Sasuke stood up. "What was that?" Beyond him, Sakura gaped. Not for long, Obito was sure; she was smart, if naive.

"I made it up," was his explanation, which naturally explained almost nothing. "You need really really excellent chakra control or you'll explode either the desk or your hand. Like, upper-tier medic-level chakra control."

Sakura found her voice. "You've been experimenting with that? It sounds like it could be lethal. You didn't get hurt, did you?" She looked rather like she was ready to lunge for his hands to check for herself.

Obito shook his head. "Not more than sprained joints and lots of dislocated bones. I blew up a ton of trees though. If I felt it start to go wrong, I made sure it went wrong outside my body. But most of the things we learn in school are lethal anyway, and a bunch of my aunts have good chakra control and stuff so they helped." Then, to make sure they didn't copy him: "It's important to always experiment with a buddy, y'know. Especially ones with medical experience."

Sasuke frowned, but agreed that was a pretty good idea. Well, he just went "Hn" but Obito was raised by Uchiha, he knew what it meant even if he couldn't quite read all the microexpressions that conveyed the sentiment anymore. Stupid weak eyes, everything was so much less clear now. The sharingan was the only doujutsu that could pick up that level of detail while inactivated, and other doujutsu users like the Hyuuga never knew what to look for.

Sakura latched onto the part he'd hoped they'd skim over. "Your aunts have medical experience? Do they work at the hospital?"

He definitely didn't fidget, but he did hop up to sit on the desk next to them. "Not... no. It's a necessity. I, uh, live in the bad part of town... Yamamoto, y'know? So it's practical to know."

"Yamamoto... like the orphanage?" Sakura inquired. If he really was an orphan he'd have clocked her a good one for the insensitivity, right upside the head.

Wait, he was an orphan. Twice over.

He reached out and clocked her a good one, right upside the head. Gently, gently, she didn't know how to reinforce her body with chakra yet. "Have some tact, yeesh. But no, not the orphanage. Think the other bad part of town where kids are named Yamamoto."

"Eep!" Red-light district. Brothels. He could almost see the realization hitting her, right where his open hand had.

"Yeah," he agreed, faking nonchalance. "We get orphans and runaways and drop-offs and accidents. God knows who my parents were." He swallowed thickly around the half-truth. "I kind of always thought I'd end up a raven, but since Uchiha-san's in our team, we're probably going to be more of a genjutsu-centric team. Ninjutsu, maybe." He didn't mention that her 'exotic' looks would have only added to his assumption about the fate of his team, if not for the fact that the Last Uchiha would never end up on a seduction-based team. The council wouldn't stand for it. Even if, purely technically speaking, Uchiha were excellent for seduction missions despite their distinctive looks.

Stars, but he hated having to think of children in those terms. It was true, too true even, but still. In wartime people looked to children for power before anything else. Yeah, there were sickos to target, but during war it was more efficient to just get an assembly-line assassin in than a child seduction specialist that needed extra training.

"They wouldn't arrange genin teams based on... that, would they?" Sakura wrung her hands. Obito pitied her. He wished she was right.

He shrugged at her. "My looks aren't widespread knowledge, so it was probably safer not to risk me being defective. But yeah, I'm pretty sure team arrangements are still Third-War-standard, so they definitely make specialized teams this early. In peace, it just means they can afford the time and resources to train us specially. And some people out there are sick. So. Yeah."

"No one's seen your face?" Sasuke asked. Good, the kid was opening up. Aaand he'd spotted one of Obito's microexpressions and extrapolated from there, straight into the truth. Damn.

"Nope. I mean, I'm sure I look like my parents, but they could be, I don't know, some foreign diplomat or something. That would be bad." He tugged at his scarf. "So I keep my face covered. Even I haven't seen my face in years. It's probably freaky-looking."

Sakura sat next to him on the desk, fingers twitching like she wanted to rip his scarf off. Jokes on her, I'm wearing a mask today too~! "How do you eat?"

Sasuke looked interested too.

Obito laughed, only a little bitterly. "Talent. And practice. And going hungry when I fail—so, incentive." He tilted his head to look at Sakura, stifling a wicked smirk. "How about you guys?"

"What about us?" Sasuke grumbled, retreating. He probably spotted a mischief tell.

"How do you go around all day with bare faces? That's like being naked, you know!" He cackled. "It's like everyone in the world is a nudist except me! It's so weird!"

Sakura squawked, then burst out laughing too. "We're not weird! You're the one covering too much!"

"That's exactly what a nudist would say!"

"Shut up, shut up, oh my god, shut up!" Sakura jostled him, shaking uncontrollably with laughter and nearly falling off the desk. "Shuuuut uuuuup!"

"Nudists, nudists, nudists, nu—mmph!" He waited for the relief to wash over her face, then at the first sign of her confusion at the feel of the gas mask under his scarf, belted out "NUDISTS!"

Sakura screamed.

"Pff."

Sakura whipped around to stare at Sasuke, and Obito turned too. He had just laughed. Uchiha Sasuke, famed for being a brooding loner, was snickering quietly into his hands at their antics.

So there is a preteen boy in there, under all the angst.

Eye-scrunching cheerfully in Sasuke's direction, he yelled "NUDISTS!" and gesticulated wildly, almost hitting Sakura. "I've brought enlightenment to a few of the naked peoples! One is even trying to preserve his modesty! Sakura, you should try to preserve your modesty as well!"

Shoulders shaking, she raised her hands to cup her mouth and nose. "Am I covered properly, oh knowledgeable one?" She managed through the giggles.

So there is a preteen girl under that fangirl act.

"You could do better, but I am glad you've seen the light." Obito nodded sagely. "I'm always happy to help my errant nudist teammates find the path to being clothed."

"T-thank you, oh w-wise one," Sakura managed to say. "You have sh-sh-shown me the way!"

"Now that you two have been shown the way," he announced, eyeing the way Sasuke was still covering his mouth while pretending he wasn't, he used chakra strings to grab his backpack from the top tier, unzipping it midair and withdrawing his spare scarf and emergency cloth mask before landing the open bag in the chair next to him and floating the scarf to Sasuke and the mask to Sakura. "It would be most irresponsible of me to leave you, tormented, naked and aware of your nakedness. Please accept these offerings of clothes, to cover yourselves temporarily."

There was a kind of gravity to his words. It felt awfully vulnerable, like a bearing of his inner self. Obito didn't like it.

When Sakura and Sasuke grabbed the floating equipment at the same time, looking to him for instruction, his heart felt like it was trying to both suffocate him and boil him alive. He was glad his mask hid telltale blushing.

"Uchiha-san, that just winds around your face like a regular scarf. I have tape if you need it. The ends can tuck into your shirt and be less of a grabbing hazard. And Haruno-san," he turned to face her, hooking fingers into the extremely elastic mask to demonstrate, "this is really stretchy without being constricting or loose, so you can just bunch it up and pull it over your head, there's stick points with bits of rubber to help it stay up if you need that. There, tuck the ends into your shirt, like that."

"Do you use tape? It can't be good for your skin," Sakura asked, muffled, then looked surprised and repeated herself with better projection.

Obito shook his head and kicked his feet a little. "Both are meant to be held up with chakra, but that takes really good control. Usually with chakra strings, actually, which is what I used to grab my bag, but I just use the chakra like glue since it's directly touching my skin and not, like, a festival mask. Don't try, it'll get stuck to your face and you'll need a hospital trip to have it removed. Not that I know from experience or anything." Nope. Nope he was not going to tell them about the time Aoyagi-nee had to take him to the hospital to have a yokai mask pried off his face. It left scars over his face tenketsu for a year. No way. They didn't need to know.

Sakura squinted at him. "...Like that time you came to class for a whole week holding a frying pan and refused to let go for anything."

"Nuh-uh!" he denied on instinct. "Um. Actually..."

"Ha!"

Sasuke snickered again, fiddling with the scarf to make it stop drooping over his nose.

"Hmph. Wait, you remember that?"

Sakura looked surprised. "Huh? Yeah, you were holding a frying pan for a week straight. Sensei gave you lunch detention."

He gave her a sidelong glance, eyes flickering away quickly. "...but you didn't even know my name during team announcements."

Another glance showed her to be horrorstricken. "Oh! I'm sorry! I didn't really... I can't believe I forgot about that! I'm sorry! I couldn't place the name to the face, sensei never calls on you for anything, ever. It, um, made sense once I saw you, but... not before that. Sorry, Yamamoto-san. Um. Actually, would -kun be okay? Or Obito-san?"

Obito burrowed into his scarf. "...yeah, those are good. I, uh. Using -kun is better, Haruno...-chan?"

"Haruno-chan is fine. Or, um... Sakura-san is fine too."

"That's good," he said quietly, shuffling his scarf up to around his ears. "Oh, uh, Uchiha-san, do you want us to use -kun too? Or is -san better?"

Damn, giving him the scarf was a bad idea. This way, Obito missed at least seventy percent of the microexpressions blatant enough for his inferior eyesight to catch, not even including the thousands he was already unable to see.

Sasuke eventually told them, lowly and with some uncertainty, "Keep with -san for now, please. Sasuke-san is... alright, though." He was definitely pretty uncomfortable with it, which was the opposite of Obito's goal. Sasuke and Sakura both had shit teamwork skills, so bonding and comfort was the most important thing right now.

"I think I'll save Sasuke-san for later," Obito decided aloud. "Tomorrow, I think, or the day after."

"I'll..." Sakura seemed to gather herself, throwing her shoulders back and lifting her chin. "I'll do the same then, U-Uchiha-san."

Sasuke's look of profound relief was obvious even with the scarf. It made Sakura wilt just a little, but she seemed to quickly reaffirm something within herself, and sat up all the straighter for it.

How interesting.

"Now when our sensei comes, I can call them late and a nudist," Obito said decisively, taking them off that topic to lighten the mood. "Only an asshole would be this late, so they deserve what they get."

"...you really shouldn't call jounin lazy assholes, Yamamoto-kun," Sakura pointed out, following up with a reasonable "especially if they're the one teaching us."

He conceded. "Fair point. But the nudist thing is now an inside joke between the genin of Team Seven, so I'm still gonna call 'em a nudist. We can explain later—if we like them."

"Inside jokes!" Sakura cried and punched the air. "Shannaro!"

"...Hn." But it was a hn of approval.

"Anyway... I told you guys my hobby. What about yours?" He rested his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands.

"I train too," Sasuke revealed.

"Yeah, but is that the only thing you do? What about other fun? Do you think training is fun?"

The skin around Sasuke's eyes tightened.

"It's totally cool if you like training, you know?" Obito babbled, frantically backpedaling before he could undo all of Sasuke's defrosting with one dumb question. "I think just rote practicing ninjutsu is super boring, like with taijutsu. Not genjutsu because I love genjutsu but if I had to do it formulaically eighteen times a day for training, I wouldn't like it either. But I love doing advanced chakra control exercises because I think they're cool and useful. I like making up jutsu because I like surprising people. I like music because, duh, auditory genjutsu, but also because I, for no apparent reason, happen to love music. They coincide with training, and that just makes them twice as appealing to me. I don't have to do any of them."

"You missed bukijutsu," Sasuke pointed out, eyes still tight. Without his visible features changing, he admitted, "I like practicing shurikenjutsu tricks. They're too flashy to be practical but they're... cool. And good for dexterity. ...and I like swords."

Seventy percent off in his predictions. That was a thoughtful tightness, and the original words were just stalling. Not reluctance or recalcitrance or tightly-controlled anger. Dammit.

That tiny new crease was definitely laughter at Obito's expense.

"Neat!" He tried to pretend he wasn't embarrassed, glad his mask and hair covered anything that could blush. "Show some to me, us, sometime?" Obito requested, fidgeting with the neck of his scarf.

(Being the social bubbly one was so much easier than being the mature one. It softened the blow to his (former) rap as the immature, childish one.)

"Alright." The slight crinkling around the eyes betrayed his happiness. That was an obvious tell.

Sakura picked up where he left off, so Obito didn't have to guide the conversation as much anymore. Good. That meant they were getting more comfortable, and besides, driving small talk and giving exposition got exhausting. He made it a point to turn more so his body was angled more towards her, for subconscious encouragement. "I like reading, and, um, styling hair." She seemed to be bracing herself for something. "I've been trying to find good scentless toiletries but the really actually scentless ones are harsh and the civilian ones aren't actually scentless. So I've been doing little trials and... and I want to try making my own soaps."

That was actually fascinating. Shinobi soaps were all-purpose-in-one-bar and tended to be strong enough to strip paint, three or four layers of skin, and all the moisture from your hair. Getting it in your eyes necessitated an immediate trip to the hospital. A soap that was gentler but still kept to the same scentless standard (aka so scentless it literally reduced your own natural scent) would be a massive hit. Obito himself would shell out major ryo for something like that.

"That's amazing," he told her, and Sasuke nodded along, emphatically for him. Uchiha had genetically sensitive skin and eyes, so shinobi soap was hell. "If you need someone to test it, or help, or anything, let me know. I will be there. That's a super cool hobby to have—I don't know anyone else who makes soap, but it sounds really neat."

"It's not, um, weird?"

He tilted his head, taking care to look innocently puzzled in a way that wouldn't embarrass her. "Not at all? A little uncommon, maybe, but not weird. Seems kind of like a scaled up version of those make-your-own kits, with the bath salts and lip balm." ...He hastened to make it sound less like he'd bought them. Just because he had didn't mean he needed to admit it! "I just saw some in store windows, haha! Haha... ha..."

Sakura covered her mouth even over the mask, laughing silently at his verbal stumbling. Sasuke was laughing in his own way; it was all in the eyes.

He would've been more upset if he didn't know they were laughing at his lame cover-up, and not the activity itself. He was exposed to quite enough toxic masculinity and unreasonable gender norms, thanks to the House's civilian patrons.

With a pout, Obito crossed his arms. "...So what if I like them! They're cool. And what you're tryin'a do with the soap sounds even cooler."

"Really?"

"Yeah. It's cool," Obito said assertively. "We're teammates now so if anyone says anything mean you have to tell me and I have to punch them for you."

"She can punch them herself," Sasuke grunted. Was that offense on Sakura's behalf? Probably not. Mikoto-obasama had been a ninja, it may just have been general offense.

"Well, duh." Sakura was turning steadily pinker in the ears as the two spoke about her. "But sometimes it's nice not to have to fight for yourself. It's what good teammates are for."

"...Teammates make you weak," Sasuke said after a while, sounding vaguely like he was quoting someone.

"No, the only one who can make you weak is yourself," Obito disagreed. "Good teammates watch your back, and you watch theirs, and it means you can all focus more on what you need to. If they're not as strong, you work together to make up for it. Trust is worth more than rogue strength, y'know." At least, that was how it had worked with—with the old Team Seven. Kakashi-teme had always been stronger than him and Rin-chan, probably always would be, but under Minato-sensei they'd all banded together really well anyway. Rin had learned to heal and Obito worked on traps, and with Kakashi as the main offensive strength (aside from Minato-sensei, who acted only as support when he could get away with it) they'd been really really good. They were the monster team of their generation, while they'd lasted.

Sakura and Sasuke startled and stared at him.

It'd be nice if the same could eventually be said of this Team Seven.

Unofficial preview of 7:

Obito stands just in front of the doorway of the classroom when he hears their teacher approaching, one hand planted on his hip and the other already pointing, and when the door opens he shouts "ITS A NU—"

He freezes.

Sasuke folds over in an attempt to hide his silent laughter. Sakura throws her head back, kicks her feet, and cackles.

Kakashi, face covered in a cloth mask like Sakura's and his hitai-ate covering one eye, as per usual, glances down from his book at his strange new student, seemingly frozen in place. He idly wonders if the brat'd fall over and shatter if he gave him a good poke, but resists the temptation. "What's that, kid?"

Obito lets his hands drop limply and wilts over so he's staring despondently at the floor. "...Nudist," he mumbles.

Sakura, still laughing breathlessly, shriek-giggles "He's even more covered than you!" and almost falls off the table.

Sasuke is still wheezing faintly, doubled over in his seat.

Obito sags further.

"...Right," Kakashi says at last. "Now that that's out of the way, meet me on the roof in five minutes." He turns to leave, and says to himself, loud enough that the three genin can hear, "They get weirder every year..."

Sakura's laughter follows him all the way to the roof.