From the First Clash to the Second

'Zabuza-san.' Haku mentally communicated.

'It seems we have no choice." Zabuza communicated back as they both decided to unveil one of Mugetsu core members' trump cards to turn the tide of battle.

Sage markings, much like Shiki's in appearance, started emerging around their eyes and forehead, quickly spreading to the rest of their bodies as their eyes became slitted, not like a snake though, like dragon. The First Stage Curse Mark, Shiki's version.

Zabuza and Haku's injuries rapidly healed and their chakra increased tenfold in size and intensity, all their strain and exhaustion disappearing as if just an illusion.

Their bodies were pushed beyond human limits and brought ito a territory far beyond their opponents' as they gained massive physical strength and resistance to damage.

It was payback time.

Zabuza rushed towards Kisame in a frenzy, the water currents surround his body tore apart the water sharks that attempted to impede him.

He wildly slashed with his Executioner's Blade, sending wave after wave of giant water slashes at Kisame who frantically dodged while running from Zabuza who still chased him, quite ironically, like a shark that smelled blood in the water.

Meanwhile Haku was on a whole other level, rather than a simple boost to her abilities, her newly increased power allowed her to unleash jutsu that were far to taxing for her normal self.

"Ice Style: Demonic Ice Mirror Dimensional Maze!" She rather uncharacteristically shouted.

A giant three dimensional maze, made out of mirror like ice formed around Itachi, leaving him no way to escape.

Haku could freely travel within the mirror world, faster than light itself but that was not all . . .

Ice projectiles started flying towards Itachi from every direction, including the ground which had also become an icy mirror.

All projectiles that missed just entered the mirror world when they impacted any surface of the maze and just came out of another direction, thus making for an unrelenting assault with no end in sight, with Itachi not even having a way to attack Haku since she did not gave out her position at all.

Itachi was getting overwhelmed but maintained his usual stoicism as he looked for an opening to turn the tides once more or, if that proved to be impossible, one to escape instead.

Seeing that her opponent was hanging on, Haku jumped out of a mirror at blinding speed, attacking Itachi.

He just countered her, knocking the kunoichi back into a mirror she simply sunk in before coming from another direction.

Meanwhile, barrages of ice projectiles kept harassing Itachi, making him struggle with making a proper counterattack when Haku attacked him herself.

Still, this was the oneping he was looking for and he prepared for a decisive counter for the very next time Haku tried to attack him with her actual body.

When it came, two shadow clones popped into existence and blocked the ice projectiles while Itachi, fully focused of Haku countered her move and stabbed at her with his kunai.

Rather than attempting to dodge, Haku surprisingly let herself be stabbed in the hear while striking at Itachi. Caught unprepared, he could not fully dodge and was stabbed in the left shoulder by an ice blade.

Still, he had gotten the better of that exchange . . . Or so he thought.

The Haku in front of him fade from existence, not like a clone but almost as if she was just part f a genjutsu.

Most would conclude they had somehow been trapped in a genjutsu without being aware of it but Itachi, one of the best genjutsu users in shinobi history knew that wasn't the case.

And he was right. One of the spacetime abilities of Haku's enhanced senjutsu was to create dimensional refraction of herself that were completely real but only lasted for a few moments before fading from existence, it was one of her greatest trump cards.

Itachi then found himself under the assault of a multitude of Hakus who all felt completely real to him before they faded away like before.

Seeing such an incomprehensible and disadvantageous situation for himself, Itachi decided there was no honest chance of victory in this engagement and elected to retreat.

Normally this would have been difficult or even impossible. But not for a holder of the Mangekyo Sharingan, especially since he was no longer plagued by his illness or blindness, courtesy of Shiki.

"Amaterasu."

Blood dripped like crimson tears from Itachi's right eye as black flames burst into existence and burned the maze into nothingness.

Even while being enhanced by sage chakra and protected by the power of spacetime, the mirror were still melted by the ferocious black flames of Amaterasu, leaving nothing behind as Itachi Body flickered away without further injuries.

Back to the other duel, Kisame's maneuverability and speed in water was still better than Zabuza's so he was managing to dodge well enough without to much trouble but he still could not catch even an inkling of a chance to counter attack.

It was at this moment he hear from his partner.

"This is not a battle we can currently win, time to retreat Kisame." Itachi calmly said from a distance.

"If Itachi-san say so." Kisame replied.

"Looks like we'll have to pick this up later." He creepily laughed towards Zabuza.

Immediately afterwards, th water done collapsed, only a little bit rushing to the sky with Kisame inside.

Thus, the engagement ended in Mugetsu's victory, but not the crushing one they had hoped, as their opponents still managed to withdraw, virtually unscatherd, with more information on their abilities to boot.

"This does not bode well for us . . ." Haku depressingly said.

"Tch!" Zabuza shared her feelings.

They knew they would not be punished since their achievement was good enough. But that was exactly the problem.

Neither of them was satisfied with "good enough".

Still, this was not the only battle, Tayuya and Isaribi had a battle of their own.

Their mission was the ambush of possible attackers to a Mugetsu island base's coastal facilities. The island and the surrounding sea were actually Isaribi's main area of operation so she had a massive homefield advantage and had thus brought the still slightly inexperienced Tayuya, just as backup.

They had just received word the place Zabuza and Haku were guarding had been attacked and were bummed they would be missing such a big chance to prove themselves.

Momentarily after though, they detected a pair of Akatsuki moving towards the islan, walking slowly on the calm water.

"You know I hate to be late Deidara! And we're behind schedule!" A short stout man complained to his taller, blond haired partner.

"Don't be like that, Sasori my man! We're barely late at all and so long as the mission is complete on time, who cares?" Deidara answered his companion, Sasori.

"Hmph!" Sasori grunted.

"Kids like you that can't even keep to a simple timetable will no doubt die young." He he tossed out.

"Live hard and die young! Spreading my explosive art across the world, my life will be a short but brilliant flash my man." Deidara did not disagree with his companion's opinion but saw no problem with it.

"This is why I'll never be able to understand philistines like you who believe such transience is preferable to immortal perfection in beauty." Sasori countered.

"All I can say is that your views are to antiquated to understand my transcendent artform." Deidara fired back.

Meanwhile, Isaribi and Tayuya just listened dumbfoundedly to the conversation as they walked to the shore. At the same time, a huge water element barrier covered a large area, preventing anyone from leaving or entering without some serious firepower.

Seeing this, the two men finally stopped their discussion and looked to the two girls before them.

"Who are you supposed to be?" Deidara asked.

"Didn't you read the info you clay brained idiot? The one on the left is a core member of Mugetsu I believe while the other . . . I seem to remember she was among Orochimaru's henchmen." Sasori informed.

"Orochimaru!? The hell doe he have to do with this!?" Deidara interjected.

"Who knows, he may have joined up with Mugetsu, maybe it's his organization, or maybe this little girl just deserted her previous master." Sasori threw out a couple of feelers but neither girl took the bait and remained stone faced.

"Then what shall we do Sasori my man?" Deidara inquired.

"We were not supposed to engage with core members after all." He added.

"We're already here and behind schedule, not to mention they won't let us leave that easy. Let's just take care of this as swiftly as possible." Sasori replied.

"Got it!" Deidara replied with a grin.

"The two girls were fully battle ready now.

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P.a.t.r.e.o.n is officially up!

The link is: https://www.p.a.t.r.e.o.n.com/lusoba without the extra dots of course.

You'll get to read up to FOUR week ahead, a full month, but I'll still post here.

There's also my other novel Archon of DanMachi, do check it out!

I would greatly appreciate any support since this is going to be my breadwinner.