Obito-Sensei Chapter 30
Being Hokage
Being Hokage is a difficult job.
Put aside the traditional worries of leadership: the defense of the village, the paperwork, work-life balance, everything that comes with any position with important responsibilities. Those aren't what make the position of Hokage uniquely difficult. The Hokage is someone who carries the weight of the entire world on their shoulders in a very literal way. Even their minor decisions can affect the course of history, and all of them are aware of it.
Examples, though they're hardly needed. The Shodaime created the modern world of Hidden Villages working together with their countries to develop more advanced economies and militaries than either could alone. That's by far the most dramatic, but that doesn't mean that those that followed were any less important. The Nidaime followed up on his brother's work and created most of modern Konoha, more developments aped by its rival villages. Without the Nidaime, there is no ninja academy. There are no three man squads. There are no military police, which drew so close to disaster.
The Sandaime led Konoha through two World Wars and over forty years of peace. That speaks for itself. When the history books are written, the Sandaime will feature in every chapter. He has been omnipresent: The Professor that defined Konoha after Hashirama had founded it and Tobirama had built it.
But here now is Minato Namikaze, Yondaime, who changed the world even before he was Hokage. The only man alive to fight both the Raikage and his brother and come out in one piece, and the only shinobi in existence to have a Flee on Sight warning. Fighting the Yondaime is an abrupt and senseless suicide, and so even though he has achieved less at first glance in his fifteen years of leadership than his predecessors, he understands perhaps more than any of them the actual weight of the hat he wears.
Konoha's supremacy among the villages is held up by several pillars, but Minato Namikaze alone is one of them. One man having all that power distorts things. It means that what Minato has for breakfast that morning could conceivably lead to people or whole countries dying when he makes decisions.
Not even the wrong one. Just decisions.
Minato is aware of this. He feels it should scare him, but it doesn't. He accepted it early on, and it no longer has an impact on him or his actions. People die; shinobi die even more often. The lessons his master taught him about peace can't be applied to the gears of modern countries, he's learned. You can overcome hatred, but not the things that cause it.
Well, maybe that's not true, Minato sometimes thinks. If he wanted to, he could probably singlehandedly upend the world order. He might be the only one who could.
Hokage can change the whole world on a whim. But right now, Minato is content not to. Konoha steadily gains in strength under his leadership, growing beyond all others. Eventually, it will reach the point where conflict simply isn't tenable, and the villages will be able to transfer into a calmer detente than before. When the bonds of trade between countries make large scale war an exercise in self-destruction, when people have tied themselves together with the same things that have caused their wars in the past, greed and pride, that's when the kind of conflict that created the villages in the first place will cease.
This is the dream that Minato is steadily, calmly, certainly working towards. He doesn't realize it's trapped him in a way of thinking that could destroy the world; that he is still thinking in terms of countries and nations when he himself is proof that the world can be held in the hands of one man. Ironically, he's too humble to realize he's handicapping himself, a flaw he passed on to his students.
But back up.
Being the Hokage is a hard job because the decisions you domake will change the world just as much as the decisions you don't. Right now, the Yondaime is considering one of those decisions. As usual for the last couple years, it involves the Nation of Rain.
The question of his time is whether Rain truly stole the Nanabi or not.
It's both in and out of character for the Nation, a puzzle that Minato appreciates. Rain has been the most aggressive and mercenary village when it came to increasing their power, welcoming rogues of every village into the fold without hesitation and seeking out possible recruits from other villages, no matter how unsightly it was.
Consider the microcosm of the Chunin Exam: a team composed of a missing ninja from Kirigakure and two genius orphans, one with a powerful and rare Bloodline, led by one of the legendary Seven Swordsman of Mist. A group of foundlings sent to poach whoever they could from the largest exam in years… and the one they settled on was the girl on a team with the Hokage's own son and the latest Uchiha prodigy, a sneaky move meant to throw all three into doubt.
It has to be admired, right? Despite their ideals, Rain is a nation that holds most true to the principles of shinobi.
But attacking Takigakure directly is a different kind of boldness. Rain never starts fights, they only spread instability, destroying criminal undergrounds and picking up the scraps, undercutting their neighbors with cheap shinobi and high minded ideas. And hiring Itachi Uchiha to do it is even stranger. The man (though he is still only nineteen) draws attention wherever he goes; familicide tends to do that. They can't have known his brother, the one person who Itachi would be willing to tell the truth to, would be there. That was a coincidence far beyond anyone's ability to predict.
But still, would they have risked it? Or are they counting on it? Minato is sure that there are still ninja out there who believe Itachi is loyal to the village. And if what he'd told Sasuke was true, that might even be the case in a twisted way. Hire Itachi to steal the Nanabi, draw more attention to Konoha? Convoluted, absurd. What would anyone gain from tricking the world into thinking that the strongest village was even stronger?
So apply a razor to strip away the absurd and leave the likely.
The first option, the truth. Rain is now in possession of the Nanabi. It acquired it by hiring two S-Rank missing ninja who contracted out several dozen other rogues and directly assaulted Takigakure. Waterfall is not one of Konoha's allies; it has always been fiercely independent. But Rain expanding its power in such a brutal and straightforward manner is against the silent contract it has built up with the other villages even as it swelled up and spread its dangerous ideas.
That means increased tensions. Active disruption of Rain's missions to drive down their reliability. Potentially, eventually, no matter the ideals of the Amekage, war.
The second option, the lie. Itachi seized the Nanabi for his own means and pinned the blame on the most logical scapegoat, one few would question. Rain is greedy for strength and security, it's just accepted. Few would bother looking deeper.
Why would Itachi want a Bijuu? For the power? He is already plenty powerful. What could he do with it? Too many possibilities to consider. Speculation is pointless without more information. But the tricky part: the only way to prove this one is to confirm that Rain still has no Bijuu.
Asking is out of the question. An answer can't be trusted. Spying and interrogation then, shinobi mainstays. Both tricky for different reasons. Interrogation is most straightforward and most difficult. Only high-ranking Rain ninja will know the truth, and they are infamously difficult to capture. No nation has dared yet, for lack of a good enough reason. Not to mention that doing so would be openly hostile, a potential act of war if done wrong.
Spying then, safer, slower. Rain is filled with spies from every village, the obvious danger of any nation that welcomes anyone so willingly. The Leaf already has several operatives there, but none have the strength or dedication to become high-ranking enough to find out the truth. The only one who would be bold enough, strong enough, can't be trusted to not twist the facts to suit himself.
What a shame.
The future opens up, as it so often does for the Hokage. The safest and most logical option is to insert a new spy, or multiple spies. There are several critical attributes they must possess. They must be valuable, but not too valuable, since that would naturally build suspicion. Filled with potential, so they would be a tempting catch for Rain. Loyal, of course, but not without question, so again, Rain could buy the fiction. This immediately discounts the vast majority of jonin in the village, the natural fit for a deep cover mission like this one.
Minato Namikaze starts. The answer is obvious, staring him in the face.
But painful. Dangerous, even.
He barely blinks. A shinobi is one who sacrifices. He, who may sacrifice a piece of the Village's future, the family that is shinobi of the Leaf, or they, who may sacrifice their future in service.
He reaches forward, picks up a pencil, and begins writing.
###
A day later and Sasuke still didn't know what to do.
He hadn't returned to the Uchiha compound since the talk with his mother. There was too much pain there. He couldn't imagine looking at her face, hearing her speak, so he'd completely removed himself.
The time had passed in a silent haze. He ate, trained, slept. He hadn't seen his team. He'd stayed with Obito, sleeping on his couch, but his teacher had barely acknowledged him. Because Obito was struggling like Sasuke was, or because he was doing something about it? Sasuke didn't know, and didn't dare to find out.
His mother's words had devastated him, but he didn't know if he could survive her suffering the penalty for treason. The world was so stark now; his brother had killed his family, no one else, and if they knew the reason why plenty would say that his mother had gotten off lightly with her burned face. But she was still the only parent Sasuke had left, and even if he couldn't bear to see her the thought of her being imprisoned or executed sent a chill down his spine.
On the second day, someone woke him before the sun was up with a shove on his shoulder. Sasuke rolled over, still wearing his sweat-stained clothes from the day before. The digital clock mounted in the corner of the room read 4:26. He'd expected it to be Obito.
Instead, Rin Nohara was staring down at him.
Sasuke started, scrambling up into a sitting position as Rin crossed her arms. The lights were off; as it so often did lately, Sasuke's Sharingan activated without conscious thought, throwing the room into an eerie luminescence.
"Is Obito here?" Rin asked, and Sasuke blinked.
"I've got no idea," he said, and Rin snorted. He shook his head, trying to wake up, to slow his racing heart. "I'm sure you already looked for him. So he's probably not."
"I figured he'd be here," Rin said, looking around. The apartment was a bit of a mess, clothes and food wrappers scattered everywhere. "Must be training."
"At four in the morning?" Sasuke asked, the last of his grogginess falling away. "Does he do that?"
Rin smirked. "Obito loves ignoring his feelings," she said with a laugh. "Considering what's up with you both, I reckon Mikoto confirmed everything?"
"He didn't tell you?" Sasuke asked, and Rin shook her head.
"He spoke to sensei," she said, and Sasuke's heart froze. "But he neglected to do the same with me. Probably was afraid I'd knock some sense into him. He does love moping." Under the thoughtless smile, she looked worried. Or angry. Probably both.
Sasuke didn't say anything, and she frowned at him. The worst case scenario was playing over and over in his head. "Must have been really bad, huh?"
Could he trust her? Obito did with his life, but he hadn't told her yet. What did that mean?
And yet, he couldn't keep it in.
"Itachi was right," he said, and Rin nodded slowly. "My family was going to try and replace the Yondaime, to expand the military police beyond Konoha."
Rin whistled. "Damn. That's pretty serious." She examined him. "You look tense. Don't worry. I'm sure it'll turn out alright."
"Seriously?" To his surprise, Sasuke found himself angry at the notion. Pick a side! Are you scared or are you mad? "But…"
"But what?" Rin said, sitting down on the coffee table across from the couch. She crossed her legs and propped her face up in her hand with an amused look. "Nearly a decade ago, half your family decided to do something stupid and got killed for it. You think sensei would throw away a perfectly good ninja cause they once had a bit of treason in them?"
She leaned forward, an intense look in her eyes. Sasuke was trapped, unable to move. After a day of not talking to anyone, this conversation was too much for him. "You don't have to be frightened for your mother, Sasuke."
"Who are you, to say that?" Sasuke felt some of the old fire ignite in him. "This is none of your business. If my mother really was a traitor-!"
"Ooh, what an Uchiha thing to say," Rin said with a sour grin. "'If my mother really was a traitor, she should pay!'" she continued in a mocking lilt. "Something like that, right?"
Sasuke's hands curled into fists, but Rin just let out a brief laugh. "I've been Obito's teammate for more than fifteen years, you know," she said. "I was there when he awoke his Mangekyo. We went through the war together, we came out the other side together. I was one of the first people to see you after you were born." She shifted, more intense than ever. "I watched him turn away from his clan, tried to help him when he was afraid of going blind. I watched him kill himself over and over for not stopping Itachi. Don't think for a second that my place isn't here."
She was right, which Sasuke hated. He curled in on himself, hoping she would just go away.
"C'mon, up and at it," Rin said, tilting the couch with one foot and threatening to tumble Sasuke off the back. "I can't just leave you sitting around this dump. Obito should know better."
"Go away," Sasuke mumbled. Rin arched an eyebrow.
"I could paralyze you, if you'd prefer," she said, some visible green chakra dancing around her hands. "And drag you out of here. Does that sound better?"
I'd like to see you try, Sasuke almost said. But he was sore, and he knew he would just be humiliated right now. Rin was an elite jonin, as close to Itachi as Obito was. She'd pin him in seconds.
"Fine," he eventually muttered, rolling off the couch. Rin smiled sweetly, but her tone was anything but.
"Take a shower first. You stink," she said.
"Then, we're going out."
###
"You must admit this is unusual, my rival," Gai said as he drove his fist through Obito's face. The sun wouldn't rise for hours; the training field he had dragged Gai out to was still cloaked in night. "You usually love your sleep."
"Implying something?" Obito grunted. He struck back at Gai ten, fifteen times, throwing precise jabs at the man's vital organs with machine precision. But this was a familiar part of their years old dance: just as the attacks Gai threw at Obito passed through his body without fail, any counterattack Obito attempted was ruthlessly knocked aside.
Gai snorted, kicking out and throwing up a huge cloud of dirt and dust. Another old trick. Neither of them were taking this seriously, despite how desperately Obito wanted to. He danced back out of the dust and Gai came after him, relentlessly kicking at his chest and head.
"You succeeded in your mission, didn't you?" the man said, and Obito tested himself by catching the last kick, bringing it to a brutal halt inches from his face. Gai spun, twisting his whole body into a reverse-roundhouse, but Obito was already long gone. "You always worry too much," he continued as he hit the ground, landing in a relaxed lounging position with his head propped up on one hand. "Sometimes, that's all you can worry about."
Obito hadn't told his rival what had really brought them to that dark field. His sensei had told him not to. He'd just wanted a mindless fight, but Gai was always a talker. He didn't know what he'd been thinking. He tried to punt the other man in the face, but Gai rolled back as lightning quick as ever and almost caught him by the ankle.
"A Jinchuriki is missing," Obito said as he tried to keep his composure. "Not worth worrying about?"
"You saved a whole Hidden Village, didn't you?" They danced across the field destroying everything they touched. The only thing that was unmarked was Obito himself.
"I had help."
"We all need help," Gai laughed. "You did all you could! Agonizing over what could have gone better is pure foolishness." He shattered the earth to punctuate his point, throwing up a wall of debris once more to mask his movement. Obito tracked every particle of dirt with his Sharingan, eye whirling madly. His left eye was closed; it had not stopped aching from the day before. He'd used the ranged Kamui more in Takigakure than in the whole year before it, and his body and vision had paid for it.
Everything was just a little blurrier, a little less defined. He was that much closer to making the fatal mistake that his eyes would inevitably cause.
"Can't we just fight, Gai?" he asked as he spun to catch one of the man's punches and slip through the next. Gai smiled.
"A fight against you is also a battle against your melancholy soul, my rival," he grinned. "What worth would I be if I could not manage both?"
Obito stepped back, breathing out.
"This isn't working," he said as Gai relaxed. The both of them were unmarked, though Gai had a lot more dirt on him. Obito shook his trembling fists out. "I thought this would calm me down."
"You thought a fight against me would calm you down?" Gai asked with an arched eyebrow. "Give me some credit, Obito!"
Despite himself, Obito laughed. "Sorry," he said. "I meant it would clear my head."
"I know what you meant," Gai said. He stretched, curling his fingers one by one and methodically checking his whole body for anything tense. "You already know my suggestion for that," he said, wiggling his generous eyebrows.
"That's not my kinda thing," Obito said, and Gai chuckled.
"If you say so," he said slyly. "Something more is on your mind than just that mission, isn't it? Even that wouldn't have wound you up so."
"It's everything, Obito acknowledged. "Itachi, Waterfall, ROOT…"
'That was just part of her duty.'
He felt a sneer tug at his lips. "My team almost died. They even used Sakura against me," he said, trying to excuse it. Gai nodded thoughtfully.
"It's natural," he said, "to fear the worst when it passes by you so closely. Certainly I would never forgive myself if I led my own team to their deaths." His smile grew dour. "But they're shinobi, and shinobi don't live for themselves. My forgiveness wouldn't be the one I should be seeking, if that happens."
"I don't know what I'm doing," Obito said. He was afraid to say it, but the words came out without prompting.
"You always say that." Gai waved him off. "You have unrealistic standards for yourself. You're doing the same as the rest of us."
"That just makes it worse," Obito groused, and Gai laughed.
"Maybe!" he said as he turned away. "If we're not going to continue our spar, I'll return home."
He immediately threw a kunai back, and Obito absentmindedly caught it out of the air. His self-appointed rival grinned.
"Still on guard. Will that ever change, Obito?" he prodded.
"Not while you're within a mile of me, no," Obito said, trying to muster up a smile.
"Very fair! Well, perhaps I'll find you when you're most distracted," Gai said cheerily. "Get some sleep, will you? It would be unsatisfying to strike you because you passed out on your feet, right?"
Gai departed and left Obito alone in the dark. He looked around, still at a loss. He was tired, but he didn't want to sleep. Afraid, but no idea how to allay his fears. Furious, but with no one to take that anger out on. Standing there totally separate from the sleeping world around him, he felt trapped by the nothing that surrounded him.
As usual when he had nothing to occupy him, he thought about his team. Naruto, so stable with a family that had unknowingly nearly been snatched away from him. Sakura, so angry but doing her best to channel it into something productive. Sasuke, his whole world flipped twice over. Nothing had really changed from this mission; nothing had happened that they couldn't move on from. So why did it feel like they'd passed an insurmountable wall?
He passed into the Kamui for nothing much more than a change of scenery, a declaration that he could move if he wanted to, and stared around at the endless plane of stone and shining darkness. His own little world filled with weapons, blood, and the odd piece of furniture, and it felt about as remarkable as any other place.
That is, not at all.
Obito had often wondered how he'd ended up here. He'd been told that the Mangekyo was unique for every Uchiha worthy of unlocking it. His brother had been gifted his peerless genjutsu, Itachi his black flames and brutal Tsukuyomi. Why the variance?
Obito couldn't help but think it was due to the heart's desire, a thought that was so ridiculous he'd never dared to say it out loud. It was like Rin had said; even his clan didn't know all the secrets of their eyes. He'd wanted to not have his throat slashed on that fateful day, and the blade had disappeared. Shisui had always wanted people to get along; conflict had never been in his nature, despite his incredible talent for violence. The Kotoamatsukami had been the perfect jutsu for him.
But then, what did Itachi want? His cousin's Sharingan was a paradox, Obito thought as he stared off into the infinite void that hid behind his own eyes. Infinite and uncontrollable destruction in one, and the ability to create whole worlds in the other. The Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi were old legends in the Uchiha clan, though no records agreed on their origin or if they had even been real before Itachi had demonstrated them the night he'd killed so many of his clansmen.
If his theory was right, what did that mean for Itachi's mindset? Amaterasu had gutted his own family; what was the Tsukuyomi intended for?
Obito stayed like that longer than he would have liked to admit. Eventually, he shook his head and dragged himself from his stupor.
Sensei, he thought. That conversation had barely started, and Minato Namikaze hardly slept. Even if it wasn't the Hokage's job, if anyone could help him work through the fury and despair that was devouring his heart, his teacher could.
He turned and started walking, less than fifty steps. Space in the Kamui was fluid, always shifting according to his whim and its own. When he focused, stepping back into the real world, he was just a hundred meters from the Hokage's home.
Obito wandered down the street, not quite sure if he had a good idea or not but committed to it nonetheless. He reached his sensei's home before he could reconsider it, and stopped to stare at the perfectly maintained front yard. An ANBU had been following him from across the street, over the rooftops; the woman broke off when he stopped, somehow only now realizing who he was despite the fact he'd just teleported to the Hokage's home.
There was a single dim light on in the kitchen; someone besides him was up at this ungodly hour.
Obito stepped through the front gate and then the door, not bothering to open either, and padded down the silent hallway, more comfortable there than he was in his own apartment. He passed through the threshold to the kitchen and froze.
Kushina paused and looked up at him, her cheeks bulging with rice. She was seated at the central table with a long plate of food spread out before her, and was wearing bright pink pajamas covered in tiny rabbit faces. She blinked, swallowed slowly, and waved at him.
"Obito," she said quietly. "You know what time it is, right?"
Obito blinked back. "Same goes to you," he said. "What… what are you doing?"
"Oh, like you've never woken up in the middle of the night and stuffed your face," Kushina said, gesturing at him to sit down. Their voices didn't carry beyond the room, Obito noticed; it really was just like Kushina to set up such a ridiculously accurate barrier for an early morning snack.
"When I was a teenager," he said neutrally. Kushina snorted.
"How else do you think I keep my youth?" she asked, and Obito couldn't help but laugh. She poked a fried egg suspended on chopsticks at him. "Want one?"
"No-," he started to say, before she flicked it into his open mouth. He almost swallowed in shock, and Kushina laughed.
"Not a suggestion," she said. Obito grudgingly chewed.
"It's interesting when it's this late, right?" Kushina said as Obito swallowed. "Everything feels different, you know?"
"I don't usually get up this early," Obito lied. He sat down at the table, and Kushina gave him an unimpressed look. "How's Naruto?"
"He's not who you want to talk to me about," Kushina said, and Obito grit his teeth.
"He's my student," he said, gathering his own portion of post-midnight snacks. Kushina gracefully conceded with a nod. "How's he doing?"
"Bad," she said, munching on some more rice with a contemplative look. "Bitter."
"Bitter?" Obito asked.
"About what happened to Waterfall. He's furious. I'm sure you already knew that."
"That was obvious." Obito drummed his fingers on the table. "I've never seen him like that. Not even with Gaara."
"He was putting me in Fuu's place," Kushina said. Obito blinked, both at how obvious the statement was and how absurd it was he hadn't realized it before. "You know, a girl, Jinchuriki, kicks a lot of ass-"
Obito snorted, and Kushina cracked a smile.
"Yeah, he laughed at that too. But then it just made him mad." The smile faded. "He asked if anyone had ever tried to kidnap me."
'That was just part of her duty.'
Obito stiffened as Kushina continued. "I told him the truth. He didn't like it."
"He's a kid," Obito said, and Kushina nodded distantly, staring off at the distance. "Even after what they've been through… they haven't seen the real world. Just the parts of it that have poked through."
"That's a little morbid," Kushina frowned. "You're not talking like that to him, are you?" She said it seriously, but Obito could see the humor inside the accusation.
"Only sometimes," he said. Kushina chuckled. Obito paused, not sure if this was where to step in but compelled to nonetheless. "Kushina… what's sensei going to do about the clan?"
Kushina hummed, taking another bite. Obito picked at his own portion out of a sense of solidarity. "You haven't asked why I was up so late."
"It doesn't matter."
"Naruto and I argued. We haven't done that in a while. It always gets loud," Kushina said, almost wistful. "I went to train, probably the same as you. Drawing out the Fox's chakra is always exhausting-"
Obito's hand slammed down on the tabletop, sending everything jumping an inch, and Kushina stopped short.
"Rude," she said mildly. Obito leaned forward.
"My clan," he said, each word sharp. His shadow on the table was deep and dark. "What is sensei going to do."
Kushina looked up and locked eyes with him. She looked unamused. "Most likely, nothing."
Obito jerked back, the legs of his chair scraping on the floor, and Kushina's eyes narrowed. "Nothing?" he asked. "What the hell do you mean?"
"Did you really think it would be different? Did you want them to be punished that bad?" Kushina sat up and crossed her arms, an imposing figure in her pink bunny pajamas. Her hair was dancing with traces of crimson chakra, Obito saw; some of the Kyuubi was still in her, even if her training was over.
"I didn't want them to-"
"Don't lie to me," Kushina snapped. Obito realized right away that he'd made a mistake. Kushina had practically become his sister after Kakashi had died. An older, smarter, meaner sister. She could see right through him without even trying. "You always resented them. First they ignored you for your brother, and then they wouldn't leave you alone. They never cared about you. And now, you want me to think you didn't want them to get theirs?"
She let out a single high laugh. "Ha! You're a good guy, Obito, but everyone's got that bit of pettiness in them, you know!"
"Well, they should!" Obito shot to his feet, but Kushina stayed seated. "They're traitors, every one of them that considered that plan!"
"Even if that's true, Obito, it doesn't matter anymore," Kushina said. "They all died. They were desperate-"
"They were greedy!" Obito felt as though he were talking to a crazy person. Could she really not see?
"They could be both!" Kushina finally went to her feet, nearly overturning the table. "It was the village's failure that they ever reached that point!"
"What a bunch of bullshit," Obito spat. "Have you been speaking to Mikoto? You sound just like her."
"She's my friend," Kushina snarled. Obito laughed. "She's always been."
"Some friend!" he sneered. "Did Minato tell you what she was planning to do to you?"
"Of course!" Kushina shouted, stamping her bare foot. "I'm a Jinchuriki, Obito! I'm the Jinchuriki! The legacy of the First, of the greatest Beast, the one with the most responsibility! I've always been a weapon, and I'll always be one! If you don't see me that way, it's not because you're normal! It's because you're you! Stupid and kind and naive! Mikoto seeing I could be a weapon doesn't mean she's not my friend: it just makes her a shinobi!"
Obito gaped, feeling like the front of his head had been cracked open.
"You can't really think that," he said harshly, and Kushina cocked her head.
"You can't think otherwise. Not when you've lived the life you have."
"You're a person," Obito said, feeling like his words were trying to pierce Kushina's mind. "You're a wife, a mother. If you died..."
It was too terrible to say out loud. How would he even put it? 'I don't know what I'd do?' How pathetic would that be?
Kushina watched him with clear sorrow. "I'm all that. But I'm also a shinobi. We all know that means I have to be ready to sacrifice everything."
Just like that, the fight was out of both of them, the dreadful weight of what they were saying dragging their spirits down. "What do you think, Obito? Do you think if your friends had to pick between you and the village, they would pick you?"
Obito remembered Kakashi's father, dead by his own hands when his teammate had been barely into the academy.
"No. And they shouldn't," he said, knowing he was conceding an argument that he couldn't fully see yet.
"So what's the difference between that and what Mikoto wanted?" Kushina said, holding up her hand before Obito could interject. "She thought it was me or the village. That if the Uchiha didn't move, Konoha would fall behind. Most likely she still thinks that." She paused, took a breath. "If you had the same choice, you'd make the same decision, right?"
"No." Obito said it without hesitation. Kushina blinked. After a moment, she dropped her head.
"That's why…" she started to say, before trailing off.
"What?"
Kushina shook her head. "It's mean."
Obito felt his face harden. "Say it."
"That's why you're not ready to be Hokage," Kushina whispered.
That struck them silent for almost a minute.
"You let her into your home," Obito eventually said. "You trusted her with your life. With your family."
"And I probably still will," Kushina said. She sighed. "I don't have many friends, Obito. She's not worth throwing away for that. She's already suffered enough. She lost her husband, her son, half her clan, most of her face. Isn't that enough punishment for you?"
She sat back down and stirred her rice restlessly, as Obito stood mute. "What were you picturing? That we'd drag Mikoto out into the street and execute her? Or be clever about it? Poison her? Use that as a pretext for a war, maybe? Send her on more dangerous missions until she gave her life for the village? How would that make us look, throwing away a ninja like her? It's too late for a real punishment; no matter what, we'll look weak now."
"You've gotta be kidding," Obito muttered. He didn't have a better retort. Kushina's words were harsh and truthful.
"I'm not. Minato isn't either." She looked up. "If you can't live with that, you'll have to learn how to. That's your duty, y'know."
"I can't accept that," he said, searching for some of that fire he'd had just a minute ago. She'd been right, he realized. He'd been hoping that Mikoto would be executed. What she'd said had hurt him that badly. He'd wanted Sasuke's mother killed for that. Now that that possibility was gone…
He was relieved, Obito realized with disgust. He didn't want to be relieved. Hadn't both of his teachers always said that accepting the status quo was the first mistake you could make, and here one of them was ignoring treason itself to uphold it? As though such a thing had a statute of limitation? Whoops, they'd waited too long to unearth the truth, nothing they could do? He felt his lips curl back in a sneer.
"You don't have a choice," Kushina said. She cleared her plate, shoveling spare food into the refrigerator. "I don't want to talk about this anymore, Obito. Not when you're like this. It's too embarrassing."
"For you?" Obito grunted, and Kushina shook her head.
"For you," she said. "You're acting like a child. Get over yourself. The village is bigger than this, bigger than either of us. Minato can see that, and that's all there is to it."
"There has to be a punishment!" he spat. "If there's not-!"
Kushina didn't bother staying to listen. She left him there in the kitchen, vanishing into the hall. Obito stood there trembling, stuck in his own head. Eventually, he walked out, passing through the familiar home.
To his surprise, he found Rin and Sasuke waiting in the street outside.
Rin stepped forward, meeting him in the street halfway. "Wow, you look like shit too. What a surprise."
"What're you doing here?" he asked, glancing between her and Sasuke. Had she retrieved him from his apartment? Wait, she must have seen the mess then. Shit.
"Looking for you," Sasuke said blearily. "Said she'd paralyze me if I didn't get up."
"Only temporarily!" Rin insisted. "Wanted to make sure you didn't do anything stupid, Obito." She glanced at the house behind him. "But we might be too late for that."
"I don't want to talk about it," he muttered. What, did everyone just want to pick on him today? Didn't people have better things to do at this hour? He just wanted to go back to bed.
"That bad, huh." Rin frowned. "Don't tell me you were saying the same stuff as Sasuke."
It only took a look for Obito to understand Sasuke had been feeling the same way he had. Maybe even worse. He nodded, and Rin pursed her lips.
"I understand both of you. Don't think I don't," she said cautiously. "But you can't hold onto this. Not like this. It's just going to drive you nuts. It's way beyond either of you."
"It's our family," Sasuke muttered, and Obito was too tired to do anything but nod.
"Every family has some shame," Rin said. "You're not special in that regard. What's the point in agonizing over what could have been? It's completely out of your control."
"You're telling me you'll forgive her?" Obito said with a bite, and Rin's face hardened.
"No," she said quietly. One hand curled into a fist. "I'd snap her neck in a second if sensei gave the okay." She stiffened, looking down at Sasuke, but the boy didn't react. "But that's not gonna solve anything. It would just be a waste. So I'm going to…" She sneered. "We are all going to just let it be. Not forgive. Not forget. Just leave it. That's the deal."
Rin sighed, her whole body relaxing. "And if I can, you can too."
###
It used to be that when Sakura wanted to disappear, she read books. But at some point, she'd changed. Now, she trained. She couldn't have told anyone when it had happened, but if someone had demanded a guess she would have assumed after her first C-Rank. It felt like that was when everything had changed.
Normally, she would have trained with Tenten, but today, she was alone. Sakura felt like she needed it. She was trying to find herself.
Sitting there on the grass, her legs crossed under her and her eyes closed, Sakura rhythmically rotated the chakra in her arm countless times, sending it surging up to her palm again and again. She was trying to block out the world entirely, to only perceive herself.
But it was hard.
She'd had dinner with her parents the night before, and it had stabilized her in a way she hadn't even realized she'd needed. The silent wall that had separated them had broken; she'd never been so relieved in her life. There was a kind of peace and clarity between them now that she'd never felt before; maybe it was the kind of thing that developed between a daughter and her parents when they were meeting as equals. They were both shinobi now, and that had bridged one of the final gaps that existed in all relationships.
Or at least, Sakura thought so. It felt right to her, so whether it was entirely truthful or not mattered less than that.
However, she still couldn't focus on just herself and on her ninjutsu. Every time she took a breath, she saw Waterfall in flames, and every time she breathed out she remembered that midnight in the Forest of Death, the conversation that had shaped her so suddenly. The paradox between them clashed violently, and it felt to her like with every breath she was filled up with more and more hatred.
You weren't supposed to hate, Sakura thought. Hate made you make dumb mistakes. Hate was what led to all the suffering she hated so much in the first place. But even though she knew it was stupid, she hated Haku for lying to her, she hated Itachi for what he'd done to Waterfall, she hated Sasuke's family for being stupid enough to plan whatever had gotten them killed, she hated the ROOT agent that had stolen her mind.
She filled up with more venom and hate with every breath and spiralling surge of her chakra as she felt her palm growing heavier, so much that the hatred gave her a migraine, and she hated that too.
'If you focus like this,' the voice that was her said, 'then hate's just another tool. You can't hate that.'
Sakura opened her eyes and found a faint green Rasengan sitting in the palm of her hand. She took a startled breath and it flickered, but after a moment the rotating chakra stabilized. She analyzed it, looking over every inch of it and memorizing the feeling of it, the weight. It spun so fast that it looked slow, like water cascading down a circular stone. It really was like her Ryusuiken, she thought. The feeling was so similar, but smaller, a distinct compressed violence.
Something drifted across her mind: if she combined the techniques somehow, it would probably be able to destroy just about anything. Fuu and Gaara had both shown her that blocking the Flowing Water Blade wasn't impossible… but what if it hit with the force of this Rasengan, sending all that energy exploding out with every blow?
She was so engrossed with the technique, just staring at it and flexing her arm to analyze the minute push and pull of her chakra, that it took her an embarrassing amount of time to realize someone was crouched down about ten feet in front of her, watching it with the same analytical eyes.
Sakura started and flinched back, the Rasengan in her hands flickering away.
The Yondaime stood up from his squat, and Sakura scrambled to her feet, not wanting to sit when the Hokage wasn't. They stared at each other for a moment, Sakura in total shock. Why was he here? How long had he been here? Was this real? She bowed unsteadily, and the Yondaime stepped forward.
"Sorry for startling you, Sakura," he said, and she straightened up at the acknowledgement. "So Naruto taught you it, huh?"
"Yes sir," she said, and he didn't correct her. She was talking to the Hokage right now, she thought, not Naruto's father. "But I only managed it just now."
"I saw," he said neutrally. "That's good. That's impressive." He grinned. "It's all three of you now. I'm flattered to see my technique passed down like that."
"I'm sure Naruto didn't mean to-" Sakura started to say, but the Yondaime held up his hand and she closed her mouth.
"Most shinobi want to keep their techniques secret," he said. "And of course, I feel similarly. But the Rasengan was my gift to both Naruto and Jiraiya. If they shared it, that's their decision." He gestured again. "Sit down, Sakura."
A command, which Sakura followed without hesitation. She didn't know what was happening but the Hokage's presence brooked no disobedience.
To her astonishment, Minato Namikaze plopped himself down right besides her. "I've got something to ask you, Sakura," he said. "You know how my technique works, right?"
Sakura nodded slowly, not sure where this was going. "Do you mean the Flying Thunder God?" she asked. The Hokage nodded. "I know as much as anyone: you mark something with a Jutsu Formula and then you can teleport to it. I don't know how it works, of course." It was one of the funny things about shinobi that the more famous you grew, the more people knew your tricks.
But the Yondaime's trick was so good that even knowing what it was didn't give an advantage.
"No, of course not," the Hokage said. "No one but me does. That's something I would never share. Do you know why?"
"Well, you're the Yellow Flash," Sakura said, immediately knowing it was the wrong answer. The wind rustled through their hair. "If it wasn't just yours…"
"There are Hiraishin marks all over the world," the Hokage said. "On all sorts of things. They'll never vanish, even if I die, unless I remove them myself. That's why I'm so careful about what I put them on."
"Because if someone else figured it out…" Sakura realized.
"Then anyone and everything I've ever marked would be in danger," Minato said somberly. "I used to have marks on Kushina, Naruto, Obito, and plenty others, but a decade ago I realized that was a terrible mistake. If I've marked someone with the Hiraishin, they've essentially become my weapon, and if anyone else figured my jutsu out, they'd be the first to die. That's why I keep them on my kunai. You understand?"
"Why are you telling me this?" Sakura asked suddenly. Her stomach was sinking, and her migraine was growing stronger. Maybe it was paranoia, but-
'You already know what he's going to say.'
"I have a mission for you, Sakura," Minato said.
"But Naruto and Sasuke aren't here," she said, confused.
"It's not for them," the Hokage said with a sad smile. "I'll tell you all about it. You'll have plenty of time to consider it. Till the end of the month. And then, if you accept it…"
He held his hand out, palm facing upward. "With your permission, I'll put the Hiraishin's mark on you."