You Can Call Him Shirou Emiya

"That works." Shunren had guessed that Kurenai wanted to find someone to practice with, but he hadn't expected her desire to find someone like herself to be so strong.

Kurenai intended to teach him Genjutsu, and Shunren naturally wouldn't refuse. After all, neither Ninjutsu nor Taijutsu had worked out for him, leaving Genjutsu as his only path.

"Where are we?" Shunren looked around the dojo, which wasn't particularly spacious. It was divided into four areas, each surrounded by ropes and marked by a wooden stake at each corner. A strange talisman was affixed to every stake, forming a small barrier.

"This is our Yuhi Clan's Genjutsu dojo. It's open to the public, but there are just so few people in Konoha who train in Genjutsu..." A trace of dejection flashed through Kurenai's eyes as she looked at the four empty training areas.

"How much for an hour? I don't have much money..."

Kurenai puffed out her cheeks, then said irritably, "I won't charge you, hmph! Besides, there's no telling whether you have a talent for Genjutsu."

"Oh, really?" Shunren looked at the training platform, his eyes growing slightly warm. "Then let's give it a try. What exactly do I need to do?"

Kurenai pointed at one of the training platforms and said evenly, "You, get up there first. My father personally set up a Genjutsu barrier there. Let's test your mental reactions."

Shunren nodded, then did as Kurenai said and approached one of the training platforms. He stepped over the rope. "What now? How do I... Huh?!"

He was just about to ask Kurenai how the test worked, but as soon as he stepped into the area enclosed by the talismans, he felt a jolt in his head.

"Buzz~" A strange sound came from deep within his brain, and in the blink of an eye, the scene before him changed into an endless sea of clouds.

Shunren instinctively looked down and felt his legs tremble. At some point, the ground beneath him had vanished without a trace. He was now on a towering mountain peak, with only three inches of ground beneath his feet.

His gaze sharpened, and he reached down and pinched his thigh hard. "This is... Genjutsu!"

"I see. The talismans on those four stakes form a Genjutsu barrier?" Faced with the sudden change, Shunren quickly calmed himself. He boldly stepped out into the void and stood firmly in "midair," looking down at the earth and overcoming his body's fear.

From Kurenai's perspective, Shunren's body had trembled nonstop after he entered the barrier. Yet it took him only a few seconds to calm down and even take a step forward. Kurenai had experienced the Genjutsu barrier herself, so she knew what Shunren was seeing. She said in surprise, "This guy... He overcame it the first time he faced a Genjutsu?"

When Shunren continued forward and took a second step, he stepped into empty air and plummeted, the sensation of weightlessness engulfing his body and mind.

A Genjutsu that triggers the body's natural fears? Shunren quickly understood its effects. First the fear of heights, then the fear of weightlessness. Presumably, humanity's innate fear of darkness would come next.

Sure enough, after the sudden weightlessness, Shunren plunged into darkness. There wasn't a trace of light or sound; he could see and hear nothing.

But although he knew what the Genjutsu did, the problem was that he didn't know how to dispel it!

Just then, he heard Kurenai's voice beside his ear.

"Focus and form the Ram seal!"

Following her instructions, Shunren closed his eyes and calmed his mind in less than half a second. He extended both thumbs upward and overlapped them, his left thumb on top, forming the Ram seal.

"Release!"

He felt the Chakra inside him surge violently, and then he could feel the air flowing.

He could also hear faint sounds beside his ears. When he opened his eyes, the world before him had returned to reality. Shunren turned to look at Kurenai, who had entered the barrier at some point. "Well? Do I have a talent for Genjutsu?"

Kurenai's outstretched hand stopped halfway. She had intended to touch Shunren and inject Chakra into him to dispel the Genjutsu, but she had never expected that after she showed him how to repel Genjutsu just once, he would actually dispel it by his own power!

She recalled her own first encounter with Genjutsu. She had wandered blindly through the illusion for over an hour and attempted to repel it more than ten times before barely managing to dispel it. The enormous gap between them was enough to make her a little sad!

Kurenai gritted her teeth. Her competitive nature wouldn't let her admit defeat, so she skipped over the subject and said coldly, "That only proves your resistance to Genjutsu is decent. Next, come with me and try casting one!"

With that, Kurenai didn't wait for his response. Her hands deftly formed a series of seals.

Kurenai formed the Hand Seals quickly, but there weren't many of them, so Shunren managed to memorize them all in one go: Dragon, Bird, and Ram.

"Genjutsu: Mirage Technique!"

Shunren's vision flickered, and a figure resembling Kurenai appeared beside her. However, the figure was noticeably fainter than the real person, so he could tell at a glance that it was a fake.

The apparition threw a punch at him.

Shunren moved his feet, reflexively preparing to dodge, but then he thought that it was only an illusion and stopped himself.

He let its fist strike him.

"This Genjutsu is way too obvious... Huh?!" No sooner had Shunren spoken than pain shot through his chest, and the force of the blow sent him stumbling backward.

"That was real?!" Shunren was shocked.

"Whoosh~" The apparition before him didn't vanish. Instead, Kurenai's "real body" turned transparent and finally disappeared without a trace, while the once-translucent apparition gradually grew solid and became Kurenai's real body!

Kurenai slowly lowered her fist and raised an eyebrow. "Disrupting the enemy's senses—that's what Genjutsu can do. Weren't you underestimating Genjutsu a little, even though it's one of a ninja's three main skills?"

"Turn the false into the real and the real into the false. Falsehood and truth shift in endless transformations!" Shunren suddenly understood.

Hearing that, Kurenai's eyes lit up, and she said approvingly, "That's well said. Genjutsu was always a ninja's art of deception."

"Give it a try. Hmph~ It's your first attempt, so even if you fail..." Kurenai had barely finished speaking when her eyes widened!

Shunren's hands moved slowly but precisely through the seals: Dragon, Bird, Ram. "Genjutsu: Mirage Technique!"

"This doesn't seem all that hard?"

The figure that now appeared beside Shunren was unlike Kurenai's, which had been modeled after herself. It was a tall, slender young man with short red hair and brown eyes, dressed in strange blue-and-white clothes completely out of place in this era.

"You succeeded on your first try?!" Kurenai stared at the figure beside Shunren in amazement. "And what... what is this?"

"Don't mind him. It was just a passing whim." Shunren smiled slightly. "Oh, right, you can call him Shirou Emiya."