Early in the morning, Uchiha Ryosuke followed his usual routine and arrived at the small grove to begin his training.
He felt that a day without adding to his stats was a wasted day.
First up, as always, was a 20-kilometer run.
As he ran through the grove, a space above a large tree branch twisted into a spiral. From within emerged a man wearing an orange swirl-patterned mask and a black cloak with red clouds.
The moment he appeared, he looked around at the scenery and murmured to himself,
"Konoha... it's been a long time."
The last time he was here, he had successfully extracted the Nine-Tails and, on a whim, tried to destroy the village.
Unfortunately, his former teacher, Minato Namikaze, had stopped him.
But this time, he wasn't here for the Nine-Tails—he was here to collect Sharingan eyes.
Over the past few years, he had spent time in mountain graveyards reading through the texts left behind by Uchiha Madara. In them, he had discovered a fearsome dojutsu of the Uchiha Clan—Izanagi.
Izanagi allowed the wielder to temporarily rewrite reality—turning any unfavorable event into an illusion and only allowing beneficial events to remain real. The duration of the effect varied by user, but the cost was always the same: blindness in the eye used.
During the active period of Izanagi, even death could be rewritten, making the user effectively invincible.
Obito already possessed Kamui—an unmatched space-time ability—but it wasn't truly invincible.
He'd been wounded by his teacher during the Nine-Tails attack precisely because of that weakness.
If he could add Izanagi to his arsenal, not even his teacher would be a threat.
Sure, Minato died sealing the Nine-Tails in the end—but the ninja world was vast, and Obito wouldn't be so careless again.
Madara's leftover Sharingan stockpile was running low.
It was time to restock.
And of course, the best place to "restock" was from the Uchiha Clan itself.
The problem was, most Uchiha rarely left the village, and the truly skilled ones were usually stationed within the Konoha Police Force.
Still, even inside the village's stronghold, Obito wasn't afraid.
Not when he had the invincible Kamui.
What he needed to do was find a lone Uchiha—isolated, vulnerable. That would make things easier.
Just as he was preparing to search for one, he saw a figure jogging toward his location.
The person was physically built and had a distinctive spiky hairstyle—clearly an Uchiha clansman.
Obito smirked to himself. What luck. His first target had practically walked into his lap.
The man seemed to be training in taijutsu—strange for an Uchiha, but that didn't matter.
Once he sucked the guy into the Kamui dimension, he could extract the eye and dispose of the body.
No witnesses. No leaks.
Meanwhile, Ryosuke stopped mid-run, sensing something.
He looked up—and his pupils widened.
That masked man… anyone else might not recognize him, but Ryosuke knew exactly who he was.
The orange spiral-patterned mask. The Sharingan visible through the eyehole.
This was Uchiha Obito.
At the sight of him, Ryosuke felt a deep sense of danger. If he got sucked into Kamui, it would all be over.
There was no point in trying to reason with someone like Obito.
Even Naruto—the king of talk-no-jutsu—would've failed at this point.
Obito had already gone completely insane after Rin's death.
He had become the kind of man who could kill his own teacher and teacher's wife without hesitation.
What Ryosuke didn't understand was—why had Obito come after him?
At that moment, Obito jumped down from the tree and landed smoothly, walking slowly toward Ryosuke.
"You've awakened your Sharingan, haven't you?" he asked.
He could sense the overwhelming chakra from Ryosuke's body—someone like that couldn't possibly still have dormant eyes.
Ryosuke activated his Three-Tomoe Sharingan immediately, ready to fight.
So he really was here for the eyes?
There were only two people in the ninja world known for hoarding Sharingan—Uchiha Obito and Shimura Danzo.
Because each activation of Izanagi required sacrificing a Sharingan, they needed a steady supply.
This confirmed it—Obito had come to take his eyes.
Right now, Ryosuke was only at Half-Kage level. But if he activated the Eight Inner Gates, he might stand a chance of defeating Obito.
His priority was to distract the enemy.
"Who are you? What do you want from me?" Ryosuke asked, feigning confusion.
Obito looked at Ryosuke's scarlet Sharingan and praised,
"Not bad. A full Three-Tomoe Sharingan."
"As for who I am—why would a dead man need to know that?"
"My goal, of course, is your Sharingan."
Obito's plan was simple—bait the kid into attacking, phase through it with Kamui, then materialize and suck him into the Kamui dimension.
Once inside, his target would pass out, and from there… it would be like carving meat from a lamb.
Ryosuke's expression hardened.
So he really was here to take his eyes.
No more words.
He quickly formed hand signs.
"Snake – Ram – Monkey – Boar – Horse – Tiger!"
He gathered chakra into his lungs and puffed up his chest, releasing a massive Great Fireball—easily the size of a small house—straight at Obito.
Obito raised an eyebrow. That was a seriously strong Fireball Jutsu.
But unfortunately, it was useless.
Kamui phase.
The massive fireball passed right through Obito's body and exploded behind him, scorching the earth.
But Obito himself remained completely unharmed.
Not a single scratch on the masked man.