"Oh, so you really put in the effort to make this genjutsu seem real huh?" the stone shinobi smirked and raised his hand to catch the falling branch. Just as he was about to touch the branch, the speed of the branch increased tremendously and instead of falling in his hand, it cut the shinobi's hand and fell onto the ground vertically.
The stone shinobi was horrified to see that the branch had cut off his right hand which was also his weapon-wielding arm. He looked at the branch which had pierced the ground, and it had splashes of blood on it. He kept staring at the branch and the branch turned into a knife.
The shinobi then looked up at the trees and saw that the leaves of the trees around him had turned into knives as well. He was utterly horrified at this sight as the knives were swaying with the wind and he felt that any minute now hundreds of knives are going to fly at him.
He tried to calm himself that the knives, the tree, and even the wind were all a genjutsu but it was already too late as the wind became faster and louder enough for the knives to detach from the tree and fly around the stone shinobi in a circular motion.
The stone shinobi instantly tied a cloth around his severed arm and started running in a random direction. He couldn't even think straight right now but after running for a few seconds, he noticed that the wind wasn't as turbulent as before. He thought that maybe Kurenai wasn't focused on him now but after a few seconds, he saw a few more stone shinobis lying on the ground with many knives stabbed into them. It was a bloody sight to see.
"No...No...this can't be that woman's doing. This isn't her genjutsu at least not the one with the knife and all. I should have woken up when my hand was cut by the knife." the shinobi muttered as he looked at his hand and then at his fallen comrades.
That's when realization dawned on him as he said "This is his doing... it's the genjutsu demon." as he said that the clouds turned red in color and the wind became turbulent again. He understood that by saying this, he had gained Yami's attention. Before he could run again, two knives pierced the back of his knees making him kneel on the ground in front of a big tree's bark.
Arghhhh
The shinobi shouted in pain as he looked back at the 2 knives. He heard some ruffling ahead of him and turned his head toward the bark of the tree. The upper layer of the bark started of move aside as if a door was opening. The shinobi was confused as to what was happening but things became clear when he saw red eyes looking at him from the inside of the bark.
"P-Please l-let me g-goo...." the man said helplessly but deep inside he knew that the one standing in front of him was not someone who would show mercy and just as he expected a purple sword appeared from inside the bark and cut his head clean off.
"40 down...41 to go." a voice came from inside the bark and the layer of bark also started covering the door that had opened.
On another side of the fog, plenty of more stone shinobis were standing near the banks of a river. They weren't scared in the slightest as they weren't alone but a group of 12 shinobis.
"Do these leaf shinobis think they can defeat us with such a primitive genjutsu?" One of the stone shinobis said. One of the other shinobis who seemed like the leader of the group looked back and said "Don't let your guard down just because you know that this is a genjutsu. We need to keep an eye on our surroundings and stay together. The leaf shinobis will do everything in their power to separate us and then kill us one by one."
The other 11 stone shinobis nodded and continued to look around while following the leader. After walking for a few seconds, they saw that they had reached the edge of a mountain and there was a waterfall near them. They all walked toward the edge and looked down to see a pond that had formed below and was surrounded by thick forests.
One of the shinobis from the group said "Captain the forest below looks ominous. I think we should find another direction."
The captain shook his head and said "This is all mind games. They are showing it just to make us stay away from it. Every genjutsu has a flaw and you have to find it. Maybe the dark forest is the flaw or the end of their fog which is why we can't see anything. 5 of you use the waterfall to go down. The distance isn't much but it is better to be careful from here on out. The other 6 try to climb down the edge slowly.
Since they didn't have any kind of rope or anything to tie to a tree and go down, they used their kunai and stabbed them in the soil to climb down. As soon as they entered the genjutsu they found out that they weren't able to harness or use chakra at all.
Just as 6 were climbing down, the other 5 had reached the center of the river and were walking near the edge where the waterfall was.
The captain decided to take the waterfall route as it seemed less dangerous than climbing down the mountain without any harness. Just as they were climbing down, they heard some kind of buzzing sound come from their left side. At first, they all stopped as it alerted them. But then they saw a swarm of fireflies coming toward them.
"Be ready in case any of them attack you." one of the shinobis said. They all stepped on the kunai and held one in their hand to attack the fireflies but to their surprise, the fireflies didn't attack them and seemed to be flying around very peacefully.
"They don't seem aggressive at all. maybe the captain was right that this is the end of the fog." one of them said as he looked at the fireflies flying near him and his comrades without harming them.
Another shinobi who was standing beside him made an ugly expression and said "Why the fuck are they here to annoy us then?" he said in a little anger and caught one firefly and crushed it in his hand.
The others didn't react much to it and just chuckled. The annoyed shinobi opened his fist to throw away the crushed firefly but as he opened it, he saw the firefly had turned into ash. He became confused when he saw that and showed his open palm to the others.
"How did the firefly turn into ash?" another shinobi asked.
Just before anyone else could say anything, all the other fireflies turned into ash as well and spread around them. They were just floating around the whole group when suddenly the ash caught fire.
BOOMM
A big explosion engulfed the 6 shinobis entirely without giving them any chance of escape. The ones standing at the edge of the waterfall peeked to the side as they heard the loud sound.
"Damm...that ash just caught on fire. I hope some of them jumped down and survived." a shinobi said to which the captain said "No...the ash burned them from the inside out. They didn't even realize that they had inhaled some ash when the fireflies were flying around them. None of them survived and we wouldn't have either if we took that route."
The captain was thankful that he had taken that route. He was now confident that the route of the waterfall was the right one. He instructed everyone to jump one by one into the pond. Just as they all jumped together, they felt different. What they were seeing was water flowing around them but the consistency was thicker.
"T-This isn't water. This has so much resistance to it. I can't even pull out my hands and legs from the water." a shinobi said. The other shinobis also noticed this. The water looked peaceful and clear but they weren't able to move in it at all. That's when the color of the water started to change and slowly it showed what it truly was.
The eyes of the captain widened as he realized what he and his team had stepped into. "T-This is quicksand."
"H-How is this possible? This is a jutsu that only us the stone shinobis know and not many can perform. Did someone in our midst betray us?" a shinobi asked who quickly got his answer.
"It wasn't as hard as you make it sound." a playful voice was heard by them on the side. They all looked in that direction and saw Kakashi waving his hand.
"T-The copy ninja." the captain said as his and his entire team's body submerged into the quick sand.
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