Chapter 272: It's Me
"Uchiha Obito."
Kitahara Kaede spoke the name aloud.
Even the wind seemed to stop within the forest.
Obito remained motionless, his eye fixed on Kaede.
This man...
How did he know?
In the eastern canopy, Kakashi froze.
Obito?
The image of Obito giving him his eye as the boulders collapsed flashed through his mind.
He couldn't believe it.
He dared not admit that the bizarre masked man before them might truly be Obito.
What if... this was merely a trap Kaede had constructed to delay the enemy?
If Kakashi rushed out impulsively now, he would only endanger everyone.
"Uchiha Obito? Ha... hahahahaha!"
Obito burst into laughter again.
"Don't you find your own claim ridiculous?!"
Kaede didn't answer. He merely watched him in silence.
Obito's laughter gradually stopped.
Kaede's refusal to respond made him even less certain.
His gaze uncontrollably drifted toward the black-cloaked figure beside Kaede.
Only a pair of brown eyes was visible, quietly looking at him.
Those eyes...
An irrational sense of familiarity rose within Obito, making him instinctively want to look away.
He turned his gaze aside quickly, his voice cold as ice.
"Do you find this childish performance amusing? Anything to stall for time?"
Kaede continued to ignore him and turned toward Rin.
"Rin, you can remove your mask now."
Rin's heart hammered violently.
Obito was alive?
Impossible!
She and Kakashi had watched him disappear beneath the boulders with their own eyes...
But... what if it was true?
And even if it wasn't, removing the mask would allow Kakashi to see she was alive.
Rin slowly raised her hands and loosened the cord beneath her hood.
The black cloak slid from her shoulders.
Obito's body stiffened completely. His breathing beneath the mask became chaotic.
That short, light-brown hair. That slender figure...
No!
Rin was dead!
"Enough!"
Obito suddenly roared.
Rin stopped halfway. Her mask had already loosened, and she looked at him uncertainly.
Obito turned his back on her and walked toward the barely conscious Six-Tails Jinchuriki.
"I can't believe I allowed such a cheap trick to delay me. What a waste of time."
He raised his right hand and aimed his palm at the Jinchuriki.
Kaede didn't move. He merely gave Rin a look.
Continue.
Rin pulled off the mask.
Her delicate face, streaked with tears, was revealed to everyone.
The wind lifted the hair across her forehead and made her eyes sting.
She looked at Obito's back, her voice trembling uncontrollably.
"Are you... really Obito?"
Obito's hand stopped in midair.
Less than a foot separated him from the Jinchuriki, yet it was as though an uncrossable abyss had appeared between them. He could no longer move forward an inch.
In the eastern tree, Kakashi looked as if lightning had struck him.
His lips moved beneath the mask, his mind completely blank.
That face...
How could he possibly mistake it?
On countless nights, he had dreamed of Rin standing before him, smiling as she asked whether he was pushing himself too hard again.
But whenever he woke, only cold stone awaited him at the memorial, reminding him that Rin had been gone for a long time.
Whoosh!
Kakashi leapt from the canopy.
Rin turned at the sound. The instant she saw the familiar silver-haired youth, tears flooded from her eyes.
Kakashi stopped several paces away and stared at her, his chest rising and falling violently.
"Rin...?"
"Is it really you?"
Rin raised a hand to wipe her tears, but they refused to stop. She could only nod hard, her voice breaking with sobs.
"It's me, Kakashi. It's me!"
After hearing her confirm it herself, Kakashi remained rooted in place for a long time.
Everything before him seemed like an unreal dream.
But that living presence, that gentle gaze...
She was truly alive.
Obito stood with his back to them. The face behind his mask had lost every trace of color, and his extended hand remained frozen in the air.
Rin's voice came from behind him, exactly the same as in his memories—gentle enough to make his heart ache.
He had imagined countless times that he would create a world where Rin existed.
Yet now that Rin truly stood here, all he wanted was to flee.
He didn't want her to see what he had become.
He didn't want her to know how many unspeakable things he had done for that so-called plan.
What would Rin think if she learned everything?
Obito is a bad person.
He could almost hear her disappointed voice.
Obito slowly lowered his hand. The half of his body composed of White Zetsu tissue trembled uncontrollably beneath the black robe.
Rin's suppressed sobs filled the forest.
Each one struck Obito's heart like a hammer.
After what seemed like a century, he gathered every ounce of strength and turned around with great difficulty.
Rin stood beside Kakashi. Her eyes were red from crying, but she continued staring directly at the mask covering Obito's face.
Kakashi instinctively positioned himself half a step in front of her, his hand already moving toward the kunai at his waist.
Obito finally saw Rin's face clearly.
She wasn't lying in cold mud. Her eyes weren't closed. She hadn't become a name carved onto a memorial that would never answer him again.
She stood there alive, tears hanging from her face.
She was no different from the Rin who had always worried whenever her comrades were hurt.
The mask suddenly felt suffocating.
Rin took one step forward.
Kakashi wanted to stop her, but his outstretched hand froze halfway.
She looked at Obito. Fear and heartache filled her beautiful eyes, but stronger than either was a stubborn refusal to give up.
"Obito, is it really you?"
Obito instinctively retreated half a step.
He opened his mouth, but couldn't produce a single word.
As he stared at Rin, an image flashed through his mind.
The boy who was always late, always showing off, and foolishly dreamed of becoming Hokage.
But Rin was alive.
That fact caused crack after crack to spread through the world he had built from despair.
He could no longer treat the past as a nightmare he might forget.
Obito swallowed several times before finally admitting it.
"...It's me."