At this moment,
Cold, decisive eyes collided with a gaze of shocked bewilderment!
Their vision converged upon the edge of the venerable divine sword.
The scene within Minato Namikaze's eyes immediately began to distort. The blood within his body surged and vibrated uncontrollably, causing his chakra to show signs of spiraling out of alignment.
This was the foundational ability of Ren Uchiha's "Ocular Jutsu Atavism":
Composite Bloodline: Human Puppet Blood Manipulation!
It hadn't truly reached the realm of a Bloodline Totality; it was merely a composite of two Bloodline Limits—Genjutsu control and blood vibration. It allowed him to affect an enemy's body and consciousness simultaneously through Genjutsu, drastically slowing the opponent's senses.
Ren was certain that Minato had never seen him use this method of integrating Genjutsu into swordsmanship. It was easy to overlook this information; after all, a few months ago, when they were fighting side-by-side in the Land of Rain and Konoha, Ren hadn't yet mastered this ability.
But Minato Namikaze was, after all, Minato Namikaze.
Even caught in a sneak attack, his reaction was impossibly fast.
Before the ocular jutsu fully took hold, there was no lag in his mental processing. In terms of action, in an interval of less than half a second, he made the most optimal decision:
He formed a summoning seal with a single hand, preparing to cast the Mount Myoboku Summoning Jutsu!
Minato was capable of one-handed seals. Choosing this method bypassed the difficulty of forming complex two-handed seals while his blood was being vibrated by the ocular jutsu. Simultaneously, Minato attempted to use the seal-less Flying Raijin to displace himself. He planned to teleport outside, rely on his toad companions to break the Genjutsu, and then immediately return to the fray.
To keep fighting!
However,
Since Ren had chosen to launch a sneak attack, he had naturally accounted for this.
Both were men with incredibly clear combat logic and reflexes. Everything Minato could think of, Ren—armed with future knowledge and Minato's current profile—could basically guess. This included how Minato would fight once he broke free.
In fact, Ren knew that in a fair fight where he hadn't perfectly mastered all his new abilities, he likely wouldn't be Minato's match, even if he went all out. "All out" meant fully deploying the Susanoo, fighting until his eyes were nearly blind, and forcing the Susanoo into its third stage at any cost.
Even then, defeating Minato would be difficult. In the current Unming City, Minato—who had completed the upgrade to his basic Rasengan and possessed the Flying Raijin—was the strongest existence!
But, besides the foundational abilities of his Ocular Jutsu Atavism, Ren possessed a brand-new ocular power that created a massive information gap—one Minato knew nothing about.
Earlier, at Kakashi's side, the moment Minato appeared, Ren had immediately abandoned the idea of opening his eyes to subdue Kakashi. He chose to hide this power. It wasn't because he knew he would definitely fight Minato; it was because his [Combat Intuition] did not subjectively distinguish between friend and foe.
Under the influence of that intuition, everyone was a target to be wary of—Minato, Orochimaru, even Setsuna Uchiha. After the scene where Minato suddenly appeared like a ghost, his muscle-memory-driven intuition instinctively forced him to keep an ace up his sleeve.
And now, that ace—a power belonging to his Bloodline Totality—blossomed in an instant!
Ren immediately pulled the sword hilt back with his right hand, twisting the blade so the reflected light angled toward Minato. Simultaneously, he squeezed his right eye shut and gripped his wide-open left eye with his left hand!
In the white of his eye, dense, wildly dancing blood vessels rapidly converged!
And then—
Bloodline Totality · Ocular Jutsu: Nine Blood Dragon Seals!
It activated in a flash!
Bloody tears spilled from the corner of his eye.
Seeing this, Minato felt a sudden jolt of alarm. Though he couldn't comprehend why Ren was attacking him, a thick sense of crisis had now tightly enveloped him.
Is he about to use that Sage Ocular Genjutsu he used to restrain the Nine-Tails? No, wait... this is the Sharingan: White Striking Pupil without Sage Chakra!
Minato stared intently at Ren's movements while deliberately averting his direct line of sight. His brain worked at a frenetic pace, calculating the angle of the light reflected off Ren's sword to ensure the strange Genjutsu-swordsmanship wouldn't bounce the technique into his eyes.
Furthermore, Minato knew that in Sage Mode, Ren possessed a 360-degree field of vision. Although he didn't see the signs of Sage Mode yet, he kept the possibility in mind. The moment Ren showed any sign of entering Sage Mode, Minato would close his eyes to negate the effect.
Minato knew that once hit by Ren's ocular jutsu, the vibration of the White Striking Pupil would cause a temporary loss of consciousness, making it impossible to use Flying Raijin for a short window.
And in a battle between speedsters, even 0.1 seconds is enough to decide life and death!
The reason Ren didn't use Sage Art was simple: having lost the Zero-Tails and the Cursed Seal of Heaven, he could only enter Sage Mode by using his mutated eyes to gather natural energy. (The Cursed Seal had vanished after Orochimaru and the White Snake Sage left his body.) Once Sage Mode was activated, the veins around his eyes would bulge like an activated Byakugan.
The visual cue was too obvious. If Minato saw it, he would likely use Flying Raijin to retreat and pivot to a hit-and-run strategy. Once "Homebody Minato" mode was activated, Ren could only stare helplessly. That mode was the T0 meta-rank of this era.
Furthermore, Ren couldn't tell if Minato had left a Flying Raijin mark on him when he patted his shoulders earlier.
He couldn't gamble. To save Minato, he had to do it now.
In this battle between speedsters, within this calculated, long yet fleeting second, he had to beat him into the ground until he couldn't get back up!
Damn it, Minato, just take one "Righteous Friendship Face-Breaking Punch" from me!!
At this moment, in the 0.1-second gap where Minato was about to stabilize his chakra and vanish via Flying Raijin, he saw it.
From the direction of Ren's eyes—from that unique pair of Sharingan—an eerie blood-colored arc suddenly traced through the air!
It linked Ren directly to Minato. Then, the blood-line abruptly shattered, turning into a mist of falling blood rain! In that instant, a blood-red, savage dragon head swayed and rose from the mist!
It roared toward Minato, lunging to entwine him!
Seeing this blood dragon, Minato realized things had gone horribly wrong.
How? How did I fall into a Genjutsu again?!
He clearly hadn't looked at Ren's eyes. He had confirmed he wasn't looking at the reflection on the sword. But what was this technique?
He had read the intel from Suna and Kumo that exposed Ren's abilities. It clearly described the manifestation of this ocular jutsu: a blood dragon would appear, and within an impossibly short time, it would swallow a dragon ball and release the White Striking Jutsu, subjecting the target to a round of hard crowd control!
In other words, the moment he saw the blood dragon, Minato knew he had likely fallen into Ren's Genjutsu again.
He was in extreme danger!
Yet, in this moment of unprecedented pressure, a current seemed to spark through Minato's spine, zinging from his skull to his heels. It felt as if a switch had been flipped.
His consciousness became sharper. His reactions became swifter!
In a move that defied logic, Minato completed a mental "recovery" within a mere 0.1 seconds of this crisis! Much like how Ren had pushed his [Combat Intuition] to a new level when facing Kakuzu's composite ninjutsu, Minato's innate, god-like reaction talent—the very thing that made Flying Raijin possible—achieved an upgrade in this instant!
Seeing this familiar sight, Ren's eyes twitched. He almost wanted to curse out loud.
This... you really are the father of the original protagonist!
But, it was useless!
Because at this moment, Ren wasn't relying on reaction speed to beat Minato.
He was relying on a con!
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