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Hands of Time
Prologue: To Change the Past
~o0O0o~
In what was once a great forest, a monstrous battle ravaged the landscape, turning the former homes of birds and beasts alike into a desolate wasteland. Titanic craters littered the area, as did the bodies of thousands of shinobi, but it was the living that truly marked the place. It was the men and women whose chakra raged with the power of a thousand suns that marked the wasteland as something more than barren rock and dust.
It was also where one man became a god. Unstoppable.
Thunder rumbled through the cloudless sky as Obito's black Tailed-Beast-Bomb stretched from his hand like a spear and blasted clean through the skeletal arm of Sasuke's Susano'o, practically dematerializing the ethereal armor. Off balance from his redirected attack, Obito took a moment to steady himself, glaring at his fellow Uchiha all the while. His demonic body rippled with unbreakable grey scales and his mismatched eyes glowed with a monstrous rage, rage that he had been denied.
The mysterious thing was that the newest jinchūriki's body was mismatched, split right down the middle. Obito's left side, the side of his body which held the Rinnegan, was almost completely human, the exception being the compressed Tailed-Beast-Bombs that hovered behind his hands and the spikes which sprouted from his upper and lower back. The right side of his body was another matter entirely.
Obito's right half was completely covered in blank grey scales, as though the Sharingan hadn't had nearly enough power to suppress the beast as the Rinnegan did. The unbreakable reptilian scales covered him from his bare feet right up to his hairline, evidence that the JÅ«bi's influence would not be completely contained with anything less than the ripple-eyes. As it was, Obito's hair had transformed from the standard Uchiha black to a startling bone-white, yet more proof of the monster trapped inside him.
The cursed eye for his demon half and the eyes of creation for his human half . . .
On the jinchūriki's back was a total of ten long, bone-white spikes, five at the top just below the junctions of his shoulders, and five at the bottom along the small of his back. Situated right between his shoulder blades rested the eeriest symbol of the a large magatama with a Rinnegan in its head, which presided above nine smaller magatamas, all of which were in rows of three.
Nine Tailed-Beasts under one greater than them all . . .
Naruto whom Obito had been about to skewer with what was undoubtably a one-shot kill technique stared at Sasuke in shock, his fluctuating chakra cloak betraying his confusion. Had Sasuke really just saved him?
But Sasuke ignored Naruto, instead standing slightly in front of the blond as he landed safely on the ground, his Susano'o still encasing his body. The purple shroud of otherworldly power writhed in response to Obito's violent attack, hurriedly repairing damage to the Sasuno'o's arm.
'Sasuke . . .' Naruto was understandably shocked. This was Sasuke after all, the same person who'd tried to kill him mere months ago. Had he really changed?
~o0O0o~
Pictures of his genin days flashed before Sasuke's eyes. Naruto, the loudmouthed idiot who could never do anything right, Sakura, the useless fangirl who had no ambition, and finally Kakashi, the man who opened the way to his greatest techniques by teaching him the Chidori. He had left them all behind so long ago, but now . . . Now they were here, now they were strong.
But that didn't mean that he would let them change the fate of this world. He had already decided to change it, as was his duty as the last untainted Uchiha.
"Not you . . ." he said. Naruto and Obito looked on in confusion, not entirely understanding what he meant. The wind suddenly blew with a vengeance, picking up dirt and debris wherever it could in that barren wasteland that was the final battlefield.
Sasuke looked up, his Mangeky� glaring out from the shadows of his eyes. In his mind, Naruto's image in their Team Seven picture was suddenly slashed in two, eradicating the blond from his mindscape.
"I . . . will erase the past!" the Uchiha declared grimly, his Susano'o's skeletal right arm brandishing its black sword of flames menacingly. Naruto stiffened as he remembered Sasuke saying something similar when they both combined their most powerful attacks against the Jūbi. Sasuke wanted to change the shinobi system. He wanted to destroy the Bijū . . . But Naruto didn't have enough time to tell Sasuke to take a hike.
Obito face was blank and his eyes were cold—Sasuke's declaration hadn't affected him in the least. He was beyond them all, and their threats meant absolutely nothing to him. After all, does a god stop to consider a cockroach? He might pause to squish it for making noise, but nothing more. Right now, Obito could feel everything—the rocks, dust, the very air—but most of all, he could feel the shinobi that surrounded him. He could feel their desperate emotions coursing through their chakra, the fragility of their life-forces, and he knew that they were weak.
They were all insects, cockroaches beneath his feet. Insignificant and irritating.
And to top it off, the Uchiha before him seemed dead-set on making noise, on daring to challenge him.
Oh, that wouldn't do at all.
Like a ripple in a pond, something changed. Whether it was Obito's posture or his face, no one could tell, but somehow the man seemed far more menacing than before. It was like the ultimate power that resided within him was finally making itself known, building up its strength with the rising tide of a tsunami to finish everything off in a single overwhelming blast.
As though he were completely dismissing Sasuke, Obito's singular Rinnegan pulsed with that terrifying power, paralyzing everyone in range with its sheer potency. It built up to an unbearable degree, then it broke free as he finally made his move.
He moved like lightning, tearing through the very air.
The ascended being appeared in front of Sasuke and Naruto like he had been there all along in a show of supersonic speed, his only human hand clamping down on Sasuke's face, steadily crushing the Uchiha's skull and blocking his already dimming vision. Sasuke didn't stand a chance. The last thing that he was aware of was Naruto right next to him, his face being crushed by Obito's monstrously scaled right hand.
Off to the side, Minato screamed out his fury as the Tailed-Beast-Bombs hovering behind Obito's hands suddenly changed shape and shot at the two captive teens.
There was an explosion, that much Sasuke had realized. Then he knew no more, and his awareness drifted in the darkness.