Obito could run; he could.
He could leave this orphanage and never look back. He could move south, someplace warm. Or perhaps north; live a life of solitude on a forsaken winter island. He could. There are no scars marring his body anymore that would ache in the cold, that would pull uncomfortably at his skin whenever the weather abruptly changes. He could sit on an engawa, wrapped up in blankets, and watch snow drift in the biting wind while sipping a steaming cup of tea that he doesn't like.
There is nothing holding him back. There is nothing tethering him to this place. He could run; he should.
The mattress dips next to him. "Hey 'Bito, can you help me with my hair?"
Obito turns his head to scowl at the child -man?- sitting next to him, holding a hairbrush out expectantly.
Izuna could have asked Madara, who would have been more than happy to assist his precious little brother, but he didn't. He is asking Obito, who he barely knows, who barely talks, who has been nothing but hostile towards him and his beloved older brother since they arrived weeks ago.
Obito could refuse. He could tell Izuna to fuck off. He could simply say nothing.
"I killed half the Uchiha Clan."
He expects Izuna to lash out; he expects eyes to bleed red; he expects a knife to the jugular.
"I know," Izuna nods. "Do you know how to braid?"
Obito could lie.
"Yes."
Izuna grins, bright and warm like the sun, and much, much too wide. If Obito cared a shred about his own well-being, he might have been terrified by it. "Do you think my hair is long enough for one?"
A monster is smiling at him. It lurks just beneath acrid waters, oozing madness and black static. Obito feels his rotting shadow reaching out to greet the abomination, feels how the malevolent void resonates between them. Like recognizes like. Obito knows they were forged in the same hellfire stoked by blinding love and all-seeing hatred. It's what led them both to commit indescribable atrocities, some of which they regret and can never take back, and some of which they should regret but never will. They are cursed to feel too much, and that turns them into single-minded feral monsters whenever the situation demands it. It's how their love, guilt, and grief manifest; it's something they both understand, and understand well.
"Probably."
"Perfect!" Izuna's eyes glisten in delight; he hands Obito the brush and makes himself comfortable in front of him, his back turned. And for a moment, Obito thinks he understands why someone would bring the world to its knees for that smile, tear it apart, and let it bleed dry. At the same time, he wonders how Izuna can still laugh, still enjoy himself like that. His life couldn't have been an easy one; his death certainly had not been.
Obito starts to brush the smooth black hair. It barely reaches Izuna's shoulders, but a simple braid should be doable, just so.
"Hey Obito, what do you want to do with this life?"
Obito's hand stops mid-motion.
What does he want?
His mind is empty.
He remembers wanting to become the strongest shinobi, he remembers wanting to become Hokage, he remembers wanting to save his team. After that, there was nothing but the desire to scorch that hell of a world, to burn everything and create something new on its ashes, something better.
Then, nothing.
Oh, Obito wants plenty. He wants to turn back time, he wants to right wrongs committed by him and others, he still wants to rip those vile shinobi villages to shreds, but he also wants to save so many people who suffered because of them. These wants, however, are useless. He cannot change the past, he doubts he can ever return to his old world. Uchiha Obito died, crumbled to worthless dust; his story has been written to an end, and Nobuyuki got born. Obito's wants are meaningless.
So, what does Nobuyuki want?
He could still run. He could abandon this orphanage. He could live a quiet life in solitude, away from it all until death claims him once more, hoping that this time he will move on to the Pure Lands.
Obito puts the brush to the side and parts the silky mane in his hands into three sections. With nimble fingers, he weaves the strands together into a neat braid.
"This world holds nothing for me to want."
Izuna hums. "Maybe not today, but perhaps it will someday."
Obito doubts it. This world could be ending this very moment, and he would be utterly indifferent about it. Why should he not be?
He takes the hairband from Izuna's hand and ties his finished work together. Some strands are sticking out at the sides, but that can't be helped with short hair. Overall, it turned out fine.
"I'm done."
Izuna pats the braid down, tracing the intertwined sections with his fingers. "You are pretty good at this," he says impressed, a smile in his voice. "Thanks 'Bito."
Obito merely nods in response, averting his eyes from that blinding sunshine, and curls back up in his corner.
He can feel Izuna leaving the bed. He can hear him climbing down the bunk bed's ladder and rummaging through a drawer. Not a minute later, the mattress next to Obito dips again. The sheets rustle, and then a warm body presses itself against Obito's side, shoulder to shoulder, hip to hip.
Obito glances to the side, a frown on his face, but Izuna is not looking at him; his eyes are fixed firmly on the sketchbook in his lap. The pencil in his hand is already scratching swiftly over the only empty spot on a page full of little drawings.
There are a lot of birds, hawks, Obito thinks, but also cats. Some of them are siting stoically on rough rocks, some are sprawled out on soft cushions, but all of them have a mischievous air to them. In between the animal sketches, there is a portrait of Madara reading on a windowsill, the book too bulky for his childish hands. His face is mostly covered by his disheveled hair, but his mouth is clearly visible and drawn out with much more carefully thought-out details than the rest of the sketch, which further highlights his expression. Obito has never seen it on Madara's face before, has never witnessed such a serene smile on him. He had seen Madara's deranged laugh, how his mouth stretches maniacally, but not once a genuine smile. He wonders if this is a memory of Izuna's from a time long ago, a time when things had been better for them. When there had been no Zetsu and no Eye of the Moon Plan, when both brothers had been alive and no madness ripping Madara's mind apart.
Bile rises in Obito's throat. He looks away, buries his head in his elbow, and takes a shuddering breath. He doesn't want to think about the war, about Madara and Kaguya, about any of it. He can't. His soul will shatter on the memories like a boat on a cliff, so he pushes them down and down into the darkest corner of his consciousness, puts a lock on it and then another one, until nothing comes up again, and his mind and heart become blissfully empty once more. He doesn't want to feel pain anymore; he is tired of the constant ache in his chest, of the grief nipping at his lungs and howling in his head. It's better to be a hollow husk than to face the ghosts of the past.
The pencil stops scraping over dry paper, Obito can hear a page turning. He half expects Izuna to go away, to finally give up and leave him alone, but the shoulder next to him doesn't move; it stays solid and warm.
A soft voice starts humming a tune.
The pencil is moving again.
Obito doesn't look up.
He could abandon this orphanage. He could run. He could hide at the end of the world so he would never have to see another human soul again.
"The matron mentioned enrolling us for school today." Izuna suddenly mumbles. "I've never been to a school before. What's it like?"
Vague memories pass before Obito's eyes, faded and patchy at best. From another lifetime, an eternity ago, when he still sat in a classroom full of rowdy children most mornings, he himself among the loudest of them. He can barely remember what it's been like; it's as if another person lived through those memories, and he was merely a bystander.
"Frustrating. Lonely," he whispers; the words slip out before he can stop them. "Simple. Carefree."
"You won't be lonely this time. We will go to class together, and I'm certain we will breeze through the curriculum." Izuna muses. "So, that leaves 'simple' and 'carefree'; that doesn't sound so bad. I'm sure we'll find a way to enjoy ourselves."
Obito looks up, scowling at Izuna. "We will be forced to sit still and relearn shit we already know with pesky six-year-olds. What about that will be enjoyable?"
Izuna grins slyly at him. "Who said anything about sitting still and being good students?"
Obito can't stifle a snort. "You plan on becoming a delinquent? In elementary school?"
"No no, we are becoming kid delinquents in elementary school." His grin turns downright maniacal.
"And why would I want to become one?"
"Because it will be more fun that way! We'll be the talk of the schoolyard, the nightmare of every teacher, legends will be spun about us in the cafeteria, about the devil brothers!" He proclaims theatrically, bumping their shoulders together.
Obito has nothing to say in response to that, so he doesn't. Izuna's stubbornness is not something he has the energy to deal with, at least not today, maybe when they actually start school.
Izuna doesn't continue chatting like he often does whenever Obito becomes quiet, instead, he goes back to his drawing, humming another unfamiliar tune under his breath. He has started on a new blank page, with a few quickly placed lines, vaguely outlining a canine shape.
The minutes tick by, and Obito watches mesmerized as the animal steadily takes form. A wolf, he soon realizes, crouching low as if about to pounce. Its muzzle is trailed onto something off the paper, with a cunning glint and an iron will in its eyes.
Obito recalls the hawk and the cat on the other pages.
He could stand up this very second and walk out of this room. He could walk down the hallway and not look back. He could run until he can't anymore and settle down in an overgrown forest.
Obito doesn't. Because the shoulder he is leaning on is warm and grounding and there. He has no scars that hurt in the cold anymore; his skin is smooth and unblemished, his bones unfractured, his muscles have never torn. He has no need for this soothing warmth.
He still doesn't move away.
.
.
The night is not as frigid as he had expected. He can even admit that it's pleasant to be outside, to let the wind ruffle his hair and feel the air vibrating around him with the bustling of a city.
Obito's limbs ache more fiercely the longer he moves after neglecting them for so long, but it's a good ache, one he hadn't realized he had missed.
He jumps over to the next rooftop, and his bones tremble when he lands hard, without any chakra to cushion his fall.
Behind him, a second pair of feet hit the concrete much more silently than his own, and the anger that rises in him as a result genuinely surprises him. He had thought he had left petty rivalries behind him long ago.
"Will you finally tell me why you dragged me out here?" He snaps irritated.
Izuna doesn't rise to it; he never does. It still baffles him that Izuna's patience is seemingly endless when confronted with Obito's temper, while his fuse is as short as a matchstick when dealing with everybody else.
Izuna strides over to the edge of the building, and activating his Sharingan, he searches their surroundings. "We are checking on some rumors; doing a little reconnaissance if you will."
"Rumors?" Obito frowns. "And where would you have heard those?"
Turning back around, Izuna throws him a smirk. "Madara paid the police station a visit a few nights ago. Initially, he just wanted to see if they found out anything useful about our dear old deadbeat father during their investigation into our family tree, but he overheard some police officers talking about a new underground hero stationed here in Musutafu, whose eyes apparently glow red whenever he activates his quirk."
Obito blinks surprised. Another Uchiha? It makes sense that Izuna would want to check that out, but still, "That doesn't explain why I'm here." He could have asked Madara to accompany him, but again, he didn't; he insisted that Obito came along.
"Well, why not?" Izuna counters. "I wanted to go on a mission with you, and I did, easy as that."
Obito sighs resigned. "How are we going to find that hero anyway? What's his name? How does he look like?"
"His name is Eraserhead. He has black hair and wears mostly dark clothes, apart from his signature yellow goggles and a white scarf. Other than that, he should be unassuming, being an underground hero and all that. As to where he is, no idea."
"No idea? What's your plan then? To run around like headless chicken and hope for the best?"
"Of course not, he is a hero, Obito, and heroes are wherever crime is." Izuna says cryptically, grinning wickedly with a promise for chaos.
.
.
As it turns out, instigating a bar fight is child's play wherever you find yourself. People are drunk, emotions run rampant, inhibition thresholds are low. One little push is enough, and the first fist is flying, then the second, third, and fourth; closely followed by glasses and a chair.
Izuna cackles the whole time, as they observe the brawl from an adjacent street.
However, one minor bar fight is apparently not enough to warrant a hero's involvement. Instead, the police are being called, who deal with the whole ordeal quickly after they arrive, no hero in sight.
So, they start another fight, and another, and another.
At the end of the night, they have caused a total of six mass brawls and committed two acts of arson in between, and yet there was no hero in sight.
"Do you think he is on vacation?" Izuna asks, sitting beside him at the edge of the rooftop, munching on a piece of dango.
Obito shrugs, chewing on his own sweet treat.
Izuna's shoulders slump. "I thought this would be easier considering other heroes take every opportunity to beat up some thugs in front of an audience."
"If he really is another Uchiha, he wouldn't be just another hero."
"I guess…"
Silence settles over them as they watch the sun rise over the horizon, feet dangling in the air and cheeks stuffed with dango. Despite having achieved nothing substantial, Obito doesn't really mind that he wasted an entire night searching for a man he couldn't care less about. He wouldn't say he enjoyed himself as Izuna did, but it also didn't turn out to be a chore as he had expected. He doesn't dare to examine that thought any further.
Gravel crunches behind them. Obito is on his feet in a flash, but before he can turn fully to face the newcomer, something wraps tightly around his torso and yanks him back sharply. With his arms bound to his side, he is unable to keep his balance and lands hard on his ass. Next to him, another body is thrown onto the roof with a dull thud and a puff of air.
Obito's hand flies to the handle of his knife hidden on his lower back under his jacket. It takes him no more than a second to examine the white wrappings that are binding him and Izuna. They are sturdy, tearing them is out of the question, and he is pretty sure an ordinary blade cannot cut them either. Tracing them back to their origin, Obito's eyes land on a tall man dressed in all black except for a pair of bright yellow goggles; the grip on his knife loosens, and most of the tension drains out of him.
"What are you kids doing alone on a rooftop? Don't you know it's dangerous to be sitting up here?" The man, Eraserhead, drawls in a voice so bland it's almost impressive.
Izuna's murderous expression vanishes the moment he too recognizes the hero currently restraining them. Good for him, Obito thinks, attacking them may as well have been the hero's death sentence. After all, Izuna has little tolerance for anything and anyone he considers a threat to Obito or Madara. He learned this quickly after an older child at the orphanage made fun of him over something insignificant, as children often do, and Izuna completely lost it.
"The sunrise is really pretty from up here." Izuna says, blinking up innocently at the hero. "Hey mister, do you want to hear a story?"
The hero doesn't outwardly react in any way to the sudden change of subject, although he is undoubtedly perplexed by the random question. He stays quiet for a long minute, his face impassive all the while. "A… story?"
"Yes!" Izuna's naive expression turns sharp as a kunai in the blink of an eye. "You see, they say that sometimes Amaterasu herself grants her blessing to those she deems deserving of it. Those selected few are granted the gift of her unquenchable flames. Her brothers Tsukuyomi and Susanoo will follow her lead, blessing the already gifted with infinite illusions and an unbreakable shield."
The hero continues to stand before them unmoving. Izuna tilts his head to the side, observing the man carefully for every twitch of a muscle. "And when all the gifts have been received, they curse the blessed. They curse them with endless love and fathomless hatred, tightly interwoven and inseparable from one another."
There is still no visible reaction to any of Izuna's words, no recognition in Eraserhead's features.
"And do you know how to tell if one was touched by the gods? You know by looking them in their eyes. They are said to be as vast as Tsukuyomi's mirror, as tempestuous as Susanoo's swirling storms, and as red as Amaterasu's burning light."
Obito watches as Izuna falls silent, his gaze searing into Eraserhead. He is looking for a minuscule twitch, a slight cramping of his shoulders, anything that would indicate familiarity with the story told.
But Eraserhead only huffs unimpressed. "I have no idea what you are getting at, kid."
Izuna scrunches his nose up, tension sapped out of him. "A bummer." He grumbles then throws another smile at Obito. "At least the dango was good, right?"