A/N:

i'm fantastic at titles


The chunin exams.

They're not quite in full swing yet, but he can tell they're getting there. It's impossible not to travel down the main roads without eventually coming across someone - usually merchants, though he thinks he may have seen a few shinobi while ghosting around, too - and Konoha is bustling with activity.

He thinks he may have seen a merchant literally salivating when a group of foreigners entered the village. It was horribly disturbing, and he's not optimistic enough to believe that he'd imagined it.

So far, there are no immediately recognizable 'characters,' aside from the Konoha 12. Even out of them, he's only really seen most of them in passing, except for Team 8, of whom he's only seen Kiba by chance. That's probably a good thing, since when they're in sight, usually the plot's waiting just around the corner to crack you over the head with a metal baseball bat before squirting lemon juice in your eye.

The day he sees Gaara, he's not sure how he'll react. He could either be normal, or he could whisk him away to somewhere safe and try to get someone to take care of that seal of his. It's a real tossup at this point.

He has seen a few people from Grass, though he doesn't really remember any of them. One of them might be the vessel Orochimaru uses - which is a terrifying thought, especially because he doesn't know if they've already been made into a skinsuit by now - but he's not confident enough to bet on it.

Speaking of, Obito really needs to figure out some sort of plan to keep Snakey McGee away from Sasuke. He'd rather not fight him, primarily because he knows he'd lose horribly, and kamui is more of a last resort, since he doesn't want Orochimaru to be interested in him.

Ugh.

Point is, while he's not a giant fan of Sasuke's character, it'd be much easier for everyone involved if he didn't get entranced by hoodoo and go absolutely bonkers anytime soon. He's already an edgelord, and Shippuden Sasuke is far worse, so he's not looking forward to that. Hopefully, he won't have to see it, period.

He won't, if all goes well. But he knows better than to hinge his plans on mere hopes, because even "try not to earn a Darwin Award" is a better plan than "hopefully this goes well." He hadn't realized how much he relied on kamui in the past, and now he's paying the price.

At least he won't have to start totally panicking for another few days. Everything's still being set up, so now he's just waiting in anticipation. Very, very anxious anticipation.

It doesn't help that the only things he really remembers about this whole event are that Orochimaru appears, Naruto knocks Kiba out with the indefensible power of crop-dusting before kicking Neji's ass in the next event, Shikamaru forfeits like an asshat, and Hayate dies (the last of which is a core memory for reasons unknown, but he might as well keep it from happening if he can).

There's also a vague recollection of Orochimaru's tongue and him being 'excited,' which really makes him wonder if he intends to speak in innuendos half the time, or if Jiraiya had more of an effect on him than he thought.

Though—

Now that he's thinking about it, doesn't this whole thing happen because Naruto needs to pee or something? Or is that before everything goes to shit? Either way, that's… not really something he can change. Unless he like, tapes a mysterious note to his mirror or something that tells him to take a leak before the scroll-based section of the exams.

…Perhaps that's something to think about. A half-assed effort to get Team 7 ahead of the game, if you will.

Either way he'll eventually have to step in, which means he needs a just-in-case disguise! He's already got a voice ready for use, because Orochimaru wasn't around when he'd been fucking around as Tobi, so he just needs an outfit. Maybe he'll dress as Gai and freak him the fuck out or something.

Haha, no.

He'll probably just end up wearing a mask and something to cover up his skin. If he sees something like a sparkly, pink haori though, he will drop everything to buy it so he can distract Orochimaru in the only way he knows how: 'acting' like a complete and total buffoon to catch him off guard.

And, you know. He'll try not to die. Because that would kinda suck.

Obito lets out a dramatic sigh as he presses his hand against his chin. This whole situation - and pardon him for his Nara-ese - is just so Troublesome™.


A/N:

I'm pretty sure my math teacher caught me writing this during class and I don't think I can ever look him in the eye again

also, the Hayate thing isn't just there for plot. I don't know why, but that's actually burned into my memory. whenever he just dies in a chunin exam arc it always turns me off from the fic, just a little, LOL

anyway
Thanks for reading!