Chapter Twenty-Six: Panda and Inumaki
The Monday morning after the incident dawned with the sluggish weight of a hangover, though the only spirits involved were cursed. Panda and Inumaki went directly to the principal's office, the squeak of their shoes on the polished linoleum floor echoing in the too-quiet corridor.
Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.
They wanted to ask if there was any problem, of course. The principal, Yaga, sat behind his desk, fingers steepled, a half-assembled cursed corpse limb lying before him like a morbid arts-and-crafts project. He didn't even look up.
"Of course there's no problem," he said, his voice a low rumble that seemed to vibrate through the stuffed toys lining his shelves. One glass eye of a nearby plush leopard seemed to follow them. "Just a standard… cultural exchange. Proceed with your duties."
So, with a shared glance that conveyed a mutual, profound sense of bureaucratic bafflement, Panda and Inumaki went to attend to their own business. The dismissal was so abrupt it left a vacuum in the air.
But in that very moment, before Panda could properly process the absurdity of it all, he found Obito standing there.
The boy had simply… materialized. One second the hallway was empty, the next he was leaning against the doorframe of his assigned room, having slid the door open with a soft, whispering shhh-click. He was just… looking at them. His gaze, intense and unnervingly direct, landed on Panda with the weight of a physical touch.
"Hello," said the strange young man. His voice was calm, but the fingers at his side gave a slight, almost imperceptible twitch. His face was a mask of forced neutrality, but the tension around his eyes betrayed him. He looked like someone trying very hard to seem ordinary while secretly listening for distant screams.
Panda, whose thought process often involved a cheerful internal monologue narrated by himself, took a beat. He recalled the furious, blurred violence of this boy's clash with Maki just hours before—the crunch of wood, the hiss of cursed energy, the sheer, unadulterated wildness of it.
Scratch scratch went the sound of Panda's claw thoughtfully rubbing his chin fluff.
"Oh, hey there, friend!" Panda boomed, his jovial voice a stark contrast to the morning's weirdness. "You seem pretty fired up from earlier! All that morning exercise really gets the blood pumping, huh?" He let out a hearty, fabricated laugh that echoed a little too loudly in the hall. Ha. Ha. Ha.
Beside him, Inumaki, the master of understated communication, used his own special language. "Okaka," he stated softly, the single, food-based word serving as a greeting, a question, and a mild expression of caution all in one. He gave a small, deliberate nod.
Obito, however, kept his eyes locked on Panda. It wasn't clear what he was thinking. His expression was a puzzle box with no visible seams. The silence stretched, punctuated only by the distant drip… drip… drip of a leaky faucet from a communal bathroom.
Finally, he spoke. "Is there a library in this place?" he asked. His tone was flat, utilitarian. "It doesn't seem like many people work here, so I needed some help."
Panda was taken aback. His stuffed head tilted with an audible rustle of internal beans. Why would anyone ask about a library? In his frankly bizarre life experience, most people he encountered were only interested in excitement, sparring, or surviving the next cursed spirit attack. Intellectual curiosity was a rare, almost exotic trait, like a panda who could talk. Oh, wait.
But then, a wide, sewn-on smile stretched across Panda's face. "Of course! I'll take you there. I sometimes read those books too, you know. Especially the ones about cursed energy theory. Gotta keep this fluffy intellect sharp!" He tapped his temple with a soft thump.
The three of them set off for the library. Inumaki, having nothing pressing to do—or perhaps driven by a deep-seated curiosity about this walking red flag—followed along. His footsteps were nearly silent, a soft shush of fabric against floor.
In a matter of minutes, which felt longer due to the awkward, wordless journey, the three were in the library. The room was a tomb of knowledge, smelling of old paper, dust, and the faint, sweet-chemical scent of book preservation spray. Sunlight filtered through high windows, illuminating dancing motes of dust.
Obito's eyes scanned the shelves, rows upon rows of spines in various states of decay. He seemed to be thinking deeply about which book to choose, his brow furrowed. But then he shook his head, a short, sharp motion.
What should I choose if there's someone who knows the place? he thought.
He turned to Panda. "Are there any books on advanced cursed energy manipulation techniques? Or combat methodologies?" He paused, the pause itself a heavy, loaded thing that seemed to suck the sound from the room. "Or even," he continued, his voice dropping slightly, "about barrier techniques and… puppets."
Panda was surprised by the last item. The first requests were standard fare for a ambitious—or recklessly curious—sorcerer. But barriers and puppets? That was niche. That was specific. A tiny, internal alarm bell, shaped like a little warning flag, tried to wave itself in the back of his mind.
Why would he need something about barriers or puppets?
But Panda, ever the optimist, quickly stifled the thought. Maybe he's just broadly curious! A renaissance man! A scholar-warrior! The mental image of Obito in a tiny graduation cap amused him.
Inumaki, unlike Panda, was silent. His violet eyes, usually half-lidded in perpetual calm, were fully open and fixed on Obito. He noticed the way Obito was looking at Panda—not with curiosity about a talking panda, but with a clinical, dissecting intensity. It was the look Gojo-sensei sometimes got when he was analyzing a cursed technique, not the look of someone meeting a miraculous stuffed animal.
Of course, in reality, this wasn't the reason for Obito's serious gaze. He had come directly from his room after solidifying his chaotic thoughts into a rough, desperate plan. The first step was simple: look at Panda with the Sharingan.
He needed to confirm: could the Sharingan see the soul, or the core, of a cursed corpse like Panda? Could it perceive the cursed energy fusion, the harmonious alignment that granted Panda his sentience and ability to shape cursed energy? If he could see it with the Sharingan, half the work was done. He would just need to find compatible individuals, and then… then he would have the ability to create a cursed puppet with self-generating cursed energy. A new ally. Support.
But it wasn't just that. The idea of having support, in a moment where he had given up on the idea of ever making friends again, held a bizarre allure. He had never been social in his previous life. Just an ordinary office worker, trying to live an ordinary life, navigating the quiet despair of modern existence. But he realized this place, this afterlife in a different world… it wasn't his world. He wasn't from here.
He wasn't someone who wished for death. He hadn't wanted to kill others in his previous life. And now, gradually, he was realizing the story he had been thrust into was horrifying. People died here. Constantly. There were plots. He was now thinking about killing people. Thinking about it to survive.
Initially, he had thought of it like he was a character in a book or a story. It was easy to think about killing others in the abstract. But touching the reality of death opened another path in his mind.
Why should I kill others? Just to survive? But what is survival, damn it, in a situation like this?
People died from curses in this world. The shamans in this world, especially someone like Geto Suguru, were just soldiers to be sacrificed on the orders of the Jujutsu higher-ups. The same reason that made Geto Suguru hate the world of jujutsu and want to eradicate non-sorcerers who bred curses without control.
This world is terrifying and cannot be understood in a normal way.
The normal, passive, office-worker thinking that Obito had possessed was no longer effective. Realizing many things, understanding the truth of things, and then accepting it—these were different stages that made his mind transcend normal concepts. It was a quiet, cold madness.
The two—Panda and Inumaki—while watching Obito pick up a few books, glanced at each other. A whole conversation passed between them in that look, composed of raised furry brows and slight head tilts.
Shake. Rustle. (Panda's head)
Slow. Blink.(Inumaki's response)
They didn't understand what was happening. But soon, Obito changed.
It was like a switch flipped. He began to joke and chat with them. The intense, silent, battle-ready youth before them was gone, replaced by what seemed like a normal, slightly awkward teenager. He laughed at Panda's jokes—a dry, short sound. He asked Inumaki about his onigiri speech with genuine, if clumsy, curiosity. "So, 'salmon' means good? What does 'tuna' mean? Is it bad? Is it a threat?" He tried to mimic the words. "Bonito flakes?"
It was all so… normal. If it had been normal, it might have made them trust him easily. But they remembered Maki's words, delivered with venom and a bruised jaw: He's just a bastard.
They weren't going to trust him that easily.
Obito noticed his acting skills weren't good enough to earn their trust. The pauses were a fraction too long, the smiles didn't quite reach his newly-red eyes, which he kept subtly averted. But he persisted anyway. He stuck with them until evening.
It was strange at first. He was like a clumsy shadow, his movements a bit too deliberate, his attempts at camaraderie a bit too forceful. He wasn't natural. He was, in essence, close to a lunatic. But that very fact made Panda and Inumaki, on some level, understand him. Because shamans were lunatics. People who, more than anyone else, wanted to live. Perhaps that was the reason.
By the end of the day, as the sun cast long, deep orange shadows through the windows, painting the school in melancholic light, Panda had said to Obito, "You're really well-read, you know. I can tell your cursed energy and your style are… something else."
Panda said this because Obito had told him—when Panda asked about his changing eyes during the fight with Maki—that he had used his cursed technique. He had explained it, but he hid the ability to see the shape of the soul. He had used it in front of them in a clear way.
And he had seen it. He had seen Panda's cursed core in perfect detail. Not just that, he was able to see the three souls orbiting the center in perfect harmony. Each one created a path towards the others in a focused, smooth flow that made the fusion of souls and the generation of cursed energy brilliantly clear.
It worked.
Obito had confirmed, thanks to this, that he truly possessed the ability to see the soul clearly, as long as it was focused and integrated. Perhaps if the soul belonged to a shaman, unlike a non-sorcerer who couldn't control their energy, he would be able to see the compatibility.
Inside his head, he laughed. A mad, silent, triumphant laugh that echoed in the hollow chambers of his new resolve.
For Panda and Inumaki, who saw the young man's detached expression shift several times during the day—from blank to intense to a strained pleasantry—it was more than a little disturbing. His face was like a poorly tuned television, flickering between channels.
But in the end, they each shrugged in their own way.
Panda's shrug was a full-body affair, a rustle-thump of shifting beans and stuffing. "Shake shake."
Inumaki's was a minute lift of the shoulders, accompanied by a soft, "Mustard leaf?" (So-so/It is what it is).
It implied that nothing was too weird by their standards. But at the same time, it was clear they didn't trust the young man. Not even after he showed them his cursed technique, which they found impressively intricate.
Especially Inumaki, who possessed the Cursed Speech technique that prevented him from speaking normally lest he harm others, found Obito's technique to be one of frightening precision. An eye that could make him see things in slow motion, see the flow of cursed energy, and even predict the trajectory of attacks. Obito didn't hide these aspects. They would find out naturally in the future, so he saw no reason to conceal them. He spoke about them simply and quietly, using honest words in his voice to try and scrape together a shred of trust.
He needed that trust to see Panda's core in even greater detail, at the peak of its calm state. And also, because he wanted to have some mild support from the Tokyo school. He wouldn't be staying here long. If he was right, there wasn't much time before Yuta Okkotsu, with the spirit of the Queen of Curses, would arrive.
He had decided he would try to get closer. It was a mad decision, and he realized he was beginning to become different from his original self. All these realizations, this weakness, had made Obito, without conscious thought, abandon the principles of his former humanity.
Not in the raving, overtly crazy way others did, but in a quiet way. It began to seem that calmness, even in pain or fear, had become part of his soul. So he was able to smile several times that day with Panda and Inumaki. He found it felt… natural. It wasn't a radical change, but a psychological awareness he was beginning to possess, as if he were watching another person. But that person had been him all along.
Perhaps the fusion… perhaps Obito Zenin's true personality wasn't just glimpses. He hated that weak person, but at the same time, that person had merged over time with the soul of Obito that now dominated the body. Gradually, and because the nature of Obito's will didn't merge quickly—it didn't want to be interrupted or denied—it merged bit by bit to create a new form. Principles and a personality more flexible for this world.
Perhaps Obito would never be able to perceive the fundamental difference in his true soul again after this moment. In the future, he might change even more. He didn't know.
But now, in his room, he placed the new books he decided to read in this period on his desk with a soft thud. Alongside enhancing his cursed energy training and strengthening his physical body to ensure the best possible use of the Sharingan.
Scritch-scratch went his pen as he noted down a training schedule.
Thump. Thump. Thump. went his heart, a steady, determined rhythm against his ribs.
This will be the routine I follow for the coming period, he thought, the silence of the room pressing in on him. Until I am ready and able to think clearly about what I will do in the future.
The single desk lamp cast a stark, lonely pool of light in the encroaching darkness, a small island in a sea of shadows. Outside, a cicada began its relentless, screaming song. It sounded less like music and more like a warning.
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End of Chapter.
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