Sasuke's performance had gone far beyond Obito's expectations.
Even Obito had to admit it. From beginning to end, Sasuke had been the one controlling the battle. But more than that, what surprised him most was the fact that Sasuke had actually resorted to absorbing Naruto's chakra.
That was something that had never happened in the anime.
Even in their final clash at the Valley of the End, when both of them had already been pushed to the brink, Sasuke had only used that ability once. After that, he had never relied on it again.
So was it because there was no hope this time, and Jiraiya wasn't here…?
Or is this simply what Sasuke would choose on his own, once everything is no longer bound to that so-called "story"?
As the thought passed through his mind, Obito became even more certain that his decision not to interfere earlier had been the right one.
He could not blindly assume these people would always act the same way they had in the anime.
This was reality.
And in reality, the smallest difference could lead to a completely different choice.
Sasuke's eyes suddenly widened as he looked toward the figure who had appeared beside Urashiki at some unknown point, his back facing him.
A black cloak drifted lightly in the wind.
Obito stopped his train of thought and focused on the scene in front of him. Tilting his head slightly, he looked at Urashiki's impaled body and spoke in a mild tone.
"…That looks painful. Want me to help you?"
Urashiki's eyes twitched, and his ferocious expression twisted further.
"…Who the hell are you?" he snapped, trying to keep up his arrogance despite the unease beginning to crawl up his spine.
Obito had no interest in wasting words on someone like him.
Instead, he glanced over his shoulder toward Sasuke.
"…You look exhausted."
Then his gaze shifted back to Urashiki, calm and indifferent.
"…Mind if I take over?"
That... that can't be… How can he be here…?
The moment Sasuke caught a brief glimpse of the man standing in front of him, his eyes widened with shock and disbelief.
So even knowing his words might affect the future, the sheer absurdity of the situation forced the question out of him.
"Are you… Obito… Obito Uchiha?"
Obito, who had been about to continue with his plan, paused for a moment, though he did not turn around.
He was a little surprised Sasuke had recognized him so quickly, but it wasn't difficult to understand why.
He was still dressed in Obito's usual outfit.
Recognizing him was not hard at all.
Swoosh!
Thwack. Thwack.
In the next instant, several black receivers shot into the trees behind him.
Inside the mask, Obito's Sharingan narrowed as he looked down at Urashiki, who had stretched out a hand toward him.
He had been attacked, but Kamui had already been activated.
The attack passed straight through him.
"That's not a very polite way to greet someone you know…"
"You—"
Smack.
Before Urashiki could finish cursing, Obito's side kick smashed into his face.
The impact was so brutal that several of Urashiki's teeth were blasted out on the spot.
"Arghhh!!"
Intense pain surged through Urashiki's brain as he let out a roar, but the shattered teeth had already mixed with the blood in his mouth and lodged in his throat.
Only then did he realize, with horrifying clarity, that the kick had shattered his jaw upward. He could no longer lower his head and was forced to choke on his own blood and broken teeth as he gagged.
"Grghh!!"
Seeing Urashiki's body twitch in pain, Obito let out a cold snort, his voice filled with disgust.
"You really have no manners… you filthy Ōtsutsuki."
"Don't get cocky!!"
Even with his jaw shattered, Urashiki still forced out a furious roar. The Rinnegan on his forehead throbbed wildly, rage twisting his face as humiliation burned through him.
Without even thinking, he reached for the sword lodged in his stomach, trying to pull it out.
"You'll all regret interfering with a noble Ōtsutsuki!!"
Sasuke's expression shifted, but he didn't make a move. Instead, he kept his eyes fixed on Obito.
In that brief moment, he had already realized a few things.
This guy… something about him isn't right.
A hand suddenly grabbed Urashiki by the face.
"Enough."
A cold, emotionless voice sounded right beside his ear.
The next instant...
BOOM!!
Urashiki's entire body was smashed straight into the ground. The impact shattered the earth beneath him, sending cracks racing in every direction.
Sasuke raised the back of his hand to shield his eyes, but he continued staring ahead, the suspicion in his heart growing stronger.
Obito stood there, one hand pinning Urashiki to the ground as if he were nothing more than an insect. Then he slowly straightened up and brought his foot down instead.
Crack.
"…Know your place."
Urashiki struggled violently. The force crushing down on his head was so terrifying that he could already feel his skull on the verge of bursting apart.
But it was useless.
The foot pinning him down didn't move even slightly.
It felt like being crushed beneath an unmoving mountain.
"…Damn… you…!!"
Obito pressed down harder.
The head beneath his foot began to let out sickening crushing sounds.
"…Disappear."
Then he raised a hand.
A black orb formed in his palm, expanding instantly into a massive black coffin.
"Devouring Coffin."
Wrapped in that cold, endless darkness, Urashiki could no longer even speak.
And under Sasuke's astonished gaze, the black coffin completely swallowed him.
After a few moments, the black coffin began to shrink, condensing rapidly until it returned to Obito's hand before being absorbed into his body.
Sasuke's eyes flickered.
His Sharingan had been tracking the entire process from beginning to end, analyzing every movement without missing a single instant.
What was that thing?
And what exactly happened to Urashiki?
Even with both his Rinnegan and Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, Sasuke still couldn't see through the black coffin or understand what had taken place inside it.
Then, the moment Obito finished absorbing Urashiki—
He moved.
Without any warning, Obito suddenly attacked Sasuke.
He vanished from Sasuke's sight and reappeared right in front of him as if he had teleported.
He was trying to catch Sasuke off guard and end it in one blow.
In Sasuke's stunned, widened eyes, Obito's hand—wrapped in a Kamui-infused Chidori, carrying space-cutting power—drove straight toward his chest.
But...
The "Sasuke" in front of him turned into smoke.
A blade slashed toward Obito's neck from behind instead.
But Obito had already activated Kamui, letting the sword pass straight through him.
"You really are him."
Sasuke's voice came from behind him.
"So while I was dealing with that guy, you set up a Shadow Clone to bait me?" Obito asked as he turned to face Sasuke, who was watching him with open wariness.
"You actually expected me to attack you, Sasuke? How paranoid."
Tch. And here I thought I could finish this without putting in any real effort.
While he had been dealing with Urashiki, he hadn't shown even the slightest killing intent or malice toward Sasuke.
And yet, Sasuke's guard had still been this high.
If it had been the adult Naruto standing here instead, things probably would have gone very differently.
Seeing him—seeing "Obito, the one who wanted to become Hokage"—Naruto would have been shaken. Memories, emotions, all of it would have rushed in at once.
If Naruto had been here instead of this annoyingly sharp Sasuke, there was a real chance Obito could have taken him down in a single blow.
"Answer me!" Sasuke said with a frown, his gaze fixed on Obito without the slightest relaxation. "You are Obito Uchiha… but you're not him either. At the very least, the power you have now should not be possible for you."
As he spoke, Sasuke took a clear look at Obito's eyes.
That Sharingan was unmistakably an Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
And that alone was already impossible for Obito Uchiha.
Now, for the first time, even Sasuke felt uncertain about what exactly had caused this change.
His thoughts immediately turned to the possibility that this was some kind of alteration brought about by their travel through time.
But that still didn't explain the strange ability Obito had used on Urashiki just now.
And it definitely didn't explain those evolved eyes.
Not to mention, this Obito clearly knew about the Ōtsutsuki.
He hadn't shown the slightest bit of surprise when Sasuke appeared, nor had he reacted as though this was something unexpected.
That alone was enough to prove one thing—
Obito knew exactly what was happening here.
Sasuke found the entire situation far too suspicious.
If he stayed here and kept fighting blindly, he would only be dragged deeper into uncertainty.
He needed to investigate the current state of the shinobi world with his own eyes and confirm what other changes had already taken place.
And for that, he first had to get out of here.
Sasuke drew a slow breath. The Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan spun within his eye as his fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword.
During that brief exchange, he had already realized one thing—
Obito's reaction speed was monstrous, but whenever he was faced with a truly lethal attack, his first instinct never changed.
Kamui.
That meant a direct escape would never succeed.
The moment Sasuke tried to open a space-time passage in front of him, Obito would interfere without hesitation.
So Sasuke chose a different approach.
He chose to make Obito believe he was still trying to fight.
Keeping his expression cold and guarded, Sasuke continued to stare at him as though he were still waiting for an answer. But in secret, his fingers had already moved.
Without another word, Sasuke's figure flashed forward.
His sword sliced through the air in a sharp horizontal arc aimed straight at Obito's neck.
'So he plans to engage me head-on? No… Sasuke isn't that reckless. He's up to something.'
Obito leaned back just enough to let the blade graze past, then stepped in immediately. One hand shot toward Sasuke's wrist while the other drove toward his ribs.
Sasuke twisted aside, slipping free of the grab, and countered with a knee aimed at Obito's abdomen.
Obito blocked it with his forearm, but Sasuke had already followed up, his elbow whipping toward Obito's face.
The two of them exchanged blows at close range in an instant.
Sasuke's expression never changed, but his thoughts raced.
His reactions are even sharper than before… and he's blending Kamui into close combat without wasting a single movement.
Obito phased through Sasuke's next slash and drove a punch toward his chest.
Even after fighting Urashiki, he still has this much left in him…
Both of them were secretly complimenting the other.
Bang!
Sasuke raised his left arm to block, but the impact still forced him back several steps, his boots grinding across the broken ground.
Obito had no intention of letting up.
He pressed forward immediately, clearly intending to keep Sasuke trapped in close quarters and deny him even a moment to breathe.
But just as he closed the distance again, Sasuke's Rinnegan rippled.
"Shinra Tensei."
Boom!
A violent repulsive force erupted point-blank between them.
The shattered earth exploded outward as Obito was blasted back through the air, his cloak snapping wildly behind him.
Even Obito's eyes shifted slightly.
He had expected Sasuke to use his sword, Lightning Release, or Amenotejikara.
Still, Obito didn't bother trying to evade Shinra Tensei. With Kamui, it meant little to him.
Boom!
Smoke and dust billowed into the air, yet Obito emerged completely unharmed.
Within the smoke, his crimson Sharingan gleamed ominously.
He knew this was only a smokescreen for Sasuke's next move, and his guard rose to its peak.
Then, just as he expected
Sasuke suddenly appeared high above him through the smoke and hurled his sword downward.
Obito tilted his head and avoided it with ease.
But in the very next instant
The sword burst into smoke.
It had been a transformed Shadow Clone.
The clone appeared directly in Obito's blind spot and attacked from behind with a lightning-coated blade.
A perfectly timed pincer attack.
Even Obito had to respond to that.
And for the briefest instant, his attention shifted.
For Sasuke, that was enough.
The "real" Sasuke standing in front of Obito suddenly dispersed into smoke.
That one had been a Shadow Clone as well.
The real Sasuke had already switched places with it earlier, using the clone to keep Obito's eyes fixed on the front.
Then, the moment Obito's focus turned to the attack from behind, Sasuke used Amenotejikara once more
This time, switching places with the sword he had deliberately left behind in the distance.
By the time Obito dealt with the clone's attack, smashing it into smoke with a single punch, and turned back...
Sasuke was already far away.
A dark distortion spread open as Sasuke's space-time ninjutsu activated.
Obito's eyes narrowed.
He understood it instantly
The frontal assault, the hidden clone, even the sword left in the rubble…
It had all been part of Sasuke's escape route from the very beginning.
Sasuke stepped toward the distortion, his expression still cold.
"I'm not interested in fighting you here," he said, never taking his eyes off Obito. "I'll confirm everything with my own eyes."
Then, without waiting for a reply, Sasuke stepped into the distortion and disappeared.
--
In another dimension, with snow stretching in every direction…
Sasuke appeared abruptly, then dropped to one knee at once, breathing heavily.
"Huff… huff…"
The Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan in his eyes faded, reverting to an ordinary Sharingan before disappearing altogether.
He didn't want to waste even a little more chakra.
With the amount he had left now, he was certain he could only open space-time ninjutsu one more time.
"Boruto…"
Worry flashed through Sasuke's eyes.
If that "Obito" knew about Boruto, then Boruto might already be a target as well.
He had to bring him to his side first.
As for what he had said earlier about investigating the shinobi world alone—
That had only been a lie to throw Obito off.
His real objective had been simple from the very beginning: regroup with Boruto, then return to their own time and report everything to Naruto.
Only after that could they calmly discuss proper countermeasures.
And with Karasuki there, they might be able to figure out something useful as well.
"We have to go back and tell the others about this…"
Sasuke gritted his teeth and forced himself up, preparing to use his space-time ninjutsu one final time.
But the moment he tried to open a portal...
"Ghk!"
His body suddenly stiffened.
Then he coughed out a mouthful of blood.
"Huh…?"
Fresh blood spilled from the corner of his lips onto the snow.
Sasuke's eyes widened.
His hand immediately pressed against his chest, fingers clenching tightly over his heart as a sharp, unbearable pain tore through it.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Each heartbeat felt distorted, as though something inside his body had gone terribly wrong.
"When…?"
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