Chapter Ten: Can you Remind me of my Gravity?

"Need you for the old me. Need you for my sanity. Need you to remind me where I come from. Can you remind me of my gravity? Ground me when I'm tumbling, spiraling, plummeting down to earth. You keep me down to earth."

The village was quiet on this particular night.

The evening summer breeze still lingered in the air, stars glimmered dimly above, with the familiar noise of cicadas buzzing in the stillness of it all. The streets still had a few stragglers, mostly commuters walking home from work with the addition of the adolescent youth loitering around, too rebellious to go home at these hours. The strong scent of cedar wood and camphor leaves permeated the darkness recalling the familiar sense of summer nights with hushed voices, kicking cans, and lying in the grass beds near the river that ran through the village.

Warm summer nights. Makeshift bonfires. Stray eyelashes lingering on the cheeks. Weaving wildflowers through the hair. Sweet dango picked up for half-off before the stall closed for the night. The sound of rushing water. Stars that scintillated like cosmic dust. The earthy aroma of cedar wood from the evergreen tree.

He recalled those dizzy memories while lurking in the shadows. It evoked a strange feeling within. Somewhat indistinct. All those blurred episodes that seemed as if they were mere imaginative thoughts that never truly occurred. However, it seemed that when he let those thoughts ruminate longer, the details became even more blurred. There was always a shadow constantly lingering with him on those nights. When he concentrated longer, he could make out the silhouette of a person. Her features were not very distinctive...that is, until he really put effort into reaching out to grasp at those repressed memories.

She was always by his side on those nights.

To that, he wondered why. Why did she remain by his side? Was there an ulterior motive in all those nights of sharing their deepest thoughts, lying on the grass beds, and eating sweet rice dumplings? Or perhaps she was really altruistic in her approach of interacting, perhaps she really did enjoy the company despite it all.

And when he thought about her, a deep wave of unbridled guilt and longing would overcome him, crashing at full-force, bringing his sanity to tumble into the violent undulations. It was a pain that settled on his throat, that engulfed his chest, and made his ribs ache. Once pleasant memories, turned to a monolith of bitterness that towered above the current circumstances. Memories should not be so arduous. But the thought of her piercing silvery eyes glowing in the evening darkness elicited a strange melancholy that could not be expressed through words.

He would come back to the village on nights when he thought about her. Which was most days when he was not occupied with the regular issues that would constantly bombard him as he continued playing god. Or so he liked to think.

Always lurking in the shadows, slipping past the gates, jumping across rooftops. He would visit the Memorial Stone first to leave flowers on Rin's grave. He never failed to maintain a fresh bouquet of her favorite peonies on the marbled stone, which meant he would have to visit the site every two weeks. Occasionally, someone else would leave new flowers—much to his disdain.

Sunflowers. He did not like sunflowers all too much, they were bright, stalky, always screaming out for everyone to stop and appreciate. The brightest, most gaudy of the bunch. And he knew exactly who would leave them every other month on days when pressing issues with the Akatsuki took up the better part of his time. The image of a masked shinobi with a gloomy face appeared like a transient thought, but he quickly shook it away lest he anger himself at the memory of his unreliable teammate.

Thankfully, they were not there this time, leaving him plenty of room to discard the wilted peonies he had left two weeks ago in exchange for the new bouquet he had purchased from a small farming village outside of Konoha. With that task done and a few minutes of staring dismally at the stone, he would proceed to have a silent conversation with it.

"How have you been Rin?" Silence was the response he would get, but that never stopped him from talking.

"I've been...okay. Lately, things have been...difficult to say the least. Posing as the Mizukage hasn't yielded the best results, but I'm still trying. The shinobi tried to hold a second coup d'etat, one of the Seven Swordsmen has defected. They don't trust Yagura...well, they don't trust me." The silence remained and he cleared his throat.

"The Akatsuki is steadily growing, we've added a new addition to the organization, I guess you could say. His name is Itachi, he's from my clan. Madara-sama was the one who told me how important it was to cleanse the village of the Uchiha. It seemed as if the hokage wanted the same. He made that little boy kill the entire clan." He gulped at the thought of his clan's demise.

"I'm not sure if they deserved it entirely, but small outliers like that don't really matter in the grand scheme of things. Sometimes, it's necessary..." He sighed and lifted his mask slightly off his chin to inhale a deep breath of fresh air as he rubbed tiredly at his face. The scarred half of his face felt papery under his palm, like thin ripples of flesh that felt numb to any sensation. "I just want to make a better world. I want there to be a world where no pain or suffering exists...a world where you can be in. Madara-sama told me that sacrifices must be made for the ultimate result. But..."

His mouth formed into a thin frown and the words died off on his lips. The fact that he still felt the need to justify his actions to a tombstone only seemed to further solidify that niggling thought of regret in the back of his mind. With that, he decided to leave the Memorial grounds and he fled back into the darkened streets with the bitter taste of regret still on his tongue.

Madara-sama reiterated time and time again until it was drilled deep into his mind that the actions he must make will be questionable by nature, teeming on the edge of immoral, but the results they will bare will far outweigh any of the initial consequences. He could snuff out another life line without so much as batting an eye knowing that ultimately, they would resurrect them again in the new world order. The blood on his hands did not matter. The people he hurt did not matter either. He was a liberator, a champion of the people. That was what Madara-sama kept telling him. He told him that he believed in him. There were only two people in his life who ever did that...and one was buried six-feet under the dirt.

But the other...

She was somewhere in this village right now, nestled in her warm home, probably with a faint smile plastered on her beautiful face. As he thought about her, he felt his feet instinctively lead him towards a familiar path where she might just be.

Four years ago, on the night of the massacre, Obito had followed the kunoichi Teresa had desperately tried to protect once he vanished from the compound. As per his promise, he did not harm the girl and let her live, but that did not stop him from following her. That led him to Teresa's home. It was a nice townhouse, situated near the Village's Main Street with a blooming garden of wispy willows, roses, hydrangea, lavender, and carnations at the entrance and a small vegetable garden in the back. It was a place he would have expected her to make a home out of. It was just as beautiful, just as comforting, yet lively just like her. And as he slipped past the Main Street, he realized that it had not changed since the last time he visited.

He kept tabs on her since her stay on Kirigakure. She had done so much in the past couple of years and he must admit, he was proud at seeing the kunoichi she had become. She had a child now, his sensei's orphan. The boy who he had once tried to kill. It would seem that the fates decided to let the baby live and in an even more twisted turn of events, Teresa would become that child's mother. The world worked in mysterious ways. Now, she was back in Konoha raising a son, living her life. She was doing so well, thriving even; which was something he wished he could deny but could not. And Kami, she was even more beautiful than the time he had last seen her. Her face glowed and her eyes seemed to shine like polished silver. Far stronger and wizened from years of battle and the suffering she felt from...

He knew he had hurt her. That much was certain. And that was something that continued to leave an aching sting at the pit of his chest whenever he thought about her—which was most days. Madara-sama told him how he must forego any of the thoughts he had of her in order to fully free himself from the ghosts of his past. And damn it, she was one of the most prevalent of all those ghosts that remained. He found it difficult to forget about her memory, but in time, he found a way to hide the image of her visage in the very deep caverns of his mind. Her ghost was carefully hidden, buried under the myriad repressed thoughts that also existed in his brain.

And every so often...her ghost would reappear.

To alleviate the stress that came about with her memory, he did the only thing he could think of. He visited her. He would sit on top of her bedroom window sill and stare at her in forlorn. With a thin barrier of glass being the only thing to separate him from her. Separating imagination from the cold, hard reality that was their existence. Because he had hurt her. Every single time he interacted with her, she would cry, and that was beyond his comprehension, seeing as how one of the most powerful warrior's in all of the Elemental Nations could crumble at the very sight of his face.

Her bedroom window was often let open during these summer nights, probably to let the breeze drift in.

Summer nights were the best nights to visit because that meant there was no barrier separating them from one another, only the sheer voile curtains that danced with the breeze. He would sit on that sill and watch her for hours. Sometimes she was bustling around her room, most times she was sound asleep with her back turned away from him.

Even in slumber, he could make out the pleasant contours of her countenance. The sight of her would recall all those dizzying memories he had of lying on the grass beds by the river and laughing all night until his ribs hurt. He needed to see her...on the days when he felt like collapsing under the weight of his responsibilities. Creating a new world was hard, staying by his old friend's side to recount his happiest memories was easy. He needed to feel the proximity of her even if she lay far away from the opened window. He needed that comfort. Teresa embodied just that.

He needed her for the old him. Needed her for his sanity. The memories of some sense of normalcy were what helped stave away his thoughts of going mad with delusions. The memories of being next to her were what kept him alive in this hell of an existence. He needed someone to remind him where he came from.

And as he gazed longingly at her slumbering silhouette, he sighed an inaudible noise, and leaned his head on the window sill. She tossed slightly in her sleep and settled on her side, facing directly towards him where he could chance a glance of her in her entirety. Teresa looked so fragile in her sleep. His eyes focused on the gentle slopes of her face, trying to remember how it looked like when she was awake and laughing at one of his odd jokes. He wished, deep down inside, that things could go back to being that way.

He wished she could remind him of his gravity again. To pull him back and ground him when he was tumbling, spiraling, plummeting back to earth. Back to a reality where people suffered and died and hurt each other. She was the one who kept him down to earth even when Rin could not.

How she would call him out on his shortcomings in order to show him how to improve himself. How she would lie to him about how he did not sound like an idiot when he attempted to flirt with Rin. How she would love him even when things turned sour and the skies would fill with gloom and rain. How she still loved him even though it pained her.

Obito knew he was difficult. But then again, all the things in life were difficult. And even though she discovered the weight of his sins, she continued to care. The last time he saw her, she told him that she missed him—if that was any indication of her true feelings. He needed her for his sanity.

He watched as her lips twitched slightly and she moved again in her sleep.

His eyes drifted away from her slumbering form to survey the room. Off in the corner was a pile of scrolls and weapons and rations and food pills. He surmised she would be embarking on a mission come morning. He wondered where she would be going...

And then he looked at her once more, still sound asleep and facing him with a tranquil look upon her. Oh, how he wished he could speak to her.

He would say. "I'm sorry."

She would probably say something along the lines of how he could not be forgiven, but he knew better. She would forgive him time and time again no matter what he did.

And yet...

He could not say a word. Madara-sama had told him to let go of the past, to bury it somewhere deep inside the recesses of his mind to be forgotten with the reality of their incoming world. He felt as if he were being pulled along, like a Bunraku puppet, with Madara as the Ningyōtsukai pulling the strings for every word spoken and every action taken. He would let him do it too, if it were somehow contributing to their cause. If there was any possibility, any chance that he could bring back the ones he had loved the most, he would do it. He wanted to help Teresa too, because he loved her, because he wanted her to feel the joy of having someone she loved back in her arms. He thought about bringing back Clare. Madara-sama said anything was possible once the Eye of the Moon plan came into fruition.

Obito felt that perhaps Madara was right. He was their liberator. For now, he would continue to play this dance of derision, continue to play his part. If he had to take another life away in the process, then so be it.

Thus, despite that aching feeling of longing that had risen in his chest as he gazed at Teresa, he shook his head in resolution. He would continue to be by her side, just as she had done so once upon a time, but this time, he would not speak another word.

And he was reminded of his gravity once more.

Author's Note: I think this was long awaited. We needed to see Obito's perspective for once.