Chapter 138: Rampage
As Rin collapsed to the ground, Kakashi stood frozen in place. His hand gripping the ninja blade trembled uncontrollably.
I killed Rin?
I killed Rin?
I… killed Rin?!
Kakashi's right hand began to shake violently, the realization crashing down like a tidal wave.
Rin's face—her smile, her voice—flashed before his eyes.
And in his ears echoed Obito's words:
"Kakashi, I'm counting on you to protect Rin. Take care of her."
Grief, helplessness, and a numbing sense of isolation engulfed him like a void.
Kakashi slowly drew the blade from Rin's chest. Looking down at her now lifeless body, her breath barely lingering, a wave of dizziness overwhelmed him—and he collapsed to the ground.
---
Obito, who had witnessed everything, let out a soul-shattering scream.
His chakra surged violently, flooding toward his eye.
The red tomoe stretched and twisted—
Within seconds, a new shape formed: a mangekyō resembling a spinning windmill.
Immense ocular power surged through his body.
But Obito had no time to dwell on this awakening.
An unbearable burning sensation erupted across the right half of his body.
The white hood covering his head unraveled, transforming into barbed plant-like growths, woven together by raging chakra.
In the next instant, it morphed into a new white spiral mask, leaving only a single blood-red eye glaring forward with chilling intent.
His right side convulsed and mutated.
Wooden spikes burst from his flesh like jagged tree trunks.
Hashirama's cells, implanted into his body, erupted without restraint.
---
"Who is that?!"
One of the masked Mist Anbu turned around, still distracted by Kakashi's earlier attack.
"Is that a Konoha rein—"
"He's alone. Reinforcement or not—kill him."
The Mist-nin whispered among themselves. With so many wearing identical masks, it was impossible to tell who had spoken.
In the next moment—several shuriken sliced through the air toward Obito.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The shuriken passed straight through his body and embedded in the tree behind him.
None of them could even see how he'd evaded them.
"This world… this kind of twisted reality…"
Obito raised his head. His voice was a guttural snarl, barely human.
"I will never accept it!"
His mangekyō Sharingan burned bright, laced with blood-red veins.
With an explosive force, he launched himself forward—shattering the ground beneath his feet.
"Bastard! Don't underestimate us!"
A Mist-nin charged with a blade, shouting angrily. Their shadows clashed.
In a flash, the Mist-nin was hurled backward, impaled by wooden spikes.
A shower of blood sprayed into the rain, staining Obito's white spiral mask in an eerily beautiful red.
Another enemy rushed in.
Obito sidestepped, and with a twist of his wrist, a wooden spike sprouted from his sleeve, piercing the ninja cleanly through.
His blood-red eye locked onto his victim—merciless, unfeeling, terrifying.
"A-a-aah!"
The Mist-nin trembled, paralyzed by the monstrous figure before him.
Above, three more Mist-nin leapt into the air, blades descending with a flash of steel.
They stabbed down with full force—but passed through Obito as if he were air.
Instead, their blades pierced their own comrade below.
"What?! We passed through him?"
Before they could react, Obito spun midair like a top, kicking all three away with bone-crushing force.
"What's happening?!"
"Strange jutsu—everyone be alert!"
"Don't panic. He's still just one man!"
The Mist-nin tightened formation, voices overlapping in tense confusion.
Then one of them suddenly remembered something.
"Forget him! We need to complete the mission. Retrieve the test subject—take the girl's body!"
At the order, two Mist-nin broke formation and ran toward Rin's corpse.
But that move… touched Obito's reverse scale.
He let out a deafening roar and charged toward them without hesitation, like a wild beast unleashed.
"Stop him!"
Mist-nin shouted, slashing their blades as rain splashed around them.
But every attack passed through him like mist.
He weaved through them like a phantom—untouchable, unstoppable.
"Damn it—he really is intangible!"
A ninja cursed, swinging downward.
The blade once again passed straight through Obito's body.
Obito ignored them all.
He threw a sharpened wooden spike toward the two shinobi by Rin—
It struck one of them instantly.
Obito formed the hand seals purely on instinct.
The wooden spike suddenly expanded, exploding outward into countless thick branches that tore the enemy's body apart from the inside out.
"So… he used Wood Release without even realizing it? The Cutting Sprout Technique?
Now I understand… why Madara chose you," murmured the masked figure with the vortex-shaped face, watching silently from the shadows.
---
"AHHH!"
Obito screamed in anguish, turning and slamming a fist into the chest of another Mist ninja.
Boom!
The sheer force embedded the man deep into the earth, shattering the ground beneath him—it was a blow that could rival even Tsunade's monstrous strength.
The Mist-nin had already died on the first hit, but Obito, lost in his fury, dragged the corpse back up—and punched again.
And again.
And again.
Each strike more brutal than the last, a bloody and senseless display of wrath and grief.
---
"W-What is this thing?"
A Mist Anbu at the rear stumbled back involuntarily.
Even the hand gripping his blade was trembling.
Obito finally rose to his feet, the mangled body now unrecognizable.
His own body was drenched in blood, the rain falling hard now—as if the heavens themselves were trying to wash the horror away.
Above, the blood on the earth reflected back into the sky, dyeing the full moon a deep, ominous crimson.
The rain, the blood, the silence—everything had turned nightmarish.
Obito stood beneath that blood-red moon.
His white spiral mask, soaked in blood, looked colder than ever—like the visage of a demon walking straight out of hell.
"Y-You… you think this is enough to scare us?"
One of the Mist-nin tried to sound defiant, but the trembling in his voice betrayed him.
Suddenly, Obito roared.
The right half of his body surged with power and swelled grotesquely.
Countless wooden tendrils exploded from him, lashing out in every direction.
Several Mist-nin, caught off guard, were skewered on the spot—pierced like paper dolls.
And so began the slaughter.
---
Obito had no awareness of what he was doing.
Ever since he saw Rin collapse, something inside him had shattered.
His actions were no longer conscious—they were purely instinctive, driven by grief, hatred, and a bottomless rage.
There was only one thought left in his mind:
No one… touches Rin.
No one.
---
Screams echoed through the battlefield.
Blood pooled beneath the bodies.
Rain mingled with it, turning the earth into a muddy, red-soaked river—a grotesque crimson swamp under the stormy sky.
By the time Obito came back to his senses…
Everyone was dead.
---
He slowly walked over to Rin's lifeless body.
Kneeling beside her, he gently lifted her into his arms, as if holding a sleeping beauty—terrified that any movement might wake her from her eternal slumber.
The spiral mask unraveled.
Obito wrapped his arms tightly around her, holding her close amidst the sea of blood.
"Is this… what they call hell?"
---
Above them, the crimson moon cast a light that was anything but pure.
And just then, at the edge of the blood-soaked battlefield…
A shadow emerged.
A man in a black cloak, wearing a hood and a mask, stepped silently into view.