In a hidden, rain-slicked valley to the northeast.
Kakashi leaned heavily against a moss-covered boulder. His left hand desperately clutched his right ribs, where a deep, bone-deep blade wound continuously seeped arterial blood through his trembling fingers.
He panted rapidly, his silver hair soaked with sweat, rain, and blood, clinging flat to his pale skin.
His forehead protector had slipped down to his neck at some point during the slaughter, completely revealing the crimson, spinning Sharingan in his left eye.
At this exact moment, he forcefully concentrated his fractured mind, trying to capture every subtle, microscopic movement coming from the dark mountain forest ahead. Even now, hovering on the brink of shock, Kakashi did not dare to relax his vigilance for a microsecond.
Directly behind him, Rin Nohara knelt on the muddy ground, her hands glowing with a soft, vibrant green light, pressed firmly against Kakashi's deep wound.
Her Medical Ninjutsu was operating at absolute full capacity; the chakra of the Mystical Palm Technique poured into his laceration like warm spring water, aggressively forcing the damaged muscle tissue and severed blood vessels to knit back together.
Kakashi's wound sealed at a rate visible to the naked eye, but the overwhelming dizziness from extreme blood loss remained, blurring the edges of his vision.
"Kakashi... please, hold on just a bit longer... it'll be sealed soon..."
Rin didn't even pause to wipe the freezing sweat from her brow. She bit her lower lip hard enough to draw blood, injecting even more Medical chakra into his side.
Her own face was equally, terrifyingly pale. That volatile, dark mass of chakra sealed inside her abdomen—a power that felt as if it could violently go berserk and tear her apart at any moment—made her feel physically sick.
The surviving Medical Ninjas they had freed formed a tight defensive circle around the boulder, vigilantly watching the entrance of the valley.
The vast majority of them were young Genin and inexperienced Chunin. There wasn't a single combat Jonin among them; their faces still held a lingering, terrified childishness, yet they all tightly gripped their kunai with shaking hands.
Medical Ninjas who actually excelled at close-quarters combat (like Tsunade) were historically very few and far between.
This was exactly why Tsunade's theoretical military plan to equip every single four-man squad with a dedicated Medical Ninja had not been successfully implemented across Konoha. First, the specialized training consumed entirely too many resources. Second, it often led to heavier squad casualties in the field. A skirmish that could originally be resolved aggressively by three combat-specialized ninjas was now replaced by two combat-types defending a fragile healer—a severe reduction in damage output and an exponential increase in tactical variables.
A short-haired female medic whispered nervously, "Rin, is your chakra still holding up? Do you want me to tag in so you can rest?"
Rin shook her head frantically, the green light in her hands not weakening in the slightest. "No. Kakashi's injuries are too severe. If he isn't completely, perfectly healed, the upcoming battle..."
She didn't finish the sentence, but everyone understood the grim math.
The elite Hidden Mist pursuers could breach the valley at any second, and Kakashi was the absolute only viable combat force standing between them and slaughter. Among these rescued medics, only Rin had mastered A-Rank Medical Ninjutsu; the others could, at most, perform slow, B-Rank surface healing. Therefore, the crushing burden of treating the vanguard naturally fell entirely on her shoulders.
"I'm fine, Rin," Kakashi finally exhaled a long breath of turbid air that tasted of copper, and forced his body to sit up.
The tearing sensation in his rib muscles still existed, but at least he was no longer bleeding out. Kakashi let out a ragged breath.
After parting with Kiyohara at the ambush point, he had body-flickered here at maximum speed based on the extracted intelligence.
The physical price of breaking through the stronghold's defenses alone had been catastrophic.
A severe blade wound on his right ribs, a piercing kunai wound completely through his left shoulder, over half of his chakra consumed, and his vision already beginning to darken due to severely overusing the Sharingan in his left eye.
There had been one elite Jonin and eight veteran Chunin guarding the Mist cave, but Kakashi had still managed to slaughter them all and free the captive medical squad.
"Where is Kiyohara?" Rin inquired softly, her hands finally dropping from his side.
She was desperately worried about Kiyohara's safety right now, his calm, pragmatic image filling her panicked mind.
"Kiyohara..."
Seeing Rin impatiently ask about Kiyohara the exact moment she stopped healing, while keeping her eyes fixed nervously on the woven bracelet on her wrist, Kakashi felt a complex pang in his chest.
He vaguely remembered that the bracelet was a handmade gift from Kiyohara to Rin before they deployed. When exactly did those two develop such a deep bond that he didn't know about?
"He's still behind us," Kakashi answered quietly, thinking of Kiyohara staying behind alone to cover the retreat path against an entire ANBU cell. If not for Kiyohara holding the line, Kakashi couldn't have arrived at the stronghold so quickly. And even if he had arrived, his chakra would have been drained from fighting the ambush, making the rescue impossible.
"By the way, Rin... what exactly did they do to you down there?" Kakashi turned his head to look at her directly.
The Sharingan possesses the ability to microscopically see the flow of chakra inside the human body. He had noticed a massive, terrifyingly dense mass of crimson chakra swirling violently inside Rin's abdomen. Furthermore, that chakra was incredibly unstable, pulsing as if it could erupt into a nuclear explosion at any moment.
"...A three-tailed monster," Rin whispered, wrapping her arms around her stomach as if she were freezing.
"I don't remember the details very clearly. I only remember they ambushed our patrol and took us prisoner. For the first few days, we were simply locked in a cell and treated normally. But today... the commander suddenly took me away from the others."
Rin seemed to have lingering, deep psychological fears, her voice carrying a faint, suppressed sob.
"And after they isolated you?" Kakashi continued to press gently.
"That... that monster seems to have gone inside my body," Rin added, tears finally welling in her eyes.
She explained that the group of elite Mist Ninjas had performed some kind of massive, complex surgical ritual on her, but she had been heavily drugged and stripped of consciousness at the time. She only remembered the agonizing, burning sensation of a massive sealing formula being etched directly onto the skin of her abdomen. But she had lifted her shirt to check earlier, and there was no visible ink on her stomach.
"After Rin was taken away, more than half of the elite Hidden Mist guards also left the stronghold," Miyako, the short-haired medic, took up the conversation. "We were originally planning to take the chance to resist the remaining guards and try to escape to find Rin... but then you breached the door, Kakashi."
Kakashi nodded silently.
After slaughtering the guards, he had found Rin unconscious on a stone altar in a deep cavern at the back of the camp. Thanks to summoning his ninja hounds, they had easily locked onto her location by scent.
"Miyako is right, that's exactly how it happened," Rin spoke up quickly, her voice trembling. "Although I don't know exactly what that monster is... I can feel it. I feel like I could go berserk and explode at any moment..."
Rin suddenly grabbed Kakashi's wrist, her grip desperate.
"Kakashi... if I lose control... you have to kill me immediately. Do it while I can still look at you."
"Don't talk nonsense!" Kakashi snapped suddenly.
Usually perfectly cold and calm, his emotions rarely fluctuated with such raw panic.
"There absolutely must be a way to extract it safely, Rin!" Kakashi looked deeply into her eyes.
Rin reached into her pouch and forcefully pressed a cold kunai into Kakashi's palm.
"Please, Kakashi... I don't want to become a monster. I don't want to be used to hurt anyone in Konoha..."
The surrounding Medical Ninjas remained in terrified silence upon hearing Rin's desperate plea.
The freezing coldness of the kunai's steel transmitted through his skin, chilling Kakashi's fingers with a stinging pain.
He looked down at the weapon in his hand. The polished metal surface perfectly reflected his pale, blood-spattered face and that cursed, crimson eye.
Then Kakashi looked back up to see Rin's face, covered in a light sheen of cold sweat. That bright, beautiful smile that always carried such warmth now held only absolute despair and entreaty.
He thought of Obito.
He thought of that idiot's bloody hand reaching out desperately from under the crushed rubble, and those final, dying words: Take care of Rin.
He thought of his own absolute blood promise.
And now... he was supposed to take this kunai and stab it directly through Rin's heart?
He couldn't do it.
No matter the tactical logic, no matter the geopolitical consequences, he couldn't do it.
"I won't give up on you," Kakashi threw the kunai violently into the mud.
He knew with absolute certainty that if Kiyohara were standing here right now, the cold bastard would surely make the exact same choice. They didn't abandon their own.
"There will be a medical solution. Let's evacuate this grid first and return to Konoha; Lord Hokage will definitely find a way to stabilize the seal."
"But Kakashi—"
"No buts," Kakashi interrupted her sharply, struggling to his feet and drawing his short sword. "Kiyohara should be on his way right now. With his heavy fire support, the statistical possibility of us breaking the perimeter and getting back is very high."
Kakashi's words showed an absolute, unwavering trust in Kiyohara's monstrous combat strength. Moreover, Kiyohara's magnetic sensory abilities were vast, allowing them to theoretically avoid Mist ambushes in advance.
Before he could finish his tactical assessment, the dense, heavy sound of boots splashing in the mud suddenly echoed from the entrance of the valley.
At least twenty elite chakra signatures were rapidly approaching.
"Found them! The vessel is here!" The victorious shouts of the Hidden Mist hunter-nin echoed in the dark night sky.
"Chidori!"
Seeing the vanguard of enemies breach the treeline, Kakashi instantly responded. The deafening, piercing sound of a thousand birds chirping rang out across the valley as highly concentrated, volatile lightning gathered violently in his right palm.
"Kill the guards! Secure the girl!" The Mist ninjas threw a massive volley of kunai simultaneously.
Kakashi sidestepped flawlessly to dodge the shrapnel. He surged forward, his Chidori piercing effortlessly through the chest cavity of the foremost operative, but the coordinated swords of four other ANBU were already closing in on his blind spots.
Suddenly, a green blur descended from the night sky like a kinetic cannonball.
"Leaf Great Whirlwind!"
BANG!
A Hidden Mist ANBU was instantly kicked squarely in the jaw. He was sent flying backward, crashing into the rock wall with a dull, sickening sound of his skull shattering.
Might Guy landed perfectly in the mud and instantly assumed his ridiculous, flawless Taijutsu battle stance, dense green steam swirling around his muscles.
"Kakashi! I'm late!"
Directly behind Guy, Ebisu, Kurenai, and Genma burst from the treeline one after another, along with several other Konoha Jonin that Kakashi wasn't very familiar with.
"Guy... you made it," Kakashi breathed a massive, genuine sigh of relief.
"The main extraction force is still pushing up behind us," a Konoha Jonin skilled in Genjutsu stated calmly, his hands already forming a complex sequence of seals.
Immediately, several Mist ANBU charging the flank froze dead in their tracks, terrifying hallucinations appearing in their minds as they began to scream and swing their swords wildly at the empty air.
"Ninja Art: Senbon Rain," Genma spat out a volley of senbon from his mouth, turning the Genjutsu-controlled Mist operatives into bleeding pincushions.
"The Hidden Mist deployed entirely too many elites for this deep in our territory. And... they seem particularly, exclusively focused on capturing Rin," Ebisu pushed up his dark sunglasses, analyzing the tactical vectors.
Kakashi's heart sank entirely into his stomach.
As expected, the Hidden Mist's strategic goal from the very beginning wasn't just to kidnap random Medical Ninjas for intel, but to perform a mass screening to find a biologically suitable candidate to become a vessel for their monster.
Now that Rin had been captured and that apocalyptic chakra had been surgically stuffed inside her, Kakashi already had a terrifying, concrete guess as to what she carried.
It was most likely the ultimate, geopolitical weapon of war... a Tailed Beast!
Seeing the sheer volume of gathering Kirigakure reinforcements growing larger and larger by the second—including quite a few elite ANBU commanders—Kakashi knew they couldn't delay in the valley any longer.
"A Tailed Beast has been surgically implanted into Rin," Kakashi stated succinctly to the Konoha squad, dropping the bombshell. "They are here to reclaim their weapon vessel."
Everyone's expressions changed drastically from tactical focus to absolute, mortal terror.
"Guy. You and the others escort the surviving Medical Ninjas back to the main force's assembly point immediately. I'll take Rin and break out via another route," Kakashi ordered.
"But Kakashi, your chakra reserves are empty, and your injuries..." Guy hesitated slightly, his thick brows furrowed in deep concern.
"It's fine," Kakashi wiped a fresh stream of blood from the corner of his mouth. "Splitting up will force them to divide their pursuit forces. Their absolute, sole target is Rin. As long as Rin isn't traveling with you, the other medics will be relatively ignored and safe."
Guy looked at Kakashi's pale, dying face, then at the terrified Rin Nohara, and finally nodded heavily.
"Understood. Kakashi... you absolutely must survive."
Guy turned sharply and, along with the other Konoha Jonin, began aggressively escorting the fragile medical squad out the southern flank.
Kakashi, meanwhile, grabbed Rin's hand and body-flickered toward the distant, dense northern forest, away from the Konoha camp.
Just as Kakashi had expected, the vast majority of the Kirigakure ANBU immediately ignored the medics and chose to aggressively pursue Kakashi and Rin, leaving only a small, token blocking force behind to fight Guy and the others.
At the exact same time, far away in the desolate Mountain's Graveyard.
While Kakashi and Rin were sprinting for their lives through the muddy forest, Obito lay perfectly still on his stone bed, staring blankly at the dark ceiling.
'The cellular fusion with the Zetsu mass is going perfectly. Soon... very soon, I'll be able to break out of this hell and see Rin and Kakashi again.'
A faint, genuine smile involuntarily tugged at the corner of Obito's scarred mouth.
"Hiss... ah, that hurts," Obito suddenly clutched his left eye, wincing.
Ever since the cave-in, his remaining eye occasionally experienced a sharp, stabbing phantom pain, followed by inexplicable, blurry images flashing rapidly before his vision. Just now, for a fraction of a second, he had actually seen an image of Rin crying in the rain.
This bizarre optical hallucination jolted him completely awake from his brief rest. His heart began to pound wildly in his chest, and a feeling of suffocating, primal unease gradually filled his lungs.
As if to perfectly, cruelly confirm the unease in his heart, a standard White Zetsu popped its pale head out from the solid stone wall.
"Hey, kid! I just went out to the surface for a bit to stretch, and I happened to see that idiot Kakashi and that girl Rin Nohara you're always whining about! They are in massive danger!" the White Zetsu hurriedly spoke up, feigning panic.
"!!"
"What happened?!" Obito immediately sat up violently from the bed. His spiky black hair had now grown shaggy, cascading all the way down to his waist.
The legendary Hashirama cells had granted Obito exceptional, monstrous regenerative abilities, aggressively accelerating even his hair growth and physical bone development. In just a few months of coma and rehab, he had grown nearly a head taller than his former self.
"The two of them are completely surrounded by an army of elite Kirigakure ANBU and are being ruthlessly pursued!"
Hearing this, Obito immediately sprang off the bed, violently punching the solid stone wall sealing the cave with his pale white right fist.
SNAP.
"Ugh...!"
His grafted right arm broke cleanly off at the elbow from the kinetic impact, sliding down the wall like a lump of wet, white wax, hanging limply at his side.
"That new body of yours still isn't dense enough to break through solid bedrock, idiot," Spiral Zetsu (Tobi) jumped down lazily from the ceiling.
"I have to go... I have to save Rin and Kakashi!" Obito gritted his teeth against the intense pain, desperately clutching the stump of his right arm.
"Are they... are they okay?" he pressed, his voice beginning to tremble uncontrollably.
"Hmm..." another White Zetsu, still embedded halfway in the wall, scratched its head theatrically. "Well... it's really hard to say."
"What the hell do you mean 'hard to say'?! Tell me the truth!" Obito lunged forward and grabbed the White Zetsu by its collar. His Two-Tomoe Sharingan involuntarily activated, spinning wildly with panic. "Where are they?! Are they still alive?!"
"Calm down, kid," Spiral Zetsu said, walking over.
Its biggest visual difference from the other Zetsu clones was its complete lack of human facial features, possessing only a bizarre, swirling spiral pattern that converged on a single eye hole.
"They're alive... but the situation isn't good at all," the White Zetsu continued to feed the poison. "Your precious companion Kakashi apparently went deep into enemy territory to rescue a medical squad that had been captured by the Hidden Mist."
Obito's heart almost stopped beating entirely. "And then?!"
"Then... it seems he successfully rescued that specific girl named Rin... but..." the White Zetsu paused deliberately, cruelly observing Obito's fracturing expression. "They are now being aggressively hunted down by a massive battalion of Kirigakure Hunter-Nin. And that 'Genius' Kakashi seems to be severely, critically injured as well."
Obito's brow furrowed in absolute fury. "Why... WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME SOONER?!"
He roared, jumping off the stone bed and rushing desperately toward the sealed cave entrance. But the exit passage was blocked by a massive, thousands-of-tons boulder.
"OPEN IT! LET ME OUT!"
Obito frantically, pathetically pounded the massive rock wall with his single good arm, but the ancient stone remained entirely unmoved, only bloodying his knuckles.
"It's useless," Spiral Zetsu ambled over, watching the boy bleed. "You physically cannot break this rock in your current, incomplete state."
"THEN HAVE MADARA OPEN IT! Rin is in danger! Kakashi is going to die! DO YOU HEAR ME?!" Obito turned around, thick, bloodshot threads visibly straining the vessels in his Sharingan.
"If they die... if I can't even protect my only comrades... then what the absolute hell is the point of me surviving that cave-in?!" His voice echoed off the stone chamber walls, carrying a desperate, soul-tearing rasp.
"But... even if you somehow manage to go back to Konoha right now, you might just be treated as an enemy combatant. After all... you've long since been completely forgotten by everyone," Spiral Zetsu spoke, twisting the knife.
"IMPOSSIBLE!" Obito glared furiously, tears streaming down his face.
These white freaks always loved to talk psychological nonsense, constantly whispering that he had been forgotten by the world.
"I couldn't possibly be forgotten by everyone! There must... there must still be a place for me in the village!" Obito screamed, clenching his fist.
His hair now cascaded down to his waist. Although he didn't know exactly how many months had passed in the dark, it surely couldn't be enough time for his friends to simply erase him from their memories!
"Well, I can't physically do anything to stop you from leaving. So... if you really want to break that rock... just wear me. Put my body on like a suit," Spiral Zetsu offered smoothly.
The swirled face of the Spiral Zetsu suddenly bloomed open like a grotesque, fleshy flower, revealing its hollow, empty interior. It was seemingly just an advanced, biological exoskeleton of skin and muscle.
Without a microsecond of hesitation, Obito stepped inside. The Zetsu mass immediately enveloped Obito's body perfectly, sealing shut around him.
This warm, incredibly snug sensation gave Obito a feeling of being deeply, biologically encased in armor.
This is... absolute power.
"Aren't you Madara's personal subordinates? Is it really okay for you to disobey him and help me escape?" Obito asked, feeling the massive surge of chakra.
"He's a good kid," the White Zetsu on the wall said vaguely. The theatrical implication was that this was the Spiral Zetsu's rogue, personal action out of sympathy.
"Don't you desperately want to save Kakashi and Rin?" Spiral Zetsu's voice echoed directly inside Obito's mind.
"Thank you," Obito whispered.
He clenched his newly reinforced, massive white fist, drew back his arm, and forcefully, violently punched the massive boulder blocking the exit.
KRA-BOOM!
This time, the colossal, several-tens-of-meters-high rock was easily, explosively blasted into thousands of pieces of shrapnel, creating a massive, gaping hole to the outside world.
"Are you leaving so soon?"
Madara Uchiha slowly looked up from his throne, gazing coldly at Obito standing in the rubble.
Obito, who was now tightly, fully wrapped in the Zetsu armor, turned slightly. The swirled face of the exoskeleton stood upright, encasing Obito's head, leaving only a single eye hole for his Sharingan.
"I am very, deeply grateful for your medical help... but I must go now," Obito said firmly. "I'll thank you properly for saving my life, but... I probably won't be returning to this dark cave ever again."
"You are entirely too impatient, boy. I told you months ago, it is still far too early for thanks," Madara looked at Obito with a terrifyingly meaningful, ancient gaze.
"You will return here. That will be the time for your true, absolute gratitude. Because by then... you will realize you have absolutely no... place to belong in that world. They won't even recognize what you have become."
"..."
Obito looked silently at the old man, thinking the ancient relic was finally going a bit senile. How could Kakashi and Rin possibly not recognize him?
Without further engaging with Madara's cynical philosophy, Obito immediately asked the White Zetsu network for Rin and Kakashi's exact geographical coordinates.
"What you're currently wearing is my specialized clone body. We can communicate telepathically like a radio within this geographic distance," White Zetsu explained. "Other clones are currently scattered underground across the continent, gathering real-time tracking information."
Hearing this, Obito immediately prepared to sprint forward.
However, he paused. On the stone wall directly behind the shattered boulder, a massive arsenal was neatly arranged: several giant shuriken, heavy black cloaks, a Tachi, a war sickle, and a legendary Uchiha Gunbai (war fan).
Obito didn't take long to choose. He simply, casually threw on a heavy black cloak to cover his bizarre white body, then charged violently towards the cave entrance tunnel without looking back.
This time, the heavy rock obstacles along the tunnel were effortlessly, violently cleared by Obito's enhanced strength, revealing the final passage to the outside world.
Blinding, radiant sunlight streamed in from the cave entrance. Obito squinted, tears uncontrollably welling up and spilling over his cheeks. He hadn't seen the light of the sun for far, far too long.
But he had no time to adjust to the beauty of the world.
Rin was waiting for him.
Kakashi was fighting for him.
"Wait for me... you guys just have to wait a little longer..." Obito murmured, charging desperately into the light.
His cloaked figure sped violently through the dense forest, his physical speed completely beyond normal human imagination. The monstrous physical prowess granted by the transplanted Hashirama cells, flawlessly combined with the kinetic amplification from the Spiral Zetsu suit, allowed him to leap dozens of meters with each single step.
The ancient trees blurred into meaningless streaks of green color on either side, the wind roaring like a jet engine in his ears.
Obito prayed incessantly.
He prayed to God for Rin's safety.
He prayed for Kakashi to hold on.
He prayed that he himself... would not be a dead-last, and would not arrive too late.
Deep within the cavern, sitting in the shadows, Madara Uchiha slowly, fully opened his eyes.
A faint, chilling, almost imperceptible smile appeared on his ancient, scarred face.
"Go, Obito," Madara whispered to himself, his cold voice echoing in the empty stone chamber.
"Go and witness with your own two eyes... the absolute, unadulterated cruelty of this world."
"Then... return to me filled with absolute despair."
"And become... the most perfect, flawless pawn in my grand design."