"So, where are we?" Curiously, Aiko poked a thin blue teacup with the tip of her finger—and then jerked to catch it when the delicate china tipped over and rolled off the shelf. Guiltily, she tossed a glance over her shoulder to be certain that her companion hadn't seen.
Nope, she was safe.
Surreptitiously, she awkwardly grabbed the lip of the teacup braced against her chest and carefully placed it in the sink. The dusty sink with hard-water stains and a suspiciously black plate lying abandoned at the bottom. Yuck.
'I don't think he's much of a housekeeper.'
She internally congratulated herself for not shattering the dish, grabbing two cups at random and rinsing them before taking them to the dusty table.
She hadn't been feeling particularly self-satisfied after the odd swirly transportation technique had made her feel dizzy and faint, to the point that drowned out the comforting humming in her ears and head. It was more than a bit embarrassing to realize she had gone nearly limp and was being supported by her companion, even if he didn't seem to mind. He hadn't given his name yet, actually. She frowned. Would it be rude to ask?
"A place that I have used as a retreat in past," he rumbled. He had such a pleasant voice, Aiko decided. She could listen to it all day.
Which was good, because he wasn't done talking.
"A sanctuary, of a sort. It's yours to use now. Actually, it's yours in general," he modified. "You hadn't been here before, the base you've stayed at in past is lost to us now." His fingers tensed slightly on the teapot he was fiddling with, but there was no other show of emotion at the recitation of a rather grim fact. "I'll show you other safehouses so you know where to go if something goes wrong, but you can do what you wish with this location."
"Oh." She blinked. "Thank you, I suppose." Was that what you were meant to say when someone gave you a house? She had no idea.
His lips twitched. Aiko noticed again that only one side of his mouth moved. That was odd. It probably wouldn't be polite to say anything, right?
She was mortified when he not-so-subtly covered half of his face with a hand. Flushing, Aiko looked down at the table. That was why she missed the faintly amused look on his face while he stood to go take the boiling water off of the heat. As he passed, he ruffled her hair. "It's alright," her companion excused. "I'm wearing a henge."
"Why?" Aiko asked innocently, running her fingers over the cold porcelain in front of her, marveling at its smoothness.
The next pause was a dangerous one, fraught with tension that she did not understand in the slightest.
"Because I'm ugly," he eventually answered, with a strange undertone that probably meant she shouldn't prod. Aiko didn't recognize it.
"I doubt that." She propped her chin up on her palms and glanced up at him through her eyelashes. "And who cares about 'ugly' anyways?"
There were a lot of things that were worse than being ugly. Like being mean or having to be bored or talking too much like Shizune. She didn't believe he could be so ugly that he was scary. He had a very nice voice, and besides, he was a good person. Even if he was ugly, she would just smile and tell him he was fine. That seemed like a thing that friends should do, right?
Even Aiko could tell that there was something unsaid and uncomfortable in the room when he took nearly a minute to reply. She fidgeted until he silently poured newly steeped tea into her cup, apparently studying her face. With almost childlike delight Aiko leaned forward enough to breathe in the fragrant mist that the cup gave off, letting her eyes flutter shut. According to him the tea leaves were stale, but it smelled nice to her.
He seemed to decide something in that moment. "Very well." His voice slipped just a little bit lower than it had been in that short phrase.
"Hmm?" Aiko pried one eye open – and then opened the other as well, to examine her friend.
He didn't look that different from his henge, really. It had exaggerated some of his features, and minimized others. The henge had been given brown eyes instead of his pure, deep black. They were striking, actually, she didn't know why he would want to cover them up. Very pretty eyes, with short but thick lashes. Why had he made them longer in the henge- vanity? His lips were thin but his jaw was strong.
Aiko touched the tip of her own nose thoughtfully. It wasn't much like his. Hers was straight and slightly upturned, but her friend's was slightly off center and just a little long.
It was probably a good amount of nose for a man, even if it would have been silly on her. In short…
"You're not ugly at all," she said honestly. "Actually, you're pretty."
The baffled expression he gave her pulled at the funny upraised lines on one side of his face, causing interesting wrinkles and shadows. Surprise at the phenomenon pulled a delighted laugh out of her lips. Without thinking, she reached out to touch just to see what they felt like. They looked soft and dry. They were like her scars, but the material seemed different—something that was the same tint as his skin, instead of a paler shade.
His hand caught her wrist inches before her fingertips grazed his skin, just a little too tightly to be comfortable. Aiko froze, suddenly unsure of herself. "I just wanted to touch," she defended herself weakly, not exactly sure what she'd done wrong.
After a moment, he released her hand. "Drink your tea."
She did.
"I think you have nice eyes," she offered meekly as a peace offering, once she was halfway through her cup and the silence had become uncomfortable.
He made a strange sound. "Thank you." After a moment, he relaxed, just a little, and shook his head. "You probably don't remember who I am, do you?" When she shook her head, he just nodded mildly. "Understandable. I'm Obito. We're both former Konoha nin."
"We are?" She blinked. "I think Shizune implied I was active duty."
"I- I'm sorry," Obito said quietly. "She was lying," he said gravely, setting down his drink and leaning over slightly to give her a very serious look. "They were taking advantage of your trauma to trick you. You've been working with me for years," he sighed. " Ever since we met while you were stationed on the Land of Wind's northern border. Konoha recently found out about me. They caught us meeting. We played it off like I was threatening you, but we both knew that it was only a matter of time until they put the pieces together. I wanted you to come away, where you were safe, but you wanted to finish your mission." He looked deeply dissatisfied. Regret sparked in his dark eyes.
"Oh." Aiko shuddered, feeling distinctly unsettled as she drank up the information that Obito offered. That… did seem to fit with the cautious feeling her intuition had given her. And explained why she hadn't recognized Shizune, when she supposedly should have. Shizune had been awfully squirrelly and secretive, asking questions but never answering them… In retrospect, that was bad.
"Why did I leave Konoha- why did we leave Konoha," she corrected, mind still on Shizune. The older woman had seemed professional, if not kind. She still felt oddly betrayed.
Obito grimaced. "Well, that's complicated," he obfuscated. "Really complicated. You and I share a distaste for Konoha's methodologies," he said delicately. "And I know that you, personally, really chafed against the restrictions they placed on your freedom. You were always trying to get out of the village."
Fancy that. She couldn't imagine why anyone would want to run away from the kind of people who would try to trick an amnesiac patient. God, that really bothered her. Shiz- that woman had lied to her so Aiko didn't know anything was wrong. Maybe she wasn't even a doctor. Aiko bit her lip, just a little too hard, breaking the skin.
'Maybe she isn't a doctor,' some paranoid part of her brain echoed, 'and maybe she is. Can I really base my entire opinion on this off of a gut reaction?'
On the other hand, was there a reason for her to disbelieve Obito? Not as far as she could tell.
"Hey, careful." Obito frowned at her, but didn't invade her personal space. "It's gonna hurt to get hot tea in that, you know."
She guiltily sucked at her lip, keeping blood from trickling down her chin by the simple expedient of licking it up.
He just sighed and shook his head at her, languidly leaning back. "Don't worry. It'll make sense eventually, but know that you're safe here. I won't let anyone get to you or make you go back." After a moment, he frowned. "Although some of my associates are dangerous people," Obito admitted ruefully. "Please be careful, until you know what's going on. Alright?"
"Alright," she agreed quietly, not entirely certain she was telling the truth. She would do what she wanted. But on the other hand, he was being considerate by giving her options and information. He hadn't really forbid her to do anything. Maybe she should wait a little bit to be sure. It was unsettling to hear about her apparently dangerous life second-hand and not know what she could safely do or say. If she didn't like what Obito thought she should do, could she leave? Would Konoha hunt her down and drag her back?
Aiko shuddered. She didn't remember living in Konoha, but she knew it was a shinobi village. A military institution wouldn't always be nice.
Obito seemed to care if she was hurt, as far as she could tell. That was more pleasant than professional, detached interest like she'd experienced in the hospital.
'It looks a lot like he's giving me options. If he's telling the truth, he might have saved my life from that woman and the people she worked for. On the other hand, she seemed amicable. Maybe I could have worked things out in Konoha.'
He smiled ruefully, as if he knew what was going on in her head.
Her stomach lurched. She tightened her fingers around her cup, disgusted with herself for sitting across from someone who obviously cared about her and disregarding his help. He'd gone more than a bit out of his way to rescue her, and she should appreciate that even if she didn't need it.
'There's no going backwards,' Aiko realized. 'It doesn't matter if Konoha would have been nice or not, because he's my only known ally now. I left with him willingly, despite thinking that there was something strange about his refusal to check out properly. You don't get to desert a military and then go back because it was all a funny misunderstanding.'
Basically, his story that she was a former Konoha nin allied with him was true now, even if it hadn't been true yesterday. Deserters didn't go home. And he wanted her here.
The thought was warming. Someone wanted her. She wasn't alone! She was somebody-to-somebody; wasn't that enough?
It was probably lucky that she didn't feel any particular attachment to Konoha. Staying there would have given her a purpose, but she probably already had one here as well. It would be nice to have something to do—something to think and accomplish.
"I'm glad to see you're well," Obito said quietly. Something dark fluttered across his features, his mouth twisting slightly. "When I realized you were in the hospital…" He trailed off darkly. Aiko shifted in her seat, discomfited by the implication of emotion she couldn't identify with. She didn't feel anything in particular other than relief, even if he'd been sad. "Well, I'm glad they healed you well, anyways." He cleared his throat and raised his tone to something a little less morose. "You went down fighting, you know. Not that I'm surprised," he added quickly. "You've always been brave." He winced. "I should have paid you much more attention," Obito added weakly, shaking his head. "My sensei's only kid, and I didn't keep you safe..."
She didn't know what to do with that last part and it made her uncomfortable, so she glossed over it and pretended not to hear.
'I've always been brave?' Aiko scrunched her brow slightly, trying out the thought. Was she really? That was a nice identity to have. Brave. Maybe she'd like being brave.
'Decisive, I can believe,' Aiko thought with a small amount of humor. 'I feel decisive.'
In a way, it was hilarious to make such knee-jerk decisions that would likely have consequences she couldn't fathom. But what else could she do?
"Why was I fighting?" she asked curiously, glancing down into the tea leaves at the bottom of her cup. It looked like a rabbit. Inexplicably, it made her feel sad.
She nearly missed Obito's scowl.
"As I said, you were doing reconnaissance while posing as a Konoha nin. Unfortunately, you got caught up in a fight between Konoha and someone who used to be one of our allies. He was a wild card, apparently. I'm sorry. I never would have allowed him near you if I had known what he would do."
Genuinely regretful, he tilted his head down and looked up at her beneath his lashes. "I'm so sorry I got you involved in all this. I should have been there. I-" He cleared his throat, correcting the slightly raised pitch of his voice to a quieter regret she had to lean in to hear. "If I'd just left you be, never talked to you in the Land of Wind, you would have been safe. Konoha would have protected you."
"That's… okay," she excused uncertainly. It didn't matter much to her, since she didn't know what he was talking about. And she was committed, either way.
But Obito shook his head. "No, it's not okay." He actually seemed a bit upset. "You're not really a frontline combat type. You're not supposed to be in that kind of danger."
She wasn't? That was actually interesting information, but it probably wouldn't be polite to try to find out exactly what kind of shinobi she was when her friend was obviously upset. She could find out later.
"Well, it's over now." Aiko offered up a smile, wincing slightly at the pull on her ouchie. "and I'm here with you. That seems pretty safe to me."
~~~
It was almost pitifully easy. Obito nearly felt guilty, but at least he was doing as little lying as possible. They were both former Konoha shinobi now, after all. There was no reason in changing other convenient details when he could just wrap his story around them instead. He had seen her while she was posted in the Land of Wind, after all. She hadn't seen him, but what did that matter?
'That modicum of honesty doesn't really count in your favor,' Madara noted sardonically. 'When it is taken into consideration that you are telling the truth so that her faith in you will not be shaken by discovering outside information.'
He smiled shyly instead of retorting, letting Aiko think she was comforting him. At the moment, she wasn't much more than a civilian with excellent physical conditioning and reflexes. He could read her reactions effortlessly.
She just seemed so young and earnest at the moment, beyond what a kunoichi should be able to muster. How long had she been active forces—six, seven years? Clearly a fresh start was good for her.
Of course, the somewhat childlike mindset she was displaying would have more than a few drawbacks. She would need to be desensitized again, if he didn't want her panicking and running away the first time she saw action.
'How logical,' Madara observed drolly. 'I am certain that it is why you gave her your real name. It couldn't possibly be misplaced sentimentality. You were being practical, as always, by making decisions before you think of rationales that excuse them.'
Hey, she might have recognized the 'Tobi' act. It didn't seem especially likely that he would stick out in her mind, but it would be a stupid reason to get caught, that was all. He wouldn't be able to fall back on Tobi around Aiko.
Of course, Madara was utterly unsuitable for dealing with any human being who he didn't want to terrify or murder, so that left Obito himself. Why not give her his real name? It wasn't like he wanted to end up assimilating a fourth person into his head. She was incapable of doing him harm. He wouldn't let her contact anyone who would recognize the name, so it didn't matter. And he could hardly convince her they were good friends if he refused to let her see his face. That was just ridiculously suspicious.
Besides, secrecy could be achieved easily enough. If he told her just enough of the truth, and then let her 'discover' information that corroborated his information, she would be amenable to keeping his identity quiet. Perhaps he would tell her that he was concerned for her because he was her father's last student (Bakashi didn't count) and that Konoha thought he was dead. That should inspire the need to quiet.
'Not Rin?' Tobi asked a little sullenly, irritated that he was being pushed back.
No, not Rin. He couldn't think of her like Rin. Rin was his age. She had been desensitized and burnt by the harsh realities of shinobi life when she was nine years old. Rin was extraordinarily kind, but not naïve. Aiko couldn't be like Rin, especially when she acted so young (even though that was a disconcerting mixed signal from an obviously grown woman). God, at Aiko's age, he'd… He'd killed her father, actually. Hmm.
But really, it wouldn't be so bad to spend some time babysitting Minato's kid. She could be like a bratty little sister! He'd never had a sibling before.
"I suppose you can't spy in Konoha anymore," he started, letting her think he was not quite focused on the conversation. Really, he was rather enjoying reeling her in with giving little bits of interesting information and making her work- making her think- to fill in the blanks. Conclusions that she had reached herself would seem much more convincing than ones he'd supplied, after all.
He painted on a frown consciously, knowing that at the moment she may not be alert enough to use subtle cues. "They figured you out somehow, they know you're not one of their agents. I wish I knew how exactly, though they were suspicious of our association already. Someone must have ratted you out." He shrugged helplessly, and had to avoid smiling at the obvious fascination on her face.
He'd picked a good tactic. It seemed she had a bit of an ego- she liked thinking that she'd been involved in something clandestine and exciting.
'I can use that.'
"What an asshat."
Obito blinked twice, tilting his head and trying to be sure he'd heard correctly. "Asshat?" he repeated uncertainly.
Aiko just shrugged at him. "I don't know, it was the natural thing to say."
"Was it," he drew out, a little unsettled by the oddity. He'd never heard Aiko talk like that before, but then, they'd never really been close. It could have been a fluke- slang she'd picked up from someone disreputable like Shizune, or a peer. It wasn't like Obito knew what teenagers said in Konoha anymore. Although, it could also mean that there really was something potentially troublesome buried in that fluffy head of hers. "You're funny, Aiko."
He smiled instead of scowling. He would watch for further developments.
With that in mind, he kept a careful eye on her over the next couple of days, knowing that Zetsu would cover for his absence. She didn't seem to suspect a thing. He made a game of testing her muscle memory, challenging her to play fights over who had to carry groceries or clean the shower (he hadn't used this hideout in a very long time, and it showed).
That, at least, bore some fruit. Thankfully, he wouldn't be re-training her from ground zero. She didn't remember learning, and she was hesitant when told to attack him, but clearly a lifetime of repetition had etched something into her subconscious brain or muscles themselves. The first time that she successfully blocked a hit, Aiko looked intoxicated and mildly stunned. It turned out that she was more than passable in that regard, while he was using full speed but considerably less than his full strength. Of course, if he really tried, he would snap her arms and legs like dry wood, so it wasn't proof positive of acceptable capability. She would do well against Chuunin and most Jounin, he assumed. He wasn't exactly a typical shinobi, so it was hard to gauge how well she would fare on her own.
He had to frown, however, that she seemed to want to block everything, now that she knew she could do it. Sometimes she seemed to move into blows, which demonstrated a worrying lack of insight into the whole point of taijutsu.
"No," Obito said sharply, holding up a hand for her to stop. Aiko looked a bit wounded. He sighed. "You're not a tank, Aiko. It's good that your defensive taijutsu is still sharp and reflexive, but what you should be working on it not getting hit. Don't be where I'm hitting," he enunciated carefully, demonstrating with a clone. "I've seen you fight. Your best natural advantage is that you're fast. You aren't very strong. You're the type of fighter who thinks," he stressed.
She looked a little sour, straightening and pretending to examine her nails so that she didn't have to look at him. When the response came, it was rather arch.
"And I suppose you're the type of fighter who hits things really hard?"
'When did she get sassy?' Obito wondered. 'Is that her real personality, or something new?'
He'd probably never know.
"No. I can hit a lot harder than you, but I also prefer to fight smarter," he drawled.
She didn't dignify that with a response. So he set her to practicing her projectile weaponry in an attempt to figure out what he was working with. Frankly… it wasn't much.
'How did she get to be a Jounin with genin level shuriken and senbon skills?' Obito wondered, utterly baffled. Madara made a confused sound in agreement. Aiko had pretty wicked accuracy with a standard kunai, but that appeared to be the only projectile she'd focused on after she'd left the academy. She could hit anyone who would stand still or walk slowly from about fifty feet with shuriken or senbon, but that really wouldn't be helpful in combat. Unless she wanted to fight the shuffling elderly, perhaps.
Had Bakashi really trained her? He'd been so good at projectiles. All of them were, really: it was one of the best ways to ameliorate a size disadvantage in combat. Rin had been an especially deft hand with senbon, which had been a large part of the reason she'd ended up in the medical program.
Further experimentation revealed that Aiko was simply much more talented in hand-to-hand than she was in ranged fighting, despite all common sense and her petite build. She didn't have a particularly wide technical repertoire, but her reflexes served her to a mid-Chuunin level with either a short sword or two kunai. She'd probably been better before.
'She must have managed by hitting fast and moving out,' Obito figured dryly. 'She doesn't have the build for long, drawn out close range fights, or the skills for distance fighting. But she can zip in and out of range, using moderate force and avoiding retaliatory blows.'
It fit with the little he'd seen of her tactics. That would be an annoying style to fight against. Not that he really had any room to talk, of course. Acting on a hunch, he tried to get her to remember her jutsu. They were probably short-range stuff as well, if he was picking up on the patterns in her skill set. He'd like to see what she could do.
But she didn't remember a damn thing. Try at he might, he got nothing out of her. Aiko could parrot his handsigns and re-memorized them with admirable speed, but she didn't have any memory of learning actual jutsu.
'I suppose that means I don't get to reverse engineer Bakashi's toys,' he noted sullenly.
Pity.
The bigger pity, of course, was that this circumstance (however outwardly fortuitous it may seem to have been) most likely eliminated the possibility that he would end up with a Hiraishin user at his disposal. He certainly couldn't teach it to her. Perhaps showing her some sealing texts would jog her memory, or she would have a very convenient stroke of genius. But short of a miracle, Aiko was probably quite a bit less valuable as a tool than she had been a week prior.
Oh well. He already had a transportation technique, and it was a small price to pay for the ability to continue on with his initial plan.
He stayed with her full-time for three days, only sneaking away to meet with Zetsu and his other underlings when Aiko was distracted or could be told he was taking a walk. Of course, it was the last night that he came alert, ears pricked and suddenly wary. He prowled down the hall, and carefully pushed open her door.
And then he had to side-step, because she nearly clocked him with a pillow.
At least her instincts were good, even if her choice of weaponry was somewhat underwhelming. Obito raised an eyebrow.
Aiko colored sheepishly, sitting up in bed. Her blue-green eyes were big and troubled, and her hair was drawn up in a messy little rat's nest at the side of her head. It was terribly cute, in a 'lost child' sort of way. "Sorry. I had a bad dream. Guess I woke up feeling aggressive."
Unease stirred in his gut. "A bad dream?" he asked lightly, coming in just enough to lean against the wall, monitoring her breathing and body language. But when her reply came, it didn't appear to be a lie. That was something, at least. She still trusted him. She really was naïve.
"Yeah." Aiko balled up a handful of her comforter, as if she could manage something productive by mistreating her bedding. "It was weird. There was this sense of being scared. There was a woman in a nurse outfit who was dragging me around, and an old man in a big ugly housecoat. And… dolls, I think?" Obviously embarrassed, she ran a hand through her mussed hair, and gave him a faintly amused smile. "It was a weird dream. I'm not scared of dolls, am I?"
"Not to my knowledge," Obito answered smoothly, keeping his real thoughts off his face.
Option one: the dream really might have been something random, pulled up from the bottom of her subconscious.
Option two: she still associated him with the Akatsuki, and she was talking about Sasori and his stupid toys. Had she met Sasori? He didn't remember.
'I should assume the worst. Those memories are in there somewhere.' He went through the motions of comforting her without dwelling too much on the fact that her father had once soothed his nightmares like this, assuring Aiko that it wasn't silly to wake up from a nightmare and that he didn't mind her throwing things at him. But his mind was churning.
'This adds an element of danger. It's a good thing I've hardly lied to her, huh?' He didn't wait for a grumbled response from the voices in his head. 'I'm going to have to resort to a new tactic no matter what if she remembers everything, but if it's really just bits and pieces, I picked the right strategy.'
'Smug brat.'
~~~
Aiko hadn't bothered to disturb Obito the second time that bad dreams woke her up. Not that she'd had the chance: he had left for the day already when she woke at five in the morning.
She had fallen asleep wondering about the day he'd said they met in the Land of Wind. The dreams that thought apparently spawned were strange. More monsters, of course, but these ones weren't living dolls with clacking mouths. They were frothing, bloody messes that lunged out of dark forests and tried to drag her down.
She had the vague impression of fighting with a small group of men at her side. Their foreheads had glinted with metal that must have been Sand and Konoha plates.
But she didn't remember any faces. Just adrenaline and dawning horror and the lingering thought that one of her companions was dying, bloody and twitching on the ground in a way that was frankly shocking.
And then she woke up.
That was especially frustrating, because she suspected the nightmare had been a real occurrence and not something she had concocted. She wanted to know what happened next. But it probably wasn't worth bothering Obito to know. He'd seemed distressed enough the first time that she told him she was having bad dreams. It would just make him feel bad.
'My life must have been a mess.' Glumly, she pulled her sleeping robe shut and went to splash her face with cool water in the sink. 'No wonder I left Konoha for Obito.'
She had to remind herself of her increasingly gory dreams on the second day that she woke up alone to a note on the table advising her to practice her katas and throwing skills.
'I didn't think I was going to be left alone until it was convenient to pay attention to me, like an animal in a pen.' Sullenly, Aiko tossed shuriken overhand until her shoulder hurt, and then switched to the other arm. She was ambidextrous, apparently, by practice if not by nature. 'I could have stayed in the hospital if that was what I wanted.'
Of course, that would have meant being at the mercy of strangers. Strangers who had apparently known she was a spy of some sort and wanted to get information from her. Information that she didn't even have. At least Obito didn't seem to want anything from her (although that was frustrating too, in its own way).
It was so ironic that she wanted to laugh until she cried. Konoha had probably only kept her alive because they thought that she was faking her memory problems and wanted to get information out of her. That was undoubtedly why she'd been in isolation. They hadn't trusted her. Waking up dazed and altogether confused had probably been what saved her from an unpleasant interrogation. In a way, she was incredibly lucky that she'd hit her head, since Obito hadn't been able to extract her immediately.
She hadn't been quite thick enough to miss the implications of the fact that an ally of some sort had been the person to tear Konoha a new asshole. If she were one of them, she would want the blood of anyone remotely connected to that rogue jackass. No matter that Obito had clearly tried to gloss over the dangers of the situation to avoid frightening her, Aiko wasn't thick enough to miss the clues and figure out that she owed him, big-time.
It might be nice to be able to repay some of that debt, instead of sitting in a house he'd given her and eating food he'd bought. She felt worse than useless, and oddly resentful. She hated being left alone at the house—her deficiencies seemed more obvious without someone around ready to smooth over anything she forgot.
She wanted to be useful to Obito? Ha! She could barely take care of herself. It was so frustrating. Like… like everything she needed to know was there, but when she actively tried to pull up the information, her mind hit a blank.
When she wasn't paying attention, Aiko easily pulled together a perfectly edible breakfast. Or she had started to, anyhow, while fuming about being left alone for the day. She'd come out of her thoughts holding a spatula and staring down at a hot, rectangular pan and had no fucking idea why there was a bowl full of whipped eggs to the left of the burner. Eventually, she'd poured it all in at once. That was apparently not what she was supposed to do. Unless a burnt/half raw egg brick was the idea, in which case she could do without.
If Obito had been there to gently step in and remind her about what the next step was, she wouldn't have messed up something obviously simple. Aiko resented him leaving when he should be helping her, for that reason, and disliked being dependent on him just as much. There was literally no way for him to win with her, was there? Kami, she was awful.
Those feelings weren't logical or fair to Obito, but it was still what she felt. Out of sheer boredom when Aiko grew incredibly sick of target practice, she trudged inside and took a long, scalding-hot shower. There was nothing else to do, so she found herself pulling back on a leg holster when she re-dressed.
It wasn't like she was too immature to understand why Obito couldn't stay at the house all day. He was clearly a busy man, with a lot of things to do.
But he could have taken her with him when he left. Why didn't he? Did he think she was incapable of helping? He'd made it sound so reasonable, and expressed so much concern for her safety that she hadn't been able to offer an argument at the time. But after a while to steam, Aiko was not best pleased.
'Is he this protective all the time, or does he think I'm incompetent now?' Aiko scowled, tossing the soggy towel in the sink and heading out to practice with the shiny, hair-thin senbon that Obito had provided for her. 'Figures. I must have been beaten really badly. Embarrassingly badly, if he doesn't have any faith in me anymore.'
It hadn't been lost on her that he apparently had reason to lose that confidence in her abilities. He could have done a better job at hiding his dismay at what must have been decay in her skills. Infuriatingly, Obito wouldn't even tell her what she'd forgotten—probably some misplaced attempt to avoid hurting her feelings. That made it harder to work towards fixing the deficit.
The senbon were a pretty good hint as to what she should work on. And something that she could do on her own without any more resources, more importantly.
In combination with his off-hand comments about what type of shinobi she was, it wasn't too hard to suppose that she should be working towards extreme precision. Obito had proved his point about direct combat to her. When he had taken off the kid gloves and came at her with force, he'd wiped the floor with her in spar after spar, until her body felt like one big bruise.
If that was what it was like to fight someone who wasn't even a front-line type by his own admission, she wasn't cut out for brute force. She just wasn't. She couldn't afford to let people like that hit her.
So instead, she was going to have to try to get her stealth skills back up to snuff and get really damn good at not needing more than one hit when she struck from the shadows. That would prove to Obito that he didn't have to coddle her.
He came back in the late evening, after she'd already washed the dishes from dinner and set to angrily tossing her needles at leaves (and missing, more than half of the time). It felt strangely domestic to turn and glare at Obito.
She nearly faltered in her resolve to confront him.
'What on earth is on his head?'
It looked like he was wearing a carnival mask propped up on the top of his head. It was probably better not to ask.
Besides, he seemed more amused than anything by her scowl. With her luck, he'd laugh and deflect whatever questions she had for the fun of it.
"What's that face for?" With a mild snicker, Obito walked out far enough to glance up at the spread of needles pinning little bits of greenery to tree trunks. He schooled his expression, but not before she could see the wince at the little pile of shining metal at the foot of the tree she'd been using—senbon that had failed to hit their targets with enough force to stick in the wood.
Aiko flushed, trying not to scowl as his casual attitude made her feel very silly for being grumpy all day. Her hair hung over into her face when she resolutely looked down at her feet, suddenly very interested in a rock she'd stepped on.
"Oh, don't pout," he said mildly. She didn't hear him move, but after a short pause he was giving her shoulder an encouraging squeeze. "It'll come to you with time."
'Yes, but I want it to come back now,' she thought. Instantly, she felt ashamed. That was childish and ungrateful.
Of course, so was the topic she'd determined to bring up. That wasn't about to stop her, so there was no point in trying to convince herself that she wasn't immature. "Obito, are you disappointed with me?"
He stilled, fingers barely brushing against the fabric of the high-collared shirt he'd given her. Without thinking, she clutched at the hand with her own, pinning it. As if that would stop him from pulling away or refusing to answer her question. She really was a child, wasn't she?
"Why would you ask that?"
At his wary query, she tilted her head to peer up at him, feeling sheepish and slow. "Well, I apparently failed at whatever I was meant to be doing last, and you haven't even talked to me about a new mission. Am I useless?"
Obito actually seemed surprised. "You want something to do already?" he pushed, letting his forehead crinkle. At least, half of it did. Part of it was too stiff to move. "I thought you should have a break, recuperate. I mean—you did just." He stopped abruptly, frowning. "Well. You should rest."
"I don't want to rest," Aiko stressed, trying valiantly not to whine. By the look on Obito's face, she might not have succeeded. "I don't want to be useless. And," she added in a fit of petulance, "are you ever going to stop dancing around what actually happened? I'm not going to panic at bad news, I promise. What is it, that I'm not going to get any memories or abilities back? That looks like what you're planning for." She gestured with the last two senbon in her free hand. After a moment's thought, she flung them at her target without even aiming for a leaf. One sank in crookedly—the other pinged off and bounced in the grass.
She took a moment to wish that she hadn't done that. Or at least, that Obito hadn't pointedly watched the thing fall. It sort of undermined her unspoken claim that she was capable of being useful still. Aiko clenched her jaw shut tightly, trying to be calm.
"Apparently, you died."
'What?'
"What?" she repeated, not quite managing to come up with anything more intelligent than her initial reaction. Obito just nodded grimly, not quite making eye contact.
"Yes," he agreed lowly. "That's about right. You technically died in Konoha, according to the medical records they had made about you. When our associate was defeated, he offered Konoha a favor for his life, like the rotten little coward he was." Bitterness twisted her friend's mouth into something ugly. For lack of anything to say, she tightened her grip on his hand, crooking her fingers around his index finger and pressing her palm flat on his knuckles.
He didn't even try to move his hand. Maybe he needed the comfort as much as she did.
"You found yourself in a fight with two Konoha nin and a puppet belonging to our mutual ally," Obito shared darkly. "He must have panicked, ratted you out to save his own skin. When the other two turned on you…" He winced, closing his eyes. Fascinated and horrified at what she was hearing, Aiko just stared as he took a steadying breath. "When they turned on you, you turned to a suicide attack. You managed to take them all with you, I think."
He opened his eyes, both pain and fondness clearly visible. She didn't resist when he placed his free hand on top of her head and gently knocked it back into his chest, letting him offer what comfort he could. "Like I said, you're brave."
Aiko swallowed, forced to look at nothing now that she was too close to twist and check his expressions. "That doesn't explain why I'm still converting oxygen to carbon dioxide," she joked weakly.
"That same man. Nagato. He possessed a technique that allowed him to raise the dead," Obito said bluntly.
Wait. Raise the dead. That was her. She was dead.
'That is creepy. So very creepy.'
Shakingly, she raised the hand that wasn't pinned to her shoulder to stare at it. It was the hand of a corpse. She was a walking, talking corpse. An abomination. With a shudder, she jerked the hand down to tangle in the loose fabric of the oversized pants she was wearing. It looked so normal that she couldn't stand to see it.
'I'm creepy. Disgusting-wrong-not meant to be here. Oh my god, I'm a monster.'
A monster trapped in innocuous, girlish flesh. She began shaking and her knees felt decidedly weak. She didn't fall—Obito twisted the hand that had been on her head around her waist lightning-fast and pulled her close, in a half-hearted hug.
Wasn't he repulsed? Why was he touching her? God, she was a corpse!
"Calm down!" Even with her torso pinned to his, she felt weak. Like she would collapse and shatter if he let go. Convulsively, Aiko grabbed onto the hand at her waist and clung to his support. She didn't want to fall she didn't want to die she didn't want to be dead but better to be dead than to be an undead monster-
"I said, calm down."
The firm tone did what the spike of panic hadn't. She obeyed, somehow firming the muscles in her legs to straighten.
"You're fine. You're really you, not anything wrong. Sssh, sssh, don't panic." Aiko gasped for breath, and only belatedly realized that her vision had been spotting and she hadn't been breathing. Oh. That was embarrassing. What a way to prove she was competent. Top-notch.
"Easy, there." When she leaned forward, Obito let her break his grip on her. She pulled free and turned around, unconsciously working her lips in a concerned pout. He gave her a weak smile, attempting to reassure her.
"It's not what you're thinking, I promise. Nagato had a bloodline, a very special bloodline." He paused carefully. "He was a relation of yours, actually."
Interesting trivia, but not really rele- oh. Oh. A relation of hers with a bloodline. That was relevant after all.
Maybe family wasn't a safe topic. She made a note.
"The Rinnegan's is a pure technique, not a perversion of nature like the impure resurrection," Obito explained, his voice a calming drone. Like he was talking to a wild animal. "You're not a monster. You're you, I promise."
"How did he do that to me?" Aiko asked, wishing her voice didn't sound so small. "Why did he do that to me? So Konoha could use me?"
Obito shook his head. "No," he breathed. "He didn't even intend to raise you. He used it as a blanket technique and restored everyone he'd killed. Then he ran." Obito's mouth twitched downward, and his voice dropped into something soft and unintentionally menacing. "Like the coward he was, he fled before the Hokage could come to her senses and have him killed. When I found him, and realized what had happened, I knew I had to find you."
There weren't really words for that, so she was just glad he let her step in and hug him.
"I was just scared for you," he whispered into her hair. She shivered, feeling warm, moist breath against her scalp. "I didn't mean to make you feel useless. I'll think on it. I know you're still helpful, Aiko."
~~~
'That went smoothly,' Obito mused, pulling the whorled mask down over his face to hide the faint satisfaction tugging at the operable side of his face. Mostly, he just felt tired, now that the energy provided by adrenaline had fled. He'd thought it would be harder to obfuscate to her. The fact that it had gone according to his script in the important ways almost made him feel should be harder to manipulate someone who trusted him that transparently.
'I thought she would ask me much sooner, to be honest. Who wouldn't be curious as to how they ended up in enemy hands?'
But it had worked out. He hadn't anticipated that she would panic outright, but he really should have. He'd even had the thought that Aiko had essentially been robbed of the mental conditioning that let her function as a shinobi, so his failure was inexcusable. There were reasons that civilians didn't go around killing people, and it was hardly that they were physically incapable. No, it took a sophisticated fine-tuning of a child's impressions to mold a young soldier who would cut down a half-dozen genin or helpless civilians, and be able to go home and sleep at night.
Without that… Well. It just wasn't surprising that she was less resilient.
The raw materials were still there, of course. It was best to make shinobi out of impressionable children, but that didn't have to be the case. He just had to be careful with her, that was all. Aiko could be acclimated gently, and still get the opportunity to stretch her legs that she had asked for.
Actually, her desire to get out into the real world could be used for that purpose. If she saw what it was really like out there, and came to see him as her savior from it, or at least a man with a plan to deal with it…
He expertly pushed down any guilt about coldly using her obvious distress to solidify her commitment to his cause. It wasn't like he'd really been lying, or had intentionally caused her pain. He really was impressed that she'd been willing to die for a cause she believed in. If he needed her for the Eye of the Moon plan, he could be sure he wasn't asking more than she was willing to give. It wasn't wrong, it wasn't. She didn't mind. She liked him.
Obito choked down a laugh. 'She thinks I'm pretty,' he remembered. She really was a good kid.
He liked the girl quite a bit. It was good that he'd pilfered all the paperwork he could find on her. It was an interesting read, so far as bland dossiers went. When he had claimed to be impressed by her capacity for self-sacrifice, Obito hadn't been lying or exaggerating. The situation was uncannily similar to Rin's death. Both girls had been willing to see that the only way to protect Konoha was their death.
It was a pitiful shame that Konoha wasn't worth what they had been willing to give. Still, the situation brought up ugly feelings and the recollection of the worst day of his life when Obito had visualized Aiko's stand against Pein.
Bakashi was probably kicking himself for not being there to stick his hand through her heart, just for the symmetry of it. Anal little shit.
He dismissed that uncharitable thought as best as he could.
'If Aiko was willing to die for Konoha, she would probably be willing to die for my cause if I asked her,' Obito reminded himself, focusing on the positives. That knowledge was a relief that mitigated the creep of guilt.
Hopefully, he would be able to get her somewhere near her old fighting fit without too much time. Her mission record wasn't unimpressive. As far as he could tell, Tsunade must have trusted her reasonably well.
'Although bringing her as a theoretical bodyguard to that meeting could have been nothing but a farce,' Madara thought dryly.
Obito couldn't disagree, although he wouldn't say so to Aiko's face. She'd probably been brought along for reasons other than her sheer combat capacity. Perhaps Aiko had been useful as a counter-intelligence specialist, or Tsunade had taken advantage of Hiraishin to communicate with Konoha while away.
'The things we could have done with that.' Madara sounded almost mournful. 'A spy with Hiraishin would be a perfect tool.'
'Obibi thinks she would still make a good sneaky ninja,' came the objection while Obito was still sucking on his lower lip in thought. 'Aiko-chan is very quiet, and she doesn't look scary at all.'
There was something to Tobi's point, actually. He could capitalize on her rather underwhelming physical presence.
If she'd had more of a reputation to inspire fear, he wouldn't want to disguise her identity. But that didn't fit with what he wanted her for anyway. He would be much better off gently encouraging Aiko to slip under the attention of anyone willing to sell her out for the reward Konoha would doubtlessly offer for information on her whereabouts. No one paid much attention to pretty little girls, or at least, not suspicious attention.
While his new housemate slept solidly for almost seven hours, Obito paced and planned. He didn't want to put Aiko in any real danger, of course. It would be idiotic to waste her life on some ultimately pointless errand invented to keep her happy and out of trouble. No. He wasn't going to put her in danger. At least, no more danger than was reasonable.
That was a new tactic for him. His pawns had always been sturdy but disposable. The situation would require some contemplation.
There had to be a better way to get use out of her. A 'mission' that would polish her skills, entertain her, and somehow benefit him. He just didn't know how he was going to think of one before breakfast as promised, when he had to hurry off to meet with-
Oh. Kakuzu. He had to meet with Kakuzu in the morning.
There were possibilities there. He could use capital, now that he'd lost Ame and most of Akatsuki. He could put Aiko to work on something that worked towards the aim of monetary acquisition.
Feeling quite satisfied with himself, Obito ruffled his hair, falling backwards onto his futon. Then he winced. He hated traditional futons. That was how everything was in the Uchiha place. He much preferred real beds. But he'd only put one bed in the house, and he was hardly about to crawl in with his little guest.
No, with his ally, he internally corrected. Guests could leave.