It is generally accepted that genjutsu, the art of illusion, is the most difficult to master of all the ninja arts. This is attributed to the fact that crafting a convincing illusion requires much of the caster; a quick mind, an eye for detail, excellent chakra control, a vibrant imagination, a long memory, being well-read, and being skilled at reading people are all highly useful when attempting a genjutsu. As a ninja who regularly uses illusions myself, I can guarantee you that this is the case. However, one of the most valuable things my sensei taught me is the factor that both separates the adepts of illusion from the masters and truly makes genjutsu so challenging.
If you wish to convince someone of something, anything at all, you will have the greatest degree of success if you believe it to be true, irrespective of whether it actually is or not. This applies whether you are lying, arguing a point, pursuing politics (though I can't imagine why anyone does this), or attempting to deceive the senses of another. In order to craft an undetectable illusion, one must see it, hear it, smell it, taste it, and feel it before projecting it on someone else. It is very easy to lose yourself in this process, and so ensnare yourself alongside your enemy. According to sensei, this is why ninja villages so rarely use sleeper agents; while such infiltrators are extremely effective, they tend to defect at disheartening rates. Go too deep into the illusion, and it could become reality.
I have been pretending that I care about my home, the village of Konohagakure, in the Land of Fire, for the past seven years now. It is a lie, an illusion if you will, that has served me quite well during that time. As they believe I care, they consider me trustworthy, and share their secrets. They make me strong. I do not deny that I care for some of the people within the village, and would protect it for their sakes, but I myself lost much of my patriotic impulses when my mother and father lost their heads to my older brother's sword. Konoha could not protect my family. Loyalty to Konoha would not give me the power to take my vengeance. At the age of seven, I found such concepts as loyalty and comradery useless, because I believed it would not give me power. I would have abandoned the village in a heartbeat for the strength I craved. But, I also understood that others would be… unlikely to respect my viewpoint. So I pretended. I kept up the pretense for seven years, only now recognizing that what was once illusion has slowly become my reality once again.
As I step through the gates of the village, my village, I feel a bit of something… warm, I suppose. It is not related, as far as I can tell, to the prospect of seeing my friends once again. It simply is. If I had to guess, I would say that it is good to be home.
Uchiha Sasuke has returned to the village hidden in the leaves. Were I the brat I was three years ago, I would expect the much of the village to turn out in welcome, perhaps to sing my praises. The head of the Uchiha clan deserves nothing less than the same respect given to the other village elite, of course, and my return, after such a long absence would certainly bring at least the clan and its dependents and allies out in force, along with anyone else who wanted a little excitement in their day. On top of that, I believed myself to have many great accomplishments. I graduated rookie of the year in both civilian and military subjects from the Konoha Ninja Academy. As a genin, I survived encounters with some of the most dangerous men and women currently alive: Orochimaru, Momochi Zabuza, Konan the Shikigami, Senju Tsunade, and Uchiha Itachi. I am told I also survived meeting Uzumaki Nagato, but as I was unconscious at the time, that hardly counts. These feats affirmed my view that I was beyond worthy of such gestures of adulation.
However, since my departure I have been given something of a reality check. One man (and I'm not certain I'm old yet enough to qualify as even that) is simply not that important, no matter how prestigious his bloodline or lofty his goals. One teen does not have the power and military value to off-set this lack of political relevance without more strength than I possess. The realization that I lack that strength and was unlikely to gain it before my return was one of the hardest things to come to terms with during my time away, but I am certain that acknowledging my limits did me good.
Even the Fourth Hokage, the greatest ninja Konoha ever produced, didn't start getting a hero's welcome until well after he turned sixteen. Perhaps if my brother, if Itachi had not slaughtered our entire family, I might have received a welcome by the clan. (On our own grounds, not at the gate. I now realize how ridiculous that spectacle would be, though it seemed perfectly appropriate to an eleven-year-old.) However, the head of a clan of one is not the same as someone of actual importance. Thus, that no one is there to greet me is neither unexpected nor disappointing. Although I have no doubt my friends will be glad to see me, how could they have known I was coming? It isn't like sensei or I have a messenger hawk on call.
On the other hand, according to the sun it is not far past noon, so there is plenty of daylight left to help find them. If I am vaguely pleased to be in Konoha again, I am definitely looking forward to seeing Sakura and Kakashi for the first time in years. My old teacher will be easy to find; if he isn't on a mission he will either be at the memorial stone mourning his deceased teammates or trying to evade his self-proclaimed rival, Might Gai. With this in mind, I scale the tallest nearby building to scan the area for Sakura.
With my incredibly useful spyglass, I gaze over the village, channeling chakra to my eyes. I suppose the tool technically belongs to Jiraiya-sensei, but when he was about to get caught using it to peep on a public hot spring, he gave it to me and tried to get me arrested instead. He still got a night in the drunk tank, and never asked for it back, for which I am grateful.
My kekkei genkai is entirely visual; a spyglass enhances one's vision. If I ever find any Uchiha survivors and restore the clan, I will insist that every clan ninja carry a spyglass or binoculars on every mission. Among other things, the sharingan grants perfect recall, crystalline visual clarity, and the ability to see the chakra of others. To do this at ten or more times one's normal visual range is a huge advantage.
However, even with the enhancement, I am not skilled enough to pick out one person among the thousands that throng Konoha's streets at the quietest times, much less near a market on a weekday. But, Sakura has nearly unique, green chakra; she stands out amongst a crowd to my chakra sight. And sure enough, I can see two green glows standing out among the more common reds and blues and browns of those in the village not lucky enough to possess an elemental kekkei genkai. One of the green people must be Sakura, and the other her sensei, Captain Tenzo of the Konoha military police. They are the only people in the village capable of wood-style ninjutsu.
The type of ninjutsu you have the greatest affinity for colors your chakra. Thus, water is blue, fire is red, earth is brown, lightning like myself is yellow, and wind is grey. In general, an inherited Kekkei Genkai technique will color or change the flow of one's chakra; wood style turns it green, and my sharingan concentrates my chakra around my eyes even when not in use. At this distance, though, the color is all I can detect. And of course, the two green glows are in opposite directions. Shrugging mentally, since there's no one around to see it, I decide to head for the closer glow first. Fifty-fifty odds aren't bad.
Unfortunately, the closer person is not Sakura, but she definitely isn't Captain Tenzo either. This woman is nearly seven feet tall, and looks like she should be crushing boulders and missing-nin between her thighs in Might Gai style training, not buying groceries from the nice old lady's shop a few blocks from my old apartment. That kind of physique makes her pink hair and green eyes look really strange… Oh my gods that is Sakura! What the hell has she been doing since I left?!
Ok. Somehow, my old teammate has managed to put on almost three feet and at least a hundred and fifty pounds of muscle and amazonian curves in the three years I've been away. I knew she was planning to step up her physical training, but this is ridiculous. Still, there's no faking such a distinctive chakra signature, so I'm certain it's her. I suppose there's nothing to do but make my grand reappearance, so to speak. I'll just have to be careful with where I look, since her… chest is now at my eye level. I wouldn't want her to think sensei is rubbing off on me. Not that she's unpleasant to look at, but it's best to step lightly around anyone who could probably break me in half with one hand. And Sakura has never been stingy with her punches.
Careful to keep Sakura in sight, I descend from the rooftop, and mentally pat myself on my back for refusing to allow sensei to change my wardrobe. No matter how much wear it's seen, black clothes never show stains and road dust, so they're nearly always presentable. An Uchiha must remain presentable at all times, though my mother did allow that this rule can be overturned in case of grievous wounds. Besides, we're ninja. Dark clothing is traditional, and much more practical than that ridiculous red and green getup my sensei insists on wearing. The red and white Uchiha clan symbols on my bracers are plenty of color for someone who has stealth skills more advanced sensei's invisibility jutsu. That's cheating.
When I get close, Sakura doesn't recognize me right away, which shouldn't be as much of a surprise as it is. I don't think I look that different… I mean, I replaced that lame shirt with the huge collar, added some grey armored plates to my forearms, shins, and chest for extra protection, and switched swords. I think I grew about a foot, too, but I haven't checked for certain. Maybe the changes are easier to see if you haven't lived through them. Still, after sweeping over me, her gaze snaps back as she did a double take.
"Sasuke?" she whispers, eyes wide. Man, it feels strange to be looking up at her. I used to be the tallest person on the team. "Is it really you?" Suddenly, I realize I have no idea what to say back. I haven't had much in the way of casual conversation since I left. Sensei does not count.
"Hey," Three years, and that's the best I can do?! My ancestors would be rolling over in their graves. Say something meaningful! You've been looking forward to this for months! Dammit, Sasuke, think on your feet! "It's been a while." Gah!
"Sasuke! You're back!" She's headed this way! Rather quickly. Ow. Hugging. Spine. Bending. Can't. Breathe. Ow.
After a few minutes of this torture, she noticed me turning what had to be a very interesting shade of purple and finally gave me some breathing room. Hm.
The Sakura from before would have dropped me like a hot coal the second she touched me. Something about not wanting to upset her 'true love'. So, either she's gotten over the crush, or she's gotten more assertive (either way, a welcome and long-overdue change). Or, she kept it up because she hasn't gotten over the crush, which is really bad. Her grip's so tight now that I can't substitute out, and that would be a really stupid way to die. I'm still feeling it; that will bruise for sure.
"Wait, are you alright?" Apparently she noticed that I still haven't caught my breath. She nearly choked me out, and she wants to know if I'm 'alright'? Seriously? "Ehm, sorry, sorry."
And so my first day back ended with an overnight at the Konoha general hospital for a cracked rib. Reinforcing one's body with chakra can do a lot to help mitigate a physical attack, but it does exactly nothing unless you were ready to use it. Fortunately, the hospital wasn't very busy, and one of the medic-ninja was able to completely heal me. Thus, I'll be ready to meet the rest of the team tomorrow.
Kakashi dropped by my hospital bed to give me my new orders after Sakura went home. He hasn't changed at all, which is actually kind of comforting. To simplify a long explanation, my old sensei and current squad leader is one of the few people in Konoha capable of fighting an S-ranked ninja and winning. He's not quite S-rank himself, but he's close enough to stand a good chance, assuming he has competent backup. Since he already knows I can handle it, naturally he wants me watching his back on the tough missions. But, first I need to report to training ground seven bright and early. Kakashi wants to see what I (and probably my new teammates as well) can do. Well, I have improved a lot since I left…
A little before the appointed time, I meet my new teammates at the training field. Sure enough, I'll be working with Sakura and Hinata. Hinata hasn't changed nearly as much as Sakura, thank goodness. She's gotten taller, filled out some, and traded in that jacket she used to hide behind for the heaviest armor it's practical for a ninja to wear. Her gear is actually pretty similar to what the Uchiha used to wear back in the Warring Clans period, but it's in the Hyuga colors of black, white, and blue, rather than the red and black of the Uchiha. The white and blue is in an irregular pattern on the metal plates, with mottled grey and black cloth supporting it. With that coloration, it'll break up her profile and make it much better camouflage than the colors might suggest. Sakura, though, is back to her stupid red dresses. At least they're made out of military-grade fabric this time.
Kakashi only showed up half an hour late, which means he must be pretty serious, and starts to give us our marching orders for the coming training exercise, both to familiarize him with our skills, and get us used to working together. Naturally, the lazy bastard is having us do the bells test again. This time we've got until sunset to retrieve them. At least there are three bells, so he acknowledges that we aren't that stupid anymore. Then, he vanishes in a puff of smoke. He was talking to us through a doppelganger the whole time!
I immediately scan the surroundings with my sharingan, but I can't see his chakra signature, not that I expect to. Kakashi has a sharingan himself, so he knows my maximum range… without my spyglass. But, there's no need to show him that yet, because we have a better sensor. "I can't see him," I report, "Hinata?"
"I've got him. Four o'clock, and t-two hundred, no, two hundred fifty meters out," the Hyuga replies, as the veins around her eyes pulse with chakra. "A-and ten meters underground."
"Underground is not safe from me," Sakura cracks her knuckles ominously, before beginning a chain of signs. "Get ready for close combat, guys; he's probably gonna come for me first. I'm the only one of us who can easily get him out of his hidey-holes." I loosen my swords in their sheathes, and Hinata slides into the gentle fist's guard position as Sakura slams her palms into the ground, sending a shivering wave of something through the grass. Nothing happened for a few seconds, but I kept my guard up and am rewarded for my patience when Kakashi comes sprinting from the treeline, sharingan revealed, just ahead of a viciously spiked brace of roots that fill the space behind him.
Upon seeing us, the jonin immediately starts a long chain of signs, hands moving so fast I can barely follow even with my sharingan. Ghostly images of Kakashi peel off in all directions, each one a potential future predicted by my eyes as our captain attempts to throw me off with feints, but I focus on the Kakashi of the here and now, on guard for a ninjutsu… that never comes, as Kakashi's foot meets my chest while I'm distracted. Fortunately for us, Hinata is much better at taijutsu than I probably will ever be. Unlike me, she can actually stand up to even Kakashi in a straight-up fist fight for a time. I doubt he'll stick to just taijutsu, though, which means I need to get back in the fight. If I attack from a distance, I could hit Hinata, so my best option is kenjutsu.
Even if I hadn't had years of practice since I left Konoha, my sword techniques have greatly improved during my absence. About halfway through the training period, I was approached by Haku, the former mist ninja I met in the Land of Waves. It seems that Zabuza had an encounter with another of the Blades of Hidden Mist, Kurosuki Raiga, and his electric swords. Haku is holding out for a different sword, Nuibari the Needle, and when he saw Kiba the Lightning Fangs in action he thought of me. And apparently Zabuza feels I'm more worthy than any of the "pansy-ass bootlickers," his words, not mine, from his old village. That is how I became one of the Seven Blades of Hidden Mist myself, the first to not actually be from Kirigakure. Actually, come to think of it, Kiri only has two of the swords right now. I have Kiba, Nuibari and Zabuza's Kubikiribocho are held by missing-nin, and both the blasting blade and the blunt blade are mouldering on some forgotten battlefield. Only the shark sword Samehada and the shifting sword Hiramekarei are owned by ninja from kirigakure. Maybe the 'Seven Blades of Hidden Mist' should look into a more accurate name.
On the other hand, no one currently alive knows how to properly use Kiba the Fang, as Raiga couldn't explain anything after Zabuza removed his head. Everything I know about the swords' special properties I found through trial and error.
The weapon consists of a pair of short, straight blades, perfectly balanced for two-sword techniques. Each sword is made of chakra-conductive metal, and is extremely good at conducting lightning chakra. They resonate with each other to pull in and hold lightning chakra, making them both extremely sharp and the perfect counter for offensive lightning jutsu.
The lightweight weapons are nearly perfect for me, though I wouldn't mind a bit more reach. It also would be nice to know what the swords true powers are. Considering what the bingo book has to say about some of the other swords, there has to be more to mine than high-efficiency lightning jutsu.
Setting aside the mystery for now, I charge Kakashi, swords crackling with electricity. His counter-sharingan feints are starting to give me a headache, but it's still better than fighting an elite jonin without my kekkei genkai. He parries both my attacks, the right with his Hatake blade, the left with a pulsing, chirping lightning jutsu in his palm, and my genjutsu with his own sharingan, before slamming his armored forehead into my nose. Ow.
But, having both his hands occupied costs him, and Hinata goes for the bells with one hand and his gut with the other. When she pulls the bells off him, though, both Kakashi and the prizes erupt in a fountain of lightning. My swords draw most of the electricity away from us, but Hinata still gets some minor burns. When did Kakashi have time to substitute with a lightning clone?! There's no way he could have deceived both my sharingan and Hinata's byakugan like that. No one is that good. Unless…
With a sinking feeling, I examine Hinata's chakra flow and find the genjutsu I expected. Kakashi must have memorized the entire training grounds with his sharingan beforehand, and used that to craft a nearly perfect illusion. She thought her byakugan was active, because he showed her the exact image of everything around, but it really wasn't. Fortunately, once a genjutsu is detected, the danger is mostly over. A small pulse of chakra is plenty to free my teammate.
"Careful, Hinata. He has genjutsu that can foil the byakugan to an extent," I explain, "You need to be wary. Sakura, you too. You don't have our special defenses against genjutsu. Sakura? Oh, no."
And now Hinata and I get to enjoy running for our lives from a wall of spiky wood. Even better, the sharingan's predictive ability shows me, in great detail, all the messy ways we might die if we screw up at all. Wherever Kakashi is now, I'm certain he's laughing his ass off. To top it all off, we have to stay in the clearing, or Sakura will have lots more wood to work with, and probably kill us both no matter how fast we run.
Soon Hinata sees an opening, and hits Sakura with her water needle jutsu, which does… absolutely nothing. The things stick two inches into Sakura's skin, and she still ignores them! What the hell? The pain should have broken the genjutsu. Well, I don't want to set her on fire, and if Hinata's jutsu didn't get Sakura to react, my shuriken aren't going to do much better. If I turn around to hit her with a counter-genjutsu, I'll be killed by the wood jutsu. What now?
Wait, I'm too used to working alone. I need to be thinking about this from a different angle. The question isn't 'what can I do?'. It's 'what can Hinata and I do?'.
"Hinata! Can your Heavenly Rotation stand up to that wood jutsu?" If it can, I've got a way out of this.
"For a while," Hinata replies, "But I th-think I'd run out of chakra before Sakura stopped attacking."
"I only need a few seconds to snap her out of it," I explain, "Just keep her off me and I can cast a counter-genjutsu." With a plan in mind, Hinata and I turn to face the incoming wall of wooden blades, Hinata standing in front. As the assault reaches her, the Hyuga spins up her clan's ultimate defense, drilling through the wood with ease. It won't last, but it doesn't have to, as these moments of respite are enough for me to meet Sakura's eyes and drive out our captain's hostile chakra. I couldn't normally overwhelm a genjutsu like this, but illusions are not Kakashi's strong suit, and I have two sharingan to his one. An ocular kekkei genkai is always at its most powerful with both eyes together.
"Uh, what? Oh, crap. I'm so sorry, guys!" Friendly fire from Sakura is starting to make a disturbing pattern… "Kakashi-sensei made you look like him and a clone!"
"I think we've been working off of some faulty assumptions," I analyze, thinking back over the recent events. "We let our guards down as far as genjutsu went. Hinata and I may be extremely difficult to deceive, but it isn't impossible, and Sakura, you don't have any special advantages in avoiding illusions."
"So what?" Sakura tries to work it out, without success, "Sensei specifically told us several times in the past that illusions are his weakest skill! How'd he get us? We're not that lame, are we?"
"Think about it. His weakest skill, compared to all his others, is genjutsu," I share my ominous thoughts, "The man who was a jonin at fourteen, knows over a thousand ninjutsu, was personally mentored by the Fourth Hokage, and can survive taijutsu-only spars with Might Gai, his weakest skill is his illusions."
"Ooh," Now she understands, "When we talk about our weak skills, we're talking about things we're still learning to do. But sensei's been a jonin for twenty years. He doesn't really have any weak skills, just some that he's had more practice with. And that's not all," Sakura picks up on my deeper point. Kakashi's stronger than any of us individually, so we need more of a plan than 'search and destroy' to stand a chance, "We've been approaching this from the wrong perspective."
"What do you mean?" Hinata asks, "We need to get the bells. Kakashi wants to keep them away from us, so we need to track him down and take them."
"No, no, no. That's not his style," I guess Sakura knows something I don't. Now I'm the one trying to catch up to her thoughts. "Sasuke, Hinata, if you knew someone was trying to steal something from you, how would you protect it?"
"I-I'd put it under guard, in the clan safe in the Hyuga compound," Hinata relates, after a few seconds of thought, "It would take an e-expert thief to not get caught."
"I'd probably bury it in the middle of nowhere, then create a decoy somewhere else," I reason, "Or else just keep it on me."
"Yeah, but there's a third option, if you're a strong fighter and confident in your abilities," explains Sakura, "Kakashi used it in the first bell test, and he's got no reason to change his methods. After all, there's no better way to keep your stuff safe than to hunt down the prospective thieves and neutralize them." Oh.
"Then, th-that means," Hinata gets it too, "Kakashi is coming for us."
"You are learning… but not fast enough," Kakashi! Behind me! "So begins the lesson: One thousand years of-" Oh, hell no. With an adrenaline-fueled substitution I barely manage to avoid that foul, ludicrous technique. Never again.
Hinata immediately starts to close with Kakashi, but something she sees that I can't makes her suddenly back off, spraying water bullets at him. When one of them clips him, the jonin violently explodes! No wonder; that was an exploding clone. Huh, I thought that jutsu was exclusive to Iwagakure. How many doppelgangers is he going to send at us before he gets serious?
Nine hours, the lion's share of all of our chakra, and a mildly ludicrous number of mostly earth clones later, and we're no closer to pinning Kakashi down. And only fifteen minutes until the bell.
The only consolation is that Kakashi has to be at least as tired as we are… Wait, no he isn't! We've only actually fought the real Kakashi a few times, so he's barely used his sharingan at all. Meanwhile, Hinata and I have both used our kekkei genkai in every fight, and all three of us have been forced to throw around big jutsu just to survive the damn doppelgangers and booby-traps! Kakashi, meanwhile, is sending lots of earth and water doppelgangers, the least strenuous to make of all clone types. He's using his superior physical skills to wear us down, and distracting Hinata with clones whenever he needs to escape for a breather. It's a great strategy, giving him plenty of shots at us with minimum risk, and it's also incredibly frustrating, which Kakashi no doubt sees as a bonus.
However, we're closing in on him again, and the way things are going, if we don't get the bells now, Kakashi will be able to evade us until the sun sets. After hours of combat, all three of us are running low on chakra, supplies, and ideas. Conventional tactics failed miserably. Creative jutsu, stealthy tricks and traps, and trying to wall him in with fallen trees and earth jutsu worked better, but he still got away. Getting him near a river and letting Hinata and Sakura go crazy with water style jutsu powered up by a nearby water source worked best of all, until he electrified half the river to stun us and run, the only taxing jutsu he's used today aside from that lightning clone. From Sakura and Hinata's expressions, they're not feeling any more inspired than I am.
What tactics are beyond convention, improvisation, invention, and overwhelming firepower? Uzumaki Naruto tactics, of course. If he was here I suspect we'd have had the bells for hours, but… No point in going down that road. So, that means I need to answer a very important question: What would Naruto do? After he tried overrunning Kakashi with hundreds of shadow clones, of course. None of us have anywhere near the reserves for that.
I take a quick inventory of everything on me. Not just what I would usually consider a weapon; at this point, anything could be useful. My conventional munitions include my dual swords, ten kunai, and a single, carefully hoarded smoke bomb. I also have an old chunk of hardtack that's been in my pouch for only the kami know how long, enough cash for a few days of meals and cheap rooms, my spyglass, a lump of chalk for leaving temporary marks on things, a mostly empty water bottle, a tube of green glitter (It's useful for telling if somebody has touched something, because getting it off of you is basically impossible without several rounds of laundering and washing. And, it's so light and small most people wouldn't notice that they've been exposed. This particular batch has been treated with a seal from sensei to make it extra clingy.), a grappling hook (my rope and ninja wire ran out several skirmishes ago), a set of sunglasses, some water purification tablets, an oxygen pill (They'll keep you from drowning for ten minutes. Kakashi used one against Zabuza during their first fight.), a basic medical kit, a whetstone, and a corpse storage scroll (Keeps one corpse or human-sized object fresh for months, ready for examination or a proper burial). How can I turn this into a successful mission?
"How much chakra do you have left?" I ask my teammates. My plan will be more likely to work if I have all the information I can get; I'm not going to win this one on my own.
"Not much," Sakura replies, looking down, "I could probably do that jutsu where I make roots or shrubs trip him a few times, or some of the basic Academy three. After that, I'm down to taijutsu, and that isn't my strong suit. I should have rationed my jutsu better, dammit!"
"I have enough for a few techniques," Hinata's estimate is much more hopeful, and her stutter seems to have disappeared as she gets more comfortable around Sakura and me, "I haven't used as many jutsu as you have, so… Do you have a plan?"
"I think I do," I reply, laying out the glass tube of glitter, the smoke bomb, the chalk, the oxygen pill, and the corpse scroll in front of me, "Listen closely. We're going to get those bells."
"With that stuff?" Sakura sounds skeptical, but she's at least willing to hear me out. "This is either going to be genius or incredibly stupid. Not that I have any better ideas, though. But if you're thinking what I think you're thinking, it won't work. There's a reason we don't use storage seals for live captures. There's no air inside a storage scroll, and besides, you can open the seal just as easily from the inside as the outside. That's part of why jinchuriki seals are so hard to make, because you have to make a seal that only opens from one side."
"I know. I studied under a seal master for three years," I respond with a thin smile, "That's why we give Hinata the oxygen pill, and then seal her inside my scroll. From inside the seal, Kakashi won't be able to see or sense her chakra, so you, Sakura, can have your plants pass the scroll around to behind him. With her byakugan, Hinata will be able to see out, and time her attack for maximum surprise. I have just enough chakra for a shadow doppelganger, and to use the sharingan for a few minutes. I'll have my clone use the art of transformation to look like Hinata, and use my sharingan to copy how she moves. Doppelgangers are chakra constructs; there's no reason why they have to look like me except that I imagine them that way when I create them. That's why the shuriken shadow clone technique can create physical copies of shuriken. When a shadow clone uses transformation, they actually look like the person they're pretending to be, rather than just an illusion like on a real person. I won't fool Kakashi forever, but I'll probably last long enough." As I explain my plan, I insert the smoke bomb and as much chalk dust as I can gather inside the glitter tube, and close it again. Smoke bombs don't create a lot of force when they go off, but this particular brand makes just enough to shatter the tube… and send glitter, chalk dust, and smoke everywhere.
"When we set this off, Kakashi will be briefly vulnerable. He'll have to close his eyes to protect them from the airborne particles, and the chalk dust will give him a sneezing fit when he tries to navigate by scent. This type of smoke bomb obscures chakra senses too, so even if he's a sensor ninja, which I wouldn't put past him, it won't help. He'll have to rely on his hearing, and he'll try to gain distance from us and the smoke cloud to recover. That's when Hinata exits the seal and immobilizes him with the gentle fist," With this, I meet the eyes of each of my teammates, "Needless to say, we only have one shot. We cannot afford to fail."
"A glitter bomb?! Seriously? That's your big plan?" I don't hear you coming up with something better, Sakura. "What is this, the Academy again?"
"Okay, I'm going to be completely honest with you. The only reason this ever occurred to me is because Naruto used one of these on Iruka-sensei a few times," I suppose it could seem rather… silly from her point of view, but… "On the other hand, we're out of munitions, low on chakra, and low on time. This will definitely incapacitate Kakashi for a few seconds. Probably. Unless you have a better idea, we need to get into position now or we won't be in time."
Sakura mulls this over for a few seconds, thankfully not taking any more than that of our rapidly-disappearing daylight. "Give me the freaking glitter bomb. I'll get it and Hinata to where they need to be. You get your clone ready."
Kakashi is not impressed by our frontal assault, and lets us know it as he defends himself from our three-way taijutsu attack. At least that means he probably hasn't seen through my disguised clone. And, he's caught off-guard when Sakura sets off the customized smoke bomb in his face. As I predicted he would, Kakashi tries to get some distance from us to clear his eyes, and ends up right next to the scroll. Blinded by the cloud of grit, he never sees Hinata coming until she nails him with a few gentle fist strikes, swipes the bells, and takes off running. With one of his legs not working right, we easily get away with the prizes before he can do anything about it.
Once the sun sets, we track down Kakashi and an apologetic Hinata restores his mobility. I don't know why she was so contrite though. We were sparring. Anything less than lethal blows is fair game. Once she finished, our captain had a few things to say to us. I suppose he might still have some questions about what we showed him today.
The first thing he asks is how Sakura was ignoring most of the physical attacks that got sent her way. I mean, it's one thing to be tougher than a civilian. Even for ninja though, not noticing a kunai stuck two inches into your arm until somebody else points it out is unusual.
Turns out, Sakura has improved even more over the past three years than I thought, having created a unique jutsu with the First Hokage's notes. Her new technique, Wood style: Hardwood Armor, surrounds her in a living shell of tough, chakra-resistant wood thick enough to stop all but the most powerful physical blows. And, because the armor is still alive, not only can she spend chakra to make it heal, but as long as it stays intact it barely requires anything to maintain, because it photosynthesizes like the plant it is. The jutsu also explains why her appearance changed so much. Unless she wants to make it obvious that she's covered in flammable armor she has the choice between looking muscular and looking fat. There's no way she'll ever choose fat.
Kakashi also wants to know about my new swords, so he now has as much information about them as I do. That is to say, not much. He finishes off the interrogation by asking how Hinata was able to completely conceal her presence from a jonin who specializes in tracking. He seems disappointed that it was just a sealing trick, but does admit that he is going to pass the idea on to his colleagues. Seriously? That's Kakashi's official specialization? Huh. I've never seen him actually track something, but if he says so…
Our final orders for the night are to meet up at six tomorrow, which is Kakashi for ten, to work on our team tactics before we start the high ranked missions the village needs to complete to keep recovering from the Amegakure massacre. Oh, how naïve we were.
You'd think after being on it for as long as we have, in Kakashi's case nearly thirty years, we would've learned by now. No plan survives contact with Team Seven.
A.N. Yep, it's narrator shift time! A Single Shifting Leaf had to cover a lot of ground and develop a lot of characters and plotlines, so it featured an omniscient, faceless narrator. The purpose of the story was to introduce the world and plot of Shadow of Rain, and define how the story has gone AU. However, Shadow of Rain is the story of Sasuke and his dual quests to rescue Naruto from Akatsuki and to kill Itachi. Since Sasuke will be at the center of most of the main events, he will be narrating most of the story. However, he will not be present for all the main events, so Naruto, Konan, and possibly Itachi will get chapters of their own at later points in the story, when Sasuke is absent, distracted, and/or unconscious.
And for anyone who is curious, Sasuke's internal monologue (and boy does he like the sound of his own voice, even if he doesn't actually say much out loud right now) omitting Jiraiya's name is intentional. Sasuke is mentally separating Jiraiya the sannin, who he respects greatly, from Jiraiya the person Sasuke has been living with for three years, who is irresponsible, overbearing, and womanizing. The toad sage is a perfect example of how someone can be a great man, but not a good man. It isn't that he's an amoral person, per se, but his personal habits leave much to be desired. Of course, with the way he habitually invades women's privacy, an argument could be made that Jiraiya is pretty amoral, too.