"Tsukoyomi!" Itachi said quietly and with a low tone.
His eyes seemed to start moving, circling around on the red background of the sharingan as the jutsu began. Dix's eyes seemed to react as they stared at each other challenging their eyes' capabilities. There are many types of genjutsus, many those that try to distract or stun the enemy for a few seconds, but Tsukoyomi is different. It supposed to be the ultimate genjutsu capable of breaking the mind and spirit of whoever it is subjected to. But there were simple quality differences between Itachi's and Dix's eyes. The EMS always knocks out the MS in a one-on-one fight, and this theory was put into practice.
Itachi had a single drop of sweat run down from his forehead to his chins as he understood the depth of his opponent's power. He knew deep in his heart that Dix's claims were true and he was a sitting duck in front of him, without any power or fighting chance. He could try and use some conventional jutsus, but in front of overwhelming power, what can one trick do?
Itachi attacked someone with sharingan techniques he shouldn't have. Sharingans have the ability to reflect genjutsus, and with sufficient power and quality, one can even reflect Tsukoyomi, and that's what Itachi was afraid of. He prepared to take the punishment for his mistake, but the debilitating mental attack never came.
"I don't need to break your spirit. I can easily kill you without genjutsu, and to be honest, I never liked those techniques. But I respect you for your loyalty. I have a proposal for you. If you are willing to leave everything behind, leave the Akatsuki and your life behind yourself as a ninja, I am willing to let you go." Dix said with a gentle voice. Itachi was quite surprised at this. It sounded so alien hearing words of mercy from someone that got his hands on an EMS. He had no idea what to think, but his loyalty spoke before he could even think it trough.
"That is impossible. I have a mission to accomplish. I will finish what I started, or die trying." he said instead, firm in sound, but shaky in resolve.
"Don't worry, you don't have to spy for Konoha. We don't need your services anymore. I know everything there is to know about Akatsuki, way more then you do. Because of your noble sacrifice for the village and your brother, I am willing to spare you." Dix said, then his eyes flicked over to Kisame." He has to die though. His loyalty is almost as strong as yours. He will fight for the Akatsuki to his last breath." Dix concluded his monologue, then waited for Itachi to digest everything he heard. He was looking at the ground in front of him in contemplation, while Kisame jerked his head to the side to look at Itachi.
"What is he talking about, Itachi?! Is he telling the truth? How can this be? You killed your whole clan, but now you spy for Konoha? This is bullshit!" he shouted, then got Samehada, his huge weapon off of his back and pointed at Dix with it." You are full of bullshit! Stop with this rubbish and fight! You want to kill me, don't you?! You can't take me so easily, you snotty brat!" he kept shouting, then started rapidly forming handsigns. He pulled out the big guns right away, the Water Prison Shark Dance Technique.
After using the Water Release: Great Exploding Water Colliding Wave and fusing with Samehada, Kisame acts as the centre of the resultant giant dome of water. Once this technique has been activated, the dome alters its position in order to reflect the direction of the his movements, making it difficult for his target to escape as long as he continue their pursuit.
This technique provides him a tremendous field advantage, as his fused form grants him the ability to breathe and freely move underwater, while his target continues to drown as they attempt to futilely escape the large body of water. This technique is extremely effective in one on one fights, but the user would probably not be able to contain two enemies fleeing in opposite directions.
It also was heavily countered by space-time jutsus. Considering Dix was able to freely escape, this time the actual point of using this jutsu was to act as kind of a defense. When someone moves or uses chakra in the water dome, Kisame is able to feel it and attack extremely fast. Thus if Dix were to teleport inside and try to attack Kisame from behind, he was supposed to have a hard time. Too bad Dix had way more cards up his sleeve.
He just sighed seeing Kisame's actions, then nonchalantly threw a kunai behind him. He already had one on Kisame so he didn't need to try and trap him or use his speed to surprise him. When Kisame finished with his handsigns he summoned a huge wave of water, actually many waves stacked upon each other. It looked like many waterfalls were put on top of each other, which was quite the sight, but Dix didn't have much time to gaze at it. Soon the water hit him, or at least the place where he stood a second ago.
He quickly teleported away from harm, to the kunai he threw behind him, then summoned a few clones to take care of the nuisance. Next, as the clones started fighting Kisame, he moved over to Itachi. That one got quite scared as Dix suddenly appeared on his left side and reflexively pulled out a kunai to stab him, but Dix simply blinked to his right side in the same position, using the fact that around formulas he can freely use FTGT as he wants.
This reminded him a terrible past experience when he was at the receiving end of something similar.
"So what do you say? You love your brother so much you were willing to sacrifice your family for him. Also your loyalty to the village, yeah. But who really cares? I can handle the Akatsuki from now on. You were on my list the same way as the others, but you are just a humble spy employed by Konoha. You did your job, you sacrificed enough for the village already. Nothing should bind you anymore. I am willing to take care of Sasuke, so his hatred doesn't get out of control, like you wanted it to happen before. By the way, really shitty idea. Anyway, what do you think?"
Itachi looked to the other side, as first he jerked his face left to respond to the 'danger' reflexively. His expression was full of melancholy and contemplation. Like it usually is. His MS already deactivated, as he knew it is useless against his 'opponent'. He wanted to know more, so he opened his mouth to form his questions.
"How do you know so much?" he finally asked after a few seconds of thinking. This kid was too much, Itachi had no idea which answer he wanted to hear first, so he had to settle on this.
"Hmmm, I can't really tell you. I have too many secrets, I have many trump-cards and knowledge of the most extreme things of this world. Even if you could understand, there is no purpose in telling you any of it." Dix said after a bit of thinking. It was true, he had no reason to tell Itachi the whys or hows. "You can take my offer or die trying to resist. You can choose, and be grateful, not many are given a choice whom I make a target for myself. You can see for yourself, your little 'friend' here will perish soon without a choice." he said, then looked back at the fight between Kisame and the clones.
He didn't give much power to them, he wanted to see how well they do, so they only had some natural energy in their pockets, nothing too fancy, so Kisame was able to easily hunt them down while laughing as a madman, because he already formed the water dome and fused with Samehada. Dix showed a bit of frown as he thought Kisame had a too easy time, so he activated his EMS.
Suddenly a huge burst of blue flames blew up in the middle of the water dome, very quickly freezing the water around it. Kisame was quite close, so he was also affected by the sudden loss of temperature and chakra. He had extreme chakra reserves, but the blue flame was huge, it took way too much of his chakra.
He wanted to flee but the water around him moved with him, meaning the already frozen parts were carried too. He had no other choice but to dissolve the jutsu and revert his transformation, as if he was out of water the Samehada form was more like a disadvantage.
He also understood the blue flames were not some last-case one-use trump-cards, but a spammable ability, considering he listened to Itachi a lot during their travel. They weren't partners for long, but he always asked Itachi about his powers, who sometimes answered. Because of this he had to start peeling Samehada off of his skin. Reversing the transformation took a heavy toll on his body though.
He used this technique when he wanted to finish off an enemy fast or execute someone, but due to his earlier rage he was caught in a bad position. He used a jutsu that was countered without him scouting his enemies abilities first. He was never done in so bad before though, he had no idea something similar ever existed.
He dissolved the water dome, at which all the water that was around him started to flow away, except for the blue flames, that formed an incredibly thick sphere of ice around it. Kisame had no idea he was supposed to run as fast as possible, but even if he knew, he was still suffering from the backlash of forcibly reverting his fusion form.
Next an explosion so great occurred it would've been able to demolish almost anything that is in its approximate range of 20 meters. Fortunately, or more like due to the well-done calculations on Dix's part, he and Itachi was around 30 meters away from the explosions. The next threat were the many-meter large extremely sharp ice shards spreading everywhere. Itachi wanted to run away, but Dix grabbed his shoulder while standing still.
He activated FTGT, but instead of teleporting them away, he unleashed his chakra to the boundaries of his upgraded formula, and using his incredibly quick reaction time he teleported any stray shards that were on their way towards them somewhere else. From the outside it looked as if they were protected by God himself, as when the shards approached them to a specific distance they all disappeared, while all around them the environment was badly damaged due to the explosion and its consequences. Unfortunately that God wasn't willing to protect Kisame, who had the worst day of his life.
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