Chapter 317: Rin Nohara: Answer Me, Obito!
Blood stained the ocean's surface red. Killer Bee floated on the water, staring blankly up at the sky.
His chest crushed by a single punch from the Fifth Hokage, the Eight-Tails forcibly torn from him — his life was draining away at a visibly alarming rate.
Or rather, that he hadn't died already was something close to a miracle.
Even so, in his current state, death wasn't far off, whether he'd taken that final blow yet or not.
Wave after wave carried Killer Bee steadily toward the shore, until, without his noticing, he'd washed up along the coastline.
"How pathetic, really..."
A familiar voice made Killer Bee force his eyes open. He knew that voice well — the man was both his subordinate and his teacher.
"Tsu... Tsuchidai..."
"Get... out of here. We've lost."
"Tell... tell Darui he's the Sixth Ra... Raikage now..."
Killer Bee forced out the last of his strength to call out to the man before him.
Following Madara's revival, Hashirama had joined the stage as well — the two sides seemingly trading turns, one act after another. But whatever happened next, one thing was already beyond doubt: the coalition had no realistic hope of victory left.
Neither Madara nor Hashirama stood on the coalition's side at all.
Whichever of them ultimately won — the Witch, the Asura, or the God of Shinobi — the coalition would end up on the losing side regardless.
Even if Hashirama somehow came out on top, what difference would that make? Nearly every top-tier fighter on the Land of Rain front was already dead. And on the Land of Frost front, Killer Bee himself, the Raikage, wasn't long for this world.
Even a Hashirama victory over Sakura and Madara alike would still leave Konoha holding uncontested dominance over the shinobi world for decades, maybe a century, to come.
Right now, all Killer Bee wanted was for the teacher he'd trust with everything to lead Kumo forward, one step at a time, in his place.
Black Zetsu regarded the man before him, calm, a mocking smile curling at the corner of his mouth — and before Killer Bee's disbelieving eyes, his face began to shift, slowly, until it settled into a figure half black, half white.
Killer Bee's eyes narrowed slightly at the sight.
"Unfortunately, the Tsuchidai you remember never actually existed."
"You should feel honored — being given the chance to contribute your share of strength to my cause."
"Bee."
Killer Bee stared at Black Zetsu, his mind reeling with shock, and coughed up a mouthful of blood.
"Ze... Zetsu... Tsu... Tsuchidai..."
Killer Bee tried to pull himself up, but his injuries were too severe — he could only thrash weakly against the sand, like a dying fish.
He knew about Zetsu. Three years ago, during the Fourth Great Ninja War, Tsuchidai had specifically warned him: if the opportunity ever arose, kill this creature.
"Tsuchidai, huh... Probably just a handful of dirt by now."
Black Zetsu regarded the man before him, eyes full of mockery.
"I'll... I'll kill you..."
Killer Bee's blood soaked into the sand beneath him. He tried to rise, but no matter how hard he strained, he couldn't manage it.
"You want to kill me? Your own teacher?"
"Bee."
Over these three years, whatever they'd lacked in formal titles, the two of them had genuinely built something like a real teacher-student bond. Black Zetsu, in his effort to use Kumo against Konoha, had genuinely, tirelessly guided Killer Bee in becoming a proper leader.
"You..."
Killer Bee struggled, but somehow, unnoticed, a wooden spike had already appeared in Black Zetsu's hand, and he approached, step by step.
"Goodbye, Bee."
"Dying at the hands of your own 'teacher' — you should consider that something of a mercy."
Watching Black Zetsu draw closer, Killer Bee felt nothing but a bitter absurdity settle over him — the absurdity of this entire shinobi world.
What a laughable world this was — you kill me, I kill you, then my successor kills your successor, and your successor kills mine in turn.
And in the end, all of it fell straight into someone else's trap...
This world—
He'd never see it again...
—
"Naruto. Can you actually do this?"
Standing shoulder to shoulder, Sasuke and Naruto watched the man before them warily, and Sasuke couldn't help but swallow hard.
Even with the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan now his, Sasuke had no real confidence he could beat the man standing across from them.
Not even with Naruto's help.
Naruto pressed a hand lightly to his own stomach and nodded firmly.
"No problem!"
The instant Sakura had been forced out of the fight and Matatabi's chakra had vanished, Kurama had reached out to him on his own.
Compared to Madara, who'd once forcibly controlled him, or Hashirama, who'd sealed him inside a jinchūriki's body, Kurama's own preference on who to help was already obvious — even setting aside Sakura's own, rather indifferent, relationship with him.
With Sakura, their strongest fighter, out of the fight now, if Kurama didn't step up and act, his fate would end up no different from what had already happened to Shukaku and Isobu.
Obito was still actively hunting tailed beasts, and with his Rinnegan now in play, his intentions toward Kurama were already unmistakable.
Worse still — Madara now had a Rinnegan of his own embedded in his eye socket.
Even in an Edo Tensei body, that changed nothing about whose eye it had originally belonged to, as far as Kurama was concerned.
Madara Uchiha.
All of this was his scheme.
Gathering the tailed beasts. Reviving the Ten-Tails. Becoming its jinchūriki.
There was no version of events where Kurama could accept that.
"First Hokage. I think there's been some kind of misunderstanding between us."
Naruto spoke, echoing the words Kurama fed him.
Clearly, Kurama wasn't just trying to step away from his old conflict with Hashirama — he was actively trying to pull him over to their side, and disrupt Madara's plan entirely.
Right now, with Hashirama on the field, Madara had ignored Naruto — bearer of Kurama's yang half — and instead set his sights on Minato, who carried the yin half sealed within him.
"A misunderstanding?"
"Before we get into that — could you tell me what positions you two hold within Konoha?"
Rather than engaging with the offer, Hashirama asked about Naruto and Sasuke's standing instead.
"Positions?"
"I'm the Fourth Hokage's son. He's from the Uchiha clan."
Naruto scratched his head, confused about the question.
"No, I mean — what role do you two hold within Konoha itself?"
Hashirama shook his head.
"Role?"
"Sakura's shadow guard — does that count for me and Sasuke?"
The moment the words left Naruto's mouth, Kurama, inside him, silently cursed his idiocy.
"Her shadow guard?"
"Of course it counts."
Hashirama nodded, a look of genuine regret crossing his face as he studied the two young men before him.
"What are you trying to say?"
Hashirama asked.
"This whole thing is Madara's scheme!"
"He wants to gather the tailed beasts and become the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki!"
Naruto said it without hesitation.
"And then?"
Hashirama asked.
"Um, then..."
Naruto opened his mouth, momentarily stumped, then quickly continued:
"Someone like Madara's definitely got some kind of secret evil plan! Maybe even destroying the world!"
Hashirama looked at Naruto like he was watching a fool.
Anyone in the world might reasonably be suspected of wanting to destroy it. Madara alone was the one person who'd never fit that description.
As Madara's lifelong rival — and lifelong friend — Hashirama understood better than anyone alive that Madara loved this world more deeply than perhaps anyone else ever had.
"Never mind. I need to go find the Fifth."
"Please don't try to stop me, you two."
Hashirama had already lost patience for Naruto's rambling.
Right now, all he wanted was to find Sakura, badly wounded as she was, and seal her away while she was still weak enough to manage it, then have a proper talk with her, guide her back onto the right path.
And if she truly proved impossible to bring back—
Naruto stared at Hashirama for a beat, and with Kurama's own ability to sense good and evil, felt it clearly — a genuine wave of killing intent radiating off the man.
That killing intent wasn't aimed at him and Sasuke.
It was aimed at Sakura.
"Kurama. Get ready."
Naruto's expression suddenly turned calm and focused.
"Tch. Can't believe a mouthy kid like you actually chokes when it matters."
"Well, doesn't matter now."
"Since this is our first time doing this, it won't last long."
"Call it five minutes."
"But against a man they call the God of Shinobi, even fifty minutes wouldn't be enough for us to actually beat him."
"Which is why we need that Uchiha kid's help."
"Get his Susanoo wrapped around us."
"And the most important thing to understand—"
"Even with all that, all we'll have earned is the right to actually fight him."
Through Naruto's eyes, Kurama fixed his glare on the resolute-looking man ahead of them.
"That so?"
"Sakura really is something else, isn't she."
Naruto seemed entirely unbothered by Kurama's warning about the man before them, and instead found himself, unbidden, praising the girl who'd single-handedly overwhelmed both Hashirama and Madara together.
"Tch..."
"Get ready!"
Kurama snorted.
At that moment, with Naruto and Kurama's minds finally, fully aligned, the last barrier standing between them dissolved completely.
A true meeting of hearts!
"Kurama! Ichiban!"
"Right!"
Vast, overwhelming chakra erupted from Naruto's body!
Gold chakra blazed across him like a massive bonfire!
That unparalleled chakra took on physical, near-tangible form, transforming his mustard-yellow tracksuit into a coat woven entirely from pure chakra, mysterious black markings spreading across his skin!
His blue eyes shifted, in that same instant, into a pair of vertical, crimson slits!
Kurama Link Mode!
"He's actually managed a true meeting of hearts with the Nine-Tails?"
"This kid..."
Watching Naruto ahead of him, Hashirama felt something close to admiration.
This boy surpassed even his own wife.
Mito Uzumaki, at best, had only ever achieved Nine-Tails Chakra Mode — never anything approaching this level of true union with the beast.
"Sasuke!"
Naruto extended a fist.
"Naruto."
The black-haired young man met him without a moment's hesitation, bumping fists.
Their combined chakra underwent an incomprehensible transformation in that instant!
Sasuke, through Naruto's own chakra, immediately understood Kurama's plan, and a smile crossed his face.
A blazing white Susanoo tore itself free of the earth, the strongest of the tailed beasts finally revealing power of his own to match it!
Two colossal figures, each hundreds of meters tall, materialized in the same instant, side by side!
Gold and white chakra converged and fused in front of Hashirama, finally taking shape as a towering, armored knight, clad head to toe in white plate, a massive spear gripped in hand!
Kurama Susanoo — Beast Tribulation!
Its terrifying chakra ran rampant across heaven and earth, as though a god had descended among mortals!
The Nine-Tails, clad in Susanoo, barely swung its massive spear — and the motion alone kicked up a hundred-meter wave.
"The exact same technique Madara used once, hm."
"This generation really has produced something remarkable."
Hashirama watched the colossal figure before him, offering genuine praise even as an internal sigh escaped him.
If he wanted to reach the Fifth Hokage, he'd first have to defeat this junior standing in his way.
As Konoha's own First Hokage, that thought weighed on him with real sorrow.
Differences in ideology had forced him into direct opposition against these very children he'd once hoped to protect.
But if that alone was enough to make Hashirama Senju retreat, the world would never have come to call him the God of Shinobi in the first place.
He pressed both palms together, sage markings surfacing once more across his face, and roared:
"Sage Technique — Wood Release — True Thousand Hands!"
Because Hashirama's Edo Tensei sacrifice had been Orochi Yaga of Ryūchi Cave — injected with a substantial quantity of Hashirama's own cells beforehand — his current strength sat considerably closer to his living peak, allowing him, barely, to unleash this technique, one he'd only ever managed at the absolute height of his living power.
In that instant, a colossal figure, almost beyond comprehension, tore itself up from the earth.
A Buddha. A Bodhisattva.
A figure with a face of boundless compassion rose over the ocean, and against it, Naruto and Sasuke's Beast Tribulation looked, suddenly, like nothing more than a child's toy.
Thousands of arms extended from behind that towering Bodhisattva, proof, unmistakable, that this was no simple wooden statue.
Divine might, unbreakable as a fortress.
The Buddha ferrying souls across the sea of suffering.
And yet, even this wasn't the end of it.
"Divine Manifestation!"
Hashirama roared once more, and every one of those countless hands, in that same instant, formed the same mudra, transforming into countless fists.
Naruto and Sasuke stared, disbelieving, at what unfolded before them.
What... is that?!
Had Hashirama not even gone all-out against Sakura earlier?
...
"Looks like Hashirama's finally getting serious."
Madara let out a cold laugh, glancing at the towering True Thousand Hands technique rising far in the distance.
"What are you planning?"
Minato, Hiruzen, and Itachi stood, badly battered, before Madara now.
All three had been pinned to the ground by his black Yin-Yang Release rod — Minato worst of all, with two of them driven straight through his skull.
"Ending this war."
Madara regarded the pinned Minato, calm.
With Hashirama on the field, and Sakura's condition unknown, Madara had no intention of dragging this out. Without a moment's hesitation for theatrics, he'd split off twenty-five Wood Clones and thrown everything he had at these three top-tier fighters.
Even at their best, Hiruzen and Itachi together couldn't hope to defeat twenty-five Susanoo — even Hiruzen's Five Elements Unseal, powerful as it was, had only managed to scatter ten of them.
Madara's own true body had gone after Minato directly.
Minato's Flying Thunder God Technique had already been thoroughly studied by Madara — during his decades fused with Hashirama's cells, he'd spent countless hours working out exactly how to counter Tobirama's own version of the same technique.
He simply hadn't expected that the next time he faced it, his opponent would be Minato instead of Tobirama.
At that moment, a vortex opened beside Madara, and Obito's form emerged from within it.
"How'd it go?"
Madara glanced at Obito beside him.
"Success."
Obito glanced down at Minato pinned to the ground, and with a twist of his swirling Sharingan, tossed an unconscious figure out from within it.
That was — Yuki, previously missing.
Even before Naruto and Sasuke stepped in to block Hashirama, Madara and Obito had already exchanged a single, silent glance, and using genjutsu, coordinated their next moves — quietly slipping away from the battlefield without anyone noticing.
Obito went to capture the Two-Tails jinchūriki. Madara went after the Nine-Tails.
With Naruto — one of the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki — directly under Hashirama's watchful eye, Madara couldn't touch him. So he'd set his sights on Minato instead.
Now, with all nine tailed beasts finally gathered together, the Ten-Tails' revival stood within reach.
"Begin it."
Madara said, calm.
"Right."
Obito acknowledged and began forming seals.
"Summoning Jutsu — Gedō Mazō!"
At that same instant, the seven-eyed statue materialized, and Madara and Obito both turned their heads toward the distance simultaneously!
A pillar of pink chakra tore through heaven and earth!
Light formed entirely of chakra connected sky and sea like a column supporting the heavens itself!
Even at this distance, the terrifying chakra within it was unmistakable, impossible to miss.
That was—
The Fifth Hokage!
That singular, unmistakable pink chakra — even with zero sensory ability, anyone could guess whose it was.
"It's the Hokage!"
Obito's expression stayed calm, but the flicker in his eyes betrayed something entirely different underneath.
"Didn't expect she'd reach this level."
"No time left. We move now."
Madara's expression turned grave, his words coming quick.
"Right."
Obito, without hesitation, directed the Gedō Mazō to begin extracting the tailed beasts sealed inside Yuki and Minato.
With seven tailed beasts already contained within the statue — and every tailed beast being, fundamentally, a fragment of the Ten-Tails' own chakra — with Madara assisting, it took barely an instant to extract Matatabi from Yuki and Kurama's other half from Minato.
"Obito!"
"Why have you become like this?!"
Minato struggled desperately, but it was useless — all he could do was watch, helpless, as the Nine-Tails was torn from within him.
"Sensei, this outcome — you played a part in it too, in a way."
Obito controlled the Gedō Mazō with one hand, his gaze fixed on the battered Minato.
"Weren't you supposed to be the fastest shinobi alive?"
"Why didn't you save Rin, back then?"
Obito's words left Minato silent.
Back then, in the middle of the Third Great Ninja War, Minato — wielder of the Flying Thunder God Technique — had been the one racing across every front of the war, putting out fires wherever they broke out.
On one side, a desperate, evenly matched front line. On the other, his own student.
How was Minato supposed to choose between them?
Madara glanced sideways at this, listening.
It had been Madara himself, after all, who'd orchestrated the whole thing — deliberately choosing a moment when Minato was tied up elsewhere, sending Kirigakure forces to attack Rin.
Madara had no intention of explaining any of that now. He simply said:
"Become the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki, cast Infinite Tsukuyomi, and your Rin will belong to you too."
Something about Madara's words carried a note of quiet mockery.
"That's right. I'll build a world with Rin in it."
At that, a faint smile touched the corner of Madara's mouth.
He understood exactly what Obito meant by that.
If Obito wanted a world with Rin in it, Orochimaru wasn't far off — reviving Rin through Edo Tensei, then, with the Rinnegan in Obito's eye, using the Outer Path: Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique to bring her fully back to life, would be trivially easy.
But Obito had never chosen that path.
He knew, with absolute certainty, that Rin had never loved him.
So instead, what he wanted was a world in which Rin loved him.
At that moment, the Gedō Mazō — now bearing all nine tailed beasts — let out a roar unlike anything the world had ever heard.
"The Ten-Tails... revived."
Watching this, Obito felt something in his chest finally settle, light.
Once the Ten-Tails was revived, and he became its jinchūriki, he could meet that pure, gentle girl once again.
"Obito..."
At that moment, amid the Ten-Tails' earth-shaking roar, a voice rang out.
Obito froze completely where he stood.
The voice was faint, nearly lost entirely beneath the Ten-Tails' own thunderous roar.
But to Obito, it landed like a hammer, driven straight into his chest.
He knew that voice. He knew it so well he dreamed of its owner every single night.
"Is that... Obito?"
The voice came again.
He turned, rigid, and found the figure he'd longed for, achingly, for years.
A whirlwind of emotion crashed through him all at once.
Joy. Dread. Fear. Fury. A desperate urge to flee.
A small, slight figure — a short-haired girl, no older than twelve or thirteen — stood on the distant shore.
"Phew. Didn't make it in time, huh..."
Behind the girl stood another figure, his expression grim, watching the Gedō Mazō already beginning to transform.
Before departing for the Land of Rain front, Sakura had instructed Tobirama to dig up Rin Nohara's grave and retrieve a bone fragment from her remains.
For no other reason than to have insurance ready — in case Obito ever came close to becoming the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki, this would be her way to strike him where it hurt most.
And, admittedly, there was a streak of pure cruelty in it too. She genuinely wanted to see, with her own eyes, exactly how this Uchiha's white-eyed wolf would crumble in front of his own goddess — whether he'd actually dare say, to Rin's face, that he wanted to build a world with her in it.
Except, given how things had unfolded, Sakura likely wasn't going to get to witness it after all.
"Rin..."
Obito instinctively took a step backward at the sight of the figure before him.
"Rin?"
Minato, still trapped in his Edo Tensei body, unable to die even with the tailed beast torn from him, could only turn, stunned, to look at the girl standing behind him.
"Sensei..."
A flash of unspeakable pain crossed Rin Nohara's eyes.
"Obito... the Second Hokage told me everything..."
"So — killing sensei. Killing Sister Kushina. Killing the members of the Uchiha clan who raised you..."
"Was all of that... you, Obito?"
Rin's eyes brimmed with grief, and Obito couldn't bring himself to meet her gaze at all.
"Answer me!"
"Obito!"
"Tell me it wasn't you!"
(End of chapter.)
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