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Chapter 583 - 582-The math doesn’t quite add up, does it?

The world within the purple pentagon was a study in suffocating pressure. The air itself felt thick, heavy, resistant to movement, as if Renjiro were trying to move through gelatin.

The constant, thunderous roar of the Valley of the End's waterfall was muted, distorted into a low, ominous hum that seemed to emanate from the barrier walls themselves.

The light from the moon and stars was filtered through the violet energy, casting everything in a sickly, bruise-like hue. Renjiro stood at the centre, his Sharingan whirling slowly, meticulously tracing the intricate, glowing matrices that pulsed within the translucent walls.

A dry, almost amused sound escaped his lips. "Using a barrier against me? How ironic." His voice, though calm, carried clearly in the enclosed space, a defiance against the power meant to contain him.

His vision dissected the whole barrier. At each of the five points of the pentagon stood a figure, their chakra flowing into the barrier, sustaining it. Ogata occupied one point, his expression a mask of stoic concentration. At the other four points were shadow clones—two replicas of Hiro, their forms shimmering with earthy chakra, and two of Toma, their outlines hazy and indistinct like a heat mirage.

"Ha! This is no ordinary barrier, boy—" Toma's voice, laced with pride and irritation, crackled from one of the clone's locations, transmitted through the barrier's energy matrix.

Renjiro cut him off, his tone that of a dispassionate lecturer. "Hmm… the barrier is infused with interlocking matrices of the Five Elements Seal. A fascinating application. To reconfigure a high-ranking suppression seal from a targeted technique into an area-of-effect barrier… that is commendable. Even for fuinjutsu masters of your calibre." He paused, letting the backhanded compliment hang in the air for a beat before his voice sharpened into a razor's edge.

"But wouldn't it have been infinitely easier to just place the seal on my body directly? Or were you three fuinjutsu-capable masters too afraid to face your junior in a direct confrontation?"

The insult was surgical in its precision. Toma's face visibly stiffened, the pride in his work curdling into anger at the mockery. Ogata's impassive mask didn't flicker, but a muscle in his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. Hiro's clone, however, looked genuinely perplexed, its brow furrowed.

'Did he just compliment and insult us in the same breath?' the real Hiro, sensing through his clone, thought with a surge of confusion and annoyance.

While he spoke, Renjiro was testing his confines. He attempted to channel chakra to his hand. It was like trying to pump mud through his veins. The energy was sluggish, lethargic, resisting his call with a profound, draining weight. He estimated a ninety percent reduction in efficiency. A lesser shinobi would have been rendered completely impotent, a sitting duck.

'So I can't use my chakra… wait, no. They didn't completely sever it.'

The analytical part of his mind, the part that remembered a life of video games and status effects, kicked in. 'This is basically a debuff. A massive stat reduction to chakra control and capacity.'

He remembered Orochimaru's use of the Five Elements Seal on Naruto, a targeted version that completely crippled the boy's ability to access Kurama's power.

'But they scaled it up. They turned a precision tool into a blunt instrument. The area of effect diluted the potency. I should be at zero… but I'm not. I still have access to about ten per cent. A sliver. A window.'

"Stop your arrogant posturing and comprehend the reality of your situation," Ogata's voice boomed, cold and authoritative.

"We can end your life whenever we wish. You are utterly at our mercy."

Renjiro actually chuckled, a soft, dangerous sound. "Then why haven't you? If it's so simple, why the elaborate cage? Why the useless speech?"

He tilted his head, a mocking glint in his crimson eyes. "I somehow understand your hesitation, though. I was in a similar position not long ago. I, too, had a powerful enemy target trapped within a barrier. And I, too, found I couldn't kill him." He let the implication hang, watching Ogata's stoicism finally crack into a slight frown.

"But that was a… different situation. The target I had trapped was the Third Raikage. For you… it's just a fifteen-year-old boy. The math doesn't quite add up, does it?"

"Enough of your nonsense!" Ogata snapped, his composure breaking. A low murmur rippled through the ranks of the Kumo shinobi in the surrounding army. The idea that one of their own had trapped their God of Shinobi was a blasphemy that struck at their core pride.

Renjiro's smirk widened. "Interesting. Insulting your fuinjutsu skill didn't provoke you. But insulting another man's strength did?" He feigned thoughtful surprise. "Tell me, Ogata-san, do you swing the other way?"

A vein throbbed on Ogata's temple. Pure, unadulterated rage flashed across his face. A crackle of lightning started to form at his fingertips.

"Control yourself!" Toma's voice, sharp and commanding, cut through Ogata's fury.

"Do not let the boy manipulate you. At least not yet."

Renjiro's eyes gleamed with triumph. "So you are waiting for something," he purred.

"And here I thought you three just enjoyed being in my magnificent presence."

It was Hiro who spoke next, his voice gruff but pragmatic, trying to regain control of the situation. "Mock us all you want, Uzumaki. You may be powerful. You may even find a way to slip this cage eventually. But what of them?" He gestured with his clone's head toward the thirty Konoha shinobi, who were surrounded by the vast enemy force, their faces pale but determined.

"They are grossly outnumbered. They will die. Every single one of them. And you will watch."

Renjiro's mocking demeanour didn't falter. He actually chuckled again, a sound that seemed utterly out of place. "Do you know the one good thing about being outnumbered so spectacularly?" he asked, his voice light, almost conversational.

"It means all of your allies are clustered so nicely in one place."

The moment the words left his mouth, Hiro's real body, connected to his clone's senses, jolted. His earth-based sensory field, which was amplified through the very ground of the valley, was screaming a warning.

Four chakra signatures—dormant, hidden, and perfectly masked—erupted into being just outside the perimeter of the barrier.

'What?! How?!' Hiro's mind screamed.

His sensory abilities were his pride. He could feel a worm burrowing fifty feet underground. He should have sensed any subterranean movement! These signatures hadn't tunnelled; they had been there, lying in wait, completely inert, their chakra signature suppressed to absolute zero until this exact moment.

Before anyone could react, four figures erupted from the earth in four different locations around the Konoha group. They were perfect copies of Renjiro, coated in a fine layer of dirt, their eyes already blazing with the Sharingan. They moved with a speed that belied their sudden appearance, past the stunned enemy shinobi who were too slow to comprehend the counter-ambush.

"Being a survivor of a fallen village teaches you many things," Renjiro said from within his cage, his voice now cold and devoid of all mockery. It was the voice of a commander.

"The most important lesson… I never fight alone."

The four shadow clones didn't attack the surrounding army. Instead, they positioned themselves at the four cardinal points around the huddled Konoha shinobi. Their hands moved in perfect, terrifying unison, weaving signs so fast they were a blur.

A second barrier erupted into existence.

But this one was not a passive, suppressive purple. It was a violent, blazing dome of blood red. It thrummed with a raw, potent energy that was the polar opposite of the five-element seal. Where the purple barrier drained and suppressed, this red barrier screamed of power, protection, and immense, bloody cost.

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