Chapter 625: Naruto Has Been Exposed
"I'll give it a try. Black Zetsu's memories are extremely chaotic, and I can't stay connected to them for too long. Otherwise, it's very easy for my mind to become unstable."
Faced with Dark Naruto's suggestion, Obito was silent for a moment before agreeing.
On the surface, he wanted to maintain his image as the naturally kind-hearted Uchiha who had reformed and become Uchiha Obito again.
But in reality, what Obito had just said was completely sincere.
He really was a little worried.
People always said that genjutsu was fake, but there was one thing within genjutsu that was real—memories.
If your mind suffered trauma inside a genjutsu, then the trauma itself was real.
Just look at Sasuke. Every time Sasuke was about to heal from his childhood trauma, Itachi would come along and hit him with a Tsukuyomi, pushing him further and further down the path toward mental illness.
Ever since Black Zetsu had possessed Obito, he couldn't help calling other women "Mommy." That alone was enough to make him feel frightened.
Compared with the previous world, where he had used Kakashi's identity and therefore didn't have to deal with the physical discomfort caused by lacking Kamui, this kind of mental loss of control made Obito even more cautious.
Black Zetsu was already insane. Sharing memories with a madman could very well lead to his own mind being corrupted.
So he had to be careful.
With this sense of caution, Obito tried to make contact with Black Zetsu's memories.
While Obito was examining Black Zetsu's memories, Karin entered the room carrying the food, accompanied by the Seven-Tails Jinchūriki, Fū, whom she had mentioned would be coming today.
"Naruto, let me introduce you. This is the Seven-Tails Jinchūriki you wanted to make friends with, Fū."
"Fū, this is the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki, Uzumaki Naruto. He has the same interests as you. He likes making friends too."
As the intermediary, Karin cheerfully introduced the two of them to each other.
"Hello."
"Hello. Do you like making friends too? That's great!"
Fū shook Naruto's hand, looking extremely excited.
Judging from this scene alone, everything looked incredibly harmonious. It was simply a cheerful, outgoing little girl who had found someone just like herself.
But Dark Naruto always felt that something was wrong.
He could disguise himself as a good person, so why couldn't someone else disguise themselves too?
But...
Naruto carefully examined the expressions of the two girls.
Even now, he still couldn't find a single flaw.
Unfortunately, Obito still hadn't found the relevant memories.
"Um, what is your friend doing?"
Karin pointed toward Obito and asked Naruto.
At this moment, Obito was sitting cross-legged on the ground, his head twitching and swaying from side to side.
Anyone who didn't know better might have thought he was Doctor Strange looking through fourteen million possible futures.
"He's..."
Just as Naruto was about to make up an excuse, Obito suddenly stopped moving and opened his eyes.
"Mommy!"
Obito looked at Fū and blurted out those words in front of everyone.
Everyone was stunned.
Fū was stunned too.
She had come to make friends, not to suddenly gain a son. What was going on?
After coming back to his senses and seeing Karin and Fū, Obito didn't hesitate for even a moment. Taking advantage of everyone's stunned state, he immediately lunged toward Naruto.
"Kamui!"
The two of them were instantly sucked inside and transported to the Kamui space.
After landing on the ground, Naruto was confused for a moment. Once he came to his senses, he immediately looked around cautiously. Only after confirming that everything was fine did he quietly question Obito.
"Why did you bring us in here? No matter how dangerous it is outside, can it really be more dangerous than Ōtsutsuki Isshiki in here?"
"That's true, but you have to understand. No matter how dangerous Isshiki is, there are various buildings in Konoha here that can block his line of sight and perception. The danger isn't right in front of us."
"But it's different outside. Those two are right beside us. The danger is literally within arm's reach. If we don't leave, we're going to be the ones suffering!"
Obito tried to explain the situation to Naruto.
"So, you're saying you really found relevant information in Black Zetsu's memories?"
Naruto immediately understood after hearing Obito's explanation.
"That's right. I..."
"Wait."
Naruto interrupted Obito before he could explain, looking worriedly outside the building.
"You just said Konoha's buildings can block his line of sight, but I remember Ōtsutsuki Isshiki has the Byakugan, right? Would that really work?"
"...Although Ōtsutsuki Isshiki has the Byakugan, he's occupying uncle Ichiraku's body, so he can't freely switch between his abilities. On top of that, he's already gone insane. His ocular techniques are fixed in those two special forms, and he can't revert to an ordinary Byakugan."
"Even if his ocular techniques still contain the abilities of the Byakugan, there won't be a problem as long as he doesn't actively use them. So we should be safe."
Obito explained the reason to Naruto, but as he did, suspicion toward Naruto began to grow in his heart.
First of all, Dark Naruto had inherited the original body's memories. That was fundamental.
If that was the case, then there was a problem.
According to the information Obito had gathered, Ōtsutsuki Isshiki had never displayed the Byakugan.
From beginning to end, he had only used Daikokuten and Sukunahikona, while both of his eyes had remained in that black-and-gold form.
Normally, the eye he had never opened should have been the Byakugan.
Yet none of the intelligence mentioned the Byakugan at all.
Even the shinobi world's intelligence only said that Ōtsutsuki Kaguya was the progenitor of chakra. It never said that she possessed the Byakugan.
So where exactly had Naruto learned that the Ōtsutsuki possessed the Byakugan?
On the contrary, in the real shinobi world, those people had told him many things in order to give him a chance to "repent."
That included the fact that they had once fought against the Ōtsutsuki clan, and Naruto had been involved as well.
In other words, only Naruto from the real shinobi world knew that the Ōtsutsuki possessed the Byakugan!
So was this a mistake in the design of the Engraved Tsukuyomi, or was this Naruto simply the Naruto from the real world?
No wonder he had felt that something was off.
Kakashi had said that Naruto was very much like him, but that was Kakashi from the real world saying that Naruto from the real world was very much like himself from the real world.
How could Naruto from the Engraved Tsukuyomi world resemble the real-world Kakashi?
Now it seemed that something really was wrong.
Obito suddenly understood why there was no mission this time.
It wasn't because the mission target was what he had assumed, such as activating the Infinite Tsukuyomi or eliminating the Ōtsutsuki.
Rather, in this world, he wasn't the one who was supposed to carry out the mission at all.
Then those people had put him into the first world to make him "come to his senses."
But why had they put Naruto in here?
There was no need to say it.
The greatest purpose of this thing was to change people and accumulate experience.
Then, most likely, they wanted Naruto to accumulate combat experience and mature.
An evil idea gradually emerged in Obito's mind.
"Oh, so that's how it is. Then, Uncle Obito, keep going. What exactly did you learn from Black Zetsu's memories?"
Dark Naruto was still urging Obito innocently to continue explaining what he had learned from Black Zetsu's memories, completely unaware that he had already exposed the most crucial secret about the original body.
(End of this chapter)