I had read about "Killing Intent" in textbooks. The Academy described it as a psychological projection of malice, a way to paralyze an opponent with fear before the first blow was struck.
They hadn't mentioned that it had a taste.
After Zabuza. After Orochimaru. After Gaara. I was going to have to petition for rewrites.
The air in the Tea District didn't taste like tea anymore. It tasted like copper and cold, stagnant water. It tasted like the bottom of a deep ocean where the light never reached.
We hit the edge of the canal district, lungs burning.
"Sasuke!" Naruto yelled, his voice cracking.
Sasuke didn't slow down. He was a blur of blue and white, tearing around the corner of a tea house, heading straight for the source of the pressure that was currently flattening the district's chakra ambience like a steamroller.
I scrambled after him, skidding on the wet cobblestones.
"Stop!" I hissed, grabbing Naruto's jacket as we rounded the bend. "Don't just run in! Look!"
We slammed into the wall of a noodle shop, using the corner for cover.
I peered around the edge.
The canal was usually a peaceful strip of water bisecting the commercial district. Now, it was a battlefield.
The water was churning, frothing white against the stone embankments. The mist was thick, unnatural, clinging to the surface like a shroud.
And standing on the water were monsters.
I recognized Asuma Sarutobi first. The Hokage's son was usually the picture of relaxed confidence, cigarette always present. Now, he was bleeding from a gash on his shoulder, his trench knives held in a defensive cross-guard. Kurenai Yuhi was beside him, her genjutsu stance trembling, her eyes wide with a fear I had never seen on a jōnin's face.
Opposite them stood the nightmares.
One was massive—a blue-skinned giant with gills on his neck and a sword wrapped in bandages that was larger than a human being. His chakra was... disgusting. It was vast, churning, and hungry. It felt like a flood of sewage.
Kisame Hoshigaki. The Monster of the Hidden Mist.
But it was the man beside him who made my blood turn to ice.
He was smaller. Slighter. His black cloak with the red clouds hung still, unaffected by the wind that whipped the water around them. He stood perfectly relaxed, one hand tucking inside the cloak, the other hanging loose.
His eyes were red.
Not the angry, spinning red of Sasuke's Sharingan. These eyes were a deep, blood-soaked crimson that looked like they had seen the end of the world and found it boring.
Itachi Uchiha.
"It's him," Sasuke whispered.
He was standing right next to me, but he sounded like he was a thousand miles away. His entire body was vibrating—a high-frequency tremor of rage and terror.
"Sasuke, wait," I whispered, gripping his arm. "Look at them. Look at the power gap. We can't—"
SPLASH.
Two figures landed on the water between the Konoha jōnin and the Akatsuki.
One was silver-haired, flak jacket familiar and comforting. Kakashi. He stood with his back to us, protective, his hitai-ate already raised to reveal the spinning Sharingan.
The other was Anko.
She didn't land gracefully. She hit the water with a splash that was pure aggression, sliding to a stop next to Kakashi. She wasn't smiling. She wasn't making quips. Her mesh armor gleamed in the overcast light, and snakes were already pouring from her sleeves, hissing and weaving around her limbs like living armor.
"Well," Kisame grinned, showing rows of triangular teeth. "More worms. And one of Orochimaru's leftovers."
Anko didn't flinch.
"The only thing getting left over," she snarled, "is the stain you leave on the water."
Kisame laughed. He swung the massive bandaged sword—Samehada. It didn't cut the air; it tore it. The sound was a shriek of displaced wind.
"Eat them, Samehada!"
He lunged.
The speed was impossible. For a man that size, moving that fast... it broke the laws of physics.
"Kurenai, back!" Kakashi shouted, water wall rising instantly.
Suiton: Water Wall.
Kisame's sword smashed into the water wall. But instead of crashing through it, the sword ate it. The bandages unraveled, revealing spikes that shredded the chakra, drinking the jutsu dry in a second.
The wall collapsed.
Kisame spun, carrying the momentum to decapitate Asuma.
HISSS.
Anko moved.
She didn't try to block the sword. She stepped inside the swing range, ducking under the massive blade with a flexibility that made my own spine ache.
"Striking Shadow Snakes!"
Three massive vipers shot from her right sleeve, wrapping around Kisame's wrist and the hilt of Samehada. They bit down, fangs sinking into the bandages.
"Get off!" Kisame roared, yanking his sword back.
The snakes held for a split second—just enough time for Asuma to dodge the backswing.
Anko was yanked into the air by the force of Kisame's retraction, but she twisted mid-flight, landing on the water surface ten feet away, skidding backward.
"He drains chakra on contact!" Anko shouted, panting. "Don't let that oversized nail file touch you!"
"Noted," Kakashi said grimly.
He was staring at Itachi.
Itachi hadn't moved. He was just watching, those red eyes shifting slightly to track Anko's landing.
"Kakashi Hatake," Itachi said. His voice was soft, polite, and terrifyingly calm. "And Anko Mitarashi. It is unfortunate that we meet."
"Is it?" Kakashi asked, voice tight. "You came to my village. You attacked my comrades. I don't call that unfortunate. I call it a death sentence."
Itachi closed his eyes for a moment.
"We are not here for war," he said. "We are here for the legacy of the Fourth."
Kakashi stiffened.
"Naruto," he whispered.
Beside me, Naruto gasped. "Me?"
I clamped a hand over his mouth. "Shut up," I hissed. "Don't give away our position."
"I advise you to step aside," Itachi said. He opened his eyes. The pattern in the iris changed. The three tomoe spun and melted, forming a black, triangular pinwheel.
The Mangekyō Sharingan.
"Kakashi!" Anko warned, sensing the buildup. "Don't look at his eyes!"
"I have to," Kakashi muttered. "I'm the only one who can resist it."
He stared back.
For a second, nothing happened. The world seemed to hold its breath. The water stopped rippling. The wind died.
Then Kakashi screamed.
It wasn't a scream of pain. It was a scream of a mind shattering.
He collapsed forward, hitting the water face-first.
"KAKASHI!" Asuma yelled.
"No," I breathed.
It had been an instant. Less than a second. But Kakashi's chakra... it felt like it had been tortured for days. It was frayed, gray, flickering out.
Anko froze. She looked at Kakashi's floating body, then at Itachi.
Her curse mark flared—I saw her hand fly to her neck, saw her knees buckle as the resonance hit her.
"You..." Anko gritted out, forcing herself to stand. "You Uchiha freak."
Itachi turned his gaze to her.
"You are loud," he said.
"ITACHIIIIIIII!"
The scream tore my eardrums.
It didn't come from the water. It came from beside me.
Sasuke exploded from our cover.
"Sasuke, no!" I lunged for him, but I grabbed empty air.
He was already gone. He charged across the water, blue chakra trailing behind him like comet tails. His Chidori chirped to life in his hand—the sound of a thousand birds screaming for blood.
"I'LL KILL YOU!"
He aimed for Itachi's chest. The lightning was blinding, focused, lethal.
Itachi didn't dodge.
He simply raised his hand.
He caught Sasuke's wrist.
The Chidori died instantly. The lightning sputtered and vanished, absorbed or grounded, I couldn't tell.
Sasuke hung there, suspended in the air by his brother's grip. His eyes were wide, the Sharingan spinning frantically.
"You are weak," Itachi said.
He didn't sound angry. He sounded bored.
CRACK.
The sound of the bone breaking was louder than the lightning had been.
Sasuke screamed.
Itachi twisted the broken wrist, then delivered a kick to Sasuke's stomach that folded him in half.
Sasuke flew backward, skipping across the water like a stone, and slammed into the stone embankment wall. He crumpled onto the narrow walkway, coughing blood.
"Sasuke!" Naruto roared.
He jumped out from cover.
"NARUTO!" I shrieked. "STOP!"
I scrambled out after him. We were exposed. We were on the walkway, twenty feet from the monsters.
Kisame turned toward us. His grin widened, stretching the gills on his neck.
"Well," the shark-man rumbled. "The Nine-Tails saves us the trouble of searching."
He stepped toward Naruto, raising Samehada.
"I'll take the legs, Itachi. Make him easier to carry."
Naruto froze. He tried to summon chakra, tried to find the red power, but the killing intent rolling off Kisame was so heavy it was physically suffocating him.
"Move," I whispered to myself. "Move, move, move."
My legs wouldn't work. My chakra was a stagnant pond. I was watching death walk toward us in a blue skin suit.
Then a blur of gray and mesh slammed into the pavement between us and Kisame.
Anko.
She stood with her back to us, arms spread wide. She was panting. Blood trickled from her nose. Her legs were shaking so hard I could hear her knee guards rattling.
"Don't," she wheezed.
Kisame stopped, looking amused.
"You want to die first?" he asked.
"You don't touch them," Anko said. Her voice was trembling, but it was loud. "You don't touch my students."
She summoned snakes from both sleeves—dozens of them, a writhing wall of fangs and scales.
"Run!" she screamed at us over her shoulder. "Get out of here!"
"Anko-sensei..." Naruto whispered.
Itachi stepped up beside Kisame. He looked at Anko. He looked at the snakes.
He raised one finger.
"Brave," Itachi said. "But foolish."
He didn't need a jutsu. The air pressure dropped. The genjutsu was already taking hold—I could feel the edges of my vision darkening, could taste the metallic tang of the Tsukuyomi bleeding into reality.
Anko flinched, her eyes losing focus.
"No," she mumbled. "Not... again..."
Kisame lifted the sword. The bandages unraveled, the spikes glinting in the gray light.
"Goodbye," Kisame said.
He swung.
I closed my eyes. I reached for a seal—any seal—knowing it wouldn't be fast enough.
KABOOM.
The impact didn't feel like a sword.
It felt like a meteor.
The ground jumped three feet into the air. Water from the canal geysered upward, drenching us all in a sudden, violent rain.
A shockwave of dust and pulverized stone knocked me flat on my back.
I coughed, waving my hand in front of my face, trying to see through the debris cloud.
"What..." Naruto coughed beside me.
The dust cleared slowly.
Standing in the crater, blocking the path between the Akatsuki and us, was a wall of warts and orange skin.
A toad.
Not a small one. A massive one, the size of a tank, wearing a kimono and wielding two swords.
Gamahiro.
And standing on top of the toad's head, looking down at the Akatsuki with a face like thunder, was Jiraiya.
He wasn't smiling. He wasn't doing a pose. He wasn't the pervert who peeked into bathhouses or stole dango.
His white mane was bristling with chakra. The air around him distorted with heat. He looked like what he was: a Sannin. A legend. A man who could flatten a mountain if he was in a bad mood.
And right now, he looked very, very open to flattening something.
"You two," Jiraiya said. His voice was low, scraping like a tectonic plate.
He looked at Kisame. Then he looked at Itachi.
Then he looked down at the broken bodies of Kakashi and Sasuke, and Anko standing there shaking.
"What the fuck," Jiraiya growled, "are you doing to my students?"
The profanity hung in the air, heavy and sharp.
Kisame took a step back. For the first time, the grin slipped.
"The Toad Sage," Kisame muttered. "He's... bigger than the pictures."
Itachi didn't step back, but his relaxed posture vanished. He shifted his weight, eyes locking onto Jiraiya.
"Jiraiya-sama," Itachi said.
"Don't 'sama' me, you traitorous little shit," Jiraiya spat. "You step one inch closer to that boy, and I will bury you so deep the roots won't find you."
He clapped his hands together. The sound was like a gunshot.
"Earth Style: Dark Swamp!"
The ground beneath the Akatsuki liquefied instantly, turning into a churning pit of black mud.
Kisame cursed, leaping backward to avoid sinking.
Itachi moved with him, landing lightly on a railing. He glanced at Jiraiya, then at the unconscious Kakashi, then at Naruto.
He calculated. I could see it in his eyes. He measured the chakra expenditure, the risk, the time.
"Kisame," Itachi said.
"We can take him," Kisame argued, gripping Samehada. "He's old."
"He is a Sannin," Itachi corrected coldly. "And we have used too much chakra. The village reinforcements are en route. If we stay, we will be bogged down. The mission is compromised."
He looked at Naruto one last time.
Naruto glared back, terrified but defiant, Kurama's red chakra leaking from his knuckles.
"We are leaving," Itachi said.
"Tch," Kisame scoffed. He sheathed the massive sword. "Fine. Lucky brats."
They flickered.
No smoke. No dramatic exit. They just moved so fast the eye couldn't track it, vanishing into the gray maze of the village.
The pressure lifted instantly.
The killing intent evaporated, leaving only the smell of ozone and wet mud.
Jiraiya jumped down from the toad. He didn't chase them. He prioritized.
He landed next to Anko, catching her just as her knees finally gave out.
"Easy," Jiraiya said, lowering her to the ground. "Breathe, Anko. They're gone."
He looked at Kakashi, floating face-down in the water.
"Get him out!" Jiraiya barked at Asuma, who was already wading in.
I scrambled over to Sasuke.
He was curled against the wall, clutching his wrist. His eyes were open, but they were staring at nothing. He was trembling—violent, full-body shakes that rattled his teeth.
"Sasuke?" I whispered.
I reached for him.
He flinched so hard he slammed his head against the stone.
"No," he whimpered. "Not enough... not enough hate..."
I pulled out the jar of ointment Hinata had given me. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped it.
"It's okay," I said, my voice cracking. "They're gone. We're here."
I looked up at Jiraiya.
He was kneeling over Kakashi, checking a pulse. His face was grim.
"We need a medic," Jiraiya said. "Now."
I looked at the devastation. The strongest ninja I knew—Kakashi, Asuma, Kurenai, Anko—all broken in less than five minutes. By two men.
I looked at the sky. It was still blue. The world hadn't ended.
But looking at the gap between where we stood and where Itachi stood... it felt like the sky was a million miles away.
And we were stuck in the dirt.