Obito in stages.
Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me.
Obito is nearly three decades old, tearing himself out of the joint Mangekyō illusion, and Kakashi, is almost certainly just moments behind him. The battlefield is a chaotic display of shinobi, chakra and summons, the dead and the living united.
And-
-and there are several bright chakra signatures racing towards him, but Minato is there-
Truly, he shouldn't be surprised. Between the Edo Tensei and Madara, just about everyone here has one foot in the grave- He thinks. There's a empty circle in his chest where Kakashi put his fist through it, and really, Obito thinks that his former teammate might want to look at the pattern with that technique.
Obito is all of nine years old, rushing towards the Academy, and he's sure he's late, and-
-Nohara Rin, and Uchiha Obito, are assigned with Hatake Kakashi, under Namikaze Minato at training ground seventeen-
There are two figures waiting for Obito and Rin in the training ground; a shorter boy with a ridiculous shock of silver hair sticking straight up, Hatake Kakashi, and a lean young man relaxed against the posts. Their future sensei turns toward them, all wild sun-gold hair and gleaming blue eyes and-
Madara is crouched on a slab of rock, fingers twisted into a hand sign, and Obito's chest is burning. Just beyond that he can see Sensei, Minato, handsome visage marked with the Edo Tensei's cracks.
The battlefield is blurring in front of him, the air charged with killing intent, dust and bijuu chakra.
-Sensei is brilliant, Obito thinks, and while Rin is wonderful, her crush on Kakashi is infuriating. Really, Kakashi isn't all that great, just genius and everything-
They're walking away from him. It's just a training exercise, but the sight of Rin and Kakashi's backs moving farther and father away from him is-
There is a light, warm hand on his shoulder, and Minato-sensei's long delicate fingers are barely brushing his throat. The leaves seem to still in the air as Obito turns toward his teacher.
The chakra signatures are growing closer, and he can practically feel Madara's smirk.
"Rin," Sensei says. "you love her, right?" His touch is suddenly white-hot on Obito's skin, and he feels himself flushing. Sensei's smile is a somewhat self-deprecating quirk of his lips, but his hand is reassuringly firm against the child-soft skin of Obito's jaw. "Don't give up."
Madara's chakra receivers are slicing out of his right arm, syphoning scorching foreign chakra around his coils. Obito wants nothing more than to stop, but there is no stopping. Not here and not now. Not when the bijuu are practically bursting-
Admiration, Obito thinks. I admire him. Because Obito declared he wants to be Hokage, and Sensei isn't scoffing. He doesn't tilt his chin snidely like Kakashi does, and honestly, unlike Rin, he doesn't seem sceptical or dubious. "Don't give up." He says, but Obito thinks that he's also saying a host of other things, underneath that phrase.
Minato's eyes glitter and he knows-
"We'll be Hokage." Sensei says and Obito wonders at the layers in his tone. There are a thousand words underneath, and the meaning is-
"Right Obito?" Minto says, in front of him, burning, scorching, white-hot-
-slicing through muscles and bones and ligaments in Obito's right shoulder and twisting.
Something isn't right. Just a little off-sync, wrong and-
The Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique dissipates into nothing. Obito thinks that this is what it means to lose yourself. To become something other.
Jinchūriki. Is the word on Minato's lips.
Kakashi and Rin are barely two shadows in the distance, and Minato-sensei is looking at him, bright and terrible like the sun. Like life and death and-
"Right Obito?"
"Right Sensei!"
Author's Note: Fairly vague and sketchy, and really, doesn't make much sense unless you've read up to manga chapter 637.