Hearing the screams, Rin quickly realized that the voice did not belong to Kakashi.
That made her suspect Kakashi might be the one inflicting the pain.
He had been acting increasingly strange lately, clearly suggesting something was wrong with him mentally.
Rin was about to rush inside and stop him from making an even greater mistake when she noticed something odd about the cries.
Not only did they sound nothing like Kakashi, they barely sounded human at all.
There was even some barking mixed in.
Were those… summon animals?
Rin hesitated.
Could Kakashi merely be training his ninja hounds?
Even if he was mistreating his summons, that was not quite as deranged as hurting another person.
At least his evil hands had not reached humans yet.
Concealing her presence, Rin carefully approached the house and peered through a narrow gap in the window.
Inside, Obito had completely lost his mind.
Everything he had experienced in this illusion world had already blurred the line between truth and fiction.
Did Kakashi actually like boys?
Had Jiraiya truly written Make-Out Paradise to correct Kakashi's preferences?
And over the past few days, Obito had stopped imitating Kakashi and simply behaved like his younger self while wearing Kakashi's identity.
Yet Rin continued keeping him at a distance.
It felt as though he had returned to his youth, hopelessly chasing after her without getting anywhere.
Today, however, Obito was finally ready to put his plan back on track.
He had endured humiliation with extraordinary patience, even licking the toilet once every night to remind himself that none of this was real.
Now he intended to discard every last moral boundary and drive Rin into absolute despair, forcing the Three-Tails to run wild.
Rin was far too kindhearted.
Creating enough emotional turmoil inside her would be extremely difficult.
That meant Obito needed to use the strongest possible medicine.
Through the crack in the window, Rin saw "Kakashi" gripping his ninja hound Pakkun tightly.
"Say it! Say that you're Isobu, the Three-Tails!"
"Kakashi, please… stop hitting me…"
"You dare beg for mercy? A real man can handle a few blows! Men should do what men… are supposed to do!"
To push Rin into despair, Obito borrowed several character archetypes from the Limited Tsukuyomi stories Kakashi had published in the real world.
Obito had never wasted his time reading the series himself.
However, White Zetsu had read it, along with countless people throughout the shinobi world, so Obito had inevitably absorbed plenty of information about its contents.
He was currently playing one of the furry-obsessed shinobi from those stories who had developed a disturbing fixation on Tailed Beasts.
He wanted Rin to understand that the "Kakashi" who had recently behaved like a devoted admirer had never truly fallen in love with her.
He was only interested in the furry Three-Tails sealed inside her.
Sure enough, once Rin witnessed the scene, her initial shock quickly turned into revulsion.
She had believed Kakashi was returning to normal.
She had even wanted to trust that he was changing for the better.
Never in her wildest nightmares had she imagined that Kakashi had become twisted beyond anything she could comprehend.
"Boring."
Inside the room, Obito lifted the unconscious Pakkun and tossed him aside.
He then summoned another ninja hound, Bull.
Bull was the largest of Kakashi's Eight Ninja Hounds.
Obito pulled out a pet costume he had prepared in advance and forced Bull into it.
"Say it! You're the Nine-Tails!"
Then he began again.
Outside the window, Rin was struck by another wave of horror.
Even the Nine-Tails inside Kushina had become one of Kakashi's targets!
Rin stood frozen outside for what felt like an entire lifetime before the abuse finally ended.
In reality, the whole scene had lasted barely five minutes.
Once Rin regained her senses, she prepared to leave and report everything to Kushina and the Third Hokage.
Had Kakashi merely possessed an unusual interest in furry creatures, Rin might have concealed it out of respect for their former friendship.
But now his obsession involved the Tailed Beasts.
That threatened the village and Kushina's safety.
Rin could not ignore it.
No matter how painful it was, she had to place justice above personal loyalty.
"Pakkun, Bull, once you've recovered, head out immediately and notify Danzō. Tell him things are nearly ready on my end and ask when he can force Obito's Sharingan to evolve again."
"Making Obito help that elderly woman only awakened a single tomoe last time."
"I need his Sharingan to evolve into the Mangekyō. Once it does, he and I will be able to control the Tailed Beasts with our Mangekyō Sharingan, just like Uchiha Madara once did."
"If he controls a Tailed Beast, he can become Hokage."
"If I control one, I can enjoy the Tailed Beasts for myself."
"Oh, right. Once I can control them directly, you two won't need to keep pretending to be Tailed Beasts anymore. You'll finally be free."
Obito heartlessly ordered the two ninja hounds he had only just tormented to carry out another task.
The contents of his speech left Rin, who had not yet managed to leave, trembling in terror.
Two streams of tears ran down her cheeks as she collapsed helplessly onto her knees.
She had never imagined Kakashi had already begun targeting his own comrades.
Worse, he coveted Obito's Sharingan.
To satisfy his horrifying obsession, Kakashi had repeatedly conspired against Obito, putting him through emotional torment to force his eyes to awaken and evolve.
No wonder Rin had noticed that Obito seemed like a completely different person lately.
So this was what had happened to him.
Obito heard the soft sound of Rin collapsing onto the grass outside.
He did not move, merely glancing through the gap in the window from the corner of his eye.
What he saw disappointed him.
There was still no Tailed Beast chakra leaking from Rin.
What's going on?
Kindness alone could not suppress a Tailed Beast's chakra.
As long as its jinchūriki experienced negative emotions, the beast should be able to exploit the opening, even if the host had no desire to hurt anyone.
Why was nothing happening?
Had Rin's mental fortitude become too strong?
Or was his script still not deranged enough?
Just as Obito began considering the possibilities, an enormous surge of chakra erupted outside.
A violent gust of wind shattered every window in the house.
The Three-Tails had finally erupted!
Obito did not bother wondering why there had been a delay.
He was far too excited!
He had finally completed this stage of the plan.
He was now one step closer to finishing the quest and escaping the illusion!
…
At the same time, in the real world…
Inside a secluded region of the Land of Earth, Kakashi's group had located Han, the Five-Tails' jinchūriki, while he was training.
Naruto was currently attempting to persuade him.
Kakashi, meanwhile, had pulled a small screen-like ninja tool from his pocket and was watching the events displayed upon it.
Naturally, nobody could expect Obito to finish testing the Engraved Tsukuyomi server and then voluntarily cooperate by filing a proper report.
A third party needed to observe everything.
That task had been assigned to Kakashi.
While traveling across the shinobi world to promote Sage Mode, Kakashi had been forced to accept a monitoring device and mission details delivered through the Second Hokage's Flying Raijin.
Since then, he had been watching Obito's every action inside the Engraved Tsukuyomi test server.
Kakashi could tolerate Obito committing all kinds of outrageous acts under his name.
After all, Obito was not wearing Kakashi's face.
He even endured watching Obito obtain his "power" through that unspeakable method, choosing to regard it as Obito temporarily sacrificing his dignity to complete a quest.
But after seeing this latest scene, Kakashi could no longer take it.
The Limited Tsukuyomi stories might have been ridiculous, but they were still fictional.
The Obito inside this game, however, was a real, living human being.
Well…
At this point, perhaps he could no longer be considered human.