AN: This chapter is All of the Obito POVs so far, which means half of the previous intermission has been combined with this one in order to create a better flow between scenes. No new content has been added to the previous chapter; instead, Obito's POV section now leads directly into this arc's plot. Complete with meeting the truncated Mighty Nein!
"It might be a good idea to cut down on the, uh," —here, a long gray-furred finger swirled in the air in a gentle spiral— "on the eye thing."
"I've only been dumped into the uncaring abyss twice, though," Obito replied peevishly, though he didn't move away or duck his head. With ears longer than his entire hand, from wrist to the tip of his middle finger, it always felt like jerking around too fast created some weird drag. Best not.
Also, the healing experience was better if he didn't have to dig pink lichen out of them afterward.
"The tree definitely didn't take a swing at you," said Obito's firbolg friend. He pulled both chipped-nailed hands back and peered at him with slant-pupiled pink eyes. Kinda judgy, but he'd also seen Obito fall out of trees like a drunken squirrel a lot in the last couple weeks. "It just held its ground, reasonably I might add."
"Pff, sure it did. Just got all prickly because of a new contender muscling in on its territory." Not that Obito thought most of the trees around here were supposed to have thorns, but the sentiment was the same. He still bobbed his head a little, in the least-awkward bow he could manage while sitting at an oversized kitchen table, and said, "Thanks, Clay-san. You're still my favorite anchor point."
"Better than being the least, I suppose." Aww, it was almost like having Kakashi around again. But like, taller and vaguely sheep-faced.
He meant that really literally. Caduceus was really pale and thin under the layer of off-white fur, with long swoopy ears and pink-dyed hair all the way down to his beard. It was the flat, even pane of his nose that really sold the sheep thing, though. He was also very tall, but Obito wasn't entirely sure if Caduceus was that tall or if Obito had just shrunk and didn't have any basis for comparison now. At least Caduceus's house seemed built for him, because Obito definitely didn't quite fit.
The vegetarian thing was more of a side note, and Obito didn't mind that at all.
Except for the subjects of summon contracts and maybe some really out-there uses of sage techniques, most people Obito knew looked like and were human. Or within a degree of separation of being human, usually.
Not that Obito was, anymore, but maybe that made him kinda fit in better.
Obito dug flaking lichen out of the joints in his right arm with the fingernails on his left, even if it kinda crammed some weird crud in deeper. He'd been in and out of the Blooming Grove enough times since the first arrival that he was picking up more dirt than since his genin days of gardening duty. Some of the gardening stuff looked like a lost cause to Obito's somewhat-experienced eye, but he wasn't going to tell a man who lived in a shrine surrounded by graves how to live his life.
After a little more consideration, he grew a thin strip of wood out of his right wrist, snapped it off, and started breaking off bits until it resembled a backscratcher. The other end got to be a little hook to help dig more weird shit out of the arm. Like—in a totally hypothetical worst case scenario—termites.
He still didn't know why the Zetsu arm was entirely wood now, but it at least made the muffled physical sensations he got from it make a little more sense to his tired brain.
"You look like you're thinking a few big thoughts. Care to share one?" Caduceus asked. In the time between healing Obito's adventuring abrasions and letting him make weird things, he'd gotten up and started to make tea like usual.
"Nothing super serious," Obito replied. He rubbed at his eye, careful to avoid the flower that remained planted firmly in his left socket. At least it didn't itch.
"The last time you said that, you turned blue and didn't move for an entire day."
"Yeah, still can't explain that one." Obito shrugged. His wooden arm creaked, but the twinge was probably just from the memory of being trapped by his head and his body's strange new inclinations.
Then there were the times he'd turned sunflower-yellow from head to toe and picked fights with the local monster bears for two days. Or the orange phase, when he looked like he'd been possessed by an entire arboretum in fall and almost made friends with the creepy locals in town, who'd been trying to rob him on at least six occasions. That wasn't so bad, because Obito's Kamui still worked defensively, but Caduceus's ears pinned back when he realized his new friend got in trouble constantly.
Green was easiest, if only because it felt the closest to how he lived normally. Sure, he couldn't sit still, but that was pretty much his everyday experience in Konoha, too. And he almost knocked Caduceus off his feet while trying to help him with everything. Including cooking, though Obito didn't actually know what half the things he ate nowadays were.
It was still easier than the absolute despair of feeling like his friends were just in the next room and someone slammed the door on his fingers. Kamui bounced him repeatedly all across the countryside around Caduceus's home without issue—sometimes as far as a day's mundane walk from the Blooming Grove—but his home? Konoha? Hell, his friends? Even Kakashi, who had the other Sharingan?
Absolutely nothing. Roll the dice again, and again, and the specifics changed while the failure didn't.
Obito dropped his head onto the table with a thunk, with the scratchy thing clenched in his fist to the point of snapping. "Ugh."
"Doesn't sound like one of the more productive moods. We could try meditating if you want to change your mindset before bed." Caduceus set a slightly chipped teacup in front of him, directly under his nose. The steam wafted upward, which probably stopped another sunflower incident in its tracks.
He'd spent more than a few afternoons patching Obito up after a Kamui attempt gone wrong. Including one incident where Obito punched a tree out of frustration and promptly broke two of his newly fine-boned fingers.
At least he hadn't repeated that trick since.
"Think I'll take you up on that." Being an Uchiha—or having been one—didn't make Obito immune to scalding, so he blew gently on the tea before daring to try it. It wasn't like tea tea, but it was herbal, hot, and pretty good anyway. "After one more try."
Caduceus's ears angled backward again, but all he said was, "It's not as though I could stop you, I suppose."
Several hours later, just after dark, Obito stumbled back into the Blooming Grove with one hell of a migraine originating from his Sharingan. He held up a hand when he spotted Caduceus saying only, "I know, I know, you win this round."
"As long as we're both clear on that," said Caduceus, and healed him again. The pair of them shared a near-silent dinner—one irritable, one kinda smug—that Caduceus ended with, "Go to bed."
"Ugh, fiiiine."
"But not before meditating. It's no good to go to sleep frustrated," Caduceus added, before Obito could escape the hearth.
Obito groaned again, but he allowed Caduceus to lead on.
Caduceus's temple was his home, but in a practical sense it was also his house. The day after Caduceus saved him from drowning in the pond, Obito recovered from his crash-landing in a room with several beds all sized for people bigger than him. The roof was a bit holey and the room was kinda dusty, but otherwise it looked like any other stone building in the world.
Kinda.
Obito didn't really have a lot to help him form expectations there; he'd never even visited an actual shrine outside of Konoha before. The Fire Temples were totally different.
Honestly, waking up in an unfamiliar not-infirmary could've gone way worse. He wasn't even handcuffed once.
Caduceus sat across from Obito on his own bed, while Obito shucked his shoes and scrambled out of his traveling clothes into a nightshirt long enough to drown in. While they both did laundry regularly, Obito's Konoha uniform and cloak combination was a bit wrecked from yet another day spent crashing into things. He'd bought clothes sized more for someone of his build in town—between all the muggings—but Caduceus lent him pajamas.
Or, well, things he couldn't wear except as pajamas. Caduceus didn't even have to do that much, so Obito focused on being grateful for the help.
"No lingering aches or pains?" Caduceus asked.
"Nope!" Obito clambered up onto the bed that supposedly belonged to one Colton Clay. The mattress barely dipped under his weight. Expected, given the size of the usual occupants.
A lot of the beds seemed like they hadn't been used in a long time, but Obito helped out with the dusting and airing out bedclothes to make it seem a bit more lived-in. Or at least neat. As neat as possible for a semi-dilapidated shrine with a roof Caduceus claimed to have replaced at least once. Even if he didn't know a lot of the rules, Obito did his best to be a good houseguest.
"All right, do you want me to guide you for this first bit?" Caduceus's voice was his usual low, slightly scratchy rumble. Sounded a little tired.
"Sure. I do better at this if there's something to focus on." With that, Obito closed his eye and straightened his spine. He even took the time to settle his hands in his lap in a loose cradle, as though that would help.
Obito could meditate—all Academy students at least got basic instruction—but he needed an anchor of some kind. Out of the people he knew, Kei and Rin used worry beads, Kakashi napped with a book on his face because he needed to, and most of their shared students were best at meditating outside. Some of these facts were related.
Obito usually just fell asleep if he wasn't focusing on anything. Not the greatest role model behavior, but Obito didn't teach impressionable teenagers like his teammates did.
"Hm. Then maybe I should start with some of the tea we grow here." Obito heard part of the other mattress settle as Caduceus shifted his weight. Taking a deep breath, Caduceus began, "Now, about the Casalas and the flowers on their plot…"
Obito breathed in and out in a carefully controlled rhythm. Over time—not too much—he heard Caduceus's voice trail off and the general shuffling indicating the firbolg was getting ready for bed. Even so, Obito reached back to the ongoing embarrassment that was his inability to meditate and decided to see how long he could manage it.
And then it was morning.
But not like a forest morning, where the gray treeline and shaded temple didn't get real bright until the sun was directly overhead. Snow stayed on the ground the whole time Obito semi-consistently resided in the Blooming Grove. It was so early that the sky wasn't even blue, but star-studded black overhead. The mini-moon was visible in its bigger sibling's shadow, too, which either meant Obito was seeing things or he was awake obnoxiously early.
He wasn't even tired. And he'd never…laid down. He was totally fine despite never actually sleeping. He was thirty; sleeping in weird positions was a trick for teenagers, not him. Bones he didn't have would hurt if he slept sitting up.
And yet, here he was, having sat in a lotus pose for several hours and still feeling like he'd slept until noon.
Obito flopped back onto the bed. My back doesn't even hurt!
Another weird thing on top of weird things. Meditation wasn't magic.
Probably.
If it was, Obito really missed out as a kid.
Then again, wasn't as though he could see any chakra in Caduceus's hands when he healed Obito's tree-related injuries. Or in anything around them, actually, despite the Blooming Grove's clear mystical significance. It actually had flowers in the middle of a wintry cursed forest! That was weird, right? Could be magic.
Turning his head, Obito spotted Caduceus lying in the other bed, snoring a little under most of the blankets. Unusually good night vision was just one of the other weird effects of his changed (and changing) body, though he generally tried to come back to the temple before nightfall. He'd asked, and Caduceus couldn't pick his way through a pitch-black room the same way, so they tried to have dinner at a reasonable hour.
Well, now he was too awake to try for a nap. While annoying, Obito rolled out of bed anyway and activated Kamui on the way. He was out of the shrine in the time it took for his feet to hit solid ground.
"At least this never changes, " Obito said into the empty air, popping the knuckles on his flesh left hand.
The stark landscape had been cool the first few hundred times, but his more recent failures to find his friends—or emerge in Konoha again—soured him on it, just a little. Sure, he could still get around Shadycreek Run like it was nothing, he didn't want to. Popping out of Kamui farther afield left him anywhere from the bald slope of a mountain to a live volcano to some untamed hinterlands where the only landmarks were weird black pillars rising into the air. He always retreated to the Blooming Grove in the end, increasingly frustrated.
Obito wandered over to one of the nearby white monoliths and dug through his field pack.
Since his teens, he'd gotten used to stowing things in his monochromatic pocket dimension in case he needed a bit of extra space. Some of the stuff included fireworks from Konoha's last Tanabata (loose on the floor), a couple of scrolls Kei made for spare weapons (stacked neatly on a shelf in the stone), and a number of ration bars in their least-gross flavor (under a winter futon he forgot to air out). It was a decent setup for a home away from home, but…it was lonely.
Obito didn't spend a lot of time in here unless he had to. It was in some ways no different from having a storage shed. There was even a chair he forgot he owned, having tossed it in here at some point while moving between apartments.
Admittedly, though, the repeated jaunts out into the world at least let him build up a little treasury. He unzipped the biggest pocket of the pack and pulled out a bag that he'd acquired once he realized his normal wallet was not going to pass muster. Unlacing the bag and tipping it into his palm, a handful of glittering gemstones fell out.
"Five, ten, fifteen—"
Obito didn't know exactly what all of them were—some were probably just glass—but it was pretty clear that between them and the gold coins in the same pouch, he had a fair amount of money. Sure, none of it was acquired through honest means, but the same skills that made Obito such a dangerous spy were equally applicable to burglary. A lot of his infiltration was political burglary. All he needed to do was watch people make a couple purchases in whatever-the-hell town and he knew what the currency looked like. Ryō notes were not gonna cut it here.
Having never seen Caduceus outside of the Blooming Grove, Obito wasn't sure any of the stockpile would matter to the shrine's sole permanent resident. He kinda suspected Caduceus viewed Obito's willingness to help him maintain the temple's grounds as more important. An hour of weeding was worth more than money. And that was okay, but he probably needed to make the offer first.
Maybe I'll get asked to learn to cook instead. Who knows?
Obito picked up the biggest diamond in the bunch and set it next to a slowly-growing stack of coins. Most of them were stamped with owls or faces of…kings? Hard to tell, given how some of them were weathered by use. One of the kings didn't have a nose thanks to a convenient gouge, and all of the coins were heavier than ryō.
Hm. Maybe if he could sort out something, he could buy…something? For Caduceus. If he knew what to look for.
Obito tipped his haul back into the pouch, stuffed it into one of his pockets, and stepped back into the world. Somewhat unsurprisingly, the sky visible from the Blooming Grove wasn't much lighter than it'd been when he left. Probably hadn't been more than a half-hour, even if he sorted through some of his other accumulated Kamui stash.
Then it was time to…probably not work on breakfast, in all honesty. It was more likely he'd stare at the colorful mushrooms in abject fear, because Caduceus forgot to show him which ones weren't poisonous.
Again.
09090
"You can raise the dead?" Obito squeaked, over the sound of Caduceus's kettle boiling.
"Not strictly—I mean, they can't be dead for too long." Caduceus's ears twitched away from the kettle's scream, but he got up to solve that problem anyway. Once it was off the hearth, he continued, "The spell only works if you get there inside of a minute."
There was a brief pause as Caduceus raised an eyebrow and Obito remembered what he was supposed to be doing.
"Oh, right, hang on." Obito scrambled for the teacups and checked that both were still (miraculously) intact, then set them within easy reach of the heatproof pad Caduceus used to protect the table. "Sorry about that."
It was made of colorful woven straw, with a nearly rainbow pattern except for where the weaver had run out of dyes or else forgotten. Like a lot of things around the Blooming Grove, it was either handmade or inherited, or both. And noticing these details kept Obito from shouting indoors again, which was probably the point. Obito kinda got the impression that even when Caduceus wasn't living here alone, his family was usually on the quieter side.
Maybe.
Honestly, Obito was still more concerned thinking about the implications of someone being able to heal away death.
"But, I dunno, what if they've been impaled or something?" Obito asked, trying his hardest to focus on the weirdness of having magical solutions to mortality.
"It's less about the condition of the body and more about the soul," Caduceus replied, after taking a sip of his tea. "If it hasn't left yet, there's a decent chance of getting the person on their feet again. Magic takes care of the details." He reached out and nudged one of the clear gems Obito had dumped on the table after apologizing about burning breakfast. "Though, yeah, I think having a few of these will help."
"Huh." Obito tilted his head to one side as he thought, scratching the lower edge of his long ear. "You ever done that magic before?"
"Not personally, but the Wildmother showed me the way," said Caduceus, in a mild voice. "I know it can be done and how. That's the important part."
From the looks of things, Caduceus was entirely certain. "That's pretty cool. Definitely hoping I won't need that kind of magic, though."
"Everyone does." Caduceus took a long sip of his tea. He briefly closed his eyes and inhaled the fragrant steam. "On a different note… Hm. Do you think that this waking up early is going to become a habit?"
Well, given the scant handful of hours he spent dreamlessly meditating versus the occasional nightmare when he slept… "Yeah, I think so." At least until he saw his teammates again.
"Good." At the face Obito made, Caduceus added, "Try working off some of that energy, then we'll find a project for later."
"I didn't mean to land on you," Obito muttered. After puttering uselessly around the kitchen for a while, he'd headed back into his pocket dimension to grab his actual backpack. It was the return trip after that when he screwed up. "I said I was sorry."
"But you did it, and here we are."
Obito pouted more.
"That's not gonna work." Caduceus set the teacup down and fanned his hands out gently. "Just get your thing done, then we'll get started."
"Yeah, yeah, you win." As usual. About the only thing that Caduceus banned was actually growing new plants with Wood Release once he'd seen it in action, but the rest of Obito's tricks were usually all right. Ninja speed to get something or other from town, using Water Release to fill a watering can—those were all fine. But tilling the actual earth had to be done with hand tools.
It was kinda calming, which was why most of Obito's protests were just token whining. He didn't really have much better to do besides slam his head against the brick wall that was Kamui's uncooperative attitude lately.
Caduceus knew it damn well by now. "Stay safe and don't do what I wouldn't."
"See you in a bit, then," Obito said, rolling his eye. It was half an empty request, because by now Caduceus definitely knew Obito was stealing a lot more than the sedate firbolg ever would.
Besides the tea, room, and board, Caduceus also gave Obito a slightly oversized coat that matched his new (usually) green complexion and made the color contrast between bits of his Konoha uniform and everything else a little less intense. Even if it was a coat that originally belonged to Caduceus's younger sister and contained evidence of at least one sewing project gone wrong. If, on top of all that, Caduceus wanted to needle him a bit, Obito's nonexistent dignity could take the hit.
Then he stepped into Kamui again.
Same as ever, black void sky and bone-white floor, stretching into nothing.
Mixed feelings! So many mixed feelings by now. Honestly, Obito had no idea what to do with all of them, besides try to ignore them long enough to avoid changing colors again. Locking them away in a scroll in a shelf in a box in a pocket dimension forever sounded like a better idea than actually sorting through the problems he had today.
He picked up one of Kei's spare scrolls. Going by the label—which wasn't always Kei's strength—this particular storage scroll/impending explosion was actually just a selection of takeout containers. Entirely Kei's style. According to her, anything in them stayed the same no matter how much time passed since it was sealed inside. While Obito was pretty homesick, he wasn't sure if he wanted to go around testing her use of space-bending fūinjutsu for the sake of a snack. Getting his hopes up and then discovering mummified mochi seemed a bit unfair.
Ugh, okay, no, no more wallowing while I'm on a timer, Obito thought, shaking himself. His ears slapped against the sides of his head and made the whole gesture feel weird.
With that, Obito scooped up one of the scrolls marked "explosive" and tucked it into his pocket. Then he took a deep breath—kinda pointless, given the thin air in this world—and slipped between shadows.
Obito fell on his face on the fifth trip into the mundane world. Misjudged a step and just tripped over nothing like he counted the wrong number of stairs. Great way to finish out the weird grayish early morning.
"Ow," he said into the dirt. Yep, cold and damp and also he could see his breath when he turned his face to get away from the crabgrass. Extremely undignified, but he hadn't turned an ankle yet!
Yet.
Probably a matter of time until he did, though. Caduceus dealt with nearly every other minor injury in the book just by hanging around with Obito. Might as well go for a complete set. Maybe they'd win some kind of prize.
Obito got to his feet in a jumble of too-thin limbs, internally cursing his lack of a sparring partner.
While, sure, there were other ways to get his body-awareness entirely back in order, he liked exchanging punches and kicks and throws with people who could fight on his level. It wore him out and let him copy other people's taijutsu as a bonus. For all Caduceus's size and patience, he wasn't willing to participate in such a match without at least some of his magic. Since that kinda defeated the point, Obito just settled for the occasional color change accident. It wasn't enough, but he was over the worst of it.
Anyway, he recognized this road. The slope of the landscape was a couple of days' journey outside of Shadycreek Run, which meant Obito was no closer to actually finding his friends. Annoying, but workable. Like every other day.
Honestly, Obito didn't really like the Glory Run Road that much. For a fair stretch along its length, there were these bugs that were nearly the size of the horses, which was just entirely unfair. And to make things worse, some of them spat acid. It was enough to make an Aburame drool. Rin would just get competitive and fling one of her scorpions at the problem if it decided to keep being one.
Ugh, thoughts like that made Obito miss her even more. She'd know what to do here.
Obito hiked his way through the underbrush, grumbling under his breath to distract himself. The worst part of being alone was having no one to listen to him as tree branches tried to rip his hair out. Or while the thornbushes that constituted the forest floor around here snagged his pants.
And the complaining, itself, was a distraction from the sheer alien nature of the world he crisscrossed repeatedly like a rock skipping across a pond. Of his corresponding homesickness and bewilderment at being dumped here in the first place.
He needed something to focus on, and his Sharingan was good for finding shiny targets, so he activated it again—
Wait, what the hell is that? The gleam was up the road and near a fallen tree that hadn't been there before. Suspicious at best.
Obito kept his gaze toward the sight even as he skulked in the blueish dawn's long shadows, freezing in place. While he was nearly the correct color for stealth, his hands moved through the seal sequence necessary for a camouflage genjutsu that got past basically everyone but another Uchiha. It'd been one of the very first techniques he'd ever seen through, so he'd know.
All the while, he guesstimated the distance from his position in the brush to the glimmer of red. And as soon as he had it, Obito used the Body Flicker to save at least some of his chakra.
The Glory Run Road wasn't paved or anything, so he landed just a hand's span off it amid a half-dead expanse of crabgrass to disguise his approach. Twenty meters out, then fifteen, then ten, all in silence. The invisibility was less to protect him from enemy action—always a risk when wandering without allies—and more to give him time to burn the battlefield into his brain with the force of his kekkei genkai.
It was like staring down at a shogi board, pieces arrayed and already clashing in the middle. Or maybe they'd already clashed, and everything was just in the cleanup phase.
All the combatants were scattered around a couple of carts Obito didn't have time for, with at least two factions having clearly thrown shit at each other until something broke. As he stalked closer, muffling his steps with his chakra, Obito started taking a head count.
On one side (based on their stances and positioning): the corpse of a greenish-grayish person with tusks, a woman with ears half the length of Obito's, and a human woman with a big sword, and a handful of men who looked like hirelings dragged along to make up the numbers.
In front of that group: a human-ish man with a completely hairless head and armor like he'd lost a bet to a dominatrix. Built weirdly huge. Using a naginata's misbegotten cousin as a weapon, already bloodied. Kinda smoking, literally, from some flame or other, but not Obito's problem.
Opposite side: A human woman in robes almost akin to the oldest shinobi styles, if seen through a warped window. Next to her, a smallish figure whose four-fingered green hands clutched at the coat of a human man. A short figure wielding an axe and hammer stood nearby. The curling ram's horns and long tail were barely visible at this range on someone wearing (or being) purple, and furthermore irrelevant.
The trace of Kei's chakra was on the horned one, standing out like a red flare against a sea of grayish nothing. Maybe on a bracelet or in a pocket. That was the important part.
Obito needed to be over there right now. Screw the ongoing fight, since it didn't seem like it'd last longer anyway; almost all of the people in this battle were wounded. Some badly. The big bald guy was still smoldering.
If I just jump in, right there— But the plan forming there was also irrelevant.
Mainly because—as Obito zeroed in on the first trace of his team he'd seen in a month—the naginata flashed forward and Obito's only lead was impaled on that fucking pointy stick.
Body Flicker. Drop the genjutsu, just go, go, go—
"Molly!"
Obito's wooden right hand closed on the purple man's arm.
Kamui.
Obito's target wasn't ripped free of the weapon, though the way the jerk on its other end moved, his guts would've been scattered across the grass if he had any input. Instead, the blade swung neatly through Obito's form as though he was made of air, having missed the window to accomplish anything on the attack.
"Where the fuck did he come from—?!"
Didn't matter who was talking. Obito needed his lead alive to learn anything, and so he leapt into his stark, cold world once again.
Only to find the guy wheezing bloody foam into the stone. Purple had tipped over at some point and landed on his side, clutching at the sucking chest wound like he could fix it with his bare hands.
Shit.
Obito grabbed him by his shirt this time, pictured Caduceus from less than ten minutes ago in his mind, and dragged them both through to the Blooming Grove.
The half-light of the temple's clearing was disturbed only by a pinkish glow—Caduceus's crystal-topped staff—and Obito dragged his target bodily forward. The heels of his boots left twin trails in the well-turned earth.
"Clay-san, I hope you still have those diamonds!" Obito burst out all at once, trying not to waste time. "Could really use some help with this one!"
Caduceus set his staff to one side and gestured for Obito to get his patient laid out next to the front step. His other hand tipped out the bag of gemstones again, storing through for a decent-sized rock for the procedure.
Good, since Purple had just stopped breathing.
"I'll be right back, probably with his friends," Obito went on, even as he tipped the guy onto his back and glared down at the through-and-through stab wound that wasn't even seeping much anymore. He heard himself continue, rapidly, "Either that or something worse. Maybe some light stabbing. Maybe—"
"Then hurry," Caduceus said, gently cutting him off and resting a hand against a still chest.
Obito was gone before he could say anything else. The shadow world flashed by in no time at all, and Obito aimed squarely at the big human with the not-naginata for the landing. If that guy was gonna ruin Obito's attempt to find his team, then Obito owed him at least a punch to the head.
He was just in time to catch the descending blade on his wooden arm, a hand's span from the blue-wearing woman's head.
The blade bit into his wrist, but couldn't meaningfully penetrate the first layer of not-skin otherwise. The weapon wasn't an axe, and it was cutting against the grain anyway.
Something had changed, though. Obito's Sharingan spun, soaking in more detail (than he needed) like a sponge.
Besides the general battlefield setup—the purple guy's bloodstain on the grass notwithstanding—it seemed like the group the purple guy was with had been boxed in. Everyone he remembered from before was still alive, at least, but the way the big guy crowded into their space was new and still kinda pissed Obito off.
And pointing his Sharingan at the guy was entirely different than it was before.
The hulking human was still there, plain as his bald head. But behind that, like a shitty genjutsu that wasn't constructed with any degree of care, was a hulking blue oni who was half again the height of anyone here. Obito would've guessed "giant" at first, but the blueness and the busted, crooked horns and the huge tusks gave the game away. The not-naginata was the wrong weapon—shouldn't it be a kanobō?—but the creature wielding it was unmistakable.
"Look, I'll make this easy for you," Obito said, in a language he hadn't properly used to hold a conversation in weeks. His right arm held the oni's weapon at bay without even a hint of a tremor. "You walk away, and that'll mean you leave here alive. But if you swing even one more time, I'll tear your fucking horns off and gut you with them."
The yellowed eyes of both the human and the oni-shape behind him widened, just slightly. "You—"
Oh, and the rudest possible form of "you." Hilarious.
Like Obito couldn't set him really on fire for backtalk.
"You have until the count of three." Obito shoved the oni's weapon hard enough to make him stagger back a step. He could've ripped it out of his hands and jammed it down the oni's throat. He was contemplating that option even as he snarled, "One."
The oni stepped back only far enough to get out of Obito's immediate grabbing range.
Like that'd save him.
"Two," Obito growled, even as he flicked his wooden wrist and the gash sealed up like a scrape on a tree. The borrowed sleeve stuck to it like it bled glue.
The oni glared in a way that could've struck someone dead on the spot.
Just as Obito was starting to wonder which of the oni's arms he was going to chop off first, Spiky turned with a snarl and stalked back toward the line of carts headed toward Shadycreek Run. There was some yelling between him and the people by the carts, some eight-ish meters off, and at least one corpse was chucked unceremoniously into it.
Obito eased off on the killing intent, just a bit.
"Who the fuck," said the woman just behind him. Obito turned before she finished the sentence with a choked, "…are you?"
The pause was due almost entirely to the way she buckled to one knee in the middle.
Obito stepped back because her companions rushed in—the short figure with the axe and hammer and the little green one, who both got themselves under one of her arms to hold her upright-ish.
"Beau!" said the one with the weapons, dropping both. The high-pitched voice fit together strangely with the cigar and generally rugged, unshaven face, but it wasn't like Obito was an authority here or anything. "Try not to move much."
"I have a couple of healing potions," said the green one in a scratchy voice, who dug into pockets lining gray clothes while still allowing the woman to lean on her. "Here, take one."
"I— ugh, okay, give me a second." The woman—presumably Beau—took the vial and downed it in one swallow, then lurched back up to her full height. That meant the top of her topknot about reached Obito's chin.
"Beauregard—" said the man with the terrible beard and coat, with an accent Obito took a second to parse.
"I'm not gonna punch him. Yet." Beau took a deep breath and said, barely more polite than usual, "What the hell did you do with Molly?"
"Your friend's with a healer," Obito answered, a little taken aback by her order of priorities. He rested his flesh hand against his hip. "Since he was mostly dead by the time I grabbed him. Figured I needed to deal with that first."
"What, just out of the goodness of your heart?" Beau demanded, blue eyes narrowing.
"No? He had something I needed to ask him about, and then he got stabbed, and that needed solving."
All four of them squinted at him suspiciously for a moment.
Obito was going to get a headache at this rate. Actually, he already had a headache, and his eye itched like he was either going to start crying or bleeding. Probably both. Instead of dwelling too much on that, he held out his right hand and asked, "So, you wanna go see him or what?"
"We only have your word for it that you didn't just—just toss him into hell or something!" screeched the green one.
"And it's not exactly a good look that you let Lorenzo go," said the one with the cigar. Who was now named Cigar until otherwise stated. They clanked a bit in their armor as they moved.
Obito blinked down at them. "…Who's Lorenzo?"
"The big guy with the glaive!" Oh, well, obviously. Obito kinda needed to put names to faces sometime soonish.
"He's a fucking slaver who kidnapped our friends," growled Beau. "And—fuck—" She doubled over in pain again as she tried to draw enough breath to yell at him, hissing yet more curses.
Oh. Okay. Obito needed a little more time and a little less stress to unpack that.
At this point, Scruffy Longcoat in the back said, "Perhaps we should save this conversation for later."
"Probably!" Obito wiggled his wooden fingers. "And by the way, your choices are either I take you to your friend, or you walk. And walking takes at least a day and a half; I learned that the hard way."
The group all looked at each other, as though daring someone to go first.
"I'll go," said Beau(regard?), and slammed her hand into his with a grunt. "What the hell are you made of, wood?"
"Kinda!" And before she could snap at him, Obito dragged her into Kamui with the usual midair swirling effect. Then, once she was safely tucked into the pocket dimension, he turned to the rest of the group and said, "Well, who's next?"
Thank fuck they didn't argue with him. The throb of his Sharingan was too much of a distraction. Instead of following Beau's example, the remaining members of the group did all link arms like a chain, but it made the process of shoving them through the aperture of his portal a little easier than it might otherwise have been.
Kamui was more crowded than it'd been in…ever? Obito didn't usually let people wander around and screw up the monotone aesthetic, even if it was kind of boring. Any variations were his belongings. And that chair.
Which Beau was currently sitting in, sullen. She scrubbed blood from her clothes, but looked up when her friends arrived.
"Wh-where are we?" Green squeaked, looking up into the infinite nightfall. "Is this some kind of trap?!"
"Beau's right there," said Cigar, exasperated. "Nott, this is clearly some kind of magic shit."
"What would you know? You can't tell a sorcerer from a bard!"
"That's not—" Cigar slapped her gloved hand over her face. "I'm still here, and I'm still gonna help! I promised I would, even if I'm fucking terrified."
Meanwhile, Scruffy Longcoat was also looking everywhere, but in the manner of someone trying to fix it into their memory without a Sharingan. When he moved, Obito could see a pair of holsters under the coat, but it didn't seem like he was carrying any extra weapons. While plenty of people who had the muscle tone of cooked noodles could be dangerous in melee, Obito didn't think he was one of them.
"We're halfway there," Obito said, swiping under his eye with his sleeve. The cloth came away rust-red, which was always a good sign. "Same order?"
"Same order," Beau agreed roughly. "And then we'll have a talk."
"Well, if you're asking, I'd like to know what all your names are, but anyway—" Kamui. And he shoved Beau through to the Blooming Grove mid-sentence, just by poking her shoulder with one hand. "Next."
"Um, I'm Keg," said Cigar, raising a hand to meet Obito's. "In case that's important."
"Nice to meet you, and also watch your step." With Keg disappearing before he finished talking, Obito turned and said to the last two, "You can hold hands or something. It's fine."
With that, Green—Nott?—climbed up Scruffy's back and held out the first of four fingers. "So, you promise we'll see our friends on the other side of this."
"Haven't lied to anybody yet." Mostly because Caduceus didn't tend to ask questions about things he didn't want to know. And honestly, he didn't really have to. Obito kinda got the impression he was basically a mind reader. "Ready?"
"No," said Scruffy, but gripped his friend's dangling leg anyway. It wasn't as though he couldn't have just dropped Nott and fled, though there wasn't really anywhere in Kamui to run to, and anyway Obito was obligated to kick his ass off the premises regardless of what anyone said.
He was really just being polite. "Cool. Out you go."
At least Obito didn't have to grab at either of them. It was always easier when people cooperated.
Finally, finally, everyone was through.
Obito landed on the shrine's front step and leaned against the wooden doorframe, rubbing at his eye with his left hand. The bleeding would stop soon enough. If it didn't, well, that was a problem for Future Obito, who was going to be the one paying back Mangekyō Sharingan overuse as usual.
"Oh, there you are. Unfortunately, there's still not another teacup for you, Obito," said Caduceus's voice. It was near enough that Obito wasn't at all surprised when a thin firbolg hand landed on his shoulder and the headache finally gave up.
"I'll make one in a minute." Obito opened his eye again and spotted the group he'd just dragged through a couple versions of reality, all gathered around the purple guy from before.
Who was sitting up, red eyes focusing mostly on his friends. Even if he and Beau were both leaning against each other and a headstone, both looking exhausted, that still counted as better than "stabbed to death."
"Or like four more?" Obito revised his offer. He patted Caduceus's arm. "I know wood's no one's first choice, but it'll work."
"No need to rush," Caduceus assured him.
"Yaaaaay." Obito swirled a finger in the air and dropped his head back against the doorframe again. "Ow. So, nobody's dead who shouldn't be?"
Keg's piping voice said, "Not that we know of?"
"Great! So, you, with the horns and glitzy stuff."
"His name's Molly—" said several voices at once, at the same time the guy tried, "Mollymauk Tealeaf, actually—"
"Right, that's fine." Obito eyed them with his Sharingan deactivated, because there was no sense in adding to his problems right after being healed. "Where did you get that coral?"
"This?" Molly dug around in a bloodstained pocket and held up a shard of the dull, pale pink stuff. "A drifter gave me some as payment for staying with us, but I kept this part."
Obito checked, just between blinks, and the shard still glowed with Isobu's distinctive red-orange chakra. It was probably still nearly alive. "How is she?"
Red eyes narrowed. "How'd you know they were a 'her'?"
"Because the only person who makes that is my best friend, who I haven't seen in months." Obito turned his head a little more in their direction. What did he even look like to them? Some monstrous savior? Something worse? "She goes by Kei, though her full name's longer. Know her?"
To Obito's surprise, all of them but Keg relaxed. They seemed a bit surprised by the sudden lack of tension more than anything. "Is that another one of your friends?"
"Yes, but she is not one of those who was taken," said…Scruffy. Still didn't have an actual name for him. Still, good news! Kind of. "She and her companions left us some time ago. We had made plans to meet up again, but nothing came of it before our fortune turned."
"Ah, shit." So much for the shortcut. Though Kei's general reaction to being kidnapped was to kill everybody, and Obito would've liked to see that for himself. The fireworks were generally pretty good.
Wait.
"Companions?" Obito asked, blankly. "Who did she wander off with?"
As far as Obito could tell, these people were a bit more colorful than Kei's usual band of misfits, but she tended to kinda adopt people (or herself) into established groups and then act all confused as to how and when it happened. It was part of how she'd gotten close enough to the Chinatsugumi to end up with her students in the first place. If Kei didn't actually know anyone else, she'd still get sucked up into other people's problems without really thinking about it. Not seeing Kei mother-henning such a clearly disorganized group was honestly the weirdest thing he'd seen today.
Besides the no-longer-dead guy. That was still something to process.
"A woman named Rin—" Obito's heart stuttered. "—And this little imp thing called Isobu—" What? "And Kakashi, who's this huge wolf thing no one should think is a dog."
Obito stared at Beau blankly. On one hand, that was the entire team assembled and safely together. On the other, what the fuck? Like, yes, Obito hadn't been human since the time Caduceus dragged him out of the pool, but for some reason he'd kind of figured that none of the others were as physically fucked up as he was. By total mass. He was the only member of his team with an artificial arm that could grow trees, so obviously he'd get a tree-arm.
Um.
"You okay there?" Beau's voice snapped him out of his stupor.
Obito scratched the back of his neck. "Uh. I think…some things have changed since the last time I saw them."
Why would Kakashi be a wolf? Obito didn't believe Kei would name a random stray after him, because she just didn't do that. So then—insofar as Obito could predict anything from so far away—Kakashi's new look was probably kinda like Obito's arm. His mom was an Inuzuka, and he had a dog summon contract, so maybe…?
Didn't explain why Isobu was apparently running around in plain sight. Or how. Honestly, Obito had a lot of questions piled up in the back of his head, so he just tossed that one in with the rest.
"Probably," said Scruffy. "If you have been here this entire time, perhaps the reason they left was to search for you?"
"Weird how stuff works out, then." Obito shrugged. Then he rolled to his feet, pacing around the yard a little as he thought. "So, who're you? I already heard Keg's, Nott's, and Beau's names, and Molly's pretty obvious now. Last man standing, Scruffy."
"Ah, Caleb Widogast." Going off the example of Caduceus's name, the family or clan name probably came second around these parts. The others in his group were eying him like they expected Caleb to expand on that. "With our friends, we are the Mighty Nein."
That…might add up, math-wise? It wasn't like anyone had mentioned how many missing friends they had.
Obito bowed anyway. "Nice to meet you all, then." He pointed at his own face. "Obito of the Uchiha clan, if a little different than I'd normally look in the mirror. With the rest of my group, we're generally called Team Minato."
Unlike, say, the Sannin, Obito's team always went understated. As a perfect point of contrast Kei's former genin were unholy nightmares who'd happily rename themselves Team Kaboom if it was allowed by literally anyone in the village's bureaucracy.
Beau scowled in a way that was, perhaps, curious. "Minato?"
"Yeah, it's our teacher's given name." Obito shrugged again. "Not that he actually leads our team anymore, but it's a habit by now." He maneuvered himself closer to the group, then said, "So, your friends have been kidnapped?"
"Most people who come here do so because they've suffered a tragedy," Caduceus pointed out in his mild way, to get their group and conversation back on track. He distributed teacups equitably enough, which reminded Obito that he hadn't actually made the other cups yet. "And I'm Caduceus Clay, of the Blooming Grove. If we're still talking about that."
Obito twisted his wrist as Caduceus spoke. A little spooling vine unraveled in his right palm, then curled up and around until it formed such a tight weave that it was waterproof. Well, hopefully unvarnished wood wasn't too offensive. The next two cups were projected as solids and then hollowed out to match the other cups' sizes.
"We do come to you with a tragedy," said Caleb, picking up one of the preexisting cups and passing it to Beau. "As mentioned, our friends were taken by slavers known as the Iron Shepherds. Have you heard of them?"
Caduceus slowly shook his head. "No, I'm sorry. I really don't get to leave very often." He kept pouring tea until all the new ones were full and people had enough to go around.
"And what about you?" asked Nott.
Obito made a face. "I only got here a month ago. Ish." He scraped some of the remaining blood from under his nails. "Uh, as for the Iron Shepherds, I only know what I saw and heard today. So…"
The only member of Obito's team who hadn't been kidnapped was honestly Rin and Sensei. Kakashi was the first one of them to be captured and tortured by enemy shinobi, only for Kei and Obito to rescue him. Obito's experience pretty much started there—with the loss of his arm and sacrificing his eye—and ended when his captors let the leash run a little long. Kei's experience let her meet Isobu, but that whole situation was stressful for months and they'd killed all of the Kiri ANBU who were involved. Hell, Kushina was nearly dragged off to Kumogakure before they were born.
Maybe Obito didn't need to know a lot about the Iron Shepherds to want them all in at least three pieces.
"Well, if it helps at all to demonstrate our sincerity, I did literally die to try and rescue them," Molly put in. His eyes had shut at some point over the last several minutes, and he leaned even more heavily against Beau. Despite the horns, his head managed to come to rest against her neck.
Being dead sounded exhausting. Or maybe it was being alive again?
"That you did." Caduceus took a long sip of tea.
"You help people into the ground," said Caleb, crossing his arms, "but I see you are skilled at helping them out of it as well."
Nott nodded along with this idea, and frankly they had the perfect example in Molly's horrible bloodstained self.
"Well, to a point," said Caduceus. "Sometimes we can help people who are on the edge of death, like Mr. Tealeaf here, since we realize that people generally like to be alive and spend their time that way. I certainly have no intention of shortening my life anytime soon."
"Or anyone else's?" Nott asked. She leaned forward on her knees, hands around a silvery flask. "Because we really do need these people dead and our friends saved. Is there some kind of, uh, natural barrier to doing violence in a good cause?"
"I find I'm mostly concerned with maintaining the natural order of things," Caduceus said. Which wasn't quite what they asked.
"So does murder end up on that list somewhere?" Keg was chewing on the dog-end of her cigar. "Because—"
"Oh, yes, have you been in nature?" Caduceus's smile was a little unnerving. Mostly because his teeth were almost entirely flat. "Violence is extremely natural."
Obito snickered as Keg pumped her fist.
"Are you interested in leaving this place for such a cause, Herr Clay?" asked Caleb. He looked a little concerned, but Obito suspected he always looked that way. Kinda sad, but targeted.
"I would say so. Until Obito here showed up, I was alone for, ah…twenty seasons? Eighteen, maybe. Spending that much time alone, well, it makes you a little stranger." Caduceus gestured around at the stone shrine. "You may have noticed that the space here is a little larger than one person would need."
Nott looked to Obito next, after taking a long pull from her flask. "And you're all, uh, druid-y with the wood arm and the flower eye, so what about you?"
What's a druid-y?
"You don't need to talk me into killing those people," Obito said, deciding it was best to put off the question. He pulled back the right sleeve of his borrowed robe to expose his wooden arm to the elbow. As he twisted it, the thin bark flexed and caught the sun in strange ways, even without the pink Blooming Grove lichen growing across it. It was definitely no longer mistakable for a weird glove. "Hell, I got this on a mission like yours a long time ago. I'm in."
"Oh, good, we need someone who can tell Lorenzo to go fuck himself and actually make him flinch," Beau said. Even though she and Molly were both still pretty banged up, she managed to shift her shoulders enough to smack her fist into the opposite palm without disturbing him. "Finally, the kind of news we needed."
"Guess so!" Obito elbowed Caduceus with his left arm. "So, did you give them the whole intro?"
"Oh, no, I didn't. Well, while the next kettle boils…"
Obito let his thoughts drift a little as Caduceus explained the Blooming Grove to the group—and that his family was all gone someplace to try and fix the freaky corrupted woods, though no one seemed to know exactly where. Divine mission, either way. The only thing Caduceus had worked out was that they might've run into difficulty, but it wasn't like there was a postal service that ran through mutant bear territory to let him know about it. He couldn't find out through "normal" means. From what he'd said about it, the Wildmother wasn't really gonna push him out into the world on his own to go find them, and Obito's occasional offers to take him someplace were neatly put to bed after about the fifth time he came back after having crashed into a tree.
If we could have left earlier… Well, for one thing, Obito still wouldn't have any leads. Sure, he'd popped in and out of Shadycreek Run while trying to figure out what the hell to do next, but that wasn't the same as actually packing up his stuff and just leaving. That'd mean Caduceus would've spent however long alone again.
It wasn't like Obito hadn't seen the travel pack Caduceus kept in his side of the room. Knowing he wanted to leave wasn't surprising. But it was a little… something to realize Caduceus was just waiting on a bigger group to be able to leave.
Oh well. A bigger group had finally arrived, and most of them had met Obito's team! That was good luck in abundance, even if Obito was kind of annoyed it'd taken them so long to show up.
"It doesn't look like any of you are going places until you heal up a bit," said Caduceus at the end. "But when we do, I think we should plan on not coming back. Right?"
"Sounds like it," Molly grumbled from where Beau was finally shifting out from under his weight.
Okay, so, to summarize the group that Obito hadn't come up with a combo name for:
Keg was a dwarf(?) with reddish hair and zero beard care routine (?), which apparently meant she was stocky, heavily armored, and generally kinda scrappy. She had worked for the Iron Shepherds in the past (?), which meant she was kind of a shitty person up until she broke off with them for reasons and now wanted them dead (!). Obito decided that the rest of the details were not his problem until she decided to make them so.
Caleb was a Zemnian-speaking human wizard, insofar as those words meant anything. Bookish and kinda skinny, with the coat honestly having more padding than he did. A thick but not impenetrable accent Obito couldn't place was hardly the weirdest thing he was dealing with today. He and Beau seemed to trade off being the group's mouthpiece, at least for now. Nearly the same hair color as Keg, under all the dirt, with a scragglier beard. Was that meaningful? Obito had no idea.
Beau(regard) was the group's second human member, with a wiry athlete's build and an attitude just south of Kakashi's when they were all teenagers. Lots of blue in her outfit, which was either fashion or uniform, but that wasn't Obito's problem either. Dark-skinned enough to have come from Kumogakure or its outlying areas, except for the way she obviously didn't understand a damn thing Obito had said to Lorenzo earlier. Yet another thing that didn't make sense.
Mollymauk was all glitz and glitter, with bejeweled horns that reminded Obito at least a little of Caduceus's earrings. He'd never seen someone who was lavender-colored outside of maybe some of Orochimaru's wildest experiments, and most of those people didn't have tails or solid red eyes. Or really neat tattoos.
And then there was Nott, a goblin whose four-fingered hands twitched constantly for either a flask or her tiny, strange crossbow. Obito had yet to meet anyone else who was an even deeper green than he was, and the teeth were a little much, but he didn't really have a lot of room to criticize. After all, he had a flower growing from one eye socket. No amount of cracked porcelain masks (for someone who was occasionally ANBU) would cancel that out.
Probably the weirdest team Obito ever met on paper, but his standards were broken. Right around the time he'd realized that he was no longer human—and that few of the people he'd met were in that category anyway—it seemed smarter just to give up on that kind of thing.
Oh, and there was Caduceus. That was important.
Obito cracked his knuckles. Tonight was gonna be real interesting.
Kei stopped dead in the middle of poking the embers of the team's campfire. "I think I just felt Obito."
Rin was in her face almost before she'd finished the sentence. "Where?"
"It was like you guessed. North."
They broke down their camp in record time.
Notes:
1) Obito is an eladrin, a type of elf attuned to the energies of the Feywild, whose appearances (and personalities) are often based on one of the four seasons. In his particular case, he has the bad luck to be one of those eladrin not permanently tied to one season; he changes appearance based on his mood with every single long rest, and the seasonal shift affects his mindset until the next long rest in a terrible feedback loop.
2) No, Obito did not know that elves can take a long rest in four hours instead of eight. He doesn't meditate much as a rule, and thus didn't discover trancing in a timely manner. He also doesn't know he has a free daily teleport in his back pocket, or that Kamui is basically an 8th level spell on steroids.
3) Obito has sort of vaguely met people from multiple PC races in Shadycreek Run, but only briefly. He's friendly, but he's not an easy mark. On the other hand, he can recognize an oni instantly. And he just discovered he has truesight as a sense, which is fun. So, y'know, you can't win 'em all.
4) Obito fucked up by not just piling AOE attacks onto the Iron Shepherds, but in his defense, he doesn't know what the fuck is going on. And he's very aware of it. Unlike certain people, he generally doesn't go for the "kill 'em all and let other people sort it out" solution just because a fight broke out near him. He's an infiltration specialist with some wacky bonuses, not a living siege weapon.
5) Kei's chakra detection range is around 50km when boosted by Isobu. Her passive range is even larger, but is less sensitive to smaller fluctuations (such as, say, people).