“Life is born, and life dies… But life is saved again.” — Itachi Uchiha.

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Itachi shook his head as he saw Kenpachi enduring a futile struggle. Kenpachi’s physicality was greater than his, of that there was no doubt, but pure strength and no skill could only take him so far, especially when he was facing an opponent that had both in spades.

Unfortunately for Kenpachi and all his strength, he could not perceive a way to subdue the black flames, and Itachi being a master of diversion almost had an easy time taking Kenpachi on.

“What the hell is this? How did you grow this strong in just a few years?” Kenpachi was panting heavily but other than the wide grin and expectation of fun he had in the beginning, now only pure confusion remained.

“So you finally realize it.” Itachi said breathing slowly, mostly from exertion rather than exhaustion. “I did grow stronger, yes, but not to the point that you are helpless because of a deep gulf between our strengths. This is just the difference between strength and skill.”

“With how you currently are, I am your worst possible matchup. The only reason you’ve endured for this long is because your Reiryoku and Reiatsu exceeds mine; both of which reduces the effect of any technique I use on you. But still, I can easily nullify such handicaps with the right skills.”

“Uh?” Kenpachi frowned and pointed his blade at Itachi. “Are you trying to say I can’t cut these annoying flames?”

He shook his head again as Kenpachi was getting riled up again and it was only his confusion that was currently stopping him from blindly hacking and slashing.

“Of course you can; with your strength and a wave of Reiatsu, you can cut them, but only the ones you are lucky enough to cut and that doesn’t change the fact that you have no way of combating them, hence your loss.”

Kenpachi jumped and brought his sword down at Itachi but Itachi just swung his burning sword in an arc and the flames that expanded from it caused Kenpachi to retreat at the last second.

“See?” Itachi said. “Now why didn’t you just cut through it? None of the other Captains would be as helpless or as clueless as you are if they were up against me.”

Now this pissed Kenpachi off. Did Itachi just insult him by insinuating that he was the weakest Captain? Of course that wasn’t what Itachi meant but that was what Kenpachi understood.

From Kenpachi’s perspective, it genuinely angered him because the same person he acknowledged as strong was now calling him very weak. It hurt his pride.

They clashed again, sword against sword, but it was obvious who was having the upper hand.

“What use are such fancy skills when you’re fighting to the death?!” Kenpachi shouted in Itachi’s face as they held their blades in a stare off.

“Who said it had to be fancy? As a swordsman shouldn’t your strength be reflected in the skill you wield with your blade?” Itachi knew he wasn’t getting to Kenpachi as the look the man was giving him screamed ‘I’ll kill you’, so he took another approach. “You’re already skilled as a swordsman, extremely so. But what if, what if your blade is the reason why you can’t display that skill because you won’t let it?”

That caused Kenpachi to pause, letting Itachi disengage from him.

Despite his somewhat ‘amicable’ relationship with Kenpachi, which was greatly due to his simple brutish nature, seeing Kenpachi’s blade like that irked him every time he saw it. Especially when he looked at it with his Sharingan; Kenpachi’s Reiatsu was practically forcing the blade’s Reiatsu from budging for even a single bit.

For someone like him who cherished bonds as the ultimate treasure anyone could ever own, Kenpachi, under normal circumstances, should have been the person he despised the most. Except he wasn’t, because Itachi doing that would make him no more than a hypocrite when he did the same thing Kenpachi was doing to his blade to Amaterasu. Ignorance.

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“What the hell are you saying, Itachi? And why should it matter when we’re fighting?”

“You don’t care that you’re making yourself weaker?” Itachi questioned incredulously.

Kenpachi looked at his blade, inwardly mulling over the question until he got his answer – one that made him laugh as he returned his gaze to Itachi.

“Why would I want to get stronger if I won’t be able to enjoy the fight?” He laughed as if he just figured something very important. “I don’t need borrowed strength when I can do it alone. I got this far without any fancy technique or Shikai or anything. Why would I need it now? Hahahaha!”

“Oh did that make you angry?” Itachi didn’t say anything but Kenpachi could feel the anger in his eyes which only made him laugh more. “Why do you even care?”

“What a fool.” Itachi muttered. He’d try to convince the idiot but if he still refuses to listen then he’ll leave him to himself, he decided then.

Kenpachi might be a great swordsman but most of that came from his overwhelming strength and reflexes, and his bestial instincts – not necessary his skills.

“I’ll show you, Itachi!” Kenpachi slowly sauntered towards Itachi before slowly pacing it to a full blown sprint. “–That I alone am enough!”

Itachi’s eyes traced every of his movement to the extreme and when Kenpachi’s feet stopped to bring down his slash, Itachi stepped into his space and swung upwards.

“-!”

“…”

“… How?” Kenpachi asked.

Even if his Reiatsu tried combating the flames, Itachi’s blade dug in from his torso to his chest and easily eviscerated everything along its travel path

“Just know that until you stop being a fool, this gap will always exist between us.” Itachi stepped back from Kenpachi who looked down aghast and confused at the same time. “The difference between us is that you think you can do it alone, no one can. Because of that, the first time you defeated me was the last time you ever could.”

The long gash across Kenpachi’s chest to his torso was a very prominent incision but no blood came out. Even though he didn’t cover his blade in flames, it was still the blade made of consuming flames.

Kenpachi collapsed over before he could get a word out and Itachi squatted over his body and held a glowing hand over him to heal him. His use of Kaidō, unlike his Kidō, was still average but that wasn’t an issue right now.

“Are you going to continue watching, Yachiru?”

Not a second later Yachiru landed beside him and looked at Kenpachi with a weird look on her face.

“Kenny lost.” She stated.

Itachi nodded. “Do you know why he’s been so difficult?”

She shrugged. “How would I know? Kenny had always been like this.” She hoisted Kenpachi’s body over her shoulders and waved at Itachi off her shoulder before leaving.

‘She’s really weird.’ Itach thought. He couldn’t really put a finger on it. Even looking at Reiatsu, though it was different, it somehow felt familiar to Kenpachi’s, in a very obscure way. Not in color, intensity, or the feel of it, no. It felt like she could match his. ‘Maybe his daughter?... No, I don’t think so.’

There was something off about her, that he knew, but now wasn’t the time to focus on that.

As he stood up to leave, he received a hell butterfly transmission from one of the instructors asking if he could come by the Academy.

“I don’t have any assignment there today.”

[Haha, erm, it’s not an ‘assignment’, Itachi. Some of the students came around and I was just wondering if you were… free.]

Itachi sighed. He didn’t blame the instructor because his current predicament was all because of the Head Captain and he couldn’t exactly say anything about it.

The main reason however for his sigh was because of the students, a few specific ones who he was sure were the ones who strong-armed the instructor into calling him in.

Taking a last look at the landscape of his recent fight, he shook his head in sadness.

…..

“Itachi, you’re here.” A girl exclaimed as he walked into the training grounds and the group of girls around her happily marched over.

Unfortunately for him, one thing they quickly discovered was that while he always looked stoic and came off as stern, he was inwardly a calm and soft person.

And if there was one thing Itachi hated, it was attention. It disrupted the mask of stealth when trying to blend in and also made one easily identified on assignments as a threat when facing enemy agents.

‘Right, this is not an assignment.’ He didn’t react to their call but instead turned to another part of the field where he could see Junpei training.

‘An prime example of life’s unfairness.’ With how hardworking the young man was, he would have been decently skilled if he had an average talent.

“Junpei, join us.” He called out.

He heard disgruntled mutterings but he paid them no mind. His time wasn’t to entertain naïve souls.

He'd rather make his time worth it by helping the truly hardworking ones than being a convenient handyman and spar partner.

“What have you got for us today, Mr. Itachi?” Junpei asked excitedly. If his facial expression wasn’t already obvious, then the way he listened to Itachi whenever he spoke told highly of how much he had missed their lessons together years ago.

“Reiatsu refinement.” Itachi answered. “It doesn’t matter how much Reiryoku you have, if you can’t refine it into a sufficiently strong enough Reiatsu then that is the first limiter you are placing on yourself as Shinigami.”

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