[AAA City Ghost: Do I have to fight too?]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: Yes.]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: Skip the questions. Just tell me — are you in or not?]
[AAA City Ghost: 111]
[Grand Flame Wordsmith: 1 — if it's alright, I'd like to get in on this too.]
[Frieren's Warrior of the Twilight Age: 1 — though now that I think about it, there aren't many people left around here who haven't been revived, are there.]
[Golden Spirit Founder: My coordination with everyone might be a bit rough — but I'll make the trip too.]
[Let Night City Burn: Fishing.]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: No worries. Five people plus me — that's enough.]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: Come to think of it, this might actually be our first proper team outing, huh?]
[Frieren's Warrior of the Twilight Age: You're right. I'm actually kind of looking forward to it.]
[Frieren's Warrior of the Twilight Age: Sitting around doing nothing in the group chat all day isn't exactly fulfilling either.]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: Alright, no more talk. Konoha Strike Team: Hunt Obito — move out!]
After firing off that last message, Anthony raised one hand. Soul Flame ignited naturally in his palm, and spiritual energy slowly condensed in his grasp, taking on solid form.
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: Alright then — let me start bringing everyone over one by one with the Reanimation Jutsu.]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: Everyone, rendezvous in the Naruto world first.]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne has initiated a Group Teleport]
[Golden Spirit Founder has accepted the teleport]
[AAA City Ghost has accepted the teleport]
Deep in a back alley, the Primordial Furnace roared to life behind Anthony. He looked up — and found souls gathering around him, drifting close. Among them, a handsome young man raised a hand and waved.
"Long time no see, Mr. Anthony."
Jonathan offered a brief, warm greeting. Then his gaze fell on the Soul Flame burning in Anthony's hand, and he tilted his head curiously. "What are you doing?"
"Making the anchor objects for everyone's Reanimation Jutsu first," Anthony answered, even as the thing in his hand gradually took shape — a ring.
"Once everyone's been reanimated, I'll cover the points needed for combat... then we teleport straight onto Obito's face and end him in three seconds."
He said it casually, then glanced up and swept his gaze across the assembled souls before giving a light wave.
[Reanimation Jutsu (Modified)] — activated.
[Target designated. 5,000 points consumed.]
As the points drained away, a soul-form slowly drifted up from the ring in Anthony's hand. Namikaze Minato's spirit rose free of it, looked down at his own hands, and blinked in clear surprise.
"It actually works..."
A beat later, with evident excitement, he raised his head and looked at Anthony.
His senses had returned.
His soul seemed to struggle with chakra circulation — but Minato could feel it: with enough outside support, he might be able to draw on some of the power he'd had in life.
"Thank you—"
"Save it for later. For now, you're a ring-grandpa. Congratulations."
Anthony waved him off without much ceremony, gave Minato a quick once-over, then bowed his head again and moved on to the next Reanimation.
He ran into problems almost immediately.
Not everyone went as smoothly as Minato.
If anything, Namikaze Minato was the outlier — the exception to the rule.
Because the Modified Reanimation Jutsu scaled with how complete each person's resurrection conditions were — and for most of the group, that completion rate was... let's just say, a little painful to look at.
When Anthony tallied it all up, he found that after Minato, the one with the highest special resurrection completion rate in the entire group was, of all people — Nian.
And that widespread low completion rate created a predictable problem: the state of each reanimation was equally constrained. The limitation showed up most concretely in the anchor objects themselves.
So, after getting through most of the group's reanimations, Anthony found himself looking at this:
"I want to lodge a formal protest!"
The voice came from a newly reanimated soul, indignant the moment it arrived.
"How is it fair that Minato gets a full set of soul functions, and I end up as a hero-brand radio?"
Anthony heard the voice, looked down at the radio chattering away in his palm in Himmel's unmistakable tones — and quietly looked away.
"Well... whose fault is it your resurrection completion is so low?"
Anthony laughed twice, then offered a consoling word: "It's fine, at least you can still talk, right?"
"Better than nothing, isn't it?"
"...Do you think Frieren will even recognize me like this?"
After a long pause, Himmel posed this question from the depths of his soul. Anthony let out a dry laugh.
"Ah — she should be able to, I think...? Haha."
He then cheerfully set the Himmel-brand radio off to one side.
Himmel's reanimation result was considerably more awkward than Minato's. Minato had a complete, visible soul-body that could move freely. Himmel, on the other hand, couldn't even detach from the radio — and beyond hearing his voice, there was nothing else anyone could do with him.
The one saving grace was that as long as Anthony pumped in enough points, he could still briefly manifest them all in physical form, granting them something close to their original strength from life.
How much strength that would be, and for how long — that all depended on how many points Anthony had on hand.
Right now, after completing most of the reanimations, Anthony had 140,000 points remaining.
I've got 140k points. What have you got to fight me with?!
Anthony thought with supreme confidence, then turned his head and looked over at Nian beside him, raising a hand in greeting.
"Nian, it's been a while."
"Mm — though to be fair, I do still see you fairly often over on Terra," she replied.
As she spoke, Nian's soul-form manifested fully. She glanced around with quiet curiosity, then said softly:
Nian's resurrection conditions, by Anthony and her own estimate, were about 20% complete.
The result was what stood before him now — unable to leave her anchor object, but capable of manifesting a full soul-body with complete sensory function.
"If Chongyue saw you like this, he'd probably be very happy."
Anthony remarked offhandedly, looking at her. Nian nodded and murmured:
"He really has been carrying so much lately... When I get back, I'll have a proper talk with him."
"Right — I should try to catch up with the others too. It's been so long. Coming back for the first time... it's a little strange, honestly."
"And Anthony — thank you."
Anthony shrugged and waved it off. "Don't mention it. It's nothing. Besides, I'm basically part of the岁 family at this point."
"It's just this body that takes some getting used to..."
"Ahem. Bear with it."
Anthony — who knew perfectly well what he'd used as Nian's anchor object — coughed twice and said it with finality.
"Mm — but actually, there's one more thing."
Nian tilted her head slightly, asking with genuine curiosity: "That lady... Miss Carmen — where is she? I've always been curious about what kind of person she is. Isn't she on the Reanimation Jutsu list?"
"Ah, about that..."
The question landed, and Anthony dropped into a silence that was just a little too awkward.
"Her reanimation ran into a small complication."
[AAA City Ghost: Yeah, same as a certain someone.]
[AAA City Ghost: The earthbound ghosts club is really out here doing hard time.]
From the group chat, Carmen chimed in right on cue, filling in the backstory — and found herself with a fresh headache at the very thought of it.
The truth was, Anthony had already tried the Reanimation Jutsu on Carmen. He'd even tried the modified version on himself.
And that was how he discovered the jutsu's current biggest limitation.
In essence, the thing worked by creating something like a "spirit vessel" — binding a soul to an object to give it a window through which to interact with the outside world, achieving a "pseudo-resurrection."
The problem was that both Carmen and Anthony had run into their own respective "small complications" in exactly that department.
Anthony, for instance, was already an earthbound spirit of the Primordial River.
The moment he tried to use the Reanimation Jutsu to flee from the Primordial River's side, it was like elbowing Death in the ribs and having the boomerang fly straight back a second later — and what he received was a certified death notice from the Primordial River itself.
To put it plainly: scared him half to death.
Carmen's situation was even stranger.
Her nervous system had been reconstructed into a "bucket" for dredging up imaginary entities — and her soul was currently anchored directly to that nervous system.
When Anthony tried to pry her soul loose and stuff it into a different object, the bucket, without missing a beat, sent him a cease-and-desist letter.
So both of their situations had landed in the same deeply inconvenient state.
Carmen did have it slightly better than Anthony, though. Compared to the Primordial River — which was completely unreasonable — the bucket was at least open to negotiation.
In the end, Anthony had taken the compromise approach: he didn't bother making Carmen a separate soul anchor at all. He just used the Reanimation Jutsu to peel Carmen off the bucket slightly — enough to give her a little more freedom of movement, and restore a partial degree of her senses.
No actual combat capability as a result — but honestly, Anthony hadn't been counting on Carmen for combat power anyway.
What she could do was interfere with the enemy.
Just imagining the kinds of moves Carmen might pull off against them, Anthony couldn't help breaking into a grin.
"This is why multidimensional ghost girls are such a pain to revive," he said at last, with the heartfelt exasperation of a man who'd earned the opinion.
Then he looked around at the assembled group, gave a satisfied nod, and thought:
Alright. If we can't beat Obito with this lineup, I'll eat my words.
"Then — let's move."
Anthony swept both hands through the air, parting the void, and hit the teleport button in the group chat. Around him, Nian, Himmel, Namikaze Minato, and Jonathan all pressed their own buttons in unison.
Carmen, for her part, simply plastered herself onto Anthony's soul directly and hitched a free ride on the group teleport.
As they departed, the corner of Anthony's eye caught Namikaze Minato's lips moving, murmuring something under his breath.
"Obito... so you've really come this far..."
"Then for the sake of the village — and for Rin... I can't keep letting you go any further."
The next instant, the teleport took hold.
[World Traversal in progress]
[Coordinates confirmed]
[Teleport destination: Uchiha Obito]
One last time, Anthony's face broke into a warm, gentle smile.
Obito. Open up — community outreach, delivery from the neighborhood association!
...
Night was falling over the Naruto world.
Deep in a dense forest, as the last light of dusk faded behind the hills, crows burst shrieking from the treetops and scattered into the sky. Beneath the canopy, Uchiha Obito looked up through his mask and watched them go.
He said nothing. He kept walking. The long Akatsuki robe rustled softly with each step.
But for some reason — he couldn't quite shake it — walking through this place right now, Uchiha Obito kept getting the distinct, creeping feeling that he was being watched.
What is that?
He frowned beneath his mask, the confusion plain even without his expression being visible.
But in the very next instant — before the thought could fully form — he felt his mind begin to loosen, wave by wave.
As if something primal were soothing him. As if an instinct deeper than thought were telling him there was nothing to be wary of, nothing to resist about whatever was about to happen.
Then Uchiha Obito heard a voice. Gentle. Feminine.
"Hello there, child."
It addressed him like that — warmly, softly — and left him with not the slightest impulse to resist or question it. He didn't even want to wonder where it was coming from.
All that remained was the urge to be honest with himself. To answer.
A spike of visceral, bone-deep dread flared in Obito's chest — some part of him knew, instinctively, that something was very wrong. But in the same breath, that gentle voice returned and smoothed the turbulence back into stillness.
"Let me see," the voice continued, guiding him slowly, carefully. "Even now — even after all this time — you still can't face what happened back then, can you?"
"Unable to let go of someone's death... even now, even here. You've carried that hatred for so long — let it lead you astray, let your goals shift, let yourself get lost until there was nothing left but the hatred itself. You became its puppet. And none of that mattered to you. Just sink deeper, you thought. That's fine. Is that what you believe?"
"Is that... who you are?"
Is that... who I am?
Uchiha Obito turned the question over almost involuntarily — and far away, Anthony's soul-sense swept across this place. A look of delight crossed his face.
"Yes! Carmen's got him! She's got Obito locked down!"
He spun around, elated, and called back to Namikaze Minato behind him:
"Now now now — it's your turn! Use your Flying Thunder God and put a serious blade in Obito right now!"
____
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