The silence descends rather unceremoniously. Fitting around the three of them like a terribly uncomfortable glove.
Gojo-sensei just sort of looks at him, about a quarter of his face is covered by a blindfold but Yuta can still tell that his expression is just about summed up in his question, that being, What?
Yuta feels the prickling heat of embarrassment at his cheeks, arriving none too soon as he stills under the scrutinizing gaze of his teacher.
His teacher, who is still holding hands with his ancestor.
Yuta is entirely torn between feeling embarrassed and in the throes of death itself.
On one hand, he did just ask whether his teacher and ancestor are non-platonic.
On the other hand, his teacher is holding hands with his ancestor and they're still holding hands and why aren't they letting go?
On the other, other hand, Yuta refuses to be related to Gojo Satoru in any way. Love and respect the man for what he does to help the jujutsu world, but Yuta would rather see the man's name on someone else's family tree, never his, never Yuta's.
If Yuta even spiritually feels Gojo Satoru enter his family genealogy by having non-platonic relations with Yuta's ancestor, Yuta might just become an anti-matchmaker or something. He is not joking. To be Gojo Satoru's student is one thing, to be his in-law is another.
Repeat, Yuta does not want to be Gojo Satoru's in-law.
He tries to imagine it, waking up everyday and seeing Gojo Satoru and having to go 'good morning great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great uncle.' Or, worse yet, 'good morning great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandpa'. Because Yuta knows, intrinsically, what Gojo Satoru would make Yuta call him if given the chance. He can practically foresee it like the oracles of old.
He sees Maki's eyes of contempt, Toge's eyes of sympathy, and Panda's empty, empty eyes that say nothing at all. He imagines trying to explain to them that Gojo Satoru is so far up the in-law family tree that he's not related at all, they do not believe him.
They say things like 'so it turns out you were nepotism all along' and 'don't say that about your grandpa' and 'can you write down my name in your will'. He imagines saying desperately. 'no'- they do not heed him. He imagines feeling Gojo Satoru's palm on his shoulder, emerging from outside the classroom.
Perfect hair and sly grin and 'hello great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchild' whilst his other hand is holding Yuta's ancestor's hand.
He screams.
Or, well, the Yuta in his imagination does.
Yuta cannot let this happen, he refuses. He feels like he's entering a fever pitch. Desperation running thick in his veins, adrenaline in his heart. A rush unlike any other.
And it is, Yuta is fighting a looming threat that he simply cannot cut away or call Rika on.
Yuta does not know how his life has led up to this point. All the first and special grades he'd slain had all led up to this point-
The battle against keeping Gojo Satoru's name far, far away from his family tree.
Yuta decides that if they weren't going to answer,hewas going to answer for them. He refuses to let Gojo-sensei say something like 'yes, it is non-platonic' because that may as well destroy Yuta's battle plan and Yuta himself.
"It makes me happy to see you two being so friendly," Yuta says, instead. He who draws the first strike and all that. His smile is pleasant, he's pretty sure it is. Gojo-sensei's the one that taught him to smile in the face of power hungry elders, and Yuta isn't afraid to invoke that power now. He thinks he sounds sincere, too, especially when he's lying through his teeth.
Well, Yuta would be happy to see them getting along. But not like this, never like this.
He forges on from his previous question, he decides that Gojo-sensei need not answer, his answer would all be from the malicious heart of a man who has a bit too much fun teasing his students and deriving joy from making them die from shame.
"Would you like to sit down?" he asks Uchiha Obito instead.
Uchiha Obito who is still holding his teacher's hand, platonically, if Yuta has any say in it.
He does not know how things go the way they go in Uchiha Obito's time, nor how sorcerer culture works towards the intimate act of holding hands. But Yuta's near certain that Uchiha Obito is not an affectionate man to hold another man's hand so readily, let alone with fingers intertwined like that.
This is, as Panda would say to one of those dramas he so often binge watches with the class, a flag.
Yuta is not about to let this happen.
He is not about to let this love story go interrupted. Call it what you will, Yuta is not going to let Gojo Satoru enter his household.
They haven't said anything either, maybe they're still processing his words. But this is a positive as far as Yuta's concerned. It means that they're either not non-platonic at all, or that their non-platonic relationship hasn't progressed that far for them to be prepared for the 'meeting the family' stage yet.
It'll never get that far if Yuta has a say in it. He refuses, explicitly, clearly, with all of his heart.
Uchiha Obito looks at him, dark eyes and an even murkier mood. Yuta can't tell what he's thinking, but Yuta thinks that Uchiha Obito is a kinder man than Gojo Satoru is, therefore, least likely to make an earth shattering announcement when it's clear that Yuta's heading straight towards the friendship route.
Or, at least, Yuta hopes that he's kinder. He doesn't know Uchiha Obito, not really. Stringently related as they may be, Yuta hadn't the faintest idea of the man's personality beyond what Uchiha Obito has shown him so far. He wants to know, though, which is why Uchiha Obito is here at all. But Yuta would rather not get to know his ancestor through his teacher, which would be an ordeal.
Gojo-sensei's looking at him, too. There's something utterly eerie about how the man's just staring at him. Gojo-sensei's moved past the stage of' What?', Yuta has no idea what stage the man has just arrived at now, and he doesn't want to know either.
Again, Yuta does appreciate his teacher for being a net good to the world. But he doesn't want Gojo Satoru to be a net anything when it comes to Yuta's family. Estranged as they may be.
It's nothing personal, it's just the mere fact of the matter.
Who goes around getting non-platonic with their student's ancestor anyways? Yuta thinks there must be some realm of teacher-al ethics that this violates. Conflict of interest and all that. Yuta is sure that Principal Yaga would have words with Gojo-sensei if the man ever knew.
But would that stop the unstoppable force that is Gojo Satoru when he wants something?
No.
At last, Uchiha Obito gives Yuta a nod. Succinct and curt, but Yuta has never felt such gentleness and kindness gracing him before as Uchiha Obito nods and untangles his hand from Yuta's teacher.
Uchiha Obito is a kind man, certainly.
Gojo Satoru, the devil, interrupts at this moment.
"Wait a minute, Yuta-kun," the man says in that drawl of his that only means trouble and pestering his poor, poor students. Grasping back Uchiha Obito's hand. "Weren't you glad that we're so friendly?"
Gojo Satoru looks at him, and Yuta canfeelthe amount of trouble that the man is already cooking up. He can feel it in his bones, in his marrow. It's like an ingrained survival instinct from the ancient past, activated in the face of danger.
"I am, Gojo-sensei," Yuta replies mildly, pushing Gojo-sensei's plate of cake towards the man. It's cut neatly with the precision of someone who had to for one too many times. Yuta swears that Ichiji has made it an artform out of the need to cope from dealing with Gojo Satoru. Ichiji has an uncanny talent for carving nonsensical shapes from a slice of cake. It's terribly fascinating and also eerie.
"See? Yuta-kun wants us to be friendly," Gojo-sensei says, almost cheerfully. And it is with mortification as Yuta watches Gojo Satoru pull back Uchiha Obito's hand. Interlocking their fingers.
Yuta is pretty sure that this is a breach of ethics to make your student watch you hold hands with their ancestor.
Yuta realizes two things:
One, he had inadvertently challenged Gojo Satoru.
Two, Gojo Satoru never backs down from a chance to torment his students, true non-platonic relations or not.
Combine the two together and you get this:
It doesn't matter whether the story was platonic or not. What matters now is Gojo Satoru's particular mood.
Gojo Satoru is looking at Yuta and he's holding hands with Yuta's ancestor and he's meeting Yuta's attempt to foil this Schrodinger's relationship with contempt.
Yuta may have just foiled himself.
But he can't back down now. It's his own family tree at stake, here. And he refuses to be in-laws with Gojo Satoru.
It is at this intersection of fate that Uchiha Obito finally speaks up.
"There is no story," are Uchiha Obito's first words upon entering Yuta's residence. Once again untangling his hand from Yuta's teacher. Then, a second later as though to make sure Yuta understood."To answer your question."
Yuta decides, at that moment, that Uchiha Obito must've been a kind man when he was alive.
"Well, that was blunt of you" Gojo-sensei says, his voice is light and cheery. He does let go of Yuta's ancestor hand, so that's a win in Yuta's book.
It may be that Gojo-sensei had just gotten bored of this newest trick on Yuta, it may be that he's sick of holding a curse's hand. It may be both and it may be more, but Yuta can't deny that Gojo-sensei had let go once Uchiha Obito spoke up. That he had heeded Uchiha Obito's words and drew back accordingly.
There's something about that.
Yuta doesn't know what to make of it.
He doesn't think he wants to think about it further, either, but it feels likemorethan the hand holding somehow.
He doesn't know what to make of it.
Uchiha Obito sits right next to Yuta, his expression is a thing that's frozen in time. Yuta wonders whether he always did look like that.
Maybe not as a child, but Yuta wondered when it was that Uchiha Obito's expression had turned out to be that way. Cold and sculpted. Something that'd feel like ice if you touch upon his cheek and freeze you if he pins you down with his gaze.
More statue than human.
There's a lull in words. Yuta doesn't quite know what to say, what to ask.
He had gotten his ancestor here, but now that he does-
He doesn't know where to start.
There's a whole history that's been buried, a whole clan that's forgotten. And in the haze of it all, Yuta doesn't know where to even begin. If there's even a beginning at all, but there was an ending- so there must be a beginning. The Uchiha clan, then and now. From Uchiha to civilian. Their blood passed down onto him. But their eyes won't bloom in his, never again.
Because he traded it in for Rika.
Now that there's a pervasive silence, Yuta feels overwhelmed by the things that he knows. He feels even more overwhelmed by the things that he doesn't. By the weight of the null void that's left gaping behind in the wake of a massacre and the ones left behind whose story were lost in one night of misfortune.
"Yuta-kun, you should take a bite, it's super delicious."
Yuta looks up, his teacher is looking at him. Gaze behind a blindfold, but Yuta still feels warmed by Gojo-sensei's distraction. His teacher hasn't eaten a piece yet and is just looking at Yuta, Yuta can't quite see his gaze. But his expression is a kind one. It's not one usually associated with the word 'kind' because it's all teasing quirk of the lips and the cheshire words from a man that rarely takes anything seriously on the surface.
Kind, for Gojo Satoru, does not mean gentle. It doesn't mean soft.
What it means lies in small things like this. It lies in the fussy attempt at distraction, in the focused gaze hidden behind a blindfold, the calming drawl of a normally loud voice.
It can't be denied that Gojo Satoru is a kind man. Even if he seems like the farthest thing from it, at times.
However, Yuta still refuses to be in the same family tree.
He takes a bite. It's sweet. The kind that sits soft upon his tongue because he doesn't know whether Uchiha Obito liked it sweet or sour and decided to settle for something mild instead.
"Our family liked sweet things," Uchiha Obito says.
Yuta's eyes flicker towards him, Uchiha Obito hadn't eaten. But there's something in his eyes, and it's almost like he'd tasted the sugar within the dessert and it'd taken him back. There's something reminiscent about the quiet curl of his lips, as though tasting the finest of desserts. Taking him back to another time, where there was a clan and a boy and someone named Uchiha Obito.
Yuta doesn't say anything, he doesn't think he wants to.
Gojo-sensei doesn't say anything either, Yuta can still feel the man's gaze watching them both.
"I'm not sure why," Uchiha Obito continues. His voice is the same as always, but it feels softened. By the past, perhaps, or by the taste of sweetness that hasn't yet touched upon his tongue. "But we all did like it, or at least, most."
"Did you?" Yuta asks, almost unbidden. Feeling compelled to.
He looks at Uchiha Obito now, with sharp edges and eyes that can swallow the sun itself. Uchiha Obito, a curse bearing the emblem of a clan that's long past. Uchiha Obito who has lived for longer than he should; Uchiha Obito who has died far younger than he should've.
He doesn't know the barest thing about Uchiha Obito. He doesn't know the barest thing about the Uchiha clan. Outside of their emblem and their name and what they paid for the price of power and glory.
All he knows about the Uchiha clan is that they were strong. They were weak and they were made strong by their weakness, by what made them human.
There's something about his words now that harkened Yuta back to the thought that beyond their grandeur- beyond the blood that stained the ground in exchange for their eyes blooming-
They were just a clan, at the end of it all. A clan with people that lived just as he did. A clan that were sorcerers, who were a part of the jujutsu world until they weren't. A clan full of people that loved and paid for that love. A clan of people that lived, despite it all. Despite the madness, the nightmares, the blood on their hands- kin and family alike.
They were a clan, filled with people beyond just being sorcerers.
At the end of it all-
They also lived like he did. They also had their own dreams, their own aspirations, their own fears. They had things that they liked and disliked.
It sounds laughably simple when he thinks about it.
But it didn't feel tangible, until now. They feel more like something in the history books, before, almost. Like a tragedy he's only read the ending of. Paper figures and inked humans. Living in the pages of a long past history, buried so that not even their clan name remains.
Our family liked sweet things.
It's not enough to make a full picture, to grasp out a full human. But it's enough that it makes Yuta feel closer to them. It makes the piece of cake upon his tongue taste even sweeter, even better. It makes his chest feel warmed, that he also likes sweet things- in a way. Maybe it's something that's similar to them.
It's a bit of a reach, a lot of people like sweets. But still, it makes him feel closer to them, somehow.
"I did," Uchiha Obito acquiesces. "Though, I suppose, this isn't useful, is it?" Stated bluntly, plainly. "Clan history is a much more important subject, though I may not be the best at telling it."
Objectively, it is the most useful thing to know about. To know of how their clan formed, of how it became what it did.
Objectively, it is what he should want to know. To gain information about the past that never was.
Objectively, he should want to know the history of it.
But subjectively-
Yuta finds that the history of their founding and all of that doesn't-
Yuta glances at Gojo-sensei. The man is still looking at him, his expression is always on the verge of smiling teasingly or joking around, but he's looking at Yuta and Yuta has no doubt that Gojo Satoru knows what he's thinking.
He knows, objectively, that Gojo-sensei should want him to ask about the Uchiha clan's history. Just for more information about the clan that once existed in history but erased from it entirely. He knows that they both would benefit from the information from that the most. That things like whether they liked sweets or whether they liked the color red are utterly useless in the grand scheme of it all. That such things needn't be brought up, nor remembered.
He knows that, and yet-
Gojo-sensei looks at him, he knows what Yuta's thinking.
Gojo-sensei looks at him, and he says, "What are you looking at me for, Yuta-kun? You already have your own slice, don't you?"
You've already made your own decision, haven't you? is what the man's saying. He's saying that information can be damned if that's not what Yuta wants. He's looking at Yuta and he's saying not to look at him for permission, that this is not his lesson to teach.
Gojo-sensei's looking at Yuta and he's saying that objectivity can go die.
It makes Yuta laugh, it's a short thing, drawn from a choked breath. But it makes him laugh all the same.
"You're right, sensei," Yuta says.
It's always been that way.
Gojo Satoru may not be a shining example of a good teacher to most, but Yuta thinks that he is. That he's trying his best to teach them all, regardless. That he's trying to teach them to be sorcerers, in every way of the world. To look at the world and to forge their path from it, with their own decisions. That he's their teacher but never their minder.
"I want to know more," Yuta says instead. Looking towards Uchiha Obito. Whose gaze is indecipherable as he glances between Yuta and Gojo-sensei. "About what you're best at telling."
Uchiha Obito, if shocked, doesn't show his surprise. Probably already knowing Yuta's answer from his prior unprompted laugh.
He assesses Yuta for a moment before nodding.
"Our clan is partial to fire," the man begins, his eyes far away. Fixed in a point in time that's long been abandoned. "We've always believed that Amaterasu had watched over us."
Amaterasu, the sun itself. Grandiose and all-powerful. Searing and arid. An unstoppable force that cannot be stopped until she burns herself from her own flames. Being eaten alive as all stars do.
To worship Amaterasu is commonplace, to claim her protection is another.
There's something almost arrogant about the notion, something that harkens to the strength they must have had. Only those of the royal line had claimed to be descendants of Amaterasu and no other could bear the title.
"Amaterasu is also the name of an ability our eyes can harness," Uchiha Obito continues. "After the second stage."
The death of a loved one, seeing their corpse in front of you.
The one that gained Yuta Rika, and the one that granted his past clansmen nothing but madness and an empty grave in their heart where one person used to occupy.
As Uchiha Obito had stated, what they desire most is what is granted to them.
Anything but resurrection of the dead. Anything that would undo the death of a loved one, something that no doubt had driven them to further madness. For this power was gained unto the death of someone they had loved, and perhaps if they had it before-
But there was no use for the 'what-if's, because they would not have gained this power without loss. And there is no 'what-if's about that, there is no 'what-if we could've both lived?' because one must die and there is no averting the tragedy if the tragedy is the exact catalyst to fuel your eyes in the first place.
It is a cruel, cruel thing. A technique built on your emotions, your nightmares. Taking you apart pieces by pieces and making you stronger for it but at the cost of something that can never be priced.
Amaterasu, a goddess that they believed watched over them.
Yuta wonders if they thought her cruel for her protection. For her making them walk through fire to harness her power, for making them walk into the kiln to be reforged anew into something that is only pieces of the person that once stood in their place.
Perhaps not. Perhaps they thought that Amaterasu had protected them from death, had kept them moving through the years. Generation by generation. In the end, there's nothing Yuta could make of it but listen further.
"Burn away the world," Uchiha Obito says. "That must've been what they wanted."
Those who bore those eyes. At that moment of gaining it-
"Amaterasu, once invoked, creates a fire that cannot be put out until it burns through what it has been set on."
Yuta can fathom the naming choice, now. A fire that relentlessly burns and cannot be quelled, a hungry beast that eats and eats and eats until there's nothing left but ashes and the dying breaths of something that once was.
It is an incredible offense, Yuta can imagine, as well as defense.
Something to be utilized at any enemy and watch them burn and char, no solution for it other than to rid themselves of a limb before it burns through them completely.
It would be wonderful, if only it didn't come at the cost of a life and one's eyes.
"Uchiha Itachi was one of those talented enough to awaken it," Uchiha Obito says. There's something wistful about his eyes, a bitter curl to his lips. "And his brother was just as talented with Amaterasu."
It's a name that Yuta hadn't heard before, but it feels important, somehow. It must be, if Uchiha Obito is bringing him up like he hadn't for anyone else before. Uchiha Obito is looking at him almost like he wants to tell him something but is holding it back by a mere hair's breadth.
Uchiha Itachi. Weasel. It's a name that doesn't make that much sense to Yuta. Weasels are an ill omen. One that invokes bad fortunes looming ahead and a death foretold. It's not something a sorcerer would name their child, especially when names are a mark of the child's future and fortune from what Yuta has picked up on in the jujutsu world.
"Perhaps that's the point, Yuta-kun," Gojo-sensei interjects, reading Yuta's confusion.
At Yuta's glance, Gojo-sensei just shakes his head, a wry smile on his lips.
He doesn't say anything further as he takes another bite of his cake, now already halfway through it.
An ominous name. Meant for ill omens and misfortune abound.
It's a contradictory thing, isn't it.
But for a clan that thrives on misfortune and death?
Perhaps that's the best thing a parent could wish for their child.
For power, for honor, for glory-
For the clan.
Satoru can see it.
Lay misfortune onto the child, mark his life to be mired in ill omens and death.
For only then, will he be powerful. For only then, will he live.
It's practical, Satoru must admit. For a clan that thrives on misfortune to do as such.
It's practical.
But that doesn't make it right. For Uchiha Itachi that grew up and was considered 'talented' by Uchiha Obito himself-
Just what life did he lead?
Surely not pleasant, for he had called upon Amaterasu's name in the end as a piece of his heart died and he fell with it.
But in exchange for all of that, he had gained a fire that would never be quelled, a fire that could burn all things upon this world.
Was it worth it?
Satoru doesn't know.
But he doubts it.
He thinks of Uchiha Obito's name.
Perhaps Uchiha Obito's parents did care, somewhat, for him. Even if they died far too early for their son to remember them.
For they at least wished him a fortunate future, and not one mired in flames.
"And who was he?" Yuta asks, finding that it's important to him, somehow. That it's another remnant of his clan. Someone that once lived and invoked the name of Amaterasu instead of Rika, bringing upon a divine fire that cannot be quelled. Someone that once had a brother, someone who was once talented. Someone who once bore the name of an ill omen but was all the more talented in spite of it.
Uchiha Obito pauses for a moment, unable to answer. His gaze lost into the past. Having been long burnt away into the flames of the sun.
"An older brother," Uchiha Obito eventually settles on. "An older brother who loved his brother above anything else."
It's an incredibly simple introduction. Uchiha Obito is holding something back, he's stating Uchiha Itachi and it feels like Yuta's understanding of Uchiha Itachi from a few seconds prior shouldn't change, and yet.
It feels terrible in the same vein.
Take the eyes of your brother, in doing so-
A pair of brothers, both of whom could invoke Amaterasu's name.
Uchiha Itachi, named as a thing of ill fate.
His brother, an Uchiha with no given first name.
Uchiha Itachi, an older brother who loved his sibling above anything else-
A pair of brothers, both of whom could invoke Amaterasu's name.
In the end-
It must've been a tragedy, Yuta thinks. Even if Uchiha Obito said it not.
Somethings doesn't need to be said to be known, and this is one of them. Yuta can see it in the quiet melancholy of Uchiha Obito's eyes, the quiet reverie in his voice. Like the telling of a terrible prophecy that has long passed and cannot be changed.
Uchiha Itachi must've loved his brother terribly, Yuta thinks. Above anything else.
And probably above even himself.
For in the end, there must only remain one pair of eyes and one person to take it.
This isn't their clan's history, not how it's founded. Not how it was led, nor the inner politics that worked behind the scenes.
But Yuta feels that this is more important.
The lives of the people within the clan. All the tragedies that were inlaid within it, all the lives that were led.
He feels that it's more important to remember them. The members of the clans who lived and died for these eyes, because of these eyes. Who lived and breathed and had their own aspirations and hopes. Who were sorcerers that quelled battles outside and yet had to battle their own madness from within. All those who loved and lost and all those that fought back against their sibling just as there are, undoubtedly, those who chose to give up out of love.
Uchiha Itachi had loved, and so he had given up. It is a simple tragedy, but it is made all the more tragic for the fact that he had chosen to make the choice, that he had to make the choice between his brother or himself and that there was no other choice.
What would you do for Amaterasu's flames?
Yuta finds that there are many in the jujutsu world, now, that would kill for it.
But Uchiha Itachi had chosen to give it up.
For his younger brother, whom he cared more for than anything else.
Even more than himself.
It's cruel, it's terribly cruel. Yuta already knows this. But to hear this story is another. To know the name of someone who lived through it makes it more real. It turns the words on the scroll into a living, breathing person in Yuta's mind.
Someone with dark hair and just as dark eyes. Perhaps his features would be like Uchiha Obito's but a bit gentler, softened by his care for his brother. Yuta thinks that his eyes would be warm, rather than cold like Uchiha Obito's. That he was a man that spoke softly, that he was someone that was talented, but gentle, all the same. That he saw his talent and decided that it wasn't worth his brother.
An ill omen Uchiha Itachi may be named, but the man seemed like anything but in Yuta's mind.
Uchiha Obito doesn't speak for a moment, his eyes glance back down to the slice of cake.
"He liked sweet things, too," Uchiha Obito says, at last. His voice hasn't quite changed, but Yuta can feel the soft mourning in them. Like a rite to someone that's long passed. "He liked dango."
Uchiha Obito still hasn't taken a bite, Yuta wonders about that, too. Though he doesn't question. It feels wrong, somehow.
"He sounds-" Yuta doesn't know how to say it. 'Nice' doesn't seem right, Yuta doesn't even know the man. 'Kind' doesn't, either, nor just about anything. It feels like empty platitudes because all Yuta knows is that Uchiha Itachi loved his brother enough to give his eyes up for him and liked sweet things. "He sounds like a good elder brother."
It takes a moment, then two.
Uchiha Obito lets out a faint exhale that's halfway to a laugh, it's not a very pleasant sound.
"He would disagree with that," Uchiha Obito says. He doesn't continue to elaborate. But there's something wry to his eyes. And a poor humor in how he's faintly smiling. Like a joke that's long past dead.
Yuta is reminded that this is someone that Uchiha Obito knew, personally. That this is someone that once lived in the same age as Uchiha Obito. That they were once clansmen, together. That they once lived in the compound together. That they experienced the Uchiha clan, though Yuta does not know whether Uchiha Itachi lived to see its downfall. But they lived, nonetheless, and they must've known each other in more than passing.
Yuta is reminded that all those that Uchiha Obito knew are dead, buried more than six feet beneath ground. Most of them all died in one night, their lives cut short.
Uchiha Obito has lived for longer than he should've, becoming a curse because Gojo-sensei's ancestor had willed it.
Yuta has gained a family, but Uchiha Obito has lost his world.
He's now in a new age, where the people are different and there are towering buildings and blinding lights. There's nothing familiar for him to turn to. Nothing other than just moving forward, one step at a time. Come what may.
Yuta's not sure if Uchiha Obito would choose to be here, living in an empty husk, if he had a choice.
He doubts it, and there's something terrible about that.
He wonders if Uchiha Obito had even properly mourned. For all those lives that were lost and all those that he once knew.
He doubts this, too. For Uchiha Obito seemingly carries the same weight that Yuta has seen many older sorcerers carry. The same weight of lost lives and fallen comrades that they haven't properly grieved through.
"Maybe he'd like something sweet for an offering," Yuta eventually says. "We don't have a grave, for anyone, but I think I'd like to honor them, in some way." He feels awkward, just after saying that. After all, he doesn't really know them. But he wants to. He wants to know them all.
He wants to know about his clansmen who led their tragic lives but still loved.
He wants to know what kind of sweets they liked, whether they were like Uchiha Itachi and liked dango or something else. Whether they had another favorite food or how they were named. How they looked like, how they smiled, how they laughed-
There's tragedy, no doubt, in the Uchiha clan. But Yuta believes that, in equal measures, there must've been love. There must've been joy. There must've been something that continues to push them forward, despite the tragedy looming in the promise of tomorrow.
"If that's fine, with you, of course. Seeing as you're the-" Yuta wishes he could make his words less rushed, less stilted. He wishes he could speak smoothly and expresses himself how he wished he could. "Seeing as you're the only Uchiha."
There's a moment, again, and two. Yuta feels like judgment is being handed down. It's a different kind of nervousness running through his veins. The need to be accepted. The want to belong- the yearning for Uchiha Obito to allow him this, just a part of the Uchiha clan even if Yuta knows that he's not one of them, not truly. And he can never be, because his eyes will never bloom red and their legacy is likely already been lost long before his generation.
"It's our clan," Uchiha Obito corrects.
There's a faint smile on his lips. It's a simple thing, but the gravitas of it-
It's almost like the sun.
Yuta finds himself smiling, his cheeks flushed with adrenaline that had come from nowhere. A rush that rendered him speechless other than just to smile back like a fool.
"Yeah," Yuta manages, after regaining his footing. "Our clan."
"Come to think of it," Gojo-sensei interjects, apparently not understanding the meaning of social tact in the face of two relatives having A Moment. "The Obon Festival is coming up."
A summer festival meant to honor one's ancestors. Before Yuta would attend with his family, but after Rika, his parents hadn't seen it fit to bring him along.
But it was summer now, and it seemed perfect in Yuta's eyes.
Gojo-sensei's social blunder can be dismissed this one time, Yuta decides.
"It is coming up," Yuta remarks, thinking of the date.
"Right?" Gojo-sensei replies, his eyes flitting from looking at Yuta to turning towards Uchiha Obito, instead. "It's August, after all."
It felt like an inside joke, somehow, one that Yuta was not privy to in hindsight. But at the time he was busy thinking of the scheduling of the whole thing. What'll need to be prepared and what'll need to be done.
Uchiha Obito had looked back at Gojo-sensei.
"It is August," Uchiha Obito eventually replies, his voice light and drifting. There's a small crinkle in his eyes, as his lips remain flat. Like an inside joke between two.
This is where Yuta should've intervened, again, because he does not want Gojo Satoru in his family line.
Unfortunately he hadn't.
Uchiha Obito had left Yuta's home looking much more relaxed than before. There's a soft curve to its lips, a slight relaxation in its normally terse expression, and a slight droop in his shoulders.
It's pleased, the meeting has left it happy.
Satoru cannot deny that there's a smile on his lips, too.
Though, of course, what teacher wouldn't be happy when one of their students is? Yuta's joy is a particularly infectious one, just like all of his students. Satoru knows that behind that calm exterior of his is still a boy yearning for connection, and Uchiha Obito had given him precisely that.
"No story at all?" Satoru asks teasingly. "I'm hurt."
Uchiha Obito just looks at him, nonplussed. It's a familiar expression that Satoru had seen many times, although on differing faces.
"I'm a curse," Uchiha Obito says, as though it explains everything.
It probably does.
But that didn't matter to Gojo Kakashi, Satoru wants to say. But he feels like that's way too low a blow for a casual banter like this.
He knows, though, that he isn't Gojo Kakashi. That he doesn't have a connection to Uchiha Obito like Gojo Kakashi once did. And after this, there will be no story, either. Because he's Gojo Satoru, born centuries too late to mean anything to Uchiha Obito but born just in time to meet the man that once was before he became a curse, fully.
He wonders what it'd be like, again. He wonders how their story would end if Satoru was in the place of Gojo Kakashi.
No doubt it'd be a happier ending. For he would not have cursed Uchiha Obito and cause misery to them both.
But then again, perhaps that is why he and Uchiha Obito will have no story. He is not Gojo Kakashi.
Between the world and Uchiha Obito, Satoru would've chosen the world.
They're two different people. Him and Gojo Kakashi. And he had his own calamity in the form of Getou Suguru. It is a calamity he had passed. And their story had ended from there.
Uchiha Obito's story with Gojo Kakashi has ended as well, though maybe not. Not from how Uchiha Obito is standing in front of him right now.
"It's my turn to fulfill my end of the bargain, isn't it?"
Uchiha Obito looks at him, a silent gaze that knows precisely what Satoru is referring to.
"Well, then, shoot."
The quiet whisper of the wind, the blinking lights of Tokyo.
"Kakashi, you know him."
Satoru nods.
"Then-" The words are almost choppy, fragile. "Then, did he live well?"
Ah, Satoru thinks. Their story has not yet ended, at least not for Uchiha Obito.
If it asked that, it only meant that-
Uchiha Obito was sealed away before Gojo Kakashi's death.
By Gojo Kakashi, himself.
It is a story with no end.
