God Damn It, Kyuubi!

Road to training? Yeah right. More like road to love.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Then, stare at the puppy. Try to not panic. Stare at the puppy. Look at that little ball of fluff—

"Woof?"

Obito whimpered and reached out his arms towards the little fluffball, cradling Fuwa to his chest. Fuwa wriggled and stretched in his arms, only stopping when the pup was able to rest his head on Obito's shoulder. There was a deep rumble that resonated from the puppy—a soothing rumbling sound that actually worked wonders on Obito's shaken nerves.

He held on tight to the small puppy, timing his breathing with Fuwa's calm breathing pace until his panic was toned down to an acceptable level of mild concern rather than a full-on anxiety attack.

But Obito was still reasonably frantic and terrified.

He had thought that Sakuto was a cool decent guy but that—

That was scary.

Obito has never been so terrified of someone's laughter before. Sure, he had heard that some deranged S-class shinobi had horrible habits of indulging in evil or mad laughter, but he never thought that he would ever be able to experience it. Laughter should be the beacon of joy and happiness. It shouldn't sound so unhinged and terrifying.

It shouldn't sound like one was about to descend into rageful madness.

His breathing quickened again.

Probably sensing the rising tension in Obito's form, Fuwa yipped and nuzzled his wet nose to Obito's scarred cheek. The rumbling soothing noise grew louder as the puppy completely curled up against Obito's chest.

Obito cradled Fuwa closer.

Obito took an embarrassingly long time to match his breathing with Fuwa's before he was able to summon whatever remnants of chakra that he had to his eyes, activating his sharingan to look for any opening for an escape from this bleak dimension.

There was none.

He was trapped.

He was trapped in Kamui with no way out.

Tucking the puppy in a one-arm cradle, Obito reached up to hold the edges of one of the floating cubes. He hauled his body up with a grimace on his face, but didn't let the pain overwhelmed him. Staggering, he relied on the cubes for support as he made purposeful circuits around the dimension, attempting to seek for any crack that he could manipulate to escape to the real world.

He couldn't take any risk being held captive by Sakuto any longer. Sure, the guy was fairly nice and decent, but if Sakuto could shift from nice to insane in a drop of a senbon, Obito did not want to take any risk.

Not when he was incapacitated like this.

He has no fighting chance against Sakuto at all in this state.

Stuck in the bleak dimension of Kamui, Obito has no means to keep track of time at all. He has no idea how long he has spent staggering in circuits around Kamui, exploring every nooks and cranny he could find—not leaving a single cube unchecked—but by the time he collapsed against a cube, he was spent and exhausted.

The right side of his body throbbed in soreness, and his joints were attempting to knock him out with blazing pain even with Fuwa's glowing paws resting on his right shoulder. He was shamefully out of breath, as his breathing pace was short and laboured while his chest heaved with every inhale.

There was no way out.

It was almost expected when Obito stiffened and felt his blood ran cold as the air swirled to crack open a now familiar portal. He held onto Fuwa with a little bit more horrified desperation than he wanted to admit—his grip was shaky on the soft fur, his breath was bated with tensed anticipation, his mind chanting comforting words to psyche himself up for the worst—as he waited for Sakuto to enter Kamui.