Chapter Text
The last time around, Madara hadn’t cared to involve himself in Obito’s physical recovery after he’d woken up. The boy had been useless to him in such a state, and so Madara had retired from the flawed world into the embrace of dreams. While he lived out several idyllic lifetimes in the prototype Infinite Tsukuyomi, the preparation of his pawn had been left to the White Zetsu.
Now Kaguya’s puppets were dead in droves by his hand, or locked away back inside the moon along with the rabbit bitch’s shell. That he had been played so badly – oh, it would rankle him until his dying breath and beyond.
Without Zetsu to perform the grunt work, Madara was forced to tend Obito himself.
Caring for him was a continuous labour. The boy’s feeble body needed turning every few hours to prevent him from developing pressure sores on the still-human parts of his flesh. Before every rotation, Madara would guide his wasted limbs through their available range of motion. He could not stand unaided and so several times a day Madara would haul him upright and set Obito on his own twig-like legs, supporting his trembling form with a firm grip. And he was so weak that he could only manage about ten seconds of this at a time before he became too fatigued.
“I’m fine...I can keep going...honest,” Obito insisted between heaving breaths. The skin around his lone eye was tense and the eye itself suspiciously shiny. He tried to brace himself against being returned to bed every time they did this, but he was weak as a newborn kitten.
Madara raised an eyebrow at him and took his hands away. Obito legs immediately crumpled under him and he would’ve collapsed in a heap if Madara hadn’t caught him again. He trembled in Madara’s grip, expression wary and somehow…betrayed.
Little fool. He really was far too quick to trust. Madara broke eye contact. “You’re much too impatient,” he said, adjusting his grip on the boy’s thin frame to lift him back into bed.
“Yeah, well - you’re a jerk,” Obito muttered darkly, his breathing still strained as Madara smoothed the creases out of the bedclothes and told him to get some more sleep.
Obito was starving.
He was so hungry it felt like someone had scraped his insides out with an ice cream scoop. Obito would’ve done just about anything for ice cream at the moment, and he didn’t even like it that much; it always gave him brain freeze. But the mere thought of eating something, anything, made his mouth water with longing and his empty stomach gargle insistently.
“I’m hungry,” he’d said to Madara, the day he’d woken up.
Madara had been leaning back in the big, throne-like wooden chair nearby, his legs thrown over the arm and his attention on a scroll spread out in his lap. Obito’s grandma had always said reading in the dark was bad for your eyes, but the man hadn’t bothered to make a light or anything. He hadn’t looked up from his scroll. “Hm. I suppose you would be. It will pass.”
Um. What? “I kind of need food, you know? I’ll starve to death.” Obito had spelled it out for him, just in case his strangely long-lived ancestor had forgotten that regular people needed to eat.
“No, you won’t,” Madara had replied calmly. “The modifications made to your body mean that you don’t need food or water to survive. But your body still craves these things because of its dumb, animal nature. But the mind is master of the body, as all shinobi should know. In time these cravings will abate.”
“...who are you calling a dumb animal?” Obito muttered under his breath. He supposed Madara was right though; if he was a good ninja, he could endure this.
It was so hard though. When he wasn’t thinking about home, he was thinking about food. And even when he was thinking about home, he found these thoughts involved food increasingly often. Going to get ramen from Ichiraku with his team. Inviting Rin to go and get katsudon with him on a dinner date. His Aunt Uruchi and Uncle Teuchi’s senbei ... His hunger drummed on the hollow walls of his stomach desperately.
A true shinobi could endure anything. A ninja should never cry.
“Please, ” Obito begged Madara, clutching at the man’s sleeve as he made to move away once he’d finished helping Obito with his exercises. To his shame, Obito could feel his chin trembling, and hot tears running down the side of his face, breath hitching into sobs.
Madara wrinkled his nose down at him. “Get a grip on yourself, boy. I have managed without food for several lifetimes, and I am just fine.” He tugged his sleeve free from Obito’s grip.
Obito hung on desperately, with a strength he did not think he possessed. “Please, Madara-sama just a little something, I don’t mind what it is, even natto!”
“You can eat when you’re capable of cleaning up after yourself,” Madara snapped, jerking his arm away. “You smell bad enough as it is, and I am not wiping your backside.” He stalked away.
“I HATE you!” Obito yelled after his retreating back, still sniffling.
Madara did not deign to reply.
He had managed to grow Obito an arm. With his knowledge of Mokuton and the all the research he’d done into cultivating Hashirama’s cells, it hadn’t been too difficult to coax the white substance making up half of Obito’s body to proliferate and branch off from the shoulder. When dissecting Zetsu bodies a cross-section of their limbs had looked something like a honeycomb, filled with thick off-white sap. The plant-like material didn’t have any bones in it, but it could be persuaded to function like a human joint.
Madara poked and prodded at the new arm, testing its reflexes until he was satisfied. “It all seems to be in working order,” he said, straightening from his crouch by Obito’s bedside. “Just be careful with it, it’s still fragile.” He pressed his thumb into the ‘skin’ of Obito’s bicep. Instead of bouncing back instantly an impression of his thumbprint lingered for some seconds, before slowly levelling back out.
Obito flexed his new fingers, gazing down at the arm with undisguised awe. “This is amazing. It feels like...” he trailed off, shaking his head. “This is the First Hokage’s chakra, right?” His Sharingan turned as he followed the flow of chakra through his arm, the same fresh green as a new sprout. “It feels nice,” he said finally. “Warm. He must have been some guy, since his DNA can do all these incredible things.” He looked up at Madara, face open with curiosity.
Warm. Like lying in the sun on the baked clay earth of the riverbank, the water’s surface a dazzling gleam as it flowed over the rocks. Like an echo of childish laughter. But also like life itself, trembling through his veins with every beat of his heart. Unconsciously, Madara laid a palm over his own chest, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Yes. He was.” It would not be too long now, and they would have their final reunion.
“You may be able to use the Mokuton yourself,” Madara said, though of course there was no ‘may’ about it. Even as a young boy, that other Obito had been deadly with it. He had considered saying nothing, but there would always be those who would seek to abuse the remnants of power Hashirama had left behind. It was better that Obito be prepared.
Obito’s eye widened. “Really?” He looked down at his new arm with a bright, lop-sided grin. “Whoa...”
He could do this.
He should be strong enough now; according to Madara, the exercises he’d been doing should give him an approximately ten percent increase in muscle mass each week. At this point he no longer needed Madara to keep turning him over, and he could move all his arms and legs himself, even if it had made him really tired at first. He could stand up for longer now too, and there had been another exercise too, where Madara had shifted his weight from one foot to the other, saying something about ‘postural stabilisers’ that Obito hadn’t really been paying attention to.
He had managed to stand without rest for two whole minutes yesterday, with Madara’s palms just hovering inches from his ribs, ready to catch him just in case. So he should be able to get out of bed on his own now.
He didn’t know where Madara was, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out that the cave was much bigger than just this bit that he’d been confined to for all this time. Wherever he was, he wasn’t here to frown at him and say that it was too soon for him to be doing this.
Obito eyed the tunnel that led to the exit, to home. He took a deep breath, before raising his chin and swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
Getting up was the hardest part. He had to grip the headboard, fingernails biting into the wood. They were too long but he had nothing to trim them with except his teeth, and doing that had always grossed him out, so he tried not to. Clenching his jaw, Obito grunted with effort and tried to pull himself up. All the muscles in his back and abs and shoulders screamed in protest but Obito ignored them, even when it made his mangled nerve endings ache fiercely he kept on going. Dripping with sweat and huffing and puffing, Obito levered himself up to a standing position, still leaning to grasp the bed.
He breathed deeply for a few moments, and then slowly, carefully, eased his grip on the headboard and pushed his body away from the support. It was only a few inches away, but the gap felt enormous. Obito wobbled for a moment and thought for sure that he was going to fall. No! Shifting his feet and holding his arms out to the sides, he fought for balance.
One second passed. Two. Ten, more. Obito slowly lowered his arms and straightened his back.
He’d done it. He was standing.
Laughing breathlessly, Obito turned to survey the cavern. As much as he looked longingly towards the way out, he wasn’t stupid like Madara seemed to think. He knew that was out of the question. Instead, Obito set his sights on Madara’s massive Mokuton chair. He sized up the distance carefully, ignoring the way it seemed to get farther and farther away the longer he stood looking at it. It wasn’t so great a distance, really. He could do this.
Nodding to himself Obito tentatively lifted one foot off the ground and placed it forwards. Then the other. Walking was something simple that even babies could do. He might be out of practice, but it wasn’t like he had forgotten how. Slowly, painstakingly, Obito shuffled across the cave floor towards his goal. Though he wobbled a few times, he managed not to fall by pinwheeling his arms and trying to stick the soles of his feet to the floor with chakra. Since his body was so unhealthy his chakra control had gotten really bad, but it did help him out a little.
By the time Obito reached the foot of Madara’s throne he was shaking like a leaf in a storm and streams of perspiration poured from his scalp and trickled down the back of his neck. It hurt, but not as bad as it did sometimes. Sometimes everything was so painful that Obito just wanted to shut his eye and pull the pillow over his head and whimper. But this wasn’t like that, this was nothing. Just a few more steps now—
Obito’s treacherous legs buckled. This time, the chakra from the soles of his feet only managed to suction a piece of gravel to the ball of his foot, and his flailing arms were too late to save him. The hard, unforgiving stone of the cave floor rushed up to meet his face.
A pair of arms closed around his waist and stopped him from taking a nose-dive into the floor. Shame and frustration overcame Obito and he glowered up at Madara as if it was somehow his fault. Madara gazed back at him mildly, and lifted Obito the last few feet to place him onto the chair.
“I was so close,” Obito complained, balling his hands into fists and pounding one of them into the arm of the chair. Since it was his artificial arm, it left a crack in the wood. Obito didn’t notice. Damn his stupid body not doing what he wanted it to, when he needed it to! He felt so weak, so helpless, especially in front of Madara who he always felt was judging him even though he was helping.
So what Madara said next surprised him.
“You’re making progress more quickly than I anticipated,” Madara said after a few moments of contemplating Obito in intense silence. “But since it’s you, I suppose I should’ve known better.”
Since it’s you. Obito wondered what he meant by that.
Later that day, hours after Madara had helped him back to bed, Obito woke up with saliva thick in his mouth and his empty stomach howling in a way it hadn’t in what seemed like forever. Obito rubbed the sleep from his eyes, confused. What’s that smell? That amazing smell that made it feel like someone was jabbing him in the guts with a kunai, all smoky and delicious. Was he hallucinating smells now?
“Madara?” Obito called tentatively, eye scanning the darkness.
After a moment, the man approached from the direction of the cave mouth. “You’re already awake,” he noted, stopping short of Obito’s bedside. “I was just coming to get you.”
Obito eyed him with silent confusion. Madara always came to help Obito with his rehab, then immediately retreated. He never took him anywhere. So for Madara to be stooping down and scooping him out of bed, blanket and all, and carrying him out of the cave—
Oh. It’s a dream, Obito realised. He kept his mouth shut so he didn’t spoil it and wake up to soon. It was a really realistic dream, he noted, as cool night air fanned against his skin as he stepped outside for the first time in months. The cave opening was covered by large, curving shapes that stood out in dark bars against the segments starry sky visible between them.
In the shadow of them a small campfire crackled and spat beneath the pot that simmered on the flames, and the orange flames were so bright that Obito hissed and squeezed his eye shut.
Madara was talking, saying something about the sun being too bright for Obito’s eyes as he set him down on the ground. Obito felt hard dirt and little weeds against his palms, and snapped out of his daze. He was not dreaming.
And yet—
“You’re cooking?!” he practically screamed.
“Don’t get too excited,” Madara said, apparently wilfully oblivious to the way Obito’s heart was currently doing a wild dance of joy, complete with backflips and everything. “It’s just rice gruel, your stomach won’t be able to handle anything else.”
Obito didn’t give a damn what it was. It was food. Madara had made him food. Madara had made him food.
“I can only listen to you complaining for so long without giving in to the urge to smother you in your sleep. And since you should be able to clean up after yourself now, I thought—”
Obito couldn’t help it. He started bawling his eyes out, tears streaming down his nose and running out of the corner of his empty eye socket. “’so beautiful—“ he blubbered incoherently, meaning the night air on his skin and the warm glow of the fire as much as the food.
Madara looked quietly appalled at his display. “Stop that,” he said brusquely, and ladled a serving into a bowl, shoving it into Obito’s hands.
Obito snatched it up with trembling fingers and brought it to his lips, not caring how hot it was as he began slurping the thin porridge down in desperate gulps, not even pausing for breath.
Madara immediately clipped him around the ear. Obito yelped at the sharp sting and Madara took advantage of his distraction to tug the bowl out of his grip. “Slow down, you’ll make yourself puke.”
He wasn’t wrong; Obito suddenly felt like his stomach was swimming in a choppy ocean. “Oh yeah. Sorry, it’s just so good,” he apologised, sheepishly rubbing the back of his head. He knew Madara was right; malnourished people couldn’t just stuff their faces. So when Madara handed him a spoon, Obito thanked him quietly and forced himself to eat more slowly. It was like torture, painstakingly sipping one spoonful at a time, but if it meant he got to eat again then he would do it.
Even though the broth was practically no thicker than water, Obito actually had a hard time finishing the whole bowl. As he drained the last dregs, he felt surprisingly full. “Ahh. That was so good, thanks Madara.” He set the bowl down on the ground beside him and smiled, feeling blissfully content with his full stomach.
Madara hummed in response—Obito had noticed that Madara seemed to be a bit uncomfortable for some reason if Obito showed gratitude of any kind—and took the dishes, moving to go and put out the fire.
“Hey, aren’t you having anything?” Obito asked him. There was still a little left in the pot, but not really enough for two people. Madara had only prepared enough food for one.
The older Uchiha shook his head, long hair falling further over his face with the movement. “No. I told you before, I haven’t eaten in a long time.”
“But why?” For Obito it had only been little over a month without food if he didn’t count however long he’d been unconscious for, and it had been agonising. He couldn’t imagine going hungry for decades. “I mean, you can go out and get something whenever you want, so why would you starve yourself?”
Madara rinsed the bowl off and tipped water over the ashes, leaving only the dying glow of embers and a trail of smoking rising into the night. “I have no need of it, it’s pointless.”
“But don’t you enjoy it?” Obito persisted, not understanding why anyone would deny themselves something so basic if they didn’t have to.
Madara didn’t answer him for so long that Obito thought this was one of those times when the man was deliberately ignoring him. Worn-out and sated, Obito’s eyelids began to droop. When the answer finally came, he found himself startled out of his doze.
“This world holds little joy for me.”
It occurred to Obito, and not for the first time, that Madara was a deeply unhappy person. What must it be like, he wondered, to go on living when everyone who you’d ever cared about was dead? It didn’t bear thinking about, really. And when Obito got well enough to go home, he’d be all alone again.
He’ll probably be glad to get rid of me, Obito reasoned with himself. In his eyes I’m just some kid that gets on his nerves. Madara probably can’t wait until I’ve gone and he can be left to be miserable in peace.
Despite this line of thought, Obito could not help but feel pity.
The Mountains’ Graveyard was uninhabited for a reason. The mountains were home to dangerous wild beasts, poisonous plants, and treacherous terrain. Madara cautioned Obito from going too far away from the caves on his own.
Obito listened to his explanations and, with great reluctance, seemed to accept the warnings. But when it came to exploring within the caves, there was no stopping him. He no longer needed Madara’s help to get around, and had taken to roaming around every nook and cranny of the tunnels where Madara had once plotted to bring about the end of the world.
There couldn’t be much of interest down there, since Madara had cast anything connected to the Eye of the Moon plan onto the pyre with the corpse of his older self. But Obito seemed determined to make his own entertainment rummaging through the detritus Madara hadn’t bothered to destroy. He leafed through crumbling old maps and fragile scrolls with text so obscure even Madara found reading them a trial. He found boxes of unused tallow candles and left clusters of them melting all over of the cave, popping up from every nook and boulder like waxy fungi with a fiery glow. “It’s too dark down here,” he’d said simply when Madara had made a remark about him using jutsu if he wanted to burn them both in their beds. “It’s not healthy.”
Obito had discovered the passage down to the underground river where the clear black waters were filled with glassy and eyeless fish. Obito fashioned himself a fishing spear out a root snapped off the base of his bed and a kunai and spent many hours with the orange light of a candle flame shivering on the water’s surface while he tried to catch himself something more substantial for dinner now that his stomach could take it. He was often quite successful; Madara watched him now as Obito blew carefully on his cookfire, turning the milk-pale eel he was smoking on its spit.
The boy hunched over his meal, grasping the meat with both hands, hot grease dribbling down his chin as he moaned in satisfaction. “Mm, so tasty,” he said with a sigh of pleasure. “Are you sure—"
“Yes.” Madara turned his attention back to his book, but unfortunately it wasn’t very diverting. It was a musty old thing, illustrated with faded ink paintings. A book of simple folktales that hid fragments of truth about the bijuu and their history within. He must have read it a hundred times the first time around, and at least ten over these past months. But it’s not as if there was anything else to do at the moment.
There were urgent matters he needed to care of beside the destruction of Zetsu’s lying words on the stone relic. He could have left to tend to them at any time since Obito no longer needed constant care, but he found his conscience would not allow him to abandon Obito while the boy was still weak and largely defenceless. The likelihood of someone stumbling across him here was very small, but if Madara returned to find Obito killed after all the effort he had expended to keep the child alive, well. He’d be damned if he’d let that happen.
He did not even have the luxury of escaping into a dream world anymore, as he had done in his past life, leaving him with little alternative but to play nursemaid and sit around twiddling his thumbs. It chafed; it had frustrated him as an old man, but it frustrated him more now when he was able-bodied and brimming with power. From the time he’d been a child, Madara had never known how to be still. A man of action, he had blazed a path through history with his deeds streaming behind him like the tail of comet.
For all he’d spent so long practicing patience, Madara found himself growing increasingly restless.
This Obito did not know stillness either. That had come later, when tragedy had weighed down his heart and branded a new pattern into his eye. If the boy could not be doing something, then he would be saying something, an endless stream of mindless prattle about people Madara neither knew nor cared about, but that were obviously very important to him. Chief among them being the girl. The girl he loved. The girl whose death Madara had engineered to awaken Obito’s Mangekyou.
Just another child whose blood was on his hands. It had been too easy to justify these things to himself, back when he believed he could replace this reality with a better one, when he had thought nothing he did here truly had meaning. It was less easy now, when this world was the only one they would ever have. At least that mistake would no longer come to pass; the Third Mizukage would never give those particular orders. But it was small comfort, next to all his other sins.
“I hope no one else has moved into my house,” Obito was saying, wiping his face with the back of his hand. “It’s small, but it was just Obsaasan and me for so long, that...I don’t know, I guess it would just feel strange have to live somewhere else. I suppose if I do enough missions when I get back I could save my salary and rent an apartment like Bakashi does. Maybe Minato-sensei would put me up for a while until I can afford it. I hope I don’t have to move into the main house.” He screwed up his face as if he’d tasted something nasty. “Auntie Mikoto is really nice but I can’t imagine living with Fugaku—”
Madara snapped his book shut and tossed it onto the arm of the chair. “Obito,” he interrupted.
The stream of chatter cut off as suddenly as if Madara had cut his throat. “Hm?”
“Since you’re trying to get your strength up again so you can travel, why don’t I help you with your training?”
“Really, you’d train me?”
“I said so, didn’t I?” He had made Obito great once. It would be a shame, Madara told himself, to let all that potential go to waste.
“Yes, you – that'd be great, I’ve been working on building my chakra back up but it’d be much easier if I had someone to spar with,” Obito agreed, smiling at him as if Madara had offered him the world. “Thank you!”
Madara’s answering smile made the boy look slightly worried. “I’ve told you before.
Don’t thank me.”