Uchiha Obito is standing in Yuta's living room.
A special grade curse is standing in Yuta's living room.
A special grade curse who just so happens to be his ancestor is standing in Yuta's living room.
Uchiha Obito is out of time and place. Its robes are a fine purple, durable but fine all the same. The fabric falls smoothly on Uchiha Obito's frame, dyed in a dark noble purple.
It's just another color, now, in Yuta's time.
But back then?
It must've been worth a fortune. Worn only by those with status and wealth to spare. Of noble blood or above.
Uchiha Obito stands there, with robes that probably cost more than all the things in Yuta's living room combined. It's hand tailored, too. Or at least crafted personally for Uchiha Obito.
The uchiwa stitched cleanly on its back is clear of that.
And the way that the fabric falls atop Uchiha Obito's form, not a distance too long nor too short. Not a seam out of place, not a stitch made wrongly. Tailored for Uchiha Obito. Made for the man to wear.
To battle.
Let the fabric rip and tear.
It's a sign of confidence. Of wealth. Of either being confident enough in knowing that your fine clothing will not even be touched by battle or that you have enough spare clothing that you do not care whether this one gets a tear or two.
Uchiha Obito stands in Yuta's room.
Looking out of time and place.
It does not belong here at all, Yuta thinks. It belongs to better. To homes with finely crafted furniture and history woven into the straw tatami mats upon the floor. To homes with a weight of history upon it and all the riches there is, tastefully decorating the background.
His clan was once of status and wealth, Yuta realizes.
And now they're nothing but ashes in the wind and the name 'Uchiha' carries no more weight to it than does 'Okkotsu.'
It feels unfair. It feels like ashes on his tongue and bile on the back of his throat.
They could've had more, Yuta thinks. They could've been more. They should've continued to be like the other major clans. Noble and prestigious, even till the modern day. With an ever growing clan compound and ever growing family.
It shouldn't be this way.
But it is.
It's now just Uchiha Obito, out of time and place and everything.
And Yuta.
Just Yuta.
It's not supposed to be like this, Yuta thinks.
But time does not flow backwards.
So here they both stand, two that aren't supposed to exist.
The Uchiha clan is supposed to be dead, and with it, their technique, their legacy.
Uchiha Obito looks at Yuta.
"Your teacher has probably told you about it," Uchiha Obito says, its voice a soft rasp. "Judging from your expression."
The phone in Yuta's pocket burns. With the heat and intensity of clan secrets long buried and the legacy that haunts even till this day.
"Some secrets are better left buried," Uchiha Obito muses. Almost as though to itself. But it's looking straight at Yuta, piercing through him with eyes the color of blood.
They're spinning. The pattern of the eyes. Warping and twisting and spinning, making you want to continue to look at it for an eternity and a half.
"You could live fine without knowing about these eyes," Uchiha Obito continues, as though thinking to itself. But Yuta knows that this is anything but. If Uchiha Obito wanted to think this through, it would've. In some secrete corner of its brain while it stares at Yuta with unnerving eyes and an expression that shows naught of what it's truly thinking or observing. It's a taciturn thing, more likely to swallow words and choke on them than spit them out.
So this?
This is just Uchiha Obito testing the waters. Gaging Yuta's reaction with minute precision and a mere flicker of its eyes.
Yuta thinks that the only reason why he noticed Uchiha Obito observing him in the first place is because Uchiha Obito let him.
Its gaze lingering on his face and expressions for a second too long, a moment too lingering before it switches back to observing the walls behind Yuta's head instead.
Its eyes, Yuta are noticing, never quite stay in one place for too long. Always lingering about, surveying the area. Its eyes never resting, absentmindedly focused in a way that was almost unnerving. As though this was something that Uchiha Obito has done for too long for it to even be something to spare a lick of its attention to.
Yuta doesn't think that that's normal sorcerer training. He knows that his teacher likes to tell them to 'pay attention' to their surroundings but he doesn't think Gojo-sensei quite meant it like this. This almost obsessive categorization of every movement- the way Uchiha Obito eyes snap, unnaturally, towards the slight creaking of wood or the sound of voices from outside or any other noises that Yuta can't quite perceive but Uchiha Obito must've all the same- it's subtle, but it's less so now with Uchiha Obito's less than subtle eyes.
The minute snapping of Uchiha Obito's eyes towards the source of sound or a miniscule change is hard not to notice when its eyes are like this. Red and spinning- until the moment its eyes spin, ever faster still, at a perceived disturbance.
It becomes less like pinwheels that fly alongside the winds, then. And more like the razor sharp blades of a weapon, flying through the air and ready to tear.
Red clashes against black. For a moment, the world stills. Uchiha Obito looks at Yuta's eyes, dull and plain.
Nothing changes. There's no blooming of a late flower. There's no blood red stain upon once black ink.
Yuta's eyes do not change.
It hadn't changed. And from Gojo-sensei's explanation, it never will either.
All of his curse energy went into creating Rika.
There was no energy left to spare to make his eyes bleed red, nor will there be such circumstances happening again. Yuta would know, he has been in plenty of near death situations, but it's never quite the same as his first.
There's a thing about firsts, Yuta thinks.
First death, first loss, first murder of kin.
There's a thing about firsts.
And it's true for everyone of his kin.
Up until him.
His eyes do not bleed red. They're plain and they'll remain plain. He wonders if this fact disappoints Uchiha Obito. He wonders if he's letting another part of their legacy die with him. He wonders if he's failed them, somehow.
He's not sure, but it feels like he did, all the same.
"Or maybe not," Uchiha Obito says under his breath. "You want family. You think I can give it to you."
There's something wry about Uchiha Obito's smile. Something veering on caustic and an edge too bitter. A bit too personal. Uchiha Obito finds this funny, somehow. Terribly, tragically funny. But it does not say why.
Instead, all it does is exhale out a laugh- rough and caustic.
"Why not," Uchiha Obito says, at last. "This is something you'll need to hear, regardless."
Yuta wonders what Uchiha Obito sees, that makes him smile like so.
"You want family."
An echo, a repeat, almost as though Uchiha Obito is mocking him somehow but also it's not quite that.
It's a perplexing statement. And even more confusing, still, is Uchiha Obito's apparent amusement in it.
"Well, any relatives with spare eyes?"
Uchiha Obito looks at him. There's almost something cruel about its smile, as though it's saying-
You want family.
A harsh glint in its eyes.
I'll grant it, your wish.
It smiles down at Sukuna. Thinly veiled amusement on the tip of its curved lips. It smiles and smiles and it does not show a single sign of stopping.
It's springy atop its foot, almost twitchy in a way. It swivels its head in every which way. Uncaring of the way its head tilts unnaturally at junctions or the way its eyes fixate too much on one particular thing, all the while the smile stays on. Unchanging, the exact curvature, the exact indentation.
It's a smile that doesn't fit right on the face that it's been slapped onto. A tad too unnatural, seeming more like it should belong to someone else, instead. But somehow having been stolen to be used instead.
Its eyes are ever changing, ever shifting. Switching between blood red and dark ink to pale purple as though it couldn't quite decide on a color. Ever changing, ever turbulent, but there's a barely hidden glee to be had within those unfathomable eyes.
Its hair is also changing, Sukuna notes. Shifting color like the slow dyeing of a canvas.
Even its clothes are barely tethering on. Its colors warping and changing and the folds of it falling down further or being shortened in mere spans of moments. One moment it's wearing a traditional garment, the next, there's red clouds adorning it, and the next, still, there's the soft clink of armor against cloth.
Finally, its body seems to be shifting, limbs stretching or folding based on a nigh imperceptible change. Its face growing boyish or returning back to form within a mere flickering of the light, a mere blink of the eyes.
It smiles and smiles. Like it can't quite get enough.
It smiles and it looks at Sukuna, its head tilting unnaturally. In a motion that it had no doubt imitated from someone but has no idea how to emulate properly. Instead, leaving it looking as though it has dislocated its neck instead.
It snickers, perhaps laughing at its own folly, a boyish sound that Sukuna wouldn't expect. But that, too, is wrong. It's wrong in the way that statues are, when they suddenly move. Or the way ghosts are, when suddenly gaining color.
It's a sound that belongs to a boy, and yet the vessel in front of Sukuna now is anything but.
Perhaps a boy, it once was.
But now?
Both of its hands go to either side of its head, as though measuring something before it lifts its head back to tilt in a less unnatural angle. Something more human, than dead. It adjusts for several moments, its eyes flickering shades of seasons before it finally ends as it settles its gaze back to Sukuna.
Its form, an ever shifting thing, still. Never settling still into one form. Constantly shifting with the flickering of light and the passing of a moment.
"This body is sent here for Itadori," it clarifies at last. "Itadori." It stretches out the name, tasting it upon its tongue and there's something about the name that delights it. For it continues to smile. Never a distance wider, nor thinner.
Just that one, eerily constant smile.
"Yuuji-kun," it then says. Its smile twisting into something else. Something almost boyish as it looks down at Sukuna's vessel.
Its voice is different from the last. A touch too high, too crooning, too familiar to-
"Yuuji-kun," it repeats.
Gojo Satoru, that's who it was familiar to. For just a second.
Its voice is shifting now, changing. Growing closer to the vessel it inhabits.
But there's still the undeniable tonation of Gojo Satoru that it still cannot quite shake off.
It's imitating him, Sukuna notes. As though it doesn't have its own voice.
"How is Yuuji-kun doing?" it then asks, nonchalantly. Voice growing raspier, deeper. Hair growing darker, eyes bleeding red and scars falling back into place. Its eyes flicker to Sukuna.
In it, lay pinwheels.
"Alive," Sukuna answers, even though he needs not. They both could see it with their own two eyes.
"The mission is complete," it says with amusement. "This body should dispel itself when that happens."
It smiles and smiles, though this time, there's a touch of anticipation to be had there.
There's a moment, and two.
It brings a hand to its body. Ever shifting, ever growing and shrinking and warping.
Nothing happens other than the quiet whisper of the passing wind.
In its eyes is an indescribable joy.
"See? Careless," it says, cheerfully.
Warping and twisting and changing.
In front of Sukuna stands a monster.
"Even as a child," Sukuna repeats. "You knew your vessel."
A tilt of the head, less unnatural than last time. Moreso the careless movement of someone truly bemused rather than something copying off the motions off a script.
"In this world," it says, amusement thick in its voice. "No one knows him better than I."
Its words are slow, intentful. Each word grabbed from a seemingly different sentence with a different tonation in each and the result is something like a patchwork of noises. But in the end, the thing just smiles, the same smile that it has.
"And who are you?" Sukuna asks, just as intentful.
It smiles, withering flowers and rising suns.
"We met not long ago," it says, cheerfully. Clashing harshly against its countenance. "Did you forget?" Its words are lackadaisical, almost friendly.
It's the empty sort of friendliness. The sort that's like an all consuming void that wishes to smother you whole.
The sort of smile that has no real substance behind it, the sort of tone that's only speaking things that it heard before and never from its own lips.
It's the surface of a mirror, seemingly infinite in depth but once you reach your hands out you find that it's only a flat surface.
"And who are you now?" Sukuna asks, there's no need to beat around the issue.
The sentiment isn't shared by the thing in front of Sukuna, though.
It stares at Sukuna, almost amused. It offers no concrete answer, at least not yet, as it only smiles and smiles. As though the answer itself is in its appearance.
An ever shifting mass, an ever changing torrent of human appendages and limbs torn asunder and stitched together and torn apart again with each passing moment.
The eyes remain the only stagnant shape within the chaotic torrent, though it, too, is not immune to the changes.
If anything, it is perhaps the most eye-catching of all of them.
The shifting of colors, the dyeing of scarlet, the withering of violet wisteria, the drop of black ink. They blend together, bleed together, twisting, shifting, changing.
"Who do you want to see?" it asks back, amusement thick in its voice.
The passing of glances, a shared exchange between two.
The knowledge that there's more than one identity that this thing could take.
"Does it matter?"
It smiles.
An acquiescence.
Sukuna's heart thrums, it thinks that this is anticipation. The thrill of a hunt. Subdued, not quite what it once was.
But it'll have to do for now.
The thing smiles. The clashing of colors, the blooming of flowers, the torrent of human limbs.
It eventually settles.
Red eyes stare down at Sukuna.
A man looks at Sukuna.
Sukuna does not recognize the man.
But the resemblance is there.
From the sharpness of the man's eyes, to the red of a blooming peony. To the choppy, messy scrawl of hair that falls down the man's back. To the man's features, one of nobility and status.
It eventually winds down to the man's expression.
Mocking and terrible.
But there's the same smile on the man's lips. A soft movement- red armor clinking gently against cloth as the man's hair sways with the movement of it as the man sits upon the wall.
There's no doubt that the man is related to Uchiha Obito.
"No, I suppose it doesn't," the man says, its voice having long shifted into something darker, smoother. "Your words don't hold any weight with me, really."
The smile shifts into something more of a smirk.
"Please do forgive the discourtesy, King of Curses."
Now, Sukuna thinks. Now this is more like it.
"You don't quite care for kings."
"I knew one," the man says, a sneer replacing his smile. "He was weak for a king, an oathbreaker for a husband, and a coward for a lover."
A scoff, a mocking laugh.
There's something terribly entertaining lurking beneath.
"I found that a king's expression was most seemly when in an eternal slumber," the man repeats, a sneer lining his words. "Perhaps that'll be the same for you."
Another scoff and upturned, mocking lips.
"Do forgive the discourtesy."
There's a thing about firsts.
First deaths, first loss, first kin slaying.
The first 'smile.'
For a human, perhaps the first 'death' is quite novel.
But for a monster?
There is no such thing as death, loss, sadness from taking apart your kin.
For a human, perhaps a first 'smile' is something they may not even remember.
But for a monster?
It is a thing that it cannot forget.
There's a thing about firsts.
And perhaps, that is the point where monsters and men intersect.
"It's not often mentioned," Uchiha Obito says, conversationally if only its voice wasn't so harsh. "Not many get to the second part, if at all."
Yuta can imagine it.
The requirement for it- the sheer anguish that must be felt and the curse energy required to break through that line- is ludicrous.
Yuta doesn't imagine that it's the quiet kind of death that can fit the requirement, either. The kind of sickness, or of a quiet passing due to age.
Sadness is evoked there, sure. But Yuta doesn't imagine much else can be drawn from it.
At least, not enough to reach the barrier and break through.
It's the witnessing of a violent death of a person you hold in your heart. Violent and terrible and enough blood and tragedies to go around to cause a second spike in your curse energy.
Yuta can picture Rika's cooling body upon the concrete. He can remember it clear as day. The way her blood splattered, the way her limbs fell, the way she would never open her eyes again.
He remembers the way his own body revolting against itself. The way he had wanted to hunch over and just grab at her hand and open her eyes with the zeal and naivety of a child, the way his heart ran and ran and ran and hers has laid so still, the waysomethinghad broken and now he knows it wasn't his heart.
It must've been an awakening, Yuta realizes, now.
He doesn't know whether it's luck or not.
Probably not, Yuta thinks. Gaining a link to a ubiquitous 'family' at the cost of Rika's life doesn't seem quite worth it.
But then again, gaining 'power' at the cost of someone close to your heart isn't quite fair either.
Yuta wonders who died in front of Uchiha Obito's eyes. Whether they were like Rika, gentle and full of life with soft hair and softer smiles. Or perhaps they were akin to a mentor, like Gojo-sensei or not. Or perhaps they were a parental figure to Uchiha Obito- but perhaps not, from what Gojo-sensei said, Uchiha Obito wasn't favored enough for that.
He wonders what kind of death it was. Whether it was limbs being torn asunder by a curse or a tragedy striking at the wrong time. Whether it was by fire or frost. Whether it was bloody and cruel, leaving nothing behind but viscera and gore or whether it at least left an intact corpse for the family to mourn.
In the end, all he knows is that Uchiha Obito must've loved.
In the end, all he knows is that Uchiha Obito loved and lost and several years earlier, they were on the same path.
Uchiha Obito lost and gained a pair of bloody eyes while whoever that he cared for stayed dead, gone, cold.
Yuta lost and gained Rika. His eyes are plain, the murky darkness of ink. Never to spark with the colors of scarlet.
But he thinks he's the one that won, out of the two of them.
Though, is there such a thing as 'winning' when it comes to this?
"When you gain the Mangekyo," Uchiha Obito suddenly says. "You gain a new power, all relating to your eyes."
The pinwheels spin.
"Whatever it is, I was told that it is the power you wished you had in that moment," Uchiha Obito continues, its voice echoing in Yuta's quiet home. "For some, it is the power to cast an unbreakable illusion to keep a peace that was never there, for others it's the power to trap others, repeating the same day three times over, and then for some-" A quirk of the lips, quiet and resounding. "- it's the power to create a fire that'll never burn out, to deliver an undue justice."
Uchiha Obito stands in front of Yuta.
The weight of history is pulling Yuta down.
He thinks he has wanted this.
Family.
"And for you? It must've been the power to bring the dead back to life." The sound of a crash. A little girl's body against the concrete, her blood red and the world even murkier. The pitter patter of his own heart, the roaring of sirens.
There's the sound of Rika's laughter in the back of his mind.
His last image of her clinging to his eyes.
He wonders if this runs in the blood.
What is the worth of a human life?
Undoubtedly, for his clan, the worth of a life must be equal to the power it grants.
The power that seems like a compensation for whatever loss you suffered-
In the end, it's nothing but a mockery of it. From illusions to repeats to fire.
None of them are worth the price.
It's the power that you wanted most at that moment. It's the power you wished you had before they died and their blood stains the ground. The power that could've kept them alive, if only you could just-
But you could not. For they are dead and the proof is in your eyes. You've benefited from their death and there's no escaping that you've failed.
Out of any power, there's none that can bring back the dead. Not truly, not ever.
Perhaps this is why his clansmen went mad, Yuta thinks. For every time they use their power, surely, they must be reminded of their failure.
Yuta thinks that this is irony.
"And for you?" His voice sounds calmer than he expected, distant to his own ears.
A quiet hum. Uchiha Obito stares at Yuta. Its eyes are still scarlet but it's less sharp now, more considering.
His veins thrum with heat.
Family.
Once, it must've been Uchiha Obito standing in his place, Yuta realized.
Yuta runs Uchiha Obito's words over in his mind again. Quiet and raspy.
It's not often mentioned. A wry note, almost dry.
And then another-
I was told. Stated offhandedly, a small footnote almost lost in the deluge of information.
Once, Yuta realizes, Uchiha Obito must've been standing here as well. With the blood of the person he cared for deep behind his eyes and their last moment etched into his mind.
He wonders if this is just another rite of passage for them.
He wonders what questions Uchiha Obito had asked.
A passing moment, a quiet glance.
"I couldn't accept reality," Uchiha Obito says. "So I created another."
There's a story there, Sukuna thinks. One that offers it much entertainment indeed.
There's usually no intersection between the jujutsu world and the mundane. At least, not in the present.
But in the past?
It was not so.
In the past, the jujutsu world blended in with the mundane. That was how men like Kamo Noritoshi hook their claws into their prey and how clans like the Gojo clan build their prestige.
Now, the Gojo clan is looked back at as a clan of old nobles, who served in so-and-so's court back in the day.
Nobles they were, perhaps. But they were not without titles. They were not noble in the regular sense.
They were noble for their technique. For their heralded strength. For their ability to serve and to exorcise. Chasing away evil and cleansing the spirits. Or something of the such.
Though, the number of sorcerers that can approach monarchs, even back then, can be counted on one of Sukuna's hands.
And the Uchiha clan certainly did not exist.
There's a story here, Sukuna thinks.
One that unfolded in between the time wherein Sukuna laid dormant.
The curse is more aggressive now, Sukuna notes. Unlike the newborn it was before. Its words are sharper, now. More articulate. Something verging closer to the ideal of 'human'. It listens and it can understand, it speaks and there are now double meanings behind its words.
It's learning, Sukuna realizes. And it's learning fast.
At an exponential pace.
Sukuna remembers, not long ago, telling a newborn not to roar more than once and the childish creaking of its neck.
Now, Sukuna looks at the man in front of it.
It's not a perfect guise, though, Sukuna thinks. Not just yet.
It's learning, at a rapid pace.
But whatever it's emulating, it's still an emulation. An illusion that'll break if you offer it something that it hadn't seen before. Its form is flickering, the warping of reality's fabric before being stitched together hastily.
Sukuna still remembers its appearance from before. The playful childishness of a child.
Sukuna looks at the man in front of it now.
Wholly mature and caustic to the touch.
It is putting on a guise.
Though of who, remains to be said.
"This king might find some generosity left to forgive you," Sukuna drawls lightly. "If you'd offer your name."
The man quirks a brow, as though realizing that he hadn't quite offered his name. Or perhaps bemused at the fact that Sukuna does not know. Face switching to a look of bemusement for a split moment before the man smiles back sharply.
"Uchiha Madara," the man says, the curse says, putting on another's skin- taking another's name as easily as it exists.
Uchiha, the same last name.
Sukuna can already determine that from their looks alone. But it is still pleasant to be proven correct.
If Uchiha Madara is who the curse feels like emulating for the day, then Sukuna will indulge it.
There's a mystery to solve, after all. And Sukuna was nothing but generous when it came to entertainment.
Uchiha Madara, Sukuna runs over the name in its mind.
Names have meaning. This is a truth that all sorcerers and all curses, if sentient enough, knows.
And for curses, names have power.
And this one seems nonsensical from the start.
It's just a mere descriptor. A simple 'dot' or something akin to that.
But would you really name a child destined to die? Let the boy have a name to haunt you by?
Sukuna doesn't think so.
Names aren't given so freely, especially to children that are destined to die young to be the fertilizer to their sibling's power.
But then again, this name was nothing but nonsensical, a mere descriptor, as though someone couldn't care enough and gave their child that name just for pretense sake.
And yet.
Someone cared enough to give a child destined to die a name.
So which was it?
Why give a dying boy a name?
Why give a boy destined to be a curse a name?
And if you cared enough to give a name in the first place- why give such a perfunctory name?
It only begets more questions.
"That's an uncommon name," is all Sukuna says. "Compared to Uchiha Obito."
Uchiha Madara scoffs out a laugh, as though amused.
"I suppose so." Uchiha Madara mirrors Sukuna, placing a hand beneath its head. Resting against it as its other hand rests on its knee.
A moment, then two.
Sukuna takes a wager.
"It doesn't sound related to royalty in the slightest."
Uchiha Madara laughs, it is a grating sound upon Sukuna's ears.
"He can only wish I would call him father," Uchiha Madara says, the man's features twisting into something sharp and horrible. "Perhaps then, I'd allow him to rule next to mother."
A tale is unraveling.
The jujutsu world and that of the mundane.
It has intersected, Sukuna thinks.
"But fortunately, I am mother's child, and hers alone."
The existence of a pair of twins.
A woman, scorned.
Two children born out of a woman's misery.
Though the jujutsu world intersected little with the mundane and sorcerers intersected even less with monarchs, it cannot be said that sorcerers are not tempted for the power to sway the court.
It usually failed, though noble they may be. Monarchs generally fancy themselves above needing to keep a wife from one of the honored jujutsu families by their side. Not when they can simply hire one to take care of whatever curses may ail their palaces.
The jujutsu clans are honored for their techniques. In the same vein, they're also lesser because of it. Not quite the same status as the rest.
But ah, if a monarch were to fall for a woman of a noble jujutsu clan. Promising her the world.
Well, that'd be a different story.
The conspiracy of the court is deep and the waters are murky. And kings are fickle, still, this Sukuna knows best of all. Women bloom and fade, feelings come and go.
Perhaps the king could not withstand the fact that the woman who laid next to him could kill him in her sleep. Perhaps he feared her power, as all kings eventually do. Perhaps he feared her and perhaps he disdained her.
Or perhaps, she was unfaithful and so he scorned her.
The court is deep and its waters are murky.
But at the end there is a victor.
Sukuna thinks it can see it.
A woman's face lies hiding behind a screen.
If the king is in an eternal slumber.
He can sleep forever.
Let it be her, then, that will rule.
For she is the one with a monster in her palm.
Everyone experiences grief differently.
For some, they must've wanted to burn it all away, some must've wanted to repeat everything over and over and over again, some perhaps just want to create a new illusion over the wound and hope that it heals.
For Yuta, he went against the taboo.
And for Uchiha Obito-
He created a new reality- whatever that entails.
"It's powerful, the second level," Uchiha Obito comments idly. "But our eyes are not meant to handle the strain."
Uchiha Obito's expression is wry, nigh on amused in a terrible way.
You want family.
"Well, all that is to ask-" Uchiha Obito smiles, terrible and cold. "Any signs of blindness?'
I'll grant it, your wish.
Family.
A funny word.
To the Uchiha clan, family is everything.
To the monster, its mother, too, is everything.
Perhaps this, too, is the point where monster and men intersect.
