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Chapter Text

The hauntingly cavernous dungeons underneath Konoha Penitentiary were a sight rarely beheld by anyone who wasn’t Anbu. House to dozens of nukenin and only a handful of truly despicable civilian criminals, they existed as the maximum penalty in Konoha’s penal code: when sentenced to the dungeons, only death could get you out.

For a number of years, the death penalty had been frequent, its rate so high the dungeons were almost empty; this was especially true in times of war, or under martial law, when nukenin were only worthy alive if the Anbu could torture intel out of them.

Chained to the walls, strapped to metal chairs, held in windowless cells, unable to see anything that wasn’t illuminated by the dim and flickering light of the torches, to smell anything that wasn’t their sweat or piss or blood, to feel anything that wasn’t utter solitude and despair, many inmates went mad.

When he had been sentenced to the dungeons by a court-martial, headed by the Gokage, Uchiha Obito had resigned himself to that same fate.

When Senju Tsunade had insisted that, as a former Konoha shinobi, he serve his sentence in Konohagakure, no other Kage objected.

That same court, the very same day, held another trial: that of Uchiha Sasuke. Acknowledged by all five main countries as a terrorist, many had argued in favor of the same sentence. It was only when the Godaime Kazekage, Gaara of the Desert, and Tsunade herself made the case for a lighter sentence, underlying Sasuke’s effort in the war against Uchiha Madara and Obito, as well as his essential role in ending and, most importantly, winning it, that the other Kage agreed to reduce the sentence.

So, Sasuke was still being held in the dungeons, in a cell not far from Obito’s own, but he was to stay there for only seven years.

“Look at the bright side,” croaked Obito, and Sasuke could tell he was moving his hands from the clanking sound of the chains around his wrists. “Well, you can’t.”

He laughed like he was in pain, like he wasn’t having fun at all.

Sasuke scoffed, not resisting the urge to bite back at his uncle not-enough-times removed. “Neither can you.”

This time, Obito’s laughter echoed louder through the caves, earning him some cursing from other inmates.

Sasuke, with both of his eyes covered by a crimson red seal, painted with blood on black sealing paper, sat cross legged on the stone floor of his cell, his one arm free of bondage. With both his rinnegan and sharingan sealed, he was deemed a manageable enough threat not to require further restrictions. Not to mention – though the guards didn’t care about Sasuke’s feelings about Konoha – that he had no intention of causing more trouble or giving anyone any reason to mistrust his loyalty to the village.

Obito, on the other hand, was a completely different case. Despite his decision, on the battlefield, to entrust both of his eyes, as well as the last vestiges of his Sage of Six Paths chakra to his former teammate, Hatake Kakashi, his crimes prior to that had been too great, too unforgivable. He had de facto founded and led the criminal organization Akatsuki, murdered the Yondaime Hokage and his wife after unleashing the Kyūbi on the village, had a relevant role in the Uchiha massacre and single handedly started a world war of unprecedented magnitude. Along with Madara, the two of them alone had even almost won that war.

His sudden about-face, far-sighted though it had been, could not suffice to redeem all his wrongdoing.

This meant that, even blind and with no superior chakra, his hands were bound.

The other inmates were mostly quiet, except for the occasional screams of the mad. 

The majority of Sasuke’s day was spent trying to remember how to meditate, so as to not let himself drown further into the darkness both his body and his mind were in.

He remembered the earliest lessons at the Academy, when clearing his mind would come easy and he wasn’t tormented by the sight of his mother’s guts spilled on the tatami every time he closed his eyes.

Several days passed before he could get himself to actually meditate. With all sound around him nullified, he could focus on hearing himself: for perhaps the first time in his life, he paid attention to the way his breath came, to his chest filling up, his ribs bending ever so slightly, and then deflating. With his sight sealed, he looked inward, trying to get a sense of his chakra flow. Without being able to activate his sharingan, he couldn’t even see his own pathways, but the harder he focused, the more acutely he could feel his chakra being slowly depleted by the seal. It wasn’t a significant loss – had he not been paying such close attention, he wouldn’t even have noticed – but he couldn’t help but shiver at the power of the seal.

Coming out of his trance, he felt lightheaded. He grunted as he straightened his back, realizing he must have been meditating for longer than he thought.

“Oh, so you’re still alive.” Obito’s constant, annoying commentary came as fast as always.

“You should try meditating, too. That would shut you up,” mumbled Sasuke.

Obito, in his own cell, shrugged. “I’ve never been good at it.”

Three weeks after their imprisonment, news reached them that Konohagakure had a new Hokage.

Naruto and Sakura had been granted a special permission to visit Sasuke, which went against so many rules and regulations neither Sasuke or Obito had any doubt about who had been the person to allow it.

“Knew it,” murmured Obito, as soon as he heard the words Kakashi-sensei and Rokudaime Hokage being uttered by Sasuke’s visitors.

“And there’s even greater news!” That was Naruto, way too cheerful – and definitely inconsiderate of the gloom every inmate was immersed in – for his own sake. A thud, which Obito assumed had been a fist perfectly landed on his face. Then, Sakura’s voice.

“Shut up, idiot! You can’t tell him yet!”

Obito tuned out the rest of the conversation, which consisted mostly of Naruto whining and bickering with Sakura anyway.

The greater news came two days later, when both Obito and Sasuke were summoned to the Hokage’s office.

This was unprecedented, as no prisoner had ever been granted such a privilege, least of all a nukenin – not to mention a terrorist and a war criminal.

As he stood before the Hokage’s desk, Obito wished more than ever before to have his eyes back. He knew Kakashi was right there, in his Hokage attire, and he suddenly felt that he would die because he could not see it.

“I apologize for the sudden summons,” Kakashi spoke and it felt so good to hear his voice. Obito felt a warmth spread in his chest and he could only hope it would not show on his face. Countless times Obito had cursed his own sensitiveness, and he cursed it once more.

“You shouldn’t be apologizing!” That voice was unfamiliar to Obito, but he assumed it must have been some sort of advisor. He decided he didn’t like him.

Sasuke immediately identified the voice as Shikamaru’s; so he had become the Hokage’s right hand man. It made sense.

“Sorry,” said Kakashi, to which Obito smiled and Sasuke sneered. Clearing his voice, Kakashi spoke again. “Since we all know each other intimately, there’s no need for pointless formalities, so I’ll get right to it.” 

The sound of a chair being moved and of light footsteps told the two Uchiha that Kakashi had stood up and had stepped closer to them.

“Sasuke,” he said, and Sasuke felt a warm hand on his shoulder. He flinched, though not in displeasure, rather in surprise. “You are pardoned.”

Sasuke’s jaw went slack, his face stricken with utter shock.

“What?” He managed after a long moment of silence. He felt the hand on his shoulder squeeze gently.

“You’re pardoned,” Kakashi repeated. “I will remove the seal myself. As Hokage, only I have the authority to do so, but I do need a little help. That is why I summoned you up here.”

Sasuke had felt the presence of five people in the room as soon as he entered it, other than Kakashi; now he knew that one of them was Shikamaru, and he had assumed that the other four were Anbu.

On the contrary, one of them politely introduced herself as Konoha’s sealing master.

“I’m the one who forged your seal,” the woman continued. Judging by her voice, she must have been in her fifties, maybe sixties. Impressive age, for a shinobi. “When I remove the seal, I want you to keep your eyes closed for a few minutes, give them the chance to get used to the light.”

Kakashi’s hand left Sasuke’s shoulder, allowing the sealing master to step in front of him.

Her cold hands found his right temple, where one edge of the seal was, and he could feel warm chakra being channeled into her fingertips; gently, expertly, she removed the seal as she chanted an incantation. From behind his eyelids he could see the green glow of healing chakra, and the discomfort caused by the seal in the past weeks was completely gone from him.

Having waited about three minutes, as recommended by the sealing master, he cautiously blinked his eyes open.

He knew the Hokage's office had large windows which overlooked the whole village, and had expected the light coming from them to be blinding, but he found the room to be actually quite dimly lit. The shutters were drawn and the yellow-orange ceiling lamp was turned on.

Even so, his left eye was still too perceptive, almost to the point of hurting, after having been forcefully suppressed for so long, so he closed it again.

Finally, he focused on the man with silver hair and black mask, his sensei, his new Hokage.

Far from the slouching, carefree, responsibility-abhorred memory of his old sensei, the man who stood before him looked terrifying: the Hokage haori encompassed his tall figure, his unruly silver hair seemed to be shining, reflecting the light from the above lamp. But most striking of all were his eyes: a pair of glowing red orbs, three tomoe each, the sharingan in its base form.

Sasuke remembered when Obito had asked Sakura to take his eyes and give them to Kakashi. The latter had refused, at first, but Obito thought he was about to die, and he didn't want his precious eyes to go to waste, not when they were up against an enemy more powerful than any before. It had been  the first time Sasuke saw someone, other than an Uchiha, wield the sharingan in both eyes. It felt wrong, and somewhere, some part of him still refused the sight he was seeing. He shook off that thought, reminding himself of when he suggested that Naruto give Kakashi his fucking rinnegan .

"You're not wearing the hat," Sasuke noted – for Obito's benefit, though he'd never admit it.

Kakashi chuckled. "It's a heavy crown."

Sasuke eyed the sealing master, who bowed her head politely and took her leave. 

Behind Kakashi, Shikamaru looked displeased. Sasuke didn't blame him.

At both sides of the Hokage's desk stood two Anbu guards, and Sasuke repressed the urge to laugh at the ridiculous implication that Hatake Kakashi would ever need their protection.

"Now, Obito." Kakashi stepped in front of the older Uchiha, but this time he looked deadly serious.

Even without his rinnegan augmented perception, he could sense the devastatingly intense energy that flowed between the two of them. Pain and grief and love and resentment, feelings not unlike those that existed in the space between himself and Naruto. 

"You have committed crimes too grave to be forgiven." Kakashi was visibly in pain as he spoke those words, his voice almost unsteady. "You have caused far too much pain to far too many people."

Obito's head was hanging low, and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.

"I thought you weren't gonna sugarcoat it," he snickered, but there was no real levity in his voice. "What, are the dungeons not enough for a monster like me? Is that what you're trying to say?"

Kakashi sighed, closing his eyes for a moment, and Sasuke recognized the fond annoyance in his expression.

"Do you ever shut up?" Kakashi questioned, and Sasuke was almost tempted to answer he doesn't . "Obviously I can't pardon you, so I'm doing the next best thing. Uchiha Obito, you're exiled."

Obito was, shockingly, at a loss for words. He had thought being sentenced to spend the rest of his life in a damp, filthy cave, confined in the space of a cell too dark to see even if he had had eyes, was the worst kind of punishment he could get. He had been fully prepared to accept it, too: he knew he deserved all that and more, for all he had done.

Yet, somehow, exile seemed worse. Exile meant being away from what little of the world he knew, away from the only people who didn't actively want to kill him and desecrate his corpse. Worst of all, exile meant being away from Kakashi.

In all the twenty years Obito had been doing Madara's bidding, he had never once considered killing Kakashi. The Infinite Tsukuyomi was for Kakashi's sake, too: a wonderful world where Obito, Kakashi and Rin would be young forever, where there was no war and Minato-sensei and Uzumaki Kushina would raise their child with love and joy, and nobody would ever die.

He would have had Kakashi put him under the same genjutsu, so that they could dream the same dream forever, never again apart.

When Naruto snapped him out of his decades long delirium, he thought everything left for him to do was to die. Sacrifice himself for the greater good and atone for his sins.

But then Sakura healed him, and Obito realized then that he would have to pay his debt to the shinobi world until his last breath, with every last drop of his blood.

So there it was, exile: Konoha's way of collecting its due.

"I– don't know what to say." He admitted. He heard a soft laughter coming from Kakashi, and it quietly enraged him. How could he laugh about this?

"That's new," said Kakashi. Then, after a pause, his voice came again, commanding. "Leave me with Obito. Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura are waiting for you outside. You're all dismissed."

Obito heard the distinct whoosh of the Anbu guards body flickering away, as well as the displeased grunt of Shikamaru as he escorted Sasuke out of the office.

As the door slid shut, Kakashi let out a sigh.

His hands found Obito's shoulders and Obito shuddered. He felt feverish. How he had craved that touch, and how it pained him to lean into it.

"Why?" He asked, "Why exile?"

He felt Kakashi tighten the grip on his shoulders, heard his breathing come harder.

"I won't let you rot in that dungeon."

Obito shook his head, his hand reaching for Kakashi's wrist – dragging his other, bound hand along – squeezing it.

"It's what I deserve, Kakashi, whether you like it or not."

Kakashi was tense, Obito could feel it in his muscles, in his words.

"No," the Hokage insisted. "Besides, I mean to relocate all the inmates anyway. We're not living in the Dark Ages anymore."

"You've been Hokage for a week and you already want to reform the justice system," snorted Obito, trying to hide his admiration behind a joke. He knew it wouldn't be lost on Kakashi, though.

"It will take some time," Kakashi noted, annoyance clear as day in his voice. "There's more pressing matters at hand."

Obito smiled bitterly. "Like fixing what I broke?"

Kakashi hummed. "That, and playing politics with the damiyō."

"Well, you are a politician, now."

Kakashi snarled, but didn't respond.

His hands left Obito's shoulders, and Obito suddenly felt lonelier than he ever had before.

"It won't be forever," Kakashi spoke after a long silence, his voice hoarse. The awkward pause after that suggested that he wanted to say something else, but he didn't. Perhaps he couldn't find the right words.

"Maybe it should be," stated Obito, mournful.

Without a warning, he felt Kakashi's arms wrap around his torso and just hold him . Tightly but gently, lovingly, like he was saying goodbye. And he was.

"I would have you take these eyes back, you know?" Kakashi whispered in Obito's ear, his breath sending shivers down Obito's spine.

Obito raised his hands above Kakashi's head and wrapped them around his neck, the only way he could hug him back with his wrists chained together.

"I know, but I would refuse," he murmured back into the crook of Kakashi's neck. "They are my gift to you, and the only way to make sure I'm no longer a threat."

"Obito–"

"No," interrupted Obito, parting slightly to lay his forehead against Kakashi's. "You're already putting yourself in an uncomfortable position, letting me go. What would everyone think if you also gave me such powerful weapons?"

"That I'm giving you back what is rightfully yours."

Obito scoffed. "Don't insult me, Bakashi. Gifts are meant to be kept."

Kakashi clung to Obito in a way that surprised him: when had he become so physical ? Maybe twenty years spent by Maito Gai's side did that to him.

"I mostly keep them covered, anyway."

Obito laughed into Kakashi's shoulder; a hearty, warm laughter, so foreign to his ears, especially coming from himself.

"Please," he giggled, "describe to me what that looks like."

Kakashi snorted, detangling himself from Obito and taking a step back.

"It's not like I know what I look like, but ," Kakashi told Obito about how, every morning, he would wrap bandages around his head, to keep his eyes firmly shut, then lift his signature black mask over the bridge of his nose, which – he said – actually helped keep the bandages in place, and finally, to not look like a mummy, he'd wear a black veil over his face.

"It's a bit of a pain to take it on and off, but it's a necessity. Your Sage of Six Paths chakra allowed my body to take Shodai-sama's cells implants with no risk of rejection, but it doesn't change the fact that I'm only Hatake."

Obito lowered his head. His only regret, regarding his gift to Kakashi, was that he couldn't give him more , like the ability to turn the sharingan off.

"You should have been born with those eyes, not me. The world would have been a lot better off."

"Enough of this," Kakashi growled. "Self-pity is not a good look on you. It never was, crybaby ."

Obito smirked, nodding in defeat. "Alright."

"Kakashi-sensei! Finally!"

Naruto's voice was so loud it could be heard from the heavens above, making it very easy for Obito to locate him. It was immediately followed by Sakura's own, almost equally loud.

"Stop shouting, you idiot!"

"And that's Rokudaime-sama to you, now," scolded Shikamaru.

"Whatever! We need your help!" Naruto ran up to Kakashi, stopping just a breath away from him.

"Is everything okay?" Kakashi asked, though Obito didn't hear any hint of worry in his voice. He must have identified the cause of Naruto's screams as ultimately harmless.

"Absolutely not! Sasuke wants to leave!"

Surprised, Obito automatically turned in Kakashi’s direction, feeling for a change in the air around him, but he couldn’t sense anything. Was Kakashi truly unmoved?

And what was Sasuke thinking? He had not been exiled, so why was he talking about leaving? If Obito had been pardoned like Sasuke, he would have spent every waking hour by Kakashi’s side; the idea of leaving would never have even crossed his mind.

He had imagined it to be the same for Sasuke. He could have sworn Sasuke wanted nothing more than to be with Naruto. Perhaps he was wrong.

The three of them approached the rest of the group, and Sasuke made an amused sound.

“What’s with the veil?” He asked, making Obito realize Kakashi had covered his eyes before leaving the office.

“Sun’s too bright,” shrugged Kakashi. Clearly one more of his innocent lies, but Sasuke was too used to it to question it. “What’s with the talk about leaving?”

Sasuke sighed, lowering his head. “It’s something I have to do. I wanna call Konoha home again, but first I need to feel like I belong here.”

“You do, moron!” Naruto shouted. He grabbed Sasuke’s collar, fisting the fabric of his white shirt so tightly it creased. “You belong here with us! And if anyone has anything to say about that, I will make them eat their words, trust me!”

“Naruto–” Kakashi tried to intervene, but Naruto shook his head vigorously.

“No! I just got you back, I won’t let you leave again!” Naruto snarled, his face a mask of rage. “If anyone dares to make you feel like an outsider, I will stand between them and you! I will protect you, even if I have to lose my one arm!”

Sasuke’s mouth was slightly ajar, and actually audibly gasped when Naruto yanked him closer to him. For a second, Sasuke lost himself in Naruto’s blown pupils, and had to close his own eyes to prevent his resolve to falter.

“Naruto,” his voice was thick, every word felt heavy, as though he was forcing himself to speak. “It’s not about other people. And–”

He peered up at Naruto through the curtain of his own hair and found, again, that he couldn’t bear to hold his gaze. 

Sasuke was determined to leave: he had to see what had become of the world after the war, how his actions had shaped it, what he could learn from it. They were on the verge of a whole new era, and he had to find a place for himself in it. And though leaving Naruto was like tearing himself in two, he had to do it.

“And it’s not about you.” He said it bitterly, knowing it would leave a scar, but it was the only way. “I have to do this, Naruto. Not even you can stop me.”

Naruto loosened his grip on Sasuke’s shirt, eventually letting him go. His blonde head dropped, his eyes filled with tears. Shaking, angry and defeated, he ran away.

The entire time, Sakura had remained silent and still as a statue. When Naruto was already far away, she let out a sigh.

“I’ll see you off, then, when you leave.” She sounded cold, her eyes never meeting Sasuke’s, and he shuddered. The last thing he wanted was to hurt Naruto and Sakura like this again, but here he was, and there it was. She left before he could mumble an apology.

Shikamaru left too, muttering an excuse about finishing some paperwork, and reassured Kakashi he’d wait for him at the office.

Obito couldn’t leave if he wanted to, being under special surveillance by the Hokage himself. The truth was, though, that he had just had an idea.

He heard Kakashi take a step closer to Sasuke, but before he could speak, Obito cleared his voice.

“I’ll go with you.”

Even blind, Obito could practically feel Sasuke raising his eyebrows so high his forehead crinkled.

“What?” This was Kakashi, equally confused. A tinge of something else colored his voice, perhaps worry, perhaps sadness.

“I’m an exile, aren’t I? It’s not like I have somewhere to be.” He crossed his arms, and the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced it was the right thing to do. “Besides, what’s he gonna do with one arm? He can’t even blow his nose.”

“Dude,” groaned Sasuke, “you’re literally blind.”

“Then we can help each other,” Obito smirked. Sasuke rolled his eyes.

Kakashi put his hands in his pockets and shrugged.

“An Uchiha family trip. What could go wrong.”

Sasuke waited for Obito and Kakashi at the village gates, making small talk with Sakura. It had been years since they’d had that opportunity, and they wasted it on commenting on the weather and their sensei’s tardiness.

“There they are,” Sakura pointed at the two men behind Sasuke. They walked side by side like old friends, like the last twenty years had never happened, like they hadn’t tried to kill each other less than a month ago.

“Sorry we’re late,” began Kakashi.

“We were saying goodbye to some friends,” finished Obito.

Sasuke hummed; he didn’t care.

“Try not to cause trouble while you’re away,” Kakashi warned them, though not unkindly. “Remember that you’re only free because I made it so. But, as Hokage, I take responsibility for your misconduct.”

Both Obito and Sasuke nodded.

“We know,” said Sasuke. Then, surprisingly, “Thank you.”

After holding all her emotions in for days, Sakura finally let it out.

“Let me come with you!” She cried, her hands curled up in fists so tight her knuckles were white. “Please, I won’t be a bother.”

Obito was taken aback, but he didn’t say anything, as it wasn’t his choice to make.

“Sakura…” Sasuke whispered, “the village needs you. Especially at a time like this.”

Sakura lowered her head, and Sasuke felt awful. 

“He’s right,” Kakashi chimed in, laying a hand on Sakura’s shoulder. “And I really can’t afford to lose my best student right now.”

He managed to make Sakura smile softly, and it was enough to prevent Sasuke from departing with a heavy heart.

“Maybe,” Sasuke added, tapping her forehead with his fingertips – the fondest memory he had of his brother – right on top of her seal, “next time.”

A couple dozen meters away from the gates, half hidden in the trees, Naruto had also shown up.

Obito walked ahead for another minute or so, to give them a moment alone to give each other a proper goodbye.

After a while, he heard Sasuke’s footsteps and, following him, he resumed walking.

Leaving Konohagakure behind, Sasuke led them through the vast forest outside the village. They walked past caravans of merchants heading in the opposite direction, past hunters claiming that they spooked their prey, past fishermen heading back home from the river.

Once they were out of the forest, Obito stopped in his tracks.

Turning his body towards Sasuke, he crossed his arms. “Where to?” He asked.

Sasuke inhaled the fresh morning air, exhaled, and, looking around, said, “I don’t know.”

Chapter Text

The travel to the Land of Waves was smooth and without setbacks. Quiet it was not, because Obito would not shut up. After listening to his incessant monologues and occasional whining about Sasuke’s manners for days on end, Sasuke was just about to electrocute him with a chidori.

“...too warm for the season, you know? Like, when I was a kid, autumn would feel like autumn. Are you listening?”

Sasuke had to stop in his tracks and inhale deeply to collect himself and not rage at his travel companion. Obito bumped into him and almost fell to the ground.

“Hey! You gotta tell me when you stop walking. I’m following you, remember?” Obito whined.

“Yes,” hissed Sasuke, “I remember. And yes, I was listening. It’s impossible not to.”

Obito clicked his tongue and crossed his arms. “You should show your uncle some respect.”

“You’re not my uncle.”

Obito shrugged. “Whatever,” he said through gritted teeth.

In spite of himself, Sasuke had to admit that Obito wasn’t entirely wrong. They had packed heavy clothes, considering the approaching winter, but now, as they were heading South, Sasuke realized they hadn’t considered the change in temperature from one country to another.

He felt privately ashamed and embarrassed for not having thought about it sooner, such a silly yet practical thing. It suddenly dawned on him that he was, for the first time in his life, actually responsible for himself. He had always had someone else making the logistic decisions – first it was Sakura and Kakashi, then it was Kabuto, then Karin. It had allowed him to focus solely on himself and his goals, never having to worry about futile things like what to fucking pack for a road trip . One more thing to learn about the world.

“Take a few layers off,” he eventually conceded. “My backpack is full, I’ll seal the clothes away in a scroll.”

Obito snorted, but did as he was told. Now dressed only in a black kosode, Obito hummed pleased. “Much better. Here.” He handed Sasuke his clothes and stretched his back.

Sasuke set his and Obito’s outer layers on the ground, then rummaged through his backpack until he found an orange scroll. With a quick movement he opened it and, with a one-handed sign, another scroll hopped out of the first one.

Hearing the opening of another scroll, Obito kneeled and curiously felt the ground for the two scrolls.

“What’s the second one for?”

“Storage,” Sasuke said simply. Positioning the pile of clothes on top of the second scroll, Sasuke weaved another hand sign, making them disappear. He then repeated the same procedure for the scroll.

“Brilliant,” the older Uchiha commented, rubbing his chin with his index finger, “a scroll of scrolls.”

Sasuke only grinned because he knew Obito couldn’t see him; he wasn’t gonna give him the satisfaction of audibly accepting a compliment from him.

He let himself bask in the sunlight for a while, allowing Obito to rest as well. 

It was probably not wise to just sit in an open grassy field, with no cover or shade and nowhere to hide from possible incoming threats. He had to remind himself that the war was over, that he was no longer a criminal on the run, and that there were no enemies.

“The Land of Waves isn’t far. About ten more kilometers, maybe less.”

Obito nodded, then laid on the grass, his hands crossed behind his head. “We should get some sleep, we can resume our trip when the air is cooler.”

Sasuke frowned, not even half convinced. He slapped Obito on the forehead.

“Hey!” Cried the older man, immediately sitting up. “What did you do that for?”

Sasuke stood up, dragging Obito along. “We need to reach the closest village before dark, or they won’t let us cross the bridge.”

Obito punched Sasuke’s arm in retaliation, or tried to, but only barely brushed his shoulder. Frustrated, he stormed off. After a few, angry strides, he stopped because he didn’t hear Sasuke follow behind.

“Wrong direction?” He snapped, tilting his head towards where he thought Sasuke was still standing.

A moment of silence passed, the only audible sound being the grass blown by the autumn breeze.

“Wrong direction,” Sasuke confirmed.

Sasuke glanced at Obito, as he turned back: his spiky white hair was too short to hide the scarlet blindfold that covered two empty sockets, the right side of his face crinkled and scarred, his right arm white as milk. Everyone was gonna recognize him.

“You should probably cover your arm,” Sasuke suggested, as they began their walk to the Great Naruto Bridge. “You’ll stand out.”

They made it to the bridge by sundown, having traveled in almost complete silence. Obito wore a long sleeved haori that Sasuke helped him get from his own backpack, so that his White Zetsu arm wasn’t showing when they stepped out of the grass and onto the paved road.

Only a little over four years had passed since Sasuke had first come here, yet it felt like a lifetime. The arrogant young boy with only revenge in his heart was dead and buried, along with the Demon of the Mist and his young favorite.

Something had happened, all those years ago, on that very bridge, something he could not quite name nor pinpoint exactly. He had arrived in the Land of Waves a boy and had left it a shinobi. He had faced many fearsome enemies since then, enemies that would have obliterated Momochi Zabuza in the blink of an eye; yet the malevolence in his demonic eyes was burned into Sasuke’s memory. He had fought gods, but Zabuza was still the titan that haunted Sasuke’s nightmares.

“Halt!”

The two Uchiha slowed down as the voice of a young man rose from the fog on the other end of the bridge.

Two figures approached, a man – the one who had ordered them to stop – and a woman, much older and, judging by her heavy eyelids, more exhausted.

“Who are you?” Asked the woman with a gruff voice. “And state your business.”

Obito made a show of leaning as much as he could on Sasuke, taking one careful step at a time.

“Just travelers,” answered Sasuke, catching Obito’s clue and using his one arm to support him. “We’re looking for a place to spend the night.”

The woman raised her eyebrow, but didn’t look too startled by the two invalids. She had to have seen many amputees just that month.

“You’re not beggars, are you?” She inquired, and Sasuke didn’t miss the way she slowly but surely laid her hand on the pistol strapped to her thigh.

“We’re not,” Obito answered immediately, his lips curling up in a reassuring, practiced smile. “We’re just a bit disheveled.”

Sasuke felt Obito’s elbow dig into his ribs. “Right,” he murmured. “My uncle can pay, no need to worry about that.”

Obito turned his head towards Sasuke, and his smile twisted into something eerie for a second.

“S-Sasuke?” The young man stepped forward and fully out of the fog, and Sasuke could now see clearly that he was not a man at all, only a boy. Under a green raincoat and a dirty yellow bucket hat, was the figure of a slender teenager, with strong arms and brown hair and a bright smile. Sasuke knew him instantly.

“Inari.”

The boy beamed at him, overjoyed at being recognized after so many years. The older woman didn’t look impressed. If anything, she looked at the two outsiders with even more suspicion.

“Sasuke?” She asked, “Uchiha Sasuke?”

Sasuke felt Obito tense under his arm, but before he could even think of reaching for a kunai, Inari gripped the woman’s shoulder, urging her to loosen up.

“Yes, Uchiha Sasuke! A hero of our community!” Exclaimed the boy, puffing his chest with pride. “This bridge wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for him and his friends!”

Obito cocked his head, amused. He knew Kakashi had defeated the Demon – at the time, he had been equally pleased and annoyed, because he couldn’t help but admire Kakashi, even though he had meant to recruit Zabuza into the Akatsuki – but he didn’t think the three genin, fresh out of the Shinobi Academy, had contributed much.

Reluctantly, the woman let go of her pistol and crossed her arms, nodding to Inari.

“Please, you may enter and leave as you wish,” Inari bowed his head a little, making Sasuke feel uncomfortable with all the formality. “I would be honored to have you for dinner, later tonight!”

“Inari.” The woman said his name like a warning, but Inari shook his head.

“I mean it. My mother will be very pleased.”

There was a pause, as Sasuke considered the offer, and Obito took the opportunity to yawn and, if possible, lean even more on his younger relative.

“Come on, Sasuke-kun, don’t offend this young man and his mother. We must accept. Besides, this old man needs some good food and a hell of a lot of rest.”

Sighing heavily to resist his urge to roll his eyes so far back into his head that the woman risked seeing his rinnegan, Sasuke nodded.

Inari’s face was the face of pure glee. “Awesome! I have to finish my shift here at the bridge, do you still remember where I live?”

Sasuke didn’t have to rummage through his memories, having spent enough time in that house to know immediately.

“Yes,” he said. “Thank you, Inari.”

Obito offered a polite smile and bowed his head, as Sasuke led him the rest of the way to the end of the bridge. They had finally made it to the Land of Waves.

Despite the humidity, the evening brought a cool that had Sasuke consider stopping at a clothes shop to buy some proper garments, but Obito already complained about how long it was taking to get to Inari's house.

Admittedly, Sasuke had overestimated his ability to find his way there. In the years since he'd been there, the village had transformed drastically. 

No longer the tiny, poor village of fishermen Sasuke remembered, it could now be considered a proper town. Stores of all kinds, restaurants and even a theater had opened where the farmers market used to be.

The newfound wealth led investors to buy land and construct apartment buildings, likely anticipating an increase in the population within the next few years.

Though it wasn't quite a city, the bridge had brought commerce, work and even tourism to the Land of Waves.

"Is it very far?" Obito groaned, his stomach rumbling so loud even Sasuke could hear it.

Sasuke checked out his surroundings, looking for trees; he had followed the coast, remembering that Inari's stilt house was surrounded by a small, green forest.

"Place's changed a lot, give me a break," he grunted, shoving Obito to the side. "And stop clinging to me."

Obito bared his teeth at him. "You really have no manners," he snarled.

"I wonder whose fault is that."

Finally, Sasuke spotted the little house by a forest that, though significantly reduced in size, still stood.

He was tempted to keep going around in circles for a while, just to spite Obito, but figured that, even blind, Obito would realize immediately and then Sasuke would never hear the end of it.

He took the small, half hidden path to the house and stopped before the porch steps.

Unlike the rest of the town, this place was exactly as Sasuke remembered. It had surely undergone several maintenance works, but its appearance hadn’t changed a bit. The windmill was still there, too.

"Here we are," he announced. "Careful, there's three steps."

Obito quietly and half-heartedly thanked him for the warning.

As they walked up the steps, Sasuke almost expected the whole structure to waver under their weight. The water was calm, the windmill still, and the house remained solid.

He knocked on the door.

There was silence for a long moment, but just as Sasuke was about to knock again, the door opened.

“Inari, did you forget your ke–” The woman standing in the doorway froze. Her long, black hair was starting to gray at the roots and her face was marked by wrinkles that weren’t there five years ago.

“Tsunami-san,” whispered Sasuke. When Obito elbowed him, again, he cleared his voice and spoke up. “Tsunami-san,” he repeated, “I don’t know if you remember me, but–”

“Of course I remember you,” said the woman in a soft voice. She bit her lip, as if uncertain about what to say. “You’re the little boy who was terrible at that training of yours. What was it? Chakra control?”

Obito chortled, Sasuke sighed.

Tsunami, on the other hand, smiled genuinely. “You’re the boy who saved us. You and your team. Sasuke, wasn’t it?”

Sasuke nodded, then lowered his head. During his years with Orochimaru he had tried to forget his stay in that house, tried to forget the fight against Haku and the feelings it had awakened in him. Even after forming Taka and then joining the war, he had forced himself to focus only on his brother Itachi. His only purpose defeating him, then avenging him. Then, almost ironically, becoming him.

And yet here he was, fighting the urge to run back to Konohagakure and hold Naruto. Because it was in this land, on that bridge, that Sasuke had been ready to die for Naruto for the first time. Instinctively, like loving Itachi, like breathing, he had stepped in between Naruto and certain death.

And then he had witnessed a demon begging to die by the side of his beloved. 

“Yes,” Obito answered for him. He clung to Sasuke’s arm again, albeit less dramatically than he had on the bridge. “And I’m his uncle, Tobi. It is a pleasure and an honor to meet you.”

Obito bowed politely, as Sasuke winced at the name he had given to the woman.

“Your son invited us to dinner,” Obito continued, masterfully modulating his voice to a lower, huskier pitch, trying to pass for older than he was. It sent shivers down Sasuke’s spine; the voice was eerily similar to that of Madara. “But we don’t mean to intrude. We understand you weren’t expecting guests, so–”
Before he could finish, she waved her hands to shush them. Obito felt light gusts of air on his skin.

“Nonsense,” she reassured them. “Please, come in. I haven’t started cooking yet, anyway.”

Leaving their shoes by the door, Sasuke and Obito followed Tsunami into the living room. The wooden floor creaked under their feet, the same way it used to five years ago.

Unlike its outside, the house’s interior had changed drastically: the once empty walls with cracks in them were now painted cream white and portraits and various trinkets were hung up. Even the furniture had been upgraded, and the living room could now boast a relatively new blue sofa.

“Have a seat,” Tsunami told them. “Would you like something to drink? Perhaps some tea?”

Sasuke didn’t answer, too focused on staring at the floor. Where there now was a deep green mat under an oakwood table, all Sasuke could see was Kakashi lying limp on a shabby futon, passed out from chakra exhaustion.

“Tea would be great, thank you,” croaked Obito. 

Tsunami retreated to the kitchen and put an old kettle on the stove, then returned to the dining room and sat on the floor, setting her elbows on the table, her chin resting on her palms.

“How you’ve grown,” she noted, smiling, looking at Sasuke.

Sasuke looked away, suddenly uncomfortable. He retired into himself, almost physically shrinking, as though his body was too big and cumbersome all of a sudden.

“Teenagers, right?” Obito chuckled, veering Tsunami’s attention onto himself. “I stayed the same height from eight to thirteen years old, then boom! Within a couple of months I was taller than my grandpa!”

Tsunami’s laughter was soft but hearty, and genuine. The hopeless, mourning widow from Sasuke’s memories didn’t exist anymore, or perhaps she was buried deep within this new version of Tsunami, happier and more at peace with her life.

Obito entertained her with made up facts about his teenage years, surprising even Sasuke with how easy lying came to him, until the shrill whistle of the kettle interrupted him.

Tsunami set a tea tray on the small table, smiling politely as she handed her two guests two cups and filled them with a scalding green tea.

As Sasuke tasted it, the floral scented steam flooded his nostrils, while the sugary taste sat on his tongue. He wasn’t a fan of sweet food, but he had had worse.

While they enjoyed their tea, the front door opened. Only a couple of seconds later, Inari was in the dining room as well, smiling from ear to ear.

It wasn't until after dinner that Inari began asking the questions Sasuke feared answering. 

As they ate, the conversation was light and jovial, led predominantly by Obito and Inari. Halfway through the meal, Tsunami's father, Tazuna, had returned home from work.

Like his daughter and grandson, he had been pleasantly surprised by Sasuke's visit, though he seemed to mistrust Sasuke's alleged uncle.

"So…" Inari began, eyeing Sasuke's left stump. "What happened?"

Obito fell silent, uncertain about who the question had been directed at.

Swallowing a gulp of water, Sasuke set his glass on the table.

"Naruto and I had a fight." His voice was monotonous, his eyes low, his answer vague. It was true enough.

Inari's smile dropped, but he didn't look sad. Rather, he seemed sorry.

Tazuna sipped his sake quietly, never taking his eyes off Obito. At first, Sasuke thought he was just being a jealous father; now, however, he thought it might be something else.

Anxiety crippled its way up Sasuke's throat, squeezing it in a tight grip. Had Tazuna somehow recognized Obito? How much did the people of the Land of Waves even truly know about the war and the people that fought it?

"I didn't know you had an uncle," the architect mumbled, and the hair on Sasuke's arm raised. "I thought the Uchiha were all…"

"Dead, yes," Obito chimed in as the old man trailed off. "I'm not truly Uchiha. You could say I was adopted."

Sasuke glanced at Obito and, in that moment, he couldn't name all the feelings he had for the man, but he knew for certain that rage was one of them.

Luckily for him, they were in someone else's house, eating someone else's food. He wouldn’t have caused a scene.

He forced himself to tear his eyes away from the man who had contributed to the slaughter of his people and schooled his expression.

"My father's aunt found him and raised him. He was spared from the massacre because he was not living in the compound at the time," lied Sasuke, finding it harder than he had imagined. He wondered how Obito could do it so often and with such ease.

Tsunami coughed awkwardly. "Forgive my father's rudeness, he's been drinking. You don't have to answer his questions."

She smiled apologetically, as did Inari.

Obito shook his head. "Not at all, it's no problem. Isn't that right, Sasuke-kun?" He smiled as he patted Sasuke's shoulder.

No , he wanted to say, no, it isn't right . But he didn't. He said nothing at all.

Obito sighed, letting go of the younger Uchiha.

"I couldn't help but notice that woman's tone when she thought we were beggars," Obito was a master at this, too; changing topics to keep the conversation going. "Do they not let the needy in?"

Inari's face twisted into a displeased grimace.

"Wealth has made people selfish," he spat. "And war has made them suspicious."

Tsunami sighed sadly, and Sasuke saw a shadow of her old self. "Our village's problem used to be that nobody stood up for the weak and the poor. We thought that Gatō's death could change that."

"It did," Inari added, "for a while. As you can see, this place has grown a lot, and we owe all of it to the bridge."

Just as Inari looked about to smile again, Tazuna burped.

"Then the war began," the old man grunted.

Sasuke tensed, lowering his eyes – and not just because of the gravity of the topic. He peeked at Obito to gauge his reaction. To his credit, nothing about his body language betrayed his guilt, even though Sasuke knew for a fact he must have been boiling with it inside. Good , he thought selfishly, only for an instant.

To make up for his intrusive thought, he fell back into the conversation.

"Strange. It seems as though the village was untouched by the war."

Tsunami and Inari both shrugged.

"Physically, yes. Economically, it hasn't been easy."

"Shipments from the West all pass through here, before they can reach the Land of Fire. Many prefer the security of ships to the unpredictable sands of the Desert," explained Inari, who suddenly looked way older than he was. "However, during the war, military cargo had the priority over other goods, even basic necessities."

Inari's face was as grim as Sasuke's heart felt.

Obito sighed. "Looks like that bridge is as much a curse as it is a blessing."

Nobody said anything after that. Inari cleared the table and washed the dishes, Tsunami helped her father up the stairs and into his bed, leaving Sasuke and Obito waiting for the guest room to be set.

Feeling the walls with his fingertips and following the sound of the water, Obito found the door to the porch. He took in the salty sea air in a deep breath, then rested his elbows on the wooden railing.

Sasuke watched him for a while, then followed him outside.

“How’s the sky tonight?” Obito asked, as soon as he sensed Sasuke approaching.

The younger man glanced upwards and held his breath: that strip of the coast was far from the bridge, the rest of the town and its artificial lights, and before the house was only water. A deep, black sea stretching out for kilometers; a perfect mirror to the starry night sky. The flickering light of thousands of distant suns pooled into Sasuke’s rinnegan eye. The moon was high in the sky, so high there was no reflection on the water, no horizon to separate heaven and earth; an oblivion so absolute it both scared and attracted Sasuke.

That place was a haunting. Maybe it was the water, maybe it had been the water since the beginning. Sea water had been known to drive men to madness, after all. It would have explained his insane urge to save Naruto at the cost of his own life.

“Cloudy,” he lied, and shoved his musings deep into the recesses of his own mind.

Instead, he made himself focus on something Obito had said, earlier that evening, about not being truly an Uchiha. Something about the way he had said it, bitterly, like an old wound had been opened, made Sasuke consider the possibility that he hadn’t been entirely dishonest, just to ease their hosts’ suspicions.

Certain that nobody from the house would hear them, he spoke to Obito in a low voice. “Were you really adopted?”

Obito tilted his head towards him, his blindfold raising slightly, following the movement of his eyebrows.

“What’s this about?” He inquired, though with a grin, and continued without waiting for an answer. “I wasn’t, but my parents died when I was very young. I have no memories of them. At least that’s the official story.”

Sasuke frowned. “What do you mean?”

Obito lowered his head, as he appeared lost in thought – though, if Sasuke was being honest, Obito’s face was impossible to read, especially due to his blindfold.

“I never knew them,” he murmured, eventually. “My grandmother never talked about them. Maybe she did find me somewhere and brought me in.” 

At Sasuke’s prolonged silence, Obito chuckled and, pointing at his face, at the place where his eyes should have been, he whispered a cheeky Obviously I’m an Uchiha .

Hearing footsteps getting closer from inside the house, the two Uchiha fell quiet.

“Your beds are made,” announced Tsunami, yawning. “I’m going to bed now. Do you need anything else?”

Obito was quick to turn around and bow before her. “No, Tsunami-san. Thanks for the good food and for providing us with a bed. Have a good night.”

The woman smiled, blushing, then retired to her room.

“Let’s get some rest,” Obito squeezed Sasuke’s arm gently, almost affectionately. Sasuke evaded the touch before it could linger and headed inside.

“There’s nine steps,” he warned hastily, then disappeared into the guest room.

“We really ought to buy some new clothes,” Obito complained over breakfast, stuffing his mouth full of rice.

Inari beamed from his seat next to him. “I can take you shopping!”

“Don’t you have work to do?” Tsunami asked, clearing her plate and downing a glass of water.

Inari shook his head. “Afternoon shift,” he explained, “just like yesterday.”

His mother raised an eyebrow, then looked at Sasuke. “Please, make sure he doesn’t spend all his money.”

Sasuke nodded. Much to Inari’s chagrin, Obito promised the woman he would not allow Inari to spend a single ryō.

Before leaving for the town, Sasuke helped Obito cover every visible White Zetsu body part with a thin layer of bandages; that way he wouldn’t have to wear the long sleeved haori with such warm weather.

“How do I look?” Obito asked, with a joker’s grin.

“Like the Nidaime Tsuchikage. Let’s go.”

Satisfied with the disdain on Obito’s face, he headed out.

With Inari leading the way, they reached the town in a matter of minutes. With the morning light, everything looked different, albeit somewhat more familiar.

Sasuke recognized the once tiny, now two stores tall calligraphy shop he bought a few scrolls and some ink in, during his first stay at the village, to record his progress with his training.

“I feel watched,” blurted Obito all of a sudden, catching Sasuke’s attention.

“We are,” he told him. “The blindfolded mummy and the overdressed one-armed freak would stand out.”

Inari smiled awkwardly. “I apologize for that. Usually when people look like you, they’re…”

“War veterans,” Obito finished the sentence for him, with all the nonchalance of someone faking indifference.

Inari bit his lower lip. “Yeah. They don’t like thinking about it. Sorry.”

Sasuke glanced around, meeting pairs of eyes no matter where he looked. He tried not to let it bother him, but it sure was annoying. “At least you didn’t have to fight it.”

Walking in relative silence, Inari brought them to a tailor’s shop, which Sasuke vaguely remembered from years ago, though he had never entered it.

They were greeted by an old, small man with a thick beard.

Inari explained that he made the finest clothes in the entire Land, and that it would be worth every ryō.

“You could buy something cheap at the storehouse,” he had said, “but it won’t last you six months.”

They let the man take their measurements and, after placing their order, they left with the assurance that everything would be ready in two days' time.

Since there was still time before lunch, Inari took them on a tour of the town, showing Sasuke new shops, commodities, the new harbor. Though sincerely impressed, Sasuke was only mildly interested in all those changes.

His mind was elsewhere, and as Inari went on and on about the island’s newest tourist trap, he kept thinking about Zabuza, Haku and, of course, Naruto.

On the second day, an idea formed in Sasuke’s head. Starting out as a mere passing thought, summoned up by a distant memory, it then took a more concrete shape. He wanted to visit Zabuza and Haku’s graves.

He had wondered, mere months ago, when he last went with Suigetsu, if they even still existed; if, amidst all that upheaval and progress he had only glimpsed in passing through, they hadn’t been torn down to make way for a parking lot or a shopping center.

Who would care about the unmarked graves of two exiles, anyway? Yet he had found them there, exactly as Kakashi had arranged them, as though some superior force had been protecting them.

On the third day, they left early to go get their new clothes. Inari didn’t go with them because he had had a night shift at the bridge, and he was gonna sleep until midday.

Sasuke walked into the shop, followed by Obito. As promised, the clothes were ready.

Obito was the first one to try them out. Having found his kosode and hakama surprisingly comfortable, he had ordered a set of those, though with lighter fabrics, as well as a pair of black pants and one finely embroidered shirt. Everything fit perfectly.

Satisfied, he threw his old clothes in a bag and decided to wear his new kosode, dyed a desaturated shade of green, and black hakama.

Sasuke, having placed a much cheaper order, had only had two pairs of black hakama and two short sleeved shirts, one a rich shade of dark blue, the other white. 

“I’m sure you look awful,” Obito sighed dramatically, after they paid the tailor and left the shop. “You’ll make everyone think that poor old man should retire.”

Sasuke ignored him. His new white shirt hadn’t been enough to distract him from the idea in his head that wasn’t an idea anymore, rather real intent. He was going to visit Zabuza and Haku’s graves.

He felt restless in a way he hadn’t been in years. So taken he was by this desire that he barely registered a word of Obito’s incessant blabbering.

On the fourth day, he left Inari’s house before sunrise, leaving a snoring Obito in his bed.

Finding his way to the hill where they buried the two nukenin was as easy as throwing shuriken. Muscle memory.

At that time of morning the whole town was quiet, even more so as he moved farther away from the housing districts and deeper into the countryside. He climbed the hill accompanied by the chirping of birds and the sounds of the forest.

He came to a halt at the edge of the clearing where the two wooden crosses were impaled into the soil. There was no sword anymore, and soon even Haku's obi would be eroded by time, then the two graves would truly be unmarked.

Sasuke allowed the tepid sun to warm the bare skin of his arm and face, inhaling the fresh air of that pure morning.

He sat by Haku’s cross, brushing the sparse grass beneath him with his fingers.

Eyeing the splintered wood of the cross, memories of his tree climbing training resurfaced. The tall trunk of a tree abused by his kunai, sweat and fatigue, pain in his arms and legs, not to mention his hurt pride. Not only Sakura, a complete nobody with absolutely zero ninjutsu skills and who came from a civilian family , had managed to master tree climbing instantly ; on the other side of the clearing, Naruto had been making more progress than him.

Sasuke could have laughed, now, thinking about how reluctant he had been to ask for help, when it had been the thing he needed most of all. Naruto had understood it, and Sakura had been generous as always.

He glanced at the hole in the ground left by Kubikiribōchō, when Suigetsu took it. That emptiness bothered Sasuke, though he couldn’t say why. He didn’t think Suigetsu was disrespecting Zabuza by taking the blade – after all, it belonged to the skilled swordsmen of Kiri, therefore nobody was more suited than him to wield it. Yet the grave still looked – felt – desecrated.

Naruto would have known how to fix it, he thought. That guy would have come up with some stupid, brilliant idea that actually meant something. All Sasuke could do, all he did do, was fill the hole with more dirt.

The memory of Zabuza and Haku laying side by side on the bridge, under the cold white snow was alive and vibrant in Sasuke’s memory, as was the memory of laying side by side with Naruto in a pool of their own blood. Smiling, half-dead, more alive than they had ever been.

There should have been two of them on that hill, by those graves.

He spent hours, sitting in the grass, waiting for the sun to reach its zenith, for the noises of the town to reach the hill and drown out the sounds of the forest. Dragging himself out of the dozing state he had let himself fall into, he began his descent back to Inari’s house.

Before saying goodbye to the Demon and his consort, he had allowed himself to grieve them, and to thank them, for being the first to show him the lengths shinobi could go to for love.

When he returned to the house, Tsunami welcomed him with a warm smile. Nobody questioned him about where he went or what he did during his long absence, and he was grateful.

Finally alone with Obito, after lunch, Sasuke expressed his desire to leave the Land of Waves.

“Getting seasick?” joked Obito, though Sasuke got the feeling he didn’t want to stay, either.

“We’ve overstayed our welcome,” Sasuke explained, and Obito nodded in agreement.

“We’ll take the last ship tonight,” Obito spoke with his arms crossed, and Sasuke had a disturbing flashback to when, as Madara, Obito ordered him and the rest of the Akatsuki around. “Get your stuff in order.”

Later that afternoon, while Obito made arrangements for their departure, helped by Tsunami, Sasuke was in the living room, only half listening to Inari as he asked him to send Naruto, Sakura and Kakashi his regards, as well as his best wishes to Kakashi for becoming Hokage.

“I bet he’s the strongest shinobi of all time!” Inari exclaimed, reminding Sasuke once again of the Land of Waves’ unfamiliarity with shinobi history. “No wonder they chose him to be Hokage!”

In all fairness, Kakashi had been the best choice. Tsunade was too tired to keep wearing the hat, and everyone else was too old, too young or too weak to replace her. He might not have been the strongest shinobi in Konoha, but he was by far the strongest Kage. And, most importantly, nobody in the village was as committed to peace and collaboration between countries as he was. He had lived through two wars and had seen enough bloodshed to last him a thousand lifetimes. 

The day before his departure from Konohagakure, he had wanted to talk to his old sensei alone. A harder ordeal than he had imagined, because he refused to let Obito leave his side, insisting that it was his duty as Hokage to watch him, at least until his effective exile.

Surprisingly, Obito had been the one to convince him.

“I’ll be just outside the door. I can’t go anywhere even if I wanted to,” he reassured Kakashi. “The village has changed too much for me to orient myself.”

Sasuke watched them in quiet amazement, as Obito lingered in the room for a long moment, as though the two blind men were communicating telepathically; unable to see each other yet clearly hyper aware of each other’s every movement.

When Obito left the Hokage’s office, Sasuke eyed Kakashi. Even with his right eye visible, Kakashi had always been difficult to read. Now he was completely unreachable.

“How can you stand it?” He asked. Then, “Being blind, I mean, when you could see so much.”

Kakashi leaned back on his chair, sighing. “I can still see, only I see differently. I can see what your chakra looks like, for example, even though I have no idea what clothes you’re wearing.”

Sasuke grimaced, uncomfortable with the knowledge that such an intimate part of him was being seen. Although, it wasn’t like Kakashi could help it.

Kakashi took off his Hokage hat and set it down on the desk. He stood up to step closer to Sasuke. “Why did you want to talk to me?”

Sasuke leaned on the wall behind him, hugging his own waist with his arm.

“I hate Obito,” he began, studying Kakashi’s reaction. Or, to better put it, his lack thereof. “He contributed to my clan’s massacre and, unlike Itachi, he was not being manipulated by the village.”

“No,” Kakashi agreed. “He had been manipulated by Madara.”

Anger was a hard thing to let go, especially when you had reveled in it and fed yourself with it for as long as you could remember. He could contain it in front of Naruto, but there was no reason to do it in front of Kakashi, too.

“Madara is dead,” he spat. “So is Itachi. Yet he lives.”

Still as he was, Kakashi now really looked like a scarecrow. A very finely clothed scarecrow.

“However,” Sasuke continued, swallowing hard. “We’re the only Uchiha left alive. And I’m trying to change, to see the world as Naruto does.”

Kakashi tilted his head ever so slightly, a movement almost imperceptible. “What are you trying to ask me?”

Sasuke, despite every fiber of his being fighting against it, blushed. How could that man, after so many years, still read him so easily?

He lowered his head, finding that, even bandaged, Kakashi’s gaze was too much to bear.

“I was serious about reviving the clan,” he uttered, knowing Kakashi would immediately understand what he was talking about. Their very first memory together, as a team. “And the Uchiha compound is, technically, still outside the village borders.”

Kakashi hummed cheerfully, evidently surprised, though pleasantly so. “Permission granted.”

Sasuke blinked. “I haven’t even asked the question.”

Kakashi shushed him with a wave of his hand. “You want me to allow Obito to reside at the Uchiha compound,” he said matter-of-factly. “Permission granted. After all, it’s Obito’s ancestral home: nobody could object to him returning there. Except you, of course.”

Sasuke hated how grateful he felt. And for Obito, of all people. Shrugging off that feeling, he turned to leave. A hand on his shoulder stopped him a few inches from the door.

“I can’t protect either of you from here, while you’re away,” Kakashi’s voice seemed to falter. “You won’t be welcome in most places, and those that will welcome you will risk repercussions.” Taking a deep breath, he continued. “Never stay too long in a single place, try to lay low and, most importantly, try to avoid revealing your names. Especially Obito’s.”

Sasuke nodded. Kakashi’s hand left his shoulder and cupped his face, a gesture of pure, absolute fondness that overwhelmed Sasuke.

“Be safe out there, okay?” Although Sasuke couldn’t see it, he was sure Kakashi was smiling.

“Yeah.” He hesitated for only a second longer, then left.

Aware that he and Obito had already violated almost all of Kakashi’s recommendations, Sasuke was firm in his decision to leave even when Inari insisted that they stay another night.

Eventually, the boy relented.

Dinner was lively and the food was delicious. Tazuna drank so much he forgot his dislike of Obito and even played cards with him, while Sasuke helped clear the table.

As the two Uchiha packed their bags, Tsunami knocked on the guest room’s door.

“Come in,” said Obito.

Tsunami entered the room carrying two bentō boxes. “For the travel. I’m sorry I couldn’t pack more, but Tobi-san and Inari ate all the leftovers,” she laughed.

“It’s perfect, Tsunami-san,” Obito thanked her when she handed him and Sasuke a box each, which they promptly packed in.

After putting Tazuna to bed, Tsunami and Inari walked with the two travelers to the docks.

The ship they were to take would follow the western coastline of the Land of Waves, before heading south, for the Land of Wind.

“How long will it take?” Obito asked Inari.

The boy, though sad to see his guests depart, was always happy to be helpful in any way he could.

“It shouldn’t take longer than four days. Hopefully the weather will hold.”

Obito lifted his face towards the sky and inhaled deeply. “I smell rain.”

Inari shrugged. “Yeah, but it doesn’t look like it will pour.”

“Just drizzle,” Obito said with levity, making Inari laugh.

When the ship’s captain announced the ship was about to take off, Tsunami and Inari hugged their guests goodbye, thanking them for visiting.

“Travel safely!” Tsunami and Inari waved at them from the dock, while the ship slowly slipped farther away.

Privately, in his own mind and heart, Sasuke said goodbye to Zabuza and Haku once again, making a quiet vow to return to their graves with the rest of Team Seven.

“Better get some sleep,” Obito suggested, linking his arm with Sasuke. “And you better help this old man find a comfortable spot.”

Chapter Text

It rained for the entire duration of their stay aboard the ship, though luckily not enough to delay their arrival, four and a half days after their departure from the Land of Waves.

Obito had traveled long and far, in his life, yet he had never entered the Land of Wind by sea.

Neither had Sasuke who, for his part, had rarely been to that country at all. The port they docked at was bigger than the one from which they had sailed, but unlike the Land of Waves’, this one was entirely commercial. There were no private boats or tourist ferries, only barges and merchant ships.

On the far right of the harbor, an immense dockyard, bustling with activity – both human and mechanic – occupied the whole view of that side of the coast.

On both sides of their dock, hundreds of sturdy men and women were loading and unloading cargo, repairing ropes, scraping ships’ hulls and doing a myriad of other jobs neither Obito or Sasuke even knew existed.

Obito could hear a thousand different noises, all at once; people yelling out orders, engines being turned on and off, a distant thunder.

“Looks like there’s going to be a storm,” Sasuke noted.

Obito, already disoriented by the noise and the rain, leaned on Sasuke’s shoulder. Humiliating as it felt, he was too tired for pride to be an issue. Clement Sasuke didn’t recoil or even comment on it.

He would learn, eventually, to move through the world without having to literally, physically lean on someone else, but it was still too early. He had only lost his sight a little over a month ago.

As the rain poured, his clothes stuck to his body in all the uncomfortable places. Sasuke, on the other hand, was having more trouble trying to keep his long hair out of his face.

“We need to find shelter,” he grunted.

“Yeah,” Obito agreed. “I can’t wait to get into some dry clothes.”

Leaving the port behind, they walked right into an old fashioned village, with a long stretch of food stalls and inns. Despite the rain, the streets were crowded with people, busy handling all their affairs before the storm hit.

Sasuke walked into the oldest looking inn, built with solid, dark wood. They were immediately overwhelmed with the warmth of a fireplace surely older than both of them. Sasuke hastily dragged Obito towards it, having laid his eyes on an empty table nearby.

“Yo!” Complained Obito. “If you want me to burn alive, at least have the decency of using your katon.”

Hearing no response, Obito shifted more comfortably in his seat. Both of their backpacks were drenched, so they set them down by the fire as well, to let them dry.

After a while, an auburn haired waiter approached their table with a notepad in his hands.

“Ready to order?” He asked, with a polite smile stamped on his face.

Obito tilted his head in the direction of the voice, then smiled back.

“We’re new here, but we would love to try your best local tea!”

Sasuke hummed. “And a warm meal.”

Tea turned out to be amazingly sweet and smoky, so different from what the Land of Fire produced.

“It’s not really local,” the waiter had admitted, “we don’t do a lot of harvesting here, after all we’re a port town! The tea comes from the desert.”

Then he had brought them pork stew, rice and a few side dishes.

Halfway through his lunch, Obito heard, over the background noise of the inn, words like foreigners and no passenger ships being exchanged here and there, and wondered if Sasuke had noticed it too,

“Everyone is talking about us,” he whispered, bringing a spoonful of broth up to his lips.

“I know,” Sasuke voiced back, less worried about being heard. “Waiter’s coming back.”
Just as he said it, Obito heard the young man’s footsteps get closer to their table.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” He asked, still smiling, though Sasuke could tell it was forced.

“Yes, actually,” said Obito nonchalantly. “We’d like to spend the night.”

Sasuke studied the waiter’s reaction: he clearly didn’t want to let two foreigners stay and, judging by his and most everyone else’s reaction, the inns were reserved for passing sailors and merchants, not tourists and travelers; at the same time, however, it didn’t look like he was the one making the decisions.

“Could you point us to the owner of the inn?” Obito asked, coming to the exact same conclusion as Sasuke.

The waiter laughed nervously. “I’m afraid we’re all out of rooms,” he said, hesitantly.

Obito took in the sound of distant snickering, but didn’t let it affect him. “Oh, please,” he begged falsely, “it’s pouring buckets out there. My son and I are both exhausted, won’t you take some pity on two poor invalids?”

Sasuke mentally cursed Obito for referring to him as his son, though he didn’t allow his irritation to show on his face. Instead, he glanced around the inn until he found what he was looking for: behind the counter, with a pipe in his mouth and money in his hands, was a big, bearded man, dressed in fine linen and with wavy, auburn hair.

“Is this a family business?” He asked, not bothering to glance back up at the waiter. The man had stopped counting the money and was pointing his narrow eyes at their table.

“Yes,” answered the waiter. “That’s my father you’re looking at.”

Obito finished his meal, then reached for Sasuke’s arm.

“Son, help me go talk to that man.”

Sasuke stilled. He hadn’t been called that since he was seven. Since his own brother killed the two people who would ever have the only right to call him that. Since the very man who now called him son contributed to their slaughter. Rage boiled inside of him, and had he not been trying very fucking hard to control himself, he would have thrown Obito across the inn.

Instead, he took a deep breath to steady himself, and offered up his arm for Obito to cling to.

“Of course, t ō -san ,” he spat. 

They walked up to the counter, with the waiter following behind, evidently annoyed.

The inn had gone almost entirely quiet; Obito felt an itch at the back of his neck, knowing everyone was watching them.

“Is there a problem?” The man behind the counter asked, an eyebrow raised. The pipe in his mouth swinged as he talked.

“I hope not,” said Obito, smiling his best smile. “My son and I wanted a room for the night.”

The waiter leaned on the counter with a smug smile on his face. “I was just telling them we’re full.”

Obito laughed sardonically. “I find it hard to believe that you’re already full at midday. And considering there’s a storm outside, I doubt any sailors are gonna come through that door tonight.”

Sasuke eyed the waiter as his face went through all shades of red at once.

His father, on the other hand, only looked bored. He glared at his son, and that shut the waiter up permanently.

“Can you pay?” The man asked.

Obito’s grin grew wider. “Of course.”

“Then it’s five hundred ryō each. But this is a sailors’ inn and I don’t want any trouble. You’ll leave tomorrow.”

Obito bowed his head politely. “No problem.”

“My stupid son will show you to your room.”

Evidently more afraid of his father than of either Sasuke or Obito, the waiter reluctantly complied.

“Breakfast is served at seven,” he said coldly. He left the room and slid the door shut.

The room itself was big enough for both of them, with two futon at the center and an old closet which had seen better days. A window should have probably opened up to a nice view of the port, but the heavy rain had turned it into a white screen.

“At least it’s warm,” Obito noted, setting his backpack down. Before it hit the floor, Sasuke already had him pinned to the wall.

Obito hit his head, his hands automatically reaching for Sasuke and grabbing his shirt to try and push him away, but Sasuke was unmovable. His chakra spiked, furious, and he kneed him in the leg.

“What the fuck?!”

“Shut up.” Sasuke’s voice was eerily low, and purposefully so. He didn’t want to give the owner any reason to kick them out. “Don’t you ever do that again.”

Obito frowned, confused. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t you ever call me your son again.”

Speechless, Obito let his hands fall to his sides. He had used the word thoughtlessly, like he had used the word nephew countless times, during their stay at Tsunami’s. It was just a word, it wasn’t supposed to mean anything.

“As smart as you are, you can be astonishingly dumb, you know that?” Obito hissed, and Sasuke pushed him harder into the wall. “Careful, you’re going to break it.”

“You don’t get to call me that,” Sasuke snarled, his sharingan flickering in his right eye. “You’re not my father.”

Obito scoffed. “I’m not your uncle, either. But we can’t keep telling the same lie everywhere, if we wanna keep a low profile. We’re already too recognizable.”

Obito channeled his chakra through his hands, pushing Sasuke off of himself and, just to be a dick, punched him in the stomach.

“You–”

“Listen to me,” Obito commanded, dodging the fist Sasuke aimed at his face. Taking advantage of his unstable balance, Obito grabbed his arm, pinning it behind his back and slammed Sasuke into the wall. “If you didn’t want me using the father story you should have told me earlier: I can’t read your fucking mind. And you should learn to respect your fucking elders.”

Sasuke squirmed under his weight; Obito could feel the tension in every single muscle in his body, could feel his skin warm with anger and chakra and he reveled in it. This was the natural order.

Then something came over him, something cold as an ice shower, that stung like needles in his throat. It was shame. He let Sasuke go.

The younger Uchiha instantly turned to face him, and Obito didn’t need to see his face to know what it looked like. The rage was such that Sasuke couldn’t speak anymore. He punched Obito again, and this time Obito let it land square on his face. Obito fell on his back and Sasuke straddled him. One hit, then another, and another, until Obito’s blindfold slid off his face and Sasuke’s knuckles bled.

His hand trembled, his breath came in short gasps, his sight was starting to get foggy. He saw the blood on his hand and on Obito’s face, on Obito’s scarred, empty sockets, and he panicked.

He struggled away from him, leapt to his feet and hurried out of the room.

Obito lay still, letting the physical pain wash over him, to make up for how cruel he had been towards Sasuke. The blood dried quickly, leaving sticky tracks on his face and neck.

After a while, he sat up feeling the floor for his blindfold. When he found it, he used it to wipe his face, cursing under his breath because he was only spreading the blood further.

He considered going out in the rain, let it clean his face for him, but he couldn’t risk being seen in such a state. Not when they were already so unwelcome.

There was nothing left to do but to wait for Sasuke: he had left his backpack in the room, so he had to come back, eventually.

It was half past midnight when he returned to the room. He found Obito sitting cross legged against a wall with his blindfold in his hands.

“You’re not asleep, are you?” Sasuke was spiteful, but collected.

“I needed your help,” Obito confessed, “I don’t like sleeping dirty.”
Without saying another word, Sasuke left the room again, this time returning only a couple of minutes later with a basin full of warm water and a clean cloth.

Quietly, he sat beside Obito and, quietly, he wet the cloth and began wiping Obito’s face. With slow, deliberate movements, he cleaned every inch of skin stained red, until it looked like skin again. He unwrapped the bandages covering the White Zetsu parts, undid the knot of Obito’s obi and opened up his kosode. He wiped his chest and shoulders, his neck and his throat. As he did so, he glanced up at him, looking for any sort of reaction.

Obito, however, was perfectly still.

There was a sort of sacredness to what Sasuke was doing, something so ancient and ritualistic that it scared Obito. This was the Uchiha that had lost everything at seven years old and had yearned all his life for family, for kinship, for this . This was the Uchiha that was trying , because he didn’t know ; he couldn’t have known about the ritual baths of the Uchiha clan, during which the younglings wiped clean the blood-stained skin of the older generations of shinobi, a rite so old even Obito couldn’t remember the meaning of it. Something about passing down strength, or about family, community. Perhaps all of it, and more. Sasuke couldn’t have known about it, because he was too young to remember when it had been his brother’s turn. He was too young to know Itachi had sworn on the blood of his kin to always put the clan first, to always defend it against threats from the outside. He had not been made to swear to protect it against threats from the inside. Obito wondered if it would have changed anything.

When Sasuke was done, he dropped the dirty cloth into the water and pushed the basin aside.

“We’re not playing father and son again,” he said, after a long moment of silence.

Obito nodded. “Okay.”

Sasuke helped Obito change into clean clothes, then, finally, the two went to sleep.

The rain had stopped, though the sky hadn’t cleared. The distant thunder roared threats of a new storm, as Obito and Sasuke discussed their course of action over breakfast.

“We don’t need to worry about the rain,” began Sasuke, unfolding a map of the Land of Wind on the table. “It won’t follow us into the desert.”
“Then we’ll have to worry about the scorching sun,” whined Obito.

Sasuke hummed in agreement. “We’ll have to head west if we wanna stay clear of Sunagakure. It’ll take longer to reach the border, but we’re not in a rush.”

“We might not be in a rush,” said Obito, “but food and water won’t last forever. We better stock up.”

Sasuke and Obito had left Konohagakure with enough money – courtesy of Rokudaime-sama – to last them a few months, but the prospect of having to spend weeks on end in the desert worried them.

“This map only marks a few villages, other than Suna,” Sasuke told Obito.

“That’s because many communities here are nomads. We’ll be lucky if we run into some of them and not into Suna shinobi.”

After finishing their meals, the two Uchiha left the inn without so much as glancing at the owner or his son.

They stopped by the village’s market to stock up on provisions, which Sasuke promptly stored in one of his scrolls as soon as he was sure nobody was watching them.

Water turned out to be the bigger, more expensive issue. Obito suspected the farther north they moved, the higher the prices would be.

“Well, we don’t really have a chance to put your theory to the test,” noted Sasuke. “Either we buy water right here, right now, or we risk not finding any water at all once we’re out of this village.”

With that, Obito spent almost all of his remaining money on water. 

Leaving behind that village meant leaving behind the coast, meant leaving behind the bad weather. A bright, clear blue sky opened up before them and the roads and sea lilies were soon replaced by hot, orange sand. Clothed in their lightest shirts and hakama – and mentally thanking Inari for having insisted on the fine cottons and linen instead of settling for hot, synthetic clothes – and with scarves, a blue one for Sasuke and a green one for Obito, wrapped around their heads, their crossing of the Desert began.

After the first couple of days, despite Obito’s initial reluctance, they eventually agreed to be tied together. Sasuke recovered a long rope from a scroll and tied it around Obito’s waist.

“This is humiliating,” complained Obito.

“I know,” Sasuke said, letting about two meters of rope hang loose, before tying the rest around his own waist. “But it’s either this, or I drag you the whole way. And it’s too hot for that.”

Obito groaned, but he knew Sasuke was right. The sun and the heat of the sand made it hard to concentrate on Sasuke’s chakra and, considering he wasn’t a sensory type to begin with, the risk of falling behind was, however low, nevertheless present.

Not knowing how long it would actually take to get to the border, they rationed the food from the very first day.

It wasn't until their second week in the desert that they encountered other people.

A caravan of six carriages, escorted by a dozen horsemen was traveling south. Sure that they had been spotted, Sasuke and Obito made no effort to hide behind the dunes or beneath the sand.

The horses were all black and brown, and their riders were clad in purple and red scarves that covered their head, protecting it from the sun. The caravan slowed down as it approached the two travelers.

One of the riders dismounted; he walked closer to them handling the horse by the reins, who followed obediently.

Unveiling his face, letting one end of his scarf swing in the wind, the man smiled. “Lost?”

Sasuke shielded his eyes from the sun and looked at the man: he had markings tattooed on his face that matched the color of his scarf and wrinkles around his eyes, though judging by his voice he must have been even older than he looked.

“I hope not,” muttered Obito.

The man eyed Obito, then the rope, then his eyes landed on Sasuke. “You’re his guide?”

Sasuke took a moment to ponder his answer, then, “His grandson.”

Obito snorted, but didn’t say anything.

“Where are you headed?” Asked the rider. 

Sasuke was a suspicious person by nature, but he sensed no ill intent coming from the man; on the contrary, he looked kind and genuine.

“Land of Stone,” answered Obito with a smile. “Are we going the right way?”

The man raised his eyebrows. “I mean, yeah. For now.” He rubbed his chin. “But if you keep going west you’ll end up in the Land of Birds.”

Obito lightly punched Sasuke’s arm. “Told ya.”

Sasuke glared at Obito with such annoyance Obito could feel it.

The man chortled. While they talked, another rider approached them. She was shorter than her companion and, unlike his, her face markings were only painted. She looked much younger, too.

“Everything okay?” She asked the man, then glanced curiously at the two foreigners.

“Yeah,” the man answered. “Why don’t we stop here for a while? These men look exhausted and the next village is two days away.”

Sasuke looked at Obito as he bowed his head politely. “Thank you, uh– How may I call you?”

“My name is Shirō,” said the man, bringing his right hand up to his chest. Then, pointing at the girl, “and this is my daughter Akane.”

“My name is Inosuke,” lied Obito with ease. He tilted his head towards Sasuke. “My grumpy grandson is called Kensuke.”

Shirō turned out to be the leader of the caravan. The carriages were arranged in a semicircle and, one after the other, four families stepped out and began setting up a dining area. There were many children, who stared at the two strangers from afar, with shy curiosity. Only a couple of them were brave enough to approach Sasuke, even fewer were brave enough to approach Obito.

“Don’t mind them,” Shirō said, “they’ve never left the desert, they’re not used to new faces.”

Obito wasn’t worried about it. Children brought back unpleasant memories, so the fewer wanted to be around him, the better. For one, he was glad to be blind; at least he didn’t have to see their faces and be reminded of the hundreds of small Uchiha he had slaughtered. Their voices, however, were too uncomfortably familiar. He tightened the scarf wrapped around his head, in a mostly futile attempt to muffle the sound.

Large, colorful rugs had been unfolded on the sand and small tables and trays had been set up. 

The caravan shared their food and tea with Obito and Sasuke, until the sun set far beyond the dunes. The cold air of the evening forced them all to wear their cloaks and jackets and to light a couple of fires.

“So,” said Shirō, sitting down between Obito and Sasuke, “where are you two from? It’s obvious you’ve never crossed the desert before.”

Obito, who had been strangely quiet the entire day, forced himself to laugh. “You got us,” he said. In his hand, a cup of that same, sweet tea they had tasted at the inn, only with a much stronger flavor. “We come from the East, from the Land of Water.”

Sasuke arched his eyebrows, but stayed silent. He was getting used to the lies, yet he was still amazed at how many tales Obito could tell.

Shirō laughed, patting Obito’s shoulder. “I’m not surprised. Tell me, what’s the Land of Water like?”

Obito lowered his head, and he was quiet for a long moment. It was a new thing for him, trying not to think about the past when he had spent all his life living in it. Trying to paint appealing images with his words, easily digestible lies so that the horrors of the monster he used to be wouldn’t haunt more people than it needed to.

“Wet,” he settled on, in the end. It was enough. Shirō found it so funny that, when he was done laughing, he repeated their little exchange to Akane, then laughed some more.

Obito drank his tea, letting the fire warm his cold limbs, hoping that the sounds of the families talking and laughing and singing would drown out the painful noise his brain was making.

That night, he dreamed of a land hidden in the mist, over which flowed rivers of blood that poured into a dark, thick, dead ocean.

Sasuke woke him up at sunrise, when everyone else was still sound asleep, except for the two women who stood guard with rifles in their hands. That detail didn’t go unnoticed by Sasuke, who had spent the previous day wondering if there were shinobi among those people. Now he had his answer.

“Wake up, old man,” he shook Obito until he groaned in response and sat up.

“I hate you.” Despite his words, he was actually glad to be awake.

Sasuke sat beside him and elbowed him in the ribs.

Slowly, one at a time, the families started waking up. The covers that had warmed them through the night were now uncomfortably hot, and the smell of cooking aroused everyone's stomach.

"Kensuke-kun," called Akane, and Sasuke almost didn't turn at the unfamiliar name. "Here," she handed him two plates of meat and rice.

"Thanks," he bowed his head. She smiled and trotted away.

While they ate, Shirō returned to them, followed by an old man, short and bald, with a big scar on his forehead.

"This man is called Sato," announced Shirō, while the other man bowed as an introduction. "He, too, is from the Land of Water."

Obito swallowed his mouthful of rice so hard he risked choking on it.

"Oh," he managed a smile, however weak. "You don't say."

Sato sat cross legged in front of Obito, while Sasuke studied him from the side.

"It's been more than a decade since I've left. Since I've fled, if we're being honest." There was a note of bitter sarcasm in his voice. He shook his head, as if disappointed in something. "Haven't seen my family since."

Obito grimaced visibly, as his heart pounded in his ears.

What a stupid idea it had been, following Sasuke along Redemption Road. What a fucking stupid idea. 

For two decades he had shaped the entire shinobi world, molded it from the shadows into a world that knew only war and pain. For two decades he had fooled himself that it was the only way to save the world, to save himself from the pit of despair he was drowning into.

Years of bloodshed, tyranny, horrors he would never be able to erase. And here, and now, on the other side of the continent, was a witness.

The skin on his right arm itched under the bandages, wooden thorns pierced through his skin and it would be so easy . Four families, so easy .

"Tell me, has it changed?" Sato asked the two Uchiha with hope in his voice. With homesickness in his voice.

Obito’s knuckles went white from clenching his fists too tight, from fighting against himself to keep the thorns from turning into spears.

Time seemed to stretch as the old man waited in silence for an answer. Sweat, dripping down Obito’s neck. Sun, it was the sun. Sweat, not blood, sweat. 

Blood, his own, pounding harder in his temples. Wood, creaking, breaking his skin. It would be so easy.

“It has.” Sasuke’s voice came, rescuing Obito from his own mind. “The Mizukage had fallen victim to a vicious man. He was the real tyrant of Kirigakure. The very same man who started the war.” Like pouring water over a fire, Sasuke’s chakra encompassed Obito’s and quenched it. “But he’s dead now.”

Obito let himself be lulled by Sasuke, and he didn’t speak until the thorns had disappeared underneath his skin again.

Sato sighed in relief. “I knew it!” He exclaimed. “I’ve known Yagura since he was a boy, I knew he never would have done such horrible things.”

“You should go back,” Shirō suggested, and Sato raised his eyebrow.

“Had enough of me already?”

Shirō laughed, shaking his head. “Of course not. It’s just… wouldn’t you like to see your family? Your home?”

Regaining his composure, Obito smiled a practiced, false, soft smile.

“You should,” he said, “the current Mizukage has truly changed Kirigakure for the better.”

When he was sure Obito didn’t pose any threat, Sasuke relaxed. He looked at Sato and found him smiling, with his eyes low and lost in memory.

“The desert isn’t going anywhere, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Shirō reassured him. “We’ll still be here when you come back.”

Obito let the conversation continue without him, his mind drifting off elsewhere until Sato left and Shirō spoke to his daughter and a few other people to arrange for their departure.

Later, when Sasuke and Obito were all but ready to resume their journey, Akane walked towards them with some sort of package wrapped up in a purple shawl.

“Some of our desert tea, to remember us by,” she explained, smiling gently. “The next village is two days away, to the northwest.” She pointed to the direction opposite to where the sun had risen. “I talked to my father, and he agrees that the best route would be to Sunagakure; from there the path to the Land of Stone is a straight line.”

Sasuke nodded and bowed his head in gratitude, reaching for the bundle.

When the caravan was ready to go, Shirō mounted his horse.

"Farewell, travelers," he said, wrapping his black scarf around his head. "May the winds be lenient."

"Farewell," Obito echoed, smiling. "And thank you for everything."

The two Uchiha sat on their sacks, waiting for the caravan to disappear behind the sand. Sasuke packed away the tea and tied the rope back up. Obito huffed out an annoyed sigh, but didn't complain.

"We're not going to Sunagakure," Sasuke said.

Snorting, Obito crossed his arms. "No shit."

On the second morning, a sand storm began to form. The horizon blurred as a dark wall of dust and sand advanced, clouding the sky.

“Shit,” Sasuke cursed under his breath, tugging on the rope to get Obito’s attention. “We need cover.”

Obito tilted his head questioningly. “Well, what do you want me to do?”
“Don’t you have mokuton?” He asked. “Can’t you make us a cabin, or something?”

Obito’s arms fell down his sides in disbelief. “Were you born stupid, or did you pick it up along the way?”

Sasuke rolled his eyes. “Can you?”

With an irritated grimace twisting his face, Obito unwrapped the bandages on his right arm. “Here’s my mokuton,” he said, stretching out his arm and opening up his palm.

Sharp, dark spikes erupted from his arm, some pointing up towards the sky, other piercing the sand, growing in length and numbers as the seconds passed. When Obito detached himself from the structure, it stood in the sand, menacingly, like a disturbing monument, like a warning.

“Fine, point taken,” muttered Sasuke. “But the storm is getting closer fast.”

“Can’t you shield us with your susano’o?” Questioned Obito, wrapping his arm back up.

“Too risky, we’re trying to lay low, remember?” Sasuke objected.

“Okay, let’s just stay here and wait for the gigantic cloud of sand to bury us, then.”

The wind blew harder, covering them in sand and debris. They couldn’t afford to wait any longer. The sky was growing darker and Obito more impatient.

Suddenly, Sasuke had an idea. Left with no other option, he bit his thumb to draw blood, then weaved several hand signs in quick succession and planted his palm right into the sand. Ink black ideograms formed a perfect circle around his hand, then spread out in straight rays on the ground. A dense mist surrounded them completely.

“What are you–”

Obito couldn’t finish his question. The next second he was surrounded on all sides, pushed up against Sasuke by something cold and… slippery.

Then the ground shook. The sand beneath their feet began to give away and the thing around them moved . Obito felt Sasuke’s hand on his chest, grabbing his shirt and pulling him upwards.

“Feet off the ground!” Sasuke shouted over the deafening wind as the storm hit Aoda.

The enormous blue snake hid his own head within his coils, his light-green eyes glowing in the dark.

“Greetings,” he blinked in salute to Sasuke, who nodded in return.

Obito, uncomfortably squished between the snake and Sasuke, felt the vibrations coming from the animal as he spoke shake his whole body. Way too close for comfort.

“So the susano’o was off-limits, but the giant snake is fine?”

Aoda tilted his large head, as though intrigued by the older Uchiha.

“Aoda is a living creature, not an armor of chakra the size of the Hokage office building.”

Obito sighed, restlessly shifting and turning and twisting to try and find a comfortable position.

“How long do you figure we’re gonna be stuck here?” He whined.

“Hard to say,” Aoda hissed, though not unkindly. “I couldn’t get a good look, but it will probably take a while.”

“Great,” Obito grunted.

The storm itself only lasted less than ten minutes, but it took much longer for the sand to settle. When it had passed, Aoda slowly opened himself up, slithering away and letting Sasuke and Obito land their feet on the ground. He then turned back and awaited Sasuke’s next command.

Stretching his back, Sasuke glanced around at the entirely new landscape. It felt incredibly disorienting.

The sun was too high in the sky to be of any help discerning which direction they should go.

Sasuke looked up at the snake. “Can you tell which way is northwest?” He asked.

Aoda blinked, then turned his head to his left, and Sasuke’s right.

“Thanks, You can leave now.”

Bowing his head to his master, Aoda disappeared in a cloud of white smoke. 

Once they were alone, Sasuke gazed at Obito; he looked pitiful, in his dusty and creased shirt, loose bandages and – Sasuke realized – his missing blindfold. He had to have lost it in the wind, or perhaps in Aoda’s coils. Obito touched his fingertips to the scars on where his eyes should have been.

“Mh,” he hummed, “pity there are no children to scare.”

Sasuke didn’t laugh. He found self deprecation lame, unworthy of someone as strong as Obito. Instead, he rummaged through his backpack, fetching the scarf from Akane’s gift tea and fashioned it into a blindfold.

“Here,” he said, offering it to Obito. “Even though you don’t need it.” There was a pause, as Obito, who had stretched out his hand to receive the scarf, hesitated. “You look fine without it.”

The storm delayed their arrival at the village by several hours, but they finally made it.

It was smaller than the village on the coast where they had spent their first night in the Land of Wind, but the inhabitants were far more used to travelers, fortunately for the two Uchiha.

Obito untied the rope binding the two of them together as soon as they stepped foot inside the village’s gates.

The landscape had changed drastically from the red desert Sasuke had gotten used to during the past weeks: dirt now replaced the sand, dirt where grass grew and where water flowed, bushes and a diverse array of plants abounded in the small town. Even the sun appeared less like an enemy and more like a distant ally.

There was only a single inn, but Sasuke and Obito managed to find a room. From what they had gathered, travelers seldom stopped by long enough to spend the night, and usually only passed by to refuel.

The two of them sat on soft, green cushions on the floor, laid on top of the same colorful rags as the ones belonging to the caravan with whom they had shared a few meals. The table in front of them was round and evidently meant for larger groups, so instead of opposite from each other, they sat side by side.

An abundant meat based meal was served, at the end of which even Obito was less cranky.

“We should buy some food here and store it away in one of your scrolls, what do you think?”

Sasuke was only half-listening, instead focusing on something that had been bothering him for a while now: while he was eating, he had noticed a couple of hooded figures looking in his direction. At first, he thought he might have imagined it, but now he was fairly sure they were staring right at them. He tapped his fingers on the table nervously, his eyes darting around, studying an escape route.

“Relax,” Obito said quietly, putting his own hand over Sasuke’s to make him stop. “Don’t give them a reason to keep staring.”

Sasuke glanced at him, frowning. “How do you do it?” He asked. “Do you even need me at all?”

Obito grinned. “I wish I didn’t.”

Though unsatisfied with the answer, Sasuke didn't feel like arguing. He peeked at their stalkers: perched over the counter, they whispered to each other, never tearing their eyes away from them. Watching them with his rinnegan, Sasuke could tell, by the flow of their chakra, that they were shinobi.

“They can’t mask their chakra signature, so they’re probably not above chūnin rank. If that.”

Obito nodded in agreement: neither of them were sensory types, meaning that if even they could easily sense them, they were not very strong opponents.

“Or it could be a trap,” murmured Sasuke, upon further reflection. “Luring us into a false sense of security.”

“You have the most powerful eyes in the entire world and I have mokuton. They’re not a threat,” Obito whispered back, his hand now squeezing Sasuke’s. “Calm down.”

By the time they had finished their meal, the two shinobi had left the inn. Nevertheless, it did not make Sasuke less anxious.

“We should leave,” he said warily.

Obito spoke to him over the rim of his sake cup. “It’s getting late, the stores are closing down and we’re almost out of food,” Obito reminded him, swallowing a sip of the beverage. “Though it’ll probably last until Sunagakure.”

“Alright,” Sasuke snapped, annoyed.

Obito set his cup on the table and stood up, stretching his back and arms. He beckoned Sasuke to do the same and, as always when they were in public, made a show of leaning on him, linking their arms together and letting Sasuke guide him to their room.

They washed up and set for the night, laying in their respective futon on opposite sides of the room.

“If we left now in a haste we’d look even more suspicious,” Obito pointed out. “We’ll buy the essentials tomorrow, first thing in the morning, and then we’ll keep going west until we lose whoever, if anyone, is following us.”
Sasuke would have rather faced the two shinobi directly to interrogate them, find out who had sent them or if they had just happened to stumble upon them. But he wasn’t an idiot: as much as it pained him to admit it, Obito was right. His plan was the safest option.

With no more words left to exchange, the older Uchiha fell asleep, while the younger kept watch the whole night.

It wasn’t until the first lights of dawn that Sasuke’s eyes failed him, shutting down along his brain.

And immediately something was shaking him. He jolted awake and, still dazed, he watched as four men, all wearing the signature beige flak vest of Suna, lifted a docile Obito off the ground and tried to do the same with him.

The next second he was on his feet, his eyes darting from one corner of the room to the next, assessing the situation: two men were carrying Obito outside, while the other two had assumed a fighting stance, facing him. Except… their legs were shaking. These men weren’t the two stalkers from the previous night. These were jōnin, yet they were afraid. Afraid of him. Suddenly all the fight Sasuke had in him died out, and he lowered his head, defeated. These men had recognized him, there was no point in fighting.

Taking advantage of his unwillingness to fight, the two men took courage.

“Uchiha Sasuke, you’re under arrest,” the one on the left exclaimed, seizing Sasuke by his arm. “We’ll take you and your companion into custody.”

Chapter Text

When Sasuke and Obito stepped foot into Suna’s prison, all eyes turned to them. Far from the cavernous dungeons of Konoha, this place was bright and ventilated. Large barred windows let the sunlight illuminate the cells, and the inmates could actually breathe.

At night, torches lit up the halls, casting dancing shadows on the walls and on the sandy floor. An ancient hearth kept the entire prison warm during the coldest hours, tended to by fire and wind jutsu specialists.

Sasuke and Obito shared a cell on the ground floor of the four story building, and had for two days. 

Surprisingly, none of the four shinobi who had brought them in had recognized Obito. Likely mistaking him for a regular old man, they hadn’t bothered to unwrap his bandages or take off his blindfold to check what was underneath. When asked what his name was, they had believed him when he answered Inosuke . Understandably, all their focus had been on Sasuke.

The guards watched him from beyond the bars of their cell door like he was a curiosity, as though he was some exotic animal they had read about in their mission scrolls, or war reports, and were both fascinated and horrified at the very sight of him.

Sasuke didn’t care. Whatever they thought he was, or did, didn’t matter. Only getting out did.

“Patience, the Kazekage is on his way.” Obito repeated this litany almost every hour, like clockwork.

Sasuke rolled his eyes. Being stuck in a cell, having to listen to Obito’s unsolicited comments, reminded him of the dungeons in Konohagakure.

“Stop saying that,” Sasuke hissed, “And I am being patient.”

In all fairness, he had only been pacing back and forth for less than twenty minutes. When he had flattened all the sand beneath his feet, he sighed and sat down in a corner, as far away from Obito as he could manage.

Obito, for his part, felt strangely calm. Only a few days earlier he had almost lost control, almost committed one more unforgivable crime, a crime not even Kakashi could have absolved him from. But Sasuke had saved him; he had reached down into the depths of Obito’s darkness and rescued him. It was the third time he had experienced something like this: first it had been Naruto, with his bottomless capacity for forgiveness; then it had been Kakashi, with his unwavering devotion to the memory of Uchiha Obito, the thirteen year old hero of Konoha who died at the Kannabi Bridge; finally, Sasuke. He could have stopped Obito in a myriad of ways, but he had chosen the gentle way, the intimate way, though Obito couldn’t guess why. Perhaps he was overthinking it, perhaps it had simply been the easiest way to save the caravan without arousing suspicion or, worse, risking harming anyone. 

Still, Obito had felt something else, something more. Naruto hadn’t just been trying to save everyone from Obito, he had been trying to save Obito, too. Kakashi wasn’t just devoted to who Obito used to be, but to who Obito was now, as well. What had Sasuke been trying to do? What did it mean?

Unable to come up with an answer, he set the thought aside, focusing instead on self control and, ironically, on being patient.

Two more days passed before the Kazekage returned to the village, after a diplomatic trip to Iwagakure. Both Sasuke and Obito had been immediately summoned to his office.

Sasuke’s arm was tied behind his back with a strap linked to a collar he was made to wear, which doubled as a chakra suppressor.

The Kazekage’s office was fairly similar to the Hokage’s, save for the style of the furniture and the several trinkets and family heirlooms scattered around the room.

At the desk, sitting up straight and with his arms crossed, the red haired leader of the Hidden Sand stared at the two prisoners who stood before him.

“Welcome to Sunagakure,” Gaara’s voice was hoarse, he sounded tired. “Please, take a seat.”

The guards who had brought them there pushed them towards the two chairs in front of the Kazekage’s desk, forcing them to sit down. Gaara glared at his two shinobi with his ice cold stare.

“Leave,” he ordered. Without having to be told twice, the two guards exited the door hurriedly, sliding the door shut behind them. Gaara’s eyes softened ever so slightly, as they landed back on Sasuke. “I apologize for their rough manners.”

Neither Uchiha responded. Sasuke returned Gaara’s gaze, uncertain about what was going to happen.

Obito, who couldn’t participate in their staring contest, coughed a little.

“I feel left out,” he announced.

Gaara turned his attention to him, and Sasuke saw his face change from mild and languid to a mask of sourness.

“Uchiha Obito,” said Gaara, coldly. “How come my shinobi didn’t put you in shackles?”

Obito considered a cheeky remark, but opted for the serious answer. “They were too preoccupied with him to notice the war criminal he was traveling with.”

Gaara narrowed his eyes. “And why are you traveling with him?” A pause, then, “Why are you two traveling at all? Aren’t you supposed to be in Konoha?”

In Sasuke’s peripheral, Obito shifted in his seat. It had been a little over a month since they had left Konohagakure; could Kakashi have forgotten to notify the other Kage about his decision to let them roam free? Obito shook his head, thinking it impossible that Kakashi, of all people, could forget something so important.

“You know why,” Sasuke answered, catching Obito by surprise. “And I bet you were the first Kage Kakashi spoke to.”

Gaara grinned almost imperceptibly. “I was,” Gaara confirmed.

Obito tilted his head, intrigued. “Why did you ask that question, then?”

“I was curious,” Gaara admitted. “I wanted to see if you would lie.”

Sasuke frowned; Gaara had always been hard to read, because he could never guess his motives. He was the type of person to voice his wants out loud, plain and simple, if he felt like it; his blank, emotionless face offering no glimpse into his mind. Now was no different. He wondered what, if anything, Gaara was after, or if curiosity was all there was.

“My first question stands,” said Gaara, “why are the two of you traveling together?”

Sasuke glanced at Obito, who looked lost in thought, then back at Gaara.

Shrugging, he said, “I just wanted to see the world, have a new perspective on things. I have no idea why he decided to come with me.”

Obito was stunned at Sasuke’s sincerity. Then again, he was free now, he didn’t have to hide. Feeling Gaara’s gaze on him, he lowered his head.

He thought about Kakashi and the risk he had taken with him, about how hard it had to be for him to be both the new Hokage and the man who forgave Uchiha Obito. Staying in the village had never been an option, even if Kakashi had fully pardoned him like he did Sasuke. He had been a fool to ever even think otherwise. 

When Sasuke had announced his decision to leave, Obito had found it natural to follow him. Impulsive, maybe, instinctual; he hadn’t questioned it. And he wasn’t going to question it now.

“Didn’t have anything better to do,” he shrugged.

Gaara sighed, pursing his lips together. He brought his hands to his chin, pressing his fingertips together.

“The other Kage were not happy about Kakashi’s decision. They felt it was rash, dangerous and–” He hesitated, glancing at Obito, then locking eyes with Sasuke. “Selfish.”

There was a long, tense silence. Then Obito scoffed.

Sasuke turned to look at him, half annoyed.

“Kakashi is many things, but selfish isn’t one of them,” Obito spat, scorn evident in his voice.

“I know,” said Gaara, “But the other Kage don’t know him as well as I do. Releasing the two most dangerous prisoners Konoha had been assigned the custody of as his first act as Hokage…” He shook his head and crossed his arms. “It’s not a good look.”
Obito laughed. “Are you worried about his reputation?”

“Of course I am.” Gaara’s voice was bone chilling. He was dead serious. “Kakashi is a friend. But most importantly, Konoha and Suna are allies; we rely on each other more than any other village. So when trouble finds Konoha…”

“It finds Suna too,” Sasuke finished. Gaara nodded.

“Your actions won’t affect only the Hokage’s reputation. There’s going to be repercussions for many more people than you think.”

“You’re assuming we’re going to get in trouble,” Obito winced, displeased.

As he was about to rebuke that they did, in fact, get arrested, Sasuke frowned. He peered up at Gaara.

“Why did we get arrested?”

Sasuke had been pardoned, and Obito had been granted freedom, provided he stayed out of Konohagakure. Was the Hokage’s decision not valid outside the Land of Fire? Sasuke doubted that was the case: Kakashi would have warned them.

Gaara stood up from his chair and started pacing around the office.

“The Kage aren’t the only people you should worry about,” his voice was flat, detached, but the expression of uncertainty on his face betrayed his worry. “I have issued an arrest warrant for you, in case you entered the territories under my jurisdiction, so that I might have the chance to warn you.”

Obito instinctively turned his head towards Sasuke, who, also instinctively, turned his head towards him.

“Warn us?”

Gaara looked troubled as he nodded. “I can guarantee your safety within the Land of Wind, but you’d better watch your back when you cross the border.” 

He stopped by the window with his hands against his back, and looked down at his village. It was almost midday, and the sun was high and bright in the clear blue sky. The peaceful view didn’t seem to calm him down.

“There’s something else you probably don’t know, as I doubt Kakashi has told you.” Gaara looked back at the two Uchiha. “It’s only been a couple of months since the war, yet I have reason to believe that a new group of Kaguya worshippers has arisen.”

Obito cackled, and Sasuke glared at him.

“Sorry,” he shook his head, “I don’t know where that came from. You said Kaguya worshippers?”

“Hm,” said Gaara. “Well, it’s not entirely correct, as the group is composed of more than just Kaguya worshippers, but that’s what we’re calling it, for now. Sympathizers include a number of shinobi who were caught in the Infinite Tsukuyomi and, unbelievably, didn’t want it to end.”

Obito snickered, and this time he meant it. “Unbelievably? I can believe it very easily.”

Sasuke eyed him, alarmed; it surprised him, this sudden panic that seized him and made it difficult to think clearly. The collar felt even more restricting, the leather scratching at his skin, leaving red marks on his neck. He had to take a few deep breaths to calm himself down, to reassure himself that Obito wasn’t a threat, that he wasn’t going to try and kill the world again. Logically, he couldn’t even if he wanted to: he didn’t have a rinnegan, he didn’t have the nine bijū and, most importantly, Naruto was now strong enough to take him down without breaking a sweat. Even more logically, Sasuke knew that Obito would never try again; he didn’t believe in the Infinite Tsukuyomi anymore, having seen the truth behind Madara’s lies, but even more than that, Obito loved Kakashi too much. 

Obito was the living proof of Kakashi’s capacity for love: his long lost comrade, returned from the grave to wage a war against the world, betraying everything he was supposed to stand for; even then, at the end of the world and beyond it, Kakashi had forgiven him. It was a kind of devotion, the kind that had made Kakashi visit Obito’s grave, religiously, every single day for twenty years, the kind that had made Obito unwilling to kill Kakashi, despite the many occasions he had had, and the serious threat the Copy Ninja had posed to his plans. That same devotion now cloaked Obito in shame. He never talked about it, but Sasuke had no doubts about it: Obito would never willingly do anything to jeopardize Kakashi, nor to disappoint him. He had put his trust in Obito, setting him free, and Obito was not going to betray it.

Gaara lowered his head, weighing his words. “I also have a number of deserters still unaccounted for. The reason I’m disclosing this information with you is that I believe they will try to contact you, now that everyone knows you’re free.”

Sasuke scoffed. “Contact us for what? Start another war? We were pretty clear about where we stood.” He eyed Obito, then, “For the most part.”

“I can’t be sure, our intel is still limited. I just wanted you to be wary. And if you do run into this group, I ask that you alert me or Kakashi, if you can.”

Obito sighed, standing up, directly in front of Gaara. Sasuke sensed a shift in his chakra, almost imperceptible, so much so that for a second Sasuke thought he had imagined it. But he hadn’t, something had changed, though he didn’t feel any ill intent.

“Are we free to go, now?” Obito asked, towering over the short Kazekage.

Gaara was perfectly still, glaring daggers at Obito.

It was only in that moment that Sasuke realized that Gaara’s aversion to Obito ran deeper than mere resentment for the war; he had not been there, but he had heard the story of Gaara’s death at the hands of the Akatsuki, which Obito led. Obito had indirectly killed Gaara, and they now stood in the same room, only inches away from each other.

Sasuke understood, then, that the shift in Obito’s chakra had been caused by his attempt to appear threatening. His attempt to mask his guilt.

“Yes,” answered Gaara bitterly. “I hope our conversation was not a waste of time.”

Sasuke wondered how could Gaara stand to be so collected, so calm in the face of the man who had ordered – and obtained – his death. So he asked.

“Why are you setting him free?”

Both of them turned to him. Obito’s lips were pressed together in a thin line. He looked alarmed, but waited for Gaara to answer. Hesitant to speak, fearful to say the thing that would land him in jail for the rest of his days in a foreign land.

Gaara crossed his arms. “Out of respect for the Hokage.” 

Had it been any other Kage, Sasuke would have assumed the real reason would be fear of Kakashi, but he was confident that Gaara’s words were truthful. It seemed that Gaara didn’t just consider Kakashi a friend, but a worthy leader as well.

Sasuke glanced at Obito, whose face seemed to soften. He lowered his head, seemingly embarrassed; he looked like a child.

“Have you,” he began, clearing his voice. “Have you heard from him?”

Gaara’s eyes narrowed, staring up at Obito with annoyance. “If I did, I couldn’t tell you.”

The older Uchiha nodded, not bothering to hide his disappointment. “Fair.”

They were escorted out of Sunagakure with the promise that the arrest warrant had been lifted and with the guarantee of safe passage through the Land of Wind. It would be another two weeks till the border with the Land of Stone, with good weather.

But with Suna and the desert behind them, it finally started to feel like winter was around the corner. November quickly made way for December, rain fell heavy and cold, forcing the two travelers to stop more frequently than they had anticipated.

They changed their sandals for leather boots and their fine haori for heavier, warmer cloaks. 

The road to the border was trafficked: caravans of travelers, merchants and even tourists made up the neverending flow of human activity, inns and taverns were easy to come by, and nobody looked at the two Uchiha twice. They blended well with the civilians, keeping mostly to themselves and each other, but learning to exchange a few words with their fellow travelers, every now and then.

Their appearance, too, had changed since they left Konohagakure: Sasuke’s hair was well beyond shoulder length, and he tied it in a low ponytail with a leather strap, letting loose only enough hair on the front to curtain his rinnegan eye; Obito, on the other hand, began to regrow dark roots, giving his hair a two-toned look. Sasuke was taller, though he walked hunched over, head low, taking long, quiet strides.

Obito wouldn’t have minded a slower pace, but he followed Sasuke without complaining. They moved together, never straying too far away from each other, so as to not lose each other in the crowd.

Despite the heavy rain, they managed to reach the border with a delay of only two days.

“I don’t understand the hurry,” mused Obito, while he helped Sasuke set up camp for the night. They had run out of money and couldn’t afford an inn, so they decided to spend the night in a small clearing among the shrubs a few hundred meters away from the main road. “You don’t have anywhere to be, do you?”

Sasuke looked up at him from the small fire he had just lit up.  He frowned, confused. Only now, and only because Obito had pointed it out, Sasuke realized how he had been rushing from one place to the next, worried about reaching villages and borders within a specified number of days or weeks, fed up when circumstances forced them to slow down or stop entirely.

Suddenly, he remembered Naruto’s words, when he had left the village. Obito had surpassed him, leaving him to bid Naruto farewell. Come back stronger, he had said. Come back soon .

He missed Naruto more than he would have liked to admit.

Every part of him missed Naruto, his chest most of all. Something inside of him pulled him back to Konoha, to Naruto. He had lived beside rage and vengeance for most of his life, blinded by the lies of his brother, of his village, of Obito; then, convinced that there could be no way other than his brother’s way, he had set out to shoulder the weight of the entire world’s hatred. Until Naruto had beaten him. Every punch, every kick, elbow, knee; every time Naruto’s skin collided with his, Sasuke’s heart shook. His ribs bent and broke, his legs trembled and he was overwhelmed with emotions he wasn’t even aware he could feel, as his blood poured out of his stump and mixed with Naurto’s. Love.

Inescapable, even so far away, a love that urged him to be done with everything as soon as possible and to go back, to go home.

Unfortunately, that would have defeated the purpose of his journey. He had set out to atone for his crimes and to see the world with new eyes, but all he had done so far had been moving silently between villages with the sole purpose of leaving them. Perhaps it was time to slow down.

“You’re right,” he admitted, quietly. His hand hovered over the inside pocket of his cloak, where he kept his hitai-ate. No more slacking off , he thought. “Since we’ve got no money left, we’ll look for work at the next village.”

Obito made a surprised sound, though not a displeased one. “And if we don’t find it?”

Sasuke sighed. “Then we’ll move to the next village and look there.”

Obito snickered, shaking his head. “I doubt there’s many job offers for a blind man and a one-armed teenager.” He tilted his head towards Sasuke and offered him a kind smile. “But I agree we should at least try. I’d rather not beg.”

Sasuke sounded like he was about to say something and then didn’t, once, twice. Obito gave him time to clear his head.

“And I think we should train,” he said, after a while, surprising Obito again. “I have to learn how to properly fight with one arm and you– well, you need to learn self control.”

Obito thought of the massacre Sasuke avoided by suppressing his chakra. He often wondered how he had done it, but he didn’t dare ask. He was only grateful that Sasuke had that ability.

“Ouch,” he joked, though no jest reached his voice. "But you're right," he conceded.

Other than his lack of discipline, Obito was well aware of another fact: all his life, he had relied on eye prowess and his kamui, which had made him essentially invincible. Learning to fight without it now was essential.

He laid on the mat he had set near the fire, as Sasuke cooked their dinner.

“Why in the Land of Stone, though? Wouldn’t it be better to stay here, where we know we won’t get arrested?” Asked Obito, his hands crossed behind his head.

Sasuke stirred the stew in the small, black pot he had brought all the way from Konohagakure, from his family home. He had found it dusty and dismissed, but otherwise precisely the same as he had left it.

“Because people know us here. Terrorizing the population is not the goal of our journey.”

Obito hummed, understanding, then chuckled. “Bold words coming from a terrorist.”

Sasuke rolled his eyes and proceeded to ignore him until the stew was done.

True to its name, the Land of Stone was a flat, dry and open land of rocky terrain. The hills in the distance were the only visible ounces of green in the otherwise gray landscape.

The main road where merchants and visitors traveled was muddy because of the rain, so caravans moved slowly and made frequent stops to let the horses rest.

Sasuke and Obito, who had no horses, soon reached the gates of what looked to be a rather large town: the road led directly inside the gates, where stalls and tents were stationed to check on newcomers and welcome them; beyond the gates, the road continued straight, and on both sides stores, restaurants, markets, shops and other businesses were open and crowded. The town was bustling with activity; some carriages imported goods from the Land of Wind, others were stocking up to export the Land of Stone’s own, construction workers built new stores or worked on expanding the already existing ones, farmers shouted from their station at the market to catch the attention of as many buyers as they could. There was a continuous and abundant flow of people of all kinds, a sight unlike any that could be seen in the secluded Hidden Villages.

“I don’t sense anybody staring at us,” commented Obito. He laid a hand on Sasuke’s shoulder, letting their sides touch as they walked together.

“Because nobody is,” said Sasuke, annoyed at the proximity. “Is this necessary?”

Obito tilted his head towards him and offered him a sly smile. “Of course,” he answered, “if we don’t want to terrorize the population.”

Grunting and reluctantly, Sasuke walked with his relative attached at the hip, observing the organized chaos of the busy streets, trying to identify his best chance at getting a job. Something else caught his attention, distracting him from his objective.

In what seemed to be the exact center of town stood a tall, wide, ancient looking building towering over a modest square, with a dark, curved roof and bright red columns bordering a rather large front porch. The monumental nature of the building was reflected in the intricately decorated architecture. A great stone torii marked the entrance of what Sasuke immediately recognized as a shrine.

“Why did you stop?” Asked Obito curiously.

“There’s a shrine,” he replied, stepping into the sacred area.

Obito didn’t respond. It had been decades since he last set foot into a temple. As a child, he had been superstitious, though he had never considered himself to be truly religious. The temple at the Uchiha compound had always intimidated him – just another reminder of how little he had in common with his clan – and the Uchiha had their own personal gods anyway.

Now that Obito had touched divinity with his bare hands, had held it within his own body and had paid the price for it, he had no interest in it any longer. 

“You wanna go in?” He asked, half hoping that Sasuke would scoff at him and walk away.

Instead, the young Uchiha did the exact opposite.

As they approached the entrance, Sasuke eyed a smaller shrine on the side, surrounded by stone lanterns; on the steps that led inside of it were several offerings.

He had half a mind to knock on the doorframe, to make their presence known, but as he glimpsed inside the main hall he could see that it was quite full: some worshippers, a few priests, and many visitors.

The shrine itself was rich in ornaments, such as silver lanterns and ceramic vases. The doorways were painted gold and an imposing stone sculpture dominated the hall. It was likely the enshrined deity, though it resembled an Otsutsuki a little too much for Sasuke’s taste.

“A priest is approaching,” Sasuke warned Obito, as he helped the older Uchiha sit on the hardwood floor, near the statue. “I’ll go talk to him. You stay here.”

“Where else could I go?” Whined Obito. 

Though he would have rather stopped somewhere else, he appreciated the rest nonetheless. He didn’t understand why Sasuke had brought him there and he hoped to leave soon.

He adjusted his blindfold and sighed, tapping his fingers on his knees, hating the wait.

He tried to listen as hard as he could, searching for Sasuke’s voice, but there were too many people for that. Resigned, he rested his head on his hands and his elbows on his knees.

Several minutes later, Sasuke was still nowhere near Obito. Instead heavy, unfamiliar footsteps approached him.

“May I help you?” A female voice reached his ears, and he turned towards it.

Putting on his practiced polite smile, he shook his head. “Thank you, but I’m just waiting for my friend to come back so we can leave.”

It felt strange to refer to Sasuke as a friend, but he had referred to him as a son before; stranger things did happen.

“Have you left an offering at our shrine?” The woman asked, then, without letting him answer, “Have you asked for a favor?”

Obito couldn’t tell her age from her voice, but she was definitely past her youth.

“No and no,” he answered, still smiling, though her questions had irritated him a little. “I wouldn’t even know what to ask for.”

The lady sat down beside him, and from the shifting of her clothes, Obito assumed she had bowed to the statue.

“Then you should ask for good luck!”

Obito tried his hardest not to be impolite and simply shrugged. “I consider myself very lucky already, but thanks.”

He wasn’t lying: he had survived the unthinkable more times than anyone had any right to, including the war he himself had started and had even been forgiven for. At least by the person who mattered the most to him.

Ah, he thought, here we go. He had been trying not to think about Kakashi too much, yet it was an impossible thing, knowing that every breath he took, he took because of him. He owed Kakashi his life, his freedom, everything he had. He had given Kakashi his eyes, to try and make amends, but he would have gladly given much more.

His love for Kakashi was like a storm that raged inside him at every moment, always on the brink of pouring out of him, oceanic, in unstoppable waves. He only knew how to conceal it because he had done it all his life. Even when his feelings for Kakashi had been different, they had been crippling. Blinded by them, he had let the only man in the world who could counter his kamui live and, eventually, defeat him. In hindsight, he was glad he had loved him so.

“Then you could ask to bring good luck to someone else, someone you care about,” insisted the woman, clearly just trying to get some coin out of him.

Unable to see, he couldn’t say for certain that the shrine was just a tourist trap and not an actual place of worship, but he had heard very few people actually pray. Most everyone else was touring the temple grounds, listening to their miko guides.

Still, it wasn’t gonna hurt. Someone he cared about.

“Alright, here,” he searched his cloak’s pocket for a coin and let it fall into the woman’s cupped hands. He bowed twice to the statue. He didn’t ask for a favor, or for good luck, he didn’t pray, he didn’t even wonder what deity he was bowing to. All his mind summoned was the image of Kakashi, the way he remembered him: bruised and battered, one eye black, the other red, panting and outmatched in every way, mere breaths away from death, yet standing his ground, fighting still, even in the face of complete annihilation. His strong, brave, unrelenting Kakashi.

He remembered when Kakashi died, after Pain’s attack. He had been following Nagato’s every move from afar, not to risk giving himself away at such a crucial time. He had watched Kakashi fight the Asura and Deva paths ferociously. He had been amazed at his ability to survive such a terrifying opponent when even the legendary nin Jiraiya couldn’t. Then, the very next second, Kakashi was dead. Obito was paralyzed. His orange mask suffocated him and his breath came in short, frantic gasps.

Kakashi was dead. Obito’s eye darted from one place to another, trying to understand, to see what had killed him, because he was sure he was still breathing when the Deva path had left. And the Asura path hadn’t even aimed at him! And then he understood: Pain didn’t kill Kakashi, Kakashi himself did. He had exhausted his chakra reserves to the very last drop, to save a child , a comrade .

Obito had raged, inside his kamui dimension, where the missile Kakashi had killed himself to absorb lay unexploded. Great, spiky, wooden monoliths still stood, somewhere, in the deepest recesses of the dimension, evidence of Obito’s shattered heart.

Not even a full day later, he learned that Nagato had let himself be talked into giving the world another chance – by another fucking child! – and he had brought every Konoha villager back to life. He couldn’t even be relieved that Kakashi was alive again, because all he could think about was that he was an impostor: the Kakashi who had died was an impostor, because he wasn’t meant to die, but the cruel world had forced him to make an impossible choice; and the Kakashi who had been resurrected was also an impostor, because the people of Konohagakure weren’t the meant recipients of the rinne tensei.

Obito knew, then, that his plans for the Infinite Tsukuyomi needed to be drastically accelerated, because the world was growing more rotten, incomprehensible and uncontrollable by the second.

It wasn’t until he, already defeated, saw Kakashi on top of him, kunai in his hand and eyes wild, sizzling with killing intent, ready to stop him at all costs, even that of his own heart, that Obito truly understood. 

How low he had fallen, how delusional his aspiration, how many atrocities he had committed in his madness. Yet despite all of that, Kakashi had still found enough love in him to forgive Obito.

His mind drifted to the morning of his departure from Konoha, when he had walked with Kakashi to the cemetery. Never leaving each other’s side, they had talked to Rin, to Minato and Kushina, to Asuma. Obito spent most of the time apologizing, with his head low, because he didn’t know what else to do, what else to say. Kakashi was silent, with a hand firmly gripping Obito’s shoulder, grounding him. He wondered if his own eyes cried in Kakashi’s sockets.

Tearing himself away from Rin’s grave was an arduous task, one he couldn’t have done alone. Without Kakashi, he would have let himself die by her tombstone.

“I’ll be back,” he promised, “and, hopefully, I’ll be more deserving.”

Kakashi held his hand, making a promise of his own. “We’ll be waiting for you.”

He bowed again to the statue and listened to the happy noises coming out of the woman as she stood back up.

“You’re a good man,” she said, then trotted away. Obito shook his head, laughing softly, incredulous at how easily he had let her rob him of what little money he had left.

A moment later, someone tapped on his shoulder. He immediately recognized the way Sasuke tapped twice, dragged his fingers in a lazy tug and tapped a third time.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Obito asked, having the decency to keep his voice low, at least.

“Language,” Sasuke scolded him, helping him up. “How do you feel about temples?”

Obito winced. “Not very strongly.”

“Too bad,” Sasuke shrugged, “‘cause we’re gonna live in one for a while.”

“What?!” Obito shrieked, making several heads turn.

Sasuke dragged him outside, stopping by the smaller shrine on the side. 

“The Land of Stone is governed by the Priesthood. They control everything, so I figured it’d be quicker to just ask them for a job.”

Obito huffed an annoyed sigh. “Why a temple, though? Couldn’t you have asked for something else?”
“Nothing else will give us food and shelter as payment for our work, and if we plan to stay here for longer than a night, that’s exactly what we need.” Sasuke’s tone was rough and didn’t allow for a rebuke.

Obito raised his hands in defeat. 

Sasuke considered him for a moment, then, after some thought, “What do you have against temples?”

“Nothing,” muttered Obito, crossing his arms. Then, pouting like a child, “I just think they’re pointless. And people who pray to whatever god they stumble upon are stupid.”

Sasuke raised an eyebrow, smirking. “Didn’t you just do precisely that?”

Obito, who sensed the mocking smile in his voice, waved his hands in a vague gesture. “It was to get rid of that lady. Anyway,” he said, changing topic, “are we gonna stay at this shrine?”

Before answering, and catching Obito by surprise, Sasuke linked his arm with Obito’s and led him out of the sacred area.

“No,” he said, as he walked at a steady pace. “There’s another shrine north of this town, in the open country. Most of the staff works in the city, so the shrine in question is in disrepair.”

Obito made a displeased sound. “I don’t like where this is going.”

“We’ll do some maintenance work and whatever else the priests might need. In the meantime, we’ll each have a room and three meals a day.”

Obito dragged his feet behind Sasuke, already looking forward to the end of their stay in the Land of Stone.

“Might I remind you that I’m blind and you have one arm? How are we supposed to do maintenance?” Obito whined, though it had no effect on Sasuke.

“Teamwork,” he simply said. “Enough complaints. If we move now we might reach the shrine in time for lunch.”

Chapter Text

The countryside was as flat as it had looked from the city, monotonous and dusty. Dust was everywhere: in the air, on the green-gray leaves of the withered shrubs, on the hard surface of the earth. The wind carried the red sand of the desert all the way to that sad landscape, which looked and felt more desolate than the desert itself ever had.

Easing over sporadic rocky hills and passing by solitary trees, the two Uchiha reached the shrine.

It was bigger than Sasuke had expected from the priest’s description, and in worse shape. The entire temple was made up of three separate buildings, of which only the central one looked habitable. It was worn and aged, but there didn’t seem to be any significant damage to the structure. The building on the left side was low and long, the paint peeled off the door frames and most of the paper walls seemed to be torn. The other building, on the right, was the smallest of the three, as well as the worst looking one: the foundations had begun to sink, which had caused severe structural damage to the carrying columns, and had made the roof collapse.

“Let me guess,” said Obito, his voice ringing with sarcasm. “It’s just a little dusty.”

Sasuke sighed. “No.”

Several torii marked the entrance to the sacred grounds. They quietly walked up the stone stairs that led to the central building.

With his work permit at hand, Sasuke left his boots by the door and stepped inside the main hall. The interior perfectly reflected the exterior, though it didn’t appear as abandoned as the two other buildings. People lived in this shrine, and they kept it warm and clean.

At its center was a stone statue – different from the one at the city temple, though it looked older – and, beyond it, two closed doors and, between them, a fireplace.

Obito hesitated on the doorway, but then, lured in by the heat, he followed Sasuke inside.

The two Uchiha approached the fireplace, letting their bags fall to the floor, letting the warmth soothe their tired limbs.

Moments later, one of the doors slid open and a small man, who looked to be in his seventies, jumped at the sight of the two strangers.

“Apologies,” said Sasuke, bowing. “We didn’t mean to startle you.”

Obito simply waved a hand in the direction of the man.

“W-who are you?” Asked the old man in a shrill voice. His face was a cacophony of wrinkles and moles. Sasuke thought he must have had a tough life.

“My name is Kensuke,” he said, repeating the lie Obito had told the travelers from the desert, “and this is my grandfather Inosuke.”

Obito wondered how much longer that lie would stand, now that his hair was growing back dark as it used to be. Judging from the old man’s lack of further questioning, the lie could stand for a while longer.

“I talked to the High Priest at the city temple,” Sasuke told the man, showing him his permit.

The old man scavenged through his pockets and produced a pair of round glasses. His eyes skimmed through the lines and, when he was satisfied, he took off his glasses and folded the piece of paper, pocketing them both.

“Mh,” he said, eyeing the two of them, checking them out from head to toe. Then, he shook his head. “Figures,” he said, “I made a request for repair and renovations months ago! Months! And who do they send? Cripples!”

The man waved his hands frantically in the air, complaining and uttering profanities. The small commotion attracted into the main hall two young girls, dressed exactly the same way: a white kosode and a pair of red hakama. One of them, the shortest one, had a red ribbon in her hair, whereas the other girl had her hair tied up in two ponytails, both with white ribbons.

“Fukuda-sama! What’s going on?”

As the two girls barged into the hall and their eyes landed on the two strangers, they both gasped. They both looked astonished, and they looked to the old man for answers.

When he had calmed down, he rested his hands on his hips and addressed the two girls.

“These are the construction workers the High Priest sent us,” he explained, with a mocking emphasis on construction workers .

When it dawned on the girls that their master’s slurs had been directed at the two men, they both gave them a soft, apologetic smile.

“We’re very sorry for the poor welcome,” said the short one, bowing. “My name is Miwa.”

The other girl bowed as well. “And I’m Kaori.”

Sasuke introduced himself and Obito to the girls. Obito wondered if other people lived at the shrine, other than two clearly very young girls and an old man.

“We’ve been told we could live here, while we worked on the… uh… renovations,” he said, compelling his face to smile.

Sasuke observed Miwa as she nodded, then frowned, then widened her eyes and coughed to clear her throat.

“Yes!” She yelled. “We have plenty of space!”

“Okay,” Obito said, covering his ears, “I’m blind, not deaf.”

Mortified, the girl bowed lowly, then realized Obito couldn’t see it, and straightened back up, hands over her mouth.

“I’m so sorry, ojī-san," she whispered. Sasuke smirked and that ; Obito could almost see .

It took a great deal of reassurances and insistence on Sasuke’s part, but eventually Fukuda relented and was convinced to let them stay and work at the shrine.

Lunch was awkwardly silent, but thankfully quick. After eating, Miwa and Kaori showed the newcomers to the rooms they would be sleeping in.

“We’ll clean and set them right away, we just weren’t expecting visitors,” Kaori apologized, swiftly disappearing into what looked like a broom closet to fetch cleaning supplies.

The two square rooms were adjacent, separated by a paper wall decorated with black ink paintings of misty mountains and cherry blossoms. They were small, even for one person, and Sasuke and Obito were both glad they didn’t have to share.

In the afternoon, while Sasuke went to check out the extent of the damage to the side buildings, Obito sat outside the main shrine’s porch, enjoying the rare sun with his bare feet on the warm stone.

He heard Fukuda’s heavy stomps down the stairs as he left the shrine to go somewhere he hadn’t bothered telling them.

Only a few moments later, he heard Miwa approach him.

“Would you like some tea?” She asked politely. Obito sniffed the air and realized she had already made it.

“Sure,” he smiled. Miwa set the wooden tray she was carrying on the porch floor between them, then filled up two cups and offered one to Obito.

Obito took a cautious sip; it was more herbal than flowery, and it lacked the flavor of the desert tea. Still, at least it was warm.

“It’s strange having visitors,” said Miwa, sipping loudly on her tea. “Up here it’s just us three. It has been for a long time.”

Obito hummed. “How old are you?”

“Thirteen,” she answered, “and Kaori-chan is fifteen.”

“And your parents are okay with you two being here alone with the old man?”

Miwa was quiet for a long moment, then she sighed. “I’m an orphan. And Kaori-chan is better off without her parents.”

The earnest answer and grave tone of the young girl stunned Obito. What shocked him the most was hearing someone mention something so intimate and private to a stranger, with no hesitation. Though he sympathized with her: he had been an orphan too.

At one point, he realized, he must have stopped considering himself an orphan. He wondered when it happened; before, during or after the Third War? Or perhaps after Rin’s death, he couldn’t say. Yet at some point his parentless childhood had become the least significant aspect of his identity. He had never been an avenger, like Sasuke, and family had never meant much to him. He had been a revolutionary, of the worst kind.

“Does the old man treat you well?” He asked, inexplicably interested in the well-being of those two children.

Miwa laughed softly, and that was a good enough answer for Obito, though she also vocalized one. “Fukuda-sama is like a grandfather to us. He took us in when we were very little, and he has always taken care of us. Now that he’s getting old, we’re trying our best to return the favor.”

Obito nodded slowly, the memory of his grandmother cooking for him forcing its way into his mind.

“Are you really gonna repair the shrine?” Miwa asked, after a while, fond disbelief in her voice.

Obito smiled. Despite all the complaining he made Sasuke endure, he didn’t for a second lack the confidence that they could do it. He just really didn’t want to.

“We are,” he said, “just have a little faith.”

Miwa’s laughter grew louder. “Ojī-san, faith is all I have!”

By the time Sasuke returned to the main shrine, the tea had gone cold.

“I don’t think there’s any point trying to save the small shrine. We’d do better to demolish it completely,” he said, joining Obito and Miwa on the porch.

The girl lowered her gaze with a sad expression. “Fukuda-sama won’t be happy about that.”

“What’s that shrine to your master?” Asked Sasuke, and Obito had to admit that he, too, was curious.

“Nothing, it’s just…” She shrugged. “He’s been looking after this place for a very long time, since before we were born. I believe seeing it in such a poor state just makes him really sad.”

Obito rested his back on one of the wooden columns holding up the porch. “Is that why he’s such a joy to be around?”

Miwa chuckled. “You’ll have to forgive him, we just don’t see other people very often.”

Sasuke eyed the small, decrepit building on the right side of the temple. “Well, it can’t be helped. There’s not much we or anyone can do to save it.”

A thought crept up in Obito’s mind, though he lacked the courage to voice it: maybe mokuton can . He didn’t presume to be able to fix a whole building with his botched mokuton, not when the only thing he had ever used it for was to kill. But they were also here to train, weren’t they?

He and Sasuke hadn’t had the chance to discuss it yet, but they were going to have to make arrangements for it. He made a mental note to talk to Sasuke about that, after dinner, when everyone else had gone to bed.

In the meantime, he quietly listened to Sasuke list all the materials they would need. When he was done, Miwa went back inside to help Kaori with the cleaning.

“How do you know all these things?” Obito asked, once they were alone. “Orochimaru made you play little carpenter for his hideouts?”

Sasuke grimaced at the mention of the snake. He sat beside Obito, his head low, and glad Obito couldn’t see the expression on his face. Even he wouldn’t have been able to explain or describe it. 

“It was Kakashi who taught me,” he whispered, fidgeting with the hem of his blue shirt.

Obito was ghostly quiet for a long moment, as though he had been petrified.

“Oh,” he said after a while. 

“Many of our first missions as Team Seven were about gardening, finding lost items, doing some repair work. You know, the usual genin stuff,” Sasuke explained. “Kakashi mostly spent the whole time reading and let us do the work, but he did teach us some things.”

He had never considered Kakashi much of a sensei, not when he was a Konoha genin and certainly not after he left the village. At best he had considered him a hindrance to his quest for revenge, at worst he had hated him. Only now he realized Kakashi had been the only real teacher he ever had.

“Orochimaru didn’t teach me a thing,” he spat. “And don’t bring up his name again.”

Obito didn't say anything. Having relied on his sharingan his entire life, he only now began to appreciate the amount of information one could still gather without it. He heard the annoyance in Sasuke’s voice, and the hurt beyond it; he smelled the pungent, sweet air around him, like the air before lightning strikes. The same scent he could smell on Kakashi, a storm just barely contained.

It was uncanny, just how alike Sasuke and Kakashi were. It was a similarity that went beyond their mere status as ‘child prodigy, last of his clan’. Despite having spent so little time together, there was a sort of familiarity between them. And nobody knew it, could see it more clearly than Obito, because only Obito had known them both so intimately.

Not that he presumed to be the person who knew either of them the best – that title most likely went to Gai and Naruto – but nobody knew their demons better than he did: after all, he was one of them.

“Alright,” he croaked. “Describe this place to me, so I can get an idea of exactly how much time we’re gonna waste on a temple that, frankly, just by smell, I can tell is begging to be laid to rest.”

Fukuda was back just in time for dinner. He had gone to town to get some food and firewood. And if the smell of alcohol was anything to go by, he also spent a considerable amount of time in some tavern.

“Mushrooms!” Miwa squeaked excitedly, when she opened her master’s shopping bag. “We haven’t had them in so long!”

“Since last winter,” noted Kaori, “because that’s when mushrooms are in season. Here, at least.”

Miwa rolled her eyes and disappeared into the kitchen, followed shortly after by Kaori.

Fukuda set a low, round, wooden table by the fire and laid five cushions on the floor.

Obito immediately sat down as far away from the fire as possible: the heat was nice, but the blindfold would get uncomfortable if he started sweating. Sasuke, on the other hand, helped Fukuda set the table.

“Do you usually eat in the main hall of the shrine?” Asked Obito, once everyone was seated.

“Only place we can eat, really,” said Fukuda with a full mouth, “except our rooms, maybe.”

“But there’s not enough space for all three of us in there,” Kaori chimed in as she popped a mouthful of rice and mushrooms in her mouth.

“The side building, the one that’s not a shrine,” began Fukuda, “used to be the priests’ residence. I lived there for a long time.”

“What happened to this place?” Asked Obito. “The city shrine was full of people, I doubt funds is what the Priesthood lacks.”

Fukuda scoffed. “Worshippers are what we lack! The High Priest doesn’t want to spend money on an empty shrine, that’s the truth!”

Sasuke ate quietly, while the others conversed. He paid little to no attention to what they were saying, as his mind had stayed behind, out on that porch. Mentioning Team Seven, as well as his little reconnaissance mission on the buildings, brought back memories he didn’t even know he still had. He remembered Kakashi's big, steady hands on his small and shaky ones, as he showed him how to hammer nails without obliterating the wooden board, or to use the saw without amputating his own limbs. He remembered Naruto using way too much strength and exploding the wood to splinters, while Sakura had learned – all on her own – how to apply just the perfect amount of chakra to perfectly insert the nails into the wood with just a tap of her fingers.

“Why is it empty, then?”

Fukuda glared at Obito. “What’s with all the questions, eh?”

Obito held up his hands defensively. “Just talking. What’s with the attitude?”

As Obito played his part as the grumpy old man and tried to out-do the actual grumpy old man, Sasuke finished his dinner. While Obito and Fukuda argued loudly and the two girls tried to calm them down, Sasuke stood up and went outside.

He inhaled the cold night air and exhaled a cloud of warm vapor. The sky was clear and black and, without the artificial light of a town or village, the stars and moon shone almost as brightly as the sun.

The only earthly source of light was the one coming from inside the shrine, from the fireplace.

He went down the stone stairs and sat on the cold bottom step, resting his back on the torii.

It wasn’t long until Obito was beside him once again.

“You haven’t said a word the whole night,” the older Uchiha said. “It’s like we never left Konohagakure.” His tone was playful; evidently arguing with a drunk elderly had put him in a good mood.

Sasuke sighed. “There was nothing to say.”

Obito smiled, crossing his arms. He pulled his cloak tighter around him as a cold breeze blew past him.

“There is now,” he said. “We should talk about training.”

Sasuke nodded. He picked up a few stones from the ground and threw them, just to have something to do with his hand.

“You said we’re pretty much in the middle of nowhere, and that there’s not another building in sight,” Obito continued, and Sasuke hummed in confirmation. “So, what about we just go somewhere quiet, every night, so we don’t trouble the old man and the poor girls?”

Sasuke raised an eyebrow. “At night?”

“Why not? Or do you wanna risk being found out?”

Obito had a point, but working during the day and training at night left very little time for rest, which Sasuke was going to need, since he was going to be doing most of the work.

“What about shadow clones?” Sasuke suggested. “We could make the clones work while we train, or vice versa.”

He looked up at Obito, who was standing perfectly still. Except for his mouth, because he was chewing on his lower lip.

“Oh,” Sasuke said.

“Shut up.”

Sasuke smirked, forcing himself not to cackle like a child. He couldn’t help, however, but marvel at the sheer hilarity of the situation.

“You can’t make shadow clones,” he didn’t even bother saying it like a question.

The great Uchiha Obito, the mind behind the Akatsuki and the tyrant behind the bloody Kirigakure, former jinchūriki of the Jūbi and user of the mokuton – and he didn’t know how to make shadow clones.

“Of course I can make them! I just… don’t have a lot of practice with it. Why waste so much chakra on a clone to be in two different places when I could just teleport?” He mumbled.

He didn’t mention the fact that he was, by far, the worst student at the Academy and that, in hindsight, his teachers probably only let him pass because the village was in dire need of soldiers. Minato had been a good sensei, but Obito was an exceptionally lacking student: most of his genin days were spent struggling with basic jutsu, having his ass handed to him by Kakashi and complaining about it to Rin.

Madara had turned him into a force to be reckoned with in less than a year, after which he had a very long time to increase his power and become the world’s worst nightmare. Yet, in all that time, he had never found himself in the need for shadow clones.

“You’re an embarrassment to the Uchiha name,” said Sasuke, though there was no cruelty in his voice. He sounded more amused than anything. “Now you can’t teleport anymore, so it can’t hurt to practice it.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

Sasuke stood up and straightened his back. “With your chakra and the boost granted by Hashirama’s cells, you could probably make more clones than Naruto.”

Obito was doubtful about that, especially if Naruto was to get the prosthetic arm made up entirely of Hashirama’s cells that Sakura mentioned to Sasuke at their departure from Konoha. Which reminded him…

“Why didn’t you accept Sakura’s offer and have them make a new arm for you?”

Sasuke opened and closed his mouth a few times, as though unsure about his answer.

“You gave Kakashi your eyes,” he said, after some thought, “and you never asked to have new eyes made for you.”

Sasuke’s words left Obito speechless. The thought of having new eyes had never crossed his mind; he had given them to Kakashi because he thought he was going to die but, even after being saved, he had accepted the price of being alive. He didn’t want new eyes, he didn’t want to pretend like everything could be so easily fixed. He had almost killed the world; losing his sight was nothing, compared to what he actually deserved.

Did Sasuke think he didn’t deserve the new arm?

“Fair point,” he said simply, and left it at that.

“Tomorrow morning I’ll head out with Fukuda to buy the materials we’ll need to fix this place. You can train if you want to.”

Obito nodded. “Alright.” Then, as he turned to head back up the stairs, he stopped. “I can make clones, by the way.” As Sasuke snorted, he added, “It’s just a matter of how many.”

The two of them went back to the shrine and, finding the main hall empty, they wasted no time heading towards their rooms.

The night went by fast and, as the first light of day crept up the flat horizon, the inhabitants of the shrine woke up to a new, freezing day.

For the first couple of days, Obito helped Sasuke tear down the old paper walls of the residence building, sandpaper the wooden columns that weren’t mouldy and scrub the mouldy ones with cloths dipped in vinegar. The inside of the building had suffered from the exposure to the elements, so the hardwood floor received the same treatment.

Miwa and Kaori lit the fire in the main shrine and put a pot of water on to heat; when it was hot – though not enough to scorch – they brought it to Sasuke, along with soap and a mop.

“Isn’t this gonna ruin the floor?” Asked Kaori, as she handed him the tool.

“The vinegar too,” said Sasuke, making the girls gasp, “but it’s the only way to kill the mould.”

Kaori lowered her head, saddened but nodding in agreement.

“Don’t worry, kid,” said Obito, “soap is the least of this wood’s problems.”

During that time, training in the afternoon was easy. They would tell Fukuda and the girls they went to visit the city, then walk far enough to body flicker away without being seen.

There wasn’t a lot of vegetation, but they managed to find the perfect spot: it was a quite large area delimited by an olive grove, which hid them from sight and gave them shelter from both sun and rain.

When they first discovered the olive grove, they were both surprised, given how dry the country had been so far.

“Olive trees are known to grow in places such as this,” Obito had remarked.

 So far from villages and towns, they didn’t have to worry about holding back too much.

They started with taijutsu practice: both of them had to learn how to fight under new circumstances than they ever had before. Obito adapted more easily than Sasuke: as a shinobi, he learned how to fight in the dark at a young age, even before he awakened his sharingan; on top of that, he had learned how to navigate the space throughout their journey, relying on his other senses, as well as his ability to sense Sasuke’s chakra. It had become somewhat of a habit, leaning against Sasuke in more ways than one, especially since the quasi-incident in the desert. Sasuke hadn’t needed to suppress Obito’s chakra like that since, yet Obito found comfort in the knowledge that, if push came to shove, Sasuke wouldn’t hesitate.

Sasuke, on the other hand, had trouble with balance: adjusting his strength so that he didn’t fall over, changing moves he had been using since he was a child and that were like second nature to him, even throwing shuriken was harder with one arm. He was ambidextrous, but he had always favored his left hand in combat: having to adjust to fighting without it proved to be harder than he had anticipated.

Ninjutsu came easier to him, as he already had quite a bit of practice with one-handed seals. As for Obito, he found it easy enough to dodge incoming attacks and to fire some jutsu of his own, although he reckoned it had to do with his familiarity with Sasuke’s chakra.

On their fourth day of training, nothing much had changed.

“This feels like cheating,” he said, as he stood up after rolling to the ground to avoid a katon attack. “I know you too well.”

Frustrated, Sasuke let himself fall cross legged to the ground, clenching his fist. He was angry. His inability to land a proper hit just because he didn’t have an arm infuriated him. How could Obito be doing better than him without eyes? His chakra flared around him, and in his eyes tomoe swirled.

Sensing his gloom, Obito approached him and crouched beside him.

“Don’t beat yourself up. In a real fight you’d destroy me.”

“I don’t need your pity,” said Sasuke through gritted teeth.

Obito sighed. “It’s not pity, it’s the truth.”

Frustration blended with shame twisted up inside Sasuke’s stomach and brought tears of anger to his eyes. He fought to keep them from falling, but he gave in: Obito couldn’t see him anyway. Embarrassment washed over him. he felt like a child again; like Itachi’s little brother who wasn’t as good as him with shuriken; like Fugaku’s youngest son who couldn’t summon a decent fireball; like the twelve year old who couldn’t climb a tree when his two other teammates could.

What was the point in having so much strength, in being so powerful, if he couldn’t even hit a blind man?

“Leave me alone.”

Obito didn’t move. His lips were pursed, his muscles tense. He was hesitating.

After a moment, he untied the knot behind his head and let his blindfold loose. With the red piece of fabric in his hands, his face was turned to Sasuke.

“Look at me,” he said, knowing Sasuke already was. “In a real fight,” he repeated, “you’d destroy me. You have the most powerful eyes in the world. Use them.”

Sasuke was staring at Obito, as he couldn’t bear to look away. The only other time Obito had let him see him without his blindfold was when Sasuke had beaten the shit out of him.

As his eyes studied the scar tissue inside and around his empty sockets, Sasuke felt like Obito was asking him to do it again.

“What’s the point?” Sasuke rebuked. “You’ve lost your eyes and you’re still one of the most powerful men I know. If I lose my eyes–” He cut himself off, grinding his teeth, a burning in his chest. He glared at Obito. “If I lose my eyes, what am I?”

Obito’s shoulders slumped. Slowly, he got back up and took a few steps back. He crossed his arms and dropped his head.

“Get my stuff for me, I don’t know where it is.”

Sasuke furrowed his eyebrows. “Where the fuck are you going?”

“ I ’m not going anywhere. We are going back to the shrine.” Obito grabbed his arm and hoisted him back up.

“We’re not done!” Sasuke protested, earning himself a slap to the back of his head, which left him so stunned he couldn’t speak.

“Yes, we are,” said Obito, dismissive. “Go get my stuff, we’re leaving.”

Dinner that night was tense and quiet. Fukuda drank himself unconscious halfway through, leaving the two girls awkwardly looking between their guests and each other.

“Is everything alright?” Asked Miwa in a tiny voice.

“Everything’s fantastic,” Obito blurted out. Sasuke didn’t even bother looking up from his soup bowl.

When they were all done eating, both Uchiha retired in their rooms without saying a single word.

Obito rolled around in his futon for the better part of two hours, Sasuke’s words relentlessly echoing in his head.

Was he really as strong as Sasuke believed him to be? Being able to track a very familiar chakra, especially one so powerful and distinct, was hardly impressive. But the conversation with him led Obito to wonder, perhaps for the first time since the end of the war, what was he without his eyes?

Sasuke had apparently been mulling over that question for a long time, and had even found an answer for Obito, so why couldn’t he?

True that he was still a mokuton user, though he was far from the best one in the continent. He still remembered his encounter with Yamato – or Tenzō, as Kakashi called him – when he was still masquerading as Tobi and Madara. The man had been trained in the use of mokuton: he could build mansions, create bridges, suppress bijū and battle fearsome enemies. His mokuton was refined, skillful, domesticated. Obito’s was wild, full of rage and made only to kill. He couldn’t build anything; nothing pretty or useful came out of Obito, only death.

That was all that he was, with or without his eyes, and the desert had proven it: had Sasuke not been there, the nice people of the caravan, who gave them shelter and shared their food with them, would have been massacred for simply asking a question.

If Kakashi had seen him then, he would have hated Obito. He found comfort in his shame, taking it as a sign that, at the very least, something was beginning to change.

Sasuke didn’t get any sleep. He thought about Naruto the whole night. Unlike most other nights, however, it wasn’t because he missed him: he thought about the war, about their fight after they sealed Kaguya, and about how powerful Naruto had become. Even with a mangekyō sharingan, a six-tomoe rinnegan and the chakra of eight bijū, Sasuke could not compare. And to add insult to injury, Naruto hadn’t even been trying to kill him.

He also thought about Obito and his insistence that Sasuke use his eyes more, that in a real fight, Sasuke would easily defeat him. When they first started their journey, Sasuke didn’t have any doubts that, if needed, he could have crushed Obito without breaking a sweat and with no remorse. Now he began to question whether either of those statements were true.

On the first of January, the morning light came late and weak, dimmed by the dark gray clouds. The shrine was slow to come to life, and when Sasuke stepped into the main hall to light up the hearth, he found Obito already sitting there, unceremoniously throwing logs into the fire.

As he approached without greeting him, he noticed that the logs looked more like broken spikes, darker than regular firewood and not as finely chopped. The fire, too, wasn’t regular fire; it was chakra sourced.

Sasuke dragged a stool by the fire and sat quietly, watching Obito produce more spikes to feed into the fire.

“Aren’t you worried about being seen?” Sasuke asked, after a while, his voice thick with exhaustion.

“I don’t know where the firewood is,” Obito shrugged, not really an answer to Sasuke’s question. Then, “It smells like rain outside.”

Sasuke eyed the main door, left open, he assumed, by Obito himself. “So?”

“So you better hurry and cover up the hole in the roof of the residence building, or what little progress we did will be for nothing.”

Sasuke glared at Obito, his annoyance immediately rekindled.

“And how do you suppose I do that?” He hissed.

“You’re inventive, you’ll come up with something.”

“Fuck you,” slurred Sasuke. “You’re the one with mokuton. You go out there and make good use of it.”

“Fuck you ,” Obito echoed, then pointed to the hearth. “I already am.”

Before Sasuke was overcome with the impulse to throw his relative into the fire, Fukuda and the girls barged into the main hall. They were carrying large, green, folded bundles and rushing hurriedly outside, paying the two Uchiha no mind.

Sasuke and Obito quietly followed them and, when Sasuke understood what they were doing, he rolled his eyes. How annoying, when Obito was right.

“Let’s go help them,” he grunted, nudging Obito.

“Let me guess,” said Obito, walking behind him, “they’re covering the hole in the roof.”

“Just shut up and come help us.”

Fukuda had ordered the girls to bring a tub to place under the hole, while he set the bundles outside and disappeared into a small cabin nearby. 

Inspecting the bundles, Sasuke realized they were plastic tents.

When Fukuda reappeared, with a ladder in his hands, he locked eyes with him. He looked between Sasuke and Obito for a second, seemingly only now registering their presence outside. 

Then, yelling, “What the fuck’re you doin’, just standin’ there? ‘Fuck do I pay you for?!”

Sasuke sighed but obeyed to the implied order: he took one of the bundles and began unwrapping it.

Obito followed shortly after, opening up another one. “What a delightful little man,” he whispered. “He doesn’t even actually pay us.”

As they opened up the tents to use as a temporary cover, thunder roared in the air. A storm was brewing.

“It’s gettin’ close,” muttered Fukuda, “hurry.”

Sasuke climbed on the roof, while Obito passed him the tents and Fukuda shouted orders from the ground.

Miwa and Kaori sat near the tub, watching Sasuke work from below.

Using his legs to keep the tent from blowing away, as the wind picked up, he tried nailing down one edge, but with only one hand he just couldn’t do it. He tried and tried again, bending his legs as much as he could to keep the nail straight and pull the tent at the same time, but to no avail.

“Fuck,” he swore through gritted teeth. “I need some help here!”

“Coming,” Obito shouted back over the wind. Climbing the ladder, Obito carefully stepped on the roof, crouching just beside Sasuke, feeling for the hole with his foot. “What do you need?”

Sasuke watched him for a moment, not knowing what to answer. An arm, for sure. A hand. Mostly, he was stunned that Obito seemed so compliant, so accommodating, as though nothing had happened between them the previous day. Then again, he didn’t really expect Obito to care enough to lose any sleep over it.

“Just hold the fucking nails for me.”

Obito hesitated for a second, wondering if this wasn’t just an excuse for Sasuke to smash a hammer into his hand, to see if Obito could dodge him even when they weren’t sparring, in a real fight . He stalled, almost waiting for a hit to come, but, when it didn’t, Obito held out his open hand, palm up.

“Guide me.”

Sasuke studied Obito’s hand, caught off guard by the request. Shaking off whatever thought was trying to infiltrate his mind, he laid down the hammer and took Obito’s hand.

He still wore bandages to hide his White Zetsu parts, but now that he touched it, he realized how long it had been since he last helped him change them: they were rough and stiff, meaning Obito had been using the same ones for a while, diligently wrapping them around his arm, chest, and neck, all by himself. Sasuke had gotten so used to not helping him, he had never thought to offer.

He guided Obito’s hand to where he had been trying to nail down the tent and told him to hold the nail.

“Don’t smash my fingers,” said Obito, even while smiling.

They managed to nail down the first tent relatively quickly, but it wasn’t nearly enough to secure the hole.

“Take the second one!” Yelled Fukuda. “Then you’ll put up the last one from the inside!”

Putting up the last tent from the inside, it turned out, was a lot more difficult. With Obito and Sasuke on either side of Fukuda’s two-sided ladder, they eventually managed to secure the roof.

“Just in time,” noted Obito, descending from the ladder, as raindrops began to fall heavy and loud onto the tents and the rest of the roof.

Everyone ran to the main shrine, hurrying towards the fire to warm up.

It rained the whole day, relentlessly, forcing the two Uchiha to forgo training, as they couldn’t possibly come up with a believable excuse to want to leave the shrine.

In the afternoon, the weather worsened: the shrine shook each time thunder rumbled in the distance. The wind blew hard and loud, and Fukuda looked nervous.

He kept a vigilant watch on the residence building, worried that the tents might not hold.

“Come sit by the fire,” called Kaori, ever so sweetly, tugging at his sleeve. “It’s cold here.”

When he refused, she lowered her head in resignation, then returned to the hearth, where she and Miwa had set up a shōgi board to pass the time.

Sasuke silently watched as Miwa easily won every single match following rules of her own making, as it was clear that Kaori had no idea how to actually play the game.

“Kensuke-san,” Miwa glanced up at him, evidently aware she was being observed, “would you like to play?”

Being referred to with a different name was still strange, but he had gotten used to it pretty quickly.

He shook his head. “No,” he answered.

Obito approached Fukuda, who was muttering curses under his breath, lamenting the bad weather and his incompetent guests.

“Fukuda-san,” Obito greeted him with a small nod, “is such a language allowed inside a shrine?”

Even though he couldn’t see it, Obito guessed – by the sudden silence – that Fukuda was glaring at him.

“Mind your business.”

Any intention Obito might have had to make conversation died right there and then. He sighed, defeated, and leaned quietly on the doorframe. Rain and electricity was all he could smell in the air, and he thought of home.

Home was a foreign concept to him; even as a child, he dreamt of leaving Konohagakure, of seeing the wonders of the world, of fighting formidable foes and coming back as a hero. Yet life had led him on such a drastically different path, he struggled to even recall what his grandmother’s house looked like.

Home, right now, was not Konohagakure, though he was in Konohagakure. He wondered if it rained there, too.

“Truth is,” Fukuda murmured, his voice so low Obito almost didn’t hear it, as though he was talking to himself, “since the war I… I don’t really see the point anymore.”

Obito froze. The shrine was such a quiet, distant thing, so removed from the chaos of the shinobi villages, Obito had assumed the war couldn’t have possibly affected it. Of course, he had been wrong: the Infinite Tsukuyomi was meant for the whole world, and it had been successful.

“The girls aren’t like me, their faith is stronger than ever before. But I wonder…” He trailed off, and Obito thought he could just leave it at that.

Naturally, he didn’t. “What?”
Fukuda sighed heavily, shifting uncomfortably in place. “I wonder if we have been serving the wrong gods.”

The image of Kaguya was vivid in Obito’s memories, as was her unimaginable power. She had been one of the last things Obito ever saw, and she still haunted his dreams more often than he would ever admit out loud. She was pure, unbridled rage; she would have eaten the whole world, had Kakashi’s team not been ready to sacrifice their lives to prevent that. Fukuda wasn’t wrong to question his faith, though Obito couldn’t help but feel ashamed: he had caused all that pain, all that loss and all that confusion, and now he had to learn to live with it.

When it became too dark outside to see, Fukuda detached himself from the door and called the girls into the kitchen, where they started cooking dinner.

Obito heard light, familiar footsteps approaching. When Sasuke stopped, he was so close Obito could feel his breath on his shoulder.

“We’ll train tomorrow, even if it rains,” the boy said. Obito scoffed.

“So you can unleash Kirin on me?”

Sasuke frowned. “How–” He stopped before finishing his question, when he remembered that Zetsu had witnessed his fight against Itachi. “No,” he rebuked, after some thought, “it’s so we don’t get lazy.”

Regardless of Sasuke’s best intentions, before they could even think of training, they had to check the residence building.

The rain had stopped in the early hours of the morning and it didn’t look like it was going to rain again anytime soon. The air was so cold it chilled Obito to the bone, in spite of the several layers of clothes he had put on.

Sasuke was freezing too, but, unlike Obito, he chose not to torment their hosts about it.

“Is it always like this here, this time of year?” Obito whined, making the young girls laugh.

“It gets even colder in late January,” giggled Miwa.

“But we rarely get snow,” remarked, sadly, Kaori. “Even rain as heavy as it was yesterday is rare, and getting rarer.”

Obito hummed, to prevent himself from beaming at the news; he had spent enough time in the Land of Water and in Amegakure to know, definitively and without exception, that he hated rain.

Fukuda retrieved the ladder from the cabin and placed it beneath the hole in the ceiling of the residence building, then ordered Sasuke to climb on top of it and take down the tent.

It was a task Sasuke could perform on his own, so Obito stood below him, catching the nails Sasuke dropped before they hit the floor. In a way, it was a little training session: Sasuke was learning how to work with one arm, and Obito was figuring out how to locate objects based on sound and air movement, rather than focus on chakra.

When the tent on the inside was freed, what felt like a bucket of icy cold water dropped right inside the tub underneath the hole, splashing everywhere.

Obito jumped back, recoiling from the tub, shivering.

Miwa and Kaori snickered, leaving Obito feeling like an idiot. Just like at the academy .

To remove the tents on the roof, Obito went up with Sasuke, figuring he could use the help.

From the moment he stepped on the roof, he could feel that something was wrong: the exposed wood beneath the broken tiles was not as sturdy as it should have been; it felt soft under his feet, a sign of the deteriorated state the whole building was in. The rot has spread from ceiling to floor, and Obito wondered if there was even any point in trying to salvage the place. If it wasn’t better to just tear it all down and build something new.

“Careful there,” Sasuke warned him, “the wind has torn the top tent, you’ll trip.”

Following Sasuke’s instructions, he crouched beside him, the way he did the previous day, and helped Sasuke pry the nails out of the wet wood.

When the first tent was removed, they worked on the second one.

Some nails were harder to pull out, because the wood had splintered when Sasuke had hammered them in the previous day, and some were bent. As Sasuke leveraged his weight on the end of the hammer to apply more pressure, the wood gave in.

In the blink of an eye, Obito was free falling to the ground; the roof had cracked beyond the initial hole, making Obito’s trajectory a straight line to poor, defenseless Kaori. With no time to think, Sasuke could only know : he was sitting safe on the roof, Kaori was in harm’s way.

“Oof!”

Sasuke hissed as Obito landed heavily on top of him, his elbows digging into Sasuke’s rib cage and his heels jabbing into Sasuke’s shins.

Grunting, he let Obito slide to the side and realized, as he opened his eyes and tried to make sense of the shapes in his line of sight, that Kaori was looking down at them, frightened, from the roof.

“What the fuck happened?!” Fukuda screamed, but his voice was muffled. Sasuke’s vision was foggy, and his head hurt. He felt dizzy as he sat up, massaging the back of his neck.

“I don’t know!” Miwa shouted back, in a whiny voice, “Kaori-chan was here and then–” she pointed frantically at the ceiling. “And now she’s there!”

As their voices became clearer and his vision less blurry, Sasuke felt something wet run down his chin; he brought his hand to his mouth and it came out drenched in blood.

Immediately he hoisted Obito onto his lap and shook him.

“Motherfucker,” he whispered a curse, “are you dead?”

Obito, not dead, groaned. “Jerk,” he spat, touching the back of his head where he, too, was bleeding. “You break any teeth yet?”

Scoffing, Sasuke pushed him aside and stood up.

Fukuda was visibly upset. After retrieving Kaori from the roof, he sent the girls to their rooms, forbidding them from coming out until he told them they could.

He was jittery, he yelled, waved his hands around, but Sasuke could see in his wide eyes the same thing Obito could hear in his booming voice: fear.

“Care to explain what the fuck happened there?!” He was still incredulous, but it was clear, from the way he eyed their every minuscule movement, that he was wary.

Sasuke had no intention to tell the truth: not only revealing their true identity would be an astoundingly stupid move, but it would also put Fukuda and the girls at risk. The only safe places for them were the Land of Fire and of Wind, and only among those who respected or feared Kakashi and Gaara enough. If the man was completely unaware of how ninjutsu worked, it would be fairly easy to come up with a lie. On the other hand, Fukuda was ridiculously adept at detecting bullshit.

The lie about Obito being his grandfather had been feeble, to say the least, and more of a spiteful jab at Obito’s pride than a believable story. Ever since Obito had started regrowing his black hair, that story was losing credibility by the day. He could see it in the way Fukuda stole glances at the two of them when he thought Sasuke was too distracted to notice: he suspected something, but probably figured it was best to mind his own business, as long  as their cohabitation was peaceful.

After Sasuke’s dabbling into rinnegan territory, that was no longer the case.

“We’re shinobi,” said Obito, earning himself a worried glance from Sasuke. “Well, we were shinobi, to be precise. We deserted in the middle of the war because we were cowards, that’s it. What you saw was ninjutsu, nothing more.”

It surprised Sasuke, again, how quickly Obito fabricated lies. Then, he thought perhaps Obito had been crafting it for a while, anticipating the day Fukuda eventually started asking questions.

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me sooner, then?” Fukuda asked warily, evidently only half convinced.

“Because we were Konoha shinobi. Trust me, no one wants to be on the receiving end of the Hokage’ wrath.”

Seizing his chance to corroborate the story, Sasuke nodded seriously. “So you’ll excuse us if we keep our real names to ourselves.”

Fukuda’s eyes narrowed, as if pondering Sasuke’s comment. More than anything, however, it was Obito’s statement about the Hokage that seemed to do most of the work. Kakashi’s name was, after all, known and feared throughout the countries.

Slowly, almost cautiously, Obito undid his blindfold. Sasuke watched as Fukuda winced at the mass of scar tissue in his sockets where his eyes should have been, then something like sympathy appeared in his expression.

“I lost my eyes in the war, and my relative here lost his arm. We’ve paid our price, but if we go back we’ll lose a lot more.”

Sasuke remained silent, gauging Fukuda’s reaction while Obito put his blindfold back on. The old man seemed to believe them – after all, it was hard to argue with a story like that – and he sighed heavily. Then his eyes widened and his mouth fell slightly ajar, as if he had just remembered something important.

“Where do you go in the evening?” He asked.

Obito opened his mouth and closed it again a few times, and Sasuke realized he surprisingly didn’t have an answer for the man.

“We told you,” said Sasuke, saving Obito from having to come up with yet another fable, “we go to town. We come from a hidden village, things there are very different.”

 Obito nodded, playing along seamlessly. “There’s so many interesting people and businesses, it’s truly amazing. The other day we met a man–”
Fukuda waved his hands in front of his face and, from the gusts of air, Obito understood he was shushing him.
“I know what the town is like,” Fukuda rebuked, annoyed. Obito’s strategy to torment other people’s ears proved successful once again. At once, he had managed to add some levity to the conversation and make it sound like they had actually been to town. Any suspicion left on Fukuda’s face was now gone entirely.

Sasuke glanced at Obito and saw that he was grinning. A quiet, gentle warmth spread through Sasuke’s chest; yet another surprise from that strange day. He decided not to dwell too much on it. He turned back to Fukuda.

“Thanks for understanding.”

Fukuda nodded. “Thanks for saving Kaori,” he said, gratefully bowing his head.

Caught off guard by the sentiment, Sasuke took a small step back, then returned the gesture. “Of course.”

As they walked back to the main shrine, Fukuda risked asking Obito one more question.

“You’re not really his grandfather, are you?”

Laughing softly, as though he had been expecting it, Obito shook his head. “I’m more of a very distant cousin.”

Chapter Text

Well into February, renovations were complete. After the rinnegan incident, Sasuke and Obito had been incorporating their jutsu into their work relatively freely, to speed up the process and to help Fukuda save up on the materials and tools.

With the tension of the first few weeks gone, even their training sessions were more fruitful. Sasuke had stubbornly refused to use his dōjutsu if he could avoid it, but rather than getting angry when he lost, he reflected on his mistakes and focused on improving the efficacy of his hits as much as possible.

When they weren’t sparring, Obito practiced his mokuton. In the span of a few months he had gone from being able to only summon deadly spikes and spears, to creating perfectly sized wooden planks, boards and anything else Sasuke might have asked of him for the temple.

Luckily, Fukuda knew close to nothing about ninjutsu, and suspected precisely nothing about Obito’s ability to use mokuton.

As for Sasuke, he perfected some of his one handed seals, and was now able to produce every single variety of chidori he could do with both hands.

With the shrine fixed, there wasn’t much to do, so Fukuda helped Sasuke find work in the town, while Obito offered to maintain the temple ground’s gardens.

During their time there, there hadn’t really been much garden to speak of, because of the state of utter abandonment Fukuda had let it fall into. But with the temple now looking like a proper place of worship, it was time to focus on the land. On top of that, it was yet another excuse to practice his mokuton.

Sasuke, on the other hand, had been hesitant to agree on working in a bustling town, where chances to be recognized were higher. It was only when Fukuda found him a job at a tiny, ancient looking teahouse – which Sasuke suspected Fukuda was the only reason it was still open – that he felt more reassured. There were barely any customers, other than regular visits by Fukuda every morning before lunch.

Sasuke’s hair grew long, and he kept it in a low ponytail for convenience. He sometimes caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection of a mirror, or an open window, and he had to stop, then. Remind himself that Itachi was dead, and that the image he saw was his own.

In the early spring, it was Obito that brought up the topic of hair. Talking over rice and steamed vegetables, he asked the girls what his hair looked like.

“Weird,” said Miwa immediately, provoking a soft laughter in Kaori. “It’s all black now, except the ends.”

The young girl, who was sitting opposite of him, reached out to stroke his shoulder length hair, fingering the thin ends. 

“It’s still white here.”

Obito hummed. “Well, that won’t do.”

Smiling, he turned in the direction of Sasuke, always at his side. 

Sasuke raised his eyebrow. “What?”

“Wanna cut my hair?”

Everyone at the table had their eyes fixed on him, curiously awaiting his response.

Sasuke, making a show to look as unbothered as possible, kept eating for a few moments more. Then, “Do I have to remind you every single day that I don’t have an arm?”

At that, even Fukuda laughed. The old man had been in a much happier mood since the end of winter, though Sasuke suspected it had very little to do with the weather.

Perhaps seeing the shrine he had dedicated his entire life to rebuilt had made him hopeful again. He made a mental note to try and invite some of the teahouse customers to leave some offerings at the shrine. Fukuda would have been overjoyed.

“It’ll be fun!” Obito insisted, elbowing him lightly. “Come on.”

Even after all those months together, Sasuke had a hard time figuring Obito out. There were times when Obito’s playful mockery was obvious, clear as day. He was often purposefully annoying, so those moments when he wasn’t, the moments where it felt like Obito was offering something important, something sincere, always left Sasuke at a loss for words. He wondered if that was one of those times.

“Fine,” he said eventually, deciding to take the gamble.

That very afternoon, in the garden-in-progress on the back of the main shrine, Sasuke brought a chair, a towel and a pair of scissors.

Obito was already waiting for him with Miwa and Kaori, explaining his plans for the garden. Once his work was done, he said, the two of them had to take very good care of it, lest it die again soon.

“Won’t you be there to keep it alive?” Miwa asked, innocently.

The corners of Obito’s mouth curled up in a bitter smile. “Not forever.”

They hadn’t talked about leaving yet, but there was an unspoken mutual agreement that they would depart as soon as Sasuke made enough money to resume their journey,

Considering that the teahouse didn’t make a lot of money, it was uncertain when that would be, though Obito assumed they would be ready to leave by the end of the summer. Earlier than that, if they were lucky.

Miwa and Kaori didn’t respond to that, and Obito guessed it meant they were saddened by his words.

“Sit,” Sasuke told Obito, stepping into the backyard with the chair.

Obito let Miwa guide him to it and, obeying his relative, he sat down.

Sasuke placed the towel across Obito’s shoulders. It was green, rough to the touch and probably older than both of them.

Miwa and Kaori sat cross-legged on the grass, intrigued. Sasuke saw in their eyes the same curiosity with which he watched Itachi’s every move, when he was a child.

Shaking his head, he sighed. “Alright, here goes nothing.”

He brushed Obito’s hair – which he had had the decency to wash himself – with a comb he borrowed from the girls. At one point, Fukuda joined the group, bringing a wooden tray with tea and biscuits for everyone.

“You know,” began Obito, addressing everyone and no one in particular, “our clan is very particular about haircuts.”

Sasuke’s hand froze, his fingers buried in Obito’s hair. He clenched his jaw, tightening his grip on the comb.

“Really?” Asked Miwa. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, you know, we have rituals and everything. I remember the first time my grandma cut my hair, it was a whole deal.”

The girls beamed at him, their attention fully drawn by Obito’s words.

“Like what?” They asked in unison.

Fukuda, though he sat quietly behind the girls, looked captivated as well.

Obito explained how different hair lengths had different meanings, and that a well groomed clan member was living proof that he had someone to take care of him. Men of their clan could have long hair, but preferred to keep them short, generally no longer than their shoulders.

“What about the women?” Asked Kaori, arching her eyebrows.

“Well, it really depends on status, role within the clan, or just simple preference. My grandma was a widow, so she kept her hair in two braided buns on the sides of her head.” He smiled, looking like he was remembering her fondly.

Meanwhile, Sasuke kept brushing his hair mechanically, though he felt like screaming. He hated Obito for talking about family and clans; he hated him for making shit up just to impress the girls. More than anything, he hated himself for wanting to hear the rest of Obito’s story.

“What about the rituals?” This was Fukuda, joining the conversation for the first time.

Obito smiled. “We would sit outside, like we’re doing right now, and someone would bring a basin filled with warm water. Traditionally, every member of the family participates in washing the hair, even if just to give a quick scrub. In my case, it was just me and my grandma, so…” He shrugged. “Then, depending on how old the person is, or, I guess, whatever meaning they want to convey through their hair, everyone cuts a small strand of hair. Then the oldest member finishes up.”

He mentioned how haircuts were usually done on specific days of the year, something to do with moon cycles, how it became a community event, because all your neighbors would participate, too.

When Sasuke started cutting the biggest chunks of hair, he let it fall to the ground. The thin white hair, remnants of the time Obito had played god, were nothing more than dead things in the green grass.

He kept cutting until it was so short he might as well have used a razor, but with only one hand it was the only way he knew to make sure the cut was even.

Obito had fallen quiet, and the girls lost interest, so they returned inside. 

When Sasuke was finished, he removed the towel from Obito’s shoulders and shook it to let the hair fall down.

Fukuda stood, lifting the tray from the ground. Before returning it to the kitchen, he paused.

“Your family really did all that?” He questioned, arching an eyebrow.

A beat of silence, while Obito ever so slightly tilted his head towards Sasuke. Then, back to Fukuda, he shrugged. 

“Just a story for the girls,” he said. “We don’t have a clan.”

The owner of the teahouse was an old lady called Momoka. She always wore a flowery patterned kimono, each day in a different color, though she favored her greens and her yellows, and kept her gray hair in a big bun. From the wrinkles on her face, it was clear that she was older than Fukuda, and Sasuke wondered what the relationship between the two of them was, though he didn’t feel like intruding.

With nicer weather, more customers showed up and Sasuke started making a decent earning.

As weeks went by, as he kept catching himself staring at his own reflection, he kept thinking about what Obito had said about the clan. He wondered if it was all true, or if it truly was just a story for the girls. Sasuke didn’t remember haircuts being a big deal in his family; not to mention Itachi had almost always had long hair. It amazed him how hung up on Obito’s words he was. How easy it was to believe him, to believe that something so mundane as cutting one’s hair could be so sacred, an act of love, a show of affection among kin. Family.

He thought of Itachi, his long, straight, black hair and he missed him more than he had ever missed anyone. Every day since his death, every day without him felt like he was missing half of himself.

When he returned to the shrine after his shift at the teahouse, he looked at Obito with a yearning in his heart he loathed. Obito was not the Uchiha who should have lived, but he was everything Sasuke had left of his clan. If anything were to happen to him, Sasuke doubted he would be able to bear that pain, too.

It ate at him, day after day, and as day turned to night and back to day again, to care so much about the man who had killed so many of their people. It disgusted him that he couldn’t help it. He felt ashamed, as he remembered the bodies of the Uchiha children – many of them younger than even Sasuke had been – laid out on the streets of the compound, of all those men and women, shinobi or otherwise, knowing he loved the two people responsible for it.

Although he had forgiven Itachi, and loved him so hard it hurt, he had not forgiven Obito. During their time at the shrine, and especially through their sparring sessions, Sasuke had come to terms with his love of him, sickening though it was, but he was still angry. He didn’t think he could ever stop being angry at him. Despite his best intentions to let go of his rage, Obito was the one person he couldn’t find it in himself to forgive. His talks about family, clan and traditions had done nothing but rekindle the flame of Sasuke’s grief. How dare he, Sasuke thought constantly, how dare he talk about family when he was the one who slaughtered them; when he was the one who took it away from Sasuke.

So as the days passed, as the sun grew warmer and Obito’s garden blossomed, Sasuke sat with his rage and his love, hopelessly entangled with each other, clawing at Sasuke from the inside whenever he laid his eyes on Obito.

April came, slow and lazy, bringing with it something Obito hadn’t felt in decades, something he had only glimpsed in the brief moments he got to share alone with Kakashi, before his departure: peace. He lamented not being able to see the fruit of his labor, but its fragrance woke him up every morning. Miwa and Kaori followed one step behind him every day as he watered his plants and the few trees he had managed to produce with mokuton. They described what the garden looked like in varying degrees of detail. Some flowers were “all shades of pink and yellow, many petaled and rich with pollen, with bees delicately flying around them”, other flowers were just red.

“Were you a gardener in your village?” Kaori asked curiously.

Obito didn’t answer immediately. After the incident with the rinnegan, they had agreed with Fukuda to remain vague with the girls: they informed them that Obito and Sasuke had shinobi training, but mentioned nothing of the war. For all Miwa and Kaori knew, they may have never killed anyone.

“Not really,” he answered, after some thought, “but I had a friend whose family owned a flower shop.”

He didn’t know why he thought of Yamanaka Inoichi, all of a sudden, as they had never been truly friends. They barely spoke to each other at the academy, but he figured it was a good enough excuse.

The answer seemed to satisfy Kaori, who trotted merrily ahead to go catch some bugs.

“The girls have taken a liking to you,” remarked Fukuda one afternoon, when Sasuke was away and the girls asleep in their rooms. The two men were sitting on the entrance porch of the main shrine, with tea between them.

“So it seems,” Obito smiled.

“You have any kids?”

Obito gracefully but barely managed to not spit out his tea. He swallowed his sip and set the cup down.

“No,” he said.

Fukuda scoffed. “Why not? A man your age ought to have a family of his own.”

Obito shook his head, but didn’t answer his question. Rather, he returned it back to him.

“What about you?” He asked. “Do you have a family or does the priesthood not allow it?”

Fukuda was silent for a long moment, and Obito felt like an asshole.

“There was a woman, when I was young,” he said in a hushing voice, and Obito could swear he sensed embarrassment, “but that was a long time ago. She married another man and I, well, I came here.”

Obito hummed, sympathetic. He couldn’t exactly say he understood, but he knew what missed chances looked like.

“Sad,” he said apologetically, “but it seems those girls really needed you. Maybe this priest thing isn’t so bad, no?”

“I love it here, to be honest,” Fukuda said over the rim of his cup. “I hope this shrine will fill with life again, I hope your hard work wasn’t wasted, I hope a new generation of priests will take over, and I hope to live to see the day.”

Obito listened in stunned silence: Fukuda had come so far from the insufferable, grumpy drunk he was when they first met. Not quite changed, but perhaps himself again.

“Right now,” he continued, “my only regret is that the girls are so lonely.”

Obito couldn’t help but agree: Miwa and Kaori almost never left the shrine and, when they did, it was always to run some errands for the shrine. They didn’t seem to have any real friends in town, or anywhere else. Fukuda was their entire world.

“Did they go to school?” Obito asked. “Maybe they had some friends there that–”

“No,” Fukuda said grimly. “Education here is costly. I did my best here at the shrine.”

Obito nodded. That he understood: he supposed ninja academy couldn’t be all that different from religious teachings. 

“Well, you found a job for Kensuke and you barely know him,” said Obito, the fake name rolling easily on his tongue out of habit. “I’m sure you can find something for the girls too. Something they’d love.”

“They love being here,” laughed Fukuda, though he seemed sad. “And they love your garden.”

Obito smiled, uncertain about how he should feel about it. “There you have it, then. They could work at the town temple.”

Fukuda gasped, taken aback as though the thought had never crossed his mind. 

“Mh,” he said, then, “I’ll keep that in mind. Oh! Kensuke’s back.”

Obito tilted his head when he heard light footsteps on the stone stairs leading up to the shrine. They stopped just a couple of steps away from the porch, the air stilled in anticipation.

“Inosuke-san,” Sasuke’s voice was heavy, serious, “can we talk?”

Although Fukuda had retreated inside to give them some privacy, Sasuke walked away from the temple, putting some distance between them and anyone who might be listening in – namely the two very curious young girls that lived at the shrine. They walked in silence, farther and farther away from the temple grounds.

“I’ve been making a decent amount of money,” Sasuke said. “We might be able to leave before the summer.”

Obito nodded, hands in his pockets, pensive, following behind Sasuke until he recognized the familiar path to the olive grove. There, Sasuke stopped.

“Good,” he replied, unconvinced, “but this isn’t what you wanted to tell me, is it?”

Sasuke was quiet, so quiet even his breaths were inaudible over the chirping of birds and the sound of the gentle breeze.

If he was being honest with himself, Sasuke hadn’t really thought that through: he hadn’t set out to take Obito aside and have an uncomfortable conversation. He had been overthinking again, mulling over Obito’s lies and half-truths and pure unadulterated honesty. For weeks he had been losing sleep over it, and despite his best efforts to let it go his determination had come up short.

A terrible feeling had been growing in his belly for weeks, ugly and insidious. Sasuke had attempted to choke it out, to seal it away, deep inside his stomach so that it may never see the light of day. Yet in that moment Sasuke could feel the enormity of his failure inside the marrow of his bones.

He recognized the feeling because it was very familiar. It had laid dormant for a long time, and yet for no time at all. It had been a little over a year since he had fought Itachi, and now he felt almost the same way.

Unable to restrain himself any longer, he punched Obito. His fist struck Obito’s face too fast and too hard, knocking him to the ground.

Obito was caught completely off guard, so shocked he couldn’t even speak. He brought his hand up to his cheek, numb to the touch. Before he could speak, another hit landed right on the other side of his face.

“What the fuck?!” Yelled Obito, and he could swear he was getting a déjà vu.

“You’re not my family!” Sasuke spat, so unused to raising his voice that it came out hoarse. “I hate you for what you’ve done and I will never forgive you!”

That, more than the punches, struck Obito. He didn’t fool himself into thinking that Sasuke could find forgiveness in his heart for him, he never had. But the months at the shrine had seemed to change so many things, had lulled Obito into a sense of safety and calm that he thought the same of Sasuke. How wrong he had been.

Not knowing what, if anything, he could possibly say to make Sasuke feel better, he stayed quiet.

Sasuke kicked him. He hated that Obito was so still, so silent, accepting every hit like he deserved them. Like he thought that would make things better.

“Stand up!” He ordered, but Obito didn’t comply. Fed up, Sasuke hoisted him up from the collar of shirt, fisting the fabric so hard a few buttons fell off. “Fight me!”

Obito shook his head in disbelief. Was that what Sasuke wanted? A fight? Had all their training been for this?

All the progress, the improvements, the fucking teamwork had been for nothing. All just an excuse to get to know Obito’s new fighting style, so that Sasuke could take advantage of it and defeat him easily. As if he needed it. 

Sasuke could set the whole world on fire and watch it burn to ash if he wanted, and Obito had no way to prevent it.

“Sasuke–”

Before he could say another word, Sasuke broke down. A bone-chilling scream escaped his throat, and a hard thud told Obito he had fallen to his knees. His breath came in choked, pained sobs, and Obito felt utterly disarmed.

Sasuke had been struggling to contain his sorrow for months, but now it was overflowing and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

“Why did Itachi have long hair?” He slurred, because the tears were suffocating him and because he was trying to keep himself from shaking too hard, glad that even though Obito could hear him cry, at least he couldn’t see the state he was in.

Guilt washed over Obito, old and familiar, as he realized it had been his words that had sent Sasuke spiraling.

What he had said about the clan’s traditions was true, even though he had never participated in any loving communal ritual himself. His grandmother would very unceremoniously sit him down in the bathroom and shave his head with a sharp knife. But he remembered the stories from his older relatives, and how he fantasized about having a big family and learning to braid his sisters’ hair. The truth was that the tradition was already almost lost when Obito was little, and his grandmother was way too busy to waste time inviting whatever relatives survived still over to assist with the boy’s haircut.

Some families kept the tradition alive, especially those with high ranking members.

Obito knew of Sasuke’s need to belong, and he had hoped to share something about their clan as an offer, a suggestion. Some knowledge to begin to make amends. Instead it had hurt Sasuke even more.

“Because your father was too busy to cut it,” he answered, because there was no point in lying now.

Sasuke wiped his nose on his sleeve. Just as abruptly as it had started, it was all over. Tears kept streaming down his face for a little longer, but he wasn’t sobbing or shaking anymore. He glanced at Obito and his heart betrayed him.

“Will you cut my hair?”

Obito produced everything they needed right on the spot – he owed Sasuke that much. With his mokuton he created a small pool and with an easy water jutsu he filled it up. Sasuke sat on the grass with his back to the pool, reclining his head back until his long hair was soaking.

From the small bag he brought to work, Sasuke grabbed a soap bar and handed it to Obito.

Crouching on the other side of the pool, Obito rinsed Sasuke’s hair before he rubbed soap on the lengths. With slow, soothing movements he massaged Sasuke's scalp, careful not to let the soap get into his eyes.

He ran his fingertips over the base of Sasuke’s neck, making sure to not leave an inch unclean. Then, he rinsed it again, cupping his hands and pouring water over his head.

Taking off his blue haori, he rested it on Sasuke’s shoulders and rummaged through Sasuke’s bag for what he was sure to find: his kunai pouch.

Sasuke hadn’t moved at all, as Obito found him exactly where he had left him. He moved the small pool to the side and sat cross-legged behind him.

“You sure about this?” Obito asked, resting his hands on Sasuke’s shoulders. He had the kunai in his lap. “I won’t see what I’m doing.”

Sasuke nodded slowly. “Yes.”

His voice was firm and, although Obito still hesitated, it didn’t leave room for debate.

Brushing his hair with his fingers, Obito tied it in a loose ponytail and braided it. Then he made the first cut above the tie.

With a soft, almost nervous laugh, he handed the braid to Sasuke. “Wanna keep it?”

Sasuke stared down at it but didn’t answer. Retrieving the tie, he threw the braid as far away as he could. He touched his now-shoulder length hair, making an unsatisfied noise.

“Can you cut it shorter?” He asked without looking at Obito, like a shy child, scared of an older relative. 

Obito rinsed the blade in the pool to get rid of the hair that had escaped the braid. “Sure.”

He chopped until Sasuke told him to stop, until his hair was so short it didn’t matter that it had no shape.

When he was satisfied, Sasuke kneeled in front of the pool to see his reflection. His hair had never been so short, even as a child, but he didn’t hate it. It was just long enough that he could cover his left eye and not have to wear an eyepatch, and shorter on the underside. He looked different than he was used to, odd even, but he liked it. It could work.

He glanced up at Obito, who was fidgeting with the kunai, letting it spin expertly between his fingers.

“So? How do you feel?” Asked Obito, tilting his head slightly to the side.

Sasuke had no idea how he felt, didn’t know whether this changed anything, but he was inexplicably relieved, as if a massive weight that had been sitting on his lungs for a long time was lifted all of a sudden.

“Lighter,” he answered, making Obito laugh.

“I bet.”

They emptied the pool and brought it back to the shrine.

Miwa was the first one to see them, as she was playing shōgi outside with Fukuda. She pointed at them excitedly and, when Fukuda turned around and saw them, he, too, smiled.

“You sure you’re not his father?” Fukuda asked Obito, once they got close enough.

Obito sucked in his breath, remembering the last time he had dared say Sasuke was his son, not to mention Sasuke’s fist was still hot on Obito’s cheek. Surprisingly, Sasuke didn’t hit him again.

“He’s uglier than my father,” he said simply, then stepped inside the temple.

Fukuda raised an eyebrow, evidently eager to ask but discreet enough not to. Instead, he focused on the bruises on Obito’s cheekbones and, frowning, asked, “Fuck happened to your face?”

In the following weeks, Obito began to feel more useless by the day, as the girls took over the garden and Fukuda insisted he let them. He didn’t mind Fukuda’s company, but he was growing restless. Even the training with Sasuke wasn’t consistent anymore, as Sasuke worked more shifts at the teahouse. Summer approached, and Obito didn’t know what to do with himself.

Ever since they had fixed the residence building, everyone had moved there: they had bigger, more comfortable rooms and a warm communal space that allowed them to enjoy each other’s company without disturbing the enshrined deity’s everlasting slumber. Only Fukuda preferred to spend most of his days at the shrine proper, cleaning and leaving offerings, even though he rarely prayed.

Endlessly bored and, in spite of himself, unspeakably curious, Obito followed him around.

“Who’s the god mine and my relative’s trouble has all been for? I don’t believe I ever asked.”

“You never have,” agreed Fukuda, “and if you come from the east you wouldn’t know her anyway.”

“Her,” noted Obito. “So, a goddess.”

Fukuda chuckled softly. Obito approached the stone statue at the center of the shrine and knelt before it. 

“I have seen a goddess once.” It was a murmur that sounded like a confession, like regret. The tone wasn’t lost on Fukuda.

“If you fought in the war I bet you have seen many,” the old man replied, getting closer to Obito. “I hear two men fought off the whole army alone.”

Obito tensed, his fists clenching the fabric of his pants.

“They were no gods,” he said bitterly, “just two fools with way too much power.”

Fukuda lowered himself and sat down beside Obito with his legs crossed. He laid a hand on Obito’s shoulder and squeezed it gently.

“I’ve never been to war. My lifestyle has led me to the opposite path, so I cannot understand what you went through. I do not fault you for running, and neither should your Hokage.”

Obito wanted to laugh, loud and hard, at the absurdity of that statement. Had Fukuda known the truth, he would have tried to kill Obito himself. Yet the mere mention of the Hokage poked a wound in Obito’s heart. The Kakashi shaped wound. The knowledge that Kakashi should fault him, but didn’t. That his crimes were far, far greater than desertion, yet he had been spared the eternal torment of Konoha’s dungeons.

“I was a coward,” Obito said, truthfully, “and cowardice gets good people killed.”

“War gets people killed,” Fukuda rebuked, clicking his tongue. “You didn’t start the war.”

Obito pursed his lips. “Right.”

Their conversation was mercifully interrupted by Kaori and Miwa, who passed by the main shrine on their way to town to buy groceries. When the two girls left, Fukuda sighed heavily. He looked upon Obito and Obito felt his eyes on him. He released the grip on his knees.

“I could help you find a job, like I did the boy,” Fukuda offered, but Obito refused.

“If I start working in town as well we’ll never leave.”

Fukuda was silent for a long moment, then sighed. “Would it be such a bad thing?”

Obito didn’t answer.

Momoka was easy to work with: she wasn’t too demanding and she always fed Sasuke during his lunch breaks. He thought he must have reminded her of some nephew or grandson of hers, perhaps someone long lost, since she didn’t seem to receive any personal visitors at the teahouse. Some habitual customers, but never any family. When Sasuke told her about his intention to leave before summer, she looked sad.

She told him the summer months were the busiest ones, and that he would be leaving right when she would need him the most, but Sasuke could tell that wasn’t the only reason she didn’t want him to leave. He didn’t need the sharingan to see that the old woman had grown very fond of Sasuke.

“I’ll try to find someone to replace me,” he offered, then, “I’m sorry.”

If Sasuke was being honest with himself, they didn’t really have to leave: nobody had found out who they truly were, and nobody was looking for them. But when, every night, at the end of his shifts, he returned to the shrine, he looked at Obito playing board games with the girls or chatting with Fukuda and felt entirely out of place. They looked happy, in that quiet place, so unlike anything Obito and Sasuke had ever known, and every night he felt like he was intruding, like he was disturbing their peace.

He sat beside Obito at the dinner table, like he did every night, and he listened to them talk about the garden, about the few visitors who were beginning to show up – for which they would thank Sasuke, as he had been telling his customers about the shrine – and their plans for the future, and something inside Sasuke stirred. After dinner, he sat outside where, at the beginning of spring, the girls had brought out several wooden chairs and benches, and watched Obito drink with Fukuda and gossip like two old men who had known each other their entire lives. Sometimes he drank with them, but he never joined in the conversation, as it was always the continuation of some previous conversation they had been having throughout the day that, working, Sasuke had missed.

One of those nights, when Sasuke retired to bed, Obito surprisingly followed him immediately.

When he reached his room and realized Obito wasn’t moving towards his own, he turned to face him.

“What is it?”

Obito lightly pushed him inside and slid the paper door shut behind himself. He looked troubled, his eyebrows knitted together and his hands restless.

“Fukuda asked me to stay here.”

Sasuke was begrudgingly fairly sure his heart had skipped a beat. He couldn’t say he hadn’t seen it coming, he was more surprised Fukuda hadn’t proposed it earlier. Or maybe Obito had actually been sitting on this for a while, and had only now decided to tell him because he had decided to accept. 

There was a time where Sasuke would have been glad to be rid of Obito, where he thought he would lose his mind if he spent one more minute in his presence. Now that time seemed like a lifetime ago. As his brain processed the news, he realized what the thing poking at him from the inside had been, and he didn’t like it one bit.

Swallowing hard, he forced himself to speak. “And?”

“And… what?” Obito asked.

Sasuke clenched his fist. “What did you say to him?”

Obito looked perplexed, with his head slightly tilted to the side. “What the fuck d’you think? I said no.”

Sasuke’s mouth fell ajar, his eyes widened every so slightly. He was surprised.

“You said no?” He echoed.

Obito shook his head, confused. “Of course I said no. Why do you sound so shocked?”

“I thought–” Sasuke’s voice came out weak, so he cleared his throat and spoke a little louder. “I thought you liked it here. Thought you’d like to stay.”

Obito raised an eyebrow and crossed his arms, making sure Sasuke felt like an idiot for even suggesting the idea.

“I do like it here,” he said eventually, kinder, “but it’s no place for me.”

Sasuke disagreed: he thought Obito was quite well suited for the temple life, tending to his garden in the summer and eating soup by the fire in the winter. He got along with Fukuda really well and the girls adored him, so there really was no reason Obito couldn’t stay. There were no reasons Obito wouldn’t fucking love to stay. Yet, inexplicably, he didn’t want to.

Privately, Sasuke was glad. Ever since that day in the clearing, when he had Obito cut his hair, Sasuke had come to know two truths about himself: the first one was that he was more resolved than ever to restore the Uchiha clan, its customs and traditions; the second one was that Obito had to be there to witness it. 

It went beyond simply wanting Obito to live in the Uchiha compound; they had gone too far from where they had started, Sasuke had confessed too much to Obito to let it all go to waste. There was a tether, of sorts, keeping them together. Sasuke felt it pull at his lungs every time the mere suggestion of Obito not going with him was brought up. He wondered whether Obito could feel it, too.

“So then,” he croaked, “why are you telling me?”

Obito’s shoulders fell. “Why are you being impossible tonight?”

“Impossible?” Sasuke raised his voice.

“Yes,” Obito insisted, “Impossible. I’m telling you because I don’t keep things from you. Anymore. What I meant is– I’m trying, okay? And I’m so fucking bored. I love it here and these are really nice people but don’t you fucking think about leaving me here.”

Again, Sasuke was speechless. So that was what Obito was worried about, he realized: being left behind.

Had it been another time, another place, Sasuke would have been delighted to allow himself that small cruelty. As it were, Sasuke could think of few things worse than continuing on his journey alone.

“You think I’d leave the most dangerous man in the world here alone with two little girls and an old man?”

Sasuke hadn’t decided whether it was supposed to be sarcasm or a jab at Obito, but the latter cracked a smile nonetheless.

“How much longer do you have to work?” Obito asked, leaning on the doorframe.

“Until I find a replacement. The old lady really needs a hand in the summer. I’ll screw her over if I leave without finding a substitute.”

“I guess two hands would help even more,” Obito remarked.

“Very funny.”

Obito smirked. “Leave it to me. Now get some sleep, your shift’s in the morning.”

“I know when my shift is, dickhead.” Sasuke pushed him out of his room and Obito had only the time to mumble a quick g’night before he slid the door back shut.

During Sasuke’s lunch break, the following day, Obito visited the teahouse. With him were Miwa and Kaori, dressed in casual civilian clothes, which Sasuke found equally as shocking as their presence there.

“Kensuke-san,” the girls bowed politely. Sasuke nodded, but he was focused on Obito, on the smirk on his face.

“Inosuke-san,” he said, “what are you doing here?”

Instead of answering, Obito lightly pushed the girls ahead, as though encouraging them to speak.

They looked shy, which was unusual for them, but eventually Kaori lifted her chin up and flashed him a timid smile.

“Inosuke-san suggested we replace you here,” she said, her confidence building up as she spoke. “That way Fukuda-sama won’t have to worry about us never leaving the shrine anymore.”

Miwa nodded, though she looked less convinced.

“You love the shrine,” Sasuke remarked, to which Miwa immediately nodded in response.

“I told them it was fine,” she muttered, “but they insisted.”

Obito patted her head. “Cheer up! You’ll still live there, and you don’t have to spend the rest of your life in this teahouse. It’s just for the summer.”

Miwa rolled her eyes but quit complaining. Kaori, on the other hand, appeared more enthusiastic. Curious by nature, she seemed genuinely excited for this new little adventure.

“Momoka-sama!” Kaori bowed deeply as soon as the old lady entered the tearoom.

Her lips curled up in a gentle smile. She was wearing the usual floral kimono, and approached the small group of people gathered in the room.

“Fukuda’s girls,” she greeted them, “what a pleasure this is. Have a seat, I’ll have tea ready immediately.”

Her eyes lingered on Obito for a long moment, curious.

Remembering the two of them had never met each other, Sasuke gestured towards Obito and introduced him. “Inosuke-san is a relative of mine. We’ve helped Fukuda–”

“I know,” Momoka nodded, smiling, “Fukuda told me. It’s a pleasure to finally make your acquaintance, Inosuke-kun.”

Obito flashed her a charming smile. “The pleasure is all mine,” he said, bowing his head.

Later, when Momoka returned with tea for everyone, Kaori told her about Obito’s idea.

As the girls spoke with her and Obito, Sasuke studied Momoka’s face to gauge her reaction. He couldn’t tell exactly what she thought of Kaori and Miwa replacing him at the teahouse, but she didn’t look displeased. Obito’s presence seemed, somehow, to help.

When they agreed to let the girls try it out for a week, assisted by Sasuke, Obito thanked the woman and left the shop, followed by his two little shadows.

“I’m happy to see those girls out of that shrine,” she commented, once again alone with Sasuke. “Hopefully spending time here in town will help them make some friends.”

Sasuke considered her words, then shrugged. “They don't really feel as lonely as you might think.”

Momoka hummed. “They will when you two leave.”

Sasuke’s eyes met hers, but he didn’t say anything else. 

He couldn’t say he had bonded with either Fukuda or the girls, but it was clear as day how fond they had grown of Obito. Sasuke was relieved Obito was determined to leave with him, but he didn’t take any pleasure in hurting their hosts’ feelings.

As he finished his shift for the day, an idea began to form in his mind, and he told Obito as soon as he got back.

“A party,” Obito’s blindfold lifted following the movement of his eyebrows.

“Not a party,” Sasuke shook his head, “just a nicer dinner. To say goodbye.”

Obito crossed his arms, pacing up and down Sasuke’s room.

“I’m not really an expert in social events,” he said eventually, “as I’ve spent most of my life as a recluse. But that sounds like a party.”

Sasuke rolled his eyes. “It’s not a party. Parties have music and–” He paused, realizing he had never actually been at a party or, if he had, he had been too young to remember. “Whatever. I’m just trying not to be an asshole.”

Obito bit his lower lip, nodding in understanding. He didn’t want to leave the shrine without a proper goodbye: Fukuda, Kaori and Miwa had been generous and kind, and if Obito had learned one thing during his stay there, it was gratitude. It was an odd new feeling, and he wasn’t quite sure he liked it: he sometimes had a hard time telling it apart from debt, but he was making an effort.  

“Alright,” he conceded, “but let’s try not to spend all your money in a single night.”

Sasuke rolled his eyes; his initial idea had been eating out, in town, at a proper restaurant. He hated everything about it – the eating in a public, crowded place, the frenetic nature of restaurants, not to mention the risk of exposure – but he also knew the girls would have loved it. Then he thought it would have been too difficult to walk all the way back to the shrine, especially if Fukuda and Obito drank. So, the next best thing would have to do.

During their trial week, the girls proved to be efficient and trustworthy, just like Obito had predicted. Sasuke wasn’t surprised: he had seen them work diligently at the shrine for months. Even when there was nothing to work on, still they woke up early every morning and found something to do. Only in the late afternoon they would allow themselves a moment of rest, which they usually spent playing shogī or some other board game Miwa made up the rules of.

Even though the shrine was getting more and more visitors, Fukuda managed very well without their help, now that they were working at the teahouse.

The problem with more visitors, however, was that Obito couldn’t risk being seen, which meant that he spent a lot of time locked up in his room, impatiently waiting for Sasuke to come back with Miwa and Kaori. Only then would Fukuda close the gates of the shrine, and the five of them would have the place to themselves.

“How’s the new job going?” Fukuda asked Kaori on Thursday, over dinner, when he felt like it was a good time to ask.

She beamed at him. “I love it! Momoka-sama is very kind and she never raises her voice.”

Obito raised his eyebrows; was that what Kaori had been worried about? Yelling?

Miwa, on the other hand, didn’t look as overjoyed as Kaori, though she had warmed up to the idea of working at the teahouse.

“It’s fine,” she conceded. Then, just to be contrary, “I still like it better here.”

Fukuda smiled softly, filling up her plate with steamed vegetables. “Of course you do, but it’s not so bad in town, is it?”

Miwa shrugged.

As Sasuke listened to the other four’s lively chatter, and as he ate his ramen and let himself be soothed by the cool breeze that came through the front door, he realized he would miss this. He would miss having a warm and tranquil place to shelter in during the winter, and he would miss the company on the stone stairs at night.

He had to leave, and was determined to do so, but he allowed himself to appreciate what the months he had spent at the shrine had given him. He knew he and Obito wouldn’t find another place like this for a long, long time.

Sunday night, when his shift at the teahouse was over, he stopped by several food stalls, on his way home, to buy whatever food he remembered the girls liking. He had told Fukuda beforehand not to cook anything, to let the girls rest because they deserved it.

The uneventful spring had made Sasuke comfortable. He was entering summer slowly, almost lazily. Almost.

A prickle at the back of his neck awakened an instinct in him, engraved too deeply within him to die after a few months of stillness. Alert. He thanked the vendor who served him his order and decided it would be his last.

He forced himself not to look around, to keep walking as though nothing was wrong, and get out of town as soon as possible. The girls were already at the shrine, as their shift had been in the morning, so at least he didn’t have to worry about them.

He took the wrong turn, purposefully, because he wasn’t going to risk leading unwanted guests to the shrine. If someone was following him – if it wasn’t just old habits kicking in on the eve of their departure – then he was going to be careful.

He came to a halt not far enough away from town. Not as far as he had hoped to get, anyway.

Three masked figures were standing in his way and, without having to turn, he knew two more were behind him. They were all clad in red, and their masks resembled those of the Anbu, only with horns growing out of them. There were no shinobi in the Land of Stone, and no Anbu had masks that looked like that.

The figure in the middle stepped forward, and Sasuke noticed the glint of the sharp edge of a kunai in their hand.

“Uchiha Sasuke,” the masked figure said. Their voice was low and modulated. This was a practiced speech. “We’ve been watching you.”

Sasuke didn’t react. He hid his annoyance well, and more importantly his disappointment in himself for not having noticed earlier. “My name’s not Sasuke,” he simply said. Not convincingly enough, judging by the sneer he received in response.

“We heard you go by Kensuke, now,” the figure said, taking another step closer. “And we’ve heard that Uchiha Obito travels with you.”

Sasuke’s jaw clenched. He wondered if there was any point in lying, trying to wriggle his way out of whatever the fuck this was with excuse after excuse, but his stomach turned just at the thought. Playing dumb had never been his style.

“Who are you?” He asked, though as soon as he had seen their masks, he’d had an idea.

“The Children of Kaguya,” the figure said, raising their chin up with pride. So these were the fanatics Gaara had warned him about. The idiots who wanted to live in a dream for the rest of their lives. “We wanted to talk to you.”

Sasuke scoffed. “I’m not a talker,” he said. Then, a warning. “Not a listener either.”

There was a tense silence, as the figure and Sasuke studied each other, both waiting to see if the other would attack, but the attack didn’t come.

The figure tightened their grip on the kunai, slowly circling around Sasuke like a vulture.

“All we want is peace. All we want is the perfect world we were promised by the gods, the world that was taken from us.”

Sasuke eyed the bags filled with food in his hand. It was going to get cold before he reached the shrine.

He sighed. “You know nothing,” he mocked, grinning. “No god promised you anything. You just think you’re special, but you’re not.”

As he spoke, he watched their reactions: fists clenched, frustration just barely concealed, but no one dared strike. They won’t do anything, he thought, unless this one orders them to.

The talking figure was the only one who seemed unaffected. They stepped in front of him, closer than before. “And what do you know, I wonder.”

Sasuke moved before he could think.

He stood beside one of the figures behind him, and watched as three shuriken stabbed through the back of the person who now stood where he was.

Before the one on his left could realize Sasuke had shifted places with their companion, he pierced through them with an amaterasu spear.

As the other two pawns screamed, panicked, throwing everything they could at him, the talking figure remained still. They had taken a few steps back and simply watched as Sasuke butchered their companions, one by one.

When only the two of them were left, Sasuke ignited a chidori.

“Tell me what you want,” Sasuke growled, inching closer.

“I told you. I want what was taken from me.”

“An illusion was taken from you, nothing more.”

The figure’s shoulders shook, and Sasuke realized they were laughing.

“This world is an illusion. Uchiha Madara understood it, and now we do, too.” The figure walked slowly among the corpses of their companions, removing their masks. “Look at them,” they said, but Sasuke refused to. “Some little more than children, others older than even Madara was. And we all share the same dream. The same goal.”

Sasuke’s chidori chirped in his hand, yet he hesitated. Curiosity was stopping him from ending this person’s life, despite his better judgment. Perhaps he was a listener, after all.

“We can’t achieve it by ourselves. Only an Uchiha can, that’s why we’ve been following you. We don’t wanna harm your precious little girls or the old man,” at those words, Sasuke’s chakra spiked and the chidori grew in size, burning his own hand. “But expect to see us again, very soon.”

Sasuke sneered. “You think I’m gonna let you leave just like that?”

Before he could take another step, the figure raised their hand to block him.

“You are, because if my men at the shrine don’t see me come back, they will murder everyone. Now, Obito is not to underestimate, but he’s a blind relic of his old self. Do you trust his chances?” Then, leaning in closer, their mask almost touching Sasuke’s face, “Do you trust yours?”

Sasuke found himself immobilized, though nothing was restraining him. A small movement of his arm and it would end up on the other side of the masked figure, through their ribcage. He thought about Obito; never before he had doubted his strength, but he was doubting it now.

His chidori died out, the crackling noise of lightning replaced by the figure’s laughter.

In a swish of dust and leaves, the figure disappeared, though the sound of their words echoed still in Sasuke’s mind.

Finally, he looked down at the bodies at his feet; the next day the people of the town would find them and wonder what monster could do that in such a holy land of priests and temples. Truthfully, it stung, because he hadn’t meant to kill anyone. If the idiot behind him hadn’t thrown his idiotic shuriken at his back–

Then again, he needn’t have killed the others. He wondered if he did it just to prove to himself that he could. Even one armed, even outnumbered, he was still Uchiha Sasuke. Uchiha Sasuke with blood on his clothes.

He picked up the bags of food and headed towards the shrine, hoping to find everything exactly as he had left it.

The shrine was quiet, though not unusually so. He walked into the main hall and found the door to the backyard open. He braced himself, before he walked in.

He remembered when he walked into his childhood home, a seven year old, to find his parents slaughtered and a masked figure towering over them.

“Where the hell have you been?” Obito’s voice drowned out the noise in his head and the sight of him filled out the hollow space in his heart. “We’re starving.”

When he saw the table set in the garden, the girls sitting side by side, conversing with Fukuda and then looking up at him excitedly, his legs almost gave in.

“Sorry…” he murmured, handing the bag to Obito, who in turn handed it to Fukuda. “It’s cold, I think. I’m sorry.”

The way his voice trembled wasn’t lost on Obito, who frowned at him. He took Sasuke’s hand into his own, recoiled at the heat, then gripped it harder.

“What happened?” He whispered, worried.

Sasuke tried to speak but his voice struggled to come out. He cleared his throat and tried again. “I’ll go change, you guys heat the food. Inosuke-san, could you come help me?”

When they were in Sasuke’s room, he let out a deep sigh. Obito hadn’t let go of Sasuke’s hand since he had realized it was shaking.

“What’s going on?” Obito questioned. While one hand was occupied holding Sasuke’s, the other checked Sasuke’s body for injuries. He touched his face and found it wet. He didn’t need to see to know what it was; he could smell it.

“Don’t worry,” Sasuke said, “not my blood.”

“I don’t worry about you,” Obito rebuked, and Sasuke didn’t know how to take it. “Whose blood, then?”

Sasuke sighed, leaning against Obito for support, since his legs felt too weak.

“Children of Kaguya,” he answered, quoting the masked figure. “The fanatics Gaara told us about.” He looked at Obito and felt the urge to punch him, or perhaps to wrap his arm around him in a hug. He resisted the urge. “Are you alright?” He asked, instead.

Obito nodded. “Yeah, why?”

“They said there were more here. More Children. I worried the girls might be in danger.”

Obito shook his head. “We’re all okay.” He squeezed Sasuke’s hand, then let it go. “Change your clothes and wash your face. You don’t wanna terrorize the girls on our last night here.”

Sasuke nodded slowly, steadying himself. When Obito left, Sasuke let himself fall on his bed, panic slowly leaving his body and being overtaken by shame. How could he let those nobodies intimidate him so? He had been brutal, arrogant, up until the shrine’s safety had been threatened. No, he realized, up until Obito had been threatened.

Walking back to the backyard, clean and refreshed, and embraced by Miwa and Kaori who thanked him for the food, guilt eroded him from the inside. Would he have cared if Fukuda, who had given them a home, or if Miwa and Kaori, who had cooked his food and remade his bed every day for months, had been killed?

He sat at the table and ate his dinner and drank his cups of sake, he listened to their conversations and chimed in with a word or two every now and then, and all the while he couldn’t help but feel like he was going to lose his mind if Obito died.

Chapter Text

Obito hated farewells. Ever since he was a child, he never knew how to approach someone he knew he was never going to see again. What could he say that would make a good lasting impression? What would make someone hold a fond memory of him, even years later?

As a child of Konoha, raised during the Third Great War, he had seen many leave and come back in a casket, if they came back at all. He himself never came back. Uchiha Obito died in a collapsed cave, his body unretrievable; the only part of him that came back resided in someone else’s body.

So Obito wasn’t a fan of goodbyes. They carried too much expectation, too much weight. He had known from the moment he stepped into the sacred grounds of the temple that, eventually, he was going to leave. For the first weeks he had even looked forward to it, impatient to get out of that moldy ruin as fast as he could. Now he was almost tempted to stay.

Fukuda didn’t help, as he kept repeating that his offer still stood.

“I could use a hand, if the shrine is to keep getting more visitors,” he said.

“If that’s the case, you’ll want priests by your side, not me. Isn’t that what you wanted?” Obito reminded him of their conversation by the statue of the enshrined goddess, whose name Obito still didn’t know.

“Aye,” Fukuda nodded, “but it’s sad to see a friend go.”

Obito smiled, though he felt a bitterness rise up in his stomach. He wondered if Fukuda would still call him friend, if he truly knew who he was. He didn’t think indulging in a fantasy would make him feel better, so he tried not to think about it.

When his backpack was ready, he headed for the stone stairs, where Sasuke was waiting for him with the girls.

“We packed some food for you, for the road,” announced Miwa, talking around the lump in her throat.

“Thank you,” said Obito, petting her hair. “Thank you for everything.”

Sasuke watched as the girls hugged Obito, gripping the fabric of his haori in a tight fist, like they never wanted to let go. Obito rubbed comforting circles on their backs, and once again a warmth spread in Sasuke’s chest. He promptly ignored it.

“Thank you, Fukuda-san,” Sasuke said, bowing his head. “And you, Miwa-chan, Kaori-chan. Be good to Momoka-san.”

The girls detached themselves from Obito and nodded. Miwa rubbed her face to dry her tears.

“Travel safely,” she said, sniffing.

“You’re welcome to come back whenever you want,” Fukuda said, patting Obito on the shoulder. “Whenever you need it. This is your home, too.”

Neither Uchiha responded after that, but they shook hands with Fukuda, Miwa and Kaori one last time, then set off.

They hadn’t planned a precise route, but their initial idea was to move north, to the Land of Earth. After Sasuke’s encounter with the Children of Kaguya, however, they decided to take the long way east. The more distance they put between themselves and the shrine, the safer Fukuda and the girls would have been.

Their current destination, therefore, was Amegakure.

Obito complained the whole way to the border, whining about the prospect of spending weeks on end in the relentless, freezing rain.

Though Sasuke did wonder how Amegakure had earned its name, it was no secret that the orphan Nagato had been the one to cause rain to pour down incessantly for weeks on end. He wondered if it still rained, now that Nagato was dead.

When they actually crossed the border, a little less than a week after leaving the shrine, Obito went quiet. As the landscape changed, so did Obito’s mood. The clear blue sky of the Land of Stone and its dry land soon gave way to gray clouds, grass and mud.

Countless little streams crossed the few paved roads they walked on, forcing the two travelers to either jump over them or get their boots wet.

Though it was cloudy, it was still summer. The humid heat wet their skin, made their hair stick uncomfortably to the back of their necks. Whenever they stopped to rest, they were drenched in sweat.

“I think we’re getting closer,” said Sasuke, returning to the camp he made with Obito to stay for the night, holding twigs and dried leaves for a fire. “I can see the lake.”

Obito only hummed in response, just to let him know he had heard.

Sasuke sighed. “I’m going hunting,” he announced, “be careful.”

“You should be careful,” Obito snorted, “I’m not the one trying to catch rabbits with a katana.”

Sasuke rolled his eyes as he retrieved his weapon from a scroll. “I’d tell you to keep an eye out, but. You know.”

Obito’s face twisted in an annoyed grimace. “Go, before I cut off your other arm.”

And Sasuke went, leaving Obito to sulk in silence.

Ever since they had agreed to go to Amegakure, Obito had been in a foul mood. He wondered whether it appeared obvious to Sasuke, the reason why he was that way. Amegakure was where Obito had taken two heartbroken orphans and manipulated them into leading the most powerful and dangerous criminal organization the world had ever seen. Where he had taken two heartbroken orphans and turned them into heartless monsters. One of those two monsters had even almost managed to kill him.

He often regretted surviving Konan. She should have won, should have blasted him out of existence; the whole world would have been a lot better off.

By the time Sasuke returned, Obito wasn’t even halfway through his list of regrets regarding the Ame orphans, but they needed to eat.

Obito skinned the pair of rabbits Sasuke had procured, while he lit a small fire between them.

While they waited for the rabbits to cook, Sasuke laid out his plan.

“We’ll find a boat to cross the lake. I’ve seen a small village west of here, so we’ll look there. When we’re in Amegakure, we’ll need to find a place to hide.”

Obito dragged himself out of his own thoughts and forced himself to respond. “Why hide? We’re together now, and too far away for those fanatics to threaten us with the shrine’s safety.”

Sasuke shook his head. “Why don’t you listen to me? I don’t know how many more times I have to remind you that Gaara asked us to warn him, if we saw those people?”

“No,” Obito rebuked, “you’re not listening. Why do we have to tell him? Let’s just deal with the motherfuckers ourselves, if they even dare show their faces again.”

Sasuke was losing his patience. He stood and paced around the fire.

“We have to tell him. Or we have to tell Kakashi. Either way, we’re not doing shit unless we hear from them first.”

At the mention of Kakashi’s name, Obito relented. “Fine, tell Kakashi. But how do you propose to do that? You gonna send your snake or something?”

Sasuke sat back down and turned the rabbits on the fire. “No,” he said, “Aoda can’t relay this message. Not to mention I can’t risk him being seen here. I’ll find a raven, or a hawk. I’ll find a fucking pigeon if I have to, when we get to Amegakure.”

Obito nodded, uninterested in keeping the conversation going. He untied his blindfold, wet and heavy with sweat, then rubbed his face with the sleeve of his haori.

He was tired, he realized. Tired of being followed, and not by the Children of Kaguya. Everywhere he went, whether awake or unconscious, the shadow of his own failures, of the misery he had caused followed him. The people of Amegakure had paid the price of his rule, of his wickedness, and now their whole country was worse off than ever before: in the travel through that land, Obito and Sasuke had passed several ghost towns, deserted villages, destroyed homes. War, hunger, indifference had ravaged the place and decimated the population. Few countries had suffered as much and for as long as this one, and all at the hands of Obito.

“You look awful,” whispered Sasuke, something like apprehension in his voice. Obito couldn’t even find it in him to scoff.

“Yeah,” he said simply. Then, after a moment, “I’m not hungry. I think I’ll try to get some sleep.”

Perplexed, Sasuke watched as Obito laid down on his bed of leaves, turning his back on him.

“Well, shit,” Sasuke grunted, annoyed, “could have spared a rabbit.”

Obito didn’t really sleep. He tried to, but he kept dreaming of an ocean of paper and fire, of blue and red hair, of a pitch black sky painted red by clouds that rained blood. He’d shake awake, then wonder if he had been sleeping at all, when he couldn’t get the vision out of his mind.

In the early hours of the morning, Sasuke tapped on his shoulder and waited for a response. When Obito grunted, Sasuke stood.

“We should go. If we move now we’ll reach the village before midday,” he said, waiting for Obito to stand up.

For a long moment Obito contemplated laying in the wet grass forever, waiting for the sun to burn him to death, or for the rain to flood the meadow and wash him away. So simple and clean, returning to the elements and ridding the world of his vile existence.

“Did you hear me?” Sasuke’s voice forced him to make a decision.

“Aye,” he said, nodding. He sat up and stretched his back, his stomach growled. “Breakfast?”

He heard no answer, but by Sasuke’s stomping and the shifting of fabric, Obito deduced he was angrily rummaging through his backpack to get Obito some food.

“Here, catch,” he mumbled, flinging something at Obito, who barely caught it an inch from his nose. Sasuke raised his eyebrow, though he didn’t comment.

Obito registered the object that was to be his meager breakfast: an apple, which he ate in silence.

With the back of his sleeve he dabbed the sweat from his forehead and tied on his blindfold. All his clothes were damp and his skin dirty in all the places that had come into contact with the mud as he had shifted uncomfortably through the night in his pallet.

“This place sucks,” he spat.

The walk to the village Sasuke had mentioned was short and uncharacteristically quiet, which had Sasuke worried. He stared at Obito walking by his side and wondered what was going on inside his head, but he never asked.

The village was gray, and the people were gray, and the sky was gray, and so was the water that separated them from Amegakure. They rented a gray boat from a gray man with a stern face and crossed the lake under the gray clouds until they reached the gray shores of Amegakure and disembarked. Obito was gray, too.

Sasuke had to link their arms together and drag him along because he feared Obito would simply stop walking if left on his own.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I like you better when you’re annoying.”

Obito tilted his head lightly, simply humming in response. Sasuke rolled his eyes.

The village was different than Sasuke had expected: it looked way more modern than Konohagakure, though it was smaller, with neon signs at every corner, signaling this or that store, this or that hotel. They passed by several restaurants and fast foods, the air rich with spice and flavor, and even a movie theater.

“I’m confused,” admitted Sasuke. “I don’t know where I’m supposed to find something to deliver a message to Kakashi.”

Obito scoffed. “Thought you said you were gonna send him a pigeon.”

Sasuke arched his brows. “Do you happen to know where I can find a damn pigeon?”

As expected, Obito didn’t answer, though he deigned Sasuke with a shrug.

When the sky began to clear, and the sun appeared high in the light blue sky, Sasuke realized he was hungry. He pushed Obito into a ramen stall and ordered two bowls of miso ramen.

Obito ate slowly, with little appetite, but he eventually finished his meal because he didn’t like wasting food –the rabbit he hadn’t eaten the previous night had been put away in a container to be consumed some other time. Sitting by his right side, Sasuke stared holes into his temple.

“I’m not gonna disappear if you blink, you know,” he sighed, turning his head towards Sasuke.

“You still look awful,” Sasuke simply said, ordering a second bowl. “You’re no use to me like this.”

“What, you were planning on using my handsome face to get your pigeon?” Obito croaked, resting his head on his fist.

After that failed attempt at a conversation, they both fell quiet. Sasuke consumed his second bowl of ramen, then paid the bill and dragged Obito out of the stall.

Several hours of exploration later, Sasuke decided he didn’t trust any device that could be hacked or surveilled to deliver his message to Kakashi, which ruled out every communication tool in the whole village. As it turned out, no one used birds anymore.

They had stepped out of the village center and began walking by the lakeshore, where it wasn’t so unbearably hot. Even so late in the afternoon, the sun was still high and bright, making the lake the only source of comfort, when they took off their sandals and dipped their feet in.

A variety of animals inhabited the shores and the water, from the frogs in their small ponds farther inland, to the ducks and geese smoothly paddling around in the lake, to the blue fish their prey. There were crows, as well, and Sasuke was reminded of Itachi. He refused to indulge on the comforting ache of his heart, instead wondering what he would have done to get a message across the lake and safely into Konoha. Obito wasn’t being of any help, brooding by himself several meters behind Sasuke. So he let his focus be stolen by the crows, who fought over crumbs of bread or whatever else piqued their interest. It was only when a crow titled its head up and stared into his eyes for a long few seconds, that Sasuke had an idea.

Quickly, but avoiding odd movements that would scare off the birds, he retrieved a piece of paper and something to write with from his backpack, then scribbled down a few, concise words: Fanatics. Following Us. Amegakure. What to do?

He didn’t want to risk signing his name, so he doodled a little fan instead, though he made sure not to make it look too much like the Uchiha clan symbol. He knew Kakashi would understand.

Slowly, he turned back to the crows, activated his sharingan and waited for one of them to look at him again. When one small one did, he immediately put the crow under genjutsu. Now that it was immobilized, he easily picked it up, while the other crows flew away, spooked by Sasuke’s cloak.

“Hold,” he ordered Obito, approaching him. He thrust the bird into his hands and Obito made a surprised sound.

“You actually found a pigeon?” He said, sounding genuinely amused. An improvement.

“It’s a crow,” Sasuke corrected, rolling up the piece of paper and tying it to the bird’s leg. “I’ve put it under genjutsu. It’ll fly straight to the Hokage’s office as soon as we release it.”

Obito’s mouth twisted in something akin to a smile. “You’re a weird guy.”

Sasuke frowned, but ignored the comment. He tapped on Obito’s arms and stepped back, watching as Obito opened up his arms and the crow took flight.

His eyes didn’t leave the bird until it was a mere black dot in the sky, and then it was no more.

“Now?” Asked Obito, crossing his arms.

Sasuke shrugged. “Now we wait.”

So they waited. Days went by, and then a week. The long hours stretched out in the damp heat of Amegakure, and the two Uchiha spent them quietly begging for rain, sheltering inside whatever shop or tavern had air conditioning, or even a ceiling fan.

“You said it would never stop raining,” Sasuke muttered, using the fabric of his shirt to dry the sweat from his brow. It wasn’t like him to complain about the weather, but it was truly becoming unbearable. He was used to the temperate climate of the Land of Fire, better equipped to survive in the northern cold of the Land of Sound. Even in the desert, the heat would let up at night, give them space to breathe. In Amegakure they were surrounded by a lake, under a permanently cloudy sky, with the warmest months of summer approaching.

“Yeah, well, I make mistakes sometimes,” answered Obito. He was speaking more now, but he was still not the man Sasuke had learned to suffer. “I guess Nagato’s death didn’t just affect Konohagakure.”

Sasuke eyed him, but didn’t comment. He had never met the one who called himself Pain, but he had heard stories about him; about the god of rain and his guardian angel. He knew Pain had killed Kakashi – and for a fleeting moment he wondered if Obito felt guilty about it – and that Konan, the angel, had almost killed Obito.

“You almost died here,” Sasuke thought out loud, though it didn’t seem to bother Obito. If he was irked, he didn’t show it.

“I almost died in a lot of places,” Obito said simply, his arms crossed. They were sitting at a low table in a teahouse, which Sasuke found a little ironic. “Wish they had some of that desert tea here.”

Sasuke shrugged and sipped on his iced tea. “Is that why you’re so gloomy?”

“Because I want desert tea?”
“Because you almost died here.”

Obito sighed, shaking his head. That was the moment, Obito knew, to tell Sasuke that he was close, but had not truly grasped what Obito had been mulling over all that time, what he couldn’t get his mind not to think about. If there was any moment to tell Sasuke the honest truth about how he wished Konan had finished the job, that was it.

But as they both drank their drinks, absentmindedly listening to the background noise of the teahouse, with its customers and its waiters and its teapots and its machines in motion, the moment passed.

“I think your crow was shot down.”

Sasuke finished his drink and laid the cup back on the table. “Perhaps. Maybe I should send another.”

“Or maybe we should just keep walking. The fuckers haven’t shown up since the fiasco in the Land of Stone, maybe they’ve stopped following us.”

Sasuke shook his head. He stared into the bottom of his cup, as though he could find the answers he sought there. “They haven’t,” he said, “They need us. Or they need a rinnegan. They think only an Uchiha can awaken it.”

“Think?” Obito snorted. “I’m sorry, did I miss something? Is there someone else who can awaken it?”

Sasuke wasn’t one to sugarcoat hard truths, but he almost hesitated now. He glanced at Obito, uncertain of how he would react, but he spoke the words anyway.

“Kakashi might.”

Obito’s mouth fell ajar, and he looked like he had been petrified. A long moment passed, before he swallowed hard and regained his composure.

He cleared his throat. “Why do you think that?”

“He has your eyes, as well as the chakra of the Sage of Six Paths. Would it be so crazy?” Sasuke sighed. “Listen, I’m not saying it’s a certainty, I’m just saying stranger things have happened.”

Strangely, Obito hummed in agreement. He laid back on his chair, more relaxed. Almost resigned.

“You’re right, it’s not impossible. But if that’s all it takes, why hasn’t he awakened it yet?”

“I don’t know,” said Sasuke, honestly. “And maybe he never will. It took Madara decades to awaken it, and he was an Uchiha. I’m just saying we shouldn’t rule out the possibility.”

“What possibility?”

That wasn’t Obito’s voice. Sasuke’s head shot up to his left, from whence the unidentified voice had come, his hand already gripping the hilt of his katana.

When his eyes laid on a high, unruly bird’s nest of a ponytail, he relaxed.

“Shikamaru,” he grunted. “What are you doing here?”

Obito turned in Shikamaru’s direction, trying to associate the voice with a face from his memory, but he couldn’t place it.

“Rokudaime-sama sent me to look for you,” he said, then sighed heavily. “And to think I was hoping to get a bit of time off. What a bore.”

Finally, Obito remembered his voice from Kakashi’s office; Shikamaru had been there, scolding Kakashi for apologizing to his prisoners.

“We don’t need you,” Sasuke hissed. “We needed information.”

Shikamaru rolled his eyes and sat down between the two Uchiha. “Which I brought with me,” he said, “so shut up and listen to me, or I’ll complain about you to the Hokage.”

For the first time in weeks, Obito smirked. “I like you.”

"Otsutsuki artefacts?” Sasuke asked in a low voice. “Where the fuck would they get them?”

Shikamaru nodded. “If what you’re saying is true, then it lines up with the discoveries we’ve made in the past few months. Apparently these fanatics think they can use your rinnegan and these artefacts to bring about the end of the world. Again.”

Obito scratched his head, his blindfold creasing where he was frowning.

“But it doesn’t make sense,” he said. “That’s not how the Infinite Tsukuyomi works.”

“True,” Sasuke agreed, “but maybe they don’t know that. Still, if they manage to get their hands on a rinnegan and to unearth fuck knows what relic from the Otsutsuki clan, they could be dangerous.”

“You’re safe for the time being,” said Shikamaru, “they won’t cross the lake. That buys us a little time.”

Sasuke arched his eyebrows. “Why won’t they?”

Shikamaru sighed. “Why would they risk being stuck on a rock with two of the most powerful people in the world with a large body of water between them and an escape route?”

As they talked, a waiter approached them to ask if they wanted to order something else, but they decided it was best to take their conversation somewhere else. Sasuke paid for their drinks and they all left the teahouse.

They ducked into a dark alley and, when they were sure no one was around, they body flickered on a rooftop.

Shikamaru lit up a cigarette and, to his merit, offered one to Obito as well, though he refused.

“Ino’s team found an old ruin, likely a temple. We’re currently investigating it, but the Children found it before us. They left very little to investigate, but we’re doing our best.” Shikamaru took a long drag, and it was a minute before he puffed out the smoke.

“Is Kakashi also investigating the artefacts you found?” Asked Sasuke, eyeing Obito out of the corner of his eye, because he knew Obito was dying to ask the question himself.

Shikamaru nodded. “Yes, though our conversation is giving me the impression I should warn him to stay away from them.”

“He has the chakra of the Six Paths, it’s too dangerous,” said Sasuke. “You should warn him immediately.”

Shikamaru nodded. “I agree. We’ll send one of your birds. In the meantime, we need to discuss our next move.”

Sasuke glanced at him with an arched brow. “ Our next move? You’re not going back to Konohagakure?”

Shikamaru scratched his head and grimaced, as though he was compelling himself to make an effort. An effort to stay and collaborate with two people he hated.

“Not yet. We need to get you out of this country without those fanatics catching up to you.”

“Let them try,” Obito murmured, his voice low and threatening. Sasuke didn’t like that tone. “They won’t live to tell the tale.”

Shikamaru glared at Obito, disgust painted on his face. “We’re trying to avoid a massacre. These people aren’t power-hungry zealots with godly powers. They were scarred by the war.” His face hardened as he spoke, the cigarette hanging from the side of his mouth, almost forgotten. “A war you started.”

Obito was quiet again, his face like cold, hard stone. Sasuke felt as though he should say something, but he couldn’t come up with the right words. Perhaps there were none at all.

“Our goal is to capture them, interrogate them and, if they’re not deemed a threat, rehabilitate them,” Shikamaru continued, regaining some of his patience. “We only kill them if they leave us no choice.”

Obito shrugged, then lifted his arms up in defeat. 

But something was bugging Sasuke. Did they want to rehabilitate all of them? What about the deserters? Why should they be forgiven?
“Don’t traitors usually receive the death penalty?” He asked. Both Shikamaru and Obito tensed. Shikamaru lowered his head, shaking it slowly.

“Neither one of you got that sentence, though, right? Why do you think that is?”

Because Kakashi cares , Sasuke thought, knowing how much his old sensei cared about him, about Obito. But these were strangers, and they were threatening two of the people most precious to Kakashi. And then it dawned on him.

“Someone is interceding.” When Shikamaru nodded, Sasuke continued. “Just like Kakashi did for us. But who?”

Shikamaru finished his cigarette, letting the butt drop to the floor and crushed it with his heel.

“I don’t know for certain, but I don’t think it’s any of the Gokage. The order came from the higher ups.”

Obito snorted. “Who ranks higher than the Gokage?”

“The Daimyō,” said Sasuke.

There was a long moment of silence, a moment when all three of them knew, without having to speak the words out loud, the reason why the Daimyō would want the organization to keep existing. A moment of anger, of quiet outrage and, finally, resignation, as a mutual agreement formed between them to leave the words unspoken.

“Send one of your birds to Kakashi. I’ll find you a way out of Amegakure,” Shikamaru’s voice was low, as were his eyes. “We’ll meet at the docks in two hours.”

The next second, he was gone.

Sasuke sighed, hugging his stump with his right arm. He closed his eyes for a second, to try and clear his head of the mess of thoughts crowding it. They would solve one problem at a time, and at that moment the priority was getting a crow to Kakashi. They had to warn him to stay away from the Otsutsuki artefacts, lest they react to his chakra in some unpredictable way.

Ever since Obito fell silent, he hadn’t uttered a single word or moved a single muscle, but he let Sasuke link their arms and drag him away from the rooftop.

He led Obito back to the lakeshore, looking for crows. He felt ridiculous, chasing birds on a shore because he didn’t trust electronic devices. All his power and abilities and he couldn’t come up with a more practical solution.

“Here,” Obito’s voice came from behind him. When he turned, he saw him hold a crow in his arms. “Do your trick, so we can leave.”

Sasuke sighed. He was annoyed, though he couldn’t pinpoint exactly at what. Perhaps at the whole situation. He had intended to travel peacefully, to learn and to change; instead he had been forced, once again, to run and to hide and to sneak from one place to the next, constantly having to watch his back from those who would steal his dōjutsu.

He quickly wrote a message for Kakashi – Stay away from the artefacts. Dangerous with your chakra – and tied it to the bird’s leg. Like he had done for the first crow, he put this one under genjutsu, then Obito freed it.

He watched it fly away, then lightly elbowed Obito’s arm. 

They both summoned a shadow clone each, with the purpose to serve as a decoy. Hopefully whoever was following them would begin following the clones instead.

“Let’s find Shikamaru.”

True to his word, Shikamaru had found them a boat. It was a small, inconspicuous fishing vessel whose owner he had convinced to take on a few passengers. As they boarded the ship, the sky darkened, the wind rose, and it began to smell like rain.

Obito remained on deck as it started pouring; his blood ran hot, he wasn’t gonna catch a cold. He let the water drench him and slide down at his sides, allowing himself to feel, for maybe the first time, the true weight of what he had done to the Ame orphans. They were too young, too easily manipulated, because good young people in pain are always too easily manipulated. He had taken the good thing they had created on their own and twisted it into something ugly, something despicable, using their grief to fuel his war machine, and they had paid the ultimate price for it. He took solace in the knowledge that, at the very least, Nagato had died on his own terms, welcoming his fate and entrusting the future into Naruto’s hands. He couldn’t say the same for Konan. 

He could have spent his entire life trying and he still wouldn’t have been able to repair the damage he had done to her. He couldn’t repair what he had killed.

He opened up his palm, steadying himself with his other hand on the rail, and let his chakra flow through him. He concentrated it into his open hand, letting it spiral at the center; he felt thin branches erupt from his skin, intertwining, creating a sort of small nest, which he infused with even more chakra. He let the rain water the wood, giving it life, until light blue flowers bloomed. He couldn’t see them, but he knew exactly what they looked like.

It wasn’t an apology, because apologies meant nothing to the dead, but rather a token. A sign that he remembered her, a promise that he would remember her for as long as he lived.

He let the nest fall into the water, imagining it float above the surface until, eventually, it would soak up and become too heavy to stay afloat, and it would sink to the bottom of the lake, where it would hopefully meet what remained of her.

Obito had had enough of the rain, so he joined Sasuke below deck.