Obito's mother had been orphaned at birth, and she had always told Obito that in all her life, nobody had ever wanted her. "This is important," she said, dropping a kiss on his forehead, "because you will be different. I will always want you. I love you."
"Love you too, Kaa-san," said Obito absently before wandering off in search of his toys.
"Promise me you will never be a shinobi," Obito's mother had told him, even as he learned to make a flame hover above his hand and change the color of his hair at will. "Even being a ronin is better than having a master."
"Okay, Kaa-san," said Obito as he made a leaf stick to the tip of his nose.
"Stay away from nobles," Obito's mother whispered on her deathbed, her hand skeleton-thin yet clutching Obito's with all the desperation of one who would never see her son again. She pressed something into his hand - her necklace, the one he had never seen her take off. "They will bring you nothing but pain."
"Yes, Kaa-san," rasped Obito, and sat vigil until the last rattling breath left her body.
Obito was well known in his village as the bastard son of some shinobi noble who had swept Obito's mother off her feet one day and abandoned her the next without ever telling her his clan name. And at age eleven, newly orphaned and all alone in the world, Obito learned that his mother had been wrong. She may have loved him, but she was no longer in this world. And in this world, nobody wanted Obito.
At eleven years old, Obito was a survivor.
With three months and two villages between him and his mother's grave, Obito came across the bright idea to illusion himself into looking like a blind kid so people would take pity on him and give him food or money. Okay, so it was kind of a dick move, but Obito hadn't eaten a solid meal in nearly a week, and dumpster scraps definitely weren't cutting it.
He didn't want to straight up steal. The thought left an uneasy feeling in the back of his mind, like he was letting his mom down somehow. And fine, so maybe pretending that he was blind wasn't much different but those people at least gave him stuff of their own free will - and in any village, the people were always a little more sympathetic to the more pathetic.
Obito had just a backpack full of clothes and his mother's necklace to his name, but that was enough. He had the perfect scam. Everything would work out fine.
"You're not blind."
Obito panicked, cursing whatever impulse had led him to travel to Konoha, aka the heart of shinobi headquarters in Hi no Kuni, you godsdamned idiot. "Wow, look at the time," he blathered. "Haha. Because you can't see time and I can't see. Anyways, I gotta go!" He jerked to his feet and bolted.
An iron grip on his wrist yanked him back and Obito yowled in alarm as his illusion dropped. "Let go of me, you creep!" he spat, whipping around to confront his attacker.
The boy holding his wrist was even shorter than Obito, wearing clothes that were plain but finely cut, and had a shock of messy grey-white hair and eyes colder and harder than he'd seen on grown men. An involuntary shudder ran down his spine. Shinobi. "That was a henge," the shinobi said flatly. "How do you know how to do that? You're not of a noble clan, or you wouldn't be grubbing in the dirt like a pig."
Obito pulled uselessly on his trapped arm. "What do you care," he sneered. "Chakra use isn't illegal."
The boy surveyed him clinically. "Right," he said. "You're coming with me."
"The hell I am!" Obito snapped, digging in his heels, but the boy dragged him in his wake effortlessly. "Who do you think you are? You can't do this!"
"I'm a sworn shinobi of Konoha and a chakra-user, making me a member of a noble clan," the boy pointed out. "I caught you running a scam on the streets. This is well within my rights."
Damn. Obito resigned himself to a night in lockup and stumped after the shinobi with ill grace.
The on-duty desk shinobi greeted them with a barely-concealed sneer. "Hatake-dono," he said, and Obito almost did a double-take at the derision in his voice. "Is this a new prisoner you've brought us?"
"Yes," said Hatake indifferently. He planted a hand in the center of Obito's back and shoved him forwards. "Hold him indefinitely."
"What?" squawked Obito, outraged, as two shinobi in the severe uniform of the police force stepped forwards to seize him by the arms. "The hell do you mean, indefinitely?"
But Hatake had already turned away to the desk shinobi's half-simpered, "As you wish, Hatake-dono," and Obito was left glaring at the back of his stupid grey hair as the guards dragged him off.
Three hours into his confinement, Obito was bored practically to tears. The guards had made him stop practicing his dolphin calls after twenty minutes, even though he had a cell all to himself with fully enclosed walls that made the echoes bounce beautifully all over each other, because they were all uneducated beetles with no appreciation for art. He'd already counted all the tally marks and read all the crude comments his prisoner predecessors had scratched into the walls and added mental commentary because he didn't have anything to scratch concrete with because he hadn't been here long enough to rate a nice prison-style meal.
Hour four brought handstands, a brief and ill-fated attempt at breakdancing that left him nursing a tender lump above his eye, and and even briefer attempt at meditation. Flopped on the thin mattress pad with a collection of suspicious lumps and stains, Obito stared glumly at the metal bars, and beyond them, the heavy door set in the wall that remained resolutely shut no matter how hard Obito glared at it. It was taunting him with its silence and its distance and its immobility. "Yeah, screw you too," he snapped aloud.
At that moment, the door swung open, and for a moment Obito felt a rush of elation at the guards, no doubt, coming to tell him that there was a big mix up and he could totally go and they were super sorry for locking him up in the first place, and hey, how about they buy him a big bowl of soba to make up for it?
What he actually got was the stupid shinobi kid with the stupid grey hair sauntering into the room beyond the bars and drawling, "That was uncalled for."
Obito jumped to his feet and increased the intensity of his glare. "You!" he snarled. He wound himself up to really give this smug little shit a piece of his mind but then a bright-eyed elf - no, angel - drifted in after Hatake and turned Obito's thoughts from a roiling ball of rage to a goopy mess of wow, she's pretty.
Hatake ruined Obito's dreamy bliss by saying, "Hey, moron. I'm going to keep you. You're welcome."
Obito's brain flipped back to murderous rage so quickly it gave him whiplash. "The hell does that mean, you bastard?" he spluttered.
"Kakashi," the girl said reprovingly. "He's not one of your hounds. You can't just adopt him."
"I am the Hatake Clan Head," Hatake dismissed. "I can do exactly that."
"Hey!" Obito snapped indignantly. "What about what I want?"
Hatake stared at him as if he had grown an extra arm. "You don't want to get out of that cell?"
"No! Yes! I want you to let me out so I can get back to my own life," Obito growled.
Hatake crossed his arms. "You were living on the streets and stealing. It's been more than a month since your last bath."
Unfair. Obito had dunked himself in the river a week and a half ago. "Eleven year olds can't exactly get jobs," Obito retorted. "What should I do, starve?"
"Three squares and a warm bed if you enroll in the shinobi academy," Hatake countered. "Anyone over age five and under thirty can do it."
"Screw that," said Obito emphatically.
"Look," the girl cut in as Hatake's eyes narrowed. "What's your name? I'm Rin."
"Obito," he answered grudgingly, not overlooking the omission of her clan name.
"Obito," Rin repeated. "Kakashi's actually offering you a pretty good deal. If you're a ward of his clan, you can get a roof over your head and an education no matter what your background."
Obito squinted at her. He would much rather live with the pretty girl than the surly bastard who threw him in here in the first place.
"He can do that because he's the head of his clan," Rin added, as if she could hear his thoughts. "I'm somewhere around fortieth in line for the position in my clan."
Ugh. Obito had the worst luck in the history of luck. He glared at Hatake, who had the nerve to raise a condescending eyebrow. "Fine, whatever," he snapped. "Just get me out of here."
"That's no way to talk to your clan head," Hatake said dryly, and grunted when Rin elbowed him in the ribs.
"Quit antagonizing him, Kakashi," she admonished, and turned such a bright smile on Obito that for a second it took his breath away. "I'm going to find our sensei. Try to get along, boys."
Obito, still slightly stunned, grew faintly aware that Hatake was glaring at him from his periphery. "Don't even think about it."
"She's the most beautiful creature in the world," Obito blurted, and promptly turned a bright red.
"Obito," Hatake growled.
The two of them were still stuck in the most horrifically awkward tableau of Obito's life when Rin reappeared, a tall man with a plume of sandy blond hair at her back. She took one look at them - Obito still blushing, Hatake puffed up like an angry cat - and slapped a hand over her face, muttering something unintelligible under her breath that made the taller shinobi laugh.
"Well," the shinobi said brightly. "This promises to be interesting. I'm Minato, from the Namikaze Clan." The last part, he directed at Obito. "I'm Kakashi's jounin sensei." Like both Kakashi and Rin, his clothes were simple and lightly padded, hinting at the armor hidden underneath.
"Obito. Nice to meet you," Obito said halfheartedly. What was this man so happy about? There was nothing about this situation that was happy.
"Let's get you out of there, Obito-kun," Minato said cheerfully, and stepped up to the door.
It was a trap. It had to be a trap. Wasn't it a trap? But the door unlocked with a click when Minato sent a pulse of chakra through the seal-lock and it swung open. Obito watched, warily, but Minato didn't laugh in his face and slam the door closed again, and the room beyond the bars remained empty of any guards charging in.
"Are you coming out or not?" drawled Kakashi, all but tapping his foot in impatience.
"Shut up, Bakashi!" Obito snapped.
Kakashi blinked once, slowly.
"Yeah, you heard me," Obito blustered, crossing his arms over his chest defensively and making no move towards the tantalizingly open door.
"Don't rush him, Kakashi," Rin admonished gently from behind him. "He doesn't trust us yet."
Gorgeous and smart and understanding, everything stupid Kakashi wasn't. She just had to be an angel.
Tentatively, Obito edged towards the door. He took one step out of the cell, then another. Nothing happened. "Ha!" he crowed, hopping the rest of the way into the room. "Take that, suckers!" He bolted straight out into the cell block hallway without a second glance. Rin let out a muffled yelp behind him, and okay, he kind of felt bad about ditching her, at least, but join some noble clan? He didn't think so.
His flight to freedom was cut short when he turned the corner and ran straight into someone's chest. Breasts, to be exact. He bounced off of them with a quiet, "Oomf," and was instantly snagged by the shirt collar.
"Oi," the woman said mildly, giving him a little shake as he dangled. "Where do you think you're going, squirt?"
Obito went for his best, most charming smile. "Didn't see you there, sorry," he chirped. "I, uh, gotta run." He flailed his legs uselessly to demonstrate his urgent need to get the hell away from there. He threw a glance over his shoulder, but Bakashi and company hadn't caught up with him yet. If he was quick, he could probably make it out the front door before they even thought to get off their metaphoric asses to chase him.
The woman tossed her impressive mane of fiery red hair over her shoulder with a jerk of her head. "You're Obito, aren't you?"
Ah, crap. Now that Obito was actually looking, he could see the armor plating in her hakama - kunoichi, probably someone that ditzy shinobi, Minato, knew. His eyes darted to her hands - calloused - and then to the hilt of a sword peeking over her shoulder. He swallowed. "No?" he tried.
The kunoichi barked a throaty laugh. "Sure. Why don't you come with me?"
"I'd really rather not," Obito argued halfheartedly, even as he was frogmarched back the way he came. Worst luck ever in the history of luck.
The kunoichi summarily ignored him. "Oi, Minato!" she shouted. "You lost something?"
Minato wandered - there was no better term for it, to Obito's dismay - out of the room that had housed Obito's cell with a sheepish expression on his face. "Oh, good, you found him. Thanks, Kushina."
"You can let me go now," Obito said plantatively.
Kushina dropped him, a supremely unimpressed expression on her face. "This is the stray the brat wants to adopt?" she asked.
"I'm not a stray and no one's adopting me," Obito retorted, wobbling from the unexpected landing.
"Yes," corrected the grey-haired little shit, sliding out from behind Minato. Obito glared at him balefully.
"Oh good, you found Kushina-sensei!" Rin beamed. She was a much more welcome sight and seeing her again was probably the best thing about Obito's failed prison break. "Kushina-sensei's my jounin sensei. She's the best!"
Obito had just enough self restraint to rescue his face from a dopey grin. "Uh, yeah," he managed.
Kushina eyed him critically. "He doesn't seem too bright," she said dubiously.
"Hey," Obito snapped, offended.
"He's not," droned Kakashi.
"Hey," Obito snarled, and lunged.
There was a thing that nobody did because it was plain dumb and that thing was trying to attack a fully-trained shinobi who could manipulate chakra. Since Kakashi was at most half-trained, Obito could argue that he wasn't completely dumb. The element of surprise from the aforementioned trying to attack a shinobi was dumb blah blah caught Kakashi off guard, and with a flash of vindictiveness, Obito caught a glimpse of wide grey eyes before he tackled the motherfucker into the wall.
Or tried to, at least, because Obito found out the reason nobody tried to tackle noble shinobi when Kakashi whirled faster than he thought possible, ducked under his reaching arm, and slammed him into the wall, knocking the air from his lungs. He let go and stepped back, leaving Obito wheezing against the wall. Stupid godsdamned child soldiers.
"Ouch," said Kushina, looking distinctly pained and somewhat constipated. "That was sad. I see what you mean - he definitely does need training."
"Why don't we get going?" Minato suggested desperately as Rin chewed her lip worriedly in the background. His smile was beginning to look fixed. "We can get Obito-kun settled in his new home - "
Obito snarled wordlessly.
The thing about nobles was that given their abilities and status, very few people questioned them. This meant that Obito's pleas to the guards and the shinobi at the front desk - "I'm being kidnapped, you can't let them take me!" - went ignored, particularly when paired with Minato's embarrassed laugh and placations. Worse, Rin and Kushina left for some sort of important training, with promises to drop by for dinner, so that left Obito with his new mobile jailer and his jailer's teacher.
Obito sulked after Kakashi, kicking at the loose rocks at random as Minato sort of herded him towards the edge of the village. Konoha was the biggest city he'd ever been in, but his enthusiasm and curiosity had been severely dampened by four hours in prison and, oh yeah, getting freaking adopted by someone his own age. Weren't there rules against that? It was majorly weird.
"We're here," said Kakashi abruptly.
Obito looked up and stared. He glanced back at Kakashi dubiously. "You're joking."
"He's not," said Minato apologetically. "These are the Hatake Clan grounds."
"This is a rich person prison," Obito protested. Wrought iron gates, stone walls at least two meters high, a freaking koi pond? Who even had those anymore?
Kakashi shoved open the gates and stalked in. Obito threw a wild glance over his shoulder but Minato was still, probably on purpose, standing in his flight path.
The compound had the kind of understated elegance that rich people had when they pretended they weren't really that rich but still liked nice things. There were also at least a dozen buildings, but Kakashi had gone straight for the big one at the center, which by deductive reasoning Obito figured must be the Clan Head's.
The rest of the compound, however, was eerily quiet. Even shinobi made noise, didn't they? "Ne, Minato," he said. "Where's everyone else?"
Minato looked grave and a little tired, absent his usual cheerfulness as he looked out over the empty grounds. "There's no one else," he said. "Kakashi is the last of the Hatake."
"He's what?" Obito blurted, glancing reflexively towards Kakashi's back as the other boy vanished through the front door of the main house. "That - that sucks." It almost made Obito feel bad for the jerk. Okay, yeah, Obito did feel bad for him, because Obito had been only been alone for three months and he was a complete mess, and Kakashi carried himself like he was used to it, like he had been for a long time.
Minato mustered up a smile that looked a little more forced than usual. "How about we check out the house," he suggested. "You can pick out a room."
When Obito stepped into the foyer - what a rich person thing to have, a foyer - Kakashi was nowhere to be seen, but his boots were lined up neatly on a shelf to one side. Obito glanced down at his own feet self-consciously. His shoes were straw sandals, half falling apart and muddy from the road. He toed them off tentatively, but his feet were just as grimy. The hardwood floors were smooth and pristine, and it seemed to Obito that getting them dirty would be super rude.
And then Obito remembered just which bastard's house this was and didn't feel so bad about messing up the floors after all.
"Here, I'll give you the tour," Minato offered, and Obito followed him readily.
The doorway at the end of the foyer opened to a sitting area, with low couches scattered artfully at the edges of the room and a kotatsu in the corner formed by two of the couches. On the wall hung an array of blades, from daggers the size of Obito's hand to a broadsword taller than he was. On the raised shelf below them, to Obito's incredulity, was a zen garden, featuring bonsai, tiny grey pebbles, and white rock accents, running the length of the room.
He stared at the zen garden, then the weapons. What the frick kind of messed up humor - nobles. Mad as a box of frogs.
"Through here is the kitchen," Minato announced, pulling Obito out of his thoughts before the hysterical laughter could bubble out of his mouth.
Obito's entire house could have fit in Kakashi's kitchen. He was beginning to realize this might be a trend.
The building wrapped around a small garden, enclosing it and its tiny, too-perfect sakura tree and running stream dripping moss and actual godsdamned mini waterfall into a koi pond. Obito kind of hated it a little because it was super pretty and okay, he really liked it, and he hated that he liked it.
The rest of the downstairs held a dining room, two bathrooms, a library, meditation room - "Guest meditation room, actually," Minato corrected, and some weird hybrid between an office and a living room "for receiving guests."
"There's also the west and east wings," Minato explained, "But they're mostly more sitting rooms and viewing rooms and courtyards, so people don't really go there. Bedrooms are upstairs; follow me."
Obito had realized, objectively, that the house had a second level - but a house that had so many extra rooms that they had to close off entire wings? Mind boggling.
Compared to the downstairs, the hallways upstairs were narrow and dimly lit, the windows overlooking the enclosed garden covered by wooden blinds. Minato wandered down the hall, sliding open the doors that broke the monotony of the blank white walls on the opposite side. "Bedroom, bedroom, meditation room, bathroom, bedroom," he narrated.
Obito peeked into each one as they passed. The bedrooms looked more or less the same - a window spanning nearly the entire length of the wall, a wide, low platform with a futon and blanket folded neatly at the head, a set of wooden drawers matching the platform, a desk and chair, two lamps, and a small table on which was a potted plant.
The plants were, to the one, dead.
Minato rubbed his head sheepishly when Obito pointed them out. "Uh, yeah," he said. "There's a lot of house to do maintenance on, and, uh, those kind of slipped through the cracks, I guess."
"Cool. Cool, cool," said Obito, quickly sliding the door to the last houseplant grave closed.
"Here's Kakashi's room." Minato slid whisper-soft fingers across the next door, passing on without opening it. Obito scuttled past with no small relief, because seeing Kakashi again was as low on Obito's list as seeing Obito apparently was on Kakashi's. "This one's mine."
"You have a room here?" Obito blurted, following Minato into the bedroom. It was visibly more lived-in than the rest of the spare bedrooms. Clothes overflowed from half-open drawers. There was a bookshelf that did not match the rest of the furniture; half the shelves had a mishmash of books, the other half had weapons and supplies. There was a sheathed katana on the desk, a bizarre handful of large, three-pronged knives on the table, and a plate with orange peels on the futon platform. Most tellingly, his houseplant - a bushy thing with upright stems covered in tiny green leaves and white flowers - was alive and thriving.
"I live here," Minato explained easily. "The Namikaze are sworn to Konoha, but we're a nomadic clan so we don't have an actual compound. I have to stick around Konoha since I took on Kakashi as my apprentice, so he offered me a room."
"Kakashi couldn't have come with you?" Obito asked curiously. "Doesn't the apprentice usually follow the sensei?"
Minato hesitated a split second too long. "This was a bit of a special case," he said evasively.
Wow, suspicious much? Weren't shinobi supposed to be good liars?
"What's his deal, anyways?" Obito asked, leaning in to examine the strange knives a little closer.
"Who - Kakashi?" Minato frowned. "What about him?"
Obito gestured vaguely at the air. "What's with him? Like - " he turned to face Minato, suddenly frustrated at this cozy room in this crazy house in this rich person compound. " - what kid finds another kid on the street and just adopts him? That f - friend doesn't even like me!"
Minato sighed, his shoulders slumping. "He did it because he knows what happens to shinobi orphans," he explained gravely. "Especially those without a clan to protect them."
Uh oh. That was suitably ominous. "What - what happens to them?" Obito asked tentatively, suddenly getting the feeling that he really didn't want to know.
Minato paused for a long moment, staring blankly at the cheerful plant on the table next to Obito. "Of the shinobi sworn to serve Konoha, there is a secretive black ops sect called Ne. Its leader recruits orphans, secures their loyalty with a cursed seal, and erases their identities, their sense of self. He moulds them into emotionless killing machines and sends them on the most dangerous missions." He sighed, regret and something like grief at once. "Most don't live past their eighteenth birthdays."
The hair prickled on the back of Obito's neck. "And - and how does Kakashi know this?"
"Because the leader - Shimura Danzo - came after him when his father died," Minato said heavily. "When Kakashi was alone and grieving. Danzo had him for nearly a year. He barely made it out, and only with the intercession of the Hokage."
That...maybe explained a bit about Kakashi. Obito's life was a freaking walk in the park compared to getting abducted by some creepy pedophile who wanted to make him into a weapon.
"A kid - especially one with noble blood like you - you'd have been snatched up as soon as Danzo got word you were in the city," Minato continued.
"I don't - I'm not a noble," Obito protested weakly, trying to ignore the heavy feeling in the pit of his stomach. Fear. That's what it was, probably.
"You can mould chakra," Minato said kindly. "And so easily - at least one of your parents had to have been noble. Look," he continued. "You're under Kakashi's protection now, and by extension mine and the Hokage's. No one can touch you now."
"Great," said Obito halfheartedly.
Minato laughed. "Come on, is it really that bad? Living with us."
"I don't know. You're kind of a slob," Obito noted, eyeing the plate of orange peels warily.
The shinobi turned an interesting shade of red. "Oh, you haven't picked out your room yet," he said quickly, shuffling Obito back in the direction of the door with the advantage of his superior height and bulk. Obito had no choice but to stumble back out into the hallway, rattling against the blinds on the windows as Minato brushed out past him, sliding the door to his bedroom shut hastily. "Here we go," said Minato with false cheer, strolling around the corner.
"This one," Obito said immediately when he peeked through the next open door. He threw himself forward in a flying leap. "Actual mattress," he moaned, his face buried in said mattress. "I'm in love."
Minato chuckled above him indulgently. "This is the only room with a mattress," he said. "They're not usually popular with guests."
"They don't know how to appreciate soft things." Obito rolled over to take in the rest of the room. Aside from the mattress, it looked virtually identical to every other room. He could see the sakura tree in the garden below, and the roof on the opposite side of the compound. On the table was a square grey pot, with a spiky green thing protruding from its mouth. "Hey, the plant's still alive," he noticed aloud.
"So it is," said Minato, sounding about as bemused as Obito felt. "Ah - it's an aloe. Desert plant," he explained. "It doesn't need much water."
"Nice," Obito said appreciatively. "Speaking of water - can I take a bath or something? I don't want to get the blankets dirty." Even so, he made to move to get up. Oh, gods. The bed was so soft.
"Oh. Of course," Minato said. "Let me grab some extra clothes for you too."
Fine by Obito. He had no particular love for this set of clothes, and his spares - ah, shit. "Uh, what happened to my backpack?" He was almost afraid to ask.
Minato looked embarrassed. "The, er, the shinobi at the jail burned it. Apparently there was some concern over a biohazard - ?"
"They what?" Obito screeched, feeling the blood drain rapidly from his face.
"I saved this though," Minato said quickly, whipping something out of an inner pocket in his hakama.
The pouch with his mother's necklace. Obito snatched it out of Minato's hand, clutching it tight to his chest and squeezing his eyes closed. "I'm sorry, it won't happen again," he babbled under his breath, trying to slow his thundering heart. "I won't leave you behind, I promise."
"Er, so you can use the bathroom at the end of the hall whenever you're ready. I'll grab you some clothes," said Minato, and beat a hasty retreat.
Obito snuffled a little, blinking back the water in his eyes. Necklace still gripped tightly above his heart, he took a deep breath to ground himself and went in search of the bathroom.
"I look ridiculous," Obito grumbled.
"You look fine," Minato soothed. "There aren't any other clothes that will fit you right now. We'll have to buy you new ones tomorrow."
"Uh," said Obito, instantly uncomfortable.
This was weird. Adopting him was already too much for his brain to handle; he'd conveniently shuffled it off to the side so he wouldn't have to think about it. Feeding him, buying him clothes?
"You need training clothes," Kakashi cut in abruptly, thumping down a cutting board, eggplants, and a knife on the counter in front of Obito. "Chop those." He turned back towards the refrigerator.
"Training clothes for what?" Obito demanded, grudgingly reaching for the eggplant.
Kakashi shot him a look over his shoulder that told Obito just what he thought about his intelligence. "Training. You start tomorrow."
Obito gaped, then looked to Minato for help.
"You do need to be trained," Minato said apologetically. "It's part of the agreement for having a clan ward."
"I didn't sign any agreement," Obito complained, bringing down the knife with a little more force than necessary.
Kakashi rolled his eyes. "I signed it. The agreement is between a Clan Head and the Hokage. You don't get any say in it."
Obito sputtered. "Why not?"
Kakashi smiled at him patronizingly from beneath his mask. "You're a minor. It wouldn't be legally binding."
Of all the - Obito seethed, fingers itching to punch the smug off the little twit's face. "Who's training me? You can't be, you're not even a full shinobi yet."
"Technically, I am," Kakashi said loftily. "I'm a jounin, too."
Obito picked his jaw up off the floor. "But you're so short," he blurted.
Kakashi rolled his eyes again.
"Kakashi's still a minor, so legally he'll be my apprentice until he turns sixteen," Minato explained, and ruffled Kakashi's hair fondly as he passed. "And I still have a few tricks left to teach, I think."
Kakashi bore the gesture long-sufferingly and turned to scrutinize Obito with dark eyes. "You can share him, I guess," he said dismissively, and turned back to the fish he was scaling.
"Aw," said Minato, an amused note in his voice. "Kakashi's learning to share." He turned to Obito. "It would be my pleasure to instruct you," he said, oddly formal.
Caught off guard, Obito froze midway through cutting an eggplant. "Err - thank you?" he tried.
Minato beamed.
The doorbell chimed. "I'll get it," Obito volunteered, dropping his knife and hightailing it out of the kitchen.
"Obito!" Rin chirped when he swung the door open. Behind her, Kushina let out a low whistle. "You look great!"
Obito glanced down self-consciously at his - Kakashi's - light grey yukata. It was trimmed in white and nicer than anything Obito had ever owned, and was simultaneously the most comfortable and uncomfortable thing he had ever worn.
"You do clean up good, squirt," Kushina said with a wink. "Ugh," she added, wrinkling her nose. "Is that eggplant? I swear the little brat cooks it because he knows I hate it."
"Sensei, you know that's Kakashi's favorite," Rin soothed, stepping inside and toeing off her boots.
"Yeah, right," Kushina muttered. "It's unnatural, liking eggplant."
Dinner was unsurprisingly rowdy but surprisingly comfortable. Obito sat sandwiched between Rin and Kakashi, and he tried to show a little restraint, but he was so damn hungry. He hadn't eaten in more than a day, and warm food he barely even remembered.
He moaned around a mouthful of rice and fish and Rin giggled. Obito blushed and choked on his mouthful. Kakashi ignored them both.
Kushina broke off a spirited account of a mission, which Obito had lost the thread of somewhere around the part with the bear(?) stealing the scroll to bargain for the missing katana, to scoop another piece of fish and a healthy mound of potatoes into Obito's bowl. "It's not going anywhere," she reassured him. "You're so skinny. Put on some weight, damn."
"Kushina!" Minato sputtered, appalled, as Obito felt his face warm.
"So, what's your favorite food, Obito?" Rin asked, turning towards him with a bright smile as he coughed and finally choked down the problematic rice and fish. "Mine's strawberries."
"Strawberries are good," said Obito automatically, though he'd actually never eaten one in his life. He wasn't lying on purpose, it was just that she was really super pretty and Obito's mind sort of stopped working around her. In his defense, they did look good, at least. "I like mochi," he offered, after a too-long pause. "With black sesame filling."
Kakashi grunted disparagingly on his other side. "Sweet things," he muttered derisively under his breath.
"Shut up, you bastard, what kind of freak likes eggplant?" Obito snapped.
Kakashi's dark eyes rolled sideways to stare at him. "I don't think I'm the bastard here," he drawled, and Obito saw red.
In the aftermath, Obito nursed a tender shoulder on one of the living room couches with a towel full of ice while Kakashi skulked in the kitchen looking slightly resentful and vaguely apologetic. Which was kind of stupid and made Obito feel worse because he was the one to swing first and okay, Kakashi maybe kind of had a point even if he didn't have to be such a dick about it.
Rin planted her hands on her hips with forced cheer. "Well, this was fun," she said brightly to Minato. "Thanks for the dinner invite, Minato-sensei. We should do it again."
Minato smiled weakly in response. "Great idea, Rin."
Kushina grinned a shark's grin at Obito as she strode towards the door. "You'll fit right in," she promised. "See you around, squirt."
The three of them sort of drifted off to their own corners after that. Minato settled on one of the downstairs couches with a book, Kakashi vanished off to gods know where to do gods know what, and Obito, for lack of better options, went back to his room.
He dragged the chair to the window and a blanket from the bed and wrapped himself tightly, perching on the chair to stare down into the garden below. The koi in the pond drifted beneath the surface of the water, tiny shapes dormant for the night. Above the ridge of the roof opposite, the glow of the moon broke the monotony of darkness.
He watched a little longer until the moon was well and truly above the rooftops, then shuffled into the bed. But even when he closed his eyes, his mind refused to rest.
Minato was...nice. Nothing like the nobles his mother had warned him about on her deathbed. And Kakashi was...an asshole. But a nice asshole, apparently. An asshole who offered him a room in his house and an escape from possible servitude as an emotionless assassin.
Well, Obito didn't know if this 'Ne' really existed, or if it was just a ghost story to keep him here, placid and afraid. Obito had done all right for himself.
His mother's words haunted him still. Obito wasn't meant to live in a place like this, wasn't meant to become a shinobi. He belonged in the muddy villages in the wild middle of the country, doing something respectable like leatherworking or trading, or at worst, farming. This posh room with its mattress and layers of blankets and freaking decorative plant in a pot was alien to him. He didn't belong.
He rolled out of bed, bundled the clothes he'd come in under Kakashi's yukata, and slipped out the door without a backwards glance.
The hallway was dark. Minato's and Kakashi's rooms were both quiet, no hint of light shining from the cracks beneath the doors. Obito tiptoed his way to the stairs and padded down. Downstairs was just as silent as upstairs. Obito let himself out, closing the door behind himself quietly.
A light breeze blew straight through the yukata, and he shivered. He felt a little bad, stealing Kakashi's clothes, but he didn't really want to put his own clothes back on so soon after having a bath. He might sell it when he got away, make up for the loss of rest of his clothes. Honestly, who burned other peoples' clothes? So rude.
Obito trotted around the corner and came face to face with the biggest freaking dog he'd ever seen in his entire life.
"Boof," said the dog.
Obito clapped a hand over his mouth to muffle his shriek.
"That's Bull," Kakashi said dryly from behind him.
"I'm pretty sure that's a bear," Obito retorted, clutching at his hammering heart.
Kakashi clicked his fingers at the dog, who sat down and panted patiently at them. "Don't be ridiculous. Bull loves kids," he added.
Yeah, for breakfast, maybe.
"What are you doing up?" Kakashi asked, now scrubbing a hand absently over the dog's head. Bull leaned into the caress with half-closed eyes. A thin string of drool dripped onto the ground.
"What are you doing up?" Obito fired back halfheartedly. Kakashi shot him an unimpressed look. Obito sighed and relented. "Couldn't sleep," he muttered.
"So you weren't trying to sneak out and run away," Kakashi said without accusation.
Obito gritted his teeth. "Look, man," he said. "Thanks for dinner and getting me out of jail - which you threw me into in the first place - but I'm fine, really."
"Obito," Kakashi said, like his name was a curse. "I know what you're thinking."
"Oh yeah?" Obito bit out, glaring.
"Shimura Danzo is not a myth. He's a monster, and he's real." Kakashi's eyes, emotionless before, turned cold, his hand stilling on Bull's head.
"I'm not afraid of him," Obito blustered, despite the ice that suddenly shivered down his spine.
"You should be," Kakashi said, almost listlessly. "Not because of who he is, but because of what he'll turn you into." Then he seemed to shake himself, glancing down suddenly at Bull as if seeing him for the first time. "Come on," he said. "You can meet the rest of the pack.
What choice did Obito have? He followed.
To his confusion, after leaving his boots at the door, the other boy made a beeline for the entrance to the east wing of the house. Obito scrambled after him, kicking off his sandals in the general direction of the shoe rack, as Bull ambled agreeably in their wake.
"Minato said nobody uses this wing," Obito said, confused, as Kakashi pushed the door open.
"Minato- sensei ," Kakashi corrected absently. "Did he say nobody or no people?"
Obito hadn't really realized there was a difference.
The first room featured floor-to-ceiling windows facing the courtyard outside, and moonlight glimmered off the smooth stone outside. Cushions were stacked neatly in the corner, as were a number of low side tables.
The next room was much the same, except that someone had dragged at least a dozen pillows and twice as many blankets out onto the floor, where they lay in heaping nests.
Heads popped up one by one as they entered, and Obito quickly realized the strange thumping was the sound of tails wagging enthusiastically in greeting.
Kakashi sort of shrugged at the pack. "Guys, this is Obito," he said, and Obito had a moment of what a weirdo, he talks to his dogs.
Except then, someone else said, "Nice to meet you, Obito," and it really, really looked like it had been a pug talking.
"Guh," said Obito, and sat down hard.
"That's Pakkun," Kakashi said, unconcerned, like a freaking talking dog was normal. "He's my oldest. These are Urushi, Uhei, Shiba, Guruko, and Bisuke. They usually hang out here."
"Uh," Obito said faintly. "Nice to meet you, too?"
Pakkun ambled up to him, putting his front paws on Obito's lap to get a closer look, and Obito tried not to lean away. "I like him," the pug decided, sitting back as the rest of the dogs surged forwards to sniff him or stare at him or whatever. "Are we keeping him?"
"Yeah," said Kakashi. "He can use chakra."
"A noble," Pakkun said, surprised. "Interesting."
Obito was too distracted by the small foxhound bouncing up repeatedly to lick his face to be offended.
"Down, Guruko," Kakashi admonished, but it was too late. Obito toppled, landing on his back, and covered his face with his arms as the rest of the dogs descended in a wriggling, drool-y horde.
Kakashi whistled sharply, and the pack backed up with disappointed whines. "That's enough," Kakashi said mildly. "Try to act like ninja dogs."
"Ninja dogs?" Obito echoed, struggling back upright. "Wicked." The increase in tail thumps told him the comment had been appreciated.
"Come on," Kakashi said, turning to go. "One more thing you should see."
'One more thing' was apparently the armory.
Obito eyed the racks of swords, the battleaxes and glaives mounted on the walls, and cases of knives and took a wary step back. "You didn't bring me here to kill me, did you?" he asked nervously, only half joking. Shiba panted cheerfully at them from the doorway, long-furred tail swishing across the floor - which, incidentally, Obito noticed was now tile. Easier to clean blood off of, his brain reminded him helpfully.
Kakashi stared at him blankly. "I don't need any of these to kill you," he said.
"Real friendly, aren't you?" Obito muttered under his breath. "I bet all the grandmas just love you."
"Come on," said Kakashi with a hint of impatience
"Minato-sensei said these were sitting rooms and stuff," Obito protested, as he stepped into what was clearly a dojo. Duped again.
"Mostly," Kakashi agreed, turning to face him.
Obito skittered backwards a step. "What are you doing?" he asked warily.
Kakashi eyed him thoughtfully. "If you want to leave, I'm not going to stop you," he said. "And if Danzo really wants you, a couple of party tricks won't stop him. But I'm not going to let you go back out there with nothing to defend yourself with."
"So...you're going to teach me?" Obito asked warily. "Like, throwing a punch or something?"
"That, and more," Kakashi agreed. "Here," he said, and snapped his fingers. A little bolt of lightning sparked over his knuckles. His brow furrowed, and as he clenched his fist, white lightning crackled as it gathered, covering his gloved hand.
Obito's jaw dropped. "Wicked," he breathed.
Kakashi opened his hand, holding the electricity there for another moment before letting the high chirp of lightning fade away, and its unearthly glow with it. "Basic elemental manipulation. With enough focus, this can cut through steel."
Obito leaned away. "Are you teaching me that?"
"No," said Kakashi. "I doubt you're lightning-natured."
Obito simmered.
"Taijutsu first," Kakashi said decisively. "Duck."
"Du - ow, you dick!" Obito yelped, stumbling backwards, clutching his face.
"That didn't hurt," the grey-haired little shit assured him, like he hadn't just been the one to jab him in the face. "I'm giving you warning. That's more than Danzo's men will give you."
"And women, I hope," Obito muttered. "Gods forbid he be both sociopathic and sexist. Hey!" He jerked out of the way of Kakashi's next punch. "I thought you were giving me warning!"
Kakashi lunged smoothly, knocking Obito's legs out from under him. "If you have time to talk, you have time to dodge."
Obito blinked stupidly up at the ceiling, the wind thoroughly knocked out of him. "Would it kill you to tell me what to do instead of just attacking me?" he complained, rolling laboriously to his feet. "Damn, who taught you how to teach?"
Kakashi paused, eyeing him consideringly. "You are learning relatively late," he admitted. "Maybe you need more hand holding."
"Asshole," Obito hissed under his breath.
Kakashi, predictably, ignored him. "Grab me from behind," he ordered. "I'll show you how to get free."
What felt like eons but which was probably around an hour and a half later, Obito braced his leg behind him, shoved with his right arm, and sent Kakashi flying in a beautiful arch. Obito froze. Kakashi turned the fall into a graceful roll, landing in a light crouch. Obito whooped, his pulse hammering in his ear, and hopped around the edge of the room in celebration. Shiba leapt up from his relaxed sprawl to prance about with him, leaping up every few steps to lick at his face.
"Well," Kakashi said grudgingly. "If Danzo sends someone to grab you in that one particular way, you'll be fine."
"Shut up, Bakashi," said Obito, too giddy with success to be bothered.
Kakashi watched him for a few moments with something like reluctant amusement before standing and padding towards the door.
Obito stopped short. "What, are you giving up?" he demanded, incredulous.
"Hungry," the other boy tossed over his shoulder.
Mm. Now that he mentioned it, Obito was feeling a bit peckish from all the running around and getting tossed to the mat. What kind of midnight snacks did rich people eat?
The hounds joined them at their heels one by one as they wandered back towards the kitchen, and by the time Kakashi opened the refrigerator door, the entire pack milled between the counter and the kitchen island. "Ice cream?" he asked offhandedly.
Obito's mouth watered. "Yes," he said fervently, and then with a wrinkled nose, "You would have only green tea ice cream."
Kakashi's glare was best described as moderately offended as he pulled the carton out of reach. "Don't like it, don't eat it."
Obito made grabby hands at him until he relented. "I've never had an entire bowl of ice cream to myself before," he confessed.
Kakashi hesitated, then added an extra scoop to Obito's before shoving it over. "Don't make yourself sick," he said gruffly, turning to replace the carton in the freezer.
Obito was too busy stuffing his face with sugary, icy goodness. "Don't you not like sweet things?" he said around a mouthful of ice cream, following Kakashi upstairs.
"I don't," came the immediate reply. "This is Minato-sensei's."
"You're still eating it," Obito pointed out. "Didn't you say not to eat it if you don't like it?" He tailed Kakashi right into his bedroom, taking the fact that the other boy hadn't closed the door in his face as an invitation. The various dogs piled in after him
"I was talking about you, not me," Kakashi retorted. He set his bowl to the side. It was empty.
Obito boggled at it, then at Kakashi and his smug, still masked face. "How did you even eat that so fast?" he demanded. "Do you squish it through your mask?"
"That would be unsanitary," Kakashi deflected blandly, and flopped backwards onto his futon.
Obito set the rest of his ice cream down on the floor for the dogs and joined him on the futon, a healthy half meter away. On the floor, the hounds swarmed the bowl eagerly, tails whipping madly back and forth.
"Don't feed them ice cream. It's unhealthy," Kakashi grumbled, but made no move to stop them.
"A little ice cream never hurt anyone," Obito said reassuringly, closing his eyes. Hey, he was super tired because today had been a hell of a crazy day, and not even ice cream could fix that. Especially not green tea ice cream.
"You have your own room," Kakashi pointed out somewhere above his head.
"Mhmm," said Obito drowsily.
Kakashi rustled around a little, and the light clicked off. "Uhei, get the door," he directed. Paws scrabbled on the edge of the futon frame as Kakashi's pack clambered up, tucking themselves into the small spaces around them. Obito shifted his arm, and a pointed muzzle burrowed its way under it.
A long pause. Obito drifted, a little, lulled by the warmth of the small bodies around him.
"You're not leaving, then," Kakashi said into the darkness.
"Nah," Obito yawned, already more than half asleep and more peaceful than he had been since before his mother's death. "Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow."