"What is it?"
Pain watched as Obito Uchiha, who had just been about to show him and Konan the mission scroll, suddenly froze in place.
His expression shifted again and again, like he was locked in some brutal internal struggle.
Obito opened his mouth several times before he finally managed to speak. "The scroll…"
"…a new mission just appeared."
"A mission?" Konan and Pain both frowned in confusion.
"Who issued it?"
"I don't know." Obito shook his head. "Up to now, we still don't know who this thing belongs to, who's posting the missions inside it, why they're posting them, or why they're paying out such absurd, unbelievable mission rewards. It's all a mystery."
Konan's brows knit together. Normally, even an organization like theirs wouldn't accept a mission with an unknown employer, let alone a proper ninja village.
Unless the reward was so high it dwarfed the cost of completing it.
Most of the jobs Akatsuki took were war-related, or assassinations commissioned by people like daimyō of small countries. Ordinary missions didn't even come close to being worth their time.
Which meant the missions in that scroll didn't just pay far more than the effort required. The reward itself was outrageously high, or something of equivalent value.
Konan said, "What you mentioned earlier, about knowing the future… is that what the scroll's mission reward refers to?"
"Yeah." Obito thought, As expected of Konan. She sees it more clearly than Nagato does.
"Give me proof," Pain said, forcing his anger down.
He hadn't gone straight to fighting Obito Uchiha because if they clashed, it would turn into a catastrophic battle capable of leveling an entire city.
And besides, everything he knew about using the Rinnegan had been taught by "Madara." Meanwhile, he had almost no solid information on the man in front of him. He had only just learned that he wasn't the legendary Madara Uchiha at all, but a man named Obito Uchiha.
Proof…
Proof…
The best proof would be Ōtsutsuki Obito from that parallel world, wouldn't it?!
The problem was that guy really was another version of himself. Having any sense of time was like it would kill him. He had promised he'd be back within half an hour. And now what? Lost on the road of life again?
Obito did the math. It had been almost two hours since Ōtsutsuki Obito from the quiz world left, and there was still no sign of him.
Thinking back to his former self, being three or four hours late was basically standard procedure.
He seriously wanted to kneel to himself.
He even started to wonder if, in that previous parallel world, the so-called main world's Obito Uchiha might not be able to find Rin, or even the way back to the Pure Land, after leaving Kakashi's consciousness.
If that was true…
That would be beyond ridiculous.
He was already drowning in anxiety and despair, and of course things only got worse. The mission scroll chose this exact moment to toss him yet another mission.
Did he look like some sleazy guy drumming up business for a guesthouse?
Dragging all of Akatsuki to Konoha in the Land of Fire for a trip, and making them stay at Kakashi's place…
If he tried to look on the bright side, there were two Minato-senseis over there, plus the First Hokage and the Second Hokage, and the ancestors Indra and Ashura. The Sage of Six Paths' younger brother also came back from time to time. Keeping a lid on a group of missing-nin shouldn't be too much of a problem.
He looked at Pain, who was suppressing his fury and demanding proof.
"How about you come with me to Konoha? Food and lodging included. Bring the others too. Think of it as a company trip on the organization's budget."
"…"
Pain and Konan didn't even know what to say anymore. They were finally starting to understand: this man only seemed serious when he was playing Madara Uchiha. Tobi was his true personality.
A complete clown.
How did someone like this even get it into his head to "save the world"?
And yet he had managed to play Madara Uchiha for all these years without being exposed. Was he just that good at acting, or had they simply been too careless?
Knowing Pain and Konan wouldn't believe him, Obito Uchiha held the mission scroll open in front of them.
"Look at this mission. It's A-rank. All I have to do is bring you back to Konoha and have all of you check into Kakashi's guesthouse. When the A-rank mission reward gets paid out, you'll know I'm not lying."
Pain's face was stiff, like a corpse.
To use the Phantom Dragons Nine Consuming Seals, they needed to start with the One-Tails, then the Two-Tails, then the Three-Tails…
…all the way until the Nine-Tails.
So going to Konoha this early to capture the Nine-Tails was not part of his plan.
"Do you know what the reward for an A-rank mission is?"
Obito Uchiha looked calmly at Konan and Pain and spoke two words that instantly made their brows knit together—
"Time travel."
"What do you mean?!"
"Literally."
Those words didn't come from Obito Uchiha, but from the Ōtsutsuki Obito he had been waiting on for nearly three hours.
Behind Obito Uchiha, a black spatial rift suddenly opened. A long leg stepped out from within, clad in black pants. Tight bindings wrapped around the calf and connected to shinobi boots, making the leg look even longer and more streamlined.
At a glance, Pain recognized him as the man from earlier, the one who possessed the same ability as Obito Uchiha, capable of phasing through even Rinnegan-based attacks.
The man wore a mask, concealing his true appearance. Judging from his attire, he was clearly from Konoha's ANBU.
Ōtsutsuki Obito fully stepped out of Yomotsu Hirasaka and continued speaking. "Traveling to the past, traveling to the future, or even traveling to other parallel worlds. That should be the special power of the mission scroll held by my counterpart in this parallel world."
Konan immediately caught a key phrase in his words—
"my counterpart in this parallel world."
"Who are you, exactly?!" Pain demanded. "You have the same abilities as 'Madara'!"
"Tch, I already told you, I'm not Madara Uchiha." Ōtsutsuki Obito removed the black cat mask from his face. "I'm Obito Uchiha, a special ANBU directly under the Fourth Hokage and the future Sixth Hokage."
The moment the mask came off, Nagato and Konan saw a face identical to the Obito Uchiha standing beside them.
And more importantly—
The newcomer had a pair of Rinnegan identical to Nagato's.
"Rinnegan?!"
Konan and Pain were completely stunned.
This was the first time they had ever seen a second person with the same Rinnegan as Nagato.
Seeing that this guy had finally come back, Obito Uchiha immediately snapped, "Didn't you say you'd only be gone for half an hour?! Look how long it's been now?!"
Ōtsutsuki Obito scratched the back of his head. "Sorry, sorry. I ran into an old granny who needed help on the way, so I just took her home."
Konan and Pain stared at the man in Konoha ANBU uniform, bearing the Rinnegan, yet smiling with a foolish, carefree expression.
The sense of dissonance they felt was impossible to describe.
Adult Obito said, "Alright, you explain the rest to Nagato and the others. I'm going to get something." He hadn't forgotten his real purpose—retrieving the Uchiha Sharingan he had once stored in the base's secret chamber.
As he spoke, he activated Kamui with his right eye and pulled himself into the vortex.
Just before disappearing completely, he tossed the task over his shoulder. "Don't forget to help arrange for everyone to stay at Kakashi's guesthouse."
"..."
"He really knows how to order people around," Ōtsutsuki Obito muttered. His short white hair swayed as he turned toward Pain and Konan. "How about a discount?"
Pain: ...
Konan: ...
Honestly, if not for the Rinnegan staring back at them from his eye sockets, they would have already started fighting.
"Where did your Rinnegan come from?"
Konan had already begun preparing an attack in secret.
From her perspective, Obito Uchiha clearly only possessed a single Sharingan. Yet this Obito Uchiha, claiming to be from another world, now had a pair of Rinnegan. There was an overwhelming chance it had something to do with Nagato from another world.
To be fair, Konan had completely misunderstood him. That pair of Rinnegan had manifested due to Obito's atavism, reverting to the Ōtsutsuki Clan. It wasn't as she suspected, that he had killed Nagato in another parallel world and stolen his eyes.
"The Rinnegan is the treasure of Amegakure! It belongs to Nagato!" Her voice turned sharp. "Answer me! Where did your Rinnegan come from?!"
If Obito knew what she was thinking, he would have cried injustice on the spot.
Knowing the full truth, Ōtsutsuki Obito said, "My Rinnegan was a reward from the quiz. And Nagato's Rinnegan wasn't his either. It was transplanted into his eyes by the old man… by Madara Uchiha, when Nagato was still a child."
"What?!"
This was the first time either of them had ever heard such a claim.
The Rinnegan wasn't Nagato's own?
"The Rinnegan was evolved by Madara Uchiha from the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan under extreme despair. Nagato is a descendant of the Uzumaki Clan. It's impossible for him to awaken the Rinnegan on his own."
"The Uzumaki Clan?!"
Having grown up in Amegakure, Nagato had never once heard of any clan behind his name.
"That's the same clan as Naruto Uzumaki, the Third Nine-Tails Jinchūriki, Kushina Uzumaki, the Second Nine-Tails Jinchūriki, and Mito Uzumaki, the First Hokage's wife and Konoha's First Nine-Tails Jinchūriki. They're all your clansmen."
"The Uzumaki Clan possesses a special kind of chakra, making them ideal vessels for tailed beasts. That's why Madara chose you when you were a child and implanted the Rinnegan into you. His goal was for you to one day summon the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path and use the Gedo Art of Rinne Rebirth to revive him."
Pain was left completely stunned by the revelation.
Konan's expression also shifted, clearly shaken by the truth.
Ōtsutsuki Obito continued, "If you don't believe me, the best solution is to come back to Konoha with me. The situation is extremely complicated, far too much to explain in a few sentences. Madara Uchiha himself was nothing more than a pawn of Black Zetsu. Everything you're doing now is part of a conspiracy Black Zetsu has been planning for over a thousand years, all to activate Infinite Tsukuyomi and resurrect his mother, Kaguya Ōtsutsuki, who was sealed by the Sage of Six Paths."
Pain and Konan were so shocked they couldn't find the words to respond.
After a long while, Pain finally said, "Give us some time to think. We'll give you our answer later."
Just then…
"So that's how it was…"
A voice they hadn't heard in many years suddenly rang out.
Pain and Konan's eyes flew open in shock.
"Long time no see, Nagato, Konan."