“You’re unusually tense today!”
“Shut the hell up, you ugly bird!” Kohana yelled at her summoning’s constant squawking. Hitoshi, the giant vulture’s noise and talkative attitude often sent Kohana on edge and often made her regret even making a contract with the confounded creature. Like her relationship with Kiba, Kohana and Hitoshi didn’t exactly get along. Of course, the vulture and his master had a much closer relationship and they often agreed with each other during missions and such. However, if Hitoshi was in the mood to try and make the atmosphere more light-hearted, it ended up with the two throwing lame insults at each other.
Hitoshi always flew as high as he possibly can without cutting Kohana’s source of oxygen. This was for the sole reason that his massive size was too suspicious and flashy. The farther they were from the ground, the smaller his figure seemed to be.
Over the two and a half years of absence, Kohana had created two summoning contracts, one with Hitoshi and another with Kunio, a fat and polite mole that helped Kohana with travelling underground and with searching for enemies that knew how to perfectly cloak their chakra. However, with Kunio’s size as brassy as Hitoshi’s, he was only used a little less often than Hitoshi. Not to mention Kunio was clumsy and often destroyed trees that he would make contact with… or at least turn an untouched dirt path into a rut.
“Well, calm down! From running a whole day, you really should take a break.”
Kohana’s eye twitched. Truthfully, she appreciated Hitoshi’s genuine concern for her well-being but she just hoped that sometimes, he would just shut up… even if he did have a point.
The loud flapping of wings and the violent brush of the wind filled the space silence had created. Still, it didn’t last very long.
“What’s wrong?” Kohana solemnly asked as she tightened her grip on the vulture’s soft, brown feathers. Hitoshi had stopped accelerating and just remained still, airborne, with his wings flapping at a slightly rapid pace. His mouth was open and his golden eyes darted below them.
“We’re going down.”
“What? Why?” Kohana demanded.
“You’ll see.”
Hitoshi’s tone was grim, and it made Kohana all the more uneasy. Hitoshi was always the reason why she kept calm during missions—aside from Osamu or Kunio—which meant that whenever Hitoshi knows that something is about to go wrong, Kohana could never find it in herself to think straight. Perhaps she relied on the bird too much.
The vulture dove straight towards a clearing in the forest.
In the middle of the clearing stood a dark figure and Kohana was now sure why Hitoshi was so serious about going down.
With the wind whistling in her ears, Kohana couldn’t fight the steady hastening of her beating heart. It was different this time though; instead of feeling uneasy like Hitoshi, Kohana felt almost excited. Yet, behind that certain anticipation was anger. Kohana didn’t want to feel anger because the feeling was for the young man she’d learned to hate, Sasuke.
Several feet from the ground, Hitoshi disappeared with a poof and down came Kohana from the sky. When it was a few more feet, the redhead somersaulted, somehow softening her fall on the ground.
Falling to one knee, she looked up into the red eyes of Uchiha Itachi.
As she stood on her feet, Kohana could feel something inside her soften. Even though their first meeting in years was most unfortunate and for the purpose of him taking Naruto away, Kohana still couldn’t bring herself to feel overly-negative feelings for the man. How could she?
“Itachi,” she breathed, her fists clenched at her sides. She had a feeling that she would have to use Yoshinori, the sword of Osamu’s father immediately.
“Kohana… you’ve grown.”
For some odd reason, Kohana found herself smiling sadly at how Itachi regarded her. His tone was cold and callous… but she refused to believe that it was so.
“You’ve never changed, Itachi…” she found herself saying. Although it was a slip of the tongue, Kohana still hoped that it managed to spark something within Itachi. Be it anger towards her presumptuousness or something else, Kohana hoped it was something.
Amidst the tense atmosphere between the two, Kohana thumbed the golden hand guard of Yoshinori, ready to sheathe it if ever a battle were to commence soon. Despite the sense of sadness in Kohana’s heart, she couldn’t help but say: “I would hug you right now for no apparent reason, but apparently, you’re the enemy and I’m forced to fight you. I know you’re not into fighting though, so I’ll just ask you to let me through.”
Itachi narrowed his eyes and Kohana swore she could see something the three commas shift.
It was not long before footsteps were heard, ruining their quiet reunion.
“Nee-chan! What ar—“ Naruto couldn’t bring himself to continue his sentence at the sight of Uchiha Itachi, the very reason why Sasuke was put through so much pain; the reason why he left the village, drunk from his thirst for power and revenge.
“It has been a while, Kakashi-san… Naruto-kun.”
“You bastard…” Naruto began, “not just me, but even Gaara? I’ll beat you all down!”
Itachi’s arm moved and Kakashi was quick to notice this. Whipping his arm to the side, he commanded all in a panic, “Everyone, don’t look directly in his eyes…! It’s dangerous!”
Closing her eyes, Kohana heaved a sigh and chose to listen in to Kakashi and her team.
“Judge his movements from the movement of his body and feet. Itachi’s genjutsu is a dōjutsu… in other words, it’s a vision type. You’ll be fine if you avoid eye contact.”
‘Go special training,’ Kohana mentally cheered and crossed her arms, opening her eyes to stare at Itachi’s feet.
“If it’s one on one, surely flee. If it’s two on one, take the rear.”
“What do you mean?” Naruto asked. He sounded utterly confused.
“If it’s two on one, even if one is caught in the genjutsu, there’s one more to go behind the opponent. If they hit the real body, then the genjutsu is unraveled. Even if that’s impossible, they can help their partner by cancelling the genjutsu themselves. That is, if there are multiple opponents, one person can divert… and the other can move behind to the Sharingan’s blind spot and attack.”
Sakura nodded. “I see…”
“Yeah! The old hag is useful!” Naruto smirked.
“Respect your elders, Naruto,” Kohana joked.
“No fun!”
“Well, that’s alright for a normal genjustu level, but in this case, it will be a little more trouble.”
“What do you mean?” Chiyo asked Kakashi.
“He uses a dōjutsu that surpasses the original Sharingan, the ‘Mangekyō Sharingan’. If you are struck by that dōjutsu, his genjutsu can affect you in an instant. There is no cancelling the effects of it.”
“A troublesome person… what in the world is he?”
Kohana’s eye twitched at the insult to Itachi. ‘He is not troublesome,’ she thought.
“That’s Kakashi-san for you. That, after having been affected by my Tsukuyomi once.”
“That’s not all; after you used that dōjutsu… you became weary and immediately left the fight. Besides the fact that it requires a considerable amount of chakra, it also presents a great risk to your eyes as well, doesn’t it… Itachi?”
“Well analyzed, given that you have only fought me once.”
At that very moment, Kohana felt something heavy weighing down on her. It must have been Itachi’s Sharingan, and if not, it could have been the new knowledge she’d just heard, especially when…
“How far has your eyesight deteriorated?”
Itachi’s eyes widened the slightest. “Kakashi-san… impossible… you…”
“Well! Last time, I was unprepared, but I’m not like that this time. This won’t go the way as it did last time.”
Naruto nodded. “If you think I’ll be the same as before as well, you’re making a huge mistake!”
Kohana kept her eyes on Itachi’s feet, unsmiling even as she raised a thumb. “Count me in!”
“I’ll handle him.”
Naruto clenched his teeth. “If I don’t get to fight again, where’s the teamwork? Same goes for Nee-chan!”
“No, this time… I want you to cover me. Really, I want to say ‘hurry ahead’ brashly, but… even with me as his opponent, I can’t handle him myself.”
Watching Itachi point his finger in their direction, Kohana took a step forward, ready to assist Kakashi.
“We’ll kindly ask you to come with us now, Naruto-kun.”
Gritting her teeth, Kohana could feel her patience shortening. She would have to forget about everything she had experienced with Itachi back in the days. Kohana knew she needed to remember the main target of their mission: Gaara, and as Naruto’s sister, she had to protect the blonde as well.
“You’ll have to face me first.”
Itachi caught Kakashi’s charging fist with ease and remained unmoving other than that. Kakashi’s Sharingan eye darted to the left at the swiftness of the figure that dashed past him.
“A shadow clone!”
The noisy sound of whirling filled the air as Naruto thrust his Rasengan into Itachi’s stomach, eliminating the clone in one hit.
Gritting her teeth, Kohana cursed under her breath. “He’s under the genjutsu!”
Reaching into her holster, she grabbed an average kunai and held it between her teeth as she formed the appropriate seals. “Raiton: Denji Jūjika-zō! [Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Crucifix Tenchnique]”
Pulling a wire from her weapons pouch, she let her chakra flow into the long thing as she inserted it through three kunai pommels in mid-air. Narrowing her eyes, she concentrated her chakra on the kunai stuck to her teeth and formed a line of electricity from it to the middle kunai of the batch she gathered with the wire. Thrusting both of her arms forward (one in front of the kunai to the left and the other in front of the kunai to the right), the three kunai bound by the wire shot out, coated by her chakra and chained to the electric current that originated from Kohana’s static-covered hands.
“Kakashi-sensei, move out of the way!”
Nodding Kakashi did as he was told the second Itachi was positioned right before a tree.
However, Itachi seemed to have disappeared as Kohana snapped her fingers and the three kunai embedded themselves into the tree, roasting more than half past the affected area.
Spitting the kunai in her mouth to the ground, Kohana cursed out loud, yelling at Kakashi to stay away from the tree as she broke the chain that connected her hands and the set of kunai. The very second he did so, the trees all around the targeted area exploded, leaving charred splinters, black grass and indentations in its wake.
Falling to the ground, Kohana used the backs of her hands to support herself.
Her palms were burnt, her skin charred and sickeningly brown. In fact, it was still burning and Kohana was too afraid to look at the wet, pink skin that peeked out from underneath the burnt strips of skin. Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes from the pain, but she refused to let them flow. She was rendered useless for now. Since she didn’t know how to use medical jutsu, she wouldn’t be able to heal her wounds enough t be able to hold her sword.
The jutsu really was too risky.
She made a mental note to just use it as a last resort the next time she’s face with a strong opponent.
“You okay?” Kakashi asked from beside her.
Kohana nodded her head, still disregarding the painful pricks in her palms. “Yeah, it looks worse than it feels.” Kakashi knew she was lying but decided not to say anything.
Sighing, Kohana stood up and retreated back to Sakura’s side. Moving her eyes to the left, she could see Naruto’s eyes wide open in what seemed like fear and shock. She didn’t even want to start thinking of what he had to go through in that genjutsu.
“It seems he doesn’t just use dōjutsu,” said the momentarily traumatized jinchūriki.
“It’s finally time for the last battle. Give it your all, you two!”
“Right!”
“Do you want me to heal your hands first?” Sakura quietly asked Kohana, whose fingers twitched over and over from the throbbing of her hands. “It won’t take long.”
Nodding, Kohana brought her hands forward as Sakura let her hands hover over Kohana’s injury. As the green chakra slowly enveloped her hands, Kohana found herself sighing from the cool feeling of her skin being repaired.
“Thanks, Sakura… that’s really awesome.”
Smirking slightly, Sakura focused on her healing. “I told you, didn’t I? All that training wasn’t for nothing.”
The second the healing was over, Kohana thanked Sakura and stepped forward next to Kakashi, a determined grin on her face as she unsheathed Yoshinori, raising the blade to point at Itachi with its tip. “I don’t want to hurt you, Itachi… but this time, I’m serious,” to prove her words, she narrowed her eyes, the grin falling to a firm line, “lay a hand on the people I love, and I’ll be sure to make you suffer for it.”
A/N: FOURTH chapter! Yay! It's better than the third one! Oh yeah~