Chapter Text
It’s not an opening salvo so much as it is a meteoric saturation attack. Obito leaps away from the tree—or, well, what used to be a tree and is now a pile of ash—and then twists his torso to dodge the spray of flaming shuriken that erupt from the foliage behind him. The angle is awkward; he pulls on his chakra and activates Kamui. Several blades bite into his shoulder anyway.
When he lands in a patch of singed grass, deftly slicing a kunai through the tangle of wires between him and the ground, he is unsurprised to find Uchiha Itachi standing at the edge of what is now a clearing in the lakeside forest. He's surrounded by flocks of crows. On his shoulder, in the tree branches, circling in the sky… Obito looks around and sees that they've been boxed in by black birds all around. Black birds with sealing tags on their breasts.
“...Clever. That's one way of getting around the problem.”
“I’d prefer if you refrained from using doton to escape,” Itachi answers mildly. “My sister will be very upset if we damage the lake.”
Obito snorts. “We’ve drained the lake thousands of times by now. Does it really matter?”
“It does. It matters to her—to this loop’s Sagi.”
“And? This loop’s Sagi will be dead soon enough,” Obito remarks as he prods at his skin. His gear has warded off most of the damage from the fire, but now his shoulder is bare and he’s bleeding from several lacerations. Figures. Itachi would aim for his good side, wouldn't he?
Obito expects his adversary to react—to scowl, or to contradict him, or even maybe to unleash another attack—but strangely enough, his clansman just stands and stares at him. There’s a long silence. It begins to stretch.
“...Hello? Anyone home?” Obito waves glibly at him, but the way Itachi seems to have suddenly vacated his own consciousness feels strangely unsettling. They've spent a long time together at this point, him and Itachi, but Obito’s never seen him do that before. “...Have you fallen asleep standing or something?”
The younger man returns to himself. He blinks slowly. His Sharingan shifts into the pattern of his Eternal Mangekyou. And then…
“Are you crying?” Obito asks, baffled, when a tear runs down Itachi's cheek.
“It would seem so,” Itachi replies distantly. As he wipes it away Obito thinks that his clansman looks more haggard than he's ever seen him before. He looks exhausted. No, raw. No… brokenhearted.
“What is going on with you?” Obito is mystified. Itachi just lets out a long exhale.
“‘Dead soon enough’... You aren't wrong. She will be dead.”
That reply… isn't quite right. Itachi would never agree to such a statement. Obito is instantly suspicious.
“What are you plotting?”
“Nothing. There are no plots left to try.”
“This is a pretty elaborate setup for someone with nothing left to try. You’re not usually this bad at lying… Something really is wrong with you.”
“That is because it’s not a lie,” Itachi replies tiredly. “It’s the truth. Stopping you is beyond my abilities. The original regressor has said so herself… there’s nothing I can do to help her.”
Obito regards him curiously. “Did your sister tell you to stop looping? When you’re the only thing even attempting to stand between her and certain death?”
“She tells me to stop every time. She can’t go a single loop without saying I should let her die.”
“Is that so…” He looks at Itachi with fascination. “What’s changed, then? Clearly you weren't listening to her before.”
Itachi doesn’t reply to this question. “Did you know,” he asks instead, “the reason why we cannot regress past our limits? Sagi and I discussed it recently.”
It’s only the deadly sea of traps between them that prevents Obito from launching himself forward. As it is, with Kamui disabled, all he can do is snarl.
“Tell me,” he says, and the sound of it is feral even in his own ears. “Tell me right now.”
Itachi tilts his head. “She’s never mentioned it to you, then?”
“Do you think I’d still be spinning around in this fucking torture sphere if she had?”
“Yes. Knowing why isn't the same as being able to change it.”
Obito swears again. “You shitty siblings—”
“An irreversible decision,” the younger man interrupts before Obito can gather too much speed. “What do you think would be the criteria for such a thing? She knows they exist, but she couldn't tell me why.”
Cut off, Obito can only stare at him. Then he asks, “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Irreversible decisions. Your most recent one sets the limit of your regression. That's the reason why she can go farther back than you,” Itachi says matter-of-factly. “It’s not any sort of secret trick. She made a permanent choice early on and hasn't made another since. That's why her limit hasn't moved.”
A wordless moment passes. Then Obito hears it: the voice of the perfect Uchiha woman, murmuring in the quiet of the night—
You have the truth already. You were given the answer long ago.
“She did tell you,” Itachi observes. “You already know. You know that she can't tell you how to break the limit.”
“...I—”
“You can't change it, but you're still looping… You are indeed spinning in circles. You are attempting in vain to outrun what you cannot abide.”
For several seconds the clearing is quiet. Then, shaking, Obito’s fingers curl into fists.
“I can't accept that,” he utters. “I won't. It isn't true… There has to be a way.”
Itachi just regards him wearily. “And that is the heart of the matter. That is why we cannot escape. Until you accept reality, these loops will be endless… as will our suffering.” He is silent for several moments. Then he says, “But that is as it should be. Sagi has excluded herself from this madness. She will not experience this torment.”
“You could try taking her advice,” Obito proposes scathingly. “Just do us all a favor and stop looping. Your precious sister said so herself, didn't she? You're useless to her.”
Itachi stands and stares at him once more. But unlike before, his gaze is not unfocused. Now his eyes are sharp.
“Do you think so? I wonder.”
“What for? You can't stop me. You said so yourself.”
“I did. But does that mean I'm useless to her?” Itachi's shoulders, previously slack, straighten. “I don't think it does.”
“...What are you talking about?”
“It means that even someone as skilled as Sagi can make misjudgments. She believes her death is fated, so there's no choice but to let you have your way… she thinks I'm trying to outlast the will of heaven.” Itachi lifts his chin, full of defiance. “But she is mistaken. This is no fate, and you are not the heavens. You are a man… and I can outlast you.”
His words hang in the air like the fall of a hammer. Obito stares. Then he hears blood begin rushing in his ears.
“...As if the heavens ever bothered to look down on our lives.”
“Heaven’s net is wide, Obito. Wide enough that you think we are slipping through its meshes. But you are wrong.”
“Listen to yourself, talking like you know.”
“I do know. I have been caught. We both have—this is heaven’s vengeance.” Itachi shakes his head at him. “I am paying now for the evils I committed. I inflicted unending sorrow on another, and now I am suffering unending sorrow in turn.”
“Are you saying something that poetic is going to happen to me?” Obito barks out a laugh. “Yeah, sure. I wonder how you think the heavens will try to balance my account, then.”
“You will see,” Itachi responds simply.
Everything goes quiet. For a long moment, the only sound in the air is the crackling of fire. He and Obito look at one another, and it's clear what's going to happen next.
“A long dying dream," Itachi says, voice soft, as he gently brushes his summon from his shoulder. The bird beats its wings and soars up into the sky. “That’s what Sagi called this—a haze of impermanence. As long as we keep looping, we can neither end nor begin. And she would have been right… if not for what she told me next.”
“...That being?”
“That the present is the place where time touches eternity.” His eyes begin burning. “What do you suppose will happen, Uchiha Obito, when a man touches eternity and makes a choice? Will his decision be impermanent, or will he have done something real? Something… irreversible?”
“...”
“If her only option is to wage a war of attrition, I will wage it with her. You may kill her each time, but I will bleed you for every step. No matter how long it takes—a thousand thousand years or more—I can commit to chasing you through this hell forever. So go ahead and try, Obito. Try to last as long as you can. You will see… one way or another, this will end, and my sister will be free.”
Obito opens his mouth to reply, but he doesn't get a chance. Itachi is inhaling before he can even move. Then the air erupts with hellfire, and the forest goes up in black flames.
Well, Obito thinks as he limps along, at least there's a silver lining: since Itachi has been dealt with ahead of time, it's much easier than usual to get past the wards. Once he's in the annex, it's only a matter of passing through the walls. Soon enough he finds himself in the central space that serves as Sagi’s bedroom.
Obito steps up to the side of her futon, silent, and stares down at her. The Light’s leader looks as she always does on this night: dark-haired, light-skinned, and serene even in sleep. Truly a Yamato Nadeshiko if he’s ever seen one… with looks like that, all slim frame and delicate features, one could be forgiven for forgetting what a weapon of mass destruction she is. Obito doesn't, of course. He’s been impaled with lightning spears far too many times to make such a mistake.
Gingerly, he slowly lowers himself to sit. His skin is throbbing with burns and his back is shredded with lacerations—shit, Itachi is such a fucking pain—but he knows he can't make even the slightest noise, so he bites back the urge to groan. When it comes to Sagi there's no room for error. Only a few strategies ever work against her, and she can make miles out of an inch of slack; he doesn't know if there's anyone else on the continent capable of transforming nature chakra as instantaneously as her. A second is all she needs to annihilate even a hint of a plan.
Holding in a sigh, Obito raises his leg to step on her sword. He’d once made the mistake of letting her get a hold of it, and he’s not eager to repeat—
His heel stills in the air. Sagi’s sword—she always leaves an ANBU-style straight sword at her bedside. She’s done it in every loop without fail. It’s the first thing she looks for when she wakes, and it’s always in the exact same spot. At this point putting his foot on its hilt is practically a muscle memory.
So why isn’t it here?
Obito looks again. There’s nothing on either side of her futon. Is she sleeping with it, then? No, that can’t be. Her summer blanket is too thin to cover anything up, and the way she’s curled up makes it clear she isn’t hiding anything under her side. She’s short enough that she wouldn’t be able to conceal even a wakizashi with that posture.
At once Obito begins to feel uneasy. Theoretically it’s to his advantage that Sagi doesn’t have access to a sidearm, but that fact provides him exactly no relief whatsoever. The timeline has changed. Something’s been altered and he doesn’t know what it means.
Apprehensive, he begins another visual inspection. Futon—unchanged, no suspicious lumps or bulges to indicate hidden items. Pillow—askew; it's not even under her head anymore. Sagi—still just Sagi, slumbering away with her hair falling over her face. Somewhat inanely, Obito finds himself thinking about how strange it is. She cuts it awfully short for someone who is, in all other respects, the embodiment of the Uchiha feminine ideal. It makes her look common, like some clanless kunoichi… If the elders were still alive they would have hated it for sure.
Then a small stack of papers catches his eye. It’s on the tatami near her head, and she's laid a note atop it.
Tamaki—
Itachi has informed me that Intel faces numerous complications in the wake of my death. I doubt this will be sufficient for your needs, but I’ve compiled a very brief report regarding the probable causes. Between you and Lord Takuto, this should in theory enable you to put most of the major points together; but if you still experience significant difficulties, I recommend you speak to my guard. The four of them will be able to provide at least some insight into my activities. (Or at least, that is the hope. Kidoumaru is nominally the captain, but you may wish to consult Jiroubou first.)
When you are finished, please burn it as soon as you can—I didn't have time for encryption.
I am sorry I could not put my affairs in order in time to spare you this headache. Please also extend a profound apology to Maruki, who will be forced to hold up the entire division after you are inevitably promoted into Lord Takuto’s office. He always seems to be at the epicenter when disaster strikes.
With deep regret,
Sagi
Several paper-clipped documents are gathered beneath this letter, but Obito doesn’t bother with them. Instead he looks back at the Meikage, who has never once in any previous loop made provisions of this sort. No sword and a set of final instructions… In other words, no intent of defiance at all. An unconditional surrender.
Before he can help it he finds himself letting out a forceful breath. Sagi is awake the moment the sound leaves his lips. He sees her eyelashes twitch, but like a proper ninja, she remains otherwise inert; it's only several seconds later, no doubt after having assessed the situation, that she properly opens her eyes and looks at him. They meet gazes. A beat passes.
And then, inexplicably, she smiles.
“You're here. Welcome, Obito-san.”
She doesn't wait for a return greeting. Instead she rises right away and heads for the tea table. Obito feels goosebumps begin to rise on his skin as she seats herself, neat and proper as ever, before it. There's already a container of tea leaves waiting beside a small tea pot; she must have been working there earlier in the evening. He can see a pen and stationery set matching her letter to Tamaki.
“You’re looking rather worse for wear,” his clanswoman remarks, looking over her shoulder, as she sets out two cups and begins to heat some water. This lady and her damned tea technique… Where did she even learn such a useless jutsu?
“We've got your older brother to thank for that,” Obito jeers to cover up his agitation. “He's as uncivilized as ever.”
“He really is a boor, isn't he?” Sagi laughs. If she's disappointed to hear that Itachi has disregarded her counsel, she doesn't show it. She just makes a beckoning motion. “Come, sit with me while it steeps. Let's chat.”
It should be ridiculous. It is ridiculous, he thinks as he stands and makes his way towards one of the deadliest S-ranked hazards in all of the Elemental Countries. Why should he even bother? It doesn't matter what she says. She's barely more than a ghost. She’ll be cold in her grave before the week is over.
And yet…
Sagi regards him warmly when he sits across from her. That's an absurdity, too. What business does this woman have smiling like that? Who in her right mind would invite her murderer to sit and chat like it's social hour? Obito has quipped about midnight tea parties before, but this is just nonsensical.
Sagi tilts her head when he says as much. “Will you spare my life if I scream and spit at you?”
“...No, obviously not.”
“I see. I won't waste my energy, then.”
Despite having proposed a chat, she doesn't say anything else. She just puts her chin on her hand and smiles at him again. Obito finds it incredibly unsettling. In the early loops she'd been unequivocally murderous—as any Kage challenged on her home turf would be, of course—and when the frequency of their large-scale battles began to decline, she’d become cooler and more calculating instead. That attitude had made up the bulk of their interactions until the recent regressions, wherein she'd begun having her bewildering bouts of sorrow.
They spend a long moment in silence. Eventually Sagi checks the teapot. Satisfied by what she sees, she pours a cup for both her guest and herself.
“Ah,” she sighs contentedly after she’s taken a sip. “Delicious as ever. Sasuke gave me these leaves,” she adds in the tone of a brag. “He has great tea taste. I usually save what he gifts me for special occasions, and it's never a letdown.”
Obito has no idea how to reply to that, so he doesn't. Sagi peers at him over the rim of her cup. Then her eyes drift towards his hand. It’s covered in red and black and blisters.
“...That looks pretty bad.”
“What a brilliant observation,” her clansman deadpans. “You’re a genius.”
“Ha. Still, Itachi really did a number on you, huh? He must have been feeling motivated.”
“Yeah, well, better not look out the window. Your forest’s gone.”
This, of all things, is what concerns Sagi enough to lower her tea. “Is the lake okay?”
Obito scoffs in disbelief. “You and your bleeding lake… Yeah, it’s fine. He told me not to touch it.”
“What, and you listened to him?”
“I don’t know about you, Miss Meikage, but most people find Amaterasu a pretty good argument,” he says as he flaps his injured hand at her. Sagi frowns at him disapprovingly.
“Stop that. Is that how a shinobi your age treats third-degree burns?”
“What do you care? The nerves are destroyed anyway. I can’t feel it.”
“Heaven help you.”
Obito’s gaze becomes hawkish when she shakes her head and stands. But Sagi only steps past and kneels to open the cabinet behind him. It’s full of medical supplies.
“Well, I guess the fact you have your hand at all is pretty miraculous considering it was Amaterasu, but it’s still a mess,” she remarks after she’s pulled out a wound kit and a basin. She turns towards him and begins inspecting the burn. “It’s going to take more than a little spit to take care of that… You need medical ninjutsu.”
She reaches for his arm; Obito immediately jerks away. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Context would indicate an attempt at first aid,” Sagi answers dryly. “Barring a top-notch burn team, you’re definitely going to need grafting, so I can’t help you there. But an Uchiha clanswoman might know a thing or two about heat injuries, you know.”
“Are you stupid? I’m not letting an enemy treat me.”
“Good thing I’m not your enemy, then.”
“Like hell you’re not. Don’t touch me.”
“I’m really not,” Sagi snorts. But she doesn’t grasp for him again. Instead she makes that sad face she keeps making lately.
“You’re seriously insane,” Obito tells her. Sagi dips her head with a sigh. Then she raises it again, and—
They don’t look anything alike. Coloring, facial features—none of it’s the same. But her hair… is cut at the chin. Her hair is cut at the chin, her hands are filled with healing, and her heart is set on bringing it to him. She looks like a field medic. She…
She looks like Rin.
“It’s not that I don't understand how this will end,” Sagi tells him softly. “I know what you're here to do. But until you actually do it, Obito-san, can't we just take a break? It doesn't have to be for long. Just a few minutes will be enough, and then you can be on your way.”
Silence falls between them. Obito watches in a haze as the woman before him reaches out again. It was only a trick of the light, but he can't unsee it anymore. The silhouette he’s never forgotten, glowing with moonlight—the beloved he’s yearned for in vain, an intangible ghost in an existence indistinguishable from hell—
Then the saline hits his skin and the world snaps back into focus. Hissing angrily, Obito tries to retract his arm, but Sagi’s fingers catch his elbow and hold it with such iron force that he remembers at once just whose life he’s come to take today. Of course. How could he have forgotten? That’s the kind of person Sagi is—the sort of flawless lady who wears silk and hides steel.
She regards him sternly before releasing her grip. Then she resumes debriding the wound. Once she's done what she can, she diverts the rest of her attention to the shallower burns around the main injury. Well, Obito thinks as he sullenly refuses an offer for analgesics, she does know how to deroof and disinfect blisters. She has the proper supplies, too, including gel and specialized bandages. So maybe she does know a thing or two about heat injuries.
“Destroyed nerves aside, are you sure you don't want any pain management for the rest of this?” Sagi murmurs as she begins dressing his hand and forearm. Her eyes drift toward the angry red skin on his thigh, and then his abdomen. “...Or for those?”
“For pity’s sake, woman. Are you my mother? Do I look like a three-year-old to you?”
“Hardly.” Her gaze turns downwards. “Three-year-olds don't pretend they aren't hurting. Not like you do.”
So saying, Sagi finishes her ministrations, tidies her supplies, and gives him his arm back. Then she sighs, sits back on her heels, and gazes at him for a long moment. Obito refuses to speak first.
Eventually she turns back towards the tea table. “Thanks for playing along,” she says without looking at him. “I appreciate it.”
A beat passes. Obito waits, but she doesn't say anything else. Her warm air has vanished.
“...What?” The change in mood is so sudden it almost feels like whiplash. “…That's it? You're done?”
“Yeah, I’m done.”
Idly, Sagi takes a handful of paperclips from the tray beside her letter set and begins turning them over in her hand. Her gaze is distant. Obito is almost startled by how instantly the atmosphere changes. Somehow even the moonlight seems a shade darker… All that because Uchiha Sagi stopped smiling? Absurd. He’s never seen Sagi smile even once before tonight.
…
Rin’s smile had lit up rooms, too.
“You… look tired.”
He speaks the words before he knows what he’s doing. Sagi’s eyebrow lifts. Obito grimaces—what the hell is he doing? What’s wrong with him?—but there’s no taking it back now.
But Sagi doesn't snark. She just puts her cheek on her fist. Her eyes are sad again.
“Not as tired as you.”
A beat passes. Then the twist in Obito’s stomach gradually becomes a knot. The feeling builds and builds until his teeth are grit, his fists clenched, and his head is pounding. This—this stupid woman. This stupid woman and her stupid farce. No, he’s the stupid one. What the hell had he been thinking, sitting down for tea with a mortal enemy? Just looking at her makes him feel like an idiot. This isn’t Rin. She’s nothing like Rin at all.
He stands and kicks the table. The sound of breaking ceramics fills the air, but Sagi’s expression remains unchanged; she just pulls in her arm to avoid being struck by its flying edge. Obito bends down and grabs her by the collar.
“Stop looking at me like that.”
“Don’t strain yourself,” is the quiet reply. “You’ll worsen your injuries.”
She could have blocked it. He knows she could have, and she knows that he knows. She takes the punch across the face anyway.
“That had to have hurt you more than it did me,” she grunts once she’s recovered from the recoil. She touches her fingertips to his knuckles; splotches of red are already beginning to show through the bandages. “This… is as much violence against yourself as it is against me, Obito-san.”
Obito responds by flinging her arm away and drawing a kunai. Sagi’s eyes flicker to the side, and—ah, that's a sight he's more familiar with. In an instant her stare has become laserlike. A dark-eyed gaze flitting through a thousand different calculations at the speed of light… that's the look that usually precedes having his weapon kicked out of his hand and a fireball spit at his face. He’s almost glad to see it. Finally, he thinks. This surreal night will end on a note he can understand.
She takes a breath. Obito readies himself. And she—
—shuts her eyes. “It's not me,” Sagi whispers, more to herself than to him. Her air is resigned. “I can't break the glass. I'm… not the one.”
She's silent for several seconds; then she sighs and lets her head fall forward. Obito’s breath hitches when he sees a trickle of red on her lip. All at once the world warps again: the sky opens up, rain begins to fall indoors, and red is everywhere. His arm isn’t his arm—it’s Kakashi’s—and there's lightning—and he's punched straight through Rin’s chest. Blood is leaking from the corner of her mouth. Her lips part. What is she saying? She’s saying—
“Obito,” she whispers. His vision has doubled. Rin. Rin’s dying again. He's just murdered Rin, and his mind is blank with panic.
“Obito… Obito-san. Hey.” A hand begins patting his cheek insistently. “Obito-san… where have you gone? Come back.”
He flinches at the sensation of touch on his face. When he looks back, it's just Sagi again, hanging from his fist by the front of her shirt. His mask is dangling from her other hand.
Shit, she really isn’t going to retaliate. She could have snapped his neck right then and there, but she didn’t. She’s going to just lie down and die.
“It's all right,” Sagi tells him quietly. “It's okay. You're going to be okay.”
A long moment passes. Obito stares. He releases her collar. Then, slowly, he sinks back down to the floor. Sagi kneels in front of him.
“Why are you doing this?” he asks, voice cracking.
“Why am I doing what?”
“This. Treating me like—like this.”
There’s a brief silence. Then Sagi looks at him, and all at once her face is so aching and so griefworn that words escape him all over again. The ponderous weight of sorrow—its crushing force—and the neverending anguish of shouldering it over and over again—
No, it’s not Rin she resembles. It’s him. The one she’s like is Obito himself.
“I want to tell you a secret, Obito-san.” Sagi reaches out, puts a hand on the back of his head, and pulls their foreheads together. “I’ve never told anyone before, not even Sasuke or Shisui. You’ll be the first.”
And the last, hangs in the air unsaid.
“What… what is it?”
“I was going to kill myself at the end of this loop,” she whispers.
A veil falls away. The true face of the Lady of the Lake is not what he thought it would be. The bright shadow is still a darkness, and the thing that emerges from behind the eclipse is not a gleaming star; it’s a dying sun. It’s a mortal wound, perpetually bleeding out.
She’s been wearing a mask all along, just like him.
“I told myself the goal was to escape at all costs, even if it meant leaving with nothing but my own skin intact, but it was a lie. I just wanted an excuse to reset the timeline again. To hope against hope that if I gave it one last try—not even a full loop, not even half of one—it would work. But I knew it wouldn’t. I knew it was the end of the road. I was going to throw myself off that cliff for real.”
“But you… you didn’t? Why not?”
“Because of my little brother,” Sagi chokes out in reply. “Because he sat on my lap the day before I was going to jump. He told me that my eyes were pretty. That’s why.”
It’s not a meaningful answer for an orphan. Obito is an only child; he has no siblings. But then tears begin to fall onto his knee, and then all of sudden the farce of this night is no farce at all. It isn’t absurd. It’s dreadful.
Eventually Sagi takes a deep breath. Then she wipes her hand across her face and lifts her gaze. “I know the Uchiha were never a family to you,” she murmurs. “The only thing this clan has ever given you is its hatred. You shouldn’t have killed us, and I don’t excuse you for it, but I understand why you did it.”
“...”
“But even so,” she whispers. “What my sibling said to me, I want to say to you. Your eyes are precious, too, Obito-san. You may want mine, and I will give them to you… but they will only ever be an inferior substitution.”
Obito’s lips part. He lifts a hand to his left eye. It’s only the most recent in a long string of replacements.
A long silence passes. And then…
Sagi blinks as sunlight bursts through the windows. The sound of laughter—children’s laughter, high and bright and shrieking without any sense of restraint—cuts through the air. Startled, she turns her head and finds Nao chasing his mother around the maple tree in the courtyard, waving a wooden kunai with one hand and dragging Sasuke behind him with the other. His hand is small, but her brother lets the boy pull him along with minimal resistance. He’s trying—and failing—to pretend he isn’t having fun.
“Wh—”
Before she can get the whole word out, Tamaki “trips” and lets herself get arrested. Shisui lets out an encouraging whoop when his secondborn declares the missing-nin captured. Rei, sitting beside him, claps and cheers. And Itachi, sitting beside Rei, turns his head. Sagi’s heart jolts at the sight of her twin’s face in profile. He’s smiling. It’s that small, slightly lopsided smile he makes when he’s trying not to show how pleased he is about something.
“This is…” she gapes, and for a moment she’s utterly speechless. But only for a moment. She whips her head back around to look at Obito.
“So that’s the kind of thing you dream about?” he mumbles as more laughter fills the air. “I guess that tracks for you.”
“What are you doing?” she breathes. Obito is silent for several seconds. Then he hangs his head.
“Just play along with it. Just for a moment.”
Sagi stares at him. Then she looks down and finds the table exactly where it was, teacups and teapot and all. In fact, now there are snacks, too: a plate of hanami dango.
She regards it with surprise. She never eats hanami dango. It’s the one sweet she can’t ever eat. Since leaving Konoha she’s never managed it once—managed to eat Itachi’s favorite dessert, that is.
“Incredible,” she murmurs as she picks it up and stares at it. Usually just seeing three-color dumplings makes her stomach turn over, but she has no such reaction now. In fact, it almost looks… good. Like she could eat it and keep it down. Like it wouldn’t taste like two centuries of desolation.
“Does dango mean something to you?”
“...Father used to buy these for us. Itachi was good at sweet-talking him. He fell for it all the time.”
“That stone-hearted brat knows how to sweet-talk people…? Unexpected.”
“He wasn’t always stone-hearted. If anything, he was more like that.” Sagi motions at her older brother with her skewer, whom Shisui has in a headlock and is noogieing affectionately. He’s blushing.
“...And I guess you used to be like this?”
She tilts her head questioningly. Obito points at the braid hanging over her shoulder.
“Oh…” Sagi lifts it and examines the black ribbon tied at its end. “Yeah. I guess I must have pestered niisan to do my hair again… This is the only style he knows.”
So… externally her hair is short, but internally it's long. She really was the perfect lady all along.
Several wordless moments pass. Obito looks at Sagi out of the corner of his eye and sees a strange expression on her face. She wraps an arm around her midsection and stares at her twin brother. Her lips part, and Obito wonders if she’s about to call Itachi’s name.
But then she shuts her mouth and looks down instead. Her fingers curl into fists; she turns them over and gazes at them.
And then she opens her hands.
“Obito-san,” she says softly. “Have I misunderstood your intentions? Will you perhaps… let me live after all?”
Obito’s tongue has cleaved to the roof of his mouth. He can’t speak. He turns his head away; he can’t even bear to look at her. Sagi tilts her head.
Obito starts when he feels his illusion warp. It shouldn’t be surprising—genjutsu is almost always useless between Uchiha at this skill level, it's a given that she can seize control of it—but it’s an unsettling feeling nonetheless, having a technique hijacked by someone else midway.
“There.” Sagi nods to herself. “That will do.”
“What did you—” Obito begins asking, and then goes still. There’s a mirror in the corner of her armory, standing on the other side of the room. He can see their reflections over her shoulder.
“If the point is to see an impossible desire come true, you were missing one thing. Now the vision is complete.”
He doesn't reply. He’s too bewildered. Black pants, a hitai-ate, Hikari emblems on the chest of his cross-collared shirt—
A jounin of the Light?
The sorrow that had taken over Sagi's features vanishes like mist. Like a seabound pilgrim tasting ocean air at the end of a long journey, she gives him a bright smile. “This is the real dream. All of the Uchiha together, here in Hikari, with nothing between them. A family that never fractured… a clan that loves as it should.”
“...That's—”
“Thank you, Obito-san. I'm happy. You wanted me to have a good dream at the end.”
Obito just hangs his head again. “I have to keep looping,” he whispers. “I need to find a way. I… I’m sorry.”
Sagi only smiles again. Her eyes are Sharingan red. Red like blood—red like the heart—
Red like unbearable, unalterable love—
She lifts a hand. And then, before he knows what’s happening, she has a knife. In a single motion she grabs her hair and shears it off. The genjutsu shatters as the black braid falls to the floor—
—as the blade slices across her throat.
“Shit!” Obito swears. It had been a gentle cut—as painless as he could possibly make it, to lessen the chance that the genjutsu would break—but fucking Uchiha Sagi has done it again; in a single second, she’s annihilated everything.
He catches her as she slumps forward. Blood begins spilling across their laps. “What the hell are you doing, Sagi? You should have left it. You could have died in peace!”
“There is no peace in a lie,” she answers faintly. Hazily, she lifts a hand and probes the damage to her artery. Shit, but he’s glad he didn’t touch the trachea this time. After tonight, he doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to watch her choking and aspirating blood ever again.
“The hell there isn't,” he says hotly. “You said you were happy. You were smiling!”
“Because of the dream?” Her lips quirk as she lowers her hand. “No… that’s not why.”
“Don't fucking lie—”
“It was because you wanted to spare me,” she interrupts gently. “Because you wanted to try.”
“You… you crazy…”
“Oh, Obito-san.” Sagi lets herself sag against his front. Her eyelids are fluttering. “We… we’re nearly there. Just a little further.”
“Sagi—” Obito tries to say, but it’s too late. In mere seconds, it’s over. She's already gone quiet—quiet and still and slack in his arms.
Blood is pooling on the tatami all around them. Frozen, Obito watches as its perimeter expands. Everything it touches turns a bright red. The floor, the letter set, the remains of the tea… and the little field of strawberry-shaped paperclips, scattered from his kid sister’s hand.