Everything narrows down to a thousand chirping birds, a haunting, meaty squelch, and three hearts beating (and breaking) frantically out of tune.
[You are ̴̤͒s̶̥̚ỹ̸̹ñ̵̡c̴̘̅h̶͍r̷̛̫o̶̠͛n̵̙̈́i̸͖̒z̴̙͝ỉ̴̳ṅ̵͙g̶͇̊ ̵̨̕w̴̮͆i̵͂͜t̵̨̽h̶̞͒ the identity "̵̰̕U̴̜̚c̸̈́͜ḧ̷͔́ị̸͛ḧ̴̡́a̷̼͒ ̸̜͂Ȯ̶̰b̶̝͛i̵̙̐t̵̬̒ǫ̵͛".]
Rin starts to fall. Something wretched and raw tears out of Kakashi's throat as she slides right off his redred arm and hits the ground with a final, terrible thud.
[̷͓̿S̶̭͝y̸͕̑n̸̤̓c̶̝̆h̴̰͒ŗ̵͌o̶͉͛n̷͓͌ï̸̫z̷̡̐å̶͓t̵̘͆į̶̅ŏ̶̹ṇ̶̔: 10%]
His world ends with a shuttered last breath and a blood-stained smile.
[Synch̷̦̕r̸̬͊ō̸̱n̸̨͌i̷͓͐z̸̧͒ation: 35%]
Grief and disbelief make way for white hot rage, and his eyes burn with the swell of it, tomoe spinning with sick sadness and the anger-agony of loss in two entirely too young (old) faces.
[Synchronization̵̠̈:̵̤͒ ̵̿ͅ6̵̐ͅ7%]
The Mangekyo Sharingan blooms, as always, from tragedy, sprouting beautifully and mercilessly amid blood and death and terror and the unavoidable consequences of opening your head and heart and soul and letting people in.
[Synchronization: 98%]
Knowledge burrows into his mind as the pinwheels come to a stop, and he realizes immediately that a separate personal dimension was not the only power he unlocked.
[You have successfully synchronized.]
The shock offsets his fury enough to allow him to regain a cool head, and he wastes no time utilizing his new-old skills to forge a victory from the broken shards of a once hopeless defeat.
Obito is and always has been an optimist. Muyoung does not know the meaning of surrender. There exists no possibility that the combination of the two of them would give up here.
He reaches for a quick, devastating attack, one that responds to both his Uchiha blood and the divinity in his bones. Holy fire floods the clearing with no warning, no hand signs, devouring the Kiri-nin who have no time to react and swallowing even their screams.
The only oasis in the sea of flames is the perimeter surrounding Kakashi and Rin, untouched but for the blood beginning to pool beneath her, which is ominously reflecting a crimson moon.
He takes a single step, and his second power, Blink, rises up to meet him, easy as anything.
His second step lands him next to his comrades, and white light shines down as he casts Divine Blessing upon them both. Not even Senju Tsunade could fix Rin now, but in contrast to that incontrovertible truth, the gaping wound on- through- her chest heals at an incredible rate, as if it were never there to begin with.
Rin breathes once, twice, then more, continuously, steady and unburdened and alive. Kakashi goes from the still unconsciousness of exhaustion and pain to the deep sleep of the uninjured and unwary. Their enemies are dust in the wind.
They are safe, for now.
And he-
There is no third step.
He stumbles, falls to his knees, slouches over his teammates in silent suffering as his body forcibly transforms, acclimating to his myriad powers and abilities with cruel efficiency. His hair turns white, and his arm and eye regenerate, disintegrating the fibrous plant material that had replaced them in one agonizing fell swoop. His wounds and scars disappear as skin and blood and bone deteriorate and reform over and over again until his new body finds balance between holiness and evilness, mortality and immortality, between human and god and everything and nothing.
Until he is that much closer to being absolute.
It is a tortuous, tedious crawl towards equilibrium. He is in more pain than he can ever remember being in, even accounting for the forty years he spent brainwashed and the first time he went through this later on. His pure stats are not even a tenth of what they had been at the time, and he is experiencing every metamorphosis at once.
Anyone else would die from the pain of it. Death, at this point, would be a welcome relief. He is not so weak.
He still has comrades to protect, right in front of him. The first in so long, decades or more, to lay claim to his heart when he had not even been sure he still had one. He refuses to let them die here, to repeat the tragedy of the original Muyoung, the only other person to make him care - make him feel human - in spite of everything.
And… There is still his original mission, a goal that has not changed even now that he finds himself in a different dimension. Without reading the succession of windows popping up in front of him, he knows that he has not escaped from The Underworld or its influence. He has only taken a detour, and eventually, he will return and continue his crusade to strengthen and unite humanity in preparation for the Great Calamity. There is no other option.
Thus, he struggles on.
Once the pain subsides, he finds himself at a crossroads, feels that irresistible pull, that siren song promising peace and detachment from worldly matters, freedom from the human condition and all that could cause him harm, the sweet serenity of a god's objectivity.
(Rin's blood has soaked through his tattered pants. His eye throbs in Kakashi's socket. A threadbare connection to another world glimmers faintly.)
He does not need Bae Suzy to pull him back from the brink, this time. Muyoung had forgotten, been made to forget, but Obito has spent countless months thinking of nothing but reuniting with his precious people, has never once wavered in his conviction to return to them, and it is that steely certainty that keeps him from escaping to the tranquility and painlessness of true godhood.
Being mortal will always hurt. Being mortal will always be worth it. This is a truth he has known, even when everything he ever was or could be had been scraped clean, when he knew nothing of himself, not even his own name.
He shakes and breaks apart and is rebuilt stronger and steadier, a demigod brimming with divine grace, born anew.
Utterly spent and panting from the effort, he falls back on his hands, stares up at the unfamiliar sky, and spots a bright red star twinkling merrily in the darkness, like a light in a storm calling him to harbor - the Star of the Absolute, happy to reclaim its most promising contractor.
He smiles, activates its AOE buff, and reaches out to the remnants of a specter through the slipshod seal that had nearly killed Rin as red light engulfs the clearing and his right eye pulses violet.
[The effect of Title: "Asura's Vassal" has triggered a physical transformation.[
[You have acquired the "Rinnegan".]
[The Rinnegan's "Six Paths Technique" has merged with the unique skill "Six Paths".]
It's not quite Hell Path that he taps into - or, in fact, any of the paths, as far as he can tell. Asura's power in this realm is tied firmly to the Rinnegan and displayed through seven jutsu. The physical Paths he has already conquered are blocked off from him, same as the The Underworld itself, but his authority as Asura's Vassal allows him to step into a similar space in this dimension, one where specters rest and recover before returning to the mortal realm.
It is here where he finds his quarry, floating serenely in a giant lake inside some sort of cavern, a personal piece of the spirit world carved out for one of its oldest and strongest.
The Three-Tails is massive, perhaps even larger than the few fully matured dragons Muyoung had seen in the past. Certainly bulkier and with a presence that cannot be ignored. It spots him almost immediately.
"An Uchiha," it rumbles, surprised. "Your chakra… It reminds me of the Sage."
The Sage of Six Paths? ...Perhaps he was an alternate version of Asura or possibly another vassal. It would make sense, considering the similarities. And it would explain his sudden acquisition of the Rinnegan, which had been regarded as a fairy tale by most. His Clan Head would certainly be shocked to find it whirling about in the skull of the Uchiha's black sheep.
"But you are not him," the Sanbi concludes, treating him as a curiosity. "His successor?"
Obito smiles, amiably, and it would be foreign to Muyoung, but Obito is a cheerful, friendly person by nature, and it is Obito at the helm in this life. "In a way, I think. He might actually be my sempai."
"Hmm," the great beast muses, not indicating an opinion either way, "and what, might I ask, do you intend to do with that legacy? Why have you come to me?"
Then, Obito makes it - him - a deal that he cannot refuse.
.
.
He cuts his hair with one of Kakashi's kunai, shears it short and ragged without care for how it turns out - simply determined not to bear resemblance to the man who had attempted to control him and who had nearly killed Rin - and absently burns the excess as he leans back against one of the many pillars decorating his personal dimension, thoughtful.
In front of him, Kakashi and Rin have been laid out neatly on the bed rolls he nicked from their supplies. Blankets hide most of their tattered appearances, but the blood and grime is apparent on and utterly incongruent with their young, childish faces.
Muyoung wouldn't pick up on it, wouldn't truly understand it if he did, but looking at them now, Obito can tell his death has been hard on them. The war has taken its own toll, obviously, but they were trained how to deal with it, how to compartmentalize and rationalize the violence and murder in a way that allowed them to function normally afterwards.
But no class or presentation could have possibly prepared them for the very real deaths of their teammates. No amount of words would ever have been enough. Obito couldn't bear the possibility, when Rin was captured. Had refused to consider any other outcome as soon as she was taken. He knows it broke something in Rin and Kakashi, leaving him to die, no matter what anyone else might have thought going into the mission.
For all that Kakashi had seemed an emotionless prick, considering how they parted, he isn't so surprised to find his standoffish teammate so affected.
Obito died for him, after all.
And Rin...
She had always been his friend, even if he had wanted more. Now, with forty years and two lives between them, his romantic feelings for her have settled into a steady, platonic love, solidified by years of friendship and support. Regardless, there's no way she wouldn't have grieved.
They would be overjoyed to find that Obito still lives, that he miraculously survived. Obito himself is almost overwhelmed with the urge to reach out and touch them again, to feel the beat of their hearts and the warmth of their skin, to have physical proof that they are alive and here with him- right here, after so long. Months and months of worry and longing and driving off despair with the sparse hope of escaping that damned cave and seeing them again.
And yet-
...He's still contemplating dropping them off somewhere safe before they wake up and see him.
He misses them dearly, has spent so long desperately wishing he was still with them, still in Konoha, that they had never parted even if he doesn't regret sacrificing himself, but-
But just as Muyoung had struck out on his own and done almost everything alone, Obito can't quite bring himself to go back to being someone's subordinate. Can't imagine slotting into the system only to be tossed right back out into the fighting in order to prolong a pointless war like nothing's changed, like Obito hasn't changed so fundamentally. Like there is any time to waste when the future of their entire species is at risk.
Madara is off his rocker, but not everything he's said is complete nonsense. Shinobi as they are now are detrimental to humanity as a whole. It's the same problem humans had engineered themselves in The Underworld and why they had been so helpless against the Demon Gods when they finally invaded. Humans stand no chance against them because they can't stop killing each other long enough to unite and face the greater threat.
Before the dimensions collide, Obito is considering picking up where Muyoung left off and making himself the greater threat, becoming a villain so terrible they have no choice but to set aside their petty grudges and ally against him and hopefully extend some of that Village loyalty to each other. Maybe then, they would be strong enough to fight off the Demon Gods for good.
If he goes through with this, he would be making himself an enemy of the entire world. An enemy of Konoha, his home, and its ninja, his sworn comrades. An enemy of Kakashi and Rin and Minato-sensei and Kushina.
Another reason to hide the truth.
It would be cruel to deny them the knowledge that he is alive, but would it not be even more cruel to reunite with them before going on to wage war against the world? The name Obito can be buried alongside the boy beneath those rocks, just as Yoosoung was discarded in order to hold onto something more dear. Muyoung can continue to bear the weight of his species' survival and the integrity of two dimensions on his back.
It's a burden he put upon himself, a mission personally issued and undertaken, and he will see it through - without making use of an identity that will only cause pain and feelings of betrayal.
It really is a pity, then, that Rin wakes up right as he makes that decision.
"Obito?"