For You, My Life.

Take Me Home

Suguru imagined this must be purgatory.

A world shrouded in darkness. A path that never ended. The air was stale and there was a lingering doom, like a wool blanket that weighed down the atmosphere.

His stamina hadn't changed no matter how far he walked. And he'd walked, and walked, and walked.

There was no line to wait in for retribution, and no other human nor god nor creature to ask questions to. All of which went against the religious idea of purgatory, at least.

One where you're surrounded by fellow sinners, all expiating, fighting, begging for a chance to go to heaven. At least, that's what he'd read in a book of old Roman Catholic testaments, some time prior to acquiring his very own gojo-kesa attire and picking up a ruse of shamanism to bury the monkeys that over populated this earth.

He wondered if his outfit was hanging neatly back at his temple for him. A fleeting thought.

He kept walking.

Besides the emptiness of this place, the most odd thing was that he felt fine.

Memory had mostly deceived him, he assumed. The last thing he recalled before landing himself here was seeing Satoru Gojo at Jujutsu High after his battle with Yuta Okkotsu and Rika. He had no recollection of what they'd spoken about, or if they spoke at all for that matter. Suguru could only see that lanky stature of Satoru's shrouded in gray, and a single blue eye peeking at him. It's hue glossy, like a freshly shined bead to be added to a chain of jewelry, and shaped oval in nature despite the white lashes that outlined it.

Suguru considered the gesture at its base.

Gojo Satoru's eye in that specific, foggy memory was reminiscent of a glass blown mati, a term known to the Greeks to describe the 'Evil Eye.' An apotropaic magic symbol used to protect against evil, or serve chaos to one gifted with it.

He tried to focus his thoughts on it as best he could, but it slipped through his fingers like sand. Leaving the image of Satoru to be only an abstract painting- a sloppy one, nothing similar to reality.

Suguru experienced difficulty keeping on task with his thoughts in this 'purgatory' of the afterlife, each seeming to land its talons in his mind, and then swiftly release to fly away like a bird into the darkness.

At the least, Suguru assumed he was dead if he was here. But there had to be more to this. He'd always been told that spirits come back to check on their loved ones before they cross the far shore. You know, like when a mother dies and she gives off a presence to her babies, letting herself be known before she disappears into the void forever. A divine presence before absolute erasure was normal, regardless of religion.

But that wasn't the only circumstance, he supposed. Because there's hauntings. Those unsettled souls that linger over your shoulder for the rest of eternity. Haunted clients paid for his services often at the temple. Nearly every one of them just had a curse feeding off their fear. Suguru would beckon and devour them- get paid and do it all over again. Hauntings were no more than unruly curses, 99% of the time.

That 1%, however, was something even Suguru couldn't hack- religion or not.

Unfortunately, he wasn't given the opportunity to be any kind of ghost, at least not that he remembers. Because he should remember something like that, he hoped.

He would have visited his girls, Mimiko and Nanako, if given the opportunity. The thought of them made Suguru happy, but there really was no emotion in this void, so he couldn't feel happy.

He saw their sweet faces, the little smiles and rosy cheeks. He heard their playful voices, they came in a distant decibel and almost echoed in his loneliness. Mimiko with her little gremlin plush, and Nanako taking photos of something, cell phone in hand. Of all the things Suguru accomplished in his life, raising these girls truly was an honor. They were more important than money, than sorcery, than fulfilling his pledged mission. Mimiko and Nanako were his world.