₊˚.༄ Eternal Exodus
CHAPTER SIX:
( the prodigy and the mutt. )

A crisp breeze crept through the open window to Chaike's bedroom, crawling around the room before striking at the girl's back to send a shiver up her spine. She felt her skin become tight and bumpy instantly but paid no mind to the sensation. Chaike listened to the rough winds outside, an unusual storm brewing that was sure to bring in a harsh rainfall for a few days as the weatherman had predicted earlier in the morning. She always appreciated the calm before the storm, something about the uneasiness that could come from such a peaceful state of nature made her appreciate the peculiarity.

            Chaike had returned to the school a few days prior and was immediately confined to her living quarters like a parent putting their kid in time out. She didn't care for her room being the new prison, she much preferred the chains with ancient symbols and seals scrawled across the walls. Chaike didn't care for the façade of freedom given to the room, she could do whatever she really wanted, except not, and it was too contradictory for her liking. At least when confined to chains, straight jackets, and tiny four walls she knew her place as a mutt. Chaike felt like a mutt on a leash who was told they could run wild and free (a petty remark to make), and when trying to run loose quickly realized that "free" came with a short leash.

            Chaike felt her wrist twist in irritation, keeping it erected for too long on the canvas trying to brush out the last of the red paint on the paint brush had proven difficult. She hadn't painted in a long time – at least two centuries – and she certainly hadn't sat so long working on a canvas in gods know how long. Chaike had always been fascinated by the art, studying the ancient painters of the past in flesh to seek out the knowledge they knew of the canvas and subject. She recalls leaning over soldiers, watching in awe and amusement at the artist at work, and the remarks telling the mutt she was too close for their comfort. She was by no means as excellent as Michelangelo, Raphael, or the great Klimt, but she never wanted to be. Painting was just a form of escapism for when her mind ran too wild for her liking, and the wolves inside her head wouldn't stop howling in the night.

            Gojo didn't like this type of weather for the soul reason that it made his TV staticky. He had recorded the movie that was playing several minutes prior before he left for a mission a few days prior, and now, halfway through the movie, his TV takes a shit on itself. He can't help but curse at the unimaginable gods and wish nothing more than to give them a piece of his mind. It had been a difficult mission to come back to, not that it was necessarily hard, just not really his speed. Gojo turned to his bookshelf of movies, trying to decide if he should start a new one to occupy his time, or do something else entirely. As his eyes darted across the large collection of film, he couldn't help but note his VHS tapes sitting on the lower part of the bookshelf. He had forgotten about them – hence why he kept them so low on the shelf – for he hadn't watched a VHS in ages. His eyes quickly halted when his gaze landed on the movie that had previously been playing on his box of electricity. He couldn't help but further curse the gods for their funny play at a joke, but as he stared daggers at the box, he remembered that Chaika herself had a VHS player in her room. He cursed such knowledge, knowing damn well he wouldn't have known such information if he hadn't snooped through her room while she was away being judged by executioners.

            He recalls the previous week in blurbs, like watching an old movie through distorted lens. He had recalled the mutt clamping its jaws down on his hand, and the Shoko being the first to reach Gojo. Geto had kicked the raven-haired beast in the face, ripping the jaws from the prodigy's hand. Gojo became consumed by the blood dripping from the girl's mouth, and the wicked cackle you'd see a witch make come tumbling out of her stomach. Masamichi had quickly come into the picture, taking the girl away as she laughed and screamed out sentences from a dead language the boy would never understand. It had been several days later before he ever saw the wolf again, chains wrapped around her limbs and throat, and she truly looked like the animal she self-proclaimed to be. He knew his family was involved in this matter, he himself and Masamichi couldn't hide the fact from them, and he knew his family would never let a low life like a mutt bring harm onto the god of the Gojo clan. He remembers vividly the smile the girl wore as she was escorted to a truck that reminded Gojo of a military tank that you'd see in movies, her fierce canines bearing gruesomely as if they were waiting for the next bite of a meal. He was certain that they would execute her, but after several days when she returned to the school, he couldn't help but wonder why she looked so subdued to her predicament.

            Gojo pondered on the idea of going to her room and getting her VHS tape player – he had so desperately wanted to avoid the girl – but his hunger to finish the movie that had abruptly ended outweighed his judgement. He hurriedly grabbed the box from the bottom shelf and darted to the girl's room, hoping so desperately that he'd see no one, and vice versa. When he reached the mutt's doghouse he hesitated at the door for a moment, a feeling of guilt bumbling in the pit of his stomach. He hadn't done anything wrong though, she had been the one to blame for her self-inflicted predicament. He tried to pivot on his foot and go back to his room, dumbing this all a lost cause, but before he could finish the movement the door to the doghouse had swung open to reveal the mutt herself. Gojo stared at the girl wide eyed and didn't care for the hollow emptiness in her eyes, not that they ever gleamed with much except for chaos, but it was odd to see a mutt wear a melancholy look.

            "What do you want," the girl snapped at the white-haired boy, and he didn't care for the angry look on her face as if he had interrupted her sleep. He knew damn well a mutt like her didn't sleep.

            "Um," Gojo stumbled over his words for a moment, trying to pick and chose the right way to approach the situation. "You have a VHS player; I was hoping I could use it to finish this movie."

            "How do you know I have one of those," Chaike barked at him, giving the boy a quizzical look that made him squirm. He had chosen the wrong words just as he always seemed to do when speaking to the mutt. He hesitated for a moment, and the girl quickly spoke before he could respond to her initial question, "Come in."

            Chaike stepped back into her room, and Gojo hesitated before following lowly behind the girl, like a dog who had just been swatted on the snout for getting into the human food. When Gojo stepped in he instantly noticed how the room held a soft yellow glow to it, candles lit up from every direction. She had an easel set up in the middle of the room, and Gojo watched patiently as she moved it and the art supplies out of the way so he could move further into the room. The picture she was painting looked less like a picture and more like blobs of color, an abstract painting that distorted his eyes. The windows were open and brought in a soft breeze from the brewing storm outside. She had no blankets or pillows on her bed, and if he cared enough about her well being he would have offered some of his own. She had an old box tv with a built in VHS tape player sitting on the floor, and as he eyed the object, he realized he delivered himself to a den he didn't want to have to sit in. He thought he could take the TV to his bedroom but realized slowly that was less likely than he had initially thought, cursing his stupid and impatient mind for not thinking of this.

            "Well," Chaike piped up, and Gojo quickly turned towards her like a deer caught in headlights, "go ahead and watch your movie." She spoke as if it were that simple, as if they had been the greatest of friends who did this all the time, as if she hadn't mauled his hand half a week ago. Gojo couldn't move, it was as if he had been frozen at the feet. He watched irritatingly as the raven-haired rolled her eyes and sat down in her stool, "I don't care if you watch your movie in here, just don't play it too loudly."

            Gojo quietly set himself up to finish the movie and sat on his side in the middle of the floor, elbow propping up his head. He notched the movie forward to where he last left off before his TV had given up on its task, and his eyes danced slowly on the screen as the movie began to play. Gojo couldn't rub the uncomfortable feeling off though, and his mind couldn't stay concentrated on the pictures before him. He felt like a small mouse placed in a snake's cage, just waiting with bated breath for the snake to strike and eat. He was annoyed with himself, it was like all rational had exited his mind when it came to this movie, that he had no interest in finishing, for the climax left him lack lustered. He turned around to take a better look at the painting Chaike was working on, and he still couldn't really make out what it was or what it meant. "What is the painting of," Gojo couldn't help but ask, curiosity always kills the cat.

She doesn't respond, nor turn to the boy, only stops to take a long look at the painting herself and ponders on what she's really trying to do with it. She gives him a simple remark, "That doesn't concern you," and such a response didn't appease the boy's appetite.

"What was it like sitting waiting for your execution," Gojo prodded for more information to appease his curiosity.

"Lack luster," the girl said, and she finally turned to the boy, "why are you asking all these questions, I thought I asked you to be quite."

"Technically, you asked for me to keep the volume low on the movie," Gojo informs her, and he watched as she huffed out of annoyance, but caught the sight of amusement flash in her eyes for a split moment. "And the movie is boring me at this point, and I've never sat on death row by the Higher ups, and I figured there was no harm in asking," Gojo told her.

"It's not all that exciting," Chaike informed him as she started to put her paint supplies up, "I've been to much more amusing executions."

"Did you give them the information that they wanted," Gojo asked.

"Ah, so you know about that," Chaike gave Gojo a look that he couldn't read, "Masamichi tells you too much."

"Actually, one of my family members told me," Gojo corrects her.

"Well, tell them to stick their nose out of my affairs," Chaike says as she finishes putting up the last of her paint supplies, "but, no, I did not show them the abilities of my technique, granted Masamichi told them, so it's of no secret."

Gojo watches as the raven-haired girls makes her way towards him, moving like a wolf in the dead of night, and he instantly straitens his posture out of fear of what her next move is. He had forgotten that he was prey in a predator's den. "At least they don't know your domain expansion," he tells her to lighten the mood.

A hardy laugh escapes her lips as she plops down beside him on the floor, "I suppose so, but I hope you have kept your big mouth shut on that."

"Don't worry, I haven't said a word," Gojo tells her as he crosses his legs and turns his body towards the TV, "besides, I don't want to get eaten by the big bad wolf," Gojo tells her with a smirk, and she merely gives him an annoyed look. "What's it like, being able to do what you do," Gojo asked, and he regrets the question immediately. He hadn't thought it through, it merely came tumbling out of his mouth, but it was a question he feared he never should have asked. It was improper to ask someone such a personal question about something so grotesque.

Chaike's mood instantly shifted into one of melancholy and anger, an aura that felt heavy on Gojo's shoulders as if weights had been placed upon him. "Are you asking about the technique in general, or one in particular," she mumbles, and if the movie would have been any louder Gojo was sure he wouldn't have heard her question.

"I suppose the whole ordeal, with the gruesome details being left out," Gojo tells her, and he watches as her eyes slant in annoyance or maybe anger, he couldn't really pinpoint which one.

"You can't talk about cannibalism without detailing the not so pretty picture of it," Chaike growls lowly at the boy, "besides, I want to watch this movie you've so graciously brought into my room."

"It really isn't that interesting," Gojo told her as he rewinds the movie to very beginning, deciding it was best to leave the subject alone for now, "It started out good, but got boring halfway through."

"Ah, so you're that type," Chaike comments as her eyes train on the TV screen.

"What type," Gojo questions, but a part of him knows what she means by the comment.

"The type to not see something through if it does not elicit some type of adrenaline rush," Chaike comments before continuing, "I've seen thousands of different possibilities, and even when they tear the very fabric of my body and soul apart, I must see it through, even if I'm bored, deeply disturbed, or in pain over the scene."

"Well, then your just enacting self-harm, you're causing your own damnation," Gojo tells her in an annoyed tone, "just because they want you to play a part as a mutt doesn't mean you have to put on such a show for them."

"And the same can be said for you," the raven-haired mutt finally snaps, "some God you are, all mighty God of the Gojo clan, the sorcerer that will save us all!" Chaike howls out, and slowly stands so that she's towering over the boy who now cowers in fear like the prey he is.

"I have seen thousands of futures and possibilities, damning myself with the foresight as it rips and tears at my mind and body all for the sake of you cowards. You, Satoru Gojo, are the worst dog of them all, swearing by your power when it is nothing but the biggest show of all. You are nothing more than a man shoved into a God's title, and it does you no service or justice, for the universe does not care for lousy men sitting on their high throne," Chaike screams at the boy and he watches in horror as a single crystal clear tear runs down her face, and Gojo can't help but see it as the purest thing to have ever crossed the womans features. No tribal symbols to cover as much pale skin as possible, no scars from thousand yearlong wars distorting the body, and no blood to make a mutt seem more monstrous. Chaike isn't a mutt in his eyes in this moment, she isn't even a dog, she's merely a girl terrified and alone.

"The price we pay for being God's and Devil's in this world is we reach a height that we can never come down from, and we are damned to be at such a height alone, never knowing the company of others. We will always be at odds and set apart from the world," Chaike tells the boy, and he finds himself standing to meet her height, to finally meet another God set at their self-proclaimed pedestal.

Gojo stares into the endless abyss of the girl's eyes, silver clashing with limitless sky blues eyes. It is the first time either one of them have met the others gaze and held it since their first meeting, but this time it feels different. Neither one of them recognizes the change, but the God's and Devil's see it, and they dance in unison, laughing and screaming out a prophecy that has fallen on deaf ears. A dead language comes tumbling out of their lips, and the storm grows rotten and sour with wrath, heaven and hell cave in on each other, and those who dwell on earth cannot feel nor witness the chaos.

"I have known you through thousands of different angles, and still, you damn yourself on a cross not meant for your shoulders," Chaike mutters, and Gojo does not care to ask what she means.

"What does that make of you, Kutsuki Chaike, a mutt taking a God's pedestal, or a God wearing a mutt's chain?"

"I think you've overstayed your welcome," the raven-haired girl sneers at the white-haired God, the madness of the angles wrapping their claws around the fragile mind of the girl who has looked too far in the future, and she can feel her teeth grinding together to elicit some sort of false feeling of her canines clamping down on the frail necks of prey.

"As do I," Gojo bites back with as much spite, turning quickly and exiting the doghouse.

Chaike watches his back as he leaves, and she recalls the moments shared between the both of them from an angle that no longer exist. The way his bare back looked under the candles of this same room, and the claw marks left behind from a mutt who only knows love through the intimacy of lust. She can almost still taste the sweetness of the red wine ichor flowing through his body, and she feels her teeth clamp down on the inside of her cheeks to sate some small fraction of hunger. Kutsuki Chaike is no God, and she's no dog like the rest of these rotten hounds around her, she's a mutt and always will be. A mutt that can never be a companion to a God, or else she will muddle such a prodigy's title.

( WORD COUNT ) 3200
—— unedited.

i hate this chapter LMFAO! i literally don't know what it is about this chapter, but i hate it. i swear maybe like two more fluff chapters at most before we start the climax of this act. i was totally going to write an alternate universe/timeline where Chaise has had this same moment with Gojo, but it ended completely different (more gruesome) but figured you guys needed a break from the previous chapter. Anyways, not much else to say except thank you for reading, my lovely little souls! <3