I don't own solo leveling or Naruto
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'... Uchiha Itachi'
...
Leaving the vines very far from behind them, the group trekked on and found themselves in a spacious chamber with luminous stones scattered on the ceiling to give the room light, allowing the two fire mages to release their fire magic that gave the group light throughout the dark tunnels.
The cage-like door behind them was closed suddenly, accompanied by squeaky and distorted laughter associated with one type of monster, goblins.
Appearing from their tiny hidey holes near the corners of the ceiling. They had multiple dwarf sized axes, swords and archery equipment drawn and ready to try and kill the hunters trapped inside.
Itachi jumped back to dodge a volley flaming arrows that were launched at him which explodes as soon as they made contact with the ground. He landed and then released a straight back kick in the chest of a goblin behind him sending it splat on the wall.
He grabbed another coming to his left and dragged its body through the air to fend off multiple projectiles that were thrown at him. He then threw the bloody corpse of the goblin, pentrated by multiple weapons, straight at a group of three goblins in the corner sending them tumbling over.
'Let's see how the others are doing,' he thought as he scanned the battlefield to see the prisoners viciously ripping and tearing through the flesh of the tiny monsters. They were very aggressive with barely a hint of self control in their attacks like savages.
Kirito's party on the other hand worked together like a well oiled machine, everyone had each other's backs and were covering for the others weakness.
'Looks like things will be wrapped up pretty soon,' Itachi thought. Goblins aren't particularly powerful, because even E-rank hunters are able to deal with them. Their strength lied in their numbers and so they generally try to perform sneak attacks on their opponents to catch them off guard, without that element of surprise they are pretty much nothing to high ranking hunters like Itachi.
However a subspecies of goblins known as the hobgoblin are far more troublesome to deal with because of their size and corrosive spit and poison blood that leaks into the air after they are killed.
...
"That was pretty easy!"
"A good warm up if you ask me,"
"Yeah, when is this going to get challenging,"
The prisoners commented after killing off the last batch of goblins with no issues. The hunters giving them wide berth to do so, in their own corner some giving them dirty looks and others even more concerned at their savage behavior.
'They're a little unhinged, but seem to able to play nice with others. Let's see how they do in higher stress situation... If it gets more higher stress than this,' Itachi summed up in his head, the behavior of the prisoners during the raid so far. He sighed lightly and started to make his way towards the gate in front of them to go further and look for the boss.
He could be collecting some essence stones like the others, but from E-rank monsters. It wasn't worth getting his outfit more dirty than it was.
...
"The path splits from this point onwards so should our group split up as well?" Kirito questioned looking at Itachi to see if he was fine with that arrangement.
"We'll be able to cover much more ground that way, but you should take this as well," Itachi said as he summoned a black crow out of nowhere. "I can see through its eyes with a technique of mine. I'll know if you're in danger and need back up or if I'm going the wrong way," Itachi explained to the purplexed hunters. He wondered why they were so surprised but at the same time wasn't interested and so didn't bother asking.
"What if you'll need back up?" Sakurai asked but Itachi answered with a simple, "I won't."
The long black haired teen walked off into the illuminated tunnel whilst promoting the prisoner to enter the tunnel ahead of him.
'What an intimidating kid,' Kirito thought to himself, ordering his attack force to enter the other luminous tunnel.
...
Daku walked in the front of the whole group with a massive smile on his face the whole time they walked in the tunnel. 'It's almost time to earn my freedom. Killing everyone is always the best part...' he thought as formed a hand sign causing vines to snatch at the legs of everyone except for his partner in crime, Koji. The red head formed another hand sign to close off the opening behind them preventing the possibility of back up ever making it in time.
Turning around with a huge grin on his face to see Itachi with a slight frown on his face, but other than that didn't show much distress compared to the other prisoners trying their best to claw the vines, slowly crippling up their ankles, off.
"You should be more worried than you are now kid. Those vines release a slow acting paralytic poison upon contact. In about ten minutes you'll be a sitting duck easy for me to kill. Well... even more of a sitting duck," he chuckled lightly walking forward whilst slitting the throats of his fellow prisoners with his dagger.
He finally made his way towards the teenager and used his crimson bloody knife to tilt his head up by the chin. " Sorry kid, but you're a small price to pay for freedom," he smirked not at all apologetic about his actions. He slit the throat of the teen and watched as the light faded from his onyx eyes and his body not being allowed to fall over due to the vines keeping his body upright.
"So, you finally showed your hand. Allow me to show mine," Itachi's voice called out from behind Daku. He quickly whipped his head around to see the teen he had just killed alive and well with his hands in his pockets.
"How?!" Daku shouted out confused at what was happening. The Uchiha's eyes slowly turned to the crimson color that stained his knife and settle in a weird pattern with commas in them.
"These eyes sees through all illusions," Itachi stated profoundly twirling a kunai in his right hand.
...
Sparks flashed from a kunai and dagger clash from both Itachi and Daku respectively. Glaring at each other with murderous intent they separated from each other and started to size the other up from a distance.
'Damn! I was too casual. In his file it said that he could use illusions, but I underestimated how powerful they actually were,' a drop of sweat came off his forehead as he took a glance at the form of Koji slumped over dead. The kid had caused him to kill his back up which would make things more troublesome after he killed him because of the other hunters raiding with them.
"What's up with you, kid? You know you're pretty cold blooded for letting me kill all the prisoners," Daku said giving the blank faced boy a smile. "It's an unfortunate loss of life, but I couldn't afford the possibility of them siding with you. That would just make it more troublesome to take you out," Itachi explained his cold calculation coming out on top of his morality. Those prisoners may have had families or friends outside the dungeon, but inside it was kill or be killed and Itachi couldn't afford to let a monster like Daku run freely.
"Why do all this?" was his simple question. He didn't take much prompting from scum like him to go on a killing spree, but he was curious, regardless.
"All what? Killing? To be honest the lives of others are a small price to pay for my freedom," Daku answered not at all apologetic about his actions. "What freedom?" the teen questioned his brow signifying his confusion.
"Don't you know? There are others that conspire against you, boy. So much so that they offered me a deal. Kill you and I'm a free man once again," He elobrated his grin growing wider and wider.
'Others that conspire against me?' The teen thought.
Itachi Uchiha wouldn't realize it then but his awakening had shifted the balance of power in the lands of Japan more drastically than ever before. It was more than a simple power struggle between the Japanese government and Guilds— which the government was losing — but rather the number of gates increases in number around Japan so much so that dungeon breaks that were very rare would slowly become more frequent and even the strength of monsters.
"Even in a world dominated by strength there are weaklings that cling to the little power they have," Daku said with a look of disgust on his face.
"Even you don't seem happy about working with someone like them," Itachi commented noticing the face Daku made.
Chuckling the prisoner shot back.
"It's a concession I made, even weaklings have something to offer." His face then lit up as of realizing something important, "Hey, we're the same rank, aren't we? Let's battle like true A-rank hunters!" he showed a huge smile of excitement on his face.
Itachi frowned at the information coming from the prisoner's mouth. Anzu had informed him that no one on this mission was equal to his rank so if what Daku said was true then that meant the redhead had able to hide his magical presence from the mana detector even inside a prison meant for detaining criminal hunters.
'Impressive.'
"Who are these people that conspire against me?" After a few moments the Uchiha finally asked. A question that had been gripping him for a bit, if they were willing to comprise a mission by the Association just to kill him then there's no telling what else they could do.
"That's confidential. Even if I did, what would you do?"
"... I'll kill them after you," he said simply the tomoe inside his scarlet eyes began to spin wildly, sending the prisoner a menacing glare. His mana explosing in a massive wave that caused the tiny hairs on Daku's body to stand on end.
"Scary face you have there, kid! Let's see you back it up!" the A-ranker yelled with a laugh right after. Getting into a fighting stance whilst glaring right back at the teen.
Blinking out of sight Itachi appeared right before Daku and sliced at him with his kunai. Daku managed to tilt his head back just in time to dodge the attack and counter with his vines sprouting from the ground and attaching to the teenager's legs.
"Gotcha!" he shouted and capitalized on this opportunity to land a volley of punches right on Itachi's noggin. Itachi caught the last fist in his palm before spitting out some blood from his mouth.
"You have good strength behind your strikes but still not enough," he said and used his other hand and palm strikes him the chest sending a few meters back.
Itachi knew that he should've been at natural advantage against Daku since magicians couldn't hope to match an assassin in one on one combat, but it seemed through some unknown means he was able to close the gap in speed and strength between them.
Vines entered his line of sight melding together to a sharp projectile with the sole purpose of putting a hole in him. He tried moving but he was restricted by the vines tighten around his ankles keeping him still.
"Dammit!"
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[Fire style : Grand Fire Ball Technique!]
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Spewing red hot flames from his mouth that clash with the vine spear. Due to having the elemental advantage Itachi's fireball eviscerated the vine and flew towards the redhead.
'Elemental magic as well?! What is he?' Daku thought alarmed as the fireball quickly made its way towards him.
Thinking on his feet he started sinking into the ground evading the fireball as it crashed into the wall behind him causing the tunnel to rumble.
Cutting himself free from the vines rooting him in place, he backflipped to avoid vine to the right of sprouting out from the wall. Multiple vines started sprouting from the walls and ceiling with the Uchiha avoiding every attack with cat-like grace.
'He knows that he can't beat me up close so he's using long range attacks to keep me away,' Itachi surmised.
Daku was trying to overwhelm him with attacks from multiple different angles while hiding underground since Itachi couldn't see through the ground.
Itachi backpedaled as more and more vines shot out at him as Daku used the pressure he was putting on the teen to attempt to strike him from behind, but the Uchiha saw this with his enhanced visual prowess and flipped over his attacker.
'So agile! Even with all that pressure on him he still saw me striking his blind spot and dodged on time,' Daku complimented begrudgingly, rolling to regain his balance.
"So you show yourself. You know that you can't take me one on one and so you use diversion tactics and strike from the shadows, but all of it is futile before my eyes," Itachi said with his scarlet eyes shimmering with power.
"You're not normal even for an assassin. Illusions, fire magic and enhanced vision from those red eyes of yours. You might be closer to an S-rank rather than A-rank. In all my years I've never encountered someone like you and that's why it will be an honor to kill you, Uchiha Itachi!"
Daku laughed wildly with a bloodlusted glint in his eyes and a manic smile forming on his face.
"Kill me? You'll have to be able to touch me fir-!?" Itachi's face grew alarmed as he sank to one knee involuntarily. This caused Daku to laugh louder as he couldn't contain the excitement on his face.
"It's finally kicking in! The neurotoxin transmitted through my vines it's paralyzing effects take a while to kick in but once they do my victims are nothing but sitting ducks afterwards!" Daku explained to the sweating Itachi struggling to move his legs at all.
Itachi glared murderously at the prisoner not giving him the satisfaction of him seeing fear on his face.
"Hn."