Chapter 52: Father and Son
The Uzumaki Rubik dragged his legs, which felt as if they were weighed down by lead, back to the familiar door of the Momoki house.
The house was quiet. Karin had gone to the medical division for training—her talent in healing ninjutsu seemed to be quite promising, and she had been studying diligently for the past few months. It appeared she hadn't returned today. At this moment, only he and Momoki were home.
Momoki was sitting under a lamp, reading. The soft light outlined her serene profile. Hearing the sound of the door opening, she looked up and immediately noticed the troubled expression on Rubik's face.
She set down her book without asking any questions, simply patting the cushion beside her gently. Rubik obeyed, walking over like a weary traveler finding his way home. He leaned his heavy body against her, then slowly lay down, resting his head on her warm, soft lap.
Momoki's slender, cool fingers gently threaded through Rubik's always somewhat disheveled black hedgehog-like hair. Her fingertips carried a soothing magic, stroking, again and again.
"Did... something happen?" Her voice was soft, as if afraid to disturb anything. "Why do you come back... looking like this?"
Rubik kept his eyes closed, merely shaking his head slowly. A vague, exhausted grunt escaped his throat. He didn't explain. Not a single word.
After a moment, he stirred. He didn't move away but instead propped himself up and wrapped his arms around Momoki, pulling her into an embrace. His chin rested on her soft hair, and the faint, reassuring scent that clung to her filled his senses.
He looked down at the woman who had given him the warmth of "home" in this shinobi world. His gaze was unusually tender, his voice low and tinged with a barely perceptible rasp:
"I'm fine... just... a little tangled up inside."
Momoki's cool, clear eyes gazed quietly at his face, so close to hers, as if trying to see past the exhaustion into the depths of his heart. After a few seconds, she uttered two flat words:
"Liar."
But she didn't press further. She knew there were corners of his heart that she couldn't—and shouldn't—easily touch.
She chose silent companionship.
She didn't struggle, only leaned more deeply into his embrace, resting her cheek against his firm yet tense shoulder.
And so they held each other in silence. The only sounds in the room were their soft, steady breaths. No words, no movement—just the quiet comfort of shared warmth.
Exhaustion washed over him like a tide. In this rare peace and warmth, the two of them somehow drifted off to sleep, still holding each other.
Time passed. The moon climbed high in the sky. Rubik woke first. Momoki was still sound asleep in his arms, her breathing even and long, her lashes casting faint shadows beneath her eyes.
Carefully, almost holding his breath, he lifted her in his arms and laid her gently on the soft bed, tucking the blanket around her with the tenderness one might reserve for a rare treasure.
Once Momoki was settled, Rubik found himself unable to sleep. He walked to the window, where moonlight poured in like liquid silver, stretching his shadow long across the floor. He sat in silence at the low table by the window and, from the sealing jutsu on his left hand, withdrew an old flask and two plain ceramic cups.
The clear liquor shimmered faintly in the moonlight as he poured. He placed one cup across from him—at the empty seat—and lifted his own. But he didn't drink.
He simply stared out at the bright, cold moon, his gaze deep and unfathomable, as if he were searching for some blurred answer in its light. His brow was heavy with an unshakable gloom.
In that moment of utter stillness, with only the moonlight flowing—
A figure emerged, as though peeled from the shadows of the wall itself, and appeared silently behind Rubik.
He wore the signature black robe with red clouds, and his orange spiral mask glowed eerily in the moonlight.
He stood there like a frozen statue, motionless, his breath seemingly merged with the night. An invisible, heavy, oppressive aura radiated from him—and beneath it, a hint of something almost like… hesitation.
Rubik kept his eyes on the window, as if oblivious to the presence behind him. After the heavy silence stretched on, he finally spoke, his voice calm and flat, yet cutting clearly through the night's stillness:
"Since you're here, sit down."
He tilted his head slightly, not fully turning around, but his unseen gaze seemed fixed on that mask.
"Whether it's you… or me…" Rubik's voice dropped as he looked down. "…we both have too many questions we want to ask each other, don't we?"
The figure behind the orange spiral mask stiffened, almost imperceptibly. As if Rubik's words had pierced some invisible barrier.
After a moment's silence, the masked man took a step. His pace was slow and heavy, each footfall like wading through invisible mud. He had never imagined this walk would be so difficult. He circled to the other side of the low table and sat down in the seat where the cup had been placed.
Once seated, he instinctively raised his head.
The cold moonlight fell unhindered across the young face on the other side of the table.
That unruly black hedgehog hair. That stubborn jawline. That certain gleam in the brow and eyes…
Behind the mask, in shadows unseen by any, his pupils contracted sharply. It was as if, through the dust of time, he glimpsed a distant, blurred reflection—yet one impossibly clear.
It was unmistakably… his younger self. The Uchiha Obito who had once dreamed of becoming Hokage.
He stared, momentarily lost—forgetting words, forgetting movement, forgetting the very purpose of his visit—as if that eight- or nine-tenths resemblance had dragged him into a bottomless vortex of memories.
The night deepened. The moonlight outside the window seemed to grow colder, flowing silently between them, illuminating the cups but unable to pierce the abyss beneath that mask.
What finally shattered the suffocating silence was a voice from behind the mask. It was no longer the deliberately flippant tone he had once worn, nor the coldness of "Madara." Instead, it carried a strikingly incongruous—almost clumsy—note of concern, and beneath it, an unmistakable, barely concealed unease:
"You… how old are you? And you're already drinking?"
He paused, his tone laced with a forced, elder-like disapproval, yet unable to hide the cautious probing beneath:
"Did… Jiraiya teach you that? …Drinking… is bad…"
"…"
Rubik's hand, holding the cup, froze mid-air. His expression was a masterpiece of bewilderment, absurdity, and a deep sense of being thrown completely off balance.
He barely stopped himself from laughing out loud in sheer exasperation. With great effort, he suppressed the inappropriate urge and let out an incredulous retort:
"You… that's your first question?!"
His brow furrowed in palpable displeasure. "At a time like this… shouldn't there be more important things to ask?!"
The masked man fell silent. Slowly, with extreme gravity, he shook his head—a gesture that looked stiff and awkward in the moonlight.
"No."
A surge of anger shot through Rubik's chest! Careful not to wake Momoki sleeping in the inner room, he forced his nearly explosive retort into a harsh whisper, yet the disappointment and sharpness in his voice could not be contained:
"You shouldn't ask?! Shouldn't you ask about Uzumaki Chino? About my mother?! Uchiha Obito!"
"…"
The figure behind the mask flinched violently, as if the name had struck him square in the heart. The carefully maintained aloof, cold facade crumbled in an instant. A hoarse, trembling voice squeezed out from beneath the mask:
"You… so… you already knew…"
"Did you think I wouldn't?!" Rubik's voice crackled with suppressed fury and scorn. "With this face of mine? The moment I set foot in Konoha, everywhere I went, I'd 'coincidentally' run into a masked white-haired guy! And every time, his opening line was always— 'Ah, the sun is lovely today, reminds me of someone who loved helping the elderly…' 'Ah, Obito—he was such an amazing ninja, always protecting his comrades…' 'Ah, this Sharingan—it was Obito who…' On and on! You'd think he was a fanatical missionary!"
Behind the mask, Uchiha Obito's temple vein bulged as he screamed internally:
'Kakashi Hatake! You useless, meddling idiot! You colossal fool!'
…
At that very moment, Kakashi, who was staying up late reading a novel, shifted in his sleep. Sensing something amiss, he scratched his rear absently, changed position, and continued reading…
Rubik drew a deep breath, as if trying to force down the emotions churning in his chest. He stared at the figure across from him—the man who, even with his identity exposed, stubbornly clung to his mask, as if trying to seal himself off from the world entirely.
A mixture of sorrow, anger, and a final glimmer of hope welled up inside him. His voice dropped, laced with a nearly weary resignation:
"After all this… you still wear that ridiculous mask in front of me? What's the point?"
He paused, his gaze piercing through the mask as if seeing straight into the eyes hidden behind it, and said, word by word, with crystalline clarity:
"Why not take it off?"
"…For Mother's sake…" Rubik's voice carried a barely perceptible tremor. "…Let us, these unfamiliar 'father and son'… have an honest talk. Just once. How about it?"
"Father and son…"
The word struck Obito's heart like the sharpest kunai, piercing his defenses without warning. His lips moved silently beneath the mask, repeating those two syllables over and over—each one searing into his soul like a red-hot brand.
'Father and son…?'
'I… a father…?'
'I… I have a child…?'
'I… I actually have… family…?'
The realization brought not joy, but an overwhelming, suffocating sense of absurdity—and fear.
A guy like me…
Hands already stained with blood…
Walking in the darkness… to create a world with Rin, to create a peaceful, correct world… I didn't hesitate to abandon myself, to abandon this false world…
And now… to find that in this world I deemed false, in this world I rejected… I have a continuation of my bloodline? A… family?
How ironic! How… ridiculous! How… cruel!
A chill deeper than the moonlit night seized him instantly. Icy despair coiled around his heart like poisonous vines, tightening with each beat, nearly choking him.
Behind the mask, that Mangekyō Sharingan—the eye that had once burned for Rin and then plunged into darkness for her—trembled violently, as if it might weep blood.
Rin…
If… if Infinite Tsukuyomi were truly completed…
In that illusory, beautiful world…
What face… what right…
Would I have to stand before you?
A father who cannot even face the mistakes he once made… who might even have pushed his own son toward destruction…?
The man behind the mask froze completely. He became like a stone statue, its soul suddenly ripped away—unable to move even a finger. Only the rapid rise and fall of his chest beneath the mask, and the faint, uncontrollable trembling of his body, betrayed the torment raging within.
He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. It was as if even the power of speech had been stripped from him by that word—"father and son"—and the ultimate, agonizing question that came with it: What would he say to Rin?
The moonlight remained cold. The cups remained cool. But the mask that separated truth from falsehood seemed, in that silent collapse, to have cracked—just a little.
The man named Uchiha Obito slowly removed his mask…