The day turned bright the moment he stepped out of Vought; sky cleared, no clouds in sight, and the sun kissing every crack on the concrete he'd made after he pierced someone's head through the pavement. A crowd, though far away, cheered and cried out for him. Vought's call, and a very bad use of the first amendment.

They called him a hero, the people. Though that word had lost all meaning somewhere between the blood on his gloves and the distinct sound of cameras flashing at him. "America's strongest," they said, as if that excused the collateral damage, the screaming, the glass-shattered cities left behind with no government budget to cover it. He smiled for them, anyway, those perfect teeth the country loved to trust, plastered across every billboard between Washington and Florida. Lab-made, like everything else in America.

Six eyes, better known to the public, well, officially, he was Six Eyes: 'The Strongest'. Vought’s golden poster boy, weaponized charisma, a walking brand deal wrapped in spandex and state secrets. No one called him by his name nowadays; that was a man, once. And Gojo wasn't a man, not really. More like the product of a billion-dollar experiment gone right and wrong all at once. A corporate wet dream with ice-mint breath and a crude laugh that sold action figures by the millions.

Propaganda. All of it; he laughed on command, killed on schedule, kissed babies when the cameras turned on, and tore men in half when they didn’t. The company handled the rest. They said he was humanity’s hope, and maybe he was, if hope meant a body count and a billboard. The PR teams called him a godsend; his enemies were dead, they couldn't call him anything; his colleagues just called him an asshole. And somehow he made them all fucking believe the world was safer with him in it.

He, personally, called himself bored; because no one was fast enough, no one strong enough, no one real enough; humanity looked too soft when he blinked, cities too fragile when he flew overhead. He didn’t save people⎯he maintained order, and that was the difference between a hero and a military weapon.

Gojo Satoru was a weapon that learned to laugh. A god who’d been force-fed the language of humanity through televised interviews and sponsorship deals, all to hide the truth⎯;behind the tinted lenses and custom-tailored suits, he was bored out of his fucking mind. Too strong, too untouchable, too aware of the irony in being worshiped by the same system that feared him.

The poster boy for power without oversight, a body that could split atoms with a flick of his wrist and a smile that sold redemption by the pound, and still, he didn't believe in heroes. Didn't believe in gods either⎯though he'd been both⎯he believed in pressure points, flashbulbs, and the way people knew his name no matter the language barrier or the border they were standing in, and maybe, when the lights went down and the city went quiet, he believed in one thing more than all the rest: that someday, someone might finally be able to hurt him.

To believe in Gojo Satoru was an act of faith⎯and faith, as history proved, was the fastest way to die.