Warning: Dark themes
Chapter Three: Open Wounds
He walks with hunched shoulders and head low, feet dragging slowly through the mud. The stench of iron is heavy in the air. The sky is murky gray, heavy with bloated storm clouds that block out the sun.
And there is the silence, silence so thick that it wraps around him like a wool blanket, suffocating him, broken only by the ragged sounds of his own breathing. The dead do not talk. The silence in their empty gazes presses down on his skin, warm and moist with rot and decay.
As he walks down the narrow trail the dead crowd along the path, reaching out with bony fingers that pass through him like mist. He doesn't lift his head to look at them. His guilt weighs him down, dragging him earthwards like lead weight, cold and heavy in his veins. His eyes are fixed on the ground, the slow repetition of his feet. The mud is soft and wet, watered by the blood of the hundreds. Thousands.
The end is near.
As if in response to an unspoken command, he lifts his head slowly as he takes the last few steps to the end of the road. He drops down on his knees, like a prisoner awaiting execution, and looks up into the dark eyes of judgement.
Rin smiles benevolently down at him, a clashing dissonance with her eyes that bleed black tears. She reaches down and takes his face in her hands, gentle as she tilts his head back to look into his eyes.
She studies him carefully, as if looking into his very soul. He feels the mounting tension in the air, the soundless buzz of the crowd behind him, around him, of the dead that he felled during the war. He holds his breath; the silence is complete.
After an endless moment, Rin opens her mouth to sound her verdict.
x
And Obito wakes up.
x
His heart is pounding rapidly in his ears when his eyes snap open; he has a moment of panicked confusion as he takes in the dark ceiling. It takes him a while to come back to reality, taking deep, shuddering breaths, fingers clenched in a death grip around the hilt of the short knife he always takes to bed.
He had hoped the nightmares would stop after the war. Of course, fate granted him no such luck. Obito sits up slowly in his bed, feeling jittery and twitchy, like he might jump out of his skin any minute.
The ticking of the clock echoes noisily in the darkness. It grates on his nerves; he wants to make it stop. He entertains the notion of destroying the clock for a few seconds, fingers twitching in anticipation – but it really wouldn't do, since this is the freaking Main Compound and the people living in it are always supposed to behave properly.
He breathes out noisily, hands reaching up to tangle in his hair, knees pulling close to his chest. His senses are too sharp for comfort, every nerve taut and singing like a live wire, and he feels like something wild that has been stuffed into a cage – luxurious, but a cage nonetheless. This bed is too soft, the room too warm, and everything feels so… wrong.
It's an uncomfortable feeling, like an itch under his skin, constantly there but just out of reach. He doesn't understand – isn't he supposed to feel better, at least, now that the war's finally over, now that he's back where he belongs?
But he just can't relax. What is wrong with him?
Frustrated, Obito untangles himself from his blankets, kicking them off his legs, and slips out of the room. Maybe the night air will do him some good.
x
The hallway is cool and dark, dappled with shadows. The wooden floor panes are almost cold under his bare feet as he meanders through the winding corridors. This place makes him feel small, the way he felt when he was young and he had rarely ventured outside this building, when this Compound had been the sole confines of his little world. He feels like a ghost of his memories, an echo of the long-forgotten past.
He's feeling calmer now – not particularly better, but not as jumpy as back in his room – and mulling over returning to bed when he sees a glow of light down another hallway. Apparently he's not the only one spending a sleepless night – it's at least three in the morning.
Suddenly curious, he pads close on silent feet, taking care not to make a single sound, not to leak a drop of his chakra. There are voices coming from the room – familiar voices, in fact, both low and emotional, like they are arguing about something.
" – don't know why you're being so stubborn, Fugaku, surely you understand the point of the Elders, this is no time to be so obstinate."
It takes a moment to place the voice – Obito picks through his head for a while before realizing that it belongs to none other than Uchiha Matou. And… Fugaku?
Obito blinks, thoughts grinding to a stop. So. He's overhearing a potentially deep-secret conversation between an Uchiha Elder and the Clan Head. At least, he doesn't see why this conversation is taking place in the dead of the night unless it is terribly important.
Well. He never said his life wasn't interesting.
An involuntary grin spreads slowly across his face, and his pulse speeds up slightly in anticipation. He revels in the thrill – good to know his mischievous streak hadn't died in the war – and tilts his head closer to the room, pressing into the dark shadows by the wall. His muscles are tense, ready to dart away in a quick escape if necessary.
x
When he replies, the Clan Head's voice is tinged faintly with frustration. "I do not see where this is going, Matou-sama. Perhaps we should return to the more pressing matters at hand –"
Matou slams a hand on the table, making the teacups rattle and the papers shudder.
"This is no time for misdirection," Matou hisses, "and this matter is hardly trivial. It has been overlooked for so long – and now it would be foolish to ignore this problem."
Fugaku does not answer, and Matou takes it as a signal to proceed. "You know as well as I that the boy is a disgrace to the clan. This is no time for useless sentiment."
"Sentiment?" Fugaku echoes quietly, an indefinable emotion brewing under his composure.
"Yes, sentiment!" Matou explodes, and then he coughs slightly, as if embarrassed by the way he lost control over his emotions. "I understand, Fugaku, that the boy resembles your brother greatly. Yet he is undeniably a half-blood, and a product of your brother's carelessness, no less. He didn't even know the boy existed, for crying out loud."
Fugaku still does not reply, instead choosing to sip thoughtfully from his cup. Matou's mouth hardens into a thin line.
"And his mother," Matou spits out disgustedly, "I still shudder to think what would have happened if the whore had not contacted us first in a blackmail attempt. Can you imagine, Fugaku? The Sharingan, auctioned off in the black markets, sold out to who knows where? If we had not intervened, if we had not taken care of the whore before it could execute the threat…"
There is a pregnant pause as the Elder trails off, scowling as if relieving a bad memory.
"He is but a humiliation, no more, no less. The deed should have been done when he was first found anyway. Yet you gave him to me to train, to teach our ways and traditions, as if to let him live like one of us, like a true Uchiha. Even when he showed no promise you only ordered him to be sent away, out of sight, as if that would change anything.
"And now what? You saw yourself that he has no control over the Mangekyo. He cannot even activate it without breaking down like a weakling. He does not deserve the Sharingan, much less the Mangekyo." Matou's voice is bitter, heavy with scorn and contempt. He shakes his head before continuing gravely.
"There are others who could benefit from those eyes, Fugaku," he says, voice clear and strong, persuasive, "I hear your son is quite the prodigy – or even Shisui, he's looking to be a fine shinobi. Or you could claim it, as the brother of the bastard's father and the Head of this clan. Anyone, anyone other than the half-breed bastard that doesn't even realize the honor of bearing them. Don't you see that this is the opportunity to revive our clan into its former glory, that this is no time to be held back by sentiment?"
Fugaku stays silent for a few more moments before replying coolly. "Apparently your priorities need reevaluating, Elder Matou. More strength is important, yes, but in the end it means nothing if we keep on encouraging opposition with extreme moves."
Matou opens his mouth as if to interrupt; Fugaku shoots him a cold gaze and continues as if nothing happened. "Besides, you must be slipping in your old age – I have never let sentiment rule my decisions. As for now, Uchiha Obito is a competent jounin, and also a student of Namikaze's, who is another force to be reckoned with. I see no reason to remove him from his place yet. He is not completely worthless, and as long as he proves himself useful I shall tolerate him."
The Clan Head puts down his cup in a seemingly final gesture, the sound echoing decisively in the small room. Matou narrows his eyes, but otherwise gives in gracefully.
"Very well, then, Clan Head," he acquiesces, reluctant; "Let us hope that your decision is wise."
"Good. Now, do let us move on to the next topic of discussion – we have more important things to cover before dawn. For one, the Sandaime has finally shown hints of stepping down from his seat… "
x
Obito steps away quietly from the door – he's heard enough. He moves smoothly, slipping through the shadows with ease in quick, careful steps calculated to make as little noise as possible. He makes it back to his room and unlocks the window, jumping outside with catlike stealth – and when his feet touch the ground, he runs and runs and runs.
Somehow he ends up before the Memorial Stone, not quite out of breath but close. When he stops he throws his head back and laughs – high and knife-edge sharp and distinctly unhinged. He laughs and laughs until his stomach aches and he can't even breathe – and when that stops he falls on his knees before the monument, curling up into himself. The clearing is eerily silent except for the echoes of his own laughter that ring hollowly in his ears.
He is alone.
A sound tears itself out of his throat, a long unbroken note that starts out thin and high, like a faraway scream, before splintering into broken jagged shards that scrape at the insides of his throat and falling apart in terrible, heaving sobs that shake him down to his very bones. And oh, the tears. He cries like he's wringing himself dry, like he's emptying himself of all the tears he will ever shed in a lifetime.
He weeps without even knowing why, and it hurts, it hurts so much, and he can't stop.
It's wrong. It's all wrong.
They never told him much about his parents, except that they were dead, and that he, their only child, was an Uchiha.
Lies.
("He didn't even know the boy existed…")
He is nothing, nothing but the result of his sire's carelessness and his mother's greed, a culmination of his parents' sins, and –
("Imagine the Sharingan auctioned off in the black markets… as if to let him live like one of us, like a true Uchiha…")
– nothing but a failed attempt at bloodline theft. Nowhere even close to being a full Uchiha.
He sees now, that the clan had never planned on accepting him, that he's been used and discarded like a broken toy. How pathetic, now that he sees his entire struggle was meaningless, that his life had already been decided by others and he had never even thought to question it.
And now – why? Why had he never thought –
Why had he never even questioned the decision that he was to be sent to the front lines right after that horrible mission?
Why had he let them claim him as soon as they realized he had finally gained the Sharingan, why had he let them throw him away, again, once they confirmed that he could not control his powers?
Who gave them the right? Why did he never fight back, why didn't he ever resist?
Hatred is like a wound that gapes open, bleeding freely, a slow inexorable burn that spreads from his heart through his veins. The pain is a constant, keeping him grounded within this wretched torrent of sorrow and misery, these tears that don't stop, these cries that he cannot smother.
He howls deep into the night like a dying animal; inside he burns. They will pay. He will remember, and he will not forget, will not forgive. One day he will strike, and they will all bleed.
The war is not over. The only change is that the enemy is much, much harder to see, that the blows aren't as transparent as they were on the battlefield.
He has already bloodied himself on those killing fields, sacrificed the lives of thousands to survive, and he cannot die, if only for that. He will not – cannot – let those lives go to waste. He will survive, and they will pay.
("As long as he proves himself useful…")
He bites down on his lip, hard enough to draw blood – and glares up at the full moon, cold and bright and utterly indifferent. He bares his teeth in a macabre resemblance of a grin, and silently makes a vow.
He will not let them win. He will never become worthless, never become useless, and he will survive.
He will survive in this twisted world, and he will show them.
For once, he will win.
Notes: I would like to say this is the end of the psychological trauma... but there's still the Sanbi. And the Kyuubi. Well.
(P.S. Writing feelings is hard. How does it seem?)
Once again, thank you for reading, and feedback is most appreciated.