The broken barrier made Yugito pause for a moment. Just as she was about to keep attacking no matter what, another layer of red light suddenly covered the fortress.
"Damn Konoha, always hiding in their shell."
Yugito cursed, then gave up her tailed beast form.
Landing on the treetop, she panted slightly. Her pale skin was faintly stained with a strange red glow—it was clear that keeping up the transformation was also a heavy burden on her.
Like Shisui, she was still young, her strength still growing, and she couldn't yet fully control Matatabi's power.
If she had already mastered the Tailed Beast Bomb, this kind of barrier could be destroyed with three shots—no, two would be enough.
With a hateful glance at the faintly transparent shield, Yugito regrouped with the Kumogakure squad that had come to pick her up and headed toward their base at the Fire Country border.
After they left, Shisui asked the Hyuga ninja to double-check the barrier, then led the Konoha side away from the fortress, hurrying back to the main force.
"We need to report to Orochimaru-sama right away."
…
"Orochimaru-sama, we got word from Kakashi's team. They ran into an unknown enemy. Three barrier specialists are dead, one is badly hurt, and they failed to activate the fortress defense."
Hearing this, Orochimaru paused in his work on the barrier, puzzled. "Unknown enemy? Not Kumogakure?"
Fugaku nodded, looking equally shocked. "According to the report, the enemy used a strange space-time ninjutsu. They never even saw his face."
"Have them report to me directly once they return."
Orochimaru nodded slightly and focused back on the barrier setup. When Kakashi's team failed to check in on time, he had already guessed they had run into trouble.
Fortunately, they had gained some advantage on the front line against Kumogakure. The "fake fortress" plan worked surprisingly well. Maybe worried about being tricked again, Kumogakure had actually pulled back instead of pressing the attack.
This gave Konoha the chance to calmly build a new barrier. From that angle, even though there were setbacks, his main goal was already achieved.
And since the "fake fortress" served as a template, progress was quick. The setup could be finished before dawn.
Of course, that was also because Orochimaru himself was a master of barrier jutsu. If it had been left only to the barrier squad, who knows how long it would have dragged on.
"But still… what a pity."
Orochimaru licked his lips, a trace of regret in his eyes.
What he really wanted was for Kumogakure to keep clashing with him head-on. Even though the losses would be great, the war would no doubt move much faster.
More than commanding a battlefield, Orochimaru preferred being in the lab, cutting specimens and enjoying research.
"Looks like you could use a little help."
Suddenly, a voice rang in his mind. Orochimaru's face changed slightly, his hands gave a small twitch, and the newly completed barrier node almost got ruined.
Fugaku had not yet left. Seeing this, he asked in confusion, "Orochimaru-sama, what's wrong?"
Orochimaru gave him a cold glance without answering. Fugaku had no choice but to hold back his doubts and continue dealing with the matters inside the fortress.
"Genie, when did you wake up?"
A smoke-like humanoid figure stretched out from Orochimaru's back, grinning. "Last night, around the time you used the 'Yamata Technique.' You seemed so busy, I didn't want to bother you."
At that, Orochimaru's expression darkened. It felt like Genie had once again taken one of his forbidden techniques for free.
"Don't be so stingy. I came out now to help you."
Genie curled his lips into a smile. "Even though you hold the advantage in this war, there's another troublesome guy besides Kumogakure who just joined the battlefield. If you don't end this war quickly, with him interfering, you may not be able to reach your goal."
"A troublesome guy?" Orochimaru frowned, thinking of the mysterious enemy Kakashi's team had run into. He was the biggest unknown in this war.
"Exactly who you think," Genie said with a smile. "I already told you before—he's the one behind the Nine-Tails attack, the Uchiha with Mangekyo Sharingan, Uchiha Obito."
"Obito?"
Orochimaru gave a light sound of surprise. He was very familiar with that name.
Back when he competed with Minato for Hokage, he had investigated all of Minato's students. If he remembered correctly, Obito should have been one of them, just like Kakashi.
Which meant Minato's own student had secretly plotted the Nine-Tails attack. Not only did he kill his teacher and teacher's wife, now he was working to stop the village from winning the war.
Even for Orochimaru, the logic behind this was hard to make sense of at first.
Meeting Orochimaru's confused look, Genie just shrugged. "That's how it is. As for the reason—well, Uchiha brains are sick. When they're in one of their episodes, they're not the same person. No need to think too hard about it."
Orochimaru nodded. Human hearts and human nature had never been something that could be explained with a fixed formula, and there was no need to waste too much effort on it.
For now, it was enough to know that Uchiha Obito was the enemy.
Besides, what Genie had just said lined up with his earlier research: the Sharingan was an incomplete Kekkei Genkai, and keeping it active required a price. The Mangekyou Sharingan even more so.
Maybe the Uchiha clan's extreme personalities were actually a kind of inherited mental illness.
Orochimaru shared his guess with Genie. Though Genie didn't have the skill to do research, he had seen a lot, so his opinion carried weight.
"A bloodline illness, huh... your idea is ahead of its time."
Genie rubbed his chin. Back in the world he came from before becoming Genie, people didn't pay that much attention to mental illnesses. He hadn't expected Orochimaru to notice this.
Still, it was interesting. Genie thought for a moment, then said, "Doesn't Kakashi also have a Sharingan? He isn't of Uchiha blood, so the cost for him to use it should be even greater than a normal Uchiha."
"Watching how he changes after gaining the Sharingan might give us some answers..."
At this point, Genie paused slightly.
From what he knew, hate, love, anger... the stronger the Uchiha's emotions, the stronger their eye power became.
If he pushed the idea further, perhaps the reverse was also true—maybe the eye power itself shaped the Uchiha, turning those with hate into avengers, and those with kindness into saints.
When the Uchiha used the Sharingan through their emotions, the Sharingan in turn shaped them to express those emotions even more strongly.
But if that alone wasn't enough, Genie had noticed something strange from Kakashi's personal case.
Kakashi's Sharingan wasn't like that of a normal Uchiha. Without Uchiha blood, he couldn't open or close it on his own, and had to keep it active all the time.
But hate, love... or any other emotion—no human could hold on to them forever. No matter how deep, they were only temporary.
Kakashi couldn't stay in love forever, or keep hating forever, or any other emotion.
By logic, his Sharingan shouldn't have been able to stay active, let alone grow from two tomoe to three.
So what let him keep it going?
Genie thought of a book—a best-seller in the ninja world, written by Jiraiya.
—— "Make-Out Paradise"
It made sense. A man his age, if he needed to, could always keep himself in that kind of state.
Before, Genie had thought Kakashi's habit of never letting go of that book came from a lonely fate, using it as a distraction.
But now, it seemed more likely that reading it somehow eased the burden of the Sharingan, making him unconsciously rely on it.
After hearing Genie's take, Orochimaru's tone was a little strange. "Genie, your way of thinking is really unusual... not like others at all."
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