The pain wracking her body was unbearable.
It felt like sinking into a muddy swamp, struggling helplessly in a bottomless abyss of despair.
The sensation lasted less than a minute, yet even the usually strong-willed Rin Nohara felt her pupils spread as the agony overwhelmed her.
Kirigakure ninja surrounded her, carrying out some kind of ritual.
She felt like a sacrifice about to be offered to something unknown.
She wanted to escape, but Rin quickly realized that she was like a soul shackled inside her own body, unable to control it at all. She couldn't even perform the most basic chakra circulation.
Restlessness, unease, anger, hatred—those emotions surged together, flooding her heart.
It felt as if the slightest crack in her resolve would allow them to swallow her whole, to drown her completely.
More importantly, she could sense that these emotions weren't hers.
They came from another being inside her body.
What exactly were these Kirigakure enemies doing?
The creature within her...
That uneasy, ominous beast seemed to treat her heart like a bottomless lake, surfacing briefly before sinking back into the depths.
Is it uneasy too?
The thought struck Rin all at once.
["Humans..."]
"Who is it?!" Her consciousness plunged into darkness.
She heard a low voice murmuring to itself.
["This time, it's a little girl..."]
["Detestable humans... always acting so willfully, locking us up like beasts..."]
The voice carried anger, but also a weary, helpless sigh.
Rin Nohara instinctively adopted a more respectful tone.
"Who are you? Where is this place? Why can I hear your voice?"
The voice didn't seem interested in answering her and continued speaking to itself instead. That heavy, soul-crushing sound made Rin feel incredibly small, as if the one speaking was a colossal existence so vast she could barely perceive it.
["I wonder how long this human will last... maybe another short-lived one..."]
"..."
For some reason, she suddenly felt like laughing. She had imagined the speaker as an immense being, yet the things it said sounded oddly like a blunt, unguarded child.
["I, the great Isobu... reduced to this state..."]
Isobu.
Rin quietly committed the name to memory.
If this voice truly belonged to the being inside her body, then at least one thing was clear: it didn't want to be there either.
And more importantly, this being could think for itself and possessed the power to oppose humans.
["How I miss it... the days when we all lived inside the old man of the Six Paths..."]
A sorrowful sigh echoed through the darkness.
Rin recalled the strange elder she had met in a previous parallel world, the one who had revived Kushina and Minato-sensei.
The "old man of the Six Paths" it mentioned... could that be him?
The legendary Rikudō Sennin?
She cautiously asked, "Are you talking about the Rikudō Sennin?"
["Hm? How do you know that, human girl?"]
It seemed that Isobu had finally noticed her.
The darkness shattered in an instant.
Her vision suddenly opened up.
Warm orange-yellow light filled the space around her, and beneath her feet was a surface as calm and clear as still water.
Opposite her...
Rin finally saw the creature clearly.
It was unimaginably enormous. Standing before it, she felt smaller than one of its eyes.
Its body was covered in gray armor-like plating. Because of its sheer size, Rin couldn't see its full form at all. All she could make out was an immense head, belonging to something she couldn't even compare to any known creature.
Rin was so shocked that she forgot to answer his question.
Isobu grew impatient and asked again.
["Answer me, human girl. Do you know the old man of the Six Paths?"]
Being stared down by such a colossal creature terrified her. Hearing him press the question again, Rin hurriedly replied,
"The Rikudō Sennin appeared before not long ago. He helped Naruto from another parallel world revive his parents."
She didn't stop to consider whether the being calling itself Isobu could understand her. She simply told him everything she knew as quickly as possible.
["Who is Naruto?"]
["Don't try to deceive me… the old man of the Six Paths has been dead for many years…"]
There was anger in Isobu's voice, but far more sorrow.
The Tailed Beasts truly missed the one who had created them. The one who had left this world after telling them to wait for someone who could truly guide them.
He had irresponsibly made them wait for over a thousand years, and all they had received in return was humanity's so-called malice.
Tailed Beasts were closer to animals than humans. When the Three-Tails grew impatient, when the One-Tails was happy, when the Nine-Tails spoke against his own heart, they all had one distinctive habit.
They swished their tails.
Even with Isobu's massive body blocking much of her view, Rin could still see three enormous tails swaying behind him, slapping against the ground again and again.
Tailed Beasts.
And the Jinchūriki who sealed them.
Those two concepts instantly surfaced in her mind.
At the same time, the words the Rikudō Sennin had spoken when she last met him resurfaced clearly in her memory.
—"He led the Allied Shinobi Forces, together with the Tailed Beasts I left behind for humanity, to defeat my mother, Kaguya Ōtsutsuki."
—"The one I told you to wait for is him. Next, I will seal you inside his body."
This was the moment she had to prove she wasn't lying.
Rin said firmly, "Naruto is the one the Rikudō Sennin told you to wait for. In the future, he will lead the shinobi and you Tailed Beasts as comrades to defeat a powerful enemy named Kaguya Ōtsutsuki."
["!!!!"]
Isobu's crimson eyes widened even further.
This information was the very reason he had waited for over a thousand years.
To know about the one the old man of the Six Paths told them to wait for.
To know about Kaguya Ōtsutsuki.
This little girl standing before him was not lying.
["Little girl, tell me where that one called Naruto is."]
Rin was just about to answer when Isobu extended a short, thick, massive claw.
["There's no time. Someone outside seems to be coming to rescue you. Put your hand here. Through your chakra, I can learn everything."]
It must be Obito and Kakashi.
Maybe Minato-sensei too. Maybe even Naruto.
The moment she realized that, Rin's heart instantly felt lighter.
Smiling, she raised her hand above her head and touched Isobu's massive claw.
In an instant, her memories were read by Isobu like a surging tide.
Her life in Konoha.
A blond man at the center of it all.
Two boys who were always arguing.
The Third Shinobi World War, when their class had no choice but to take part in battlefield missions.
Traveling through parallel worlds.
Her first meeting with Naruto Uzumaki, a kid who didn't look particularly strong, yet was unbelievably stubborn.
And he was the Nine-Tails' Jinchūriki?
…Not surprising.
That old man had always favored that kid the most.
Then came the repeated crossings, including the second time she traveled back to the era of the Nine-Tails Incident, when the old man of the Six Paths and a grown-up Naruto Uzumaki suddenly appeared.
The scenes flowed rapidly through Isobu's consciousness. In just a few minutes, he had finished reading everything he wanted to know.
["I can't leave your body. Take me to find that Naruto Uzumaki, little girl."]
With that, the Three-Tails sank beneath the orange surface.
Rin jolted as her awareness withdrew from that deep inner space.
The sounds of clashing weapons echoed from afar.
She realized she was still trapped within the stone pillars.
"Rin!"
It was Kakashi's voice.
At the cave entrance, she saw not only young Kakashi, but also Minato-sensei and the others. Even Captain Yamato and the renegade ninja squad under his command had arrived.
This…
What a lineup…
"Damn it! Why did Konoha suddenly send so many reinforcements?!"
"And that shark-faced guy with the jagged teeth… no matter how you look at him, he's one of our Kirigakure ninja, isn't he?!"
"Damn it! Someone definitely betrayed us and leaked the information to Konoha!!"
"Even the Yellow Flash showed up!!"
There were only around ten Kirigakure ninja present, completely outmatched by this top-tier retrieval squad.
They were quickly taken down by Adult Kakashi and Minato Namikaze, while young Kakashi rushed forward and freed Rin.
"Thank goodness, Rin!" young Kakashi said.
Rin looked around anxiously.
"Where's Obito?"
"He wasn't with us," Naruto answered.
Sasuke frowned.
"Based on what we figured out last time, he was probably teleported back to that unknown cave again."
Naruto froze, then exploded in anger.
"Then that means he might've run into the Obito from our world?!"
Adult Kakashi's expression darkened.
"That's probably the case."
Ever since learning that Obito was the Masked Man, it felt like a massive stone had been pressing down on his chest. No matter how deeply he breathed, he couldn't relax.
"We should leave here first," Minato Namikaze said.
"Yeah."
The group rushed out of the cave. As they moved, Adult Kakashi recalled,
"Kirigakure sent roughly fifty pursuers."
Which meant at least forty assassins still hadn't shown up.
"Back to Konoha first," Minato said.
Thump.
A sudden, violent pain stabbed through her chest, and Rin's expression changed instantly.
"What's wrong, Rin?" Adult Kakashi asked, having been watching her closely.
Back then, why had Rin chosen to die by his Chidori? All he remembered was her saying there was something inside her, something that absolutely couldn't return to Konoha.
Rin didn't answer.
Because Isobu inside her had spoken again.
["Hey, little girl."]
["Something's wrong with your body."]
["To be precise, it looks like you've been used."]
Seeing Rin suddenly stop, everyone turned back and gathered around her.
["You'd better check your heart. You're a medical-nin yourself, right? I remember seeing that in your memories."]
Rin suddenly remembered.
Future Naruto had once said that both she and Obito had cursed seals on their hearts.
Minato-sensei hadn't detected anything like that before. Could this be what the Kirigakure ninja had done?
But if it was Kirigakure… then why did Obito have one too?!
"What's wrong, Rin?" young Kakashi asked.
"It feels strange," Rin said. "And Isobu told me I should check my heart as soon as possible."
"Isobu is…?" Adult Kakashi froze.
Even Minato Namikaze had never heard that name and looked at Rin in confusion.
Inside Naruto's body, Kurama—still unconverted and confined within his cage—stuck out a finger and casually scratched his ear.
["That stinky three-tailed fish."]
"Stinky three-tailed fish?" Naruto repeated without thinking.
Almost immediately, Isobu snapped back from inside Rin.
["Crybaby."]
"C-Crybaby?"
Rin blinked, completely lost.
"Isobu-sama… who are you calling a crybaby?" Her first thought was Obito.
["That stinky nine-tailed fox. He cried all the time when he was little."]
"..."
After Rin relayed that.
Even though the situation was tense, everyone froze.
They had lived through two Nine-Tails incidents. They had seen the sheer brutality of the Nine-Tails in its full form.
And now they were being told he used to cry all the time?
So during the Nine-Tails incident, was he basically punching Konoha with tiny fists while throwing a tantrum?
Good thing Konoha didn't have its own consciousness, or it would've jumped up and started swearing.
Having his embarrassing past exposed by that bastard Three-Tails, Kurama immediately started grumbling angrily and refusing to cooperate, his indignant ranting nearly making Naruto's head explode.
Adult Kakashi recalled his past in shock. Back then, Rin had said that some kind of creature was sealed inside her body. So it really had been Kirigakure's Tailed Beast, the Three-Tails Isobu?!
So Rin had feared that the Three-Tails would go berserk in Konoha, causing a Tailed Beast disaster to erupt there ahead of time. Was that why she had been determined to end her own life no matter what?
Across from him, Rin's expression was growing more and more serious, just like Adult Kakashi's.
She checked her heart two or three times. Just as Isobu had said, something really was wrong with it.
"Minato-sensei, it looks like someone placed a fūinjutsu on my heart!"
Minato Namikaze's expression changed immediately. He also remembered what Naruto had said during the Fourth Shinobi World War.
"A sealing technique unrelated to the Three-Tails Isobu, right?! The one Naruto from another world mentioned! The same cursed seal that was on Obito's heart?!"
Everyone turned to look at Rin, whose face was tense.
Rin nodded.
"I'm not sure what this sealing technique is meant to do, but I have a really bad feeling about it. I can't just go back to Konoha like this!"
"!!!!"
Adult Kakashi's face changed drastically.
He had thought that with Minato-sensei here, Rin could be saved. But why, at this exact moment, did he suddenly realize that so many details were still unfolding exactly the same way as they had back then?
Zabuza Momochi spoke impatiently.
"What are you all still hesitating for? Kirigakure's pursuers will be here any moment."
"Both Isobu and I feel that something is seriously wrong. We can't go back to Konoha," Rin said.
—I can't go back to Konoha. Kill me right now, Kakashi!
—I've been used. If I go back like this, I might end up attacking Konoha!
Not only Adult Kakashi, but Minato Namikaze and the others remembered it as well.
According to what Adult Kakashi had described earlier, this world's Rin Nohara had said those exact words. After that, when Kakashi used Chidori against Kirigakure ninja, she had chosen to throw herself into it and end her own life.
Thinking of this, young Kakashi spoke up before Rin could say anything, cutting her off decisively.
"Obito isn't here! I won't allow you to say anything about asking me to kill you, Rin!"
"I wasn't planning to say that," Rin replied.
Seeing how devastated Adult Kakashi was now, and knowing that Obito had become the Masked Man, how could she possibly follow the same path as her counterpart from another world?
She continued,
"But we still can't go back to Konoha like this. Isobu said that sealing technique is probably some kind of puppet curse. If the caster activates it, then even if the person affected doesn't want to attack Konoha, they won't be able to control themselves."
"We'll get out of this rocky area first," Minato decided on the spot. "We're still a long way from Konoha. We'll move into the forest for cover. When we rest at night, I'll try using a reverse sealing technique and see if I can remove the seal on Rin's heart."
"Yes!" The others nodded and followed as the group moved out in one direction.
By the time they left the rocky terrain and reached the depths of the forest, it was already completely dark.
"Wait! There's someone ahead!"
The one with the sharpest eyesight, Sasuke, spotted a figure in the distance long before anyone else.
And it was closing in on them at an unimaginable speed.