Alive

Groggy after coming to, Obito studies the stranger's Sharingan and wonders whether this man is Uchiha as well, then catches sight of a scythe and fears a Shinigami has arrived to drag him toward heaven or hell. Panic overtakes him and he pleads to be spared the worse fate, protesting that nothing in his life was vile enough to warrant it. A careless twist of his body sends pain lancing through him, and the old man reframes that ache as proof he is clinging to life, barely though it may be. Madara reveals that he pulled the boy from death after Obito surfaced within his underground chamber, and that a debt now hangs over him in return.

Obito protests that he cannot stay, since comrades still rely on his protection while the war grinds on above them, but Madara counters that a frame as ruined as his can no longer serve as a shinobi. Devastated to have finally awakened the strength to guard his friends only for it to be called useless, Obito sits through a bleak sermon on the miseries of the ninja world. Noticing a change in the elder's manner, he still insists on leaving, and Madara flatly grants him the freedom to try. Pushed on his identity and whether he is a missing-nin, the seated figure names himself a specter of the Uchiha, Madara Uchiha, a claim Obito rejects outright since that legend supposedly died long ago battling Hashirama Senju.

The elder explains that he slipped past death and now stays alive only through a constant chakra feed pulled from the Outer Path's Demonic Statue, without which he would expire on the spot. When Obito hauls himself upright to head for Konoha, Madara warns the effort could tear loose the artificial body fitted onto him, and insists the boy obey his word from now on. Asked what he truly wants, Madara states plainly that he intends to build a flawless world, while Obito clings to his vow to shield his companions. Too weak to stop him by force, Madara notes that Obito's death would hand him the boy's Sharingan, since his own borrowed eye needs a matching pair to reach full power. Bracing himself, Obito silently tells Kakashi and Rin to hold on for his sake, because he is still breathing. The chapter runs in volume 63 during the Fourth Shinobi World War: Climax arc, and its title doubles as the name of a song.