Slowly poking his head out from the dense, concealed foliage, Chiba, wearing a Kirigakure forehead protector, shifted his gaze. The surprise on his face gradually turned into confusion and gravity.
None of them had moved.
Then, after sweeping his gaze around, Chiba's brow furrowed even deeper.
So that meant all the nearby sentries and guards had already...
As his brow tightened, Chiba withdrew into the brush again, his gaze involuntarily falling on the two crouching ninja to his right. They looked focused, but their eyes were blank and unfocused.
Clearly, these two were a sentry and the sentry about to relieve him.
And judging from their expressions, they had clearly fallen under a genjutsu.
Moreover, when Chiba had just poked his head out, no one had reacted at all to the head wearing a Kirigakure forehead protector. It seemed that all the guards and sentries around the Forbidden Jutsu Chamber had fallen under genjutsu, just like these two sentries.
In other words, someone had probably infiltrated the Forbidden Jutsu Chamber before him—perhaps not long ago.
And the intruder had done so without a sound, with terrifying skill in genjutsu. Judging from the expressions of these two sentry ninja, they should have been in the middle of changing shifts. Or perhaps something had happened during the shift change, causing them to stand watch together temporarily. Their expressions were those of people intently watching their surroundings, remaining on alert.
Clearly, these two sentries had fallen under genjutsu before they could even react.
That level of genjutsu was probably exceedingly rare even in the ninja world. Even Hirohiko, with his Mangekyō Sharingan, would likely pale in comparison.
Without causing any commotion...
Which meant the intruder had cast genjutsu on every hidden and open sentry within the Forbidden Jutsu Chamber's perimeter in an incredibly