Obito-Sensei Chapter 40
Mount Myoboku
When the small voice disturbed his focus, Obito jerked up, the sand around his hands flying in every direction. For a second, he thought he might have had a breakthrough. Or maybe a breakdown.I
"What're you doing?"
But when he swiveled his head to the right, Sharingan flashing, all he found was a little boy, maybe eight years old, in a bright blue bathing suit. The kid was staring at him, arms crossed imperiously, and to Obito's surprise didn't jump back at the sight of his eyes. He blinked, obviously surprised, but stood his ground.
Kneeling in the sand as the tide licked at the leg of his pants, Obito stared back. "What?" he asked.
"It's rude to say 'what,'" the boy said, trying to sound older. "You should say 'pardon.' Or 'excuse me.' My mom taught me that."
"Well, my mom's dead," Obito grunted, shifting to face the kid and looking around. He really had been zoned out: when he'd arrived at the beach a couple hours earlier, it had been completely empty, but now it was full of bustling people, dozens of families arrayed across the sand under tons of multicolored umbrellas. "And you're the rude one for sneaking up on me like that."
"I didn't sneak up on you!" the kid said, sounding genuinely offended. "I made a bunch of noise!"
"Uh huh," Obito said, scanning the beach. If the kid's parents were nearby, they weren't paying any attention to him. After a second, he caught a glimpse of a gaggle of slightly older children farther down the beach staring and giggling. He nodded in their direction. "Did they put you up to this?"
"They bet me ten Ryo," the boy said, clearly thinking his friends were morons. "They said you were a shinobi. But there's no way. I bet you're just another bum. Why're your eyes all messed up anyway?"
Looking down at himself, Obito had to admit the kid was right. After ten days scouring the beach, he looked like just another guy who didn't want to go home. His outfit was covered in dried sand and seawater, his hair was stuck up in bizarre patterns, and he probably didn't smell too great either.
He'd barely slept, chasing after an insubstantial feeling. His sensei had been right. Obito's Sharingan had let him track the play of Natural Energy across the northern coast of Frost, and eventually he'd been able to discern a pattern in it. The Dark Sea was swimming with it, but the unrefined energy twisted and turned in ways that resembled exactly what Minato had called it: paths. Like a tangle of roots competing to come out on top for the most nutrients, the serpentine energy was in constant, violent competition.
So, seeing that was easy. But finding the path to Myoboku was harder. Obito had seen it, or at least thought he'd seen it, three days ago on this very beach. There'd been a twist in reality, like a desert mirage, and a toad that had swam out to sea without a care in the world, a complete incongruity in the Dark Sea. But when he'd chased after it, all he'd gotten for his troubles was a mouthful of saltwater.
He'd stayed here since then, trying to find a pattern in the energy's movement. But this was the busiest the beach had been in that time.
Oh, duh. Obito had to resist the urge to slap himself. It was the weekend. Of course that would make a difference.
"I am a shinobi," he said, and the boy scoffed. He gave the kid an amused look. "Well, they owe you ten Ryo regardless, right? You could at least tell them they were right."
"If you're a shinobi, do a shinobi trick!" the kid demanded, and Obito rolled his eyes. "Like jump really high or something!"
"You think shinobi just jump really high?" Obito asked. The boy sneered.
"That's what they do in the movies," he said.
"You know they just do that with wires and stuff."
"Nuh uh! They hire real shinobi! Plus if there were wires then you could just see them!" The kid looked at him incredulously. "Man, you really are just a bum. I bet you're on drugs or something!" He turned and ran back to his friends, and an enormous amount of bickering ensued.
Obito, feeling not the slightest need to prove himself to a literal child, turned his attention back to the sand. He'd been getting somewhere before he'd been interrupted, he was sure. The invisible energy coursing through the beach jumped from each individual grain of sand to the next with unmistakable intent, swelling like the tide.
But that was the frustrating part. Even if he could see the intent, he couldn't divine the timing, or the location. This beach was a nexus for at least one of the path's to Myoboku, but right now Obito was like a worm trying to figure out what a hotel was. To him, it was just another large space, but there was a construction here that he had not and maybe could not understand.
He closed his eyes, trying not to rely solely on his Sharingan, and reached out with his chakra. The sounds of the beach, screaming children, arguing adults, joy and frustration and anger and boredom, all faded away, leaving only the waves.
They were almost deafening by themselves, a constant series of crashes and withdrawals like two warring armies. Obito focused, the sound of the waves almost painful as the water skittered across countless grains of sand, destroying and reforming the beach with every repetition. He pressed his hand deeper into the sound, grasping at something that didn't exist.
No wonder no one found this place. Who had the patience for this bullshit? Who in their right mind would come to a place like this and sit around all day listening to the sounds of the world?
Obito opened his eyes in frustration, about to give up, and found a pair of small yellow eyes staring up at him from the sand in between his fingers.
It chirped. The thing lurking beneath the sand that the eyes belonged to chirped, a high pitched sound like a kettle momentarily coming to boil, and then it blinked and retreated. Obito blinked back, feeling adrenaline shoot throughout his body like a freezing fever. All of the Natural Energy in the sand was coursing around him, like a vortex or a whirlpool, draining down towards something out of sight.
With a sudden frantic determination, he started digging down with all of his strength, ripping huge chunks of sand out of the beach and tossing them away without concern.
"Hey! What the fuck?!" A woman twenty feet behind him screamed as a clump of sand struck her, but Obito was possessed. He kept digging, faster than any human possibly could without chakra, and tunnelled straight down into the sand. Five, ten, fifteen feet…
And suddenly he was falling. There was a hole beneath the beach, the sand above it refusing to collapse in blatant defiance of gravity. Obito caught a glimpse of it as he tumbled: it was a shifting, impermanent thing, the light folding around it so that the center was impossible to see. Even his Sharingan's sight could not penetrate the distortion of space.
But his Kamui could, and as he fell he felt himself pass the event horizon. Indescribable forces that he was sure he alone understood better than anyone ripped his sense of self in two as the laws of physics briefly forgot about him, and then he slammed into the ground, so hard he almost bit his tongue. It was like a fall from a hundred feet instead of five.
Obito gasped and scrambled to his feet, nursing his bruised side. He didn't know where he was: the place defied easy description. It was a tunnel, but there were no walls or ceiling. Instead, there was a swirling typhoon of Natural Energy surrounding him, a hurricane of every color and some that did not exist which hurled itself all in one direction.
Without conscious thought, Obito started running. When he looked back a moment later, he realized why. The tunnel was collapsing behind him, the hurricane crashing down and erasing everything in its path. Without the Kamui, he would have no idea what he was looking at, but the unfortunate truth was obvious to him immediately.
He was in a superposition of two realities. The Natural Energy was creating a unique dimension of its own inhabited solely by the raw energy of proto-chakra, carving through the world like water would stone, and the physical world wasn't happy about it. As soon as the energy passed, the basic laws of physics resumed and crushed anything that remained, eliminating the sudden vacuum of matter. All of it was being drawn inexorably in one direction, towards the largest vacuum of all.
As Obito sprinted at full speed, he realized that he'd probably fucked something up. He doubted this is what his sensei had been envisioning. It was way way way way way too dangerous. His entire body was screaming: he had no doubt that even with the Kamui, if he was caught in the point where the superposition collapsed, he'd be annihilated. He threw himself forward without another glance back, following the same twisting path as the energy.
It was all going towards one point, and he had no choice but to make that his destination as well.
The Kamui was helping him along, he realized. The space he was crossing was not purely physical, and the Kamui was moving even faster, providing yet another dimension imposed over the top of this one. Just like everywhere else, taking one step was anywhere between a hundred and a thousand, and it kept him well ahead of the collapsing energy.
Obito raced ahead and the energy surrounding him grew more vibrant and chaotically energetic until it was almost blinding. He could pull out, jump entirely into the Kamui and simply sprint away, but instinct drove him on. This was why he was here; this was what he was looking for.
As the thought banished all doubt and pain, he saw a light at the end of the tunnel. Not the coruscating false light of the Natural Energy all around him, but real light, sunlight. He pushed on one last time, throwing everything into a final sprint-
The light ate him without warning, and once again, Obito found himself falling. He sucked in a breath, looking around. He was high in the air, ridiculously high. He was at the top of a waterfall of gorgeous green water, cascading down to a lake nearly a thousand feet below. The water was coming from a tunnel above him, rapidly receding.
He fell, gaining speed but still so slow compared to his Sharingan's perception. The land stretched out before him was bizarre and impossible, covered in twisting spires of stone and monstrous plants and fungus so large they defied imagination. In the distance, a series of mountain peaks rose so high into the sky they pierced drifting yellow clouds, and everywhere Obito looked things became only more strange and spectacular.
This was Mount Myoboku, without a doubt.
He hit the water without touching it, the Kamui sparing him the force of the fall, and there was a muffled crump as his body reoccupied the space filled by water, forcing it aside as his molecules violently asserted their right to exist.
Obito swam to the surface, soaked and exulted, and headed towards the shore. He felt clean for the first time in a week. The water was sweet, almost like tea. He had no idea what to think of that.
There was a toad in here as well, a small one barely bigger than Obito's hand. It glanced back at him as it swam towards the other shore, its beady yellow eyes holding obvious surprise. Obito stared back, amused.
"Hey," he said, stopping and waving. "Are you a summon, or just a normal toad?"
The toad blinked, stopping to tread water as well, and its tongue flickered out at something on the surface of the water, a bug or a bit of algae. "I don't know man," it eventually said, its voice as deep and sonorous as a man twice Obito's size. "I just live here."
"What…?" But before Obito could do more than mutter in confusion, the toad turned and continued swimming for the distant shore, diving beneath the placid green water and out of sight. Obito watched it go with the slightest bit of concern, and then continued on his way as well, clambering up out of the water hand over foot and walking across the surface the rest of the way.
The shore was rocky, countless small pebbles and larger stones forming a half-ring around the cliff the waterfall sat atop. Obito peered around, his clothes soaked, and looked into the Kamui as well. There didn't seem to be any issue: like his sensei had said, Myoboku was a physical place, not moving like the path that had taken him here had been. He should be safe to step through his personal dimension.
He took a moment to do so, shedding his clothes and finding a spare, dry set that he always kept tucked away in the eternally cold and dry Kamui. To his relief, he returned to the same place, still on the shore a couple minutes earlier.
Obito looked around, trying to figure out where he was on the mountain and where the heck he should go. There was nothing here resembling civilization, just oversized plants and fungus and bizarre and unnatural outcroppings of rock. However, there was an obvious path from the lake he'd fallen into leading deeper into the plant… jungle… fungus growths. It looked like it had been carved by titanic creatures.
Toads, and his Sharingan confirmed it: the tracks were unmistakable, even long faded by time. If they came and went from this place, they probably returned to wherever they lived. Obito started walking without a clear goal in mind, content to follow the path. He'd searched for more than a week: he could handle some more wandering.
Obito walked for a little more than two hours, taking in the sights, smells, and sounds of Mount Myoboku. It was definitely on a mountain, he started thinking: the entire place gently sloped up going what he was pretty sure was north, and gently sloped down to the south. That meant that the towering mountains that lay to the north were the tip of the mountain, and where he was was a sort of plateau that lay atop the existing edifice.
There was a yellow tint to the air that had infected even the clouds, and occasionally Obito had to take an extra deep breath. He was certainly at a high altitude, higher than he'd ever been before, but it was difficult for him to estimate. Everywhere he went following the path the gargantuan plants remained a constant, casting enormous swathes of shade as they viciously competed with one another for sunlight. They and the yellow air were an obvious hint to Obito, even without the occasional confirmation with his Sharingan, that the whole mountain was absolutely soaked in a ridiculous amount of chakra.
Natural Energy had coalesced here by design or coincidence and its constant presence had swollen everything it touched to enormous size, driven by the supernatural energy to grow beyond what any ordinary plant could achieve. This sort of thing wasn't uncommon in the nations: Obito had seen more than his fair share of ridiculously large trees, of course, with one of the most striking being Waterfall's, and equally large creatures weren't out of the ordinary either.
But this many sharing one space certainly was. Most chakra enlarged species like this rapidly outcompeted each other and established themselves as the sole champion, with the exception of carefully maintained ones like Konoha's founding trees. But here at Myoboku there was more than enough energy to go around, and so the plants grew and choked out the sun without a second thought.
The animals were the same. There was more here than just toads: Obito saw insects of every description, some normal sized and others terrifyingly huge. A dragonfly the size of a person was certainly not something he'd ever wanted to lay eyes on, but the creature had been flighty and unconcerned with a single human wandering the jungles. He was an intruder here and somehow just about everything was smart enough to know it; he was left to his own devices as he followed the path.
A little bit after the two hour mark, when the sun was high in the west, Obito found the first sign of civilization. It was as humble as it was unusual: a small statue of a man with toadlike features, covered in moss and set aside a small stone staircase leading up a hill. Obito climbed the stairs, coming to the top of the hill, and found a much more definite path at the top, more than forty feet wide and winding out beyond his line of sight towards the distant cloud-piercing mountains.
"Just keep following the road, I guess," Obito muttered to himself, the sound drowned out by the sounds of the jungle around him, and did just that. As he walked, he wondered how things were going back home, if Rin was alright. Every once in a while, a shadow crept across his thoughts.
Where was Itachi? In Rain, as he'd professed, or following his agenda? What was he up to?
'A run away to a tropical paradise vacation?'
He laughed at the memory, a momentary solace from the darker thoughts. Goosebumps raised themselves up on his arms as he recalled her tank top, the way it had stretched.
Obito was so absorbed in his pondering, his feet moving on his own, that when his instincts alerted him his head jerked up and he looked around with obvious confusion, not even knowing what he was responding to. His feet had carried him far along the path: the mountains were probably only a couple hours away.
He looked up, realization dawning, and leapt back as two enormous toads fell out of the sky.
The earth below them exploded, and Obito shielded his eyes as he landed and stayed low, staring past the cloud of dust as the towering forms of the toads unfurled themselves. They were so large that even seeing them move was intimidating, the air rushing around them with their deceptively quick motions, and as they stood up they blocked his path as surely as a wall.
One of them was tremendously muscular and as wiry as a toad could get. Its skin was pale green, growing darker at the shoulders and back, and it had a tremendous orange haramaki stretched across its stomach. Two swords, each easily twenty feet long, were sheathed across its back. The other toad was bulkier and wider, its skin a dull red, and fully clothed in a billowing black kimono. It had a pole-sword with two prongs clutched in its left hand, while its right was occupied by a shield the size of a building.
Both of their enormous yellow eyes swivelled down to gaze at Obito, and he stood up straight, feeling that he was being judged.
"Human," the green one rumbled with a voice like a landslide. "You have intruded on Mount Myoboku. State your intentions."
"Hey," Obito said, deciding to give a little wave. The toads did not blink, just continuing to stare. "I'm Obito Uchiha. I came to make a contract with the Toads of Mount Myoboku."
"A summoning contract?" the red one rumbled, and Obito nodded. To his shock, it inclined its head. "Forgive me for clarifying, for I am clumsy with words…"
"A summoning contract?" the other toad repeated, sounding a little incredulous. "You traveled all the way to the Mountain of Toads for a mere contract?"
"Ummm… yes?" Obito said, and the toads glanced at one another and grumbled in low, incoherent voices. As one, they readied their weapons. Obito blinked.
"Any human who requests a summoning contract without the consent of a current summoner must pass a test," the green toad said in an authoritative voice. "Had Gamabunta been here, it would be your duty to defeat him. But since he is occupied, we shall be your opponents." Two swords four times Obito's height thunked into the ground, sinking several feet into the thick dirt, and the toad crossed its arms imperiously. "I am Gamahiro."
The other toad slammed its catch-pole into the earth as well with the force of a small earthquake. "And I am Gamaken. In the boss's stead, we shall be your opponents today, Obito Uchiha."
"Seriously?" Obito said, looking between the two gargantuan creatures. "Would I make the contract with you afterwards?"
"That would not be our duty," Gamaken said. "My apologies, we did not explain it." It gestured with the pole to the northern mountain peaks. "The Great Toad Sage would determine the final contract; we are merely his guardians. It is confusing, for which you have my condolences."
"So I'd have to beat you and then talk to him?" Obito asked, feeling a little irritated. He didn't want to fight, and especially not against creatures he was trying to make allies of. Is this what Jiraiya had gone through to make the contract in the first place? No wonder the man was such a weirdo.
"That is precisely the case," Gamahiro said with a deafening chuckle. "But do not speak of it so easily; Gamaken and I have not been bested in years. As the guardians of Myoboku and the Great Toad Sage, we have stood watch for longer than your Hidden Villages have stood. Why, the last human to try was forced to-!"
As the giant toad was boasting, Obito started walking forward. The toad stopped, watching him come with attentive eyes.
"So, you meet the challenge." It removed its swords from the ground, upending the earth. "Gamaken!" it shouted, and the other toad slammed its pole-sword into its shield, the sound so loud and the force so powerful that the earth before them was further ripped up by the violence of it. "Let us show this human off!"
They both swung, a joint attack that had probably been practiced hundreds of times, and the air screamed with the violence of their blows. The sword and pole struck the path and obliterated it, throwing up so much debris that sight became impossible and shredding beyond all hope any creature at the center of the strike.
Obito, of course, just walked right through it. The toads drew back in obvious confusion, eyes rolling, and readied their weapons again.
"What?" Gamahiro bellowed as Obito kept walking, heading for the space right in between them. "What shinobi trickery is this?!"
"Forgive my clumsy interjection, but he is no clone or illusion, Gamahiro," Gamaken interjected. His eyes narrowed, and Obito smiled up at him. "This is Obito Uchiha, the Ghost of the Leaf. Lord Jiraiya has spoken of him. I foolishly did not believe-"
"A ghost!" Gamahiro laughed, the sound loud beyond belief. The whole jungle shook with it. "One of the few things my swords have not slain! Have at you!"
They swung again, and the result was the same. Obito walked through the catastrophe and, without ceremony, passed between the two toads. They turned with incredulous eyes as he walked right past them, imperceptible to their weapons.
"He doesn't even fight back…" Gamaken muttered, before raising his voice. "Obito Uchiha, my apologies for asking, but why do you not fight back?"
"I don't want to fight you," Obito said over his shoulder, and Gamahiro bristled. He shrugged in response. "What'd be the point? I'm here to make allies, not enemies!"
"What disrespect!" the toad roared. "To skirt the challenge in such a cowardly manner! Do you really believe the Great Toad Sage would deign to speak to an unproven creature such as yourself?!" As it shouted it leapt forward, and Gamaken followed its lead, leveling a tremendous series of blows at Obito.
They were fast and unbelievably coordinated. Obito did not even have a second of respite as he continued forward, their monstrous weapons scything through his immaterial body with such ferocity that he was never able to become solid.
He frowned, glancing back at them as both of the toads shouted their war cries and shredded the earth. How long could they keep it up? His Kamui could only keep him intangible for a minute at most, maybe more if he really pushed himself. When neither of the toads had slowed down in the slightest after thirty seconds, he started running.
"Ha!" Gamaken cried as Obito picked up the pace, leaping after him as his long legs let him keep pace effortlessly. "Forgive me for presuming so Gamahiro, but he flees! If he is indeed a ghost, he is not a permanent one!"
"Astute!" Gamahiro called back, the both of them leaping after Obito like a pursuing crack of thunder. "We will force you to your limit, Obito Uchiha! Such a technique will be exhausting: no creature alive has more stamina than the Toads of Myoboku!"
Obito grit his teeth as he picked up the pace. "Shut up, would you!" he shouted back, and the toads laughed as they continued their relentless assault. "I don't want to hurt you!"
"Then we will put that to the test!" Gamahiro exulted, and the chase continued.
Obito retreated back into his mind as he passed through countless attacks and began dodging several more. He was running at full speed now, but the toads could keep up indefinitely. Every time his Kamui was brought to its limit he returned to the real world, just barely dodging a blow that could crush him or send him flying. He was already sweating, the exertion of running, dodging, and keeping the Kamui constantly running working down into his core.
Despite that, he squashed the urge to turn and beat their faces in. His stubbornness was stronger than his instinct, and perhaps for the worse. No matter what, he thought, he wasn't going to give these jackass animals the satisfaction of a fight.
And so he ran, the toads pursued, and the mountain drew closer.
###
Three hours later, Obito collapsed.
Gamahiro's blade whickered right over his head, the air pressure decapitating a distant toad statue, and the swordsman rasped in horror.
"Oh goodness," Gamaken said at his side, looking down at Obito. The other toad was gasping and crawling: he had shed its kimono and left his shield behind earlier in the chase, and his hands could barely grasp its catch-pole. Its skin had gone pale: toads couldn't sweat, Obito was pretty sure, but he had no idea how they regulated their temperature otherwise. "You've removed Master Murayama's head."
"We can put it back on!" Gamahiro gasped, his whole body shaking and his chest and stomach flushed and pale. He sucked in another desperate breath, sounding like it would be his last. "You've finally fallen, ghost! And at the steps of the mountain!"
It was true, Obito thought, looking up. He'd made it all the way to his destination, and the relief had made him weak. His legs were burning, his heart pounding so hard it hurt his ribs, and his eye ached: he'd never pushed the Kamui this hard, and it felt like his Sharingan was reaching down into his body and scooping out his organs in recompense. His legs shook as he tried to force himself to his feet, but he collapsed once more. He growled, furious with himself, and started crawling forward. There were countless huge steps made for a creature of the toads' size that led up the side of the mountain to a cave a couple hundred feet above. He was right there.
"It's pointless," Gamahiro gurgled, trying to lift his sword and barely managing it. The blade dipped, the toad unable to hold it fully aloft. "You're… caught!"
He swung down, and Obito rolled out of the way, the blade sinking deeply into the ground. He looked left at the shining steel, unmarked by the exhausting chase, and kept hauling himself forward. Gamahiro groaned and tried to pull the sword loose, but his enormous hands slipped. With a cry of alarm, he fell forward, slamming into the earth with a crash that bounced Obito's body several inches into the air. His other sword skittered away, out of reach.
"Damn you!" he cried, reaching out for Obito, but the Uchiha had crawled just out of reach. Gamaken watched the both of them, sinking down and clutching his pole-catch like a cane to keep himself upright. "Don't think you've…" Gamahiro gasped for air, his eyes slipping closed. "Won!"
"Didn't I?" Obito flipped over on his back, his vision swimming, and grinned. He propped himself up on his elbows to get a look at the toads. "Looks like…" he coughed, and was alarmed to find blood in his phlegm. He must have bitten the inside of his cheek. "Looks like... I'm moving... and you're not."
"Forgive me, Obito Uchiha," Gamaken said, pulling himself up and taking a ponderous half-step forward, practically dragging himself with his weapon. "But I still am."
Obito collapsed on his back, staring up at the sky and far too tired to move. Gamaken's shadow fell across him, entirely blocking out the sun. The toad stared down at him, his weapon slipping from his grasp.
"Well, shit," Obito grumbled, and then passed out.
###
Rough sheets, rock hard mattress. Obito grumbled and rolled over, pulling them farther over his shoulder. His sheets at home were silky and cold, but these were rough and warm. Total downgrade. He should lodge a complaint…
He froze, slowly opening one eye. He wasn't in his bed. He was laid out on a stone slab with a brown taupe covering him, like a corpse in a morgue. He looked around, his brain trying to catch up to his eyes. Small room, very low ceiling. A short wooden table set in the center, no chairs, nothing on it. Door leading into another room, and a little beyond that, the sounds of a waterfall. There was still daylight coming in from that door.
Mount Myoboku; Toads; the three hour chase. Obito blinked, smacking his lips and realizing how dry his mouth was. He'd either been asleep for just an hour or almost a day. Neither option was good, if he was being honest. He tried to pull himself up off the slab and found his arms and legs shook with the effort. He'd been hollowed out and filled with a dull, aching pain.
A short toad with purple splotches on its head and pale white skin wandered into the room on two legs, muttering something under its breath, and stopped in its tracks when it made eye contact with Obito. They stared at each other, neither sure what to say, and then the toad huffed.
"Well, finally!" she said, her voice high-pitched and unmistakably female. "Up and at it, sleepyhead!"
"Eh?" Obito said, turning to face the toad. When both his feet met the ground he felt a little more sure of himself; being upright, even if he was still sitting, got the blood rushing the right ways. Chakra exhaustion was never fun, but it had been a while since he'd felt this messed up. "How long was I out?"
The toad frowned. "Not even a thank you?" she asked slyly, and Obito laughed, his throat hurting. "Even little Jiraiya was more polite than you."
"I have trouble believing that," Obito muttered, and the toad laughed. "But thank you for bringing me here, I guess. What happened to the others?"
"Gamahiro and Gamaken?" The toad laughed. "Prostrating themselves before the Great Sage. They can barely walk, the poor dears." She looked Obito up and down with an obvious bob of her head, and was apparently satisfied. "We haven't met, Obito Uchiha, but little Jiraiya and Minato have told us about you." She inclined her head, very slightly. "I am Shima. I'm here to escort you."
Shima. Obito didn't know the name, but he didn't know the names of most of his sensei's toads, so that didn't mean much. What did have some meaning was the toad's obvious authority, and how it addressed Jiraiya and one of the six Kage. Familiar and diminutive: Shima was doubtlessly ancient.
"It's a pleasure," he said, standing on unsteady feet and bowing so low that his head was almost level with the toads. He looked up just in time to catch an amused smirk slipping away. "Escort me to where?"
"Well, you came here to make a contract didn't you?" the toad asked with an incredulous look. "Where else would you be going? We were told you were bright, you know!"
Obito chuckled. "Lead the way, then." He paused. "Though seriously, how long was I out?"
"Only a couple hours," Shima said with a wave of her hand, turning to leave the room. Obito followed after her, stooping over to avoid hitting his head. "You've had a busy day, so I suppose there was nothing for it." They passed through what was unmistakably an entryway sized for creatures barely higher than Obito's knee, and then another door. "It's not far, don't worry."
Obito straightened up as they cleared the door, looking around. The home they'd just left was compact but wide, stretching out away from this for a fair distance, and was set inside a small lichen filled cave. They were in the mountain, he was pretty sure. The air was even thinner, and the sunlight that streamed in from the many entrances to the cavern was starting to turn a peculiar purple color. Looking out of one of them, just about the size of his leg, Obito could see Myoboku stretching out below him in a colorful tableau, and the dark blue ocean beyond it.
The sound of the waterfall was even louder here, but he couldn't locate it. There was a stream bubbling past the home, its water filled with oil-like droplets of some vibrant green liquid, but it didn't seem to come to a sheer fall at any of the entrances.
Without a word Shima led him deeper into the cave, over the bubbling stream and past the glowing lichen that covered the walls. Obito looked about in wonder, his thoughts foggy and unfocused. The tunnel twisted and turned, growing wider and splitting in many places, but Shima always followed the widest and most obvious path as they traveled higher and deeper into the mountain. The air was sweet and thin, and Obito drank it like water as he followed the little toad.
"Through here," Shima said, ducking through a smaller passage, and Obito shuffled after her, always conscious of the size difference. However, the passage quickly widened into a huge cavern, the ceiling so high that it vanished into the shadows.
Obito came to a stop, struck by the atmosphere. The cavern was tremendous, with a single towering entrance and exit to his right, tall enough to admit a building. That was the top of the steps, he realized with a start. He could just barely see the path he'd followed over the lip of it. The lair was filled with deep shadows cast by the purple light and choked with incense and other scents, absolutely overwhelming to every sense. Smoke and light caressed Obito's skin, and he felt a shiver run all the way down his body, his chakra responding to the ridiculous amount of Natural Energy that permeated the cave.
There were three toads here. Shima, who had hopped to the back of the cave and taken up position on one arm of a gargantuan throne five times Obito's size. Another toad her size, with green skin and white hair, mirroring her on the throne's other arm. That one, Obito had met before: it was Fukasaku, the toad who had given Konoha the mission to locate Jiraiya. The little creature was watching him impassively, his wide yellow eyes unreadable.
The last was ancient, its leathery red skin wrinkled like paper that had been folded thousands of times. It sagged in the stone chair, so massive that it took up the entire throne, and made small, feeble movements, like a baby squirming in its crib. The toad's eyes weren't bright like all of its fellows: they were a dull amber, like a stone visible at the bottom of a river, and he wore a colossal necklace with a bright red bead at the center. The kanji for 'Oil' was inscribed on it in bold dark strokes.
The ancient toad was sitting in some sort of liquid, Obito realized. Every time it shifted there was a subtle splash, and its legs were soaked in a thick green sludge. Oil, he realized after a second, the same kind that had been carried in globs by the bubbling stream. Even without his Sharingan, he could tell the stuff was humming with chakra.
"Approach, Obito Uchiha," Fukasaku called out, and Obito did. His legs weren't quite as shaky anymore, but there was something else pushing him down now. These toads were ancient, all of them. It wasn't even the comparison between an adult and a child; that could only be a difference of decades. Humans just didn't live long enough to make it otherwise, and Shinobi even more so.
This was a separation of centuries, and Obito could feel it with every step.
He stopped before the throne and the ancient toad in it took a long, rattling breath. Its eyes slipped closed, so gradually Obito thought it might not open them, and then it peaked out at him from beneath their lids.
Obito felt his body respond to the toad's gaze. Its eyes were suddenly sharp, sharp enough to cut him, and the contrast put his instincts on edge.
"What are you doing here, little ghost?" the Great Toad Sage whispered, and Obito stood stock still, carefully weighing his words. This creature predated him, Konoha, and perhaps even shinobi themselves. It was the least he could do to think before he spoke.
"Great elder," he said, trying out the title, and when the toad didn't immediately respond he continued. "I've come to make a summoning contract with the Toads of Mount Myoboku." He knelt as he would before his sensei on a more official occasion. "As both my teachers have been, I wish to be an ally of Myoboku."
"Hmmmm," the Sage rattled. Fukasaku and Shima were like statues at his side. "Hmmmmmmmm. But why are you here?"
Obito blinked. "Well, this is where you all live," he said, and the ancient toad chuckled, a wheezing sound that made Obito's chest ache in sympathy. "I wanted to seek you out."
"But why…" The Sage paused, shifting, and some oil spilled out of its throne, running in thick rivulets down the sides. He sighed. "Why come to Myoboku at all, little ghost?" he continued, his voice deep and soft. One of his eyelids was slipping farther open, revealing the keen brightness behind it. "You are the heir of two of Myoboku's human sages. Jiraiya the curious, and Minato the unstoppable. If you had wished a contract with us toads, you merely could have asked them." The eye was fully open now, and Obito was transfixed by it, staring into the amber iris the size of his head. "They would surely have offered with glad hearts."
Why hadn't he just asked? Obito clenched a fist, and the toad chortled softly.
"I could have just asked," he said. "But I wanted to do this for myself." He pulled himself up straight, looking the Great Toad Sage in the eye. "I'm more than just the student of Jiraiya and Minato. If I was going to forge a contract with you, I wanted it to be by my own merit, and not because of my connection to them."
"Ahhhhhhhhh…" The Sage sighed and leaned back. "You seek to define yourself by separation. I see, I see…"
The last words dribbled from his mouth with a bit of drool, and the huge toad slumped and began loudly snoring, his head lolling against his chest. Obito, unsure of what to do, looked to Fukasaku and Shima.
Fukasaku snorted. "You were a real moron," he said, and Obito raised an eyebrow. "It doesn't matter who you are or who you came from, Gamahiro and Gamaken would have cut you down if you'd failed the challenge. That was their duty."
"And that was how I wanted it," Obito shot back, and the toad gave him a mean grin. "Everywhere I go, I am Obito Uchiha, even here. If someone was willing to treat me as just another jackass, that was exactly what I came here for." He paused. "Are they alright?"
"Of course they're alright," Shima said dismissively. "It's their job, you know? And besides…" her eyes narrowed. "You didn't lay a finger on them. Why was that? You could have beaten them, and probably come out better than the pathetic mess you were by the end."
"I thought it'd be stupid," Obito said. The toad laughed. "I came here to make allies, not prove I could beat them in a fight."
"And yet by doing that you proved you didn't need them at all," Fukasaku said sharply. "What is the purpose of a contract when you have no use for their power? You claim you came here to separate yourself from your teachers, but why choose us toads at all then?" He squatted, propping his fist on his chin. "There are countless summon clans in the world, and you chose your teachers' while refusing the easy path."
Obito dove deep, trying to dig up every ounce of sincerity that the world had pressed out of him. "I trust Myoboku," he said, and Shima tilted her head. "The toads have served both my teachers well, and been served well in kind. I'm not the kind of guy who needs help in a fight, that's true: I doubt I'll ever summon Gamabunta because there's something too big for me to handle by myself." He sat down, crossing his legs. "But I've spent the last decade relying only on myself, sure that if I asked for help other shinobi would only get in the way and be put in unnecessary danger." He laughed. "Maybe for you a decade seems silly, but that's almost half my life. It took a lot for me to even think about changing myself."
He shrugged, a helpless gesture. "I wanted to make a contract so I would know that no matter where I was, what I was doing, I could ask for help."
Both of the toads regarded him with curious eyes, and Shima started to speak.
"Gah!" As she did, the Great Toad Sage jerked awake, thrashing slightly in his throne of oil. It croaked, looking around with foggy eyes, and then refocused on Obito, its sharpness returning.
The Sage took a deep breath, his chest rattling. "A commendable pursuit," it muttered, and Obito leaned forward. "I will be more than happy to authorize this contract. Fukasaku, Shima, fetch the scroll."
"At once, Great Sage," Fukasaku declared, and then he and Shima both vanished from the throne's arms. Obito watched them depart with curious eyes and then turned back to the Sage as the giant toad titled his head, watching him with tired, amused eyes.
"It is ironic that your students leaving would inspire your own separation," the Sage mused, and Obito's blood ran cold. "But loss often recoils, and shinobi either shatter or redefine themselves. In that, they are just the same as toads." He sank back in his throne, eyes clouding over. "Jiraiya has created interesting men…"
"What do you mean, great elder?" Obito asked, and the toad coughed.
"No human has produced so august a lineage," he croaked, his voice sinking deeper. The ancient was slipping back towards sleep. "Three summoners, all of tremendous power and vision, all fulcrums around which the world could pivot…"
"Three?" Obito asked, not fully understanding what the toad was saying. "Including myself?"
"Of course," the Great Toad Sage said, lower than a whisper. His exhalations carried the hint of words, nothing more. It was as if he was muttering in his sleep. "Yourself, Minato Namikaze, and angry little Yahiko. He did the same thing as you…" he wheezed, a barely audible laugh. "Though he defeated Gamabunta. Perhaps that will be the difference that defines your era, Obito Uchiha." He settled, all but submerged in sleep. "After all, so much revolves around you… and all because of one falling stone."
A falling stone? At a loss for words, Obito tried to speak and found his throat hollow. Even if he had, it would have been too late: the Great Toad Sage was fully asleep, not even snoring, only the slight rise and fall of his chest betraying any life at all. Obito sat there alone but for the slumbering ancient for a long time, and tried to figure what the hell he could possibly be talking about.
Eventually, Fukasaku and Shima returned. They carried a tremendous red scroll precariously balanced between the two of them, and let it fall to the floor of the cavern with an impressive thump right in front of Obito. He flinched, his reverie broken.
The scroll rolled open as if it had a mind of its own, and Fukasaku gestured, a wet brush held in his hand. "Think carefully before you sign," he said, handing the brush to Obito. Obito cocked an eyebrow at him, and the toad grinned. "Even if you have the Sage's consent, this will be a contract that will endure for the rest of your life. Mount Myoboku will be your ally, but you will be its as well. Some shinobi can find splitting their loyalties difficult."
Obito leaned forward and considered the scroll. He had a fresh page: a fresh start. He began tracing his name in long, thick strokes of the brush.
"I won't," he said, and Shima chuckled. "But I do have a question."
"A question?" she asked, and Fukasaku gave a quizzical grunt as well. "So late?"
"Not about this," Obito said, finishing the final stroke of his family name. "He said something," he continued, gesturing to the snoring ancient toad, "about a falling stone. It didn't make any sense to me. That's all."
"Hmm." Fukasaku didn't have lips, but he pursed his mouth the same way a human would. "The Great Sage does not always make sense. That is part of his wisdom, but also a curse."
"He's been blessed with a gift for prophecy," Shima croaked. "He sees things that were, are, will be, could be, could have been." She blinked, peircing Obito with a peculiar look. "He gazes into the river of the future and past and sees the current, but little else. It produces more torment than anything else."
"Huh." Obito didn't know what to say to that. Prophecy was out of his wheelhouse. He didn't believe in fate, because the idea of some things being destined to happen was far too cruel for even a shinobi to consider. Or at least, he thought that was how it should be. But there were only so many ways the world could go; it made sense to him that something so old could see what had come before and predict what would come after. "Does sensei know that?"
"Of course," Fukasaku said. "Both of them." He narrowed his eyes. "Little Jiraiya is one of the few humans the Great Sage has given a direct prophecy, you know."
"Oh? What about?" Obito asked, feeling a guileless curiosity bubble up. The toad laughed.
"He was told that one of his students would save the world. That they would bring a great revolution that would change everything." When Obito blinked, his lip curling back in the beginning of a grimace, Fukasaku's laugh tapered off into a chuckle.
"Don't look so serious. That's the amusing thing about prophecy, Obito Uchiha." The scroll rolled closed, the ink drying supernaturally fast.
"They rarely end up so straightforward."