.
The scene kept playing behind his eyes.
Akio's grab for the training rope. His grandmother turning towards him. His teammates and chief, their blazing sharingan locking them into perfect mimicry, turning to look at what had caught her attention. Bound by their own instinctive imitation they'd left an opening where there really shouldn't have been one given their collective pool of talent. One that he had opened just by being there.
There was no way he could have stopped them from fighting. He'd known that! Even after all these years he still hadn't managed to sneak up on a single police officer. He was helpless when pitted up against his own clan as he was too young and inexperienced. He hadn't even graduated from the academy yet! What kind of over-inflated arrogance had raised its ugly head? He'd been stupid, and Akio, wholly focused on his target, took advantage of it to attack.
He knew the kind of emotion that had made the man do it; Obito felt the incomprehensible rage in himself in that moment. Not that he'd been able to do anything with it. Rage eclipsed logic and the inarticulate scream he'd let out had unfortunately jolted everyone back into action before he could act on it. He'd watched Akio be detained. Obito himself had been caught mid-lunge, reaching for the man with bare hands and wild with violent intent.
Now he was sitting chained to a bench in the hallway just outside the surgery room his grandmother had been taken to. He felt raw, his throat hurt from his earlier crying and screaming. His face itched and stung where his tears were drying over his bandages, joining in with his eyelids, then there were his eyes…
There was no mistaking it, he'd activated his Sharingan.
The binding chains he was being held down with did nothing to inhibit the circulation of chakra within his own body. It was one thing to know objectively what the chains did and another thing to actually experience. He was helpless to move, and unlike a more experienced ninja he was in no way strong enough to break himself free. He couldn't free himself using his eyes. How useless.
"Obito. Look at me."
No.
Misao clicked his tongue and his partner's gloved fingers reached under his chin and forced him to tilt his head up. Obito stubbornly looked over the man's shoulder and glared at the pits in the paintwork across the corridor. He could feel an ache forming between his temples and in his jaw from the way he was clenching his teeth.
"First lesson in learning how to control the Sharingan—"
He couldn't close his own eyes fast enough in order not to witness Misao's bleed to red within his peripheral vision. His Captain didn't keep his Sharingan active for long though, and allowed the chakra in his eyes bleed out until his eyes were dark again without doing anything else.
"— direct eye-contact is not necessary."
Inexplicably, his vision diminished. The now noticeable, from its absence, drain on his chakra stopped. Misao had taught him how to deactivate the Sharingan and it had only taken one look. Probably how to activate it too given Obito's own Sharingan had been active when his Captain had tilted his head up.
Obito jerked his chin out of his cousin's grasp and dropped his head to glare at the ground, furiously ignoring the sensation of tears tracing new pathways down his face. Even now, with the Sharingan inactive, his vision was still sharper than it had been before he'd rounded the corner to the dojo where Akio— where he'd evidently activated his bloodline limit.
Even in the state he was in he could tell the difference. Now it was like he was wearing an invisible pair of vision-corrective glasses he hadn't known he'd needed, ones with too strong a prescription. So crisp that he was right on the edge of not being able to bear it, regardless of the tears blurring his vision.
Now he knew why the cousins of his that had had their sharingan forced forward avoided eye-contact. The sheer clarity of the world around him was damn near painful to look at, and that was just him looking at inanimate objects that had no chakra. If a 'natural' activation of his bloodline limit was this excruciatingly sharp, then what must it feel like with a burn behind it?
Was this was what the Sharingan did even with it dormant?
A series of coded taps sounded through Misao's com unit and Obito heard the vague sounds of a message being delivered but couldn't make out what was being said. If he'd been wearing his goggles the amplifiers in the ear covers might have been able to, but they were at home. He had none of his gear on him. He hadn't even taken the time to put his shoes on in his rush to leave the house. Maybe if he had paused for his things, the night might have gone differently and his grandmother wouldn't even be in the hospital.
She would've been in custody instead.
Clenching his eyes shut he shook his head at the thought and shoved it aside. His grandmother couldn't have simply charged out of the house with murder on her mind, yes she had a volcanic temper, but surely she wouldn't have—
"Misao. What happened before I got there?" Obito heard his own gravelly voice ask the question that arose from the suspicion.
Obito wanted to use Sharingan-based Genjutsu the Military Police used, the one that forced the subject to tell the truth. He'd seen and heard enough about it in the last year to give it his best shot, but as it was he currently couldn't extend his chakra beyond his own body.
He didn't even want to think about it or care to try to bringing it forward, but… he had to know. When he lifted his head to look his cousin in the eye it was with the painfully perfect vision of the Sharingan. Calling it forward was effortless now. He hadn't wanted to test the knowledge that hung in the back of his mind like a looping video clip, but he hadn't exactly been given a choice now, had he?
Misao should have waited to teach him how to control the Sharingan.
He couldn't force the man to tell him the truth, but he would see it if the man lied. He'd been trained in how to spot a lie, knew all the techniques people used to disguise the truth. With his Sharingan active those subtle tells would be magnified to the point that he'd be able to spot them no matter how emotionally compromised he was.
He saw every breath his cousin took, the sight of Misao's dormant Sharingan, ebony against jet black, before his cousin's eyes responded and chased away the dark in a wash of chakra. Misao's pulse beat a rhythm in the blood in his eyes and he could read every expression that crossed the man's face as if it were an open book.
"… you think I would lie to you?" Misao snapped, immediately knowing what he was doing.
"You would. To protect me. To shelter me." Obito hissed, catching his breath on the poisonous words of blame that wanted to pour out of him like so much acid. It was an indicator of the strength of the emotion in him. The emotions that wanted to hurt everyone else as much as he was hurting.
"Make sure you don't forget to listen then, while you're so focused." Misao parried bitingly, meeting the glare with an offended twist of the lips at the implication. "Atsui sa—n was drunk and violent with it. With the trouble he'd already caused with you we were attempting to clarify the situation and calm him down. He escalated the situation into physical assault. No one could blame her for defending herself."
Obito closed his eyes and allowed the chakra to bleed away from his eyes as he clenched his bound hands. It really was his fault. If he'd just waited at home, or if he'd spent just a little bit longer getting ready his grandmother wouldn't be—
"— and Akio?"
"In detention for attacking a clan elder. He will have to explain his actions before the Hokage and Council in a court martial."
Bile rose in his throat as his gut twisted sickeningly. Court martial. His grandmother was fighting for her life and they were giving her murderer a Court Martial? "And you think that's good enough?!"
Misao wasn't given the opportunity to answer as the doors to the operating room opened, interrupting whatever answers his cousin would have given him. A medic with long, pale blond hair stepped out and Obito's eyes turned away from his team captain and the whole of his attention affixed on the new arrival.
Obito froze as his eyes picked up the details of the man's emotions from his face. Narrowed dark eyes. Eyebrows brought together. The down-turned corners of his pinched mouth. The muscles of his square chin bunched together. His mind interpreted the information at a rapid pace and when the man's lips moved he predicted what he was going to say before he voiced the question.
"Are you family of Uchiha Sumiko?" The medic asked shortly, his face giving away every emotion he was feeling. The man didn't want to be the one to relay the news he was still preparing himself to deliver and Obito was too scared of the news to give that question the sarcastic answer it deserved.
"Yes." Misao answered for him. "How is she doing?"
A grimace, the man's mouth pinched together again. "I'll be blunt. There's a good chance that she might not survive this. This kind of brain damage is fatal about fifty percent of the time. We've done all we can medically and have her in a room where we can monitor her vitals. For now it's a waiting game."
What they were waiting on went unspoken.
"There's no point in you sitting out here." The medic said, turning on his heel. "Come with me."
Misao jerked the chain holding him to the bench before he could yank himself forward and a practiced flick of the wrist had the chain slithering off of him coiling up into his hand. Obito was at the medic's heels in an instant.
"Obito."
He spared a glance back at his team captain, who made a point to flash his Sharingan at him. Obito let the chakra in his own eyes fade at the prompt and clenched his fists. He shouldn't have needed that reminder, the eyes he'd awakened were draining. So much so that had Misao not prompted him to shut them down he'd have needed a Tap to keep him going.
He was dangerously close to needing one anyway but he'd sooner cut his own nose off then ask for one. His emotions didn't need amplifying. He was already so wound up he'd probably need to be sedated if he started Resonating and he didn't want to be unconscious right now.
The sight that greeted him when he was led into the observation room was one Obito was glad he wasn't seeing with the Sharingan.
His grandmother's head was wrapped with bandages, thick padding and gauze. Her neck was in a brace and she had been changed into a hospital gown. None of that did anything to hide the brutal blue-black bruising on her face. The medics had made an attempt to clean her up but they had missed spots. There were still dried remnants of blood on her face and peeking around the edges of her bandages.
"Baa-chan!" Obito drew in a jagged breath and lunged forward, but stopped himself before he reached her. He wanted to touch and make sure she was still alive, but at the same time he didn't want to cause any further damage or hurt her any more than she must already be hurting. Instead he very gingerly picked up his grandmother's hand from where it was resting on the bed sheets.
A hand grasped the back of his pyjama shirt and lifted him up a bit. Obito turned to deliver a blistering glare to Misao, but didn't dare try to free himself from the grip less he jostle his grandmother's hand. His captain ignored the glare and hooked a nearby chair with his foot so that it slid under where he was holding him up and lowered him back down. Probably so he could sit instead of stand next to the bed. Whatever, he didn't care. Nothing else mattered.
Turning his grandmother's hand over he leaned over the bed and tenderly pressed his lips to the pulse point on her wrist and immersed himself in the sensation of her heartbeat and the warmth in her hand. It wasn't as warm as it should have been, but he could help with that. He cupped her hands between his own and rubbed warmth back into them.
Obito was aware of people coming and going, of people walking past the open doorway, but he never turned his attention away. Someone thoughtfully closed the curtain around the hospital bed when he wasn't looking, giving them some modicum of privacy. He caught sight of the medic who'd called him into the room a few times out of the corner of his eye, but as the man didn't move forward to do anything he ignored him.
He didn't know enough about medics and the job they did to know if the hovering the man was doing was something he should be worried about. If only he hadn't been kicked out of medic classes, he wished he could have at least attended. Surely chakra wasn't necessary for every medical procedure. Maybe he wouldn't be feeling so lost if he knew what was going on.
"You have pull through this." Obito mumbled into his grandmother's wrist, waiting for any indication that she might be waking up. His eyes traced the familiar curves of her face, the slight wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Laugh lines that matched the kind lines carved around her mouth. "We haven't even known each other long enough for it to end yet. It's not enough, it's never going to be enough! The time we've spent together, I never want it to end! Please… I need you! I'm sorry, please just don't leave—"
Obito cut himself off sharply as the heartbeat he'd been feeling against his lip started to weaken, to beat so weakly that it was a miracle he could even feel it. Sitting bolt upright and sliding his thumb over her pulse-point to keep track he half turned towards where he knew the door was and screamed for the medic.
Her pulse stilled under his touch before anyone could reach her and the bottom of Obito's world dropped out from under his feet. A great, bleeding hole tore itself a new home in his heart as he staggered out of the way of the medics and leaned his shaking body against the wall. Even with the medic working on bringing her back, he knew. His grandmother was gone. He didn't know how he knew it with such certainty but he did. His grandmother was dead.
… and it was his fault.
A spark ignited behind his eyes and his newly awakened Sharingan activated on its own accord. He had his hands over his eyelids, instinctively closed against the sensation and felt what was left of his chakra drain in one fell swoop. With the way his eyes were suddenly draining him… it would be a miracle if he survived this. He felt himself sag to the floor and silently slid down the wall until he was slumped against the bedside cabinet.
He almost called out for help, but closed his mouth on the words before they could escape, because this was what he deserved. Obito didn't want to live in a world where his grandmother didn't exist. He embraced the oblivion.
Maybe this way, he would get to see her again.
OoO
Harry took a while to gather himself.
He felt like his head was spinning, like his world should be ending, but couldn't remember why. There was an echo of pain deep inside him, right were his heart was, but the lion's share of it was being washed away by the gentle white light surrounding him. He pressed his fingers against his chest and wondered at the lingering ache, at what had caused it, but it was a curiosity at best. Not something so urgent that he needed to act on it right away.
The world between life and death hadn't changed since he'd last seen it, since he'd boarded the train towards his Next Adventure, but more importantly, why was he back here again? The stainless, white washed version of Kings Cross soothed at the ache in his heart as his awareness sharpened and he realized he was sitting slumped against someone on the bench he had once shared with Tom Riddle's soul shade.
At least the person waiting for him wasn't Voldemort.
"Obito!" A woman with chin length, dove-grey hair steadied him when he swayed.
The name hit him like a knife to the gut. Suddenly all he could do was hold on as an unexpected a tidal wave of memories and emotion threatened to drown him. A moment of disorientation and he was no longer seeing eye to eye with her but was looking up at her from a distinct lack of height.
"Baa-chan."
Obito threw himself at his grandmother, desperate and crawling up in her lap in his need to grab as much of her in his arms as he possibly could. Burying his face in her shoulder he let out a gasping heave of a sob as the ache in his chest was finally explained away as she swept him up into her arms in a warm embrace. How could he have forgotten, even for a fraction of an instant, who this woman was to him?
Harry leaned back in the woman's arms and tried to wipe his face clear, tried to stop crying but it was impossible. The foreign emotions and memories had a such a strong hold on him that it was like his own heart was breaking, and not the child's who's life he'd apparently started living.
"Am I going to chase all of my loved ones into Death with every life I live?" Harry sobbed as the woman curled a hand around him and tucked him back up against her shoulder, rubbing a hand up and down his back. "This isn't fair! I just I wanted to live for once! Wanted a family!"
He held on to his grandmother fiercely, nowhere near willing to let go of the only family he'd ever really known.
"You can still have a family." His grandmother soothed. "All you need to do is marry Rin-chan and—" Obito balled up his fist and let it drop to lightly thump his grandmother's shoulder for the rib he knew she would have made.
"You don't get to make that joke anymore." He muttered miserably into her shoulder, "Seriously, what were you even thinking? He trips me with a sake cup so you kill him?"
"As satisfying as that was—" she started, chuckling at Obito's next thump for the admission, "It was never my intention to kill him when I went out to… sort things out. I thought I'd made myself clear the last time he tried to interfere with the way I was raising you. I made myself clearer. I hadn't counted on how drunk the idiot was."
"—or me distracting you."
His grandmother sighed. "It's already too late to change your mind about this isn't it, surrounded by adults making stupid decisions and you still blame yourself?" she asked, brushing the hair away from his face and leveraging his face up so he could meet her eyes. "You've already triggered the Mangekyo Sharingan."
The last part wasn't a question but a statement.
"Another bloodline?" Obito groaned, pushing his face back into her shoulder.
"It's an advanced form of the Sharingan. There are other requirements, such as chakra capacity and potential for growth, but its triggered by the trauma suffered when witnessing the death of someone close."
Obito curled in over her and tightened his grip, forehead pressed against her shoulder and teeth gritted as the wound in his heart bled afresh. "I— don't want to— go back. "
"I know Obito."
"I don't want to leave you, but they're keeping me alive." He forced the words out wretchedly. He could feel it, an intangible tether anchoring him to the living world and pulsating with a steady heartbeat.
He didn't want to return to the living world, but unlike the last time he'd been here the choice wasn't his to make. The link between him and the living world was strong and sooner or later it would pull him back, he wouldn't be able to fight it.
"When your body gets over the shock, activating the Mangekyo Sharingan will feel like second-nature." His grandmother cautioned, ducking her head down to tuck him under her chin, "It drains a considerable amount of chakra and its usage and activity produce such a great strain that it wears at the body and deteriorates the vision until eventually it'll leave the wielder blind. Tell no one Obito, you'll be hunted for it. The only way the blindness can be overcome is to transplant the eyes of another Uchiha with the Mangekyo Sharingan. As ashamed as I am to admit it, our clan has a history of it and it would mean nothing to one of them to take your eyes for themselves."
He nodded jerkily, not trusting himself enough to speak and she tilted his head up to press loving kisses to the corners of his eyes. "Pry up the floorboards next to the loose floorboard in your room and you'll find a few scrolls that can only be read with the Sharingan. Burn them once you've looked at them. I can only be thankful that I prepared them, somehow I knew I didn't have long left…"
"Wait for me!" Obito begged, white-knuckled hands gripping her as tightly as he could as he felt himself being dragged away. "Watch me! Don't take your eyes off me! I need to know you'll be here the next time I come back."
"I won't forgive you if you return too soon." His grandmother scolded with a last kiss to his cheek and pressed her forehead against his. "So don't go chasing after me, I want you to have at least fifty years' worth of stories behind you when you do."
"I love you!" Obito cried as the sensation of being pulled back to the living world became too strong to ignore. He had no time left. "I LOVE YOU!"
"You were the brightest spot of sunshine and moonlight in my life. Everything about you made me smile. Sometimes I couldn't stop looking at you. Every time I looked at you I felt love and inspiration, there was nothing I wouldn't have done for you. I couldn't believe how perfect you turned out. I cherish you. You are my treasure, never doubt for a moment I that I love you." His grandmother smiled gently at him and a tingle of chakra passed between their hands, "Thank you for being my grandson."
Harry faded out of his grandmother's arms and clung desperately to the chakra she'd given him.
It the last warmth they would ever share.
