Chapter 39: Genjutsu Confrontation
"Casting genjutsu on a fellow villager without warning does little for the Uchiha's reputation," Tonbo said. "Has the clan truly fallen this far?"
He no longer considered the Sharingan an insurmountable threat. Even Shisui's most dangerous ocular technique required a path into its target's mind, and Tonbo had spent years preparing defenses against exactly that kind of intrusion.
Return Mirror was only one layer. He had studied methods of preserving memories, restoring them from protected records, and recognizing when an outside force had rewritten personal history. His mastery of Psycho Mind Transmission made planting a verified memory structure within his own mind possible, though the work remained delicate.
The thinner officer stared at his immobilized companion.
"What did you do to him? Wake up!"
The man did not respond.
"Genjutsu," Shisui said.
He placed a hand on his subordinate and disrupted the trapped man's chakra. The officer's vacant eyes slowly recovered their focus.
"Be careful," he warned immediately. "He reflects genjutsu."
His own ocular technique had been broken and returned before he could react. The experience had replaced his arrogance with fear.
Shisui and the third officer tightened their grips on their swords.
"You attacked the Police Force," Shisui said. "Are you trying to become a missing-nin?"
He disliked his subordinate's unprovoked use of the Sharingan, but Tonbo's ability to incapacitate an Uchiha so effortlessly raised the danger of the situation.
"Don't attach crimes to me so quickly," Tonbo replied. "I inherited the Will of Fire. What happened was an automatic defensive response to your officer attacking my mind. Calling that rebellion is unreasonable."
His temper sharpened. Tonbo had expected Shisui to be more measured than other Uchiha, but even he seemed ready to protect the clan's authority before acknowledging who had struck first.
"Then come with us to Hokage-sama," Shisui said.
One hand formed a seal.
He vanished.
Steel flashed beside Tonbo's neck. Tonbo caught Shisui's sword on a kunai, the collision ringing across the restored training ground.
"Ayame, watch from a safe distance. Your husband is about to show the village's protectors what he can do."
With his free hand, Tonbo formed a seal. A small woven bird beneath Ayame expanded into a broad-backed eagle and carried her into the sky.
Tonbo turned his full attention to Shisui.
"Shisui of the Body Flicker. I've wanted to see whether your reputation is deserved."
The prospect thrilled him despite the absurd cause of the confrontation. This was the future wielder of one of the most formidable genjutsu in the shinobi world.
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Sword and kunai met again.
The two men accelerated until their bodies blurred. Sparks marked each collision, brief orange lines tracing attacks too fast for ordinary eyes.
Shisui changed angles between every step, appearing beside Tonbo, behind him, then above him with scarcely a pause. Tonbo answered through sensory awareness rather than sight alone. He felt each displacement of chakra, turned before the sword completed its path, and forced Shisui to defend as often as he attacked.
"Impossible," the heavier Uchiha whispered.
Even with his Sharingan, he struggled to follow them. Tonbo's Body Flicker matched Shisui's and sometimes appeared to take the advantage. Without the Sharingan's enhanced vision, controlling movement at that speed should have been nearly impossible.
The third officer activated his own Sharingan and withdrew from the battlefield rather than interfere.
High above them, Ayame clung to the woven eagle. She trusted Tonbo when he claimed to be strong, but trust did not silence fear. Her eyes could not resolve the combatants. She saw only afterimages and heard repeated bursts of clashing metal.
Shisui disengaged after another exchange and landed several paces away.
His opponent possessed Body Flicker equal to his own, a defense that reflected genjutsu, and taijutsu refined enough to exploit both. Holding back was no longer an option.
Shisui formed hand seals.
Dozens of identical figures appeared across the field.
"Phantom Body Flicker."
The phantoms attacked from every direction.
Tonbo almost laughed. Deceptive afterimages were dangerous against the eye, but he was a sensory shinobi. The copies lacked the complete presence of the real Shisui.
Tiger. Rat. Earth.
"Genjutsu: Hell Viewing Technique—Modified."
He released the illusion at the instant Shisui focused most intensely on his attack. The Uchiha relied heavily on visual dominance, which made an indirect attack against their attention especially effective.
Shisui frowned without breaking stride.
Using genjutsu against an Uchiha seemed foolish. The Sharingan naturally suppressed most illusionists, and its three tomoe were already turning to guard his mind.
Then Fugaku appeared before him.
The Uchiha clan head led an open rebellion through Konoha. Buildings burned. Villagers cried among ruined streets while hostile nations moved to exploit the village's collapse.
The vision targeted the fear Shisui least wanted to admit. Clan and village tore one another apart while he stood between them, unable to save either. Every scream accused him of recognizing the danger and still failing to prevent it.
"Release."
The devastation vanished. Tonbo stood ahead of him, several copies already closing in.
Before Shisui could counterattack, the ruined village returned.
He broke the illusion again.
It re-formed before a full heartbeat passed.
Tonbo had cast the technique only once. Shisui was certain of that. Yet every successful release became the entrance to another identical illusion.
There had to be a mechanism sustaining the cycle.
Shisui abandoned his attack and retreated. Tonbo did not pursue. The bandaged shinobi merely folded his arms and watched while the vision of Konoha's destruction assaulted Shisui again and again.
The pressure mounted. For a moment, Shisui considered using the power he kept hidden even from most of his clan.
No.
A broken genjutsu could not simply reconstruct itself without fresh input. Repetition was the clue.
He closed his physical eyes and turned his perception inward. The shape of the Sharingan within his mind shifted as he studied the flow of his own chakra rather than the illusion presented to him.
Shisui released the technique once more.
An instant later, his chakra moved without his command. A small portion was consumed, and the nightmare rebuilt itself.
Understanding came at last.
The modified Hell Viewing Technique used its victim's chakra to recast itself. Each attempt to break free supplied the next repetition. A shinobi without the Sharingan's insight might never discover the source.
Shisui felt reluctant admiration. Tonbo's control of genjutsu was extraordinary.
Now that he understood the mechanism, he could break it.
Outside the illusion, Tonbo watched with a faint smile. Shisui was close. Once its secret was exposed, even Hijiri Shimon could escape this technique. The Uchiha clan's greatest young genjutsu talent would certainly manage it.
Tonbo was pleased nonetheless. Of all the illusions he had developed, this remained the one he used most often in real combat. Newer techniques tended to appear once during testing, while the modified Hell Viewing Technique combined easily with shuriken and ended fights efficiently.
His old squadmates had called him a one-trick pony because of it.
Tonbo had never liked the nickname.