Sovereign Of The Dragons

5 Years Later

Sasuke hit the wooden plank with the back of his palm. The thick slab of wood shattered into a burst of flames as he sent a blast of fire through it.

"A substitution jutsu? Come on, you're much better than that." Sasuke smirked. He stepped back and surveyed around the seemingly empty dojo. He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds all around him. A fly buzzing around, the steady autumn wind blowing through the wind chimes outside, a stray cat padding around the tall grassy bushes, the splashing sound of frogs jumping around in the pond...

-Whoosh-

Sasuke's eyes shot open. He put both his palms up and in the blink of an eye several small red flames ignited at the tip of each of his fingertips.

"You're right, I am much better than that." His opponent appeared in front of him in a flurry of ravens. Sasuke quickly activated his sharingan. If his opponent finished materializing he'd activate his mangekyo and it'd be game over for Sasuke.

He sent a blast of fire from his pointer finger at one of the ravens flying by his opponents head, the fire caused the bird to fly in the direction the fire had come from so it could attack its source and protect its master. It's master, who was still materializing, was shocked by this and looked to see where his bird had flown off.

Sasuke quickly grabbed the bird and brought it up so that it was partially covering his face, his opponent's eyes followed and-fell right into Sasuke's trap. Sasuke's hand ignited into a burning ball of fire, effectively killing the raven. As the bird withered to ashes, Sasuke locked his eyes with his opponent who had been looking where the bird had just been.

With out the barrier of the raven Sasuke could look into his opponents eyes. It was exactly what he had wanted to happen. Sasuke narrowed his eyes, trapping his opponent in a genjutsu. Sasuke smiled triumphantly, he had won.

"Very good, little brother." Sasuke's opponent, Itachi Uchiha hummed in approval as he easily broke Sasuke's genjutsu. "You used my own ravens against me, very tricky, it took you only a minute this time to trap me, father will be pleased to hear that you're improving."

"Hah, that was more like fifty seconds!" Sasuke chuckled. His eyes bled back to black as he walked over to stand next to his brother.

"It's been too easy lately, are you sick? Have you been taking it easy on me?" Sasuke prodded.

Only four short weeks ago it had taken him a whole five minutes to trap his brother in a genjutsu now it was less than a minute, it was too good to be true. He trained everyday but rapid progress like this was just odd.

"Sorry, I have a lot on my mind." Itachi ran his hand through his hair; his usual low ponytail was coming undone due the intense sparring he and Sasuke had partaken in earlier. He was only wearing a pair of loose training pants, his pale sweaty chest laid bare, displaying the smooth skin for all to see.

"I've been thinking a lot. I can't concentrate." Itachi admitted.

"About what?" Sasuke asked curiously.

He was a bit frustrated that his recent improvement was due to Itachi not fighting at full potential and not because he was getting better. He had an intuition that that was the reason the whole time though so he'd get over it. "It's not like you to let outside concerns affect your fighting, it's strange."

"You're right, it usually does take a lot for something to distract me." Itachi sighed, "but this...it's...its..."

"Spit it out already, for Kaguya's sake, brother!" Sasuke yelled exasperatedly. He had never seen his brother so flustered. Whatever it was that had been bothering his brother must've been huge.