Barrier Reversal

"So you're one of the Hozuki Clan's nobodies from Mist Village..." Touma's icy voice rang in Kamikawa Ryuhei's ears.

"So that's why those hits felt off."

"You used the Hozuki Clan's Hydrification Technique..."

"Looks like those punches didn't hurt you at all!"

"But there's something I don't get. Since when has the Hozuki Clan been so obedient to the Mizukage? You actually agreed to send a genius who'd mastered the Hydrification Technique to infiltrate Konoha?"

"Was it just to kill me?"

Touma wasn't surprised that he'd ended up on Mist Village's assassination list.

After their mission with Cloud Village had failed, they'd used other spies embedded in Konoha to gather extensive intelligence on Touma, Minato, and Kushina.

It wasn't that Konoha was full of holes. The spy Cloud Village had used had infiltrated the village shortly after its founding, and his social connections there had stood up to scrutiny.

Cloud Village had used such a deeply embedded spy to obtain a piece of intelligence that wasn't even particularly valuable. They certainly wouldn't let the matter rest, so they'd sold off the information on all three of them.

To make their intelligence seem more valuable, Cloud Village had surely embellished it quite a bit. Otherwise, Touma's price on the Bounty Exchange list couldn't have climbed all the way to twelve million ryō, with no distinction between dead or alive.

He didn't believe the Hozuki Clan would send a genius who'd successfully mastered the Hydrification Technique to assassinate him just for money.

The main reason was that the Hydrification Technique was extremely difficult to master. Even with Hozuki Gengetsu's detailed notes, not every clan member could learn it successfully.

That left only one possibility: the Mizukage had issued an administrative order, forcibly demanding that the Hozuki Clan send this man to kill him.

Sure enough, when Touma mentioned the Mizukage, Kamikawa Ryuhei's expression changed.

"What does the Hozuki Clan's decision have to do with you?"

"Worry about yourself first!"

"I didn't come here with just this little bit of preparation. I'm going to make sure this assassination succeeds..."

Before he'd finished speaking, Touma felt strange vibrations coming from all four sides of the arena. Then the barrier dome above it suddenly changed color, turning from pale red to deep red.

Touma didn't know much about Barrier Ninjutsu, but he understood what had happened. The barrier's outward-facing defenses had been turned inward. In other words, the barrier had been reversed.

"Quick! Get to the barrier control room!"

Sarutobi Hiruzen realized something was wrong and immediately ordered the Anbu beside him into action. But the Anbu, who hurried off and back again, brought him no good news.

"Third, the control room found that someone tampered with the Barrier Pillars. They must have planted control talismans in advance!"

"I don't want to know how it happened. I want to know what you're going to do about it."

Sarutobi Hiruzen glared at the Anbu member and snapped.

"Uh... well... The Barrier Pillars were shifted inside the barrier when it was reversed. Our people can't reach them..."

"Maybe... once the chakra inside the Barrier Pillars runs out, the reversal will stop on its own..."

The Anbu spoke without conviction, seeing the Third's expression darken. He clearly knew that the moment he said those words, he'd be met with the Third's fury!

"Boom... crack..."

Sarutobi Hiruzen suddenly rose from his seat, chakra blazing around him. The force shook the thick wooden backrest of his chair until it split apart.

"By the time the chakra runs out, what use would you be?"

"I'll handle it myself!"

He truly couldn't be bothered to argue with these Anbu any longer. Not one of the shinobi Danzo had transferred from Root into the Anbu was worth a damn.

A critical facility in the village had been tampered with, yet instead of coming up with a solution, they were making excuses and dragging their feet.

Sarutobi Hiruzen resolved that once this graduation exam was over, he would find a reason to replace the current Anbu leadership and put an end to this atmosphere.

As the "Professor of Ninjutsu," Sarutobi Hiruzen was also highly skilled in sealing barriers. After all, he was the one who had developed the peeping jutsu known as the Telescope Technique.

Though the Telescope Technique was essentially an illusion projected through a barrier, making it work across the vast area of Konoha was no easy feat.

He glanced at the data still being uploaded in the control room, and a rough plan took shape in his mind.

The fastest way to destroy the barrier was to make the Barrier Pillars operate beyond their designed capacity, causing their internal structures to melt down on their own.

And to increase the Barrier Pillars' operating power, there was no need to damage the barrier walls. They just had to raise the air pressure above them.

At that thought, a jutsu came to Sarutobi Hiruzen's mind: the C-rank Wind Release jutsu called Typhoon Pass.

The jutsu had originally been developed by the Land of Lightning during the Warring States period, specifically to counter the Land of Water's shinobi and their Hidden Mist Technique.

That's right. The Silent Killing Technique, formed by combining the Hidden Mist Technique with the Mist Body Flicker Technique, had already taken shape during the Warring States period.

It was especially effective at sea, and its effects lasted a long time. Many clans in the Land of Lightning had suffered for it.

After the Warring States period ended and the hidden villages were established, the God of Shinobi and the Asura of the Ninja World kept the nations in check, and relations between them remained fairly harmonious. They even exchanged and discussed ninjutsu on multiple occasions.

Following the principle of "if Mist Village is unhappy, then I'm happy," Cloud Village had made Wind Release: Typhoon Pass public at virtually no cost, effectively rendering the Silent Killing Technique useless.

That was also why, with the Second Shinobi World War on the verge of breaking out and Cloud Village already making its moves, Mist Village had remained completely silent.

What Sarutobi Hiruzen couldn't understand was why Mist Village, which had never been expected to take part in a major shinobi conflict, had made the unprecedented move of sending someone to assassinate Konoha's promising young shinobi. It made no sense.

If Touma could hear Sarutobi Hiruzen's thoughts, he wouldn't have minded explaining it to the Third.

In his view, the appearance of a genius like Touma—someone who wasn't part of the plan—must have triggered some kind of reaction in Uchiha Madara, who was hiding at Kannabi Bridge. Madara had then ordered the Mizukage to have Touma assassinated.

And the Third Mizukage, whose mind Madara controlled, would surely carry out Uchiha Madara's will to the letter. He would also take the opportunity to suppress the clans with Kekkei Genkai, assigning the mission to a Hozuki Clan genius.

It was one thing if the Hozuki Clan genius accepted the mission. Either way, he'd have no chance of escaping Konoha after a successful assassination.

Even if they refused, the Third Mizukage would still have an excuse to force the Hozuki Clan to leave Mist Village and abandon their ancestral home inside it.

But Touma, inside the barrier, wasn't worried. After all, he'd already identified his opponent as a member of the Hozuki Clan, which meant he knew the man's weakness too. It was no secret in the Shinobi World that Hozuki Clan shinobi were easily paralyzed by lightning.

And while researching Lightning Style: Thunder Motion Fist, Touma had also developed a set of Lightning Release Nintaijutsu.

That's right, you read that correctly: a whole set of Lightning Release Nintaijutsu. After all, Sasuke's Chidori techniques in the original story had already blazed the trail. Touma, with access to Orochimaru's core ninjutsu research materials, would naturally try to take things a step further!