The Sharingan possesses the abilities to observe, copy, and hypnotize.
These are considered its basic functions—abilities you can use as soon as the Sharingan awakens.
The moment Ronin decided he was going to take the previous owner's father's Scarlet Eyes from Uvogin, he'd already settled on his method: the Sharingan's hypnotic power—Sharingan genjutsu.
And triggering Sharingan genjutsu was simple. As long as the target saw his eyes, he could use that opening to cast an illusion!
So when Uvogin threw the father's head onto the ground—when the fog still wasn't thick enough to completely erase the line of sight between them—Ronin "furiously" leapt down from the tree.
Uvogin wasn't on guard.
He couldn't be on guard.
But when Ronin actually cast the genjutsu, he realized a problem: successfully following through with an attack on Uvogin wasn't easy at all.
The key issue was the layer of Nen surrounding Uvogin's body.
From the start of the fight, Uvogin had kept his aura fully released. That was likely the basic Nen technique Ren.
That powerful Ren was the best shield imaginable.
And the intense personal will contained in Nen—was the key to resisting illusions!
After all, genjutsu worked by using chakra to disrupt the target's five senses and plunge them into hallucination.
But Uvogin's Nen was like iron plate. With Ronin's current Sharingan, it was impossible to interfere with him for long. At best, he could jolt the aura around Uvogin for a brief instant—and how much disruption that caused after that was basically up to luck.
Once Ronin confirmed that, he immediately exploded into motion the instant the genjutsu landed, rushing straight toward Uvogin.
Except he didn't charge in a straight line.
He sprang onto a nearby tree branch and dove down from above, aiming directly for the cloth bundle hanging at Uvogin's waist.
That bag should contain the Scarlet Eyes!
This had been his planned route even before he revealed himself.
The Sharingan's interference on Uvogin was even smaller than Ronin had estimated, but in the meantime, pushing the Hiding in Mist Jutsu to its limit had caused the fog to fully blanket the area, completely swallowing visibility.
That blindness only worked on Uvogin.
Not because the fog couldn't affect Ronin, but because the Sharingan's perceptive power let him see Uvogin's Nen clearly even through the mist.
So Uvogin's burst of movement was fully within Ronin's sight.
Ronin didn't hesitate for a second. At maximum speed, he successfully snatched the Scarlet Eyes from Uvogin's waist.
Uvogin's redirected punch was also something Ronin saw clearly.
He saw it—
But the difference in their speed was still fundamental, so Ronin's dodge looked ragged and desperate.
Still, Ronin knew one thing with absolute clarity: if he fell during that exchange, the only thing waiting for him was death.
So he gritted his teeth and plunged into the fog, then instantly tied the cloth bundle containing the Scarlet Eyes to his own waist.
With both hands free, Ronin immediately used the Clone Technique.
The clone kept running forward, while Ronin himself suddenly sprang upward through the thick mist, landing on the trunk of a tree he'd already mapped out as being along his escape route.
He didn't dare use Earth Style: Headhunter Jutsu again.
Because the image of Uvogin obliterating the Shadow Beast Worm—one of the Ten Dons' subordinates—was still burned into his mind. That guy also had the ability to burrow underground.
If Ronin went underground, and Uvogin unleashed full power and smashed the ground, Ronin would be crushed and blasted to death beneath the earth.
And everything unfolded exactly as he expected.
Uvogin dispersed the clone and smashed the ground.
But that no longer posed a threat to Ronin, perched on the tree trunk.
Even so, Ronin knew he still wasn't safe.
He had to get far away from Uvogin, and he had to find the mark Kortopi had left on him. Only then could he say he'd truly escaped the pursuit.
Warmth flared again around Ronin's eyes. He knew what it meant: the Sharingan was being overused.
But he also knew he couldn't deactivate it yet.
Not now.
He had to hold on a little longer.
As he kept moving along tree trunks toward the mountain, everything in front of him started to blur.
Casting several jutsu—especially the Hiding in Mist Jutsu to create such a wide, dense fog—had drained the little chakra he had down to the last drop.
If his willpower weren't tough enough, he would've fallen out of the trees a long time ago.
But that struggle wasn't without reward. Comparing it with the previous owner's memories, Ronin noticed something extra on his body while he fled—
A sticker stuck to his chest, marked with the number 31.
He tore it off and tossed it aside, then kept running.
It wasn't that he didn't want to dispose of it more carefully—he simply had no better option in this kind of rain.
Still, he was grateful it was raining. The noise of the rain masked the soft rustling sounds he made as he wove through branches and leaves.
Otherwise, with Uvogin's hearing, there was a real chance he could've been caught even while following his plan.
He also took down the cloth bundle, opened it, and sure enough—inside were a pair of eyes, vivid blood-red, soaking in liquid.
The moment he saw those Scarlet Eyes, Ronin could clearly feel a "need" signal coming from his own eyes.
But what he was supposed to do with that… he had no idea.
After pushing forward for about three more minutes, Ronin finally stopped. At the same time, his eyes reverted from the Sharingan back to their normal pitch-black.
Breathing hard, Ronin quickly tried to rein in his aura, attempting to enter Zetsu.
But it wasn't as easy as he'd imagined.
With his stamina so depleted—his head already starting to feel fuzzy and heavy—using Zetsu became even harder.
Still, that was normal.
Even a genius like Kakin's Fourth Prince Tserriednich, in the manga, needed a period of training after mastering Ten before he could enter Zetsu on his own—before he could truly hide his presence.
And Ronin had only just awakened Nen.
Ronin sat down on a thick tree trunk, hugging his knees. A wave of cold washed over him.
His clothes had been soaked through during the escape. Now, sitting in the wind, even with Ten protecting him, he still felt a bone-deep chill.
And the thought that Uvogin could catch up at any moment made panic and anxiety creep into his chest.
Had he really erased all his traces?
Would Uvogin discover the discarded sticker?
And if he did—could he follow it and still end up in Ronin's direction?
Unknowns flooded Ronin's mind. Fear and helplessness grew inside him.
Ronin shook his head hard, forcing himself to stop thinking about it.
Then he focused his gaze on the Scarlet Eyes held against his chest.
~~~
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