'Eyes' to see you
Oh, boy. This is when the fic gets really started.
"You what?" Jiraiya skidded to a stop in the middle of the road.
"Cool chain things." Naruto reiterated. He had just been explaining his fight with Gaara. "They were like, bluey yellow, and where they touched Gaara the sand fell off."
"Holy..." Jiraiya turned around and started gesturing at nothing in particular. "I don't believe it. It's like she's come back to haunt me. First calling me out on my research, now the chains, what's next? Huh? Is he gonna start waving kitchen implements at me?"
Haku looked on in amusement.
"Uh...old man?" Naruto asked.
Jiraiya sighed and turned back around. "Sorry. All this time I thought you were your dad's kid through and through, but it turns out there's more of your mother in you than expected." He squinted off into the distance. A settlement was just barely visible on the horizon. "We'll stop here for a breather, then continue on. We should be at the next village before sunset."
Haku and Naruto followed his lead, sitting next to him on the side of the road.
"Your mother, as I've said, was Uzumaki Kushina." Jiraiya began. "And no, I'm still not telling you who your dad was. Now the Uzumaki clan used to have their own damn hidden village, and it was shaping up to be just as prominent as the other five. Trouble is, at some point a bunch of the other villages banded together to take them down. As a 'clan' they're formally disbanded, and their survivors and descendants scattered over the world. Most, like Kushina, ended up in the Leaf, but you can find them anywhere. I once met this kid, Nagato...Kami, I don't even know what happened to him."
"Why were they destroyed?" Asked Haku. "Surely they can't have been more of a threat than the Hyuuga or Uchiha."
Jiraiya wagged a finger. "That's where you're wrong, little girl."
"Boy."
"...Okay, sure. See the Uzumaki, officially, don't have a bloodline limit, at least not one you'd recognise. But you can loosely categorise bloodline limits into three types; dojutsu (eye powers), combination nature transformations, (like Haku here's ice, made from water and wind) and body transformations. Most body transformations are frankly hella gross, so that's not what the Uzumaki were labelled as."
Jiraiya leaned back and held up three fingers. "The Uzumaki were feared for three main reasons. One; their skill with sealing jutsu. We'll have to wait and see if you have any talent, Naruto, but knowing your parents it'll be a miracle if you don't. The second is their incredible constitution. You heal fast, you live long, you're real tough, and you have massive chakra reserves, like the Senju." He flicked Naruto on the nose. "You being able to make a thousand shadow clones is partially because of the Kyuubi forcing its massive chakra reserves through your coils, but that's only possible because of how bulky you and your clan is."
"Huh." Naruto looked down at himself, clenching his fingers.
"And the third thing," Jiraiya continued, "doesn't show up in every Uzumaki, I'd only ever seen it in Kushina. The adamantine chakra chains. A sealing jutsu, but not one that requires any paper or ink. They're nearly indestructible chains that can suppress chakra, which is as scary as it sounds."
"Like Hinata's gentle fist?" Naruto asked.
"Similar." Jiraiya agreed. "Not much use in blocking a fireball, obviously, but wrap someone up and you can stop them emitting chakra. They helped Kushina keep the Kyuubi in check, her seal wasn't as good as yours."
"My mum was the old nine tails?" Naruto gaped.
Jiraiya chuckled. "Damn right she was. Why do you think you got chosen for the job?"
"Whoa..."
"So Naruto can use the chains too?" Haku spoke up.
"Apparently." Jiraiya shrugged. "Well, squirt? Can you?"
"I...think so?" Naruto picked out a boulder a few metres away and pointed his hands towards it. "Both times it wasn't like I wanted to kill Gaara. I just wanted him...held. Restrained. A kinda-"
Yellow light flashed. The chains appeared around his arms and flew forwards, wrapping around the boulder.
He laughed. "Got it! Oh this is so cool!"
"Here." Haku stood up and put his hands together. In front of Naruto a mirror manifested, floating above the floor like the ones he had created on the bridge. "This is reinforced by my chakra. Try and break it. Without using the Kyuubi, please."
Naruto rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, and blurred forwards. The punch was hard, and struck the mirror with a loud ring, but Naruto still stumbled backwards, hissing, with bruised knuckles. The mirror wasn't even scratched.
"Now try using the chains on it." Jiraiya directed.
Naruto nodded and did as instructed. With an effort that was getting easier each time, he threw out the chains to encircle the mirror. It lost some of its lustre, and immediately stopped floating. This time, when he punched it, it shattered like regular ice.
"Awesome." He breathed. "This would have been so useful on the bridge."
Jiraiya stood up again, brushing himself off. "I gotta admit Naruto, I don't have the foggiest how to train you in bloodline limits, so you'll have to work on it yourself."
"Some Sensei you are." Naruto muttered.
"Anyway, break time's over kiddies."
"What? We didn't have a break!"
"I did." Jiraiya grinned cheekily. "I'm the old man, remember?"
He took off running. Naruto and Haku looked at each other, sighed, and chased after him.
Two Akatsuki walked through the streets of Konoha.
Two wide brimmed hats and a heaped spoonful of genjutsu concealed their faces, and the black cloaks embossed with red clouds they sported weren't well known enough to give them away.
"Three hundred metres." One said to the other. "He's in a run down apartment near to the-oh perfect."
"Problem?" Asked the other.
"We've been spotted." The one replied. "Things are about to get loud."
Itachi dropped down onto the pavement alongside Kakashi. In front of them was a river, and on the other side of that river were two of the most dangerous ninja in the country.
"Your genjutsu's getting better, Neji." He called across the flowing water. "It almost took me a second to spot you."
"Itachi." Greeted a calm voice. "Still a lapdog for the village, I see."
"Woof." Deadpanned the Uchiha.
"How're we playing this?" Kakashi asked from beside him. "I have a shadow clone looking for any jonin it can find."
"You slow down Kisame." Itachi replied. "Neji's mine."
The following events would go on to happen very fast.
Neji was halfway across the river before Kakashi (still busy pulling off his headband to reveal his Sharingan) could react. Fortunately, he had support.
Itachi's hands were at his mouth in moments and without appearing to even make seals, he was blasting a great fireball to hit Neji dead centre of the river. Neji spun into a rotation.
The result was kinda like what happened when Sasuke fought Hinata. Except a little bigger.
A column of swirling fire tore up into the sky, towering over all the surrounding buildings. The water around the rotation churned and boiled from the heat and movement, causing steam to rise up and obscure the area. Kakashi used that cover and darted across the chaotic water's surface to charge Kisame. The big, blue, behemoth of a man reached behind himself and drew a large, incredibly conspicuous bandaged thing. To nobody's great surprise, it was Samehada.
Kakashi pulled out, switching to a lightning jutsu that shot out of his hands towards Kisame, but the giant sword came up and consumed the attack, scales rustling ominously as it did so.
That's not very fair. Kakashi switched to throwing kunai and explosive tags.
On the river, the battle would be unobservable for any normal ninja. Two blurs darted around the water's surface, constantly clashing and separating, as said surface was constantly shredded by blades, impacted by explosions, and occasionally transformed into something else for an attack.
There were roughly four layers of genjutsu occurring at any given moment.
Itachi blocked a palm strike with his sword and used an explosion of water beneath him from a previous jutsu to catapult him into the air. He span, upside down, until he was facing Neji. His Sharingan pattern shifted. "Amaterasu!" He declared.
Black flames exploded into existence upon the Hyuuga's body, completely engulfing him, and Itachi landed to watch the ultimate fire technique lick hungrily at Neji's form.
Neji did not completely lose control of his chakra, and fall into the river. He didn't even deliberately go underwater to try and put out the flames (not like that would work).
He stood stock still atop the river's surface. And then, beneath the flames, cracks appeared.
Kakashi paused in his attack of Kisame to gape as Neji's exterior fell off. Revealing itself to be something hard and white, glinting like opal, shards dropped from Neji's body into the river, taking the effects of the Amaterasu with it. The Hyuuga stretched his arms casually. His eyes were white. Not the usual white circles in the centre of his sclera, pure white. They were an oval of ivory reflecting perfectly, and swirls of the same colour and texture spread out across his face.
"...the fuck..." whispered Kakashi.
"Gokei Byakugan." Ground out Itachi. He charged.
He flung his sword straight forwards, and when Neji slapped it out of the way he went in for a grab. They both caught hold of each others' hands, heads inches from each other. Their eyes met.
"Tsukiyomi!"
"Kokosora."
It was impossible to tell which one spoke first.
Then Itachi collapsed into the water unconscious as Neji stumbled backwards, shaking his head as if to clear some confusion.
"Shit!" Kakashi jumped across, snatching Itachi out of the water and running for the opposite bank. Kisame moved to intercept, but was blocked by Sarutobi Asuma, catching the massive broadsword on two chakra enhanced daggers. Kurenai dropped down in front of Neji, and began weaving genjutsu around him as rapidly as she could. A couple more ninja appeared beside them as well, high ranking Uchiha police, as other jonin started appearing on nearby rooftops. Neji sighed. "Kisame, they moved the target. Fall back."
He waved a hand and Kurenai stumbled backwards as if struck, then he body-flickered away. Kisame grunted, batted Asuma off, and fled into the trees.
Konoha's finest all independantly decided not to pursue.
"Is he okay?" Four of the jonin crowded around the unconscious Itachi.
"He's breathing, but he's limp." Kakashi muttered. "Three possibilities; one he'll be fine when he wakes up in a few seconds, two he's a vegetable. Three anything in between."
"Kami...what the hell did that bastard do?" Kurenai grimaced.
"Itachi used his bullshit hax Sharingan genjutsu that lets him mentally torture someone for days in the space of a few seconds; usually putting them in a coma." Kakashi explained. "Neji did something back. And won."
"How? The Byakugan can't do anything like this." Asuma growled, gesturing to Itachi.
"Well, neither can most Sharingan." Kakashi admitted.
"Damn." Kurenai summarised. "I'll take him to the hospital, one of you can notify his father. Genjutsu, huh?" She was a specialist. She knew all sorts of sneaky tricks one could perform by messing with another's perceptions. She'd never tried to use it to mentally bludgeon someone unconscious. "I wonder what kind of sick, monstrous things they did to each other..."
One minute earlier
Itachi appeared in his mindscape and grinned, knowing the Tsukiyomi had taken hold. The sky was red, black cross-looking things dotted the dirt at his feet, and some distance in front of him stood Neji. Itachi teleported to right in front of him (he could do whatever he wanted in his own mind) and cocked his head, regarding the missing-nin silently.
Neji didn't move. "You seem oddly reticent. Here you are with me at your absolute mercy, and yet you do nothing."
"Oh I'm sure you've thought long and hard about being at my mercy." Itachi replied, threateningly. "So long spent out alone with nothing but a gaggle of murderers for company..."
They stared at each other again.
"Gay." Remarked Neji.
Itachi's mouth twitched.
Then both broke down into raucous laughter.
Itachi waved his hand, and their surroundings changed to something more comfortable; the red sky and plains switched for a view of Konoha's skyline, leaving both now stood on a rooftop they had liked to meet at when they were younger. Then he walked forwards and grabbed Neji in a hug. The Hyuuga reciprocated, squeezing Itachi tightly. "It's good to see you." He said, smiling.
"You too." Itachi admitted. "Fuck, it's been too long."
"I agree." Neji enthused. "The other day they said 'someone should go try and get the Kyuubi' and I thought 'Konoha? Yes please!'. How's the Mangekyo?"
"It'll hurt like a bitch tomorrow morning, but I'm not blind yet." Itachi reassured, letting go. "How's the Gokei?"
"Started to lose feeling in my fingers and toes." Neji sighed.
"Shit, dude, sorry."
"No, you did well. We needed to show them the Akatsuki's still a threat."
Itachi snapped his fingers and a pair of chairs and a table appeared on the tiles next to them, and he sat down with a sigh. "And now that you've tanked the Amaterasu they'll believe it. I know, but it sucks."
"Plus I'm about to not fall into a coma after the Tsukiyomi, should scare those in the know." Neji sat down. "But I should warn you, I don't have quite as much control over the Kokosora. When we leave here you're about to have a good day or so of...well, total sensory deprivation."
"Ass."
"My bad. Anyway, how's Sasuke? How's...how's Hinata?"
Itachi sighed. "It's a long story."
"Well, we've got a whole two seconds." Neji pointed out.
"Witty. Yeah I doubt you'll want the whole seventy two hours, so we've got as long as we need to talk. Short answer, they're doing really well, actually."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Your sis still hates you-"
"Good."
"Enough of that shit. But you know the little blondie she was crushing on?"
"Yes. My target."
"Yeah, him. Well they're on a team together, with Sasuke. And they're actually getting along. Sure Hinata and Sasuke tried to kill each other in the chunin exams, but-"
"They what?"
"They're both massive edglords when they feel like it." Itachi chuckled. "But they've gotten close, they're helping each other out...I think they'll pull through if they stick together. Who knows, they might qualify as mentally healthy if we give them a few years."
"Great, now I've definitely got to botch this mission." Neji tutted. "Is Naruto still with Jiraiya? Because if he is I can pretend I'm outmatched and retreat."
"Should be. They're going after Tsunade, trying to make her become Hokage. You should see Hinata, she's going up against Fugaku in politics like this four foot tall demon lawyer."
Neji's eyes lit up. "Really? Okay, hold on. Double agent meeting first. Then you show me all the important details about my little sister."
"Deal." Itachi smiled. "So, first of all. Who's even in the Akatsuki?"
Ooh baby. that was a thing.
For those of you who didn't already know, yes, Itachi and Neji are still, as the proffessionals call it, 'broskis'.
And, finally, the thing I've been promisin since the beginning. I won't be answering any questions on the upgraded Byakugan, though there's a lot of hints dropped in this chapter alone. I will say that the new names are all mishmashes of google translated japanese, which I promptly forgot the original meaning of. Have fun with what I've given you, feel free to theorise, and don't worry. Theres more from Neji next chapter.
