(December, year 54 AK)
The fight against Keisuke, the Jonin from the Hidden Stone village, continued for a while.
Although this time it was all three of them, Itachi, Hikari and Yuta, who was fighting Keisuke, Keisuke was still holding his grounds against the three enemies quite easily and his attacks were quite dangerous for Yuta and others. From time to time Keisuke comes quite close to injuring someone, so the fight turned out to be full of risk and close calls.
It wasn't like Keisuke was overpowering the three of them, no, it was more like he was using his superior experience and tactics he honed over decades, almost outmaneuvering the three of them at times. Although with Itachi and his Sharingan by their side they were able to avoid the most dangerous attacks and to keep going.
At the beginning of the fight Yuta tried to use his Shadow Chains against Keisuke, knowing well that it wouldn't work, but still, he wanted to let Keisuke know this too, so Keisuke would relax his guard a little after experiencing the same genjutsu that helped Yuta kill his teammates, so Keisuke would understand that it is useless against him so he might become less worried about the genjutsu in general.
Yuta didn't know if his manipulations would have any effect at all or if what he was planning was futile from the start, but still, in a situation like that, Yuta intends to use every bit of advantage that he could think of. As for Yuta's chakra reserves that was quite exhausted by now, Yuta didn't put much chakra into his Shadow Chains jutsu attempt to not waste too much chakra needlessly.
As for the risk that Keisuke might notice that Yuta did hold back with this jutsu and didn't put his 100% into it, Yuta didn't have any solution for that, it was either do the jutsu with little chakra and try to fool Keisuke, or not to do it at all, since if he puts all his chakra into the jutsu that was destined to fail just to fool his enemy, it would be pointless, since Yuta wouldn't have enough chakra left for the follow up attacks.
Then the opportunity came that Yuta was looking for. At some point, Itachi used a big fireball ninjutsu, attacking Keisuke from the front, and Hikari pressed her attack in close combat once again, attacking Keisuke from the opposite side.
Sensing the best opportunity so far, Yuta quickly thrown a dozen shurikens, sealing the possible escape routes for Keisuke, forcing him to stay there and to defend himself against two attacks at once instead of dodging.
But, as shurikens left his hands, right at that moment Yuta had cast the Shadow Cloak as well on Keisuke, as he said, "Die already." to use the sound of his voice for the jutsu, and immediately thrown a kunai that flew right behind the shurikens. Kunai was hidden from Keisuke's perception by his genjutsu.
Yuta felt a huge strain on his chakra and mind as his genjutsu took effect, but still, he held on to it and stabilized the jutsu by spending a big chunk of his remaining chakra.
What happened next was that instead of using a stone wall against Itachi's ninjutsu attack, and then to use taijutsu against Hikari, like he was doing all this time, Keisuke slammed his hands on the ground and a huge spherical dome of stone quickly rose out of the ground, blocking all the attacks, including Yuta's hidden kunai.
The next instant Yuta felt how his genjutsu was forcefully broken, and he lost connection with it.
'Crap...' Yuta thought as his mind raced trying to figure out why his combination didn't work. At the same time, the stone dome cracked all over, forming countless stones, that flew in all directions next instant, forcing Yuta and others to dodge.
'I see where that girl maki got this technique...' Yuta thought as he started dodging the incoming stones.
'The only possible explanation I could think on, was that Keisuke was on guard against any genjutsu from the start and he didn't lower his guard even for an instant.' Yuta analyzed in the middle of dodging flying stones, 'His chakra sensitivity must be high if he was able to notice a genjutsu, or did he notice something from how I moved?'
'He should've been distracted by Itachi's and Hikari's attacks, but maybe he was still able to notice my movements and the inconsistencies with that? After all I didn't hid myself with the Shadow Cloak, only the kunai I threw immediately after the shurikens, Keisuike was able to see my throwing motion that resulted with nothing according to his perspective, he was supposed to be distracted by Itachi and Hikari at the moment, did he noticed it anyway?'
'Or maybe it was because I had spoken for the first time in a while? Maybe he figured that I use sound for my genjutsu and that is how he figured that a genjutsu was being cast? After all, I didn't use any hand seals for my Shadow Cloak jutsu...'
'It should be either chakra sensitivity of an experienced Jonin, that allowed him to sense the genjutsu's interference on his chakra network, or some small clue that he picked up from my moves and behavior, and if it is the second option, it only means that he is much more dangerous than I thought.'
Yuta assessed his remaining chakra, he felt there was only about 10G left, enough for one more use of Shadow Cloak on Keisuke, but that was about it with how much chakra it takes to establish the genjutsu on him.
Yuta glanced at Itachi and Hikari and noticed that both of them was quite tired already, and Yuta understood, that if the fight continues for much longer, one of them was bound to make a mistake and get injured, and when that happens, it won't be long before all of them will be killed, one after another.
'Was that a mistake? Maybe I shouldn't had returned in time for this fight... But still, I refuse to believe that the three of us can't handle this one guy. So what if he is a Jonin? Itachi is also on a Jonin level, although he lacks combat experience of a Jonin, but still...'
The fight continued, Keisuke was steadily and methodically pushing the three of them more and more, his chakra seems inexhaustible, and as Itachi gets tired more, the formation the three of them made was gradually crumbling and everyone present understood that it won't be long before one of them made a mistake and it will be a complete downhill from there.
Yuta was calculating one plan after another, but nothing he comes up with seems realistically achievable to him, no matter what trap or scheme he could come up with, it all looked insignificant.
Keisuke was pushing them with his wide range Earth Style ninjutsus and occasional close combat, although Yuta was keeping maximum distance from him at all times since he knew that he wouldn't survive even one casual attack from him, he already had learned that the hard way.
But as time goes by, Keisuke has to defend himself less and less, and gradually he switched into the full offensive mode, cornering the three of them bit by bit.
'Shit, shit, shit... What to do?!' Yuta's mind was racing, 'There is nothing I could do here, my genjutsu is not enough against someone like him, maybe in the future, when my chakra and my genjutsu mastery grows more, but right now, it is not enough...'
'And beside genjutsu I have nothing, all the tricks I could come up with is useless against someone of this level... If I train in a time-loop for another five or ten years, maybe then I would be able to deal with someone like him, but right now I have absolutely nothing...'
As Keisuke pushed the three of them even more, gradually increasing his tempo, Yuta thought, 'This is it, huh... I can feel it, the fight is coming to an end, the three of us is exhausted, and one of us will make a mistake and die any second now...'
...
'Should I return and warn Shisui? At least in that timeline we were alive to see another day. Although these Stone ninjas will be alive too, and likely will attack again shortly after, and it's not guaranteed that the situation will be better when they do. Maybe go back further in time and train? Although my side effects from the energies imbalance were faded completely a while ago, if I were to train in a time-loop for a decade, the side effects would resurface again, and probably would be even more serious. And if I train less, then it might be not enough to win against Keisuke still...'
'I guess, I just have to warn Shisui, then wait and see how the mission progresses, it's not ideal, but there is no other way, I don't really want to stay in this timeline any longer and to witness one of us dying, it's bad for my sanity...' Yuta thought half-jokingly as he was about, although reluctantly, to time-travel and to avoid this battle for now.
But before he could do that, Keisuke suddenly changed his moves and with more speed than before he suddenly attacked Hikari. Keisuke swung his kunai and Hikari blocked it in time with her sword, holding it with both hands, but the force behind that attack was immense and after a short standstill, Keisuke pushed Hikari's sword up, forcing Hikari to lose her balance briefly while her hands and her sword was up, and she briefly remained completely open.
Itachi and Yuta were unable to interfere and stop Keisuke in time, and Keisuke with a satisfied smirk already pointed his kunai at Hikari's chest, clearly intending to pierce her heart, while no one could do anything to stop it...
--- AN ---
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