As the crimson light faded from his left eye, the masked man—who should have been nothing more than a corpse drifting through the ocean depths—suddenly opened his remaining eye with impossible awareness.
During his final battle with Minato, the Fourth Hokage's blade had pierced directly through his heart, inflicting injuries that should have been instantly fatal. Yet even as consciousness returned to his supposedly dead form, the mortal wound began healing with supernatural speed, flesh and bone knitting back together as if the damage had never occurred.
Death itself had been nothing more than an elaborate illusion.
After regaining full awareness, the masked man realized he was now suspended deep beneath the ocean's surface, surrounded by the crushing darkness of the abyss.
Swirl!
Without hesitation, the distinctive spiral pattern in his remaining functional eye crystallized with desperate focus. Space twisted around him like a living thing, reality bending inward as dimensional forces pulled him from the physical world.
Kamui Dimension
The familiar environment of his pocket dimension materialized around him—the same twisted space where he had once attempted to trap Minato during their earlier confrontation. Here, at least, he could recover and reassess without immediate threat.
Click.
With movements that spoke of bone-deep exhaustion, he reached up and removed the spiral mask that had concealed his identity for so many years.
"Huff... huff..."
Obito collapsed to his knees on the strange, crystalline surface of his dimensional refuge, breathing heavily as waves of remembered terror washed over him. Fear—an emotion he had thought himself beyond—now dominated his expression.
"I actually died," he whispered in shock, his mind still struggling to process the reality of his own mortality. "I failed completely."
The memory replayed itself with brutal clarity: those cold, azure eyes filled with lethal intent as Minato delivered what should have been the killing blow. The Fourth Hokage's expression had promised nothing but death, and he had delivered on that promise with ruthless efficiency.
"Even White Zetsu couldn't save me," Obito muttered, his voice hollow with the realization of how close he had come to permanent defeat.
Before launching this assault on Konoha, he had attached White Zetsu clones to every member of the Akatsuki organization as both enhancement and insurance. The bio-organic creatures were designed to provide emergency support in critical situations.
When Minato's wind-chakra enhanced kunai had pierced his heart, the White Zetsu clone had attempted its own desperate gambit. Using its unique physiology, it had tried to invade Minato's arm through the point of contact, hoping to steal blood samples or at least inflict some form of lasting damage.
But Namikaze Minato's body had proven unexpectedly resilient. Even with White Zetsu's invasive capabilities, the creature had been unable to penetrate the Fourth Hokage's natural defenses.
The masked man—Obito—felt more defeated than he had at any point since beginning his crusade against the ninja world.
He had assembled the most dangerous S-rank criminals from every major nation's bingo books. He had forcibly borrowed power from the Gedo Statue to manifest the perfect Susanoo—a technique that should have been beyond his capabilities. He had planned meticulously, struck at Konoha's moment of vulnerability, and brought overwhelming force to bear.
Yet despite all these advantages, Minato Namikaze had still managed to kill him.
If not for the forbidden technique that Madara had taught him before his death, this would have been the absolute end of everything he had worked to achieve.
"Izanagi," he whispered, the name of his salvation carrying equal measures of gratitude and bitterness.
The ultimate expression of Sharingan power—a genjutsu so profound that it could be cast upon reality itself. During its brief activation window, Izanagi allowed the user to transform any unfavorable outcome into mere illusion. Injuries became dreams. Death became nightmare.
When Minato's blade had stopped his heart and triggered the Four Symbols Seal's activation, Obito had used his left eye to invoke this ultimate technique, literally rewriting his death as if it had never occurred.
But such power came with a price that even the Uchiha's legendary eyes couldn't avoid. The Sharingan used to activate Izanagi was permanently destroyed in the process, its light extinguished forever.
Even Mangekyō Sharingan were not exempt from this cruel limitation.
The true power of the Uchiha bloodline could only be fully realized when both eyes worked in perfect harmony. With only his right eye remaining functional, Obito's combat effectiveness had been dramatically reduced.
Yet he had spent too many years planning, sacrificed too much, and come too far to simply abandon his goals now.
Although this particular assault had ended in failure, it hadn't been completely without value.
"It seems Orochimaru's suspicions weren't entirely unfounded," Obito mused, his analytical mind already processing the intelligence he had gathered during their battle. "There is definitely something abnormal about Namikaze Minato."
During their final exchange, he had genuinely felt Nine-Tails chakra fluctuations emanating from the Fourth Hokage's body. The ultimate technique that had shattered his perfect Susanoo had undoubtedly been a Tailed Beast Ball—a jutsu that should have been impossible for anyone except an actual Bijuu to perform.
But Namikaze Minato was not a Jinchūriki. There was no Tailed Beast sealed within his body, no foreign chakra system integrated with his own.
The implications of this discovery were staggering, and they suggested possibilities that could still salvage his long-term objectives.
Obito placed his palm over his heart, feeling the steady rhythm that Izanagi had restored. A cold smile slowly spread across his scarred features.
"This death also helped me eliminate some troublesome complications that I would have had to deal with eventually," he reflected with dark satisfaction.
Several members of the Akatsuki had been growing increasingly difficult to control. Their individual agendas and personal ambitions had threatened to interfere with his ultimate plans. Now, with the organization scattered and their immediate objectives failed, he could rebuild with more suitable candidates.
He retrieved his spiral mask and placed it back over his face, once again becoming the mysterious figure who commanded fear throughout the ninja world.
"Have White Zetsu contact Nagato and the others immediately," he decided. "We need to preserve our remaining strength for future operations."
The dimensional space around him began to waver as he prepared to return to the physical world. This battle was over, but the war was far from finished.
Back at the Battlefield
"Namikaze Minato?!" Nagato's voice carried equal measures of shock and disbelief. "You've returned!"
The sight of the Fourth Hokage materializing on the battlefield sent ripples of alarm through even his legendary composure.
Even from his position high above Konoha, Nagato had been able to sense the two massive chakra signatures colliding somewhere to the southeast. The energy patterns had been unmistakable—there was no doubt that his mysterious ally had been engaged in mortal combat with the Yellow Flash.
The chakra fluctuations transmitted across that distance had been extraordinarily violent, indicating that both combatants had unleashed their ultimate techniques in a final, decisive exchange.
Minato's sudden appearance here could only mean one thing: his ally had been defeated.
But how was that possible? The masked man had possessed power that rivaled the legendary Madara himself, enhanced by abilities that seemed to transcend normal limitations.
As shock rippled through Nagato's consciousness, Minato's own expression was undergoing a similar transformation of recognition and growing alarm.
"That chakra signature..." the Fourth Hokage murmured, his enhanced senses picking up familiar patterns that triggered memories from more than a decade past.
During the chaotic final phase of the Third Shinobi World War, when four major nations had converged on the Land of Rain in a devastating proxy conflict, Minato had encountered three young idealists who called themselves Akatsuki. Although he hadn't seen their faces clearly during that brief meeting, he had memorized their distinctive chakra signatures as a matter of professional habit.
"You're Nagato," Minato said, his voice carrying the weight of painful realization.
The pieces of a terrible puzzle were falling into place. At the same time Minato had assumed the title of Fourth Hokage, Danzo had ordered Root operatives to collaborate with Hanzo of the Rain in eliminating the Akatsuki leadership. The operation had been presented as a necessary preemptive strike against potential threats to Konoha's interests.
Yahiko had died during that betrayal, and afterward both Nagato and Konan had vanished without a trace. Intelligence reports had been inconclusive about whether they had survived the encounter.
Now the truth was revealed in the most devastating way possible. Not only had Nagato survived, but he had allied himself with the mysterious masked figure who had brought such destruction to Konoha.
The young idealist who had once dreamed of bringing peace to the ninja world had become the architect of their current nightmare.
Both Kakashi and Itachi, who had been witnessing this tense confrontation, looked stunned by the implications of what they were hearing.
Kakashi had heard Nagato's name mentioned by Kushina in passing, but he had never imagined that this legendary enemy was connected to their village's own tragic history.
"Minato-sensei," Kakashi said carefully, his voice cutting through the heavy silence, "do you know this man?"
The question pulled Minato back from his painful recollections, forcing him to focus on the immediate threat rather than past regrets.
At the same time, Nagato's gaze fixed on the Fourth Hokage with cold intensity.
"I didn't expect that even someone of his caliber would fall to your power," he said, his voice carrying grudging respect mixed with renewed determination. "As expected of Jiraiya-sensei's most accomplished student."
The words were delivered with complete emotional detachment, any trace of warmth or recognition carefully suppressed beneath the Rinnegan's concentric patterns.
Feeling the glacial coldness in Nagato's tone, Minato's own expression began to harden with grim understanding.
"You attacked Konoha twice," he stated flatly, his voice gaining an edge of barely controlled anger. "Was this all for revenge?"
Minato knew the tragic history that had shaped Nagato's path. During the Second Shinobi World War, Konoha ninja had killed the boy's parents in what was likely a case of mistaken identity or collateral damage. Years later, his closest friend Yahiko had died in a conspiracy orchestrated by Konoha's own Root division.
The fear that had haunted Minato since learning of those events had finally become reality. Nagato's pain had transformed into the very hatred and desire for vengeance that drove the cycle of violence perpetuating throughout the ninja world.
Nagato offered no response to the question, his silence more damning than any verbal confirmation.
"Regardless of your reasons," Minato continued, his voice growing colder with each word, "there is no justification for harming innocent civilians."
His gaze swept across the partially collapsed mountain where Konoha's refugees had taken shelter. Even from this distance, he could smell the metallic scent of blood carried on the wind—the blood of his people, his responsibility, his failure to protect.
The sight brought back memories of his earliest conversation with Jiraiya, when his sensei had asked him what he believed the role of a ninja should be in the world.
His answer then had been the same as it was now: to protect those who couldn't protect themselves.
That conviction had never wavered, not through countless missions, not through the responsibilities of leadership, not even in the face of overwhelming enemy power.
Feeling the tremendous killing intent beginning to radiate from Minato's form like heat from a forge, Nagato's expression grew correspondingly grim and alert.
"As the Fourth Hokage of Konohagakure," Minato declared, his voice carrying the absolute authority of his office and the cold promise of judgment, "I will end your life here and now!"
The final confrontation between teacher's students, between idealism and pragmatism, between the dreams of peace and the reality of war, was about to begin.
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