Asuma and Kurenai, Fire and Illusion

During the Quarrel Festival, Mirai uses her Genjutsu: Ghost Fire to address the squabbling crowd and plead for calm. She fears no one will accept the god she has made up on the spot, but the festival-goers at once take the flame for Cattog, a rumoured deity said to broker peace between the town's rival cat and dog gods. Speaking as Cattog, she presses her case for harmony until Guy, mistaking the apparition for a monster, barrels straight into it.

Guy scatters the Ghost Fire as he charges through, then smashes into the barrier dividing the cat and dog hot springs, wrecking it and merging the two baths. Mirai panics at the destruction, but the townsfolk read the collision as Cattog willing them to unite at last. Though she thinks her illusion accomplished nothing, Kakashi points out two happy faces in the crowd: Kiba and Tamaki, who have patched things up and thank her for reuniting them, having guessed the flame was her handiwork.

Watching opposites drawn together, Mirai reflects on the strange turn of events. She and Kakashi then collect a dazed Guy before the locals can crown him a messenger of Cattog and raise a statue in his name. With the festival crowd filling every inn, the three are left to camp outdoors, and as her companions sleep, Mirai's thoughts drift to the cult that once operated in the Land of Hot Water. The chapter's title carries a twist: its kanji would ordinarily read as a phrase about flame and illusion, but the furigana instead spells out Asuma and Kurenai, a nod to Mirai's parents.