It didn't make him tense further, not completely, but the touch did make Sasuke's focused gaze ahead flicker once into something less outwardly collected. Slipping, Obito said, as if he hadn't slipped by allowing this much to happen. As if he hadn't been slipping for longer than he cared to remember, and this wasn't simply the inevitable capstone to a year of failure.
Composing himself was the minimum reparation he could make. Taking a deep breath -- and then another, until he'd first unsynced and then resynced his lungs to his moving feet -- he concentrated on remembering the lesson on the way here: focus on the minutiae.
"I can," he said. "I have to."
He'd recovered from his failures each time, ultimately, whatever the damage in the doing so. Mission successes, every one, and this one too on a purely technical sense. What had happened at the house now blazing smoke for anyone in a hundred-mile radius to see had just been a side-note, to be kept from the official record. The sun was bright at the edge of the lake when Sasuke slowed, glancing back to see if they were planning to round the lake or simply go across.
no subject
Composing himself was the minimum reparation he could make. Taking a deep breath -- and then another, until he'd first unsynced and then resynced his lungs to his moving feet -- he concentrated on remembering the lesson on the way here: focus on the minutiae.
"I can," he said. "I have to."
He'd recovered from his failures each time, ultimately, whatever the damage in the doing so. Mission successes, every one, and this one too on a purely technical sense. What had happened at the house now blazing smoke for anyone in a hundred-mile radius to see had just been a side-note, to be kept from the official record. The sun was bright at the edge of the lake when Sasuke slowed, glancing back to see if they were planning to round the lake or simply go across.