Chapter Text
When a shinobi serves in ANBU, they’re not a person anymore. They are a weapon. A tool. A means to an end. Kakashi knows that well. He doesn’t exist nowadays, at least, not in the way other people do.
Four years since Obito died. Three since Rin. Two since Minato and Kushina. Each of their deaths feel just as far off as his father’s passing, as though they’d happened a decade ago, and yet also as though they’d happened yesterday.
He’s not okay and he knows it. He’s not a person anymore and he knows it. He lives to serve his village and he lives to kill others. He’s a husk of a person. That’s okay. He fights better when he’s not feeling anything, anyways.
Kakashi of the Sharingan, the rumors say. Beware. He’s at his best when he’s alone. His kills are the cleanest, the quietest, and the most ruthless when there’s no one around to remind him that he should have a heart inside that empty chest of his.
He’s the friend killer, after all.
He knows this all too well.
Another mission lies ahead of him now. Another kill. Another reminder of the hollowed out shell he’s become. He wonders, as he does with each mission he sets out for, if this will be his last.
He almost hopes it will.
Kakashi doesn’t use the Mangekyou ability of his sharingan often. It strains his eye and drains his energy, overall making him less useful later on. On missions like this, it’s better for him to be useful later on. He doesn’t want to get caught. Even knowing that, there are times in which he must. This is one of those.
He activates the Mangekyou, the jutsu collides with another, and the world spins.
When Kakashi wakes up, he’s laying in a shoddy, run-down building with a grotesque and disfigured monster looming over him, clearly trying to take a bite out of his arm. In a matter of seconds, he has the creature pinned down and has stabbed it through the head with a kunai, but the monster seems not to even notice. It thrashes in his grip and yowls, trying even harder to kill him.
Kakashi has never seen such a creature before. He doesn’t know what to make of it and he certainly doesn’t understand why it hadn’t been immediately killed by the kunai to the skull. He uncovers his sharingan to study it and finds that the body of the being in front of him isn’t a body at all, but rather a mass of energy. He doesn’t recognize the kind of energy, though. He would assume it’s chakra, but chakra has a distinct note to it—he had seen chakra beasts up close and personal on numerous occasions before. This is not one of them. But if the energy isn’t chakra… what is it, then? Unlike chakra, which vibrates with life, this energy feels dark and heavy, as though the very manifestation of its being had been brought about by sorrow and burden. Kakashi doesn’t like the taste it leaves behind.
It tastes like blood on his hands. Smoke in the air. His name falling from her lips. It tastes like failed promises. It tastes like anguish. He knows this flavor all too well.
He covers his sharingan and pushes away from the beast. It immediately leaps up in an attempt to kill him once more, prattling nonsense about hospitals and medications at him as it lurches towards him once more. Kakashi can feel chakra exhaustion weighing down on him, but he pushes through it. He strikes the being with heavy blows, each one landing harsher than the previous, but eventually he realizes that whatever this thing is, it is almost entirely unaffected. Each hit injures it, yes, but it heals almost immediately after.
Nothing Kakashi does can kill it.
So, he chooses the next best option. He finds an exit and he runs.
Zen’in Naobito is many things. The leader of his clan. A sorcerer. An anime enthusiast. A drunk. What he is not, is a pushover. He commands his household and barks orders at his subordinates, ensuring that his clan is running smoothly. It’s a pain in the ass keeping his family in line—don’t get him wrong, he is no saint, but his elder and younger brothers are far worse than he, and their direct families follow suit. Or at least, most of them do. There’s always exceptions though… Toji. Maki. Megumi.
The rest of his clan doesn’t see life the same way he does, he thinks. Maybe its a result of his Projection Sorcery, or perhaps just a byproduct of his old age and status, but to him life is more like a series of small events that lead to bigger ones. He understands that each day, each small step, leads to a greater outcome. Just as it does with animation. Each frame makes up a story.
He’s taken plenty of small steps in his life, hoping to push for a greater outcome. He had Naoya in hopes of someone in their clan bearing the Ten Shadows technique—failed, but Naoya’s ability wasn’t weak. It was the same as his, after all. He cut deals with Toji, despite his outcast status, because the man was strong (despite what his brother said when he practically tortured the kid), and he allowed Maki to leave and make her claims that she would take over his position one day, because honestly, maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. He takes all of these steps; pushing Naoya, allowing that Gojo bastard to train Toji’s son, forcing harsh expectations and twisted challenges upon Maki, because he thinks it will make his clan strong one day.
Or maybe all of Naobito’s little side missions will be for nothing. Heh, wouldn’t that be a twist.
He thinks, as he drinks his sake, that he’s getting too whimsical in his old age. Maybe he should go find some curses to kill in order to ground himself back down to reality. Or, perhaps, he could even foray into heading to the Gojo Clan Compound just so he can harp at the bastards for nothing in particular.
A servant enters the room, her breathing shallow, her head bowed. She’s nervous. Naobito recognizes her from last week—she dropped hot sake all over his lap while trying to serve it to him. He usually wasn’t one for harsh punishments (at least, not as harsh as his brothers’), but spilling his sake, burning his skin, and ruining his yutaka absolutely warranted raising the level at which he reprimanded her. She’s been nervous around him since. He almost regrets it. Almost.
“Uh… Zen’in-sama, the guards have sent me to inform you that the Cursed Warehouse has been attacked and several weapons have gone missing.”
He leans forward, setting his sake down as he demands more clarification. “Say that again.”
The servant stutters on her words.
“Spit it out.”
“I—I don’t know, sir. The guards ran inventory tonight and discovered that several weapons were stolen at some point, though they are not sure when. They immediately locked down the facility and sent word for someone to come inform you. Gojo-sama and Kamo-sama have also been informed and are on their way”
His gut reaction is to blame Toji. Then, he remembers that Toji is dead and has been dead for a decade now, so unless he’s come back from getting his shit rocked by Gojo Satoru (unlikely), it’s not him. Maybe some curse user? He’d blame Geto Suguru if the bastard weren’t six feet under already…
Naobito huffs and curses profusely as he stands up from where he’d been lounging (read: drinking his afternoon away) and strides out of the room, making haste towards the warehouse that holds some of the strongest cursed tools in the world. Ever since Gojo had ‘encouraged’ the Big Three Clans to allocate their weapons to the same place, its been nothing but a pain in Naobito’s ass. He swears, if he has to deal with Gojo for more than ten minutes, he’s going to try to kill the bastard himself.
When he gets there, Gojo Satoru is already speaking with one of the guards. Naobito’s eye twitches the entire time he approaches, but he’s just concerned enough about what’s happened that he’s willing to ignore it.
“Ah! Naobito-kun, it’s so great to see you,” Gojo greets in that faux-cheer of his. Naobito thinks that if Gojo calls him by his given name again, he’s going to lose it.
Skillfully ignoring Gojo, he turns to the guard. “Do you know who did it?”
The man shakes his head. “Ah, no. As I was just telling Gojo-sama, the perpetrator seems to have left no evidence behind at all. The only reason any of us realized weapons had been taken was that… well, they’re not here.”
Naobito grunts. The Cursed Warehouse is a well-guarded facility, hidden by Tengen’s barrier on the outside and protected by a team of six guards stationed on the inside at all times. To not only find the warehouse, but to get inside and smuggle weapons past the guards would be no easy task.
Looking to Gojo, he says, “Do you know anything?”
Gojo throws his hands up as if to defend himself. “Why would you assume that I would know something? I didn’t steal any of those weapons!”
Naobito rolls his eyes. He might be a drunk old bastard, but Gojo is just young and stupid. “I meant, can you pin down the perp with your Six Eyes?”
Gojo lowers his hands. “Ah. No, sorry. Whoever did this seems to either be really good at hiding their cursed energy, or they don’t have any at all.”
For the first time in either of their lives, Naobito thinks that he and Gojo might be thinking the exact same thing: they’d blame Toji, if he weren’t dead.
Footsteps approach and Naobito turns to see that the Kamo Clan Head has arrived. He looks harried, which isn’t surprising given that he had the farthest to travel of the three of them. Unlike the Gojo and Zen’in Clans, the Kamo Clan compound is based in Kyoto.
After brief greetings are exchanged, with Kamo being just as disgruntled by Gojo using his given name as Naobito had been, the three of them are led inside by the guard in order to learn what was stolen.
The racks for all Grade Four, Grade Three, and Grade Two weapons are completely in tact. It’s not until they stop at the section of the vault that houses the First Grade weapons that the guard begins detailing what’s gone missing.
“Three weapons were taken from this section,” he starts, pulling out a folded piece of paper from his pocket and beginning to read aloud. “One Grade One cursed spear, one Grade One cursed tanto, and one Grade One binding rope. All relatively powerful weapons; though the rope is of concern as it was apparently rather important to the Gojo Clan,” the man looks up from his paper to study Gojo’s reaction, of which there is none.
At the lack of reaction, the guard clears his throat and brings them over to the section designated solely for Special Grade Cursed Tools. Given that there are so few of them in existence as is, Naobito’s stomach immediately drops when he notices how many are missing.
“This is where things get really worrisome…” the guard starts as his eyes return to the paper. He looks pale. “Missing from this section is: The Sword of the Thunder God, the Flaming Spear of the Red Sun, and the Eight Sai of Katen.”
The words hang heavy in the air. It’s not often that the three Clan Heads are silent, but they all are now. Naobito doesn’t even know what to say to this; he doubts the others know either.
Of the three Special Grade Cursed Tools taken, Naobito is most familiar with the Eight Sai of Katen—a set of eight, three-pronged knives imbued with a technique that deals damage based on the amount of sai that strike a target. Three is debilitating injury, five is instant death, all eight cause the victim to burn entirely out of existence (which is usually overkill given that five is all one needs to bring death, but there are always exceptions). Naobito himself has wielded the set before, though that was when he was much younger and much less encumbered by the weight the knives bear upon the user.
He’s familiar with the other stolen weapons too. The Sword of the Thunder God is a weapon imbued with the cursed technique of Hajime Kashimo, a sorcerer from four hundred years ago. It generates bolts of lightning strong enough to kill most humans with only one hit and sorcerers with about three. Some sadistic part of him wonders how many hits it would take for the sword to kill Gojo.
On the other hand, the Flaming Spear of the Red Sun is more dangerous to cursed spirits than to humans or sorcerers, an attribute caused by the fact that the large halberd is imbedded with positive cursed energy as opposed to negative cursed energy. The most interesting aspect of the halberd is that, with enough control, the energy can be manipulated to generate fire, hence the name. Naobito has seen only one sorcerer use the weapon with enough control to generate fire, and that person is standing in the room with him.
“So,” the guard says, breaking the stunned silence between them all. “That’s what’s missing. We don’t have any evidence as to who took it all or how, so I’m afraid there’s not much we can do…”
Naobito nods. As the oldest of the group, he likes to think he has the authority here (he doesn’t), and the guard either agrees or doesn’t care, because he’s more than happy to take the nod as a dismissal. He leaves quickly after.
The three of them are left standing there, staring at the empty spaces left behind by the missing weapons. Six weapons stolen in total—three Grade One tools and three Special Grade tools. In the wrong hands, the weapons could easily wreak havoc.
Something in the back of his mind nags at him. Small steps, it says. You know it well. This is one of many to come.
Gojo’s phone rings. It takes him a moment to snap out of whatever trance he is in, staring so intently at the floor in front of the weapons cache, but he eventually pulls his phone from his pocket and answers. “Megumi-kun!” He says with faux-cheerfulness different from his usual; it’s clear he doesn’t want the other to hear his distress. “What’s up?”
Naobito can’t hear the response, but he’s interested in the conversation regardless. Fushiguro Megumi might not have been sold into the Zen’in Clan, but Naobito still likes to think that his deal with Toji from all those years ago holds true to this day.
“Oh, that’s hilarious!” Gojo says. Naobito seriously doubts whatever Megumi said was actually funny. He’s met the kid before. “Well, no going home until you find it, ‘kay?”
With that, Gojo hangs up.
Kamo speaks up before Naobito gets the chance. “What was that about?”
“Oh nothing nothing,” Gojo waves his hand. “I just sent Megumi-chan to check up on the cursed finger of Sukuna for me and he can’t seem to find it. He’s a good kid though, so I’m sure he’ll figure out where it ran off to.”
In that moment, Naobito blue-screens. Sorry, did Gojo just say that one of the most powerful cursed objects in the world is also missing? And that it’s no big deal? And that he’s sending a teenager to go track it down???
Naobito debates pummeling Gojo then and there. He knows he wouldn’t even get close to touching him, but the thought process is there nonetheless.
He turns to leave without another word. He’s not nearly drunk enough to be dealing with all of this today.
Even kikufuku can’t take Satoru’s mind off the issue of the stolen cursed weapons, which is a travesty in more than one sense of the word. For starters, he can’t enjoy the kikufuku! The zunda and cream! He can hardly taste the divine perfection that is the dessert when he’s thinking so hard about the traces of energy his Six Eyes saw back at the Cursed Warehouse. Or rather, what he didn’t see.
Absolutely no cursed energy. Not a single ounce. Even normal civilians leave traces of cursed energy behind. The only person in the world to ever walk around without leaving residuals in his wake was Fushiguro Toji, and unless his ghost has come back…
That’s not the only issue, though. Six powerful cursed tools shouldn’t be able to disappear without a trace—even a person with zero cursed energy can’t walk around holding three special grade cursed tools of unfathomable strength plus three more first grade cursed tools and not leave any evidence as to where they’ve gone. Yet, somehow, they have.
In the case of Toji, the man had used the worm in his possession to hide the cursed tools, which he then hid inside his body as a sort of smokescreen. It’s possible the new perpetrator is doing the same, but that cursed spirit had died with Suguru. It seems unlikely.
Satoru chews grumpily on his kikufuku and half-stomps down the sidewalk. He just doesn’t understand. He’s Gojo fucking Satoru, he’s supposed to understand everything!
His sunglasses fall down his nose a little, allowing him to see more of the world around him. It’s near imperceptible, but something is shifting in the atmosphere, becoming darker, as though a powerful beast is finally waking from a millennia’s long rest. He pauses at the corner and takes his sunglasses fully off, looking around more carefully. It’s just like back at the warehouse. His Six Eyes can almost see something wrong, can almost sense a presence lurking nearby, but he can’t quite pin it down. There’s nothing there, and yet, something is there.
It aggravates him. The missing weapons, the lack of cursed energy, the feeling of being watched. All of it.
The darkness grows greater. Gojo snaps to attention. He puts what remains of his kikufuku back into the bag and picks up his pace once more, heading more purposefully towards Megumi’s location. His sunglasses get put away and his blindfold gets put on and he hopes, hopes, just for once that his Six Eyes are wrong.
They’re not. They never are. The King of Curses has awakened.
From high above him, masked in layers upon layers of tightly woven genjutsu, ANBU Hound watches closely.