Chipped Mask

Part II - Tobi's POV

Disclaimer: Mia is my bitch. And Tobi's, but he doesn't know that... yet.

Warning: Usual shit.

Beta: featherstofly

Second Beta: Lavendor Queen

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

(First Person POV – Tobi)

I didn't mean for it to happen.

You know... you know... life can really, really suck at times. It was hard—is hard, but was especially hard at the beginning. I was an outcast to my own family, not only because I couldn't activate my Sharingan—my baby cousin activated it before me—but because I seemed hopeless as a shinobi in general. That wasn't the case, of course. It wasn't my fault. It was theirs. Their training methods were outdated and their structure crippled me. They didn't know it; I didn't know it, either. So to all appearances, I was a hopeless dead-last.

For a long while, I thought I was hopeless, too.

That was when I met her.

Her, being Rin.

I remember it being a bright day. To all accounts it should have been a good day. The sun was shining, the birds were chirping, the flowers were blooming... to everyone else, it seemed like, it was a good day. For me, though? For me, it wasn't. I'll spare you the exact details of why. I've tried very hard to repress my childhood; it wasn't a very pleasant thing for me. My mother died young, she died shortly after my younger brother's birth. Father always blamed Shisui for it—well, not always. When it became apparent that Shisui was such a rising prodigy, he switched that blame onto me.

Father was...my father was a very strict name. Traditional. Physical.

To all accounts... to all accounts he wasn't a very good father. He wasn't a very good man.

I still had them. The scars. The marks. Now, of course, they just look like markings from my near-death experience. Just more to add on, I suppose.

I remember that day because it was my birthday. Shisui had given me some of his candy he had bought. He was such a sweet thing. I didn't want him to die, but the ends justified the means, I thought.

I was lonely. I was tired. I was sore.

I wasn't expecting anyone else to show me the time of day, the exception being Shisui. Even my teachers at the academy just turned a blind eye when it came to me. The Uchiha, after all, were such a prestigious family. It would be preposterous if one of their own needed help—if one of their own actually wanted contact with an outsider.

Idiots.

I'm sorry, I'm getting off track. It was just a small gesture, but I suppose that was all I needed at that time. She came up to me and asked me, 'Why aren't you smiling?'

'I don't want to,' I told her.

And she smiled at me and held out a neatly wrapped box. 'It's your birthday, isn't it? I remember because you told the class during your introduction.'

What was contained in the gift wasn't important—what I needed the most at that moment was some sort of acknowledgement. I needed someone—anyone—to have noticed me. I was tired of being pushed aside by the rest of my family, and when I was noticed, it was only to be used as a dummy. I wanted someone to have paid the slightest bit of attention to me and to have liked me.