Barrier Reversal

"So, it was just a small fry from the Hozuki Clan of the Hidden Mist..." Touma's cold voice rang in Kamikawa Ryuhei's ears.

"I was wondering why the impact felt so off just now."

"So it was the Hydrification Technique of the Hozuki Clan..."

"It seems those punches of mine didn't cause you any damage at all!"

"However, I can't wrap my head around one thing: since when did you Hozuki lot become so obedient to the Mizukage that you'd actually agree to let a genius who has mastered the Hydrification Technique infiltrate Konoha?"

"Is it really just to kill me?"

Touma was not at all surprised that he had made it onto the Hidden Mist's assassination list.

After the mission in the Cloud Village failed, they had utilized other spies embedded within Konoha to gather intelligence on Touma, Minato, and Kushina, getting the details mostly right.

It wasn't that Konoha was as leaky as a sieve, but rather that the spy the Cloud Village utilized had infiltrated shortly after the village was founded, and their social standing within the village was beyond reproach.

Having used a spy with such deep infiltration to obtain intelligence of relatively low value, the Cloud Village certainly wouldn't let it slide; thus, they had simply sold off the information on the three of them.

To highlight the value of their intelligence, the Cloud Village had surely used plenty of hyperbolic rhetoric; otherwise, the bounty on Touma at the Bounty Exchange could never have reached the staggering price of 12 million ryo, dead or alive.

He did not believe the Hozuki Clan would send a genius who had successfully mastered the "Hydrification Technique" to assassinate him just for money.

The "Hydrification Technique" was notoriously difficult to master; even with the detailed annotations left by Hozuki Gengetsu, not every clansman could succeed.

Therefore, it could only be an executive order issued by the Mizukage, forcibly demanding the Hozuki Clan send this person to assassinate him.

Sure enough, after Touma mentioned the word "Mizukage," the expression on Kamikawa Ryuhei's face shifted noticeably.

"What business is the Hozuki Clan's decision of yours?"

"You had better worry about yourself first!"

"I didn't just prepare this much for the sake of a successful assassination..."

Before the words had even faded, Touma felt a strange vibration coming from the four sides of the dueling arena. Immediately after, the barrier dome above the arena suddenly changed color, shifting from its original pale red to a deep, ominous crimson.

Although Touma had no deep research into barrier ninjutsu, he knew exactly what had happened: the barrier's outward-facing defense had inverted to become an inward-facing one—a so-called "Barrier Reversal."

"Quick! Get to the barrier monitoring room immediately!"

After realizing something was wrong, Sarutobi Hiruzen immediately issued orders to the Anbu beside him, but the Anbu who hurried back and forth brought him no good news.

"Third Hokage, the monitoring room discovered that the Barrier Pillars have been tampered with; it seems control seals were planted in advance!"

"I don't want to know how it happened; I only want to know what solutions you have!"

Sarutobi Hiruzen looked at the Anbu and spoke with irritation.

"Uh... this... because of the Barrier Reversal, the Barrier Pillars have been shifted into the barrier itself, and our people cannot reach them..."

"Perhaps... we could wait until the chakra inside the Barrier Pillars is exhausted, and the Barrier Reversal will stop on its own..."

The Anbu spoke without confidence while looking at the Third Hokage's clearly darkening expression; clearly, he knew that after saying this, he would immediately face the Third Hokage's fury!

"Boom... crack..."

Sarutobi Hiruzen suddenly stood up from his seat, a surging flame of chakra erupting from his body, shaking the thick solid wood backrest of his chair until it cracked.

"If I wait for the chakra to be exhausted, what use are you lot?"

"I'll do it myself!"

He truly did not want to bicker with these Anbu anymore; none of the ninjas that Danzo had funneled from the Root into the Anbu were of any real use.

Now that critical facilities in the village had been tampered with, instead of thinking of ways to solve the problem, they were merely passing the buck and stalling.

Sarutobi Hiruzen made up his mind that after this graduation exam ended, he would certainly find a reason to replace the current upper echelon of the Anbu and change this current atmosphere.

As the "Professor of Ninjutsu," Sarutobi Hiruzen's attainments in sealing and barriers were not low; he was, after all, the one who developed the divine peeping art, the "Telescope Technique."

Although the "Telescope Technique" was essentially a barrier-based illusion projection, the difficulty of making it effective across the vast expanse of Konoha was still very high.

He glanced at the data still uploading in the monitoring room, and a preliminary plan formed in his mind.

Currently, the fastest way to destroy the barrier was to force the Barrier Pillars to operate beyond their designed power, causing their internal structures to melt down.

To increase the operating power of the current Barrier Pillars, one did not need to destroy the barrier walls; one only needed to increase the air pressure above them.

Thinking of this, a ninjutsu naturally surfaced in Sarutobi Hiruzen's mind: a C-rank Wind Release technique called "Typhoon Pass."

This technique was originally developed by the Land of Lightning during the Warring States period, specifically to counter the "Hidden Mist Technique" used by ninjas from the Land of Water.

Yes, 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.

Especially on the open sea, the "Silent Killing Technique" was extremely effective and could be maintained for a considerable amount of time, causing many ninja clans in the Land of Lightning to suffer greatly.

After the Warring States period ended and the ninja villages were established, with the suppression of the God of Shinobi and Asura, the relations between nations were considered quite harmonious, and they even conducted exchanges and communication regarding ninjutsu multiple times.

Operating on the principle of "If the Hidden Mist is unhappy, I am happy," the Cloud Village had disclosed "Wind Release: Typhoon Pass" without almost any cost, effectively rendering the "Silent Killing Technique" obsolete.

This was also why, even as the Second Shinobi World War was about to begin and the Cloud Village had already made its moves, the Hidden Mist remained completely silent.

What Sarutobi Hiruzen could not understand was why the Hidden Mist, which should never have participated in the chaotic war, had unexpectedly sent someone to assassinate a promising seed of Konoha; no matter how he thought about it, it lacked logic.

If Touma could hear Sarutobi Hiruzen's inner thoughts right now, he wouldn't mind explaining it to the Third Hokage.

In his view, it was likely that the appearance of a genius like Touma, who was outside of the original plan, had triggered some kind of stress response in Uchiha Madara, who was hiding at Kannabi Bridge, leading him to issue the order to the Mizukage to assassinate Touma directly.

The Third Mizukage, his mind controlled by Madara, would undoubtedly execute Uchiha Madara's will to the letter, taking the opportunity to suppress ninja clans possessing Kekkei Genkai by assigning the mission to a genius from the Hozuki Clan.

If the Hozuki genius managed to accept this mission, it mattered little; after all, once the assassination was carried out, there was virtually no chance of him escaping Konoha alive.

Even if they refused the mission, the Third Mizukage would have a ready-made excuse to demand that the Hozuki Clan secede from the Mist Village and vacate their ancestral lands within the village.

However, Touma, currently trapped within the barrier, was not Ara; having identified his opponent as a member of the Hozuki Clan, he naturally knew his weaknesses. The fact that Hozuki Clan ninjas are easily paralyzed by lightning is no secret in the ninja world.

While researching "Lightning Style: Thunder Motion Fist," Touma had also developed a complete set of lightning-based Nintaijutsu.

Yes, you read that correctly—an entire set of lightning Nintaijutsu. After all, with the Chidori-style ninjutsu of Sasuke from the original timeline as a precedent, Touma, who had access to Orochimaru's core research data, was bound to push things even further!