437Author's Note: To those about to read this I have a few notes. First, this is a side fic of "Minato Namikaze and the Destroyer of Worlds" and if you haven't read that you'll be very confused. Second, this is... a sister story to "Finishing the Hat" in that it starts at the same place, but instead of going to space and Tatooine our pair of heroes arrives in the unassuming village of Bree. So you don't have to read that to get this, but that story certainly has more details of how this all came about. Also, because of all of that, this is obviously NOT CANON.
A small tale of a comedy of errors, mistaken identity and false conclusions, good men, bad men, beautiful women, unassuming hobbits, ends of worlds, and the lord of the rings.
Or perhaps, more simply, as Eru Lee would write in her mission report, the story of how two foreigners at once doomed Middle Earth then a short while later proceeded to save it.
Part 1: Two shinobi, an unfortunate group of hobbits, and a ranger walk into a bar
"Shishou, are you sure we're not in Ame?"
It didn't necessarily have the same feel of Ame, or at least, from the few times Obito had been to the unfortunate land of rain, but then even when one was standing in Ame it was a bit difficult to really make out your surroundings what with the constant downpour.
This new place, wherever it was, in some other time and space than Konoha or any of the elemental nations, had the same bone chilling heavy rain that, with a look up at the darkened sky, was not going to stop anytime soon.
Lee for her own part was already sighing and defying the very laws of reality by conjuring a pair of straw hats into existence, placing one over her own soaked red curls and handing the other to him which he took gratefully.
"It could be worse," Lee noted, as they began walking, heading towards distant and dim flickering lights which probably marked some town or another.
Obito, beginning to circulate chakra through his fingers and body just to keep from being so goddamn cold, spared her a dry and entirely unamused look.
"We could have appeared in deep space, we could have been crushed by the planet's gravity, we could have frozen to death in an ice dimension, drowned, been lit on fire, asphyxiated, trapped in a giant desert with no sign of civilization in sight," she then looked over at him with her own wry, amused, smile as she noted, "The universe is dark, cruel, and unforgiving, my young apprentice. Really, considering everything, a little rain isn't so bad."
"A little rain," Obito scoffed, feeling wet and more than a little miserable, "Is that what we're calling this now?"
Lee didn't deign to answer which was probably for the best. At the moment they were on some mud laden road that had seen better days, peering out into the night and the rain he could make out rolling hills lush with plant life, what looked like a wooden small dock at the end of a river. Given the rain, and his own mood because of it, he wasn't at his analytical best but none the less he couldn't help but note that there was something old fashioned about this place with its unpaved roads, grooves created by horse driven carts, and its wooden docks.
This place was nothing like Lee's England and in its own way nothing like home either.
Of course, he wondered to himself now, rubbing his hands together for warmth and feeling, why would he have expected it to be? It was another dimension, the very fact that there were roads, hills, air that was breathable was almost miraculous. That there were so many similarities already, he thought to himself, was almost alarming.
Oh, he thought as he tilted his hat forward to block a gust of wind and the cold bitter rain that followed it, why had he agreed to this again? He could be at home, taking his jonin exams and pestering Rin and…
Well, who was he kidding?
He was Lee's apprentice, as such, there was nowhere else he'd rather be in all the worlds than following her on the muddy yellow brick road, through rain, snow, and sleet, to whatever metaphorical emerald city awaited them in the distance.
Soon enough they were at the outside of the village, a walled place that might keep out bandits and perhaps even ronin but was a laughable defense in the face of even academy students were they so inclined to rape and pillage civilian villages in the middle of nowhere.
Obito spared Lee a glance, nodding towards the wall with the thought that it was child's play for them to overcome, but she held her up her hand, shook her head, and motioned instead towards a gate at the end of the road.
Apparently, Obito thought, she'd really meant what she'd said to Minato-sensei before they'd gone off to parts unknown, that she and Obito would at least try to play by the rules of whatever land they stumbled into.
Or perhaps she didn't want her first contact with the locals to be climbing over their walls looking for all intents like she was there to slaughter their children.
Either way, Lee and Obito followed the road to its end, stopping in front of the door and he watching as a wary civilian man opened it, eyes dark and suspicious as they landed upon both him and Lee. He asked something, something very clearly not English nor Obito's native language.
At Lee and Obito's silent and somewhat dumbfounded response he asked again, sharper, and this time Lee did speak, "These aren't the droids you're looking for, you will let us pass."
The man's eyes glazed, caught helplessly in Lee's genjutsu as a far stronger shinobi would have been, and closed the window and signaled for the opening of the gate, allowing both Lee and Obito inside.
"Really, shishou?" Obito asked as they stepped past the man, dressed in clothing more reminiscent of England than Konoha, a rain-soaked cloak held over his head, his face pale and waxy by the rain, and his boots thick and dark and far more practical than Obito's water clogged socks and sandals were at the moment.
Lee's eyebrow raised towards him, dark, red, and oh so judgemental.
"If you were going to start dealing out genjutsus we might as well have climbed the wall," Obito noted.
"Well, I didn't want to seem rude," Lee said, as if turning the man's mind against him was any less rude than scaling his village walls, "Besides now we know that they don't speak anything I'm familiar with."
"Did we think they would?" Obito asked dubiously, as surely, it'd be a sign of something truly horrifyingly alarming if they spoke either the language of the elemental nations or even English.
"Well, it was always a possibility," Lee said before motioning a pale hand towards her heart, "After all, the universe is a very spotty thing, along with being dark and cruel, and surely a useful if alarming sign of it falling apart would be an entirely new world speaking something you and I both know."
"By which you mean it'd be very convenient," Obito corrected her to which she shrugged and nodded.
"Well, yes, that too."
The village itself was, as the road was, laden with mud and more so wracked with poverty. The wooden houses groaned beneath the weight of the rain, pigs and animals sheltered beneath awnings in muddy sties, the men and women who rushed from one building to another all had thin forms from a lack of food and overabundance of work, dark eyes, and leering expressions for Lee and Obito who very clearly were dressed as none of them.
"We're going to need new clothes," Obito mentioned quietly, something the locals wore, and it'd likely be in their best interest to get out of this town for that matter. He wasn't exactly sure why, the place screamed civilian, but there was something here, some heavy presence, that had him on edge.
"Yes," Lee said, but not so much agreeing as saying something to say something, her eyes instead had landed on what appeared to be a tavern, sign decorated by an upright horse rearing its legs, "But first, I think, some shelter and a drink."
Well, Obito wasn't going to argue with a dry roof overhead even if drunk civilians came with it. The pair stepped inside, greeted by the wary proprietor who ushered them over to the bar area, and a small table.
The place was overcrowded, men guffawing and laughing and falling over one another and their drinks, women whose breasts were practically falling out of their dresses bustled between one table and another with drinks in hand ignoring wandering hands which pinched and grope at every turn, and everything smelled of rancid beer.
"I hate civilian bars," Obito said with a shudder, dropping his hat onto the back of his chair and rubbing fingers through one hand, sighing gratefully as Lee dried him and herself off with a small jutsu.
"But it's dry," Lee said, her grin a sly fond thing as it stared at him, "And they're all too drunk to look at us."
Obito snorted, as this was very untrue, already Obito's half-marred face and mismatched eyes were drawing attention. Fear, disgust, and morbid curiosity from the poor girl who approached to serve them. But even Lee, especially Lee, their eyes lingered on, taking in her pale face, her bright hair that in this room of dull browns and blacks shone like the sun, and her bright green eyes.
Lee turned to the girl, a poor plain thing except for the astounding size of her breasts, and said, with a hint of genjutsu to suggest the meaning to the girl and pass over the misunderstood words, "Two of whatever is remotely palatable."
The girl's hazel eyes dimmed for a moment, but then she nodded, smiled, bobbed her head so that the brown mousey curls bobbed somewhat, then went to the bar to fetch what looked like… Well, the beer everyone else was drinking.
"God, I hope that tastes better than it smells," Obito said before sighing and asking, "Couldn't you have ordered us tea?"
"No one else is drinking tea," Lee noted, as if this had any bearing on anything, as if they were even remotely blending in at the moment with their dark green, tactical, clothing and foreign features.
Then again, maybe Obito didn't trust these people with tea, blending tea could be something akin to an art and could go wrong very quickly. Perhaps he was being prejudiced or perhaps was already homesick, but this didn't seem like the place to have any decent green tea.
His eyes moved around the room again, landed on a man in the corner, avoided and glanced at in the same manner that Lee and Obito were being avoided and glanced at. He was dressed in similar clothing to them, to a point, but there was a sharpness and practicality to his outfit that the clothing of their waitresses and the patrons lacked. This was clothing that had seen time on the road, had been worn in by use and necessity, and more importantly he had taken the seat in the back corner so that he might watch all who came in, his katana, a blade almost English in nature, resting just within reach but far enough away to put a civilian falsely at ease.
Obito felt outwards, the man's chakra… It was there, but it was nothing on an ordinary day at home that Obito would have been concerned by. A mildly decent chunin, perhaps, but certainly nothing to flee from.
Still, he nodded towards Lee, eyes flickering towards the man, "Shinobi, shishou?"
She considered their friend slowly, taking him in piece by piece, as the man in turn seemed to focus on her. Finally, Lee said a musing and noncommittal, "Perhaps."
Either way, though Lee and Obito were undoubtedly a complication for him, Obito doubted they were or would become his mission. No, the man was clearly here for something else, something he deemed very important if the forced casualness of his posture was anything to go by.
Obito was about to say more, perhaps suggest they meet the man's acquaintance or at least track him from the bar, back to wherever his hidden village or the equivalent was when he stopped and turned towards the door.
It was… It was as if Uzumaki Kushina had walked inside, no, more than that, it was as if Lee on a bad day had walked inside. There in the doorway, somewhere amid the huddle of… children? Either way, somewhere in the small cloaked huddle of four barefoot, cloaked, children, was a being whose raw chakra rivalled that of Lee herself.
He opened his mouth to say something, but no words came out, his tongue felt dry, the group huddled in and removed their hoods, revealing matured faces on bodies that seemed mature but were far smaller than Obito would have expected from any grown adult. Obito's eyes wandered over them, fell onto one in the middle, a fair face with big blue eyes and brown loose curls that seemed so at odds with the raw… seductive… power he was exuding.
And there was, something strong and seductive pulling Obito towards him, whispering him in his ear and promising everything he'd ever wanted and everything that he'd never even thought to want before.
Not Rin, but something darker and headier than his desire for Rin, something that beckoned with pale fingers into dark chambers where…
Obito felt a hand fall on his shoulder, startling him out of his trance, he turned to see Lee looking at the midget with an expression that was incredibly out of sorts, as if she had no idea what to make of any of this, finally she said, "That has to be, the most gauche shinobi, that I have ever seen in my life."
Obito blinked leaned back, breathing in and out, gulping down beer and shuddering as he tried to distract himself from the pull, remember that he was staring at… An extremely short if powerful shinobi who appeared to want Obito in his bed right now.
Obito shuddered.
"I'd tell him that I like my men a little taller, but I think he already knows," Lee continued, eyes wide and green and lingering on the midget group even as they took their seats at a small table, "I think he just doesn't give a shit. He'll screw anything with chakra."
"Seduction mission?" Obito asked, almost hopefully, because that at least would explain something.
But Lee just shook her head, "No, no, I think he does this for fun."
"Wait, anything with chakra?" Obito asked, feeling that wave of heat again from the half-sized man, who really looked so… at odds with the genjutsu he was all but throwing out of his own body, "You think he wants…"
But Lee was nodding, insistent, not a hint of doubt in her mind, "Oh yes, I think he wants you, me, a pint of beer, and a king-sized bed to rock our worlds with his tiny little body."
"Oh god," Obito said, paling himself, and wondering at once how someone could be that subtle (the guy had barely glanced at them, no, he was glancing at them but with wariness and fear and hardly 'come hither sweet child') and at once so very blatant.
Well, certainly to the civilians, who appeared to be all except Obito, Lee, and their friend in the back corner, he was a subtle bastard.
Lee and Obito, at the same time, chugged down the stale, frankly horrid beer and raised their glasses for a refill.
Obito shuddered again, mind wandering back to that pull, and more to Lee's own words on what exactly their new friend was trying to do, "Oh, goddammit, now I can't get the images out of my head."
"I know," Lee agreed, rather pale herself, "And to think, all that masterful effort for something like that. He must want action very, very, badly."
And it was, this was a… very powerful genjutsu. Granted, it wasn't a full illusion, more a compulsion, but the sheer force of the compelling was not one to be tossed aside without a second thought. Even now, with Obito recognizing it for what it was, the compulsion had not disappeared as most genjutsu would have.
"No," Obito said, "Surely, he must have some reason for doing this."
Lee spared him a look, motioned towards their half-sized companions, and said, "A shinobi walks into a bar, which he must be almost certain is filled to the brim with civilians, and starts gushing out chakra in the most sensual and seductive manner I have ever seen any one hemorrhage chakra… Obito, you tell me how this joke ends."
Obito took another drink, shuddering again, and feeling oh so very uncomfortable in every conceivable way.
"Do you want to bet he manages to get our friend the shinobi in the corner?" Lee asked, nodding her head towards the man, whose attention indeed had turned towards the half-sized group with an intensity and focus that would have frightened the shit out of any civilian.
Indeed, appeared to frighten the half-sized group, for all that most of them appeared to be civilians, and even Mr. Sensual Chakra himself who was doing an alarmingly good job of acting as if he hadn't the slightest clue what he was doing.
Even as his raw power seemed to whisper in Obito's ear in a soft, clear, and hauntingly beautiful voice, "Come with me, child, and I shall give you all kingdoms of men."
Meanwhile some of the half-sized friends were getting very drunk, dancing atop the tables and clapping along to songs with the rest of the drunken horde of civilians, Obito watched then as a table overturned and the half-sized shinobi fell to the floor, a golden ring flying into the air then falling onto his finger as the shinobi… disappeared.
Obito's sharingan instinctively turned on, then turned off as the chakra became almost blinding in its intensity, he covered his eye with a cry but even as he blinked, and his vision returned to normal he noted that the half-sized man had truly disappeared. It wasn't an illusion, or it was, but it was one so strong that even the sharingan had not been able to break it.
"As I said," Lee said slowly as the shaking, cowering, half-sized shinobi reappeared, "The most gauche shinobi I have ever seen."
Still, gauche or not, the dark-haired, dark cloaked, shinobi in the corner was his for the taking in a matter of seconds as the man dragged seductive chakra Magoo and all his friends upstairs in no time at all.
So, Obito had to give credit where credit was do, he might have the subtlety of a battering ram and the eccentricities of any great shinobi, but damn if he didn't get what he wanted.
Obito was just extremely grateful that it hadn't really been Obito's virgin dick that he wanted.
Author's Note: I... am a terrible person, who starts terrible stories, and I'd say I'm sorry but I'm not. Because goddammit this needs to be a ridiculous thing on so many levels that I just cannot even and had to write it. It should be a relatively short one though, certainly nothing to the scope of "Finishing the Hat" unless of course I'm wrong and it spirals out of control because that's what things I write do.
Thanks for reading, reviews are much appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, Naruto, or the Lord of the Rings.
