It comes in a flash of blinding pain.
Like a brand being seared atop his brain. Burning hot and true, a pinprick spearing straight through his skull.
Obito is no stranger to a memory overload after a clone disperses. He is no stranger to the headache that follows, the ache in his mind. The rush of memory and nausea, the familiar tinge of a slight pain from too much and all at once.
What he is a stranger to, is this. This blinding pain, digging straight at his skull to get to the meat beneath. Striking hot and true and making you want to claw out your scalp just to get it to go away. It's a pain that refuses to subsume even if you beg and wish, it's a type of pain that doesn't get better even if you adjust because youcan't.
It's the type of pain that goes beyond the line oftoo muchand makes you want to curl up within yourself.
It feels like taking a bite out of the sun and trying to process the taste.
It feels like that and more. It feels like Obito had taken chunks and chunks of the sun and stuffed it into his mouth and there's a thousand flavors at the tip of his tongue and a hundred thousand more to be deciphered.
It's the type of pain that feels like it could last an eternity and perhaps it will.
There are pieces of the sun in Obito's gut and mind and blood and they all burn.
There are shards of memories entrenching itself in his mind, hot and true. Flashes of people that are here and people that arethere. Pieces of memories that are his and those that are not. Flashes of another time- another place- fragments of a life he's never lived.
They all burn. They all hurt. They're all not meant to be processed by his mind. But they are, nonetheless.
There's a phantom pain atop his chest, a lightning through the heart- a silent, Obito-
Thunder runs through his veins, hot and true. Just as it had that day.
There are pieces of the sun within his gut, he thinks he had choked on one of them.
Thunder flashes inside his blood. Through his heart.
But he no longer has a heart.
He reaches for that spark of lightning- that flash of thunder-
The keening cries of a thousand birds-
A thin, white thread-
There's a beast with ten tails staring back at him. A searing red moon atop the sky. There's dust afloat and there's cracks along the ground.
The beast blinks, guileless.
"You,"Obito spits. It's much more guttural than he anticipates. Something that came out from deep within. Something tasting like ash and the dying chirps of thunder.
The fucking thing blinks at him, innocent.
"Drop the act," Obito says, his voice words and his expression even harsher. Heat still branding into his brain and the world is still tinged with fire and pain. "We both know you're not just a mindless beast."
At least, not anymore.
Obito knows, best of anyone here, that the Juubi was once the most mindless of them all. An incarnate of nothing but chakra. A weapon to be used, not to be reasoned with.
It's growing,a part of him whispers- warns.
The Juubi tilts its head, its jaw creaking open.
"You were fond of this act," the Juubi says, with a familiar sort of tone. The kind that old friends have to each other.
The kind that's familiar, but Obito can't quite place it at the moment.
"It was just like this," the Juubi says, and between one breath and another, Obito stands, staring back at himself. "Or do you not like it anymore?" There's a childish giggle, the Juubi's voice growing higher in pitch.
Tobi's mask stares back at him, his hands bunched together into a childish gesture of concern.
It's like staring into a damned mirror.
One that reflects back only a distorted version of yourself.
It's growing, he thinks. It's with the sort of horror of watching an abomination grow under your watch without being able to do a damn thing about it.
There's a shot of fear curling through him, rancid and terrible.
Culling at the searing pain cutting at his brain, instead replacing it with something cold and just as horrendous.
"What do you want?" Obito asks, his voice growing calmer, tenured down by the weight of what he's just discovered.
There's no bargaining with beasts.
But then there's no real harm in finding out what makes it tick before it grows too intelligent to let you see its true intentions.
But then again-
How far exactly has the Juubi grown? How fast will it grow?
Tobi shrugs, it's an exaggerated motion. Although jagged, and crude, as though the Juubi hadn't quite learned the finer details of the motions just yet.
"Whatever you want," the Juubi says, its words glib and honeyed. Like the finest of deserts. Sweet in the way that's leaning on too childish and too saccharine at the same time. "Promise."
Sharingan red stares back at him, there's a playful curve to those eyes. Something almost innocent.
But they both know that that, too, is false.
"I am your loyal subordinate, Leader," the Juubi says, with the same jovial tone he once used to Pein's face. Right up until he dug out the man's eyes.
"We both know how loyal Tobi was," Obito replies, finding it to be something like an out of body experience. Like talking to himself but at the same time- not.
Between Tobi and Madara and every name in between that he had taken on between the years-
Tobi was the one that was closest to 'Obito'. In a strange, twisted way.
For as much as Obito wished he was 'Madara', he could never quite measure up to the man.
Tellingly, the Juubi does not answer. Instead, it rocks back and forth, from the soles back to its toes. A motion that he often did when he was pretending to faze out words during meetings. This often earned him Deidara's ire, though it was most useful in keeping up the front.
It's off in places now, though, the rhythm too static, too unnatural. But a part of Obito knows that this, too, will be fixed with time.
"I won't be so careless again," Obito says instead. For he knows, best of all, that if Tobi was intent on ignoring a topic, it'll never be addressed at all.
"Of course, Leader," the Juubi says, as though humoring him.
Though, it's in the sort of tone of an innocent child. It's almost sincere, in a way, if you didn't know any better. Spoken almost lyrically, like words to a children's song.
And that's precisely how Tobi gets you.
Obito knows this, too, best of all.
But in the end, he knows, too, best of all, that there's no use in trying to drag an answer out of Tobi.
So instead, he asks-
"Why Kakashi?"
It bugs at his mind, the thoughts crawling atop his brain, like an insect that just doesn't know when to stop and die.
There's a thousand of those insects crawling within his mind, now, burrowing into his brain and making it their home as he does nothing but think.
On night patrols like this, wherein the streets are silent and the curses are terribly loud and plenty bountiful, there's nothing to dobutthink. There's nothing that stands between him and his nagging thoughts, nothing to quite distract him from it other than the next curse on the menu, but they, too, provide no distraction.
For they are weak, and he is Gojo Satoru.
There's no need for thoughts when exterminating them. It's a mindless task, something that you do and eventually realize that dawn has broken and the day has restarted once more with the quiet chime of Ichiji's message checking in on him.
It's a formality at this point. They both know Satoru is neither dead nor going rogue.
But Ichiji does so, nonetheless. Maybe it's out of professionalism. Or perhaps the man is too soft. Satoru thinks it's a factor of both.
Ichiji has always been a bit like that. A bit too loyal, per say, despite his whinings about Satoru's antics. A bit too professional and a bit too concerned over the fates of the younger sorcerers.
In short, he's the type to only retire when he dies.
That's one thing they have in common, Satoru supposes beyond the fact that they're both working for the grander jujutsu society. It's not like he can retire either, with him being what he is. And it's not like he wants to retire, either.
Satoru can't quite imagine that type of life. The kind of life that's idyllic and peaceful. The type where you wake up in the morning and feel refreshed with a warmth next to you and a good rest behind you. Ready to start the day doing whatever mundane task people do.
It's Nanami's dream life, probably. The man has always been keen on that type of normalcy. The type that's weirdly normal and terribly dull. It's the type of normalcy that most sorcerers have at least thought about once in their life and at least some still retain that yearning.
But it's not Satoru's.
He can't quite imagine a life beyond this. Whatever this is.
He doubts that any Six Eyes had ever imagined a life beyond the jujutsu world.
They are born into it. Their fate intertwined with curses and so, too, will their life be intertwined with the jujutsu world.
He wonders if this, too, was how Gojo Kakashi lived. Raised to be the apex of the jujutsu world only to learn that perhaps he could not bear the weight all by himself in the end.
He thinks of the man, with silvery hair that resembles the wane moon rather than the bright spark of white that those bearing the Gojo name are renowned for. With a soft, low voice that belays nothing of his true nature but rather makes him feel unassuming when he was born as anything but that.
Satoru wonders what kind of person that man was. He wonders how he lived. He wonders if the man was just as unassuming as his voice or whether he was something more lurking beneath his demeanor. He wondered if the man was as peaceful as he sounded, or he was just as haunted as every Gojo became nearing the prime of their career.
Uchiha Obito's clothes had hung quite poorly on the man, Satoru remembers. Gojo Kakashi was slightly taller, though Satoru cannot tell whether that's true or another blurred artifact of the curse's manifestation of Gojo Kakashi.
He wonders what Gojo Kakashi wore. No doubt it would've been the finest of fabric, the purest of silk. The best money could offer. Dyed in no colors at all, for it is a sign of the Six Eye's majesty. For no blood nor grime can stain them. It'd be something like one of those robes for ceremonies, the ones that the elders desperately wish Satoru would wear but he often refuses.
He wonders if Gojo Kakashi had bowed to the elder's will. Or if he had carved out a path all by himself.
He wonders if it was a mix of both. He wonders if Uchiha Obito was just another tally in Gojo Kakashi's mark against the jujutsu society, or if this was to be Gojo Kakashi's first defiance.
He wonders which is worse.
Kakashi. Scarecrow. A guardian, someone that protects.
In the end, Satoru is not sure if Gojo Kakashi had lived up to his name. He had protected one, and he had discarded the world in turn. Satoru wonders if protection counts at all if it meant betraying the world all for one person.
He wonders about the conversation that must've been held between Uchiha Obito and Gojo Kakashi, after. He wonders what words were exchanged, whether there were angry shouts or a stunned silence. He wonders if Gojo Kakashi regrets it.
He wonders who the man was, truly. He wonders if the man says, Uchiha Obito, in that voice of his, with a note of lingering affection. Or whether it was something more dull, with a note of a withheld something.
Satoru has a clearer image of Gojo Kakashi than ever.
And yet.
He feels as though he'd never been farther from catching the shadow of that man.
It's somewhat like Shrodinger's, Satoru thinks wryly. But the box has already been opened, and the cat is already dead.
But now you want to know the life that the cat led, the path that it trod, the relationship that it formed.
You want to trace it all the way back to the cat's origin. But the cat is dead, and you can't question it directly.
But then there's someone out there that knows the cat, personally. That knows its history, that knows its origin, that knows where it began and where it ended. Even as the world forgot.
But that someone is no longer a someone, that 'someone' has been warped into something worse, something terrible. A blight upon the world.
In the end, Gojo Kakashi is not a name recorded in history. Whether it was marked out posthumously or never entered the records at all is up to anybody's guess. But there, too, must've been a story about that. For Six Eyes users do not go unnoticed and unmarked in the jujutsu world. Lest they've committed a grave crime. But even so, Satoru doubts that there would be no record of the man for innocuous reasons.
Kamo Noritoshi, for as reviled as he was, is still remembered to this day for his heinous contributions to jujutsu society.
And a Six Eyes creating a curse out of a vessel?
That'd warrant some records at least, if it were to be known.
There's a story there. And Satoru doubts that the elders know, either.
There's a story here. A story that's been submerged beneath the dark, murky waters of the jujutsu world. A story that had a beginning and an ending and now no one knows it existed at all.
A story that only one could tell, now.
Between the two of them. Gojo Kakashi was blessed, and Uchiha Obito was cursed. One meant to live a life of greatness, the other destined for a life of madness.
One meant to outlive everyone, and one meant to die beneath some rocks.
But in the end, only Uchiha Obito is left to tell Gojo Kakashi's legacy.
Satoru thinks that that's ironic. In the way that's bitter and only makes you want to avert your eyes.
He thinks between the entanglements of Uchiha Obito and Gojo Kakashi. Both of whom were probably born not linked at all with nothing but perhaps the faint thread that ties together those belonging to the jujutsu world.
And yet.
Somewhere along the lines- somewhere after Uchiha Obito, the boy, died and somewhere before Uchiha Obito, the man, was killed- their fates had been tied together.
Their story had begun long before Satoru was born.
But it is a story without an ending.
Satoru wonders why he's even thinking about it. Why he wants to know so badly, the story of Gojo Kakashi. Why he wants to catch at the man's shadow and unveil his everything.
He wonders what shade of the sky lurks within the man's eyes.
Whether it's the stormy, murky depths of something reckoning destruction, or perhaps something more downcast, lulling one into a false sense of peace.
Or perhaps, something more like his. Bright and true, like a clear summer day-
In the end, Satoru does not know, for the world has forgotten one Gojo Kakashi.
He wonders if it'll always be like this, wherein every answer just leads to another question and every step taken forward just feels like the bitter tang of dead ends and a fathomless abyss that offers nothing except a deafening silence.
Only Uchiha Obito can answer his questions, now.
But that's not quite true, is it.
There, too, exists the Juubi. A beast with no origins and nothing to its name other than being strangely familiar to that of the Kyuubi's.
It, too, knows of that man that once existed. Just as it, too, probably had witnessed the story between the two of them, from beginning till now.
But then-
Where is it's beginning?
And just where along the line did it fall into the hands of the Uchiha?
And most pressingly of all-
Why is Uchiha Obito, a boy of no acclaim and even less prestige, its vessel?
A vessel that devours other vessels; a curse that can eclipsed other sealed curses.
Uchiha Obito was not the first choice, but he was the one that was chosen.
So why?
In the end-
What exactly happened when the rocks fell?
What is the exact nature of a curse called the 'Juubi'?
And why did its heart beat?
And most pressingly of all-
What were the last words exchanged between Gojo Kakashi and Uchiha Obito?
Like the creaking of an old, wooden tree, the Juubi tilts its head. It's a motion that doesn't fit the appearance its wearing.
"I just felt like it," Tobi answers. Nonsensically. "I mean, he was right there, Leader, I just couldn't help it." It then pauses, studying him for his reaction. "Or perhaps I did it for fun, you know how I am." It pauses again, studying him. "Or perhaps-"
Between one moment and the next, there's a hand at his shoulder and a man by his side.
"It's because you missed me," Kakashi says, there's a teasing lilt to his words. Something familiar and warm.
The Juubi moves back quickly to dodge a strike with Kakashi's familiar sidestep, a fluid and textbook motion that only Kakashi can do so with a casual assurance and lazy footwork.
"In the end, you'll never know," Obito or- the Juubi wearing his face, says. There's a saccharine smile on its lips. "You think you know, but you don't know anything at all."
The moon flashes red, he's staring into a mirror.
"Let me give you a hint," the him in the mirror says, conspiratorially. His eyes curving up into something wicked. "Why Kakashi?"
He smiles at himself.
"Gojo Satoru asked." There's a pause here, it's building up to something. "And you know why he asked?"
The mirror grows clearer by the second.
"He thinks they're related, Obito."
The world cracks, the moon shatters-
Obito is back in Kamui.
There's a phantom pain of thunder in his heart.
But his heart is an empty grave.
It's an awfully rundown place, Kenjaku thinks with something like disdain. Old and on the verge of being torn down.
It does not get why something would choose to stay here willingly.
But then again, Kenjaku does not know the inner workings of the newest special grade curse to grace their presence.
It's time for an introduction, Kenjaku thinks.
Something very grand indeed.
