The first time Naruto meets Tobi-nii, he is five years old.
Akari obaachan asks Naruto to collect fruits for lunch, so he runs into the wild, twisted orchards that once fed Uzushio to check his favorite trees, the ones with low branches that are perfect for climbing. As he goes, he plays explorer ninja. He pretends he's a sensory ninja using his powers to search for treasure. But he has to tread carefully or the bad ninjas will find him and take the treasure for themselves.
Gripping his katana, which is definitely not just a piece of weathered katana-shaped driftwood that he found on the beach, Naruto flits from tree to tree, hiding behind their trunks to avoid the openness of the path. Occasionally he scrambles up their trunks to jump from branch to branch. He often slips and falls, but that's always because a bad guy attacks. A ninja can't worry about his footing when he has to protect himself, ttebayo!
He's nearly reached what is usually a bountiful persimmon tree when the air warps in front of him, and a figure suddenly appears.
"Argh!" Naruto screams, jumping away and scrambling to hold his katana in front of him.
Blue eyes venture upwards, along a black cloak to see a rather tall man with unruly black hair, wearing a black and white mask.
The man himself says nothing. He simply gazes at Naruto. Well, Naruto can't be exactly sure that the guy's looking at him—he can't see his eyes!—but he can feel the man's sharp gaze.
Naruto considers attacking the man. He's obviously a bad guy who is looking to take his treasure, but this man looks pretty strong. And Naruto remembers from the stories that Akari obaachan tells him that fighting isn't always the best way to win a battle. The smartest shinobi win by negotiating. Naruto wants to be a smart shinobi, so he says, "Are you from Uzushio?" With all its swirly lines, the man's mask kinda looks like the symbols Naruto finds on the ruins of the destroyed city.
The man does not respond. Nor does he move. Naruto squirms uncomfortably under his gaze, but he quickly catches himself and steadies his katana, eyes steely on his opponent.
"That's not how to hold a katana, brat."
Naruto's eyes widen in shock, and he looks down at his trembling hands, their knuckles white .
"If you're going to be defending yourself against enemy ninja, figure out the right way."
Naruto assesses his grip. Should his hands be overlapping? Maybe he shouldn't hold the katana so tight? But it's really heavy, so he's not sure if he can hold it any looser. "But I don't know anyone who knows how to use a katana," he finally says. "Can you teach me?"
But when he looks up, the man is gone.
When Naruto next meets Tobi-nii he is seven and fishing by the sea. He sits atop a rock with his line in the water. Obito watches from a nearby tree as the boy sporadically gives up on fishing to jump again and again into the water and splash around, undoubtedly making his task immeasurably more difficult.
Over the past few years Obito has come to Uzushio somewhat regularly after Zetsu reported something that felt like the Kyuubi's chakra. Thinking the beast might re-coalesce in the same place it died, Obito, unwilling to hint to anyone besides Zetsu that the Kyuubi, for the time being, no longer existed, has been personally searching for it.
Two years ago, he ran into Kushina's child. The kid was running clumsily through the trees and honestly would have killed himself on the stick he was pretending was a katana if Obito hadn't stopped him.
His heart had stopped when the kid looked up at him with big blue eyes, looking too much like Minato-sensei for Obito's comfort. He'd handled the situation quite well, in his opinion, and then had snuck away back to kamui where he'd forced his heart to stop racing and the memories to stop flashing by.
And only when his mind cleared did it dawn on him that he had been able to see the Kyuubi's chakra concentrated around the boy.
Since then, he's checked up on the kid occasionally to make sure the Kyuubi container stays safe, healthy, and naive.
From a distance, of course.
Recently, Orochimaru, under the impression that Obito had intentionally sealed the Kyuubi in the boy, suggested that he form a relationship with him. Orochimaru had been adamant that a personal connection would strengthen the boy's loyalty to Obito and ultimately make the task of extracting the Kyuubi even easier when the time came.
It was a good suggestion, but Obito couldn't tell Orochimaru that watching the sun shine off of the kid's messy blonde hair transports him to his time under his jounin-sensei. Or that the boy's energetic voice is too reminiscent of the dead woman who had loved Obito like a mother.
No, talking to the kid was a terrible mistake that Obito won't make again.
But the kid's too important to entirely ignore. Konoha could find him any day, or worse, he could find out about his father. If he ever falls under the Hokage's protection, Obito will forever regret letting the boy live.
Obito suppresses a shudder of exasperation as he hears a shout, and he looks up just to make sure the kid isn't drowning. Instead he sees him doubled over and grasping his stomach in pain.
What's more interesting is the boy's chakra. It is bright, powerful, and familiar.
The reason for the sudden bout of illness arrives in a flash of red eyes and a feral snarl that rips from the boy.
The Kyuubi.
Obito recognizes its chakra now. It is potent, more potent than any beast that is locked away should be. And it is consuming the little boy in front of him. Could Kushina have created a defective seal? If the Kyuubi is escaping, then Obito will have to act immediately and either seal the Kyuubi properly—which is absolutely not his forte—or get the kid to the Gedo Mazo statue ASAP.
But then he activates his Sharingan and sees that there isn't any faulty seal. The chakra isn't oozing out of the boy's body but is instead oozing in. It's coalescing around him and entering his body at his stomach.
The chakra is bright and heady and holds the unmistakable malice of the Kyuubi.
That means that there's Kyuubi chakra outside of the seal for some reason. Maybe Kushina had sealed half of it in an object, and it was finally escaping.
Or maybe she sealed it in herself, and that part of the Kyuubi was now joining its other halfinside the boy.
At first Obito is relieved that he didn't kill the boy sooner. What would have happened to his plans if he hadn't given the Gedo Mazo statue the full power of the Kyuubi? But then Obito realizes what a disaster it would be if the Kyuubi's chakra became too powerful for the boy to contain. He would either have to find another jinchuuriki for the Kyuubi—unlikely considering only Uzumaki are strong enough to contain the beast, and Naruto may be the last Uzumaki child—or he would have to extract only half of the Kyuubi from a fully intact seal and contain it within the Gedo Mazo statue, which would take several weeks with the current manpower of his organization, and even then, he wouldn't be capturing the full power of the Kyuubi .
No, the simpler option would be to train Naruto in basic chakra control. The only way he will be able to contain the Kyuubi is if he has a more developed chakra system and better control over his own chakra. Plus, this plan has the added benefit of gaining the boy's trust as Orochimaru had suggested.
Obito sighs. He had hoped that Naruto could live as a civilian container for the Kyuubi, just waiting for Obito to call him. Obviously, the Kyuubi has other plans.
Just as quickly as the episode arose, it's gone. The loose Kyuubi has dissipated and is no longer threatening to break the seal, the boy's body, or both.
Obito swallows his pride and approaches the boy.
"What's wrong, brat?"
"It's nothing." He can see the boy try to keep his voice from wavering.
"You're sick." Warily, the boy looks up at him, and though he doesn't speak, his hand instinctively reaches to clutch his stomach. Obito's eyes follow, confirmation for what he already knows. "That where it hurts?"
The kid nods.
"If you want it to stop, you need to learn how to control your chakra."
"What's chakra?"
Obito sighs. He should be glad that the kid is so ignorant, but the question grates at him. He's really not cut out to train a child in chakra control. "It's like blood," Obito explains. "But ninjas learn to control it so they can use justu."
Though it is turned downwards, Obito can see that the boy's face is scrunched up as if he is trying to understand. Blood his lips repeat without a voice to follow.
Obito sighs. "It allows you to use ninjutsu, genjustu, fuuinjustu, and I suppose—"
"Oh, Akari obaachan talks about that stuff! She said I'm gonna learn it so I can use seals!"
That's an interesting development that Obito was unaware of.
"So I have this chakra stuff?" The boy carefully examines one arm then the next, looking for the chakra. His hands go to his stomach, and he lifts up his shirt to examine the still faintly glowing seal. "Whoa! Is it in there?" he asks, poking at the black spiral around his belly button.
"You can't see it, brat. But yes, most of it's in there."
The kid's eyes light up with excitement. "Cool!"
He glances up at Obito as if Obito had just given him the best birthday present he's ever gotten. Suddenly the boy squints with confusion once again, but his eyes stay on Obito's mask. "Hey, you look familiar, ttebayo."
Obito has no idea how to respond to that statement. He isn't about to remind the boy of their past encounter. His one goal here is to teach the boy chakra control, so he stays quiet, wondering how best to change the topic.
But before he can say anything, the boy's face lights up. "I remember! You almost attacked me when I was on a mission, so I learned how to hold a katana real good so that I can be super strong! Watch me, ttebayo!"
The kid whoops and dashes over to where he had been sitting on the rocky shoreline. Ignoring the fishing line that lay on the ground with its hook still in the water, he grabs his katana stick and flows through the basic kata of the Nuki Tsuke. They are clumsy, looking more like they're performed by a boxer than a swordsman, but Obito's impressed that the boy has learned them at all.
As the kid reaches the fifth form. His stick wobbles ferociously before him, and his face scrunches up in concentration, tongue poking out from between pursed lips. Suddenly, he yelps, and he's on the ground, face scrunching even more tightly in pain. His hands clutch his stomach again.
Obito watches passively as if still judging the boy's kata forms, but his mind races. The Kyuubi's chakra hasn't returned, but it's obviously still having an effect on the kid. Perhaps when the boy exerts himself, the Kyuubi uses the surge in untamed chakra to capitalize on the fact that he is growing stronger. It may be fighting in an attempt to overwhelm the seal that is only meant to contain part of his chakra.
This is more serious than Obito thought.
Obito waits for the boy's fit to end, and even once it does, he doesn't say anything immediately. He lets the kid gather himself and glance at him sheepishly before watching him expectantly.
"That happen often?" Obito asks.
The kid shakes his head. "Only sometimes, and it just started happening recently. Don't worry about me, uh-" He makes that face again, frustratingly adorable as it scrunches up in thought. "Uh, what your name ninja-san?"
"Tobi," he grunts.
The boy nods fiercely, committing the name to memory before picking up where he left off. "Don't worry about me, Tobi oniichan!"
Obito grimaces at the name. "Just Tobi."
"Okay Tobi oniichan! My name's Uzumaki Naruto!"
He groans. The last thing he wants is the kid to get attached to him. Trust is one thing. Attachment is something much more complicated.
"Listen up brat, if you want to control those episodes, you need to learn some simple jutsus."
"I want to do cool jutsus!" Naruto chirps.
Obito rolls his eye. "Simple jutsus. Now shut up."
Naruto nods obediently, and he presses his lips together tightly. But Obito can see as he instructs Naruto to direct his chakra by giving him a leaf to stick to his skin, that Naruto's lips are mashing together with conscious effort to keep them closed.
Before Naruto masters the technique, Tobi-nii leaves him with instructions to ask Akari obaachan about chakra, and then he disappears.
Dutifully, Naruto asks Akari obaachan about chakra as soon as he gets home. When he does, her eyes light up, and wet, soapy hands clap together. She quickly dries them and then drags Naruto into the living room where she keeps her books on sealing. As she searches the shelves for books that are appropriate for a six year old, she mutters about where she and her husband started with their own children.
Naruto grimaces as he watches. Akari obaachan has taught him how to read, and he likes when she reads to him. He likes to listen to her gravelly voice in his ear, and he likes that she lets him turn the pages super fast. He also likes that he can learn all sorts of new things from books. But recently, she has been encouraging him to read himself, and he doesn't really enjoy it. It takes a really long time, and his fingers itch to be doing something. He really hopes that Akari obaachan is planning to read to him this time.
"Aha!" she says triumphantly as she pulls a book from the shelf.
Naruto gulps. It's a thick and heavy-looking book.
Akari obaachan, reading his expression as well as she always has, smiles softly at him. "Don't worry. It's only this thick because it has a lot of pictures to help you learn."
Her reassuring words send a smile to Naruto's face.
"Now, let's take a look," she says as she opens the thick cover. Immediately, Naruto frowns at the betrayal. Sure, there's pictures, but they're not good pictures. They're mostly squiggly lines that just look like more writing. "You asked what chakra is," Akari obaachan continues. "Chakra is like your blood, like this." She points to a picture that is an outline of a person with pathways branching throughout their body. "People have different amounts of chakra, and if you have enough, you can use it to run faster, climb walls, lift heavy objects, create fire or water-" She stops to chuckle as Naruto's eyes grow wider with excitement with each item in the list. "And you," she says, poking him in the belly and eliciting a giggle," are an Uzumaki, which means you have a lot of chakra. So I expect to see great things out of you no matter what you decide to do with your life."
"Don't worry, obaachan! I'm going to be the greatest ninja ever and protect everyone!"
"I'm sure you will," she says with a sad smile. "But remember that you don't have to be a ninja to use chakra. It can help you even if you want to become a fisherman."
"But I hate fishing. It's so boring."
"Okay, how about a pirate then?"
"Yes!"
"Even if you become a pirate, you can use chakra, and one of the most effective ways to do it is to use fuuinjustu. Seals can help you do a lot of useful things."
"Like what?"
"Let's see, the seal on this page explodes whenever you tell it to."
"Cool! Can you teach me that one?"
Akari obaachan chuckles. "Maybe not yet. I don't want our house to be blown up. Plus, it's not a very useful seal for a pirate. You could blow up your ship! Let's find another one." Old strong fingers rifle through pages until they catch one with another drawing of a seal on them. "This is a storage seal. You can put anything in it and then pull it out later."
"That's lame," Naruto pouts.
"Don't be so quick to judge. You can store almost anything in this seal. Think of all of the fish and fruits you could bring back to me if you didn't have to worry about how heavy the basket will get!"
In indignation Naruto leaps up from her lap and levels her with an accusing finger. "Don't you use this chakra stuff to trick me into doing more chores for you, old lady!"
"If you don't use your chakra to help with the chores, I won't teach you about chakra at all!"
"Ah! No, no, you can't, it was just a joke!" Naruto squeals, but even thrashing limbs and a piercing voice can't fight off Akari obaachan's tickle-inducing fingers, and eventually, Naruto devolves into a fit of giggles.
The next day, like all good Uzumaki, Naruto begins learning sealing simultaneously with writing. Unlike most Uzumaki, he hates every second of it. But Akari obaachan is insistent that he learn, and she monitors his progress carefully.
Naruto is much more interested in the suddenly-more-frequent visits from Tobi-nii. At first, he spends much of his free time looking for Tobi-nii. He considers all the places ninjas might hide from little boys, so he climbs trees, checks behind big boulders, and peeks into caves. When he doesn't find Tobi-nii in any of those places, he starts playing ninja like he had been doing the last two times he met the mysterious man.
After much trial and error, he soon comes to realize that Tobi-nii only comes for two reasons: if Naruto gets one of his stomachaches, and if he works really hard and masters one of the jutsu he's been taught.
And Naruto loves when he shows up. Sure, Tobi-nii is kinda grumpy, and he yells at Naruto a lot, but Old Man Kuri who lives in the house beside Naruto and Akari obaachan, also yells at Naruto a lot. But he doesn't make up for his grumpy mood by teaching Naruto cool jutsu. He's just grumpy.
Naruto begins to make a game of trying to make Tobi-nii happy. He tells really funny jokes, and he does silly tricks, and sometimes he even pranks Tobi-nii. But the man seems to have a superpower. His shoulders are always tense, the one eye visible through the eyehole of his mask is always narrowed. He never, ever laughs.
But no matter what, he always teaches Naruto something. First, it is feeling chakra and channeling it into a leaf. Then, when Naruto learns that, he teaches him how to channel it to different parts of his body. Then, when Naruto can even channel chakra to his ear so that he can hear super well, Tobi-nii begins teaching him tricks like henge and bunshin.
Naruto finds clones particularly difficult. Even though Tobi-nii insists that they're super easy to make. He practices all the time to try to make a good one, but no matter what, they always collapse like mud.
He begins to panic, worried that maybe Tobi-nii will never come back because he can't master this jutsu. His stomachaches have become less frequent so that it feels like forever between them, so the only thing that will bring Tobi-nii back is if Naruto can master this jutsu.
But to his surprise, one day when Naruto is particularly frustrated, Tobi-nii suddenly appears without reason. Naruto stops mid-curse—one that he heard Old Man Kuri shout the last time that Naruto pranked him—and turns to Tobi-nii feeling super embarrassed.
But Tobi doesn't scold him for being a terrible ninja.
Instead he says, "Something's wrong. I'll teach you a different technique."
"But I want to learn how to do a clone!" Naruto pouts.
"Obviously you're not ready for clones. We'll do something else."
"But you said it's a super easy jutsu and every ninja has to know how to do a clone!" Naruto insists. "And Akari obaachan says I can do anything because I'm an Uzumaki, and I have the most chakra! Someday I'll even beat you!"
Tobi-nii does not flinch at the pudgy little finger that stabs towards him. "The most chakra," he murmurs under his breath. "I see."
"What are you muttering about you old man?"
Tobi-nii sends Naruto an exasperated glare, clearly saying I am not an old man. But aloud he says, "I'll teach you a different way to make a clone."
"Is it a better way?"
"Yes."
"You're lying."
"I'm not, brat. With this technique, the clones you make will be solid. They will be exact copies of you."
Naruto thinks about what that can mean. He imagines another Naruto that can stand at the bottom of the tree with the basket while he's picking fruit. Or even better, another Naruto who can just pick the fruit for him while he gets to play. "So they can touch things and do my chores?"
Tobi looks like he wants to sigh with the way his shoulders seem to slump, but he simply says, "Yes, they can do your chores."
A cheeky grin grows on Naruto's face as he considers all of the things he can get out of if he just sends his clones to do them instead. "Teach me! Teach me!" he cries.
Tobi-nii sighs. "You're going to do the Ram symbol, like this—"
He holds his index fingers against each other in a cross. Naruto copies him.
"Then you need to feel your chakra network. Feel how it flows throughout your entire body, and when you're ready, release just enough chakra to make a copy of yourself."
As Tobi-nii talks, Naruto tries to do what he explains. He feels his chakra network. He's gotten really good at that with all his failed attempts to make regular clones, so it's super easy. Then he tries his best to release just enough chakra to make another Naruto. His chakra pulses, and a dozen Narutos appear in the clearing.
That was certainly unexpected.
"I did it!" they all whoop simultaneously. "Thanks Tobi-nii!"
Faster than the Yellow Flash, all twelve beaming and laughing Narutos pile onto Tobi-nii. But they never touch him. When Naruto lets his clones pop out of existence, he realizes he's alone.
One day after a really bad stomachache, Naruto asks Tobi-nii why he gets them. "Akari obaachan doesn't know, and none of her medicines make me feel better."
Naruto had been exploring some of the caves in the cliff along the shore when it had happened. Obito had watched the episode from atop the cliff, preferring as usual, to observe from afar. But once it was over, he had joined the kid on the beach in order to subtly check that the seal was still holding.
Now he finds himself slowly backing away from the kid. Recently, Naruto has been trying to get physically closer to Obito. He consistently tries to initiate physical contact by throwing hugs at him, trying to lean on him, jumping on his shoulders.
Each time, Obito fades into his own dimension, sometimes without returning in hopes that Naruto will realize that touching Obito is off limits. He did, admittedly, crack a smile once—his first in a long time—when Naruto had tried to ambush him by jumping out of a tree. Obito had phased into kamui and had watched as Naruto face planted into the ground.
Only when Naruto stops inching closer does Obito respond to the question. He's been waiting for this moment with dread since he had first decided to teach Naruto. This is the part of the plan where Naruto becomes a willing participant in his Eye of the Moon plan. "It's because you're special." Even as lies, the words feel foreign on his tongue. They're words a parent says to their kid, not words said to a kid by the murderer of his mom. But he forces himself to continue. "On the day you were born, you were chosen to hold a monster inside of you. Your stomach hurts because it's trying to get out"
Naruto's hands have gone to his stomach, and he looks down at it, perplexed. "Why does the monster have to be inside of me?"
"Because you're the only person that's strong enough to contain it."
"So that means I'm stronger than the monster?"
"Sure."
"And I'm the only one in the whole world?"
"Yes."
"Does that mean I'm protecting everyone?"
"Yes, brat. Now, shut up. Someday I'm going to get rid of the monster for good, but until then, I need you to keep it locked away for me."
"That's…so cool!" Naruto cheers, pumping his fist in the air. "I'm a hero! And you're a hero too!"
Naruto throws himself at Obito for a hug, and falls to the ground when Obito phases his body into Kamui. The kid quickly recovers, though, and instead decides to run circles around Obito. The Uchiha almost feels sorry for the old lady that's raising the brat. To endure this much energy on a daily basis must be exhausting. He desperately wants to get away, but there's one more thing he has to do.
He puts on that false adult voice, trying and failing miserably to emulate how the old Uchiha grannies used to talk to him. If he wants Naruto to listen, he needs to sound like he cares about the kid. "Listen, brat. Because of the monster, some people might come after you." He picks up a stick and draws Konoha's symbol in the sand. "If you ever meet someone with this symbol on their forehead protector, don't tell them your real name, and try to get away as quickly as you can."
"Why?"
"They'll try to kidnap or even kill you."
"Why?"
"Because they're afraid of the monster."
"Why?"
Obito is not playing this game. Instead, he brings up the last point he needs to make. "You might meet a tall man with blonde hair and blue eyes like you. He's the Hokage."
Naruto lights up. "Akari obaachan mentioned him!"
"Did she?"
"Yeah, she said he's a super scary man that wants to kidnap me, and she's keeping me safe from him because he'll never find me here."
Oh, it looks like the old lady is doing his job for him. He should probably thank her, but politeness is not something nuke-nins need to worry about.
"Listen to your grandma then, brat. She knows what she's talking about."
"I always listen to obaachan. Except when she makes me do my chores. Then I just make a bunch of shadow clones like you taught me and I—"
As he talks, Naruto shuffles very slowly closer and closer to Obito. His hand inches towards Obito's…
His job done, Obito escapes just before their fingers touch.
AN: The idea for having the half of the Kyuubi's chakra slowly returning to and overwhelming Naruto's seal comes from this fantastic story: Looking Glass by Random Flyer ( s/8558593/1/Looking-Glass). Check it out if you love dimension travel and watching Naruto and Minato learn to have a family.
Also, I don't own Naruto.
