Chapter Thirty-Five: The Ambush & The Instinct
That despicable pretender. That smiling, two-faced, backstabbing waste of space.
Maki Zenin was at the peak of her anger these days. It was a low, simmering boil that had been threatening to erupt for a week, and now it was a geyser of pure, undiluted fury. She wasn't talking to her friends at Jujutsu Tech—Panda, Inumaki—especially since they had, in her view, utterly ignored her warnings about that bastard Obito. They were talking to him. Laughing with him. It was a betrayal, plain and simple.
Obito. The human-shaped stain she and her sister in the Zenin clan had treated with the contempt he deserved. A piece of furniture that occasionally whined. Now he was acting… different. Strangely competent. Unnervingly confident. How had that sniveling coward, who originally had less talent than a potted plant and whom she could now definitely beat to death with her bare hands (and had fantasized about doing so on several occasions), become so much… stronger?
She wasn't stupid. Far from it. Her intelligence was a sharp, cold knife she honed on the whetstone of her rage. She could see the new strength he had acquired, the polished edge to his movements, the cursed energy control that was leagues beyond the whimpering zero he'd been. Even—and this was the part that made her blood feel like lava in her veins—his ability to mimic her combat style. The footwork, the economical pivots, the way he shifted his weight during a feint while facing Yuta on the training field… it was all painfully, insultingly familiar. It wasn't a perfect copy—it was blended with other, clumsier styles—but the skeletal structure, the movement system Obito was using, was undoubtedly, infuriatingly hers.
In the dense forest near Jujutsu Tech, a place she had claimed as her personal anger-dumping ground, Maki moved. She was a blur of controlled violence, her spear, Playful Cloud, an extension of her wrath. She darted between the ancient trees, her movements silent save for the deadly swish of the weapon and the subsequent, catastrophic impacts.
THWACK! CRUNCH!
Every strike she made was less training, more execution. The trees, innocent bystanders in her internal war, shuddered and groaned. Bark exploded in showers of splinters. As she focused, leaves trembled from branches before being shredded by the shockwaves of her attacks. She took several deep, heaving breaths, using the oxygen to stoke the fire in her muscles, to increase her blood pressure until her vision tinged red at the edges. She directed all her anger—at the clan, at her sister's resignation, at the unfairness of the world, at him—into pure, destructive kinetic energy.
Her speed was inhuman, a product of a body pushed beyond human limits without a drop of cursed energy to aid it. It was all grit, pain, and sheer, stubborn will. It was precise and fierce. She didn't just hit the trees; she exploded them. Waves of displaced air, generated by her spear strikes, radiated outwards, capable of shattering younger trees and carving gouges in the soft forest floor. Dirt and debris rained down around her in a silent, pathetic applause.
Finally, after hours of this cathartic deforestation, she stopped. The sudden stillness was louder than the violence. She leaned against the one surviving tree in the immediate vicinity, its trunk scarred but standing. She took a long, shuddering breath that did nothing to calm the storm inside. She let her hair down, the dark strands falling around her shoulders, damp with sweat. No more tight, practical ponytail. She looked at the miniature wasteland she had created—shattered stumps, leaf confetti, deep gashes in the earth—and finally decided to return. The venting was done. For now.
But that wasn't everything. Her mind, never still, was a churning cauldron of bitter thoughts.
—How? How did he become stronger? Is it just because he awakened his cursed technique? A flick of a switch and the loser gets a power-up? Is that technique so powerful it can elevate garbage to something semi-respectable? Why? Why do useless bastards like him get handed power on a silver platter while I have to claw for every scrap? This isn't fair. It's a joke. A sick, cosmic joke.—
Maki's world was, and always had been, monumentally unfair. She had accepted that fact a long time ago, wrapped it around herself like a cloak of thorns. She accepted that she was born unable to see or use cursed energy, a defect in the eyes of her clan. But she had decided to weaponize that defect. She would prove that even without the magical cheat code everyone else relied on, she could be stronger. She could be a Grade 1 sorcerer. She was strong. She was faster than most who used reinforcement. She could see curses using her special glasses and was capable of confronting them with a high chance of winning. Her efforts, her pain, her relentless training—they should have been appreciated.
But throughout her life, she hadn't found anyone who valued what she worked for. Not the clan elders, who saw her as a flawed product. Not even her sister, Mai.
Maki remembered Mai's surrender. The slow dimming of her eyes, the acceptance of a lesser role, the quiet despair. Mai had always been giving up, never wanting to be stronger, to fight back. Maki always felt a physical pain seeing her sister lose hope, as if realizing there was no path forward for them. But that wasn't true! It couldn't be!
The frustration, the loneliness, the burning need to prove them all wrong—it boiled over. Maki threw her head back and screamed.
It was a raw, wordless sound that tore from her throat, a primal release of every ounce of pent-up fury and injustice. It was so loud it silenced the forest. Birds that had cautiously returned after her rampage took flight again in a panicked flurry of wings. Flap-flap-flap-CAW!
—I WILL become stronger! I WILL prove them all wrong! I WILL be a sorcerer worthy of being the head of the Zenin clan! I'LL SHOW EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM!—
Her scream echoed, bouncing off the broken trees, a declaration of war to an uncaring universe. She didn't care who heard. There was no one here to hear but the ghosts of splintered wood.
But after minutes of screaming until her throat was raw, she stopped. She took deep, ragged breaths, the air scraping down her windpipe. Her immediate, volcanic anger was beginning to subside, cooling into a hard, dense stone of resolve in her gut. This was her method. Break things until the urge to break people lessened. It wasn't healthy, but it was effective.
She wanted, more than anything else at this moment, to march back to the school, find Obito, and crush him. To wipe that new, confident look off his face and remind him—and everyone watching—exactly what he was. But she couldn't. Not openly at the school. Gojo would interfere. Rules. Politics. Boring, stifling nonsense.
So, she decided to return to the academy, to her sparse, impersonal room, to stew in silence.
But while walking back, her boots making soft crunch sounds on the gravel path, moments later, she heard it.
Laughter.
Carefree, easy laughter. It drifted from the main training field.
It was that bastard. Obito Zenin. He was there, right in the open, next to that walking catastrophe Yuta Okkotsu, plus her so-called friends Panda and Inumaki. They weren't training with serious intent. They were… playing. Laughing. Panda was gesturing broadly, Inumaki was giving a rare, small smile, Yuta was beaming like an idiot, and Obito… Obito was in the center of it, telling some joke, his hands moving animatedly.
The sight was a match thrown into the powder keg of her barely-cooled rage. It was an insult. A performance. A lie being acted out right before her eyes, and her friends were falling for it. They were looking at him with happy, relaxed expressions. It made her sick.
She wanted to charge. To scatter them like bowling pins.
But her body, trained to react faster than thought, was ahead of her. There was no conscious decision. The voice in her head—the one that sounded like years of bitterness and fists hitting training dummies—simply said, Go. Hit him.
Hesitation was for people who had something to lose. She had nothing but her anger and her spear.
So, she didn't hesitate.
She charged.
It wasn't a run; it was a launch. Her legs, powered by superhuman muscle and pure spite, propelled her forward. The gravel under her feet skidded and spat behind her. She was holding Playful Cloud, the three-section staff now condensed into a single, deadly spear. She didn't care about exhaustion, about rules, about consequences. She attacked from his blind side, using the cover of the group's distraction and the long shadows of the late afternoon.
She swung her spear. It wasn't a practice strike. It was a blow meant to maim, to punish, to erase. The strike cut through the air with a sound like a giant ripping canvas. SWOOSH-THWOOM!
The three beside Obito—Yuta, Panda, Inumaki—saw the attack only at the last possible millisecond. A blur of green hair and lethal intent. Their faces, moments ago relaxed in laughter, snapped into identical masks of shock and horror. Their mouths opened, but no sound came out. Each of them wanted to intervene, to shout, to block—but it was too late. Maki was a force of nature, and her speed in that moment of unbridled fury surpassed anything they could react to.
Her voice, cold and sharp as shattered glass, cut through the air a fraction of a second before the spear would have connected.
"I'll show you, you bastard. Don't think I don't see your method of pretending. You're just a pathetic, insignificant insect and a scoundrel not worthy of anything in life. No cursed technique or anything else."
She declared her verdict while the spear tip, hungry for impact, aimed to drive it home.
---
Obito had been in the middle of a laugh. It was a fake laugh, of course, but he was getting scarily good at those. He was trying to play his part, to cement this fragile social network. He was trying to be 'one of the guys' with Panda and Inumaki, to strengthen his bond with Yuta. It was all calculated. A future investment. A web of connections he could pull on later when he needed allies, information, or a human shield. He wasn't a good person. He had accepted that. In this world, being 'good' got you killed or used. He had long since decided his survival, his strength, came above all else. Even above the tentative, confusing feelings of… friendship.
And yet, he did consider them friends. In a twisted, selfish way. Yuta's trusting smile did something funny to his insides. Panda's straightforwardness was refreshing. Inumaki's silent solidarity was oddly comforting. It was a problem.
Yuta Okkotsu was a mess—dusty, sweaty, his clothes rumpled from the training they'd just finished. Panda was using one huge, surprisingly gentle paw to brush dirt off Yuta's shoulder, a rumbling laugh in his chest.
"You're really developing quickly, kid. But you look like a pile of crap right now."
That was true. Obito felt a flicker of something—pride? fear?—at how quickly Yuta was progressing. He was becoming better, faster, stronger than even the 'original story' had shown at this point. Was Obito a good trainer? Or had Yuta just never had someone to spar with so intensely before? His combat skills, his cursed energy manipulation—it was all skyrocketing.
"Not really, Panda-senpai," Yuta said, modestly ducking his head. Then he pointed a finger directly at Obito, who blinked, thrown off guard. "I'm just trying to reach Obito-senpai's level."
The two older students quickly understood the hero-worship in Yuta's tone. Obito, however, felt a flush of embarrassed panic. Senpai? Him? The fraud?
He waved his hands hastily. "I told you, I only have a month's experience doing this. Maybe less if you count the coma. You don't have to call me senpai. It's weird."
Yuta just beamed brighter, as if Obito's modesty was another admirable trait. "Of course, Obito-senpai."
He said it with such firm, cheerful finality that Obito's protest died in his throat. Frustrating.
On the other hand, Panda and Inumaki shared a look. A whole conversation passed between them in a silent exchange of glances and slight head tilts. Look at these two. Adorable. Worrying.
They had observed the dynamic over the past days. Obito had attached himself to Yuta with the focus of a missile lock. He taught him with a patience that was at odds with his own seemingly relentless drive. He explained, demonstrated, corrected. It was… oddly paternal, if your dad was also a deeply stressed teenager with magic eyes.
While the two were watching, it was clear Obito was currently Yuta's primary human connection. And that wasn't because Panda and Inumaki didn't want to be close. Panda, especially, felt a… chill. A deep, instinctual wariness that had nothing to do with Yuta the boy and everything to do with the monstrous, loving curse bound to his soul. Rika's presence was a silent scream to Panda's cursed corpse senses. He was afraid, in a very real way, that any misstep could trigger an apocalypse. Plus, he'd noticed the initial, hilarious awkwardness Yuta displayed around a talking panda. It was improving, but the boy was clearly still adjusting to a world where his study partners were part of the taxonomy.
Inumaki, for his part, was trapped in his own prison of silence. He recognized a kindred spirit in Yuta—another boy whose very existence was a danger to others. He wanted to help, to offer the camaraderie of shared suffering. But his cursed speech was a landmine field. A single misplaced word could cripple a friend. So, he stayed quiet, communicating in his limited, safe vocabulary. "Salmon." "Okaka." It was a language of isolation.
But he was acutely aware that Yuta, like him, craved normal conversation. The boy seemed to carry a weight of sorrow that Inumaki could see in the slope of his shoulders. He wanted to lift it, but he had no voice.
Obito's sudden, intense interest in Yuta had been a surprise. At first, they'd been wary, remembering Maki's hissed warnings about his 'true nature.' But Obito was… persistent. And superficially, he was just a hardworking, slightly awkward transfer student who told bad jokes. He was due to return to Kyoto soon, so they'd kept things light, friendly but distant, partly out of respect for Maki's feelings.
Obito never seemed bothered by the distance. He didn't push. So they assumed he, too, preferred a casual, temporary acquaintance.
But with Yuta's arrival, Obito's entire demeanor shifted. He became more animated. He laughed louder. He initiated games. He pulled playful, harmless pranks. He had, against all odds and Maki's prophecies of doom, become a real friend to Yuta. Inumaki saw it, and with a pang of something he couldn't name, realized Yuta had grown closer to Obito in days than he had to either of them in weeks. And it was helping Yuta. The boy was opening up, his smiles reaching his eyes.
Panda and Inumaki had come to appreciate this. They'd even started to subconsciously discount Maki's warnings. Not because they thought she was lying, but because their direct experience clashed with her testimony. From their current viewpoint, Obito was just a kid who trained too hard, who was kind to a lonely newcomer, who smiled through his own obvious stress, and who, if he wanted to be alone, just went to a corner of the field and practiced until he dropped.
This version of Obito was… relatable. His constant drive had even inspired them to train more seriously. Without anyone really planning it, the four of them had fallen into a routine—sparring together, offering tips, sharing the silent language of shared exhaustion. A natural, easy companionship had formed in the cracks of Obito's elaborate act. Even Obito, hyper-focused on his own improvement and spy mission, had been swept along by the current, not fully realizing the genuine bond that was coiling around him.
---
It was at this moment, with Obito about to deliver another painfully corny joke, that he saw their faces change.
All three sets of eyes—Yuta's warm brown, Panda's black beads, Inumaki's intense violet—snapped from his face to a point just behind his left shoulder. Their expressions morphed from relaxed amusement to pure, unadulterated terror in a nanosecond.
Obito's mind, already wired for paranoia, went into overdrive.
—What's happening? Why are they looking at me like I've just grown a second head? Did I say something wrong? Do I have something on my face?—
He didn't have time to voice the questions. A deeper, older part of his brain, the lizard-brain that remembered the feel of Naobito's fist and the cold gaze of curses, screamed a single, overriding command: DANGER!
His instincts, honed by a month of near-constant peril, told him he was about to be hit. And not in a friendly way. The memory of Maki's first ambush flashed—the pain, the surprise, the humiliation.
From that day on, he'd kept a part of his mind always scanning, always on edge. And when that internal alarm shrieked, his body reacted before his conscious mind could form the word 'dodge.'
For the three frozen onlookers, it was a split-second nightmare. They saw Maki's spear, a blur of polished wood and lethal intent, an inch from connecting with the back of Obito's skull. They saw Obito, seemingly oblivious, start to turn.
Then, his eyes changed.
FWOOM.
A flash of crimson, vivid and unnatural in the golden afternoon light. The world, for Obito, slowed to a crawl. The panic on his friends' faces became a slow-motion painting. The deadly arc of the spear became a graceful, suspended line of doom. His own neural signals fired at desperate speeds. Dodge? Too late. Block? Impossible. Move—MOVE!
He didn't hesitate. He didn't try to evade sideways. He pushed forward, towards the threat, a counter-intuitive burst that used the spear's own trajectory against it.
But Maki was focused. Her anger was a laser sight. Her attack was meant to hurt, to humiliate, to break. She saw the subtle shift in Obito's posture, the unnatural focus in his now-red eyes. It didn't deter her; it enraged her further. Using a technique? Now? She adjusted mid-swing, increasing the force, twisting the angle to cover his forward escape route. The spear hummed with the vibration of her killing intent.
For Obito, swimming in the syrup of decelerated time, this was the most dangerous moment of his life—more than the factory curse, more than Naobito's test. This was pure, personal hatred aimed at him. His fear, his desperate, clawing need to not be hurt again, fused with his will to survive. His cursed energy, usually a trickle he managed carefully, surged. He didn't even realize he was doing it, didn't feel the mental barrier he'd placed on the technique shatter.
[Cursed Acceleration Technique]
Not the practiced, controlled bursts he'd been using. This was raw, explosive overload. Cursed energy detonated at the soles of his feet with a soundless, internal BANG.
To the outside world, it was a miracle.
Maki's strike, which should have shattered bone and sprayed the sand with something worse than dirt, pierced only empty air. SWISH-THWOOM! The force of the missed blow created a vacuum that sucked in dust and leaves with a sharp WHUMP.
But Obito wasn't there.
He was ten meters away, having appeared there as if by teleportation. He stood, slightly crouched, his chest heaving like a bellows. His face was pale, all blood drained by shock and adrenaline. His Sharingan eyes glowed like hellfire in the dimming light, fixed on Maki with a look of utter, profound disbelief.
The air, displaced by her missed strike, finally caught up, rushing in with a sound like a muted thunderclap. BOOM.
Maki's forward momentum carried her a step past where Obito had been. She stopped, her spear still extended. Her own shock was a cold splash of water on her rage. He had… evaded. Not just dodged. Vanished. And that speed… that style of movement… She knew it. It was familiar to an extremely dangerous, insulting degree. It was the ghost of Naobito's technique, learned and bastardized in a matter of days.
Her grip on Playful Cloud tightened until the polished wood groaned in protest. Creeak. Her knuckles were white, bloodless.
The three boys behind her remained frozen, a silent tableau of shock—mouths agape, eyes wide. Panda's fur was slightly bristled. Inumaki's hand was half-raised, as if to form a seal that never came. Yuta looked horrified, his gaze darting between Maki's furious back and Obito's pale, panting form.
In that stretched, silent moment that followed the violence, the only sounds were Obito's ragged, wet breaths (haa… haa… haa…), the faint creak of Maki's grip on her weapon, and the distant, mocking cry of a crow circling high above.
Caw… Caw…
The game had just changed. The mask had slipped. And in the crimson glow of Obito's eyes, reflected in Maki's furious gaze, a real, very personal war had just been declared.
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End of Chapter.
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