It's unclear how long she waits. Time passes strangely, here.

But -

A man walks into the line of sight, following a thin, barely visible dry path along the river. His gaze is sweeping around, and it lights on Tobi. He pauses then, at the crux of the stream and the river, and raises a hand to wave and call, softly, "Hello?"

He's strange. Skin rosier than hers, hair pale yellow, clothed in soft brown robes with a cut that's both familiar and unfamiliar. Tall and broad shouldered, a fighter's muscles on his frame, but none of the scars or weathering to show it, other than thick callouses on his hands. There's a metal hilt strapped to his waist that hums with power, and power flows through him.

He's familiar.

He's the first thing to occupy her mind since she died. The wash of gratitude through her threatens to overwhelm any leeriness. (The wounds on her soul have been only worsened by the solitude, the quiet, the empty gap where love should be.)

...She wants to be leery, at least in the trained part of her mind. Wants to guard herself. Wants to listen to the deep paranoia her training as a shinobi has hammered into her, stamped deep on her, forced through the natural tendencies of her heart.

Tobi is dead. What loyalties are there to protect? He might not be dead, too, so - she shouldn't betray Konoha's secrets -

(She doesn't really know any. She knows Uchiha secrets, but all of the Uchiha are dead or traitors so she can't, really, care anymore.)

(She's dead, and she doesn't want to carry the misery of life over with her.)

He's so, so achingly familiar. Like staring into her reflection in a clear pool as the surface ripples. Tobi's always been differently sensitive than most sensors, able to spot the relationships between people far faster than she can parse their strength, their elemental affinities, even their distance from her.

"Hello," she calls back, and her voice is perfectly and clear and smooth. She isn't thirsty, here. The fires that consumed her left no marks. The shouting she'd been doing, screaming at her idiot of an older brother - that, too, doesn't matter here.

She doesn't know whether she likes it.

"Are you here to lead me over?"

Maybe he's related to her. She suspects (knows) that Senju Tobirama was her grandfather. He doesn't look much like the Senju at all, but - maybe some ancestor, far enough up the line that none of his descendants remember him anymore. Someone who keeps an eye on his descendants, maybe, and took pity on her.

"I'm not sure," he says, and starts walking up the slope to her. "Where were you going?"

That jolts her a bit, rouses her from the daze her mind's been in, and she turns a more analytical gaze to him.

"...The Pure Land. Someone should - people always meet you at the border. So you don't have to pass away alone."

He sits beside her, legs crossed, back straight, hands resting lightly on his thighs. "I haven't heard of the Pure Land."

He moves like a monk. It threatens to put her at ease.

"I'm not sure how you haven't. I - this is where we are. Where everyone goes when they die."

"Oh."

"I don't think I've died."

"I have."

"It hurt. But maybe your death didn't, if you were asleep. Or... I know monks talk to ghosts sometimes, so the dead and living can wander where they aren't meant to be... Ending up in the Pure Land accidentally while you're still alive would be weird, but - world contains a lot of weird stuff."

"I was meditating," he says, thinking. "Though this isn't quite normal for a vision during meditation."

"Huh."

Normally she'd have more to say. Questions. Thoughts.

Instead her mind's kind of an empty static. She isn't even being visited by some long dead ancestor. Not even by someone who knows what the Pure Land is.

(How little could she possibly matter?)

Frown.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"Dunno."

"Maybe?"

It'd be better than being alone.

Hum. A moment to think, then: "Who were you expecting to meet you?"

"My family." There's a spark in her chest that might be anger, if it wasn't so tired. "My mom or dad or uncle or - any of my ancestors... Some people get friends instead, but - I - none of my friends died before me. And if they died after - I'd probably try to meet them." She stares into the distance. "They were alive when I died. I - haven't felt them here, but I haven't felt anyone, and lots of people were dying."

"But I don't know how long it's been, here or in the Impure World. Maybe time won't pass until I make it across. Maybe it's been a century." Shiver.

She doesn't want to have missed her friends crossing. Especially Chihiro - Naruto's got a clan name so he probably has ancestors who pay attention to their blood (though Tobi doesn't...), but Chihiro has no one.

The thought of Chihiro dying alone is - way, way worse than the pain from Tobi's own death, her own abandonment.

He puts a hand on her knee, squeezing gently. "You'll get to see them again," he says, firm and confident.

"Thanks, but..."

"You didn't know what the Pure Land is, so..." Shrug. It's a nice sentiment. It'd be nice if it was true.

"I know the future sometimes." A small quirk of his lips. "Or the shape of it. 'The future is always in motion.' And the shape of your future is - you'll see them again."

He gets her full attention for the first time, the intense weight of her mind - dragged out of the morass it's been in since she died.

"You have foresight?"

"Fore-myopia, perhaps." Smile.

She laughs, startling herself.

A softer smile, then: "What are your friends like?"

That jolts her in a way talking about her dead family - probably wouldn't have.

"...I love them. I don't think it's possible to gesture at why in a way that actually communicates it?"

Serious nod. "I know. The best people are like that. Just... Undefinable." Shrug. "But it can be nice to know how to say all the ways you love them."

"I - yeah."

"There's three people I'm actually... Close, to? My teammates, Chihiro and Naruto, and our teacher, Kakashi."

"Chihiro's... Someone's hurt her in the past. She came to us just - totally convinced emotions are bad and that she's a weapon for our village. She's been warming up to us, though, and she's super caring and loyal. I think - she'd defy everything she's been told to be loyal to for us, though I don't want her to have to? And... I want her to be happy. To have someone worthy of her."

"Naruto's just, this total doofus? He's dumb in the ways school cared about, but he's sometimes really smart about people. He always makes me laugh when I need it most. He's got this stupidly big heart, like he doesn't care the world's going to keep hurting him for it - and he's stubborn. He wants to change the world. I - I'd wanted to help him."

"Kakashi... He acts light hearted and shallow, really. Like he doesn't care about the people around him, or about any responsibilities - not in a mean way? But - he shows up late to everything, and he gives these really silly excuses when he does. He reads fiction in the middle of important meetings. But he protects us. He cares, even if - he doesn't really know how to say it, I guess. I - want him to be allowed to care."

Pause, then: "There's some other people I know a little, but... I dunno that I'd lead them into the Pure Land. We weren't - basically family."

"I think you should tell them all that, next time you meet," he says, softly.

A little choked laugh, then, the idea settling - contentedly, actually, around her - "I think when they pass here it'll be... We'll have other stuff to say? But. I hope that'll be far enough I've gotten a sense of what the Pure Land's like... If we can talk there, I'd - like to tell them. And if we can't, I'll tell them before we cross, I guess."

"A solid plan."

Small smile.

"...I died for them."

Solemn nod. "I figured you had."

"What happened?"

She's quiet for a moment, then: "Our city was being invaded. The leader of our enemies, Orochimaru, figured out a technique that can bring back the dead as immortal, tireless monsters under his control. He brought back the two most powerful figures in our history."

"There's some - family drama with this. I'm from the Uchiha clan. I'd been the last loyal member. My older sister killed the rest of our family except me and my brother, then my brother defected, and he defected to Orochimaru. He was helping with the invasion."

"The Uchiha have a really powerful bloodline. The basic version is... Really good? But not the most amazing thing out there. It speeds up your processing, gives you perfect memory, and lets you copy most techniques. But there's a more advanced version that you can only get from - "

"Jakkou - my sister - said the trigger was murdering your most precious person. She killed her best friend."

"Jakuan - my brother - didn't have it. Not yet. And - it's a really big clan secret, but I think Orochimaru knew about it, and that he wanted Jakuan to develop it. And... I think he was just going to force Jakuan to kill me. I'm the youngest and weakest of my siblings, and I'm not - useful, like they are."

"I figured out really early in the invasion that all of Orochimaru's forces had orders not to kill me, even by negligence or accident. To capture me, if they could, but with a really, really big emphasis on not letting me die. That included the undead, and the orders on them were absolute and overrode other stuff. And Jakuan was in the fight, too, and - if he didn't care if I died, forcing him to kill me wouldn't work."

"...Ah."

"The most powerful people on our side went to keep the undead away from the city. I think - we'd lost, by the time I'd died. It was just a question of how well we could evacuate. No one had a way to permanently put down the undead."

"But we could slow them down, and... In a big fight like that, it's really, really easy for someone my level to get killed, and the people on our side figured out what I was doing. And then Jakuan was pulled into the fight to protect me, but - he's dumb and emotional and he isn't a huge threat against people that level when he's upset, so that was keeping him out of the city, too."

"I yelled at Jakuan a lot. That Orochimaru was manipulating him, and that my death was gonna be Jakuan's fault for giving his loyalty to Orochimaru. I told him I wished he was dead. I'm... Hoping my death took Jakuan out of the fight, maybe distracted him long enough our side could kill him, or turned him against Orochimaru."

There's something painful in her chest.

Squeeze.

"You're one of the bravest people I've ever known. I'm honored to have met you," he says, voice both gentle and intensely sincere. "And... I don't think your death was in vain."

"Another blurry future?"

...She doesn't know how to process the bravery part.

"That, but also - logic and faith."

"Better than desperation, I guess."

Squeeze.

Then, musingly: "You know, you feel like a mirror to me in the Force? And - your story sounds familiar, in some ways, though... Sadder."

She glances over at him.

"...A mirror's a good way to say it, yeah."

"My siblings are named Jacen and Jaina. They're both older than me, twins. Jacen's - a real jerk. Angry, prone to grandiose ideas, unforgiving. There's a possible future - less possible now, I think - where he turns against all of us. My grandmother's wife sort of dragged him back to being less dumb. Jaina though... She's cold. It's harder to say what she's for or against, and... Just about everyone likes her. She's a good bureaucrat, and she strikes most people as a moral pillar. I wouldn't - be entirely surprised, though, if she murdered even people she loved to some end or another. I don't think it's likely, but... I don't think anyone else sees that shard in her? Not really."

"...Yeah."

"My mom, Leia, is the leader of the New Republic. She's important and ambitious and wants the best world for everyone, and she's stubborn in seeing that done. She doesn't like being told she's wrong. My dad, Han, is a bit more care free, or he acts that way at least. Also doesn't like being told he's wrong. Both of them flip between avoidant and insistent when something's wrong, but in different patterns, that either balance each other out or collide in sparks."

"My mom's brother, Luke, is an important Jedi Master. He wanders a lot, especially looking into history, and taking students sometimes. He's wise, though he says he doesn't always feel like it."

"And - I'm named for my grandmother, Anakin. She'd done terrible things, and... I don't really know why mom named me after her. Their relationship's still rocky."

"She's worked since before I was born to make up for what she's done, and... She's complicated, I guess? She's got a lot of trauma and a lot of wisdom all tied together."

It's apparent, suddenly, somewhere in his face - Anakin isn't, actually, that much older than Tobi. He's probably still in his late teens, even.

"...I was named for my grandfather, Tobirama. He's - one of the undead. He'd been a... Not loved, but solidly trustworthy leader? But my clan had a really unpleasant view of him, and... Yeah. 'Rocky' describes mom's relationship with him, I think. His clan and ours had been enemies before founding the village, and - a lot of people thought he never got over being our enemy. My uncle really loved him, but... My uncle's stories were about the only positive thing I ever heard about him from - family, and not a history book."

Nod.

"This world contains strange things indeed," he says, musingly.

Small smile. "Yeah."

"I'm glad it's been - less terrible for you. Or at least terrible in different ways."

Hum. "I'd say less terrible, yeah, on pretty much every count."

Snort. "Well, this is the worst first place ever."

He shoulder bumps her. "I bet."

"I don't know the way to the Pure Land, but... I know the way back to my body. You wouldn't have a body, probably, but - ghosts are a thing, sometimes, and my grandmother's wife has mentioned in passing before having spoken to some. My uncle definitely has."

She...

Doesn't know.

"...I don't want to be alone," she says, staring across the river. "But I don't want to be gone when my friends pass."

"Well, hopefully you could come back, but..."

"It'd be a risk, yeah."

...It hurts.

The possibility of - somewhere that isn't this empty riverbank. The possibility of never seeing her friends again. The possibility of never seeing anyone again - if she stays or goes. Something could go wrong.

But... She has a sense, in the ill-defined way she sometimes does, that the way leaving with Anakin would go wrong would look like not existing, or like not being able to come back. That she won't be trapped, alone in the universe.

She - doesn't have a sense, one way or another, if she even ever could meet her friends, here. If anyone's going to come to lead her to the Pure Land. Just empty hopes.

It feels like betrayal, in some ways. Like giving up. Like lying down a burden she hadn't known was breaking her.

Uchiha Tobirama's always been unusually religious for a shinobi. The people who show up - you trust them. Follow them. They'll lead you home.

"I want to try," she says, turning, unfolding from her curl.

Serious nod.

He rises smoothly, and offers her a hand with a soft look - fond, almost, a promise of you're not alone -

She reaches out to take it.

A gong's ring shatters the silence of the Pure Land, a cry amid the reverberating drone -

"Tobirama!"

A jolt goes down her spine, her hand an inch away from Anakin's -

The mist surges around them, and - there's a tone in her head, an echo of an idea, a path -

She hopes Anakin understands. Tobi doesn't have very long to decide, here.

The world spins around her, falling, sounds intensifying - her chakra sense cutting back in properly, a full painful world -

And Uchiha Tobirama opens her eyes.