(THO) CHAPTER THIRTY

The wind had quieted, and the rooftop had long since emptied. Yet Gojo Satoru remained behind.

He sat on the helipad now, long legs stretched out before him, arms braced behind as he leaned back on his palms. The late afternoon sun was dipping, casting long shadows across the roof, and the sound of Brockton Bay below had softened into a background din. It wasn’t quiet, but it was still.

And in that stillness, Gojo let his smile drop, and his mask slip. The world’s strongest sorcerer, its boldest idiot, and the man who lived as if consequences were negotiable… he let all of it fade, and allowed himself to breathe. There was no one around to impress, and one around to protect.

Just him, and the questions he didn’t like asking.

Did I choose right?

Taylor, Amy, Missy, Brian—when he finally woke up—and maybe even Aisha, if she didn’t run for the hills the second she got wind of his plans. Each of them held the kind of spark that could turn into something brilliant, or be snuffed out before it ever had the chance. 

He believed in their strength, and believed they could be shaped into something incredible. But would it be enough?

Could raw, shapeless power really hold its ground against what was coming? Against Scion, who didn’t think or feel like a human being, and who didn’t bleed or rage or grieve? Against monsters that tore continents open like soggy paper?

He didn’t know, and that was the part that rattled him.

Gojo Satoru was many things: arrogant, yes. Reckless, often. Unbeatable, mostly.

But uncertain?

He hated that feeling.

He’d told them he was their best shot. That he would teach them. That he’d protect them, and shape them, and help them reach heights they didn’t even know existed.

Could he actually do it?

His hand drifted up, tugging the blindfold off and letting it dangle from his fingers. He stared at the fabric for a moment, then tossed it aside with a sigh. 

“I talk a big game,” he muttered.

It was easier, sometimes, to believe in the myth of Gojo Satoru than the man beneath it. The myth was all-powerful. The myth didn’t make mistakes. The myth didn’t second-guess himself. The myth didn’t let students die.

But he wasn’t the myth, at least not anymore. 

After all, teaching was one thing, but teaching the way he had been forced to learn? That was another.

His own path had been solitary. He hadn’t meant for it to be that way, he just… didn’t know any other. Nanami had been right; Gojo never had to struggle the way others did. His understanding of jujutsu came through sheer providence—born with the Six Eyes and gifted with Limitless—and the absurd luck of having both the brains and the raw talent to be even greater than people thought he would be. He was the rare kind of prodigy who could learn alone. Who had to, because no one else could teach him anything useful.

So when he told his former students to students to figure it out on their own—to “just feel it,” to “push themselves until it clicked”—he thought he was giving them good advice. He thought independence was strength.

But that was the problem, wasn’t it? That advice only worked for him, or people like him. 

He’d heard it once, somewhere—maybe Nanami, maybe Shoko, hell, maybe some opponent he fought—that it was like a billionaire’s son giving financial advice: “Just invest. It’ll work out.” Easy to say when failure never meant ruin, and was instead learning experiences. When the system was rigged in your favor from the start.

Gojo had learned sorcery like that, and then claimed it was normal.

It wasn’t.

Yuji nearly died because of that. Nobara had. Megumi had pushed himself past the brink, not because he was reckless, but because he thought that was what was expected from him. That Gojo’s silence meant “be better,” and his praise meant “not enough yet.”

So what did that make him now? A teacher? Or just a man doomed to repeat the same mistakes, dressed in charm and charisma to hide his flaws?

He thought of Taylor, of the insecurities and trauma buried so deep within her it bled through every decision she made. He thought of Amy, worn thin by years of being needed but never wanted. He thought of Missy, a child forced to grow up too fast, stuck in a system that demanded too much from the powerful.

And then there was Brian, still unconscious. A protector who hadn’t been able to protect anyone when it mattered most.

They deserved better than a myth. They deserved an actual teacher; someone who would see them, and who would not only show them where to look, but how to look for themselves. They deserved someone who wouldn’t ask them to walk the same path he had, because that path wasn’t made for people like them. 

He didn’t want to fail these kids. So maybe this time, he wouldn’t just throw them into the deep end and tell them to swim. Maybe this time, he’d wade in with them. This time, he’d teach like someone who had learned from his mistakes. He would try, at least, even if he failed.

He closed his eyes, tipped his head back to the fading sky.

“I’ve already made too many graves,” he said quietly, to no one but the wind. “I don’t want to dig any more.”

And maybe—if they trusted him, and if he didn’t screw it all up—he wouldn’t have to.