Tick. Tick. Tick.
The countdown began.
Each click slammed into Obito's and Rin's hearts like a hammer.
"Mmm—!" She was still just a girl. Courage cracked under the shadow of the clock. Metal filled her mouth; only wordless sobs could escape. Tears slicked her cheeks, pooling along her jaw. She shook, wide eyes begging and apologising all at once.
I'm sorry. I shouldn't make you… but I don't want to die.
"I'll save you, Rin." Through iron and dark, Obito's gaze didn't waver.
He burned her face into memory—just in case.
All that in seconds.
He ran. The next door boomed open on a breath of white fog and bone-deep cold.
"—tch!"
Frost filmed his brows in an instant. The room was a cave of ice, cold vapor snaking through the air. Twenty, thirty below at least. Each inhale stabbed his lungs; even his guts felt like they were icing over.
Sixty seconds.
He stepped in.
A gust of colder air ripped across him—
No, a dump of water from above, freezing the moment it kissed his skin. His hair and lashes crackled with frost.
So cold. So, so cold.
His sandals froze to the floor. He didn't hesitate—tore free with a jerk, left the soles behind, and planted bare feet on ice.
Shhrrrip—
Skin tore up in bloody petals with every step. Blood bloomed, then glassed over into scarlet flowers.
Obito no longer felt the pain. Numbness and will dragged him onward.
"Wait for me… Rin."
Four, five meters took a lifetime of seconds. He reached the scale.
He raised two fingers, lifted a lid—then shoved his fingers into his last good eye.
Wet pop.
A whole eyeball came free.
Blood should have poured—but the socket froze to a red crater almost immediately.
He set the eye on the plate. A relay clicked. Blind now, he fumbled for the next device, found the reservoir, and slit his wrist over it.
The cold sealed the cut in moments. He slashed it open again. And again. And again—chasing the rising line with his own heat while the room tried to steal it.
Dizziness set his skull adrift. He swayed—and the second relay snapped.
Last step.
He plunged his hand into the acid bath. Flesh dissolved to bone in breaths. He hooked bone through metal, fished the key free, and lurched for the door.
"Wait… for me…"
He leaned on the wall, numb feet skidding, following ice and memory back to Rin. He had nothing left but stubbornness.
Shff, shff—
He reached the iron door. He didn't want her to hear the terror in his breathing, so he scraped up a smile she couldn't see. "Rin… I'm back. It's okay. It's going to be okay…"
"Mm—! Mmm!" Her answer was high and panicked.
Riiiing—
The alarm screamed.
Obito's stomach fell through him. His fingers clawed at the window bars.
"No—!"
He was late.
Inside, Rin's eyes flew wide. Tears geysered.
The clock hit zero.
CRACK.
The Split-Jaw tore open.
Blood. Meat. Bone. Red and white geysered across the room. The sound was a wet, ripping cloth-tear magnified into a nightmare.
"Rin! Rin?!" Obito dragged at the grill, blind, savage. The only reply was a silence that swallowed everything.
"AAAAHHHH!"
He had given everything—and still failed.
"Rin!"
There's nothing crueller than failing to save the one within reach.
Crueller still is being a heartbeat too slow.
If he'd been faster—just a fraction—she'd be alive.
It's my fault.
Something in him cracked.
Creak… creak…
Jigsaw rolled up on its little bicycle. Obito lay on the floor, eyes empty, whispering, "Kill me. Kill me. Kill me…"
"Most people stumble through life ungrateful," Jigsaw rasped, crimson eyes taking him in. "You won't. Not anymore."
"The game is over."
Deep in the Forest of Death's tower, Uchiha Sogetsu sat cross-legged before the assembled examinees—faces pale, eyes shattered by what they'd seen.
His gaze lingered on Obito's twisted expression. The corner of his mouth tilted.
"Don't rush it, Obito. We've got a long road ahead. Your desensitization training has only just begun."
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