A deathly silence filled the tribunal.
Shinju's sentence had ended.
Every word echoed clearly through the vast hall—there was no reverberation, only a heavy weight pressing down on everyone's hearts.
Obito stood in place, motionless.
He didn't look at Shinju, and he didn't look at his former comrades.
On his battered face, there wasn't the slightest ripple of emotion.
Death, to him, might have been a luxury. To repay his sins with a single life was far too easy.
To live—bearing everything, atoning through endless years with no visible end—that was the true punishment.
And that punishment, he accepted.
Kakashi.
The best friend he had once envied, hated, and yet could never forget.
"Kakashi..."
He spoke the name.
"My eye... you... take it back."
Obito's left eye—the Mangekyo Sharingan he had given Kakashi—still rested quietly in Kakashi's eye socket. What he meant now was his right Mangekyo Sharingan, the one that belonged to him.
"For me... look at this world properly..."
That single sentence drained the last of his strength.
Kakashi's body went rigid.
He stared at Obito—at that familiar, yet unfamiliar face.
Memories surged through his mind: the boulder at Kannabi Bridge, the final request at death's door, and then the years of endless catastrophe brought by the masked man who called himself "Uchiha Madara."
In the end, Kakashi shook his head.
"No, Obito."
"This eye doesn't belong to me."
He refused that final entrustment.
That eye had been stained with far too much blood and had witnessed far too many conspiracies.
It shouldn't become a vessel for personal feelings again, and it shouldn't carry anyone's past any longer.
It was too heavy. This tragedy couldn't be allowed to continue.
"It should... belong to someone who can make greater use of it."
Kakashi made his decision.
In this new era led by Shinju, all power had to be used in the most correct place.
Personal feelings and obsessions were insignificant in the face of the new world's grand blueprint.
Shinju offered no opinion on their exchange.
He was only the judge.
Only after Kakashi finished speaking did Shinju shift his gaze away from Obito.
A massive holographic projection appeared out of thin air, occupying an entire wall of the tribunal.
Within the image, Nagato appeared.
Shinju's gaze pierced the barrier of space, meeting Nagato's eyes directly through the projection.
"Nagato, Obito's Rinnegan—I'm giving it to you."
Nagato's expression flickered with surprise, but he quickly understood Shinju's intent.
He said nothing, only waited quietly for what came next.
"Only a pair of Rinnegan is its true form," Shinju continued. "I need you to use those eyes to decipher the secrets of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path (Gedō Mazō (Demonic Statue of the Outer Path)), and to create more possibilities for our new world. Well? Do you dare?"
This wasn't merely a simple eye transplant.
It was a mission tied to the future of the world.
The Demonic Statue of the Outer Path—the terrifying husk that had once served as the core of the "Eye of the Moon" plan—would now become research material in Shinju's hands, pushing progress in technology and power.
Nagato looked beyond the projection, as if he could see the violet Rinnegan.
That eye resonated with his own.
He could sense the immense ocular power within it—a power born of the same source as his own.
He brought his hands together before his chest, then bowed solemnly toward Shinju's direction.
"Yes, Shinju-sama. I will do my utmost to use these eyes well."
Shinju nodded and shut down the holographic projection.
Then he walked up to Obito again.
Obito felt a hand press over his left eye—the Rinnegan that had once belonged to Madara.
A strange chakra flowed from Shinju's palm.
It wasn't violent, but it precisely severed every connection between the Rinnegan and Obito's body.
Nerves, pathways, chakra channels—everything was stripped away in an instant.
Obito's body trembled from the forced separation. His jaw clenched, cold sweat beading on his forehead, yet he didn't make a sound.
He endured it all.
This, too, was part of his atonement.
The violet Rinnegan, etched with complex ripples, was removed whole from his eye socket.
It hovered above Shinju's palm, radiating an ominous light.
Shinju took out a specially made crystal container and placed the Rinnegan inside. The container sealed shut instantly, locking away all fluctuations of its ocular power.
Then he ordered staff to deliver it to Nagato.
Shinju gave another command.
"Take him away."
Two members of the Shin Guards stepped out from the shadows in standard armor.
Without speaking, they moved to Obito's sides and seized his arms, left and right.
From this day on, he would no longer be Uchiha Obito—only a code.
The body fused with Hashirama's cells, the Uchiha bloodline—everything would become "nutrients" for Konoha's medical and technological development.
Just before exiting the doors, Obito paused.
He turned his head and, with his remaining right eye, took one last look at Kakashi—and at Rin standing beside him.
Tear tracks streaked Rin's face, her gaze complicated.
She looked at the man who had once fallen into darkness for her sake, her heart filled with indescribable turmoil.
Kakashi only watched silently, saying nothing.
Obito's lips moved faintly—like a wordless farewell.
Then the Shin Guards escorted him out, and his figure vanished into the darkness beyond the doors.
The tribunal returned to silence once more.
Obito's matter was settled.
The hidden hand that had once stirred the Fourth Shinobi World War from the shadows had been stripped of everything, reduced to a mere screw in the machinery that kept the new world running.
His value would be squeezed out to the last drop.
Shinju turned away, no longer thinking about the prisoner who posed no threat anymore.
His gaze landed on the other entity at the center of the hall.
Black Zetsu.
The "will of Otsutsuki Kaguya," the conspirator who had lurked in the shinobi world for nearly a thousand years—now powerless, like a bug trapped inside a glass bottle.
Shinju walked up to the sealing array and looked down at Black Zetsu.
Kakashi and Rin stepped forward as well, standing behind him.
They could feel the chill and malice radiating from Black Zetsu.
"Next, it's your turn."
Shinju's voice was cold and merciless.
"The greatest conspirator of the last thousand years—the will of the Otsutsuki. That should be accurate, shouldn't it?"
Black Zetsu's writhing grew even more frantic.
"You insects! How could you possibly understand Mother's greatness?! You dare imprison me—release me at once!" Black Zetsu roared.
Shinju ignored him.
"Your value will be put to use."
(End of Chapter)
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