After Sasuke collected his mission pay, burdening Sayu with the report, he Shunshined to Training Ground whatever in search of Obito. Sure enough, he was practicing some bizarre fire jutsu while Rin, Minato and Kakashi were engaged in their own respective activities.
"Minato," said Jounin waved enthusiastically at him, motioning for Sasuke to come over. He was scrawling out an obscure mandala of seals.
"Hey, Sasuke! What do you need?" Minato's sickeningly good mood uplifted Sasuke's spirits minimally.
"May I borrow Obito for a bit?" Minato hummed in thought for a few seconds before nodding energetically. It was a bit too reminiscent of Naruto. Sasuke nodded in thanks before approaching Obito.
The kid seemed surprised to see Sasuke initiate for once, but nonetheless, also in a sickeningly good mood.
"Are you going to-"
"No," he interrupted, distancing himself from the others, beckoning Obito to follow.
It almost hurt to ruin his mood, but it had to be done. Sasuke wouldn't back out on his promise.
"Do you remember when I..." he stopped himself. Obito was a twelve-year-old. Didn't you have to be more tactful with children? The boy squinted in confusion.
"Let's get dango." Now he squealed in delight, his expression never brighter, almost jumping around with joy. Obito had never run faster than when he was hungry.
At the dango shop, Obito began tearing into several flavours of dango one after the other. Even the waitress seemed awed. Sasuke hoped his wallet would survive this.
"You know, there's a dango eating competition next week." She tried her best for a friendly smile. His eyes lit up. Obito scrawled his signature onto some piece of paper, then slowed down, as if by magic.
"So, why'd you wanna talk to me?" He popped one final piece into his mouth, chewing energetically. Sasuke heaved a sigh.
"Do you remember when I said I'd help you deal with your bullies?" Surprisingly, his mood didn't deflate at all. He became contemplative.
"Yeah. I remember. Thanks!" He beamed at Sasuke, then gave him a tight, brief hug.
"I'm really lucky to have someone like you in my life." Strange. Most people abhorred his existence. Then again, given his attitude towards Obito, maybe he wasn't as bad of a person as they painted him out to be.
"Thanks," he mumbled, only because he felt it appropriate to reply. Obito beamed again.
"They stopped bothering me nowadays, after that cool fire jutsu you taught me." Oh. That was nice to hear.
Obito stood up, and in a surprising show of maturity, slapped a wad of cash on the table. Sasuke's surprise was apparently expressed.
"What? All you did was drink coffee." He exited, waving as he went, leaving Sasuke alone.
He mentally went through a list of errands to run, and exited just to be met with...Kakashi? The boy was glaring up at him with two big black eyes through a tuft of silver hair, with his arms crossed in an almost cute way. Sasuke suppressed a smile.
"Why do you keep teaching Obito?" Kakashi asked him, pouting. He was seriously angry, but honestly, how could anyone take a little kid seriously?
"Are you jealous?" Sasuke shot back, deflecting the question. Kakashi, by what could be seen, turned an irrepressible shade of red.
"No," he declared instantaneously, albeit not with much surety.
"You don't like Obito much. Why?" It was a casual question, but Sasuke was curious. He never really interacted with this Kakashi much, mostly because he never bothered before.
Kakashi tsked, shaking his head, akin to a disappointed mother, which was misplaced on a kid.
"He's rambunctious, idiotic and unruly." Big words, and good use of triadic structure.
"And you care about rules why?" Sasuke knew he never gave a sh*t about rules and the system. They only ever restricted him.
Kakashi looked at him strangely.
"The rules are life," he simply, sadly stated. Right. Sakumo Hatake: Kakashi's father committed suicide because Konoha ostracised him. It was a sad fate. Kakashi could've directed the brunt of his grief and hatred at Konoha, and he'd be in the right to do so, but he focused on sticking to the rules to prevent wavering loyalty.
Funny. Kakashi claims that the rules are life, when all they brought both of them was anguish, pain and ruin. Itachi followed the rules. Sometimes, there really was no winning when you only obeyed the choice of whether to follow the rules or not. The rules, of course, being law.
It wasn't his business to meddle in Kakashi's ideology, really.
"Why?" Sasuke asked again. Kakashi blinked in confusion, taken aback. Just before Sasuke Shunshined to the nearest art-and-craft store, he said one thing.
"It's easy to follow the rules."
Upon entering, the cashier sent him an awkward smile,
"Hiya! Let me know if you need any help." Sasuke nodded in greeting, scooping up post-it notes, red string, pins, blu tack. He tendered the fare and immediately Shunshined to his apartment block. God, it was so musty. He was saving up for a proper house, but right now, he had bigger priorities.
Brandishing a pen and a post-it, he wrote down everything he knew about Tobi that could lead to his identity. Which wasn't much, just that he was a one-eyed male Uchiha in his thirties, and presumably integrated. That meant he was in the village right now, but was probably a relatively harmless kid. Tobi did a good job of keeping secrets.
Sasuke began scrawling down several notes on post-its, pinned or tacked them, then connected a few with red string. It was an evidence board, more commonly known as a crazy wall, because the people that constructed them in movies were usually bat-shit crazy. He smiled tensely at it. It was cool, like those things they did in books and movies.
And then he frowned at one of his Tobi notes. He made a handwritten error, in which Tobi's name and the letter of the next word had little space. Tobit, it read. Another image flashed into his head: Kakashi with two functioning eyes, and then just one. And then Obito, who died in the future. Or did he?
Obito. Tobi. It was an anagram. Kakashi's eye. One-eyed male Uchiha. In the future, in his thirties. Now, a child.
...
Fuck.
Note: So. Sorry for the comparatively short chapter. Anyway, I want to ask you a question, and I suppose a favour. Is Sasuke OOC in any way? Also, please tell me if there is anything bothering you about this. I love constructive criticism.