Chapter 614: The Secret of the A-B Brothers

“Naruto! Get over here! Quickly!”

Half of Obito desperately shouted toward Naruto.

If his heart had merely been pierced, the White Zetsu half of his body and the Hashirama cells within it could have kept him alive for quite some time.

But now, half his body had been torn away completely.

If his remaining human half hadn’t spent so many years fused with White Zetsu tissue and been altered by it to some degree, he probably would have died on the spot.

Obito was filled with regret.

Not long ago, he had already regretted becoming careless simply because everything in this world had been going too smoothly.

Yet apparently he still hadn’t learned his lesson.

Knowing that Isshiki was an existence comparable to the progenitors of chakra, Obito should have left Kamui immediately, observed him from a distance for a while, and only approached once he understood the situation.

Inside the Kamui dimension, Obito couldn’t rely on his usual automatic intangibility.

He couldn’t simply transfer whatever part of his body was being attacked back into the real world and effectively “phase” inside Kamui itself.

Without that automatic defense, everything depended on manual reaction speed.

And if Obito’s reactions couldn’t even match Minato’s, how was he supposed to react to Ōtsutsuki Isshiki?

The more he thought about it, the more furious he became with himself.

He had entered Kamui without his most important defensive trump card, yet somehow still stood there casually chatting with Isshiki.

Had pretending to be Madara for too many years infected him with Indra’s tendency to show off?

Apparently every time Obito got too carried away, reality immediately beat the arrogance back out of him.

Fortunately, Naruto reacted quickly.

He rushed to Obito’s side, and Obito used the last of his strength to activate Kamui and escape.

Isshiki remained behind, still holding the torn-off White Zetsu half of Obito’s body and acting deranged.

At least he didn’t follow them out.

That was the one piece of good fortune in an otherwise disastrous situation.

…

They emerged inside a cave outside Amegakure.

“Someone help! We need help!”

Naruto immediately shouted when he realized Obito had already lost consciousness.

He didn’t know medical ninjutsu.

All he could do was try transferring Nine-Tails chakra into Obito, but the effect was minimal.

“Obito?”

A black figure suddenly emerged from the ground.

“How did he end up like this…?”

The newcomer wasn’t White Zetsu.

It was Black Zetsu.

Black Zetsu hesitated for only a moment before merging into Obito’s body.

Obito was essential to Madara’s resurrection.

Madara was essential to resurrecting Mother.

Therefore—

Obito could not be allowed to die.

There was another reason as well.

As mentioned before, this world’s Black Zetsu had become somewhat unstable after spending a thousand years obsessively pursuing the same goal.

Much like Isshiki, he had started going a little mad and occasionally called random people “Mother.”

Black Zetsu knew perfectly well that centuries of fixation had damaged him.

His periods of clarity were becoming shorter and shorter.

Eventually, he might deteriorate into a completely mindless mass driven only by the urge to resurrect Kaguya.

By attaching himself to Obito now, he could pass on his mission to resurrect Mother while also prolonging his own sanity.

Obito’s will could suppress Black Zetsu’s increasingly uncontrollable thoughts.

With Black Zetsu fused into him, Obito slowly regained consciousness.

But after waking, he didn’t immediately respond to Naruto.

Instead, he stared out of the cave and began wondering what his objective in this world was actually supposed to be.

Originally, he had assumed casting Infinite Tsukuyomi would be enough.

Then Isshiki’s overwhelming strength had completely shattered that idea.

Could it be…

Obito suddenly realized something.

This Engraved Tsukuyomi world had been created by someone currently associated with Akatsuki.

Its general storyline had probably been deliberately constructed.

Which meant—

Was his true objective perhaps to resurrect Kaguya and use her to eliminate the Ōtsutsuki threat?

No.

Why had that thought appeared so naturally?

Was Black Zetsu influencing him?

And if Kaguya could solve the problem, why couldn’t Obito simply become the second progenitor of chakra himself?

Thinking along those lines, Obito finally turned toward Naruto.

“Naruto. What were you saying just now?”

“You finally responded!”

Naruto let out a relieved sigh.

“I thought you’d turned stupid.”

Then he repeated himself.

“I said I need to find an enemy my dad absolutely can’t defeat. That way we can force him into Kamui again.”

“Right.”

Obito nodded.

“I was careless the first time and didn’t react quickly enough. That definitely makes things more troublesome now.”

He admitted his mistake without hesitation.

Naruto couldn’t help feeling impressed.

The masked man of this world really was a good person.

“Minato-sensei is too difficult to restrain through ordinary methods.”

Obito searched through the memories and intelligence available to this version of himself.

He had to admit it.

There really was no conventional way to capture this world’s shameless, bottomless Minato.

So they would have to reuse Naruto’s original strategy.

Find another overwhelmingly powerful enemy.

“I’ll contact someone for you.”

Naruto blinked.

“Contact who?”

“Kumogakure, of course.”

Obito pulled a map from one corner of the cave and unfolded it.

He pointed toward an isolated region near the sea.

“Kumogakure has a hidden sanctuary around here. Supposedly, it has some connection to the Tailed Beasts.”

“But the Tailed Beasts aren’t the important part.”

“The important thing is that there’s a legendary place there called the Falls of Truth.”

“They say it can manifest a person’s darkness.”

“Huh?”

Naruto scratched his head.

“I know that place. Isn’t it supposed to—”

He stopped himself.

The real Naruto had visited the Island Turtle and trained there with Killer B, so naturally he knew what the Falls of Truth actually did.

It was essentially a spiritual trial that pulled someone into an inner mental world.

But then Naruto remembered—

This was Engraved Tsukuyomi.

Maybe in this world, the Falls of Truth could actually materialize a person’s dark side into physical form.

“Supposed to what?”

Obito looked at him suspiciously.

“I mean…”

Naruto quickly changed the subject.

“Kumogakure and Konoha don’t exactly have a good relationship, right?”

“Especially the Raikage and B—Killer B.”

“I heard they had some kind of conflict with my dad before.”

“That wasn’t merely a conflict.”

Obito gave him a mysterious look.

“You could call it a grudge.”

“But Naruto, you only know the version everyone talks about.”

“You don’t know what happened underneath.”

This world’s Obito might have become naturally kindhearted, but he had still gathered enormous amounts of intelligence.

In particular, because he desperately wanted Minato-sensei’s forgiveness, Obito had spent years investigating almost every secret connected to Minato.

And among those secrets—

There was one particularly extraordinary incident.

Almost nobody knew what had really happened back then.

Those who knew only the public version believed that when Namikaze Minato fought Kumogakure’s A-B Combination, he moved so quickly that the Raikage couldn’t react before Minato had already gotten to Killer B.

That battle established Minato as the fastest shinobi alive and supposedly left the Raikage thoroughly humiliated.

Only Obito, using Kamui to infiltrate places no ordinary spy could reach, had uncovered what happened afterward.

Apparently—

Killer B had somehow ended up pregnant after that incident.

And the Raikage hadn’t forced him to get rid of the child.

Instead, he had accepted the situation and taken responsibility.

With a secret like that in reserve, Obito was certain Kumogakure would cooperate with Naruto.

He chose not to explain the full truth to Naruto yet.

Instead—

Obito simply took him along and headed directly for Kumogakure.