CHAPTER TWO

Gojo Satoru liked to walk.

Not because he had to—between teleportation, flight, and generally ignoring the laws of physics, walking was rarely the fastest option. But there was something meditative about it. Letting the world move at its own clumsy pace while he drifted through it like a needle through silk.

This place, though?

It didn’t feel like silk. More like burlap dipped in blood and bad decisions.

The city was ugly. Not in a charming, rough-around-the-edges way Gojo sometimes found in older parts of Tokyo, but in a stitched-together-with-rusted-parts sort of way. Windows were boarded, broken, or both. Shattered billboards flickered with hollow enthusiasm, advertising local businesses that probably hadn’t existed in years. Every few blocks, the ocean air was overtaken by the smell of rot—salt and garbage and something sickly sweet buried underneath.

He didn’t know what the city was called. No signs. No maps. No helpful strangers. He hadn’t asked, and no one had volunteered the information. But Gojo didn’t need a name to understand a place. Cities had a texture, and this one pressed against his skin.

Broken.

The kind of broken that didn’t come from a single event, but a thousand little fractures never addressed. Slow decay. Neglect, mostly without malice.

Perfect, really.

“Excuse me!” a voice called from above.

Gojo looked up—just in time to see a blonde comet drop from the sky.

The landing was flashy yet obviously practiced: a hover followed by a gentle descent, backlit by the late afternoon sun. Her hair was perfectly tousled in a windswept-but-photogenic way, and she held herself with a confidence so textbook it had clearly been rehearsed.

She radiated presence the way a small sun might—impossible to ignore and just a little smug about it. Yet, juxtaposed against this image she exuded was a

“Hey!” she repeated, floating a foot off the ground. “You’re the guy who fought Bakuda yesterday.”

Gojo blinked once, brows furrowing as he glanced behind him. “Am I?”

“You were standing in the middle of multiple bombs,” she said. “Kind of hard to forget.”

He smiled lazily. “So I made an impression. That’s nice.”

She didn’t smile back. Her eyes narrowed, suspicious.

“You’re not in any of the PRT records. You’re not affiliated with any known team. You’re not even masked.”

“Neither are you,” he pointed out.

“That’s because I don’t need to be,” she said proudly, puffing up a little. “I’m Glory Girl. Hero of Brockton Bay.”

He tilted his head. “Is that where I am? Huh.”

She frowned. “You didn’t know?”

“I woke up here to some unreasonably enthusiastic explosions and someone trying to fold the city into a tesseract with glitter bombs.” He stretched his arms over his head, spine cracking audibly. “Honestly? Kind of refreshing.”

“Are you messing with me?” she asked, warily.

“Probably,” Gojo said, cheerful as ever.

She dropped to the pavement with a soft thud, folding her arms. “Look. we’re trying to figure out if you’re a threat. You didn’t hurt anyone, sure, but you also just… stood there while that lunatic nearly imploded a city block. Again.”

“She was interesting,” Gojo said, shrugging.

“That’s not an answer!”

He stepped past her, hands in his pockets, his voice light and almost sing-song. “I don’t pick fights unless I have to. But if someone throws the first punch, well…” He glanced over his shoulder. “I tend to end things. Sometimes.”

She moved to block his path again, jaw tight. “You’re not answering the big question. Who are you?”

He stopped. Turned.

They stood shoulder to shoulder—though he was taller, which visibly annoyed her more than she’d admit. He smiled, slow, and tinged with an edge of mania.

“Gojo Satoru. The strongest.”

She frowned. “Strongest what?”

“Exactly.”

There was a pause. The kind of pause where the universe tilted just slightly to see if it should be concerned.

Glory Girl’s aura flared—not in full force, just a test, a pressure against his mood. The psychic equivalent of leaning in close and seeing if someone would flinch.

Gojo didn’t flinch.

Didn’t blink.

If anything, he looked more amused.

“…Okay,” she muttered. “You’re weird.”

“Thank you.”

“I didn’t mean it as a compliment.”

“But I’m accepting it as one anyway.” His head tilted slightly—not toward her, but just past, like he was studying something only he could see.

“…You’ve got something on your back,” he added, almost idly.

Glory Girl blinked. “What?”

Gojo’s voice turned curious. Not alarmed. Not mocking. Just thoughtful.

“Not physically,” he clarified. “It’s… like a shape. Clinging to you. I’ve seen things like it before. Not exactly, but close enough.”

He gestured vaguely around her.

“It looks fragile,” he murmured, the description coming to him unbidden. “Glass. Gold. And Glory. Extending a few millimeters over your skin and clothes. Like infinity.”

She stepped back instinctively. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m not joking.” He was still smiling, but it was smaller now. “You don’t see it, do you?”

Glory Girl stared at him, unsettled in a way she couldn’t explain.

“…Is it dangerous?” she asked.

Gojo shrugged. “To you? Maybe not. But it’s stitched to you in a way that makes me wonder where you end and it begins.”

His head turned slightly, like he was tracing something in the air.

“And there’s a thread,” he added. “Thin. Tight. It pulls backward—somewhere I can’t quite see. Like it’s anchored outside this world.”

A pause.

“Or above it.”

The silence stretched.

Then he grinned, voice bright again. “But hey, I’ve been wrong before. Maybe it’s just your invisible cousin.”

She didn’t laugh. Didn’t speak. 

And Gojo just rocked on his heels, hands in his pockets, as if nothing had happened at all.

“…O-okay,” she said finally, her voice a little too tight, a little too forced. She took a step back, then another. “I’m going to assume you’re not an immediate threat.”

“That’s the spirit.”

“But I am reporting this. You’re on our radar now.”

“Make sure they get my good side.”

She gave him one last lingering look, then flew upward without another word, leaving behind a swirl of dust and displaced air.

Gojo watched her go, expression thoughtful.

Then he smiled to himself.

“She’s fun,” he said softly. “Bit of a try-hard, but she means well.”

He started walking again. The city, Brockton Bay, stretched out in front of him—ugly, wounded, heavy with unsaid things. He didn’t know why it felt so… frayed. Like something important had broken and no one had noticed.

But he was starting to see the edges of the pattern.

Something was wrong with this place.

And Gojo Satoru—still bored, still curious, and entirely unbothered by things like caution—had nothing but time to figure it out.