CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The PRT building in downtown Brockton Bay looked less of a headquarters and more of a civic institution, even with its thick concrete walls, reinforced glass, armored checkpoints, and an overabundance of eyes watching from above. Gojo walked past the front desk without a word. No one stopped him.

Security checkpoints short-circuited. Security feeds glitched out. Metal detectors failed to beep.

He could’ve deactivated Limitless—let the sensors work, let the cameras capture something other than corrupted noise. He could’ve made everyone a little more comfortable.

But he didn’t.

Let them guess. Let them squirm.

He didn’t need to do anything he didn't want to. He was Gojo Satoru.

And they already knew they couldn’t touch him.

“You’re late,” said a familiar voice from the far side of the lobby.

Glory Girl stood with arms crossed, posture stiff. She looked tense.

“Sorry I’m late,” Gojo replied with mock solemnity. “I got lost on the path of life.”

She rolled her eyes and gestured for him to follow. "They're in the training room. This is just a meet-and-greet."

"You want them to see I’m not a threat," he said, hands in his coat pockets, voice dry.

“I want to see if that’s true,” she countered, not looking at him. “And I want them to know what they’re dealing with if it’s not.”

He said nothing to that, but the flicker of a grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.

. . . . .

The training room was a cavernous space of padded floors, crash mats, and target dummies. The Wards were scattered in small clusters—some in costume, others half-suited, all masked. Gallant and Aegis stood near a stack of weights, while Shadow Stalker sulked near the far wall. Browbeat sat cross-legged beside her, watching quietly. 

Gojo didn’t care about any of them.

Not until he saw Vista.

She stood alone near the far edge of the room, stretching her arms, while the space around her bent in slowly—like the air itself had forgotten how to behave. An untrained eye would’ve missed it entirely, mistaking the distortion for a shimmer of heat or light.

But Gojo saw it instantly.

Not just distance shifting. Not a visual illusion. The structure of the space—its angles, its flow—was being reshaped. Topology bent around her command, crude and instinctive, but undeniably real.

Not unlike his own.

A child nudging the edges of a technique she didn’t understand. A beginner tracing shapes he’d already carved into the world a thousand times.

It wasn’t Limitless.

But it was close enough to catch his attention.

He crossed the room in silent strides, ignoring the wary glances from the others. Vista looked up, startled as he crouched to her eye level, but didn't back away.

“You don’t realize how powerful you are,” he said quietly.

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

“You’re not just bending space. You’re teaching it to lie.” His voice remained soft. “Redefining how space thinks it should behave.”

“I just make distances stretch or shrink,” she said, confused.

“No,” he corrected. “You make the world believe it was always that way.”

“Hey.”

The voice snapped through the gym like a whip.

Clockblocker.

He walked over, arms crossed and chin high. “Back off. We didn’t ask for your evaluation.”

Gojo stood slowly, unbothered. A distant part of him realized he towered over the Ward, and might come off as looming, but he paid it no mind.

“I was being complimentary,” he said.

“Your compliments aren’t needed.”

Gojo tilted his head. “You’re loud. Are you trying to convince me, or yourself?”

Clockblocker bristled. His hands curled slightly.

“Clockblocker,” Aegis warned from across the gym.

But Gojo had already turned his attention back to Vista, dismissing the rising tension like it was wind.

“You feel it, don’t you?” Gojo said, voice calm. “The lie you tell the world when you use your power.”

Vista blinked, caught off guard. “…Sometimes,” she admitted slowly. “It’s like… everything around me doesn’t want to cooperate. Like I’m pulling threads that aren’t supposed to move.”

Gojo studied her for a moment. “You are simulating new physics altogether, rather than rewriting aspects of reality within a strict logic.”

Not like cursed energy.

Vista looked at him, uncertain. “You mean I’m using it wrong?”

He smiled—just slightly. “No. You… provide the input (wanting to stretch space), and the parasite delivers the output (creating the illusion that space has changed), without actually altering the underlying physics. You are just the middleman.”

She didn’t understand entirely. But she knew enough to be unsettled by his assertion.

. . . . .

He left shortly after that. No parting words.

Just gone.

. . . . .

That night, Gojo sat alone on the rooftop of a half-collapsed parking garage, wind tugging at his coat, the lights of Brockton Bay shining beneath him.

Vista’s power lingered in his mind.

Not because she was strong. Not yet.

But because her abilities might be imitating the effects of Limitless without full comprehension.

Cursed energy didn’t exist in this world. He had confirmed it.

So how was it these children were being shaped—guided by unseen hands—into powers that echoed sorcery? Powers that echoed truths he’d learned through pain and training.

Was it just a coincidence?

Or were the parasites—these passengers—watching his world too?

He narrowed his eyes beneath his mask, and for the first time since arriving, felt the tug of something cold and ancient brushing the edge of his awareness.

Not in a threatening manner.

Just curiosity.

[DATA]

He had been watching them. And so they watched in return. 

Gojo smiled.