Dedication: For my brother, whom I followed into the world, followed through childhood, followed to America (and into fandom), followed back home, and will more than likely follow right back out of this world as well. You are my lightness, my rock, my laughter, my twin, and I truly cannot imagine a life without you. The world would be so much darker if you weren't by my side, and I love you for everything you are and everything you aren't. I'm the luckiest sister in existence, and it's about time I told you that.

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Slight language, refrence to canon deaths, Obito-angst, way too much introspection, etc.

Word Count: ~9800

Pairings: Canon levels of Obito-Rin, pre-Kakashi/Obito-ish, if you squint and look at it sideways.

Summary: Obito is used to being no good. He's used to trying and failing and trying again, progressing by inches while everyone around him is bounding forward. He's thirteen, hardly an Uchiha at all, too weak, too clumsy, too bad at jutsus. But now there's something in his head, something filled with hurt and tempered rage, and the most chilling part is that it's him.

Disclaimer: Hah. I want some of whatever Kishimoto's been smoking, but Naruto's not mine.

Notes: Yet another story for my twin's birthday, even though it was a while ago. Slowly but surely ticking all the names off his list. \o/

Guys. Guys, I have so many fucking Obito feels. I have FEELS, okay? That's where this came from, and I'm sort of sorry but mostly not, even though it got wordy as fuck and angstier than my usual. He's all I want to write right now, and I have about ten stupid KakaObi AUs and twelve even stupider KakaObi canon AUs because of this asshole. I keep rereading the Obito chapters and breaking my own damn heart somebody stop meeeeeee. orz

(The title comes from Counting Crows' Mr. Jones, but the soundtrack was fifty perfect How to Save a Life by The Fray and fifty perfect Tracy Chapman's At This Point In My Life.)

Dance the silence down to morning

He wakes screaming, cries tearing from his throat as if with metal claws and leaving a raw, acidic ache behind. All he can see is blood and bodies and the moon falling, a beast with talons and fangs to devour the earth rising in its wake. There is a hole where his heart should be, scars that drag at his face and twist his features into something alien, a bitterness fit to drown in ripping its way out of his soul. Obito hates, the way he's never hated anyone before, but there's no target, no focus; the entirety of the world is his victim, his scapegoat, and a thousand coats of blood washed off his hands won't change that.

The scream chokes off into a painful gasp, a half-strangled sob, and Obito hunches forward, hands fisting in his wild hair. He tries to catch his breath but can't, gags and coughs past his raw throat and it hurts. Obito doesn't hate people, doesn't hate things. He's cheerful, loves life in general and Rin in particular, is proud of his formidable clan and his strong village, can even admit to a grudging sort of fondness for Kakashi, if only to himself.

But now there's something inside him, like a memory but far more vivid, a seed of hatred and cynical, seething anger at absolutely everything. It's like poison, or infection. He can't stop its spread, but he can feel it, seeping out from his heart and through each of his veins, a tracery of rage. Obito is an emotional person, has always known it, but this—this is something different, something more. He's never felt like this before, and maybe, maybe he can understand why all the other Uchiha seem to fear the stronger emotions the way they do, if this is the result.

"Why?" he whispers, and it rasps like his voice in the strange not-dream, low and harsh. "Why?" he repeats, helpless, haunted.

Rin, something in him thinks, as though it should be obvious. Rin, Rin, always Rin.

More blood, more rage, a heavy moon and a flash of insight—Rin smiling, blood dripping from her lips and a hand through her chest. He's in front of her, staring, impossibly overwhelmed, because he can smell the blood in the air, can taste it like a wash of copper over his tongue. It's so real, so present, and Obito can't stop the ragged, wretched cry that tears itself out of his abused throat. He's killed her, and it doesn't matter that Rin is still alive and well and asleep in her apartment right now, because Obito knows that somehow, somewhere, Rin is dead by his hand.

Rin is dead by his hand.

Chakra blooms around him, colors bright and lines clear despite the darkness. He can see his own, can track even the bare, tiny movements of an ant crawling up the windowpane as though it's moving in slow motion, but he can't pause to consider it right now. Can't bring himself to contemplate it when he can taste blood and see Rin falling, backlit by a bloody moon on a corpse-strewn battlefield. Despair and rage rip at him equally, too much and too strong to bear, and Obito staggers out of bed, not even tripping on his tangled covers the way he normally would. One step, another, and there's no hesitation as to where to put his feet, no awkwardness even though Obito knows that just yesterday morning he ended up flat on his face, yet again, when he got up.

But amidst all the pain, there's bits of other things eating at his mind as well. Movement and chakra and muscle memory that aren't in any way his, but are. He thinks of the corpses around Rin, the handful of shinobi he could see still closing in, and knows how to move to counter them, the best way to take them all out in a few merciless blows.

And even given all the rest of it, that's terrifying.

Obito is used to being no good. He's used to trying and failing and trying again, progressing by inches while everyone around him is bounding forward. He's thirteen, but even so he's not an adult by Uchiha standards yet, too weak, too clumsy, unable to even begin attempting their signature jutsu. But now—

Now he remembers, and it's easy. Now there's something in his head, and the most chilling part is that it's him. This is all him, this anger, this fury, this—

Repentance, guilt, grief, remorse. A boy with blue eyes and golden hair, just like Minato but with a conviction that burns ten times as bright. Obito falls to his knees, gasping, shaking, and there are tears on his cheeks, ashes mingling with the blood in his mouth. Naruto, he wants to say, but the name means nothing, should mean nothing.

Quit it with your stupid reasoning! I meant to say that I'll stand any pain for my friends! I'm not gonna give up on them! It might just be me being selfish, but not having my friends here is the most painful thing for me! Period!

He chokes on a laugh, or maybe it's a sob. One boy who wouldn't give up on reality, no matter how much pain he'd gone through. No matter how much Obito put him through.

Obito staggers to his feet and runs, because he's treating this like fact when he knows it isn't real. Because he keeps thinking of Minato as dead and resurrected when he's alive and well, Rin as though she's killed herself and used him to do it when she hasn't, when she would never, and Kakashi—

Kakashi as an old, broken man, just starting to piece himself back together. Kakashi, who stares at him like he's a revelation, a miracle, and the world's greatest betrayal all in one. Kakashi who stares at him, wide-eyed with horror and heartbreak when Obito sacrifices himself for him not once but twice, when he goes to his death with a smile for this man who is—

The door of the house bangs shut behind him, but that's fine, because Obito is an orphan and there's no one else to wake. The Uchiha Compound is deserted at this time of night, only a few guards posted here and there, and though they look up as Obito bolts past, they don't call him back or try to stop him. It's probably best for all of them that way, because all the regret in the world won't take away Obito's anger, frothing under his skin like a crimson tide. He hates, almost as much as he loves, and somehow there's little difference between the two, hardly a step to be taken from one to the other.

Obito stretches his legs in long, swift strides, leaps across rooftops and over streets with blind desperation all but strangling him. The roads and roofs are mostly clear, but not completely, and Obito slams into someone just leaping up but doesn't stop to apologize. There's a shout behind him, a call, but Obito can't listen, can't wait. He needs, needs to be sure, to know that it was all a nightmare, all a dream, that he can shove it down into his subconscious and still be able to smile when the sun rises.

He remembers the anger, feels it himself. Remembers the reasons for it, and the reasons he shouldn't feel it—Rin is alive, alive, he shouldn't, he can't, but what if she wasn't? What would he do then? Would he—would he really try to kill everyone, destroy everything? He doesn't want to think so, but something within him whispers yes, yes, take the pain away, make it go away, make everything go away and then we won't hurt anymore, and worst of all it's a part of him.

Green, open ground in front of him, a shadow rising up block out the starry sky, and Obito leaps down from the trees. His newfound grace deserts him and he staggers, falls to his knees with a hard thud and feels skin tear on sharp-edged rock but can't be bothered to look. The Memorial Stone looms before him like an echo of the monster in his dreams, the monster that was him, and it's sheer instinct that has Obito making hand signs, feeding chakra. A fireball crackles to life in his hand, perfect and effortless, casting dancing light across the stone and the names carved there.

Less, now, than in his memories, and it's such a relief that Obito can hardly breathe.

There is no Nohara Rin here, no Namikaze Minato or Uzumaki Kushina. No steadfast Hyuuga boy dead by his hand. The Uchiha Compound is not an empty enclave of ghosts, slaughtered in a fit of rage using his young, broken cousin as a tool. There are no marks of devastation from Pein's final attack here.

Just a dream. All a dream. Only a nightmare and nothing more.

He sobs, and it tears out of him, because in that dream that lasted years, decades, he'd forgotten how to cry. Or maybe his rage had burned up all the tears and left him dry and empty. But here and now, he can cry, and it comes out broken and makes him shake, relief or remorse or fear or something else altogether. His throat still hurts, and now his eyes are stinging, burning. He's trembling all over, barely able to hold his light aloft, but he can't tear his eyes away from the Stone. Doesn't want to, because it's the only proof he has right now that none of that happened.

"Obito?" a soft voice questions, and a hand settles on his shoulder, curls tight like a point of heat to help him find his way back to reality. But Obito can't look, can't stand the thought of looking into his sensei's face when he remembers trying to kill him, remembers stealing his son and setting the Kyuubi on the village, remembers the man's shock and regret and resigned sort of determination when his mask cracked off on that bloody battlefield. A sob breaks through before he can strangle it, loud and sharp and ragged around the edges, and Minato makes a soft sound and folds to the ground beside him, kneeling next to him.

"Obito," he repeats, but it's not a question this time, full of sadness and worry that Obito doesn't deserve, because how can he even dream about those things he remembers doing? He tried to kill Minato, and came close to succeeding. He tried to kill the man's son, attacked Konoha so many times, helped Akatsuki and Madara and Orochimaru, turned Kirigakure into a puppet state drowning in blood and savagery because they killed Rin, because he killed Rin, and the whole time it was his fault that Madara even—

Another sob wrenched past his aching throat, and Obito wraps his free arm around himself, curls in as though he can escape the images that way. Minato leans into him, one arm around his shoulders and pulling him tight against his side, comforting, meaningless words falling in a whisper around them.

"You're okay," Minato tells him, fierce and insistent, but all Obito can think of is Naruto, who isn't real, whose devotion to his dreams and his precious people and his village was enough to shake even the hatred that's coiled in Obito's veins. Not to kill it, not to stop it, but then Obito doesn't think anything could at this point. And it's still there, even though the dream is over. Obito would quite happily take a torch to the Uchiha right now, no matter how he knows he went to sleep proud to be an Uchiha, proud to belong to such a strong clan. They've never seen him, never looked at him, and that's enough to earn his wrath. He'd kill a Kiri nin if there was one here, because they captured Rin and turned her into a walking weapon. He'd rip Madara apart without a second of remorse, even though Obito has never killed without regret before.

Minato's hold on him tightens further, and he runs his hand over Obito's shaggy hair, smoothing it helplessly. "What's wrong, Obito?" he asks gently. "You came flying by like a pack of demons was on your heels. What's going on?"

Trying to gather himself, Obito takes a breath that shakes, that breaks on a sob and nearly sends him back into a fit of tears, and looks up at his teacher. Minato looks back at him, and then his eyes go wide, hand tightening on Obito's shoulder until it's painful. He swallows visibly, taking a slow, careful breath, and then says, "Obito, your eyes."

Obito blinks at him, only now registering the halo of gold around the man, the faint traces of chakra that feel like Kushina, the pale green residue where Rin healed a gash in his arm. There's a sort of hyperawareness in him, though he hadn't noticed it, because after the dream it feels normal but it's not. He shouldn't be able to track the movement of a cat in the bushes where the light doesn't reach, shouldn't be able to register, analyze, and dismiss the faintest muscle twitch that tells him how Minato is going to move. But he does, he can, and it's as easy as instinct, or an old skill. He doesn't even notice that he's doing it.

"What?" he asks, blinking again, and his own voice makes him flinch, an edge of guttural growl thanks to the rawness of his throat, but it's like a shadow of the man he was in those dreams, and he hates who he became there.

(Hates it all the more because he thinks of the anger within him, the memories-that-aren't, and…realizes. Reluctantly, but he can maybe sort of understand just how that man came to be.)

Minato gives him another searching look, then fumbles in his weapons pouch for a moment. He doesn't let go of Obito, even when he's obviously having trouble, and Obito is…grateful for it. Because in that dream no one touched him unless it was to hurt, and even now no one touches him outside of Minato and Rin, and sometimes Kakashi. He's a tactile person, or thinks that he'd like to be, and touch right now is a grounding sort of comfort.

"Here." Minato presses something into his hand, and Obito stares at the little piece of mirror, almost terrified to look. Because what if that scarred, frozen man stares back? What if he looks and sees the truth of all this, that this is the dream, and he's really crumbling to ash from a goddess's touch?

But Obito isn't a coward, and never has been. He takes a breath and lifts the mirror, slowly angles it until he can see his face in the flickering firelight. Mouth, nose, unscarred cheek, tear tracks and skin even paler than normal. And—

Eyes, red and black, the pinwheel of the Uchiha's greatest weapon spinning lazily within.

His Sharingan is awake, with three tomoe rather than the one or two he's seen before, more complete than even the clan elders', and all Obito can feel is sick.

Oh, gods. It wasn't just a nightmare, was it?

Not a dream. Not quite reality, either, but it wasn't just a dream.

"I had a nightmare," he tells Minato, and his voice breaks halfway through. A child's voice, but it he really? He remembers, and in those memories, he's definitely not. Too much blood and anger and guilt to be a child by any stretch of the imagination. "I just—had a bad dream, sensei."

Minato's blue eyes are full of concern, and he doesn't let go or move away. "You're okay now?" he asks, casting a half-glance towards the Memorial, and Obito finds his eyes drawn back to it as well. There are only a few names he knows right now, most of them in a vague and half-aware way, even with the war raging. Only two of them mean more. Obito moves almost automatically, pulling gently out of Minato's hold and rising to his feet, stepping forward until he can trace his fingers over the pair of names carved one after the other. His parents, but he doesn't really know them either, for all that he has pictures. They died when he was two, on a mission together, and Obito alternately loves and hates them for it. Because he's a romantic, doesn't try to hide it, and the thought of being with the person he loves best even in his last moments is…good. And this way they won't have to see him like this, a failure and a killer all mixed up and crammed into one body. But they're gone, but even having a child wasn't enough to tie them down, make them come home safe, and that's…

Painful. But Obito is used to pain by now, isn't he?

He takes a breath, another, until it doesn't shake, and then he squares his shoulders and gives Minato his best smile. It cracks around the edges a little, but he just…can't, right now. Can't care, can't make it better, because there are two parts of him and they're at war, hate and love tangled up and struggling, and Obito has no idea which will come out on top, or what he'll do when the battle's done. If it's love…what then? How can he look Rin in the eye, give her flowers and ask her out the way he's been planning when he knows the smell of her blood, has seen her with a hole carved right through her chest? When he knows that it's his feelings for her that make Madara target her in the first place?

And if it's hate…what if he wants to destroy the world again? Because he loves his clan, is proud to be an Uchiha, but they've never seen him. He's a ghost, a failure, an errand-boy and a babysitter when they can't find anyone else, a burden kept in the very last house on the left because he's one of them no matter how they wish otherwise. He's been bullied, before, taunted by the younger boys who all have their Sharingan, who have come of age because they can do the Grand Fireball jutsu, who are good in school and well on their way to becoming points of honor for the clan.

And then there's Obito, forever late, forever tripping over his own feet. Unable to mold chakra well, unable to sit through a full lesson without falling asleep, the dead last boy who barely even passed the Chuunin Exams, forever in the shadow of his teammate who's about to become a jounin even though they're the same age. He's a failure in every sense of the word, can't even confess to the girl he loves, the only one to look at him and see, to not dismiss his boasts of becoming Hokage out of hand.

Can't confess now because if he shows any more interest in her, he might as well put a kill order out on her himself.

It crystalizes then, and he remembers that dream within a dream. Himself as Hokage, Minato proud and beaming in the background, Kakashi at his shoulder wearing a small, warm smile beneath his mask. Kakashi as a friend, his best friend, dirty book in one hand and a lazy slouch to his shoulders, a wicked teasing light in his eyes as he looks at Obito and sees. Sees him, and when has Obito ever wanted anything more?

He still wants that, everything about it, scars and grudging affection and all, his face carved in stone and the weight of the Hokage's robes on his shoulders. A good weight, though, to counterbalance the anger still bubbling up like magma from his soul. Protecting, instead of destroying, and…

What if he can have it? He remembers all those things, rock-falls and dying and waking up again, Madara in the Mountains' Graveyard and Zetsu at his side, Kiri ANBU in the moonlight and blood in the air like copper-tainted mist. What if he can stop that from ever happening?

What if…what if there can be a happy ending to this story, even with all the tragedy that came before?

"Yeah," he says, and reaches up to wipe his eyes. He's not wearing his hitai-ate, but he wants it. Wants that weight, the little bit of grounding affirmation that he hasn't become that broken, furiously shattered man yet, that he never will. "Yeah, Minato-sensei. I'm okay. I'm…I'm going to be fine."

And so is everyone else, even if he has to die all over again to make sure of it.

Morning finds him at the kitchen table in his empty, lonely house, staring at the orange-edged jacket and the orange goggles laid out across from him. He's…torn. Because they're his, they're him, but they aren't anymore, not really. Because part of Obito—a large part—is a tired man in his thirties, aged and tempered by two decades of constant fighting and manipulation, trained by Madara himself. He can't go on the way he has been, not if he wants to change things. Not if he wants to have a hope of surviving, of letting everyone else survive.

The Kannabi Bridge mission starts the tomorrow. Obito knows this—he's already sat through the briefings, read the reports, seen the maps. He knows how it will happen, how it will go if he doesn't change anything, and that's…unacceptable.

Except maybe it isn't.

Obito drops his head to the table with a groan, pressing down against the cool wood. His mind is racing, making leaps and turns that he can hardly understand even if he's the one thinking them. It's the older part of him, like background noise, a cold, calculating undercurrent to the loud, lateral way of thinking Obito is used to. Someone taught him to think this way, to analyze everything and look underneath the underneath, and then further still.

That's another thing he hates, that rage and grief were able to forge him into the shinobi he abstractly wanted to be, while dreams and determination left him for dead beneath several tonnes of rock.

But he can't focus on that now, can't focus on any of the anger still churning in his gut, because he has training with his team in less than two hours and he still hasn't come to a decision about himself.

He's not the kid who went to sleep last night with dreams of being Hokage. But he is.

He's not a thirty-two-year-old terrorist with delusions of godhood and a desire to remake reality, only just barely reformed by a boy with his father's blue eyes and an impossible will. But he is.

He's both, at the same time as he's not either one, and it feels like something inside of him is fractured, rough edges scraping jarringly against each other every time he moves or thinks.

Taking a deep breath, Obito lifts his head and scrubs his hands over his face, forcing himself to focus. The goggles stare blindly back at him, and he glares at them, mouth tightening. It's not that he wants to change, but he has, and he needs to acknowledge that. Needs some part of himself to show that he isn't the little boy who let Rin die and then never looked twice at the circumstances behind it, even after he'd been trained to. He's not Madara's puppet, he's not a failure of a chuunin, and he's…

He's still himself.

Whoever that is.

Suddenly determined, Obito shoves his chair back and pushes to his feet. The Uchiha have their own shops in the district, though Obito rarely visits them, and there's a clothing store that opens early. He's got some pocket money to spend, enough that something new, to reflect the way he feels now, won't leave him eating nothing but ramen until his next cut of the mission pay comes in. It will be enough, and right now, it's what he needs.

Once, Obito let Rin die, let himself be manipulated and turned against Konoha. Not again. Never again. He's not going to be that stupid kid anymore.

His mind made up, Obito picks up the goggles, tucks them away in his weapons pouch, and heads for the door. There are people outside, unnerving when he can so clearly remember the compound with corpses scattered as thick as fallen leaves across the ground, but they don't look at him and Obito does his best not to look at them, either.

It's hard. He has their blood on his hands even if they don't know it yet, even if they'll never know it. Oh, the massacre was just as much Danzo's doing, but…it's his too.

Mikoto smiles as she passes him, little Itachi solemnly gripping her hand as he's towed along, and it takes everything Obito has not to flinch away from both of them.

The young woman who owns the clothing shop is just unlocking the door when he gets there, and she eyes him for a minute before swinging it open and stepping back. He forces himself to smile at her, even when it's the very last thing he feels like doing—Did I kill you? he thinks, nearly desperate to remember otherwise. Were you one of the Uchiha I killed myself?—and shuffles past, eyeing the racks of clothing in Uchiha blue almost balefully. He doesn't want another robe to mimic Madara, or a shapeless cloak like he wore for the Akatsuki. He isn't Tobi or Madara's body double any longer.

"No orange," the young woman tells him bluntly, gripping his shoulder and steering him towards a display of plain long-sleeved shirts, like standard uniform tops except for their color and the Uchiha fan stitched onto the collar. Obito grudgingly admits that they'll be easier to move in than his fairly bulky jacket and resigns himself boringness.

He eyes the woman's unimpressed expression as he picks one up and promises himself a trip to the weapons shop afterwards as consolation.

He's the first one to the field where Team 7 usually meets that day, which is unheard of. But he feels better, more like someone who's possibly himself without the marks of either childhood or madness. Blue, all of it, but different shades to keep him from feeling like a stereotypical monochrome Uchiha. Dark blue pants wrapped from ankle to knee to keep him from tripping, a paler blue shirt with sleeves slightly too wide and long in order to cover his hands and obscure his movements, and his own stubborn addition—an orange scarf, impossibly soft from too many washings, wrapped loosely around his throat.

Obito sprawls on his back in the soft green grass, staring up at the sky. There are a few clouds, but not many, and the sun is warm on his skin. He can't stay like this for long—the Uchiha don't tan so much as scorch, and he spends enough time flushed and stuttering around his teammates as it is. There's no need to make crimson his actual skin color. For now, though, it eases something tight and knotted up within him.

Activating his Sharingan is as simple as breathing, maybe even more so. He blinks, and the world comes into focus again, like a veil's been lifted. Years, Obito remembers, with his Sharingan constantly awake has left him more comfortable with it active than dormant. Anything else, even his normal range of vision, is startlingly close to blindness, and since he at least has never had to worry about losing his Mangekyo to deterioration, he might as well indulge. For now, people will write it off as him being overly enthusiastic about having his Sharingan, and by the time they realize something's different it will be commonplace.

He's angry, still. Angry at the world that there's even a possibility that things could end the way he remembers. Angry at circumstances, at not having a single person outside of his team that he can talk to, that he can share this with. Angry that he's only thirteen, and yet there's a war going on that will take that team, chew them up, and spit them out broken and faltering. Angry at Madara, who's insane, and Kaguya, who's even worse. But it's getting better now, subtler—or he's just getting used to being so angry all the time, the way he was before.

Obito isn't entirely sure which he is, but he rather suspects the latter.

Frowning faintly, he fingers the looped chain hanging off his belt, the only weapon at the shop that he could both afford and safely use without the risk of killing someone. He knows how to use a gunbai, a sword, a shakujo, but he knows how to kill with them, not spar. And Minato-sensei will want them to spar today, with him or with each other, and Obito has tried to kill his sensei and Kakashi enough already, even if they'll never know it. He doesn't want to take that risk.

He's still thinking about the mission, about how all of this will play out. And maybe…maybe his best chance of changing everything is to change nothing. Madara wants him for a puppet, has seen his potential somehow when even those closest to him have overlooked it—when even his teacher has overlooked it. And if he doesn't take Obito, he'll simply wait a few more years and take Sasuke. And in the meantime, Zetsu will be free to plot and twist things however he wants, just as he has since Kaguya was sealed. Who knows how much damage a few more years could do to the world? Obito isn't willing to risk that, so his best course of action will be—

Soft, nearly silent footsteps in the grass, with more weight behind them than Kakashi or Rin would have, and Obito opens his eyes to offer his teacher a smile as he sits up. Minato is studying him, that careful concern still foremost in his eyes, but he smiles back and takes a seat on a large rock, crossing his legs under him comfortably.

"Are you still okay, Obito?" he asks, sharp blue gaze taking in the new outfit and lingering just half an instant too long on the coiled chain and the leather wrist-braces attached to each end.

"Fine, Minato-sensei," he says, and if it's nowhere near as cheery as it should be, it's still the best Obito can manage right now, when half of him can't even recall what a smile feels like on his face. When Minato's worried stare doesn't waver, he drops the expression with a sigh and sits up, pulling his knees up to his chest and looping his arms around them. "I'm fine," he repeats, more firmly this time. "It was just…a really bad dream. I thought that everyone I loved was dead, and the world was just…a black hell. But it's not," he adds, and the words are edged with the steel of his conviction that it won't ever be that way. "Everyone's okay, and it made me decide what kind of shinobi I want to be."

Minato smiles at him, warmth threaded through with fondness and relief in equal measure, and Obito still vaguely resents him, remembers blue eyes that looked right through him and never saw, never recognized him even when they were fighting head-to-head. Never understood what he could be, the way Madara and Zetsu did. But he loves him, too, this man who's the closest thing to a father or older brother he's ever known, who is so unequivocally a hero. Hallowed martyr, Obito mocked him once, on a battlefield leagues and years away. But it's true. Minato killed himself so that his son could survive, so that Konoha as a whole could survive, always strived to be the best, not for himself but for those around him. And Obito has always looked up to him, admired him, wanted to be like this brilliant, sun-bright genius with everything he is.

But he's not a hero. His words to Naruto are still entirely true—you either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain—and he's sure down to his bones that it was only willpower that kept Naruto from taking his path. Because hate is easier than hope, and anger is easier than faith, and where Obito defaulted to the former Naruto always had the strength to pick the latter, and that's the difference between them in the end.

"And what kind is that?" Minato asks warmly. Coming from anyone else it would be condescending, pandering, but Minato clearly means it, bright and interested.

Before he can think about it, Obito answers, "Someone who's powerful enough to fight, but strong enough that he doesn't have to. Someone who can fight for peace and not have it be meaningless. Someone who would say 'I'll shoulder your hatred and die with you' before he ever gave up on a friend, even if that friend had already betrayed him a dozen times."

The lines between himself and Naruto are blurred at the edges, bleeding through. Obito is like Naruto, or could have been, and it's the same the other way around. And…that's a good legacy to keep in mind, with that dream of peace and himself as Godaime before him. Maye it won't happen, but…

It's the kind of thing Naruto would fight for, happiness and precious people and a vow he once made, and so Obito will fight for it too.

A light, slim figure darts out of the trees before Minato can answer, and Rin waves cheerfully at both of them as she crosses the field, carrying a tall bento box in the crook of one arm. "Minato-sensei, Obito," she calls once she's close enough not to shout. "You're early! I brought lunch for everyone!"

Obito hides a wince, because he adores Rin with all of his heart, as his best friend or otherwise, but she's a terrible cook. Or rather, she's creative in all the wrong ways, and doesn't seem to realize that not everyone likes their food the way she does. Still, it's a sweet gesture, and she's impossibly kind and generous to have spent so much time on something for all of them to share, so he always chokes down what she gives him regardless.

"Thanks, Rin," Minato says, only the faintest twitch betraying his own wince as he turns his smile on her. "That's sweet of you. I'm sure we'll all appreciate it after a day of training." Glancing at the sun, he chuckles softly to himself. "So Kakashi is the last one to show, and we're all early for once! That's rare."

Obito remembers Kakashi standing before the Memorial Stone, year after year, holding conversations with his ghosts and then making up excuses when he finally managed to tear himself away, and flinches. He's never thought it was funny, never was able to find the humor in it, because he did that to Kakashi, broke him like that, and…it's wrong. They weren't even really friends, though Obito desperately wanted to be behind his blustering; he shouldn't have had the power to do that to Kakashi, and yet he did.

"I'm still on time," a sharp voice points out, but Obito doesn't look, can't make himself, the same way he can't quite look at Rin. But with Rin, he's afraid to see blood and a hole in her chest, that ghastly smile as she falls and dies. With Kakashi, it's that last look he fears remembering, grey eyes fixed on him even as he gave Naruto his last words. Tears, when he'd never seen Kakashi shed them before without using Obito's eye as an excuse. He closes his eyes and focuses on breathing, on remembering that they're all alive, everyone is alive, and he has plans to keep it that way.

"You are," Minato agrees cheerfully, rising to his feet. "And now that we're all here, how about some warmups? Kakashi, you and Rin pair up. Obito, you're with me, okay? Just get some practice in, and then we can move on to teamwork exercises."

Usually, this is the point where Obito would protest, where he'd ask to be with Rin, but…today he's grateful, and from the hand that Minato lays on his shoulder, he can tell. The jounin squeezes gently, then steps away, making space for the four of them to spread out. "Come on, Obito," he calls, tromping through the grass to a slightly hilly expanse a good hundred yards away. "Let's see what you can do."

Rin is watching him, Obito sees when he takes one last, quick look at his teammates. There's confusion on her face, warring with concern, and even Kakashi looks faintly surprised. But Obito can't face either of them right now, turns away and pastes a smile on as he hurries after their teacher. "Yes, sensei," he says as cheerfully as he can manage, and…it's not all false, he realizes with some surprise. He's excited for this, happy to test himself against Konoha's Yellow Flash, and his hands are perfectly steady as he unloops his new chain, buckling the braces around his wrists and testing his range of motion with them on. He remembers this, but under other, unhappier circumstances, and here it's a thousand times better. This is sparring, not a fight to the death because of his actions.

A breath, steady and firm, and he looks up, allowing himself to grin as he feeds more chakra to his Sharingan. Minato grins back, drawing a kunai and dropping into a ready stance as he beckons Obito to start.

This is familiar. This is movement without thought and muscle-memory used without hesitation, instinct and experience as one, and Obito moves. A lunge, low and fast, swifter than he's ever managed before. Minato's eyes widen and he darts away, but Obito is ready, can read even the faint tensing of muscle and flick of the eyes like it's a tell painted in vivid scarlet. Kamui comes with impossible ease, making him intangible, and he phases right through Minato's neat leg sweep and out the other side of his body before letting the power go. The chain catches, Minato not expecting its sudden return to solidity, and Obito takes advantage, pulling it tight and then flipping up and over his sensei's head to tangle him in the chain.

Fighting is easy. It's what he knows. He can read the flow of it the way he's never been able to before, can predict and dodge even when Minato is too fast to land a blow on, even when he's too strong and Obito is being pushed back. But it's a strange sort of stalemate, because Minato can't hit him either, even when he stops using quite so much restraint. Obito knows they're both holding back, knows Minato can see that too, and it's…amazing.

Eighteen year of fighting, in his memories. Eighteen years plus eight as a shinobi of Konoha that he remembers, can use, and is this what it's like to be Kakashi, or Minato? To be confident, capable? To know that he isn't going to trip over his own feet the next time he takes a step, or have a Katon jutsu blow up in his face if he tries it?

Obito has always been the loser, the dead last, the hopeless one. But this is him, this is what he can be. He's not a helpless, hopeless, useless brat. He's a shinobi. He's faced down Madara, and Kaguya, and Minato himself. No one is expecting him. No one here knows what he's capable of right now, what he's planning. He has the secrets of two different wars in his head, nearly two decades of whispers and knowledge of so many techniques and bloodlines and hidden tales from the distant corners of their world.

As he is right now, he could even face down Madara, and that's the headiest sense of victory he's ever felt.

There's no sound from behind him, he realizes with a start, landing lightly a dozen yards from Minato and pausing when his teacher doesn't press forward. Minato is beaming, grinning wide enough that it's probably painful, and Obito smiles back more tentatively, allowing himself to relax slightly.

"Good," Minato says, and laughs, warm and expansive as he comes over to pull Obito it a tight half-hug. "Amazing! That was incredible, Obito! You figured all of that out since last night?"

"Yeah," Obito says, a little sheepish even though it's more or less the truth. He rubs the back of his head, half-wishing for his goggles, left back at his house, and turns to see how Kakashi and Rin are doing.

They're staring at him. Kakashi looks dumbfounded, and Rin absolutely delighted, if still slightly astonished.

"Uh, surprise?" Obito tries, mortifyingly awkward because he still doesn't know quite how to look them in the eyes given what he remembers, these two people who are so incredibly important to him in different ways.

(Rin was the reason he broke, in the end, and Kakashi was one of the things that helped piece him back together. And what does that mean for him, for them, for the way he relates to them? Because Obito got Rin killed, and Rin was the reason he broke, and Kakashi broke because of him. They're a tragic sort of triangle, something only found in war or the very worst soap operas and cheesy romance novels, and how can they survive with the weight of reality bearing down on them? Is there a way?)

There's a moment of incredulous silence, and then Rin laughs brilliantly, throwing herself forward to wrap her arms around his neck. "Obito, you did it!" she crows, sounding as proud as if she had awoken the Sharingan herself. "You got your Sharingan! Congratulations!"

Obito's breath catches painfully in his chest, but it's overwhelmed by the warmth that curls up from his very soul. He loves Rin, would remake the world for her, and…even if she doesn't see him the same way, even if there's no chance at all, Obito will always be her friend first and foremost. He's the one she giggles to about her crushes, trusts with her secrets, tries out her cooking on. He's her shoulder to lean on the same way she's his, and that's enough. That's more than enough, because someday she's going to fall in love, truly in love, not just a crush, and Obito will wish for her happiness with that man with all of his heart.

She's too good for him, with the blood of an entire war on his hands. Too good and kind and pure, and Obito would never dream of tainting her light with the way he is now, the memory of the man he could become dragging her down into the darkness with him. Atonement is all well and good, but it doesn't erase the past. What Obito did he'll have to live with forever, and if the price he has to pay for Rin's happiness is letting her go when he never really had her to begin with, he'll bear it without complaint. She'll be okay, and he'll be the best friend she's ever had.

"Thanks," he whispers in her ear, and hugs her back as tightly as he dares, careful not to let the chain hurt her. "Thanks, Rin."

She beams back at him, as blind as ever to the love he feels for her, and it still hurts, still aches. But maybe, just maybe it hurts a little less than it did before he made his choice, and he can still smile at her and mean every second of it.

When they separate, Kakashi is watching him with narrowed eyes and a considering expression, head tipped faintly to one side. Obito holds his gaze and nods, just once—an acknowledgement instead of his usual peacock posturing. It feels right, like a step forward. Like a door opening, with a brighter future beyond.

The next day they leave for Kannabi Bridge at the same time, from the same place, and Obito heads there with light feet and his heart pounding away in his throat, nerves coiling tight in his stomach. He gives himself just enough time, not wanting to be caught alone and awkward with either of his teammates, and doesn't hurry.

But there's an old woman in the street, just over halfway there. She's struggling with three large suitcases, squinting at street signs and muttering to herself, face pinched tight with unhappiness, and Obito…stops.

Because he's himself above all. Always himself, and no dark future or hopeless past is going to change that.

"Can I help you, ma'am?" he asks, and pushes all thought of lateness out of his mind, because it doesn't matter.

The old lady smiles at him, relief softening her features, and sighs out, "Oh, yes, please, young man. I think I'm a little lost."

Obito smiles back, and reaches out to pick up the two larger bags. This at least is something he refuses to change about himself, not for anything or anyone. "Where are you headed?" he questions cheerfully, shouldering the luggage. "I'll lead you there!"

In the end, he lets things play out as they did before. Like a script, a play he's seen enough to memorize, it's easy. Rin is captured, they fight, Kakashi leaves, Obito goes to rescue her on his own. Kakashi comes back for them, loses an eye, and—

The cave shakes, the rocks tumble downward, and Obito moves with all the speed that he possesses to throw Kakashi out of the way. He tries to brace himself, tries to tell himself it won't be so bad this time because he expects it but—

Pain. Pain and darkness closing in, Kakashi's horror and helplessness and self-directed anger, Rin's steel-edged grief and steady hands as she transplants his left eye.

And then even the pain is gone, lost to numb unconsciousness as he fades away, hardly even feeling the rocks sliding down to bury him further.

When he wakes to blood and pain and new-familiar chakra coursing through him, Madara is waiting. And Obito grins at the old man, fierce and bloodthirsty, and pushes to his feet with all the memories of his time in this patchwork body coursing through him.

"Morning, my honorable ancestor," he says, dark and predatory, because here the man he used to be is far more useful than the boy he was. A step forward, and Madara steps back, eye narrowing warily. It's a retreat, surrendering ground, and Obito laughs. "You told me once that the longer we live the more we realize reality is just made of pain, suffering, and emptiness," he says, watching Zetsu's dark shape in his peripheral vision. A flex of his shoulders snaps the bandages Madara wrapped around him and he stretches the new arm carefully, testing its limits. He's still a bit weak, but the first time around his months in the cavern were spent adjusting, and with his memories there's no longer any need for that.

Madara stiffens slowly, taking another step back. Obito steps forward to match him, remembering betrayals, remembering his own life spent to resurrect this man who never should have been given his loyalty. "I don't recall ever saying such a thing to you," Madara murmurs, and the faintest flicker of his remaining eye is enough for Obito to know that Zetsu is getting ready to subdue him. "But it's true, don't you think? You suffered so that others could survive. What if there was no need for such a thing? A world of winners without any losers, where peace and love were all that existed, untainted with hate."

Obito snorts, and when Zetsu lunges he turns, the whirling, warping vortex of Kamui sucking Kaguya's manifested will into a dimension with acrid air and an empty land, and then closing silently behind it.

Madara is still and silent, clearly realizing for the first time the depths of his miscalculation.

"No," Obito tells him clearly. "That world is a lie, and I won't believe in it. Not for anything. Zetsu fooled you, Madara, and if I were a better person, if I were like Naruto, I'd have sympathy for you. But I'm not, and I never will, so this is going to be your end."

And really, it's ridiculously easy. Madara is old, so old and weak. The Statue is all that keeps him alive. Zetsu said it himself, that without the Statue's chakra Madara would crumble to dust almost instantly.

When Obito burns through the cables with the Katon jutsu that marks adulthood in their clan, that's exactly what Madara does.

"Do I get my happy ending now?" Obito asks fate at large, staggering over to Madara's throne-like chair and slumping into it. He'll seal the tree, keep anyone from using it again, but…later. Right now he's weary to the bone, relief and stress and chakra exhaustion in equal measure. He tips his head back, eyes falling closed, and imagines that somewhere far away, he can hear fate whispering, "Yes."

He isn't the boy he used to be. Nor is he the man he could have become, if his world broke around him. He's just…himself. Obito. He's thirteen with dreams of becoming Hokage and creating peace, with the memories of thirty-two years of life in the back of his mind, with mokuton and a Mangekyo Sharingan and a team he loves like the family he never had. And maybe he's broken, cracked all the way through until only shards are left, but he's a shinobi, and he'll survive. He'll live, and move forward, and he'll honor the memory of a boy who has yet to be born, with eyes like the sky and a will like the sun, burning determination and boundless faith. And that's enough. That's everything.

He pauses at the edge of the tree-line, one hand resting on the wide bole of an ancient oak as mokuton whispers beneath his skin. There's a stone in front of him, though it's not nearly as sinister in the light of day as it was the night he fled here. There's another boy before it, with white hair and a tantō strapped to his back, head bowed as he stares down at the pair of orange goggles and the bouquet of flowers resting at the Memorial's base.

Obito has seen this sight before, in his memories. He used to watch, feeling strange and guilty and halfway to astonished, that Kakashi would do this for him. That he effected the other boy so deeply, even though he hadn't meant to.

But now the name that Kakashi is mourning will soon be scratched off, erased until they need to add it again, hopefully some time far into the future. And if Kakashi does choose to visit again, Obito won't be the cause.

He drags his fingers over the rough bark one more time, as if for luck, and then steps away, making his nearly-silent way across the clearing to stand just behind Kakashi's shoulder.

"Oi, Bakashi, I've never liked chrysanthemums. As my genius teammate, aren't you supposed to know stuff like that?"

Kakashi gives a full-body flinch, painful to see, and spins like it's an attack. He stumbles forward one step, hand automatically reaching for a kunai, and then stops dead, visible eye going wide. He chokes, staggering back like Obito's very presence is a blow, and takes a wild look around the small clearing.

"You're—" he breathes, halfway between agonizing disbelief and burning, painful hope.

Obito smiles at him, caught between two sets of memories, neither of which fit here and now. So…he'll just have to make new ones, won't he? "Sorry I'm late," he says, smile stretching to a sheepish grin, and on a whim adds, "I…got lost on the road of life."

A blur of motion, too fast for even the Sharingan to track, and then there are arms around Obito, pulling him into a hug so tight he can't even breathe, and his nose and mouth are filled with shaggy white hair. But that's okay, because oxygen is overrated, and Obito hugs Kakashi back, thinking of Kakashi's tears for his final death, his silent grief at the first one. And this—this is joy at his resurrection, joy untainted by betrayal or anger or anything else, and Obito soaks it up like it's the sun after an endless winter.

"That's the stupidest excuse I've ever heard you use," Kakashi huffs in his ear, fingertips digging bruises into both of Obito's shoulders where he's clutching at him desperately. "And that's saying something, idiot."

"No, it's awesome and you're just in awe!" Obito protests, but he doesn't even try to pull away. There are tears leaking from his eye, making his scarred cheek wet, and an answering patch of dampness against his temple where Kakashi's face is pressed, but he's not going to mention it. Not this time, because he thinks they're both allowed a little more emotion here than they might otherwise show—at least on Kakashi's part, anyway.

"Idiot," is all Kakashi says, but it's choked up and relieved and full of poorly contained happiness, and Obito closes his eyes as Kakashi clutches him just a little bit tighter, as though he's never going to let go.

He thinks of memories, of dreams. Of one dream in particular, the Hokage's hat dangling down his back and Kakashi standing at his side, lazy and languid and his best friend, a lodestone and somewhere to ground himself, someone to push him forward and keep him from faltering. That dream is closer now. The whole world is closer to peace without Zetsu to warmonger and Madara to push them over the edge.

Close enough, Obito thinks with a smile, for him to reach out and grab it. And he'll pull everyone else along in his wake.