(December, year 54 AK)
Yuta woke up in the middle of the night as his chakra sensed picked up a huge chakra flare in the area, the sign that some chakra-intensive jutsu is being used.
Without much surprise, Yuta jumped off the bed and ran outside. Soon enough he flickered and appeared beside Itachi, in front of four Stone ninjas, Hikari appeared at the same time as well.
Yuta glanced over the area they were standing and had an urge to click his tongue, as the four Stone ninjas aren't standing where they should, and where he prepared his trap with paper tag bombs. Yuta glanced over that area where the trap was supposed to be and saw a crater that was left by an explosion, it seems that the trap was detonated during the first initial clash between Itachi and the Stone ninjas, unfortunately.
'Three paper tag bombs wasted, almost 10k Ryo down the drain...' Yuta thought regretfully, as he struggled to suppress the urge to time-travel right away to recover the wasted resources.
"Well, would you look at that, it's just some kids, tree-huggers, are they even old enough to be considered ninjas?" Daichi said mockingly and the same conversation as the last time started to repeat itself, while Yuta thought about his next moves and wasn't listening much.
...
"... Everyone, attack, we don't have all night." Keisuke finally said, and the Stone ninjas started moving.
'So far everything goes the same way as before, more or less...' Yuta thought as he saw how Itachi engaged with Keisuke, the Jonin of their group. Hikari proactively attacked Daichi and Ryota, not letting either of them to disengage from the close combat.
And Maki already moved to attack Yuta, same as before.
Yuta quickly thrown a bunch of shurikens at Maki and proceeded to repeat the fight the same way he did last time, with only one exception.
After Yuta left a clone and his last paper tag bomb when Maki was about to attack him from underground with a kunai, while he detonated the bomb after Maki showed up under his clone, Yuta also went through three hand seals quick and shouted loudly, "I got you now!", while casting his Shadow Chains on Maki in the process.
'I'm not going to repeat the same mistake twice here.' Yuta thought as he observed, with just a tiny bit twisted satisfaction, how his paper tag bomb he left on the ground where his clone stood - had detonated, and as the view become obstructed with dirt and dust after the explosion, Yuta sensed with his chakra senses how Maki's chakra signature were fading completely this time.
The strong metallic smell of blood and burned flesh quickly spread through the area.
Maki, being restricted by the paralyzing genjutsu this time, wasn't able to deploy whatever protective measures she had as she did before, and as a result, she was torn to pieces by the blast of a paper tag bomb detonation at a point-blank radius.
"Maki! NO!" Keisuke shouted from the distance desperately, as if his shout could possibly fix what happened. Itachi, wasn't missing a bit, tried to capitalize on the distraction and quickly attacked Keisuke with another Fire Style ninjutsu and their fight continued.
'Just like that, one tiny change, and it's no longer me who died but her...' Yuta thought one last time as he glanced at the place where Maki died, and then he cleared up his mind and look in Keisuke's direction, thinking about how to deal with him next.
At the same time, while Keisuke being a seasoned veteran ninja, he had recovered from their comrade's death quickly and resumed his fight against Itachi.
But Daichi's and Ryota's hearts weren't as hardened as Keisuke's. At the moment when Daichi and Ryota realized that Maki died, both of them was momentarily distracted and shocked, and Hikari didn't wasted that opportunity and quickly attacked one of them and Ryota got a nasty cut through his torso.
Although Ryota was able to get his head back into the fight at the last moment and was able to slightly dodge Hikari's sword slash, so his wound, although serious, didn't turn outright lethal.
With that, both Daichi and Ryota returned into the fight against Hikari with burning hatred in their eyes.
Yuta concealed his presence to the best of his abilities while slowly approaching Itachi's fight against Keisuke, looking for an opportunity.
Yuta thought about confronting Keisuke directly, working with Itachi on bringing him down, but then he dropped the idea. Keisuke is a full-fledged Jonin and his moves are very fast, his ninjutsu are deadly and Yuta wasn't sure he would be able to stand his ground and won't be just a burden for Itachi, so instead he went with the next best option – try to sneak up on Keisuke and use genjutsu against him at a right moment.
As Yuta got closer to the fight, he saw that Itachi was already actively using his Sharingan, and it looked like he was being pushed hard fighting against Keisuke. The fight seems to be going to Keisuke's slight advantage.
Yuta felt a tremor from the ground and chakra flares with his chakra senses coming from Hikari's direction, it seems that her fight had escalated and her opponents began using ninjutsus one after another.
'Will she be fine?' Yuta thought as he briefly glanced back at Hikari's direction with a bit of hesitation, but then he looked back at Keisuke's fight against Itachi and thought, 'Itachi is under a lot of pressure here, I should help him first, Hikari should be just fine...'
Yuta sneaked up and crouched behind a rock as he came closer to the fight and waited for an opportunity.
'Keisuke has too much chakra, I won't be able to restrain him with Shadow Chains. My only option is the Shadow Cloak.' Yuta thought as he observed the fight.
'I don't know if he is already figured out that I used genjutsu against Maki, if he did, he will be on guard against it, especially now that he knows that I might be around.'
Itachi completed another quick series of hand seals and spewed a dozen small fireballs at Keisuke and Yuta noticed how Itachi also sneakily thrown a bunch of shurikens, hiding them inside the fireballs.
If Yuta weren't familiar with Itachi's moves after seeing them multiple times during their team training sessions, he wouldn't be able to notice the shurikens.
Keisuke dodged the fireballs to the side and was preparing his own ninjutsu, when Itachi moved his hands quickly, and the shurikens, that was hidden inside the fire, had changed direction and moved straight at Keisuke from his flank.
Only now did Yuta noticed, that the shurikens were also connected by the ninja wires. It was the same move that Shisui had used against him over and over during the team trainings and Yuta knew firsthand how difficult it is to dodge and how unpredictable those shurikens truly are.
But Keisuke seemed unfazed by it, and he quickly changed the hand seals sequence mid-jutsu and slammed his hands on the ground. The wall of stone rose to his side just in time and blocked the shurikens.
'He is fast.' Yuta thought, as he contemplated if he could perform any jutsu in time at all if he were in Keisuke's place, and he was unsure if he could.
The fight continued, Itachi was throwing one jutsu after another at Keisuke, while Keisuke seemed to be able to block just about anything without much effort.
Itachi moved into close combat and engaged Keisuke with a kunai. Keisuke seemed to be moving faster than Itachi, he had more reach, more strength behind his moves, but despite all that, Itachi moved as if he knew all Keisuke's moves before they happened. Itachi moved although slower, he was still able to fight Keisuke on equal grounds in a close taijutsu fight with his constant prediction of Keisuke's moves with his Sharingan.
"What are scary eyes you have there, kid." Keisuke said as he jumped slightly back, disengaging from the close combat for a brief moment, "It's almost as if you could see the future..."
"What makes you think that I can't?" Itachi asked with a straight face.
"Don't try to fool me, kid. I know well what the Sharingan is, and what it isn't." Keisuke said, "And why don't your friend come out already? Or is he too afraid to face me head on?" He said as he briefly looked around, stopping his look for just a moment on the rock, behind which Yuta was hiding, with pure hatred in his eyes.
'Crap, he knows where I am, I need to change my hiding spot...' Yuta thought.
"Why would Hidden Stone Village send a Jonin team for just a simple merchant?" Itachi tried to fish out for some information in the meantime.
"Just a simple merchant? You guys know nothing, do you?" Keisuke said mockingly but didn't elaborate further.
After that, Keisuke quickly ran forward at Itachi, and Itachi used the same fire jutsu as some time before, hiding a bunch of shurikens inside a dozen of small fireballs.
Yuta noticed that and saw an opportunity, he went for it.
Yuta formed the Shadow Cloak jutsu and made a whistling sound, mimicking one of the local birds, guiding the jutsu through that sound and targeted Keisuke with it. Yuta guided the sound in a roundabout way too, so Keisuke will think that the sound came from the sky above him and not from behind the rock where Yuta was hiding.
The purpose of the genjutsu was simple – to obstruct Keisuke's perception of the Itachi's hidden shurikens, allowing the shurikens to bypass Keisuke's threat detection and to slip past his defenses.
As Yuta felt a connection with his jutsu being established and his jutsu was taking effect on Keisuke, Yuta also felt how his genjutsu almost faltered right away, unable to take hold on the vast Jonin's chakra network. Yuta clenched his teeth and quickly stabilized the jutsu by pouring a lot of chakra into it, and even then, it was hard to hold on, but either way, the genjutsu had finally stabilized.
--- AN ---
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