Barrier Capture

He would have been better off not knowing. Now that he had seen a place that instinctively repelled him with his own eyes, he subconsciously did not want to enter.

Who knew what would happen if he entered a place surrounded by such evil power?

Not only that, he stopped the patriarchs who wanted to head over as well.

Those who had not arrived could be stopped, but what about those who had already gone inside?

Going in was out of the question. They could only send a Summoning Beast to deliver the message.

The Summoning Beast was not slow. It quickly reached the Third Hokage, and after a brief exchange, he and the others left without hesitation and hurried toward Hyuga Hiashi.

I was too careless!

He knew this sort of thing was extremely strange, yet he had rushed to the scene without thinking. What if he encountered danger?

A thousand meters was nothing for a ninja's speed.

"Hyuga Patriarch, what exactly did you see?"

As soon as he arrived beside Hiashi, the Third Hokage immediately asked.

Hyuga Hiashi truthfully recounted what he had seen.

Beside him, Uchiha Fugaku had his Three Tomoe Sharingan wide open. He had strained his eyes until bloodshot, yet he still could not see the slightest abnormality.

The others broke out in cold sweat as well. They had actually gone back and forth through such a dangerous place! Fortunately, nothing had happened. Otherwise, if something had happened to them, Hidden Leaf Village would have been in danger.

Sarutobi Hiruzen looked toward the isolated little earthen house a thousand meters away and fell into thought.

Based on Hyuga Hiashi's description, the area around the little earthen house was indeed abnormal, but he did not know what had actually happened.

The most likely possibility was that whatever had appeared this time had killed the merchant and one ninja, then dragged the remaining ninjas into a subspace separate from this one. Much like the shadow space controlled by the Black Shadow Jinchuriki.

The question now was this: if the thing that had appeared this time was truly in a subspace, where was it now? Was it still there, or had it already left for somewhere else?

"Hokage-sama, let me go. I can enter that place."

At that moment, an Anbu dressed in black and wearing an animal mask stepped before the Third Hokage.

"It hasn't left yet... You can enter that place?" the Third Hokage muttered first, then asked.

"Yes. My ability can tear open its space and enter it."

This Anbu was the Black Shadow Jinchuriki. He had originally been an ordinary Anbu member, but after being chosen as the Black Shadow Jinchuriki, he was directly promoted to Anbu captain.

However, his Anbu squad was extremely special.

Strictly speaking, his squad had only one combatant: himself. And he was not someone who could act lightly.

All his teammates were experts in Sealing Jutsu, while their combat strength was comparatively lacking. That was because these people existed solely for the Black Shadow Jinchuriki.

At the moment, the Third Hokage could not think of any other solution. "All right. Be careful. If you encounter danger, come back immediately."

As for the missing ninjas, perhaps he had forgotten them, because the Third Hokage did not mention them.

"Yes."

Then, before everyone's eyes, the Black Shadow Jinchuriki vanished into his own shadow.

Seeing this, the various patriarchs immediately realized who he was.

Only a few breaths after the Black Shadow Jinchuriki disappeared, he reappeared.

Before he could report what he had seen, several ninjas appeared and placed several seals on him before withdrawing.

"Hokage-sama, that thing is indeed still there. The captured ninjas are still alive as well. Its space rejected me, so I did not see much. I only saw this."

"This is already enough. Thanks for the effort."

After saying that, the Third Hokage saw that the Black Shadow Jinchuriki had not left and knew he still had something to say.

"If there's anything else, say it all at once."

"Yes."

"I think I can use my ability to force it out, but I'm worried it will escape after it comes out."

The Third Hokage was immediately delighted upon hearing this. As for the concern that it might escape, they only needed to make more preparations.

He then summoned the Barrier Squad to set up a barrier. The Sealing Squad, meanwhile, was already on hand.

After the barrier was completed, the Black Shadow Jinchuriki's Sealing Squad added another layer of seals over it.

Once everything was ready, the Third Hokage nodded at the Black Shadow Jinchuriki.

The Black Shadow Jinchuriki's shadow began to stretch, then entered the barrier.

Suddenly, the space within the barrier visibly began to twist. Then, lines warped like underwater weeds appeared in midair.

The distorted space gradually returned to normal, while those twisted lines became clearer.

Everyone looked and discovered that they were ropes. More than half of them had heads in varying states of decay hanging from them.

Even from several hundred meters away, everyone seemed able to smell the stench of rotting corpses.

The shadow that had entered the barrier began to return. As it shrank back, it gave a shake, tossing several people out of the shadow.

They were the missing ninjas. As for why there were only a few of them, everyone looked at the heads hanging within the barrier and already knew the answer.

Several ninjas appeared again and placed several more seals on the Black Shadow Jinchuriki.

Danzo, who had instinctively hidden among the crowd and remained concealed in the shadows, narrowed his eyes as he watched the somewhat exhausted Black Shadow Jinchuriki, as though calculating something.

But the ropes were more important for now, so he forced himself to turn his attention back to the deadly ropes inside the barrier.

Of the ropes hanging down from midair, most had heads dangling from them. Some were still fresh. Corpses had also appeared on the ground, and blood began to seep from them, staining the earth red.

Even though they were ninjas who had seen countless corpses, the sight still sent a chill racing from the soles of their feet to the tops of their heads.

As soon as the ropes appeared, they drifted toward the heads of everyone outside the barrier, only to be blocked by it.

Then came the sight of every hemp rope pressed against the barrier.

And all those heads hanging from them—rotted and unrotted, newly dead and long dead—stared at the Third Hokage and the others outside the barrier.

Being stared at by the dead was one thing. It was not as though they had never seen enemies they killed refuse to close their eyes and glare at them in death.

But being stared at by eyes that were nearly completely rotted away and crawling with maggots was a first.

They had decayed so badly that the shape of the eyeballs themselves could no longer be seen, yet everyone outside the barrier could still feel the gazes coming from those rotting heads.

It placed considerable mental pressure on them. After all, ninjas were human too, and they did not possess wills of steel.

At the same time, others were under immense pressure as well.

The ninjas maintaining the barrier were all deathly pale, looking as though their bodies had been drained dry.

The substitutes nearby hurriedly replaced them. But the moment they became nodes supplying Chakra to the barrier, their faces turned pale as well.

This... At this rate, he would be drained dry in less than two minutes.