"Are you aware that you're doing this the hard way?" Obito asked delicately, frowning at Aiko as she meticulously lined the hidden seam in her skirt with tiny flat packets of herbs.
"Hmm?" She looked up. "Yeah, this bit is a little irritating. But we're crossing the border on this trip. Normally I'd just put the haul in my bag, but they'll check that at the post."
Obito sighed. "And you didn't think to use a storage scroll?"
She rolled her eyes at him, finishing her task and making for the door. He walked behind her, a little sullen but willing to indulge her. "You're bad at traveling like a civilian, 'Obi-kun. Civilians can't use those. That would be a pretty big giveaway, don't you think?"
He had to stop and think that over. "Why don't you just sneak past the border?"
"Great idea," Aiko huffed sarcastically, a smile tugging up one side of her mouth. "Me and the two civilians that Ando-san hires to do the heavy lifting will all just be very quiet and get past the border patrolled by shinobi."
Obito frowned. "That's… very strange. Working with civilians. Why don't you just-"
"If storage scrolls are your solution again, I should probably remind you that Ando-san sponsors a lot of trips that I'm not involved in." Aiko raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I could go alone and get the job done faster if I sealed the merchandise. Putting aside how sketchy it is to put comestibles in an intermediary dimension, wouldn't it be just a tiny bit suspicious if there was no trail from people and the wagon on only the trips I go on? Part of what I get paid for is making her rivals leery that there might be shinobi enforcement on any given trip."
Well, and also that Kakuzu had made the poor woman sign a contract on threat of death. But whatever, that was beside the point.
He sighed exaggeratedly. "Alright, alright. I bow to your expertise."
Aiko had to suppress a giggle. She knew he was humoring her, of course. But it was sort of fun that he'd been willing to indulge her by tagging along. Two nights prior, he had finally asked what exactly it was that she did when she went out on trips. The answer "shifty business" hadn't explained much, but it did make him laugh.
"Like, ninety percent of what I do is totally legitimate," Aiko had eventually explained. "I use a lot of the field skills that you pounded into my skull to make sure that no one gets lost, starves, or dies of dysentery on the road. At the start there were a fair few bandits to smack around, but now they're a bit warier." She shrugged. "Hence why I don't have to go on every trip now. Just the long ones, and enough of the day trips that no one can be certain there won't be a shinobi enforcer."
"And they can't figure out when you'll be there based on the trips where drugs are smuggled?" Obito asked dryly.
Aiko had given him a spectacularly unimpressed expression for that one. "Is there some part of the word 'smuggled' that you struggle with? Obviously, that service is not advertised, and no one is confessing to it. It's all word of mouth. I ditch any leftover merchandise that doesn't go to a specific client at a hotspot bar, and they sell the rest."
"I have now learned more than I ever wanted to know about selling petty drugs."
'He doesn't have to be such a downer. I don't sass him about his hobbies.'
Aiko was willing to sass in general, of course. She gave him a toothy grin, eyes creased shut.
"You're welcome, sweet cheeks."
The flinch had been spectacular.
The sound of crates being loaded and packed brought Aiko back to the present, blinking. Obito was slumped at her side against the wall of Ando-san's warehouse. His state of consciousness appeared to be a little closer to 'standing coma' than she'd like optimally.
"You don't have to look so excited," she murmured, elbowing his ribs gently. He pried open one eye—henged brown again—to look at her with tired amusement. "You're going to make me hyper and throw off my game."
"So far, this is not the adventure that I was promised," he sing-songed under his breath.
Aiko snickered. "Sorry, did I say adventure? I'm pretty sure I said something else. If I have to sleep out in the woods, so do you." She raised her eyebrows. "When was the last time you did that, sir?"
"A very long time ago," Obito said dryly. "I've evolved beyond that point."
Sometimes, she thought that Obito might be her spirit animal. The resemblance would be perfect, if only she had a magical ability to travel instantaneously instead of trudging around in the dirt like an animal.
'Not that I'm bitter at all or anything,' Aiko thought with amusement. 'One day, I too will possess such magic. And then there will be no fucking camping, ever again.' Of course, Obito was still waiting for a response.
"I tried telling Kakuzu that I had too, but he didn't buy it." Against her will, she pouted. "Sometimes I think he takes the long routes just to annoy me."
"No, he's just like that," Obito rebutted absently. "He figures that if he has to leave, he may as well get every single errand done at once for maximum efficiency."
"Going twenty miles out of your way to threaten a chump whose loan isn't up yet doesn't seem that efficient to me," Aiko muttered rebelliously.
It was sort of funny, in a really petty way. But it wasn't efficient.
"Hey, do you know how often people try to weasel out of loans?" Obito asked mildly.
Aiko scoffed. Of course she didn't.
"Me either," he confided. "But it's close to zero when Kakuzu is the one involved, so I'm going to have to trust his methodology."
She pursed her lips, but had to nod and concede the point. Their earlier conversation was still on her mind. "Hey, about the storage scroll thing?"
She could all but feel Obito rolling his eyes. "Yes, Aiko. You've already explained why they're not a practical solution. Unless of course our plan is to start hiding storage scrolls, which both is and isn't practical. The chakra signature is very low, so unless you're dealing with a sensor, it's a viable solution."
"Well, that too," Aiko said practically. She cozied up to him, schmoozing. He recoiled when she batted her eyes. "But I was actually thinking that you should teach me to make them. You can do that, right?"
Obito blinked. "Well. I'm not very good, but my sensei was a seal master. So I can manage."
"Really?" She grinned. "That's cool! I want to learn that."
Aiko had no idea why, but she had the distinct feeling that she'd said something very wrong. He swiveled to stare directly down at her, something hard and considering in his eyes. The moment passed quickly. The more elastic side of Obito's mouth curved into a slight smile. "We can go through the basics tonight at camp, then."
"Shall we go, then?" an uncomfortable male voice interjected.
Aiko blinked, having nearly forgotten about Ando-san's actual staff.
"Um, of course. Chūsei and Fukujū, this is my friend, Tobi," Aiko introduced easily. "Tobi, these are Ando-san's employees."
The civilians managed sickly smiles.
'It's almost like Ando-san warned them about my friends,' Aiko thought, turning away to hide a smile. No worries. Obito was much less likely to snap at one of them than Kakuzu was. Even if he was shifty enough to want to use a fake name, what was up with that? Obito wasn't that uncommon of a name.
Well, whatever.
Walking in four hour shifts to accommodate the much slower pace of the civilian escort was mind-numbingly dull. The two nights sleeping under the stars were about as scintillating as Aiko could have predicted, but she did at least have the satisfaction of seeing Obito make faces and fidget in the dirt in an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to find a comfortable way to sleep on the ground.
The real highlight was when he kept his word and scribbled out very basic sealing matrices. He made her destroy all of it every night before they went to sleep, since it wouldn't do to be caught with proof of shinobi training at the border, but she didn't need it.
Seeing the symbology was enough. Aiko couldn't remember the names of each stroke and symbol, but she knew what they did and why they were arranged as they were.
And that Obito wasn't a very good fuinjutsu user.
"I'll try to get you scrolls," he eventually gave up, snatching the papers away from her in disgust and throwing them directly on the fire so that she couldn't continue to mock his sloppy workmanship. "They're generally kept under close wraps and passed from master to apprentice."
Fukujū edged a little further away when Aiko nodded and concluded, "So we're going to go beat up some fuinjutsu master for his notes?"
Obito eyed her wearily. "You don't have to be so gung-ho about it."
She lurched over and grabbed his hands without bothering to entangle her legs from her bedroll. "Obito," Aiko said very seriously. "This is for education. Crimes committed in pursuit of self-edification don't even count."
She tried very hard to keep the evidence of her thoughts off her face when two Iwagakure Chuunin shunshined into view, aggressively postured.
Obito flinched, a good second too late for the reaction to do any good. That was harder than it sounded, considering that both of them had fought down the impulse to cut the arriving Chuunin down before the civilians would even have known they were there. Fighting hard-won instincts wasn't easy. To be able to do that and then immediately slip into a less threatening persona was impressive.
'Obito is a surprisingly good actor,' she noted. The trick was to convince the border security that you were nervous (as any civilian would be when frisked by members of a foreign military) but not so nervous that they actually suspected anything. She did have official papers and had made this trip before, so there was no need to feign too many jitters.
She plastered on a smile that was slightly too stiff to be realistic and stepped forward to draw attention to herself, unfolding their travel documentation and holding it out before it was asked for. She had already been holding it, as if she'd been nervously contemplating this barrier for a while. "Shinobi-san? Masashi, with Ando-san's delivery to Saisekiba."
Of course, Aiko was a half-decent actress herself.
The two Chuunin exchanged amused looks, before the slight man with a blue ponytail reached out for her hand. Obito made an aborted movement as if to step between them, but mastered himself.
'Now is really not the time for the mama bear act,' Aiko scowled, grabbing at his wrist.
The other Chuunin, a hawk-eyed woman, gave Obito a hard look, but did nothing. That was probably in her best interest, honestly. If this went south, Obito was probably going to kill the Iwagakure shinobi and the civilian witnesses, which would put a wrench in her little home business.
'If he messes this up for me, I am going to mock him forever. Seriously, it's not that hard to pretend to be harmless and insignificant. Why does he have to be so dramatic?'
Luckily for everyone else, Obito didn't arouse too much suspicion, even when he pitched his voice a full range higher for no apparent reason.
(He was a weird guy, but he was pretty funny in a way).
"Alright," Chuunin #1 acknowledged, handing back their papers. His partner had finished surveying the stock – and ha, that was a point for Aiko, because she was a sensor—and given him a perfunctory nod. "You folks go on ahead. You know the way?"
At the chorus of stiff nods, the woman seemed to take a breath for patience. "Lovely," she replied sourly. "You'll be in town before noon. Enjoy your stay in the Land of Rock, but please remember that your traveler's pass expires tomorrow at six pm."
"Of course, shinobi-san," Obito shrilled, bobbing into a half bow.
Aiko tried not to wince. God, what was his deal? Was he just messing with her head? Or did he just not know how to act around normal people?
She didn't say anything until they were a good mile away from any other shinobi. At that point, Aiko reached over and elbowed him in the gut. He gave a theatrical 'oof!' and cringe, despite the fact that she'd probably done more damage to her elbow than his rock-hard abdominals. "You're not going to be that weird tonight," Aiko ordered, puffing up confrontationally. "I don't want to have to make another friend in this town."
Obito nodded indulgently. Then he frowned. "You have a friend here? In Iwa?"
"Of course I do," Aiko scoffed. "What, do you think I'm going to sleep outside when I don't have to? Hotels are expensive. Much better to make a friend with a nice house."
He blinked at her languidly. "You're a terrible person."
"Eh."
Despite whatever flippant accusations he had thrown about in regards to her relative morality, Obito was reasonably well-behaved when he met Fuji. Perhaps he was too well-behaved, actually. He'd poured on the charm. Aiko could see the moment that Fuji took in his strong shoulders, confident stance, low voice, and made a decision. She hid a smile while Obito politely followed Fuji's nephew upstairs while Aiko measured out Fuji's order and Fuji counted out Aiko's money.
"Is he yours?" Fuji whispered, nudging Aiko slightly as Obito trudged upstairs to the room he'd be using that night.
She shrugged, re-counting her take. "Seduce away."
The other woman—a tall, willowy woman with beautiful brown eyes and impeccably near nails, wiggled her eyebrows. "Is that a challenge?"
"No," Aiko said, bemused. "Go ahead. I don't care. I'm not with him."
"That sounds like a challenge."
"It really wasn't."
Fuji tossed her hair – a glorious, shining dark cascade completely unlike Aiko's messy mop—over her shoulder and gave Aiko a sultry look, hand trailing along the wall as she stepped away in the direction Obito had gone. "Wish me luck, then."
She came back downstairs five minutes later in a decidedly grumpy mood. Aiko, who was seated at the table and scribbling out seal matrices, gave her an amused look as the other woman stomped back in.
"I take it he's all yours? Madly, truly, deeply in love? He'll probably stay here with you instead of leaving in the morning?"
"Oh, shut up."
Aiko wasn't even surprised that Obito didn't have the patience to make the full trip back. They crossed the border back into Grass without incident, at which point he ordered her to bid a fond farewell to Ando-san's real employees, and then grabbed her arm and Kamui'd them the hell out of there before she could so much as open her mouth.
She shook him off, taking in the sight of their front room.
"You really aren't that into nature, are you?"
"No," Obito said sourly. He stalked off like an offended cat, en route for a shower ("one where I won't be ambushed by your touchy friend", he snapped). Aiko may have laughed slightly too loud to be strictly polite.
Two nights later, he did bring her a lovely hand-written book with only one bloody thumbprint on the cover from its former owner. Aiko hugged it to her chest, thanked him, and purposefully did not ruminate on where exactly he had acquired such a thing.
He was a pretty awesome friend to have.
~~~
"I didn't even know these were down here," Tenzou remarked glumly. Kakashi didn't bother to reply. Using his Sharingan for such a mundane matter as scanning dirt walls for genjutsu was a drain on his reserves, and he had been doing this for hours now.
"I mean," Tenzou continued, "I was practically raised in ROOT, and I had no idea. Was I not trusted? Is this structure just really recent? Or was this just reserved for Danzo's elite?"
"We'll probably never know," Kakashi said tersely, wishing that his kohai would just stop talking.
He'd just gotten back in from another disappointing mission two days prior, following up on one of Jiraiya's increasingly unlikely leads. As it turned out, there were more redheaded girls around than he'd noticed. Still, as frustrating as failing was, it gave more of a sense of accomplishment than walking around in the dark to check a map's accuracy.
This project was a pain in his ass, and had been even before they'd discovered that the walls were reinforced with fuinjutsu that had to be Danzo's personal make. The blunt, ugly symbols were certainly familiar.
That explained why the tunnels hadn't collapsed or been noticed.
"This is pointless," Kakashi grunted, rubbing at the back of his neck. "We can't collapse any of this until the seals have been removed. I can counter these if I have materials and preparation, but the other teams won't be able to. We need to go back to Tsunade and re-group so that she knows to add fuinjutsu users to the other teams."
"Alright," Tenzou agreed docilely.
The office was already moderately full when they made their way back—not only was Sai there along with Yuuhi Kerenai, but Uchiha Itachi awkwardly existed in close proximity to a talented genin corps kunoichi named Ami who was apparently a deft hand with earth ninjutsu. And of course Sasuke was there lording over them all, coiled on a chair and lurking like some sort of small, grumpy dragon.
"Tsunade isn't here," Sasuke snapped out before Kakashi could open his mouth. "Take a seat and wait."
Obediently, Kakashi sat.
'He used to be so much cuter,' he thought mournfully. 'What happened to the kids I got assigned?'
That led to the unsettling realization that Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura had been assigned to his care five years ago. Sasuke was already seventeen, Sakura would be too. Naruto wasn't shy of his birthday by much, either.
'I suppose it makes sense that they've changed.' Kakashi swallowed, not looking directly at his former student. 'It doesn't seem that long to me, but five years is a long time for a teenager. And- and- seven years for Aiko, that's even worse. They're really not kids anymore.'
The ones that were still alive, anyhow. Sakura would always be a little girl.
"Sasuke, you were meant to keep the rabble out," Tsunade grumped, throwing the door open with a bang. Her apprentice sneered at her, unfazed. "Can't you do anything right?"
"And you swore that you'd arranged missions so that there was unlikely to be any problems while you were gone, so we both messed up." He tilted his chin up, sloe eyes heavy-lidded and uncaring.
The room winced in unison, waiting for Tsunade to unleash righteous fury on her smart-mouthed pupil. Itachi in particular looked horrified, frozen in place.
The Hokage just shrugged. "It's not failing when it's me who did it."
"I must have missed that memorandum." Sasuke tossed the folder he'd been nursing on Tsunade's desk with a slap as she muscled past the crowd to take her seat. "I'm going back to work now. I see you've got a lot to do."
"No, wait," Tsunade commanded absently. "I'll need to talk to you after this." She shook her head slightly, before lifting her voice to address the crowd. "Now, what's going on? Just one person, please." She paused for a moment, and decided, "Kakashi."
"The tunnels are supported by fuinjutsu," he said bluntly, scratching at his head. "I copied the matrixes and can get rid of them, but I'll need a day or two to come up with a counter-seal."
"And a fuinjutsu user will have to be added to each team, yes," Tsunade completed, sounding utterly resigned. "I don't know why I thought this one little thing would go smoothly."
"The underground tunnels, you mean?" Sasuke asked curiously, cocking his head slightly. "The ones that go under the walls to the forest?"
There was an appalled silence while every other person in the office turned to stare at him.
Sasuke blinked, a thin line forming between his eyebrows. "What?"
"You know about the underground tunnels." Tsunade buried her face in her hands. "Dear god, why do you know about those? How? I thought- I didn't know about those!"
The teen rolled his eyes. "I didn't know it was such a big deal," Sasuke droned. "I suppose that explains why she said to-" He cut himself off, clearly noticing the odd expressions that his audience was wearing. "You know, never mind. Why don't you finish your debriefing and I'll regale Tsunade with tales of our youthful exploits later," Sasuke drawled, with a distinct lack of anticipation.
As expected, Tsunade rearranged team assignments so that there was a qualified seal user on each team. Tenzou and Kakashi were separated, and Anko would be pulled in to join Itachi and Ami tomorrow. That was an encounter that Itachi might not actually survive, but Kakashi didn't care enough to summon any sympathy.
When everyone else filed out, Kakashi remained stubbornly slumped against the wall. Tsunade didn't blink twice at his lingering, addressing her apprentice as if they were alone.
"Sasuke, what were you talking about?"
He paused for a moment. "Remember that ridiculous mission in Rouran?"
Tsunade and Kakashi groaned in unison.
"I will take that as a yes," Sasuke noted. "That's how Aiko smuggled us into the village."
The Hokage made a pained 'erp' sound. "I think that was left out of the debriefing," she said, sounding oddly stiff. "I believe the report indicated that Aiko made contact with the Sandaime."
Sasuke snorted. "That's accurate, if we understand 'made contact' to mean that she broke into his office and asked for his help, insinuated that his security needed work, and then threatened to break out and do things her own way-"
"I think I've heard enough," Tsunade choked out. Her face contorted in a way that Kakashi couldn't entirely understand, but could sympathize with. He wasn't sure if he wanted to smile or put a palm to his face. "That sounds… more familiar than I would like. Aiko does prefer the most efficient way of doing things."
"And not the diplomatic way?" Sasuke half-asked, half-stated. "I am aware, yes."
'Sounds like an Uzumaki.'
Had the situation been less serious, Kakashi rather suspected that Tsunade might have asked herself why exactly she had been trying so hard to get Aiko back. The expression on her face certainly indicated she was thinking along those lines.
He actually felt a little defensive. "Out of curiosity, what's your go-to plan to convince a former Hokage who won't recognize you that you come from the future?"
It probably wasn't wise to let the little edge of aggression slip into his tone, but Kakashi couldn't help it.
Tsunade just stared at him for a moment, baffled that he'd spoken to her that way. After a moment, she sighed and swiped her hand at him, making a quiet sound of disgust. "Fair point."
"Right, well, there you go," Sasuke said blandly, clearly bored with their tiff. "That's the riveting story of why Naruto and I have been down there. She told us not to mention it, and we haven't been back since."
'Well, that answers one question,' Kakashi thought, remembering Tenzou's attempts to guess how old the tunnel system was. It did make him wonder why Aiko would have known if Tenzou hadn't- perhaps Danzo had more difficultly moving his people under Tsunade's rule than he had under the Sandaime's.
Going back down there the next day was a dank and altogether unpleasant experience. Kakashi hated tunnels and being underground in any way other than under his own power. He had since he was twelve, and that Iwa nin had brought a cave down on Obito.
Something twinged in his chest. Kakashi swallowed silently, smoothing a piece of paper over one of the seals. With careful focus he began to trace the counterseal lightning-fast, trying not to dwell on thoughts that being trapped in the oppressive stillness stirred up.
'We never got Obito's body back,' his treacherous mind whispered at him. 'What if that's the body Madara is using?'
But no. It was impossible. He'd left Obito off the admittedly short list of potentially stolen bodies (the Uchiha had been careful about things like that) because his teammate had been brutalized beyond fixing. They'd had an incredibly talented medic-nin on their team who had taken one look and started to cry. Tsunade-sama in her prime couldn't have fixed Obito. His body would have been no use to a skin-stealing fossil like Uchiha Madara.
'Just because I can't see how it's possible doesn't mean I can justify excluding his name from the list,' Kakashi scolded himself dully. 'I'll qualify the addition with what I know so Tsunade doesn't waste too many resources on that possibility.'
God, remembering that they'd left Obito there to die alone in the cold and dark made him feel like the worst kind of scum. Kakashi hated himself so much he might choke on it.
He and Rin had been too weak to save their teammate, and too unseasoned and emotionally unprepared to give Obito a mercy killing.
And Obito had been so calm- so forgiving of their weakness. He'd managed to smile, even with half his face crushed and the visible eye gouged out and acclimating to Kakashi's skull. He hadn't even asked for that one kindness.
'Why didn't he ask us to kill him?' Kakashi wondered miserably. 'He was so much better than me. It should have been me. If he hadn't saved me, Rin would probably be alive. And Obito would have been a better sensei. I got one girl killed in an exam she wasn't ready for, couldn't keep one from being kidnapped, and the boys found better sensei. If Obito had been the one left, everything wouldn't have gone so badly.'
He didn't notice the way his breathing was becoming shallower, but Sai did. The teen gave the older man a wary glance, but remained silent.
It was a long period of days that Kakashi spent in darkness and doubt, gradually collapsing tunnels. But at the end, he added a name to his report for Tsunade that he would rather have left off.
If Madara really had found Obito's body and desecrated it, there would be hell to pay.
It wasn't true. It couldn't be true.
Still, he had to know for himself. Kakashi had a lifetime of dodging people attempting to unmask him as material to compose plans for removing someone else's mask.
~~~
Obito lingered in the training field long after Aiko had gone back to the safehouse for a shower. He didn't bother to turn around at the long, drawn out sound of a squelch from behind him, followed by a sound like chewing as flesh and plant matter separated.
'They're so yucky,' Tobi shrilled.
Madara quietly agreed.
White Zetsu lurched up to Obito's left side, Black Zetsu stalking to stand silently by his right. The robes and clothing they'd been wearing was left in shreds on the ground, abandoned when Zetsu split into two beings and spawned enough limbs to function from White Zetsu's wood release.
Darkdankcrowdedsmellslikedirtandfear
"She's coming along," White Zetsu observed. Obito still didn't look. The Zetsu had no genitals or much in the way of features at all, but he had no desire to look at another man's naked ass.
"The idiot is incrementally less pathetic."
A muscle twitched in Obito's jaw. Madara laughed inappropriately loudly.
'The idiot,' he humed, savoring the moniker. 'There are worse descriptors.'
'You just don't like Aiko-chan,' Tobi pouted. 'She's not an idiot.'
"No," White Zetsu disagreed. "That is unfair. The child was Konoha's. Obito has only had five or six months to repair the weakness left by their slack."
"He takes too long," Black Zetsu countered darkly.
Another flash—the world went dark in one eye for a moment, a monotonous hell of packed earth.
"I could perform the surgery today if we would like," White Zetsu suggested helpfully. "I'm good with pieces."
Black Zetsu scoffed. "I don't care who does it. It just needs to be done."
His better half made a noncommittal hum.
'They do realize that I am right here?' Obito wondered.
"We need a Rinnegan user to revive my master." He could hear Black Zetsu shift on his feet, impatient. "There is no point in attempting to educate this simpleton in genjutsu. White Zetsu should implant Madara-sama's Rinnegan in the brat and Obito should teach it to use its powers. That is why we have the thing, is it not?" He scoffed. "If it is not useful, we should eat it and find another host."
His teeth were pressed together just a little too tightly.
It was stupid to forget, even for a moment, that Black Zetsu was neither Obito's friend or comrade. White Zetsu and Spiral Zetsu had genuinely been his friends, but those days were gone. Spiral Zetsu was gone and White Zetsu inextricably tied to Black Zetsu, except when he wasn't.
Black Zetsu only served Madara. If Obito didn't move fast enough for his tastes, Black Zetsu would go behind Obito's back. Obito could beat Black Zetsu. Probably. If Black Zetsu wasn't prepared for that eventuality, and didn't have clones or spores sitting around.
In other words, it would be a frustrating, uphill battle and impossible to be certain that he'd stamped Zetsu out. Besides, it would mean killing his friend White Zetsu as well. In a way, that would be worth it to get rid of the dark twin.
'He really would eat Aiko.' Obito crossed his arms across his chest. 'He'd probably enjoy it, the freak.'
White Zetsu breathed in deeply. "It does smell nice," he admitted, sounding a little guiltily. "Fresh and a little sweet. It washes a lot more than the Kakuzu."
"No, I wouldn't want to eat the Kakuzu," Black Zetsu agreed quickly. "Rotten meat. Not fresh. Not sweet."
'Alright, that's enough of that.'
"She'll be ready soon," Obito said tightly.
She'd never be ready. He'd changed his mind, he regretted ever thinking he would revive Madara. The old man could stay dead. Obito didn't need him to fulfill his plan and fix the world. Of course, he did need to keep Black Zetsu off his case. Black Zetsu would be a terrible enemy to have, even if Obito had been in a position of power. With his organization depleted and weakened, it was a stupid fight to pick. Zetsu might well win, if only by playing Akatsuki against foreign and domestic enemies.
And he would kill Aiko, without reviving her later. That would be entirely Obito's fault: she'd never even have come to Zetsu's attention if Obito hadn't selfishly dragged her out as a scapegoat to put off the inevitable fallout for a while longer.
'Why did I get her involved in this? I should have worked alone.'
"How soon?" Black Zetsu pried, standing far too close and looming. Obito was a tall man himself, but the wood release construct stretched to a more impressive height in order to intimidate. "You've been saying soon since you brought it back."
Obito turned away without responding, back tight with repressed fury. He didn't appreciate the attempt to undermine his authority.
"I must resume my surveillance," White Zetsu inserted uncomfortably, backing away.
"Good idea. Don't you have work to do?" Obito prompted Black Zetsu. The friendly Zetsu made a break for it.
Black Zetsu grew teeth for the explicit purpose of favoring Obito with an unfriendly grin. "I'm already observing a target," he rasped. "I put spores on your pet."
'He didn't have orders to do that.' He wasn't certain if he was more angry or unsettled by the implication that Black Zetsu wasn't even going through the pretense of obedience.
Fury was tempting, but it wouldn't help anything. The information Black Zetsu had just taunted him with needed to be acted upon. It was a definite threat: Black Zetsu's spores could be activated at any time and used to immobilize or kill a target.
"Make sure Suigetsu hasn't gotten himself killed," Obito ordered stiffly. "I will take care of Aiko."
Fine. It wasn't ideal, and there was no point to it other than putting Zetsu off. But she was healthy enough that the transplant was unlikely to kill her, and seemed loyal enough so far. He would have liked to wait longer to ensure that she was committed, or take the Rinnegan himself… but if he did that, Zetsu would know he had no intention of sacrificing himself to reanimate Madara. The gesture would be pointless.
And… Well, if he asked Aiko for permission to conduct surgery, she was going to wonder why. She wasn't dim enough to fail to notice waking up with a sore head and new eyes, so he would have to tell her something. That conversation would certainly give away an agenda, but he could also follow Madara's lead more directly.
It wasn't as if Madara had asked permission to implant his eyes in Nagato's skull.
No, Madara had put the boy's parents under a truly stupefying genjutsu, had Zetsu perform the surgery, and let the little idiot think that they were an Uzumaki bloodline technique.
'Technically they are,' Obito had to admit in the interest of fairness. 'They're just not an Uzumaki bloodline trait that can be activated without Uchiha dna.'
So it was barely even a lie. Not bad.
"Three weeks," Obito decided. "I'll have it done in three weeks." Black Zetsu paused in his steps, but nodded and sank into the ground.
Naked bastard.
As if he didn't have enough to worry about.
Thestenchofearth,moistandfoulandinescapable
God, was that going to stop? There was just long enough between the visions for him to calm. That meant that every vision was jarring.
'I might be going mad.' Obito laughed once, mirthless and quiet. 'Or maybe I feel guiltier about this than I realized. I can't think of another reason that this eye keeps dwelling on darkness and doubt.'
Against his will, one hand reached slowly up to his face, towards the Sharingan that was originally his.
'I'm not underground,' he told himself. His tongue slipped out to lick dry lips. 'What is this, my subconscious telling me that I'm about to undergo a drastic change in ideological position? Or have I become the Madara in the scenario?'
He huffed. What a terrible thought. It'd be nice if he could stop dwelling on such morbid memories.
Of course, he was going to be channeling Madara very soon, so the thoughts of those days underground were probably appropriate. Pein had been an idiot. Hopefully, that was a coincidence and not an effect of having Madara's eyes implanted in his head. It would be most distressing if Aiko atrophied into a similar state of mental acuity.
He was actually a little leery about that part of the plan. Those eyes… Well. They were completely unprecedented. Not only had Madara activated the Mangekyou Sharingan, he had finagled himself the Rinnegan. Neither dojutsu had ever been studied. There was every chance that there was some sort of side-effect that Madara had been unaware of or simply not bothered to share.
'After all, Uchiha eyes weren't mean to be used by other people.'
His hand twitched toward the socket that should be empty before he stopped it. Bakashi was famous for that damn eye in large part because he couldn't turn it off. Judging by Nagato's use of the Rinnegan, that dojutsu did not consume a similarly prohibitive amount of chakra—or perhaps it did, and he had only survived because of the impressive chakra reserves inherited from his Uzumaki ancestors. If that was the case, Aiko may well be completely useless for a long time while she acclimated and the constant strain stretched her reserves.
And the entire procedure may well be pointless, except as a feint to keep Zetsu happy for as long as possible. Obito severely doubted that Aiko would ever be able to use the seven paths that the Rinnegan enabled: which mattered because the technique was required to build up the chakra necessary for revive someone long-dead like Madara. That inability was mental, not physical.
It wasn't funny, but he had to chuckle.
'It's a problem that I can't fix, no matter how much chakra and power I throw at it. How frustrating. I trained until my hands bled, but I'm certainly not a therapist. That's what she needs. She's cracked. Functional, but too damaged for my purposes.'
Zetsu couldn't find out—if he did, he'd kill the girl. But it was perfectly plain to Obito that she had not dealt with the trauma of her death at all. She was nearly crippled whenever she seemed to remember that it had happened.
'It was a mistake to tell her.' He began to walk back to the house, taking the long route. 'I should have thought of a better way. Why did I ever think that she would cope well with that information?'
That had been his fault, and he would own up to it.
Of course, he absolutely could not have predicted that she would possess a bizarre and completely inexplicable phobia of puppets. It really was perplexing.
(What the hell was so intimidating about glorified dolls? They were just another tool.)
Regardless of the lack of logic behind that particular fear, it did seem to cement the likelihood that she would be paralyzed at the prospect of being asked to turn corpses into puppets and enact her will through them. Inconvenient, to say the least.
'Life works in mysterious ways,' Obito mused philosophically.
Ah, well. He didn't need Madara to cast the Tsukyomi. What he needed was the nine bijuu. That could be accomplished, though not easily. If he didn't manage to acquire them all in a brief window of time, it would become exponentially more difficult. That window was rapidly approaching, now that the great nations had forgotten Akatsuki in their struggle for power and land. He just had to play them off each other for long enough that when the first two jinchuuriki disappeared, their home countries blamed their enemies instead of Akatsuki. After that, it would be a rush to snatch the rest before communication resumed between the shinobi nations and they realized what was happening.
And that? That, he could do without a single Rinnegan Path.
'Chakra chains would be helpful, though,' he had to think ruefully. 'How simple would it be to capture a jinchuuriki if their demonic energy could be contained?'
Wasn't that bloodline activated by stress?
That brought up interesting possibilities. Of course, he'd have to prepare Aiko for the Rinnegan before he tried to shock her into re-discovering her chakra chains.
He shoved his hands in his pockets and his dark thoughts away, and kicked the door open to step out of the sun's gaze and into the cool house.
'There's no time like the present.'
~~~
"Aiko?"
She jumped, just a little, when knuckles rapped gently on her door.
"What's up?" Aiko called in response, sitting up but not getting off the bed.
After a moment, Obito pushed the door open and leaned against the doorframe. Huh. He didn't often come to her room. She eyed him up, letting her book slump down to rest on her lap.
'He looks tired and stressed.'
She bit her lower lip thoughtfully. She'd never have known from his body posture, of course. But the dark circles under his eyes sort of gave it away. It was sort of sad that he was so used to feigning alertness and full strength that he was putting on an act in his own house.
"What's with the face?" He drummed his fingers against the door, nearly blocking out the view of the hallway. Aiko was reminded that he was a pretty big guy, for someone with not a pound of fat.
"Nothing. Why don't you come in?" Aiko patted the bed and scooted over, creating an inviting space as she put the novel she'd been reading on the bedside table. She raised an eyebrow in expectation.
"That's a little inappropriate," he said distantly. Actually, he looked distant in general—his eyes were directed into her room, but she really wasn't sure he was seeing her. The effect was unnerving.
'Is he even okay? Something has to be stressing him out. Not that he'll tell me if I ask, but he doesn't seem well…'
She made a cute pout to keep the mood light. "Please? It's gotta be better than lurking. I promise I'll keep my hands to myself. Your virtue is safe."
Obito gave in with a reluctant smile and sat gingerly—on the floor, using her bed as a backrest. Fine, she could work with that. Aiko flopped down onto her belly and tangled her fingers in his hair, scratching absently at his scalp. She had to tug the mask settled on his head off entirely and settle it on her bed to free up space, but Obito didn't protest other than with a sleepy grunt.
He rebuffed her sometimes, but she could tell that he really was a tactile person. Obito liked contact as much as she did.
'He just gets really weird as soon as it passes some invisible boundary of what he considers indecent,' Aiko mused. 'In a weird way, he's sort of an old-fashioned gentleman. He'll beat the tar out of me in training, but he won't hold my hand.'
"This isn't how you're supposed to have a serious discussion," Obito tried unconvincingly.
She gave a low hum and switched from scratching to rubbing circles behind and above his ears. He went nearly limp, putty in her hands. He only reacted when she ducked her face and rubbed the tip of her nose against his hair, sniffing slightly. He smelled comforting and nice—like man and something crackly.
"What, are you a dog or something?" He swatted over his head gently, skimming her hair.
She grinned. "Woof," Aiko said solemnly. "Anyway, I don't see why we can't have a conversation like this. I think you're tense. So I'm fixing you." He couldn't see her scrunch up her nose cutely, but the gesture was more for her sake than his anyways.
He sighed, but didn't pull his head away.
"Do you still want to come along on one of my missions?"
Her fingers stilled for just a moment. "What, really?" She pulled his head back enough to blink down into tolerantly amused black eyes. "Yes, that sounds peachy keen. I'm ready for an adventure. Where are we going? When are we going? Are we going to meet new people?"
"So hasty." He reached back and knocked gently on her hand with his knuckles. She playfully threw the hand away. "How's that jutsu coming along?"
Oh. She wilted, just a bit.
"Fine," Aiko muttered, rubbing the edge where his hairline bled into his neck. "I'm really good at it. The best."
He snorted. That was response enough, really. As it turned out, she had no talent for ninjutsu. Just none at all. Obito couldn't tell her if that was how she had always been or if it was a new problem, but she just didn't have the instinctive knack that a ninjutsu specialist needed.
Someone with innate talent could learn a new jutsu in hours and manipulate the techniques for effects that others would never be able to achieve with years of practice.
Unfortunately, she wasn't that type of person (though sometimes, she felt such frustration that she thought she must have known one of those unfair geniuses).
'At least I'm good at hitting things,' Aiko consoled herself. It seemed strange and unfair that she'd get genetic coding that gave her a short reach when hand-to-hand was her most natural skillset, but she'd cope. Somehow.
"Well, you're going to need it soon," Obito sighed, pushing his head slightly into her questing fingers. She could all but feel him melt. "You have the hand signs down, right?"
"Oh, yeah," Aiko assured him. "The memorization and speed aren't an issue. I struggle with the regularity of chakra output a bit, though." She scrunched up her nose. "For some reason, I really want to mess with the proportions much more than I need to. Like I think that I need to overcompensate with my physical chakras."
She could feel his head move ever so slightly as he shrugged. "That'll have to do."
"Does that mean we're going to go get a jinchuuriki?" Aiko had to frown. What would a human sacrifice look like, anyway? She knew that Obito had said they were just demons put into a human's body, but did that mean they just looked like regular people?
She shuddered.
'That thought was unexpectedly creepy. Let's not go there.'
"That's the plan. You're going to be with me, since I haven't taught you the projection technique yet." She could all but hear him frown—it was in the way that his voice got a little lower and his consonants became carefully pronounced. "I doubt that I'll have a lot of trouble with this one, but you never know." He huffed a quiet laugh, shaking his head slightly. "It would be easier if…"
"If what?" she prodded, leaning over him and tilting her head.
Obito looked chagrinned. "I shouldn't have said anything. It's no big deal."
A sinking feeling told her that it was, in fact, a big deal.
"Something else that I forgot?" Aiko asked mournfully. She bit her lip, pulling back into herself a bit and curling her back. Great. Just great.
He took a quick inhalation- and then hesitated.
She already knew that whatever he was about to say would be a very unconvincing lie, so she used her grip on his head to push his face down, pretending to be absorbed in giving him a massage. "Don't lie to me."
His shoulders, so much broader than her own, deflated slightly in her peripheral vision. "Sorry." He cleared his throat and talked a little louder. "Your bloodline."
Aiko blinked. "What, the eye thing you mentioned a relative of mine having?" she asked, unsure. "That would be a good thing?"
"Well, yes," Obito admitted. "Although not necessarily the eye part, in that scenario. That'd just be a side effect. Uzumaki also have a genetic possibility of developing something called chakra chains, which are very good to fighting jinchuuriki and restraining bijuu. Demonic energy is very corrosive, after all. It can melt the flesh right off your bones."
(He politely pretended not to notice the shaking of her hands at that point.)
"It doesn't matter, though." He leaned forward and twisted to smile at her. "We can handle it. I just worry. Actually…" He took a breath. "Maybe I won't take you on that mission. I just don't want to risk it."
'I can handle it! I can. Give me a chance.'
Her jaw dropped open at how unfair that was, but he kept going.
"I just don't want you to get hurt," Obito said sincerely, giving a gentle smile that creased his eyes nearly shut. "Maybe a different mission, yeah?"
It was hard to maintain an indignant attitude in the face of his genuine goodwill. "Yeah," Aiko agreed quietly.
He left not long after that—left her room and then left the safehouse the next morning. But Aiko didn't let the conversation fade from her mind. She couldn't be mad at him. She could be a little mad at herself, though. If this Nagato chump could activate that bloodline, why couldn't she?
If she had a bloodline ability that came with funny eyes and magic chains, it seemed like a thing worth pursuing.
~~~
"They're going to get that Ame woman released," Michiru warned, setting down a tray with a stack of papers on one side and a plate of cookies on the other. "There's precedent for a kage being let on bail so that the country don't suffer, honey."
A shrugged good-naturedly, stuffing a sweet in his mouth whole while his secretary bustled behind him and opened the window. C and Darui made longing eye contact from across the room, but remained professionally silent. They probably weren't going to get any cookies.
"I can put that back as far as possible to give Ame time to worsen. Nothing can be finalized without our participation." He frowned. "Though I can't actually be seen as constructive."
(Obstructive, C corrected silently. The word was 'obstructive.')
His elderly secretary clucked her tongue and shuffled back over to his desk to pat his cheek. "That's nice, dear. The third letter from the top is actually about that."
"Oh?" A shuffled the first two envelopes off to the side onto his desk and pulled out the specified paper. "Let's see…" He squinted, tilting his head.
Darui repressed a sigh. It was a good thing that the general populace was unaware that their Raikage let his great-aunt all but run the office. Michiru-sama was a very nice lady, except for all the poisoning, but she hadn't been selected as Raikage.
"That deteriorated quickly," A noted in a mildly impressed tone. "Riots, starvation, and - the slave trade? Ame has a slave trade?" He huffed, shaking his head. "I thought Ame had enough problems."
His great-aunt let out a polite titter, shuffling off to the kitchen around the corner. "Well, what do you expect? That would be the definition of anarchy. A country falls apart in a surprisingly short time without a leader. And their shinobi village has always been weak."
"Yes, Oba-san," he agreed easily.
(The ruling family in Kumo, C ruminated, was really rather terrifying, in a way that tended to get underestimated).
"Is there precedent for how long it'll take for a request to have the Ame woman released?" A asked, leaning back and stuffing another cookie into his face. "That Hokage woman is going to fight this, so she'll be trying to get Konan-san out. I don't know how competent she is, but any kage will do a better job than the local lords pussy-footing about now."
"I know," Michiru hummed. "I know, love. She'll want Konan-san to put Ame to rights before the trial. It'd be months before Konan-san is released under ordinary circumstances, but I'm afraid that the situation might get a rush order." She shook her wobbling head sternly. "I'd suggest stalling communications to buy time. She can't be released until the trial details have been confirmed so that she can sign agreement to return in time. They'll be doing their best to get a non-shinobi mediator, possibly from the Land of Iron or an uninvolved Daimyo." Michiru frowned. "You could attempt to compromise the partiality of potential mediators to narrow down the list of candidates, and then interfere with the internal operations of the most likely leaders."
A grunted, spewing crumbs. "I like it," he agreed genially, smacking a fist down on the coffee table. "That sounds fun! A trade embargo might do it, or we could more directly go in and intercept messengers." He slammed his meaty fist into his right palm.
C cringed. He was very glad that he served the most powerful country in the world, and not their enemies.
"You have such good ideas, honey," Michiru crooned fondly. The Raikage grinned, puffing his chest out and rapping his fingers against his knees.
It made sense to sabotage Ame's ability to function as part of their plan to argue that Ame couldn't function as a nation and should be dissolved. But the execution of that plan was brutal. A lot of people were going to die in Ame.
"Can I have a sandwich?" A asked hopefully.
Michiru brushed off the front of her dress and smiled, smearing a bit of red lipstick on her teeth. "Of course, dear."
C was very glad he served Kumogakure.
~~~
Two days after their disappointing conversation about chakra chains, Obito was waiting with a cup of coffee when she came downstairs with her hair still wet from her shower.
"You're back sooner than I expected," she observed.
He shrugged without looking up.
So helpfully chatty. That was… a little unusual actually. He could generally hold up a conversation on the times that he hung around without starting a training session. Aiko tried again.
"I didn't know you'd be staying at this safehouse," she commented, wringing a little bit of damp out of her hair before she sat at the table. "Usually you're gone for a while. Are we having practice again? I think I might be getting somewhere with that light refracting genjutsu."
"I'm not," Obito said absently. "I'm just stopping by. There was something I wanted…" he trailed off, but never finished his statement.
Aiko stopped and really took a look at him, now that they weren't throwing things at each other and trying pathetically to slip underneath the other's notice. (Okay, that was all her. He could genjutsu like a pro. She was apparently completely without talent in every shinobi art but fuinjutsu and taijutsu. Depressing).
'He looks like he hasn't slept in days. And he didn't bother to clean up after he came in from wherever. Ew. Also, not like him.'
She swallowed carefully. "How are you?"
He glanced over with sunken, tired eyes. She couldn't help but note that he looked paler than usual, and just a little too thin. A muscle twitched in his jaw. "I'm fine."
"You don't look fine," Aiko half-accused, not pleased that he was so obviously lying to her. "You look tired. Maybe you should lay do-"
"I said I'm fine!"
She jumped, eyes wide as his palm slapped down on the table with enough force to send it shuddering. The coffee cup clinked and shattered against the wood, sending scalding liquid flying. Aiko jerked her hand back reflexively, but not in time to keep her left arm dry.
Obito looked about as surprised as she did. Maybe he was surprised to see the spilt liquid—the voice that had shouted had been pitched lower than his usual speaking voice. She was starting to see a pattern.
'That is not normal,' Aiko thought, hating the chill that ran up her spine. 'Not normal. I know he's always had mood switches, but never like that. Not- not yelling and hitting things.'
Shamefully, at that moment, she couldn't help but remember just how physically imposing he was, and how strong he was. That wasn't fair, that was stupid. Obito would never hurt her.
'But he doesn't always seem like Obito. He's someone else when he's mad.'
And that was why he needed someone to take care of him. He didn't even seem to know.
'Something is very wrong with him. He's sick. He needs help.'
Of course, she had no room to talk. She was a walking corpse and she dreamed about killing people and occasionally about searing heat ripping her skull open. Aiko wasn't quite positioned to cast judgment about someone else's mental health. They needed each other, that was fine. It meant she wasn't alone and he wasn't alone.
"I'm sorry," Obito said gently,
Somehow, she forced a wooden smile onto her face. "It's alright. I didn't mean to upset you."
Impossibly, that seemed to make things worse. He shook his head and grabbed her hand when she reached out to gather the broken glass. "No- leave it. And please don't say that. I'm sorry. It's not your job to avoid upsetting me. I have no excuse for losing control like that." With one last regretful glance, he pushed his chair back and crossed the room to grab a hand towel. "I'll clean up. Is your hand alright?"
The skin on her wrist and forearm was red and swelling. Aiko pulled it off the table and put it on her lap, out of sight. "It's fine. Are you alright?"
He paused, letting coffee soak into the grey rag. One hand slowly drifted up towards his face, but he didn't actually touch his eye. Good thing too, she noted with concern. It certainly wasn't safe to go from cleaning up glass putting your hands on your eye. Feeling a little nervous about just how close his fingers were hovering, Aiko stood and took the two steps necessary to use her right hand to gently pull his arm down.
"Obito?" she asked quietly, covering his hand with both of hers.
For the first time, he looked in her direction and really seemed to see her. Obito gave a barking little laugh but didn't pull away. "It's childish, I'm afraid," he admitted with a rasp. "I keep seeing things. I'd say they're nightmares, but they're more like quick flashes of vision. I think I'm dwelling on bad times. I had a terrible time finishing a mission that should have been completely mundane. It was all very pathetic."
She stayed silent.
"I keep thinking that I'm seeing- that I'm underground again," Obito admitted. "and feeling so miserable. Thinking that I'm a failure and claustrophobic and I just can't stop thinking about that day." His hand shook a little. Concerned, Aiko pressed her fingers against it a little more firmly.
'I don't know what to do,' she realized, shivering unpleasantly. 'I want to help him but I don't know how.'
"Aren't you going to tell me to let it go because it's not real?" Obito asked, sounding oddly defensive. "Focus on the now and all that?"
Aiko didn't know what he was looking for- condemnation or judgment perhaps. She shrugged, uncomfortable but unwilling to let go. "It's real. If you feel it and remember it, it's real. I wish you were happy, but telling you not to be sad doesn't help."
He choked, shaking his head. "You don't even know what I'm talking about."
She wasn't sure if he sounded amused or derisive, so she kept her face clear.
"I suppose it's the day my life changed," Obito decided, with a dark sort of humor. "The day Konoha thought that I died."
Aiko became very, very still, because if that didn't sound like a trigger, she didn't know what would. Unconsciously, she tugged the hand she was holding closer and held it to her chest like a comfort blanket.
"I had two teammates," he said quietly. But he wasn't really talking to her. Obito's eyes were distant. Maybe underground again, remembering things he'd rather not. Aiko shivered.
"Rin and Kakashi." The emotion with which he pronounced each name was not remotely the same. 'Rin' was delicate and quiet, like something holy. The emotion attached to 'Kakashi' was different. There was something angry shuddering beneath the surface of that word.
"He didn't want to get her when she was kidnapped," Obito recounted distantly. "We fought, and I left. I ran into trouble- and he came back for me."
Kakashi sounded like he needed to make his mind up.
"He took a blow for me that ruined one of his eyes." Aiko winced. "And then when we found Rin, and the cave tumbled down, I pushed him out of the way of the rock that would have killed him." Obito laughed, short and bitter. "I don't know if I regret that or not. At the time, I begged Rin to give him my eye, so that I could still see the world. I didn't say it, but I was so scared. So scared to die." He cleared his throat and said so quietly that she had to strain to hear. "They just left me there in the dark. They should have killed me, if they didn't care. They never came back. Not even looking for a body."
The pain and confusion- a child's voice asking why- almost physically hurt her.
Eyes hot, Aiko took a step in and nudged her forehead against his chest, like a cat asking to be pet. She couldn't speak. Every word he said was quiet and terrible, inexorably drawn out of his chest. She didn't want to hear any more, but she couldn't stop him either.
"and then Madara found me. Less than a year later, Kakashi killed Rin."
'What.'
That shocked her into a flinch, drawing her chin down nearly to her chest. It sounded like there was a story there. She definitely was not about to ask.
"At least in my head, it all started when the rocks came down in that cave. That's what I've been thinking I'm seeing for the past two days," Obito finished, his voice clearing up. He gave a little huff of a laugh. "So, what do you think?"
"I think your teammate sounds scary," Aiko said into his chest. His hand, still caught between hers and pressed between them, twitched comfortingly. "They should have come back for you. I would."
He gave a shocked laugh, shoulders shaking a little. "He's not that scary. But thanks." Obito took a step back, tugging his hand out of her grip as he turned away and collected himself. Aiko let it go. He clearly didn't want her to linger on his little fit, so she turned to the window and put her hands on her hips, staring out into the sunshine. It'd be harder to wallow in misery and bad memories about being trapped in the dark when you were out and about, wouldn't it?
"I don't feel much like training today," Aiko said contemplatively. "Let's go out and do something fun. Outside."
Obito looked wryly at her, clearly knowing what she was doing.
"Really."
"Yepp." She rolled her neck, breathing in deeply. "I think it's time for an adventure."
"I have places to be."
"They're really not that important."
"Oh, yes they are."
"As important as going out to do something fun? You could take us to Iron and we'd see a movie."
Obito opened his mouth, considering. "…You're not suggesting this because that awful Icha Icha movie just came out, are you?"
"Don't be ridiculous," Aiko scoffed. "That's not out yet. But you are totally taking me to that. No, we're going to see a Princess Fuin movie."
The Icha Ichia movie wasn't going to be out for weeks. Although she had heard about a special screening up in Iron country where filming had been done that was rather intriguing.