The Festival (III)

Itachi slowly backed away as he blocked Sasuke's attacks with one hand while keeping the other one behind his back.

"You make too many unnecessary movements," he said. "Don't try to look graceful while you attack and worry more about actually hitting me."

The only reply he got was a frustrated growl.

Chuckling briefly, he casually tilted his head to the side to avoid a kunai that flew at him from behind. A second later, another figure joined the fray by trying to sweep his legs away. Sasuke apparently saw his chance when Itachi took a step aside to dodge the new attack and chose to jump at him with new elan to take advantage of this supposed distraction.

Needless to say, he continued to block Sasuke's axe kick with one arm while using the other one to redirect another punch from the newcomer.

"Not bad, Haku," he told the girl with a smile, completely unaffected by their combined attacks. "But if you ambush someone stronger than you, you need to make your first attack count. Otherwise, the attempt is wasted."

She didn't reply, choosing to continue her attacks rather than waste her breath by talking with him.

"Also," he continued with an amused smile. "If you fight together with an ally, you need to make sure that you complement each other rather than stand in the other's way." To demonstrate that, he grabbed Haku's leg when she sent another kick at his head and throw her at the incoming form of Sasuke, making them fly into each other before they fell to the ground in a mess of limbs.

The smile on his lips grew a bit wider when he saw the two glares sent in his direction. Well, one glare and one slightly miffed glance. Haku wasn't one to glare at people, after all. "Now, why don't we-"

Surprisingly, he was forced to abandon what he was going to say in favour of jumping away to dodge several shurikens that came flying towards him from three directions, shot by what he assumed must be traps one of them had set up in advance as neither of them was able to use a clone technique yet. It didn't stop there, though; rather than landing on sturdy ground, he needed to adjust his balance to stop himself from falling when his feet made contact with solid ice.

Itachi had not much time to think about that as just a moment later, Sasuke came sliding in his direction, intend on kicking his feet away to throw him to the ground. Reacting on instinct, he spread his legs and allowed Sasuke to slide underneath him before tilting his head to dodge another kunai thrown by the boy when he noticed that his attack had failed.

Now standing with his legs wide apart on a surface of ice, there wasn't much he could do when Haku's silhouette 'swam' through the ice until she was below him before jumping out of it. He just barely avoided the punch to his face by a mere millimetre before he raised his arms to block her incoming legs. However, rather than attacking him, she used his body as a springboard to jump away from him. Furthermore, she also grabbed something from the air and then pulled.

It took him a moment to realize that it was wire -it must have been attached to Sasuke's kunai- and by the time that realization set in, the person at the other end of it came crashing directly into him, catapulted by the force of Haku's pull. The impact sent him flying, throwing them both for several meters before they landed on the ice and skidded for a few more. When they came finally to a stop, Sasuke was lying on top of him with a wide smile.

"Ha! We got you, Nii-san!" he exclaimed happily before turning back to look at his comrade. "Did you see that, Haku? We won!"

The girl opened her mouth to reply, but then the world began to shift and the ground beneath them collapsed, letting the three of them fall into nothingness.

A moment later, Sasuke and Haku found themselves hard breathing on their knees in front of him while he looked down on them with an amused smile and a raised eyebrow. "I believe I remember telling you that this would be a Taijutsu bout," he said. "That usually implies that Ninjutsu isn't allowed."

Neither of them answered for a while as they tried to get their breathing under control.

It was Haku who recovered enough to speak first. "W-when did you cast the Genjutsu?"

"The moment we arrived on the clearing, of course."

Sasuke made an indignant noise. "But that's cheating!"

He sent his little brother a look that could be translated as "are you serious?", making him blush in embarrassment as he realized what he just said.

"Still," he continued when he saw their crestfallen faces. "Your strategy was very well thought-out. Making me believe I won before starting a well-coordinated surprise attack that made clever use of the environment is not something most academy students would come up with. Well done, you two."

That seemed to cheer them up a bit.

"To be honest," Haku said with a shake of her head. "I was really surprised when it actually worked. We should have noticed something was wrong by then."

"Ah, whatever," Sasuke replied confidently. "We will get him next time."

Itachi chuckled. "Maybe you will. But first, there are two lessons that you can take with you from today. Can you tell me what they are?"

Both mulled about it for a few seconds before Haku spoke up. "Not letting yourself be unknowingly caught in an illusion?"

"Almost," he said with a smile, "but not quite. It's impossible to avoid something like that all the time. It's much more about being always aware of your own chakra to notice whether you're in a Genjutsu or not. While most shinobi aren't good enough to create very realistic illusions, meaning it's enough to be attentive of your senses and environment to notice if something is amiss, it's never wrong to be a bit paranoid about such things." He gave them a few seconds to think about that before he continued. "And the second one?"

Both thought about it, their faces set in frowns as they considered and discarded possibilities, but neither could think of anything else. Not that he had expected them to, of course. The thing he was thinking about was only indirectly related to the situation, after all.

"The second lesson," he said when it became obvious that neither of them would say anything, "is to chose a more private location to plan a strategy than the living room, especially if it's the living room of the person you're targeting."

Both their eyes went wide at that while their cheeks flushed red, making Itachi chuckle some more.

"You know, your plan might have actually worked if I hadn't known about it beforehand." He turned towards Haku. "It was clever of you to keep the progress you made mastering your Kekkei Genkai a secret from me. On that note, congratulations on improving your control over ice to such an extend. Did the scrolls you got from Hokage-sama prove helpful?"

Just like every other village, Konoha collected as much information about the bloodlines of the other villages as they could to prepare for them to the best of their abilities. Unfortunately, they didn't have too much about the Yuki Clan from which Haku descended, but there were some old reports, mainly from the First and Second Shinobi World Wars. Nothing specific, unfortunately, but even just reading about what was theoretically possible for her to do helped Haku in her ongoing attempts of mastering her abilities.

"They did," she said. "I'm still far from where I want to be, but I'm getting better."

"Man," Sasuke groaned. "I wish I would awaken my Sharingan soon to have a Kekkei Genkai as well. I'm sure then we could beat you!"

Although he didn't let it show on his face, that comment made his good mood evaporate. His brother didn't know about the requirements of awakening their Sharingan, of course, so it was understandable that he would say something like that, but knowing that didn't make it any easier to hear him doing so. Personally, he hoped it would be a long time until that day came.

It was probably too much to hope that it would never come at all.

Zabuza was glad that the revolution went as smoothly as it did and that they even were already in the process of forming an alliance with another village, he would admit that much. However, what he didn't like was that it was he who was forced to accompany some annoying diplomat to the Hidden Leaf Village. His specialty was killing and maiming, not protecting. Not to forget that he would also need to stay polite all the damn time they were here, which was just a pain in the ass.

Seriously, just because Kisame decided to go rogue barely a few weeks before they finally killed the Yondaime, that woman decided that it would be good for their image if he were the one that went on this mission. Something about "showing the world that Kirigakure still had one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen in its ranks" or something. It made him somewhat regret his decision to support her ascent to become Mizukage.

Just a little, though. Mei was still the best choice, no matter how much he disliked the idea of that stupid bitch being able to command him around. He just knew that she would never stop holding that over his head. Never.

At least they were allying themselves with Konoha and not one of the other villages like Kumo. From what he had heard, they were currently trying to get as many bloodlines as possible from other villages, which to him just screamed trouble. The Land of Water had had enough problems related to Kekkei Genkais to last for a lifetime and no need for even more of that sorts, thank you very much.

"Welcome to Konohagakure. If you would please follow us, we will bring to directly to the Hokage. Afterwards, we will accompany you to your accommodations."

Zabuza almost snorted at that but kept his expression neutral until their guide turned around to lead the way. Figured they wouldn't let us walk through their village by ourselves.