Life Goes On
Chapter 3
Rin didn't let the idea go.
She went back to her parents to pump them for information about the kind of boy she was starting to convince herself Hatake was and took to watching him whenever she could. In search of evidence she could use to prove herself right. Obito didn't see any of what she was seeing and was starting to think that she was blinding herself to his faults now that she had convinced herself she'd figured out what made the other boy tick. As long as she didn't go back to admiring the silver haired boy's face, whatever little of it she could see past the mask, he didn't care.
Rin could do better than Hatake-bloody-Kakashi.
"It's like he doesn't know how to make friends or show interest so he shows off how good he is and he's like, 'See? See? You want to talk to me, yes?', and because you don't understand what he's trying to do, you just end up hissing at him!"
"… Rin-chan, just because he can summon dogs does not mean that I'm a cat. I don't 'hiss', I get angry. And I'm not buying this, that sounds like he's stupid and as much as I hate to say it, but we both know he's not."
"He's a genius at being a ninja." Rin insisted, "Not at people, like know you can be really good at some things and be really dumb at others? Kaa-chan said that geniuses have a really hard time interacting with people who aren't as smart as they are!"
"Well then maybe he should go and find another genius to pick on instead of settling for me. Also if he's so stupid at people, wanna try explaining that?" Obito asked.
He pointed to the group of girls, with two or three boys thrown in for good measure, who were huddled at the windows of the classroom. They were staring out googly eyed and shining at the courtyard below and the lone tree the boy in question had chosen to roost in. Kakashi had disregarded the swing hanging from branch he was sitting on and didn't even look like he used the given time to eat lunch. No one had ever caught him eating. Even though a fair number of their classmates had dedicated themselves to catching him in the act in order to get a glimpse of his face. So far no one had been successful, but it hadn't been for lack of trying.
"Oh! Kaa-chan told me about that too! She said it's 'Ferro-mons' and that I have to be careful to guard my heart or I might get tricked into falling for it like everyone else is!"
"Ferro-mons? Did you ask her what that was?" he asked lazily, slumping forwards to prop his chin up on his desk, not really all that interested. Like he needed another reason to avoid the silver haired boy.
"Dunno, sounds like a disease though." Rin admitted, scrunching her nose up in thought.
"Great, thanks for warning me. Makes me think we should start worrying about not catching whatever he's got." Obito retorted and grunted when his best friend's pointy elbow met his ribs.
All joking aside Obito honestly couldn't wrap his mind around why Hatake was so popular.
The other boy was talented, but he also rubbed that talent in everyone's faces. The only people he showed any amount of respect to were his teachers, and even that was very shallow. It seemed to him as if the silver haired boy was playing along with the adults, like it was a fun game he would play for now. He was short with all of his classmates and his highly superior attitude was grating and came off as extremely arrogant, at least it did to him. Invitations to play were accepted sporadically, never again by the same person and only when the boy had literally nothing else to do but waste time. 'Sparring' matches were short, brutal and were followed by a dry and drawling lecture afterwards.
Why people kept going back for more was a mystery Obito would never understand and on the flip side of that he wondered how the other could stand all of that fawning. The only good thing Obito would claim came about from being classmates with Hatake was the occasional free entertainment he got just sitting back and watching him deal with his groupies. He might have singled him out for bullying, but he hardly had the time to do much of that these days. His group of admirers grew every time he showed off, which was a habit of his that had continued on from their first day in the Academy, and one which he had yet to curb. Even though this behaviour was the sole reason for the silver haired boy's predicament nearly six whole months later.
Hatake was now the one being followed all over the village. Tripping over people stalking him, cooing admirers and challengers of all ages, every time he so much as paused to do anything. The lot of them wanting to know all about him. At the rate he was going, by the end of the year he'd be too busy dodging his stalkers to train, let alone find the time to hassle one very fed up classmate.
The only time he ran into his 'rival' these days was in class and the justice of it was delicious. It was pure, sweet fairness, karma and all things right in the world.
He'd have been happy to continue enjoying the peace, all he had to do was duck out of class as soon as it ended and he further limited his contact with the other boy, but Rin made her move. After months of subtle and not-so-subtle 'information gathering' and she was apparently comfortable enough in her theory to approach her target. She wrangled the other boy into agreeing to play with her and a few others, then invited Obito to join in without letting him know his not-rival was going to be there. She hadn't let him know what she'd been planning and there had been no warning of it, no change in behaviour as she asked. Just an expectation that he would come to the place she picked. He walked right into it without suspecting a thing, Rin's ability to deceive him with a straight face was starting to reach his grandmother's level, and she had only known her for barely a year. It was terrifying.
As was coming to be the usual thing with Obito, he was the last one to the meeting place. Now that he'd entered the Academy every time he left the house he was always being caught by a random cousin and hauled off to join the clan stretches, exercises and katas with his clansmen. He'd never been able to escape once collared and there was never an excuse he could use that would make whoever was assigned to pick him up into letting him go. He would spend however long it took for whoever was leading the exercises that day to be satisfied with the way he was moving before he could be dismissed, and he just wasn't good enough to be dismissed within a timely fashion.
He was getting better, it just wasn't fast enough for his scowly clan head. Obito was waiting for the day the wind blew the wrong way and his face got stuck like that.
"You're late Obito! Everyone's been waiting!" Rin admonished as he arrived.
"Sorry, sorry!" he apologized, entering the park that was the meeting place at a fast jog. It was technically a public training ground, but was set up with equipment for children their age or younger, with punching posts set in the middle of the fenced off area. No one ever used it for training though, they just used it for play. He looked at the others who would be joining them for whatever his best friend had in mind today and smiled in welcome. Hideki Kazuki, and his little brother Yuuta waved in welcome, Yamada Kenya was polishing his glasses and— "Misao Oji-san caught me on the way and…" Obito cut himself off. The words died on his tongue as a foot dangled tauntingly from the top of one of the punching posts and directly down into his line of sight.
It was a very familiar foot. He kept seeing that foot up close and personal during Academy sparring matches. It was a very close thing, but Obito managed to stop his hand from palming his face. That had not been subtle, but then again Rin didn't have to be, his demanding and questioning look crumpled at the delighted smile on her face.
"Kakashi's joining us from today!" Rin explained brightly, gesturing up to the silver haired boy, who took that as his cue to jump exaggeratedly from his perch.
Subtlety was apparently for people who didn't have him wrapped around their little finger.
Fighting the urge to allow his lip to curl up into a snarl Obito smothered his now instinctive growl at the sight of the boy anywhere near him outside of the Academy. He could act like a brat about this and storm off, Rin would be angry at him for a while, but she was the one who'd forced the confrontation, she'd forgive him… after a while. He didn't want to hang around the other boy and try to 'make friends' with him, but… Rin had to have gone to a lot of trouble for him, to 'mend fences' here, so to speak. The other boy didn't play with the same people twice, he just didn't. He knew that Rin had quite possibly used up her one and only chance to interact with Kakashi one-to-one. If she didn't make friends with him here he wouldn't give her another chance. Obito also knew she'd seen the way Hatake interacted with him and hadn't liked it, and knew that this was her way of trying to solve the problem. Rin liked the other boy as a person for some reason, wanted to make friends with him and help him make more.
Kicking his inner brat aside Obito scrubbed a hand through his hair as if to rid himself of his irritation and tried his best to smile. For Rin. From the look on her face he knew it had to be closer to baring his teeth than actually smiling, but he couldn't really help that. He was trying for her, wasn't that enough? All of a sudden Obito realized that this was what his clansmen must feel like when pushed out of their neat little personal bubbles of space and forced to socialize.
"Let's play kick-the-can today!" The younger of the Hideki brothers suggested excitedly, not noticing what was going on. Obito gave his inner idiot a good boot to join in with his inner brat and tried for a proper smile. It came easier when it was directed at the younger boy rather than in the direction of his rival, the poor kid still had a whole year till he started attending the Academy. He wasn't about to ruin what little the fun the brothers could have on the one day of the week they had to spend together.
"Sure, let's play!" he grinned, ruffling the younger boy's brown hair. He would just pretend Hatake was just another random classmate.
Shouldn't be too hard.
OoO
Kick-the-can was a game of skill, strategy, and stealth, as well as physical fitness. A 'jail' or 'time-out' area was set, which in this case was in the center of the three punching posts in the playground, they made a neat triangle formation so it was the natural choice. The person chosen as 'it', which ended up being Obito as he'd shown up the latest, had to capture the others. He won if he caught everyone and the person who'd been in jail longest became 'it' after him. His prisoners were free to go in the order they were captured if the can got knocked over. They had until Obito set it right again, and in the proper place, to escape and the next prisoner could leave as soon as the previous person who'd escaped cleared the triangle.
The game usually cycled through who was 'it'.
The brothers were easy to capture, he was faster than they were and flushing them out of the bushes they were giggling in happened fast. As he was 'escorting' them to the jail, he managed to spot Kenya hiding behind the bin, the gleam his glasses made in the sunlight was hard to miss. Catching Rin was as easy as turning his back on the jail and pretending to search the area away from her. Predictably she snuck out of the bushes and crept up to the can, cat-quiet and grinning with anticipation. He waited till he was sure she was just about to reach the can before snapping around and lunging for the catch that had practically walked into his arms.
"GOT YOU!" he crowed as his arms caught her around the mid-section. He hauled her off of her feet and deposited into the jail, laughing evilly at her squeals. Four very easy captures at the very beginning of the game. Grinning widely and getting into the mood now, Obito planted a careful foot on top of the 'key' to his 'dungeon'
"Hatake is the only one left, give up fools and bow to my dominion~!" He exclaimed and scanned his future kingdom. He might be enjoying this too much, but for some reason he couldn't help it, it always felt rather refreshing to be the 'bad guy' in any game. He was actually starting to enjoy himself now, he'd needed the down-time more than he'd thought, studying too much was unhealthy!
"Obito's such a fast runner." Yuuta complained.
"Save us Kakashi~!" Kazuki yelled out, hamming up the victim act with a grin of his own.
"I'll catch him before he can and then no one will be left to stand in my way!" Obito cackled, checking on his prisoners to make sure they weren't about to pick up something to throw at the can to knock it over. With his friends secure he took a chance to prowl the perimeter. Clear on all sides, and the only place Hatake could be hiding were the trees, the bushes and behind the water fountain—
Shouts and exclaims of surprise and awe sounded and even though he was already turning to look, even though he hadn't heard anyone move behind him… He knew Hatake was a show-off of the highest order,but surely he'd tone it down for a game! But no, the silver haired boy was stood behind the can that was the key to the release of Obito's prisoners. He had his arms crossed and was standing tall and looming over the can, somehow looking down his nose at him, even though Obito was a shade taller and they were both standing on level ground.
Instead of immediately kicking the can like he was supposed to, like any other child their age would do, Hatake Kakashi decided that appearing out of nowhere with no sound of warning or any indication that he'd been anywhere close wasn't showing off enough. He had to take it to the next level. Even if Obito took into the fact that he'd been playing the 'villain' and taking up the 'hero' role was only natural…
"Saving my friends, no matter what…" The silver haired boy started, winding up for what was obviously going to be quite the glorious kick. "That's my Ninja Way!"
There was absolutely zero reason for Hatake to have exaggerated that kick quite so much, or to have put that much power behind it. The can went sailing, the small load of rocks inside ensuring it went quite the distance. Obito's captives fled in all directions, cheering and squealing and Hatake vanished again.
What the hell!? Couldn't he even tone it down for a game?
That beginning set the tone for the entire day.
Hatake was a ghost right up until Obito had caught everyone else and he had yet to catch sight of him before the jerk popped out of hiding. All Obito had to do was turn his back on the can for a split-second and there the other boy would be, posturing and posing. Obito tried the trick he used to catch Rin that first time but the silver haired kid was so much faster than he was and then there was the way he handled the can… He'd seen Hatake kick it up onto the top of his foot, off the sides of his foot and heel and the other boy even kicked it over Obito's head once before sending it sailing! By the time Obito retrieved the can each time and ran back to reset his jail everyone was free and Hatake was gone again.
This wasn't the way the game was supposed to be played but no one seemed to mind, it seemed like they were enjoying themselves anyway. Obito supposed it must be fun watching him get beaten at this game by someone else for once.
"Want me to be 'it' for a while?" Hatake asked at one point, highly amused with his voice practically dripping with condescension.
"As if!" he hissed out breathlessly, taking a moment to catch his breath. That would be like admitting a loss! He wasn't going to go down so easily!
Before he even realized what had happened the game was unofficially declared over with the sky starting to glow with the sunset and his friends were wandering off for drinks from the vending machine. Obito belatedly realized that he'd lost an entire day, his one precious day off from the Academy, trying to beat Hatake Kakashi in a game of Can Kick. He'd gotten so caught up in his own stupid rivalry that he'd wasted all of his free time and exhausted himself for good measure! Palming his face Obito slumped after them, bought a can of cool, sweetened green tea for himself and plopped himself down to sit cross-legged on the grass next to them to drink it.
He tried not to sulk, how had he let himself get so worked up? Of all the stupid, juvenile—
"You were 'it' the whole time~!" Rin giggled teasingly.
Obito couldn't stop himself from grumbling.
His best friend laughed in his face, got up to toss her own empty drink can in the bin and bid him a farewell, spotting her mother at the entrance to the park. "Did you have fun?" she asked with a whisper before she left, leaning in close so the silver haired boy standing off to the side wouldn't hear her. Her brown eyes were big, hopeful and shining with so much sincerity that Obito couldn't bring himself to rain down on her mood.
"I… suppose." He grumped grudgingly, he'd actually had fun... before Hatake had completely taken over the game. It wasn't her fault his stupid one-sided rivalry with the other boy had reared its ugly head.
Rin's pure-hearted smile of relief and glee at the admission was his reward. She practically skipped away to join her mother and he knew she'd be riding the glow of her 'success' the whole way home.
The idea of it warmed the center of his bitter, bitter soul.
He basked in the glow of it as the Hideki brothers and Kenya left with their parents, leaving him alone with the silver haired boy who had yet to leave himself. In the spirit of cooperation Rin had left behind in her wake, he tried not to notice that the other boy hadn't even broken a sweat and hadn't needed a drink to cool down after spending a whole day running around. Obito was instead content to sit back and soak in the dwindling light, listen to the birdcalls and just relax in comfortable silence—
"I won again—"
Obito growled as his good-will vanished to the wind.
"— but I'll praise you for one thing…" Hatake continued, ignoring the molten glare shot in his direction. "You're the only one until now who's never chickened out of a game with me."
"You complete shi—ow off!" he bit out in response, cutting off the word his grandmother would disapprove of. That attitude really was just too much!
"Hey, and here I was praising you~!"
"Take that praise and shove it—"
"Ah, there's my dad! See you!" Hatake interrupted, waving a hasty farewell as he jogged to the entrance of the park.
"I— yeah, see you…" Obito replied, so off-kilter at the abrupt cut-off and casual farewell that he actually waved back without thinking.
The resemblance between father and son was very obvious, they would have been mistaken for twins had they been the same age. Hatake's father reached down to ruffle his son's mop of silver hair and Obito watched as they walked off hand in hand, presumably to go home. He felt his mood shift again as he was left with only his own growing shadow for company as the sunset slowly leaching from the sky.
He made his way home alone and at dinner that night Obito found himself asking his grandmother about his own parents.
"Do I look like my mother or my father?" He asked shyly, peeking up from his food as he waited for the answer.
"Hmm, if I had to choose… I'd say both." His grandmother laughed at the expression on his face and put down her chopsticks so she could get up to get proof. She retrieved a photo album, opened it and set it on a clear space on the table. "See? You look like a perfect mix of the both of them. You have your mother's lips, chin and ears, while you have your father's cheekbones, hair and nose. Of course you have their eyes, they were both Uchiha."
He searched his parents faces for familiar features and felt an odd smile slip onto his face as he spotted them. Looking up, he closed the photo album, set it aside and searched his grandmother's face instead. Her hair was sleek and smooth, nothing like the mop of spikes Obito had inherited from his grandfather, and he could see their blood relation in everything his grandmother had noted he'd shared with his father.
What more could he possibly ask for?
Finishing off his dinner Obito gathered up his dishes, cleaned up after himself and then surprised his grandmother with a stealthy kiss to her cheek. He may not have been lucky enough to know them, but it was comforting to know that some part of his parents continued in him.
"Oh I can't wait to see Rin-chan's children! I'll have to make space in the family album~!" His grandmother teased.
"… please stop."
OoO
Hatake Kakashi graduated out of the Academy in a grand total of six months.
Obito was torn on what he should be feeling. On one hand, he was free of the other boy's petty bullying during the day and knew he'd be kept busy on missions for the village. That said, the same stupid part of him that thought of the silver haired boy as a rival… burned. What had he accomplished in six months at the Academy? Hardly anything, he was smack in the middle of his classmates! He wasn't on the bottom of the class but he wasn't at the top now that Hatake was gone either.
Rin was well on her way to becoming a medic, she attended new lessons halfway through the day after the whole class had been tested for any sign of medical inclination. She'd managed to not only pick up the basics of first aid pretty much immediately, but she'd also managed to heal the cut on the fish they'd been testing students on.
Obito had fried his.
The only Medical technique he was allowed to perform after that was a very basic chakra-transfer. He was promptly banned from ever trying to directly use any other medical Ninjutsu in the future unless he specifically wanted to barbecue his patient. His chakra was apparently so ill-suited to using medical techniques that he'd damn near crisped up his own skin along with the fish he'd cooked. Following that he was shown how to apply field dressings to burns, using his own hands as an example, and was booted from those lessons nursing his tender and stinging fingers.
To make up for his shortcomings there he made sure to practice his chakra-sharing as much as possible. Rin was always happy to receive the boost and practiced filtering what she got at the same time. His grandmother also let him practice with her and from that Obito learned that chakra sharing with his clansmen made their chakra sing.
"It's called 'resonance', and it almost always happens between family members." She said, a warm expression crossing her face as she pressed a hand to her own chest, Obito mirroring the movement when she passed a bit of her own chakra to him. "When two people with similar chakra are near each other, they resonate. And when their chakra combine, the strongest techniques can be formed. Your parents resonated quite strongly, they made a devastating team."
Flushed and buzzing from the chakra running though him, it took him until the end of the day to come down from the high, and he wasn't even tired when their chakra finally stopped resonating. In the end he wasn't quite so cut-up about not being able to perform the vast majority of medical techniques, simply being able to share his chakra with his grandmother more than made up for that. For Obito, there was nothing more he enjoyed more than the time they spent basking in each other's presence.
His grandmother was so proud of him mastering the technique that she bragged about it to the other clan elders, and it wasn't long before he was called before them to demonstrate. He honestly didn't know what they were all so excited about until his clan head got involved and he was conscripted into the police force.
"I don't understand this, don't I actually have to be… you know, a proper ninja to be working for the police?" Obito asked in confusion as his clan head dropped him into a chair, tossed him a new shirt with the police crest on it and left him with an older cousin that would be showing him his new duties.
"You don't need to be a ninja, you just have to be recognized as an Uchiha." Uchiha Misao replied sourly. "You know how to read?"
"I… yes?"
"You can hear?"
"… obviously?"
"How many fingers am I holding up?" His cousin snarked sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "If you can work, you're put to work. It's as simple as that. You're to come here when your classmates are having medical lessons. Fugaku-sama's orders."
Obito was 'stationed' with the Transmissions and Patrol division, where he was given a head-set, taught how to put it on and was buddied up to his cousin Misao. At first he wasn't given tasks outside of the office and was instead given a clipboard with names to tick off as patrols came in or out. It wasn't long till his 'duties' expanded as he started recognizing who was who from voice alone. He was next shown a map of the village, which was helpfully divided into color-coded and numbered sectors and was expected to figure out where a patrol was, what their status was and what they needed from the codes they called in.
It wouldn't have been that hard or confusing to learn if that was all he was expected to do… unfortunately for him that part of the job was only to keep him out of mischief while he performed his primary duty.
He apparently wasn't alone among the Uchiha in his near-complete inability to use Medical Ninjutsu without causing injury to himself or others. It was like that with practically every Uchiha, it came from having a natural Fire affinity. It was apparently a point of pride that tied into the reason their clan crest was a fan. No one in the clan particularly saw that as a weakness but instead looked at it as a source of strength, one that they had used since the Warring States Period. Way back when the Uchiha stood alone as a clan against the entire world they'd used the ability as a weapon in battle. Clansmen would share chakra between themselves right before a battle and the Resonance they struck allowed them to boost the strength of every technique they used.
Obito was assigned to what the Uchiha in their division called the 'Tap-Desk' to send off outgoing patrols with a literal tap, he then receive one of his own from the incoming patrols to burn off the excess that wasn't used. The incoming teams were free to go take care of paperwork, process an offender or drop off lost property without being interrupted with the need to release that energy.
He had to do that FOR them.
It didn't take very long for Obito to figure out why their division was so well stocked up on water, burn salve, lip-balm and bandages, or why they shared a wall with a gigantic furnace with several easy-to-open hatches. The very first time he received a 'tap' from an incoming team he'd thought he was going to burst and he was so very glad Misao had none-too-gently booted him over to the furnace.
"One Fireball." His cousin barked, "And don't use up everything, you've got another hour till I'm letting you go back to the Academy."
Obito scrabbled desperately for the latch on the furnace door and threw it open, formed the necessary hand seals with shaking hands and blew out the strongest, hottest and brightest Grand Fireball that had ever come out of him. At the end of it he was still somehow on his feet despite how much he'd put into the technique and he was no longer shaking, he was in fact still buzzing and warm from the chakra.
"Why did the Uchiha join the Senju if our clan was so powerful?" he asked his cousin, interrupting the history lesson he was on the receiving end of and wincing at his now extremely dry throat. He was more than aware of just how proud of his clan was of their own strength, so…
An unopened bottle of water hit the back of his head and Obito turned to glare at his cousin even as he scooped it up and greedily drank it down.
"Because Medics." Misao bit out around the mouth of his own bottle.
There really wasn't any arguing with that answer, especially not by the end of his shift.
Obito changed out of his own clothes two minutes after his first 'tap' and into the blessedly breezy and over-sized uniform shirt his clan head had so very kindly provided him. He went through more bottles of water than he knew he could drink at any one time and dizzily decided that he had fallen in love with the Senju who had come up with the recipe for the lip balm and salve he lathered his face, hands, and lips with.
"I'm going to marry her." He rasped feelingly as his various burns were soothed away within minutes of application.
"Too late, Senju Tsunade already has a lover." Misao snickered.
"Gimme five years and I could take him."
OoO
By the time his shift was up Obito was too dizzy to move. One of the teams heading out to patrol in the direction of the Academy scruffed him anyway and 'helpfully' dropped him off as not even the excuse of being high off chakra would excuse him for the day. He was almost grateful for it. He wouldn't be able to sit still once his head cleared anyway, so it wasn't like he could rest if he went home and he couldn't exactly trust himself to walk in a straight line.
His teachers accepted the condition he was in as the aftermath of clan training and didn't let up on him either. As his head cleared from the faint-headedness that came from using the Grand Fireball Technique one too many times he realized that they'd had the right idea. He was nowhere near as tired as he should be, even at the end of a day full of exertion. Obito might have been physically low on chakra and overheated, but what little chakra he had was still Resonating.
It kept him alert, twitchy and highly distracted. It was a lucky thing girls went straight into Kunoichi lessons after the Medic classes were finished or Rin would have caught the sharp side of his frazzled state. As it was he nearly delivered it to his grandmother.
"How do I make it stop?" he asked her the second he saw her upon staggering home, close to crying with the need to fall over. His legs were wobbling and his arms were shaking, but his eyes were practically peeled open. "Make it stop!"
When she held out her arms he'd have thrown himself into them if he weren't already falling, she caught him, bundled him up into her lap and pressed her hands against his in what was now a familiar position. "Pay attention to how I do this Obito," she started, voice soothing and calm as she braided her fingers together with his, "As I'll only be showing you the one time."
He nodded jerkily.
"Good, now tap me."
Obito passed her some of his chakra without needing to ask what she meant and leaned back in her arms to better feel what she was doing to calm the Resonance. When she flattened her hands he hastily copied her and blinked when she brought their hands back together with a sharp clap. Their chakra spiked and then… calmed down.
Tension bled out of him in a wave and his body might as well have turned into liquid as his chakra settled. His grandmother grinned proudly down at him and cuddled him up further into her arms. "You can use that same technique to disrupt Genjutsu, isn't that useful?"
"…need to stop bragging 'bout me." Obito mumbled as his eyelids grew heavy.
"Never."
OoO
Chapter End~! I'd add more but I have work in a few hours, so that means I need sleep. Night night folks, hope to see what you thought of it when I wake up. A bit more fluff to continue, but be warned STUFF happens soon. If you know what i mean. XP
