Chapter Six: Doomed to Repeat
I don't have nightmares... not really.
I mean I do have dreams, caught up in Obito's past life memories but I don't experience these dreams the same way that they do. Or at least not as severe. I find that I can't breath, that everything is wrong and I can't breath and the world is pushing down on me forcing me to curl and clutch at my chest but...
It's distant, like I'm not quite there and it's just an automatic response with the sharpness of pain with every breath and the struggle to just suck in a breath and hold it... like it's not really happening and I'm just an observer in someone else's body just barely feeling it on the fringes of awareness.
It's painful, but not in the same way because...
I know these are Obito's experiences. Obito's memories. And it makes me worry because what kind of life did they live with constant pain in the chest, in the back, in the head. Just pain all around and I can't do anything to ease it in the dreams as it pulls them down and strangles them like hands in a vice around their throat, like a sword that's stuck in their chest and rocks that press down and make it feel like their ribcage is about to splinter and just collapse in on itself...
How is this their previous life.
Yet I awaken to screams, loud, piecing terrified screams. My breath still caught in my throat and a weird pressure in my chest that pushes down and make cough to try and release it. Wheezing as I struggle to catch it.
That's how the dreams affect me the most, shortness of breath and struggles upon awakening. As if with each one my life is slipping away and my health is being compromised and weakened. As if this is my punishment for my previous sins...
I can still hear Obito screaming and I kind of half moan as I roll out of the bed and land on all fours. For a moment I catch the smallest glint of gold under the bed and I freeze before calming down.
There's nothing there... there's nothing there...
I struggle to push myself to my feet and I use the wall as support with one arm curling around my chest as I cough some more. It still hurts, throbbing with some distant pain that's now there, and it's not something that I can really ignore. My legs wobble as I walk down the hall hearing my toshishita kyoudai sobbing.
Hearing the pain and fear and...
I awkwardly hover in the doorway. Allowing my arm to drop down, the pain in my chest dulling and easing but not quite leaving. I can't quite bring myself to properly enter the room quite yet though. Instead allowing Obaachan to comfort Obito.
I know that if I go in they'll notice. They'll see straight away the pain that I'm hiding.
Exactly like Rin does, did, will... Exactly the same way, because they know, and they can see right through the paper smiles and forced calm and pretending that I'm okay when I'm already broken and shattered and... I wince glad that neither of them are looking my way before quickly rubbing my chest.
It might be remnants of Madara's training actually.
Don't let them see even a hint of weakness, use it to drive yourself further... Don't let it slow you down, don't let others see because they'll use it against you. Don't show any weakness, don't let yourself feel weak, get angry, get mad and use those... He... He really wasn't in the right place I don't think. Not after years in that cave.
I can't believe that I actually went along with his scheme now... Because it seems so strange and weird and...
I was an only child...
I didn't have a twin, I didn't grow up with nightmares of two different lives that overlapped and melded together. I didn't have that, I was just Obito the dead last of their class... though that doesn't mean all that much when we were all war children. When I still managed to graduate with the majority at the age of nine, when I was one of the few who could keep up with Hatake Kakashi.
But this is different, the status has been shaken up.
"Don't go..." I startle as I hear Obito's voice so quiet. So soft, so far removed from their usual loud and happy voice. So distant from the energy that it usually contains... And... I creep forwards, the pain in my chest ignored but not forgotten as I try to offer a small bit of solidarity to them. "Please don't go... Don't leave me alone"
Obaachan gently rests them back into their bed and I easily slide around to snuggle with them. Curling just a touch into them. Offering silent support and just my presence. It's what I know that Obito appreciates the most as their form just ever so slightly winds down. Loosening from their tense posture, just a touch more at ease.
I know that I'm trembling though, with the pain coming back and clawing in my chest. Pressure that builds and seeps in making me feel so weak and helpless and... I'm not sure if it's just waking memories that make me feel phantom pain or if there's something more. Is it something real, is it something false... it always eventually fades, only appearing after the dreams and fading within the day... but...
It scares me that we both carry around the others memories as nightmares... Always the wost of them as well.
Still we simply rest there in companionable silence. At least until Obito whispers "I'm sorry... I can't imagine actually going through that. I don't want to." I remain silent as they shiver and rub their arms.
I know exactly which dream, which memory they just awoke from... Exactly which one they experienced.
"I should be the one who's sorry." I grimace as I speak, partially from the finally fading pain and partially because it's true. I should be sorry for so many different things.
I can't forget, won't forget.
"We both should." They say so quiet, so soft even as Obaachan returns with a warm drink for them to curl themselves around. Obito sighs and takes a small sip before continuing. "You've experienced some of my memories first hand as well after all..." I tremble at their statement...
It's true...
I've experienced their memories. But... not in the same way, not quite as clear... although if it were would I be waking with screams, or would I be waking with even worse feelings of being unable to breath and probably PTSD responses as if I were under that boulder and stuck in the cave with Crazy Isolated Madara... It makes me shudder to wonder and I very carefully push myself away from that topic.
I don't want to even consider it. I don't want to wonder how it could possibly be worse, because it's always worse, never better. Not for shinobi... not for us...
"Ne... Tomoko-nii... Where did you hear English before anyway?" Obito's question startles me and I can't help but tense just slightly. "Where... It feels important." I peer back at them unsure how to describe it... because the experience was just one of those things...
I just remain so completely silent, allowing it to stretch out between us because I just... I just don't want to explain that experience, it was something so off. So strange and different and abnormal even on top of everything else that I've ever experienced...
Well, almost. Reincarnation is now the top of that list. It's not like this is normal and being my own twin, even if they're also a reincarnation... they're innocent and oblivious and learning and...
"Tomoko-nii!" They're whining, plaintive and persistent. And Obito pokes me with one hand. "Please..." I glare at them and... oh, oh no, puppy dog watery eyes. So instead I look away and roll my eyes. "Tomoko-nii. Please, I want to know."
"Obito-chan... Please no. Obito, I don't even know if I only imagined the encounter." I keep my eyes closed, feeling my kyoudai's hands nearing my shoulders and hearing the smallest whimper, the smallest non-verbal plea.
I can feel them still.
I don't open my eyes though, instead focusing on my breathing and considering just how weak I am when it comes to Obito. When it comes to my precious toshishita kyoudai. I would do anything for them, anything. It's always been an Uchiha thing, our love is our greatest strength...
And our greatest weakness.
We can't help it. We feel everything so strongly. Supercharged emotions that make us some of the most unstable people, too easily caught up in the storm of our emotions. It's why we're taught to control them... To be careful who we offer our hearts to... that's how Madara taught it anyway... how I learnt it late, too late.
Always late...
I take a deep breath.
"I don't know Tomoko-nii... Imagination can be powerful... But the accuracy?" It's true. Only a small amount of the words... only a small handful would have matched... Not the whole three or four sentences. Not the whole string...
But it's still but a distant memory.
A distant memory, and I can't even remember it clearly... I can't even say for sure that it happened aside the sheer knowledge that this language is familiar and therefore I had to have encountered it before... right?
"What do you even expect of me? I mean I barely even saw them... They were..." And I falter, unable to really describe them. Unable to formulate the response that matched the memory of someone... a boy in strange clothing, a watch and him muttering to himself before meeting my eyes and flashing this cheeky grin... and he'd just disappeared so quickly I had been sure it were merely some weird dream... or genjutsu... "I don't even know... It was something anyway." I finally gave up with a frustrated shrug.
"Maybe they had a job that they were late for. Hey who knows... That might have been it" Initially I snort at the thought before laughing as Obito playfully shoves at me. "But who knows really... Who knows if English is even a thing in this world."
Who knew indeed...
After all we're the only ones who use it. Keeping it personal and between us as a shared language that we both enjoy. Twinspeech aside the link that already ties us together. Aside the link that will always lead us back to one another. Aside the things that already tie us together this is just one more thing that lets us know that we will always be siblings...
In a way at least...
Because this truly ties us together. Despite the completely different worlds that we come from and experiences that we've had. These bonds, these links and the English language...
They're us...
"Ne... Tomoko-nii... These nightmares are like Carnivores... All these experiences... They eat away at us trying to consume us."
"Yeah... They kind of do." it's an absent agreement, automatic but honest. "They blend the lines between us..." Or they try to at least, it's a bit hard when we've already got firmly rooted identities and pasts, backgrounds and memories that we know are ours... When we're not about to just let go and become identical aside our genders and small quirks...
It's who we know that we are that allows us to remain separate.
To hold onto ourselves and not fall into the memories and get lost and confused... to not lose what remains of just us.
Obito... S-Class menace, leader of the Akatsuki and alias Tobi...
Tamara... civilian from another world...
Siblings, that's what we are now...
Tomoko, and Obito...
I yawn as Obito finishes off the last of his tea. Bringing my hands up to rub at my eyes I almost don't hear Obito's quiet statement.
"I'm going to be in the yard practicing stretches..."
I nod my head and yawn again. "Good luck then... 'M going back to bed" I state before standing back up and making my way back out of the room. Down the hall and into my own room. Only to freeze.
The window is open...
Why?
Why is my window open when I know for a fact that I closed it. Abruptly wide awake I stalk around my room searching for anything, even something small that might have been out of place. Nothing. Not even the layer of dust under my bed is disturbed and I just... It makes me twitch because there's one being that I know of that can do that.
Kuro...
The implication that he might have been in my room... even just for a moment grates at my nerves. The open window has to be a taunt... or a threat and I bare my teeth, hands curling at my sides and eyes narrowing.
I can't stand this... Because... I know just how dangerous that thing is. How impossible it is to face at this point... Too weak, too small, too helpless.
So I won't forget...
Because I don't want to doom the world to a repeat...
"I won't let you..." I growl closing the window with a loud thud. "I promise that I won't let you... You're not going to get my Kyoudai!" I close my eyes and I smirk.
"Not this time Kuro..." It's a whisper, a promise in English.
