"Uchiha..."
"As expected, it's the Uchiha."
"No, it should be the Uchiha."
Whispers of speculation rose all around.
Rather than denying it, Yujin's words only made Tushi show a look of sudden realization, as though the ninja just impaled by earth spikes should have been saved by someone from the Uchiha clan.
Could it be that the fallen ninja was somehow related to the Uchiha? Judging by the forehead protector, he clearly wasn't one of them.
Besides, weren't the Uchiha supposed to be reviled across the shinobi world?
But regardless, judging from the reactions of the surrounding shinobi, it seemed Yujin's comment had inadvertently hit a nerve.
This kind of misunderstanding was oddly convenient. Yujin knew that the more he spoke, the more likely he was to slip up—so he chose to remain silent.
He threw a set of keys with precision into the hands of one of the prisoners, showing clear impatience at the idea of freeing them all one by one. Then, gesturing coldly toward Tushi lying in the water, he said flatly:
"He's all yours."
Wasn't this kind of awkward aloofness strangely in tune with the famously prickly Uchiha?
Yujin had no time for a more dramatic performance. He turned to leave.
His goal had already been achieved: he had rescued his kin and incidentally freed the other prisoners as well. Whatever happened next—what those freed people chose to do—no longer concerned him.
What did concern him now was a different matter entirely: when exactly had he come under the influence of a genjutsu?
After returning to the surface, Yujin quickly made his way to the tallest building in the town and began closely observing the area below.
The layout of the buildings, the strangely placed signposts, certain mechanical devices in motion, the rhythmic sounds coming from who knows where…
As he suspected, the town itself was one giant genjutsu mechanism. The moment Yujin had stepped foot in it, he had already come under its influence.
In truth, there were barely any living people in the entire town.
Using the environment itself to cast illusions—while clever—was also a bit of a cheat. It implied that the user lacked the strength to cast a large-scale genjutsu directly, but had found a way to replicate that effect through external means.
Yujin had to admit that the earth-style shinobi was more formidable than he had given him credit for.
While the genjutsu was wide in scope, it was still a relatively basic kind. Its effect on people wasn't especially deep. Any ninja with a solid understanding of how to break illusions should be able to free themselves without too much trouble.
The illusion muddled the senses of any ninja entering the town. While they were caught between illusion and reality, the enemy would siphon off their chakra unnoticed—robbing them of their combat strength without even lifting a finger.
It was a clever design—Yujin had to give the enemy that. Too bad he wasn't susceptible to that kind of trick.
Now that he understood when he had fallen into the illusion, his doubts were fully dispelled. He turned and walked away from the town.
But he hadn't gone far when he suddenly stopped and looked back—only to see the town engulfed in flames.
"…"
There was no doubt about it: the shinobi he had freed were now tearing everything apart.
...
Given Yujin's background and experience, one might say he had almost no natural resistance to genjutsu.
His ability to withstand illusions was at such a low level that anyone who tried casting one on him would probably succeed immediately.
This much was evident from how he failed to notice anything upon first entering the town.
In short, the fact that he fell for the illusion trap wasn't surprising at all. What was surprising, however, was that he somehow managed to break free from it.
With the town burning behind him, Yujin's thoughts drifted once more.
The illusion had been broken the moment he underwent his "White Zetsu transformation," which meant it wasn't his own willpower that had saved him—it was some unique trait of White Zetsu.
There seemed to be two plausible explanations for this.
The first was that, after his transformation, the Zetsu-modified part of his body forcibly corrected the disrupted flow of chakra within him—a common method of breaking genjutsu.
The second explanation was more complex.
It's a well-known fact that if a genjutsu has no effect on a target, it's often because that person is already under the influence of a stronger illusion.
In White Zetsu's case, he was originally a human transformed by the Infinite Tsukuyomi. But not everyone hanging from the God Tree back then became a White Zetsu. In fact, most of them regained their freedom once the Ten-Tails was sealed.
Those who didn't regain freedom became White Zetsu, which raises the question: had they once been freed from the Infinite Tsukuyomi's control—or had they never left it?
Perhaps, for White Zetsu, the illusion was a kind of self-defense mechanism.
Think about it: if White Zetsu were easily influenced by genjutsu, then Kaguya's resurrection plan could be exposed at any time—a risk neither she nor Black Zetsu would tolerate.
Consider how boldly Black and White Zetsu operated in front of Uchiha Madara, manipulating him like a puppet. That in itself suggests they weren't afraid of his illusions.
After all, Madara was nothing if not cunning and suspicious. Even if he believed Zetsu to be his creation, who's to say he wouldn't try casting a genjutsu on them just to be sure?
In any case, it's clear that Black and White Zetsu were highly effective at keeping secrets. Over thousands of years, no one ever extracted any valuable intel from them.
So does that mean "Zetsu-Man" Yujin is, to some degree, immune to illusions?
If spiritual manipulation and invasive genjutsu can't affect White Zetsu, then Yujin, once transformed, may be able to ignore the most dangerous types of illusions altogether.
If that's true, then "Zetsu-Man" just got a serious buff. Being immune to genjutsu would drastically increase his survivability on the battlefield.
In the future, the genjutsu Yujin should be more concerned about may fall into two categories:
The first type are sensory-deprivation genjutsu—ones that block or steal your five senses. These don't involve mental manipulation, so his White Zetsu body might not be immune.
The second is Kotoamatsukami.
That jutsu is particularly insidious. Though it's a form of mental control, it works so subtly and silently that it's hard to say whether even Infinite Tsukuyomi would offer protection against it.
Still, despite how dangerous Kotoamatsukami is, Yujin isn't worried about it.
As he always says: by the time Uchiha Shisui's Mangekyō Sharingan appears in this world, the grass on his grave would already be two meters high.
If he's going to worry about anything, he'd rather worry about Impure World Reincarnation—someone digging him out of the grave instead.