In Spite of it all (BOOK TWO)

Chapter 45

Obito POV~

I could see them. Their voices were mere echoes, and their existence was nothing but a shadow, but I could see them.

I could see them, the collective strength behind the boy. By himself, he was formidable, but they gathered around him, lending him their strength and towering above all else.

An unfamiliar feeling corded my chest. 

Was this...regret?

No. Why would I regret anything I was doing?

Naruto Uzumaki watched me, no apprehension in his gaze. Nothing at all. After his deadpan, "Here we go again," we were silent, staring at each other. In our moment of collision, we connected in a way that rarely happened. I could feel it, the swirling chakra that floated around him like lingering storm clouds. It wasn't just chakra, though. They were collective minds, powerful and protective. And, from the way they flared, very angry.

"You want to be nobody." Uzumaki said, his voice betraying nothing. I didn't answer.

The boy tilted his head slightly and kept talking, his voice growing harder and faster, "You want to forget your past. You want to hide from it, and you want to recreate it in such a way that you only want to remember the good things and nothing else." his lip curled in a snarl, baring unusually sharp canines, "Well, guess what? Nothing will help you forget. Nothing is going to erase your pain. Your past will always catch up with you, sneaking up behind you and dragging you down with it. And your past will always run faster than you, so run all you want, but it's not going to stop until you turn around and face it."

I stayed silent, ignoring the uncomfortable tightness in the back of my throat. And the boy just kept going. 

"You can be nobody. I don't give a fuck about that. But you know what? You decided to keep running from your pain, even when it caught up with you and clawed your back. You wanted to keep running, because you don't want to face your pain. Well, WAKE UP!"

His voice echoed, thundering with the force and vigor of a hurricane. It sent vibrations running through my bones. His teeth were bared fully, now, his eyes as hard as a gem yet clear and deep as a pool that you couldn't see the bottom of.

"You left yourself to be completely broken by your past. You severed everything tying you to the life you wanted, YOUR LIFE. You GAVE UP. And now others will PAY for it." as quickly as the storm came, it calmed, deflating into a simmering cloud rather than a raging disaster. "I suppose I'm a hypocrite, considering how I pretty much did the same thing, but you know what makes us different, Obito?"

When I still didn't answer, he fixed those ocean eyes onto mine and reached out a hand, palm up and fingers clawed, almost as if he was offering a hand.

"Unlike you, I did what I did to help someone I cared about. Lie to yourself all you want, but everything you're doing now is selfish. You refuse to see what's right in front of you."

Anger, hot and scalding, snapped at my chest. "What's right in front of me? All there is to the world is pain and suffering. I'm not like my young, naive self! If I want to become Hokage, all I'll be doing is walking over the bodies of my comrades!"

The boy didn't speak for a moment. I realized what I'd said, and also forced my mouth shut. It had been years since I'd felt so many emotions at once. Years since I felt anything other than cold hatred, the blinding pain and burning resolve to end it.

Then, he leaned back slightly, no longer towering. The pressuring presence of the Beasts receded slightly. His control over their chakra was completely eased, unlike my control over the Jubi. Something in his eyes shifted slightly.