Chapter 1: The Weight of a Ghost
The world was not ending in fire, but in weight.
Crushing, absolute, immovable weight.
The sensation was the only thing that existed. It eclipsed the pain, eclipsed the fear, and eclipsed the scream that had died in his throat seconds ago. The right side of his body felt like it had been erased from existence, replaced by the cold, unyielding mass of the boulder. Darkness pressed against his remaining eye, a thick, suffocating blackness that smelled of wet earth, iron blood, and dust.
Kakashi.
The name floated in the void of his fading mind. He had done it. He had pushed him out of the way. For the first time in his life, Obito Uchiha, the failure, the latecomer, the boy who choked on his own fireballs, had been on time. He had saved his friend.
Rin... I won't get to tell you.
The thought was a sharp needle in his heart, hurting more than the shattered ribs or the crushed arm. The darkness grew heavier, turning from black to a static gray. The sounds of the cave collapsing—the rumble of earth, the shouting of his teammates—began to stretch and distort, sounding like they were coming from underwater. He felt his chakra flickering, a dying candle in a windstorm. It was cold. So incredibly cold.
So this is it, Obito thought, his consciousness fraying at the edges. This is the end. I die here, under a rock, a Chunin for less than a day.
He waited for the absolute silence of death. He waited for the nothingness.
But the silence didn't come.
Instead, a rhythmic, high-pitched beeping sound pierced the darkness.
Beep... Beep... Beep...
It was annoying. Relentless. It didn't sound like a cave. It sounded mechanical, artificial.
"Blood pressure dropping! He's going into shock!"
The voice was loud, frantic, and speaking a dialect of the language that felt slightly off, too fast, too clipped. It wasn't Kakashi. It wasn't Minato-sensei.
"Stabilize him! Get the anesthesia levels up, he's fighting it!"
Anesthesia? The word was foreign, slippery in his mind. Obito tried to open his eye. He had to see. Was he captured? Did the Iwagakure shinobi drag him out to torture him for intel? He tried to summon his chakra, to mold the energy into his remaining limbs, but his body felt like lead. It wasn't just the rock anymore; it was something else, a heaviness in his veins that made his thoughts sluggish.
He forced his left eyelid open.
The light was blinding. It wasn't the natural sun or the dim glow of a fire torch. It was a harsh, sterile white light that burned his retina, coming from a circular array of artificial suns hanging from a pristine white ceiling.
"He's awake! Doctor, the patient is conscious!"
Obito's vision blurred and swam. He saw figures looming over him. They were dressed in strange hues of green and blue, their faces hidden behind masks of cloth and paper. They didn't look like shinobi. No headbands. No flak jackets. Just strange, loose clothing.
One of them leaned over him. The man's eyes were kind but urgent. "Boy? Can you hear me? Don't move. You have suffered severe trauma. We are trying to save you."
"Rin..." Obito croaked. His voice was a broken wheeze, tasting of copper. "Kakashi..."
"We don't know who those are," the man said, his hands moving rapidly over Obito's chest. "You were found alone. Now breathe. Just breathe."
Found alone? That was impossible. He was under a mountain of rock. How could he be here?
Pain exploded in his right side. It wasn't the dull ache of the crush anymore; it was a sharp, slicing sensation. He gasped, his back arching off the table.
"He can feel it! Increase the dosage, now!"
"Hold him down!"
Obito thrashed. His shinobi training, ingrained in his muscles despite the pain, kicked in. Enemy. This is the enemy. He tried to reach for a kunai pouch that wasn't there. His hand hit a metal railing. Clamps. He was strapped down.
"Let... go..." he snarled, though it came out as a whimper.
He looked to his right, and terror, cold and absolute, washed over him. His right side was a mess of red and white. But what terrified him wasn't the gore; he had seen blood before. It was the machines. Tubes of clear liquid ran into his arm. A box with a glowing green line traced the frantic beating of his heart. It looked like the technology of a civilization far more advanced than the Land of Fire. Was this a Genjutsu? A highly advanced illusion technique?
"Look at his eye," a nurse whispered, her voice trembling. "Doctor, look at the iris. It's... red."
The surgeon paused for a fraction of a second. "A Quirk manifestation? Or just genetics? It doesn't matter. Focus on the lung puncture. Suction!"
Quirk?
A mask was pressed over Obito's face. A sweet, cloying gas filled his nose. He tried to hold his breath, to resist the poison, but his body was too weak. He inhaled. The room began to spin. The white lights elongated into streaks of brilliance. The voices of the doctors turned into a meaningless hum.
I'm sorry, Rin, Obito thought as the darkness returned, this time soft and chemical. I couldn't keep my promise.
The void took him again.
Time lost its meaning. There were moments of surfacing—brief, hazy interludes where he felt thirst, or pain, or the sensation of cool hands on his forehead—but they were fleeting. He was floating in a river of fog, drifting further and further away from the Kannabi Bridge.
When Obito finally woke up truly, the world was silent.
He was lying on something incredibly soft. It wasn't a bedroll on the forest floor. It was a mattress, elevated off the ground. He blinked his left eye open. The room was dim, lit only by the moonlight filtering through a window.
A window. A glass window, clear and perfect.
Obito turned his head slowly. The stiffness in his neck was agonizing. He looked around. He was in a small, private room. Clean walls, a small table with flowers, and a chair.
He tried to sit up.
"Agh!"
The pain was immediate, shooting from his right shoulder down to his hip. He collapsed back onto the pillows, panting. He looked down at himself. He was wearing a loose gown with a strange pattern. But it was his right side that drew his attention.
It was heavily bandaged. He couldn't feel his right arm. He tried to wiggle his fingers. Nothing. Panic rose in his chest like bile. He reached over with his left hand, his trembling fingers touching the shoulder. The bandages were flat.
His arm was gone.
He moved his hand up to his face. The right side of his face was covered in thick gauze. He touched the area where his eye should be. There was a hard, plastic curve beneath the bandages. A protector? Or...
"You're awake."
The voice came from the doorway. Obito flinched, his single eye darting to the entrance. He hadn't sensed anyone approaching. His instincts were dull, his chakra seemingly dormant.
A woman stood there. She was wearing a white coat over a purple shirt. She looked normal, except for one detail that made Obito's breath hitch. Her hair was moving on its own, like snakes made of water, floating gently around her head despite the lack of wind in the room.
A Kekkei Genkai? Obito thought, tense. Is she a Mist ninja?
"Who are you?" Obito asked. His voice was raspy, unused. "Where am I? Where are my teammates?"
The woman walked in, checking a chart in her hands. She didn't seem hostile. "I am Doctor Hori. You are in Musutafu General Hospital. As for your teammates... you were brought in alone, young man. The rescue heroes found you in the debris of a landslide near the mountain range, but no one else was found with you."
"Rescue... heroes?" Obito repeated the words. They tasted wrong. "You mean shinobi? Where is Konoha? The Leaf Village?"
Dr. Hori paused, looking at him with a mixture of pity and confusion. "Konoha? Is that a small town? We checked the missing persons database for the entire prefecture and neighboring regions. We haven't found any matches for your description yet."
She walked closer and pressed a button on the wall. The lights flickered on, not too bright, just enough to see clearly.
"You've been in a coma for two weeks," she said gently. "You lost your right arm and suffered severe crushing injuries to the right side of your torso. Your right eye was... destroyed. We had to perform emergency surgery to reconstruct your facial bone structure and seal the wounds."
Obito stared at the ceiling. Two weeks. The war... the mission... it was all over by now. If he was here, and they hadn't found Kakashi or Rin, it meant they had escaped. Or they were dead.
"My eye," Obito whispered, touching the bandage again. "I... I gave it away."
"Gave it away?" The doctor frowned, writing something down. "Trauma induced confusion," she muttered to herself. "Listen, we need to identify you. What is your name?"
Obito closed his eye. He felt a deep, hollow emptiness in his stomach. He was crippled. He was alone. He was in a place where people didn't know the Hidden Leaf.
"Uchiha," he said softly. "Uchiha Obito."
"Uchiha Obito," she repeated. "Okay, Obito-kun. We will run this name through the system. For now, you need to rest. Your body is still healing. It's a miracle you survived at all. Most people with that level of damage... well, your recovery speed is quite essentially a Quirk in itself."
"Quirk..." Obito said the word again. "You keep saying that. What is a Quirk?"
The doctor stopped writing. She looked at him as if he had just asked what the sun was. "Your... special ability? The meta-ability? Like my hair?" She gestured to her floating watery locks. "Are you suffering from amnesia regarding society as well?"
Obito stayed silent. He realized quickly that saying too much would be dangerous. He was in enemy territory, or worse, a completely unknown land. A shinobi must be deceptive.
"My head hurts," he lied, though it wasn't entirely a lie. "I don't remember much."
"That's normal," Dr. Hori said soothingly. "Retrograde amnesia is common with head trauma. Get some sleep, Obito-kun. We will talk more tomorrow."
She left the room, the door clicking shut with a mechanical latch.
Obito waited for five minutes, counting the seconds by the rhythm of his own heartbeat. Then, he pushed the blankets off. He had to know. He had to see.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed. His feet hit the cold tile floor. His legs were weak, trembling under his weight, but he forced himself to stand. He grabbed the IV pole for support, the wheels squeaking softly.
He shuffled toward the small bathroom attached to the room. He needed a mirror.
He pushed the door open and flicked the switch. The light buzzed on.
Obito gripped the sink with his left hand, his knuckles turning white. He looked up.
The face staring back at him was his, but it wasn't. The goggles were gone. The orange visor was gone. His hair was longer, messy and black. The left side of his face was untouched, the dark eye wide with fear. But the right side...
Even under the bandages, he could see the distortion. The shape of his face had changed slightly. And the eye... the doctor said it was destroyed.
"I'm alive," he whispered to the reflection. The words felt heavy. "Why am I alive?"
He looked down at his right shoulder. The sleeve of the gown hung empty. He tried to channel chakra again. This time, he felt a small spark. It was weak, pitifully weak, like a dying ember in a pile of wet ash. But it was there. His pathways were damaged, perhaps severed in places, but not gone.
He wasn't a civilian. He was still a shinobi. Even with one arm. Even with one eye.
He looked back at the mirror. He remembered his grandmother. He remembered the old man who helped him with his bags. He remembered Rin's smile.
"I can't die here," he told the boy in the mirror. Tears pricked the corner of his single eye, but he wiped them away furiously. "I promised I'd become Hokage. Even if... even if Konoha isn't here."
He heard a commotion outside in the hallway. Voices raised.
"We have another emergency coming in! Villain attack in the commercial district! Multiple casualties!"
"Clear the trauma bay!"
Obito limped back to the door of his room and cracked it open slightly. He saw a gurney rushing past. On it lay a man, screaming, his skin turning into what looked like stone. A hero—a man in a colorful, ridiculous spandex costume—was running alongside the doctors.
"Save him! The villain's acid is spreading!" the hero shouted.
Obito watched, his eye narrowing. Heroes? Villains? Quirks?
This wasn't the Elemental Nations. There was no chakra in the air, or at least, not the kind he knew. The energy here felt chaotic, wild, biological rather than spiritual.
He closed the door and leaned his back against it, sliding down until he hit the floor. He pulled his knees to his chest. He was twelve years old. He was a cripple. He was lost in a world of monsters and colorful costumes.
But he was Uchiha Obito. And Uchihas didn't give up.
"First," he muttered to the empty room, planning as Minato-sensei had taught him. "Gather intel. Second, heal. Third... find a way home."
He looked at his single hand. He clenched it into a fist.
"And if I can't go home..."
A dark resolve settled in his heart, a shadow of the man he was supposed to become, but tempered by the innocence he still held.
"Then I'll have to survive in this one."
Outside the window, the lights of the city of Musutafu twinkled like fallen stars, vast and intimidating. Obito Uchiha closed his eye and listened to the alien sounds of the city, waiting for the dawn of a new, terrifying life. The rock had failed to kill him. Now, he had to make sure this strange new world didn't finish the job.