I Will Become the Wind

CHAPTER 39 | Becoming the Wind

The glow got so bright that Naruto had to squint, but he didn't close his eyes like Obito did. He wanted to know right away if they pulled it off.

Through the glare, he saw the outline of the plant clone fade out and change. It became smaller, denser. The eerie blank face became softer, molding into familiar features.

The brightness reached a peak, then faded away to reveal Kabuto. Their version of Kabuto.

"It worked!" Naruto shouted.

At his cry, Kabuto's eyes opened. He blinked at them confusedly when Naruto bowed his head and scrubbed at his eyes with one arm.

"Naruto?"

"It was taking so long, I thought you were gone. I really thought you were dead." Naruto's voice cracked.

"What's with you and thinking everybody's dead?" Obito said wearily.

Kabuto leaned back and grinned. "You guys figured it out. Thank you."

"Are you okay?" Obito asked. "Where did you go?"

"I... I don't really remember. I was almost gone." Kabuto held up his hands, looking at his new body, and Naruto scooted back enough to give him some space. "But Orochimaru-sama—I mean, Orochimaru—can travel between dimensions without the usual limits. He might not even need to make new paths to go somewhere now."

"What matters is you made it back," Naruto said. "Being under his control is awful, but having to share a body with him must be way worse."

Kabuto nodded. He closed his hands into loose fists, looking across with a thoughtful expression. "I wonder if his younger self was still there, too. I couldn't really tell, but... I think anyone in that situation would try to fight. Even if it's the same person."

Obito picked up the book with their Summoning contracts and handed it to Kabuto. Then he stood up. "It sucks he got away, but we'll have to worry about that later. Right now, we have another big problem on our hands. We're still stuck outside of Naruto's world, and Minato-sensei is stuck inside it."

Naruto and Kabuto got up too. Naruto felt that coldness in his gut, like he'd swallowed a bunch of ice water too quickly. He'd intentionally avoided the topic of going home until they found a way to save Kabuto. But now it was time to face the seemingly impossible task of making back to his world with no path, no anchor.

"We... weren't able to come up with anything last time, either," Kabuto said, throwing Naruto an apologetic glance.

"But tou-chan is there." Naruto looked around as if searching for ideas, grasping for straws. "He's not from there, he's from your world. And—you have his Hiraishin mark, right? That's what he uses to jump! Maybe you can follow that!"

Obito put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed his eyes shut. He was quiet for several tense seconds. Then he opened his eyes again, and they gleamed with unshed tears.

"I... can't." His tired voice wavered. "Jumping into a timeline isn't the same thing as Hiraishin. The whole point of an anchor is to find one version of the person you want, one life out of the infinite number of possibilities. The other Minato-sensei put this seal on me, and he's gone."

"Oh." Naruto's heart sank. "So you're saying... if you had a mark made by the one we want to find, you could do it?"

"I have no idea. But that's the only thing that stands a chance of working."

Tobi shifted in his seated position, and they turned to look at him, immediately on guard. He reached into his coat with his human hand, still awkward and clumsy from the poison.