The background music continued, foreshadowing that the ending seemed far from happy.
[Obito, saved by Madara, successfully received Hashirama cell transplants and gradually recovered.]
Deep within a cold, damp underground cavern.
Young Obito had not died; his mangled body was firmly secured to a stone bed, his head wrapped in bandages.
Most horrifying of all, the right half of his body was being reconstructed and stitched together by a pale, writhing, eerie substance.
An old man with a hunched back, white hair, and an aura of decay stood beside his bed.
"From today onward, your life belongs to me…"
"From now on, spend your entire life repaying this debt."
"Remember well the name of the one who saved you. I am Uchiha Madara."
---
[Konoha, Year 60]
[Iwagakure, Tsuchikage's Office]
Just hearing that name—
Ōnoki lost control of his chakra and crashed heavily to the ground.
"Ouch!"
But he didn't even acknowledge the pain. "That bastard Madara… he really was behind all of this!"
Ōnoki gritted his teeth. Uchiha Madara... was he still alive even now?
---
[Konoha, Year One. Outside the Village on a Cliffside]
Madara looked at his nearly decomposed "future self" on the screen, somewhat puzzled.
Why would his future self be willing to linger on the brink of death, and still refuse to die?
Also… Hashirama cells?
Did that mean Hashirama's cells could be transplanted into others and grant them his enviable recovery abilities?
Madara couldn't help but glance at the still-dazed Hashirama on the side.
If… he also transplanted Hashirama's cells, what effect would it have?
Just then, Madara suddenly felt someone watching him. When he turned to look, his gaze collided mid-air with Tobirama's.
Immediately, both of them narrowed their eyes.
[Age 14: Nohara Rin was set up by Madara and killed. Obito witnessing Rin taking her own life by Kakashi's hand, awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan.]
[What made Obito unique was precisely his extreme kindness and his almost obsessive devotion to his comrades. In the Uchiha clan, a family widely believed to be driven by hatred and power, he was an anomaly.]
[By no means Obito was a genius. He was even called a deadlast. But the pure love deep within his heart shone brighter than any talent.]
[After all, in the analysis of Uchiha expert, Senju Tobirama, the clan's potential for destructiveness had long been revealed: the deeper they love, the more intense the hatred erupts when that love is lost. Madara understood this well. That's why, what he needed was a heart that could be utterly crushed by despair and then reforged into the sharpest weapon.]
On the screen—
Inside an underground cavern.
Obito, wrapped in bandages from head to toe, was gritting his teeth and going through rehabilitation training with his broken body.
Suddenly, the rock wall behind him rippled like water, and a white humanoid creature eerily emerged from the wall, tossing out a fatal piece of news in a relaxed, teasing tone: "I just went out for a stroll. And your friends, Rin and stupid Kakashi, are in trouble!"
"What happened?!"
"They're alone and completely surrounded by Hidden Mist Shinobis!"
"Rin!!"
Obito's only remaining right eye instantly turned blood red, and he frantically started pounding his fist against the boulder sealing the cave entrance.
CRACK!
His fragile right arm actually snapped, and the excruciating pain made him collapse to his knees.
"Pfft~ Save your strength," White Zetsu stood on the side, watching the show with a grin. "With that broken body of yours, you can pound away until next year and you still won't get out~"
With that, its body spread out like liquid and suddenly enveloped Obito.
"Ugh—ah!" Obito only felt a massive surge of power flooding into his limbs and bones.
"Th-thank you!" Moved to tears, he gathered all his strength and threw a punch.
BOOM!!
The boulder shattered instantly!
---
[Konoha, Year 60. Hokage Office]
Tsunade's eyes went wide. "What is that thing? Attached to a gravely wounded Obito, the power it unleashed is no less than my own Chakra Enhanced Strength!"
And… Grandfather's cells, their restorative power was actually that strong? Half of Obito's body was gone and he could still be saved?
She felt trouble brewing. The Sky Screen had previously revealed that before faking his death, Madara had bitten off a chunk of her grandfather's flesh!
That meant he had already conducted who-knew-how-many experiments with those ridiculous cells!
Meanwhile, on the screen—
Obito ran through the forest at high speed, anxiously asking: "White guy! Where exactly are Rin and Kakashi?!"
"Don't rush~" The White Zetsu clone wrapped around him replied lazily. "What's attached to you is just a tiny clone of me. I have other clones all over the underground collecting and exchanging intelligence."
"...All over the Shinobi World?!" The higher-ups of every village were horrified. This meant that their nations' secrets were as good as nonexistent!
Minato, in Konoha Year 48, suddenly understood.
So the leak of Kushina's delivery time and location in the future, had nothing to do with Kakashi's eye. Obito had learned it through this White Zetsu?
But how could they guard against these things?
Along the way, White Zetsu casually let slip: "By the way, I heard that girl named Rin, seems Kirigakure is using her as some kind of experiment subject for the Three-Tails~"
---
[Konoha, Year 60]
[Kirigakure, Mizukage's Office]
Mei and the others also finally understood why Obito had manipulated Yagura to amplify the Bloody Mist policy.
So it was because of that girl, Rin!
Don't ask how they knew the outcome; as senior leadership of Kirigakure, and with the Three-Tails involved, they certainly knew what had become of that Konoha kunoichi, Nohara Rin.
---
On the screen, Obito's heart was violently shaken, and an ominous premonition started gnawing at his heart like a venomous snake.
"What about Minato-sensei?! Where is he?" He pressed on, clinging to a glimmer of hope.
"The Yellow Flash? Seems he's off on another mission."
"Of all times… again? Absent again!!"
He roared madly in his heart: 'Kakashi! You promised me! With my eye… protect Rin!!'
Just then, distant, muffled explosions sounded, making Obito's heart burn with anxiety even more.
Even more eerily, from his empty left eye socket that had long since lost its eyeball, came a blurry image of Rin on the verge of death.
The instant Obito burst through the forest, time seemed to freeze.
A scene he would never forget for the rest of his life appeared before his eyes: Kakashi's right hand, crackling with blinding thunder, piercing through Rin's chest!
In that extreme moment of agony, Obito stood frozen in the rain.
And at that very instant, the screen split apart.
On the left, the White Zetsu mask wrapped around Obito's face cracked open, revealing his sole remaining right eye. In the bloodshot eyeball, the Two-Tomoe Sharingan spun at an unprecedented, frenzied speed!
Finally, mingling with tears, it transformed into a three-bladed scythe pattern!
On the right, almost at the same instant, Kakashi, kneeling in a pool of blood, saw his left Sharingan resonate in sync, and the exact same Mangekyō pattern bloomed through blood and tears!
"Where… in the world... is this place?! Is this hell?"
---
[Konoha, Year 60. Land of Rain, Border]
Itachi's pupils dilated sharply. Even though the Sky Screen had previously revealed that Obito had jumped from a Two-Tomoe directly to the Mangekyō, hearing about it was far less vivid than actually seeing it.
As a Mangekyō wielder himself, he understood better than anyone how difficult it was to evolve these eyes.
That guy Obito… truly was something.
No wonder he could reach Six Paths-level in the future!
*****
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