"Shishou, why exactly are we doing this again?"
Lee and Obito were standing, chest to chest, Obito's hand in one of hers and the other placed on her waist, and even inside her tiny apartment where no one was going to walk in and see them Obito was flushing desperately.
When Lee had first barged into his life and shanghaied Obito off to be her chunin apprentice, English dancing lessons were not what he'd had in mind.
"The English, unfortunately, like to concern themselves with pointless and mundane things. It's a national pastime," Lee said as she continued to guide Obito through the motions, forcing him to learn how to lead while he kept his eyes on her feet and tried to memorize the patterns, "And they take great pride in these things so that if you can't do them they will judge you forever."
"You mean like the accent?" Obito clarified, referencing Lee's constant drilling him in his English and English accent whenever they had down time and often when they didn't, to which Lee nodded and prompted Obito to turn them in time with the classical waltz she had put on for the occasion.
"Similar," Lee said, "Their government has regular galas, great dances which the elite of the country all attend, and aside from the buffet and political gossiping it features quite a bit of dancing. And you will be expected to dance, and gossip at the same time, and all in all feel like you're in a very strange interpretation of an Austen Jane novel."
Obito stumbled slightly, losing his concentration as he tried to look up from his feet and into her eyes, feeling his face grow brighter as he wondered how he could be so bad at this when he'd been training in katas for basically as long as he could remember.
Repetitive movements like this, ones that didn't even hurt, it should be a walk in the park.
"You're losing focus," Lee commented, to which Obito flushed and glanced down at his feet again only for Lee to say, "And look at my face, not your shoes, they will eat you alive if you do that."
Obito scoffed and forced himself to look up again and remember the movements as he kept eye contact, "Who exactly will I be dancing with, shishou?"
"Well, I'm sure I don't know, Obito," Lee said, now looking mildly annoyed at Obito's talking back, "Me, certainly, but you'll probably get a few English girls hanging on your arm here and there, even with your face looking like it was mauled by bears, if only for your bad boy appeal or else as a spy from the English nin."
"Bad boy appeal?!" Obito blurted, stopping in his tracks and looking at her with his mouth swinging open.
Obito, despite being an Uchiha, had never had any fangirls in the academy (and certainly he'd never drawn Rin's attention). Most of this was because he lacked the trademark Uchiha stoicism, brooding, and, dare he say it, bad boy appeal.
Now, Obito might have come back from Madara's tender mercies a little darker, jaded, and more jagged than before but that didn't mean he'd gone and turned into one of his cousins.
"You're a shinobi," Lee said with a bright and cheerful laugh that was entirely at odds with Obito's miserable mortification, "Trust me, by that alone, you have earned yourself barrels of English bad boy sex appeal."
Obito glanced at her slyly with his narrowed, mismatched, eyes, and asked, "Are you saying that you, shishou, have English bad boy sex appeal?"
"But of course," Lee said with a nod as if there was nothing unnatural about this, tapping Obito's foot and getting him to step in time once again as the record changed tracks, "Combined with my messiah sex appeal, why, I may just be the sexiest and most terrifying of them all."
Obito couldn't help but laugh at that, not just at the idea of it in general, but the sudden vision in his head of some of his cousin's stoic grunting brooding forms superimposed over Eru Lee and the mobs of English fangirls that would be swooning and stalking her from the shadows, so eager to bear her children.
That, and just the idea of Lee being, well, sexy, was kind of hilarious. It wasn't that Lee wasn't pretty, or that she wasn't terrifyingly competent, it was just… Well… She would open her mouth and whatever bad boy sex appeal there was to be had would be completely ruined.
Eru Lee was a lot of things, but a sexy brooder, she was anything but.
"Well, this just goes to show that you have no taste," Lee said, but with mirth rather than with any real offense, "I'll have you know that I'm very popular with the English ladies and gentlemen."
"The ladies too?" Obito asked, eyebrows raised as he turned her, grinning at the successful maneuver where for maybe the first time he didn't step on her feet.
"Of course," Lee said, her grin growing, "It's a national obsession, when they're not calling me a blood guzzling mercenary they're speculating on all of my many love affairs and the likelihood that I'll return to England full-time and marry Malfoy Draco. The likelihood, as you can imagine, is exceedingly small."
Obito's smile grew, having heard something about Malfoy Draco, clan heir of the Malfoy's, and his strange obsession with using his father as a threat, but then remembered her previous words and noted with a flush, "Hey, I have great taste!"
"I'm not sure liking and only liking Nohara Rin can be defined as having taste," Lee said with a frown to which Obito couldn't help but scoff and be slightly insulted for all that Lee's joke really was mild and in good fun.
Maybe, liking Rin for so long, and then coming back from the Kannabi bridge so different while Konoha and everyone else had stayed the same, he was a little rawer than he used to be. Madara… Sometimes he couldn't help but remember that even more than Kakashi or Minato-sensei or the clan Madara had talked a lot about Rin.
Either way, progressing enough to dip Lee slightly (a task and a half given that Lee was a fair bit taller than he was), he said, "Oh come on, there's no one better than Rin! And even if there was, I wouldn't be interested. And besides, shishou, do you have any room to talk what with Minato-sensei?"
"But you didn't ask me if I had any taste," Lee pointed out as they straightened upwards, this time moving a little faster through the motions, surpassing the speed of the song itself, "More, I don't take the results of my one-sided love affair quite so personally as you do."
Obito flushed, not quite willing to say that it wouldn't be one-sided forever (because it had been and it very well could remain that way) but not quite willing to stay completely silent either. So instead, he compromised and said, "Well, if I have no taste then you're at least ten times as tasteless."
Lee grinned as the whirled, "I dare say there's a great many who would heartily agree with you on that. But I guess, Obito, that we'll just have to be tasteless and hopeless together and hope that at the very least, it can make these endless English parties fun."
"Well, if there's a buffet and punch," Obito pointed out with his own grin, "Then it really can't be that bad."
Unfortunately, he'd later learn that they were that bad, and perhaps even worse but he was older and wiser then even if he was just as tasteless and hopeless as Lee had painted his younger self. Still, even at that moment or in the ministry, Obito later wondered if there was some cloud called irony hanging over his head that, every once in a while, he might glimpse out of the corner of his eye.
That perhaps, even then, there were reasons he remembered these small moments in small apartments when old English music played.
Still, Rin had been so bright back then though, that he somehow hadn't even noticed.
There was nothing quite like waking up, day after day, with your legs a little too tangled and your face a little too close to a fully grown and unamused man. Similarly, there was nothing quite like that awkward moment where you realized that he had likely been awake a few minutes before you, and so he was already staring at you with those unnerving red eyes while you just prayed to god you looked half as unnerving staring back.
And, on top of that, there was nothing quite like lying there, thinking again that you should have just taken the floor or else rotated except that the bedrooms naturally were more warded and that somehow doing even that felt somehow like losing whatever unspoken battle you and him were having.
Point being, it was another day in the life of one Uchiha Obito, shinobi in space, sharing a bed with the resurrected nidaime hokage who looked like he was having about as much fun with this as Obito himself was.
Well, perhaps slightly more fun, in that he seemed to be getting a full night's rest each time. The bed was large, but the years and six months in Madara's cave had honed Obito into a dreadfully light sleeper and for all that he liked Senju Tobirama the man was not quite the familiar and comforting presence of either Eru Lee or else Obito's old genin team.
That, and it was hard to fall asleep next to a man who highly disapproved of your choices and tended to show his disapproval by beating you into the ground.
Still, Obito groaned and detangled himself, and moved to the other side of the bed and sighing, wondering just what they were going to do today. They'd checked on the embassy's rather minimal progress thus far, for whatever reason the republic had decided instead of just giving them an older building to building an entirely new one in their over the top gratitude to the heroes of Naboo, Tobirama was set up in his jedi academy courses with Anakin as a companion and translator and was due for a whole set of them today, and while the chancellor had reputedly returned from Naboo he had only scheduled them in for a small meeting in the afternoon that really wouldn't take much time at all…
Well then, it looked like Lee and Obito would be doing their usual routine of research in the jedi libraries with glaring from all directions while Jinn played the role of their hapless escort.
It was just too bad that Obito was tired enough that the very idea of trying to slog through written Basic was already giving him a headache.
Still, he sighed, and to the wall dully said, "We should really demand that third bed."
Tobirama barked out a laugh, which was something at least, as he shrugged into his full clothing, "Somehow, I think three room hotel rooms weren't as popular."
That, and, somehow Obito didn't wonder if this had been deliberate on the part of the chancellor. Granted, perhaps this was a bit too paranoid about the man but given the jedi's overwhelming aversion to attachment the idea of throwing at least two of the three of them together would probably cause their hair to stand on end.
Except that Obito and Lee apparently already wigged them out almost to the point of stabbing first and talking later so Obito hardly saw how one less bed would be that much bigger of a deal.
He stood, feeling his shoulders and neck crack, the usual stiffness of the scarred half of his body and that dull ache that always came in the morning, and slowly put on his own clothing before, in half a daze he walked out of the room and into the kitchen where Lee herself was waiting.
Well, attempting to wait, she was slumped at the shining glass table, skin pale, dark shadows under her glazed eyes, and only barely looking conscious as she idly stirred her tea and left her plate of strange blue alien eggs to grow cold.
In Lee's own words, she looked like she'd just been run over by a brick filled Hogwarts Express.
"Jesus," Obito said as he slid into the seat across from her, "Shishou, what happened to you?"
"Couldn't sleep," Lee grunted, straightening and slowly beginning to eat her eggs.
Obito scoffed, entirely unsympathetic as Lee produced a cup of tea out of thin air and slid it towards him, "You couldn't sleep? I'm sleeping with the nidaime."
And if Obito were only slightly less frighteningly one-track minded when it came to his romantic tendencies then he didn't doubt that waking up every morning in extremely compromising positions with the not unattractive Senju Tobirama would be playing hell with his head and possibly bring on some sort of sexual crisis or at least extreme bouts of mortification.
"Honestly," Lee said looking at him with raised eyebrows, "If it were possible I'd probably trade."
Obito's eyebrows lowered not sure whether to be insulted, self-conscious, or just plain unamused, "Seriously?"
She then seemed to realize that she'd just implied, to Obito, that she'd rather be sleeping with the nidaime and she shook her head, wiping at her face and with rapid hand gestures corrected herself, "No, not that bit, not…"
She trailed off, hand pausing, caught in midair like some confused bird, and then said plainly, looking Obito straight in the eye, "I keep having those weird force dreams."
"Weird force dreams?" Obito asked, wracking his head for what that could possibly mean and coming up short. Meanwhile, during this, the nidaime walked in, looking like it wasn't morning at all and like he was ready to go as he took his own seat at the table, gratefully taking Lee's tea as she passed it to him.
God, he must have been one intimidating hokage.
"I told you about it once before," Lee acknowledged, "On that second ship back to Coruscant. At least, I think he's the force. He hasn't exactly used that word but he all but shouts it every time we meet, if I were to call him anything the force is as good a word as any other, but he also likes to wear Minato's face."
"Oh, right," Obito said, nodding slowly as the memory came back to him, "That whole thing…"
Which, at the time, had also sounded weird and Obito had sort of shrugged off. It was one of those higher plane Lee things that mortal average joes like Obito didn't and shouldn't have to care about.
Mostly it'd been the idea of this weird alternate universe Lee dressing up as Minato-sensei to impress her that had both hilarious and kind of irking. Like that even here, in an entirely different dimension, Minato-sensei's shadow stretched over her.
Either way, Lee hadn't brought it up since and Obito figured it hadn't been that important.
Except apparently it was.
"And you can't sleep?" Obito asked, looking at her more closely, and noting that it really had been a progression over the last few days of Lee looking steadily more exhausted each morning.
"Well, I probably look like I'm asleep, but it's not really sleeping," Lee said rather drily, as if something about this was darkly amusing, "He takes advantage of… I won't exactly call it vulnerability, it's not, but he takes advantage of my distraction or drifting about inside my own head to pull me onto some higher plane of existence."
The nidaime was giving her a musing look, not as if he believed or didn't believe her, but like he wasn't quite sure what to believe. Home, chakra would never do something like this, mostly because sentience or even the illusion of sentience was something chakra didn't really have.
So, it was up to Obito to quietly ask, looking at her, and once again feeling, "And then what? What happens?"
"We talk," she said with a shrug and a small smile, as if she knew this answer would drive both Obito and Tobirama up the wall, "About life, the universe, sentience, humanity… All sorts of things really. It's mostly just slightly strange, benign enough just… Just exhausting."
She rubbed a hand through her hair as if to emphasize this point, leaning back and complaining, "I'm not saying I need sleep, necessarily, I think that I could go without it if I have to. But I've gotten used to it and doing without after all these years of sleeping and eating and doing normal human things is, frankly, kind of uncomfortable."
Tobirama scoffed, "Only you would think to call being deprived of a necessary human function merely uncomfortable."
Lee brushed this off with a single hand, "I'll get over it, it's really fine, just slightly draining. He's really not that bad, it's not so much that he reminds me of myself but… He really is new at this sort of thing, I think he's very young, and for him this is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to him in… Well, ever."
Obito blinked, not entirely sure he heard that right, but then when the words processed again and still sounded the same he couldn't help but dubiously ask, "You sleeping is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to the force?"
Lee laughed at that, even as she sipped her tea, looking like that question alone just about made Lee's day, "He doesn't get out much."
At Tobirama's chiding look she sighed and added in a slightly more impatient and direct tone, "Remember what he is, or at least, what I think he is. I think he's been… Sort of aware, but from his perspective it's only ever been him. Us showing up, from outside of his domain, it's Christmas."
She then sighed again, a long and tired thing, and said, "Still, I'd appreciate it if he gave me a real chance to close my eyes every once in a while. The only real break I get is when I'm awake and down here with all you mortal peons, and even then, it's not that much of a break. I can hear him buzzing somewhere, right next to my ear or I see him the corner of my eye, and yet he's still out of sight and reach."
Well, that wasn't ominous or anything. Obito tried to sense it himself, looking around, but the kitchen of their suite seemed just as benign as ever, not a piece of furniture out of place and no buzzing chakra or force to be found.
"I wonder if I can talk Jinn and Kenobi into shutting him up already," Lee said, but from the look on her face she doubted, she'd probably already tried herself and been summarily shut down.
Still, for the most part, she looked unconcerned. Which might not mean anything, as Lee tended to find a lot of very concerning things not concerning at all. It took a lot to shake up Lee, as it was Obito couldn't really remember a time when he'd really seen her out of her element, even against Madara she'd been ferocious and determined but hardly unnerved.
Obito spared an inquisitive glance over to the nidaime, waiting for his two cents on Lee's latest metaphysical dream shenanigans with the avatar of another dimension's natural chakra. The man for a moment said nothing, continued to stir his tea, then slowly said, "Well, I won't claim to have any expertise on the truly ridiculous situations you get yourself into."
"Hey," Lee said with a slightly annoyed glare, "This one is not my fault."
The nidaime paid it no mind as he talked over her, "And I won't imply that it's your overactive imagination, but I will note that the natural chakra of this universe is… odd. Certainly, it's different from home, and it's been giving me a headache."
Rubbing at his head, as if even admitting it out loud was bringing the headache back he then sighed and said, "It moves more quickly than ours, circulates through everything, but around you Lee it moves like a hurricane. Which, combined with your own ridiculous levels of chakra, cannot be good for my health. All the same, perhaps it's to be expected from a foreign dimension."
Maybe, Obito was hardly an expert, he wasn't the sensor that the nidaime or even Lee was and he'd been using the sharingan sparingly if at all in this place and hardly was using it to stare at the currents of natural chakra surrounding them.
Perhaps, even now, it wasn't really worth worrying about. Lee would be fine, she always was, and if she just spent every night gossiping like a school girl with the force wearing Minato-sensei's face that was…
Well, not fine, something about that idea wasn't fine at all and he'd really prefer that it didn't wear Minato-sensei's face of all things or any face at all especially since Obito was confined to a room with the nidaime and…
Obito forced it down, instead grinned across at Lee and took one of her hands in his, smiling at the sight of it and contenting himself that the idea that this world, this reality, was certainly more than enough and…
"Down boy," the nidaime cut in, Obito flushing and turning to meet the man's annoyed and disapproving stare.
"What?!" Obito cried out, hand gripping Lee's tighter, to which Lee herself smiled slightly, lips quirking upwards.
The nidaime just kept frowning, eyes narrowing as he crossed his arms and declared, "I miss when you were hopelessly lovesick over Nohara Rin."
Well, Obito certainly didn't, and he shot the nidaime back an unamused glare of his own (which only caused the man to raise his eyebrows as if Obito really thought he could give that look to him of all people).
"And I miss when you weren't here!" Obito shot back.
"No, you don't," the nidaime lazily corrected, "You two were hopeless without me and practically begged the yondaime to bring me along. Not that you didn't already cause enough damage and headaches."
"I resent all of your implications," Lee quipped, "And begging is a grand exaggeration."
It wasn't, but the nidaime didn't need to know that, especially since he'd undoubtedly been dying to come like the giant nerd he secretly was.
"And don't go patting yourself on the back yet," Obito pointed out, "You've only been here a week or so and still need a translator so you're hardly fixing any of our mistakes yet."
Although a determined Senju Tobirama was a terrifying one, Obito had discovered, and when the man put his mind to it he made truly frightening progress in Basic, both speaking and written, at a far quicker pace than Obito even had during all those months in Tatooine.
The man, taking these jedi courses and practicing in basically all his free time, undoubtedly, would be passable in Basic in no time at all.
Which, though Obito himself was damn good, was just patently unfair.
"Give me time," Tobirama said with a small smile, "I built a village, I can certainly handle a few foreign shinobi."
Just for that, Obito thought, he hoped Tobirama had to sit through ten thousand lectures on the dangers of love and attachment.
Still, Obito thought, it wasn't a bad day or a bad place, this strange luxurious hotel suite in space, now filled with all of Tobirama's collected data pads, androids, and supplies as well as whatever interesting knick-knacks Lee and Obito stumbled across.
And if he could sit here with the sunlight filtering in through the window, overlooking this strange metallic city of a planet, then Obito was more than fine with that.
Maybe it was bad of Anakin, but the best part of his new jedi training courses, to help him become Qui-Gon's padawan whenever Obi-Wan passed his trials, was the nidaime hokage Tobirama Senju.
It wasn't that it wasn't all interesting, or that Anakin hadn't tried to make new friends or at least talk to people… Well, no, all of that was a lie, most of it wasn't interesting. Sure, there were classes with a training lightsaber (except those Anakin seemed a little far ahead not only because he was older and taller but also training so much with Obito and Lee), courses on mechanics, but there were also a lot of classes on reading and writing and just reaching out to the force.
Which… Lately, Anakin hadn't wanted to reach out to the force at all.
As for his classmates, they were all four or five years younger than he was, everyone his age was already a padawan or else sent to Telos and they all just stared at him all the time making it clear that Anakin had been brought in way later than everyone else and was different because of it.
Sitting next to white haired, red eyed, strange Tobirama Senju who looked maybe only half human and was fully grown at that, stoic and proud and seeming nothing at all like a jedi as he listened to Anakin translate lectures about the force and the light and dark sides of it and the history of the jedi, at least Anakin looked shorter and more normal by comparison.
That, and, even if it was roundabout at best and even if the jedi instructors clearly didn't like it, Tobirama Senju was a connection back to something from Anakin's old life. He was a way back to Lee and Obito, who he got to see every day, and Anakin liked something about that.
So, he really didn't mind when, in yet another lecture about the force and letting it flow through you and guide you and whatever, he was sitting and whispering translations in Obito's and Lee's language back to the second hokage.
That, and, translating distracted him from what was really being said, things he… He didn't want to think about.
The other children next to him, all younger and sitting cross legged and smiling, were all perfectly still as they listened to the instructor drone. Lee had never droned and neither had Obito, granted they hadn't talked too much about chakra and how it worked, just bits and pieces here and there but when they did they had never gone on and on like this for days at a time.
And they'd always welcomed questions, and here… Well, they welcomed questions, but it was clear that they looked for a certain type of question that Anakin just wasn't going to ask. Everyone here had just grown up with these ideas and it was all new to Anakin and…
The man, a small bothan with orange fur, stopped as Anakin lifted his hand with a grimace.
"Yes, Anakin?" the man asked pleasantly and patiently, but not with any of the familiarity of Lee or Obito or even Qui-Gon.
"I… Sir, what does the force want?" Anakin asked, finally just biting the blaster laser and saying it.
"I'm sorry?" the bothan jedi asked, "Could you clarify that, Anakin?"
Anakin rambled, face flushing as all the other kids looked at him like there was something wrong with him for even asking, "The force, I get that it moves through everything, through all of us, and guides our actions and is balanced between light and dark but… But what does it really want?"
The bothan tilted his head, as if trying to understand Anakin's words better, "The force, Anakin, moves through us all, guides us through many possible futures, and clearly has a preference of some futures over others but it is not something that has active sentient wants."
"Why not?" Anakin blurted.
"Why not?" the jedi parroted, cat eyes growing wider by the minute as he tried to comprehend that.
"It's been here since the beginning, right, and it's in everything and it clearly wants some futures more than others and guides people, so why shouldn't it want things? And if it does want things, then what does it really want?"
They all kept staring at him, like Anakin had gone and lost his hand and decided to become one of the sand people, and then the bothan jedi instructor laughed, "Oh, Anakin, what an imagination you have. Truly delightful."
Anakin's face burned, he glared down at the floor and his bare feet against the thin mat he was sitting on, the children around him giggled even as the jedi continued to explain, "There are force sensitive sects, on primitive worlds once outside the republic, that had similar ideas of the desires or sentience of the force but at its heart the force is infinitely more complex and simple than that. We jedi have been studying it for millennia, we work all our lives to become one with the force, and for all its profound mysteries it has never done something so simple as want in the manner you and I might want."
"How would you know?" Anakin mumbled bitterly to his feet, apparently too soft for the jedi to hear or the other initiates, but loud enough for Senju Tobirama sitting next to him.
The jedi was moving on though, the lecture continued, and soon enough they were paired off to work on meditation, connecting to fellow force users, and discussing what they'd learned. As always, because he was older and different and spoke Lee's language, he and the nidaime were placed together in the far corner of the room, watching as the bothan instructor smiled and made his round encouraging and correcting as he made his way to each pair.
And all he could think was that the last thing he wanted to do was touch the force and that these people didn't get it at all, didn't understand that the force could, and did, want something and that if they'd listen for two seconds Anakin could even tell them what it was.
He just didn't know why.
He sighed, looked over at the nidaime and ducked his head in embarrassment, switching over to Lee, Obito, and Tobirama's language, "Sorry, I mean about translating, I missed some stuff in there and…"
Tobirama waved his hand in dismissal, "It's fine, you're hardly trained for translation and are already miles beyond Lee ever was or has been."
Anakin tried to hold in his smile, the thought that at least this, he was doing right.
"How are they?"
"As ridiculous as ever," Tobirama said, but with fondness, as if he wouldn't have either Obito or Lee any other way, "They pretend to be fully functioning adults, but I only know that it's a matter of time before the next disaster strikes. And, like always, I'll be the one to clean up the mess."
Anakin did smile at that, a full beaming grin as he thought back to those memories, "Yeah, they were always causing some trouble in Tatooine, even before Qui-Gon, Padme, Obi-Wan, Jar-Jar, R2, and everyone else showed up."
"One time," Anakin confessed, leaning forward with his hands under his chin, "Obito accidentally blew up half of Watto's stock in the junkyard when he was showing me one of his jutsus and he and Lee had to spend all day with me figuring out how to put it back together again."
He could still remember Obito and Lee screaming at one another, Lee's hands flying everywhere as she demanded he tell her what it looked like to begin with, Anakin trying to describe it, and Obito practically tearing his hair out as he constantly reminded both of them that he was hardly an expert. Still, at the end, they'd all been laughing, toasting to their own victory back in Anakin's house at having managed to fool Watto for at least another day.
It seemed so long ago but at the same time like it was just yesterday…
And even though he'd been a slave, some part of Anakin missed those days and Mos Espa with it. But it was gone now, all gone, and Anakin was gone and moved on too.
Only those dreams, dream after dream of Lee and the force wearing Minato Namikaze's face, even gave him a glimpse of it.
Anakin peered up at Tobirama through his lashes, taking in his confident appearance and the way chakra seemed to gravitate towards him even more than Qui-Gon, like he had some authority over everything he touched, and he asked hesitantly, "Hey, Mr. Senju, do you… do you know how chakra works?"
Tobirama raised his pale white eyebrows ever so slightly upwards, then asked, "Do you mean your force or chakra?"
Anakin flushed, pushed his hands together, and said, "Well, I… I didn't realize there was a difference."
"The principles seem more or less the same," Tobirama said with a slight shrug, "But Lee, Obito, and I come from… a planet very far from this one. Our chakra, even our natural chakra, acts very differently from your force. We were discussing as much this morning."
Anakin nodded, not entirely sure what that meant except that it wasn't surprising, the man in his dreams with Lee had seemed to think that Lee came from somewhere further than even he could comprehend, and he knew everything. Still, Anakin glanced at the instructor, saw he was still talking to other initiates, and then asked, "Well, what about chakra then?"
"I know entirely too much about chakra," Tobirama said with an amused smile at Anakin's broad question, "And yet, because of that, I'm not sure I know anything at all."
"What does that mean?"
"It means that I've been studying chakra all of my life," Tobirama explained, "And yet, the more I learn, the more insignificant and ignorant I feel. Like every step further I take I realize that the universe is still stretching infinitely before me. Anyone who claims to truly understand chakra, or even your force, is undoubtedly a fool who knows nothing at all."
What Anakin would say to that even Anakin didn't know, his mouth hung open but at that moment the instructor looked over at them both in disapproval and Anakin grew quiet, reaching out towards the force and yet doing anything but.
Lee Eru, Qui-Gon had the feeling, didn't quite know the meaning of the words subtlety or even tact. He couldn't say he had known her very long, however, for the small period of time he had known her she had always been blunt, abrupt, and rather up front with both what she wanted and what she thought of any given situation.
Whether this was her dislike of the jedi, apparently something that grew by the minute, her attempts to gather information about them, or anything in between Lee had all the subtlety of a stampeding herd of nerfs.
So much so that her apprentice, the boy Obito Uchiha, appeared the master of subtle manipulation by comparison. Which, as far as Qui-Gon could tell, the boy had no motivation to be and generally seemed to approve of his master's rather up-front attitude and took to emulating it at nearly every opportunity.
At any rate, for all that Qui-Gon had grown to like the pair, and for all that the force screamed in his and every jedi's ear to keep them closer than they dared, Qui-Gon couldn't help but feel that perhaps the force was finally rewarding him for having put Obi-Wan through so many incidents of Qui-Gon's strays.
Because, surely, Qui-Gon who hardly represented the ideal jedi master, could not be in this situation other than by the providence of the force.
"I'm sorry?" Qui-Gon asked, taking in the sight of the pair hovering over data pads in the jedi library (an acquisition that to the jedi council had looked as if it was akin to pulling teeth) reading about the history of the jedi under Qui-Gon's strict supervision.
They always looked out of place here, not simply their clothing, dark greens and blues amid the jedi simple browns and beiges, but in the very way the held themselves, always on edge, always aware of their surroundings instead of sinking into the force.
Eyes of jedi working beside them would land on them, stare for too long, wariness in the eyes of masters, padawans, knights, and initiates alike.
However, today instead of playing the studious roles they'd assigned themselves for the past few days, Lee had decided to get to the heart of what she and her people undoubtedly wanted. Which, of course, was the last thing the jedi would ever willingly grant them.
"The crystals for the light sabers," Lee repeated, setting aside the history of the last great empire which had once ruled over most of what was now the republic, "Do you know where we can find them or at least buy them?"
"They cannot be bought, and you cannot simply find and take them," Qui-Gon quickly cut in, "The crystals, understand that they are as closely guarded a treasure to the order as any other. You will never be granted that, I would never grant you that."
Indeed, even padawans were not told where the caverns were and guarded until they were chosen by a master and ready to build their lightsaber.
Lee and Obito didn't seem entirely surprised by this, likely, given their own culture, they had been expecting this long before now, still Lee sighed, "Pity, I'm rather jealous of Obito's shiny new toy."
Qui-Gon, were he a young padawan, would have flinched at that. Still, he stiffened ever so slightly at the reminder of the sith's duel blade that Obito Uchiha had claimed as a prize of war.
"Oh well, I suppose it can't be helped," Lee said with a shrug, and yet Qui-Gon couldn't help but feel… Not that she didn't mean it, but that her task, the task of obtaining the crystal for the lightsabers, had simply been made more complicated rather than impossible. That she would go and do it without the council or even Qui-Gon's approval.
And the force… The force didn't seem to mind the idea at all.
"You are leaving the temple and Coruscant soon then?" Qui-Gon asked, the pair had spoken about it here and there, really ever since they had returned from Coruscant they seemed to be itching to leave it and see the wonders of the rest of the galaxy for themselves.
The idea made Qui-Gon uncomfortable, or rather, and this was an odd thing to say but it seemed to make the living force uncomfortable. As if the idea of Lee and Obito developing wanderlust, not necessarily wandering with the core of the republic or even the outer rim but wandering further than that grated at it and stirred agitated eddies in its current.
However, they seemed determined to leave, a small trip before returning once again to Coruscant and regrouping with the diplomat.
And for all that the force bled through them, for all the power they both possessed, both seemed entirely deaf to the force's voice practically screaming in their ears.
Even now, Lee nodded, "Tomorrow, early, we think. It's time Obito and I saw what the rest of this galaxy is about, we really hung around Tatooine for far too long and there's more to this republic of yours than the barren desert, swamps, and this hunk of metal you have the indecency to call a planet."
Qui-Gon's lips quirked upwards in an amused smile at her thoughtless insults, that, somehow with exposure to the woman, had started to seem more amusing and familiar than simply insulting.
"And what about your diplomat, Tobirama Senju, you've only given him a week to learn Basic," Qui-Gon noted to the pair but they didn't seem too concerned for Tobirama Senju's wellbeing or challenges as both simply shrugged in time.
"Honestly, he'd probably be more upset if we got in the way," Obito said before leaning forward and saying to Qui-Gon, as if giving an aside in a play, "He's under the impression, somehow, that shishou and I are entirely incompetent."
"Which is very rude of him," Lee added with a huff, "I'd like to see him do any better… Actually, that's half of why we're going, it will be nice to give the nidaime a chance to crash and burn as he tries to negotiate with the most unreasonable people I have ever met."
Qui-Gon laughed, he hated to tell them, but for that alone he thought that Tobirama Senju might do better than they themselves would. Certainly, even by taking courses with the initiates as well as Anakin Skywalker, the man had painted himself as a far more palatable alternative to Lee Eru and Obito Uchiha.
Though, Qui-Gon couldn't help but acknowledge, there was far too much attachment even in that man, deep regrets and festering hatred and anger, than the jedi would be comfortable with in any other situation.
However, for all the force was muddled, for all the future was fragmented and broken, the living force was more overwhelming and clear than it had ever been before and even the council could not deny the direction it guided (no, almost pushed) them towards.
Lee Eru was important.
"Anakin can translate," Obito said with a wave of his hand, breaking Qui-Gon from his thoughts, "It'll be good for him as well as the nidaime, and given that Lee and I really only are headed to the core planets we should only be gone for about a week or so."
Oh yes, a shinobi and Anakin Skywalker together, the council was sure to be thrilled with that.
"You think it will turn into a hovercraft wreck?" Lee asked, resting her chin on the backs of her hands as she read Qui-Gon's cringing expression.
"Oh, no, it's simply that," Qui-Gon stopped because the answer was really yes, he cleared his throat and then said, "The council reluctantly took Anakin on as an initiate, but it was not with great pleasure or without significant hesitation."
"You jedi will never make sense to me," Obito said rather dully.
"We have our ways," Qui-Gon merely answered serenely, "And under ordinary circumstances Anakin would never have been brought to train at his age."
"And these are extraordinary circumstances?" Lee questioned further, and now that Qui-Gon thought about it he didn't know if they had heard or not, that Anakin was the chosen one. They had seemed to merely accept that Qui-Gon would want to train Anakin, that the council would want to train him, if only for his raw strength in the force.
They hadn't questioned the idea that if Anakin had been even slightly less of what he was, though Qui-Gon would have worked to free him and his mother if he had the opportunity, he would not have offered to train the boy.
"Yes," Qui-Gon said slowly, "Anakin is very special."
At seeing their dull looks of incomprehension, again, likely thinking of Anakin's raw strength alone rather than the implications he simply explained, "There is a prophecy, written many years ago, about a jedi, more closely connected to the force than any other, who will bring balance to the force and the galaxy. I believe Anakin Skywalker is that jedi."
Both looked somewhat taken aback by this, not, apparently, possessing their own prophecies about Anakin Skywalker.
"Perhaps," Qui-Gon added with a small smile, "Even your coming here, finding Anakin yourselves in Mos Espa, the most unlikely of places, was an act of the force."
"Perhaps," Lee responded, though her tone, her face, revealed nothing, her thoughts hidden out of sight behind those bright green eyes.
"Still, to be the kwisatz haderach, and at the age of ten and not even fifteen…" Lee said, trailing off, her words drifting into the air along with the small particles of dust painted golden in the daylight, "That is the kind of greatness that will destroy a man as well as a galaxy."
However, Lee did not leave him much of a chance to respond to that, as instead she turned back to her history books and began flipping through pages of the data pad and asking Qui-Gon about long dead homicidal androids and ancient emperors from the edge of space.
Tobirama had many regrets from his lifetime, had had regrets at the time, but then had found them compounded and growing in his strange afterlife. At the time it had been Madara, Uchiha Madara the murderer of his brother and the village, madman and bane of his own people, who had been in the darkest pits of Tobirama's soul.
He wished that Madara had never been born, that Uchiha Izuna had never been born. He wished that Hashirama, just once, had lacked the faith in humanity to trust the reluctant and wrathful Uchiha Madara when extending his hand to build Konoha. He wished that they had never met. He wished that his father had killed Madara when he was a child. He wished that he had killed Madara just as he had killed Izuna. He wished that he hadn't killed Izuna and perhaps prevented Madara's path to murderous insanity…
He wished that his brother had survived and Tobirama had died instead.
And every time he sat over paperwork, threw himself into building Hashirama's village without him, in every shadow he saw Uchiha Madara laughing.
However, upon resurrection, Tobirama learned that he hadn't regretted the correct things. Madara yes, Madara always, but ANBU, the segregation and drifting of the Uchiha, and Danzo, those had passed him by at the time only to appear as monsters later.
ANBU, even now, though he regretted what it was and the effects it had on those who drowned themselves in it, he could not say he had made the wrong decision. ANBU was needed, without it Konoha would never have survived, would have been wiped out along with Uzushio until only burning trees remained. He only wished that he could have done better, could have believed fully in Hashirama's dream, because Hashirama would never accept a world where ANBU was necessary.
Similarly, the separation of the Uchiha, though he regretted it he acknowledged that it had spiraled out of his control and compounded itself after Tobirama had departed this world. He had tried, he had taken Kagami as a student and worked with him often as a jonin, he had given them charge of the village police as they had asked, he had left them to the lands that Hashirama had allotted them and around those lands they had built up all their old clan walls once again and turned inward. And as the Senju disappeared through death and marriage the Uchiha married cousins upon cousins and became a village within a hidden village…
He had never, for all his years of working with Kagami, for all that he had known Madara, truly understood the Uchiha clan.
Danzo though, Shimura Danzo was the knife in Tobirama's heart that kept plunging deeper. He remembered that moment in Cloud, outnumbered and with no way out, and knowing that it was now or never to pick a successor. He had looked at Kagami and seen the man's family, had known that with the Uchiha council whispering in his ear, however good a man Kagami was, Tobirama could never pass the title to him. Then he had looked at Danzo, he'd thought, for a moment, perhaps, but he'd thought that Danzo had too much of a respect for power and the concrete, he had never understood Hashirama. And so, Tobirama had looked to Hiruzen, had recognized something of himself and Hashirama inside of him, and had passed on his title and his hat to a man who would be burdened with it for decades to come.
Until, of course, the young Namikaze Minato took it from him.
He had not given it to Danzo, and yet, for a moment he had considered it. Not realizing, not looking and seeing what Danzo was so quickly becoming and perhaps already was. Not merely a war dog, but a spider lurking in the shadows, spinning webs beneath the village and devouring men and children alike as he clamored for power.
He had nightmares now, of what Shimura Danzo might have become, if he had continued year upon year through the war and onwards with all of Konoha at his disposal. Or, worse, if Tobirama had had one moment less to choose, or if Hiruzen had died in the battle and only Kagami and Danzo had remained…
To his everlasting shame and horror, Tobirama could not say that he would have chosen Kagami.
This man, though older than Hiruzen was or Danzo would have been, in some strange way that Tobirama could not place, not in his robes, his genial smile, or even his overwhelming killing intent that creeped on Tobirama's skin like the legs centipedes and spiders, reminded him distinctly of Danzo.
"Fascinating," the man said, looking at Tobirama as if he truly was fascinated, "You react even more strongly than the pair of them, I dare say you knew what I was before you even walked into the building."
Tobirama couldn't help but wonder why the man was fascinated, when you hated like that and wore it on your sleeve, even the worst of sensors couldn't help but notice.
"And yet you yourself, just as them, are neither light nor dark but rather constantly balancing on the edge of a knife, neither truly one nor the other," the man sipped at his wine, a dark red, so dark in the twilight that it resembled blood and Obito's voice was cold and toneless as he translated, "You know, a jedi could never do that for long, in the end, if they balance like that, if they dare to tempt themselves they will always fall."
He then leaned back, smiling genially at the three of them, at Lee and Obito's forced casual posture as well as Tobirama's tenseness, and said, "I don't believe I have ever seen anything like it."
"I am told I should congratulate you," Tobirama said, "On your acquiring the chancellorship so very recently."
The man let out an amused laugh after Obito had translated, "Recently, yes so recently, and yet so many years spent getting here. I do not believe that your friends appreciate how long and arduous the journey was to here. And yet, here I am, supreme chancellor of the republic."
He then waved his hand, as if to dismiss his own words, "Forgive me, I rarely get a chance to even hint at what's truly on my mind. I find it refreshing, speaking to you shinobi, one might even say that I've come to look forward to our little chats."
And Obito's voice was so cold, so professional and toneless, that the words were horribly juxtaposed in Tobirama's mind.
"Yes, they're positively delightful," Lee said rather drily before asking, "And the embassies, when exactly can we expect those to be done?"
"Soon enough, these things take time," the man said before eyeing her speculatively, "Have you not been kept up to date on the progress?"
"We have, but the timeframe is a bit extreme, isn't it?" Obito asked twice, once for the man and translating again for Tobirama, leaning forward, something rather accusatory in his eyes as if he knew there was some game being played unseen within this man's mind.
"For the heroes of Naboo and the republic? Hardly."
Lee and Obito both frowned along with Tobirama, Lee leaning back and shifting in her chair as she asked, "Can I ask, exactly, how long it will be until you start raping and pillaging this capital planet of yours?"
The man laughed heartily at that, a high-pitched grating noise that did not belong in any human being, a laughter even worse than Madara's mad laughter had been as he burned down Konoha and unleashed the tailed beast.
"Oh, Lee Eru, you delightfully blunt creature, you do realize that it is not so easy or simple as that, don't you?" he said, "No need to worry, you have plenty of time before the lightsaber falls, and even then, I think, it would be more beneficial to have you on my side rather than theirs. Such a pity they loathe everything you stand for, isn't it?"
"Do you not loathe what we stand for?" Obito asked, and Tobirama looked at him in warning but the boy paid no mind, and neither did the chancellor, just as with Lee he was instead amused by Obito's nerve and bluntness.
"Of course, however I make no pretense of righteousness and do not demand the conversion of heathens to my own philosophy unnecessarily. The jedi have grown weak and content, their hubris is so thick in the air that it could choke a man, and when they die they will not even see it coming. Even if, you Lee Eru and Obito Uchiha, so kindly warn them."
Both paled at that but held their ground saying nothing, and the man just kept smiling, giving all the impression that he viewed the three of them, particularly Lee and Obito, as amusing little foreign toys that he could watch flit about amongst the willfully unaware jedi, knowing that not a word they said would ever be taken seriously.
This was a man who had all but seen the future and found it positively delightful.
"Well, so long as you are kind enough to let us know," Lee said slowly, but without any faith that the man would whenever that inevitable moment came.
"That said, on a completely different note, we've been talking to the jedi about the crystals in lightsabers," Lee continued, "Now, we talked to the jedi and they told us that that, above all other things, was completely taboo. And yet, Obito and I remembered that your apprentice had had a blade of his own, so, clearly, you have some sort of in."
The man seemed even more amused by that, as if Lee had made some unwitting pun, "Still talking about my spies among the order? I assure you, even if I had the ability that would give them far too much information. More, a certain statement would be lost."
"Statement?" Obito questioned and the man nodded.
"Lightsabers have been lost before along with the precious crystals inside of them. If I truly wanted a blade, if Darth Maul had wanted such a blade, it could be found without venturing into the jedi's sacred caverns. However, the sith choose to create our own crystals synthetically, which gives them that red hue. The red lightsaber is a statement of irrevocable separation from the light side of the force, of falling into the dark, and of all the old wars that jedi have forgotten."
The man swirled his wine in hand, watching as the light caught inside of it, painting it red and black, "Red is not simply blood, to a jedi, not death, but it is instead fear, dread, hatred, attachment, passion, all those roads which they dare not tread upon but always exist within themselves however they try to chant them away. When you see the reflection of the red lightsaber in their eyes, you can see how they realize they are not simply facing their end, but their inevitable corruption."
He then smiled at them, that warm expression so at odds with the killing intent that even now intensified in anticipation, "Needless to say, if you wish to trade or negotiate, I can see that your people are given the synthetic crystals."
"We'll think about it," Lee said shortly, to which she undoubtedly meant no, and yet the man still smiled.
Perhaps even now imagining Eru Lee, Uchiha Obito, or perhaps even Tobirama himself wielding his red blades under his own command as his mindless machines of death and destruction. Danzo, Tobirama thought, would undoubtedly had thought the same thing.
When they left the senate it was dark, the city aglow with neon and fluorescent light while the sky was a cold, flat, and starless black. Tobirama, standing on the steps, stated, "We cannot trust him, if it all possible, and perhaps even in the event of the impossible, we must negotiate with the jedi."
Lee and Obito said nothing to this, unsaid being the idea that the jedi had their own ideas, and that this man could play them as easily as a fiddle. Lee, he thought, had already given up on this place, and had contented herself to extending a hand to Jinn Qui-Gon, Kenobi Obi-Wan, and Skywalker Anakin.
But that was why Tobirama was here, why they had brought him, because this could fall on his shoulders. Perhaps Hashirama's shoulders if it was needed, and if worst came to worst, then they could simply leave and never look back.
They walked through the city, jumping on platforms and making their way to the luxury hotel that waited, and as they reached its gilded entrance Tobirama asked, "And you are still set on leaving?"
"We should see Naboo again, check on the progress of the embassy," Lee noted, "Not to mention see Corellia, which is where many ships are built, and pilots trained. Neither are too far."
Yes, only a week, two weeks, at most they had said. Still, Tobirama didn't like it, he would be fine, they would be fine, but after meeting this man in the flesh he was more on edge than he would have liked and could feel the chakra at the edge of the fuinjutsu trap closing in.
He also wasn't thrilled at the idea of sending Lee and Obito off unsupervised, he thought darkly to himself as they climbed into the elevator. That, clearly, was just a recipe for disaster. Still, it was unavoidable, it was either now or later and though they were both ridiculous they were shinobi and worthy of their ranks when it suited them.
Besides, if there was one good thing to come of this he thought to himself, it was that the jedi would undoubtedly send some wet blanket third wheel to tag along.
Foreign overly cheerful music, featuring some stringed instrument, a drum, and a man's voice played over the speakers in a language that Obi-Wan could not even begin to parse.
"Hey, what's the matter with your head, yeah? Hey, what's the matter with your mind and your sign and a, oh oh oha?"
Obi-Wan, had been, sooner than he could have ever expected, embarking upon his trials to become a jedi knight. The council clearly thought he was ready, Master Qui-Gon assured him he was more than ready, and so Obi-Wan had to have faith in himself.
Faith in himself despite his strange seemingly simple task, as a mere guide and glorified chauffer and pilot, and yet he could not think of any task that could be harder.
"Hey, nothing the matter with your head, baby, find it, come on and find it. Hey, with it baby cause you're fine, and you're mine, and you look so divine."
Because it was not anyone that Obi-Wan was escorting, not even a queen, but instead a pair stranger, more dangerous, and altogether more dubious than perhaps anything in the galaxy. A pair that Obi-Wan was to keep an eye on and report on while giving them the illusion of wandering the galaxy unfettered, keeping them alive and out of danger and keeping them from imploding stars or conquering planets.
Namely, for his trials, Obi-Wan had been given nothing less than the task of guarding and guarding the galaxy from Lee Eru and her apprentice Obito Uchiha.
"Come and get your love. Come and get your love. Come and get your love. Come and get your love."
The pair now, in the beaten-up cockpit of the beaten up thirdhand ship they had picked up from a local Coruscant dealer with the winnings from Lee's many fights in Tatooine's gladiator arenas, were blasting Lee's chosen music in the cockpit, laughing and impressing each other with truly terrible dancing.
"Hey what's the matter with you, feel right, don't you feel right, baby? Hey, oh yeah, get it from the main vine, alright," Obito hopped from one foot to the next, pulling the smiling and laughing Lee into his arms, spinning her, and dipping her so low that she almost touched the floor even while she grinned in delight.
And it was like they couldn't even remember that Obi-Wan was here, sitting in the cockpit, more than ready to leave and set course for Corellia already. Or that they had bought a ship, not a discotheque.
They stepped in time, suddenly remembering how to dance in a more traditional if foreign manner, skirting across the small bridge of the ship and then back into the cockpit, the dials and buttons glowing down on them like colored spotlights, "I said a find it, find it, go on and love it if you like it, yeah. Hey, it's your business if you want some take some, get it together, baby."
"Come and get your love. Come and get your love. Come and get your love. Come and get your love."
Then the chorus started once again and Obi-Wan felt as if this song might very well go on forever. More, looking at the decorations they had already managed to put up, as well as the music they had brought with them, Obi-Wan had the distinct feeling that this was only the beginning.
And that, this, in fact, might be what hell itself was like.
Finally, he turned off the damn radio, halting the pair in their tracks, and as they stopped and turned towards him he gave a sigh of relief. Honestly, he was starting to feel like something of a third wheel.
"Well, if you're done now, Correllia I think should be our first stop, it is closer than Naboo and should take a day maybe a day and a half at most depending on port traffic."
Lee sat in the copilot seat with a huff, Obito hovering over her leather chair, "Sounds fine by me, Kenobi."
Obi-Wan meanwhile looked over the ship, it was… Jedi did not accustom themselves to luxury, but in some cases, they were more than willing to shell out necessary funds. Lightsabers, ships, speeders, these were kept in top condition. And here Lee and Obito looked as if they had purchased the cheapest ship they could find.
Obi-Wan released his anxiety into the force, touching the machine and reaching out, willing it to fly and fly without issues that would leave them stranded in deep space. Leave Obi-Wan stranded in deep space with these two.
He then began moving forward, setting on the ignition, the blaster shields, the comms and reporting their departure, and readying for takeoff.
"I can't believe this is your jonin exam equivalent," Lee said, staring at Obi-Wan's face as if something about it was truly fascinating, "Do you have any idea what we have to go through for ours?"
"To be fair, shishou, he is babysitting us."
"Oh, come on," Lee turned exasperated back towards her apprentice, "They don't expect stars to explode, do they?"
"Of course not," Obito said with heavy sarcasm, a grin on his lips, "It's not as if we have some sort of precedent for things going terribly wrong."
"I resent that," Lee said, though clearly not, the look on her face was anything but resentful.
"Lee, please, there is a copilot's chair for a reason," Obi-Wan said, motioning to her side of the ship, which she had not even begun to prep for takeoff.
"Oh, right, buttons," Lee said, turning back to her own console with wide eyes as buttons flashed and dials began to whir, "Right… I…"
"What is it?" Obi-Wan asked, going through the last steps he needed to before he had to wait for Lee to hurry up already.
"I…" Lee looked at him, a blank look on her face, and then seemed to come to a decision, "I will figure out how to fly this thing."
Obi-Wan stopped, looked at her, blinked then realized what she had just said, "Wait, what?"
Lee's hand hovered over the ejection button, now flashing a bright red, "This looks important and necessary."
Obi-Wan snatched her hand away, moved over to her seat, and desperately began fulfilling his own copilot's functions, "Are you telling me you do not know how to fly the ship?!"
"I figured that I would, quote unquote, use the force," Lee said, oh so casually, as if she had any idea at all how the force truly worked!
"That is not how the force works!" Obi-Wan said, "And are you really saying that you have no idea, none, on how to fly this?"
"Kenobi," Lee said with a long-suffering sigh and a dull almost reproachful look, "I can teleport, why the hell would I need to drive?"
That was… That was an alarmingly good point, more, it made it very odd that they had bought a ship and intended to fly it at all. Lee and Obito could go wherever they wish and leave Obi-Wan in the dust. Had this, in and of itself been some concession to the jedi? And if so, how was Obi-Wan ever to keep up with them if they truly intended on disappearing and causing mayhem?
"Nonetheless," he forced himself to say, closing his eyes and not thinking about the futility of his mission before it even truly began, "You will learn, we will take the long way and you and your apprentice will learn, or force help me I will…"
"You'll what?" Obito asked, dark brows raised and the unscarred portion of his brow wrinkling to match the other, "I thought your whole philosophy was on not acting in anger."
"I will have to meditate far more than any jedi should," Obi-Wan finished rather lamely, but unfortunately Obito was right, those were the only tools at his disposal.
Still, they had time he thought as they took off, Lee copying his actions and taking his directions as needed, they had miles and miles to go and all the universe before them. And somehow, in some impossible way, Obi-Wan would survive this, triumph, and become a jedi knight.
Anakin, alone, in the room was twitching and unable to concentrate. Everyone, everyone younger than him, and even Tobirama Senju who was way older, were sitting perfectly still with their eyes closed in meditation. Everyone except Anakin, who was stiff and awkward and could even now hear the rushing of the force like a river in his ears.
He opened his eyes and mouth, wanting to talk, then closed them as he realized that at this rate he was just falling further behind. Anakin, even a week in, was a terrible jedi.
"Anakin."
Anakin startled and looked up, catching the instructor looking down at him with a small frown and something that was almost pitying, "Anakin, there is much fear I sense in you."
Anakin, remembering the council's words, flushed in shame and nodded, "I… I'm trying not to be afraid."
"You're hesitating, so afraid of yourself that you will become that which you fear."
"I'm not, that's not…" Anakin trailed off, more than certain they wouldn't understand, that he'd just keep standing over Anakin until he shut up and did it already. Let himself go and make nice with the force and hope that it wouldn't eat him or something.
None of the other initiates had this problem, Anakin thought, they all seemed to get along fine without any issues at all. No, it was only Anakin that was pulled along for what Obito might call "a bad trip".
Still, he shifted, flushing, waited for the instructor to drift away again and then closed his eyes, maybe it really was now or never. Or, maybe he was just letting his fear control him again even if fear was at least a part of Anakin that he knew belonged to himself. But fear hadn't brought him anywhere good, and both Lee and Qui-Gon had always cautioned against it.
Anakin closed his eyes, letting himself go, drift down down down through the stone floor and the jedi temple and down past everything. His awareness shifted, grew larger, moving far beyond the temple or even Coruscant and out towards all the worlds and the stars.
Somewhere, in the great void, a small ship floated like a tin can between worlds, two shinobi and a jedi inside. For now, the jedi was laughing but trying to look as if he was anything but amused, the scarred boy was grinning again, and Lee, Lee was smiling and laughing as well as she finally got around to teaching Obi-Wan Kenobi poker.
In a day's standard time they would be on Corellia, they would stay there for two days, Obi-Wan haplessly pulled along as the pair caused minor mayhem or else flickered out of sight entirely, and if Anakin left now there would be a ship he could steal in a back lot half the planet away and…
Anakin breathed, forced his inner eyes open and his mind screamed, "No!"
Just like before it stopped, a great river in the form of a dragon encircling all the worlds, and it turned to regard with him with eyes that burned with all the stars and all their cruel light.
Beneath it, Anakin felt so terribly small, so fragile, but he stared up at it and screamed, "I am not a slave! I have never been anyone's slave and I never will be."
Not truly, not really, even if Watto owned a certificate with Anakin's name on it, that did not make Anakin a slave. He motioned to himself, to his human heart, and cried out, "I have my own mind, my own body, my own life, and I don't want Lee!"
And then suddenly they were on Tatooine, in the great desert where Anakin and the rest had waited while Lee, Qui-Gon, and Obi-Wan had scoured the ruins of Mos Espa for the queen's ship. The winds buffeted sand around them, stinging Anakin's eyes and skin, and standing across from him, dressed in the clothes of a native of Mos Espa, coarse grey and beige clothing, was the illusion of Minato Namikaze.
And his eyes, a pale blue, were just the same as the dragon's had been.
"All men, all beings," he said, his voice at once so ordinary and yet only giving the illusion of something ordinary and human, "Anakin Skywalker, are slaves to fate and the force."
Then, pointing a pale half-gloved hand at Anakin's chest, he offered an amused if cruel smile, and added, "And it's dangerous, Anakin Skywalker, not to know your place in the world."
"What does that mean?!" Anakin asked, stepping forward, feeling the hot sand crunching beneath his feet just as if they were in the real desert on the real Tatooine. The man smiled, and in it was a thousand desert storms and a thousand blazing suns, and Anakin thought that even looking at this forged shell, little more than a shadow clone, he could glimpse the real face the force wore underneath it.
And he wanted to cower as it looked at him, really looked at him, as if it had never before spent so much time looking at the speck of dust called Anakin Skywalker.
"What do you mean my place in the world?" Anakin asked, forcing himself to step closer again even when all he wanted to do was run, run further than he had ever run before even if it meant running straight to Lee and straight where the force wanted him to go.
"You were a wish," the man said, but it wasn't a kind expression he wore on his face (for all that his face, prettier than many of the faces on Tatooine) seemed one predisposed to kindness, "A failed experiment, a prodigal son, and a central thread in the great tapestry of the galaxy."
Anakin shook his head bitterly, this time stepping back, unwilling to see or even think of what that could possibly mean, "I'm Anakin Skywalker, and I'm not a slave."
The man smiled then, as if he thought this was cute, and said cryptically, "There are only so many paths, Anakin Skywalker, and even if you choose the one you think is less travelled it is still a path carved out before you. You cannot run from what you are, and you do not possess the capacity to try."
"Oh yeah?" Anakin asked, feeling himself burn beneath the suns, and something inside his soul bitterly burning with them, "Well that doesn't mean I'll go running to Lee either!"
"Lee does not exist on any path that I created," the man quietly agreed, and something in him shifted then, stared out longingly into the horizon and then past the atmosphere and to the stars, where the small beaten ship sailed through the stars, "She is not from my world, is outside of my control, and if I wish to reach her at all I have to…"
The image faded, the stars withdrew, and the man looked down coldly once again at Anakin, "I need a pair of hands, and there are none more suitable than yours, Anakin Skywalker."
Anakin stepped backwards, clutching his hands to his chest as if to deny them to the thing that wore Minato's face, and said, "Well I'm using them, get your own pair."
"It is not that simple," the man said, stepping forward and looking almost put upon as his shadow extended to overtake Anakin, "I have tried and failed once already."
His hand reached out towards Anakin, blocking out the twin suns, his fingers growing transparent as if to reach into Anakin and remove him from his own body.
"Try harder!" Anakin said, scrambling backwards and falling back onto the burning sand, sand that now burned far hotter than it ever had on Tatooine, "You're doing it now, aren't you? The world's yours, isn't it? So build your own and leave me alone!"
The hand stopped, retreated, and Minato Namikaze looked human once again as he stared down at Anakin in shock and awe, as if struck by an idea he had never considered. Then, all at once, he and Tatooine disappeared and Anakin was falling flat on his face onto a floor mat in the jedi temple laughing hysterically, tears pouring out of his eyes as he tasted not only the air but freedom and victory as Tobirama Senju helped lift Anakin off the floor and took him into his arms.
And he knew, that in the depths of space, in some unnoticed corner of the cockpit, where even now Lee and Obito were spending their first late night at the controls while Obi-Wan meditated and slept in a corner, a solid illusion of a man, a shadow clone, wearing Minato Namikaze's face appeared out of nothing but the breath and chakra of the universe.
Author's Note: In which I make up for all the baby chapters that have happened by having one giant chapter (well, it's more that there wasn't a good natural place to divide it without having to add in ridiculous amounts of filler scenes). But we are on our way to new and glorious adventures as well as glorious disasters. What awaits my heroes next? It will be very exciting. Also, I felt like aside from nodding at Dune and Star Trek I also had to give Lee and Obito an unwitting nod if only to drive wet blanket third wheel Obi-Wan completely mad.
Also, I... Man, I think I'm starting to dig this Obito and Lee interaction. I mean, clearly I write it, but it more happened in this story to a) prove a point and b) because plot but I could write entire stories of them just being ridiculous together. Well, that and this three way crossover is also way more of a thing than it should be. So, clearly, I am just ridiculous in general.
Anyways, with all that, thanks for reading and reviewing, reviews are much appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, Naruto, or Star Wars