Prologue

Minato slid an Anbu mask across his desk. He wasn't sure how he felt about giving this young man a promotion to the Anbu, but the feeling was ominous. He had earned it, though, so…

"Here you go, Obito, you earned it. But please let me know if the Anbu is too much; it's not for everyone. The Anbu has been known to affect shinobi psychologically."

Obito grinned at his Sensei, who was now the Hokage.

"You worry too much, Sensei! 'kashi's been in Anbu for a month now, and he's turned out okay!"

Minato grimaced slightly at that. Kakashi was indeed 'okay', but he was beginning to show signs of obsession with higher ranked missions. He wasn't too far gone yet, but the rush was starting to get to him…

"Well… Please know my door's always open, for you and Kakashi both. I know you like to pretend everything's okay when you've made mistakes in the past, but don't, just this once. For my sake and for Rin's."

Obito sobered slightly at the mention of Rin, and he gave Minato a reassuring nod.

"I'll be careful, Sensei. Honest." Grin returning, Obito wiggled his eyebrows. "So what's my first mission?"

Minato eyed Obito for a few moments before handing over a sheet of paper.

"I'm assigning you, Kakashi, and three others to be a strike team on a stronghold in the Land of Lightning. Your first objective is to gather intelligence; then you have the task of destroying the stronghold, if you can. Your squad leader is Hawk; try to make a good first impression, Obito."

"You're assigning 'kashi to my first squad?" Obito sounded slightly disappointed.

Minato couldn't fight the small smile that creeped onto his face.

"I wanted someone that you were familiar with that could help show you the ropes. No one else in your generation has joined the Anbu yet, so Kakashi was the only option." At Obito's sly smirk, Minato narrowed his eyes and added, "Make a good first impression, Obito… Don't compete."

Obito waved him off dismissively.

"I will, I will."

Two weeks later…

All things considered, Obito handled himself pretty well as one of the Hidden Leaf's elite assassins and guardians. He received nothing but positive feedback on his mission reports; not even Kakashi could offer much constructive criticism. It was like… when Obito dawned the mask, he was totally a different person.

That worried Minato somewhat, but even psychological testing revealed no problems, so he didn't really have anything to be worried about per se. He just couldn't shake the feeling, though… Obito had to be up to something.

"Weasel! Why is your mask orange?!" Obito's Squad Leader bellowed when the teenager showed up at Anbu HQ for his shift.

Obito rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

"Ahaha. Don't worry about it, Sir Leader! It won't negatively affect the team at all! Obito is a good boy!"

Border

Two more weeks later…

They tried, they really did. But Obito was proving to be veeery tenacious… Obito's Squad Leader had burned the orange abomination after Obito's less-than-satisfactory explanation, and had issued him a spare Weasel mask with strict instructions never to do that again.

Obito had shown up to work the next day with the mask spray painted orange again, of course. Again, Hawk had quickly and efficiently disposed of the trash, and granted Obito another Weasel mask. The third time Obito pulled that stunt, the Anbu Squad Leader known as Hawk came to discover that Obito had somehow slipped into the mask forgeries and spray painted all of the spare Weasel masks orange. Hawk had no choice but to allow Obito to wear an orange mask… for now…

Let it be known, however, that Hawk could be tenacious as well. He approached the Hokage about this development with Obito, but his superior assured him that Obito's psychological tests were coming back clean; as bizarre as the act was, and as unprofessional as the act was, Obito would be allowed an orange mask if he wanted it. Because he was the Fourth's student. And because there was no telling what he would do to the whole damn supply of Anbu masks if they forced a different animal mask on him… Nobody wanted the entire Anbu force to be known for their orange masks. That would be humiliating.

Best to just let Obito have his jollies and hope it was a phase. Kami help them if it wasn't…

"Well, hello there!"

… It wasn't.

The enemy shinobi whipped around at the sound of Obito's childish voice. At the sight of Obito's orange mask, he exclaimed, "What the fuck!"

Obito sidestepped the shinobi again and again as the man tried to stab him repeatedly.

"Hey! Hey! That's not very nice! Can't we be friends? Whoa!"

The enemy shinobi growled and attacked more vigorously. When Obito continued to dodge, the man leaped back and ran through some hand seals, and then slammed his palm down on the ground.

"Earth Style: Mud Slide!"

Four sharp protrusions arose from the ground and precisely aimed to skewer Obito between the four of them. However, Obito didn't even leap away; he just stood there, not fazed in the least. The protrusions seemed to impale his body, yet no blood was drawn.

"Alas, I am slain!" Obito cried out and dramatically crumpled to the ground. Which really looked strange, because there were still no flesh wounds. A few moments later, Obito stood back up, his eyes glowing red and his voice decidedly deeper. "Kidding… You're just as I expected. A rank amateur."

The enemy's screams could be heard for miles around…

About a month later…

For the sake of everyone's sanity, there wasn't another development for a full month after that episode. Obito had been forced into strenuous psychological testing after that event; his whole team was convinced he had lost it. Yet thorough testing still came up clean…

And so the general consensus was that Obito was screwing with them. Obito had been forthwith ordered to stop the nonsense, and he seemed to sober up and comply. For a whole month. Obito even repainted his mask white!

Two weeks after that incident, everyone steeled themselves for another spontaneous episode… Nothing happened. They gave it another week; perhaps it was just delayed. … Still nothing.

And now it had been a full month since that incident… Just as everyone had let their guards down, Obito showed up at training in his orange Weasel mask.

"So! Which team is Tobi on?"

That… That childish voice… it was back. Various obscenities and weapons were thrown Obito's way, but he phased right through them… both literally and metaphorically. Despite the great temptation to do so, Kakashi did not twitch behind his mask… Not one bit.

"Damn it, Obito! Why couldn't you just let it die?!"

Informality aside, Anbu Squad Leader Hawk couldn't agree with him more. He had thought the problem was nipped in the bud when he put his foot down as Obito's superior, but apparently the insubordinate little shit had been building up a full-blown persona. Removing Obito from the Anbu program was no longer an option; Lord Hokage would never risk Obito's… act… leaking to the general populace. What if it was contagious?

"Weasel, we will be having words after this session is over… For now, run the gauntlet with Dog and Bear. You had better take training seriously…"

Seemingly wounded by his commander's harsh words, Obito sobbed.

"But… Tobi is a good boy…"

… On second thought, Hawk pondered resigning from the Anbu himself. It was never too early to retire, y'know?

Author's Note:

This is short, but that's because it's more of a teaser than anything else. I've got quite a menagerie of crackfics now… But this one and That was Anticlimactic might keep me the most busy. I dunno.

Originally planned to be an Omake, but this turned out to be much, much more amusing than initial projections… At least to me. :P A whole series surrounding Obito's Anbu career and his development of the Tobi persona... Keep in mind that this is an AU, part of The Tale of Nagato Uzumaki-verse. Non-canonical events might be mentioned… but beyond that, anything's fair game.

Tobi was not very well received in TToNU's main fic… perhaps it will have better luck here? Either way, I plan to update this one irregularly; whenever a scenario presents itself I will write and post it. Kind of the same principle for TwA, except ideas come more easily for that one because of all the characters involved… This story will likely have a limited cast – at least compared to TwA. Itachi will show up eventually, as will Danzo… No Shisui because he, er… died. Yes. Don't ask. Read TToNU if you want answers. :P Last bit of warning: Obito has a different mask in TToNU to my knowledge, but I'll be working to that point… Just you wait. Mwahahaha…

Beyond that, I hope you enjoy this, even if it's just a little!