Chapter Twelve: Acting Out
Obito was now moving through a crowd of people, looking at them with strange eyes while he pondered the reason for his presence in this place. Frankly, he had started to feel afraid of being at the academy. The situation had become terrifying—getting beaten by Instructor Kyoshi, then being forced to train again on controlling the Sharingan eyes, then going to his room for treatment… all of this had become an endless cycle of pain. Obito's mind felt as if it were carrying a mountain.
Therefore, he had decided to skip training today. Of course, he couldn't say that because he was afraid of the consequences. It seemed the manager himself had requested Kyoshi to train him, and in his current position, Obito couldn't refuse. But when he arrived at Training Ground 3, he was surprised to find Kyoshi absent. He checked his phone to make sure Kyoshi had sent him a message or given a reason for his absence. After all, Kyoshi had given him his number and told him that sometimes he might not come to the training ground, and that would be considered a day off.
He checked his phone and, to his surprise, found a message indeed: "No training today."
There was no reason. No explanation. It was just those few, cryptic words. He stopped thinking about it at that moment because he couldn't believe he had finally gotten a break from this hellish routine. So, without thinking, he left the academy, hailed a taxi, and departed without permission.
Of course, sorcerers didn't need permission from the manager if they didn't have a mission and if there wasn't anything urgent. The only thing keeping Obito there was the training, and since Instructor Kyoshi wasn't present, there was no reason for Obito to stay.
—What should I do now with this time? Should I do something good?—
On the way, he debated in his head the things he should do. There were several things he needed to accomplish within the next two days: maintaining the Sharingan for as long as possible, even while experiencing pain or injury. And this would be difficult because he couldn't just will his body to comply. In the end, he wasn't like most people in this world who had undergone continuous training or possessed strong convictions. He had been just an ordinary person in his previous life—an office worker. Did everyone expect him to act like those heroes in fantasy stories who, upon being transported to another world, immediately shed their concept of fear as if it were something easily discarded? In the end, all those heroes were of that type; right after their transition, they began losing the concept of fear from their hearts as if it were something easily removed.
—Anyway, Obito arrived at a sweets shop. He entered the shop and began selecting some sweets. He wasn't short on money these days, thanks to the missions he had gone on. He had received a good sum, especially after participating in capturing two Grade Two curses. For each curse, he received 200,000 yen, which meant his bank card currently held 400,000 yen. That was a huge amount for an ordinary office worker. He didn't believe these prices at first, but when he learned that people risked their lives facing curses, it was natural for them to receive a good amount of money so they wouldn't lack in their lives and could continue their battles with the motivation of achieving a better life.
Anyway, after obtaining this money, he sat at a table in a sweets shop and tried various items. He began to feel as if this body loved sweets. Perhaps because he consumed a lot of energy, he needed a large amount of sugar. Maybe… that was the reason driving Satoru Gojo to be addicted to sweets. Anyway, he hadn't met the strongest sorcerer yet and didn't wish to meet him anytime soon, especially since he was still very weak. He preferred to stay out of the spotlight for now. He didn't know if his cursed technique was known to the people of the Zenin clan. Perhaps they would demand his return, which was something he didn't want to happen. He hated those people and that clan intensely. Even Obito Zenin's memories were nothing but a parade of mockery and torment, especially given his weak talent and lack of a cursed technique. In the Zenin clan, a cursed technique could make one a king. Those who didn't possess this talent or the ability to obtain a cursed technique were considered trash by the clan members. As for women or those who possessed a Heavenly Restriction… their fate could be much worse, as they were mercilessly thrown into the Zenin training grounds, which were filled with curses that would tear apart anyone who entered. For the members of the Zenin clan, who thought only of themselves, even throwing children into that place if they didn't please them didn't seem like a bad idea, especially if it was entertaining. Most people in the leadership of the Zenin clan held such ideas.
—Obito finally stopped thinking about this matter. In the end, what he wanted today was to enjoy himself and calm his nerves so he could feel some peace after all the exhaustion he had felt over the past week.
—But, unbeknownst to Obito, there was a person walking directly behind him. That person was walking at a relatively moderate pace but was always behind Obito. Of course, Obito was eating sweets at that moment and wasn't focused or even considering that someone might be following him. In the end, why would anyone follow him? He didn't have any enemies at this time, and Obito Zenin's memories didn't contain any kind of notorious actions that would bring Obito any enemies.
Anyway, Obito continued, unaware of anyone behind him, until he entered an arcade. There, many games were lined up, along with countless people and teenagers playing and laughing with their friends. This scene caught Obito's attention, and he couldn't help but feel envy. Most of these teenage people were unaware of the reality of this cursed world and the existence of cursed entities that could snatch their souls away. So, he could only sigh. But at the same time, a feeling in his heart told him he needed to play.
It didn't take long before he said, "There's no harm in playing a little, right?"
He entered the arcade center, chose a racing game, and began to play. His reactions were swift. Even when facing some opponents in the game, it was very easy, especially since his enhanced body movement perception and reaction speed far surpassed those of ordinary humans. The players he defeated looked at him as if he were unbeatable.
"How did you manage to pull off that move so fast?" one teenager asked, staring at Obito's hands moving the controller.
While executing a special fighting stance with his character in the game, he finished a match in less than a minute. Obito didn't realize it, but while playing, he was smiling the entire time. He even felt a great sense of appreciation when he heard praise from the other teenagers.
The situation continued like this for a while, but finally, evening fell without him noticing. While he played non-stop, everyone was watching the black-haired, black-clothed young man who kept winning all the games without stopping. In the end, when Obito realized how late it was, he looked at everyone who had been watching and admiring him, and finally felt that he was appreciated. So, he bowed as if he had performed a splendid show before saying,
"It's an honor to entertain you all, but I must go now. See you later!"
Most of the young people watching Obito were huge gaming enthusiasts, so they quickly asked for his number. Some even wanted to invite him to their national gaming team or ask for the name of his school, but he didn't respond. He left the arcade center.
On the other hand, from within the shadows, Mai Zenin watched the figure of Obito departing in a taxi, her eyes narrowing.
"What is that bastard doing here?"
At first, she wanted to see what he would do after secretly leaving Kyoto Academy, but she didn't expect him to visit dessert shops and cafes all over town. Not only that, but he also spent most of the day afterward playing games and enjoying himself with other teenagers. This was hugely surprising to Mai, who could never have imagined Obito Zenin—the arrogant jerk who had always insulted her and her sister Maki—turning into this strange personality. She expected him to go to the Zenin clan, but instead, he was just playing games.
"Am I dreaming, or what?"
She couldn't believe what she was witnessing, but she had to accept it because he seemed to be enjoying himself. He was smiling in a way that made him seem like a completely different person. She had even heard from Kasumi that he had awakened a cursed technique, which greatly surprised Mai.
The day had begun with the blissful, disbelieving silence of an empty training ground. The message on his phone felt like a pardon from a death sentence. For a full minute, Obito just stood there, the morning sun warming his face, the only sound the distant caw-caw of crows and the faint rustle of leaves. No grunts of effort, no punishing impacts, no dry, critical voice. Just… peace.
It was terrifying.
His first instinct was suspicion. A trap? Was Kyoshi hiding behind a tree, waiting to jump out and punish him for showing up late? But his cursed energy sense, still rudimentary, picked up nothing but the ambient life of the academy grounds.
A slow, giddy smile spread across his face. It felt unnatural, like muscles he hadn't used in weeks. A day off. A real, honest-to-god, no-beating-scheduled day off.
He practically skipped back to the dormitory. The idea of staying on the academy grounds, with its ever-present aura of discipline and latent danger, was unthinkable. He needed out. He needed to see normal people doing normal things, to remind himself that this world wasn't only about cursed energy and broken bones.
He changed into the most civilian-like clothes he owned—a simple black t-shirt and jeans he'd bought with his mission money. They felt alien against his skin, which was more accustomed to the stiff fabric of his uniform or the damp earth of the training ground. He checked his bank balance on his phone again, the number 400,000 yen glowing on the screen like a promise. It felt like Monopoly money, wealth accumulated from nightmares.
He didn't bother signing out. The taxi ride was a luxury he savored. The smooth hum of the engine, the clean, air-conditioned interior, the driver's polite, disinterested nod. It was blissfully mundane. He rolled down the window, letting the city air—a mix of exhaust, street food, and concrete—wash over him. It smelled like freedom, or at least a temporary furlough.
His first stop was a high-end pastry shop in the Ginza district. The bell above the door chimed with a delicate ting-a-ling. The air inside was a thick, sugary perfume, a stark contrast to the academy's smells of sweat, mildew, and antiseptic. Glass cases displayed confections that looked like edible jewelry: perfect macarons in pastel hues, glistening fruit tarts, cakes so intricately decorated they seemed unreal.
Obito stood there, momentarily paralyzed by choice. In his previous life, his idea of a treat was a convenience store melon bread. Now he could afford… anything.
"Can I help you, sir?" a woman in a pristine apron asked, her voice like polished crystal.
"I'll… take one of everything that looks like it would give a dentist a heart attack," Obito said, his voice slightly hoarse from disuse.
The woman blinked, then smiled professionally. "Of course, sir."
He left the shop laden with boxes tied with elegant ribbons. He found a small park, sat on a bench under a ginkgo tree, and proceeded to have a sugar-fueled feast. The first bite of a Mont Blanc was a revelation—a symphony of sweet chestnut cream and delicate pastry that made his eyes roll back in his head. He ate with the single-minded focus of a man who had been surviving on nutrient paste and pain. He didn't care about the curious looks from passing salarymen. For the first time in what felt like forever, he was doing something purely for pleasure, with no survival imperative, no training goal, no hidden test.
The sugar high was glorious. It buzzed through his veins, temporarily masking the deep-seated aches in his muscles. Maybe this is Gojo's secret, he thought, licking chocolate ganache from his thumb. Maybe the Six Eyes run on sucrose and sarcasm.
The thought of Gojo brought a chill, but he pushed it away. Today was not for fear. Today was for forgetting.
Next, he wandered into the electric wonderland of an arcade in Akihabara. The sensory assault was immediate and overwhelming. The air thrummed with a chaotic symphony: the electronic beeps and boops of a hundred games (beep-boop-bweee!), the cacophonous clash of virtual weapons and explosions (KABOOM! ZAP!), the excited shouts and groans of players, and beneath it all, the relentless, mechanical clatter-clatter-clatter of ticket dispensers.
The lights were blinding—neon strips, flashing screens, glowing joysticks. It was the polar opposite of the dim, serious halls of the jujutsu academy. Obito felt a grin splitting his face again.
He gravitated towards a sleek racing game, "Wangan Midnight MAXIMUM TUNE 6." He slipped a 100-yen coin into the slot. It chimed as it dropped (ching!). The seat vibrated. He gripped the steering wheel, the plastic cool under his palms.
The game began. On the screen, the digital landscape blurred past. In the real world, Obito's body reacted. The Sharingan wasn't active—he didn't need it for this—but the enhanced neural pathways, the improved reaction times Kyoshi had been beating into him, were still there. His hands moved on the wheel with a precision the machine wasn't designed for. He took corners at speeds that should have sent his pixelated car careening into the guardrail, but he adjusted the angle with microscopic shifts, his foot modulating the pedal pressure with a racer's instinct he'd never possessed.
He set a lap record on his first try. The machine played a fanfare (ta-da-daaa!).
A kid who had been watching, mouth agape, tapped his shoulder. "Dude… how?"
Obito just shrugged, a genuine, easy smile on his face. "Beginner's luck?"
He moved on. A fighting game next. "Street Fighter VI." He picked a random character. The opponent was a teenager who clearly spent his allowance here. The match began. Obito's eyes didn't glow red, but they saw. He observed the teen's pattern within seconds—a predictable jump-in, followed by a fireball. The next time the teen jumped, Obito's character performed a perfect anti-air move, followed by a devastating combo he'd never practiced. His fingers flew over the buttons (tap-tap-tap-tap-SMACK!) with a speed that made his own hands a blur.
K.O.!
The teen stared. "You… you read me like a book!"
Obito laughed, a real, unforced sound he barely recognized. "You telegraphed the jump. Your shoulders tensed up."
He became a minor attraction. A small crowd gathered as he moved from game to game, annihilating high scores and seasoned players with an offhand ease that bordered on the supernatural. He wasn't showing off; he was just… playing. And for the first time since arriving in this world, he was good at something that didn't involve pain or terror. The admiration in the teenagers' eyes, the cries of "Awesome!" and "Teach me!", was a drug sweeter than any pastry.
He lost track of time. The artificial night of the arcade was eternal. He was in the middle of a rhythm game, nailing a impossibly complex sequence on the taiko drums (don-don-ka-ka-don!) with flawless rhythm, sweat beading on his forehead from pure exhilaration, when he finally glanced at a clock.
Evening. He'd been here for hours.
He finished the song with a final, thunderous DON! and the machine awarded him a shower of virtual applause. He stepped back, panting slightly, a wide, stupid grin on his face. The crowd of onlookers burst into cheers and claps.
He bowed, a theatrical, sweeping gesture. "It's an honor to entertain you all, but I must go now. See you later!"
He left amidst pleas for his contact info and promises of future matches, waving them off with a cheerful, non-committal hand. The cool evening air outside was a shock to his system, washing away the arcade's digital fever. He felt… light. Happy. Normal.
He hailed another taxi. As it pulled away from the curb, he didn't notice the figure that detached itself from the shadowed alley beside the arcade.
From the shadows, Mai Zenin watched the taxi's taillights disappear into the stream of traffic. She had been following him since he left the pastry shop, her presence masked by a simple, low-grade technique that diverted casual attention—a trick any Zenin child learned.
Her initial mission had been simple: surveillance. The higher-ups in the clan had gotten wind that the waste of space they'd dumped at Kyoto had somehow manifested a cursed technique. A visual-type technique. They wanted confirmation. They wanted details. Mai, as a member of the branch family with a useful but non-combat technique, was often given these kinds of errand-boy… errand-girl tasks.
But what she had witnessed had completely short-circuited her expectations.
She had braced herself for arrogance, for him to immediately run to some Zenin contact to boast, or to train obsessively in some hidden location. She had prepared to see the sneering, worthless Obito Zenin she remembered.
Instead, she saw… this.
A young man who stared at pastries with the wonder of a child. Who ate an eclair on a park bench with such unadulterated joy it was almost embarrassing to watch. Who then went to an arcade and became its undisputed king, not through cursed energy, but through pure, inexplicable skill and a smile that seemed to light up the whole noisy room.
He had laughed. He had bowed. He had been polite to the non-sorcerer children.
This was not Obito Zenin. The Obito Zenin she knew would have looked at those sweets with disgust, would have sneered at the arcade as a place for "monkeys," and would have likely used his new-found abilities to cheat at the games and then bully the other players.
She leaned against the cool brick of the alley wall, her arms crossed. The scent of fried food from a nearby stall mixed with the arcade's lingering electronic smell. Her mind raced.
The technique was real. Kasumi Miou's report, which had filtered back through channels, wasn't a mistake. But the person… the person was wrong. It was as if someone had stolen Obito Zenin's face and replaced the rotten core with something… bewildering.
"Am I dreaming, or what?" she muttered to the empty alley, her voice barely a whisper.
She pulled out her phone, a sleek, modern device that felt incongruous with her traditional hakama pants. She opened a secure messaging app, her fingers hovering over the screen. What was she supposed to report? 'Subject spent the day consuming grotesque amounts of sugar and achieving god-like status in 'Wangan Midnight.' Morale appears high.'
The clan elders would think she'd lost her mind.
She sighed, a sharp, frustrated sound, and tucked the phone away without sending anything. She needed more. She needed to understand this anomaly. This… imposter who wore a familiar face and had the eyes of a stranger—eyes that, according to rumor, could now burn with a powerful, predatory red.
She melted back into the shadows, her own path diverging from Obito's taxi. The game, it seemed, had just gotten more complicated. And for the first time, Mai Zenin found herself not just following orders, but genuinely, deeply curious.
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End of Chapter.
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