Chapter 213: Fight!
"Kirigakure's Demon."
Standing atop the water, Uchiha Itachi didn't rush into battle. He simply fixes his Sharingan on the newly appeared reanimated beings, looking somewhat tired.
He lets Link toss out a scroll containing sealed ninja tools for the three reanimated ones to use, allowing Baki and Uchiha Fugaku to encircle him.
"Huff—"
As Momochi Zabuza weaves signs, the mist rises. His voice, now drifting from side to side, says:
"The Sharingan is indeed powerful, but… if it can't see anything, what can it do?"
Before he even finishes speaking, the executioner's blade silently slices toward Uchiha Itachi's neck.
"Whoosh—"
A Substitution Jutsu. They're really underestimating me.
On the other side, the real Momochi Zabuza is already swinging his sword again.
Bang!
Uchiha Itachi twists his body, slamming a kick into the demon's thigh and using that momentum to lean back, avoiding the blade's edge.
In Zabuza's hands, the executioner's blade seems weightless. After a brief pause, he slashes diagonally downward.
They look as if they're dancing the tango—when one advances, the other retreats; when one retreats, the other advances. They maneuver at subtly shifting distances, never once touching each other again.
One small mistake, and there would be no going back.
Even dancing at the tip of a sword, Uchiha Itachi remains calm; his breathing, heartbeat, and expression show no change whatsoever.
Baki and Uchiha Fugaku, seeing two fighters at a "taijutsu level 9" trading blows at close range, can do nothing but watch. There isn't any room for them to interfere.
What's more, the area is still enveloped by the Hiding-in-Mist Technique. Uchiha Fugaku is managing all right, since he can rely on the Sharingan, and his taijutsu is decent.
Baki, however, only has a "taijutsu 7" rating, isn't a sensory-type ninja, and doesn't possess any special detection ability to bypass the Hidden Mist. On top of that, he hasn't even decided whether to risk helping out, so he just stands there, unsure what to do.
"Hah!"
Suddenly, Uchiha Fugaku spits out fire, burning away a large portion of the mist. Without pausing, he uses the Body Flicker Technique to charge straight at Link.
"Splash!"
The Uchiha Itachi tangled up with Zabuza dissolves into flowing water.
"Swish!"
Several shuriken trace an arc through the air, closing in on Link.
Shadows move to intercept them, but the glinting wire under the sunlight is pulled, twisted, and yanked. Like cutting grass, it slices off the heads of a row of shadow figures.
Silently, the Eight Gates shadows revert from two dimensions back to three. Moving at extremely high speed, they rush toward Uchiha Itachi.
They're about as fast as Base Might Guy, so in terms of speed, they've hit a solid 10. That's still weaker than many truly monstrous fighters, but against a severely ill Uchiha Itachi, they're not mere fodder that can be knocked out by one taijutsu move.
So fast!
Itachi thinks, inhaling sharply and spewing flames.
The fire travels along the wires. With a tug of his fingers, the flaming wire seems to come alive—coiling, swirling, and wrapping toward the two Eight Gates shadows.
To avoid a swift decapitation, the two shadows immediately flatten themselves into two-dimensional form again, their bodies turning into a patch of dark ink on the ground. They dodge the attack but can't strike again for a moment.
At least not until that two-dimensional transformation is fully complete.
The flaming wire circles once around Itachi, then he lashes it out again. Large swathes of shadows attempting to stop his advance are wiped out in an instant.
Link's field of vision suddenly clears. The shadows quickly move to fill the gaps again.
[He can push Fire Style: Dragon Fire Technique this far?!]
Baki is astonished but doesn't hesitate. Forming an invisible wind blade in his hand, he charges ahead. After all, his relationship with Link is still decent, and there's no hard proof yet that Link has turned on Sunagakure. Baki can't just let the kid die.
"Crack—Crack—Crack—"
A dozen or so ice mirrors rise abruptly from the water's surface, trapping Link. Not far away, Momochi Zabuza rushes back with the heavy executioner's blade in hand.
With the Itachi blocked by shadows, it's impossible for him to reach Link in time—especially since there's now added protection.
The three elite jōnin close in right after him, about to join forces and finish the enemy off.
Given their battle experience, they're unlikely to bungle their teamwork.
Though it looks like a guaranteed kill, Link frowns. He doesn't believe Uchiha Itachi would be pushed to the brink by three elite jōnin. From the start, Itachi has appeared exhausted, as if he's already expended a great deal of chakra earlier.
Boom!
The swirling Dragon Fire Technique is slashed apart by the wind blade, and the executioner's blade is now mere inches away. Meanwhile, the kunai thrown by Uchiha Fugaku almost certainly won't miss.
Boom!
Before the attacks can reach their mark, an enormous, translucent orange ribcage materializes out of thin air, blocking them. The razor-sharp wind blade only leaves a shallow scratch, and the executioner's blade does nothing. The kunai hurled with an Uchiha-precision throw snaps on impact.
[This is?!]
Uchiha Fugaku's pupils contract. He recognizes it as a legendary Mangekyō Sharingan secret technique.
Susanoo!
Under the shadows' protection, Link retreats rapidly, using a prepared substitution to safeguard himself.
No joke—his chakra scalpel can cut through solid chakra, Baking it a perfect counter to Susanoo. But Uchiha Itachi isn't the kind of fighter who just whips out the "big mecha" recklessly.
He simply doesn't have the chakra reserves to sustain a drawn-out Susanoo clash, so he typically uses it just to block incoming damage and set up his next attack—or else readies some cheating "divine tool" to fluster the enemy.
No point in putting himself in jeopardy.
As Link hurriedly falls back, other people's chakra flows into his body, and his surroundings shatter into fragments. Haku's anxious voice rings out: "Link!"
Genjutsu?!
Link comes to his senses, realizing that earlier, when Itachi closed in and was simultaneously fighting three elite jōnin, he still managed to cast genjutsu on Link from a distance using just a finger. After all, Link never looked directly into Itachi's eyes.
It probably happened the moment he unleashed Dragon Fire Technique—forcing the two Eight Gates shadows to revert to two-dimensional form and wiping out a large cluster of shadows, briefly exposing Link's line of sight.
Did he really complete the genjutsu in just that split second?
A Genjutsu stat of 10 is terrifying.
By comparison, Link figures his own genjutsu skill, including breaking illusions, is only around 6—just passable. Enough to handle your average ninja or even break Orochimaru's illusions, but going against an Uchiha is tough, let alone Itachi, who's a monster in genjutsu.
Luckily, he has his substitution ready. As long as Itachi's next move isn't more genjutsu, he can survive at least one or two attacks.
Space twists slightly. Black flames descend, enveloping both Link and Haku.
"Huff—"
Uchiha Itachi lands on the water, gasping for breath, looking even more drained. One eye is closed, blood trickling out.
His other eye doesn't look at the person and ghost covered by Amaterasu; instead, he raises his gaze to the crows flying nearby.
~~~
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