Stop yelling. Stop yelling.
The "Masked Man," whose entire past had been dug up and laid bare, wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball and make himself as invisible as possible.
Kakashi said nothing, but his stare hurt Obito more than any scolding could have.
The young Team Minato, along with Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, and the others, heard what the Fifth Mizukage said in the footage and thought of Haku and Zabuza, who were still staying at the Missing-nin Inn.
Back then, Young Obito had received the mission scroll and been forced to cosplay as Yagura Karatachi twice. He never expected the real clown to be himself.
Now, every time Young Obito thought about it, he wanted to slam his head into a wall to wake himself up and confirm that everything so far was not just some dream he was having.
In the footage, Danzō Shimura stopped the Tsuchikage and Raikage, who had started arguing again.
["Before everyone debates their positions, let me share what I've guessed on my end..."]
The footage shifted into one of his memories.
It was the part Obito Uchiha least dared to speak of, the Nine-Tails Incident and the Night of the Uchiha Massacre.
In both, he had worn a mask and negotiated deals with Danzō Shimura.
Seeing this scene in the footage, Kushina Uzumaki was completely dumbfounded!
There had been no enemies when she gave birth. Everything had gone smoothly.
Rin, as a Medical-nin, delivered the baby, while Obito and Kakashi personally led the escort detail. One side had members of the Uchiha Police Force, and the other had Konoha's ANBU. With a setup like that, if anything still managed to go wrong, it would have been downright supernatural!
As for the Uchiha Clan being wiped out, that was even more ridiculous.
That brat Naruto pestered Sasuke every single day. If Sasuke had not also been a boy, she and Mikoto might have arranged a childhood engagement for the two of them already.
No matter how she looked at it, none of the disasters in Danzō Shimura's memories had ever happened.
"Who is that masked man?"
No sooner had she asked than Danzō Shimura revealed a piece of intelligence in the footage that shocked all five Kage.
["The leader behind the Akatsuki organization."]
["It should be Madara Uchiha."]
"Madara Uchiha?!!"
Kushina struggled to recall the history lessons Minato had once tutored her in when she was young.
Wasn't Madara Uchiha a ninja from the same era as the First Hokage-sama?
"If he's still alive, he has to be over a hundred years old by now, right?!"
["To oppose the Akatsuki organization, whose true leader is Madara Uchiha, I suggest that the Five Great Shinobi Villages form the Allied Shinobi Forces."]
Mifune of the Land of Iron's words sent the Five Kage into deep thought...
Kushina pressed a hand to her forehead.
"This dream really is a complete mess. I guess I must want peace too badly, Dattebane. I'm actually dreaming that the Five Great Shinobi Nations formed the Allied Shinobi Forces? There's no way that could ever happen."
Meanwhile, Fugaku Uchiha had also pieced together the truth. In Danzō Shimura's memories, this so-called Konoha Elder, who had always been wary of the Uchiha Clan and wanted to get rid of them, had actually colluded with a rogue ninja like Madara Uchiha.
No.
Madara Uchiha had already been close to a hundred years old when he saved Obito Uchiha, and his build did not match that masked man's at all.
If anything, that height and build were much closer to Kakashi Hatake as Fugaku remembered him.
In other words...
The true culprit behind the Nine-Tails Incident back then was.
Fugaku Uchiha's gaze snapped toward adult Obito Uchiha.
"Obito?! Were you the one who controlled the Nine-Tails and attacked Konoha back then?!!"
Adult Obito lowered his head. "I'm sorry, Captain."
With his current identity as a criminal, calling Fugaku "Brother Fugaku" was clearly no longer appropriate. Like the other clan members had once done, it was better to call him Captain or Clan Head.
"Then the Uchiha Clan's massacre..."
"He killed every member of the Police Force!"
The one who suddenly spoke was Sasuke.
The hatred in his voice and the Sharingan that suddenly flared in his eyes made Fugaku Uchiha freeze.
"Sasuke..."
Fugaku Uchiha, suddenly brought back to life, could hardly imagine everything Sasuke had been through.
Obito Uchiha looked grief-stricken and defeated.
"I know anything I say now will sound hollow, but back then, I really did believe the same thing Madara Uchiha did. I believed the Moon's Eye could cut off cause and effect and overturn the ending. I wanted to bring everyone into a new world I created, a world without war, where everyone would still be alive and happy forever..."
That pitiful dream had nearly led all of humanity into an abyss from which there would be no return.
He was so hateful it almost made him pathetic.
Even with hatred, resentment, and anger in their hearts, none of them knew what to say to this idiot for a moment.
In the footage, Danzō Shimura wanted the position of Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Shinobi Forces.
The other Kage naturally refused to accept it, but Mifune of the Land of Iron, who had organized this Five Kage Summit, was very clearly leaning toward Danzō Shimura's will?!!
Until Ao of Kirigakure used the Byakugan he had once taken from the Hyūga Clan and saw through the truth.
"Danzō Shimura's right eye is Shisui's eye?!"
"That's right. And it contains the strongest Genjutsu, Kotoamatsukami."
Kannabi Bridge Minato said, "After the Fourth Hokage died, the rumor that Madara Uchiha had controlled the Nine-Tails to attack Konoha spread inside the village. Combined with the pressure from Konoha's higher-ups, led by Danzō, the rift between the Uchiha Clan and Konoha grew wider and wider."
"As one of the few Uchiha ninjas close to Konoha, Shisui kept trying to repair the relationship between both sides. But whether it was Konoha's higher-ups or the hardliners within the Uchiha Clan, the efforts of Shisui and Itachi alone were only a drop in the bucket."
"It seems that under that immense pressure, his helplessness and despair awakened his Mangekyō Sharingan, Kotoamatsukami. It was an incredibly powerful Genjutsu that could not be used again for more than a decade after a single activation. It could fundamentally alter a person's thoughts and will, making them obey the user of Kotoamatsukami from the bottom of their heart."
Fugaku Uchiha was startled, then seemed to realize something.
Sasuke said, "He once planned to use Kotoamatsukami to control Father's thoughts and lead the Uchiha Clan into integrating with Konoha. But..."
"Danzō used him, didn't he?"
Seeing the hatred for Danzō Shimura in Sasuke's eyes, Fugaku Uchiha guessed the answer.
He sighed. "Danzō Shimura has been wary of the Uchiha for so many years, yet he coveted the Uchiha's power. That idea was probably sparked by Kakashi and Obito's precedent. It made him realize that an Uchiha Clan eye could still be used even after being transplanted into someone else."
His words reminded Tajima Uchiha, who was nearby.
"This is bad. Once something like this is exposed, the Uchiha Clan of this era will likely never know peace again!"
"It isn't just the Uchiha," Tobirama Senju said grimly. "I never expected a later-generation ninja from Kirigakure to obtain the Byakugan through transplantation and gain all of its abilities."
The Hyūga Clan was probably even more anxious than the Uchiha Clan.
Not only would their eyes draw the covetous gazes of other ninja clans, but once those eyes were transplanted away, the Caged Bird cursed seal would no longer affect the enemy.
In the past, out of fear that the branch family would turn on the main family, the main family had used moral pressure to force every branch family member to have the Caged Bird engraved on their forehead. If enemies discovered this loophole, killed branch family members, and took their eyes, then they would not only obtain full-blooded Byakugan identical to the main family's, but could also carry out a large-scale massacre of both the main and branch families at the same time.
"What do we do, then?!"
Naruto panicked.
"If the Hyūga Clan and Uchiha Clan from the Warring States Period get wiped out by other ninja clans, then won't Sasuke, Hinata, Neji, and the others never be born?!"
"You super idiot. The Uchiha couldn't be defeated that easily," Sasuke said, poking him.
Fugaku Uchiha shook his head. "Enough ants can bite an elephant to death."
"But as far as this matter is concerned, I don't think it's a bad thing," Minato Namikaze said.
"Hm?"
Naruto did not understand, and the others looked at Kannabi Bridge Minato in confusion too.
The Second Hokage had the same thought as Minato Namikaze. He said, "It probably won't be long before the Hyūga Clan, in order to protect themselves, contacts either the Uchiha or the Senju, hoping to form an alliance and move their clan lands near the Uchiha or Senju territory so they can support one another."
"Huh?! Then doesn't that mean all the clans with traits from Grandpa Six Paths are going to end up gathered together, dattebayo?"
Naruto counted them off on his fingers one by one.
"Grandpa's younger brother's Byakugan, that's the Hyūga Clan's Kekkei Genkai. Then Indra and Ashura's Sage Eyes and Sage Bodies would be Sasuke's clan and the First and Second Uncle's clan, right?!"
Minato said, "Actually, there may still be one more missing, the Sage's chakra."
The Sage's chakra...
The Uzumaki Clan.
Fūinjutsu capable of sealing Tailed Beasts. The Reaper Death Seal, which could attack an enemy's soul almost regardless of how strong they were. Adamantine Sealing Chains. Extraordinary chakra perception. Certain special clan members even possessed a ridiculous buff that could restore health and chakra to anyone with a single bite...
Such a powerful clan was ultimately feared by the hundred clans of the Ninja World, surrounded, attacked, and wiped out.
If they had abandoned the Land of Whirlpools and moved their entire nation to the Land of Fire and Konoha, perhaps they could have escaped that fate.
At that moment, Kushina Uzumaki, who had suddenly appeared in the Land of Whirlpools during the Warring States Period, had already taken the chance while watching the footage to tell the two Uzumaki clan members she had met about the brutal massacre their clan would suffer in the future.
She herself had been fairly lucky. She had been brought to Konoha.
Although she became the Jinchūriki of the Nine-Tails, Minato Namikaze protected her, and she also had several very close friends in the village.
But among the clan members who had wandered outside, some lived lives no better than slaves or livestock.
For example, that poor girl they had discovered during the Chūnin Exams that Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura had participated in for the first time not long ago.
Just as Kushina Uzumaki remembered that pitiful girl, whose situation had made her want to destroy Kusagakure with a single punch, she saw Karin suddenly appear in the footage.
And she was following Sasuke Uchiha as a member of Taka, charging into the Five Kage Summit to cause chaos!
"Sa-Sasuke?!!"
That cold gaze looked as if it hated the entire world.
Was that really the pretty little Sasuke from Mikoto's family, the one who was not mischievous like Naruto at all?!
"No, no! What is going on here, Dattebane?!"
Kushina grabbed her red hair and forced herself to think. The footage frightened her so badly that she kept blurting out her catchphrase, Dattebane, Dattebane.
"Sasuke just turned thirteen last month, Dattebane!"
"There's no way he's the kid in the footage with that bizarre fashion sense, Dattebane."
"This kid looks at least sixteen or seventeen, Dattebane! It's only three or four years. If he really turned into this, how heartbroken would Naruto and Mikoto be, Dattebane—!!!!"
"And he's taking on the Five Kage alone! Did he eat too much and wreck his stomach or something?!!!"
In the footage, Sasuke activated the Mangekyō Sharingan. With one Amaterasu, he forced the Raikage, who seemed to have some deep grudge against him, to cut off his own arm!!
Kushina's expression grew more and more serious.
This had gone way too far.
This was no longer something Minato's diplomacy alone could clean up!!
Just as Sasuke Uchiha in the footage was running out of both chakra and stamina, a vortex appeared in the empty air.
["My name is... Madara Uchiha."]
"Obito?!"
"What the hell is that rotten brat doing at a critical moment like this, aaaaaah!!!!"
Obito had no idea he was about to be killed by Kushina.