As Ino stared at the bewildered Itachi Uchiha, she couldn't help but feel absolutely giddy. She didn't lie to him, but she didn't tell him the whole truth either.
The Yamanaka clan specialized in control of the mind. Control of their own mind. Control of their target's mind. But it was always control. Defense could and was devised from that. Yamanakas practiced against each other how to defend their minds from intrusion.
But offense?
Why would Yamanakas try to control their enemy's mind if they could simply destroy it? They can't do that. Her clan tried to figure out how to do something more direct and damaging for centuries to no avail.
Most elders from her clan who dedicate themselves to figuring it out usually end up like vegetables. The lucky ones only get a few mental defects.
Ino tried long and hard to figure it out, too, ignoring the dangers. But without some poor sod acting like a guinea pig, something she could not get inside of Konoha or while on a mission with her team, her progress was nonexistent. She was not going to experiment on herself when doing this. Blonde, she may be, but she wasn't that stupid. This simply was not something she could discover on her own with her current understanding of the mind and how to affect it in the Yamanaka way.
But it no longer mattered because Itachi Uchiha had pretty much given her a bona fide mental blueprint of a mental technique used for offense.
She could kiss the hateful kinslaying bastard for that! Only on the cheek, of course.
Granted, there were issues. She did not have Sharingan, for one. But now that she had an idea how this thing worked, more or less, she was confident she could remake it into something, maybe lesser, but something she could use. Eventually. Probably. Hopefully.
Unfortunately, Ino had no way to harm Itachi in his own Tsukuyomi other than gather and reflect her pain to his mind. And she didn't feel like letting herself be tortured some more either. So, she had disrupted the mental link he had established to her mind, and the technique crumbled.
What an elementary mistake on his part. To not put some defensive measures on the link. Ino inwardly rolled her eyes. Clearly, the Uchiha had no idea what he was doing.
Her eyes slid toward the unconscious Kakashi, and she sighed. Frankly, Ino surmised it didn't matter if Itachi had no idea what he was doing with that technique. He was kind of like her in this regard. A vast majority of their victims had no frame of reference on how to even begin defending against proper mental attacks.
It was easy to guess that Kakashi probably tried to counter it like a genjutsu. Sadly for him, he was not dealing with a genjutsu, so his attempts to get free did exactly nothing.
Ino returned her gaze to Itachi as a sword popped into her hand from her wrist seal. Now, then. She had told him that she wanted to try her swordsmanship against him with such casualness.
Mentally offsetting the opponent was half the battle. Looking confident was necessary for that. But this would be the first time Ino clashed with somebody good at swordsmanship who was an S-rank threat.
Naturally, she was quite nervous.
Ino and Itachi's eyes met, and there was no longer a need for words. As Kurenai started sputtering in relief when she finally noticed that Itachi's technique had no effect on Ino, Ino and Itachi disappeared from their spots in a burst of speed.
A chakra-enhanced blade met another chakra-enhanced blade as Ino and Itachi appeared and clashed in the middle between their initial positions. Sparks went flying as the two blades rebounded against each other, and the water they stood on burst from underneath their feet from the force of their clash.
Turning her ankle and adjusting her stance, Ino used the recoil from the rebound, and within a split second, her blade was once again whirling toward Itachi's neck through the air. It reached him before he could regain control of his own rebounded blade.
But as her blade was almost upon the neck of her opponent, Ino did not feel elated. Instead, deep suspicion filled her as this was too easy. She grew wary.
Another split second passed, and her blade slashed through Itachi's neck, only for his form to subtly shimmer. Ino's eyes narrowed, and she took a step back. Half from instinct, half from gut feeling as she pulsed her chakra, breaking the genjutsu.
At that moment, she saw Itachi ducking underneath her slash, already done with slashing at her with his kunai. That one step backward had saved her from being gutted by the deceptive bastard.
Their eyes met again, reflecting reluctant respect. Then the moment broke, and they both burst into a flurry of action. Ino took a further step back. She couldn't let Itachi get too close because it would make it extremely hard to swing her sword at him, while his kunai did not have such problems.
But unlike her expectations, Itachi did not press forward. Much to Ino's surprise, he retreated. Ino quickly shook her surprise, only to notice ten shuriken flying at her from the front, all from a different angle in a marvelous show of shurikenjutsu.
Not even bothering to pause, Ino used her wind chakra to slightly alter the air currents around her, creating an airflow that went around her. The second the shurikens entered it, they veered off their trajectory and harmlessly looped around her body.
But that was only a distraction.
Itachi dashed at Ino with his kunai, and even as Ino dealt with the shurikens, she was already swinging her sword at her approaching opponent.
Itachi's kunai and Ino's sword met, and Itachi flicked his wrist at that exact moment, deflecting Ino's slash. But Ino was not an amateur, and she didn't let her sword be thrown too much to the side. Instead, she flexed her arm muscles and turned her wrist, redirecting slightly the trajectory of her parried sword.
Itachi had to halt his offensive and abruptly take a step to the right, or risk Ino's sword sticking from his thigh. That gave Ino a precious split second, and she did not waste it. Grabbing her sword with both hands, she slashed at the momentarily unbalanced Itachi.
Her sword passed through his shoulder. Inwardly snarling in annoyance, Ino dispelled the genjutsu, and the real Itachi seemed to appear just an inch to the side. Itachi's kunai slashed through Ino's forearm, only for it to shimmer, too. And Itachi's eyes narrowed as her arms also appeared just an inch from the spot where he slashed.
Both narrowed their eyes at each other as the dangerous dance of hacking, slashing, and trying to see through each other's illusions started.
Itachi was using genjutsu. Ino was using a mirage effect made by wind ninjutsu. Neither seemed to be able to hit the other, even as Sharingan worked overtime to decipher Ino's mirage ninjutsu and Ino was constantly dispelling layer after layer after layer of annoyingly subtle genjutsu, only to find that it was never enough.
After thirty or so exchanges, neither of them was harmed despite both of them trying their damnedest to kill each other. And as Ino's sword was nearing Itachi, who clearly intended to parry it again, her eyes narrowed.
If there was one constant in their fight, it was that Itachi always parried when their weapons were about to meet. It was never a genjutsu.
It was a small crack in his otherwise impeccable fighting style.
Ino's blade was upon Itachi's kunai, and she could already see the tensing of his wrist in preparation to flick it to the side, when her eyes glinted in anticipation.
Just as the two weapons were about to collide, Ino flooded her wind chakra into her blade. Itachi's eyes widened as his Sharingan showed him her intentions in slow motion, and he realized her wind-enhanced sword was going to rip straight through his kunai and hand.
Not having the time to enhance his kunai with his chakra enough for it to matter in the face of Ino's strike, Itachi did the only thing he could. He let go of the kunai and hastily pulled his hand back.
Ino tore through the metal of the kunai, a small scowl appearing on her face when the Uchiha bastard reacted at inhuman speed. He doubted even the Hokage would be able to react that fast!
But she didn't get more time to complain as her eyes widened and she was forced to throw her back to the side, evading Itachi's shuriken thrown at her from point-blank.
That was not the end of his attack. Utterly unbalanced from the sudden dodge, Ino was almost hit in the eye by the second shuriken Itachi had thrown, hiding it in the shadow of the first. Only her fast instincts saved her as she tilted her head to the side, letting the shuriken bounce against the metal of her forehead protector and causing her head to jerk back from the force of the collision.
In that instant, she thanked the Sage that Ren complimented her, saying she looked sexy with her forehead protector where it was supposed to be worn. She most likely wouldn't have it on her forehead otherwise.
Not one to waste the opportunity, Itachi didn't wait for Ino to regain her composure. He attacked.
The tip of his kunai neared Ino's throat while her head was still tilted somewhat to the side and upward, giving Itachi a free path toward her neck.
When suddenly, just an inch from Ino's skin, Itachi's movement suddenly halted. He blinked in incomprehension as his body betrayed him. Bewilderment appeared in his eyes, and he realized Ino had somehow taken him over.
But her hold on him was very weak. With one flex of his chakra, Itachi was once again free, and the strange, subtle presence disappeared from his mind.
The moment of stopping was costly, however.
Ino's sword puffed out of existence, only to be unsealed in her other hand, in a much better position for a counterstrike, just as Ino's Yin clone did its work in Itachi's mind.
Wind chakra flooded the blade, and she thrust it forward in a stab at Itachi's chest just as he regained control of his body. But it was too late!
With ferocity, Ino watched as her sword speared Itachi's form, her excitement rising... only for her to grit her teeth and curse when Itachi suddenly disappeared, leaving behind only his stabbed Akatsuki cloak before he reappeared several feet away from Ino, crouching on the water while breathing slightly harder.
Ino furiously swung her sword to the side, tearing the Akatsuki cloak in two as she glared at the Uchiha. His freaking Sharingan Genjutsu was impossibly annoying. She was starting to get fed up with it.
Stepping to the side and letting another salvo of thrown weaponry pass her by as she walked forward, she casually swung her sword, deflecting the hidden ones. Ino then dispelled any genjusu affecting her, for good measure. And as she thought, the crouching Itachi in front of her disappeared.
The real one was to the right... another genjutsu was dispelled. No. To the left. He was rushing at her from the left side.
Ino didn't move her eyes from the right side, though. Nor did she give any indication that she had dispelled the second layer of the genjutsu. Her hair bristled as she fed it chakra. It hardened, and in an instant, Ino used her hair needle technique to pepper the area in front of her with her deadly hair needles.
But she didn't send them to the right side as her eyes would indicate. She had sent them to the left side.
Caught off guard, Itachi's Sharingan eyes shook as they quickly moved from left to right, from up to down, mapping the flight trajectory of each needle, only to realize there was no way out anymore.
Feeling exceedingly disgruntled, Itachi could only do one thing.
As the rain of hardened hair needles was about to shower him, a purple spectral ribcage appeared around him like armor and blocked every single hair needle that landed upon it from reaching Itachi as they sank halfway through it.
Ino's eyebrows furrowed in frustration while Itachi wept blood from his poor, abused right eye, barely managing to keep it open while a throbbing pain pulsed in his skull.
"How many eye tricks do you have, for fuck's sake?" Ino blurted out with a deadpan, unable to keep it in anymore.
Itachi paused for a second before a small, strained but genuine smile appeared on his face.
"Enough."
...
AN: Alright. Preemptive anti-complain measure incoming.
I will explain why neither of them is flinging powerful ninjutsu at each other in the next chapter. It is NOT that I am nerfing them or that I forgot. They have a reason.
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