Satoru's heart lurched in his chest, a heavy thump that seemed to echo through his skull.
'He noticed—'
The thought fractured before it could finish. His mind blanked, the world closing around him in a suffocating silence that pressed into his lungs.
Itachi's gaze was unflinching; the three tomoe spun with languid, merciless precision. Then, without warning, his pupils dilated.
And he vanished.
"—!"
The air around Satoru twisted; his stomach flipped as though the ground itself had been pulled out from beneath his feet. The world smeared, his surroundings warping and blurring like wet paint bleeding across a canvas.
For a heartbeat, he thought he had blinked too fast, that his eyes had betrayed him. But no—this was something else. The distortion wasn't in his vision alone. His very perception had been ensnared.
'Genjutsu.'
He realised it only as the trap closed fully around him.
The Academy walls loomed, yet they did not feel real. Their edges were too sharp, then too soft, flickering as if caught between shapes. The faint rustle of leaves outside was warped into a hollow ringing, like sound funnelled through a tunnel. He tried to take a step back—
Nothing.
His body did not respond.
Satoru's breath quickened, chest tightening as he strained to lift his arm, to twitch his fingers, anything. Panic began to gnaw at him, sharp and merciless. His Sharingan flared, the single tomoe spinning frantically in his scarlet eye. The sight gave him a jarring sense of déjà vu.
'Wait—didn't I already activate it? Minutes ago?'
His mind whirled in confusion. The sensation of chakra searing through his optic nerves, of vision sharpening—it was the same as before, yet here it was again, replaying like a half-remembered nightmare.
'No, no, no, this isn't right…'
He forced his breathing to slow, dragging air into his lungs in ragged gulps.
'Focus. Focus!'
The panic wanted to devour him, to drown him in helplessness, but instinct clawed at him with desperate urgency. He had been taught this.
Satoru's gaze swept across the warped environment, straining past the dread that clouded his chest. His Sharingan cut through the blur. Subtle trails glimmered in the air, like faint motes of light suspended in water. They pulsed with an unnatural rhythm, a distortion he had never seen before.
"That's… not normal," he whispered, though the words echoed strangely, like someone else had spoken them back to him from behind a wall.
He zeroed in on the flows, following their tremors. The threads were invasive, weaving themselves into his senses, coiling around his perception of sound, sight, and touch. He could feel them pulling at him, dictating what he could and couldn't experience.
'This… this is the genjutsu itself.'
The realization struck hard, snapping some clarity back into him.
'If this is genjutsu, then… there's a way out.'
His thoughts raced, scrambling for the lesson Nono had drilled into him in the orphanage, the one he had begrudgingly practised despite wondering if it would ever be useful.
'Disrupt your chakra. Break the flow. A controlled surge is enough to fracture the illusion.'
His hands still wouldn't move, but chakra—chakra was his. He forced it outward, twisting it against the alien pulse wrapping around his senses.
"Ghhnn—!"
A raw grunt tore from his throat as the pressure doubled, like invisible hands squeezing his skull. His chakra flared violently, jagged and uneven. The world stuttered, the warped walls rippling like fabric in the wind. The light trails shivered, then splintered.
'Do it again!'
He slammed his will against the invasion, disrupting his chakra network in sharp bursts. The illusion cracked. The hollow echo of sound broke apart, shattering like glass. The blur peeled away.
And with a sudden snap, he was free.
Satoru stumbled backwards, vision spinning as though he had surfaced too fast from deep water. His lungs burned, dragging in sharp breaths.
Itachi was no longer several meters away.
He was right in front of him.
An arm's reach away.
Satoru's entire body recoiled, his balance nearly giving out as his foot slid back across the dirt.
"What—" His voice cracked.
Itachi tilted his head slightly, eyes half-lidded, his voice cool and even. "You broke free faster than I expected." There was no anger, no surprise. He spoke as if noting down the result of a test; detached, clinical, as though Satoru were a specimen under a lens.
"What was that?!" Satoru shouted, his voice shriller than he intended. He clutched at his temple, a dull throb radiating from behind his eyes. The pounding was relentless, making it hard to think.
"Do you do that to everyone you meet?"
For the first time, Itachi's expression shifted. A flicker of realisation crossed his face, subtle but clear. His gaze sharpened.
"I know you… but I did not know that you had a Sharingan. Are you an Uchiha?"
The words dropped like stones in Satoru's chest. His body stiffened, his breath halting.
Satoru had been careful—painfully careful—not to reveal his Sharingan in the Academy. He hadn't used it in the entrance tests, hadn't even risked flicking it on in class.
"No." Itachi's voice cut into his spiralling thoughts, colder now, more analytical than before.
"If you were an Uchiha, you would have better control of your Sharingan." He wasn't addressing Satoru directly. The words were spoken more to himself, a deduction murmured aloud.
Something in Satoru snapped.
The casual dismissal stung deeper than it should have, anger flaring hot in his chest. His Sharingan spun violently, the tomoe circling faster, sharper. His head throbbed with the pulse of chakra gathering at the edge of his vision.
And then it happened.
The world shifted—this time not by Itachi's hand, but his own.
He hadn't planned it. He hadn't even fully realised what he was doing. But his eyes burned, chakra surged, and the boundaries of reality quivered.
"…!"
Itachi's head jerked slightly, his pupils narrowing. He glanced around him, his sharp gaze flicking from side to side. The training ground was still there… but wrong.
Subtle distortions bled into the air. The trees wavered, the shadows shifted unnaturally, the targets loomed taller than before. The air carried a faint hum, unnatural and heavy.
Itachi exhaled softly, a sound somewhere between surprise and interest. "…Hn. What is this?"
Satoru's chest rose and fell with ragged breaths. His mind reeled.
'I… cast genjutsu? With the Sharingan?'
He hadn't known it was possible for him. Nono had explained the theory, but he had never once practiced it. And yet here it was, happening without thought, pulled from him by instinct and raw emotion.
Itachi's eyes narrowed further. His voice, quiet but sharp, carried a note of curiosity that had not been there before.
"Almost identical to mine… but reversed. You mirrored me."
He stood perfectly still, letting the illusion play out, examining it as if testing the contours of its design. His lips twitched, the faintest trace of a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. For the first time, genuine excitement sparked in his gaze. "Interesting. No one my age has ever used genjutsu on me before."
The words struck Satoru harder than he expected. They carried weight—not mockery, not dismissal, but acknowledgement.
And yet, before he could respond, a new voice cut through the charged silence.
"That's enough, Itachi. Stop messing with the boy."
Satoru's head whipped to the side. A dark-haired figure stood at the edge of the training ground, arms crossed loosely. He looked older, perhaps three years their senior, his presence relaxed but unmistakably sharp. His eyes, dark and watchful, carried a steady weight.
More than that, the metal gleam on his forehead caught Satoru's attention instantly. A forehead protector. A shinobi.
Itachi didn't flinch. He turned his head slightly, acknowledging the newcomer with calm familiarity.
"It's okay, Shisui. He actually used genjutsu on me."
And with a subtle flicker, the world snapped back to normal as Itachi dispelled the illusion
=====
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