It was funny how some of the human traditions had made their way over into the Arcane Territories. Their 'holidays' for instance were becoming more commonplace, and Christmas was a 'thing'. The entire streets were lined with lights and everyone seemed more cheery and open to conversation; it was as if the world was opening up and all he wanted to do was go and bury his head in the sand somewhere where Christmas didn't exist. They'd gotten a Holiday Bonus at work. There were Holiday Offers at the local stores and suddenly everything was annoying and obnoxious.
It wasn't ideal. He was a complete introvert and a Uchiha to boot - their stoic and calm nature had become a trademark, even if Obito did consider it some kind of psychological conditioning. They were brought up to not let their emotions overrule their brilliant minds, and it generally left anything enjoyable to be ignored or sidelined. Christmas wasn't useful. It didn't make him happy, he didn't see the point in borrowing human holidays for 'fun' when they took it as seriously as they did (didn't they start wars over these things?) and he was not going to be attending their 'Work Christmas Party'. Hell-fucking-no.
He barricaded himself in his apartment, shutting the doors, the windows and the curtains before taking a long shower, changing into his comfy clothes and curling up in front of his computer system. He was thinner, he knew, because the waistband of his pants kept falling down his hips. The neckline of his long-sleeved top used to scoop around his collar bone, but now it hung down limply. The cuffs at the sleeves moved when he typed and it irritated him more than it should.
Work had been gruelling, more-so than usual because Orochimaru had apparently gained a few more successful experiments which had led to a rise in funding. It didn't matter that nobody was quite sure what the man was aiming for, or whether it was in line with the Uchiha's remit for defences and technology progression.
Obito shuddered whenever Orochimaru passed him, he couldn't walk down the labs any more without encountering him so he'd slowly been avoiding them altogether. There was something about him that put him on edge and he hated it. He'd done all of the digging that he could possibly do on the guy and nothing legitimate had come up. It was all clearly doctored in one way or another, and the fact that it was that believable and that he hadn't been the one to do it made him angrier.
The Head must've known. Fugaku wasn't an idiot and he was all about progression and 'things moving forward' so it was only natural that he'd branch out into other things. But something about it didn't settle right with him.
Anyway, he was home now. Away from the stress of work and sat staring at a screen wondering what the heck he used to do before work got so dismal and serious, when a message popped up in the corner.
'Kashi: Yo. You alive?
Tobi: Alive enough…why?
'Kashi: Meet me at the noodle place next to Hen's in fifteen minutes.
Didn't Kakashi have better things to do? The man always had plans, even if it was sitting in a tree and reading a damned book.
Tobi: I'm comfy here.
'Kashi: …then do you have food?
Tobi glanced at his kitchen.
Tobi: Probably not.
'Kashi: You suck.
Tobi sighed and opened up another browser window, transferring some money directly over into another account and encrypting it. Then he put it into Kakashi's, noting Rin's name tagged alongside it - a joint account, now. How long had it even been since he'd seen his two friends? His only two friends, really.
Tobi: There's money in your account. You buy food.
'Kashi: I bring food. You set up.
Tobi: Okay?
'Kashi:...If you've actually put money in my account, I'll hate you.
Tobi: Fine
'Kashi: I'm serious…
Tobi: I know
'Kashi: …
'Kashi: You have! You put money in my account again! I fucking hate you.
'Kashi: I told you to stop doing that!
'Kashi: Take it out
Tobi wondered if his friend had any common sense, sometimes. Even if he could take it back out (which was entirely possible if only a little bit rude), it would make more sense for Kakashi to transfer it back himself. Besides, that really wasn't the point.
Tobi: You have twenty minutes. If you're not here, I'm going to sleep.
'Kashi: Don't be a grouch
Tobi: Just hurry the fuck up
'Kashi: Someone's moody!
'Kashi: Tobi?
'Kashi: ….
'Kashi: Hey?
'Kashi: Fine. I'm bringing tomatoes.
'Kashi: …. Don't ignore me…
Tobi watched the messages blip up his screen, wondering if Kakashi was walking and messaging at the same time, or if he was using his own computer and hadn't even left his apartment yet. The man had a wonderful amount of energy and Obito had frequently questioned why they were even friends. Kakashi was half-fey and half-warlock, courtesy of his parents, and worked with the general law enforcement of the Arcane Territories. He'd known about Obito's hacking abilities since they were barely in double-digits, but he'd never questioned his reasons for using them.
Kakashi's magic was always growing, but he'd always shied away from his hereditary ethereal look, covering his silver-light hair, his porcelain skin and his dark eyes - but more recently he'd taken to wearing a mask over the lower half of his face instead. Obito remembered Rin joking that it was because she was the only one allowed to see - but Obito knew Kakashi was just embarrassed. He always had been a bashful child, easily flustered and preferring to hide behind a book. It was what had bonded them together as friends at such an early age - neither were looking for boisterous or outgoing friends.
Once Kakashi started working with the law enforcement, it was mandatory for him to wear the typical uniform that consisted of almost fully covering himself from head to toe in black. While on field work, gloves and masks and hats were essential, and Tobi knew that Kakashi - for the most part - liked doing his job. He liked doing what he knew how to, working with the rules and doing things 'for the good'.
It was an enviable trait, and one that Tobi knew he didn't always have in himself to carry through. It was an entirely different world to the dark one that he now found himself working in with the Uchiha Corps Facility. Currently the two corporations worked together for the common good - Obito still hoped they might continue to - but if things were heading in the direction he thought then there'd be indefinite warfare between the two within the next three years. That was a thought he didn't want to entertain at all.
Nearly twenty minutes later and he heard knocking at his door. Of course Kakashi had charmed his way through the main entrance - age had give him a bit more confidence in his looks - and Obito couldn't exactly say it didn't work or have its benefits. Obito opened the door an inch and Kakashi slipped in like a shadow.
"Suspicious as ever" His friend was as cheery as ever despite the fact, and immediately went over to the kitchen area to start up their food. "Thanks for the money, but I'll be returning it to you at the earliest opportunity"
"Consider it an apology for the inconvenience" Tobi mumbled, shuffling onto the dining chair with all of the movements that his stiffened body would allow. He hated days off; he felt so much worse when his routine was stopped.
"Inconvenience?" Kakashi echoed with a laugh. "If anything, I've not made time enough for you. How long's it been?"
"I'm not-"
"Nearly eight months, I'm sure" Kakashi frowned and then slowed his chaotic unpacking.
"After the engagement party" Obito remembered, and then noticed the way his friend's shoulders hunched.
"…shouldn't have left you alone though. I mean, I know you like your space and stuff, but … dude, I'm sorry" Kakashi had recently gotten engaged to Rin and both of them being the closest friends that Obito had, he'd originally felt a little awkward with the two of them.
"It's fine" But recently, Obito had barely given it a second thought and shamefully he hadn't had the time to be happy for them. His brain had been filled up with everything work work work work work work work work work work work-
"Tobi?" Kakashi was staring at him, those eyes burning into his thoughts. "Everything okay?"
"Just tired"
"Right, well… I guess we can eat later" The food was abruptly ignored and a folder was pulled from one of the bags; It looked like one of the ones that Rin used for filing. She had plenty of them, being a doctor at one of the best hospitals in the Arcane Territories.
"I thought you might find these interesting" Kakashi said, opening up the first page and letting the content sink in.
Obito frowned at it all, staring at the pictures for longer than a normal person could manage. Kakashi had already turned back to the food, half making an effort to prepare it and half using it as an excuse to not see how morbidly fascinated his friend was with the photographs.
"Did you take these?" Obito asked quietly.
"Most of them. Some I copied from the camera cards when-" At Obito's horrified look, Kakashi explained "When nobody was there, I made sure"
"It's always a risk…" Obito murmured.
"One that I think I'll be getting away with" Kakashi smiled an inch and there was an added sparkle in his eye - a bit of Good and Light in the quickly darkening world that Obito was living in. "But… I'm getting the feelings things aren't as straightforward as they once were"
"Meaning?"
"Recently we've been seeing an increase in missing persons, or unexplainable disappearances or dead bodies turning up…elsewhere. And I don't think it's random"
"Why are you telling me this?" Obito looked away from the files, frowning at his friend. "I'm sure there's a confidentiality agreement somewhere that you're breaking"
"There's a ton of laws your breaking with that cute little computer over there but let's gloss over that, shall we?"
"Don't be coy" Obito chided him.
"Ignoring the fact that these files shouldn't technically be out of the office," Kakashi sighed, caught. "I need you to look at them and see if you can find a pattern"
"I can't-"
"There's something I'm missing" Kakashi said plainly. "I look at them, I see different kinds of demon, witches with specific abilities, witches with hardly any useful abilities, warlocks with copious amounts of energy, ones with stunted powers, a few incubus, the fey-"
"They're harmless"
When Kakashi shrugged, Obito's stomach flopped.
"There's more than fifty of them, Obito. Fifty lives that have been taken and you can't tell me this is humane - or legal. Someone or something is doing this. The higher ups won't go up against the UCF - they're trying to bury this and it doesn't feel right. They have to be involved. The UCF can't just be for technology and defence advancement - it'll grow. And I know for a fact that Fugaku is ambitious"
"I don't know what you're suggesting" Obito stood up and started pacing, his head already pounding. He'd probably done more talking and listening with Kakashi than he had with anyone in a whole three months.
"I'm not suggesting anything, I'm rambling" Kakashi sighed and watched as Obito paced the kitchen with controlled breaths - one in for every three steps. "Maybe if I fire some theories at you, you can at least tell me they're impossible and I can rule them out. My point is," Kakashi continued. "My gut is telling me there's a pattern. They're all linked, I know it. I just can't see it"
Obito shook his head, not wanting to say anything, sure his Uchiha-trait red eyes were glowing with fascination and intrigue despite the morbid topic.
"I'd still be here if you didn't have those eyes, you know. I don't need them, I need your brain. Tell me what I'm missing"
"Can't Rin-"
"You" Kakashi leant forwards onto the counter between them. "You know I want ramen before I tell you I'm hungry. You know where I'll end up before I'm even there. I don't get it, but I don't begrudge it. There's something in that mind of yours that understands the things I haven't yet. Can't you try?"
He wasn't sure why he was able to understand Kakashi the way he did, but it wasn't always limited to him. He found he could usually gauge things in a similar way with other people, but he supposed it worked better if you knew the traits well enough to predict a more likely outcome. With Kakashi it was easy because he'd known him so long.
Perhaps that was why not knowing what Orochimaru was up to was setting him on edge so much.
Tobi sat back down and spread the pictures and documents out silently. He scanned over the paper-clipped details and tried to suck the information into his tired brain. Looking at just the images, he could tell that the UCF was involved somehow from those photographs. The way the bodies were left, the things they'd had done to them, it was too clinical. Too precise. And with what he knew of the growing laboratories, maybe it was a possibility they were involved. He certainly wouldn't put it past Orochimaru, but this was hellish. It was almost nonsensical. He couldn't find a pattern to link any of the fifty cases - without that, Kakashi wouldn't be able to move forward with anything.
Unless…. there was meant to be no sense behind it? Maybe it was supposed to be random at this point…
"Can I ask you something else?" Kakashi asked after a while, having already occupied himself making a coffee. When Obito looked up briefly - a usual indication of 'go on' - Kakashi continued. "At the UCF, do you know why you're doing what you're doing?"
In truth, he didn't. He'd long since fallen into the trap of working because it was what he knew and what he was good at and so far it hadn't caused him any problems. At least, it hadn't before. Now it was beginning to.
"Not always" He admitted. "But arguing with Fugaku Uchiha isn't something I'd do without proper ammunition…"
"I know" Kakashi barely whispered it, but every hair on Obito's body stood up.
"Please don't" He begged. "Whatever you're thinking of doing, now is not the time"
"So the UCF is up to something?"
"Don't twist this" Obito was sure he was panicking. Getting Kakashi involved in the UCF was the very last thing he wanted to do.
"Look, I haven't said anything to Rin or to anyone else. But my team think the same, I can see it in their eyes, but we don't speak about it. Someone or something is turning up these...warped and tortured bodies. I don't know what else to do, Tobi. I have no'one else to ask"
"I don't know anything" Tobi admitted, putting the pictures back in the folder and hoping they'd disappear before he slept.
"There has to be something" Kakashi was nearing the end of his tether, he could feel it. Obito was his last resort at making any kind of links with this, and unless he steered him away, he couldn't be sure Kakashi would make a huge deal of the matter and take it right to Fugaku's office with a warrant of arrest for something.
While the idea appealed, Kakashi's main problem was that he couldn't pin anything down. There was no links to the bodies in the first place - other than them all being disappearances within the previous two years - and there was certainly nothing but Kakashi's gut instinct telling him the UCF had anything to do with it.
"I'll go on the offensive if you can't" Kakashi said cautiously, sipping his drink.
"You think I'm lying?"
"I think you're hiding - which you're very good at, but I know you"
He'd had enough. He'd forgotten how much Kakashi could be sometimes.
"Offensive it is" Kakashi left his cup and scooped up all the documents and images, clearing the table between them and going back to the food. They were silent for a long while and Obito found it peaceful - a calm before the storm which Kakashi - or his own mind - would bring.
The bowl of food was placed in front of him, soup and noodles together in one bowl. Kakashi's way of forcing him to eat the whole lot, else he'd have picked at the soup and toyed with the noodles and had neither.
They ate quietly, and gradually Obito felt himself loosen up. The quiet was comforting, Kakashi wasn't bothering him and there was something about having him there that reminded him of happy childhood days. It was easier.
"How's work?" Kakashi said, sipping at his soup with his bowl at his chin, completely at ease with their dark little world.
"Fine" Obito replied, eyeing up the chopsticks and wondering if it was really worth the effort.
"I put extra flavours in yours" Kakashi indicated to the soup and he knew he had to at least try it. After a bit longer, Kakashi murmured, "You got most of the veg, too"
Obito stopped trying, pushing the bowl in Kakashi's direction and putting his head into his hands.
"You won't eat it?"
"Kakashi, stop trying"
"…hey" Kakashi was there beside him, hands on his shoulders, those dark eyes staring right at him. "I'm sorry, just breathe" He wasn't aware he was struggling to until his chest began to burn.
His thoughts raged - all of the things he wanted to tell Kakashi were right there in the back of his throat but when he tried to force them out he ended up gasping for breath.
Workloads have increased dramatically since Orochimaru started working at the UCF.
There's been a higher death toll since he took over co'ordinating the labs.
They've upped the security systems to a forty-three layered encryption that costs three times as much to keep running.
They've only used it on the laboratory areas, but that they're planning to extend it to the new Kennex facility that's being built.
They're making me erase people.
Obito was almost certain that he knew what Orochimaru was after - and he wasn't above waiting for it if he had to. He wanted the top position of that entire Kennex project - whatever it was going to be - but the fact that he wanted it made Obito crazy with confusion. Why why why why why why why? What would it do that could make him so damn eager? Nothing good, surely.
"...there we go" Kakashi murmured, smiling an inch despite the nerves in his eyes as Obito evened out his breathing. "I didn't mean to set you off; I'm sorry"
Obito nudged his friends hands off him and recomposed himself.
When neither of them said anything more and Kakashi was clearly growing nervous, the space between them seemed to grow more anxious.
"I didn't mean to push you" Kakashi said quietly, the guilt in his voice was enough. "It's been annoying me for too long and you're my only reliable link to that place - I don't mean to use you but I'm running out of threads. It's clearly eating at you too"
"….What are you going to do?" Obito asked, after a long while of wondering whether or not he wanted to know.
"Look into Orochimaru" As soon as the words left Kakashi's lips Obito's veins ran cold. "He's the changed factor in all of this and you haven't mentioned him once. There's the new Kennex facility which I know for a fact has no official purpose yet. There's also been a few previous complaints about his work ethic, so I'll go from there"
"You didn't need me for that"
"I know" Kakashi nursed his drink, staring at it. "Maybe I just needed to tell someone so I can stop thinking I'm going crazy" He let out a small, humourless laugh. "But you'll let me know if you think of anything else? Or if there's anything that's bothering you?" He couldn't be sure he would, after this. Perhaps keeping his friend at arms length would be good for the both of them.
"I know that face, don't shut me out" Kakashi insisted. "Let me know if you have any of those weird nightmares, too"
Dreaming wasn't an uncommon way for his thoughts to gather. He used to wake wondering if those ideas were just as crazy as other people's dream-things, but he'd gathered from a few hit-and-misses that for ninety-three percent of the time his dreams were more like memory/thought overflows. Kakashi loved solving them, and perhaps Obito would too but they always gave him migraines.
"Are we done?" Obito asked quietly, glancing to the clock and wondering if Kakashi would leave.
"I haven't seen you in eight months" Kakashi abandoned what little was left of his dinner and swiftly moved to flop onto the very unused couch. He reached for the nearest book on the coffee table - and there were many - and brought it up to his face oddly-angled. "How about we just read for a while"
Obito couldn't exactly argue with that, other than he knew he couldn't keep his eyes open much longer. Keeping two panic attacks at bay and having his friend back for less than an hour, working for over twelve hours and having less than eight hours sleep all in one go was exhausting.
He left his barely-touched food and went to the other chair opposite the couch. He wrapped the constant blanket there around him and picked a book from the coffee table as well, entirely for decorative purposes. He'd be asleep before he could finish the first page.
"Want me to read to you?" Kakashi asked easily, wiggling his book. "It's a good one"
Obito murmured an incoherent response and Kakashi chose to receive it as an affirmative.
He couldn't remember Kakashi even starting.