Chapter 403: Itachi's Genjutsu
Uchiha Sasuke walked out of the office with a long face.
Writing a 3000-word mission report... he would rather fight 3000 ninja!
Don't assume that a top student won't get a headache from writing things, not to mention Sasuke was just a pseudo-top student in school, leaning towards science and engineering. Besides, how many years has it been since he left school? After becoming an official ninja, the number of times Sasuke picked up a pen to write letters could be counted on one hand.
Haruno Sakura also had a headache.
No, it should be said that her mood was even more complicated.
Because... writing reports was a suggestion this stupid woman made to Tsunade.
At the time, she didn't think Tsunade would adopt this opinion, but unexpectedly, it was really adopted. For a moment, the expression on the Ice Style girl's face was truly spectacular.
But to be honest, apart from tormenting the ninja, doing this actually had great benefits. From the perspective of individual ninja, forcing everyone to spend an hour or two after each mission to review and reflect on their experiences and lessons learned during the mission was very helpful for improving ninja skills—especially for newcomers. From the Hokage's perspective, leaving a record of each mission and keeping it as a file was very conducive for the Hokage to control subordinates, and could also standardize Konoha and strengthen the organizational construction of ninja—the latter's significance was actually more important.
This kind of formalism might seem stupid, but just like folding tofu blocks (quilts) in the army, it was not a meaningless measure.
Of course! These things had little to do with Sakura, the combat power face of Konoha.
What ninja skills? She didn't need to improve; what improving Konoha's organization? She wasn't the Hokage.
So...
"Do I have to write it too?" The Ice Style girl asked with a sheepish smile.
"What do you think?" Tsunade rolled her eyes at her grumpily, completely dispelling Haruno Sakura's lucky thought. If anyone could be an exception, wouldn't the new system become empty words?
Looking at the girl in front of her with a forced smile, the Fifth Hokage was actually very satisfied with this disciple. Both her figure, appearance, and ninjutsu strength were outstanding among her peers, very much like her younger self (Tsunade was flat-chested in her teenage years). Even rarer was that she could sometimes think beyond the limitations of ninja... in ninja terms, her magnanimity was not small.
Especially sometimes Sakura could put forward some ideas with very unique perspectives—Tsunade naturally didn't know she had received education very different from the ninja world in her previous life—in short, Tsunade would often find those ideas reasonable after deep thought.
Perhaps a seed for Hokage.
—The Fifth Hokage muttered in her heart.
Of course, more often than not, the ideas and actions of this Hokage seed still seemed a bit immature in Tsunade's eyes...
"Alright, stop fooling around." The Fifth cleared her throat and said seriously, "Sasuke has left, we can talk about business."
The "business" to be discussed next was a secret that Sasuke was not qualified to listen to, known only to these three present.
"What is the situation with Uchiha Itachi?"
The two Hokage looked solemnly at Haruno Sakura at the same time.
"Uchiha Itachi..." Haruno Sakura spoke slowly, carefully choosing her words, because every sentence she said would directly affect the Hokages' attitude towards Itachi.
"He still acknowledges his identity as a Konoha ninja and has not defected."
"At that time, he fought Sasuke for a long time and had many opportunities to kill Sasuke, but in the end, he only knocked him down."
"Later when fighting me, he used Tsukuyomi to create an absolutely safe mental space to communicate with me, and left some words to be conveyed to you."
The two Hokage looked at each other. Hiruzen Sarutobi nodded gently, his eyes distant, as if recalling something.
"Is that so..." Tsunade lowered her eyelids, her red lips parted slightly, muttering to herself silently, lost in thought.
The Hokages did not question Sakura on this issue. Just as the Third trusted Itachi, they also trusted Haruno Sakura, the Konoha ninja who grew up under the Hokages' care.
The Hokage's office fell into a brief silence.
"Uchiha Itachi... what did he say?" After pondering for a moment, Tsunade asked again.
"Uh... he used genjutsu to save a few sentences he wanted to say to you two." Haruno Sakura's face turned slightly red, recalling what Itachi did to her at that time, she hesitated for a moment but answered.
She made a gesture indicating she was going to use a jutsu. After obtaining the Hokages' consent, she took out the thing Itachi left in her body—
A huge black crow drilled out of her mouth.
The process has been described in previous chapters, no need to repeat, but Haruno Sakura still wanted to emphasize once again that having such a thick and strong big bird going in and out of her throat was really super uncomfortable!
And visually, it easily gave people a terrible association!
After all, I am a pretty girl. Do I, Haruno Sakura, have no dignity at all, to be treated so roughly in front of my master and the Third? No wonder you, Uchiha Itachi, don't have a girlfriend!
Someone had black lines on her head, filled with grief and anger.
Fortunately, the Hokages didn't care about these details and didn't let the girl be embarrassed any longer. They immersed themselves in Itachi's genjutsu, listening to his words with solemn expressions.
When the genjutsu ended and the crow dissipated into black feathers filling the sky, the two Hokage remained silent.
Itachi's genjutsu was very brilliant. It could only be triggered by Sakura when conditions were met, accurately cast on the two Hokage. Haruno Sakura wanted to peek a bit with her powerful spiritual power, but actually couldn't perceive any effective information at all.
In front of the Hokages, she couldn't brute-force crack it either.
However, she didn't gain nothing.
Traditional genjutsu reaches its highest state when illusion and reality coexist—anyway, it's a different path from her, Haruno Sakura's genjutsu. After all, her infrasound genjutsu focuses several levels higher on lethality than on confusion.
So did Uchiha Itachi really leave a crow in her body?
Of course not, that was just the appearance of the genjutsu. It was just that Itachi's level was high enough to briefly turn the illusory appearance into a real crow until the chakra ran out, and the real image degenerated into a phantom.
Illusion giving birth to reality.
Heard from Sasuke that some powerful Sharingan genjutsu can even permanently transform false things into real things.
The brilliance of Itachi's genjutsu lies in not only illusion giving birth to reality, but also reality turning into illusion.
That's right, what he left in her body wasn't just a genjutsu: Itachi turned something into a phantom, mixed it into the genjutsu, and hid it in her body.
Haruno Sakura stroked her chin, looking thoughtful.
Its chakra texture... really such a coincidence.
Didn't she just see it a few days ago?
The minds of the two Hokage were still immersed in the intelligence carried by the genjutsu, and they didn't notice the girl's little thought. Of course, even if not so, the Hokages probably couldn't perceive that there was something else hidden in Itachi's genjutsu—in this world, apart from Haruno Sakura, the party involved, probably few people could completely see through Itachi's genjutsu.
Sakura didn't intend to tell anyone about this.
Itachi put this thing on her and hid it so deeply. What was his purpose? Anyway, keep it secret for now.
Thinking that she could actually gather a pair, even Haruno Sakura, who didn't value this thing much, couldn't help but feel secretly delighted.
After all...
This is Shisui's Mangekyo Sharingan.
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