"Take a guess. In absolute darkness, whose heads will those explosions you're so proud of land on?"
Uchiha Itachi's icy voice rang out deep in the soul of every member of Iwagakure's Explosion Corps like the most vicious curse! Trapped in the "Bringer-of-Darkness Technique" Genjutsu, they had completely lost all perception of the outside world. There was no light, no sound; they could not even sense their comrades' chakra. All that remained of the world was boundless darkness and that demonic whisper that made their scalps prickle!
Panic devoured their reason like a plague in an instant!
"Where's the enemy?!"
"He's behind me! I felt him!"
"Die!"
One Iwagakure ninja completely broke down under the extreme terror. Without a second thought, he detonated the last of the explosive clay in his hands!
Boom!
A burst of fire erupted on the dark cliff! With it came the agonized scream of another comrade beside him!
"You bastard! You blew me up!"
"It's you! You're the enemy!"
That explosion was like a fuse igniting a powder keg. Suspicion and fear turned these once inseparable comrades into bitter enemies! They began frantically, indiscriminately attacking the "enemies" they imagined!
Boom! Boom! Rumble!
For a time, flames soared from the cliffs on both sides of One-Line Sky Gorge, and explosions rose one after another! Not a single piece of the "art" they took such pride in landed on the Uchiha. Instead, all of it "bloomed" within their own positions!
Below the cliffs.
Uchiha Izumi watched the chaotic "feast of fireworks" overhead, her little mouth hanging wide open, shock written all over her face.
"Itachi... what kind of Genjutsu is that? Isn't it way too powerful?"
She knew Itachi's Genjutsu was powerful, but she had never imagined it was this powerful! One technique had made Iwagakure's most elite ace unit slaughter one another!
"It's only a wide-area visual deprivation Genjutsu."
Uchiha Itachi's expression remained as still as an ancient well. "What truly broke them wasn't my Genjutsu, but the fear in their own hearts."
He analyzed it calmly, as though all of this were merely an insignificant experiment. Just then, a streak of golden lightning flashed past him at incredible speed! It was Uchiha Hikari! While Itachi controlled the entire battlefield with Genjutsu, this genius of just six years old had already begun his operation!
"Too slow! Too slow!"
Uchiha Hikari darted at high speed through the swarms of explosive clay spiders and birds raining down from above! The Mitsudomoe Sharingan in his eyes spun wildly at a speed beyond their limits, clearly discerning every explosive's flight path and the chakra flowing within it!
His body became a succession of afterimages almost impossible to follow with the naked eye. With every flicker, several more chirping pieces of explosive clay appeared in his hands. Then, within a hundredth of a second, he severed the chakra cores inside the clay with an exquisitely precise Chakra Scalpel!
The fierce-looking clay spiders and birds on the verge of exploding lost all their energy the instant he touched them, like deflated balls, and fell limply from the air. In less than ten seconds, he single-handedly disarmed every last one of the hundreds of explosive clay creations capable of leveling the entire gorge, all with his bare hands!
When the final Clay Bird became a dud in his grasp, Uchiha Hikari landed steadily on the ground and even playfully flashed Itachi and Izumi a V sign.
"Done! Even easier than I imagined!"
At the gorge entrance, Kitsuchi and Akatsuchi, who had witnessed everything with their own eyes, were completely petrified. Their mouths hung wide enough to fit a dinosaur egg, and their eyes bulged as though they might fly out of their sockets!
What had they just seen? A seven-year-old brat had plunged the entire Explosion Corps into infighting with a single unknown Genjutsu! Another six-year-old brat had forcibly disarmed all the explosive clay with a terrifying speed surpassing the Body Flicker Technique! Was this something a fucking human could do?! These were two children whose combined ages were not even fifteen!
"I must be dreaming..."
Akatsuchi pinched himself hard. The sharp pain told him that everything before his eyes was real!
"Monsters..."
Kitsuchi struggled to force the word from his throat. Now he finally understood why Uchiha Gen'yō had been so confident in sending only these three children into battle. How were these children? They were clearly three little monsters wearing human skin!
He understood even more clearly the gap in "art" Uchiha Gen'yō had spoken of earlier. Compared with the Uchiha's Dōjutsu that toyed with people's hearts and disregarded the rules, the explosive art their Iwagakure took such pride in was nothing but a fart!
Above the cliffs, Kari was the only one who had barely managed to break free of the Genjutsu through sheer willpower. But the instant his vision returned and he saw the hellish scene before him, he wished he were still immersed in darkness! His subordinates had suffered heavy casualties, his position was in shambles, and every last one of the "artworks" he took the greatest pride in had fallen into the gorge and become scrap!
"No... impossible!"
Kari let out a despairing roar! His faith was utterly shattered at that moment! What greeted him, however, was a foot descending from above.
Thud!
At some point, Uchiha Hikari had appeared behind him. One clean, decisive flying kick sent him straight off the cliff! Kari's body fell like a kite with its string cut, slamming into the gorge floor and knocking him unconscious on the spot.
Only after all this was done did Uchiha Itachi slowly raise his head to look at the two hulking Iwagakure men at the gorge entrance, who were now utterly stupefied.
"Senior Kitsuchi. The test is over. Can we meet your elders now? Or has Iwagakure prepared some other 'welcoming entertainment'?"
At those words, Kitsuchi jolted violently, snapping out of his petrified state. He looked at the boy whose gaze was terrifyingly calm, then at the mountains of "duds" in the gorge and the devastated scene on the cliffs. Only by mustering every ounce of strength could he force a few words from his throat.
"N-no... nothing else... welcome to the Land of Earth."
At that moment, nothing remained in the heart of Iwagakure's most dependable man but endless bitterness and awe. The Uchiha Clan, this clan that had only just defected from Konoha-its strength, its deep reserves, its terror had already far exceeded all their imaginations! Would allying with such an existence bring fortune or disaster? Kitsuchi did not know. All he knew was that Iwagakure, perhaps even the entire Shinobi World, was about to undergo an upheaval.
Yet just as he prepared to take these three "little ancestors" back to report, another sudden change occurred! An enormous messenger hawk sped toward them from the distant sky, circled, and landed on his shoulder. Kitsuchi's expression changed. He recognized it: this was an urgent confidential message of the village's highest classification!
He hastily removed the scroll from the hawk's leg and quickly opened it. Just one glance turned Kitsuchi's face deathly pale! His body even began shaking violently with shock and anger!
"Lord Kitsuchi, what's wrong?" Akatsuchi, standing beside him, noticed something was amiss.
"Those bastards on the Council of Elders!"
Kitsuchi gritted his teeth and abruptly raised his head, looking toward the distant white-clad figure leisurely awaiting the result-Uchiha Gen'yō! His gaze was extraordinarily complicated, holding anger and guilt, but above all, a profound fear!
"They actually went behind Father's back! They sent a proposal to Kumogakure without authorization!"
"A proposal? What proposal?!" Akatsuchi pressed anxiously.
Kitsuchi drew a deep breath, practically forcing the words out through clenched teeth.
"They proposed to the Fourth Raikage... that they join forces! In exchange for one hundred pairs of Sharingan captured by our Iwagakure, they invited Kumogakure to dispatch troops alongside us! Their target is the Uchiha Clan that has just entered the Land of Earth-to wipe them out!"