Snap!
The crisp sound of a finger snap fell.
With this seemingly ordinary action, a transparent ripple quietly spread through the air in an instant.
"What was that?"
"It looked like a ripple from a barrier?"
"What's going on? Didn't the barrier just shatter?"
In the distance, the Cloud's perception unit—who had been cautiously observing Ren Uchiha's movements atop the wall and relaying data back to the Tenshu Pavilion—erupted into whispers. A group of Cloud ninjas stared blankly at the sky, where the "Regeneration Barrier" was suddenly fluctuating.
The report of Ren Uchiha dismantling the barrier had just been sent up. They were certain they hadn't miscalculated; they had seen the barrier turn red in that peculiar way and explode. It should have been gone.
Yet now, the barrier had eerily reappeared in the sky, rippling with waves that were difficult to detect without close scrutiny.
"Could it be... the destruction of the barrier was an illusion?"
"A Genjutsu?"
Nurui, the captain of the perception squad, frowned as he deduced the possibility. His face hardened as he turned to his subordinate on the left. "Regardless, report this immediately. Yurui, contact the Tenshu Pavilion."
"Wait, Captain, where are you looking?"
"I'm right here!"
Nurui froze as Yurui's voice suddenly came from his right. "You're on my right?"
"What are you saying, Captain? I've been right behind you the whole time!" Yurui stared at his leader, bewildered.
"What!? Yurui, you're clearly standing in front of the captain!" another team member chimed in, frowning.
"Are you joking? I haven't moved from my spot since we started! What are you talking about!?" Yurui retorted defensively.
Hearing the bickering, Nurui suddenly realized something terrifying. In my vision, Yurui is on my left, but his voice comes from the right. He says he's behind me, but another member sees him in front?
Nurui felt his scalp go numb. He instinctively looked up toward the sky, at the eight Yasaka Beads Ren Uchiha had thrown.
However, the eight flaming magatama—which should have been hurtling through the air toward the mountain peak—had vanished into thin air.
"How is this possible!?"
"What happened!"
"What exactly is going on?"
"Was it because of Ren Uchiha's snap?!"
"The broken barrier reappears, the senses of my team members and myself are scrambled, and the aerial attack vanishes at the same time..."
He thought back to that single "ripple" that had spread across the city!
In the next heartbeat, Nurui began to shake with fear. His muscles twitched, his teeth chattered uncontrollably, and the skin at the corners of his eyes felt as if it were tearing. His pupils bulged as he screamed inwardly:
"Genjutsu!"
"Oh no! This is a Genjutsu!"
"It's definitely a Genjutsu!"
"An ultimate illusion beyond anyone's imagination... capable of warping sight and sound, covering ten hectares of land, and hypnotizing an entire city simultaneously!"
"This intel... I have to get this to the Tenshu Pavilion! Fast—"
Suddenly, Nurui's frantic inner screaming came to a dead stop.
Because he saw it.
Not far away, perched atop the cold and menacing skeletal giant, Ren Uchiha lowered his head. His icy gaze drifted sideways, locking onto him.
In that instant, Nurui felt as if he had plunged into a frozen abyss!
Sage Art: Genjutsu—Mirror of the Sun.
This technique was an unrankable Genjutsu born from the combination of Sage Art: Yin Release Phantom Form, the city-wide Regeneration Barrier, and the principles of five different illusions: Genjutsu: Sharingan, Mirror Heaven and Earth Change, Temple of Nirvana, Bringer-of-Darkness, and Ephemeral.
Capture Range: 10 Hectares.
Its essence was no different from the illusion Shin'ichi Uchiha had once placed on Ren—using Genjutsu: Ephemeral to transfer a Sharingan illusion into a nearby pond.
For every enemy within the barrier, the moment their eyes touched the sky-wide barrier, it was equivalent to making eye contact with a Three-Tomoe Sharingan. The illusion would be reapplied every second.
The method to break it was simple—the standard procedure for countering a Sharingan: two people disrupting each other's chakra flow.
But the crux of the problem was this: even if you broke the illusion, unless you stared at the floor or closed your eyes entirely, any direction you looked would force you to see the barrier covering the sky. This would trigger the massive Yin natural energy and plunge you right back into the Genjutsu.
This was a miracle of a technique—a synthesis of various illusions honed by the Uchiha's peerless mastery. It hung over the city like a mirror of the heavens; wherever light touched, the sun's gaze followed!
"The magatama... they vanished!?"
Standing side-by-side on the peak, A and Bee—who had been prepared to face the eight Yasaka Beads—looked at each other with pure confusion.
Thousands of meters away, relying on shinobi logic and common sense, they didn't immediately consider that they had been caught in a Genjutsu. Combined with the delay in intelligence, their fate was sealed.
"Is this a property of the technique itself?"
"Can the magatama turn invisible?"
"Even if they can, I can still hear the sound of the wind as they fall... but the sound isn't coming from that direction."
"Is Ren Uchiha targeting something else?"
"But there's no reason for—"
"No, it's getting hotter!"
"..."
"Wait... is this a Genjutsu!?"
Even with A's rapid reaction speed, by the time he used the process of elimination to arrive at the truth, it was too late!
"Bee! Break the Genjutsu with Gyūki! Then break mine!"
A's face shifted violently. He reached out to grab Bee's shoulder based on his memory of where his brother stood, only to grab thin air. He roared in fury. This illusion had warped at least three of his senses: sight, sound, and touch!
Hearing the voice, Bee acted instantly out of unconditional trust for his brother. However, the moment he broke his own illusion and regained his sight—seeing the eight magatama hurtling toward them—he was caught in the Genjutsu again.
This caused his attempt to release A from the illusion to lag by a heartbeat. By the time he successfully cleared his own mind, closed his eyes to bypass the barrier's trigger, and released A...
The flaming magatama, spinning violently like falling meteors, hit the ground!
In an instant, countless explosions coalesced into chaotic, overlapping petals. Upon the mountain peak, they bloomed like a vast sea of Mandarava flowers!
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