𝑫𝒀𝑵𝑨𝑺𝑻𝒀 𝑶𝑭 𝑺𝑶𝑼𝑳𝑺 ⇢ Gojo Satoru

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐗𝐗𝐗𝐈𝐈 - 𝐒𝐎 𝐄𝐀𝐒𝐘

KINZOKU MIKAZUKI HAD BEEN PLANNING HER REVENGE FOR A LONG TIME, but not as long as everyone might have thought. Those ten years she spent abroad, they weren't a perfectly laid out plan where every meticulous detail was discussed. They weren't a montage, or a time to reflect and plot her father's downfall. Revenge only came later, when Mikazuki finally had the time to sit alone watching the world blur together in front of her, when reality set in and she realised that, for as long as the Kinzoku lived, she would never be free.

But even then, freedom was never the goal. Neither was revenge. Those were just small consequences that popped up afterwards. Mikazuki didn't wake up one day and chose to become this – this person, obsessed with retribution and retaliation, this monster who craved nearly as much chaos as it caused. It was like poison, a slow-setting venom that spread through her veins, rotting every piece of her soul in its way, turning her heart into an empty shell.

It was never about the anger. It was never about the pain. Those were inconsequential details that paled in comparison with the reality of the situation. The Kinzoku Clan were rotten, and like the conniving bastards they were – obsessed with power and wealth – Mikazuki knew they would stop at nothing to further their influence. Someone had to stop them, someone had to be the wall, the line drawn in the sand, the ghost that grew in the shadows like a tale or a whispered warning.

Mikazuki liked to think she did it because of her children. The twins, who would be faced with a harsh reality once the dust settled. Once the gold settled. The sorceress had known from the start that her children would always be haunted by the greed of her clan, their chances at a normal life were rigged from the start. She liked to think she did it for her own self, too. All of the things the Kinzoku had done, the personal hell they had ensured she live through for the past twenty years of her life... but that wasn't it, either.

Kinzoku Mikazuki hadn't done it for her kids or for herself, she hadn't done it out of hatred or revenge.

She'd done it out of duty because, at the end of the day, Mikazuki made an oath.

It didn't matter that The Magistrate took it back after her exile, it didn't matter that she was no longer bound by the magical chains that tied her to those words, it didn't matter that she'd sworn she would never look back at her past.

I promise on my blood and my bones that I will uphold the world of Jujutsu, that I will rid this world of the Curses that plague it and that I will lay down my own life if need be. I promise I will work tirelessly, from dusk till dawn, until this goal is fulfilled.

At the end of the day, Mikazuki spoke the words, and they mattered far more than everything else. They mattered more than The Magistrate, than Léa's games and that her father's wrath. They mattered more than Satoru's betrayal, than Keisuke's death and that Suguru's plans. Mikazuki swore an oath – the same one every shaman and every sorcerer pledged during their ascension – and yet she was the only one who truly ever had the gall to uphold it.

So she went down the path of revenge, but not for herself. Kinzoku Mikazuki was long gone by then, dead and buried, an empty husk of who she used to be. No, she did it for them. Every person the Kinzoku ever double-crossed, every soul The Magistrate cursed, every promise they ever broke. No one had ever fought for them, so Mikazuki picked up the broken pieces of who she used to be, and she pledged to be their shield, to be their retribution. On that day Mikazuki looked at her reflection in the mirror, it wasn't her who looked back. It was the promise she made, the oath she swore.

I won't let them get away with it.

This promise meant something to her, even when no cursed energy came laced within it. Because, for their sake, Mikazuki was willing to become death. She would be their anger, their fury, their will. She would be their hatred, their voice, their fate.

And, somewhere along the way, the Kinzoku had shattered that oath. And, if Mikazuki was death – if she was the grim reaper of all the souls who were failed by the society built to protect them, then it was time for her to come and collect the debt they owed.

If divine punishment was what they craved, then Mikazuki would certainly deliver. The world might have turned its back on Kinzoku Mikazuki, but she would never turn her back on the world. So she chose anger, she chose retribution, she chose revenge.

And she would chose it again,

and again,

and again.

Every single time.

Mikazuki could have chosen herself – she could have done so very easily, but she didn't. She could have accepted her fate and found freedom in her newfound exile. She could have let go of her past, moved on to greener pastures in a country where no one knew who she was nor the weight she carried on her shoulders; the weight that came with the gold in her blood, the same gold that dripped down her family tree. She could have kept her babies and never looked back, turned her back on the pain of it. It would have been easy – so fucking easy.

But freedom wasn't what she desired. It wasn't what her blood yearned for when she laid awake staring at the ceiling of her cabin. She craved blood. The blood of her enemies, the blood of her family, the blood of her lover, the blood of The Magistrate...

So much blood. And yet, never quite enough to feel truly satisfied. Just enough to get hooked on it, to get hooked on the feeling of power that dripped from her fingers along with the dark red and the gold of her own blood.

Revenge wasn't the goal – not at first, at least. Truth is, despite the pain, the resentment and the betrayal that forever burrowed under her skin, revenge was never the first thought that crossed her mind. Even now, sometimes, when the night was dark and the stars hung high above in the blackened sky, the sorceress looked up and asked the heavens for the strength necessary for forgiveness.

She wanted to forgive nearly as much as she wanted to kill. She wanted to let go almost as much as she wanted to burn it all down to the ground.

But the sky never answered, so Mikazuki was left with a hollowed heart and a whole lot of hatred.

Contrary to popular belief, forgiveness was never easy. It was the hard road, uphill and a constant struggle that never truly stops. And when you think you're done, there's another stone to turn over and a whole new road ahead. Forgiveness was never easy.

Revenge, on the other hand?

Revenge is easy. Anger is easy. Hatred is easy.

And you know what they say about Kinzoku Mikazuki... she's an easy kind of girl.