Obito froze completely.
Still sprawled over the desk, his growing adolescent frame looked thin and fragile. The sudden stiffness in his back clearly came from hearing Rin Nohara's words.
If those words had come from anyone else, he might have reacted differently. He might have thought it was a joke and snapped back that such things weren't funny and shouldn't be said lightly.
But they came from Rin.
Obito knew how gentle she was. She would never deceive him with something like this as a joke. She would never bully him with pranks the way others did.
So…
"What are you talking about?! Rin!" Young Kakashi snapped, rare anger flashing in his voice.
He was the complete opposite of Obito, who remained frozen at the table, utterly silent.
"Obito's mission scroll still has a task to kill the masked man! How could he possibly be the masked man?!"
Rin Nohara didn't answer.
Kakashi continued, his voice tight. "Even if Obito is an idiot, you of all people should know what kind of person he is."
Rin stared at the tabletop. If there were any other explanation, she wanted to believe it more than anyone.
"Naruto from the future…"
She didn't want Obito to learn the truth from Minato-sensei without any mental preparation.
"The Naruto from the future told Minato-sensei that they must shatter Obito's mask and help Obito reclaim his dreams."
The back clad in the dark blue tracksuit visibly trembled.
Shatter… Obito Uchiha's mask…
Obito pressed his dark eyes against the tabletop, his thoughts spiraling into chaos. For a moment, he no longer knew who he was.
If the masked man was Obito Uchiha, then who was he?
Who else could he be?
This was likely the most despairing moment the three members of Team Minato had ever faced.
It was even worse than the last time they learned from the older Kakashi that, in the future, Rin and Obito had both died.
Obito hadn't died. Instead, he had manipulated the Nine-Tails into attacking Konoha, killing Minato-sensei and Kushina.
Konoha was the place Obito loved most. Minato-sensei and Kushina were his family.
"Maybe…" Young Kakashi said suddenly, his voice sounding out of place in the heavy atmosphere. "Maybe it's just a coincidence?"
Obito survived, put on a mask, and walked a path completely opposed to his former dreams, all the way to the Fourth Shinobi World War, where future Naruto…
Such a coincidence.
What were the odds that Obito wasn't the masked man?
Almost…
Zero.
Brown hair fell forward, hiding the bitterness on the girl's lowered face.
"Actually…" Rin paused. "I think Minato-sensei may have suspected this for a long time."
Her voice carried a faint hoarseness, like tears held back by force.
Under normal circumstances, Obito would have been aching for her already, swearing that whoever made Rin cry would pay twice over.
But this time, he didn't move at all.
The reality was too overwhelming. He pulled his mission scroll from his bag and clenched it tightly in his hand.
Rin kept her head lowered. "Maybe the mission scrolls were hinting at it all along. They had Obito impersonate the Fourth Mizukage to give us information that the Fourth Mizukage was being manipulated by the masked man."
Obito remembered the two times he had impersonated Yagura Karatachi, fooling not only Zabuza but even Kisame.
Young Kakashi was just as shaken.
"Then when 'it' took us to another world… and when we saw the masked man throw away the flowers in front of Rin's grave…"
Rin's voice dropped even lower. "That was probably to tell us that, in that world, Obito is the masked man."
"If we had realized it sooner, we could have warned that world's Minato-sensei. We could have told him, and that world's Kakashi, that Obito was still alive."
The room fell back into a suffocating silence.
After a moment, Obito pushed his chair back and stood up, preparing to leave.
"Obito!" Young Kakashi reached out to stop him.
But—
When he grabbed Obito's wrist—
His hand passed straight through it?!
His fingers slipped through empty air.
After witnessing the masked man kill Minato-sensei and his family, after seeing the masked man throw away the flowers at Rin's grave, after watching the masked man summon the Nine-Tails and slaughter countless ninja and civilians of Konoha…
Obito Uchiha, who had harbored such deep hatred for the masked man, finally opened his eyes.
He hated that masked man more than anything.
Yet in the end, every single clue pointed to one person.
Himself.
Obito Uchiha was the masked man.
...
Not long ago, he had only just awakened the two-tomoe Sharingan. Even though his body should never have been able to endure it, the moment he learned the truth, the brutal clash between love and despair forced the Mangekyō Sharingan to bloom within him.
Obito turned back and saw Kakashi's hand pass straight through his body.
The exact same ability as the masked man.
There was already… no hope left.
Obito Uchiha was the masked man.
Blood streamed from his eyes as he stared at his own body in terror. The next instant, he spun around and ran.
When he reached the doorway, he didn't even open it.
His entire body passed straight through the wall like a ghost.
This time, neither Kakashi nor Rin spoke.
It wasn't that they weren't worried about Obito. He needed time to calm down, and so did they.
"Thankfully, Minato-sensei left Flying Thunder God coordinates on all three of us," Rin said, her heart feeling as if a massive stone were pressing down on it, her voice heavy. "Let's wait until Obito calms down before we go after him."
At the doorway, Itachi Uchiha stood silently.
Obito's sudden escape didn't surprise him. What occupied his thoughts was how to find a way to pass certain information to 'Tobi'.
The moment he heard the Sage of Six Paths speak, he had already begun to grasp the deeper purpose behind the Infinite Tsukuyomi and Black Zetsu. Though he still couldn't fully untangle the relationship between them, his real focus was how to temporarily pull 'Tobi' over to their side.
Even subtly turning the entire Akatsuki against Black Zetsu without his knowledge.
That was what he was truly thinking about.
...
In the end, plans made by people often fall short of the twists of fate.
The intelligence he wanted to pass to 'Tobi' had, through sheer coincidence, already been delivered straight into Akatsuki's hands.
"Danna?" Deidara noticed that Sasori of the Red Sand, who had been heading to the organization's meeting, suddenly stopped moving.
He cracked a casual joke. "Hey, hey, Danna, don't tell me you dropped dead on the road just now, hmm?"
[Memory-Concealing Manipulative Sand Technique!]
The spy he had planted in Sunagakure suddenly produced an enormous amount of memory data.
"Hey! Danna? Don't you hate being late? Hmm."
Deidara kept chattering. "You didn't really die, did you? Hmm."
While extracting his subordinate's memories, Sasori snapped, "Shut up. You're loud."
"Oh." Deidara snorted and finally fell silent.
Sasori sifted through the memories of the Suna ninja he was controlling. Information gathered from multiple instances of time-space travel flooded into his awareness.
'I once died after losing Shukaku, and Grandma Chiyo revived me using the forbidden technique, One's Own Life Reincarnation.'
'That technique was originally developed by Grandma Chiyo to revive her grandson, Sasori of the Red Sand, and his parents, wasn't it?'
'Sasori is currently a member of the Akatsuki.'
There was more than just information about himself. Other details caught Sasori's attention and made him pause.
'The young Hokage who offered his life to the Shinigami, and the jinchūriki who lost his tailed beast… you have an exceptional son. He led the Allied Shinobi Forces and the tailed beasts to defeat my mother, Kaguya Ōtsutsuki.'
'What kind of eyes are those?!'
'So this is the Sage of Six Paths.'
'That's right. Those are the Rinnegan, the same eyes as Pain's, or rather, Madara Uchiha's.'
'Obito Uchiha, beware of Black Zetsu. Beware of Madara Uchiha. Hold on to your dreams.'
'Dad, I've already beaten that Obito guy senseless!! As for this world's version of him, it's up to you to shatter his mask!!'
'Obito is still alive. Both he and Rin have cursed seals on their hearts.'
...
Carrying a jumble of chaotic yet extremely intriguing intelligence, Sasori of the Red Sand arrived at the Akatsuki meeting hall.
"Hey, hey, hey!!! You're late!"
Since Kakuzu had gone to the bounty exchange on the way and their routes overlapped, it was rare for Hidan to be the one waiting. He hefted his giant scythe and shouted at Deidara and Sasori the moment they stepped inside.
Deidara's forehead veins bulged.
"What did you say?! The guy who's late nine times out of ten has no right to lecture others, right?! Hmm. Besides, we got here ages ago. We just stopped at the entrance because Danna got tired and needed a break! What's wrong with showing a little respect to the elderly, hmm?"
Hidan shot back, "Hey, hey, hey! If we're talking about 'elderly,' then my little Kakuzu here is the real deal, isn't he?"
Kakuzu: ...
Standing to the side counting money, yet somehow still getting dragged into it.
"Enough. Stop arguing," Sasori said calmly. "We weren't late. You just arrived early."
Hidan checked the time.
He really had arrived early.
"Then where are Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki? What, did they run off together?"
Everyone in Akatsuki had long since grown sick of Hidan's mouth. This time, he nearly made them gag again.
"Close your mouth," Sasori said coldly, "or I'll chop you into pieces and scatter them across the world."
Hidan kept running his mouth anyway. "Big deal. I'll just have Kakuzu collect the pieces and stitch me back together."
"No," Kakuzu replied flatly. "Too much trouble. Making money is better."
He rejected the idea cleanly, which immediately made Hidan start yelling at him in dissatisfaction.
Pain spoke up, his voice steady.
"Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki have been assigned to other missions. They won't be able to return for now. This meeting permits their absence."
That was what he said, though as for what those two were actually doing, Tobi had only reported that they were heading to Konoha to capture tailed beasts.
Inside a secret chamber, Tobi idly played with dice while listening in on Akatsuki's meeting as the one pulling the strings from behind the scenes.
As for why Itachi Uchiha hadn't returned, or why there wasn't even a hint of news from Kisame Hoshigaki, he couldn't quite pinpoint where things had gone wrong. Broadly speaking, it had to do with the power that allowed Zabuza and Haku to hide themselves within Konoha.
Although it hadn't been confirmed yet, 'Tobi' had already concluded that Zabuza and Haku must be hiding inside Konohagakure.
What he absolutely never could have imagined was that the place where Zabuza and Haku were hiding was somewhere he had visited several times as a child with Rin. It was even the place where he had once been stunned by Kakashi's cooking when he made fish.
"...That's all for now. Does anyone else have additional intelligence to report?"
After a brief pause, Pain concluded the meeting by summarizing the gathered information.
Sasori spoke up. "I just obtained some interesting intelligence related to Konoha and Sunagakure."
At the mention of Konoha, Obito Uchiha subconsciously paid a bit more attention.
"What kind of intelligence?" Pain asked.
Sasori didn't bother hiding it. "Information about the Rinnegan."
Konan and Nagato's eyes widened instantly.
But what followed was even more shocking than they expected.
"Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki have both betrayed the organization. They are currently in Konohagakure."
"What?" Pain was clearly taken aback, though his expression remained unchanged. "Where did this information come from?"
"My informant stationed in Sunagakure," Sasori replied. "He saw it with his own eyes."
Hidan sneered. "A Sunagakure ninja seeing Itachi Uchiha in Konoha? Just thinking about it sounds impossible."
"Someone used a large-scale Space-Time Ninjutsu to send Konoha and Suna ninja back into the past," Sasori said.
"The past?" Pain echoed.
"The Fourth Hokage, who should have died sealing the Nine-Tails, was revived by an old man who possessed the Rinnegan."
"Rinnegan?!" Konan frowned. "You should know the Rinnegan belongs only to Pain." In her view, Sasori wasn't the type to spout nonsense, but the Rinnegan was a divine treasure bestowed upon Amegakure. In the entire world, only Nagato possessed it.
"There are two particularly interesting pieces of intelligence regarding the Rinnegan," Sasori said.
"What are they?" Pain's pale purple Rinnegan stared quietly at Sasori.
"First, the one who revived the Fourth Hokage is said to be the Sage of the Six Paths."
"The Sage of the Six Paths?!" Deidara blurted out. "That old guy from bedtime stories actually exists?!"
"And the second?" Pain asked.
It wasn't that he wasn't shocked. He simply intended to hear everything before drawing conclusions.
"Second…"
Sasori looked straight at Pain.
"Some people say your Rinnegan was transplanted into you by Madara Uchiha."
Pain: "!!!!"
Konan: "!!!"
Tobi: "...."