The Blue In His Eyes

The entire world was in chaos.

The ground shook without warning, sending buildings collapsing into the streets below.

Across the horizon, volcanoes erupted, spewing fire and ash into the sky as rivers of lava consumed everything in their path. Cities burned.

Oceans churned against the shores. Nations turned against one another as wars erupted amid the destruction, while diseases spread through the remaining populations faster than they could be contained.

People screamed in agony, anguish and pain, and they cursed the skies and all the gods they had prayed for who gave no answer to their prayers.

There was no longer any place untouched by disaster, except for one.

At the peak of a towering hill stood an ancient temple, its stone walls untouched by the devastation below. From its elevated grounds, the entire world seemed to stretch beneath it—a landscape of burning cities, distant volcanic eruptions and smoke-blackened skies.

The temple had become the last place standing, and within it remained only one person.

The Head Priestess stood at the edge of the temple’s highest balcony, silently watching the world below. Her expression remained calm as another tremor passed through the earth.

After a moment, she turned on her heel and walked away. Her footsteps echoed softly through the empty halls.

The temple used to be filled with life, resounded with light footsteps and echoed with the laughter of her sisters.

Now, she walked alone through the temple, passing rows of silent pillars that had witnessed centuries of wars. No servants came to greet her. No voices called from the adjoining chambers. There was only silence.

When she finally reached the altar, she stopped.

The Head Priestess, Serena, slowly lowered herself to her knees. She folded her hands before her chest, bowed her head and began to pray.

Outside, the world continued to burn and shake.

Inside, she remained on her knees as the last priestess of a dying world. She prayed in full concentration, until all the sounds became nothing but muffled noise. Until there was nothing but silence.

Then, the sound of crickets and footsteps in the distance was heard, causing her brows to furrow despite herself. A cool breeze caressed her veil and cheeks.

Serena slowly opened her eyes and saw darkness. But it was a peaceful kind of darkness.

The full moon shone brightly above her, illuminating a vast field covered in grass and flowers. The gentle night breeze carried their fragrance through the air.

Tears started flowing down Serena’s cheeks. Wherever she was, she found the place she had been transported to beautiful beyond words. She didn’t question why she was there or how she had arrived.

If only her sisters were still alive...

Then, a screen suddenly appeared before her, nearly a meter in length. Serena paused.

The translucent screen hovered silently in the air, its surface glowing with soft golden light. Unlike the destruction she had just witnessed, its appearance was strangely welcoming.

A cheerful chime sounded.

[ SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE!

Welcome, Serena! ]

Serena stared at the words.

A second message appeared beneath them.

[ Congratulations!

You have been selected as a Holy Priestess Candidate!

Your unique holy powers have been detected.

World Transfer: COMPLETE

Destination: Jujutsu Kaisen World ]

Serena’s brows furrowed. She had never heard of such a world.

Before she could speak, another window appeared.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[ MAIN MISSION ]

Mission Objective: Prevent Satoru Gojo from meeting his destined death.

Mission Location: Jujutsu Kaisen World

Mission Purpose: You have been brought to this world for one reason and that is to save him.

Mission Issuer: The Divine Patron (Fourth Dimension)

Mission Bearer: Serena (High Priestess of World I)

[ SPECIAL CONDITION: To complete the Main Mission, the Host must unconditionally love Satoru Gojo.

Warning: This condition cannot be substituted, bypassed or fulfilled through deception. ]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Serena’s expression finally changed. Her lips stuttered the one word she had never once considered before toward a man. “...Love?”

The screen didn't answer and a new panel appeared.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[ HOST ABILITIES ]

Holy Power: ACTIVATED

• Holy Healing

• Purification

• Sacred Barrier

• Holy Light

• Divine Blessing

Additional abilities will become available as the Host’s Holy Power develops.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Serena stared at the list for several moments. She had spent her entire life serving the gods. Yet never had she been given power like this. Then, came the final notification.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━[ MISSION REWARD ]

Successfully complete the Main Mission and fulfill the Special Condition.

Reward: Your original world will be restored. All destruction will be undone. Your temple will stand once more. Your sisters will return. Your world will be saved.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Serena’s breath caught and she felt her fingers tremble.

Her sisters.

Alive.

The thought alone made her chest ache.

Then another line appeared beneath the reward.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ SIDE QUESTS ]

Side Quests will become available once the required conditions have been met.

[ SYSTEM TIP ]

Please don’t worry, Serena!

Your journey may seem overwhelming at first, but you are not alone.

The System will be here to assist you whenever necessary.

Good luck, Holy Priestess!

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The screen disappeared and, for a moment, Serena thought it had all been a figment of her imagination, but the cool breeze against her skin, the grass beneath her feet and the soft fragrance of the flowers were far too vivid to be dismissed as a dream. After a thorough deliberation, she finally accepted that this was her reality now.

Serena remained motionless beneath the moonlight for a few moments longer. Her tears continued to fall, but this time, there was hope in her eyes as she slowly looked toward the unfamiliar horizon.

Somewhere in this world was a man named Satoru Gojo. A man she had never met but was expected to save, and apparently, he was also a man she was expected to love.

Standing up, Serena wiped the tears from her cheeks before finally asking the question that had been bothering her.

“Satoru Gojo? Who is that supposed to be?”

The System froze. For several seconds, nothing happened. Then, the screen abruptly reappeared before her.

[ SYSTEM ALERT!

Critical Error Detected!

The Host does not know Satoru Gojo. ]

Serena blinked.

The screen flickered again several times as though it were in a state of panic.

[ Target Recognition: FAILED. ]

[ Target Familiarity: 0%. ]

[ Target Affection: 0%. ]

[ Main Mission Requirement: Genuine and unconditional love for the Target. ]

A brief pause followed.

[ ... ]

Serena stared at the screen with her lips parted in confusion, waiting for it to continue. Several lines appeared in rapid succession.

[ Emergency Solution Initiated. ]

[ Analyzing alternative methods of Target introduction. ]

[ Verbal explanation: Insufficient. ]

[ Written explanation: Insufficient. ]

[ Direct memory transfer: Recommended. ]

Serena’s expression became wary. “Wait.”

The System chimed.

[ Beginning Memory Synchronization. ]

Before Serena could object, the world around her dissolved and she found herself looking through someone else’s eyes.

A boy stood beneath a bright blue sky, his white hair almost silver beneath the sunlight. He was young, arrogant and completely certain of himself, carrying the effortless confidence of someone who had never known what it meant to be powerless.

Serena felt the exhilaration of discovering his own abilities, the confidence that came with being born into extraordinary power and the gradual realization that being the strongest was not the same as being able to protect everyone.

She watched Satoru Gojo grow and meet Suguru Geto.

For a while, the two of them stood at the center of each other’s world. They fought together, argued together and laughed together, believing that the future belonged to them. They were young enough to think strength could solve everything and arrogant enough to believe that nothing could separate them.

Then, came the mission that changed everything: protecting Riko Amanai and fighting against Toji Fushiguro.

Death.

Failure.

Loss.

Serena felt Gojo’s awakening as though it were happening inside her own body, the overwhelming realization of what he had become and the terrible distance that suddenly appeared between himself and everyone else. But the most painful part came afterward.

Suguru Geto changed.

The boy who had once stood beside Gojo slowly became someone he could no longer reach.

Serena felt Gojo’s confusion, his frustration and the quiet desperation of watching his best friend disappear while being unable to stop him. She experienced the growing ideological divide between them, the questions neither of them could answer and the terrible realization that strength alone could not repair what had already broken.

Then came Megumi.

A child carrying the burden of his father’s decisions before he was old enough to understand them. Even though Toji, his father, had been the one to kill Amanai and triggered Geto's change, he still had pity on the child and took him in without asking anything in return.

Gojo saw something in him. Rather than allowing the Zenin clan to take control of his future, Gojo intervened and eventually became responsible for him. He watched Megumi grow, guided him in his own unconventional way and protected him from a system that had never cared whether children survived its rules.

Serena felt something shift inside her.

Gojo had not simply protected Megumi but he had raised him. Not perfectly, perhaps. He was still Gojo, still irreverent and infuriatingly confident, but beneath the jokes and teasing was a man who had quietly taken responsibility for a child’s future.

The memories continued. Yuta Okkotsu entered his life as another problem the higher-ups wanted eliminated.

Yet Gojo did not kill him and instead protected him. He gave Yuta a chance to live when the people in power had already decided that his life was too dangerous to preserve. He took responsibility for him and named him his successor.

Gojo somehow knew that falling in love and bearing a child of his own was not something he could afford, even if he had all the riches of the world and is named the strongest.

Serena watched as Gojo became a teacher, then a protector and, in many ways, a guardian to children who had inherited a world he already knew was fundamentally broken.

Then, came the night when Suguru became a curse user. Gojo could have let someone else deal with him. He could have allowed the higher-ups to execute him.

Instead, he went to Geto himself. And when the time came, Gojo killed his best friend with his own hands.

Serena’s heart clenched. She felt the weight of that moment far more deeply than the memory itself could convey. The person he had once trusted more than anyone in the world had become the person he was forced to kill, and there was no victory in it. There was only the unbearable knowledge that the strongest man alive had still been unable to save the one person he had wanted to save most.

The visions changed and showed the image of Yuji Itadori. Gojo protected him despite knowing exactly what Yuji carried inside him.

Gojo gave Yuji time and a chance to live. He tried to create a future in which Yuji would be treated as a person rather than a vessel destined for execution. But every choice came with consequences.

People died, cities suffered, and Shibuya became a graveyard.

Serena felt Gojo’s absence during the catastrophe, the helplessness of being sealed away while the people he had sworn to protect were thrown into a nightmare he could not reach.

When he finally returned after being sealed, the world waiting for him was no longer the one he had left. His students had changed and his enemies had grown stronger.

The people he had tried to protect had suffered because of decisions that were never entirely within his control.

Megumi, that same child he had raised, had become the vessel through which Gojo’s greatest enemy fought him.

Serena felt the horror of it. Megumi’s body stood before him, wearing Ryomen Sukuna's violent expressions and sickening words. The boy he had protected and the child he had watched grow. But Gojo still had to fight.

There was no simple hatred to make the battle easier. Every attack carried the knowledge of whom that body belonged to, and every moment of hesitation could cost countless lives.

Serena began to understand the contradiction at the heart of Satoru Gojo. He was called the strongest, but his strength had never given him the freedom to save everyone.

Instead, it had made everyone believe that he should.

He had lost his best friend and carried the knowledge that he had been the one to end his life. He had saved Yuta when the world wanted him dead. He had taken responsibility for Megumi and watched him become the vessel of the very enemy he eventually had to fight. He had protected Yuji because he believed the boy deserved to live, even when that decision contributed to tragedies he could not prevent.

Every time he chose someone else, the consequences followed him, but Gojo continued choosing.

The memories eventually brought her to the final battle.

Satoru Gojo stood before Ryomen Sukuna.

Serena felt the confidence he projected, the almost playful arrogance that made everyone watching believe he had already calculated the outcome. But now, she knew enough to recognize what lay beneath it.

He was reassuring them—his students and his allies.

Everyone who was depending on him.

Even now, he wore that familiar expression that seemed to say that everything would be fine because Satoru Gojo was here. But Serena could feel the exhaustion beneath it.

She could feel everything he had lost. She could feel the weight of Geto’s death, the responsibility he carried for Yuta and Megumi, the consequences surrounding Yuji and every person he had failed to save despite trying.

Gojo knew what would happen if he fought recklessly.

Megumi was still inside that body.

The man standing before him was Sukuna, but the body belonged to someone he had raised.

If Gojo destroyed Sukuna without considering Megumi, he would lose Megumi as well.

So, he fought carefully and brilliantly. He fought with everything he had while still searching for a way to save the student trapped inside his enemy.

Serena felt every surge of confidence, every moment of exhilaration and every desperate calculation. Then, came the final exchange.

For one terrible instant, Serena felt something she could not explain.

It was not fear but acceptance.

Some part of Gojo seemed to understand that he might not survive. Yet he continued.

Not because he was certain that he would live, but because there was no one else who could take his place.

He had spent his entire life standing between others and death.

Even when death finally stood before him, he still refused to step aside.

Then—

Everything went silent.

Serena felt the moment his life ended.

The memory did not merely show her his death. It made her feel the absence that followed.

The strongest was gone.

The man everyone had relied upon was no longer there to save anyone.

Serena returned to the moonlit field with a gasp. Her knees gave way beneath her. She fell onto the grass, one hand pressed against her chest as tears streamed uncontrollably down her face.

She had not realized she was crying and had been holding her breath.

For several moments, she could do nothing but sit there.

The System appeared quietly before her.

[ MEMORY SYNCHRONIZATION COMPLETE. ]

[ Target information successfully transferred. ]

Serena stared at the words through blurred vision.

There was no cheerful response this time and no congratulatory message. Only the weight of everything she had just experienced.

She finally understood why the System had brought her here.

Satoru Gojo was not simply a man who needed to be saved. He was a man who had spent his entire life saving others, even when doing so cost him pieces of himself. Even when his own life finally stood on the line, he had continued fighting as though his death were merely another price he was willing to pay.

Serena slowly lifted her face toward the moon. “How lonely...”

The words escaped her before she could stop them. She wiped her tears, but they continued to fall.

Then she looked at the direction of the System's screen. “You said I have to love him.”

[ Correct. ]

Serena was silent for a long time. “...I don’t know if I can.”

The System did not immediately respond. For once, it seemed to understand that this was not a question that could be solved by displaying another notification.

Serena lowered her gaze. She did not know Satoru Gojo yet, but she knew his loneliness and his sacrifices. She knew the people he had tried to save and the people he had been unable to save.

And now she knew how his story would end.

Her hand tightened against her chest. “If I have truly been brought here to change his fate...”

She looked toward the unfamiliar world beyond the field.

“...then I will.”

The System finally chimed.

[ MAIN MISSION ]

[ SAVE SATORU GOJO ]

[ STATUS: ACCEPTED ]

Serena closed her eyes. This time, when she whispered his name, it no longer belonged to a stranger.

“Satoru Gojo.”

Somewhere in this world, he was still alive.

And she intended to find him before the story she had just witnessed could reach its end.

Behind her, she heard footsteps drew nearer. "Did somebody call my name?"