:1

Rocks, Obito decided, were his worst enemy. First he died by rockfall, and now he was always pelted with them when he was spotted on the streets.

The worst part was he sort-of understood it. He was the kyuubi container, a jinchuriki, a physical stand-in for what killed people and destroyed property. He was there, they were mad, they took it out on him. Simple. Even an actual child would understand that, and the other kids certainly picked up on it.

Obito had taken to wearing a medical face mask, not cloth because he's not a copy-cat, and a hat or hood year-round. He looked too much like Minato-sensei and Kushina-neechan to be comfortable in his skin, and the stupid whiskers and blonde hair got him recognized quickly, and then rocks.

Obito really didn't like rocks.

("...haha, that's it, no more doton for Obito-kun! Here, 'bito-kun, try a suiton, this one's my favorite...")

Obito hated rocks.

:2

Obito kicked at the ground. Who needed the orphanage? Ha! Not him! He totally wasn't upset at being kicked out or anything!

...Oh, who was he kidding. He was really attached to this one tree in the yard, he had a little hideout there and everything. Being told he'd be beaten to death if he went back was a pretty final goodbye.

He dodged into a shadow cast by a red lantern. Madame Akiyama's was deep in the akasen, but Obito was good at sneaking, even in this stupidly bright (precious, last reminder, hurts just to look) body.

Aoyagi answered when he knocked on the back door; good, she liked him plenty. When he gave her the signal (a sequence of ANBU hand signs that they really weren't supposed to know) she looked like she had seen a ghost.

"Shizuka! Quick, he—stay there child—his sign was used!"

Where Aoyagi was tall and fair, willowy, Shizuka was strong-boned and fierce, with an attitude to match. "He is dead! Have a little respect! Not just any common—dear heavens, Obito?"

"Hi, Auntie Shizu," he greeted, muffled by the mask. For good measure, he performed his sign again, the one that let the workers know who he was, in case he was ever under henge or suspected of being an imposter. It apparently worked just fine when he was reincarnated too. "I'm back from the dead, 'ttebayo! And let me tell you, reincarnation sucks!"

Auntie Shizuka and Aoyagi laughed, a little hysterically, as they drew him into the house and enfolded him in a hug. Obito hugged them back, feeling all valued and snuggly.

Then, "MADAME, IMOUTOS, NEECHANS, OBITO IS BACK! GROUP HUG!"

"ACK! Aoyagi-nee, you're the worst! The real worst! Worst! I CAN'T BREATHE—!"

Yeah. Obito missed them too.

...He wasn't trying to suffocate them with boobs though!

:3

Obito pulled his scarf up a little more. He knew few people could recognize him as—as his new self, what with his hair and brows dyed black and his face covered, but he still worried about his whisker marks getting accidentally revealed.

Yes, yes, the aunties and neechans had covered them with powder, layered a genjutsu of a whisker-free face but with sharp sharklike teeth, then another genjutsu of a plain face with plain teeth over that linked to his scarf... Yes. They were thorough. The chances of being recognized were so small as to be infinitesimal.

Still, he could fret quietly. It was his first day at the Shinobi Academy, and if he was going to be found out, it would be here. Well, he could be discovered at any time, but. His point was, he was allowed to worry. Plus he was six in body, and none of the Aunties could come and drop him off, and—

"Yamamoto Obito?"

"Present," he said sharply, raising a (tiny, too small) hand. It was a little embarrassing to be named Yamamoto, since it basically announced he was an orphan. Yamamoto was the most common placeholder name for orphaned infants, most of whom were seduction mission accidents or mistakes from the various pleasure houses. He lived with the Aunties, but that didn't mean they had last names he could take. Uchiha was certainly off the table.

So, Yamamoto.

At least he was called Obito. Naruto just... didn't fit him. The new name made him feel like even more of an imposter than usual.

(Like the body snatching scum he was.)

He was glad his registered name was Obito. Less change. More distance from the orphanage and the people and their rocks.

(Rocks, rocks, why did it always come down to rocks? The first time wasn't personal (—or maybe it was, remember the old man—) but the times after that were, and they hurt, they hurt so much worse.)

He would hate to be the Yamanaka doing his interrogation. But he wasn't going to get caught, he wasn't, and there was no reason to bring in a Yamanaka if he was, so he was good. He was good.

The teacher began the standard peacetime Academy introduction and Obito closed his eyes. This... was going to be a long six years.

:4

The Academy in peacetime was far less educational than in wartime, Obito was disappointed to find. Six years and they covered less curriculum than they did in two years, back in his day. It was less intensive, focused less on quality, whereas during wartime both quality and quantity were vital. If you failed out during wartime, you were abysmal. A waste of space. Unteachable. Not even worthy of being cannon fodder. For all his failings, Obito had only ranked last because he was loud, carefree, and a bad example with no talent for bookwork.

Last time around he had been dead last because of his lack in the graded skills—this time because he just didn't care. He trained on his own time, studied politics and recent geography during the indoor classes, and slept and/or shlepped his way through the rest of the time. Plus, if they still followed that rookie of the year + kunoichi of the year + dead last = team seven method, he would get placed with the two best students. Their team would be completely unbalanced, but six years of (mostly) useless Academy lessons (there were a few good innovations here and there) meant Obito was kind of dulled to other people anyway. The ones that would really matter were his genin teammates, hopefully. Once he knew who they were, then he could put effort into them.

Which sounded horrible, yeah, but Obito had seen too many of his precious comrades die. And yeah, to be fair, war. But his heart couldn't quite take it anymore. He was far more emotionally brittle than he would have liked to admit. He knew he'd have to address that eventually...

...but the middle of his graduation exam wasn't the time or place for it.

On command, he called up an illusionary henge, performed kawarimi, and made an illusionary bunshin, announcing the name and forming handsigns for each even though the dearth of subterfuge utterly fucking grated. Granted, not overpowering the bunshin while using vocal and physical aides was a fair bit of a challenge, as was keeping the henge strictly illusionary, and resisting the temptation to kawarimi with another person or with a log from across Konoha. Obito powered through. Er, finessed his way though.

He was too old for this. He wanted to learn advanced techniques! Stupid reincarnation. This was all such a waste of his time.

...alright, so maybe it was interesting to observe his classmates, because that many clan heirs in one year couldn't be a coincidence. And the two teachers were pretty cool. Whatever, that didn't mean he was attached to anyone, or anything like that!

Obito accepted the hitai-ate from Iruka-sensei and went to go meet the Aunties for lunch, smiling a little under his scarf. Instead of going for the traditional forehead protection, he tied the hitai-ate around his throat, under the scarf, making sure it fit snugly but not too snugly and that the knot was tucked under, so the metal protected the soft front of his neck without the fabric band becoming a dangerous grabbing point. He already wore a mesh turtleneck-bodysuit-thing but it couldn't hurt to be thorough. Plus, he kind of wanted to get goggles as a graduation gift to himself, and a forehead hitai-ate just got in the way of that.

Some goggles even came with seals on them. He couldn't wait.