Chapter 105: Genjutsu Reincarnation

 

Tonbo left the Kurama record open between them, waiting for Murakumo to explain.

"A different genius does not appear every few generations," Murakumo said. "That is merely the explanation our clan allowed the world to keep."

The deception seemed too simple. Konoha maintained mission reports, academy registries, census records, and intelligence files. If the Kurama repeatedly produced shinobi powerful enough to sustain the clan's reputation, those people should have names.

Tonbo searched his memory and found none. He knew the legend. He had sought information about the Kurama bloodline and once considered their genjutsu essential to his own development. Yet he could not recall asking which family members had demonstrated it, what missions they completed, or where their records ended.

"The public account never names the geniuses," he said slowly.

Murakumo poured tea. "And a man with your memory never noticed that omission."

Cold unease settled beneath Tonbo's ribs. He had missed important intelligence before, but not a gap so directly tied to one of his research goals.

"Your clan caused that."

"Yakumo did," Murakumo said. "You, Konoha, everyone in the shinobi world is already affected by Genjutsu Reincarnation."

Tonbo's pulse accelerated.

A genjutsu encompassing the entire shinobi world should have required impossible reserves. Even the Infinite Tsukuyomi in his broken memories depended upon power and conditions far outside ordinary ninjutsu. Kotoamatsukami could change a mind without the victim recognizing the intrusion, but it acted upon selected targets. This had persisted across generations and reached people who had never met the caster.

"No technique operates without a cost," Tonbo said. "A genjutsu affecting the entire shinobi world would require a continuous source, a transmission method, and more chakra than one clan could provide."

What if he could learn it? Such a genjutsu might give him a way to challenge the Ōtsutsuki. His disbelief could not extinguish that desire. Yet why did Murakumo speak of the technique with both relief and regret, and why had joining Konoha made it unnecessary?

Murakumo drank without haste. "That is what I thought when I learned the truth."

Tonbo formed signs, examined his chakra, and activated the measures he had prepared against techniques that altered perception. Murakumo let him work.

Murakumo drank his tea. When he first learned the truth, he had wondered whether his own existence was an illusion made by an ancestor. Without the clan's information, knowing about the genjutsu would not be enough to unravel it. This technique joined illusion and reality; it was both false and true.

At Tonbo's heart, a phantom five-sided construct pulsed with his heartbeat. He took direct control of the Inner Archive.

Inner Archive formed an interdimensional space of genjutsu within his heart and used Psycho Mind Transmission to back up memories, thoughts, and perceptions. Every seven days, it activated to sort them again. Tonbo had prepared it against Kotoamatsukami, Izanami, and the Ōtsutsuki techniques he feared. Reversing Psycho Mind Transmission made the work possible. The burden would have overwhelmed another shinobi, but his unusual mind treated it as a review of familiar knowledge.

He forced a comparison early.

Memory unfolded in rapid succession: the body's earliest awareness, wetting the bed, mischief at school, Kakashi's early graduation, Guy's relentless training, then his own graduation at eleven and arrival in this world during the war, the Analysis Team, techniques learned from the dead, battles, Ayame, marriage, twins, Amegakure, and the work that followed. Beneath those lived fragments of another life and incomplete knowledge of people who had not yet taken their places in this world.

One fragment concerned a Kurama girl named Yakumo.

The protected recollection remained. His later investigations had bent around it. He remembered encountering the legend, wondering how such an extraordinary genius could remain nameless, and never challenging why every supporting record lacked an identity. The omission was not natural. His mind had been guided away from the question.

The Inner Archive restored the discrepancy because the older fragment had been sealed before his contact with Kurama information deepened.

Tonbo steadied his breathing. His precaution had been right, yet he had still fallen under the technique. Only the memories from his former life, backed up in advance, had survived intact. This persistent alteration of perception frightened him more than Kotoamatsukami; it seemed comparable to the Ōtsutsuki powers he feared. His own ideas about inserting someone into history looked meager beside it.

"Have you noticed something?" Murakumo asked.

Tonbo let the sealed construct close. His hands had remained still, but a tremor passed through his shoulders. He did not intend to reveal how much he now understood.

"You are giving your ancestor too much credit," he said. "Your story is alarming, but no one can maintain such a genjutsu across the world."

"It is true."

"Then explain the mechanism."

Murakumo set down his cup. "The genius who appears in each cycle is not a descendant who inherited Yakumo's talent. It is Yakumo."

Tonbo waited.

"Every few generations, Ancestor Yakumo is born from the chakra of a member of our family. She becomes a real person in this world."

Tonbo had endured enough surprises for one day. He had only wanted to discuss genjutsu and see Yakumo's ability for himself. Instead, someone from more than a dozen generations earlier had made a fool of him.

"One day, you may find that I have a daughter," Murakumo continued. "Her genjutsu may be powerful enough to threaten the village. You will not wonder why I suddenly have a daughter. In everyone's perception, she is a person who truly exists."

"She will appear in Konoha's secret records without a name. They will record that our clan produced a genius who later disappeared. After several generations, the influence over our descendants weakens. They find the old records in our family's secret grounds, and for a time the effect is weaker."

Murakumo looked at him across the tea. "That is why I can tell you this."