With his mask just destroyed and shattered at his feet, Tobi stands undeterred and stares down his enemies with his gunbai at the ready. He is somewhat annoyed that they broke his mask, but quickly calms down as it doesn’t really matter.

“Is that you… Obito?!” A wide-eyed Kakashi mutters.

The Copy Ninja stands frozen with shock and horror, his friend who he believed died at the Kannabi Bridge during the 3rd Great Ninja War. Obito was a hero that sacrificed his life for his comrades, a friend who gifted his eye before he died, a leaf ninja who wanted to become Hokage. Now here he stands as a ghost back from the dead, a threat to the entire world.

“I-Is that really Obito? I thought he was dead…” Guy asks thoroughly shocked as well.

Confused, Naruto turns to look at his senior ninja and sees shock written on their faces; with his KCM2 cloak, he can feel their emotions coming off in waves. Naruto turns to see Jin’s reaction; Jin stares down the Akatsuki leader, but he doesn’t look surprised at all. In fact, Jin is looking at Obito, but they aren’t focused on him; to Naruto, it is like Jin looking at something that hasn’t happened yet, someone who hasn’t appeared yet.

“Hmm?!” Naruto’s attention wanders as he senses something happening on the other side of the battlefield.

Naruto detects an intense rage followed by a colossal spike in chakra. The increase in chakra only lasts a very brief moment, but Naruto takes note of it. Shortly after the surge of chakra, a large explosion occurs in the same location; the tremors are felt even from Naruto and company’s position. The explosion reminds Naruto of his own battles with Sasuke.

“Naruto… you better watch out…” The Nine-Tails warns from within the seal.

Confused, Naruto looks down and places his hand on his stomach. The hero of the leaf finds himself inside his own subconscious with his tailed beast right behind him. Through the dim light, Naruto can see that his tailed beast looks anxious, his tails cautiously sway from side to side, and he claws at the ground like a cornered animal ready to strike.

Naruto gives his latest friend a confused look. “...Kurama? What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about your friend, Jin and the other masked man. Both of their chakras are suspiciously similar to mine and the other tailed beasts.”

Jin and that other masked guy… like tailed beasts? Naruto strenuously reflects on Kurama’s words. “I don’t fully get it, but you are saying that they’re really strong, right?”

Kurama’s eyes widen for a moment and he sighs with vexation. “...Something like–?!”

The jinchuriki and his tailed beast’s conversation is interrupted as something crash lands right beside Obito, a thick cloud of smoke and dust is kicked up by what landed. All the Alliance ninja are put on edge as they sense powerful chakra coming from what crashed.

“You’re rather late.” Obito chastises the new arrival.

“This is the first exercise I’ve had in a while. It took some time to… get used to it again. But that’s all over now”

The smoke clears and dissipates to reveal the one speaking. He has his arms folded as he coldly stares down his opponents, his long and spiky hair flows in the breeze due to the shockwaves Naruto produces as he powers up.

Naruto grits his teeth and balls his fists. “Madara… But I thought you were fighting with granny’s team!”

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On another section of the battlefield, Echo and Mecha-Naruto (controlled by Jin) are in heated combat with Menma’s five remaining masked beasts. The two stand back to back as the puppets balefully circle around them.

Jin has Mecha-Naruto use his powerful processor to calculate the enemies’ movements and shoot his eye beams based on where they should appear. Echo uses the Rinnegan’s Asura Path to grow two extra pairs of arms, he has his spare hands open up into cannons; Echo uses his Byakugan to increase his field of vision and improve his aim. Each of the puppets manage to narrowly evade each shot fired, but are still grazed.

“WHEN DO THE REST APPEAR?” Jin asks using Mecha as a medium as it shoots down one of the masked beasts.

The puppet Mecha-Naruto shot down resembled a tortoise with a shell made of overlapping plates. The masked beast crashes into a boulder thirty yards away, the defeated masked beast morphs into a masked fox kit.

Echo continues shooting. “Hmm?”

“MORYO AND HIS ARMY… IT’S BEEN AWHILE SINCE WE’VE ENCOUNTERED ANY TERRA COTTA WARRIORS OR MUGONHEI… AND YOU NEVER DID TELL US WHEN EXACTLY MORYO WOULD APPEAR HIMSELF.”

“Hmm… I suppose it is time to talk about that…” Echo fires a blast of chakra straight through the chest of one of Menma’s puppets.

This masked beast is a bird with elegant and dramatic plumage. The bird-like puppet is skewered due to it crashing onto a patch of jagged rocks and boulders just a few yards away from the time-traveler. The masked beast reverts back into a masked fox kit.

“The remaining bulk of Moryo’s army and his final two generals will launch a full scale assault when the Ten-Tails creates its fission clones. Moryo will lay low until Naruto and Sasuke get their six paths powers and fight Madara.”

“...AND YOU DIDN’T TELL US THIS SOONER BECAUSE IT WOULD CHANGE THE TIMELINE IN A WAY YOU COULDN’T PREDICT, RIGHT?” Jin asks through the Naruto duplicate.

“Pretty much. Why?”

“YOU KNOW DAMN WELL WH--”

The two continue to fire upon the three remaining masked beasts when out of nowhere, a large explosion occurs some distance away. A large black sphere emerges from the violent explosion with a white digital pattern at the sphere's core. Like an infection, the white pattern grows and expands outward and changes the sphere completely white.

The last three masked beasts stop in their tracks and mysteriously go limp. They all shrink and turn into masked fox kits, with each of their eyes glowing red; even the defeated fox kits now have red eyes. All the fox kits immediately stand up like the undead and all fours and jump away in a streak of red light with their destination being the sphere of energy.

“OH, FUCK NO!!” Mecha-Naruto follows after them.

Knowing what comes next already puts Jin in a panic, but the fact that this version of Menma fills Jin with soul crushing dread. He desperately makes the mechanical copy of Naruto fly like hell itself is on his tail.

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Please make it in time! PLEASE! Jin prays as he hovers within the sphere.

Jin is suspended in the air with light and energy all around him. He would be awestruck at the fluid patterns if not for the fact that he is face to face with Naruto’s reflection in a cracked mirror.

“Ha ha ha ha! Had enough? Gnat. do you feel your grip on life slipping?” Menma sneers. “Let go, embrace your death.”

Jin stands his ground. “Drop the bravado, Menma. No one’s buying it.”

Jin’s masked adversary’s robe and mask crumble away like sand due to the clash of their jutsu, his face is revealed. Menma looks virtually identical to Naruto, though his hair is black and he wears it in a longer and more shaggy-looking style, similar to his father's. He also has darker and more feral-looking whisker marks, and dark circles under his eyes. Menma wears no shirt beneath his robe.

What shocks Jin is what confirms his fears, it’s Menma’s eyes. The doppelganger’s irises should be red with slit pupils, but they’re like Jin’s instead; they’re purple with a ripple pattern.

“Those Rinnegan. Where’d you get them?!” Jin demands.

Menma gives Jin a maniacal grin. “If you must know, I had a friend once, a best friend. He had a nice pair of eyes… they were wasted on him so I took them for myself.”

Jin shudders as he watches this evil version of Naruto fondly look back on his past atrocities; Menma gleefully snickers without a care in the world.

“His older brother was quick to find out and tried to kill me. So I snapped his neck. Heh heh heh… Oh, the memories.”

This guy’s a goddamn monster… Jin feels his skin crawl.

“Now, *I* have a question for you…” Menma points at Jin. “Since you are so curious about my eyes, it’s only fair that you tell me how you got yours.”

“I ate a magic fruit.”

“A comedian, huh? Don’t worry, you can improve your act all you want… in hell.”

The light grows brighter and brighter until everything goes white. Jin and Menma are repelled away from each other as the sphere finally dispels and vanishes. Jin recovers and lands on all fours. As he stands up, Menma is pelted in the back by a streak of red chakra, he is hit by another and another; this happens nine times consecutively. He glares daggers at Jin; When Jin glares back, he sees nothing, but pure evil in the doppelganger’s eyes.

The ground begins to shake and tremble, as Menma surges with chakra. A large explosion of smoke occurs at Menma’s feet, blinding Jin. From within the smoke, Jin can see a large pair of glowing red eyes looking down at him. Something pokes out of the smoke, it looks to be a tail; with one swipe, the tail fans the smoke away. Jin looks up and sees Menma standing on top of his own Nine-Tails with a twisted look of victory.

All of his tails sway in every direction. Drool drips from his gaping maw filled with rows of large, sharp fangs. The tailed beast readies itself by crouching down, poised to attack.

“DIIEEEEE!!!” Menma yells while his Black Nine-Tails rushes at Jin.