Crossroads (A Naruto Fanfiction)

This Moment

The alarm beeped persistently. I scrunched my brows together and reached out towards the alarm before opening my eyes. There was no alarm. My hand was grabbed by hands rougher, yet as small as my own. I gasped sharply, my eyes snapped open and I flinched my hand back towards me. I stared for a second at the child hovered above me with his dark obsidian eyes crinkling in relief where it accentuated the deep lines. They were much deeper than I remembered them to be. "'Tachi," The name came out of me before the realization came and I shot upwards, my arms wrapped around his small shoulders in a tight embrace. This was the safest place for me. Itachi was my safest ground.

The days of my kidnapping replayed through my mind. The woman, the pain, and Rin.

"Ri-" A cough ripped through me from the dryness of my throat. Scratchy and uncomfortable to the point of stinging.

Itachi wordlessly poured me a glass of water from the jar on the bedside table and handed it to me. I drank impatiently and relished the relief it brought me. When I looked at Itachi as I handed him the glass back, I was taken aback by his astonished expression. His eyebrows were lifted high as his eyes widened and his mouth gaped. I reached out to him worried before he hugged me once more.

"You spoke... You finally spoke." His words were a whisper and I could only take his joy stupidly. I realized a second later, from the wetness of my shoulder, that he was crying.

It was then that Mother walked in and spotted us and grew a tearful smile. "My boy," She ran the few steps to us and encased me and Itachi in a warm embrace. This love from Itachi and Mother. This moment, made all the better as Father came into my sight over Mother's shoulder. He closed his eyes and let out a deep breath before coming to our huddled family hug. He placed his large calloused hand on top of my head.

"My boy," His tone was different from when Mother said it in relief. He said it with pride I wasn't sure was for what.

This moment. It was the best in either of my two lives.

.

.

.

For two days I stayed recovering at the hospital, in the same hospital room I was previously taken from. There was something fundamentally wrong with this fact, but I couldn't find it in myself to point it out.

"We don't make the same mistake twice, I've told you this before." The director had told us when Father argued to take me back home. "He will be kept under constant, twenty-four-hour watch, instead of being checked in on in timely shifts as usual. His psyche will have to begin adjusting later. For now, only the three days he is reported to recuperate, it is recommended that he stay under medical watch that bit longer."

Weird as it may be, there was nothing to do given the reassurance.

The day I awoke, I had spoken for the first time since the year I regained my memories. Itachi had told Mother and the relief of that news matched, or perhaps passed, the level of when she saw me finally awake after being in a coma for a week. She asked me more than once for me to speak and I try. I open my mouth and push through my throat to stir up my voice, but all that would come out was a choke that left me hacking up bile. I didn't know how I was able to speak the first time I awoke.

Because of the week I was in a coma, my body became grotesquely shrivel and it was hard to eat anything more than soup noodles. The wounds and bruises have already been healed, but it was still painful to move much. This brought me to the present, where a bowl of soup noodles was brought to me and placed on a tray before me by Namikaze Minato. I hadn't expected him at all, so when he waltzed in through the door with my breakfast, I was only able to stare at him speechless. Well, mindfully speechless at least.

"You look far better than the last time I saw you." Was the first thing he said. "I'm sorry I couldn't meet you the time before. I was assigned to a mission that night." He trailed off, scratching the back of his head with nervous laughter. I nodded numbly and looked down at the food he had brought me.

I still haven't gotten any news about Rin. Was she well? Was she even alive still?

My silent questions were answered after Minato gave me time to finish my meal. "I was taking care of Rin the week you were in a coma. She spoke about you, and was eager to know about how you were doing." Minato smiled warmly at my relieved expression. "She's doing very well considering everything that happened."

'Everything that happened'. For the past two days, I've had a lot of time to think about the kidnapping. Time to think about how there were others who were going through the same thing as of this moment. Those who had gone through it more than once and still risk it. Those who were never able to be saved and suffered more than I ever did. I had Rin for that time, a comfort rare to get in those situations. I was more than grateful.

I was brought back from my thoughts when Minato patted my head gently. He seemed to contemplate for a good minute before he started to speak hesitantly, "...You wanted to show me something the last time we met, right? Do you still want to?"

I inhaled sharply at the reminder.

That was a moment of my own desperation taking over me. I didn't want Itachi to suffer the same as he did in the story, but there were consequences I had to take into account that could go two different ways. The risks that the less favorable path could take place left me terrified out of my wits.

I looked at Minato with conflicting emotions.

To confide in someone was a double-edged blade. For one, I had someone to prevent the worst of everything I remembered to come. On the other hand, I might not be believed, or rather, there were those in the village itself who would use me in the worst ways possible. Information given in the wrong hands could be devastating.

Namikaze Minato, however, was one of the more most trusted of the characters I remembered, as good-natured as Naruto was to be. His kindness now made it all the more clear how gentle, kind, and trustworthy of a character he was.

...He was also a shinobi. Someone who could kill thousands in mere minutes.

"Obito," My voice came out barely above a whisper, hoarse from its lack of use, and the hand on top my head tensed, stiff in surprise. "He's alive."