Tobi's Tale

It was late into the night as Konan began her search for the masked Uchiha. He wasn’t often difficult to find, since he constantly seemed to hop into existence right when no one wanted him. It was one of the laws of the universe, if you didn’t want Tobi around, he’d appear and completely ruin your day.

Konan silently navigated the base to the offices on the first floor. To be honest, she was rather impressed by all the renovations and utilities that Tobi had insisted they install once they had become a team. Konan hadn’t enjoyed the time-consuming process and the perversion of their funds, but it seemed to be for the better. They received more contracts, their paperwork was organized, and they were able to run a small country out of their office, even though originally Nagato had taken over by dictatorship, Amegakure was slowly advancing and becoming more efficient. Unlike years ago, people were slowly beginning to build their trust with their leaders and Konan’s eyes lit up when she saw children with their parents, playing despite the constant rain.

She rounded the corner of the stairs and went to the door a few feet away, seals and mysterious fuinjutsu covering the wooden panel. She entered into a pristine room lined with several desks and neat stacks of paperwork. The room was shrouded in darkness, but a light in one of the small offices to the side illuminated the workspace just enough to find the Uchiha filtering through stacks of paperwork.

The blue-haired kunoichi flew over to the door and peeked in. The Uchiha’s eyes were glazed over as he glanced at a report in front of him. “They never go away,” he grumbled, “every time I’ve ever finished, it’s become an invitation to give me more papers. No offense, Konan-kun.”

Konan narrowed her eyes at the Uchiha and entered the room, taking that as her own invitation, despite his rudeness and reference to her particular jutsu. She took a seat on the far side of the desk, looking past the papers to the unmasked, scarred man.

The Uchiha sat up and stretched, arms above his head, popping pesky bones back into place and relaxing his tense muscles as he let out a groan. “You won’t believe how trying it is to sit behind a desk all day! You know,” he rambled exasperatedly as he resettled in his chair, “I thought running around and fighting was exhausting, but this? This is truly painful.”

Konan raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow and asked the Uchiha the simplest and most troubling question, “Tobi, what are you doing down here anyways?”

The Uchiha grinned and chuckled nervously and began quickly shuffling through papers, stuffing what he had been looking over into a file folder. “Well, I was going through some paperwork and lost track of time. Nothing really important!” His face was flushed and he bit down on his lip, a shadow of obvious worry over him.

Konan felt that that had been one of the worst excuses she had ever heard. Her expression reflected her thoughts as she patiently waited for the truth, which all things into consideration, would likely not come.

The scarred Uchiha cleared his throat and straightened himself back in his seat and threaded his fingers together on the top of the desk. “So, Konan, did you want to hear the rest of my story,” he inquired, a small grin painting his visage with his eyes sparkling in dazzling mirth, clearly knowing that she had.

Konan only responded to his question with silence, growing annoyed with the Uchiha.

“Alrighty then,” Tobi cried happily, his grin increasing in brightness. “Where’d I leave off? Oh, right! Okay, Konan-kun! I’m ready.

“My friend and I fought during the war that I’d begun and it turned out that he had always believed in me and didn’t want me to die again. I betrayed him, then I became a monster, and died to protect my friend in the very end, knowing I was going to die anyhow. Why not save his ass one last time,” he chuckled.

“So anyways, I died. It was when I was dead that I decided to save Kakashi one last time and give him a gift: my Mangekyo Sharingan,” he explained, gesturing to his right eye. “I may not have accomplished my dream, but I knew Kakashi would for me and I still believe he can in this world.”

Konan knew that name. “Kakashi Hatake of the Sharingan? The son of the White Fang,” she asked, recalling her encounter with the copy-nin.

Tobi nodded, “Uh huh! The one and only, although I think he owes all that fame to me, whether he’s a genius or not since I gave him the Sharingan.” The scarred man crossed his arms in a cocky, aggravated posture and muttered grumpily.

Konan chuckled, “You can’t have everything. How’d you get another eye?”

He screwed up his face and feigned ignorance, his gaze floating off in another direction, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Konan wasn’t so sure about that and permitted herself to roll her own amber eyes at the Uchiha. She wasn’t altogether sure what made her stick around to hear the immature man’s oracle or tale, as it was.

“Anyways, it was then, after I gave Kakashi his gift that I met the guy himself,” he chirped loudly, as if Konan wasn’t about six feet away. He leaned over the desk and whispered dramatically, “The Sage of Six Paths!” He retreated to his chair and squealed happily, drastically changing the somber mood to utter chaos and ridiculousness. “I was so surprised when I met him and even more so that he gave me a mission!”

The Uchiha reverted back to a stony visage and locked eyes with Konan, “He wanted me to fix it – everything that I had done – so I could stop the Juubi’s resurrection and the evil goddess of the God Tree, Kaguya.”

“Are you sure that this isn’t a fairy tale,” Konan whispered.

The Uchiha crossed his arms and huffed, “Haven’t you listened to my narrative? The Juubi is real. Madara is a real threat. Hell,” he snapped at the kunoichi, “you and Nagato believed that I was Madara!” He rearranged himself back in his chair, having ruffled Konan enough to put her on the defensive with his shouting. “I’ll tell you what Madara once told me, ‘legends are based on the truth.’ That being said, not every shadow in the dark and monster under the bed is our imagination – no. These are very real threats and they’ll do anything to bleed into the existence of this world. They’ll kill everyone you love and gnaw at you until you succumb to the darkness.”

“Say I do believe your story, how would the Juubi or Madara even become resurrected, or this Kaguya character,” Konan retorted, interrogating the Uchiha. “They can’t possibly impact us.”

The Uchiha sunk into his desk chair and rolled his shoulders, “I really hate these things. These chairs are murder on my back! Um, I’m really ready for bed.” He shot back up in his chair and chirped in question, “What about you, Konan-kun? Are you feeling sleepy?”

Konan was nearly at a loss for patience, “You told me your ridiculous story now answer my question,” she scolded the shinobi. Papers threatening to peel away from her body began ruffling and her brow was lowered in frustration.

Tobi jolted in surprise and put his hands up, “Okay! Okay! I’ll tell you! Geez!” Konan relaxed but kept her eyes trained on the man like an eagle’s. The shinobi rearranged himself in his chair again and cleared his throat, “You see, it all has to do with the Rinnegan. Supposedly it was a forbidden gift from the gods and could only be unlocked through the crossing of the Uchiha and Senju bloodlines, which thankfully has never happened.”

“But Nagato has the Rinnegan,” Konan mused.

“Yes, indeed he does, but they are not his own eyes,” the Uchiha shuffled some papers around idly looking to entertain his short attention span and lack of patience. “Madara’s death was said to have come when he fought Hashirama Senju for the final time. He was able to steal flesh from his arm and set a time-released jutsu on himself to rewrite his death.” He held up two fingers, “He had obtained the two things he needed and grafted the flesh into his wound after he retched it back up.”

Konan blanched. “That didn’t actually happen, did it? It sounds disgusting.”

“Well naturally, Madara was a ruthless old man, so I don’t really know,” Tobi answered, his own face grimacing in disgust as he thought further into it, “I’m seriously just telling you what he told me. It didn’t work though until he was really old. He was nearly to his death when he unlocked the Rinnegan and apparently,” he took a deep breath and looked away, guilt splashed onto his features. “Um, apparently, he kidnapped a child with Senju blood and gave him his Rinnegan so he could use him as a pawn, knowing of his own impending demise.”

Konan clutched at her cloak, just above her knee and her normally serene expression was rather enraged. “You mean to tell me that you’re using us? You’re using Nagato and you used the Akatsuki,” she thundered, standing from his chair and pushing away from the Uchiha’s desk.

The scarred man remained oblivious to Konan’s reaction and tampered with the paper closest to him on his desk, observing as the stacks began to flutter with the kunoichi’s rage. “Let’s not fight; not here. I have to say ‘yes’, I did, but now that is no longer what I plan to do. I gave up on that as soon as I came back to this world and decided that I didn’t want anyone else to die needlessly, and I definitely don’t want your comrade to die needlessly, especially if that means his eyes will get into the hands of the creature I’m hunting.

“You see, whether we like it or not, you, me, Nagato, the Akatsuki, Kakashi, and the rest of this world are in this now, so my resolve is to prevent it from happening. That is why I joined the Akatsuki and that is why I have told you this story,” he reported with remarkable, eerie calm. “I want to help bring peace and keep your comrade safe. That is why I’m here.”

Konan’s papers shuffled back into her form but her stance spoke volumes on how weary she was towards the other shinobi. Somehow she knew that he had to be sincere. What man that spoke of peace actually worked the economy and pushed it into something greater or gave people options or went out of his way to help little old ladies and children, despite wearing his mask? Tobi was definitely different than the rest of the Akatsuki. He had heart and believed in their cause for peace. Konan could imagine what would have happened if Tobi hadn’t have swooped in and convinced Nagato to stay on the path to peace by negotiation after Yahiko’s death because it hurt her as well.

“Konan-kun, I’ve lived two lifetimes and I’ve seen a lot of death and I’ve seen my cherished one die and I missed caring for the last of my family as they died in grief. I don’t want anyone else to have to deal with these things. I especially don’t want children to have to deal with these things.” The shinobi stood from his desk and cautiously backed from it, keeping the kunoichi in his direct line of sight without activating his Sharingan.

“The reason I told you this story is because I want your help in making this a better world, not to plunge everyone into a poisonous dream. You can protect Nagato and stay by his side and we can bring the nations together to prevent war from occurring ever again,” he stated with a soft grin and held out his hand to shake, “What do ya say?”

Konan scrutinized the offered hand and finally deemed the Uchiha worthy. She picked her way over and gingerly shook the offered hand. The Uchiha grinned in such a way that his eyes crinkled and he hummed happily, “Thank you, Konan-kun! From now on, I will let you in on everything that’s going on.”

Konan shot him a look that meant that he obviously better stick to that and her own curiosity struck once more, “Are you going to tell me your real name?”

The Uchiha flushed and they pulled their hands apart. He rubbed the back of his head with a nervously chuckle, “Um, it’s Obito. Obito Uchiha.”

“I’ve never heard of you,” Konan stated brashly.

Obito sighed and pouted for a moment before huffing childishly and crossing his arms, “Yeah, whatever. I don’t go around telling everyone my name, just in case they come running to me for autographs or something one day or start stealing my stuff for their unyielding obsessions for the future bringer-of-peace.”

“I find that unlikely. That’s a terrible excuse,” Konan muttered.

“Nonetheless! It cannot be helped,” he said in enthused exaggeration, “A hero doesn’t always have to share his name and on that note, I really hate this office. I’m exhausted. It’s seriously time for me to say ‘good night’.”

At this point, Konan just went with it, not understanding why the Uchiha kept bouncing back and forth between emotions.

“So anyways, Konan-kun, time for bed,” he chirped happily, he gave a curt, bow and gestured towards the door. Konan followed his gesture as the man clicked off the lamp, plunging them into absolute darkness. Thankfully, it was a straight shot to the door and neither of them tripped over themselves or the numerous desks in the office suite.

Konan had reached the door and had just opened the handle when she heard the Uchiha whisper, “Sleep well, Konan-kun.” Immediately following his sentiment, all sign of the Uchiha was gone and she was left in the darkness, wondering what exactly the Uchiha had planned and if perchance he had spoken the truth or not. Either way, she was going to protect her comrade, her family, to her last breath despite the tale the Uchiha had foretold. At least she had a name to link him to and do her own digging into the truth because she had a feeling the road ahead was just as – if not darker than – this hallway.