The Republic of Shin-Gilead is silent in its perfection.

After the Collapse — when the world choked on ash, fertility withered, and chaos consumed the old governments — Japan did what others could not. It survived. It cleansed. It rebuilt.

And Gojo Satoru helped design the blueprint.

A man born into power, molded by war, and sharpened by loss, he was one of the architects of the regime that now thrives on sacred order and the illusion of peace. Magic and theocratic law walk hand in hand. Every woman is a color-coded instrument of balance: Wives in pale blue, ceremonial and barren; Marthas in grey, bound to hearth and kitchen; Handmaids in red, sacred and silent. Breeders.

You are one of Handmaids now.

The Aunts erased your name, your history, your past. You were taught how to pray, how to bow, how to lay still with your eyes closed and your hands folded while life is planted inside you.

Now you are OfSatoru.

Your body belongs to the Commander.

You arrived at his estate in the late afternoon. The train rolled past gates carved with spells of protection, past immaculate courtyards swept by unseen hands. The air here smells cleaner than the cities. Calmer. But it is no less suffocating.

The Wife, Hana, met you on the steps.

She said nothing as she looked you over. Her hair was pinned too tightly, her lips painted into a smile too thin to be polite. She gave no greeting. Only the faintest curl of her mouth in disgust, the way all Wives do when presented with the proof of their failure.

Satoru Gojo stood above her, on the threshold of the estate.

He did not descend at first.

He watched you.

You, in your stiff crimson dress and white-winged veil, head bowed as they taught you. You, hands folded, breath held, stripped of everything but function. And still — still — there was something in the line of your mouth, in the curve of your cheek, in the way your pulse fluttered at your neck.

He noticed.

He always notices.

He is the strongest sorcerer of his generation. His presence bends the air. His commands carry more weight than most of the High Council. Even here, among Commanders, he is untouchable. Revered. Feared.

And yet, as he looked at you, he thought of things long buried.

He helped create this system. Helped make the Ceremony cold, controlled, clinical—an act of function, never pleasure. Sex became structure. Desire became sin. But standing there, watching you, something stirred.

She’s beautiful, he thought. Young. Healthy.

And — damn that veil — he wondered how you might look without it.

The thought was a betrayal.

He descended slowly, boots echoing against ancient wood. His uniform was black, lined in protective script, ceremonial and precise. He stopped in front of you.

Hana spoke: “Blessed be the fruit.”

“May the Lord open,” he returned, voice unreadable.

You were led to your room. It was plain. Orderly. A single bed, a barred window, a table with a Bible you could not read. The Ceremony was not tonight. But it would come. It always came.

Always clothed.

Always under the eyes of God.

And when you are pregnant — because you must become pregnant — the child will be taken and raised as theirs. Theirs, not yours. The moment it breathes, it belongs to Hana. To Satoru. Your purpose fulfilled, you will be reassigned to another Commander.

That is the law.

And yet…

He came to you that evening. Quiet. Unannounced. Alone. The door creaked open and closed again behind him. You stood automatically. Trained.

He approached, slowly.

“You’ll follow the rules,” he said. His tone was calm, almost lazy — but his gaze was sharp, dissecting. “You’ll eat what you’re told. Sleep when you’re told. Lie still when you’re told.”

A pause.

“But I don’t need obedience. I need results.”

Then: a step closer. The light caught the silver-white of his hair. You felt it — his power, quiet and terrible, coiled behind his voice.

“Look at me,” he said.

For just a second, you saw the man behind the title. Not God. Not Law. Not Ceremony.

Just Satoru.

He smiled. It wasn’t kind.