The trio reunited

Five li from the Land of Fire's border.

Two figures leaped rapidly through the forest, as though countless pursuers were behind them.

"Rin, hurry!" Kakashi darted through the trees.

"Once we're inside the Land of Fire and find Minato-sensei, we'll be safe."

"Kakashi, I think something's wrong with me." Rin Nohara pressed a hand to her chest, unable to shake the feeling that something was wrong.

Glimpses of a huge turtle with three tails occasionally flashed through her mind.

Rin realized something.

"Kakashi, we've fallen into a trap. They sealed the Three-Tails inside me so I'd return to Konoha and release the Tailed Beast!"

"Wha..."

Rin Nohara raised the kunai in her hand to her heart, trying to kill herself, but she couldn't push it in.

She remembered how, when she was kidnapped, the Mist Ninja had placed a curse on her heart.

"So that's what that curse was for."

"Kakashi, kill me." Rin turned to look at Kakashi and spoke anxiously.

Hearing Rin Nohara's words, Kakashi's eyes widened.

"No way. I can't do it!"

The two fled into a clearing. The moment they stepped into it, numerous Kirigakure Anbu suddenly dropped down around them.

"Damn it, when did they..." Kakashi formed hand seals. Lightning Blade burst to life in his right hand, and the Sharingan in his eye slowly began to spin and change shape, faintly taking on the form of three scythes.

Kakashi frowned.

Why does it feel like my Sharingan's power has grown stronger?

"Brats, we've finally caught up to you." A Kirigakure ninja raised his long blade and pointed it at Kakashi.

"Save your breath." Kakashi formed hand seals, and lightning flared in his right hand.

His figure flashed forward. Relying on the Sharingan's extraordinary ability to track movement, combined with the acceleration of Lightning Blade's thrust, he attacked the Mist Ninja ahead.

Suddenly.

Something flashed before Kakashi's eyes. Rin Nohara landed in front of him and rushed toward him.

"Rin!" The immense momentum from Lightning Blade's high-speed thrust left Kakashi unable to stop. He watched as Lightning Blade was about to pierce the small body before him.

"Get out of the way!"

"That's enough."

The atmosphere in the forest clearing suddenly became utterly bizarre.

Kakashi froze in place, his right hand carrying countless bolts of lightning, enough to pierce through anything.

A hand had casually caught it, holding it immobile.

He could feel that the other man's hand wasn't exerting much force, yet it gripped his Lightning Blade hand like a hydraulic clamp.

No matter how hard Kakashi tried, the other man didn't budge.

Such incredible strength. When did Kirigakure get a monster like this? We never received any intelligence about him.

To think Kirigakure had kept a fighter like this hidden during this war.

"Do it." Kakashi closed his eyes, his heart turning cold.

He thought this was a powerful fighter Kirigakure had kept hidden.

He and Rin were going to die here today.

"Obito?"

A familiar voice, filled with pleasant surprise, reached his ears.

It was Rin's voice.

Obito? Kakashi's heart jolted. Is Rin hallucinating before she dies, just like me?

Back to those days when the three of us had just graduated.

Obito, I'm sorry. I didn't keep my promise to protect Rin.

He waited a long time, but aside from the crackling thunder by his ear, no pain came.

Puzzled, he opened his eyes. What met his gaze was the tall man gripping his hand, dressed in an Akatsuki cloak.

And in the man's other hand, dangling like a chick, was someone he could never forget for as long as he lived.

Those familiar goggles.

"Genjutsu?" Kakashi's Sharingan instinctively spun, but he couldn't see any trace of chakra flowing. "No, that's not it."

He finally realized that this absurdly powerful man before him seemed... not to be an enemy.

"Sir." Kakashi stared at him with his dead-fish eye and ventured, "Could... could you let me go first?"

"Oh? If I let you go, don't zap me with that thing. These clothes were expensive, and I can't be bothered to wash them." Pero's voice had a lazy drawl as he casually released Kakashi's hand.

Kakashi hurriedly dispelled Lightning Blade.

Then Kakashi noticed a chill. Looking around, he saw that all the surrounding Mist Ninja had turned into ice sculptures, radiating cold.

He turned back toward the man, deeply astonished.

Did he do all this?

He wiped out an entire unit alone?!

Just then, the person who looked like Obito, dangling from the man's hand, let out a heart-wrenching cry.

"It hurts! It hurts so much!" His eyes were still tightly shut, as though he remained immersed in that lifelike genjutsu from moments before.

He abruptly raised his right hand, as though making a vow to the entire world.

"I'm going to create a world with only Rin in it!!"

"Thank goodness, Obito... you're alive!" Hearing that powerful shout, Rin Nohara could no longer contain her wild joy.

She lunged forward and hugged that familiar figure tightly, throwing all her earlier thoughts of dying to the winds.

"Thank goodness, really... thank goodness."

The newly awakened Obito looked utterly bewildered. Before he could work out what had happened, a familiar fragrance rushed into his arms.

He stared blankly at Rin in his arms, then placed a trembling hand on Rin Nohara's back and patted it gently.

"Am I dreaming..."

"Thank goodness you're alive."

"All right, all right. Stop getting all lovey-dovey while I'm holding you. Obito, get down and catch up with them." Unable to stand having romance rubbed in his face, Pero impatiently tossed Obito aside.

Dumped on the ground, Obito's mind was still a complete mess.

The sight of Rin being pierced by Lightning Blade in the genjutsu kept alternating with the real, warm Rin before him, making his head feel as though it would split.

"Hey, old man, you were messing with me just now, weren't you!" Obito stood up and pointed at Pero. "Just now, I... I clearly saw Kakashi kill Rin!"

After saying that, Obito turned and saw Kakashi, a flicker of killing intent passing through his eyes. Once he realized it might have been genjutsu, that killing intent gradually faded, but his attitude toward Kakashi remained far from friendly.

"You didn't keep our promise. You didn't protect Rin." Obito turned around and pointed at Kakashi again.

Watching the farce unfolding before him, Pero felt this brat was close to exhausting his patience.

Smack!

Pero slapped Obito's pointing right hand clean apart.

White bodily fluid resembling plant sap splattered across the ground. "Kid, didn't your family teach you not to point at people?"

He clapped his hands again. A White Zetsu crawled out of the ground, respectfully holding up an intact white right hand, and attached it to the dumbstruck Obito.

Seeing such a shocking scene, Kakashi lowered his head, rubbed his brow, and sighed. "Now I actually wish we were in a genjutsu."

But after his brief shock, he finally sorted out his thoughts and realized it was this man before him.

Who had saved Obito, and saved all of them too.

Kakashi bowed, then said to Pero, "Sir, thank you so much for saving Obito's life!"

Hearing that, Pero reached out and ruffled Kakashi's white hair, inwardly marveling at how prickly it was.

"I didn't save him for free. There's a price to pay."

Watching the perverted smile gradually spread across Pero's face, Kakashi had an ominous feeling.

Pero slowly raised his hand and pointed at the only girl among the three of them-Rin Nohara.

"I want her. No objections, right?"

Pero's words were shocking.

For an instant, even the air froze.

Kakashi was so startled that he instinctively raised his hand and used Lightning Blade again.

"Bastard! Even if you saved me, I won't let you lay a hand on Rin!" Obito, whose arm had only just been reattached, stepped directly in front of Rin.

Looking at these two brats treating him like a formidable enemy and taking him for a perverted lolicon, Pero couldn't help the twitch at the corner of his mouth.

He felt his blood pressure was rather high today.

Thump! Thump!

Moving faster than either of them could react, he delivered a hard knuckle rap to the top of each of their heads.

"You two know so much at your age. You've got it all figured out, haven't you?"

With that, Pero walked up to Rin and held her shoulder with his left hand. His right hand blurred for an instant, and a moment later, a trace of a black curse mark appeared in his hand.

He had just sliced open Rin's chest with his hand at incredible speed, then coated his hand in chakra and casually peeled away the suicide-prevention curse mark on her heart.

Then he used Heat Vision to seal the wound shut and stimulated the flesh to grow with his bio-field.

Throughout the entire process, not a single drop of blood was shed.

"Here, the thing on your heart." Pero opened his palm, showing the three of them the technique formula he had just removed.

Pero patted Rin's head again and reassured her.

"Don't be nervous. This next part might hurt a little." Pero looked through the layers of obstructions at the seal on Rin's belly.

He saw a huge turtle with three tails, fast asleep inside an enclosed space.

"Take a deep breath. Dizziness is normal."

With that, Pero's hand became wrapped in golden chakra.

Every time his chakra flowed through his heart, the heart's pumping purified the chakra that flowed back out. After several days of purification, Pero's chakra had gradually taken on a golden hue.

His quality and quantity might have surpassed everyone else's, including the Tailed Beasts'.

Under Obito's and Kakashi's gazes.

Pero drove his hand, wrapped in golden chakra, hard into the seal on Rin's lower abdomen!

"Roar-!"

Accompanied by a furious roar.

An enormous mass of blue chakra was, in an extremely brutal fashion...

Forcibly ripped out of Rin's body by Pero!