Outside Konoha, Uchiha Obito slowly emerged among the trees.
The brief moment had been enough for him to realize that he'd just been scared off by someone using a Flying Thunder God Kunai.
He was still fuming, wondering whether to go back and see who had dared to trick him.
Suddenly, half of a ghastly white figure soundlessly emerged from a thick branch beside him.
The figure was as pale as paper from head to toe, like a ghost that had just escaped from the underworld.
If he went to the neighboring film set to shoot a horror movie, he could probably scare a crowd without even needing makeup.
"Hahaha, I saw the whole thing! Obito, you actually got spooked by a dead guy and ran for your life~"
White Zetsu's gloating voice rang out as soon as he poked his head out.
Hearing that, Uchiha Obito flew into a rage.
He turned and glared fiercely at White Zetsu, then snapped, "Shut up! I just didn't want to stay there. Besides, I'm Uchiha Madara now. You should call me Lord Madara!"
With that, Uchiha Obito turned and walked away without looking back.
White Zetsu, however, didn't seem willing to let it go. His figure flickered, then slowly sank into the branch like a ghost.
In the blink of an eye, he appeared a short distance in front of Uchiha Obito and said with a cheeky grin, "Hehehe, aren't you curious who that person was just now, Obito? I saw it with my own eyes."
Uchiha Obito was actually a little puzzled about the person who'd used a Flying Thunder God Kunai to scare him.
After all, how had that person known he'd run at the sight of a Flying Thunder God Kunai?
What if they'd guessed wrong and he'd killed them?
He was about to ask White Zetsu who it had been when, the next second, he saw the mocking look on White Zetsu's face and instantly lost interest.
Uchiha Chen could only shout irritably, "I don't want to know. Shut up!"
With that, he walked past White Zetsu and continued on his way.
After all, he'd already accomplished what he'd come to Konoha to do.
The deaths of Namikaze Minato and the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki would bring the newly revitalized and rapidly developing Konoha to a halt.
As he walked, he recalled the Third Shinobi World War, which he'd taken part in.
The war had been sparked by the Third Kazekage's disappearance after Sasori ambushed him.
With their leader gone, Sunagakure had chosen to declare war on Konoha in order to divert internal tensions.
Seeing a chance to profit, the other villages had joined the conflict one after another.
In the full-scale war, Sunagakure was the first to fall.
Their strongest leader, the Kazekage, had disappeared. Although the war had temporarily diverted the village's internal tensions, Sunagakure had long been impoverished and weak. Even with the future Fourth Kazekage Rasa and Pakura of Scorch Release driving back the invaders, they could barely protect themselves.
In the end, Sunagakure, the village that had started the war, was the first to be eliminated.
As for Iwagakure, Kakkō led a large force and successfully drove Konoha's defensive units down to just a handful of survivors.
Yet, in that desperate situation, Namikaze Minato appeared out of nowhere and single-handedly turned the tide.
Every Iwagakure commander on the various fronts had died in that battle.
They included Mahiru, Taiseki, Taiseki, Sumaishi, Kakkō, and others... Their deaths caused Iwagakure's forces on the Konoha front to collapse completely.
And the worst was yet to come for Iwagakure.
Seeing Iwagakure locked in fierce combat with Konoha, the Raikage seized his chance and personally led an elite force to attack Ōnoki's homeland.
But Iwagakure had anticipated this. They saw through the plan and sent tens of thousands of shinobi to surround them.
They'd planned to use those tens of thousands of lower- and middle-ranking shinobi to kill the Third Raikage and his elite force.
But they underestimated the Third Raikage's strength and resolve. After ordering his subordinates to leave first,
the Third Raikage held off tens of thousands of shinobi by himself for three days and three nights, until he finally died of exhaustion.
Although they had killed the opposing Kage, Iwagakure failed to achieve a single one of its strategic objectives in that battle.
Worse, they suffered heavy losses, with countless shinobi dying. It was a devastating blow to Iwagakure.
With both fronts lost, Iwagakure had no choice but to become the second village eliminated from the war.
Next, Kirigakure was eliminated, and it suffered a truly miserable fate.
This time, Kirigakure had finally assembled the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist. They were all on high alert, ready to make a name for themselves in the war and claim their share of the spoils.
They never expected fate to pit them against their strongest opponent yet.
The seven had only just infiltrated Konoha and hadn't even had time to kill a few enemies when they came face-to-face with a nightmare they'd never forget: Might Duy!
The Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist were no weaklings. The seven of them working together could have matched the Kage of any nation.
Against a somewhat weaker Kage, they might even have had a chance of killing him.
But facing Might Duy, a Konoha Genin whose outfit was laughable, they could only run.
After years of obscurity, Might Duy finally made his move—and burned through everything he had!
In that hastily joined battle, the Seven Ninja Swordsmen were utterly routed.
The Seven Swordsmen, renowned throughout the Shinobi World, were reduced to the "Lucky Three."
Even the three who managed to escape were all seriously injured and couldn't return to the battlefield anytime soon.
Meanwhile, Kirigakure had originally planned to seal the Three-Tails inside a Konoha shinobi and use that shinobi to infiltrate Konoha, triggering a Three-Tails rampage.
They never imagined that the large force of handpicked shinobi they'd assembled would end up playing a role in Uchiha Madara's carefully crafted scheme.
Those Kirigakure shinobi had brought their own supplies and built their own stage, but before they could even make their entrance, Uchiha Obito arrived and wiped them all out.
And so, the unlucky Kirigakure was forced to withdraw from the war in disgrace.
As for Kumogakure, although it had lost the Third Raikage, all its elite forces were still intact.
Unfortunately, just as the newly appointed Fourth Raikage A and the Eight-Tails Jinchūriki, Killer B, were eager to make their move, their advance was stopped by the Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato.
With their reputation greatly diminished, they could only swallow their frustration and engage in small-scale skirmishes.
They no longer had the strength to launch another war.
With those memories behind him, Uchiha Obito once again recalled the scene on the Kirigakure battlefield.
His gaze returned to the moment when Rin had been pierced through the heart by Hatake Kakashi right before his eyes, and pain and fury once more overwhelmed him.
Blood slowly trickled from between his tightly clenched lips.
Since he'd already struck a blow against Konoha, the village responsible for Rin's death, he naturally couldn't let Kirigakure, the other culprit, off lightly either.
Having made up his mind, Uchiha Obito didn't wait for White Zetsu to speak again. He spun his Sharingan and vanished in an instant.
The abandoned White Zetsu had just started to tell him that Uchiha Chen possessed a Mangekyo Sharingan when he realized Uchiha Obito had disappeared without a trace.
It froze. Staring at the spot where Uchiha Obito had been standing, White Zetsu assumed he already knew and shrugged, then slowly sank underground to investigate elsewhere.
Because of White Zetsu's carelessness, Uchiha Obito, who should have been fully prepared, would encounter an unexpected turn of events the next time he met Uchiha Chen.
Uchiha Obito hadn't expected Uchiha Chen to possess the same power as his Mangekyo Sharingan, and he suffered a nasty surprise.