Obito-Sensei Chapter 75

Finds Their Resolve

It was past midnight when Sasuke realized he knew that Hinata was going to die.

He'd stayed at her side for all day after the attack, accompanied by a rotating shift of Hyuuga and medical ninja. Over that time, Hinata had only gotten worse: her spasms of pain had intensified, her breathing more labored. She was dying right in front of him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

Again.

It was easier to kill someone than it was to save someone, Sasuke thought, and the same went for everything else. It wasn't a profound thought; the logic was mundane to him. He'd been strong enough to avenge Hinata, but not strong enough to keep what he'd done from being vengeance in the first place.

His mother was alive. She'd visited him at around midnight, covered in bandages and wearing an eyepatch: she'd strained her eye, but it was still intact. The Uchiha clan had weathered yet another storm, and proved themselves critical to driving the assault off. Kushina was alive as well, just like Naruto had said, though his mother had told him she'd been terribly injured by the Akatsuki; the seal had nearly broken. The Nine-Tailed Fox had been seconds away from being unleashed on the whole village.

He hadn't seen Obito. His sensei was still running around the village even now, saving people trapped in flooded and collapsed buildings and guiding his summoned toads in the clean-up effort. Sasuke had to admire the effort, especially since right now he couldn't even get himself out of a chair.

Hinata was going to die before he got a chance to really know her. He could have called it unfair, but that clearly wasn't how things worked. Suigetsu was proof of that, along with everything else.

With a clarity reserved for someone with precognition, Sasuke was sure that Hinata was going to die, that he'd sacrificed some of his vision, burned some of his future, and still lost what he'd fought to defend in the end. He was sure that telling her to stay and fight had been a mistake even though she'd proved herself beyond a shadow of a doubt, because it had ended in her death and left him untouched.

He couldn't have known that six hours from then a miracle was going to occur. So he stayed in his chair, locked at her side, hand wrapped around hers in a death grip, and prayed she'd be able to forgive him for the mistakes he'd made.

###

On the morning of the 19th of April, Rin Nohara had been awake for twenty-three hours, had personally treated two-hundred and thirty-seven casualties, and was starting to consider that Sasori of the Red Sand might legitimately have been an alien, or an extradimensional invader, or a time traveler; some kind of person with access to developments the rest of the world was ignorant to.

His poison was perfect in an awful, admirable way. Rin was no stranger to poison; you couldn't be a medic without synthesizing some of your own every once in a while, not to mention how common it was in the ninja world made knowledge of treating it a necessity. But Sasori's was a brutal lose-lose where the cures could be worse than the disease, and after losing sixteen more ninja to it Rin was legitimately beginning to worry the rogue ninja from Sand was going to have the last laugh.

Pondering the question alone in her office and wondering if she could justify a thirty-minute nap, Rin was startled out of her spiteful doze as the door clicked open. Her first thought was hope that it was Obito, but the reality wasn't as exciting.

Tanjiro stuck his head through in his characteristically nervous way, giving her an apologetic look. Somehow he was one of the only people Rin knew who had managed to make it through the invasion completely unscathed; a minor and welcome miracle, considering he'd been in the thick of the fighting on the western side of the village and how indispensable his medical jutsu had been since then.

"Lady Nohara," he said, and Rin straightened up, seeing the concern in his icy blue eyes. "There's a commotion downstairs."

"A commotion?" she asked, shaking off her disappointment and making her way around her desk as Tanjiro fully opened the door. "What do you mean?"

"Someone forced their way into the medical suites," he said, and Rin blinked. "They're in a standoff with ANBU now. I'm not sure how the situation has progressed."

"Oh for god's…" Rin rubbed her temple, shaking her head and grabbing her gloves from her desk. "I'll deal with it. I could use something to punch."

Her head wound had been healed; her arm had been fully set. The cut on her scalp had been courtesy of a Rain ninja with a tanto and a dream: her arm had been thanks to trading punches with a Tailed Beast. The Rain ninja had died with an embarrassing look on their face, and the Hokage and Jiraiya of the Sannin had taken care of the Sanbi before it could more fully show her the difference in their strength.

Still, she'd never punched a Tailed Beast before. Rin stretched out her fingers as she hopped down the stairs after Tanjiro, remembering the sensation of trying to move a living hill with her bare hands. It had been thrilling, terrifying: the first time she'd fought alongside Obito since the mess in the Hidden Waterfall.

She'd enjoyed it, even if everything else had been horrible. Rin didn't love fighting by itself, but seeing Obito fight so hard to keep her and others safe had lit something in her.

Racing down the stairs, Rin began to hear the commotion Tanjiro had mentioned: people were shouting, and there was a metallic clatter. It sounded like a gurney getting thrown across the room.

That tickled something at the back of her tired brain, but it wasn't until she burst onto the scene that things came together.

A mob of ANBU, medical personnel, and other irate ninja had gathered in the hall leading into one of the medical wards that dominated most of the first floor. They were trying to force their way past a young woman with straight black hair who had a pig perched on her head, who was alternatively loudly apologizing and moving a gurney back and forth to block them.

"Very sorry!" she said, flipping the bed up and knocking back an ANBU who tried to jump over it. "She just needs a moment!"

Rin stopped, barely able to believe what she was seeing, and then called out with a voice full of authority that she'd cultivated over a decade and so. Her doctor-voice, Obito would call it. "Clear the hall!" she roared, and even the ANBU jumped to obey, getting out of the way as she stalked forward.

Shizune saw her coming and swallowed, taking her hands off the gurney and raising them with obvious caution. "Lady Nohara!" she said, and Rin scoffed at the title. "I'm very sorry; she just stormed right in. I tried to tell her-"

"Out of the way, Shizune," Rin demanded, and Shizune hesitated.

"But-"

"Move, or I'll move you," Rin said flatly, and Shizune grimaced and acquiesced, standing aside as the pig on her head squealed in dismay. Rin pushed past her and slammed the doors open.

Tsunade was there moving among the wounded with her hands clasped behind her back, taking in the devastation with a stolid expression. She turned, registering Rin but not acknowledging her as she entered, and then continued her patrol, examining everyone on the first floor. It was devoted to those who were no longer in critical condition but required rest; dozens of beds were lined up head to foot in rows that spanned the whole room.

"Lady Tsunade," Rin said, mustering up every ounce of courtesy she had left. "You can't barge into my hospital like this. You've spooked the ANBU."

"Clearly not too badly, or they would have forced their way in," Tsunade said dismissively. She was going row by row, and only had two left. "What a mess this is."

Rin waited, knowing that speaking again wouldn't help anything. Tsunade had put her mind to something, and she wasn't the kind of woman whose mind you could change with words alone.

"Well, it's just as I was told," Tsunade finally said, turning to approach her. "The village really did get sucker punched. I could barely believe it on the way in."

"I'm shocked you got here so fast," Rin said, calculating the best way to turn this unlikely arrival to the village's advantage. Tsunade being here changed a lot, but her former master was fickle; there was no guarantee she'd stay and offer her services, and Rin frankly wasn't the right person to make those negotiations happen.

But Tsunade had forced her to be by going straight to the hospital. Because she'd wanted this confrontation, or just out of caprice? With her, it was impossible to tell.

"I was close by. And I still have my sources," Tsunade said, which Rin couldn't help but chuckle at. Tsunade gave her a sour look. "But I was just told the obvious: Rain made a huge mistake."

She looked around. "I came here to see someone, though, not just sightsee. Where's sensei?"

In a moment of crude clarity, Rin saw the path forward.

"He's dead," she said, trying to be blunt without sounding cruel, and Tsunade stared at her.

"He's dead?" she echoed. The Senju truly hadn't expected that, that much was obvious. And who would? The Third Hokage was a legend across the entire world, someone who'd defined the age of the villages. He was infamous, invincible, immortal.

Until yesterday.

"He was injured in the attack," Rin said, letting her genuine remorse bleed through. "I wasn't there, but I know everyone tried to save him with all their strength. But it wasn't enough; I guess his age affected him more than he let anyone know."

Tsunade had drawn closer, her face pale and eyes narrow. "The Third Hokage wouldn't die from something like that," she said, her voice a harsh whisper, and Rin realized just how deeply she'd cut without knowing. She modified her approach a little; too much, and more than just the Hokage would die.

"He was poisoned," she said, and Tsunade shook her head. "Rain hired a mercenary, Sasori of the Red Sands. Whatever poison he used killed the Third in less than an hour."

"That's absurd," Tsunade said, her voice clipped, struggling to keep herself under control.

"It is absurd." Rin fiddled with her glove, an old nervous tell which she knew Tsunade would notice. "There were many others who Sasori poisoned that have survived, though. Nearly a hundred. Most of them are younger."

"And you've cured them?" Tsunade snapped at her, and Rin shook her head.

"No. I can't, at least, not in time." She gave Tsunade a grim look. "I didn't learn all your secrets, Lady Tsunade. There might be something I'm missing, but from where I'm standing, I don't think I can save the other ninja. Sasori's poison is simply too complicated."

"You always gave up too easily." Tsunade hurled the insult like a knife, but Rin didn't mind. "They're still alive, aren't they? Save them. That's your responsibility. There's no such thing as a poison too deadly to cure, only doctors too stupid to cure it."

"I would appreciate your assistance," Rin said quietly, and Tsunade turned away in a huff. "After all, if you'd been here from the start, I'm sure even the Third Hokage could have been saved."

The rogue Sannin froze, and Rin watched her carefully, waiting to see if her barb had landed in the right spot. The moment stretched into a dangerous silence, six seconds of it.

"Who do you think you are?" Tsunade asked, her voice deadly quiet, and Rin bowed her head.

"One of your only students," she said. "I know better than anyone what a genius you are, Tsunade. If anyone can save those ninja, it's you. If you walk away now, we'll try to save them. But most likely, we'll fail. Their deaths will be slow."

Tsunade lingered, on the line between staying and walking away once more, and Rin held her breath.

"You're cruel, Rin Nohara," Tsunade eventually said. "I never liked that about you."

"Ninja are cruel, Lady Tsunade," Rin said. "I think I'm just direct." She hesitated. "And those afflicted by the poison aren't bleeding. They're just suffering organ failure. It shouldn't be difficult for you to treat them, if you're inclined."

"I'll take a look," Tsunade said. "I can't promise more than that." She turned back around, wiping away a tear, and Rin felt a flash of guilt. But just a flash.

"Lead me to them."

###

On the evening of the 19th, Naruto was trying to understand how far outclassed he was.

He'd poked at Sasori's poison that morning along with some other medical ninja, determined to subvert the jutsu formula that was powering it and reverse its command. It had felt hopeless to him, and the fact that his father hadn't already done it made it obvious to him in hindsight that it wasn't really possible. Working with jutsu shiki on that scale was a genius all its own, but probably one that only Sasori of the Red Sands had believed possible until now. Naruto had been fumbling in the dark, and given up. His focus had shifted; the poison had to be removed, no matter how dangerous an endeavor it was.

But that had been seemingly impossible too; even recycling one of the victim's entire blood supply had left too much left over, which had rapidly spread back into their system. It had been stupid, and frustrating, and Naruto had felt that he'd lied to Shikamaru for no good reason because there was nothing he could do.

Then Tsunade showed up.

Her solution had been simple; remove the poison, while simultaneously regenerating anything destroyed by the tainted cells' forced ejection. Purple bile had poured from the incisions she'd made around the points of injection where weapons or projectiles had scored flesh. A simple solution, but still impossible, Naruto had thought. Diagnosing the infected cells and removing them from the body while simultaneously regenerating replacements for them was theoretically possible, but the chakra control for it was absurd. Not just something that would make the Rasengan look like a child's toy, but something that didn't physically seem possible to him. It was a one person job, because the clash of multiple chakras inside someone's body while undertaking an operation like that could very easily overwhelm their chakra system and induce universal organ failure.

Tsunade hadn't cared.

She'd singlehandedly rebuilt nervous systems, restored riddled organs, and dumped the poisonous goop that the cells became upon exit into a vast array of vials and beakers for future study. She'd done it all with a dismissive effort, like they were all stupid for not having done it the day before, and then she'd left.

Naruto was sure he'd learned from great medics. Kabuto had treated flesh like clay; Nōno had never seen a trauma she couldn't mend in an hour. Naruto himself, when he felt like patting himself on the back, was a great medic. He'd saved a lot of people in his career, even done the impossible a couple times like with Kagami.

But Tsunade was so far beyond him that it made Naruto feel like a child again. He didn't like it. At all. That's why he was currently sitting with Rin, Sasuke, and Hinata as Obito's old teammate completed her checkup on the Hyuuga.

"Where do you think she went?" he asked, and Rin shrugged.

"Probably to one of the other hospitals. There were some other interesting cases, like Tenten. I told her about them before she left," she said, pulling her glowing hand away from Hinata's neck. The Hyuuga looked incredulous that she was alive, and Sasuke was about the same. They kept glancing at each other and smiling: Naruto couldn't tell if it was cute or ridiculous.

Naruto had been right that Tenten was tough: he'd been wrong about her being okay. The older girl was on life support in the eastern hospital; her spine and chakra system had been so damaged by Haku's senbon that some of the medical ninja who'd attended to her had been convinced she'd never be able to return to duty.

But if she was one of the people Tsunade was going to personally attend to, Naruto couldn't help but be sure that she'd be alright in the end. The Sannin was a walking medical miracle, one he was jealous of.

"If you're looking for her, Naruto, I can help you find her," Hinata said, and Naruto gave her an appreciative nod. "Right, Rin-sensei?" she asked, looking at Rin with a hopeful look.

Rin gave an exasperated sigh. "You should need bed-rest, but you don't. Do whatever you want."

"Crazy," Sasuke said, shaking his head. "You sure you're okay?"

"I feel great," Hinata said brightly. She turned and squeezed Sasuke's hand, and to Naruto's great amusement he went bright red.

"Thank you for staying with me," she said, and as Sasuke's blush deepened Naruto made kissy-faces at him over Hinata's shoulder, knowing he wouldn't be able to react. Rin smirked at the both of them. "It helped."

"I thought you were going to die," Sasuke said. A little too frank for the moment, but it didn't look like Hinata minded. Somehow, he completely ignored Naruto, which was honestly pretty impressive. "I would never have left."

There was a potential for an awkward silence there but Rin interrupted it. "Why are you looking for her?" she asked, and Naruto cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Isn't it obvious?" he said. Rin scoffed. "I'm gonna ask her for some tips."

"You and every other medical ninja in the world," Rin said, not too derisive to be mean but definitely not kindly. "I wouldn't bother, Naruto."

"You trained with her, didn't you?" he said. "Why couldn't I do it?"

"She only did it as a favor to the Third," Rin said, obviously a little melancholy. The reality of the Third's death still hadn't set in for Naruto; he wasn't sure when it would, if ever. It was kind of like hearing that a law of physics had stopped working. "He recommended me to her right after the Third War ended; even then, it didn't work out. We weren't…" She made a face like she was sucking on a lemon. "Compatible."

"Well, maybe I am!" Naruto declared. Sasuke gave him a dubious look, and he stuck his tongue out at him.

"How do you feel about drinking?" Rin asked.

"Can't do it yet."

"Gambling?"

"Really good at it!" Naruto said proudly, having done very well the single time he'd ever gambled. There was another melancholy memory. He didn't know if Kagami had been captured or gotten away or died; he hadn't heard anything about the other Kaguya after the battle.

"Huh," Rin said, looking nonplussed. "Well, she'd hate that. She's got terrible luck."

"I've helped out with that before," Naruto said, and Rin laughed.

"Look, you can give it a shot. Just don't expect another miracle," she said, looking at Hinata. "Lady Tsunade may be a medical ninja, but she's not a ninja, not anymore. And she hates most of them. You probably won't be the exception."

"I'll win her over," Naruto said as Hinata carefully rolled out of bed, Sasuke supporting her. He wondered why her father had only briefly visited after she was cured: the Hyuuga Clan was probably going through a lot, like everyone else, so it made sense that he'd be busy. Naruto hadn't seen his own dad since he'd gotten back from Mount Myoboku, after all.

His mom though…

"With what?" Rin asked archly, and he shrugged, dismissing the thought. Thinking about how his mom wasn't waking up probably wouldn't fix it. He and Sakura both would just have to get by without their parents for now.

"I'm very charming," he said with a grin. Rin didn't look like she believed him.

"Sasuke, tell her I'm very charming," he said without looking away. He didn't see what face Sasuke made, but he was pretty sure his best friend was betraying him.

"We'll make sure she doesn't throw him over the Monument," Sasuke said, and when Rin laughed Naruto took it as close enough.

They left the hospital together, Naruto taking a moment to check in on Sakura and her mother. They were both still sleeping. Sakura had been sleeping a lot since the invasion: she'd pushed herself so hard fighting Haku and Kimimaro that Naruto wasn't worried about it, and the hospital had pulled an extra cot into the room so she could stay by Mebuki's side. Her home was gone, after all, and her dad still wasn't back.

Naruto hoped he was still alive. He didn't know what kind of mission Sakura's dad had been away on, but he did know he should have been back now.

When they were outside, Hinata tentatively activated her Byakugan, using hand-signs to reduce the strain, and looked around the whole village with a clarity Naruto knew he'd never have. She sucked in a breath, taking in the destruction in full.

"Not great?" Naruto said, and she shook her head.

"Could have been much worse," she said after a moment, and Sasuke nodded in agreement. "If you hadn't kept the Kyuubi from breaking free, or if Sasuke hadn't finished off that puppet…"

"There were a thousand little things," Sasuke said quietly, squeezing her shoulder, and Hinata sighed, some of her anxiety draining away. Naruto couldn't help but grin at how obvious it was. "No point in worrying about it now."

"Is your family alright, Hinata?" Naruto asked as they started walking, following Hinata's vague direction as she moved east. "With everything…"

"It's fine, Naruto," Hinata said with a kind smile. "Some of my clansmen died. I'm sure that's true for everyone, unfortunately. But my immediate family came through without injury. Father and uncle routed one of the northern assaults: the clan grounds were more damaged by the flooding than everything else."

"Well, that's good." Naruto looked for something else to say. "I'm sorry I couldn't help you. With the poison, I mean."

Hinata gave him a funny look; behind her, Sasuke watched him impassively. "No one could. Why apologize for that?"

"I feel like I should have been able to," Naruto grumbled. "Hell, that's why we're doing this. I don't ever want to have something like that happen again."

"You can't fix everything, Naruto," Sasuke said. "No one can, and no one's expecting you to anyway. Don't be a dumbass."

"We'll see," Naruto said, hoping it would come out cocky and finding it a little whiny instead. He frowned as Sasuke continued.

"Though speaking of which, I figured out the Lightning Rasengan," he said, and Naruto stumbled.

"Seriously?" he said, shocked. "Was that how-?"

"Yeah," Sasuke said. "If it weren't for that, Sasori would have killed me without a doubt. I saw…" He paused. "Wait, did I tell you I can see the future now?"

This time, both Hinata and Naruto came to a full stop.

"Uhhhh…" Naruto said, searching his memory but pretty sure he would have remembered something that ridiculous. "Like, with the Sharingan? Doesn't it predict movement?"

"Was that what it was?" Hinata said before Sasuke had a chance to respond. "The Sharingan technique you were using? There was so much chakra being sent to your brain, and the blood…"

"Yeah," Sasuke said, answering both questions.

"Wait, blood?" Naruto asked, realizing what Hinata was talking about. "Sasuke, did you-?"

"Yeah," he said again. "After Rain was bombed."

Naruto stared at his best friend, trying to decipher what he was feeling. "You didn't tell us," he said, and Sasuke closed his eyes. "That you'd awakened a Mangekyo Sharingan."

"I didn't," Sasuke said bluntly. "I didn't want to ever use it; I didn't want to lose my eyesight. But I figured it out with Obito and my mother after we got back from Rain. They wanted me to know how to, just in case."

Naruto cocked his head, both understanding Sasuke completely and feeling a little hurt. The threat of going blind was terrifying, but still. Sasuke must have been hurting even more than he'd known from Suigetsu's death and their rapid return to Konoha to hide it.

Sasuke grit his teeth. "My left eye sees about ten seconds into the future. That's how I…" He paused, trying to find the right words. "That's how I saved you, Hinata, at the beginning, and it's how I stayed ahead of Sasori. But I saw that no matter what I did he was faster than me, stronger than me…" He clenched a fist. "Just better than me."

"So what?" Naruto asked, laughing a little. He really was falling behind. Sakura was strong enough to beat Haku; Sasuke could see the future; at this rate, they'd leave him in the dust. "You just… figured out the Lightning Rasengan, and beat him? It took my dad a decade to add an element to it."

"I cheated," Sasuke said with a shrug. "My right eye has a different ability: it's not like Obito's… I guess I'm like my brother. It lets me control my chakra, I guess manually would be the right word. I just had to look, and I could force the lightning to not destabilize until the right moment."

"It was an incredible technique," Hinata said softly. "Fast as real lightning, and it destroyed Sasori's whole body in an instant."

"But if you had to use your eyes…?" Naruto asked, finally taking in the full implications of what they were talking about.

Unless Sasuke took his brother's eyes, he was going to go blind in, at best, the next couple years.

"Yeah," Sasuke said one last time. "Things got a bit blurrier."

Hinata shifted. "Still?" The village was growing less damaged around them as they made their way north-east, away from the main invasion avenues and the area the Sanbi had rampaged through. Here, it was easy to pretend that everything was mostly normal, if not for how subdued everything was despite the wonderful weather. "I've heard the Mangekyo was dangerous, but, well, my clan sees it as an aberration. The Byakugan doesn't have any sort of mutation like it."

"Still," Sasuke confirmed. "Probably forever. In all the clan's lore there's no record of a way to repair the damage the Mangekyo inflicts other than implanting a family member's eyes."

That was a lot to digest, and Naruto and Hinata both took their time with it as they meandered on.

"Your brother's into you, right?" Naruto eventually said, and Sasuke gave him an unamused look.

"I'm not taking his eyes," he said flatly, and Naruto held up his hands.

"Hey, I'm just trying to game the system," he said, and Hinata raised an eyebrow; she understood what he was talking about.

"I assume eyes can't be traded," she said, and Sasuke shook his head.

"No. Apparently, Obito and Shisui proved that," he said, and she made an understanding nose. "There's a spiritual component; it's not just a physical transfer. The previous eye goes dead when the process is complete."

"Well," Hinata said, her tone subdued but some of her quiet humor shining through nonetheless. "If it's immediate family, you've got a mass murderer brother and a mother who, by all appearances, deeply loves you."

Sasuke gave her a confused look. "Huh?" he asked, and Naruto chuckled.

"You could double-dip," he said, and Sasuke's expression shifted over to a mixture of horrified and intrigued as he realized what they were getting at. "If you don't wanna take both of Itachi's eyes, you could just take one. And then, when your mom gets old and doesn't need it, she could donate the other."

"I don't…" Sasuke said, and then let out a grunt of laughter. "I don't know if that would work. The only recorded Eternal Mangekyo's have been between brothers. Madara and Obito both took their brother's eyes. I'm not sure if parents would fit the bill."

"Why not?" Naruto said. "If it's a spiritual component, the connection is just as immediate. If you need some of both parent's DNA in the eye, well…" He pondered it. "Well, then you're fucked, but it's still an interesting idea."

"It's interesting," Sasuke acknowledged. "But hopefully I won't ever have to worry about it. I don't want to use my eyes like that again."

"Sasuke," Hinata said, her tone shifting from quietly humorous to quietly serious. "A war's starting. You might not be that lucky. By now… you can't assume that things will work out."

Sasuke didn't seem to know what to say, so Hinata continued as Naruto watched, impressed with her decisiveness. "You should be prepared to consider other options," she said. "Just in case."

There was a long silence as they walked, and then Sasuke nodded. "I'll think about it," he said, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze. Once again, Naruto smirked at him, and this time Hinata caught it, going bright red. "Thanks, Hinata."

"And me," Naruto noted. Sasuke chuckled.

"And you, Naruto," he said.

Hinata smiled, still blushing. "We're getting close," she said, obviously trying to change the subject. "Lady Tsunade is… in a competition."

"A competition?" Naruto asked, frowning. "She's not working on anyone?"

"It looks like a drinking competition," Hinata said, looking as confused as Naruto felt. He didn't know much about Tsunade beyond the stories, but he couldn't picture a medic like her not working until the job was done: he was only taking a break because Rin was forcing him to, and even then he still had a Shadow Clone on call back at the hospital.

Sasuke had a more straightforward question than Naruto's.

"Who the hell is she competing with?" he asked. As they came to an intersection and turned towards a public park, the answer became self-evident. The park was a wide square filled with foliage set in the center of a confluence of business and residential buildings, run through with walking paths set alongside carefully gardened flowers and bushes of all sorts. There was a grassy hill that dominated most of one side with several public benches and a gazebo that had survived unharmed, and there were ninja surrounding the gazebo, cheering and making bets; some of the first careless behavior Naruto had seen since the invasion.

As they drew closer, Naruto saw Tsunade of the Sannin for the second time. He had initially been expecting an older woman: she was Jiraiya's age, after all, and even ninja aged. But the curvy blond woman taking shot after shot of some strong smelling sake was about the same height as him and barely looked thirty, without a single wrinkle to her name and long golden hair without a hint of gray. The same question ricocheted around his head: was she that good a medic, that she could keep herself young, or was it just a vain henge? And if it was, how could she keep it up all the time in public?

Across from her was Might Gai. The jonin's leg was in cast, along with one of his arms, and he wore a medical vest meant to bind together a deep wound on his chest, but he barely seemed to notice as he matched Tsunade shot for shot.

Naruto and his friends stopped and watched at the outskirts, barely able to believe what he was seeing.

"Gai! Gai! Gai!" The cry was going up from most of the ninja present as the Green Beast slammed another gulp of sake back, looking about with a wide smile. Tsunade just looked bored; she was going through the alcohol like it was water, occasionally giving Gai an amused glance as he fumbled for another cup.

"Don't you think you should slow down, Lady Tsunade?" he slurred, and Tsunade smirked. Naruto wondered how many cups he already had in him; he'd never seen Gai drink, but he had to imagine the man was a heavyweight with the kind of body he had. "It would be terrible to ruin your homecoming with a hangover!"

"Cute." Tsunade had a commanding voice, Naruto thought; even if Rin had said she wasn't a ninja anymore, she sounded like one. "You're getting a little jittery there. Maybe it's time to call it?"

"Impossible!" Gai declared, his hand suddenly becoming rock solid. "The Green Beast has never been felled: not by the enemy, and not by drink!" He took several more shots and inspired more cheers: Naruto had counted eight since they'd arrived, and things had obviously been going like this for a while. He shook his head, unable to contain a laugh, and some of the ninja gave him a warm smile and shifted, inviting him and the others into the circle.

"You've got a half-severed foot and a compound fracture," Tsunade said with the same muted amusement that was in her eyes. "I don't. Gambling may not be my game, but drinking certainly is. If I was your doctor, you'd be in a lot of trouble."

"If you were my doctor, indeed! Were it not for my youthful liver, you would have a point," Gai said with a grin. He was tipping to the side, and a younger ninja caught him by the shoulder, keeping him from toppling over. "But…!"

He made a vague gesture at another cup, perhaps an attempt to pick it up, and then slipped, nearly crashing into the ground before several ninja caught him and carried him away like a martyred hero. Naruto laughed, feeling light for the first time in a while as he watched him go, and Tsunade looked around with obvious expectation at the stunned ninja; when Gai had fallen, a silence had too.

"Anyone else?" she asked and there was a murmured denial as ninja fished for wallets and purses, coins jingling and cash shuffling. "On the table then."

Naruto watched as the bills piled up: well over two-thousand Ryo all told, which definitely wasn't a bad haul for a single game. Tsunade collected it with a smug expression and then stood up, giving a mock bow to several shinobi and eliciting some laughter and light applause. The group began to break up, and the Sannin turned, looking over the village and striding off towards the south without hesitation.

Naruto had a vague idea that she was heading towards one of the other hospitals: he hopped after her, jogging a bit to catch up. Tsunade was a fast walker, but as he drew closer she glanced back, obviously realizing she was being followed.

"You're too young to compete," she said, and Naruto laughed, "so I hope you're not looking for a late challenge."

Sasuke and Hinata had fallen back a little bit, talking quietly to one another: Naruto was happy to move forward without their support now that he'd found her.

"Uh, not really," he said, and Tsunade slowed down as he drew alongside her.

"What then?" she said, looking him up and down. There wasn't recognition there, he thought, but she was analyzing him; seeing his injuries, watching his gait, and something else that Naruto couldn't identify. "I don't give autographs, if that's it."

"Not that either," he said cheerfully. "I'm looking for some tips."

Tsunade's face shifted; her mouth pressed into a flat line. She slowed down further, the emerald crystal hanging around her neck catching the light. "Tips?" she said, and Naruto grinned.

"Yeah," he said, and she gave him an unimpressed look. "I'm a medical ninja, and, well, what you did with that poison, I just couldn't figure out how-"

"I'm not looking for an apprentice," Tsunade said brusquely, speeding up, and Naruto matched her pace. The streets weren't that busy, but there were still enough people for Naruto to notice them steering clear. Tsunade's chakra was starting to ripple around her, like a heat haze. Even as passive as she was, it had a tremendous weight.

"And I'm not looking for a master!" he said brightly, ignoring his shinobi instincts screaming at him that this woman was very, very dangerous. "Your technique just seems so amazing, I was wondering if you could show it to me. I mean, you saved so many people-"

"Leave it," Tsunade said, and Naruto frowned, thrown off by her harsh tone.

"But… hey!" he said, running out a bit in front of her and jogging backwards as she continued to power-walk forward. "Seriously? I'm just asking for a second."

"You're not going to get it," Tsunade said, a faint sneer flitting across her face. "If you're looking to learn some of my tricks, check with Rin Nohara. I'm sure she could teach you whatever you need to know."

"I did!" Naruto did, and thankfully Tsunade slowed down once again. "She told me I shouldn't bother."

"And yet you came anyway?" Tsunade snapped. "What a waste of time. Who are you anyway?"

"Uh," Naruto said, coming to a stop and sticking out his hand. "I'm Naruto Namikaze. It's really nice to meet you."

Tsunade stopped as well, looking at his outstretched hand dubiously. "Namikaze?" she said, and Naruto nodded. Her chakra quieted down; the air stopped smelling like ozone. "You're the Hokage's son."

"Yup!" Naruto said, trying his best to keep up his bright disposition and not let slip just how much the legendary ninja was grating on his nerves.

"I thought you were in the Nation of Rain," Tsunade said, eyes narrow, and Naruto narrowed his eyes back.

"It was a deep cover mission," he said. "We finished it, so we came back." He kept his hand outstretched, waiting for Tsunade to take it or slap it away.

Tsunade regarded him, fully regarded him, for the first time, looking into his eyes: her own amber eyes were uncomfortably piercing. Naruto felt like she was staring right through him. Slowly, she took his hand and shook it.

Her grip was iron; Naruto felt his bones creak. Tsunade of the Sannin was strong, stronger than any ninja he'd met.

"You must have an interesting perspective on the invasion," Tsunade said, not letting go, and Naruto froze, pinned by her amber eyes. He could see Hinata and Sasuke catching up behind her, both of them looking concerned.

"I guess," Naruto said, and Tsunade cocked an eyebrow.

"You were there until recently." The handshake had lasted way too long: now, it was more like she was holding him hostage there, the obvious strength in her arm enough to rip his hand clean off if he tried to make a break for it. "Did you think something like this was going to happen?"

It wasn't a threat, but she definitely was only going to let go when she was satisfied. Naruto grinned and bore it, trying to give an honest answer to the heavy question.

"No," he said, letting some of his fear, frustration, and hatred leak through. "The Amekage had wanted us to go back to Konoha as ambassadors anyway; we never thought they would turn around and attack the village, not in a million years."

"Why do you think they did it?" Tsunade said, so intense that Naruto couldn't help but blink.

He took a moment, trying to consider the question with as clear a head as he could. "I think they're scared," he said, and Tsunade tilted her head, obviously curious. "They were always talking about becoming accepted as another village, but after what happened with the Hidden Cloud attacking them, I think they decided the whole world was going to be their enemy no matter what they did. So now, they're just going to try to kill anyone who could stop them. They probably think because of what they're trying to do, it's justified. Anything could be."

Tsunade frowned.

"That's the wrong answer," she said, letting go of Naruto's hand. He shook it out, massaging his wrist, and she smiled faintly. "They did it because they're ninja. It's a nation ruled by shinobi, for shinobi, and this," she said, gesturing around, "is what shinobi do."

"You really think that?" Naruto said. Tsunade gave him an appraising look.

"You don't?" she said, and he shook his head.

"I think ninja do all sorts of things, just like people do. Ever since I graduated, I've been told everyone is scared of us, that ninja bring conflict and start fights; that they exist to hurt people." Naruto balled his fists up. "But I think that's stupid. I didn't become a ninja to hurt people, and I've never gone out meaning to do anything like that for the sake of it. I became a ninja to protect people, like my dad and mom did."

"I doubt many people would say Minato Namikaze is a ninja who protects people," Tsunade said, her tone sour, and Naruto nodded.

"I've met them. And they're right, maybe. My dad was really cruel in the last war." For the first time, Tsunade showed some indication of surprise, of consideration. "He turned people into weapons; he even did that to one of my teammates. Maybe I'm stupid, but I've never thought about doing anything like that."

Naruto straightened up, trying to be as respectful as possible, and bowed his head. "I learned medical jutsu to keep my friends in one piece. If you don't want to give me any tips, that's fine: I just wanted to make sure I asked. I'd feel like an idiot if I let someone as amazing as you pass by without trying."

"Ha!" Tsunade said, and behind her Sasuke and Hinata shared a concerned glance. "Laying it on a bit thick, aren't you, Namikaze?"

Naruto stayed silent, his head bowed. After a second, Tsunade sighed. "Don't do that," she said. "As flattering as it is, I'm not someone you should bow to."

"You saved Hinata, and Shikamaru's dad, and plenty of others," he said, finally looking up. "That's more than enough for me."

"Shush," Tsunade said with a harsh look. She hesitated, and then continued. "I've seen your work before, you know."

"At the hospital?" Naruto asked, feeling his heart speed up. "Uh, that was probably a little sloppy, my arms almost got burned off-"

"Not here," Tsunade chided. "In Fukami City. The Land of Waves."

"Oh," Naruto said, the memory that felt so impossibly distant and yet wasn't a month old rushing back; a memory from a different, desperate world, but one that was still less confusing and cruel than the current one. "That."

"You used Shadow Clones, right?" Tsunade said. "The stories I heard said you were in a lot of places at once; I assume that wasn't just mass hysteria."

Naruto nodded, and she continued. "I've never heard of a medic doing that," she said, and when Naruto jerked in surprise she scoffed. "Don't look so surprised. It's difficult enough to control your chakra in one body; doing it after splitting it multiple times is too complicated for most, let alone having the necessary reserves. You're like a one-man team."

"It was the only thing I could do," he said. "So many people had been hurt… if I'd done it alone, it wouldn't have been enough."

He couldn't read Tsunade's face. They stared at each other for a couple seconds, and Naruto started to fidget.

"Are you bullshitting me?" she finally asked, and Naruto's eyes went wide.

"No, definitely not," he said. "That sounds like a really bad idea."

Tsunade grinned. "Did your father put you up to this?"

"No," Naruto declared. "All me. I haven't even seen dad since everything happened."

"And the same goes for Rin?"

"Yeah," Naruto said, starting to get fed up. "Like I said, she told me to not even bother. Why? What do you care?"

"Your work in Waves was good," Tsunade said bluntly, and Naruto found himself blushing. "When I went there, I expected a lot more injured people to shake money out of, but you'd saved so many that I ended up needing to squeeze your sensei for some cash to make up the difference. People wouldn't stop talking about you: the blond kid from Rain who'd fought the demon and put hundreds of people back together afterwards."

"Uh," Naruto said, too stuck on the first part to be pleased about the compliment. "That sounds a little, well-"

Tsunade kept going, not caring that he was trying to talk. "When I heard that kid was the Hokage's, I couldn't believe it. I couldn't picture Namikaze raising anyone who wasn't a killer like him."

Naruto shut his mouth, and Tsunade smirked at him. "Do you disagree?"

"I never saw that," Naruto said quietly. "I think my dad and the Fourth Hokage people know are basically different people. When I started seeing him from the outside, I didn't recognize him."

Tsunade looked him up and down, and nodded.

"You have any assignments coming up?" she said, and Naruto furrowed his brow.

"Dunno," he said. "Everyone's still figuring things out."

"That'll work, then," she said. "Training ground six still exists, right?"

"Uh, yeah?" Naruto said. "The one by the lake on the east side?"

"Yeah, that one." Tsunade walked past him, pushing him aside with a single finger; Naruto stumbled, thrown off balance by her ridiculous strength. "I'll see you there tomorrow. I'm not an early riser, so we'll call it 10 AM."

"Huh?" Naruto sputtered, spinning and looking after her. "What do you mean?"

"Are you stupid?" Tsunade said, looking back at him.

"No?!"

"Then you should figure out what I mean," she said, rolling her eyes. "Have a nice day, Naruto Namikaze."

Then she walked off, and Naruto was too shocked to chase after her.

"Naruto?" Sasuke and Hinata approached, and he turned towards them, eyes wide. "Did she…?"

"I…" Naruto gaped like a fish out of water, and Sasuke gave him a pitying look.

"Well, Rin warned you," he said, and Naruto shook his head.

"No, I mean… I think she just made me her apprentice?" he said, and now Sasuke was the one struggling to find the right words.

"Huh?" he settled on, and Hinata giggled at the both of them.

"You must have made an impression on her, Naruto," she said, and Naruto nodded, still stunned. His time in Rain had made it easier for him to not expect special treatment; he never would have dreamed that Tsunade would have taken an interest in him instead of the other way around.

"I guess?" he said. "Though now, I mean…"

"Now you'll learn everything you can," Sasuke said. "She's not a Leaf ninja anymore, so it's not like this is an easy opportunity; you shouldn't pass this up for a second. I'm sure everyone in the medical division won't mind you taking time to learn from someone like Tsunade of the Sannin." He slapped Naruto on the shoulder with a wide grin. "Congratulations. You're gonna have an even more famous teacher than the rest of us."

Naruto laughed, the joke finally snapping him out of the surreal moment, and they all went on, looking for something to eat and for things to do to help with the recovery effort.

###

It was almost midnight when Obito finally took a break.

He'd never been one who could stand resting. It was against his fundamental nature to wait and see, or to stand back while people were in pain. So for a day, night, and day again, Obito had been pushing himself forward; coordinating rescue operations, evacuations, and hunting down the occasional Rain ninja that had stayed behind to try and make a name for themselves.

The work would have been faster with the Kamui, but there was nothing to be done about that, and so Obito went about with his eyepatch in place once more and his body aching down to the bone. He'd yearned to be with Rin instead of cleaning up Rain's mess, but Obito wasn't a complainer and so he hadn't said a word about that.

He hadn't seen his students, though he'd learned they were all alive. He had seen Mikoto, who'd updated him on the clan's condition, Gai, who'd expressed how finally getting to unleash the Seventh Gate for the first time in years had felt (incredibly painful, but the kind of pain that made you appreciate your youthful vigor), many of his fellow jonin (including Kurenai, who he'd found mutely grieving over Asuma and his missing legs), and countless others besides.

The strangest meeting had been with Koharu Utatane and Homura Mitokado, the withered advisors to the Hokage. Just about every rock in the village had been flipped over so Obito hadn't been surprised that they'd scuttled out into the open at some point, but they'd worked together for about an hour disposing of bombs after a chance meeting. Rain ninja had seeded many of the standing structures on the southern side of the village with explosives as part of both their assault and retreat, a salted earth strategy that Obito had come to realize was representative of Rain's warfare as a whole.

Koharu had an observation jutsu Obito wasn't familiar with, though he suspected given the woman's age and associates it was the kind of copy-cat jutsu many organizations back in the era of warring clans had developed to mimic the Byakugan or Sharingan. Whatever it was, it was excellent at finding explosive tags and conventional bombs, and Koharu's fuinjutsu had quickly disposed of any that turned up. Obito had been stuck strictly in a support role for the first time in decades, relied upon to get the old-timers out of trouble if something went wrong with their meticulous work.

It was nostalgic, in a twisted way. Obito had always enjoyed helping the elderly, but on any other day he wouldn't even have given Danzo's former teammates a second of his attention. Still, when they'd nodded and said their farewells afterwards, he'd felt an old grudge dissolve. In the face of a shared enemy as vicious as the Nation of Rain, maybe even ancient ninja like them could forgive him for the lake of blood he'd spilled ripping up Danzo's traitorous ambitions.

But now, he could rest. There were plenty of ninja recovered enough to finish clearing the village. Any lingering Rain ninja were long gone; by the time darkness swept over the land on the 20th, Konohagakure was quiet and, for the most part, safe.

Looking across the room at two Sannin sitting at the bar and sharing drinks, Obito couldn't help but wonder how much of that was thanks to them.

It must have been a long time since Jiraiya and Tsunade had gotten drunk together, because they were going about it with a kind of fervor that would shame people half their age. The bar hadn't been especially classy even before one of the walls had been destroyed by an Earth jutsu that had crumpled the street behind it like paper, but they and the rest of the patrons just seemed glad that none of the alcohol had been destroyed. The legendary ninja told stories, shouted at one another, briefly arm-wrestled (which sent Jiraiya somersaulting through a table with a loud crash and a roar of laughter), and above all, drank.

It wasn't the kind of reunion Obito could understand: there wasn't anyone in his life who he had as complicated a relationship with as the Sannin shared. But he, and several of the others in the bar who were watching, could still take some vicarious joy from it. It was obvious that they'd missed one another, even if Tsunade had played it cold when Jiraiya and Obito had first arrived.

The death of their teacher had reunited them, however brief it might be; for most everyone in the village, it had been the same. Everywhere Obito had gone, people had been mourning the Third Hokage; everyone seemed to have a personal story, a treasured anecdote, or a battlefield legend about the man who'd made Konoha what it was today. It was no different for Obito. Hiruzen Sarutobi had been the one to help him navigate his new, complex relationship with his clan when he'd come back from Kannabi Bridge with mythic eyes. Without the Third Hokage, Obito thought, it was very possible he would have been dragged into the coup attempt against his will.

It was a sour thought which blew away like dust in the wind when Jiraiya suddenly spun on his seat and beckoned at him with a gregarious smile.

"Obito!" he bellowed. "I just realized!" He lifted up his eyepatch, revealing the hole underneath, and Obito raised an eyebrow. "We match!"

Obito finished his milk and ambled over, tapping at his own eyepatch. "There's still something under mine, sensei," he said goodnaturedly, wondering how his eye was doing with the strain. Maybe Rin would take a look at it after this. Or maybe he was just trying to think up excuses to go find her.

"It's the fashion that matters," Jiraiya said with a dramatic frown, "not what's under it." He gave Obito a smug look. "Eyepatches hide a dramatic story, and you know who loves dramatic stories-"

Tsunade elbowed him hard in the side, and he coughed. "Everyone!" he protested. "I was going to say everyone!"

"Fat chance," the woman said with a laugh, spinning to look at Obito as well. "What happened, anyway? Never thought I'd see Obito Uchiha going around with one of his eyes covered."

Obito shrugged. "I got a new one," he said lightly. Tsunade paused, narrowing her eyes and looking him over. She might have been tipsy, but she was still a legendary ninja.

"Fantastic," she eventually decided.

"Really?" Obito asked, surprised. After their encounter in the Land of Waves, that hadn't been the answer he'd expected.

"Don't get me wrong," Tsunade said, turning back to her bottle of cheap wine and taking another swig. "On any other day, I'd give a fuck. But today? You've changed, Obito. Maybe you'll show you deserve that second eye."

"Are you saying I didn't deserve the first?" Obito said, sitting down on the other side of Jiraiya. The Toad Sage was frowning at his serious question, but Obito was too tired to care.

"Did you think you did?" Tsunade asked with a blatant glance, and Obito chuckled.

"Guess you're right," he said, and Jiraiya shook his head, his long hair swaying from side to side.

"No one deserves anything," he grumbled. "Surely this clusterfuck is proof enough of that."

"Oh please," Tsunade said with a mean smile. "So some brats you found ended up getting sensei killed. What did you think was going to happen when you made more ninja? That they wouldn't kill people?"

Jiraiya swirled his drink, looking into its dark depths with a darker look: the man had never more perfectly nailed the look of a tortured author, Obito thought, though he doubted it was on purpose. "Guess you're right," he echoed, before downing the whole thing and calling for another.

"What, did I bring the mood down that quickly?" Obito said, and both the Sannin laughed.

"You'd think you'd have lost enough to recognize grief, Obito," Jiraiya said. Obito shrugged.

"That's not how I do it," he said, and both the Sannin nodded along. "I usually just kill people."

"I'm sure you did plenty of that yesterday," Tsunade said, and Obito nodded. "So you're satisfied?"

"Not nearly," he grunted. "But I'm tired enough that it'll do."

"What a waste," Jiraiya grunted, slumping. "What a waste…"

Tsunade looked down at him with pity, and then up at Obito. "Did you want any?" she asked, sloshing her wine, and when Obito shook his head she finished it off. "I don't like saying I was wrong, because I never am," she continued. "But I didn't know it at the time, so it doesn't count. You did better than your best."

"Sorry?" Obito asked politely, and she scoffed at him. "The village seems pretty wrecked to me."

"I'm not talking about that," Tsunade grumbled. "Namikaze's son. Naruto. You're the one who trained him, right?"

"Before he left," Obito said, not at all sure where this was going. "And since he's come back."

"You did a good job," Tsunade said. "Hell knows how, but with how ninja are, I doubt anyone's told you that." She turned to face him fully, her cheeks flushed but her eyes intense and alive. "If Konoha had more ninja like him, maybe things would turn out alright."

Obito sat there, stunned, for an embarrassingly long time before he collected himself. "Did you meet him?" he said, and Tsunade nodded, fishing behind the bar for another bottle as the owner watched helplessly.

"I'll be seeing more of him," she said, and the implications of that kicked Obito's pulse up a notch. "He impressed me."

"Wow!" Jiraiya said, rocketing back up. "High praise!"

It was. From what Rin had told Obito about her time with Tsunade, the Sannin wasn't someone who impressed easily. He wondered what exactly Naruto had done to grab her attention. Or himself, for that matter.

"Oh, be quiet!" Tsunade snapped, collecting another two bottles held between four fingers and throwing several thousand Ryo onto the counter in a feat of drunken coordination. "I've gotta be up early," she continued, spitting out the last word like it burned her tongue. "See you, Jiraiya. Try not to lose your other eye."

"Good advice, princess," Jiraiya said with a loose grin. "One eyepatch is dashing; two just makes you look clumsy."

Tsunade laughed and stumbled out into the night, and Jiraiya watched her go with a melancholy look before turning back towards Obito, almost falling off his chair in the process.

"She's doing well," he said, then laughed. "Every day I get older, she looks younger. Do you think that's a sign, Obito?"

"I'm not weighing in on that," Obito said, and Jiraiya's laugh petered out into a hearty chuckle. "You could probably do the same if you wanted, sensei."

"Nah," Jiraiya said. "Not that I'd want to. It's not just ego for her, you know. The world respects weathered men, but weathered women?" He scoffed. "Most people can only see shallow beauty; that which hasn't been touched by the world, hasn't touched reality, that's what people will call 'beautiful.'" He mused, his hand searching for a drink that wasn't there. "Still, I wish she'd show her wrinkles."

"Are you just talking about Tsunade?" Obito said, seeing a metaphor, and Jiraiya looked over at him without comprehension. "Oh. Guess so."

"What are you talking about?" Jiraiya asked, and Obito shrugged.

"Rain," he said. The Toad Sage stared at him for a moment, the thought clearly struggling through the booze filling his head, and then as Obito watched his eyes cleared; his focus returned all in an instant.

"That's clever, Obito," he grunted. "You should write a book."

"I'm not a good writer."

"Do you think I am?" Jiraiya said with a snort, and Obito gave him a dubious look.

"You're successful," he said, and Jiraiya returned the look with twice the force.

"Oh, and that must mean I'm good," he said mockingly. "Something being successful always means it's good, right, Obito?" He tapped his hitai-ate and the symbol of the Leaf upon it. "If you wanna go there, I'm sure plenty of people would agree with you."

"Jiraiya, come on," Obito said, not wanting to start something like this, but the Toad Sage was already too deep into his drinks and his mind.

"You've never tried writing, have you?" he said, and Obito shook his head. "Yeah, like most people haven't. You just assume you won't be any good, so why bother?" He started tapping his fingers on the bar, drumming them hard enough for hairline fractures to form in the counter. "Why work at something if it's not perfect from the start? Why write if you have to do multiple drafts? Why become a ninja if you're not talented? Why do anything new when it's unproven?"

He was getting more and more intense, and Obito tried to bring him back down, knowing he probably wouldn't succeed.

"I didn't mean-"

"You're right, is the fucking problem," Jiraiya said. "You're right, and I'm wrong, no matter how wise I look with this hair and beard and dashing eyepatch," he continued, gesturing at himself. "Rain's ideals, what they call beautiful, aren't connected to reality. They're a fantasy, and they've justified killing as many people as they think necessary to bring that fantasy to life." He scratched his beard. "My fantasy, or a distortion of it, like every ideology, every religion, every belief is. I'm the one who got this ball rolling, and the Sage long before me…"

"What does it matter?" Obito asked. Jiraiya fixed him with an intense glare. "People will list every justification under the sun for their sins. What happened here wasn't something done in the name of peace, no matter what the Amekage say. You shouldn't burden yourself with it."

"It matters because everything has a source," Jiraiya said. "The world pours things into people beyond hatred, and if you can't understand what those things are, you'll never see what's coming." He stared at Obito's eyepatch, lost in thought for a moment, and then, jerked.

"Hey," he asked, and Obito never would have been able to predict what he said next.

"Do you still have that zombie in your basement?"

Obito saw some of the others in the bar turn at that statement with quizzical looks, and he leaned in towards Jiraiya. "Where did you hear that?" he whispered, and Jiraiya gave him a triumphant look.

"Minato told me," he said. "After things were over, after we were done setting up Kushina's containment seals." Obito quelled the rage that boiled throughout his body at hearing about Kushina's condition as Jiraiya continued. "A dead legend, just loitering in the Uchiha compound? I knew Orochimaru had a few screws loose, but I never dreamed he'd bring back the Madara Uchiha for some conversation."

"He's not a very good one," Obito said.

"Oh!" Jiraiya said, delight rippling through him to Obito's alarm. "Everything the stories say then?"

"He's a bitter old man," Obito said. "And dead to boot. If you're thinking of talking to him, I wouldn't recommend it. Mikoto and I already dragged everything necessary out of him. I'd be happy to tell you whatever you want to know."

"He's the beginning of so much," Jiraiya said, leaning back but still keeping his voice low. "It's his Rinnegan that's giving Rain the confidence to do this, right? Maybe I want to meet the man who ripped out one of my darling student's eyes."

Obito paused, realizing that Jiraiya was right. In some twisted way, Rain was Madara's fault too; it had been his batshit plan to turn Nagato into his inheritor, after all, even if Black Zetsu had run off before it had worked out for him.

Jiraiya might have been the one to train the Amekage, but the modern world had been created in no small part by Madara. The notion, easy to dismiss when in the pitiable company of the eyeless zombie, rocked Obito back, and Jiraiya noticed it.

"Here, if it makes you feel better," Jiraiya said, casually biting into his thumb and summoning a toad in the blink of an eye on the counter. The little orange creature barely had time to catch its bearing before Jiraiya tapped it on the shoulder. "Go get the Hokage, would you?"

The toad saluted and vanished, and Obito stood up. "That's not necessary," he said.

"What?" Jiraiya asked. "If I need anyone's permission, it would be his, right?"

"Sensei's probably busy," Obito said, and then there was a puff of smoke and Minato was there, wearing his robes and looking as perfect and unflappable as ever. He was in Sage Mode, like he'd been almost constantly since Cloud had attacked Rain, and had a vaguely concerned expression.

Obito facepalmed.

"Something wrong, sensei?" Minato asked, looking over the both of them. "Hey, Obito. Doing okay?"

"Minato!" Jiraiya said, standing up and throwing far too much money on the counter as he stumbled towards the open wall of the bar and out into the street. The Hokage followed with a bemused expression as everyone else in the bar bowed their head or saluted in respect, whispers and cheers spreading like fire. Where the Hokage went, worship followed: anything else after what he'd accomplished against the invasion wouldn't be human nature. "I need your permission for something."

"Sensei, don't listen to him," Obito said, following after into the crisp night air. "He's being ridiculous."

"What is it?" Minato asked, his concern making way for curiosity. If anything defined Minato besides his lethality, it was his curiosity.

"I want to talk to the Uchiha's big important corpse," Jiraiya said, spinning about with a drunk smirk. "Tell Obito he has to let me."

"Now that's playing dirty," Obito complained. Minato crossed his arms, watching the both of them. "I just don't think it will be worth it. Especially with how you are now."

"What, this?" Jiraiya laughed. "Obito, you never drank enough with me. I'm not even halfway there."

"Sensei, please," Obito said, turning to the Hokage and his dangerously impassive face. "We've already told you everything we discussed with him. If Jiraiya's curious-"

"I'm curious too," Minato said, and both Jiraiya and Obito stopped and stared, their back and forth meeting the same end as a train plummeting into a canyon. "And I have some time. We'll all go."

"Huh?" Jiraiya said.

"What?" Obito asked.

"What's so surprising?" Minato said, giving them both an amused look. "He's a village legend; the man who opposed the First, and nearly won. Not to mention how much ancient history he seems to have dug up. I'm not like you," he said, pointing to Jiraiya, "but an opportunity to speak with someone like that doesn't come along every day. I was planning to eventually, so long as he kept himself available."

He turned to Obito. "Unless you don't think it's wise."

Obito sighed, not sure if he was making a mistake or not. "If you want to, sensei," he said, "I won't stop you."

"Wow," Jiraiya muttered. "Double standard…"

"Shut up," Obito said, pointing back towards the east. "He's in a shrine way beyond the compound, in the forests to the south. Nakano Shrine. We'll have to walk-"

"How far?" Minato asked mildly, and Obito sighed.

"From here, about six miles?" he guessed, and the Hokage hummed. He removed a kunai from beneath his cloak, looked up at the sky, squinted, and then whipped it into the air with a small crack of a sonic boom.

"It's a wonder you aren't as round as a drum," Jiraiya said as they watched the kunai sail off into the dark.

"I get plenty of exercise," Minato said mildly. In just a moment, the knife had vanished in the night, but the Hokage kept staring in its direction, feeling it with his sixth sense. He dropped another kunai to the ground at his feet, shifting his stance. "One sec. Neither of you move."

The Hokage flickered out of existence, and Obito looked over at Jiraiya. "When he learned how to do that," he asked, and then there was another flicker as Minato reappeared and grabbed both their shoulders. "How did you-"

They reappeared across the village, leaving the first half of Obito's sentence behind. "-feel?" he finished.

"Jealous," Jiraiya said without hesitating, and the Hokage laughed. "If it made a damn bit of sense to me-"

"It really is simple," Minato said, stowing both his knives. They'd appeared in the middle of the forest south of the Uchiha compound, probably about two hundred feet away from Nakano Shrine. Obito didn't understand how his sensei's brain worked, but it was moments like this that convinced him that Minato Namikaze was superhuman in a way other ninja could only dream of.

"You saying that doesn't make it so, sensei," Obito said with a shake of his head. "Shooting yourself through a dimensional void with your chakra as an anchor makes just as much sense as calling someone's soul back with a bit of their DNA."

"Well, you can thank the Second for both of them," Minato said, starting to tromp south with his typical childish enthusiasm. "Whatever anyone thinks of me, that man's imagination was the true marvel. We going?"

The forest was quick work for them, and as they mounted the steps of Nakano Shrine, Obito recalled the complex jutsu Mikoto had used to unseal the hidden room beneath it; his Sharingan might be sleeping, but his perfect recall wasn't. Both his teachers waited as he removed the seventh mat and revealed the slab beneath, raising it up with the secret technique.

"Neat," Jiraiya said, peering down into the darkness. "Very spooky. Is dramatics in your blood too, Obito?"

"You've seen him use the Kamui, right?" Minato asked, and Jiraiya chuckled as they descended into the shadows.

"You were the one who taught me to intimidate people, sensei," Obito groused, and Minato shrugged, as though he were entirely innocent. "I'd think you would want to take credit for that."

"People give me too much credit already," Minato said, his words tinged with a melancholy Obito had rarely heard from him before; the only times he could recall was when they'd spoken about Kakashi. "I don't mind you getting that one."

They filed out into the wide hidden room, torches lighting as Obito made the same motions Mikoto had.

As far as Obito could tell, Madara hadn't moved an inch from where he and Mikoto had left him. He was still seated in his folding plastic chair, slumped forward and looking for all the world like a cracked, lifeless corpse until he stirred at the sound of them entering the room.

"You've returned," he said, not looking up. His long white hair, even longer and whiter than Jiraiya's, was draped over his face, hiding his eyeless sockets. "Obito… and two I don't know." He dragged himself up, and Obito felt a shiver run down his spine at the dead man's motion. "Your chakra is muddled. Has something happened to your eyes?"

"Don't worry about it," Obito said, stepping forward and wondering just how keen Madara's senses were, even if he claimed to be crippled and useless. Despite who this man had been, he felt no sense of decorum whatsoever. "The Hokage and his master wanted to speak with you. Since you came here to speak in the first place, I didn't think you'd mind."

"The Hokage?" Madara muttered.

"The Yondaime," Minato said, plopping down next to Madara. "Nice to meet you."

"And his master…" Madara continued, not returning the greeting. He coughed, or perhaps it was a laugh. "This is about that commotion, isn't it?" He looked up, his sockets becoming obvious. "War has come to Konohagakure."

"Come and gone," Jiraiya said, standing in front of the corpse and crossing his arms. "But this isn't about that. We just wanted to ask you some questions."

"Ask away," Madara said, and Obito felt a small thrill of alarm as some of the man's ancient, reborn cunning began bleeding off of him. The hairs on the back of his arm stood up as Madara sneered.

"I'm at your service, shinobi of the Leaf."

AN: Wow, officially on a roll, hope it lasts and hope you enjoyed the chapter!