Opening × Gion Monastery

Izuna carried his biwa up onto the slightly narrow platform with steady steps.

He closed his eyes slightly, adjusted his breathing, and composed himself.

He concentrated Chakra in his throat.

His voice was not loud, yet it carried a strange penetrating quality, reaching the ears of everyone present with perfect clarity. He was evidently using Chakra to amplify it:

"Everyone, please be quiet for a moment."

The noisy square fell silent, and countless gazes focused on him.

"Next, I will tell you a story through the biwa and song. During the performance, I will use Uchiha Genjutsu and a few techniques from other ninja to add color and sound."

His tone was calm and candid, as though he were stating something utterly ordinary.

"So, during the performance, the sky may darken and the scenery may change. There may be shifting lights and shadows, or simulated sounds. These are all necessary stage effects, not real disasters. Please do not panic. Stay calm and enjoy the performance."

"My colleagues from Konoha will safeguard everyone present."

With that, he said no more. He simply sat down, made his final adjustments, and waited for the crowd to quiet down.

After a brief silence came a still louder buzz of whispers and discussion.

Genjutsu? Ninja techniques? It sounded novel, but also a little unsettling.

But as they watched the young ninja's composed bearing onstage and saw the Konoha guards around them, steady in presence and sharp of eye, most people soon found their unease replaced by a stronger curiosity.

The young Daimyo sat in the highest viewing seat, tapping the armrest gently with his fingers, his gaze unfathomable.

Warning the people? Emphasizing safety? Just what is this Uchiha Izuna... trying to do?

He had a feeling that the coming "performance" would not be a simple recital with the biwa.

His wife, Wakako, sat beside him. She was also amazed, and covered her face with a fan as she gazed curiously at the handsome young man.

When the commotion in the square gradually subsided and everyone's attention was once again fixed firmly on the platform, Izuna finally moved.

He turned slightly and gave an almost imperceptible nod to the five Uchiha elites stationed at specific points around the edge of the venue.

The next instant—

It was as though an invisible hand had quietly drawn a curtain across the heavens.

The light above the square dimmed at a visible pace, like a receding tide.

"Ah!" "It really got dark!" Low cries of surprise inevitably rose from the crowd, but thanks to the warning and the slow, gentle change in the light, there was no panic. Instead, it added a mysterious, solemn sense of ceremony.

In the darkness, a faint light appeared in midair, flickering and wavering.

Then Izuna's voice reached everyone's ears, as though it had come from the distant sky.

"The bells of Gion Monastery sound the impermanence of all things..."

As the ethereal chanting continued, the faint light rapidly expanded, becoming the vast, hazy image of a tree suspended against the night.

It was a camellia tree.

As the people held their breath and gazed up at the strange illusion, a pure white camellia flower drifted silently down from the top of the tree of light.

Then two, then three.

Countless snow-white camellias, their edges aglow with a faint light, fluttered down from the tree like a dream scattered by the wind.

"The flowers of the Sala trees reveal that the prosperous must decline..."

The flowers swiftly bloomed and withered, falling without a sound. Some slowly vanished in midair, while others seemed close enough to touch, only to turn into specks of light just before they fell into the crowd.

With the quiet rain of flowers, an indescribable sense of fate quietly seeped into the heart of every onlooker.

Against the backdrop of that hauntingly beautiful shower, a brighter, vivid yellow point of light appeared, trembling.

At first it was only a tiny spot of light, but then it unfolded into the illusory image of an elegant, solitary butterfly.

It was the Taira's most distinctive family crest, the Ageha butterfly.

The faintly glowing Ageha butterfly flew alone through the steady, seemingly endless rain of flowers.

Its dance was beautiful and fragile. Every beat of its wings seemed to use up all its strength as it sought a place to rest amid the shower of flowers that symbolized impermanence and decline.

"The proud and extravagant do not endure, like a dream on a spring night; the mighty are destroyed in the end, like dust before the wind..."

The Ageha butterfly struggled to fly, but in the end it could not escape the ever-present rain of flowers.

Its light gradually dimmed, its dance grew slower and slower, and at last, amid a particularly dense fall of petals, it seemed to exhaust all its strength and drifted lightly downward.

Finally, it landed on the illusory ground, carpeted with countless flowers of light.

The instant the glow on its wings touched the faint light of the petals falling around it, both were silently extinguished and vanished, like a drop of water merging into the sea.

The rain of flowers stopped.

The image of the tree of light gradually faded.

The night slowly began to recede, and the light returned, as though the hauntingly beautiful, fateful scene just now had been an incomparably lifelike dream shared by everyone.

On the platform, Izuna still stood there, holding the biwa with his eyes closed.

The square was deathly silent.

Everyone remained immersed in the lingering effects of the stirring illusion and chant, unable to come to their senses for a long time.

Even the Daimyo, seated high above, forgot to tap the armrest. He simply stared at the platform, at the young ninja who had created such a sight, his eyes filled with indescribable astonishment.

Izuna raised his head slightly. His gaze seemed to pass over the crowd toward some more distant place, yet he also seemed to be staring at the lingering traces of the illusion in the air.

He gently plucked the first string of the biwa.

A clear, solitary note cut through the silence of the square, formally drawing back the curtain on this distinctive rendition of "The Tale of the Heike."

A tale belonging to the ninja was about to begin.