Interest

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I don't own solo leveling or Naruto

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"... Uchiha Itachi!"

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"Tanaka... It has been quite sometime hasn't it," Itachi said landing on the ground elegantly with a frown on his face. "You don't seem surprised by my appearance," Tanaka said matter of factly, walking out of the smoke he created.

"I heard you became an S-rank hunter recently so I'm curious... Why are you here?" Itachi stated. He wondering what Tanaka's intentions were, because he knew that he didn't come all the way here to just fight. 'On second thoughts that might be the main reason he came here for,' he chuckled inwardly at the thought.

"Thanks to you I was able to experience a double-awakening and boost my rank from A to S-rank, in no time," said Tanaka. "I was on verge of death before you came and rescued everyone from the monsters. If you had arrived a minute later I would've succumbed to my injuries, but lucky that didn't happen," Tanaka grinning as he finished his explanation.

"It still doesn't explain why you're here," said Itachi with a neutral expression. He saw the S-rank hunter pause for a moment, as if trying to remember some instruction he was given before shrugging his shoulders and saying, "I forgot, maybe you can help jog my memory for me!"

As soon as the statement left his mouth he launched himself straight at Itachi with his arm aiming to take his head off. Itachi, however, saw through the attack and weaved out of danger, before jumping away and launching a volley of shuriken, with deadly accuracy, straight at the broad shouldered hunter.

The shuriken bounced off the faint mana aura emanating from Tanaka's body. "Useless," said Tanaka. He was disappointed with Itachi's counterstrike after such an impressive dodge in his mind. Itachi's thoughts, however, differed from the S-rank brute.

'His aura blocked my projectiles with ease. He's definitely stronger. Those shuriken are able to pierce B-rank monster skin easily,' analysed Itachi. Itachi has been told many times that S-rankers are remarkable, even amongst hunters, so he wasn't surprised to see the significant difference in between their powers.

"If you hold back, you might die." Tanaka blitzed Itachi and hit him with a lariat straight to the chest. "Hurk!" gasped Itachi. He had his eyes wide open at the attack that launched his body towards a tree with enough force to snap it in half.

He recovered quickly, however, and glared furiously at the brute with bus spinning three tomoe sharingan.

[Fire Style: Dragon Flame Technique!]

He blew out a stream of hot concentrated flames straight at Tanaka forcing him to dodge out the way, but he widened his eyes as a second Itachi pushed him back with a flying kick to the face.

'A clone?!' Tanaka internally questioned as he grabbed the leg of the clone and threw it towards Itachi. He wiped the blood slowly leaking from the cut on his lip due to the clone's kick. 'He's gotten stronger and faster... How did he do that? Wait, his eyes are red now. Does that have anything to do with his increase in strength?' Noticing the scarlet spinning eyes in the head of his younger opponent. 'It doesn't matter! I'm still stronger, but I think I'm starting to see the power that master was so interested in.'

'His mana has increased so massively that most of my normal genjutsu will be ineffective against him,' thought Itachi as he and his clone ran in sync towards Tanaka.

[Thunder Clap!]

Tanaka brought both his palms forward and clapped them together to create a loud shockwave straight at Itachi as it tore the ground beneath it easily. Itachi saw this and used his clone as a platform to leap over the attack and close the distance between him and Tanaka.

Before the clone was launched away by the shockwave it dispersed into a murder of crows and they flew at Tanaka to distract him. "You're still holding back!" shouted Tanaka as he caught the descending fist of Itachi, despite the visual distraction of crows. Itachi frowned at the ease at which Tanaka caught his fist, but didn't let it bother him as he as well burst into a murder of crows.

"You were a clone as well!" exclaimed a shocked Tanaka as the crows frantically circled his body.

[Crow Clone : Explode!]

A countless number of black crows spontaneously combusted on Tanaka's body creating an explosion so big it dwarfed the size of multiple trees in the area.

The real Itachi reappeared on the spot he had first launched the fire attack as a distraction. He panted as a drop of sweat trickled down his face from exertion. "That was a very costly amount of mana I used just now... But I think that incapacitated him," said Itachi breathing heavily, but keeping his sharingan active.

The smoke cleared to reveal a batterd and bruised Tanaka standing with his arms in an x position and his body tense with mana leaking off him in waves.

He let out a breath before saying, "Is that all you got?"

"Don't bluff. You might not know it, but my eyes allow me to perceive mana in different colors and the amount a hunter has as well. You exhausted most of your mana to defend yourself from the explosion that I caused. Don't exert yourself too much and tell me what you want... Or do you still need your memory jogged?" Itachi finished off his explanation with a threat of more pain for Tanaka.

"Heh... I guess I should concede this fight then," Tanaka said as relaxed his stance and let the scarlet eyed boy approach him. He ran a hand through his spikey brown hair and laughed loudly.

"You knew I was following you, so you deliberately came here to confront me, right? You truly are impressive, Uchiha!" Tanaka laughed loudly as the realization that all this was confrontation set up by Itachi. "You were going to reveal yourself regardless of whether or not I noticed you or not, but I did and decided to lead you here, where damage would be kept to a minimum. So why did you confront me?" Itachi questioned Tanaka with his kunai knife pointed at the bruised S-ranker's throat.

"My master is offering you a position in our guild. I wanted to test you before you joined... That is if you accept," explained Tanaka. His voice was slightly strained due to the exhaustion of the battle and the kunai pointed at his throat.

Itachi narrowed his scarlet eyes at the confession. He scoffed before walking off without giving Tanaka a response to his guild's offer.

"Uh... Huh?" Tanaka made a confused sound watching the disappearing form of Itachi.