Part 21: There and Back Again

"This is a terrible idea."

Obito was very glad that Lee had decided to brazenly teleport them to the gates of Mordor for a number of reasons.

First, it prevented both the pair of them getting lost, ambushed on the road again, or just having to hike the route for the third time in their lives. If Obito never had to walk along the North-South road again he could die a happy man.

Second, it gave the ring less time to bitch.

Of course, as Obito and Lee crouched just outside the incredibly well fortified border behind a well-placed boulder, he was making the most of the bitching time he had left.

"This is a terrible idea that will get both you and your beloved teacher brutally murdered—"

Now, Obito might be a bit too loyal and overconfident, but he was pretty sure that wasn't going to happen. Greater men than Sauron's army of underpaid and intellectually challenged demons had tried and fail at just that with much more preparation and forewarning.

"I forgot just how ridiculous his border was," Lee said with a sigh, "The man really doesn't do subtle."

"I do subtle just fine! You're the one who doesn't—"

"Give him some credit, shishou," Obito said, ignoring the voice practically screaming in his ear, "Half the reason it comes off that way is because it's so well fortified."

"Well, sure, if you're going for quantity over quality but there's no fuinjutsu, none of the archers or soldiers lining the wall have a speck of chakra, all it is is just… black and large."

"He's trying to keep out civilians, not an army of invading shinobi."

"Maybe he should be trying to keep out an army of invading shinobi. It'd certainly make our job a little harder."

"I don't think he thought he'd need to, I'm not sure they have those here."

"What about those elf people we keep hearing about? Wasn't there something about them that he really disliked."

"Pretty sure they're all dead and also not shinobi. So, I'm going to go ahead and give him a pass on the giant iron gate of doom. Plus, it's very intimidating."

"You think Konoha needs one? Just get rid of the hokage monument and replace it with a big black gate."

"Well, if by some miracle I do end up hokage, we can just put it where my face would go. God knows we don't need my scared face up there on the mountain for everyone to see."

"Would you two shut up and listen?!"

Lee and Obito looked at eachother, wincing, and if he needed any confirmation that they were stuck with the ring it was that she apparently heard that as loud as he did.

"Look, we'll be fine. The worst thing we have to worry about is those creepy hunter nin on nin dragons and horses. Even then, those are only a problem when I pretend to be a reasonable shinobi. I have decided not to be a reasonable shinobi."

Well, that was one way to put Lee's horrifying power. Sadly, they were at the point where Obito really did just shrug and decide flattening Morder was the best option. Minato-sensei probably would have disagreed, but Minato-sensei wasn't here.

"That's not the—"

"Isn't this what you wanted?" Obito asked with a sigh, "Lee and I are personally hand delivering you to your lord and master. You should be overjoyed."

Granted, they were doing so in the hopes that Sauron would explode, but that was beside the point.

"This was not what I had in mind!"

Obito could almost imagine the ring pinching the bridge of his nose, willing away his rage induced headache, "Why can't you do that body idea? Take me to Konoha and—"

"You do realize you're spending at least a year in T&I, right?" Lee asked, as if she was discussing the weather rather than the fact that the couch they planned to punt him to was called "Torture and Interrogation".

"You don't have to do that either, we could simply—"

"Yes, but we're choosing to, because shishou and I are good and loyal ninja," Obito cut him off before he could suggest bumming around the elemental nations or else becoming expatriots in England.

"You do not know if I will win this fight. True, I am the vast majority of Sauron's fëa, his chakra, but that means little. He could win, he could become more powerful than ever before, and what will you do then?"

"Crush him," Lee said without concern or sympathy, "Like an ant."

The ring, apparently, had nothing to say to that.

"Right, shishou, how are we going to go about this?"

They both stared forward at the gate, considering.

"Well, the smart way would be to sneak in and ambush the man's army of demons behind their own defenses."

"Yes, that would be smart."

"But it wouldn't leave nearly the same kind of impression."

"Can't have that."

Looks like they'd be obliterating everything in their path then. Well, Lee would be, Obito would be standing in the background cheering for the team and pretending he was a large contribution to this mission. Instead of, you know, the one element that had single handedly destroyed it from the beginning.

Had Lee been alone he wondered if it would have gone nearly as poorly.

Still he wasn't…

He wasn't exactly glad he had come but he also didn't wish he had stayed behind either. The Obito who could have made that choice, to stay and take his jonin exams, he would have been a very different man.

Still, he frowned as he looked out at the gate, "Shishou, why are we doing this?"

"Revenge," Lee said easily, as if it was a perfectly good answer.

"Still," Obito said, his own doubts and hesitations left unsaid.

That it was hardly very neutral of them, that a kage hat should have put Sauron off limits, that this was the very opposite of making waves. However, they'd been through all of that before and still come up with this if only for petty satisfaction.

"Remember what our friend has always reminded us, Obito," Lee said, "There is no neutral ground here. Aid Sauron and conquer this world or stand against it, those are the only choices we have. Given that, of course you and I are going to stand against him."

"Hell, we should have just saved time and done that from the beginning. If they'd just told us we were blowing up the Death Star I would have signed up ages ago. It certainly would have improved our relations with the locals."

Obito couldn't help his smile or the laugh that followd, "Well, maybe blowing up Sauron now will make up for some of it, and we can leave actual diplomacy to anyone but us."

They probably should have started with that, honestly, but it'd never really been about the diplomacy. No, somehow, it'd been about something else.

"Ready, apprentice?" Lee asked and he nodded.

With that she stepped out from behind the boulder. For a moment she stood there, hair floating in the wind, and then with a wave of her hand the black gates cracked. It wasn't a single, decisive, crack but instead like the cracking of glass, a fracture point spreading rapidly outwards until finally the gates shattered.

Arrows were loosed but either missed wildly or fell against Lee's shields as the gates crumbled in front of them. There was some movement as they collapsed, but without even a wave of her hand this stopped too, heads and limbs torn from bodies until there was nothing.

Just like, that, with one single wave of effortless chakra.

"The war wasn't like this," Lee said quietly, answering the question Obito hadn't dared to ask, "Shinobi learned quickly to just run away."

Then, stepping forward, without looking back she said, "Come on, we have a job to do."

They walked to Barad Dur, and anyone who stopped them, anyone who even dared to show their face met the same fate as those manning the gate. Soon Mordor was just as lifeless as its barren ground.

They didn't have to walk to his throne or even the fortress itself. Instead, he met them just in front of the bridge. He was not dressed for war, there was no armor nor even a sword, but all the same what remained of his chakra burned as he watched their approach.

This was the man that Lee and Obito had expected to meet in the beginning. The man he was beneath all the veneers of politeness.

Lee took the ring off her neck, watching as the man's eyes followed it, then tossed it to him.

"We have finished your mission, as requested," Lee said as he caught it in one hand, "We would have been back sooner but I'm afraid we were delayed."

He opened his palm, stard down at the ring in stupefied wonder, unable to take his eyes from it.

"I believe you owe us swords, with interest," Lee added.

Finally, he looked back up at the pair of them standing across from him. Then, in the same voice as the ring's, asked, "What have you done to it?"

"Nothing it did not try to do to us," Lee responded, "But go on, try it, see for yourself."

He didn't move, didn't seem capable of moving. Obito wondered, then, if the ring affected him just as much as the rest of them. Perhaps it was worse for him, it was his soul, after all, some part of him must still want it.

But he didn't put it on, didn't dare to, he simply asked, "What are you?"

"Didn't I tell you?" Lee asked, and this time she smiled, "I'm the destroyer of worlds."

"And so Obito and I defeated the evil kage, Sauron, causing his volcano to explode with fire and joy. We ran for our lives out of Mordor and were welcomed into the great human village of Minas Tirith with much rejoicing—"

"—And pitchforks, they also met us with pitchforks and torches."

"—Where we explained our triumph, the fact that the ring was ours now because that's apparently how marriage works in these things, and that we'd be on our way if they didn't mind."

"They minded," Obito noted, "They minded quite a bit."

"So, the next time we send someone through while the elves flee west to be done with all of this garbage, they should claim that they never heard of us and are from that other village hidden in the leaves."

Lee tried and failed to smile, before motioning to the third, dead-eyed, member of their party, "Also, we're kind of stuck with the ring. Obito and I figured he can either live on Sakumo-shishou's couch or in T&I."

Minato said nothing for one second, then two, and then said, "How is it that you two are the worst shinobi I've ever heard of?"

Lee paused for a moment, opened her mouth, closed it, then noted, "But you have heard of us."

Author's Note: And it's over, we can assume that Sauron gets off that couch eventually, maybe. He probably has to endure more Kakashi than he ever wanted to before then.

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Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings, or Naruto