People in the shinobi world lacked a certain ability to empathize and truly understand others.
The people Naruto won over with his Talk no Jutsu were, at their core, folks he couldn't actually understand at all.
The only exception was his precious bond-brother, Sasuke.
The fact that they could reach the point of "if you hurt, I hurt too" was concrete proof that they were the closest of brothers.
So in the shinobi world, if you wanted someone to empathize with a situation, you usually had to make the exact same shit happen to them directly.
And now, the masked man had successfully empathized with Namikaze Minato—the very man he'd murdered back in the day.
Minato had been way more willing to believe Uchiha Madara literally crawled out of his own coffin than suspect the masked man was his own student, whose fate was totally unknown.
As the Hokage's successor, Minato highly likely had access to top-secret Uchiha clan files related to Izanagi.
Danzo managed to use Izanagi to dodge Shisui's genjutsu, meaning he had already mastered the technique before the night of the Uchiha massacre even happened.
That meant Danzo's intel on Izanagi wasn't scavenged during the massacre.
It had been part of Konoha's intelligence network all along.
Other Uchiha who died on the battlefield also had their corpses hauled back to the village.
After all, the Uchiha didn't have the Caged Bird Seal.
If their bodies had actually been left rotting outside, Kakashi definitely wouldn't have been the only outsider rocking a transplanted Sharingan.
So, if no corpse was ever found, and there was a solid chance Izanagi had been triggered, didn't that leave the guy in an unknown life-or-death limbo?
Yet Minato chose to treat "missing and presumed dead" as just plain dead.
He never once suspected Obito.
Even if Minato had dunked his own head into a toilet back then, he still never would have understood why Obito would do such a thing, or how he even pulled it off.
By that exact same logic, even if the masked man dunked his own head into a toilet right now, he still couldn't fathom how words could be arranged into such a horrifying combination.
Kakashi had coveted his grandmother from a very young age.
Then, after growing up, he treated Granny Chiyo as a substitute and fell madly in love with her.
Uchiha Madara, just to fight Kakashi over Granny Chiyo, asked Orochimaru to revive Obito's grandmother via Edo Tensei.
This caused Kakashi to rediscover his original 'crush' and effectively removed him as a rival in love.
"..."
What the actual hell? He wouldn't even dare dream up some twisted shit like this!
The masked man no longer suspected he was trapped inside the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
Because even inside the Infinite Tsukuyomi's ultimate illusion, such a terrifying scenario absolutely should not exist.
Now, what the masked man actually suspected was whether he was the fake one.
Perhaps he was just a fictional character locked inside White Zetsu's Infinite Tsukuyomi illusion.
Only in White Zetsu's brain-dead dreams would something this absurd actually happen, right?
"Obito, what's wrong? You have to hold on!"
White Zetsu watched the masked man kneel motionless on the ground.
Since his mask made his expression completely unreadable, he basically looked dead.
White Zetsu shouted in sheer panic.
"White Zetsu, go outside. I want to be alone."
The masked man's voice sounded incredibly weak and totally exhausted.
At that exact moment, he felt a bone-deep fatigue unlike anything he had ever experienced before.
Even after cosplaying as Madara and running around busting his ass for the Infinite Tsukuyomi plan all these years, this was the very first time he felt truly tired.
Tired in his damn soul.
"Who's Alone? Has Obito fallen for someone else too?"
White Zetsu obediently shuffled out of the cave, muttering nonsense to himself as he left.
Once the annoying plant was gone, the cave finally fell quiet.
The masked man let out a heavy sigh.
Originally, he wanted to exploit Madara's weird attempt to court Chiyo, swoop in to seize Sasuke's Rinnegan, capture the Tailed Beasts, and stack up a few more trump cards.
But now? Not only was Madara courting Granny Chiyo, but Kakashi was out here courting his freaking grandmother.
Was he really supposed to just ignore all this unholy mess and go snatch the Rinnegan?
'Hm? Wait.'
"White Zetsu? Are you still there?" the masked man called out toward the exit.
His sensory skills were decent, sure, but White Zetsu's concealment was simply busted.
Because of that, he had no clue if White Zetsu had actually left.
After a long pause, nobody answered.
It seemed White Zetsu really did leave.
What the masked man actually wanted to ask was this: when White Zetsu first barged in screaming that the person he cared about most had fallen, who exactly was that "person he cared about most"?
Uchiha Madara?
Kakashi?
His grandmother?
Or all of the above?
'Forget it. I refuse to think about this.'
The masked man decided to just sleep and completely empty his brain.
Maybe after waking up, he'd discover this entire nightmare was just a bad dream.
In any case, Madara's attempt to woo Granny Chiyo wasn't going to succeed in a day or two. ...The exact same went for Kakashi's end.
He firmly believed his grandmother would hold the line!
...
Zzzzz.
Suspecting the real world was a nightmare wasn't the scary part.
The truly terrifying part was falling asleep and actually having a nightmare!
He had an absolutely horrifying dream.
In the dream, he wasn't wearing his mask anymore. Dressed in a sharp, proper suit, he suddenly appeared at a wedding venue.
He stood there, utterly confused.
'Whose wedding is this?' he thought. 'Could it be mine and Rin's?'
'Did my Infinite Tsukuyomi actually succeed?'
'Hell yeah!'
Huh...
He glanced down and spotted a name tag.
It turned out he was only attending as a family member of one of the wedding parties.
'Ah. Fine.'
He wandered through the venue in a daze, waiting until the bride and groom finally made their entrance.
It was Granny Chiyo rocking a white wedding dress!
And his grandmother!
'Could it be—'
Sure enough, Kakashi and Uchiha Madara stepped up.
What you stress about during the day, you dream about at night.
Just like in the original timeline—when he became the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki and hovered on the verge of a total breakdown, only for someone to save him—right as he was about to collapse, Rin appeared in a pristine white wedding dress.
His eyes snapped wide open.
'If... if I can just be with Rin...'
Then Granny Chiyo and Madara, his grandmother and Kakashi—he wouldn't give a damn anymore.
They could do whatever the hell they wanted.
"Obito, thank you for coming to my wedding." Rin flashed him a soft, gentle smile.
"You don't need to thank me. Uh—?" He answered instinctively, then immediately realized something was terribly wrong.
Only then did he notice that at some point, Rin had linked arms with a faceless black silhouette, her face glowing with absolute happiness.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO—!"
The masked man let out a despairing scream and jolted awake from the nightmare.
When he realized he was lying in his own bed, he immediately blew out a massive sigh of relief.
So it really had just been a dream.
The real Rin of the shinobi world was already dead.
Besides, even if it were real, a Rin who married someone else had to be a fake!
He would absolutely never acknowledge that crap.
"Obito, did you have another nightmare? Come here, baby, let me hold you."
A familiar voice purred right beside his ear.
The masked man suddenly felt a soft body wrapping him in an embrace.
That body actually felt incredibly familiar to him.
It was warm and gentle, causing his tense muscles and mind to relax without him even realizing it.
'Could it be Rin?'
The masked man grew completely dazed.
After shamelessly enjoying that warm embrace for a few seconds, he finally gathered his courage and turned his head to look.
"..."
He saw White Zetsu lying right beside him, sporting a deeply shy expression!
That so-called warm embrace was actually just White Zetsu spooning him and wrapping his weird plant body around him.
Just like back in the day, when he got solo-killed by a giant rock and crushed half to death, and White Zetsu attached himself to his body so he could walk outside.
No wonder it felt so familiar and warm.
So that was why.
"AHHHHHHHHHHH—!"
The masked man jolted awake again.
This time, his eyes snapped open to the sight of the rocky cave ceiling.
Right. The cave.
After getting bombarded with all that unhinged lore yesterday, he had crashed hard inside the cave.
This time, he was definitely, truly awake.
...Uh.
Then why the hell was there still a White Zetsu lying right beside him?