Chapter 184 - Dilemma 2/2

Genjutsu was a gamble.

It paid off.

The second All for One's eyes glazed over, Shoto shunshined in front of him.

He landed on a puddle, half crouched, his soles making no sound.

He reared up like a coiled snake, two ice kunais appearing in his palms at once, his fierce red eyes shining with a malevolent gleam.

Mouth ajar, arms dangling from his body, All for One was frozen in time.

Shoto aimed for the eyes : the semi-transparent blades mirrored the lightning that simultaneously cleaved the clouds. Wind whistled.

Ten centimeters from All for One's face, the kunais crashed against an invisible wall.

They shattered.

Ice shards rained on Shoto's hands, where only the broken hilts remained.

He slammed on the brakes and sprang backward, hair flying back and forth around his face.

Wary, he stopped a few meters away and examined All for One carefully.

His eyes were still empty, his muscles limp : still in Genjutsu.

Shoto carefully walked around All for One.

He squinted to see what his kunais had collided with : nothing.

The air didn't even shimmer.

Four ice blades, devoid of hilts, sprang up at regular intervals between the fingers of his left hand. He held them like a magician holding cards about to be flung.

With a flick of his wrist, the blades shot from his fingers, air whistling in their wake.

Two targeted the legs, one his heart and the last the throat.

All shattered against the invisible barrier.

Shoto stood still.

The hazy genjutsu's environment in which he had trapped All for One overlapped with real life, allowing him to keep an idea of what was going on.

He saw his illusory twin, made of white smoke, blow up on the rooftop behind him.

Shoto relived the entire fight in his mind, pausing at the scenes where they had managed to land a blow on All for One ; nothing had hinted at a hidden defense mechanism.

Or perhaps it was something that only switched on when he lost consciousness ?

It could have been a mechanism to protect him when he was asleep, and thus had activated in this state of artificial suspension close to sleep.

In any case, Shoto-

All for One's fingers twitched.

Shoto was already standing behind him, a chidori ready to pierce him the second he regained consciousness.

All for One's hand clenched and he stopped moving.

How was that possible ? He should have been trapped in an illusion, unable to-

The Genjutsu shifted : Shoto saw his father's smoky doppelganger rushing over the crushed remains of his body.

Shoto glanced at his clone crouching on the building to his right, eyebrows furrowed, eyes locked on All for One.

Shoto resumed his plotting : for now, All for One was occupied.

He raised his hand toward All for One : a stream of fire burst from his palm and smashed into him.

The fire struck the shield, split in two, and continued separately on either side of his body. None of them scratched him.

The stream of fire turned into crackling lightning. It burst in a series of explosions on impact with the invisible wall.

All for One's hand jerked.

Shoto glanced at his clone, who gave him a brief but meaningful look : he was wasting time they couldn't afford to waste.

But how could All for One move in the midst of a genjutsu?

He had no idea how it worked in Naruto's real world, but here, people under genjutsu turned into lethargic creatures, incapable of anything but breathing.

How ?

Crackling lightning became sharp wind : All for One's black cloak billowed in the wind, driven by a gust. On each side of him the ground shattered, cobblestones that made up the sidewalk abruptly broke apart and flew across the street as if hurled by a catapult.

All for One used to be able to see through Shoto's illusions, but that was because he was practically blind ; he had Aizawa's eyes, now, and never had Aizawa-

A memory flashed through Shoto's mind.

He remembered how he had crouched on the ceiling of Yuei's teacher's room and how, for a split second, Aizawa had looked straight at him.

All for One's whole hand shook.

The wind died in his palm. A new clone appeared on his left.

Immediately, a headache hit the back of his skull. Shoto swallowed down his weakness and forced himself to think about the next thing to do.

The clone picked up hand-sized chunks of rubble - pebbles and bits of metal - and aimed at different parts of All for One's body ; there had to be a threshold of weight, size or material. They had to try everything.

Everything hit the wall.

Shoto circled around All for One, assessing the neighborhood they were in, the distance to the buildings, and the possibility of blowing All for One up from an underground basement.

He was unable to perform even the smallest Earth Jutsu but if he could level the area with-

A pebble no bigger than a fingernail hit All for One's shoulder, rolled down his bicep and fell on his shoe.

Shoto and his clone watched in amazement as the tiny pebble rolled to the ground.

Their eyes met and the clone immediately popped up.

Shoto absorbed all the memories and the different ways he had thrown the numerous projectiles.

The pebble that had hit All for One had been the penultimate of the lot, hurled in a hurry by a clone who had focused more on the trajectory than the target.

Shoto picked up a pebble of about the same size and threw it straight at All for One - it hit the wall. He tried again with a smaller projectile - wall.

Shoto reproduced his clone's throw, a flawless bell shot that should have landed on All for One's head ; the pebble hovered over his skull, as if floating mid-air.

Shoto, lips pursed, attempted to focus on the trajectory rather than the target : this time, the pebble hit All for One right between the eyebrows.

An ice knife appeared in his hand ; he threw it again, focusing on the bell-shaped trajectory

The knife shattered against the wall.

Shoto's thoughts raced.

First, he'd thought it was a matter of density and mass, which turned out not to be the case, since pebbles smaller than the first one had failed to penetrate the barrier

Second, he'd thought it had something to do with trajectory : if that had been the case, the knife would have crossed the barrier.

Did intention have anything to do with it ?

If someone who meant no harm to All for One tried to touch him, could they get past his barrier ?

No, no, it didn't make sense : two pebbles had passed through the barrier, and both had been thrown by people who were extremely malicious toward All for One.

What if it was related to the nature of the object?

The ice knife hadn't penetrated the shield for it was inherently bad for All for One.

Shoto's eyes swept over the floor.

Something harmless...

His eyes settled on a bush. He tore off a handful of leaves and threw the first one, carried by a slight gust of wind, in a bell-shaped trajectory.

It landed on All for One's bald head, slid against his ear, and wedged itself between the collar of his coat and his neck.

Shoto reached into his uniform pockets and pulled out some of the modified explosive tags his clones had been working on for months.

He halted when he saw them.

These tags were truly serious artillery, the kind of thing that could blow up a street if used alone, and an entire neighborhood if used in unison.

He had no ink, no parchment, no paper - nothing but these world-ending tags.

He had neither the time nor the energy to try and do better : All for One was vulnerable, and it was imperative that he struck now.

Considering how strong All for One was, he'd have to blow up the whole street if he wanted to hurt him at all.

But if he did so, the human casualties would be stratospheric.

Shoto hesitated.

The opportunity was too good to pass up : after that, All for One would be far too defensive to let a Genjutsu fool him for so long.

Evacuating the civilians would take time - time he didn't have.

But he could deal All for One a critical blow here and now. And who knew if he could really evacuate everybody ? He'd figured out the secret of All for One's defense : he had to take this opportunity.

If he really used his explosive tags, hundreds - if not thousands - of people would die.

He could blame it on a Quirk used by All for One - no one would ever know.

Even to him, the reasoning sounded weak.

But an opportunity like this...

He made his choice.

*

Author's note :

Glad to be back everyone !

Let's hope I've not lost too many readers with this break but honestly at this point I think I'm ready to write until the end just for one happy reader lmao.

Anyway, before anyone calls plot armor, you need to remember that the fact that Aizawa – thanks to his eyes - could spot/get out of Genjutsu cast by Shoto has been foreshadowed chapter 54.

If you want to read ahead of schedule, go check the story's P@treon, Nar_cisseENG

See you tomorrow for the next update !