"Who?"
"Rin?"
Obito's head, which had just begun to lift, froze in place. He stared at Jin, the eyes behind his goggles trembling as he blurted out without hesitation, "No, that's impossible. Rin wouldn't die."
She was so kind... "With me, Kakashi, and Sensei protecting her, how could she die?"
However, everyone eventually dies. Whether they are killed, take their own lives, or succumb to illness, life eventually withers away. Sometimes that end comes slowly, and other times it happens in a heartbeat, entirely without warning. Jin remained silent, watching Obito as a bloody hue slowly crept into his gaze.
Caw!
The cry of a crow echoed.
The red light coalesced into three pitch-black tomoe, spinning slowly until they became the eye of a crow reflected in Obito's pupils. The bird flapped its wings, dropping a single black feather into his vision.
The boy's expression went blank. In a flash, the world around him changed. No longer was he sitting on a cushion in front of a table; he was in the middle of a forest. A silent, oppressive air of slaughter hung over the area. He was on a battlefield.
'The war... where's Rin? Where's Kakashi? Where's Sensei?' Obito's battle instincts screamed at him to reach for the kunai at his waist, but a sudden, agonizing pain tore through him. He let out a muffled groan. As his senses returned, he realized he was trapped beneath a massive boulder. He had lost all feeling in half of his body.
He coughed up blood. Weak and immobile, he looked up in his final moments to see his best friend, Kakashi, staring down at him with an expression of profound grief. It turned out that even a cold, arrogant guy like that could cry.
Just like in the original timeline, Obito told Kakashi that he had to protect Rin at all costs. He then gave his one remaining Sharingan to his friend before losing consciousness. He felt his body grow heavy, as if he had fallen into deep water.
He kept sinking... sinking... until the scene shifted again. His feet touched solid ground, and he opened his eyes.
He finally saw his beloved Rin. She still looked the same—gentle, with that beautiful smile.
Except this time, a blinding bolt of lightning was piercing through her chest.
"No!" Obito let out a gut-wrenching scream. He scrambled toward her on all fours. Closer... he finally reached her side. At the same time, he saw her killer. With white hair fluttering in the wind, the man turned to look at him with cold, dead eyes. It was his teammate, his best friend, his guardian of Rin, and his rival—Kakashi Hatake.
Boom!
Obito snapped.
A violent explosion of negative emotion erupted from him like a shockwave. It was so intense it nearly blew away the parasitic heart-worm Jin had embedded within him.
Inside the Fugaku household, the living room was still.
Jin maintained the Genjutsu while using his [En] to guide the heart-worm. Following the threads of causality, the worm delved deep into Obito's mind, facing the colossal tide of negativity head-on. As the boy's ears twitched, the familiar system notification rang out as expected.
[SYSTEM: Detecting strong negative emotions. Source: Obito Uchiha...]
[CURRENT: Negative Emotion Accumulation: 10%... 20%... 30%... 100%... 200%... 500%...]
In an instant, the gauge broke past the thousand mark. It was more negative emotion than Jin had gathered during the entire meeting at Naka Shrine.
Jin fell silent. At this moment, he truly understood the weight behind the words Obito spoke in the original story: "I will create a world where Rin exists."
1000%... 1100%... 1500%... the negative emotions continued to surge. Finally, it stopped abruptly at 2000%.
At that same moment, the panel chimed.
[Yin Release: lv3 (142/10,000) -> lv4 (7,445/100,000)]
[NOTE: lv5... Automatically unlocks the Mangekyō Sharingan]
Jin: "..."
Once again, he gained a profound understanding of the "inherently evil Uchiha." The property of [Yin] grew stronger with hatred, distortion, and extremism. It was exactly like the moment Itachi killed the entire clan and told Sasuke, "Hate me."
Jin picked up his teacup and took a sip. Looking up, he saw Obito across from him, lost in madness. His face was twisted in agony, his body shaking like a leaf. His fists were clenched so tightly that his nails dug into his palms, drawing blood.
"Open," the boy whispered.
Pop.
The Genjutsu shattered like a mirror's reflection. As his consciousness returned, Obito collapsed backward onto his cushion.
Huff... huff... He breathed heavily, gasping for air.
Drip... drip... Cold sweat poured down his back, soaking his clothes.
He seemed to still be caught in the lingering horror of the illusion. He lashed out, clawing at the air as he roared, "Kakashi, I'll kill you!"
He sat up abruptly, only to find a pair of calm eyes watching him. Obito froze, his movements halting as he looked at his surroundings. His knees buckled, and he slumped back onto the cushion.
"A Genjutsu?" His heart was still hammering against his ribs. The rage hadn't quite faded, but a sliver of logic returned. Obito's voice was dry and raspy as he looked at Jin with a complicated gaze. "What happened in there... was it real or fake?"
"What do you think, Obito?" Jin poured a fresh cup of tea and handed it to the boy. "If you believe it's real, then it's real. If you believe it's fake, then it's fake."
Truth becomes fiction when fiction is true; real becomes unreal when the unreal is real.
"Congratulations, Obito."
'What is there to congratulate? I died, Rin died... is this kid messing with me?'
Obito felt a surge of anger. He reached out to take the cup, half-tempted to splash the tea in Jin's face. But as he looked down at the ripples in the tea, he saw a pair of crimson eyes reflecting back at him. Obito froze. He instinctively leaned closer to the cup to get a better look, eventually reaching up with his free hand to touch his eye sockets. There was no mistake—it was the Sharingan.
Obito looked back at Jin. The boy offered a small smile, as bright and dazzling as the morning sun rising over the horizon.
"You..."
"I..."
His throat moved, but the words wouldn't come. Obito gripped the teacup and lowered his head in embarrassment.
Just then, the curtain to the kitchen was pulled back, and Itachi's slightly chubby face poked out. "Nii-san, breakfast is ready."
Jin nodded gently and spoke to Obito in a warm voice. "You brought sweets, so you should try my mother's cooking in return."
Obito set the teacup down and scratched the back of his head awkwardly. Since things had turned out this way...
"Then, let's eat."
The boy's emotions came and went quickly. However, Jin knew that the 2000% spike in negative emotion would remain as a jagged scar across Obito's heart. It wouldn't heal easily. As for whether Obito would go and pick a fight with Kakashi later, that wasn't Jin's concern.
Jin glanced at his [Yin Release], which had leaped to LV4. With a thought, he recalled the heart-worm from Obito's mind.
The worm emerged looking fat and satisfied, struggling to crawl back. It gave a little burp before returning to Jin's mind, where he promptly sealed it away in his "Unconscious Domain" for future use.
"Food's here!"