Konoha's Female Ghost: Kamui Revealed

In the dead of night, Ye still couldn't fall asleep.

He turned over, then turned over again.

The blanket had been kicked into the corner, and at some point, he had kneaded his pillow into a ball.

It felt just like trying to grab a deal at midnight on Singles' Day in his previous life, only for the payment page to freeze on the final step and spin endlessly.

He was clearly just one last twitch away, yet he was short by seven thousand points.

Just as he turned over for the seventeenth time, an extremely uninhibited noise suddenly came from beyond the thin wooden wall.

"Snore! Snore! Hehe..."

The snoring of that single-celled organism, Obito, had penetration maxed out.

Then the snoring paused and turned into a string of muddled, lovestruck sleep-talk.

"Hehehe... Rin... you're so gentle..."

"That pretentious bastard Kakashi... hmph... Rin would never like you... hehehe..."

"Rin... I'll definitely become Hokage... then you'll marry me..."

Ye stared at the wooden wall, his whole face darkening.

I was staying up all night worrying over these seven thousand points, and you were sleeping next door like a dead pig?

Not only was he sleeping soundly, he was even having a sweet romance in his dream?

On the first day of school, he and that girl had exchanged fewer than three sentences total, yet he had already named their kids in his dream?

What kind of terminally lovesick idiot was this?

"Obito," "Rin," "secret crush."

As those three words collided in his mind, Ye suddenly sat upright.

The mischief in his heart instantly boiled over, and a particularly sinister plan took shape at lightning speed.

Ye sprang out of bed.

Without even putting on shoes, he stepped barefoot onto the cold wooden floor, quietly pushed open the back door, and slipped into his backyard.

Moonlight filled the yard.

Several discarded wooden stakes lay piled in the corner, unused for years and coated in a layer of dust.

Ye rummaged through the pile of scraps for a while, picked one of suitable thickness, and dragged it to the brightest patch of moonlight.

This thing was close to one and a half meters tall, about the same height as the girls at the Ninja Academy.

His Kunai left its sheath.

Ye crouched down and got to work.

Chakra flooded into both arms and coated the Kunai's blade, allowing it to carve through hard wood without resistance.

His hands moved at maximum speed. Wood chips flew as the Kunai traced dense arcs beneath the moonlight.

The outline of the head.

The shoulders.

The waistline.

As he carved, Ye recalled Rin's body proportions.

Less than forty minutes later, a life-sized humanoid wooden sculpture stood beneath the moonlight.

Its facial features were only roughly raised and hollowed, but the hairstyle outline and body proportions were captured with remarkable accuracy.

He couldn't be bothered carving a detailed face. A rough silhouette was enough.

Afterward, Ye dug out half a dust-covered box of paint from the house and swiftly smeared it all over the block of wood.

He painted the hair brown.

He drew two hollow, lifeless black circles on the face as eyes.

He brushed two purple markings onto both cheeks.

He added several purple strokes where the clothes would be.

Crude.

Extremely crude.

Anyone could tell at a glance in daylight that it was a rotten piece of wood covered in random paint.

But in the pitch-black environment of the middle of the night, this thing had an inherently sinister aura that made one's scalp crawl after staring at it too long.

In tribute to the original work, Ye raised his Kunai and drove it straight through the wooden sculpture's left chest, where the heart would be.

A fist-sized hole let the moonlight pass through unimpeded, splashing a ghastly pale patch of light onto the floor.

Zetsu Zetsu.

Finally, Ye carved several cuts into the sculpture's neck.

He left only a thin layer of wood connecting it. With the slightest touch, the head would fall right off.

Everything was ready.

Carrying this freshly made "hellish figurine" on his shoulder, Ye vaulted over the wall and landed in Obito's yard.

Obito slept with his doors and windows wide open, completely defenseless.

Inside the bedroom, Obito lay sprawled on the tatami, with his blanket kicked far away.

A string of drool hung from the corner of his mouth, and the besotted expression on his face was too unbearable to look at.

"Rin... I'll definitely become Hokage... hehe..."

Obito rolled over again, his sleep-talk continuing without pause.

Watching this, Ye sneered inwardly.

The Uchiha Clan's love-addled fools were truly beyond saving, one worse than the next.

Ye swiftly set the figurine down near the left side of the foot of the bed.

That position was chosen with great care.

Cold moonlight slanted in through the window, illuminating the lower half of the figurine and outlining a blurry human shape.

Its face, meanwhile, was completely hidden in shadow.

The hole running through its chest flickered in and out of view beneath the moonlight.

Ye retreated into the darkest corner of the room, pressed his back against the wall, and adjusted his breathing.

He raised his right hand and lightly pinched the muscles on both sides of his throat with his index and middle fingers.

At the same time, Chakra stirred slightly as he precisely adjusted the vibration frequency of his vocal cord muscles.

This was a basic ninja disguise technique.

After testing two notes, Ye settled on a crisp female vocal range.

He tipped his head back slightly, his Adam's apple trembling.

Staring at Obito on the tatami, he slowly spoke three words.

"O... bi... to..."

The voice was soft and ethereal, carrying a trace of cold trembling that did not belong to the living.

It drifted straight into Obito's ears.

Obito smacked his lips on the tatami.

His body shifted slightly.

At first, he thought it was merely a continuation of his dream. The grin on his lips widened, and his drool flowed even more freely.

The smile on his face grew increasingly lecherous.

"Hehe... Rin called my name... Rin... I'm here..."

Ye's mouth twitched.

This guy's defenses were way too low.

He put more force into it, lowering and hollowing his voice further while deliberately dragging out the final syllable with an eerie breathy rasp.

His tone shifted from gentle to mournful, filled with a faint, hopeless Zetsu.

"Obito... it hurts so much..."

Obito shuddered.

His subconscious finally sensed the overwhelming wrongness of it all.

A chill shot up his spine.

Still groggy, he rolled over and cracked his eyes open.

"Mm... Rin?"

Ye gave him no time to recover.

His voice continued to sink, the trailing tone growing longer and more distant, like an echo from somewhere unimaginably far away.

"Obito... look at me..."

Obito's brow furrowed more tightly.

Through his blurred vision, he saw a figure standing at the foot of his bed.

Brown hair.

A familiar outline.

Purple clothing.

A foolish smile still lingered on Obito's lips, and his mind had yet to pull itself out of the dream.

"Rin... why did you come to my room in the middle of the night... hehe..."

Hidden in the darkest corner behind the figurine, Ye took a deep breath.

His voice suddenly changed.

From gentle to shrill.

From ethereal to Zetsu.

The final note carried a cracking sob, so miserable it made one's scalp explode.

"Obito... run..."

That cry was like an ice-cold wind piercing his bones.

Its power was maxed out.

Every trace of sleepiness instantly evaporated from Obito's mind.

His smile froze.

He abruptly sat up.

Panic surged wildly from the depths of his heart, wrapping tightly around it.

His pupils began to focus, his gaze locking onto the standing figure.

He saw a familiar silhouette standing there.

That was Zetsu-doubtedly Rin's figure.

But in the dim light, Obito couldn't see clearly.

He only felt that the "Rin" before him was standing in an incredibly twisted posture.

Her body was stiff, utterly devoid of a living person's vitality, while her arms hung at grotesquely strange angles.

Obito's voice was tentative and already beginning to tremble.

"Rin? You... what's wrong with you?"