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The kid has been criticizing Obito for the past two hours, and it can’t possibly still be personal. There’s an unwarranted level of vitriol in the sound he makes when he pulls out Obito’s still smoking hyperconductor with his bare hands. The hands part would be more worrisome if both the kid’s arms weren’t mechanical past the elbow. Obito hasn’t asked what happened; he knows exactly how a kid that young could lose half their limbs.
“Conductor’s fucking shot, yeah? I mean literally shot.” He holds up the conductor to show the smoking hole through the middle of it.
“That’s the only reason I’m here,” Obito replies. The kid snorts.
“No, no it’s really not,” the kid tsks, poking around the couplets with, again, his bare hands. Obito wonders mildly if that’s how he lost them the first time. Maybe the kid just never learned. “Your plasma casing is cracked.” He taps it with the back of a screwdriver.
“It’s just a crack,” Obito says. He’s not quite hit the point of pleading. He’s learned more about spaceship maintenance in the past two hours than he’s ever known before in his life. He’s learned more about his inability to perform said maintenance than he’s ever known before. Apparently, every patch job he’s ever done since he left Kaguya Space has been offensive to the senses.
“I can leave it,” the kid says, deceptively lightly. There’s a look in his eyes that tilts towards mania when he looks at Obito. “If you want to blow yourself up next time you warp.” He seems like maybe he’d prefer that option.
“Ah,” Obito says. “So you can fix it?”
“Nope,” the kid says, dejectedly turning in his swing to continue dismantling Obito’s engines. “The casing’ll have to be replaced. It’s a huge pain, yeah? Gotta trace the line, flush the plasma,” he gestures with a tool as he talks. “Lotta work.”
“Expensive,” Obito guesses, eyes narrowed.
“Oh, sure,” the kid nods along as if Obito is a particularly slow puppy that finally managed a trick. The trouble is, there’s no one else on this backwater planet with the connections to get the parts Obito needs or the skills to install them properly. The kid has Obito like he probably gets everyone who limps their way here- over a barrel.
Obito can’t pay the kid. He’s got no money. If the kid had as much sense as he did opinions he’d surely have put two and two together from the state of Obito’s ship and the state of Obito himself.
“How long will the repairs take?” Obito calls up to the kid. He’s not sure how far behind him the Zetsu are, whether Obito’s betrayal has been realized yet or not. It’s best to keep moving.
“With the casing replacement? Two or three weeks. Depends when the parts get here, yeah?” He lowers himself down in his jerry-rigged sling until he can hop out onto the ground. He takes down his equipment with brisk efficiency, packing all the folding aluminum into a hovercart he’s outfitted with rudimentary propulsion and steering. He glides the cart along behind him as he approaches Obito, tapping absently on a datapad.
“You owe for the inspection, and then repairs’ll be half upfront half on completion.”
“Right, and what would happen if I can’t pay you?” Obito tries for nonchalant. The kid looks up at him, that manic edge from before creeping into the corners of his mouth.
“I kill you and scrap your ship for parts,” the kid replies. Behind the glass over his left eye, there’s a low gleam.
“Counteroffer-
“The counteroffer is that you pay me.”
“Counter-counteroffer,” Obito says, stalwartly keeping his cool. It helps that he wears a mask these days. “You repair the ship pro-bono and I smuggle one of Onoki’s most wanted brats out of Iwa Space.” He gives a finger gun to the kid’s chest, just in case the brat in question wasn’t clear.
The kid’s jaw snaps tight, his nostrils flaring and his eyes flashing something mean. “Who the hell are you?” He hisses, free hand inching towards his waist.
“People call me Tobi. Let’s just say I’m an individual who has some… disagreements with the way things get run around here.” The kid, promisingly, hasn’t tried to kill him yet. “What do you say, kid? Do we have a deal?” The kids holds his stare for a long stretch. Then he drops his gaze down to the data pad and swipes across the screen.
“Two weeks,” he says, stowing the pad on the hovercart. He pushes past Obito, hopping up onto the edge of the cart. “Don’t call me kid. My name’s Deidara.”
Behind the mask, Obito grins.
“I know,” he says.