It hadn't taken long at all the find the bounty and kill her. Either she wasn't as strong as the bingo book said, or Obito just had an insane amount of strength. After he turned in the body and collected his 300,000 Ryo, he saw a familiar face... ish. It was Kakuzu.

Obito had almost forgotten how Kakuzu was a bounty hunter before joining the Akatsuki. He got an idea. Maybe it was stupid, but this was Kakuzu. He'd do almost anything for the right price. So Obito went over to the man with a quick little "hey there."

Kakuzu turned around and looked down at Obito, "What do you want, kid?" He asked in a gruff tone.

Obito slightly grimaced at the fact that he was still pretty short. Taller than others at his "age" due to the Senju cells, but still shorter than Kakuzu. Disregarding the fact that the stitched nin called him a kid, he began talking his plan out with Kakuzu.

Minato looked over at the raven and grabbed the message. He'd never seen a messenger bird that was a raven before. Undoing the small scroll he read

Lord Hokage,

I understand that you have sent multiple ANBU to try and bring me back. I appreciate the fact that you want me to go back to Konoha, but I cannot. I do not care if you do or don't label me as a missing nin. I am not going back. Though, please make sure Rin, Kakashi, or yourself are not blamed for this. Also make sure Kakashi isn't taking this too hard. It was all my fault that I am in this situation. This is my final goodbye.

Obito

The fourth Hokage read the scroll over and over again to see if he could find any hidden meaning in the letter. It was neater writing than how Obito used to write, but it still had certain spots in the writing that pointed out that Obito had indeed written this letter. He rolled it back up and put it in his vest as the bird flew away.

If Obito thought a single letter would keep him from trying to find him, he was wrong. Very wrong.

After Obito explained his plan to Kakuzu thoroughly, and Kakuzu accepted, he decided to find somewhere to make their hideout.

Obito had planned with Kakuzu to work on bounties together. Meaning that they would work together finding info on the targets. This wasn't the only thing that they agreed on, to Obito's surprise, Kakuzu despised the bandits that stole provisions, people, and money. With this information they decided that they would create a spy network to find out these groups of bandits, as well as finding information.

Kakuzu already had some spies gathering information. He did this because it was easy to get good money for spilling a few secrets about different villages and clans. Though, he never gave out the actually significant details, as he used those for his own personal gain.

Now that Obito had Kakuzu's trust, he wanted to get a hideout where the spies would drop off and exchange info. After he found out where this location would be, he'd move most of his scrolls and books from the Kamui dimension to there.

After maybe an hour or so of searching he found a cave that was hidden enough from civilization. It was very decently sized. Obito had decided to use a seal on the cave, just like how the Akatsuki did, so only him, Kakuzu, and the spies were able to enter.

Using his mokuton, he built several bookshelves, tables, chairs, and other things for the cave. Once everything was to his liking, the lit torches around the room with Katon. After he exited the cave, he made a clone of a raven and wrote down the location to where Kakuzu was staying.

As Obito left, he had a small smile on his face, finally after weeks of doing nothing, he finally started doing something with his pathetic life.

Kakashi couldn't sleep that night. There were four hours til dawn and he hadn't gotten a blink of sleep. Earlier that day he could've sworn he felt Obito's chakra while on an ANBU mission. Since he was still working on the mission he couldn't go off to there just yet. The anticipation was killing him after he had finished his job to go over to that location. Once he did, there was nothing. Not even a trace.

Kakashi had wanted to cry. Every time he got close to finding a clue about Obito's location, it was gone. It was all so frustrating. Why couldn't his friend come back home? He at least wanted an answer. A direct answer, explaining exactly why he couldn't, or won't come back.

As Kakashi was making his way back home, he completely ignored Gai who was shouting some nonsense about eternal youth or something. He couldn't be bothered to care.

And now here he was. Thinking about his best friend. He felt extremely useless.

Rin was at her desk trying to focus on the book about medical ninjutsu. As hard as she tried to understand what the words were saying, she couldn't. Minato Sensei had came by a few hours ago and showed Rin the scroll. Like him, she couldn't find any hidden messages either. She really wanted to know why Obito wasn't coming back. It didn't seem like he was being forced or anything, especially since he saved both her and Kakashi's life.

She finally closed her book, realizing the fact that there was no way she could study with this on her mind. As her thoughts raced, sleep soon took over.