After a relaxed, cozy New Year at home, Yorin finally made Tsunade a promise: next year—next year for sure—they'd get married. And once they were married, he'd "thoroughly ravish" her first, wear her out until she was floating between life and death, icy-cold outside and melting inside. That should satisfy her, right?
Whether Tsunade was satisfied, Yorin didn't know. But Black Zetsu was definitely not satisfied.
"What's so great about that famous fat sheep anyway? Even if she's got some looks, is she really better than Mother? If you're really such a degenerate pervert, then hurry up and resurrect Mother already!"
Maybe he'd spent too long around Yorin; Black Zetsu's shame tolerance was dropping by the day. For the sake of his mother, he could even say things like "Dad," which made Yorin stare at him with outright shock.
Honestly, with him acting like this, Yorin suspected that when Kaguya really did get unsealed in the future, she'd dump this "son" on the spot.
"For Mother's sake, I'll accept any ending," Black Zetsu said.
"Hard-wired devotion really is a pain to deal with," Yorin thought. With the current state of shinobi science, changing the genetic coding of Kaguya's creations was still a long, long way off.
Given that, when faced with the literal number-one mama's boy in the world, Uchiha Yorin could only… compromise and go smack Takigakure's Seven-Tails jinchūriki around a bit, reclaim a tailed beast to keep the project moving.
The one comfort was that Takigakure hadn't spawned Fu early due to "universal will" meddling.
She wasn't his type looks-wise, but beating up a bright, cheerful girl for no reason still felt beneath Yorin's standards.
If it were some brain-rotted fist-waving ideologue, that'd be one thing. Fu clearly wasn't.
…
Yorin didn't know everything about Takigakure, but he knew enough.
The movie arc they got in the original story had bored him to death—no cute girls to carry audience popularity—so he'd basically skimmed past it.
But after actually crossing into the shinobi world and becoming Anbu chief, Uchiha clan head, and five-village advisor, Yorin naturally gained access to intel on damn near everyone.
Takigakure wasn't exactly strong, but for a small village it had respectable power.
Forget whether their "Hero Water" was just ripped off from Dragon Ball's "Ultra Divine Water." The point was: temporarily boosting chakra by a factor of ten-plus was pretty insane.
Unfortunately for them, Hero Water in the era of the Five Village Alliance had already been confiscated by Yorin and handed off to Orochimaru to test.
Orochimaru's verdict: "Interesting, but that's about it."
For scrubs, chugging it to power-up for a desperate final strike was fine. But for real top-tiers, the multiplication factor just wasn't impressive.
You couldn't even reliably break into tailed-beast or Kage tier from it, so what was the point? Might as well go study a certain someone's Earth Grudge Fear instead.
As Takigakure's most famous export, Kakuzu had definitely done wonders for the village's "cool factor."
Too bad Takigakure didn't know how to keep talent.
If Kakuzu had stayed, and with them holding a tailed beast besides, they wouldn't have become a regional power, but self-defense would've been no issue.
As it was, they just had one tailed beast, and their jinchūriki wasn't anything like Yugito or Killer Bee. They couldn't fully tap that power at all.
Because of that, Yorin didn't even feel like getting his hands dirty. He just tossed it to one of his elite squads.
"Which means, Kakashi, I'll leave this to you. No problem, right?"
"…Feels like a pain."
"Hey, come on."
"…Fine, fine."
…
Maybe because Yorin had handled Obito's situation a bit too roughly, Kakashi had sunk into hardcore depression after the Three-Tails incident. Even with all of Yorin's later preferential treatment—even hauling him off to a club for a massive "spa package"—the gloom wouldn't quite lift.
Fortunately, there was one thing in this world Kakashi still cared about: Nohara Rin.
Obito had gone off the deep end, and his relationship with Kakashi had become awkward and complicated.
But Rin… was a different story.
At first, everyone talked about Edo Tensei-ing Rin as a way to restrain Obito. But then they thought about it: Obito was already crazy. Who knew what bringing Rin back would do to his mental state? Might make him worse.
Kakashi, on the other hand, was a mellow, guilt-ridden workaholic—soft-hearted, introverted, and very loyal to his comrades. Summarized in one phrase: easy to push around.
So Yorin took one look at how hopelessly stuck he was and decided to go nuclear: he arranged a posthumous marriage between Kakashi and Rin.
When Kakashi saw Rin Edo Tensei'd into existence in a wedding dress, he just froze. Then, when Rin pulled him into a room, he reappeared the next morning looking half dead and weirdly energized.
"How was last night?" Yorin asked.
"Just so we're clear, I'm not the one controlling her. I'm not that much of a freak. I just explained the situation with you and Obito to Rin, asked her what she wanted, and she agreed. So, hey, Kakashi—now that you two are married, you can pull yourself together, right?"
Kakashi opened his mouth, stuck between "thank you" and "go to hell, I'm going to Purple Lightning you to death," and ended up doing neither—like with every major choice in his life.
Instead, in a profoundly awkward tone, he said: "And my opinion? You weren't gonna ask my opinion at all?"
"Minor details," Yorin said blandly. "Not important."
A big throbbing vein popped on Kakashi's forehead. He held back his killing intent with heroic effort.
"…No. I must endure this."
"Oh, right," Yorin added. "I checked in with Rin again. She says the living and the dead shouldn't be together long term, so I released the jutsu. She's back in the Pure Land now. But she said if you crash again later, she doesn't mind being summoned down to comfort you from time to time. After all, you're husband and wife now."
He paused, then added: "By the way, I'm not sure if an Edo Tensei can have kids. If not, I'll get Orochimaru to cook something up for you. We can't let the Hatake line end with you, can we?"
Kakashi: "…Fuck you."
He'd tried so hard to hold it in, but in the end, the curse slipped out.
…
What can you say—love really is the best medicine. Ever since his "marriage" to Rin, Kakashi wasn't wandering around in a fog anymore.
He was less respectful toward Yorin now, and far more inclined to snap back, but Yorin didn't mind in the slightest.
As long as those two were okay, he was satisfied.
…
With heavy medicine came heavy recovery. After everything with Obito, Kakashi finally crawled out of his hole.
Yorin thought it over. He'd been out of the village quite a bit lately. He should spend more time at home with his wives. So he decided to assign Takigakure's jinchūriki mission to Kakashi.
"So you want me to solo a hidden village, seal their jinchūriki, and drag them back?" Kakashi pointed at his own nose in disbelief, looking like a certain river demon hearing about his assignment from the Nine-Tails' future husband.
"Oh, right, you're not at Kage level yet. That might be pushing it."
Kakashi visibly relaxed. Maybe Yorin wasn't totally insane.
"We'll have Shisui go with you," Yorin continued. "You two together should be fine, right?"
"..."
For a moment Kakashi couldn't hold it in.
He swallowed it once. Twice. In the end he still grumbled:
"If he wasn't already Kage level, why would you have him as your assistant?"
Kakashi really wanted to say it should be him assisting Shisui, but if he did that, Yorin would probably hit him with some line like, "Revolutionary work isn't about seniority," and he just didn't have the energy.
"So anyway…" Kakashi began.
"Hold on," Yorin cut in. "Aren't you even curious how Shisui got to Kage level so fast?"
"No."
"Here's how," Yorin said anyway, unable to resist bragging. "He already had Mangekyō Sharingan and could use Susanoo."
Back then he basically was Kage level. But Yorin had decided that was too shaky a foundation. Mangekyō burned through its user's eyes; the more you used it, the sooner you went blind.
So what counted as a solid foundation?
"I told him he should train yang release with me. As long as he kept his body healthy, unlike a certain sickly Itachi, he'd eventually be unstoppable."
Shisui had then asked: "Isn't there a faster way?"
Here Yorin looked at Kakashi with blatant "ask me, ask me" written all over his face.
Kakashi sighed. "…And was there a faster way?"
"There was," Yorin said. "I told him I'd need a sample of his genetic material so I could clone a copy of him. Then I'd power the clone up to Mangekyō level, kill the clone, and transplant the clone's eyes into him. Voilà—Eternal Mangekyō."
"…And did he agree?" Kakashi asked.
"After listening to the plan, he swallowed hard and decided to train yin–yang release with me instead," Yorin said, smiling.