Chapter – 17 Tatsumi vs Minato (Patreon)

Tatsumi looked at Minato standing opposite to him, and suggested, "Minato-kun, listen to my advice. You should be very clear that you are still not strong enough to defeat me. If you want to avoid injuries and preserve your strength to face other opponents that you will encounter in the future, it would be better to admit defeat as soon as possible.”

“Thank you for the reminder Tatsumi-kun, but… I still want to fight you…!” Minato didn’t give up.

Perfectly aware of Minato’s character, Tatsumi did not try to convince him anymore and got ready for the upcoming fight.

At the same time, Minato took out a pair of cotton balls from his pocket, “I have observed your fights with the others several times before, and based on those observations, I have confirmed that there are two mediums that you use to put your opponents in Genjutsu, sight, and sound… isn’t that correct?”

“Well, it is true…” nodded Tatsumi, there was no need to hide such a thing because these are the two most used mediums for subjecting others to Genjutsu, and Tatsumi naturally uses these two mediums since he has yet to awaken his Sharingan. Of course, there are other means as well such as smell, touch, and taste, but Tatsumi doesn’t specialize in those methods.

Receiving a positive reply from Tatsumi, Minato smiled and stuffed the cotton balls into his ears, then he lowered his gaze to Tatsumi’s feet, and said, “Although it’s difficult to deal with the sight medium, the sound medium can be dealt with by blocking my hearing… and as long as I don’t look at your hands…”

Tatsumi smiled and looked at Minato. There are indeed many ways to deal with Genjutsu, and the method Minato has come up with is naturally not unexpected, it’s the same method that the future Might Guy had come up with in order to fight his eternal rival Hatake 50-50.

If the current Namikaze Minato possessed the same level of taijutsu prowess as the Might Guy of those years, then it would have been very difficult for Tatsumi to subject him to a Genjutsu, but the current Minato is not the ‘Yellow Flash’ feared by the entire Shinobi World.

Although he knows how to disrupt his Chakra and break free of Genjutsu, it’s just that the Genjutsu used by Tatsumi is too subtle and detailed, something it’s not even possible for him to determine whether he has fallen into a Genjutsu, therefore, he doesn’t want to take any risk and chose a method to avoid falling into a Genjutsu altogether.

Even if Minato had come up with a method to avoid falling into a Genjutsu, Tatsumi did not care. Although Genjutsu is his favorite ninja art, it’s not the only art he excels at, he is also good at Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, and Shurikenjutsu.

What’s more, by stuffing his ears, and limiting his range of vision, Minato had imposed restrictions upon him, and won’t be able to use all his strength. After all, eyes and ears are some of the most crucial parts of a person’s body that they need to gather information, without these, one would naturally be at a disadvantage.

What others aren’t aware of is the fact that Namikaze Minato is also very good at Sensory skills, therefore, even if he had blocked his hearing, and limited his range of vision, he could still sense Tatsumi’s chakra, and he has also spent time analyzing various abilities of Tatsumi, so he believes that he would be able to predict other party’s choice of attack based on the Chakra fluctuations around him, therefore, he still has some confidence.

Seeing Minato make such a move, the audience was also surprised and paid close attention to the battle.

Uchiha Tatsumi is naturally the fan favorite, there is hardly any Kunoichi except for Senju Tsunade who is not cheering for him to win. In fact, even with the cold beauty of the Hyuga Clan, although she is not speaking it out verbally, she is still cheering for him internally. She hopes that the person she looks up to can win and perhaps fight against her.

And since Tatsumi was unanimously cheered by the girls, the boys who were envious of Tatsumi started to cheer for Minato, hoping that he would beat the pulp out of the arrogant Uchiha and break his balls!

“Begin!” In such a fiery atmosphere, the referee announced the beginning of the duel.

Immediately, Tatsumi took out Shurikens in both his hands and threw them at Minato.

The shurikens were extremely fast, and before Minato had time to react, two of them brushed against his cheek, leaving two shallow scars from which blood came out.

It’s not that Tatsumi’s Shuriken missed the marks, rather, it’s the opposite, the Shuriken were deliberately thrown to avoid his critical point yet leave two scratches on his face. Of course, Minato also knew that the Shuriken wouldn’t hit any critical point, therefore, he did not make any effort to avoid them either.

Suddenly, Minato raised his right hand carrying a Kunai and used it to deflect the Shuriken that came from behind him after multiple collisions, then spoke seriously, “In order to deal with your Genjutsu, I had to put in a lot of effort and even impose restrictions upon myself, so please don’t use these methods, and give me the fight I deserve Tatsumi!”

This time he had directly called out Tatsumi’s name, without adding any ‘honorifics,’ hoping that Tatsumi would understand his intentions.

“Alright, Minato, I guess I will get serious this time,” and Tatsumi did, he too dropped the ‘honorifics’ and began to weave the hand signs as his chest swelled and chakra surged, ‘Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!’

When the hand signs were completed, Tatsumi opened his mouth and released a high-temperature fireball toward Minato.

The fireball Jutsu is one of the most common fire styles ninjutsu among the Uchihas, those who can’t use this Jutsu aren’t even considered true Uchihas, and under Tatsumi’s control, the fireball was much hotter and much larger.

“That’s what I am talking about!” said Minato as facing the incoming heat he quickly weaved the hand signs and used the Substitution Jutsu to dodge the attack.

The fireball Jutsu hit the wooden log left behind by Minato as the stand-in, and immediately turned it into ash as it continued outside the arena towards the trainees, forcing Jiraiya to step up and personally stop the fireball.

Having escaped the range of fireball jutsu, Minato threw several Shuriken at Tatsumi that blocked his movements.

“People really seem to think that I am a Shinobi who only specializes in Genjutsu, huh?” muttered Tatsumi as he took out a single Shuriken and threw it toward the Shuriken thrown by Minato.

Although he knew that Minato won’t be able to hear his words, he still spoke it, in fact, the people he wanted to address were not Minato, but rather other trainees watching the fight.

The Shuriken thrown by Tatsumi collided with the Shuriken thrown by Minato, immediately, diverting their trajectory. As a result, the Shuriken thrown by Minato avoided his critical points and were nailed on the arena around him.

Tatsumi’s Shurikenjutsu skills are at Level 4, it’s not something Minato with just one year of training can compete against, of course, Minato was also aware of the differences in their Shurikenjutsu skills, and he didn’t really think that he could overpower Tatsumi in that ninja art, rather, all he wanted to do was keep Tatsumi momentarily busy to weave the hand sign for his main attack.

By the time the Shuriken was nailed on the ground, Tatsumi happened to see Minato complete a series of hand signs that he recognized perfectly well, after all, the person who gave the scroll of this ninjutsu to Minato was Tatsumi in the first place.

Minato’s primary Chakra Nature is Wind, knowing this, Tatsumi gave his friend a few scrolls of Rank C and Rank B Wind Style Ninjutsu with the hope that Minato would work hard and improve his strength, and certainly, Minato did not disappoint him.

‘Wind Style: Wind Blade!’

‘Substitution Jutsu!’ Tatsumi quickly used a Substitution Jutsu to dodge Minato’s attack, then disappeared and appeared beside Minato with a pair of Kunai in his hand and slashed them at Minato, but Minato blocked both Kunai with a pair of Kunai in his hand after which the two sides started a close quarter combat.

Tatsumi kicked Minato with a roundabout kick, and Minato punched him in the chin, facing the incoming punch, Tatsumi's face remained unchanged, he grabbed Minato's fist, moved his body to the side, then raised his right leg to knee Minato in the stomach!

COUGH!

Minato coughed out saliva as Tatsumi’s knee landed in his gut, knocking out air from his lungs.

Tatsumi’s expression remained unchanged, and without giving Minato time to recover, he straightened his right leg, and once again kicked Minato in the stomach.

Just a few moves and the difference in their Taijutsu skills were already apparent, and Minato fell into a disadvantage, barely keeping up with him.

Of course, Tatsumi did not continue to use Taijutsu against Minato. This is his Ace, and he didn’t want to expose it to everyone in the audience this early in the game.

With this in mind, he took out several Kunai and threw them at Minato, but much to the confusion of the audience, the Kunai did not attack Minato’s key points, rather, it went straight toward his legs causing others to wonder in shock, ‘Missed?’

Everyone in the second year knows that Uchiha Tatsumi never misses his Shuriken and Kunai throws, ‘so how come this time?’ the students of Class 2-A were wondering.

Just as they were confused, Tatsumi threw another Kunai, however, this one was much faster than the previous one and it collided with the previous Kunai at a particular angle, changing its downward trajectory, and directed it straight from Minato’s feet to his face that was lowered to avoid looking at Tatsumi’s hand.

‘This Uchiha boy, his throwing skills are really honed!’ even the likes of Jiraiya, and Orochimaru had to blink in surprise at the wonderful display of throwing skills used by Tatsumi, although they are not the ones specialized in Shurikenjutsu, they still admired the degree of control Tatsumi displayed in his throwing skills.

Minato stared at the Kunai that was coming straight at his head, it was too close, and he did not have the opportunity to weave the hand sign for Substitution Jutsu, so Minato subconsciously raised his head to save his life.

The moment he raised his head, a grinning Uchiha Tatsumi appeared before his eyes.

“It’s time to go to sleep Minato!” said Tatsumi as he flicked his finger. It was too late for Minato to close his eyes and his eyelids became heavy.

The instructors at the Konoha Ninja Academy do not teach much about Genjutsu and ways to counter it, this ninja art is quite advanced and requires good chakra control that most trainees do not have at such a young age.

These things are taught to trainees by their squad captains once they graduate from the Ninja Academy and become full-fledged Genin.

Even if Minato knows how to break free of Genjutsu theoretically, the current him is too weak, it doesn’t matter how high his ceiling will be in the future, the current Minato is just a kid in his second year at the Konoha Ninja Academy with only one year of training.

Therefore, the moment his eyes ‘saw’ Tatsumi’s fingers, his Chakra was already under Tatsumi’s control, his feet staggered, and his eyelids became heavy as he fell asleep and collapsed on the ground.

“For a Genjutsu master, even a momentary flaw is enough to take advantage of… naturally, I could have put you under Genjutsu with just a single touch, I have been working on that as well in my spare time, but I still wanted to use ‘sight’ as a medium to put you into a Genjutsu, to make you realize that you still have a long way to go before you can match me…” muttered Tatsumi as he shook his turtle neck t-shirt heroically, then picked up the sleeping Minato and left arena in a cool way.

“Sugoi! Tatsumi-sama is so handsome!”

“Aahhhh… Tatsumi-sama… please become my boyfriend, you can use all kinds of Genjutsu on me!”

“Tatsumi-sama… Tatsumi-sama is the best!”

There were a lot of exclamations from the audience as the fight concluded.

Looking at all the girls singing Tatsumi’s name with hearts in their eyes, Jiraiya was once again stunned and looked at Tatsumi as if he were looking at the god of romance.

“Is this the gap between me and the legendary Uchiha Tatsumi!?”

…

"Tatsumi-kun, are you okay?!" Just as he stepped down from the arena, Mikoto approached him with a worried expression. The little Uchiha girl looked at her sweetheart’s body unblinkingly and immediately noticed a small cut on his arm.

Seeing Mikoto’s worried gaze, Tatsumi waved his hand, “Don’t worry, this much is nothing,” signaling to her that he was fine and there was no need to be so worried.

However, Mikoto was still worried, and without taking no for an answer, she held Tatsumi’s hand and dragged him all the way to the other side of the field where Tsunade-hime was sitting and treating the injured ones.

Poor Minato was left behind.