Hello my fabulous readers! Welcome to another chapter.
The reviews have doubled since I've posted the last chapter and wow, guys, I don't know what to say. Thank you for your support!
This time, Etsuko is doing some heavy thinking, but I hope'll you still find it to your liking. Enjoy!
Chapter 4: The Art of Getting your Act Together
I wonder if there's a point beyond which it simply is not possible to feel anything anymore.
I don't mean the numb nothingness that comes with having no purpose or relinquishing all efforts, that gradually seeps into the mind like a parasite which is only detectable after it is fully seated and nigh impossible to remove. I also don't mean the blank waste that remains after every sentiment is killed off for the pain they caused and every remnant of them destroyed to protect oneself from repeated overexposure.
Those are all very valid variants of the absence-of-feeling-thing, of course, but my question is so simple that its answer doesn't even deserve to stand on the same ground as them.
What I ask is: Is there some limit to the amount of emotions you can pile up in your body before you keel over and explode? A lid to be screwed on the jar of bubbling feelings? Some numbered shelves on which you can put them and when the space is used up you step back and say that's enough now, I've used up my allowance of emotions for life and leave?
Because, for the last few months, I sure feel like I've used up my account in the emotional bank. I'm surprised that this whole shock thing – internal freeze-over, lack of oxygen due to malfunctioning breathing organs, general stopping of brainwaves – is still available after hearing that name.
Uchiha Obito.
My little brother is Uchiha fucking Obito.
This has got to be some cosmic joke.
My near mental break-down seems to last an eternity but in reality it's over in only seconds and we're still here in the hospital room. Okaa-chan calls out to me and invites me to climb onto the bed to get a proper look on my otouto.
I move sluggishly and my vision is clouded over by a haze that makes the hospital room seem like it's covered with a thin film of dust. The colors are less intense, the edges more blurred and it doesn't go away when I blink. I dimly recognize the click of a door falling shut and some part of my brain registers this as the doctor leaving, but the thought vanishes as soon as it is finished.
Otou-san has put the bundle – Obito – back on okaa-chan's chest. He's making small gurgling noises that don't offer any clue to what he wants.
I crawl over to okaa-chan and, after an encouraging nod of her, peel back the cloth that's hiding his face away from me.
I don't know what I'm expecting to see in this moment. Maybe the adult version of him, with the scar marring the entire right half of his face and his deathly Mangekyou filled with anger and hate. Maybe a much younger face twisted into a grimace of grief and desperation as a steady stream of tears quells from his one opened eye. Or maybe a 12-year-old that has resigned himself to his fate of dying, crushed underneath a rock and offering his rival and friend his left eye.
I don't know what I'm expecting, but when I remove the cloth and see, all the layers of different images soundlessly collapse into themselves.
I see the tiny face of a newborn, still crumpled and red, eyes clamped shut and sucking in breaths through a minute opening between its lips.
There is no trace of the mass-murdering villain of my memories who had his fingers in nearly every disaster that happened in the Elemental Nations, from the attack of the Kyuubi over the purge of bloodline limits in Kiri to the tragic end of the original Akatsuki in Ame and the subsequent rise of the most dangerous criminal organization this world has ever seen. Nothing that indicates the massive power that is going to be in his hands and eyes, nothing that marks him as the tool Madara will form him into.
There's nothing but the name that was given to him by parents who love him more than anything in the world.
My hand is frozen in the folds of the fabric that covers him and I can feel the eyes of okaa-chan and otou-san on me. I move my hand and will myself to touch him, ever so lightly, on his left cheek.
Obito's eyes fly open.
His gaze, of the same onyx as okaa-chan's and otou-san's, of the same onyx as mine, lands directly on me.
I swallow thickly.
He looks at me with unbridled curiosity, trust shining brilliantly from within. I can see myself being reflected in his irises, my own eyes wide open and lips slightly parted.
And with a jolt I realize that here, right in front of my nose, is the blank canvas of the future. Every choice will appear as a stroke with the brush, unique in its color and conduct, and it is not a given whether the result will be the swirling pattern of an orange mask or something else entirely.
This is not about following the plot of a story. This is about the strength to make the right choices.
(I wonder if I can be strong.)
)()()(
Hours later, after okaa-chan is finally discharged from the hospital and we've all gone home, I'm still winded.
I'm suspiciously silent and I'm pretty sure my parents notice that, but they don't comment on it for which I'm eternally grateful. I don't think I can handle their concern, their care, right now.
Otou-san tucks me into my bed tonight while okaa-chan is busy with … with Obito.
Oh god, it's still so hard to believe.
"You are thinking hard" otou-san states matter-of-factly. "Care to share your thoughts?"
I gulp and slowly shake my head no. I can't meet his eyes.
For some reason I feel guilty. I mean, it's not like I could tell him that I'm just worried that my baby brother might grow up to be the worst villain in the entire Elemental Nations, but the feeling of betrayal lies heavily on my chest, slowly squeezing against my lungs and making it hard to breathe.
This is such a mess. I'm such a mess.
Otou-san sighs but doesn't pressure me. He gives me a light kiss on the forehead and wishes me a good night before exiting my room, leaving me alone to my thoughts.
Needless to say that I can't sleep.
I toss and turn around in my bed, making sure that my blankets are tangled into a disheveled pile between my limbs. It's so hot in the room that I feel like I'm suffocating.
I need fresh air. Now.
I get up and open my window wide. The air that comes in is chilly and I wrap my arms around my body. My night dress is not made for the temperatures of a February's night. But it's easier to breathe.
Damn. I miss my violin so much right now. What I would give for the chance to have it here, violin on my shoulder and bow in my hand, and play like there's no tomorrow.
I don't think the Elemental Nations even produce violins.
For a while, I stand there and do nothing but breathe. Slow inhales and exhales. I remember okaa-chan's lessons about meditation and try to center myself. It works.
As soon as I have calmed down somewhat, I find my chakra almost naturally. It flows through my body with a low, vibrating hum, pulsating reassuringly in synch with my heartbeat.
I remember the first time I found it. Before I'd overheard my parent's 'prodigy conversation', I had thought that it had been kind of an accident. It had happened during one of my first hiragana lessons, when everything had still been so new and unfamiliar. I had gotten a headache from staring and trying to copy the characters okaa-chan wrote on her paper, being distinctly unamused by my self-perceived slow progress and messy scrawl. Okaa-chan had taken my hands after a while and suggested to try something that would make the ache in my head go away.
She introduced me to meditating and indeed, I felt better within minutes. I relished the feeling of being at peace with myself, the feeling of finding my base and settling on it. I was surprised, though, when I realized that there was something waiting for me at this very same base.
I poked and prodded at this something and when it actually reacted, I broke out of my meditation and told okaa-chan. She told me that I had found my chakra.
Which, as I know now, had been her intention all along.
Now, finding and feeling my chakra during meditation has become something that comes rather easy. I have never tried something else with it, since I was aware that my reserves couldn't be too great and I didn't want to risk chakra exhaustion, but it has become a great source of reassurance.
Right now, I sorely need it.
The feeling of my chakra streaming is strong today and behind my closed eyelids, I can practically see the blue energy winding its way through my body. It reacts faster to my gentle prodding and on a whim, I decide to take it further.
I pool it in my stomach and focus on letting a trickle flow to my fingertips. It's not as easy as I imagined it to be and I lose track of my chakra halfway down my upper arm.
Immediately, my ambition to get it right is sparked.
Minutes pass and stretch into an hour, but finally, I have managed to flood all of my fingers of my right hand with chakra. They tingle with warmth and satisfaction surges through me. I want to do both hands at the same time.
I close the window and hop back on my bed, shoving aside the pile of blankets and arranging myself in a lotus seat. I close my eyes again and for the next hour or so, I'm busy pushing around my chakra into different body parts. I'm getting good at it and I let out a giddy little giggle.
It is answered by a tiny whimper.
My eyes fly open with a start. They move rapidly as I search my room for the source of the sound, but I don't see anything unusual. With bated breath, I wait for it to repeat itself. Maybe I have just imagined it?
There.
It comes from the other side of the wall that is next to my bed. The room that used to be a guest room and is now Obito's.
I wait for a few seconds more to make sure that neither okaa-chan nor otou-san are already on their way to him, but the rest of the house stays silent. They must be really exhausted.
That makes it my duty to check on him, I guess.
I try to be noiseless as I practically sneak out of my room, tiptoe the three steps to the screen that opens to Obito's room and slip inside. He's lying in his crib – my old one, I realize – and up this close, the noises he makes are clearly audible. I walk over to him and peer through the bars.
My baby brother is awake. Somehow, he has managed to kick away his covers, which I imagine must be the reason for his whimpering – he must feel cold.
I try to readjust them for him, but I'm too short to reach into the crib from above and my arms are too chubby to squeeze them through the bars. I huff in annoyance. I don't want to wake my parents for that, they need their rest.
So I climb over the edge and into the crib.
Let me tell you that trained arms and legs with proper motoric abilities are awesome. (Which, by the way, are the reason why my crib had been replaced with a bed relatively early on. I didn't give a damn about bars. If I wanted to get out of bed, I did.)
Obito is so tiny that there's still enough space even with me in there. I mean, seeing that my body is that of a three-year-old it shouldn't be too surprising.
He's whining again and I hurriedly place the covers properly on him.
"Shhh, you're gonna wake okaa-chan and otou-san if you go on like this" I whisper to him.
He obediently lowers the volume of his voice and stares at me with big, inky eyes.
Whoa. It's like, he understood what I was saying?!
I awkwardly pat him on the head. "Good baby. Now go back to sleep."
I prepare to heave myself out of his crib again, but as soon as my weight leaves the mattress, he starts whimpering again. I swiftly drop back and crawl beside him.
"Shhh. Are you alright? Um … do you need something?"
I feel so stupid, talking to a baby, but I have no idea what to do now. I haven't dealt with babies in a long time. Actually, the last time was when my other brother was a baby. But at that time, I was nothing more than a little child myself.
Obito is looking at me again, and, ugh, do I imagine this or does he look like he's expecting something? Is it normal for a baby to be that expressive already?!
He gurgles and flails with his arms. They can't do much, as they're covered by his blankets, but I clearly get the feeling that he wants something.
Gods.
I scoot closer and wrap my arms around him, pressing his soft little body against mine. His movements subside and he lets out a cooing noise that transforms one part of my brain straight into mush.
"It's okay" I whisper back. "If you want me to stay, I'll stay."
We snuggle together and within minutes, my little otouto is fast asleep.
I'm not far behind.
)()()(
Okaa-chan finds us like that, cuddled together, in the morning.
Judging by the surprised gasp that awakens me she did not anticipate this.
Well, that makes two of us then.
I sit up groggily and rub my eyes. "Morning, 'kaa-chan" I mumble. The warm bundle that is Obito doesn't stir the slightest bit as I straighten the blankets for him and climb out of the crib.
"He kicked his covers away in the night. I put them back on but he didn't want me to leave, so I stayed" I say as soon as both of my feet are on the ground and I've turned to okaa-chan. She seems to have recovered by now and is smiling softly.
"That was a very nice thing to do, Etsuko-chan. Thank you."
Ugh, are those tears in her eyes?
"Hn" I answer awkwardly. "No big deal."
She chuckles.
)()()(
Over the course of the next few days, I make two important observations:
1. Obito is a genuinely happy baby.
2. He has me hopelessly wrapped around his chubby little finger.
Conclusion: It's of personal interest for me to make sure that Obito stays happy forever.
This is important because it wreaks complete havoc with my current plans for the future.
Or, more accurately, it forces me to confront myself with the fact that I actually don't have any plans. The fact that each and every realization up until now has not actually made things clearer, but instead removed me from the things I need to do. The fact that I have been running away from reality my entire second life.
It breaks down every illusion, every wall that I have built around myself and leaves only one thing for certain: Obito's existence changes everything.
I think it's time to bring back the plans for Operation Uchiha Etsuko.
It feels a bit like a déjà vu, what with me standing in the kitchen again, helping okaa-chan dry the dishes. It seems that these days, most of my life planning takes place in the kitchen.
I find the original plans of OUE securely buried under tons of dust and cobwebs somewhere in a dark corner of my mind, but I'm surprised that I don't meet the ugly beast again. It seems way too easy, but I'm not inclined to look a gift horse in the mouth.
As I catalogue the points of my original life plan, it becomes increasingly clear to me why it was destined to fail. Because, although I had done everything as it was dictated in my textbook, none of it had any actual meaning.
Of course some half-assed goal to be a decent human being and save the world would not motivate me. There was no actual link to my person, not a single drop of genuine emotion invested. Every major event in the Narutoverse seemed still so far away that I could comfortably hide in the back, convincing myself that I had all the time in the world and that in the end, everything would work out somehow.
With Obito in the game, though, this has changed fundamentally. Suddenly, I have a lot of things to consider. And they're all filled to the brim with emotions.
It is with this mindset that I begin the mammoth task of recounting every moment of Obito's life – and everything else that is influenced by his actions.
I try to remember the manga scene that takes place in his life at the earliest possible moment and come up with the day of the academy entrance ceremony. Obito had been massively late – of course – and Rin had kindly saved and handed him his entrance documents when he had finally arrived. That had also pretty much been the point at which he had fallen in love with her.
The manga didn't give any indications as to when exactly that scene had happened, though. Kakashi had been there, which would mean that they all had been four years old since Kakashi, Obito and Rin were of the same age and according to the data books, Kakashi had graduated the academy after only one year of attendance at age five. Those same data books said that Obito graduated at age nine – which meant that he had spent five years in the academy.
To be honest, I'm having a hard time believing this. There're some things that don't add up.
Kakashi enrolled in the academy at such a young age because he was a certified genius, but this doesn't explain at all why Obito and Rin would enroll so early. Even in times of near-war – since it was only one year later that it would break out – I doubt that the village would be desperate enough to push children that young into the academy as a regular occurrence.
Or at least I assume that to be the case for the Sandaime. Now that I think of it, Danzou would totally have done it. And he probably did, too. Not in the academy, but in some shady program for ROOT, somewhere in the darkest corners of Konoha.
Related to that matter is another thing: Even if the village had decided to put in all four-year-olds in existence, it wouldn't make any sense to let them sit in there for five years afterwards. I mean, the only reason they would want to get in so many youngsters would be the fast turnout of child soldiers. And no matter how you look at it: Five years is not fast. At all.
And last thing: On the panel that depicted Obito facing the crowd of his new classmates, I distinctly remember seeing the faces of Kurenai, Asuma, Gai, Genma, Hayate, Aoba and Ebisu.
Which throws kids with a wide range of different ages into one pot.
I mean, Hayate was three years younger and Aoba three years older than Kakashi! How could they all have been of the same height and enrolling together?
Already as a reader of the manga, I had been mildly annoyed by this inconsistency. But as a real person in a very real Narutoverse, this is a problem of a whole new magnitude. Because this proves that, even if Kishimoto himself had put it in there, the information in the manga could very well be false and thus, unreliable.
Jesus. As if I'd needed another problem.
I find only limited solace in the thought that at least the narration after Naruto's birth was consistent, because unfortunately, Naruto is still a long way coming.
So, this basically told me nothing but the fact that Obito was apparently so starved for attention that he fell in love with practically the first human being that was nice to him. Seeing that he didn't have a big sister in the manga and that he was an orphan in the Uchiha clan-
Everything suddenly goes still.
Oh god.
Oh god.
Obito had been an orphan.
Which meant that his parents – my parents – had died.
I hear the sound of china shattering into a thousand pieces. With a start I realize that the cup that I'd been drying earlier has slipped out of my fingers.
Okaa-chan whips her head around. "Etsuko-chan!" she exclaims, alarm coloring her voice. Her eyes widen when she sees me and my broken cup on the floor and she hurriedly comes over.
"Are you alright, sweetie? Did you hurt yourself?"
I can only stare into her beautiful face. I see her lips moving, hear her warm voice, feel her hands on my arms-
"Etsuko? Etsuko, talk to me!"
I look into her eyes. Her beautiful, beautiful eyes.
"I'm sorry" I whisper. "I'm … I'm sorry that I broke the cup."
I cannot let her die.
So, this chap has been eagerly anticipated by some (most?) of you and I hope I've done it justice.
As always, drop a review and tell me what you think!