Akane's battlefield was a storm of sparks and heat, a dueling ground carved apart by speed and instinct.
The clone facing her flickered between forms, slipping in and out of the grass like a white-scaled phantom, but Akane's eyes were already spinning.
Her three tomoe Sharingan whirled at full burn, sharper and denser than nearly all Uchiha.
Every movement, every twitch of chakra, every subtle shift in Orochimaru's borrowed flesh was caught inside that red, rotating geometry.
And she moved accordingly.
Fire Release, Phoenix Requiem Burst.
A column of flame spiraled upward from her feet, twisting into a tornado that screamed forward with whirling fireballs embedded inside it.
They arced, veered, and curved in impossible angles, guided manually by her eyes.
The Orochimaru clone slithered around it, limbs contorting unnaturally as flames licked past.
Her kunai met Orochimaru's blade with a bright crack, lightning shrieking along the metal.
Fire and lightning crashed together in the next instant as she inhaled sharply.
And then—she unleashed something she'd refined only recently with Kimimaro's verbal guidance and her newfound awakened chakra potency and pattern recollection.
Fire–Lightning Release, Crimson Convergence Lance.
Her fiercest hybrid.
A concentrated beam of molten lightning, spear-shaped, compressed into a straight-line shot. It tore across the clearing with a sound like metal screaming as it melted.
Even the ground beneath its path flash-vitrified into black glass.
The clone didn't evade by reflex—it had to substitute, violently and inelegantly, shedding half its torso into white mush as the beam obliterated the space it occupied.
Akane landed hard, panting, sweat dripping down her temples.
The clone reformed a new upper body with revolting ease.
Its smile stretched impossibly wide.
With a blur, it lunged.
Akane's Sharingan caught the subtle pre-twitch in its stance.
She pivoted, slashed upward, and—
The entire lower half of its body erupted into snakes.
Dozens of white-scaled jaws snapped toward her at ankle height.
She vaulted, spinning in mid-air, weaving seals faster than she'd ever managed.
Fire Release, Solar Bloom Inferno.
A circular bloom of flame exploded around her, expanding outward like a burning flower, evaporating half the snakes instantly.
The clone answered with Water Release, Serpent Torrent—water snakes that coiled together into a tidal whip—which clashed against her fire and kept advancing despite being evaporated in waves.
Akane's eyes narrowed.
'Tch. He's pushing me back bit by bit…'
She planted her hand on the ground.
Lightning Release, Field Sever.
A spiderweb of lightning fissured across the earth, exploding upward into a forest of crackling arcs that forced the clone to jump, twist, and contort mid-air.
But even in the chaos, it still slipped through—barely singed, barely slowed.
And then it counterattacked.
Wind Release, Hollow Fang Cyclone.
A compressed wind drill erupted from its exhaled breath, slicing through the lightning field and skimming her shoulder, leaving a shallow but burning cut.
Akane hissed, hand flying to the wound.
The clone smiled with clinical interest.
"Your instincts are excellent, but your body is still young. Your chakra output is inconsistent. Your timing…" it tapped the air with a finger, "…almost perfect, but not quite."
Her eyes sharpened.
Almost wasn't an insult.
Almost was a challenge.
If anything, that single word hit her harder than the wound.
"How about you stop lecturing and actually die?" she snapped.
The clone tilted its head with amusement.
"Not a bad offer. But not today."
Fire and lightning burst from her again, a spiraling braid of power, and she charged forward with renewed fury, trying to push through the clone's layered defenses.
She kept up.
Barely.
Just like the others.
Just like she hated.
Because the truth pressed down on her with every exchange:
He wasn't even trying.
And her own thoughts flickered with a mixture of pride and fury.
'If I survive this… if I survive him… then I'll never be afraid of another opponent again.'
"Such beautiful potential," the clone, however, murmured.
"Once polished properly, you may even shine brighter than Itachi did."
Akane froze for a split second.
Then her chakra spiked, a violent jolt that cracked the ground under her feet.
Her eyes flared blood-red, the tomoe whirling like a blade.
"What did you say?" she hissed, voice low and shaking with controlled rage. "How do you know about him so much?"
Orochimaru's clone tilted its head, serpent-smooth, amused by the reaction he'd fished for.
"Ah… so that's the scar you guard so fiercely. Loyalty to your clan… how unlike him. Hiruzen and Danzō's perfect lapdog, squandering all that talent and power just to obey their will."
A slow smile curved across his too-wide mouth.
"Your hatred is lovelier than your chakra, and your blood..." he breathed, almost fond. "You're hunting him, aren't you… the prodigy who butchered your precious clan and slipped into the dark without a trace?"
Akane's lip curled.
"You're going to tell me everything you know about him," she said, stepping forward, Sharingan flashing brighter with every syllable. "Where he went. Who he follows. I'll rip every scrap out of you if I have to."
The clone laughed softly.
"So fierce. So certain."
Lightning crawled up her arm, fire swirled at her feet, her hair whipped in the heat of her chakra surge.
"Speak," she snarled.
He smiled wider, unfazed.
"When you earn it."
And then the clone lunged again, as if the conversation had only been a pleasant intermission before her execution.
But, Kimimaro's voice slid right into Akane's mind like a steady hand closing around her wrist.
"Akane. Enough. You know what I've told you time and time again. I already know where he is, and exactly what he's been doing. You're simply not ready yet. Trust me. That's the only reason I haven't given you the precise details."
The sensory pulse that followed wasn't forceful, just firm enough to anchor her, cutting through the storm rising in her chest.
She stiffened, teeth grinding once, then forced herself back into stance.
Her breathing leveled.
Her Sharingan steadied.
Her killing intent folded down like a knife sheathing itself.
For him, she could wait.
Akane's glare sharpened again toward Orochimaru, but now with aim instead of frenzy.
"You're still in my way. That hasn't changed," she said coldly, stepping back into her rhythm.
Orochimaru's brows lifted a fraction.
"Oh… how curious," he murmured.
He regarded her not with disappointment, but with a scholar's intrigue.
"So the little Uchiha does not answer to her hatred… but to him."
"Fascinating…" Orochimaru drawled, eyes flicking between Akane and the distant silhouette of Kimimaro. "So that is the leash that holds you. I see now how he managed to 'catch' all of you… and keep you tamed."
His tone carried that soft, venomous amusement of someone who'd just uncovered a particularly juicy secret, half-taunting, half-calculating, as if another piece of the puzzle had just clicked neatly into place.
Orochimaru sighed, almost theatrically, as another spear of lightning scraped past his cheek.
"A shame," he said, tone dipping into a disappointed purr. "If that is the bond that ties you all together… then I suppose none of you would come to me willingly once I remake your dear handsome Kaguya boy into my next vessel."
His eyes drifted lazily across her stance, her chakra, her barely contained fury.
"So I'll simply have to find… alternative uses. Perhaps a new kind of autonomous puppet jutsu, eventually... Something tasteful and unique. After all, you girls do have so many intriguing traits to harvest."
Akane's jaw clenched so sharply it cracked the air between them.
"You won't touch him. Or us."
The clone only tilted its head, snake-like and amused.
"Touch? My dear… I intend to take."
"Starting from right about now…" he murmured.
His clone's eyes slid past Akane, narrowing as they fixed in the distance where a single surge of chakra spiked, vast and serpentine, like a leviathan twisting awake.
The rising pressure belonged unmistakably to his true body. And whatever Orochimaru had just decided to unleash on Kimimaro made even the air tremble.