A Cord of Three Strands
Chapter VII
Mercy
First, it was the muffled hush that barely seemed to exist on the peripheries of total darkness.
Second, it was the distinction of unrecognizable voices.
Third, it was the fuzziness of sounds developing sharp ends and piercing, like needles, into a consciousness that didn't exist until this very moment.
Fourth, it was shifting shadows, formless and perceptible only from the right side.
Fifth, it was the ineffable, mind-scraping pain.
Then, as if being born for the second – or third – or fourth – time, Obito Uchiha was brought screaming into the world.
"He's awake."
"Fetch the commander immediately!"
"Can we give him something for the pain?"
"How could anyone live through this?"
Obito began to twist in agony.
"Where… How…?" He croaked before being knocked breathless by the burning all over his body.
No one said a word to him. He opened his eyes and realized that there was something over them that obstructed his view. He tried to move his left hand to his face, but soon realized it was restrained. He tried moving his right side, but he only felt a heavy numbness.
"Can't… see…" His voice was so crackly and deep that he wouldn't have recognized it himself.
There seemed to be some shifting and shuffling of feet and hushed whispers in the room. Soon, a small, frightened voice answered him.
"Sir, you are in the critical care unit of Konohagakure's medical facility. You should also know that you are our ward on loan."
Not comprehending the words said to him, Obito struggled to remember anything at all. Was he dead? Was this hell?
"Water."
Another uncomfortable silence.
"Sir, I'm obligated to tell you that we cannot give you access to anything that you could weaponize."
"Wh…What?" he moaned, failing once more to understand.
"N-Ninjutsu, sir."
Confused and in massive pain, his ability to even make sense of words began to slip. Slowly, he began fading back into darkness.
"Pl…ease…"
"Sir, I am obligated to…"
The light from beyond the bandage faded, and Obito returned to shadows once more.
A long, uncertain time passed. Before he was aware of slipping into consciousness, he could see, unabated this time. All was dark and quiet. Beyond the drawn curtains, the room was enveloped in an orange glow as sunset filtered through heavy cotton.
He was staring, unseeing and uncomprehending for a long time before he noticed a silhouette. Slowly, he turned his head towards the figure beside him.
"So you're finally awake?" The still, measured, familiar voice trickled into his ear softly.
Obito stared a long time, his mind working at a snail's pace.
"Ka—Kashi."
"Oi."
Neither man said anything for several minutes. Obito was constantly aware that something, perhaps many things, were troubling him beyond his ability to remember. He tried to recall anything at all, but constantly came up void. Before he was even sure of what he remembered, the name etched into his heart came bubbling up.
"Rin." He drawled. The name on his tongue jolted him as soon as he said it. He jerked to move upwards but found himself unable to move through his restraints.
"What happened?!"
Kakashi steadily laid a hand on his old friend's chest.
"Just settle down." He soothed in a calm voice. His restrained manner somehow hit Obito as suspicious, and it was this that brought him back to his senses.
"Where is she? Is she okay?" His garbled voice was so dry Kakashi almost couldn't tell what he said.
"Obito, everything is okay. Just relax." Kakashi said emotionlessly, applying more pressure to Obito's chest.
Obito, now returning to capacity, was beginning to feel desperate and patronized. He shifted to swing his arm and break Kakashi's grip on him when he realized that nothing was swinging. He looked down.
His right arm was completely gone. He felt a sickness in his stomach so profound it made him dizzy.
Just like that time in the Mountain's Graveyard.
Kakashi laid his hand on Obito's shoulder.
"Obito, I have a lot to tell you… And I can't until I know you are calm and can understand me."
Closing his eyes, he centered himself as best he could and began breathing deeply. He nodded once in compliance, though he did not open his eyes.
Kakashi stood and moved towards the curtain. He pulled it back slightly, allowing the setting sun to spill into the room and illuminate everything in a dusky blaze.
"Can you see?" Kakashi asked.
Opening his eyes, he began to look around the room. He moved his head and realized that his left side wasn't seeing anything.
"Your rinnegan has been removed. You only have sight on your right side."
He nodded, familiar with the feeling of having only one eye.
Kakashi continued,
"Your original eye had a seal placed over it, which is why you couldn't see when you awoke earlier today. The medical staff was unsure of what to do, so they called for me. Now, it has been removed."
Obito nodded once more, then asked,
"Am I allowed to keep this one?"
A weary look washed over Kakashi. "I had to fight for that. I'm honestly not sure if they're going to let you keep it beyond your recovery… It all depends."
His spine bristled at the thought of being totally blind, but calmed once more when he began to accept that this is what he deserved. He had no claim to this eye, though it was his.
"Depends on?"
Kakashi took a deep breath before returning to the chair beside the bed. He situated himself, leaning forward and placing his elbows on his knees.
"A lot of things have changed since you've been out. It may take me a while to explain everything, and you're not strong now. Try to stay with me for all of this."
Obito shifted his body into an upright position, although moving was excruciating. He gasped as he lifted his body up, leaning on his left side to hold the weight. Once he was marginally comfortable, he nodded his head as a signal for Kakashi to continue.
"As I said, you've been in a coma for some time. More than two months to be exact."
Two months?
"Back in the cave, after the fight with Tetsuo, your body was heavily damaged. You lost your right arm. Most of your body was burned. You sustained internal injuries as well as second and third degree burns. Your right leg was dislocated at the hip. You were really banged up. But even through all of that," Kakashi shifted in his chair uncomfortably, "You managed to reach her."
Obito connected his dark eye immediately to Kakashi's, and before he could even ask, Kakashi added,
"You saved her from a horrible death and internalized the jutsu meant to torment her forever. But she hasn't yet awoken from her sleep. Aside from the physical complications of Madara stabbing her, she has sustained no other injuries. But for reasons unknown to us, she isn't responding to anything we've tried. Her state has been very similar to yours. As far as we can tell, it's a side effect of the jutsu."
Obito stared at Kakashi, a storm of thoughts and feelings and questions crashing around in his mind.
"I… removed the curse tag." He said.
"I know."
Both men sat in quiet for a long while.
"When… will she wake?"
Kakashi looked heavily at the floor.
"I don't know, Obito. The jutsu is an intricate one that we've yet to figure out." He shifted his gaze back up, his one visible eye smiling hopefully. "But, it seems that you beat it."
"Wh-what do you mean?"
"Well, we're not certain, but that jutsu was supposed to keep you locked away in a dreamlike-state until the time-release ran out, effectively killing you. It was the cursed heart tag that made it impossible to fight the jutsu. But since you don't have the cursed tag anymore, it would appear that you've outlasted the jutsu, since you are here with us once more."
Obito stared at Kakashi.
"I can't remember anything."
"Regardless, it would appear that you won, Obito. Which brings me to another point."
Kakashi hunkered down further, leaning in closer towards his friend's bed.
"You are a technically a prisoner of Konohagakure. You are in this medical facility because it is the best in the village, far superior to the medical care in the prison. No one knew if you were going to live or die, and your chances for survival seemed slim for a long time. Regardless, the medical staff has tried their best to care for you. However, you caused quite a stir when you broke free of the ANBU and now everyone is far more intimidated of you than before. You've been given good medical care, but you've also been denied some things. The staff is not allowed to give you anything that you might manipulate with ninjutsu. They can't even give you a glass of water in case you used it against them to escape. You've been administered electrolytes, saline, and hydration through an IV, but they don't trust you with anything external, not even a cup of water."
Kakashi reached down to the floor and grabbed a bottle of water. He flipped it and held it out to Obito.
"I'm not the staff, though."
Obito took the bottle in a shaky grip, dark nails and white knuckles gripping it clumsily. His restraint stretched tautly as he held it towards his face. He leaned forward awkwardly and drank slowly, but deeply, from the bottle. When he spoke again, his voice sounded much more like himself.
"So, I'm to be executed?"
Kakashi didn't move for so long that Obito forced himself to look. Kakashi's eye was fixed on Obito's in an unreadable, yet open and promising gaze.
"Many things have and are changing. You aren't to be put to death."
In the days to come, Obito would feel many emotions about Kakashi's response, but the very first one was startling surprise. He couldn't pinpoint his feelings at all because the answer was so entirely unexpected.
"Are you serious?" The astonishment colored his voice more than he wanted to let on.
"While you've been out, the leaders of the Allied Shinobi Forces have met several times, trying to understand what the best way forward is, not just as separate nations, but together, as one. The Kage hope to keep the villages unified, though distinct. The Fourth Great Shinobi War is something that we hope to remember as the catalyst that brought about the end of our wars and fighting against each other."
Whether Kakashi realized his phrasing or not, Obito trembled at the implication.
"During their council, Naruto, who has been hailed as the great hero of the war, was invited to come and speak to The Kage about what he sees as the path to peace. His journey is a continuation of his master's legacy, and one Tsunade-sama seems very intent on nurturing to fruition. So, a proposition has been made."
"Wh-what proposition?"
Kakashi tried to conceal the feeling in his voice.
"It concerns you directly, Obito."
For the first time in a long time, Obito felt like a scared little boy.
"M-me?"
"Naruto has come to believe that forgiveness is the only way to true and lasting peace. Perhaps if his track record wasn't so high, he'd be labeled an unrealistic dreamer who doesn't have a true grasp of the human condition. But seeing as his insight into the suffering of others and the sharing of their pain has elicited so many impossible conversions, he has proven that his philosophy bears substantial influence, even in this broken shinobi world.
However, this hasn't come without considerable pushback. The way that our governments and village systems work are predicated upon the expectation of bloodshed, and even the most idealistic leaders don't believe that their people will be able to forgive. But because of his support among most of The Kage, the feudal lords and village councils have decided to give their backing to a new, experimental process."
"Experimental?" One and two word questions were all he could manage.
"It is being implemented, first in Konoha, on a trial basis. Everything about this process is completely new and has never been tried - much less attempted - in a shinobi village before, because it directly contradicts the entire system of shinobi."
Obito stared at Kakashi, waiting for an explanation. He was momentarily emptied of words.
"In our village systems, criminals beget sentences worthy of the consequences of their crimes. Murderers are, typically, murdered themselves. Sentences that fall short of capital punishment are often considered to be a prolonged period of suffering in which the same agony the perpetrator has inflicted upon others is visited upon himself. This is true whether that sentence is a week or a lifetime.
However, it was said that in the old days, before the weaponizing of chakra and the spread of shinobi militarization, that penal systems were not used primarily for punishment, but for rehabilitation."
Obito didn't move, but inside of himself, he was shaking.
"Naruto shared his story with The Kage. He talked about how, due to the fallen nature of our shinobi system, he was tasked with raising himself within the confines of an entire village that was encouraged to hate him, whether directly or indirectly. The good intentions of the best of us weren't enough to shield him from the vitriol visited upon him on a daily basis. It was nothing short of a miracle that he turned out as he is. But even with his greatest efforts, it was a power completely outside of himself that changed his perspective and with it, his life. Were it not for his academy teacher, Umino Iruka, seeing past his horrible behavior and into his need, it's not unlikely that Naruto himself could have one day grown to despise the village and, eventually, attempt to destroy it.
Naruto insisted it was his long and lonely companionship with pain that allowed him to see it in others, including unrepentant enemies. His acknowledgement of that pain is what changed them, time and time again, perhaps because in our current shinobi system, there is no room for such empathy. In fact, it's likely that he may have been the very first person in the entire lives of his enemies to value looking into their agony and acknowledging that pain."
Kakashi shifted his gaze towards Obito, who was staring dead-eyed into the wall.
"Do you remember Shinobi Rule #25?"
A long silence passed.
"A shinobi must never show his true feelings under any circumstances, no matter what happens." Obito rasped.
"Naruto has never kept this rule. In fact, it seems that his very existence flies in the face of a majority of rules that shinobi have been tasked into keeping closer than religion."
Obito said nothing.
"During his appearance before The Kage, many rules of shinobi were addressed, and many dismantled by his own experience. This isn't to say that Naruto is somehow a god, or all-knowing. But somehow, he has become a true user of ninshu, which surpasses what a shinobi is able to do, even with a lifetime of commitment. Ninshu is the true power of chakra, that which was fabled to connect the world not to war, but to peace.
In my life, I've not experienced ninshu in the way that Naruto seems able to practice it. But I have seen shadows of it within certain moments. Moments when I first came to realize that the observation of rules aren't what makes one a great man or a great shinobi. I first saw it when my father protected his friends despite knowing it would lead to a path of great humiliation and, eventually, death. And I saw it most prominently when my best friend once told me that a shinobi who doesn't treasure their friends is worse than trash."
Kakashi noticed the shadows gathering around Obito's lone eye.
"Becoming a sensei was one of the most difficult, yet healing, things I've ever done. On my first truly challenging assignment with my team, we encountered Momochi Zabuza of the Blood Mist. It was then that I first saw Naruto's proclivity towards piercing the heart of even the most hardened man. In the mist, after his own subordinate freely and willingly died for him, Zabuza himself, the man who slaughtered his own friends even as an academy student, said, 'Perhaps it is impossible for a shinobi to kill their emotions and live only as tools.' This was something I began musing on for years to come.
As I began to consider the importance of emotions, even in the life of a shinobi, I felt things within me shift that had never shifted since I had you, Rin, Minato-sensei, and my father in my life. I begrudgingly accepted Team Seven, especially since there were two boys on that team that I knew would rip old wounds fresh. But it turned out that having the image of Minato-sensei in Naruto and an aspect of you through Sasuke were incredibly healing things for me. And while Sakura is not like Rin in many ways, she glued the team together in the same way that Rin always did for us. She guarded them emotionally, truly cared for them, and tried everything within her power to help the two of them. I saw Rin in her… And at times I was uncertain what to do, I tried to remember what Minato-sensei would do, and then my way became clear."
Kakashi smiled beneath his mask.
"It turns out that trying to conceal my feelings, that trying to hide my emotions, was actually what was keeping me in an isolated way of life. Once I cracked the door of myself open to others, even just slightly, my quality of life improved in a way I hadn't felt since the days I was part of Team Minato.
I agree with Naruto on this. The reason this hell of a shinobi world exists is largely due to the fact that all of us, even those with the best of intentions, are expected to submit ourselves to rules that perpetuate the brokenness of this system. I can look to Naruto as a testament. He was the son of my master, of a man that I dearly loved… Yet I kept my distance from him because seeing him was like seeing Minato-sensei every day. How could I keep Shinobi Rule #25 and never show my true feelings when every time I saw him, I felt like crying?"
Kakashi sighed deeply, his eye dancing with sorrow, shame, and regret.
"I was just as much a part of contributing to Naruto's despair as the children who bullied him and the adults who abused him. I didn't commit sins of commission, but sins of omission. By pretending he was nothing to me, by keeping my distance from him whenever I saw him, by not entering his life until he was twelve years old… I, too, caused him to suffer. Once Asuma's daughter was born, Shikamaru has been ever-present. He hasn't missed a single milestone in her life. She will grow up still being taught by her father in the teachings that he entrusted to Shikamaru. In essence, he is the bridge that will connect that orphan child to a father that would have treasured her every day of his life. But Naruto suffered as a true orphan. I could have been – I should have been a brother to him, a father to him. I could have allowed Minato-sensei to teach Naruto through me."
"The Third Hokage issued a gag order… It wasn't your fault." Obito rasped. Kakashi was genuinely surprised to hear Obito defend him.
"Even so," Kakashi sighed, "I was more concerned with following the rules than what truly mattered. Lord Third had good intentions in mind, but running a village is a tremendous task. While he provided for the essentials in Naruto's life, he wasn't able to fill the void left in his life by the loss of his parents. Naruto had food, but wasn't nourished. He had access to education, but was never taught by the love of a family. Naruto fell through the cracks. That is also a curse of the shinobi world… Prioritizing the mission, never asking why, never talking back, grinding forward towards victory while never addressing the losses made by our own hands. That is the way of shinobi…
Until now."
"I still… don't get it." Obito admitted, unwilling to tear his gaze from the wall.
"Konohagakure has been commissioned, along with varying degrees of cooperation from the other villages, to implement a criminal correctional model based not upon the idea of punishment, but of rehabilitation."
Obito didn't move. He remained so still that Kakashi wondered if he was even breathing. Unwilling to keep the conversation going without his involvement, Kakashi stopped and waited for Obito to respond in any way. After what felt like a very long time, Obito finally started,
"S-So…"
He stopped, breathing several deep breaths before continuing.
"I…"
He couldn't rope the onslaught of his thoughts into words. He fell completely silent, but shifted his gaze to Kakashi's feet, in an effort to beg his old friend to continue without expressing the words. Kakashi leaned in and placed a delicate, yet weighty hand on Obito's bandaged shoulder.
"It's difficult to say so early on, but, possibly, with your total cooperation… you might be pardoned in full and reintegrated back into the village."
Even though Kakashi's lengthy, one-sided conversation had been hinting at such for a while now, the actual reality of his words were so powerful that Obito felt lightning strike the very core of his being.
Instantly, a sense of hope, brightness, and freedom welled up in his chest, the sensation so full - so irresistibly full - he felt he might burst into pieces…
Yet, immediately following was a sense of shame, guilt, and punishment even greater than his hope, so consuming that every feeling of light was swallowed up by a powerful despair. Even if the absolutely impossible prospect of the village offering him forgiveness was a reality, was there really any way – any way at all – that he could ever forgive himself?
The understanding that he did not deserve such forgiveness fell upon him as a crushing weight, and all the beauty and glory of the seconds prior felt like a cruel and agonizing joke. Even if reality allowed him a free pass, he had to maintain a sense of justice, even if – no, especially if – it included martyring himself.
"I can't."
Kakashi didn't move and he didn't react.
"Can't what?"
Obito shifted his eye to capture Kakashi's. He hoped his gaze contained his stone-sure resolve to sacrifice himself unto death for the betterment of the world. What Kakashi saw was a flickering between anger and sadness, certainty and hesitation.
"I…" He stopped, clearing his gravelly voice,
"I… do not agree to these terms."
His answer hung in the room, and as much as Obito wanted to cling to the certainty of his response, to the power of his idealism, to the depth to which he deserved absolute punishment, he found himself waiting uncomfortably for Kakashi to answer.
"Before you try locking yourself away, try to understand the lengths to which I have gone for you, Obito." Kakashi whispered in a measured, but suppressed, tone.
"If you were me, could you do it?" Obito's voice quaked.
"I was asked to become Hokage."
The room fell silent as the shadows of evening crept across the wood-grain floor. Obito had no idea how to answer. The shadows grew longer.
"Kakashi, that's—"
"I said no." He interrupted.
Stunned, Obito began to feel the blood roil inside him.
"You idiot! How could you say no? Why in the world would you—"
"So I could help you recover."
Obito fell silent, though his mouth hung halfway open.
"This new system of rehabilitation is incredibly fragile. I had a hard enough time advocating for Sasuke's enrollment, but it was nearly impossible to get them to agree to admitting you, too. In order to do that, I had to commit my entire life to your rehabilitation process. That means that I am wholly committed to every aspect of your healing and I will walk alongside you through all the requirements that the council has agreed upon before you can be considered rehabilitated.
So before you are so eager to throw your life away, consider that I've already done that for you. It's my turn to sacrifice for you… Don't make my offering meaningless!"
