Chapter Text
He’d been to every facility in the region.
High-security compounds. Private sellers. Black-market dens tucked behind false walls. Quiet, ugly places with too many locks and not enough light.
Each one promised a lead. And each one had failed him.
Years had blurred that way—locations on maps, faces behind bars, paperwork that never matched.
Every dead end scraped a little more out of the hollow place in his chest.
This was the last one. The end of the map. The final place in a long line of failures and dead ends. This was the last omega barrack on the endless list.
The final stop in a desperate search that had long since turned into a life long penance.
If they didn’t have him here. If he wasn’t here. Then Obito would have to admit the truth.
That he had lost him.
He adjusted the high collar of his coat and stepped inside. The sharp scent of sterilization hit him first—citrus, alcohol, bleach. A scent designed to mask stress and heat and fear.
It didn’t work.
The front office was too bright. Too clean. White walls, fluorescent lights humming overhead, paperwork stacked in neat towers. Everything smelled like control.
A row of beta women worked behind the main desk—efficient, expressionless, hands moving in a quiet rhythm.
Their smiles were practiced. Their voices low and synchronized, trained to sound calm even in places that reeked of panic.
One of them finally looked up. Bored at first—until her gaze caught on the coat.
Black with red clouds.
Akatsuki.
Her gaze flicked once to the mask, then away again—quick, nervous.
Whispers passed quietly between the others.
She’d heard the stories.
Everyone had.
The masked man in the Akatsuki. The one who burned cities. The one who murdered those in his way.
Her posture straightened with thinly veiled tension.
“May I help you, Uchiha-sama?” she asked, professional.
Obito didn’t waste time.
“I’ve been told you have a large holding. Omegas from several districts.”
“We do,” she said. “But if I may be blunt, I doubt you’ll find anyone suitable for someone of your… reputation.”
Reputation.
He didn’t react. He was used to it—his reputation entering the room before he did.
His name always arriving first, heavy with expectation.
Expectations for brutality. For control. For blood.
She was already assuming he would treat whoever he chose the same way.
Assuming he liked it that way.
He let the silence stretch just long enough to make her uneasy.
Then:
“Show me anyway.”
“Yes, of course. This way.”
The room they led him to was small and sterile, a long window set into the far wall.
On the other side, omegas waited—quiet, seated in rows, some with masks, others looking anywhere but forward.
Obito stood with his arms folded, unmoving as the list was read out.
Numbers. Status. Brief histories.
Not them.
Another file.
Not them.
His hands curled into fists.
Where are you?
He’d searched every facility across the nations. He had checked every registry. Every illegal seller. Every rumor that sounded even close to the omega he had lost.
It had been years.
And still, nothing.
Years of trails and whispers that led nowhere. Years of chasing ghosts through burned records and empty beds.
And with each dead end, the memory of silver hair in the dark grew fainter—like smoke in rain.
He couldn’t even picture him anymore.
Not clearly.
The lines of his face had blurred with time.
The color of his eyes—grey, he thought, or maybe lighter—slipped further away each year.
All he had left were fragments:
a boy’s voice, sharp with laughter;
a glimpse of silver in sunlight;
the ache that came every time he tried to remember more.
He didn’t even know what he was looking for now.
Just that he had to keep looking.
Because the guilt wouldn’t let him stop.
The attendant cleared their throat nervously.
“These are the last of the registered, non-bonded omegas in this district, Alpha-sama.”
Obito didn’t move.
Didn’t breathe.
He stared through the glass at the empty-eyed crowd and felt something cold settle behind his ribs.
This was it.
The end of the line.
The place where he would have to admit it,
that he’d lost him for good.
He had promised to find him.
Not quietly.
Not softly.
He had screamed it—hoarse and furious—as the guards had dragged the boy away from him.
I’ll find you. I'll get you out. No matter what.
The words had torn out of his throat like a weapon, a vow thrown against steel doors and indifferent hands.
And now, years later, standing in this room full of strangers, he finally felt what those guards must have heard back then.
The sound of someone lying to himself.
The guilt pressed harder than the silence.
He turned to the beta, jaw tight.
“Are these all the omegas you have?”
His voice was flat.
Not anger.
Just finality.
Another beta woman, with a clipped accent and careful smile, stepped forward.
“No, sir. We have others, but… they’re not yet suited for someone of your rank and reputation.”
Obito’s gaze didn’t waver.
“Show me.”
A flicker of hesitation crossed her face, but she inclined her head and turned.
“As you wish.”
They walked.
The corridors narrowed, the air thick with chemical heat suppressants and old fear.
Every step sounded too loud. Too human.
The walls changed here—paint peeling at the edges, floors turning from tile to concrete.
The lighting dimmed, flickering weakly in long, stuttering intervals.
They descended a narrow stairwell.
The beta’s heels clicked sharply against the metal steps, her voice measured, almost bored.
“These omegas aren’t trained for high-class placement,” she warned. “Some are noncompliant. Difficult. Incomplete profiles. They aren’t what most alphas are looking for.”
She hesitated, one hand on the railing.
“This level is where we keep those being considered for replacement,” she added matter-of-factly.
“Some are transferred to the heat centers, some reassigned to other barracks for retraining. Others are kept here for more… intensive conditioning. Different reasons. Same outcome.”
The words fell like a checklist. Routine.
She stopped outside a heavy door and glanced at him sidelong.
“Proceeding, Alpha-sama?”
Obito didn’t answer.
She keyed the door open.
The smell hit him—antiseptic over sweat, submission baked into concrete.
A long corridor stretched before him, flickering lights overhead, open doorways on either side.
Inside each room: an omega standing, silent and still. Waiting.
Lined up like mannequins.
Obito moved past them slowly.
One face. Another. Another.
None of them were right.
None of them pulled.
The beta read up from her papers as they moved down the corridor.
The omegas numbers, not their names.
They didn’t even have names anymore.
Just numbers.
She listed everyone's number and what was wrong with them as they passed—her voice calm, efficient, without pause.
“Forty-one. Failed heat suppression protocol—aggressive cycle response.”
“Forty-two. Repeated refusal to follow pairing orders.”
“Forty-four. Unstable scent output—considered defective.”
“Forty-five. Physical scarring—reduced market value.”
“Forty-six. Chronic silence—possible dissociation.”
Her tone never changed. Just notes. Observations.
As if she were reading off maintenance reports, not lives.
“Each has their reason for being here,” she added lightly.
“Behavioral issues, failed training, other inefficiencies… or simply age. We sort them as best we can.”
The sound of her voice scraped against the walls.
Clinical. Detached.
Obito didn’t reply.
He didn’t trust his own voice not to break.
The weight in his chest grew heavier with each door, each face that wasn’t him.
He’d told himself if this place didn’t have him—he’d stop.
He’d accept it.
That the omega he remembered was gone.
Dead. Claimed. Something.
But then—
At the very end of the corridor.
The last open door.
He stopped.
The air shifted.
A heartbeat—his—stuttered once, then hard again.
And there, just inside the threshold—
That face.
Older. Thinner. Scared.
A pale line running through his left eye—
The same mark Obito remembered seeing the day it was made.
That scar.
Unmistakable.
Obito’s breath caught.
But the rest of him—
gods, the rest of him looked wrong.
His skin was too pale, stretched tight over sharp bones.
Dark circles hollowed the space beneath his eyes, purple shadows carved deep by sleepless nights.
His silver hair hung uneven, dull where it had once caught the sun.
The thin fabric of his uniform clung to a body that had forgotten what warmth felt like.
Drained.
Empty.
Like the system had bled him dry and left only what was useful.
Unmistakable.
Unforgivable.
Obito stepped forward before he could stop himself, the sound of his own pulse drowning out everything else.
There you are.
After all this time.
He had found him.
Still.
Pale.
Silent.
The face he had never forgotten.
…Kakashi.