Sleep became an enemy sometime during his third week of letters.
Not the dramatic sleeplessness of his first nights in custody, when the dead had visited him with their silent accusations and his body had been too damaged for real rest. This was different—a chronic, grinding insomnia that settled into his bones like arthritis, making every attempt at unconsciousness feel like a battle he was destined to lose.
He would lie in his narrow bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling exhaustion in every muscle while his mind raced through the day's conversations, tomorrow's letters, the growing list of names that needed acknowledgment. Sleep would hover just out of reach, a promise that never quite materialized into reality.
By two in the morning, he would give up the pretense.
The guards had been instructed to allow him limited movement within the building during nighttime hours, a concession to the insomnia that had become obvious to anyone paying attention to his deteriorating appearance. He could pace the corridors, visit the small library, sit in the common area and watch the village through reinforced windows.
What he actually did was walk.
The building that housed his apartment was part of a larger complex designed for visiting dignitaries and foreign shinobi requiring temporary accommodation. During the day, it bustled with activity—meetings, briefings, the controlled chaos of international relations. At night, it became a different place entirely, echoing with emptiness and the soft footsteps of security personnel making their rounds.
Obito's path became routine: down the main corridor, up two flights of stairs, across the upper hallway, then back down again. A circuit that took approximately fifteen minutes to complete, long enough to tire his body without wearing out his welcome with the guards.
It was during one of these midnight walks that he encountered her.
Hinata Hyuga sat in the common area's reading nook, a book open in her lap and a cup of tea steaming on the table beside her. She looked up when he entered, her pale eyes reflecting the soft lamplight, and offered a small smile that was neither fearful nor forced.
"Obito-san," she said quietly. "You can't sleep either?"
The observation was gentle, without judgment or curiosity about the reasons behind his insomnia. Simply an acknowledgment of shared circumstances, one person recognizing another's struggle with the darkness.
"No," he said, pausing at the edge of the seating area. "I didn't expect to find anyone else awake."
"I come here sometimes when my thoughts are too loud for sleeping," she admitted. "The quiet helps."
He studied her face, noting the subtle signs of exhaustion that matched his own. Dark circles beneath her eyes, the particular pallor that came from too many sleepless nights, the careful way she held herself that suggested chronic fatigue.
"May I?" he asked, gesturing to the chair across from hers.
She nodded, closing her book and setting it aside. For a few minutes, they sat in comfortable silence, sharing the strange intimacy of insomniacs meeting in the small hours of the morning.
"What keeps you awake?" he asked finally.
"Memories," she said simply. "The war. Things I saw, things I couldn't prevent. The weight of knowing that peace came at such a cost."
Her honesty was unexpected and humbling. Hinata Hyuga had been one of the heroes of the war, someone who had fought bravely and lost friends in the battle against the very forces he had set in motion. Yet here she was, treating him like a fellow sufferer rather than the enemy who had caused her suffering.
"And you?" she asked. "What keeps Obito-san awake?"
"Guilt," he replied, matching her directness. "The faces of people who died because of my choices. The weight of trying to figure out how to live with what I've done."
She nodded as if this was the most natural thing in the world. "Guilt is loud," she observed. "It doesn't respect the need for rest."
"How do you bear it? The memories, the weight of what you've seen?"
Hinata was quiet for a long moment, her gaze focused on something beyond the window. When she spoke, her voice carried the kind of wisdom that came from extensive experience with suffering.
"I remind myself that staying awake doesn't change the past," she said. "And that my sleeplessness doesn't honor the people who died. They would want me to rest, to heal, to find ways to keep living."
"Even when living feels like giving up?"
"Especially then. Living is the hardest thing we can do sometimes. It's also the most important."
They talked until dawn, sharing the strange confessions that came with exhaustion and darkness. Hinata spoke about losing friends during the war, about the guilt of surviving when others hadn't, about the difficulty of readjusting to peace after years of conflict. Obito found himself describing the weight of his crimes, the impossibility of making amends, the fear that redemption was a fantasy he was too damaged to achieve.
"Do you think people can really change?" he asked as the first light began to filter through the windows.
"I have to believe they can," she replied. "Otherwise, what's the point of trying?"
"But what if the things they've done are unforgivable?"
"Then they work twice as hard to become someone worthy of forgiveness, even if they never receive it."
The conversation stayed with him through the day, threading through his supervised walk and his afternoon letter-writing session. Hinata's gentle certainty about the possibility of change, her faith in the value of effort even without guarantee of success, felt like a small light in the darkness he had been navigating.
That night, he found her in the common area again, reading a different book but occupying the same chair. She looked up when he entered, offering the same quiet smile.
"Couldn't sleep again?" she asked.
"No. You?"
"Same." She gestured to the chair across from her. "Would you like company?"
It became a routine. Every night that sleep eluded him—which was most nights—he would make his way to the common area and find Hinata waiting with her books and her tea and her inexplicable willingness to share space with someone the world considered a monster.
They didn't always talk. Sometimes they simply sat in companionable silence, reading or thinking or watching the village sleep beyond the windows. But their presence provided something neither had expected to find: understanding without judgment, companionship without obligation, the simple comfort of not being alone with their burdens.
"Why aren't you afraid of me?" he asked one night, the question escaping before he could think better of it.
Hinata looked up from her book, considering the question with characteristic thoughtfulness. "Because fear doesn't help anyone," she said finally. "And because I can see that you're suffering. People who are suffering need compassion, not more pain."
"Even people who caused suffering themselves?"
"Especially them. Anyone can show kindness to someone who deserves it. Real compassion means extending kindness even when it isn't earned."
The wisdom in her words was profound and challenging. Most people treated kindness as a reward for good behavior, something to be earned through virtue and withheld from those who had fallen short. But Hinata seemed to understand that true compassion was most needed precisely when it was least deserved.
"I don't understand how you can be so forgiving," he said.
"I'm not forgiving you," she replied gently. "Forgiveness is something different, something that takes time and healing and growth. This is just... seeing you as a person who is trying to be better. That's not forgiveness, it's just recognition of effort."
The distinction was important and humbling. She wasn't absolving him of his crimes or pretending they hadn't happened. She was simply acknowledging his attempts to change while maintaining clear boundaries about what that acknowledgment meant.
As the weeks passed, their midnight conversations became a lifeline he hadn't realized he needed. Not therapy or absolution or romantic connection, but simple human contact with someone who could see his pain without being overwhelmed by it. Someone who understood that healing was possible even when redemption remained uncertain.
"Do you think I'll ever sleep normally again?" he asked one particularly difficult night.
"I think sleep comes when we're ready to let go of the day's burdens," she said. "When we trust that tomorrow will give us another chance to try."
"And if I'm never ready to let go?"
"Then you'll keep having these conversations with me until you are."
It wasn't a promise of healing or a guarantee of peace. It was simply an offer of presence, of shared insomnia and mutual understanding. In a world that saw him as either monster or project, Hinata offered something rarer: the simple gift of being seen as human.
That night, for the first time in weeks, Obito slept.
Not deeply, not without dreams, but enough to remember what rest felt like. And when he woke, he carried with him the echo of her quiet certainty: people could change, effort mattered, and no one had to face their darkness alone.
It was enough to face another day.