Chapter 30: Hell Viewing Technique — Modified

"Don't underestimate me, you bastard."

Asuma sprang backward, tore a Fūma shuriken from his pouch, and sent it spinning over the collapsing Water Wall. His hands were already moving before the weapon cleared the steam.

"Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu."

One blade became dozens. The sky above the clearing vanished behind a descending field of steel, each copy large enough to take a man apart.

Regret struck Asuma almost as quickly as anger had. Tonbo was an infuriating bastard, but he was still a Konoha shinobi, not an enemy. Asuma searched the barrage for some way to break it and found Tonbo smiling up at him.

Smiling.

What had the old man been thinking, giving this man a team?

The earth burst open.

A pangolin the size of a wagon heaved itself between Tonbo and the shuriken. Steel punched through its hide in a relentless series of impacts. Tonbo's laughter came from somewhere behind it.

The first rank of shuriken buried itself to the hub. The next split woven scales and drove the construct backward, furrowing the ground beneath its claws. It never cried out. There was no pain in it to silence and no instinct urging it to flee; it held precisely because Tonbo had made it for that purpose.

"The Hokage's son does have some skill. Shame about the manners."

He rose above the barrage astride a giant dragonfly, clear of the killing field before the last shuriken struck.

"A summon?" Asuma began, then saw the pangolin collapse without blood or flesh. A small woven figurine lay where its body should have been. "No. A secret technique."

"Don't lose focus."

Asuma looked up.

Tonbo held a watch between two fingers. Its face swung gently from side to side, catching the light with each pass. The clearing tilted. The trees dissolved.

Asparagus stretched to every horizon.

Asuma sat before a heaping plate, his own hand lifting stalk after stalk into his mouth. Bitter, fibrous mush filled his teeth. He tried to stop chewing and only forced himself to swallow.

Disgust broke through the illusion.

Genjutsu.

He stopped his chakra flow, held it for one measured instant, then released it in a violent surge. The field of asparagus shattered.

The forest returned. So did the giant dragonfly, one woven limb wrapped around his body.

Tonbo regarded him with open amusement. Asuma had broken the first layer quickly, but the outcome had already been decided.

"Remember this," Tonbo told his students. "An enemy won't announce his attack. Identify what kind of shinobi you're facing, decide what he's likely to do, and respond before he finishes doing it."

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Asuma struggled against the construct. He had been gone from Konoha for a handful of days and was already about to be carried home like stolen luggage.

The dragonfly released him.

He landed in a crouch, and the taste of asparagus flooded his mouth again. Asuma gagged.

"I broke the genjutsu."

"You broke part of it." Tonbo dismissed the dragonfly and tucked its figurine away. "Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing Technique — modified. The ordinary version shows fear. Mine makes you eat whatever you hate most. Narrow application, admittedly, but effective."

"Amazing, Captain," Iruka said.

The three genin crowded closer, delighted by the first real display of their captain's fighting ability. Asuma had been beaten in taijutsu, countered in ninjutsu, and trapped in genjutsu without landing a meaningful blow.

Iruka replayed the exchange from the first kick onward. Mibu Shinobu watched the pocket where Tonbo had hidden the figurine, trying to understand how woven reeds had become something that could fly and fight. Tessen Togekei studied the ruined clearing instead, noting the places where Asuma's attacks had forced their captain to move. For all three, the lesson had been different.

Asuma's expression darkened. Tonbo had graduated after him. How had the forgettable boy from the Academy become this strong?

"Why let me go?" he asked. "If I decide to leave, even you won't find it easy to stop me."

Chiriku moved quietly to his side. If Asuma chose to run, the monk was prepared to buy him the chance.

Tonbo laughed. "Who do you imagine you are? You're a rebellious boy, not a missing weapon. Dragging you back would do Konoha no good. My orders were to find you and report what you were doing. Persuasion was optional."

Anger rose first in Asuma, then faded. He said nothing. His eyes hardened with the certainty of someone who had finally chosen a road, even if he could not yet name where it ended.

"There," Tonbo said. "That look tells me enough. I won't waste either of our time trying to change your mind. I'll report the truth to Hokage-sama."

He had no wish to alter Asuma's path in the first place. Hiruzen's family troubles were well outside the responsibilities of an Analysis Team shinobi, and outside the mission besides.

More importantly, the road ahead was one Tonbo already knew in outline. Asuma would serve the daimyō, learn from the Fire Temple, and return to Konoha in his own time. Pulling him home now might satisfy Hiruzen for a day while depriving Asuma of the very experience that eventually settled him. Tonbo had no reason to interfere with an outcome that harmed no one.

"Then there is no need for us to keep fighting," Chiriku said, easing the tension before either former classmate found another insult.

Asuma gagged again. "Remove the genjutsu."

Tonbo spread his hands. "Sorry. That's the aftertaste. Once you experience it, releasing the illusion is like swallowing the food. The taste remains until your body decides it's finished with you. Suppressing your sense of taste might help."

"You can't remove it?"

"Not without doing something unpleasant to your nerves."

Asuma stared at him in horror. He could still feel strands caught between his teeth that had never touched food at all.

"I'll remember this," he said. "Next time we meet, you're getting all of it back."

He fixed every detail of the battle in his mind. Given time, he would find a counter. Then he would wipe that smile from Tonbo's face.

"You're traveling with this monk, then?" Tonbo asked. "Fine. I'll give you one more piece of help."

He crouched beside the bodies and formed hand seals, pressing his fingertips against the nerve centers at the attackers' temples.

The old sensation returned: memories opening beneath his touch, cold and intimate, as the Psycho Mind Transmission carried him through dead minds.

Fragments passed first: orders given without names, a meeting beneath a shuttered lantern, payment counted into gloved hands. Tonbo followed the impressions deeper, sorting fear from instruction and personal memory from anything useful. Death damaged the trail, but it did not erase everything.

Asuma and Chiriku turned to the genin.

"What is he doing?" Chiriku asked.

Iruka straightened proudly. "Captain is an elite of the Analysis Team. He's reading their memories."

Tessen Togekei frowned at him. "Captain also said a competent shinobi conceals his own intelligence. You just explained his ability to strangers."

"The technique he tested on Asuma wasn't meant for enemies," Mibu Shinobu said thoughtfully. "Maybe he'll use it to correct allies who talk too much."

Cold sweat formed along Iruka's brow.

Asuma gagged once more, face twisted by a taste no one else could feel. Iruka shut his mouth and resolved not to discover which food his own mind hated most.