(December, year 54 AK)
Yuta hastily started making hand seals for another cast of his Shadow Chains, but as he formed the first seal, he already knew that he wouldn't make it in time.
Ryota, while injured and having a crazed look on his face, had rushed at him with a speed he didn't possess before, seemingly abandoning all defense, all care in the world and all reason.
As Ryota came closer, he swung his kunai and plunged it into Yuta's chest with a lot of excessive force, although he didn't feel the texture of his kunai piercing flesh, but he felt instead as kunai struck something hard, like wood.
In the next instant, Yuta puffed into smoke, revealing a wooden log instead, while the real Yuta appeared some distance away from Ryota, and Ryota immediately rushed at him, continuing his attack immediately, abandoning his kunai that had stuck deep in the wooden log, he pulled another one from his ninja tool pouch instead.
'Damn, he is fast...' Yuta thought as he once again tried to complete his Shadow Chains genjutsu, but again he noticed that he wouldn't make it in time. The Shadow Chains genjutsu was the most difficult and complex jutsu in his arsenal so far, and despite years of practice with it, it still requires a whole three hand seals and more time than any other jutsu Yuta has.
'I could just use Shadow Cloak instead, it would be enough against him, and I can perform it fast enough and without hand seals, but...' Yuta thought as he pulled a kunai and blocked Ryota's kunai while using chakra to boost his speed and strength to the limits of his ability, but even then, he was instantly almost overwhelmed by Ryota's crazed and wild attacks that he threw at Yuta one after another.
'I can't continue like that, in close combat he would just overwhelm me in a few more seconds.' Yuta thought as he blocked another Ryota's swing with his own kunai, although he almost missed that attack this time, 'He is in some state of frenzy, and I don't have enough time to perform Shadow Chains like that. I don't want to reveal another genjutsu right now, since I was trying to make Keisuke to believe that I only have Shadow Chains and nothing else... Well, there is only one good strategy remains in this situation, I guess...'
After thinking that, Yuta used the momentum and strength of Ryota's own attack to jump a bit back, briefly disengaging from the close combat. And as Yuta gained a bit of distance, he immediately used that brief moment to form another hand seal, and as his feet touched the ground, he used Body Flicker jutsu to flicker right behind Hikari, who stood some distance away, observing the fight.
"A little help would be nice." Yuta immediately said to Hikari, not even waiting for his disorientation to fade.
"Tsk. You came here, ruined my fun, and in the end, you can't even handle a single enemy?" Hikari said coldly, but in the next instant she was already engaging Ryota with her sword.
'Yay, teamwork! Why should I struggle against that guy who lost all his marbles when I have teammates here with me, right?' Yuta thought jokingly, while he looked at Ryota after his disorientation had faded, getting ready to finally use his Shadow Chains again.
As for Hikari's cold remark, Yuta ignored it and he didn't cared one bit, he believed that actions speaks louder than words, and in the end, Hikari did took action when he asked her, and previously she had followed his lead when he signaled her to take care of Daichi, in Yuta's mind Hikari was reliable when it matters.
As Hikari was holding off Ryota, not letting him move any closer to Yuta, Yuta formed the series of hand seals and finally cast his Shadow Chains on Ryota, and Ryta's movements suddenly stopped. Hikari, without missing an opportunity, instantly stabbed Ryota in the chest with her sword, piercing his heart the same way as she did with Daichi and pulled out her sword afterwards.
"AAAHHH!" Ryota screamed loudly with hatred and unwillingness, but he quickly lost all his strength, his scream gradually faded and as jutsu stopped, his body fell on the ground.
'Damn, holding onto him with my genjutsu was much harder that with Maki or Daichi just before, maybe the mental state is really matters a lot with genjutsu, and people in the extreme mental states like that have temporarily increased genjutsu resistance...' Yuta thought as he was trying to regulate his rapid breathing, he had used up quite a lot of chakra with Ryota, much more than he should've normally.
'I had used up about sixty percent of my chakra already, Shadow Chains requires a lot of chakra, and this unexpected additional chakra consumption with Ryota... I had casted the Shadow Chains three times already, one on Maki, it took about 6G out of 53G I currently possess, with all additional jutsus and moves with Maki, I used up another 1G, so I had about 46G of chakra when I moved towards Hikari's fight.'
'Shadow Chains on Daichi costed me another 8G, then I used some chakra on boosting my body moves with to defend against Ryota, with the Substitution jutsu and Body Flicker jutsu in the mix, I used another 4G of chakra, mainly during the short taijutsu exchange with Ryota, leaving me with 34G of chakra when I used Shadow Chains on Ryota, it unexpectedly costed me 14G of chakra, leaving me with just 20G now.'
'Spending so much chakra in such a short amount of time is quite exhausting...' Yuta thought as he was struggling to regulate and slow down his rapid breathing.
'I can't even imagine how much chakra Naruto is using up all the time in the original story, with his Multi Shadow Clone jutsu he was probably spending hundreds of G of chakra each time when he creates a bunch of shadow clones, if not thousands of G... He is a true monster alright...'
Yuta's body felt much heavier, like after a long training session, but still, Yuta knew that he could continue for a while like that, so he wasn't worried too much.
Besides, his plan for dealing with Keisuke this time is to rely on his teammates, and just to find a good opening to use his Shadow Cloak to make Keisuke stumble just a bit, just enough for Itachi and Hikari to finish him off, or something like that.
"Are you tired already? Don't worry, you can rest while we finish that last guy without you." Hikari said coldly and a bit mockingly.
'She is definitely pissed at me for interfering with her fight, huh...' Yuta thought as he gathered his remaining strength and looked in Itachi's direction.
"What are you talking about? Let's go." Yuta said, and both of them quickly ran to help Itachi.
As Yuta approached the fight, he noticed that the ground was in a much worse state than the last time he got here in the previous timeline, there is rocks and holes everywhere, with occasional flames still burning, and not a single intact patch of grass in the area remained unscathed. Itachi looked more tired than that last time in a different timeline when Yuta got there, although he was still fighting and he was still uninjured.
Keisuke noticed Yuta and Hikari approaching, his face darkened as he said, "I can't believe it, those three idiots got themselves killed by a bunch of kids...", Keisuke's eyes turned cold as he looked at Yuta and Hikari, as he said with hatred, "You will pay for this, don't even dream about getting out of here alive!"
Hikari immediately moved to engage Keisuke in close combat and to support Itachi, while Yuta remained a bit behind, circling around Keisuke, looking for an opening.
Keisuke changed his tactics, and if before he was slowly and gradually overpowering Itachi using his superior experience and honed through the decades skills and combat tactics, while being not in a hurry to finish the fight. But now everything has changed.
Keisuke's demeanor became colder, an extreme hatred and determination now in his eyes as he unleashed one big ninjutsu after another. Whenever Itachi was throwing a Fire Style ninjutsu at him – he blocked it swiftly and efficiently with a stone wall. Whenever Hikari engaged in a close combat, Keisuke would overpower her with superior strength, speed, and skills to push her back.
And in the middle of all that he still finds time to throw his own ninjutsus at the three of them from time to time, forcing them to defend themselves or dodge.
'Just how much chakra does he have?' Yuta thought in surprise.
From time to time Yuta tried to throw shurikens at Keisuke, and one time he even used a kunai with a paper tag bomb wrapped around the handle, but Keisuke was able to block or dodge everything with ease, while simultaneously fighting Itachi and Hikari as well.
With how quick-paced and deadly the fight was going, Yuta understood that without Itachi and Hikari by his side he would be dead many times over. If Itachi and Hikari weren't pushing Keisuike this hard all the time, one move specifically targeting Yuta would be enough to kill him outright, Yuta realized.
'This is the level of a proper Jonin...' Yuta thought as he used Body Flicker to avoid another wide range Earth Style ninjutsu that was targeting mainly Itachi and Hikari, and only a small bit of it flew in Yuta's direction, but that was already enough for him to force him into using the Body Flicker jutsu on the edge of his capabilities and speed, for Yuta to dodge the jutsu just barely.
Hikari was also struggling quite a lot during this fight. Without Itachi here, she would be crushed in just a few moves from Keisuke, if they were specifically targeting her without Itachi's interference.
'I can't believe that this is the level of just a regular-ass Jonin, who would be nothing more than a cannon-fodder against true powerhouses of this world...' Yuta thought in a bit of shock. Yuta knew the true power scale of this world, but knowing and seeing with his own eyes the true extent of the power level that is called – Jonin, it's two completely different things.
Although Yuta already had fought Shisui during his training, that was completely different. Whenever he fought Shisui, he wasn't able to see the true extent of Shisui's power, and he also knew that Shisui was on a completely different level, with his Mangekyo Sharingan he was already on the level of a Kage, there is no way for Yuta to gauge Shisui's true power.
But right now, things are different. As Yuta already fought Keisuke once before and was outright killed by Keisuke's casual kick, like he was swatting a fly out of the way, and now, participating in a fight against Keisuke together with Itachi and Hikari, only now Yuta was able to truly understand what the actual meaning of the word "Jonin" is.
'It's terrifying...' He thought.
--- AN ---
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