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"Get up."
"Get up you lazy brat."
A kick to his ribs, and Satoru's world explodes in a myriad of pain. He really doesn't like this new instructor, he reflects dully, bruises burning. Sure, none of the previous ones had been particularly pleasant, but this one seemed to have a noticeable sadistic streak, something Satoru's ribs are suffering for.
Satoru glares mutinously at the man lurking above him, unblinking in his rage and he's gratified to see the trainer hesitate for a moment.
("Don't look at someone like that unless you want them to be afraid Satoru." One of the clan elders had advised him, and he wants this man to be afraid, he wants him to be terrified for the rest of his miserable little existence-)
And the man is afraid. Satoru can tell, he can see it in a fluctuating heartrate, in the beads of sweat that line the mans face, in the slight flinch before he steels himself. Satoru sees everything after all, even when he'd rather not.
So he sees when arrogance wins out against self-preservation, when the mans lips curl into a dismissive sneer and when his leg tenses in preparation of another kick. And Satoru's chest flares in ugly, burning pain as he's sent flying back, his two physical eyes forcibly torn off of his instructor even as the other five remain fixated upon him.
(The other one is trained on the cursed energy of a group of children outside. They're playing a game of some sort, tag maybe. He'd like to play tag one day, he thinks he'd be good at it. He knows he'd be the best at it.)
"Your clan doesn't pay me to kick you around." The instructor snaps irritably, like Satoru is somehow the one inconveniencing him. "So get up. Aren't you supposed to be the Strongest or some shit?" The last bit is spat with a disbelieving lilt and a condescending smirk, the instructor so painfully, visibly obvious in his incredulity.
Satoru clenches his hands into fists, inhaling sharply. How dare this man doubt him. What right does this insignificant worm have to question his birthright, he who is the first inheritor of both the Limitless and Six Eyes technique in over four-hundred years?
Satoru braces himself for another kick, the metallic tang of blood lingering on his tongue, when something inside of him snaps. It curdles in his gut, red-hot and nauseating, his indignation finally reaching its boiling point. He feels the cursed energy around him and pulls, instinctively wrapping it around himself like a blanket, covering himself in an armor invisible to all but himself.
The kick never connects.
Instead, his instructors foot swings aimlessly through the Infinity between him and Satoru, and he loses his balance, falling to the floor with a satisfying thud.
Satoru lifts his head and regards the man, predatory grin splitting his face apart in a way that feels almost painfully unnatural.
He slowly gets to his feet, ignoring the protests of his aching ribcage and ambles towards his trainer unhurriedly. The pathetic man scrambles back desperately, fear whitening his eyes into two bulbously grotesque globes. Satoru looks into those petrified eyes, stalking closer, face starting to twinge with how wide he's been grinning, when he stops. Hesitates.
His grin slides off of his face as he stares at his own reflection in the mans eyes. Only that thing can't be him. It doesn't look human, face obscured by the gaping dark maw of the mans pupils, it's posture tense and threatening like a predatory animals.
Satoru takes a step back from the-thing-that-can't-be-him, and his instructor picks up on his momentary weakness like a bloodhound pouncing on a hare. The man jumps up, towering over Satoru in a feeble attempt to intimidate him. Unfortunately (for the trainer), this causes the exact opposite of the intended effect, and Satoru snaps out of his daze. His instructor lunges at him, and Satoru bats him away on instinct, sending him careening into a wall all without ever making contact with Satoru's bare skin.
"You've done this before, haven't you?" Satoru remarks blandly. There's no answer. He hadn't expected one. It's not a relevant question anyways, Satoru doesn't particularly care if this trainer had beaten up any other clan children before him.
He saunters over to the crumpled form of his instructor, unimpressed eyes boring into the pathetic heap.
"It doesn't matter either way." He continues, coming to a stop and crouching down in front of the trembling, pathetic man. Satoru feel his heart race in an unholy amalgamation of excitement, vindication, and all-consuming, white-hot rage. He seizes the mans limp head, and grins at him, face splitting impossibly wider than it had been even mere moments before. "After all, you won't live long enough to do anything like that again."
He squeezes, and the man shrieks, an awful, earsplitting thing, as his body spasms, what little is visible of his face contorting in terror.
It's the last sound he makes before Gojo Satoru crushes his head in his palms.
Satoru stares at the headless body before him with an odd sense of detachment. He should feel something. Disgust. Horror at his own actions. Even that manic glee would be preferable over the dull aching of his ribs and the emptiness left by the fading adrenaline.
But instead he feels hollow.
He drops his Infinity, lets the cursed energy fade back into his surroundings as his hands, previously white and unblemished, stain with the blood and brains of the man he'd just killed. He dispassionately picks small white fragments of what must be skull from his palms, carelessly dropping on them onto the floor. He takes one final look at the mess of blood, fractured bones and leaking brains that had once been a mans head, and turns around without sparing it another glance.
He'd like to play tag now.