The first thing Obito noticed when he woke up was the sky.
It was a cerulean blue, the color of Konoha's sky's during the later summer months when the days were at their hottests and all the lakes were swarming with children trying to get away from the heat. A cloud drifted over head, just a single wispy sort of cloud that looked like scattered smoke from a cigar. The sun was blocked from his vision, covered by the buildings that were on either side of him.
The second thing he noticed was that he wasn't dead.
Obito shot up from where he lay and a hand went up and grasped his chest, clutching the area where his heart would be and searching searching searching for the connection he had to the little light that had always seemed to hover around him.
(He couldn't find it he couldntcouldntcouldnt and godDAMN IT WHERE IS IT)
He sucked in a deep breath, eyes going wide and teeth clenching when he couldn't find that connection. There was nothing but emptiness there, nothing but a gaping chasm of nothingness, filled with the blackest of blacks and a feeling like ice.
The next thing Obito noticed was that his body felt wrong.
(And really, it took an embarrassingly long time to notice that particular thing)
He held his hands out in front of them, mind suddenly void of all the panic that had been there just a moment ago. The skin of both hands were the same color. They hadn't been the same color in 20 years, not since before he had woken in Madara's cave, broken broken broken from the boulder that had crushed his side. They were smaller than they were supposed to be, the callosus of decades of shinobi training gone as if they had never been there in the first place. He raised his hands to his head, begging his theory to be wrong, and hesitantly touched the skin of his face.
There were no scars.
None. Not the scars that stretched over the right side of his face, they weren't there. The skin was smooth and soft and entirely unfamiliar.
(Just what had happened to him?)
The memory of fire bloomed in his mind, brilliantly colored purple flames that burned and burned and burned, whispering sweetly to him words of freedom, wilderness, and independance. And he remembered the pain, the way that the flames had crawled over his limbs and consumed his flesh faster than Zetsu would ever be able to eat a corpse.
He took a shuttering breath and stood, wrapping his arms around himself and pushing the memory away. Pushing it away left him feeling cold, freezing actually, but he couldn't deal with it now, couldn't stand the thought.
It was then, and only then, that Obito finally took the chance to take in his surroundings. They were bleak and a bit dirty, but nothing too bad. The ground was paved with a worn down stone, and the walls of the two buildings making up the sides of the alleyway he had found himself in were brick and the cream colored paint was flaking off. The weather was warm, which was a good thing considering he only had the remnants of his pants on, and the sky was, as per his earlier observation, mostly clear with a flew clouds drifting about. He could hear the sounds of commerce from outside the alleyway, and caught glimpses of people walking too and fro while carrying bags filled with various vegetables.
He also couldn't understand a word being spoken.
(And wasn't that just his luck?)
Obito took a step back and noted that his limbs were indeed shorter than they had been just a short while ago. If he had to guess, he was somewhere around the height he had been at 13, just shortly before the fateful trip to Kanabi Bridge.
(They were falling falling falling and Kakashi was right there and he just moved and now he was dying dying dying he didn't want to die)
Making adjustments in his mind to accommodate for his decreased height, Obito melded with the shadows and made his way through the streets.
…
It didn't take long to steal some clothes from a nearby store. It took an even shorter time to find a bathroom where he could change and take a look at his face.
The collared shirt he had stolen scratched at his skin, the fabric felt constricting. But it was his only choice in clothing for the moment, and it was in the same style as what all the men wandering around outside wore. Right now, his priorities lay with figuring out where he was and what exactly had happened to him.
Obito took a deep breath, steadying his heartbeat as he walked over to the sink with the dirty mirror hanging above it. He closed his eyes, a bit scared to look. If he looked, then it would make everything real. He wouldn't be able to ignore the lack of scars anymore, the smooth skin where there should have been anything but.
He opened his eyes and looked.
An unfamiliar face stared mockingly back at Obito from the mirror. It was most definitely his, but it was younger and free of all the scars. His hair and eye color had changed too, a bright purple color that matched the color of the flames that had bloomed around him.
It seemed almost like that event was mocking him, the flames flickering in the back of his consciousness, wavering and whispering and welcoming, beckoning him forward, begging him to get lost among the throes of madness the likes of which he had once relished in.
It was maddening.
And he raised a hand and traced the scar free skin on his face, still not quite believing it even after all the evidence presented to him. A quiet laugh escaped his lips as he stared, eyes echoing the hollowness that followed him around, like lost puppies looking for a home.
(He had nothing now. No ambition to keep him going. No hope of an illusion, of seeing Rin's smile again. All of it was gone and he could hear Bakashi laughing at him)
His mouth twitched upwards into a grim smile as he thought, his mind spiraling down and down and down, his laughter gaining a slightly hysterical edge to it.
(He was lost on the road of life)
…..
Two weeks and nothing. He traveled and stole everything that he needed to live, never staying in one place for long. He just sort of… drifted, for lack of a better word. It wasn't like he had much else to do, with no idea where he was and no understanding of the language.
Kamui had worked. He was able to use it just as he always did, despite the difference in physical age from when he had last used it. But no matter how hard he had tried, he hadn't been able to get back to the Elemental Nations. Whenever he tried, he kept running into a wall, an impenetrable barrier that he couldn't pass no matter what he did.
(How annoying)
Nevertheless, he was thankful that beyond the wall he ran into when trying to go to the Elemental Nations, Kamui still worked normally. It was the ultimate cheat and provided him a safe place to go whenever the weather took a turn for the worst.
Obito had made little progress with regards to figuring out where he was. He had managed to gleam that the city he had woken up in was called Paris and that the country was called France, but there was little more information to gleam beyond that.
Learning the language was slow and frustrating. He hadn't seen or heard anything even remotely resembling what he spoke, so translating everything was difficult to say the least.
So he continued to travel, gathering what little information he could while he went.
(Time moved onwards tick tock tick tock never ending time)