Hello everybody! Here is the next chapter and it's a fight! I did my best with it, so I hope it came out okay. Thanks go to SakuraEmma29 for reviewing and favouriting (she's awesome!), only to forget for alerting, Snevilly for reviewing all my stories (I totally squee'd), Aweri for Alerting and Yandere Yuno-Chan for the favourites. I sometimes forget to thank you guys but a lot of the desire and joy of writing comes from you. Thank you to all of you.

CROW VS KISAME

Crow waited till the girls were out of sight then calmly removed his Anbu mask. As the mask slipped away so did Crow's personality. With the camouflage gone, the heavy weight of his responsibility descended on his shoulders once more. He looked up and met Kisame's shocked expression.

"Kisame," He said, acknowledging his former partner "I've learned some interesting things about your sword's reproductive cycle that I'd like to discuss with you." Reaching up he removed his cloak and stripped off the Anbu vest. He didn't need the extra weapons but needed all the speed he could get.

"Really?" Kisame replied, loosening the wrapping on his sword, eyes narrowing. "How about we skip the talking and get to the real stuff?"

He swung the great parasite outwards and the spikes bristled into its offensive position. "Unless of course you want to ask why I did it or something stupid like that?" he added mockingly

Pushing his shortened hair back, Itachi activated the sharingan for the first time in months.

"No, I know why you infected me. I don't care about that. What I want to know is why you didn't attack me when we fought at the border. If you had joined the battle, I could not have gotten away so easily. Why didn't you do your duty to your master?" he asked as they began to circle each other. Both were looking for an opening that would end the battle quickly; though perhaps for very different reasons

"Pein ordered me to track you down, not to stop you. That was for zombie twins to do. I didn't think I had to get involved." He said and took the opportunity to slash at Itachi.

The Uchiha was prepared and leapt out of the way, forming seals for the Grand fireball jutsu in the blink of an eye. The flames that erupted from his mouth charred a huge path to Kisame. The Mist nin countered with a powerful water technique that overwhelmed the fireball jutsu and soaked everything that had caught fire only moments before.

A strong gust of wind sent the resultant steam sloughing away revealing an unscathed and unperturbed Itachi.

"Not Pein, I'm talking about your true master, Uchiha Madara." He said

Kisame smirked and attacked. Itachi dodged again and again never letting the sword get close enough to shred his skin or absorb his chakra. He could see Kisame becoming frustrated. The blue man was terrifyingly strong with stamina to match a jinchuuriki but he was prone to some very human weaknesses; impatience being just one of them. As Kisame swung at him, Itachi flung a handful of kunai. Using Samehada he scattered them. As they flew just out of range, the exploding tags detonated. Rather than concussive force, they created a field of toxic gas that made Kisame's eyes water and burn.

He jumped away from cloud and right into an attack. Itachi kicked out, barely missing the mist nin's head. As Itachi tried again, he brought the sword up to deflect the blow and knocked the smaller man away. Itachi skidded to a halt as Kisame felt the parasite shred away some of the Uchiha's chakra. He smiled.

"Have you gotten soft, Uchiha? Has being in your old home made you weak?" he asked, going on the offensive again

Itachi seemed to ignore the words and activated his mangekyo sharingan.

Kisame wasn't surprised. He was surprised that Itachi hadn't done it before. In all the times he'd witnessed Itachi fight, he's noticed that the man used the exact amount of force necessary to subdue or kill his opponent. He was neither wasteful nor did he underestimate the enemy. What Itachi seemed to be doing was stalling for time or drawing out the battle for a reason Kisame wasn't aware of. The Uchiha was terrifyingly strong, so it was unlikely that he was waiting for back-up. It seemed as though he really did want to talk though drawing out the battle was costing him.

Under normal circumstances Kisame would not have expected to lay a hit on the Uchiha this early in a fight, especially since they both knew that he didn't have any chakra to waste. Kisame shouldered his sword and began a series of seals; moving faster than the eye could see. He wanted this battle done, he had a mission to complete and this confrontation was holding him back. He completed the seals and summoned the ocean.

Itachi didn't react, other than to use his chakra to stay on the surface of the water. His scarlet eyes followed the enormous fins that rose and fell around him.

"Fire is weak against water, Itachi. Give up now and I will make your death quick."

"I can use more than fire, Kisame. You should know that, after all, you were chosen to be my opponent from the beginning, right?"

Kisame smirked. "Just figure that out, genius?"

Itachi smirked. "No. I've always known. Why did you let me go when there was a perfect opportunity for you to finish me off?"

"You're not going to give up, are you?" Kisame asked, silently cursing the unusually talkative Uchiha.

"No. I know your past Kisame, though you never spoke of it. I know what type of missions you specialised in. You are a traitor by profession but I have always felt that you aren't happy with that."

"You are a sentimental young fool Uchiha. Don't ascribe your high minded motives to me. Whatever you think you know about me is what I wanted you to know; nothing more. I didn't kill you at the border because I wanted a fair fight between us. I want to know who is stronger; the genius prodigy or the monster of the Hidden Mist. Each time we sparred was a rehearsal for this moment."

Kisame attacked, sending his water sharks after Itachi as well. Itachi caught his eyes and cast a genjutsu closely followed by scalding wave of flames that burnt even the water it rested on. Kisame smirked as his water clone vanished in a puff of steam. He rose up behind Itachi who turned, bleeding eyes meeting his own. Kisame could feel the genjutsu slide right over him. By the time the Uchiha realised that his strongest illusion had failed, Kisame's foot caught him under the jaw and sent him flying into the remains of tree. Before the younger man could recover, he was there to wrench him to his feet and pin him with Samehada. The parasite leached off the Itachi's chakra in greedy swills.

"How?" asked Itachi

"You tried to end this battle with one blow. You underestimated me Uchiha or perhaps you overestimated yourself. Instead of conserving your chakra, you should have attacked me straight out and then, maybe, maybe you would have stood a chance. That was your fatal mistake." He then pushed the sword's razor edge into Itachi's stomach. Itachi grunted and in a poof, the clone dispersed. The blow caught him on the side of the head doing little damage but annoying him to no end. Why was the boy playing with him? Why didn't he just attack instead of dancing around as he was doing? What did he want? The blow spun him around but took only milliseconds to recover from.

"What are you playing at Uchiha? What are you trying to achieve? Your genjutsu will not work on me. My eyes are adapted for seeing under water so there is no way you can't catch me in a genjutsu unless you get can get up close and personal and we know that if you do that, this battle is over for you. In fact, it's been over from the first day we met. You can't beat me Uchiha. The outcome of this battle was determined from the day that Madara told me who you were."

Instead of looking beaten, the Uchiha straightened visibly.

"The conclusion is not inevitable Kisame. It never is. One misstep by either of us; one failure to realise the significant could mean the difference between victory and defeat. A single choice can change everything."

Kisame laughed then. He surprised himself with the level of his amusement and disgust. Who would believe that a man like Uchiha could have failed to realise the hard truth in this life?

"Baka!" he forced out between guffaws leaning on the tree behind him for support. "Everything is inevitable! The weak die and the strong prosper. Everyone's death is written the moment they are born and nothing else matters. It's all a question of finding the man who will deliver yours." He said feeling all mirth die away. "I've delivered death to many people Uchiha, maybe even more than you and they all ask why at some point. Maybe the words never reach their lips but it's in their eyes. Why am I dying? Why does it have to be me and not you?" He hands clenched on his sword. The parasite sensing his agitation began to rustle uncomfortably. "Do you know what the answer is?"

The younger man did not reply. His mangekyo died and returned to the more familiar sharingan. "What is the answer, Kisame? Why do some of us die and others live?"

For a moment all thought died as his mouth answered without thought. He smiled. "I don't know. I never know. I am the instrument of countless deaths and I've never known why they had to die...till now. You have to die Uchiha because you are simply too strong to live. You've always been too strong. For the moon's eye plan to succeed... for true peace to succeed, there must be no one alive who can break through it. Your death has always been inevitable. Any weapon can be turned against its owner." All trace of humour vanished as the sharks that had been content to circle beneath the surface rose up and ripped the younger man to shreds. It happened in the blink of an eye. One minute he was there and then next, all that was left was a blood in the clear water.

And then, everything changed. Suddenly Kisame found himself bound head to foot in chains and seals. His sword lay some distance away similarly wrapped. Standing calmly in front of him was an unperturbed Uchiha; dry and if a bit tired.

"When did you get me, Uchiha?" He asked, oddly unsurprised. It seemed that his death had come at last. It was only fitting that one betrayer should die at the hands of another.

"Right before you kicked me into the tree. Just because I'm going blind doesn't mean that I wouldn't notice poor vision in those around me. I knew about your eyes for a long time. I knew that for me to win against you that I would need to get close enough to use a powerful genjutsu without expending too much of my energy." He smirked "In other words, I needed you to move closer to me and what better way that to let you inside my guard?"

"That was when Itachi cast the genjutsu closely followed by scalding wave of flames that burnt even the water it rested on. Kisame smirked as his water clone vanished in a puff of steam. He rose up behind Itachi who turned, bleeding eyes catching his own. And just like that the battle was over. Itachi watched as Kisame crumpled to the ground, his mind locked securely away from his body. Within the Mist nins mind he continued the fight. He saw Kisame smirk as he felt chakra slide over him. Only half focused on the imaginary fight. Itachi performed the sealing jutsu that locked his opponent's chakra away even more securely than he had locked his mind."

He took a step back and squatted in front of the mist nin. For a moment he said nothing, then seeming to come to decide something he said, "You're wrong. You're wrong about everything. You've never been just an instrument, a tool...you had a choice, as I had a choice. You just chose not to choose; to let someone else do it for you."

With that the Uchiha stood and without another word vanished. In his place came masked Konoha Anbu with metal cages to absorb chakra and a large pair of tongs with which to grasp the parasite.

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