Chapter 49: An Exhausted Itachi
Steel struck steel as Tonbo and Kawasuke crossed the clearing.
A giant woven dragonfly descended above the Cloud jōnin, its six limbs attacking in sequence. A woven hawk circled higher still, waiting to dive whenever Kawasuke committed too heavily to a strike.
The creations fought with unsettling coordination. Each anticipated his movements or interfered at the instant he tried to establish a rhythm. Fighting Tonbo alone would have demanded his full concentration. Fighting the sensor, the false summons, and the genjutsu woven through their exchanges turned every decision into a risk.
Kawasuke tested the dragonfly with a short thrust, then reversed his second sword toward Tonbo. One of the construct's limbs intercepted the first blade while the hawk's shadow crossed his vision. He aborted the second strike and twisted away before the dive arrived. The hawk missed, but its purpose had never been to wound him. It had denied him the instant he needed.
Tonbo had already made him experience fear, pain, nausea, and the lingering taste of a rancid medicinal tonic. Kawasuke had broken each illusion through disciplined chakra control and sheer will, but none had been harmless. Every disruption cost him time and energy.
The Cloud shinobi were trained to endure. Kawasuke refused to let an unpleasant sensation decide the battle.
Their blades met twice. A kick separated them.
Tonbo retreated and glanced past Kawasuke, then began forming seals.
Kawasuke noticed. Earlier mistakes had taught him to watch the sensor's hands and prepare to disrupt his chakra at the first sign of another illusion.
"Wind Release: Thousand Petal Storm."
Pink petals drifted into the clearing.
They looked delicate until the first touched a falling leaf and cut it cleanly in two. Another opened a line in the bark of a tree. The petals gathered into a glittering current and swept toward Kawasuke, each one a wind blade small enough to hide among the others.
He withdrew immediately. Meeting Wind Release with Lightning Release would surrender the elemental advantage to Tonbo, and the beauty of the technique was almost certainly concealing another genjutsu.
Lightning stimulated Kawasuke's muscles as he retreated beyond the approaching storm. He would circle, identify its limit, and attack from another direction.
"Fast," Tonbo admitted. "But not fast enough."
The earth erupted ten meters behind Kawasuke.
The woven pangolin burst from the tunnel it had prepared before the battle and closed its jaws around his waist. The genjutsu had fixed Kawasuke's attention forward. The wind technique had chosen his retreat. The hidden construct completed the trap.
The bite tore him in two.
Shock registered before pain. Kawasuke looked at Tonbo and understood that he had been directed into the killing ground from the beginning.
The petals had been genuine wind blades, not an illusion he could dismiss. Tonbo had counted on Kawasuke recognizing their nature and choosing the sensible response. Even the pangolin's position had been hidden before the caravan arrived. Nothing in the final exchange had depended on Kawasuke behaving foolishly; the trap worked because he behaved like an experienced shinobi.
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He could no longer reach the shinobi who had defeated him. One target remained within range.
Lightning flooded both halves of his body.
The final discharge consumed the surrounding ground in a violent electrical field. The pangolin blackened before it could withdraw, its body cracking beneath the current.
As Kawasuke's awareness faded, he saw the creature collapse into scorched strips of woven material.
Tonbo waited until the enemy's chakra vanished completely before relaxing.
"The shinobi world punishes carelessness," he murmured.
A jōnin remained dangerous even after receiving a mortal wound. Kawasuke's final technique had been designed to drag his killer into death with him. Without advance preparation, strong perception, and several different methods of attack, Tonbo could not have ended the fight so quickly.
The battle also exposed a weakness he could not ignore.
Kawasuke's willpower and chakra control had repeatedly broken Hell Viewing Technique—Modified. Fear, nausea, pain, and taste disrupted him but never decided the outcome. Even the subconscious loop that rebuilt the genjutsu after each release had lasted only until Kawasuke shattered it again.
Against an opponent of this quality, Tonbo's greatest specialty had become support for his taijutsu, Wind Release, and constructs.
That was useful. It was not enough.
He needed illusions that were subtler, harder to detect, or impossible to reverse once established. Distance Dislocation represented the first path: a minute alteration of sight, touch, timing, or spatial judgment that made the victim defeat himself without realizing why.
An enemy who saw a monster could question the monster. An enemy whose blade fell short by a fraction might blame his footing, the terrain, or the opponent's speed. The smaller falsehood was more likely to survive scrutiny. Tonbo could build upon that principle, changing not what an opponent saw but the conclusions his senses forced him to draw.
The second path involved memory. Tonbo's experiments with reversing Psycho Mind Transmission suggested that artificial memories could be planted, but resistance made rapid implantation impractical in combat. A convincing false history would require gradual infiltration.
The third path was the Living Weave: using genjutsu to impose a false rule upon reality until the victim's body responded as if that rule were true. It was the most ambitious direction and the one most likely to transform illusion from assistance into a decisive weapon.
All three remained incomplete.
The ring of distant combat pulled Tonbo back to the present. He formed a sensing seal.
Hayama's opponent was weakening steadily. Their captain appeared to have the advantage.
Anko and Itachi were in worse condition.
They had faced more than ten enemies and remained alive, which was impressive. It was also no reason to leave them unsupported another moment.
Tonbo launched himself toward their chakra signatures.
Farther into the forest, Anko and Itachi stood back to back. Their clothes hung in torn strips. Blood marked their arms and sides, and each breath came hard.
Itachi's expression remained controlled, his eyes still searching for a solution. His body had reached its limit long before his mind accepted it. He was eight years old, and prolonged use of the Sharingan had nearly exhausted his chakra.
Anko's reserves were little better.
"What is taking the captain and Tonbo so long?" she asked between breaths.
"Their opponents are jōnin," Itachi said quietly. "They cannot finish carelessly."
The retreat through the prepared ground had reduced the eleven enemies facing them to six. Wire traps had exposed some to blades; explosive tags had caught others when they rushed through false openings. Anko and Itachi had exploited every advantage, but the survivors still stood in better condition than they did.
One body hung tangled in concealed wire. Another lay beside a crater where Anko had baited two attackers into the same explosive array. The rest had learned. They stopped charging blindly, advanced in overlapping pairs, and destroyed every suspicious patch of ground before crossing it. The prepared route had bought time, not victory.
Anko studied the circle closing around them.
"Are we going to die here?"
The Cloud shinobi heard the fatigue in her voice and saw the tremor in Itachi's arms. After one cautious exchange of looks, they reached the same conclusion.
The two Konoha shinobi had nothing left.
Six pairs of hands began forming seals.