Title: A Radical Notion
Summary: Uchiha Obito was many things, a cousin, a loser, an underachiever, a villain, a hero and a best friend. But they all agree, Uchiha Obito is dead. Time travel AU
Rating: T
Pairing: N/A
Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me.

For the record, the sharingan is totally awesome.

Uchiha are assholes. He agrees. Completely. Even without their bloodline limit, they have near-perfect memories. Like, even the babies will stare at him with judging judgement in their eyes because they know. An Uchiha never lets you live it down.

His lips still tingle when he thinks about the stunt he pulled on his fifth birthday. Just a passing mention, a pat on his back and people telling him he's got responsibilities. Inabi and his pack of genin teammates triple-dog-dared him into a grand fireball. He couldn't taste anything for weeks and he knows Kaka-jii was laughing. But he practically worshiped the man when he was young and well.

Obito has secrets. Not the dumb ones like balancing a bucket on top of a door or graffiting the back of the police station. It's something he doesn't tell anyone. Not sensei, not Rin-chan or Ba-kashi. Or the Sandaime. Or even any of the Uchiha.

It isn't something he should keep a secret. It's awfully big. Bigger than everything. But it all starts with him. Him, the black sheep of a noble house. The scion of no one. The jester king. The kid who got knocked out by a piece of candy.

The clearest memory he has of his parents is nailed to the wall. It's a picture of a man and a woman, both vaguely attractive, their dress either declaring eternal love or hatred. Obito isn't sure.

They were great ninja. The adults say in passing because it's bad form to speak ill of the dead. But the children, out of sight and out of mind, taunt with their smug, smug faces that his parents were cursed, their marriage was cursed, and he, the fruit of their loins is thrice cursed—some Uchiha you are.

So what if he is? Gifts and curses go hand-in-hand. The hero always triumphs. He fights back.

If there's one thing Obito's never learned is when to give up. He sits on Kaka-jii's doorstep, observing a line of ants with his one good eye. He never tells Kaka-jii who he gets into fights with but the old man probably had a good idea. Even back then.

Even when he didn't know what Obito was.

He used to ask, how come everyone hates me?

Because what he'd meant was, why don't you hate me?

Obito's still an Uchiha. Emotions are hard. He's never learned to tell people he likes them because he sort of assumes they know, that he knows and wasn't it hard realizing that just because Rin bandaged his hurts didn't mean a thing?

Kaka-jii, Kakashi-ojichan is a very important part of his life. The man practically raised him. Whenever he was upset, he'd hop, skip, jump over to Kaka-jii's house and the man would let him in, no questions asked.

He never asked.

It just was.

And since Kaka-jii wasn't an Uchiha, he never told.

Kaka-jii, was a shinobi of the leaf.

And Obito wants that. He wants to matter. He wants people to see him. He wants them to trust him. To have faith in him.

In the end, he doesn't want to be a Hokage for the honor or responsibility.

He wants it for the cool factor. Because it's petty. But he really wants to grind his clansmen's faces into the ground—look who's the dead last now losers!

Hubris, Nidaime-sama said of the Uchiha. Will be your downfall.

They hadn't taken that part out of the academy textbooks yet and the instructor seems embarrassed to watch him stand up and read it out loud. Whatever. But perfect memory. The words snares his brain, itches behind his ears like nothing else because hubris. Pride, he had to look that up. What is Uchiha without their pride?

He's waiting for Kaka-jii on his doorstep. He's five. Probably.

Actually he knows down to the day how old he is. He just has to add one to n every night before he goes to bed. It's such a big number now, it's almost alive. It freaks him out.

Anyway, Kaka-jii is out. Or sleeping. It's raining today. Ginoza-san next door always complains about his bones. Obito knows Ginoza-san has lots of them. They always stick out through his vellum-thin skin.

Kaka-jii comes up the road with a bag of groceries in one hand and a red parasol in the other. Obito jumps to his feet and waves and that's where things go wrong.

He doesn't need the sharingan to remember what happens next. Obito sees the old man's finger loosen from around the wooden handle and the bright canopy bounces, once, twice, before rolling a rest in the puddle. He hears the sound of glass shattering over and over because it happens sometimes in his nightmares.

More often now.

"Who are you?" Kaka-jii had demanded, a kunai threatening to take out his eyeball.

The man had never raised a hand against him in his life never mind his voice. But the way he barks "kai!" to end a genjutsu, a wave of chakra crushing his lungs, sets off all the bells in his brain. The sharpened blade sinks into the door behind him as he fades.

That's what he calls it. Fading. Because it's not something that happens at once. And he remembers how the kunai and Kaka-jii's rain-soaked hand passed through his brain.

Needless to say, he doesn't go back to Kaka-jii's for a while. He wanders around thinking, what if. What if he's a ghost? What if he's been dead this whole time? He doesn't cling to people or ask them to play. The adults praise him for his newfound independence but it all falls upon deaf ears. His eyes grow wet without understanding. Even under the brightest suns, sitting next to the koi pond, hand swirling in the water for the pretty fishes, he aches.

He's upset. He knows the Uchiha look poorly upon perceived weaknesses and Kaka-jii is off limits. It's not even a conscious decision as he fades from one area to next. He's running down the streets when he bumps into an orange-clad leg.

The shock of chakra between them tears hiccups from his lungs. He begins to cry.

An Uchiha has near-perfect memory. His first isn't of his parents though he'd like to think he remembers his mother's laughter or the way his father tickled his sides and called him naughty. They died young, similar to way all great people die young. But he remembers a pair of hands, work-roughened and broad, tossing him into the air.

The woman that holds him isn't his mother. She's not his father or Kaka-jii. But her eyes are pretty and green like a furled spring leaf so he forgets to cry.

The man with her, blond, whiskered, loud, bright and warm, tells him to be brave. Doesn't he want to be the next Hokage?

So they make a pact.

They will both be Hokage someday.

In time, he meets everyone who will be precious to him. Kaka-jii, Rin-chan, Bakashi, Kushina-nee, sensei, sensei's son, his classmates, Shisui, Itachi, Itachi's little brother and Sakura. But he's young. Shinobi are taught to look beneath the underneath and he forgets to look up. He's wasted so much time.

"I don't know what's happening."

Obito drifts, lulled to sleep by the steady thrum of heartbeat against his skin. The words are meaningless to him. They simply let him know that he's not alone.

"Sometimes I wonder how many things you never got to show me."

The clan elders write him off as a lost cause after the grand fireball incident. He is banished to the academy where everyone stares because wow, an Uchiha. Uchiha only ever have a handful of children per generation. They are apprenticed when they are young. Only the heirs ever leave the compound.

But wonder of wonders, he graduates. Eidetic memory is awesome. He's not a dead last after all—take that!

Obito is placed in Team Seven. Team Minato. His sensei not yet the Yellow Flash, Rin still alive and Kakashi in possession of both eyes. But Kakashi is a jerk. Doesn't even bother to take Obito's hand when he offers it. Obito's made up his mind to tell Kaka-jii all about the boy who shares his name and premature grey hair when he sees the old man sitting on his doorstep, twirling the red parasol against his back.

The rain's passed on but the man is drenched, flattening the usual silver flare of his hair against his skull. Their eyes meet across the yard and Kaka-jii asks in a voice cracked with relief, "you came back."

His foot slides on the wet pebbles but he does not run. He does not back away.

If there's one thing Obito forgot to learn is when to surrender.

"Kaka-jii," he whines, voice muffled against a broad shoulder and wet fabric. "You dropped your umbrella again."

But Kaka-jii is shaking like a leaf on top of a bed of embers. Obito squeaks when he's squeezed extra tight.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you..."

Time for a confession.

His team is the best team that ever was and no one can say otherwise. Not the Sannin, neither the Shodaime nor the Nidaime. Not even the jounin who invented the whole Shika-Ino-Cho thing.

Obito doesn't understand love or how it works since he's an Uchiha and the Uchiha don't believe in love. He asked cousin Kazuki once when Shisui was born and she told him sex made babies happen which horrified and saddened him all at once. Kaka-jii merely patted his head and told him that he'll know when he's older, try not to take it to heart.

But he can't not because Kaka-jii is one of his precious people. He hopes that Shisui grows strong even without his awesome cousin Obito to watch over him because they are all his precious people.

Even now, knees shaking and blood dripping off the end of his kunai, he's doing this for them.

"Watch where you're going you 'tard!" Obito yells when a yellow blur slams into him, knocking him into a classroom.

"You're the one who's in the way!" Blondie argues, pointing a finger at him. "What'd you do that for?!" The other boy's eyes flicker from his forehead protector to his face, jealousy carving his frown. "Hey, you're my age!"

" NARUTOOOO!"

"Uh oh," Blondie gulps, grabbing hold of his hand. "This way!"

Obito flinches at the sudden surge of chakra between them but Blondie doesn't seem to notice. His grip is sure and firm, and a little sticky, as he drags him down the hallway of now-unfamiliar Academy, pushing them both in a storage closet when a tall shadow falls around the corner.

Blondie, the probable-Naruto, stifles his laughter behind both hands. Wide eyed, Obito whispers, "What did you do?"

Suddenly bashful, Naruto explains that varnished every seat in the Academy office with super glue.

"That's awesome!"

"Re... really? I mean, I know right?!"

The two collapse in laughter when the door swings open to a red-faced chunin looking like he is about to breathe fire.

Obito forms the rat seal with his hands and shouts, "Formation C: run!"

They slide between the chunin's legs and split. Naruto sprints down the hallway while Obito jumps out the window.

He laughs all the way home.

The Third Shinobi War is in full swing by the time he is promoted to chunin. As soon as the Hokage stamps a black seal over his profile, he's sent to the frontlines along with the rest of his team.

There's nothing to write home about. If he had anyone to write too. The Uchiha know he's fighting. They expect him to fight for honor and family and all that crap. And Kaka-jii, Kaka-jii looks so sad whenever he's got his goggles on or sees a rash or a bruise climbing his limbs. But armies are fueled by supplies and intel as much as they are on blood. He's safe. His sensei keeps them safe. There's nowhere else he'd rather be.

He doesn't fade as much when he's with his team. For one, he's too tired. He's not sure how much chakra it takes for him to fade but it's enough. Second, it's his team. What kind of trash would he be if he left his team?

Kaka-jii disagrees. He's got this look in his eyes like he's got the words right on the tip of his tongue before he swallows them back. His smiles are strained, he no longer laughs at Obito's stories.

Obito tells him, don't worry. Because he may be an underachiever, not quite on par with Kakashi-teme, not yet. He's no genius either, unlike Shisui or Itachi whose eyes are night-black and clear. But when he gets the sharingan.

And then?

Shinobi rules. Bakashi's quoted them at him so many times they're seared into his brain. He can't not know them. From the one that forbids him from showing his tears to the one that says that a shinobi must always be prepared.

His eyes tear up in frustration behind his goggles when Kaka-jii reminds him that a shinobi must always put the mission first. He knows. But what good is a mission when it's at the cost of his teammate's life? There are so few people precious to him. Isn't that why he's fighting, isn't that why they're all fighting?

It surprises him, how long it's taken for him to notice. Even for him.

He sees the moon suspended over the kage's heads. Only there's four more than there had been in the morning. His breath hitches when he realizes that the fourth is sensei. He should be happy right? Minato-sensei's the Hokage!

But then who are the others? Who is the woman carved in stone?

He rubs his eyes.

This is not an illusion.

And he realizes that the village doesn't look quite right. He should know. He's spent enough nights jumping over rooftops with Rin and Kakashi trying to catch one loose pet after another. There's a water tower missing. And the place near the playground looks oddly empty. Flat. Like someone's stepped on it.

Kaka-jii finds him near the memorial stone later.

"I recognize some of these names." He gasps, hurriedly wiping the tears and snot on his sleeves. "But they're fine! They were fine in the morning!" Kaka-jii grabs his wrist, breaking the seals for a katon. "What is going on?!"

Minato is a great sensei. Rin-chan is so kind and skilled with her medical ninjutsu. It's a shame that Tsunade-sama is no longer in Konoha. Kakashi is strong. He'll never admit this, not even under torture and the Yamanaka clan's crazy mind-walking ability. Kakashi is very strong. He will protect the village. And he will become its sixth Hokage.

But even Kakashi cannot predict what is about to happen.

He fades because he now knows he can. It's so easy he doesn't know why he ever bothered with a shunshin. And the look on Kakashi-teme's face when he actually gets ahead for once. Not that it helps. Just because he's fast doesn't mean he's gotten any better at ninjutsu or taijutsu or genjutsu. The knife in the iwa-nin's gut is just lucky and he counts his blessings. He doesn't want to be a burden.

Obito is in Konoha. Kaka-jii has been Kakashi all the time and his expression is all wrong, it gets crooked when Obito asks about the war.

"All wars end. It won't change a thing."

How can it not change? The names on the memorial stone, Sensei, Kushina-nee, Jiraiya-sama, Hayate Gekko, they mean something.

He has to try.

Obito has met this man before. Back when he was seven. Broken leg from a tree climbing exercise. The pain had been enough to induce the fade straight from the hospital ward to the hospital ward in the future.

"Uchiha Obito." The man acknowledges, the spiral in his left eye evolving to a star. "I thought it might be you."

"You know me."

The man seems disinterested at his questions but the Uchiha don't activate their sharingan for show. Not against someone they don't believe to be a threat.

"I know how you die."

A single tomoe spins lazily in his eyes.

He has to fix this.

"The Obito I knew was a hero." Says Naruto, all grownup. "Believe it."

But who says? Who decides such things? What defines a hero from a villain? If a boy saves a cat from a tree, is he not a hero in someone's eyes?

Uchiha Obito is no prodigy but he is still an Uchiha. It stands to reason the Uchiha were telling the truth. He is cursed. Why else would everyone he loved, die?

His name is not on the memorial stone.

He doesn't even have a grave.

Kakashi-jii lied.

Naruto lied.

Everyone lies.

"Well now, that is interesting."

The man sitting in front of him is old, ancient. He's got two rippled eyes and a third in the center of his forehead that grosses him out and has him backing up in a hurry. His voice comes out as a squeak.

"Are you lost child?"

Obito shakes his head swiftly in denial. He just wanted to fix it. All of it. Because he just wants to protect them. He wants to keep his loved ones safe.

The tailed beasts rise from the dark but they are not the monstrous things the hidden villages have been taught to fear. They are all young, like him, like children, curious and hesitant of the stranger in their midst.

The Sage of Six Paths offers him tea, then tells him a story.

There is a man in a clearing. He is alone insofar as he can see. But Obito knows how unreliable a sense of peace can be. Especially here in the future when people he cares about are dead.

The man is him. Sometime in the future. Alone. Without Rin, Minato-sensei and Bakashi. He imagines that they're worried now. Everything's changed. Ramen is an indulgence. He cannot bear to look Kushina-nee in the eye.

"Uchiha Obito died when the system failed him."

"But you are me! You have to help!"

"I am helping." A gloved hand wraps around his throat, future-him growls, "I should kill you where you stand and why would it matter? Why should any of this matter? I will make a new world. A better one. I will bring everyone back."

The future-him is fucking insane.

He begins to fade. His evil twin chuckles, the sharingan in his left eye bleeding red.

"Before you leave, here, a proof of my power."

The future is a terrible place.

He hugs Minato-sensei around the middle and cries. He doesn't stop for a long time. One boy cannot decide the outcome of an entire war. Whatever happens, the man in the clearing can't be.

Two tomoe spins in his eyes, clockwise, counterclockwise. The sharingan is awesome. It's only what he's ever wanted. Now he can be useful instead of a burden on his team. Obito isn't smart. He isn't particularly brave either. If he saves his teammates, if he saves his precious people. It's enough. It has to be enough.

This is his fault after all.

So he buys a gift for Kakashi's promotion. A pack of Akimichi soldier pills. They taste good but he doubts Kakashi cares. Kakashi isn't the type to like sweets—the weirdo.

He sniffles and asks the nice Akimichi genin if she stocks anything for old people because if he dies tomorrow, he doesn't want Kaka-jii to forget about him.

Kaka-jii is waiting for him in front of his house. Déjà vu. He looks sad. Obito is sorry that he is sad.

"Come back Obito. Whatever happens, please. Survive."

"I believe that the White Fang was a true hero."

A thousand years ago, the ninja world began.

A hundred years ago, two enemies formed an alliance.

Seventy years ago, battle of the Valley of the End was fought.

The Second Shinobi War ended less than seven years ago.

Killing is easy.

Two years from now, he releases the Kyuubi.

He kills Kushina-nee.

And he kills sensei.

He damns Naruto to a childhood of loneliness.

Eight years from now, he orchestrates the downfall of the Uchiha clan.

Isn't it better if it all ends now?

Twenty years from now, a young man waits for him at the edge of the clearing already an avenger.

He's scared of the loss, of becoming that man in the clearing.

If he does this, they live. Everyone lives because Kakashi will protect them. The cocky bastard's always been a better ninja. If it isn't for him, sensei lives, Kushina-nee lives, Rin lives, Itachi lives, the Uchiha live and Naruto won't be alone.

The ground rumbles, he is so relieved.

If he never becomes an avenger, no one has to die.

He will protect the people who are precious to him.