The genjutsu shattered like glass around me, and I was once more in the clearing under the heavy downpour, rocketing towards Kisame faster than any had ever seen me go without Sage-Mode.
Setting the Game
The droplets of rain would have felt like crystals shattering against me were it not for my Suiton, which negligently took over the water in my immediate surrounding, coalescing it in a razor-sharp whip that preceded me by a few steps while I raised my left arm, clearly putting all my weight behind a haymaker.
The water construct broke part once it neared Kisam's form, his own chakra disrupting my control and turning the improvised technique into nothing more than a paltry distraction.
By the time I reached Kisame, he had already took a step back, and he threw a powerful punch with his free right hand, likely nothing more than a distraction to open my defence for a clear downward slash with Samehada.
Sadly for him, my first teacher had been Might Guy, and my reaction was neither improvised nor standard: his right hook went crashing against the side of my armour, where a thin layer of water made it slid behind me while my left arm clamped down, trapping Kisame's arm against my side while my right palm struck flatly the shark-man's elbow, stopping him from slashing me down.
At the same time, leveraging on my right foot, I landed my left on the nuke-nin's bended knee, that he had brought forward both as a layered feint for his first punch and in order to prepare for his following sword-attack.
A simple outward push with my weight was all that was needed to unbalance the shinobi. Kisame rooted himself with chakra on his remaining foot, and whipped his head towards me, fangs ablaze with chakra ready to tear into my flesh. Immediately, I pushed sideways with my right foot, my left forearm rising on the inside of Kisame's right bicep as I twirled on my left foot once more on the ground after having kicked away the nuke-nin's leg.
I seamlessly shaped my chackra in a familiar pattern without need for hand signs, and a henge of myself was layered over my body while I split my attention and used an half-ram sign to produce a mizu-bunshin out of the water that the downpour was gifting me with.
As I spun, my force and momentum were enough to gain leverage on Kisame's shoulder, who found himself forced on his left knee and to release his grip on Samehada's hilt in order to sab forward with his fingers poised like a speartip, aiming for my femoral artery. A twist of my right wrist forced him to abort his attack to avoid a shuriken severing his tendons while my upper body seemed to split: my henge right arm lunged for Kisame's exposed juncture between neck and shoulder.
A kunai tore through my henge and a second glint of steel forced me to bend backwards, my arms moving on their own in a practised movement and dislocating Kisame shoulder while snapping his elbow in the wrong direction.
I ignored the pained grunt of the shark-man as Itachi came inside my guard with a flurry of kicks and kunai held daintly with his fingers, close enough to present an actual threat on my life and forcing me to split my focus on two fronts: very much like when I fought Orochimaru, removing the weapon that could be of use only to my opponent was a primary objective.
My mizu-bunshin quickly took a scroll from my belt and darted in a small circle around the two Akatsuki members, unfurling the sealing supply as I called forth my chakra, freeing it into its wind-natured flavour, before dedicating myself faster than ever to one of my almost signature techniques.
"Uuugh..." Kisame groaned as he returned to his feet, nursing his broken arm in the brief lull of the battle, "It would be a good time to use your freaky eye, Itachi."
"The Tsukuyomi is the only thing stopping him from using nature chakra." was the quick and flat answer of the kinslayer.
Boar, Monkey and Dragon prepared the barrage of wind, and I folded it, letting the tension I was used to settle in the tenketsu at the base of my throat, before twisting my chakra into a hungry, raging flame and concluded with Boar, Horse, Tiger. Jumping backwards, I blew my katon technique while letting go of my fūton one, molding them together, whispering: "Ninpō: Shiroi honō!" (White blaze) and I let the wall of white-hot wall of flames over my two opponents.
It wasn't Madara's majestic destroyer flame or whatever OP skill those with plot armour were capable off in the last arcs of the manga, but being the result of a combination of fuuton and katon, it ended up being extremely chakra efficient. As the white fire reached my opponents, Itachi being unable to use his own masterful control over katon to redirect my flames in order to sell his position to his leader-sama (and I suspected we were being watched by either zetsu or Obito), Kisame showcased exactly why he had been named the Tail-less Biju.
In a split second, the air grew dense and damp as his blue chakra flooded the area, the words of his technique drowned beneath the crushing roar of my Shiroi honō, and simply, out of nowhere, it appeared like god had declared 'there be water'.
The humungous amount of chakra surged forth from the sjark-man's mouth, followed immediately by an impossible amount of water that made my own attempt at the technique back when I had trained my genins look amateurish at best.
Water heavily laced with chakra surged forth in a perfect Hemisphere around our position, and it was only due to Kisame's solution and Itachi hasty retreat that my mizu-bunshin succeeded in sealing away Samehada.
The wall of flames surging from my mouth got snuffed out by the tidal wave coming forth, even the heat of my combined technique not enough to burn the water that held so much chakra of my opponent, which prevented the liquid from dissociating into oxygen and hydrogen. The wall of water overcame my technique and slammed against my body, hard.
I got swept off my feet before I truly managed to think of a counter, my back briefly scraped a couple of times against the ground before being picked up by a current over which I had no control whatsoever. I slammed through a tree, the impact forcing the air out of my lungs, and making me inhale a mouthful of water.
Chakra surged in my throat, quickly mimicking the behaviour of an alveolus in reverse, and effectively acting as a gill, extracting air from the water.
I split my attention and managed to wrench control of the current that way dragging me around away from Kisame, which was barreling towards me with a kunai extended and an enraged expression on his shark-face.
The water propelled me upwards in the nick of time, and I quickly found myself on the top of the hemisphere of water that Kisame had created. I felt precisely the humming of the water beneath my feet, sidestepping the high-pressure jet that would have biforked me otherwise, and I simply skated out of the way of the two sharks that rose from the bottom of the hemisphere, not unlike a couple of Great Whites intent on tearing me apart.
Kunai enshrouded in Fuuton (I had to learn how to do that in order to tear through the Mokuton constructs of Hashirama) took care of the summons, and when it appeared clear that I wasn't going to fail for a sneak attack, Kisame emerged from the water less than ten meters from me.
"You know, I've looked for a worthy Suiton user since Orochimaru had me fight the Edo Tensei of Tobirama." I grinned wildly, mindful of the charade that I had to put forth in order to give Itachi something to work with in order to 'get me into the fold'.
Kisame's visage turned into an outraged one: "Where is Samehada!?"
My mizu-bunshin managed to move swiftly out of Kisame's technique (he had been spared the worst of it since he was behind the shark-man when I had targeted him with the Shiroi honō) and offered me the sealed blue scroll that I had prepared a month before, when I had actually formed my plans to deal with the Akatsuki. Without looking, I performed a series of half seals and pressed the scroll over the tattoo on my forearm, where it disappeared with a puff of smoke: "I want a good fight, Kisame-san," I tilted my head, "and I dislike swordsmen. Orochimaru managed to run only because of his fucked up blade."
I scrunched my nose when Kisame snarled in outrage: "You're lucky that Itachi is keeping me busy, otherwise I could match your chakra output." Let the Akatsuki know that I can be slotted easily into Kisame's spot once he's dead.
"Kisame," Itachi spoke from where he had quietly landed, "with my eyes busy and you without Samehada, we're at disadvantage, and my chakra is running thin."
The snarl turned into a growl as I smiled cheekily: "You've lost your sword, if you stay you'll lose something else."
"It doesn't end here." the blue man threatened, and in a swirl of leaves, Itachi dragged them away, leaving me alone over a terrifying amount of water, which unraveled once its creator was out of range.
Well, I need to go to Kiri now. I thought as my hands clapped into the Horse seal, a good three-quarters of my chakra getting dumped into the amount of water beneath my feet.
As I fell from my height, the water slid south as a tidal wave, carrying me south faster than I could run, and keeping me above the trees while the vast majority of the forest beneath got drowned. I hope this showdown is enough to make me look desiderable. Should I fish out my Konoha hitai-ate and slash it? I don't even remember where it is.
Konoha-Kumo Front, 7th November
Sasuke was methodical, if nothing else. His eyes granted him much more than that, that was for sure, but even so, he didn't see the need to exert himself too much. There was always the possibility that a random jonin would free himself long enough to attack a lowly chunin such as himself, and he'd need all of his tricks to get out of it alive.
He knew that much, it had happened several times already. Sasuke battalion was made of fifty chunins and ten jonins, and that was without considering the auxiliaries that got on and off the rooster, along with the med-nins, which were shuffled quietly along the border.
Sasuke's head tilted back with a negligent gesture, letting the shuriken whizz past him just while his right hand let out three of the ninja-stars, steel wire tied them to his fingers as he changed their direction mid-air with daint twitches of his fingers. The first shuriken spun cleanly across the fingers of the one that had gunned for the Last Uchiha, distracting him long enough for a familiar dark-haired chunin to stab his femoral artery, while the second and the third intercepted a couple of kunai respectively, covering the blind spot of a blonde kunoichi that was busy tearing through her opponents with a single-minded combination of fierce taijutsu and subtle genjutsu that apparently fucked with her opponents' depth perception.
Sasuke had long since discarded his clan's symbol, knowing that it only made him a target, and was dressing the standard chunin uniform. Comprehensive of the flak jacket that, for the first time since the actual beginning of the conflict, saved his life.
A straight jab hit him in his left scapula, exactly at the height and angulation necessary for the kunai tip to Pierce its way to the Uchiha's heart.
Sasuke spun with the blow, unwilling to admit even to himself that his lapse in attention could as well have killed him, and turned with his kunai held high and his eyes spinning red.
He swung wildly his right arm in a backward swing, the kunai in his hand leaving his fingers halfway through his movement so that it killed a Kumo-chunin that had already written the Uchiha off, and his fingers kept as a blade attempted to chop the throat of his opponent.
The admittedly sloppy blow was denied with a negligent parry, which was followed by a kick that stopped cold Sasuke's spin. The foot that had landed on his right hip whipped immediately back, only to land with double the force on the Uchiha's face.
Or it would have, if not for the prodigious capabilities of Sasuke's eyes.
The Konoha chunin ducked even as he stumbled, rolling out of the way of another attack and bringing his hands together in a quick sequence of handseals. Warmth blossomed in the pit of Sasuke's stomach as the Fire Natured chakra climbed up, spewing out in four small fireballs that detonated on impact.
Sasuke's opponent was clearly a veteran chunin, and thusly retreated instead of risking coming in closer.
The two looked at each other for an instant, both breathing heavily. The skirmish was almost over, there were stragglers in both areas of the battlefield, which were being ganged up upon by the superior forces leaving the individuals to fend for themselves just a bit longer: Shinobi techniques didn't pres themselves well to the samurai-like view of war. Soon enough, the survivors would band together, and since by then most of the respective chakra would have been spent, the battlefield would go to those with the numeric advantage, while the smaller force retreated through the territory that had been previously trapped foreseeing the possibility of a retreat. None would risk following the path an enemy laid out for them, even less with little to no chakra to spare.
During Sasuke's first fight, his breath had come in ragged and uneven because of the fear and the thrill, while his eyes had been wide with expectations and wild reactions.
Now, the Sharingan spun slowly, assessing his opponent without fears, seeping chakra in the man's coils with barely any telltale sign.
A sudden sharp stab of pain broke Sasuke's delicate control, bringing him to his knees in the middle of the battle. He turned back his head, finding the man that he had been facing a second before smirking down at him: "What's up with kids these days? They become chunin and think themselves hot shit."
The genjutsu unravelled, revealing that the man he had believed under his thrall was far trickier than what it appeared. In the Kumo-nin's hand rested a katana embedded in Sasuke's leg, pinning him on the ground. "But you're the Uchiha, so I guess that I'll be rich thanks to you." he grinned wildly, "In a few years, that genjutsu of yours could even become dangerous."
As the man opened his mouth to taunt him some more, shadows crept over his limbs, pinning him in place long enough for a tanto to bury itself in his neck.
"And that," Ino spoke, "is why you don't play with the prey on the field." she smirked, looking down at the one who had been her first and only crush.
After the battle, and after a stern med-nin had healed most of the damage in the Uchiha's leg, the couple of dozen genins that had been deployed to follow Sasuke's battalion's tracks reached the area where the fight had exploded, immediately dedicating themselves to kill the Kumo-nin still alive but unable to run, to signal the Konoha-nin that had survived to the medic-nins, and to steal everything valuable from the bodies.
Soon enough, Sasuke found himself in front of a small hole in the ground in which he had lit a small fire with a seal-less manipulation of Katon. 'When you can't train your more flashy techniques, train control with the small things: do you need handseals to breathe out warm air? Do you need a technique to warm up tea? If so, then you're not good enough.'
The young Uchiha grimaced a bit as the words of Daiki ringed in his head without his permission: it said something about his own 'sensei' that he had learned more with the off-hand comments of the abusive on his Clan's land than he ever had from Kakashi' active instructions.
"So," Ino's voice made herself known as she plopped down on the opposite side of the small fire, "Luckily they keep a Nara on the roost near me at all times, since our techniques go well together."
"Hn." he immediately returned to stare the flames, uninterested in the other shinobi now that the battle was won.
"You're welcome, by the way." she added.
"Hn." Sasuke commented as he pulled out a water bottle from his rations, removing the cap and pouring in a measure of red powder.
"What is that?" Ino asked as he recapped the bottle before shaking it vigorously.
"... thank you," she added when it appeared clear that he wasn't willing to answer, making him rise briefly his eyes, "you kept deflecting a lot of the shit that got thrown around, Shiko told me he could spare so much chakra because you kept doing half of his job for him."
We wouldn't have needed to babysit you were you more mindful of your blindspots. Sasuke thought snidely, choosing to go with yet another: "Hn."
"I'm sorry they disbanded your team." came the quiet voice of Ino, which simply made him scoff: of many things he could feel sorry about, the end of his team wasn't one, and he cared even less for the support of the 'fangirl' that hadn't left him alone since...
Well, now that the Last Uchiha actually thought about it, the blonde menace has basically disappeared from my life the day she had been assigned to Daiki, and during the chunin exams she didn't begin any interactions with me, despite the numerous occasions.
"They did the same to yours." he pointed out, raising an eyebrow as he nurtured the Flame Within, bringing scalding Fire Natured chakra into his hands and holding them close over his bottle, which now was full of a mysteriously red liquid.
She made a so-so gesture, fishing out a ration bar from her supplies and quickly unwrapping it: "We still get a mission together from time to time, but Shika works better with strategies, even if the higher-ups are having him work his way up from smaller scale to the whole war front, and Choji's bloodline is too useful for guarding a stable station."
"And you?" he asked, studying the way the shadows danced on her and the crystalline glint of her too blue eyes in the dark.
"I'm the more versatile of my team, my taijutsu is the best, my genjutsu complements it beautifully, and I can extract information pretty easily from the half-dead shinobi left in aftermath, not that there is much for me to discover." she grinned impishly as she took a bite of her ration, grimacing as the taste of cardboard made itself known on her tongue.
"How was he? As a sensei?" Sasuke asked as he uncorked his bottle, appreciatively nodding at the small measure of vapour that rose from it.
"You know Daiki-sensei?" Ino perked up while Sasuke chugged a bit of the mysteriously red liquid.
"And what is that?" she asked when he lowered his bottle.
Sasuke eyed his interlocutor for a few seconds, before handing over the bottle, which Ino carefully brought to her nose: "Tomatoe soup." she declared after a wiff.
"It's easy to seal away a lot of desiccated tomatoes, I had them in Daiki's greenhouse." Sasuke nodded, accepting back his soup.
"You stole tham from Daiki-sensei?"
"Considering that he built the greenhouse unlawfully on my land, and that I've been the one to take care of it for years, I am entitled to take whatever I want."
"He did that? Wait, you never told me how you know him." Ino took back the offered bottle and took another gulp of warm tomatoes soup.
"He started sqatting in my garden when I was eight."
Ino's mouthful of tomatoes' soup almost caught him unaware, luckily, his Sharingan had many mundane uses: "What!?" she spluttered, cringing a bit at the unimpressed look she received from the Uchiha. It wasn't a Sharingan stare, but it was baleful nevertheless.
Find something that its only yours, be it playing the guitar, writing poetry that you'll never show to anyone, cooking, a bond with someone. Daiki's voice sounded once more in Sasuke's head.
'Why?' Sasuke remembered asking the strange shinobi that gave him tips and strange tasks in order to spar from time to time.
Because otherwise you'll remain only what Itachi willed you to be, and I don't know how you think, but if it was me, and my brother told me to go right after destroying my family, I'd go left.
Sasuke' shoulders lost a bit of their natural stiffness as he moved a bit closer to the small fire that he had created more for a source of light than out of any need for warmth, and studied the dancing shadows on the kunoichi in front of him.
And because one day you'll want to share what's only yours, in order to become something that is only of another. Be it a friend, a comrade, a lover, a son.
"I still don't know why." Sasuke spoke almost shyly, "One day there was nothing, then he planted his tent during the night." a twitch of the lips that could have been a wistful smile on anyone else found its way on the Uchiha's face: "Then one day he offered me a spar in exchange for not setting his stuff on fire..."
As the night slowly dragged its cloak over the sky, and the two chunin exchanged anecdotes about the enigmatic Daiki' antics, a part of Sasuke long left broken in the dark mended a little, and warmth, not unlike the one he manipulated when exercising his Fire Nature manipulation, made its way in the Uchiha's bones.
AN
I apologize to those that expected another battle of FUBAR's Scale: it's not yet the time to pull out the big guns, but not despair, there will be plenty of fights before the end, I promise.
On the other hand, the first part of the plan starts to unfold, while Sasuke begins to return human over shared knowledge of our dear MC. Maybe he only needed a combination of time, not being fussed over (Sakura), and not being aggravated (Naruto).
To recap, Itachi is going to sweep Orochimaru's bases in order to kill Kabuto, Daiki proved himself to the Akatsuki and stole Samehada, Kakashi has yet to report his loss of the Sharingan, and we start to see the undercurrent of the war.
How did it go with Sasuke and Ino? I never characterized much the latter, but I've been dragging forward the small changes in Sasuke for a while now, and I'm interested to hear if they sound believable or not.
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Just friendly reminding everyone that I've set up my own site, where my fics can be downloaded in pdf (complete, not chapter by chapter (it's a work in progress!)), and you can support me through a donation if you have the means and the wish to do so.
cloud9stories dot net is the name of my site, you can find the complete caption on my profile if googling it isn't enough (for whatever reason ff doesn't let me copy-past the URL here).
Thank you!
