Ten minutes later Itachi and Shisui entered the tea room together, bowed to Uchiha Gen, and took seats beside him.
"You rushed back in such a hurry. Eat something while you listen," Gen told Itachi, nodding toward the table.
"Okay," Itachi answered with a small, respectful smile.
On the table were teapots and teacups and a neat spread of sweets, mung-bean cakes, red-bean cakes, osmanthus cakes, thousand-layer cakes, all made by Mikoto under Gen's direction.
"Shisui, don't be shy either. Eat as much as you like," Gen said.
"Okay," Shisui replied, smiling.
Gen gave them a brief rundown of the situation, then asked with a half-smile, "You two are going to fight Kumogakure's top shinobi. Scared?"
Shisui's face was composed. He simply shook his head. "No."
Itachi's expression turned serious. "No. The Uchiha have never been weaker than others. I will win."
"Good. Confidence is necessary," Gen said, growing more earnest. "But to raise your odds and prepare for anything, we can't skip necessary precautions."
He unrolled a black scroll stamped with a flame pattern and set it on the table. "These are summoning scrolls for Kyouki, Shizukamaru, and the other high-level summons. You'll each sign a contract."
"In addition, I'll use a Transcription seal to inscribe a ninjutsu into your Sharingan. It will activate when the right conditions are met."
Shisui's face tightened. "Isn't this… cheating?"
"It's not honorable," Itachi murmured, the Uchiha pride in him stung.
Gen's eyes cooled. "Pedantic. This fight concerns more than your personal pride. It concerns the Uchiha's future. One of you is already a pillar of our clan; the other will be. We cannot afford mistakes."
He leaned forward. "Especially you, Itachi... if anything happens to you, how will I explain it to your mother and Sasuke? I promised her you would be safe."
He added quietly, "And how do you know Kumogakure won't cheat? They dared to propose this challenge because they're confident. If both of you lose, I might not get a chance to step in."
"Remember a principle," Gen said. "Having a sword and not using it is different from not having a sword at all. If Kumogakure fights fairly, you don't have to use any of these measures. But if they cheat, you'll be glad we prepared. Does that bring shame to you or to the Uchiha?"
The rebuke flushed both of them red. They exchanged looks, then immediately complied. They signed the contracts with Kyouki, Shizukamaru, and the other summons.
By then many had already contracted with Kyouki and those two high-level summons, more than double the original number, but that didn't matter. These summons were not for everyday combat; they were life-savers for extreme emergencies.
"Now I'll use Transcription seal. Open your Sharingan," Gen instructed.
Shisui and Itachi obeyed; one pair of eyes with three tomoe, the other with two. Gen activated his Mangekyō, made eye contact first with Itachi, then with Shisui, and transcribed a powerful genjutsu enhanced with Senjutsu chakra into each of their Sharingan.
"Setup complete," he said. "Speak the phrase 'For the glory of the Uchiha' to trigger the genjutsu sealed in your eyes. These two are extremely potent; even many Kage-level shinobi would struggle to resist them. Time their use wisely."
Both nodded.
"All right. Tend to your own things. We depart on the morning of the fourth day."
"Understood."
Two days later the Cloud delegation was back in Hidden Cloud, carrying Gen's reply. The Fourth Raikage handed the scroll to his sealing team, but Gen's seal protections were not easy to undo. From afternoon into evening the Cloud team only managed to break part of the seals, which infuriated the Raikage.
How could they prepare properly without seeing the whole text?
They called in more sealing specialists. Hidden Cloud had inherited some Uzumaki techniques; with extra hands the seals were finally lifted before nightfall. When they read the scroll they found Gen had not changed the time or place, he had only raised the stakes.
Two days passed in a flash.
Early morning Gen left his home after Mikoto and Sasuke saw him off. He met Shisui at the Uchiha grounds' gate; the three moved through Konoha and out the main gate. Danzo and his people had wanted to tail Gen for intelligence, but they lacked a confirmed time and place and could not track him.
In the dense forest outside the village Gen bit his finger, formed hand signs, and pressed his palm to empty air. Black sigils crawled from his palm like ink on the wind. With a soft bang a puff of white smoke bloomed and Kyouki materialized.
Gen vaulted up, a faint green glow on his right palm as a small wound on his left thumb knit closed. "Come up," he said.
Shisui and Itachi moved and took their positions; the white cloud expanded to support both of them. They stared at the cloud beneath their feet, curiosity bright in their eyes, marveling at the Mangekyō-aided miracle.
"Stand firm. Let's go." Gen told them. They channeled chakra into their feet to cling to the cloud. Kyouki surged, punching through wind and snow as a white shaft, and streaked northeast.
By ten in the morning they had crossed half the Land of Fire, entered the Land of Hot Water, and arrived at White Sea Canyon.
White Sea Canyon was no ocean; the soil and rock were pale, so the landscape read like a white sea from a distance. Deep winter lay over the Land of Hot Water — goose-feather snow whipped across the canyon, the wind carrying flurries that blurred sight lines. Those conditions mattered; they affected Sharingan users just as much as anyone else.
Kumogakure hadn't chosen the ground at random. The weather favored their tactics and would interfere with the Sharingan. The Hidden Cloud ninjas on site were mostly in white garb to blend with the terrain; against dark skin and features this camouflage worked better than one might expect if you didn't look carefully.
"They're there, southwest," a Cloud shinobi with cropped yellow hair and a fair face murmured from the canyon floor. The Fourth Raikage and his retinue looked that way but saw only the white expanse; still, no one doubted the report.
"Order the canyon units to hide and not reveal any flaws," the Raikage commanded.
"Understood, Raikage-sama."
Alone high above, Kyouki paused against the wind. Shisui and Itachi used small Fire-Release ninjutsu to warm themselves; the cold was merciless. Shisui weathered it well. Itachi, still young and not physically hardened, shivered despite warm clothing; his lips were blue, his face pale. Kyouki had deliberately held back speed so they would not be flung by the wind, but the cold bit all the same.
Gen stood on the cloud and spread Soul Perception like a camera panning the scene. Time and place hadn't changed; he could not enter blindly.
He needed to see the layout, the enemy positions, traps, the gaps in patrols in every angle, before deciding how to play the match.