"True investment? Investment in what?" Fū, another member of the extra actor squad, asked, perfectly delivering her scripted line.
"Think about it," Rin began softly. "Under Uchiha Madara's hyper-focused investment, how long did it realistically take for his strength to undergo an earth-shattering mutation? Compared to when he was living in Konoha under the Uchiha clan, isn't the difference like heaven and hell?
"However, he completely overlooked one critical fact. There is no such thing as a free lunch in this world. Since Uchiha Madara poured so much time, energy, and resources into him, what Madara ultimately intended to harvest from him was definitely infinitely greater.
When someone showers you with excessive kindness for absolutely no reason, they are either actively stealing from you, or scheming against you.
Konoha, Minato-sensei, and the Uchiha clan may not have seemed as obsessively attentive to him as Uchiha Madara was, but that was strictly because everyone treated him like a normal human being with his own distinct identity—not as a disposable tool.
Unfortunately, he never actually understood that." Rin let out a deep, heavy sigh.
"Then what happens now?" Hanabi chimed in, keeping the scene moving.
Aside from Rin, the sole mission of the extra squad was basically to play the role of curious, innocent children, constantly firing off prompt questions so Rin could naturally deliver her devastating answers.
"Originally, Amegakure's command planned to have Ryūzetsu—a former Kusagakure shinobi—learn the classified Fire Release jutsu used by Hōzuki Castle to suppress maximum-security criminals: Fire Release: Heavenly Prison. They intended to physically brand the sealing formula directly onto his body to completely disable his chakra network and prevent him from using his Mangekyō to escape or launch a suicide attack the second he woke up," Rin continued.
"Originally? So you're not using it now?" Fū asked, tilting her head in feigned curiosity.
"Yes. We didn't use Fire Release: Heavenly Prison. I was actually the one who suggested we scrap it." Rin nodded firmly.
At that exact moment, Uchiha Obito—who was lying paralyzed inside the cold stone room with his eyes clamped shut—couldn't help but feel a massive surge of genuine emotion.
'Even at a time like this, Rin is still actively thinking about my safety. She really is...'
"He has already extensively modified his own biology. More than half of his entire body is artificially constructed from Hashirama cells and White Zetsu tissue, meaning his biological pain receptors are drastically dulled compared to a normal human," Rin explained clinically.
"Because of that freakish constitution, Fire Release: Heavenly Prison would very likely fail to restrain him in any meaningful capacity. He might just casually endure the agonizing burns and effortlessly warp away anyway.
So instead, we specifically contracted Pakura of Sunagakure—who wields the deadly kekkei genkai, Scorch Release—to entirely re-engineer the sealing formula, replacing the standard Fire Release with her signature Scorch Release.
It is no longer a basic Heavenly Prison that simply locks down chakra. Instead, the second he attempts to mold chakra, it will violently trigger the Scorch Release, flash-boiling him from the inside out! It will instantly evaporate everything—from his chakra network, directly to his muscle tissue, all the way to his skin.
The only major flaw of this modified technique is that applying it is infinitely more tedious than the standard Heavenly Prison. It demands a massive sequence of hand signs and must be repeatedly layered into the victim's flesh multiple times. Therefore, it can only be successfully branded onto a target of his caliber while they are completely, helplessly unconscious."
"..."
Hearing that horrific breakdown, Obito's brain completely short-circuited.
He unconsciously snapped his eyes wide open, completely forgetting that he was supposed to be playing dead!
"That brutal?! But wasn't he once your teammate?" Hanabi asked, gasping in perfectly acted shock.
"Yes. Obito, Kakashi, and I were once teammates operating on the exact same squad. But precisely because we were his teammates, we bear the responsibility for everything he has done.
He has inflicted an unfathomable amount of trauma and destruction upon the shinobi world. I absolutely cannot allow him to continue down this path. Kakashi and I have the right—and the ultimate duty—to stop him permanently. Showing him any blind indulgence now is the exact same as indulging our own selfish desires."
"..."
Listening to Rin's ruthless, yet undeniably righteous explanation, Obito let out a long, silent sigh in the darkness.
'Rin is still so incredibly kind,' he thought. 'Her love isn't some narrow, selfish affection. It's a pure, encompassing love for the entire shinobi world. She harbors absolutely no desire for personal attachments—only a desperate longing for true peace and beauty.'
That was exactly why he had to activate the Infinite Tsukuyomi!
He was doing all of this solely to realize Rin's ultimate dream!
"His physical injuries are already fully stabilized. I treated every single wound personally, and yesterday, I conducted a full-body re-examination just to confirm his vitals," Rin stated, her tone shifting to strict professionalism.
"Call a guard detail over later to secure the room. The absolute second he wakes up, make sure you immediately inform him about the Scorch Release: Heavenly Prison permanently branded onto his flesh. We are still going to give him one final chance to surrender.
Mm. But make no mistake: this final chance wasn't fought for by Kakashi or me. We absolutely do not possess the moral authority to grant him forgiveness. This chance was exclusively granted by the countless victims he slaughtered."
As Rin delivered her final line, she turned and began walking down the corridor.
"The victims? I seriously never expected those victims to be so incredibly magnanimous. They really just let go of a literal life-and-death blood grudge just like that?" Hanabi trotted after her, continuing to press the scripted dialogue.
"That... is incredibly hard to say. But no matter what those victims ultimately demand, it wouldn't be excessive. Because they have already lost the single most precious thing in existence: their lives.
Life is the most precious thing in this world, Hanabi. Not love. You younger ones must always remember that."
Their voices gradually faded into the echoing distance.
Rin's final, philosophical lecture to Hanabi and the others was, in essence, a surgical strike aimed directly at Obito's heart.
Hearing Rin deliver those powerful words was indeed something that would normally easily move Obito to his core.
The glaring problem was... right now, Obito's brain was completely hijacked by a different, horrifying detail buried in her speech.
'These past few days... Rin has been the one personally treating me? She personally conducted a full-body inspection to confirm my physical condition? She already knows exactly how much of my body is stitched together from Hashirama cells and White Zetsu tissue?!'
Then didn't that mean...
Obito's back instantly drenched in freezing cold sweat.
His hands and feet turned to ice.
What was the definition of ultimate, soul-crushing humiliation?
It wasn't getting strung up like a pathetic roast duck and publicly humiliated for a solid month.
It wasn't having your dignity violently crushed with a pair of rusty pliers.
It was having the single woman you loved more than reality itself personally witness the pathetic truth of your biology!
Similarly, Obito only possessed exactly half of his original body—but he truly didn't care about the physical loss.
He could effortlessly endure the physical pain and the crushing loneliness.
Whether it was physical agony or immense mental pressure, his willpower was absolute.
But this... this shattered him.
Rin had personally seen with her own two eyes that he was quite literally no longer a complete man.
Even though that agonizing physical reality was a tragedy that had occurred over a decade ago, as long as Rin remained blissfully unaware of the damage, Obito could completely suppress the psychological trauma.
Drip.
Obito slowly rolled onto his side, and a single tear of unadulterated despair slid from the corner of his scarred eye.
This time, the power of Kamui could not hide his tears!
Ever since the rainy night Rin was brutally killed, he had never shed a single tear.
Until today, when his heart was mercilessly, cleanly pierced all over again.
There was no complex reason behind it.
Originally, in the deepest, darkest corners of his mind, he could still selfishly fantasize about finally reuniting with Rin in the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
But now? Even in his wildest dreams, his subconscious would inevitably connect their reunion directly back to the horrifying reality of what she witnessed today.
No, to be precise, what she had systematically inspected yesterday.
He literally no longer even possessed the psychological right to fantasize.
...
In the monitoring room next door.
Makoto watched Obito's biometric data violently spike and crash on the glowing screen.
The corner of Makoto's own mouth couldn't help but twitch in sympathy.
This was exactly the glaring flaw Makoto had warned them about earlier.
After being extensively revised and modified by the group so many times, the psychological warfare script was basically aggressively shoving Obito straight into the arms of the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
They weren't leaving the man even a single shred of hope or lingering romantic delusion to cling to!
But overall, this strategy had accidentally worked out exactly how Makoto needed it to.
Although completely annihilating his dignity might not necessarily "redeem" Obito, whose heart had just been torn to shreds, it would permanently cripple his ability to continue the grand plan.
Why?
On the surface, after enduring this agonizing humiliation, Obito might become even more dangerously convinced that the Rin of the real world was fundamentally "false," and that he absolutely had to create a new Rin in a perfect dream world—alongside a flawless, fully-intact, highly dignified version of himself.
But in reality? Obito's mental fortitude was infinitely more fragile than he gave himself credit for.
He could lie to the entire world, but he could never lie to himself.
Even if he miraculously overcame every single obstacle, absorbed the beasts, and successfully became the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki, he would ultimately be consumed by the Ten-Tails' raw, raging consciousness during the assimilation process.
Because this time, there would no longer be a pure, idealized phantom of Rin anchored in his mind to pull him back from the abyss.
The millisecond his fragile psyche was being violently torn apart by the Ten-Tails' collective hatred, the only thing his brain would latch onto was the agonizing fact that Rin now perfectly understood he had no dignity left.
That single, humiliating thought would cause his already fractured mind to instantly collapse.
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