Akira stared at Obito in silence.
Not with admiration.
With calculation.
To Akira, Obito wasn't a person — he was an anomaly.
A blank space in the record of history.
In the four years Akira had ruled through the Imperial Council, not once had Obito surfaced.
No sightings, no chakra signatures, no whispers in the underworld, not even a forged rumor.
It was as if the man had been erased.
Akira had even questioned Nagato about it.
The answer only deepened the mystery:
"One day, Madara vanished… and he never returned."
Obito's disappearance matched the exact period Akira initiated reforms — around the dawn of the new shinobi world.
That coincidence gnawed at him.
So he deployed everything:
ANBU contingencies, sensory divisions, diplomatic informants embedded across nations — all searching for a trace.
Yet the result was the same:
Nothing.
Obito had vanished like mist in the wind.
---
In that same span of time, Akira had accumulated eight new lucky simulation chances — added to the three he already held.
Eleven in total.
And he used every one but, he didn't meet Obito in his hundreds of years of lifespan in the simulation.
Three were sacrificed solely for future innovations — infrastructure networks, research, civilian technology systems — the unseen machinery powering the modern shinobi era.
Four were invested into a 4× enhanced lucky simulation.
The remaining four were consumed across two 2× enhanced simulations.
The greatest reward?
Bloodline Snare.
A transcendence above Kekkei Genkai and even Kekkei Tōta — seven chakra natures braided into a single sovereign genetic authority.
Through it, Akira could summon Truth-Seeking Orbs — a technique reserved for beings on the level of Kaguya Ōtsutsuki.
He can also use other of Kaguya Otsusuki techniques like:
All-Killing Ash Bones
Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack
Infinite tsukiyomi
At this point, Akira lacked only one thing she possessed — the Ten-Tails.
And even then…
He could fight her one-on-one without being defeated.
Perhaps even win.
Because unlike Kaguya — who had the combat instinct of a chicken— Akira had clarity, will, and strategy.
---
But during those four years, one question never left him:
Where was Obito?
His motive for searching was layered:
First — Akira refused to let the Uchiha name carry the blemish of treachery.
In this era, the clan was revered; a ghost like Obito could poison that reverence.
Second — he could not allow an uncontrolled variable to destabilize the world he built.
But now, with Obito lounging upon the Hokage Rock, reality aligned.
Maybe the future lacked Obito…
because Akira kills him here.
Maybe Obito's absence in every future Simulation was because he died today.
That explained four silent years without interference.
No Akatsuki manipulation, no masked schemes — just absence.
Akira accepted the logic — but a sliver of confusion remained.
Ah, yes.
The grandfather paradox.
Kill the past version, and the future changes.
If the future changes, what caused the past action?
An infinite loop.
Akira let the thought drift away.
Time and space weren't governed by mortal reasoning.
He bent them only because his eyes — Rinnegan and Mangekyō — granted him dominion beyond the seven basic chakra transformations.
A mortal scholar could debate paradoxes.
Akira simply acted.
His gaze settled on Obito — expression unreadable, chakra steady, judgment already rendered.
---
Akira's contemplation ended in a heartbeat.
He controlled the Gravitation around him using his Rinnegan and started flying towards Obito rapidly.
Obito's head snapped up immediately, instincts flaring.
Flight — literal flight — was rare in this world.
Onoki and his successors are the anomaly; everyone else who could hover, glide, or manipulate gravity belonged either to super-Kage level or Six Paths tier monsters.
Kūkai no Kago— Cage of Empty Space
Akira didn't gave Obito much time to think and directly used his Mangekyo ability.
A ripple spread through the air — space itself folded into a cage, freezing dozens of meters around Obito.
Not the full domain — that would dialate time as well.
This was a selective freeze, spatial layers locked while temporal flow continued normally.
A trick Akira had only recently mastered.
He wanted Obito conscious, breathing, fully aware — yet utterly unable to run.
That was the point.
Why talk to him at all?
Simple.
Akira had always mocked villains who monologued…
But, in truth, those villains died because they were weak — while protagonists survived because they had cheats like System, Talent or background.
Now Akira was the cheat.
Obito's hacks were disabled — Kamui disabled, dimensional escape denied.
Stripped of his broken mechanics, Obito was just a panic-stricken Kage-level shinobi.
Akira couldn't resist the novelty of it.
Trash-talking someone who once believed he was untouchable?
Yes, that sounded fun.
---
Inside the frozen spatial field, Obito's calm facade cracked.
He could feel it — Kamui should have activated instinctively, but the dimensional pathway never opened.
His heart lurched.
When the pressure peaked, Akira stepped into the domain, casual as a man entering his garden.
"Uchiha Obito, huh?" he said lightly.
"The first time we meet."
He paused, then corrected himself:
"No — the first time you meet me."
His eyes narrowed, amused.
"My name is Chronarch. You may introduce yourself."
But Obito didn't speak.
The moment Akira said that name — that forgotten, buried identity — Obito's composure collapsed completely.
Panic, then fury.
Why panic?
Because no one should know that name anymore.
Not even the Zetsu that whispered behind him used it.
The only voice who ever spoke "Obito" without deception was Madara — and Madara was dead.
And the killing intent?
Simple.
Obito intended to erase anyone who knew his truth.
But now — trapped, exposed, powerless before someone who could rewrite physics — that intent only made his terror sharper.
Akira watched all of it unfold.
And smiled.
---