Konohagakure no Sato
Year 69
Gozo Uchiha POV:
The explosion came unannounced, a rippling wave of flames and shocks that trembled and wounded a few bits of organs as it carried them apart. It wounded his pride to admit— seeing as he was the sole member who had been recognised for his excellence— but the Uchiha was unable to come out of the incident unwounded.
Crimson liquid trailed the edges of his lips as he skilfully rectified his position mid-tumble, twisting his body as his lower extremities and least preferred hand came to scrape the ground as alertness took primary in his mind.
Agony ravaged his body but he hid its existence behind a scornful veil.
As a scion from a legendary clan, and one of the few within his ilk who sought to flourish outside the safety of the Police Force, he refused to be undone by a faceless coward. The chūnin struggled to his feet. His chakra surged with burdening familiarity, awakening his clan's kekkei genkai.
Obsidian transformed into a crimson hue, with a single tomoe swirling in each eye in a hypnotic fashion, more clarity and discernment came to the world as the Sharingan exalted his visual prowess. Through the lingering dust, three distinct chakra networks came to view in a form of mystic blue. Two of them belonged to his comrades; Kamitsu knelt nearby, while Haru had seemingly evaded the explosion unscathed.
Despite himself, the chūnin heaved a restrained sigh of relief— he would have given away a dangerous exploit had the clearing been less shrouded. The Uchiha wiped the show of positive emotions from his face as the pair of red orbs flickered towards the last chakra signature, unfamiliar to his memory.
A tall figure stood at the center of the explosion, their chakra amassed against their body like armour— no, clothing. A Henge. A perfect one in fact, but a henge was still a henge no matter the level of mastery.
This person…was a fool! Utilising techniques meant to fool the unawakened rabbles was an uncommon mistake.
'Did he perhaps mistake our group for a defenceless escort?' It would explain the unprovoked desire to be included in Konoha's bingo books…
An opportunity the chūnin wasn't keen on allowing as he would rectify this transgression with blood and death…he was sure the Yamanaka could still glimpse information from a severed head.
Chakra rippled and morphed from the individual, uninspired by the weaving of hand seals. The transformation into the wind affinity blasted and dispersed the dust that had formed in the wake of the explosion with wind scythes, restoring normal visibility.
The display caused him to tense, such elemental mastery wasn't commonplace after all.
In its wake, the image of the individual appeared.
It was a man…a rogue-nin, clad in black from chest to toe, with a similar darkened mask hiding the lower part of his face. On the top of his head was a mop of grayish-black hair—he almost looked like a cheap version of the Copy-nin if one squinted just enough.
On his feet laid the half exploded and charred corpse of their client…his failure, along with his shattered goods. Born from ingrained reflexes, the Uchiha's hand glided into his pouch and retrieved a kunai...expectant.
"You who dare interfere with Konoha business, what is your name?" The question came unbidden to his mouth as he assumed a fighting stance, eyes roaming over the rogue-nin's body.
The nin turned to him, and when their eyes met, Gozo saw amusement dancing within the man's brown orbs.
Bastard!
"You're the leader of this team, are you not, Uchiha-san?" The nin asked him a question of his instead, voice light and unguarded.
Gozo didn't answer the query, but merely stared, his Sharingan analyzing the man's nonchalant stance for any openings they might exploit... There were many, though instinct warned him against exploiting them.
For a moment, the chūnin could've sworn the nuke-nin touched upon the lightning element before it was promptly brought back to wind.
His eyes widened…
"What are you doing just standing there, Gozo? This Suna bastard killed our client."
Wait what?
But before any further words could be exchanged, the air whistled as kunai sliced through wind…
"Wait a minute you insufferabl—"
With but a slight shift of the body, the tossed weapon passed by the rogue-nin unaccosted, barely a glance spared to the assaulter as a gloved hand blurred towards the kunai and plucked it out of the air before it could embed itself into the ground.
Damnit he was simulated with wind chakra!
The man spun around, and Gozo's sharingan noticed how fire chakra scorched and discoloured the plucked kunai as prediction showed him where it would be flung. The chūnin showed little hesitation as he threw his own kunai first with a flick of a wrist.
The sound the kunai produced as they intersected each other signaled the true beginning of the clash.
Gozo dashed towards the rogue-nin, intend on focusing his primary attention on himself. The rogue-nin responded in kind, but he was sure to explode into a dozen clones first.
'I have to make quick work of this, lest my worthless teammates be overwhelmed by his clones.' He thought as he pulled out another kunai to meet the man with.
Steel met steel as the exerted force on both combatants permitted fiery sparks to fly. As their eyes met in a moment of discernment, the chūnin exploited that opportunity to hook a restraining genjutsu on the man.
Magen: Shibari (Bind).
Few truly understood the optical prowess of their kekkei genkai… more so to those who resided outside Konoha.
The hypnotic effect hooked and Gozo coiled with its activation, meticulously undoing the muscles of the man's arm, guiding him to slit his sternocleidomastoid before being followed by a twirl that buried the kunai in the rogue-nin's temple—
The tenketsu that harboured his spiritual chakra fluctuated with something foreign…
To his immense surprise, it was Gozo's reality that shattered to so many broken falsities… his eyes widened! He was back where he'd left, still battling for physical supremacy.
Anger took him as the man's mystery started to become annoying.
"That's Kyō Tenchi-ten! Where did you lea—"
His hand was redirected upward, cutting his sentence mid-spoke and a follow up undecided. An attack struck his wind pipe and staggered him, causing him to fall to his knee and fight for breath.
A dark shrouded leg stepped on his bent knee, and pushed backward enough to gain height and distance. When the chūnin caught the sight of the rogue-nin, he found the man's body flipped, his right hand on his mouth in a familiar position as fire chakra basically oozed from his impending attack.
He recognised the jutsu…
Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!
A raging circular inferno bloomed from the nuke-nin's lips…
Out of desperate instinct, the chūnin's reached into the numerous trees around them as his hands ran through seals.
"Ninpō…" he felt the painful heat on the fireball dry his eyes as the jutsu approached with a promise of a burning death, "Kawarimi!"
A tree log took his place, as he appeared a few feet away with some of his attire having caught fire. He ignored the small burns, focusing on retaliation…
"Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu!"
A torrent of small homing flames shot from Gozo's mouth and rushed the rogue-bastard, but to the chūnin's dismay, he skilfully manoeuvred around them, cancelling many of them with flung shuriken.
Focusing chakra on the base of his feet, the chūnin blasted forward before the rest of the flames could be distinguished.
A punch greeted the chūnin's left jaw, surprising him as he hadn't seen the man's attack coming, though Gozo was quick to recover and harnessed some of the momentum in an effort to counter.
Countless other attacks came but the sharingan telegraphed them with ease. As sparks started to fly about, the chūnin felt an impact on his leg.
The world rotated and he chanced a knee on the man's neck, fuelled by the transferred momentum…it was halted with a clawed hand.
Moron!
That was anticipated… his lips arched as chakra enhanced his attributes further.
Polished and coated metal glinted in the sun's radiance as it followed the fended attack to achieve where it failed.
'You will die for underestimating an Uchiha, you despicable nuke bastard!'
The chūnin had seen the disregard the man considered them with… the arrogance of one who had never been the recipient of true challenge.
…like that unfeeling spawn of their clan head. Subjected restraint mistaken for prodigious talent.
Even his father had fallen to the upheld facade.
Steel met against steel as his concealed strike too met an infuriating outcome. As quick as lightning, the rogue-nin bartered his poisoned kunai to the side and grabbed Gozo by the scruff of his pants to be slammed into the earth—
"Fūton: Kazekiri no Jutsu!"
Never had he felt so delighted and embarrassed to hear Kamitsu's voice. A speeding wind blade sliced through the air, flickering the man's focus for an opportune moment, Gozo didn't waste it, he shot his legs backward, backflipping as he pushed the rogue-nin into the wind jutsu.
Cutting wind dug into the man's flesh and bone with little difficulty…
That moment of respite was all he needed to recover his balance and give himself distance. The entirety of his body burned with inflicted wounds so precise and meticulous in their delivery… He fought through the pain and regained his posture.
His heart was still thrumming from the scares.
Gozo looked at the body of their opponent lying unmoving on the ground with blood pouring free from the grievous injury. Only for it to start falling apart into so much rocks and soil a moment later.
A clone!
"Wha.."
Shock and horror morphed his face into en expression of rage as he immediately began to search around for the real rogue-nin. Damnit, why was everything so difficult and confusing, this was only supposed to be an escort mission.
His teeth gritted…
Now he was losing against a clone.
The air whistled with the sound of shuriken as furious crimson swirling eyes sought to discern their origins.
The bastard was running towards him, dragging behind Kamitsu by the scruff of his neck…
That idiot!
Gozo weaved past the flung shuriken with contemptuous ease. But before he could dash towards the incoming assailant, Kamitsu was hurled towards him instead, blinding and disrupting him for a moment.
Forced to catch the useless baggage, the chūnin disregarded the rogue-nin, as such he was unable to perceive the bastard burying another attack as soon as the genin made contact with Gozo. This caused the force gifted to send them both flying.
Unsatisfied, a barrage of wind-infused shuriken was sent at them, sure to cut through their bodies uncontested, as the rogue-nin turned to Haru, an assurance of inevitable demise bleeding of his posture.
Rage and despair cut through the Uchiha's heart as he tried all he could to get themselves out of this demise as the world dragged in its motion through his Sharingan.
'Damnit! Am I really going to die here?' He didn't want to die here, not until he had proven to his father that he was indeed capable, that he too could master the Sharingan just as well as that proud Itachi bastard.
Unfelt through his roaring emotions, a slight change took place in his chakra network as the pathways were expanded, and his physical constitution became more impressive. But a greater change was in his kekkei genkai, as another set of tomoe joined the initial singles and boosted his optical prowess twofold.
Gozo's eyes widened as the change finally registered. He wasted little of the moment, coiling over his teammate and using Kamitsu's body as a springboard to shoot himself forward into the incoming shuriken, with his second-stage Sharingan calculating and predicting their motions.
The chūnin unholstered a kunai and twisted his body into a whirlwind, deflecting all the projectiles to the waysides.
———————
Totsu POV:
This had turned into a rather tedious affair. Sure, the dōjutsu's maturity was a bright development, one that all but ensured the intended evolution, but it was foreseen and expected.
Anger. Frustration. Desperation.
The Sharingan's maturity was determined by these aspects. The heated battle was only a bonus that facilitated them better and faster.
Uncaught lacking by the self-assured chūnin who had so much belief in his minuscule abilities, I tilted my head to the side, just enough to allow the piercing attack to pass and grabbed the expanded hand to execute a judo flip.
It mattered little how much a boost the second stage of the Sharingan granted the chūnin. He was ungifted and mediocre with the Sharingan, unable to exploit its range of abilities to their utmost zenith.
Even his genjutsu was basic; his discernment of it was laughable, so sure under the delusion that those who possessed the Sharingan could not be affected by genjutsu that he had failed to perceive the truth behind the words.
I executed a frontal flip. Fire chakra cloaked my body in flickering flames as soon as I touched the ground. I blasted forward in a blur of red and white, exercising my most potent form of speed augmentation inspired by Hi no kokyū, but achieved by science.
The Sharingan was a tool, not unlike a sword. Wield it correctly, and much could be done with it. Do so poorly, then all you'll ever notice was its edge.
I rammed an open palm strike into the genin kunoichi named Haru's stomach, enough to cause internal bleeding. She gasped, lost for breath and ravaged by pain.
Playtime was over!
I compounded the force exerted with the addition of the buck explosion technique and twisted. The girl shot backward like an arrow.
"You bastard!"
The Uchiha chūnin raged towards me as he confirmed what I had expected. He was attached to the pair despite his behaviour.
I dodged his sloppy imitation of Guy's Dynamic Entry, grabbing his legs and flinging him back where he'd came, not ignorant to the surging chakra in his body as he and his teammate decided on forest devastation.
An Iwa Bunshin took my position as I sought cover underground through the usage of Hyōmen no Inpei.
I had my fill of actual combat.
—————————
Gozo Uchiha POV:
Chakra churned and transformed within their bodies as they ran through dissimilar hand seals.
This individual, shrouded by the unseen proficiency of the Henge no Jutsu, was a danger that should not be suffered to live, lest he targeted another group of Konoha-nin unfortunate to not boast his relentless strength.
The atmosphere around them took on their individual nature affinities.
"Renkei…" They both took large breaths, festering the physical manifestation of their ninjutsu. "Ryūka no Jutsu / Daitoppa!"
Fire blasted out of Gozo's lips with roaring vengeance, scorching the ground dark and fueling itself with the ambient essence as it sought to char its intended target, despite its inadequate lethality. A moment later, a violent, directed whirlwind joined the flame, giving them speed and power.
Funneling in more chakra and straining their lungs further, they pushed their combined jutsu beyond its normal limits and introduced raging crimson to the forested area.
The nuke-nin hastily hit the ground and fed it chakra in an attempt to invoke a defense…
Gozo's lips stretched into a contemptuous smile, bloody teeth morphing it into a vicious grin born from savagery. That wouldn't do; there was no way for him to overcome their combined jutsu on his own.
His single tomoe Sharingan— forced to mature to two by the abuse subjected by the nin —was unable to penetrate through the dense concentration of chakra they had introduced to the common ambience, and his reserves had been depleting, causing the dōjutsu to fade out and allow him a brief instant of respite.
Not that he needed it to ascertain the outcome of this attack.
The fiery jutsu swallowed their opponent's location and ruptured into a blazing inferno. The heat radiating from it, even from where they stood it's scorch could be felt…
Gozo and Kamitsu breathed heavily, hands on their most severe wounds, but there were smiles on their faces. This was a hard battle…probably the hardest they had been involved in but they had emerged the victo—
Before that thought could register proper, Kamitsu fell, quite pathetically if he might add, as if he had been held aloft by an unseen string that had been unceremoniously cut.
Surprise and fright took Gozo as he tried to comprehend what was happening, "Wha…"
Before he could even react, a hand was placed on his abdomen, "I'm disappointed by your inadequate use of the Sharingan, Uchiha-san, but unfortunately I have finished toying with you and yours, Fūton: Reppūshō!" The rogue-nin twisted his arm and pulsed a generous amount of chakra.
A blast of wind stole Gozo's breath as wind dug into his stomach uncontested, the strength of the C-rank jutsu shooting him into the forested area with little strength to retaliate.
A tree met his back, breaking something in the process of halting his motion. Another mouthful of blood poured out of his mouth with a rupture, but stubbornness urged him to get up, even as blood dripped from his nose and his vision saw double.
His teammates, crumbled and unconscious were sitting ducks only preserved by the uncanny focus the rogue-nin had levelled upon him.
"I…I need, ugh…to save them." He let out through gritted teeth and shaking limbs.
Unfortunately reality held true to its cruelty as the rogue-nin materialised in an uncanny execution of the Shunshin no Jutsu before him and initiated his onslaught.
Attacks rained on him as he did all he could just to not succumb to their ferocity. New wounds bloomed as the scent of his own blood became stronger and started to fill the air.
He tried to duck and redirect, but the bastard was just too fast, too overwhelming. Even with the enhanced prowess of his Sharingan, Gozo was barely able to contend.
In a last-ditch effort of physical defiance, he lashed out with a kick, but it was promptly stopped before it could even extend. A knee buried itself into his face, snapping his head backward before being followed by a gut-wrenching punch, rearranging his innards.
Another punch came to the base of his chin, lifting him from the ground just for the rogue-nin to blur and rain on him a torrent of blows that denied him touch with the ground.
His teammates were down, dismantled after the man had decided he had finished playing around… He would not be saved from this, only he could—
An explosion of pain from his right leg disillusioned him of his arrogance.
Gozo could feel his brain fizzle out for a moment in an attempt to spare him from the pain and onslaught, but his instincts— ingrained and honed— would not allow him that leisure.
Not done yet, a wave of strong winds slammed into him and sent him into the woods.
This was hopeless… It had been hopeless from the beginning. This rogue-nin had been toying with them.
The screech of ninja wires sounded through the roaring wind as his limbs were pulled and stretched in differing directions. He gasped as the uncaring wires dug into his flesh and restricted his blood flow…leaving him aloft and stationary.
Prying open his eyes, his vision blurred by the blood, tears and swollen flesh, he was able to see the rogue walking towards him while dragging behind him a thrashing Haru by the hair. The rogue-nin caught his eyes, bringing his unoccupied hand to his face with a reconciliation seal as he severed Gozo's stream of consciousness with an unidentifiable genjutsu.
"Rest, Uchiha…for what comes next will not be gentle on your heart."