Itachi POV
I had learned that the clan did not truly look forward. We spoke of the future as if it were already decided, shaped by old wounds and quieter resentments that refused to heal. Even now, as families chose whether to leave the compound or remain, the choice felt less about peace and more about control. I loved the clan, but love made the tension heavier, not lighter. Every expectation placed on me came from that love, and every one of them tightened the space I was allowed to breathe in. It was difficult to tell when concern stopped being care and started becoming claim, and I often wondered if the difference still mattered to anyone but me.
Strength, in the Uchiha, was never just strength. It was obligation. The more capable I became, the more I felt myself turning into something others leaned on without asking whether it bent. I did not resent it. I accepted it. I told myself that restraint was the price of clarity, that seeing consequences meant carrying them early. If I endured quietly enough, perhaps the future would not demand more. That belief had guided me for a long time, and I had rarely questioned it.
Then there was Noa.
Over the past month, I had watched how he moved through each day. Not just how he trained, but how he carried himself around others. He did not move like someone weighed down by what he might become. He carried his burdens, yes, but he did not let them decide his posture or slow his steps. Whether he was pushing himself under Shisui's guidance or dealing with Kaen's sharp edges, he met each moment directly, without posturing and without retreat.
He acted, adapted, and continued forward without asking permission from the future. There was no hesitation in him, no sense that he was trying to become worthy of someone else's expectations. He respected strength without worshipping it, and he accepted guidance without losing himself in it. He was simply doing his best, and somehow that best felt unburdened. Watching that stirred something unfamiliar in me.
I wanted to understand it. To see it clearly. To test it. To know whether strength could exist without becoming a cage, or whether weight always settled in eventually.
And now, standing across from me, I could finally see his answer for myself.
Through my Sharingan, something unusual came into focus. A technique I had never encountered before, shaped with an understanding far beyond what his background should have allowed. Noa was an orphan, and before Shisui, he had no master capable of teaching something like this. That meant he had built it himself. Chakra circulated through his network in lightning form, controlled with a refinement that spoke of discipline and instinct working in quiet harmony. I did not yet understand every detail of what it did, but I understood what it meant.
His chakra state had cost me my most powerful tool, genjutsu, but it gave me something in return. A path forward.
He had carried pressure without letting it define him. He had taken weight and turned it into motion instead of restraint.
A smile crept onto my face. Not from amusement, but from recognition. Strength did not have to become a cage. It could become direction.
I settled into my stance, my resolve clear. If that was the path Noa had chosen, then I would meet him on it and see for myself whether I could walk it as well.
I shot forward toward Noa as he smirked, and for some reason it got under my skin. He resummoned his spear and thrust it straight at me, but with my Sharingan I saw the trajectory clearly. I raised my hand at the exact moment and caught the spear at full speed, shocking him. He did not freeze. Instead, he lifted me off the ground with the spear in an incredible show of strength. I used the angle to throw multiple shuriken at him, forcing him to dismiss the weapon. The sudden loss of resistance threw me off balance, and Noa flickered away instantly. That was my mistake. I had tried to stop him instead of letting his force pass.
He was now looking directly into my eyes, completely unconcerned about genjutsu. He smiled and flickered forward. His control was incredible, and I could see Shisui's training reflected in every movement. This time, I did not move immediately. He did not appear beside me. He flickered to the side instead and, with a ridiculous punch laced with an ungodly amount of chakra, struck the ground. The impact sent debris and dust shooting toward me. It was smart. The dust disrupted my vision and weakened the effectiveness of my Sharingan. At the same time, multiple shuriken and kunai flew toward me from different directions, using the dust as cover. I stopped trying to dominate the field and focused on timing instead.
I dodged, my eyes tracking their origin and pattern, reading where the next attack would come. I flickered there a heartbeat earlier than before, not to intercept, but to slip into the space he was about to claim. He was already there, grinning again as he thrust his spear toward me, as if he had planned for me to arrive exactly where he wanted. A trap. I smiled under my breath and did not try to overpower it. I twisted aside, letting the tip pass, and struck the shaft with a palm instead, sending it shooting upward. Noa immediately used his seal to store it and followed with a kick aimed at my center. I raised both arms to guard, but my eyes widened at the sheer strength behind it. The impact lifted me slightly into the air, and a punch like a rocket followed immediately.
The tingling in my arms warned me that I could not keep taking hits like that, even while guarding. I stopped meeting force with force. I twisted aside at the optimal moment, letting the punch tear past my shoulder, and sent a kunai from a difficult angle. The blade sliced through his shirt, but nothing more. He had reacted in time.
Noa looked down at the torn fabric with an almost eerie expression, one I did not understand. Did that shirt hold some kind of sentimental value for him? Everyone owned plenty of clothing. It had to be meaning, not material, that made him react that way.
When Noa looked back at me, I saw anger and despair. For a split second, I could have sworn I saw a single shed tear, but that had to be my imagination. There was no room for that now. What mattered was the fight. I would not win a contest of strength, and a prolonged battle would only favor his stamina. The conclusion settled quietly in my chest.
I went all out.
I sent a barrage of shuriken his way, fast and relentless, and he answered in kind. Steel filled the space between us. But my hands were already moving with intent, my kenjutsu subtly altering the trajectory of several shuriken mid-flight. They curved just enough to slip past his initial defense, forcing him to react instead of advance. He tried to resummon his spear, but I gave him no time, pressing harder, flooding his field of vision and denying him space to breathe.
He flickered to create distance.
I followed the tension in his muscles, the distortion in his chakra flow, the pattern his previous flickers had carved into the battlefield. The Sharingan confirmed what instinct already told me. I flickered first.
When he appeared, multiple shuriken were already waiting for him.
His eyes widened. He fired his own shuriken to intercept, steel clashing midair, but this exchange favored me. Several blades slipped through. Small, shallow cuts traced across his arms and side, nothing decisive, but enough to bleed. Enough to force awareness.
Then he flickered again, this time straight toward me.
His control was terrifying. Chakra and muscle moved in perfect synchronization as he closed the distance in an instant. But I had already committed. My chakra-coated kunai was already moving toward the point where he would appear.
This time, he was ready with a kunai of his own, heavily augmented with chakra.
Our kunai collided, the impact sharp and violent. My blade shattered under the force of his strength, fragments spinning away as he pressed forward through the opening with brutal precision. I struck the underside of his arm, driving into a nerve cluster. Pain flared through him and his grip faltered, his kunai slipping free.
He did not stop.
His hand continued forward, relentless, unfazed by the damage. That resilience caught me off guard. My Sharingan sharpened and my speed followed as the world slowed. I leaned back just enough to avoid the strike, kicked the handle of the falling kunai upward, and pivoted with the motion to drive a kick toward his head.
He surged forward instead, his head slamming into my leg.
Pain detonated up my limb, white and blinding. I pivoted on my hands, rotating to his right as fast as I could and catching the launched kunai without looking. The world snapped back into motion just in time to see Noa already turning to his left.
He drove a powerful punch at me.
I saw the trajectory instantly. I understood the timing. And I knew that if I wanted to win, there was only one way this ended.
I did not retreat.
I stayed in close and drove the kunai in.
His punch crashed into my shoulder, right at the joint. I felt the crack before I felt the pain. Fire tore through me and red flashed across my vision. But my arm did not move. The kunai stopped just beside his neck, close enough that a breath would have ended it.
His reach was longer, and he hit first.
The force drove half my body sideways, but I held my ground, feet grinding into the earth as I forced chakra through them, arm locked, blade steady. I dragged in a breath and realized, dimly, that he had not noticed the kunai when his strike landed.
He froze.
For a long moment, neither of us moved. Then Noa's shoulders eased as he exhaled.
"It's my loss," he said quietly.
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A/N: And that wraps up the fight. Don't forget to leave a comment and tell me your thoughts, analysis, or theories, hehehe. I'm really looking forward to reading them ;)