From the moment I drew my first breath in this world — a world full of curses and spirits — I was praised. I was born into the prestigious Gojo clan and awoke as a prodigy the likes of which had not been seen in centuries. The combination of the boundless cursed technique and the Six Eyes within me was a phenomenon that hadn't been seen in over four hundred years. I was immediately thrust into the limelight and labelled as:
The miracle child.
The boy wonder.
The LEGACY.
My birth was celebrated with an adoration that bordered on disturbing reverence. The jujutsu world trembled at the mention of my potential, for I embodied a collapse in the balance of power that had long been established. The weight of expectation settled upon my infant shoulders like an invisible cloak, heavy with the legacy of my bloodline and the hopes of a society desperate for change.
As a child, a normal upbringing was a luxury forever beyond my reach. The expansive Gojo estate, with its maze of traditional architecture and impeccably kept gardens, served as both my sanctuary and my prison. Within its confines, I was shaped into the ideal vessel to contain the vast power that surged through my veins.
There were no carefree days spent chasing butterflies in the sun-dappled courtyards. No quiet afternoons lost in the pages of a storybook. Instead, my childhood was a relentless succession of:
Training sessions that pushed my young body to its limits.
Lectures on the intricacies of cursed energy manipulation.
Endless drills to hone my innate abilities.
The adults who surrounded me—my own flesh and blood—viewed me not as a child to be nurtured, but as a weapon to be forged. They instilled in me the paramount importance of strength, drilling into my developing mind that weakness was tantamount to failure—and in the jujutsu world, failure is death. Any hint of vulnerability was met with stern disapproval, immediately corrected lest it take root.
"You are destined for greatness, Legacy," they would say, their voices both of pride and warning. "The future of our family—of all jujutsu—rests on your shoulders. You must never falter."
My exceptional talents, while a source of pride, also served to isolate me from my peers. Other children my age either regarded me with awe and envy or shrank away in fear, intimidated by the aura of power that seemed to emanate from me even then.
Loneliness became my constant companion.
The admiration showered on me by my family was a double-edged sword. Their praise was effusive but conditional, always linked to my abilities and achievements. Success was met with recognition, but anything less than perfect brought with it the bitter sting of disappointment. This relentless pressure fed my ego and fostered a sense of invincibility that would define my youth and early adulthood.
As I grew older, the silent tension between myself and the elders of my own clan and those of jujutsu society became increasingly palpable. They respected my developing powers. But that was a respect as superficial as their egos, for their respect was tinged with fear.
In me, they saw a force that could upset the balance of power, the customs, and the traditions they had long maintained. Their attempts to guide me were thinly veiled efforts at control, each interaction a subtle power play.
I remember with crystal clarity the first time I truly grasped the magnitude of my power—of what I can do. It was during a training exercise when I was nine years old. As I channeled my cursed energy, the very world, the very space around me seemed to bend and warp. The very core of the world trembled at my touch. It was a sensation both exhilarating and terrifying.
In that moment, I understood that I existed on a plane above others. The realization was intoxicating, filling me with a sense of invincibility that would shape my worldview for years to come. The adults around me, rather than tempering this distorted epiphany, only reinforced it.
"You are special, Satoru," they would say, their eyes gleaming with a mixture of pride and calculation. "You are the Legacy. The destined strongest. And in our world, strength is everything."
The brutality of the jujutsu world was laid bare before me at an age when most children were still blissfully unaware of the darker aspects of life. By the time I reached the tender age of seven, I had witnessed more death and destruction than most see in a lifetime.
Mountains of corpses piled high like macabre monuments to the never-ending conflict between curses and jujutsu sorcerers. The anguished cries of the dying, a soundtrack to my early years. The metallic scent of blood, a smell that became as familiar as the incense burned in the family shrine.
Each exposure to this harsh reality chipped away at my empathy, encasing my heart in a shell of indifference. I began to view the world through a lens of power and survival, accepting the cycle of violence as an immutable fact of existence.
"This is the nature of our world," my mentors would say, their voices devoid of emotion. "To survive, one must be strong. To thrive, one must be the strongest."
And the strongest I became. That's what I believed.
It was only much later that I began to wonder whether my arrogance and apathy were really innate traits or the product of my upbringing. The relentless pressure to excel, the isolation from my peers and the constant manipulation by those who wanted to use my power for their own ends all played a part in shaping the person I became.
My teenage years were characterised by an intensification of my training and a growing awareness of where I stood in the world of jujutsu. I pushed myself, driven by a complicated mess of duty, fear and an insatiable desire to prove my worth.
The elders watched my progress with a mixture of satisfaction and trepidation. They had succeeded in creating a power that would develop into unparalleled strength, but in doing so they had also created a being that they could no longer fully control. I could see the fear in their eyes, poorly concealed behind masks of stern approval.
It was during this time that the true cost of my childhood began to dawn on me. In quiet moments, when the echoes of training faded and I was left alone with my thoughts, I confronted the hollowness that resided at my stomach.
"Again, for fucking what?" I would sometimes muse, not out of regret, but out of contempt for their short-sightedness.
I had become a weapon, yes, but one that wielded itself. The price of power, it seemed, was the ability to truly connect with others. The old geezers, in their quest for the perfect tool, had given rise to a force beyond their comprehension. Their fear amused me, their attempts at control nothing more than a futile breeze against the tempest of my strength.
"Fucking geezers," I would mutter, anger simmering beneath the surface. "They knew exactly what they were doing from the start."
As I neared adulthood, I continued to hone my abilities, driven by a complex mix of emotions. My strength had become an eternal constant, an infinity that both freed and imprisoned me. It was my greatest asset and my deepest curse—everlasting, immutable, always was, always will be—but it was a part of me I could never bring myself to resent.
I sought out the strongest opponents, not just to prove my strength, but in the hope of finding a feeling of satisfaction. Yet, each battle only reinforced my solitude, and each victory felt like another step towards an unreachable horizon. The gap between myself and others widened, until it became an insurmountable chasm after I was crowned special grade.
But unlike what others might think, I didn't yearn for connection in the way normal people do. I understood my position, my role in this world. I was Satoru Gojo, the destined strongest, a guy that existed on a plane above others. Loneliness was not a burden, but a natural consequence of my existence.
From an outsider's perspective, the tragedy of my existence might seem palpable. A man gifted with absoluteness, forever set apart from those around him. My confidence and strength are undeniable, but they come at the cost of true connection.
I'm just a guy who knows my place, which happens to be at the top.
The world sees a figure both awe-inspiring and terrifying—a force of nature given human form. They fail to see the child who was never allowed to be just a child, the boy who was molded into a weapon before he could choose his own path.
But I don't resent this.
I am what I am, and I revel in it.
I don't hate my strength or my position. I embrace it, thrive in it. But for those who look closely, who look beyond the searing heat of my strength, there is a sense of what could have been. A life unlived, connections not made, a humanity partially sacrificed on the altar of power.
But it's a tragedy only in the eyes of others, not in my own.
I am the strongest, without question.
The tragedy, if there is one, lies not in my loneliness or in the path I've taken, but in the limits of a world that cannot quite understand what I can do. But it's not my tragedy that I've to endure, but that of the world.
As I continue to impact the world of jujutsu with every breath I take, I sometimes can't help but wonder: who would I've become in a different world, under different circumstances? It's a question that will forever remain unanswered, lost to a forgotten past and an inescapable fate.
But I don't dwell on such hypotheticals.
This is my legacy. This is my reality. This is my curse. Alone, yes, but never lonely.