"Hup -- hup -- hup --"
A ridiculous figure moved through the trees at a pace that suggested an afternoon stroll rather than any kind of urgency, showing no sign at all of strain despite the two unconscious people draped over his shoulders.
"I am completely exhausted -- carrying two whole people by myself, this is exactly the kind of thing that makes living alone such a headache..."
He muttered away to himself as he went, a cheerful, andering comntary on his own suffering. His face -- if it could be called a face -- was a featureless spiral of pale skin, and whatever expression it was capable of conveying at this particular mont was approximately "tired but having a great ti."
"Hm? Hold on."
He stopped without warning and tilted that swirling head of his to one side.
"Actually, I wouldn't know what that feels like -- because I'm a White Zetsu! Ha ha ha!"
He laughed at his own joke, the sound bouncing off the trees and startling several roosting birds into flight. Then, satisfied, he slung his cargo back into position and set off again toward wherever he was going.
In the moonlight, the faces of the two people on his shoulders were visible.
One was Rin Nohara. The other was Yamato.
White Zetsu Tobi.
That was his na.
He ran on for a while longer, threading through a dense section of forest and rounding several large outcroppings of rock, until he finally arrived at his destination -- a massive cave concealed deep in the hillside. The entrance was hidden behind a curtain of hanging vines and overgrown weeds. Soone who didn't already know it was there would never have found it.
Tobi ducked inside without slowing down, navigated a long winding passage with the ease of long familiarity, and erged into an open underground space.
The cave was enormous. Inside were a few basic furnishings -- a stone table, several stone stools, a pile of everyday supplies stacked in one corner, and a simple bed. There was also an empty coffin against the far wall.
This had been one of Uchiha Madara's hideouts.
The man who had once moved the world had planned his Moon's Eye Plan here. Had waited here for his mont to co. Had lived here, in the darkness, with his grand designs.
He had been dead for so ti now.
Only Tobi remained.
"Lord Madara --! Good evening --!"
Tobi dropped the two people from his shoulders with casual inattention and hollered into the empty cave.
"I'm back --! You're dead, I know, but I'm still saying hello to you, just so you know!"
He waited. No response ca, as expected.
"I an, when you were alive I was scared you'd yell at anyway..."
He scratched at the spiral of his head, and sothing in his voice took on a faint, undeniable note of loneliness. "But now that there's no one left to yell at , sohow I'm even more scared."
Still nothing.
Only the echo of his own voice, slowly fading into the walls.
Tobi stood there for a mont, looking at the empty stone stool.
Then, just as quietly, he snapped back to his usual state of cheerful vacancy.
"All right, you two -- ti to get up --!"
He crouched down and shook the two bound people on the floor with considerable enthusiasm.
"Rise and shine --! I know it's nightti, but the sentint applies! That's the spirit!"
He kept shaking and kept talking.
Rin's eyelids fluttered. Yamato's brow furrowed. Gradually, painfully, both of them opened their eyes.
"What -- what --?!"
Rin's eyes flew open, and sothing like unfiltered terror crossed her face before she could stop it.
A pure white figure with no eyes, no mouth, no nose -- nothing but a pale swirling spiral where a face should have been -- was crouching directly in front of her, regarding her in a way that had no right to be called "looking."
"Who are you?!"
The words ca out before she could think, and then she forced herself to be calm. She was a kunoichi. She had faced worse than this.
Yamato was awake too.
His reaction was faster than hers -- the mont his eyes opened, chakra surged within him, ready to move. Ready to fight.
Then it wasn't there.
He stopped. Reached inward. Found nothing.
His chakra was gone. Every last drop of it.
"Save your energy --!"
Tobi's voice ca from beside them.
"Your chakra has been fully drained! But not by , I want to be clear about that, so please don't be scared of ."
Rin stared up at the dark rocky ceiling above her, and a dread she couldn't quite suppress moved through her like cold water.
She wasn't afraid of dying. She had made peace with death the day she threw herself into Kakashi's Lightning Blade. That was already behind her.
What she was afraid of was sothing else entirely.
Being captured again. Being used against her comrades again. Becoming, once more, the weapon pointed at the people she wanted to protect.
The last ti -- her death had been what pushed Obito into the dark.
Those years of shadow. All that killing. All that destruction. It had all started from her.
"Don't be scared!"
Tobi crouched in front of them, his voice bright and breezy and utterly oblivious to the weight of the mont.
"I'm your friend! If it wasn't for , those guys would have done much worse things to you!"
He maintained that cheerful, untroubleable tone.
"As for who I am..."
And then sothing changed.
His voice dropped. It slowed into sothing deeper, sothing that carried a perford quality -- a kind of dramatically aged, existential gravity.
"I have no identity. Nor do I wish to live as anyone's face."
Rin blinked. Yamato blinked.
Tobi held that pose without moving.
If he had eyes, they would almost certainly have been looking at both of them with an expression that said "pretty cool, right?"
He had heard Obito say that line once, years ago. He had thought it was genuinely impressive at the ti, and made a private note to use it when the opportunity arose.
"But --!"
He snapped back to his normal register with startling speed, the entire dramatic persona collapsing like a house of cards.
"I do actually have an identity! But before we get to that -- can I ask you sothing first?"
"What does it feel like to need the bathroom? Can you describe it for ?"
"What -- what?!"
Rin stared at him with an expression of complete bewildernt, and for a long mont she had absolutely no idea how to respond.
"Oh, you'd rather not answer?" Tobi's voice took on a hint of disappointnt. "I thought as much. Having a real conversation with living people is genuinely quite difficult."
"Enough." Yamato's voice cut in. His body was still weak, but his mind was working. "Who are you. What do you want."
As he spoke, he was carefully, quietly beginning to coax the small trickle of recovering chakra inside him back toward the surface.
If he could stall long enough. If he could wait for enough chakra to return, even a fraction of it --
"Oh, oh, oh --!"
Tobi leaped to his feet with a burst of excitent. "That is an excellent question --!"
The next mont, his body began to divide.
Not as a figure of speech. Literally divide.
From the pale, softly-shifting mass of his form, copies of himself split away one by one -- each identical to the original, the sa white skin, the sa featureless spiral face. Within seconds, the cave contained five or six Tobis.
One of them snapped its fingers.
The campfire that had been providing light imdiately went out.
The cave plunged into darkness.
Rin and Yamato both tensed.
Then a beam of light dropped straight down from sowhere near the ceiling -- like a spotlight on a stage.
Looking up, they could see one of the Tobis standing on a protruding ledge near the top of the cave, holding sothing in its hand. A lantern.
"Ahem..."
One of the remaining Tobis stepped into the center of the light, moving slowly, and as he walked his posture shifted -- back curving, steps becoming unsteady and shuffling, the image of a very old man near the end of his years.
"I can't go on," he intoned, in a creaking, trembling voice. "I'm old. My body fails . Even walking is a struggle..."
"I don't know what will beco of my legacy..."
"Wait!" The old Tobi's head shot up, excitent breaking through the frailty. "I must create sothing extraordinary! Sothing that will carry out my plans even after I am gone!"
Another Tobi jumped in from the side, cradling sothing invisible in both hands as though it were the most precious thing in the world.
"Hashirama cells... White Zetsu foundation... and the world's most handso face..."
A grand pause.
"Complete! A special White Zetsu! I shall call you Tobi!"
Then a third Tobi stepped into the light. This one stood straight, chest out, radiating dignity and purpose.
The "old man" Tobi shuffled forward to face him, voice deepening into sothing solemn and heavy with responsibility.
"Tobi. Embodint of my will."
"From the mont of your birth, the forests of the Land of Fire whispered your na."
"My life -- cannot go on without you."
"Yes --!"
The "chosen" Tobi nodded vigorously, his voice ringing with conviction.
"Don't worry, Lord Madara! I'll take care of you!"
Rin watched this unfold.
The white figures perford under the beam of light, directing and acting in the sa breath, asking questions and answering them, playing every part with absolute commitnt. She couldn't tell whether to laugh or be frightened.
But then -- that na ca out of their mouths. And sothing stirred in Rin's mory.
Images from the Pure Land. Things she had seen there.
"You..."
She stared at the Tobi in front of her -- at that featureless swirling face -- as the images kept surfacing, clearer and clearer.
"You're... the one that was always beside Obito, aren't you?!"
***
strange? didn't he die with obito? anyway
****
80 advance chapters at patreon/Eatinpieces
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