"I absolutely refuse to accept this!"
After hearing that his brother was actually Hashirama Senju's brother, Izuna Uchiha immediately showed extreme resistance.
Tobirama stood across from him with his arms folded. "Whether you accept it or not changes nothing. It is precisely because the brothers Indra and Asura never resolved the knot in their hearts that they reincarnated again and again through life and death. After my elder brother and Madara died, the two of them reincarnated into Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki."
Izuna looked toward Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki.
Sasuke's figure overlapped with his brother's. He did indeed resemble his brother somewhat when he was young.
But Naruto Uzumaki was still very different from Hashirama Senju as a child.
At least from their interactions so far, Naruto did not have Hashirama Senju's annoying sweet-faced schemer personality.
"What happened after I died?" Izuna Uchiha asked.
Tobirama said, "After Konoha was founded, some people suspected that Madara Uchiha had deliberately killed you, his own younger brother, while you were gravely injured in order to gain light. After all, the injuries I inflicted on you back then would not necessarily have been fatal with proper medical treatment."
Izuna Uchiha angrily shot back at Tobirama Senju, "Who spread that rumor?! How could anyone believe such absurd nonsense?!"
He stared at Hashirama Senju beside Tobirama Senju. "Was it you? Did you have people spread those rumors on purpose to suppress my brother and the Uchiha?!"
"It wasn't me! How could I possibly do something like that to Madara?!!" Hashirama Senju hurriedly shook his head, desperately trying to clear his name.
Tobirama Senju stopped Izuna Uchiha, whose Mangekyō Sharingan had appeared in anger. "At the time, none of us suspected anything. You know I disliked Madara Uchiha just as much as you disliked my elder brother. We only thought it was his personality that made even the Uchiha clan unable to stand his extremism."
"But looking back now, your death gave Black Zetsu the perfect opening. Or perhaps it is hard to say whether your death had anything to do with Black Zetsu in the first place. He guided Madara Uchiha into losing you, and at the same time, Madara, who was never good at mediation, saw his reputation and credibility within the clan worsen day by day under Black Zetsu's instigation."
Izuna Uchiha listened, his eyes fixed straight ahead.
Tobirama Senju said, "In the end, Madara believed the lies on the Stone Monument Black Zetsu had tampered with and attempted to use Infinite Tsukuyomi to achieve true peace for the world."
"Infinite Tsukuyomi?"
Adult Obito said, "It traps everyone in the world inside the God Tree, makes them dream false, beautiful dreams, and gradually assimilates them into the God Tree as its nourishment."
Hashirama Senju's voice was low. "Back then, all of us thought Madara had died. We never imagined that under Black Zetsu's guidance, he had hidden alone in underground tunnels and survived for decades after both Tobirama and I had died. That's why, when Madara was suddenly revived yesterday and learned the truth, he couldn't accept reality and left on his own."
Izuna Uchiha stayed silent for a long time before asking, "Do you know where he went?"
Hashirama Senju had just been about to speak when Tobirama Senju stopped him.
"We can't be sure where Madara went, but there are a few places you can check," Tobirama Senju said. "Your revival may actually be a good thing for the Ninja World. At the very least, besides my elder brother, there is now one more person who can restrain that madman Madara Uchiha."
Worried about his brother, Izuna gave his old opponent an international friendship gesture, "up yours," then turned and headed out.
"Do you need someone to prepare supplies for you?"
"No. I'll take missions myself."
When he reached Young Obito Uchiha, he held out a hand.
"Give me my brother's fan. Also prepare a few clan robes and basic ninja tools."
Young Obito: "…"
He obediently took out everything he had picked up along the way from Kamui's Dimension and returned it all.
Young Kakashi reminded him, "Those are things from our parallel world."
Young Obito, Kakashi, and Rin exchanged glances. Only the three of them knew that they might not be far from leaving this place.
"It's fine. In our parallel world, the old ancestor and little ancestor won't be revived anyway, and I won't have any use for them."
The others did not pay much attention to Obito's words.
Kannabi Bridge Minato and Fourth Hokage Minato understood what the three of them meant.
After Izuna Uchiha left, or rather, after the Second Hokage was too lazy to explain that the Uchiha now had only a few surviving seedlings left and deliberately sent him away,
Young Obito handed the compass piece he had obtained to Kannabi Bridge Minato.
Then he took out his mission scroll and opened it.
[Mission Rank: SSS-rank]
[Mission Content: Kill the Masked Man.]
[Mission Status: Completed.]
"!!!"
Adult Obito's eyes widened as he suddenly remembered!
"In the last parallel world, I killed that world's Masked Man!!"
Teenage Obito Uchiha said, "At the time, all of us thought you were dead."
Adult Obito was too embarrassed to say that he really had died once, only for Minato-sensei to trick Nagato into reviving him later.
"Did I scare you into crying?" he teased his younger self and Kakashi.
Especially his younger self. No one knew better than Adult Obito how much he loved to cry as a child.
Young Obito really wanted to tear that mouth off his future self!
"He really did die once."
Behind them, Adult Kakashi explained what had happened to the others.
"When we were rescuing the original first-generation Akatsuki members, we ran into Black Zetsu and that world's Masked Man. After Black Zetsu was trapped inside the Mangekyō Sharingan's Dōjutsu Space, Obito couldn't use Intangibility and was stabbed through the heart by the Masked Man's Wood Release."
Adult Obito's expression turned strange. He was so embarrassed he could die.
"Did you have to expose me right now?!" He glared at Adult Kakashi. "I knew we were incompatible!!"
Minato Namikaze smiled as he recalled it. "When Obito died back then, Kakashi had the strongest reaction."
Adult Kakashi: "…"
Minato-sensei, could you please not bring that up?
Tobirama Senju pressed a hand to his forehead and sighed. Sure enough, every person had their counter, and natural airheads countered everyone.
"Speaking of which, what does this compass piece do? And was Izuna's revival also caused by Young Obito completing his SSS-rank mission?"
Naruto looked at the ring in Obito's hand. "The size of the hole in the middle of this ring looks about the same as Sasuke's brother's, doesn't it?"
Young Kakashi said, "We noticed that too. This might be something that can be assembled with Itachi's compass."
Sasuke said, "Should I go call Itachi over?"
"Yes. Go call him, and have him bring his mission scroll too. There's something else I want to confirm," Minato Namikaze said.
Before long, Itachi Uchiha came to the place where everyone was discussing matters, bringing the compass he had received after completing his SSS-rank mission and that mission scroll.
Minato Namikaze took the palm-sized circular compass from his hand, then took the ring-shaped compass piece from Young Obito. Comparing them, the sizes really did fit perfectly.
But Kannabi Bridge Minato and Fourth Hokage Minato exchanged a glance and did not put the two pieces together.
"With only two pieces, this compass won't truly be complete," Kannabi Bridge Minato said. "I'm afraid this compass is extremely complicated. There are at least three or four more pieces we haven't collected yet."
"Three or four pieces?!"
Adult Obito did a quick count. Wasn't that almost exactly the total number of mission scrolls in the others' hands?
Sasuke said, "So the reward for an SSS-rank mission is actually only a branch part? The real reward requires everyone to complete their SSS-rank missions and gather the entire compass?"
"I think that's right," Fourth Hokage Minato said.
The expressions of everyone involved in the conversation turned solemn.
The D-rank mission reward was equivalent to the peak reward of a Konoha A-rank mission.
The C-rank mission reward allowed someone to travel to a parallel world.
The B-rank mission reward was intelligence equivalent to Konoha S-rank or higher.
The A-rank mission reward was group travel to another parallel world to eliminate their own regrets.
The S-rank mission reward granted abilities, items, or Kekkei Genkai beyond imagination.
So far, SS-rank mission rewards had once summoned an ancestor from ancient times, and once allowed people from a parallel world to experience Naruto and Sasuke's lives.
With that kind of scale, the reward for an SSS-rank mission was already beyond imagination.
And now, the reward for an SSS-rank mission was merely one component of the real, final reward?!!
Could Obito Ōtsutsuki actually have been right? Were they supposed to gather seven pieces and summon a divine dragon?!
In that case, they truly could not imagine just how valuable this mission reward really was!
"Why not combine them now?" Naruto said, already reaching out to take Obito's and Itachi's compass pieces and put them together.
"Wait a moment." Fourth Hokage Minato stopped his son's movement. "Have you forgotten? My counterpart from another world, along with Obito and the others, came to this world because of the mission scrolls. If the assembly is completed…"
It was very likely they would return from this world to the world that belonged to them, permanently.
Fourth Hokage Minato winked at Naruto. "You haven't thought about how to say goodbye to everyone yet, right? So it's better not to assemble them for now."
The six young ninjas from Team Kakashi and Team Minato all froze.
Countless crossings between worlds, so many hardships and battles endured together, so many regrets resolved side by side across so many worlds. It had almost made them forget…
There was no banquet in the world that never ended.
Young Obito, Young Kakashi-sensei, and Rin would one day return to their own world.
They would go through the ongoing Third Shinobi World War and pursue their own dreams.
And Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura would do the same, chasing their own dreams while existing on parallel lines that would never again intersect with theirs.
Across countless crossings and parallel worlds, they had always left once the problem was solved, without lingering attachment. Instead, they had felt a sense of justice from helping others erase their regrets.
But Team Minato from another world was different.
Although they were people from two parallel worlds, they had already formed deep and unbreakable bonds.
If one day they suddenly left, and then could never meet again…
Just thinking about that regret made all six of their hearts ache.
Such a farewell would be no different from parting by life and death.
Especially Minato Namikaze from the Kannabi Bridge world. Before Fourth Hokage Minato was revived, he had been the first to let Naruto taste the feeling of fatherly love.
In a way, his existence was also extremely special to Naruto.
So…
Did farewell truly have to come?