At some point, above the riot of collapsing streets and screaming chakra, someone was simply watching.
From the broken faces of Hokage Rock.
From the shadowed corridors carved into it.
A dark cloak. An orange mask. A single Sharingan.
Stillness, amid catastrophe.
Obito Uchiha observed Konoha burning with the patience of someone who had already buried it once in his mind.
It looked nothing like the village he had once loved.
Obito felt no nostalgia.
Only a dull, distant bitterness, like remembering a dream you once had and no longer cared to finish.
Once, he had wanted to stand at its center, to be Hokage, to protect it with stupid sincerity and unearned faith.
He had believed in bonds, in smiles, in the idea that if you tried hard enough, the world would eventually reward you.
Rin had believed that, too.
Now the village burned, screaming under its own contradictions, devouring itself the way it always had.
In truth, part of him preferred seeing it burn like this.
Otherwise, he would never have unleashed the even more devastating Nine-Tails attack all those years ago.
It hadn't been only a long-term strategy, nor just a spur-of-the-moment revenge against his former "sensei".
That was the excuse he allowed himself to use.
There had been something uglier beneath it.
A quiet satisfaction in watching the village that had failed him choke on its own flames, stripped of its pretense, exposed as fragile and rotten as the world it claimed to rise above.
Seeing Konoha like this now, cracking and screaming under pressure, that buried part of him stirred again.
And it did not feel regret.
Below him, chaos fractured into layers.
The stadium lay in ruin, a wide, senseless sprawl of destruction.
Then, on the other side of the village, more focused, was the true anomaly, the compressed collision of two monsters tearing at the former Uchiha compound.
That was what drew his eye the most.
Not because of potency alone, though even from here the pressure warped the air, a violent knot of power straining against containment.
Hiashi Hyūga's strange, dome-like force kept the destruction folded inward.
If it hadn't, half the village or more would already be gone.
No, what caught Obito's attention was how it all tied back to what came before he ever unexpectedly arrived here today.
A short while earlier, far from the surface of Konoha, deep within the White Zetsu ground network permanently embedded around the village, something had gone terribly wrong.
Something impossible.
The sensory spearhead stretching toward Konoha had been compromised.
Not disrupted.
Not evaded.
Overpowered.
The warning reached him through the panicked clones that managed to escape, retreating through the vast underground lattice, the message passing node by node until it finally reached his hideout.
They brought just enough.
Enough to signal him that it wasn't an accident.
That it wasn't collateral.
Only one of them had been taken.
Not destroyed.
Not lost.
Taken on purpose.
Guruguru.
Captured and sealed away.
He wasn't just another White Zetsu clone.
Obito had always known that, even if he rarely admitted it.
Back when he had first been half-buried and half-alive, when Madara's cave was nothing but stone, roots, and quiet rot, Guruguru had been the one constantly there. Talking. Rambling. Laughing at nothing. Filling the silence.
Annoying, yes.
But reliable.
Guruguru had patched his body, hauled him around, complained while doing it, and followed every order without ever questioning why.
He had been the first mask Obito ever wore, literally and figuratively, the shell that let him move in the world before he became "Madara."
More than that, Guruguru was special.
Smarter than the others. Faster to adapt. Better at independent judgment.
The closest thing the White Zetsu network had to a true spearhead rather than a disposable sensor.
Which was exactly why Obito had trusted him near Konoha.
And exactly why this was unacceptable.
White Zetsu weren't supposed to be noticed.
They weren't supposed to be overpowered.
They were never supposed to be taken alive.
Obito's single visible eye narrowed behind the orange mask.
Someone had reached into the roots of his world.
And pulled something out.
Stole his most gifted Zetsu.
The one closest to human adaptability.
The one Obito relied on most for infiltration and intelligence.
And White Zetsu were never found before today.
They weren't sensed.
They weren't noticed.
They were roots beneath the world, plant-things masquerading as nothing, threading information upward without ever announcing their presence.
No one suspected them.
No one looked for them.
No one ever 'caught one'.
Yet someone had today.
And not just anyone.
The survivors described the assailant as a teenager.
Young. White-haired.
Strange bone-based kekkei genkai.
Power unmistakably at the top of the Kage spectrum, and climbing even as they spoke of it, just like his current opponent.
That description alone had made Obito move.
Kamui folded space, and he was soon here.
Now, watching.
His gaze settled on the epicenter of the distortion, the former Uchiha compound.
A place he knew intimately.
A place soaked in ghosts.
There, two figures collided again, pressure screaming outward before being crushed back down by Hiashi's containment.
One was obvious.
Hiashi Hyūga.
And Obito frowned behind the mask.
Since when?
Since when was Hiashi this strong?
Since when was the Hyūga clan anything more than background noise, second-rate nobles living in the shadow of the Sharingan?
They were supposed to be fodder. Useful eyes. Nothing more.
Yet the man below him was trading blows that bent space, wielding something that felt wrong even through Obito's own perception.
And the other…
The white-haired teen.
Bones blooming and reforming like a language of violence.
A kekkei genkai Obito had never heard about or seen recorded anywhere.
Not in Madara's extensive speeches, notes, and archives.
Not whispered through a single underground channel, and Obito ran the most powerful underworld organization on the planet.
That alone was disturbing.
More disturbing was the feeling.
The vortex of power inside Hiashi's field didn't just feel dangerous.
It felt heavy. Like something that rejected interference.
Like a force even he would hesitate to step into blindly.
In raw output, in the brutality of their trajectories, and in the speed at which their clashes spiraled upward, both of them were pressing into a tier that, in certain respects, may have already surpassed his own current limits, along with those of Akatsuki's other apex figures, Nagato and Itachi.
Questions piled up.
Since when was the Hyūga clan hiding this?
What was the true nature of Hiashi's power?
What had Madara missed?
And who, exactly, was that boy?
A variable so large it warped battlefields.
Strong enough to capture White Zetsu.
Invisible enough to escape every net Obito had cast across the world.
A potential enemy.
Or worse.
A potential piece Madara had never accounted for.
Obito remained still, mask turned toward the storm.
For the first time in a long while, the future felt… uncertain.
Yet even that wasn't the end of the shock waiting for him once he arrived.
Obito already knew, from the same underground network threaded back to his hideout, that Orochimaru had chosen today of all days to strike Konoha, during the final stage of the bi-annual Chūnin Exams, under an open sky and merciless heat. That part had been expected. Orochimaru had always favored spectacle.
What he hadn't expected was the scale.
By the time Obito warped in, Orochimaru had already torn through the village with terrifying efficiency. Not just raids or targeted chaos, but coordinated devastation. He had somehow manipulated Sunagakure into openly backing the invasion. He had revealed himself as the true leader of the recently emerged Otogakure, a village that had only just crossed Obito's desk as a minor anomaly, and he was far stronger than any report, far beyond even his time in Akatsuki.
Stronger still than Obito remembered.
Even more troubling, Orochimaru's supposed three-year reincarnation limit, the weakness Obito had always accounted for, seemed… gone. Invalidated. Circumvented. As if the man had simply decided it no longer applied to him.
And then there was the Hokage.
The Third was dead.
Not worn down. Not cornered over hours. Dead, decisively, with a speed that unsettled even Obito.
Might Guy's, his former classmate's, presence also registered, blue aura flaring, the Seventh Gate open. That, too, surprised him.
And Jiraiya.
The other Sannin hadn't simply blundered into the chaos. He was thinking. Adjusting. Performing better than Obito's projections, more powerful as well.
That alone irritated Obito.
He prided himself on preparation.
On knowing the board.
He was discovering, rapidly, that he hadn't.
With half a body rebuilt from Hashirama's cells, Obito's perception was sharp, his sensory awareness vastly expanded.
And what he sensed next unsettled him more than Orochimaru ever had.
Four young women, fighting alongside Orochimaru.
Not subordinates. Not distractions.
Combatants.
And not just strong, but absurdly so.
One was a Hyūga.
Not merely proficient, but monstrous. Her Byakugan was the most refined he had ever seen; her Gentle Fist fused with releases he didn't immediately recognize.
More disturbing still, she bore a cursed seal and yet stood in Konoha, fully functional, unrestrained, her mind intact.
The Hyūga clan should have been able to cripple her instantly. They hadn't. That meant suppression, control, or outright nullification of the seal's command layer.
Another wielded blood itself, shaped by a kekkei genkai he recognized only partially, paired with an unknown dojutsu and a physiology that reeked of advanced Yin–Yang manipulation.
Familiar principles, unfamiliar execution.
A third carried the unmistakable signatures of both Uzumaki and Yuki bloodlines, each developed to a degree that should have been mutually exclusive, thanks to how far they both individually got.
Longevity, sealing, and overwhelming ice release, everything harmonized perfectly instead of competing.
And then—
An Uchiha.
Alive.
Not only alive, but awakened.
Mangekyō Sharingan.
And worse, her abilities were wrong. Entropic. Conceptual. Her Mangekyo abilities felt closer to his own than Itachi's ever had, perhaps even more alien.
Her towering black Susanoo swung twin hammers, each impact distorting chakra and matter alike.
Obito felt something cold coil in his chest.
How?
He had helped Itachi slaughter the clan precisely to prevent something like this. Not only to steal more Sharingan for his Izanagi potential stock and get Itachi on his side. To sever every possible root. Both he and Madara had judged the Uchiha the most dangerous surviving variable in the world, and had erased them to protect the Eye of the Moon Plan from rivals and unforeseen awakenings.
So how had she slipped through?
How had she survived, matured, and awakened something like that without ever crossing his radar?
That alone gnawed at him.
And still, it didn't stop.
Three more figures entered the battlefield later, unaffiliated with Orochimaru or his enemies, yet siding with Konoha.
A monk and a samurai whose fighting styles felt anachronistic, externalized natural energy flowing through their strikes in ways Obito had never seen before. And another Mangekyō user, green Susanoo blazing into existence with a form and presence unlike any recorded variant.
By then, Obito had stopped counting surprises.
From the shattered stadium to the monster-class clash tearing apart the former Uchiha compound, from Orochimaru's unveiled evolution to bloodlines and awakenings that should not have existed, the day had already spiraled far beyond any projection he and Madara had ever made.
For the first time in years, Obito felt it clearly.
The world was no longer following the script.
Variables were emerging that neither he nor Madara had accounted for.
Power was surfacing outside bloodline ledgers, outside clan histories, outside fate as they understood it.
And that was dangerous.
Not just to Konoha.
To the plan itself.
As he watched the chaos churn below, orange mask unreadable, one thought surfaced, unbidden and unwelcome.
If this many anomalies could erupt in a single day—
How many more were already moving, unseen, beyond even his sight?
And what was he supposed to do with all of this?
For the first time in a long while, even Obito felt the strain, his thoughts stacking faster than he could comfortably order them. Too many variables. Too many deviations, arriving all at once, crashing into plans that had once felt airtight.
His jaw tightened beneath the mask.
Instinct answered before analysis ever could.
Power.
It had always been power.
That was the truth of this world, no matter how prettily people dressed it up with ideals, systems, or villages.
Power decided what endured, what was erased, and what was allowed to shape the future.
Madara had understood that.
Obito had learned it the hard way.
The Third Shinobi World War, grinding children into tools.
Rin's body, cooling in his arms.
Reality had never rewarded hope.
Only dominance.
The Eye of the Moon Plan wasn't ambition. It was mercy.
A perfect world where loss, betrayal, and pointless suffering simply could not exist anymore. A world where Rin never died. Where no one else had to.
That conviction hadn't wavered.
But today made one thing painfully clear.
The world was spawning monsters faster than expected.
Bloodlines evolving. Techniques appearing from nowhere.
Shinobi reaching heights Madara's notes had never accounted for. Left unchecked, one of them could become a wedge. A crack. A problem.
And problems only had one answer.
More power.
Not patience. Not negotiation. Not adjustment.
Power sufficient to crush any anomaly the moment it surfaced. Power that made interference irrelevant.
Power that forced the world back into alignment, no matter how violently it resisted.
Obito exhaled slowly.
If monsters were emerging, then he would simply rise higher.
Higher than them. Higher than Akatsuki. Higher than even Madara's original projections if necessary.
Because no matter how many unexpected forces clawed their way into existence—
None of them were allowed to derail his world.
Not this time.
Slowly, almost without meaning to, Obito narrowed his attention.
Not to the stadium as a whole.
Not to the riot of chakra tearing the village apart.
To one point.
Near the stadium's edge, half-buried in smoke and shattered stone, five of Orochimaru's personal subordinates pressed in from all sides.
At their center stood a single figure.
Kakashi.
Blood ran down his arm. His breathing was ragged. His chakra flickered, stretched thin by constant pressure and too many desperate counters.
He was still moving, still thinking, still refusing to fall, but only barely.
A man fighting on borrowed seconds.
Obito watched in silence.
His former best friend.
And, suddenly, his instant solution.
Once, long ago, Obito had given him a gift.
A choice made in pain, pride, and foolish loyalty.
He had told himself he didn't need it back.
That abandoning it was proof of having transcended that old life.
Even after awakening.
Even after learning what the world really was.
He had been too proud to reclaim it.
Now, pride felt like a childish luxury.
Obito's gaze hardened.
That eye was his.
And more than sentiment stirred beneath the thought.
Calculation followed immediately, cold and sharp.
If he took it back—
Both Mangekyō together.
On top of Hashirama cells.
Susanoo.
Even the most basic form, he had never possessed, locked away simply because his awakening had been divided.
The other half of Kamui, the side of the technique he had never accessed.
A symmetry restored to his chakra network, his Yin Release, his very soul.
So, even the act alone, reclaiming what belonged to him, would sharpen him beyond recognition and perhaps even double his current power right away.
Realign something that had been off for years.
Enough, perhaps, to immediately contend with monsters like the ones tearing the former Uchiha compound apart, and completely surpass them eventually.
With Akatsuki still at his disposal, one way or the other.
With Kamui already rendering him nearly untouchable defensively.
Control would return.
Like dark clouds thinning on the horizon, inevitably giving way to clear sky.
Kakashi staggered under another blow, barely deflecting a strike meant to take his head.
Obito's lip curled beneath the mask.
Pathetic.
He was no longer worthy of that eye.
All those years, and he had never even begun to truly master it.
Never understood what he held.
A gift squandered.
A waste.
Time for playing at restraint was over.
The Eye of the Moon mattered more than nostalgia.
More than pride.
He shifted, preparing to move—
And then something else happened.
Obito froze.
From Kakashi.
From his chakra, his body, his soul—
Something shifted there, too.
Another odd variable again, perhaps.
Not a jutsu.
Not an illusion.
Not a normal surge.
It was deeper.
Structural.
As if something foreign was intruding into Kakashi's very being, rewriting him from the inside out, seizing control where none should exist.
Obito's senses flared instinctively.
"Not good," he hissed under his breath. "What the—"
He didn't finish the thought.
He didn't let himself think at all.
Because for the first time that day, real anger burned hot enough to cut through calculation.
Whatever this was, it threatened his timing.
His certainty.
His claim.
It even felt like it was insulting him.
Was Kakashi evolving?
Or was it no longer Kakashi at all?
It didn't matter.
Even if it was the Sage of Six Paths himself, rising out of that broken body.
Obito's decision locked in with terrifying clarity.
He would take back his own second left eye.
Exactly as he had resolved a moment earlier, before this shift.
Now.
Before the world slipped any further out of alignment.
Before anything else could rise up between him and what was his, before it could become harder to take back, he felt it instinctively.
The window was closing.
The space around him warped, the familiar spiral forming as Kamui began to pull him forward.
Enough hesitation.
Enough restraint.
He would take back what was his, regardless of what Kakashi was becoming, regardless of whatever stood in his way next.