A/N: Aw, thanks for the reviews and faves, people! I honestly never thought anyone would read this ._.
WARNING! Possible triggers are present in this chapter (AKA Self-harm)
Chapter 2: Bloody Remembrance
Two weeks had passed since his last escape attempt and Tobi was pretty content with himself. They'd moved him to a nicer, cleaner cell and it even had a little window! He suspected it had something to do with the kind fox-masked shinobi who'd returned his bunny-chan to him. The meanie doctors had taken his favorite and only toy in hopes of making him 'better'. Tobi stuck out his tongue in distaste. He was already fine. Why would he need to get better if he was already good?
"Tobi is a good boy." He mumbled to himself. The red-haired Anbu, who'd he taken to calling Kit-chan, was really nice. Tobi frowned, thinking. He was the only nice person, actually. All the others either ignored him or were scared of him. He didn't understand why. Tobi didn't understand a lot of things, really. He didn't understand why he burped, how the squeaky clean doctors expected him to eat their yucky food, why his tongue was pink, whether the egg came before the chicken, or why he wasn't allowed to go outside.
Tobi carefully peeked through the bars of his cell. Seeing no white lab coats, he quickly darted back inside. The child rummaged through his bed, throwing random objects aside.
"Aha! Tobi found you, you naughty little sock!" Hidden inside the mattress was an old sock was a small scalpel that a careless doctor had dropped only a few days prior. He had waited patiently for the missing tool to be forgotten before taking it out. Now was the time. The boy grinned happily to himself, a manic gleam in his onyx eyes. Today was a very good day for a very good boy because that's what his Momma used to say before she…
Tobi pressed the cool blade against the scars on his wrist. It was so cold.
A rush of anticipation went through him before he slowly dug the blade into the soft skin. He watched with fascination as the ruby droplets slowly trailed down his arm and onto the pristine white floor he sat on. Routinely, he carefully reopened the scarred flesh until his arms were nothing but a mesh of intricate crimson rivers, overflowing and interconnecting with each other. Faces and snippets of a forgotten memory flashed through his eyes. He liked this part. Tobi rested his back on the floor. The chakra-retraining seals on his shirt crinkled. White spots clouded his vision as he calmly bled out on the floor. This was nice. Just laying down and- Oh! One of the white spots look just like Bunny-chan!
"Hee hee. Hello, Bunny-chan!" The child called out, ignoring the subtle pain coming from his forearms as he waved feebly. "Oh! That one looks like a unicorn and that one looks like a white foxy face."
He smiled goofily. It kinda looked like Kit-chan's mask thing.
"Tobi." A familiar baritone voice said with a hint of panic lacing the tone. Tobi barely had time to register the new face when suddenly it felt like he was flying. Colors and sounds flashed by him as the unknown person shunshinned to the hospital.
"Quick, this boy needs immediate medical attention now!" The white spots were completely blocking his eyesight except for a small patch of clarity where he could barely make out the red hair that Kit-chan was so famous for. He liked red. It was the same color as blood. Blood made him feel good. It felt nice, reliving all the good times with his Momma as he refreshed the scars on his body.
Kitsune growled in anger. No one was listening to him. The nurses and doctors were too busy attending to the wounded Konoha shinobi. His keen eyes spotted a mop of brown hair towards the back of the hallways, carrying a stack of boxes. He located the telltale signs of a medic ninja and rushed over to her.
The girl, no older than thirteen, gasped when she saw the crumpled body in his grip. "W-What happened to him?" Her brown eyes were red and puffy like she had been crying previously. He paid no mind to that. Tobi was more important. Kitsune handed the boy to her and watched as her face went pale at the sight of his scarred face. Blood steadily seeped onto the floor.
"Is something wrong?" He asked, steel in his voice. Kitsune hated when people stared. They had no right to judge such an innocent creature. Someone as fragile as Tobi. He felt something hot stirring inside him. Absolutely no right.
The girl flinched. "No, s-sorry, Anbu-san." Her young face seemed to age ten years right before his eyes. The hot anger Kitsune had felt before vanished in an instant. Curse him for being so soft. "He just looks like someone very precious to me…who I lost not too long ago." She placed Tobi on a spare gurney and began tending to his wounds. The brown-haired girl was a professional despite her young age. Her hands, shaking with emotion, forced themselves to stop and bandage up the small Uchiha.
Kitsune watched her silently. "Who died?" The redhead asked rather bluntly. Rin frowned. The guy had no tact at all! Annoyance quickly seeped out of her as the usual bout of grief and guilt took its place once more upon her heart.
Her heart wrenched as she spoke, "My teammate." Teammate. There was so much meaning in that single word. A teammate was someone who made you laugh, that you got into silly fights with, trained with, trusted inexplicably with your life, who stayed by your side through thick and thin, and loved, no matter how flawed they were, because they were your precious person- someone you would risk everything for. Even at the cost of your own life.
Obito…
The red-haired man nodded, remembering his own teammates. The people who'd made him into the person he was today. They were all gone now. Family and friends too. Gone with either a well-placed justu or a quick flick of a kunai.
"War takes a lot from us, doesn't it?"
Rin finished wrapping the boy's wounds. Luckily, he hadn't lost much blood so there was no need to take drastic measures. Though, if the Anbu hadn't brought the boy in he would have died of blood loss in less than twenty minutes. She turned to the Anbu only to be met with a grinning fox face that didn't match the somber voice behind it.
"Yes, it does." Rin spoke softly. "Did you lose someone close to you too?" The brown-haired girl absentmindedly brushed back a few stray strands of hair away from the unconscious child's face, further exposing the gruesome scars. Kitsune was silent once more. Rin's hand stilled as she realized the idiocy of her question. Wait, what was she doing? Here she was, asking a highly respected Anbu his life story. He didn't even know her! Besides, Anbu were designed to be emotionless and silent. The perfect weapon. Unfeeling, cold steel objects of destruction and assassination.
Rin ducked her head. Who was she to be asking her superior such personal questions. "I'm sorry, Anbu-san! I didn't mean to be so nosy." She smiled sheepishly, turning back to Tobi and refitting his bandages nervously.
The redhead chuckled. Rin shot her head around in shock. Anbu Black Ops do not chuckle. They were stony-faced, nameless shinobi with skill sets that could rival Minato-sensei. They most certainly did not chuckle. But here he was, the odd fox-masked ninja, chuckling. She could barely see the mirth shining in his blue eyes behind the porcelain mask.
"It's not nice to laugh at people, Anbu-san." Rin chided. Kitsune laugh once more, smiling behind his mask.
"You're funny." He shifted, becoming serious once more. Now this was a seasoned Anbu shinobi. "But yes. I've lost all the precious people in my life, but now," his head tilted downwards, "Kami has gifted me someone who's come to be very precious to me and I will never let him down. Not again." The revelation and level of determination in his voice caught Rin by surprise. She hadn't been expecting such conviction and emotion from a seemingly random Anbu. Kitsune suddenly stood up. Rin startled, looking at him in confusion.
"I have to go." Carefully and almost tenderly, Rin noted, the blue-eyed shinobi scooped up Tobi into his thin arms. He turned to her and bowed low. The tips of his spiked red hair brushed along the tiled floor.
Rin unashamedly gaped like a fish out of water.
Kitsune made sure not to jumble his charge when he stood back up. "Thank you for taking care of my precious person when no one else could."
The genin composed herself enough to dumbly nod. "Oh, um, of course!" She replied, obliviously flattered at the Anbu's blatant sign of gratitude and respect. Kitsune smiled behind his mask. She would survive. Her Will of Fire would continue to burn despite the dousing of tragedy and pain she was going through. He was sure of it.
"Kitsune." At Rin's odd look, he pointed to his mask. "My Anbu mask is a Kitsune so you can call me Kitsune." He shifted the bandaged child in his arms. "And this mummy's name is Tobi."
"Sayonara, Kitsune-san, Tobi-kun." She smiled at the sleeping boy's peaceful face. Tobi looked so serene despite the bloodied gauze. The triangle marks on her face creased as she looked up at Kitsune. He was really tall. "My name is Rin Nohara. It was very nice meeting you."
The red-haired shinobi nodded. "Likewise, Rin-kohai." Rin didn't know what to say to the honorific she'd been given. The girl opted for smiling kindly. "I enjoyed this…chat with you, if that's what you'd like to call it." He looked at her through the eyeholes of the mask almost expectantly.
Before she could stop herself RIn felt the word leaving her lips, "You're weird, Kitsune-san." Her eyed instantly widened and she looked up at the shinobi in mortification.
Kitsune merely chuckled, seemingly pleased with her reply, and disappeared with a quick flicker. Rin simply watched the leaves gently float to the the ground in the strange Anbu's wake.
"Huh." She thought. The kunoichi picked up the same cardboard box from earlier and headed to the storage basement. "What a strange Anbu. At least he's nice."
