“If I would have stood in front of you and looked you in the eyes from the very beginning… talked to you instead of down to you… and been open about everything.” — Itachi Uchiha.

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Itachi’s breath shook as he blocked the straightforward downward slash from Amaterasu that caused the ground beneath them to cave in.

If he was one for vulgarities, Itachi definitely would have cursed his breath out when he saw black flames seeping out of the crater cracks.

“Enton.”

“Enton.”

They both said at the same time as flames rose from the ground up like a curtain and covered the both of them. They both used the same technique as counter at the same time but the results couldn’t be any different.

Itachi flew like a black ball out of the curtain of fire and steadied himself as he slid to a halt midair.

“I knew this would happen right from the start. From the very first day I let you call my name, I knew I would have to beat it into your body for you to fully understand.”

The curtain of fire parted ways as Amaterasu stepped through it with a blade forged of fire, as thin as a hair’s breadth with no hilt or guard, in her hand.

Itachi’s eyes squinted thin as needle points as Amaterasu suddenly appeared in front of him, for the third time now, without him being able to track her movements even with his Sharingan until she was right in front of him.

“I know how the Sharingan works more than you ever will, Itachi. After all, I was once a part of those precious eyes of yours.” Amaterasu’s very thin blade clanked against Itachi’s black blade but it didn’t throw him off this time. “You still don’t understand what it means to surrender completely to your passion. In that case let me show you. The insurmountable difference between you and the Captains.”

The atmosphere grew extremely dense while Itachi kept his whole attention on Amaterasu whose was now suddenly an unstoppable force. With her he didn’t have to worry about tricks and clever manipulations and strategies. Her raw strength eclipsed every petty plan and underhanded tricks. The only way to stop her from consuming everything was to have the raw strength to stop her in her path.

…. And she was showing Itachi how he utterly lacked that very raw power.

“You have the same level of raw power as I do, or rather you can draw out the same amount of raw power I can. Yet you actively weaken it and make it completely useless by pairing it with one of those ‘smart’ plans of yours.”

Close quarters, mid range, long distance – she was an expert in all of them and she was able to match every single one of Itachi’s strikes with relative ease compared to how he took hits from her.

It was the first time that Itachi felt that his Sharingan was utterly useless in a fight. And ironically, this fight wasn’t against some deadly foe but instead an aspect of his soul.

‘She’s the personification of the Mangekyō, so in a way she’s the better version of me.’

She opened her palm and showed Itachi the floating black orb she molded.

“I am the personification of the highest authority of flames, its supreme dictator. I don’t kindle it, I don’t soothe it, and I don’t gauge it at every turn. I simply command it and it obeys.”

The black orb atop her palm was the compression of an intense amount of her flames and imbued with her essence to Consume, and that was what it did.

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The atmosphere, the Reishi itself, and everything nearby was sucked into it and effortlessly obliterated to nothing.

Its sucking force grew stronger and it started pulling Itachi to it which forced him to utilize his only viable option for escape. Bringing along with it a very similar memory from his past.

He had to rush the chant as he futilely fought against the pulling force of the orb and with a single blur of his hands, he weaved a few signs to go with the incantation.

“Hadō #88: Hiryu Gekizoku Shinten Raihō!”

A cannon blast of spiritual energy crashed down on the orb and everything in its path, soon covering the entire landscape in the bright white flash of its explosion.

The result of the explosion was a 250 meter wide crater with absolutely nothing remaining in the nearby surroundings.

“You lost again.”

Amaterasu appeared by his side and informed him of yet another failure of which he could only sigh to.

“You’re starting to see it now, aren’t you? As you draw closer to the truth of yourself you start to notice the small cracks running across the image you’ve been used to.”

“Even when accounting for surprises, that one was a little bit… shocking.”

Amaterasu scoffed. “You did something similar, albeit at a lower level, when you were fighting Ichimaru Gin. The question now is why did you go back to Kidō when your flames would have sufficed?”

That was the condition surrounding his fight with Amaterasu, that apart from his black flames he wasn’t allowed to use anything else. And doing that was an automatic forfeit.

“You can control, bend and shape my flames to your intent, but this is going a step higher. At this point they are not just bigger and faster flames as they now carry a component that can affect the world in any way you desire. All you have to do is let it pour out like a torrential storm.”

Itachi sat on the ground as he finally got his breath to an even pace after Amaterasu disappeared, his entire body marred with sweat and dust.

His Bankai wasn’t coming out as he had projected and the repeated losses to Amaterasu was making the already crystal clear problem even more apparent.

Like Amaterasu had said, he had no problems using her flames and manipulating it but the part where she lost him was the ‘component’ she said was missing in order for him to clear the raw power intensity between them.

He knew she was being cryptic on purpose so that he would figure it out on his own but he couldn’t shake the feeling that she was leaving something out. Something crucial.

At this stage, it was no longer about his body and soul’s growth capacity, especially in relation to him. If he was a traditional Shinigami, he would have already gotten his Bankai by now but Tsukuyomi and Amaterasu made it clear that he had to find peace with a root of himself before he could move on – which was mostly due to Tsukuyomi’s nature.

If he wasn’t a calm and serene mirror, how could he hope to reflect his desires and intent on others?

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[POV: With Unohana Retsu]

Unohana made her way to the hidden location where she kept her private patient, the Fifth Division’s former – and presumed dead – 3rd Seat, Ichimaru Gin.

Unohana, every once in a while, everyday, would ask herself why she was entertaining something as reckless as this and going along with a mere Lieutenant’s plans – plans she knew little to nothing about.

Oh the old man would be angry as hell when she finally tells him, of that she was absolutely sure of.

Others might be worried about being scolded, thrown in jail, relieved of duty or something else as the result of the Head Captain’s anger, but she remembered his anger a bit too differently from the rest.

“Good morning, Ichimaru. How are we doing today?” She asked as she did her routine checkup on Ichimaru Gin, confirming with relief that he was already starting the healing process. A month or two and he will be completely healed.

“Captain Unohana… mostly fine. If you wouldn’t mind, the seals make it hard to sleep peacefully sometimes.” He said softly.

She shook her head at him and calmly explained to him just like she had done the last ten times he’d requested some seals to be loosed.

“I can’t take that risk. Healing you and keeping your status from the Head Captain can be considered treason if we’re being strict. I can’t risk you running off to Aizen on any occasion when some of your seals weren’t activated.”

Gin chuckled wryly. “No shade Cap’n. Ah guess I was being too greedy, being a traitor an’ all.”

Yet again, for the seventh time this morning, Unohana found herself asking why she was doing this.

“Ah yes. That was the reason, wasn’t it?”

Repaying a favor. Maybe her old friend wouldn’t be so mad at her if she told him why she was doing this.

Zaraki was taking to his sword and for the first time in his centuries-long life, he was pondering about something else that wasn’t himself or the next opponent to kill.

The berserker was actually refining his Reiatsu, even if he didn’t know what it was that he was doing.

‘Now that hotheaded young man just have to make sure I don’t regret ever doing this.’

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