Whoa-hohohohoho. I don't know what happened here.

It went from Mariko having a nightmare to...

Uh. You'll have to read it. Anyway, longest chapter yet...-sigh- sorry, guys. XD

LOL! This is why this story is titled "Blue Hair and Green Eyes...and other not so normal things" as a whole...it's all for the "other not so normal things!" ...Like Obitopede!

In any case, Mariko DOES have a nightmare, and it's just as confusing as you read it to be, because dreams usually make no sense, right? Nightmares even less so. Seriously, I had a nightmare (portions of it were just dreams, while others were nightmares) where I was chased by Barney, fell off a cliff, then drove up a mountain, witnessed giant strawberries roaming the land, part of the land was a colossal kitty litter box, this girl from my middle school multiplied by 3 and started hitting golf balls at me with hockey sticks, my bus split into two, there was a Barbie fashion show (when I was like...2, okay?), and I ran out of mango pudding while Kisame grew fins and Itachi was a flying fish.

Phew.

Disclaimers: I don't own Naruto, because Rin would be alive. Somehow. Obito-style!

Also, Ramen no Otoko (totally a pun on kamen no otoko, the masked man XD) will rule the world with his Obitopede.

Random note: GAHHH doesn't keep my formatting! -flipdesk-

Chapter 13: Does the World...Dream?

She had a dream where a man crawled, near-death, into a cave far, far away. He dragged himself to a dry area inside the large cavern, hugging himself, shivering though it was not at all cold. He left a trail of blood behind him, an obvious sign of his path, but he didn't care. He studied the thing between his fingers. A strand of brown hair, nearly invisible in the darkness. Rotating the hair, he studied it weakly. In that moment, he knew he had "it".

She did not know what "it" was, but the man smiled ominously. The hair dissolved between his thumb and his finger, and a deep, breathy laugh shook silently in his lungs, his lips curled into a dry, ugly smile.

"I have it, and I am alive," he said.

There was a blur, and then the man reappeared again, still in the cave, but much older. His now-white hair, long enough to obscure his back, now shone slightly in the little light the caverns admitted.

"I have it," he muttered hoarsely again and again, drawing himself onto a bench made of rock. Now, however, the cavern was not empty. A gigantic monument sat behind him, but it was too blurry and too dark to really tell what it was. The man waited for a very long time, silence engulfing him as he seemed to be asleep. Eventually, he began wheezing, and he dug his hands into the rock statue, and pulled out long cords. The tubes seemed to grow alive as they latched onto him, and the man's labored breathing eased just a bit. Settling back on his stone bench, he waited again.

Looking up, as she dreamed, she saw human figures dangling from what looked like roots of trees. Two bodies, in particular, dropped from the ceiling of the cavern and landed lightly on the cold stone floor. One had a face like a spiral, and the other a person-like face with beastly sharp teeth, a humanoid monster. The spiral one sat down, as if contemplating, while the other watched the man drift off to sleep, tired.

Later, the spiral one would ask the man:

"Why do you sit there?"

And the man would reply:

"I am waiting."

"Waiting for what?" asked the spiral one.

"This world's hero."

"The hero?" asked the regular-faced figure.

"Yes. If he does not come, I will be the hero."

"You? But you can hardly move," said spiral-face.

"That's why I am waiting."

"There's been rumbling overhead," the spiral one said one day.

"They are fighting," the more humanlike one replied.

Then, just as those two had dropped from the ceiling, another figure tumbled down. Only this time, it was not from one of the roots in the earth, but from the earth itself. If there was a sky, then he fell from the sky. His body was covered with blood, his right side, at least, and his black hair stuck to his forehead in pained, cold sweat.

He had no left eye.

"The hero has come," the man announced, slowly rising from his seat. "He has come to save this world."

And then there he was, the boy who fell from the sky. She saw him clearly, standing upon a plain stretch of land. And there, there was Hashirama! She saw Hashirama in her dream!

It looked like Hashirama, but the First Hokage's image faded away, leaving only a man and a woman. The man had silvery hair, only a shade darker than Tobirama's, and the girl was a brunette. Maybe she had mistaken the girl for Hashirama in the distance, seeing their long brown hair.

"You look different," said the silver-haired man.

"That's because this is your imagination," the girl replied. She drew a kunai from her pouch and gathered her long hair in her left hand. Without hesitation, she cut it off so that it was around shoulder length. "This is what you remember."

When the girl turned, she had rectangular, purple tattoos imprinted on her cheeks. The dreamer felt that she should remember this face. The silverette shook his head.

"I remember," he whispered hoarsely, as if almost crying.

The boy who fell from the sky approached them.

"Then you will forget," he stated simply, drawing a long knife. "Neither of you exist in this world." The silver-haired man didn't turn, even as the boy from the sky lifted his arm and stood in front of him and the girl.

The dreamer wanted to call out. Was he going to kill them? That was not what a hero was supposed to do.

"I remember," the man repeated, "I remember everything."

"Then you shall repent in this world," said the boy. For some reason, the boy was still a boy, and not an adult.

"I remember your voice," said the silver-haired man. He pointed at the girl. "I remember her, but not like this."

The girl was a woman, and her expression fell upon this. She fingered her choppily cut hair, and then glanced at the boy.

"You will never love me," she said sadly.

"Because you're not real," replied the man. The boy's eyes flickered between the two of them, watching carefully. The man glared at the boy from the sky. He had one regular eye, and one crimson one, which matched that of the boy's. "You're not real either."

"I am very real." The boy took a step closer, and suddenly he was a man, as tall as the silverette and as dark as the man in the cave. His right hand tightened around the short sword, his skin emanating the same feeling as the man in the cave who had rejoiced as he lay there, dying. He rejoiced because he knew he had "it", and he could live on.

"You are not real. I didn't remember you like this," the silver-haired one said, retreating a step. "You two aren't like this."

"Because no matter what I did, you never loved me," said the woman. She glanced at the dark-haired man, wielding the sword. "And you never accepted him, no matter what he did."

"I did. In the end. Both of you, I loved you both, you were important to me, I—"

"You're lying." The woman stepped away from both of them. "You never loved me, anyway, because you were afraid of losing me, too."

"I did love you," the silver-headed man insisted. The dreamer could see a bead of sweat run down his temple and soak into the navy fabric of his mask. The dark-haired man from the sky brandished his blade, and pointed it at the silver one.

"She's right." He pushed the tip of the blade so that it was resting on the silver's chest, gleaming in the light that seemed to come from nowhere in the dream. The woman tried to grab the hand holding the blade, tried to tell the dark-haired man that there was no need to resort to violence, that they could all exist together without a problem, but her hand slipped straight through his arm. The dark-haired man turned slightly, revealing his only eye surrounded by scarred skin. "See? You are right, you only have to realize it."

"You're the one who is wrong," said the silver man, pushing the knife away.

"I'm saving you both," insisted the man from the sky. His voice nearly returned to that of the boy again, slightly lost but determined, and always full of grief.

"You're saving no one. She—" he pointed at the woman, "—is dead, and you are just a ghost. You don't exist."

"I exist. She exists with me. You're trying to lie to yourself."

"I'm not lying. I never lie to the people important to me, and I don't against my word. I'm protecting both of you," replied the light one.

"See? There it is, you're lying again."

"How am I lying?"

"You don't keep to your words! Especially not with those important to you. You throw them away!" hissed the man with the marred face, pulling his sword up again. The silver one backed away, hands up, trying to console his seemingly insane partner.

"I never meant to hurt anyone. You're supposed to rest in peace, now. Please Obit—"

"You let her die!" The scarred man thrust the knife at his lighter counterpart, but was obstructed—the woman had thrown herself in front of the knife, and had been impaled through the midsection. Blood poured from the wound and trickled from her mouth at an agonizingly slow pace, as she bent over and clutched the dark one's hand, hacking painfully.

The dark-haired man quickly withdrew his sword, and let it drop to the ground with a loud clatter. It clinked, as if it was metal against metal, despite falling against solid dirt. The dreamer heard it rattle and roll away, despite the contradictory shape.

"Why did you do that?!" demanded the dark-haired one, and the silver one repeated something along those lines.

"It's because," the woman began, wiping a stream of blood from her lips to clear her speech, "I…always loved you."

She didn't specify which one.

"See what you made me do?" said the dark-haired man. He turned on the other man, his red eye swirling into a shape that reminded the dreamer of someone she used to know. His eyes were as potent as that of the man and his blind brother, eyes that sought hatred and burned all that existed.

The man from the cave appeared, then. He placed his hands softly on the scarred one's shoulders, and gently pushed him forward, that ominous smile on his face again. His mouth widened into a maniacal grin that showed all of his teeth. However, within a moment, he closed his face into a stoic, arrogant expression, and backed away. The dreamer recognized him then; the smug, condescending attitude, eyes slightly narrowed as he glared at all from beneath his wild mane of hair.

The dreamer never got to see what happened to the silver one. She didn't even hear the sound of a knife slashing through skin, no sounds of battle, a fight, nothing. Not even the woman's body slumping to the ground with a fleshy thud. She didn't hear it, but she saw the woman, shrunk into a girl whose heart had been impaled, rather than her stomach.

"Uh oh. Looks like someone is watching," said the man of the cave. "It's been a while, hasn't it? What a surprise."

The man from the cave was suddenly moving very quickly, towards the dreamer. The dreamer tried to scream, but her voice had no volume, and at some points in time, she couldn't even see or feel her hands. The corners of her vision were hazy, and the two other men had already disappeared. The girl was staring at her now, her mouth moving slightly.

"Run."

The dreamer could not turn, and the man from the cave was nearly upon her.

"You saw how I waited so long, didn't you?" he asked, the grin returning to his features. "You saw everything. I couldn't move, so I let you live. You know that?"

Get away!

The dreamer's voice was useless. She backed away, since she couldn't see to the left, right, or behind her, trusting that there was land beneath her feet.

"Be careful, or you'll fall. I'll make you forget everything you've ever seen. You'll forget what your own hands look like," the man hissed. "Just like my brother did. That's it."

The dreamer knew his name, but she couldn't remember it. No, not in this state.

"I'll make that man suffer! He's dead, too, but I'll make him suffer in other ways! I'll make his brother suffer, and his wife, and all of those related to him! I'll kill them off one by one until they're all gone! You'll see. Because you've seen too much, you see?"

He was insane.

The dreamer felt she could turn and run now, but he was grabbing her shoulder with a blurry hand and in his other he produced a knife, and dull light flashed on the blade before it came down on the dreamer, and she screamed.

She screamed.

There was a horrible pain in her eyes, first cold, then hot, then liquid and boiling. She couldn't see anything, and her eyes were only sunken sockets, her hands now able to come up to touch her face, but still useless; she couldn't see them anyways.

"Forget that you can see."

The man touched her forehead.

"Forget that you exist."

Mariko was screaming, and Tobirama awoke with a start. He grabbed her shoulders and tried shaking her awake, but she only clawed at her eyes and tried pushing her away. The Senju called her name and fiercely hugged her to his chest to prevent any further thrashing and kicking. Her screams were muffled into his chest, and soon, they subsided, and Mariko's small body went limp.

"Mariko?" Tobirama brushed her hair out of her face, and felt her skin was slightly damp with sweat, and she was terrified. Her eyes were wide open now, and her fingers clutched around his shoulders tightly. He petted her hair for a moment, keeping her close, pressing a kiss to her forehead and murmuring little nothings to comfort her. He drew the covers closely around them, hoping to stop her sudden shivering. After a few minutes, Mariko relaxed completely, forehead pressed into the crook of Tobirama's shoulder.

"Nightmare?" Tobirama asked. She hadn't been sleeping well, recently.

"Yeah."

"The same one?"

"Yeah. Though this time, he got me." The last part she said quietly, almost inaudibly. Tobirama frowned. From her descriptions, there were several different characters in this dream, and as far as he knew, a woman had been killed. After that, a man had noticed her, and now he'd gotten her?

"He got you?"

"He gouged my eyes out and told me to—" Mariko withdrew into the covers, unable to continue. She touched her eyes, just to make sure they were still there. "Told me to forget that I exist."

"Well, you exist, all right. I'm sure of it. If you know that I exist, then you know that you do too," Tobirama answered gently, wrapping his arms around her small frame.

"I know who he was."

"You do?" Tobirama had tried to help her figure who was in her dreams. It seemed for sure that the other three were unidentifiable, but the one man who always noticed her always seemed to strike a few chords in her memories. He seemed oddly familiar to Tobirama, too, but her dreams were too vague to put a finger on it. Tobirama had always suspected that it was a dark man from her past, maybe a family member gone crazy. He had also begun to fear that the man was actually himself, and that she dreamed that he was killing her all the time. Now that she knew, he wondered who it was, because she hadn't run away from him in terror…

She nodded, turning her face to stare at the ceiling of their room.

"He was alive, and lived a long time. And then, he made some plan to become young again and take over the world."

"Who was it?" Tobirama wondered now, who would be crazy enough to take over the world. Her descriptions made him sound insane, almost bipolar—one moment maniacal, the next moment, stoic and serious with a cold and calculating stare. Just as easily, this unknown man would hop back into the loopy bin and then proceeded to kill people. This time, he gouged out Mariko's eyes. Tobirama cringed at the thought, and thought of how painful taking one's eyes out would be…

…Eyes… Tobirama frowned. Taken out?

He had a feeling he knew who this man was as well, and cursed the dead man for continually bringing pain to the Senju.

"It was Madara, wasn't it?" Tobirama inquired, his voice dripping with loathing.

Mariko nodded solemnly, touching her husband's hand. He obliged and intertwined fingers with her, holding their hands between them.

"He's dead now, so don't worry anymore," Tobirama reassured her. "If anything happens, I'll protect you. Anything or anyone that wishes to harm you will do it over my dead body."

Mariko smiled a little bit at this, relieving Tobirama slightly. Comforted, the two of them held each other close, trying to get back to sleep. Tobirama knew for a fact that when it came to Mariko, he wouldn't die so easily. He closed his eyes, inhaling the slightly green tea flavored scent of her hair, and drifted to sleep. Mariko remained awake for a few moments longer, knowing that she had purposely remained silent because she hadn't wanted to tell him.

Instead, she thought it miserably to herself.

Madara is alive.

And then there was a clattering outside their window, and Mariko shifted to look. She thought she saw the shadows of several jointed legs skittering away from the glass pane, but dismissed it as a hallucination from her still confused, terrified dream state. The blunette rested her head on Tobirama's arm, her body curled around him and relishing his warmth. The warmth assured her that he would keep the dreams away, at least for another night. Mariko vowed that she would rid herself of these dreams; Madara had no right to inflict pain on them, and he would not get the best of her. Not now, and not ever.

The hundred-legged being clattered down to the place, a hole in the earth where its master lived in silence. Being an abnormally large bug, the creature made its way carefully back to the cavern to hide its presence. This was a different country's territory, after all.

"Did you deliver my message?" its master asked.

The bug chattered animatedly, pleased to have finished its task.

"Well done." The master shifted on his seat.

"Perhaps tomorrow, or the day after, we'll show her how Hashirama died, eh? It's too bad he killed me first." The master laughed, and again, the bug hopped excitedly, front legs clicking together to express its delight.

"I don't know how you delivered my message in that dream, but you seem to be rather proud of it. Tell me, what did you send? I hope I was included. Oh, so I was alive?"

The bug slithered up the wall, tapping it with its hundred feet, clicking and chattering and shooting from one corner of the cavern to the other.

"You can tell the future, you say? Well, that's interesting." The master chuckled. "No matter. I can easily tell the future. It's called…

"The End."

Madara opened his eyes. The boy was sleeping peacefully on the bed. It seemed that his dear centipede had, in fact, foretold the future. He only recalled briefly what the centipede had showed him of the dream, and then the bug's short moment of watching Tobirama try to comfort his wife, through the window. Other than that, Madara was sure that the little blunette and her Senju husband were fretting. Sooner or later, they would realize that he would always haunt them to torture the Senju. It was too bad that Mito's seals soon prevented ugly nightmares like that from entering the town. Obitopede himself had been stopped in his tracks at the Fire Country border, Mito's seals were so potent.

"Madara." The boy turned now, and tested his new arm. "Are you awake?"

Madara had closed his eyes, though, and appeared asleep again.

"Madara," the boy repeated, "I'm going to leave."

The boy sighed. Even threats of leaving didn't work. The old man knew well enough that the young Uchiha was not yet well enough to bust out of the old cavern. He could hardly walk as he was, already. The swirl-face one sat the foot of the boy's bed, watching him curiously. Zetsu just smiled.

"Whatever," the boy scoffed. "G'night, guys."

"Night, Obito," Zetsu and the swirl-faced one replied in unison.

However, Madara saw that the boy had not fallen asleep, but was staring at him instead. He knew that the boy noticed, already, that Madara was awake.

I'm leaving, he mouthed, eye narrowed as he frowned fiercely. Madara widened his Sharingan eye at the younger one, intending to teach him something.

Teach him what? That he would thank him, and thank him well he would. He would not leave without a price.

I can give this back to you. Madara's whisper shimmered like a dream over to the boy, who shuddered. An image of himself appeared in his head, a healthy, young Uchiha with his team.

I can get it back myself! The boy snapped the image out of his brain.

Madara smiled, a slightly eerie expression.

He would learn.

Leave, eh? The boy was sure to return, and Madara knew it. It was only a matter of time until he learned that there was no such thing as true peace, and that in order to bring back those lost, he had to follow Madara. He could hear the boy's wails of agony, and he easily used Zetsu to see that his so-called "love" had been killed. Madara watched the wood branch from the boy's body, satisfied that he had chosen the right "hero". The right heir, in a way.

"That's why I'm back," the boy finished matter-of-factly after his story.

"You didn't kill that other boy. Sympathy for an old teammate?" Madara rasped through old, dry lips.

"No. It doesn't matter, he'll exist in the next world, anyways."

Madara was satisfied. This was the boy he had waited for. The earth itself had given the boy to him. He taught the young Uchiha how to create a dream world, along with as much as the boy could possibly learn about the Sage of the Six Path's techniques, with his Senju and Uchiha body.

"We can make anything we want," Madara said, his old, hoarse voice morphing into that of a young man as he appeared youthful in front of the boy, who stared at him in wonder. "This time, I really can give this back to you."

He morphed, in the dream world, a girl. No blood, no tears, no scars on her heart.

She opened her mouth to say the boy's name.

Obito's eyes snapped open, then. He paused, longing to hear Rin say his name a last time before he set off. However, he was disgruntled that he had fallen asleep, and shifted against the tree he had leaned against a few hours ago. What was happening now? Ah, yes.

"Time for a new mask," he said to himself, fingering the broken orange one that was the same as swirl-man's face. One had been broken off in Konan's blast of paper bombs as he began sucking them in with Kamui, and the other side he'd snapped off himself to use Izanagi. As for his right arm, which was also blown off, he would have no difficulty growing it back with more of Hashirama's cells. He'd snapped the arm off while fighting Danzo's underlings, and he had no problem losing it again. The first time, it had taken months and months of training to build his strength again, but "Tobi" had mastered all the tricks of his trade by now.

Time for a new mask? You're getting slow, Obito. It's time for a new world.

Obito shook his head, and brushed the voice away, heading back towards his base, where no doubt Kabuto was probably snooping around, while White Zetsu complained and Black Zetsu—the old man's will—grumbled darkly.

Getting old?

"Not as old as you, Madara."

NARUTO-CEPTION.

It's a dream, within a dream, within a dream.

No, Madara doesn't dream about Tobirama hugging Mariko (lol). That part's real life.

-mindblown!- (not really)

I wonder if the world dreams, sometimes. If it just witnesses bits and portions of its inhabitant's dreams, at a speed faster than light.

Well, I also wonder if Obitopede dreams. XD

Oh, and two clicks of its front feet plus a happy dance is "I LOVE YOU MASTER MADARA!"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Well, this was VERY weird. Hope you thought it a bit interesting, though.