.
.
She starts to wake. Obito catches his breath as he watches Rin shift, then stir, her legs curling beneath the thick comforters and soft bedsheets covering her. She is older than he remembers her, the same age as him, but she still has the same soft brown eyes.
Dressed in black, Obito blends into the darkness of the room. It is raining outside, and in the murky half-light of almost-morning, Obito can just see the contours of Rin's body, small and barely visible within the huge maw of the room's big bed. Above them, the cords to the Gedo Mazou twist in thick, heavy ropes, tangling and snaking around the floor.
xXx
.
The armies below them take no notice, even as they skirt the tall ridges of the cave. Rin flinches and smiles and clings to him, and Obito remembers that she is afraid of heights. Such a small, minute detail, something he probably would not have noticed. Once again, he is at awe by how real she is, the long-ago buried memory pushing its way to the surface.
He is still wearing his mask. Rin does not take notice; she leans forward, looking down at the army below them.
"Wow," Rin says. She clings to his arm. "You lead them all?"
"Yes," Obito says, and gently he moves them further back into the cave and mercifully away from the cliff's edge. "Everything here bows to the power of my eyes."
"Eye," Rin corrects him, and Obito is about to answer when Rin reaches up, gently brushes the edge of the mask with the tips of her fingers.
"Don't," Obito says. He gently catches her wrist, lowering her arm. "Not in front of the others."
Rin nods, and the move back into the private quarters, the door shutting quietly behind them.
There is a clock in the bedroom, which ticks softly, the only sound in an otherwise quiet room. Rin stands in front of him and Obito watches as she raises her hands to the sides of his mask, gently pulling it from his face and exposing his skin to the air.
He hears her breath catch. There is compassion in her eyes, like a dull ache, when she reaches up a steady hand to stroke the scarred side of his cheek. Obito watches. His skin is numb where she is touching him, tracing the bumps and ridges of old, tranplanted skin, and he tingles unexpectedly when she reaches a patch whose sensation is still intact, the small area just at the corner of his mouth.
"You've gotten taller," Rin says, and Obito doesn't smile, just watches impassively as she continues her examination of him. Gently her fingers map the contour of face and gently traces the line of his cheek, before moving to brush against the rope of muscle at his neck and collarbone. He can feel the warmth of her fingertips beneath the fabric of his shirt.
"This is not why I brought you here," Obito says, but Rin steps closer, one small hand lightly stroking the muscles of his stomach.
"Then why did you bring me here?" Rin says, and she reaches up, kisses the side of his neck, open-mouthed. "A reunion between old lovers?"
"We were never lovers," Obito says, and Rin steps back, hesitantly.
"Then why-"
"Don't," Obito says, and he lets his hands fall, gently cupping her on the shoulders.
"Do not think. I am happy enough just being beside you."
xXx
.
There is a ripple among the crowd: that their leader, nameless and faceless and altogether terrifying, has taken up a lover, a doe-eyed girl who follows him like an ever-present shadow.
"Tobi," Black Zetsu says, and Obito stops, turning slowly.
"This is unwise," Black Zetsu says. Obito's eyes narrow. "The girl is a liability."
"Everything is going according to plan," Obito says. He turns his back toward him, stepping forward.
"You shouldn't concern yourself with my personal affairs."
In the bedroom, Rin is smiling, oblivious and unaware of the danger in the room. He sees her and he wants to break her. Wants to snap her small wrists and mark harsh bruises against smooth skin. And when she rises to greet him, he knows just how easy it would be to hurt her. Kill her. Tear out her limbs and put an end to that self-indulgent whim.
She must have seen the look on his face, because quietly she moves to stand beside him, letting her hand rest against the nape of his neck.
"What's wrong?" Rin says.
Obito watches her. Darkly, he imagines her body, the large gash at the center of her chest, remembers the warmth and stickiness of old dried blood.
"Rin," Obito says, and she lifts her head. She is as beautiful as he remembered, soft strands of hair loosely framing her face.
"You look lonely," Rin says. And then,
"You look as if you're feeling sad."
Her fingers splay against his scalp, a calming, reflexive movement. Obito leans his head against her palm, closing his eyes.
xXx
.
She can't stop kissing him. She murmurs against his temple and presses soft, small kisses against his cheek and neck, her body pressing up against him and curling warmly beneath the bedsheets. Obito wills himself to forget. Forget her smile and laugh and the way she looked when she died.
"Obito?"
He turns and Rin shifts against him, holding him close. "Do you love me?" Rin says.
Her uncertainty, like everything else about her, is beautiful to him. A star-shaped crack at the center of a fractured glass.
"Of course I do," Obito says. He brushes back a strand of hair from her face, a subtle, arcing motion. "Everything I do is because I love you."
He reaches a hand and cups the side of her face. She looks up at him and her eyes are wet.
"I'm sorry," Rin says, and a tear slips.
"I'm sorry that I hurt you."
Quietly, Obito thumbs the tears at the corners of her eyes, tracing a fanning path toward the tender hollows of her cheeks. He gathers her close and kisses her, up and down the sides of her face and at the corners of both her eyes.
xXx
.
"Are you sure?" Zetsu had said, when Obito had told him of his plan. "Tobi. This doesn't seem like you."
"Do not question it," Obito said, and Zetsu agreed, frowning and crossing his arms.
There is a reason why he brought her back. Darkly, he watches as Rin sits in front of the mirror, brushing hair and smoothing it down the sides of her neck. He had never had any doubts; he had always had logic and reason to help guide his way.
"Rin," Obito says, and Rin looks up. The smile she gives him is luminous. Real.
"There is something I need to tell you."
The words, when they come, tumble out of him like torrents of waves.
xXx
.
He tells her about what he's seen. War. Famine. Pain. Children splayed against bayonets, mothers sobbing, the smell of smoke and sulfur and scores of dead bodies littering the blood-spattered ground.
"Do you see?" Obito asks, and he can almost imagine it: how Rin would rise, would let her arms press around his waist.
"Do you understand?"
"Yes," Rin would say, and she would rest her cheek against his chest.
"Yes, Obito. Of course I understand."
xXx
.
Once, he had traveled the worlds beyond the five allied nations. Trekked through deserts and suffered through frost. He had seen armies rise and nations fall, the drum-beat cadence of civilizations booming and bursting like burnt out stars.
There was no pain. Only the clarity of purpose to light his way.
Rin. The woman he loved. The woman for whom he would break apart worlds and shatter realities, the one for whom he would kill and destroy his soul.
She doesn't understand.
xXx
.
They stare at each other for what seems like years, before Rin finally opens her mouth to speak.
"You killed our sensei," Rin says. And then,
"You killed our sensei and started a war!
Why?" Rin says, and Obito closes his eyes. "You killed everyone. I don't understand-"
"I did it for you," Obito says, and Rin cries out as if struck. "I did it all for you!"
"You're crazy," Rin says.
"Rin-"
"You're a monster, don't touch me!" Rin says.
Rin shrieks. She lurches forward but he grabs her. Catches her hand, shoves her against the wall.
"She wouldn't," Obito says, and Rin cries out, his grip tightening against her wrist. "She wouldn't say that to me," Obito says, and his voice is low, dangerous.
"She wouldn't?" Rin says, and she starts to laugh. "Why wouldn't she? You're a freak!" Rin says. "A freak and a pathetic excuse for a man! And to think that I had slept with you-"
He strikes her hard across the face. Rin crashes against the floor.
Obito grabs her. Yanks her upright, slamming her against the wall.
"You're not her," Obito says. He grips her by the neck, watching her. "You pretend to be, but you're not her."
"Obito." The name is choked out as Rin wheezes for breath. "Obito, please-"
"Useless," Obito says. "A worthless self-indulgence. I should have listened to him, earlier."
"Obito-"
He snaps her neck with one swift movement, and her body drops on the ground.
xXx
.
"Why?" Zetsu had said, after Obito detailed his plan. "Tobi this doesn't seem like you."
"Consider it a form of penance," Obito had said, and quietly he pulled out the only scrap of Rin that he has left: a ribbon, faded and frayed and covered with old dried blood.
"Do it as a favor to me."
Foolish, self-indulgent idea. Obito's hands are shaking when he crouches over her body, cursing himself and his lack of self-control.
Around him, shadows darken and turn, and it's only until a moment passes, when his heartbeat slows and his breathing begins to even, that Obito realizes that he's crying. He raises a shaky hand to his face, before squeezing his eyes, hands gripping tufts of hair and falling to his knees. In front of him, the body is already changing, the hue of Rin's skin slowly draining color.
Horrible, stupid, self-indulgent. Obito clutches his head and cries, forehead against the chest of the dead Zetsu, its dead pale eyes staring across the room.
xXx
.
They hugged and kissed and then they made love, and afterwards Obito tried not to smile when Rin nudged her head against Obito's chin, nestling comfortably against him. The room was bathed in soft moonlight, and even without his Sharingan activated, Obito could trace the soft curve of her hip beneath the covers, relishing the feel of her body pressed up against his.
He will tell her everything. And he knows that she will understand.
end.