Rin, All the Pain in the World Couldn't Compare to One Ten-Thousandth of the Heartache I Felt When I Lost You

If my soul had a color, it would surely be the violet of Nohara Rin's eyes.

—Obito Uchiha

"Karatachi Yagura successfully sealed the Three-Tails, but something seems to have gone wrong. The Kirigakure ninja have raised a barrier, and Fuguki went to investigate."

Looking at Uchiha Chen, blood streaming from his eye sockets, Pakura urged him with concern:

"You're bleeding so much. If you really can't control Yagura, just give up!"

"Someone else is trying to control Yagura, just like I am. I'm using genjutsu to control them right now. Keep an eye out for their accomplices!"

With his face smeared in blood, Uchiha Chen managed a strained grin at Pakura.

"I need to focus on the genjutsu."

Normally, using ocular techniques with a prosthetic eye didn't cause bleeding like a Mangekyō did. But outputting too much Eye Power through the permanent Kotoamatsukami had pushed the prosthetic eye into overdrive, placing a heavy burden on Uchiha Chen's body.

Uchiha Chen plunged most of his consciousness into the Mental Space and began altering Obito's mind with Kotoamatsukami.

Kotoamatsukami was hailed as the strongest genjutsu because it could completely alter a target's will, controlling them without their awareness and even making them believe everything was perfectly natural.

Tell someone they're a pug, and they'll truly believe they're a puppy born in a kennel and raised in a pet shop. Even though it defies all reason, the victim won't notice a thing.

"Gaaaaah!"

In the Mental Space, Obito Uchiha unleashed his immense Eye Power without restraint, shaking the entire space until it trembled violently.

But—

No matter how much Eye Power his crimson eye unleashed, it could only slow the strange shadow—the power of Kotoamatsukami—as it wound around him. It couldn't drive the shadow away at all.

His feet, ankles, knees—Obito's mental form was slowly dissolving into the shadow.

Beside Uchiha Chen, connected to the other side of the shadow, the parts of Obito's mental form that had disappeared were gradually regrowing, reshaped by Kotoamatsukami.

The alteration Uchiha Chen had imposed on Obito with Kotoamatsukami was simple and direct: absolute loyalty to Uchiha Chen.

This alteration, of course, ran completely counter to Obito's current beliefs and personality.

So, as two utterly opposing mindsets each claimed part of his mental form, he became more and more delirious.

"Who am I again? I'm Obito. No, I'm Uchiha Madara! I'm going to kill you, Uchiha Chen! No, I'll protect you..."

Obito Uchiha gradually lost himself, and Kotoamatsukami spread across his consciousness faster and faster.

Until—Kotoamatsukami began erasing a figure buried deep in his memories.

A person who was absolutely loyal couldn't have someone else in their life who had profoundly shaped it.

"Do your best, Obito!" "Obito's always worked so hard!" "Obi-to!"

The Eye Power of Kotoamatsukami began erasing the girl's traces from his life like an eraser.

The missions they'd gone through together, their memories from the Ninja Academy, and all the things he'd thought about countless times but never managed to say—

"Obito, I'll always be watching over you!"

This alone—

This, I absolutely cannot forget!

"Rin! Gaaaaah!"

Obito, who had gradually quieted down, suddenly unleashed several times more Eye Power than before. A tiny, warped vortex appeared out of nowhere in the Mental Space and sucked in his mental form.

Wait, you can use Space-Time Ninjutsu in the Mental Space? Just saying a name lets you unleash five hundred percent of your power?

Uchiha Chen stared, dumbfounded.

"Simps really are something else!

"But Kotoamatsukami's power isn't that easy to escape!"

The two legs that had been standing beside Uchiha Chen disappeared along with Obito. They had been part of the same whole.

That meant Kotoamatsukami's power still clung to him like a bone-deep curse. It hadn't stopped altering his thoughts just because Obito had left the Mental Space.

"Whatever. Since I'm here!"

After driving Obito away, Uchiha Chen turned to the Three-Tails, which had been cowering in its cage the whole time.

"Human! You..."

The Three-Tails began to speak, ready to admit defeat and beg for mercy.

Uchiha Chen couldn't be bothered with it. He simply hit it with a Sharingan genjutsu.

Understanding the Tailed Beasts was a job for the future Crown Prince. Uchiha Chen just wanted to have his fun now. He had no desire to become a Tailed Beast's emotional anchor.

Oh, right—there was also that poor Yagura. The gag still hadn't been taken off!

"Uchiha Chen, we can talk this out! I can offer you terms you'll be satisfied with! What do you want? I'll do everything in my power to make you happy."

With the gag removed, Karatachi Yagura tried to bargain with Uchiha Chen.

"Fool!"

It was a good offer, but Uchiha Chen chose to reward him with Kotoamatsukami: Light.

"You belong to me now. Doesn't that mean all those things belong to me too?"

"Ugh!"

In the endless, desolate Kamui Dimension, Obito Uchiha had removed his mask and was hunched over a rock, vomiting blood.

Overusing Kamui had just pulled him out of the Mental Space, but the backlash was severe.

Even with the Yang Release Chakra supplied by the half of his body made from Hashirama Cells, it had nearly cost him his life.

But that wasn't the worst of it!

Obito could clearly feel that even though he was now inside Kamui's separate dimension, Uchiha Chen's terrifying ocular technique was still steadily influencing his thoughts.

Whenever he thought of Rin, Uchiha Chen's face had appeared in his mind again and again!

Only because the technique's effect was greatly weakened inside the Kamui Dimension, a space unique to Obito, did he have time to think of a way to deal with it.

But he couldn't hide in the Kamui Dimension forever!

"Cough, cough!"

Obito staggered through the Kamui Dimension, so weak he had to stop and catch his breath after walking just a few dozen steps.

"I finally made it!"

Before him stood a huge storage rack. It held all kinds of documents and objects Obito had inherited from Madara, as well as the Sharingan Uchiha Madara had taken with him when he left the village.

Leaning against the rack, Obito Uchiha struggled to raise a hand and take down jar after jar of glass bottles holding Three-Tomoe Sharingan.

He took out a kunai and dug it hard into the pale half of his chest. The flesh split open, but little blood came out.

One after another, Obito roughly pressed the Sharingan into his chest.

He knew that Uchiha Chen's ocular technique had already tainted his mind, even his soul.

In this state, even activating Izanagi wouldn't be enough to purge the contamination hidden inside his mind. Kotoamatsukami's power would keep influencing him.

So—

Obito Uchiha's eyes were now nothing but an intense, deep crimson. His level of madness had reached an incomprehensible, unimaginable extreme:

He was going to use Izanagi to operate on his soul, mind, and Chakra.

Just as the Sage of Six Paths had split the Ten-Tails into the Nine Tailed Beasts,

he would split off an independent being and pass all the contamination from Uchiha Chen, along with its connection to Kotoamatsukami, to that being born from himself.

"Rin! I won't stop until I create that happy world where you exist!"

Even a thousand cuts to my soul couldn't compare to one ten-thousandth of the heartache I felt when I lost you.

Izanagi, activate!