บท 22: Eiji Vs Itachi
A/N: Itachi hasn't learnt Fireball Jutsu yet.
"Some ground rules for this fight! You must stand 10 meters away from one another to begin. Finally, the bout stops when one party is incapacitated," Shisui instructed.
Eiji was excited. For the past two years, he had been busy honing his skills, so he didn't have the luxury to spar with Itachi. But now he believed wholeheartedly that he'd win. He had a gift that Itachi didn't—the gift of memory. Eiji was aware that there was no way Itachi had a bigger arsenal of jutsu compared to him. To put it simply, Eiji had more options.
Itachi had a nonchalant expression, but under it all was a deep eagerness to find out how he compared against his cousin. Trying to throw Itachi off from his usual, unamused demeanor, Eiji winked at him and smirked. "I'm going to win," he mimed.
Itachi ignored the mockery and instead remained focused. Itachi was unaware of this fact, but subconsciously, he had always seen Eiji as a rival. A worthy rival at that. Their proximity in age and abnormal talent is what forced him to think that way. However, the main contributor to this thinking was his father, Fugaku.
Itachi's mind flashed back to his father's words: "I haven't seen talent like your cousin's in years. However, you also have talent, so you're capable of surpassing him. Shinobi who are able to learn quickly are those that stand at the top of the world."
Determined, Itachi pulled out a kunai from his pouch and pointed it towards Eiji. Eiji did the same, except he took out a shuriken.
"Ready! Set! Fight!" Shisui announced, commencing the battle.
Without hesitation, Eiji threw the shuriken he held at Itachi, successfully landing it. The shuriken cut deep into Itachi's stomach, but it wasn't a fatal wound.
'Got him!'
Eiji rushed in, taking advantage of Itachi's momentary pause. As he got closer, Itachi's form began to change, breaking off into multiple black pieces. These pieces soon turned into crows, flying past Eiji.
'What sort of substitution jutsu is this?'
Turning back, Eiji saw a reformed Itachi, standing unharmed and prepared to attack. Itachi threw the kunai he held in his hand at Eiji.
'That should be relatively easy to dodge. I don't need to use my Sharingan just yet.'
Eiji easily avoided the kunai but, from the corner of his eye, perceived another flying towards the direction he dodged. Eiji hadn't even gained his footing yet. "Damn it," Eiji cursed under his breath. He knew he had been deceived and was dancing in Itachi's palm.
'I can't evade it and there's no time to weave the hand signs for the substitution jutsu!'
Eiji racked his brain for an answer, but then something he recently learned stood out to him. Eiji's mind trailed back to an hour before when he was reading about the Tree Climbing Practice.
'When you apply too much chakra, it repels you off the surface of the tree; the force even breaks the tree. So what if...'
With no time to plan further, Eiji put trust in his theory and directed a large amount of chakra to his feet. Just as he thought, the chakra repelled his feet off the floor's surface, throwing him away from the kunai that targeted him.
Shisui, who had his Sharingan activated in order to observe each little movement, was in shock. "To think he would use chakra in that way... That level of understanding of chakra is not reached by the majority of people," Shisui thought.
Itachi clenched his jaw, realizing he had missed, but he didn't have much time to ponder what just happened.
Identifying that Itachi was baffled, Eiji threw down two smoke bombs, covering himself from Itachi's view. He then weaved the hand signs for a jutsu he had just learned. Unbeknownst to Itachi, a clone of Eiji had materialized in the smoke. Eiji sent the clone forth, running behind it and mirroring its movements, so as not to be spotted.
The plan worked because Itachi was fooled into believing it was actually Eiji who was rushing at him, when instead it was his clone. Believing Eiji was being foolish in rushing at him head-on, Itachi struck at the clone, but his hand just passed through. Concluding it was a clone, Itachi ignored it and waited for the real Eiji to show himself, while gazing at the smokescreen the clone had come out of.
The clone swung his fist at Itachi, but figuring it was just a distraction tactic, Itachi ignored the clone. Crack! The fist connected, and Itachi was sent up in the air by the brute force behind the punch. The clone disappeared from Itachi's previous strike.
'He would've never seen that coming. I allowed him to strike the clone as I trailed behind it. Once he realized it was a clone and stopped paying attention to it, I aligned myself with its body and threw the punch at the same time, before the clone could disappear.'
"If I hadn't rolled with the punch, it would've been over for me," Itachi thought, as he backflipped onto his feet.
"You didn't do too bad. Let's see how you deal with four clones!" Eiji laughed, throwing more than five smoke bombs down.
Wanting to prevent Eiji from summoning any more clones, Itachi rushed into the smoke.
'Game over.'
Eiji activated his Sharingan to track Itachi in the smoke. Sneaking up behind him, Eiji put a kunai to Itachi's neck.
"I win," Eiji whispered, jumpscaring Itachi.
"We have a winner!" Shisui yelled, impressed by Eiji's performance. Eiji took the kunai away from Itachi's neck and walked out of the smoke. Itachi followed.
"With these two, our clan will be able to regain its respect. I truly believe it. The three of us can change the image of the clan," Shisui thought.
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