Chapter Text
Obito wouldn’t consider himself a scholar, but he doesn’t believe that he’s exceptionally stupid , either.
Times like these leave him wondering if that’s the brain damage talking. Half his skull was crushed by a gigantic boulder as a teenager, after all.
He eyes the bounty in his book with trepidation. He’d accepted the thing on a whim after coming across a station, and now he’s regretting it, just a tad.
Maybe more than a tad.
But can he really be blamed for that? Even though he went out with Haku and Zabuza that one time, all of them know how shitty that went. Not to mention the fact that he’s not fought properly once since he became the main character of some sort of terrible fanfiction, even though that’s like… a ninja’s whole thing.
(He’d say it was assassination, or stealth, or anything along those lines, but that would be blatantly lying. If Chidori actually worked as an assassination jutsu in a context where everyone around wasn’t already knocked out or dead, he’d buy a hat just to eat it.)
But he digresses.
His target is an incredibly shitty guy, which is probably the main reason his sense of judgment was briefly defenestrated, and he found himself buying the stupid bingo book and marching out without a plan in sight, as-per-usual.
(He’s finding his lack of foresight and tendency to leap and not look at all increasingly ironic, considering the fact that he has one of the world’s most powerful dojutsu in his eye socket.)
He really does keep getting off track, though. Which is probably why he doesn’t immediately notice bitch-boy walk by for nearly half a minute before doing a double take.
“Oh, Fuck,” he lets out with a capital ‘F.’ The guy doesn’t hear him, somehow, and to be quite honest, Obito doesn’t really hear himself either. Instead, he’s treated to the sound of his heart doing its best to mimic the sound of poorly made EDM music as his stress skyrockets .
This is fine, he thinks, even as imaginary fire licks at his skin. He’s a dog in a wooden chair, and his house is burning down.
Perhaps that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but he’s freaking out ; his palms are sweaty, knees weak, arms heavy, mom’s goddamn spaghetti.
He reaches forwards and taps the guy on the shoulder before his brain can turn into goop.
The man turns around, a scowl on his face, and Obito flashes him a grin.
“Heyo,” he greets cheerfully. “You from around here?”
“What-”
“I’ve never been here, you see, and I’m looking for the best places to look around. You know, aside from the hot springs.”
The man stares at him like he’s insane. Obito’s grin widens.
“No,” the man tells him flatly, and turns back around. It’s very rude, but he hadn’t really expected much from the ass considering his reputation, so he doesn’t take it to heart.
“It’s just so warm here,” Obito continues, moving to walk alongside the man. “I mean, I’m not from anywhere cold , but it’s like… super humid, isn’t it?”
“I don’t care.”
“Oh, and there are so many people here,” he says, placing a hand on his cheek and doing his best impression of a country bumpkin. “It’s just all a bit overwhelming.”
The man growls, and just before he swings, Obito jerks to the side.
“You could hurt someone like that,” he points out, then ducks when the man attempts to attack him again.
“I don’t have time to deal with idiots,” he hisses, pulling out a pair of brass knuckles from who-knows-where.
Another reason that Obito probably shouldn’t have been as nervous as he was: this man is a civilian with even less shinobi training than an Academy dropout.
“That escalated quickly,” Obito chirps out, and somehow manages to grab the man’s hand when he attempts to clock him in the face. He then promptly catches the other one, and they both stare at each other for a good five seconds before Obito knees him in the groin. “Sorry,” he says, not actually sorry at all.
The man groans, eyes flicking to the side like he’s expecting something. “Who the fuck are you?!”
“I am… inevitable,” Obito answers, then promptly knocks him out. He stares at the fallen figure and places a hand on his chin. “That was surprisingly anticlimactic.”
And then a kunai flies out of nowhere and scrapes against his cheek.
“Ah,” he lets out then, a little nervous. “Maybe I should’ve expected that.”
He whirls around just in time to throw up a block in response to a high-powered kick, though he does grimace when a sharp pain runs through his arm. The shinobi launches back off a moment later and, unfortunately, doesn’t even try to make conversation in order to give Obito time to collect himself, the rude bastard.
Instead, he goes straight after him again, and his two friends do, too.
“Can’t we all just talk this out?” Obito asks a little desperately, then yelps upon dodging another kunai that’s aimed for his heart. “ Rude! ” he exclaims, and throws out a kick of his own.
It doesn’t take anyone out, and probably makes him look like a flailing idiot.
“You shouldn’t have taken this bounty,” one of the shinobi tells him.
No kidding , Obito agrees, but forces a smile and hopes he isn’t backed into a metaphorical corner.
He doesn’t actually know how, nor will he be able to do anything but make vague, overexaggerated hand gestures about the incident later on, but he does manage to strike one of them down, at one point. It’s a complete accident, and has Obito staring dumbly at the fallen body for a moment before he’s rudely reminded that he’s in the middle of a fight.
“You bastard!” one of the shinobi, a different one from before, calls out and launches towards Obito with a raised kunai.
“Oh fuck ,” Obito blurts out, and chokes on a pained wheeze when it slides straight through the meat of his arm.
Why the fuck , he asks himself as his eye waters, would you think it’d be a good idea to block a blade with your flesh ?! Especially when you have fucking kamui ?!
He can’t help but let out a garbled noise when the kunai is yanked back out, and he watches as blood seeps through his sleeve.
He hates this, he decides. Very much.
But time waits for no man, and he forces himself to keep soldiering on. Clearly, he needs the experience if he’s going to survive against anyone in this world. These guys are no-namers, for Doug’s sake.
With an exhale, he shifts his stance and wrestles his expression into something neutral. He must become one with the Dragon Warrior, or whatever.
(Is he going mad from blood loss? Or is that just his usual brand of insanity?
A question for another time.)
The shinobi who’d launched at him with the knife touches down, and Obito throws himself forwards before he can properly regain his balance. He’s forced to block with the bloodied knife, which he slashes towards him once again.
Okay, okay, okay , he thinks frantically as it comes towards his head, Magic bullshit intangibility power, go!
It works, though not before it leaves a small cut in his temple. Obito looks at the stunned shinobi, who’s hand is halfway through his head, and decides not to question it.
It’s not hard, when there’s - once again - a hand through his head , and he feels like his brain is being tickled.
Before he can take the guy out via projectile vomit, he’s attacked from the back by his friend, and he intangi-fies his entire body, causing them to stumble into one another. He really can’t tell if these guys suck, or if he’s just getting horribly lucky.
Considering the fact that Obito’s still not dead despite everything that’s happened to him, he thinks it might be the latter.
Before the two can collect themselves, he knocks them both out. It takes two hits for one, because he misses the first time around, but he’s eventually left standing over a pile of unmoving - but still alive - bodies.
He forces out a breath and, after a glance around, drags them through kamui.
“Here’s the bitch,” he says to the bounty office worker upon arrival. She stares at him for all of a second before dismissing the fact that half his body is covered in his own blood. He wonders if she sees things like this a lot.
Probably. Though he’d be willing to bet that the blood doesn’t usually belong to the person bringing in the bounties.
Obito accepts his reward happily - which isn’t an exceptional amount of money, but still adds up to more than a dozen granny-given missions combined - and completely forgets that he has three unconscious ninjas in his subspace for the time being.
When the worker steps into the back a few hours later, she finds three shinobi tied up with a giant red bow, along with a note that tells her to “Keep the change. Praise Doug.”
She checks her list, notes that one is a C-Rank while the other two are B-Ranks, and wonders what kind of idiot would just let those bounties go.