"What did you say?! Six hundred billion… explosive tags?!"
The amount of information packed into those words was overwhelming. Obito Uchiha, who came from the Q&A world and had reverted to the Ōtsutsuki Clan bloodline, left everyone still gathered at Kakashi's old family house after dinner staring at him in shock. Adult Obito and Young Obito in particular were completely frozen.
Minato Namikaze said, "Six hundred billion explosive tags… that sounds kind of familiar."
"I once used it as an example. If six thousand explosive tags were to detonate together, the effect would be similar to the Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags I developed. The blast radius would be enough to wipe out an entire village like Konoha, and the explosion would last at least ten minutes."
Tobirama Senju answered readily, clearly full of confidence in his invention.
His older brother felt his heart clench.
"Tobirama, could you please stop using blowing up Konoha as an example?"
"I'm not actually going to use Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags to blow up Konoha! What kind of stupid thought is that, big brother?!"
Ōtsutsuki Obito shot an annoyed glance at this world's Kakashi Hatake.
"Isn't the real issue the fact that Kakashi actually tried to use six hundred billion explosive tags to kill me and himself at the same time?"
He sounded more than a little helpless. If the quiz hadn't suddenly frozen time back then, the two of them really would have been done for.
No, you didn't say anything about mutual destruction just now…
Adult Kakashi's eyes flicked around uneasily. Adult Obito's dark, gloomy expression was honestly intimidating. Besides, if he really had to go through losing Obito again like he did in that other world while fighting Kaguya, then as the one who was always left behind, he would rather choose mutual destruction.
Obito grabbed the collar of Kakashi's jōnin vest. "Are you sick in the head?! Do you really need to die with me just to kill someone like me?!"
Hey, hey, isn't your focus kind of weird too?!
That was the collective inner complaint of everyone else present.
Young Obito was completely mortified. He wanted to bury himself in the ground, so embarrassed that he wished he could just grab a random book and slap it over his head.
Ah, it was Kakashi's Icha Icha Paradise from the future.
…Yeah, better not.
After calming Obito down, Adult Kakashi turned to the Ōtsutsuki Obito from another world. "Is six hundred billion a particularly special number?"
"Why do you ask?" Ōtsutsuki Obito replied.
Adult Obito said, "Keep unrolling that scroll. Look at the latest mission."
With his head full of question marks, Ōtsutsuki Obito continued to open the mission scroll in his hand. An SS-rank mission came into view—
[Mission Rank: SS] [Mission Objective: Consume 599,997,454,159 red bean cakes.]
"This…"
Ōtsutsuki Obito felt numb all over. The red bean cakes he had just eaten suddenly didn't seem appealing at all.
No wonder the version of him in this world had so readily handed over his beloved red bean cakes. So this was why.
After all this, the tool turned out to be me.
The feeling was anything but pleasant. Ōtsutsuki Obito carefully counted the digits. "Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten-thousands, hundred-thousands—"
"Stop counting. The original number was six hundred billion. We've already eaten two million five hundred forty-five thousand eight hundred forty-one pieces."
"..."
Looking at Young Obito and Adult Obito, Ōtsutsuki Obito was at a complete loss for words.
"You two ate all of those?"
Even though there was no date on the mission scroll, no matter how he looked at it, this mission couldn't have been issued more than a month or so ago, right?
"You two didn't marry into the Akimichi Clan. That's really a loss for the Akimichi Clan."
".........."
The damage wasn't great, but the insult was devastating.
Kannabi Bridge Minato explained on their behalf. "Before we returned here from the previous world, the number hadn't dropped nearly this much. So based on my inference, it should be because Obito and the Obito from another parallel world interacted. As a result, the red bean cakes eaten by that world's Obito were also counted toward completing the mission."
"And that world is five years earlier than our present. So when we came back here, it was effectively equivalent to five years having passed in that other parallel world. Most of the missions here were completed by that world's Obito over those five years."
"So, regarding how to finish this mission, I have an idea…"
He looked at Ōtsutsuki Obito, who possessed the ability to travel across dimensions, and said, "I hope you can take Obito and visit more parallel worlds."
Adult Obito: "!!!"
Right!
As expected of Minato-sensei! If they used this rule and let more Obito Uchihas eat red bean cakes together, wouldn't that solve everything?!
The Fourth Hokage Minato had thought of the same thing. Smiling, he added, "And it would be best to go to parallel worlds where Obito is still young. That way, when we return to our own timeline, it should be equivalent to more than ten years passing in an instant."
Naruto's eyes sparkled. "That's my dad for you! To come up with such an awesome plan!!"
Sasuke and Sakura also looked stunned.
Being stared at by his 'long-lost' son with such admiring eyes, the Fourth Hokage straightened his back unconsciously, thoroughly enjoying the feeling.
Ōtsutsuki Obito said that he was full and could start working right away.
Rin smiled. "No matter which world it's from, Obito can never ignore someone who needs help."
That left all three Obitos feeling a bit embarrassed, scratching their cheeks.
Ōtsutsuki Obito said, "After all, I still have many sins to atone for, so I need to be more proactive."
His words unintentionally struck a nerve with the Adult Obito beside him.
Even so, Adult Obito didn't say much. He simply called Ōtsutsuki Obito over, suggesting that the two of them plan which parallel worlds to visit first, and then they left the table together.
...
Night fell, the moon bright and the stars sparse.
The clear, full moon looked just as it had on so many nights around six years ago.
Back then, even late at night, Uchiha Clan members still patrolled the clan grounds. The shops within the district were at their busiest during these hours. Though they were rather cold toward outsiders, they were always warm and friendly to their own clansmen.
At this time of night, the most popular dessert shop had already sold out and was about to close.
Itachi still remembered how disappointed he'd been after returning late from a mission and missing out on buying dango, only for Shisui to suddenly appear, holding a bag of limited-edition treats he'd queued up to buy just for him.
Bitterness spread through his mouth.
In the blink of an eye, the genjutsu he had cast on himself faded away.
No one had set foot in the Uchiha Clan grounds for several years now.
The blood from that year had long since been washed away, and the bodies had all been cremated and enshrined in the clan shrine.
With no trace of human presence, the houses were overrun with weeds and spiderwebs. Instead, they had become ideal shelters for small animals like weasels, hedgehogs, snakes, and rats.
"Feeling stirred by familiar sights is only natural," Minato Namikaze said, worried about Itachi's condition. "Whether this D-rank mission gets completed or not doesn't really matter."
A mission reward of a hundred thousand ryō was practically nothing to a ninja like him.
Itachi fell silent for a moment. "For whoever issued this mission scroll, they must have already known that one day, I would choose to complete it of my own accord."
On this point, Itachi saw things with absolute clarity.
Minato Namikaze didn't know what to say in response.
He placed the Flying Thunder God seal on Itachi's shoulder. "I'll wait here. You probably have a lot you want to say to your parents and the clan. If anything happens, I'll come over using Flying Thunder God. Go on without worry…"
Minato lowered his gaze. It was hard to call this a mission.
For the boy standing before him, not yet eighteen years old, it felt far more like a part of atonement.
"Thank you, Fourth Hokage-sama."
Only at this moment did Itachi Uchiha's pitch-black eyes show the exhaustion, grief, and barely restrained sorrow that truly matched his age.
"....."
Minato Namikaze patted his shoulder without another word, then vanished from the spot in a flash using the Body Flicker Technique.
Itachi Uchiha was left alone, wandering through the clan grounds that felt both familiar and unfamiliar.
There were countless memories from his childhood here, most of them tied to his parents, Sasuke, and Shisui.
At the same time, every road here was one he had walked during the night he slaughtered his clan.
The black-and-red world of Tsukuyomi, the screams of his clansmen, the gentle yet strict family from his childhood, the different endings of four lifetimes within the illusion…
A mass of chaotic memories churned through Itachi Uchiha's mind, overlapping and comparing against one another, to the point where he could no longer tell which were real, or which outcome might have been the best.
Shisui Uchiha's body had been discovered by the Uchiha Clan before the massacre ever took place. Because of that, his remains were not cremated and buried together with the others, leaving behind only spirit tablets.
Shisui had his own separate grave marker, and beneath it lay a body that should have long since decayed.
Since Shisui had not been killed by his own hand, Uchiha Shisui was not included in Itachi's mission.
Still, before confessing to his parents and the rest of the clan, Itachi chose to come here first, standing before Shisui's grave to tell him—
"Even if the method was something you couldn't accept, I carried out what you entrusted to me…"
—Itachi, please. Use my eyes to stop this war and protect the honor of the Uchiha Clan.
"After your death, the Uchiha completely lost any chance of reconciling with Konoha. Father also kept the fact that he had already awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan hidden all along. And most importantly, Konoha had already reached the absolute limit of its tolerance toward the Uchiha back then…"
The Uchiha's hostility had spread throughout the village.
It wasn't only the upper ranks of Konoha who had grown dissatisfied with the Uchiha. Even Konoha's non-combatants and ninja from other clans felt the same…
From every direction came voices saying they could no longer tolerate the arrogant Uchiha Clan.
Kill Konoha, or kill the Uchiha.
There were only those two choices.
Nothing more than choosing between betraying the clan or betraying the village.
Itachi didn't explain any further. If, back then, he had trusted Sasuke a little more, relied on his family a little more, and been willing to share his thoughts with his parents…
Maybe things wouldn't have ended like this.
He stepped into the shrine, where the spirit tablets of every Uchiha he had personally killed were enshrined.
Six years had passed since that night, and Itachi Uchiha had never returned here.
Now, the instant he entered the shrine, the dense, murderous aura swept back the long hair at his temples. His entire body was engulfed in a bone-deep chill, and the screams of his clansmen seemed to grow clearer in his ears.
The crushing weight of despair relentlessly eroded his will to live.