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This will be the last step, Uchiha Obito thought as he looked at the scene before him.
He was now in the deep forest, far away from Konoha. In front of his eyes, four stone pillars stood in the water with mysterious symbols carved on the surface, holding the red-haired woman in the middle. Her hands were firmly bound by the incantations from the pillars, unable to move at all.
Uzumaki Kushina- the Kyuubi Jinchuriki, wife of his sensei- was panting heavily, face haggard. Giving birth to her son must have consumed a lot of her strength, especially when having to suppress Kyuubi at the same time. If her hands were not tied by the seal, she would have collapsed onto the ground.
But the Red-Hot Habanero had never been a person willing to compromise and give up so easily.
"You..." she struggled to raise her head, unyielding fire burning in her gray eyes. "What do you want?"
"To release Kyuubi, and let it destroy Konoha," Obito answered in a hoarse voice.
He hated what he sounded like now. His vocal cords had been ruined by the boulder, and there was no more resemblance between his past and current voices. But at the moment Obito was satisfied with this, because there would be no way that Kushina could recognize him.
He would still be the one who had abandoned his identity, and become no one.
"...What?" Hearing his reply, Kushina widened her eyes in disbelief. "How could this be..."
"The markings for Minato's Flying Thunder God Jutsu appear to have been added to your seal," Obito said. "He is always protecting you, but I've got him away from you now, and the seal is also weakened after you gave birth. Do you know hong long I've waited for this brief moment?"
Sharingan glowed under the mask, and the three tomoes started spinning. Obito raised his hand to make seals, staring at the seal on Kushina's abdomen.
"Gaaaaagh--!!"
The jinchuriki tensed her body and screamed in pain. Plenty of bubbles of red chakra gushed from her eyes and mouth, and gradually condensed into the shape of a fox. The seal on her abdomen transformed to a black hole, as if something ominous would come out of it at any time.
Inside Kushina's body, Kyuubi, bound by chains, wriggled his huge body, sending out terrible roars. Meeting Obito's eye, his move abruptly paused, pupils turned into Sharingan.
"Alright..." narrowing his eye, Obito whispered. "Come out, Kyu--"
Crash!
Behind him, the ground at his feet suddenly cracked. A kunai broke through the soil, aiming straight at Obito's back. Distracted by the unexpected attack, Obito was forced to activate Kamui, letting the shinobi and his kunai pass through his body. The attacker made a surprised voice before quickly retreating from Obito, who was just about to turn around and grab him.
Failure to fight back dissatisfied Obito, but what made him more frustrated and annoyed was that because of this momentary distraction, his action of dragging Kyuubi out had become a near miss.
The attacker leaped over his head. Obito's eye followed the figure, watching the other shinobi landing gracefully in front of him, right between him and Kushina. In the dim moonlight, the Uchiha saw he's an ANBU with brown hair and an unfamiliar mask.
"Kushina-sama," the ANBU spoke in a low voice, slightly turned his face, but his eyes was still firmly fixed on Obito. "Are you all right?"
"....Still alive, at least," Kushina regained consciousness as Kyuubi's chakra subsided. Panting heavily, she looked up at her savior. "And you're...? How did you find here?"
"Sandaime-sama secretly dispatched me as an extra guard just in case," the young man replied. "I've been hiding my existence and guarding you closely. Minato-sama will certainly come here, so please hold on until then. I'll try my best to stall this man. "
"Be careful," Kushina said. Her husband's name made Kushina relaxed a little, but her face soon became serious again. "The man seems to have the power to control Kyuubi. He's a very powerful enemy!"
Hear her warning, the ANBU just clenched the ninja sword in his hand as silent response.
"She's right," Obito said. "You're no match for me. Since you've been in the delivery room, you should have seen the end of your companions."
"You can come in and go out of Konoha freely without being blocked by the barrier. And you're fully conversant with the village. You could even find the place where Kushina-sama gave birth," the ANBU's voice was full of vigilance. "Who on earth are you?"
"Is that important?" Obito asked in reply. "I'm no one... Name and identity are meaningless to me."
"Then what do you attack Konoha for?"
For cutting off the bonds and bid farewell to my past, Obito answered inwardly.
"You can call it a whim, or a plan," but when he spoke, he said something different. There was no need for him to tell the truth, let alone to a stranger who had nothing to do with it. "It's both for war, and for peace."
"Nonsense," The ANBU coldly commented.
"Anyway, it's none of your business," Obito took out a long chain and shackled his own wrists. "After tonight, you and your village will no longer exist."
"If you can do it, give a try," the ANBU wasn't swayed by his threat at all. He slightly bent down, ready to attack. His voice trailed off, more seemingly muttering to himself than talking to Obito.
"This time, I must protect...!"
As if there was an invisible horn blowing in their ears, the next moment, the two shinobi rushed towards each other at the same time. The ANBU slashed at Obito with his blade, and unsurprisingly, both he and his sword passed through Obito's body. Obito tugged the chain and tried to bind him, but the ANBU reacted fast and immediately grasped the chain with his other hand.
Dazzling lightning suddenly burst out from the ANBU's palm. Feeling his wrists numb, Obito had to use Kamui to become intangible again before the feeling spread to his whole body.
The intangible chain fell from the ANBU's hand. He turned and launched a hard kick at Obito, aiming at the masked man's right temple. Obito watched the leg passed through his head before quickly reached out and grabbed the ANBU's ankle.
A sharp wooden spike was instantly produced from his palm, and pierced through the other shinobi's leg. The ANBU gave out a painful groan before raising his hand to throw out a kunai. Obito was forced to use his dojutsu, which gave the ANBU a chance to get rid of him. He limped back a few steps, distanced himself from Obito.
"As I thought," the ANBU said, kneeling down and panting. "You have to turn soild to attack."
"So what?" Obito scoffed. "You can't hurt me at all, and now you're injured. Unfortunately, I don't have time to play with you any more... You want to stall me until Minato arrives, but I won't let you make it."
"You bastard! A coward who dare not show your face!" Kushina yelled angrily, struggling desperately to get rid of the seal. "Don't crow so early, you haven't win yet!"
Obito turned his eye to the red-haired kunoichi. The wild vitality of Uzumaki... She has soon recovered from the weak condition after giving birth.
And here's an unexpected distractor. If she's not further weakened, it'd take a long time to drag out Kyuubi. It'd be even more troublesome when Minato arrived. As the man's former student, Obito knew about the Yellow Flash's power better than most people in the world.
So, his eye turned to the ANBU again. How will you choose?
He raised his right arm in the direction of Kushina with an open hand. Several sharp wooden spikes slowly emerged out of his sleeve, then suddenly picked up their speed and flew towards the Kyuubi Jinchuriki.
Are you going to save her, or take the opportunity to attack me? Watching the ANBU managed to get to his feet, he heard his own malicious voice whispering inwardsly. If you attack me, then Kushina will be fatally injured and could no longer suppress Kyuubi. The moment Kyuubi escaped from her body, she'll die immediately. And if you decide to protect her...
Obito had already known that he didn't really need to imagine two situations. Because Konoha's people were always so stupid; just like how he had been, how Rin had been, and this ANBU would surely-
The wood spikes thudded into the skin and tore the flesh. They penetrated the ANBU's chest and abdomen, their tips were dyed bloody red. At the moment of being hit, he stiffened in the air for a split second before falling to the ground like a kite with a broken line. He seemed to struggle to raise his head, but soon became motionless.
Just as Obito had expected. Under the mask, the corner of his lips curled up with irony.
Kushina gasped with widened eyes full of horror.
"What are you expecting?" Obito put down his arm and stepped towards her. "You, Konoha, and this world... there has been no hope left. The incident ended. Let's continue what we haven't done."
Continuing to walk to the jinchuriki, he was about to pass the ANBU who was lying face down in his own pool of blood. "This time, the winner is-"
His voice came to an abrupt end. Obito's pupil shrank violently, and for the first time, his face behind the mask showed an unbelieving expression. At his feet, the ANBU, who should have been dead, suddenly jumped up, reached a hand out to his chest-
That's impossible! How can he still have the strength to attack after such a serious injury? Did he deliberately lure me into believing he's dead so that I relax my vigilance? How crazy it was to deceive me at the price of his own life-
Then Obito saw it. The familiar bright blue lightning dancing in the other one's palm, so familiar that it stung his eye.
The sound of crying birds echoed in his ears. In a thousandth of a second, he forgot to make himself intangible and just stood there in a daze; while the hand wrapped in the lightning pierced through his body with the ANBU's resolution to perish together with him.
Unlike when the brown-haired girl was killed, Chidori failed to destroy his heart but instead ripped into a lower part of his torso. It seemed that its owner was too weak to aim accurately.
The lightning dissipated. They were surrounded by a dead silence. Face to face, chest to chest, they stood there in an almost intimate position. One Sharingan gazed at the other one through the holes on their masks.
Obito's mind was a total blank.
Someone landed silently a few steps behind him. His frozen brain resumed working, and by instinct, he turned himself intangble. Lost his support, the ANBU's arm dropped as he fell forward, passed through Obito and hit the ground heavily.
Obito heard the sound of the mask cracking. He slowly turned around and staggered back, staring at the broken mask lying there quietly, and the silver-haired boy who had dispelled the Transformation Jutsu and shown his true identity.
His lips were trembling. He opened his mouth, but couldn't utter that name-
"KAKASHI-!!"
Kushina's scream echoed in the woods, pumping the three syllables that he failed to call out into him, piercing through his eardrum and buzzing in his mind. Obito continued to stumble back, paying no attention to the bleeding hole in his chest. He watched Minato running towards Kakashi before kneeling down beside the teenager without throwing a single glimpse at him.
With trembling hands, Minato lifted Kakashi as gently as possible. He let his student lie in his arms, careful to not touch the spikes. When he pulled down Kakashi's mask, the blood immediately gushed out of the boy's mouth and dark red spots stained his sleeve.
"Minato...sensei," Kakashi slowly opened his eyes. The massive loss of blood made his face extremely pale, almost unlike a living man. However, when seeing his sensei, he still smiled. "Finally... you're here."
"Kakashi... don't talk now," Minato's voice was shaking. "Hold on, I'll take you to the hospital in a moment, you'll be ok..."
"You should... focus on the enemy first. He can... somehow become intangible, and only turn.... solid when he was about to... attack," Kakashi managed to swallow the blood in his mouth. He struggled to reach out and grab Minato's sleeve. "He wants... to drag Kyuubi out, and... destroy Konoha. Sensei... you must be careful, and don't let him... succeed..."
"I will," Minato said, choking. He vainly wiped away the blood from the corner of his student's lips, over and over again. "I won't let him succeed. So don't die, please? First it's Obito, then Rin, and now... are you leaving me, too? "
Kakashi gave a weak smile. He loosened his grip on Minato's sleeve, and the hand fell down feebly.
"Sorry... sensei. I'm afraid... I can't make it. But... that's fine. I made... the same choice... as Obito and Rin... did, and protected... my companion and... the village. I don't regret... dying from this. Now, finally... I can go to see them."
Kakashi's eyes became unfocused. He looked away from Minato and turned to the night sky above. Suddenly, he widened his eyes slightly.
"Obito... Are you here to pick me up?"
He whispered with a bitter smile, as if he had seen the one in his imagination.
"I apologize... for failing to keep... my promise... and for... failing to see... more future for you. I'm sorry... for being trash, unlike like you, who was..."
"...A hero."
With the last breath, the words floated out of his pale lips and dissipated in the air. The silver-haired boy slowly closed his eyes.
Minato said nothing. Instead, he held Kakashi tightly in his arms, his shoulders trembling silently. Behind him, Kushina was sobbing.
Chakra flickered nearby. Minato jerked his head up and casted an extremely cold look at that place. However, what he saw was only a spiral rift closing, while the masked man had been nowhere to be seen.
Obito fell on a platform in Kamui's dimension.
He struggled to turn over and lie on his back. Taking off his mask, he turned his head to spit blood, only to choke himself and cough violently.
Kakashi's pale face rose before Obito's eye. His last words lingered in Obito's ears.
His mind was in turmoil, numerous thoughts tangled up before finally turned into a single sentence:
It shouldn't be like this.
He should have successfully released Kyuubi and let it destroy Konoha. The tailed beast would have given Kushina and Minato death, and he would have cut off his bonds with them in this way. As for Kakashi, the fake could just try not to be killed by Kyuubi's claws anywhere out of his sight.
It shouldn't be like this.
Look, that fake was so naive that until his death, he still clung to someone who had abandoned the past and self, bound by the words that person had said, and even saw the illusion of that person at the end of his life; but he didn't know that it's exactly that person who had killed him. So funny and pathetic that Obito had every reason to sneer at him.
It never should be like this.
His chest was bleeding and his eye was crying. He felt numb after the extreme pain in his chest, but the Sharingan still hurt as if it's burning, and tears kept sliding down his scarred face.
Why was it necessary to cut off bonds?
Because the selfish desire of wanting to preserve peace would only cause wars. Hatred was born out of the desire to protect the loved ones. Only the one who had abandoned everything in reality could create a new world.
What's the reason to create a new world?
Because he wanted to see Rin alive again; also because only if Rin was alive, could Kakashi be freed from endless regret and guilt, and no longer wander before his and Rin's grave like a walking corpse.
But the second point was no longer achievable. Because Kakashi was dead, killed by none other than him.
Obito felt his right hand which had launched the Mokuton was shaking uncontrollably. Did Kakashi feel the same way when he killed Rin?
Of course, he could continue to pursue the new world and create a living Kakashi in the dream of Infinite Tsukuyomi. But Obito felt that he couldn't make it either, because he would never forget the fact that Kakashi was killed by him, everything happened tonight, or Kakashi's blood in his hand.
With death as the medium, the bond between him and Kakashi would never be cut off. As long as he was alive, he was doomed to carry the bond and wander in the world alone like a ghost that had nowhere to go or return to.
Obito shivered at this thought.
The burning pain of Sharingan gradually dissipated. After continuing lying there for a while, Obito struggled to get up and put on his mask again. He took out a blank scroll from his pouch, dipped his finger in his wound and started writing.
I don't care any more, he told himself.
I just want relief.
When Obito returned to the forest, Kushina had been freed from the seal. The spikes had been pulled out from Kakashi's body, and the red-haired woman was hugging him tightly, wailing as if her tears could never stop.
Minato was kneeling beside his wife and student with his back to Obito. But when the Uchiha showed up, he turned around quickly like he had eyes on the back of his head, and threw three kunai at Obito. Obito had never imagined that one day he would see such strong hatred and killing intent in his sensei's eyes.
He activated Kamui and let the kunai pass through his body. Minato jumped up and interposed himself between Obito and others.
Obito didn't respond to his movement. With his hand clamped to his chest, he hobbled forward step by step. His body overlapped Minato's before he passed through the man and stopped in front of Kushina and Kakashi.
Kushina glared at him with a look of grief and pain. She held Kakashi tightly in her arms, as if she's afraid that he would hurt the boy again.
Obito slowly knelt down. He paid no attention to Kushina, but only gazed at Kakashi's pale face. After a while, he reached his hand out.
It passed through Kakashi's body.
Obito froze briefly before turning himself solid. This time, he successfully touched Kakashi, gently caressing the scar across that left eye.
"STAY AWAY FROM MY STUDENT!!"
Behind him came Minato's furious roar. A hand grabbed the back of Obito's cloak and yanked him back. Rasengan hit him hard in the stomach, sending him flying backwards until colliding with a tree. Before he fell down, several Flying Thunder God Kunai had penetrated his shoulders and knees, and the Yellow Flash appeared in front him in the next moment, grabbed him by the neck and pinned him against the trunk.
"Cough cough..." Obito coughed a mouthful of blood. He was seriously injured. If he couldn't receive treatment immediately, even with Hashirama's cells, he would die soon.
But Obito no longer cared about that.
"Uchiha... Madara," he murmured. "Watch out... for Uchiha Madara. He is the man... behind everything."
His hand holding the scroll raised slightly. "The information in it... will be very useful... to you."
Minato looked at him suspiciously, but didn't loosen his grip.
Obito let out a hoarse laugh. He no longer felt pain, except for a bit chilly; he know he would be gone soon.
"I'm sorry.... Minato-sensei," he whispered. "I have... to go now. Kakashi is... waiting for me... to pick him up. This time, especially this time... I can't... be late..."
Minato's eyes widened in horror. His fingers twitched and loosened. The masked man's body slid down against the trunk, fell to the ground, and never moved again. The scroll fell out of the open palm and rolled to his feet.
Minato stood still. After a while, he finally bent down.
Instead of picking up the scroll, he just gently, gently took off the mask.
The date was October the 10th.
Since that night, the disaster that would have spread to the whole world and lasted for decades was secretly defused.
Since that night, another name was added to the Memorial Stone.
Since that night, Namikaze Minato lost all his students, and the Fourth Hokage seldom smiled again.
Since that night-
There were no longer "Heroes of the Sharingan" in the world.