Aburame Shibi said in a loud voice "As there are an odd number of candidates, a number is drawn for the next round to sit out" he paused and wanted to continue but was interrupted by three voices.
"Can we have a three-way battle instead?" asked Hiroto, Itachi, and Anko at the same time. Hearing the other two voices Hiroto looked at his teammates with a smile, same is the case with Itachi and Anko.
Shibi heard the question and looked at the Hokage in the VIP room waiting for his approval, and soon a few moments later Hokage sent the word of his approval through an Anbu. "Based on the contestants' request and approval from Lord Hokage the next fight will be the final fight" Shibi announced and continued "Genins from the same team will fight in this final match, Uchiha Itachi vs Uzumaki Hiroto vs Mitarashi Anko, and the match will begin shortly" he completed all he had to say hyping up the crowd.
Shikaku who is the audience is proud of his students and is eagerly waiting to see the match as each of them are battle junkies, he also knows his students won't hold grudges against the other even if they lost.
"Good job, Shikaku" Inoichi, and Choza congratulated their friend on his successful journey as a jōnin incharge, the genins standing in the field is proof enough of the Nara clan head's competence as a teacher.
...
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Itachi, Hiroto, and Anko stood facing each other with everyone not taking their eyes off the other two.
"Start the match" Shibi announced and moved away a safe distance.
The fight began with a flurry of movement, as Anko darted forward and tried to strike Itachi with a series of quick jabs. Itachi, however, was quick for her, and he dodged each attack with ease. Hiroto not wanting to be left out joined the action and the three of them fought only using taijutsu.
Anko sent a punch and kick at her friends, Itachi blocked the punch and counterattacked at the same time using his legs to block a kick from his childhood friend, Hiroto blocked the kick from Anko and held her leg and sent a kick toward his childhood friend, they held the same pose for a second and the barrage of attacks and blocks continued. Many people in the audience saw only that one moment as only the eyes of ninjas above normal chūnin level could follow those movements.
Hiroto's Uzumaki physique started showing its advantage as Itachi and Anko started to struggle with his attacks so they shared a look and both gave a kick to the Uzumaki pushing him further while they also retreated. The match came to a standstill for a moment as the three of them are catching up their breaths.
Suddenly, Itachi sprang into action, his Sharingan eyes spinning to two tomoe as he launched a powerful jutsu at Hiroto. The latter leaped out of the way just in time, but Itachi continued to press his attack with shurikens, using a series of lightning-fast movements to keep him on the defensive. Hiroto gave a smile to his childhood friend and chains sprung from Hiroto's back pushing Itachi away and he retreated preparing a wind-style jutsu. Meanwhile, Anko seized her opportunity and summoned a large snake, the snake made its way to the nearest target Itachi and bit him. At that moment Itachi disappeared and a flock of crows took his position, the crows flew away and gathered together at a safe distance to make the whole flock turn as Itachi.
In the audience, Fugaku, Mikoto, and Kakashi looked at Shisui seeing the crows as he is the previous summoner of crows before Itachi, "Don't look at me like that he reached my expectations and I gave him the summoning scroll as his reward" Shisui answered them, next all the eyes turned to Kakashi as if asking what he gave Hiroto. "I didn't give him my summoning scroll but gave another gift" Kakashi answered not specifying what he gave Hiroto so all eyes turned to the match hoping to see Hiroto use it.
Hiroto launched a barrage of explosive tags at both Itachi and Anko, the summoned snake dashed at Hiroto and he held the snake in position with the help of Adamantine sealing chains, Anko rushed to help her summoning animal but was blocked by Itachi. Hiroto used five of his chains to hold the snake from moving, just as he is reaching his limit with Adamantine sealing chains as he couldn't keep using that many chains simultaneously, the snake disappeared in a puff of smoke and vanished ending the summoning.
Anko has to deal quickly with Itachi to save her snake so she unleashed a barrage of attacks on him, Itachi also quickly countered the jutsus Anko unleashed seeing no way out she summoned a couple of small snakes and launched them at Itachi and used body flicker jutsu to save her summon but alas her efforts are naught as she saw her summon had gone back to the summoning realm.
Anko could sigh in defeat and prepare for the next counter-attack but a kunai was held to her neck courtesy of Itachi, so she said "I surrender" and left the battlefield. Now the match has turned one vs one and the audience are already very happy with the display till now, now they are even more enthusiastic waiting to see the final result.
Itachi took his longsword out and Hiroto did the same and both childhood friends are engaged in a sword fight with a few jutsus mixed in between. Itachi launched a water wave and Hiroto murmured Wind fang and cut the wave with his katana which is coated in wind chakra but alas the sword couldn't hold on to being coated with chakra and the force of the wave so it broke.
The audience are ecstatic but Fugaku, Mikoto, and Shisui's eyes widened at Kakashi as he taught Hiroto the signature attack style of the Konoha's White Fang, in the VIP room Hizuren is also shocked to see this style gaining its notoriety back in the hands of Kakashi and Hiroto. Everyone's eyes are glued to the fight and no one noticed the fear in Danzo's eyes as he already had nightmares about seeing Kakashi that style, as it reminded him of Sakumo now Hiroto joined his nightmares reminding his father to him.
Itachi smiled at his friend and his 3yes turned to three tomoe and started reading all of Hiroto's attacks before he completed them. After a couple of back and forth, jutsus Hiroto got aware of this and started using Swift release to accelerate his hand signs speed and started the attack, Itachi noticed the increase in speed and he too had to do everything in his tank to keep up with those handsign speed.
Seeing the jutsu casting speed of these even seasoned jōnins are shocked.
Hiroto is starting to get tired and noticed his bestfriend is also in the same state so he made a shadow clone to buy him time while Itachi is eyeing him with a wary look as the latter didn't have enough chakra to form a shadow clone, he attacked with a new jutsu he learned as chakra slowly started rotating and condensing in his palm soon a blue ball of chakra is formed.
"Rasengan" Hiroto said and rushed at his friend hoping to make him give up the match, Itachi knew about the signature jutsu of his uncle so he said "I give up" as Hiroto is a few feet away from him and the dense chakra in Hiroto's hand dispersed slowly.
The audience cheered at the top of their voice at the final match of the chūnin competition.