"Rasenshuriken!"

The whirling blade of wind and destruction flew across the forest, decimating everything in its path. Thick columns of trees lifted into the air, each severed at the base of its massive wooden trunk.

Not only was the projectile powerful, the Jinchuuriki who created it also seemed to be able to control its trajectory and detonation.

Such power… and such a waste. It didn't matter how powerful or quick his opponent was. With the power of his Mangekyo Sharingan, he was invincible.

"No way…" Uzumaki Naruto's look of disbelief brought a smile onto Obito's face, not that they could see his smile beneath his orange swirl mask.

Obito gestured his arms wildly as the partner attached to the right side of his body, Tobi, spoke. "Whew! That was close! I almost died there! Man! You people are strong! Poor Tobi almost can't even keep up!"

The team from the Hidden Leaf shot him a mixture of looks ranging from angry glares to looks of fear and, in Naruto's case, disbelief.

"How do we even fight this guy?" The girl with pink hair asked aloud.

Suddenly, Obito saw a hand protrude from his belly… a hand laced with lightning.

"Ah what's this?" Tobi asked cheerily. "I grew a hand out of my tummy!"

Obito, for his part, made no sound. If he were to speak now, he wouldn't be able to trust himself to say a word. The lightning hand evoked painful memories, memories of a time long past, memories of when his rival and friend had betrayed him and killed her. His former teammate, Hatake Kakashi, had just tried to kill him with the same attack that he'd used to kill the girl that he'd promised to protect. The traitor.

Spinning around, Obito angrily slammed a fist into the face of the attacker. The silver-haired man fell back, leaping away as a trickle of blood dribbled down the side of his head from the blow. Obito shook with fury, and Tobi once again began to speak. "U aWaaa! Scary!"

"Kakashi-sensei! Are you ok?!" The Jinchuuriki said worriedly. "Who the hell is this guy?!"

Kakashi rejoined his comrades and the pink haired girl was quickly at his side, resting a glowing green palm over his head.

"Me?" Tobi giggled. "Well. I'm Tobi! Pleased ta meetcha. Now my turn to ask a question."

With the power of his Sharingan, Obito jumped into his alternate dimension, moved a short distance, and reappeared next to the Nine-tails Jinchuuriki. "Why are you attacking Tobi when Tobi only wants to play?"

The blonde jumped, attacking on reflex. The fist phased through its target. To his side, Obito saw Kakashi throw two kunai at the same time and smirked. Sharingan blazing, he watched the kunai progress, their every trajectory captured in his line of vision. He could, of course, easily dodge the projectiles, but there was no point. They would only fly through his body anyway.

And then one of the Kunai vanished, and Obito had a moment of confusion as the remaining kunai phased through his body.

And then, even as the visible kunai thunked into the tree behind him, he felt a piece of cold metal stick through his guts. Gritting his teeth in pain, Obito looked down to see a gaping wound, and suddenly, the kunai that had vanished reappeared.

"I knew it." Kakashi half-whispered, his voice suddenly hoarse. "You're Obito aren't you?!"

Without another word, Obito phased away, leaving the team from the Shinobi of the Hidden Leaf to deal with the revelation of his identity.

Laying quietly on his hard, cold bed, he had an epiphany. It wasn't the good kind of epiphany, but the kind that made him feel like an idiot. How could he have been so stupid?! He had the ability to transport things into an alternate dimension... he could just leave them there!

Sure the size of what he could transport was limited; He couldn't just make the Earth disappear, but he sure as hell could transport people. He'd moved in and out of his own dimension millions of times, both as a form of discreet transportation and as a way of dodging attacks. If he wanted, he could abduct every single person that stood in the way of the Infinite Tsukuyomi. That was a goal that could be achieved - to snag them and leave them in his blank, featureless dimension and starve them into weakness.

There was only one problem: in order to transport something, he had to be in physical contact while also sacrificing his intangibility to maintain that contact for the duration of the transportation. It meant that for a long frame of 3-4 seconds, he would be completely vulnerable

It was the reason his epiphany had any merit. Hataka Kakashi, his former teammate, had his left eye. That eye's ability, Kamui, allowed its user to remotely transport things into his alternate dimension.

No physical contact and no sacrifice to intangibility necessary.

Kakashi's use of the eye's ability was, however, limited by the fact that he wasn't an Uchiha by blood. Only an Uchiha could use the Sharingan without tiring too quickly and only the original owners of any single Sharingan eye could use it efficiently. While he'd seen Kakashi practice and transport only a few small objects at a time before tiring, Obito was sure he could use the Kamui's ability with the same frequency that he used his current eye. If he could get his eye back, there would be nothing to stop him from simply abducting all five Kage's and any and all Shinobi that have any sort of potential to fight him.

"I'm worse than trash." Obito muttered. As he dug the left eye out of Kakashi's head, Obito felt a sting in his own eyes. Damnit. Why was he being sentimental now? He hated Kakashi. He hated him for failing to live up to his promise to protect Rin.

With eye in hand and crying silent tears, he swirled out of existence. Kakashi would be discovered in the morning and when he was, he would be buried. His name would be inscribed into the memorial stone, and he would be remembered as a hero who had fought bravely for the village. Now that he had his left eye back, Obito decided to wait a few days to allow the Hidden Leaf to mourn their newly fallen hero. Then he would strike, and he would win. For humanity, for Rin… and for Kakashi.

The death of Kakashi and the blatant theft of his eye had spawned a village-wide alert. Hatake Kakashi, former ANBU captain and A-rank-nin, had been one of the most powerful Shinobi in the village. That he was assassinated and his eye stolen without a trace was terrifying. What enemy could have done such a thing?

Even worse, before the mystery could be solved and dealt with, the Fifth Hokage disappeared. One moment she was there, the next she was gone. Maybe she'd gone off to get some time alone? That hopeful possibility was quickly crushed as one by one, the Hidden Leaf's top Shinobi disappeared.
And then they saw him: a man wearing an orange swirl mask and a cloak bearing the red and black clouds of the Akatsuki. His most prominent features, however, were his glowing red eyes. Even knowing the enemy was there, they hadn't been able to do anything. All the jutsu, projectiles and techniques they used only passed through him. He was invincible and, with horror, the citizens and lesser Shinobi of the village could only watch as their strongest members blink out of existence from wherever they stood.

"Stand back!" Commanded the voice of the village's Hidden Shadow, Shimura Danzo. The old man hobbled out into view, the bandages in his left eye and arm finally uncovered. "The only way to withstand the abilities of the Sharingan is with the Sharingan. I will-"

The old man disappeared, his words truncated in the process.

"What the fuck is this?!" Inuzuka Kiba yelled as first Neji, Rock Lee, Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, and an assortment of other Shinobi vanished from around him. "I'm strong too damnit!"

Ignoring the rising voices of the people of the village, the invader spoke: "Civilians of the Leaf. Your comrades have not been killed. They are still alive. If you want them to keep living, then you will turn all your military ventures into the production of necessities. I will come by daily to transport these necessities to where I've imprisoned your friends and family. If you want them to remain alive, I suggest you do as I say. I have abducted all your Shinobi of any worth, and I will be back tomorrow at six in the evening to collect whatever you see fit to give them. Whatever you provide will be what my prisoners will use to survive."
Then, ignoring the projectiles that were being thrown his way, Obito swirled away toward the Hidden Sand village.

The worst part of the place was sheer boredom. The landscape stretched on and on in dark, gloomy hues.

Naruto groaned as his stomach growled. They weren't being fed very well either; that was probably intentional.

At first they had been alone. Apparently, the Hidden Leaf was the first of the masked man's victims, but as Shinobi from other villages filtered in, the truth of the matter came to light. Every Shinobi was a target. As long as they had a name, they were sent into this dim world. They were like a bunch of pigs herded into a massive den. If it weren't for the Water-style jutsu wielders, they would probably have become a mass of stinking humans. Their predicament was terrible, but somehow, they managed to survive. With the help of Yamamoto, the only user of the wood style, they managed to form entire blocks of houses and plants, making the place almost bearable.

Few good came from their shared predicament, one of them being the dissolution of the different factions' political rivalries. It was hard to hate a former enemy when they too suffered as you were and worked with you to make the best out of a terrible situation. There was, of course, still an organizational structure. Many still obeyed the Kages.

If it weren't for the daily slips of messages from their jailer, Naruto was sure that a number of people would have committed suicide already.

The messages reassured them that their villages still stood and that their people were still alive. Most importantly, the messages always stressed one thing: The Infinite Tsukuyomi. Apparently, their jailer wanted to keep them alive so that they could be a part of some eternal bliss technique.

An eternal illusion of bliss… wasn't that the same as some kind of heaven? A number of people thought that the idea wasn't so bad and had openly voiced their support in a sort of half-attempt to get their jailer to release them. Their words were ignored. Naruto himself, however, refused to accept such a 'solution' to the world's problems. Humans were meant to live their lives, to really exist. The world could only progress and improve if they grounded their lives in reality. To better that reality and to advance, that was what was at stake. They would lose true happiness if they let everything be replaced by an Illusion.

As time went on, fewer and fewer shared Naruto's point of view. An eternity of false happiness was better than true misery, the Tsuchikage's granddaughter argued. Many members from any of the different village factions agreed, particularly the ones who led miserable lives. Even knowing that the extraction of Bijuu and the death of its respective Jinchuuriki container was required for the Infinite Tsukuyomi, some from among the Jinchuuriki even seemed to have taken the side of the man with the orange swirl-patterned mask - namely the dark-skinned girl, Fu, from Waterfall, and the tall man, Han, from Iwa,

"How do we even know if this Infinite Tsukuyomi thing is even possible?" Shikamaru had asked when pressed for an opinion. "Sounds too idealistic, like someone went and made up some beautiful, perfect goal…"

"Perfect?!" Naruto yelled. "How is it perfect?"

"Well for starters, it's immortality combined with happiness. That's the definition of eternal happiness. Sounds pretty perfect to me. I just don't think it's possible. Naruto… don't drag me into this. Please. I really don't feel like dealing with this stupid argument that you all are having."

And so time passed and, despite the strangeness of their new dimension of existence, the Shinobi survived, weak from hunger and periodic starvation, but still. They survived. By the time the Jinchuuriki began to disappear - retrieved, no doubt, to be extracted - many lamented their inevitable death, but few protested.

The loudest protester turned out, unsurprisingly, to be Hyuuga Hinata, heiress of the Hyuuga clan. Knowing that Naruto was going to have the Nine-tails extracted from him and that he was going to die, the girl finally confessed, and Naruto, unable to reject her, managed to spend the last of his life giving as much as he could to someone who really loved him with what little time he had.

"The preconditions have been set. The Bijuu have been extracted. It is time for you to do your part, Nagato."

Nagato frowned. They'd come so far. Now he was to revive Uchiha Madara who would perform the Infinite Tsukuyomi technique. The revival would come at the cost of his life.

"Nagato. You don't have t-" Konan vanished, blinked away without having been able to finish whatever she was going to say.

"She would've told you not to do it, but you know that you must. For the sake of peace."

Nagato nodded. "Uchiha Obito. It has been a pleasure working with you." Then, hands held together, the Rinnegan-user and one of the last surviving students of the Toad Sage, Jiraiya, uttered his last words: "Rinne Tensei!"

Things could not have been set up more perfectly. Madara smirked and applauded himself for having chosen a capable successor. "Uchiha Obito. You've done well." Walking over to the white-haired corpse of the former leader of the Akatsuki, Madara plucked the Rinnegan from its previous owner and swiftly implanted them into himself. "Now it is time. I'm about to perform the ultimate technique."

"Wait. We may have won, but there is one more thing I have to do."

"And what is that?" Madara asked suspiciously.

Obito smiled. "I have to release all the people I have in my alternate dimension so that they can be a part of the Infinite Tsukuyomi too."

Madara furrowed his eyes. "I see. Make sure they don't kill you when you release them."

"I will. Do not worry."

Madara held his arms open and laughed. He'd done it. He'd succeeded! The world was in peace! A cold feeling trembled down his spine and Madara shivered. He couldn't move. Something was holding him in place…

"Uchiha Madara." The voice whispered. "You were such an idiot to think that I was working for you."

"Zetsu.." Madara growled. "What is this?"

"This?" The voice chuckled. "This is the revival of Mother. Goodbye, Uchiha Madara."

Kaguya looked down on the world. Below, the massive columns of the God Tree, a symbol of her power, jutted into the sky. The world was hers, as it should have been. She would, of course, release a few men of her choosing to accompany her. She'd also have to breed more humans to feed the God Tree. The current humans won't last forever, after all. In a century or two, their bodies would be drained, and they would die. She would need to replace them with newer humans, and they would be the source of her power to be hung like fruits inside an Illusion of bliss.

Kaguya smiled as she thought of the men she would be choosing. They would be beautiful of course.

A Goddess deserved nothing less.