Yes.
How exactly were they supposed to capture Uchiha Yoru now that he could fly?
The Third Hokage stared at Uchiha Yoru outside the barrier and was momentarily dumbfounded.
He was known as the "Professor of Ninjutsu," but there were not many ninjutsu capable of accurately striking a target several hundred meters away.
More importantly, the flying speed Uchiha Yoru had just displayed made him extraordinarily difficult to lock onto.
For a moment, even Hiruzen Sarutobi had no idea what to do.
After all, Uchiha Yoru was already outside the barrier.
The sky was vast enough for birds to fly freely, and the sea was wide enough for fish to leap as they pleased.
If he simply flew freely through the sky, what could shinobi running around on the ground possibly do to attack him?
But no one expected that in the final instant before the barrier fully closed—
Uchiha Yoru transformed into a streak of light, passed through the last tiny gap, and returned inside the barrier.
The Third Hokage's mind buzzed.
Overwhelming joy surged through him, followed immediately by hundreds of possible ninjutsu combinations.
Inside the barrier, Uchiha Yoru's flight space was limited.
That meant there were far more techniques they could use against him.
In an instant, the Third Hokage had already planned which ninjutsu to use to restrict the airspace, which techniques would force Uchiha Yoru to evade, which attacks would surround him afterward, and finally which techniques would bind and kill him.
In truth, none of that complicated planning was necessary.
The instant Uchiha Yoru flew back inside, he charged directly toward the pass.
Like a falling meteor, he crashed into the formation of Konoha shinobi.
His supersonic flight generated a violent shockwave.
The explosive air pressure and powerful currents slammed into the ground, producing a storm far stronger than ordinary Wind Release and sending every Root and ANBU shinobi flying.
When the dust settled, only Uchiha Yoru remained standing on the cleared ground.
He stood thirty meters away from the Third Hokage.
Completely at ease, he confronted the group of powerful shinobi before him without showing the slightest concern for the Root and ANBU shinobi reforming their ranks and rapidly surrounding him.
Uchiha Yoru glanced at them.
The violent winds had blown aside their cloaks and masks, allowing him to quickly spot the small clan crests hidden on their clothing.
That clan crest was not particularly famous.
Unfortunately for them—
Uchiha Yoru recognized it.
He smiled.
"So they're all shinobi of the Sarutobi Clan."
"I was wondering."
"The Third Hokage is openly violating the responsibilities of the Hokage by surrounding and attacking me."
"Bringing Root shinobi would at least make some sense."
"But how could you possibly dare bring ordinary ANBU into this?"
"So they're all members of your own clan."
"In that case, it really doesn't matter."
Then he looked toward Jiraiya.
"Jiraiya-senpai."
"Before today, I actually respected you quite a bit."
"I also liked your personality."
"So I'm genuinely curious."
"What reason could possibly convince you to participate in an operation to surround and kill me?"
"Even if the Third Hokage declared me a missing-nin, you shouldn't believe him without seeing concrete evidence yourself."
A trace of darkness flashed through Jiraiya's eyes.
But it vanished almost immediately.
He answered seriously,
"I don't care whether you're a missing-nin."
"But the Great Toad Sage saw you in his prophecy."
"He saw you destroy the Child of Prophecy in the future."
"And destroy the shinobi world."
"For the future and peace of the shinobi world…"
"For the safety of the Child of Prophecy…"
"I have no choice but to stand here and stop you."
Jiraiya's gaze sharpened.
Killing intent slowly spilled from him.
"At any cost."
Hearing this, Uchiha Yoru suddenly clapped his hands together.
Realization dawned across his face.
"So that's what happened."
"Ever since I discovered all of you here, I've been wondering about something."
"My decision to return to Konoha was completely spontaneous."
"When I left, I even deliberately shook off Shikaku Nara and the others."
"To return to Konoha as quickly as possible, I flew at full speed the entire way."
"No one could possibly catch up with me."
"Not even a swift hawk."
"I went through all that trouble precisely because I wanted to catch the Third Hokage off guard."
"And yet somehow…"
"You were waiting here to ambush me."
"That made absolutely no sense."
"No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't figure out how you managed to get ahead of me."
Uchiha Yoru opened his Sharingan wide.
His cold, murderous gaze fell on Jiraiya and the two toads standing on his shoulders.
"Now I understand."
"It was Gamamaru of Mount Myōboku."
"What an impressive ability."
"So it really can see the future."
Uchiha Yoru took a deep breath.
"By convention, I need to confirm one final thing."
"Fukasaku Sage."
"And Shima Sage."
"You two represent Mount Myōboku."
"Are you certain you intend to become my enemies?"
Fukasaku and Shima exchanged a glance.
Fukasaku's expression became solemn.
He stroked his beard with one claw, using the motion to steady his mind.
Only after two full seconds did he answer.
"From the bottom of our hearts, we have no desire to become enemies with a human Sage."
"Unfortunately…"
"What you do in the future is simply too terrifying."
"For the sake of the shinobi world, we have no choice but to intervene."
"Please forgive us."
"Tch."
Uchiha Yoru let out a disdainful sneer.
"Using something that hasn't even happened yet as justification for killing someone."
"How ridiculous."
"Looks like the Great Toad Sage Gamamaru isn't much after all."
"After living for so many years, it still hasn't understood something as simple as this—"
"History cannot be changed."
"The future is uncertain."
"The fact that Mount Myōboku has survived until today…"
"I can only wonder how much luck that took."
Hearing Uchiha Yoru disparage Mount Myōboku, Fukasaku's anger was ignited as well.
His voice turned cold.
"Mount Myōboku has survived until this day and grown increasingly prosperous."
"That is not something a newly born Sage like you is qualified to belittle."
Uchiha Yoru's expression gradually became calm.
He looked at the two toads.
"I'm giving you a formal warning."
"Immediately stop this foolish attempt to oppose me."
"Do not involve yourselves in Konoha's internal conflict."
"Take Jiraiya and return to Mount Myōboku."
Perhaps because Uchiha Yoru had spoken for too long, Fukasaku subconsciously began to look down on him.
He rejected the warning without hesitation.
"Impossible!"
"Uchiha Yoru, the one who should come with us to Mount Myōboku isn't little Jiraiya."
"It's you!"
"If you voluntarily come to Mount Myōboku and cultivate peacefully under the Great Sage's supervision for fifty years…"
"Then the two of us are willing to guarantee your safety."
"We can resolve this without fighting."
"And you won't have to die!"
Uchiha Yoru laughed from sheer anger.
He drew in a deep breath.
"This is my final warning."
"Go back to Mount Myōboku."
"Otherwise…"
"I will regard Mount Myōboku as my enemy."
"I will attack you."
"And from that moment onward, there will be no reconciliation between me and the toads."
Shima suddenly interrupted,
"Old man, there's no need to waste words on him."
"He's already made up his mind to oppose us."
"Prepare for battle."
"Ridiculous."
"You leave Mount Myōboku…"
"Come to the place where I've lived and grown up my entire life…"
"Join an operation to surround and kill me…"
"And then claim that I'm the one determined to become your enemy?"
"Fine."
"Then I'll give you exactly what you want."
At that moment, inspiration suddenly flashed through Uchiha Yoru's mind.
His gaze gradually became distant.
As though he had seen through endless space and time.
No one knew what he had seen.
But the corners of Uchiha Yoru's lips slowly rose.
He said calmly,
"If you make an enemy of me…"
"Mount Myōboku will eventually be destroyed."
"Do not say that you were not warned."
No one in the shinobi world could understand the true weight behind those words.
Shima.
Fukasaku.
Jiraiya.
The Third Hokage.
Uchiha Fugaku.
All they did was frown.
But a moment later—
They sensed that something was wrong.
Because those words were different to Uchiha Yoru.
In another world, 190,000 heroic souls had used their lives as material to forge those words into a sacred weapon that protected a nation.
Merely speaking them was enough to make the enemies of that other world tremble.
And for someone like Uchiha Yoru—
They stirred his very soul.
Courage flowed from those words.
It surged like a raging tide into Uchiha Yoru's heart.
Within the Purple Mansion World—
The Heart Ape violently pushed aside the massive volcano suppressing it.
Even the faith-lines tightly binding it could no longer restrain the monkey's power.
It raised its head toward the heavens.
And unleashed an earth-shaking roar.
The other face of restlessness was courage.
And the other face of courage—
Was fearlessness.
At this moment, Uchiha Yoru cast aside his apprehension toward the Great Toad Sage's prophetic ability.
He cast aside his vague fear of the Sage of Six Paths.
He cast aside his anxiety toward the visitors from beyond the heavens.
Only one thought remained in his heart.
Fight!
Anyone who obstructed his Dao—
Must die!
Uchiha Yoru's aura climbed higher and higher.
His fighting spirit surged beyond restraint.
The courage originating from another world transformed into genuine spiritual power within this supernatural world.
It swept across Uchiha Yoru's enemies.
The ANBU shinobi of the Sarutobi Clan were the first to collapse.
Their eyes rolled upward one after another.
Their bodies went limp and fell to the ground.
The Root shinobi, who had endured endless brainwashing and mental conditioning, fared little better.
The seemingly unbreakable mental shackles in their minds shattered one after another under the stronger spiritual impact.
With portions of those shackles destroyed—
The Root shinobi's logic collapsed into chaos.
Their thoughts could no longer function normally.
Some drew their weapons and charged screaming toward Uchiha Yoru.
Those were the ones who reacted the best.
Others drew their weapons and attacked their own comrades.
One Root shinobi hacked down several companions in succession before colliding with another maddened Root shinobi.
The two lunatics immediately began fighting.
Neither defended.
Neither dodged.
Both attacked without restraint.
Within moments, they had stabbed countless holes through each other.
They collapsed like bloody rags.
But most of the Root shinobi could no longer understand what they wanted to do—
Or what they were supposed to do.
They simply stood there in a daze.
Even Uchiha Yoru had not expected his unintentional burst of spiritual pressure to disable every Root shinobi in a single instant.
He chuckled.
"Heh."
"My spiritual pressure seems even more offensively potent than Conqueror's Haki."
But Uchiha Yoru understood the truth.
It was not because he was overwhelmingly powerful.
The Root shinobi themselves were simply too flawed.
After years of brainwashing and suggestion, their minds had become too simplistic.
There was not even the slightest redundant buffer left inside them.
Normally, they appeared absolutely obedient.
Calm.
Ruthless.
Fearless.
But once they encountered a truly overwhelming enemy and their endurance threshold was exceeded—
They collapsed instantly.
Their performance was actually worse than the Sarutobi Clan shinobi who had never even experienced a battlefield.
The Sarutobi shinobi looked pathetic after fainting.
But that very method of shutting down had protected them from the worst of the damage.
They were already gradually recovering.
Countless thoughts passed through Uchiha Yoru's mind.
But they did not interfere with his attack.
At the same moment the Root shinobi went mad—
He activated his Mangekyō Sharingan.
The three rings in his left eye began spinning rapidly.
His dōjutsu activated instantly.
Sharingan: Mangekyō—
Kukuri Dōshin.
The origin of this technique came from the deity Kukurihime-no-Mikoto.
After awakening his Mangekyō, Uchiha Yoru had obtained this ability according to his deepest desire—
A technique capable of unraveling all knowledge in the world.
For a transmigrator to awaken the Mangekyō Sharingan and not obtain a space-time dōjutsu—
Uchiha Yoru had been extremely disappointed.
It had also forced him to understand his own heart.
So what he desired most was actually—
A voyeuristic urge…
Peh!
Absolutely not.
It was a thirst for knowledge.
Of course, that did not prevent Uchiha Yoru from using this eye to capture every tiny detail about a person.
Those details would instantly transform into an enormous mass of information.
Then the eye would analyze that information and immediately construct an almost perfectly targeted genjutsu.
All of those processes—
Observation.
Analysis.
Deconstruction.
Design.
Activation.
Were compressed into a single glance.
Every person received a genjutsu made specifically for them.
And those individual genjutsu were then merged together into one massive Sharingan illusion.
It was like telling every person their own individual story—
Then connecting all of those stories together into a single complete world.
Every person trapped within the genjutsu became part of everyone else's illusion.
They communicated.
They interacted.
Their actions reinforced one another's sense of reality.
Their perception of what was real gradually blurred.
Once the illusion world developed beyond a certain point—
It would begin evolving entirely on its own.
Every participant trapped inside would unconsciously contribute their own strength toward maintaining it.
Eventually—
Even Uchiha Yoru himself would lose complete control over the illusion world.
Much less be capable of dispelling it at will.
If even the creator could no longer freely release the technique—
Then the difficulty for the victims to escape such an illusion world was almost unimaginable.
Inside a genjutsu world that approached complete reality—
Even if someone discovered something was wrong and actively attempted to dispel the illusion—
They would face one horrifying question.
Did you really dispel it?
Most of the time—
The victim merely believed that they had released the genjutsu.
Even top-tier shinobi such as the Third Hokage, Jiraiya, Uchiha Fugaku, Uchiha Setsuna, and Homura Mitokado were no exception.
They truly did attempt to disrupt their own chakra and break free.
But the power of their chakra fluctuations was canceled out by everyone else connected to the illusion world.
They were like fish trapped inside a net.
Their struggles worked against one another.
They could not act together.
They could not combine their strength to tear apart the enormous net of genjutsu surrounding them.
Unless one person—
Or one coordinated group—
Possessed enough overwhelming power to suppress everyone else and forcibly synchronize them.
Only then could they tear open a corner of the illusion world.
But an unexpected development occurred.
While Uchiha Yoru maintained the illusion and simultaneously began preparing a Fire Spirit senjutsu—
A corner of the illusion world was suddenly ripped apart.
Sage Art: Demonic Illusion—
Toad Confrontation Chant!
Standing on Jiraiya's shoulders, the two Toad Sages possessed biological structures completely different from humans.
Because of that—
They had not fully sunk into the illusion world.
The moment the toad couple realized something was wrong, they relied on the tacit understanding built over centuries of living together.
They activated senjutsu immediately.
And opened their mouths at the same time.
Their genjutsu song resounded.
This pair of toad spouses had practiced their duet for more than three hundred years.
Their cooperation had long since reached perfection.
Their extraordinary harmony—
Was powerful enough to distort space itself!
And that distortion of space severely interfered with the transmission of Uchiha Yoru's ocular power.
A major flaw appeared inside the illusion world.
The two Sages immediately noticed it.
They realized—
They were trapped inside a genjutsu.
So they subtly modified Mount Myōboku's secret sound patterns.
The function of Toad Confrontation Chant changed.
From a melody designed to lure and capture enemies—
Into a melody meant to shake apart restraints and forcefully break free.
Using their own spirits, they reversed the technique.
They created a spiritual-binding illusion world of their own—
Then shattered it from within.
"Immovable."
"Darkness."
"King."
"Lord."
The Four Great Toads of the Immovable Dark King broke free from the spiritual world.
They began rampaging wildly.
One corner of Uchiha Yoru's illusion world shattered completely.
That destruction spread outward—
And the entire illusion world began collapsing.
A confrontation between genjutsu often reached its conclusion within a single flicker of consciousness.
Events unfolded at extraordinary speed.
When Uchiha Yoru first activated Kukuri Dōshin and dragged everyone into his illusion world—
Fukasaku and Shima had not even had time to react.
They could only struggle desperately for survival inside it.
But once they successfully broke the illusion world and counterattacked through the Four Great Toads of the Immovable Dark King—
Uchiha Yoru likewise had no time to respond.
By the time he realized what was happening—
It was already over.
Within the massive shared illusion world—
The Dark King illusion world was born.
It exploded outward.
It broke free.
Two completely different illusion worlds collided—
And immediately began merging and crashing against each other.
The conflict within the spiritual realm reached an unprecedented level.
Uchiha Yoru and the two Toad Sages—
The respective masters of their illusion worlds—
Were like drivers sitting inside their own vehicles.
And their vehicles carried them directly into a head-on collision.
The illusion worlds protected their creators to a certain extent.
But as those worlds shattered—
The damage was also transmitted directly back to their masters.
With Uchiha Yoru's current strength, a spiritual impact of this level was not enough to inflict serious injury.
But it inevitably affected him severely.
His mind buzzed violently.
His vision instantly went black.
His field of view rapidly shrank until only a tiny point of light remained in the center.
He nearly lost consciousness.
To prevent the natural energy around him from going out of control, Uchiha Yoru had no choice but to release his control over the Fire Spirit natural energy he had been weaving together.
The enormous quantity of energy dispersed harmlessly back into the natural world.
Fortunately—
He had not actually suffered a serious injury.
After twenty seconds, his vision began recovering.
The pain in his head rapidly faded as well.
Just as Uchiha Yoru finally relaxed—
He felt something warm beneath his nose.
He raised a hand and wiped it.
His palm came away covered in blood.
A nosebleed.
Fortunately, the amount was small.
It was merely damage to the nasal mucosa.
Nothing serious.
But the sight of his own blood immediately irritated Uchiha Yoru.
He finally could not stop himself from cursing.
"Fuck."
"They actually pulled it off!"
Still—
His condition was already extremely good.
On the other side of the collision between the two illusion worlds—
The two toads had suffered genuine severe injuries.
At the same moment Uchiha Yoru's vision went black—
Their bodies suddenly stiffened as though they had been electrocuted.
Their natural crouching posture disappeared.
Both toads stretched rigidly upright.
They remained frozen like that for more than ten seconds.
Then—
Both simultaneously spat out a mouthful of blood.
Their eyes rolled back.
They toppled backward.
And completely lost consciousness.
Fortunately, Jiraiya had been the closest to them.
As the nearest participant to benefit from their counterattack, he was also the first human to recover.
His reaction speed was extremely fast.
He caught both Toad Sages before they could hit the ground.
Even though they would only have fallen from Jiraiya's shoulders—
They were completely unconscious.
Their bodies could not even make the most basic instinctive response to protect themselves.
From that height—
The fall alone could already have been fatal.
Immediately afterward—
The Third Hokage and Uchiha Fugaku regained consciousness.
They felt the scorching heat lingering in the air from the dispersed Fire Spirit natural energy.
They quickly understood just how dangerous the situation had been.
They had been only one step away—
From being consumed by raging flames.
Lingering fear sent chills through both Kage-level shinobi.
Uchiha Fugaku activated his Sharingan.
The Third Hokage summoned Enma.
Both stared fixedly at Uchiha Yoru.
Every trace of carelessness disappeared.
They did not dare relax even slightly.
They were terrified of being caught by that horrifying genjutsu again.
Because next time—
There would be no two Sages left to save them.
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