Obito had completely lost himself to the slaughter. The Kirigakure Anbu were practically helpless before him, not lasting a single exchange. These so-called elites of the Bloody Mist were like mere salamanders in his wake.
Once Obito had butchered every Mist Anbu present, he walked toward Rin's corpse, his spirit seemingly hollowed out.
"This... what kind of world is this...?" Obito murmured, his voice trembling.
He collapsed into the pool of blood, cradling Rin's body, and began to wail.
In the distance, Diarmuid and Orochimaru watched the scene in silence. Orochimaru even let out a sentimental sigh, whispering, "Uchiha Obito. That's him, isn't it? One of the... two Sharingan heroes of Konoha from the Battle of Kannabi Bridge."
"Yes," Diarmuid nodded.
The presence of Kakashi and Rin had finally reminded Orochimaru of Obito's identity. He asked further, "You knew all along that he wasn't dead?"
"Mhm. He was saved by Uchiha Madara," Diarmuid replied nonchalantly.
Orochimaru: "???"
Wait, he was saved by who?
"Who saved him?" Orochimaru stared at Diarmuid, utterly bewildered.
"Uchiha Madara. Yes, the one you're thinking of, the man who was supposed to have died at the Battle of the Valley of the End," Diarmuid said. After a brief pause, he smiled. "Though now, he really is on the verge of death."
"..."
Orochimaru was a natural conspiracy theorist. Upon hearing such high-level secrets, he didn't doubt them for a second; he knew Diarmuid wouldn't joke about something like this. He asked directly, "Are you saying this entire situation is a conspiracy?"
"Yes. Madara is orchestrating a massive plot, and this is only the beginning. I'll fill you in on the details when we have time. For now, let's move, before that poor girl is truly beyond saving," Diarmuid said.
Orochimaru nodded, feeling a strange sense of complexity regarding Diarmuid. At this moment, he couldn't quite tell if Diarmuid was a good man or a villain. If you called him good... just look at the things he had done. If you called him bad, he would randomly go out of his way to save a girl he had no connection to.
He seemed almost... warm-hearted.
After a moment's reflection, Orochimaru reached a conclusion: Diarmuid was a man who followed his own whims, a true chaotic neutral.
Obito suddenly snapped his head up to see two figures standing before him. One was completely hidden under a black robe and a mask, making identification impossible. But the other he recognized, one of Konoha's legendary Sannin... Orochimaru!
"What do you want!?" Obito snarled, his eyes burning with fury.
"Hell... doesn't feel good, does it?" Diarmuid said softly.
Obito glared at the masked man, gritting his teeth. "Do you want to die?"
In this moment, he feared nothing. Even Orochimaru meant nothing to him.
However, Orochimaru did not provoke the boy. Instead, he said, "I need to recover the bodies of the Konoha shinobi. Please, hand her over to me..."
Obito froze, momentarily at a loss. Should he stop them?
"You wouldn't want her parents to never even see her body again, would you?" Orochimaru added.
In the original timeline, Obito never took Rin's body back to Madara. In his own words, "Rin wouldn't die," the Rin in his mind was the real one, and the one lying there was just an "imposter."
Obito seemed lost in thought, but he eventually lowered Rin's body gently, his eyes hardening with resolve. He shot a silent, piercing look at Diarmuid and Orochimaru, glanced at the unconscious Kakashi, and then, without a single word, turned and walked away.
Even Diarmuid was surprised by how decisively Obito left. The boy seemed changed. It was as if, in this very moment, he had severed his ties with the world. He was no longer a person of this earth.
Watching Obito's retreating figure, Orochimaru shook his head. "If there really is a conspiracy like you said, then without a doubt, that kid has just joined the other side."
"It doesn't matter. I don't care about that. Madara's plan is actually quite interesting," Diarmuid chuckled.
"Oh? I thought you'd try to stop it..." Orochimaru said, surprised.
"Why would I stop it? If I feel my strength is up to it, I might even help him kickstart it early," Diarmuid grinned.
Orochimaru: "???"
You used the word 'conspiracy,' which implies Madara isn't up to any good. And yet you want to help him?
But then he thought... Well, that is exactly the kind of thing Diarmuid would do.
"Enough talk. The girl is the priority," Diarmuid said. He formed a hand seal, a sealing technique Orochimaru had taught him on the way, which he had slightly modified.
With the seal complete, Diarmuid pressed his palm against Rin's stomach. Immediately, he felt the Three-Tails beginning to dissipate.
"Abyssal Release: Siphoning Seal!" Diarmuid whispered.
A dense surge of dark power erupted from his palm, drawing in all the Tailed Beast Chakra that Isobu was leaking. He then physically "tugged" something out of Rin's corpse, a massive clump of Chakra, and sealed it away into the darkness.
Normally, this technique required a physical medium, but Diarmuid chose the element of darkness itself as the vessel. The results were perfect.
Orochimaru simultaneously performed a mysterious technique, summoning Rin's soul back from the path to the Pure Land and sealing it firmly within her body.
"What technique is that? Your own creation?" Diarmuid asked.
"Sealing Art: Spirit Lock. It's a Kinjutsu, but not my own. It belongs to the Second Hokage," Orochimaru explained.
Diarmuid nodded in understanding. As the prized student of the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, Orochimaru was the direct heir to the Hokage lineage's secrets. In the original history, Orochimaru knew many of Tobirama's techniques, with some stolen, but many learned legitimately through his status.
And Tobirama indeed possessed such a technique. Much later, during the Fourth Great Ninja War, it would be used to save Sasuke's life. It was quite ironic and felt almost like destiny: the man who hated the Uchiha his entire life ended up using his final act to save the last descendant of the Uchiha.
"Let's go," Diarmuid said, slinging Rin's body over his shoulder.
Orochimaru glanced at the unconscious Kakashi. "What about him?"
"Why bother with him?" Diarmuid replied dismissively.
I was having a perfectly good time in Konoha, and this brat was the one who snitched on me... Eat shit!
Seeing that Diarmuid had no intention of dealing with Kakashi, Orochimaru didn't press the issue. The two quickly vanished from the area.
Halfway back, they linked up with Kakuzu and Jūzō. Inside a deserted log cabin built by mountain hunters, the group gathered around Rin's corpse. Such cabins were common waypoints for hunters to escape bad weather; they were usually empty, so Diarmuid claimed it for their temporary use.
"Well?" Diarmuid looked at Kakuzu.
"The soul is present, but the heart is completely destroyed. She's essentially a living corpse," Kakuzu muttered, sending the black threads of Earth Grudge Fear into Rin's wound.
After sensing the damage, he said calmly, "It's only the heart that was crushed. Everything else is intact. If it were anything else, it would be tricky, but hearts are my specialty." Kakuzu gave a dry chuckle.
The core of the Earth Grudge Fear technique was "heart replacement," so mastery of the technique required an exhaustive understanding of the organ. In other fields, Kakuzu might not be a medical expert, but when it came to hearts, he was "the man."
The black threads within Rin's chest writhed. Diarmuid watched as the threads slowly "spat out" a fresh, beating heart. Simultaneously, the threads reconnected every visible and invisible blood vessel. In a way, the Earth Grudge Fear threads were themselves specialized blood vessels. The execution was flawless.
As for whether the heart was a match? In the Shinobi World, that concept didn't exist. Blood type didn't matter; if you plugged it in, it worked. If you wanted a logical explanation: Chakra!
Soon, the fragments of Rin's shattered heart were cleared away, and the replacement was fully installed. Kakuzu had performed the entire operation with one hand, looking every bit the "Medical Specialist." After withdrawing the threads, he even fastidiously sutured the wound.
He was a master of this; later in history, he would even be able to reattach Hidan's severed head. Considering Rin was just a young girl, Kakuzu was surprisingly meticulous. The stitching was exquisite, lacking any jagged, obvious scars.
Of course, since this was open-chest surgery, the poor girl was somewhat exposed to these "old men," but everyone was focused on saving her life, and no one gave it a second thought.
Once finished, Kakuzu applied a spark of electricity to Rin's chest. Being high-level shinobi with sharp senses, they soon heard the rhythmic thump-thump of a heartbeat from within her body.
Normally, having been dead for so long, even if the heart started beating, the brain would have suffered irreversible death from lack of oxygen. But this was the Shinobi World... the brain didn't matter as much as the soul.
As Rin's breathing resumed, Orochimaru released the seal on her soul. Since her bodily functions were active, her soul did not attempt to depart for the Pure Land again.
Orochimaru nodded to Diarmuid, signaling success.
"It looks like she's fine now," Kakuzu said. "As for when she'll wake up... give it two or three days."
Diarmuid wasn't in a hurry. Even if they hadn't been able to save her, he wouldn't have been overly depressed, just slightly annoyed. He turned to Kakuzu and Jūzō. "You two, take this girl back and look after her. Orochimaru and I are heading back to Konoha first. I have a debt to settle with that old man Danzō."
Jūzō blinked. "Wait, isn't she a Konoha ninja? We're taking her back with us?"
"She was Konoha before she died. She isn't anymore," Diarmuid waved a hand dismissively without further explanation.
Jūzō was only asking out of curiosity and didn't push. Kakuzu, naturally, didn't care about the politics of it; he simply did as Diarmuid ordered.
The four split up once more, with Orochimaru and Diarmuid heading back toward the Hidden Leaf.
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