Shockwave
On April 7th, three days after the disaster in the Land of Waves, Obito returned from the latest in a series of missions handpicked for him by the Hokage, the latest of which was an attempt to discover a spy in the Daimyo's court. He'd enjoyed it well enough, treating it as a sort of vacation; the capital of the Land of Fire was a luxurious place and the court had countless things to keep even a shinobi busy. It helped that he was a lot more popular there than he was in Konoha, but that was the case for most places he went.
Even after a year, the wound of his team's defection was a painful scar for the village. By this point, Obito didn't really mind anymore. His life had closed up into people he cared for and people he didn't, and he found the honesty of it truly refreshing.
In the end the spy had been found, and just earlier that day. To Obito's surprise, he'd known him, though only thanks to his sterling memory. The man's name had been Nobu: Obito had tracked him down once before, on his team's second C-Rank. Then, the man had been a dissolute drunk raging at a dead-end job, but time and motivation had changed him. He'd become a clerk in the Daimyo's court responsible for all sorts of minor duties, but the one that had been most important to him was checking over both incoming and outgoing mail.
Time and motivation had also transformed him into a spy for the Nation of Rain and anyone else who would pay enough to read the Daimyo's correspondences. Obito hadn't been surprised that people would pay tremendous amounts of money for mail, but he had been surprised by Nobu's insistence that he was doing the world a favor by sharing such sensitive communications. He was a little curious what had happened to him after he'd turned the man over to the Daimyo's police and one of the Guardian Ninja, but it wasn't any of his business.
Besides, asking questions would go against what his sensei was obviously planning with these missions. Minato had sent him off on all sorts of popular ventures over the last six months: catching spies, cleaning up criminals and mercenary groups, dismantling black markets. It had been nostalgic, Obito thought with a grin as he hopped across the rooftops of Konoha heading for his apartment. He wanted a shower, first and foremost. Probably should brush his teeth as well while he was at it.
Of course, he'd followed his own whims in between the Hokage's missions. He'd traveled back and forth from Mount Myoboku at least once a month, spending more time with the Toads and learning about them and their history. He'd trained with Gai and Kushina and Mikoto, the last a surprising salvage of a relationship he'd thought dead and buried, though it was still tentative on most days.
And he'd started spending much, much more time with Rin. They had meals together almost once a week now, sometimes twice. It made Obito's heart sing; he was hoping she'd have time for dinner tonight.
He had also been spending more time with his other teammate. It felt to Obito that once he'd had his team, he'd neglected visiting Kakashi more and more. With them gone for now and his real self reawakened, he'd taken to dropping by the memorial stone more as well. It was a place of peace for him, even if that was a bit morbid. In the last moments of his life, Kakashi had trusted him completely; Obito felt that it was the least he could do to repay that by visiting him regularly.
So, for some time Obito had lived a regular and somewhat narrow life, with few people visiting him and much of his time devoted to himself instead of the village.
That was probably why he was so surprised when he jumped down off a nearby roof, landed in front of his apartment, and found a group of teenagers waiting for him with sour expressions.
"Uh, hey," he said with a little wave. Shikamaru Naru, Ino Yamanaka, and Hinata Hyuuga gave him equally unimpressed looks. "Haven't seen you all for a bit."
"We need to talk," Shikamaru said. He looked older, even more than the last time Obito had seen him. They all did. Something had definitely happened. "Hinata has been keeping an eye out for you."
"Okay…?" Obito asked, narrowing his eyes a little. Half of one team, and a single member of another? And no team leaders? Neither Asuma nor Kurenai were here. That was strange too. "What's this about?"
"We should talk inside," Shikamaru continued, both the girls staying silent. Obito looked all of them over with a critical eye: Hinata and Ino both had healed but still noticeable injuries, Ino a limp. He felt a cold shock throughout his body. If they were coming to him, it must involve his team. Had they run into Naruto or Sakura or Sasuke out on a mission? Had there been a fight? Was someone dead? They didn't look nervous enough for that, but the idea still evaporated Obito's good mood in an instant.
"Sure," he said, keeping his cool and stepping past them. "I'll let you in."
He never kept his door locked; there wasn't much to steal in his home that he cared about, and only an idiot would steal from a shinobi anyway. He opened his door, politely allowed them inside, and then closed it behind him.
His home was as he'd left it, the living room empty and the attached kitchen a mess. Ino gave the pile of dishes an obviously disparaging look, and Obito laughed apologetically as he propped himself against the wall, watching them mill about. Shikamaru took a seat on the couch, along with Hinata; Ino remained standing, shifting on her sore leg.
"So what's this about?" he asked. "You look a little beat up. Did something happen?"
"Did you hear about what happened in the Land of Waves?" Ino asked. Obito frowned.
"You were involved?" He didn't have the full story yet: he was planning to ask Minato about it, but what he'd heard while out on his mission had made it obvious that some ninja had gone insane and rampaged in Fukami City, destroying half of it and the Great Channel Bridge that connected the country to the mainland. Something like that was rare, but not impossible, especially if a country made the wrong enemies.
"Yeah, we were involved," Ino said. She shook her head. "I don't know how much you know, so I'll make it simple. Sakura and everyone else was there: Gaara was as well. He's the one who caused it."
Obito stood still, thunderstruck. His team had been at the center of that disaster? It had been caused by Gaara? He closed his eyes and sighed.
"Why're you three telling me this?" he said after a moment. "I'm sure one of your sensei's was with you as well; why aren't they here?"
"Cause Sakura only told us about her mission, not Kurenai-sensei," Shikamaru said with a smirk.
Obito blinked. "Pardon?"
"She showed us, Obito-sensei," Hinata said quietly. "The mark on her back: the Flying Thunder God's seal. She and Naruto and Sasuke…" She paused, swallowed. "They all got orders to defect, didn't they? Sasuke told us that he was, that he was chasing his brother, but that was only half the truth, wasn't it?"
Faced with some of the last people he ever expected to have found out the truth, Obito didn't quite know what to do. He looked over the three of them, saw the raw sincerity in each of their eyes, and couldn't help but laugh.
"Shit," he chuckled, and Shikamaru stirred. "And we did such a good job of selling it too. You must have really put her in a bind if you convinced her to tell you, Hinata."
"We kidnapped Sasuke," Shikamaru said. He had a look of obvious pride about it, and Obito couldn't blame him. "He convinced us that we had to work together, but that wasn't really enough. I guess Sakura thought she needed something else: she told Ino to have Hinata check her back for the seal."
"Clever," Obito mused. "But you gotta back up. What exactly happened in Waves? Give me the whole story."
Over the next five minutes, all three of the teens gave him their perspective of what had happened in the unfortunate country: their mission to track down the counterfeits, the encounter with Team Seven, the brush with Darui, and then the explosion at the docks, the rogue Hyuuga, and Gaara's rampage. By the end Obito was sitting on the floor, head propped on his hands and deep in thought. To his surprise, Hinata was the first to speak up after the summary.
"Sakura said that she… the Hyuuga," she said. "That she'd tried to assassinate you before. In the Hidden Waterfall." Obito had noticed that there had been very few details of the woman's defeat, and Hinata had shook while talking about it. If it was the same ROOT agent, and it seemed to be, there was no way Hinata and Sakura could have taken her, no matter how much they'd improved. He knew just enough about the Hyuuga clan to make an educated guess as to how Hinata might have won, but there was no way he was bringing it up.
"It sounds like she did," he said, poking at his shoulder and arm. "I don't know of many archers, let alone Hyuuga archers, and she put a few holes in me back when Waterfall was attacked. I didn't think she'd made it out of there though." How many people could say they'd been attacked by the Yondaime and lived, he wondered? The Hyuuga had been on a very elite list before Hinata had reached her.
"She said she was a member of ROOT," Hinata said, and Obito noticed that while the phrase obviously meant nothing to Hinata, both Shikamaru and Ino had obvious reactions. He gave them a curious look, and Hinata did too.
"She was. You know about them, it seems," Obito noted, and both Shikamaru and Ino got uncomfortable looks.
"Just what I've got out of my dad," Shikamaru admitted with a shrug. "But I know… some of my older cousins and such vanished when I was very, very young. I put the pieces together: they were probably taken by ROOT, right?"
"Same for me," Ino said, and Obito wondered how many of these kid's relatives he'd killed in the course of purging the organization on his sensei's behalf. The Yamanaka who'd died in Waterfall had certainly been Ino's relation, maybe a distant uncle.
There was far too much blood on his hands. For a second, he considered saying something. But what would it help? There was way too much to unpack there in a single conversation, especially this one.
"Well, I didn't know there were any Hyuuga in ROOT before Waterfall," Obito said, trying to cap off the conversation. "I wouldn't be surprised if she was one of the only ones."
"My father said the same," Hinata said quietly. "He said her name was probably Hei. That everyone had thought she'd died a long time ago, when she was my age. But she was a member of the Branch Clan, so…" She curled in on herself, her resolve failing.
"Yeah," Obito said. "Don't think too hard about it. You did well."
He left Hinata halfway curled up in a ball and turned to Shikamaru and Ino. "You said that Sasuke injured his arm," he said, swinging back to the part of the conversation that had stuck in his head.
"He made a Lightning Rasengan," Shikamaru said. Obito couldn't help but laugh at the audacity. "But it had a bad effect on him. Naruto said that he'd might never use his arm again."
Obito winced, torn between sympathy for Sasuke and disbelief that Naruto was now apparently an extremely accomplished medical ninja. He never would have expected that, not while he was training him and certainly not after letting him run off to Rain.
"But I don't really want to talk about Waves," Shikamaru said bluntly. "We want to talk about Team Seven."
"What did you want to know?" Obito said, leaning back. Shikamaru and Ino exchanged glances, and he laughed. "I'll tell you everything I can, don't worry. If you already know, it's not like a bit of context is gonna hurt anything."
"But… I mean, it is a secret," Ino said. Obito snorted.
"Was," he said, and Ino smiled. "Was a secret."
"Why did they go?" Shikamaru asked.
"Why do you think they went?" Obito asked with a cocked eyebrow.
"To see if it was true if Itachi Uchiha was working for Rain," Shikamaru said resolutely. "And to determine the whereabouts of the Nanabi."
"Do you like asking questions you already know the answer to?"
"I like confirming my guesses." Shikamaru grinned. "But I'm surprised you allowed it, Obito-sensei, when it made you so unpopular."
Obito crossed his arms, his arm-guards clanking on each other. "I'll tell you what I told them," he said. "I've been unpopular before. It hasn't been too difficult for me."
"Well, we all at least want to apologize on our sensei's behalf," Ino said, and Hinata nodded.
"Don't," Obito said with a shake of his head. "They're adults: you're not. It's their own responsibility if they decide to apologize or not."
They went quiet at that, and Obito scratched the back of his head. "I can't believe Naruto's a medic now," he muttered. Shikamaru laughed.
"An incredible one," he said. "He saved Sakura's life." Obito wanted to feel pride at that, but pain came instead. "And even after that, he fixed the rest of us up the best he could,
and sent out clones to help the Land of Waves. It was unbelievable. We were able to run back on our own because of him."
"I got shot," Hinata said quietly. "By an arrow. Naruto closed it up so well it didn't even hurt till everything was done."
Shadow Clones, ridiculous chakra reserves, an existing knowledge of jutsu shiki, and now, apparently, the raw skill and chakra control to render life-saving aid in seconds. Obito kept scratching the back of his head, not sure if he should be ecstatic at his student's progress or jealous that he'd grown so much in the Nation of Rain.
"And Sakura?" he asked. "You mentioned she got hurt. Was she doing well?"
"Yeah," Ino said, taking it on herself to answer. "She's gotten unbelievably strong. She fought Gaara head on and almost killed him. She kept fighting even after he turned into a Tailed Beast." She hesitated. "But… she also seemed like, the most… I don't know what I'm trying to say." She shook her head. "Out of all the Rain ninja we met, she seemed like the most genuine. She actually talked about Rain, about opposing the Daimyo. She was really into it."
"Well…" Obito said with mixed feelings. "That's to be expected. It was why she got picked in the first place."
"
She got picked?" Ino asked. Obito shrugged.
"She got picked because she already was sympathetic to the Akatsuki," he said as Ino frowned. "And then Naruto and Sasuke went with her, for their own reasons."
"Wait," Shikamaru said. "Then they
actually defected?"
Obito laughed and nodded. Shikamaru dropped his head into his hands, staring at the floor, and then apparently couldn't help but laugh along. "But that's so stupid!" he said with a chuckle. "Why the hell… what were they thinking?!"
"Obviously they didn't want her to go alone, dumbass!" Ino said, socking Shikamaru in the shoulder. "They're good friends!"
"They left us behind for her," Hinata said, as quiet as ever.
"She needed them more!" Ino declared, jumping off the couch. "I was ready to kick Sakura's ass when I saw her, but now I think it should be the Hokage's instead! Sending her off like that and not even letting her tell us: what an asshole!"
Obito pushed himself off the wall. Ino's indignation made it impossible not to grin. "It was her decision, not his," he said, and Ino gave him a frustrated look. "She didn't want to endanger the mission by making it common knowledge, and she was sure she'd be back."
Ino grimaced. "Well," she grumbled, "I get that. It's really stupid, but I get it."
"So then…" Hinata said after glancing at Ino and Shikamaru to make sure they weren't about to say something, "you don't know when they'll be back."
"No," Obito said bluntly. "It's an open-ended mission, and it all relies on Sakura becoming trusted enough to find out the truth. It could be another year, or more, or it could be tomorrow. Maybe the mission to Waves will be the final push that was needed." He allowed himself to really ponder the thought, to hope that his students would be back soon. "Fighting Gaara could impress the Amekage. It did all the way back in the Chunin Exam. That's when she was approached by Rain to defect."
"That long ago?" Hinata asked with obvious surprise. "So they…"
"Reached out to her first," Obito confirmed. "That was the main reason she was picked."
"Wow," Ino said. "Kinda jealous," she continued with a flip of her hair. "Woulda been nice to perform well enough in the exam that another village tried to poach me, instead of getting kicked out by that asshole so quickly."
"It is a little funny," Shikamaru said, finally looking up. "That we'd run into Gaara first at the Exam, and then again here, on the mission that secured our promotion."
"Oh!" Obito said. "You guys are Chunin now? Congratulations!"
"Thanks!" Ino said brightly. "But we're still behind the curve, apparently!"
Obito cocked his head with an obvious question in his eyes, and Hinata picked it up. "Sasuke made Jonin in Rain." Obito whistled as she continued. "He was the team commander, actually, and I think Sakura and that man Zabuza Momochi as his seconds."
"Naruto's still a genin then?" Obito asked. Shikamaru smirked, and Obito shook his head. "Unbelievable," he said with a grin. "If you'd told me when I got assigned to them that they'd end up in that order…"
"Sakura's just kept surprising us," Ino said, the mood dropping a little. "I guess I hope that keeps up. It would be a nice surprise if she comes home."
"Here's hoping," Obito said, sensing that the conversation was coming to an end. Shikamaru and Hinata were making subtle glances at the door. "Are you planning to tell anyone else?"
"Do you think we should?" Ino asked, surprised. Obito shrugged.
"It's your secret to keep or spill," he said, not even giving a single thought to what his sensei might think of
that particular notion. "You're Chunin now: that means the village trusts you to exercise your best judgment, and if it does I will too."
They looked uncertain, and Obito felt sure at a glance that they probably wouldn't tell anyone. The weight of the secret they were carrying was a little heavy for brand new Chunin.
"If you are going to tell anyone, maybe the rest of their friends would be the best," he suggested, and Ino gave him a relieved nod. "If you trust them to keep it quiet. But it might make things easier for Sakura and, really, everyone else when she does complete the mission."
"You think she will then," Hinata said. "You're sure they'll be back?"
"I wouldn't have let them go if I wasn't," Obito said, as certain as Hinata was uncertain. "I promise you that: I have complete faith in them." He wandered towards the door, and the others rose and followed him. "Thanks for coming by," he said, opening it. "It's always nice to get news about them."
"Well, thanks for being honest with us," Shikamaru said as he slid outside. "I was wondering if you would just deny everything."
"A year ago I would have," Obito said bluntly. "But things are changing. If Sakura told the truth, it's not my place to follow it with a lie."
They filed out saying their thanks on the way, and Obito waved goodbye, sighed, and closed the door after them. He wandered back to the couch, and then remembered why he'd been heading home in the first place.
Thirty minutes later, having showered, brushed his teeth, and changed into something that wouldn't make people think he was about to go into combat, Obito was sitting on the couch and staring at the ceiling wondering how he had narrowly missed his team again. Hiyame and now Waves; it was enough to make him wonder if he should just teleport straight over to Amegakure and demand to speak to them. Would that be strange? He could probably pull it off; there was nothing weird about someone's sensei wanting to see them after a long absence. Worst came to worst, he'd look like a needy sap, not an enemy spy-
As Obito was pondering breaking into another hidden village just to say hi to his team, a knock came at his door. He glanced over, rolled off the couch, and made his way over. What next? More kids? Kurenai, come to tell him about Waves like her team had? He ran a hand through his hair and opened the door, a neutral greeting halfway out his mouth.
"Hey!" He choked as he found Rin on the other side, watching him with a curious smile. "I heard you just got back! Wanna grab something to eat?"
###
Obito and Rin's weekly meals had started about two months after he'd returned from Mount Myoboku, and Obito had paid for them every single time. It wasn't something that he'd done on purpose at first, but once Rin had pointed it out he'd found it too funny to not keep it up. It wasn't a strain for him: since he'd unlocked his Mangekyo, Obito had begun making more money than he knew what to do with. With well over nine-hundred missions under his belt, including a clean forty S-Ranks, he had long ago stopped actually tracking his money. Half of it went to him (and most of that went into a savings account that he would probably never use), half of it went to his clan; he hadn't bothered to change that in all his years, even after he'd learned about the coup attempt.
Maybe it was strange for someone who would soon turn thirty to think about money that way, but Obito was glad to not have yet another thing to worry about.
When he and Rin ate out, they almost always had dinner together. They tried both casual venues and fancy places that prepared special tables for Jonin of their reputation; Obito found that he liked it all, so long as Rin was there with him. Today, they'd decided to try out a steakhouse that had opened recently in the south end of the village. Obito wasn't usually a fan of dishes that were mainly meat, but 2000 Ryo steak definitely made him curious. Especially when you didn't even order it; there wasn't a menu, just a price tag.
After they'd ordered drinks, they sat facing each other with shared amusement.
"Fancy," Rin noted.
"Even more than I figured," Obito noted. He didn't have a lot of formal clothes, so he'd just gone with a plain black shirt with long sleeves and matching pants. Dark colors suited him, at least. Rin was a little more expensive, with a short purple dress, but they were still far and away the most casually dressed people in the whole place. It didn't seem to matter though; their fame kept anyone from openly judging them.
"I had some visitors before you came by," he continued. Rin cocked her head. "Did you know some of Team Eight and Ten were in Waves when everything went down?"
"I did, yeah," she said. "They came by one of the hospitals when they got back. They visited you?"
"They ran into my team," Obito said, noticing that some other patrons at the widely spaced tables were glancing over at them. Rude to eavesdrop on a shinobi, he thought, but maybe they were just that interested. Rin made a small surprised noise. "They were there in Waves too, and ran into Gaara. Apparently it caused some trouble."
"I'd bet," Rin said. Their waiter returned and gently deposited their drinks on the cloth covering the varnished wood table, a very pink cocktail for Rin, and water for Obito, before leaving with a small bow. "It's a real mess down there. Actually, the Daimyo contacted us about it yesterday."
"Us?" Obito asked, taking a sip. Too much ice, but the water was high quality, not just basic filtered stuff. At least they were paying for a good experience in general. There was soft music playing from a live band in the corner, just enough to enhance conversation instead of drowning it out. "The medical division?"
"Yeah," Rin said, taking a sip of her drink. Her eyes went wide. "Wow, sweet!" she said, taking another sip before setting it down. "Yeah," she repeated. "The Daimyo has requested that Konoha send a contingent of medical ninja down to Waves, and specifically to Fukami City, to render aid to anyone injured by the attack, and free of charge too. The Land of Fire is going to cover any expenses incurred."
"Wow. That's generous." Obito sat back. "I guess it's a good idea. Waves needs all the help it can get right now, and it'll be free press for both Fire and the Leaf." He frowned a little. "The magnanimous saviors, coming in to clean up the mess their allies made."
"You haven't talked to sensei yet about that, have you?" Rin asked, and Obito shook his head. "He's furious. I don't think I've ever seen him so angry." Her lips twitched into a half smile. "Even when I thought you guys were about to kill each other that day you came back without them."
"Do you think he's going to do anything about it?" Obito asked. Rin shook her head.
"I don't know," she said. "I feel like, if Gaara really was responsible, we'll have to do something. We can't have a murderer like that as our ally; it's just embarrassing. Not to mention… he keeps trying to kill our kids." She laughed. "And the same one, both times! Wasn't it Shikamaru, Ino, and Hinata who confronted him during the Chunin Exams?"
"Their teams, and mine too," Obito confirmed. "I'd call it fate, but it feels a hell of a lot more like bad luck."
"Your team's always had plenty of that," Rin said with a laugh. "Hell, you have too, Obito."
Obito leaned forward and grinned. "I've thought about that," he said conspiratorially, and Rin raised her eyebrows at him. "But the way I see it, we've had bad luck that's put us in bad places, and good luck that's gotten us out of it." He tapped his temple. "We keep getting a rough deal, but we also keep coming out in one piece."
"You do," Rin noted. "But not always everyone else. Sasuke got hurt this time, apparently. I hope Rain has some good medical ninja to take a look at his arm."
"Yeah," Obito said, getting more somber. "That's true too. That's always been my problem, after all."
"The ghost thing?"
"Yeah," Obito said, frowning. "The ghost thing."
The first course of their steak meal arrived, and Obito and Rin ate mostly in silence, taking moments to compliment the food or ask other questions. Obito learned more about what Rin had learned from being visited by Hinata, Shikamaru, and Ino, and Rin what they'd told Obito.
"Well, I hope they do spread it around a little," she said quietly before she let out a polite laugh. "Hope it's not treason to say that."
"We'll find out," Obito said with a shrug. "I told them to exercise their best judgment." The music changed tempo a little, something more upbeat but still quiet, and Obito shifted as well. "Here's a question."
"Shoot," Rin said, mixing up her last slice of her peppers in some gravy.
"Would you mind if I came along to Waves with you guys?" he asked, before amending himself. "Assuming the medical division is going, and assuming you're going, I guess."
"We are going," Rin said, popping the peppers in her mouth. "And so am I, yeah. I'll be leading the operation. We're leaving tomorrow, in fact. I was gonna tell you later if it didn't come up."
"Is that a yes?" Obito asked. Rin rolled her eyes.
"Could I stop you?" she laughed.
"With just a word," Obito said, deadly serious, and Rin glanced at him, picking up her half-full glass.
"So serious," she said with a grin. "Your medical jutsu might be a little help, but if you wanna pull your weight, you'd be a lot more helpful with body retrieval." Her grin soured a little. "Would you be okay with that? It's not exactly fun work."
Pulling bodies from wreckage? Obito barely thought about it. If it was helping Rin, he'd do it without hesitation.
"It'll be important," he said, and found that he had a bit of sneer. "To see what our
allies have done."
"Alright," she said with a lilt. "But don't say I didn't warn you."
Their main course came, and Obito decided that the very least he could do was enjoy the steak. It seemed like tomorrow wasn't going to be much fun.
"Thanks, Obito." Rin smiled at him from behind her glass. "For your help. And for the meal."
But then, Rin's smile made him think that maybe he was wrong.
###
About thirteen hours later, Obito was in the Land of Waves, and the steakhouse was a distant pleasant memory.
Fukami City had been an incredible place, he thought. So full of industry and commerce, springing right up out of the sea and joined to the land by its grand bridge.
Had, though. Past tense. A demon had ripped out the city's heart, cut a path of destruction through it, and left behind sand, ash, and bodies. Obito had arrived with the medical team, eight shinobi in all including Rin, about two hours ago, and spent that time familiarizing himself with the ravaged city and assisting the team with whatever they needed. There had been more than ten thousand casualties, and thanks to the city's own services being stretched to the limit (especially due to Gaara leveling a hospital on his way out) only about a third of them had been properly treated. Most of the rest were lined up in emergency shelters, crowding the halls of the remaining hospitals, or left out on the street if they had no one to look after them.
The entire city was still in pandemonium four days after the attack. Obito couldn't blame them. No matter what kind of disaster response you could put together, there just wasn't much anyone could do when a fourth of the city, including a chunk of both major industrial, commercial, and residential sectors, were wiped off the map and buried in sand, along with the main highway to and from the place.
"Under there next," his companion said. Tanjiro, one of Rin's assistants, a little guy with brown hair and extremely blue eyes. He was constantly fidgeting, but Obito had seen for himself that his medical jutsu was second to none. Tanjiro was gesturing to a partially collapsed hotel; they were steadily working their way west along the docks, clearing buildings like this as they went. "That's one of the last."
"Yeah, just a minute," Obito said. He took a deep breath and walked into the rubble, stooping down. Opening his eyes when he was phasing through something was strange but doable, but no matter how many times he practiced his body always rebelled at breathing in the air from the Kamui when his mouth was immersed in matter; his instincts always screamed that he was going to get a throat full of dirt or stone.
Parts of the building had already been cleared, but there were patches of destruction too thick for previous rescuers to have reached. After a minute of careful searching, Obito still hadn't found anyone. He was ready to breathe out a sigh of relief and exit the rubble when he heard a faint voice.
"Hey," it was a man, hoarse and soft. "Someone there?"
Obito cursed under his breath and doubled back towards the voice. He bent, searching the ground, and his face poked out a piece of rebar and found a miraculous pocket amidst the destruction.
There was a ninja in there, to Obito's surprise, a man with long black hair and a green vest under his flak jacket. He had a hitai-ate wrapped around his neck like a scarf: for a second, Obito mistook the symbol on the headband for Rain's and his heart skipped a beat, but after a moment he noticed the angle. It was three diagonal lines instead of three straight ones: the symbol of the Village of Springs. The shinobi was buried in concrete, one arm crushed and another leg pinned by bent steel. That shouldn't have been enough to immobilize most ninja, but his free leg had been crushed flat by something unknown, probably before he had been buried.
"Oh what the fuck?" the ninja asked, and Obito grimaced at him. "That's a hell of a hallucination…"
"I'm not a hallucination," Obito said, wondering how he looked. The man could probably only see the front of his head popping out of the rubble above him. There was barely any light in here either, which must not have helped. "I'm here to get you out."
"A shinigami?" the man coughed, and Obito couldn't keep a chuckle from escaping. "Well, it's been long enough. Lazy bastard."
"Hold on," Obito said. "This is gonna feel strange, alright?" He bent down, examining the pocket. There was just barely enough space for him to lay himself out on top of the crushed shinobi, though he'd have to curl up a little.
"Yeah, do whatever you want," the man said. "It's not like I'm-"
In a fraction of a second, Obito dropped his intangibility, settled on top of the man, pulled him into the Kamui, and then shuffled a couple feet to his right, popping them both out into the real world at Tanjiro's feet. The medical ninja jumped back in shock, and the ninja started screaming, attracting attention from a couple of people passing by and digging through the rubble themselves. Obito rolled away and back to his feet.
"What?! What??!!" the ninja from Springs shouted as Tanjiro recovered his composure.
"Crush wounds," Obito said, trying his best to be helpful. "It seems like he's been in there since the attack, so he's probably got a whole lot of issues."
"Yeah," Tanjiro said as he bent down. The ninja from Springs went silent, staring at him with wide eyes as the medical ninja ran glowing red hands over the injured man's body. "Well, it's a miracle you're alive, sir. What's your name? Do you know where you are?"
"Uh-!" The man coughed, licked his lips. "Kuro! Of the Hidden Springs. I'm in…" he looked around, blinked. "Gods, is this still Fukami? I can't…"
"Okay," Tanjiro said in the soothing tone that Obito could never manage. "Try to calm down. You've lost a tremendous amount of blood, not to mention everything else. I'm going to call for a transport group, alright? I'll stay here and do my best to fix you up until they get here."
Kuro coughed again and nodded his head, apparently unable to believe that he was still alive. "You're Hidden Leaf?" His eyes grew a bit sharper. "Like those kids… are they alright?"
"I think so," Tanjiro said, flawlessly lying. Obito was sure he had no idea what the man was talking about, but Obito had a clue.
"Good. Gods, I thought…" The man twisted, wincing, his whole body shaking with pain. "Those damn Rain-ninja… I can't believe they provoked that monster."
At that, Obito stayed silent, peering down at the man and wondering who he was talking about. As he did, Tanjiro looked up at him.
"Obito," he said, and Kuro jerked at the name, eliciting another groan of pain. "Lady Nohara called while you were in there." He tapped his headset. "She wanted you back at the shelter as soon as we were done here. There's just a couple more buildings, alright?"
Obito nodded, noticing that Kuro's gaze was fixed on him. "You alright?" he asked, irrationally wondering if this man somehow knew about his team's connection to Gaara.
"You're Obito Uchiha," the man breathed out in obvious shock. "The Ghost." He closed his eyes. "In case I die-"
"You're not going to die," Tanjiro said patiently, but Kuro ignored him.
"In case I die, I have to give you my village's thanks," he said, and Obito cocked his head. Thanks weren't usually what foreign ninja gave him. "You're the one who took down Hidan the Bloodletter. You cleansed an embarrassment to us all." He closed his eyes. "Our sincere thanks, and our shameful apology for not doing it ourselves.
Obito blinked. Hidan? Right, that C-Rank at Paper Hill. Almost a full two years ago. When Sakura had swam through a well of blood and brought him the immortal ninja's heart.
"It was my pleasure," he said with a grin, kneeling down. When the man opened his eyes, he flinched back at finding Obito so close. "Repay it to me by not dying, huh? We don't need any more bodies here."
Kuro sucked in a breath and nodded, and Obito stood back up. "I'll get the rest," he told Tanjiro. "I'll bring anything I find to you."
Tanjiro nodded, and Obito set off.
There were five buildings left for him on the docks. In three, thankfully, he found nothing. In two, he found bodies. There were twenty-one all told, men and women of all ages. Obito mentally marked the bodies he couldn't pull out with the Kamui, retrieved the ones he could, and laid them out as respectfully as he could beside their respective structures. At the beginning of the day he'd wanted to take anybody he found straight to the morgues, but they were all overflowing; this was the best he could settle for. It only took him about ten minutes to physically pull out those he couldn't reach with the Kamui. By the time he was done, Tanjiro was making his way over.
"Kuro's been picked up," he said with a frown, his piercing blue eyes looking over the bodies Obito had found, lingering on a child. It was a boy, maybe four or five years old. His chest was completely crushed: Obito hadn't found any other corpses with it. Did that mean he'd died alone, or been left behind? He didn't want to speculate. "He'll probably make it. I doubt he'll be a ninja again."
"Not with those legs," Obito said. He wondered what Katasuke was up to in that moment, and how simple it would be to steal prosthetic limbs from the Hidden Cloud. "But I guess it's like you said. It's a miracle he's alive at all."
"Yeah," Tanjiro said, and then laughed. "It's a day like this that makes me wonder if I should start smoking. Maybe it'd make things easier."
"It's bad for you," Obito noted with a smile. Tanjiro returned it.
"Life's short anyway," he responded, looking around at the destruction. "You can go on ahead without me. There's still plenty to do here."
"Good luck," Obito said, sticking his hand out.
Tanjiro took it. "Thanks," he said. "You know, all those rumors about you, they're way off base."
"Rumors usually are," Obito said with a bit of bite, and then he swirled out of existence, leaving Tanjiro behind. He jogged to the east and reappeared in the ad-hoc medical headquarters that Rin had set up in the largest shelter near the bridge. The first sound to greet him was a baby screaming: displaced people were lining up for examinations at a large white tent beneath a scrap iron roof, police, civilian doctors, and medical ninja all running around in a scene of directed chaos.
"Oh!" He heard Rin's voice and turned around to find her stomping up to him, hands gesturing wildly at someone. "Obito! Perfect!"
"What's going on?" he asked, and Rin huffed, her face red.
"I've had three idiots in a row now
refuse help," she said, like it was a personal insult or a cardinal sin, "and I'm sick of it! You've gotta go take care of it!"
"Refuse help?" Obito asked, perplexed. "Why? Because we're from the Leaf?"
"No!" Rin declared, pacing in front of him. Her hands were clean, but there were bits of blood marking her arms and shirt; she must have just washed up. "Because we're doing it for free!"
"What?"
"Right?! It's ridiculous!" She finally came to a stop, her chest heaving, and Obito felt an entirely inappropriate emotion for all the death they were surrounded by. "There's some idiot out there charging out the ass for medical service, and for some reason that's making some people trust them more than us! People are saying they've saved a hundred casualties by themselves in less than a day, but it's nonsense! They don't even have a name to put to them!" She pointed at Obito violently, and he mocked surrender, raising his hands and backing up. "I hate scammers, you know! And I hate people who'd take advantage of something like this even more!"
"So you want me to…?" Obito asked, and Rin's face twitched into a smile for just a moment before her anger reasserted itself.
"Go figure out who they are, and tell them to either get with the program or get out!" she said, before reconsidering. "Actually, you know what, you're loaded. If they really do have some skill, could you pay them off, if it comes to that? Is that asking too much? We need all the help we can get."
"I don't have a problem with that," Obito confirmed. "I'll go find them, alright? You just focus on your work."
"Good!" Rin huffed, before brightening up. "Thanks! You're the best!" She stormed off back to one of the medical tents, and Obito wondered if he was twenty-nine or twelve from the way her words made him feel.
He noticed a couple people watching him as Rin left, including a man with a salt-and-pepper mustache holding his teenage son by the shoulder. The both of them were standing in line, waiting to be checked. The man looked away as Obito's eyes fell on him, and Obito made his way over with a neutral look. The closer he got, the wider the teenager's eyes got; he began elbowing his father, more and more desperately as Obito drew closer.
"Hey," Obito said casually, and the older man's gaze was drawn back to him. "How's it going?"
"Terrible," the man said after a moment of consideration. "But thanks for asking, I guess."
'You were giving us a look," he said, and the man's eyes went wide with faux-surprise. "Do you know something about that? The person who's 'charging out the ass,' as my friend put it?"
The man started shaking his head, but the teenager he was holding onto spoke up. "We went and saw her first," he said as the person Obito presumed was his father gave him a dirty look. "But we couldn't afford it." He gestured to his arm, which was covered in many small cuts and one large one that ran from the back of his hand up to his elbow. It wasn't bleeding any longer, but it had probably hurt like hell. "And I'm not that beat up, so I don't have a problem waiting in line. Some other people…" He sucked in a breath. "Yeah, I can wait."
"A woman?" Obito said, bending down a little to bring himself level with the teen. He smiled. "Where was she?"
"It was two women, and a pig," the teen said. Obito tilted his head, and the teen shrugged. "I'm not kidding. The pig was just for show I think, but they were both doctors. Ninja doctors, like you guys." He pointed his thumb back over his shoulder. "They were set up at the Main Street B&B, near the city center."
"Thanks," Obito said. He reached back into his hip pouch and, as the kid's father flinched in obvious fear of what he might be pulling out, dumped twenty hundred-Ryo notes in the teen's uninjured hand. "Good luck to the both of you."
The father did a double-take at the money, and then his face hardened. "We'll need more than luck," he grumbled.
"Yeah," Obito said in a deadpan tone. "That's what the money's for."
He left the pair to their own devices, heading south towards the center of the city. The chaos he saw along the way was nothing new, but the farther in he got the less destroyed the city was, and the more ordered everything was. Still out of control, but in an understandable way.
When he found the main street and followed it it delivered him straight to his destination with impressive speed. Well, that was what streets were for, he figured. The Main Street Bed and Breakfast was a medium-sized building set in between two much larger commercial ones: if Obito had to guess, it had probably been here before them, part of the city's original architecture before the Bridge had brought it new prosperity.
There was a long line outside, about forty people long. At a glance, Obito didn't see any critical injuries among them. Well, that was something.
"Is this the line for medical treatment?" he asked the person at the back, an older blonde woman.
"Yes?" she asked, giving him a suspicious look. "No cutting, it's first come first serve."
"Huh." Obito walked ahead, moving towards the building.
The woman let out a huff, shouting after him. "Hey, didn't you hear what I said?! No cutting! Who do you think you-!?"
Her voice abruptly cut off when Obito walked through the wall of the building. He stepped into the B&B's lobby and looked around.
A couple things became obvious to Obito right away. There had been an impromptu clinic set up in the lobby, complete with several beds, a bevy of medical equipment, and some foldout tables and chairs. Some of the beds were occupied, and both the tables were. There was indeed a pig trotting around on one of them, oinking authoritatively, and a woman seated at both.
He knew both these women, one by sight and the other by reputation. Obito sighed, pinching his nose as they both looked over at his impromptu entrance.
"Seriously?" he asked.
"Are you here to get treated?" Tsunade of the Sannin asked with a sneer. "If not, get out. You're taking up space."
She turned back to the man in front of her, a wealthy looking fellow nursing an obviously broken arm. "Thirty-thousand," she said, and he gaped. "Lowest bid."
"Thirty-thousand!" he said in shock. "You must be joking!"
"That's a nasty break," Tsunade observed with a smile. "The joint is shattered. Even in the hands of an expert, you'd probably be in pain for the rest of your life, not to mention the reduced mobility. I'd be surprised if you could get past forty-five degrees with a treatment that would cost you a hundred-thousand. But hey, you don't look like you do real work for a living. Maybe you won't need to move your arm to get by?"
The man's face went red. Fuming, he reached into his pocket and whipped out a checkbook.
"Local?" Tsunade asked, and he grunted in fury.
"Of course!" he said, and Tsunade laughed.
"Then I'd prefer cash," she said. The patient looked like he was going to have a heart attack.
"You…
woman," he said, apparently unable to find a better insult. He dug through his suit's pocket, pulling out a mass of crumpled thousand-ryo bills, and began counting them out. "You're a thief," he muttered as he sorted. "A charlatan. You should be strung up-"
"That's thirty," Tsunade said abruptly. She swept aside the bills and then reached over, grasped the man with one hand, and lifted him up and pressed him down on the table. He let out a scream of fear and she rolled her eyes, making two quick movements and slamming her glowing hand into his shattered joint as the other pressed deeply into his core shining with blinding green light.
"Stop! No! I-!" The man paused, blinked, and Tsunade released him. He sat up, staring at his arm, extending and curling it in. "It's…"
"Yes, totally fixed. No pain?' Tsunade asked. The man stared at her.
"No, none at all." He teared up. "It's a miracle!"
"It's not a miracle," Tsunade said, sounding bored. "It's me. Now get out of here. You're wasting my time."
The man ran for the exit, and at Tsunade's side Shizune let out a long-suffering. "Next!" She called to one of the B&B staff who was manning the entrance, who nodded and rushed outside to attend to the line.
"You're still here," Tsunade noted as Obito watched from the corner. "Would you like to be one of the injured?"
"Not particularly," Obito said.
"Then leave."
"I can't quite do that yet," he said. Another patient entered, this one with a deep cut on her scalp. Her face was covered in dried blood. Tsunade went white, turning away.
"Shizune, you handle this one," she whispered, and as she turned Obito stepped with her, coming up behind the table. Tsunade stared up at him with obvious disdain.
"The Leaf has come to offer help to the Land of Waves," he said. The sneer only deepened. 'Including medical assistance. But we've had some people refuse help; apparently they're convinced you are offering better treatment."
"They're right. I am," Tsunade said, glowering. "It's Rin who's here, isn't it?"
"She's in charge of the medical division," Obito said.
"She was always sloppy," Tsunade said, which Obito knew was a bitter lie. "If people want to pay me for my skills, that's their business."
"It is," Obito admitted. He had to navigate this carefully, especially for Rin's sake. "But we don't want people keeping themselves in pain."
"It's been four days," Tsunade said, crossing her arms. "At this point, it's all dead or walking wounded. There's no one coming here who can't afford it."
"Also true," Obito said, trying to stay neutral. "Which is probably why Rin sent me here to pay you off."
"Oh? She knew it was me?" Tsunade smirked. "And she didn't come herself?"
"She didn't know it was you," Obito clarified. He smiled. "She probably would have handled things differently if she had."
"So, one of the Hokage's chief killers has been sent to pay a doctor to do the village's work for it." Tsunade laughed. "I couldn't have set it up better myself."
"That's…" Obito shook his head. "Nevermind. How much do you want?" Shizune was treating the scalp wound next to them, Tsunade steadfastly refusing to look over to even check her apprentice's progress the whole time. Even to Obito's amateur eyes it was obvious that the younger woman was almost as good as her teacher.
"Were you going to contest it, Obito Uchiha?" Tsunade asked.
"I'm trying not to be that person anymore. How much?" Obito said shortly.
"Old dogs can't learn new tricks," Tsunade continued. "And you've always been Minato's perfect dog…"
Obito placed his hand on the table. "Tsunade," he said, taking a deep breath. "How much?"
She scowled at him. "Five-hundred thousand." He could detect a bit of surprise in her face; even two years ago, that needling would have gotten to him. She didn't know what to do with the new him.
"Done," Obito responded without hesitation. "In cash?"
"Of course. I'm not an idiot," she snapped.
"Okay." He stepped back. "I'll be back in ten minutes. Please don't charge anyone before I return."
It turned out he was using that savings account today. A quick trip to a bank on the mainland later, and Obito returned carrying a duffel bag full of Ryo. He stepped back into the room and found that Tsunade was still there, still scowling.
"Here," he said, setting the bag down behind the table. "I hope that'll satisfy you. We truly appreciate your help."
"So polite," Tsunade spat. Shizune still seemed to be tending to the injured and studiously avoiding the conversation; Obito noticed the current patient had an open wound as well. It was obvious that Tsunade still had a fear of blood: a fact he filed away, just in case. "You know who caused this, right?"
"From everything I've heard, it was the Hidden Sand," he said.
"The Leaf's allies," Tsunade spat. "And yet here you come, here to clean up this inconvenient mess. If you think people are going to forget the truth of what the village really is, you're all gravely mistaken."
"Hopefully not for long," Obito said, and Tsunade gave him a funny look.
"Now that's different," she muttered. "Do I detect an independent thought, Obito Uchiha?"
"It's been a long time since we last met, Tsunade," he said mildly. Tsunade scoffed. "Allies like this are worse than most enemies. It's easier to replace ninja than it is to rebuild a reputation."
"Hmm." The woman dropped her head, tapping her finger against her arm. "I heard a story," she said after a moment. "That there was a ninja here on that night who fought the demon, and then went around rendering medical assistance afterwards." She sighed. "I'm disappointed he's left. I've seen some of his work; it was rough, but competent stuff. Better to have had him than the rest of you."
Obito felt a shock from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. 'Competent.' Coming from Tsunade, that might as well have been a gold medal.
"A blond kid from the Nation of Rain?" he asked, and Tsunade gave him a suspicious look.
"You've heard the same story," she said. Her suspicion deepened to a frown. "And you've got a smug look on that stupid fat face of yours."
"Sorry," Obito said, waving her off. "I just thought it was funny. I'm pretty sure that was Naruto Namikaze. Sensei's son."
"Huh!" Tsunade grunted. "Guess the Yondaime made at least
one good thing then." She paused. "But he was a shinobi from Rain."
"He is, right now," Obito admitted. "He ran off."
"Well, he's halfway to a smart kid," Tsunade said. "If only he hadn't gone to a bunch of lunatics like Rain."
"He's working on it. On himself," Obito said. He paused, waiting for a response, and then spoke again when nothing came. "Do you need anything else, or will the money do?"
"The money will be fine," Tsunade said. As Obito turned to leave, she clicked her tongue.
"Hey, Obito," she said. "I'll give you one free bit of advice." She gestured around. "All this is a sign that things are about to change for the worse. You know that, right? If Konoha doesn't get its shit together, this isn't going to be the last city that'll be destroyed."
Obito narrowed his eyes. "Yeah," he said. "I'll do my best to keep us on the right path."
"Your best won't be enough," Tsunade said, and for a second she sounded like the legendary ninja she really was. "If you wanna avoid it,
be better than your best."
He stood there, seeing the sincerity in her face, and then bowed after a moment. "Thank you, Lady Tsunade," he said, and then the world and her grim face swirled away beyond the Kamui.
Obito stood in the Kamui, wondering why he was so unsettled. Tsunade was a wanderer, a rogue ninja in all but name, but she still spoke with authority that embedded her words in his mind.
"Better than my best, huh?" he muttered to himself. "Guess I'll try."
He walked a little and popped back out of the Kamui, back at the medical headquarters. Things had calmed down, but only a little; down from one-hundred percent crazy to only ninety-five percent. Rin was nowhere in sight. He kept himself busy organizing the injured and carrying equipment for medical ninja until she appeared.
"Hey, Obito! You're back!" she said, jogging up with a brilliant grin. There was more blood on her shirt than before. "Everything figured out?"
"It was Tsunade," he said, and Rin froze.
"Really?"
"Yeah. I gave her a half-million, and she promised to treat people without charge. So I guess there's two clinics now."
"That's good," Rin said distantly. "I mean, if it's sensei, at least people will be getting good treatment. I never thought…" She shook her head. "Well, she always was a magnet for tragedy. I guess it goes both ways."
"Yeah," Obito said with a little chuckle.
He looked around the destroyed city with a funny feeling in his gut, and his mouth started moving before he gave it any instructions.
"You know, Rin, when we get back…"
"Yeah?" She looked at him with curious chocolate-brown eyes.
"We should have dinner again."
"Oh, yeah, that'd be nice. That steak was great," Rin said with a smile.
Obito fiddled with his pant leg. "I mean like, dinner dinner."
Rin just looked confused, so Obito pressed ahead, trying to be as explicit as possible.
"Like, a dinner date," he said. Rin blinked. "A date. A date with dinner. A date where we have dinner. Together."
"Uh…" Rin started to laugh, and then smirked. Obito felt his heart seize up at the smug look.
"That would be good," she said, holding back laughter. "But Obito, what the hell were we doing for the last couple months then?"
Obito stared ahead, not sure if he should be ecstatic or curl up into a ball and never show his face to the world again.
He realized in a permanent and unforgettable way in that moment that while he might have been a pretty smart guy, when it came to Rin he was a complete and total idiot.
"Uh, practice, I guess," he muttered.
To his infinite relief…
Rin laughed.
###
AN: Alright, well that was a little faster! So sorry about the sporadic update rate, but hopefully now that we're more back on track things will speed up a little. Thanks to everyone who's stuck with this story so far!
