The Violent Tide

The first thing Obito realized when he woke up was that he was still alive. This, understandably, confused him as the last thing he could remember was being crushed by some pretty impressive boulders. The second thing he realized was that he was covered in bandages and not bound or restricted in any way, which brought him to the conclusion that he'd somehow lived long enough for reinforcements to come to retrieve his dead body and find him alive.

When he managed to fight off the numbness of the high-quality drugs he was on- only the best for him, after all, since he's just that awesome- enough to open his eyes- eye, god damn it that's going to get annoying- however, he wasn't greeted by the stark white and much hated ceiling of the hospital but the cool grey of a doton-made cave. This perturbed him for a second, but then he reasoned that perhaps he was in such bad condition they couldn't move him, which was understandable even if the thought of being in a cave made him… uncomfortable.

The woman's voice scrapped that theory. "Ah, so you're awake." He turned his head, wincing in pain as it pulled at his side, to see a completely unfamiliar woman with no hitai-ate in sight. This understandably worries him.

"W-who?" he croaks out in what was supposed to be a cool, composed voice but ended up sounding more like a breathless whimper.

"An ally. Or recruiter, you might say…" she trailed off thoughtfully, staring down at the mortar and pestle she was using to grind some pungent smelling herbs in her lap, oblivious to his sudden alarm.

"Iwa." he growled, realizing how much pain he was going to be in soon. It would be all too easy to interrogate him when they don't even have to hurt him. All they'd really need to do was leave him alone for a day or so and he'd be begging for painkillers. "I will never turn traitor! I will never betray Konoha!"

To his astonishment, she rolled her eyes. "I'm not asking you to. In fact, what I have in mind might very well save Konoha, if all goes according to plan."

Like he hasn't heard that line before. The whole, 'your village is rotten, you'd be saving it if you helped us' BS was textbook persuasion tactics. So old-school even Obito- admittedly not so great at textbook stuff- knew about it. "I will never help you overthrow Konoha, so you can shove your brainwashing speech where the sun don't shine!"

At this she actually laughs. "That's funny coming from you. Geeze, where was this common sense the first time around?"

What did she mean 'the first time around'? What the heck? Was he captured by a crazy woman? "Huh? What are you talking about?"

She waved a hand dismissively with an amused smile. "Never mind, never mind. Not relevant. No, I'm serious kid, I'm not trying to brainwash you. Honestly I wasn't even going to offer, but I thought I'd give you a chance. You are pretty powerful after all, and god knows we'll need all the help we can get in the shitstorm that's going to do down."

Definitely crazy. He's super awesome and everything, but Obito's honest enough with himself to know he wouldn't be valuable to whatever delusional plan she has cooked up. He's just a chunin, and barely at that, and he only has one Sharingan that he awakened late in life, so chances are it'll be weak and useless. He'd play along, though, and get as much out of her as he can while he works on how he can escape when he's well enough. "What's going to happen?"

"Oh, just the death of one of your teammates, the attack of the Kyuubi, your sensei and his wife dying to seal it into his kid, the massacre of your clan and the end of the world orchestrated by the last remaining member and your two hundred or so year old ancestor." she answer nonchalantly, reaching over to grab a huge medical tome off the doton-made rock ledge she was using as a table.

Crap, so she knows he's an Uchiha. And possibly about his team and sensei. Not that it was a secret or anything- Minato-sensei is going to be Hokage soon, they're kind of famous- but he'd really hoped she just randomly stumbled across him and decided to recruit him. Still, what an utterly insane story. How is anyone supposed to believe that?

"You don't believe me." she intoned when he failed to come up with something to say. "I don't blame you, really. This world is so incredibly messed up. Seriously, how does stuff like that even happen?"

"Ah- no! Of course I believe you! Sign me up!" Wow, he really sucked at acting.

"Wow, you really suck at acting." she agreed, pouring water into the mixture she was grinding before. "It's all true , though. I can see the future."

"Really."

She scowled at him. "Yes, really. Well, more like a future, actually, and now that I've saved you things are going to start changing, but you're just too big a threat to let things go on like they would have."

He couldn't restrain a snort at that. "Me, a threat? I'm just a chunin. As if. If you really can see the future you'd know I'm not worth the effort you're going through to heal me."

She actually gave him a pitying expression at that, coming over to the bed with a foul-looking concoction he had the sinking suspicion was for him, bendy straw and all. "You really don't have a very high opinion of yourself, kid. Guess you had a mask too, huh? Naruto's not the only one hiding self-esteem issues behind a smile. Open wide!"

She knows someone named Naruto? Who names their kid after a ramen topping? That's like asking people to make fun of him. Sounds like something sensei's girlfriend would do, actually. He shuddered, and not solely because of the taste-bud killing garbage-flavored fluid she just forced him to drink.

"Your Sharingan's special, kid. You have the potential to be one of the strongest shinobi alive in a decade or so." She grabbed another glass- this one full of orange juice- and held the straw to his lips while he sipped it down, grateful to get the taste out of his mouth. After it was empty and she set it back down on the table she turned to him with a dead serious look on her face and said, "I don't expect you to believe me kid, which is why I'm going to prove it. In one month's time- around when you'll be up and moving- some Iwa shinobi are going to infiltrate Konoha and attempt to abduct Rin to turn her into a jinchuriki. Kakashi will follow and rescue her, but on trying to get back to the village they'll be cut off by reinforcements and Rin will ask Kakashi to kill her. He will send a Chidori through her chest."

He choked at the mental image, all too easy to see after how many times he's watched Kakashi pulverize the heart and lungs of enemy-nin, cauterizing the wound as it kills so there's no blood beyond the initial shock. He didn't believe her- there was no way she could see the future- but he found himself worried anyway. What if… what if she's telling the truth?

No. No way. Nobody can see the future. No way would Kakashi kill Rin. He might be a cold blooded bastard, but he was crying when Obito gave him his eye- something he's going to tease him mercilessly about, when he gets home- there's no way he'd ever hurt Rin. He promised. It's Kakashi after all, as much as he hates the bastard's holier-than-thou attitude there's no way he'd ever be beaten so easily. Kakashi never fails at anything. (Well, anything shinobi related, anyway. He's so emotionally constipated it's almost not even funny anymore.)

She caught the half-horrified, half disbelieving look on his face and patted his good arm reassuringly. "Don't worry kid, I'm not going to let it happen. I've been planning this out for twenty years. No way in hell am I going to let Kakashi end up alone and as messed up as he was originally going to be. He deserves better than that. Now, go to sleep. Don't think I can't see how you're forcing yourself to stay awake, it isn't good for you."

As if her voice was the trigger, a sudden wave of exhaustion crashed over him, crumbling what willpower was keeping him awake. "Y-you… put something in that… medicine…"

She smiled him cheerfully. "No, actually. I put it in the orange juice. We need to get your ability to detect poisons and drugs up to par, kid. Good night."

'It's true. It's all true!' was all he could think, chasing after the red-haired figure leaping leisurely from tree to tree while he struggled to keep up.

He'd only been out of bed for a week, a week they'd spent spying on Rin-chan. The woman- Shuurei, she said, though she refused to give her last name- knew the day it'd happen and even the place, but she wanted to keep tabs on her the whole week before just in case the butterfly effect managed to influence major events already. It'd killed him to see her and say nothing, to watch Kakashi of all people moping around and stalking the Memorial Stone. Though after what Shuurei told him of the bastard's life it wasn't all that surprising.

She'd put a seal on him that prevented him from disobeying her, paralyzing him whenever he was about to act on his desires. She'd been all apologetic and slightly guilty but told him that it just wasn't worth the risk. Why didn't anyone ever tell him fuinjutsu could be so cool? If he'd known it was more than just hiding away kunai and making things explode he'd have tried to learn it ages ago! As it was he'd pestered her for an hour straight before she agreed to teach him when they had the opportunity.

He'd actually started to forget she was a crazy woman because aside from her matter of fact attitude about what she insisted was the future she was fairly normal. A little jaded, a bit sarcastic, but surprisingly friendly despite it all. She never laughed when he asked a question or looked disappointed when he messed up and she always took the time to patiently explain things and never got frustrated when she had to go over it again and again. He was actually starting to like Shuurei, and that… scared him.

Obito's always been good at reading people, or at least at knowing when they're telling the truth. At their first meeting Obito had been too distracted by her obvious insanity to really get a good read on her, but as he got to know her a little better- as infuriatingly mysterious as she insists on being- he started to realize that she's not the kind of person to lie about stuff like that, and it scared him. Because if she isn't lying, and she isn't insane- he hadn't seen any signs of it beyond her whole 'I can see the future' shpeal- then she's telling the truth, and the whole world is depending on him, the dead-last Uchiha failure with only one eye.

And because if it's true, he might just lose his only friends.

It happened just like she said it would. Rin captured- why is it always Rin?- Kakashi chases after her, and he's so hell bent on getting her back that he doesn't notice the contingent of Iwa-nin left behind to take out any followers. He's so frantic that they fall behind, leaving him just enough time to save Rin and kill her captors before they once again step into his sensory range. They stop in the same clearing Shuurei showed him just two days before, and Rin asks Kakashi to kill her. Tells him to save her from the fate of becoming nothing but a mindless weapon to destroy the home that she loves, and he refuses. He's promised, he shouts at her. He promised Obito he'd protect her. He wasn't going to lose anyone else.

She smiles, so, incredibly sad, and Kakashi doesn't see, because an Iwa-nin just burst into the clearing and Kakashi's charging at him desperately, Chidori shrieking. It's a powerful move with impressive speed but he doesn't expect it to match up to a jounin, it's not quite there yet, so he's surprised when the attacker makes no move to dodge it and it hits him straight on. There's a moment of surprised satisfaction, but then the Iwa-nin coughs up blood and the air shimmers, revealing his hand shoved through Rin's chest.

And Obito can't breathe, can't work up the energy to scream, because he couldn't move. He couldn't stop it because Shuurei, that cruel, horrible woman, ordered him not to interfere and the damn seal burning like a brand just above his heart paralyzed him and forced him to watch while Rin died, the light draining out of her beautiful brown eyes…

A red blur streaks by him but he doesn't care, doesn't see. All he can concentrate on is the pain inside him, burning like acid clawing it way out of his chest. A raging, impotent fire with nowhere to go that migrates upwards to pool behind his eyes, and he screams. He screams Rin's name with such force he tastes blood and feels it trickle down the back of his throat and another voice mirrors him somewhere nearby. When it's gone, when the fire is banked and cools to an icy rage and settles into the weight of grief, he feels a pulse of chakra nearby and forces his eyes to open, blearily trying to make out the hazy figures in the clearing below that are moving now. Blinking away the tears he focuses and the world comes alive.

It's like the difference between regular sight and the Sharingan, times two hundred. It's like reality in surround-sound and Technicolor. His vision is so acute he can count the hairs on an individual leaf hundreds of yards away. He can almost see the air currents and the wisps of blue chakra they carried away from the battle in front of him.

He can also see the rise and fall of Rin's completely unblemished chest as she lays unconscious on the ground, a full foot away from the direction Kakashi was aiming.

She's alive. Rin is alive! How is she still alive?!

She's also unconscious and there's an Iwa-nin coming after her with a sword.

In seconds he's on his feet and going after the fucker who dared to try to hurt his precious people. He didn't think, he was beyond conscious thought at this point. He simply reacted, downing him with a kunai to the throat before he could even react. Another three come rushing at him and where are they all coming from? But it doesn't matter because they're dead, them and five other assailants because they couldn't react, couldn't keep up with his speed and since when was he this fast? One of them throws rock spikes at him shooting out of the ground but he sees them like they're moving in slow motion, it's almost easy to dodge. He's pretty sure he could snatch the kunai coming at him right out of the air, and in fact- he does. They end up buried in a kunoichi's gut and she's down, staggering into one of her comrades and tripping him enough to send him off balance, and he uses the opportunity to take him out and when he's down it takes him a few seconds to register that there's no one else coming for him. He falls to his knees, panting from the exertion but he senses movement going towards his unconscious comrades behind him and he's up again in an instant, crouching over their bodies in a defensive stance, Sharingan blazing to see…

Shuurei, crouching down to pick up a scroll that'd been draped over their bodies, covered in seals.

"It's just me, Obito."

He doesn't move, his lip curling upwards in an angry snarl. "What did you do? How is she still alive?"

Slowly she straightened up and backed away, hands open and visible to show she had no intentions of attacking. "I'm sorry, Obito, but it had to happen this way. She was never in any danger but you had to think she was dead to activate your Mangekyou, you and Kakashi both." She motioned to the edges of the clearing, where his Sharingan could now pick up the faint outlines of several very well concealed scrolls covered in complicated seals. "Illusion seals, difficult to create but much harder to pick up on than a genjutsu. When Kakashi started up his Chidori I activated a sleeping seal I put on her clothes earlier this week to knock her out of the range of his Chidori and activated the illusion seals so both you and Kakashi believed he'd killed her."

"Why? Why would you do that?! Do you know how much it hurt to think-"

The look on her face stopped his questions- and his outrage- cold. The light in her eyes dimmed and the color darkened from a vibrant leaf green to a cloudy evergreen, her skin turned several shades paler, and her expression just seemed… dead. Despondent. A depth of misery he'd only just barely touched seconds ago, deep rooted and fully matured. She reminded him of war veterans, and with a start he realized that she probably was.

"Have you ever heard of Uzushio, Obito? The Village of Longevity, Konoha's sister village, destroyed in the war. That was my home, and I watched it burn. I watched invaders kill my people- my family- and I couldn't do anything to stop it. I know better than anyone what that feels like and believe me when I say I wouldn't wish that on anyone, but lives are riding on this. We need your Mangekyou, they need your Mangekyou, and this was the safest, easiest way to activate it. If there were any other way I would've taken it in a heartbeat, but if an illusion and a few moments of grief give you the power to make sure no one ever watches their home burn and their family die, then I'm not going to hesitate."

Her eyes, her conviction, the fact that she knew this was going to happen… "This is real, isn't it? You really can…"

"…Yeah."

And then she was fighting the instinct to attack him when he lunged forward and wrapped his arms around her waist. "Thank you." he breathed, face mashed against her side. "Thank you. You saved them. You saved me."

She smiled at him softly, the hard lines of grief smoothed away, and when he pulled back she asked, "So, I guess that means you agree? You'll come with me willingly?"

Obito's cheerful grin faltered for a moment and his eyes darted to his teammates, sleeping on the ground. He thought of Rin, large brown eyes reflecting the green glow covering her hands, a fond smile on her lips as she laughed at one of his jokes. He remembered Kakashi, standing in front of the Memorial Stone, motionless as the stone itself and an expression like he was the one who died. Minato sensei when he came to drag him back, pleading with Kakashi to eat, to sleep, trying to convince him to make an appointment with the Yamanakas, the bags under his eyes just as deep as Kakashi's. The one team meeting sensei managed to drag them both to, awkward and eerily silent and heavy with a grief they couldn't put into words.

They'll miss him, but they don't need him. Not like Shuurei-san does. They have each other, at least, but Shuurei… she doesn't have anyone. Not even a village. And he can save them, save so many people with her help and get stronger. Strong enough that nothing like this ever has to happen again.

So he takes a deep breath that shakes a little and swallows hard before he replies, "Yeah. Yeah, I'll go with you." Thinking of Kakashi, head bent with grief, standing for hours on end in front of the Memorial, and he reaches up to the orange goggles strapped to his head- a little dented, a little beaten up after the cave-in but remarkably intact considering- and pulls them off, setting them in Kakashi's open hand. "Don't let it get to you, teme. You're stronger than that. Don't forget about Rin-chan and Minato-sensei, because they need you."

He turns to Rin and opens his mouth, about to say something to her, too, when Shuurei's body goes tense, and her head whips around to stare in the direction of Konoha. She puts a hand on his shoulder and whispers urgently, "We need to go. Now." He hesitates for a bare second, staring down at Rin's face with a soft expression and open longing, before he closes his mouth and nods, turning away. They dart into the tree cover and make as if to leave, but Shuurei stops him with a raised hand and reaches into her bag to pull out two small seal tags she plastered to his arm and her thigh, then gestures for him to take cover and they watch as Konoha-nin come into the clearing.

As if that were his cue, in that very same instant Kakashi starts to rouse, bleary eyes blinking open only for him to shut the red one with a wince against the chakra drain and the strain of using it for so long. A medic- a Hyuga, by the looks of it- leans over him, hand aglow with medical chakra, and moments later he sits up, blearily rubbing at his good eye as he slips his hitai-ate over the Sharingan. He blinks, looking confused for a second before an expression of utter horror comes over his face and he jerks around to look for Rin and stills- shock and complete bewilderment playing across his face when he sees her, alive and well and completely, utterly whole. He's shaking, and it's only when his hands clench into fists that he realizes there's something in his hand and he stares down at the goggles, what skin there was visible going as pale as his hair. Then his eyes snap to the surrounding trees, darting all over, scanning for something as the other shinobi help him to his feet. It's only when one of them makes to pick up Rin and sling her over his shoulder that he abandons the search, wheeling on the man and probably snarling at him, if the shocked looks on their faces are anything to judge by. Gingerly, with more care then he's ever shown anyone before, he picks Rin up and carries her princess style, head bowed and shaking with emotion as they leap off into the trees. Kakashi hesitates, taking one last, slow look over the clearing and the trees before following them, goggles still clenched in his fist.

Watching them go, Kakashi isn't the only one who's shaking. Shuurei hesitates, empathy in her eyes, and pulls him into a quick, awkward hug. "Come on, let's go brat. We've got a world to save."