Game of Shadows - 124 (Patreon)

Disclaimer: I don’t own Naruto nor The Gamer. I own nothing, really.

Cover Art: Kissuli.

Chapter 124

There was a sound of surprise that came from Kisame as the swords met. It wasn’t really unexpected though, considering the way Nuibari pushed against Samehada with a surprising amount of strength all of a sudden. The living sword was moved aside as if it were nothing, completely breaking the Akatsuki member’s stance.

Eiji could work with that and he did. He took that opening for all it was worth. There was no way he wouldn’t. He had a split second to change the tide of the battle, after all. If he failed, he was doomed. Behind him, he felt Itachi do something different, no doubt reading how things were going to go on Kisame’s side.

Eiji cursed internally as he felt chakra coalesce around the Uchiha, forming a very distinctive shape. The shape of an armored arm and then a sword. A gigantic, imponent structure of pure energy that bode nothing but bad things for him, that was for sure.

Susanoo had joined the battle.

‘More reasons to make sure this goes well,’ he thought as this happened, spinning mid air with some help from his wires. He hit Samehada again with Nuibari, pushing against it harder while his foot hit Kisame, who was still trying to recover into a semblance of a stance, in the stomach. He didn’t stop there though, no, he kept at it.

His arm snapped forward and up, hitting the swordsman in the jaw as a wire snuck up on Kisame, wrapping around his foot. ‘Come on,’ Eiji all but pleaded as he electrocuted the thread. It wouldn’t do that much to Kisame of all people, but it was something. He was running out of time and Susanoo’s blade was starting to move.

And finally, with another hit of Nuibari’s he got his wish.

The stacking of hits made Kisame drop Samehada at last. Eiji wasted no time whatsoever kicking the living sword away as it writhed, looking for its wielder. He could have none of that though. Dashing for it, his fingers wrapped around the handle of the weapon.

Behind him, he heard laughter from Kisame. It was probably warranted, Eiji supposed. As far as the man knew, he couldn’t wield the thing, since it attacked anyone that it didn’t approve of as a wielder. A fact that was evidenced when spikes came out of the handle and pierced through his hand. Even more soon followed when he didn’t let go. When that didn’t help, it seemed to decide to go for his forearm.

That was all the time Eiji needed though and a second later the sword disappeared into thin air.

Susanoo stopped and Kisame’s laugh died a quick death.

“What did you do?” the swordsman without a sword asked, almost sounding disturbed.

“Sent it to a place where no one will find it,” Eiji replied with a smirk. He didn’t even need to lie about that, really. As far as he knew, nobody could access his Inventory. Samehada was lost to the world as long as he wanted and thus, Kisame’s greatest strength was now out of the fight.

And with it, Eiji’s was back.

Instantly, Tsuchigumo howled, wrapping him in chakra that felt both like a warm embrace and a cold, hard armor. Sunfire Cape activated too, for good measure. He was back at full strength, grinning widely as Susanoo’s blade came down on him, only to be stopped by the four arachnid legs made of chakra that came out of his back.

“Now we can play,” he said. Inside his mind, Tsuchigumo barked and he felt Kage grinning.

“Good job,” the twin told him as the Sacred Flock came out of his body. Lightning birds rose like a cackling cloud of the things, considering that now he didn’t need to be careful so that they wouldn’t be eaten by Samehada. It was so very freeing to have to hold back unwillingly and now be able to let loose. It was one thing to keep cards up one’s sleeve deliberately and another entirely to be forced to not use things.

Another arm formed for Itachi’s Susanoo and that looked dangerous enough for Eiji to decide that was enough just standing there. One of those overpowered swords was enough for him, that was for sure. Tsuchi might have been sending him a confident feeling, but he didn’t want to test things if he could help it. Which he could, so he would.

He dashed to the side, letting the first chakra sword hit the sand on the ground and send up a cloud of the stuff. Kisame, clearly not seeing himself out of the fight just yet, followed his movement easily enough, going for taijutsu now that he was weaponless. The man dodged Nuibari when Eiji tried to use it, but he couldn’t very well evade all the wires that followed right after.

Forced to jump away just as fast as he’d done so in, Kisame clicked his tongue. Eiji didn’t let up though, instead charging on the man, not giving him a moment to breath. Itachi with Susanoo on would be a nightmare to deal with, so he’d leave the man be for the moment. Tsuchigumo could block any attack from the chakra structure’s and if more than one sword came at him, he’d dodge.

The battle was going his way now, and he knew it. However, he needed to press that advantage while he could. He couldn’t let them turn the tables on him like he’d done on them. After all, he didn’t think he could pull something to change the situation again if it came to that. ‘Come on, come on,’ he chanted in his mind, all but willing Kisame to get hit by one of his threads. Just the one and it’d snowball from there. He just needed to hit one.

Eiji dodged a Susanoo sword and used his own weapon against the former Kiri nin. The Sacred Flock was doing nothing to the Susanoo armor, he noticed. He’d thought that maybe focusing on one part would be enough to pierce through eventually, but it didn’t seem to be the case. That thing was as solid as it was going to be.

Which wasn’t bad per se, not really.

The next lightning bird that came from Eiji didn’t go in the Uchiha’s direction. Instead, it rushed Kisame, who’s eyes widened. A single one of those birds was A-ranked, according to his system and pretty much anyone that had ever commented on it. And normally, that wouldn’t be all that much against an S-ranked ninja.

But these weren’t normal circumstances.

Kisame was S-ranked alright, probably high up on the list. But that was, according to all the info Eiji had, because of Samehada. The sword wasn’t the only thing in the man’s repertoire though. Supposedly, he also had monstrous chakra reserves. That didn’t do much when he was a Water specialist for the most part.

After all, he was now a swordless swordsman and a Water specialist in the middle of a desert.

All of Kisame’s advantages had been taken from him, one by bad luck and another on purpose. Suddenly, he might not be an S-ranked ninja anymore. But that wasn’t what was important. There wasn’t much to stand in the way of the lightning bird that hit him almost point blank. Resilient, he might have been, but even if a single hit wasn’t enough, the rest of the avian rush sure was to take him out.

Tsuchigumo blocked another slash of Susanoo as Eiji pierced Kisame’s head with Nuibari. It felt almost anticlimactic, for it to be so easy. So simple a thing. It was the sort of thing that happened when one stacked enough things together though. Difficult things became laughably easy at some point.

“And then there was one,” he said, turning to regard the Uchiha who looked as calm as he’d been the whole time. “Again, I don’t suppose I can ask you to give up, right?” he asked, noticing the man’s bleeding eyes. How long would be too long for the fight to go on? Would Itachi go blind if he drew the battle on? Did he have enough juice in him to take Eiji out before his sight left him?

As it was, those were the key questions, really. Would Eiji and Tsuchigumo run out of energy? Would Itachi go blind? Which would happen first?

Evidently, the Uchiha wasn’t that confident in his chances, because the now two arms of his Susanoo did their best to slash at Eiji. The younger boy, for his part, did his best to always dodge one at the least. He trusted his partner to block the other. Every strike ate away at Tsuchigumo’s chakra though.

“Her energy levels are fine, don’t worry about it,” Kage reassured him, which was indeed a relief.

With that said, things weren’t looking so good on the offensive side for Eiji. His Sacred Flock was doing absolutely nothing to the armor. Nuibari might be able to pierce through, but he was reluctant to try that. If he failed, he’d be left like Kisame, without his main weapon. Even worse, if he lost Nuibari, he’d lose a bunch of buffs with it, and that was unacceptable. That could easily spell his doom in the current situation.

‘Why isn’t he using other things?’ Eiji had to wonder at some point. Sure, he’d sort of negated Itachi’s genjutsu, between Eternal Purge and keeping his eyes closed. However, there was more to the Uchiha than just illusions, wasn’t there? Where was the Fire Release? Where was Amaterasu? Where was… There had to be other things, right? There had to be more than just Susanoo, right? What was happening?

Was he walking into a trap?

He couldn’t think like that though. If Itachi had tricks in his hat yet, surely he’d have used them when his partner was alive, right? No way he’d save them so much as to sacrifice Kisame. Eiji didn’t have very clear memories or notes on the two’s relationship, but he was fairly sure that it wasn’t bad. So…

“Don’t overthink things, Eiji,” Kage told him, which was true. He was getting in his own head. He needed to focus. Exhaustion was getting to his mind, and no amount of borrowed energy and mental support would have him at full capacity. “Almost done, Eiji, come on.”

And right then and there something changed. One of the Susanoo’s arms and sword vanished into thin air. It wasn’t as obvious an opening as one would think though. The armor and other arm were still there, being a danger and protecting Itachi. The reason for this shift became evident less than a second later.

Eiji’s right arm burst into flames.

Black flames.

He didn’t stop because of this though. He didn’t hesitate in his next move either. Lightning cackled at his feet as he dashed straight towards Itachi. World Ender would take care of any damage the inextinguishable flames did to him and Iron Will would do so with the pain of the whole process. Only one Susanoo sword to deal with was an opportunity for him, after all, and he’d take that chance with both hands.

The flames started expanding, going up towards his torso and down towards his hand. He didn’t care for that though. All that he cared about was the Uchiha in front of him. Lightning enveloped his weapon, Chakra Flow making an already legendary sword even more deadly. Getting as close as he possibly could with the chakra armor still there, Eiji reared his arm back.

That was when Nuibari did what it did best.

Pierce.

And pierce it did, making a hole straight through Susanoo as if it weren’t there to begin with. The weapon continued through like nothing had happened, intent on piercing through the Uchiha’s heart. Itachi was not a nobody, however, and he dodged, of course.

Or, tried to, that is.

The sword missed its mark, but still skewered the man’s shoulder instead. From there, things only went downhill for the Uchiha, as Eiji Flickered to the side, pulling on the wire that was attached to the sword. The thread that he held on his left hand circled around Itachi with him as he went for his weapon. Living Thread, for its part, made sure that Nuibari moved on its own back towards him.

By that point, Eiji was already half covered by Amaterasu, but he powered through. No fire would stop him. The fire burned badly, for sure, but World Ender healed just as much. At least with Tsuchigumo making sure that it kept up its pace. Which was good enough to keep his body from turning to ash.

Then, his hand found Nuibari once more and-

Susanoo’s sword came down, slicing clean through his left arm as he went to grab the sword. The limb fell to the ground, staining the sand red, and Eiji stood there for a whole second. That couldn’t have just happened, right? How had… What… But…

“Eiji!” Kage shouted in his mind and Tsuchigumo barked, still struggling to power his healing technique. At that very moment, Susanoo’s sword was slashing straight towards him, aiming to cleave him in half. The boy, however, snapped out of his shock at his allies’ calls before jumping over the chakra blade.

Meanwhile, he pulled at Nuibari with Living Thread, bringing the sword up towards his remaining hand. Eiji Flickered away, doing his best to concentrate on the fight. Chakra Flow was still coursing through the wire of his weapon, but the lightning energy wasn’t doing that much against the Uchiha, it seemed. He would keep it up though, because just not doing it might make things even worse than they were already.

“Tsuchigumo can’t cover you, Eiji!” Kage exclaimed, as he Flickered away, dodging Susanoo’s blade once more. Right, that made sense. The chakra beast was busy now, keeping his body from burning up. Amaterasu’s flames covered him completely now, and the fire wasn’t something weak that World Ender could just keep at bay by itself. On top of that, he’d had to heal the wound that was left by his severed arm- “Eiji!” Kage called again.

He moved the spider limbs himself, blocking the chakra sword as it came for him. Gritting his teeth, he did his best to keep the thing away from him. Credit for Tsuchigumo there, it wasn’t easy to stop the thing. He could barely do anything as he focused on that. Which complicated matters, since he could do nothing but stand there, all the while Itachi burned through Tsuchigumo’s reserves with both the Susanoo attack and Amaterasu.

“We have to think of something, Eiji!” Kage said, but that was easier said than done. He could barely move. His mind felt slow and his thoughts jumbled. The world around him was burning and-

And something smacked against Itachi right then and there, sending the Uchiha flying towards a dune. The sudden movement almost pulled Eiji with him through Nuibari’s wire that was still going through his opponent's shoulder. ‘What? What was that?’ he wondered, for a split second focusing on something other than Itachi with his senses.

‘Of all the reckless, stupid things you could have done,’ was his next thought.

There, standing where Itachi had been a moment ago, was his brother, in all his unpredictable glory. Covered in a red chakra cloak and with nine tails swaying behind him, Naruto himself turned to look at Eiji. He wanted to smack the blonde and scold him to kingdom come. He also wanted to hug him for all he was worth, which was a lot as far as he was concerned.

“Focus,” Kage reminded him and he did just that. He could decide what to do after he’d dealt with Itachi. Naruto seemed to decide similarly, because he charged straight at the Uchiha. As for Eiji himself, he did much the same, circle a bit to approach from a different direction. Another good thing that the sudden arrival of Naruto did was break Itachi’s eye contact with Eiji’s body for a moment, which meant that the black flames had let up, if only momentarily.

That meant that when the fire came back, Tsuchigumo was prepared for it. It didn’t help alleviate the damage, but it gave her some breathing room. A more clear headed chakra beast meant a more clear headed Eiji too, since there was less emotion filtering towards him through their connection.

Which was great, because his brother was giving him a perfect opening right here. The cloaked Naruto smacked against the Susanoo arm, knocking the thing aside and giving Eiji plenty of room to get to Itachi. Which he immediately did, charging close by. Instead of doing as before and throwing Nuibari though, he Flickered to the sides for a moment, trying his best to make the attack as unpredictable as possible.

And then the Needle Sword flew once more.

It pierced through, just as before, and while Itachi dodged once more, he was late to it again. This time, Eiji wasn’t alone for the Uchiha to take advantage of the opening that him not having Nuibari created. Instead, he had a Jinchuriki to deal with. That made it so that Eiji easily maneuver around to get the weapon once more and throw it once more.

And thus, the Sewing Needle did just that, eventually having tied the Uchiha’s body together from the insides. On top of that, as the process happened, he noticed something. Susanoo was getting slower, less powerful. Amaterasu’s flames grew weaker and the wounds less difficult to heal.

As Itachi fell to the ground, limbs sewn together, the armor vanished and the fire was put out.

“It’s done?” Naruto asked hesitantly. Eiji didn’t answer him though, falling to his knees and his hands barely keeping his body from hitting the dune under him face first. “Eiji? Eiji!” The blonde called while he breathed heavily.

His senses were focused on Itachi, trying to get a read on him. There was barely any chakra in the Uchiha anymore. Which was impressive more than anything, considering that Eiji was almost out of energy himself and he had a chakra beast helping him.

Idly, he noticed that something was put over him and a second later he realized that it was Naruto’s jacket. It was torn and burnt, but it was better than the nothing that Eiji was wearing, having had his clothes burned to ashes by Amaterasu. The boy couldn’t bring himself to care so much.

It was finally done. The Akatsuki pair had been dealt with, at last. Kisame was out, Itachi barely clung to consciousness and Pain and Konan were out for the foreseeable future. The immediate threats had been dealt with. Moreover, his senses weren’t picking up anyone else anywhere close, so there was no one to ambush them at that moment.

“Eiji,” Naruto called, and there was a tint of horror in his voice. Eiji didn’t know why though. They’d dealt with everyone. They were safe. Naruto was fine. Eiji was alive. Everything was good. “Eiji, your arm!” Naruto said then, pulling him into a hug.

‘Oh,’ Eiji thought, his attention being brought to his stump. A wound that he couldn’t heal with World Ender. ‘It doesn’t work on limbs…’ he mused, almost distractedly.

“Eiji, Itachi isn’t dead yet,” Kage reminded him, his voice almost soft on the back of his mind. Eiji also noticed, distractedly, that Tsuchigumo was whimpering. The twin was right though. It wasn’t over yet. They had to deal with the remaining Akatsuki member in a more definitive manner.

Forcing himself to stand up, Eiji took a shaky step forward.

“Eiji?” Naruto asked, looking at him with wide, disturbed eyes.

“We have to finish the job,” Eiji said, starting to move towards the Uchiha. “We can rest after that. We can take some time after that.”

“Eiji… Fine,” Naruto acknowledged reluctantly, his eyes darting towards the Uchiha in question. “Use this though,” the blonde added, pushing a seal tag into his hands. Doing as he was told, Eiji blinked when his legs were suddenly covered with pants. Black and orange, a pair of Naruto’s evidently, further evidenced by the fact that they were a little too short for him.

“Thanks,” he replied wearily as he continued moving forward.

“You are insane, Eiji,” Naruto told him, walking next to him. His blue eyes unable to stay away from the stump that was now where Eiji’s left arm should be for long. He still gulped down whatever was in his mind and accompanied his brother as they approached their opponent.

“Eiji Satou and Naruto Uzumaki,” Itachi greeted them with as they reached him. “The two my little brother sees as siblings now. It’s fitting, I guess, that you two were the ones to take me down.”

“You-” Naruto growled at that. “You have some nerve just saying that after what you did to Sasuke. You don’t even deserve to call him brother at all!”

Eiji, for his part, sat down in front of the bleeding and restrained Uchiha. With his senses firmly looking for the smallest of signs and his metaphorical finger in the trigger of Chakra Flow and a bunch of other techniques to hit Itachi with, he allowed himself to relax… Somewhat. He was so very tired and he wanted to be done with it all. However…

However, he owed Sasuke something.

“I want to know,” Eiji started, tilting his head to one side. “Is there something we don’t know about you and the Uchiha? Because I’m aware that Konoha has its secrets. I want to know if there’s something we’ve been missing. Because I’ve looked into your case and… it’s strange. Everyone sung you praises before you supposedly went mad. That’s happened before, but it usually could be explainable in some way.”

And that was the truth, actually. Jiraiya and Tsunade had reasons for abandoning Konoha. Everyone already thought Orochimaru was a little unhinged. Even Danzo had people suspicious of him. And so on the list went, as far as Eiji’s research had gone. Itachi though, everyone thought he was just fine, that he was great even while coming from a Clan that was generally not that well liked back in the day.

Naruto turned towards him, surprised by what he said before frowning. No doubt he was thinking of his own situation and how there were so many secrets surrounding it. Knowledge had been fed to him so very slowly because of the damage it could do to him and to the village, so Eiji supposed he could easily draw parallels between that and what he’d just heard.

“Akatsuki has, evidently, not given you nearly enough credit, Eiji Satou,” Itachi said, a hint of a smile on his face as he regarded the boys in front of him. “But if there were some kind of secret surrounding me, what makes you think I’d tell you?”

“Because you’ll die today, right here,” Eiji answered bluntly. “I can’t let you live, no matter what. And even then, I can sense it, you know? The Spider’s Senjutsu is rather good at sensing stuff and I can sense that you are dying. Slowly, but you are. If you have something to say, you should do it now.”

The real message there was that if he had something to say to Sasuke, this was his final chance. Eiji was sure that Itachi was intelligent enough to realize that. Still, the Uchiha remained silent for a long moment.

“If you’ll hear the final words of a dying man, then… I guess I should be grateful for that,” Itachi told them, his eyes moving up towards the sky. “And, maybe it’s selfish of me to ask, but I have a final request from you.”

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How’s it going?

You know, this chapter doesn’t make me nervous for the same reasons as most chapters do. Usually, I’m unsure if things that I’ve written are well done or even well thought. Granted, this happens here too, but I’m more nervous that people won’t understand.

I don’t like pulling focus away from the main characters, Eiji in particular, obviously. This, however, means that there’s a lot of background stuff that happens and I don’t get to write, and thus people don’t see. And that means that things are likely to be misunderstood.

If I were a different writer, I’d likely have made a bunch of different points of view focused on characters and stories that have little to do with Eiji at the time but influence the story later on. The thing is that I don’t like reading that in stories, because I don’t care enough about the side characters to focus during their POVs. Thus, why I don’t write them in my stories either.

So, basically, at the risk of things being misunderstood, my stories focus on my MC and the main cast more, is what I’m saying… And I’m not even sure why I wrote all that rant, really. Maybe I’m just writing to myself here for a bit. Sorry if you didn’t care for it all.

With all that said, hope you enjoyed the chapter.

Discord Link: discord.gg/UTDransjJZ

Random Question: I asked this in GoM, but I’ll ask here too. Considering current times, do you care about football/soccer? I’m not a fan, honestly, and it seems like the more I watch it, the less I like it.

See you.