The first place he went was Nohara Rin's house.
There was no sign of anyone.
After thinking for a moment, he headed to the roof of Konoha Hospital instead.
From there, he could overlook the entire hospital grounds.
It was five in the evening now, and the sky had already started to dim.
During wartime, this was always the busiest place. Wounded were constantly brought back from the front. Lives were constantly slipping away here—and lives were constantly being saved here too.
Obito's gaze swept across window after window.
He was searching for someone.
At last, in a patient room on the third floor, he saw Nohara Rin.
She wore a pristine white nurse uniform with a small nurse cap, and she was treating an injured shinobi.
Even from this far away, Obito could tell it was Rin.
Under the mask, his breathing quickened again.
A wave of dizziness hit him.
He gripped the rooftop railing, forcing himself to stay upright.
Rin was alive.
She was here, working at Konoha Hospital, wearing a nurse's uniform, helping those who needed help—just like she'd always wanted.
But she wasn't his Rin.
In this fake world, Rin was alive, but there was no longer a place for Obito in her heart.
In Rin's memories, Obito had died at Kannabi Bridge—an "hero" who sacrificed himself to save Kakashi.
A hero.
What a bitterly ironic word.
Obito wanted to laugh, but he couldn't.
Rin finished changing bandages, checked on a few other patients, then began organizing their charts.
She worked carefully—skillfully.
It was obvious she'd fully adapted to life as a medical ninja.
After watching for a while, Obito decided to go find his target for today: Kiyohara.
"Going straight to Kiyohara?" Swirl Zetsu's voice sounded in his mind.
"Or do we observe a bit more?"
"Find him." Obito's voice came through the mask, lower than before.
Obito slipped through Konoha's streets.
He used Kamui to shift between tangible and intangible, avoiding patrols and slipping past any sensory barriers.
To him now, Konoha's defenses were full of holes. After all—who could guard against someone who could move freely through space?
About ten minutes later, he arrived at Kiyohara's home.
Obito had passed by once before, so he knew the address.
He quickly locked onto Kiyohara.
In the courtyard, another figure was practicing medical ninjutsu as well.
"About there." Kiyohara muttered to himself, pale green medical chakra blooming in his palm.
In front of him was a fish.
Behind him, Uchiha Kiyohara watched him practice.
In his own timeline, he'd wanted to learn medical ninjutsu too—but without a Yang Release chakra nature, he'd never been able to.
Then, as if he sensed something, he drifted toward a certain direction.
Uchiha Kiyohara spotted a masked figure.
That oval yellow mask with swirl patterns sat on the head of a mysterious man.
But Uchiha Kiyohara knew exactly who it was.
"Well, if it isn't Obito." Uchiha Kiyohara waved a translucent arm right in front of Obito's face.
Of course, Obito couldn't see him.
"Obito's here—be careful." Uchiha Kiyohara warned Kiyohara behind him.
Hearing that, Kiyohara quietly raised his guard without showing it.
I didn't sense Obito coming at all… Kiyohara frowned.
Obito's concealment really was that good.
No wonder, in canon, he could come and go from Konoha freely without being detected.
Or rather—maybe the only one who did notice was Uchiha Itachi.
And even Itachi had done it by checking surveillance.
As an Anbu watching the Uchiha, Itachi had access to extensive monitoring inside the clan district.
He'd eventually noticed strange figures in the footage, confirmed Obito's existence, and judged him to be an unknown enemy.
In the next instant—
Kiyohara's Sharingan snapped open.
A single tomoe rotated slowly inside his crimson iris.
His gaze swept the courtyard as his senses sharpened.
He pretended to loosen up, turning toward where Uchiha Kiyohara hovered.
Uchiha Kiyohara floated midair, pointing down at a shadowy figure.
Even with buildings in the way, Kiyohara caught Obito's position.
He acted as if he were about to practice a new jutsu and began forming hand seals.
When the seals were complete, Kiyohara drew a breath.
Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!
A sharp, massive gust surged toward Obito.
"!" Obito's heart jolted.
What?
How could Kiyohara find him?
He'd hidden even his chakra fluctuations!
BOOM!
The gale blew down the courtyard wall, scattering loose stones and shredding patches of grass.
But Obito stood in the wind as if it meant nothing.
The wind… passed straight through his body.
"...So you noticed me." Obito's voice was hoarse, mimicking Madara's tone.
If Kiyohara didn't know the story, Obito's current look would be nearly impossible to recognize.
There wasn't a trace of the old Obito left.
"Who are you?" Kiyohara asked, feigning ignorance.
Obito didn't answer immediately.
He stepped forward, the hem of his black cloak swaying softly.
"A passerby." Obito finally said.
"Konoha doesn't welcome uninvited passersby." Kiyohara paused, then added, "Especially ones who hide their faces."
Obito still wasn't at Madara's level, but he'd clearly started "mystery-man posing" already—talking in riddles.
Obito seemed to let out a quiet laugh, warped by the mask into something eerie.
"I just wanted to see how much a 'genius' everyone's praising is really worth."
His gaze fixed on Kiyohara's Sharingan.
After that day—after reviewing what happened—Obito had realized Kiyohara had awakened the Sharingan too.
Probably because of Rin.
And that only intensified the feeling that he'd been replaced.
While Obito was still weighing his thoughts, Kiyohara moved.
Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!
A massive fireball burst out, over four meters wide, roaring toward the masked man with blistering heat.
Kiyohara knew a straightforward attack like this would never hit an opponent who could "phase."
His goal wasn't to land it—his goal was to make noise and draw attention.
Sure enough, an instant before impact, the masked man's body turned translucent.
The fireball passed through him cleanly—like Obito existed on a different layer.
Then Obito turned and sucked the fireball away, preventing the blast from making an even bigger commotion.
Physical attacks were useless.
Kiyohara seized the opening immediately.
His gourd trembled—sand iron surged out.
It swirled through the air, condensing into spindle-shaped pellets and shooting toward Obito.
HISS—HISS!
Obito accelerated the absorption and urgently reactivated intangibility.
He'd almost been caught by Kiyohara's recovery window.
That was one of Kamui's few real flaws: to use it, he had to become tangible at some point.
"Good reactions—but still not enough." Obito said, staring at Kiyohara.
Kiyohara's attacks were fast.
But unfortunately—
Obito had the Mangekyō Sharingan.
In the next moment, Obito rushed in.
The distance closed: twenty meters… fifteen… ten—
CRACKLE!
As Obito neared, arcs of lightning flashed in Kiyohara's hand.
Chidori!
Blue-white electricity gathered and leapt in Kiyohara's palm, lighting up the dark space around them.
The glow reflected off Kiyohara's face—and off the orange spiral mask.
A blue-white streak tore through the night and stabbed at Obito.
The lightning passed through him—like striking a phantom.
Kiyohara expected that.
Chidori wasn't a one-shot; it was more like a sustained buff.
As long as he had chakra and didn't stop, it remained concentrated in his hand.
Wild arcs crackled and repeatedly passed through Obito's body.
"Useless." The hoarse voice came from behind the mask.
Still intangible, Obito stepped forward, passing Kiyohara shoulder-to-shoulder.
In that instant, Obito's right hand slid out from beneath the cloak.
A black chain was in his grip—metal links clinking with a cold scrape.
One end stayed in his hand; the other snapped out like a viper toward Kiyohara's throat.
The chain cut an arc through the air—fast enough to blur.
At the moment it was about to touch skin, Kiyohara dropped his weight hard, nearly flattening to the ground and rolling forward.
As he sprang up, he'd already completed hand seals.
Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!
Another huge fireball erupted from his mouth, over four meters wide, its heat warping the air and lighting his courtyard like daylight.
But that was only the beginning.
Almost the moment the first fireball left his mouth, Kiyohara drew in another breath, chest swelling again.
Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!
A second fireball followed, nearly tailgating the first.
Then a third—
Three consecutive Great Fireballs.
Kiyohara's intent was obvious: make a disturbance big enough that someone had to notice.
A fire jutsu of that scale would alert Anbu patrols, nearby Police Force squads, maybe even civilians.
If he could stall, reinforcements would arrive.
Obito realized it too.
As the flames were about to swallow him, the air around the mask's right eyehole began to twist and spiral.
A tiny vortex appeared out of nowhere and rapidly expanded, swallowing the front of the fireball.
He wasn't absorbing chakra—he was warping the flames themselves into another space.
Kamui.
The whole process took only two seconds.
But for Kiyohara, those two seconds were enough.
Magnet Release: Iron Sand Pellets!
The sand iron that had been hovering around condensed instantly.
Spindle-shaped pellets accelerated under electromagnetic force and poured toward Obito like a storm.
Each pellet shrieked through the air.
Obito frowned.
Kiyohara was timing his attacks perfectly—always striking right at the recovery window.
But Obito was still Madara's personally trained student.
He flicked his right hand—three massive shuriken burst out from a sealing scroll hidden in his sleeve.
These weren't ordinary shuriken: each one was two meters wide, jagged along the edges, spinning with a terrifying hum.
The giant shuriken collided with the iron sand pellets, exploding into dense metallic clangs.
Sparks flew—then the shuriken were punched through.
Using the sliver of time that bought him, Obito reentered intangibility.
The pellets passed through him and tore countless holes in the wall behind.
Kiyohara didn't stop.
He whipped both hands, drawing even more sand iron from the gourd and reshaping it midair.
At the same time, his left hand dipped into his ninja pouch—eight shuriken slipped between his fingers.
"This is endless…" A thread of irritation rose in Obito.
Kiyohara's tactic was simple: relentless pressure to force Obito to stay intangible, while the huge jutsu noise would eventually summon Konoha's response.
Obito was confident he could handle most situations—but this was still Konoha's core. If he got bogged down, the fallout could be messy.
Obito's body flickered between tangible and intangible as pellet after pellet passed through.
But the instant he returned to tangible—
Magnet Release: Iron Sand Binding!
Sand iron scattered on the ground suddenly surged up like a black tide, reaching for his ankles.
It tried to form chains and pin him in place.
Obito reacted instantly.
Just before the sand iron touched his ankle, he kicked off and shot backward.
It only managed to catch his left ankle for a split second before tearing free.
Their distance opened again—twenty meters, even beyond Kiyohara's yard.
Luckily, Kiyohara's house was remote. Only a handful of civilians noticed the fight and ran.
Obito frowned. Konoha's shinobi would arrive any second now.
The courtyard was already a wreck—cracked walls, pitted ground, scorched fire marks, sand iron fragments everywhere.
"You idiot…" The hoarse voice finally carried real contempt. "Do you think you can hurt me like this?"
Kiyohara didn't answer. His Sharingan rotated slowly.
The black-cloaked figure blurred—Obito vanished.
When he reappeared, he was right in Kiyohara's face.
Kiyohara retreated, but Obito clung close like a shadow.
Four meters… three… two—
Obito's chain-wrapped right hand chopped down at Kiyohara's face.
The strike was simple, but it tore the air.
Kiyohara raised his arm to block, activating Steel Release and Earth Spear.
At impact, Obito felt a massive force slam back through him—cracks raced across the ground under his feet.
That kind of strength?! Obito's heart jumped, but he didn't slow.
Borrowing the recoil, he spun—his left leg whipped like a lash toward Kiyohara's waist.
Kiyohara didn't dodge. His left hand dropped and caught Obito by the ankle with pinpoint timing.
Then he yanked.
Obito was thrown into the air.
But he adjusted mid-flight, flipping once and landing—his feet carving two shallow grooves.
In the next heartbeat, Obito surged in again, even faster.
Another exchange—palm to fist—then both slid back three steps and reset distance.
Obito's hand tingled with numbness.
Kiyohara's taijutsu was beyond what he'd expected.
This guy's growth rate—how was he keeping up with someone who had the Mangekyō?
~~~
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