u n l i m i t e d .

"Human fashion sense, once again does not make sense."

Speaking like a tired father , at the very least thats the worst statement he's going to give once he see's the existence that is Satoru Gojo.

" ooh, okay. of course, teacher, " ferid goes to gently prod him by the shoulder , only for his hand to be forced away by a gravitational pull of sorts. so be it. "whatever shall you do ? you know, i could be injured something grievous ! oh, i'm just no good in a fight, you know ? "

at his release, ferid steps aside, a few paces away from him. he extends his arms, and waves. "eek ! what if a big scary monster hits me from here ?" at that, he ever so narrowly avoids a hurtling rock, clasping his hands together as he taps on his own head. "one thump here and you'll lose your most beloved student. that's me, right? if it isn't, i don't care to be in your class. i'm right in the open."

He thinks it's kind of cute, in that patronizing way that only someone who is the strongest could be; as if this was some sort of little lost soul, looking up to him. But he's shifting into teacher mode right now, so the cuteness aggression is going to have to be capped for the moment.

"Of course you're my beloved student!" Satoru says, because this is dream logic and dream logic means that this stranger has been his student for more than ten seconds. Another important thing to remember: .. in this memory, students die.

( or. at least he thinks they might. )

And something pulls at Satoru, tells him that this time he can change it, this time he can alter history and protect those who he cares about: he won't mess up this time. His weakness is plain on his sleeve if one cares enough to look.

He sees the flower-curse ahead, and it's deja-vu. He leaps forward, but that weaker curse -- the one with the flames -- darts behind him and ...

"!!!"

Satoru grabs the eye stalks of the flower curse and turns his head around. When did he lose his blindfold? He presses his knees on the curse's chest and tugs.

for a lack of better explanation , this was not his first rodeo in being handled this way. those larger than him had been no stranger to tucking him beneath his arm , and whatever limbs had been separated from ferid in the process . of course, they were largely more bulkier than satoru - in the haste of his manhandling, ferid absentmindedly pondered how the man had the strength to move so freely. presumably, humans are weak little things made up of tearable muscles and weak ligaments. a bag of meat, a sack of blood, little more to be said.

regardless, ferid allows it. to say he had a slight clue as to what was going on would be a lie. he ragdolls a moment in his grip, pressed against the floor as his limbs ever so slightly contort beneath his weight. boot heel scrapes against broken tile & it takes him but only a moment to recognize they were in the subway system.

" no need, no need ! but thank you. i'd find it perfectly pleasant to be impaled if those vines really did find their way to me, " he comments. " but, y'know, life isn't all that serious. you look stressed. "

there is a gentle lilt to his tone, a soothing voice in juxtaposition to the frenzy around him. the distinct smell of blood is enough to alert him at the very least, and at that, he points towards the roof. "above us," he whispers. "i think all that blood loss might be calling your name !"

at that, another vine barrels towards them both, reflecting off the limitless and retreating thereafter. "buuuut, if you really desire to spend your time rescuing little old me," he adds. "i'll be sure to play the part as your damsel in distress. how does that sound ? aah, i'm so scared ! please save me, stranger !"

Then he considers a few facts in the moment.

-- one, he does not have his six eyes. something happened when he came to this strange place, this island which is meant to serve as his home.

-- two, he cannot confirm the flow of cursed energy from point A to point B.

-- three, this person can see the curse's attacks, so he must have some cursed energy, and therefore possibly a technique.

Suddenly, this got a lot more interesting.

"Oh? You wanna play the damsel?" Satoru asks. He's always one to show off, and he grins as he pulls the stranger to his feet. "I guess I always have room for one more student in my class. What do you say?"

He doesn't have a lot of cursed energy, but he's not the strongest only by metric of his technique. He's trained himself in martial arts as well, so he just needs to be conservative enough with his Limitless to use it when it is most important.

it is to his discontent that such an intricate process , streamlined as it may be from his sheer nonhuman existence, is spent on satoru gojos meandering musing.

"aww. usually you're much more fun than this," spirit hums, arms folding atop of one another. instinctively does mahito jut foot into ground, carelessly kicking a rock along towards gojo - only to see it reflect itself gently back towards himself. "something in there has you down ! what a shame. i had the slightest bit of hope you were one of the few humans who had a bit of fun with ugly little feelings . . ."

and as soon as he finds himself partially interested, it dissipates into the nether. why should he be dutifully dedicating such aforementioned energies towards this? "buuuut, it's all the same. you seemed excitable, but given all of . . . this . . ." hand gestures up and down the sorcerer. "it turns out you're nothing more than just acting out each and every day, huh ?"

whatever.

"so," he speaks, clear. waiting. "is this the part where we exchange colors and lament about whatever miraculous side effect it gave us ?"

He swallows.

"You seem to consider yourself an expert on humanity," he says, and does not answer her poignant remark: turns out you're nothing more than just acting out each and every day.

Satoru has considered before what makes him himself. He's rolled it over in his mind, thought in shades of purple and black and found that every single good thing about himself has been because of his best friend.

Even with other shades mixed in, there has always been one painter. And Gojo thinks to himself: what the hell. Sure.

He reaches out and slaps Mahito's hand, using just a little bit of his limitless to keep them from touching skin-to-skin. A little cheeky, he smiles and looks at his hand.

And now he's so grown. Satoru is so proud.

He grins, holding out his bag filled with sweets and delicious snacks as if that was all the explanation he ever could need to give. "Weeeeell, I was hoping you would know a bit more about this place, since I did just show up. But if you don't... you know what that means?"

"You and I... are going to have to investigate it together!!" ( he doesn't have a clue where to start ) "Since it's pretty clear this isn't the afterlife, right? Someone would have mentioned that before they sent poor Gojo out on his own."

Here, things are different. For as long as Gojo-sensei is here, she'll make sure they do ALL kinds of fun stuff and spend as much time around him as possible. That means---AS he had put it:

SHOPPING SPREE for starters.

"I know JUST the place where you can get really good sunglasses! Let's go." Because of course, she does.

Holding the emotions that nearly spill over, Kugisaki picks herself up and approaches her sensei with the biggest grin.

He's way too into it -- smiling like an idiot as his student agrees to his planned outing. There's a moment of sweet nostalgia for a time before Shibuya, before the prison realm, before --

before, before.

He still grins, though.

he wants to get it on satoru.

really, that's all he's ever wanted, in a less literal sense. to mark satoru with something he can never get off. he wants to have happened to satoru, and that's selfish, probably, but he doesn't have much of a desire for anything else. that was how suguru had always wanted him.

the apathy brings back memories of old times, bad times. but it's nothing suguru's own cloying, sticky depression-colour has not already done. still, his drive is not to make satoru care about anything, right now. it's just to be a splinter that never works its way out of satoru's skin.

his head shakes. hair falls over his shoulders.

He was not going to be the one who happened to Suguru. No, it was always the other way around: Satoru was able to become his best self through his best friend.

( present tense. he is his best friend. )

He needs to be alone, though. Alone, alone, alone:

"'scuse me."

Josuke didn't really get what was going on. One minute, everything was normal and then next - bam. Everything was all messed up color wise, and even his own colors had changed. It seemed like it was affecting everyone, though, so that the more you spoke to others the more colors you'd get back...?

Or something like that.

"... eh?"

suguru turns, eyes on his best friend. the colors there are—they are not what he had expected, not what he associates him with. or at least not overtly. maybe there's something. maybe there was something.

he blinks once, twice. sees the hand reach out and tries to meet it with his own, just to touch, finds himself stopped by infinity itself.

There is only so much betrayal of his blue emotion that he can take, and the infinity increases around him.

He does not let him in -- maybe that has always been his fatal flaw, this the inability to connect atom-to-atom with others. His outward smile, his teasing nature, his terrible personality means nothing if he won't let someone undo them.

"Do you know what's happening?" he asks, and his tone sounds all too reminiscent of another time:

stomach turning, limitless dropping, messing up big time & you are not at fault; the strongest, pushed to his limits, blanketing himself in infinity & of course: ❝ suguru, should we kill these guys? the way i am right now, i doubt i'd feel anything about it. ❞

( did they have history ? it's a vague recall, but it seemed as if they did. )

"ooh," mahito cocks her head to the side, arms folding atop of each other. "so you and him really do have history ! look at his hands all over you."

( Kei's drive again. )

There is a limitless void between every atom in Satoru's body. Nothing ever truly touches, no matter how close something gets it only looks like it does --

maybe it's a premonition, but as he's walking towards the cinema, he stops and turns around.