As Obito wanders into town, he picks up on the distinct, intertwined scents of dead fish and chronic depression. It's absolutely terrible, and he wants nothing more than to buy a themed candle to present to Kakashi for his next birthday.
Unfortunately, that's when life decides to crush him with a second, metaphorical boulder.
He hears one word, and he feels his soul immediately attempt to eject itself from his body. Worse still, he doesn't even think he can make an excuse for this one, aside from his general inability to remember anything that isn't horribly embarrassing or entirely useless.
"Oh," he lets out, coming to a full stop as his few brain cells ping pong off of one another. "Oh no."
Oh no, indeed, because he'd completely forgotten about Kirigakure. As in, the place where its jinchuuriki - its Hokage - is meant to be a lesser member of the puppet inception, stuck firmly in some place below Pein.
This is embarrassing, he thinks plainly, and promptly flickers straight into the Mizukage's office. Because he's not entirely incompetent, he melts into the shadows and eyes Yagura from where he stands.
Upon seeing that his eyes are partially glazed over, he closes his own for a long, pained second. He doesn't know why Yagura's still a glorified zombie, and unless he wants to have an aneurysm, he doesn't think he wants to.
Withholding a long-suffering breath, Obito reaches into Sharingan bullshittery land and, after a few moments of rifling around, manages to find the connection. He pauses for all of five seconds, considering the consequences, then prods at the 'thread'.
He shudders. It feels like someone deeply misunderstood the fermentation process of fruit and instead created a string of moldy jello.
Still, his poking doesn't seem to cause any adverse effects, so after a moment, he snaps it in half like a stale cracker and steps back to observe.
Yagura pauses, then scrunches his face up. Slowly, he lowers his gaze and stares at his desk with the blankest expression Obito has ever seen.
"Fuck," Yagura says succinctly, and it takes everything Obito has not to choke out a hysteria-tinged laugh.
Fuck indeed, Mizukage-sama. Fuck indeed.
"I've done a thing."
The entire camp startles at Obito's sudden presence, though he keeps his partially-distressed gaze pointed towards Zabuza and Haku.
"What the actual fuck," Zabuza says, dipping so far into incredulity that it circles back around to being flat.
"Tobi-san?" Haku asks, "What are you doing here?"
"I've done a thing," Obito repeats, causing Zabuza's eye to twitch.
"Zabuza, Haku," a red-headed woman says, looking between the two, "You know this man?"
"Unfortunately," Zabuza mutters at the same time as Haku replies in the affirmative. Politely, because he's not an asshole like someone he knows.
"I see," Mei Terumi says, turning her gaze onto Obito. "You say you've done something. What is that?"
Obito opens, then closes his mouth. "...A thing," he says weakly, then winces when Zabuza's hand twitches towards his sword. "Um. Okay, you know Yagura? Like, yay-high and with inverted pinkeye?"
There's a pause.
"You didn't."
Obito stares at Zabuza. "I am so incredibly certain that you're so many levels of wrong, but I do appreciate your confidence in me."
Zabuza's expression sours, while Mei eyes him with equal parts suspicion and curiosity.
"The Mizukage," she says. "You did something to him?"
"...Did you know," Obito continues slowly, "That, hypothetically, if one were to drop a Tailed Beast into an equally-as-hypothetical genjutsu… Hypothetically, the jinchuuriki would also be affected as well."
"This doesn't seem very hypothetical, Tobi-san," Haku says, looking a little concerned.
"And hypothetically," he bulldozes on, "This genjutsu could, say… Control their actions. Or put them in a state where they were unable to ignore certain commands." He pauses. "Hypothetically."
Zabuza looks like he's considering impaling himself with his own sword. Obito always knew he was a drama queen at heart.
"What are you saying?" a man with an eyepatch asks, eyes narrowed.
Obito squints. "Hypothetically, someone could also break them out of said genjutsu."
Haku frowns. "And you did that, Tobi-san?"
"...Hypothetically."
"Hypothetically," Mei echoes flatly. "And hypothetically, would the jinchuuriki return back to normal after being released from this genjutsu?"
Obito directs his gaze towards a particularly interesting rock on the ground.
"Fuck me," Zabuza mutters, then directs a glare at Obito before he can even open his mouth.
Ao crosses his arms. "And what? We're just meant to trust you?"
"Hypothetically," Obito tells him wisely after several moments of consideration. He flickers away just in time to avoid being skewered à la shish kabob. "Do with that information as you will!" he calls out from atop his new perch. "Anyway, we on for game night, Zabuza, Haku? I'm all for a good, clean game of Uno!" He pauses. "...Granted, I might have to invent it first, but you get the gist."
This time, he leaves just when he goes crosseyed staring at a giant fucking sword.
"Rude," he mutters, watching the proceedings from within kamui. He's sure they'll figure things out, eventually.
…Probably.
(Hypothetically.)
A/N:
hypothetically, Obito wasn't actually in control of Yagura so he was just in zombie mode this entire time
anyway
hypothetically, thanks for reading! 3
(yeah, I hate me too
...
hypothetically)
