This overprotectiveness was way too obvious.
Naruto grumbled under his breath, while Haku offered an embarrassed smile.
Once Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura stepped into the Hatake residence, the oppressive atmosphere inside pressed down on them so heavily that they froze at the doorway. Even Rin and the younger Kakashi remained by the entrance, not daring to step into the main room.
Only Minato Namikaze, worried the two inside might actually start fighting for real, forced himself to stay in the room with them.
Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura immediately understood why Haku and Zabuza had chosen not to remain inside. The tension alone was enough to suffocate someone.
Sasuke turned to young Kakashi. "What did Kakashi do?"
"What does it have to do with me?!" young Kakashi snapped, irritated at being questioned.
Sasuke's patience thinned. "I mean that Kakashi!"
"You should at least address us as Sensei! You—"
"Hey! Don't you start fighting too, dattebayo!"
Naruto and Rin Nohara hurried between them before things escalated.
Rin leaned in and whispered to the three, "It's not Kakashi's fault. It's Obito..."
Naruto blinked. "What about Obito?"
"Last night, when we returned, it was already late. Everyone was exhausted and fell asleep," Rin explained. "But Obito... quietly went to the Konoha Memorial Stone..."
"Huh? What was he doing there in the middle of the night? Pretending to be a fox yōkai to scare people?" Naruto tilted his head with squinted eyes, completely confused.
Sasuke could already guess it was something Obito had done before and scoffed, "You think everyone's as childish as you, doing stupid pranks like that? You're such a massive idiot."
Their comments did nothing to ease the mood.
Young Kakashi let out a cold snort and continued where Rin left off. "That idiot! He carved his own name off the Memorial Stone."
"!!!"
What?! He carved the name "Obito Uchiha" off the Memorial Stone?!
Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura were stunned.
That name...
To the adult Kakashi, it was faith.
It was salvation.
It was the name of his hero.
For fourteen years, whenever he wasn't on a mission, he stood in front of the Memorial Stone, speaking to the hero in his heart.
Even if it was Obito carving out his own name, the damage inflicted on Kakashi was immense.
No wonder even Minato Namikaze had hardened his expression at his student, Obito Uchiha.
"But why haven't we been sent to another era yet~?" Sakura wondered aloud.
Rin shook her head—she didn't know either.
The five tiptoed toward a room deeper inside the Hatake compound. The silence inside was so absolute it felt suffocating. Young Obito and adult Kakashi sat in opposite corners, glaring away from each other like they intended to die of old age before speaking again.
Minato stood awkwardly at the doorway.
Clearly, things were not resolving themselves.
Naruto marched inside and demanded, "What were you doing carving up the Memorial Stone in the middle of the night? And Kakashi-sensei, aren't you way too late today?"
Young Obito huffed behind his orange goggles, lips jutting out in a pout.
Kakashi offered them a stiff, forced smile as he said, almost casually, that they had taken the day off.
Naruto nearly fainted.
What kind of explanation was that?!
Startled by Kakashi's expression and aura, he nodded quickly.
Minato Namikaze let out a long, weary sigh.
Being a jōnin instructor was truly too difficult.
Obito glanced at the adult Kakashi, then finally conceded as he explained, "When we got back yesterday, I thought it over. We have to get rid of the masked man as soon as possible! Otherwise, it won't just be Minato-sensei's family—the whole Ninja World might be in danger!!"
Seeing Kushina's life hanging by a thread, the helpless agony in his chest had made him hate the masked man even more—and resent his own weakness.
The more he spoke, the more justified he sounded, his voice unintentionally rising.
Adult Kakashi's anger surged, nearly knocking the breath from his lungs.
"That's your excuse for defacing the Memorial Stone?! Do you have any idea what that stone symbolizes to Konoha?!!"
Obito stiffened his neck. "Naruto still graffiti'd the Hokage Rock!!"
"The graffiti on the Hokage Rock has already been cleaned!! What about the Memorial Stone?! Are you planning to carve a new one too?!!" Kakashi snapped, nearly coughing up blood in rage.
Obito's neck stayed stiff, but his voice shrank.
"So—so what if I carve one? And it was just my own name that I— I— carved..."
Under Kakashi's fierce glare, the rest of his words were swallowed whole.
He could still argue with the younger Kakashi.
But the adult Kakashi—the one whose eyes held sorrow, guilt, and the weight of losing a comrade—made Obito feel helpless, uncomfortable, and even pained for him.
Erasing his own name from the Memorial Stone...
Part of it was for the A-rank mission reward to travel through eras and gather intel on the masked man.
But another part—was because he hoped to free the adult Kakashi from that crushing grief.
After tossing and turning all night, Sasuke Uchiha had zero interest in whatever nonsense was going on between those two. He went straight to Obito.
"You completed the mission, so why didn't we jump to another parallel world?"
"How should I know..." Obito pouted, hugging his knees like he'd been wronged by the universe.
"Give me your mission scroll," Sasuke said.
Obito pulled the mysterious mission scroll from the pouch behind him and tossed it over.
Naruto, Sakura, Rin, Young Kakashi, and Minato Namikaze walked over to take a look.
[Mission Rank: A-rank]
[Mission Details: Obito Uchiha is to select any name from the Konoha Memorial Stone and carve it one hundred times with a kunai.]
Naruto hurried to open his own scroll.
[Mission Rank: A-rank]
[Mission Details: Naruto Uzumaki is to graffiti the Hokage Rock and ensure the graffiti remains for over 24 hours.]
[Mission Status: Completed.]
Clearly, Naruto's mission was already finished. Obito's, on the other hand, wasn't.
Sasuke asked, "Does carving your own name not count?"
Obito panicked. "Nooo!! I could never do it if it's someone else's name!"
"We're getting a new stone anyway. Just tell the Third Hokage," Sasuke said.
"No! It's a matter of principle! Do you even understand what principles are?!" Obito snapped.
"What principles at a time like this?! Why are you being stubborn about something so pointless, just like the dead-last?!" Sasuke shot back.
The two Uchiha were practically nose-to-nose as their argument escalated.
"I am the dead-last! I'll never understand how you geniuses think! Hmph!!"
"You—!"
Sasuke was so angry he couldn't even form a comeback.
But the dead-last always understood another dead-last. Naruto calmly asked Obito...
"Are you sure you carved it a full hundred times?"
Sakura immediately caught on and nodded hard. "Yeah! And you did use a kunai, right? Not a senbon or a shuriken?"