Faced with the audience's uproar of disbelief, the sensory unit in the barrier control room immediately projected the scene the Hyuga sensor-nin had just seen with his Byakugan onto the barrier's dome.
Kurama Mion, who had been blasted out of the mental space along with the explosion of the mental construct, had suffered no harm. In fact, the powerful explosion in the mental realm might have cleared away the deep-seated negative emotions within her.
Though the image projected on the dome was in black and white, Touma could clearly see that Mion's eyes were brighter than before by a remarkable degree.
Freed from the interference of her negative emotions, all the energy she usually had scattered returned to her. Her Bloodline Limit, which had been slowly growing, suddenly made a leap forward.
Mion traced a few marks in front of herself with her index fingers, then suddenly vanished into the smoke. Even the Hyuga Clan's Byakugan couldn't see through it. This had to be the Kurama Clan's "ultimate genjutsu," Genjutsu: True Reality.
Through an extreme Yin Release transformation, she had completely erased her objective existence from the real world. This kind of disappearance at the conceptual level couldn't be detected by dōjutsu or sensory techniques based on observation.
If one had to find a similar technique for comparison, this method of erasing one's objective existence was somewhat like the Rinnegan dōjutsu Limbo: Border Jail, which Uchiha Madara had used during the Fourth Shinobi World War!
Only someone proficient in Sage Mode could use its special ability to sense Natural Energy and detect the irregularities caused by this kind of disappearance.
Mochi, unable to sense Mion, made a shockingly bad decision!
For some reason, he thought that even after blowing up his mental construct, he was still caught in a genjutsu. He tried to expel the genjutsu from his body a second time by detonating his mental energy.
Little did he know that just as he began to stir his mental energy, Kurama Mion suddenly appeared behind him and attacked without him sensing her at all.
This unexpected turn of events caused Mochi to lose control of the scale of the mental-energy explosion. Not only did he fail to dispel the genjutsu he imagined was still affecting him, but his out-of-control mental energy also struck his core consciousness.
Fortunately, Mion saw something was wrong and acted quickly, using Yin Release Chakra with an extreme nature transformation to contain the explosion. She kept it from damaging Mochi's core.
Otherwise, the Kurama Clan would have had to pay a hefty price to apologize to the Mitarashi Clan. The Mitarashi Clan didn't have many members to begin with, so a clan with such a small population was bound to have few geniuses. Losing even one could deal the family a serious blow!
Mion's next two matches were against Mebuki and Tsume.
Their matches went exactly as expected. Both faced young civilian Genin.
Their Three Body Technique and throwing techniques were highly polished, and they had decent combat experience.
But without a decisive finishing move, they still couldn't compare to top students their age like Mebuki Kazamatsuri and Inuzuka Tsume.
And the Kazamatsuri Clan and Inuzuka Clan were both longstanding shinobi clans. Though neither was especially large, they were sure to have their own secret techniques.
The Inuzuka Clan needed no introduction. The Inuzuka Style Taijutsu, which paired them with their Ninja Dogs, was a complete fighting style in its own right. Their clan members' Taijutsu stood out even among Genin of the same rank.
What's more, Inuzuka Tsume's Ninja Dog, Kuromaru, was an exceptionally rare natural shinju—an animal that could use chakra from birth. Half wolf king, Kuromaru's individual combat strength alone was enough to rival an average Chunin.
The Kazamatsuri Clan's inherited art was naturally Wood Release.
Of course, this "Wood Release" was nothing like that "Wood Release." The Kazamatsuri Clan trained in Wood Release by precisely combining Water and Earth Release Chakra, but their technique lacked the astonishing vitality of the First, Senju Hashirama.
The Wood Release creations the First had left behind decades ago had been enough to awaken an initial Yang Release nature transformation in Touma. The extent of his mastery of Yang Release nature transformation must have been beyond anything Touma could imagine.
In fact, some of Orochimaru's notes mentioned the Second Hokage's theory about why Wood Release couldn't be reproduced. The key lay in Yang Release nature transformation.
However, his elder brother had been poor at explaining himself while alive and had never clearly told his younger brother how to achieve Yang Release nature transformation at that level.
Senju Tobirama had also investigated Wanren Cliff, Tianyun Altar, Shikkotsu Forest, and several other training grounds where his elder brother had once lived for long periods, but he ultimately found nothing.
As a result, he suspected that some unknown external factor had affected his elder brother's constitution, allowing him to easily perform an extremely advanced Yang Release Chakra nature transformation.
He wasn't wrong. Touma figured the First had been able to do this because the "Yang Power" in Asura's reincarnated chakra had awakened within him.
In Touma's view, "Yang Power," a force that could be called the source of Yang Release Chakra, wasn't something one could obtain through training alone.
After all, this power didn't ultimately belong to Asura or the Sage of Six Paths. It came from the true progenitor of chakra, the guardian of the God Tree—the Rabbit Goddess, Otsutsuki Kaguya!
By contrast, the Wood Release the Kazamatsuri Clan developed lacked abundant vitality. Their techniques weren't large in scale, and they couldn't create fast-growing superplants out of nothing. They could only fight in areas dense with plants or prepare seeds and spores with strong vitality in advance.
Mebuki preferred to use spores as her means of attack. Her trump card was a B-rank Wood Release technique called Wood Style: Spore Mist. It could rapidly stimulate spore growth, creating a colorless, transparent cloud of deadly poison that killed enemies without a trace.
Fortunately, the Genin she faced wasn't strong enough to force her to use such a lethal move. Touma knew that inhaling too much of the poisonous mist would leave lasting aftereffects, even if the victim took an antidote in time to suppress them!
Touma and the other two were scheduled around the thirtieth match, so they wouldn't be competing that day. After Mebuki and Tsume finished their matches, the three left the stands and planned to celebrate with them at Yakiniku Q.
This wasn't celebrating too soon. According to the information Shibi had received, the Hokage's Office had redrawn the match list for the next day to make sure the exams went smoothly.
Every Genin and Chunin on the list had been randomly selected as a replacement from among the shinobi guarding the border at Kikyo City.
Although these long-serving border guards would be stronger and more experienced, at least their loyalty was assured. There was no way they'd have as many enemy spies among them as there had been today.
Touma had just fought Orochimaru, who judged that his strength lay somewhere between a Chunin and a Special Jōnin. With enough mission experience under his belt, he'd be qualified to serve as a Special Jōnin assigned to specialized missions.
Using himself as a benchmark, Touma assessed the strength of Aburame Shibi and Haruno Kizashi. Neither would have trouble facing a Genin among the border guards. Even if they were randomly matched against a Chunin, they'd still be able to put up a fight.
As long as they lasted long enough against a Chunin, they'd pass the examination anyway!
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