under the same sun

ashes
summary: he wasn't sure if she was lighting the match or pouring the gasoline.
characters: Tobi/Rin
honorable mentions: Kakashi, Minato, Kabuto, Zetsu(s), others
note1: wow, i'm so glad i was able to keep up with updates and not let crippling writers block and procrastination get to me! i wish sarcasm had its own font. anyway, happy 2013.
note2: um. i blame this on Bon Iver, Dead Man's Bones, Soley. a diet of peppermint tea, no sleep, and a bottle of prozac. this has more angst than a Morrissey single. enjoy this whopping mess of 21, 272 words. srsly.

.

.

.

.

.

He's always chasing her in his dreams.

They play cat and mouse: the closer he gets to her, the further she seems to drift from his grasp. Sometimes, he closes his fist and catches the fabric of her shirt or the golden-brown strands of her hair. Most of the time, all his fingers close around is the dank, stale air that burns his lungs with each inhale.

Some nights, when everything piles on top of each other and he can't seem to find a reprieve from the chaos outside, she's sitting on the top of a hill, looking down at him with a smile. Her finger curls toward him, beckoning him forward like a queen would a court jester. And he performs for her.

The hill turns into a mountain the closer he gets. Rocks turn into silly asphalt. Vines turn into thorns. No matter how hard he stretches his arms, no matter how far he climbs, he can never get to the top. The summit extends into the sky; she plays in between the planets and the galaxies, catching stars in her hands and holding them close to her chest.

The universe is her playpen.

He's not allowed up there – gravity pushes him down, dropping him to the bottom of the ocean where he can only watch her swim through the infinite blackness, the vacuum of space. Rin is a pigment of colors. She dances in front of his eyes gracefully, moving at the speed of light. Sound can't touch her.

He can't touch her.

Those are the dreams he can deal with the next morning. They crawl into the back of his mind and hide in the crevices between memories and reality.

It's the ones that pollute his subconscious and conscious mind. There was supposed to be an invisible line that they didn't cross – the dreams could run rampant at night, as long as they didn't venture out into the daylight. But these – the horrible, mutilating, burning ones – do.

Rin dies.

Over and over –

andoverandoverandoverandoverandover –

again.

Kakashi makes false promises.

(Protect Rin –

I will.)

His words echo loudly in the vastness darkness surrounding him. They sound so sincere, so true. And he believes them, gets wrapped up in the delicate lies that comfort him. It's his biggest folly.

(Protect Rin –

I will.

I will. i will. iwilliwilliwilliwill.

i lied.)

They taunt him mockingly. The sound of his voice turns ugly, turns hateful, spiteful. Obito watches as his friend – the man who Rin loved with all of her heart – thrusts his hand out and pierces her chest. Blood runs down his hand, catching on the blades of grass below his feet.

pat pat pat

He watches as Rin's mouth opens in a silence scream. Watches as the light in her eyes dulls, turns grey, and then dead. She falls to the ground in a heap, the thud her limp body makes is worse than any torture – worse than when she'd removed his eye, worse than when she'd loved Kakashi and not him – that could have been inflicted on him.

Move. All she has to do is move a muscle, twitch a finger. All she needs to do is move everso slightly, and he might be able to breathe again; he might be able to live again. But she doesn't.

She never does.

(Never did –

never will.)

The ground is painted red. Blood red – her blood; her red – and gleaming in the dim lighting of the sun that sets slowly to a grotesque bloodorange. The soil around her limbs soaks up the endless stream of liquid still pouring from her body, her heart. Her dead heart that will no longer beat, that will no longer keep her alive.

It drips to the ground, swirling and spinning down an invisible drain.

His feet move without his command, measured steps moving in a methodical manner toward the girl lying still, lying cold, and lying dead. One, two, three: a stone catches on the ends of his sandal; four, five, six: her blood makes a disgusting squelching noise under his feet; seven, eight, nine: the air around him drops below freezing; teneleventwelve: he drops to her side, knees drenching in her warm blood.

Fingers brush the ends of her hair. His hands cradle her head in his arms, pressing her to his chest. She sags - limp, dead - in his arms, her weight pulling him down.

How horrible, he thinks: even in death she was the loveliest thing he'd ever seen.

Shakily, he smoothes out the mess of her hair down, and covers her eyes with his hand. His chest wracks with sobs that are ripped from his throat; his lungs heave with the effort to draw in a breath. Tears burn his eyelids and streak down his cheeks like acid. His heart –

oh, god, his heart

(stops beating in his chest. it's dead; she took it with her to the otherside, the place where she would be a queen, and left his ribs to feel the emptiness, the hole where the organ was supposed to be. it wants to be with her, with the one it belongs to. he never could call it his, because it was always hers –

always.

and it will follow her into death. it will follow her to the ends of the earth, to the planets and sit on the sun where they would burn in beautiful agony, where they would make the galaxies their own and call the stars their home. or to the depths of the ocean where they would live with the fish and dance in the sand.)

- His heart hurts. The thrumming in his chest gets louder and louder in his ears. He'd thought the beats were just a random rhythm with no real objective, with no real purpose or sound, but that's not true.

Because his heart, his heart chants her name like mantra; it never falters or stops, only sings her monosyllabic name louder and louder or slower, slower.

It calls out to her: rinrinrin

But she doesn't answer.

He looks down, then, and her eyes are open – they are open, and they are staring at him, accusing – and it was his hand that rips through her chest, his hand that kills her. It was himhimhim, and Kakashi looks on with a tortured expression as Obito kills the only person who could possible mean anything to them; he kills the only person they love. He opens his mouth and vipers bite into each one of Obito's arteries.

Why, Obito? Why?

No.

No, no.

It wasn't him. He didn't kill Rin. Kakashi did. He saw him do it.

How – how could he ever do such a thing to her?

He couldn't.

(Protect Rin –

I will.)

But you didn't. youkilledheryoukilledrinyoudiditandnowherbloodstai nsmyhands –

He wakes up with her name on his lips. Agony rips through his chest, through his head. Flames lick at his body, nipping his skin, and he tries to scream, tries to move, but something is holding him down, something was suffocating him, something was –

The blankets are tightly wrapped around his body, constricting his movements. He heaves over the side when he finally wriggles free, trying to clear the smoke from his lungs and extinguish the fire that burns so hotly in his chest.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Repeat.

When his lungs hurt from and threaten to burst at the seams, he goes limp over the edge of the cot, soaking up the dank, stale air that surrounds him. His skin is slick with sweat that makes the sheets cling to him and he gives up trying to wrestle free of their hold. Instead he counts the cracks on the ground under his nose, and the little spider sitting on the side of his dresser, unassuming to the plight running through his head.

The sweet oblivion the arachnid is allowed makes him seethe with jealousy. Why should it be the only one to walk away unscathed? Why would it sit there, and not have to deal with the torrent of insanity and grief and horror that returns to haunt him every night? It's like clockwork. The things that dance on the line of fantasy and reality, smirking at him in the shadows when they know he's pretending not to look, not to notice them mocking him from the sidelines, waiting for him to close his eyes and lower his guard.

They wait and they win.

They wait for him, and the conquer him.

It's humiliating; it burns through him with a shame that incinerates him whole, leaving messy streaks of his rationality and his pride on the ground without a care. He hates how easily he can fall victim to the torment, to the dreams. That's all they are: dreams. They are not real.

They are all in his head.

It does not exist.

When the erratic, nonsensical beats of his heart finally calm down, he pulls himself back together, picking up the pieces that lay shattered on the floor. It's a slow process. He has to locate everything by stumbling blindly in the dark, on hands and knees, searching for the right matches and the proper places where everything fits.

Sometimes he makes a mistake and the fragments don't line up, but he pushes and pushes until they snap in place awkwardly, and it only troubles him all the more next time when he's on his back at three in the morning, screaming for a ghost that doesn't exist anymore.

After the shoddy attempts to right all the parts are over and he can breathe without his lungs tossing it out or think without being corrupted, he rolls on his back and stares at the ceiling. Cracks line the stone and remind of the day he died. Looking up and seeing the rocks loosen and start to fall, and seeing Kakashi standing there, unable to move, about to be crushed. Pushing him out of the way and feeling the heavy weight of it pressing him down, and then pain, and then nothing.

It brings the dull thrum of pain on his right side alive. With all the morphine swimming in his veins, tainting his blood, the initial agony was gone, replaced with a pseudo-nirvana. The scars sometimes hurt, they sometimes pull too tightly and feel too raw, but he breathes. And he overcomes it.

And then it's gone.

Obito always thought that dying – that being crushed under a rock – was the worst form of torture he could ever experience. But then Rin died, and then she came back to haunt him in his dreams. That hurts more than anything.

She sets him on fire without even trying.

It leaves an impression so annihilating on his psyche that the charred remains of his sanity begin to slowly slip away. He'd never been interested in anything other than being Hokage when he was younger and the thick books Rin would read on medicine and psychology and psychiatry would bore in to tears when he'd eventually pick one up to avoid the monotony of the day, but certain passages he'd read stuck to him, even now.

Psychosis.

He couldn't tell you the difference between a schizophrenic or a sociopath, but that one word, that one illness, wormed its way inside his head, inside the crevices where he'd kept all the important things to ponder over late at night when sleep evaded him, and it would present itself from time to time.

Maybe he was beginning to deteriorate and the sickness was taking over his mind.

Or maybe this was his grieving process.

But it has been years. Years since she took her last breath. The expanse between then and now is so vast, he could fit several worlds inside the depths and it would still never be full.

And he's not that little boy anymore.

He's not the boy who had stars shining in his eyes and optimism stapled to his heart. The feeble ideals and beliefs are gone, replaced with iron-clad wills and rationalities. He doesn't think that companionship and camaraderie were important. Friendship is nothing. Mutual gain and profit is everything.

The ocean wasn't all that deep.

The sky wasn't all that far away.

Obito was the little boy who had everything within his reach but not quite there.

Tobi is the man who has everything at the tips of his fingers, waiting for him to grasp it.

The two were vastly different. Universally so. Thinking about something petty like grief was something Obito would do. Tobi would lock it away, ignore it and move on. He wouldn't be haunted by dreams that meant nothing; that couldn't touch him as long as it eyes were open.

Obito was the one who thought that they were hiding in the shadows, waiting for him. Calling out to him lulling him to sleep so they can extract their bitter plans and mock him all the while. That was a child's belief.

He was no longer a child.

That little boy was dead, and so was Rin.

Nothing could change that.

(And nothing ever will.)

.

.

.

.

His war-paint is black.

His plans are foolproof.

Everything was falling into place; everything was going so wonderfully well for him that he'd almost forgotten about how much karma likes to stab him in the back. How much it likes to mock him and laugh when he's crying out for a reprieve from her bitter claws.

The kink in his scheme is a smarmy man with scales for skin and a triumphant smirk.

Kabuto Yakushi.

He slinks up and down the halls like he'd been permitted their use. Pulling things out and putting them back in the wrong order, all for spite. And he knows he can get away with it because he has something hanging over Obito's – Tobi's – head that makes him all the more agreeable to their plan.

It burns like acid when he listens to the man, watching as he continues to contribute in little ways. He hates having to listen, and take orders, from such a man. Although he continues to maintain a distance, it's the sheer benefit of using the man that keeps him from cutting his head off.

He needs Kabuto alive – for now. That aspect of it, that general 'but…' keeps him from acting out irrationally and ruining everything. He's useful to him. Eventually, when he'd overstayed his welcome, when everything was over and his role in this plot was finalized, he could unfurl his hand and use it to rip out the man's jugular.

The Edo Tensei was an ingenious move. He watched at it made enemies pause and falter, and then break into pieces at the sight of their loved ones being used so nonchalantly. It was a powerful technique; he'd been hesitant to use it, to try and master the power. Letting Kabuto control everything was easier.

His hands would remain only slightly dirty from this mess.

(A man who used the dead like puppets was not a man to be trifled with.)

It wasn't real; the people who were brought back were only fragments of their formers selves. They held only certain memories and feelings. It was the general idea of the deceased, not the whole thing. No matter how hard someone tried, they could never bring back someone to life completely.

A part of them died and left. That absence, the crater sized gap inside them, allowed other things – things that were beyond human capabilities and understanding – to fester and grow.

Those were nothing but shadows of the people they were supposed to represent.

Still.

The idea the of it all, the grandiose dreams and hopes that a loved one could return, was enough to break many strong men and woman who sought the technique out – for personal gain or a temporary mitigation from the loneliness. It was enough to make anyone go insane; to bring back someone who was dead.

It was a feeble idea, chalked full of consequences.

But –

It was so appealing.

And, Rin –

No.

She was dead. He shouldn't even be considering tarnishing her memory with some second-rate version of the original. It would only impede his plans; she – it – would get in the way.

He couldn't let that happen.

The dreams, though; they haunted him with a vengeance. Even in the daylight – when the little boy thought that nothing could touch him – they resurfaced. Each time he closed his eyes, all he would see is –

Rin.

Kakashi.

Her dying.

Him killing her.

And then Minato.

Minato was the newest addition to the game. He would sit there, on a hill, and watch with his cool blue eyes. Obito would stumble blindly for a while, and then he would smile. It wasn't a twisted grin or a nostalgic bitterness; it was the same one he'd given them when they were assigned to his team. That old smile that churned his insides and, at one point, made him want to fight harder, prove himself, and make the man – his sensei – proud.

The manifested guilt that collected over the years was catching up to him. He couldn't outrun it this time. Like Rin, and Kakashi, Minato had finally caught up and grasped his shoulders in a tight, almost crushing, embrace and refused to let go.

Sleeping pills couldn't help him.

They'd only make everything more warped. It was like looking at everything through a kaleidoscope.

Rin was still the main cause of all his nightmares. She frequented his dreams more than the others; always there, always waiting for him. He could deal – somewhat – with Rin: he didn't kill her.

It was Minato that made him completely immobile for hours, staring at nothing.

Those dreams made him want to curl into a tight ball and forget everything. He'd grasp at his hair until locks of black slipped out from between his fingers and fell to the ground.

He still didn't know what he would accomplish from this. It was a horrible idea. Letting Kabuto have even a margin of control over him tugged unpleasantly at his stomach and made his mouth taste like poison.

At the time, when he'd been half delirious from the sleeping pills he'd swallowed, he made a plan. This one didn't include Madara – something that never happened before. All of his carefully crafted ideas had inputs from the man; sometimes the whole plan was sculpted by him with Obito playing the sycophant.

It was merely a rough draft to a titanic-sized problem.

(a part of him, that little voice in the back of his head that shouts about honor and friendship and promises and the good in everyone, wants it to work. he wants this for purely selfish reasons; he wants to see her one last time, talk to her and apologize. this whole scheme was all for some fickle redemption that tobi didn't agree would work, or even help, but that other part – obito – was persistent and wouldn't shut up about the idea until it turned into a possibility that tobi began to use.)

Maybe by reconstructing a fragment of Rin, he would clear his conscience a little.

Brining a semblance of her back, he could find a little relief from his subconscious.

It was a hastily and ill-prepared idea. There was no basic of truth, no foreseeable outcome that would help him even slightly.

(He had too much pride to admit that maybe – maybe – he wanted to bring her back for purely selfish reasons, also.)

He steels his resolve and goes over his plan – and the bargaining chip in case Kabuto decided he wanted something in return – and tries not to choke on the revulsion that slams into him.

This was to end the plaguing quilt that clung to him.

(and maybe, maybe a piece of him, too, wanted to see her one last time – to say goodbye and to give her insight before she would be welcomed into her new reality. maybe he was selfish as well. maybe.)

.

.

.

.

Asking Kabuto for a favor leaves a horrible taste in his mouth.

Watching the triumph, the gall, swim in his silted eyes churns his stomach.

He sits on edge, waiting for the questions that will surly come. Counting his hand, he narrows his visible eye in contempt and watches as Kabuto pretends to mull everything over. When the snake-like man shifts and his gaze turns gloating, Obito knows that he's come to a decision. What he wants is already been planned out and he won't agree unless it's met.

"If I bring her back, what's in it for me?"

There it was.

Obito doesn't say anything. He has to wait a little longer, make sure everything was laid out. With no piece of paper between them to prove the existence of the deal, he has to be careful, he has to be cautious. It would imprudent to ask him what he wants – which, is exactly what he wants - and he collects the mask of indifference that has become second-nature now, and gives a faux air of nonchalant.

"When," he reiterates the wording Kabuto used, turning it in his favor. "When you bring Rin back – severing all control over her immediately – I will allow you a black Zetsu to experiment on."

He notes with great satisfaction as Kabuto's expression flickers.

The man leans forward, deliberately invading Obito's space. "I want four Zetsus'; two black and two white."

"No. One black Zetsu and that's final."

Kabuto smirks. "How much does she mean to you?"

The effect is instantaneous. Everything spins into a sharp panic, a rooted paranoia that makes his blood run cold in his veins. He can't possibly know about her. There was no way – he could've only heard her name in passing, in a death certificate and nothing more. No, it was just because of the sudden interest in using the Edo Tensei; her name was attached to it because he wanted her to be the one brought back. That was all.

He levels his obscured gaze at the man sitting opposite of him. "My plans are none of your concern, Yakushi."

Playing with fire was going to get him burned one way or another. Looking in Kabuto's eyes – the poorly masked glee at having one more thing to hold over his head – reinforced that thought.

But he'd been rolling in ashes since Rin died.

Kabuto's words fall of deaf ears – and he should be listening; the man was trouble when left to his own devices, almost as much as Orochimaru, but much more cunning and sneaky – and he thinks only about his hand. The cards were at odds with each other and fit more for blackjack than poker, but he'd make this work.

He lays his cards down.

.

.

.

.

In his dreams, Rin chases him.

He's perched on the highest mountain, watching her try to climb up to him. She's reaching her hand up, trying to grasp his, trying to pull herself to him, but his hands are chained to his sides and he can't move. Someone was screaming – her mouth was closed and he runs his tongue over the seam of his lips – but it's an echo inside a cave.

It's all in his head.

(Rin, Rin, Rin –

Obito, no –)

Rin is struggling now, slipping down the steep slope. Her eyes are frantic as she tries to reach him, and her mouth is open, shouting words he can't hear.

Her fingers catch of the edge where he's sitting, mere centimeters from his feet, and she clings to the hard rock. The chains locking him in place refuse to loosen; there is no leeway to bend over and grab her, to pull her up on the mountain with him. She has to do it.

Something coils around her ankles, slipping up her calves. It tugs and tugs until she's hanging by four fingers, her thumb awkwardly trying to find purchase. And he should help her because – three fingers – she's about to fall – two fingers – down and probably – one finger – die. But something is squeezing his neck, paralyzing him. The rope wrapped around her snakes up her arm, the scales cutting sharply into her arms.

It's the only thing holding her up.

But then it looks at him – all yellow gleaming eyes and twisted grins, and smug faces full of triumphant mockery – and opens its mouth; fangs protrude in a grotesque manner, saliva (or was that poison?) drips from the corners, corroding the ground where it falls.

He can see it coming before it happens. The déjà vu hits him like a tidal wave, slamming into his chest so hard he has to gasp little breaths of air, forcing them into his lungs. He knows that face, he knows those eyes and those fangs – he knows that coiled being; a fox hidden in the scales of a snake.

The fangs click.

play with fire

Rin screams.

It lets her drop to the ground, hissing out a chilling laughter that shakes him to the core.

and you're going to get burned

(but he's been rolling in ashes since she died and this doesn't feel much like being burnt, it's only a little tickle. so when the mountain starts to cave in, he braces himself for impact and thinks about the sweet scent of honey and burnt sugar – something he hadn't smelt since she was fixing a cut on his knee, and smiles.)

.

.

.

.

Rin was breathing again.

Little gasps of breath through lungs that haven't worked in years break the uneasy silence in the room. The grey of her skin and the cracks that marred her body keep him from touching her, brushing the stains of wayward hair that ghost along her jaw and under her nose. It's the fear that she might splinter into a million tiny pieces if he applies too much pressure against her new skin that keeps him rooted on the other side of the bed, perched on an old chair.

The withered look to her borrowed skin would fade away into a smooth ivory, reminiscent to the one she had before. White would bleed over the earthly blackness of her sclera and her irises would return to the brown-gold ridges and flecks. She would eventually fall back into the rhythm of the living; her heart would pick up the age-old tune, like strumming the stings of a guitar after years without practice. She would falter and pick some of the notes too hard or too soft and try to break away from the sway of the soundless music, but soon all that would flicker out of existence and she wouldn't even remember the morbid beauty of death.

He wonders how long it will take her to realize that the body she's using is rented. When the taste of her lips is oddly comparable to blood and dirt? Or when the crushing weight she feels on her chest feels suspiciously like being buried six feet deep? Maybe nightmares of Kakashi's betrayal will wake her up late at night and the dots will connect themselves.

Would she hate him for it - for disrupting her eternal sleep for a vague idea of redemption that might not come true? Would she care?

(Would he?)

His mouth tastes like ashes at the though and leaves the room as quietly as he came in. The only echo is her shallow breathing and rustling sheets.

she was a dead girl who is now alive and he's not sure how he feels about that.

.

.

.

.

Two days later, she wakes up.

Her echoed scream curls his blood in his veins and makes his heart clench to so tight, he's afraid it might burst.

rinrinrin-rinrinrin

It chants her name like it had before, calling out to the girl who was supposed to be dead, relishing in the release it feels from finally coming home. He tries to ignore the pounding in his chest and the longing to go see her, to hold her close and not to let go ever again –

because you did that once and look what happened.

He sends a Zetsu to bring her food (three meals a day – don't ask questions, don't talk to her, just do it) and take her out of the metaphorical cage she's inside once a day (if she escapes, i'll have your head).

For three weeks he avoids the room she's in.

It cowardly, but the pain that burns deep in his marrow feels too much like being set on fire to ignore, and she might not have water, only gasoline.

and he can't take that chance. not again.

.

.

.

.

There is a sliver of terror that crawls up his spine, digging large talons in each vertebra, and plucking them like strings. He's never felt such unease before; it wraps around his body, squeezing tightly. It's sharp and new, and so painful, it's nearly crippling. The feeling makes his stomach churn, because even when he was staring up at the cracking boulders about to crush his body, he'd never felt such paralyzing fear.

His enemies would roll in their graves if they knew that out of all the things that would eventually be his downfall, it was a wooden doll with a simple frame, held in place by three brass hinges.

(And a little girl who's supposed to be dead.)

All of his composure is shattering into pieces. He tries to reign in the determination he built up two hours ago when Zetsu first came to his room and told him Rin – the girl – wanted to see him. It made his heart race and his palms sweat to know that she wanted him, wanted to talk.

It fizzled into bitterness when the realization that she didn't want him – Obito – she wanted the man who was keeping her caged up like an animal: Tobi. One of the Zetsus' must have let it slip that he was the one behind her apparent kidnapping.

He braces himself for the inevitable confrontation. To her, she was a prisoner. She was the one being held hostage, unable to leave and given only a shred of freedom, all dictated and controlled by him. Completely oblivious to how backward it was; she was the one with all the power, she just didn't know it.

Yet.

His hand pauses mid-air, posed to knock. That wasn't something Tobi would do – he'd burst in, the ditsy façade making nonsensical words spew from his mouth and the childish antics only serving as an annoyance. Or he would calmly slink through the door, quiet and all-consuming. He would demand attention; his raw power and mysterious aura dragging her to the edge of unease and fear.

(Obito would awkwardly knock before walking in, all blushes, sweaty palms and erratic heartbeats.)

He's caught between three personas, unaware how to act around her. She wouldn't understand the old Tobi; the unassuming lackey who wanted nothing more than to feel included. It might tug at her sympathy, but she wouldn't take him seriously. The other one, the embodiment of Madara would only put her on edge; she would tread carefully, like she was trained in high-stress situations where the captor could tilt toward either specter.

Then again: Rin was dead.

This girl was a stranger. Who knew what might've crawled out of the clutches of death with her.

Obito takes too much air into his lungs and turns the knob.

She's sitting on the bed, two of his books perched near her crossed ankles and one in her lap. Her brown hair is swept to the side, one single lock falling down her eyes, and her hand is raised to move it away. At the sound of the door opening, her eyes flicker up to his; confusion, anger, fear, distrust – she was never that good at masking her emotions, even now.

It's strange seeing her now. Age has been good to her; the roundness of her cheeks slimmed into a narrow jaw and pointed chin, and she looks less like a youthful little girl and more like a beautiful china doll, unblemished and untouchable; perfectly poised on the highest shelf to avoid being damaged.

But she was already broken once, wasn't she?

"Who are you?"

Her voice, older now, cracks with disuse.

He narrows his eyes in contemplation. He could lie – tell her some tale of grandeur, that she was needed for some nefarious purpose. It would leave him cast as the perpetual village; the antagonist without a protagonist. Her prince would never come: he's too caught up in the war raging on outside these walls to worry about girls who shouldn't exist.

"You don't need to concern yourself with that."

She shakes her head, frustration seeping into her voice. "Why am I here, then? Where is Kakashi?"

Kakashi. "Why do you want to know?"

"We were…on a mission," he catches the falter in her words, the uncertainty and pain in her voice that nearly breaks him. "And then…I woke up here. Why?"

She wants to know where the man who killed her was. It hurts more than it should.

"I've never heard of this Kakashi before."

He hates how hallow the words sound.

(He hates how, even now, Kakashi is the only thing on her mind.)

It seems some things never change, after all.

The door cracks down the middle when he slams it shut.

.

.

.

.

Their next meeting goes much the same way.

She asks questions. He deflects.

She gets angry. He leaves.

Repeat.

.

.

.

.

"Why am I here?"

"You haven't been eating."

"What do you want from me?"

"Stop immobilizing my men."

Where am I?"

"Don't worry about it?"

"What do you want from me?"

For that, he has no answer.

.

.

.

.

She doesn't trust him.

He's not sure if she's the real Rin or merely a shadow grabbed from deaths cold hands.

The combination leaves them both frustrated.

(And a little scared.)

.

.

.

.

With the war growing more intense as the days pass, his wounds continue to grow.

She notices the way he limps and hisses when an injury is disrupted, and asks about it.

"We're in the middle of a war," is the only answer he gives in regard to her questions.

Her worry grows; he can see it swimming in the depths of her eyes, lingering at the forefront of her mind. The dutiful shinobi inside her wants to break out and help her fellow countrymen. The medic side makes her antsy; she wants to help all the injured in any way her can.

Neither of them are strangers to world wars.

Eventually, the concern becomes too much and she hesitantly inches closer to him. "Can I see your wounds?"

Exhaustion tugs at the back of his mind. He never has time for sleep anymore. If she were to catch him off guard, she could kill him and leave.

Or worse: she could find out who he is.

He doesn't want to tarnish her memory of Obito.

"Don't touch me."

The words come out harsher than he intended, but the point gets across and she backs away, gnawing on her lip. He leaves a second later.

There's still a crack in the door.

.

.

.

.

Her questions vary between two subjects: her home and him.

She asks about Konoha. Which side is winning? What started it? Why did it happen?

(He tells her little things, not enough to formulate a real idea of what's going on, but enough to sate her curiosity.)

Then she asks his name. Why does he wear the mask? What was the extent of the injury?

(He gives her the pseudonym Tobi and that the mask covered a facial injury. Everything else is kept ambiguous and leaves her in the dark.)

Eventually, her questions are just narrowed down to Konoha and him.

If only she knew that once upon a time, they were one in the same.

.

.

.

.

Three weeks later, he's been injured during a reconnaissance in the Mist and stumbles into her room.

There's nothing but the throbbing in his head and the pain in his back. Everything else bleeds into the corners, shrouded in darkness.

It's her voice in his ear, ringing dully among the many voices screaming in his mind. Her heavy – burningburningburning – touch on his arm that eventually calms the monsters raging in the background.

For once in a long time, there's only the soothing coo of her gentle tenor whispering in his ear and the warm hum of her chakra, healing his injuries.

That night, he doesn't dream.

(In the morning, he wakes up to the sound of her gentle breathing filling the empty spaces, and his body feeling weightless. It's the first time he woke up feeling truly rested.)

.

.

.

.

A routine is forged from their previous encounter.

Some trust is formed. Everything doesn't seem so grey.

He sits on the same chair when she was first brought to the hideout, and she stays on the bed. Sometimes they read in silence. Other times they discuss medical facts and how to undergo certain procedures. She's happy to finally have an active participant in her detailed debates about the proper way to amputate an arm, and he's glad to hear her familiar words fill his head.

When he's too tired to contribute to much, she pretends not to notice that he sometimes falls asleep on the chair, his head lolling to the side in a manner that's suspiciously nostalgic.

It's easy to forget, in the moments of solidarity between them, that's she's still a hostage and he's still a villain.

Sometimes, it is better not to acknowledge it at all.

.

.

.

.

He thinks about letting her go sometimes.

Split-second thought that creep inside and echo in his ears, over and over again. The logic behind the words – the guilt of keeping her locked away – all consumes him, and he starts to consider it.

She could make a life for herself.

Find someplace in the world that was truly befitting her and live.

The only thing that stops him – aside from the selfish desire to hide her away from the cruel world until everything is right and his reality seeps into the corners of this one, taking over easily – is her condition. Her borrowed body would eventually begin to break and decay. If he lets her go, the body will wither away and she'll die all over again; only this time, they're be no afterlife, only nothingness.

She deserves better than that.

(She deserves to be free of him – of this.)

The contradicting thoughts plague him for days. He can't shake off the burning need to keep her close and the want to let her go. It embeds itself inside his skin and constricts him.

It's a good idea.

It's a bad idea.

Repeat.

(In the end, he's much too selfish to let her go, so he burns the idea from his mind and pretends he never thought of it to begin with.)

.

.

.

.

All the accumulated peace between them disappears when she wakes up one morning to blood dripping from her ears, nose, eyes and mouth. Her scream echoes through the compound and rings loudly in his head for days.

He can see the confusion in her eyes, the terror and the questions she can't ask because that would make all of her conspiracies a reality.

There's no words when he sees her crouched on the ground, trying to stop the bleeding. Both of them know from the large quantity spilling from her body that she should at least be light-headed or even anemic, but she's not. He presses a napkin to her mouth, wiping away the smears of red from her porcelain skin.

Her tears mix with the blood, turning it a pinkish color on her cheeks and chin. He wipes it all away – careful, careful; she might shatter if he presses to hard – and gathers her up in his arms when the sobs subside into little hiccups.

He doesn't move from her side the entire night. The next morning, the sheets are stained red and no matter how hard he scrubs, his hands are permanently stained with her blood.

She locks herself in the washroom and refuses to come out.

He can still hear her sobs over the sound of the shower.

(She piles the bloodied sheets and clothes into the corner and he burns them the next morning.)

.

.

.

.

"It's the host's body rejecting the technique. If you keep her around for too long, eventually the body will begin to decay without a living soul."

"And how do you stop it?"

"Gather more vessels. That's the price to pay when you try to bring back the dead. It was never supposed to be permanent, only temporary. Humans get so selfish with the prospect of immortality, and what's stopping them from teaching the technique to someone else and killing themselves? It's the delusion that when they come back, they'll be around forever. Soon, it will all start to crumble –unravel at the seams, if you will – and once their soul is torn into so many pieces and put into so many different hosts, they'll begin to fade."

"What happens then?"

"Who knows? The afterlife is the greatest mystery of all."

"There's no way to reverse it?"

He smirks. "Of course, you could always kill her – again. That would make it stop."

.

.

.

.

There's a copious amount of doubts and questions simmering behind her hallow eyes. They stand out against the stark contrast of the emptiness; burning hot and unquenchable. It bites harshly at the tendons in his heart when he sees the look of unmasked confusion and distress etched in her face.

But she doesn't ask.

And he doesn't answer.

The old rhythm they fell into is broken and he doesn't think that hesitant trust can be salvaged. He stops trying to force it; the semblance of normalcy is gone and nothing he can do will ever bring it back. Looking at the emptiness in Rin's eyes is too much and he avoids her.

Throwing himself in the war effort and solidifying the last of the Eye of the Moon plan takes up the majority of his days. The hunt for the remaining tailed beast embeds itself in the rest. He slaves over last minute details and leads that might help him catch the last factor to the puzzle in brining the ultimately reality tangible.

Sleep evades him for weeks.

Rin doesn't ask for him once.

(He pretends that the correlation between the two is meaningless.)

.

.

.

.

Rin stops eating.

The food on her plate is picked up and returned to the kitchen, cool and untouched. They try to force her, uttering words that were supposed to make her cave in and eat, but she doesn't. She sits in the corner, staring at crack in the wall.

It makes him angry when he hears this, and for the first time in weeks, he goes to see her. This wasn't the Rin he knew – she wouldn't do this to herself. She was gentle strength and compassionate words, serene expressions and soft encouragement.

But this wasn't Rin.

This was a girl who grew up and died. Shadows filled the void where he was absent in her life. He'd only been around for her youth, never getting to see the person she morphed into. He's stuck in the pretense of when she was a smiling, round-faced little girl with big dreams and an even bigger heart.

He wants to pick her apart until she's that little girl again. That beaming thirteen year old who's whole world revolved around the subtext in medicinal text four inches thick, and getting Kakashi to notice her – at least once – and trying to hold the mismatched team together even though all the odds were against her.

It's the girl with stars in her eyes and a heart as big as the universe that spurned the desperation and childish selfishness that made him seek out a temporary fixture in an idea of something that doesn't exist anymore. That little girl – the one from his youth that never aged, never changed – that was supposed to be his redemption; his reprieve from the monumental guilt that grew and grew to an uncontainable mass that fed off of his loneliness and nostalgia of when times were better.

A childish dream that was going to chase away all of the bad things from his memories and the ache in his chest that was like a slow burning fuse to a pile of dynamite.

He let himself get tangled in ideas and dreams, separating from reality that boldly thrust each of his flaws and his petty hopes back in his face. There was no coping or solace to be found in his misery and instead of letting his grief dissipate into a little throb, he let it fester into a scorching agony.

The thought of falling victim to petty thoughts stolen from sleepless nights and too many regrets singes in his veins.

He allowed himself to get swept away in the torrent of illusions and a little child who couldn't let go.

And staring at her now, the gauntness of her bones and the pallid pigment of her ashes skin, and knowing that he was one who reduced the girl who was once a bright flame into a shrunken, burnt out wick churns his insides.

When she speaks, the dull rasp and listlessness of her voice claws at his heart: "what do you want from me?"

He doesn't have an answer.

.

.

.

.

"…I remember a sharp pain in my chest – and someone screamed, I think – and then nothing. It's all black and no matter how hard I try to get around the fog, it doesn't work. I can't. It's like I was sleeping; everything is numb and dark and I'm just falling – and then I wake up, and I'm here. Even though it seems like seconds, I know it's been longer than that. And I just – I don't know what's going on. I feel so – so wrong. I can feel it in my bones. I haven't eaten in weeks, but I'm not – I'm not starving. My body is, but I can't feel anything. And then all the blood! I should be dead, I shouldn't be – what's going on? What's wrong with me? Why is this happening? Why do I feel like – like I'm not supposed to be here?"

.

.

.

.

He tells her slowly.

Little bite-sized pieces to an even bigger puzzle, as if to make sure she doesn't choke on them.

The give-and-take sessions happen each night, when all the stress of the days simmers into the background and he can take a break from Madara and the war, and hunting down the Kyuubi, and cutting down the vast armies out to get his head. It works both ways: he allows her a small portion to chew on and she tells him something from her youth, from the days when she was alive.

He divulges bits about himself, too. From where he was born – being vague enough to keep up the mask of mystery and open so that she wouldn't question him about the gaping holes in his stories – to his favorite food. They don't stray over uncharted territory anymore. Why she's here and the progression of the war dwindle out of their conversations until it's not as relevant to either of them anymore.

Neither of them discusses the subtle deterioration of her body; the fragility of her bones that groan with each movement, or the cataracts in her eyes, and the thinness of her skin that has turned a sallow grey. It's always lingering in the back of his mind – as is Kabuto's explanation.

He could fix her. It would be easy to find another sacrifice.

Then he would risk severing her already patched soul over and over again until his use of her was sated.

Or he could –

No.

He didn't want to think about that.

Losing her again – the thought is already clenching his heart agonizingly – and he dismissed it immediately.

There has to be another way.

But – death didn't work in half-truths and petty ideas of men.

It dealt in absolutes and facts.

Anything else was a temporary mitigation that would never last.

Like any fleeting form of relief, it would eventually unravel and everything would fall apart.

(He only hoped he had enough time before that happened.)

.

.

.

.

It happens sooner than he'd wanted.

Rin wakes up with ghosts weaving through the hallow crevices between her bones and exhausted look in her eyes that causes a lump to settle in his throat. Her despondent expression and echoing silence twists his insides.

"Rin-"

"What's happening to me?" Her hand lifts toward – colorless, limp – and she opens her mouth to say something more, but the words get caught and she falls into a crumble heap against the wall.

In three seconds, she's in his arms. Cold and pale, and barely breathing, but she's alive. He can feel the disjointed hum of her heartbeat against the pads of his fingertips. It's faint, but it's there.

He calls Kabuto four minutes later.

Five hours and her eyes flicker open.

In the sound of her third, shuttering breath, he tries not to let himself hear the resounding crack that echoes deafeningly in his head.

.

.

.

.

It all starts to unravel at the seams.

Her borrowed skin takes time to grow into and she's awake before the fractures and the grey can fade. Everything – his lies and the question he couldn't answer – is on display when she looks in the mirror. He doesn't have enough time to forge anymore half-truths.

The black sclera and yellow irises are sharp and defined, grotesquely beautiful, when she turns to him with tears streaming down the sides of her face, dipping onto the crisp white sheets below.

"Why?"

The broken vulnerability in her voice nearly chokes him. "I–"

"One minute, I'm practically falling apart and the next I'm – I'm..."

"Rin-"

"-How do you know me?"

She presses on, narrowing her gaze at him.

He swallows and works his mouth, but nothing comes out.

"Who are you?"

On shaking legs, she stands and moves closer to him. Inches away from him, he can see the subtle differences between this Rin and that Rin. She's taller, more confident in her poise. Her eyes are bleeding back to the deep shades of brown, but flecks of gold and amber also begin to mold into the ridges. He tries to disentangle himself from the loop inside his mind replaying the exploits of his childhood, centering on the younger version of the girl standing before him.

Shadows dance in his peripheral vision. He ignores them.

It's only her he can see.

This Rin.

She's beautiful – as she always was – but in a way that burns. The flicker of her light was now scorching flame. She wasn't muted in the background, straying from the fray and the collision between him and Kakashi when they fought. Perching herself in the forefront of everything, she etched herself from the constricting grief of losing a teammate, a friend, and used that to her advantage.

She's different – new and foreign – but cut from the same piece as that Rin to make this one.

It's almost suffocating.

"H-how do you fix it?"

Her voice breaks somewhere in the middle, caught on emotions that make her feel too much and truths that she can't deal with.

(He wonders if the look in her eyes, the despair on her face, matched the ones he woke up with each morning.)

She says something, but he's not listening.

Everything is spinning – the room is moving too fast, everything is blurring together in a whirlwind of colors and textures, and he blames it on the fatigue and lack of sleep because when he looks, there's this spark in her eyes that look too much like resignation and anticipation – and suddenly her hands are gripping the side of his mask, tugging and pulling.

His limps are too heavy; the marrow inside his bones dries up, and osmium leaks through the cracks. The clasps holding the porcelain in place stretch with the motions of her movements. One breaks and snaps below his ear, falling with a dull thud on the hidden armor beneath his cloak. He can feel it begin to slip.

The bones of her wrist are caught under the tight grip of his fingers.

He doesn't remember moving his arm.

She tries to shake him off, but he clenches harder until the cartilage begins to groan under the strain.

(He can't let her see him; he can't let her know –)

At her wince, he drops her hand and she pulls it to her chest, nursing the mottled purple bruise beginning to form over her skin. Disgusted, he flinches away from the sight of his red hand print glaring at him over smooth ivory. He didn't want to hurt her – he never wanted to hurt her – but he had; he wasn't even aware that he was doing it.

"Rin –"

She drops her gaze to the cobblestone floor, her black lashes brushing gently against the tinge of red dusting her cheeks. "Its fine," she says, her voice hoarse from yelling. "I'm okay."

He doesn't believe her. She won't meet his eyes and continuously rubs the pale skin of her wrist, almost rhythmically. It makes his stomach churn.

He hurt her.

There's an acidic taste in his mouth –

or was it gasoline?

- and he tries to swallow it down.

"I'm sorry," is all he says, and leaves.

(The crack in the door still wasn't fixed. It looks bigger now, almost splitting the wood in half.)

That night, he dreams about broken bones and fractured wood, and grey skin and yellow eyes. He doesn't go back to her room for three days, and pretends he's not a coward.

.

.

.

.

Four months later, she's still locked in the west wing.

He thinks of caged birds and broken wings, and remembers that this was what he wanted. It was all for her, wasn't it? Everything he'd ever done – and will ever do – was all for the girl who died (fourteen times; thirteen people), and isn't coming back. Without the technique, without the grey skin and yellow eyes that greet him every time he brings her back from death's clutches, she would still be sleeping peacefully in Konoha, nestled under layers of dirt and flowers laid out beneath her name, forever etched in stone.

Sometimes, he wonders if she can feel the weight of it all bearing down on her chest. If she can feel the feet of nameless, faceless people stepping over her withered body (the word corpse leaves the taste of ashes in his mouth). Can she feel the flowers sitting on her forehead? Or the hands brushing the snow and the leaves, and pulling the weeds from around her makeshift shrine when they grow along the sides of the marble encasing, marking where she rests?

He wonders if anyone knows that the grave is empty. That she's with him – and his grave is empty, too – and that he's keeping her prisoner, like some princess, locked forever away in a castle? When he sees Kakashi, watches him stare into the singular hole where his eye is, does he know he's looking in the face of the man who used to be his teammate, and temporary friend?

What does he see when he looks at the black swirls against the orange background? Does he think of Minato – who died staring at the same anonymous face – and Rin, and all of his mistakes?

(Does he ever think about them?)

These thoughts mock him loudly at night, when he's caught in the cusp of sleep and awake. They circulate around, riffling through each and every privet memory and thought that he's locked tightly away, dragging everything to the surface. Mulling through hours of missed chances, regrets, and all the horrors (that he'd pushed and pushed until they started to push back, overpowering his feeble attempts to forget them) that filtered out of his conscious and into the deepest crevices of his mind, was better than the alternative.

Falling asleep and having his dreams haunt him each night.

They centered on Rin dying again, and again, and again and again.

He was forced to watch the blood drain from her body, watch her crumple to the ground, watch the light fade from her eyes until she was nothing but deadweight in his arms. He watched Kakashi kill Rin over and over and over; his hand piercing through her chest, his words –

(Protect Rin –

I will.)

- replaying loudly in his head, like a broken record, skipping over and over.

Or: he was the one echoing Kakashi's movements. His hand pushing through Rin's chest, her blood raining on his forearm, his eyes watching her plead with him, asking him silently whywhywhy, Kakashi? whywhywhy? and not being able to do anything about it.

The patterns interchange between the two, never faltering or changing. It's not an easy routine, but it's constant and leaves no room for surprise or anything new, and he can manage the sleeplessness and the horrors at night with a sleeping pill.

(Sometimes two. Sometimes with alcohol.

Usually three with two bottles of sake.)

Waking up with a hang-over, dazed and disoriented from the pills that have yet to wear off, is easier than walking by the door (the crack in the middle grinning lopsided at him) at the end of the hall. It's easy to pretend his steps don't hesitate and that there's a second pause where his hand twists out to grasp the brass doorknob, or when his body turns by default, poised to enter.

He still hasn't spoken to Rin.

Their semblance of a relationship crashed and burned with his hand print across her wrist. Smoking embers can still be seen from the space between the door and the floor, pouring out into the hallway, infecting his lungs. He hasn't gotten close enough to be burnt, but the heat is enough to keep him at bay.

The feeling of her fingers grazing his cheek as the curved into his mask tightens the resolve to stay away more than fictitious fire. It's the heart-stopping fear he felt, the terror he'd thought washed away into a jaded numbness the moment Rin's heart stopped beating, when she began to pull that still makes him cringe. If she knew who he was – what he, the boy from her childhood, did – she would run screaming.

He doesn't want to ruin the memory of Obito for her.

(He doesn't want to lose her - again.)

.

.

.

.

She falls apart in pieces.

The first shatters against the wet ground, drenched in the rain when she sees the name glaring at her in elegant calligraphy: Rin. There are no words of comfort, of passing that accurately described the woman kneeling in the muddy dirt, running wet fingers over the deep ridges of her own name.

Her shoulders shake. She doesn't say anything, and he doesn't offer any words of condolence.

(There is nothing to be said.)

He knows the feeling all too well of seeing his own name engraved in stone; a marble casing between two nameless, faceless people he never knew and will never know. When he returned to Konoha, the desperate need to see his own grave was almost consuming. He wanted to see the place where everyone – his parents, his clan, his friends – all thought that he was resting. There was no body to be retrieved, but seeing the slab of marble where everyone would walk past and think that he was residing there, was suffocating.

For hours, he stood at the end of his grave, staring blankly at the name – his name. It was almost macabre, really. He wasn't dead, but according to that simple plaque, he was. While he had the option of pretending it didn't exist, hers was real. That monument was a relic of her death. To him, it was a senseless detail; an object of mirth to scoff over.

He was alive.

But Rin, she wasn't.

It only affirmed that she was gone; that all the nightmares and paranoid thoughts were true. He knew the questions she would be asking herself (as he did, too) that couldn't be answered. Was she still buried six feet under or was that body gone now? Did she feel it when they sealed the layers of dirt on top of her? Did anyone know they were looking at an empty grave?

(Was it really empty?)

He used the sight of the tombstone to reinforce the decision to cut his ties with the village who betrayed him. What would she see it as?

The second piece breaks more frantically than the first. Her fingers slip into the mud, carving a hole near her knees.

She digs and digs and digs, uncaring (or unaware) that the rain was only filling all her progress up with murky water. He can hear her sobs when she realizes that nothing it working – that she's barely denting the surface.

He wants to pull her away from what she doing. What lies inside the grave was unknown to him.

If it was empty, that would be crushing.

(But if it was full, that would devastate her.)

Her sobs cut through the white noise of the rain, broken and sorrowful. Muddy hands push into her hair, smearing her wet skin an ashy black. No one was around to see her falling apart.

Nobody but him.

He swallows thickly and kneels beside her.

Pieces of the girl he knew from his childhood lay abandoned and broken at his feet.

Obito pulls her close to his side and her head falls heavy on his shoulder. Her sobs continue, but she's not in hysterics. He tries to offer words of comfort, of reassurance, but nothing comes. They die on his tongue, leaving a slick taste in his mouth. The urge to jump away from her was deeply rooted, but he tries to ignore it. His muscles draw in tight at her close proximity, remembering the feel of her cool fingers against his heating skin, brushing under the mask brings up that terror of her finding him out again.

Her shuddering breath and half-lidded eyes keep him stuck in place, giving her the temporary reprieve she needs.

(He did this to her.)

"We should-"

Her lips smear ashes across the porcelain covering his chin. "I'm gone…"

The melancholy in her voice makes him wince. "Yes."

"I died."

He nods slowly. The lid of his mask obscures her face from his view. He doesn't know what to say. Petty words don't seem to be enough. Neither does half-truths about a chance at a second life.

Her hands cup the sliver of skin exposed where jaw meets neck, and she slowly eases her fingers against the underside of his mask. He can feel the trail of water and dirt that stains his skin with the gentle brushes of her hand. "Will you ever take it off?"

Acid floods his mouth. The thought of her seeing him – knowing that Obito was the one who brought her back, who caused this pain – makes his stomach churn. A part of him wants to. Take the mask off, stop hiding, and see where it leads, but the crushing fear of her running away or tarnishing the one good thing about him – her memory – keeps him from untying the strings and removing it.

(she might not see the resemblance. she might want him back.)

He pushes the thoughts away and shakes his head. "No."

"Why not?"

Her voice is nothing but a whisper against the pelting rain. It echoes so loudly in his head, drowning out the noise in the background. All of his excuses (you won't like what you see; it's not practical for a ninja to show his face; leave it alone, it doesn't concern you) disappear at the gentle rasp in her voice.

His heart beats erratically in his chest.

rinnrin-rinrin-rinrin

"We should leave." He tries to put a distance between them; separate her from ever wanting to know him personally, and pulls her up with him. She stumbles, trying to regain her balance, and he places his hand on her lower back out of reflex. Mud drips down her thighs, running over her ankles.

She leans against his side, her head pressing against his shoulder. Her chin barely reaches his collarbone. "Why won't you tell me who you are?" Through the layers he's wearing, he can still feel the warm puffs of her breath on his skin. "It can't be that bad, can it?"

He wants to.

He wants to take the mask off and let her see him.

Obito: the boy who prided camaraderie over honor and friendship over duty; the boy with his kind eyes and compassionate smile; the boy who was her teammate; the boy who loved her; the boy who was dead.

But she wouldn't see any of that. She would see Tobi: the man who manipulated as easy as he breathed; the man who killed to get ahead in the world; the man who did what he had to for survival; the man who started a war on her former friends and family; the man who stole her from death and paraded her around like a trophy; the man who wore the scars of the boy she knew, and the name, but not much else.

How could she look at him knowing what he'd become?

"It is," he responds, but she's deadweight in his arms, snoring softly against his shoulder.

(She can't know who he is.

He won't let her.)

.

.

.

.

Rin's broken pieces break into even smaller splinters.

It's not like a day ago, when she found her grave, it's much worse. All the fragments, the memories, the questions, and the disjointed thoughts and emotions are suddenly coming together in a heart-wrench ensemble.

"K-Kakashi – he-he…Oh, god," she's curled in the fetal position on the floor, clutching her heart.

Her nails break the skin and beads of red form on her wrinkled shirt, staining the grey fabric with darkened red splatters. He swallows the hatred that nearly consumes him when he looks at her shattered form, struggling to make sense of everything. Kakashi did this to her. He killed her.

She loved him.

But he's not completely blameless either. If he hadn't brought her back, she never would be going through this right now. She would be tucked away in death, peacefully, blissfully, unaware of what happened. And he took that from her.

The one reprieve she had.

"I-I keep seeing it – I keep-" her voice is thick with tears, with emotions that struggle to come out, to escape her tiny body. There's not enough room inside of her for everything to stay contained. "H-he…I loved him, and-and-"

He's not sure when he started moving, but suddenly his hands are pulling her up, folding her into the empty contours of his form and pretending that his heart doesn't leap with unsettled joy at how easily she fits, fills him. Rin's sobs echo in his ear from where her head is nestled on his shoulder, her nose digging into the flesh of his neck.

She's so close to him; he can feel the thumping of her heart beneath the layers of his own clothes, and his own heart beats loudly, echoing her own rhythm, as though answering an unheard call.

Her body sags against his own, eagerly soaking up the comfort he offers. Fingers clutch the fabric of his cloak and she pushes hard against his chest, trying to fuse herself with him. Her tears drip onto his shoulder, the warmth nearly burning his skin where it touches.

She smells like ashes and hot pavement and rain.

Inhaling, the scent seeps into his lungs and clears out the embers still smoking in the hallow spaces between his bones. He draws her close until there is nothing in the middle but their clothes, and shares the heat she exudes.

(Sometimes it's shocking to feel something so human, so alive from her. Like breathing, or the warmth of her body, and he can't stop the voice in the back of his head that plants bitter seeds about her being real, being Rin, and it hurts too much when he thinks about it, because Rin is dead and this is just a shadow. Seeing it differently will only cause more problems, more heartache.)

He pushes everything to the corners of his mind, blocking out their sound, and focuses solely on her. The words she's choking out sound less and less coherent until they become white noise in the background, indecipherable agony that seems too personal and makes him feel like he's intruding when he catches the odd word that sounds too familiar, too lucid.

Rin's body quakes against his own and he just holds her close, cursing the ground that Kakashi walks on for doing this to her.

To them.

(And he curses himself for making her relive the pain because he's too selfish for anything else.)

.

.

.

.

It's when her body fails for the third time in two weeks that a tightening surge of worry begins to fester inside his chest.

Three bodies in two week. Sixteen in total.

The numbers pile up and start to glare at him. Smudges of ink stain his fingers when he re-reads the notes he'd made late at night when sleep decides he's not worth. He's not sure what to do anymore. At first, it seemed simple. Every couple of months, he would need to get a new body. It was simple, easy. He could do it.

But then she had to go and wither away in only days. The cracks in her skin come back, the grey tint colors her pigment, and the yellow flecks dot her irises.

What was going to happen in another two weeks? Another month? Would her body continue to fail sooner, now? Would he have time to do the exchange before she died – again? The obvious choice was to consult Kabuto. Drag him back from whatever mission he was one and force him to fix it, fix her.

(Or he could just let her go –

No. He won't.

He can't.)

The thoughts begin to bleed together until there's nothing but muted voices in his head, screaming out nonsensical words that he's supposed to understand. He had the idea before, toyed with it for a while before completely dismissing it. Letting Rin go –

It doesn't make sense.

He'd brought her back for a reason. The faulty logic that soon became his biggest folly was sound at the time; between sleep deprivation and guilt, coupled with regret and stress, anything that might have had even the slightest chance at working, he would have jumped on.

Obito would have done anything to get away from the burning in his heart, the flames in his head, the smoke in his lungs, and the ashes in his bones.

And it didn't work.

His bones are still charred, cracking and breaking in her presence; the fire in his mind only grows and flickers when she's around; the smoke seeps out of the delicate lining in his lungs and crawls up his throat; and his heart is still burning as though someone was dripping acid over the beating organ periodically.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

Brining her back was going to end all of that, and prepare him for the final end when he would meet them all in the reality carved from the hatred and destruction of the world they lived in. She was only supposed to be a reprieve from everything. A temporary redemption until he acquired the real thing.

It was all a mess now.

He couldn't get rid of her, but she was slowly deteriorating.

There had to be something he could do.

To what –

Save her? End her?

Obito wasn't sure anymore.

He's not sure when she stopped being a borrowed body – a decoy – to the real thing.

To Rin.

Somewhere when he was trying to distance himself from her, she managed to crawl past all of his carefully placed defenses and insert herself inside his life, his heart. She was unmovable. Situated comfortably, obliviously, she has no idea how strong of a hold she has on him. And maybe that's a good thing. If she were to know even a fraction of how much she could influence him, it would be his downfall.

And he would let it happen.

Whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it – she would have it. Immediately. Even if he had to throw a lasso over the moon and drag it down to her, he would find a way. If she wanted a star or the planets, or even the world, he would give it all to her.

And that terrifies him -

so much

- because he would give it all up without a fight, without a conscious thought.

This – this Rin, the soul trapped inside a myriad of bodies, of people he can't be bothered to care about is the only thing he lives for. His heart, the burning, broken, pieces held in place only by threads of tendons, was hers.

(Always was.)

It only ever beat for her. Only ever worked because of her.

It chanted her name overandover again.

rinrin-rinrin-rinrin

Like a broken prayer, a bitter mantra.

When did this happen? When did the ghost, the shell of the girl he used to know, become the single most important thing in his life? Even more-so than Madara? When did the shadow of his former love become the only thing he breathed for?

He'd burnt all the bridges to keep her from crossing over and tainting his heart once more like poison, only to find that while he was busy setting fires, she was busy pulling pieces of wood together and building a solid, unwavering path that led right into his heart. It's suffocating to know that – once again – Rin managed to carve her name in his traitorous organ, leaving him blindsided and unaware of what was happening.

It's too late to stop it.

Rin was nestled deep inside his marrow, seemingly ingrained to his very essence, and there was nothing he could do to end it.

(Did he even want to anymore?)

Obito might have loved the hold she still had over him. The romanticism of having her back would out-weigh the consequences of lost her once. Everything – all the troubles, the doubts, the deceits – would not have mattered to him, simply because they never would have happened.

The little boy who'd been crushed under the boulders would have never done any of the things that Tobi (the man borne from heartache and loss and lies, who swore revenge and had a deep-rooted vendetta against the village that raised him) had done.

It was easier when he was younger. Everything was chalked full of vivid colors of all pigments, not the monochrome black and white it was now.

And then there was Rin.

With Obito, her presence was simple: she was the girl of his dreams, his first – and last – love, she was the reason he breathed. It was easy with him. The unrequited love wasn't something he pondered over because he was still young. Time was a matter of opinion and not something to worry about. And he thought he had lots of it. All the time in the world to eventually show her what a great person he was, how happy he could make her.

The only rival was – real, alive, tangible – Kakashi Hakate. He knew Rin loved him, but the majority of their class (of the female population, excluding Kurenai Yuhi, but she had Asuma Sarutobi anyway) did, too. The chances of him actually noticing Rin – the little brown haired girl who sat in the second row, fourth seat beside Genma Shiranui and Iruka Umino, and was considered an encyclopedia on everything medical related – were slim.

But he must have done something to initiate a horrible chain-reaction of karma that followed him all the way through his life, when they were all put on the same team. Of course, their sensei had to be one of the best-looking jounin as well, and there had started another rival, albeit rather small.

Obito only had to deal with tangible opponents.

(And one was married, so that didn't count.)

But Obito dies and Rin does, too.

(So maybe, in some macabre way, they're perfect for each other after all.)

All of the silly hopes and dreams he'd been dancing with since he could remember, seem petty and irrelevant. Beating Kakashi, making Minato proud, becoming Hokage, winning Rin over – it all seems like a farce. Even mulling over them now, thinking about what would've happened if he never died – he uses the term loosely, metaphorically – sounds bland and disinteresting.

Obito died. Tobi lived.

Rin died. Rin was reanimated.

It's impossible to entertain the idea of them – of Rin, and of Tobi – ever being together. The manifestation of Obito's demise, the person who rose from the ashes of his childhood he'd shrugged from his shoulders, is unattainable. He knew this from the beginning. The man he became wasn't suitable for someone of Rin's caliber. She was too sweet, too genuine.

Tobi was destruction, manipulation, deception, sacrilege, murder, and hatred. He was too callous, too cold, to give her what she needed. He was hardened from the things of his past and the deals of his present, and the goals of his future.

He knows this. He accepts this.

But the cold logic doesn't stop the burning in his chest.

(And it doesn't keep the silly thoughts of what if and could've been at bay from sneaking up on him when he's unprepared.)

He's a coward. And Rin isn't getting any better. Keeping her alive was selfish, but so was killing her off when she'd just had the chance at another life.

It a circle full of redundancy and half-truths, and he can't escape it.

(He could, if he showed her who he was. But that would cross the proverbial line between Obito and Tobi, making them one in the same, and he's not ready to profess all his sins committed under the guise of a faceless man, a practiced sycophant who can turn men into pawns, and nations into dust. He's not ready to relinquish the hold he has over the numbed guilt of all the acts of blasphemy and the atrocities he'd let befall on people.)

it's the guilt that nearly consumes him, but in a way that's almost feathered against his skin, unlike the raw, heavy burn left behind by Rin, and that's worse than feeling nothing at all, really.

.

.

.

.

She's fine.

for now.

The scare of not being able to save her and not being able to let her go, coupled with a sever lack of sleep are starting to play tricks on his mind. Sometimes, he thinks she's brushing against his arm on purpose, or nudging his foot with her own with less than innocuous intentions.

Sometimes, he thinks she might care about him.

Especially when she looks at the worn look in his eye and softly shakes her head, telling him that he needs water, lots of rest, and maybe a bowl of soup. It's easy to pretend that the look in her eyes is a strange adoration and the blush on her cheeks is there because he's in the room, or in close proximity to her.

But it's all a farce. She's not worried about his health; without him, she'll die. While he knows Rin isn't that callous, Tobi is used to the idea of faux-concern and antipathy that people give. The cruel intentions and biding time is the safer option than admitting that, maybe, she might have grown fond of him.

(Oh-so discreetly, he brings her a book on the effects of Stockholm syndrome, and says he saw it as a bit of light reading.)

It's better to brush her off, to push the displays of affection to the back of his mind, and play it off as loneliness. She's alone in a desolate place, surrounded only by mindless black and white drones and him. The Zetsus' are too incompetent for her to develop any feelings for, but he's a tangible person who can reciprocate; he has a mind of his own and isn't lead blindly by someone else.

He tells himself this to avoid the flutter in his heart and the clamminess of his palms when she smiles at him (more often than usual, now, ever since she'd snuck away to her grave and he'd comforted her). It's not practical, and it's not right.

Rin can't have feelings for him.

(Because then she would be falling for Tobi, who is not Obito – not in her eyes – and that's wholly unfair. Obito's been pining after her for years, but she loved Kakashi. And even now, when she's pretty much falling for him, she doesn't know it and thinks he's Tobi.)

Maybe he's a little bitter, but he's always loved her. When will he get the chance to have her return those feelings? Hiding behind a mask with a different name?

(He kind of hates himself – Tobi, that is – and it doesn't make sense, but he can't help the twinge of envy he feels when Rin wraps her hand around Tobi's arm and smiles at Tobi, and says Tobi's name oh-so sweetly, and looking at Tobi adoringly with a little blush dusting across her cheeks.)

kakashi, kakashi, kakashi, tobi, tobi, tobi –

when will Obito ever get the chance?

(It's when he finds the book in the garbage, and her lips ghosting over the side of his mask, brushing the porcelain and whispering Tobi quietly, that he finally decides that he kind of hates that name.)

.

.

.

.

"Why am I here?" She whispers quietly, almost to herself, and blushes shyly over the top of her tea cup when she catches his gaze. "I-I mean, I understand that you brought me here – um, brought me back – but I'm trying to understand why. I keep drawing blanks because you never answer any of my questions and you don't tell me anything. I think I…deserve an answer, b-because, there has to be a reason you went to such great lengths to have me here, but I don't know you. And as far as I know, you don't know me either."

It takes a second for her words to fully ingrain themselves inside his head. Through the haze of her speech, he can see the doubt, the insecurity, the fear shining in her eyes, almost reflecting his own confliction. It's shocking, too, hearing what she has to say. With a sudden clarity, he realizes that to her, he's a stranger who brought her back for seemingly no reason at all. They don't know each other in her eyes. Their history is limited to stone walls, one room, and the odd conversation late at night.

Their relationship was limited to confusion, fear, hostility, and hesitancy. In the beginning, she was his hostage. He was the masked man who stole her abruptly from her home and took her to some foreign land, and claimed that they were in the middle of a war. Through the cracked memories and confusion she was feeling, his actions make little sense to her. From there is progressed to terror and hatred as her body began to fail and break at off interventions; she found out she was a walking corpse, that she was once dead and that he took her away from the clutches of death.

And then there was the night she found her grave. The clarity in her eyes, the confirmation of what she had theories on but no concrete evidence was drastic change in their affiliation. She had to come to terms with the fact that the man she loved killed her, once again, with little reason. Obito went from being the man who was her captor, to the man who gave her life. It would have been a lot to process, a lot to take in.

All with seemingly no reason at all.

(When she asked who he was and what he wanted, it suddenly doesn't seem like an accusation anymore.)

Obito forgot for a moment – too caught up in his own mixed emotions, the cloud of sleep deprivation hanging over him, his plans and schemes, and the way – that she didn't have a fraction of the information that he had. While she was aware that many years passed, she wasn't privy on anything else. Just the little pieces he gave her.

Breadcrumbs, really.

He swallows down the momentary guilt he feels and the ache in his chest at her lost expression. Whilst she was grasping at tendrils of smoke, trying to figure out the happenstance of her death and life, he was sitting back with all the answers, teasing her with his knowledge and her ignorance. All of the secrets and clues she needed were at arms-length, hidden behind his porcelain mask, taunting her. It was just in reach too, but no matter how hard she tries, she couldn't quite grasp it.

"Maybe you're not asking the right questions," he says, feigning the detachment he has gotten good at over the years.

Rin's wounded look nearly breaks his resolve, but he looks away. He can't give her answers – not yet, at least – and it's both frustrating and comforting. With it, he has something to hide behind; a means to escape her undoubted heartbreak when she finds out that the boy of her youth has wracked so much terror and devastation over the years.

(He covers himself with his own cowardice, using it like a shield to block out those what if scenarios that mock him relentlessly when he allows his thoughts to wander, and sticks to the image of Rin's face twisted in hatred at him and words that drip acid like a crucifix.)

.

.

.

.

"Okay," Rin nods slowly and the determined glint in her eyes makes him weary.

He closes the book with a snap and turns to her, perched on the edge of her bed, staring vacantly at design in the quilt. "What?"

"You're name is Tobi: true or false?"

Obito swallows down the trepidation that grips his throat in vice. "Rin-"

"True or false," she repeats, narrowing her gaze.

His own words come back to haunt him as she found a way to get around the monosyllabic-only questions. This isn't the setting he'd wanted when he pictured telling her everything, but he knows that those thoughts he entertained were full of fallacy. He was never going to answer her questions on his own; he would never sit her down and lay everything out in the open without some push.

Maybe she knows him better than he thought.

"False." The word nearly chokes him.

Rin nods as though she expected as much. "You're from the fire country, true or false?"

His grip on the book tightens until his bones groan with the strain. There's a throbbing in his jaw from where his teeth are clenched together. Everything in his body feels tense, constricting. A part of him wants to lash out and walk away from the terror that surrounds him, lures him in like a safety-net, offering a reprieve from the fear trembling in his blood, but he remembers the bruises on her wrist from his anger and feels guilt nip at his heart, pinching his stomach.

He doesn't want to hurt her.

The thought of it makes his stomach twist and clench painfully.

Instead, Obito closes his eyes and breathes in deeply.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Lungs settle with the rhythmic movements and the rest of his body follows. His muscles unfurl, his jaw slacks, his bones sigh, and his heart calms into a steady, methodical beat that seems to reverberate off his bones.

When he opens his eyes and gets lost in the nebula of her eyes, he finds a sense of comfort and peace that pulls and pulls at the taut threads his mind until it all falls apart at the seams. He can do this.

(but he sees her hateful face and almost falters.)

No, he can answer her questions now. There's no reason to hide anymore. The war is nearing its last stages, and in months, weeks, days, he might not make it back to her. He can give her this final thing, this piece of closure and see where she wants to go.

It makes him scoff ruefully when he realizes throughout this whole endeavor that he never once asked for her opinion. He never even thought of going to her and seeing which direction she wanted to go in. From the beginning he planned everything that – ironically – concerned her.

This finality, this decision, doesn't make the strain in his shoulders or the apprehension crawling up his throat, or the fear that wraps around his heart, any easier to hold.

"True," he breathes, and the weight that lifts from his body nearly makes him drop.

He can do this.

.

.

.

.

"…The reason you wear a mask is from an injury to the right side of your body. True or false?"

"How did you know that?"

"Besides the fact that the only eye hole in your mask is on the left side? You favor your right more when you walk."

"I see. How observant."

"Stop stalling. True or false?"

"True."

"You're from Konoha. True or false?"

"…True."

"You – you know me. True or false?"

"True."

"And I know you. True or false?"

"…Rin-"

"True or false?"

"…True."

"When I asked if you knew Kakashi Hakate, you were lying. True or false?"

"Rin-"

"Stop stalling."

"T-true."

Her voice shakes. "You're going to take your mask off and show me after this. True or false?"

"W-what?"

"Answer the question."

"I can't-"

"True or false: you're going to take the mask off and show me?"

All the air from his lungs is forced out at her statement. His throat spasms and he can't get any oxygen inside. The thumping of his heart echoes through the room, so loud he's sure she can hear it, too.

He can't do this.

Answering her – showing her his face – isn't something he is willing to let happen. Retreating into his self-carved shell is easier than seeing the eventual disgust, the horror, etched on her face. She'll hate him. She'll despise him. Everything he's ever done will be open and raw, and there for her to pick at, to tear down the firm-clutches he has on the insurmountable guilt and regret piled on top of each other in a forgotten place somewhere inside of him.

Somewhere he doesn't know.

(Somewhere she can't get to, can't see.)

But it's her gentle touch on his forearm and soft eyes that keep him rooted in his place, unable to move. The warmth of her skin burns him in that familiar way. It's the same pain he feels each time he wakes up realizes that she's dead and there's nothing he can do about it anymore.

That age-old burn her memory causes that torches his heart and sets everything in him on fire.

His mouth tastes like ashes.

"True or false," she repeats, fingers brushing against the black ridges in his mask.

The smoke clears from his lungs when he opens his mouth. This is it, he thinks, staring at the gentle encouragement on her face and feeling morose that he'll never see her looking at him like that again.

"T-true."

Suddenly, he wants to hide behind Tobi when only a few days ago, wanted him gone.

There must be something she can see in his eye as lets her arm fall to her side and cautiously steps back. "Are you sure?"

The words are hesitant, spoken softly, and he grasps her hand, bring it toward the clasp behind his head. Her eyes widen when his intension sink in, and her sharp inhale makes him glance at her. Bending down, he tugs her close and bows his head. The awkward angle distorts his view of her, the edges of the mask making a dark crescent moon, cutting off the upper part of her body. He tries to relax his body and focuses on the dark sash across her waist.

He can feel her fingers tremble against his scalp and slides the pads of his fingers against her bare forearm. "Go ahead."

The words must give her more confidence as she pulls on the material, gently, pushing it through the loops. One of the clasps opens, falls, and hits the nape of his neck. A moment later, her thumb trails soothingly over the spot. The second one drops on the other side.

He can feel the balk of the mask loosen, hanging only by a single attachment.

Rin stalls.

"A-are you sure?" The recycled words wash over him, lessening the internal struggle of wanting to run away from her and to rip the mask off to get it over with. "I'm sorry for pressuring you," she says, her voice thick with emotions he can't quite place.

"I'm sure, Rin."

At his words, she shakily unties the last clip, holding it in place with her hands. He can feel the tremors wracking through her and it's strange that he'd feel them in his own hands.

No.

He looks down to see his fingers trembling. Clenching his hands into fists, he sits up, pushing Rin back. Her hands struggle to keep hold of the heavy porcelain, and he reaches up, splaying a hand over the rough texture. She lets go and the weight falls into his palm. The unexpected drop nearly makes him lose his grip, but he rights himself and turns to her.

"I'm sorry," is all he can say as he lets the mask go and it falls in his lap.

Silence.

White noise takes over, ringing in his ears.

Keeping his gaze fixated on a crack in the floor is easier than looking at her.

The shock, the hatred, the disgust, the horror – they will all be waiting for him the moment he does, and he can't bear her disappointment at him.

It's the sharp gasp of disbelief that makes want to disappear.

He's waiting for the onslaught of acerbic words he heard replying in his mind like a mantra for days to come. In his mind, her voice was distorted and cruel, and he wonders what it will sound when he's awake.

Will it hurt just as much or will it hurt more?

He doesn't get the chance to find out when her cool finger slips under his chip and tilts his head toward her. The first thing he notices is a galaxy of emotions.

None of them match what he'd initially assumed she would feel.

There's shock, of course, but not the kind that makes his stomach in a ball of dread. It's disbelief as she questions what she's really seeing. Others he can't decipher, but the rest is easy and does nothing to soothe the anxiety welling inside.

Sadness.

Confusion.

…Happiness.

The feeling is so out-of-place he almost laughs.

Why would she feel happy after everything he's done?

"I don't – I-"

"…I'm sorry," he chokes out, his throat feeling parched, raw.

Her hands are touching him, ghosting over his face, his scars a second later. He sits in shock, too numb to do anything to stop her search.

He catches her gaze when her fingers tremble over the jagged flesh beneath his eye, and sees the slowly sinking realization welling over the tumultuous emotions.

"No," her voice falters on the word, "It's not – you can't – O-Obito…?"

The suddenness of hearing his name in her gentle tenor sends a shock of relief through his heart, spreading like morphine over the blistering wounds inside the capillaries. It's accompanied by the sting of alcohol, smothering the open injuries when she pulls away, unable to look at him.

Words, reasons, apologies, are all at the tip of his tongue, trying to get free; he swallows them down instead and watches her shatter once again.

(At least now the guilt he feels at her turmoil is warranted this time. The thought leaves a bitter ache in his chest, but over the thrumming pain of her rejection and disappointment, it's lost in the background.)

.

.

.

.

Obito avoids her for three days.

He wants to say he was giving her space – some time alone to process the latest development in her seemingly nonsensical life – but that would a lie. He ran like a coward, seeking solace in the bitter comfort of solidarity and blueprints dictating the war, pouring over hours of miniscule details to make sure everything went smoothly when the final curtain would fall and the last bijuu was caught.

It was easier than thinking about the look on Rin's face when he took off the mask and she recognized him. The crushing betrayal and abject terror in her eyes was suffocating and he needed to get away. From her, from the ghosts that crawled inside his head and spit the corrosive words that echoed for months in the confines of his mind, the bitter tinge of nostalgia that cut so deep he was sure if he cracked his skull open, gaping wounds and torn flesh would be visible.

Shadows dance around him in the time that he spends locked away from her; they taunt him with the premise of her scorn, her disappointment, her hatred.

He blames the phantoms on a lack of sleep.

When she found out who he was, the redemption, the elusive reprieve he'd wanted, hasn't come. In its wake were nightmares, haunting images of his former life that spears him through the chest each night. First was Rin – her disgust, her revulsion, her detestation, of him is there; she burns him alive over and over again, flippantly disregarding his pleas for her to understand.

He wakes up in a cold sweat, heart racing and body trembling.

They get worse. When he finds the odd hour to get in a moments rest, or accidentally falls asleep because his head is too heavy and his eyes are aching, he's overcome by the demons of his past, ready to sink their claws into him, aching for his destruction.

There's Kakashi. His arrogance, his power, his indifference toward him and Rin; he lets her die over and over again, uncaring about the bargains and deals Obito makes.

And then Minato comes. He doesn't do anything – he doesn't burn him or curse him – only looks on with…disappointment, and asks why. That one word echoes in his head. He doesn't yell, he doesn't snarl or scream, he whispers the word in such a crestfallen, heartbroken way that Obito begins to wish he would just rip his heart out, spitting the words instead of that subdued and broken tone he uses.

It's worse when he's left staring his old teacher in the face and can't come up with an answer no matter how hard he searches, no matter what excuses or reasons he tries to grasp at. The guilt, the remorse, leaves him awake, shaking and breathless, teetering on the verge of desperation and shame.

Sleep becomes a nonexistent enemy once again.

When he thinks back to the only time he had a truly restful sleep, it's when he was injured and she was there, soothing him comfortingly and mending the wounds he'd acquired from fighting. No dreams, no nightmares, no thoughts, just a shock the next morning when his head wasn't full of cotton and his eyes weren't dry and cracking because even closing his eyes became too much.

Rin.

It always ends back to her.

Like a circle: she was the reason he couldn't sleep then and she was the reason he couldn't sleep now, but she was also the only one who allowed him a moments rest in what seemed to be the first time in months, years. With her, he could sleep; without her, he couldn't.

The contradiction makes his chest contort and his stomach churns, twisting nauseatingly. It was frightening how much influence she had over him.

(Rin, he decides – and maybe it was the utter fatigue or the stress that lies so heavily in his bones – was both the fire that burned, that consumed him, and the water, the nirvana, that put him out of his misery (whilst creating it). And he was all to happy to sit and watch her dance around, fanning the flames that ate his skin and scorched his heart, all with a smile on his face.)

.

.

.

.

We should talk.

The ambiguous words burn holes in his retinas.

("We should talk," she says, looking beautiful in the soft orange light.

His heart begins to flutter at the nervous smile she gives him, and he eagerly returns it, the wide grin making his cheeks burn with the stretch. Rin glances up at him, biting her lower lip in contemplation. There's a soft flush dusting across the bridge of her nose that makes his heart thud in his chest. His palms feel clammy and his stomach churns, fluttering with happiness at the sudden turn of his thoughts.

He thinks she might confess, and the mere prospect of that happening makes his chest burn with hope because he loves her, too; he loves her so much and -

"I love Kakashi," she finishes, gazing down at the scuff marks in her shoes. "I thought I should tell you because you're my friend – my best friend, Obito, and I wanted to tell someone."

ilovekakashi –

oh.

oh.

His heart cracks in two halves at her silently confession. Obito tries to forge a semblance of blasé happiness at her words, at the soft note of vulnerability coloring her words. She ducks her head low, flushing deeply at his silence.

"Oh," he says, because really, really, what else can he do while he watches her eyes light up brighter than the sun and a warm hue kiss her cheeks when she whispers Kakashi's name like it's the most beautiful thing she's ever heard?

"Can you keep this a secret, Obito?" She's smiling and blushing and twisting her fingers nervously in her lap, and the shy adoration clouding the auburn galaxies of her eyes makes his heart to split at the seams and bleed out over his chest, coating his bones in a grotesque crimson.

It hurts.

No.

It's burning through him like acid and he thinks for a minute that he might've accidentally set himself on fire, but through it all he smiles – it's so forced it nearly tears his skin – and nods. "Of course, Rin-chan…"

he would do anything for her, even rip the traitorous organ still thudding painfully in his chest for her, just to see her happy. even if it's not with him.

because he loves her.

and she just sits idly back, loving someone else, watching as he burns alive.)

We should talk soon becomes the second worse thing she'd ever said to him.

.

.

.

.

"Start from the beginning," she says. The ambivalence in her eyes drips down and embeds itself in her ivory skin, twisting her expression into a tentative curiosity.

These are the first words she spoke to him since his name, he notes with trepidation. Even when they walking the last distance to the clearing – that bares an odd resemblance to the park bench she brought him to that night when she broke his chest for the first time – she was silent, letting the cool wind and the sounds of night fill the empty void stretching between them.

It was tense, constricting. She followed him with her eyes fixated on her feet, unable to meet his stare. The refusal to acknowledge him hurt more than he thought it would. It cut deep and he had to swallow a bitter retort (years of practice, of dealing with less than savory people) that crept up his throat and danced on his tongue.

Lashing out wasn't practical. He didn't want to hurt her – intentional or otherwise – and the waspish words that struggled to break loose would.

(It only proved to show him just how much he'd changed: Obito would never think something so cruel – so tasteless – about her, or even have to fight with himself to push it away. Thing were different and cruelty was necessary in his profession; it was almost second nature to him now: fighting back, rebelling against someone's hold over him – all of those reactions are reflexive actions now, and he doesn't think about them much. Until now. Until her.)

He wants to disappear, avoid the accusation in her eyes, hidden behind the thinly veiled uncertainty and the subtle fear lurking in the midst of her ocean deep emotions. They terrify him; sending a chill through him so deep it rattles his bones and shakes the seemingly impenetrable resolve he'd spent years constructing.

She breaks his gaze, flicking her eyes toward a swaying branch; he feels the tension coiling tightly inside him lessen slightly, and he nods.

"I'd thought the boulders crushed me," he clenches his fist when her eyes find his once again. "But it didn't. Someone found me and healed me."

Rin frowns, "the extent of your injuries…"

"I know," he looks at moon balancing on the top of an Everest tree.

"Then how-?"

"Someone saved me."

"Oh," her voice cracks. The sound resonates around his head. "I-I'm…sorry, Obito-"

"Don't be."

"No, but-" she pauses, and he spares her a glance. With her arms folded under her chest – as though she's trying to keep herself from falling apart – she looks impossibly small. "If I knew…I would have…"

Her words trail off in a whisper.

"What happened, um, after you woke up?" She brushes back a lock of brown hair that catches on her elongated eyelashes. "Why didn't you come home?"

"I couldn't because everyone thought I was dead. They already had a funeral, and I - I trained instead. Letting myself heal from the injuries. And then I heard that you and Kakashi needed help," he swallows the vitriolic taste in his mouth. "I went to help, but when I got there, Kakashi had…"

Killed you.

He was too late.

(Protect Rin –

I will.)

all lies. all of it.

Obito glances away from the stricken look overcoming her expression as the realization settles in.

"Oh," she echoes softly, her words coming out in a harsh exhale. "That was when I-"

The words die on her lips abruptly.

He watches a cloud drift over the moon and lets her mull over her thoughts.

"Can I see them?" She asks, breaking the quiet that hung between them. He glances at her, and she edges closer with an inquisitive expression. "Your injuries, I mean – or the scars. It's – medically speaking – a miracle that you survived, and-"

His heart stutters in his chest. She wanted to see him – the scars, proof of his story; she wanted confirmation that he wasn't a fraud, a conman looking to cheat her out of something – maybe her life, or her sanity. He can't begrudge her that; he was still adjusting to the reality that she wasn't borrowed skin and patchwork emotions, that she was a genuine replica (but still a copy; never the real thing, the real Rin) of the girl he'd lost and not some desperate soul masquerading with foreign memories and a body made from paper and ink.

She stops at a respectable distance, understanding working over the unmasked curiosity. "If it's too personal…"

"No," he cut through, swallowing the sudden urge to wrap his hands over her shoulders and tug her closer. His bones feel heavy when he reaches up and pulls on the claps holding the thick porcelain in place.

He'll never fully get used to the idea of being so completely bare for someone else to see. For such a long time, he hid behind the guise of being whatever necessary in order to gather pawns or work a situation in his favor. Throughout it all, the mask was always present. It was a large piece of him – keeping all the vulnerability at bay. The sudden exposure, the sense of being naked without something covering the mess of scars on the right side of his face, was not an easy thing to deal with.

It left him feeling weaker, less in control.

(He hated how much he depended on the disguise, but it was already too late to change that.)

It falls, hitting his shoulder with a dull thud that makes Rin jump slightly. The corner of his mouth tilts up at her nerves.

(Maybe she feels the same as him; without the mask in the way, she can't pretend that the little boy from her childhood is such a monster.)

He waits a second before letting it slip from his face. With it tightly in his grasp, he lets his hand fall to the side, taking the heavy porcelain with him.

The chill of night spreads across his face and he misses the warmth immediately.

"Oh," she whispers. It takes him a second to remember that she wasn't able to fully see the extent of his injuries when he'd first shown her his face. "It's…really you."

Her hand flies up to cover her mouth, and she takes a sudden step forward.

"O-Obito…"

Hearing his name again – spoken with such familiarity, such comfort – makes his heart clench painfully. Cautiously, she moves closer to him. If he extended his arm, it would brush against her shoulder. The thought of it – of touching her, of being so close – makes palms feel clammy.

He can feel the heat from her body.

His hands tremble.

Her eyes search his face, taking in the array of scars and the subtle changes he went through since the last time she saw him. It's from her closeness that he notices she's shaking too.

"I thought you were dead," she begins. Tears drip down the sides of her face, wetting the red markings on her cheeks. "If I knew, I would have saved you; I would have helped you, but-"

"No," he says, shaking his head. "There was nothing you could've done. The cave was crumbling down on top of itself; you would have gotten caught in it as well."

She nods solemnly in acquiescence. "I guess."

There's something – bitterness, maybe nostalgia – behind her neutral expression as she ponders over his words. The dim lighting casts shadows on her face, hollowing out the spaces below her eyes and under her chin; she looks ethereal with the moon hanging like a halo over her head. It's a drastic change from the girl with the kind smiles and the gentle eyes; she's hauntingly beautiful, grown in ways he'd never been able to fathom before.

This is the girl who sets him on fire. She was the one who wrapped her fingers around his chest and tugged his heart out, engraving her name in the soft tissue of his ventricles; uncaring about the pain she causes when she painstakingly pulls each of his bones that protect his chest a part, unceremoniously tossing them over her shoulder.

Looking at her becomes too painful and he glances at the small opening leading out of the enclosure.

"You know," the suddenness of her voice cuts through the settled silence and he looks over his shoulder at her questioningly. A small smile cracks through the despair; red dusts across the bridge of her nose. "You look so different, now. It's strange."

"How so?"

"W-well," her flush deepens, and she fidgets under his scrutiny. "One minute you were shorter than me, and the next, you're taller."

(A part of him expected her to mention the contrasting ideologies he's carries now; the ease in which he uses manipulation or death as a means to get what he wants. He's grateful when she doesn't.)

Slowly, the humor in her eyes fades into something he can't quite place. It's oddly similar to the one she used to give him – Tobi – before she knew his identity and the thought of it makes his chest ache. Was she thinking about him? Disappointed that the man she thought he was turned out to be a farce – a ghost from her past?

(He shouldn't be thinking these things – he knows that – but the cold logic isn't enough to stop his heart from picking up the pieces of hope still scattered around and gripping it tightly.)

"I grew up."

The words ring true for both of them. While she never had the chance to fully grow into anything beyond the young girl who died, he diverged off the path he was determined to follow, ending in debauchery and criminality. Sometimes he wonders what would have happened if the rocks never crushed him, if they had gotten Rin in time. Would anything be different or was he destined to meet Madara Uchiha at some point in his life?

What about Rin. Would he have been enough to save her? Without the strength acquired by the intense training the founding father of his clan put him through, would he be half as strong, half as ruthless as he was now?

(And Minato. Would he be alive? Would he be proud of the man Obito became?)

He hated these thoughts that corrupt his carefully constructed regime; the dictatorship of his mind that was seemingly untouchable, unalterable, and leaks into the empty spaces of his head. His mind has never been his – it's always been free for the taking; the only part of him that was so easily influenced on half-truths when everything else dealt only in absolutes.

It was infuriating how flexible his head, his thoughts, would turn when the subject of his youth (or of Rin, of Kakashi, of Minato) was dragged to the surface. Like insects, the polluted ideas and fantasies loiter around, ignoring the tyranny he imposes on himself, the control that the tries to wrestle back.

It's useless.

He wins the crown but loses the kingdom.

(And he thinks of Rin in those moments when everything begins to rebel against him. His head, his heart – they were never his; the label saying they were, the faulty reasoning and expressions of ownership are forgeries with her name inked across the pages in fire and his in gasoline.)

"You have," it's the gentle weight of her hand touching his forearm that makes his head swim.

She's so close and if he moves just an inch, just a little inch, they would be pressed tightly against each other. The thought sends an ocean of fear through him. Beating faster, fasterfasterfaster, his heart felt like a ship on the rocky waters. Stranded at sea without an anchor and holes in its sails, it floats aimlessly, crashing against the waves that push at it from all sides.

He's drifting with no control over himself.

All he can see is the dark depths of her eyes – brown and gold and yellow and with flecks of auburn dotting around her pupils – and the scent of ashes and burnt wood that nearly suffocates him. Pushing herself inside the small diameter of space that lingered in the middle between them, he can feel her heart thudding through their clothes (or was it his?) and the heat her body exudes consumes him; it's so much, too much, and he can't breathe, he can't –

Fingers curl against the nape of his neck, dull nails scraping lightly over his skin. His heart feels like it might burst with the rapid palpitations that her close proximity causes. Unsure, he tangles his fists in the pockets of his cloak, and he shyly glances at him from beneath thickthick black lashes and her endless brown eyes look so deep, and –

Her lips ghost over his.

The disjointed rhythm his heart was beating against breaks in the middle, stopping dead when the warmth of her body – pressed ohso close to his, and the slight dryness of her mouth slanting over his – seeps through the layers of their clothes and clings to his skin.

She's kissing him.

All the air is sucked from his lungs, leaving him shuddering against her lithe frame, trying to hold on to something, anything, to keep him grounded. It feels like the floor opened up beneath his feet and he's falling downdowndown.

He'd wondered what this would feel like, having her so close to him, wrapped so intimately in his embrace, but –

He can't.

This isn't supposed to happen.

Breaking away from the taste of her saccharine lips is the hardest thing he'd ever done. He mourns the loss of her instantly. "Rin," it comes out as a gasp, shaky and unsure.

"Obito," she murmurs his name, her breath tickling his chin. Her hands slide down his neck, resting gently on his shoulders. "What's wrong?"

This, he wants to say, but the words get lodged in his throat at the vulnerability in her eyes, the uncertainty. Nothing comes out and she takes the time to pull his long forgotten mask his hand, turning it over in hers. He'd been so enraptured with her presence, that he let it disappear into the background. It's almost shocking to see it.

"Is it this?" She asks, her voice a mere rasp drowned out by the fluttering leaves on the trees that sway with the wind.

He wants to shake his head, to tell her that it has nothing to do with anything, but all coherent thought runs from his mind when she drops his mask on the ground and knots her fingers in the thick fabric of his cloak, pulling him closer. "I don't care about that. You shouldn't either. Its meaning, Obito, and-"

Kissing her was like nothing he'd ever felt before. The weight of his lips moving against hers, dragging out shuddering gasps and little huffs of air from her lungs, was addicting. She seeped into his veins, tainting his blood like poison, like morphine. Polluting his head and his lungs and his head; she effortlessly took over the captaincy of his being.

And he let her.

(when he was younger, he would lie in bed and think about her – about this, about kissing her – and it would keep him awake for hours, wondering what it would feel like. he thought the softness of rose peddles, the taste of honeysuckle, and the smell of ginger. he thought of her youthful face and ivory skin and muted curves. she was none of those: rin was like running bare fingers over the face of a feather; the gentle drag and pull, the smooth ridges and the dry softness. she was wet wood and smoke, and hard slopes where she'd outgrew the childish physique for a more womanly figure.)

He's intimately aware of each inhale and exhale of breath that leaves and enters her lungs; the flutter of her lashes against his cheeks, her nose pressing on the side of his, the slightly chapped bottom lip from when she would bite into the flesh, and the tension in her shoulders.

Lungs screaming, heart racing, he pulls away from her lips – fighting the urge to drop down press his to hers once again – and takes a step back, breathing in deeply. She looks beautiful standing there with her lips slightly parted and her cheeks a deep red, and her eyes unfocused.

He did that.

It makes his head spin. Everything rushes around him, too fast and too slow; it's hazy and he takes a second to gather his thoughts, try to find the semblance of control.

(he had it before her, when she was still gone and he didn't know the feeling of her mouth over his, sharing the same air, or the taste of her lingering on his tongue.)

Rin looks at him with a million questions in her eyes, breathing deeply. "Obito…?"

"I was going to give you a choice," he says, voice hoarse. "An ultimatum."

Her hand is scorching when it presses against the side of his face, covering the scars. "And what are my choices?"

There's still a little bit of her taste in his mouth. "You can leave; there's a village three miles away from here, unless you wanted to go somewhere else. You won't be able to go back to Konoha, but you should be able to find someplace that's acceptable."

"Okay," she breathes, nodding. "And the second…?"

You could stay.

Only –

That wasn't an option. It didn't fit anywhere into his heavily detailed itinerary. She had no place in his world and he was going to keep it that way. Her delicacy was too important for him to let her tarnish it by divulging into a world she has no reason to be in – where monsters are real and men are cowards, and girls like her get picked apart pieces by pieces until there's nothing left but a cold memory, a smear on the wall.

Desperate for a distraction, he continues. "I can tell you how to-"

Die. Again.

It tastes like ashes. He thinks about graves and wilted flowers and the stench of overturned dirt; of people stepping on the soft ground, not noticing the crunch of bones under their feet or the silent pleas for help – for something, for escape – that go unheard to the living above.

(He blames the sudden chill on the dropping temperature.)

"Tell me how to what?"

"Let go." He lies. And it makes him think about blowing away dust or brushing charcoal from the tips of his fingers.

Rin moves into him, pressing her body in the contours of his. It still makes his heart stutter at how easily she fits into him. Her arms wrap around hid midsection and he tries to ignore the tightening sense of apprehension her proximity has.

"I want to stay with you."

He can feel the weight of her words in his bones. "You don't know what you're asking."

"I do, Obito. Just let me in," she whispers against his collarbone. "We'll be together."

"We can't."

"If – if things were different," her arms tighten around him. "Would it work out?"

No –

(if things were different, she would be dead and so would he.)

- it wouldn't.

But maybe there was a reason why they were breathing; that they both got a second chance. He doesn't believe in half-truths; they were messy and uncertain, and only caused problems.

He deals in absolutes.

Manageable. Probable. Easy.

Nothing about this was easy.

Nothing about Rin was easy.

(And maybe, maybe that was the point.)

"Maybe," he consents. The word is beginning to lose its meaning to him.

Her shuddering exhale – icy cold and then hothothot – ghosting over his skin makes his spine tremble. "So that's it?"

"Yes."

"I wish things were different," she says.

"Me too," he answers. "But that's not a variable choice."

"So make it one."

"It's not that simple."

"Maybe it can be if you try."

He doesn't respond, only holds her a little tighter, unable to let go. She broke his chest so many times; corrupted his thoughts, his mind, his heart, and he still isn't strong enough to let her go, to push her away. He could never do that – she was embedded in the marrow of his bones; she tainted his blood like poison and wrapped her fingers around his heart, tugging on the tendons whenever she pleased.

"I'm staying," her words taste infinite. He can't find it in himself to argue. "You can't make me leave."

He doesn't think he can.

(Sometimes, he isn't sure if she was the one lighting the match or pouring the gasoline.)

.

.

.

.

epilogue

He still chases her in his dreams.

Unattainable as always, she evades him each night, running for the rosemary hill in the distance that turns into a castle of fractured bones and broken hearts, stretching out into the sky. He almost catches her, but at the last second his fingers close around nothing. Her ghost is already gone, spinning stars in her hands and dancing on the moon.

Chains wrap around his ankles, pulling him down to the bottom where the absence of light makes him want to scream and the sand chafes his skin; the anchor sits on his chest, immovable and solid, and no matter how many times he pushes it, it gets heavier until he's breathless and gasping for air that doesn't exist where he is.

He's forced to watch her invade nebulas and conquer galaxies from the bottom of the ocean.

Sometimes it's different.

Kakashi's eyes and skin and hands and madness become his. He's looking at the world through the point of a needle; contorted and foreign. Rin's there, smiling at him (but not really) and she turns to say something, but his hand moves without permission and then –

her eyes, so accusing, cut to his own. she begs and pleads and asks whywhywhy, but his mouth isn't his own and doesn't open. he's killing her, shouting out for something – forgiveness, redemption, help – for someone – kakashi and minato and ,adara – but nobody comes and he's sinking in a sea of her blood.

And he still thinks about Minato.

The guilt threatens to eat him whole. It burns his skin and taints his blood; the most potent poison without an antidote. He asks him why – and even now – he has no answer, no justifiable reason for his actions. It would hurt less if Minato yelled and screamed and fought him, but he just looks at him with disappointment.

(it's worse than any torture, the look of soft understanding and disapproval that sears into his eyelids hours after he wakes up.)

Rin is there.

Her presence helps him through the worst of it. She sits on the edge of his bed, running her fingers through his matted hair and whispering soothing phrases in his ear. No matter how loudly he screams, no matter how shaken he looks, she never asks questions; only looks on with a neutral expression and coaxes him into contentment with empty words and loud actions.

They travel together. Explore the world, hidden in the smallest corners of the globe.

(Rin loves the freedom, the experience.

Obito's just waiting for the clock above their heads to run out.)

It's not perfect – he still feels the burn of her death and isn't certain he could ever forget that she was a stolen body, foreign skin and different blood – and he doesn't think it will ever be. She looks at him and thinks about Kakashi, about the life she used to live and the things she lost.

He dreams and remembers a different Rin.

Ghosts still haunt them at night when everything gets too heavy.

But none of that matters because –

dreams are meaningless anyway and ghosts are just people who can't let things go.

.

.

.

.

note3: (i kind of hate how this turned out). so you've reached the end, though. i thought i had full control over this – and i did, but then it ran away from me. at chapter fifteen, everything was fine. chapter twenty: it started to slip. chapter twenty-five: it started to run. by chapter thirty-two: it grew wings and flew away.
note4: the next drabble (why do i still call them that when this obvious surpassed the one thousand word limit?) will probably include the events that happen in this, but in Rin's point of view. don't expect it soon; my eyes are still burning from so many words.