HAVEN || SATORU GOJO

V

THERE WAS A SAYING THAT EYES WERE SOMEONE'S WINDOW TO A SOUL, essentially the essence of one's being, the conferant of synonymous aspects of one's individuality and humanity.

They were what created the body and the mind.

When Rieka was born, instead of inheriting verdant green eyes from her mother .. she inherited dirt brown ones. They weren't special in any way, nor was her umber brown hair. For a child intervened with the gods .. she had none of their attributes.

So her soul .. her soul was expected to be dull, like a worn out tarnished locket.

But it was beautiful, like the redemption of a phoenix bursting to life in tantalizing incandescent alabaster flames. Free of taint, filled with sin.

One could say her soul was the most divine in the world .. and they would be in awe.

It was brilliant.

Rieka's eyes were born with the ability to look through the window of someone's soul and peer into it. Although she felt neglected by the world .. she was truly loved by the heavens. They allowed her to see what they saw in humans .. the beauty, the envy, the anger.

And she would inherit it and make it her own.

Rieka was the child born to balance out the unbalance Satoru Gojo would bring .. but in doing so, they had cursed her. Their beloved child.

She lived a life of anguish and absorbed other's curses to the world and held it within her heavy heart, making it her own.

And at the end of the line, there was a poor tired girl whose lungs felt like they were on fire, burning with every breath taken in and out, skin rubbed with soot and dirt, stuck with the weight of the empyreans.

There was a hideous gash across her chest and a cut below those toffee brown eyes that were discarded by her own blood.

But even so, Rieka stood up, uniform all tattered, heart racing. If she were to fall here, would anyone come for her? Would Ijichi know where she even was? It might've been nightfall by then .. so Gojo couldn't have been able to find her until the next morning. They were so far away, it wasn't possible for him yet to sense her from that distance.

"The soul .. I have to get it." Rieka breathed out. It was the whole objective of her mission.

To continue collecting these souls, absorbing them into her own and cleansing the curse that bonded them .. all the negative energy. She wanted to hurl at the hole in her stomach that it gaped, but nothing came out.

The curse was decimated into nothing, not even a splatter of blood.

Rieka's own soul surrounded them, like jellyfish tentacles, iridescent vines that crawled and creeped towards the glowing orb. It was a crimson red. She held it in her hand so tenderly.

"I'm sorry the world was so unfair to you. Poor thing .." She cradled it. It began to shake, like uncontrollable sobbing.

And then ... she opened her soul up as it enveloped the orb carefully, like gently easing someone into new waters.

A light tear trickled down her cheek as she wiped it away. It was so sad.

The domain expansion was undone and she was left in the middle of a ruined desolate road surrounded by roadside flowers. The stars were visible from the distance away from the city. So she stared up at the sky, laying flat on her back, attempting to control her breathing with a collapsed lung.

There were so many speckles in the sky, like a dotted canvas. These were the gods that had both blessed and cursed her very being when she had just been born without any sense of the world.