Naruto is owned by Masashi Kishimoto. All rights reserved.

The Real Tobi
Oneshot

"You know what must be done…" the mystery man said to Pain. "Push the others to hasten the capture of the remaining jinchuriki."

"I know," Pain replied, emotionless as ever, while Konan looked on in silence.

With that, the mystery man grabbed his Akatsuki cloak from the wall hook. With a fell swoop, it was clasped around his neck, and he turned towards the open exit of the meeting place in the tower.

"Soon, very soon, all our goals shall be achieved."

The skies outside were growing ever darker, thunder rumbling in the background.

"When that happens, everything shall be restored to its rightful place…"

The mystery man passed both Pain and Konan, even as the skies turned black, the thunder ominous. The rain making their suicide runs towards the earth. Bolts of lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating everything.

The mystery man turned around, his spirally orange mask with the singular eye hole backlit by the lightning. "…including the true power of the Sharingan… my power… Madara Uchiha…"

"So, you're the one imitating Tobi."

Madara paused, hearing the voice behind him. Pain and Konan looked over the hooded man's shoulders, their eyebrows crinkling in surprise.

"Tobi is not pleased. Tobi is not pleased at all…"

Ever so slowly, Madara turned around to face the annoyed-sounding voice.

Another man, wearing the black armored gear and a spirally orange mask with the singular eye hole stood in the opening of the terrace, arms akimbo. It looked like an exact copy of Madara's outfit, the only difference being that the new interloper did not wear the black cloak with red clouds.

"Who are you?" Madara asked, his puzzlement evident in his voice.

"Tobi's name is Tobi. Tobi hears that there's been someone pretending to be Tobi, so Tobi came to see who would do such a thing." The one called Tobi inclined his head forward in what was to be a menacing fashion.

"You're nothing like Tobi. Tobi feels insulted."

Madara shook his head slightly, utterly bored. "Pain…"

The orange-haired man extended an arm at Tobi. However, Tobi snapped his fingers in response.

The next thing anyone knew, Pain slumped to his knees, then fell over onto his face.

"Pain!" Konan shouted in shock.

"Tobi is not pleased," Tobi said, shaking his head. "Tobi is not pleased at all…"

"Who the devil are you?" Madara commanded, slipping backwards in a fighting stance.

Tobi's head tilted at an angle. "You don't hear very well. Tobi fix that." The coatless man snapped a kick at Madara's head. Instead of connecting, the foot passed through as if he was never there.

"It's useless attacking—"

The attacking foot halted in its descending path and reversed itself, this time connecting solidly to Madara's head, sending the faux-dressed Tobi flying into the wall with a heavy crash.

"Intangibility? Why would Tobi have a lame power like that?"

Madara shook his head in an attempt to chase out the cobwebs that were formulating there. "What the devil are you?"

"Tobi is Tobi!" the masked man replied brightly. "Tobi is a good boy!"

Madara had no idea what to think of this. This masked clown comes out of nowhere, claiming that his identity, one that Madara had meticulously crafted over the course of months, had been stolen, "killed" Pain with a simple snap of his fingers, then proceeds to kick the crap out of him despite the fact that his special powers should have rendered the effort useless.

"All right then, 'Tobi,'" Madara spoke, slowly rising to his feet. "Perhaps I should take you a little more seriously."

"Tobi thinking the same thing." And the cloakless man reached behind him for—

Madara and Konan blinked.

"Tobi fight you ver~ry seriously now," he said, brandishing his weapon.

Madara looked at the weapon incredulously. "…with a spoon?"

"This is no ordinary spoon; it's…" He struck the spoon high up in an otherwise awe-inspiring pose. "Tobi's Spoon of Tobi!"

From Madara's position, it looked like an ordinary wooden mixing spoon. His Sharingan picked up nothing out of the ordinary. Using all manners of sensing chakra, special abilities, anything that offered even a hint of power, the only thing he could conclude that, yes, this was, in fact, an ordinary wooden mixing spoon.

Madara was, for the lack of a better term, annoyed that this guy was certifiably insane. Or just trying to screw with his mind.

"Art of the Tobi!" Tobi said, not even making hand signs. He disappeared in a wisp of smoke.

Madara scanned the room for several seconds. If this Tobi was going to appear anywhere, he would know; his Sharingan would immediately—

And then his sight went blank.

"What the!"

Konan looked in askance as the cloaked secret leader of Akatsuki staggered about as if blind.

"Madara?"

"My… my eyes! I can't see!"

"See? Tobi has way cooler powers than you, you not-Tobi!" Tobi said from behind the blind man.

Madara spun around trying to locate his opponent. However Tobi reappeared behind him, his spoon pulled back in a manner that could have been construed as deadly… if it wasn't a spoon.

"And now, Tobi's Secret Art: Ten Thousand Years of SPOON!"

"Did you hear that?" one Rain shinobi asked his partner in the heavy downpour.

"The sound of someone screaming like a little girl?"

"Yeah…"

The other nin shrugged. "Probably the wind. Hey look, it's a new bar in town! Club Toad!"

"Cool, let's get out of this weather and get a drink."

"And that!" Tobi kicked the comatose Madara once more for good measure. "Is for breaking Tobi's Spoon of Tobi!"

Konan stared at the spectacle. Two of the most powerful men she could think of, reduced to play things at the hands of an irate, insane man. With a once-whole wooden spoon. Worse, whatever this Tobi did to Madara seems to not be limited to him. She couldn't mold chakra or anything in that regard, thus was very much incapable of escaping unnoticed.

"And now, you…" Tobi said, pointing at Konan with that orange-masked feeling of menace. She didn't dare move; this guy had already rendered everyone insensate within seconds. She just hoped her end would come quick, and nowhere near as painful as Madara's.

Or as mortifying; imagine, having a spoon shoved up there… and then it breaking off. The thought alone made Konan shiver with revulsion.

Tobi approached her, reaching behind him once again. Konan closed her eyes, preparing herself for death…

…only to be completely surprised when her nose filled with the scent of mint, cherry blossoms, cut grass and marigold.

Her eyes opened to the sight of a hodgepodge collection of plants and flowers collected into an outstretched fist.

"Tobi and you go on date, yes?"

"Uh…" Konan tried to think of something; unfortunately, her mind went completely blank on her. "Yes?"

At the affirmative, Tobi jumped up and down in glee. "Tobi's happy! Tobi's very happy! Tobi's—"

And the bouncing man stepped on the broken shaft of his spoon. His legs flew out from underneath him, and he crashed to the floor hard enough to nearly shatter it.

"Um… Are you—"

The floor gave way, and Tobi fell through, crashing down below. And through that floor. And the floor below that. And the one below that.

Konan winced, hearing the constant smashing sounds, occasionally punctuated with screams of terror from those that happened to be in the building. After several more crashes, everything was quiet, save for the falling of fractured stone.

"Are you even alive?" Konan spoke to herself, looking down the hole.

"Tobi head hurt," came the groggy voice behind her. Konan nearly leapt into the hole in shock as a dusty, Tobi commented, his clothes torn, his armor dented six ways from Sunday. "Tobi take a little nap…"

And with that, he slumped to the floor, curling up in a little ball like a kitten. In seconds, he was snoring quiet loudly.

Konan just sat down away from the hole. Even considering what her friend could do, this Tobi was far, far stranger than she could begin to imagine.

"You're back, I see," Tsunade said with a smile to Jiraiya. "I take it nothing panned out?"

"Well, that's the weird thing," Jiraiya said, taking a seat in front of the Hokage. "The intel was accurate; however, when I got there, some guy name Tobi seemed to have beaten the living daylights out of the leaders of the Akatsuki for impersonating him. Or at least, that's what I gathered from the strange conversation we had over tea and mint cupcakes."

Tsunade looked at Jiraiya strangely.

He knew what she was thinking. "Yes. Don't ask me how, but this Tobi guy found me, and get this… he's dating Konan, one of those three kids I trained in ninjutsu after the Second Great Shinobi War."

"Really?"

"I know! I thought they were all killed, but that was just a rumor." He scratched his chin. "Though why Konan would be dating a nutball like this Tobi guy, I don't know. You'd think she would have better taste that that… Anyway, this is what went down…"

Kisame yawned, idly rotating his mesh-covered shoulders back, the still body of his teammate – neatly wrapped in the former Seven Swordsman's own black cloak – tucked beneath his arm as he lazily walked the path to Amegakure.

To think, Itachi dying… It must have been one hell of a fight. Shame, though… he had to entertain Itachi's brother's team and miss out on the rarest event he could have gotten to see in his thirty-two years.

Sharingan versus Sharingan. Nothing like three years ago, when the brat was still dripping snot from his nose, oh no – this Sasuke was definitely someone he'd like to fight in the future. Had the kid somehow killed his partner – which seemed to have been the case, based on the discovery of Itachi's unmoving body, his blanked-out eyes staring skyward – he probably would have gone to see if the little brother was up for another battle to the death.

Shame those Konoha ninja managed to find Sasuke and make off with him, according to that one girl with glasses. Even bigger shame they couldn't get at them in time, what with all the Amaretsu fire making the area around the battleground itself a guaranteed moat of death. Kisame was hoping to have another face off against that guy in the green outfit. Or Kakashi. Maybe both of them at the same time.

He shrugged idly. Another day soon, he'll have his fights. And without Itachi telling him whether or not he can win. That was something he'd decide himself.

"Kisame…"

"Hm?"

The sharkman looked off to his left. "Tobi?"

Madara weakly dragged himself into view. "Kisame… it's you… my loyal servant…"

He quirked an eyebrow at that. "Since when have I been your loyal servant, Tobi? And when did you come back to life? I thought you were killed."

"I… I am not this… Tobi," the masked man spat. "I am… Madara…"

Kisame paused, looking at the orange masked man thoughtfully.

"There is… someone else, claiming that I had stolen his identity… he's… sealed away my powers… robbed Pain of his… and… and… violated me with a spoon… a spoon!"

This time both eyebrows shot up. "A spoon?"

"Yes, Kisame! A wooden mixing spoon! I've never been… so mortified in my life! I cannot see, I cannot use my powers… I can barely sense you, and that's because of your… impressive stores of chakra."

"I… I don't know what to say…"

"Help me… I must recover my strength… plan to defeat this… this so-called Tobi… and then—"

=SPLAT=

Kisame lifted his sword up, blood and fragments of brain and skull dripping off its scaley serrations.

"What an idiot," Kisame grunted, shaking his sword clean of larger chunks of flesh and bone. "If you're going to make up a story, at least run something better than a 'false' Tobi shoving a wooden spoon up your ass. That sounds absolutely disgusting." Replacing the sword onto his back, the ex-Mist ninja tightened his grip on Itachi's body and continue his trek into the hidden village.

"So, you see," Tobi said, issuing a finger at Nagato, as his body was being mended, the chakra tubings freed from him. "Taking orders from a guy pretending to be Tobi is not very nice. Not very nice at all."

Nagato couldn't believe what was going on. First this guy somehow severed all reception to the Pains he controlled, then he beats the utter hell out of Madara, who was supposed to be invulnerable, then he comes and lectures him and Jiraiya on proper etiquette, then does something with a couple of butterflies and now… he's being healed up. Old injuries disappearing, his atrophied limbs being restored to normal.

"Who are you?"

"Tobi is Tobi! How many times—"

"No, I mean… who ARE you? A devil? A saint?" He paused. "The original Sage of the Six Paths?"

Tobi paused for a good moment. "Tobi… is a good boy. What else should Tobi be?"

To that, Nagato had no answer.

"Now that we have that straightened out, starting tomorrow, we make this place cheery! Tobi's tired of cold wet toes…"

Nagato looked over at Konan on the other side of the room. She could only shrug helplessly.

Great… Nagato thought dourly. The only thing that stood between him and his goal of world domination was a goofy, insane idiot who apparently had more power in his pinky than the whole of Akatsuki, fought with spoons and served cupcakes.

…At least the cupcakes were tasty.

END

AN: A bit of a fun idea that came to mind. Something about Tobi beating up Madara for stealing his identity…

Anyway… OMAKE TIME!

"Something wrong?"

Konan looked at Tobi. "This… date, you've set up…"

Tobi leaned forward, eagerness in his voice. "Yes? Yes?"

"It's…" She mulled the words in her mind before speaking. "…not the normal kind of date."

Tobi seemed a little deflated, and Konan inexplicably felt guilty for depressing him. "Not to say it's a bad date… just… unique."

"Tobi likes being unique!"

"I can tell…" Which she really could; just last week, Tobi brought her a bouquet of orange blossoms, parsley, rye and mint. Always mint.

"Tobi knows girls like beaches, romantic strolls, and pets. Tobi combine all three!"

A voice boomed from beneath them. "I'M NOT A PET!"

"Shukaku is not a good pet?" Tobi asked.

The giant biju, currently wearing a huge harness with a bit stuck in his mouth, paused. Konan could almost feel it sweat.

"Shukaku is a good pet…"

Tobi beamed in delight. "Good! Now, we must find kiwi! To the south! Yeeee-haw!"

With that, Tobi snapped the massive reins in hand, his heels digging into Shukaku's sand-covered back in an attempt to make the biju move faster.

"How the hell did I get into this position?" the sand raccoon grumbled, slowly lumbering around to head south. Konan privately wondered the same thing as she bit into another cupcake Tobi made. And what was Tobi's obsession with mint, anyway?