Rokusho Aoi was driven half-mad by Kaede Kitahara. Kaede Kitahara never stepped directly onto the battlefield, but every so often, he would casually flick out a projectile, a dart or a shuriken. Each one flew straight toward Rokusho Aoi's vital points, forcing him into a miserable scramble as if Kaede Kitahara were taking a leisurely stroll.
Kaede Kitahara's eye for timing was vicious. Time and again, he interrupted Rokusho Aoi's attacks at the most critical moments, creating precious breathing room for his two teammates.
At the same time, Kaede Kitahara also had to keep an eye on the fight between Haku, Uchiha Sasuke, and Uzumaki Naruto on the other side. Just as Haku was about to go for the kill, Kaede Kitahara sent a shuriken flying.
Clang!
A crisp metallic ring echoed through the air. Haku stood there with a kunai in hand, his face frozen in stunned disbelief.
Just moments ago, while he was leaping between the Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals, a shuriken had suddenly shot straight at him. It had perfectly predicted his movement path, forcing him to tumble out of the ice mirrors.
He could see through his movements?
Haku was shaken. Even Uchiha Sasuke, with his Sharingan active, could only barely catch fragments of his afterimages and protect his most vital points. That was the limit.
Yet this man had done far more than that.
Uchiha Sasuke finally gained a brief moment to breathe. He noticed Kaede Kitahara's intervention as well. Unlike Haku's shock, Sasuke had some idea of what was going on.
Did he open his Sharingan? I can't see it at all. Is he using contact lenses?
He can even hide whether his Sharingan is active. Is that a tactic too?
Is this the perception of a three-tomoe Sharingan?
From this far away, he could still precisely judge Haku's movements. The gap in ocular power was absurd.
As another Sharingan user himself, Sasuke understood better than anyone just how outrageous that difference truly was.
At the same time, it filled him with excitement. If he awakened three tomoe one day, then his own perception could reach that level as well.
"Fire Release, Fireball Jutsu!"
Uchiha Sasuke shouted as he formed hand seals and spewed a massive burst of flames from his mouth, trying to melt the Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals. It accomplished nothing.
"It's useless," Haku said calmly. "Flames of that level can't melt my Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals. This is a Kekkei Genkai. Ordinary ninjutsu won't work. I don't want to kill you, but if that is Zabuza-sama's will, then it is my will."
"Stop talking nonsense!" Uzumaki Naruto roared as he charged straight at Haku.
In an instant, Haku slipped into a nearby ice mirror, causing Naruto's attack to miss completely.
The next second, Naruto was kicked away and sent flying. He was completely outmatched.
"We can't drag this out. We need to end it fast," Kaede Kitahara said quietly as he assessed the battlefield. Aside from Kakashi's fight, whose outcome was still unclear, everyone else was clearly at a disadvantage.
"Rokusho Aoi!" Kaede Kitahara shouted.
Rokusho Aoi's attention snapped toward Kaede Kitahara.
At that very moment, his body suddenly froze. It felt as if he had been bound tightly to a tree, unable to move at all.
Genjutsu, Tree Binding Death!
"Damn it, how is this possible? From that far away, without any medium at all, how could he cast genjutsu on me?"
Rokusho Aoi instantly realized he had fallen into an illusion. What he could not comprehend was how it had been done from such a distance, without any apparent trigger.
He had never even heard of genjutsu like this.
As a former Konoha ninja, he naturally knew of Tree Binding Death. He just never imagined he would one day be on the receiving end of it.
"Genjutsu, release!"
He tried to break free, but it was useless. Kaede Kitahara's strength far surpassed his, and with the Sharingan enhancing the illusion, there was no way he could dispel it.
"Just as expected," Hyuga Keiko said with delight. After working with Kaede Kitahara so many times, she had grown extremely experienced. "Eight Trigrams, Thirty-Two Palms!"
As a branch family member, the pinnacle she could reach was the Thirty-Two Palms. Only the main family could learn the Sixty-Four Palms.
Of course, there were prodigies like Hyuga Neji, who had pushed the Eight Trigrams Palms to Sixty-Four on his own through sheer talent.
But Hyuga Keiko was not that kind of genius. Her limit was the Eight Trigrams Thirty-Two Palms.
Even so, it was more than enough.
She struck in a rapid flurry, sending Rokusho Aoi flying in an instant.
"Ah!"
Rokusho Aoi screamed as he was blasted backward. His internal organs were severely damaged, and he began coughing up blood.
This time, he was completely immobilized. His chakra points were sealed, chakra could not circulate, and his body would not respond.
Amakusa Ryuji smoothly pulled out a rope and bound him. Even if Rokusho Aoi wanted to use an escape technique, it was impossible now.
After dealing with Rokusho Aoi alongside his teammates, Kaede Kitahara immediately joined the battle between Haku, Uzumaki Naruto, and Uchiha Sasuke, stepping directly into the Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals.
When Kaede Kitahara appeared, Haku's expression turned solemn. In his eyes, Kaede Kitahara was far more dangerous than Naruto or Sasuke.
"You shouldn't have come," Haku said calmly. "I don't want to kill you."
"Kill me? If you can, then try," Kaede Kitahara replied without hesitation.
Haku slipped back into the ice mirrors, instantly appearing across all of them as he launched an attack on Kaede Kitahara.
Kaede Kitahara remained completely unhurried. A single-tomoe Sharingan could only perceive fragments, but he was different. He could see far more.
"It's useless," Haku said calmly. "In my eyes, your speed looks almost frozen."
"Is that so?" Kaede Kitahara formed a hand seal. In the next instant, countless figures appeared all around him.
"Shadow clones?" Haku thought so at first.
But when his senbon struck those figures, nothing happened. Only then did he realize something was wrong.
Shadow clones would burst apart when hit, but these did not.
They had blocked his senbon.
"What kind of technique is this?" Haku exclaimed in shock.
"This is Body Flicker," Kaede Kitahara said.
For the first time in real combat, he used the Phantom Body Flicker Technique, directly competing with Haku in speed.
Under normal circumstances, Haku should never have been able to reach this level of speed. Even Jonin like Hatake Kakashi could not. Only by relying on the Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals, a Kekkei Genkai, could Haku achieve it.
That was the terrifying nature of bloodline limits. Through inherited power, people could accomplish things others could scarcely imagine.
"That technique…" Uchiha Sasuke stared harder and harder, feeling an uncanny sense of familiarity.
He had seen something like this when he was a child.
It looked just like the Body Flicker Technique his brother Shisui had once shown him. Back then, Shisui had demonstrated it right in front of him, leaving him awestruck.
Later, Itachi told him that this was a Body Flicker specially refined by Uchiha Shisui, perfectly suited to his abilities. It was the technique that earned him the title Shisui of the Body Flicker.
Sasuke had only seen it once. Then the Uchiha Clan was annihilated, and he thought he would never see that technique again.
Yet here it was.
A technique once belonging to a member of the Uchiha Clan, now appearing on another.
Was this some kind of twisted destiny?
Before he could think further, a dull thud rang out.
Haku was sent flying by a single kick from Kaede Kitahara.
In the absolute contest of speed just now, Kaede Kitahara had won decisively, kicking Haku straight out of the Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals.
Haku was fast, but that depended on who he was being compared to.
Against Kaede Kitahara, it simply was not enough.
Haku's mask fell away, revealing a delicate, almost beautiful face. Kaede Kitahara stroked his chin. It really was no wonder so many people had once debated whether Haku was male or female. The official answer had long since made it clear.
He was male.
Kaede Kitahara showed no hesitation. Back when he watched the anime, he had been moved by the bond between Haku and Zabuza. But this was the real ninja world now.
Any mercy here would only lead to his own destruction.
"Water Release, Thousand Killing Water Soaring!"
Haku formed hand seals with one hand. The surrounding water instantly transformed into countless senbon, hovering in midair and pointing straight at Kaede Kitahara.
But just as he was about to unleash the attack, Kaede Kitahara glanced at him first.
Haku immediately felt tree vines surge up and bind his body tightly.
Genjutsu, Tree Binding Death.
The illusion itself was not particularly high level, but with Kaede Kitahara's overwhelming mental strength behind it, it became terrifyingly effective.
"You're a girl?" Uzumaki Naruto blurted out in shock when he saw Haku's face.
"Idiot, he's obviously a boy," Uchiha Sasuke snapped. Unlike Naruto, he had already seen related footage in the diary, even if it was incomplete. He had long known Haku was male.
What shocked him was something else entirely.
An opponent that had pushed him and Naruto to their limits, someone who even possessed Ice Release as a Kekkei Genkai, had been completely suppressed by Kaede Kitahara with ease.
One genjutsu, and Haku could not withstand it at all.
At that moment, Sasuke suddenly recalled an old saying from when the Uchiha Clan still existed.
Face a Sharingan user one-on-one, and you run.
Now that he had seen the true combat power of a three-tomoe Sharingan, he finally understood.
Those outsiders had not been wrong in the slightest.
Anyone without resistance to genjutsu who faced Kaede Kitahara was simply doomed, every single time.