Chapter 25: The Legendary Uchiha is Actually a Youth?
"Accept your loss, or... do you want to try dying at my hands?"
Yahiko's voice was as gentle as a greeting from an old friend, yet it made the hair on Obito's body stand on end.
The hand resting on his shoulder was as heavy as Mount Tai.
How did he do it?!
Cold sweat slid down the edge of the mask, and Obito's heart pounded frantically against his chest. No spatial fluctuations, no hand Seal startup—it was as if a frame had been cut from a video; this man had bypassed space itself to appear directly at the "result"!
If he had been holding a Kunai just now... there wouldn't even have been time to activate Izanagi!
An absolute first-encounter kill!
"Don't... don't be impulsive."
Obito swallowed hard, his Adam's apple bobbing with difficulty. He was a madman, but also a clever gambler; when the dealer held a gun, facing them head-on was a dead end.
"I understand."
Obito slowly raised his hands, the lofty, god-like tone he had used before completely gone, replaced only by dryness and compromise. "Since I lost, I'll pay the price. It's only fair."
Under the intense gazes of Nagato and Konan, his hand reached tremblingly behind his ear.
"Click."
The buckle unfastened. The orange swirl mask fell to the ground, revealing the face hidden in the shadows.
The air instantly froze.
There was no weathered age, nor the overbearing aura of the legendary Asura of the Ninja World.
What met their eyes was an excessively young face—the right side was handsome like a youth's, while the left was covered in hideous, twisted scars like centipedes, with the left eye tightly shut, looking exceptionally eerie.
"This..." Konan's pupils constricted violently as she instinctively cried out, "Who are you?!"
He's too young!
This man, who claimed to have rivaled the First Hokage and survived the Battle of the Final Valley, actually looked younger than them?!
Nagato's Rinnegan also narrowed, his face full of disbelief. This was the mastermind? A disfigured brat?
"A name is just a label; in that Hell, I died long ago."
Under their piercing gazes, Obito spoke expressionlessly, a hint of humiliation flashing in his eyes. "You can continue to call me Madara, or... Tobi."
"You have quite a... unique look."
Yahiko let go and took a step back, his gaze like he was inspecting a defective product, his tone mocking. "It seems the food in Hell isn't very good; your face is as pale as a ghost's."
Obito's face twitched, and he quickly picked up the mask and put it back on, hiding his embarrassment and wretchedness.
"The wager has been fulfilled."
Obito's voice instantly returned to being cold, as if putting on the mask made him the all-controlling god once again. "I am now a member of the Akatsuki. As a gesture of good faith, take this 'great gift'!"
Whoosh!
A black scroll was tossed toward Yahiko.
"What is this?" Konan stood guard vigilantly by Yahiko's side.
"Top-secret intelligence from Konoha."
Obito said coldly, "The Gedo Statue is currently a bottomless pit that devours life; if Nagato keeps enduring it alone, he'll be sucked dry sooner or later. To truly master it, the only fuel is—the Tailed Beasts."
His lone eye stared intently at Yahiko through the mask's hole. "Inside, there are clues about the Nine-Tails."
"Tailed Beasts... as fuel?"
Nagato looked at his hands, thinking of the terrifying feeling of suffocation when his Chakra was instantly drained while summoning the statue, lost in thought.
"Of course."
Zetsu, with his Yin-Yang face, emerged from the ground, his wide mouth splitting into a raspy laugh. "The Gedo Statue is the husk of the Ten-Tails! Right now, it's just an empty vessel; only by stuffing the nine Tailed Beasts back in will its eyes open!"
"Once the Ten-Tails is resurrected, the one who possesses it will become the second Six Paths Sage, wielding the Divine Power to reshape the world!" Zetsu's voice was full of enticement.
Yahiko unfurled the scroll and scanned it rapidly.
As expected.
The timeline matched. Year 51 of Konoha, the eve of the Nine-Tails Attack. The Masked Man before him was preparing to deliver a package of destruction to Konoha, taking advantage of the moment when Uzumaki Kushina's Seal would be at its weakest during childbirth.
"In other words, you've been lurking in Konoha for the past six months?"
Yahiko closed the scroll and looked at Obito with a faint smile. "To even know an S-rank secret like the impending childbirth of the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki... the Uchiha Clan's security is truly pathetic."
"I told you long ago, our goals are the same."
Obito suppressed the turmoil in his heart, forcing himself to raise his voice to regain some ground. "Since you're so clever, you should be able to understand my grand ambition."
"Tell me about it." Yahiko sat back on the stone chair like a tyrant scrutinizing a subject. "What exactly is your 'new world'? Don't try to fool me with nonsense meant for children."
Obito took a deep breath.
Although his hand had been seen through, as long as that plan was presented, no one could refuse the temptation!
"This plan is called—eye of the moon."
Obito spread his arms, his voice trembling slightly with extreme excitement.
"Collect the nine Tailed Beasts, resurrect the Ten-Tails, and make Nagato the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki. Then... use the ocular power of the Sharingan to project onto the surface of the moon and activate the ultimate Genjutsu—Infinite Tsukuyomi!"
"Wherever the light shines, the world will become one!"
"Everyone will enter a dream without war, without pain, and without death! In that world, deceased loved ones will return to life, the regrets of the past will be rewritten, and everyone will have the most perfect life!"
Obito's voice echoed in the basement, like a missionary from Hell:
"It is a perfect paradise... with only love and no hate!"
Dead silence.
Nagato and Konan looked at each other, their scalps tingling from the shock of this utterly insane plan.
"Make the whole world... dream?"
Konan was the first to break the silence. She looked coldly at Obito, her gaze as if she were looking at a pitiful madman. "That is ultimately fake! Everyone lying in cocoons, becoming the walking dead—what kind of peace is that? It's just self-deceiving escapism!"
"Fake?!"
Those two words seemed to pierce Obito's most sensitive nerve.
He snapped his head around, paranoid red veins bulging in his lone eye as he roared hysterically:
"In this rotten reality! There is only endless betrayal, hatred, and war! So-called peace is nothing more than a break before the next war!"
"Rin is dead... they're all dead! This reality, filled with emptiness, is the true Hell!"
Obito stared fixedly at Konan, his voice shrill like a ghost's:
"If one can have everything in a dream and never wake up... then what difference is there between it and reality?!"