The collars of several young Uchiha, including Inabi, were practically slipping off their shoulders.
"I think… I might've bullied Obito Uchiha when I was little…"
"Me too! He was the odd one out in our clan!"
"And he was a dead last, too…"
"Damn it! After the battle at Kannabi Bridge, I even started to respect him! Even though he went and gave his precious Sharingan to Kakashi from another clan."
The Konoha ninja nearby turned pale.
"I… I think I laughed at him back when we were at the Ninja Academy too."
At that moment, young Obito Uchiha's expression looked like this: (?_?).
He could see those people regretting how they had once looked down on him, but somehow… this wasn't how he'd imagined it.
What he'd hoped for was to become Hokage one day and make everyone look at him with new respect.
Instead, he never became Hokage. He became the final villain of the entire ninja world, achieving that "look again" in the worst possible way.
His feelings were… complicated.
Rin and Kakashi, who had also come from Kannabi Bridge like him, recalled the memories shown by Fourth Shinobi War Sasuke. There was no laughter in their hearts at all, only sorrow for the Obito of that world.
ANBU Kakashi, who felt like his mind had already been hacked to pieces, rushed up to Fourth Shinobi War Sasuke.
"You're saying Obito is still alive, right?! Where is he now?! Why hasn't he come back to Konoha?!"
Fourth Shinobi War Sasuke glanced at the ANBU Kakashi who was about the same age as him and clearly had no intention of answering.
First, the situation was complicated. Second, he genuinely didn't know where Obito Uchiha was at this point in time.
ANBU Kakashi was so anxious he could barely stand still. Since he wasn't close to Sasuke, he could only dash over to the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, for help.
His pitiful expression made young Kakashi unable to bear watching, while Rin and Obito both felt a tiny pang of sympathy.
Just then, an outrageously goofy voice suddenly echoed from the void.
"Yare yare Did someone mention us just now?~"
"!!!!"
That voice was…!!
Members of both Minato's team and Kakashi's team snapped their heads toward the swirling vortex that had appeared in midair.
A tall adult man wearing a white mask with a crying-smiling expression leapt out of the void, casually carrying a young man in an orange, tiger-striped mask like he was holding a chicken by the scruff of its neck.
The adult man with the bizarrely playful voice was tall, well over six feet. Compared to him, the tiger-masked youth in his hand—who was about the same height as ANBU Kakashi—looked like he was a whole generation younger.
More importantly, both of them wore masks and were dressed head to toe in black…
If their identities hadn't already been guessed, young Obito and Naruto Uzumaki might have pointed at them and shouted something like, "Hey, it's the circus acrobat father-and-son duo!"
"It's you—!!"
When young Obito saw the scar over the left eye of the white mask, carved there by his and Kakashi's attacks, he immediately confirmed it.
This was the Obito from Naruto's world. The adult Obito.
As for the man in the tiger-striped mask, no one who had been to the parallel world of the Nine-Tails incident in Konoha failed to recognize him. That was the Obito who had controlled the Nine-Tails to attack Konoha during that period.
"Wow~~ Shisui-senpai's Sharingan is really amazing! I honestly didn't expect it to have any effect on Nagato's Rinnegan too! Is it because that Rinnegan wasn't originally his? Ahahaha, this is way too lucky!"
The cheerfully unhinged tone made everyone speechless. But the fact that he had ignored Konoha's barrier and appeared here without warning was more than enough reason for the Konoha ninja to immediately move to surround him.
The Shisui Uchiha he mentioned was completely baffled as well. He turned to the young ANBU Itachi beside him and asked,
"Do I look older than him? Why is he calling me senpai?"
The young ANBU Itachi didn't know how to answer and simply stayed silent. What troubled him even more was the person being held in someone's grasp. That man was the very one who had killed his comrades back then and, as a result, led to him awakening the Sharingan.
Akatsuki Itachi from the mission scroll world spoke up.
"That's Obito Uchiha from our era, and Obito Uchiha from your era," he said, then added casually, "He's older than you."
Because Shisui had already died in their world, Akatsuki Itachi, who otherwise had little presence here, unconsciously let his gaze linger on Shisui and this world's parents.
Shisui didn't know how to deal with this Itachi, who might actually be a year or two older than him. More than anything, there was a constant sense of sorrow clinging to him, and when he occasionally looked at Shisui, it felt more like mourning than anything else.
The tiger-masked Obito finally found an opening and used his intangibility to slip free.
"Who are you?! How do you have that kind of ability?!!"
His mind was filled with questions that left him completely stunned. How could this person counter his intangibility? What kind of understanding had he reached with Nagato, to the point where Black Zetsu was sealed with Chibaku Tensei, and then, the moment they met, he stabbed straight through his heart and killed him outright?!
And after that, it felt like he'd ended up in the Pure Land and even saw Rin. Before he could say more than a couple of words to her, Nagato went and revived him with the Gedo Art of Rinne Rebirth?!
To explain briefly, when Fourth Shinobi War Sasuke, along with Minato's team and Kakashi's team, crossed over to this world, the adult Obito was pulled along as well.
The difference was that he arrived inside the Akatsuki instead.
Because his body contained Hashirama's cells and White Zetsu components, the cooldown time for Kotoamatsukami was drastically reduced. After benefiting from it once before, he wasted no time this time around. As soon as he arrived, he placed a subtle suggestion on Nagato, who possessed the Rinnegan.
He then dragged Nagato into his Kamui space, explained the method to revive Yahiko, had him seal Black Zetsu, and after stabbing the masked Obito of this era, instructed Nagato to revive him as well.
All of it happened in one smooth sequence. Without stopping, he rushed straight to Konoha, only to find that things here were on the verge of completely blowing up.
Ever since learning that he had been deceived, the adult Obito had been crushed by guilt over the chain of changes triggered by the Nine-Tails incident. The destruction of the Uchiha clan, and Itachi being forced by Danzo Shimura to murder his own parents, weighed heavily on him. That Itachi now only wanted to pave the way for Sasuke before immediately going to his death, and no amount of persuasion could stop him.
"Who I am doesn't matter, and why I have this ability doesn't matter either. What matters is that the cursed seal on your heart has already been removed, and Black Zetsu has been sealed by Nagato. There's no need for you to carry out the Eye of the Moon Plan anymore. Think carefully about how you're going to atone."
When the members of Minato's team heard that the cursed seal on this era's Obito Uchiha had been removed, they immediately bombarded him with questions.
"How was it removed?! Surgery?! That fast?!"
The tiger-masked Obito stared at the living Rin Nohara and at Kakashi, whose eye was still unharmed, and suddenly felt like everything in front of him had to be a dream he was having while asleep.
"Rin, Kakashi, stand behind me!"
Young Obito stepped forward and directly blocked the tiger-masked man's fixed stare.
It was only then that this world's Obito noticed that beside Rin and Kakashi stood yet another "Obito Uchiha."
"Since you've become Madara Uchiha, you don't deserve Rin and Kakashi's attention anymore! The person Rin wants to look at… isn't you!"
The Konoha ninja instantly fell into chaos.
The Uchiha clan was in even worse disarray.
What was going on?!
The only one still fully clear-headed, ANBU Kakashi, finally understood. The person who had been brought here really was Obito Uchiha.
"Obito… is that you?!"
He leapt forward to ask, but the tiger-masked man slipped away using intangibility.
"Don't touch me! You hypocritical piece of trash!!"
That single line caused the Obito and Kakashi from the other timelines to suffer yet another brutal bout of secondhand embarrassment. The awkwardness was unbearable.
Young Obito muttered, "Kakashi… maybe you should just use Earth Release and bury me."
The silver-haired boy beside him shot him a glance. He didn't say a word, but it still made young Obito shiver all over.
Adult Obito adopted a clear "who's that tiger-striped clown, I don't know him" attitude as he walked up to adult Kakashi.
"You must've gone deaf just now. You didn't hear anything."
Adult Kakashi: "..."
This was way too obvious, wasn't it?
Even covering your ears to steal a bell isn't this blatant, okay?!
What should have been a tragic story ending with Shisui Uchiha jumping to his death had, by this point, completely turned into a farce.
Fugaku Uchiha felt like he had aged twenty years in an instant. This was no longer just an internal problem within Konoha. This had turned into the Uchiha versus the entire world.
So what now?
Future Sasuke had exposed the Fourth Shinobi World War to the entire world using the moon. If the Uchiha were to seize control of Konoha's leadership, then the Uchiha would represent Konoha itself. Any coup would give others something to criticize, becoming a ready excuse for the other villages to turn against both Konoha and the Uchiha.
On the other hand, if the Uchiha remained within Konoha, the village would still have some room to maneuver, but the hope of resolving things was painfully slim.
Kannabi Bridge Minato exchanged a look with the Fourth Hokage before addressing the Third Hokage.
"The Uchiha are an inseparable part of Konoha. I think it would be fairer to clarify what happened back then to the entire village."
"Also, Obito was my student."
He glanced at the tiger-masked Obito, who was still stuck in a dazed state of "Who am I? Where am I? What am I doing?"
"There were many factors that led to him becoming like this. It would be best for everyone to calm down and for us to share all the information we have."
The Third Hokage silently cursed himself for having come in combat gear. Otherwise, he would have taken out his pipe and taken a few hard puffs by now.
What a mess.
He could already foresee that by tomorrow, at least four ninja hawks would arrive in Konoha demanding an explanation.
Naruto poked Sasuke beside him.
"If we want to erase this world's regrets, shouldn't we be helping your family integrate into Konoha? Why does it feel like the situation's just getting harder and harder, dattebayo?"
The biggest reason for that… seemed to be Sasuke himself from the other world, from the Fourth Shinobi World War.