A/N: PLEASE READ THIS!

This chapter is rated M! for torture and brief periods of insanity. Yuupika's mental training begins – but doesn't end. ;)

Can you identify the similarities between Yuupika's training and Obito's? What each portion of her training represents? It's all symbolic.

Thanks everyone for your reviews and continued support! I appreciate it very much!

Disclaimers: I don't own Naruto, but if I somehow got ahold of Kishimoto's will and made a few small changes, then…


Yuupika wanted to draw. Paint. Express. Out of the blue, she realized that her hand was so much steadier than it had been in her past life and taken up in a fit of inspiration and wonder, she infused her chakra into ink, graphite, charcoal, pencil, watercolors, and put her imagination to the test on archival paper. It was morning on an odd day, Obito had run off to tend to some emergency (probably in Kiri), saying he was going to be back by late evening and she delighted in more time to rest before her new training regime. Yuupika meandered into her lab with no real objective in mind – she wasn't supposed to attend lessons with Orochimaru until noon. So, with just a few minutes shy of six hours time to spend, she had started to browse some old schematics lying around. The detail on the depiction of the contraption was quite intricate and flowing, unlike the rough, abstract quality of sketches she used to make and – oh. I have become quite good at this, haven't I? Her mind fluttered around the sudden thought and she was reminded of art like this once upon a time, such scenes so fluid and emotional that she was not ashamed in how tears came to her eyes. For the first time in all her 27 years, she had established a rooted connection with lines on paper, images and words that struck her soul.

Later, she discovered a ticket on the windshield of her car for overstaying her welcome at the parking meter.

Yuupika nearly scowled at the memory and began to gather what materials she had, tottering with two armfuls down to the 5th floor, a large and white-walled room. The whole open expanse made her feel small and insignificant in comparison and for a brief moment, she truly relaxed – here, the world did not rely on her. Perhaps here, lacking the presence of a human touch or mirrors, she could see herself as Rosse again. She spread out her paper and touched her pencil it to the first time.

Hours went by.

Rosse didn't think in this universe of emptiness and white, letting her mind remember what she once saw and her hands recreate it slowly, like the way a baker kneads his dough or the way a singer spins a tune. Somewhere between the black streaks on white, color marring her pale skin in sweeps and smudges, breaths amplified by the silence in an almost intimate way, heat brimming just beneath her fingertips, she came to the epiphany that art was so much more than what her blind eyes had once perceived. Rosse didn't know why, but without speaking, her throat ached and her breathing came out in shudders, curious tears stiring the ink of the picture in front of her – the arm of a man dropping a kunai. She dare not put her hands back to the page.

With trembling motion, she pushed it away and striking orange hair flashed like neon behind her eyelids as she dipped her brush once again in substance with a red lable and pressed it against the last paper. This time, in the elegant cursive of her native English language that she had used in years, she flowed through –

'Can we know the sound of forgiveness'

Rosse fell onto her back and like a ton of bricks, exhaustion and hunger came tumbling into her consciousness. Forgiveness. Is there even such a thing here? In this world, how can we be so desensitized that muder is common practice and yet ache so much when a loved one is lost? What does it mean to be a shinobi? Such fierce creatures they are and yet so fragile… Her stomach growled with all of tenacity of a lion. They love like children, steadfast and strong. Is that why the pain is so much? It's far more than one person could ever bear, I've seen the way it twists and gnarls the soul. Rosse was faced with the reality of her situation in a way she never fathomed. I have lost too, haven't I? In this strange, unfamiliar land, I am an outsider. I belong to a world much different than this and I – I will never see it again. I'm so…

"Lonely." She whispered in foreign tongue, the sound hardly even above an audible level. And it stung like a thousand needles of lightning because there was nobody and nothing to blame. She didn't even know if she could blame herself. What is there to forgive? How can one begin to let go without even a modicum of closure or certainty? She palmed her torso. There must be a hole in my chest…I think I am beginning to understand them, these shinobi. To avoid this feeling, they will pour all of their emotion onto the object or person of blame and it festers a deep, fiery hatred to combat the ocean of sorrow. Loving…loving is difficult. Hating is so easy – clean. I have this grand depth of knowledge and in turn, an infinitely grander responsibility to act upon, I know. I know that I need to change it but what should I do, Yahiko? Where do I even start? How do I stop the endless cycle? I want to do this, I want to prevent all the unnecessary slaughter, I want to protect every man, woman, and child from all the horrible things that are destined to come, but I need you to tell me what to do!

There was silence in the room and the shouting of her thoughts eventually died to nothing but faint murmuring.

Yahiko…I think I'm starting to see…

Desire is not enough.

Slowly, surrounded by her recreations, Rosse drifted off into sleep.


The heart monitor beeped loudly in the terse silence of the hospital room and Rosse's throat had never been more infinitely dry, her tongue more infinitely inable to produce words, her brain more infinitely lost and dumb like a child's. Her clammy hands gripped a weak, pale one, who's skin was dry and rough as sandpaper, taking on an unearthly hue.

"Ro, my dear, you must let go." The speaker's frail voice cracked and interrupted the static tension running around, making the woman jump. She gripped even more fiercely just to spite death, unwilling to do as her mother headed.

"I don't want to." Was her automatic reply, feeling a guilty tingle in her chest as she spoke. Her mother laughed, all stress lines and dull gaze crinkling. It wasn't mirthful.

"Of course."

Rosse swallowed harshly, not knowing how to further the conversation. She needed to keep her talking though. Keep her lucid.

"It won't be long now." Her mother commented placidly, resting her head back on the the fluffed pillows behind her. Rosse didn't want it to be true, rebuking those words with no small amount of vehemence in her head.

"You don't mean that." She countered.

"But I do. I want to. You need to let go." Her mother easily shot back and Rosse idly admired the dainty looking woman who she had gotten all her tough mettle from, still shooting fire in this of all moments.

"Mom…" She croaked and the woman's eyes softened at the turmoil that was so startlingly displayed on Rosse's face.

"It's okay, Ro." The long-standing nickname from her tomboyish youth did nothing to warm her. "It's okay to be sad and it's okay to be angry. Even with yourself and the truths that you hide. When you get older and you look back on this moment, I need you to know that it was okay. All of it."

"M…om…"

"I love you, Ro." Her mother smiled at her softly, in the way that was so uncharacteristic and closed her eyes. She let out a disturbingly long breath. And then the heart moniter's beep settled into a monotone flatline and Rosse began to shake. She hadn't even noticed that the hand she was holding had grown cold over the last few minutes until she lowered her forehead to touch it, vision so blurry and distorted that she may as well been blind and snot dripping off of her nose as she heaved in breaths.

In that moment, Rosse was angry – so inexplicably and insurmountably angry – because under all the pain and aching and longing and rage and frustration, Rosse felt relief.


It was late evening already when Yuupika was roused from her slumber by a poking to her arm. Blearily, wiping away the dreams of a few moments ago, she activated her senjutsu to see one two toned man looming over her.

"Zetsu?"

"You've caused quite a panic in Akatsuki." He told her as she yawned and stretched out her stiff limbs. Have I? I don't suppose I've been down here all too terribly long… Yuu licked her dry lips and sucked in a leisure breath. That dream…why would I think about such a thing, even after all this time…

"Sorry," She mumbled, sitting up. Her back ached in pain from resting on the hard floor for so long as she looked over the works in front of her, senchaka scanning thoroughly the rest of the room. "What time is it?"

"Sometime past 10." His head quirked towards her art, yellow eyes curious and confused.

"In the morning?"

"At night."

Oh. She scratched her head sheepishly. "Well, I suppose I should be heading back then."

"No need." He began to sink into the ground. "Your father is approaching." With that, Zetsu disappeared. Huh? My father? Could he mean-

"Yuupika!" Pain's distressed voice echoed in the large space as he burst through the door and the girl only had enough time to turn around before she was encased in trembling arms. The whole of the man's chakra was jumpy and erratic as he held her tight to his chest, one hand cupping the back of her head.

"T-Tou-san?" She squeaked out, bewilderment in every syllable. He came looking for me? He's shaking…

"Don't you ever do that again, you hear me?! I forbid you from disappearing whenever you feel like it! Do you have any idea…" He trailed off and held her tighter, pulling her onto his lap. Yuupika numbly lifted her hands up to clutch his cloak in a weak grip, stunned beyond all words that she could fathom. Nagato? The tall man shifted and tucked his hand underneath her knees, then stood to his full height, still holding her as if death himself would dare try to wisk her away. He was silent as he carried her out of the room after casting a sidelong glance at her archival pages on the floor. "You should focus on your training." He told her in a much calmer tone. Yuupika didn't know what to make of it. She wasn't sure how to answer and so she didn't and there was only the sound of his footsteps as he carried her back up the winding stairs to the kitchen, where she was snatched into the much slimmer embrace of her mother who lectured her with the ferocity of a raging storm. Yuu half heartedly listened, avoiding the harsh and disapproving glare that Kakuzu was sending her way.

Pain caught her attention from across the room, where Juzo and Sasori were arguing about one thing or another and Orochimaru was rubbing his forehead irritatedly. It was strangely quiet for a moment in her mind as rinnegan held amber, before discomfort seized up her nerves and she turned away into Konan's bosom. When she glanced back, he was not there.


"Do you believe in forgiveness, Shishou?" Yuupika fiddled with her pencil, doodling idly on the page in front of her as Orochimaru read through an essay she had just procured.

"Depends." He drawled disinterestedly, keen eyes analyzing her work. Yuu drew small Uzumaki swirls on the upper corner of the sheet, sighing quietly. Who am I kidding? He's completely rooted in his ways.

"Well, maybe everyone deserves another chance…" She muttered.

"Depends." He repeated, flipping the paper. "I will never be able to return to the Leaf Village. Forgiveness, although I do not desire it, will never be given to me." Yuupika considered this, once again surprised at his awe inspiring ability to multitask. He was a murderer on all accounts and a detestable human being with no moral compass and an unhealthy obsession for knowledge – but he was her shishou and he had also done some good in the name of justice.

"That may be true…but maybe you don't need to be forgiven by the Leaf Village. Maybe just one person is enough." Yuu rested her head on her unoccupied hand and swung her legs under the table, waiting patiently to observe his reaction. The snake glanced at her in a bit of confusion and nonchalant inquiry, and she had no doubt that he was preparing to dissect that train of thought.

To her surprise, he chuckled. "I do not wish to be forgiven. Not even by one person. I feel no remorse for my actions. Everything I have done has been a means to an end that I hope to achieve." It was then that she understood that he wasn't particularly invested in her opinion, nor did he see any value in the subject of their conversation.

"Well, I forgive you." Yuu pouted childishly, in an effort to make a point. This was a serious topic, damnit! Orochimaru quirked an eyebrow disbelievingly, humoring her.

"I'll be sure to keep that in mind." He set down her essay gingerly, changing gears like a professional. "Although your syntax is of excellent quality, I do believe that your diction could be improved on. Your use of literary devices is subpar. Were you distracted when you wrote this? I have seen much better work from you."

The girl shrugged and dropped her pencil, letting it roll on the table a short distance. "I've just been thinking lately, shishou. What's stronger than desire?"

Orochimaru blinked. "I'm not quite sure that is an appropriate topic to be discussing at your age." Yuu scowled at him.

"That's not what I mean!" Why does everyone always think the worst?! "I mean…" She sighed. "I mean mentally. If you want to do something, but that's it. You just want to do it."

The sannin pursed his lips in a moment of deliberation, tapping his chin softly with a long finger. He'd probably be a very accomplished pianist. "Ambition," He finally decided. "Ambition is stronger than desire. It is a relentless drive, bordering on necessity."

"Isn't that technically obsession?" She questioned. It would definitely explain his actions.

The sannin chuckled again and shook his head. "No," He chided with a smile, as if speaking to a child. In a way, he was. "Obsession is the point at which you lose rationality chasing after a certain thing. Ambition is the point at which you will do anything to achieve your goals, using your brain and abilities. Desire? Well. Desire is just an interest. If you want to succeed in all your endeavors, desire is not enough."

Yuupika almost choked on her own spit. He…! Those words! Orochimaru reached over with an amused expression and patted her back a few times to help end her coughing fit. When she calmed down, the man sat back in his chair and leisurely crossed his legs.

"Do you understand, Yuupika?" His slitted orbs roamed over her face as she nodded. "Good. Now, I was hoping to continue delving into chakra debilitating poisons, but after some careful rumination, I've decided we should pour more efforts to our natural lighting issue." Yuupika perked up at that.

"Yes, I was thinking the same thing not too long ago."

"Good that we've reached an agreement then. I have an idea." Yuu gestured for him to continue. "Perhaps by researching the elements that make up our sun instead of trying to combine elements known to generate heat and sequentially studying their effects, we can recreate a smaller, artificial copy of what we already have." Yuupika blinked.

Oh.

"I have an answer to that." She spoke blandly, blessing all that was holy for her past life's previous investments in education and cursing herself at the same time for not seeing this sooner. Orochimaru leaned forward, giving her his avid attention. "Well, I have a running theory that humans are made up of the same elements as stars – hypothetically, one could say that we were made of stardust, but that's a bit of a stretch. In various percents, we are composed of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, and phosphorus. These account for over 97% of the mass of the human body. These are quite abundant in the center of our galaxy-" The sannin held up his hand and she stopped.

"Does this knowledge stem from that satellite you launched some months back? Is this the way that you are gathering such information? I certainly have never heard of such things." Ah. That's right. This world isn't so scientifically advanced yet.

"Yes," Yuu easily lied and he nodded, satisfied. She continued. "In their base state, tiny particles bond together to form hydrogen and helium. As time goes on, young stars form when clouds of gas and dust gather under the effect of gravity, heating up as they become denser. At the stars' cores, ranging in temperatures of over 10 million degrees celcius, hydrogen and then helium nuclei fuse to form heavier elements – this is a reaction I call nucleosynthesis. This reaction happens all the time as lighter elements are converted into heavier ones. Relatively young stars like our sun convert hydrogen to produce helium. Once they run out of hydrogen, they begin to transform helium into beryllium and carbon. As these heavier nuclei are produced, they too are burnt inside stars to synthesise heavier and heavier elements. Different sized stars play host to different fusion reactions, eventually forming everything from oxygen to iron. During a supernova, when a massive star explodes at the end of its life, the resulting high energy environment enables the creation of some of the heaviest elements, including iron and nickel. The explosion also disperses the different elements across the universe, scattering 'stardust' which make up planets like ours and our bodies*."

Orochimaru stared at her intently, eyes wide. "That…is some incredible information." He managed after a moment. "I see you have not been idle in your studies."

"No, I have not." Yuu smiled at him placidly. "I think we have finally come across our answer." He smirked, clasping his hands together.

"I believe we have."


Obito must have been glaring holes in her head. Massive, massive holes. As-big-as-the-galaxy kind of holes. And Yuupika was rightfully ashamed of herself. Orochimaru was confused as a bumble bee in the desert and Pain was sighing in blatant exasperation.

Backtracking, she had not expected her father to approach Obito on the situation when Orochimaru and herself had talked to him about it, hoping for confidentiality. Yes, they were planning to recreate a miniature sun. Perhaps maybe over an ocean so no civilization would be harmed. That would be ideal. But never in a thousand years had she suspected that Pain would ask Obito if the test could be conducted inside his pocket dimension. And so, the secret that she had desperately been trying to hide for years had come to light.

Orochimaru was her shishou.

And Obito was pissed.

"Madara Uchiha…? Still alive…?" Orochimaru repeated lamely, blinking in rapid succession at the masked man in front of him and the sharingan that was blazing in unrivaled contempt. Obito ignored him.

"I must speak with my apprentice." The Uchiha wasted no time catching her arm in a death grip and transporting them out of existence, to a place that she was very familiar with. He then let go of her abruptly and began to pace. Yuupika was at a loss. What could she say? She told him that she wouldn't even associate with Orochimaru, and yet, there she was, learning dutifully under him for almost 3 years. She had kept it under his nose the whole time. She lied to him. It was a big, fat lie too. How could she repair that broken trust? She loved her senpai…

"Madara-se-"

Slap!

She suddenly found herself staring to the side, her neck twisted unnaturally as heat and pain lanced across her face. It was just as she remembered, his big and warm hand resting on her cheek for merely a second – but that touch had not been affectionate. That touch had been associated with pain. He slapped her.

Usually, she gets hurt every time they spar and the physical pain was something that she could bear, even something that she accepted gladly if it meant that she would grow stronger. But this kind of pain…it was stinging all across her nerves, like her heart had suddenly sped up and she could feel it beat intimately in every part of her body, her stomach chewing itself and shrinking until she felt empty inside. The wet embrace of tears trickled down to her chin, falling off the line of her jaw there. The thoughts in her mind became hazy, dream-like in the face of the sudden and sheer panic that she felt. This was not how it was supposed to be. He was supposed to love her and care for her. Did he not anymore? Yuu heaved in shaky breaths and held back the urge to sob. When she turned back to him, Obito was standing in front of her, hands on his hips and maskless expression twisted into an enraged scowl.

"You directly disobeyed my orders." He seethed. "I specifically told you not to get involved with that sannin! And now look what he has done to you." The man grabbed her hair by it's underside and lifted it up. "Put your hand there." He commanded. Slowly, with trembling fingers, she felt along the back of her neck – and came across a small bump on her skin, her senchakra showing her the raised hairs there and the just barely noticeable hole. Just big enough to be a…syringe? Her lips parted in a disbelieving gasp. Obito dropped her locks and rubbed his forehead.

"If I had to guess, I would say that he has taken samples of your spinal fluid recently." W-What…? How is that possible? When did he even…? "This is why I warned you to stay away from him."

"W-Well, he must have had a good reason…" She sputtered, still feeling along her skin in shock and racing through her memories.

"And so he has poisoned your mind too?" He snarled. "Well, that is fine. We have already started mental training, I see no reason now why we can't accelerate your learning in light of these new truths." That stung more than Yuupika thought it would.

"Until I am done with you, all other training shall be halted. I will teach you as my mentor taught me."


The first command Obito gave her was that she was not allowed to leave his pocket dimension. She was granted two meals a day and a bath each week. These were what Obito called 'standard torture conditions,'. Zetsu was the one to deliver most of her basic needs, often coming once in the morning to deliver her breakfast and her waste bucket and once in the evening to deliver her dinner and replace her waste bucket. At the beginning of each seven day cycle, he came with a large basin of water and a bar of soap that she was allowed fifteen minutes with.

The loneliness was almost unbearable.

She presumed that Zetsu was forbidden to talk to her so she began talking to herself. About small things, really. What the weather was like outside, how she missed her cozy bed, how everyone was fairing without her. She practiced her taijutsu while holding a conversation with the emptiness, poked and prodded at her own skin to remember a human touch, sang out into the darkness to hear the echoes that it sent back to her.

Yuupika began to realize after the second week that she was quite spoiled. She tried to find her happy place, a distant dream of Konoha that she hadn't had the need to go back to in all of her almost seven years in this world. She found it – but she didn't find it because she realized that the place of grass and trees and idle breezes was not what she remembered. It was different, somehow. Duller. She could no longer recall the small details about it and that simple fact frightened Yuupika so much that she shut the meadow into the back of her mind. Obito's dimension seemed the quietest place in the world.

Yuupika laid on her back through the evening on the sixth day of the third week and heard her heartbeat. More like, the blood rushing in her veins and the sloshing of the tasteless porridge in her stomach and the groaning and creaking of her bodily systems and her bones and wondered when her hearing had improved so drastically. Her senchakra wavered and faded away and in the darkness she saw all manner of objects floating by in her vision, the most bizzare of shapes and faces and people as she cycled through countless odd scenarios and colors faded to black and white in her head. She heard her own breathing accelerate and her lungs contract and her heartbeat speed like an Olympic runner and her brain was registering that she must have been hyperventilating but Yuupika stayed on the ground.

This is it, this is my breaking point.

Zetsu wouldn't be back until the morning of the seventh day and that was the only thought in her head as her body started to convulse and arch and beyond such a feeling of drowning and choking and weird panic that complimented her inner calm, she couldn't remember a thing.

When her eyes opened once more, the first thing she registered was the disgusting stench of urine and she deduced right away that she had let loose her bladder in her panic attack. Her nose seemed to have become overly sensitive as her first deep breath was accompanied by a body-wrenching gag and subsequently, she vomited all over the floor next to her. Yuupika collapsed onto the ground again, fingers twitching violently. Her pulse was erratic in her ears and the burn of acid in her throat made her cough. Yuupika lifted up her shirt and covered her mouth with it, lessening the horrid smell and activated her senjutsu. To her right was two bowls of porridge and glasses of water. So…the seventh day is already over? She sighed in relief.

By the middle of the fourth week, she was convinced that Obito had forgotten about her. Desensitization – is this what he meant? Disenchantment with reality? She was usually a very strong woman. And it was probably only her 30 years of past experience that kept her from going insane. No one could stand to be alone for so long. No one. So, she fabricated a little friend in her head. A tiny girl that looked just like Yuupika but had the personality and mental faculties of a regular child her age – probably who Yuupika would have been if Rosse hadn't taken over her body. They talked and they talked about all manner of stupid things and finally, the silence was bearable because she would lay down on the floor and recede into her mind for as long as she possibly could and spend time with her innocent friend.

Rosse entertained herself like this, even though she could hardly hear the girl's voice over the noise of her own body systems, and a subconscious thought passed that she had finally begun to hallucinate. The fifth week came and went and she stayed motionless on the floor, the food and drink piling up beside her and the reek of bodily waste burning her nose.

"Well, you know, there's an edge right there." Yuupika told her one day. Rosse came to half awareness in her mind and looked over to the side of Obito's dimension, where the block of hard concrete ended to expansive black space. "What's on the other side?"

"I don't know." Rosse responded.

"Maybe you could go check it out? I'm scared." The woman laughed.

"Yeah, sure. I'll go check it out." Rosse rolled her weak body over and over again until her shoulder teetered on the edge and she peered down into the empty space below, where no chakra could be found.

"Go check it out." Yuupika urged softly.

Rosse rolled.

There was weightlessness and peace for all of three seconds before a strong hand grabbed her forearm and yanked her out of motion with a jarring pain to her shoulder and Rosse's senjutsu sharpened immediately to see the disgruntled look on Zetsu's face as he hauled her back up onto to block. He placed her down near the various bowls of porridge and sighed, every rustle of fabric of his cloak like the booming of shouts in a mountain range in her ears.

"I will have to inform Madara-sama of this new development. Stay put. Do you understand?" Rosse blinked at him, almost uncomprehending that she could hear his incredibly loud voice for the first time in what seemed like forever. It was almost foreign. And he touched her arm. What had that felt like? It'd been so long since… She looked down at her limb and stared at it in silent wonder and Zetsu stayed for just a moment more before he was pulled out of existence. Rosse lied back on the concrete and breathed, listening to her body systems work in steady tandem.

When Zetsu came back, Obito accompanied him and she was hoisted up and stripped before being gingerly placed into a basin of warm water. Obito washed her limp body and massaged shampoo into her knotted hair and dressed her in clean clothing while Zetsu cleared out the space she inhabited for six despairing weeks.

Obito set her on a wooden chair and the two left.

In the next month, Rosse watched Obito mutilate all her beloved members of Akatsuki every day, for hours upon hours in endless ways. They were tortured, maimed, dismembered, skinned, and then torched at the end of each session, the smell of burning flesh and intestines hanging off her as the pile of bodies in the corner grew. Rosse knew they couldn't have been anything more than Zetsu clones, but her mind was screaming at her to do something, to save them as they were crying for help, to kill the man who dissected them so mercilessly and made her watch, tied to the wooden chair near the end of the room. Rosse seethed and cried and screeched out into the silence and her brain ached so badly in her head that it felt like it would explode and pink matter would come dripping out of her nose and it would all finally be over. It would finally be over. But Obito had raised high walls on the concrete block so she couldn't run and jump off the edge and her chakra control wasn't so good enough yet nor her chakra pools all that big enough yet to climb over them. She bent and broke the chair several times and prayed by the scorched corpses to Kami and pulled her hair until her scalp stretched and beat the wall with her fists, kicked, punched, assaulted with all the rage she had inside of her and all the hot betrayal that she felt, just hoping that it would break.

But it never did.

Then came the survival period.

Obito dropped her into the desert for three weeks. He dropped her into the snow for three weeks. He dropped her into the swamp for three weeks. He dropped her into the mountains for three weeks. He dropped her into the tundra for three weeks. He dropped her into the rainforest for three weeks. He dropped her into the woods for three weeks. He dropped her into the savanna for three weeks.

Finally, there was something other than the silence and the screams. At first, she felt alive and embraced by the creations of nature that chirped, rustled, mewled, and buzzed. She felt so lucky to be free from that place of torture. But there was no civilization around, she quickly realized and so this was where her theoretical knowledge was put to the test. Rosse knew all about adaptation and survival in her head but she felt so different when she had to learn them – like she was looking at the world through some lense, somebody else's eyes because there was just no way that Rosse had done these things, hand bathed her hands in blood and slept without dreams of terror or grief at night. But, she did. She learned to wring the neck of a coyote and break the bones, move faster than the snake that tries to bite, spread her own urine over her body to scare away scorpions in the night, run up and jump the trees with just her feet to escape the raging bear, fling a rock so high and precise that it brings down a hawk in the sky, move in and run on top of the current of the river to catch the fish, ride the wild boar through the underbrush to make traveling quick, wrestle a snow leapord to the ground and empty the intestines to settle into the husk of skin to stay warm while she sleeps, trap the rabbit that moves faster than the light for her campfire, evade the roaring tiger who wants to eat her for lunch, and be calm throughout all of it because damnit, she had to survive no matter what. Through this time, she learned to reconnect with her vibrations and increase the range of her senjutsu. She was left with no choice.

She couldn't brood over the wrongs that Obito had done her, the animals of the world would not wait for her to be finished with her anger and frustration. She was small. She was weak. She was prey. But she was clever prey. She just wouldn't give up.

And then Obito placed her in Kusa, in a grass field that he had hidden a small pebble and told her to find it. In a matter of two hours, she had done it, to her immense satisfaction because she remembered how she was hopeless when she tried before, but the Uchiha was still missing. When night fell on the second day and he still hadn't shown up, Rosse ran just short of a mile to a neighboring town and slept in a scratchy bale of hay in an abandoned farmhouse. He'll find me in the morning.

When light sifted through the cracks in the wood and warmed her face, Rosse's awareness came back to her in slow bits and as she stretched her arms above her head, a presence made itself known at her side.

"Are you taking me back now?" She asked Zetsu in a yawn, stretching out her sore muscles.

"No."

Rosse stilled. "What do you mean?" Her tone was ice cold and she activated her senjutsu to scowl at his blank face.

"Madara-sama orders that you stay here until you learn."

"Learn what?" She bit out, irritation laced like fire in her features. The plant man tossed her a kunai, and Rosse caught it with ease, a small bout of confusion splashing over her as she studied it. She had never been provided with a sharp weapon before. She always had to fashion something crude out of wood or rock, whether it be knife, spear, or sword.

"You're a genin level, you should be able to manage."

"What? What is this? Why did you give this to me?"

When she looked back up, Zetsu was gone.


*Thank you so much, Physics . org , for providing this information.

Soooooo, did Obito die a virgin? 0.o

Part Three coming soon!