(June, year 54 AK)
"I'm going to hold him off, other enemies aren't as strong as him." Shinji quickly said to the three Genins right after the clash of the fire and water ninjutsus, "You will only be in the way against him, don't come close to our fight, try to break free from the encirclement!"
As Shisnji said that, he didn't wait for the response and immediately jumped forward, right into the thick mist of the water vapor, clearly intent to clash with the enemy Jonin.
"He won't last long on his own, I'm going to help him. You two... Try not to die!" Itachi said right after.
"Hey, you can't just..." Hikari started speaking with anger, but she was quickly shut down when Itachi glanced back at her.
Yuta looked at Itachi and saw his eyes, it was red eyes with three tomoe wildly spinning.
'Three-tomoe Sharingan...' Yuta thought being a little shocked by the pressure those eyes were emitting, but he wasn't very surprised by it, he already suspected that Itachi had awakened the Sharingan from the moment he sensed Itachi's changed chakra right before the mission.
After Itachi briefly glanced back at Hikari, he quickly turned around and jumped after Shinji, disappearing into the mist.
Right after that, Yuta detected the movements around them, he pulled out a kunai and the next moment he was deflecting a bunch of shurikens with it, Hikari by his side was doing the same with her tanto sword. As they deflected the shurikens, they heard a sizzling sound and immediately jumped away. The next moment there was a loud explosion that destroyed the tree branch where they were standing just a moment ago.
But although they both were safe, they were forced to jump in different directions to avoid the explosion and got separated. Although there wasn't much distance between them, but it seems that the ninjas that were surrounding both of them are not intended to give them the opportunity to regroup.
As Yuta got separated from Hikari, he quickly was forced to forget about everything but his own immediate survival, because he quickly found himself surrounded by three enemy ninjas.
'They aren't giving me any time to think, I can't continue like that, I need to seize the initiative somehow...' Yuta's thoughts raced as he looked around at the enemy ninjas, it was three adults in the same gray clothes, their headbands were covered and they were closing in on Yuta cautiously, but also somewhat relaxed, like if they were routinely cornering a small wild animal that wasn't very dangerous.
'First, I need to clear up my mind, there are too many emotions running wild, it gets in the way...' Yuta thought as he channeled the Calm State. The soothing cold feeling quickly washed away all the emotions and worries, clearing Yuta's mind. Although maintaining the Calm State will cost Yuta some chakra to maintain over time, in a quick-paced combat Yuta thought it would be worth it.
As Yuta's mind cleared up and he attained some clarity, in a split second he analyzed the situation and realized, that Shinji together with Itachi that had awakened the Sharingan and now are probably on a level of a Jonin himself, the two of them should be able to if not defeat then to hold off the enemy Jonin. Hikari was quite strong and fast, she won't be killed that easily. As for him, Yuta saw that the tree ninjas are clearly underestimating him, and the other enemy ninjas that were still somewhere around, aren't rushing to deal with him either.
Now that his mind was working fast and unobstructed by emotions, Yuta estimated that he should be able to deal with these three enemy ninjas, so he is not in immediate danger either.
Coming to that conclusion, Yuta thought about Shisui, and something wasn't felt right for Yuta in this situation.
'Did Shisui really get himself tricked like that? Or...' Yuta thought, but that was just his speculation without any proof, so he put aside those thoughts and concentrated on the fight at hand.
'First, I need to put them under my Shadow Cloak genjutsu, but I need a hand seal to cast it, seeing a hand seal they'll get suspicious, ideally, I should avoid that... But I can mask my genjutsu hand seal into some other jutsu, so seeing a hand seal and an activation of some jutsu, they won't suspect that there is another jutsu that was being cast as well...' Yuta's emotionless mind quickly calculated the next move.
It was only a second since the three ninjas started to encircle Yuta, and now one of them pulled out a kunai and launched at Yuta with intent to kill, while the other two were closing in on Yuta from the sides.
They saw as Yuta performed a series of hand seals in quick succession and three identical clones appeared around him, as Yuta said mockingly, "Real proud of yourselves, aren't we? Three ninjas cornering one kid..."
'One down, two more to go... The Shadow Cloak genjutsu casted through sound of my own voice had enveloped the chakra network of the enemy that is launching at me with a kunai, cleanly and carefully, he didn't notice a thing.' Yuta analyzed, 'What a drag, my Shadow Cloak is a single target genjutsu, it is quite inconvenient that I have to cast it on each target separately. But I don't think my current strength is enough to effectively cast an advanced sound-based genjutsu like that on multiple targets at once though, so no point complaining, I'll get there eventually.'
"Just shut up and die already!" The ninja with a kunai shouted as he attacked Yuta, who stood surrounded by three clones, or so he thought, since his kunai went through the kid without any resistance.
"What are you doing? Quit messing around! The real one clearly stands to your right!" Another ninja shouted as he watched his teammate launch an attack at a kid's clone instead of the real one.
'I need to wrap this up quickly, before they figured out that it wasn't just a stupid mistake of that ninja, but my genjutsu that was interfering with his perception.' Yuta thought he started another series of hand seals, and his clones were repeating his moves.
As the ninja with a kunai was momentarily lost his balance and in the middle of recovering due to a miscalculation of his move and the lack of resistance from the intangible clone, the other ninja who shouted previously, quickly thrown a bunch of shurikens at the real Yuta, trying to interfere with his hand seals and to finish the job already.
As Yuta performed the hand seals to mask another activation of his genjutsu, he asked with amusement in his tone, "Which village produces such incompetent ninjas?"
The next instant, the bunch of shurikens struck Yuta in the neck and the torso, but after a split-second, Yuta puffed in a cloud of smoke, leaving only a log with shurikens in it on his place.
'I need to work a little on my Substitution jutsu to add the blood splutter effects, like Kakashi did in the anime...' Yuta thought absentmindedly.
His clones remained standing where they were, they stopped moving completely, but Yuta still maintained the jutsu and didn't dispel them yet.
'Two down, one more to go... They have chakra levels comparable to a Chunin's, it is quite taxing for me to maintain my Shadow Cloak genjutsu on the two of them at once, the third one will be my limit...' Yuta calmly thought, as he stood behind the tree, where he escaped with his Substitution jutsu, 'There is also other enemy ninjas hidden in the distance, they will move in when they see that there is something wrong here, so I have to deal with this three in a one decisive move, before others could interfere...'
"Substitution jutsu! Where did he go?" The ninja who had thrown shurikens shouted.
"There, to the side, behind that tree!" The third ninja shouted, revealing Yuta's location, since he was the only one who wasn't affected by the Shadow Cloak genjutsu yet - he was the only one who was able to sense Yuta's movements during the substitution.
But Yuta wasn't intending to stay hidden for long, he only needed a moment to cast the Shadow Cloak genjutsu for the third time, and this time he didn't even need to create a diversion to mask his genjutsu with some other jutsu.
The three enemy ninjas weren't aware yet that something was wrong here. Up until now, in theirs point of view, they were cornering a kid. The kid turned out to be quite good with the basic jutsus like Clone and Substitution, and he was keeping his cool, the kid was clever and sharp, but that was about it, it was just an inexperienced young Genin in their view, maybe talented, but nothing special against them.
As Yuta formed a single hand seal, he said calmly and gravely, "If you insist on fighting me, only death awaits you." But inwardly Yuta cringed really hard as he said that, 'It sounded better in my mind, damn, it was so edgy that even the Calm Stated wasn't able to fully negate the embarrassment I'm feeling right now...'
One of the enemy ninjas who was the closest to the tree that Yuta was hiding behind, had thrown a kunai with a paper tag bomb at it. At the same time, Yuta formed another hand seal and flickered away, positioning himself precisely between the three enemy ninjas and his three clones that were still standing in place.
Since all three ninjas was under the Shadow Cloak genjutsu right now, that was actively interfering with their perception, and since none of them detected the genjutsu yet, none of them was able to sense Yuta, who was changed his location with the Body Flicker jutsu.
As soon as Yuta recovered from a brief disorientation side effect of the jutsu, he pulled out three kunai and quickly thrown them one after another at the three ninjas. There was no hesitation in his moves, his hands were steady, the look in his eyes was cold and emotionless.
Yuta's clones that were standing on the trajectory of the thrown kunai, imitated the motion of pulling out a kunai each, and also imitated the throwing motion in the direction of the three enemy ninjas, all of that was done in sync with the three flying kunai that Yuta had thrown.
The three enemy ninjas completely ignored the clones' movements, dismissing them as a clumsy attempt at distraction, they were concentrated their attention completely on the tree where Yuta was hiding before, and the explosion of the paper tag bomb had resounded loudly, destroying the tree in the distance.
But at the same time as the explosion resounded, the three kunai had plunged precisely into the necks of each of the three ninjas, the blood had spluttered around them, and the next moment all three of them dropped dead.
'Better to keep the Calm State until it's all over.' Yuta calmly thought as he emotionlessly observed his enemies dropping on the ground in the puddles of their own blood.
--- AN ---
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