On the battlefield outside Hoshigakure, the tides turned in a heartbeat.
When Obito saw the dark-red skeletal torso of the Susanoo rising before him—and the peerless Mangekyo Sharingan blooming in the girl's eyes—his skin crawled.
Not only were there two rogue Uchiha, but one of them possessed the ultimate ocular power!
Why?! How is this possible?!
Finding a stray Uchiha bloodline was far-fetched enough, but a Three-Tomoe and a Mangekyo?
How incompetent was the Uchiha Clan in Konoha? How could they let two individuals of this caliber wander the world undetected?
And a Mangekyo... at such a young age!
"Whoa, whoa! That thing is way too much!" the white half of Zetsu exclaimed, while Black Zetsu fell into a grim silence.
Damn it... since when did the Uchiha become like this?
Obito made a split-second decision: he couldn't keep fighting. Between the enigmatic 'Shura' and a double-Mangekyo Uchiha, he was at a severe disadvantage. He only had one eye; he didn't even have access to the third power, Susanoo.
Retreat! That was his only thought.
"Kamui!"
Obito activated his space-time ninjutsu, attempting to slip into his pocket dimension. However, just as the swirl began to pull his body in, he realized with horror that he was still standing on the scorched earth of Hoshigakure.
And Zetsu, who had been chirping in his ear like a nuisance, was nowhere to be seen.
"What?!" Obito's heart hammered against his ribs.
He had fallen into a genjutsu without even realizing it.
Across from him, the black-haired girl stood enveloped in her dark-red giant. Behind her, a massive crimson moon hung in the starless sky—and within that moon sat the unmistakable pattern of her Mangekyo.
"When did she...?"
As an Uchiha, falling prey to a visual illusion was the ultimate humiliation.
It's her Mangekyo ability. Ordinary methods won't break this. Obito flared his chakra, attempting to use his superior ocular power to shatter the world around him.
BOOM!
In the real world, the dark-red Susanoo lunged forward. Its skeletal frame began to knit together with chakra-flesh as wings unfurled, the sheer air pressure whipping Obito's robes.
The giant drew a massive chakra blade and brought it down in a thunderous arc!
Obito instinctively tried to phase, but he found his body completely unresponsive.
The blade fell. Once. Twice. Three times.
Every time the chakra blade carved through him, it felt as though his soul was being cleaved in two. His bones shattered, his nerves screamed—the agony was a visceral, endless loop of torment.
He realized with growing despair that his own ocular power was not enough to unravel this space. This girl's eyes... her spirit... were far more potent than his.
After what felt like an eternity, Obito emerged from the Tsukuyomi space, trembling violently.
He gasped for air, looking down to find a jagged wooden branch skewering his foot, pinning him to the blackened soil. Red blood pooled around the wood.
White Zetsu was flooding him with chakra, using external interference to snap his mind back to reality.
"Oh?" Hikari blinked.
She noticed Obito breaking free, but she was more interested in the wood protruding from his sole. Is that Wood Style? She glanced at the flytrap creature emerging nearby.
The moment he regained his senses, Obito didn't hesitate. He activated Kamui immediately, his body swirling away into the safety of the void.
Zetsu, seeing that the assault had failed, used his Mayfly technique to sink into the earth.
On the charred battlefield, only a small stain of blood and the ruins of the forest remained.
"That man..." Hikari deactivated her Susanoo, her brow furrowed as she analyzed the tiger-masked stranger.
"His ocular jutsu is definitely a Mangekyo, but the fact that he didn't use Susanoo... it means he's likely missing an eye."
She thought back to her fight with Uchiha Shisui. Shisui had already mastered the second stage of Susanoo. Yet this 'Madara' hadn't even manifested a ribcage. He'd needed outside help just to escape her Tsukuyomi. His ocular foundation was clearly incomplete.
"Are we just going to let them go?" Hikari turned back toward the village gates.
Menma was sitting comfortably on the wall, watching the show. She knew he had sensory abilities capable of tracking them, yet he hadn't moved.
"He has a pocket dimension; once he's inside, he's untouchable," Menma's voice drifted down, light and airy behind his three-eyed mask. "And that flytrap guy? His Mayfly technique is too fast to catch."
Black Zetsu had lurked for a thousand years; Menma didn't want to back him into a corner just yet. Besides, a one-eyed Obito wasn't a threat—not compared to the satisfaction Menma intended to extract later.
This was the man responsible for his parents' deaths in this world. Killing him now would be too easy.
Maybe I should visit Konoha, Menma mused. Dig around a bit. See if I can find Nohara Rin's remains. A little cellular extraction, a little Reanimated Soul...
For now, he'd let them keep fooling Nagato with their 'Eye of the Moon' plan. It bought him time to grow. Perhaps this encounter would even push Nagato and Obito to speed up their recruitment.
Once Nagato took out Hanzo and the main plot began, Menma could leak everything to Konoha—specifically Jiraiya. Let them handle the headache.
Though, he wondered... would Obito go after Kakashi now to reclaim his other eye?
Inside the Kamui Dimension.
Obito collapsed onto the cold, grey floor. The image of the mysterious, powerful warrior was gone, replaced by a man panting for breath.
He tore off the tiger mask. His right eye throbbed with a dull, stabbing pain from overuse.
"Why... why is there such a pair of eyes out there?"
He thought back to his conversations with the real Madara, and his secret research at the Naka Shrine. There was never any mention of a lost branch of the Uchiha!
While Uchiha women occasionally married outside the clan, any child who awakened the Sharingan was strictly brought back to the fold.
But now, there was a Three-Tomoe user and a Mangekyo girl roughly his own age. Without his second eye, he was no match for her.
"Damn it! Are they like me? Uchiha who 'died' in the war and went underground?"
Obito gritted his teeth. This was a massive variable that could derail everything. He had to find out who they were. He had to know their goal.
He touched his face, his mind drifting to the eye he had given to Kakashi so many years ago...