Chapter 477: After Death
"Brother, it's that direction, right?"
On the vast and tranquil Pure Land grassland, two swift-as-wind figures cut through the sky, racing at full speed toward a specific direction. They were precisely the Uchiha Madara and Uchiha Izuna brothers.
After the Sage of Six Paths' earth-shattering truth revelation ended, even a battle maniac like Madara who lived for combat now completely lacked any heart to continue competing with Hashirama.
Shock, fury, the humiliation of being made a fool... All sorts of intense emotions churned in his chest, ultimately settling and compressing into bone-chillingly cold killing intent.
One must look forward—this was the conviction Izuna transmitted when pulling him back from the abyss of self-doubt just now.
And for Madara at this moment, the first step in looking forward was to find that mastermind behind the scenes who had toyed with his life and fate—Black Zetsu.
That hiding, lying black insect... Madara had made countless enemies in his life, but never had he harbored such pure, such boiling killing intent toward any existence, wishing to thoroughly erase even its very existence!
Of course, according to the Sage of Six Paths' supplementary explanation, in this Pure Land, souls could not be truly killed using living world methods.
They were somewhat similar to Impure World Reincarnation bodies. Even suffering damage or fatal wounds, they would gradually recover over time's passage.
However, completely different from Impure World Reincarnation's numb, sluggish bodily sensations—the attacks soul bodies endured, the pain and torment they brought, were genuine and real, acting with utmost clarity upon consciousness!
This point suited Madara perfectly.
What he wanted was never simple annihilation. What he wanted was to let that despicable existence who dared fool Uchiha Madara personally experience what purgatory was, what eternal torment meant!
He would let Black Zetsu profoundly understand what terrible price deception required, and make even complete extinction become an unreachable luxury! Unable to live, unable to die—this was Uchiha Madara's hospitality.
BOOM—!!
Wrapped in shockwaves, with Madara's sudden landing, a ring of air blast exploded on the grassland. He had finally locked onto his target.
On the grassland not far ahead, a bizarrely shaped, semi-transparent soul body lay quietly. It had not yet fully solidified and awakened. Obviously it still needed quite some time before it could recover clear consciousness and form like Madara and Izuna.
That soul body maintained its appearance from life's final moment—a body constructed of tar-like thick black liquid, upon which could barely be discerned the outlines of holes for eyes and mouth.
At this moment, the frozen expression in those holes still showed unwillingness, fury, and terror. The entire soul's posture was frozen in an instant of struggling desperately, trying to escape.
Due to Rasengan: Solar Core's characteristics, it probably didn't yet know it had died beyond all death.
Madara didn't immediately act. He restrained the violent aura around his body and just sat cross-legged directly in front of Black Zetsu's soul body without a word.
Izuna stood tacitly at his diagonal rear, hand on his sword hilt.
Madara's Rinnegan, unblinking, locked dead onto that ugly black soul. Within churned hatred sufficient to freeze souls, along with cruel patience.
He was waiting.
Quietly waiting.
Like a hunter waiting for the moment prey opened its eyes from ignorant obliviousness.
He would give Black Zetsu an unforgettable surprise for its lifetime—no, for "eternity."
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Consciousness struggled upward bit by bit.
Uchiha Obito felt he had been floating in that void darkness for far, far too long, so long he had almost forgotten time's very meaning.
And when perception finally broke through chaos, recongealing into "self" cognition, the first thought clearly emerged.
He was already dead.
That's right. His life was thoroughly terminated by that Uchiha girl standing beside Uzumaki Naruto, using irresistible ocular techniques. So this place... was the world after death?
...Someone like me will definitely go to hell.
This was the second thought following close behind, carrying numb acceptance. Obito had incomparably clear awareness of his current circumstances.
When all lies and self-deception masks were mercilessly torn apart by truth, he could no longer wrap himself in that tragic yet twisted shell of the Moon's Eye savior.
He saw himself clearly—a sinner who had committed innumerable crimes, whose hands were stained with innocent blood.
And Rin... That pure, kind Rin, who ultimately chose sacrifice to protect the village, she would certainly go to a warm, bright heaven, right?
Obito didn't fear death itself. He had long been indifferent even to his destined fate of falling into hell. What churned in his heart was only humble longing—if this truly was the world after death, even just one glimpse would be good. He truly wanted to see Rin again...
However, when this longing became real, when the possibility of "meeting" was right before him, ice-spike-like fear suddenly seized his heart.
He was afraid.
Afraid of seeing Rin's still-clear, bright eyes.
Afraid those eyes would reveal disappointment in him, incomprehension, or even... hatred.
Afraid Rin would question him: Obito, why did you become like this? Why did you commit those terrible acts? Why did you make so many people suffer?
This fear was so enormous it overpowered reunion's longing.
Thus, though perception had already recovered, though he could "open his eyes" to look and confirm, Obito like a timid snail proactively withdrew the consciousness that had just poked out from its shell.
He chose evasion, immersing himself in half-dream, half-waking haziness, not daring to face that coming judgment—or rather, his heart's judgment of himself.
Time passed slowly at consciousness's edge.
Until—
A voice, gently, carrying some hesitation and uncertainty, sounded not far from him.
"Obito... are you... Obito?"
This voice made Obito's entire soul freeze as if struck by lightning!
It was Rin! Nohara Rin's voice! Impossible to mistake! That voice that had echoed countless times in memory when he approached collapse, supporting him through darkness, yet whose sacrificial meaning he ultimately defiled with his own hands!
Immediately after, he heard Rin's continuing words still carrying girl-like softness, yet full of confusion at what she saw before her.
"Did I... die? Is this the world after death? Obito... you've grown up so much..."
Her tone held no accusation, no fear, only a kind of confusion about the current situation, and... gentle speculation tinged with apology.
"Could it be... you've been waiting here for me all along?"
Nohara Rin had awakened.
And her current awareness was like a barbed dull blade, viciously stabbing into Obito's heart, bringing suffocating sourness.
In Nohara Rin's world, at the moment her life ended, Uchiha Obito—that clumsy, kind dead-last who was always late, that comrade she was willing to protect with her life—had already died as a "sacrificed hero" in the Third Shinobi World War, arriving at this world after death earlier than her.
So what she saw was not that "Uchiha Madara's successor" who had committed monstrous sins.
In her eyes, this man whose outline had matured yet whose temperament was shrouded in heavy gloom before her was that "little Obito."
The comrade she thought had died first. She thought he had been alone in this strange land after death, lonely... waiting for her as the late arrival.
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