Obito-Sensei Chapter 33

You Can't Go Back

Obito felt warm.

It was a beautiful day in Konoha, a brisk spring breeze blowing through the village's streets and shaking the trees of the forest around it. It had rained just before he'd arrived, and the streets were still drying in the midday sun. Doing the mission by himself had been easy, maybe even a little nostalgic. After all, there had been a time when all of his missions had been solo operations; his unique skill set had determined that.

He hadn't even had to step in. The Daimyo's marshals had handled everything. He'd just been an expensive security deposit.

A lot more lonely missions in the future, he thought as he walked through the village, looking around and giving the occasional perfectly normal greeting to anyone who acknowledged him. After what he'd done, who'd trust him with a team again?

Obito thought he should have felt scared, or ill. Instead he was warm and confident.

This was reality now, he thought. It would be stupid to regret it. He'd made his decision, and the moment he'd done that he was ready to live with it.

What had changed? Obito pondered that question as he watched another group of young genin wander by. It was like a thin film had been pulled back from the world. Wasn't that a little too dramatic for that to happen just from digging up an old memory?

Maybe not. He wasn't sure. There was only one other person who'd been there. She was the only one who might be able to understand what he'd done without judgement.

Or maybe Rin would knock him into orbit. There was only one way to find out.

Obito meandered towards the central hospital, hands stuck in his pockets as he imagined all the ways he was about to become a stranger. The beautiful day washed over him, and he was there before he knew it. He slipped through the front door without bothering to open it and wandered upstairs, heading for Rin's office. He wasn't sure where he'd look next if she wasn't there, but in the middle of the week and the middle of the day, it was a safe bet.

He got a couple strange glances from both staff and patients as he made his way to the fifth floor; it had been a long time since Obito had been in the hospital. He hadn't even gone after Waterfall. Rin had been able to fix him right up. It didn't bother him that they were wondering why he was there. He was sure that normally it would have.

Rin's door was half open when he got there, and Obito could hear the sounds of a conversation inside. Something logistical. As one of the head medical ninja, Rin was responsible for the village's supplies as well as its shinobi, and from the sound of it they were close to running out of some sort of chakra reactive ink. Obito lingered by the door for about ten minutes, the time passing in a pleasant haze as he wondered just what the hell he was going to say. Eventually, another woman dressed in a medical uniform left. She started and gave Obito a glare when she realized he was standing right next to the door, and he shrugged in apology.

He slipped past her into the room, and Rin sat up behind her wide oak desk with a surprised grunt. "Obito? You're back already?" There were countless forms and knicknacks scattered across her desk, twelve different kinds of pens, and an impressively organized pile of completed paperwork stuck in a binder off to the side.

"Yup," he said, and Rin tilted her head at his tone. Obito couldn't help but watch the way her brown hair cascaded against her shoulder.

"Uh huh," she said with a raised eyebrow. "Did you need something? Did someone get hurt again?"

"No, everyone's fine," Obito said. Huh. Why did that sound like the truth? "Can we talk in private for a minute?"

Rin crossed her arms. "Not much that's more private than my office, Obito. Unless you mean the Kamui?"

"No." Obito shook his head. "I spend too much time there. Change of scenery is always nice." He held out his hand. "Here, I'll find a place."

Rin took his hand and as a spark traveled the full length of Obito's body he shifted into the Kamui for just a fraction of a second. Three steps forward, and they were on top of the Hokage's monument.

Rin looked around and blinked. "Not quite what I thought," she said with a laugh, smiling at him. "Always freaks me out when you-"

"Rin," Obito said, "Sakura was given a mission to defect to the Nation of Rain."

His teammate stared at him, her chocolate-brown eyes wide.

"Eh?"

"She left in the middle of the night, after we stopped to rest," Obito said, each word carefully measured. "I got up to make sure she was good to go, but I didn't go back to bed afterwards. Naruto and Sasuke noticed, and they woke up and confronted me. I told them the truth. We had a fight. I won; they didn't have a chance."

Rin was just silently staring, either too shocked to speak or too focused to bother.

"The whole time, I thought they were trying to beat me down so they could go stop Sakura. But I was being an idiot. They told me, when it was obvious they'd lost, that it wasn't their right to stop her. That since she'd agreed to the mission, she obviously had to go."

Obito looked down at the village spread out below them. "But they said that she definitely couldn't go alone."

"Obito," Rin said quietly, and he glanced back at her. "You let them go?"

"Yeah," Obito said. "I let them go."

"Do you…" Rin hesitated. That was good, Obito thought. She was thinking about it. Maybe she would even understand it. "Do you think you did the right thing?"

Obito blinked. For some reason, he hadn't expected that question. It was only a momentary hesitation; a heartbeat later, he nodded.

"It depends," he said, and Rin returned his nod. They both looked out at the village, the breeze rustling their clothes and hair. "For the village, no, I don't think so. I think people will hate me, and they'll be right to."

He breathed in deeply, so much sweet spring air making it feel like his chest would burst. "But for my team, yeah. I think they're always gonna be stronger together. Naruto and Sasuke told me that if Sakura went alone she'd defect for real, and I think they were right about that. I think that they'll all be coming back."

"You think," Rin said gently. Obito acknowledged the unspoken end of that sentence with a small laugh.

"But I don't know that, right?" he said. Rin grimaced. She was being so quiet, Obito thought. When Rin had come back from training with the legendary Sannin Tsunade she'd been brasher, louder, even a little meaner. But now, it was like they were kids again. She was meek and understanding, and he might have just done something incredibly stupid.

"What made you let them go?" she asked. "Just them saying that?"

"No," Obito said with a shake of his head. "That wouldn't have been enough. It was crazy that they said that, but it was something else that got me."

"Yeah?"

"They made me remember something," he continued. "They were both standing there, all beat up and bleeding and screaming at me, and it felt familiar. I couldn't figure out why at first; I thought I was just exhausted, or having deja vu."

"You weren't?" Rin asked, honestly curious.

"When you got captured, at Kannabi Bridge," Obito said. Rin flinched. "Kakashi and I got ambushed by one of the Stone ninja who'd taken you. He cut out Kakashi's eye, and that awoke my Sharingan." He smiled sadly. "And then he died, just an hour or two later, and that brought out my Mangekyo."

"Obito," Rin said cautiously. "You're not really making sense."

"Kakashi didn't want to go back for you," Obito said, and Rin sucked in a breath. "He told me that the mission was more important than anything. That's what he'd always been taught. And I disagreed: I told him that even if a shinobi who abandoned the mission was trash, someone who'd just leave their friends behind was worse than trash. That's what made him decide to rescue you. That's why he chose to die, when he pushed me out from under that rock. You get it?"

"No." Rin seemed embarrassed to say it. "I don't get what you're talking about, Obito. What's this got to do with Sakura?"

"I went out there thinking that Sakura's mission was more important than anything." Obito's gaze wandered over the village, lingering on the Hokage's tower. "That even if it hurt Naruto and Sasuke, or even if we ended up losing Sakura for good, that was just the cost of the mission: that would just be a sacrifice that a shinobi had to make." He looked back at Rin. "I forgot the words that made me who I am. Isn't that ridiculous?"

Rin watched him with an expression Obito couldn't identify. Then, she smiled.

"You know," she said, and even if she was smiling her voice was heavy with sorrow, "we both changed after Kakashi died, Obito."

He didn't have to acknowledge a truth that obvious.

"I didn't want to be weak enough to ever end up in that situation again," Rin said. "I thought it was my fault that Kakashi had died, so I told myself that I'd make that impossible. That I'd get strong enough to crush anyone who tried to use me." She was wistful, lost in the past. "But you changed a lot more than me, Obito. You were always a goofball, and funny, and cute, but you came back from that mission and suddenly you had a Sharingan that hadn't been seen in decades, and a technique that made you almost unstoppable."

Obito's brain was stuttering, stuck on 'cute,' as Rin continued. "So you had to change, right? You had a lot of responsibilities all the sudden, and when everything went down with ROOT, you were the first one Sensei turned to. You were the only one he could rely on to assassinate those bastards; anyone else would have died, but you were a ghost, right?"

"What do you-?" Obito started to ask, and Rin made a shushing motion.

"Obito, think about what you told me. You became one of the most powerful shinobi in the village, shit, the world, because you made a decision for yourself," she said, her smile going a little vicious. "And for me. You disobeyed the team leader and ran off after me. I didn't know that before, but it makes so much sense now."

"Eh?" Obito said. Rin shook her head.

"Since that day, I don't think you've made a single decision for yourself," she said, and Obito felt like someone had just smashed him into the monument with a hammer. "You always set your pace before you got your Sharingan; you did what you wanted, what you thought was right, even if it was going to make you seem unreliable. But afterwards, you were still cheerful… but you just followed orders. You used to talk about becoming Hokage, and that just vanished right out of you."

"Did that happen," she said, "because you forgot? Or because you thought it was your fault that Kakashi was dead?"

The strong winds at the top of the monument threatened to push them over.

"Both." The word burst out of Obito's mouth so suddenly that he almost flinched. There wasn't any thought, just reaction. "I wanted to forget. I thought what I'd said had been stupid; that it had gotten Kakashi killed. It was something that only a child could think. I didn't want to remember it."

"What you said didn't kill Kakashi," Rin said gently. "It saved me. The Hidden Stone killed him."

Obito closed his eyes, trying to keep his breathing under control. "I didn't think that way."

"Well, that's stupid," Rin said. "No wonder you've been such a lump since then. What the hell were you thinking, taking that all on yourself?"

Her words should have hurt, but Obito felt some venom leak out of him, like burning blood. His breathing stabilized; he straightened up.

"I don't have a clue," he said, and then shook his head. "No, that's bullshit. After I got the Kamui, I had to do everything myself. That was just how I thought about it. Because otherwise people would just be risking themselves for no reason. So I thought that, because of that, there was no way I could be Hokage." He stared down at the carved heads beneath their feet. "The Hokage has to be someone the whole village can look to, someone who can keep it safe. Sensei was that person, even after Kakashi died. But I was just a ghost; the only person I could keep safe was myself."

"What a bunch of nonsense," Rin said matter of factly, crossing her arms and staring out over the village. To his surprise, Obito found himself nodding in agreement. "You're taking it way too literally."

"I'm a literal guy," Obito said with a grin. Rin's laugh was beautiful. "But I get it now. I feel like… I've woken up, I guess. It had to take me losing my team to realize that." He looked down. "I haven't lost much since Shisui died…"

"You didn't lose them," Rin said as she slapped him on the shoulder. It was like getting hit by a falling tree, and Obito nearly staggered off the monument. "Sakura wasn't ready to go on a mission like that by herself. I don't know what Sensei was thinking. But all of them together, they'll keep their heads screwed on straight. They'll be back." She smiled slyly. "It'll be like a field trip."

Obito snorted. "We'll see if Sensei sees it that way."

"He won't," Rin said. "Mind if I tag along? I wanna see his face."

"I don't want you to get any of my mud on you," Obito said. His teammate snorted.

"I was just asking to be polite," she said. "If you don't take me with you, I'll be there within a couple seconds anyway." She looked pointedly down the face of the monument. "It's not a long fall."

Obito rolled his eyes and extravagantly stuck out his arm, and Rin took it with mock pomposity, as if agreeing to dance with someone below her station. The world swirled away as it was subsumed by the Kamui.

She was right, Obito thought as they stepped through infinite space into another limited one. He'd spent the better part of his life as an automaton as he mindlessly followed the village's instructions. It hadn't been Sensei abusing him; it had simply been that after Kakashi's death he hadn't known how to do anything else. He'd promised Kakashi he'd look out for Rin and become a great ninja, but for Kakashi up until the very last day of his life being a great ninja meant following your orders, and Obito had mindlessly aped that, unable to consider anything else under the enormous pressure of his new eyes and, after their thrill faded, the constant dread of blindness.

He'd been content to survive, day by day. Everything new in his life had been forced on him; his apartment, his rank, and even his team. They'd demanded their own missions, and Rin had pushed him towards the Chunin Exam. He'd been like a stone rolling down a hill.

But Obito wasn't content anymore. It wasn't just Sakura's mission that had woken him up, he thought, but everything that had happened since he'd taken on Team Seven. Every mission, every question, the Chunin Exam, Sakura's offer from Rain, the destruction of Waterfall, the revelation of his clan. All of it had startled him back to life like a dozen people beating their fists on a coffin.

He felt, for the first time in decades, the same itch he'd had when he was younger. To be seen; to create change. It was like a fire in his heart that set it beating harder and harder.

It felt good. It made him brave enough to appear right in the center of the Hokage's office, head held high.

Obito and Rin stepped out of thin air, and Minato Namikaze slowly raised his head to greet them.

The office was empty. Obito noticed it right away as his Sharingan settled down, his hyper-acute vision fading. Minato wasn't doing any paperwork; he was just sitting at his wide desk, head propped on steepled hands, staring at them. The blinds were drawn, casting everything in mute shadows.

"Obito," the Hokage said, and Obito gave him a slight blow. "I heard you got back."

Minato's eyes narrowed slightly. Obito met the hard look without flinching.

"Alone."

"Yeah," Obito said. Keep it simple, he thought. A conversation could be like a duel, and the Hokage was peerless at both. If he tried to be clever, he'd lose. For the first time in years, he wanted to win. "Sakura left in the middle of the night, but Naruto and Sasuke woke up too. They confronted me." He touched his split lip, which was still a little swollen. "I beat them."

He shrugged. "And then I let them go after her. They had decided to defect as well."

Minato quietly considered that, as still as a statue. He spoke from behind his hands, his expression unreadable.

"What the hell were you thinking?" he said it so calmly that Obito almost blinked. The words were like arctic ice, calm above and deadly below. His teacher had always been a thoughtful guy, Obito thought. He wasn't rash; he considered every option, no matter what.

But when Minato spoke, Obito realized his sensei might not have considered this possibility.

"I had two thoughts," he said, trying to sound just as calm.

Three, he amended internally. I forgot who I was, but we all did, so I think I can be forgiven for that one.

"The first was that Sakura would probably fail," he said, and Rin shot him a dirty look. Minato's eyes didn't shift from him. "I was aware of that the whole time, but I was ashamed to admit it. It's not because she's not smart or driven, but because she has those qualities. The Akatsuki's ideals were created for people like her, who look at the world and aren't happy with it."

'Like me.'

"She'd fall for them in a second. She'd accomplish the mission, without a doubt, and then never return."

"That was part of the risk of the mission," Minato said, and what he didn't say rang even louder.

If she completed the mission but didn't come back, it would still be a success.

Obito's hands curled into fists.

"That was my second thought," he said, and Minato's eyes darted down to his clenched fists. "It wasn't. It never could be."

He sighed. "I refused to let it. So I sent all of them."

"That's naive," Minato said quietly, still unmoving and unmoved. "I didn't think you were like that, Obito. That's why I trusted Sakura with this mission. She was going to be someone who would decide the future of the world. You don't think that would have been enough for her? Rain would never turn her away: she just would have been in the employ of another village." His fingers clenched, crushing each other. "It was not a dear sacrifice."

"Not for the village," Obito admitted. "Not for you, or even her parents, and maybe even me." He smiled bitterly. "But it would have broken Naruto's heart, and Sasuke's too. They never would have recovered. They would have lived with that pain of betrayal for the rest of their lives." Rin glanced at him, her eyes cautious.

"Naruto is strong," Minato said, his face stone. "He could have survived a little heartbreak. It might even have made him a better ninja." His jaw clenched. "But now, they're all lost to us. Rain will never let them return."

"They'll be back," Obito said, knowing in his heart that it was true. So long as they were alive, they'd be planning to return. "They all will be, I promise you that. I wouldn't have let any of them go otherwise."

"You don't understand," Minato bit out, and Obito shook his head. The Hokage paused, thrown by his student's disrespect.

"You're the one who doesn't understand," Obito said, and he was shocked at the cold venom that filled his voice. "I know my team better than you, sensei. Even your son. You gave me the right to make that final decision, remember? After Sakura's party, you told me I was the one who would make the final call. And I did. I did the thing that would lead to the best result for my team and for the mission. Not for the village, and not for you."

"Obito-!" Minato said, shooting to his feet, but Obito held his ground.

"Is a shinobi someone who sacrifices," he said softly, "or someone who is sacrificed?"

Minato stopped in his tracks, regarding him with a cold stare. Obito didn't blink.

"You always say it's the first," he said. "But what Sakura was being set up for… that wasn't it, was it?" His sensei's deep blue eyes were like shards of ice. "You were ready to throw her away. That's not the kind of man you were, Minato."

There was a terrible fury in those eyes. Minato Namikaze was the kind of man who could kill dozens of people in less than a second and without hesitation. When he arrived, people died as if by natural causes, not even aware their death was near. In the right place, at the right time, the Hokage could kill anyone and anything. Right now, that village-crushing fury was directed solely at Obito. There was nothing else in the world but the two of them.

Because he'd given away the man's son, or gone against his plan? Obito was sure it was both. The murderous sensation sparked a curiosity in him. He found himself asking the same question he was sure hundreds of others had asked before, even if only for the fun of it.

Who would win, between a ghost and a thunder god?

There was a moment, the start of a heartbeat, where they almost went at each other. Rin sensed it subconsciously and started to move away, just the slightest twitch. The only thing that shinobi were meant to provide the world was violence.

But his heart finished beating and Obito breathed out. He spoke, leaving his whole body open. His words carried the tension away, like a hand gently taking hold of a knife.

"If you were willing to sacrifice Sakura without flinching," he said, and Minato relaxed as well, his killing chakra receding. The entire room creaked as an invisible pressure vanished. "Letting go of your son, and Mikoto's son, should have been just as easy a decision."

"It wasn't an easy decision," Minato said, but his voice caught on the final syllable, trailing off. Obito continued forward, merciless.

"It wasn't," he said. "But if you were as willing to let them go as you were her, you would have seen it right away."

"You really won't even admit fault," Minato mused. He brought up two fingers to rub against his forehead, suddenly looking exhausted. "You're that sure you were right."

"I am," Obito said. "I haven't been so sure of anything in a long time."

"Konoha will be a laughingstock," Minato said, stepping out from behind his desk and looking out the shuttered windows towards the village. "That's why I didn't make that decision," he continued, talking to himself as much as Obito and Rin. "My own son, run off to another village. They'll wonder what we are doing wrong, or what Rain is doing right. Naruto was too public to lose."

Obito had never heard his sensei so uncertain. He turned back towards the both of them.

"It wasn't me being selfish," he said.

"I don't think you were," Obito said. "But that's too cautious. You're acting like it's some unbelievable thing, but the Third's son did the same thing. Asuma spent over a decade with the Guardian Ninja, and Konoha wasn't any worse for it."

"The Guardians are in the direct employ of the Daimyo," Minato said, his lips twisting. "Rain is a group of revolutionaries determined to be enemies of the Daimyo. They couldn't be more different." He leaned against his desk, crossing his arms. "This was a unique situation. Anyone who defected to them would be tainted."

"That's true," Obito admitted. "But even if people don't like to talk about it, Rain and Konoha have a lot in common." He crossed his arms, mirroring his sensei. "Both their leaders were trained by the same man."

"Hmm." Minato didn't look convinced. "And came to very different conclusions. I want peace, and I've been keeping it; the Nation and the Amekage want control. It's not the same."

"Of course," Obito said. "But you've still been inspired by the same source. Even if it's humiliating for the Leaf, it will do Naruto some good to see…" He paused, looking for the word, and grinned. "It'll do all of them some good to see all the ways Jiraiya-Sensei's beliefs have manifested."

Minato paused, giving him a peculiar look, and after a moment slowly nodded.

"You're right," he said, and Obito couldn't hide his shock. His sensei gave him an amused look, some of his fury fading away. "It's a good point. But they're still in enormous danger. Sand already holds a grudge against Sakura for what she did in the Exam; that was a danger she was ready for. But with Naruto out of the village and in the employ of a rogue country like Rain, the Hidden Stone will be after him immediately." He stroked his chin. "And even if they've shifted focus to technology, Cloud is always intent on collecting more powerful Bloodlines, especially ones like the Sharingan. You never know when someone else like you will appear, Obito."

The Hokage leaned back, glancing between the both of them. "That's another reason Sakura was the safest choice. Sand would be hesitant to target a former ally, but with all of them going rogue… all of them are going to be hunted now. You understood that?"

"I did," Obito said. It wasn't a lie. All of this and more had been rushing through his mind as Naruto and Sasuke had argued with him, but he'd still come to the conclusion he had. "I'm not worried. Stone went after Naruto during the Exam, and Sasuke is strong. They'll be protected by Rain as new and valuable assets, and more than that, they'll keep each other safe." He grinned. "It's what I taught them to do."

Minato considered him, looking for a fault or some sign of uncertainty and finding none.

"There was already a plan to dispatch a hunter team to attempt to capture Sakura to sell the defection," he eventually said. "Their list will just have to be expanded."

"Will they be told to focus on Naruto and Sasuke?" Obito asked, astonished to realize he was already weighing his chances against a Leaf ANBU squad, and Minato shook his head.

"No," he said. "That would be too obvious." He shifted his gaze from Obito to Rin for the first time, and his other student cooly regarded him. "What do you think, Rin?"

"I think you both fucked up," Rin said, and Obito and his sensei snorted. "But I think Obito fucked up less."

"That's fair," Minato said lightly. "You two, leave. I have to figure out how to present this."

"You'll have to punish me in some way," Obito said, and Minato nodded.

"Oh sure, you're not getting paid for the next year or so," he said. Obito was surprised at what a toothless threat it was, and his sensei saw it. "I'll think of something more lasting later. Get out of here."

Obito turned to leave, but before he could step out the door Minato spoke once more.

"I understand why you did it, Obito," he said, and Obito paused, freezing in his tracks. "You seem different. Something else happened, right?"

"I wouldn't have done that before, is what you mean," Obito said. The Hokage made an affirmative sound. "I just remembered something from a long time ago. That's all."

There was quiet in the office for a couple seconds.

"Kakashi?" Minato eventually said, and Obito nodded.

"Yeah," he said, and then he gently opened the door and stepped out of the office, Rin at his side.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Rin sagged.

"Holy shit," she said. Obito couldn't help but silently agree. "I didn't know his chakra could be that heavy."

Now that they were out of the office, the absence of Minato's chakra was obvious; an omnipresent pressure trying to crush them from every direction at once had suddenly vanished, and Obito could suddenly stand completely straight and take full breaths once more. The Hokage's chakra alone could probably strangle a normal person.

"I'm surprised I got off that lightly," Obito said.

Rin snorted. "For a second I thought he was going to rip your head off."

"Me too," he admitted, looking at her. "What now?" She was looking up at him with her chocolate brown eyes, and for a second he forgot he could breathe again.

She smirked. "Well, you might not have a team anymore, but I've still got a job." Obito couldn't help but laugh. "I'm going back to the hospital."

"Do you want me to-?" he started to offer before she shook her head.

"I like walking," she said. "It's nice to just take things in, you know?"

"Yeah, I get it," Obito acquiesced. Rin gave him a funny look.

"You still don't look scared," she noted. "Even after that."

"I'm not," he said truthfully. His teammate grinned.

"Is that cause you haven't thought about having to tell Kushina yet?" she asked, and Obito felt all the blood drain out of his face. Rin's grin turned from sweet to sinister. "Have fun with that~!" she hummed as she skipped down the hall and down the stairs, out of sight. Obito watched her go, feeling something between infuriated and amazed.

It would be fine, he thought. He was literally impossible to hit. He was the safest man alive.

For some reason, that didn't give him any comfort as he spun out of sight.

He popped out on top of Naruto's family home, and looked down with the strange realization that now it was just Kushina and Minato's. Naruto was gone, and wouldn't be back for some time. He'd let something integral to the house escape it.

That weird, disconnected feeling of transition and outdated definition somehow struck him harder than anything else had that day, and he stayed rooted to the roof for more than a minute pondering the enormity of what he'd done. He was coming down from his high now, he realized, sinking into the consequences.

Well well well, if it isn't the consequences of my own actions. The absurd thought broke him free, and he chuckled.

"Something funny about sitting around on my roof?"

He glanced down to find Kushina staring up at him with an unamused expression, and swallowed.

"Kushina," he said, his throat dry. "How're you doing?"

"Just fine," Kushina said, arching an eyebrow. "How'd your mission go?"

She'd known, Obito thought. She was the Hokage's wife and Naruto was on Sakura's team, there was no way she hadn't. He licked his lips, considering what to say. Kushina was famous for her temper. If he played this wrong-

"Did Naruto come back with you?" she asked. Obito blinked.

"What?" he asked, and Kushina rolled her eyes.

"We should take this somewhere else," she said, leaping up to the roof and landing besides him. "Take us to the compound, will you?"

"What?" Obito asked again. Kushina looked at him like he was the stupidest man in the world.

"The Uchiha Compound," she said slowly, articulating each syllable as she would for a baby or someone who was hard of hearing. "If Naruto went with her, Sasuke did too, right? There's no way either of them would back down. We might as well tell Mikoto together."

She knew? What? How? Had Minato teleported over to tell her in the time it had taken him to get here? Obito grabbed her shoulder and drew them both into the Kamui before stepping back, shaking his head. "Kushina, how-?"

He didn't have a chance, even with the Sharingan. Kushina's haymaker struck him square in the jaw and knocked him to the ground. Obito fell so hard that he bounced, spitting up a mouthful of blood, and he looked up to find Kushina shaking her fist out with a relieved look.

Oh god, he'd taken her the one place she could hit him. What had he been thinking?

"There," she said, giving him a sharp-toothed grin. "For posterity, you know?"

"Kushina, I'm so sorry," he said, scrambling back to his feet. She didn't advance on him. "It was-"

"The best for them, yeah," Kushina said, and then regarded him, unimpressed. Obito gaped. "What? Did you seriously not see this coming?"

"Minato didn't tell you?" Obito asked. He looked around at the endless darkness of the Kamui, questioning himself. This didn't feel real.

"Pfft." Kushina smoothed out her long red dress and sat back on a suddenly manifested golden chain that provided her an impromptu chair. "You've got a low opinion of me, huh? I was pretty sure this was going to happen, you know."

"Seriously?" Obito said, shaking his head. "Why the hell… how? Sensei didn't have a clue."

"I know my son," Kushina said with a wistful look. She already missed him terribly, Obito saw: she was staring off into the dark, not paying attention to him. "Either he was going to notice something was off with Sakura and get it out of her, or he was going to chase her the second she left. Which one did it end up being?"

Obito, still not sure if she was messing with him or not, held up two fingers. Kushina chuckled. "Yeah, he's still a little slow. Figures."

"Why did you let him go, if you knew he was going to go with her?" he said, and Kushina's face dropped.

"Cause it's where he wanted to be," she said. "With his team. If I kept him here, that just would have been torture for him." She shifted, her eyes piercing him. "You knew that too, right Obito? That's why you let him go."

"Sure," Obito said, massaging his jaw. "But I didn't think you'd agree."

"I didn't want to," Kushina said. "But it's just how things are." She laughed. "I thought it might happen the second Sakura got that damn letter. I told them, even. Maybe I planted the thought in him that day, you know? Maybe it's my fault he went with her."

"If it was, it was just because you raised him well," Obito said with a sudden conviction, and Kushina gave him a smile.

"Ah, that's so sweet," she said, sitting up. "Probably bullshit, but definitely sweet." Her face sank a little. "But Mikoto didn't know about the mission. She hasn't had any time to prepare herself. Her first thought is gonna be that Sasuke left because of her."

"She'd probably be a little right about that," Obito said somewhat cruelly. Kushina regarded him with an admonishing look.

"You were planning to tell her, right?" she said, and Obito shrugged. "It's her son. It would have been cruel not to."

"Sure," Obito said without commitment. Kushina shrugged.

"Doesn't matter," she said. "We'll tell her together." She held her hand out again, and Obito regarded it suspiciously, wary of another punch. Kushina laughed at his expression. "Don't worry, I got my hit in. That's enough for a lifetime against you, Obito. Just take us to the compound, alright?"

He reached out, taking her hand, and they were suddenly inside the Uchiha compound.

"Uncle Obito?" A younger Uchiha, a little girl with blond hair, staggered back from them and dropped into a bow, startled by their sudden appearance. They'd almost popped into existence right on top of her. "And Lady Kushina!" she stuttered. "Welcome home!"

"Ari," Obito said warmly, tousling her hair as the girl protested. "Where's Mikoto?"

"Lady Mikoto? She's out training," Ari said, staring at the both of them with wide eyes. "Number Thirty-Seven. Do you want me to-?"

"We'll go get her," Obito said with a smile, and Ari shyly smiled back. He shared a glance with Kushina, and could tell the both of them were thinking the same thing.

It was probably for the best that Mikoto wasn't in the compound. Maybe even better if she'd already tired herself out with some training. As close to ideal as it could get.

"See you later, okay?" Obito said, and the little girl smiled.

"Okay!" she said brightly, and then he and Kushina were both sucked out of reality once more. Four steps backwards, and they slipped into existence at the edge of a field.

Just as they'd been told, Mikoto was there. They watched as she patiently practiced her shurikenjutsu, striking a post with relentlessly accuracy again and again from more than fifty meters away. Parts of the field were burned and cracked, and she was alone.

Obito wondered if that wasn't the case more often than not nowadays. Maybe they'd have that in common.

Kushina approached first, breaking from the treeline and calling out.

"Mikoto!"

The woman spun with an alarmed look, and Obito watched her face run through about five different emotions before settling on pleasant surprise at the sight of him and Kushina. She set down her shuriken and began walking towards them. Obito followed behind Kushina at a couple meters distance, wondering what the plan was.

"Kushina," Mikoto said quietly, and Kushina gave her a guileless smile. "And Obito. What are you doing here?"

"Mikoto," Kushina said, "we've got some news."

Mikoto frowned at her tone, glancing back and forth between the two of them. "News?" she asked carefully. She was scared, Obito realized, and the revelation shocked him. Last time he'd seen her, she'd been indignant and composed, but now, here with just them in the field, she was scared. Did she think they'd been sent to kill her? This wasn't a sudden fear, but an omnipresent one that had been suddenly dug up.

He stepped forward, and Kushina gracefully gestured to him. Obito frowned, trying to figure out how to fill the gap. How much was she allowed to know? Minato had trusted him with that judgement implicitly when he'd let him leave without instructions.

Sasuke was on the same mission as Sakura now, he decided. The parents were the only ones allowed to know. That was sensible enough.

"Mikoto," he said, measuring each word as she watched him with a steady dread and a dawning comprehension. "Sakura was given a mission to infiltrate the Nation of Rain as a defector."

She went slack, hand falling to her side. "No…"

She already understood. "Sasuke and Naruto found out," Obito continued. Mikoto began shaking. "They were determined to go with her. They didn't want her to take on such a difficult mission alone."

"And you let them?" Mikoto asked. Her voice was flat, lifeless. "Sasuke thought his teammates were more important than the village."

She looked down. "That's what happened. He's defected to Rain."

Obito nodded, though Mikoto didn't see. She just stared at the ground.

"Both my sons are traitors," she said.

Kushina stepped forward, raising a hand. "Mikoto," she muttered. "It's-"

Mikoto's head snapped up. Her Sharingan was active, bright red and black in her pale face. Obito took a step back.

Like a hunting cat, she launched herself forward.

"You bastard," she hissed, striking out, and Obito didn't try to slip through it. For the second time that day he was struck in the jaw and stumbled back, his whole face aching. Mikoto followed through, lightning fast footwork carrying her into range for another strike. This time, her fist slammed into his ribs.

"Don't let me hit you, you piece of shit!" she snarled. "You think that'll let you justify yourself?!" She threw another five blows, and this time Obito let his reflexes take over, slipping through them and circling around her. She followed him, picture perfect form, ready to tear his throat out the second he left himself open.

"Mikoto-!" Kushina started to say, but Obito held up his hand. He could work with this. He didn't know how to tell someone he'd passed their son off to another country, but he knew how to fight.

"You really wanna do it this way?" he said. Mikoto responded by driving her fist clean through his face. "Alright, if you say so."

He shifted his head and drove his knee straight up into her gut, the force of the blow lifting her clear off the ground, and Mikoto gagged. She lashed out while still suspended in midair and the blow passed through him again.

"It was his choice," Obito said as Mikoto landed and scuttled away, zipping across the field and throwing stray shuriken at him as she went. He rotated, keeping her in front of him. "He didn't leave because of you; it was just to be with his team."

"You never should have let him go!" she shouted, running through the hand signs for a fireball. She spat out an impressively large Grand Fireball and moved in its wake, shielding herself. Obito simply stepped through the jutsu, expecting to meet her on the other side.

But even if Mikoto was mad with anger, she wasn't stupid, and he cleared the fireball to find her and a shadow clone clone on the other side. They both lashed out at him, and Obito spun, one fist passing through him as he kicked the clone out of existence. He finished the rotation, coming around to clock the real Mikoto-

And his eyes caught a glimpse of disturbed earth farther back along the charred path of the fireball as he lashed out.

He went intangible at the last second, and Mikoto burst out of the ground as his fist passed through her second clone's chest, her strike going right through his stomach.

"He's not like his brother!" she said, refusing to hesitate even in the face of her hasty strategy failing. "He's not ready to be on his own!"

"That's ridiculous," Obito growled. He skipped back and focused, and a kunai leapt from his eye with terrific speed. It pierced through the remaining clone, popping it in a puff of smoke, and then he surged forward, slipping around Mikoto as she ran through more hand signs and locking his arms around her neck. "He won't be alone."

Mikoto struggled, scratching at his strangling arms but unable to penetrate his steel arm guards. Obito could see Kushina looking concerned in the corner of his vision, but he didn't care. This had been inevitable, ever since that conversation in the temple's basement.

Realizing that his arms couldn't be moved, Mikoto began hammering her elbows into Obito's ribs, trying to dislodge him. He grunted, feeling bruises form but refusing to move, and after a couple futile blows she roared, bucking her whole body and wrapping both hands around his arm.

To Obito's surprise she curled, lifting his entire body into the air behind her, and then with another roar of effort flipped him head first over herself. His arms were stuck fast with chakra and so she went with him, but she was ready, landing on both feet and repeating the maneuver. They flipped head over heels for another two rotations before Mikoto suddenly adjusted her trajectory, landing at a sideways angle.

Obito wasn't ready, and as they crashed to the ground together Mikoto finally managed to rip his arms away along with the top layers of the skin of her neck. Gasping for air and red in the face, she scrambled on top of him and pulled a fist back.

Obito felt the cold surety of the Kamui slip over him as she swung down, ready to slip out from under her.

Then, impossibly, her fist slammed into his face.

Obito's head slammed back into the ground, and he blinked at the sudden headache. His Kamui was active, but he'd still been hit. It was completely impossible.

A drop of blood landed on his cheek, and he started at the sudden warmth. Before he could see where it had come from, Mikoto's fist crushed his nose, sending his head crashing into the earth once again.

No Kamui. The reality was so shocking that he took two more punches to the face before he kicked up and struck Mikoto in the back of the head, knocking her forward into a roll and off of him. He rolled sideways and sprung to his feet, panting and dizzy. He could feel a migraine coming on; both sides of his head were definitely bruised, and his nose might have been broken.

Mikoto was hardly any better off than him, wheezing through her bruised and bleeding throat and barely standing. Her knuckles were bloody.

And so was her cheek, Obito saw. He blinked.

There were two bloody tears running down from Mikoto's left eye, as red as her Sharingan. He reached up and touched his own cheek, and pulled his hand back to find the same blood on his fingers.

"You…" he gasped, trying to stay focused. He'd gotten cocky; he was lucky not to be unconscious after taking four strikes like that. Mikoto could shatter concrete with her bare hands. "That's impossible."

Mikoto closed her eyes and wiped away the blood, leaving a smear of blood on her cheek. "I'm sorry," she said, her voice cracking. Her legs gave out and she collapsed, sinking to her knees. "Kushina, I'm sorry…"

"What happened?" Kushina asked from the sidelines. "Mikoto? You hit him! That's amazing!"

Mikoto ignored her. "Bring him back," she whispered, and Obito staggered towards her. "Please." She looked up at him with bloody eyes. "Obito, he's all I had left. Please, bring him back. You're the strongest in the clan; you're the only one who can." She reached out, clawing at his chest and drawing him closer. "You could do it by yourself. You could do anything, with those eyes. I can't-"

"I can't," he echoed, sinking down to join her on the ground. "It's his decision."

The desperate look from the woman he'd wanted dead just days before tore his heart in half.

"That's what we taught him," he said, carefully laying his hand on Mikoto's shoulder as she began sobbing, her whole body shaking. "You should be proud of him. He put his friends and the village ahead of himself. That's what you wanted, right?"

Mikoto couldn't say anything. She just lay there, paralyzed by her sorrow, and cried.

Obito drew back and Kushina replaced him, wrapping her arms around her friend as the other woman started wailing. Obito watched them both carefully.

Kushina was her friend, but he hadn't known if Mikoto was truly hers after the terrible things she'd told him about the coup.

But if she'd had the Mangekyo Sharingan that whole time, that changed things. It meant that this whole time, she'd had a crucial piece of control hanging over Kushina, the Hokage, and the whole village, with no one the wiser.

And she'd never used it. He would definitely have noticed.

As Obito watched both women break down in tears, he wondered what else there was he didn't know that could change everything.

###

It spreads with a whisper.

I don't think Team Seven came back, it starts. Mangekyo no Obito came back, but his team wasn't with him. Has anyone seen the Hokage's son? Has anyone seen that Uchiha genius? Has anyone seen the girl who woke up a demon during the Chunin Exam? They're not dead, are they? Their teacher would have said something; the Hokage would be grieving.

Their friends are the first to notice, within the day. They won't be able to come to terms with it for some time. All of them are still lingering on the now bitter memory of Sakura's party, where they all came together for the last time. Tenten is the only one who has something to hold on to, a lingering memory, words that bury themselves in her heart.

'You know you're my best friend, right?'

The whispers escalate to a shout within the week. That's when blame starts being cast. It's gotta be someone's fault; that's the one thing everyone agrees on. But whose? The Hokage's, or theirs, or Obito's, or someone else's entirely? Putting so much talent in one place was foolish; even though they were just three genin, the whole village reels, the future suddenly snatched away.

Sakura's parents suffer: they had an impressive child on their hands, and they drove her away with their own conflicts. They bear it stoically, knowing the truth that their daughter loved them more than ever when she left, but it still hurts. It takes three nights, but eventually Mebuki cries herself to sleep as her husband sits quietly in their darkened living room, staring at nothing and wondering if the whispers are right.

Naruto's parents suffer: the Hokage's own son running away is exactly as disastrous as it appears. No one doubts Minato Namikaze's ability in battle or in running the village, but now they start to wonder if anything was going on in his home that couldn't be seen from the outside. Why else would someone like Naruto, talented and beloved, leave?

Sasuke's mother suffers: she doesn't receive any hatred, only pity, which for someone like Mikoto is worse than poison. Both her sons are gone, along with her husband and half her clan and half her face. She's a shadow of a person, people say: I don't know if I could keep going in her position. The shame would just be too much for me.

Unlike the others, Mikoto can do nothing but move forward, trudging through her life with burning eyes and wondering if, despite what everyone has told her, this really was all her fault. If this was the result of her ambition.

She's sure it is.

Through it all, there's one question that consumes the village. It doesn't have an obvious answer: it won't for at least a month, and that makes it all the more painful and intriguing for everyone asking it.

Where are Naruto Namikaze, Sasuke Uchiha, and Sakura Haruno?

Where is Team Seven?