Chapter Text
Satoru's parents cared for him a lot. They took him to all of the best doctors, gave him all of the best medicine and sent him to the best schools, but nothing seemed to help. Maybe it was a birth defect they didn't know about, since he was adopted when he was one year old. But they never gave up on him, no matter how old he got.
When Satoru was about to turn sixteen they took him to a monk. The whole place had a weird aura, but his parents kept reassuring him that the leader of this religious group was a real Buddha that could help him. He himself didn't care, since he didn't feel like there was anything in him that needed fixing. The only thing that bothered him was how bright everything around him always was, but this problem seemed to be somewhat fixed ever since he began wearing his sunglasses with pitch black lenses everywhere. Nothing could be seen through them, but it's not like he needed to. In fact, seeing less made him feel a lot better, and somehow it still felt like everyone around him was still half blind.
“Satoru, take off those glasses.” His mom told him in a scolding tone. “It's disrespectful.”
Satoru groaned, and lifted his sunglasses from his nose to his forehead. His mom then smiled at him kindly.
The door behind them opened and they all turned, his parents immediately bowing.
“Geto sama!”
“Geto sama.”
Satoru just stared. At the entrance to the room stood a handsome young man with thin eyes and long black hair half tied up in a bun, half cascading down his back. He was wearing monk garments, but other than that nothing about him felt godly. What his parents could not see, probably, was the steady black cloud that was floating around his body, and the scary black pit residing at the bottom of his belly.
This was odd. Most people Satoru knew had the energy around them uncontrollably change shape, the more emotional they got the sharper the shapes were. Only Satoru could keep his energy steady, he thought. But this monk had his weird looking black energy close to him, not giving away any emotion to Satoru's all seeing eyes, which made him feel weary.
“Hello, dear Gojo family.” The monk smiled, his thin eyes going from his dad to his mom, and then to him. Satoru's breath hitched. The monk saw him, and for a split second his eyes widened, just a little, but nothing escaped Satoru's gaze.
“You must be Satoru.” The monk smiled at him as he entered the room, eyes turning into slits on his face.
Satoru kept watching as the black cloud floated after him steadily, mesmerizingly.
“Satoru.” His mom whispered at him.
“Ah.” He said, not really caring, before he bowed like his parents. “Nice to meet you, Geto sama.” He said as they practiced with him in the car on the way over.
The monk chuckled, his voice gentle and pleasant to the ear. He walked over to the little step in the middle of the room, and sat down there, leaning on one side.
“How are you feeling, Satoru?” he asked, sounding kind.
Satoru shifted his weight to one leg, trying hard not to roll his eyes. “I'm fine.”
The monk smiled. “That's good to hear. Mr. and Mrs. Gojo, would you please leave us alone for a few minutes? I'd like to ask the young master a few questions he might not feel comfortable answering with you in the room.”
“No, they can stay.” Satoru said. “There's nothing they don't already know.” unless you're going to ask me sexual things, which I doubt will happen.
“It's alright, Satoru. We'll be just outside this door.” His mom sent her hand to pet him on the back but he put up his wall again, not allowing her to touch him. He felt a slight shift coming from the monk when that happened.
“Ah, sorry.” Satoru said and took a deep breath to get rid of it.
It was part of his weird condition. Whenever he felt unsafe he put up a wall around him, a wall that nothing and no one could penetrate. He probably put up his wall again when they got here without noticing.
The warmth of his mom's hand radiated to him through his clothes, and before he could find comfort in this gentle touch, it was gone, and his parents were waiting for him outside.
It was just him and the creepy monk, who's smile now seemed more sinister.
“You're adopted, right?” He said.
“Yeah.” Satoru answered, not minding politeness when his parents weren't around to scold him.
In a split second the monk stood right in front of him, head tilted downwards, narrow eyes looking straight into his. Satoru saw it all happen, but his body wasn't fast enough to react. He took a step back but the monk stepped closer again. It was rare to have someone taller than him stand so close to him.
“Your eyes,” said the monk, voice almost dreamlike. “They're beautiful.”
Despite how on edge Satoru felt, his heart skipped a beat. Most people ridiculed him for his eyes. Kids made fun of him. He knew that even his parents probably hated them, but no one hated them as much as Satoru. If he had normal eyes he wouldn't be going to so many doctors and meeting any weird monks.
He lowered his gaze. “No they're not.”
“Tell me, Satoru.” The monk stepped back and spread his hands out. “Do you see something about me that you think your parents can't?”
Satoru's eyes widened. How much have they told him already?
“I… I see some kind of a black cloud around you.” He answered truthfully. “But it's very dense. It looks very coherent.”
The monk's eyebrows rose. “Oh, that's interesting.” He stepped to the side, and began walking around Satoru leisurely. “The thing your parents and the doctors you went to don't know is that you were born with very powerful eyes.”
Satoru scuffed. “They know.”
The monk laughed gently, before continuing. “Oh but they don't. Your eyes have a name, in my world. But it would mean nothing to them.”
The monk halted his pacing to Satoru's right, and Satoru turned around to face him.
“There was once a powerful clan that carried the power of your eyes, and,” the monk sent an arm to Satoru, but was stopped mere inches away from him by the invisible wall. “This barrier.”
“Huh? Has this become a history lesson now?” Satoru was not having any of it. “I don't remember learning in school about people with ugly blue eyes that saw so much they fainted every other day from severe headaches.”
The monk just smiled at him kindly. “They don't teach you everything in school, Gojo Satoru .” The way his name rolled on the monk's tongue made something stir inside him, but he ignored it.
“Or you might be spewing bullshit.”
The monk's energy became darker but his exterior stayed the same, and Satoru took an instinctive step back.
“Sadly,” the monk continued as if he wasn't rudely interrupted, “the clan was wiped out by a powerful curse user organization, and for centuries there have been rumors of survivors, but no proof.” Then his expression changed as he lowered his head, but his eyes stayed glued to Satoru's as shadow covered them. “Until now.”
Satoru was too stunned by the sudden shift of energy to react.
“You, Gojo Satoru, are destined for greatness.”
“...are you saying this so I would feel good about myself?”
He chuckled again. “Not at all, I'm just telling you the truth. I don't really care how random sixteen year old boys feel, but you are truly special.”
Satoru hated how his heart tightened and began beating faster under the gaze of the young, good looking monk who said only good things about him despite being clad by dark energy.
“I can teach you everything you need to know.” He said.
“Will my headaches stop?”
The monk tilted his head to the side. “We'll have to do some research, but I believe we'll find a way to make you feel less overwhelmed by the amount of information that flows into you through these eyes of yours, and that should help with the headaches. There's not much more I can tell you right now, but we will meet again, and I will tell you everything.”
Satoru wrinkled his nose. “I'm not sure about that.”
The monk pouted at him, almost looking cute. “Let me prove to you that I'm different from all the doctors and therapists you met.”
He lifted a hand and an ominous black pool formed on the floor, similar to the one inside his belly, leaking between the wooden tiles in geometrical shapes. Satoru took a step back, his head spinning, his eyes telling him that this pool was the most dangerous thing he encountered in his life. From the pool emerged a tiny creature with a furry body and a long neck that ended with one single red eye. It glared at Satoru but the monk motioned it to calm down.
He saw this creature before, many times, running out of his parents bedroom in the morning. His parents never believed him.
The monk saw the recognition on Satoru's face, and nodded. “My assumption was right, I see. I'll spare you the reason these come to exist, for now.”
He then stepped to the door. “Mr. and Mrs. Gojo, you can come back in!”
Satoru was startled. Were his parents finally going to see the little creatures he warned them about all the time when he was young?
But they didn't. They walked into the room like there wasn't a little one eyed monster staring at them in the corner. Satoru watched in horror as they smiled at the monk, and the monk arranged a followup meeting with him alone, motioning his parents to talk to his secretary regarding the payment.
“I won't come.” He said.
“Satoru–” he mom began to scold, but she was cut off by the monk.
“It's alright, you can think about it.” He said in a gentle voice. “Just know that I'll be waiting f or you, if you feel like you need to talk to me.”
He sounded different in front of his parents. Alone he was charming in an ominous way, but in front of his parents he was nothing but kind. Satoru couldn't trust him.
“I'm leaving.” He said and stepped out of the room despite his mother's disapproval.
He had a terrible migraine. This place was brimming with things no one but him (and probably the monk) could see, and after the one on one meeting with him he felt exhausted. His energy, that black pool, the creature… There were just too many question marks regarding this person.
And yet he knew about the monsters. He could see what Satoru saw.
His head was throbbing. He waited for his parents in the car with the driver, covering his eyes from the glaring sun outside. It didn't help, of course. He still saw everything.
His mom scolded him all the way home for being rude to the kind monk despite Satoru telling her about his headache. Perhaps being nice to a creepy monk was more important than her son's well-being.
Satoru ran to his room when they came back to the house, and locked the door behind him so no family or staff member could disturb him. He shut the blinds and closed the light, and lay there in complete darkness. He wished he saw nothing, but he could still feel every shape in the room, and the people walking outside of it, beneath or above him. In his mind he saw the monk, young, handsome and scary, alarm bells ringing in his head despite how intrigued he was. He saw these things too. Satoru didn't know how well he could see everything, but he saw more than his parents.
Maybe he really could help him.
Shivers ran down his spine when he remembered the black pool. There were other things inside of it, he could tell. The same things that were hiding inside the monk's belly. There was something so ominous about him, so wrong, but his exterior was so shiny and his words so convincing. He wanted to know more about that clan, about this world, about his eyes. About that man. But every part of his body screamed that he was dangerous, and that Satoru had to stay away from him.
What set the nail in the coffin were the three monsters that roamed the hall next to his parents bedroom the next morning, the exact same monster the monk showed him the day before. A maid was polishing the floor at one of their feet, as if nothing stood there at all. The three monsters looked at her as if she was prey, a twisted mouth zipping open from its top to its bottom, exposing razor sharp teeth.
Satoru ran towards them and kicked the three monsters as hard as he could, making them fly across the hall, hit the wall and fall limp in a pile.
“Young master!” The maid called, frightened. In her eyes he was just kicking the air where she cleaned. She could have been attacked without ever knowing by what.
Satoru frowned. “Good morning.” He said with an eye roll. “You should really be more careful.”
The maid nodded, despite having no real clue what he meant.
Satoru walked towards the pile of monsters, which was now dissipating into black dust.
The monk's figure appeared in his mind.
He had to see him again.
The smile that stretched across the monk's face when he saw that Satoru did come to their scheduled meeting after all was creeping him out and increasing his heart rate at the same time. While the expression was charming, there was something in his eyes that threw Satoru off. He looked almost crazed.
“You came!” He called happily.
“You made some compelling arguments last time we met.” Satoru said flatly.
They were standing outside the temple. The monk motioned him to follow. They didn't walk into the temple, but into the gardens surrounding it. The monk folded his arms under the wide black sleeves of his robe, his steps fluid, making him look like a character from a mystical story.
“Did you see anything interesting since we last spoke?” The monk asked casually.
“I did. I saw that monster you showed me again.” He answered truthfully, knowing that only the monk would believe him.
“So it's that bad, huh.” The monk sighed. “Where have you seen it this time?”
“At the hall, in our house.” Satoru said. “There were three of them this time.”
The monk gave him a compassionate look that took Satoru by surprise. “Did anyone get hurt?” He asked.
“No. I kicked them and they, um, disappeared.”
“Oh.” The monk looked pleasantly surprised. “Well, that's a good thing. You already know how to take care of them.”
They reached a small, beautifully decorated garden. Satoru felt like he got back in time and entered a noble man’s backyard.
“What are these monsters?” He asked.
“Curses.” The monk said, tone getting colder. “They're created from human’s negative emotions. Most humans can't control their energy, so it leaks out and creates curses, and people like us, you and me, have the ability to exorcise them.” With every word that he said the black cloud around him grew even darker. He was filled with hatred.
Satoru watched as the hatred in the monk consumed him. It didn't change shape, but it seemed to be absorbed into his flesh. It was the first time Satoru saw something like this happen.
He then brightened up in the spen of mere few seconds, and said in a sunny tone and a smile, “I'll give you a book about it, it explains everything in a lot of detail.”
They sat together on a wooden bench by a small pond. The monk tossed food to the fish. “Would you like to know more about your eyes?” He asked.
Satoru nodded, watching as a group of small golden fish pecked the water’s surface in search of their meal.
“They are called the six eyes.”
“Six eyes?” Satorun grimaced. “Last time I checked I only had two.
“Haha!” the monk laughed and Satoru hated how charmed he felt by this sound. “That's true. It's just a name, though it would have been pretty cool to see someone with six eyes. But in this case it's just a name. Your eyes see more than anyone else's, as you already know. You can see cursed energy to the level of not having even the need to have your eyes open. I read through some ancient texts and it depicted most six eyes users as people who wore shades, blindfolds or bandages around their eyes, to decrease the overstimulation they constantly felt because of them. You already got yourself a fashionable pair of sunglasses. Do they help?”
Satoru fixed his sunglasses, suddenly aware of them, though he wanted to keep watching the monk talk and feed the fish with them rolled low on his nose. “They do.” He said, “But not always. And people scold me when they see me with sunglasses indoors or at night, so I can't really wear them as much as I want.”
“Well, now you can tell them that you have the approval of the gracious monk Geto Suguru to wear them wherever you want.” He smiled at him. Satoru tried remembering his name this time. “And if they'll still have a problem with that, slap them or something. They don't have a say on your well-being.”
Satoru chuckled, imagining himself slapping his homeroom teacher, which made monk Geto’s smile widen, his eyes becoming moon shaped creases on his face.
“There's another special power of that clan you were born with.” He continued explaining and sent a hand towards Satoru. “It's called limitless– oh,” his hand touched Satoru's shoulder gently.
Satoru's eyes widened and he moved back, turning on his barrier, making monk Geto's hand bounce away from him. He didn't notice that he turned it off at all.
“I didn't expect it to be off, excuse me.” Monk Geto said.
“It's fi– it's alright,” Satoru blabbered, feeling his face heating up. “I can't fully control it yet…”
Monk Geto brushed a strand of loose hair behind his ear and smiled apologetically, which made Satoru feel even hotter. What the hell was going on?
“So, limitless.” Monk Geto continued. “It's the ability to control space. You can create an invisible barrier around you and anyone you touch, and it's almost impenetrable. It comes with other very powerful abilities but I think the texts we found would explain them better than me. I'll give you a lot of reading material at the end of our meeting, I hope you don't mind.”
Satoru didn't really enjoy reading, but he was ready to read anything regarding his condition.
“You said that there are some people with the ability to see and exorcize these curses, right?” Satoru asked. “But you're the only one I met that can see them too.”
“There aren't many of us.” Monk Geto folded his hands under his sleeves again. “We make up less than one percent of the population.”
“Do you know more people like us?”
Monk Geto smiled. “Of course. You'll meet some in out next session, we'll show you some different curse techniques.”
“Cursed techniques?”
“It'll all be explained in the book in depth, but in short, we can use cursed energy in different ways, using the cursed technique we are born with. You, for example, have your limitless and six eyes.”
Satoru's head was beginning to hurt. This was a lot of information for one meeting. “What about your technique?”
Monk Geto hummed, and got up from his seat. He walked closer to the pond and looked at the water. Satoru felt like he peered into a historical drama.
“You probably noticed that there's something wrong with me.” Monk Geto said before turning to face Satoru.
Satoru said nothing.
“My technique involves consuming these curses, these monsters. Once I consume them, I can use them as I please.” He lifted his hand and right above the pond that black pool appeared again, from which climbed a group of winged curses, each more revolting than the other. They all sat on top of Monk Geto's shoulders and head, and suddenly the period drama image changed into a page out of a horror manga.
“Oh, don't look so scared.” Monk Geto laughed at Satoru's expression. He lifted a hand to scratch under one of the curse's chin, if you could even call it a chin. “They're completely under my control, they won't hurt anyone unless I tell them to.”
Satoru's eyes told him again that this man was dangerous, the curses in his possession fused with his energy. Behind the facade of the kind monk hid a scary man, and Satoru didn't know what he was capable of.
“Have you ever done that?”
Monk Geto's eyes darkened, his smile wavering.
“Some might see it as necessary evil, but sometimes this is the only way I have to protect those I cherish.” His voice was gentle, as if he was talking to a child. “I am not proud of it, Satoru. Please don't hold it against me.”
A shiver ran down Satoru's spine. What he saw with his all knowing eyes was different from what he heard with his regular ears. Alarm bells were ringing in his head.
Yet he found himself glued to his seat, watching this scary man as if he was the most beautiful thing he ever laid eyes on. He couldn't look away. He didn't want to.
Part of him was scared, but the other part wanted monk Geto to smile again, teach him, be proud of him.
Satoru felt bewitched, and the longer he stayed in his presence, the more he craved it. He knew it was probably a bad idea, but he couldn't help it when this suspicious yet charming monk was the only person in his life who could finally give him answers.
“It's alright.” He said simply. “I don't care.”
The monk smiled, and Satoru's heart fluttered.