The torn photograph kept stretching, its edges fraying like nerves. Obito panted hard—half a body left, half a will burning—while the Ten-Tails pulled at him like a black hole tugging at a comet's tail.
Just as the part with Rin was about to rip free for good, Obito clenched his teeth and wrenched his own mangled body back. A ragged roar tore from his throat. He wasn't just resisting the Ten-Tails—he was dragging himself out of despair by the spine.
Across the Shinobi World, everyone watching felt that pain crawl across their skin.
[Boruto: "Let's go, Uncle Obito!"]
[Inojin: "I don't know why, but… I'm rooting for him."]
[Hagoromo: "Whether he can conquer the Ten-Tails' will… is uncertain."]
[Hashirama: "Tobirama, think he pulls it off?"]
[Tobirama: "…Odds say no. Even you couldn't do it."]
But the impossible began to stitch itself together.
The torn photo's seam sutured—slowly, stubbornly—until Team 7's picture returned whole.
Classrooms erupted.
"He did it!"
"He beat the Ten-Tails—by sheer will!"
"Uchiha genes are unfair."
[Sarada:（｀へ´）]
[Sasuke: "Hmph. I could do that."]
[Itachi: "Manners, Sasuke."]
[Mitsuki: "If it were me, I'd have fainted already."]
[Chōchō: "How much must he love Rin to overpower the Ten-Tails?"]
[Ōnoki: "Old bones like mine couldn't. The boy is… formidable."]
Smoke thinned. A figure floated there—staff of the Six Paths in hand, eyes closed, Truth-Seeking Orbs circling like silent moons.
Minato arrived and froze. "Obito…?"
Obito's eyes opened. The warmth in them had gone hard as winter steel.
"Finally… it's done, sensei."
Minato flashed forward; his kunai stabbed for the heart—
Obito tilted the staff. Snap. The kunai sheared clean in two.
A lazy palm strike fell.
Minato's pupils shrank—too late. His arm snapped like a twig.
"Dad!" Naruto lunged.
[Hashirama: "That speed—!"]
[Tobirama: "I couldn't track it either…"]
[Minato: "Obito, come back to the village. Don't sink deeper."]
[Obito: "I understand… and I won't waste what I've paid."]
"Get ready, Naruto!" Sasuke's voice cut sharp.
Minato flickered to the boys. "I got out with Flying Raijin—"
"Did you?" Obito lifted a finger.
Horror prickled up their necks. A Truth-Seeking Orb clung to the stump of Minato's shoulder—its glow blooming white-hot. If it detonated here, Naruto and Sasuke were done.
[Itachi: "Not good."]
[Shisui: "I'll take 'Catastrophic' for 500."]
[Boruto: "Dad! Sasuke-sensei!"]
[Hashirama: "Tobirama, ideas—"]
[Tobirama: "On it."]
Tobirama flashed in, palmed the orb—and vanished in a thunder-pop. A mountain on the horizon erupted in a sun-white bloom; earth bucked like a ship in a storm.
His shadow clone reappeared in the crater's light and waved. "Relax. Marked him earlier."
Breaths finally leaked out of a hundred throats.
[Sarada: "As expected of the inventor of Flying Raijin—"]
[Boruto: "Grandpa Minato invented it!"]
[Minato: "Haha… actually, no."]
[Tobirama: "You're welcome."]
[Mei: "No one guards copyright like Second Hokage."]
[Izuna: "He's a mad dog—probably plagiarized."]
[Tobirama: "Defeated cur. Hush."]
The glow cleared. Obito hovered untouched, Truth-Seeking Orbs folding back behind him like a halo that had read too many war reports.
[Boruto: "So… the weakest Uchiha now is Madara?"]
[Inojin: "Isn't it actually—"]
[Sarada: "We haven't even seen Dad's highlight reel…"]
[Adult Sasuke: "Ahem."]
(Still chasing the Ōtsutsuki trail, Sasuke pinched the bridge of his nose. How do you explain to your daughter you're cracked when your job requires looking nerfed?)
Obito drifted down, divinity in his gaze and five flame-wisps fanned behind him like phantom arms.
He spread his hand; the orbs hummed.
"From now on," he said, each word level as a verdict, "I am the second Sage of Six Paths."
Minato tensed. Naruto swallowed. Sasuke's fingers brushed his hilt.
Obito's five spectral arms took hold of the barrier's edges—the same prison that even the Ten-Tails couldn't tear—
and the air itself seemed to groan around his grip—
—when something flickered at the edge of his vision, a tiny scrap of photo-paper drifting past, Rin's smile catching the light—
—and Obito's eyes changed.
The five flaming arms pull—and the world decides if it'll hold… or break.
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