Chương 197: The Hunt Part 9

A/N: I cannot wait to hear your feedback on this one. I tried something I do not think anyone has ever done before, so I would really appreciate your thoughts. Shisui POV I closed my eyes, relying only on sound, vibration, and instinct. Years of missions, killing intent, and brushes with death had sharpened those senses into weapons. The air screamed with pressure. I let my reflexes take over as I focused on the seal burning against my skin.

My chakra refused to flow cleanly, twisting and splintering under the hostile seal's grip, yet I forced it onward, guided by the precision of my Sharingan. Blood slid down my face as the seal tried to choke my chakra into silence. I ignored it. Stopping was not an option. One hesitation, and I was dead. That thought steadied me. It sharpened my focus. I forced my chakra to pull a single thread from the hostile seal's core. That was when I felt it, the air shifting, the ground vibrating beneath my feet.

My reflexes reacted before conscious thought could form, my body dropping low as a jet of pressurized water tore through the space where my head had been, slicing the air so cleanly it left a hollow hiss in its wake. The earth rumbled beneath me, warning of a powerful Earth Style technique building below. There was no time left. I guided the foreign chakra through my body with surgical precision. The entire sequence, from activating my Sharingan to this moment, lasted only a few heartbeats.

The ground roared as it split open beneath me. I forced the foreign chakra into my ANBU seal and flickered away, relying almost entirely on muscle and the faint scraps of chakra still under my control. My body screamed in protest, my legs locking from the strain. The red glow of my Sharingan faded as I landed hard on the dirt a fair distance away, far enough to avoid the blast but close enough to feel the heat sear my skin. My vision dimmed for a breath.

A heartbeat later, my previous position erupted in a molten explosion, Fire and Earth chakra colliding and tearing the clearing apart. Pain pulsed through every nerve as my ANBU seal ignited beneath my skin. The inked lines spread across my body, glowing faintly red as they clashed with the foreign formula inside me. The two seals battled for control, tearing through my chakra network like blades. My body convulsed from the shock as the hostile seal's grip weakened slightly.

My vision blurred, but I forced my Sharingan to activate again. The pain nearly shut me down, so I cast a genjutsu on myself, dulling the agony and steadying my thoughts. The battlefield was chaos. A jet of pressurized water screamed toward me from the side, while a wall of earth rose behind me, sealing off any escape. Fire and stone from the earlier combination jutsu rained down from above, filling the air with smoke and molten heat.

Ox charged through the flames, his arms coated in magma that shimmered with lethal intensity. One more strike from him would end me. And yet, I was grinning. The world slowed as my blood boiled and my chakra roared through the collapsing network. I had not felt this alive in years. A true life-or-death moment. The two seals collided with such force that my entire chakra network felt like it was being torn apart before stabilizing for a single, fragile instant. I did not waste it.

My chakra erupted outward, my vision burning crimson as the Mangekyo Sharingan flared to life. Ox's molten fist was already inches from my face when I used my ultimate ability, Kotoamatsukami. Ox POV My molten fist cut the air as I saw his eyes change shape. That should not have been possible with the seal, but before I could think it through my blow missed by a hair. Shisui folded backward, collapsing instead of evading, and the timing left my fist swinging through empty air.

For a moment, I thought, what a monster, to have his chakra almost completely sealed and poisoned and still be fighting until now. The battlefield went silent. Heat still radiated off my arm, but the air around me felt wrong, cold in a way that made my skin crawl. Smoke thinned. Flames sagged into dull embers. Sound arrived late, as if it had to travel through water. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

Rabbit moved toward me and spoke in a muffled voice that sounded like it came from far away.

"Is the poison finally working?" I nodded. Then a memory surfaced, clear and vivid. Danzo sama's voice filled my head, calm and absolute.

"Rabbit is compromised. He is a spy for the Hokage. He betrayed Root. Once we capture our target, he will tell the Hokage where we took him, and they will use that evidence to destroy Root. Kill him once we secure the target and before we move him." There was no doubt. We were taught never to question Danzo sama. The mission became everything. Clarity replaced static. Rabbit's words stretched thin and distant. My body moved before thought caught up. My lava fist smashed upward. His mask melted under the heat.

Flesh and bone gave way. His head snapped back in a terrible arc as my knuckles crushed jaw and skull. Blood spattered the air, sizzling where it hit my arm. He fell backwards, convulsing. I slammed my palm to the earth and spikes of stone burst from beneath him, impaling heart, skull, throat in a single, precise volley. He stopped moving completely. I stood and looked down. Nothing reached me. Heart steady, breath even. We were trained to kill without hesitation or remorse. I had done what needed to be done.

The mission was complete. I blinked in confusion. It felt like there was a gap in my memory. Why was Rabbit on the ground? Why was I the one who struck him? The thought scraped at the edge of my mind until another command surfaced, older and deeper than anything else. Root's rules are absolute. If I was compromised by the enemy and there were no nearby allies to support me, then there was only one action to take. The enemy was Kumo's ANBU.

If they captured me during a delicate mission like this and tried to interrogate me, the Root seal would sense betrayal and kill me in a slow, excruciating way. Death was the only answer. I would never become a weapon against Root or reveal any information about it or, most importantly, about Danzo sama. That rule had been carved into me since childhood. I shaped a rock bullet at my fingertip, forcing as much chakra into it as I could until the stone trembled from the strain.

I wanted my death to be as fast and painless as possible. I lifted my mask, opened my mouth, aimed the rock bullet under the roof of my mouth, and fired. The shard tore through flesh and bone a... Shisui POV The world slowed as Ox's rock bullet detonated with a deep, concussive crack that rolled through the clearing. The chakra he had poured into it was far beyond what his body could endure.

The blast sent a shockwave rippling outward, shattering the roof of his mouth and swelling his face grotesquely before it burst. Fragments of bone, blood, and scorched flesh scattered like ash in the wind as the rock bullet continued its ascent, leaving a crimson trail through the air, a perfect red line cutting the sky. I focused inward as blood ran down my face, sensing the chaotic storm of chakra within me.

I tried to purge the foreign energy from my ANBU mark before it killed me, but what I felt next froze my thoughts. The hostile seal wasn't just resisting, it was consuming. To my absolute horror, it was dismantling the ANBU seal piece by piece, feeding on the fractured lines of its formula. The foreign chakra moved like a living predator, devouring every fragment of defense and using what it stole to reinforce itself. My chakra flow was strangled tighter with each pulse.

The glow of my Sharingan dimmed, and within moments my chakra was almost completely suppressed. Time caught up. What was left of Ox crumpled backwards, hitting the dirt with a heavy thud. He fell like a puppet with its strings cut, the red pooling beneath him spreading fast, seeping into the torn ground until it was hard to tell where blood ended and soil began. Smoke drifted from the remnants of his fire and earth jutsu, the scent of iron and burnt dust hanging thick in the air.

I watched the body for a long moment. The silence pressed in again, broken only by the soft hiss of cooling magma. A quiet sigh escaped me as I drew a slow breath.

"I overdid it," I said, my voice flat, tired. The words drifted into the haze, swallowed by the stillness of the battlefield. A/N: Kotoamatsukami is Shisui Uchiha's ultimate genjutsu. It plants an idea deep inside a target's mind and makes them believe it is their own thought. They act on it willingly, without ever realizing they were influenced. This technique leaves no trace, bends the will of even the strongest shinobi, and can break other control methods such as Edo Tensei.

It is one of the most terrifying abilities in the Naruto world. Also, leave a comment to let me know what you thought of this chapter. Your feedback is always appreciated and you have to admit it, that was pretty cool hahahaha