Chapter 200
2-in-1-chapter
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Ai was certain something was wrong.
This situation was completely different from what he had expected. He knew well how difficult Konoha was to deal with; otherwise, he would not have led a massive force of six thousand to reinforce the front. Precisely because he understood Konoha's strength, he had committed everything to this battle, playing every card available to him.
Yet the reality before him was even worse than the worst-case scenario he had envisioned.
The Raikage grew increasingly agitated.
His younger brother, the Eight-Tails' jinchūriki B, was being held up by Uchiha Shisui. His army had been separated on the opposite side of the field and was unable to assist. His own fight was also going poorly. The seemingly unremarkable Uchiha Fugaku proved so tenacious that he had become a source of constant frustration.
Ai had gone all out, but there was still no sign of victory.
What unsettled him even more was that his subordinates were also failing to gain the upper hand. Despite the numerical advantage—four to one, sometimes five to one—they were unable to finish their fights, as though the Konoha shinobi had deliberately drawn them into a stalemate.
That anxiety reached its peak when C shouted, "Konoha's reinforcements have arrived!"
Crack!
Thunder rolled across the ground.
Ai's figure vanished once again from Fugaku's sight. But Fugaku remained calm. After this prolonged exchange, he had already grasped the Fourth Raikage's fighting style. Just like the late Third Raikage, Ai had pushed the Cloud's taijutsu to its utmost limit.
Its essence could be summed up in two words: speed and power.
Aside from that, there was little to fear—Ai had no strange tricks hidden away. As long as those two elements were countered, his attacks could be managed. That did not mean his strikes were harmless, however.
His movements were so fast that even Fugaku's Mangekyō Sharingan struggled to keep up, forcing him to stay completely focused at all times.
Moreover, Ai's ferocious blows had already shattered Susanoo's defense several times.
Lightning Release: Heavy Current Storm!
Fugaku's eyes widened. Ai appeared on his left, his elbow wrapped in crackling lightning. The strike smashed through Susanoo's translucent ribs once again. Yet the fractured Susanoo had bought Fugaku just enough time.
He slid backward quickly, narrowly avoiding the attack that came from his right.
Unlike space–time techniques, A'is advantage was pure speed—speed pushed to its absolute extreme, so great that even the Sharingan could barely track his movements. But there was a flaw: at that velocity, changing direction was nearly impossible.
He had to halt completely before turning.
That brief pause created openings in his assault. It was not the relentless, continuous pressure of space–time ninjutsu. And unlike his future son, who lacked battle experience and would one day be defeated easily, Fugaku was a veteran who had survived countless wars.
His vast combat experience allowed him to seize that opening, holding the Raikage at bay through sheer skill.
But this time, just as Ai missed another chance to finish him, he bellowed, "Troy!"
Fugaku's heart skipped a beat. He sensed danger from behind. Susanoo, shattered moments ago, needed two more seconds to reform. He threw himself forward and rolled across the ground, narrowly evading a massive, diamond-shaped shuriken that tore through the air behind him.
His eyelid twitched. A weapon of that size could easily cleave a man in two.
Yet as he rose to prepare for Ai's next charge, the four-pointed shuriken that had already passed overhead suddenly reversed its spin and came hurtling back toward him. In the blink of an eye, it was directly in front of him.
And Susanoo still had not regenerated.
Fugaku froze, unable to understand what was happening. How could a shuriken that had already been thrown reverse direction like that? Even the Uchiha clan's most advanced shuriken-jutsu relied on controlled collisions between weapons to alter trajectories—it was never something this unnatural.
Was this the end?
Just as that thought crossed his mind, a sudden change occurred.
Eight Trigrams: Vacuum Palm.
A shockwave tore through the air, striking the oncoming giant shuriken and sending it flying away. Fugaku was pulled back from the brink of death.
He wasted no time, turning toward the direction from which the shuriken had been thrown.
There he saw a Cloud shinobi holding two identical diamond-shaped shuriken.
The man—Troy—looked visibly startled. He had not expected his sure-hit technique to fail. Lifting his head, his eyes met Fugaku's across the distance. Realizing instantly that he had made a fatal mistake, Troy tried to avert his gaze.
But it was already too late.
Having brushed against death only seconds before, Fugaku showed no hesitation. His scarlet eyes glowed with a strange, ominous light. Knowing that ordinary genjutsu would have little effect on elite Cloud shinobi, he unleashed a technique of his Mangekyō Sharingan that he had never revealed before.
Its name was—
Huangkonzun.
A dōjutsu of the illusionary type, simple in concept yet absolute in effect.
Fear.
That was the essence of Huangkonzun's power.
Akimichi Torifu did not lower his head as he had first intended. Instead, he boldly looked straight at Uchiha Fugaku. The moment he did, it was as if he had been injected with pure adrenaline.
With a sharp flick of his wrist, he hurled two shuriken.
Combined with the one that had been knocked aside earlier, three enormous bladed projectiles shot forward, guided by the magnetic force of his Kekkei Genkai, Magnet Release, and flew toward Uchiha Fugaku once more.
But the trajectory was slightly off.
The spinning shuriken did not strike Fugaku. Instead, they collided with the streak of lightning charging toward him—that was the Fourth Raikage, Ai. The three shuriken, rotating at high speed under magnetic repulsion, carried tremendous power.
They did not cut Ai into pieces, but they disrupted his charge.
"Troy? What are you doing?"
Ai's roar received no answer.
Troy continued to manipulate his specially forged, magnetically reinforced shuriken with all his strength, attacking Ai with relentless ferocity.
This was not the power of Huangkonzun. At the very moment their eyes had met, Uchiha Fugaku had used Huangkonzun to suppress Troy's instinctive fear of the Sharingan.
Yes—Huangkonzun's ability was to manipulate fear. Ordinarily, one would think such a jutsu amplified the target's terror, breaking their mind through overwhelming dread. But Fugaku used it in reverse, erasing Troy's fear of the Sharingan instead.
No longer afraid of genjutsu, Troy dared to meet Fugaku's gaze directly. In that instant, Fugaku cast another illusion—Demonic Illusion; False Face—and easily seized control over Troy's perception. It was a genjutsu that caused the target to mistake one person for another.
At this moment, in Troy's eyes, Uchiha Fugaku and the Fourth Raikage had swapped identities.
That was why he was now attacking his own leader.
In effect, this genjutsu was somewhat similar to the Yamanaka clan's Mind Body Disturbance Technique.
There was one important point to clarify: genjutsu cannot normally overlap. Once caught in one illusion, a person should be immune to another.
Fugaku, however, could use Huangkonzun and Demonic Illusion: False Face together because both Huangkonzun and Shisui's Kotoamatsukami were jutsu capable of altering and rewriting a person's consciousness.
When that modification process ended, Huangkonzun or Kotoamatsukami itself was considered complete, but the mental change remained, leaving the target susceptible to further illusions.
Fugaku had never demonstrated Huangkonzun in public, but that did not stop him from studying it in private. From the day his Mangekyō Sharingan awakened, he had spent seven or eight years mastering every possible way to use this power in combat.
Suppressing the enemy's fear was one such application.
People praise courage and overcoming fear—it seems fear is something to be despised. Yet in truth, fear is not entirely bad. It is precisely because of fear that humans survive in a world filled with danger.
One who fears fire will not reach out to touch the flames.
One who fears a blade will not test its sharpness against their throat.
Fear of death keeps one alive by avoiding peril. But once that fear is erased—what then? They would reach out to touch the fire without hesitation, stand before a blade without flinching.
Fear is a powerful force.