Chapter 275: Naruto : Venom : Chapter 273

Training Field

Sasuke and I are standing five meters apart from each other. The usually pleasant air temperature in the room is cooling rapidly as we both flex our metaphorical muscles. We’re slowly raising our killing intents at each other.

Sasuke didn’t want to come here only to not be disturbed, he wants to spar too.

“Yours feels different.” Sasuke says as both of our intents stop climbing. We can each go farther, much farther, but this is a spar. It’s little more than a friendly contest.

“Different how?” I curiously ask him. I always knew that each killing intent is slightly skewed to each individual. They all carry a sense of promised death but each unique person naturally emits their own personal flavor. For example Orochimaru’s feels like thousands of snakes are slithering all around you and they can kill you with just a single drop of poison.

“It’s back to how it used to feel. No that’s wrong, it’s just closer to that. Back before we went to Orochimaru.” He shares with me. “It used to feel like there was a ferocious monster lurking in the corner of my eye, always just out of sight but close enough that I knew it’s there. But what was really scary about yours was that there was no true intent to kill. It felt like the monster wanted to torment me into insanity and if I happened to die in the process then so be it.”

“That did fit me surprisingly well. Even now I really enjoy messing with people, doubly so while we’re fighting to the death. Dare I ask what it felt like after we went to Orochimaru?” I know that he twisted me into something else, something more dark and violent. How did it affect my killing intent though?

“Bloodthirsty.” He sums it up in one word. “Like you were prepared to wade through a sea of blood while cackling in joy. Like you were ready and willing to cause as much pain as possible simply because you wanted to see if you could cause more than the last time.”

“So what does it feel like now then?” Called it by the way. I knew it was dark.

“A bit of both.” Sasuke tilts his head as he falls deeper into thought. “There’s a monster hiding just out of sight, lurking on the edge of my vision and breathing down my neck. It wants to play with me, see how I tick and push me onto the brink of insanity and beyond if it can. It won’t act on it’s own though, not at first. It wants to wait for me to make a mistake before it starts to play. It also promises death to those who are stupid enough to challenge it. Death in a very painful and unique manner.”

“Huh.” That’s almost exactly how I’ve decided to act now. Give everyone one chance then it’s open season. Example A: Nadare and his team. Example B: The shinobi that confronted me when I first got on the blimp. I gave both groups an out, they didn’t take it and instead attacked me. So they died.

“What about mine?” Sasuke asks me eagerly.

“Your’s feels like a cold calculative killer is watching me, seeing everything about me. I’m standing in a brightly lit empty white room but the ever present feeling of eyes on me does not fade. They see all, exactly what I am going to do and what I have done. Nothing remains hidden from those eyes. They bring a sense of finality with them, that no matter what I do, no matter how creatively I plan, you will see through it and systematically best me at everything I attempt with ease to slide a kunai into my heart. It’s pretty scary to be honest, particularly for me since I like to plan out how I want my battles to go. The idea that my opponent knows every move I’m going to make is the worst feeling, it ruins all of my hard work and fun.”

No doubt his killing intent is being influence by his Sharingan. Not surprised at all.

“So I’m your antithesis.” He sums up. “You’re chaos and insanity while I’m all seeing and focused. How the hell are we friends?”

“Opposites attract or some other bullshit reason like that?” I shrug as we both let our respective killing intents fade. “I’d prefer to say that we both had a healthy respect for each other and that respect grew into friendship after a few battles and training sessions.”

“Your second one was way better. Let’s go with that.” Sasuke smoothly glides into a combat stance. His right foot is forward and his right hand is wrapped around the hilt of his sword. “Rules for the spar?”

“Avoid my face and my hearts please. I’d like to keep them both intact. Usual rules for you, no deadly or severely maiming attacks.” I start to remove my outer layers, no need to ruin an expertly made coat. “We limiting this to a specific branch? Like only taijutsu or ninjutsu?”

“How about only genjutsu?” Sasuke arrogantly smirks at me. “Unless you have a problem using it. I hear you might have performance issues.”

“Fuck you.” I say with no real malicious intent behind it. “You know damn well that I can’t use most genjutsus. You know what? Fine, let’s do just genjutsu. I’ll let you trap me over and over and over again and each and every time I’ll casually break out of it while belittling your skills. Does that sound fun?”

“Okay okay you made your point.” Sasuke says to me. “Not like you’re special I can get out of almost every genjutsu too.”

“Says the kid who was trapped in a month long coma because of one.” I sassily point out. “You’ve got a really good track record going for you there.”

“You think you can stand up to the Tsukuyomi?” He throws it back into my face.

“Huh. Can I get out of that?” I ask for no real reason. “I suppose it would depend on Sureddo’s reaction time. I don’t break myself out of genjutsu, Sureddo does it for me. So let’s say it takes Sureddo on average a… let’s go with a half second to recognize the genjutsu and then cause me pain to jolt me out. Well in the Tsukuyomi Itachi commands time itself, he can drag out a second to last for a day. So I’d be stuck in there for half a day before Sureddo breaks me out and that’s assuming that it’s not trapped with me. I should be alright from any lasting brain damage, unlike you and Kakashi, since I don’t technically have one anymore which is really fucking weird to think about. Even if it was damaged Sureddo can just go and fix it for me since it devoured it and knows how it’s supposed to be. Plus I’m accustomed to pain, very intimately accustom to it might I add, so most if not all of Itachi’s torture methods will be less effective on me. So… Sort of?”

“You are the most broken person I have ever met.” Sasuke bluntly tells me as he’s taking that all in. “Okay. Couple questions. The hell is Sureddo?”

“Oh that’s the Jiongu. It has a name now.” I easily share.

“Right. I’m going to accept that and move on.” Sasuke skeptically says. “How do you know how the Tsukiyomi works? I never told you.”

“You think that your spymaster friend hasn’t dug any information up on the person that you want to kill?” It’s my turn to look at him skeptically. “Seriously dude, I’m in the information business bigtime. I think I might have the best network too, easily top five. You know about Amaterasu right?”

“The legendary black flames.” Sasuke sounds longing as he says those words. “The pinnacle of the Uchiha’s fire jutsus, probably even the pinnacle of fire jutsu itself. It’s every Uchiha’s dream to one day wield Amaterasu for themselves.”

“Cool. Glad I’m not dropping that one on you.” Bullet dodged. Being a spymaster is super convenient for sharing knowledge I shouldn’t know.

“So you know where he’s at?” Sasuke conversationally asks me.

“Not specifically.” Crafty ass. He’s trying to worm information out of me. “He and his big blue friend are constantly on the move, they’re hard to pin down for long. Spiders can’t exactly move at shinobi speeds, not to mention S-rank shinobi speeds. I have to wait for them to pop up again once they leave where they’re at and they’re never in the same place for more than three days.”