For Konoha, caught at the heart of the Third Shinobi World War, the years 47 and 48 of the Konoha calendar were two years of relentless warfare and rising heroes-and unimaginable carnage.
But for Uchiha Makoto, who had buried himself deep underground in the Secret Base and become a "research maniac," the bloodshed and heroic tragedies outside seemed obscured by a thick pane of frosted glass, distant and indistinct.
His world was filled with precision instruments, flickering data, strange materials, and experimental subjects submerged in nutrient solutions, some sleeping, others struggling.
Time lost its everyday markers here. All that remained were technical hurdles overcome one after another and creations undergoing constant refinement.
Perhaps because he, the greatest variable of all, had temporarily stepped away from center stage, the shinobi world's seemingly sturdy yet fragile timeline had actually wobbled a little closer to the course of the original story Uchiha Makoto remembered.
News trickling in through various channels pieced together a picture of the outside world:
Minato Namikaze's team had been formed, with Kakashi Hatake, Obito Uchiha, and Rin Nohara as its members.
The prodigy Kakashi had risen to jonin at an astonishing speed.
Then came that mission near Kannabi Bridge... Obito went missing, half his body crushed beneath a boulder, his fate unknown.
When Kakashi returned to the village, his left eye was covered with a bandage. Beneath it was a newly transplanted Sharingan belonging to his dearest friend.
Upon hearing the news, Uchiha Makoto merely set down the micro-engraving knife in his hand and fell silent for a few seconds.
"That guy Obito... had he taken this path after all?"
He murmured to himself, feeling little surprise, only a faint melancholy that even he could not quite explain.
He knew Obito was not dead. Some old relic had simply