#atmwba

Once, Junpei saw a counsellor. Back when his worldview was a malleable thing and hope was a virtue he still subscribed to. She labelled his depression seasonable. SAD, a fitting acronym. Junpei reckoned you could label any emotion as seasonable; it was hard not to feel like raw garbage in the unforgiving Japanese summer, for instance.

Junpei didn't believe in therapy, but he wasn't one to blindly believe. He gathered evidence for his claims and hypothesised and synthesised results. He was so sure of his view of the world because of his methodology. His life was a chronology of the meaninglessness of suffering, of the randomness of hierarchy. Power went in hand with abuse, but there was no altruistic criterion to determine when power was owed. You had it, or you didn't.

Junpei didn't have power, to no fault of his own. Not good-looking enough, not strong enough, not popular enough - not born well enough. From the moment he entered the world with his genetics and his circumstances, his power was determined. Or his lack thereof, rather.

But Junpei wasn't depressed, so it was a moot point. He was indifferent. The optimal state of mind, as perfect as the human experience could get. The weather didn't follow his whims, and when it snowed too hard or rained too thoroughly, it only extenuated his emotions like anyone else's.

The rain had been rough last week. He hadn't been any more depressed for it.

Now the weather couldn't make up its mind. Torrential rain or sweltering humidity? Or perhaps it was a feedback loop. In this present moment, it chose to burn his pale cheeks ruddy as he detachedly observed his bullies pick on a new powerless target.

Was there solidarity in victimhood?

He watched the trio poke at the white rabbit with whittled-ended sticks. They'd broken its legs at some point, so it lay there in a slump, breathing heavily and twitching pathetically.

Was that him? A maimed rodent hapless to the whims of the sadistic? Were they brethren, brothers in broken arms? Was there supposed to be a metaphor here laid down by some higher power to reality-check him into changing his life? If you carry on down the path of least resistance, you'll lose something far graver than your dignity.

No. Junpei felt nothing for the rabbit. His eyes were dull, cataloguing, tired. Numb. From one pathetic victim to another: I despise you for being weak. For being born.

Hideyoshi sat on the nearby garden wall, whittling a stick sharper by driving it between the cemented grooves. His swinging legs stilled as a dog jumped up on the other side.

It was a small thing, as far as dogs go, and the temptation to switch targets visibly rolled over Hideyoshi's face in the twitch of his grin and squint of his eyes. But then it looked at him with what could only be described as unbridled disgust, if a dog were to be capable of such an ugly, human emotion.

The rabbit's torment had arrested Junpei for a good ten minutes, and he was confident he'd be undetected with his bullies so invested in the suffering of something soft and sweet. But a new sight caught his eyes at the sound of rubber scraping on tarmac.

Oh. Life was a contrived, scripted tragedy.

Read the rest on A03

Above is a screenshot from Chapter Six of And The Moon Will Bleed A New which has been formatted with CSS and HTML to look like a letter.

The contents are as follows:

Jujutsu Sukanbo

Office for National Security and Counter-Curse Operations

7-2, Marunouchi 3-Chome Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 103-8765

NSCCO

SER 08891

FROM: Montoku Jinshi, Jujutsu Sukanbo Counselor

TO: Seal Artist Kenji Ryo, JJSCC

SUBJECT: Identification of Unidentified Seal Craft

REF: (a) Case ATMWBA #99854-PROPH-9988-1273

(b) Cursed Site #77654-NAGANO-YAMATAN-0067

(c) Special Grade Curse #10340-SHINGETSU

(d) Investigation #88728-CRAFT-0003

(e) Cursed Object #88902-SUKUNA-07

1. Post-Op Team #02-NAGANO encountered elaborate unidentified seal craft in the village Yamatan, Nagano Prefecture. The Internal Jujutsu Sukanbo Seal Department was unable to identify or decontruct the reported seal craft.

2. Suspected purposes include: Curse detainment and subsequent destruction. Impartial seal of cursed object used as a lure. Concealment of a building. Offensive security system. Defensive security system. Area monitoring via trigger seals.

3. Suspected Artist: Special Grade Curse #10340-SHINGETSU

4. NSCCO requests JJSCC supervise project #88728-CRAFT-0003 to identify the function, construction, and origin of the reported unidentified seal craft.

Operation proposed by Special Grade Sorcerer Gojo Satoru, supported by Grade One Jujutsu Tech Principle Yaga Masamichi. Operation sanctioned by Jujutsu Sukanbo Counselor Montoku Jinshi.

Fearing the riot his body would put up in protest, he kept his sharingan closed while he cracked open his normal eye, only for it to stab his brain in the exact manner he was so used to from his sharingan.

“Whatever,” he huffed near inaudibly, testing his speech and finding his words scraping at his ears and his lips cracking around the syllables. Fresh blood wept from his bottom lip in a languid teardrop and, when he wiped it away, his torn gloved hands got caught on the friction of matte dried blood upon skin.

His hands slid from his bare chin and tangled in the remains of his mask, the black fabric dry and crusted and in no fit shape to be used. At least his headband was still in place, he mused as he pulled it down over both of his eyes.

He should be alert. He’d say panicked but that wasn’t his style. Those in the throes of panic were subject to impaired decision-making skills and flighty behaviour, the former Kakashi was admittedly guilty of on occasion and the latter a completely foreign feeling.

But as he catalogued how he was too exhausted to move, how his weapon pouch was almost empty, and how he had very little idea of where he was, he couldn’t find it within himself to quicken his thinking or heighten his senses. A crushing weight sat heavily on his chest and prevented him from doing so.

He thought Obito had come around, that Kakashi had gotten through to him. Foolish.

Kakashi may have spent a lifetime stood in front of that facade of a grave, sending words out to oblivion and building this terrific idea of Obito in his mind, an idol, a saint, but, to Obito, Kakashi was that same asshole who’d relentlessly bullied him in his youth and then went on to kill his comrades, purposefully or not.

As Obito was dying, lay in an alien tundra with a death bed of unforgiving ice beneath his spine, cold fingers, somehow colder than the frigid air, grasped onto Kakashi’s wrist. Obito smiled, so softly, so sweetly, a honeyed lie crystallised in blood-red sugar, as he sent Kakashi far away to a place where he had no hope of aiding his students and the rest of the shinobi world.

He couldn’t pinpoint how exactly he knew he wasn’t in the Elemental Nations, never mind Fire Country, but it was a piece of knowledge intrinsic to his very being, along with the feeling that his existence was fundamentally different now. Several somethings had shifted, and he wasn’t so sure of the composition of the world and himself within it.

With a ragged sigh, he took his freshly bloodied hand and formed the familiar sign ingrained in him from when Sakumo first showed him the Hatake ninken contract (his final gift, perhaps) and summoned Pakkun.

“Boss,” said a comforting voice tinged with worry after an uncharacteristic dark almost wet sound in place of the usual soft puff that accompanied summoning, “you don’t look good.”

“It’s the mask, isn’t it?” Kakashi croaked, a flickering smile weak as an oil lamp running on its last dregs struggling to light his lips, “I always knew I’d look terrible without it.”

“I can’t even see your face with all that blood, Boss,” Pakkun said with no semblance of humour, close to his right ear. “I’d clean it but I don’t like the taste of iron. Summon Bull and maybe a couple of the others so we can get you out of here. Hell, summon the whole pack, I think we need all the help we can get.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Kakashi said, adverse to his fingers which were already poised to summon. He’d never really been one for self-preservation, but he at least had to pretend at making an effort. “My chakra feels like… athletic sludge, and I can’t open my eyes.”

“Athletic sludge, Boss? Did you borrow that from your books?”

“No, but it sounds like I could’ve, hmm? Maybe I should try writing since… my favourite author... retired. I may be lacking in experience but I have a wild imagination to make up for it.”

“Gross. Just summon the pack, Boss.”

“You make it sound like I’m the one who should be calling you boss...” Kakashi mumbled, words slurring and tone bland but light. His bloodied fingers touched down onto concrete and that same dark sound signalled the summoning of his pack as a different darkness took hold of his consciousness.

There was an inkling in the back of his head that perhaps he might be dying, but his thoughts were so syrupy and slow that he didn’t think on his regrets, although he had many.