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I've been angry, I've been lashing out
All the warnings are true
But I thought if thе time came that you had to leavе
That at least you'd be taking me too.
-Keeping Your Memory Alive by Tub Ring
“You don't think what I did was wrong?” Obito's voice doesn't shake, even with the pent up emotions welling inside him- constricting around his throat and threatening to strangle the life out of him.
His throat burned, like all things did these days.
“Of course not!” Tobi gasps, the orange of his mask catching the light as his gloved hand reaches up to pat Obito on the knee sympathetically. “I think you did your best with what you were given!”
“I killed them.” Obito says blankly, staring as Tobi sighs and shakes his head
“Well, they were going to die one way or another, weren't they? I think, if anything, what you did was a favor to them! Who knows what Konoha would have done to them! Probably would have eaten them up and spat their bones out into the dirt once they outlived their usefulness. Just like what they did to-”
“Don't you dare say her name.” Obito hisses, his face going white with fury. The sharingan flares to life and it almost seems to glow in the dim light.
“So scary!” Tobi gasps, snatching his hand away to hunch his shoulders and shiver dramatically in his seat, “Obito-kun please calm down, I didn't mean to make you mad! Take a deep breath for me, just like we've been practicing!”
Tobi audibly inhales and exhales slowly, motioning to Obito to do the same.
“Come on Obito! I promise you'll feel better!” Tobi chirps, once more demonstrating the breathing technique. “Have I ever lied to you before?”
Obito eyes Tobi for a bit longer before shaking his head and breathing in deep.
“There you go!” Tobi’s tone is joyous and heavy with pride as he claps, “Don't you feel better already?”
Stubbornly Obito stays silent as he continues his breathing exercises.
“Besides,” Tobi continues, undeterred, “If you really think about it, it's not like any of it means anything! You said it best, this world is hell and soon, soon you will bring it to its knees!”
Tobi jumps to his feet, paying no mind to the way the chair swivels behind him.
“I can't wait to see that day finally arrive! I'll bet you're going to look so cool! Maybe you should get a cool looking cloak, or maybe even a cooler mask!
Are you going to paint your nails too? I think you should do the black but the one that has the sparkly shine to it! Oh wait, there's an idea, want me to paint your nails right now? I have maroon, purple or black. I personally think you should wear the sparkly one now but then again I don't want you to get sick of the sparkles by the time you finally accomplish your goal.”
“I'm not going to wear the sparkly polish.” Obito grumbles.
“Ah, ah!” Tobi shakes his head and wiggles his pointer finger at Obito, blindly reaching behind himself to grab the spinning chair and pulling it closer to plop down once more without glancing down at it. “You need to keep doing your breathing exercises, we've talked about this Obito-kun! You need to keep breathing until you're calm!”
Obito simply rolls his eyes and resumes breathing, the sharingan soon bleeding out from his eye. He glances up and keeps track of the seconds that pass by the clock on the wall.
It had turtle shells on it.
“See? You're doing great already Obito-kun! Are you sure you don't want to wear the sparkly polish now? I can paint your nails whIle you breathe.”
The clock ticks by and somewhere in the distance, Obito can hear a faucet leaking. Probably the kitchen, it was always faulty despite Obito's best efforts.
The faucet in Kakashi's apartment didn't leak.
Obito would know.
Obito shakes his head and continues to breathe.
“That's okay, Obito-kun! Maybe I could do your toes instead? I think red would look great on you!”
Obito considers it for a moment, glancing down at his sock covered toes and wiggling them on his next exhale.
The red would look nice on this cold November evening.
“Imagine how cute they'd look when you kick someone's throat in!” Tobi chirps as he gets up once more to fetch the polish, “and if you get some blood splatter on them, I think that'll really make the color pop!”
It would, wouldn't it?
It's definitely something to consider.
Obito inhales deeply once more as Tobi returns.
He continues to breathe, inhaling and exhaling in time with the ticks of the clock counting the seconds.
“You're doing very well, Obito-kun! Way better than Deidara-chan!” Tobi says, his eye not visible in the low light of the room. “But you're still a little tense, give me 10 more minutes of breathing, I know you can do it!.”
He hoists Obito's leg up, making quick work of the sock and plants Obito's foot onto his knee and diligently starts slotting Obito's toes into the pink purple foam toe-spreader.
“I think you should visit him tonight, Obito-kun.” Tobi says, grabbing the polish to give it a good shake. “You haven't seen him in a while, and word from the trees says he got someone to go fix his plumbing. I don't think he likes that his faucet leaks sometimes.”
Obito continues to breathe, albeit not as deeply.
“I can't imagine why,” Tobi says, twisting off the cap and pulling the brush out to let a few droplets of red polish drip back into the bottle, “it's not like the noise is that bothersome.”
Tobi leans forward and Obito can see the sharingan gleam back at him from behind the hollow space of the orange mask.
“It's not like the sound is reminiscent of dripping blood or anything.”
Tobi’s eye curves as he giggles, the sharingan once more hidden from view. One of his gloved hands comes down to cradle Obito's foot, bringing the still dripping brush with the other to begin painting Obito's nails.
“I think it'll be good for you to go out tonight, Obito-kun! You haven't had any good exercise for a while, maybe you can grab some ramen on your way! Or better yet why don't you get some dango? Definitely some dango, oh, but make sure it's after you exercise, you don't want a tummy ache do you? Those are the worst . Every time I get a tummy ache I lay in bed all day and cry!”
Tobi sighs dramatically as he taps Obito's knee once he finishes with the first set of nails, waiting patiently for Obito to lower his foot and to lift the other.
“Hopefully you don't run into too much trouble, you don't want anyone to recognize you.”
Tobi puts the brush back into the bottle and tsks at the hole in Obito's sock before sliding it off and taking care to slot Obito's toes into the foam toe spreader.
“And if someone does?” Obito asks, ending his breathing exercises five minutes in.
“Heeeeey,” Tobi pauses with the brush hovering over Obito's foot, “I said 10 minutes!”
“What do I do if someone recognizes me?” Obito asks, watching as the brush in Tobi’s hand dribbles red droplets of red nail polish onto his foot.
Obito wonders who fixed Kakashi's faucet this time- wonders if Kakashi watched them closely, recording every move with Obito's sharingan. He probably did- he’s probably going to try and fix it himself if it fails again. He must be getting tired of hiring so many plumbers.
And to be honest, Obito is getting quite tired of killing them too. They always scream so loud.
“What do you think you should do, Obito-kun?” Tobi asks, sitting up straight to look Obito in the eye. Tobi’s sharingan glints in the low light of the room and Obito watches as the tomoe begins to spin. “Because if you’re really asking someone like me, I think you should revisit old friends, those types of things are normal to do.”
“Normal?”
“Of course normal! There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the things you’ve done.” Tobi says, “It’s normal to feel self doubt every now and then. The book even said so!”
Tobi pulls the bush away to dip it back into the bottle, re-wetting the brush and returning to diligently begin painting the rest of Obito’s toenails.
“Going out to see friends every now and then is an essential part of life!” Tobi continues, paying no mind to the spilled polish staining Obito’s skin. “And if anyone gets in your way? Well that’s their own fault.”
“The plumbers?”
“Their own fault for accepting the job,” Tobi says, waving his hand in the air, “just like every other good shinobi accepting a mission- they knew the dangers of working on an active shinobi’s home.”
“They didn’t do anything- they just fixed a leaky faucet.”
“And that was their choice.” Tobi says with a shrug, “Whether they die now or later, what difference does it make? You shouldn’t feel bad for other people’s choices in life. You’ll never find peace otherwise, Obito-kun. The book said as much!”
Obitos says nothing and simply grunts, tilting his head consideringly as Tobi continues to work. He wonders briefly if Konoha has upped its security since the last time he visited that shit hole. More than likely- Obito hadn’t exactly been kind to the last security team that had the misfortune of being so diligent.
Tobi makes a sound of triumph as he sits back in his seat after a few moments of silence, returning the brush back into the bottle at last.
“Would you look at that! Perfection!” Tobi claps his hands, wiggling in his seat. “Now remember to wait for them to dry! Then you’ll be set to go and visit Kakashi!
The corner of Obito’s lips twitch until a low smile blooms across his face as he thinks about the distraught look that is sure to appear on Kakashi’s face when he comes home to yet another leaky faucet. He wonders how long Kakashi will spend desperately washing his hands with tears in his eyes- forever unable to rid his hands of Rin’s blood.
He glances down at his painted nails and wiggles them, ignoring Tobi’s concerned wail, the color does look quite nice against his skin. The spilled polish still looks like droplets of blood-
Obito wonders how many people will make the mistake of getting into his way this time around- it makes him curious about the choices they will make that lead them to that very moment.
“I hope you have fun tonight, Obito-kun!” Tobi says, “Bring back some dango!”
“Sure.” Obito says- not even blinking when Tobi pops out of existence.