Chapter 318: Obito: Why Do I Feel Like Something Precious Was Taken from Me?
"A contract, huh? What a mysterious ability."
Rin Nohara's cheeks flushed slightly as she teased,
"Are you trying to make me your personal summoned beast, Kakashi-sensei?"
Normally, she would never say something even remotely flirtatious like that.
But after dying once,
she had come to see many things differently. Some words, if left unsaid, could be lost forever.
Rin, Kakashi, and Obito—
they were friends who would entrust each other with their lives, willing to die for one another.
But Rin had always known—
though all three were close friends, Kakashi was different.
Beyond deep friendship, there had always been a faint, unspoken feeling lingering between them.
From their academy days, she had admired him.
He was the genius she constantly tried to catch up to, pouring everything into her training.
But she buried that emotion deep in her heart, never revealing it.
"I… I just want to protect you, Rin."
Kakashi was clearly flustered.
As a kid, he hadn't noticed how Rin treated him differently from Obito.
But now that he was older,
those memories were crystal clear.
He glanced at the girl who had just been revived—
Her soft face, her pale and smooth skin…
She looked like a recent academy graduate—barely a teen.
Even if she was his dear friend…
Rin was now young enough to be his daughter. This kind of situation—
"You should get some rest. I need to keep hunting monsters. If there's anything you want to talk about, wait until I log out."
Kakashi practically fled the scene.
Rin narrowed her eyes and grinned mischievously, like a bunny that had just tricked someone.
Without hesitation, she ate the Thunder Seed, forming the Hunter Contract—
binding her life to Kakashi's.
Just then—
A black-glowing Game Invitation fluttered down, caught on a breeze, and landed on the table.
…
In the eastern region of the Land of Rain,
in a secret base of the Akatsuki, dimly lit with flickering candles.
"Leader, are you really giving up on the Tailed Beast plan?"
On the wall, a giant Venus flytrap opened its mouth—Black Zetsu's dual-colored face appeared.
Nagato, controlling one of his puppet corpses, turned to the wall and replied,
"The world is full of Reincarnation Game players now.
The four great villages all have shinobi strong enough to rival me. We have to put the plan on hold."
The figure speaking as the Deva Path no longer resembled Yahiko.
Yahiko had already been revived and was now the leader of the Dawn Organization, based elsewhere in the Land of Rain.
Nagato no longer needed a lifeless puppet to delude himself.
He could join Yahiko and Konan at any time, reform their original trio.
But he had firmly refused Yahiko's invitation—even Konan couldn't persuade him.
He was no longer the weakling who needed Yahiko to protect him.
Now,
he was the true wielder of the Rinnegan. A god of the ninja world.
A reformer determined to rebuild the world's order.
He no longer believed in Yahiko's naive ideas of peace.
Only through pain would people wake up.
Only through war could peace be born.
"The Tailed Beast plan must not stop!"
A masked figure suddenly appeared in the cave without a sound.
"Much as I hate to admit it,
some ninja gifted by the Reincarnation Game are so powerful that even I don't feel confident facing them."
Nagato turned his gaze toward the masked man.
"If we keep forcing the capture of Tailed Beasts, the Akatsuki will fall apart."
Aside from Hidan and Kakuzu, who died in the Land of Waves, the other members were still alive—
but their attitudes had shifted.
The Reincarnation Game had reshaped the ninja world.
The Akatsuki, once a haven for powerful rogue ninja,
was now just a second-rate group.
Its members had gone from ambitious mercenaries to lazy, indifferent players.
They had no choice.
Most were infamous and rejected by other factions.
The Akatsuki—because of its alliance with the Dawn Organization—was the only safe haven they had.
But if Nagato pushed them to gather Tailed Beasts and go up against the Five Great Nations,
they'd rebel in a heartbeat.
The masked man said calmly,
"No matter what happens, as long as Uchiha Madara lives, the ninja world cannot truly rebel."
"Unfortunately, you're not Uchiha Madara."
Though the Deva Path's face didn't move, Nagato behind it wore a mocking expression.
"And even if he were resurrected, given today's power scale, not even Madara could fight all four great nations."
Konan, now a player, sparred with Nagato regularly.
From being instantly defeated, she had grown strong enough to force Nagato to control three puppet bodies at once.
Now, he had to go all out to match her.
And that was still with the help of restoration items and overclocking his Tier-2 Rinnegan.
In a real fight—
if Konan targeted his real body, hidden and vulnerable, she could easily win.
And Konan was only ranked seventh on the battle leaderboard.
There were four even stronger players—and they led the Great Villages.
Capture Tailed Beasts?
What, to die for the cause?
"Hmph. You clearly don't understand Uchiha Madara's true strength!"
Obito, still pretending to be Madara, was clearly irritated.
After the Dawn Organization rose,
Yahiko had pieced together enough clues to realize he wasn't really Madara—and told Nagato.
Which was why Nagato had grown more brazen and dismissive.
Obito stopped pretending.
He simply called himself "the masked man."
Their goals still aligned.
His identity didn't matter to the Eye of the Moon Plan.
"I've watched Orochimaru fight. He couldn't defeat Madara at his peak."
Obito insisted.
Madara in his prime could reshape the very earth in his battles with Hashirama.
By game standards,
his stats were maxed: all four core attributes at 99, all skills at max level.
A complete monster.
By contrast, even the acknowledged strongest player Orochimaru only had maxed [Physique] and [Spirit],
and many of his skills weren't fully leveled.
Why?
The game simply hadn't been around long enough.
Even with the Fire Empire behind him, Orochimaru hadn't had decades like Madara and Hashirama did to build power.
But…
Obito's claims were exaggerated.
In a real fight, small differences didn't always determine the outcome.
With Orochimaru's undead army, who would win wasn't so easy to predict.
Besides—
"If Orochimaru were still a Tier-1 player, I might consider your words."
Nagato was sharp. He didn't buy into Obito's rhetoric.
"But now that Orochimaru is Tier-2,
killing Madara wouldn't be difficult."
Having lost to Konan repeatedly,
Nagato had let go of his arrogance. He was now a player himself.
He knew the gap between Tier-1 and Tier-2 was a chasm.
If it were any other Tier-2 player, Madara might win.
But against Orochimaru? No chance.
Obito, hidden behind his mask, tried to keep his voice calm.
"Then Madara should become a player too. Wouldn't that solve everything?"
But inside, he was deeply agitated.
He had a strange, uncomfortable feeling—
like something precious to him had just been stolen.
A premonition.
It made him rush here to find Nagato—
to push the Eye of the Moon Plan forward as fast as possible.
Could that useless Kakashi have ruined his Sharingan?
What was this sensation of loss?
No.
He had to go to the Land of Hot Springs himself—
and see what that useless Kakashi was up to.
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