"So? Give me a straight answer. Are you agreeing or not?"
Dark Naruto walked up to Naruto and held out a hand.
"All right. I agree."
Naruto took it.
"But you have to come back within three days. If you don't, I'm going after you."
"Three days?"
Dark Naruto gave him a mocking smile.
"Wasn't the limit seven?"
"So even you don't trust yourself, huh? You're leaving yourself a full four days to hunt me down if something goes wrong."
He tightened his grip slightly.
"Did you already forget what I told you? I have all of your memories."
"Heh heh. Better safe than sorry."
Naruto scratched his head and laughed foolishly.
Deep down, though, he was somewhat contemptuous of Dark Naruto.
All his memories?
What a bluff.
At most, Dark Naruto possessed the memories of this world's Naruto.
At the same time, Naruto couldn't help feeling proud.
As expected of Uzumaki Naruto!
He really was naturally kindhearted.
Even his dark side was this cooperative.
"Fine. Since you agreed, I'll spend the next three days in Konoha accomplishing your goal."
Dark Naruto released his hand.
"You stay here."
"Wait!"
Naruto suddenly slapped his forehead.
"Why do I have to sit here waiting for you? I can just go with you!"
He finally realized how stupid his earlier arrangement had been.
Why give Dark Naruto three days to return when Naruto could simply follow along and supervise him in real time?
"If you want to watch me, just look down."
Dark Naruto grinned.
"What?"
Naruto instinctively lowered his gaze.
The surface of the pool beneath him had somehow become like a mirror.
His reflection was there—but the perspective was wrong.
Naruto blinked.
'Wait…'
'This is Dark Naruto's point of view?'
The water could actually display everything Dark Naruto was seeing?
Naruto was stunned.
Wasn't this basically the same as watching a livestream on one of the screens back in the real world?
"Feel better now?"
Dark Naruto released his hand completely and walked toward the shore.
Naruto nodded.
He said nothing else and sat back down where he was.
…
"Naruto?"
Obito frowned when he saw Naruto emerge from the Falls of Truth alone.
"Why did you come out? Where's your dark side?"
"I am the dark side."
Dark Naruto answered calmly.
"What?"
Obito's expression changed.
"You are?"
"You mean you took over Naruto's consciousness?"
"That's right."
Dark Naruto smiled smugly.
"He's sitting in the mental world waiting right now."
"The positions have switched."
"Unless I need his power, he'll never be able to come back."
The Falls of Truth was a place where the mental world and the real world overlapped.
Everything Naruto had just experienced inside was invisible to Obito.
By choosing to let Dark Naruto leave, Naruto had effectively handed control of his body over to his darker consciousness, allowing it to leave the inner world and dominate the physical body.
For Naruto's original consciousness to return, there was only one possibility.
Dark Naruto would have to deliberately call upon Naruto's power in the same way Naruto once drew on Nine-Tails chakra and transformed into his fox-like form.
And that was almost impossible.
The Nine-Tails' power was overwhelmingly strong.
Naruto's own physical power, by comparison, was far weaker.
His only real advantage was senjutsu.
But even Sage Mode was currently crippled because part of Naruto's body had been permanently phased into the Kamui dimension.
In other words—
Naruto himself was almost completely powerless.
That was why Killer B had repeatedly warned him before leaving.
If something went wrong, Naruto's original consciousness would have no way to fight back from inside.
He needed someone outside to force Dark Naruto back into the mental world.
And that person—
was Obito.
Of course, Killer B didn't actually know Obito's real identity.
As far as he knew, this was merely the masked man.
After guiding Nagato into founding Akatsuki, the masked man had turned the organization into a supposed peace group that traveled around the world doing good deeds for free.
As Akatsuki's hidden mastermind, the masked man supposedly never hesitated to contribute his own labor either.
He frequently participated in those good deeds personally.
Rumor had it that Akatsuki gathered powerful shinobi who refused to serve the corrupt darkness of the hidden villages.
Every single member was supposedly a great humanitarian.
Kumogakure happened to be one of the few villages that had rarely received Akatsuki's "help."
Their longtime rival Iwagakure, on the other hand, had benefited from it constantly.
So Killer B knew relatively little about the masked man.
All his intelligence told him was that the man was extremely helpful.
And if the masked man loved helping people, then surely leaving Naruto in his care was perfectly safe.
What Killer B could never have imagined—
was that the masked man's account had just been logged into from another location.
Someone else had taken over.
"Still, don't worry."
Dark Naruto glanced at Obito.
"I inherited all of the original Naruto's memories."
"I'll honor his agreement with you and lure Namikaze Minato into your Kamui dimension."
Obito's surprise gradually faded.
"That's enough."
He nodded.
"No point wasting time. Let's head for Konoha."
Obito didn't care whether his partner was the original Naruto or Dark Naruto.
As long as the objective was achieved, either one worked.
If anything—
he actually preferred cooperating with Dark Naruto.
At least once Dark Naruto learned Obito's real objective, there was a chance they could remain allies.
The original Naruto would probably turn on him immediately.
…
Konoha.
After learning that Konoha had been attacked, Sunagakure and Iwagakure both began making threatening movements along the border.
Kushina and Minato each led a shinobi unit out of the village to deal with them.
With both of Konoha's biggest predators gone—
Dark Naruto had finally received the perfect opportunity.
Temporary responsibility for village administration had fallen to Shizune, the secretary Kushina had effectively stolen from Tsunade.
Inside the Hokage's office, Naruto burst in looking panicked.
"Shizune! Something terrible happened!"
"The Ōtsutsuki Isshiki my dad sealed away escaped!"
"What?!"
Shizune slammed both palms onto the desk and shot to her feet.
"Are you serious?!"
Before leaving, Kushina had given Shizune one especially important order:
Constantly monitor the village's safety.
And keep a close eye on Kakashi.
Under no circumstances was he allowed to casually use Kamui to unclog toilets or do anything similarly stupid that might accidentally give Isshiki a route back out.
Shizune had followed those instructions carefully.
So how had Isshiki escaped anyway?
Then she suddenly realized something.
"Wait."
"Naruto, weren't you outside the village?"
"How did you find out?"
"It wasn't Kakashi-sensei."
Dark Naruto immediately answered.
"It was the other eye."
"The mysterious masked man has a Mangekyō Sharingan identical to Kakashi-sensei's."
"He opened the Kamui dimension and let Isshiki out!"
"I saw it with my own eyes!"
Shizune's expression changed.
"And it gets worse."
Dark Naruto continued, piling lie upon lie without hesitation.
"The masked man told Isshiki that Kaguya had already been sealed away."
"That removed whatever restriction was stopping Isshiki from killing people."
"There was an entire village nearby."
"Civilians."
"He killed every last one of them."
Dark Naruto delivered the false report with complete conviction.
And the reason for the lie—was about to become clear.