(December, year 54 AK)
Keisuke's hand with a kunai moved towards Hikari. But what everyone expected to happen – didn't come.
As Keisuke moved his hand in a stabbing motion, as his kunai was already almost touching Hikari's chest, Hikari at the last moment changed her grip over her sword into a reverse grip, swinging it down at Keisuke's hand.
Hikari didn't have enough time to move her sword properly and that move was a bit awkward, but it was fast enough to intercept Keisuke's attack.
But next, Yuta and Itachi saw with disappointment and horror, and Keisuke saw it with widened smirk, Hikari's sword wasn't long enough with her hands all the way up to properly cut Keisuke's hand with that movement, the sword only grazed the edge of the skin on his wrist as he moved his kunai further, about to skewer Hikari with it.
When Yuta witnessed her initial movement with her sword, he was momentarily distracted from his intention of time-traveling right away, and now, seeing that her move was a fluke after all, and now that she was about to be skewered by a kunai, Yuta already had his time wasted and he wasn't able to time-travel fast enough and now his only option was to witness how she dies right in front of him.
But what came next, Yuta wasn't able to comprehend or explain at all. At first, Yuta felt a slight ripple on the water surface of the River of Time back in his mindscape, as if something had moved and disturbed the calm water.
Yuta wasn't able to explain how he felt that ripple while being not even inside his mindscape, but he did.
And the next instant, the Keisuke's wrist of the hand that held a kunai, that was about to pierce Hikari's heart, it had suddenly being severed from the arm completely, as if it being sliced off by a sword.
'But how!?' Yuta's mind was unable to comprehend what he sees, 'Her sword only grazed his skin a little, leaving a slight scratch, nothing more! How did his wrist end up completely cut off?!'
As for the ripple on the water surface of the River of Time - Yuta felt something like that for the first time and he didn't understand what he felt at the moment, so he temporarily dismissed it from his mind, since he didn't know what to do with that information anyway and if it is related to what happened or not.
"What the..." Keisuke mumbled in shock as he immediately jumped backwards on the reflex to create some distance between him and the source of danger that he didn't understand.
He looked at his severed wrist laying on the ground under Hikari's feet, and then at his profusely bleeding arm with the missing wrist, the blood was flowing non-stop with rhythmic bursts intact with the beating of his heart.
"What are you waiting for?! Stop gawking and let's finish this bastard already!" Hikari barked and moved to attack Keisuke straight on, refusing to give him even a second to comprehend what happened and to recuperate.
As Hikari clashed with Keisuke, who's instincts and reflexes, honed during the decades of ninja work, had kicked in and he continued the fight, although, now that he has only one hand, his moves was severely limited, he couldn't use his Earth Style ninjutsu anymore.
Seeing that, Itachi and Yuta entered the fray right away, throwing at Keisuke everything they had left. The fight, that was completely desperate and unwinnable for the three of them just a moment ago, had miraculously turned around and now it was Keisuke who was struggling to just survive another second.
'How did that happen? Whad did she do?' Yuta was still trying to comprehend it, 'One moment her sword slightly scratched his wrist, and the next moment his wrist was already flying to the ground, completely severed... Did she do that? Or maybe something or someone else did that? And what was that strange feeling I sensed before, it was like a slight ripple on the water surface of the River of Time, but what it meant?'
With more questions than answers, Yuta continued the fight, and at some point, when he saw Keisuke struggling against both, Itachi's and Hikari's attacks at the same time, Yuta decided to try to use his Shadow Cloak once again.
Yuta pulled a dozen of shurikens from his pouch and with the words, "Just give up and die already, old man!" he thrown the shurikens at Keisuke.
'A bit harsh to call him an old man, especially when my mind is probably older than his, with my previous life and with all the time-loops in this life...' Yuta thought absentmindedly.
Although this time, he didn't use additional movement to throw a hidden kunai, but instead he specifically hid one shuriken among many with his Shadow Cloak, and as he felt how the last remains of his chakra were draining to establish and stabilize the genjutsu, Yuta observed how a dozen shurikens flew in Keisuke's direction.
Establishing and stabilizing his genjutsu took even more from him this time and Yuta concluded, that the extreme mental state of a target is indeed causing his genjutsu to become more difficult to cast. Yuta also figured that pain has something to do with it as well, after all, extreme pain is the one of the methods of breaking a genjutsu.
The next instant, as Keisuke pushed back Itachi and Hikari with a kunai in his remaining left hand with precise and forceful fast swings, he turned around and quickly moved his kunai to deflect the incoming shurikens. He moved his kunai precisely and quickly blocking all of them with ease, but then, the next instant, Keisuke suddenly felt sharp and searing-hot pain from his neck as he saw a huge burst of blood spraying from it.
One of the shurikens, the one that was hidden by Yuta's Shadow Cloak, had successfully slipped past Keisuke's defenses and plunged deeply into his throat. It was clearly a lethal hit.
"Kh.. Ghah..." Keisuke tried to say something, but he was unable to produce even a word as his windpipe was completely torn by the shuriken, as well as major arteries. The light was quickly fading from Keisuke's eyes, and after a few more seconds of standing and looking down and around in disbelief and unwillingness, finally, Keisuke fell to the ground, produced some gurgling sounds for another few seconds and stopped moving altogether.
The three of them, Yuta, Itachi and Hikari, were standing in a circle around Keisuke's body, looking at him with a wide range of emotions in each pair of their eyes.
No one said a word, they just stood there for a solid ten seconds, processing what happened.
'What a tuff bastard...' Yuta thought as he looked at Keisuke's corpse. Sweat was dripping from Yuta's face, and he felt completely spent, his body felt heavy, and his muscles felt sore after the overuse of chakra for enhancing his moves and speed, his chakra reserves felt empty.
'That's why Jonins are called elites... Only a small percent of ninjas are ever become Jonins. I mean the real Jonins of the Five Great Hidden Villages, like Keisuke, not like that genjutsu specialist guy Jun, that was called a Jonin in his own minor hidden village.'
'How did we even manage to defeat this guy? If not for Itachi being here, I'm pretty sure that me and Hikari would be dead in just a few seconds in a fight against him. But Itachi is still young and lacks experience, although his power is already at a Jonin level, he still struggles to defeat a real full-fledged Jonin in a fight, or so it seems.'
'Well, even then, Itachi's power is bound to rise even higher quite quickly. Although, with Shisui not dying during the Uchiha's clan mess, Itachi won't awaken his Mangekyo Sharingan. But if I were to chose between Itachi with MS and Shisui being dead, and Shisui being alive and Itachi without MS, then the choice is obvious.'
'Why would I trade the life of a person, that is the closest to a definition of being my best friend in this world, for just some power for someone else? That is just stupid. So, I guess Itachi should remain without MS for his whole life. Or who knows, maybe such a thing as destiny and fate exists after all, and Itachi would be able to awaken his MS some other way, who knows...'
'But let's get back on track – what was that thing that happened when Hikari's sword grazed Keisuke's wrist? How did it end up severed?' Yuta thought as he looked at Hikari who stood in front of him, with Keisuke's corpse being between them on the ground.
Hikari, sensing someone's gaze, looked up at Yuta and then glanced at Itachi, who had already deactivated his Sharingan and just stood there beside them.
"I guess both of you want an explanation, huh..." Hikari said slowly.
And as she looked over Itachi and Yuta once again, she sighed tiredly and said, "But before that, I want both of you to promise me that you will never reveal what happened here to anyone else." She said with a firm and uncompromising expression on her face.
'What? Does she have some sort of a big secret too? No way...' Yuta thought surprised as he firmly nodded, agreeing to remain silent...
--- AN ---
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