.
.
There is no light with him as Kabuto glides down the dark halls of the Akatsuki compound, pausing to push back the hood of his cloak. The month of self-imposed exile was nothing but boring to him, and if Kabuto has any regrets, it is that he is formally cut off from the rest of the war. "It is, they say, an exquisite jutsu," Kabuto says, and Tobi stands and stares while Kabuto smiles, broadly. "A shame to waste it, when it has so much potential for battle."
"Hmph." Tobi glares at him, and Kabuto spreads his hands, a gesture of supplication.
"I would not presume to know what the great Uchiha Madara thinks," Kabuto says, and he bows deliberately low. "Again, I apologize if I misread your wishes. I thought she would be a wonderful gift."
"Then tell me why should I just not kill you now?"
"Because you are still missing the main ingredients," Kabuto says. "The half-chewed tentacle of the Eight-Tails, and the pathetic chakra twins of the Nine. Who is to say that is enough to forward your plan? I mean no disrespect, of course," Kabuto says. "I just find a relationship like ours would be, shall we say, mutually beneficial."
It is an uneasy alliance, but Kabuto does not mind: it makes things more interesting, breaking up the monotony of his days.
He doesn't see the girl, who evidently had been sequestered in a different part of the compound. Kabuto's mouth stretches into a knowing grin.
His little birds, you see: they have never steered him wrong.
xXx
.
She's eating alone in the long dining hall, the table long enough to accommodate forty men. Meetings and plannings have taken place in here, but Rin takes her food and sits alone in the half-lit darkness, the single light from the lamp above her casting a bright glow onto the bowl of rice on the table.
She's sitting at the head of the table, holding a bowl of rice by her chin and scooping mouthfuls of food with her chopsticks, and it's only when she's almost done with her second bowl of rice that Tobi appears, sliding silently into the chair just to the right of her.
"You want some?" Rin says, and she holds up another bowl. He looks at her, and she pushes the bowl forward.
"Don't tell me you don't need to eat," Rin says. "The Zetsus told me you do."
He looks at her for a moment, then picks up the bowl, turning it over in his hands.
The way he tilts his mask, just enough to edge his chopsticks quickly inside, makes Rin laugh. He stops, then looks at her oddly, and Rin shakes her head, covering her mouth with her hand.
"Sorry," Rin says, and she bites back a laugh. "I just figured you'd take off your mask."
The bowl clangs a little too loudly when he sets it back down on the table.
"Do you eat by yourself?" Rin says, and he turns his head slowly, as if carefully considering his words.
"On occasion," he says, and Rin takes his bowl again, loading it with rice and pickled radish, pushing it across the table.
He stares at it as if it were rigged with explosives, and Rin smiles again. "I won't look," Rin says, and she smiles, gently. "I know you probably have a lot of scars."
She is getting used to reading his movements, because now his good eye widens imperceptibly, a brief flash of surprise. "Medic nin," Rin says. "I can tell by the scarring around your eye."
"Hmph." He picks up the bowl again, considering.
She keeps her promise. Gamely she forces her eyes downward, waiting for him to shift his mask. But he doesn't. She lifts her eyes again and he is looking at her with a content sort of expression, and she realizes this is the first time she's seen him relaxed. "What else do you know about me?" he says, because he seems genuinely curious, and Rin shrugs, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
"It looks like you gouged out your second eye," Rin says, and she motions to the left side of his mask, seeing the gaping maw of chakra where his eye should have been. "Why did you take it out?"
"I was about to replace it with something more useful," he says, and he shrugs a little. "But it was not yet ready."
Rin doesn't ask need to ask. The practice is ghoulish, and she knows too well how enemy nin sometimes steal each other's eyes - sometimes, the organ doesn't work right away, the shock and trauma of the original owner's death depressing its chakra and hampering its abilities, so much so that the user can go unintentionally blind.
"Would it make it better," he says, slowly, "If I told you I did not kill him?"
Rin blinks, then nods. "I figured you probably killed a lot of people," Rin says, and he spreads his hands.
"A necessary evil," he says. "But a small price to pay for lasting peace."
They lapse into silence. Rin continues eating and the man watches her quietly, as if her eating has a calming effect on him. She glances up and catches his eye, and he blinks and looks away quickly; she wonders if he's blushing behind the mask.
She washes the dishes, warm water washing over her hands. The dishes clink softly as she sets them on the countertop, and she silently marvels how a coterie of monsters and masked masked men manage to have a proper kitchen.
He's still watching her, standing behind her.
"Madara-san," Rin says, and he looks up. "I was wondering if I could go outside?"
The request seems to catch him off guard. "I won't leave," Rin says, and she dries her hands, setting the towel on the countertop. "I just want to look around."
"Where would you like to go?" he asks, and Rin frowns.
"What do you mean?" Rin says.
"I can take you anywhere," he says, and there's a touch of pride in his voice when he explains, "The kamui makes it so I can teleport across moderate distances. If you name the place, I shall take you there myself."
He probably can't take her home, which is the first thing that springs into Rin's mind, but it seems he's starting to trust her. Rin shakes her head and smiles. "Nowhere far," Rin says. "I just want to take a look at the compound. If that's okay, of course."
The man nods. "I will permit it," he says, and he holds out his hand.
It is the strangest sensation: a sudden blackness, cold and windy, and she has no sense of direction, of which way is up or down or even the position of her body, when they materialize suddenly, just outside the range of mountains jutting upwards at the charcoal sky.
"Where are we?" Rin says, and the man walks forward, waiting a little for her to follow him.
"Outside the compound," he says, and Rin follows him, craning her neck upwards at the large turrets of animal bones, cutting past the branches of trees and spiralling high above her.
"They call this the Mountain's Graveyard," the man says, and Rin can understand, walking underneath what looks like an upturned ribcage, white spots of ground like bumps of vertebrae pushing out from the rock. "There are no visible entrances, only secret tunnels buried under the rock. It is easier to teleport from here."
They walk a little bit, the sound of dead leaves crunching under their feet. "I find it strange," the man says, and Rin looks up at him, curiously. "You are a medic nin. And yet you are squeamish about eyes."
"It's not that." Rin frowns, kicking a pebble as she walks. "I transplanted an eye once. It was awful," Rin says.
"How so?" the man says. He isn't looking at her, hands hidden deep in the sleeves of his cloak.
"Because it was from my friend," Rin says, and she shudders to herself, remembering: Obito, pinned down under the rock, Kakashi crying and Rin trying to steady herself, bursts of uneven chakra lacerating the whites of his eye.
"I hurt him," Rin says. "He was dying. And his last moments were full of pain."
He stops suddenly, and Rin nearly bumps into him, so caught up in the memories of Obito's death. "Did he ask you to?"
"What?"
"Your friend," he says, and his good eye meets hers.
"Did he ask you to do it?"
"Yes," Rin says. She rubs her arms, remembering. "He got crushed under a rock, and our other friend hurt his eye. So he told him he could have his."
"Hyuuga?" the man asks. Rin shakes her head.
"No," Rin says. "Uchiha."
"Then your friend should consider himself lucky," he says, and he keeps walking. "The sharingan is an excellent eye."
Something about his words twists a knot in her chest, and she rushes forward, angrily.
"How could you say that?" Rin says, and the man turns. "People are not meant for spare parts. How could you be so cruel?"
The wind stirs. Rin glares and folds her arms, and the man tilts his head upward, following the sky.
"You removed it, I take it?"
"What?"
The man looks at her. "Your friend's eye," he says. "You told me you hurt him. Then you told me he died. But he asked you to," the man says, and his eye bores into hers. "You should not feel so ashamed."
Rin bows her head, blinking hard. "I hurt him," Rin says, and she remembers: harsh bursts of chakra, the smell of charred flesh, how Obito's body seized up, the visible side of his face contorted with a silent a scream.
"Did you stay with him?" he asks. "Your friend, before he died?"
"No," Rin says. "The ceiling was collapsing and we had to leave."
"So quickly?" the man says, and Rin shakes her head.
"I don't want to talk about this," Rin says, and she pushes past him, walking forward.
The touch on her shoulder is firm, reassuring, and Rin looks up, surprised.
"I find it hard to believe that cave collapsed so quickly," he says. "It seems to me that you probably stayed with him, and that your presence probably comforted him."
She remembers: clutching his hand, crying over his chest.
His hand is still on her shoulder, and the grip is sure. Strong. Rin nods, shakily, and the man lets his arm drop. "I cannot imagine you being cruel," the man says, and Rin looks up at him again. His sharingan is deactivated, and the dark brown iris seems familiar. Sad.
"Well," he says, and the strange intimacy between them drops, "Next time, make sure to kill him, first. It would be a mercy," he says. And then,
"Sometimes people are meant to die."
xXx
.
She thrashes in her sleep. In dreams, she is haunted by a boy with missing eyes, trickles of blood dripping down like tears.
She moans. And in the fever dream of her delirium, she thinks she feels it: a soothing hand on her forehead, gentle as a mother's hand brushing over the brow of a sleeping child, and soon her dreams are filled with sunlight and smiling faces, and Obito as she remembers him, hugging her tight and telling her everything will be okay.
