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Uchiha Obito is born on an early, cold winter night; he has strong lungs, a loud voice, and the name of his soulmate written right on his neck; his parents don’t have time to make out the name before the clan’s midwife does, and at that moment, the woman drops the baby in shock at what she sees. Uchiha Ho, Konoha’s police chief, manages to catch his son a second before the fall; his Sharingan spins instinctively, and the world becomes clearer; before he can yell at the woman, the name, written in sweeping kanji, is etched forever into his memory.
'Uchiha Madara', it looks like a signature, like a mark of ownership, like a death sentence for a child who hasn’t even lived an hour.
Uchiha Ho holds his breath, his skin turns pale, and his wife bleeds, bleeds, and bleeds.
His son’s birthday turns into a tragedy.
Twice.
Uchiha Hikaku looks at the child, who has a small nose and cheeks red from the cold; his black eyes open occasionally to take in the world, but finding nothing of interest, he falls back asleep — Hikaku’s lips twitch slightly, even though his shoulders feel heavier than ever, and his old bones creak with every movement.
There are many people around them, but Hikaku pays them no mind, rocking the innocent boy, who does not yet know the future that will be written for him; he thinks of the summer captured in his Sharingan: Madara is fourteen, he is thirteen, and Izuna is eleven, and they are running through the festival of the goddess Amaterasu, laughing like real children, not warriors; Madara’s eyes reflect handheld fireworks, and Izuna creates several fiery fireflies, the Sharingan spinning, spinning and spinning.
The boy looks at him again, his eyes large and black, and Hikaku feels every day he has lived in his ninety-eight years.
“Elder”, one of his students begins, “is that Uchiha Madara’s handwriting? The very same one?”
Hikaku doesn’t look at his student, who has aged just as much as he has, doesn’t look at his grandchildren, doesn’t look at Ho, who resembles Madara and Izuna so much in spirit and strength, doesn’t look at anyone except the child in his arms.
Rough, uneven strokes frame the right side of the child’s neck, and he recalls the hundreds of lessons Madara took as the clan’s heir to master calligraphy (why do I need this when I have you, Hikaku? — the short young man laughed, squinting his black eyes, knowing that Hikaku would never leave him alone with the paperwork).
Before he became the last of his generation, having outlived even the First and Second Hokage, there was no one who knew his cousin’s handwriting better than he did.
The child in his arms yawns sweetly, paying no attention to the commotion around them.
“No, that’s not my cousin’s handwriting”, he replies, weaving a lie into a lifeline, a reprieve for an innocent life that the world has already treated unjustly.
Many in the room breathe a sigh of relief.
Uchiha Hikaku is not ready to admit to himself that he is thinking about how the name on the child’s neck was not gray, as prescribed for the dead souls of kin; truly, he should not have believed in the death of his cousin without a body.
(“Why couldn’t you have been born ninety years ago?” Hikaku asks gently, rocking back and forth in his rocking chair, left alone with the baby, holding him in his frail, wrinkled hands. “Or at least seventy?” Hikaku tries to imagine it; they founded the village, Madara was depressed, angry, and his soulmate could have been born — though nearly thirty years his junior. “Though, of course, Madara would never have been able to accept that. Maybe he would have tried to raise you as a son”, Hikaku closes his eyes; he can see how Madara would have avoided the child, how Hashirama would have been happier for him than Madara himself, how Tobirama would have called him an even bigger bastard, how Izuna would have… right, Izuna was already dead. Old age blurs some of those years. “I apologize on his behalf”, he says quietly, pulling the child closer, looking once more at the sweet, round face, “even if you never meet, even if he never learns of you, even if he’s alive, even if he’s dead… I’m sorry”, Hikaku breathes, holding the child tighter to him, an indescribable sense of regret enveloping him. “I’m so sorry, child…”
This child deserves a better soulmate than his cousin, no matter how much Hikaku loves him.
He can only pray that they never meet; for the sake of both of them.)
Uchiha Obito grew up with bandages, scarves, or plasters around his neck — he had grown accustomed to them and hardly noticed them, except on the rare summer days when it was too hot.
Uchiha Obito grew up staring at someone else’s name and writing it out over and over, memorizing every stroke of fate’s hand on his skin, even if no one shared his enthusiasm, and his grandmother always looked at him sadly.
Uchiha Obito grew up with the clan’s eternal expectation that he would become as much of a genius as his father, as the name on his skin, as everything he never was — he simply wasn’t cut out for great deeds, no matter how hard he tried to get close to them, but, again, he would rather try and regret it than regret not trying.
He graduates from the Academy and meets a nameless girl, kind and gentle, and falls in love with her as easily as he ever has. He leaves the Academy and meets a boy, brilliant and cold, also nameless, but for some reason with a permanent mask on his face; Obito teases him. He forgets about the Academy and meets a man who becomes their sensei; he has sun-blond hair, sky-blue eyes, and red hieroglyphs around his wrist, which he quickly hides behind a wristband.
Their team isn’t the most functional, and they don’t always get along, but Obito trusts them and is willing to die for them — however, he refuses to listen to the clan elders’ complaints, which is why he never exposes his neck; it’s only natural for a shinobi to hide their soulmate, the sensei smiles, and Obito grimaces, deciding not to comment on it; by general consensus, his soulmate is either an impostor or a dead man.
Time passed, and he couldn’t even awaken his Sharingan, despite quite a few unpleasant things that give him nightmares.
It all ends and begins on a single autumn day, right after Kakashi’s birthday; death is never noble, and one is never too young to die—his right side is crushed, and for the first time, Obito doesn’t feel his mark; it strangely both liberates and depresses him; having lost the mark of his soul, giving up his eye somehow feels easier. He was lucky that the last thing he saw with that eye was Rin and Kakashi, alive and unharmed — not the worst ending for a shinobi.
Except that wasn’t the end.
“I couldn’t restore the name on your neck”, says an elderly voice as he comes to, unable to move. “I don’t know who it was, but I think you remember yourself”.
Obito turns his head with difficulty; everything hurts, his body feels wrong, and a stranger’s Sharingan is staring right at him; Obito knows who it is even before the old man introduces himself.
“My name is Uchiha Madara”, echoes the voice, and the Sharingan glows in the darkness.
Obito introduces himself in return.
But he doesn’t receive the same recognition.
His whole life is one big joke, really.