Naruto: Cthulhu: Ch. 205

What do you even understand about me? Do you know what I have endured?

Bearing the crime of killing the Uchiha clan, leaving my only family, infiltrating a dangerous and wicked organization as a spy, and spending years doing things I didn't want to do.

My resilience is something someone like you could never comprehend!

Itachi's heart burned with indignation, yet he chose not to voice his inner turmoil. Instead, he took a deep breath and spoke in a low voice, "I only want to ask you one thing. How is Sasuke?"

Kagami let out a cold snort. "If you want to know about him, then defeat me first."

"Your current expression is quite good, you know. It's just like when I was about to strike Izumi, and you stopped me—glaring at me with those furious eyes. I know that look—it's called anger."

"Oh, but I almost forgot—Izumi was already killed by you that night, right?"

His words dripped with provocation. He knew exactly how to taunt the stoic Itachi.

This cold, emotionless man wasn't truly devoid of feelings. The longer suppressed emotions stayed buried, the more explosive they became when unleashed.

"What do you know?!"

"Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!"

Dozens of fiery orbs, resembling phoenix blossoms, shot toward Kagami, shuriken hidden within the flames. He quickly leapt aside, but not before one fireball grazed his ankle, leaving a scorch-marked wound.

Not bad, Itachi. Let me show you something too.

He indeed possessed immensely powerful divine abilities, but using them recklessly would either severely injure or kill Itachi, making it impossible for him to return to Konoha.

As a valuable tool for later plans, he had no intention of killing Itachi. Thus, he chose abilities that were impressive yet not overly destructive.

With seemingly chaotic hand seals, he loudly declared the technique's name: "Wind Style: Frozen Cloud!"

In an instant, a small cloud, just big enough to cover a person, appeared over Itachi's head.

The cloud flickered faintly with lightning but quickly subsided, giving way to falling snowflakes.

As Itachi stared in shock at the phenomenon above him, he realized, almost too late, that his feet were immobilized.

Looking down, he saw that the square meter of ground beneath him had somehow frozen over, and his ninja boots were firmly locked in ice.

What kind of jutsu is this?! How did it freeze so quickly?!

This was a power of the Great Old One, Ithaqua.

The Wind-Walker allowed Kagami to freely manipulate extreme cold, snow, and thunderous storms.

"Freely manipulate" meant just that—he could cause freezing snow or a lightning storm to appear over someone's head or even over an entire region with just a thought.

However, the smaller the area of effect, the more intense the phenomenon. If spread across all of Konoha, it would simply be snowfall and mild lightning storms, turning summer into winter.

But if this power is concentrated only on a person's head, the degree of coldness and the speed at which it freezes becomes incredibly terrifying.

Just now, Kagami used the Wind Walker's power to instantly freeze the kunai by focusing the ability solely on them, causing the kunai to freeze into ice mid-flight.

Now, the same power was dispersed across Itachi's body. While the effect was weaker than before, it was still not something that could be easily resisted.

At this moment, he felt the flow of blood in his body slow down, as if his once warm blood was on the verge of freezing solid.

This was still considering that ninjas had a much stronger ability to withstand the cold than ordinary people. If an average person were subjected to the Wind-Walker's power within such a small range, they would instantly be frozen into an ice sculpture, and then shattered by a thunderstrike from above, resulting in a gruesome death.

On the water's surface, Kisame quickly noticed that something was wrong with Itachi, and immediately jumped to his side. He drew Samehada from his back, shattered the ice block that had formed around Itachi's feet, and then gently placed Samehada against Itachi's back.

Using Samehada as a conduit, he slowly transferred his chakra into Itachi's body, sending a wave of warmth to Itachi's heart and gradually warming his cooling blood.

Itachi immediately leapt away from the icy area and spoke to Kisame, "You've been a great help."

"Don't mention it, but this guy's jutsu is really strange," Kisame replied.

"It could be a bloodline limit. Be careful."

Itachi made this assessment, though even he wasn't entirely convinced by it.

In his memory, Kagami was most skilled with fire—if not solely using fire jutsu—and the power was enough to repel the masked man.

Given this, it would be nearly impossible for him to have awakened a bloodline limit that allows him to control ice and snow as an adult.

Also, Kagami had called out "Wind Style" earlier. Wind Release wasn't likely a bloodline limit; it was more likely a technique he had developed on his own.

But Wind Release controlling ice and snow? That seemed impossible as well.

Then there were those bizarre hand seals, so confusing that no one could even begin to copy them.

In short, his strange jutsu left Itachi perplexed, while Kagami, standing nearby, was already preparing for his next "jutsu."

"Wind Style: Furious Storm!"

As Kagami's words fell, a tornado appeared around Itachi and Kisame without warning.

Before they could react, the tornado had already enclosed them, with the fierce winds swirling around. The only calm place was the eye of the storm, where the two stood, back to back, watching the furious winds.

Itachi removed his windmill hat from his head and tossed it outward.

The hat was immediately shredded into fragments by the storm and sucked into the tornado's vortex. It was clear that if they tried to force their way through this wind barrier, they would end up like the hat—torn apart.

Kisame, standing next to Itachi, suddenly shivered and looked up. To his surprise, there was no raging wind overhead, only a clear sky.

"A flaw!"

With that, Kisame jumped, dragging Samehada along, and raised one hand as if trying to touch the clear sky above.

But suddenly, a huge face appeared directly in Kisame's path, blocking his escape route. He was startled and cried out.

"Ah!"

He was knocked back to the ground. His outstretched arm was torn open, the fabric shredded, and the skin lacerated with numerous deep cuts, as though a thousand small knives had scraped across it.

Even Kisame, who had extraordinary physical resilience, was injured like this—if it had been anyone else, even a ninja, their arm would have been torn apart instantly.

Looking up again, Itachi saw an even more shocking sight.

"What is this?!"

This time, even Itachi, who usually remained calm in the face of surprises, couldn't keep his composure.

Because above them, there was a gigantic human face formed entirely out of the swirling wind!

The face appeared slightly bloated, with a wide nose flanked by two pronounced nasolabial folds—more exaggerated than those on Itachi's face. It was adorned with high cheekbones and thick, plump lips.

Since this face was formed from raging winds, its finer details were indistinct.

However, whenever its thick lips parted, the nasolabial folds extending from either side of the nose down to the corners of the mouth would twitch, making it seem like a real, living face.

"What is this?!"

To them, this distinct face didn't resemble the facial features of any region or ethnicity from the Five Great Nations.

What they didn't know was that in another world, this face would be called an "Native American face."

Every time the face's lips slightly opened, the fierce winds intensified, pulling nearby debris into the tornado, which emitted a rumbling noise as it spun.

At this moment, the keen-eyed Itachi noticed that the whirlwind barrier surrounding them was shrinking.

Simultaneously, the expression of the face above became increasingly exaggerated. Its narrowed eyes and widening mouth were so lifelike they seemed genuinely furious.

If this continued, the tightening whirlwind would grind them into pieces like a meat grinder. Thinking quickly, Kisame thrust his massive sword, Samehada, into the ground beneath them.

Boom!

The cement floor shattered easily under Samehada's force, but the two discovered that beneath the ground wasn't soil—it was a wind tunnel.

Although the winds in the tunnel weren't as violent as those on the surface, they were strong enough to repel Samehada when it was thrust inside.

"We're trapped. What now?" Kisame asked, glancing at his partner. Itachi steadied his nerves and, through gaps in the whirlwind, glimpsed the silhouette of Kagami's body outside.

"This strange jutsu seems to require hand signs to maintain. If we attack his real body, we should be able to dispel it."

The problem was figuring out how to strike Kagami's body.

Itachi's mastery of throwing techniques was of no use here—anything thrown would be swept up by the whirlwind. The same went for ninjutsu. His fire jutsu, for example, would only fuel the tornado if used, further endangering them by intensifying the flames.

I didn't want to use this, Kagami. Don't blame me.

Closing his eyes, Itachi took a deep breath, then snapped them open. The Sharingan in his eyes transformed from the standard three-tomoe form into a Mangekyō Sharingan, resembling an alien-shaped shuriken.

Amaterasu!

Itachi directed Amaterasu at the humanoid silhouette faintly visible within the whirlwind.

Amaterasu, the technique that ignited unquenchable black flames wherever the Mangekyō's gaze landed, struck instantly. Its speed and directness made it nearly impossible to evade.

"Ahhhh!"

Through the whirlwind barrier, Itachi saw the black flames of Amaterasu engulf the humanoid figure, accompanied by an ear-piercing scream. Simultaneously, the whirlwind barrier surrounding Itachi and Kisame rapidly dissipated.

"It burns! It burns!"

A few meters away, Itachi saw a figure completely engulfed in black flames, writhing in agony. No matter how desperately he struggled to rid himself of the flames, his efforts were futile, and his screams of pain echoed.

Forgive me, Kagami.

Although Kagami had provoked him earlier, he didn't unleash Amaterasu in retaliation for a few taunts. The strange Wind Release technique had left him no choice but to resort to Amaterasu.

Over the years, Itachi had carried out tasks for Akatsuki that required harming Konoha's shinobi, but this time, his attack was exceptionally ruthless.

Even Kisame, standing beside him, couldn't help but smirk mischievously as he quipped, "To treat an old acquaintance so harshly... as expected of the man who annihilated his own clan."

"It's time to go," Itachi said calmly as he turned to leave.

Just then, a voice echoed from within the black flames, stopping him in his tracks. "Leaving so soon? Itachi, aren't you going to stay and catch up?"

Itachi's eyes widened in disbelief. He turned back to see something unimaginable: the black flames of Amaterasu were peeling away from the humanoid figure within, like a charred shell breaking apart to reveal the intact nut inside.

Standing unharmed in the flames was Kagami, not even a single thread of his clothing scorched. Moreover, the black flames he had unleashed were now floating silently in the air, as if under some kind of control.

This... this is impossible!

Itachi's eyes grew wider, and he was even more shocked than when he first witnessed Kagami's Wind Release technique.

Before, he had merely been surprised by an unknown wind jutsu, but now he was utterly unable to believe what he was seeing. Amaterasu, once released, couldn't be controlled even by its caster. Yet Kagami not only emerged unscathed from its attack but seemed to have taken control of the black flames?

This couldn't be real. This was absolutely impossible!

The Uchiha prodigy, who had always been supremely confident in the power of his Mangekyō Sharingan, felt his confidence shaken once more.

The last time his Mangekyō abilities had been rendered ineffective was five years ago during a mission in the Land of the Gods, when he and Jūzō faced Kisame's predecessor, Kojiro. That opponent had broken free of Itachi's Tsukuyomi through sheer overwhelming mental strength, leaving him with a lasting psychological scar and lingering backlash from the failed genjutsu.

But now, his most powerful physical attack, Amaterasu, had been nullified. This was an unprecedented experience for Itachi!

Meanwhile, seeing the disbelief and shock written all over Itachi's face, Kagami felt a sense of smug satisfaction.

Earlier, he had employed the power of Ithaqua to execute his Wind Release technique. Now, to "tank" the black flames of Amaterasu, Kagami had utilized the authority of the Great Old One, Cthugha.

Kagami, who understood Itachi better than Itachi himself, anticipated that Amaterasu would be Itachi's choice to create an opportunity for escape. The face-like form in the storm was part of Kagami's perception network, allowing him to monitor Itachi's Mangekyō preparations in real time.

Thus, Kagami had preemptively coated his body with Cthugha's fiery constructs, much like Gaara's sand armor. Years of training had allowed Kagami to control these flames to burn in a unique, lightless mode, rendering them invisible except for the heat distortion they caused in the surrounding air—something unnoticeable to Itachi in the chaos of the storm.

When Amaterasu struck, it did not target Kagami's body directly but rather the fiery construct of Cthugha enveloping him.

According to Obito's description in the original lore, Amaterasu was a fire so intense that it could incinerate even other flames. Its target would burn until fully consumed, extinguishable only when nothing remained.

However, Cthugha's fiery constructs were made of a supernatural substance unique to the Great Old Ones, material that was part of an eternal cycle and could never be destroyed. These flames would continue burning indefinitely, even without a target to sustain them.

Thus, in terms of persistence, Cthugha's flames outmatched Amaterasu. But in terms of transmissibility, Amaterasu had the edge.

When these two legendary flames clashed, the result was nothing short of spectacular! It was, in every sense, an otherworldly showdown.