385. Anomaly

Swoosh… swoosh…

Ding… clang… clang…

Itachi and Sasuke separate after exchanging blows with each other.

"What's the matter Sasuke? You seem to be lost these few days. Something bothering you?"

Itachi lowers his blade and asks Sasuke with a concerned voice.

"I am fine! It's just that something feels missing. Everything feels so monotonous."

Sasuke shakes his head as he wipes the sweat with a towel.

"Looks like you are feeling bored! Then let's go watch the new movie and eat dinner with everyone tonight." Itachi suggests.

"That sounds like a great plan." Sasuke nods.

'Perhaps I will figure out the missing part of my life.' Sasuke raises his head and stares at the sky.

'After that dream, everything feels so lackluster. It appears like something important is not there anymore. These past few days, I complete missions with my team. In my free time, I spar with Naruto, Itachi, or Shisui Nii-san. However, sometimes there is a voice in my head; asking me to wake up. Since this is not a dream, then what should I wake up from?" Sasuke shakes his head.

"Itachi Nii-san, let's invite uncle Akira and Yagami's family, Shisui Nii-san, Yugao Nee-san, Mei Nee-san, and also Ayaka-chan." Sasuke voices the names of the person he wants to invite.

"That's a great idea. But Sasuke, who is Ayaka-chan?" Itachi asks him with slight confusion.

"Huh? Ayaka… Ayaka… who is Ayaka? And why did I mention her name?" Sasuke muses over the matter.

"Anyway, let's wash off our sweat and send invites."

"Mm…" Sasuke walks toward the Uchiha clan in deep thought.

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Yawn…

Mei yawns slightly and stretches her muscles.

"The work has been piling as of late." She stares at the gigantic stacks of paperwork in front of her.

"I have to even break my promise to Tatsuya and Kanna to complete the paperwork."

"Mizukage-sama, your coffee!" A female attendant hand over a cup of coffee to her.

"Thank you so much, Anzu!"

Mei takes a sip of the coffee and stares at the moon hanging outside the window.

'If only there was someone to take care of the kid and help me with some paperwork.' Izuna's figure appears in her mind.

Mei takes another sip of the coffee.

"If only Ayaka was here to help me with paperwork like usual." She unconsciously utters these words.

"Huh?"

Mei snaps out of reverie.

"Ayaka… who is Ayaka?" A few blurred images of a girl flash across her mind.

"She seems to be someone important to me. But how come I can't recall her face?" Mei places a hand on her chest.

"What's with this empty feeling in my heart?"

"Mizukage-sama! Bad news, Mizukage-sama!" One of the anbus hurriedly enters the office.

"What's the matter, Asahi?" Mei assumes her Kage demeanor.

"Mizukage-sama, multiple rogue shinobis are attacking the harbor."

Hmm…

Mei narrows her eyes. She jumps out of the office and stands on the roof. Smoke and fire pour out in a distance.

"Gather six anbu squads and seven jounin squads. We will head over to the port in a brief moment."

"Yes, Mizukage-sama!" The anbu bows and departs the office.

"Which rogue shinobi group has enough guts to cause a ruckus in the Kirigakure?"

Mei places the earlier thoughts at the back of her mind and flickers towards the port with her anbu guards.

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On a small hill, near the shore of the polar sea.

Hmm…

Obito frowns as he stares at the crystal ball in his hands.

"This is bad! At this rate, they will break free from the genjutsu and regain consciousness much earlier than my expectations. What's going on? How could they possibly get the awareness of the existence of the genjutsu?"

Obito clicks his tongue.

"To prevent them from interacting and figuring out the falsehood of reality, I separated them into different worlds, and yet it didn't even take them more than a month to spot the anomaly. According to my calculations, it should be a year before they notice some irregularities. So how?" Obito narrows his eyes.

"Mind if I take a glance?" Kabuto curiously asks him.

"Hmm… alright!" Obito hesitates a little before passing the crystal orb to Kabuto.

Kabuto places his hand on the crystal orb and infuses his chakra. A few minutes later,

"Kuku… I have figured out the reason for your failure." Kabuto fiddles with the crystal orb before returning it to Obito.

"What is it?" Obito glares at Kabuto.

"It's…" Kabuto points towards Ayaka. "… her!"

"This girl! How is she affecting the genjutsu?"

"Kuku… take another look at all of those separate genjutsu worlds."

"Hmm…" Obito follows Kabuto's instructions.

"This… how is this possible?" Shock appears on Obito's face.

"As you can see, this girl isn't a part of the genjutsu world you created?" Kabuto chuckles and states.

"From my observation, your genjutsu creates an ideal dream world based on the victim's desire. It uses the knowledge from the victim's mind as a basis to create the world and then traps the victim's consciousness in that world. If the victim dies in that world, then those injuries would reflect in the real world on their bodies. This phenomenon involves some unusual laws which I am very curious about." Kabuto licks his lips at his hypothesis.

"However, for some odd reason or perhaps some external interference, the information about that girl doesn't exist in the illusory genjutsu world created by this jutsu. So, this becomes the weak point of your jutsu. If it was a perfect world, such a flaw won't exist. Since this is an autonomous world, it attempted to fix the problem by removing all information about the girl.

This could have been an ideal solution if the girl didn't have a major involvement in their lives and she didn't play a major role in their lives."

Kabuto points towards Ao and Chojuro's figure in the crystal ball.

"Take a look at these two. They didn't have much involvement with the girl, so they are still stuck in the genjutsu with no sign of awakening."

"This lack of information about the girl is like a missing piece of an almost complete puzzle. One might overlook it at a glance, but on closer look, you can notice the difference.

However, that's not all. If there is a lack of information, then new information could be created and overwritten over the previous one. This is precisely what this genjutsu attempted with their memories. It sealed away the information about the girl from their mind and replaced it with false information and facts.

Now, this measure created yet another problem. If the person somehow unseals those memories through some sort of trigger… which in this case…"

Kabuto turns towards Ayaka's lone battle against the group of rogue shinobis.

"If it was a normal battle, it wouldn't have been a problem for me to take them down. However, I have to protect them and fight at the same time. I can't hold back anymore." Ayaka firms her resolve.

She makes some quick hand signs.

"Blaze Release: Darkness Release: Smoldering Purgatory Flames,"

Ayaka mixes darkness chakra with fire and wind chakra and creates a ring of black flames around the unconscious bodies of the escort group.

Bzzt…

Lightning gathers in her palm. She creates a lightning spear in her palm and throws it toward the rapidly approaching enemies. The rogue shinobi avoids the black flames around her. Multiple rogue shinobis make some hand signs and release wind jutsu to counter her lighting jutsu.

'I have to lure them away from the group. Looks like they are after me.'

Ayaka takes out a fuinjutsu scroll from her storage and throws it on the ground. The scroll shines brightly and erects a green pyramidal barrier around the escort group.

'Tri Karma Heavenly Principal barrier,'

It's one of the powerful, self-sustained short-term barriers in her possession. It's a very powerful, impregnable barrier. However, its limitation is that it has a limited duration. After a fixed amount of time, the barrier will dissipate. Till then, the barrier can repair any damage dealt by absorbing chakra from the surroundings. The duration of the barrier is determined by the number of inscriptions used in its Fuinjutsu formula. A more complex fuinjutsu formula will consume considerable effort, but it will also last for a much longer time. Such a barrier is generally for onetime usage.

"She has quite some means!" Kabuto chuckles as the barrier slightly surprised him.

"… this girl's struggle and her strong emotions are the triggers to unseal the memories. If you want to prevent that, then just get rid of the girl and things might turn normal." Kabuto cackles.

Obito frowns for a second, but his emotions turn stable.

"This is just a little disposable experiment before the actual jutsu. Initially, I hoped to capture the Nine-tails jinchuruki with this. But if things are this troublesome, then there is no need to linger on it."

Obito turns around and prepares to leave.

'Zetsu, have you collected the necessary data?' Obito speaks to the Zetsu through a telepathic link.

'It's done! Also, there is a situation with the eight-tails.'

"Very well!"

Obito tosses the crystal ball to Kabuto and disappears into a swirling portal.

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A/N:- My new Naruto fan-fic, 'The Rogue Demon of the Shinobi World' is out.

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