About a minute had passed, and still an opening for Obito to put his plan into motion hadn’t appeared. Black Zetsu cunningly had attached himself to the left side of his body, the one that was actually his; the right one, made out of Hashirama’s cells, was easy to control by Madara’s will without him being directly merged with it. That, coupled with the fact that Obito was dying, drastically hindered his ability do anything.
At least, that’s what everybody thought. Obito still had one way available for him, but that would only work when…
His trained of thoughts was interrupted when Black Zetsu made a quick dodge to avoid Minato-sensei’s attack, putting him right on path of Kakashi. His old friend slashed with a kunai, aiming for the Rinnegan in his left eye.
“As strategic as always,” Obito mused; Kakashi knew that Madara couldn’t be allowed to regain his eyes. Or at least, this eye, the other was hidden, but seeing how Black Zetsu came here to wait for the right moment; Obito guessed that the White Zetsu he left guarding the right eye was already on its way. “Not that it would matter in my plan…”
He stopped and concentrated. Black Zetsu was currently fighting Kakashi, countering his kunai with a chakra disruption blade he created. As their weapons clashed, Kakashi looked him into eyes…
… and the moment their Sharingans’ sights crossed, Obito cast his genjutsu.
Kakashi took a quick glance of their new surroundings - not that there was anything to look at, they were surrounded by a huge, white space - as Obito took a step towards him.
“I won’t be able to keep this genjutsu for long, so listen well,” he said, and Kakashi merely nodded. “I am still connected to the Gedō Mazō. If I could merge partially with it, I should be able to shake off Black Zetsu, and still do something for you all before I die.”
“Obito…” Kakashi started, but paused when he saw the determination in his eyes. There was no way to dissuade him now, and Kakashi knew that. He sighed and asked: “Alright. But what do you plan to do?”
“Something that you had tried not so long ago,” Obito replied with a smirk. “We will make sure the Ten-Tails will never be revived again.”
Apprehension crossed Kakashi’s face - the part Obito could see at least - as he said the next words:
“We’re going to destroy Gedō Mazō.”
“Obito,” Celestia repeated, cocking her head a bit.
“Yes, Obito,” the strange, two-colored scarred stallion with two strange eyes had confirmed. “From the Uchiha clan… of Konoha,” he added, as if after reflection. “From the Land of Fire.”
There were only a few moments during her life when she had found herself confused, and none of them could compare to this situation. There was a pony, whose coat was in two completely different colors - and looking at him Celestia couldn’t shake off the vision of somepony cutting him from the base of the neck down and attaching a half of another pony - could grow branches from his body that were strong enough to hold down a dragon, had strange powers, and two eyes, both different from each other and the eyes of anypony she met. Now, to top it all, he uttered names she never heard; the Land of Fire, Konoha… even Obito Uchiha didn’t sound like a name for a pony.
What was also surprising was how Obito talked to her. He looked her straight into eyes, not at all intimidated by her being a Princess. He didn’t bow, nor did he address her by any title. She found it refreshing.
Looking at him so closely, Celestia had also finally noticed another interesting feature of his; his cutie mark. Or rather, it’s lack of it on the white half of his body. On the left, thought… Celestia twisted her head a bit to see it better. It… was a circle, a red one, with smaller black circles inside of it like wavelets, with... commas.
“This looks like a mix of both of his eyes.”
“An unusual cutie mark for an unusual pony,” she commented out loud, smiling.
Obito face furrowed - making the scars on his face more evident - hearing her words, and his gaze followed hers. “W-Wh…” he stammered, once he looked at his flank, shock clear on his face as he almost jumped back. “Why is that on my ass?!”
Celestia quickly exchanged surprised glances with Luna. “Did he never see his cutie mark before?” her sister asked quietly. “And why use such uncouth words?”
“I don’t know, Little Sister,” Celestia replied, focusing back on the stallion, who was still staring at his cutie mark, breathing heavily… and erratically. “Oh, dear...”
She managed to grab him with her magic before he fell on the ground, passed out.
“What are you plotting?” Mifune, the General of the samurai, asked him. Like everybody else, he was keeping his guard. “Just what is this Eye of the Moon Plan?!”
As calm as ever, Obito - or rather, Madara - replied: “I want to take my time talking to you. I’ll sit down if you don’t mind.”
He didn’t wait for them to give him a reply, and just sit where he stood, under the platform where Kages bodyguards stood during the Summit. One of the said bodyguards didn’t take his nonchalance well. “We’re asking you what kind of plan it is!” Kankuro, brother of the Fifth Kazekage and former jinchūriki, Gaara, asked in a raised voice.
Madara raised a hand and one finger. “All shall become one with me,” he said, “and result in a ‘complete form’, in which all is united.”
Once again - and much too soon for his liking - Obito woke up with a jolt. He quickly pressed his ha- hooves - “I really should start getting used to this.” - to his face, trying his best to focus on something - why he could feel a muzzle between his hoof, why he had hooves, why he was a pony, anything - and not on the mark that was on his left side of ass.
The eye of Shinju. The eye that would be reflected on the Moon when he would cast Mugen Tsukuyomi to control everybody in the world.
“Why?” he wondered, more disturbed by the mark - as well as pitying the fact he hadn’t checked his new body carefully earlier, which would spare him from freaking out in front of those… talking colorful ponies - than by all the other changes that happened to him. “Why… after I finally turned away from that path, my-”
“It seems you are awake.”
Despite himself, Obito jumped up, startled, and looked at the direction from which the voice came. He saw the same big white horse that spoke to him before, and the dark blue one again next to her, sitting on a floor by a table in… the house they were all in. There were other ponies her as well, the three small ones he saved from that beast, and some small, weird scaly animal.
“Don’t do that!” Obito snapped as he pointed at her, then blinked and facepal… facehoofed (?), exasperated, and murmured: “Why do I keep acting like…” “.. like before.” “Where am I?” he asked out loud.
“We’re currently inside the house of my student, Twilight Sparkle,” the white big horse answered, sounding amused by his reaction. Obito looked at her with one eye - right one, just to be safe - and saw that she wasn’t the only one. All the other horses - one that was probably named… Twilight Sparkle. Cute name - were also smirking. “We took you there after your… panic attack, feeling that you needed some peace and quiet. And if it’s the name of the town we are in you are asking, it’s Ponyville.”
“‘Panic attack’,” the man that had been the jinchūriki of the Ten-Tails and that brought the Fourth Shinobi World War thought with annoyence. “From staring at my ass. In front of everybody in this… Ponyville… maybe I am in Hell after all.”
“Well, you have my thanks,” Obito said, calming down as returning to the neutral, emotionless expression he usually wore under the mask for so many years… except now he had a face of a horse… or rather a face with mixed features of human and horse... “I am sorry to ‘cause you trouble-”
“Are ya kiddin’?!” a much different voice spoke up from behind the bigger horses. Almost as soon as he heard that, the three small ones he saved run up to him, passing them. “After ya saved us?!” the yellow one with a bow in her hair - or mane? - asked as they all, to his unimaginable shock, jumped on him.
“Girls!” few of the other horses shouted at them, scolding.
“Alright, this is getting ridiculous,” Obito thought while they stood on his chest. “If I hadn’t known any better, I would swear Naruto put me under some sort of genjutsu…”
He knew that was impossible, though. Back when he saw a beast like he never saw before chasing a three small horses, one with a bow, another with a horn and another with wings, he stopped his flow of chakra for a second to free himself from what he was certain back then was genjutsu. It didn’t work.
Besides, Naruto sucked in genjutsu, and he was about the only shinobi he could think off that would conjure something so… silly.
“Speaking of silly…”
Celestia could barely contain the laughter that she wanted to utter when Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle jumped on the chest of the stallion that practically single-hoofedly defeated a dragon. She waited a few seconds before she tried to take them off of him with magic, only to see that Obito decided to deal with them himself.
The hooves of the fillies plunged into his chest, stopping on the level where the bed should be. At the same time, Obito rose, his body passing through them. “It was… my pleasure,” he said coldly as he left the bed and sit beside it.
Celestia blinked. For a heartbeat she could swear that his right eye had changed… but that should be impossible… right? “Then again… I’m pretty sure he has many surprised left in store for us.”
“Wow, that was awesome!” both Scootaloo and Rainbow Dash exclaimed, rushing to Obito. Standing by his sides, they asked in unison: “How did you do that?!”
Obito’s eyes switched quickly from the filly to the mare, stopping for a moment on her Rainbow’s mane - much to Celestia amusement, given how he looked - then closed them, muttering something. Her ears managed to catch something about a mask, and... missing it?
“I’m happy to see you’re in good health, Obito of the Uchiha clan-” she started, deciding the end his “torment”, but he cut her off.
“Just Obito is fine.”
“-Obito.’ Celestia nodded. “As I said, I’m happy to see you in good health. Once you were brought here, my sister and I used a scanning spell on your body, to see if there was something ailing you.” His ears perked up. “I hope you aren’t offended by it; we had just assumed that there must be more to you fainting than simply the sight of your cutie mark.”
She was sure she would at least see one of his eyelids twitching, or show some other sign that he was annoyed or embarrassed by what had happened, but to her surprise, he kept his face in neutral expression. “Considering that I just took out… whatever it was, and how strange I must look to you, I am quite surprised that you haven’t tried to seal me, or use genjutsu to interrogate me.”
“Neither me nor my sister would have ever done that to a pony that saved three of our subjects,” Celestia said in calm voice, even though she was slightly offended by his suggestion. Obito’s ears perked up again, confirming her guess that he had no idea that she was a Princess. “Besides, I have a feeling that such attempts would have proved to be ineffective, even if we would have managed to magically seal you away,” she added, attempting to clear up the near-frown on his face.
“What do you mean by ‘genjutsu’?” Luna asked instead, intrigued.
Obito looked at her, and from the slightly widened eyes Celestia guessed that he must have been surprised by the question. It took him a few second before replying, as if he waited for Luna to tell him that she was jesting. “Illusionary techniques that employs the Yin Release. They manipulate the flow of chakra in the victim's brain, thus causing a disruption in their senses, which has many uses, interrogation among them.”
“Wait a moment,” her student spoke up. Glancing her way, Celestia, to her amusement, saw Twilight holding a clipboard and a quill, writing down what Obito had said. “What’s chakra?”
She turned to the stallion, to see him looking at her strangely. “You… you're kidding, right?” he finally asked. “You are just now using chakra to hold this clipboard and quill, and you” he said, turning to Celestia, “created a barrier earlier.”
“Err…” Twilight stuttered, managing to quite well voice what was in Celestia’s head. “This isn’t ‘chakra’.”
“Yes, it is,” Obito retorted, now visibly annoyed. “These eyes can see chakra, and the Sharingan in my right eye can even recognize the technique you're using as Yang Release, even though you’re not making any hand seals.”
“W- I-...” Twilight stammered, before she stomped her hoof down. “No! I have no idea what any of those things are, but what I am doing is using magic to cast a spell that levitates-”
“I think we can come to a conclusion,” Celestia interrupted her; while she would love to see her student have an episode of hers, she wasn’t so sure when it came to Obito is getting annoyed, “that we simply use different names to call the same thing. We call them magic and spell here in Equestria, and chakra and techniques where you are from, Obito.” She then frowned. “Which brings me back to what I wanted to ask you; where are you from?”
“A far away land,” he replied, causing more than a few ponies to deadpan. “I don’t think that telling you some details would be of use; I have never came upon this… Equestria, or ponies… such as you, during my many travels.”
“Hey!” Twilight looked at him angrily. “Princess Celestia-”
Celestia waved away her student, although she smiled kindly at her for jumping into her defense. “If you do not wish to tell us, then it’s alright. We haven’t even told you our names yet; it wouldn’t be wise to think that you would just tell us your life story. I am Princess Celestia, and this is my sister, Princess Luna, who rules this country alongside me. This is my student, Twilight Sparkle, and her friends; Spike, Rainbow Dash, Scootaloo, Applejack, Apple Bloom, Rarity, Sweetie Belle, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie-” she nodded at everypony when she said their names, but when it came turn for Pinkie Pie, the pink mare had vanished. “Where is-”
She was answered by the sound of trumpet and a small blast near Obito. Pinkie Pie stood next to him, hugging him with one foreleg, holding a cake in the other. Above them was pinned to the walls a banner saying ‘WELCOME TO PONYVILLE’.
“Here I am!” she replied to the question Celestia had asked. Looking at Obito, she added: “Somepony had to cheer up Mister Gloomy over here!”
‘Mister Gloomy', in the meantime, was staring at her with utter shock, but when Pinkie had finished, he frowned. Expecting him to pass through her, Celestia looked at him closely, hoping to see some sign of how he was exactly performing this spell of his, and then she saw it. His right eye, this… Sharingan, as he called it, changed its shape. It now looked like a sort of pinwheel, with three black triangles coming out of a pupil and have scythe come out of their right sight connect with the next one.
She didn’t have the chance to ask him about what this exactly was that he did, because the moment he escaped Pinkie’s grasp, but a sudden movement from the outside of her student’s library caught her attention. Almost as soon as Celestia’s gaze rested on the doors, they swung open, and her and Luna’s royal guards; accompanied by another one, a pegasi, burst in.
She quickly shared with her sister a worried glance, knowing something important must have happen for them to come in like that.
“Your Highnesses,” the new guard said as he approached them, bowing and sparing Obito a quick glance, but not paying attention to all the other ponies that stared at him, “I’m afraid I bring news of a grieve importance.”
Fear gripping her heart, Celestia commended:
“Speak.”
The royal guard looked up, taking his helmet off. There was fear in his eyes.
“There’s news from the Crystal Empire,” he said, gulped, and delivered his message: “Princess Cadence and Prince Shining Armor are kidnapped.”