Swallowed by the cold seawater, his senses crushed by endless pressure and suffocation, Hii Kōri did not panic or struggle as the girl had expected.
He spat out the seawater he had swallowed, stopped breathing, and observed his surroundings with interest.
Everything around him was so real.
The bitter saltiness in his mouth. The seawater soaking his clothes and hair. The tiny particles floating in his vision…
Yet his overwhelming spiritual power made him feel a strong dissonance. It was a suffocating sensation—as if being slowly wrapped in layer after layer of transparent, colorless film, each layer seemingly easy to pierce but always just out of reach. He felt as if his intestines were slowly twisting together.
Tsukuyomi was an ocular technique that pulled the enemy's consciousness into an illusion space where time, location, and even physical properties could be freely controlled by the user. This illusion space—the decisive difference between this Mangekyō-derived technique and other genjutsu—was not merely interfering with the enemy's mind, but physically pulling their consciousness into a space constructed from the user's ocular power. In a sense, this logic shared common ground with jujutsu domains.
Thus, without comparable ocular power, Tsukuyomi was an unavoidable genjutsu.
But conversely, since it pulled the consciousness inside, this illusion space was fundamentally a world of the mind.
Spiritual power could still function.
Thinking this, Hii Kōri's form at the bottom of the sea seemed to phase out.
The girl, watching from some hidden corner, reacted immediately.
The rusted chains binding Hii Kōri tightened. The water pressure intensified, as if trying to crush his spirit entirely. Yet his spirit still slipped through the chains, rising to the surface like a jellyfish drifting aimlessly.
New Yin Style: Simple Domain—forcibly opening an anomalous zone within this illusion space using his own spiritual power, Hii Kōri used it as a guide to probe the structure and energy flow of the Tsukuyomi world, attempting to destroy it.
This illusion space was ultimately the girl's domain. Even without knowing Hii Kōri's thoughts, she could still react quickly.
The black seawater that had swallowed him boiled instantly, forming countless vicious water serpents, giant hands, and whirlpools—each strike carrying enough force to shatter bones, all converging on Hii Kōri from every direction.
But Hii Kōri's understanding of "water" was clearly superior to the girl's. With a casual stroke, the attacking water serpents inexplicably faltered, as if forgetting their target. Giant hands twisted mid-strike, collapsing into harmless splashes. Whirlpools reversed direction, canceling themselves out.
Then, standing in midair, Hii Kōri reached behind him—his fingers seeming to sink into the void, vanishing from this world.
"Because it is a lie, it can be anything. Because it is a lie, it knows no limits. Because it is a lie, it has no restraints. The more impossible, the more irrational—once something is deemed a 'lie,' the less it is bound by the rules of this world…"
He swung his arm, tearing at space itself as if ripping away a veil, and sneered, "When it comes to turning falsehood into reality… your imagination falls short."
Rip—
A sound like tearing cloth. From his hand, countless cracks spread rapidly across the desolate beach scene. The lead-gray sky, the black sea, the pale sand—everything twisted, crumbled, and shattered into fragments, falling into deeper darkness.
As if resisting his judgment, the scene shifted again.
A clear, soft light. The night moon illuminated the gloomy sky.
A beautiful crescent hung high, shining over a field of reeds swaying gently in the breeze. Hii Kōri stood in this cold white field, observing his surroundings with interest.
Then, the breeze turned violent. Sharp pain spread from his leg—the swaying reeds had somehow become razor blades.
First water, then wind? Wrong on both counts!
With that thought, Hii Kōri created a rapid tornado around himself, dispersing the blade-reeds, then leaped into the air.
The mercury-like moonlight transformed into thousands of arrows, pouring down. His figure in that genuine rain of light seemed insignificant—a small boat in a storm, ready to be swallowed at any moment.
Amid the arrow storm, Hii Kōri found another flaw in the space and waved his hand.
Crack. Crack.
The ever-shifting world began to crumble. Surroundings scattered like dust in the wind, then reformed.
Parched deserts. Twisted, grotesque forests. Shallows flowing with rotting, stinking blood…
As he analyzed the illusion space, his speed at breaking these false worlds increased. Like an expert demolitionist, he casually placed a few nodes, pressed lightly, and the entire scene collapsed.
After tearing through over a dozen layers of illusion space, he was back in the original white void.
The girl appeared before him.
Realizing she had lost her chance to deal damage, she tried to create more complex, terrifying scenes to delay and exhaust him. But as Hii Kōri had said, she lacked imagination.
Her "life" had been nothing but combat and imprisonment she had never received a proper education. The scenes she could create were only battlefields she had once trod.
And Hii Kōri dismantled those scenes—practically her nightmares—so "cleanly." More than the drain on her ocular power and spirit, this shook her resolve.
Though he lacked ocular power and couldn't destroy the world completely, that didn't stop him from provoking her: "You look pale, cute little miss~"
"So what?!"
Her face darkened, her retort sharp. "Even if you break free and tear apart these scenes, as long as my ocular power holds, this Tsukuyomi world can continue endlessly! Even if you fight me here, I can heal my wounds infinitely!"
Her voice echoed in the white void, carrying a hollow bravado.
"Ah, probably."
Hii Kōri nodded with a light laugh, crossing his arms in a "whatever you say" expression, then grinned: "But explaining so much to a 'prisoner' like me just makes you sound insecure, Uchiha girl."
"After using so many Mangekyō techniques, your eyes can't handle much more, can they?"
Her expression darkened further. The sharp pain from her eyes reminded her she was nearing her limit. As he said, she had been sealed after a great battle. Though her ocular power had partially recovered, her eyes were not in good condition. Permanent damage was imminent.
"None of your business!"
But she wouldn't back down. Without another word, the white void shifted. Countless blood-red spikes of negative spiritual energy materialized from all directions, raining down on Hii Kōri. Simultaneously, she appeared behind him, wielding a crimson katana forged from pure killing intent.
"Ninja battles involve many factors: compatibility, environment, weather, teammates, condition, performance—countless variables."
Facing this sudden assault, Hii Kōri sighed regretfully. His form weaved through the spike storm like a phantom, dodging effortlessly, occasionally flicking aside spikes that interfered with others. "But in a spiritual world, it's much simpler."
He stopped. As she swung her katana, he raised two fingers and tapped lightly.
Clang!
The metallic ring echoed through the space. Her katana, condensed with killing intent, was stopped cold between his two fingers.
"Ultimately, only two factors matter here." Looking at her incredulous face, he said calmly: "Your ocular power, and the more universal spiritual power."
"I don't have your Uchiha 'ocular power,' so I can't break this technique at its source—true."
His tone returned to its usual calm, but his presence grew heavy as amber.
The white void trembled violently, as if bearing an invisible weight.
"But—" He paused, pressing slightly with his two fingers.
Crack!
Fine cracks spread from the point of contact, covering the katana before it shattered into red light.
"Crushing it outright with spiritual power—isn't that the same?"
As he spoke, having finished his analysis, Hii Kōri released the spiritual power he had been suppressing. The weight—like the sky itself falling—made the white void groan. Cracks spread wildly from him in all directions.
"Sorry, I forgot to mention—I'm very, very, very good at Yin Release."
He pushed back his still-damp hair, his gray eyes gleaming. "Thank you for providing such valuable reference material—different from conventional genjutsu. And…"
He smiled at her—a smile she found almost demonic.
"I had fun."
The final syllable left his lips—
BOOM!!!
The entire Tsukuyomi space shattered.
Hii Kōri's consciousness shot upward like a deep-sea diver, crossing the boundary between illusion and reality, returning to the bright, sun-scorched real world.
His body was still leaning forward, about to explain the "Warring States period"—as if the minutes spent in Tsukuyomi had been but an instant in reality.
Rashōmon. How long was that? he asked inwardly.
Less than a second, came the reply.
"…Time distortion to that degree? A very convenient technique. Like a Hyperbolic Time Chamber. If I could research inside it, I'd never worry about running out of time. I should have Orochimaru-senpai try it~"
His gaze passed over the scorched patch where Orochimaru had "died," as if mourning him.
"Ugh…"
The Uchiha girl was not so fortunate.
She staggered back, barely staying upright.
Her Mangekyō flickered like a faulty bulb before stabilizing. Her left eye was severely bloodshot; she kept her right eye, bleeding less, fixed on him. Tears of blood streamed down her pale cheeks—a pitiful sight.
Forcibly shattering Tsukuyomi had gutted her from the inside out. Layer upon layer of Amaterasu and Kagutsuchi had done the rest—the ocular power and spiritual energy she had hoarded across centuries of eroding seals were now all but gone.
Yet that hollow exhaustion only fed the chaos already tearing through her mind.
"It's not over—it's not over—IT'S NOT OVER!!!"
The negative spiritual energy she had nursed through a hundred years of dreaming had burned away to nothing. But the poison lodged in her heart? That remained. Centuries of hatred still drove her forward—even as her body gave out, even as she wrung out the very last of what she had left, even as she hurtled toward her own destruction—
Hateful shinobi… hateful world… I will—I WILL!!!
To grasp sunlight that had never touched her, in this sea of black flames.
She threw open her arms. The Mangekyō pattern in her remaining right eye spun to its limit, unstable afterimages appearing at its edges.
"KILL THEM ALL!!!!!"
BOOM!!!
Chakra composed almost entirely of violent, destructive spiritual energy—with scarcely any life force—erupted from her small body like a volcano, embodying the hatred and despair boiling in her soul.
"SUSANO'O!!!!!"
Crimson, solid chakra flames surged skyward, rapidly coalescing around her.
At her desperate cry, a blood-red skeleton appeared. Flesh crawled over it. Then tattered robes and damaged armor—like the remains of a battlefield—draped over it.
More a raging god than a war god, the crimson phantom pressed its hands to the ground, trying to rise and reveal its lower half.
But she had no more strength to manifest a complete Susano'o. The half-formed god fell back. Damaged armor fell away, leaving only tattered robes over a decaying body.
Even incomplete—only in its third form—the crimson god towered over Gamabunta, whom Hii Kōri had faced.
And its power was far beyond.
"...Die...die! DIE! Uzumaki ninja!!!"
She slumped inside the Susano'o, barely holding herself up with one trembling arm, her other hand pressed hard against her burning left eye. Words spilled from her lips in broken, fevered fragments.
"Yasaka Magatama!"
***
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