The arena was still buzzing from the Bai Yan reveal.
Half the ninja world was demanding explanations.
The other half was already trying to figure out how to recruit him.
The scroll didn't care about any of that.
The Obito sub-section opened.
And everything else went quiet.
[Sub-Section: Uchiha Obito --- The Boy Who Broke the World.]
[This evaluation will not be brief. Some stories cannot be told quickly and remain honest.]
Konoha --- Chūnin Exam Arena
Kakashi Hatake had not moved.
He'd been standing with his arms at his sides since Obito's name appeared in 3rd place.
Book still open in his hand.
Not reading it.
He wasn't reading anything.
He was looking at the scroll with the expression of a man standing at the edge of something very deep, deciding whether to look down.
Nobody around him spoke.
Not Naruto.
Not Sakura.
Not Guy, who was fully capable of making noise through most natural disasters.
Just quiet.
The evaluation began.
[Uchiha Obito. Born in Konoha. Died--- and did not die--- at age thirteen, under a boulder, in a foreign country, trying to save someone he loved.]
[He was a cheerful child. Loud. Chronically late. Bad at everything except caring. His greatest ambition was to be Hokage so that everyone in the village would acknowledge him.]
[He gave that up to save Kakashi Hatake.]
Kakashi's visible eye closed.
Just for a second.
Then opened again.
[What happened after the boulder is the part the history books don't record, because the history books didn't know he survived.]
[Madara Uchiha found him. Kept him alive. And over years of recovery, isolation, and grief, turned a boy who had loved everything into a man who believed that love was the reason the world should end.]
[This did not happen all at once. That is important to understand.]
[It happened slowly.]
[One conversation at a time. One despair at a time. One carefully placed idea at a time. Madara Uchiha is many things, and one of them is patient.]
Pure Land
Madara read this.
He did not react visibly.
Beside him, Izuna had stopped talking.
Even Hashirama had stopped talking.
Because the evaluation was doing something none of the other rankings had done.
It was looking at Madara's actions not through the lens of strategy or strength or the Fourth Great Ninja War---
But through the lens of a thirteen-year-old boy under a boulder who had survived and then been found by exactly the wrong person.
[Uchiha Madara: ...]
He read the line again.
Madara Uchiha is many things, and one of them is patient.
He said nothing.
[Obito wanted Rin. Rin died---by Kakashi's hand, at her own request, to stop herself from becoming a weapon against Konoha.]
[After that, Obito stopped wanting things.]
[He started wanting the world to stop instead.]
[The Infinite Tsukuyomi: a dream where nobody loses anyone. Where Rin is alive. Where thirteen-year-old Obito never has to grow up into the person he became.]
[Is that evil?]
[The scroll is not equipped to answer that. It can only report: Obito Uchiha caused the Nine-Tails attack on Konoha. He created the conditions for the Fourth Great Ninja War. Hundreds of thousands of people will suffer because of choices he made.]
[And he made those choices because a girl he loved died.]
[Both things are true at the same time.]
[This is what makes him the third most impactful hidden variable: not that he was the most powerful, or the most calculated.]
[But that the distance between who he was and who he became is the largest recorded gap in this world's history.]
[And every centimeter of that gap was a choice. His, and Madara's.]
Konoha --- Chūnin Exam Arena
Kakashi had read every word.
He was very still.
Breathing normally.
Giving nothing away.
Except his hand.
The book had fallen from it at some point.
He hadn't noticed.
It was lying on the step below him.
Open.
Face-down.
Pages bent.
He hadn't noticed that either.
He was looking at the part of the evaluation that said he gave that up to save Kakashi Hatake.
He'd known that.
He'd known for years that Obito died saving him.
But the scroll had said it in plain language in front of every living and dead ninja in the world and somehow that made it land differently than carrying it alone in his head for the last decade.
He gave that up to save Kakashi Hatake.
And then he'd been found by Madara.
And then Rin.
Kakashi thought about Rin.
About the way she'd smiled.
About the last time he'd seen her face before he'd understood what she was asking him to do.
He breathed out slowly.
Behind him, Guy was completely silent.
It was the most alarming sign of how serious this was.
Guy was never silent.
He was silent now.
Arms at his sides.
Not even doing push-ups.
Just standing behind his best friend in case he was needed.
Group Chat:
[Might Guy: Kakashi.]
Kakashi read the message.
[Kakashi Hatake: I'm fine.]
[Might Guy: I know.]
[Might Guy: I'm here anyway.]
Kakashi looked at that for a moment.
[Kakashi Hatake: ...I know.]
Pure Land
[Uchiha Madara: ...The evaluation is not wrong.]
A pause.
Everyone in the chat waited.
Madara continued.
[Uchiha Madara: I found him. I kept him alive. I used what he felt --- his grief, his loss --- and I used it deliberately.]
[Uchiha Madara: I do not apologize for strategy. I have never apologized for strategy.]
[Uchiha Madara: But the scroll is correct that I was patient.]
[Uchiha Madara: I was very patient.]
Another pause.
[Uchiha Madara: He was thirteen years old.]
Nobody replied for a moment.
[First Hokage Hashirama Senju: Madara.]
[Uchiha Madara: Don't.]
[First Hokage Hashirama Senju: I'm not going to lecture you.]
[Uchiha Madara: Then what.]
[First Hokage Hashirama Senju: I'm just saying your name.]
[Uchiha Madara: ...]
[Uchiha Madara: That's it?]
[First Hokage Hashirama Senju: That's it.]
A very long pause.
[Uchiha Madara: ...Hashirama. You're impossible.]
[First Hokage Hashirama Senju: I know.]
[Uchiha Madara: I hate that about you.]
[First Hokage Hashirama Senju: I know that too.]
From somewhere else in the Pure Land, very far from where Madara was standing, someone else had been reading the evaluation.
A young man who had died at twenty-six.
Quiet face.
Red eyes.
Uchiha Itachi read the words the distance between who he was and who he became is the largest recorded gap in this world's history.
He thought about Sasuke.
About the gap he'd manufactured for his brother deliberately.
Not out of cruelty.
Out of love.
Same reason.
Different direction.
He thought about whether that distinction mattered.
He didn't have an answer yet.
He kept thinking.
Konoha --- Chūnin Exam Arena
Naruto had read the whole evaluation.
He wasn't loud about it.
He wasn't jumping or pointing or demanding explanations.
He read it quietly and then he sat with it for a while.
The boy who wanted to be Hokage so everyone would acknowledge him.
He knew that feeling.
He knew exactly that feeling.
Not in a distant philosophical way.
In the specific way of someone who had shouted I'm going to be Hokage! into empty streets because he needed someone --- even if it was just himself --- to believe it.
"...That guy," he said quietly.
"What?" Sakura said.
"Obito." Naruto looked at the scroll. "He just wanted people to see him."
Sakura was quiet.
"Yeah," she said after a moment. "He did."
"And then everything went wrong."
"...Yes."
Naruto thought about this.
"That's the scariest thing the scroll has shown," he said. "Not Madara. Not the war. That." He gestured at the evaluation. "Someone who just wanted to be seen, and then didn't get that, and then---"
He stopped.
"I'm going to be Hokage," he said. Not loudly. Not to the sky. Just to himself. Just stating it.
"I know," Sakura said.
"Not because I want everyone to acknowledge me." A pause. "Well. I mean. I do want that. But not only that. I want---"
He fumbled for the words.
Shikamaru, from two steps away, said without turning his head: "You want to be the kind of Hokage that makes sure nobody has to feel the way you felt growing up."
Naruto stared at him.
"...Yeah," he said. "That."
Shikamaru shrugged one shoulder. "Not complicated. You've been saying it your whole life. You just didn't use those words."
Naruto was quiet.
Then: "Shikamaru."
"What."
"When did you get decent?"
"I've always been decent. You just don't pay attention."
"That's fair."
The Evaluation's final paragraph appeared.
[Obito Uchiha ranked 3rd on the Hidden Variable Ranking.]
[Not because his intentions were the worst.]
[But because he is the clearest example of what happens when someone capable of great love is given great pain and no one to give it to.]
[He is not yet done. His story has not ended.]
[What he does with the part that remains is not something the scroll can rank.]
[It can only note: he started as someone who wanted to save people.]
[That starting point doesn't disappear.]
[Reward: None at this time.]
Konoha --- Rain Country --- Akatsuki Base
Tobi --- who was in the Akatsuki base, masked, watching the scroll's projection through a window --- read the last line.
Reward: None at this time.
He stood very still.
At this time.
Not none.
At this time.
He said nothing for a long moment.
Outside, the other Akatsuki members were loudly reacting to the evaluation.
Hidan was furious on his behalf.
Kisame was being uncharacteristically quiet.
Deidara was pretending not to care and failing.
Konan was watching him.
She was the only one who knew.
She'd known for a long time.
She watched him stand at the window reading those three words --- at this time --- and she thought about a boy with short brown hair who used to trip over his own feet trying to keep up with Nagato and her.
She didn't say anything.
She stood beside him.
That was all.
Pure Land
Kakashi hadn't read the chat for the last ten minutes.
He'd read the evaluation.
All of it.
Three times.
He was currently on the fourth.
Guy had not moved from behind him.
At some point Kakashi picked up the book from the step below him.
Smoothed the bent pages carefully.
"He wanted to be Hokage," he said. Just to himself. Or to Guy. It didn't matter which.
"Yeah," Guy said.
"He gave that up."
"Yeah."
"For me."
Guy said nothing to that.
Because there was nothing useful to say to it.
And Guy, for all his loudness, always seemed to know the difference.
"...I'm not going to let it be wasted," Kakashi said.
"I know," Guy said.
"Whatever that means. I'm going to figure out what it means." A pause. "But I'm not going to let it be wasted."
"I know," Guy said again. "I never thought you would."
Kakashi closed the book.
Put it in his pocket.
Looked at the scroll where the next section was already beginning to glow.
The ninja world was moving on.
Rankings unfolding.
The scroll advancing toward whatever came next.
He moved on too.
It's what Obito would have wanted.
Or what the thirteen-year-old version of Obito would have wanted, anyway.
The one who'd been full of wanting.
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