tampered | Log; Completed

This was without a doubt the stupidest thing he had ever done, ever. ...Okay, except maybe for the thing with the lion men, because that was pretty stupid. And the thing with the monster movie, yeah, that was pretty stupid, too, but at least he'd retained some dignity by sitting on the sidelines and mocking away the whole time. Well, fine, and the mission simulations with Wily's puppets, that was really stupid. And--

Okay, so maybe this wasn't the absolute stupidest thing ever, but it was pushing it.

Still, he kinda had to give Dweebito points for getting him out here in the first place. It wasn't that Proto felt particularly concerned about the blackmail Obito had threatened in order to make him comply with all this; actually, he'd mostly agreed just because the little dork had actually resorted to blackmail at all. It was always nice to see the self-proclaimed heroes play by the bad side's rules every once in a while.

Of course, just because Obito had gotten him out here didn't mean Proto was going to make it a walk in the park for him, either. Hey, he was supposed to be having fun too, right? So if his particular definition of "fun" included nonstop wisecracking, who could really tell him to stop?

Rin smiled and gave a wave as the boys... Well, one boy and one robot... came walking. She'd been wondering if Proto would ever be dragged out here, and was still trying to figure out just how Obito had pulled off that one.

The idea was - if she'd understand his plan correctly - to show Proto just how much fun it could be being a good guy. She was doubting the efficiency of that scheme, but maybe Obito would somehow make it happen.
He'd survived here, after all.

Maybe they could even have fun today. Hiyori was really nice, and she and Proto seemed to get along.

Even though amusement parks and snow didn't mix very well.
She just hoped Obito wasn't thinking of this as a date. She was trying not to.

Okay, so she was maybe a little bit late. But things had held her up, and besides, who had figured that Proto would actually have gone with Obito so willingly and without apparent amount of time?

To be honest, she had no idea why they were here; hanging out at the amusement park. Granted, not the smartest idea considering the snow, but hopefully they all had a sufficient amount of clothing. She had brought along an extra sweater just in case.

It did strike her as a little bit strange, though. She could get why Obito and Rin would be hanging out, and she got along with them, but she seemed to be an odd choice of mutual friend. If anything, she would be sort of like a buffer from Proto. But she couldn't for the life of her figure out why Proto was there in the first place. Obito should have wanted to keep him far away from Rin at all costs, right?

Something didn't add up, but it should still be fun. If the boys didn't kill each other first. She ran up to the group, waving.

"Hey!"

They were assembled.

"Since this is an official mission, in the absence of the Hokage I appoint myself team leader. Rin and Hiyori-chan, you are my teammates, and Proto Jerk is the target." Obito had to suppress the strong urge to accompany this with a flick of a shuriken at said target. He figured emphasising the point* would only make the target more annoying. "Team onwards!" he cried and began marching into the park, feet crunching over the snow.

Snow, and they weren't even in the Snow Country! He'd heard other chuunin come back from there, cursing and vowing never to go back, not even if they tripled the pay, but it hadn't put him off. Now he could experience it himself, he didn't see what was so bad. He stared down at it, playing with his footsteps to listen to the sound and stamping to compact it, marvelling at the imprint of his shoes. "Don't get this in Konoha," he smiled at Rin.

"So," he looked up from his stamping dance, "what do you want to do first?"

[OOC: * This bad pun brought to you by Alex's Influence^TM.]

"Hey, do you ninja dweebs always announce your official mission plans right in front of your targets? Gee, and we always kept ours top secret. Element of surprise, y'know. But hey, what do we know, right?" Proto said instantly. Hey, if this was gonna be an official mission, somebody had to represent for the Bad Side, right?

He had it better off than the other three in the team, anyway, since they'd all been forced to adapt for the weather, and the cold didn't bother him at all. Sure, he had the occasional bad memory of getting blasted into a snowbank or hit with a deep-freeze, courtesy of Ice Man's stolen weapon, and it wasn't his particular favorite weather to work in, but he definitely could deal with it a lot better than the others.

Not that he actually cared about any of the others, or whether or not they were cold.

"Oh, so they don't have snow in Ninjaville either, huh?" he continued, in deliberate imitation of Obito's own information-gathering attempts. "Interesting. Better make a note here of that."

But he absolutely refused to offer any input about what to do. That might give the impression that he actually wanted to be here, which would mean that Obito had actually succeeded in his mission, and there was no way that Proto was going to give him the satisfaction. So he shrugged, arms folded over his chest, and remained silent.

Rin returned Obito's smile, and smiled at Hiyori as well. "No, I've never seen it snow at home at all," she expanded on Obito's point for the other girl's benefit. She was looking forward to spending time with the girl and wanted to get off on as good a start as possible, given their... mission.
It was certainly a lot less grim than many of the other missions their team had faced.

Rin figured she'd just go along with whatever Obito came up with and do some damage control in case it got too adventurous, or he ended up fighting the robot. Apparently he'd fought Proto before. She wondered what the robot could actually do, battle-wise, apart from the random destruction she'd seen already.
He didn't actually strike her as evil, in spite of Obito's insistence. More like mischievous and determined to be an annoyance.

She set off after Obito to the background music of the boys' (it was still impossible to think of Proto-Man as anything but a boy) bickering, turning towards Hiyori once more. "Snow in the middle of summer, what will be next?" she grinned by way of conversation.

Hold on a second. Team mates? Target? Mission? In absence of the Hokage? "Uh, hold on, I might have misunderstood something. What exactly are we- what exactly are the details of the mission?"

It was very nice snow. It was great snow, actually. It was cold, of course, but it was enough to do all the typical things that people did in snow, but still walkable, and it wasn't a blizzard- at least not yet.

As they started walking, because no matter what Obito's answer it wasn't like she was going to abandon them, Rin's question reminded her. "Oh, yeah, there was something like this last year too. Actually, we should be careful, it could turn into a blizzard at any time. It happened last year, but Rue warned us about it, so it wasn't too bad."

[OoC: Oh my god did you really just make a footnote? Fff. / . . . works on app]

Obito was about to retort that maybe they'd all met before and discussed the details secretly, without him, and that was just the recap, but, er, Hiyori sort of messed that up.

He ignored him temporarily while he explained, "We're here to turn a bad guy good," he jerked a thumb at the robot, "Normally the mission objective would involve a lot more stabbing - which would be fine with me - but we can do subtle too."

"Then I'd better make a note of-" damn it, he didn't have any original material for this one, "how you're an idiot!"

Nicely saved!

The building in front of them looked like an old mansion and Obito thought it was someone's home at first, someone who hadn't cleaned for years and kept pet bats? Wait, was that a tombstone? Then he saw the sign 'Haunted House'.

"We could go in here, but, er, the girls would probably be scared. So it wouldn't be fair to them," he said breezily, looking round him quickly for another option. Tunnel of Love? Wow, that would be unbelievably awkward. But maybe if he could get Rin alone... He could also see a place that called itself a Fun House. That had to be fun, right? "We could go this way?"

"Oh, okay. So subtle means announcing your official mission plans right in front of your targets," Proto snarked, unrelenting. "Gee, no wonder. I never was very good at subtle."

But hey, maybe this wouldn't work out to be so bad, after all. He'd just snipe at Obito the whole time, and the girls seemed to be getting along okay--not that he'd expected any different, 'cause hey, they were girls, they were supposed to get along and talk about girl stuff and whatever--and pretty soon it'd be over and life would go on, same as always. Yeah, okay, he could handle that.

"Hey, that explains why you're scared," he added, once Obito suggested the haunted house. "What's the matter, you need somebody to hold your hand or something? This place looks like a bad movie set. Gee, you must really be a chicken if you're scared of that."

It was fortunate, though, that his shades hid his eyes so well, because it let him sneak an unnoticed glance at the girls--half to see if Rin was going to start pulling her touchy-feely "oh we need to play peacemaker and be friendly and understanding to Proto-kun" junk, and half to see if Hiyori was going to try to hit him with something for saying what he had about girls.

Rin had decided in advance that perhaps the best way to withstand Proto's remarks was to simply let Obito deal with them. Nothing she had tried so far had seemed to have any real effect. Well, save for tying him up. For a fleeting moment, a vision of a gagged and bound adult Proto-man (if he was an adult now, that is - kind of hard to tell) flashed before her eyes.
She did feel bad about having that thought, but only a little.

She pulled the warm jacket she was wearing closer about her shoulder and fished about for something suitably neutral to suggest. "Maybe the haunted house is scarier on the inside... We could go in the fun house to get out of the cold and talk about where to go next?"

Turn a bad guy good. Turn Proto good. Proto the bad guy. Good.

Well, at least it'd make some great manga material, she was sure of that. Anyway, he was hopefully at least no longer stealing money or wallets or whatever.

As for the haunted house, well, she always wound up going on rides or in places that she got scared by. But considering this was the City, and some of the curses that'd been around . . . "The fun house sounds like a good idea, yeah." This day would probably be really weird, but it also seemed like it could be fun, too.

"Subtle means not punching you in the face, but if that's too difficult for you, we can skip it and go for Plan B, which coincidentally is punching you in the face! And I'm not scared of that shack!" But he was relieved he didn't have to demonstrate that, mostly because it was lacking in truth. "House of fun it is."

The self appointed team leader led them to the agreed destination, then stood looking up at it. "Is this what fun looks like?"

He didn't 'get' it, but that didn't matter because, ever the adventurer, he didn't waste time in running up to the door and pulling it open.

His jaw dropped.

"RIN!" he yelled, despite her standing not so far away, "It's here! We did it! We found one of those portal things home! IT'S HOME!"

And he disappeared into the building.

Proto hadn't explored every place in this amusement park, but it'd been a long time since it opened and he'd gone to investigate a few times--enough to know that stuff didn't always work like it was supposed to, and that anything capable of making somebody that happy was probably a trick.

Which meant one of two things. If it was a trick, then Dweebito was charging headfirst into a trap and was too dumb to realize it, and somebody was gonna have to bail him out of there. If it wasn't a trick, then the little dweeb really had found a way home...and somebody was gonna have to go bail him out of there. And he had a sneaking suspicion he knew who that somebody was gonna have to be, too. But that didn't mean he had to like it.

"Moron," he said under his breath, shooting a look at the girls. "Can't you get a leash for him or something? And quit looking at me like that! I'm not jumping through a portal to Ninjaville just to go drag him back out here."

"Obito, wait! It might be a..." but of course, he was already through the door before Rin could finish her sentence: "-trap."
She completely ignored Proto's insults, a skill born of years spent on a chunin team whose male members insisted on bickering at every turn of the road, and made her way cautiously, if quickly, to the door and peered in.

Obito had been right! There was the city gates, the Hokage mountain with its three faces - it was Konoha! But...
She had to find him, and find him now. To rescue him if it was a trap, and to prevent him from going home if it was real. Because he couldn't go home, not with what was waiting for him.

Without looking back, Rin dashed through the door after her teammate.

"Wait! Rin! Don't go in after-" Chain event much? "-him." This was all happening way too fast. She'd never been through the fun house before. But it was curse-based, right? Okay, so what curses did she know related to someone's home world.

. . . Nothing! Crap, this wasn't good! She turned again to Proto. "Well, what do you expect me to do about it?" She thought again. "Okay, look, you can't go in there because you'll stand out too much. I will too, but I kno- I can figure out where things are. Hopefully there won't be anyone else there." She stepped up to the doorway. "You- I don't know. Figure something out. I'll try and get them out from the inside." Aaaaand walking into the doorway now.

Konoha. His Konoha, and Rin's too, caught up in the Third Great World War, where everyone was the right age and nothing terrible had happened. No demons, no sacrifices...

"We have to find sensei and Kakashi and tell them all about it! And the Uchiha compound, we need to go there first..."

They were still alive, all of them, their murderer three years old and the pride of the clan. This was it, his moment to come back and change the future. This was really it.

Torn between the many things he wanted to do, he dithered as he stared round at it all. Then he realised something important was missing: the people. The streets were bare and it was silent, except for Rin's panting behind him after chasing him through the door.

"W-Where is everyone?" He turned to see Hiyori walking in too, the door closing behind her. Could she do that? What if the portal didn't go both ways? But it was a minor concern as he wanted to know where everyone was and he wanted to know now.

"Dweebs," Proto muttered to himself, leaning against the wall as he watched Hiyori walk through the door. Like he'd wanted to go through, anyway.

Okay, fine, he could hang around out here and wait. Probably should've tied a rope around Hiyori's ankle or something so he could keep tabs on her while she was inside, but whatever, she'd figure it out, right?

...Right?

...

He waited for what seemed like an eternity, kicking at the piles of snow beneath his feet and glancing over at the door, listening for any sound that might indicate that they were coming back out. They better not have ditched him!

...So what the heck was taking so long?

Rin reached Obito's side and only then stopped to truly take in her surroundings. It was their Konoha to a fault, down to the corner bakery where she'd sometimes have breakfast after working the graveyard shift at the hospital. But there was no smell of bread, no chatter from customers waiting outside.

Her mind spun. Knowing the City like she did - and though that wasn't very well, she was beginning to get a general idea of an underlying nastiness after that Father's Day curse - this was probably some sort of an illusion.
But it could also be a Konoha of a possible future in which the war had been lost.

"What is this place?" she wondered aloud, helplessly. "I don't think it's where we left from..."

She heard the door slam behind her and cringed. She looked around. Good! Just Rin and Obito. That was definitely a good thing, she really didn't need other ninja popping out and seeing her and it would cause all sorts of problems. Although, admittedly, it was pretty creepy.

She should have thought this out more. "It must be some City thing. I don't think it's a curse, though." She kept looking around nervously. "I just don't know what this is supposed to be."

Showing him what he couldn't have, it was a slap to the face and Obito kept looking around, despite knowing no one was going to come out. His family was dead here too.

He kicked the ground, muttering, "Let's just get out of here."

He looked up at the girls and was pulled out of his thoughts. It was his own fault: he'd believed what he wanted. He didn't hate living in the City, even when it pulled stunts like this, and he'd been ready to race off and leave behind all the amazing people he'd met. A small smile crept across his face at the thought of them really crossing over into Konoha and taking Hiyori with them, leaving Proto waiting at the door for ages.

"Sorry you don't get the guided tour, Hiyori-chan," he said, making an effort to sound more cheerful. "But the best summary of it is that guy goes the funniest colour when you tell him you accidentally set fire to the second floor of the Hokage building," he pointed to Sandaime's sculpted head on the mountainside, "and that place serves the best ramen," pointing at Ichiraku's. After several conversations with Naruto on the intricacies of the perfect ramen, it seemed some things never changed.

Still nothing. Okay, this was officially just stupid now. Forget waiting, he was bored and a bored Proto was never, ever a good thing.

He stalked over to the door and hauled it open, keeping a firm grip on the handle as he leaned inside and yelled, "Hey! You've got ten seconds before I bail on this whole stupid mission of yours and go play Skee-Ball or something!"

"And that's the Academy, over there;" Rin continued Obito's introduction of Konoha for Hiyori's benefit; "and the Hospital", pointing towards it. She faltered, and her hand sunk to her side. "Yeah, I'm sorry you didn't get to see the place as it really is, Hiyori-san. This... This isn't Konoha, I think, just an image of it. A replica."

Yes, definitely just the kind of thing this City would do.
She walked to Obito's side and gently touched his arm. "I'm... I thought this was Konoha, too," she said quietly.

_{[ooc: I thought I'd let you other guys think up a reaction to Proto <3 :D]}

She noted how they held themselves, especially Obito, when they realized no one was there and nothing would happen as far as going back home for real. Of course, it was a good thing that they couldn't go back home, but that was a whole other discussion. "Hah, no, it's okay, it's still pretty cool. I know I don't get the full effect, but the way you guys talk about it, I think I get the idea." Rin looked pretty upset, too.

"It looks very real." She kind of hated to break up the moment. Luckily, Proto covered that well enough. "Ack! Alright, geez." She noted that the door had not been there a second ago. Thank goodness Proto opened it. "Uh, we should, uh, probably go." She started to move towards the door, making sure that they would follow.

[OoC: Mome, you can handle the slam in Obi's face if you'd like~]

It was comforting to have Rin there with him. It was not comforting to have Proto yelling at them about- what the hell was a Skee Ball anyway?

He sighed in an exaggerated manner and followed the girls towards the door. He'd been oblivious to it before, which he was glad about Kakashi not being here to berate him for that.

He turned and took one last look at the village. Even if this was just an illusion, it felt good to see it once more. He didn't know when he'd be returning and at the back of his mind, he was selfishly happy he got longer to prepare. Longer with his friends, maybe that even included Pr-

He turned back and walked straight into the closed door.

"W-WHAT THE HELL!" he yelled at it. This did not make the door reappear. He ran his hands over where the outline had been, seconds ago. Nothing.

Insert lots of banging and swearing here.

Wearing the massively cheerful smile of a guy who had just permanently locked his nemesis in a facsimile of his homeland inside a fun house in a theme park--which, coincidentally, was exactly what he had just done--Proto turned to the girls.

"Oh, hey, you're back!" he said, standing in front of the door and leaning against it, pointedly ignoring the faint pounding sounds coming from within. "Great! Let's go hit the arcade."

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*reappears from the Land of My Mum is Visiting*

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reappears from the Land of My Mum is Visiting