Yakumo was flung away and slammed hard into the ground, but she wasn't badly hurt. From inside the crater, she looked up at Shinji, her face full of astonishment!
Did he pretend to fall under my genjutsu on purpose?
Was that part of his strategy, too?
But why wasn't he affected by my genjutsu?!
In that instant, countless questions surged through her mind.
This was an outcome she had never expected, and she simply couldn't accept the fact that she had lost to Shinji once again.
Standing on the trees, which had begun to fall dormant without Yakumo's Chakra to sustain them, Shinji lowered his head and looked down at her astonished face.
"Heh!"
He chuckled and raised the corners of his mouth slightly.
No one understood better than he did just how powerful Yakumo's genjutsu was!
And the Red Dragon Eye was a top-tier eye that could see through the flow of Chakra and blood in an enemy's body, predict their movements, and control their blood!
It was precisely because he understood all that that he had avoided close combat with Yakumo the entire time.
All their clashes, stalemates, and back-and-forth exchanges before this—even his retreat—had been meant to wear down Yakumo and lower her guard.
He wanted Yakumo, convinced that victory was within her grasp, to let her guard down.
Even in the final surprise attack, he had deliberately made it seem like a desperate, last-ditch strike. His goal was to make Yakumo, whose Chakra reserves had already been heavily depleted, grow even more careless. Otherwise, if Yakumo had unleashed her genjutsu at full strength, even if he could break it, it would have cost him a lot of time—and he would have ended up half-dead after taking a beating from Yakumo's 'Superhuman Strength Punch.'
This was the