"Should I call you Madara Uchiha? Or... Obito Uchiha?"
Gale-force winds swept up the yellow sand, battering the two men's black cloaks patterned with red clouds and making them flap loudly.
Obito's lone eye beneath his mask narrowed slightly, the bloodshot veins within it not yet fully faded.
"Who knows?"
Obito's voice returned to its low, hoarse disguise, carrying an inscrutable indifference.
"Madara or Obito, a name is nothing more than a meaningless label." Obito turned and faced Pain's utterly emotionless Rinnegan. "As long as it doesn't interfere with our shared goal, does it really matter who I am?"
Pain said nothing.
A flash of exceedingly dangerous coldness passed through his pale violet, ripple-patterned eyes.
"How much more have you been hiding from me?" Pain's ethereal, lifeless voice carried undisguised suspicion and warning.
Obito snorted coldly.
He knew full well that Nagato had definitely raised his guard against him now. But this was not the time for internal strife. The Konoha lot had not been wiped out yet, and the Tailed Beasts had not been captured.
Seeing Obito remain silent, Pain did not expect this liar to reveal everything.
He turned, his gaze crossing the chaotic battlefield before settling on Orochimaru, who stood beside Minato Namikaze in the distance.
"What is going on with Orochimaru?" Pain asked coldly.
A rogue ninja who had been using Impure World Reincarnation to crush Konoha one moment had suddenly defected in the middle of battle the next, even sending Hashirama Senju and the Third Raikage A to attack his own side.
Such an absurd shift made Pain sense something strange.
Obito followed Pain's gaze, the Mangekyō Sharingan in his right eye slowly spinning.
"We don't know what method they used, but they directly made Orochimaru betray us." A trace of gravity entered Obito's voice.