“Sorry, hit a bit of traffic in the evening rush.” “Did I come too late?” Dust motes danced through the air and shattered moonlight came pouring in through the collapsed floor-to-ceiling window.
Uchiha Ayato tilted his head slightly, a composed, easygoing little smile hanging at the corner of his mouth.
The azure lightning retracted inch by inch into his palm, and the formerly bloody, fetid air had been made much fresher by the rampage of the thunderbolt.
Wakaba Mutsumi sat blankly on the floor, her mind sunk into a total blank.
Her gaze swept across the wreckage strewn everywhere and fixed itself dead on the profile of this uninvited guest before her.
It was a face so handsome it blurred the boundaries of gender—one she’d only glimpsed from afar just yesterday.
What made Wakaba Mutsumi tremble at this moment was the change in the boy’s eyes.
They were a pair of blood-colored eyes.
Against a deep crimson ground, three pitch-black Tomoe spun with a strange rhythm—dangerous and sinister.
These red eyes, which had carved open her hopeless predicament at the very edge of life and death with the poise of sunlight breaking through clouds, had violently smashed through Wakaba Mutsumi’s gray world, and then, with overbearing, unreasonable force, taken root deep in her mind.
She’d probably never forget these enchanting eyes for the rest of her life.
Thump, thump.
Wakaba Mutsumi heard the drumlike pounding of her own heartbeat within her chest.
She opened her mouth, but only a faint, breathy sound could escape her throat.
Naturally, Uchiha Ayato had noticed the way the girl had been frightened witless.
He raised an eyebrow with some amusement, though the present situation really wasn’t suited to idle chitchat.
Still, his mood right now was quite good, and the smile at the corner of his mouth simply couldn’t be held back.
Just as he’d blasted the right arm off that monster behind him in a single strike, the System panel that only he could see flickered gently—— [Chance Encounter Mission: Rescue Uchiha Itachi.] [Mission Status: Complete.] [Reward dispensed: Ocular Technique: Tsukuyomi.] Ayato’s peripheral vision swept over that absurd verdict on the panel, then drifted lightly down to the timid girl on the floor, and he nearly couldn’t keep from bursting out laughing.
Togawa Sakiko is Sasuke, and Wakaba Mutsumi is Itachi?
What kind of logic is that?
Uncle Ayato can see your System’s a die-hard supporter of the ‘Sakiko-Mutsumi sisters are peddling quack medicine’ theory too.
Tsukuyomi—the strongest mental attack; simply seeing the caster’s eyes is enough to fall victim, dragging the enemy’s psyche into an illusory space.
The caster can completely control every factor within that space—time, location, mass, and so on—making the opponent endure mental and physical agony equivalent to reality.
This was an ocular technique that required a Mangekyō Sharingan to activate, but since the System had dared to hand it over, it should have made the backward-compatibility adjustments.
“Gugah…” The sound of grinding bones came from up ahead, interrupting Ayato’s good mood.
The Slit-Mouthed Woman, who had been gravely wounded with her right arm utterly run through and shattered by the thunderbolt, came staggering back up out of the brickwork, foul blood dripping down in great gushes along her tattered long trench coat.
[Ryūchi Cave Summoning Beast Chakra: 50k/90k Level: Jonin Third Stage (Lowly as an Ant)] The Slit-Mouthed Woman paid no mind to her own limply dangling arm; that face, contorted by extreme agony, whipped around toward Uchiha Ayato.
When her murky, bloodshot eyeballs fixed dead on Ayato’s flawless, unimpeachable features, a malicious grudge more than ten times denser than before exploded in an instant.
It was the ugliest jealousy, originating from the very source of the legend itself.
This Imaginary Vengeful Spirit, congealed from humanity’s obsession with and fear of “beauty and ugliness,” held an instinctive rejection of—and a must-kill hatred toward—all perfect, handsome appearances.
What’s more, this far-too-good-looking brat had also gravely wounded her.
“Die…die!!!” “Too beautiful!
Unforgivable!!!” The Slit-Mouthed Woman’s mouth, torn open to her ears, stretched to a width that a human jawbone could absolutely never reach; her scarlet tongue writhed madly, sticky saliva splattering in all directions, while her sole remaining left hand clutched tight that giant, rust-coated pair of scissors.
The temperature in the room plunged abruptly to the freezing point, and the suffocating pressure of cursed energy transformed into a substantial black gale, howling as it lunged to scythe the black-haired youth in two at the waist.
Unexpectedly, Uchiha Ayato didn’t dodge in the slightest.
The Slit-Mouthed Woman let out a shrill, piercing shriek of laughter, and the scissors, carrying enough cursed energy to shred the entire building, plunged unobstructed straight into Uchiha Ayato’s chest.
“Squelch.” The sound of flesh being torn apart was clearly audible in the deathly silent room.
The light that had just kindled in Wakaba Mutsumi’s eyes was snuffed out once more.
She watched helplessly as a hole large enough to let light through was opened in the black-clad youth’s chest, fresh blood spraying down onto the shattered glass all over the floor, like a red camellia blooming amid the ruins.
“Dead…” “Kill you…” “Beautiful things should all be killed…” The Slit-Mouthed Woman’s face trembled from extreme exhilaration; she could even feel the scissors in her hand wedged solidly into the gaps between the other’s ribs.
What an exquisite sensation that was!
Only by destroying the utmost beauty could one obtain such delight!
And yet, the wailing, the begging for mercy, or the sound of a corpse collapsing that she’d anticipated—none of it came.
The youth standing before her still wore that infuriating, easygoing smile on his face.
Uchiha Ayato lowered his head slightly, looking at the pair of scissors run clean through his chest, and the corner of his mouth instead curved up into an even more delighted arc.
He paid no heed whatsoever to the “fatal wound” in his chest, merely meeting the Slit-Mouthed Woman’s venomous eyes with those uncanny eyes of his: “When did you get the illusion that you hadn’t been caught in a genjutsu?” Under the Slit-Mouthed Woman’s dazed gaze, the youth’s body—along with that despairing-faced “Wakaba Mutsumi”—all began to turn transparent.
There were no spilling entrails, no gushing blood; the solid muscle tissue dissipated soundlessly.
The broken wooden door, the shattered curtains, the dust dancing in the air…
All of it was being painted over with a heart-pounding dark crimson.
Time, in this instant, was stretched out infinitely.
“What is…this…” The Slit-Mouthed Woman let out a scream, discovering in terror that she could not withdraw that pair of scissors, and the solid wood floor beneath her feet transformed in an instant into a churning sea of blood.
The zenith of the sky split open.
An enormous, eerie scarlet full moon, as if soaked in blood, hung high in the gray, gloomy sky—since when, no one knew.
The entire world had lost its color, leaving only black, white, and that red so thick it would not dissolve.
The Slit-Mouthed Woman was brutally nailed to a cross; the once awe-inspiring semi–Special Grade Cursed Spirit now found even twitching a fingertip an extravagant hope.
“Your defeat was decided from the very start.” Uchiha Ayato appeared before the Slit-Mouthed Woman and reached out to press a finger to the space between her brows: “Tsukuyomi cannot be broken.” “The only one who can defeat me is a Sharingan user.” “You, without a Sharingan—how long do you think you can hold out?” Ayato casually drew a ninja blade out of the void: “In the world of Tsukuyomi, whether it’s space, time…” The ninja blade stabbed into the Cursed Spirit’s shoulder, the sensation of pain magnified a thousandfold, bringing a soul-striking sense of being torn apart.
The Slit-Mouthed Woman struggled like a madwoman; she tried to activate teleportation, tried to use cursed energy to burst this bizarre space apart.
But here, the ability she took such pride in was like a heap of garbled code—aside from futilely wearing down her soul, it had no effect whatsoever.
“Or mass—it’s all controlled by me.” Immediately after, thousands upon thousands of Uchiha Ayatos surfaced from the sea of blood, each clutching a ninja blade of varying length in hand: “For the next seventy-two hours, I’ll torment you without pause.” “Let’s see how long you can last—hahahaha!” The crimson-eyed youth roared with laughter, and the cursed wails echoed beneath the blood moon.
[Long-Term Mission: Return one thousand Summoning Beasts to the Three Great Sacred Lands (370/1000).
Reward: Sage Mode] [Combat Mission: Complete three A-Rank missions (1/3).] [Mission Status: Phase One complete.] [Reward dispensed: Total Chakra x2]