Thud.
The moment Minato Namikaze finished dealing with the last of the enemy, the tension wound tight inside Kakashi finally snapped. Exhaustion hit him like a tidal wave, swallowing both body and mind, and he dropped on the spot.
"Kakashi!" Rin cried out, rushing to his side.
After a quick examination, she let out a small breath of relief. "He just overused himself."
"Genma, carry him," Minato said.
Rin and Kurenai were in no state to shoulder him, and Kiyohara had already pushed himself to the edge. The burden naturally fell to Genma Shiranui.
"Yes, Lord Minato."
Genma stooped, hauled Kakashi onto his back, and adjusted him with a grunt. Only then did the group finally begin to move again.
"Are we leaving now?" Kiyohara asked.
"It's too late tonight," Minato replied. "We'll rest here and destroy the bridge tomorrow."
Kiyohara paused, then swallowed the question pressing at the back of his tongue. So nobody was going back to retrieve Obito's body. Not Minato. Not Kakashi. Not Rin.
Even in Kakashi Gaiden, this had always been brushed aside. The enemies had already been wiped out. They had time. If Minato had gone back right away and dragged Obito out, if they had buried him properly, then perhaps countless problems down the road would never have existed.
Even if Madara Uchiha had appeared, Minato still had Flying Thunder God. Escaping would not have been difficult for him.
But in the end, Kiyohara kept his mouth shut. There was no profit in saying it, and if things turned ugly, Minato might escape while he himself would die first.
Before leaving, he made sure to search everything thoroughly. During the earlier scramble, he had looted every corpse he could, but he hadn't had time to sort the spoils yet.
***
Deep underground, Madara Uchiha slowly opened his eyes.
A ripple spread across the wall, and White Zetsu emerged carrying Obito's half-crushed body. A layer of pale flesh had already been spread across the broken cross-section to stop the bleeding.
"He's been brought here, Lord Madara."
Another short White Zetsu followed behind, roughly matching the missing half of Obito's body.
"Begin the operation."
Madara's voice was dry and ancient. White hair hung to his waist, and the entire cavern felt more like a tomb than a refuge.
White Zetsu obeyed at once. The smaller body was cut apart and stitched into Obito's ruined frame, ribs to ribs, organs to organs. The thing worked only because White Zetsu was full of Hashirama cells. Those cells fused with terrifying compatibility, reconnecting flesh that should have remained dead forever.
Madara watched in silence. Obito's strange escape from death had piqued his interest. It was as if, in the moment the boulder came down, the boy had slipped through part of reality itself.
"Lord Madara," White Zetsu said, "why are you so fixated on the Uchiha? That ninja named Kiyohara is excellent too."
Madara's scarlet eyes shifted.
Since the start of the war, he had ordered White Zetsu to keep watch on Uchiha clan members everywhere, searching for a suitable heir. And now they had discovered that even an outsider like Kakashi could transplant a Sharingan and use it. In theory, couldn't the same be done to someone like Kiyohara?
Madara only looked at him indifferently. "You do not understand the power of the Uchiha."
Above the ordinary Sharingan lay the Mangekyo Sharingan. Only those who awakened that level could truly be called inheritors of the Uchiha's power.
Kiyohara was talented, yes. He could fight many Iwagakure ninja to a standstill. He grew quickly. But he was still an outsider.
"He is excellent," Madara said at last, "but he is still not Uchiha."
An outsider could receive transplanted eyes, but could never naturally awaken Mangekyo with them. And many of Madara's later plans relied on the Sharingan's deeper evolution. Giving those eyes to a commoner would only create more risks than benefits.
White Zetsu nodded, half understanding and half not. "So outsiders are completely useless?"
"No." Madara's tone shifted slightly. "Kiyohara is useful. Just as Kakashi is useful."
White Zetsu blinked.
To awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan, one needed intense spiritual trauma. Madara already knew Obito cared deeply about Rin Nohara. He even knew how furious the boy had been over Kiyohara's contact with her. If Rin were truly lost forever, then the shock would be enough to drag darkness up from the deepest part of Obito's heart.
"They can draw out that darkness," Madara said. "They can make him taste ultimate pain."
White Zetsu's face brightened in comprehension—or what passed for comprehension. In his head, it seemed Madara was saying that if Kiyohara took Rin away, Obito would suffer all the more.
As expected of Lord Madara. Even things no one else would think of came naturally to him.
***
Night fell across the grassy plain where Konoha's exhausted team had stopped to rest.
Kakashi lay on a rock beneath the shadow of a larger boulder. His eyelashes trembled, then lifted. For a moment he stared up blankly.
Where am I? Am I dead?
That was his first thought.
"You're awake, Kakashi," Kiyohara said.
He did not say the second half of the joke forming in his mind—that the surgery had been a success and Kakashi was now some entirely different creature. He only looked at him.
The moment Kakashi remembered, sorrow flooded his face. Memories of Obito rose like a tide, and tears slipped from the corners of his eyes before he could stop them.
Men did not cry easily. Only when the hurt cut deep enough.
Kiyohara slowly shook his head. This was Konoha's peculiar kind of bond—painfully sincere, painfully heavy.
"It's all my fault," Kakashi said hoarsely.
"No. You already did very well."
Kiyohara patted his shoulder once. There was nothing else to say. Some things were never about effort. Some things were simply the result of forces far larger than any of them.
Madara Uchiha had been watching the Land of Grass with patient, deliberate malice. Obito had not merely died in an accident. He had been selected.
They had all been crushed by capital, one way or another.