Naruto Tales: The Next Uchiha | SasuSaku, NaruHina, InoShikaTema, NejiTen +

XII: Rin's Legacy

QOTC: You want to save us both and you're willing to give up your life. That's not heroic. That's tragic.

- Young Kakashi to Obito

**********************************************************

Chapter 1: Rin's Legacy

*PLAY SONG*

Sakura stared unwittingly at the Uchiha standing before him as she found herself asking the same question twice.

"Y-you're Obito Uchiha," Sakura opened her mouth to fling the words in his face. You're dead. It couldn't be. There was no sound. It was one of those nightmares where she would scream and yell and nothing would occur to her. Nothing but a thin gasp.

Obito tried to reach for her, but he felt as if his touch was poison. Sakura stumbled backwards until she fell into the ground, her wrists bounded. Magic. Sakura wanted to protest, but when her tongue spoke, only a dry puff of air came from her mouth, the gasp of someone urging to scream with a cut throat.

The Elder Uchiha shook his head. "Don't bother to speak. I sealed your voice when you let me touch you. I wouldn't try to stand if I were you—your legs will cause you more pain." Sakura glared at him, trying to bore into him with her eyes, cut him with her hatred. But Obito took no notice. "Like I said, there's no going back. You and I, we've never had a casual conversation, have we? You must be wondering why I'm alive. Sorry to have you disappointed."

Now her stare went from fear to inexplicable, asking himself, how could they have a conversation when she couldn't even speak? She tried to force the words out, but it was no miracle.

Obito turned back to his altar, where he held the box containing the Rinnegan. Despite Sakura's gruesome dislike towards those things, the eyes gave off an aureate light, a sort of illuminating reverse—a reminder that it was somehow alive. "Truth be told, I've known you when you were barely a child." He was speaking to her, Sakura thought, in a way he would never had to someone else. His tone was calm, even conducting, but it wasn't that. "That was a couple of weeks after I unleashed the Kyuubi and Minato-sensei had sealed it inside of his boy." He said. "After I searched the great library, I've discovered something. They say history will repeat itself, and that doppolgangers shall will be born to witness the same fate of their ancestors."

You're lying, Sakura wanted so scream at him. But she wasn't so sure if he was. He sounded strange to her. Different. Maybe it's because he was telling the truth.

"After I fled from village to village, I searched for you in years, and when I did... Maybe that's when the most unexpectable thing happened." He said. "I've risked a death sentence on occasions sneaking in Konoha at night; just to kill you... Just so your memory would stop dancing in my mind." He shook his head, picturing himself as he craddled the little Haruno in his arms; fragile... And soft. "I had to come back. You were everything I've had, and everything I asked for. I told myself I'd come back for you when you're older. I thought maybe I could talk to you, I could make you see the reason." His voice tightened. "When I finally came back, I'd heard you've already become a genin, and rumors say you were placed under Kakashi's students. Rin's always adored him, cared for him, and I realized something then."

He was looking down at his hands. Sakura had thought they were shaking, but they were motionless as a corpse's. Very slowly, he closed them into fists.

"I realized," he said, "What's done is never done. It remains within us, the story we tell ourselves so we know who we are. The mark that we bore from our forefathers. A man sent to establish peace, the other one meant to destroy it. And a girl, either she mantains the balance or be the one to come in between them and ruin their bond. The children of the Sage of Six paths for the hand of Mito Uzumaki, so does the three Legendary Sannins, the Ame Orphans, then us Team Minato, and then you three."