Chapter Text
Obito still remembers Aunt Kyoko.
She hadn’t been his aunt by technicality. It’s the same sort of distant cousin-ship that had made them both vaguely related enough to share the Uchiha name by blood while being distant enough to not bother figuring out words for it. Obito hadn’t cared as a kid because they’d been alike: the kinship of outcasts. Obito, the dead-last bastard child and Kyoko and her son, the decedents of the ‘nidaime’s lapdog.’ The bigger Kakashi’s name had gotten, the more of a disappointment Obito had become; the more hostile the Uchiha and Konaha’s leadership got toward one another, the more suspicion had been turned on Uchiha Kagami’s decedents.
They hadn’t spoken much at first. Just friendly smiles traded on the streets.
Even so, he’s sure that she had something to do with a tiny Shisui turning up at his door with a box of dango, disarmingly big eyes, and request to learn how to throw kunai. Obito, who had still been trying to transition from an orphan’s stipend to a genin’s D-rank salary, had taken one sniff of the sweets and overridden all his better judgement.
Desperate child that Obito had been, he’d spun Shisui’s picking up kunai so quickly as a sign of his excellent teaching skills rather than uncanny skill on his cousin’s part. Kakashi had scoffed at him, but Rin had let him keep that little victory until the village at large (and the Uchiha themselves) started to notice of Shisui’s potential. Rin had liked Shisui’s easy cheer and the way he and Aunt Kyoko went out of their way to drag Obito along on the occasions they could.
Obito had liked it, too. Not that he’d ever have admitted it back then.
Aunt Kyoko is dead now.
Obito had happened across her fresh grave on recognizance not long after unleashing the Kyuubi. The sight left him frozen for far longer than was safe to linger. Sentimentality, Madara would’ve scoffed had he known. But there’s still a little boy in Obito that’s screaming himself bloody and raw and hasn’t shut up since seeing sensei and Kushina death-still like Rin. He knows this is the right thing to do. Something has to change, and there is a price for that. Yet...
Looking down at the battered mess of his little cousin, Obito wonders if maybe that’s why he does it. Because he owes this to a good woman caught in the crossfire. This is the very thing he wants to stop. Children in a warzone, mutilated and left for dead.
Three dead ROOT agents lay feet away from Shisui. Danzo has temporarily retreated into the shadows with one less sharingan. It’s clear Danzo’s men fished Shisui from the river not long ago; he’s still drenched, shaking, and his once-lively curls are laying limp against his cheek and neck. The fresh blood seeping from his empty eye sockets is diluted pink with the water that still drips from his face. His breathing is ragged and shuddering. One arm is clearly broken, and the fingers of his right hand are still twitching in a way that can’t be normal from where Danzo had pressed his cane against the bones.
“Where is it, Shisui?” Danzo had demanded, “Who did you give it to?”
Obito can only imagine he’d been trying to find the matching eye to the one he holds in his chakra-infused hand. He doubts Shisui is coherent enough to answer even if he’d wanted to. Cold fury burns in his core. Obito ignores it. He’s used to a numbing, gnawing rage these days.
He isn’t a healer; he isn’t anything like Rin. He can’t re-implant the eye. He isn’t even sure Shisui will live long enough to use it. If Obito takes Shisui with him, that chance is cut from slim to zero: infection would kill him in a week if Obito’s lackluster healing jutsu didn’t first. Not the least of which, Zetsu won’t approve of anything less than taking the eye for their plans, and Shisui’s state is proof that he won’t join Obito’s cause.
(He seriously considers it—taking the eye—for a minute. It would stop an enormous amount of bloodshed, but there’s just… something horrific about it. He remembers how if felt, laying in agony under the boulders with no way to see and no connection with Rin and Kakashi gone, and he just… can’t. Can't inflict that kind of waking hell on kind-hearted, smiling Shisui.)
Dropping him and the eye off close to Konaha’s hospital without protection isn’t an option either. Not with Danzo no doubt holing himself up even as Obito thinks. Not when the Sandaime refuses to act against his old teammate.
That had previously worked to Obito’s advantage. Now it’s just flat out irritating for all the options Danzo’s reach eliminates.
He knows the only option he has left—has already sensed the all too familiar chakra approaching—but all he can think about when he closes his eyes is Rin and Kakashi’s hand through her damn chest.
Shisui’s breath rattles on what might be a cough. Fresh blood seeps past his teeth and lips.
Obito does not expect the trembling, weak fingers that very nearly slide off his wrist as soon as they touch it. “Uchiha,” Shisui rasps, voice painfully small and breathy, “Help.” Whatever else he tries to force out is incomprehensible. He just keeps trying anyway, pale lips taking on a rapid blue tint even while they work around sluggish words with no voice to air them.
It’s… deeply unsettling. Not the least of which because Obito knows exactly what he’s struggling to say.
“Quiet,” Obito breathes, more gentle than he remembers himself being capable of.
Determined now, no matter how foolish this is, he spreads the palm of his prosthesis against his cousin’s chest and gathers his chakra as precisely as he can. Medic or not, Obito at least knows how to check for massive spinal injuries.
Shisui goes horribly still. For a brief moment, Obito thinks that he’s just watched the small cousin he once fussed over die. Then feeble chakra moves to touch his. Obito nearly jumps but doesn’t pull back. Shisui’s hand moves again, fumbling clumsily up Obito’s sleeve, over his shoulder, and pausing at the unyielding mask. His fingers blindly feel out the patterns carved into the mask. He works his mouth in the shape of Obito’s name and smiles the smile of someone in so much pain, he’s deliriously numb to it.
His teeth are pink with blood, but he smiles like his own personal angel is under that mask.
Obito decides then that he’ll make sure Danzo will regret this before the end. Soon.
With no damage to the spine to be concerned over, Obito seals the eye safely in a scroll. A shaking hand paws at his cloak, steeling Obito’s shaking resolve. His cousin will live to see a better world. One where his loyalty won’t be rewarded by his own allies stabbing him in the back.
He looks up just in time to see Kakashi and the other mokuten user’s chakra closing in.
He bends down silently and whispers “Sleep.” He activates Kamui and flees before either of them can catch more than a glimpse of his back.
He has a world to fix.
Naruto is halfway up the side of the hospital with a rope and a bucket of paint when someone says “Sasuke.”
(Sasuke, who is a bastard and started calling Naruto ‘dead-last’ last week when he kept missing with shuriken. Sasuke who hasn’t shown up to class in a week even though Naruto doesn’t ever remember him missing class before. Even that one time when sensei had to send him home because he was sick.
Sasuke, who’s road is tapped up with those creepy guys in masks standing around it.)
He’s pretty sure the voice is coming from an open window not far below him, and it has to be pretty close since he can sort of hear people talking. It’s weird because he picked this side of the hospital since it’s closer to the bakery owner he wants to teach a lesson about chasing kids out with brooms and also because people have been building on it, so there are a bunch of footholds. He hasn’t seen a room with a sick person yet.
“Please,” a guy says, “He’s been through enough.” It’s not the grumpy guy Naruto is pretty sure has to be Sasuke’s dad.
(He’s heard Sasuke’s mom’s voice a couple of times, too, when she picks him up at school. Naruto kind of likes her though: she smiles at him sometimes and he heard her scold Sasuke that one time when he was being a jerk and complaining about Naruto. Unless the grumpy guy really is Sasuke’s dad, Naruto doesn’t really understand how he could have a mom like that and still call somebody ‘dead-last.’)
Whoever this is doesn’t sound grumpy or sweet. Just… really sad. The kind of sad that makes Naruto think of empty apartments and sour milk.
“I’m sorry Shisui.” Naruto’s hands close around the drain that he’s hanging from because that’s Hokage-jiji. That’s the same voice he used the time Naruto asked why a girl at the park’s mom told her not to play with Naruto. “A few more days—that’s all we need. Then I will bring him here.”
It’s quiet long enough for Naruto’s arms to start hurting from holding himself and the paint bucket up for so long. “I understand,” the Shisui guy says.
Naruto frowns because it kind of sounds like he doesn’t mean it.
A door shuts, and Naruto lets go with one hand to start climbing again. He’s going to be Hokage one day, so that means getting a head start on showing mean bakery owners they can’t just treat village kids badly.
Somebody yells and something smashes.
Naruto flinches at just the wrong time. His fingers slip, and his foot doesn’t catch.
Before he gets that it’s him yelling and falling from the third floor, he’s stock still, hanging in the air from fingers clamped tight around his wrist. Wide blue eyes find a single dark one, and Naruto is pretty sure that guys aren’t supposed to have eyelashes that long. Naruto tries to catch his breath while the guy who caught him pulls him in through the window and to a dark hospital room with a table that’s snapped in half.
He’s older than Naruto, but he's still kind of short. He… sort looks like a mummy with all the bandages that wrap around his hand, neck, and over the eye Naruto can’t see. And, well… he also kind of looks a little like Sasuke with pale skin and dark eyes and hair… if Sasuke’s hair went crazier that Naruto’s. There’s bright pink paint on his arm and the hospital yukata, same as Naruto and his clothes and the floor.
Which means Naruto has probably painted the side of the hospital on accident. Oops.
It takes him a minute to realize the guy is speaking.
“Huh?” Naruto says then frowns and adds on, “Wow, mister. You look really bad.”
The one eye blinks. Naruto wants to tell him that, if he thinks that’s a smile, he really probably needs to be in the hospital. He doesn’t because the guy asks like he’s already asked before, “Are you okay?” He’s looking at Naruto’s wrist where he grabbed it to stop the fall.
…Weird. This is usually the part where people start yelling at him for doing something stupid. Or, worse, frowning at him like they’re disappointed or… scared. Maybe this guy is…?
Naruto stands up and puffs out his chest proudly. “’Course I’m okay!” he declares with a grin, “I’m going to be the strongest shinobi in the village one day; heights don’t scare me!”
The guy—because Naruto recognizes the voice as the Shisui guy he’d er… overheard talking—winces and goes a little pale. Which doesn’t look good because he’s already really pale, and he suddenly looks even more sick, and... Naruto… sort of panics and starts moving his arms because sometimes that makes Iruka-sensei smile. “Hey, you aren’t dying are you?” he demands, “Because Hokages aren’t supposed to let people die! Hey, mister, you aren’t allergic to paint, are you?”
There’s a weird second where everything goes still.
Then the guy makes a really weird sound like he’s about to choke. Naruto almost runs out the door for a doctor, but then the guy does it again. This time it sounds a little less like somebody dying and a little more like…
He’s laughing, Naruto realizes. With the look on his face, Naruto had almost missed it because that’s the face most people make when they’re crying. And it’s not a nice laugh anyway. It’s weird.
Naruto scowls and crosses his arms, “Laughing at people isn’t nice.”
The guy stops and tries smiling again. It looks a little less creepy, Naruto guesses. “No, I…” he trails off and shakes his head, “I’m sorry. That wasn’t very nice, was it?”
Naruto blinks. Pauses. He’s not good at tests like Shikamaru and Sakura, but he knows what people look like when they really mean something. This guy really means it—that he didn’t want to upset Naruto. Naruto still frowns at him, but he puffs his chest out again and shuts his eyes and turns his head to the side. That’s what the people on the posters do when they want to look tough. “I guess I can forgive you,” he decides because he’s going to be a good Hokage who won’t make people sad when they mean that they’re sorry. He peeks out of the eye closest to the guy. “Only ‘cause you’re sick.”
The guy shuts his eye for a minute like Naruto does when he’s trying to calm himself down for a test. Only… it kind of looks cool on him. When he opens his eye again, it’s almost that weird look that Hokage-jiji gives him sometimes. The one Naruto doesn't really understand. “Thanks for going easy on me,” the guy says.
Naruto gets as far as “Why were you talking about Sas—“ when he blinks, and there’s suddenly one of those creepy guys in a mask standing between him and Shisui. He’s… really tall, Naruto realizes, staring up at him as he points at the door.
There’s a shuffle behind the guy before Shisui skirts around the creep with an apologetic look. “He fell,” Shisui says. They both just… stare at each other for a minute while Naruto thinks about crawling back out of the window anyway. The creep drops his arm but still nods at the door without saying anything.
Shisui sighs and nods. He scoots around the creeper like he isn’t scared.
(Not that Naruto is, because he isn’t scared of anything! Especially not some weird guy in a mask!)
He crouches in front of Naruto, but he looks really sad again. Naruto scowls at the creep because it’s probably his fault. “Can you keep a secret?” Shisui asks.
Naruto blinks and nods, “Ninja are supposed to keep secrets.”
“That’s right,” Shisui says. Something in Naruto stutters to a halt because there are only two people who don’t just stop there and tell him he isn’t a ninja and that he probably won’t graduate anyway. “My friend here is on a really important mission for the whole village.” Shisui points to the creep. “But the mission will be compromised if anyone knows about me being here, and a lot of people could get hurt. So you have to keep this a secret, okay?”
This guy is… trusting Naruto with something really important. For a second, he just stares at Shisui in dumb shock. Then he grins and gives the guy a thumbs up, “Uzumaki Naruto never breaks his promises!”
Shisui’s eye widens. Naruto realizes in that one horrible minute what’s happened. People older than Naruto just sort of… know who he is. He’d just guessed that Shisui did, too. Naruto is about to make a run for the door but there’s suddenly a pale, bandaged hand in front of him.
He stares at it while he temporarily forgets what a handshake is.
Shisui isn’t running or yelling or telling him to get out.
“Thanks, Naruto,” he says, “Let’s shake on it, alright?”
Naruto does. Shisui’s fingers are a lot bigger than his and calloused like a real ninja’s.
Naruto leaves the hospital through the front door and ignores the looks his paint-splattered clothes get. He doesn’t even think about stealing another bucket of paint to spill on the baker. He stops for ramen on his way home to celebrate.
He sort of forgets about what he’s overhead for the night.
By the time Naruto leaves, Shisui’s limbs decide the jig is up. Gloved hands end up catching half his weight on his stagger back to bed. He’s too tired to protest. He’s only been awake a few days. Even with the medics’ impressive work, he has more than a little recovery ahead of him.
It’s more than he can say about a great majority of the people he knows. Knew.
They’re dead. Because he jumped, and Itachi couldn’t… Didn’t…
“Not one your better ideas,” Hound comments with that tone that’s just a touch too casual.
I know, part of Shisui screams until its bloody and raw, but they aren’t talking about nearly the same thing.
He leans back against the pillows and momentarily regrets having pulled out the line for the painkillers. His arm hurts, and there’s a strange numbness in his right hand that he can’t quite get used to. (Nerve damage, the medic—ANBU in disguise, he's guessing—had said, The sensitivity probably won’t return much.) His whole face aches around the eye that’s still missing—the one Itachi still has—and the one that they managed to reconnect.
His thoughts are too lucid on the drugs though. He can’t control them and compartmentalize like he needs to in order to function right now. And he needs to function. The Hokage is still tracking down Danzo, Sasuke thinks he’s alone in the world, there are three Uchiha left in the world, and Itachi is…
Shisui has seen war and death and dealt both before actually hitting puberty, but…
This is his family.
Was.
Was his family.
He swallows back the lump in his throat and tilts his head to look at Hound. “I didn’t know you thought I had good ideas.” He tries for humor. It comes out rough and falls as flat as Shisui almost had a minute ago.
Hound takes a post leaning against the wall by the door. He’s not on guard duty. Shisui doesn’t have a personal guard because technically he’s still legally dead, and a mass of ANBU on the empty half of the hospital would be a dead giveaway just in case Danzo is in the mood to try for round two. He’s reasonably sure they’re still clustered fairly close by though.
Shisui doesn’t mind that. He's very much in favor of keeping his eye where it belongs for the rest of his life, thanks.
“If I had any doubts, they’re gone after the stunt you pulled,” Hound replies flatly.
Oh. So the ANBU do know. Shisui isn’t entirely surprised. Nor is he surprised that the Hokage has apparently been taking a metered approach with how much information he passes Shisui. Part of him grateful because he doesn’t think he can take much earth-shattering revelations more right now; the other part is so ready to get angry at anything to release the pressure valve but is just too numb to fall into the wounded animal routine.
“Did you need something?” Shisui prompts because he really doubts Hound came here just to scare a kid out of Shisui’s room, and Shisui himself could really use a little while to just stare at a ceiling and not think.
Hound’s stare is suddenly less intense. He folds his arms in a way that’s probably meant to look more casual. It works for Shisui only because he vaguely knows what he’s looking for, but he’s pretty sure it would terrify civilians. “I’ve formally requested for you to be transferred to my team when you’ve recovered,” Hound explains, “Hokage-sama will allow it if you agree.”
Oh. Well, that’s unexpected.
“I need to take care of Sasuke,” he replies. If it were just Shisui’s choice, he’d jump at it—anything to funnel the hollowed-out feeling in his gut into something productive. He’s pretty sure that’s the reason Hound is offering in the first place: he remembers Kakashi being there the day they etched Obito’s name in the Memorial—an echoing hollowness in the one eye he could see. He remembers it seeping in worse, like a poison, with Rin.
ANBU pay is second to none, but life expectancy is low, and missions are often long and difficult. Not exactly ideal when he’s factoring in… basically finishing raising a seven-year-old.
A seven-year-old who’d spent long days trapped in a horrific genjutsu of his beloved brother’s making after stumbling onto brutal murder of their extended family.
Dammit, Itachi. What were you thinking?
Shit. There’s the lump in his throat again.
Hound nods like he doesn't even notice, “I thought you might say that.” He stands up straight and heads toward the open window. “Watch out for the new chuunin sensei when you get released; I think he might actually cry.”
…Or yell. Iruka has always been really good at yelling. Probably both, Shisui figures with a wince.
He can’t say he’d be any better if a childhood classmate managed to come back from the dead. Which…
“I saw Obito,” slips out before Shisui can think better of it. Hound goes rigid. A half-manic part of Shisui wonders if he’s regretting the offer now. “I mean I didn’t see him—eyes and all,” he amends with a vague gesture at his face and a wince, “But I felt him. His chakra.”
Carefully, way too scripted, Hound slips his hands in his pockets. Shisui is sure they’re balled into fists. “You could've sensed anything when we found you,” he points out.
“I know,” Shisui replies, shutting his eye.
He doesn’t know why he said it. Maybe because those hadn’t been the hands and voice of boy who died younger than Shisui. For all the sharingan’s recall abilities, he can remember what Obito’s chakra felt like, but he can’t recall what Obito’s voice sounded like. Maybe he says it because he thinks Kakashi might be less reckless if he knows Obito is waiting on them on the other side? Maybe because none of this makes sense anymore, and Shisui is desperately trying hard to find his footing a world that’s been flipped on its head before he has to be strong for Sasuke.
Even if that foothold is his dead cousin's estranged rival.
“Think about the offer,” Hound says. Then he’s gone.
It isn’t long before Shisui is falling back into a thankfully dreamless sleep.