Chapter Text
“Is that what I fucking think it is? ”
Obito doesn’t quite gape at the sight before him, but it’s a close thing. It’s not every day that someone accidentally stumbles upon one of Orochimaru’s bases, after all.
Granted, he’s fairly certain it’s abandoned. No matter how far he stretches out his (admittedly iffy) chakra sense, he doesn’t manage to catch onto anything. And it’s not entirely random, because he’s been sent on a mission to retrieve some missing item in this general area (which is rather concerning, now that he knows it must be one of Orochimaru’s fucking bases). But still, this is… well, freaky.
He shouldn’t go inside. There might be traps, or horrors untold, or any number of things that’ll leave him dead or mentally scarred for life.
Obito sighs, turns around, and uses kamui to get to the front entrance.
Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back…
Plus, if all else fails, maybe someone will take pity and resurrect him. It happened once, after all.
(And if not… maybe he’ll end up somewhere nicer next time, like the Pokemon world or something. Hopefully. If he ended up somewhere like Demon Slayer or Attack on Titan, he’d lose what little marbles he still had.)
Slowly, he leans forwards and glances around. He can’t see any traps, but that doesn’t mean there’s none hidden anywhere. Orochimaru has had experience with numerous types of dojutsu and is a genius, after all; Obito wouldn’t be surprised if the snake Sannin had backup plans for each and every scenario imaginable.
Or not imaginable, even. The guy’s a bit of a freak, and Boruto’s dad should be damn glad that Orochimaru had a change of heart (*cough* the writers decided to add in a bullshit asspull *cough*) and decided to help Konoha rather than trying to destroy it again.
He’s fairly certain he could get pretty far, too, by the time Boruto began. He had a jutsu that could friggin Thanos people, for crying out loud.
With that in mind, he moves forwards very cautiously. I.e., He thanks Doug that he has the second most overpowered Mangekyou in existence, plus an arm made of the plothole-filling and/or retcon-indulgent cells that everyone and their mother is after, and abuses the hell out of kamui to make sure that he isn’t brutally murdered the instant he steps inside.
Obito’s boot touches the floor, and—
He doesn’t die. So, that’s nice.
With an inhale, he continues moving forwards.
What he finds next will shock you.
It’s absolutely nothing. Not at first. Just a bunch of cobwebs and abandoned rooms with some dead rats.
Considering the lack of non-essentials, Obito’s pretty sure that this is one of Orochimaru’s earlier bases. However, knowing about Orochimaru’s general… everything, he also thinks that there must be a lab - or something along those lines - hidden around somewhere.
He’s not sure whether it’s fortunate or not that he’s not wrong .
In one of the rooms, under a half-rotted desk, is a seal he never would’ve noticed without the Sharingan. He knows he really shouldn’t touch unknown seals without knowing what the hell they do - especially after what he saw with that one guy who’d literally exploded himself - but he’s got kamui on his side, and there’s literally nothing else in the entire place, so.
He injects a touch of chakra into the seal and teleports across the room in an instant, instinctively throwing his hands up in a terrible defensive position.
It’s actually a good thing he does, because some sort of needle shoots out at the same time, and literally follows him when he teleports away. Fortunately, since he keeps kamui active, it embeds itself in the wall instead of piercing him through, and he’s able to inspect the thing.
It’s actually a needle acting as the tongue of a metallic snake, which is very on brand for Orochimaru. He honestly doesn’t know why he expected anything less.
Also , it looks like whatever’s inside would’ve probably killed him near-instantly, since it seems like it’s holding some sort of poison. So that’s fun!
He slowly steps away and carefully heads towards the staircase that opens after the needle leaks its contents against the wall. Only when he’s halfway down the stairs does he wonder why the hell Orochimaru hadn’t keyed it to his signature.
…Maybe it was because he had others who needed to get down there? Or he hadn’t thought of it?
He hoped it was something like that. He’s getting really suspicious about all of this plot convenience stuff.
Though… it probably is the latter, honestly. That, or a mixture of several things. Like it was overly complicated, or he’d been arrogant and hadn’t expected anyone to find the place, and if they had, they wouldn’t have gotten past the poison defense.
And they wouldn’t have - not if they couldn’t turn themselves intangible. Even if they’d managed to substitute with something, they would’ve been followed and poisoned nonetheless.
Hm.
Well, he never wanted to be transported into the Narutoverse in the first place, but at times like these, he’s incredibly glad that he managed to get Obito as a skinsuit.
…Did that make him an animatronic ? Was the universe Purple Guy ?
He snorts at his observation before continuing to head down the stairs, loosening his hold on kamui so he doesn’t slip through the floor.
It’s… well, it’s dark, that’s for sure. Without his Sharingan, he wouldn’t have been able to see a goddamn thing.
He wonders, briefly, if it’s because Orochimaru had a dark and spooky vibe going on, before swallowing a (manly) scream when the lights flick on the moment the sole of his boot lands on the bottom stair.
Obito remains still for a full ten seconds before deciding to forget that ever happened.
When he does bother to look around, the first thing he sees is the gurney in the center of a large room. Afterwards, he spots the chains that line the walls and tries not to think about the stains that paint the floor and walls.
(Dark reds, browns, and dark greens are all undoubtedly body fluids. Disturbing, yes, but not particularly surprising.
The brighter colors - the unnatural ones - are the ones that make him truly uneasy.)
Other than that, there’s not much, aside from the filing cabinets that he figures are at least mostly emptied.
He’s not wrong, as expected. After double and triple checking that he wouldn’t die by opening the drawers, he begins going through them one by one. Aside from a few scattered papers, mostly medical information that he couldn’t make heads or tails of and that wouldn't have been all that concerning if they weren’t inside a torture basement, there’s not much to be seen.
But one of them does hold what he’s looking for. Information about his client’s brother, who’d gone missing decades ago. He had no idea how she came by the information about Orochimaru’s lab, or if she’d known it was his at all, but he supposes that’s not important to him in the long run.
When he reads through the man’s neat notes on the subject, though, he’s reminded, not for the first time, that there are genuine problems in this world. Ones he’ll have to deal with eventually, if he chooses to get involved.
Obito exhales and, after snatching up the notes, closes the drawer. He can’t bring the woman’s brother back, but at least he can give her a bit of closure.
And eventually… Maybe a small sense of vengeance.