Inside the crimson-hued barrier, the air shimmered with chakra so dense it felt like the very oxygen was being filtered through war itself. The dome, pulsating with blood-red energy, exuded a faint, high-pitched hum that seemed to buzz against the skull—just quiet enough to be ignored, but insistent enough to never be forgotten.
At the centre of it all stood Renjiro, unmoving, silent. Around him, the faint outlines of his shadow clones remained steady at four equidistant points along the interior perimeter, each one with their hands clasped in a final sealing position, their expressions blank and still as statues.
His gaze didn't waver as he locked eyes with the two kunoichi standing opposite him, both now barely aware that Renjiro had not merely wandered into where they were but it was them who had been led, herded, and sealed inside it like cattle at the mercy of the butcher.
The blonde was tall and lean, her posture radiating self-assurance bordering on arrogance. Her piercing cerulean eyes flicked between Renjiro and his clones with practised calculation. Every inch of her was sharp—from her pointed chin to the blade-like way she stood, as if ready to strike at the slightest shift in chakra.
Her long golden hair was tied into a high ponytail that swung behind her like a lioness's tail, confident and unafraid. She wore the brown Suna flak jacket snug over her dark grey combat tunic, the uniform crisp and battle-worn. Her hands hovered near the twin kunai holsters strapped to her hips, fingers twitching with anticipation. A kunai was already half-drawn in her right hand.
Beside her, slightly shorter and built more compact, stood her partner—a brunette with a more serious, measured aura. Her deep brown eyes were fixed intently on Renjiro, taking in every twitch, every flicker of chakra. Her hair was pulled back into a no-nonsense bun, and a wind-summoning fan was strapped across her back in a harness. Unlike her blonde counterpart, her expression was grim, her gaze wary. She was not here to posture or intimidate. She was here to survive.
Both bore the forehead protectors of Sunagakure, their metal plates reflecting the red glow like drops of blood.
"So, you're the one they sent?" the blonde finally sneered, her voice cool and mocking. She rolled her shoulders as if loosening herself for a warm-up stretch. "Konoha just made our job easier. We get to kill a young talent, claim the bounty on your pretty little head, and make a tactical dent in your village's operations in one fell swoop." Her smirk widened with lazy delight. "Two birds, one stone."
Renjiro remained silent, his crimson Sharingan never once blinking. In contrast to their tightening stances and rising apprehension, he stood with the effortless poise of a predator who had already chosen the moment of his kill.
He could feel it—every chakra fluctuation, every micro-movement in their muscles, the near-imperceptible increase in the tempo of their heartbeats. The subtle way their chakra coils, once fluid and free-flowing, now twisted and strained like knotted rope. These women were skilled—clearly elite—but already, the barrier was doing its work.
What they didn't know—what they couldn't know—is that staying within this space was a death sentence by attrition.
He could practically see the scale of imbalance.
Their combined chakra reserves were perhaps sixty per cent of his. That wouldn't have mattered in an even match—a proper battlefield, an open terrain, escape routes, and support. But here, inside the bleeding red heart of his personal jutsu, it was suicide. The barrier fed off its prisoners. The longer they stood, the more chakra it took from them. Not directly, no—Renjiro wasn't that crude.
Instead, every movement, every breath, every flicker of intent cost more.
At last, he exhaled a long, soft sigh, his voice a smooth baritone laced with venomous finality. "I'm not sure if my barrier is slow to act," he murmured, tilting his head slightly to one side, "or if you two are just too slow to realize the position you're in."
The words hung in the air like a curse. At that exact moment, as though the declaration had triggered something in their instincts, both kunoichi froze—Takako with her foot half-shifted toward a lunge, Yumi with one hand beginning to form the Tiger seal. Their expressions changed subtly, but unmistakably.
They felt it now.
Yumi's brows furrowed in confusion—then horror—as she tried to summon chakra for a defensive scan and felt it drain almost thrice as fast as normal. Takako's smirk had vanished entirely, her confident stance faltering as the oppressive weight of the barrier finally made itself known.
Renjiro smiled, just a little.
"Good," he said. "For a moment, I thought something was wrong with the barrier."
He began to walk, leisurely, hands clasped behind his back. With every step, the chakra signature of the dome pulsed in time with him, like a living entity tethered to its creator. "Let me make your options clear," he continued, speaking as if he were a teacher instructing disobedient students. "You can either exhaust yourselves trying to stay ahead of me… or fall into my genjutsu and collapse under your own fear."
His gaze flicked across the dome's interior, its blood-red chakra tracing seal lines that shimmered like veins in a beating heart. The barrier was an invention born of desperation and brilliance—something he had crafted with the invaluable help of Kushina Uzumaki.
Unlike traditional chakra suppression fields, this one did not passively drain. It amplified. A ten-chakra-point fire jutsu inside it might cost thirty points of chakra instead. A defensive pulse? Forty. Breathing under duress? That had a price too. The genius came from the source—Renjiro's own blood, mixed with seal matrices. The result was a barrier that knew its master and treated him as the eye of the storm—untouched, unaffected.
Maintaining this was trivial to him. A mere fraction of what he needed to hold the massive violet barrier outside.
It did have vulnerabilities. Someone who chose to fight entirely with taijutsu, refraining from chakra use altogether, could theoretically mitigate the drain.
But Renjiro had accounted for that.
His Sharingan never stopped spinning. Periodically, he emitted subtle waves of genjutsu. To the untrained eye, it felt like a breeze or a flicker in the corner of one's vision.
Yet to resist it, even unconsciously, chakra was required.
It was a web. And now, they were trapped.
Renjiro's mouth twitched into a thin smile again, but it didn't reach his eyes.
'Well… there's also the fact that I can't kill them,' he thought bitterly.
Information—real, actionable information—was more valuable than corpses. The kunoichi might not know how vital they were, but he did. Suna's inner workings, battle deployments, hidden scroll caches—any of that could tip the balance in the coming war. The Yamanaka clan would be able to dive into their minds… if they were alive. Renjiro wasn't about to test whether the same could be said for corpses. They probably could but he did not want to thread the needle.
Suddenly, Takako surged forward, the silence shattered by the hiss of metal scraping from its sheath. "YAAH!" she roared, charging with her kunai raised in a reverse grip. The blade caught the crimson light and flashed like a comet.
Simultaneously, Yumi dropped into a low stance, her fan snapping open with a thunderous THWUMP. With a twist of her wrists, she unleashed a cyclone of slicing wind, powerful enough to knock trees out of the ground—aimed to cut off Renjiro's escape route.
He didn't need to escape.
He vanished.
To their eyes, it was instantaneous. One moment he was standing there—smiling, cocking his head. The next, he simply wasn't.
Takako's blade struck nothing but air. A heartbeat later, her own instincts screamed as she felt something brush past her ear—Renjiro's afterimage.
Yumi's wind attack collided with the side of the barrier, crashing like a tidal wave against rock. The air howled. Chakra whirled violently.
"Is that it?" he asked softly. "You're faster when you're scared."
Takako snarled and launched again, a blur of slashes and stabs. Yumi darted around him, trying to flank, chakra flaring as she summoned smaller wind projectiles—daggers and needles shaped from air. But Renjiro didn't strike back. He didn't need to. He ducked, weaved, pivoted—all while applying subtle visual cues with his Sharingan. Patterns. Flashes. Repeating sequences. The genjutsu wormed its way into their optic nerves with every failed strike.
They were burning chakra at a reckless rate—twice the cost for half the effect. Hoping they could end Renjiro faster than their timer would run down.
And then… Takako faltered. Her vision blurred. Her kunai dropped with a dull clink. She took a step and nearly collapsed.
Yumi's fan trembled in her hands. "W-What… what's happening…?" she gasped, but it was too late. Her knees hit the ground.
Renjiro's eyes gleamed.
They were both within his genjutsu now.
Their bodies froze—eyes wide, limbs locked. Silent. Still.
He approached them slowly, methodically, as if inspecting statues in a museum. Without fanfare, he reached into a pouch and withdrew two strips of parchment seals. He activated them with a small pulse of chakra before pressing them against each kunoichi's skin—Takako on the shoulder, Yumi just above the collarbone. The paralysis would hold them still, but the second seal was more dangerous: a chakra drain tag calibrated to detonate in reverse should they regain enough chakra to fight.
They were as good as bound.
As the last clone maintaining the red barrier dispelled and dissipated into chakra smoke, the dome collapsed around them, the blood-red light fading into the smoky battlefield twilight.
Renjiro emerged from the chamber dragging the two unconscious kunoichi behind him, their limbs trailing limply behind him across the uneven terrain. The sounds of distant combat still echoed—clashing steel, shouted jutsu, the boom of earth and flame.
But in his presence, there was a pocket of absolute calm.
As he stepped into view of his squadmates, he raised his voice—not loud, but firm, commanding.
"I'm done with my part," he said. "Finish up quickly."
Several heads turned. Nods followed. No one questioned him.
Renjiro calmly laid the two bodies on top of each other in a small cleared space by the rocky outcrop, adjusted their positioning… and then, in one fluid movement, seated himself atop them in a lotus position.
Eyes half-lidded, the blood-red tomoe of his Sharingan still gleaming faintly beneath them, he sat cross-legged on a throne made of victory and discipline.
And waited for the rest of the battlefield to catch up.
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