A/N: All opinions given on kite flying are my real opinions. What? Losing control is scary.

I hope you love this chapter as much as I do. Enjoy!

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Obito

Obito had never flown a kite before. He knew of it from movies like Mary Poppins, where it was idealized as a pastime for the most innocent of children. Standing still, holding a string, watching a brightly-colored piece of paper fly through the air: what could be more carefree than that?

After flying a kite for ten minutes, he reeled it in. White Zetsu asked, "Was it fun?"

Obito held the kite close, looking down. "Kind of…"

"Is something wrong?"

"I didn't know that the wind would feel so strong. When that breeze blew, it felt like it was going to pull it out of my hand, or snap the string, or…" Obito shuddered. "I don't think I like flying kites."

He turned away and went back to the kite rental booth with his face burning hot. Zetsu probably thinks I'm a big baby. Who gets scared because the wind might pull something out of their hand? I'm too sensitive. The person behind the booth reminded him that if he bought the kite, she would provide him with markers to decorate it, free of charge. Obito shook his head. With a hardly-noticeable sigh, she turned to hang the plain white kite back up on the wall. Who rejects a kite? I'm the sort of person who can't have fun with anything. I'm such a downer.

The kite lady rested her hands on the counter. "Well, perhaps you can help decorate that one. He looks like he's having fun."

Obito looked back. Little One wasn't flying his kite; it was flying him. He whipped through the air on the end of the string, going wherever the breeze took him. Obito had been too busy wrestling with his own kite to notice. Isn't he scared of getting blown away? After a few minutes of observation, he saw that whenever the kite flew towards the trees, it turned away. Obito watched with rapt attention as it sailed toward another stand of trees. Unconsciously, he rose up on tiptoes. He leaned forward. He tensed certain muscles around his eye.

He gasped. The kite's flight changed, becoming many times more intricate. Before, it looked like it was just sailing this way and that, but now he could see every little bend and flex in the fabric. He could see how the kite was going to move before it moved. By watching the kite, he could see the wind, even though the atmosphere was as transparent as ever. He watched with awe as the kite turned away from the trees. It wasn't just bouncing off some forcefield; it was getting blown away! Little One must have surrounded the entire field with a dome of circling air!

He continued to watch Little One in flight, his mouth hanging open. With his new super detailed vision, he felt as if he was the one flying. Phantom sensations crawled along his arms and back. Am I remembering being a bird in a past life?

He turned back to the woman in the booth with his heart pounding. He was surprised yet again to see that she, too, looked different. He could see every twitch of her lips, every flick of her fingers, as she looked at him with curiosity. If she had been disappointed in him earlier, that was gone. There was no evidence that she had ever thought the slightest negative thought about him. Even as he realized he was staring, she started to smile, and he could see that it was genuine. She took the kite down from the wall and handed it back to him. He took it.

"How is he doing that?" White Zetsu asked. They were watching Little One.

"He has the whole field surrounded with circling wind," Obito said quietly. "The kite can't blow away."

Zetsu looked at him. "How do you know that?" Black Zetsu asked.

Obito touched the hole in his mask. "It feels like I'm seeing different. I can see the wind, somehow." He unwound six feet of string and held up the kite. He saw the moment when the wind found it and tightened his grip before the kite flew away. As the wind played with it, he saw what the wind was about to do and adjusted his grip accordingly before it happened. There was no danger of the kite being pulled out of his hands. "See? The wind can't surprise me now. It's not scary anymore."

Zetsu stood next to him and tried to follow. But no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't see what he was seeing.

Original Hidan

Sitting in a tree watching a doll climb and jump on the branches was boring. How much longer was he going to have to wait? "Your friend's gonna be stuck with those two forever at this rate," he grumbled.

Solis looked all around, then climbed straight up, disappearing into branches so small that only a doll or a bird could have climbed on them without them breaking. Several minutes later, Solis came down and waved its arms. "What?" Hidan snapped. This fucking thing! How much longer am I gonna be stuck with it for?

Solis crawled back into his lap (Hidan barely restrained himself from hurling it into a lamppost), where it made a magical display appear in midair. The display looked like a circle with symbols drawn around the outside and a line dividing it in half down the middle. Several of the symbols moved onto the line, which promptly turned into a slit like a cat's eye. Hidan jerked upright. Through this slit, he could see another doll flying through the air above an open field with a pond in the background. It didn't look like any location he'd seen before. He tried to think of where this pond could possibly be. Aha! I saw on the map that there's another pond on the southeast corner of town. It had a big field around it. That's the place.

"Shut this damn thing down," Hidan snapped. "And why the fuck didn't you say you had a way of magically tracking other dolls?! That little bastard is what I've been looking for all morning!"

Solis looked up at him. It could not make facial expressions, but Hidan got the impression that it was thinking something along the lines of, You big moron. It did not close the magic thingymahooper. Instead, it got to its feet and jumped through the slit, appearing on the other side.

"You can fucking teleport?!" Hidan yelled at the top of his lungs. "Oh, you little -" He gasped as he passed through the portal. He meant to grab Solis and exact revenge, but the feeling of magic brushing over his fur distracted him. He landed on the grass on all fours. Instinctively, he curled his tail inward against his leg. He looked back and saw that the portal was gone; even so, he crawled another meter away and stood up before letting his tail relax.

"Um, hello…" someone said. Hidan didn't recognize the voice. He turned toward it, expecting to see an NPC. Instead, he saw the masked freak that called himself Tobi.

Hidan huffed and looked around, paying no attention to Tobi. He saw Zetsu a couple meters away and went right up into his face. "So! I hear you have a problem with Jashin sama."

"That thing is an animal god. We are plants. It's a bad fit," Black Zetsu answered curtly.

"I don't give a shit! As Jashin sama's most loyal follower in the entire universe, anyone who has a problem with him has a problem with me." Hidan took his scythe off his back. "Let's settle this, Parsley."

"Don't!" the masked freak yelped. "Zetsu's kind. You can talk to them, I promise. There's no need to fight."

"I haven't had a good fight for a solid week," Hidan shot over his shoulder. "I know I don't need to. I just fucking want to." He tensed his arm muscles, ready to sweep the blades horizontally through the air. They'd disembowel Zetsu if he wasn't fast enough to jump out of the way.

He was. That was good; it prolonged the fight and made it more interesting. Hidan leaped forward with another horizontal sweep. Zetsu dodged again, this time running around the side. Hidan twisted on his feet and threw the scythe.

Just before the scythe would have drawn blood, the masked idiot jumped on it. His feet landed flat on the two lower blades, driving them into the earth. He stood up, panting. He stepped off the scythe with bewilderment, as if not quite sure what he'd done. Hidan's ears flattened. He can fight, but not on purpose. Easy meat. Hidan darted toward him.

The masked man heard footsteps just in time. He threw himself backward, dodging Hidan's lunge, then forward again before Hidan had a chance to recover. Hidan dodged this, but even as he stepped aside the masked man turned to catch him. Hidan was on the ground before he could think How the fuck does he know where I'm going?! The masked man released his grip on Hidan's neck, but only after sitting on his chest. The fight was officially won.

"Let me up or I will make you pray for death," Hidan snarled.

"I - I don't want you to hurt Zetsu."

"He fucking asked for it!"

A burst of wind blew everyone's hair around. A lady somewhere nearby yelped about something falling into the grass. The two dolls appeared, levitating paper squares with attached strings through the air behind them. They put the things down and ran to investigate the scythe. Watching them touch it with their annoying little hands was more than Hidan could bear. He yelled and twisted, throwing the masked man off of him. Cursing nonstop, he physically kicked both dolls away from his scythe and replaced it safely on his back, where nobody was gonna touch it. Nobody.

"What the fuck is your problem?!" Black Zetsu snarled.

"We haven't done anything!" White Zetsu added.

"We leave your god alone and ask that it leaves us alone. That's it."

"You're trying to kill us for no reason!"

Hidan gave Zetsu his most fearsome hiss. With all of his fur standing on end and his teeth bared, he thought he sounded like Death itself. "Shut. The. Fuck. Up."

"No."

Something changed. Zetsu stood up, looking no longer like the wimpy wilted vegetable he always had. He stomped toward Hidan like an oak tree, ready to bash someone's bones into dust. "I'll ask again," Black Zetsu said. "What is your problem?"

"I won't let anyone get away with disrespecting Jashin sama."

"We haven't done any such thing. We leave your god alone and ask that it leaves us alone."

"That's fucking disrespectful!"

"There is no pleasing you, is there?"

"You don't have any fucking idea what you're talking about!" Hidan cried. "Gods aren't things you ignore! Turning your back, treating Jashin sama like something that doesn't exist, is just fucking trashy!"

"We haven't done that," the masked man tried to interject. "We just don't want to live with it, that's all. But it's fine if other people do."

"No, it's not fine, is it?" Hidan stepped forward, right into Zetsu's face. "I've heard all the shit you've been saying about how everyone else is trash because we let this horrible god control our actions. We're crazy, nuts, friggin' weirdos, manipulative bastards, jackasses. Being around Yahiko is just like being around that dick you used to work for. You fucking said that."

Both of Zetsu's eyes widened in alarm. He shrank back. Hidan grinned cruelly and pressed forward. "You want to know who's the real dick? You. Turning your back and ignoring is a million times more fucking distasteful than anything anyone else has done, and you're garbage for doing it. Cowardly garbage. Jashin sama scares you, doesn't he?" Hidan stepped forward. Zetsu stepped back. "He should. You wouldn't be worthy of his favor if you had a thousand lifetimes to try."

At this point, Hidan wanted to finish things. His blood was racing, he was at the apex of his power, and Zetsu lay helpless before him. Every instinct commanded him to finish this hunt by plunging his scythe into Zetsu's chest and reveling in one last burst of fear and blood and glory and joy, endless whooping joy. He reached for his scythe. He was going to. It all fell so neatly into place, like a river flowing forward -

But his scythe bounced off a forcefield.

Hidan stepped back, joy instantly turning to rage. He saw the two dolls standing there, watching. The one with the green circle, the one that was like a baby - that one had its arms up. Hidan saw red, then saw memories replaying. The masked freak jumping on his scythe. The babylike doll making a forcefield. All of the people that he ignored as being worthless, coming back to prove they weren't so worthless after all. Hidan wasn't hunting correctly. The first steps of any hunt included cutting the target off from the herd, and he had failed to do that. He plunged right into the herd, impulsiveness making him stupid. This was no way to hunt. Stupidity wasn't a trait Jashin sama wanted in his representatives. Hidan was shaming his god right now.

He backed off. "Piss me off again and it'll be the last thing you ever do," he growled. Acting on another impulse - a different, non-hunting-related one - he picked up the babylike doll with the green circle. It reached out and levitated its white paper string thing. Hidan replaced his scythe on his back, turned and left. He settled into a traveling pace, running towards the base, aware of the doll carrying the thing along behind them. He didn't mind. The doll could have any paper string thing it wanted, so long as it left him to lick his wounded pride in peace.

Yahiko

Yahiko set out before Original Hidan returned and took a different route, so they missed each other. If Original Hidan hasn't found them yet, perhaps I can. I'll ask for Little One back, apologize for yesterday, and get back on course. That was Yahiko's intention and he was very optimistic about it.

He walked slowly, unsure of where he was going. He eventually decided to head for the park. That was where they had met for the past few days. Once he decided this, he still maintained a leisurely walk. Yesterday, I ended up talking too fast and shaking. No energy burst this time! I have to stay calm. It took quite a lot of time to reach the park at this pace, but what did he care? He had freed himself from the artificial constraints of a workday; he wasn't beholden to other people's opinions any more.

He didn't see anyone when he first reached the park, so he kept going. The trails were pleasant to walk along. His pace quickened when he first heard the distant quacking of ducks. He wondered if he would see the duck family with all the little ducklings trailing behind them, like the world's cutest marching band.

He did. It was cute. But then, he heard crying.

It was Obito. Yahiko froze. Obito's mask lay on the ground next to him. His face was buried in his knees, but Yahiko was terrified that at any moment Obito might look up and accidentally reveal something that wasn't supposed to be revealed. It was like catching a friend squatting in the woods. Yahiko turned away, blushing bright red. He put a hand up to block his vision. "I'm here! But I'm not looking. It's okay, you can put your mask on."

Obito stopped sobbing. Yahiko heard rustling. "Okay," Obito mumbled a minute later.

Yahiko lowered his hand, but still didn't look. "Is, um, Zetsu around? I want to apologize."

Obito said something inaudible. Yahiko waited, then admitted he hadn't heard it. "Don't," Obito repeated. "You don't have to. You're not like Madara." His voice trailed off into a squeak. Yahiko heard sounds like him taking the mask off again and rubbing his face.

"Where did you hear that?" Yahiko asked. Zetsu wouldn't have told him, would they? Oh no. Did I start a fight between them? No, no, no. I never wanted to split them up. I didn't want that. I didn't.

"From Hidan," Obito replied, sniffling. "The one with the fur. He said that Zetsu had said all these horrible things about you and your friends."

Yahiko sat down. The ducks disappeared into reeds, but he didn't mind; he couldn't appreciate their cuteness anyway. "Well, we are crazy and frequently get caught up in unpredictable and dangerous stuff. They're a plant and their whole job is to keep you safe. These are totally opposite things. It's a bad fit. That's all."

"But… But…"

"But what?"

"C'mere so I can see you."

Yahiko obliged, checking from the corner of his eye to make sure the mask was on. It was, so he scooted over and sat near Obito, their knees almost touching. "After Tobi came out yesterday, something happened. I got really worked up. I became pushy. That's when he said the thing about Madara. And it's true - Madara and I are both really forceful personalities who try to change the people around us. Making you happier is technically changing you. But Zetsu can't read my mind, so how would they know what I'm trying to achieve? It makes sense to be cautious."

"No. You aren't like that," Obito insisted. "I can see it."

Yahiko looked up, prepared to defend his dishonor. But then he caught a glimpse of red in the mask's eye hole. "...Obito?"

"What?"

"Your eye… I want to look at it." Yahiko leaned forward. His jaw dropped. "Oh my god. It's the Sharingan."

"What?" Obito reached up as if to rub at his eye.

"The Sharingan is, um, a special magic eye. It lets you see things, especially moving things, a lot better than a normal eye can. What have you used it to look at?"

"Kites. And then people fighting, and then coming here, the ducks, and you. Why are you asking? Is it dangerous?"

"No, it's not dangerous. It's just that, if you look at too many moving things for too long, the amount of detail can overload you. Itachi once got a headache so bad I had to guide him home. Are you okay? No headache? No eye strain?"

"No. Maybe a little?"

"Okay. Let me just give Itachi a call real quick." Yahiko did so immediately. Obito kept touching the hole in his mask, looking worried. Maybe I shouldn't have gotten worried as my first reaction.

*ring* *ri-* "Hello?"

Yahiko put the call on speakerphone. "Hey, Itachi. How do you deactivate the Sharingan? Like, what does it feel like?"

"Hmm. To activate it, I channel chakra into my eyes. It feels like using my eye muscles to push something forward. Deactivating it feels like pulling that same thing backward. I typically imagine the flow of chakra pinching closed."

Yahiko waved at Obito encouragingly. Obito focused for a few seconds, then nodded. "Okay, thank you."

"I seem to recall Konan telling us the Sharingan was hereditary, belonging to people of a certain family," Itachi said calmly. "I must know the context for this request."

"I'll tell you later. I promise." Yahiko ended the call. "Is your family name Uchiha?" Obito nodded. "Cool. You and Itachi might be distant cousins or something."

"Yahiko?"

"Yeah?"

Obito looked down. "I don't want to stop seeing you."

"That's not a bad thing. It's normal and okay to have friends that don't get along with each other. I'll try my best to get along with Zetsu." Yahiko smiled. "It'll be fine."

"Even if Zetsu can't get along with you… I still wouldn't stop."

"That's also normal and okay. I hope it doesn't come to that, but if it did, we'd figure something out. They just want what's best for you."

"I don't want to stop."

He's talking about something else, isn't he? Yahiko let his smile fade. "Me neither."

Obito looked at him. He looked back. He smiled, and somehow he knew that Obito was smiling too. All was right with the world.

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A/N: I didn't have an opportunity to include this in the story, but the deal with the kite rentals is that you pay the lady some amount to try it, and you pay another, larger amount to buy the kite if you decide you want to own it. Obito and Little One were just renting. After Little One took it away, Zetsu had to pay her the purchase price, as if they didn't have enough to deal with at that moment. Also, I was imagining the kite rental booth as a temporary thing. If so, it's clearly "seasonal" temporary and not "a single weekend" temporary, given that it has a wooden countertop for her to lean on. Perhaps the booth is a permanent structure and someone else moves in to sell ice skates and snow shoes during the winter. I could build on this.

Anyway, Happy Valentine's Day! Love and joy! Woo!