Hanzo froze.
A chill shot from his spine straight to the crown of his head.
For a brief instant, the battlefield felt colder than the rain-soaked air of Amegakure.
If anyone else had said those words, he would have dismissed them outright.
But the name Uchiha carried weight in this world.
And that weight was written in blood.
"Release!"
Hanzo surged his chakra violently, shattering the illusion.
The world flipped.
His vision spun—
And when it stabilized, he was no longer looking down.
He was looking up.
His own chain coiled around his body, binding him tightly.
Jin stood atop Ibuse's head, flames burning around him like a blazing crown.
The firelight distorted his features.
Only those scarlet eyes—three tomoe spinning within—remained terrifyingly clear.
Beneath Jin's feet, the massive salamander lay utterly still.
Ibuse, too, had long since fallen into illusion.
"When…?" Hanzo muttered hoarsely. "Since the estate, I avoided eye contact. I was on guard the entire time."
He genuinely did not know when he had fallen.
Jin's voice was steady, almost academic.
"When a person focuses all their attention on one threat, they inevitably ignore everything else."
"Yes, the Sharingan's genjutsu is infamous. Feared. Called the 'Hypnotic Eye.'"
"So naturally, when facing an Uchiha, the first thing people guard against is our eyes."
"You all remember not to look into them."
"But genjutsu is not exclusive to the Sharingan."
"Sometimes a small gesture. A casual word. A shift in rhythm."
"That's enough."
"Especially when your attention is locked elsewhere."
Because of the Sharingan—and because of his unique fire-based abilities—Jin never needed to devote all his training to ninjutsu.
That gave him time.
And he invested that time into illusion arts.
Not just Sharingan-based genjutsu.
All forms.
He once remembered watching a certain battle—
Neji Hyuga versus Kidomaru.
Neji's Byakugan had a blind spot due to the Caged Bird Seal.
Kidomaru exploited it repeatedly.
But Jin had always wondered—
An ordinary person's natural field of vision is barely 120 degrees.
Even with peripheral awareness, maybe 180.
If Neji's tiny blind spot was truly fatal…
How did anyone without Byakugan survive at all?
The flaw wasn't the blind spot.
The flaw was reliance.
Neji had grown accustomed to defending what he could see perfectly.
The unseen attack felt unnatural.
Unfamiliar.
Harder to respond to.
It was inertia of thought.
And Hanzo had fallen into the same trap.
He had been guarding the Sharingan—
So he never guarded anything else.
Hanzo exhaled slowly.
"Truly… the new generation pushes aside the old."
"If you wanted me dead, I would have died several times already."
This battle—
He had lost.
But Hanzo of the Salamander could lose.
The leader of Amegakure could not.
With a roar, he shattered the chains and lunged forward—
"Bloom, Higanbana."
Jin formed a single seal.
The hidden mark he had planted earlier activated.
Hanzo's movement halted abruptly.
His body temperature spiked.
He tore open his collar.
At his chest, directly over his heart, a dark seal had spread outward like branching roots. Vein-like black lines radiated across his torso.
Jin's tone remained calm.
"When you were trapped in illusion, I sealed a mass of compressed thermal energy into your heart."
"If I release it, that energy will travel through your meridians."
"And detonate."
"In simple terms…"
"Your life is in my hands."
Hanzo stared at him in silence.
The rain began to fall again.
"What do you want?" he asked finally.
There was no more point avoiding eye contact.
The Sharingan glowed inches away.
Jin lowered his hand.
"I told you from the beginning."
"I bear no malice toward you—or Amegakure."
"I only ask that you do not interfere while I act."
Hanzo frowned.
"Just that?"
"Just that."
Jin paused, then added lightly:
"Though if Hanzo-senpai wishes to help me eliminate Danzo Shimura, I would not refuse."
Hanzo's face darkened.
"So I have no other choice."
He was over sixty.
Past his prime.
The era that belonged to him was ending.
For a fleeting moment, resignation flickered across his eyes.
"Indeed," Jin said softly—
And struck.
"Genjutsu: Sharingan."
This time, it was not a shallow battlefield trick.
The earlier illusion had been opportunistic.
Easily broken.
This—
It was controlled.
The tomoe spun.
Hanzo's resistance faltered at precisely the moment his will wavered.
The illusion sank deep.
When Hanzo's gaze finally cleared—
There was no hostility left within it.
Only cold stillness.
The battle—
Had truly ended.
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