XI: sight
Black, everything was black. She was surrounded by nothing but emptiness and she wasn't able to feel anything. There wasn't even anything to prove that she existed where she was right now. 'Wake up, you've got to wake up, you little fool!' She screamed to herself inertly, trying to convince herself that this would only be a dream. A damn realistic dream if it was for her to decide. "What is this even.. How did I.." Memories popped up like lightnings right before her eyes but she still couldn't see anything that was present. "What the fuck did Tobi do to me?" Frustration rose up inside of her and she was about to go crazy if she had to stay at this emptiness for a longer time. How long had she even been here? Was she dead? Did Tobi kill her? She would have shook her head if she was able to feel anything but this didn't happen.
The first thing one of her senses could pick up was the sound of a familiar voice. It seemed like the voice was inside of her head? Not like she was hearing it, it was simply.. there. "This is so damn confusing." – "Wake up." Warmth climbed up her cold body coming from her left hand as she realized she slowly started feeling things again. Her whole body was tingling as if she had goosebumps all over it but the darkness didn't seem to fade. She could feel, hear but not see. "Time to wake up, Sayuri.." Now the calming voice was not as close as it was before and it felt like she arrived in reality again.
"Where.. W-What.." With a voice groaning from pain and a throat as dry as a desert she tried touch the source of pain which was her eyes. As she tried to lift her hand, she realized that somebody had been holding it – for quite a time now as it seemed – and that somebody let go of it as soon as she resisted the hold.
Her fingertips reached out for a rough surface of a bandage that was wrapped around her head, her eyes and partly her forehead and nose. "D-Don't." With caution that she didn't know from Tobi – yes, it was his voice she had been hearing all along – he slowly reached out for her hand that wanted to try scratching the bandages off her head. "Please don't." Tobi murmured again, quietly and subdued as if he was waiting for something bad to happen. "What the.." She coughed a few times and as she did so, she felt like her head was going to explode. 'Such pain, ughh. What did he do to me.' "L-Let.. Let go.." Sayuri's try to pull her hand away didn't quite work out. Instead Tobi held on to it even tighter. "You need my chakra, yours is not enough in your condition." She wanted to protest against his words, against his chakra flowing into her body and filling it slowly with power again but she was too weak. The girl definitely didn't want his help anymore after he did God knows what with her after she passed out.
"M-Madara-senpai and I figured it would be of good use to you if you had the eyes of the third enemy we fought on our mission." Wait, the mission. It was then when she blacked out in the middle of the green field near Konoha. Didn't she prove her strength? Wasn't she allowed to go now? Instead she laid on something and felt like she was still within the cave and the fact that Tobi was still with her proved it. Though she was lying in a real bed and not just her corner with many blankets as she slept the last three or four years. Time passed by so quickly actually that she didn't even have an idea at how long she had been here in general.
"What's with that.." Which eyes did he mean? That taijutsu guy didn't seem to have anything special on him and what did Tobi even mean with "have his eyes"? He didn't actually..? "I'm sorry I.. I betrayed your trust by catching you in my genjutsu. Two times." So genjutsu it was, the emptiness she had felt but what did he mean "two times"? Confusion and anger stirred up inside her and if she could she would turn away from him, run away from him and hide so that Madara-sensei, Zetsu and Tobi would never find her again but instead all she managed to do was a quiet anxious whimper. "We can't let you go, Sayuri.." He simply continued talking with her though she didn't even want to hear what he had to say. She had trusted him. More than he trusted Zetsu or Madara-sensei. She had trusted him to have her back and ended up with him stabbing her from behind.
"P-Please, I-I'm scared.." Sayuri whimpered under the fact that she still hadn't had strength enough to pull her hand away from Tobi. "W-What did you do to me.." Noticing how the bandage became wet from the inside, she let out cries of pain. Her tears burned like acid but at least whatever he did to her, her eyes were still able to cry with her. "No, shhh.." Next thing she felt after she heard him trying to calm her down was the hand of the masked ninja carefully lying on top of the bandage, presumably using a medical jutsu on it to take away her pain.
Sayuri could feel the body of Tobi right above his and remembered how she felt at the battlefield when standing back to back with him. She felt so safe feeling his warmth and now it was simply oppressive because she didn't know what to think of the situation right now. "I won't do you any harm, I promise you. You know me, Sayuri." Slowly Tobi reached out to caress her forehead, her hair and suddenly she felt like the little girl from years ago, being all defenceless compared to him when she couldn't sleep at night. When her friend used to sit here and to with her for hours and hours. Had this all been fake? Starting to cry more hysterically about what had happened the last few – yeah what? Hours? Days? – she was slowly able to remember the real situation, without the genjutsu of Tobi influence her. "Y-You made me attack m-my own village.." It was unbelievable how much this hurt her.
Not just because she betrayed her village, she was also able to never go home again, never see her family again and was doomed to stay on the run forever from the people she loved. "Please believe me if I tell you that I never wanted something like that for you." It was weird. Even now, when she hated Tobi so much, he still seemed to calm her down. If he wanted to really hurt her, he would have done this by now but instead the masked shinobi had laid beside her, pulling her fragile seeming body into his tight embrace. She would still receive chakra from him which she was grateful and disgusted about at the same time.
Silence started to fill the infinite darkness around her and she just spent a long time crying. In his arms, head nuzzled to his chest. This was the first time he let her "touch" him like that. Physical contact had mostly been something they only shared if they trained and even then it was a hard task to be able to touch him and now they were so close, she could even feel his chest getting up and down when he was breathing. It's like she finally had proof that he was real, that he existed.
Pain made it impossible for her to sleep just one more second this night and so she had time enough to think things through. Her life would change now, once again she was on her own and even if she thought of Tobi as a betrayer, she could not be mad at him. She couldn't imagine him keeping here if he had had a choice. It would not be like him to force her into something like that. He knew how badly she had wanted to go home.
Her body relaxed totally in his arms and she found herself giving in to the urge of feeling safe when she was with him. What choices did she even have now? She could spend her whole life running alone, probably dying on her own people who –thanks to Tobi calling her "Hatake Sayuri" in front of them – knew who she was or she could stay teamed up with Tobi and Zetsu. The men who lied to her but who she felt safe with. "Everything will be alright, I will protect you. Madara-sensei will protect you and so will Zetsu. We're a team after all.." Tobi's words seemed to be some kind of conviction for him, as if he would try to make himself believe that everything will be the same as it had been for years now but he was probably wrong about that. The Hatake sister didn't know whether she would trust him like before ever again.
Her speaking pattern had switched to 11 years-old Sayuri that didn't dare to say anything as if afraid of her own voice as she started to slowly raise one of her hands – the one he had been holding all night already. Slightly touching him, her fingertips made their way up his right arm, his muscular chest, his collarbone until she was able to feel the cold material the orange mask was made of. Slowly she was slipping one of her fingers beneath it before she once more felt the hand inside the soft glove touching hers, keeping her from putting off his mask.
"P-Please..?" Pushing herself a little more against the warm body of his, shaking because of the cold and maybe a little fear, the young woman felt how the pressure was taken off her hand bit by bit. It took Tobi a lot of overcoming to let her even touch his mask, not talking about removing it but since she wouldn't be seeing anything anyway, he didn't stop her the second time she tried to reveal his face. She just let the mask drop to the floor with a loud, dull noise but instead of trying to touch his face, he pulled back her hand, placing it at his chest again.
Tobi wasn't as tensed as he was as they hugged after the mission which somehow made her wonder. He seemed to be so much more of himself now that he was burying his face in her hair, not even attempting to ever let go of her again.
(Obito's P.O.V.)
Oh, he was so unbelievably sorry seeing her like that. He disgusted himself for betraying her like that, making her look like a fool for trusting her. How could she ever even trust him a little bit again? Desperately he pulled her closer as long as he still could, thinking that this might probably be the last silent moments they had together before she gathered her strength again and would be able to hate him with all her heart, not distracted by pain or fear.
As she reached out for his mask, Obito hesitated and stopped her first but then thought of it as a gesture of showing her that she was safe with him, that she could trust him and that he obviously still trusted her. He wasn't very confident with revealing his face to anybody though and even if Sayuri wasn't able to see him right now, he felt the urge to hide his face again right after she put off the mask of his. It was almost as he was ashamed of himself but didn't show that to the – compared to him – little girl. "Please, let me keep protecting you. I couldn't handle knowing you're out there on your own, probably fighting for your life every day." The Uchiha frowned noticeably. If only he wouldn't have found her this day she had been attacked. He wouldn't have let himself get attached to her in the first place, making him feel responsible for her after he took her away from her home.
Last time he felt like that was when he lost Rin. It somehow scared him that the feelings were almost similar towards her but he had realized before that he felt more like the old character Obito when he was with Sayuri. He felt like Rin and her somehow where connected and since he couldn't protect his love all those years ago, he wanted to desperately keep care of Sayuri now. Rin would have probably wanted this for him, he was sure about that.
Tenderly caressing the scar on her right cheek, he sighed exhaustedly. He was so tired of this. Hurting people, running, fighting. He only wanted to bring peace to this world, live a normal life, like he never lost anything in his life and he hoped of Sayuri to be the beginning of this life. He needed her, she was like his anchor. "Please don't leave me."
Obito could feel the body the woman next to him tense up a little, as he softly let his lip touch that scar of hers. He had wanted to do this for quite some time now but never really got the chance. Not being able to tell if the girl liked his touch or not, he pulled back a little, leaving her personal space because she was pretty much defenceless right now. The man didn't want her to feel embarrassed or anything so he just spent a long time holding her.
Zetsu or Madara-senpai didn't show up which Obito was glad for. The last thing the young Uchiha needed now was some sort of weird comment on how he laid there, having the girl whose trust he just betrayed all cuddled up to his chest and him not wearing his mask. He let himself get emotionally involved with her and that's what made him worry so much. Now that he had someone to care about again, he also had something to lose which made her protection another priority in his life. If anybody was about to hurt her, he would have to be faster and take him or her down.
Time passed and the girl continued to not talk to him because of anger or fear, he didn't know but he had been so used to her voice that the silence now was almost killing him. He didn't push her into talking though because he wanted her to be totally comfortable with him again. Obito spent his time listening to her breathing and how it bit by bit slowed down until he could be sure that she was asleep. Instead of leaving the bed, he stayed here, not moving and only looking at the almost flawless face of Sayuri. Now that she finally fell asleep, she looked so much more peaceful with a slight smile on her lips than she did before when she was in pain and awake. He feared the moment that she would wake up and be able to see again but for now he just enjoyed having her that close to her.