Third person pov

Ethelia wasn't about to claim she was the best at coping, because she genuinely wasn't. In fact, she'd say she was pretty damn bad at it. Bottling up your emotions and shoving them into the back of your mind was one of the worst things you could do. It wasn't recommended, yet here she was! Pulling that shit nonetheless. It's not like she had a choice. She could have a breakdown, but one of the many side effects that would surely occur would be the village getting nuked.

Ethelia felt almost guilty at this point. She'd cried her heart out. Torn herself apart and then put herself back together with crappy glue and tape that didn't feel sticky enough. She was an absolute mess, but right now, she felt okay. Like a wave of grief had passed over her and consumed her before spitting her back out to wait for the next wave. The in-between. The peace that came after the initial storm. Ethelia dreaded he next wave. How bad would it be? Would she be able to handle the pressure?

"Can we do anything else for you? Get you anything?" Minato was obviously very stressed, and for good reason, too. One wrong move, and Ethelia would blow up everyone and everything. She was in a fragile state at the moment. Like a degraded stick of dynamite that would go off if moved the wrong way. Ethelia understood the caution as a result. She just wished they wouldn't tip-toe around her so much. Obviously talking freely about it probably wasn't the best, but they could lay off with the coddling. She wasn't the type to shut down and stop functioning.

"I'm fine." Ethelia wasn't fine. But she wasn't going to kill the entire village either. At least, she didn't think she was. Her chakra felt a lot calmer now. She was keeping a very tight hold on it, which was just as hard and tiring as it sounded. But it was something she knew she could keep up if she really needed to. Hurting other people due to personal issues and tragedies in her life was the last thing she wanted to do. She refused to make others suffer just because she was. Cheesy as all hell, but something she'd decided a long time ago. She was basically telling her emotions to go fuck themselves. And you know what? It was halfway working.

"You shouldn't be." Kakashi said. It was noted without malice or any sort of snark. He was just stating a fact, and Ethelia could respect that. "Let yourself mourn. Keeping it inside is only going to cause you to blow up at a later date."

"Shut up, Kakashi. Let her deal with it in whatever way works best for her." Obito snapped in her defensw. Kakashi leveled him with a glare. Ethelia shared a look with Rin. The shit they had to put up with these days. She did have to admit, Obito's unwavering support was nice and quite grounding. He'd done a lot for her. Maybe he was the reason she didn't feel so alone, even with her dad gone.

"Don't fight now, you two." Minato said sharply. "Ethelia is allowed to cope however she needs to. This is a big deal, and not just because of her chakra. Have some respect."

Ethelia rolled her eyes. Alright, this was dumb as hell. She didn't need time to cope or whatever. She needed a distraction. Her mind felt like it was running a mile a minute. Sitting here, she knew she'd eventually go crazy. There was too much space to think and stress over everything that could happen. Her brain was busy playing the blame game, and Ethelia was the only player. She felt rancid. Absolutely awful. Depression has nothing on this heavy feeling in her chest. She knew there wasn't a way to get rid of it. Not without killing everyone with her chakra, anyway. So maybe she could drown it out instead? As bad as she felt, she almost felt okay at the same time. Still, maybe. She didn't know. She didn't know much of anything anymore.

"It's fine. He has a point. If I keep it all in, it'll all come out all at once sometime later. We don't need that." Ethelia shook her head, pushing herself up off the couch. Rin and Minato looked a little startled by her movement. It's not like she was injured and couldn't move, so they could go fuck themselves with a rake. Ethelia refused to just... Sit here. She couldn't. She never thought her lazy ass would come to such a conclusion, but tragedy was a funky little beast that drove her to new ends.

"You don't have to do anything." Obito said. He was worried about her. Why wouldn't he be? Plus, her dad had left her care in his hands! He wasn't going to let him down, even if he was an ass at the end of it all. Ethelia had loved him deeply, and Obito pretty sure they'd been relatively close. Losing him had clearly hurt Ethelia a lot. Looking into her nebulous eyes, he could see she was in a lot of pain. The gleam wasn't the same as it had been before. She appeared hurt. Not broken, but close. It was a painful thing to see.

Ethelia gave Obito a dry look. Was she in the mood for this? No. But then again, she wasn't in the mood for literally anything right now. It was so discombobulating. Her dad was dead, but the world was still moving. Ethelia felt like she'd come to a dead halt. Like the world was spinning on its axis without her. It was a weird sensation, to feel left behind in such a way. She... wasn't sure if it would go away. And if it didn't, she had to wonder whether or not she'd be able to adjust.

Ethelia got herself dressed. She forced herself to shower and raked a comb through her hair, because she couldn't keep sitting on Obito's couch waiting for it to get better. It wasn't going to. She wanted to scream and cry. Maybe curl up in a ball and let herself wither away. There were any number of things she could, and wanted to, do. But she couldn't. She was being counted on, and she knew her father  would want her to keep going. It was just... hard. The wound was still fresh. Time to pour salt on the bitch by forcing herself to be active.

"I'm hungry." She decided. A step at a time. Second by second, minute by minute. She just had to go through the motions one after the other, and she'd be okay. She had to be okay.

Obito searched Ethelia with his eyes, a frown set on his face. She was surprisingly well put together for what had just happened. She was coherent and seemed semi-stable. Had she entered that weird stage where she was almost okay with it for a moment? He'd never seen Ethelia deal with a tragedy before, so he had nothing to compare it to. He didn't know if this was normal or even a good thing. But she was standing there looking dead tired, and almost bored.

"...Alright." Obito plastered on a grin. "Where do you wanna go? It's on me!"

"It's always on you." Ethelia snorted, sporting a half smile. The rest of Team Minato was pretty sure that was the exact moment they realized she'd be okay. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow. But she would be.