Itachi's eyes flinched.
It was subtle, so subtle that anyone else might have missed it, but to those standing that close, to Tsunade and Fugaku, it was unmistakable. For the first time since the chaos on the Hokage Tower began, Itachi Uchiha reacted on instinct rather than cold calculation.
A Mangekyō genjutsu had failed.
It was not resisted or countered.
Simply… ignored.
Even Itachi, who had not fully explored the depths of his Mangekyo, understood exactly how absurd that was. A Mangekyo-cast Genjutsu was not something one shrugged off. It bent perception, overrode the senses, and forced reality to obey the caster's will. Seeing Ren stand there, eyes clear and focused, as if nothing at all had happened, shook something loose inside him.
Ren watched that flicker closely.
Tsunade's hands remained pressed to his abdomen, dense medical chakra stabilizing the wound. It burned, it pulled, and it resisted her efforts like a living thing, but it was holding for now. Ren didn't look down. His attention never left Itachi.
"Don't you realize it, Itachi?" Ren said calmly.
His voice carried no anger, no mockery. If anything, it sounded almost… disappointed.
"You're under a genjutsu."
Itachi's brow furrowed by a fraction.
Ren continued, tone steady. "It's Shisui's. His Mangekyo ability, the subtle, long-term Genjutsu. The kind that doesn't overwrite your will, just nudges it. Reinforces certain conclusions. Makes you believe you're acting on pure logic."
Tsunade's eyes widened slightly.
Fugaku's jaw tightened.
Ren tilted his head. "If there's even a fragment of you that doesn't believe this, if there's still a part of your consciousness questioning whether killing the Hokage right now is truly the only path, then struggle."
He took a step forward.
"Otherwise," he added quietly, "I'll be very rough."
Itachi didn't respond.
Not verbally.
But something shifted in his eyes, conflict, tightly suppressed, barely restrained behind layers of discipline and resolve. That hesitation was all Ren needed.
He vanished.
The space beside Itachi warped an instant later as Ren appeared at his side, already moving. His hand came up and pressed flat against Itachi's face, fingers splayed, palm firm.
"Wake up, Itachi," Ren muttered.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
Then Ren's grip tightened.
He stepped forward, one massive, grounded step and with a brutal, fluid motion, he hurled Itachi away like a living projectile.
The force was obscene.
Itachi's body cut through the air like a cannonball, crossing the entire distance in less than a second before slamming into the Hokage Monument behind the tower.
BOOM.
The impact shook the tower.
Stone exploded outward, dust and debris raining down the mountain face as a massive crater formed where Itachi struck. The echo rolled across the village like distant thunder, making civilians below gasp and stumble back in alarm.
For a moment, there was only silence.
Dust billowed.
Fragments of stone clattered down the mountainside.
Inside the crater, Itachi lay still for a single second, long enough to process what had happened.
He knew Ren had appeared.
He knew Ren had grabbed him.
He knew Ren had thrown him.
And yet, in that instant, he had been utterly powerless to stop it.
The realization was… unsettling.
For only the second time in his life, Itachi Uchiha had been completely outmatched in a direct exchange.
His eyes sharpened.
Calm returned, not the cold, detached calm from before, but something deeper. He was now focused, alert and completely aware.
He stepped forward, dust rolling off his shoulders, and climbed out of the crater as if he had merely stumbled. His Mangekyo still spun slowly, but now there was no attempt at illusion, no subtle manipulation.
Only resolve.
Across the Hokage Tower, Ren had already reappeared at the edge, standing straight despite the injury Tsunade was still desperately holding together. Their eyes met across the distance.
For a single heartbeat, the world held its breath.
Then both vanished.
They reappeared midair between the tower and the mountain, movements perfectly synchronized. Ren's fist and Itachi's forearm collided head-on.
CRACK.
The clash detonated a shockwave that tore through the air, sending a visible ring of compressed force rippling outward. Windows across the village shattered. Loose debris was flung into the sky. Even the barrier wall shuddered violently under the pressure.
Tsunade braced herself.
Fugaku shielded his face.
And above them all, two prodigies, each shaped by sacrifice, burden, and conviction, collided not as symbols, but as warriors.
This was no longer about plans.
No longer about ideals.
This was a collision of wills.
~~~
On the tower, Tsunade's frown deepened into a hard line.
She could feel it, feel the instability in Ren's chakra every time the shockwaves rolled back through the tower. The sword wound she had already sealed was not the problem anymore. That injury was clean, controlled. The real danger was the spatial wound buried deeper in his body, the one that resisted healing, the one that throbbed every time he forced chakra through himself.
Ren should not be fighting right now.
She knew it and he knew it too.
That was what made it worse.
Her fingers curled slowly at her side, knuckles whitening. She had wanted to move the moment the first impact shook the tower, but before he vanished, Ren had looked back at her just once and spoken quietly.
"I'll handle it. Don't worry."
That single sentence had stopped her.
Because it wasn't bravado or recklessness. It was certainty.
Still, Tsunade was Tsunade.
If Ren so much as faltered, she would move. Hokage tower, crowd, politics, none of it would matter.
She turned her head sharply.
"Fugaku."
Her voice was cold enough to make frost feel warm.
Fugaku, who had been standing a short distance away, stiffened despite himself. He met her gaze without flinching, but the tension in his shoulders was unmistakable.
"Lady Tsunade," he said carefully, "there is a misunderstanding. The Senju heir already stated it clearly, Itachi is under a Genjutsu. One cast using Shisui's Mangekyo."
Tsunade's eyes narrowed.
"Shisui's…" she muttered, then the realization struck like a hammer. "Danzo."
Shikaku, standing nearby with his hands in his pockets, exhaled slowly. "What a drag," he said, tone tired rather than surprised. "Even in death, that man refuses to let the village rest."
Tsunade clicked her tongue, jaw tightening. "He really did plan everything, didn't he? Even contingencies after his own execution."
No one answered immediately.
Hiashi Hyuga stood slightly apart from the group, arms folded, pale eyes fixed on the sky where Ren and Itachi's chakra signatures clashed again. Another shockwave rippled outward, weaker than the first but sharper, like two blades scraping against each other.
Inside his mind, a colder thought took shape.
'If one of them is seriously injured…'
The Senju and the Uchiha were already standing far above the other clans. Last night alone had proven that. Ren Senju and Itachi Uchiha were both monsters in their own right, young, terrifyingly capable, and destined to dominate the village's future.
Balance mattered.
And balance, historically, was always paid for in blood.
'If one of them falls,' Hiashi thought, 'or is crippled… the scales might finally even out.'
He did not voice the thought.
He wasn't suicidal.
He knew Tsunade would kill him where he stood if she even suspected such thinking. Fugaku might not be far behind.
So he remained silent, expression neutral, eyes betraying nothing.
~
On the other side of the wall, Hiruzen felt his heart sink.
The sound of the impact, the raw, violent concussion had reached him clearly, even through the barrier. He knew that sound. He had heard it in wars, in battles between titans. That was not a spar. That was not restraint.
That was a clash between two shinobi who could tear the village apart if they lost control.
His fingers tightened around the ceremonial sword still stained with Danzo's blood.
'Ren… Itachi…'
He wanted to move.
Kami knew he wanted to.
But he couldn't.
The crowd below was already restless. People whispered, pointed, craned their necks toward the tower, eyes darting toward the source of the noise. Some shinobi had shifted instinctively, ready to leap, ready to investigate.
And yet, they hadn't moved.
Because Hiruzen hadn't moved.
He understood the weight of that perfectly.
If the public saw the future Hokage fighting the Uchiha clan's prodigy right after a night of near-civil war everything would collapse. Fear would spread faster than fire. Old suspicions would resurface. Danzo's shadow would stretch one last time across the village he had poisoned.
Hiruzen glanced down at Danzo's severed head in his hand.
His mouth twisted bitterly.
'Destroying the village even after death,' he thought. 'Just how twisted did you become, Danzo…'
He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them again.
No hesitation.
If the people needed distraction, reassurance, grounding, then that was his role.
He stepped forward, voice rising, calm and steady, carrying easily over the gathered crowd.
"When the tree leaves dance," Hiruzen began, tone almost gentle, "it is not because the tree is weak."
The murmurs below slowly quieted.
He continued, eyes sweeping over familiar faces, civilians, shinobi, elders, children clutching their parents' clothes.
"It is because the wind is strong," he said. "And yet, when the storm passes, the tree remains. Its roots hold firm. Its branches endure."
Somewhere above him, another distant boom echoed.
Hiruzen did not pause.
"Konoha has faced storms before," he went on. "War, betrayal, loss. Last night was one such storm. It was painful, violent, but it was unavoidable."
His gaze hardened, resolve threading through his words.
"But as long as the Will of Fire burns within us, as long as we trust in one another, the village will stand. Stronger than before."
The crowd listened.
They always did.
~~~
Itachi and Ren stood facing each other above the Hokage Faces Monument, the wind howling softly between the carved stone visages of the past leaders.
This height was deliberate. Up here, even if chakra flared or the air shattered from impact, the general public below would neither see nor be affected. The village could continue listening to Hiruzen's steady voice, unaware that two monsters of the next era were sizing each other up in the sky above them.
Despite their age, both of them had already crossed into a realm most shinobi never touched in their lifetime.
Their very presence distorted the air.
Ren had forced the battlefield upward piece by piece. Every time Itachi tried to drag the fight lower, closer to the tower, Ren simply grabbed the momentum and hurled him higher into the sky, toward the monument, away from civilians, away from politics, away from consequences.
If Ren were at full strength, this fight wouldn't even exist. He knew that and Itachi knew it too.
Under normal circumstances, Ren would dominate.
Even with the Mangekyo Sharingan active, Itachi's overall level hovered around 84, solidly S-rank, dangerous, refined, lethal.
Ren's own level, if one insisted on believing it, sat at 80. On screen, that alone would suggest a disadvantage.
But such things had never mattered to him.
Ren's chakra reserves alone sat at 93, deep into Kage territory. His body was tempered by the Eight Gates, which were modified, stabilized and refined.
Chakra-enhanced strength flowed through his muscles as naturally as breathing. His mastery spread across too many fields to count properly: Taijutsu honed to brutality, sensory perception sharpened to surgical precision, sealing arts that bent rules, spatial techniques that defied intuition.
A normal S-ranker fighting Ren was like a seasoned swordsman dueling a storm.
However.
This was not a normal situation.
The spatial wound from Kamui still gnawed at him. It wasn't visible anymore as Tsunade's barrier held it in check but Ren could feel it every time he pushed chakra too hard, like something grinding inside his body, resisting the natural flow.
Worse still, every chakra battery clone he had prepared over the past year were gone. Used and consumed. Burned away in battle after battle.
For the first time in a long while, Ren could not afford to fight carelessly.
He could win.
But he couldn't brute-force it.
Across from him, Itachi stood calm, Mangekyō spinning slowly, cloak fluttering behind him. His expression was empty, not cold, not cruel, just… resolved. That alone told Ren everything he needed to know.
This Itachi was not acting out of impulse.
He was executing a conclusion.
They stared at each other in silence, chakra signatures pressing together like tectonic plates. Below them, the stone faces of Hashirama, Tobirama, Hiruzen and Minato watched, eternally unmoving witnesses to yet another turning point in the village's history.
Then something subtle happened.
Itachi's lips moved.
Barely.
No sound carried, no chakra flared. To anyone else, it would've looked like nothing more than a breath, a habit, an unconscious twitch.
But Ren saw it.
His eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second and then, unexpectedly, his serious expression cracked. A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth, slow and sharp, entirely out of place in the middle of a life-or-death confrontation. He didn't laugh or speak.
He simply nodded.
Barely.
His gaze flicked, not toward Itachi, not toward the village, but toward a deeper stretch of forest beyond the monument, where the canopy thickened and chakra signatures blurred into noise.
Itachi noticed.
For the first time since the clash began, a faint smile touched his lips as well.
The plan had worked.
And now, the biggest fish had bitten the bait.
~~~~~
{Oh dear… What is happening? I don't understand, do you? :)}