"Lord Raiga!"
The surviving Kirigakure ANBU were paralyzed with shock upon seeing the Seven Swordsman blown through a rock wall, but Kiyohara did not give them a single millisecond to react.
He turned around smoothly, his jet-black eyes sweeping across the battlefield.
The physical positions, muscular movements, and half-formed hand seals of all six remaining Kirigakure operatives in his immediate grid were perfectly reflected in his pupils.
Even without activating the chakra-draining Sharingan, the massive, permanent increase in his spiritual energy had significantly heightened his baseline perception.
Then, he moved.
Kiyohara's physical velocity was so fast that he almost left dark afterimages in the rain.
The nearest Kirigakure ANBU either had their throats violently pierced by flying iron sand needles, or their necks cleanly slashed open by Kiyohara's chakra-extended blade.
Five seconds.
Six elite Kirigakure operatives collapsed dead into the mud.
Kiyohara shook the thick blood off his blade and looked calmly toward the massive, jagged gap in the mountain.
Debris exploded outward, and Raiga Kurosuki walked out from within the dust.
There was a deep, horrific laceration on his left cheek that reached the white bone, with arterial blood dripping heavily down his chin.
Yet, despite his missing limb and shattered ribs, his psychotic eyes burned with crazy, unadulterated battle intent.
His severed right arm had long since been cauterized and fused shut by the high temperature of the electromagnetic projectile passing through; there was no need to stop the bleeding because the wound had already turned to charred slag.
Fortunately for Raiga, his chakra reserves were still largely sufficient.
"Good... very good!"
Raiga laughed wildly, raising the remaining Kiba blade high into the air.
"This is more like it! Come on, brat, let me have a satisfying fight!"
The dark storm clouds in the sky gathered violently once more; this time, the scale of the natural lightning he summoned was several times greater than before. The entire dark valley was illuminated by blinding flashes of blue lightning as if it were broad daylight.
'Raiga Kurosuki. This guy should actually be the weakest physical combatant among the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist,' Kiyohara analyzed coldly, looking at Raiga's moss-green hair flying in the gale.
In the original canon, Raiga eventually took in a sickly orphan named Ranmaru, who possessed the legendary Red Eye Dojutsu, to act as his radar. In the end, Raiga was defeated by the joint efforts of young Naruto, Neji, Tenten, and Rock Lee.
Of course, that defeat also had to do with him suffering a psychological breakdown and giving up his resistance. But his performance in that canon battle indicated that he could go toe-to-toe with Rock Lee in pure taijutsu without even relying on Kiba or Lightning Release ninjutsu. He was absolutely not weak.
"Oh, hey, kid, come on...!" Raiga sneered, looking at Kiyohara, who was dressed in a standard dark green Jonin vest, wondering if it was physically possible for him to be as outrageous as a Konoha Genin.
Could it be that this brat was another monster like Might Duy?
He waved his remaining hand, and violent electric arcs flowed heavily over the strange, pronged steel of Kiba. The electric arcs appeared blindingly white, flowing over the metal like water.
"I've been hiding my output for long enough; it's time to test my new baseline," Kiyohara murmured, tightening his grip on the hilt of his heavy black blade, feeling the cold touch of the iron sand.
Most of the violent skirmishes he had fought in the past few months were against statistical weaklings, so the actual, measurable improvement in his combat strength was somewhat limited—except for when he encountered the Byakugan-killer, Ao, where the existential danger was far greater.
If a shinobi played the pig to eat the tiger entirely too often, they would eventually just devolve into a pig. When it was tactically time to be cautious, he would be a ghost, but when he possessed an absolute advantage, he had to strike like a demon.
Kiyohara briefly glanced over his shoulder at Kakashi and Rin.
Madara Uchiha certainly wouldn't mind if Kiyohara died a bloody death right here, as long as it successfully traumatized Obito enough to awaken his eyes.
Therefore, the moment had come to take absolute control of the stage.
"Lightning Release: Roaring Thunder!"
As Raiga's Kiba crackled violently, it released a massive, blinding white electric arc. The crackling lightning instantly swept across the mud toward Kiyohara like a tsunami.
"Konoha Body Flicker Technique!"
Kiyohara's physical figure completely disappeared from where he stood.
When he materialized the very next microsecond, he was already standing directly in front of Raiga's face.
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"
Kiyohara didn't bother with hand seals; he simply spat out a fierce, hyper-compressed stream of aerodynamic wind directly from his lungs.
The gale-force wind violently blew away the protective electric arcs surrounding Raiga's torso, and then Kiyohara swung his heavy black blade, forcing Raiga to desperately block with his remaining left hand.
BANG!
Raiga took a closer, terrified look and discovered that Kiyohara had actually coated his iron-sand ninja sword with a highly compressed layer of localized wind chakra! Looking from afar, it physically looked exactly like he was holding a massive, translucent longsword made of a hurricane.
The two men traded high-speed blows, flashing back and forth through the valley.
To tactically deal with an elite Lightning Release specialist like Raiga, Kiyohara primarily utilized Wind Release.
Wind Release inherently counters Lightning Release.
The shinobi databooks explicitly point out that when two techniques of the exact same elemental nature collide, the result is determined purely by the volume of raw chakra injected into the technique. If the volume of chakra is perfectly equal, both techniques will cancel each other out harmlessly. However, if the user injects a larger volume of chakra, they can physically overpower the opponent.
At the same time, if the chakra output is exactly the same, the combatant with the elemental advantage will always win!
"This kid..." Raiga felt immense, crushing kinetic pressure not long after the first exchange.
Occasionally, when Raiga seized a micro-opening to slash at Kiyohara's chest, he didn't feel like his steel was cutting through soft flesh and blood; it felt exactly like he was striking solid, impenetrable industrial steel. The web of Raiga's remaining hand actually tore open, bleeding from the kinetic recoil of his own strikes.
But Raiga did not stop his assault.
Kiyohara did not stop either.
The two maintained a terrifying, high-speed melee battle through the mountain forest, their clashing blades causing deep trenches to violently appear in the ground and ancient trees to collapse into splinters around them.
'Damn it, I still have to stall and hold on for a while...' Raiga thought desperately, waiting for his heavy reinforcements to arrive.
This time, he was not the only member of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen to deploy. As long as he bought enough time, this arrogant Konoha brat would be crushed, whether he was a genius dragon or a tiger!
Watching the apocalyptic, high-speed battle between Kiyohara and Raiga, Kakashi pulled Rin and quickly retreated to the tactical perimeter of the clearing.
Curiously, the surviving Kirigakure ANBU at this time were not in a hurry to press their advantage and finish off Kakashi and Rin.
Kakashi was deeply puzzled, completely failing to understand why they didn't swarm them when they were vulnerable. But he didn't complain; he hurriedly sat down and began to forcibly recover his depleted chakra.
"Kiyohara..."
Kakashi turned his head and saw Rin's face.
That delicate profile, marked with purple face paint, was watching Kiyohara's blurred movements with absolute, unbroken concentration. Her eyes were filled with profound worry for his safety.
'Rin and Kiyohara... they really do have an incredibly strong bond,' Kakashi couldn't help but think secretly, his heart heavy.
He knew perfectly well that Rin had harbored deep, romantic feelings for him in the past, but Kakashi knew with cold, logical certainty that his own traumatized, sociopathic psychology was completely incompatible with Rin's warmth.
Moreover, Obito's dying promise was chained to Kakashi's soul like a heavy, suffocating curse.
The absolute promise to protect Rin, no matter the cost.
The only person who could ever truly make Rin happy... Kakashi thought, his dark gaze falling on Kiyohara, who was effortlessly holding his own and slowly overwhelming a Seven Swordsman.
Only someone exactly like Kiyohara—who cared so fiercely and ruthlessly about the survival of his comrades—could give Rin the security she deserved.
Kakashi still vividly remembered that when Rin was trapped in mortal danger at the Ruins of the Whirlpool Country months ago, Kiyohara had single-handedly slaughtered the enemy vanguard with his Magnet Release at the critical moment, saving her life while Kakashi had failed.
This absolute reliance was love. This was... a true "bond."
"Kakashi?" Rin turned her head inadvertently and found that Kakashi's expression was incredibly distant and strange.
"It's nothing," Kakashi shook his head, clearing his thoughts. "Who do you honestly think is stronger right now? Kiyohara, or Raiga Kurosuki?"
The Seven Ninja Swordsmen were internationally infamous S-Rank monsters, so Kakashi possessed extensive ANBU intelligence regarding Raiga's lethal capabilities.
Rin was silent for a long moment after hearing this; she was also well-educated on the Bingo Book profiles of the Swordsmen.
"Probably... Kiyohara," Rin answered firmly, without a trace of doubt.
"Oh?" Kakashi was genuinely a bit confused upon hearing this blind faith. Did Rin actually trust the boy's strength that much against a legendary monster?
"Every single time I'm trapped in danger... it's always Kiyohara who bleeds to save me," Rin softly, subconsciously touched the woven bracelet on her wrist.
Judging by its crude but sturdy design, it must have been woven by Kiyohara himself, so Rin had always cherished it. Because Kiyohara was also the very first—and only—person who had remembered her birthday that lonely day.
"Is that so," Kakashi didn't say anything more after hearing this.
The two teenagers remained extremely wary of the surrounding Kirigakure ANBU while watching Kiyohara's violent battle. Their physical stamina was slowly recovering.
Rin, however, suddenly frowned, clutching her stomach as a sharp, agonizing pain spiked in her abdomen.
There was a massive, terrifying surge of dark chakra within her, extremely violent and corrosive, and it was actually beginning to affect her cognitive consciousness.
She hurriedly shook her head, trying to clear the red haze.
"Lightning Blade Technique: Falling Thunder!"
CRACKLE!
In the clearing, Raiga violently waved his blade, and a massive, arc-shaped wave of high-voltage lightning materialized on the ground, tearing through the mud straight for Kiyohara.
This attack speed was extremely fast, forming a circular, enclosed arc of electricity in the blink of an eye, trapping the boy like a cage.
"Keep running, you fast little rat!" Raiga sneered. He had also acutely noticed that Kiyohara relied heavily on supersonic movement. So he intended to directly seal all of Kiyohara's physical evasion paths with lightning, to see how the brat would use the Body Flicker Technique to run now!
Hearing Raiga's arrogant words, Kiyohara couldn't help but curl the corners of his mouth.
Running? Who said anything about running?
"Why?" Kiyohara blurted out, a mocking tone in his voice.
Raiga was now lacking an entire arm, and his legendary Kiba was strictly designed as a dual-blade combat system; in this specific situation, the man had lost more than half his combat effectiveness.
Kiyohara's prolonged battle just now was simply to cautiously, analytically test Raiga. To confirm if the Seven Swordsman had hidden any suicidal trump cards under his cloak, such as a vest of explosive tags or a specialized sealing scroll.
Now it seemed with absolute certainty, there was nothing left.
But this cautious stalling had given Raiga the foolish illusion that Kiyohara was a "squishy, speed-type ninja" who only knew how to use the Body Flicker Technique and mid-range ninjutsu.
But in brutal reality, Kiyohara possessed Steel Release and Earth Spear, meaning his physical defensive power and blunt-force trauma far exceeded that of an ordinary Taijutsu master.
The exact next second.
The muddy ground beneath Kiyohara's boots exploded violently; that was localized magnetic repulsion.
Riding the massive kinetic impact brought by this magnetic force, and seamlessly augmenting it with the instantaneous velocity of the Konoha Body Flicker Technique, Kiyohara shattered the lightning cage and materialized directly in front of Raiga.
He slashed violently downward with his heavy black blade.
The monstrous physical strength brought by Earth Spear, stacked flawlessly with the kinetic acceleration of his magnetic field, made Kiyohara's heavy slash unleash a visible, supersonic shockwave of air pressure, similar to a Samurai's Sword.
Raiga desperately, hurriedly raised his remaining blade to block the execution.
BANG!
Raiga violently spat out a massive mouthful of arterial blood.
At the exact microsecond of the block, his Kiba blade simply could not withstand the apocalyptic kinetic force, and the steel was physically pushed backward, slamming into his own chest.
The heavy back of his own blade smashed directly into his ribs, violently knocking him flying through the air. His broken body rolled brutally across the mud, vomiting blood.
Before Raiga even had a chance to catch his breath, Kiyohara's dark shadow once again loomed entirely over him.
The cold, black blade cut through the air, striking brutally downward again. The blinding sparks that burst forth illuminated the dim mountain forest.
Every single time he desperately blocked a strike, Raiga felt exactly like he wasn't blocking a human teenager, but getting hit by a speeding dump truck!
His biological condition was rapidly deteriorating, visibly falling into an inescapable, lethal disadvantage.
If this attrition continued for another thirty seconds, he would undoubtedly be slaughtered!
Meanwhile, in the dense, rainy forest exactly ten miles away.
Obito was leaping frantically, desperately between the high treetops.
His Sharingan had long been violently activated. The Two-Tomoe spun crazily in his pupils, forcefully slowing down the chaotic blur of the forest into clear, high-definition data in his field of vision.
"What is the exact situation with Kakashi and Rin right now?!" Obito demanded internally.
"Judging from the telepathic intelligence coming from my clones in the grid... it seems quite catastrophically bad," Spiral Zetsu replied lazily in his mind. "They are completely surrounded by highly skilled hunter-nin, and there is no shortage of Kirigakure Jonin and elite ANBU among the ambush."
Hearing this, Obito's panic skyrocketed. "Where is Minato-sensei?!"
"Who are you talking about?"
"I'm asking you where the 'Yellow Flash' is! He should be there!"
"Hmm... my clones report he is currently deployed on a massive, diversionary mission on the complete opposite side of the country."
"DAMN IT!" Obito gritted his teeth, tears of frustration mixing with the rain on his mask.
What was the point of being the "Number One Speed" in the Ninja World if he couldn't make it in time to save his students for anything?! Last time under the bridge was one thing, but now it was happening all over again!
'Kakashi, you swore to me! You promised me that no matter what, you would protect Rin with your life!'
Obito violently accelerated his speed, blindly following the telepathic guidance of the Zetsu suit, pushing his stolen chakra to the absolute redline toward the valley.
He prayed.
He prayed with all the desperate, agonizing piety of his entire life.
Praying that Rin would be unhurt.
Praying that Kakashi could hold the line.
Praying that he... would not be a dead-last, and would arrive in time.
And at the absolute end of his line of sight, in the distant, dark mountain valley, massive pillars of blue lightning were violently rising into the night sky.
It was incredibly close. So close that Obito could physically hear the deafening roar of high-level Lightning Release ninjutsu!
Under his desperate, psychological desire for more speed, the warm, firm White Zetsu biomass wrapped around his flesh even more deeply, and the bizarre, spiral face wrapped seamlessly around Obito's head once again. It gave Obito the terrifying, intoxicating feeling of being completely protected and accepted by a higher power.
His physical power surged forth exponentially once again.
He took a heavy step onto the canopy branches, making the massive trees sway violently under his kinetic output.
The moonlight reflecting off the wet green leaves briefly illuminated a horrifying freak bounding through the forest: a creature draped in a heavy black cloak, possessing a pale, swirling spiral face devoid of human features.
Only at the right eye socket was there a hollow hole, revealing a spinning, scarlet light.
'Rin, I'm coming!' Obito shouted desperately in his heart!
Meanwhile, in the valley, Raiga had been beaten into a bloody, broken mess.
But Kiyohara dared not be the slightest bit careless.
If he let his guard down for a single microsecond, he knew the Seven Swordsman would find a way to take him down with him.
"Damn it... why the hell is this brat so impossibly strong?!" Raiga spat a tooth into the mud, completely failing to understand why Kiyohara seemed like a different species of monster after not seeing him for a few months.
Watching Kiyohara absolutely, effortlessly suppress a legendary Swordsman, a glimmer of brilliant hope flashed in Rin's exhausted eyes.
With Kiyohara here, this massive army of enemies might actually be systematically slaughtered. Moreover, Kiyohara's supersonic speed could quickly carry her back to the Konoha border, letting the specialized Sealing Squad safely extract the horrific chakra from her stomach.
"How pathetic," the ghost of Uchiha Kiyohara floated silently behind the boy, looking down at Raiga. The Swordsman had fallen into the mud and could only barely stand up by using his sword as a crutch.
Kiyohara looked down at Raiga with an absolutely indifferent, cold expression.
It wasn't that he was afraid of Raiga's suicidal desperation; executing Raiga in his current, crippled state shouldn't take more than two precise sword strikes.
The only reason Kiyohara had prolonged the battle to test him was because Raiga canonically possessed Lightning Release: Lightning Burial. It was one of the very few techniques in the Ninja World that could drag an enemy into a suicidal, mutual destruction. Like Deidara's C0, it was a one-time, apocalyptic release of all remaining chakra just to vaporize the immediate area.
Kiyohara raised his heavy black sword, intending to cleanly sever Raiga's head and end it.
Kiba was actually a highly valuable, legendary weapon. It's just that complete ninja swords possessed complex summoning formulas etched into the steel, meaning all seven swords could theoretically be summoned back to the Mist Village unless they were immediately, heavily restricted and sealed in a specialized scroll.
Otherwise, one could only be like Kiyohara and collect broken, un-summonable fragments.
"Do you honestly think you've won, brat?" a trace of bloody, psychotic mockery appeared on the corner of Raiga's mouth.
"Do you actually think I have absolutely no other elite companions here... and that they are just standing around watching me die?"
As the arrogant words fell, Kiyohara instantly expanded his sensory perception.
If the surrounding Kirigakure ANBU were mobilizing to support Raiga, Kiyohara would have detected the shift in chakra immediately. But there was absolutely no movement from the perimeter.
Then who exactly was the companion Raiga was referring to?
Kiyohara frowned slightly.
The exact next microsecond, a sharp, hissing sound suddenly erupted directly from the mud under his boots.
CHI!
A nearly invisible, translucent, high-tensile steel wire pierced violently up through the soil, stabbing aggressively toward Kiyohara's throat like a viper.
Kiyohara's boots instantly erupted with a massive blast of magnetic repulsive force, physically forcing the steel thread to deflect off-course. He simultaneously used that kinetic blast to backflip twenty feet into the air.
"Oh? You actually managed to escape that."
Not far away, standing in the shadows, a man with stark white hair looked at Kiyohara with mild amusement.
His messy white hair reached his shoulders. He possessed jagged, shark-like teeth, and heavy, fluffy bandages were wrapped tightly around his neck. At this moment, the man was slowly, methodically retracting the razor-sharp steel wire that Kiyohara had dodged back into a spool.
Kiyohara landed smoothly and stared at this man.
That distinct, androgynous, pale appearance, flawlessly combined with the shark-like teeth, made Kiyohara instantly deduce his clan identity.
An elite assassin of the Hozuki Clan...
At this exact moment, Kiyohara turned his head back toward the perimeter and discovered that several Kirigakure ANBU were attempting to aggressively swarm Rin!
They, who had been cautiously watching the duel just a moment ago, were taking violent action again under the new arrival's orders!
Kakashi desperately drew his kunai, blocking a lethal strike aimed at his blind spot.
Kiyohara's figure blurred, body-flickering instantly to materialize directly behind Rin.
"Watch your flank, Rin."
Without hesitation, Kiyohara scooped Rin up in a smooth princess carry, his boots exploding with repulsion as he jumped fifty feet horizontally to evade a massive fireball.
"Kiyohara..." Seeing Kiyohara instantly abandon his duel to protect Rin, Kakashi breathed a massive sigh of relief.
After quickly, brutally slitting the throat of a Kirigakure ANBU in front of him, Kakashi looked at the surrounding, closing enemies with absolute vigilance.
After landing safely, Kiyohara set Rin down gently. He frowned deeply as he watched the massive crowd of operatives aggressively tightening the net around them.
"Water Release: Water Stream Bullet!"
Dozens of high-pressure projectiles wrapped in lethal water currents bombarded Kiyohara and Kakashi's position.
The chaotic, desperate melee had started once again!
While Kiyohara and Kakashi were violently fighting off the swarm, Rin was also doing everything she could to survive.
She felt that the dark, apocalyptic chakra in her abdomen was becoming more and more violently restless, causing her own delicate meridian system to forcefully fill with this corrosive, alien energy.
Rin was profoundly surprised to discover that she could actually, consciously mobilize a small fraction of that mysterious chakra.
Thus, Rin also began to weave seals and use the basic Water Release ninjutsu she knew to defend herself.
Possessing the three natural chakra affinities of Water, Fire, and Yang, she was theoretically highly capable of using Water jutsu.
'Why is my Water Release so much stronger than before?' Rin realized with shock that once she used this dark chakra to fuel her jutsu, the kinetic power and volume were exponentially more massive than they had ever been in the past.
Rin didn't understand the horrific biological principle behind this upgrade. She looked at Kiyohara's broad, protective back in front of her and gently bit her lip.
For Kiyohara... for Kakashi... she absolutely could not give up!
"Water Release: Water Bullet!"
That simple water bullet, under the massive enhancement of the violent Tailed Beast chakra in her body, struck like a cannonball. It instantly, brutally shattered the ribs of a charging Kirigakure ANBU, throwing him off his feet.
The next microsecond, Rin followed up with another rapid Water Release. A highly pressurized current of water flew out like a spinning razor blade.
PUCHI!
That Kirigakure ANBU realized with absolute shock that his throat had been cleanly, deeply slashed open by a simple water current, and hot arterial blood flowed heavily down his chest.
A fragile Konoha Medical Ninja... actually capable of such lethal, high-yield Water Release?!
Or was it... the Tailed Beast's chakra taking over?
Having lost entirely too much blood in seconds, the ANBU could no longer process the anomaly. He went into deep hemorrhagic shock and collapsed dead into the mud.
"Flawless shot, Rin!" Kakashi shouted, parrying a sword.
"Yes! I absolutely refuse to become a burden to you or Kiyohara anymore!" Rin nodded firmly, her eyes blazing with determination.
While the three Konoha teenagers continued to fight desperately for their lives against impossible odds, a bizarre, cloaked figure silently, rapidly arrived at the edge of the battlefield canopy.
"Oh... the grand play has officially begun," Madara observed everything in the valley flawlessly through the telepathic perspective of White Zetsu.
He had painstakingly planned and orchestrated this exact massacre for months, all for this specific, bloody climax right now.
'Do not let me down, Obito,' Madara thought coldly in the dark.
Obito arrived at the edge of the clearing, his scarlet Two-Tomoe Sharingan rapidly capturing and processing everything before him.
Passing through the last thicket of ancient trees, the horrific scene before him made Obito's breath completely hitch in his throat.
Under the dim, gray moonlight, Rin, Kakashi, and Kiyohara were being violently, mercilessly besieged by dozens of elite Kirigakure operatives.
Kiyohara was currently in a high-speed, lethal confrontation with a white-haired, shark-toothed assassin; heavy blade light and razor-sharp threads crossed violently in the air, emitting deafening, sharp ringing sounds of metal.
'Everyone... everyone is still alive!'
This realization made Obito's heart race wildly, and a massive surge of adrenaline and heat rushed to his brain.
He subconsciously wanted to scream their names at the top of his lungs and rush directly into the melee to fight side-by-side with his precious friends.
Weren't the agonizing, suffocating months of dark torment, grueling physical cultivation, and the newborn, monstrous power surging in this new body entirely for this exact, glorious moment of reunion?!
'Damn it, this group of pathetic Kirigakure trash actually dares to attack my lovely Rin!' Obito was absolutely furious in his heart.
Protecting the beautiful woman one loves is the sacred, unyielding duty of every true man!
However, when Obito opened his mouth to scream a heroic battle cry... what actually came out was a low, hoarse, bizarrely deep duck-like croak that even he felt was entirely unfamiliar.
"Every...one... I'm back!"
The exact moment the bizarre, distorted sound left his vocal cords, Obito himself was entirely stunned.
Over these past few months in a coma, his physical biology had undergone drastic, violent changes under the continuous cellular nourishment of the Hashirama cells. Not only did his skeletal height shoot up unnaturally, but his vocal cords had also completely, biologically departed from the high-pitched clarity of his youth.
He... was currently deep in the aggressive voice-changing phase of male physical puberty. This was a biological step that every boy would experience, usually between 11 and 14 years old.
Obito's brain slowly realized that this was a perfectly normal physiological phenomenon.
But just at this exact, awkward moment... a Kirigakure ANBU launched a lethal, high-speed surprise attack directly at Rin from her blind flank!
"LOOK OUT!"
Obito didn't have a second to think about his voice; his body had already instinctively, violently rushed forward to intercept.
His physical speed was extremely, terrifyingly fast. The monstrous explosive kinetic power brought by the White Zetsu exoskeleton allowed him to step out deep, crater-like pits in the mud, instantly turning into a blurred white shadow as he crossed the clearing.
However, in Rin's traumatized eyes... what she actually saw was a tall, horrifying, pale-skinned freak with absolutely no facial features, only bizarre spiral ravines, lunging violently from the shadows directly toward Kiyohara's exposed back at an astonishing, supersonic speed!
"DON'T YOU DARE!"
Rin gave a delicate but furious shout. Without the slightest, second of hesitation, she pivoted flawlessly and launched a devastating side-kick. Her long leg drew a perfect, lethal arc in the air, kicking with all her might directly toward the white monster's waist and abdomen.
Obito's entire, desperate attention was laser-focused entirely on saving Rin, and he vaguely smelled her familiar, comforting scent of faint medical herbs as he closed the distance.
He looked at the approaching Rin, foolishly thinking that she was moving to help him clear a threat from the side.
Just as he was about to continue saying something reassuring... it wasn't until that heavy, chakra-enhanced kick landed solidly, brutally on his flank that Obito's words were violently swallowed back into his throat.
"ARGH!"
The heavy kinetic force kicked him flying violently sideways. He slammed hard into a small tree trunk, snapping it, and tumbled pathetically into a muddy bush.
Obito lay paralyzed in the broken leaves and mud. His eyes beneath the Spiral Zetsu's mask were wide open in absolute shock, and the Two Tomoe in his Sharingan were even trembling slightly from profound, psychological disbelief.
He looked up and saw that under the pale moonlight, Rin was quickly, aggressively retracting her leg. She held a kunai reversed in her hand and struck a flawless, lethal defensive pose, her beautiful face full of absolute, cold vigilance and disgust toward him.
Kakashi had already snapped around, his single, bloodshot eye scanning the exact position where Obito had fallen. The kunai in his hand flashed with a cold, murderous light, ready to execute the monster.
There was absolutely no joy of reunion.
There was no crying excitement of a friend surviving a disaster.
There were only the cold, lethal eyes of his comrades looking at a strange, horrifying enemy.
"Don't you dare try to hurt Kiyohara!" Rin's voice was crisp, yet absolutely, terrifyingly cold as she stared intently at the pale, writhing figure in the bushes.
"Who on earth are you? Are you a new biological monster cultivated by the Hidden Mist?" Kakashi didn't yell, but while parrying the other Kirigakure Ninja, the dense chakra he was violently refining indicated that he was ready to launch a lethal Chidori at the freak at any moment.
Only Kiyohara, after smoothly forcing back the Hozuki assassin's wire attack, turned his head and cast a clinical, analytical glance in the direction where Obito had fallen.
There was a flicker of genuine surprise in Kiyohara's dark eyes.
After not seeing him for a few months... Obito has physically mutated this much? Did the idiot eat pure, unadulterated growth hormones in that cave?
Seeing that absolutely everyone failed to recognize him... this was completely, utterly different from the glorious, tearful reunion Obito had imagined in the dark!
'No!'
'Why?!'
Obito shouted silently, desperately in his fracturing heart.
'It's me!'
'It's Obito!'
He watched Rin's tightly pursed, hateful lips and Kakashi's cold, murderous single eye. Intense physical pain spread from the ribs where Rin had kicked him... but what hurt infinitely, agonizingly more was something deep inside his chest that had suddenly, violently shattered into a million pieces.
After not seeing his precious friends for a few months in hell, his voice had changed completely, his physique had mutated into a monster, and even the fundamental way he "existed" in reality had changed.
But he had never, in his darkest nightmares, thought that one day... he would physically need to prove his identity to Rin and Kakashi.
He is Obito Uchiha.
.....
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