Chapter Text
Obito never knew his father.
It was originally a gripe of his. Something to think about at night when his grandmother is deep asleep and there’s nothing occupying his brain for it to eventually wander off and think. It’s hard not to. It’s hard not to think about it when his classmates all seemingly had parents while Obito had none. It’s hard to not think about it when holidays come around and there’s only his grandmother to accompany him. When the academy is out and only his grandmother- if even that- is waiting for him at home.
His grandmother tries. But Obito can’t stop thinking.
He stopped thinking about it after he died and came back to life.
It was hard to think about an insignificant Uchiha in the grand scheme of it all. A man that only exists in photographs and miscellaneous items hidden about a home he’d never be able to live in again.
It was hard to think about it amidst the thoughts of Rin is dead. Rin is dead and Kakashi killed her. Rin is dead and Kakashi killed her while having my goddamn eye in hissocket. Rin is dead and Kakashi killed her while having my goddamn eye in his socket and now I’ll never be able to forget.
Rin is dead and Kakashi killed her and now we both can’t forget it.
It was hard to think about it, later, as he’s caught up in the plans of an old man and his own desperation. Somewhere between this world is hell and I need to change it.
His father became part of the past. Left behind with Uchiha Obito, the boy, as he died. With rubble atop his tongue and dust in his nose. Left behind with the boy that gave an eye to his teammate and held the hand of the girl he loved for the last time, not knowing the future she held included her death at the hand of the boy she cared for.
Left behind in the frames of some old, forgotten photos that ended up dusty and dirty in an old, forgotten clan compound. Dyed with the blood of kin and left to rot.
He doesn’t know the man's name just like he doesn’t know his mother’s. He didn’t ask because his grandmother never offered.
The existence of a ‘father’ is a nebulous, strange thing. Unachievable to Obito when he was younger, and unfathomable when he grew older.
Something that once existed in his version of a ‘perfect’ reality, only for him to realize, later, that you can’t construct something into reality when you never really knew it in the first place.
Sometimes, he wondered that if his father was alive- that if his parents were alive-
He’d have to kill them, too.
It was a pointless pondering, because they were dead and Obito was still a kinslayer.
It was a pointless pondering, because Itachi managed to kill his parents just the same.
It was a pointless pondering, because- like Itachi- Obito is an Uchiha.
Sometimes he wondered about them, instead, in the after life.
Wondered what they thought of him, their son. Wondered what they thought about the path he embarked on and the gains he had made. Wondered what they thought about the steps he made for peace and the murkiness that it’s dyed with.
On some days, he thinks they’d be proud of him. Filled with righteous indignation at the world. Thinking that they’d be proud that their son is out and doing the world a good by clamping down on conflict and war altogether. That they’d embrace him with gratitude when it’s all done and over. When he’s proven himself and the world is at peace. When he’s fixed it all.
On other days, when his hands are dirty and the rain of Ame is dripping into his spine as his back is pressed against some block of Kamui-
He thinks they’d hate him.
Hate the lives that he’d taken. The methods he’d chosen. The cruel man he’d become in their absence.
The path that he embarked on, tainted with the blood of his own kin.
His thoughts would then loop back to righteous indignation because they just don’t get it. That they don’t get that he’s doing this for the world and that they’re dead so they don’t understand what a shithole the world is where the young and good like Rin go to die in war and conflict that just wouldn’t stop- no matter the advancements made. That they don’t understand that treaties and alliances don’t matter a damn in the world of shinobi, wherein power and strength rule the day. That morals aren’t worth shit unless you’re strong- that you don’t get to choose what line to cross unless you’re strong and the world allows you to.
His parents were born to be shinobi and they died as shinobi.
And on those days- on those terrible, murky days-
Obito found that he hated them, too.
Hated the ideal that they represented.
Dying for Konoha, serving for Konoha, giving your all for Konoha. Until you’re dead and gone and leaving behind nothing but your elderly mother and a child that would never know you.
He hated that he was supposed to be like them.
He hated that he became them.
That he served and died and gave his all for Konoha. Until he was dead and gone and left nothing behind but a bloody eye and his elderly grandmother that now has to grieve for three.
He hated that he would’ve stayed like them if he weren’t brought back by Madara’s hands.
Later, later, they were forgotten in the rhythm of it all. The march of war that was looming ahead. As he grew closer and closer to the dream that he had been working forward for two decades and then some. They became forgotten in the macabre beauty of it all. The excitement of fruition, the thrill of success. The grand revealing of the curtain call to the shitty world that gave nothing and took everything.
And now-
His father’s blurred image is brought to the forefront of his mind once more. Spoken from a tongue that questioned if Obito even knew his father.
He doesn’t. He never really did. But he knew the basic essence of the man. That his father was just another Uchiha. Another shinobi within the ranks. Forgettable, mundane.
But now it’s more. There’s an implication to this question.
It’s the implication that his father was more than just another Uchiha. That he was somehow important. That he somehow mattered. That-
Perhaps there has been another world lurking underneath the surface all along.
And his father was involved in it.
The thought leaves his throat dry and his head pounding.
He thought he’d long gone from the boy who chased after his parent’s shadow.
But now it feels like he’s back to that starting point.
The curse in front of him is flummoxed, Kenjaku observes. Stunned into silence perhaps. But it won’t be too long.
It’s that type of curse. The type that’s dreadfully fast on its feet even when swept off it. Or at least, it seems like it.
Much more intelligent than Kenjaku’s peers, regardless.
Maybe it’s the Tengen within the boy, Kenjaku wagers. That terrible type of adaptation, of always being able to stabilize one’s feet atop the raging sea.
Yes, he can see the resemblance, now. Even if the boy’s features are all that of his mother’s.
But surely, if Kenjaku were to look closer, he can wager that the boy bears some of his father’s features as well. It’s been quite some time, after all. And if Kenjaku were to lean in a bit further he thinks that the shape of the boy’s face is that of his father’s, alongside the curvature of its nose and the height. And maybe even its ears.
But then again, all human features mesh together to Kenjaku’s eyes. But he thinks he can see it. The building resemblance.
The temperament shines through, after all. And even if the boy is nowhere near his father. He’s certainly building up to it.
But in the end, he doesn’t know whose shadow he’s even emulating because he never knew his father at all.
Kenjaku finds that there’s something deeply ironic about it.
To his old friend, Tengen, whose existence has been dissected and studied. Having his name be marked down in history for all to come. A nebulous existence that many wishes to reach but none could touch.
It is deeply amusing, now, that Kenjaku knows that- despite all their fussing and fawning-
The one most related to his- his own son-
Did not even know of his own father.
For Tengen, who held himself above this world. Who sequestered himself away from it all, who stayed lofty and unattached-
There is no greater irony to Kenjaku than to have Tengen be treated the same by his own son.
He relishes in the knowledge. It’s a victory that’s hard won and harder to achieve. To be one step ahead of Tengen, even for something like this.
To know more about Tengen than he knew about himself.
But, ah, to think about it. This is also quite a novel experience for Kenjaku as well.
After all, this is a meeting between him and a friend’s child. He thinks he can see the small fun of it. To look at the boy in front of him and try to mark all the similarities and differences.
He does also have his own children, after all. And surely Tengen will meet his youngest in time.
Kenjaku is glad for that, he thinks. Yuuji has always been the most promising of the lot, after all. And goodness knows what Tengen’s assessment of him would be if he met a prior child. Someone like Choso is strong, indeed, potential to be had and unleashed- but of course, parents always have a slight bias for their weakest and most troublesome child, don’t they?
Especially if that child is Itadori Yuuji.
Kenjaku do hope that Yuuji will leave a good impression on Tengen.
But he supposes now is not the time for a parent’s worries.
There are more pressing matters to be had, after all.
“Who did you think your father was?” Kenjaku questions. For he knows that a child’s curiosity is never abated and there must’ve been a story given. Even if his mother had hid the identity of his father, something must’ve given.
For there was no greater shame than bearing an unknown child during that time for a woman. This, Kenjaku knows this intimately.
If she had wanted a proper identity for her child, she would’ve given something. At least a hint of the father’s prestige, a promise of the potential to come.
And yet.
If the secrecy of Tengen’s identity outweighs the life of her child- if she felt it more important to protect Tengen’s identity-
Well, that would spell a very different fate for Tengen’s child, wouldn’t it.
An unknown father of no renown.
The curse’s lips are pursed, tense. It’s gazing at him, weighing whether the information that it’ll give up is worth what it’ll get in return.
Good, Kenjaku thinks. It’s cautious, wary. But also curious. Knowing when to weigh its means and measure out what to give away to get back more in return.
However, Kenjaku will be doing the same.
It’s somewhat like a game, isn’t it, Kenjaku thinks.
And he has always been awfully fond of games.
Whether the youngin in front of him can measure up or not-
Well, that’ll be up for Kenjaku to judge.
“A normal man,” the curse eventually divulges. Judging that it’s more curious than wary. That it’s willing to give up this tidbit of information for Kenjaku’s.
Kenjaku doesn’t blame him.
Parentage is an awfully important thing for children, after all.
Especially if they were raised with only the shadow of one.
It tends to stick with them, or at least for some.
Especially in the jujutsu world. Where blood could be what makes or breaks you.
Gojo Satoru embodied this sentiment with his whole being.
It’s slightly laughable, Kenjaku thinks, for the boy to spurn the world despite being the very ideal that the same world had shaped.
But then again, that is another topic for another time.
“A normal man,” Kenjaku repeats. Musing the words in his head.
‘Normal’.
What an apt term.
‘Normal’ is something that easily disappears within the cracks. Forgotten within the crowd, swept away by the wind. Left within the dust to fade away with the tides of time.
‘Normal’ is an adequate enough cover for that woman, Kenjaku thinks. Jujutsu sorcerers don’t question ‘normal’. For them, ‘normal’ is the mundane. The people inhabit another world from them, almost. Breathing and living in a world where there are no monsters and ghosts are a thing of stories and yokai only exists within tales.
The boy is from a clan, that’s clear enough. The emblem on his clothing is indicative of that. So he must’ve been taken in by his mother’s family.
A family that doesn’t question any further beyond ‘normal’. Because normal doesn’t mean a thing to them. Normal means less potential, normal means a shame to be had from his conception at all.
For the sake of protecting Tengen’s identity, the boy’s mother had chosen to doom him into becoming a bastard child and ending her own reputation with that.
It’s certainly a bold decision.
But why?
Why hide it at all?
Why the secrecy?
To bear Tengen’s child is a momentous achievement. Something that’s only whispered about but never realized. Something that was dismissed before and thought a folly.
It would be an honor for any clan to have his heir.
And yet.
The boy’s mother kept her lips sealed tight. Never to speak of it and letting her and the boy’s reputation be forever disgraced.
It speaks to a certain level of dedication, of determination.
But for what?
For what purpose?
It bears questioning.
But it will be hard to question the woman now, Kenjaku imagines. For she is dead and all that remains is her and Tengen’s child who does not even know even a quarter of the real story.
It’ll certainly be a challenge, but Kenjaku thinks that it’s a challenge worth undertaking.
It’ll be interesting, if nothing else. Though there’s always a boon to be had with learning more about Tengen.
The curse gazes at him, as though prompting him to give something back.
It’s an exchange, persay.
But Kenjaku thinks he can push it, just a bit further.
“Just normal?” Kenjaku asks.
The curse stares at him with bland eyes, plain neutrality in its expression.
“He’s dead,” is all the curse says, as though it answers everything.
And perhaps it does.
The ‘father’ in the curse’s mind has been dead ever since the first splotches of its mortal memories. The ‘father’ that exists for the curse has long been killed off by a woman’s tongue and left a child in her wake to try to make do with the scant few clues he has.
Whatever image the curse has made of its ‘father’, Kenjaku doubts that it’s anything substantial at all.
‘Normal’ is an apt term for it. Normal and forgettable. Scratched away by the sands to leave behind nothing at all other than a faint imprint.
It’d be best if he were to be forgotten by his own child as well, was probably what that woman thought. If she had sought so hard to let Tengen’s identity be kept secret.
There’s that terrible determination again, though for what, Kenjaku is still unclear on.
The curse still looks at him with that gaze, neutral and quiet. There’s a hidden strength simmering beneath it all.
“I suppose you didn’t know your father at all, then,” Kenjaku compromises. “And the legacy he has.”
It’s a taunt, a hook tossed into the sea, a bait having been lain out.
The fish bites.
“Legacy,” the curse repeats, chewing over the word. Quietly, slowly. As though the boy couldn’t fathom it.
Kenjaku can almost imagine it.
From a ‘normal’ father, to one that leaves behind a legacy that is woven into the fabric of the jujutsu world itself-
Well, that is quite a jump indeed.
But now is not the time to reveal that, not just yet. For they both know that it is the leverage Kenjaku holds over the curse, holding it away- high and far off, to continue on this farce of a conversation.
“What legacy,” the curse asks, regardless. Testing the lines, carefully treading on it to see whether Kenjaku will let it slip or not. For there’s no true harm in asking, other than revealing that he’s truly curious- but his feelings on the matter have long been revealed, by this point. The curse wouldn’t still be talking if he wasn’t in the least bit curious about the matter.
“A grand one,” Kenjaku says, though he does not elaborate. They both know he will not go any further until his due has been given.
It’s an exchange. A game between two.
The curse wants to know about its elusive father.
Kenjaku wants to know about the ‘why’ of the curse’s creation- the ‘how’ it sank to this point, the heir of the jujutsu world’s shining pearl, now a terrifying curse, just like the rest of them.
The answer has long been lost to time, but its derivative is standing in front of Kenjaku now. As though a capsule in time- unburied at this moment to reveal a grand truth.
(Perhaps, Kenjaku speculates. The reason why it was so strong in the first place is due to its father’s blood.
Tengen’s technique and blood, running through its veins. Creating a terrible, monstrous curse with a human’s appearance but a monster’s interior. Otherworldly beneath its skin, a wild beast waiting to be unleashed. Unfathomable to the human eye.
A hypothesis is building within Kenjaku’s mind.
But it means nothing without evidence, without confirmation.)
The curse stares at him, awaiting his next question. Its displeasement is clear to see, but Kenjaku moves past it quickly enough.
It’s a child’s anger, at worst.
“You died, thrice,” Kenjaku observes, idly. “I’m interested in the ‘how.’”
That certainly is a point of contention, isn’t it. If a sorcerer were to die and be brought back up twice-
Well, that would certainly draw some questions. And at least some talk of a technique resembling Tengen’s.
But Kenjaku had not heard of such.
Therefore something must’ve gone awry.
Something must’ve been hidden, scattered to the winds.
Something must’ve been buried and only now dug out of its grave, and it’s standing in front of Kenjaku now.
The curse weighs its options carefully, tenuously.
Kenjaku can think of several ‘whys’.
It’s information that’s meant to be hidden, it’s important knowledge that shouldn’t be shared- least of all for a vague vision of a ‘father’.
It’s fair enough, Kenjaku supposes.
To a child who has lived so long without a father-
Does it even matter to know about the man, now, of all times?
Is it really worth it to trade in important information to a man that might not even matter? A man that you never knew- a man that you’ve never met nor talked to?
It’s fair enough, Kenjaku supposes.
He supposes he’ll have to increase the incentive. Make ‘father’ become relevant again. Something important-
Something to seek.
“Have you ever considered,” Kenjaku drawls. “That your father was the reason for your continued existence?”
The curse blinks, mulishly, its confusion clear to see.
“You hadn’t considered that before,” Kenjaku observes. “Why?”
The curse does not answer, it’s mind still roaming the possibilities. Thinking of the whys and the hows and the-
“You don’t think you’re alive because of your unique physique,” Kenjaku continues, undercutting its thoughts with his own. Taking it off its pace and not allowing it to find a response. “There were extenuating factors to your survival, weren't there. What was it?”
The curse does not offer an answer, but it’s clear that its mind is racing against the currents.
“What was it? Did someone save you, then?” A small twitch of the brows, a slight downturn of the lips, and, ah- “Someone saved you, from the verge of death, or so you assumed. And then twice, you were saved again, somehow. So you didn’t think that the common factor between your two revivals was you.”
“My unique physique?” the curse questions, its voice strange. Its pace been torn asunder, it's clear that it’s been taken off beat. Its rhythm has long been ever since Kenjaku brought up the word ‘father.’
Parentage is an awfully important thing, for children.
It tends to stick with them, at least for some.
And for this one?
Kenjaku thinks he knows its type. The type that thinks that it has long outgrown the need for a ‘father’ that has long forgotten about it. But once you bring it up, once you turn the word upside down-
It’s unforgettable. It’s a curiosity that cannot be quenched. A question that cannot go unanswered.
A deadly call. One that cannot be left unheard.
For this type of child.
You just have to throw its assumptions asunder. Toss everything it once know into chaos-
And the answers will come. Reluctantly or not.
Because it wants to know. Because it needs to know.
It needs to know for its world to be stabilized again.
For knowledge is what calms the sea, for knowledge is what soothes the waves.
Kenjaku knows this type, all too well.
“Tell me, how did you think you ‘survive’?” Kenjaku asks, lightly. But it is not something to be denied. They both know that it has come to this step. That it is all or nothing, that it’ll have to give if it wants any answers at all. That this is Kenjaku’s game, now, that he has the cards and he’ll be the one to dictate the turns.
“Someone saved me,” the curse divulges, reluctantly. The forced neutrality of its voice gives way to a hint of conflict.
Kenjaku waits, none too impatiently. And they both know that it’s not enough. That this is not enough. That Kenjaku needs more.
“A relative,” the curse divulges, just a bit more. Something tense in his voice. “Implanted someone’s cells into me.” There’s a slight shuffle of movement, and skin that not of human is revealed. Stark white and clashing against dark purple robes. Quickly hidden once more beneath gloves and a deft hand. “Is that enough for you?”
It’s more than enough, Kenjaku thinks. With something like a discovery made and an advancement forward running in his veins.
That skin is not human. And its clear the giver was not, either.
It’s not a ‘someone.’
It was a curse.
The boy has been implanted with a curse.
He should’ve died, with that. He wasn’t meant to survive. It was an experiment, testing the bounds like Kenjaku once had.
And yet it succeeded.
The boy subsumed the curse into himself. He took the curse and revived whatever parts he lost with the curse.
He didn’t have a vessel like his father-
So his technique made do with a curse instead.
With no star plasma vessel-
The body ‘evolves’, it becomes something more akin to a cursed spirit than a human.
But it was avoided here, and yet how?
Kenjaku cannot fathom that Tengen’s son would have much more freewill than he does. Least of all after having a curse be merged with him as such.
There’s more to be had here. And it makes Kenjaku reconsider the curse that Mahito saw from within Tengen’s son.
What if it was not the embodiment of Tengen’s son but rather-
The curse he had absorbed- that grew wildly from merging with a technique akin to Tengen’s. But that wasn’t enough, was it. If anything, it only made more sense for the boy in front of him to long have become a curse instead of retaining his human form.
So what is Kenjaku missing- what held the boy back from being a curse entirely- what-
Someone, a relative, had lied about implanting another’s cells into a child.
What if they had lied about the implanting in the first place?
What if it wasn’t implanting, but rather-
‘Placing.’
It didn’t make sense in the first place for such an experiment, did it?
What use was it to implant a curse onto the skin of a dying child? What experiment to be had there other than to see the child die and turn into a curse?
No.
The real experiment was-
Creating a vessel.
Place a curse into a dying child to create a vessel and a curse.
But why? Why a dying one?
And how did it coincidentally become Tengen’s son?
A relative. Kenjaku recalls.
It was not just anyone who did this, but a relative.
A relative.
Someone who was of the same clan as the mother.
Someone who-
Perhaps the reasons for all the secrecy, taking disgrace in the place of honor, throwing her child into a social abyss-
Was for him to survive.
The urge for power from jujutsu clans is not lost on Kenjaku.
He was, after all, a member of the Kamo clan, once.
And this clan, clearly, was no different.
It wasn’t a coincidence, after all, Kenjaku concludes.
It was premeditated.
Even despite the mother’s secrecy. They still found out. And so-
The boy needed to die- why?
For his technique to work, for them to test whether he was truly Tengen’s child or not.
Because clearly-
They had known. Even for the woman’s secrecy, even for her swallowing down the words to protect her child-
She had failed.
The boy need to die- but not be dead- merely dying-
If the boy dies, it would be for naught. For he would become a curse spirit rather than a human.
But clearly, they did not know this. For no one would gamble with such risks.
No one would gamble on the creation of a special grade curse spirit if they failed, they had only gambled on either winning- the boy and the curse within him being put down, as it was under their control, still. For what shamed clans more than no power, was for them to spawn a curse with their own face.
In the end, they won the gamble.
The boy didn’t die, only merely close to it. And his physique allowed him to become a vessel to the curse. To heal with it, to sap life from it to supplement his own.
With relatives like that-
Well, Kenjaku can see why the woman would keep her mouth shut.
For such a clan wouldn’t broadcast such glory.
They’d kept it under locks and chains. To hide away and to be used in a bid for power and glory.
Such is the jujutsu world.
And such-
“I suppose you want answers,” Kenjaku says, mild. “Have you ever considered how you survived that ‘implant?’”
There’s a pause, a quietness enveloping them before he continues.
“Have you considered that it wasn’t chance at all?” Kenjaku continues. “That perhaps, you were ‘chosen.’”
The curse mulls over his words, slowly, terribly.
“That you’re alive,” Kenjaku drawls. “Because of the physique you inherited from your father.”
There’s a storm brewing beneath the curse’s eyes. Something terrible, like catching up to a shadow to find that it’s a nightmare. That there’s a tapestry woven and you’re not a part of it. That there’s been secrets hidden beneath your eyes and your whole life has been torn asunder.
“Who?” the curse asks, in the end.
It’s a simple word, that. And yet. It feels like more. It feels like a life encompassed and a yearning turned into bitterness.
Kenjaku smiles, he thinks it’s quite charming.
He thinks for a moment, then two. It’s all a pretense.
It’s not too much a lie, he thinks. He is already a father- mother- parent?- of several.
“Would you believe it if I say it’s me?”