Author's Notes: I have the great temptation to say something like 'let's get ready to rumble' upon posting this chapter. Anyway, one pure unadulterated high-level fight sequence, served up for your reading pleasure. Enjoy.
Thanks to all reviewers!
Chapter 24 – At the edge of a Shadow
Shiro watched Ise flee with his eyeless vision. When the shark-blooded ninja disappeared, and his charge along with him, Shiro felt the last vestiges of his emotions carried away as well. He slowly turned back toward the matter at hand, the final matter.
It had all become perfectly clear to Shiro the moment he saw those back uniforms with their red clouds. This was the enemy he had been positioned to outmaneuver; this was the cause behind it all, the ultimate source of Yi's exile and Mizain Yuki's dark plans. This was what Yi was being prepared to fight and Ise as well. So, it is my purpose to stop them here.
Having recognized that Shiro had felt all the troubling inconsistencies built up in him over the long, long months of the winter simply melt away. The moment his sword came down to disrupt that dark doujutsu Shiro had known that here was the time to fulfill his purpose; his shadow existence would come to an end today. He did not feel happy, he no longer knew the meaning of happiness, but there was a satisfaction.
Shiro turned to the two Akatsuki, the battered and already defeated Kisame, who would bear scars from Mizuho for the rest of his days, and the once again serene and dark Itachi, his moment of weakness past. Kisame had drawn back as Ise left, scowling, for Itachi had interposed himself between them. "Let them go for now," he said quietly. "We will deal with this one first."
Now Itachi spoke again, and Shiro saw him even as his gaze was still facing back in the direction of the feeling Mist ninja. "Who are you? What do you intend to accomplish, dying here?"
"Dying?" Shiro answered. "Dying? I wonder. Can I still die?" He turned about to face Itachi, raising his head to the Akatsuki for the first time. "Or am I already dead?"
Itachi stared into that eyeless gaze with absolute shock, looking into the blackened, empty face of Shiro disconcerted this terrible man in a way he could not yet name. Not in many years had he felt this disturbed. "Shadow souled…" he whispered.
"What?" Kisame growled. "Impossible! No one knows how to do that, not even Orochimaru, only some of the Kages."
Shiro opened his charred and lipless mouth. "Oh no, he's quite right in the guess."
"Who did this?" Itachi demanded. "Who knows this technique?"
"Why should I tell you? Since you are about to die?" Shiro replied.
"Don't get coy with-" Kisame began, but Itachi held out an arm.
"This one's more dangerous than he seems Kisame," Itachi cautioned. "And you have already lost once today."
Shiro took a step back. He held his sword horizontal to the ground, and stared past both Akatsuki members. Holding the hilt in his left hand he drew his fingers down the blade.
Itachi watched the motion carefully, and saw that as Shiro moved his hand the steel of the blade turned black behind it, until the whole blade was as jet.
The shadow-souled ninja felt the world shift, as all color completely left it, and everything snapped into torrential focus. Every shadow, every edge, every motion was suddenly revealed to him, and terrible power pressed out from within his small form. So, this is the power of my shadow, the fullness of timeless potential.
"Heh, what good is that supposed to-" Kisame muttered, beginning to advance.
He was interrupted as the shadows about him formed into dark blades. Shiro whipped his blade upright, and his right hand danced through a simple pattern of five strokes, forming a star. With each stroke a shadowy blade cut into Kisame, drawing a deep blow.
One, two, three, four, clang. Itachi stood before those shadows, blocking the last blow with a kunai. "As I told them, I can't allow him to die."
Kisame collapsed, bleeding and wounded, but not yet dead, it would have been the fifth blow that completed the move, and by blocking it, Itachi had saved him.
"It seems you are the true danger here," Shiro whispered. "I'll kill him when I'm done with you."
"Don't overestimate your abilities," Itachi closed his eyes, and then opened them again, revealing the red wheel eye of the sharingan.
"Doujutsu? If I could still laugh, I would now." Shiro said without any change in his voice. "How can doujutsu be used on me? I have no eyes."
So speaking, Shiro named Itachi's fear, and when he moved he confirmed it. Here was the enemy Itachi had dreaded for years, a dark thing in the back of his mind that he knew must exist but had never met before, a creature against which the sharingan was totally, utterly, useless. Still, though Shiro could sense the Akatsuki's great unease, he met it well. "Even so, don't underestimate me."
"I won't," Shiro raised his sword.
Itachi held a kunai in each hand, ready.
So, then the first move is mine.
Shiro darted inward with his blade extended.
Itachi blocked, and Shiro spun about him, matching the Uchiha's speed.
Blades met again, and then a third time, and then Shiro brought his blade across in an arc, cutting not at Itachi, but past him.
Itachi jumped back reflexively, but not completely in time, for Shiro's sword nicked the edge of his shadow, drawing a gash of blood down Itachi's arm.
"Shadow linkage…" Itachi mumbled, but then Shiro came on again, and the two spun about. Itachi forced Shiro back for a moment, and leaped back to open a space.
Kunai and shuriken, thrown at almost superhuman speed, slashed in to carve Shiro up.
The shadow-souled ninja rolled along the ground, his blade darting through gaps in the trees so that its own shadow cut through those of the thrown weapons.
Shuriken, sliced neatly in half, fell slowly to the ground.
"If you want to play with shuriken…" Shiro reached down into the shadow of a tree and made a single motion.
The shadow burst apart into a whirlwind storm of shuriken and kunai.
Itachi rolled to the ground and sheltered beneath his Akatsuki cloak, which suddenly had all the strength of steel.
A moment later Itachi threw the ruined cloak up and charged Shiro holding a sword of his own.
The two crossed blades for a moment then split apart. Itachi dashed up a tree and stood atop the high branches.
Thinking that there are fewer shadows up there, eh? Don't think I'll give you the chance.
Shiro's sword split off three shadowy duplicates, which he threw at the leaping Akatsuki.
Itachi blocked each in turn, only to land with Shiro directly in front of him.
Though he twisted with great speed, the Uchiha could not avoid a cut to the left leg and then another across the cheek, as Shiro cut first his body and then the glimmer of a shadow behind it.
However, as Itachi twisted about he came back up with shuriken ripping free from his hands, each trailing multiple razor wires.
With a sudden flurry of spinning motions with his blade Shiro cut down through the tree branch and fell completely through, coming to rest on the ground with the tree trunk at his back.
Itachi cracked a smile. "Fire Element: Fire Dragon Missile no Jutsu!"
The massive blast, brought forth with hand seals so fast as to be even invisible, could not be dodged from Shiro's position, and obliterated all shadows before it.
All shadows, that is, except the one its light cast on the tree of Shiro himself.
The impact came, and Itachi's lip curled up slightly. He jumped down, surveying the massive blast. "Is that all?"
"Hardly." The voice came from everywhere at once. Shadows bent and twisted, and then all those shadows of trees and branched twisted into the form of Shiro, sword upraised.
Itachi scanned, searching, but even with the Sharingan he could not tell which one was real, for the chakra in those shadows was colored black and twisted and shifted constantly, having no constancy. "Heh," he muttered.
The shadows bent, twisted, and surged, cutting not into Itachi, but slashing at all the remaining bits of shadow in the clearing.
The Uchiha dodged and rolled to the side, seeing the plan even as the trees and branches began to fall all about him. He moved through with viscous speed, leaping from branch to branch as everything collapsed around him, using the sharingan not to watch the shadows, but to watch the trees as they fell.
Until another black form, this one all too real, stepped out of the shadow of a falling tree with sword upraised.
Itachi blocked the blow with a kunai, but was thrown back, and branches cut and snagged him before he hit the ground.
When his motion came under control again, Shiro had already sent his sword's shadow duplicates flying towards him.
"Kage bushin no jutsu!" Itachi summoned a wall of clones in front of him, enough to simply absorb those shadowy blows while he jumped safely into the now clear area of fallen trees.
Shiro stood before him, his eyeless vision looking out. Itachi was cut, bleeding, and the marks of many blows from branches scored him, but he seemed not at all weakened. "Impressive…"
"I'm tired of this," the Akatsuki member replied, anger seeping into his otherwise controlled voice. "I've figured out a way to end it."
Chakra surged and crackled down Itachi's hands in massive amounts then, so much that it became visible to the naked eye, and Shiro saw it as a livid crackling mass. It even gave off sound, this eruption of chakra from the Uchiha.
Itachi blasted forward. "Chidori!"
Shiro snapped his sword about, cutting blades of shadow through the air at the charging Uchiha, but those brilliant arms cut through them in turn. He threw shuriken of shadow, and then even his carefully husbanded real shuriken, but all were deflected.
"Heh, even if my sharingan can't read your moves, with two hands one will be ready to counter any attack," Itachi laughed, for he held his hands slightly offset with the left behind the right, ready to cut through anything.
Shiro jumped upwards, and Itachi followed, it was absolutely clear that a collision could not be avoided.
So, this is the final moment then, Shiro recognized. He brought his sword around, and waited for the moment of contact.
"Chidori!"
"Shadow form…shadow's edge!"
Shiro's body became as shadow, a thing of two dimensions only, yet he hung freely in space, and twisted before the oncoming Itachi.
A moment only, and the edge of nothingness that composed the outline of Shiro's form sliced cleanly through both chidori, leaving perfectly straight gashes across both Itachi's hands.
Itachi passed through Shiro cleanly then, and landed on the ground.
It was as nothing for the dimensionless Shiro to reverse his direction in the air even as the moment ended and he snapped back into reality. "I have you!" he fell toward Itachi's back with his sword held high in his right hand.
There was no opportunity to dodge, and Itachi, having just expended so much chakra, hadn't the energy in any case.
Itachi turned his head back, and looked at Shiro's eyeless face. The sharingan wheel twisted and opened, ripping the pupil wide into a feature strange and dark, an empty hole in the world devoid even of shadow. Seeing that image Shiro saw once more the dark place from beyond the world he had glimpsed when he forfeited his soul, and he knew this one before him was even more devoid than he.
"Amaterasu."
Black fire burst forth on Shiro's arm, curling the flesh and tearing it away with impossible swiftness, and Shiro knew the sword would drop from his fingers before he made the cut.
So, with the greatest exertion of his will he opened the burning fingers and let the blade drop, bringing his left hand across to grasp the falling hilt and position the blade for an equally lethal cut to slash Itachi's head off.
The moment before the blade would strike flesh Itachi spoke again.
"Amaterasu."
Black fire poured down Shiro's body covering his torso and left arm and hitting with such force as to throw him back, leaving him fallen against a tree, his body being swiftly consumed.
Itachi struggled to his feet, and turned toward Shiro.
"Damn," the shadow-souled ninja muttered. "I wasn't able to kill you; still, my mission is a success."
Itachi looked at Shiro, "A success?"
"I was to keep Yi safe, let her reach Mist, and she will. Your companion is wounded, and you, I can see it you see, I know the price you will pay. I win." Shiro's face melted away beneath the black flame, and his vision vanished for the first time since he had reawakened on the bed in Mizain Yuki's care. Then he felt the touch of that emptiness beyond the world, and knew it had come to reclaim what was his.
Yet in the moment before he faded into nothing, Shiro was granted the image of Uchiha Itachi collapsing to the ground with his hands on his temples, and he heard the screams of pain begin.