be so utterly outclassed, to be spared not out of mercy, but as a calculated move in a game he couldn't comprehend—it was the ultimate humiliation.
He was clearly a pawn to this pseudo-Geto, left to wither in an unfamiliar world, a ghost haunted by a promise he knew not how to keep.
He didn't want any of it. Not the strange faces, not the broken future, and certainly not a role in the sick theatrics of a pretender.
What was he supposed to do? End it all and give up? No. Never.
The vow he'd made to his fallen friend during that battle—to see the world through kinder eyes—felt less like a noble cause and more like a leaden weight he had to follow hereon.
Though, that didn't change the fact it was all so… exhausting.
——————————————————————————
Then, light.
Consciousness slammed back into Satoru Gojo in a violent, instantaneous rush.
Sight came first, a blinding torrent of information courtesy of the Six Eyes. The shimmering dance of mana in the atmosphere, the stress fractures in distant stone, the very texture of the clouds rushing past him—all of it processed in an infinitesimal fraction of a second.
In less than a heartbeat, the world resolved itself into a single, horrifying fact.
He was falling. The wind was a physical wall, tearing at him, a deafening roar that consumed all else. Below, a city sprawled across the landscape, its centerpiece a grand, crimson-roofed castle.
Then came sound, and with it, a scream. Not his of course, but it was definitely loud.
High-pitched and laced with pure terror. Beside him, a small girl with a shock of violet hair tumbled through the air, her limbs flailing in panic.
This is a problem...
For the man who could bend reality, a simple fall should be trivial. But he was not that man. Not now at least. With the Limitless practically completely burnt out, all he could muster was a few dying seconds where it was activated before it collapsed.
Vision swam, black spots dancing at the edges—a testament to blood loss and the brutal G-forces. He fought the screaming wind, his arm a leaden weight as he reached. His fingers brushed, then closed, around a small, fragile forearm.
The girl's head snapped up, her panicked eyes wide with shock.
With a grunt, Gojo yanked her into his chest, twisting his body to shield hers from the coming impact. He forced the Cursed Energy into every cell, a move of desperate reinforcement that cocooned them both.
His back to the rapidly approaching earth, Gojo closed his eyes and clenched his jaw.
There was nothing left to do but brace for the end.
Satoru Gojo was having a very... very... bad day.
——————————————————————————
Smoke stung her eyes as they fluttered open. She was in the heart of a smoking crater.
A quick, frantic self-assessment followed: no broken bones, no searing pain. She was alive. More than alive—she was completely unharmed.
A wet, guttural cough from beneath her sent a jolt through her body. She scrambled off, her gaze falling upon the man who had cushioned her fall. Satoru Gojo.
The man who had murdered her sister.
The man who had spared her life.
The man who had just saved her life.
He lay broken at her feet, his fate resting entirely in her small hands. An eye for an eye... The thought was a venomous whisper.
But Elsa's other words echoed louder: Live freely.
What did that mean now? Was this it?
With tears of rage and confusion blurring her vision, she made a choice in the moment.
She would spare him, just as he had spared her.
Crouching, she hooked one of his blood-slicked arms over her shoulder. The weight was immense. With a grunt of effort, she heaved. Though, he wasn't dead weight; Gojo, barely conscious, found his feet, and together they staggered out of the crater like a single, wounded creature.
The world outside the crater was a shock. This wasn't any city she knew. The people gathering around them... they all had horns and animalistic features. They were all demi-humans.
While not an unnatural sight in Lugunica, there wasn't exactly places with such an abundance of them, let alone an entire city.
"What in the...?"
"What kind of magic was that?"
Their expressions weren't fear or awe. It was simply curiosity, many of them eyeing them up like threats. No one was running from the chaos. They were closing in, hands drifting toward the hilts of swords and axes.
"Someone get word to Lady Yorna!"
"Stop them! They could be fugitives!"
Fugitives?!
Meili thought, a surge of indignant frustration rising.
We fell from the sky damn it!
Then again, that probably was the most logical conclusion. How annoying!
"Hey, wait, no—!" she started, trying to reason with them.
A firm tug kept her moving forward instead of looking backwards. Gojo's strength, even now, was formidable.
"...Don't stop."
He rasped, his voice a raw whisper. His grip tightened, pulling her along faster.
"This place... weird vibes all-round."
"Argh! Crap!" Meili yelped, breaking into a desperate, stumbling run.
They plunged into the nearest alley, the shouts of the demi-humans echoing behind them. Gojo glanced over his shoulder, then raised his free arm with a pained grunt. His sleeve was shredded, fresh blood dripping from his torn flesh. Through clenched teeth, he forced out a single word.
With a flick of his wrist, an invisible force tore the adjacent brick wall from its foundation, sending it crashing down into the alley behind them. A chorus of curses and the scrape of boots on rubble followed.
"How the hell did this happen, damn it?! Go through another alley! They can't get too far in their current states!"
Meili stared, a flicker of awe cutting through her panic. She knew he was powerful from the way he utterly dismantled the Witchbeasts she had accumulated in Priestella, but to do that in this state...
They stumbled through a labyrinth of backstreets until Gojo sagged against a wall.
"Here..."
He gasped, his breath coming in ragged bursts.
"Can't... keep going... I'm going to pass out."
Meili's eyes darted around, landing on a derelict building, its window boarded up. With a surge of adrenaline, Gojo ripped the planks away from the frame.
"Go..."
Meili scrambled through the opening with desperation before she turned back just in time to help pull Gojo's larger frame through. He collapsed inside, his weight nearly taking them both down as the sounds of their pursuers seemed almost nonexistent.
Gojo heaved, his chest rising and falling in ragged spasms. His palms were a ruin, shredded by thousands of glass shards from the boarded window he'd just crashed through. Yet, against the symphony of agony already wrecking his body, the stinging cuts were barely a whisper. He scrambled upright, using the wall as a crutch to keep from collapsing.
Dragging himself into the shadows, he listened. Silence.
He slid down the plaster, a low groan escaping his lips as he hit the floor.
"We're safe here... for now. I don't hear anything moving."
His gaze drifted to the door, then to Meili. She had collapsed against the opposite wall, knees pulled tight to her chest.
"What no~w...?" she muttered, burying her face in her legs.
Gojo didn't answer. He couldn't. His focus turned inward, manipulating his Cursed Energy to try and stitch together what remained of his vitality, desperately trying to stem the blood flow.
After a moment, he peeled his eyelids open. The Six Eyes roared to life. Without his blindfold or sunglasses, the influx of data was a blinding torrent—every particle, every flow of energy screaming for attention. It was agonizing. But he had no bandages. If he did, they'd be wrapping his bleeding torso, not his eyes.
He would just have to endure the headache.
"Dunno..." he rasped. "I don't know a damn thing. Funny, isn't it? Considering how much that 'Subaru' guy seemed to believe in me."
The declaration of 'friendship' rattled around his skull. It was vexing. It was confirmation of the holes in his memory, a reminder that he was flying blind.
"———"
Gojo sighed, his head thumping back against the wall.
"Right now... I'm not going anywhere. Not unless I want to die. So feel free to leave. Do whatever."
Meili scoffed, her face twisting in annoyance.
"Yeah, right. That's why I dragged your heavy carcass all the way here while being chased, idiot! You don't get it, do you? You're my only chance at living."
"... What?"
She didn't elaborate, but the tremor in her hands spoke volumes. If 'Mama' was coming to them... Meili suppressed a shudder. She would take her chances with this broken, white-haired man over facing Capella's wrath alone. Especially with Elsa dead. She was likely in a foul, foul mood.
"So..." Gojo drawled, breaking her train of thought. "Why haven't you tried to kill me yet? Jump me, stab me, kick me? I did kill your sister, right?"
Meili rolled her eyes.
"Not 'suppo~sedly.' You did. But... you also spared me. So~ I'm returning the favor."
Gojo went quiet. The air in the room seemed to drop a few degrees.
"Is that so? Some bastard killed the person closest to me recently. He spared me, too." His gaze fixed on a dark corner of the room, his expression curdling into something lethal. "Doesn't mean I'm going to do the same for him. Definitely not."
Meili frowned.
"With the way you're talking, it's almost like you're asking me to try and kill you."
"Hah! Well, you could try. Sic another one of those dogs on me. Maybe a dozen of them could actually finish the job with how exhausted I am right now~"
Sighing, Meili shook her head.
"Even if I wanted to... I can't feel a single mabeast anywhere remo~tely close to me, just regular o~ld Meili is me right now."
She reached out with her Divine Protection, expecting the familiar hum of the creatures from the outskirts. Instead, there was nothing. A silence so unnatural it felt foreign.
"Maybe you ran out of dog-reserves. I know for a fact I killed a ton of 'em back when we fought."
"You—! Y~ou don't even seem to realize just how many Witchbeasts exist, huh?"
Gojo hummed. "So that's what those things were called. Pretty neat..."
Meili stared at him in disbelief before looking away, the silence stretching between them.
"We have to leave this city..." she whispered, looking around nervously. "It's not like anywhere I've heard of or been to in Lugunica."
"... Then maybe we're not in this 'Lugunica' at all." Gojo responded.
He thought back to the words of the fake Geto.
"Argh... this is so far from entertaining it's not funny at all."
"... Doesn't that just make sense?"
"Whatever, kid. I'm going to sleep. Something I know for a fact I need right now. Feel free to stab me if your mood changes~"
Not bothering to listening to her retorn, Gojo closed his eyes. Immediately, the world felt heavier. Surprisingly, even the hard wall behind him began to feel comfortable. Whether it was the encroaching drowsiness, the blood loss, or the mental exhaustion of enduring the worst day of his life, he didn't care.
He wanted sleep.
So, without a fight, he let the darkness engulf him completely.