"He's late," said Kakashi flatly. "Again."
"I'm sure he'll be here soon." Minato grinned and ruffled Kakashi's silver hair, ignoring his student's scowl. Maybe-scowl. It was kind of hard to tell whether he was actually scowling or not under the mask.
Right on cue, Obito burst into the clearing. He bent over, panting. "Sorry I'm late, Sensei," he gasped out. "See, I was, uh-"
"Helping a little old lady cross the road? Getting a cat down from a tree? Chasing a thief who'd robbed the breakfast stand by the Uchiha District?" Kakashi interrupted, rolling his eyes.
"Ye- no! Of course not!" Obito snapped indignantly. "I was, uh... helping a guy who's supposed to be dead take over the world with an organization of S-rank ninja by, uh, capturing the nine demons and using their chatra-"
"Chakra," Kakashi corrected automatically.
Obito shot him a glare and continued, "-using their chakra to, uh, do something with the," he looked up, "moon, which would," he waved a hand randomly, "I dunno, do something. Cast an eternal genjutsu that would let me take over the world, I mean. Let me and the dead guy take over the world." He beamed. "Yeah. That was totally why I was late!"
Kakashi snorted and turned away, crossing his arms.
"You did all that in four hours?" said Minato.
Obito nodded eagerly. "Uh-huh! Because I'm just totally that awesome!"
"Who was the dead guy?" Rin asked.
Obito quickly blurted out the first name he thought of. "Uchiha Madara!"
*0*
"So, teme, what was that about me being a liar?"
Kakashi's brain stuttered to a screeching halt. "What?"
Naruto, cloaked in the Kyuubi's golden chakra, looked between Obito and Kakashi confusedly. "Kakashi-sensei? You know him?"
Obito looked mildly annoyed. He ignored Naruto and prompted, "You know, a couple of days before Kannabi Bridge, remember that?"
Kakashi did remember. He really wished he didn't.
"You called me a liar back then. Well, guess what? It's not a lie anymore."
"Actually," said Kakashi, still finding it difficult to accept that Obito was even more immature now than he had been as a chuunin but so used to finding flaws in everything his old teammate said that his mouth moved on its own, "it still is."
Obito blinked. "Huh?"
"You said you did it in four hours."
Obito thought this over. "Oh shoot, you're right!
"Guess I'll just have to start over."