Uchiha Obito

Part One

"What would you say if you could say
Everything you needed to
To the one, you needed to?"

When Toshiko had been younger— when her family had been alive and present in the Hidden Leaf —even she had rarely been allowed in her father's study. And after the massacre, after she had started going through the blood stained homes of her fallen clansmen in hopes of salvaging what she could of her culture, the only place Sasuke had ever forbidden her to go was their fathers office.

Sasuke had once said it wasn't right, their father wasn't there to beckon them into the room or shun them away from it. No one was there to tell them to come in anymore.

No one was around anymore; her father was dead and Sasuke was gone.

That was why, Toshiko, eleven years old and alone in a home that had been too big for two people— that was far too large for one; for just her —stood in the doorway of her father's study.

Slowly Toshiko opened the door. No one could chase her away from the door anymore. Though, just as no one could do that, no one could invite her in either. Toshiko could practically see the ghost of her father hunched over the desk, pen in his hand and glasses perched on the ends of his nose.

Her lip trembled violently. She missed him. She missed her mother; she missed her clan.

Dust had collected over the years, the air in the room was stale and papers her father must have been looking at before the slaughter happened were strewn out on the desk. From her place in the doorway Toshiko could see an inkwell that had long ago dried up sitting next to a pile of pristine and unsigned documents her father had never had a chance to get to.

Silently Toshiko moved into the room, her breath caught in her throat. Her heart pounded in her chest. Almost as if she were waiting for someone— her father, her brother —to come around the corner and ask what she was doing in the study without permission.

Part of her welcomed the ghosts; the memory of an older brother or the translucent figure of her father. Toshiko would have taken a thousand scolding's if it meant she was no longer alone.

But she was. There were a great many odd and peculiar things in the world that were real but ghosts were not one of them and neither was time travel; she was alone in her family home.

In Konoha.

Blinking as she came up to her father's desk. Next to the unsigned documents sat a list. On a thin slip of paper, Toshiko found names jotted down in her father's handwriting; Toshiko picked up the list of names. It wasn't a particularly long list of names— there were only four names on the paper —none of them were names that Toshiko recognized. The thing, though, that made Toshiko's brows furrowed together was the fact that each of the names on the list were the names of fellow Uchiha; Kenji, Rei, Maka, Obito.

Placing the list back where she had picked it up from— there was a blank space on the desk where the list had been sitting, untouched for years; dustless —and instead went to work on opening the drawers of her father's desk.

Each one had layers of different privacy seals attached to it; most Uchiha did that with their scrolls and weapons and other valuables. Uchiha's nested and squirreled away what they wanted hidden under mountains of seals and traps no one but another Uchiha would know how to dismantle.

The Senju had given the Uchiha a chance at peace with the foundation of the village but it had been the long gone Uzumaki clan that had given the Uchiha a chance at safety; it had been them— when Konoha was still new and barely founded —that taught the Uchiha the basic fundamentals of fūinjutsu.

Hours later, with half the day behind her, Toshiko pulled out four files, all labeled with the same list of names that had been on the list. The top right drawer had been the last one Toshiko had looked though, the other drawers had all held paperwork pertaining to the clan such as trade deals and other types of negotiations and clipped-together papers on previous investigations, and even an unopened bottle of sake and a picture of what had once been a happier time.

Shisui had been in it; it'd been the six of them. Toshiko, in the picture was still a newborn, swaddled in pink but smiling a gummy smile and Sasuke an infant but they'd been happy and Shisui had her in his arms as he usually did— if Toshiko wasn't being carried by her father then it was Shisui carting her around —and Sasuke was perched on Itachi's hip and they had been happy.

Now they were dead and lost; the snapshot of the past pulled at Toshiko's heartstrings. Tears quelled up in the corners of her eyes.

What had caused everything to go so wrong? To cause Itachi to betray them all?

Ignoring her inner monologue— the one that was always on repeat in the back of Toshiko's mind; she never stopped wondering why her eldest brother had changed from such a loving boy to the infamous Ichizokugoroshi no Itachi —Toshiko opened the first file; Uchiha Kenji.

It looked almost like a medical file. There was a picture taped to the inside of the manilla folder; the man who's date of birth predated Toshiko's own father— and who was missing a date of death —had a large nose ring hanging from his septum.

His skin was darker than the average Uchiha's, and his lack of eyebrows and bald head made Toshiko's lips twitch. He looked more like an ancestor of Moreno Ibiki than one of hers. Toshiko looked away from his picture— he had her fathers square jaw and wide nose —and to the meat of the file; Kenji had disappeared near the tail end of the Third Ninja war.

Uchiha Kenji had been thirty nine when he went missing. One minute he had gone to check the parameter of his and his teammates' encampment and the next, following a guttural scream, he was gone.

Toshiko frowned; there had been evidence of a sand ninja near where Kenji had been spirited from but Uchiha Kenji's file read one sort of commendation after another. Years spent in the Konoha Military Police Force and a handful unaccounted for, which more often than not meant some type of Black OP work and though Suna was fearsome, short of a Kazekage— Or someone like Garra , Toshiko thought —Uchiha Kenji shouldn't have been able to be defeated and stolen into the night in the thirty two seconds it took for his teammates to react by someone from Suna.

Toshiko pushed away Uchiha Kenji's file and instead picked up the file that had been underneath his. It was the one with the picture of a teenage boy clipped to the front of it.

Uchiha Obito.

He looked young; perhaps older than Toshiko but not by much. His face was rounded and there were specks of dirt adorning the side of his face and the goggles he wore around his neck were a bright orange color.

Toshiko flipped open the file and her eyes widened because the first thing Toshiko saw in Uchiha Obito's file wasn't just Uchiha Obito's team photo but it was a team photo that had not just the Fourth Hokage in it, but a much younger version of Hatake Kakashi, her brothers sensei, in it.

"He has the Sharingan Toshi," Sasuke had said after his and his team's mission to the Land of Waves. "Only one though, but-but Kakashi has it."

And all those months ago it had been a mystery on where he had gotten it. Kakashi-sensei had said it had been a gift from a long departed friend but a Sharingan wasn't just a gift. To give it was an act— a show —of devotion.

To give someone that— to bless them with it after you had passed —was sacred. It was something only ever done between family members; between lovers so that they might be connected to one another for all of time.

Toshiko's own Sharingan activated before she began reading. Uchiha Obito had been born February 10th; his ninja registration number had been 010886 and he had died at only sixteen. Killed during a mission; he had been crushed to death by a rock slide after having thrown his teammate to safety.

That was why his file was in those with missing Uchiha's. Why his name had been on that particular list; because even though there was a death date there was no body and half a Sharingan unaccounted for.

Because he had been buried before he had died; because Uchiha Obito had been killed whilst saving his teammate. The file didn't mention who the teammate was but Toshiko thought of the eye Kakashi-sensei kept covered and knew the file didn't have to explicitly name someone for her to know who the Uchiha had saved.

He could have left Kakashi-sensei behind to die; Uchiha Obito could have saved himself. But he hadn't.

Because, "Those who break the rules are scum, but those who abandon their friends are worse than scum."

Toshiko ran the pads of her fingers over the picture of a nine year old Obito and then over the image of a five year old Kakashi-sensei. Their sensei— the Fourth Hokage —had his hands on their heads and their arms were crossed over their chests. The girl that was situated between them had thrown up twin peace signs and smiled bright enough for all four of them.

Obito's parents had been killed in the Second Ninja war. He hadn't any siblings; just a grandmother who had died not long after him. But he had believed that those who abandoned their friends were worse than scum.

He'd been the one to teach Sasuke's sensei that philosophy; he had to be. He'd given his life for Kakashi-sensei. Given his eye to him.

Toshiko's brothers had abandoned her; Itachi had done worse than just abandon her and Sasuke. And yet, she couldn't think of either of them as scum.

She still loved them; loved them both.

"If you were here Obito-san," Toshiko asked the picture aloud, "If you were me, what would you do?"

Because logic dictated that since her brothers— because Sasuke —had abandoned her and gone rogue in search of power and revenge, she should wipe her hands of them. Of him. She had already tried to bring Sasuke back only to fail; logic— at least according to the village elders —dictated that meant that Toshiko should at least try to salvage the remaining tatters of the once great Uchiha-legacy and continue on in spite of being the last.

But she couldn't.

Toshiko knew before the words were even fully out of her mouth what Uchiha Obito would do; what she would do. What she was going to do. Uchiha Obito would have sooner clawed his way out of his own grave then leave a friend behind and Toshiko would bring her brother back to Konoha, maybe not kicking and screaming and by his hair if she had to— the way Naruto would bring him back —but back all the same.

Because she wouldn't leave him. She wasn't scum. No matter what logic or the village or anyone said or dictated; Sasuke was Toshiko's brother and she would always— no matter what —be there for him.

Note: Hey who do you guys want to see next, Kakashi, Shikamaru, Naruto, Sasuke, Itachi or someone else entirely? Let me know cause I have some ideas bopping around in my head!