Chapter 1196 - 1191: Waiting

All of a sudden, the entire world slowed to a crawl.

A pair of pitch-black sun-like patterns bloomed in Seimei's pupils.

His eyes narrowed, instantly locking onto Ichikishimahime's figure.

Then came an ear-splitting screech of grinding air.

A massive spiraling shuriken of pure energy formed in his palm, spinning so fast it screamed.

This wasn't just any jutsu. This was the very first S-rank forbidden technique he'd ever mastered: Wind Release: Rasenshuriken!

Its insane destructive power plus the fact that it didn't need hand seals made it the perfect sneak-attack weapon.

Right in front of him, Ichikishimahime's jaws were already wide open for the bite when a wave of mortal danger slammed into her instincts.

She flicked her eyes downward and caught sight of the Rasenshuriken glowing in his hand.

She hesitated for a split second and immediately chose to dodge.

But Seimei had been watching her every twitch. No way he was letting her slip away.

A terrifying pressure crashed down as he poured everything into his Mangekyō Sharingan and unleashed a genjutsu straight into her mind.

"Crap!"

Ichikishimahime panicked and tried to slam her eyes shut to block the illusion.

Too late. Everything happened in the blink of an eye.

BOOM!

RRRIP!

A dull explosion, followed instantly by the wet, sickening sound of flesh tearing.

A bloodcurdling scream ripped out of Ichikishimahime's throat as her whole body was blasted backward.

Seimei moved to follow up, one foot already forward, then violently yanked himself back.

He leaped away like a startled rabbit, shooting several meters back in an instant.

CRASH!

The exact spot he'd just been standing in was smashed by a colossal snake tail. The impact cracked the ground open in a fissure over a meter wide.

The owner of that tail? Ichikishimahime.

Meanwhile, the version of her that had been sent flying faded to a pale white, clearly nothing more than a shed snakeskin.

Obviously, at the very last moment, she'd pulled off the Snake Shed Technique to dodge his attack.

And then, using her invisibility, she'd tried to counter-ambush him.

Unfortunately for her, the Byakugan saw right through it.

Sure, the invisibility that all three great serpent sages of Ryūchi Cave mastered was top-tier. It could hide even chakra fluctuations from almost every detection method.

But the Byakugan hard-countered it.

Under its x-ray vision, every last flow of chakra inside her body was laid bare. Hiding? Impossible.

That's how he spotted her and dodged the tail strike.

As for her… she hadn't come out completely unscathed.

Seimei's gaze slid upward. A thin trail of crimson was leaking from the corner of Ichikishimahime's mouth.

She was injured.

First strike failed. Ichikishimahime instantly put distance between them again.

She stared hard at his eyes and hissed, "Mangekyō Sharingan… You're from the Uchiha clan?"

Seimei just shrugged, neither confirming nor denying.

Seeing he wasn't going to answer, her brows furrowed. "Then what's with those Byakugan?"

As she spoke, her eyes were locked on the center of his forehead, basically saying: don't even try lying to me.

Seimei didn't bother hiding it. Or rather, he knew hiding was pointless.

You can't fool someone who already knows the tricks.

Since she had such high-level invisibility, she'd obviously studied everything that could counter it. Trying to play it off with a forehead protector or some cheap cover-up would just be insulting her intelligence.

So no point denying it.

Of course, he wasn't going to admit anything either.

Part of it was basic op-sec, but mostly he wanted her to stay nervous.

And it was working. Since he stayed silent, she didn't dare rush in again.

But standoffs don't last forever.

Less than a minute later, Ichikishimahime's patience ran out.

Of the three holy lands, Ryūchi Cave had by far the worst attitude toward humans. They treated people like walking snacks. Asking one of their sages to play mind games with food? Yeah, not happening.

Still, she wasn't careless. She'd seen the terror of the Mangekyō firsthand, so she was on maximum alert.

This time she came out swinging with her signature move: Sage Art: Inorganic Reincarnation!

An insanely powerful sage technique that creates objects existing somewhere between illusion and reality, making it nearly impossible to tell what's real and what isn't.

On top of that, anything she creates has a bizarre assimilation property. Touch it too long and you can literally be converted into raw chakra for her to gobble up.

From his memories, this was the "test" she used on anyone who came to Ryūchi Cave to learn senjutsu.

Test, my ass. More like an excuse to eat people.

Luckily, this technique wasn't very effective against Seimei.

Sure, as a wood clone, his ocular power wasn't as strong as the main body's, so he couldn't completely shrug off the illusion. But he could still tell real from fake just fine.

He flashed aside, dodging a lethal claw strike hidden inside the inorganic creations, and fired back with a wind blade.

At the same time, all the shadow clones that had been gathering natural energy opened fire.

Shwick-shwick-shwick!

A storm of shuriken rained down on Ichikishimahime from every direction.

Of course, he didn't expect those to actually hurt her.

"Seimei" only had the clones attack so they wouldn't look out of place.

Right now, he absolutely could not dispel them.

If Ichikishimahime realized that popping the shadow clones didn't give him any extra chakra back, she'd instantly know he wasn't the real body.

Yup, even now, she still hadn't figured out he was just a clone.

All he could say was: Wood Clone no Jutsu is busted!

Or maybe it was because this particular wood clone was packed with so much chakra that she never even considered it might not be the original.

Facing the incoming wind blade and the hail of shuriken, Ichikishimahime waved a hand.

A circular wall sprang up around her, blocking everything.

Right now, the wall was solid.

A split second later, countless snake phantoms poured out of her sleeve, phasing straight through the wall like it wasn't even there, and lunged for the surrounding shadow clones.

In that moment, the wall might as well have been an illusion.

That's what made Inorganic Reincarnation so terrifying: you never knew if the next attack was real or just a feint.

Still, "Seimei" wasn't panicking.

Right now he was just buying time, waiting for the real body to finish reviewing the memory sync from the clones and decide on a plan.

Until then? Stall.

Time ticked by.

Five minutes passed.

Finally, Ichikishimahime noticed something off.

She'd deliberately taken out nearly a fifth of the shadow clones on the field.

Yet the wood clone she was fighting hadn't gotten any stronger despite "absorbing" all that chakra.

That set off alarm bells.

After carefully sensing for a moment, her eyes widened in realization.

She instantly put even more distance between them and snarled, "You're not the real body either?!"

Hearing that, the wood clone stopped attacking and just smirked.

"Took you long enough… Your reaction time's a little slow, don't you think?"