Chapter Text
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Silence.
Not the kind of peace that clings to calm, but the one that comes after an explosion—the dull buzz that leaves a hollow vibration in your eardrums.
His footsteps, which until now had been slow and dragged down by the absurdity of his situation, stopped abruptly. It wasn’t a decision. It was instinct. Something about the scene before him made his body freeze.
The brat was kneeling—small, but not because of his height. It was the way his body curled in on itself beside the makeshift grandmother. The old woman… she looked dead. He couldn’t be entirely sure—not completely—but the post-mortem signs were there: the stiffness beneath the cloth, the unnatural pallor across her body, the eerie stillness that only someone as experienced as him would recognize.
Damn it. How dare she die today of all fucking days?
Her death wasn’t an emotional problem. It meant his lie would get more complicated, at least a little. And without noticing it, a wrinkle creased his forehead. If this kept up, he’d get wrinkles.
His gaze locked on the boy, who was using trembling fingers to look for any sign of life—first a touch to the nose, then to the wrist—as if that could change the obvious. Death was already heavy in the air.
But beyond the corpse, he was worried about something else—they had to hide her quickly, without any nosy witnesses poking around. His options were limited. Maybe some jutsu to disintegrate her? He needed to get creative.
Obito whispered something. A subtle tremor—barely visible but real—ran through his body. His voice came out so low it was almost inaudible; any lower and it would’ve been swallowed by the silence in the room.
“She’s dead.”
His eyebrows lowered slightly at the “unfortunate” news. Of course she was dead—that was the obvious part of this whole mess. The real question now was: what was he going to do?
He had made up a damn story—improvised—that had gone surprisingly well, but now everything hung by a thread. Everything depended on that damn third-rate Uchiha keeping his mouth shut. The last thing he needed was some kid getting suspicious and digging into things on his own.
He clenched his fists and stepped toward the corpse, faking a shocked expression. That’s what people did, right? When his own parents had been killed, he hadn’t even blinked—probably because of the circumstances. But that didn’t matter now.
“Shit… I was hoping she was just unconscious,” he muttered, voice dropping into something quieter, almost fragile.
He placed his palm gently against the old woman’s pale, cold cheek. Cold. Useless. Disgusting. Human life was just as fleeting as his art. He didn’t plan on growing old and becoming a sack of bones and wrinkles. He had a better plan.
He looked up—the “Uchiha” was staring at him. He wasn’t saying anything, as if his brain were still catching up. Perfect.
Deidara held his gaze, letting his eyes fill with a helplessness that made the whole performance more convincing.
“We can’t…” he began, letting the drama carry him, “we can’t just leave her like this.”
His voice was nearly reflective. To an inexperienced ear, it would sound like someone quietly thinking out loud. But the truth was more mundane—he was just figuring out how to hide a body.
Time to act. Again.
“If someone finds us… if even one of the jonin connects this with the fight… they’ll think it scared her to death. A heart attack. And then they’ll come—the jonin, the police, the interrogators.”
He straightened slightly, his voice calm now.
“And I won’t be the only one in trouble, you know? They’ll interrogate you too. Even though we did the right thing. The tortures I mentioned earlier… do you think you could endure them?”
He let out a practiced sigh and continued his stupid little speech.
“The old lady was the only family I had left. Now it’s just me… Deidara.”
He glanced at the body, then back at Obito.
“But… if you help me by keeping quiet,” he said in a confidential tone, pointing toward the corpse, “we could move on. Me—with my art—showing how it’s something superior, something that transcends the ordinary… how real beauty lies in those fleeting moments, the ones that explode and vanish forever… but still leave a mark.”
He tilted his head slightly, blue eyes burning.
“You get it, hmm?”
Obito looked confused, he had to fix this. Damn brat—no sense of art whatsoever.
“And… you could still become Hokage with a clean record. Although honestly, I don’t know why you’d want to be Hokage,” he added.
The tension in the air eased noticeably, so Deidara turned around, giving the Uchiha his back as he fixed his gaze on the dark forest. It looked like it swallowed up the entire landscape.
They had to be quick—if anyone saw them dragging a humanoid shape, there’d be too many questions and not enough answers.
He approached the corpse again, grabbed one of the old woman’s hands, and pulled hard.
Too heavy.
Since when did old ladies weigh this much?
He sighed in irritation.
He could wait until midnight and take his time hiding her, but that would only make things harder. He had no idea how long it would take for Konoha’s ninja to start searching the forest.
Logically, the best option would be to bury her somewhere unlikely to be inspected anytime soon—like the house itself.
Yes… with a simple Earth Release jutsu, he could make a hole in the middle of the room and then blow the whole shack up.
Well…
Maybe not blow it up.
But the intention was still there.
He walked toward the center of the little hut, each step measured. That would be a good spot for the jutsu.
It was a basic technique used by Earth Release users in Iwa, designed to bury enemies underground with only their heads sticking out—like moles.
With his experience, he could make a small variation, instead of burying just the head, he’d bury everything.The smell would still linger—but he had options: he could dirty the house, leave rotting food or garbage, even leave a half-cooked dead animal lying around.
He could just leave the corpse there and let people find out eventually… But the kid already knew she lived here, and if he didn’t bury her, it would raise suspicion.
In the kitchen, he found some bandages he had stolen a while ago.the fake Uchiha probably had his own at home, but one thing Deidara had learned well was how to manipulate people, luckily since joining Akatsuki, he hadn’t been sent on missions that required acting.
His blistered fingers grabbed the bandages, and he walked back to the boy.
Without a word, he took Obito’s arm—The cut was still open, deep. The fabric stained with dried blood the moment it touched skin, he didn’t check whether his grip was too tight or whether it hurt—
That was part of it too.
His fingers moved with precision, wrapping the cloth in spirals around the wound until it was fully covered.
“If anyone asks about that ridiculously unartistic injury, you’ll say you hurt yourself playing with a kunai, hmm.”
“Playing with a kunai? But I’m a ninja! I don’t even know how I could hurt myself like that… I’m a ninja—a real one!”
Deidara clenched his teeth, for a second, killing him actually sounded like a reasonable option.
But no—
After all that humiliation… after kneeling like some damn stage actor— he wasn’t going to let all that effort go to waste because of this, he fixed his eyes on him, didn’t blink, didn’t even try to smile. Just a cold, unwavering stare that said: The next one to be buried won’t be the old woman.
“A real ninja, huh?”
The blond’s voice dropped into a low, firm tone, he wondered for a second if he was being too harsh with a simple genin—but that thought died a moment later.
“You’re right. A real ninja wouldn’t get hurt in such a pathetic way.”
He leaned forward, his shadow falling across the Uchiha’s face.
“But you know what else a real ninja doesn’t do, brat?”
The same hand that had just finished wrapping the bandage settled on the boy’s shoulder.
“They don’t ruin the plan. They don’t screw up their own future in such a stupid, unexplosive way.
Unless, of course, you want everyone to know you were inside this hut when this happened.
You want to be interrogated?
Marked as a suspect?
Is that it?
You want your precious Hokage career to fall apart over something that ridiculous?”
His face drew even closer—so close that the warmth of his breath shifted the air against the boy’s neck. He didn’t touch him.
He didn’t have to.
The proximity alone did the job.
“So, no—you weren’t fighting.
You hurt yourself playing with a kunai.
It’s a very simple story to remember, right?
And the only one that’s coming out of your mouth.
Because I care about you, Obito.”
And with that, he turned away, the performance was over, the brat was still alive, he had too much work left to do.
“You’d better get lost,” he muttered in a voice barely above a whisper, not even bothering to turn back.
“I’ll bury my grandmother. She always wanted to rest in peace, so I’ll do it myself, you go home, your parents are probably waiting for you.”
He shoved the dark-haired boy toward the exit and shut the door behind him, no more bandages left, he’d steal more tomorrow.
For now, there was a jutsu to perform. He waited.
Stood still, scanning the room, until he could no longer sense the Uchiha’s chakra. Only then did he move—dragging the old woman’s corpse to the spot he’d chosen inside the shack.
It took more effort than expected. Old or not, she felt as heavy as if her soul were resisting burial. With the correct hand sign, he activated the jutsu. The earth opened up like a hungry mouth and swallowed the body.
Not too deep—but deep enough that no one would find it. Unfortunately, it meant he couldn’t use chakra again today, maybe not even tomorrow, he’d have to stick to the basics.
He stripped off his dirty clothes and burned them. The less evidence, the better.
And yet, as the flames consumed the fabric, a doubt started to form—
Like a splinter that wouldn’t go away.
Was it worth it? He knew Akatsuki would attack Konoha in the coming months—maybe even weeks. He also knew the masked one wasn’t in the village anymore. He must’ve escaped at some point.
He wasn’t stupid. He knew he could’ve taken out those border ninjas. But something had held him back.
Something he didn't even know how to name. Something dangerous. It felt like being a damn genin again.
That paranoia of always looking over your shoulder, that constant uncertainty of not knowing what to do if things went off-script.
But he knew it wasn't that. Because Konoha wasn't Iwa, he could hate the Leaf all he wanted—but he knew any of the Five Great Nations were experts at brainwashing children.
His own included. Being small again reminded him of what it had felt like, once.
There was something off. It wasn't the body. It wasn't the old woman's memory. This whole stay had been a fucking torment. No explosions. No damn clay. Not a single spark of art. Freedom was slipping through his fingers—and each day, he felt more and more trapped.
His eyes fell on the spot where he'd buried the corpse. The floorboards there were slightly raised, almost like they were breathing. A shiver ran down his spine, and he stepped back.
The air grew dense—thick, heavy—almost liquid. And without warning, the world changed. Sand. There was sand in his mouth. Waves crashed—violent and wild. "If you want to stop it, leave…" A voice whispered. He didn't know who it belonged to. It was male. Distant. Familiar in a way he couldn't place. A rope tightened around his neck—he trembled.
Why was he trembling? His hands—small and fragile. Then he saw it. A face. No features. No eyes. No mouth. Nothing. And yet—he could feel its gaze, sharp as a kunai, stabbing into him. He knew that thing. Didn't know how or when—he just knew he'd never be able to forget it. A piercing screech tore through his ears—and the world snapped back into place.
No more beach. Just the shack again. Wooden floorboards. Cracked walls. But the trembling hadn't stopped.
Not just the ground—his entire body shook. The rope was gone. So was the faceless thing. Everything his cursed mind had conjured vanished. Stress, probably. Or the lack of artistic stimulation. Yeah… that made sense. No need to think about it anymore.
The best thing he could do now was go to sleep—and dream about blowing the damn Uchiha clan sky-high. If he was lucky, he wouldn't see that brat for a few days. If he was really lucky—he'd never see him again. That would be ideal.
Training sounded tempting. Not out of discipline—but to destroy something. Anything. The shack felt far quieter now.
More sinister, even though—unlike that other night when his mind had played tricks on him—this time, he was truly alone. It was going to be a long night. And if he wasn't lucky, it would be filled with nightmares. He threw on a pair of pajamas he'd stolen from some random shop and laid down.
The taste of sand still lingered in his mouth. Maybe because the last thing he saw before arriving in the Leaf was exactly that.
Sand.
—————-
The light didn't wake him. It was the burning.
A stinging heat climbed up his face—something that normally brought comfort now felt suffocating.
He blinked a few times, still regaining consciousness, tangled in coarse blankets his grandmother insisted on washing with cold water—well, at least before she left on that damn retreat, abandoning him to his fate.
For a moment, Obito didn't know if he was asleep or awake.
But the ceiling was the same, with that crack he stared at every morning as soon as he opened his eyes.
The pain was real, just like the bandage on his arm.
That confirmed it hadn't been a dream. He was now some kind of ninja delinquent.
He sat up with difficulty, the sheet sticking uncomfortably to his body due to cold sweat from nightmares, and his hair was messier than usual.
He had barely slept, but a sharp ache in his muscles reminded him more clearly of how chaotic yesterday had been.
The fight had taken its toll, and—the blond boy.
The image appeared effortlessly, despite how hard imagining things had always been for him.
Since meeting him, that damn idiot had embedded himself in his mind.
That firm expression, his warm—slimy?—hand.
That voice that had said he cared.
He touched the bandage with his free hand. It didn't hurt anymore—just stung—but that didn't bother him.
Getting hurt in a fight was expected. What unsettled him was something else.
He got up, his cold feet meeting the tatami floor, and glanced at the clock.
He was nearly an hour late—he had to hurry. There was training.
Everyone was probably already there—Minato-sensei helping his teammates improve, Kakashi showing off in front of their pretty teammate, and Rin—always so kind, so attentive.
He had to train, to get stronger, to surpass Kakashi and become Hokage.
But as he dressed and adjusted his forehead protector over his messy hair, one moment came back to him:
"Because I care about you, Obito."
He didn't know exactly what bothered him more—that he had said it, or that he had said it so easily.
As if he were someone worth caring about—when no one else aside from his sensei, his grandmother, and Rin had ever said anything like that to him.
"I should stop thinking about this. I don't even know his name," he muttered, tightening his hitai-ate.
The training field was pretty far from the Uchiha complex, so he had to hurry.
At least he'd get to see Rin. Before he realized it, he had arrived, slightly out of breath, and just as he expected—his teammates were already there.
The moment Kakashi saw him, he frowned. Typical—he was always uptight about rules, even though Obito knew he wouldn't escape a scolding from their sensei.
Minato noticed him immediately, walking over with his usual kind smile—that same one that never failed to disarm him.
No matter how badly the day started, he could always rely on sensei.
At least he would be a bit understanding. "You're late, Obito," his sensei began.
He didn't sound angry, nor indulgent—his tone was neutral. "Any excuse?"
The Uchiha shook his head, avoiding the blond's gaze. He didn't have a good excuse—not one he could share without raising suspicion.
"I overslept, that's all. I'm sorry," he said with a shrug. He could handle a punishment.
Kakashi, who had remained silent, scoffed. "Oversleeping before training just shows your lack of commitment.
You should follow the rules." Obito felt his anger boil up and shot him a glare.
He was about to snap back but decided to keep quiet—at least for now.
Rin, however, stepped in before the tension could escalate.
"Obito, are you okay?" she asked gently, approaching with concern.
Her eyes automatically dropped to the bandage—the only evidence of what had happened yesterday.
He tugged at his sleeve to cover it better. At least he had some kind of front.
"I'm fine," he mumbled, grateful. Any other day, he would've been overjoyed by an interaction like this—Rin noticing small things about him.
But today, his mind was elsewhere, and specifically today, he didn't want her to worry—especially not about something he couldn't explain.
Minato watched them carefully, though he said nothing.
His gaze hardened for a second before returning to normal.
He clapped his hands, drawing the kids' attention back.
"Alright. Now that everyone's here, we'll work on group coordination.
Rin, you'll provide long-distance support. Kakashi, I want you leading the overall strategy.
"And you, Obito…" He paused.
The Uchiha feared for a moment that his sensei would send him home for being late.
"…you'll handle any on-field emergencies. Think of yourself as the team's wild card.
I need you alert, okay?" "Yes, sensei!" he replied quickly—with more energy than he truly had.
But he would try—try hard not to let his team down.
Minato turned to begin the training, but not before noticing the poorly hidden bandage under Obito's sleeve.
He didn't say anything—for now.
Relieved, Obito forced himself to focus.
He didn't plan to be a burden.
And yet, one phrase wouldn't leave his mind. Because I care about you, Obito…
And even though he moved, ran, followed instructions, it felt like he was outside of his own body.
His mind lagged behind—stuck in the events of the previous day.
He knew he couldn't afford to think about it in the middle of training, but he couldn't help it.
Despite how badly the blue-eyed boy had treated him—he'd believed in him.
In his dream of becoming Hokage. When almost no one else ever had.
Break time finally came—the moment halfway through training where they had a few minutes to catch their breath.
Normally, he'd try to talk to Rin about anything.
But this time, he needed space. Maybe tomorrow he'd be okay.
Then his sensei's words sent a chill down his spine.
"Avoid the forest for now," Minato began with his usual calm—but with that seriousness he only used when he meant it.
"Apparently there was an incident yesterday. The jounin are investigating, so I need you to stay away from the area.
If you notice anything unusual, report it to me immediately, understood?"
Obito, sitting in the shade of a nearby tree, pretended to stretch—just to hide his nerves.
But his mind raced faster than his legs ever could.
His breathing—once labored from training—was nothing compared to the adrenaline that surged through him now.
Would they find out he was there yesterday?
Had he left any incriminating evidence?
Had they found the boy? He swallowed hard.
He couldn't get Deidara's image out of his mind—not that he even knew if that was his name, though he thought he heard the boy say it.
He rubbed his forehead as if doing so could somehow erase the thoughts from his mind—the memories.
He couldn't believe he was caught up in something like this.
If anyone found out he'd been there—had helped a stranger, possibly a fugitive—
His ninja career would be over.
Or worse—he'd be accused of treason and thrown out of the village.
"Obito." Rin's voice pulled him from his thoughts.
The Uchiha turned quickly in her direction, forcing a smile.
"Eh, what's up?" "You okay? You look a bit pale."
She knelt in front of him, searching for any sign that something wasn't right—
And sure enough, she noticed his wound was bleeding again.
Rin had always been perceptive—a trait that, today, worked against him.
"Yeah, just didn't sleep well. Don't worry, I'll be good as new after a nap tomorrow," he replied.
And she didn't press further—she never did.
Finally, training was over.
They'd probably be assigned a mission soon, but for now, he'd live one day at a time.
Minato had just finished giving corrections to Kakashi and Rin, then approached him with a gentle smile—
One of those he used when he knew something wasn't quite right.
"Good work today, Obito," his voice as soft as ever.
"Wanna grab something to eat? I'm treating—I heard there's a new ramen stand downtown."
Obito looked up, surprised by the offer.
Sensei didn't usually do this unless they had completed a tough mission or earned a promotion.
"Ah… Thanks, sensei, but I'm not really hungry right now."
He tried to sound casual—but even he didn't buy his own tone.
Minato nodded without pushing. "That's fine. But if you ever need to talk, you can tell me anything."
Obito lowered his gaze. And without waiting any longer, he turned around.
He walked quickly—almost running—hoping, for the first time, that none of his teammates would follow him.
Because if he stayed one second longer…
He might have fallen apart right then and there.