(June, year 54 AK)
As Yuta and Hikari were closing in on the battle, they saw the clearing up ahead. As they carefully approached it, they saw many trees were shuttered and charred, some of them are still burning, smoke and water vapor were partially obstructed Yuta's vision, and as Yuta and Hikari carefully approached the clearing, they saw how multiple ninjas were clashing with each other at a fast speed. At times they were exchanging strikes with kunai, at times they threw shurikens, and there was some water and fire ninjutsus in the mix as well. The fight looked very intense from Yuta's point of view.
But shortly after they approached the battlefield, the fight stopped, and Yuta saw in the distance, in the middle of the destruction stood ninjas facing each other.
At the one side it was Shinji and Itachi, and on the other side, it was that same one-eyed man from before, and the three more ninjas at some distance behind him.
'There was five of them, now it's four...' Yuta looked around the battlefield and soon he spotted a burned corpse in the distance, 'There you are...' Yuta thought as he relaxed a little, since at first he assumed that the fifth enemy ninja could be on a lookout and could ambush them, but since he is dead, all of the enemy numbers are accounted for.
As Yuta observed the situation more closely, he noticed that Shinji didn't look good, he had a deep cut on his chest that was still bleeding, and Itachi although looked fine, he was breathing heavily, but still, both Shinji and Itachi was still clearly far from being defeated, both are seem ready to continue fighting.
On the other side, the one-eyed man was still looked uninjured and fresh, he has an obvious advantage in this fight, but it can't be said the same about his teammates, the three remaining ninjas behind him looked tired and all three of them were injured to some degree, but none of their injuries looked serious though.
As Hikari saw Itachi, who were fighting a Jonin on even footing and didn't even have a scratch on him, her eyes narrowed, there was complicated emotions in her eyes.
Hikiari saw the last clashes, the speed and power behind them make her realize that if she were there instead of Itachi, she wouldn't stand a chance. Up until now, Hikari was on the same level of strength as Itachi, but now it was clearly not the case anymore. Itachi had awakened the Sharingan and his strength risen significantly. Even if he is not on the level of a Jonin just yet, he wasn't far from it either.
Seeing how Itachi became so much stronger so quickly, it had raised some complicated emotions in Hikari, and although Yuta had noticed the changes in Hikari's look, he wasn't sure what exactly was on Hikari's mind at that moment.
"Hey, Yuta, let's take care of those three, that should help Itachi a little." Hikari finally said after observing the battlefield for a couple seconds.
'Do you hate me so much that you want me to die today?!' Yuta thought in exasperation, but out loud he said, "Give me your ninja tools, I don't have much chakra left, so I'm on the shuriken-throwing duty for the rest of this battle..."
"Well, that should do, I guess." Hikari replied as she started to untie her ninja tools pouch from her waist.
"You are not going anywhere." The sudden voice from behind had startled them, Yuta didn't sense anything or anyone at all up until the voice sounded right from behind them, Yuta and Hikari quickly turned around ready to fight, but then they lowered their kunai as they saw the person who was sneaked up on them so suddenly.
"You have done more than enough, I'll take care of the rest." Shisui said as he moved passed them and approached the battlefield.
"Well, that's a relief..." Yuta blurted out tiredly. A moment before, he had concentrated on his chakra senses and was able to feel that same vague feeling of Shisui's chakra, same as he remembered.
With that Yuta was sure that it was real Shisui and not some kind of imposter, and realizing that, Yuta finally allowed himself to relax a little, since up until now he was very tense and using up all his strength to remain vigilant and on guard against any threat that might show up at any second, but now, since Shisui had shown up, Yuta was finally able to ease up a little.
"A relief? More like a lost opportunity to fight some more enemies..." Hikari commented with annoyance in her voice, but Yuta saw that Hikari wasn't really annoyed and just acting and her posture had eased up a bit as well.
Then Yuta sensed two familiar chakra signatures approaching, it was Yohei and Isao, Yuta recognized their chakra. Shortly after ,Yohei and Isao flickered and appeared beside them.
"Hey, nice job with those ninjas, both of you were quite something... Quite terrifying, really..." Isao said.
...
After a few seconds Yuta's mind finally was able to process what Isao implied, and he immediately felt very annoyed, but also relieved at the same time.
"So, you guys were watching me struggle with that last guy the whole time and didn't step in to help..." Yuta said slowly and coldly.
"But you were doing just fine, besides, Hikari was on her way... Ha ha..." Isao said as he laughed nervously a little, while Yohei looked away.
"So, you two and Shisui were here the whole time?" Hikari asked as the realization hit her.
"Yes. As we separated, Shisui-sensei quickly noticed that it was only one enemy ninja who were creating those footprints with the use of Water Clone jutsu, to make his tracks look like it's a group." Yohei said, "That's when Shisui-sensei had figured out the enemy's plan to split us up and ambush us separately, so he sent a shadow clone to pursue the guy who created those tracks while we quickly followed after you, staying behind the enemy's sensory range."
"We were ready to intervene at any moment during your fight, but it wasn't necessary after all, and it was Shisui-sensei's idea to let you fight and get some experience..." Isao quickly added.
'All well that ends well, I guess...' Yuta thought, he wasn't angry at them for staying hidden and forcing him and Hikari to fight those ninjas themselves to the death. He knew Shisui was right, they needed the real battle experience, even if it was very intense and quite traumatic, Yuta knew that he needed that to move forward, and he knew that Shisui knew that as well.
"Hey, they are talking?" Hikari commented surprised from the side, dragging everyone's attention back to the remaining enemy ninjas.
As Yuta looked back at the battlefield after a momentary distraction, he saw that the two out of three ninjas behind the one-eyed man had dropped to the ground, Shisui was already standing in front of Shinji and Itachi, his eyes were red, the Sharingan was active.
It was too far, so Yuta wasn't able to hear what they were talking about.
"He casted a genjutsu on the two of them, but why he still doesn't attack them?" Hikari commented from the side.
"That man with the eye patch, it's Ao of the Mist, an elite Jonin." Yohei said, "Shisui-sensei said, that if Ao were to be pushed to go all-out, the outcome of their battle would be unpredictable, so he is going to try to force Ao to withdraw first, and he will fight him only if it didn't work out. Shisui-sensei had ordered for everyone to retreat immediately if the battle between him and Ao were to break out."
'Ao of the Mist? The Byakugan user, huh...' Yuta thought surprised, 'I guess he does look familiar, but people in real life look a bit different than in the anime I remember, so I didn't recognize him outright...'
'Unpredictable outcome? Against Shisui? Yea, right... More like Shisui doesn't want to reveal his full strength here, or maybe he believes he would need to use his MS to win the fight decisively without letting Ao any chance to kill any of us in the process more like it, and using MS will put a strain on his eyes, so the outcome where Ao's withdrawing after suffering so many losses is not bad at all, I guess.' Yuta quickly analyzed the situation.
'And scoring a kill against someone as famous as Ao will draw a lot of attention to Shisui back in the village, it might even boost the morale of the radicals among the Uchiha clan to start their coup even earlier, and it might rub the wrong way the higher-ups in the village who were already suspicious of the Uchiha clan, it might even push Danzo to make some stupid move against the Uchiha or Shisui... Yea, probably letting Ao go is a smart move here...'
Shortly after, Ao picked up one of the unconscious ninjas from the ground, and the other ninja, who were still standing, did the same, and they had flickered away immediately after that, Shisui was following their moves closely with his Sharingan for the whole time as they retreated.
Yohei and Isao sighed with relief and Yohei said, "Well, it settled then."
But as he was saying that, Yuta felt a heavy gaze on him, full of hatred. The feeling lasted only for a second and then disappeared.
'Just great, I guess I have my first enemy who hates my guts now, and it's an elite Jonin at that... Ao had probably discovered what I did with four of his comrades, their parts were scattered all over a certain part of this forest after all...'
--- AN ---
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