Naruto x Digimon

Alive - Team Minato's Digidestined

Chapter 033

Originally Written: Monday, March 20, 2023 424AM to 518AM

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A/N: The Website's email notifications are still on the frtiz. Also, I'm relearning that if I don't have the major tasks I want done, completed before noon, I'm probably not doing them. Yay. Thanks for reading!

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Grandma Masumi falling ill was unwanted but expected. Elderly people tended to get sick more often than not. They got tired faster, and didn't move much, even if they had been shinobi and were now tired. They did all the moving they wanted to do when they were younger, and just enjoyed reaching that age in the first place. Especially in the harsh world of the shinobi services.

Still, her passing shook Kakashi just as much, if not more than his own father's death. Minato called him and his team back from their mission. Once the Uchiha Clan finished paying their own respects, anyone not Uchiha would have a hell of a time trying to visit her grave.

Many showed up to the funeral to pay their respects. Many more than who showed for his father's funeral. People from all sorts of walks of life, and all from Konoha. Store owners, civilian friends, shinobi friends, friends of all those friends as moral support for both their friends and Obito. If Obito liked drinking, Kakashi would have offered him some of his alcohol. Just a bit. The friends he and Grandma made just barely helped to console him in his grief.

Kakashi stood next to Rin, Gai, Nonou, Kabuto, Naginata and his team, Shiro and many others. He even noticed someone Rin pointed out as her teacher, Kiisu, paying his own respects. She said he didn't leave the hospital much, so it was a surprise. Lunamon whispered in Rin's ear from the shadows, and she stood stiffly next to him, as though she couldn't believe what she was being told. Yet looking around, Shiro also looked stiff and uncomfortable. He wondered what he was missing.

He learned later on that Grandma resisted going to the hospital, and was potentially trying to tell Obito something, despite losing much of her motor functions and speech in her final days. Obito never figured out what she was trying to say. Neither did Mikoto, despite their best efforts. The failure hit her hard, and Fugaku restricted her to the clan grounds so he could better monitor her health.

"She wasn't that sick!" Obito screamed to anyone who would hear him. "She was fine!" He was inconsolable, not wanting to believe his beloved grandma had passed so soon. No one had been ready.

The Uchiha weren't very good with anyone who displayed their emotions so openly and strongly as Obito did, so when Kushina and Naginata asked to take over the reigns, they let them, despite the political blow their clan would take as a result. Obito was quickly rising in ranks in the Military Police Force. He wouldn't be happy if he did anything crazy to damage or slow down his progress. Uchiha had a terrible habit of hurting people when they were in the throes of despair.

"Why!?" Obito grieved, nearly falling out of his wheelchair. He didn't allow anyone to touch him.

Kakashi wanted to turn away, for his friend's words were hard to hear and stomach, but he forced himself to stay. He understood Obito's grief more than he wanted to admit.

"Sometimes, people are eased into old age like a babe being swaddled." Kushina tried to console him. "Other times it hits them like a sack of bricks to the head. There's no way to tell which one you get, or if it will switch from one situation to the other."

She openly admitted that she wasn't the best candidate to answer all of Obito's tough questions. Uzumaki always aged slowly and gracefully like a high end wine. If they died with complications or as suddenly as Grandma Masumi had, someone probably killed them. She wasn't about to tell Obito that however. Naginata took over what she couldn't answer.

Word spread throughout Konoha of an orange lion prowling throughout the Uchiha clan grounds. As the grounds were practically in the middle of the village, Firamon wasn't hard to miss. Kakashi didn't know what caused Firamon to make his presence known, but Obito clearly needed to see something more than Grandma's unnaturally still body lying in her bed when he closed his eyes to sleep at night. If Firamon was to be that, he'd take it.

Sangloupmon would disappear often with Firamon and Lunamon. Lunamon whispered of things occurring behind the scenes. Sangloupmon agreed. Kakashi didn't like hearing these things, but they were just another part of shinobi life. Sangloupmon frequently spoke of the fires of vengeance burning in Firamon's eyes. Lunamon was so tiny compared to the higher level digimon, but she remained the purest of them all. The shinobi life hadn't tainted a shred of her soul. Kakashi hoped it never did.

Obito continued to wallow in his grief. And Rin forcefully reinserted herself into his life. Kakashi sat down, showed her his new weird Sharingan he didn't understand. Worse off, it drained far too much of his chakra to even let him properly use it. Then he let her take the reins. He didn't like nor appreciate needing to do that to her, but The Fourth Hokage had him back on missions. Once again, he was forced out of the village against his wishes.

Rin stepped up to the plate like the high ranking medic nin she was. She broke her silent protest against The Fourth Hokage, and asked him for time off to help Obito. Minato granted the request she wasn't expecting him to. She took in the strained look on his face, and the unsaid order that went along with it.

In the quiet of her apartment bedroom, she looked at Lunamon, "You haven't digivolved again. Like the others."

Lunamon looked up at her with innocent pink eyes, "Do you want me to?" Her voice was soft and sweet like honey. She held a cup of tea in her paws. Rin had ignored the numerous times Lunamon had washed the dish like grandma taught her before actually using it.

"Only when you're ready." Rin replied, looking out the window.

"I don't need to now." Lunamon replied. "Maybe Obito would like to help set up the next step."

"You think?"

"His eye would help him understand a lot." Lunamon insisted. "The sharingan can help him to see how the chakra will move in the seals, even if he doesn't quite understand the drawings themselves."

Rin trusted her advice, because she wasn't wrong before. Obito was currently staying with Fugaku. He eventually needed to go through his and grandma's belongings, but that could wait. Members of the Uchiha clan watched the building, making sure no harm came to their home.

When she came to visit, Mikoto greeted her at the door. She gently coaxed Obito from staring at his new Sharingan in the mirror all day. It was something that even Fugaku, Mikoto or Itachi were unable to do. She countered the red of his Mangekyo Sharingan with the glittering twinkling sparkles of the light from her own Digivice. If any of the other residents of the house saw anything usual, they didn't say a thing.

Obito looked up at her, dried tear tracks on his cheeks, and his sharingan swirling.

Rin's smile, and an energy and determination in her gaze greeted him. "C'mon. We've got work to do."