The shattered barrier made Yugito Nii hesitate. Just as she was about to ignore everything and keep attacking, another crimson shield covered the fortress.
"Damn Konoha! All you do is hide inside your turtle shell."
Yugito cursed and simply dropped out of Tailed Beast Transformation.
She landed on a treetop and panted lightly. Her fair skin had taken on a strange, flushed red hue. It was clear that sustaining Tailed Beast Transformation was a considerable burden even for her.
Like Shisui, she was still growing stronger due to her age and had yet to master the Two-Tails Matatabi's power.
If she'd already learned the Tailed Beast Ball, a barrier of this level would only take three shots to break. No—two would do it.
She glared resentfully at the somewhat transparent barrier, then headed for the stronghold on the Land of Fire border with the Cloud ninja squad that had come to meet her.
After they left, Shisui had the Hyuga ninja check once more. Only then did he lead Konoha's forces out of the fortress and toward the main force.
"We need to inform Lord Orochimaru right away."
"Lord Orochimaru, Team Kakashi has sent word. They encountered an unknown enemy. Three members of the Barrier Team were killed, one was gravely wounded, and they failed to activate the fortress barrier."
At this, Orochimaru paused in the middle of setting up the barrier and asked, puzzled, "An unknown enemy? Not Kumogakure?"
Fugaku nodded, looking just as astonished. "According to the report, the enemy can use a strange Space-Time Ninjutsu. They didn't even see his face."
"Have them come see me as soon as they return."
Orochimaru nodded slightly, then turned his attention back to setting up the barrier formation.
When Kakashi and the others failed to send a message at the agreed time, Orochimaru had expected them to fail.
Fortunately, they'd gained some advantage on the main front against Kumogakure. The "fake fortress" had worked astonishingly well. Perhaps wary of falling for another trap, Kumogakure had given up on further attacks.
That had allowed Konoha to calmly set up a new barrier. From that perspective, despite the unexpected setback, his strategic objective had been achieved.
And with the earlier "fake fortress" as a template, they were making swift progress on the barrier. They could finish the remaining work before dawn.
Of course, that was because Orochimaru himself was a master of Barrier Ninjutsu. If they'd relied on the Barrier Team alone, who knew how long it would have taken?
"But what a shame..."
Orochimaru licked his lips, feeling a little regretful.
He'd actually hoped Kumogakure would keep fighting him head-on. The casualties would have been heavy, but there was no doubt it would speed up the war.
Orochimaru preferred slicing up specimens in his lab and happily conducting research to commanding a battlefield.
Looks like you could use a little help.
A voice suddenly echoed in his mind. Orochimaru's expression shifted, and his hands twitched involuntarily, nearly disrupting the formation node he'd just finished.
Fugaku hadn't left yet. Seeing this, he asked in confusion, "Lord Orochimaru, is something wrong?"
Orochimaru gave Fugaku a cold look and didn't answer. Fugaku could only suppress his confusion and return to his duties inside the fortress.
"Genie, when did you wake up?"
A humanoid cloud of smoke emerged from Orochimaru's back and grinned. "Last night, probably just before you used the Eight Branches Technique. You had so much going on, I didn't want to bother you."
Orochimaru's expression darkened. It seemed Genie had freeloaded off him for another forbidden technique.
"Don't be so stingy. I came out to help you."
Genie grinned. "You may have the upper hand in the war, but besides Kumogakure, there's a troublesome fellow who's joined the battlefield. If you don't end this war soon, that guy could cause enough trouble to stop you from achieving your goal."
"A troublesome fellow?" Orochimaru furrowed his brow. He thought of the mysterious enemy Kakashi had encountered. That person was the greatest wild card in the war.
"As you guessed, it's him." Genie smiled. "I told you about him before. He's the mastermind behind the Nine-Tails Incident: Obito Uchiha, who awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan."
"Obito Uchiha?"
Orochimaru murmured in surprise. The name was familiar to him.
When he'd competed with Minato for the position of Hokage, he'd investigated Minato's background. If he remembered correctly, Obito had been Minato's student, just like Kakashi.
In other words, Minato's student had secretly orchestrated the Nine-Tails Incident, gotten his own teacher and his wife killed, and was now trying to stop the village from winning the war.
Even Orochimaru had trouble making sense of the logic behind it all.
Meeting Orochimaru's puzzled gaze, Genie shrugged. "That's what happened. As for why—well, Uchiha are sick in the head. When they're having an episode, they're not the same person they are normally. There's no need to dwell on it."
Orochimaru nodded. There had never been a formula that could fully explain the human heart or human nature. It truly wasn't worth spending too much effort on.
For now, all he needed to know was that Obito Uchiha was an enemy.
Moreover, Genie's explanation aligned with some of his own research: the Sharingan was an immature Kekkei Genkai, and maintaining it required paying a certain price. The Mangekyō Sharingan demanded even more.
Perhaps the Uchiha Clan's extreme personalities were a kind of hereditary psychological disorder.
Orochimaru shared his theory with Genie. Genie lacked the ability to conduct research, but he was well-informed, and his opinions were worth considering.
"An inherited psychological disorder? That's a remarkably advanced idea."
Genie stroked his chin. In the world he'd lived in before becoming a genie, mental illness hadn't received much attention yet. He hadn't expected Orochimaru to notice it.
But it was certainly interesting. Genie thought it over, then suddenly said, "Kakashi has a Sharingan too, doesn't he? Since he doesn't have Uchiha blood, the price he pays for using it should be even higher than a normal Uchiha's."
"Observing how he's changed since getting the Sharingan might lead to something..."
Genie's voice trailed off.
As far as he knew, the stronger an Uchiha's emotions—hatred, love, anger—the greater the power of their eyes.
Taking that a step further, perhaps the eyes also affected the Uchiha in return. Someone with hatred in their heart might be turned into a vengeful avenger, while a kind person might become a self-sacrificing saint.
When the Uchiha used their Sharingan through their emotions, the Sharingan might also be manipulating them in turn, pushing them to express those emotions more intensely.
If that wasn't enough to support the theory, Genie had noticed some peculiarities in Kakashi's life.
Kakashi's Sharingan was different from an ordinary Uchiha's. He had no Uchiha blood and couldn't activate or deactivate it at will, so he had to keep it running all the time.
But hatred, love, and other emotions weren't things people could sustain forever. No matter how deeply felt, they lasted only for a moment.
Kakashi couldn't be in love forever, hate forever, or feel any other emotion forever.
By rights, his Sharingan shouldn't have been able to stay active, much less progress from two tomoe to three.
So what had allowed him to keep it going?
Genie thought of a book—one written by Jiraiya and widely read throughout the Shinobi World.
—Icha Icha Paradise
That made perfect sense. If a young man of the right age had a reason to, he could stay in that kind of state indefinitely.
Before, Genie had assumed Kakashi's habit of never putting his book down was because his ill-fated life had left him disheartened, and reading was a way to distract himself.
Now he wondered if reading made it easier for his body to bear the strain of the Sharingan, causing him to unconsciously depend on it.
After hearing Genie's theory, Orochimaru spoke with an odd tone. "Genie, you really do have a peculiar way of thinking. You're nothing like anyone else..."
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