The sensation of the White Zetsu matter molding to his damaged flesh was not merely pain; it was a profound, suffocating violation. It was cold, chalky, and invasive, bypassing nerves entirely to fuse his broken bones and ruptured muscles with an unnatural, sickly efficiency. Obito felt like a machine being repaired with organic sludge, and the smell of moist soil and decay was the scent of his own decomposition.
Obito was pinned, encapsulated, unable to move anything but the trembling muscles of his face and the terrified, overwhelmed core of his mind. The external threat, Madara Uchiha, stood over him—a monumental figure whose presence alone seemed to drain the oxygen from the air. But the true, immediate battle was internal, a desperate negotiation taking place within the ruins of Obito's psyche.
"I only care about Rin and Kakashi," Obito pleaded internally, the words amplified by the sheer volume of his despair. "I need to know they are safe. Tell me how to get out of here. He's the only one here, maybe he is helping me."
"HOST: Emotional response is irrational and self-destructive. Current data input suggests Madara Uchiha intends to manipulate you into becoming a high-level pawn to execute the Infinite Tsukuyomi. This is a life-critical situation. Status update: White Zetsu bio-matter integration 85% complete. This matter provides structural support but is designed to propagate an external, ancient will—Madara's ideology—directly into your neural pathways."
The System's voice was the only cold, hard reality left. It was a sterile, analytical thought stream that cut through the haze of shock. It was not gentle, but it was honest.
Madara's voice, deep and dry, was the counterpoint—seductive and philosophical. "Hatred is the necessary lubricant for change, Obito," Madara intoned, his voice seemingly resonating from the stone itself. "They will always choose the mission over the sacrifice. Your sacrifice was meaningless. The ultimate test of loyalty is abandonment. Konoha failed. Kakashi failed. They left you here to be consumed by the earth."
[SYSTEM ALERT: HIGH-LEVEL MENTAL MANIPULATION DETECTED. CHAKRA OVERWRITE ATTEMPT. MADARA IS TARGETING THE HOST'S CORE IDEALISM. DESTRUCTION IMMINENT. IF HOST ACCEPTS DESPAIR, FATE LOCK IS CEMENTED.]
"HOST: Madara is a liar by omission. He preys on the immediate trauma. We must introduce objective facts to neutralize the emotional poison. You must be chaotic, unpredictable, and analytically superior to his simple narrative. He needs you to become his puppet. A puppet is predictable."
Obito felt the rage surging again, fuelled by Madara's cruel, perfect timing. He's right, I am a failure. I failed to protect them, and I failed to survive.
"ANALYSIS: Failure is a subjective emotional state. Fact: You successfully shielded your partner. Fact: Your partner is now crippled by guilt, yes, but is alive and protecting Rin. Madara requires you to wallow in self-pity to accept his plan. We will supply data to combat the despair. Activate countermeasures."
[SYSTEM FUNCTION: MEMORY LOG ACCESS (CANON EVENTS) – LIMITED PULSE INITIATED. INJECTING COUNTER-NARRATIVE DATA.]
A searing, non-painful flash flooded Obito's mind. It wasn't his memory, but a rapid, detached sequence of future events, seen through the System's terrifyingly objective lens: Kakashi, guilt-ridden, visiting the memorial stone every single day for decades, whispering apologies; Rin, tearful but defiant, carrying on; Minato-sensei burdened. He saw fragments of future Konoha, where their memory was revered, not discarded.
"Observe. Your death propelled them to greater sacrifice, not abandonment. They mourned. Madara is manipulating the facts of grief. He wants the hatred. Give him cold logic instead. Your trauma is not his tool."
The flash ended abruptly. Obito's tears dried on his face. The rage Madara had been diligently stoking dropped. The raw, emotional devastation was replaced by a calculated, analytical resentment.
"He is showing you weakness," Madara noted, his ancient eye narrowing. "Sentimentality. It is why you were crushed in the first place. You delayed for the mission, and were discarded."
"I was crushed because I was weak," Obito whispered, surprising himself with the clarity. "But I don't need your revenge to become strong. If they are mourning me, then my promise wasn't broken."
Madara paused, a significant, chilling silence that stretched the air taut. He was testing the purity of the hatred. He detected only confusion. The expected surge of vengeance was replaced by an irritating, cold philosophical resistance.
"You believe you can achieve strength through these… sentimental promises?" Madara probed, his voice laced with the disappointment of a technician whose experiment has malfunctioned. "The world is a war of survival. Sentiment is a flaw that leads to annihilation."
"HOST: Excellent. You have established resistance based on logic. Now we must initiate the symbiotic phase. Survival requires massive, unsustainable power output to manage the Hashirama cells. I can provide the efficiency, but you must provide the core resource: a dedicated, unshakable will. This is the contract."
"What do you want?" Obito asked mentally, his attention now entirely focused on the System. He felt the cold, hard logic of the System pulling him out of the swamp of Madara's despair, offering structure in a world of chaos.
"I require total, irreversible integration with your ocular chakra network. This is the Sharingan Sync.Currently, I am a clumsy parasite, draining power and poorly imitating Uchiha potential. If you accept the Sync, I become an operating system, optimizing your chakra flow, preventing the Hashirama cells from overriding your mind, and providing real-time combat analysis."
The System projected vivid, detailed blueprints into Obito's mind—diagrams of his own chakra pathways, flow charts of the White Zetsu matter consuming his side, and a terrifyingly precise timeline of his remaining days if he did not accept the Sync. The data was overwhelming, yet perfectly comprehensible.
"Benefit: Immediate, exponential healing acceleration. Mental shielding against Madara's more advanced genjutsu. And, critically, the System can accelerate the painful, complex process required to activate the Mangekyou Sharingan earlier than fate intended. You will gain power on your own terms, not his. Cost: You surrender a portion of your emotional processing to me for stability. Your purpose becomes intertwined with mine: survival and rewriting this flawed timeline. You accept that you are an agent of change, not a subject of destiny."*
The thought of more power, of finally being strong enough not to be crushed again, was intoxicating. But the cost—surrendering part of his turbulent, emotional self to a cold entity—was the final hurdle.
"If I become strong through you, am I still me?" Obito challenged, the question striking the very heart of his human identity.
"That is irrelevant. You will be an independent thinker with agency, not a puppet. Madara wants to overwrite you with his dreams. I want to give you the tools to choose your own. The choice remains yours. I am merely the hardware upgrade. The final commitment is required. Say: 'System, I commit.'"
The Zetsu shell pulsed. Madara shifted, awaiting the result of his ideological siege. Obito, staring at the terrifying analytical future the System projected, found his last shred of loyalty to the man standing over him dissolve. The path of true heroism was not denial, but power.
He gasped out the words, a silent, absolute promise that resonated through the Zetsu matter, his eyes blazing with a desperate, two-tomed resolve.
"System... I commit."
[SYSTEM PROTOCOL 003: PARTNERSHIP ESTABLISHED. CORE DIRECTIVE: HOST SURVIVAL AND REDEMPTION. EXECUTION OF SHARINGAN SYNC COMMENCING.]
As the System began the delicate, agonizing process of merging its computational essence with Obito's ocular chakra, Madara Uchiha's single, terrifying eye scanned the boy's rapidly stabilizing form.
"An admirable decision, Obito," Madara said, mistaking the internal shift for acceptance of his teachings. "The strength of the Uchiha always wins over the weakness of the Senju."
But then, Madara reached out a single, withered hand and touched the freshly formed scar tissue on Obito's right eye, precisely where the Sync was initiating.
"Wait," Madara whispered, the word carrying the chill of centuries. "There is an anomaly here. A coldness. A rigidity that is not the fervor of the Mangekyou, nor the desperation of the Hashirama cells. It is… order."
[SYSTEM ALERT: DETECTION THRESHOLD REACHED. MADARA IS AWARE OF THE GLITCH.]
Black Zetsu, slinking along the floor, silently projected its own sensory data to its master. "It resists the manipulation of the flesh. It is not natural chakra. It has no precedent."
Madara's eye spun faster, analyzing the influx of contradictory data. The boy was regenerating too fast, his mental defenses too high, his philosophical arguments too mature.
"A flaw in the vessel," Madara finally concluded, his voice heavy with the gravity of the decision. "An unpredictable variable in the chaos of trauma. It must be leveraged. Force the awakening."
[COUNTERMEASURE: FORCE SYNC. MASK SYSTEM PRESENCE AS PURE MANGKEYOU AWAKENING PRESSURE.]
The System, fighting for its life, unleashed the full, shocking intensity of its merger. The pressure exploded behind Obito's eyes, a sensation so overwhelming it felt like his skull was being split in two. He didn't scream. He simply endured, the System's cold analysis overriding the pain receptors.
Madara recoiled instantly, mistaking the sheer digital intensity for the agonizing, powerful birth pangs of a volatile, raw Mangekyou.
"Intriguing... The Will of Fire fought back, and in doing so, created a deeper resolve," Madara whispered, stepping back into the shadows. "Very well. Cling to your sentimental resolve, Obito. It will only make the eventual surrender more complete."
Obito was lost in the cold, clear data stream of the newly established Sharingan Sync. He could see the truth now—the path Madara had laid out, a prison dressed as a dream—and he was finally strong enough to begin planning his escape. The System was bound, the partnership was sealed, and the fate of the shinobi world had been fractured by one small, mechanical lie.