itsjustdust | Kunai the 18th: [Video/Action Vermillion]

[The feed clicked on, and for the first time in months everyone got a view of an orange and dark blue clad shinobi. His goggles were off his face, and his headband was nowhere on his head, likely because he was trying to scrub something off of the metal plate and had it in his lap, but otherwise he looked well enough, a bit bigger, lankier, but otherwise, fine.

Some people would be able to note he looked much more at peace too, under his irritation.]

Okay, enough is enough!

I mean it.

I fall out of contact for a few weeks, and what happens? Everyone up and decides to go home! Let me tell you something. I am so not thrilled by this.

So I don't care if we fought last we talked, or haven't spoken in months for no good reason, or anything like that. If you recognize me, come say hello to me because I would like to know who is left around here.

Okay?

This is stupid, and I apologize right now in a blanket 'yeah I get it, it's my fault too' for any and everything that might've kept us from talking.

But, seriously.

Hello and I want to talk to everyone, okay?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Look, she's not even that annoyed at the honorific there. Just for you.

She's hanging out in the usual Nondescript Room, so she doesn't see a problem with having the video on; she's got a makeshift drafting table that she's got set up so the lighting's a bit strange, glinting off those thin wire-rimmed glasses she usually has on, but it's a decent night for talking, all things considered, and she's not too distracted.]

Not too long. Three or four days at the most. And it wasn't so much "grand" as it was annoyed, because from what I've heard this is at least my third time back.

...Okay, I can't blame you for that being a little over the top.

[Wow, he can't even fathom being ping ponged in and out of this place that often. Especially since people seemed to lose their pokemon in between.]

Did you have to start over every time?

[... :|a ]

Well, I don't remember the first time. I was just told that I was here - though the person who told me is known for being a moron. I don't think he'd be that mistaken, but he's proven me wrong in the past.

[...]

Very wrong.

[...]

Repeatedly.

But that's not the point. I started from the beginning the "second" time. And I started over this time, with something that's pretty useless this time around. I'm not too impressed.

And I didn't have any of your things when you left, so I can't even offer to give them back to you.

[He paused, then shook his head.]

So at least you only remember twice? That makes things better in the overall. I can't imagine how frustrating it would be to be on restart number three and remembering them all.

Something like that.

[...okay, okay, look, she'll bite.]

It seems you've been busy in my absence. Or at least, everyone else has been busy.

[It's as close an invitation as you're getting, Obito. What's been going on, man...]

Well... I found out I never actually died.

Then apparently decided to take that out on pretty much all my loved ones over the next decade and change and killed thousands of people so...

That was fin to find out. [He grimaced, because no, it hadn't been fun at all and he was still dealing with some of the fallout.]

Found out a bunch of people I thought were alive back home were dead too, but, it wasn't all back home stuff.

There was also the month of being trapped in a cave without a reliable light source or pokemon too. I did mention that what I thought was my death was due to a cave in, right?

[And then he took another breath... and finally paused, seeing what she thought of his rambling so far.]

[She just leans forward as he speaks, folding her arms in front of her and fixing the device with a stare that's a bit on the intense side; she doesn't seem judgmental, though - just taking everything in.]

What made you kill thousands of people?

[It's a simple, straightforward question that also doesn't really seem judgmental; just asking for verification, much in the same way that one would ask if you're sure it's really raining outside.]

[It was kind of a relief to have her unbiased way of tackling things like this back in his life, honestly. She wouldn't try to make him feel better, or assure him it wasn't so. Just... focus on the points that there was any reason to notice at all.]

I'm not entirely sure but... I think it was somehow to do with someone dear to me dying. I... it's one of the gaps no one told me, so I don't know.

It would make the rest make more sense though.

[She kind of shrugs a bit at that.]

The world is full of people hitting other people. And circumstances hitting people. And people using their circumstances to hit each other.

Sometimes you can stand it. You make the best of it. And you fix your circumstances.

Other times you have to hit back. There's nothing wrong with that.

[...]

Though thousands of people might have been a little ambitious.

Apparently I decided to go a little nuts and force everyone to live in a happy place filled with illusions. I think the idea is kind of stupid myself, but I guess somewhere along the way I decided it was good enough.

[He gave her a little smile. Yep. It never failed. She had been one of the few people who always managed to perk him up.

Ask not why.]

Oh, it's stupid, all right. It's very stupid. But hey. If you have your happy place, nothing can hit you.

Nothing that you don't want to hit you, anyway. So it's dumb, but it makes sense, I guess.

[THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH ENABLING THIS, CLEARLY...]

...

......

I really don't know how I feel about the fact that that actually made the whole thing make sense.

[THIS ISN'T THE THING TO ENABLE. ENABLE HIM TO GET A PUPPY INSTEAD.]

Of course it did - everything's better when you're in charge of it. Or at least you think it is, even if it's not. But that usually takes a particularly talented idiot to pull off, because most idiots aren't able to be in charge for very long.

[Another shrug.]

Sometimes you just need to start over.

[He just... stared at her. Because she was making sense... and had he really thought like that? It was possible. It was beyond possible especially if he'd taken the Hokage thing, punted it to taking over the world and...

Damn.]

Usually something like that is a bit more, I dunno, hard to reset. Then again I guess I'd kicked at it for over a decade so that would've meant I was that kind of idiot.

Maybe. Either that or you were just particularly determined, which doesn't always mean you're an idiot. All geniuses are just particularly determined idiots if you're looking at them the right way.

...But given how stupid the idea actually is, you're probably just that kind of idiot.

[He couldn't help it. He laughed, honestly laughed about this topic for the first time since this whole mess had begun.]

I missed you Caroline-hime.

Kunai the 18th: [Video/Action Vermillion]

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