(June 30th, year 54 AK)
Yuta was hiding among trees, his breath was hastened but his eyes were cold and focused, he quickly looked around but wasn't able to spot Shisui's whereabouts.
'No use...' Yuta thought, 'I rely too much on my chakra senses to spot the enemy, but against someone who could conceal their presence and suppress their chakra so well – it's useless...'
Then Yuta looked in the direction where Itachi and Hikari were supposed to be.
'Should I just make a run for it? No, I will just expose my back to Shisui and it will be all over in a second. His intentions were obvious from the start, he won't let me regroup with them that easily...'
Next moment Yuta heard the sound of a fire ninjutsu closing in and he immediately jumped away, creating a distance, and the tree that he was hiding behind was hit with a big fireball. Yuta in the mid-jump turned around and tried to trace the trajectory of the ninjutsu, trying to find out where Shisui is.
If not for the Calm State being active, by this time Yuta would be extremely frustrated and annoyed with how the fight is progressing.
His only shot against someone like Shisui – is to hit him with his Shadow Chains genjutsu, making him paralyzed for at least a split-second, just long enough so he could hit him with a kunai, but from the start Yuta didn't have a single opportunity to cast his genjutsu at all.
By now Yuta was trying his best to find Shisui, and now, as he turned in the middle of the jump as he avoided the fireball, his whole attention was on the area from where the attack came from.
And then Yuta saw a slight movement in the branches of a tree in the distance. Yuta formed a hand seal and the moment his feet touched the ground he instantly activated the Body Flicker jutsu, he could've used it without the hand seal, but that would've taken a bit longer and he didn't want to waste the precious moments.
Yuta flickered and appeared close by the place where he spotted the movement. By this time, he already realized that it was likely a trap, but he didn't care, since being at such a disadvantage and risking being defeated at any moment, he had to take any risks for even a slight chance of getting an opportunity to fight back.
As Yuta appeared on a branch of a tree, he fought back the momentary dizziness and concentrated on the area in front of him, his hands were already in the position to form hand seals for the Shadow Chains genjutsu, but there wasn't anyone in sight.
But despite not seeing Shisui, Yuta's hands still quickly went through the three hand seals for the Shadow Cloak jutsu anyway. The reason for that was simple, Yuta felt a vague and almost unnoticeable trace of Shisui's chakra right behind him.
Shisui was great at concealing his chakra and presence, but being this close, Yuta still was able to sense tiny traces of his chakra. The whole time since Yuta acquired the ability to sense chakra around him, he was trying to sense Shisui's chakra whenever they met, and thanks to those efforts Yuta was able to do so eventually in a close range, even while Shisui is actively concealing his chakra.
As Yuta formed the third and final hand seal, he said calmly, "Freeze.", guiding his jutsu through the sound onto the place he felt Shisui's chakra from. When he only had developed the jutsu, Yuta needed much more time to transfer the jutsu through the sound and he had to say multiple words or even a sentence, but now after so much practice he could transfer it with just one word instead.
As he did that, even before the jutsu took effect, Yuta knew that he wouldn't have much time and this would likely be his only chance. So he moved on the absolute limit of his speed, pulled out a kunai and turned around, as he was about to throw the kunai at Shisui, who stood was just a few meters from him, Yuta felt his genjutsu was starting to take effect.
Yuta felt a huge strain on his chakra as his genjutsu hit Shisui. Yuta felt how his genjutsu was on the verge of collapse even before it had a chance of paralyzing Shisui, so Yuta concentrated his all to pour more chakra into it on his end to try and stabilize his jutsu, since if it were to collapse even before it took effect on Shisui – it would be all for nothing.
Yuta felt how his chakra was started to drain rapidly and how his control over the jutsu was about to collapse at any moment, he was trying his best to establish a firmer grip on Shisui's chakra network through his jutsu, but it was like trying to lift a huge boulder with just one hand, Yuta felt his control was slipping but he didn't gave up and put even more effort and chakra into his jutsu.
All of that happened just in an instant, and Yuta's body was still on the move, kunai at hand, the hand was moving for a throw. The next instant Yuta felt how his jutsu finally was able to establish a shacky grip on Shisui's chakra network and it finally took effect, paralyzing him. The kunai flew from Yuta's hand that same instant, targeting Shisui's chest.
Although even at this moment Yuta didn't target Shisui's heart or head or any other vital spot. He was more or less sure that this is just Shisui's shadow clone with just a part of his chakra, but on the off chance that this is the real Shisui, Yuta still felt that he shouldn't go for a kill move here.
But what happened next was what Yuta was worried about from the start. Shisui's eyes shine with red, the Sharingan's tomoe spined in them, and the next moment Yuta saw as the pitch-black chains suddenly jumped out of his own shadow and wrapped around his whole body in an instant, restricting his movements completely.
'Genjutsu Reflection... Of course...' Yuta thought, 'Seems like I didn't have a chance from the start. We shouldn't have split up, there is zero chance of winning against this monster when we are split up.'
Yuta tried to re-establish his control over his own genjutsu, that being reflected back onto him, but felt that there is no connection at all, the jutsu had being stolen from him and turned against him with no way of canceling it.
Next Yuta tried his best to dispel the genjutsu, he stirred up his chakra flow to the limit, but as he already knew, the jutsu remained active. He was the creator of this jutsu so he knew best how strong it is and how hard it was to dispel it from within, there is no chance...
Shisui in front of him caught the kunai with a swift move of his hand and spin it on his index finger before gripping it in a reverse grip. Then he took a quick step to Yuta and placed the kunai against Yuta's throat, pointing out a fatal strike.
Yuta sighed tiredly and stopped struggling as he acknowledged defeat in this fight. He canceled the Calm State, and the emotions returned to his eyes, and the one most intense of them all - was frustration.
Then the pitch-black chains faded away as if it were just a smoke, dispersing quickly by the wind, and Shisui pulled away the kunai and handed it over back to Yuta, as he said casually, as if there wasn't an intense fight just a moment ago, "You've had improved a lot lately."
"Not enough, obviously..." Yuta retorted with a bit of frustration in his voice.
"Let's go, Itachi and Hikari are about to end their fight's as well."
"Are you not going to lecture me on all my mistakes this time?" Yuta asked a bit surprised as he followed Shisui. Usually that happens each time after the combat training, but it seems that Shisui wasn't interested in that this time.
"Why should I? I believe you already realized your mistakes yourself." Shisui replied with a smile, "How is your chest?"
"Oh, right, I should at least wrap it with bandages..." Yuta replied as he took off his shirt and took out bandages from his pouch. There was a shallow cut on his chest and some blood around it, the bleeding continues, but it was slow, it didn't look serious, so Yuta just quickly wrapped the bandage around his chest to cover the cut, and then he put back his shirt.
"You should visit the Hospital later on today." Shisui commented as he glanced at it.
"Yea, fine." Yuta agreed reluctantly.
As they moved further, Yuta heard loud explosion sounds from the area ahead of them. Soon they arrived on a small patch of forest with charred trees and a lot of smoke in the area, Itachi was laying on the ground and breathing heavily, while another Shisui had appeared beside him and looked at Itachi calmly, then he glanced at Yuta.
'Seems like even Itachi wasn't able to score a single hit on this monster either...' Yuta thought and he felt a bit better after knowing that.
As Yuta came closer, he was able to sense this Shisui's chakra a bit, and he realized that this is likely the real Shisui, and as he thought, the one that he fought before had puffed with a cloud of smoke beside him and disappeared. Yuta saw a surprised expression that had surfaced on Shisui's face briefly as his shadow clone disappeared.
Immediately after that, Hikari approached them as well, she didn't look better than Itachi, her clothes were damaged and she looked frustrated and annoyed. For a brief moment there was only depressive silence as the three Genins were thinking about what went wrong during the whole exercise and how all of them got beaten.
Then Shisui looked at the three of them one by one and said with a satisfied smile, "Well then, I hope this lesson sticks. But to be sure about that, we will repeat this exercise a few more times in the coming days."
'Just great...' Yuta thought tiredly.
--- AN ---
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