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"What a relief..."
"Once he returns, my technique will be far stronger than his..."
He is many things. A sorcer. The strongest. An idiot. A teacher. And as a teacher, according to some, he's not exactly the best, but one thing he certainly told his students: inside a Domain, the hit is always guaranteed. He repeated it like a memorized phrase, a theory as certain as it was empty, difficult to experience for someone who lives with a layer of Infinity stuck to him. Now that he's trapped in the Cursed Domain, however, Sukuna's attacks are real and hit him full-on. Torso, arms, chest, face. A slash splits his eye in two, the other cuts across his cheek. He feels every cut, every wound that tears his skin. He's bleeding and it hurts, it really hurts, but he laughs.
Satoru laughs, looking like a madman, as he gazes at the sadistic grin spread across Megumi's face. No, he corrects himself, not Megumi. Sukuna, Satoru.
That's Sukuna, remember that if you want to stay alive.
He repeats to himself what Shoko had told him, after throwing him a quick greeting that morning. She had then run after him, calling him back and grabbing his wrist. The corner of her mouth had lifted slightly upwards, catching the tremble of her hand. "My job is already hard enough," she had whispered, for once without boredom or condescension in her voice. "Don't be stupid."
Satoru laughs, maniacally. He can barely count the times he's lost blood on the fingers of one hand. A scraped knee from chasing a cat as a child, a split lip from a punch by Suguru in his first year. Toji Fushiguro's blade sinking into his throat. Moments from another life, with Infinity not yet stuck to him like a second skin.
Satoru laughs, now that he's possessed by that son of a bitch, Megumi looks even more like his father. And the risk of dying with Toji's couple in front of his eyes is ironic. Yet he hadn't thought about it anymore, that those two looked so alike. That Megumi's face he knew better than his own. He had memorized it.
He and Tsumiki used to dress his scratches, until it was about middle school fights and bullies to teach a lesson; until the boy put on the sorcer's uniform and the wounds became so severe that they needed Shoko's help. Until he became his teacher and Megumi, in his stubbornness, decided to make it a matter of principle and pride not to show weakness. He reminds him of Suguru, proud and stubborn even if covered in scratches and wounds, even when he found him hunched, shaken by convulsions after swallowing a curse. The difference is that with Suguru, he eventually won... ignoring the curses and the fixed eyes on the floor, not giving a damn about every obvious sign of danger with which his friend warned him to stay away. With Megumi, never. Not even once. With Megumi, he always lost from the start.
He would like to look at his opponent and see if not Sukuna, at least Toji, would hurt less. But Megumi's face is not that of a curse, nor that of the renegade Zenin. Megumi is Megumi. With his pout or his ridiculous expression, when someone (whether it's him, Yuji, or Nobara, it doesn't matter) says something stupid and he does that thing with his eyebrow, wrinkling his nose a bit. Or the times (three a year, maybe?) that he smiles condescendingly, without looking like an idiot. Megumi is not Toji. Megumi is not even Sukuna, and remembering that makes his laughter falter.
Most of all, Megumi is still there, somewhere. He feels it. And he, who didn't save Suguru, who understood too soon that his immense power could destroy a city, a nation even, but when it comes to helping, only reaches those who want to be saved, hopes only for this: that Megumi has learned the lesson he always wanted to teach him.
Live. Stay alive. Don't die alone
As the smoke and dust rise from the ruins of Shinjuku, with the echo of Viola crackling on his skin, those words come back to his mind. No longer just an attempt to prevent a boy from drawing a suicidal weapon at the first difficulty. But real, true, alive. As real as the adrenaline that pumps blood into his veins, strong enough to make his head spin, as he smiles fiercely and maniacally, looking at Sukuna, wounded and on the verge of defeat.
Then he hears it. A voice that is not Sukuna's, nor Toji's. Gojo Sensei..., Megumi whispers. With Kenjaku, his Six Eyes had betrayed him, but his soul had not. He had not recognized the familiar, jagged edges of Suguru's soul, and it had warned him. Now, facing what he does not know if it is his opponent's attempt to trap him or a cruel joke of his mind, his Six Eyes and soul are in sync. What a poor imitation the one in front of him is, Megumi would be offended. The voice is too affected, the expression too full of forced affection. But he, Gojo Satoru, who has always done what needed to be done, always, even with Suguru, even when it meant burying his own heart with his best friend, now that it's about Megumi, cannot bring himself to strike.
Of course, this is an opportunity his opponent does not let slip away. The blow that cleanly severs his torso from the rest of his body, he barely sees it coming. It's so fast, it doesn't even hurt that much. He pretends it's Megumi's face, the last thing he sees, as his vision darkens, his eyelids grow too heavy, and his eyes close. When he opens them again, Suguru smiles at him.
When he opens his eyes, it's the shadows that welcome him.
For Megumi, shadows have always been a refuge, not a prison. Since he was a child, he has learned to turn them into allies, harnessing them with a gesture of his hands. Now it's different. Against these shadows, against the shadows that surround him now, those in which Sukuna has submerged him, he has fought. He has fought to defend his friends from that son of a bitch, and while the venom of a thousand curses suffocated him, making him feel like someone drowning, sinking into darkness. He has fought, until he saw his hands stained with his sister's blood.
Now he doesn't want to fight anymore. Now, as Sukuna doesn't spare him the sight of his Sensei torn to pieces, he just wants to close his eyes, wants to be somewhere else, in a reality he can't accept living in. Maybe he could still do it in another one, one where Gojo won.
As he watches the pool of Satoru's blood mixing with the snow falling on Shinjuku's asphalt, he allows himself one more moment to escape from this reality where he no longer has the strength to cry. If Gojo had won, Megumi would now have blue eyes and a silly smile invading his personal space. A hand ruffling his hair to distract him from the Six Eyes scrutinizing every fragment of his cursed energy. He would be surprised by how gentle Gojo's hands are as they capture his cheekbones or quickly grasp his forearms, before returning to cradle his face in search of cuts, wounds, bruises.
In another universe, for once Megumi wouldn't get angry. He wouldn't walk away annoyed and embarrassed. Maybe he would smile, maybe he would stretch out a hand, incredulous, to touch a cut on his Sensei's face, and he would almost cry not to find the Infinite between them. Or maybe he would laugh, that Gojo's fingers are tickling him, like when he was a child, a child so ridiculously proud that he would force himself not to laugh.
In another universe, Gojo would also smile, his eyes laughing as he says the phrase that now, as he sinks deeper into the shadows, hurts him to even dream about:
"... I saved you, Megumi!"