Chapter Text
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My face must look so bitter and sour, Obito thought.
It is already the end. It is truly the end. What on earth do I want to say? What on earth should I say?
Having already made such a grand and high-spirited speech... saying "You must become Hokage!" as crumbling into dust. Offering life to save a best friend, entrusting both the former dream and the current dream to a junior who actually seems capable of realizing them—having lived such an absurd life, dying like this is truly a blessing.
But I can't let go.
When Rin took his hand and looked at him with a gentle yet firm smile, Obito wept out of sheer happiness. Before her, he uncontrollably turned back into a child, both in body and mind. Let's go, her eyes said. She lightly shook his hand. Let's go, it's time to head to the other side.
But I can't let go.
Obito had an inexplicable feeling.
If Rin could stay here and watch over me for over a decade, then couldn't I...? Nay, more than that. Maybe I can do even more.
Obito had an inexplicable feeling: Chakra. Chakra is the power that connects two worlds.
I can still go see Kakashi! I can still do something. Kakashi can still do something.
And then he actually made it. Obito smirked with pride. Kamui—perhaps it truly possesses divine power. Kakashi, you really came up with a great name.
"Before heading off to that world, I figured I should remind you once more not to come over right away!" Just like when he was a kid, he put on an exceptionally bright and firm expression, "I told Naruto earlier to become Hokage!—But that's only the Seventh. The Sixth Hokage is you, Kakashi!" Then, thoroughly pleased with himself, he gifted both of his eyes to Kakashi as an inauguration present for becoming Hokage.
Let me take one more look at—Kakashi of the Sharingan.
Having said all those cool lines, wouldn't it be perfect to make an exit right now? You've already put on a show and given your last words twice, what are you still hanging around for?
...But I can't let go.
Obito watched without blinking as Kakashi unleashed the full power of Susanoo. Team 7 joined forces and defeated Kaguya. Kakashi descended from the air with a contented smile.
Truly impressive, Kakashi. Obito thought, Kakashi was always meant to be like this—the ultimate young prodigy.
Then, Six Paths · Chibaku Tensei.
Then, the Ten-Tails was unmerged, and the nine Tailed Beasts were brought back.
Then, Black Zetsu was dealt with, and Kaguya was sealed once more.
Then—then what? It's over! How much longer do you plan on watching?
Dual Kamui spun within Kakashi's eye sockets. Despite receiving praise from the Sage of Six Paths, he melancholically let slip a lonely expression.
Let me cling on just a little longer. Obito pleaded inwardly.
If only I could see it. Kakashi living out his life with these eyes, taking in all the sights of the world. By then, would Obito be able to say to him, "Thanks for your hard work, I've been watching you all along"?
If only I could see it. Kakashi and Naruto, becoming Hokage.
If only I could see it. The kind of world that Naruto so strongly believed in and promised.
"Is that so? Then I shall have a good long chat with Obito in that world..."
Dammit. The Sage of Six Paths—
”...He hasn't...?"
...Busted. Kakashi found out. He wouldn't want me to turn into a ghost lingering by his side. I have to leave.
My face must look so bitter and sour, Obito thought.
In the face of the sins he had committed, whatever he said felt pale and powerless.
"Bidding farewell not as enemies in the end, but as friends... You are still the same you back then, who often ran late from helping people... For me, that is enough!"
To think that even at a time like this, Kakashi had to be the one comforting him?
As friends... the me back then who often ran late from helping people... then let's go with that.
Obito transformed into his childhood self.
"Thank you, Kakashi."
>>
——And yet, I just can't bear to let go.
I still can't bear to leave this world.
I still want to see a world with only peace, a world with only love.
>>
Where is this.
Standing among the dingy concrete pillars, Obito went numb—for half a second.
Even believing himself to be dead, his shinobi instincts still compelled him to swiftly sense his surroundings—a concrete high-rise with its framework erected, currently located on the fourth floor above ground. There were no gathered chakra fluctuations in the entire building, meaning there were no other shinobi here.
Expanding his sensory scope further—a large quantity of construction materials was stacked here, likely a temporarily halted construction site. Outside was the hustle and bustle of passing pedestrians and heavy traffic.
If Obito had never seen the Pure Land, he might have assumed this was what the Pure Land looked like. But Obito had just tossed and turned through long rounds with Kakashi, his students, and Kaguya in the Pure Land, leaving him with a deep impression of the scene on the other side.
All of these were secondary.
The main point was—
How am I still alive?
The sensation of his body, spirit, and consciousness collapsing together and crumbling to ash seemed to faintly ache still.
Obito had even seen Rin lingering in the living world. He was beyond certain that he was truly dead this time, rather than losing consciousness on the verge of death like when he was buried under the rocks in his teens.
——Speaking of which, where did Rin go? After saying goodbye to Kakashi, Obito went back to look for Rin. He should have seen Rin... or maybe he didn't. That memory was hazy and vague; Obito couldn't make heads or tails of it at all.
Sigh. Obito couldn't help but sigh in his heart, I'm late again, I'm really sorry, Rin.
Sense.
A sense of incongruity. In the gap between subconscious perception and thought. It washed over him.
Air entered his lungs and was slowly exhaled through his nose and mouth. His chest rose and fell accordingly, his heart beating rhythmically and powerfully beneath his ribs, blood flowing along blood vessels to every corner of his body.
The feeling of being alive.
The sense of incongruity... is this it?
Chakra ran quietly and rhythmically along his meridians, flowing through his flesh-and-blood half, coursing through his stitched-together, deformed, yet vibrantly alive alien half, filling his brain that had returned to a physical form, and washing over his eyes—his eyes.
Obito tried to activate the Sharingan. He felt the ocular power of both eyes respond to his will simultaneously, slowly coalescing. He felt boundless power and distorted time-space surging into his eyes along with a slight stinging pain—so familiar as in countless times past, yet incredibly raw.
The sense of incongruity. So that's what it was.
During the short period before death, amidst the extreme chaos of dying and battle, Obito had no energy to spare for this abnormality. But right now, in this grey and desolate world, he inevitably received this truth.
This was the first time Dual Kamui spun so vividly within his eye sockets; Obito perceived this with absolute clarity. When his eyes finally returned to his sockets, he instead felt an unignorable sense of alien discomfort—as if it were a transplanted organ undergoing immune rejection, or even like a dead thing forcibly stuffed into his half that belonged to a genuine living human.
His body told him that he was alive.
His memories told him that he was dead.
And the two Kamui spinning simultaneously in his eye sockets stubbornly and coldly straddled both of these facts at the same time.
Obito raised that hand covered in pale cells and gently covered his own eyes.
Between his fingers, spiral spatial ripples silently spread out across the empty concrete floor, and then slowly subsided.
TBC