Work Text:
[. . .]
"A father and his son."
[. . .]
Chapter Title
In 28 Years
[. . .]
Gojo Satoru never knew his father.
He's heard of the man, having seen him perhaps once or twice throughout his life—maybe a few dozen times if he's being generous. But he has never known him, not in the way that matters. As a child, he was told stories that he largely ignored, dismissing the painted legends lashed at him from fake tongues describing his father in a strong light. They said his father was kind, was so merciful, and Satoru could never understand what they meant by that when his young, impressionable eyes witnessed the people he ruled over cower in his presence.
And Satoru had never cared. Never bothered.
The man he was supposed to call father surely didn't. Not about anyone and not about him. The power he held was all that mattered.
Many would consider this a sad fact. Positively abysmal, even, for a young man never to follow the legacy a father lays to follow in golden steps, or for a child to be loved enough to even consider themselves worthy of walking the sacrificed steps their parents take.
Such melancholy for an unfortunate circumstance would apply—for a civilian, for an average sorcerer, for a nobody.
This is not the case for the Honored One.
Gojo Satoru is instead given the choice to follow the path of power. That he would deign follow in the Clan Head's footsteps, now that their clan was the strongest it has ever been after four hundred long, miserable years. So he followed it. Throughout his childhood, he never had the mercy of parents, for they deemed them too mediocre or snivel for someone in his esteem. His mother never got the chance to lay eyes on him. His father did, yet it was only for reports about his progression of strength.
Gojo Satoru didn't need parents.
And perhaps he knows now for that not to be the case, because a child is a child no matter how many say otherwise, but be that as it may, they were right.
He never needed a father. Or mother. Truly. He'd been in way over his head, sinking his claws onto the remnants of faceless figures doing a poor imitation of parental love. A scarcity that turned out to be just enough to make him independent. To never crave a familial affection, despite his inner child scratching his fingertips bloody against the brick walls keeping him away from that.
Geto Suguru had been someone. Someone precious, someone who hadn't seen him as just the strongest.
Just. Simply Satoru.
It had been his first time experiencing something like that. His only time, ever, with the kind disregard left by solely one other friend. But Shoko wasn't—isn't Geto Suguru.
The love Geto Suguru had given him hadn't been of family. Maybe something resembling platonically close, at first, which then became something else entirely that he dares not name, because he has a stupid knack for getting stuck in the resplendent past of his years of freedom as a teenager.
A cherished embellishment of golden memories sits carefully placed in a worn box, unveiled, touched seldom in his rueful hours.
But that's not the point.
The point is that—
Pained, worn, dark, dark dark, eyes meet celestial blue.
—that Gojo never needed a father. Never needed a mother. He's the strongest. And that won't change until he is replaced by something valiantly impossible.
But as he stares at the man holding—he's holding the imposter's severed head, he's holding the thing that used his best friend—his jailer's head, dripping in blood and staring vacantly down at him, Gojo is quick to recognize another unfathomable power that doesn't feel right.
A power that for some indescribable reason, resonates with his own.
He's thrown away, far, far away from the motionless box meant to seal him, eyes trained on the man who bears a face he's seen only in mirrors.
Satoru is too numb to think.
Unceremoniously, the man drops the—Satoru feels sick, feels lost, feels everything and nothing all at once, feels the unbearable knot of sorrow and needles in his chest—head and turns fully to address him with a small smile. "Hello," He says, voice smooth and falsely jovial, expression pronouncing the mole on his chin and the scar on his wistful eye.
Words catch in his throat, lathering his tongue into knots.
Hello? He thinks incredulously.
Satoru's response is to laugh out loud.
[. . .]
The man disappears nearly immediately after he doesn't give a response. They stand for a few seconds more, watching each other—Satoru watches because the man's eyes are too expressive, and yet not enough to be so. There's age in them, but otherwise the man looks young, young enough to be—
There's a flash of something. Of recognition, maybe, but who's to say?
Satoru doesn't know. The man disappears in a swirl of leaves just as soon as his mind composes itself.
Gojo Satoru doesn't give him a second thought. His emotional permanence is shit. Now, his burning, oh god they hurt so fucking bad, eyes are focused on the gruesome picture his one and only makes on the shredded, red-painted ground. He has no time. He has no time because his hands are occupied by the fucking mess of the corpse of his former best friend, and of the curse that took over him lying extinguished, with a shrill escaping the nasty residue of its resting place.
(And the Prism Realm is gone.
Gone, gone, taken by the man who shouldn't be.)
Of the wretched mess that is Shibuya. Or what almost was.
He doesn't give the man a second thought because Gojo's leaving to deal with the rest—with Shibuya.
He deals with his silly students, deals with Sukuna, deals with Nanami's near death and that bitch curse Mahito who probably has a crush on him or something.
He deals with his best friend. His dead best friend that he has to force himself to cremate, because now that he has borne the consequences—the consequences of a young love in a blue spring—Gojo Satoru must do what he can to preserve his title. A title that almost disappeared, thanks to his selfish, selfish mistakes.
(Mistakes he has once called tragic, never-ending love for a man who died choking on it.)
He helps. He cleans up. He's accused and he's so out of his mind that he kills enough of the higher ups to send a message.
Suddenly Yaga's execution is at a stalemate. Suddenly none of the students need to be forced out on the field.
Suddenly, a month later, amidst the calm of the mess of who he finds out is Kenjaku, after the curse Mahito spills it all and he lets his suffering student torture him to his heart's content, Gojo finds a bit of solace.
Well. Not quite.
He's in the Gojo Estate, willingly, because the man he'd seen comes to mind, and he finally deigns to answer his mind's emergency call because it has to be important this time, right? It has to mean something, to see a man whose face bears his own?
So he goes.
He's exhausted. He's in mourning.
What else is there to do other than indulge in some mystery?
[. . .]
Gojo Satoru never knew his father.
He had never known him, because somehow, the Clan Head had sealed him inside the very same box he was meant to be in.
How funny.
It doesn't make sense, Satoru thinks, clenching the evidence written in his hands, it can only hold one person at a time.
"That man was never part of this time," One of the elders had answered him after much reluctance. "He was an abomination. He'd wanted to go home."
Satoru thinks.
He thinks, and he concludes that the reason he's so different is because his father was never part of this world at all.
The Prison Realm didn't register him as a prisoner, he deduces.
Because he wasn't meant to exist.
[. . .]
Gojo Satoru looks out westward, toward the sunset, listless against the breeze of upcoming evening. He's perched on the frosty balcony of his empty apartment, deep in thought.
In his hands he mingles with a headband pertaining to an odd symbol—the only thing that man had left to understand who he was—told to him by the kind head maid of the estate that she had preserved the artifact per his mother's last words in secret, when she'd hoped his father could return and be there for her.
Satoru thinks he should be sad.
And maybe he is. For his faceless mother, for her burden and sacrifice for bringing someone like him into the world.
Without his father.
His father, whom he realizes is not the shit clan head he thought it was. His father, who is the man Kenjaku had unknowingly unsealed.
Gojo feels nothing.
He feels nothing because to him the man was and is nothing for a better part of 28—now 29—years. He has never seen or heard of him until now, when every worthless clan member deigns to tell him that he had been born from someone outside the clan. That the only reason he hadn't been thrown out of the estate was because he got lucky in being born with the Six Eyes. That he should be grateful that he had not inherited anything from the foreigner that seduced the Gojo Matriarchal Head and scandalized the community, just to be mourned when the foreigner's seed killed her at birth.
Everything about Gojo Satoru is lucky, apparently.
Lucky that his mother died, so that she didn't have to live with the shame of being loved properly by another rather than her shit abusive husband. Lucky that he was brought up in the Clan's power. Lucky that his father mysteriously disappeared, all thanks to the very same man who had kept him in line until his stay at Jujutsu Tech.
It would be hilarious, it it wasn't so goddamn sad.
Somehow, among all this mess, as always, Satoru thinks about Suguru.
We'll find a way, the Suguru of his memories tells him, steady and turbulent like a summer storm. I'll be here for you, always.
But it's a lie.
Because Suguru is now a tragedy that sits cold on his shelf.
And here Satoru is, weighing on his past, wondering just how things could have been if he had the man who saved him from the seal as a father—wondering if Satoru would have had help from said parental figure, enough to recognize when Suguru was falling and fell entirely. To know how to empathize in time before everything became too late. For him, Gojo Satoru, the strongest, to have an equally strong figure to fall back on, to save his grief and just for one stupid day, hand it to the man at fault for his existence.
For him, for Satoru, to be seen as something other than himself.
"You lost?" Satoru speaks up into the dense air ruffling his hair.
The presence who had landed behind him just a few minutes ago, while in his tumultuous monologuing, remains still. Satoru can't feel any cursed energy lingering about, but there is an energy. If he were to turn around, he'd see him.
His father.
Satoru doesn't turn around.
Instead, he waits, tired, thinking.
Of Megumi and his dead sister. Of Yuuji and all the lives he thinks he took. Of Nobara and her corpse-like state, waiting to wake.
Of Nanami, of his crippled condition even Shoko is having trouble with. Of Maki. Of Panda. Of Inumaki, of Yuuta, who comes in late and wondering why his teacher is trying to smile harder than he used to.
He thinks.
And thinks.
And thinks so much that he has to close his eyes, because even the sunset's losing glow begins to hurt them.
"You are Gojo Satoru."
Satoru slowly opens his eyes and turns his head to look beside him, hoping his startle isn't obvious.
Dark, shady eyes the color of moving ink pierce him first. Later comes a mask that hides most of his features, except for the shocking brilliance of silver locks falling awkwardly across his scarred eye.
The man wears battle armor. Or what seems like it.
And across his forehead adorns the same headband he holds in his hands.
His father, Satoru knows.
Satoru smiles merrily, nearly exhausting himself just by the mere effort it takes for the gesture to convey. "That's me."
Satoru's smile fades as he observes the swift progression of the five stages of grief reflecting on the man's face.
You know me? Satoru wants to acknowledge, but nothing comes out. Satoru should be bitter, he thinks. He has a right to be. This man is his father, and here he is, twenty-eight years late.
But Satoru is so tired.
He's so, so tired.
He lets out a mocking sigh. "What, are you here to kill me, too? Or is there something else you want?" He pauses, gauging the blank expression that wipes the man's face clear of emotion, "You know, it's kind of unfair that you know my name, but I don't know yours. What's up with that, huh?" His tongue feels heavy. He doesn't even know what he's saying, really.
There's a pause. It's not as stifling as Satoru thinks it to be.
Then, "You're my son."
Satoru can't help but snort at his awkwardly blunt phrasing of it. He claps sarcastically, "Ding, ding! You got it in one! How long did it take for you to figure that out? A week? A month?"
"Ten seconds," Is his response.
Satoru sags his shoulders. Really, now. "Wow. And you left anyway?" There's a bite to his tone that shouldn't be there.
The man goes quiet.
Satoru isn't in the mood to indulge.
For once he keeps himself just as silent, instead preferring to concentrate on the endless sky he supposedly came from. Part of him does this out of spite. Perhaps since the man wanted to disappear like everyone else in Satoru's life does, he has no reason to humor the man. The other, stupid, part of him is curious. Infinitely curious and wanton to ask questions to sedate him enough until he wants nothing to do with him.
Satoru is so confused, honestly. He's tired.
Did he mention he's tired, yet?
The hush stretches on. For a long time.
Satoru wonders.
"...Why are you even here?" The strongest sorcerer finally manages to get out, dismal and riddled with exhaustion.
His father lowers his head. Is it in shame? Or something else equally as pathetic?
"...I wanted to see you, before I go."
Satoru laughs.
Of course. He's leaving. When does someone not leave?
"Really," Satoru drawls. "That's stupid. Why bother?"
"You're my son," His father replies like it's worth something.
"I don't even know your name," Satoru emphasizes. He doesn't ask how he knows that just by one look.
"Hatake Kakashi," The man—no, Kakashi—says.
Hatake Kakashi, Gojo Satoru thinks, repeating his name over and over. Hatake Kakashi. My father. No Gojo. No Clan. None that he knows of, at least. Just an ordinary man with a foreign strength only the Six Eyes can detect.
"Okay," Satoru nods, standing while straightening the wrinkles in his clothes. He feels his father's eyes on him. "Now that we're acquainted, you can leave now. I'm not sure what you're doing here other than to ogle the greatest sorcerer of our time." Under normal circumstances, Satoru's unwavering curiosity would've warranted him to keep the man around some more. But his father doesn't want to stay, and Satoru won't make him. He's owed answers, he knows that. What he doesn't know is why the thought of making an effort to get to know his father sounds so draining. Perhaps because he may be the only one putting in work, after all these years.
He's not interested in that.
He musters a grin his way, but freezes at the sight that greets him.
His father stands just a bit shorter than him, handing out a weapon—a kunai with odd symbols on it.
"I'm not leaving forever," Kakashi tells him softly. A correction, Satoru understands. Satoru doesn't know what to make of the realization that his father must've realized just how annoyed he is. "...I just can't stay for too long, anymore. My chakra destabilizes."
Anymore? Food for thought. "Your chakra," Satoru repeats, eyeing the kunai with unbridled suspicion and dismissing his father's cryptic words for later. Will it kill him if he touches it, I wonder? Is limitless beyond his power?
"Yes," Kakashi's eyes crinkle. It looks right on him. "You have a little bit of it, in fact."
That's news to him. "I do?" He tilts his head, pretending to examine himself.
"Yes. A small amount of it."
"Cool," He says, and he means it, kind of. He doesn't know what he means by chakra, but it's not something he has ever noticed about himself. It's surprising and refreshing to discover something he hadn't known. "What does that mean, exactly?"
"From where I come from," Kakashi starts, and Satoru keeps note of his odd use of words, "Chakra is an essential energy that arises from the integration of physical and spiritual energies together."
Satoru finally takes the kunai. "...I'm assuming that energy is what's in this cursed tool, then?" He asks, testing its weight.
His father hums. "You would be correct. It's... a portal, so to speak."
"Portal?" Satoru cocks his head.
"A portal for when you want to visit."
Oh.
He looks down at the kunai again.
He's essentially just been given his father's number. In a sense. And address, all in one.
Satoru has no idea how to respond to this. "...So, what, I just zap some energy into it? Huzzah!" He sparkles his hands around theatrically. It gets what he suspects is a smile from his father. Satoru finds something warm seeping into his chest.
"Essentially," Kakashi replies merrily.
Satoru grips the kunai just a bit closer, now. "...And that's it?"
"Yep."
Well then.
Shoving it into his pocket, Satoru glances outward at his apartment before finding his gaze back to his father. He probably shouldn't trust the man's word. He hardly knows him. But Satoru's strong. He can handle another betrayal, if so. There's harm in hoping, but he's like a stupid cat. Too nosy for his own good. "I guess I'll be visiting then, if your body gets so unstable," Satoru purses his lips. Wait a minute. "Wouldn't that happen to me, too?"
"No," Kakashi crosses his arms. Satoru weighs his answer and determines its sincerity as genuine. "You have an anchor."
"The kunai," Satoru guesses.
"And me," His father holds up his hand, gathering a neutral spew of white-like energy. "That kunai has my chakra. When you activate it, it'll teleport you to me. At any time. Any place. When you're near, you won't accidentally be thrown back into your universe and potentially risk your life."
How considerate.
"Is that what happened to you?" Satoru dares ask, unable to hold back on that particular 'anymore' word. It's been ringing in his head. Is that why you were gone so long? Satoru asks himself. Because you didn't have an anchor? Because you never figured out how to get back?
Questions run back and forth in Satoru's mind, but he doesn't air them out. It's too soon.
His father looks sad, again. For a man so inexpressive, he sure does weigh on sadness a lot. "...Yes."
"I see," The sorcerer murmurs. He has a sudden thought that barges through all other thoughts that mostly involve his tragic makeup. "And I'm going to assume the Prism is a dimensional gate?"
"Oh, this?"
His father casually takes out the damn cube from his back pocket. Satoru nearly laughs.
"Sure."
"Must've been wild, to get spat out back here again," The adult Gojo muses, taking the cube for himself. His father allows him his opulence.
His father shrugs. "I felt foreign chakra and I was on a mission near a reality-sensitive area. So. Yes, it sort of was."
"Mission?" Satoru probes.
"Hm. Let's just say my boss needed me one last time."
"Vague," Satoru points out. He sticks out his tongue. "And ew, boss? I have one too. Several. Kind of. Most of them are dead, now, though, so. I'm my own boss, now." He throws up a peace sign.
His father doesn't bat an eye. "Good for you. I don't envy a position of higher power."
Satoru smiles something sincere. "What, have experience in that forte?"
"You can say that, yes," Kakashi waves him off. He seems to think, abruptly dazed. "As the strongest in my generation, there's a certain responsibility to that. I don't like it."
Satoru nods, internally screaming. "Right. Sucks, huh?" Suddenly he wants to ask his father if he knows what it feels like, truly, to be stuck trying to take care of a world that only sees you as a thing of reverence. Maybe he's going too far on that mark, but it's something. Something, something, Satoru thinks, that may tell him a little more about himself.
"Well. Now I don't have to deal with that," Kakashi says.
They settle into an awkward silence.
It feels awkward enough for Satoru to ask his million dollar question.
"So how old are you?"
A pause.
"Oh. You know. A number."
Gojo tips his head back. "For real? Can I guess?"
"Maa... Sure."
"Seventy."
His father sputters. "Seventy?"
Satoru grins cheekily. "Yeah. Your hair's all grey. So, seventy. Unless I'm wrong...?" He trails off in a false imitation of contemplation.
His father mumbles something he can't catch. "...I'm 59." The man sighs out, sounding defeated.
Satoru smirks. "So I was right?"
His father looks at him, unimpressed. "That's not even remotely near in numbers. I'm young! A little. Maybe." His father sighs louder. "Ah. Okay fine. I'm old."
"Uh huh."
The fleeting moment of connection is punctured by his father's abrupt shake, which generates a distortion resembling TV static in the surrounding atmosphere. Satoru straightens in alarm at the sparks of unnatural occurrence fly, reaching forward on instinct to hold the man from falling, just to touch nothing but air.
His father is an after image lying on the floor.
"Ah," He says, staring up at the ceiling blankly. His form warps in painful ways. "I guess it's time, then."
Satoru can't help but feel disappointed. "I guess so," He mumbles, holding his tongue. He hadn't even gotten a chance to ask all his questions yet!
"I'll see you, then?" His father manages through gritted teeth. He's fading.
It's too fast for his liking. Satoru crouches next to him to offer some support. He feels like he owes him, somehow, even if it doesn't make sense. "Yeah, old man," He murmurs, "I'll see you."
His father's eyes curl.
They're warm.
"Later," He promises.
Satoru's hands itch to grab the kunai.
"...Later," He confirms quietly, to a room long empty.