Chapter Text
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The Transformation Technique was flawless.
Obito stood at the crowded intersection of a bustling commercial district in Tokyo, blending seamlessly into the surging tide of pedestrians. The scars on his face were hidden beneath smooth, unblemished young skin, and his shock of white hair had been shifted into a completely ordinary short black cut. He wore an inconspicuous dark hoodie and black trousers—an outfit directly copied from a young man in his twenties whom Obito had observed passing by for a few minutes. Being in an unfamiliar place with no knowledge of local fashion, utilizing the Transformation Technique was the optimal choice.
Back in that deserted building, Obito had conducted a full check on himself. Half of his body was pale almost to the point of bloodlessness, forming a stark contrast with the other side; the facial scars went without saying. On his person, there was only that pair of hopelessly tattered trousers—exposing skin that could never pass for an ordinary civilian in a place like this. Plucking a single strand of hair, Obito examined it: white, coarse, and brittle. In other words, his physical state was identical to the moment right before his death.
His body did not resemble an Edo Tensei creation. Had someone revived him using Rinne Tensei, then? Yet there were no residual traces of jutsu in the surroundings, nor could he detect even a sliver of chakra during his brief sensory sweep earlier. Besides, if someone had gone through the trouble of reviving him, wouldn't they require something of him in return?
Engraving the immediate environment into his mind with his Sharingan—to remember this site of rebirth—he leapt down to the first floor.
An unfamiliar location did not necessarily signify true strangeness. A shinobi spent their entire life moving continuously, gathering intelligence, and executing missions. This held double for Obito: after deciding never to return to Konoha, he had traversed the lands, witnessing countless different nations, cities, and villages, as well as modes of living vastly distinct from Konoha. So long as information remained insufficient, he could not jump to conclusions merely because the environment felt alien.
Blinding sunlight spilled across the middle of the thoroughfare. High-rises towered all around; flashy advertisements played on giant electronic screens; metallic shells of vehicles rushed through the streets. The air was saturated with exhaust, the aroma of coffee, and the dust of mundane life.
There was no chakra here.
The crowd appeared to consist entirely of ordinary civilians rather than shinobi—devoid of even a spark of chakra generation, with no signs of martial training. The environment bore a slight resemblance to non-shinobi settlements outside the hidden villages.
Following the flow of people, Obito paused in front of a convenience store. A large map of Japan was pasted onto the glass window. He stood still, his gaze sweeping across it—
Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hokkaido.
Obito’s eyes contracted imperceptibly.
No Five Great Nations, no Konoha, no Kirigakure—not even the names of any small countries he had once set foot upon.
...What is going on?
Pushing open the automatic glass doors, Obito stepped into the brightly lit convenience store. He was met with the rich scent of coffee and the low humming of refrigeration units. A uniformed clerk was bent over, tidying the shelves.
Bypassing the clerk's line of sight, Obito surveyed his surroundings and walked straight toward the magazine rack adjacent to the window.
Beside flashy fashion magazines and weekly manga periodicals sat a few paperback maps and travel guides. Hanging at the very edge were several neatly folded copies of Detailed Regional Maps.
Obito pulled one out and slowly unfolded it before him.
His gaze moved swiftly across the mountains, river systems, coastlines, and city distributions depicted on the page.
In the shinobi world of old, there had been no concept of precise satellite cartography; maps used by major nations were mostly rough terrain sketches measured on foot by scouts and shinobi. The map before him, however, was drawn with terrifying precision—topographical contours, river paths, and continental outlines were annotated meticulously.
Maps of the major nations always prominently marked the positions of the hidden villages, the seats of the Daimyo's manors, as well as heavily fortified strongholds and checkpoints.
Obito narrowed his eyes slightly.
—There were no hidden villages on the map.
Obito could not explain any of this.
Except, perhaps—
An immense span of time had passed.
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The massive, clamorous nation remained oblivious as a ghost quietly slipped into its bloodstream.
Demonstrating a chilling capacity for adaptation and patience, Obito moved as he had during countless long-term reconnaissance missions in enemy territory in the past.
In a world governed by ordinary people, intelligence gathering was absurdly easy. There was no Barrier Team, no sensory shinobi, and no patrolling Anbu.
Shifting between different identities using the Transformation Technique, he drifted between vibrant commercial streets, libraries, and public plazas. He observed how people communicated using those tiny, portable touch-screen televisions and cameras called "mobile phones," and noted the distribution of police forces alongside the operational rules of the city.
In the shinobi world, even in the most peaceful settlements, the eyes of civilians were perpetually shadowed by a lurking dread of war, famine, and military devastation.
Here, however, millions of ordinary people without a shred of combat capability squeezed into underground trains every morning to get to work; children wearing backpacks walked across intersections laughing and playing, their eyes brimming with an innocence untouched by warfare; street officers carried firearms that served more as symbols than real power.
Over the span of about a week, Obito searched across the map of Japan using Kamui's teleportation.
Not a trace of chakra was felt. Absolutely nothing.
Perhaps really—
Time had marched too far ahead.
Obito wanted to believe this.
So far ahead that the era of the shinobi had drawn to a complete close; so far that the Five Great Nations had merged into one within the torrent of time; so far that the once-unrivaled shinobi clans had all turned into deep-buried dust beneath this land.
Naruto and the others succeeded.
That blond boy who had once shouted "I truly believe!" to Obito, Kakashi, and all those who had fought united with everything they had... they had truly pulled it off. With their own hands, they had brought about a future that no longer needed shinobi—a future where hatred and slaughter were buried for good.
The former training grounds of Konoha, the stone faces of the Hokage, and the general location of the Uchiha compound—now, all of them were trampled beneath this bustling monster constructed of steel, glass, and neon lights.
Obito merged into the crowd. He had returned to the city where he first arrived—now knowing its name was Tokyo.
As night fell, a sea of neon stretched into the horizon, while uncounted vehicles traversed overpasses like flowing streams of light. The entire city resembled an eternal star, radiating a tranquil and warm glow.
Walking through it all, Obito watched the mundane, trivial, and slightly complaining expressions on the faces of passersby.
No shadows of war, no fear of losing one's life at any moment, and no children raised as weapons from a young age.
A subtle curvature formed at the corner of Obito's lips.
How wonderful.
"You will live in a world where no one acknowledges your existence. Waiting right in front of you is what you are most familiar with, and what you fear above all—loneliness!"
Years ago, standing atop the head of the Ten-Tails, he had spat those words down at Naruto to crush the conviction of a boy who so closely mirrored his younger self.
That had been the summary of his own life. The shinobi world had cruelly stripped away everything he possessed, taking his family, friends, emotions, dreams, and faith one by one.
Loneliness—the state he knew best and feared most—had been carved into his willful life for decades.
Loneliness was a poison that devoured the human heart. Back then, even fanatical savior complexes could not mask the terror and frigidity of walking alone. Those nights of self-doubt and introspection, unable to reveal a single fragment of his true self to anyone, had nearly driven him mad. Even looking back now, Obito felt a lingering dread.
This applied to Kakashi as well, Obito thought. In that world, we were bound to lose everything in the end. Even mutual understanding was stripped away; even entangled for a lifetime, all that remained was loneliness.
To think those words would ultimately bounce back onto his own head in this manner.
Those who still shared bonds with him had all remained in that defunct, bygone era. They had built peace, grown old, and finally returned to dust.
While he—like a ghost overlooked by the laws of time—had been forcefully stuffed with a gift meant as a farewell, and thrown headlong into this future enjoyed by descendants.
Why did that sentence suddenly cross my mind again? Obito let out a self-deprecating smile.
Loneliness.
Right now, he was like a gust of wind: light, cold, with nowhere to land.
And just like a gust of wind, no longer mattered.
This is fine, Obito thought. After witnessing a world like this, loneliness isn't all that terrifying anymore.
The "loneliness" he had regarded as a lifelong curse was perhaps nothing more than a faint echo of Naruto and the others' ultimate victory.
In a split second—
A sensory instinct honed on the precipice of death flared.
Obito snapped his head upward.
A figure of dazzling, stark white cleaved through the sky at a velocity that completely defied physical common sense, descending like a white divine bird onto the pinnacle of a distant skyscraper.
That was no shinobi, nor was it a form any ordinary human could possess.
In the frigid wind of the high altitude, the silhouette of a deity paused for a fraction of a second. Without casting a single glance downward, it swept past the noisy, radiant ocean of neon lights once more.
Standing deep in the shadows, Obito stared quietly in that direction.
Even from such a distance, that unreserved, reckless aura was palpable.
Extremely arrogant, extremely—
Lonely.
Hovering above ordinary mortals, possessing everything yet owning nothing.
In this lively new world, it turned out that standing at the peak was another ghost whom no one could ever reach.
—You will live in a world where no one acknowledges your existence. Waiting right in front of you is what you are most familiar with, and what you fear above all—
...