Chapter 131: Obito's Heart
"Huh? What? What technique'?"
"The Sound Resonance."
Kakashi answered without taking his eyes off Obito, who still looked stunned. Rin dropped down beside them with Shunpo, blinking in confusion, and Kakashi gave her a brief explanation.
"It is a movement technique Aizen devised that should only exist on paper. It shows up in the internal research logs of Las Noches, but that is all.
"Because it demands absurdly high spatial and temporal awareness, and you need perfect control over your own body, the Resonance Technique is, in theory, superior to Shunpo or even Flying Thunder God. But in practice it cannot be popularized."
Simply put, Sound Resonance was a movement technique that was never supposed to leave the drafting board.
It created a point to point wormhole, allowing the user to step directly behind a target.
Defenses, barriers, anything that relied on blocking a path was meaningless. As long as both sides existed in the same world, they could barely interfere with its traversal of the void.
Worse, at least from a researcher's standpoint, Sound Resonance theoretically activated as fast as Shunpo. A step that ignored almost all spatial interference and could reach any point within sight would, in any sane comparison, completely outclass Shunpo.
However, Aizen had branded the technique "unusable."
First, it required overwhelming spatial sense and talent, and extremely precise understanding of both your own position and the enemy's. You had to adjust all of that in the middle of constantly shifting combat. If you could not do that, the technique simply would not fire.
Second, Sound Resonance demanded Yin style chakra dense enough to open a wormhole and a corresponding amount of Yang style chakra to stabilize it.
Anyone with enough talent and chakra attributes to meet that standard did not really need a special movement technique. From the perspective of Las Noches, it was a niche trick, not a core technology, and had been stuffed into the bottom drawer of their technical reserves, only dug out occasionally as inspiration for other projects.
Yet just now, Obito had used Sound Resonance to appear at Kakashi's back.
That was what truly rattled Kakashi.
"Obito," he said, eyes shining in a way that made Obito nervous, "can you tell me the angle and principle you used to form that tiny wormhole when you activated it? When you used Sora no Obito, how did you fix the coordinates directly behind me? And that hollow sound just now, what exactly was that…"
"Wait a second, Kakashi!" Rin complained, puffing out her cheeks as she stepped between them. "Stop talking only to Obito. Talk to me sometimes! Obito, have you been hiding this from us this whole time?"
"Ah, no," Obito waved his hands frantically, "I just suddenly felt like it might work…"
"What kind of feeling? At what moment did it appear? How did it feel specifically?" Kakashi pressed, completely ignoring Rin's protest as he leaned in again. "Can you roughly describe how that feeling rose up and what sort of chakra transformation followed?"
"Obito! Kakashi! You two should not be happily nerding out without me!" Rin shouted, almost stomping her foot.
"Uh…"
Obito could not help it. He laughed.
It really felt like everything had gone back to how it used to be.
Yet at the same time, something was undeniably different.
Kakashi leaned toward him, firing off questions with serious eyes. Rin, flustered and a little jealous, hovered at their side.
It all felt unreal, like a dream he had once seen and then lost.
A place he had never been able to reach before, a height that used to feel impossibly distant, had suddenly opened up the moment he let his chakra flow on instinct, adjusted his body, and locked on with his Sharingan. In less than a second, he was there.
The speed and range of that step shocked Obito more than anyone.
In his imagination, this match had gone very differently.
He had pictured himself fighting painfully, trading blows with Kakashi, gritting his teeth and shouting back and forth. Eventually, when he was about to collapse, that strange old man would appear, pull out some outrageous technique, and use Obito's body to land a finishing blow.
The old man had said he would use Obito's own power, which Obito had interpreted as Kakashi fighting seriously but not crossing any lines.
Who would have thought it would happen in such a simple, almost casual way, without any drama, without anyone even noticing until it was over.
It had been so easy, so smooth, that it hardly disturbed the atmosphere at all.
Like water flowing downhill.
Maybe, from the beginning, there had never been any wall between Kakashi and Rin that needed "breaking."
If he truly possessed this level of ability from the start, perhaps everyone would have naturally stayed as they were.
Kakashi would still be the unreachable genius.
Rin would still watch them with that warm, almost maternal joy.
And he would still be the dead last, occasionally doing something that exceeded Kakashi's expectations, the three of them falling into their old rhythm without needing to think.
Watching the scene in front of him, Obito felt his earlier anxiety and desperation peel off him piece by piece, like rust flaking away from metal.
So many things that had seemed impossible had been swept aside with just a little push, as if the barrier had always been paper thin.
But Obito knew better than anyone.
He understood exactly what had changed.
This was the power that old man had given him.
If not for that man, the ceiling that seemed so fragile now would have remained a solid wall forever.
He, Kakashi, and Rin would never have stood in the same world.
"What is easy for some is impossible for others. That is what they call a ceiling. Most people never see it, because they are born on the side where it does not exist. For everyone else, it is a very real wall."
Time went still again.
Rin, who had just joined in the debate with Kakashi, froze mid gesture, expression and hair suspended in the air.
The old man reappeared at Obito's side and walked forward at an unhurried pace. Together, they looked at the two immobilized figures.
The moment, full of laughter and warmth, had been pinned into eternity, a framed photograph hung in the sky of the chakra network.
In Obito's eyes, the bond between the three of them, which had nearly snapped under strain, seemed to reconnect with invisible thread.
"Heh. Well? I told you I could help you use your own power to give that Kakashi a surprise."
"But how… how did you do it?" Obito muttered.
"I already told you."
The old man folded his hands behind his back and looked forward calmly.
"That was your power. Your chakra. Your ability. You were the one who completed it in the end. You simply possess that potential as well. You always had the ability to do it, you just never chose to.
"Do not underestimate yourself, boy."
"Really…?"
Obito stared at the two frozen figures, unease twisting in his chest.
He had used the power the old man awakened in him to finally stand beside the two people in front of him.
Yes, Kakashi and Rin had teachers too.
The Kido they studied, the techniques they pioneered, were all built on foundations laid by Aizen Sousuke. He really was the greatest teacher in the world, in every sense.
Obito had, at best, received guidance from a nameless old man.
Strictly speaking, there was not much difference between them.
It was just that, compared to Kakashi and Rin, the way he had been taught felt more… opaque.
Unclear.
Strange.
Wrong in a way he could not quite put into words.
Even Obito himself wondered if this counted as cheating.
But when he thought about the chance to stand with Rin and Kakashi again, he found he could not bring himself to reject it.
He did not want anything grand.
He just wanted to stand next to the girl he liked.
"Grandpa," Obito said quietly, still watching the two in front of him, "you said I had to pay a price.
"What do I have to pay to stand beside these two?
"I do not want to destroy the village. I do not want to hurt anyone. But I want to be by their side. What do I have to give up?"
"What do you have to give up?"
The old man chuckled softly.
"What could I possibly want from you? All I need is your trust, boy."
"Trust?"
"Yes. Trust. You only need to trust me, and I will take you all the way to the top.
"In a sense, you are me."
He looked down at Obito, who was still sitting on the ground, eyes wide with disbelief. His smile was difficult to read, somewhere between nostalgia and mockery.
"I can give you everything you desire. Dignity. Companions. The love of your family. The respect of your village. All you owe me in return is simple trust.
"In this crucial moment, I need your unconditional trust once, that is all.
"Remember this. I will never harm you."
"Why…?"
"Why would I do this?"
The old man raised his head slightly, as if searching for the right words.
"Boy, have you never heard of the power of first impressions?"
He lowered his gaze again, eyes meeting Obito's incredulous stare, and spoke with a faint, bitter smile.
"Because when I look at you, I see my past self. I once believed in all of this too, you know.
"I believed, just like you, that my friends and I would always remain friends, that we would never part ways.
"But in the end, I was wrong."
He turned back to the frozen Kakashi and Rin.
"So now, when I see you children, I do not want the tragedy that once swallowed me to repeat itself.
"Can you understand that, Uchiha child?"
"You are…"
Obito's thoughts surged, pieces snapping together one by one.
The control over the Moon Dream framework, the overwhelming presence, the words he chose, the way he spoke about the past, about friends, about betrayal and the world itself.
The identity of the old man standing in front of him became painfully obvious.
Maybe this was how an old man showed mercy.
If he was going to trust someone, then he would trust him at this turning point.
No matter what came later, Obito knew one thing with absolute clarity.
He wanted to stand in this world alongside Kakashi and Rin.
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