Chapter 607: Is Being Kind Wrong?
To change the fate that had doomed his sensei, Namikaze Minato, to die, Obito sought out the Great Toad Sage of Mount Myōboku, who was skilled in prophecy, and begged him for help.
The Great Toad Sage highly praised Obito's kindness, but it could only see and explain fate. It had no way to change fate.
Even when explaining fate, it could only speak in riddles and could not state things directly.
The Great Toad Sage gave Obito a hint—cats have nine lives.
What it actually meant was to tell Obito to repeatedly extract Minato's tailed beast first, giving Minato nine chances to revive.
—That's right. The relationship between tailed beasts and jinchūriki in the Engraved Tsukuyomi world was extremely unusual.
When a jinchūriki had their tailed beast extracted, they would not die. Instead, because some of the tailed beast's power remained within their body, they would gain one chance to "revive from a fatal injury."
However, this could not be used repeatedly.
For example, with the One-Tail, Shukaku, Gaara could only use it once.
But with the Nine-Tails, Obito could repeatedly extract Kurama and seal it back inside, giving Namikaze Minato nine lives.
Although this could not change fate, it could at least help Namikaze Minato withstand nine attacks that would otherwise have been certain to kill him.
But Obito misunderstood.
Obito in this world had become kind, but he was still an idiot.
At the Ninja Academy, Obito slept through nine out of every ten classes, and skipped the tenth.
He knew very little about the basic knowledge of the shinobi world.
So there was no way he could understand the Great Toad Sage's hidden meaning.
He focused entirely on the word "cat."
First, using Kamui, he secretly turned Namikaze Minato, who was exhausted from a mission and sleeping, into a catgirl.
Unfortunately, aside from causing Namikaze Minato to get thoroughly messed up by his chubby teammate, Akimichi Chōza, nothing else happened.
Then somewhere Obito heard a rumor that Hachimi was supposedly a cat.
The pronunciation of Eight-Tails (Hachibi) was very similar to "Hachimi," whose original meaning was honey water, while Killer B was the "Killer Bee."
On top of that, during the Third Shinobi World War, Namikaze Minato had encountered the Fourth Raikage and Killer B, the two brothers.
The two sides had clashed over who was the fastest shinobi in the world.
With only a single exchange, Namikaze Minato had instantly shocked Killer B right in front of the Raikage.
The Raikage had never expected that although he looked like a cuckold, he was actually devoted to pure love, while Namikaze Minato looked honest and upright but was actually a blond-haired cuckold.
The heartbroken Raikage had carried the devastated Killer B away from the battlefield, leaving the title of the fastest shinobi in the world to Namikaze Minato.
All these signs suggested that this was what the Great Toad Sage had meant by "cat."
So Obito used Kamui to sneak into Kumogakure and steal the "honey" of "Killer Bee."
And thus, two more heartbroken people appeared in the shinobi world.
When Killer B woke up and discovered that he had been shocked again, he assumed that Namikaze Minato had left a Flying Thunder God mark on him and would come over to shock him whenever he felt like it.
As for Namikaze Minato, when he woke up, he found that he was having trouble speaking clearly. He remembered the previous time when he had inexplicably been turned into a catgirl and had been thoroughly messed up by Chōza.
He figured that the only person capable of doing something like that was probably the mysterious masked man.
His hatred of the masked man grew even deeper.
After this incident, Obito continued observing his teacher, Minato, for a while, only to find that Minato still showed no changes.
Obito became extremely anxious. Every failed attempt to change fate brought the day of their battle closer and closer.
Until one day, Obito unexpectedly returned to Konoha and saw Kakashi talking to himself in front of Obito's memorial stone.
Kakashi mentioned that ninja hounds were his standard summoned beasts, but that he actually preferred cats.
He remembered that Obito used to abuse cats and kick old ladies. To honor Obito's memory, Kakashi began doing the same things.
But as time passed, perhaps because of the influence of the Sharingan, or perhaps because Obito's changes on the other side had somehow brought about changes here as well, Kakashi gradually became kind.
Kakashi began helping old ladies cross the street. Even when an old lady discovered that he had once worked as a sex worker and threatened him into giving her a turn, Kakashi happily agreed.
As for cats, Kakashi gradually went from abusing them to genuinely loving them. For their own good, Kakashi even took the initiative to find a medical ninja and have the cats sterilized.
When Obito heard about this, his first reaction was that Kakashi was hilarious.
Having cats sterilized—was that really loving cats? Why did it feel more like abusing them?
Back when he abused cats, the most he had done was kick their testicles to pieces. He had never specifically taken them in for surgery.
But then Obito suddenly realized something and ran to the library to look up the relevant information.
He discovered that sterilizing cats really did have many benefits and could significantly increase their lifespan.
Obito immediately understood.
—So this was what the Great Toad Sage meant!
Significantly increasing a cat's lifespan—that was it!
To increase Namikaze Minato's lifespan and survival rate, Obito was willing to bear the guilt, infamy, and Minato's hatred.
During the Nine-Tails Night, while Obito was treating the injuries and illnesses of everyone in Konoha, he also helped Namikaze Minato get sterilized.
This was what had made Kushina feel that something was wrong.
How could the kind Obito possibly hurt Minato?
The truth was that Obito genuinely had no intention of hurting Minato. In his mind, removing the testicles was fundamentally meant to ensure that Minato would survive.
And the result was that Minato really did survive until now, successfully living long enough to see Naruto grow up.
So Obito believed that what he had done back then had been the right thing.
Some people might wonder: Could someone who was kind by nature really make some terrible mistakes?
The answer was—Yes!
In another world, there was a cheerful, innocent young noblewoman who, simply because of her kindness, caused the king her family served to be assassinated, caused a mage of her own kind to lose the chance to gain liberation and freedom, and caused the people of her country to suffer through war.
That young noblewoman was given the title of the [Witch Who Destroyed the Country].
From then on, all kinds of legends about her began to spread.
Some said that she had everyone line up in a row, claiming she was going to put shields on them, when in reality she was preparing to use her ultimate ability and stack her Book of Slaughter.
Of course, that was just a rumor.
But the most tragic part was that it really was only a rumor!
If she had actually been evil and completely selfish, then at least the people who died could have been used to stack her Book of Slaughter.
The reality was that those people not only died, they died for nothing. They were wasted, and she never even stacked her Book of Slaughter.
This was the evil committed by a kind person.
And Obito was the same now.
Obito sought out Tsunade and confessed to her everything he had done in the past, hoping that Tsunade, who also possessed a sense of justice, would join the Akatsuki.
Naruto, who had followed him, was like an eavesdropping character whose scene had just been refreshed after the two began plotting. He heard everything.
Outside, the spectator Kushina saw this scene and suddenly felt that there was hope again.
Perhaps Obito's actions in the Engraved Tsukuyomi world could help Naruto understand a few things: being kind and righteous alone was not enough. You also needed a brain.
(End of this chapter)