Somewhere in the Elemental Nations…
Black Zetsu found Obito exactly where he usually did nowadays, tucked away from the rest of the organization, working through something that had nothing to do with Akatsuki's actual objectives.
"Konoha was invaded today," Zetsu said, without preamble. "Suna and Kiri moved together. Rasa is dead. The Third Hokage is dead as well, taken down with him through some kind of suicide seal. Terumi Mei survived, barely."
Obito didn't look up from whatever he was doing. "Hmm…"
Zetsu waited for something more. Nothing came.
"That's all you have to say?"
"Is anything more necessary beside that…" Obito's tone stayed flat, disinterested, the same way it had for weeks now. "Something which doesn't change anything relevant to us."
"It changes the balance of power across three villages in a single day, and the entire Elemental Nation," Zetsu said, sharper now. "This could affect Project Tsukuyomi."
"It won't affect Project Tsukuyomi… even if a war breaks out, it's nothing but good for us. Let the five villages drain themselves in the war. If it happens, then it's only better for us. Collecting the Bijuu after that would be just that much easier."
Zetsu let the silence stretch, studying him the way he'd been studying him more and more often lately. "You haven't visited the Akatsuki base in some time. Nagato's progress on the Rain situation hasn't been checked ever since you fell unconscious. Nagato is slowly getting out of our control…"
"I'm busy."
"Busy with what?"
"I'll get to it later."
It was the same answer he always gave lately, delivered with the same maddening lack of urgency, and Zetsu felt his patience thinning further with every repetition of it. He'd tolerated a great deal from Obito over the years — grief, obsession, the slow unraveling that came with losing everything a person cared about.
Zetsu honestly couldn't care a bit about what the heartbroken Uchiha was going through or that he had picked up a new hobby after getting up from his years-long slumber.
However, he did care when Obito's inaction was costing their plan. He did care when Obito went ahead and lost a strategic asset like a Mangekyō with a power like Kamui.
The fool didn't even bother reclaiming the other eye he had given to Hatake Kakashi.
Obito sure was difficult to deal with before, troublesome at the best of times, but this was different. This wasn't grief anymore. This was neglect, plain and simple, and neglect from the one person holding half their plan together was not something Zetsu could afford to keep excusing indefinitely.
"If this continues," Zetsu thought, watching him without a trace of that thought showing, "he becomes a problem rather than an asset."
Of course, Zetsu never voiced these ideas of his. He still needed the fool to bring back his mother.
Even after he had gained Izumi Uchiha's Mangekyō, which earlier Zetsu thought was dormant because he lacked his own Mangekyō, the fool had done nothing with those eyes.
He had done precisely nothing meaningful with them since. That alone should have troubled Zetsu more than it apparently troubled Obito himself.
Zetsu turned to leave, the conversation clearly exhausted, when Obito's voice stopped him.
"Any news about that woman?"
Zetsu paused. He didn't need to ask which woman. There was only one they'd both quietly kept tabs on since that particular complication had first surfaced — the body they'd taken those eyes from, later found walking around very much alive, with a new pair of eyes too.
Izumi Uchiha had somehow survived, which neither of them had anticipated. The eyes could have been transplanted later on. Konoha, or the Uchiha clan for that matter, would surely have spare Sharingan lying around to find a pair for her.
But how she survived was nagging both of them.
"Some," Zetsu said carefully. "She fought in the invasion. Apparently she's the one who put the Mizukage in critical condition, not Konoha's own forces."
That got the smallest flicker of a reaction out of Obito — not concern, not alarm, something colder and more calculating than either.
"Beat a Kage," Obito repeated quietly.
"Do you know how?"
"No…"
Obito didn't talk anymore then. He simply went quiet again, attention drifting back toward whatever he'd been working on before Zetsu arrived, leaving the thought unfinished and Zetsu no more informed than when he'd started.
"I have to do something about this… he is becoming a liability." Zetsu's dark thoughts rang out a little too loudly, unknown to him that the man he thought was Obito Uchiha could sense negative fluctuations.
-x-
Back in Konoha
The bar Jiraiya picked wasn't much to look at, but it was quiet, and neither of them wanted anything louder than that tonight.
"To Konoha's council," Jiraiya said, raising his cup, "and their absolutely inspired decision to keep two grown adults under house arrest for our own good."
"To that old lady Koharu's balding skull," Tsunade agreed, and drank without waiting for him to finish the toast properly.
If Jiraiya had anything to say about that very imaginative insult toward one of the higher-ups and elders of the village from his old-time friend and crush, he didn't show it. He just focused on his drink.
"They actually think locking us in the village solves anything." Jiraiya refilled both cups without being asked. "As if either of us was planning on running the second this meeting ended."
"Talk about yourself, Jiraiya. I'm getting the f*ck out of this village the first chance I get." Tsunade snorted and stared into her cup like it owed her something.
"Ah, come on, Tsunade, you don't mean that. And if you really wished to leave, who else in the village could really stop you anyway?" Jiraiya smirked, knowing full well that Tsunade could never leave the village, especially after the condition it was in right now.
"I care to disagree on that." Tsunade, very uncharacteristically, actually pouted, already having at least three names in her mind who could stop her. One was sitting right in front of her.
Jiraiya didn't ask who she might have been talking about. She'd talk eventually, just needed more alcohol.
"No Kage-level shinobi are left standing in this village besides us. Fourth Kazekage dead. Terumi Mei half-dead. If Suna or Kiri get any bolder from here, or if someone else decides this is the moment to strike—" Jiraiya at least gave a half-hearted excuse to justify the council's decision, even though he himself didn't like it.
"They are more crippled than us at this point. Any five-year-old can say that if those people in their desert and seaside villages have any sort of brains left, they wouldn't start a war anytime soon." Tsunade just snorted.
"Kumo," Jiraiya said flatly.
"Kumo," she reluctantly agreed. "They've always run their village like a standing army waiting for an excuse. Three villages licking their wounds at once? That's not an opportunity they'll pass up."
"And here we are, cursed to babysit the whole mess instead of drinking somewhere Suna and Kiri can't reach us." Jiraiya knocked back another cup. "I hope whoever greenlit this invasion is having a worse night than we are."
"Doubtful. Most of them are already dead."
"Fair point."
They drank in silence for a while after that, the kind that only two people who'd known each other since childhood could actually sit inside comfortably.
"Remember the Second War?" Jiraiya finally said. "Sensei used to say the fighting would be over by the time we were grown. Look at us now."
"He said a lot of things," Tsunade murmured. "Didn't stop Nawaki from dying anyway. Didn't stop Dan either."
Jiraiya's expression softened. "I still think about them both, you know. More than I probably should, this many years later."
"You don't have to say that to make me feel better..." Tsunade turned her cup slowly between her fingers. "And now that old man has gone and gotten himself killed too. And God knows what Orochimaru is doing right now." She sighed.
"Conducting those dangerous researches of his, most likely." Jiraiya's voice had gone rougher than usual.
If Nawaki and Dan were sore subjects for Tsunade, then Orochimaru was the same for Jiraiya.
"Kami, I still think about Minato sometimes. Feels like yesterday I was teaching that idiot how to actually land a punch instead of just talking his way out of every fight."
"He was a better student than you deserved."
"Don't I know it." He managed something like a smile. "And Kushina right alongside him. That woman terrified me more than half the enemy shinobi I've fought."
"She terrified everyone. That little she-devil." Tsunade, for once, had a real smile on her face, which of course didn't last long after recalling that even Kushina was gone.
They sat with that for a while, the weight of the Nine-Tails' attack settling over the table without either of them needing to say it outright — how many had died that night, how much the village had never really finished grieving before this new disaster arrived to pile on top of it.
Jiraiya seemed to feel the conversation sinking too far, and steered it elsewhere before it dragged them both under. "You know who actually reminds me a bit of Minato? That Haruno boy."
Tsunade snorted into her cup.
"I'm serious," Jiraiya pressed. "Civilian-born. Genius on a level nobody expected. Already handling Flying Thunder God like it's second nature. Sensei hid that one good. Sly old man that he was. Give that kid a few more years and—"
"The Elemental Nations could cease to exist," Tsunade cut in, something dry and pointed in her voice.
If Jiraiya noticed the unusual ire in Tsunade's tone toward that boy, which he surely did, he didn't mention it… though that surely got him curious.
"Any particular reason you think so highly of the brat?"
She didn't answer that directly. She couldn't, not with the Binding Vow sitting in the back of her mind like a leash she'd agreed to wear. "That boy hides more than you could even imagine, Jiraiya."
"That supposed to be a compliment or a warning?"
"Both." She drained her cup. "And here's what I can tell you instead. He's rude. Insufferably calm about things he has no business being calm about. Talks to his elders like he's doing them a favor just by responding."
"Sounds more like Kushina than Minato to me."
"Minato was a golden retriever with impeccable manners," Tsunade said flatly. "That brat is a crocodile wearing a sheep's face. Don't let the polite little smiles fool you."
Jiraiya laughed, loud enough to draw a look from the bartender. "Now that," he said, "has me really curious. That brat Naruto wouldn't stop talking about that kid. Might want to give him a visit one of these days…"
"Wonder what the brat's doing now…"
xXx
A/N : Got nothing to say, if you guys were expecting fluff then you're clearly a bit early.
Nah, just kidding, got that plan next.
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