"Minato-sensei... are you really going to kill me?"
The familiar yet unfamiliar call struck deeply at Minato's heart.
Whoosh! He forcibly suppressed the radiant glow bursting from the Golden Spiral and retreated three meters, staring at the bloodied back of the person lying on the ground.
That back looked as though it had been flayed alive. Through shattered bones and mangled flesh, he could see internal organs crushed until they bled.
With wounds this devastating, even if Lady Tsunade treated him personally, he probably would not survive...
After confirming the extent of the injuries, Minato's gaze darkened.
"Urgh..." The other person struggled, trying to move his body.
Minato gripped the Sword of Shinobi Love tightly and said in a low voice, "Stay down. Causing a wider tear will only hasten your death."
"..." Obito ignored him and desperately forced himself to rise.
Crack! Sure enough, halfway through getting up, his wounds tore open even further.
The agonizing pain nearly made him collapse back down, but he endured it and stubbornly climbed to his feet.
With his back to Minato, he slowly, slowly turned around.
Splaaash...! As he turned, the entire right half of his body, transplanted from White Zetsu, fell away. Blood gushed from the tear, soaking his robes crimson.
At last, he faced Minato.
"Huff, hah, huff, hah..." Half of a tiger-hide mask still stubbornly clung to the left side of his face. His wrinkled right side... and that Sharingan barely maintained in its Three-Tomoe state were both revealed before Minato.
That severed right half, so clearly unlike flesh and blood, and that scar-covered face...
"As expected... you're Obito..."
Though Obito was covered in blood, Minato felt as though the blood was flowing from his own heart...
"Why?" Those three words contained far too many emotions.
"Huff, hah, huff,