Far away in the Uchiha clan grounds, the Uchiha ninjas opened their Sharingan one after another.
With their extraordinary vision, they could clearly see even the slightest movement of the leaves swaying in the breeze within the bamboo forest floating in the sky.
["Do you know what you're saying?!"]
["Yeah. The next mission will be completed by the two of us."]
That voice coming from the bamboo forest was!
Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura whipped their heads around to look at Young Obito and Young Kakashi.
Those were their voices!
Fugaku Uchiha looked at Minato Namikaze. "What is going on?! There's no way something like this could appear in the sky during the Warring States Period, right?"
Minato Namikaze's expression was grave. Instead of answering Fugaku Uchiha's question, he reminded him to brace himself.
"Brace myself? For what?"
"Perhaps you'll know very soon..."
"Know what?"
"The truth."
"The truth?"
Minato Namikaze said nothing more. From the corner of his eye, Fugaku Uchiha saw Adult Obito shrinking back, and a bad feeling rose in his heart.
["What about Rin?! What's going to happen to Rin?!"]
["We'll find a way to save her after we complete the mission. Rin is a precious Medical-nin, and the enemy wants to know our strategic deployments. No matter how you look at it, they won't kill her easily. Right now, our best choice is to complete the mission first, then find a way to save Rin together, isn't it?"]
Mission...
The moment they heard that word, ninja clans of all sizes scattered throughout the Ninja World narrowed their eyes.
Anyone who used the word "mission" had to be a ninja from some clan!
["That's all your guess! What if the enemy doesn't think that way and doesn't do that?! I don't agree with your decision! Stopping the mission and saving Rin should be our top priority right now!!"]
"Foolish!"
"Naive."
That was the judgment every ninja among the hundred clans of the Ninja World gave at that moment.
"Thinking like that already disqualifies him as a ninja, idiot."
"Heh, I'd like to know which clan raised such a stupid brat, for him to say something so naive."
"A ninja clan that raised a brat like that probably stopped existing long ago."
["Did you forget?! When you and I were injured, Rin was the one who saved us with Medical Ninjutsu! Without her, you and I would have died long ago!"]
["That was Rin's mission as a Medical-nin."]
["Thud, thump."]
Just from the sound, the ninjas could tell that the naive brat had caught the other person off guard and punched him.
["I really do hate you!"]
["Do whatever you want. But I'm the captain, and you need to follow my orders."]
Young Kakashi listened to the argument he and Obito had once had, and he did not know how to face Rin Nohara beside him.
["How can you say that?! Do you know how much Rin cares about your safety?! She even sewed an amulet into the medical pouch she gave you!"]
["Something unnecessary like that won't actually improve the mission's success rate."]
["Unnecessary?"]
["That's right. We are ninjas. Completing the mission comes first in everything. Whether it's an amulet or personal feelings, they are useless, unnecessary things."]
"Did something happen to that child?" the Second Hokage quietly whispered to Minato Namikaze. "Abandoning a comrade for a mission isn't Konoha's philosophy."
Minato said, "Kakashi's father abandoned an important mission to save his comrades. It's said that it caused the village considerable losses. In the end, after being deeply wounded by cruel words, he chose to end his own life."
Tobirama Senju and Hashirama Senju looked at Young Kakashi, who had lowered his head.
With his head bowed and his eyes lowered, the boy looked, to others, faintly humble and pitiful in a way he himself did not realize.
Young Obito had already started pointing at the thing in the sky, cursing it furiously.
He cursed it for exposing every word of his conversation with Kakashi, then comforted Kakashi by saying it was all in the past and told Kakashi and Rin not to pay attention to that bastard thing in the sky.
"Haha, Obito really can't stand seeing Kakashi sad and lonely, can he~" Rin did not mind what she had heard at all, smiling as she teased Obito and Kakashi.
"What?! I'm not worried about him! I just can't stand seeing him standing there like a mini scarecrow!!"
Mini scarecrow.
Adult Kakashi glanced at the three-person team over there, then moved closer to Fugaku Uchiha without drawing attention.
"Fugaku-sama."
"Kakashi."
"Yes." Kakashi Hatake did his best to appear humble as he pleaded, "No matter what truth you see in a moment, I hope you remember that the blame does not rest on him alone."
Fugaku Uchiha frowned slightly.
Whether it was Minato Namikaze or Kakashi Hatake, why were they warning him one after another?
This was completely beyond Fugaku Uchiha's understanding.
He had thought that since the Uchiha Clan had been destroyed in his hands, Madara Uchiha and Izuna Uchiha would both hold him accountable.
But not only had they failed to do so, they even seemed to be constantly preparing him for what was coming. What was going on?
["Forget it. It doesn't matter if you won't come. I'll go save Rin by myself!"]
["Obito! You have no idea what happens to people who break the rules."]
["To me, White Fang-senpai is a real hero."]
["In the ninja world, those who break the rules are indeed called trash. But those who don't cherish their comrades are worse than trash. If I'm going to be trash either way, then I'll choose to break the rules! I'll change this wrong ninja world!"]
Naruto said, "Ah! That's what Kakashi-sensei told us before! On the day of the bell test!"
"But didn't none of us get a bell that day? Luckily, Sasuke-kun insisted on feeding you, or Kakashi-sensei would have eliminated us," Sakura said with emotion. "I never thought there was a story behind it."
Sasuke glanced at Young Kakashi beside him. "But it does sound like something you'd say when we first met you."
Young Kakashi turned his head away, unusually not snapping back at them.
No matter how many times he heard those words, they were Kakashi's salvation.
Ever since his father died, he seemed to have been desperately longing for someone to tell him.
To tell him that the father he had admired since childhood had done the right thing.
To tell him that the Hatake way was the right way.
But after Konoha had gone through the First, Second, and then the Third Shinobi World War, perhaps it had long since been unable to hold on to its original principle of never abandoning comrades.
Naruto heard the quiet conversation between his dad and the Second Hokage.
"Kakashi-sensei's dad made the right choice, didn't he? I think Obito was right. Of course someone like that is a hero. I don't get why he was the one who got driven to death, dattebayo."
"When one person tells you that you're wrong, maybe you'll still argue back," Minato Namikaze said with a sigh. "But when everyone around you says you're wrong, most people no longer argue. Instead, they start wondering what exactly they did wrong. Even if what they did was right, it still becomes wrong."
"Why?"
Sasuke was the one who asked that.
He honestly could not understand why it would be that way.
"That's a bit complicated. To put it simply, the people around you will want you to be like them and become part of the 'majority.'"
Sasuke and Naruto seemed to half-understand.
The image in the bamboo forest in the sky was from another person's point of view. As layers of bamboo leaves were pushed aside, two boys who had fallen out over their disagreement appeared deep within the bamboo forest.
The ninja who had earlier said, "Which clan raised such a naive brat?" fell silent when he saw the conspicuous red-and-white fan crest on the back of the boy's dark blue training clothes.
Some people in the Uchiha clan had already recognized Obito's voice.
Young Madara Uchiha even privately told his four younger brothers that Obito Uchiha's way of thinking was very similar to his own. Compared with his future self, he still felt that Obito Uchiha got along better with him, Naruto, Sasuke, and Hashirama.
The same was true of the four Senju brothers in the Senju clan grounds.
The brief happiness they had experienced in Obito's Kamui's Dimension meant that no matter what, they did not want to face the five Uchiha brothers with blades drawn the next time they met on the battlefield.
"Blindly sinking into hatred, avenging the dead while ignoring your living comrades! That way of thinking is absolutely wrong!!"
"It's no use telling us that, Big Brother. You need to find a way to convince Father."
Young Hashirama wilted.
It was not just his father. There were too many stubborn people in both the Senju Clan and the Uchiha Clan.
Even if the Madara from the future had helped them deal with Black Zetsu ahead of time, hatred had already escalated this far. There was no way it could be resolved so simply.
The entire Ninja World of the Warring States Period watched the two boys walk away from each other with their backs turned.
They still did not understand what that thing in the sky actually was.
The ninjas felt that if it was Genjutsu, it did not seem like one. After all, there were very few Genjutsu that even the Uchiha's Sharingan could not dispel.
But if it truly existed, some ninjas had already tried attacking it, only for every attack to pass straight through, just like Obito Uchiha's intangibility.
Madara Uchiha glanced at Obito Ōtsutsuki's ashen face.
"You know what this is?"
"A projection."
He could not help crouching on the ground while clutching his head.
"Aaah!! The quiz questions are already gone! So why is this terrifying social-death projection still following me?!!"
Madara Uchiha and Tobirama Senju frowned. Izuna Uchiha, like Hashirama Senju, did not understand what Obito Ōtsutsuki meant.
"This projection exposes everything that happens in the ninja world, whether we know about it or not! It can even expose what someone is thinking!!"
He grabbed at his short hair, utterly devastated.
"Just wait and see! You'll understand how terrifying this thing is!!"
"Huh?"
Young Obito did not understand. He still thought something was just spying on him and Kakashi.
But in the blink of an eye, Minato Namikaze's face appeared in the scene.
One had to know that at that time, Minato Namikaze had already reached another battlefield thousands of miles away!
["Sorry I'm late. How's the battle situation?"]
["There are around fifty enemies from Iwagakure, and on Konohagakure's side, only the four of us can still move."]
Iwagakure?
Konohagakure?
This thoroughly confused the hundred clans of the Ninja World in the Warring States Period.
The battlefield they could see was even more brutal than an all-out clash between the Senju and Uchiha, the two greatest ninja clans. Corpses were scattered everywhere.
Some people noticed that aside from clothing, the forehead protectors on their foreheads were as conspicuous as clan crests.
The young Uchiha ninja from earlier had been wearing one of those forehead protectors too.
Only then did they realize. There were no white-haired people in the Uchiha Clan, were there?
And the white-haired boy who had argued with that Uchiha did not have a fan crest on his back either.
Before they could think any further, the blond man's voice came again from the thing in the sky.
["I understand. Leave the rest of the fight to me alone. Everyone, please throw these kunai toward the enemy."]
Seeing this, Team Kakashi and Team Minato both remembered their earliest brief Time Travel journey!