Chapter Text
There was once a time when he could sleep, and time could pass without his knowing. Resting in the night, waking up to the sunset. Fussed over by his grandmother for his tiredness, harked on by his teammates for his tardiness, laughed off by his teacher for his excuse.
It was almost a sight just like this: the orange hue of the sunset peeking through curtains when the last thing he remembered was the gloom of night.
But that time has long passed, and he does not feel the burgeoning panic that once rose in his chest.
“Stay.” A repeating echo from the only other thing in the room with him. It does not look human, maybe a puppet or some other sort of weapon invented. It didn’t matter; it would go the same way a human would.
“Oh, you’re still here? That’s strange, I thought we said goodbye.” He taps against its head with his foot. “You really must like me to want me to stay so much, it’s making me blush!”
“Stay.”
“You’re so determined. I’m getting all shy now!” Decapitation hadn’t cut it. No matter. “But I really don’t like pushy people.”
He bears down on one foot, crushing its head. Liquid spills, but it’s not blood. And finally, quiet. At least until it attempts to reform itself again. It doesn’t matter; he’ll find a way to silence it for good. He’s never liked leaving loose ends.
He studies his surroundings. Nothing he can place in the barren, dusty room. Yellowed walls and patchy curtains, pieces of glass scattered about, reflecting the setting sunlight. He looks down at its crumbling mass, crawling together like ants trying to form an anthill. He kicks at it again, watching it scatters.
Stay, it said. What a joke.
Standard mission, exorcism of a second-grade spirit. No scout was sent out for it, so the information’s uncertain, but it hasn’t caused any significant damage, so the mission was pushed down the chain until it reached his hands. Training wheels mission, that was the term his teacher used once.
He surveys the area, so far, so good. Doesn’t seem like anything too nefarious as he was promised. But he can’t be too sure with all the clerical errors that happen every now and then. Though there was that one time it wasn’t a clerical error and more an intentional attempt on his life.
Yuuji wonders if it’s an attempt if it succeeded. But maybe it didn’t, considering he came back to life within the same month. He looks back down at the paper again, scratching at the back of his neck. Should be on the third floor in one of the empty apartments. Unoccupied for a year by now, apparently the last tenant was a stressed salaryman who broke from the pressure of his job and didn’t leave that room until he died. Circumstances and the time it had to ferment should make it more than a grade three, but in the same vein, not enough to qualify for a first grade. Unless the salaryman was really, really angry or there were some other circumstances involved. Can’t be too sure unless you see it in person, Yuuji’s learned that personally throughout his first year.
He updates his class group chat as he makes it up the building, trekking up three flights of stairs. He didn’t quite trust the elevator when the rest of the building looked like it was born a hundred years ago. It didn’t feel too long ago that they were allowed to go on solo missions, but it’s still strange without Megumi’s black hair swaying in the corner of his eyes or Nobara’s comment on the latest sensation to pass the time.
Done. Megumi’s text, dry as always.
Nepotism.
We drew lots, Megumi responded, avidly defending that he did not nepotism his way into getting a mission at a nice hotel.
I’ve arrived at mine, Yuuji cuts in before the two of them could go at it again. Knowing Nobara, she’s probably bored out of her mind with the car ride.
Ugh, you, too? I’m still half an hour away from mine.
Don’t die.
Yuuji smiles slightly, slotting his phone back in his pocket. He glances around in the pathway at the door numbers, reaching his destination about three-quarters in. It’s an innocuous door, blending in with the rest. Nothing of note other than the history behind its lock. But even as he stands in front of it, he feels nothing. Not even a trace of curse energy.
Maybe it’s just weak, he reasons. But even that feels strange. He turns the doorknob, finding nothing but darkness awaiting him on the other end. Darkness and silence. Eerie, but not the creepiest place Yuuji’s stepped foot in. That’d have to be the abandoned hospital. He fumbles for the light switch, turning on one flickering, dim light clearly a lightbulb left on its own for far too long. He studies the apartment, finding nothing amiss aside from one talisman stuck on the wall.
Unlike the linear, flat text on the talisman wrapped around Sukuna’s finger and the room he was held in for pending execution, this one was a lot more free flowing. Script written in the same archaic hand that he can’t parse, but there was a character almost decipherable in the middle with script branching off its center. He leans closer, studying it and sliding his phone out of his pocket, ready to ask his teacher for a second opinion.
“It’s a really nice art piece, isn’t it, I’m glad someone’s come to enjoy it!” Startled, Yuuji almost dropped his phone. Head snapping towards the open window where someone’s now sitting, he could’ve sworn it wasn’t open before. “I worked really hard on that, you know, isn’t it pretty?”
The speaker had no mouth. Or, if he did, Yuuji couldn’t see it. Instead, all he saw was an orange mask, carved spiral that led to an eye hole that he couldn’t see deep enough to tell the color of the eye beneath. The stranger’s head was rested between his two palms, body leaned forward as his elbows touched his shin.
“What?” Yuuji asks, just for the pure bizarreness of it.
“You’re staring at Tobi so much.” The head sways from side to side, as though trying to hide his embarrassment beneath his hands. “Sorry, but I’m not interested.”
“No, that’s not—” Yuuji chokes.
“You even broke into my home to see me and everything, I didn’t know I had such a passionate admirer,” the man says, voice high pitched. “I can’t believe you’d go so far just to see me.”
“I’m here for a mission!” Yuuji shouts, before the conversation could derail further. “And they didn’t tell me anything about it being rented out already.”
“Mission?”
“You know, mission,” Yuuji blurts. “You know what they are, right?” No one this weird could be a regular civilian, could they? Tobi, if that is even his real name, has got to be a sorcerer with how strange he is. Yuuji gestures towards the talisman. “I mean, you drew this talisman, you’ve got be—” But oh god, what if he is just a random lunatic and Yuuji’s just outed the jujutsu society to a random person. Do they have mindwiping technology? “—uh, one of us.”
“A painter?”
Oh god. “Um, no.”
“An admirer?”
“No.”
“A stalker?”
Why is it only getting worse? “No, I don’t even know you’d be here!”
“An intruder?”
Oh god. “No! No, I’m not here to—”
“A jinchuuriki?”
“Well, yes, that’s me sort of but that’s not—” Yuuji pauses, words halting in his throat.
“What’s wrong?” Tobi asks, tilting his head further.
Yuuji grips his phone, he sees his own expression on the black screen. His fingers feel stiff as he tries to maneuver them. Unlocking his phone to the LINE group chat he was last in and tapping on his teacher’s icon.
“What’s wrong?” Yuuji’s head snaps up to the voice, now just a mere step in front of Yuuji. “You’ve gone silent, it’s making me feel lonely!” Quicker than he could blink, his phone is out of his hands. “Let me see…” Tobi takes a long, long moment to study Yuuji’s phone. “Voice call’ and ‘video call’? Is ‘Gojo-sensei’ perhaps Gojo Satoru?”
First jinchuuriki, and now this question. The whole world knows who Yuuji’s teacher is. Everyone in the present world, anyways.
“Yeah,” Yuuji says. “That’s him.”
Tobi taps one button on Yuuji’s phone.
“You wanted to ‘call’, right?” Tobi says. “So let’s call!”
Soon enough, the call is picked up.
“Yuuji-kun?”
“Gojo Satoru, right?” Tobi asks, and Yuuji knows before his teacher even responds that this won’t be something pleasant to witness. “I was planning on talking to you next week, but I just happened to meet Yuuji-kun so I moved it up a bit!”
“Ah, so who is this?” Gojo asks, his voice light, but there’s a cold edge to it that Yuuji has rarely heard.
“Asking that is a bit too personal, don’t you think?” Tobi responds. “I think we need to at least meet in person before I share something so private.”
It’s like watching someone light a fuse. His teacher hasn’t been in the best mood lately, ever since last week. The man says he’s fine, but Yuuji—and everyone else that’s familia with him—knows that’s false. Gojo is a man standing before thin ice, and the world dreads to think if that ice ever breaks and sends them tethering below. It’s gotten to the point that the elders have avoided antagonizing him lately.
“I’ll give you a point for novelty, no one’s tried meeting me in person after holding my student hostage,” Gojo says and every hair on Yuuji’s neck screams danger.
Either Tobi is deaf or tone death or both, he continues, “Hostage? That’s such a scary word! He’s just keeping me company until you get here.”
“Then accompany him well, too,” Gojo says lightly. “I’d hate to see a hair out of place.”
“I’d hate that, too,” Tobi agrees. “But the wind gets strong late into the night, you know. Maybe it’d even rain.”
Gojo-sensei laughs and Yuuji senses a bloodbath. “Sensei, he used the word jinchuuriki.”
Only a moment of silence.
“Five minutes.”
The call clicks off, Tobi hands Yuuji back his phone. He doesn’t say anything for a moment. “What a magical word jinchuuriki is, right?”
It feels like a rhetorical question. Far too much sugar in Tobi’s tone that bled into the territory of too much.
“Oh, I’m getting nervous! I’m not prepared to meet someone as important as Gojo Satoru! Do you think I look good enough?” Tobi fusses, leaning back as both his hands grabs into his own hair, struggling. “Give me advice, Yuuji-kun! What type of person is he? You’re his student, right?”
“I think your impression’s already at the worst,” Yuuji states bluntly.
“No way!” Tobi yelps. For the rest of the five minutes they spent waiting for Gojo, it was spent in similar fashion. For a moment, Yuuji almost question his feeling of danger when facing Tobi but it’s easy to remind himself that this is the same man that’s holding him pseudo-hostage.
When Gojo arrives, he looks the same as he has for the past few days: stressed. A strange state to see his teacher in normally, but Yuuji could sort of understand it knowing what happened about week or two earlier. He’s preparing to witness Tobi doing something or another that’d light up Gojo’s already shortened fuse when, to his surprise, it’s not Tobi that lights the fuse.
“So you’re Gojo Satoru, I’ve heard a lot about you!” Tobi begins. “It’s so nice to—”
Before Tobi could finish his words, Gojo has already stepped forward to stand between them. His steps are hurried and he says something that Yuuji couldn’t catch before the door is slammed shut in front of his face and Yuuji’s pretty sure it wasn’t his teacher that did that.
It might be Tobi’s whose minefield got stepped on this time. Hopefully the detonation isn’t anything terrible. Hopefully.
He’s heard many things about Gojo Satoru even with the limited time he’s been here. It is as though the man is stitched into the fabric of this world, like how even children knows what the sun is even if they don’t have the word for it.
A god in human form, he once heard. Spoken like a myth made unto reality.
He has never seen a god, but if there was ever one, the man in front of him could not have looked further from it. A god should be almighty, all-powerful. The man in front of him looks as though he has a heart to break.
“Obito,” Gojo Satoru says, and perhaps he is a god in that he made the impossible, possible in trying to give a man with no name a name.
But he has already killed his own teacher, killed his past self, and prepared for war against the whole world.
Killing a god is nothing. So the door slams shut harshly as he presses Gojo Satoru against it by the man’s neck. There’s the muffled shout on the other end by Gojo’s student, but the boy didn’t matter a damn.
He can feel the man’s skin beneath his glove, a faint trace of warmth that can be felt through the fabric. Soft flesh that would easily give way to a strong force. For a god, he’d be easier to kill than most men. There must be something, he thinks. Some trick up the man’s sleeve. Something to explain why there is no fight even when he’s holding the man’s pulse between his hand.
No matter, he’d deal with it like he does everything else.
“Where did you hear that name?” he asks.
“You told me,” the man answers, laughing. It didn’t sound happy, though, nor did he look like it. He didn’t show much reaction when he was had around the throat, only when the question was asked. “You told me you were Obito.”
What a joke, he thinks, and says as much.
The man snorts. “The real joke is your voice right now.”
“What’s wrong with my voice?” he asks. “Do you prefer Tobi instead, senpai?”
“That’s funny, but no,” Gojo Satoru answers. “I prefer your real voice.”
He wonders what that even is. “You seem awfully familiar with who you think is me.”
“Of course I am,” Gojo Satoru responds. “I’m not as shabby as to mistake my lover’s voice.”
His grip almost falls flat. He doesn’t say anything for a long, long moment. “What?”
Gojo Satoru laughs, and this time, it sounds like ringing bells. “Oh sorry, I think you preferred being called my honey more. Or maybe it was sweetie.”
“That sounds terrible,” he responds.
“Yeah.” Gojo smiles. “You said that, too, Obito. And then you let me call you that anyways.”
“That doesn’t sound like Uchiha Obito,” he says. Uchiha Obito was a thirteen-year-old boy who died but if he’d lived, he’d never be like that. Or at least he thinks. He doesn’t know who Uchiha Obito would be outside of an ideal.
“Maybe not,” Gojo agrees. “It was just Obito.”
“You don’t sound like you know me at all,” he says. And it isn’t him, because he isn’t anyone. But if he is someone that is known, it wouldn’t be the man Gojo is speaking of. No one could speak of him that way if they knew him.
“No, not you,” Gojo agrees again. “Not right now.”
You’re lying, he wants to accuse. But he knows liars like he knows the angles of the moon. Whatever Gojo is saying, it is what he believes to be the truth.
“Is that why you don’t think I’ll kill you?” If so, naivety of the highest order. Maybe he should kill Gojo if so, crush his nativity before the world could. Up so high on his altar, it would be terrible if he were to fall. “Because of love?”
“No, it’s because I know you,” Gojo Satoru says. “I know you’re not going to kill me because you want to get back to wherever you are more than you care about someone from the future knowing who you are. You still have a world to save, right? And you have to get back to do that, and that’s more important than anything right now because that’s your purpose in life, the only reason you could keep moving.” His finger twitch, he forces his hand to still. Can’t react, he doesn’t have anything to react to anyways. It doesn’t matter. “Besides, if you wanted to kill me to bury your identity, you would already tried without letting me talk.”
Finally, his hand loosens. When he does, there’s an imprint around the man’s neck.
For the strongest, Gojo Satoru is easy to bruise, he thinks. But he doesn’t say anything. Better a defenseless god that believes himself infallible than a weary, terrible thing that knows that nothing in the world is safe. He knows the latter personally. It’s him.
He wonders about the Obito that Gojo Satoru knows. Curiosity fills him for only a second before it extinguishes itself. Uchiha Obito, Obito, neither has anything to do with him. He’s someone without a name, and in his desired future, the world will never have one. An infinite dream, that is what all paths lead to. That, or his death. So, this is not him, and if it is by some freak accident, then it is a him that has failed.
“Stay.”
What a joke.