Clone feedback was always a bitch. The memories slammed like a fist to the temple.
I was used by now of the dizzying rush of information flooding my brain all at once. Like trying to download a file while someone was shaking your skull like a snow globe.
Half of me wanted to be annoyed. The other half was grudgingly impressed.
Guy-sensei might not be cut out for espionage, but he could think on his feet. By eliminating my clone that quickly, he'd removed the possibility of an immediate fight. No escalation. No bloodshed in the middle of the Uchiha district, where civilians might get caught in the crossfire.
It was tactically sound.
I respected Guy-sensei. I really did. The man was a powerhouse, a genius in his own right, even if people dismissed him because he couldn't use ninjutsu or genjutsu. He'd turned his limitations into weapons, forged himself into a terrifying beast through sheer willpower and discipline.
But right now? Right now, I was pissed.
Because he'd just outmaneuvered without breaking a sweat, and I knew it was the right call. The smart call. The responsible call.
And I truly disliked being on the receiving end of responsible calls.
I landed on a chimney of a rooftop near the outskirts of the village, my feet hitting the tiles with barely a sound.
The location was perfect. Close to the inner training grounds. Near the village wall. Far enough from the residential areas that collateral damage could be mitigated, but close enough to the forest outside that either of us could move the fight there if things went south. Not that I wanted a fight, but you never know.
Itachi stood a few meters away, leaning back against a slanted, weathered vent with his arms crossed and his eyes closed. Relaxed. Unbothered. Like he was waiting for a friend to show up for tea, not squaring off against someone who wanted to rearrange his face.
I straightened, brushing imaginary dust off my jacket, and grinned.
"So," I called out. "Round two, or are we skipping straight to the dramatic monologues?"
Itachi's eyes slowly opened.
The Sharingan spun lazily, those three tomoe swirling like blood in water. His gaze dragged over me lazily before settling on my forehead.
On the paper seal I'd slapped there.
I smiled wider and tapped the seal with two fingers. "Don't mind this. I know it's not exactly fashionable, but it keeps the evil spirits away. You know how it is."
As if on cue, the buzz hit me. A sharp, electric jolt that crackled through my brain and down to my fingertips.
The seal was something I'd prepared a while ago. A contingency plan for scenarios exactly like this one, where I'd be going up against someone whose genjutsu could turn my brain into scrambled eggs before I even realized I was under.
It wasn't elegant. Hell, it wasn't even good. But it worked.
The principle was simple, disrupt the chakra flow in my brain every five seconds with a targeted burst of energy. The seal would fire a concentrated shot of chakra into two major tenketsu, Kaimon and Kyuumon, jolting my system hard enough to break most genjutsu.
Most.
Not Tsukuyomi. Probably not anything Itachi really wanted to trap me in. But the normal stuff? The battlefield illusions he'd use to disorient me mid-fight? Yeah. Those would get shattered before they could take root.
The downsides, though? Plentiful.
For one, it hurt like hell. Every five seconds, my brain got zapped with enough chakra to make my teeth ache and my vision blur for half a second. It was like sticking a fork in an electrical socket on a timer.
For another, I couldn't maintain any jutsu that required sustained chakra control for longer than five seconds. Anything complex was off the table. The burst would disrupt my flow and collapse the technique before I could finish it.
And then there was the aesthetic issue. I looked like a jiangshi. A hopping corpse. Some kind of low-budget horror movie extra with a talisman slapped on my forehead to keep me from eating people's souls.
I'd initially wanted to hide the seal somewhere less obvious, like the Tomon tenketsu in my abdomen, but that came with its own problems. Genjutsu worked by disrupting the chakra flow in the brain. Putting the seal lower meant the response time would be slower, and in a fight against someone like Itachi, slower meant dead.
So forehead it was.
And because I had no way of knowing when I was under a genjutsu, because that was the whole point of genjutsu, I'd rigged the seal to fire automatically. Every five seconds.
Which meant I was fighting with one hand tied behind my back and a live wire taped to my skull.
But against Itachi, I didn't have much choice.
Buzz.
The jolt ripped through me again, and I had to clench my jaw to keep from flinching.
Itachi was still watching me, his expression unreadable. But there was a flicker of something in his eyes, interest, maybe. Or amusement.
It annoyed the hell out of me.
Still. I'd just beaten him at his own game with the clone feint. That gave me a little bit of satisfaction. I'd settle for that. It was good enough.
Itachi opened his mouth, his voice calm and measured. "A confrontation here would be... disadvantageous for you. You're aware of that."
"Aw." I snorted. "That's so touching. Here I thought you were all business, and now you're worried about little old me?"
His Sharingan didn't blink. Didn't waver.
I couldn't help but marvel at how beautiful the damn things were. I only saw Izumi's twice; from then on, I gained a preference for a type of woman that cannot be beat. Hers were like rubies set in porcelain, spinning with an elegance that—
Buzz.
—fuck.
The shock punched through my skull, and I coughed, shaking my head. "Right. Yeah. Not the expected lines." I tilted my head, letting my grin sharpen into something harder. "What I should say is—you started this, Itachi. You barred my way. You cast a genjutsu with the intention of intimidation, like I'm some rogue shinobi deserving less respect than a rat. And now you want to sweep it all under a rug? You're getting cold feet?" My smile dropped. "Funny how that works."
Truthfully, I really, really didn't want to fight.
I'd just gotten out of the hospital. My left leg still ached with every step. The burns along my left side—shoulder to chest—were still healing, the skin tight and angry beneath the bandages.
I wasn't in peak condition. I wasn't even in decent condition.
And fighting Itachi fucking Uchiha while half-broken? That was a recipe for disaster.
Sadly, you rarely get to choose your battles. Most of the time, they choose you.
And frankly, I was pissed.
Pissed that he'd cornered me. Pissed that he'd looked at me like I was something beneath him. Pissed that he thought he could just intimidate me into submission with some Anbu theatrics and a half-thought-out genjutsu.
Itachi's voice cut through my thoughts. "Your skills may be notable, Eishin. But they're not enough. Not here. Not now." His gaze shifted slightly, glancing in the direction Guy-sensei would inevitably arrive from. "The village is keeping its eyes on you. They're waiting for you to make a mistake. One wrong move, and everything you've built will collapse." He paused, letting the words sink in. "Are you willing to make that mistake?"
The sheer arrogance in his tone, the way he looked like I was a dog that needed to be reminded of its leash…...
I laughed. Not a polite chuckle. A full, outraged bark of laughter that echoed across the rooftops.
"You really can't help it….." I shook my head, still grinning. "You try so hard to distance yourself from the clan. To look down on them and their arrogance. But when it comes right down to it….. Your arrogance — you've got them beat. Uchiha through and through."
Buzz. The jolt flared through, and I welcomed it this time. Let it feed the anger.
Itachi's expression shifted, just slightly. A tightening around his eyes.
I'd hit a nerve. Of course, I would. His clan was his first source of stress.
"Arrogance," he said quietly, "is a poor substitute for conviction."
I raised an eyebrow. "Conviction? Is that what you call it?" I sneered. "Stalking the girl you love like some obsessed creep? The Uchiha prodigy, everyone! He can't even work up the nerve to ask a girl out?"
"…"
The sky above us began to darken. The faint breeze that had been rustling the tiles went silent. The world turned red, crimson light bleeding across the rooftops like spilled paint.
Buzz.
The genjutsu shattered.
I sneered. "Really?"
Itachi tilted his head —
That's when Guy-sensei arrived.
He landed between us with the grace of a meteor, his fist slamming into the tiles hard enough to crack them. "Whoa there, youthful rivals! If you're so eager to clash, let's make it five hundred laps around the village first! Burn that fire productively!"
Rock Lee appeared beside him, striking the same pose. "Yes! I'll do a thousand in solidarity, Guy-sensei! To honor the flames of youth!"
I wanted to take a bit of time and apologize to Guy-sensei after he had risked his mission to inform me of his spying. I really did. But I couldn't take my eyes off Itachi.
Guy-sensei must've sensed the tension because his booming voice softened. "Now, now. There's no need for this. We can all train together and—"
"Love," Itachi said, his voice lazy and cold. He uncrossed his arms, straightening up but still managing to look completely relaxed. "What could you possibly know about love, Eishin?"
Buzz.
I forced myself to stay still.
Itachi continued. "You, who has never known the weight of it. A pointless thing that drifts from one warm body to another, laughably trying to fill that cold hole in your chest, mistaking fleeting intimacy for connection." He tilted his head, his Sharingan spinning slowly. "You're hollow. And no amount of carnal and shallow affection will ever fill that void."
The silence that followed was deafening.
Guy-sensei cleared his throat. "Hey, that's not the spirit of camaraderie! Words like that sting worse than a thousand bee stings!"
He turned to face me fully, his big smile dropping a notch. His hand rose in a placating gesture, like I was a wild animal he didn't want to spook.
"Eishin, my boy," he said carefully. "Don't let those barbs dim your youthful glow. You've got heart—big as the village gates! Take a deep breath and cal—"
"I'm calm, Guy-sensei." I forced my face into a smile. It was hard, but unclenching my teeth was harder. "Totally calm. See?"
Guy didn't look convinced. "Eishin, I know you're upset, but—"
Buzz.
I met Itachi's eyes across the distance.
And I saw it. The satisfaction. The smug certainty that he'd won this round.
Oh, that is how it is….
Less than a second. That's all it took to close the distance between me and Guy-sensei, my hands already forming seals.
Guy's smile widened. "Ah! So we're finally having that spar we promised!"
He was fast. Faster than me. His specialty was taijutsu, and it showed. We exchanged four blows in the span of a heartbeat—my fist against his open palm, my knee against his forearm, my elbow deflected by his shoulder.
I was already on the back foot.
But I wasn't trying to win.
I just needed him gone.
I took a hit—a palm strike to my ribs that would've cracked bone if he'd put his full weight behind it—and used the momentum to drive my own palm into his side.
Marks spread across his green suit, black ink spiraling out from where I'd touched him.
"Sorry, Guy," I said. "You've well deserved this vacation — Reverse Summoning Jutsu!"
Guy-sensei's smile widened. "Ah! W—"
And then he vanished in a puff of smoke.
Rock Lee shouted something, but I grabbed his arm mid-leap and hurled him off the roof. "Sorry, Kouhai! This one's above your pay grade!"
The whole exchange lasted less than a second. Less of that. One second felt longer
I didn't stop. Didn't slow. I was on Itachi in a blink.
Kunai met with a sharp ding, sparks flying as metal scraped against metal. We moved in tandem, a brutal, precise dance of strikes and parries. With Guy-sensei, I'd been outmatched. But with Itachi?
I was holding my own. Better than holding my own.
I pushed him back, step by step, forcing him toward the edge of the roof. My injuries weren't flaring the way I'd expected—probably adrenaline doing its job—but I didn't trust it to last.
I swept low with my leg, forcing him back, and splayed my fingers.
A blue orb formed in my palm, swirling and whistling with raw energy.
Itachi's eyes widened—just slightly—and he leapt back.
But that's when two hands broke through the tiles and grabbed his ankles.
My clone. Waiting beneath the roof.
"Not so fast," I said, lunging forward.
Itachi's hands snapped together, forming the first seal of the Great Fireball Jutsu.
What the—
We were still in the village. There were people here.
I pushed more chakra into my legs, driving myself forward faster.
Itachi was already on the second seal by the time I reached him. He was that fast. And he was proficient in the jutsu to only need four seals instead of the standard six.
I brought the Rasengan down—
—and a hand caught my wrist.
Another Itachi. From the left.
A clone. He'd had clones ready before the fight even started.
Of course he did.
But I'd expected this.
I moved my free hand, forming a single seal.
Itachi's clones were connected to his summons—the crows he used to stalk Izumi. A swarm. A murder, technically. And they weren't individual summons. They were linked. One entity split into many.
That was where my preparations came in. Preparation in the form of a jutsu shiki marked dango. A dango I had given as an offering.
I prayed it would work.
I activated the seal.
The clone froze for a fraction of a second before bursting into crows that dissolved into smoke. It worked. I didn't have the time to celebrate.
My hand came free.
But Itachi had already finished his jutsu.
He took a deep breath. "Fire Style: Great Fireball!"
I drove my hand down. "Rasengan!"
We called at the same time.
Time slowed.
The fire bloomed in front of me, a wall of heat and light that would consume everything in its path.
The Rasengan collided with him, the rotating sphere of chakra grinding against his abdomen.
This…. is stupid, I thought distantly. Mutual destruction. What the hell am I doing?
It was ironic, really. Strip away all the justifications, and we were essentially fighting over a girl. Izumi would be sad if this bastard died. I didn't want that.
But the orb connected, and fire spread across my vision, and—
Buzz.
I blinked. I was back.
Standing on the chimney. Guy-sensei and Rock Lee in front of me. Itachi leaning against the weathered vent with his arms crossed, his lips slowly curving into a slow, self-satisfying smile.
Oh.
I'd been played. It was a genjutsu.
The whole fucking thing.
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