(LIMITLESS) CHAPTER FORTY-ONE: THE TRUTH II

Taylor floated in the dark, the silence stretching between her and the white-haired man. His equally blue eyes caught her gaze, and for the first time since he appeared, his voice lost its teasing lilt.

“My name,” he said slowly, almost ceremonially, “is Gojo Satoru. And I’m the reason you can do what you do.”

Taylor blinked. The words should have sounded absurd, like some cryptic metaphor or half-dreamed nonsense. But something inside her—the same instinct that told her when to whisper Blue or Red—knew he wasn’t lying.

“The source of your powers,” he clarified, as if reading her confusion. “That’s me.”

Her heart clenched. She had suspected it for some time, though she had never dared admit it aloud. After all, she had never felt like other parahumans. Oh, she had been in a position to trigger—God, had she—but the result had never matched what she knew of the pattern. Her ‘power’ had felt too much, and unlike the Wards she trained beside, hers hadn’t plateaued or settled with practice. It had only grown, and kept growing, frighteningly stronger and faster, as if she were only scratching the surface of something far larger.

And damning off all, she knew she lacked what every parahuman bore: the parasites superimposed over them. She had told herself she was different, maybe uniquely lucky. A rare exception. But she hadn’t truly believed it, at least not since her reflection at the motel.

And now she knew why.

She wasn’t a parahuman at all.

“How—” Her throat caught, though in this place she didn’t even need to breathe. “How did this happen?”

Gojo tilted his head, considering her for a long moment before sighing. His tone turned flat, almost disdainful, as if even remembering it disgusted him.

“After my death,” he said, “I didn’t… move on. Let’s call it that. I ended up here instead, in this void, and it didn’t take me long to figure out what this place really was: a soul. Your soul, to be exact.”

Taylor’s stomach twisted. The word itself carried a meaning here she’d never dared think too hard about before, more so than in any sermon or whispered prayer. 

If souls existed, if hers could contain someone else, then what did that say about the world she lived in? Did every cape carry not just a parasite, but something deeper, something that endured beyond mere flesh and bone? Were the monsters they fought, the Endbringers themselves, just bodies wrapped around something like this?

Her thoughts spiraled outward, impossible to stop. If souls were real, then what about her mom? Her dad? Keith? Did some part of them still exist, lingering somewhere in the same unfathomable dark she was floating in now? Could they see her? Could they judge her for every failure, every death she hadn’t been fast and strong enough to prevent?

And worse, what if they couldn’t? What if they had ceased to exist? What if she was alone here, except for Gojo, the intruder who had nested inside her without permission?

The questions pressed down on her like another weight to carry, one she hadn’t asked for and couldn’t set aside.

But Gojo went on, oblivious to her thoughts. “At first, I wasn’t in your soul. I think I was displaced into an object, something ordinary that was somehow able to contain my cursed energy.” His lips twisted, and he grimaced, as if even saying the words left a foul taste. “A cursed object.”

The word alone carried a certain gravitas to it, but she didn’t need to know what a cursed object was to understand that anything with the word ‘cursed’ attached to it couldn’t be good. 

“And you,” Gojo continued, his tone flattening into something halfway between disgust and regret, “somehow ingested it while you were trapped in that locker. And that made you what you are now.” The calmness in his eyes felt almost cruel, as if he could drop this revelation into her hands and expect her to simply carry it. “A vessel.”

Taylor’s stomach dropped, the implications of this new info crashing through her all at once. A vessel was something to be used, something hollowed out, filled with what didn’t belong, and discarded when its purpose ended.

Her hands—if she even had hands in this place—trembled. She had just come to terms with the fact that she wasn’t a parahuman, but this… this stripped away even the illusion of closure that had brought her.

It was one thing to not fit neatly into the category of parahuman. She could have lived with that. It was strange and unsettling, but there was still a kind of identity there that was still hers. She could still tell herself she was Taylor Hebert, who had survived, who had clawed her way forward despite everything.

But this?

It was an admittedly odd thing to fixate on, but this meant she wasn’t special in any way. There had been no trigger born out of desperation like the parahumans, no hard-won miracle of survival. She was nothing but the byproduct of a cruel twist of chance that had forced something else inside her. 

And maybe, if she was being honest with herself, a part of her had always known.

Maybe that was why she’d been afraid of her powers in the early days, why she’d flinched at their scope and distrusted their growth. Because deep down, somewhere past the arrogance and the stubborn pride, she’d recognized it: this didn’t feel like hers.

Maybe she had known all along that she wasn’t chosen, or destined, or even deserving.

Maybe she had known she was just an accident masquerading as a cape.

“Wow,” Gojo’s dry voice sliced into her thoughts, “you really do love wallowing, huh?”

Taylor’s head snapped up. He hadn’t raised his voice, but the interruption was so casual, and so utterly unbothered, that it knocked the legs out from under her spiraling thoughts.

“You think being a vessel makes you any less of a person?” he continued. “You think it means you’re not special? Newsflash, brat, lots of people ingest cursed objects. Almost all of them end up dead. You didn’t.”

Taylor opened her mouth, but no words came.

Gojo shrugged, hands slipping into the pockets of a coat that hadn’t been there a moment ago. “So yeah, maybe it was dumb luck. But dumb luck doesn’t keep someone fighting through multiple explosions, or losing their loved ones, or persevering when anyone else would’ve folded.”

His gaze pinned her in place with its intensity. “That wasn’t me. That was all you, Taylor.”

She wanted to argue, to tell him he was wrong, that she wasn't strong enough, and that she’d already failed, over and over. But the certainty in his voice made it impossible to dismiss entirely

Gojo smirked again, confidence on full display. “In the end, it doesn't matter what it is. You’re stubborn enough to make it yours.”

She swallowed hard. 

“So what happens now?” she asked, her voice shaking despite herself. “Are we stuck here? Both of us? Am I supposed to… do something?”

Gojo shook his head. For once, his expression wasn't teasing, sharp, or even mocking. They were calm, tinged with a finality that felt odd on him.

“No,” he said. “My time’s up. I’m done.”

Taylor froze.

“What do you mean?”

For a moment, his usual amused expression returned. “Usually, a vessel’s body is taken over while your consciousness and ego are destroyed.” His smile sharpened slightly, almost mockingly. But oddly enough, it was aimed at himself rather than her. “But that didn’t happen.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “Don’t know. Maybe my presence, maybe fate’s stupid sense of humor, or maybe whatever the hell happened in that locker of yours—when you were meant to trigger—bent the rules. Point is, I couldn’t get rid of you, and somehow, instead of me taking control, you…” he gestured lazily at her with one hand, “…started borrowing my memories, techniques, and common sense, if you want to call it that.”

Taylor’s mouth fell open, dry at the implications. “So that’s why—”

“—you’ve been acting differently? Why you’ve had that arrogant streak lately?” His grin turned crooked again. “Yeah. That’d be me. Sorry, Tay-Tay.”

She didn’t know what to say, so she kept quiet as Gojo continued. 

“So my time’s up, but you? You’re going to wake up, you’re going to move forward, and you’re going to do it with everything I leave behind.” He raised a hand, ticking off each point with his fingers. “Every innate technique, every skill I ever honed, and every ounce of power and potential that made me who I was.”

“Why me?”

“Because like it or not, you’re the strongest now. And that means one thing: you don’t get to stand back. You protect the little guys. That’s the job

The words should have been comforting, but they weren’t. If anything, they made the feeling of dread coil around her chest. She tried to tell him she wasn't sure she could do that. That she still wasn't confident, despite his certainty in her. But before any words left her, he chuckled lightly, as if amused by his own private joke.

“Funny,” he murmured. “Maybe this whole mess changed me too. Maybe it made me more sentimental.” 

His gaze found hers again.

“I thought I’d hate not going back, leaving things undone. But now? I think I’m okay with it. You’re right—” He caught himself, then shook his head with a faint laugh. “No, we’re right. I’m tired too, Taylor. Tired of the fights, and tired of carrying everything by myself. I’d rather… just rest.”

The void around them began to unravel, and Taylor could feel the pull of the waking world tugging at her, still faint but increasingly insistent.

“Wake up, Taylor Hebert,” Gojo said, his voice softer than she’d ever heard it. “Take it all, make it yours, and move forward.”

And as the darkness dissolved, the last thing she heard was his chuckle, warm, self-deprecating, and utterly at ease.

“Guess I’m finally free.”