Akari Uchiha

Ch. 96 Seals X Genjutsu

A/N: 

Hello everyone! I know its been way longer than usual, and I apologize. I know everytime I come back with a sorry and a big enough chapter to make up for it, however I'm not currently in the highest highs of my life. So after getting laid off from a dream club, I decided that I should probably give it a break and do something I enjoy, this chapter being a direct result of that. 

Unfortunately, I cannot promise regular updates as of now, however, as I've said many times before, I won't be discontinuing the book before finishing it. I didn't imagine Engineering to be as hectic as it is (my bad, honestly) and there are tasks I cannot ignore. However I'll try my best to get this back on track by the next few months, or at least write chapters in advance. 

I'm sorry for the smol chapter but I wanted to put up something T_T

Thank you to everyone for being so patient with me so far! 

Love you guys

Have a great day! 

Eve

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"So, when I release the seal...," a now-thirteen-year-old spoke carefully as she made a few hand signs. Two snakes peered into the seals that she was undoing on a paper on the ground. 

"The genjutsu that I connected with it integrates the elements inside the seal...," she continued as now three snakes stared at a fourth snake who the jutsu was being tested on.

"The red light that you see is actually a chakra sample...," the explanation continued as six snakes peered at the light with interest. 

"Now when I re-release this seal, it converts said chakra into a more primitive state, the state the chakra was in when the person was younger...," Akari spoke as the light slowly turned blue. 

"Then I put this into the seal, and seal it off, before unsealing the entire thing into the genjutsu," she made few more hand-signs and the snake that was being experimented on smiled while still in a trance. 

Thirteen snakes peered at him with intrigue. 

"So now, ideally he should be conversing with his child self, aka purest form of mindset. But that's the part that's failing. Release!" she said as fifteen snakes glanced at Aoda, who snapped out of the genjutsu. 

"Aoda! What did you see?" a young snake asked excitedly. 

"I... saw memories from my childhood."

"Woaaah!" Eighteen snakes exclaimed together. 

"Oi, midget, you might actually succeed with this one," a very familiar sensei spoke. The same one who was responsible for raining them countless times with snake babies. 

Anko, yes. She was completely and utterly in her zone. Itachi and Sasuke had seen no harm in letting her roam in the land of snakes after she agreed to cooperate when she heard that Kakashi was in on this plan. She also got an opportunity to look after Akari, even though she doubted that the brat needed that anymore. 

"I know! Just the genjutsu needs to be more powerful, I guess."

Twenty snakes looked at the seal and at Aoda as they kept murmuring something. Three of them transform into their human forms as they examine the seal.

Causing said seal to explode. 

"I can see why Sasuke looks so annoyed," an Uchiha spoke from behind the smoke and all of them turned back to look at Itachi. He glanced at Akari and the ink marks on her hand. She was always  up to something. "Can I look?"

The kid froze up, something that Itachi had gotten used to by now. 

He was an S-Rank criminal, and he had literally tortured the kid before, so he really did understand where all that fear came from. But it had been almost a month since they had been living together. Well, he was usually away from the cave, since he had a role to play in the war too. But he wished the kid would just yell at him and get done with him like Sasuke had. 

Or at least start healing. 

Or forgiving him in general. 

He sighed to himself. Forgiving him or not is still her decision, and he can't assure her of anything, at least for now. If he had to choose between protecting Sasuke and Akari, he would definitely pick Sasuke without hesitation, and do whatever he had to in order to achieve that. Even if it is keeping Akari on a tight leash or torturing the kid all over again. 

So him asking for forgiveness, at least in this point of time, would be wrong. Since he knows he cannot ensure that he won't hurt her again. 

But if things were normal, if there was no Danzo, no war, no coup, if he could still be a member of the Leaf Village, then he would definitely look out for someone like her. 

He ignored the fact that she hadn't responded to his question yet and leaned down to look at what she was working on. "Genjutsu with seals?"

"You missed the explanation, Itachi," Anko drawled when the tiny Uchiha didn't reply. "The kid is onto something." 

He would never admit it, but he loved how Anko was so chill with her kidnapping once she was assured that this was an arrangement made by him and Kakashi. 

"Itachi-sama excels in genjutsu though, he might know what's wrong," Aoda, Sasuke's snake, piped up. 

He glanced at Akari expectantly, waiting for her explanation. However when the kid resolved that by just shooting a glare at the snake, he sighed. "Akari, come with me. Grab the seal."

The chunin looked apprehensive, before her face contorted into a defeated look and she quietly nodded and followed. 

One would think he had told her execution sentence or something. 

An extended death sentence, that's what he probably is to the kid.