Chapter Forty-Three: The Cursed Blade & The Unwanted Watcher
---
Obito frowned the next day—
No.
Obito's face contorted into a deep, genuine scowl the very moment his foot crossed the threshold of the library.
The air inside was that particular brand of academic stale—old paper, wood polish, and the faint, lingering ghost of someone's nervous sweat. Sunlight slanted through tall, dusty windows in thick, golden columns, illuminating millions of dancing dust motes that swirled like tiny, indifferent galaxies.
He didn't care about any of that.
He was already moving, his fingers dragging across spines with the impatient hunger of a man on a deadline. Barrier Techniques for the Moderately Paranoid. Shikigami Creation: A Beginner's Guide to Not Dying. Cursed Tool Metallurgy for Dummies.
He grabbed them. Stacked them. His jaw tight.
Having obtained the egg—the dormant, pulsating little sphere of potential he'd sealed weeks ago, currently sitting in his room like a ticking present—he needed answers. It was a curse he'd stopped mid-development, frozen at the perfect moment before it could grow into something uncontrollable. Something he could shape.
Like what Yuki Tsukumo did. That Special Grade wanderer with her entity that fought beside her like a loyal, murderous shadow.
He needed his own shadow.
The only way for him to raise his strength in this period, while the world prepared to detonate, was through creation. Through making something useful instead of just breaking things faster.
He'd reached a limit.
A horrible, frustrating, clawing-at-walls limit in terms of combat development. He had become stronger—yes. Faster—certainly. He'd even overcome some of the Sharingan's more annoying limitations, the ones that left him dizzy and nauseous after extended use. Now the crimson spirals spun in his eyes with the smooth reliability of well-oiled machinery.
But it wasn't enough.
And the events that were happening were beginning to take shape with the presence of the deadline Geto had so generously, smugly provided for the start of his genocidal little war.
Tick. Tock. The clock was audible only in Obito's head, a constant, dripping dread.
He opened the first book, the spine protesting with a dry creeeak.
And immediately, his thoughts snagged on something else. A splinter.
Naobito.
The old bastard had contacted him again. Brief. Clinical. Inquiries wrapped in the velvet of disinterest, but Obito wasn't fooled. The man was smart—the kind of smart that didn't need things spelled out. He'd sniffed something in Obito's carefully worded 'feeling,' some whiff of deeper intention.
Perhaps the man was smart and also suspected something of what Obito was thinking.
Obito's thumb traced the edge of the page, back and forth. Scuff. Scuff.
In the end, he couldn't tell Naobito directly that he wanted to murder Suguru Geto. That would be like handing the clan head a loaded gun pointed at his own head. Here, sir, my treason, nicely wrapped.
No.
He needed to make the clan head think of this matter himself. To arrive at the conclusion independently, proudly, as if it were his own brilliant, ruthless idea.
This was very difficult.
It required intelligence. Cunning. Patience. The ability to plant seeds in concrete and wait for them to sprout through sheer, stubborn will.
And unfortunately, he didn't think himself genius enough to start writing such a complex psychological operation with ease. He wasn't some master manipulator. He was a guy with future knowledge and good eyes.
But the information he possessed—that was his lever. That made him able to see the best path, even if he had to crawl along it blindfolded.
Within a few hours, Obito temporarily stopped thinking about this matter.
His fingers were sore from page-turning. His eyes—even the Sharingan had limits before they started throbbing with that familiar, warning ache. He closed the last book, his mental catalog now stuffed with barrier geometries, seal arrays, and the delicate art of convincing a cursed spirit to become a sword instead of a screaming nightmare.
He gathered his stack, the books heavy in his arms, and turned to leave.
---
Tap. Tap. Tap. His footsteps echoed in the hallway, a solitary rhythm against polished wood.
He rounded the corner.
And stopped.
Maki was on the other side, passing by.
She moved with that economical, predatory grace he'd come to associate with her—no wasted motion, no unnecessary sound. Her ponytail swayed slightly with each step. Her expression was carved from stone, eyes forward, jaw set.
He stopped in his place.
His breath caught for a fraction of a second—barely a hesitation, but it was there. A tiny, involuntary hitch.
He looked at her for a moment before quickly averting his gaze, snapping his eyes to a very interesting spot on the wall to his left. His grip on the books tightened until the edges bit into his palms.
Scuff. His shoe shifted slightly on the floor, a nervous micro-movement.
He remembered.
He remembered he had said some things to her while she was unconscious—three hours of her pretending to sleep, of him thinking she was actually unconscious, of him talking to a silent, unmoving form because he needed someone, anyone, to just listen without speaking. Without judging. Without that sharp, penetrating gaze dissecting every word.
He'd vented. Rambled. Confessed things he'd never said aloud to anyone.
And she'd heard all of it.
Now he remembered this girl again. She never liked him. She might, at any moment, decide that his continued existence was an insult to the universe and rectify the situation with her spear.
He braced himself for the inevitable sneer. The cutting remark. The thousand-yard stare of contempt.
To his complete, utter surprise—
She just passed by.
Without saying anything.
Without even looking at him.
Her footsteps continued their steady rhythm—tap, tap, tap—growing softer as she moved down the hallway, away from him. Her ponytail swayed. Her shoulders were straight. She didn't turn. Didn't pause. Didn't acknowledge his existence at all.
Obito didn't dare turn to watch her leave.
He stood in place for several moments, breathing quietly, the books heavy in his arms. The hallway was silent now except for the distant, muffled sounds of the school—a door closing somewhere, faint laughter, the omnipresent whisper of cursed energy through the barriers.
He exhaled.
A long, slow, relieved sigh that seemed to deflate his entire body.
She left. She just... left. No confrontation. No threats. No spear through my torso.
He wasn't sure if this was a good sign or a very ominous one.
He decided, firmly, not to think about it.
He had work to do.
---
After reaching his room—the door closing behind him with a soft, final click—Obito placed the stack of books on his desk.
Thump.
The sound was satisfying. Solid. A declaration of intent.
He surveyed his workspace. His sealed curse-egg sat in its protective barrier circle, pulsing with a slow, hypnotic rhythm, like a heartbeat made visible. Notes were scattered across the surface—his own handwriting, cramped and efficient, detailing observations, theories, and increasingly frustrated margin doodles. Cursed seals he'd prepared over the past week lay in neat stacks, their intricate patterns gleaming faintly in the lamplight.
He rolled his shoulders. Cricked his neck side to side until something popped with a satisfying crack.
Time to work.
His eyes transformed.
The shift was smooth now—no pain, no strain. Just a gentle warmth spreading from his pupils outward, and then—
Click.
Sharingan. Active.
The world sharpened. Colors deepened. The flow of cursed energy became visible, a shimmering current that moved through everything like invisible water. He could see the curse-egg's pulse more clearly now, the ebb and flow of its power, its shape—still formless, still waiting.
It was also good that he had sealed this cursed energy so thoroughly. No one knew it existed. No leaks. No stray traces for curious sorcerers to follow.
Certainly, he thought Gojo would have noticed. The man's Six Eyes saw everything. But Gojo was busy these days—preoccupied with Geto's threat, with council meetings, with the weight of being the strongest while the world prepared to crumble. He hadn't sought Obito out. Hadn't dropped by with that insufferable grin and pointed questions.
Something that made Obito somewhat happy.
He hasn't noticed. Or if he has, he's choosing not to act on it. Either way, I'll take it.
Now it was better for him to just improve this cursed spirit and transform it into his own Shikigami. Something he could use in combat. Something that was his.
---
The hours began to blur.
Obito worked with the focused intensity of a man who had forgotten the concept of breaks. His fingers traced seal patterns, transferring them from book to paper with the Sharingan's photographic precision. Every symbol, every stroke, every angle—memorized, replicated, understood.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. His pen moved across the page.
First, he analyzed the form he wanted for the Shikigami he wished to create.
But initially, he needed to know the properties of the curse he was going to transform. Its nature. Its self.
He stared at the egg, the Sharingan dissecting it layer by layer.
—It's certainly of the insect and spider type. The cursed energy signature matches—that oily, thread-like quality. Plus possessing good cursed energy reserves that could reach Grade 2, because I stopped its growth at the appropriate time before the development process was complete. If this curse is a copy of the spider curse that possessed sharp, blade-like legs plus the ability to create webs, this means that if I want to transform it into a weapon or an assistant entity for combat, I need to know all its advantages.—
He wrote. Lists. Diagrams. Crude sketches of spider anatomy and blade geometry.
An hour passed. Maybe two. The light outside his window shifted from golden afternoon to amber evening.
After completing his analysis, he began thinking about the form of the weapon he wanted to make from this curse.
Making a weapon was never an easy thing. But it wasn't impossible either.
He only needed several factors: the ability to see cursed energy and understand it at a fundamental level. Good mechanisms for curse manufacturing—the delicate art of convincing spiritual matter to become physical object. Patience. Precision. And a complete disregard for the concept of 'reasonable working hours.'
He had gathered everything he needed. The books. The seals. The materials—specialized paper infused with purified copper, threads of silk from a minor curse he'd exorcised last week, a vial of his own blood for binding.
He'd bought the rest using the money he had obtained over time from missions. His savings, poured into this single project.
And finally—
First, he extracted the core.
This was the delicate part. His fingers hovered over the barrier circle, cursed energy flowing from his palm in controlled, thread-thin streams. He pulled. The egg resisted—a brief, instinctive protest—but the Sharingan showed him exactly where to apply pressure, exactly how to coax rather than force.
Pop.
The core emerged. A small, pulsating sphere of concentrated curse-stuff, shimmering with that distinctive spider-type energy. It hovered in the air above his palm, rotating slowly.
After that, he built a barrier around the core. A containment field. A prison and a womb in one.
Then he brought many papers containing cursed seals he had made himself using barrier techniques he had learned over the past weeks.
He realized, with a distant satisfaction, that he could learn barrier techniques faster thanks to the Sharingan eyes. Another advantage added to this eye that already let him copy movements, predict attacks, and now—accelerate his education.
Scribble. Scribble. Fold.
The seals began to layer around the core, each one adhering with a soft sshhhk, like paper accepting glue. The patterns glowed briefly upon contact, then dimmed, integrating.
Obito continued manipulating the cursed energy around him with extreme precision.
His brow was damp. His breathing was steady but shallow. The Sharingan spun slowly, cataloguing every fluctuation, every potential instability.
After entering the second level of the Sharingan—where time seemed to stretch, where he could predict the cursed energy's movement a full second before it happened—he was able to manufacture the Shikigami completely.
First, he split the form of the core.
Crrrrack. A hairline fracture appeared along its surface. His heart seized—too fast, too much—but he compensated immediately, his cursed energy flooding into the gap like water finding its level.
Then he reassembled it without destroying it.
This was the counterintuitive part. You didn't break something to remake it. You persuaded it. You showed it a new shape and convinced it that this shape had always been its destiny.
His cursed energy became the thread. The needle. The seam.
He stitched.
And finally, he activated and formed the curse in several different shapes.
The core shuddered. Contracted. Expanded. Its light flickered through a spectrum of colors—angry red, confused blue, accepting white.
The matter was very difficult at first and took several hours.
To the point that he didn't leave the room.
Didn't eat. Didn't check his phone. Didn't acknowledge the deepening darkness outside his window or the growing ache in his shoulders or the way his cursed energy reserves were draining like water from a cracked basin.
He continued working for a long period.
Until finally—
He managed to adjust everything.
The core stabilized. Its light settled into a steady, warm glow. The seals had fully integrated, their patterns now part of its very structure, visible beneath its surface like veins under skin.
All that remained was to go to the other part.
---
In the sky, night had fallen over Tokyo Jujutsu High.
A deep, velvet darkness punctured by cold stars and the distant, ambient glow of the city beyond the forest. Moonlight streamed through Obito's window in a silver column, illuminating his workspace with an ethereal, almost sacred light.
The lamp on his desk was also on, its warm yellow glow competing with the moon's cool blue.
Obito didn't focus on any of that.
He was focusing on the form he needed to manufacture the cursed weapon he required.
The core now floated before him, responsive, waiting. He could feel its attention—not sentient, not yet, but aware. Like a tool that knew it was about to become something more.
This Shikigami he had now manufactured—this potential, this promise—was placed on the table.
Obito breathed with great difficulty.
Haaaah. Haaaah.
His chest heaved. His arms trembled slightly. Sweat traced slow, meandering paths down his temples and the back of his neck. His cursed energy reserves were nearly depleted—he could feel the hollow ache behind his sternum, the faint dizziness at the edges of his vision.
Making this weapon had taken all of his cursed energy.
To the point that even with the control the Sharingan gave him—that surgical, microscopic precision—the matter was very difficult. Naturally exhausting for his body and his spirit.
But nevertheless.
He was smiling.
On the table was a sword.
It caught the lamplight and the moonlight simultaneously, as if it couldn't decide which master to serve. The hilt was wrapped in dark, textured material that seemed to shift slightly under observation—not leather, not cloth, but something other. The blade was white, a clean, unblemished white like fresh snow or polished bone, narrowing to an edge that gleamed with a faint, dangerous promise.
And that edge—
Red.
A thin, vivid line of crimson ran along the entire length of the blade, from hilt to tip, like a blood vessel preserved in ice. It caught the light and held it, absorbing rather than reflecting.
What was distinctive about this hilt was that it had several subtle protrusions—not enough to be uncomfortable, but enough to provide multiple grip points. His fingers found them immediately, naturally, as if the sword had been measured specifically for his hand.
There were even several other distinctive features in this sword.
Obito had looked at them. Adjusted them. Perfected them.
At this moment, he pressed the sword.
Click.
His fingers wrapped around the hilt. The grip was warm, alive, pulsing with the same slow rhythm the curse-egg had possessed. He grabbed it fully, lifted it from the table—
Shhhhk.
—and moved it a little. A short, testing arc through the air.
He felt this sword could be controlled very easily.
It weighed almost nothing. It balanced perfectly. It wanted to move, to cut, to fulfill its purpose.
But this wasn't the best possible thing.
The moment Obito wanted to release a little cursed energy around the sword—
Fwwwwum.
—the edge of the blade lit up.
A faint red light, barely visible, tracing that crimson line like a filament heating up. It intensified with the amount of cursed energy he fed it, brightening from ember to flame.
—I used the parts plus cursed energy to employ the curse's abilities. I realized it was an exact copy of the spider-type curse I faced, which possessed sharp, blade-like legs capable of cutting through reinforced steel. So, I reinforced the sharp part of the blade using this ability. Now, by releasing cursed energy, I can enhance the blade's sharpness several times over. Not only that—
He moved the sword with a short motion—a flick of his wrist, almost casual—
SHIIIIING.
—and suddenly it was much longer.
The blade extended, the white length sliding out of itself like a telescope opening, the red edge stretching to match. One meter. Two. Two and a half. It stopped at four, the tip now hovering near his bookshelf, gleaming with quiet menace.
—This blade can also shorten and lengthen itself up to double its base length. It can reach 4 meters and can become one meter or less to resemble a knife. It can extend mid-swing, retract mid-block—very unpredictable. This is very suitable for my fast movements while using the Sharingan to deliver swift, unexpected strikes.—
He retracted the blade with another flick.
SHINK.
Back to its original length. Obedient. Responsive.
And the final part—
He thought about it.
Just a thought. A simple, mental command: Return.
At that same moment, the sword directly transformed.
The blade dissolved into silver threads, the hilt contracted, and the entire weapon reshaped itself with a sound like shuffling cards—shfft-shfft-shfft—into a shape resembling a small spider. It was delicate, almost ornamental, its eight legs folding neatly against its body.
It crawled up his arm.
Tiptiptiptip. Its tiny feet made soft, pattering sounds against his skin as it ascended his forearm, crossed his wrist, and settled.
Then it wrapped around him.
Snap. Click. Settle.
Transforming into a shape resembling a watch. A sleek, dark band encircling his wrist, the spider's body becoming the face—smooth, unassuming, utterly innocuous.
At that moment, Obito smiled.
It wasn't his usual smirk. It wasn't sarcastic or guarded or calculated.
It was just... genuine.
He had managed to form a Shikigami that would help him in combat. It possessed several good abilities he could also use with cursed energy. It was a tool, a weapon, a partner—all in one elegant, deadly package.
And the best thing about this matter was that he had learned some swordsmanship arts through dealing with Yuta. Watching the boy train, spar, fight with Rika's power channeled through that ancient blade. Observing footwork, angles, timing. Copying what was useful, discarding what wasn't.
Not only that—now he felt he could trust himself to fight using a sword with copied techniques.
True, the matter needed some effort to learn it properly and integrate it with his other abilities. His movement style was built around speed and sudden acceleration, not the measured steps of traditional swordsmanship. He would need to adapt. Experiment. Probably fail a few times.
But it was certainly better than hand-to-hand combat.
His cursed energy level decreased too quickly through using brute force. Each reinforced punch, each explosive kick—they drained him. He needed something else. Something sharper. Something that would let him do more damage with less energy expenditure.
So, he thought of manufacturing this cursed weapon.
As for the reason he didn't go to the school's storage or request another weapon from the Zenin armory—
It was simply because he wanted to accomplish the weapon himself.
He possessed the necessary skills now, after understanding the books on cursed weapon manufacturing. The Sharingan had absorbed the knowledge. His hands had practiced the techniques. This was the result.
He wanted to make a weapon suitable for him. Something that fit his hand, his speed, his particular brand of violence. Better than having a weapon from the school—impersonal, standard-issue, made for generic sorcerers with generic needs.
This was his.
And beyond the practicality—beyond the efficiency and the combat advantage—there was something else.
He wanted to learn. To become more self-reliant. To prove, perhaps only to himself, that he wasn't just a guy with good eyes and borrowed knowledge.
He could make things too.
His smile lingered as he looked at his wrist, at the innocent watch-face that hid a blade waiting to wake.
---
On the other side, under the moonlight in the training field—
Slash. Thrust. Spin.
Thwack.
Maki's spear connected with the training dummy's torso, the reinforced wood splintering on impact. She pulled back, reset her stance, and struck again.
Thwack. Thwack. CRACK.
She stopped.
Her breathing was quiet but steady. Her muscles hummed with that pleasant, exhausted warmth that came from a good session. Sweat traced a slow path down her temple, catching the moonlight like liquid silver.
She remembered the scene of Obito in her mind.
Carrying those books. Those mysterious, suspicious equipment bundles wrapped in cloth. His face had been serious, focused—not his usual mask of smug indifference or calculated charm. He'd been thinking. Really thinking, the way a person does when they're planning something.
She didn't know what. She didn't care what.
Probably.
In the end, she breathed and said to herself, the words barely audible:
"Why would I even care about what that bastard is going to do?"
A pause.
The moonlight didn't answer.
At that moment, she stopped her thoughts—or tried to, forcefully shoving them into a mental box labeled Irrelevant—and decided to return to her room to rest a little.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Her footsteps on the gravel path.
The events of the past few days had become extremely exhausting for her.
She had almost died. Alongside Yuta. That memory sat in her chest like a cold stone—the curse looming, her spear useless against its armored hide, the inevitability of impact rushing toward her.
And then Yuta had moved. Had controlled Rika. Had saved her.
True, she handled the matter better than she would have in the past, especially after she had become calmer. The old Maki would have exploded at the boy for his weakness, for needing a crutch like Rika. The old Maki would have seen his power as an insult to her own lack of it.
But after she saw him manage to save her—after she watched him step forward when she couldn't—she began to think he wasn't that bad.
Just a little.
And at the same time, that didn't make her close to him.
Because he kept talking about Obito in a good way. "Obito-senpai helped me." "Obito-senpai gave me advice." "Obito-senpai isn't as bad as you think."
Something that didn't suit her.
So, she stopped him at that time. A sharp word. A cutting look. Enough.
Anyway.
He managed to finish that giant curse in the end with Yuta, who controlled Rika well. That was good. That was... acceptable.
But that only made her think:
—I have to become stronger in a better way. I have to learn how to hit the right spot for the core more effectively.—
Her grip on the spear tightened. The wood creaked softly in protest.
She swore she would become stronger again to reinforce her desire and passion for learning.
Even if it seemed more like a way to focus on the matter instead of thinking about her weaknesses at the moment. Even if the thought of 'weakness' made her jaw clench so hard her teeth ached.
But she certainly wouldn't back down.
And she certainly wouldn't let that bastard become stronger than her.
He only tied with her because she was tired from training at that time.
She was sure of that.
Absolutely sure.
True, his eyes made him able to see her movements and even predict where she would attack. True, he could sometimes copy others' physical skills after observing them—their footwork, their stance, their tells.
Something that angered her more than anything else.
Because she valued the effort she had to exert to learn these skills. The hours. The blisters. The failures. The sweat and blood and bone-deep exhaustion that came from dragging her body past its limits, again and again, because she had no cursed energy to fall back on, no inherited technique, no shortcut.
She had to earn every ounce of her strength.
While he did it only through eyes that could steal things.
Eyes that could steal.
Honestly, after a moment of thought—
That was very suitable for him.
Because he was despicable.
And those eyes were despicable.
---
Maki had been cursing Obito since morning.
All the time.
Even when she saw him in the hallway, she didn't look at him for a single moment.
Not because she was avoiding him. Not because she was afraid of what she might say.
She didn't look at him because she was afraid she would pounce on him.
Right then and there. Spear first, questions later.
But at the same time—
She couldn't help but think he had developed a lot.
His stance was different. His movements, even just walking, had that subtle economy of motion that came from serious training. His eyes—not the Sharingan, just his regular eyes—had a different weight to them. Less defensive. More... present.
Then she remembered the words she heard from him while she was pretending to be unconscious.
For more than three hours.
Three hours of lying perfectly still, her breathing slow and steady, her body relaxed. Three hours of listening to his voice—low, unguarded, raw in a way she'd never heard before.
How he said he was useless.
How he was trying to develop, trying to become stronger, trying to matter, and it still never felt like enough.
And then he began explaining that he was starting to look at himself and others differently.
As if they were fictional characters.
As if the world was a story being written around him and he was the only one who'd glimpsed the author's notes.
All that talk—
It made her imagine him as more crazy than he already was.
It didn't make her feel pity.
It made her feel disgusted.
But that didn't make the matter easy for her in terms of thinking.
She was a logical person. She dealt in facts, not feelings. And the facts were:
He seemed like a different person from the arrogant, smirking annoyance she'd first met. The shape he gave now—his demeanor, his caution, his weight—was that of a person who was hiding something. Something significant.
—I'll have to discover what he's hiding.—
She wasn't doing this because she was worried he would hurt himself.
Or because she was curious.
Or because a small, irritating part of her wondered what else he might say if he thought no one was listening.
She was doing this because he could cause harm to her colleagues.
And that was something she wouldn't allow.
True, they were fools for not listening to her warnings. They liked him. Trusted him. Saw his helpful senior act and didn't question what lay beneath.
But that didn't make her hate them enough to let them fall into this bastard's trap.
Whatever it was.
---
In the end—
She went to her room.
The door opened with a soft click. Closed with a softer thump.
She showered. Hot water, then cold. The ritual of cleansing, of washing away the sweat and the thoughts.
She dried her hair. Brushed it. The repetitive motions were soothing, almost meditative.
Before going to sleep, she lay in the darkness, staring at the ceiling.
Moonlight filtered through her window, casting pale rectangles across her walls.
She had decided.
The next day, she would go and confront him directly.
And even spy on his methods.
And what he was doing alone.
What those materials were. Why he brought them to his room in such obvious secrecy. Why she'd noticed—indirectly, through casual observation, not spying—that he hadn't come to the training field or left that place for an unusual amount of time.
She wasn't spying on him at that moment.
At least, that's what she told herself.
Her eyes closed. Her breathing slowed.
But her mind, stubborn and sharp, continued its quiet calculations long into the night.
---
The moonlight continued to stream through Obito's window.
It glinted off the red edge of the blade now resting innocently on his desk. The white surface reflected the silver light like a frozen pond. The crimson line along its edge seemed to pulse faintly, slowly, in rhythm with something only it could hear.
His Shikigami—his own creation—coiled around his wrist in its watch form, dormant but aware. A sleeping spider waiting for its master's call.
Obito himself was slumped in his chair, his head resting on his folded arms, his breathing slow and even.
He hadn't meant to fall asleep.
But exhaustion had finally caught up with him, dragging him down into dreamless darkness.
His fingers, even in sleep, rested lightly against the band on his wrist.
He didn't know that in another room, a girl with a spear and too many unanswered questions had just added him to her list of things to investigate.
He didn't know that her mind, sharp as her weapon, was already forming plans.
Approaches. Interrogation angles.
And he certainly didn't know that Maki Zenin never failed at anything she set her mind to.
The moonlight continued its patient vigil.
The sword waited.
And somewhere, in the darkness between rooms, a hunter was already sharpening her spear.
──────────────────────
End of Chapter.
──────────────────────