Chapter 448: When Did You Have the Illusion That You Were Not Under the Illusion?
"Shisui, don't mind us. Retreat, now!" Shinji shouted while fending off the Hidden Mist attacks.
There were simply too many enemies. Shisui staying would not change the outcome of the battle. The only difference was that, if he stayed, the enemy would pay a higher price.
But compared to that, Shinji believed Shisui surviving mattered far more.
People like them were ordinary shinobi. Shisui was different. He was a real genius. If he grew up normally, he would definitely become a powerful figure.
If Shinji could, he would have wanted his other disciples to retreat as well, but he knew it would not work.
The Mist shinobi outnumbered them several times over. Shinji could not hold back that many enemies. If his disciples tried to run, they would only die faster. Only Shisui, whose strength was even greater than Shinji's, had any hope of breaking through the encirclement and escaping.
"If you can get out, if you're fast enough, you might even find reinforcements and come back for us," Shinji continued, forcing the words out. "If we don't leave now, everyone dies."
It was a well intentioned lie. Unless reinforcements were extremely close, there would be no time.
Shisui kept fighting, unmoved.
He was a well rounded fighter like Kakashi, developing steadily in ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu. Even several Mist shinobi working together struggled to gain any advantage against him.
Shisui was young, but he had read plenty of books. Shinji's absurd lie could not fool him.
If he left, Shinji's squad would not last three minutes.
Three Hidden Mist jonin, plus nine chunin and genin.
"Shisui, even if you're a genius, just this once… let me be the cool one," Uesugi said, desperately trying to locate Shisui in the dense fog.
He wanted to use Fire Release to create an opening for Shisui to escape.
Kenji, the one closest to Shisui, gritted his teeth through his injuries and did everything he could to support Shisui and ease the pressure on him.
Shisui sighed inwardly, the hunger for strength rising like a wave that would not stop.
In truth, they had not known each other long. Barely a month.
But maybe it was because they lived on the battlefield, running missions every day, facing life and death together. People became familiar fast out here. They recognized each other quickly.
Shisui believed that, if not for the heavy fog, they would rather be injured than let him retreat alone.
This is war.
Shisui's heart could no longer stay calm.
This trap made him feel the cruelty of war even more clearly than his encounter with the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist.
Because last time, most of his teammates were Mugetsu's disciples, each of them with terrifying burst power. Even against monsters like the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, they could repel them by pushing past their limits.
This time was different.
None of his teammates had mastered the Eight Gates. No one could enter the Transparent World. Even if they performed perfectly, they would not be much stronger than usual.
So even if the opponents were not famous, even if they were not legendary, the situation was still desperate.
Then let me become their reliance.
Shisui clenched his fists, and something inside him ignited.
He was not an arrogant person, but he never underestimated himself either.
He was a genius.
Not an ordinary genius, but an Uchiha genius.
He was only eight years old, and he already possessed the three tomoe Sharingan.
He had an excellent, reliable teacher who had taught him powerful secret techniques.
With all of that, he should be qualified to stand as someone else's backbone.
Once that thought settled, Shisui had no more hesitation. He could not calmly accept an escape route bought with his teammates' lives.
Compared to escaping, he wanted to save them, the way Guy did.
The moment his mind cleared, memories of asking Mugetsu about Flame Breathing Chakra Mode surged forward, and Shisui's breathing changed.
"So this is it," Shisui murmured. "This is Flame Breathing Chakra Mode."
Endless power flooded his body, and his expression returned to its usual calm.
The sensation was strange and wonderful, impossible to describe cleanly. It felt like his body had become a burning furnace, and the heat itself was turning into strength, flowing through his limbs and bones.
A breakthrough in a key technique should have been joyful.
But what made Shisui even happier than the technique itself was that he now had the strength to break this deadlock.
Whoosh whoosh!
Just as Shisui was about to test the boost of Flame Breathing Chakra Mode on the Hidden Mist shinobi, a fierce hurricane swept through the battlefield.
Whoosh whoosh!
Leaves exploded into motion. Dust, scattered stones, and debris were ripped from the ground and hurled into the air.
Under the sudden gale, the dense chakra mist was torn apart, and everyone regained their vision.
Shisui's eyes lit up.
This was a gift from the heavens.
Chakra condensed into his eyes, and his gaze turned blood red again.
"What kind of weather is this?" one Mist jonin cursed under his breath, anger twisting in his chest. "Why is there a wind like this with no warning?"
He prepared to continue attacking Shisui, only to meet those blood red eyes head on.
His extended hand froze.
His expression went blank.
"It's Sharingan genjutsu!" another Mist jonin shouted instantly. "Quick, disrupt his chakra flow!"
Every jonin knew at least a little about dispelling genjutsu, but Sharingan genjutsu was different. It was extremely difficult to break alone. The simplest and fastest method was for a companion to intervene.
The Hidden Mist chunin beside the captured jonin nodded and stepped forward.
But Shisui moved faster.
Whoosh.
Shisui silently appeared beside the jonin, and two shuriken carrying kunai drove straight through the jonin's body.
The jonin collapsed.
"Indeed," Shisui thought as he watched the result, "what I lacked was a burst method like Flame Breathing Chakra Mode."
Before entering this mode, Shisui likely would not have had the time to finish a jonin. The overall boost from Flame Breathing Chakra Mode was simply too great.
If the burst was only about a single move, then Armament Haki could also provide massive improvement.
So why did Shisui, who had mastered Armament Haki, still feel he lacked burst power?
Because the burst from Armament Haki was monotonous. It could only enhance his defense and strengthen his techniques.
But an enemy with a numerical advantage did not have to clash head on. They could drag the fight out.
Flame Breathing Chakra Mode was different. It gave Shisui comprehensive improvement across multiple aspects.
It was not as purely body focused as Rock Breathing, but it still strengthened the body dramatically, far beyond ordinary concentrated breathing.
And Flame Breathing's greatest feature was the boost to Fire Release chakra nature transformation and Fire Release itself.
Elemental ninjutsu required chakra conversion. The process was short, but it still took time.
Flame Breathing made that conversion even faster.
Faster movement.
Faster casting.
Those boosts stacked together, and in the end, they created the opening that let Shisui kill a jonin.
"What's going on?" the remaining Mist jonin's pupils shrank as he watched his comrade die. "He's even faster than before."
"Kishima!" he barked toward the jonin fighting Shinji. "Ignore that one for now. Kill Uchiha Shisui first!"
Originally, he believed one jonin could stall Shisui while the rest wiped out Shisui's teammates, then they could surround and crush Shisui safely.
But Shisui's displayed strength did not match the intelligence.
If they did not kill Shisui first, they would be picked apart one by one.
The jonin named Kishima had no choice. He abandoned the injured Shinji, leaving two chunin to keep pressure on him, and rushed to encircle Shisui.
Shisui's Sharingan swept the battlefield.
Now Shinji was holding off two Mist shinobi. Uesugi was also holding off two. Kenji and Yuki were each holding off one.
That meant Shisui only needed to face two jonin and three chunin or genin.
"Phantom Body Flicker Technique!"
In the Mist shinobi's vision, dozens of Shisui appeared at once, surrounding them as if he had used countless shadow clones.
A Hidden Mist chunin stabbed the closest Shisui with a kunai.
The feedback from the blade made him freeze.
It felt like he had stabbed an illusion, something with no real substance, leaving only smooth air resistance.
"They're all fake!" the chunin shouted to warn his companions.
The very next moment, another Hidden Mist chunin was pierced through the heart by a Shisui holding a kunai.
The two Mist jonin turned cold eyes toward the chunin who had shouted, and his blood ran cold.
The jonin frowned deeply at the swarm of Shisui.
It was too strange.
They looked like phantoms, but some were solid.
Shisui seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at the same time, striking with kunai, shuriken, and taijutsu.
The two jonin exchanged a glance and immediately formed hand signs, deciding to erase the field with large scale ninjutsu.
"Water Release: Great Waterfall Technique!"
"Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique!"
Massive torrents exploded outward, crashing across the ground and smashing through every Shisui in sight.
Even the Hidden Mist chunin trying to locate Shisui's real body were swept up in the flood.
Under the wide range attack, two solid Shisui were revealed.
Kishima immediately controlled the huge current from the Great Waterfall Technique and slammed it into those two solid figures.
But the instant Kishima moved, a kunai stuck in the ground twisted and transformed into Shisui.
From the very beginning, Shisui had used his clones as cover, transformed into a kunai, and projected himself beside Kishima. He had been waiting for this exact moment.
"Fire Release: Fire Dragon Flame Bullet!"
Shisui clasped his hands. Chakra condensed in his throat, and at a single thought it converted into Fire Release chakra.
Then he exhaled it in one breath.
Scorching flames erupted, rapidly forming a small sea of fire that swallowed Kishima.
The water that had collected on the ground from the Great Waterfall Technique evaporated instantly.
Kishima, who was still controlling the Water Dragon Bullet to attack Shisui's clones, felt the heat and his expression warped in shock. He tried to cancel his technique and dodge.
But this was a wide range, high damage Fire Release.
At this distance, there was nowhere to dodge.
To everyone's disbelief, Kishima was engulfed by flames and lost all signs of life.
The last Mist jonin watched another jonin die under Shisui's hand.
Fine sweat formed on his forehead, and shock churned in his chest.
In just a few minutes, Shisui had killed two Mist jonin.
These were not vegetables to be chopped. They were jonin from one of the Five Great Ninja Villages.
The jonin unconsciously took two steps back, and the desire to retreat sprouted inside him.
Even if they still had numbers, losing two jonin meant their defeat was already decided.
He retreated subtly, drifting closer to Yuki, who was still fighting a Mist shinobi.
"Charge and kill him!" the jonin commanded harshly, forcing his voice into the shape of resolve, as if he intended to fight Shisui to the death.
Two Mist shinobi charged Shisui with kunai and long swords.
At the same time, the jonin used Body Flicker and rapidly created distance.
Training one jonin was not the same as training two chunin. If sacrificing them allowed him to survive, then that would be their final contribution to the Hidden Mist.
For Shisui in Flame Breathing Chakra Mode, killing a chunin was effortless.
He eliminated one of them instantly.
Still, the jonin's behavior made Shisui feel a strange speechlessness.
He spoke like a man cornered, yet he threw away his subordinates and ran.
But Shisui could not ignore him.
Because the direction the jonin was fleeing toward was Yuki, and she was already locked in combat.
Shisui ignored the remaining Hidden Mist chunin and pursued the jonin.
The jonin calculated Shisui's speed, gritted his teeth, and burst forward, forcing himself into extreme speed. He reached Yuki's side and snapped a kunai to her throat.
"Uchiha Shisui," he hissed, avoiding Shisui's upper body and staring only at Shisui's feet. "If you take one more step, don't expect your teammate to leave alive."
He had expected the possibility the chunin would not stall Shisui for long, so he prepared a hostage from the start.
To avoid being caught in Sharingan genjutsu, he did not even dare look into Shisui's eyes.
Shisui did not seem to care.
He did not stop.
He continued walking forward.
The jonin's brows twisted. The kunai pressed tighter against Yuki's throat.
"Do you think I won't do it?" he snarled. "If I can't leave, then even if I die, I'll drag a few Konoha shinobi down with me!"
Shisui's voice was calm, almost gentle.
"Why didn't you take a good look at who you grabbed before you decided it was my comrade?"
His tone did not change.
"When did you get the illusion that you successfully took my comrade hostage?"
The jonin's face changed violently.
Have I already fallen into genjutsu?
He had looked at Shisui's Sharingan earlier in the fight.
Just as he was about to call for the Mist shinobi beside him to check his chakra flow, a pair of blood red eyes suddenly filled his vision.
Shisui had squatted down.
Normally, even squatting would not make eye contact easy with someone looking down.
But the jonin was an adult.
And Shisui was only eight years old.
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