Reversal

Fifteen years ago, in Konoha, at Kouchi's house

"Seriously, what happened? You've made such a mess of the house!!"

Obito stood at the doorway of the room, gazing at the countless blueprints and manuscripts filling the space, leaving almost no room to even step. He couldn't help but exclaim loudly:

"He's been nagging me all day long to stop bothering him and Grandma and to learn to tidy up my room properly, but he's made such a mess of the place himself. It's outrageous!"

"Don't say that, Obito. He only didn't have time to tidy up his room because he received an urgent mission."

Lin neatly rolled up her sleeves to her forearms, wearing a pink apron, and squatted on the ground carefully tidying up the blueprints scattered all over the room.

She gently looked up at Obito, smiled, and nodded.

"And wasn't it you who offered to help tidy up the room?"

You must be very worried about my current state.

Obito did not refute, but simply lowered his head in silence.

Unlike his usual carefree demeanor, his face was now filled with deep worry.

Rin looked at Obito's unusually silent expression, the gentle smile on her lips gradually faded, and she sighed softly in her heart.

When they returned from the battlefield at Iwagakure, they were on a mission outside the village with their Minato-sensei.

When they finally completed their mission and returned to Konoha, Kou had just ended his short vacation and plunged headfirst into a new mission.

Compared to before, they haven't seen each other for quite some time now.

They only learned a general outline of what had happened after they returned from the battlefield of Iwagakure from Asuma.

As close friends, they were naturally overjoyed that Koko had finally awakened the Three Tomoe Sharingan and successfully developed a new technique.

But more than anything, there is deep concern about Kou's current state.

Just as Obito and Rin were each lost in their own thoughts of each other, a low, impatient shout came from behind the tall mountain of blueprints beside them.

"How long are you going to dawdle there? Get to work! I need to get back to my cultivation!"

Kakashi emerged from the other end of the room, carrying a large stack of neatly arranged blueprints.

He placed the blueprints steadily in the corner, then raised his dead fish eyes that were sticking out of his mask and glanced at Obito with displeasure:

"Especially you, Obito! You're the one who dragged Rin and me here to help, and you haven't even done a fraction of what we did. You're really incompetent!"

Hearing Kakashi's reprimand, Obito instantly snapped back to reality.

His face flushed slightly, and he instinctively wanted to retort as usual, but when he glanced at the two large, neatly stacked piles of drawings at Kakashi and Rin's feet, his voice immediately softened.

"I... I've been trying really hard to organize it... Yes, it's just that you and Lin organized it too quickly."

"Hmph, the achievements of truly hardworking people are far more than this."

Kakashi said disdainfully, then shifted his gaze from Obito's guilty little face and scanned the stacks of blueprints piled up like small mountains in the room.

A rare, genuine admiration appeared in his usually lazy and listless eyes:

"Only achievements like Kou truly deserve the word 'effort'."

Lightning Release: Swift Thunder... that's quite a powerful technique.

As he spoke, Kakashi picked up a blueprint and softly exclaimed in admiration:

"Although the threshold for mastering this technique is indeed high, and it relies even more on the Sharingan's visual perception than the Lightning Blade."

But once this technique is mastered, the increase in speed for the caster is truly remarkable.

He gazed at the window across the street, its surface slightly gleaming in the afternoon sunlight, and couldn't help but recall a blond figure, sighing from the bottom of his heart:

"I'm afraid it won't be long before Koko surpasses that guy from Kumogakure and becomes the second fastest ninja in the Ninja World, second only to Minato-sensei -sensei."

"... Ha, to be left behind by that guy so quickly, it's really frustrating."

Kakashi chuckled and put the drawing back on the pile of papers.

Rin observed Kakashi's expression and suddenly chuckled softly:

"But Kakashi, you don't seem to have any resentment at all."

You... are actually happy for Kou, aren't you?

"Uh--cough cough!"

Kakashi stiffened, coughed heavily, and then put on a serious face:

"Stop wasting time and get to work! At this rate, we won't be finished by nightfall!"

After saying that, without waiting for Lin to speak again, he quickly walked to the other end of the room and began to tidy up the pile of scattered manuscripts that had not yet been categorized.

Lin looked at the obviously embarrassed figure from behind and her eyes crinkled with laughter.

She turned her gaze back to Obito beside her and greeted him with a smile:

"Alright, Obito, we can't let Kakashi outpace us! Let's catch up!"

However, this time, Obito unusually did not respond to her call in time.

"Obito?"

Lin called his name again, somewhat puzzled.

At that moment, Obito seemed completely oblivious to Rin's concerned calls.

He stared blankly at the room filled with the manuscripts, Kakashi's evaluation of the technique called "Lightning Release: Swift Thunder" echoing in his ears, and a complex emotion welled up in his heart.

Lightning Release: Swift Thunder, Sharingan.

If I awaken the Sharingan in the future, will I be able to learn this technique too?

By then, will I be qualified to stand beside Kou and carry out missions alongside him?

Once I become stronger, will I no longer be unable to help him in any way, like I am now?

As Obito thought this, a bitter feeling welled up inside him, but a burning, intense flame also ignited within him.

"I must become stronger, strong enough to stand proudly beside Kou, strong enough... to truly help him."

"At that time—I will be the one to... protect you!"

Mist Village, Mizukage's Office.

Obito gazed at the few wisps of white smoke remaining in the air, suppressing the distant memories from many years ago.

He gazed at the dissipating white smoke, a bitter laugh escaping from beneath his mask.

That fool who forced himself to study incomprehensible theoretical knowledge in order to help others in the future probably never imagined that...

One day, he might actually reveal this technique to Kou in such a way.

"Heh... Although I didn't really learn it back then, I just roughly memorized the principles."

He murmured self-deprecatingly, sounding somewhat lonely in the deathly silence he had created himself:

"Because I couldn't understand it at all, I felt too embarrassed, so I thought that after I opened my Sharingan in the future, I would shamelessly go to him to learn properly."

"And so we waited, and now we're still waiting. What a useless guy."

As he spoke, Obito quickly composed himself and turned his gaze to Karatachi Yagura, who was quietly sitting in the corner Mangekyō Sharingan, hidden behind his mask, narrowed slightly.

"Luckily, he didn't discover this technique, otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to deal with this trouble so easily."

He strode up to Yagura's stiff body, raised his black-gloved right hand, and placed it on his shoulder.

A spatial Uzumaki silently spread out from the center of the Mangekyō Sharingan, like a slowly opening entrance to another world.

"The Three-Tails is already captured. The remaining... is the Six-Tails."

"If we were to capture that brat named Utakata, he would definitely be very angry."

When he faces himself again in the future, he will surely become stronger because of this.

Obito watched Yagura being slowly swallowed by the spatial Uzumaki, a meaningful smile slowly curved the corners of his mouth beneath his mask.

"Knock, I look forward to the day we meet again."

"Unfortunately, you no longer have that chance."

Without anyone noticing, Kou had silently appeared behind Obito.

The temperature in those deep black eyes had already dropped to freezing point!

"Because you will definitely... die here today!!"