If Peace is the Goal

"I'm going to need you to tell me everything," was all Obito said in response to Taifū's admission. There was no inflection in his voice. Nothing to indicate if he believed her, or if he thought she was crazy… or worse, a threat. With the mask firmly in place there was no way to gauge him. And even if he didn't have the mask, he was a shinobi. A high caliber one. She probably wouldn't be able to gauge him anyway.

Her stomach churned. Now she wasn't so glad she'd been able to get into contact with Itachi just a few hours before Obito had returned from wherever he'd skulked off too. Because now Itachi and Kakashi would both think she was okay and at the end of this conversation she might just be toast.

'Well, then, here goes nothing,' she thought. 'If Obito reacts badly to this news, I'm a goner.'

She really couldn't lie for shit. In this life or the other one. It always bit her in the ass.

"One sec, I need to add an extra layer of privacy seals…" Fū mumbled, shifting so she could rise from Obito's lap. His hands shot up to steady her, but he let her go. So that was a good sign. Not that she could really run off anywhere. "And I need to put Naruto in his crib. He doesn't need to be here for this conversation."

He left her alone while she put Naruto down for an impromptu nap, which for once was easy because he was already asleep, and made her way back into the living room. Pausing at Naruto's door with a shaky hand clenched around the brass knob.

Fū took a deep breath before twisting it. Obito was standing on the other side with his arms crossed, staring down at her with his only eye. At least the sharingan wasn't active.

"You already have privacy seals," he pointed out as she shuffled past him.

Fū rolled her eyes, but only because he was behind her and couldn't see it.

"They're basic," Fū waved a dismissive hand. "Any ninja worth their salt can bypass those."

Obito went silent, but like a shadow he followed her into the center of the room. She turned and put a hand up to stop him and he halted when it bumped his chest.

"Stand back," she told him. He hesitated but he did step back three paces and watched her expectantly. "I'm just going to enhance what's already here. It would take too much time to redo everything right now."

Fū ignored the way Obito's head tilted to the right and opened the tap on her chakra reservoir, letting the steady stream speed up and the pressure intensify. She knew she was giving him a lot of insight into her fūinjustu and her chakra control but protecting their privacy during this conversation was more important than keeping up her pretenses.

This conversation would change everything.

Light green chakra glowed over each of the fingertips of her dominant right hand, a small ball forming in the center. After she'd gathered enough chakra, Fū crouched and pressed her hand to the soft carpet.

Immediately five different lines sprang from where her hand was laid and spread through the room, up the walls, and meeting just above her on the ceiling.

Fū watched them join in the center, pleased with her work. This way she could guard her apartment against anyone coming in through the walls, too. She'd added that to the preexisting privacy seals as a big middle-finger to Zetsu's creepy ass. It should hold up for as long as she was there. Perhaps for as long as the building remained, she wasn't certain.

She stood, dusting her hands on her blouse. She'd only ensured the privacy of the room they were in, of course. Thankfully her home was an open floor concept. Only the two bedrooms and the bathroom was left out. She'd leave those rudimentary seals intact for now. Once she figured out how to enhance a communications seal for Itachi she'd update her bedroom's privacy seal. Even though those conversations would happen silently through the seals she wanted to protect herself just in case.

"Impressive." Obito sounded like he really meant that and Fū stood, scratching her head sheepishly.

"I'm bad at everything," she shrugged with an awkward smile, "just not fūinjutsu."

"You're not that bad at everything," Obito said, his tone teasing and she scowled at him. He laughed.

But their little light-hearted moment was over just as soon as it begun and he pointed at the couch. "Come on. No more stalling, Fū."

"Where should I start?" She grumbled as she plopped down on the stiff couch and hugged her knees to her chest, pressing her back against the arm and trying to make herself as small as possible as though it might save her from this conversation.

"You said your soul remembers its past life–in another dimension," he reminded her as if she'd forgotten in the last ten minutes. He sunk down onto the other side of the couch, crossing his legs and facing her with his back against the opposite arm. It reminded Fū of some kind of western stand off, where two gun slingers stood on opposite ends of a towns main street, eyeing each other to see who would draw first.

Neither of them would cross the center of the couch.

Fū nodded, taking a deep breath. It was past time she told someone the truth. But she wasn't sure she was making the right decision. This could go horribly wrong and she could die. Naruto could be left alone, in a worse situation than he'd been in in the story.

Her stomach twisted at the thought.

'How does it go, again? Time to nut up or shut up.'

"I remember my whole previous life, including what it felt like to die. Which was honestly pretty peaceful... it was everything that led up to that point that hurt." Fū smiled, but her heart wasn't in it. "The next thing I knew I was in a dark, warm place. It took a second to adjust and by the time I did I was being born. The eyes aren't developed enough to really see anything when you're a newborn, so I couldn't see what was around, but I knew I'd been reborn. I don't know how, obviously."

"Okay. We'll put a pin in that, because rebirth doesn't explain how you know about Kamui." Obito pointed out, throwing one arm around the back of the couch and leaning back.

At least one of them was comfortable.

"I know about that because… well, hold on. Let's start with this; what do you know about multiverse theory?"

"Multiverse?" Obito's head tilted again, and Fū cursed internally.

This society wasn't nearly as scientifically advanced as her last one was. She'd somehow forgotten that.

Knowing she was about to sound like a regurgitated textbook, Fū explained.

"Multiverse theory suggests that our universe, with all its hundreds of billions of galaxies and countless stars, spanning tens of billions of light-years, may not be the only one. Instead, there may be an entirely different universe, distantly separated from ours — infinite different universes, actually. With their own laws of physics, their own collections of stars and galaxies, and their own intelligent civilizations. That's what I theorize this reality to be. One reality in an infinite web of realities. In my last one, perhaps my first one who's to say, I knew of this reality. That's why I know about Kamui. That's why I know a lot of things."

"You realize how insane you sound, right?" Obito asked, resting his head to the side against his arm that was slung over the couch.

Fū let her chin drop to her knee and sighed. "Trust me, I know."

Obito was silent for a little while. It was probably a whole minute before he spoke again; "The dimension I have access to is empty. I've explored it. There are no signs of life anywhere."

"I'd expect that to be the case for a lot of dimensions. I think it's really cool that you have access to one." Fū told him, the ghost of a smile on her lips. "My dimension was rife with so much vitality. It was very different from this world. You'd be amazed."

"How did you have knowledge of this dimension?" Obito asked, skirting around what she'd said. Fū noticed but, honestly, she was just glad he seemed to believe her and he wasn't immediately trying to kill her or lock her up somewhere far away from Naruto. Yet, at least.

"Well, this world was just a story to me." Fū reached down to pick at a scab on her ankle, looking at it instead of Obito in a transparent attempt at avoidance. "A damn good one, but a story nonetheless. That's why I brought up multiverse theory… because that kind of explains to me how this could've happened. That a mere story in my original world could become my own life in another. That's not to say that's what happened, that's just my own theory. I've yet to come up with anything else that rationalizes it."

"So you recognized me that night because you already knew what was going to happen, then?"

Fū's gaze cut to Obito and she stopped picking at the scab. "Sort of. You weren't supposed to come for me. I didn't exist in the story. You never took Naruto. Things changed that night. I'm flying a little blind, here."

"You say strange things like that a lot, you know." Obito pointed out, still a picture of calm serenity where he sat. "'Any ninja worth his salt' and 'flying a little blind' - things that don't make sense. I always wondered what you meant and why you said things like that. I suppose that they're expressions from your last world."

Fū's lips pressed into a thin line.

She hadn't thought about that. Fuck, who else had noticed?

"Don't worry," Obito waved a hand at her, "everyone just thinks you're weird."

That surprised a laugh out of her and she rolled her eyes good naturedly. "Gee, thanks Tobi-nii."

"So you knew about the bridge mission." Obito stated lightly, despite the gravity of the statement, and readjusted on the couch. He laid his chin on his open palm, elbow resting on his thigh. His eye still blinked at her, but at least the sharingan was still put away. "The bridge, the cave, and–"

"Madara."

Obito paused, as if he hadn't expected her to actually speak the name of the man that had saved his life… then he continued on, but slowly. Asking it like a question. Like he didn't really want her to answer but he couldn't stop himself from asking, anyway. "-and you know how my mission plays out."

"Not well," Taifū told him gently. "For anyone." She was unsure how to proceed. She didn't expect to get this far. Didn't expect him to believe her right off the bat.

"Tell me." Obito requested, his voice subdued.

Fū gnawed on her lip and looked back down at her feet. "You were right about Madara having good intentions, you know. He had a point. That's why his character had really resonated with me in the story. So much that I memorized his speech to you… you'll remember the one. 'Wake up to reality! Nothing ever goes as planned in this accursed world. The longer you live the more you'll realize that the only things that truly exist in this reality are merely pain, suffering and futility—"

"Everywhere you look in this world, wherever there is light, there will always be shadows to be found as well. As long as there is a concept of victors, the vanquished will also exist." Obito continued softly. They finished together, Fū nodding along with a grim face. "The selfish intent of wanting to preserve peace, initiates wars. And hatred is born in order to protect love."

Obito went silent as Fū continued, trying to sort through her own thoughts out loud for the first time since she'd been reborn as Taifū.

"But a world of only victors and peace and love… that is a folly. It cannot exist so long as humanity does. And to rid the world of humanity defeats the purpose of pursuing victory and peace and love. Trying to escape the harshness of reality, of sorrow and loss and pain, is not wisdom. It is cowardice. No paradise is without its shadows.*"

Obito shifted, as if he was uncomfortable. But Fū wasn't done with her philosophical ramblings yet. It had been some time since she was able to speak her thoughts like this. Itachi had been the last one subjected to it, but even then she couldn't go into too much detail because… well, he's brilliant but he's still a child and she hated that he was forced into growing up like he was.

Itachi didn't need her to drop an existential crisis on him, on top of everything else. It was bad enough she'd told him there was a threat she was trying to avert. Hopefully he didn't dwell on it.

"Humanity is an ever evolving species afflicted by a short life span. We seek a purpose knowing that our death is guaranteed. Our duty is to find that purpose and use it to leave the world better than we entered it. Madara, and you, you both wanted to do that. Unfortunately Madara was manipulated and he passed that manipulation to you, and manipulated you in turn by orchestrating the one event he knew you – bubbly, bright, optimistic Obito – wouldn't be able to come back from. You, in your pain and your rage, didn't see it."

Fū could feel the change in the air and she hunched further in on herself when Obito's chakra rippled around him and outward, his anger clear. He sat up straight, fists balled and meeting in his lap, head downturned.

He didn't even reel it back when she flinched, that's when she knew she'd gone too far.

"You think you know anything about my pain? My rage?" He growled low, sharingan flaring to life, and Fū shrunk back as far as she could into the couch like it could protect her from one pissed off Uchiha.

She'd known this sort of reaction was a possibility. She should've kept her mouth shut.

Damn it.

Still, she couldn't shake the feeling that this wasn't the time to back down.

She plucked the courage from her frayed nerves and, quietly, said to him; "I know more than anyone else and I'm unable to explain how much I love and respect you. Being a child soldier, being isolated from your own clan, being outdone by your rival, losing half of your body, being isolated after listening to Madara preach for an extended period of time while being trapped in a single room training to help your friends only to see the girl you cared for die by the hand of your best friend. You were the most misunderstood, most abused, most damaged character. You gave up on this world and lost your way."

His character… Obito had meant so much to her. He'd helped her through an emotionally rough patch. She would've been gone from that world ten years earlier than she was had it not been for some of the characters in Naruto.

"You could have saved Rin if you knew!" Obito flew out of his seated position and was now standing, shoulders and stance squared as if he were ready to do battle right then and there in the apartment. "Why didn't you?"

The accusation, the yelling, the tone, and the sheer oppressive energy of his chakra. All of it scared her to the point where she was trembling uncontrollably.

In this moment, with his body language, he reminded her of daddy.

Reminded her of that night. The night daddy killed mama.

"Nobody listens to a three year old." Fū's voice was weak, and she stumbled all over her words. "I couldn't change anything."

"You didn't want to change anything!" Obito accused, pointing a finger almost directly in her face, his voice dripped with venom. "Minato-sensei would've listened to all of this if you had told him and Rin would still be alive!"

That made her angry and, despite her fear, she shot back with equal fervor; "Oh, really? Do you think so? Well perhaps when you get reincarnated into a volatile world full of powerful people who can wield dangerous magic and you're just a terrified three year old who doesn't know how to navigate such a violent world that's so very different from the one you knew before then you can make better decisions than I have since you know god damn everything!"

Tears were streaming down her face and at some point she'd shot up and was standing on the couch so that she was glaring down at him with defiance.

"Stop Tobi-nii!" A small voice cried, and Fū gasped, looking down to find that Naruto had gotten out of his crib, figured out how to open the door, and had thrown his body between Fū and Obito. "Mean Tobi-nii!"

She couldn't see his face, but his arms were outstretched by his sides, his legs spread wide.

Like he was a tiny human shield and he could protect his sister from the world.

Even if it was Tobi-nii she needed protection from.

Obito staggered back as if he'd been slapped.

Fū jumped off the couch and kneeled down behind Naruto, grabbing him around the middle and pulling him back to her. She stood with him in one arm and moved rapidly backward with her eyes trained on Obito.

"I'm going to get him back in bed. I don't think we should continue this discussion right now," she told him, never turning her back as she held her free arm behind her so she could feel for the wall as she backed away.

"Fū," Obito's voice cracked with raw emotion, pain and sorrow warred with regret in his tone and Taifū's heart hurt to hear it, but she wasn't able to keep up this conversation right now. Naruto couldn't be involved in this. "I'm so sorry–I didn't mean… I'm sorry Fū."

"Let's talk about it later."

"Fū, please." Obito begged as she backed into Naruto's room, bumping the door out of the way so hard that it clashed loudly against the wall.

"Not right now. I'm sorry too, but that was a lot. Too much, for today. And I have to see Orochimaru later…"

The last thing she saw was Obito clutching his head in both of his hands and hunch over with a heavy shudder, a mournful, tormented cry ripping from him as she closed the door with more force than she'd meant to.

#

The next time Fū saw Obito was in a room full of black and red Akatsuki cloaks a few days after their blow out.

Konan had come with a babysitter, one that Fū had agreed would be alright to watch over Naruto, and had escorted her down several floors and into a dark, spacious room with a large round table.

Most of the members were already there when she walked in. Tobi was seated at the table, talking Orochimaru's ear off. The snake looked like he was seconds away from biting his head off and knowing his Tobi persona, Fū thought Obito might want to cool his jets a bit before a limb ended up in Orochimaru's stomach.

Fū made a point not to look in that direction as she was escorted past. Her last visit with Orochimaru had gone well. Probably because she was quiet and subdued, thinking Obito was seconds away from showing up and running her through with a sword or something.

That, and she couldn't look at Tobi. After he'd left, she'd gone over everything she said right before their conversation had taken a turn. She felt bad when she realized that she'd basically insulted him while she was trying to tell him what happened in his story. Trying to help him understand what happened so he wouldn't repeat the same mistake again.

She'd definitely gotten ahead of herself in her explanation, too caught up in her rant to realize what it was she was telling him and she regretted it. Regretted the emotional turmoil she'd caused him.

But there was no taking it back now. Fū would apologize the next time he approached her alone.

If he ever did so again, in any case. It had been a few days now.

Looking around the room, she pinpointed Kakazu right away, and Sasori was inside of the Kazekage puppet… She couldn't remember which Kazekage or his name, but she remembered that it was his favorite and the one that Sakura and Chiyo had destroyed. It had some kind of kekkei genkai, but she couldn't remember what it was. Black sand, maybe?

"Is the Akatsuki so desperate that we need to recruit children?" Sasori spat from his part of the table. The puppet didn't fit in the chairs the way it was hunched over, so his chair must've been the one in the back corner of the room.

Where Konan was clearly escorting her.

So she was allowed to be in the room for the meeting but she couldn't have a seat at the table.

That made sense. A seat at the table should be earned, and she was just a little seven year old freeloading kidnapee here with only a basic mastery of fundamental taijutsu and abysmal ninjutsu, after all. Totally worthless, in comparison, to the other power players here.

"Her presence is no concern of yours." Pain silenced the former Suna-nin as Fū took her seat. Konan abandoned her to go sit beside Pain. "She is here to observe," the rinnegan landed on her and he nodded once. "Introduce yourself."

Fū stood, suddenly nervous as the eyes of every one of these powerful missing nin cut to her. She raised her hand and waved, a false smile that they could definitely see through plastered on her face.

"Uzumaki Fū, nice to meet you!"

She had decided (since that night weeks ago when she realized that it might be possible to take Naruto and run off to Uzushio) that she was going to reclaim the Uzumaki name and step into her role as clan head. No matter how small that clan might be.

The first step was to become known as Uzumaki not Namikaze.

This was also a good way to separate herself from the Fourth Hokage. It should create enough buffer that most wouldn't realize she was his daughter and she'd be less of a target. She'd still have people who knew of the Uzumaki clan on her back– but that hadn't seemed like much of a problem in the series for Naruto, so she hoped that this was a good move on her part. The Uzumaki went nearly extinct well over a decade before her birth, after all. Most shinobi don't live to see thirty. The younger generations probably don't know much about her clan.

"Uzumaki? Last I heard your clan died off." Kakazu grumbled, his jade eyes pinned to her face. Watching for any hint of deception.

'Dude, the distinct red hair didn't clue you in?' Fū thought.

Of course, the elder shinobi like Kakazu would remember.

"Most of us." Fū shrugged and took her seat, less afraid of him than she ought to be.

She knew of four Uzumaki including herself. Eventually she'd like to hunt down Karin. Maybe she could get to her before Orochimaru.

"If you're finished," Pain said plainly, watching her. She nodded sheepishly and he turned his head to address the table and begin their meeting.

It was boring.

An Akatsuki meeting shouldn't be this droll, but it was, and Fū grew frustrated with the topics and how singularly focused they were. Their entire tactic could be summed up like so;

One: Obtain financial means.

Two: Undermine the shinobi villages by undercutting them in the market. Complete the missions with quick efficiancy for under the established price and dominate the market.

Three: Get the bijuu so they could initiate and end wars as the end all be all of power in the world.

'Really?' Fū found herself biting back her irritation. 'The goal was peace and their solution is to acquire it through force. It would have never worked. Lasting peace could never be obtained that way.'

She kept her mouth shut.

Until she couldn't anymore.

"Pardon the interruption, but you're missing something crucial." Fū interjected just after Kakazu's report on how much he'd gained hunting high value targets in Kumo. This had initiated bitching between him and Sasori about how if Kakazu had just listened to the reports, he'd have been able to acquire another target and another several million in revenue.

All eyes, once again, cut to her and the bitching ceased as Pain raised a hand.

She waited until he nodded at her to continue.

"If the goal is peace, then you're right to gain your funding by undermining the shinobi regime. However–" Fū swallowed, wishing she had some water because the sudden dry mouth she was suffering was not it, "-shouldn't you be focusing more of your time on spreading propaganda?"

Now she had their attention. Orochimaru's bored expression was broken by a slight narrowing of his eyes and the upturn of his lips. Pain raised one eyebrow, Konan raised both eyebrows. Kakazu leaned in. Tobi folded his hands together on the table, eerily silent despite being in his Tobi-persona. Sasori was a puppet so there was no telling what he thought.

"Continue," Pain commanded.

She obliged, tongue darting out to wet her dry lips. "Who pays the shinobi for their services? Civilians, mostly. Meanwhile, most of the 'Greater Nations,' in their infinite arrogance, have a tendency to consider civilians as lesser to them, despite their dependency on civilians for just about everything."

"Shinobi and civilians are symbiotic, one cannot thrive without the other," Sasori stated, his tone clipped. He was eying her like she'd better make her point and make it quickly before she met the business end of his poison coated tail.

She'd forgotten that he was an impatient sort.

"Shinobi are military strength and the civilians rely on them for safety. The shinobi, in turn, rely on civilians to grow food, build businesses that create economic growth and stability. Etc." Orochimaru interjected, displaying perfect poise where he sat, unaffected and undeterred by the rising annoyance coming from Sasori.

Fū was nodding before Orochimaru finished talking. "They out number the shinobi by what, a hundred to one? The Daimyo's and the Kage's are separate entities but they both corral and maintain the people, but the two factions of the people are segregated. The Daimyo in one city, the Kage in another, managing the segregated groups independently."

She still held the room's attention, and no one spoke up to add anything so she shifted and kept going.

"Bandits. Brigands. Tyrannical local governments. Slave trade, and human trafficking. How often do the shinobi in the greater villages fail to protect the civilians in the smaller communities outside of their cities unless expressly asked, motivated by monetary gain, to do so? The people in small villages live in constant fear. So long as it doesn't affect the supply chain too severely, neither the Daimyo or the Kage will interfere."

She had heard of such things. There were complaints about these occurrences lodged in Konoha on the daily. Her father had been trying to re-coordinate the shinobi forces so he had a task force assigned to each region that would work hand in hand with the small local governments to protect the people.

Minato had wanted to fix it.

It was unfortunate that he'd not been able to.

"If Akatsuki were to swoop in and become local hero's to smaller communities throughout each of the countries… Well, through word of mouth the civilians would spread pro-Akatsuki propaganda until nobody went to the greater villages for aid. That would undermine the shinobi regime and get the people on our side."

"We do not wish to draw too much attention," Pain said when there was a break in her explanation.

"The villages would begin sending shinobi to attack Akatsuki," Orochimaru interjected, following her line of thought. "What would you do to subvert this, Uzumaki-sama?"

Fū pursed her lips, forehead creasing as she thought about it.

"I wouldn't. I'd make a spectacle of it. Ensure each and every confrontation happened in front of the civilians, do my best to limit the collateral damage to the town to a degree that even a civilian with no training would notice that I was trying to protect them from the shinobi that were trying to kill me, instead of just trying to save myself and letting the town get caught in the crossfire. That exacerbates the praise received, the adoration. At that point…"

"...yes?" Orochimaru prodded, and she didn't notice the way his eyes did not stray from her face.

"At that point the civilians would want to flood the smaller nations where the Akatsuki operated out of for protection because war would be on the horizon, wouldn't it?" Fū speculated, tapping her index finger against the tip of her nose, deep in thought.

"The Kage would consider us a threat…. They might even unite to take us down." Konan spoke softly from her place beside Pain.

Fū was thinking hard, now, and she wasn't looking at the room anymore. Just thinking out loud, letting their words into her thought process but not really realizing that they were speaking to her.

"Peace is the goal. Not war. We'd need to make diplomatic relations with the other small countries a priority. Especially the Land of Rivers because we're land locked, we'd need access to their port cities. But we'd need to unite, essentially, and stand firm. I would need to…" her head snapped up and she looked directly at Pain.

He arched his brow again.

"I could, theoretically, create a vast network of protection seals around the smaller nations over the next several years. Something that would keep armies from crossing the border, but could be controlled so it doesn't stunt the supply chain. The Kage would be backed into a corner and desperate already… with the seals they'd be forced into a whole new corner where their words would have to fight for them, not their blades and their jutsu. Peace isn't won on the battlefield. It's negotiated in rooms like this. Continually."

At first Pain said nothing. Then, his lip twitched just once and he turned to address Sasori.

"That is why the child is here, Sasori-san."

"Indeed," the puppet master agreed, nodding once. "If she's as proficient with fūinjutsu as she seems to believe she is."

Fū's grin was razor sharp and confident. The first time she'd truly felt good about herself in this body. Nobody was watching her, and she thought she probably shouldn't, but fuck it. The puppet master was underestimating her and it was very annoying.

Now was the time to prove that she was, indeed, as proficient with fūinjusu as she believed she was.

"I'll prove it." She stomped her foot, appearing to them all as if she was throwing a tantrum.

Nobody reacted, ignoring her completely.

The seals she'd sent through the chakra in her foot had found their homes on each of their legs. As soon as they all stood to leave the room after Pain's dismissal about twenty minutes later, their left legs gave out and they (each and every one of them including Tobi) kissed the floor at the sudden imbalance.

She blew them a kiss and winked as she exited, stomping her foot one more time to dispel the seals.

The last thing she heard was Kakazu cursing the Uzumaki name and Sasori's raspy puppet voice calling her a little brat as she booked it down the hall, hoping they weren't angry enough to catch up and gut her for the insolence.

#

Obito regretted his reaction to Fū's explanation.

He regretted it the second that little blond bundle stood between them with an enraged expression that didn't fit that bright personality and tiny face.

He hadn't realized he was leaking some malevolence through his chakra until that moment. He'd never felt like such a lowlife than when a toddler stood between him and Fū. Defending Fū from him.

To add another punch to his gut, Fū was so frightened that she'd backed herself and Naruto into the boy's bedroom, refusing to turn her gaze from him until the door was closed tightly between them.

Obito couldn't even look at her without the guilt twisting his insides. He was glad for the mask because he had no way of maintaining his pitiful kicked-puppy expression whenever he saw her. He knew he needed to apologize, he didn't want to be estranged from the only person he had left in this world.

Because she missed a detail in her admissions, despite how she seemed to know everything there was to know about the past several years of his life.

Perhaps in the story she knew he was completely overtaken by his grief over Rin's death. He could not deny the devastating effect, the sheer impact, Rin's death had wrought upon his life. He could see it – he could see himself completely losing his way to his anger and sadness like Fū said he did.

But Fū failed to realize that while Obito had lost Rin in that version of his life, in this reimagining of whatever story she'd known he still had Taifū.

Even if Taifū is a transmigration from another planet, that doesn't erase the Fū he knows from his mind and his heart. She's always been that person and Fū, hasn't she?

Rin was important to him. She was his friend, and he'd cared for her very deeply. Wanted to develop an even deeper connection, before his 'death.' Rin was the only person in the world who had supported him and his dream of becoming Hokage. The rest of the world just beat him down and told him he wasn't good enough. Perhaps not in so many words, with physical force, but it had been clear what everyone had thought of him prior to his death.

Rin's loss… he couldn't put it into words. Like one light in his life had been snuffed out and he could hardly comprehend that. Because Rin was not someone who was supposed to die. She was light, and good, and she deserved to live.

But Rin wasn't the only light he had in his life, in this version of his life, and it was thoughts of baby Fū that had gotten him through her death.

He'd trained so hard. Not just so he could return to Konoha and help his friends, as Fū had suggested. He'd wanted to get back to the little girl with the big blue eyes who called him 'Obi-nii' because she couldn't fully form the name 'Obito' yet. He wanted to be there when she started the Academy. To be her teacher, even, because Kushina-san had put the idea of being an Academy teacher in his head and he actually thought it was something he could be good at.

When Rin died... one of the first thoughts that had broken through the fog of his grief was that Fū could die too.

He wanted to create a safer, more peaceful world for that little girl to grow up in. So that Fū, who was also light, and good, and deserved to live, could.

'Please, any gods that are out there, please tell me I haven't screwed up so badly that she wont forgive me.' He thought, standing right inside the Uzumaki's suite with his back against the door. Just like he had done every night since their fall out.

It was the middle of the night. He was just getting back from Kiri and he was tired. He'd over used his sharingan over the past several days. Pair that with the emotional upheaval of his falling out with Fū and he was a wreck. It was havoc on his mind and it was affecting his ability to lead the Akatsuki and Kirigakure. He was making mistakes. He hadn't even questioned Orochimaru's motives yet, and that had been a priority until he'd fought with Fū.

He had to apologize. He knew it. He wanted to, even.

But the thought of her rejection–that was too much. He couldn't handle it.

"Tobi-nii?" He hadn't heard the door to Fū's bedroom open, but she was suddenly standing there, the darkness of her room behind her like a deep black void that reminded him too much of death - it did nothing but make him feel sick at the harrowing reminder that Fū, too, could die like Rin.

"I'm sorry," he blurted out, watching how her head tilted and her brows snapped together. She stepped out of the room and into the living space where the light from above the stove illuminated her face, dispelling the illusion of death. "I shouldn't have… I told you you could trust me and I–"

"I'm sorry too," Fū said quietly, stepping closer. "I was lost in my thoughts and rambling because I haven't been able to verbalize what's up here–" she pointed at her temple with a faint scowl, "-in so long that I got swept up in it. I didn't realize exactly what I was saying and I should've been more empathetic."

"It doesn't excuse my reaction. Naruto got out of bed, found his way through his closed door, and stepped between us because he thought I was a threat. That's…"

"...unacceptable." Fū finished for him, and he nodded his agreement, jaw snapping shut. "That can't happen again. We're a family. I cannot allow violence to be exhibited between us in front of him. It's traumatizing and that's not how he will grow up."

"I agree."

"Okay," Fū sighed and her shoulders dropped. She leveled a long look at him, then took a breath. She closed the distance between them and threw her arms around his middle, her voice was muffled by his cloak but he still heard her when she said; "I don't want to fight with you anymore."

"Me either." Obito said, wrapping his arms around her to return the hug. "I'm open to hearing more about the story, and your previous life, when you're ready to share it. For now, just know that I believe you and you don't have to hide from me. Okay? I wont have a fit of temper like that again."

He felt her nod against his abdomen.

He also felt the dampness leak through from her tears and said nothing as he tightened his arms and let her cry.

"Love you, Obi-nii."

Obito's heart throbbed almost painfully and he felt like the wind had been knocked out of him. His mask unraveled and fell to the ground before he'd even realized he wanted it to, and he buried his bare deformed face in the crimson hair at the top of Fū's head.

No one had ever said they'd loved him before.

There was nothing worth loving about him.

But Fū did. She'd said it.

"I love you too, Fū."