my ghosts think I'm the dead one

“Whoa, are you okay?”

There’s a stranger with an orange mask leaning over Rin, hands hovering in midair as if he can’t decide whether to help her up or stab her.

Obito activates his sharingan on instinct.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, there’s no need for the scary eyes! Tobi’s just asking!” he yelps, jumping back from Rin.

Definitely shinobi from the way he holds himself, although pretending not to be. Orange mask - one eyehole, abuse the lack of depth perception - black cloak with red clouds, why’s he pretending to be Akatsuki? Aren’t they that group of pacifists from Ame? Paying much more attention to Rin than me, Obito thinks, ignoring the sting of the last thought with years of well-worn practice.

The strange nin won’t be able to keep up with the rapidfire analysis. Most of his cousins can’t either, to be fair, but without sharingan, it’s just unfair.

“Sorry,” Obito says, meek and self-effacing enough to reinforce what the other nin’s assumed, saying yes, I’m just the second, look at Nohara Rin who joined ANBU instead of the hospital and never properly left without words. “I usually keep them active, it’s just habit.”

“Well, stop that!” Tobi says, hands on his hips. “You scared Tobi, Tobi didn’t think there were any Uchiha left!”

… What?

“Or Nohara. That’s what the pretty tattoos are, right? They mean you’re Nohara? Tobi thought they all died in the Bijuu attack, but it looks like you survived. Did you survive because you went missing, like Tobi? Or was there no attack, where you come from?”

“What?” Rin croaks, staggering as she stands, and even though Obito knows it’s to play on sympathy, his heart hurts. All the Nohara dead? That reeks of an inside job.

“There was a big swirly light in the sky, and then you two fell out!” Tobi explains cheerfully, demonstrating the swirls with big waves of his hands. He’s such a fun guy. Obito kind of likes him. “And Tobi waited, he was so patient he waited for all of three minutes, but you didn’t wake up, so he came over to look but you’re both okay! Was it some kind of new teleportation jutsu? Or time travel, or are you from a different dimension?”

Oh, god. If the Nohara are dead, and he doesn’t recognize them - Rin of the Lightning Sabre and Blood Tears Obito (“Crybaby Obito!” “Shut up, Genma-”) then…

“Oh, god. Sensei’s going to kill us.”

“Maa, maa, I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Rin hums next to him, visibly unconcerned about their current issue of fucking up Hirashin so badly they got violently spat into what’s almost definitely a different dimension.

Tobi twitches.

“Could you point us in the direction of Konoha?” Rin asks politely. “We need to find the Yondaime and explain our situation.”

“Oh, no, don’t go to Konoha!” Tobi yelps, waving his hands around as if to physically prevent them from going. “They’ll think you went missing like Tobi and they’re not kind to missing nin there - they’ve got Friend-killer Kakashi, and he tore through Monomochi Zabuza, just for being in the same place he had an escort mission to!”

Obito’s ears ring. Kakashi’s alive? is his first thought, followed by Friend-killer Kakashi repeating over and over, one look at Rin enough to know she feels the same.

That... answers the question of whether they’d run into their alternate selves, then, doesn’t it.

Friend-killer Kakashi.

“The Yondaime’s dead, too,” Tobi adds like an afterthought. “Dead in the Bijuu attack, like pretty Rin’s family. He stopped it, though! Sealed the Ninetails, all by himself! Pity it killed him.”

Sealed the Ninetails? Minato-sensei was the Yondaime, not Kushina-sama?

Rin coughs, then chuffs, throttling everything down until the person standing next to Obito is Tiger, not Rin. Obito cedes control- they have major holes in their knowledge of everything here, apparently, and Tobi is still an unknown. 

“Maa, what’s Kakashi like?” Tiger-Rin asks. 

“He’s cold right through, a perfect shinobi. He spent a decade in Konoha ANBU, and he had a perfect success rate, but they kicked him out because too many teammates didn’t come back!” Tobi shudders theatrically. “Tobi doesn’t like him at all. Konoha calls him Copy-Cat Kakashi now, or Sharingan Kakashi, but Tobi doesn’t think that’s much better once you know what happened to the Uchiha, y’know?”

Obito’s terrified to know how this gets worse. Sure, Kakashi was a jerk when they were teamed up, but- he was three years younger than them, and never said anything, and looked so small crumpled on the ground with a kunai through his eye because he listened to Obito and gave up on the mission and tried to save Rin.

Friend-killer Kakashi.

Not much better, once you hear what happened to the Uchiha.

Obito doesn’t want to know what this Kakashi did to the Obito from this dimension. Their Kakashi died the same day he made jonin, when an invisible Iwa nin buried a kunai in his eye up to the hilt, and Obito never even apologised.

Sickeningly, Obito wonders if what changed was Kakashi ignoring him when he demanded to rescue Rin. If he'd gone on ahead and completed the mission, leaving them both to die in a cave.

“I guess the Uchiha Massacre was pretty convenient for him, huh?” Tobi says conspiratorially. “Nobody around to call him an eye-thief anymore?”

“He wouldn’t!” Obito snaps. Not even- he wouldn't.“Don’t talk about my teammate like that!”

“Maa, maa, what’s this nobody about?” Tiger-Rin smoothly diverts, giving Obito a chance to get his temper under control. “There are more Uchiha than just the police force, y’know.”

“So the Uchiha Massacre is different where you’re from!” Tobi chirps far too cheerfully for someone talking about a massacre. “Here, all the Uchiha died! Every last one! Except for poor baby Sasuke, and Itachi of course.”

Oh.

Tobi had said something about not thinking there were any Uchiha left either, hadn’t he?

Friend-killer Kakashi.

“Pretty Rin and Obito should be careful, okay? Tobi’s very worried about Friend-killer Kakashi. He’s cold right through.” Tobi shudders theatrically. “He lies about it, he's late and he's rude and he pokes at people so they leave him alone, but he's cold.”

Kakashi, late? Obito shares an incredulous look with Rin. It doesn’t register. Kakashi once scolded Rin for showing up thirty seconds late. (Obito, of course, didn’t arrive for another hour, and thoroughly lost the fight he picked in Rin’s honor as soon as she told him.) 

But then, this world seems very, very different to their own. Tobi hasn’t said anything about the Fourth War, after all.

Friend-killer Kakashi.

“That can't be true,” Rin declares. “There must be some sort of misunderstanding. Our Kakashi was a good shinobi.”

“Tobi never said he wasn't a good shinobi, Tobi said he wasn’t a good person.”

Although, he’s dressed like the Akatsuki. Black robes with red clouds, signifying the dawn of new things to come. It’s a little pretentious and idealistic for Obito, but they’ve never caused problems for people, especially not after the death of Hanzo the Salamander. Maybe he doesn’t know.

…Tobi’s sleeves really are very long, especially for an undercover shinobi. Sure, he wasn’t putting effort into hiding what he was, but… his entire body is obscured, barring spiky black hair visible behind his mask.

“Thank you, Tobi,” Obito manages. “You’ve been… very helpful. We should still get to Konoha, because we’re not missing nin even if we are supposed to be dead, and I’m sure Inoichi will be understanding even if Ibiki isn’t.”

Tobi wrings his hands under his sleeves, obviously enough that it’s only Obito’s activated sharingan that catches the tension in his shoulders.

“Well, as long as Rin and Obito are sure. Be careful, okay? Tobi needs to go back to his friends, he can’t stay and help or his senpai starts getting worried and comes looking, but you two look strong! You should be okay.” he nods to himself. “Rin and Obito will be okay!”

And he takes off, in completely the opposite direction to Rain, which is where Akatsuki is based.

Well.

This is the most interestingly wrong a mission’s gone.

“Maa, maa, this is what we get for fiddling with space-time seals without being sealing geniuses,” Rin drawls. “Minato-sensei would’ve been so disappointed in himself for not explaining it properly.”

Obito scoffs, falling into step with her with practiced ease from years and years of missions side-by-side.

“We’re running to Konoha and interrogating this world’s Kakashi the first chance we get?”

“Oh yeah,” Rin confirms, although Obito can hear the doubt in her voice. “It sounds like he’s got it coming.”