𝑬𝑴𝑷𝑰𝑹𝑬 𝑶𝑭 𝑮𝑶𝑳𝑫 ⇢ Gojo Satoru

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐗𝐗 - 𝐍𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐓 𝐋𝐔𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐁𝐘

GOJO SATORU CONTINUED TO STARE AT THE SORCERESS, both equally marvelled and incredulous at what he was seeing. Mikazuki stared back, unaffected by the heavy silence that settled in the room, her bright sunset eyes colliding with Satoru's ocean ones. There was a battle in those gazes, one that neither sorcerer was willing to forfeit.

It was the kind of duel that Mikazuki had never indulged in, the kind of challenging glare she never returned, always quick to look away at the sight of those imposing ever blues. But she was done looking away now, and if this had been a real battle, then she would have won. Mainly because Satoru gave up the moment he first looked away, ten years ago.

That was something she would never forget. Couldn't forget.

"You've changed." He said it softly, yet his voice was still loud enough to carry across the room and echo against the large vaulted ceiling.

Mikazuki scoffed, momentarily looking away and biting the tip of her tongue, trying to supress the string of unkind words that were begging to be let free like the gold inside of her veins. The sorceress looked up at the skylight, the solitary moon looking back from its apex. It was almost midnight, soon the bell would ring and Keisuke's body would be carried to the gardens, starting the procession she was supposed to lead. The thought made her bones rattle, but it was her duty, one she was not ready to abandon. She'd already been separated from her twin long enough, so long she could barely recognize the power – his power – simmering under skin.

Mikazuki sighed, getting so worked up about the past was pointless, particularly when Satoru had made what he thought of her very clear a long time ago. Still, the sorceress huffed, gathering the hem of her kimono and lifting the train from the ground as she turned to face the Gojo boy one last time. This was one battle she would not give into.

"Ten years tend to do that to people." She eyed him warily, taking in his slouched posture and that stupid grin of his, the distaste so clear in her gaze he could almost taste it. "Not that you would know."

Ten years and Gojo Satoru was still the same careless idiot he'd always been. Nothing about him had changed, and part of Mikazuki resented him for it. It was unfair – unlawfully so. Why should he get away with being the same when so many things had changed, so much time passed? Gojo Satoru was like a mountain, unwilling to bow down to the winds of change like she had so easily done.

Satoru blinked slowly, his stance changing so subtly Mikazuki barely notice it. He looked different now, the true heir of the Gojo Clan, the monster they both knew he could easily turn into, that edge of danger and something incredibly tempting returning to his gaze. He fixed the sorceress with a deciding stare, as if he could see directly all the way to her soul – he could, but that's beside the point.

"Is that so?" He questioned, his voice uncharacteristically low as a shiver ran down Mikazuki's spine, the sound of his words reverberating into her soul.

There was an unusual sharpness to his tone, while a shadow crossed through his features, that dormant darkness Mikazuki had glimpsed more than once surfacing momentarily before disappearing once again under the careless calmness of the sorcerer.

Mikazuki stepped forward, the sound of her own heels clicking against the marble loud enough to snap her back to reality. The sorceress paused, quickly reassessing her thoughts, whatever trance she'd previously fallen in shattering to pieces as she took a deep steadying breath. Mikazuki turned around, leaning in and pressing her soft chapped lips against her brother's forehead, the gesture sending rippled through the air, what was left of Keisuke's cursed energy fusing with her own.

It broke her soul.

The sorceress gave her brother's hand one last squeeze before finally stepping away from his corpse, a new sense of determination washing over her like a wave. Mikazuki was done playing these stupid games, and she was certainly done indulging the massive ego of Gojo Satoru.

The sorceress looked up, and it was like a switch had been flipped, the fire that had been previously simmering inside of those golden eyes of hers was gone, replaced by the unsettling calmness of the girl she used to be; all polite smiles and small pleasantries, the kind of girl her father had liked her to be, the kind she could never fully commit to.

"Gojo, I–"

Whatever words were about to spill from Mikazuki's lips got swallowed up by the sound of the chapel's bell. The sound cut across the room like a ricocheting bullet, the golden ceiling of the chapel amplifying the noise like a speaker. They were standing right underneath the bell, and as it continued to toll, the two sorcerers stared at one another, however, the fight that had previously been written in their gazes was now gone, replaced by something else entirely. A sense of understanding.

It was midnight, which meant the funerary rite was about to begin. As if on cue, the doors to the chapel opened, a group of servants slowly trickling into the room one after the other. While some of them worked around the chapel – organizing items, lighting the wall of candles and opening the skylight to let more light in – the rest moved towards Keisuke's corpse, hoisting him up and transferring his corpse to the plank for the procession.

If Mikazuki still had a heart, it would have beat out of her chest. However, since her chest was an empty coffer, the woman adjusted the sleeves of her kimono and stepped aside, watching as they washed her brother's face one last time, water droplets running down his cheeks and all the way down to the collar of his suit.

He looked like he was crying.

The doors to the chapel opened once again, the chatter from the outside flickering in. The servants moved like a well-oiled machine, stepping into the light while carrying the plank with three on each side. Mikazuki gave Gojo one last look – something indecipherable in her gaze – before following them, slowly picking up the pace until she was right at the front of the procession.