Naruto: The Teaching System - 246

Chapter 246: Where Hearts Meet, Illusion Becomes Reality

"Hehe, let's see you try to escape now!" Satetsu looked at Sawada standing in the sea of fire, a savage expression crossing his face.

"Go! Bury him!" Satetsu shouted to his two fellow jōnin who had also escaped. The two nodded and immediately ran along the edge of the inferno.

Sawada's lips curved as he watched the three Sunagakure jōnin gradually form a triangular formation. When the three began raising their hands to form seals, Sawada couldn't help but be somewhat surprised. This seal—

"You're finished, you Konoha bastard!" Satetsu shouted, and all three simultaneously slapped their hands on the ground.

"Giant Sand Burial!"

The surrounding earth seemed to wail. Sawada looked down at the land beneath his feet, which instantly turned to sand, then sprang to life.

Massive amounts of sand and stone, like tidal waves, surged forward, squeezing toward Sawada in the center from all directions—no blind spots.

The entire sandy ground shook violently. In an instant, a massive crater nearly half a kilometer in diameter appeared where he'd been standing.

With the jutsu successfully completed, all three Sunagakure jōnin were gasping for breath. Even with three people working together to execute this technique, it consumed enormous amounts of chakra.

Satetsu looked at the massive pit, his expression grave. Although he'd killed a Konoha genius like Sawada, his side had lost dozens of chūnin and genin. Among them were quite a few clan members, even if just peripheral ones.

"Satetsu, is he dead—" Beside him, the jōnin who had been controlling puppets asked, his voice trembling slightly.

"At this scale, even Minato Namikaze couldn't have escaped!" Satetsu sensed the ground beneath his feet and responded coldly.

The other two exchanged glances, fear still lingering in their eyes. After all, this Konoha shinobi had been truly terrifying.

"Let's go. We need to report back, or the village won't have an easy time." Satetsu stood up. The final strike had directly buried their comrades' corpses. Recovery wasn't even an option—not even a trace remained.

"Okay." The other two nodded, their faces deathly pale, clearly having realized the implications.

Just then, the pupils of the two jōnin who had just taken a few steps dilated instantly.

Sawada's figure landed, and behind him, a Sunagakure jōnin slowly fell to the ground, clutching his neck.

"Damn it! How could you possibly escape!" Satetsu roared, filled with rage.

"Who said I was fighting you with my real body?" Sawada looked coldly at the sole survivor, Satetsu. Knowing they were deliberately trying to trap me, how could I naively stand still in one place?

However, the result was still quite good. Sawada glanced at the two Sunagakure jōnin corpses behind him. Next was the one before him.

"Wind Release: Vacuum Serial Waves!" Air bullets like a machine gun spewed from Satetsu's mouth, aimed straight at Sawada.

Sawada lightly stepped, his figure instantly vanishing. Satetsu's expression turned grim as he searched everywhere, yet still couldn't find Sawada's figure.

"Damn it! Again! I can't sense him at all! He can't possibly leap out of my sensing range in an instant and then reappear!" Satetsu was nearly driven mad by Sawada, shouting loudly at his surroundings.

"Could it be that when you first started tracking me, you'd already fallen into a genjutsu? Haven't you noticed my teammates are gone?" Sawada's figure appeared again, a kunai slashing directly toward Satetsu's neck.

"Genjutsu—" Hearing these words before death, Satetsu involuntarily recalled the initial situation. So—was it at that moment?

As blood sprayed, Satetsu's entire body fell forward.

In the dense forest, Muta and another Konoha shinobi appeared. Both showed shocked expressions on their faces. After all, from start to finish, these Sunagakure shinobi seemed to be led around like dogs by Sawada. The jutsu were indeed activated, but they were all directed at their own people.

Around Sawada lay the corpses of Sunagakure shinobi who had chased him, each wearing expressions of terror.

Sawada reached up and rubbed his temples. Yin Release: Heart Illumination World. The reward the system had given him was essentially mastery over Yin Release, including various genjutsu.

Just like when he'd controlled the Iburi Clan leader before, this was also one such control technique. And this mass control was another method, one that no longer relied on those black threads.

This technique could make people unknowingly slip directly into a genjutsu world, and the conditions for activation were very simple—just release Yin Release chakra to dominate the five senses. Compared to ordinary genjutsu, this technique was much more complex, but the effect was surprisingly good.

Heart Illumination World, as the name suggests: Where the heart perceives, illusion becomes reality!

It was very similar to Kurama Yakumo's genjutsu, but with different characteristics. Sawada used his own Yin Release chakra to form a force field. People within this range would be directly dominated by him. Although there were distance limitations and it consumed a lot, even in that brief span, Sawada already felt a headache coming on.

"Sawada-sama?" His teammate walked over, looking worriedly at Sawada.

"I'm fine. Notify people to come over. These things need specialized personnel for recovery." Sawada pointed at the scattered weapons and intact puppets around them—all were poisoned.

"Yes!" The shinobi nodded and immediately began contact.

Meanwhile, Sawada walked over and tapped one of the captured puppets. It was a very strange substance. Although it looked like wood, tapping it had a steel-like texture.

"Sawada-sama, Sunagakure's puppets have always been their trump card. The puppet manufacturing process has almost never been revealed externally," Muta explained from the side. Sawada nodded, finding this reasonable.

Sunagakure main camp. A white-haired elderly woman was resting with her eyes closed, the entire large tent incomparably quiet.

Footsteps came from the distance. The old woman who had been resting with closed eyes frowned and opened them. A jōnin wearing Sunagakure's signature white headwrap hurried in.

"Lady Chiyo—!"

"Hmph!" Chiyo snorted lightly, immediately making the jōnin who ran in quiet down. After all, the person before him was a veteran shinobi who had been active since the Second Kazekage period. Her strength and status weren't comparable to these young people.

"What is it?" Seeing the jōnin was no longer so anxious, Chiyo finally asked.

"Satetsu led dozens of chūnin and two jōnin to pursue a shinobi who had been harassing the camp, and they've had no news since. Patrol personnel just reported discovering some traces in a dense forest near the border. Satetsu and the others—they may all be dead."

Below, the reporting jōnin watched Chiyo's expression. By the time he reached the final part, his voice gradually lowered. After all, Chiyo sitting above now had a face full of dark clouds.

"Is there any news from Iwagakure?" Sunagakure's forces had already deployed to the border but hadn't launched an attack yet, waiting for Iwagakure's actions. However, after so long, still no news had been received.

"Not yet." The reporting jōnin shook his head.

"Strengthen patrols. Don't let those rats escape!" Chiyo narrowed her eyes and said coldly.

"Yes!"