[Where exactly is this?! Old man, who are you?!]
["This is the gap between the Underworld and the living world, my fellow Uchiha."]
Every ninja in the Uchiha Clan compound ran outside and looked up at the sky.
That white-haired old man in the sky.
They did not seem to have ever had a clan member who lived that long.
The average ninja lived to around thirty. With good luck, maybe just past forty. This man was clearly in his eighties or nineties, almost a hundred, wasn't he?!
"Judging from his voice..."
Madara Uchiha's four younger brothers looked at young Madara Uchiha. "That voice couldn't be Madara-nii-san after he grows up, could it?"
"Huh?!!"
"No, no, no." Madara shook his head hard in refusal. "There is absolutely no way that decrepit old geezer, even older than Father, is me!!"
Tajima Uchiha: Ever since my son started playing with that kid from Hashirama Senju's family, he really has gone bad!!
What do you mean, a decrepit old geezer even older than Father?!
Does your skin itch that badly?!
Just as he was thinking that, a voice came from the footage.
["He has the Mangekyō Sharingan! Old man, are you also a member of the Uchiha Clan?! Wait, if this place is between heaven and hell, then you couldn't be a Shinigami, could you...?"]
As he spoke, Young Obito noticed the cane in the old man's hand.
Tajima Uchiha said, "That's... the Uchiha Clan's scythe?! Like the Gunbai Uchiwa, it was made from a branch of the God Tree. It's a weapon only the clan's strongest members or the Clan Head can use!!"
Huh?!
His five sons stared carefully at that "old geezer."
Unfortunately, in order to preserve their bloodline, the Uchiha Clan had always married within the clan, so it was perfectly normal for people to resemble one another. It was very difficult to determine who someone was, or whether they were a direct relative, based only on "who looks like whom."
["Nooo!! I don't want to die yet! Help!"]
Obito Uchiha shot upright like a carp flipping out of water and struggled desperately. His booming voice startled the Uchiha Clan members watching at that moment, as well as Team Minato, Team Kakashi, and the others.
["I just saw a scythe! This old man is definitely the Uchiha Shinigami! The Shinigami in charge of the Uchiha Clan's life and death, right?!!"]
["Ever since I was little, my guiding principle has been helping people in trouble and old ladies! Sure, I'm always late, but that shouldn't cancel out all the good things I've done, right?! Please don't take me to hell!!"]
The Uchiha Clan ninjas: "..." They were too tired to even comment.
"That kid..."
"Could the secret to awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan be that you have to be stupid and poor?"
"Huh? Then doesn't that mean I'll never awaken the Mangekyō Sharingan in my life?!"
At the entrance of the largest casino in the Land of Fire during the Warring States Period.
Naruto watched the footage, pointed at Young Obito, and teased him, "Idiot, idiot."
Sasuke looked at Young Obito with an expression that seemed to say, How does our clan have someone this seriously wrong with him?
Minato and Rin watched them with helpless, doting looks.
Young Kakashi's expression was quite similar to Fugaku Uchiha's. It was the look of someone furious at wasted potential, and all he could do was beat his chest, stamp his feet, and let out a long sigh.
Young Obito pointed at Adult Obito over there. "I never did anything from that footage! That was all the stupid stuff that version of me did!"
"Damn!" People had seen teammates get sold out before, but never someone selling himself out like this.
Adult Obito reminded him coldly, "Oh-ho. Did you forget that when you used Time Travel to go back to your world, the Madara Uchiha there was me?"
"Uh..."
Young Obito instantly choked.
Right!
When he had used Time Travel to return to the Kannabi Bridge parallel world before, he had suddenly appeared on that wooden bed. After seeing that the soul inside the "Masked Man" ancestor was there, he had been so scared that he seemed to have shouted those exact words too...
Adult Obito drew on the specialty he had developed as Tobi of the Akatsuki, pinching his voice into an obnoxiously cheeky tone. "Aaaaah~~ You must be the Uchiha Shinigami-sama~~ Please don't take me to hell~~"
"Enough! Are you trying to be that mean?!!!" Young Obito flushed with anger and embarrassment. "Rin and idiot Kakashi are right next to me! We're all on the same side, can't you leave me a little dignity?!!"
"Pfft."
Rin laughed aloud, wiping away the tears that had not quite dried yet.
Young Kakashi made a disgusted gesture at the two of them.
"Don't forget you're not wearing a mask right now!!" This was definitely the kind of move where you hurt the enemy eight hundred and yourself a thousand!
Bleh, Adult Obito seemed very pleased with that bit of mischief.
The others watched the two of them with looks that said, These two idiots. Then they each took a step back, one after another, as if afraid of being infected.
The earlier disbelief from seeing Madara Uchiha clinging to life underground in his old age was completely scattered by the two of them clowning around.
Young Obito and Adult Obito could lighten the mood, but in truth, they were still the ones panicking the most.
Because before long, Rin would...
No, there was one person even more panicked than them!
Adult Kakashi, who had once killed Rin with his own hands!
Although by now, everyone basically knew that what happened back then had not been his fault, Kakashi Hatake still felt his hands and feet go cold. He feared that scene would be exposed here too, causing Obito to suffer a second injury.
"You'll get used to it."
Obito Ōtsutsuki comforted him.
"In that Quiz World of ours, they basically exposed my entire life, Naruto's, Sasuke's, Itachi's, Kakashi's, Yahiko's, and everyone else's. Aren't I still living just fine now?"
"Obito..."
Kakashi had just been about to thank him for the comfort when he heard Obito Ōtsutsuki continue, "At most, wherever we go now, we're either a joke in people's eyes or someone to be pitied. You guys have no idea how many fans Naruto has in the Ninja World. It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say the line stretches from Konoha all the way to Sunagakure."
Naruto blinked, completely unable to imagine what life would be like if he were that popular.
In the footage, the elderly Madara Uchiha spoke.
["If you can still feel pain, that means you're alive. But the fact that you survived at all is a miracle. You weren't crushed to death by the rocks, almost as if your body passed straight through them."]
Fugaku Uchiha said, "Passed through the rocks?"
Sasuke explained, "It's the ability of Obito Uchiha's Mangekyō Sharingan. He leaves only an illusion in the real world, while his true body is inside his Dōjutsu dimension. From outside, you can't hit him, much less kill him."
"!!!"
Fugaku Uchiha was clearly shocked.
He had never imagined that Obito Uchiha would actually possess the Mangekyō Sharingan!!
That Obito, once considered the strangest oddball in the Uchiha Clan, someone who was not even an elite, actually had that kind of talent?!
As Fugaku Uchiha looked in shock at Adult Obito and Young Obito, the footage continued.
The right half of Obito's body was wrapped in bandages. His head and the right side of his face were also covered in bandages.
He looked terribly broken.
["I'm still alive?"]
["You fell into the tunnel I dug. Although you're alive, half your body is practically smashed to pieces. For now, you can think of it as me having saved you and bandaged your wounds."]
["Thank you for saving me, old man."]
After hearing that he was still alive, Young Obito in the footage let out a breath.
["It's too early to thank me. I'll make sure you repay this debt properly. Helping the elderly is your principle in life, isn't it?"]
["That's true, but... you aren't going to make me take care of everything for you, are you?"]
["That would work too."]
Adult Obito glanced at Madara Uchiha. "If I had known back then that you wanted to use me, I would have killed myself on the spot!"
"There are no ifs," Madara Uchiha said.
If there really were ifs, then he could have protected all his younger brothers, protected the Uchiha Clan, killed Black Zetsu in advance, smashed the Uchiha Stone Monument, and ended the Eye of the Moon Plan.
Young Obito in the footage sighed.
["Sorry, but I can't do that. Since I'm still alive, I have to go back to Konoha!"]
["Oh?"]
["We're in the middle of a war right now. I finally managed to awaken the Sharingan. From now on, it's finally my turn to protect my comrades!!"]
Adult Obito looked at himself in the footage, his heart filled with complicated emotions.
Perhaps to others, this footage was only the story of Obito Uchiha from another parallel world.
But to him, these were memories of what had once happened to him.
["With your body like that, you can no longer continue being a ninja."]
["No, no, no, no! That absolutely won't work! I finally awakened the Sharingan, finally became one of the Uchiha Clan's elites, and finally fought alongside my important comrades in a beautiful coordinated battle! I have to return safely to Konoha and keep standing by my comrades' side to protect them."]
At this moment in the footage, he was still the Obito Uchiha everyone knew. The Obito who could not ignore people in trouble, who always put his comrades first.
["Look at reality. This world is filled with people and situations that will never go the way you want. The longer you live, the more you realize that reality is saturated with nothing but misery, pain, and loneliness."]
Obito Uchiha in the footage rolled his eyes inwardly.
The footage fully displayed what he was thinking too.
["What is he talking about? This rotten old man's thinking is reaching a whole new level of pessimism, isn't it?"]
Madara Uchiha, whose thoughts had been exposed, looked equally grim.
After learning the full truth, he had to admit that his way of thinking was not shared by most of the Ninja World. Or rather, even if others had similar thoughts, they would still take the initiative to find new bonds and pull themselves out of the gloom.
Unlike him, who had sunk into it and could not get out no matter what.
Especially when Hashirama Senju looked at him with a face full of guilt and began confessing his own mistakes.
"Madara! If you were that lonely, then I, your closest friend, must not have done enough! If I had realized sooner how lonely you were, I should have made more time to stay with you!!"
(Depressed, crying)
"As your closest friend, I failed to notice your misery and pain. I didn't even know you had been struggling to survive alone in that kind of place until you became so old and frail!!"
(Depressed, crying)
"I should have realized sooner that you would use the Izanagi Technique to revive yourself! I should have handed the Hokage position to Tobirama earlier and devoted myself completely to staying by your side!! This is all my fault as Hokage and as your closest friend! Madara, you are my Heaven Sent Revelation! And yet I..."
Almost everyone nearby cast the two of them that kind of look.
"HOMO?"
"What a shame. Two handsome men, too."
"I heard nobles like playing around with this sort of thing."
"True. Commoners like us don't understand it. What's wrong with soft, fair-skinned girls?"
Listen to those bizarre comments.
Compared to Hashirama Senju, the First Hokage, roaring out all that self-blame, what did the social death from the footage even count for...?
Madara Uchiha wanted to flare up, but doing so right now would be no different from flying into a rage out of embarrassment. It would only confirm the rumors.
Minato Namikaze had already covered his son's ears.
Fugaku Uchiha simply said, "Sasuke, Obito, cover your ears." With the authority of a strict father and Clan Head, he ordered the two children not to listen carelessly or let their minds wander.
Tobirama Senju slapped a hand over his forehead. He could barely stand to watch.
Izuna Uchiha was furious, but he did not know what to do either. In his anger, he grabbed Tobirama Senju and demanded that he control his stupid older brother.