Take a shot every time the author says 'roared' or some variation thereof in this chapter. You'll die.

...Aw shit, they wouldn't have noticed if I hadn't pointed it out, would they.


Who's Killing Whom?


Over a Century ago

Madara was vaguely aware that the land he stood in was known as Wildrun plains. The Inuzuka tenuously owned it, and used it to train their pack tactics sometimes.

It had been a wide, open field, with a wide, lazy river winding through the middle of it down towards the coastline.

It certainly wasn't that anymore.

Stones still crashed down from the newly formed cliffs, and water splashed up as Madara walked. The valley they were in was slowly filling up with water as the river above (now with a brand new waterfall) continued to flow. There would probably be a lake here in the next few days.

Hashirama Senju knelt in the puddles, with a katana, nodachi, and war-scythe stabbing into and through his body, pinning him to the ground in various places. The glow of his chakra, usually the brightest thing around, was now so dim Madara's Sharingan could barely pick it out.

If Hashirama had been anyone else, he'd already be dead. As was, if someone didn't finish him in the next few minutes, he'd probably pull out all the offending implements and walk back to the village like it was no big deal.

"Wh-" he coughed. "What the fuck, Madara?"

Madara narrowed his eyes, and threw a kunai into the man's chest.

"Ow, fucking hell!" Hashirama hissed. "That wasn't me memeing, asshole, I'm serious! Why the fuck did you attack the Kyuubi?"

Said Bijuu rumbled to itself softly. It was stood locked in place some distance behind them, still under Madara's control. Said Uchiha rolled his eyes. "Oh, come on, why should you care. It was a threat."

Which was, in fact, the reason he'd enslaved it. His plan required the use of the Bijuu, yes, but he'd only gotten the thing because he knew (as much as he despised to admit it) that he couldn't match Hashirama without its power. He'd hoped to be wrong, but no; Hashirama's ten-thousand armed Buddha had been able to throw hands with a perfect-Susanno-clad-nine-tails, tearing the landscape apart almost as an afterthought. It had been exhilarating, to finally witness his friend truly stretch his power.

Exhilarating..and terrifying.

"He was an innocent!" Hashirama shot back. "Sure, he's cranky, but we had a deal! He wouldn't have hurt anyone if we'd just left him alone! And now the Uzumaki are going to have to trap him in-" (Bored, Madara threw another kunai into his stomach.) "OW! Stop fucking doing that!" Hashirama glared up at his partner. "Why are you doing this? We have our village, we have peace!"

"As if this peace will last." Madara snorted derisively. "Neither of us are immortal, and the other villages are hungry, angry at how much power we hold over them. A war will break out, mark my words."

"Yeah, and it'll happen sooner now!" Hashirama tried to gesture, but struggled to even lift his arm. "You have become the violence you claim to want to eradicate! You can't wish for peace and then slap away every olive branch anyone offers!"

"Your 'olive branches' aren't enough! They never have been!" Madara snarled. "You try to convince people with your petty kindnesses, shying away from doing what is truly necessary!"

"Madara, please." Hashirama begged, pain in his eyes. "Don't do this. You have everything you ever wanted, are you not satisfied? Am I not enough?"

Madara looked down on him, impassively. "You were never enough." He said, simply.

With his Sharingan active, he was able to see the exact moment when Hashirama gave up on him. When the Senju's shocked expression gave way to hard eyes and a thin mouth, and his muscles began to strain at his restrains, remaining chakra flaring as he prepared to continue the fight, to the death if necessary.

It was almost enough to break Madara. Almost.

But he fixed his goal in mind, and made himself walk forwards, marshalling chakra about his right hand until a blue-purple flame appeared. It was difficult to manifest a Lionfist without the Hyuuga's unique methods of outputting chakra from their tenketsu; but this bootleg version would be more than enough for his purposes. Apparently, he only needed a little of Hashirama's chakra for the plan to work.

He stopped in front of his friend and rival, raised the hand-

And a fist erupted from his chest.

His eyes widened, as the Hashirama in front of him ceased moving, turning to wood, as it was covered in his blood and guts.

Massive loss of blood and body mass. Heart currently splattered all over that rock. Brain death in approximately twenty seconds. What the...

His eyes darted down to his target's crotch, because this couldn't be, he'd known it wasn't a Wood clone because...

Oh.

Madara chuckled, coughing up blood and looking over his shoulder. "I knew...I could make you really try...if I just...pushed you far enough..."

"Congratulations." Hashirama's voice was like ice. "And now you've pushed too far."

Madara sagged.

And then he tore his own Katana out of the Wood clone with his left hand, his right gripping onto Hashirama's limb still sticking out of his own breast. He swung.

There was another spray of blood, and Hashirama reeled, his intact arm grabbing the stump at his other arm's elbow. He took one step backwards, growled, and twisted into a spinning kick that made a sonic boom as it cracked into Madara's cheek.

The Uchiha felt the snap, and then everything went numb. Somewhere out of sight, suddenly free from his control, the Kyuubi roared.

Neck broken, spine severed. Brain death in approximately three milliseconds.

But for a Shinobi, that was still time.

Zetsu? He thought.

...I'm here. Said the voice, seeming to come from just behind his ear. You have failed.

No. Not yet.

Oh?

Madara's hand, still glowing with purple chakra, gripped harder around Hashirama's severed arm, buried in his chest.

Excruciatingly slowly, as he collapsed, it began to drain away the residual chakra in the limb.

And Madara explained his plan.

Curious. Said Black Zetsu, as time ticked down, and why shouldn't I just give up on you here?

Madara's head was slowly approaching the ground. His eyes narrowed. Because I will allow absolutely nothing to stand in my way.

There was a brief moment.

I believe you. Said Black Zetsu.

And then he died.


Years later

The resting place of Madara Uchiha (and, not two metres to his left, Hashirama Senju) was always shrouded in darkness at this time of night. Darker still, for a shadow sat atop his coffin, the lid having been casually opened and dropped to one side.

Black Zetsu daydreamed, as he slowly fed chakra into the dead man's body. Nothing that could spark neurones in the Uchiha's brain, nor call his soul back from the pure lands; such things were far beyond the creature's scope. But certain biological processes, stimulated by new energy, were able to continue.

Zetsu had done this all night, every night, for nine-hundred and sixteen days. Not for the first time, he wished that the man had taken just a few more seconds before kicking the bucket.

But he was patient. Oh, above everything else, he was patient.

This night in particular, something very different happened.

Zetsu was jolted out of his reverie by a shudder that spread across Madara's whole body, even in his death, muscles spasming in response to a sudden change.

Hardly daring to hope, the shadowy figure reached down with what little physical form he could manifest, and drew apart one of the Uchiha's eyelids.

He was met with the briefest flash of purple swirls, before the eye returned to its ordinary white sclera and black pupil.

Finally. After all these years...

Zetsu threw back his head and laughed; it risked alerting the ninja guarding the mausoleum, but he couldn't bring himself to care. He had done it.

Oh, he would need to find a host, of course, and that would be tricky. A ninja with the constitution to wield the Rinnegan without being killed by it. They would have to be a young child, to give them time to adapt to the eyes and vice versa. That implied the child of a prominent clan; the Uzumaki would be his first pick, but naturally he couldn't just sneak the eyes into any one of them. Intensely family-oriented, as were most clans, and they would hardly be willing to simply stand by if one of their members suddenly developed such a rare new power. An orphan, then? But bloodlines were never simply left alone, orphans would be scooped up; no, this would have to be a child born out of chaos.

Perhaps I could arrange for something remiss to happen in Uzushiogakure.

It did not matter. Ten years, a hundred, a thousand. There would eventually be just the right candidate to wield the Rinnegan.

And Black Zetsu would be right there when they did.

Because he was patient. Oh, above everything else, he was patient.


Present Day

Naruto flipped above the head of the Buddha statue and almost died immediately.

"Can you quit with that crap?" He shouted, as one of his clones substituted with him and was promptly consumed by Obito's Preta path, and then he darted up again and swung a kick at the guy. Obito phased, and Naruto went right through him, and the Uchiha was able to get a grip on the back of his head before Gai flew in with his own kick, causing Obito to phase out again and Naruto to be released.

Behind them, a war was raging, tens of thousands of ninja all fighting against the giant Buddha statue, and the damn thing was doing a really good job, with only a few of the elite able to get past.

Obito reached an arm out towards Naruto and, from his fingers, launched a storm of black-purple chains.

More Rinnegan powers?

There are way too many of those. Kurama told him. This is what the Statue used to grapple the Bijuu, remember?

Oh, he can just shoot that outta his hand now?

Fortunately, Naruto didn't have to worry about evading them; Jiraiya jumped up above them and hurled down some earth release sludge that knocked the chains off course.

This left Naruto free to get a bead on the (Ten Tails? Statue? Whatever.) and generate the biggest Rasengan he could on short notice, fuelling it up with senjutsu and throwing it through the air.

It was caught by Madara Uchiha.

Naruto hit the floor and gulped, as Madara used his own Preta path to absorb the technique before it could reach its target. "Hello again." Said the particularly bored-looking zombie. "I must confess, I was surprised when I finally landed a good hit on you back with the Kage and found out it was a clone. I take it you're the real one now?" He tilted his head, thoughtfully. "Yes, I think so. You have enough chakra to split among lots of yourself, but Sage chakra will be a much more precious resource to you. If you made more than a few clones now you'd be kicked out of Sage Mode; and you wouldn't waste both that and such a powerful Kyuubi cloak on a clone. Well, you should, that would be an excellent deception if you could pull it off, but you wouldn't have."

Naruto grit his teeth. This was (technically) his second time tangoing with the man, and after the first time he was genuinely afraid. "The Kage. If you-"

"Oh, they're all alive." Madara told him, which made him make a confused face.

"Really? That sounds like an unnecessary risk for you to take."

"It would be, if they had the capacity to become a threat." Madara held out a hand. "I am a gracious God. Die now, and nobody else has to."

"Did you just call yourself a God unironically? Oh my lord, I thought I had a big ego..." was what Naruto said, but internally he was shitting bricks. Okay, think. He can catch anything we try to throw at the Ten-Statue-Tails, and I'm pretty sure he's still faster than me. How do we get through to it...

Which was when he remembered a fairly innocuous moment a few months back when he hadn't quite killed a member of the Akatsuki.

Kakashi! He thought, letting the Kyuubi carry his thoughts to the cloak his sensei was wearing, your Kamui thing! It's a line-of-sight no-travel-time instakill, right?

Kakashi (busy fighting Obito with the rest of the gang) thought back The Ten-Tails? But there's no way I can take out something that big-

Chakra is not an issue! Naruto interrupted. Can it be done?

I...I think so! Came the hesitant response.

Wow, you sound way less cocky in your head. Alright then, link up with me! Naruto threw a multi-shadow shuriken at Madara as a distraction, and jumped backwards, reaching out to grab Kakashi's hand. The Jonin's chakra cloak flared tenfold, and his eyes flashed.

Obito (previously beating up Tsunade) said "Shit! They've thought of it!"

He immediately disengaged, running straight towards Kakashi who was still charging his attack.

Naruto flung another Rasenshuriken at him as a deterrent, but he was still intangible, and as he ran (ignoring everything that came in his way) he shouted "Get Naruto in the statue! I'm rezzing you the moment I'm out!" towards Madara.

The undead nodded once.

Then Obito shoulder-charged Kakashi, suddenly tangible, shoving him off course and causing the rip in space-time that had been building around the Ten-Tails to instead tear a giant hole in the empty space next to it.

And then there was another ripple, and Kakashi and Obito both vanished, leaving Naruto to stagger away with his hand empty.

There was a pause.

Naruto's eyes dragged over to Madara, and he gave a nervous smile. "Uh...we've got you outnumbered?"

"Multi Wood-Clone Jutsu." Madara replied.

"Oh motherfucker-"


Kakashi disentangled himself and kicked Obito away, crashing down onto the strange floor of What in the ever loving hell is this?

The Kamui dimension stretched out around him. Flat, seemingly endless, composed of nothing but metre-square cubes of stone. Some distance away, there was a moderate sized crater in the floor, and the remnants of a sand castle. He'd glimpsed the world, once or twice, in the tear between worlds created when practicing his Mangekyo technique. But never like this.

"Let me guess." He asked, as Obito landed in front of him. "This is where you go to jerk off to Jiraiya's books without being judged-"

"Okay, for once in your life, shut the fuck up." Obito held out a hand. "Listen to me. I'm on your side, and we can win this but only if you do something very specific very fucking fast."

And then he charged forwards with a kunai in his hand.

"I-Excuse me?" Kakashi replied, drawing his own knife and parrying. "You-wait, you're on our side?"

"Yeah, obviously." Obito hissed.

"But why are you-"

"Mind Control. Or rather, body control." The Uchiha explained. With one hand, he tapped his breast. "On my heart. Same shit Sasori had on Kabuto. Same shit they had on Rin!"

"Bullshit!" Kakashi shot back, angrily. "You expect me to believe-"

"I didn't keep trying kill Minato or escape with the Kyuubi the night I attacked Konoha." Obito started, still attacking. "I delayed any further attacks for over twelve years. I counselled Nagato to delay even longer than that. I manipulated the Mizukage Yagura to stop him attacking Konoha, and made him so obviously evil they'd have to assassinate him! If Zabuzza hadn't fucked up, the Bloody Mist wouldn't have lasted more than five years!"

"Yagura was planning to-"

"I stopped Danzo from taking over the world dozens of times, I didn't kill Hinata when she killed Deidara, I didn't kill Naruto at the Kage summit!"

"You said you were waiting to draw out Killer B!"

"Yeah, that was the excuse!"

Kakashi kicked Obito in the chest and paused. "Huh. Wait yeah, that would have been a really stupid thing to do. We were all weak from fighting, and we planned to hide B away anyway-."

"Yeah no shit!" Obito shouted, clearly very annoyed. "And then I've managed to not kill any of you all war, and, most damningly, I've failed to kill you now even though we both know I'm leagues more powerful than you!"

Kakashi blocked a great fireball with an Earth wall, and thought about it.

Then he said "Oh my God you are still a good guy."

"Yeah! Thank you!" Obito shouted.

"But I thought after I killed Rin-"

"Motherfucker I had the Sharingan on! I saw her literally asking for it! I'm pissed, sure, but I'm not gonna 180 on my morales and try and doom the world!" Obito literally fought Kakashi off with one hand while he used the other to pinch the bridge of his nose. "Look, I'm telling you all this because I'm finally away from Madara and Black Zetsu, who are the ones who can give me direct orders I have to obey, and, funny thing, they are trying to doom the world!"

Kakashi shook his head. "I...fuck."

"What? Any more problems?"

"No, it's just..." the albino couldn't help but laugh. "It's good to see you again."

Obito grinned. "Yeah, likewise. Okay, listen up; I need to become the Jinchurikki of the Ten-Tails."

Kakashi's eyes widened. "Okay, now I have a problem."

"I figured you would, but listen very closely." Obito tossed his kunai, which Kakashi dodged, and manifested a Rinnegan Rod in his hand instead. "Madara is out there right now. He's got a bazillion powers and he regenerates from everything. He's already demonstrated against the Kage that he can escape from any sealing jutsu you throw at him. The only thing you have that might work is the Reaper Death Seal, but nobody's strong enough to use that on him except maybe Naruto, who doesn't even know it. Madara can and will kill your entire army man by man if he has to. And hey, speaking of Naruto: By now, he's fucking dead, and the Ten-Tails is gonna be born completed any second. We're fucked."

Kakashi felt a stab of pain at the thought of his student. "And your plan helps how?"

"Black Zetsu loves to talk." Obito chuckled. "The Ten-Tails Jinchurikki gets something called Yin-Yang release, and that comes with a power called the Truth Seeking Orbs. They punch through anything, and most importantly, they stop any kind of regeneration. If I mantle the Juubi, I'll be strong enough to beat Madara, and have more than enough powers to kill him properly. Should be able to kill Zetsu in the bargain too."

"And when he's dead? And you're a god among men?" Kakashi asked.

Obito's expression turned grim. "Then I use the Rinne Tensei. I'm bringing Rin back, and if I can, everyone who's died in this war along with her. And then I'll be dead, and this world will finally be rid of all our bullshit." He met Kakashi's eyes. "I'll even prioritise your kiddies if you want. But trying to become the Ten-Tails is something I've been expressly forbidden to do, so none of that's going to happen unless you can punch the fucker out of my heart right now."

Kakashi thought about it. Nodded. "This is a terrible idea...fuck it, Alexa, play 'You Give Love a Bad Name'."

"I...I don't get it."

"Don't worry about it, just get your ass over here!"


Naruto was not feeling very cash money at the moment.

"Hey, trying to deal with someone who creates a bunch of duplicates is a massive pain!" He shouted, at nobody in particular.

"Oh, really?" Tsunade shouted back. "Is it annoying to deal with people who abuse clones, Naruto Uzumaki?"

He ignored her, instead jumping up to punch one of the Wood Clones in it's Susanno's face. That staggered the tower-sized avatar, but didn't shatter it, so Naruto landed on the floor and stretched out with his chakra chains, wrapping around one foot and tugging. The behemoth fell, and another Naruto clone jumped in underneath it, holding up a Rasenshuriken. The Wood clone impaled itself on the technique as it crashed down, and dissolved into so much plant matter.

The real Madara, waiting by the Juubi, made another one, and it moved to join the fight.

"This isn't working!" Jiraiya stated the bloody obvious, preoccupied with his own opponents. Each of them, at any given moment, was fighting at least two at once. "He's just screwing with us!"

Naruto growled. "And we can't exactly whittle his chakra down, he has as much as he needs. I'll try and break through the clones! Be ready to capitalise! If you can disintegrate him, I can use my chains to keep him that way, at least until Kakashi comes back!"

"You think we can just trap him wherever Kamui sends stuff? Will that work?"

"I'm accepting better ideas?!"

Nobody gave one, so Naruto narrowed his eyes and focused.

The next Susanno-clad clone to attack him also got punched in the face. But this time the fist was bigger than its head.

Naruto's Kyuubi avatar roared, towering over its opponents and knocking them left and right with abandon. He bit down on one, swung it about in his jaws until it began to fall apart, and swung the remnants at another, before spinning and batting four of them away with his tails. They went flying, and when he turned back, there was a Bijuu bomb charging in his mouth; the projectile engulfed the squad of clones in fire.

He didn't bother checking their condition, charging straight towards the real Madara with every intention of pummelling him the dirt.

Madara snorted, and flashed blue.

Oh, come on. I was really hoping I'd just messed up the size estimation...

"That is his Susanno?" Tsunade looked up at the weapon that had decimated the not-quite-five Kage. And then she looked higher, and higher, and higher...

(Okay, trying to get a good sense of scale can be pretty hard for these things, but like, imagine the Kyuubi, right? Really big. Bout as high as the cliffs of Konoha while on four legs. Well that's what Naruto's avatar was doing now, and he barely came higher than this megazord-looking-motherfucker's knees.)

He craned his neck upwards and fired off another Bijuu bomb towards it's head, but Madara just pulled up his Susanno's sword and unsheathed about a kilometre of it, deflecting the projectile away. Then he resheathed it and literally bitchslapped the Kyuubi's face, knocking it to the ground. Kurama howled in rage, and Naruto was doing something similar, but as they tried to get up Madara grabbed the Fox by the throat and lifted it up to his eye level.

Which, since he was floating in the middle of the Susanno's head, meant that Naruto was literally dangling miles above the ground.

"Hey! I can see my house from here!" Naruto reacted, pretty much instinctively.

Madara smiled, his other hand on his sword's hilt. Then he brought the hand up, punched right through the heart of the golden avatar, and grabbed Naruto.

The Uzumaki gasped as he was crushed on all sides, and (sick of this happening-) he was yanked straight out of the Fox shell. And then, still smiling, Madara pulled the arm back, and threw him across the battlefield.

The acceleration broke most of the bones in his body and concussed him. Kurama healed that easily enough, which left him fully cognisant of the fact that he was going on a trip, like a fucking rocket ship, flying through the sky, little Einstein style.

The stars were beautiful tonight, and he was moving at a hell of a pace, and with the ground so far below, he could see everything going on below him, lights twinkling from the attacks of tiny little ninja all the way on the floor.

It was...really kinda fun, actually.

Guess who came along to ruin it?

A barrage of wire flew up towards him, wrapping around his midriff. He slowed, then stopped, as the wire groaned under his momentum, and then he found himself being yanked backwards and down.

His senses told him exactly what was going on, but he just sighed and let himself go limp, as he slammed into a dark figure and was caught by a strong pair of arms.

"Well damn." Grinned Sasuke Uchiha. "Looks like you just fell for me."

"Uuuuugh. Drop me." Naruto rolled his eyes.

Sasuke acquiesced, and they both bumped fists, then immediately began running back to the battle.

"What the hell took you so long?" Naruto demanded.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't winning the entire war quick enough for you?" His teammate shot back.

"Considering what we've still got to deal with? Yeah!"

"Well excuse the heck out of me! You're lucky I showed up now; I have no idea how he hasn't killed you yet!" Sasuke pointed as they ran, to where Madara's Susanno still dwarfed everything else in the landscape.

"Yeah..." Naruto frowned, touching his midriff and the suspicious absence of giant sword buried in it. "That's a really good point. Why didn't he kill me?"


Winning a fight against an opponent who was trying to lose really should not have been so difficult. Obito supposed he shouldn't be so hard on his teammate; the merger he'd done with a white Zetsu had drastically improved his body's speed and strength. Combine that with the Rinnegan's link to the statue of the Outer Path, that was even now flooding his body with Bijuu chakra, and the visual improvement of the Rinnegan itself...Itt was no wonder his body was able to keep up with Kakashi, even moving on autopilot as it was.

Fight the Leaf ninja. The seal told him. Defend the Rinnegan. Revive Madara.

Shut it. He said back. I'm the best genjutsu expert in the world, and you can fucking tell Itachi I said that. Nobody controls me.

Fortunately, Kakashi was able to come in clutch. Obito kicked the Copy-Ninja up, making him somersault behind his own stone wall, before immediately smashing back through said wall in a hail of rocks. The hail was enough of an excuse for Obito to briefly close his eyes, but he'd glimsed Kakashi's previous position before doing so, and the self-preservation control forced him to bring one arm up to block a kunai to his face. "You dumbass!" He shouted at the now totally exposed ninja, who launched a chidori with his other hand. Obito brought his own left hand up and jabbed forwards with a Rinnegan Rod, the chakra absorbing material punching right throught the centre of the lightning blade and into Kakashi's palm.

Kakashi...popped.

Oh you sly bastard, I didn't even see that coming!

The lightning clone exploded, electricity coursing through Obito's body and making him briefly spasm. While he did so, the real Kakashi (the one who had stayed hidden behind the wall) charged up in front of him with another chidori.

The seal inside him, which had spent years trying desperately to manipulate Obito, finally found itself insufficient to stop his self destructive tendencies.

The chidori blew a hole straight through his heart.

Obito blinked, as the mind control was released, and said "Yo, holy shit."

Then he gasped, both in pain, and at the presence in his mind finally being gone. "Ack...Oh, fucking finally."

"This better have been worth it." Kakashi panted, clearly exhausted. "I never thought killing my teammates would be something I'd come to get sick of."

"Heh. Oh, it was worth it." Obito looked up at him, and grinned.

"You always were so gullible, weren't you?"

Kakashi froze.

And then Obito snorted and said "Hah! Fucking got you there, didn't I? Nah chill I'm still a good guy, let's do this."

He grabbed Kakashi's arm, and space warped around them.


Obito immediately booted Kakashi away the moment they re-entered the world, before landing (in a heap. Come on, he had no heart, nobody who isn't Naruto or Hashirma can survive that) on top of the raging Ten-Tails. From it's movement, it was practically ready. Perfect.

"HEY! LIMP-DICK!" He shouted. Madara, up in his perfect Susanno, turned around to see him, and his eyes widened. Obito grinned. "I fucking win, bitch."

"NO!" Madara unsheathed his sword and swung it downwards, but

"SIX PATHS! TEN-TAILS COFFIN SEAL!" he was too late. The blade was repulsed by an explosion of force outwards from the beast, and Obito screamed.

Energy tore into his body, it felt like every cell inside him was on fire, putting the suffering the Susanno had caused to shame. The creature beneath him began to buckle and shrink, as it's very being was pulled up through his hands and into his body.

It was terrifying, it was rapturous, it was more power than he'd ever felt in his life, it was...

...wrong.

He looked up, past Madara. There, in the distance, he could see Naruto approaching. A very alive looking Naruto.

"You..." He gasped. "You didn't-"

"Seal the rest of the Kyuubi? No, I did not." Madara sighed. "You really need to do a better job of hiding your emotions. You were obviously going to betray me, and frankly I don't trust Zetsu to do anything right." (There was an outraged "Hey!" from some shadow or another.) "And since my Rinnegan isn't real, and I'm dead, I couldn't absorb the Ten-Tails before you did. Fortunately, all I had to do to stop you...was nothing."

"You, AARGH!" Obito collapsed, brain already starting to cloud. "You...You played me like a damn fiddle!"

"No, fiddles require skill." Madara replied, sounding bored. "I played you like a ryo-store slide whistle. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a date with the first Hokage, and he always pouts when I'm late."

The Susanno began to walk away, and Obito blacked out.


Naruto and Sasuke reached the battlefield just as the transformation finished, which predictably caused another explosion. "Okay, I haven't been present since we met Nagato, what's in the name of the Raikage's thunder-cock is happening?" Sasuke shouted, trying to see the figure stood in the place of the Ten-Tails through the cloud of dust and chakra.

"Obito mantled the Juubi!" Kakashi told them, jumping over. "That was their plan the whole time; to become the Jinchurikki of the Ten-Tails!"

"Jinchurikki of the-" Sasuke glanced across at Naruto, who was his point of reference for how overpowered that might be. "You kidding me? Nine is bad enough!"

"And the power increase is exponential." Naruto gulped, attention entirely focused on what was going on in front of him.

"But Obito's betrayed them!" Kakashi told them. "Thank fuck. He's planning on using it to take down Madara! He's on our side!"

"Um." Naruto interceded, as the dust began to clear. "I...don't really think he's on anyone's side."

Sasuke glanced at him. "That's a very ominous statement. What do you mean?"

Standing up in a large crater where the Juubi had once been was Obito Uchiha. He was shirtless (of course), and any hint of his previous scarring was completely gone. His hair had turned white, a cloak seemed to come out of his skin around the shoulders, and there were ten black magatama markings about his neck. A black staff hung from one hand, and ten black orbs floated in a circle behind his back. His eyes opened, Rinnegan and Mangekyo Sharingan burning with rage.

"He's unbalanced." Naruto explained, taking an involuntary step backwards as he got a real feeling of the chakra coming off the man. It was enormous. "He's only got half of Kurama's chakra."

"So he's weaker?" Sasuke guessed.

Naruto let out a very nervous laugh. "Hehe, sure. But he's only got the Yang half. And he has no way to regulate it, it's all up in his system."

"Which means?" Sasuke pressured.

"Yang is light, but it's also confidence, masculinity, aggression. An overload of Yang does the same thing it did to me. Makes you enraged, overconfident, unthinking." Naruto gulped.

"A picture perfect demon host."

The Jinchurikki of the imperfect Ten-Tails took one look at them, and roared.


A few dozen miles away, Hinata paused in her mad flight to the battlefield, and said "Oh, shit."

"Something wrong?" Asked Hashirama, from her left.

"Yep. We're gonna need more power." With that, Hinata turned ninety degrees, and began flying as fast as she could towards a very specific location.


Kishimoto, looking up from his computer: "Oh, goddamit, he's taking liberties again!"

Yeah. This is my Black Zetsu, this is my Madara backstory, and this is my Obito. I'll be taking a page out of Kishi's book and adding more flashbacks as we go on to demonstrate more of what was going on behind the scenes.

For now, though, we have the quickest heel-face-heel turn since Kylo Ren in The Last Jedi. I explained as early as the timeskip that Naruto's rage-mode while channeling the Kyuubi was due to his chakra being massively unbalanced and dwarfed by the supply of Kurama, more than any active sabotage on the Fox's part.

Obito, however, has to deal with both of those things; in a significantly greater magnitude than Naruto ever did, and with only one, implanted, rinngean.

He's fucking lost it.

And now they're gonna have to fight him.

Yaaaay...