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Water, earth, heartbeats. I love you, didn’t you know?
As Obito opened his eyes once, twice; for a lifetime. With a blink or two, blood stains and coal handprints on his abdomen, tears always went unnoticed. Tobi. Obito. Madara. A boy? A man. A murderer? A peace-maker. He would like to make a contribution. Offer a deal or a solution. He would like to love. He would like to be loved. He is Obito. He is not dying, he is already dead. He would like to be born in a new time, a new place, with a new name. As the ocean surrenders to the sailors and the sky welcomes thunderstorms to light the path for wanderers, Obito keeps trying. Should all sinners be punished when it is but a desperate attempt to fill the void?
Drink our poison and we might feel your pain. New bodies are disgusting. Rotting bodies make us nauseous. We’ve killed so many and loved so few. We move our fingers and we can feel the terror in the air. We are causing it. We are the intruders. We should be dead but we shouldn’t be killed. Are we one? Can we open our windows and let out the anguish? Can our door welcome travellers? Will we perish under the light as the darkness creeps out? Will you leave us?
Obito screams. Obito is a little boy, a broken man, a dead prophet. He fights, he runs, he loses his heart. He weaves signs, signals, his death note. Obito is losing but he is winning. Obito is a man but a god. And as skin breaks and glues together, scars become scales and pale becomes grey; Obito realises he isn’t who he ought to be. He isn’t what Rin might’ve wanted him to be. But that is okay because in a dream all comes true. In a dream the possible and impossible mix together and create a dynasty of kings serving kings. He waits as the soul dies in a pile of smoke and a stark white paper is in front of him. He waits as years of history bleed into the page and turns it into mankind's worst manuscript full of truths. He feels himself shrink and expand, feels the earth and beyond, water manipulating fire and monks bowing down to atheists. The world is so small, creatures vast. Emotions fade as flash blinds every square space of his existence. Is he one? Is he merging? Will he live? Obito feels, and then he doesn’t. Obito remembers, and then he becomes them.
We lived before. We never died together. We feel our muscles as they clench, we feel the fire around us as the gates break and we emerge. We are free in an outstretched prison. Talons reaching out to tear the walls, saffron painted illusions. Someone calls us something. A name? An identity. Obito? Obito. They seem to crave a fight. Do they want us gone? Are we not wanted, even here amongst outcasts and mishaps? Three, three, thousands against us. Obito? We will protect us. We will fight. We’ve fought before, haven’t we? We’ve fought for lifetimes. We will eviscerate lands and mountains, we will create a domain for us and we will finally rest. We can feel our tiredness, Obito, the ache for a home and a person. We will be our home and our person. You will accept us, as we have accepted you.
As the black substance pierces through ashes and memories, Obito sees through a telescope of pain the exact moment the world blasts in soot and smoke around him. Eruptions blow away senses of the sixth and darkness covers vision. He can feel himself shrink as a larger existence grows and eats the space around him, pushing him down and inside a box of abyss. Strapped and blind. He felt thoughts that weren’t his and a conviction that was almighty. He felt the desperation of helplessness as he was wrapped in an alien embrace. Life, as it is now, felt like a floating gallery full of screaming art as the painting bled away. Maybe he should break free, maybe he should be caged as the bones turn to cinder and his eyes stop murmuring tales of the forgotten. If we stood, in this deserted population, the broken unity of our world would seem hollow and sharp. If we fell, they would stand there and they would watch. And we didn’t need anyone, never needed anyone but only someone.
I won't harm him. I won't let him speak. He is light, he is darkness, we are us and he is him. We are one another. Should we separate to be moulded together just the same? Will our hands intertwine as our beings tear apart? We are him and he is us. Every other beating heart and breathing body is an obstacle, every other me needs him to survive. Is it true? It is true. Is it true? It isn’t true.
Emerge. Break. Cry? His body shatters and his mind screeches. rin, rin, rin is rushed out in a breath, tears falling like crystalline little things. Out of his consciousness, Obito is a massive warping thing, a terror of scrapes and scales. Tearing flesh and mending broken skin, his body is out of proportions. In a blissful anonymity he stands hanging, barks piercing flesh and cutting away any resemblance he has to the human body. They gnaw at his arms, made of chalk and pain and some ivory filth. A picture of them, them. Obito is a fiend, Rin is gone, Kakashi is barely there and Minato is failing. Each limb for each memory carved in a heart that is waning. The picture is ripped, bleeding; paling in comparison to the nearby death. Every breath is a new beginning of the end. He is suffocating and he is no more. He is alive and he is no more. Paper cuts fly around as the twigs and wood wring and spread everywhere. Screams are an enemy, reminiscent of the past and future alike. Maybe the world is done with dreams and broken people trying to live past their limits. His vocal cord is straining, a coal stuck in him and melding with his blood making a wretched bleak ocean of blackness.
Stay like a river flowing skywards and birds humming tunes of sin. Values and philosophies splitting into rocks thrown down, down the mountainside. In this existence how could you forget death? The valley is empty and the harvest is abundant. We choke and the noose around our neck never goes slack. We are alive and we fear the end. Always.
Only rin is left. Obito is breathing hard as every inch is shattered and swelling and it's hard to break free of himself. Then Rin is torn and he is shrinking, blotching and pulverized. The scarlet of eyes ebb as it's stripped and sliced in half. And it is seamed and pieced together again, lord, as the light came back brilliantly. A body of a million scars and a few touches to be remembered. Obito pants but he is a brave miserly thing; isn’t he? The picture is burning, the picture is perfect and the picture is withering. They’re together, they’re dying and dead but they’re together and it doesn’t matter anymore. Obito is done weeping and Minato is a shell of a mentor. Kakashi is someone he wants and obliterates. He preaches peace and bestows war. He gave his all and he is standing still with the dark matter swirling around him as the shadow of the sage is born under his feet. He has won.
You can have the cosmos and the control you crave. You can have me. We can be us. You can be with me, one and unbreakable. We would be loved, Obito, dear.
He fights. He wields and he strikes for the sake of everything intangible. He fights and he hits true. Minato falls like he might die and the light is blinding Obito, taking away his respite, remorse and resolutions. The globe glows and turns every matter to dust but he is still alive. The swirling mass protects and he doesn’t feel tired anymore. Maybe there is hope to be had and dreams to fulfil. Obito emerges from the circle as he chants rin through his burnt heart and thrashing mind. The wind is howling and a combination of amaterasu and wind shuriken hit him but the monster is thunderous inside, it has awakened and ruination is all it craves. As Obito and the monstrosity inside stir and spread their claws, as their feet leave the earth full of spitting pride and barren lands they realise they are one and strong, so strong as though they created and destroyed every habitat. Above and beyond the imagination. Down and below every fear. Minato tries, he still tries thinking he is relevant. But the dust has settled and every emotion is whirling and fluttering around Obito.
“Obito, I thought you wanted to become Hokage! Why are you doing this?” Minato tries to reason, tries to establish a broken truce with someone beyond redemption.
“Lecturing me now? Isn’t it a bit too late for that…Sensei?” Obito drawls, someone far too gone to care whom he offends. “You were always too late when it mattered the most.” And doesn’t that hurt, a pin inserted right through skin, breaking and piercing. Lost memories flood in like a tide. Always late, like a clock going round and round. Always the same outcome. Always Rin, lifeless.
But by then Minato’s son had caught on and used Sage Jutsu for his attack as if in retribution. It pierced and made a circle of hollow and rage on Obito’s back. The cycle of his life. A weakness of such measures was unthinkable in a god yet Obito laid there, reeling from the attack. Nature Energy, he scoffed. The charade had been going on for too long. It was time for the first stages of the Tsukuyomi to start. He connected his hands, palms spread, to the ground and the tree was sprouting, hatching in its new found roots taking in every ounce it could get. Crimson and gigantic flowers swelled with something akin to eternal hunger as they bloomed and flushed to their peaks. Four spheres of energy, nature mingling with plasma and dark matter, hatch and float in the ground of nothingness. Obito fled up and up and the monster, Juubi , was growling then, the appetite for catastrophe prominent above all else. Six Crimson Rays Formation and four Tailed Beast Bombs later, the world was smoking and a scorching place.The shockwaves reverberated through the sky but the ground lay still, empty.
Minato? No, Naruto.
The barrier stood proud and Obito stood reeling. They were attacking now, strategy marking every step and Obito had to show them he wasn’t a boy but a man. Wasn’t an outcast but a god. Had to take the reins and so he did. Another gigantic tree as the roots sucked off chakra from every unfortunate soul nearby, every anomaly of friendly face. He was a saviour, wasn’t he? He would sacrifice and he would resurrect lost souls. Gone will be grief and tears.
Roots around midsections and ankles, bodies fell like rain. Ants crawled east and west for a retrieve, a life that was so near its end. It is unforgiving but taking back what belongs to it originally isn’t cruelty, but a true sense of justice. And it will be over so soon, just a little rough around the edges, his frayed mind will rest. The divine tree grows till the ends of the skies, reaches the moon and the flower is a bud, an eclipse waiting to be bestowed upon the dark humanity in search of light. It will all be worth the suffering and pain. And the moon glowed a bright red. Red of lover’s wrath, red of rusted blood, red of the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
Now stay still, you all have endured plenty already.