Obito bids his friends a tearful farewell

However, when Asami Ri turned back toward the battlefield, his movements faltered slightly.

There was no need for him to intervene anymore.

Every Kirigakure Anbu around them stood frozen in place, their pupils unfocused, like puppets whose master had vanished.

A flicker of surprise crossed Asami Ri's eyes before he turned his full attention back to his work.

He used alcohol for a quick disinfection, the hand holding his blade steady as a rock.

[Assisted modeling established. The penetrating wound to the heart is offset by 3 millimeters, avoiding the main valve. Survival probability: 45%. Beginning real-time calibration.]

With Celestial Pivot's precise assistance, a lattice of blue guidelines appeared in Asami Ri's vision.

The scalpel precisely sliced through damaged tissue, and he began stitching the ruptured heart.

The Three-Tails' chakra came into play.

Under the control of his eye power, it followed Asami Ri's stitches, stimulating the muscle fibers to heal.

At last, Asami Ri snipped the final thread and let out a long breath.

"Thump... thump-thump..."

Faint but real, the heartbeat reached his fingertips through Rin Nohara's chest.

Under the healing influence of tailed beast chakra, the heart miraculously resumed its duty.

"It worked..." Asami Ri murmured.

At those words, Kakashi's body, strained to its limit, lurched violently. The conviction that had kept him upright dissolved, leaving him unable to hold on any longer.

The light of his Mangekyō Sharingan faded completely, and he pitched forward, collapsing unconscious beside Rin.

Asami Ri did not rest immediately. He opened his right hand, a mass of thick, dark red chakra pulsing in his palm.

It was a sample of the Three-Tails' chakra that had leaked from Rin Nohara's body as she lay dying.

Devoid of its host's consciousness, it was an "Ownerless Object" in its purest form.

"Celestial Pivot, absorb the sample."

[Acquisition successful. Designation: Three-Tails · Chakra Sample. Establishing analysis task...]

The mass of chakra rapidly faded from Asami Ri's palm.

At that moment, Asami Ri keenly sensed a sinister, icy presence spreading behind him.

He slowly turned his head.

At the edge of the battlefield, beneath the torrential rain, a strange figure encased in white, spiral-patterned armor approached one step at a time.

He looked less like a person than a demon that had crawled out of hell.

The black-and-white figure remained silent. With every step, muffled cracks of breaking bone and tearing flesh erupted from the motionless Kirigakure Anbu around him.

Countless sharp wooden spikes grew savagely from their chests and throats like the thorns of hell, turning them in an instant into a forest of stakes hung with scraps of flesh.

He stopped a few steps away from Asami Ri. Through the only exposed opening, his Mangekyō Sharingan shone with a chilling red light.

His gaze passed Asami Ri, moved beyond Kakashi, and finally settled on the girl's face.

His eyes were as gentle as a breeze brushing cherry blossoms, yet filled with greed and grief.

"Who... are you?" Asami Ri feigned wariness as he gripped his scalpel. Having overdrawn his chakra, his voice sounded terribly weak.

The black-and-white figure did not answer.

Not even his breathing could be heard, only the patter of rain striking the Spiral Mask.

He stared for a long time.

From behind his mask, Obito gazed at the world he had thought he had already lost.

Only after confirming that Rin Nohara's heart was indeed beating faintly did the murderous aura around him, fierce enough to tear the entire coast apart, slowly subside.

In the end, he said nothing and did not spare Asami so much as a glance.

His eyes flicked toward the unconscious Kakashi, and a drop of rain slipped through a gap in his mask.

Like melting ice and snow, his figure gradually sank into the earth beneath his feet amid the rain, disappearing without a trace.

In the dark, damp underground, the smell of soil and rotting roots was suffocating.

Obito's body, wrapped in white material, stepped over loose earth. Every muffled footfall seemed to strike his shattered heart.

As he entered the deep cavern, Tobi's slightly flippant voice rang out, carrying a hint of innocent curiosity.

"Well, well, leaving already? Aren't you going to meet your friends, Obito? You spent the entire night going on about 'Rin' and 'Kakashi,' you know. They're right up there on the surface."

Obito stopped abruptly.

Within the mask's deep opening, the blood-red hue slowly receded from his Mangekyō Sharingan, leaving sorrow that could not escape the abyss.

"There's no need anymore."

His voice was startlingly hoarse, like worn-out bellows, with none of the spirited confidence he had possessed as a boy.

"...They already have a better teammate by their side."

Obito slowly closed his eyes, the image of Rin Nohara on the verge of death rising in his mind.

"Compared to me..." Obito gave a low, self-mocking chuckle tinged with desolation. "He's more popular, more composed. He could even bring Rin back."

He raised his pale right hand, formed from White Zetsu, and slowly curled his fingers, grasping nothing but empty air.

"And a broken reject like me, who can only hide underground... what can I do besides hold everyone back?"

Separated from the pouring rain by the earth above, the boy who had once dreamed of becoming Hokage finally snuffed out his last glimmer of light with his own hands.

"Let's go, Tobi."

He stepped back into the deeper darkness, his voice utterly cold. "That light never belonged to someone who was already dead."

Asami Ri's taut body finally relaxed, and the scalpel in his hand fell onto the rubble with a clang.

Cold rain slid down his bloodstained cheeks and struck the muddy ground, splashing up tiny flecks of dirt.

Listening to Rin's faint but steady heartbeat, his tightly closed eyes trembled slightly. "Everything... is finally over."

Just then, a faint tremor passed through the air.

Whoosh!

A brilliant burst of golden light flashed through the gray curtain of rain.

Minato Namikaze appeared out of thin air, his flak jacket already stained red with blood and several scorch marks marring the hem of his clothes.

He had just fought a fierce battle against the Third Mizukage, but the Third Mizukage had suddenly withdrawn.

He had not stopped to rest. Even though his chakra had yet to recover, he had chosen to rush over at full speed.

Yet the sight before him made even this battle-hardened Jonin draw a sharp breath.

"Ri... am I too late?" Minato's voice trembled with guilt.

He saw not only severed limbs strewn across the ground, but also Kakashi lying in a pool of blood and Rin with blood covering her chest over her heart.

Holding on to the last shred of his consciousness, Asami Ri turned his head to look at Minato.

He managed a relieved smile on his pale face.

"Yeah, you're... just in time, Sensei."

The moment the words left his lips, his taut nerves gave out, and boundless darkness swiftly swallowed Asami Ri's vision. His body swayed, all strength drained away, and he toppled straight backward.

Minato rushed forward with the Body Flicker Technique and firmly caught Asami Ri's back.

He quickly checked all three of their vital signs. Though each was on the brink of death, miraculously, the spark of life remained in them all.

"Those are..."

As soon as he finished examining the three of them, Minato's gaze swept toward the edge of the battlefield.

Huge, terrifying wooden spikes rooted in pools of blood reached menacingly toward the sky.

Deep confusion and unease surfaced in his eyes.

"Is that... Wood Release?! Impossible..."

Yet his duty as their teacher overcame the urge to investigate the truth.

"Stay alive... you have to stay alive!"

Minato gritted his teeth and swept his right hand across a nearby broken tree, inscribing a mark.

Then he swiftly but carefully gathered the three unconscious figures together.

Golden light flared once more, instantly tearing through the dim curtain of rain.

With that flash of gold, the gruesome battlefield fell empty, leaving only the Kirigakure corpses scattered across the ground and the hideous wooden spikes, slowly withering in the rain as though mocking fate.

Deep underground, on a cold stone throne, the aged Madara Uchiha slowly opened his clouded yet still piercing eyes.

"She survived..."

A dry, cold chuckle, like dead wood scraping together, echoed through the silent cavern, carrying a bone-deep chill.

Through White Zetsu's live "broadcast," he had watched the entire drama unfold along the coast, full of bloodshed and reversals.

As the playwright behind the scenes of this chaotic world, he had long since written the destined script for a few "little insects."

"How interesting. A supporting character who wasn't originally central to the plan actually awakened Storm Release, and... truly snatched that girl back."

Madara Uchiha's withered fingers tapped lightly against the cold armrest.

In his script, Rin Nohara's death was the force that would topple the last line of defense in Obito's heart, the blade that would utterly sever his bonds with the real world.

Yet the intervention of Asami Ri, this "variable," had introduced an absurd glimmer of hope into what should have been certain death.

"You really are stealing the show, Asami Ri."

Madara Uchiha lowered his eyelids slightly, his tone carrying the scrutiny of a ruler assessing an unexpected variable.

Still, a deviation of this degree remained within his tolerance.

"Though she didn't die, Obito's heart has already been steeped in hell."

He recalled Obito's eyes, their pattern fixed in the shape of a pinwheel.

The icy eye power that had erupted in that moment had allowed him to feel that utter despair, even through the many barriers between them.

"The Mangekyō Sharingan has awakened. That is what matters most. As for whether that girl is still alive... heh, as long as Obito believes this world is false, reality means nothing."

Madara Uchiha slowly closed his eyes and leaned back against the chair.

"Next, in the silence of this abyss, we will grind away Obito's last weakness, little by little." He murmured, pronouncing a death sentence upon a soul. "Until he completely abandons the name 'Obito Uchiha' and becomes the continuation of my will..."