Unescapable Combat

A/N: It's weird writing chapters where the Main Cast arent doing the fighting. Fun all the same though.

Ino looked up as her eyes contorted. "Red smoke… They're in trouble, we need to hurry up." The Squad Leader nodded as he proceeded to rush everyone as they approached the location the smoke was over. However, as everyone was traveling they heard an ear-wrenching scream. "Aagh!"

Hearing the scream only caused the Squad to move faster until finally, they arrived. Jumping from the trees onto the ground they all drew their weapons and observed the situation. Breathing heavily on the ground, one of the Anbu they sent ahead was mentally exhausted. "Hey, are you alright?"

Ino bent down and checked the Anbu's status while her eyes locked onto the two figures standing in front of them. "What are they doing here…" Standing not too far away were both Itachi and Kisame. While Itachi stared at the Squad Kisame only smiled. Still standing clinging to dear life was the second Anbu member sent ahead.

His entire body had been run clean through with Kisame's sword. "Help…" All of them heard their light cry for help as Kisame began running chakra through his blade. Ripping through the bandages wrapped around the sword, multiple shark-like scales appeared. As Kisame pulled his blade from the Anbu's stomach these scales ripped out chunks of his body.

"You bastards…" Seemingly ignoring the curses of the Anbu Black Ops squad, Itachi addresses them all. "It seems you're all quite competent even among the Anbu. Your comrade there managed to stay conscious after being subjected to my Genjutsu. Impressive to say the least." Glancing at Itachi Ino recognized him immediately. 'Itachi Uchiha… Sasuke's brother and a member of the Akatsuki.'

"You two are members of the Akatsuki, right? Kisame one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist and Itachi of the Uchiha Clan?" Kisame took a step forward and gave out a greeting. "A pleasure." Hearing the confirmation Ino slowly helped the mentally exhausted Anbu member retreat behind the group before talking to the Squad Leader.

"We need to immediately retreat there's no way we can fight them with our numbers." The Squad Leader agreed and nodded as he sent a signal to the Anbu behind him. But before they could even take a step they saw Itachi's figure disappear into a flock of crows. "I'm afraid retreat is impossible."

Turning their heads quickly they saw Itachi had appeared behind them showing he planned to stop them from running. 'This is bad, really, really bad. Even if we do manage to escape I doubt all of us will make it if any.' Glancing toward the Squad Leader, Ino saw he had the same thought process as her.

"We have no choice, we have to fight." Everyone breathed in heavily as they heard Kisame take a step forward as Itachi spoke. "I'm afraid we'll have to cut your conversation short. We still have a job to do, Kisame so let's end this quickly." Shifting his blade as he prepared to attack Kisame responded. "Right."

The pressure of being trapped between two S-Rank ninjas fell on the group as Ino took a deep breath. "I'm best at close range fighting. If you can all focus on Itachi I can try to hold off Kisame. The moment a chance appears, run." In all hindsight distracting Kisame alone would be suicide however it would give the others a chance to escape.

Considering the well-being of everyone the Squad Leader gave off a hesitant nod. "Alright." Hearing them agree Ino took a deep breath before initiating. Breaking into a dash towards Kisame she began gathering Chakra into one of her fists. "Hya!" Seeing she was coming in for a direct confrontation Kisame began to raise his blade to block.

But the moment Ino got in close he felt his entire train of thought become disrupted. The entire concept of blocking left his mind just for a split second. And in turn, his entire body froze giving Ino an opening. 'Got him.' Aiming straight for his head Ino didn't hold back an ounce of her strength. "Huh!"

Snapping out of it Kisame tilted his head just slightly as he felt Ino's fist scrape across his face. "Well, that's an interesting little trick." Kisame's eyes locked onto Ino as he began to move, swinging his sword in full force. Once again like before he felt as if his mind had gone blank. And in the period Ino moved her entire body to avoid the attack while jumping back.

Digging into the pouch around her waist she pulled out a Kunai with an explosive tag attached to the end and threw it at the ground beneath Kisame. In a chain reaction, the paper tag on the Kunai burned out and exploded with full force. The shockwave caused everyone to brace themselves as Ino landed on the ground.

"I advise you don't get distracted by your teammate. She's doing this to let you all escape isn't she?" The Anbu had all their attention rerouted back onto Itachi as they all avoided his eyes. "Take him down!" Issuing an order the Squad Leader and all those behind began to attack. And so a fight between the two sides commenced.

However, inside of the Soul Society, an alert had also been sent. "Reporting!" Running into Rei's office a man dressed in simplistic clothing was panting and out of breath. Sitting in Rei's office was Shisui who was carrying a stack of papers. "Didn't we tell you to redirect all reports to the Council room unless they were urgent?"

The messenger showed a look of concern as he spoke. "Forgive but this is important! We need Head Captain Rei's approval to act." Shisui's eyes narrowed slightly. "He's currently investigating the West Wing for abnormalities he won't return for a while. What exactly is going on?" Placing the papers down the messenger began to explain.

"There has been a disturbance spotted outside of the wall near the north. Smoke and sounds of explosions are being reported back; it might be a possible attack." Hearing that last part, Shisui's body straightened up. "An attack?" The only force close to the wall surrounding the Soul Society was the Leaf; they knew that for a fact even if their knowledge of outside occurrence was lacking.

'The Leaf wouldn't instigate an attack on Rei, would they? After seeing what he can do it would be a foolish decision especially with Danzo no longer manipulating things behind the scenes. Something else then?' Shisui's mind raced as the messenger pressed him. "So what should we do in response?"

Putting his hand on his chin Shisui thought to himself for a moment. "Contact Lieutenant Fuyumi along with Captain Zabuza and his Lieutenant Haku. Make sure they bring a squad along with them just in case. This takes top priority and goes before even Hollow extermination. I'll contact Rei myself." Having received orders the messenger nodded. "Yes Sir!"

With that, the messenger ran off and within five minutes the messages were prepared to be sent out. Of all three people, Shusui mentioned Fuyumi happened to be the closest. One of the largest buildings in the Soul Society was a tower that acted as the training center for the upcoming Shinigami.

On Fuyumi's floor, there was a match between two Shinigami in training to happen in the middle of the dojo-like arena. Watching from her placemat not too far away, Fuyumi was lying on her side. 'So bored…' Yawning Fuyumi continued to observe the two competitors fight one another. 'I thought managing my own class would be fun but all of them are so… Average.'

Of course, even if she didn't say it out loud the students off to the side watching the two students fight could see Fuyumi wasn't impressed. For them, this was an important lesson and a chance to impress a Lieutenant but not a single one of them could get her attention. "She's really harsh when it comes to judging huh…"

The students whispered among one another and it was only as Fuyumi laid there that she saw a flash of light fly through one of the open windows of the floor. "Huh?" Holding out her hand she intercepted the light as it disappeared. Immediately the message imprinted into that light was imparted to Fuyumi. "Oh?"

Slowly her face of boredom turned bright as a smile appeared. 'Finally something interesting.' With a single motion, she shot up onto her feet causing her students to look startled. Grabbing her Zanpakuto off of the ground she looked over at them. "An emergency requires my assistance to contact a substitute and don't skip out ok?"

Saying that in a cheerful voice all of the students watched as their teacher disappeared in a single step. "Wait what." Fuyumi was already running across the rooftops by the time any of them realized what had just happened. Carrying that charmful smile still she turned her head and thought to herself.

'The northside should be that way. Zabuza and Haku were called as well. I wonder what's going on?' Meanwhile, outside of the northern wall, the situation was only getting worse. "Dammit, we're already down by three including the one we lost to his partner and we haven't even hit him once."

Although they knew how skilled Itachi was rumored to be in person, he was on an entirely different level. He easily killed two of their members within the first five minutes of the battle. Now only three of them were left including the Squad Leader. 'That aside one of us is mentally drained after being put into a Genjutsu and we can't even look him in the eye.'

Standing a few meters away from them Itachi was standing passively unfazed. Not a scratch was on his body and he showed no sign of being tired. All he did was observe as his Sharingan pierced through every plan they could come up with. "Dammit… Dammit!" One of the Anbu who was facing off against Itachi suddenly broke off into a mad dash.

"Wait!" The Squad Leader tried to stop him but it was too late. Pulling out a Kunai the Anbu through directly towards Itachi's eyes. Reacting, Itachi took a step back catching the Kunai with his hand before throwing it into the ground next to him. As the two got closer the Anbu drew his sword from his back and began to engage in close-quarters combat.

Slicing towards Itachi three times with deadly precision the attacks somehow all still hit only air as Itachi dodged minimally. Jumping into the air slightly, the Anbu sliced down onto Itachi's head. Itachi's eyes immediately locked onto his attacker's movements as he avoided the attack while reaching out and grabbing hold of the Anbu's dominant hand, crushing it. "Gah!"

The pain in his hand caused him to drop his sword as Itachi bent down and kicked him heavily in his stomach. Anbu's face contorted as his vision shook and he coughed while falling to the ground. As he was on his knees Itachi didn't attack him as the Anbu recovered some of his senses.

"We should help him." The Anbu who had been put under Itachi's Genjutsu before was about to rush in but his Squad Leader stopped him. "No, it's too late. He shouldn't have rushed in alone like that." The Anbu looked back at the situation in front of them as the Anbu who was on the ground coughing glared up at Itachi who was simply standing there almost as if taunting him.

"Agh!" Clenching one of his fists he threw a punch towards Itachi from the ground up however on contact he felt nothing. His punch phased through Itachi's body as it began to morph into crows. "What… But whe-" Before he could say anything else the two Anbu off to the side watching as the clone of Itachi exploded violently kicking up mountains of dirt.

As the explosion rattled the ground the two of them saw crows begin to converge in front of it just a few meters away from them. Those crows slowly formed the body of Itachi who gazed at them calmly. "If you had helped your comrade you would have joined him in death. Your Leader has temporarily saved your life."

Facing Itachi the two of them didn't know what they could possibly do. 'He's just too strong…' Glancing far to the left, Ino was still doing her best occupying Kisame. Her entire body was covered in bruises although she had yet to take any fatal injuries. "I've finally started to adapt to that little mind trick of yours. I have to admit it's pretty annoying to get around."

Kisame spat out a slight amount of blood from his mouth as he looked towards Ino like a predator looking at prey. "But now you're done!" Advancing dozens of meters in a couple of seconds Ino pulled a Kunai from her pouch and tried to block his next strike. "That won't work against Samehada."

Raising Samehada into the air Kisame sliced down with all of his strength. Clashing with her Kunai, Ino felt an intense amount of pressure pushing down on her as she heard the sound of cracking. 'What?' Without being able to react Samehada broke her Kunai into pieces as it slashed down with its scales in full view.

Despite not being a perfect hit the scales dug in and scraped against the side of Ino's arm leaving a deep and long bloody gash. "Agh!" Clutching her arm the pain made Ino scream out loud as she withdrew slightly. "Ehehe. It seems this little bout is coming to an end. Your two comrades won't be able to survive against Itachi for much longer. And you…"

Pointing his sword at Ino, Kisame smirked. "You're done with that arm out of commission." Ino's face turned dark as Kisame slammed his sword into the ground letting it stay there as he put his hands together. "Let's send you off with a bang shall we!" Weaving a multitude of hand signs within a span of a few seconds Ino tried to brace herself.

"Water Style: Five Hungry Sharks!" Shooting from Kisame's hands five streams of water slowly grew in size forming the appearance of massive sharks. Coiling into the air they locked onto Ino before beginning to fly downwards towards her. Trying to stop her body from flinching as she moved despite her entire arm being torn open she still couldn't move in time.

It was only then that both Ino and Kisame heard the sound of something cutting through the air along with a strange spectacle.