Adult Obito looked at his younger self.
Because he had not been crushed beneath that boulder and forced to overdraw Kamui's Dimension ahead of time, the right half of Young Obito's face was still perfectly intact.
His life had also not turned him into a "man who was no one" because of Rin's death. He could still hold on to his dreams, with endless possibilities waiting in his future.
When he returned to their world, he would have a bright path ahead of him.
He would become the pride of the Uchiha Clan.
By the time he reached Adult Obito's age, he would be a handsome man without scars, an outstanding ninja of Konoha striving for the title of Hokage.
He would keep protecting Rin, protecting Kakashi, protecting his comrades in Konoha, and protecting Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura, who would be born as his juniors.
It was a feeling Adult Obito could not quite describe. He was envious and jealous, yet from the bottom of his heart, he sincerely blessed him, hoping to see him have a future completely different from his own.
Minato Namikaze handed the compass pieces back to Young Obito and Itachi Uchiha. "All right. These two compass pieces will still be kept by each of you."
Young Obito and Itachi Uchiha put the compass pieces away.
Then they heard Minato Namikaze say to them, "You both have your mission scrolls with you, right?"
The two froze for a moment, then immediately took their mission scrolls out of their ninja pouches and handed them over.
Minato opened both scrolls. After seeing their contents, his expression grew somewhat solemn. Then he handed them to Fourth Hokage Minato. Both Minato Namikaze fell silent, making everyone else tense up too.
Naruto jumped anxiously and asked what was wrong with the scrolls.
The two Minato returned the scrolls to Itachi and Young Obito.
Naruto, Sasuke, and the others turned to look. Young Obito's mission scroll had turned into a blank scroll.
But Adult Obito, Adult Kakashi, and the First and Second Hokage, who happened to have a better view of Itachi's scroll, clearly saw a line of words written on it:
[May "Sasuke's wish" come true, and may he live a life of happiness and smooth fortune.]
Itachi's pupils widened.
Those words were in his handwriting, but he definitely had not written them himself!
And when the SSS-rank mission to retrieve all the Sharingan left outside was completed, the mission scroll had not shown this kind of anomaly.
After seeing that Obito's mission scroll was blank, Sasuke immediately turned to Itachi and asked, "Did your mission scroll turn blank too?"
Itachi paused, unsure how to show Sasuke what was written inside the scroll.
How should he put it?
He still did not know how to fully show his younger brother his truest side.
Noticing that Itachi's reaction was odd, Sasuke looked toward Adult Kakashi and Adult Obito standing beside Itachi, who had clearly seen the contents of the mission scroll too.
"There's something inside?"
"Tell me, Kakashi."
Kakashi's face was covered, but he gave the same kind of smile he had back then when he suddenly appeared and told them they had passed the Genin exam. "I think this is something Itachi should tell you himself, Sasuke."
"There are words inside," Itachi said, handing the mission scroll to Sasuke.
As expected, after Sasuke saw the contents of the scroll, his eyes widened sharply, his black pupils fixed tightly on the words inside.
Everything he had experienced in that previous parallel world surged back into his memory.
His own life.
Itachi's life.
The final entrustment from their father and mother.
In the end, all of it became a single sentence: "No matter what choice you make from now on, I will always love you."
The Uchiha boy, who usually carried three tons of idol baggage, lowered his eyes slightly, pressed his lips into a straight line, and bowed his head to hide his emotions.
But the way his hand gripped the mission scroll so tightly, trembling ever so slightly, had already exposed his feelings completely.
"You're not crying, are you, Sasuke?"
Naruto was actually moved to death too, but at a moment like this, he still could not resist running his mouth and courting death just a little.
"Shut up! Be quiet, you super huge idiot!!"
He had been scolded, but Sasuke's voice really did carry a faint, hoarse sorrow.
Itachi was the worst at handling this kind of situation. He explained, "The handwriting is mine, but I… I don't think I wrote something like that inside."
"Because it's what your heart desires, isn't it?"
Minato Namikaze replied to Itachi's explanation in a relaxed voice.
Then he analyzed, "This scroll can know the future, the past, and even matters from other parallel worlds. It can also grasp our inner voices and thoughts. So Itachi's strongest thought was taken by the mission scroll as a wish and became the true reward for the SSS-rank mission. Isn't that the most fitting result?"
"What the heart desires…"
Naruto looked at Sasuke's older brother, then looked at Sasuke.
"So Itachi-nii-san's wish is for Sasuke's wish to come true!!"
He stared at the clean, crisp line of text on the mission scroll:
[May "Sasuke's wish" come true, and may he live a life of happiness and smooth fortune.]
"Ahhh…" Naruto sighed dramatically. "Now I suddenly want an older brother."
A childish feeling of wanting what someone else had rose up in him, and once it started, he could not hold it back.
Minato Namikaze looked at Indra and Asura with a smile. "In a sense, Sasuke should count as your older brother, shouldn't he? In terms of chakra, at least."
"That's right. Hurry up and call me big brother, super huge idiot."
"Idiot Sasuke, bleh, bleh."
Naruto successfully helped Sasuke adjust his mood and cover up his embarrassment.
Adult Kakashi asked, "Minato-sensei, is Itachi's wish related to the resurrection of Madara Uchiha and Izuna Uchiha?"
"That is exactly what I wanted to say next," Minato Namikaze said.
Naruto and Sasuke stopped bickering and looked seriously toward Fourth Hokage Minato.
"Previously, because of the timing, we all thought that the resurrection of Madara Uchiha's younger brother, Izuna Uchiha, was caused by Obito completing his SSS-rank mission."
Naruto said, "Mm-hmm."
"But in reality, that is not the case," Fourth Hokage Minato said. "Whether it was Madara Uchiha or Izuna Uchiha, their resurrection was based on Itachi, or rather, based on Sasuke's wish."
"Sasuke's… Sasuke-kun's… wish…"
Naruto and Sakura both remembered the day Team 7 was officially formed, when Kakashi-sensei had asked them to introduce themselves.
Sasuke Uchiha. My wish…
Or rather, my ambition.
I will…
Kill a certain man with my own hands, and then revive the Uchiha Clan.
He already knew the truth about Itachi, so he would certainly not be left with lifelong regret like Fourth Shinobi War Sasuke from another parallel world.
So Sasuke's wish was…
"To revive the Uchiha Clan!!!"
The two said it in unison.
Clearly, Sasuke himself had thought of it too. His eyes widened again as he stared at the scroll in his hand in disbelief.
May Sasuke's wish come true, and may he live a life of happiness and smooth fortune.
At this moment, Sasuke's heart was like surging waves beneath the morning sun, striking the reefs along the shore again and again.
It was hard to describe. Hard to put into words.
It was not the pain Fourth Shinobi War Sasuke had shown on the shore after learning the truth.
Rather, it was warm and gentle sunlight shining on the pain in his heart, letting the festering wound scab over and heal.
"There are still a few things I need to confirm. Maybe even more good things will happen."
Everyone looked toward Minato Namikaze, who had spoken.
Fourth Hokage Minato asked Young Obito and Young Kakashi, "Can you remember when Izuna Uchiha was revived?"
Young Kakashi shook his head. "We don't know the exact time. It should have been around the time we saved Konan in that world."
Minato nodded. "In that case, the time between Madara Uchiha's resurrection and Izuna Uchiha's resurrection should be almost exactly twenty-four hours."
"Fourth Hokage, you mean…" Tobirama Senju fell into thought.
Adult Kakashi said, "Really?! Minato-sensei!"
Two, Four, and Six. As expected of the even-numbered Hokage, their minds were quick and their thoughts were clear.
By contrast, Hashirama and Naruto had no idea what they were hinting at.
Kannabi Bridge Minato explained it to them. "If nothing unexpected happens, in another twenty-four hours, more of Sasuke's clansmen may be revived."
"What?!!!"
Sasuke was completely stunned.
Itachi Uchiha did not look much better than him.
Naruto, however, acted as if it were only natural. "Isn't your wish to revive the Uchiha Clan? Then it's normal for your dead clansmen to be revived one by one, right? What, did you think only Madara and his brother would be revived, and then the four of you would have to desperately have children?"
Four…
Adult Obito grabbed Naruto's head. "Didn't you leave someone out?"
Ah…
For some reason, it always felt like Obito Uchiha was outside the group.
"What do you mean, desperately have children?!!" Sasuke was both embarrassed and angry, poking Naruto in the forehead and telling him to have one himself if it was that easy.
Hashirama also sank into gloom on the spot.
"Among the people who founded the village, I'm the only one who got married and had descendants. Madara and Tobirama both lived alone until the end. I'm not a good younger brother, and I'm not a good older brother either. I'm such a failure…"
"In front of the younger generation, Big Brother, act with some dignity!"
"Such a failure…"
"Tsk."
Young Obito helped Sasuke ask, "So that means tomorrow morning, another clansman might be revived?!!"
Minato nodded. "I think so, but it is hard to say who exactly it will be."
Adult Obito felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from his heart. Although to outsiders, the person who exterminated the clan was Itachi Uchiha, in reality, everyone in the Police Force had been killed by him.
He was grateful to Itachi for making this wish through the mission, grateful that Sasuke still had the dream of reviving the Uchiha, and grateful for fate's favor.
Young Kakashi asked, "Then why is Obito's mission scroll still blank?"
He, Young Obito, and Rin had been staring the whole time at the blank scroll spread open in Obito's hand, thinking that if Izuna Uchiha's resurrection was the reward from Itachi's mission scroll, then what would Obito's mission scroll reward be?
"Obito's mission scroll is blank because right now, he doesn't have any strong wish in his heart that he wants fulfilled, correct?"
Minato Namikaze smiled at his student, who now had the Mangekyō Sharingan and the ability to see the future.
Young Obito thought that his dream was to become Hokage, but since the mission scroll had not recorded it, perhaps that was not the truest wish deep in his heart.
Or rather, Hokage was something he should fight to achieve himself, not something he should obtain by making a wish to a mission scroll.
Indeed, when he was suddenly asked what the wish deepest in his heart was,
Young Obito looked somewhat blank and lost.
"The wish I want to fulfill most…"
What was it?