Chapter 195: The Roadside Clash

Tonbo appeared on the road outside the Land of Exchange.

"As expected of Itachi. It has been a long time."

The boy he remembered had become a young man. The lines beneath Itachi's eyes and the caution in his posture made him look older than his years.

Kisame stood beside him with Samehada over one shoulder. The sharklike face matched his reputation; the chakra did more. Tonbo sensed reserves more than ten times his own, with another immense supply held within the sword. The title of tailed beast without a tail was not an exaggeration.

Kisame's constitution produced chakra at a scale rare even among Kage-level shinobi. Samehada served as reservoir, partner, and weapon, feeding its wielder from power stolen during combat. Any prolonged exchange could therefore strengthen the man Tonbo needed to move past.

Itachi's hands were already positioned to form seals.

"Did Konoha send you to pursue me?"

Kisame recognized the name.

"Captain Tonbo, the genjutsu specialist who troubled our leader. You do not need to look so worried, Itachi. Even he cannot defeat both of us alone."

"He is more dangerous than the reports suggest."

Itachi's Sharingan changed into the Mangekyō.

Tonbo smiled at the distance between their public roles and the mission neither could acknowledge.

"We trained together. Now you are a missing-nin, and I command the pursuit unit that should capture you. Time creates excellent jokes."

Shuriken filled the air.

Kisame stared as the weapons seemed to pass wide of Tonbo.

"Itachi, aim first."

Itachi touched him and released the genjutsu.

The road corrected itself. The shuriken had not missed. Kisame's perception had shifted the instant Tonbo appeared, placing the target somewhere he had never stood.

Itachi's projectiles had followed the true position from the beginning. His Sharingan caught the difference between sight and chakra quickly enough to protect Kisame before the illusion directed him into his partner's attack.

Kisame had seen a complete exchange that had never occurred. The false road, false target, and false misses had agreed with one another so cleanly that ordinary disruption might only have moved him into a second constructed scene. Itachi therefore did more than break the chakra pattern: he anchored Kisame to his own touch and showed him the position his Sharingan had preserved.

"It covers an area," Itachi warned. "We entered it when we saw him."

Kisame's amusement hardened into attention.

Tonbo moved before his water technique landed.

"You improved. Years ago, that first layer would have carried me into your mental space."

Itachi had broken it before the opening formed. A silent exchange was no longer the easy solution Tonbo hoped to use.

That failure changed the purpose of the fight. Tonbo still needed Itachi's intelligence, but he first needed a channel Kisame could mistake for an attack. The developing nerves offered one if he could place them without allowing the Sharingan to identify the true technique.

Kisame released Exploding Water Colliding Wave.

Water rose like a moving wall across the road. Tonbo formed the Eye-Opening Hand into a giant whale and stood upon its back as it met the surge. The whale drove through the first impact and struck Kisame with its tail.

The created animal carried no independent life. It was chakra and structure given a body by Tonbo's technique, large enough to turn the incoming water into a medium it could use. Riding its back kept Tonbo above the first current while the whale's mass opened a route toward Kisame.

Samehada absorbed part of the blow's chakra. Kisame slid backward across the water without losing his grip.

Itachi sent a Great Fireball over the surface and signaled for retreat.

Kisame refused.

"Let me see why Pain warned us."

He crossed the flooded ground and swung Samehada.

Tonbo slipped past the blade.

Kisame attacked again and missed again. On the fourth exchange he recognized that Tonbo's body occupied a different position from the one his eyes reported.

Sight was only one entrance. Samehada's movement generated sound, the weapon's chakra brushed Tonbo's field, and Kisame's feet touched water Tonbo had already altered. Breaking eye contact could not remove the illusion while those other channels supported it.

"Release."

The repeated attacks vanished from his memory as present action. Tonbo had made him perform the same failed approach inside a genjutsu while the real body remained exposed.

"When did you catch me?"

"At any point you prefer."

A second Tonbo appeared behind him with a tachi descending.

Itachi struck the blade sideways with a kunai. The deflection prevented a deep wound, but the edge crossed Kisame's chest and opened the Akatsuki cloak.

Along the hidden side of the weapon, branching nerves ran from hilt to tip. They entered the cut before blood covered it and spread across Kisame's back beneath the cloth.

Tonbo withdrew with a satisfied smile.

"Will you fight me without using those eyes, Itachi? You could not defeat me through taijutsu and ordinary ninjutsu before. You cannot do it now."

Itachi assessed the difference.

His Sharingan could now penetrate part of Tonbo's protection against observation and follow chakra flow well enough to anticipate motion. That advantage did not solve the rest. Tonbo formed seals faster, possessed greater reserves, reflected genjutsu without hesitation, and had improved his taijutsu.

Kisame bared his teeth.

"Your illusions are more irritating than Itachi's."

Itachi placed one hand upon him and found a foreign chakra seed. It had entered through the sword cut and waited for Kisame to refine chakra before unfolding into another illusion.

He dispelled it.

"His genjutsu can enter through sight, sound, chakra contact, or touch. He also plants dormant seeds."

Itachi found the decoy Tonbo intended him to find. The chakra seed disappeared. The physical nerves beneath it did not.

Kisame drove Samehada into the flooded ground.

"Then I will remove chakra he does not own."

His body merged with the sword.

Blue skin reshaped itself around Samehada's structure. Fins rose along his head and arms, a tail formed behind him, and the stored chakra of weapon and wielder became one system.

The fusion absorbed foreign chakra automatically. Conventional genjutsu could not remain inside it long enough to change perception.

For Tonbo, that defense made the transformation more valuable. Kisame believed he had removed the threat hidden in the wound, and Itachi's eyes supported that belief. Neither man had reason to search for tissue that now belonged to the fused body as completely as its skin and muscle. Tonbo could observe without feeding it the chakra Samehada expected to consume.

"No one has forced me to reveal this form before," Kisame said.

Tonbo twirled the tachi and kept every sense fixed upon the nerves hidden inside him.

The real contest had only moved beneath Kisame's skin.

"Then I am honored."