Chapter 7: The License to Breathe
The rain in Musutafu did not smell like the rain in the Land of Fire. Back home, rain smelled of wet earth, pine needles, and the ozone of distant lightning. Here, the rain tasted metallic. It slicked the asphalt of the city streets, turning the neon reflections into long, distorted streaks of color that bled into the gutters.
Obito Uchiha sat by the window of the orphanage's common room, his forehead resting against the cold glass. The condensation fogged up with his breath, obscuring the view of the gray city skyline.
"You're brooding," a voice said.
Obito didn't turn. He knew the voice. It was Kenji, his roommate.
"I am observing the weather patterns," Obito corrected, wiping a circle on the glass with his left hand. "Visibility is low. Sound is dampened. Ideal conditions for infiltration."
Kenji snorted, collapsing onto the worn-out sofa behind him. "Dude, you're twelve. The only thing you're infiltrating is the snack cupboard. And Matron Satako locked it after the incident with the spicy chips."
Obito ignored him. His right shoulder ached. The damp weather made the scars where his arm used to be throb with a dull, persistent rhythm. It was a phantom pain, a ghost of a limb screaming that it was still there, still being crushed by rock. He unconsciously rubbed the plastic socket of his prosthetic. The material was cold, lifeless. It didn't warm up even when he held it.
"We have 'Hero Ethics' class today," Kenji groaned, throwing his long, spider-like arms over his face. "It's so boring. Why do we need to learn laws? I just want to learn how to shoot webs and catch bad guys."
"Laws define the battlefield," Obito muttered. "Without rules, a ninja is just a murderer."
"A what?"
"Nothing."
Obito stood up. The prosthetic arm hung heavy at his side. He had adjusted the straps earlier, tightening them until they dug into his skin, hoping the tightness would make the arm feel more like a part of him. instead, it just felt like he was carrying a heavy bag of groceries attached to his torso.
The classroom was humid. The windows were closed against the rain, trapping the smell of thirty damp children and wet wool. Ms. Aida stood at the front, a holographic projector displaying a large, red "X" over a picture of a civilian using a Quirk to stop a purse snatcher.
"Vigilantism," Ms. Aida announced, her voice stern. "This is the topic of the week. Can anyone tell me why using your Quirk to stop a crime without a license is illegal?"
Obito sat in the back, next to Jiro. She had her earphones in, but the music was low enough that he could hear the tinny scratching of a guitar riff. She was tapping her pen against the desk in perfect time with the beat.
A girl with blue skin raised her hand. "Because we might get hurt?"
"Partially," Ms. Aida nodded. "But more importantly, because we are not authorized. The law states that the use of Quirks in public for combat purposes is restricted to licensed Pro Heroes. Unlicensed use, even with good intentions, disrupts public order and can cause escalation."
Obito frowned. He raised his left hand.
"Yes, Obito-kun?"
"So," Obito started, his voice raspy but clear. "If I see someone being attacked... let's say, a child is being kidnapped... I am supposed to stand there and watch?"
Ms. Aida adjusted her glasses. "No, you are supposed to call the police or alert a Pro Hero. You are not trained to intervene. You could make the situation worse."
"But if I have the power to stop it," Obito pressed, a heat rising in his chest. "If I can throw a stone and knock the kidnapper out. Why is that a crime? In my... where I come from, those who abandon their mission are scum. But those who abandon a comrade in danger are worse than scum."
The class went silent. Jiro stopped tapping her pen.
"That is a very... intense philosophy, Obito," Ms. Aida said carefully. "But this is a society of laws, not a battlefield. If everyone took the law into their own hands, we would have chaos. We would have anarchy. The license is a guarantee of competency and accountability."
"A license to do what's right," Obito scoffed quietly. "Ridiculous."
"It's not ridiculous," Ms. Aida said, her tone sharpening. "It keeps people safe. Look at you, Obito. You are injured. You have a prosthetic arm. If you tried to stop a villain today, you would likely be killed. The law protects you, too."
Obito felt the words like a slap. Protects me. As if he needed protection. He was an Uchiha. He had awakened his Sharingan—or he had, before the eye was crushed. He was a Chunin.
He sank back into his chair, his jaw clenched. He didn't argue further. He knew when he was outnumbered. But the seed of frustration planted itself deep in his gut. This world was soft. It wrapped itself in paperwork and red tape, calling it "justice."
Lunch was a quiet affair. The rain continued to drum against the roof of the cafeteria. Obito sat with Jiro, picking at his food. He was practicing using chopsticks with his left hand. It was infuriatingly difficult. The sticks crossed, slipped, and dropped the piece of pickled radish back into the bowl for the tenth time.
"You're going to snap those sticks if you grip them any tighter," Jiro observed, sipping her juice box.
"My dexterity is compromised," Obito grumbled. "My left hand was never my dominant one."
"You're doing fine," Jiro said. "Better than yesterday. Yesterday you stabbed the table."
Obito finally managed to pinch the radish and bring it to his mouth. He chewed slowly, the sour taste grounding him.
"You really hate the rules, don't you?" Jiro asked, looking at him sideways.
"I hate inefficiency," Obito replied. "And I hate being told I'm helpless."
"Ms. Aida didn't say you were helpless. She said you were... vulnerable."
"Same thing." Obito put the chopsticks down. "In the Academy, if you were vulnerable, you trained until you weren't. You didn't ask for a license to be strong. You just became strong."
Jiro twirled one of her earphone jacks around her finger. "Maybe. But this isn't the Academy. And you're not a soldier anymore, Obito. You're a kid. We're all kids."
"I stopped being a kid a long time ago," Obito whispered. The image of the falling rocks, the blood on his hands, the darkness... that wasn't the memory of a child.
"Okay, edgelord," Jiro rolled her eyes, though her tone was gentle. "If you're so tough, prove it. Not by fighting villains, but by... I don't know, beating me at a game."
"A game?"
"Yeah. The rec room has an old console. Tekken. If your reflexes are so ninja-like, you should be able to beat me."
Obito narrowed his eye. "Challenge accepted."
Ten minutes later, Obito was staring at the television screen in disbelief.
"KO!" the announcer voice shouted.
Jiro's character, a girl who fought with acrobatic kicks, was standing over Obito's character, a bulky man with a jaguar mask.
"That... that is cheating!" Obito pointed at the controller in his hand. "The buttons sticky! The input lag is unacceptable!"
"Excuses," Jiro grinned, blowing a strand of purple hair out of her face. "You keep trying to mash the buttons. It's about rhythm, remember? Combo strings have a beat. Tap-tap-pause-tap. You're just going smash-smash-smash."
Obito glared at the controller. It was shaped awkwardly for his one hand. He had to balance it on his knee and use his left hand to move the stick and press the buttons, which was clumsy.
"My handicap is significant," Obito muttered.
"True," Jiro conceded. "Here." She paused the game and went into the settings. She remapped the buttons. "Now all the attacks are on the triggers. You can use your chin if you have to."
Obito looked at her. "You are helping your enemy?"
"It's not a war, Obito. It's a game. It's no fun if you can't fight back."
They played for an hour. Obito lost the first five matches. He lost the next three. But by the ninth match, he started to see the pattern. Not just the game's pattern, but Jiro's pattern.
She favored low attacks. She had a rhythm to her button presses—a slight hesitation before a heavy strike.
Sharingan logic, Obito thought. Predict the movement.
He didn't have his Sharingan, but he had his brain.
Round ten. Jiro's character swept low. Obito didn't block; he jumped. He pressed the heavy attack button.
His character slammed down. Counter-hit.
He followed up with a grab.
"KO!"
Jiro blinked. She looked at the screen, then at Obito.
"You... you actually won."
Obito felt a surge of triumph, pure and childish, that he hadn't felt in months. A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "I told you. I adapt."
Jiro laughed. It was a nice sound, low and raspy like her speaking voice. "Alright, alright. One point for the ninja. Don't let it go to your head."
That night, the rain stopped, leaving the world wet and glistening under the streetlights. The orphanage was quiet.
Obito lay in his bed, but sleep wouldn't come. The conversation with Ms. Aida still rankled him. License. Rules. Protection.
He sat up. He grabbed his hoodie and slipped out the window.
The backyard was muddy. The oak tree stood like a silent sentinel in the dark.
Obito walked up to it. His shoes squelched in the mud.
He looked at his prosthetic arm. In the moonlight, it looked like the limb of a mannequin.
"Can chakra flow through plastic?" he wondered aloud.
He knew the theory. Chakra flowed through the tenketsu—the pressure points in the body. It traveled through living tissue. But puppet masters in Suna... they used chakra threads to control wood and metal. And samurai used chakra flow to extend their will into their swords.
If a sword could hold chakra, why not an arm?
He placed his left hand on the tree trunk. He placed his plastic hand next to it.
He closed his eye. He visualized the blue energy in his stomach. He pulled it up, splitting the stream at his chest. One stream went to the left arm—easy, warm, familiar. The other went to the right.
It hit the stump. The scarred tissue tingled. The energy swirled there, confused, looking for a path that no longer existed.
"Push it through," Obito gritted his teeth. "Extend the vessel."
He imagined the plastic was hollow. He imagined filling it with water.
He pushed.
ZZZRT.
A spark of blue light fizzled at the elbow joint of the prosthetic. Then, a sharp, stinging pain shot up his shoulder.
"Gah!"
Obito pulled back, clutching his shoulder. The prosthetic hung limp. The servos whirred erratically for a second, then died.
"Broken," he whispered. "I short-circuited it."
He leaned his forehead against the rough bark of the tree. He was panting. It didn't work. The biology was incompatible with the technology. The chakra overloaded the delicate sensors.
He felt tears of frustration pricking his eye. He was so limited. So confined.
"I can't be a ninja with this," he said to the wet grass. "I can't weave signs. I can't channel flow."
He slid down the trunk until he was sitting in the mud. He looked at the dead plastic hand.
Then, a thought occurred to him. A memory of a lesson from the Academy.
If the river is blocked, do not force the dam to break. Divert the stream.
If he couldn't put chakra into the arm, could he put chakra around it?
He remembered the Body Flicker technique. It coated the body in chakra to reduce air resistance and increase speed.
He stood up again. He focused. Not on the inside of the plastic, but on the skin of his shoulder, the point where flesh met machine.
He concentrated the chakra there, creating a dense pad of energy. Like a cushion.
He moved his shoulder. The arm swung. It felt... lighter. The chakra was acting as a lubricant, a booster for his own muscles, taking the weight off the joint.
He didn't have control over the fingers. But the arm itself moved faster.
Obito smiled. It was a small discovery. A tiny hack. But it was his.
"I don't need a license for this," he whispered.
He looked up at the branches.
"Three steps yesterday," he murmured. "Four steps today."
He ran at the tree.
One. Two. Three. Four.
His foot slipped on the wet bark on the fifth step, and he backflipped off, landing in a crouch. A sloppy crouch, his plastic arm hitting the mud, but a landing nonetheless.
"Four steps," he panted, wiping mud from his cheek.
He looked at the moon, which was finally breaking through the clouds. It was a crescent moon.
"Wait for me, world," Obito Uchiha said, his voice quiet but filled with a terrifying resolve. "I'm going to rewrite your rules. I'm going to show you that a broken ninja is stronger than a licensed hero."
He turned back to the house. He needed to clean the mud off his prosthetic before Matron Satako saw it, or he'd be on dish duty for a month. And dish duty with one hand was a nightmare he wasn't ready to face again.
As he climbed back through the window, he heard Jiro's soft snoring from the room next door. It was a comforting rhythm. A reminder that even in this strange, rule-bound world, he wasn't entirely alone in the dark.