The lead Root ninja, observing Uchiha Hiro standing completely still in the courtyard, immediately assumed the young man was entirely unable to mount a defense due to his supposedly severe injuries. A chilling, cruel sneer slowly curled the edges of the masked assassin's lips. Without another moment of hesitation, the sharp kunai gripped tightly in his hand lunged forward, aiming in a deadly, straight trajectory right for Uchiha Hiro's exposed wrist.
But at the exact, split-second moment the cold steel of the kunai was about to make contact with Uchiha Hiro's dark clothing, Hiro's physical body suddenly and impossibly shifted just a fraction of an inch. He flawlessly dodged the supposedly fatal strike, slipping away exactly like an intangible phantom in the night. Simultaneously, in a blur of motion, his right hand shot forward like a striking viper, flawlessly and precisely grabbing the attacking opponent's extended wrist in an unbreakable grip.
"What?" A muffled gasp of pure shock escaped the Root ninja's throat, the hidden expression beneath his featureless mask changing drastically. He had absolutely not anticipated Uchiha Hiro's physical movements to be so incredibly swift and precise. It was not at all the sluggish, desperate reaction of a shinobi who was supposedly heavily and critically injured. Panicking internally, the assassin desperately attempted to forcefully break free, only to terrifyingly discover that Uchiha Hiro's hand was firmly locked onto his captured wrist exactly like a clamped iron vise, completely depriving him of any physical leverage and making it entirely impossible to move away.
Seeing their commanding officer unexpectedly restrained and struggling, the two remaining Root ninjas positioned nearby immediately sprang into lethal motion to provide rapid tactical support. Drawing their own weapons, their razor-sharp kunai stabbed aggressively toward Uchiha Hiro's vital organs from both the left and right flanks simultaneously, aiming to overwhelm him with a coordinated pincer attack.
Uchiha Hiro's dark eyes narrowed dangerously, calculating the threat in an instant. He absolutely refused to let go of the struggling man currently trapped in his crushing grasp; instead, he used the captured arm as a pivot point. He kicked backward fiercely with his left foot, rapidly rotating his entire body mid-air in a gravity-defying maneuver. His right foot snapped out and accurately struck the fragile wrist bone of the advancing Root ninja on his left side, violently sending the deadly kunai flying harmlessly away into the darkness. In the exact same fluid motion, his free left hand tightly formed a solid fist and slammed incredibly hard directly into the sternum of the Root ninja attacking from the right.
A sickening crunch echoed in the air as the Root ninja on the right let out a pathetic, muffled groan of agony. A thick mouthful of dark crimson blood violently sprayed out from beneath his white porcelain mask. The immense physical force behind the single punch sent his broken body flying backward through the air, completely out of control. He crashed heavily and brutally against the solid stone of the courtyard wall before slowly and pitifully sliding down into a crumpled heap on the dirt ground. He weakly struggled and twitched a few desperate times, trying to regain his footing, but ultimately failed completely to stand back up, his body pushed far beyond its physical limits.
Seeing his elite subordinates dismantled so effortlessly, the captive lead Root ninja grew exponentially more terrified of the young man holding him hostage. In a desperate, panicked bid for survival, he suddenly and violently surged the volatile chakra flowing through his network, forcefully trying to physically break free from Uchiha Hiro's iron restraint. At the exact same time, he rapidly gathered thermal energy and shouted sharply under his breath.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
A massive, concentrated sphere of violently blazing fire erupted directly from his mouth, rapidly hurtling through the incredibly short distance straight toward Uchiha Hiro's stoic face.
Uchiha Hiro's eyes flickered with a cold, calculating light. He made absolutely no attempt to physically dodge the incoming wave of searing heat; instead, utilizing his superior physical strength, he violently shoved the captive lead Root ninja directly forward, throwing him right into the path of his own destructive jutsu. The roaring Great Fireball blasted directly and explosively onto the unprotected back of its very own creator, instantly setting the man's dark tactical clothing wildly ablaze in a localized inferno.
A horrifying, agonizing scream of pure pain tore from the burning Root ninja's throat as he completely and permanently lost any remaining ability to resist or fight back.
Uchiha Hiro finally released his iron grip, casually watching the burning man drop and frantically roll around on the hard ground in a desperate attempt to extinguish the clinging fire, before slowly and methodically turning his chilling gaze toward the sole remaining, uninjured Root ninja.
The physical face hidden beneath that particular ninja's mask was undoubtedly currently entirely pale with an overwhelming, paralyzing fear. He had absolutely never expected the young Uchiha Hiro standing calmly before him to be so terrifyingly formidable in close-quarters combat; in just a few brief, chaotic seconds of engagement, he had completely incapacitated two of his highly trained, elite companions without breaking a single drop of sweat.
The lone survivor swallowed incredibly hard, the sound loud in the sudden quiet, and slowly, cautiously backed away step by step. Even though the sharp kunai in his trembling hand was still gripped tightly in a defensive posture, he was visibly and clearly hesitant about whether he should foolishly attempt to continue the completely doomed attack.
However, he was a deeply conditioned Root ninja, brainwashed by the darkness of the village, and the agonizingly brutal consequences of failing a direct assassination mission given by his master were objectively even worse than a quick death in battle.
After a agonizingly brief moment of panicked calculation, the desperate Root ninja forcefully gritted his teeth behind his mask, resolving himself to his grim duty, and blindly charged forward once again with his readied kunai.
Acting exactly like a cornered, desperate gambler throwing away his absolute last remaining chips, the Root ninja aggressively used the built-up physical momentum of his previous, cautious retreat to explosively kick off the solid dirt ground. His rapidly moving body seamlessly turned into an indistinct, dark blur of speed, and his razor-sharp kunai, glinting dangerously with a cold, lethal moonlight, aimed straight and true for the highly vulnerable, exposed flesh of Uchiha Hiro's neck.
The advancing assassin rapidly calculated in his desperate mind that Hiro had just violently exerted himself to deal with two elite combatants back-to-back, and therefore, his physical breathing and internal chakra flow could not have possibly fully settled back into a stable rhythm just yet. Completely betting his entire fragile life on the incredibly slim chance that rapidly dismantling a squad while supposedly heavily injured would inevitably leave a brief, microscopic opening in his defense, this final, lunging strike carried an aura of absolute, desperate ruthlessness meant to kill.
For a brief, fleeting moment, Uchiha Hiro truly appeared completely unable to physically react in time to the blindingly fast ambush. His physical body stubbornly still held the exact same martial posture of having just violently kicked away the previous attacker's weapon. His exposed neck tilted only slightly to the side in a delayed, sluggish attempt to dodge, but he tragically failed to avoid the incoming blade completely.
The incredibly sharp metal tip of the descending kunai viciously sliced straight through the night air, brutally piercing the soft, vulnerable flesh of his neck with a sickening, wet squelch. Fresh, incredibly warm, crimson blood immediately and violently overflowed, rapidly running down along the specialized blood groove of the embedded kunai, thoroughly and completely staining Hiro's dark, high-collared combat shirt a deep, wet red.
"It actually hit!"
An intense, blinding light of pure, unadulterated wild joy violently erupted within the Root ninja's wide eyes, his racing heart pounding incredibly violently against his ribs with a rush of extreme, intoxicating excitement.
He could practically already vividly imagine the highly glorious, rewarding scene of formally receiving his master Danzo's rare, coveted appreciation immediately after successfully completing this seemingly impossible, high-rank assassination mission. Driven by pure adrenaline, he subconsciously and forcefully increased the physical strength pressing down onto his grip, desperately wanting to push the blade deeper and pierce straight through his motionless opponent's vital carotid artery completely, ensuring a permanent kill.
But precisely at that exact, triumphant moment, the assassin suddenly and inexplicably felt a terrifyingly sharp, unnatural sting erupt at the very back of his own neck. It felt exactly as if countless, microscopic fine needles composed of pure energy were simultaneously and violently stabbing directly into his fragile nervous system. The victorious, bloody scene actively playing out right before his very eyes suddenly and violently distorted, rippling exactly like a stone thrown into a calm pond.
The critically wounded Uchiha Hiro, whose fragile neck he had supposedly just lethally pierced with his weapon, slowly and mockingly curled his lips upward into a terrifyingly cold, sinister arc. The supposedly fatal, bone-deep, bleeding wound miraculously and impossibly receded backward exactly like a reversing ocean tide, and the torn skin rapidly became perfectly smooth and unblemished, exactly as it had been moments before, without a single, tiny scar left behind to prove the attack ever happened.
"Ho-how... how in the world is this even physically possible?"
The Root ninja's trembling pupils contracted violently down to the size of tiny pinpricks in absolute, existential horror. The solid steel kunai tightly gripped in his sweating hand suddenly felt entirely wrong, as if it had harmlessly pierced directly into a soft cloud of empty cotton, completely losing absolutely all physical resistance and mass.
He desperately and frantically tried to pull his arm back and rapidly retreat from the nightmare, but horrifyingly found his physical body completely unresponsive, acting exactly as if his boots had been permanently and magically nailed to the very spot he stood on. A deeply terrifying, unnatural, numbing heaviness rapidly spread like a creeping poison throughout his entire biological system, completely paralyzing his muscles and making it entirely impossible to move a single inch.
"A genjutsu? But exactly since when did he cast it?"
His terrified, paralyzed gaze drifted slowly and completely uncontrollably upward against his own will, inevitably and fatally meeting Uchiha Hiro's glowing, mesmerizing blood-red eyes.
Three distinct, pitch-black tomoe were currently spinning incredibly rapidly within the glowing crimson irises, rotating flawlessly and endlessly exactly like the unstoppable, grinding gears of absolute fate, constantly emitting a dense, terrifyingly heart-palpitating aura of pure, unadulterated visual prowess.
The mesmerizing, heavy crimson light entirely unique to the legendary Sharingan fully and inescapably enveloped the assassin's fragile, trapped consciousness. The detailed, realistic surrounding physical environment of the Uchiha compound collapsed inward instantly and shattered like broken glass; the original, familiar stone courtyard completely vanished from existence. It was rapidly and violently replaced by a terrifying, suffocating, endless void of pure darkness, an empty realm where absolutely nothing existed except for Hiro's massive, glowing red eyes shining brightly in the sky, looking down upon him exactly like an untouchable, cruel god silently judging its pathetic, helpless prey.
"Tell me, exactly when did you tragically fall under the foolish, arrogant delusion that you were somehow entirely immune to being caught in my genjutsu?"
Uchiha Hiro's cold, echoing voice resonated from every single direction within the pitch-black darkness, carrying a very distinct, sharp hint of chilling, imperceptible mockery.
The trapped Root ninja's desperately racing mind instantly went completely and utterly blank, as an overwhelming, primal fear entirely submerged his soul, drowning him exactly like a freezing, inescapable ocean tide.
In that terrible moment of clarity, he finally and completely understood the horrific truth. The highly realistic physical sensation of his blade successfully piercing flesh, the resistance of the bone, and the incredibly lifelike feeling of the hot, warm blood splashing onto his hands from just a moment ago were absolutely all entirely fabricated, false sensory illusions flawlessly created by the terrifying power of the Sharingan.
From the very first, initial moment he had laid his eyes on Hiro and foolishly believed him to be physically injured and vulnerable, his entire perception and consciousness had already been thoroughly and entirely hijacked and perfectly controlled by his opponent.
His supposedly brilliant, calculated tactical success was merely the vastly superior opponent's incredibly cruel, sadistic way of casually toying with his pathetic prey before delivering the final, crushing blow.
He frantically and desperately attempted to violently surge his own internal chakra reserves in a textbook maneuver to disrupt and forcefully break the mental illusion, but he shockingly and terrifyingly found the flowing chakra within his spiritual network completely unresponsive. It felt exactly like a desperately dried-up, barren riverbed, entirely devoid of energy and utterly unable to flow or respond to his frantic commands at all.
The absolute, crushing visual prowess radiating from the legendary Sharingan acted exactly like an unbreakable, invisible iron shackle, firmly and permanently locking both his ethereal spirit and his physical body into place. This absolute control left him completely helpless, forced to silently endure the agonizing, suffocating psychological torture of pure, unadulterated despair within the endless, crushing darkness of his own trapped mind.
Although Uchiha Hiro's specific application of standard genjutsu perhaps wasn't quite as reality-breaking or outrageously overpowered as the legendary, mythical Tsukuyomi, or as terrifyingly absolute as the mind-altering Kotoamatsukami recorded in the clan's darkest histories, the inherently massive, potent visual prowess continuously provided by the fully awakened Mangekyo Sharingan still effortlessly elevated his standard illusions to an incredibly, overwhelmingly formidable level of power.
The elite, brainwashed Root ninja currently trapped helplessly before him barely possessed the baseline mental fortitude and raw strength to reach the lower tiers of a standard Jonin level ranking. While his physical assassination skills were certainly decent for a normal shinobi, his mental defenses were still incredibly, laughably far from possessing the necessary strength to successfully resist or break free from Hiro's perfectly cast, ocular-powered genjutsu.
Deep within the suffocating confines of the illusionary darkness, Uchiha Hiro very slowly and deliberately raised his left hand into the air. He smoothly pressed his index, middle, and ring fingers tightly together, forming a focused point, and aimed them precisely and coldly directly at the terrified man's sweat-covered forehead.
"Since you fully and willingly chose to make a lethal, unprovoked move against my life tonight, you absolutely should have been fully, mentally prepared for the agonizing consequences of your inevitable failure."
The completely paralyzed Root ninja's wide, staring eyes were entirely filled to the brim with a potent, sickening mixture of extreme, primal fear and deep, crushing regret. He desperately forced his jaw to open his mouth, practically screaming internally and wanting to pitifully beg and plead for any shred of mercy, but his vocal cords were entirely frozen, ensuring he could not make even the slightest, quietest sound.
Although his mind had been systematically and brutally conditioned to be flawlessly, unquestionably loyal to his master Danzo through years of intense psychological brainwashing, deep down at the core of human instinct, absolutely no one truly wants to cease to exist if there is even the slightest, infinitesimal chance they can continue to live.
Standing helpless before the absolute, crushing, overwhelming visual prowess of the fully matured, glowing Sharingan, absolutely all of his previous, desperate physical and mental struggles now appeared utterly, pathetically ridiculous and entirely pointless.
In the absolute final, fleeting second before his fragile, human consciousness completely and permanently sank downward into the inescapable, crushing abyss of eternal darkness, the very last thing he ever saw was the pitch-black tomoe residing within Uchiha Hiro's glowing red eyes. They were spinning faster and faster, becoming a terrifying, hypnotic blur, looking exactly as if they were an endless vortex about to violently and completely swallow his very soul whole.
Meanwhile, back out in the physical, waking reality of the cold courtyard, the real physical body of the Root ninja remained entirely frozen completely stiff in his aggressive, forward-lunging attack posture. The sharp metal tip of his gripped kunai was currently stopped dead in the empty air, resting less than a single, microscopic inch completely away from the smooth skin of Hiro's untouched neck. His physical eyes were forced completely wide open, his dark pupils massively dilated in shock, and a bizarre, lingering, twisted trace of his previous wild, victorious joy still remained frozen on his parted lips. Yet, despite his dynamic posture, his biological body had already completely and irreversibly lost absolutely all internal signs of active life.
His fragile, mortal spirit had completely and violently collapsed inward upon itself entirely under the massive, crushing psychological impact of the lethal genjutsu, instantly and effectively turning his physical body into nothing more than an empty, soulless meat husk. Stripped of the mental commands keeping it upright, the rigid corpse simply tipped backward like a felled tree. It fell straight back through the air, crashing incredibly heavily and unceremoniously down onto the cold, hard dirt ground of the courtyard, absolutely never to draw breath or move a single muscle ever again.
Even the standard, baseline genjutsu cast by a regular, fully matured Three-Tomoe Sharingan absolutely wasn't something a standard, run-of-the-mill operative of this mediocre caliber could ever realistically hope to withstand or survive, let alone the unimaginably vast, terrifying, soul-crushing power currently hidden within Hiro's newly awakened, god-like Mangekyo Sharingan.
That scheming, paranoid old man Danzo had truly, severely, and fatally underestimated the absolute, inherent power possessed by the Uchiha clan. He genuinely thought that simply because Hiro had supposedly been severely injured in a previous engagement, he could just casually dispatch a handful of entirely expendable, low-level thugs to easily deal with him and sweep the mess under the rug.
Uchiha Hiro scoffed quietly in the silent night and very slowly, deliberately deactivated his active Sharin