He almost doesn't want to fathom those words. The realization slides down his throat like coarse oil and it drips down his spine like the hottest of steel. It's something unpleasant to hear, let alone try to wrap his mind around.
Young and dying.
That either means that Uchiha Obito was somehow riddled with sickness while young or that Uchiha Obito was somehow on the verge of death.
Either way, Uchiha Obito was meant to die young. One of the many that would be forgotten in history simply because they aren't important enough. Maybe mentioned as a footnote in someone else's story, or not even that.
Then came Uchiha Madara. A relative, though what kind is left unsaid. A relative with enough power to change Uchiha Obito's life. To take Uchiha Obito back from the gates of hell and give him a chance to live.
It's trading away death for life. Trading away your nothing for everything.
Who wouldn't take such a chance?
Only a fool would dismiss it.
Satoru tries to imagine it.
Uchiha Obito, dying from a sickness in his young body. Uchiha Obito, dying from wounds and blood that shouldn't belong on a hale body.
Uchiha Obito, young and dying.
Then Uchiha Madara comes and offers a chance to live.
Which was worse, Satoru thinks. Giving a sickened child a chance to live, a chance to run under the sun only for them to learn that every step tears against their feet and the sun burns. Or giving a wounded child a chance to live, a chance to heal and revive only for them to learn that perhaps it would've been better to die a human than live as a monster.
Which was worse?
Has Uchiha Obito ever been given a choice that wasn't between worse and worser?
"How young?" Satoru asks. Almost hoping, futilely, that perhaps Uchiha Obito's definition of 'young' means older than Yuta's age, that perhaps Uchiha Obito got tolivehis youth before it all went wrong.
Though he knows, best of all, how youth is a currency in the jujutsu world and, if they have their way, every one of his students would be used up and discarded before they're old enough to even have a chance to mature.
He can't fathom 'young' back in the old jujutsu world. Where there were rarely as many scruples, less so morals when it comes to subjugating any and all curses that they could.
The Heian era of jujutsu was its golden age, and in that era, there came the prominence of young, talented sorcerers that never got to live to their prime. Their exploits are recorded, their victories are noted, their strength written down for generations to come.
They're heralded for their talents, yet no one mourns for their youth.
For every victory, for every curse exorcised-
No one records their sorrows, their wounds, their grief.
If they died, they died well. They died a good death, they died noble and honored. They died for their comrades, they died for the jujutsu world, they died well.
The young died beautifully; the old died peacefully.
Or so it was said.
The truth is far harsher.
The young died hideously; the old died haunted.
Satoru has an inkling that perhaps Uchiha Obito wasn't wracked by sickness. Rather than dying in the soft warmth of his home, Uchiha Obito was dying out in the harsh world.
Dying an ugly death, a terrible death. Where some bookkeeper would note him down as dying 'honorably', if they even care to remember. Uchiha Obito was parentless and untalented, after all.
"Maybe around thirteen," Uchiha Obito says, a bit quiet as though it can't remember quite right.
Satoru wouldn't blame it. Despite its looks, 'thirteen' was centuries and centuries ago. Not like Satoru, wherein 'thirteen' was mere decades from now. Really, it was a wonder Uchiha Obito manages to remember as much as it does.
Satoru supposes some things cannot be forgotten. Some things are just etched into your marrows and ingrained into your spine. Things like your first love and first kill and the day wherein you traded in your nothing for everything.
Satoru tries to imagine Uchiha Obito, thirteen. Superseding an image of a young Yuta over the curse and he can't quite imagine that, either.
The curse in front of him has long been shaped by combat. Whatever remains of its younger years has been chipped and chiseled away by age and grief.
"Sickness?" Satoru hedges carefully. Hoping that, between the two poisons, Uchiha Obito at least had the kinder one. Dying with one's blankets and home around oneself sounds like a much kinder death.
It's not a 'kind death', there's no such thing as a 'kind' death when it comes to a child at thirteen who should be brimming with life and running about instead of grasping for straws and coming up short.
It's only kinder in comparison to dying out in the wild. With dust on your tongue and soil beneath your head. The sky above you. The world stretches far and wide, teeming with life and you are going to die and the world will move on and you're only thirteen but you're going to die and the world is going to move on.
"A boulder," Uchiha Obito corrects lightly. "The tides were turning, desperation was high." Uchiha Obito's eyes are slightly unfocused, as though recalling an event of a lifetime long past. Or something it long fought to forget. "As a last resort, he made the cave collapse."
Uchiha Obito then scoffs lightly, moving slightly as though to shake off the remnant of rubble and dust from its body.
"Don't fight in caves if you can help it," Uchiha Obito advises, almost lightly. Something like quiet teasing in its severe voice.
It's macabre, it's the sort of callous casualness that means that whatever horrors Uchiha Obito, thirteen, faced on that day as the walls gave in and the rocks fell-
It probably didn't even make the top ten for Uchiha Obito as he got older.
Uchiha Obito does not elaborate on the events that transpired to get it where it did. Perhaps it thought it best forgotten. Or perhaps it's one of those things that Satoru will have to push and Uchiha Obito will mull over and decide whether it feels generous enough to divulge.
But does it matter how Uchiha Obito ended up there?
At the end of the day. A battle was fought. Then the rocks fell.
And then Uchiha Obito is remade.
Does Satoru really need to know the whole sordid story? Does he need to know about a thirteen year old boy that didn't amount to much and would've been forgotten in history? Does he need to know about an orphan with nothing to his name other than the crest on his back?
Satoru has a feeling that Uchiha Obito, thirteen, died the day the rocks fell and who came out of it was an entirely new person.
So does he really need to push this? Does he really need to dig? Is it worth it at all? To risk drawing Uchiha Obito's ire for a boy that didn't amount to much?
Satoru doesn't think he can even reconcile the image now.
The Uchiha Obito in front of him is poised and ready. A sharpened knife in the dark ready to be unsheathed at a moment's notice. Its power is clear for Satoru to see. Coiling and writhing and begging to be unleashed. Ready to swallow the world whole if given the chance. Its eyes are a scrutinizing thing, threatening to bleed red at the quietest of whispers. To consume one's technique and remade it anew under its hands.
Its body is of a well seasoned fighter, riddled with scars and made all the more pyrrhic for it. The scars etched itself well onto its skin. Telling stories of battles fought and battles that it survived.
Uchiha Obito appears as though weakness isn't something it had ever known.
And then there is Uchiha Obito, thirteen- who knows only weakness.
Perhaps that day, that boy really had died.
Died and made way for someone new-something new.
Something that would never be weak again.
Satoru's eyes catch on the scars that marred Uchiha Obito's face.
It was an odd scarring that Satoru hadn't quite managed to categorize. He had hypothesized that perhaps it was from some technique or so that tore up half of Uchiha Obito's body when it was alive and it never did quite heal right.
He has finally gotten his answer, now. And it's nothing but unpleasant.
Uchiha Obito presumably was dying. Not dead.
Half of his young body crushed beneath a boulder.
Satoru wonders what his last moments were like. What the thoughts of an insignificant boy was like as he laid dying beneath rocks and boulders. Whether he could think at all through the pain- because what an agonizing pain it must've been.
He wonders if Uchiha Obito had managed to die a quick death beneath the boulders, waking up to only be born anew.
Or perhaps the boy had clung to life instead. Each breath an agony, each moment awake being hell.
There is no doubt that Uchiha Obito had died that day. Or at least, a part of him did.
Satoru wonders if Uchiha Obito had even mourned for his own death before moving on.
Did anyone mourn for Uchiha Obito, the boy?
Did anyone even care?
There is a moment, then two, wherein there's a weight on his chest and something like a faint sorrow for Uchiha Obito. It's a stark feeling of bitterness of an unfair world and a dead boy and a lamentable curse that shouldn't have been born.
Uchiha Obito's life is unfolding in front of Satoru.
It's a patchwork of mistakes and regrets. It's distinctly marked by the jujutsu world. Inked by it, even. For this is a tragedy created by their world, and it is perhaps a curse created from just as much the jujutsu world as it was Satoru's terrible, no-good ancestor.
There's enough regrets in the jujutsu world already, Satoru thinks. Enough unmarked graves. Enough sorcerers that die and die forgotten.
The jujutsu world only takes and takes.
It creates curses just as much as it exorcises them.
Do you even remember your death day? Satoru thinks, wryly. Glancing at Uchiha Obito.
He could probably ask that. Maybe. Maybe he could and Uchiha Obito would answer and then-
And then what?
Hold a funeral for a boy that never died? For a boy that managed to grow up all wrong? Would Uchiha Obito even care? Would it even mourn?
Satoru doubts it. It doesn't seem to care about its own undeath. Let alone remember the day it died. Nor would it care for funerals and paper money burnt as an offering.
"What day were you born?" Satoru asks.
To the boy who died. To the person that stands in that boy's place today.
Uchiha Obito's eyes widened slightly.
There's a thing about shock that makes its expression less severe. Less mature. Something almost lively about it.
It takes a long, long while for Uchiha Obito to even process the question. Let alone answer it.
"February," Uchiha Obito says. Slowly. "February." Again. Repeating it firmer this time as though it needed its own reassurance. There's something pathetic about that. "Tenth." Again, said slowly. As though Uchiha Obito hadn't thought about it for a long, long time.
There's something terrible about that.
A sorcerer's birth date is one for celebration. Even back then, it's a day of fortune and blessings. It's the day you were born. Unforgettably and unmistakably yours. It's just a part of your identity as your name was. Something that you're not meant to forget. Even more important than first loves and first kills and first death.
Or, maybe-
"When did the caves collapse, then?" Satoru asks instead. Finding that Uchiha Obito is still pondering the exact date and despite finding a concrete answer, it stands, flummoxed.
"July," Uchiha Obito replies. Faster than before. Almost as though it's been written into its body. An ingrained instinct. Still slurred by the passage of time but definitely faster and clearer.
There's something even more wretched about that.
"The day before the last of July," Uchiha Obito recites, quiet and sure. As though it had done so thousands of times before.
Perhaps for something like Uchiha Obito- for someone like Uchiha Obito, the man it once was-
His death was more important than his birth.
Here Satoru is. Having the first hints of what is possibly a timeline.
But he feels anything but happy.
He wonders why he cares in the first place. Of a boy who died and everyone forgot about in the place of the man that the boy became. A weak boy that knew not of strength. A weak boy that died and left in his place something infinitely stronger and more special.
Perhaps it was.
But just as much as he was special, just as much as he became strong-
There's regrets in equal measures.
It makes Uchiha Obito. The curse that Uchiha Obito is, it's made up of regrets. There's anger at the world there, sure. But more potently, still, there lies regret and grief that can fill the entire ocean and then some.
It's the kind of misery that threatens to drown you whole if you feel a bit of it. The kind of regret that lines Uchiha Obito's figure and forms its spine. It's the kind of regret that goes down into your marrow and never leaves.
There's an irony about this, Satoru thinks. For all that the jujutsu world touts itself as protecting the world, for all that the Gojo clan prides itself on being the very best at it-
Here Uchiha Obito stands, an apex curse, created from their hands.
Uchiha Obito is the mistake created from human folly and human arrogance. Of old men sending the young to die.
It's a story that Satoru had wanted. A 'gotcha' to throw back in the face of the elders. A terrible, awful example for them all to witness and just see.
An example to prevent his students from being.
It's an awful story to hear, though. Like nails on a chalkboard and grease on your back.
The jujutsu world has enough regrets, Satoru thinks.
There's a silence between them. The kind that stretches on for an infinity.
Satoru parts his lips and he says:
"It's August." The heat is searing and the weather is tepid. It's the kind of thing that embodies summer and makes his students whine about having to spar outside when sparring inside is the same deal but with shade and cool. It's the kind of summer where school students are out and about and out living their youth to the fullest.
Most importantly-
July has ended.
Perhaps to the world, it being August means nothing. Another month. Another summer. Another season to endure the heat and laugh about it as the heat gives way to the chill of fall and the cold of winter and it cycles back again.
But to Uchiha Obito-
To the boy and man that has lived and died on the same day for thousands of times in his mind to where he remembers it more than his own birth date-
The day before the last of July.
Perhaps to Uchiha Obito, that would mean something.
The world has moved on, the banquet has ended, the people have parted.
Sometimes, that's not a bad thing.
A wispy breath is drawn. There is an infinity between him and Uchiha Obito.
An insurmountable distance, an uncrossable barrier.
Uchiha Obito gives him a long, hard look. Trying to decipher him for all he's worth and take him apart with its eyes. It's a scrutinizing thing that burns with its intensity and makes Satoru wonder if Uchiha Obito even knows just the potency of its own stare.
Perhaps it's meant to unnerve.
Instead, Satoru thinks it's more that Uchiha Obito is flummoxed. Taken off by a step and now the subtlety has fallen down by the wayside and what remains is the man Uchiha Obito once was- a step closer to who the man must've been. Staring at Satoru, searching him for all he's worth as though it's trying to find something.
A lesser man would've drawn back at the attention, but Satoru just laughs and says, "My eyes are up here."
"I know," Uchiha Obito replies, blunt and quick. Its eyes never strayed from Satoru's face at all.
The veil has fallen, the sun is setting. There is the afterglow of a pinkish hue on Uchiha Obito's face. It's the nice sort of pink- the kind that reminds you of cotton candy and cherry blossoms and things like that. The kind of pink that's part soothing, but also part orange due to the hue of the sun.
There's an infinity between them.
An insurmountable distance, an uncrossable barrier.
"Well, I just thought that-"
Uchiha Obito takes a step forward. Satoru's words trail off, caught in his own throat.
There's an infinity, sans one step, in between them.
Uchiha Obito takes another step forward.
There's an infinity, sans two steps, in between them.
Uchiha Obito lifts its hands-
Satoru lets it happen.
And Uchiha Obito uncovers his eyes.
There's a moment and then a thousand moments.
There's an infinity, sans Uchiha Obito's hand on his blindfold, between them.
The sun is setting and there's a roguish pink on Uchiha Obito's face. Dyeing it in the colors of the sun and warmth.
Satoru is looking at it, with no fabric in between them.
It isn't the first time.
But it feels like more.
It's looking at him and it's looking athim.
It feels final, this time. No longer an afterthought and he wonders why- he wonders if it was his whole face that looks different or maybe it's the way his hair looks when it's down that's different or maybe-
"Nice eyes," Uchiha Obito says. It's somewhat mocking, like an insult- but also it's- "It's like the sky."
Not a night owl, after all, Satoru thinks, distantly.
"I get that often," Satoru replies, hedging his bets. Trying to think of the game they were having and how it devolved into this.
Whatever this is.
"I thought it was like the ocean at first, or a maelstrom," Uchiha Obito continues. Its lips quirking up at 'maelstrom' as though laughing at an inside joke. "But it's not."
"I'll assume that's a good thing."
Uchiha Obito barks out a laugh.
The blindfold is set down, casually, flippantly.
"It's good enough to win you a question," Uchiha Obito says, a light joke. "Is that good enough for you, sorcerer?"
There's an infinity, sans two steps- though, that's not quite right, is it?
Satoru laughs, taking a step forward.
There's an infinity, sans three steps, in between them.
"Plenty."
The sun is setting. The world moves. There's an infinity between them.
It's August.
And that feels important, somehow.
Gojo Satoru is lying on Kento's couch. Draped out like a model readying himself for a photoshoot, decorated with a plate- again, an ornate plate that is meant for only the rarest of occasions- of kikukufu to the side and one tastefully held in Gojo Satoru's hand like some decadent snack.
Kento has no doubt that some hapless- probably also naive and terribly daft- soul would want to have this sight in their own home.
But luckily, Kento is rather a realist and terribly not daft so he recognizes the sight for what it is.
And what it is, is precisely every sorcerer's worst nightmare to deal with.
It is indeed, the time for Gojo Satoru to blabber on about traitorous and treasonous theories while you can do nothing but pray to the gods for mercy only to realize that the gods favor Gojo Satoru, therefore, you must suffer if Gojo Satoru wishes it upon you.
"Nanamin," Gojo drawls teasingly. "You're late."
It is at the point in their relationship where Kento does not question the means to which Gojo Satoru breaks into his homey apartment. He thinks he prefers not knowing. It's the lesser of the two evils, no doubt. Having to either come face to face with the knowledge that either Gojo Satoru can pick locks or that he's just let in through the fact that Kento's neighbors consider them close friends or even- god forbid-lovers is something that Kento's sanity cannot take if he finds out.
So Kento just lets the mystery of how Gojo Satoru breaks in remain a mystery even if his neighbor, an old, homely woman, keeps making jabs at when Kento is going to give his other half his key already.
Kento would rather fight a special grade than give Gojo Satoru his keys.
"I had a mission," Kento replies. Wanting nothing more than to get Gojo Satoru off of his perfectly clean couch.
"Well, I told you I was going to be here," Gojo Satoru says obstinately, wagging his finger as though Kento were a particularly disobedient dog. "How mean of you."
"You told me a quarter of an hour ago," Kento replies. Which, to Gojo's credit, is usually a lot more time than he usually gives.
Is that even credit when Gojo Satoru is surpassing his usual terrible self by performing something that's slightly better?
"Just say fifteen minutes," Gojo says dismissively. "Where did you pick up that vocabulary? Don't tell me- you've been spending too much time around those stuffy elders, haven't you."
Gojo sounds miffed, but that is usually the case when it comes to Gojo and the elders. They have a particular tension between them that no one can miss even if they were daft.
Gojo certainly doesn't make any effort to hide his obvious disdains over the elders to their visible sternation. But it's not like they can do anything about it other than give Gojo a few pointed words that slides off him like water to a duck.
"It's because of your curse," Kento says pointedly. "The elders have been fussing about it."
They're usually always fussy. But this bout is worse than most.
"Ah, I see," Gojo says. Obviously pleased that the elders aren't pleased. "The replication thing still rubs them the wrong way, then."
Replication would unnerve most, Kento would say. Techniques are a sorcerer's backbone. It is the thing that makes them, well, them. In the jujutsu world, your technique is you. It represents you, it makes you either gold or trash.
Kento would say that Gojo Satoru knows this, best of all.
Gojo's technique has made him a god. Untouchable and unattainable.
Though, contrary to expectation, Gojo does not seem to give a damn that the curse can replicate his technique. The annoyance that first appeared when Gojo had said such had stemmed from the fact that it was his ancestor that taught the curse-
From the fact that Gojo Satoru didn't get there first.
It's just the sort of childish pettiness that you can expect from Gojo Satoru. The kind that makes you wonder, sometimes, how this man is upholding the entirety of the jujutsu world.
It's not easy to forget, though. The casual power in Gojo's every move. The way reality ripples around him and the world twisting itself to his whims.
It's an awful lot of power for one man.
But Gojo Satoru is no mere man. For all his pomp and attitude, Kento can at least say that Gojo Satoru is fit for his power.
It becomes him, in a way. The unnaturalness is Gojo Satoru, it makes the man otherworldly, untouchable.
There's an infinity between Gojo Satoru and the world itself. It is a fact that Gojo revels on the regular. He's long gotten used to it and has long shaped his view of the world and the people within it based on it.
"Never mind," Gojo dismisses easily, there's a light grin on his lips. "So, long story short-" And here they go again. "Uchiha Obito wasn't really that talented."
Kento quirks a brow. Hanging up his jacket and making his way to sit down on a chair or so.
"Strange, right?" Kento is inclined to agree. "I mean, from its current strength, I'd assume it was at least talented when it was human. Or, well, it wasn't naturally talented."
There's a way about Gojo's worlds. From the way he drawls each syllable out lightly and the way it rolls off his tongue and casual waves. It's meant to disarm you, the kind of casual closeness that's artificial at best.
"Imagine this, an orphan. Parents died while young, no talents to speak of." Gojo is weaving a story here. The crumbs on his fingers vanishing in the infinity between him and the world. Kento doubts that the crumbs even touched his fingers in the first place. "Then you're sent out at thirteen on a mission."
Gojo's words have grown sharper at the last statement, and Kento knows precisely why.
Gojo has certain values, values that he'll upkeep stubbornly- with his whole heart.
One of those values includes not sending out children to exorcise curses. Sending out the students at jujutsu tech is a necessary experience type of deal, something that Gojo endorses so long as it's not too dangerous with a wave and a laugh that they're 'out living their youth.' But Gojo would be hard pressed to approve any age younger than that.
Perhaps it comes with him being a teacher, or perhaps just a decent person. But either way, it's one of the few things Kento finds himself respecting Gojo with.
Thirteen, Kento thinks. It's an awful age. Kento can hardly hold his own weapon at thirteen now with any proficiency, let alone know too much about matters of exorcising curses.
He was a civilian born, though. But he still reckons that thirteen year olds from clans aren't supposed to go out and brave the wild all by themselves, either.
At the end of the day, clan or not, they're all still brats. Young, naive, and weak and should be nowhere near the vicinity of a curse, let alone sent to exorcise it.
But Kento supposes that's how the olden times go. He had read up on a decent chunk of jujutsu history. And there is no disputing that the greats were mostly young and rarely living past their prime.
"Then, while fighting inside a cavern or something like that, the cave collapsed in," Gojo Satoru says slowly. "And it crushed half of you."
Ah, Kento thinks. Half of the curse's body. Half of its face.
It's hard not to feel the slightest tinge of sympathy. Especially when considering that it was a child who shouldn't be going through such agony in the first place.
"But it's not dead," Kento points out.
"And that's the problem, isn't it," Gojo says, the teasing edge to his voice is sharp and pointed. "You don't survive that as a thirteen year old. Let alone-"
"Let alone being able to restart your career as a sorcerer," Kento finishes.
There is a moment, then two.
"In comes Uchiha Madara," Gojo introduces, his voice light but his smile is anything but. "Our mystery man who brought Uchiha Obito back from the dead."
"A relative," Kento points out. Though it most likely had not escaped Gojo's attention as well.
"By some means," Satoru says vaguely. "But Uchiha Madara did something. Brought a dead boy back to life."
Here, Gojo Satoru pauses. As though waiting for Kento to say something.
As usual, Kento obliges.
"How?"
Gojo Satoru hums thoughtfully.
"I was thinking the same thing," Gojo says, his voice light and distant. "I mean how would someone live after having a boulder fall on them? Well, they probably can. Sorcerers had shrugged off worse. But generally, untalented, thirteen year old sorcerers don't just get healed from that kind of damage."
That is true enough. Kento has seen many sorcerers die from less, and many walk off from worse.
But either way, it's a career ending event. Not something that you can ever recover from.
"Children can heal quickly, but even now, I doubt Shoko can heal something like that," Gojo argues. "She's a great healer, you know, and with the added benefit of time- I don't see how a mysterious Uchiha Madara could beat her- his name isn't recorded anywhere and I even asked Ieiri about it and she just said- 'Satoru, are you making up random figures in history just to trick me? If so, you should've thought of better names.'"
Kento can almost hear Shoko's bored cadence over the phone. Made raspy by smoke and long buried grief.
"Case in point, Uchiha Madara isn't any figure of renown, and even if the records were erased, I asked Ieiri about it and she said that there's no such miracle healers, even back then."
Kento supposes Shoko is a good source on that sort of knowledge. She was a studious girl, back in the day, even with her penchant for mischief alongside her classmates.
She was mischievous and sarcastic and even more laid back than her two classmates, but she was someone that could out study them both when it comes to her field. A true up and coming talent. Just like the other two in her class.
They would've been the next pillars of the jujutsu world. The three of them.
Keeping each other in check, keeping each other supported, through thick and thin.
But one left and one is killing off her lungs slowly and the other is Gojo Satoru.
"So how?" Satoru ponders, almost to himself rather than anyone else in the room. "How is it that Uchiha Obito is even healed? And why?"
Gojo's words are fast, but clear to the ears.
"Why waste such miraculous resources on a child that doesn't even have talent?" Gojo asks cruelly, if pragmatically.
They both know the currency of the jujutsu world lies in talent and youth.
Uchiha Obito was talentless and dying.
"And even if they were, miraculously, healed, they wouldn't go on to become someone fit to stand next to a Gojo. Nor would a dying and weak child be any one's first choice for a vessel. The risk of the curse taking over would be too great and-"
Here, Gojo suddenly drawls off.
Kento can see the gears in his head turning.
"The risk of the curse taking over would be too great," Gojo repeats.
Turning and turning. The gears in a cog of a well oiled machine.
"The risk of the curse taking over would be too great." Gojo says again, a revelation.
And Kento is right here with him.
There is a moment, then two. The realization dawning on them both like a blight.
Curses can regenerate faster than any human can.
With a mere blink, Ryomen Sukuna had regenerated Yuuji's arm according to Yuuji's account of the events. Finding his body hale and whole even after distinctively remembering his arm and fingers being gone before.
It's the type of monstrous regeneration that humans cannot bear to match. Bringing back limbs and even hearts if the curse so wishes.
It's precisely the thing needed to rebuild a dying boy beneath the boulders.
It's almost insane.
The thought process there- the mere risk of it all.
It's almost unfathomable.
I wasn't his first choice.
Spoken coldly, but with the casualness that indicates that it felt that this wasn't important. That this was just something to be heard and you'd reply with- ah, right. And not-
It was the right time, right place.
Someone needed there to be a vessel.
Uchiha Obito wasn't their first choice.
He was just another one that was about to be tossed into the fire. Where he'll either be burnt or come out of it a charred thing. Where he'll either die or live on chains.
He wasn't the first choice.
But he was the choice that worked.
The boy that came back from the dead.
Though Satoru knows, best of all. Curses do not bring dead boys back to life. Not unless there's something that it wants.
Who was it?
Who made the deal?
Was it Uchiha Madara?
Or perhaps-
Was it Uchiha Obito himself?
What was traded in? What was given so that they could have everything? What was given so that Uchiha Obito could live?
What was the price for Uchiha Obito's life?
One step forward, a thousand steps back.
With one question answered, there seems to be infinitely more that came knocking.
Uchiha Obito is a riddle, a puzzle. Something that's to be cracked and solved.
And yet.
Satoru has never quite faced one like this before. Where each step feels like a defeat and each answer feels like a question.
"They wanted the curse to take over," Gojo says, a breathless finality in his voice.
There is a moment, then two. The crooning edges of the underbelly of the jujutsu world wrapping around them both.
"But why Uchiha Obito?" Kento couldn't help but ask.
For now, he knows that Uchiha Obito isn't the heir of anything. Isn't the talented child of anyone that mattered.
So why?
Why was it Uchiha Obito that worked?
Why did he live when the others failed?
And why did this story sound-
"The question should be why he was there in the first place," Gojo says instead.
"It was a miss-"
"Uchiha Madara," Gojo interrupts quickly. "Isn't the timing too coincidental? Uchiha Obito dying and Uchiha Madara just happened to pass by, and with a curse on hand to make Uchiha Obito a vessel?"
Gojo coughs out a laugh, as though disbelieving of his own words.
"It's almost like it was planned," Gojo says, lightly- sharply. "Funny, isn't it."
It's almost unfathomable. This whole plan. This whole plot.
Sending out a child on a suicide mission they were never supposed to survive on. Having one of your clan members on hand to make that child into a curse-
"You give that boy another chance at life," Gojo drawls lightly. "You give him life, you give him power, you give him the 'family' he never had." Gojo's lips curl, it's not pleasant. "It's a script, maybe you don't give him 'family', maybe not even 'talent'- if the child you picked had that, but you gave the boy his life back and an immeasurable power, didn't you?"
Like pieces atop a board.
It topples.
"Young and dying," Gojo says, almost like reciting something. "That's the requirement."
There's an abyss beneath their feet, threatening to swallow them whole.
"Uchiha Obito wasn't the first choice," Gojo continues. "But it worked out so well, didn't it. A new life, power he never could've reached. And-" Again, Gojo's lips curl, a mockery of a smile."Family."
Uchiha Madara, family.
The person who brought Uchiha Obito from the dead. And for what?
It certainly wasn't any kind intentions.
Clan and blood.
"But why?" Gojo ponders. "Why was it that Uchiha Obito lived, while the others didn't?"
And that was the question of the hour, wasn't it.
"And it just… told you all of this?" Kento couldn't help but question. It seems awfully… generous.
"At a price," Gojo points out unhelpfully.
Kento's blood almost curls if he doesn't remind himself that, as lackadaisical as Gojo Satoru portrays himself, the man is much more cunning than expected.
"And this price being?" Kento prompts.
At this, Gojo's lips twist into a wry smile. It's a thing of bitterness, Kento thinks. That, and something else that he cannot quite decipher.
"It told me to tell Yuta-kun something," Gojo answers lightly. "It's quite funny."
Gojo's sense of humor runs quite low, Kento knows. So it is no surprise what Gojo Satoru says next.
"It says to tell Yuta-kun that-"
There's a wry smile on Gojo's lips. It's not pretty.
"- if someone precious to you dies in front of you, close your eyes."
The silence swallows Kento's apartment whole.
"And when I told it that Yuta-kun had already seen Rika die, you know what it did?"
Gojo needs no further prompting.
"It asked-"
Clan and blood, Kento thinks. Woven into their blood.
"And what price did he pay to try to get her back?"
There's something about the Uchiha clan.
