Word to the wise, I've edited the last three chapters to make some parts clearer and to spruce up the last chapter, since I wrote that in a rush to meet an auspicious deadline.

It's been ten years since Masters of Genjutsu ended, and I'm happy to say that almost ten years later, I've written the ending for that story. To put this in perspective, I was expecting to reach the chapter Masters of Genjutsu ended on in one year.

There will be a sequel. I do plan on making it a lot more plot-focused, more action packed, while building on the foundation I established here. Samui will return, of course, and Naruto's newfound purpose in protecting the "king" will be put to the test. I don't plan on taking ten years to finish that sequel, though!

If you made it to this point, I want to thank you for reading Blade of Illusion. I started writing it as a young, untested writer looking to make an ending for a story I really enjoyed and get some eyes on my other work. It's been a long road full of ups and downs, frustration and jubilation, but while I've made mistakes big and small and allowed disappointment to ruin my motivation, I don't regret going on the journey this story's taken me on.

In addition to writing an ending for Masters of Genjutsu, I had two other goals for Blade of Illusion: making it my own and bringing it closer to the canon of the Naruto manga and anime. This is one of the reasons why it's different from the Masters of Genjutsu even if most of its skeleton is the same, it's an adaptation. I planned on continuing it and providing answers to questions the original story left unanswered, which meant I needed a hook beyond Naruto's confrontations with Kurenai and Hiruzen. In addition, there are people who read Blade of Illusion who never heard of Masters of Genjutsu, so this story has to stand on its own.

As for the second goal, I was never a fan of "fanon" (aka fan canon, ideas that are widely spread among a fandom even if they aren't based in canon) as most of it is inaccurate, warps the source material in a negative way, and occasionally feels mean-spirited. Ironically, some of the fanon Masters of Genjutsu used kind of justified the existence of the seduction mission, but I only realized this long after I committed to removing it. Even then, I probably wouldn't keep these points verbatim if I were to write Blade of Illusion from scratch today.

My goal re: fanon was to stick to official material only unless I could make an acceptable break from it, which meant I had to come up with appropriate substitutes to plot points that hinged on Naruto going through a heightened amount of abuse (e.g. mob beatings), occasionally expanding scenes to make up for it or removing scenes that otherwise wouldn't fit. Some parts changed because I wanted to do something original, like Neji's vendetta against the Hidden Cloud or Mei Terumi being the antagonist of the Wave arc. Some characterizations changed as a consequence of my decision to stick to official material. I always tried to keep the spirit of the scene intact unless I deliberately went for something different.

The biggest example of a deliberate change is the end of Naruto and Samui's partnership. In Masters of Genjutsu, they had sex. Here, they didn't. The main reason why I changed this was to avoid a cheating angle to Naruto and Kurenai's conflict and to provide more emotional intimacy between Naruto and Samui in lieu of the sexual connection. I was also uncomfortable with writing lemons, but in hindsight, a fade to black or copying the text verbatim would've solved that problem. I did not alter the scene to make sure Naruto would end up with Kurenai. If I wanted to do that, I would have made Naruto and Samui's relationship platonic. It obviously isn't.

This ties into the final pairing of Blade of Illusion. I never expected there to be tangible support for Kurenai. When I first started writing Blade of Illusion and for a while after, Samui was the more popular pairing in Masters of Genjutsu according to reviews (I don't know if that's the case now). This was reflected in Blade of Illusion as well, until I got reviews in Chapter 41 and onwards asking why I wasn't pairing Naruto and Kurenai, or hearing the expectation that because Blade of Illusion is a Drama/Romance with Naruto and Kurenai as the tagged characters, that will be the romance. I did not handle this as well as I should have.

Expectations are tricky. People come in with some kind of expectation of how a story will go, and this is magnified in adaptive work, especially for an adaptation of a popular fanfic. The reality is that it's impossible to please everyone all the time, and for every person who hates Kurenai, there will be another person who loves her just as intensely, or something in between. My goal was to write the story I want to write and make it as enjoyable and satisfying as possible, while also trying to provide an entertaining continuation for people who finished Masters of Genjutsu.

As I said in the beginning, I wrote a conclusion that provided an ending for the questions Masters of Genjutsu left unanswered, because it was deliberately ambiguous whether Kurenai was real with Naruto or not, if Hiruzen's intentions were good or malicious, if the mission was an isolated case or part of a much larger scheme. I chose a direction I wanted to see, and after all this time, I'd say that I have no regrets choosing it.

In closing, I want to thank Tsukune08 for giving me the chance to continue his story, and I want to thank everyone who read Blade of Illusion. I hope to see you when I post the sequel, but if not, then stay safe and as always, take care of yourself.