The sealing jutsu for sealing the Nine-Tails was exquisite. There were very few people in the world who could undo it.
After all, this was the combined creation of the Fourth Hokage and the princess of the Uzumaki clan!
"Minato…"
Looking at the seal tag on the sealing prison, Kushina's hand involuntarily landed on it.
Naruto was already ten years old now, and it had been nearly a decade since she had last seen the man she loved most.
Ten long years…
"What's she trying to do?!"
"Doesn't matter what—just rip it off, rip it off!"
The Nine-Tails, which had instinctively taken a few steps back, now stared with glowing eyes at Kushina's movements, excitement flooding its heart.
Although the possibility of Kushina ripping off the seal tag and killing her own son was minimal, the Nine-Tails still had this thought in its heart at this moment.
Hurry and rip it off!
As long as this damn seal was ripped off, it could leave this cage, and it could regain its freedom!
Under the Nine-Tails' expectant gaze, Kushina's finger landed on the seal tag. In just an instant, the huge spiritual space was as if a storm had swept through it, and a great aura surged.
The Nine-Tails' nerves trembled, and it instinctively tried to unleash its massive chakra to smash through the seal.
But the moment it felt Kushina's overwhelming spiritual power, a shiver coursed down its body. It hastily pulled back, suppressing its chakra and retreating deeper inside the cage.
Naruto was her son. As his mother, Kushina would never harm him. Which meant—even if she did open the seal—it wouldn't grant the Nine-Tails freedom. More likely, some sinister scheme was waiting for it instead.
No, I must calm down! There's a trap!
Compared to being threatened by spiritual power and being played with and controlled by the evil master of souls, it still preferred to stay in Naruto's stomach.
But soon, the seal tag that seemed to be restraining it, but was now protecting it, was actually ripped off by Kushina.
Naruto's body outside suddenly trembled. His pupils contracted continuously. An extremely cold chakra was about to rush out of his body.
But in just a flash, the vast chakra disappeared, and Naruto himself fainted in Kushina's arms.
The ANBU arrived in time and looked at Naruto in Kushina's arms: "Kushina-sama, this is..."
"This is a mission entrusted to me personally by the Fourth. There's no need for concern." Her voice was soft, unwavering. Throughout it all, her eyes never once strayed from her son.
Then, as though recalling something, she finally looked up, giving Uchiha Hikari a slight nod. Cradling Naruto gently, she vanished from sight.
Seeing this, the Kirigakure ANBU also knew better than to say anything more and returned to the shadows.
Although Kushina Uzumaki was the former Nine-Tails Jinchūriki and a top-tier combatant of Konoha, she was now the Seventh Division Captain of the Soul Society personally appointed by Yuki Yoru.
Matters of a Shinigami Captain were no longer something that ordinary ANBU shinobi could pry into, even if they had also mastered spiritual power. Besides, Hikari-sama was also here. Nothing would go wrong no matter what.
"You've gone mad, Kushina! Do you really think I wouldn't dare tear my way out and kill your son outright?!"
Within the spiritual space, the Nine-Tails glared at the prison gate, now stripped of its sealing tag and held shut only by ordinary binding chains.
This should have been the moment of a tailed beast's ecstasy—yet the Nine-Tails was trembling, fur bristling, growling low:
"What in the world are you trying to do?!"
Kushina ignored the Nine-Tails' barking and instead focused intently on the chakra within the seal tag.
Back when the seal was forged, in order to ensure she could someday see Naruto grown, and also as an additional safeguard, she and Minato had embedded fragments of their chakra infused with their own wills into the Eight Trigrams Seal.
Now, she was calling out to that consciousness.
Dreamlike radiance spilled out from the seal tag beneath her palm, and a figure she knew better than anyone slowly emerged.
Golden hair. Blue eyes. A warm face that shone like a little sun.
Just one look, and Kushina almost broke down.
"Has Naruto already started contacting the Nine-Tails' chakra…? Hm? Kushina?"
Minato blinked, realizing belatedly. Kushina's eyes were already red, tears slipping down her cheeks. She wiped them away, forcing a trembling smile.
"It's been so long, Minato…"
...
"No wonder Zetsu hasn't been able to track the Eight-Tails and Two-Tails since the war broke out. So they were hidden here all along."
From high above, Obito gave a cold snort as his gaze shifted downward.
Below him stretched a massive, living island—slowly drifting across the endless sea. He could clearly feel the heartbeat pulsing within its colossal frame. If a living creature like this had been moving through the ocean all this time, then even Zetsu's unrivaled scouting ability would fail to pinpoint the jinchūriki of the Two-Tails and Eight-Tails.
"What a pity. You should have hidden them in Kirigakure."
Expressionless, Obito raised his hand toward the colossal turtle-like island below.
An indescribably terrifying chakra gathered in his palm. The repulsive force, one of the four fundamental forces of the universe that only the Sage of Six Paths' eyes could use, burst out in an instant.
"Shinra Tensei."
The moment the power surged, dozens of figures appeared midair, rushing to intercept him.
They wielded spiritual power, able to tread upon the void itself—but the immense repulsive force came down from the sky as if the sky had collapsed. It was unstoppable. In an instant, the shinobi of Kumogakure were crushed mercilessly into the ground.
"Hmph. Like insects trying to stop a storm."
Obito sneered. So what if they had mastered spiritual power? An ant would always be an ant...
"BOOM!!!"
The cold smile behind his white mask froze.
The Shinra Tensei meant to flatten the entire island, to leave the Two-Tails and Eight-Tails nowhere to hide—was stopped at the very moment it touched the earth.
No… not stopped.
Contested.
"As expected of Yuki Yoru's words… If not for him telling me, I never would have believed the one orchestrating everything from the shadows… was you."
From the skies descended a figure in pure white haori—a silhouette Obito knew all too well. And with his arrival, a repulsive force no weaker than Obito's own erupted outward, the clash shaking the heavens.
The two completely equal forces collided in mid-air.
Trees, soil, stone—everything around them was hurled away as though by a hurricane. In the blink of an eye, the lush forest below was erased, wiped clean as if with a giant eraser.
"This power…"
Obito Uchiha's expression immediately became serious.
There were only three people in the current shinobi world who had the ability to use repulsive force without hand seals.
Besides the deceased Madara Uchiha, there were only the missing Nagato and that guy who came down from the moon.
The reason was simple. This level of repulsive force was not something that ordinary shinobi could have. To use this level of power, one had to at least have a certain level of the Six Paths' power.
And that power just now...
"Uchiha Obito."
The figure clad in a pure white haori stepped forward upon the air, facing the man in the white mask. At that moment, his tightly closed eyes snapped open.
The pale purple eyes with a ripple pattern had already shown their identity.
It was the legendary ultimate dōjutsu that had the power of creation and destruction, the eyes that the Sage of Six Paths once had.
The Rinnegan.
Back in Konoha, his relationship with Obito was actually pretty good. It was just that one was the number one genius of the Uchiha clan, while the other was a well-known dead-last.
But these things didn't matter. Both of their fates had changed in the future, and the only intersection...
Was the battle when Hanzō hunted down the Akatsuki!
In that battle, it was the first time the two of them fought.
Obito had believed that with the extraordinary might of Kamui, he could hold his own against Uchiha's brightest star. But to his shock, Shisui too had awakened the Mangekyō—and his ocular power and techniques far outstripped Obito's own.
If not for White Zetsu's intervention, Obito would have lost utterly.
After that fight, he never encountered Shisui again. He only later learned from Zetsu's reports that Shisui had been captured by Yuki Yoru.
Not long after, Shisui became Captain of the Second Division.
And now—today—this was their first meeting since that battle in the Land of Rain.
Two pairs of Rinnegan locked together in midair. Two Uchiha, once a prodigy and a dead-last, now reunited on equal ground.
"Uchiha… Shisui…"
A rare heaviness surfaced in Obito's gaze. "So you too possess the Rinnegan!"
He could tell immediately that the eyes in Shisui's sockets were not the same as Nagato's. The aura of their ocular power was different.
But Obito knew all too well how impossibly strict the conditions for awakening the Rinnegan were. Only by comprehending the power of life and death while commanding all forces of existence could one hope to awaken such eyes. Under ordinary circumstances, it was utterly impossible. Even he had relied on the aid of a ritual to reach this state.
And yet—despite such near-impossible conditions—Shisui had awakened the Rinnegan himself.
"It seems that after your capture by Yuki Yoru, you've been through quite a lot… Clan Head of the Kirigakure Uchiha."
"You were the one who fought me in Amegakure, weren't you?"
Shisui's expression was calm. Words like these held no weight for him anymore. Years in Kirigakure had already shattered his pride and his dignity alike.
"Give it up, Obito. You're not Yuki Yoru's opponent."
Only by truly experiencing Yuki Yoru's power could one understand how powerful Yuki Yoru truly was. Even if Obito in front of him had the Rinnegan, his chance of winning was infinitely close to zero.
Shisui understood Obito's suffering—he had borne agonies no less than his own. And precisely because he understood the depth of that pain, Shisui did not want Obito to waste himself on something meaningless.
Just like Nagato.
But Yoru's treatment of Nagato and Obito was not the same. To Nagato, Yoru had shown appreciation, recognition, even the respect of one who treasured a rare talent.
But for Obito...
It was more like a boring toy in his spare time.
"…Not his opponent?"
The words made Obito laugh, bitter and incredulous.
He had completed the ritual. He had stepped into the realm of the Sage of Six Paths. And Shisui dared to say he was no match for Yuki Yoru?
"You've already become afraid of Yoru, crushed beneath his power and might. You've even lost your will, Shisui!" Obito Uchiha roared, his voice low and harsh. Two piercingly cold lights flared from behind his white mask, locking onto Shisui.
"So this is all the resolve you have—the so-called number one genius of the Uchiha clan?!"
Shisui frowned.
"Struggling when there isn't the slightest chance of victory is meaningless."
"That's because your resolve is still far too small!"
Obito cut him off coldly, his gaze as frigid as eternal ice, his tone like iron.
"Your resolve is this tiny. Even if you have the same eyes as me, all you can see is a pitiful fragment of the truth."
"But I am different, Shisui. I have seen a greater, more magnificent world! I have seen a perfect world—without filth, without tragedy, filled only with love and peace!"
"This is the measure of my resolve!"
Shisui's brow furrowed deeper, his expression hardening.
The Uchiha way of thinking had always been abnormal. And those who awakened the Mangekyō? Their minds were twisted to an even greater extreme.
For those like Shisui and Obito, who not only awakened the Mangekyō but had come this far—their mental states could only be described as pathological. And the only cure for this madness… was to meet someone even more broken, and be overwhelmed.
In other words—overpowered by the other's resolve, and their pain.
That was the essence of the Uchiha.
And now, Obito was using his own resolve, his own unbearable pain, to deny everything Shisui stood for. Inevitably, this provoked the "Uchiha blood" and the "Uchiha madness" within Shisui to rise.
"It seems the only way to make you awaken, Obito, is to show you true despair—just like Nagato once experienced."
"Don't make me laugh! Do you still think I'm that dead-last you once toyed with at will, trapped inside your Mangekyō illusions, Shisui?!"
Shisui Uchiha's Rinnegan looked directly at Obito. His left hand fell on the Zanpakutō at his waist. The pure white haori moved on its own without any wind, and his aura was as majestic as a mountain.
Obito Uchiha's expression darkened. He had no fear at all and sneered. The Six Paths' power gathered, and a Yin-Yang Staff had already appeared in his palm!
Come then!
The Uchiha were a clan of madness, a clan that thrived in suffering!
Let us see—which is greater: your so-called resolve, or my pain?
"Amaterasu!"
Obito suddenly turned his head. For the briefest fraction of a second, his Rinnegan shifted back into the Eternal Mangekyō, its sickle-shaped pattern spinning as the inextinguishable black flames of Amaterasu burst forth—launching the first strike!