At a Crossroads #Wattys2015

Fun- Mizuki

Mizuki leapt upward as a powerful chidori blow electrified the air immediately in her wake. Had she jumped any later, she surely would've been torched. Kakashi was holding nothing back, she analyzed.

As Mizuki looked down from her decent, she watched him disappear again, using her jutsu. He had uncovered his sharingan, she noticed.

Mizuki bit her lip in determination and landed onto the water tower's top before quickly leaping off of it. As she dropped, possible courses of action raced through her head. But if there was one thing she knew, it was that she couldn't use any regular kind of jutsu on this ninja. She needed to somehow get past that sharingan or he would just read every one of her movements in advance. He was clearly determined to win. She had to be even more determined to keep him from doing so.

As she hit the ground and ran down the pathway, a sudden plan came to Mizuki. A brilliant one. But in order for it to work, she would have to divide her chakra perfectly. Taking a deep breath, Mizuki made the subtlest movements of her fingers. After a gush of wind, suddenly thirty other Mizukis were running beside her, each one identical to the last. They would make great distractions, she thought.

Mizuki stopped alongside the other versions of herself as they all rounded a corner. Kakashi stood casually, his arms crossed over his chest. "You thought you could beat me with simple shadow clones?" he asked, though his Sharingan roamed over the small sea of Mizukis as if he truly could not tell which of them was the original.

Simultaneously all Mizukis pulled out kunai knives, charged to the handles with chakra.

He was clearly having trouble determining from which of the Mizukis the real source of chakra was coming from. Each one contained the same amount. "Where are you..." he murmured, looking carefully over them all.

The real Mizuki remained calm and expressionless as the red sharingan passed over her without faltering. The jutsu had worked- its purpose to confuse Kakashi's famous sharingan.

"Impressive," he mused. The real Mizuki noticed his hand glowing with lightning as his chidori charged. In unison, all of the Mizukis reeled their right arms back and flung a kunai knife. All of the weapons formed a menacing flock of points sailing in his direction.

Kakashi ducked and dodged, launching himself into combat with one of the fake Mizukis. Puffs of smoke gave away the positions of shadow clones as he slashed through them. Mizuki had to act fast.

Kakashi was getting rid of the shadow clones at a swift pace. The real Mizuki jumped into the air, angled toward his turned back, and used her teleportation jutsu. She rocketed into him, clasping one arm in a vice around his neck. They hit the ground hard, her on top of him. With the hand still holding the knife, Mizuki rested the blade's edge firmly to the back of his neck. "I win," she spoke confidently.

He struggled angrily in her grip and suddenly his tough posture became even stiffer. Inhumanly stiff, she thought. Mizuki swiftly released him and looked down at nothing but a large tree log. Her brow furrowed in shock. A substitution jutsu?! No, she'd watched him so carefully. He couldn't possibly have-

But if he wasn't here, then where was he? Mizuki whipped around and froze. The tip of a dagger kissed her throat. All of the other shadow clones were gone. Mizuki's knife slipped from her grasp and clattered to the floor. She felt a sharp slash of pain in her hand as the knife fell.

Kakashi grinned. "Surrender," he uttered as if to let her know he was personally putting an end to the spar.

Mizuki's grey eyes turned stormy like thunderclouds. But she slowly raised her hands. That pesky sharingan, she thought with disdain. If only she could use her kekkei genkai. He wouldn't be so smug then...