Journey of Desires

- Izanagi!

This technique was unknown to Orochimaru, and as soon as he heard the unknown name of the technique that is most likely related to the sharingan, and also the enemy has Mangekyo, he tensed up and began to cover Susanoo with armor. At the moment, the maximum stage to which he can improve Susanoo is an incomplete full-length, that is, almost the last stage.

Itachi, who was wounded, disappeared, the place where he stood became empty, and the red Susanoo dissipated.

The battle site was empty for a few seconds, after which Orochimaru sensed something was wrong, but it was too late, Itachi appeared inside the green Susanoo, right behind Orochimaru.

In Itachi's hands was the Kusanagi blade that had previously fallen to the ground, swinging it, he delivered a perfect blow to the neck...

A moment later, Orochimaru's head fell to the ground.

***

- Kid, you're not bad... But you're not quite up to the level of those psychos Kaguya.

Kabuto stood ten meters behind Kimimaro, his arm missing, which Samehada had eaten, and a little further behind him lay Guren, whose entire back was covered in blood, she had been unsuccessfully hit by Kisame's blow and the scales of his sword had seriously damaged her back.

Kimimaro was now fighting in close combat, and although he managed to parry all of Kisame's blows, the swordsman still dominated the fight.

The exchange of blows lasted only about two minutes, during which time they managed to move closer to Kabuto. Since Orochimaru's student was missing an arm, Kisame relaxed and allowed himself to turn sideways. Kabuto moved a little to the side and now Kisame stood between two opponents, one was wounded and the second could not resist the swordsman well enough.

Kisame already opened his mouth and wanted to say something sarcastic, but something happened that he did not expect at all, a blow flew into his back, a thin thread consisting of crystals stretched from the already fully restored Guren, she could not use anything stronger than this thread, since she would have to say the name and give herself away.

But even this weak technique scared Kisame very much, although he has a lot of chakra, but in just a couple of seconds of contact, his chakra was spent by about 1/20, if it were an ordinary jonin, he would have already fallen with chakra exhaustion.

He abruptly hit the rope made of crystals, breaking the technique, and the next moment he was forced to parry Kimimaro's blow, sending him away with kicks, and Kabuto, who had come very close, struck with his whole hand, which was covered with the chakra scalpel technique.

Kisame swung his sword from the bottom up and cut off his second hand, but what he did not expect was that the hand that Kabuto had lost earlier had already recovered, and while Kisame's sword was up, Kabuto struck with his second hand, the result was a wound on the entire torso, a huge bloody strip that even touched the heart went from the left shoulder to the waist, closer to the right leg.

Kisame struck the sword down, slamming Kabuto into the ground, and immediately retreated, although he was badly wounded, he did not panic.

Kisame only turned to all three and said.

- What did Orochimaru-san feed you? Regeneration is no worse than mine.

The next moment, the wound on his torso began to heal, and after less than ten seconds it was completely healed.

Kisame understood that at this rate he would spend too much energy, his regeneration works thanks to Samehada, because of this he spends a lot of chakra.

Having reasoned that by switching to a more dangerous mode he would spend less chakra than if he received a couple more similar wounds, he threw off the Akatsuki cloak, which was already in a terrible state, and began to merge with Samehada.

A little while later, the trio saw a shark-man, who, having folded a concentration seal, created an incredibly huge amount of water, literally flooding the entire area and forcing Orochimaru's people to swim inside.

Kimimaro began to grow bones on all sides, turning into a strange semblance of a fugu fish.

Seeing this, Kisame chose Kabuto as his target, apparently because he was the one who inflicted the wound on him.

A game of cat and mouse began, Kabuto tried to briefly defend himself from the shark man, and he in turn caught up with him.

The huge water ball did not consist entirely of chakra, the water summoned by Kisame was ordinary, it is too difficult to maintain such a huge amount of water with chakra, and requires control beyond the bounds of reason, so this ball was covered with something like a crust of chakra that Kisame moved as he wanted, thereby moving the water.

Only he did not know that the Crystal element can turn anything into crystal except chakra, and just half a minute later, a huge number of crystals began to appear from Guren, all the water began to turn into them, and when Kisame noticed this, the technique almost managed to reach him.

Realizing that if he touched this keigengkai again, he would lose a lot of chakra, he decided to dispel the dome and swam away from the crystals at high speed, while the water had not yet fallen to the ground, flooding the forest.

He almost managed to escape, but the crystals still managed to catch his tail and at that moment Kisame had only 10 percent of his maximum chakra left.

Hitting his tail with his fin, he cut it off and was able to free himself from the crystal trap.

No matter how shameful it was to admit it, he would have to retreat, the girl had too strong a keigengkai, as if specially chosen by Orochimaru to resist Kisame.

- Itachi-san, I hope you're done, we'll deal with these splinters together...

***

Orochimaru's head fell to the ground, and at the same moment Itachi went to the place where Kisame was fighting, a huge water ball was visible in the distance, which clearly showed the location of his partner.

Itachi knew that Orochimaru had techniques that greatly increased his survivability, but since the sannin got hit with his real body, this should take him out of the fight for a long time.

Itachi felt sorry for his eye, of course, but another option was death from a severe wound.

Until Itachi was sure that Sasuke could protect himself and would not give his life to his brother, Itachi did not intend to die, even if he had to live half blind.

Having made a jump towards the tree, he intended to go to Kisame, who had already removed the water ball, apparently several dozen seconds of this technique was enough to defeat his opponents.

But when Itachi was already in the air, he felt danger, and since he could not fly, he could not dodge.

The Kusanagi sword, which he continued to hold in his hand, lit up again and sharply turned to the side, with this action itself, Itachi's hand was broken, and after a further blow, the mes passed through, destroying the Uchiha's heart.

The previously used Kusanagi no Tsurugi sword technique was not canceled, Orochimaru only took most of the chakra and left the bare minimum. He could feel the sword and knew that Itachi had gone behind him, he did not dodge in order to set a trap.

Itachi's eye opened in shock and disappointment, and looking at his opponent for the last time, he only saw how the body held the head in its hands and put it back in place, after which it grew back in a matter of seconds.

From such a scene, he even forgot that he had a second eye and did not use Izanagi again.

Dead Itachi fell to the ground, and Orochimaru, who began to scan the area in case of the presence of clones or new opponents, only felt Kisame, who was moving in his direction and should appear in about a minute.

Itachi was really dead, and in order not to risk Kisame taking his partner's body, Sanin approached the dead Uchiha and sealed him in a scroll.

Since Orochimaru had already acquired the Uchiha's body, and also a technique that protects him from genjutsu and elemental ninjutsu, which is much better than Tsukuyomi, he decided that trying to catch Itachi whole and alive would be too dangerous and fruitless.

Ten seconds after Itachi was sealed, Kisame jumped out to the battle site.

He began to look around in search of his partner, but saw only a bloody Orochimaru standing calmly against the backdrop of the huge Rashomon gate.

Kisame felt a lump in his throat, squinting his eyes he looked at Sanin and said.

- Where is Itachi?

Orochimaru was silent for a couple of seconds at first, and then, putting on his creepy smile, answered with just one word.

- Dead.

Kisame reached out his hand to Samehada and wanted to do something, but the next moment a noise was heard from behind him, a huge number of bones began to appear from the ground.

Having parried a couple of times with his sword, he began to dodge moving north, glancing at Orochimaru, he saw how Too was holding a dead Itachi in his hand, and in his other hand was a scroll.

It is unclear what Orochimaru was guided by, but he decided to show the body, as if bragging that he had succeeded.

- Itachi-san...

Kisame was confused and very upset, but he also understood that if he did nothing, the Sanin scroll would be replenished with another body.

Although he had little chakra left by his own standards, by the standards of ordinary ninja, he still had about five reserves of an average jonin.

- Suiton: Multiple shark projectiles.

Many water sharks headed towards his opponents, forcing them to jump back and give him time.

While they were dodging, Kisame began to fold the seals again and shouted.

- Kirigakure no jutsu!

The area was covered in a very thick fog, Kisame was not visible in it, and the chakra was everywhere, thereby hiding where the swordsman was.

Orochimaru and his subordinates gathered together, and then the Sanin used a wind technique, slightly dispelling the fog in the nearby area.

After half a minute, it began to dissipate itself, and it became clear that Kisame had decided to escape.

When it finally became clear who the winner was, the Rashomon gate disappeared, and Kabuto, Kimimaro, and Guren looked at Sanin with guilt in their eyes.

- Orochimaru-sama, I apologize, we were unable to kill Kisame Hoshigake...

- It doesn't matter, the main goal has been achieved, Itachi is dead.

And the next moment, four people disappeared in a fiery variation of shunshin.