A/N:

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Here's the latest chapter. Now that my semester is over, I can focus more on writing. I'll try to be consistent.

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Enjoy.

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The Sacrificed Disciple

-Chapter Twenty Eight-

"The will must be stronger than the skill."

- Muhammad Ali

I didn't wake up to the sound of birds chirping, sunshine, or a smiling Itachi.

No. It was to the sound of the shōji sliding in an aggressive way. My eyes snapped open when I heard shishou's voice say, "Get the hell up!"

I grunted as I peered from an open space between my bed and blanket.

She yanked my blanket off, and I shivered. "Ugh, why?" I grumbled.

"Don't 'ugh, why' me," she mocked back. Her hands were on her hips. She was standing in her ready mission gear, not in her usual dress. "We've got a mission."

I sat up. "Mission?"

"Yes. Operation Find Kakashi!"

My eyes widened at the implication. Sleep slipped from my fingers as I snapped to alert. "When was he last seen? Where-"

At the same time, shishou was speaking, "He's been ignoring us for weeks! And he's not even taking any missions. So we gotta find him and knock some sense into him, ya know. Especially since Rin's been out of the hospital now!" She sat on my bed as I got dressed. Itachi must have left at dawn to join the crows for training-

But also, I relaxed a bit when I realized that Kakashi wasn't actually missing.

Just straight up avoiding us.

That was a problem. I was there with Kushina when Rin got checked out of the hospital, but its been days since then. Rin said she was fine, but I knew the absence of Kakashi was felt as she grieved.

I gave a serious nod, and shishou grinned.

I didn't know how I felt about Kakashi entering his depressive years. He wasn't even a pre-teen yet. This was a couple decades away from enigmatic and eccentric Kakashi who reads erotic novels in public because he didn't know how to interact with people. I know that Obito's death hit him hard, but that shouldn't mean he should avoid the only support system he had. . .

So when two sensors are looking for someone who doesn't want to be found at all costs. . .

That someone is found anyways.

It didn't mean that he didn't give us a hell of a run. He dodged us throughout the village every time we got close to his general location. It literally took Kushina giving chase on his heels and me flanking him to finally force him into submission.

My chakra exploded into my veins as I released my resistance seals. I jumped out of my hiding place and bombarded Kakashi head on into a tackle hug as he rounded a tree in a part of Konoha's forest. We were thrust back and landed into Kushina's arms who did some quick thinking to catch us. We landed on the ground in a heap of entangled limbs, breathing heavily but laughing all the same.

Kakashi was as stiff as ice underneath me, and he looked a bit like a scolded dog as I greeted him, "Caught you. Heh."

He was the only one that wasn't laughing.

Shishou straightened up into a sitting position. Kakashi was leaning against her so he was straightened up into a sitting position, as well. But I was awkwardly sprawled out, hands around his body in a hug. I didn't want to let him go because that would give him a chance to use hand seals to shunshine away.

"You caught me," his voice was tone dead. "Let me go now."

Shishou and I met gazes that basically said that wasn't a good idea. When she said nothing I realized she was waiting for me to take the lead. What could I possibly say that would get through to Kakashi. . .

I knew it was better to be blunt then to dance around the problem, at the very least. "You're just going to ignore Rin, then?" I asked, squeezing out my entire child-like innocence and wide, doe eyes because this could go either of two ways: Kakashi exploding in anger at us tearing down his walls, or Kakashi letting his walls be torn down a bit to be comforted like any kid his age deserves.

His gaze widened slightly, as much as it could widen with only one eye on display, before it narrowed angrily at me. "You don't know fucking shit." I was pushed off, and I realized that Kakashi was way too strong for me to just pin down. He was basically entertaining me before. But he wasn't enough for Kushina.

She wrapped her arms around him. "Hey! Don't treat your friend like that-"

"He's not my friend. He's just some little kid that followed us around," he stubbornly said.

I pushed myself into an upright position, ignoring the sting of his words. I stayed quiet as I regarded him. He was breathing heavily after he said those words. He looked like a trapped dog, a bit wild-eyed as he stared at my expression.

I looked down at my dirt covered hands before raising a brow at him. "You have Obito-nii's sharingan," I said.

Kakashi flinched. Hard. His whole body seized up, frozen as he regarded me with anger but also exhaustion. His feet were planted against the dirt and he pushed back into Kushina, as if ready to throw her off too.

"I know that Minato-sensei and my dad are doing damage control with the Uchiha elders. But it won't be taken from you."

Kakashi looked away. "Stop talking like you're so sure."

"They won't take it away. They can't. It was given to you-"

He shook. "Stop talking," he bit out.

I regarded him with a solemn gaze before changing the subject. "Death is so sudden," I spoke with the same vulnerability I felt from Kiyoshi-sama's genjutsu. The way it delved into my soul showed that I wasn't quite over leaving behind the brother I once had. "One day the people you care about are there, and then in a moment they could be gone." I thought of Tenma's cold body, and his warm blood underneath me.

Kakashi met my gaze. His eyes glazed over.

"So stop avoiding your friends, kay?" I got up in shaky movements. "And Rin. . . she lost Obito-nii too. Show her you're alive once in a while," I mumbled out. I didn't have to look to see Kakashi silently break down in Kushina's arms. Kushina got comfortable and held Kakashi, encasing him in crimson curtains of hair to hide his vulnerability from the world. She whispered comforting words to him, and Kakashi also spoke even though it was with blunt harshness. But at least he was finally talking.

I brushed the dirt and leaves from my knees and shunshinned away. I didn't know what type of effect my consoling would do for Kakashi, but I trusted shishou. She didn't need help to find Kakashi, but perhaps bringing me along to speak to him was necessary in some way.

My routine was the usual.

I would wake up to do my usual stretches, sometimes visit Rin before I would train or go on a mission with Team 2, and then go to dinner before I trained with Kiyoshi-sama. I've had several missions with Team 2 already, but they basically involved being pack mules for pulling back supplies from encampments that were being taken down. It seemed now that the war was over, the Hokage didn't want to send kids out on perilous, vague missions anymore.

Peace was a funny thing. . .

And whatever bored, misguided pride I had was nowhere in sight as I hit a stalemate during training.

I observed Kiyoshi-sama from the side and followed her practiced movements, but my movements were either delayed or going too fast. I wanted that feeling to come again. So I asked even though I expected no answer, "Why not just spar with me?"

"So you can activate the second tomoe of your sharingan when cornered like a dog?"

"No." I pouted and kicked dirt. Fuck, maybe? "Just that. . . I want to understand it. I've learned how to weave layers of genjutsu but. . . not to the extent you're doing. I've never weaved them in a fighting sense. Like reacting. . ."

Kiyoshi-sama stayed silent.

"What you did before. . . that was you 'reacting,' right? I couldn't tell the difference," I said. Even now, I couldn't tell if she was a genjutsu or actually her. There was something about her that screamed illusion. The way she walked so nimbly yet she looked like she was about to croak at any moment. The way her chakra roared monstrously like she was a tailed-beast. . . It was why I was always at a distance from her.

"It is because you are not using the fullest potential of the second tomoe. You subconsciously use both tomoe which you have mastered with the crows in dispelling genjutsu by yourself and weaving small layers of genjutsu, hoping your opponent fall for them." She smirked. "Clever tricks, but your opponents won't always be Konoha comrades. You have mastered the first tomoe, so now you must master the second." She smirked.

"But I have used the second tomoe when I killed a Jonin. I remember seeing everything. I saw his movements, predicted them and found ways to react before he could even complete his first move. . . There have been other times like when I defeated Raido. . . but it happened in the heat of the moment. Now, the effort just wipes me out," I explained.

"Then you must train."

"But I thought you're here to train me," I elaborated.

"Yes, but I am not here to hold your hand. You look at me but do not see me. Until you see me that is when I will train you." And there she goes again. . . She was literally implying that she was a genjutsu.

"Ugh, why are you so difficult!" I grumbled.

Kiyoshi-sama smiled at me. "It is difficult," she admitted. "Mastering the second tomoe means you've mastered a B-rank form of genjutsu. The more you build your endurance in using the second tomoe to see through genjutsu, the closer you'll be to mastering it and developing the A-rank form of the sharingan: the third tomoe. And mastering that is a feat in itself for even an adult." She smirked. "But many Uchiha children have done it. They've gone through similar trials. Be grateful you were not born during the Warring States Period where there was no teacher and student. It was merely kill or be killed."

"Then. . . By saying my training has begun, you didn't mean with you," I realized.

She smirked.

Senile old woman! She was just as elusive and mischievous as the crows! I tsked and shunshinned away. Her cackles followed in my wake.

When I complained to Itachi the next day, he merely smiled. "Yes. It's why I trained with Shisui a lot. He helped me understand the sharingan. That's why when I did get my sharingan, I was able to use the powers of the second tomoe at a certain amount of time that Kiyoshi-sama deemed passable." He paused with a slight frown.

"Enough to know that I wasn't using it out of instinct alone," He added as an afterthought.

I pouted.

Itachi merely patted my head to comfort me in my silent contemplation.

Well, Shisui wasn't here now, was he? He was in the deep dark spiral of the Anbu black ops. Shinko didn't have a sharingan, and she was interning at T&I anyway. Yoji was always in Anbu whenever we were off of the mission roster. Same went for Yuki-sensei. And Itachi was a bit busy catching up training with the crows.

This was the worst. If only I had someone to endure sharingan-level training. I needed to learn how to copy movements and endure the physical demand without getting disoriented. Especially when my adrenaline rush was at an empty-

A light bulb went on in my head.

I grinned.

Kakashi was easier to track down since the day shishou and I ambushed him. He was walking down the marketplace with his hands tucked in his pocket and chin pointed down. He had stopped to regard Gai who was with Asuma and Kurenai.

They seemed to invite him for lunch, but he merely gave a soft denial and kept on walking. The dejection on their faces almost had me turning back and asking some random Uchiha kid from my clan. Social anxiety issues be damned. But I just couldn't leave without trying. . .

Like a masochist, I continued to pursue at a slower pace until he turned a corner. I jumped on the rooftop and flared my chakra a bit to show him I was there. He must have already known because he was regarding me, head tilted up and eyes narrowed.

We stared at each other for a moment before I broke the ice and excitedly delved into my script.

"Kakashi-nii, need your help with something." I jumped down and landed in front of him with a wide-eyed gaze.

He stayed silent.

My eyes bled red. "See here?" I pointed at my eye. "I have two tomoe. Eh. . . But I've only mastered one. I need help building endurance on the abilities the second tomoe provides without getting dizzy. Ita-nii and Shisu are busy. . . and so are my teammates. . . and my genjutsu master said she doesn't want to hold my hand. Can you help pleaaaaasssseeee-"

"Okay." His voice was passive, sounding resigned.

I was prepared to resort to groveling since Kakashi-nii liked to tease me but this was a complete 180. "sssssseee- Eh! Just like that?"

His gaze narrowed.

"AH! No," I backtracked. "Thank you! I meant-"

He stepped around me with his hands still in his pocket. "We'll train on Training Ground Three."

"Yay!" I cheered. "The best."

Kakashi pretty much ignored me after that. Up until we made it to Training Ground Three.

"I think if we spar, I could bring myself to use the second tomoe . ." I suggested, not even trying to hide my excitement.

Kakashi shifted his stance. It was subtle, but I caught the movement due to months of familiarizing myself to Kakashi and Obito's spars. "Okay then. Just taijutsu."

I nodded, noticing that he wasn't pulling up his headband. "You're not using your sharingan?"

"It- I don't have much control over it," he bit out.

"Okay." My eyes bled red. "But I'm not holding back, Kakashi-nii!"

I bounced on the soles of my feet and unlocked my resistance seals.

He gave me a dead stare. "Like you can-"

He didn't get to finish his sentence. I was on him lightning quick.

I blinked as his right arm moved to meet my temple.

His hand curled into a fist as it sped to me. I straightened two fingers and jabbed at his wrist. His hand was flung back, leaving his entire front open. I ducked underneath his arm and put it into a deadlock between two of my own.

We met gazes.

"Kakashi-nii, is it just me or are you slow-"

His hand formed into a fist and he thrust his weight forward, flinging me to the ground. If I wanted to, I could've put pressure on his arm and broke his humerus, but instead I let him throw me off so that he could have more time to put his head in the game.

I rolled out of the way and coin-flipped back onto steady feet. This time on the defensive as he fired blow after blow. My bones would've cracked if I didn't reinforce them with chakra. I crossed my arms to block another right elbow jab, my gaze switched to the side and I twisted a bit to catch his left fist. I twisted his arm downward and pulled him forward before bending at the knee and successfully swiping him off the floor with a leg in a clockwise twirl.

As I settled back on my feet, Kakashi was already pushing himself up with his hips and back-flipping onto his feet. I breathed out through my nose to steady my heartbeat. I wasn't scared, per say. Instead, the adrenaline rush within me almost felt like a shot of dopamine through my system. I felt exhilarated, not on edge.

Kakashi engaged me again, but with more intent behind it. It seemed as if he was feeling me out and trying to judge what level of strength I was at. The thought of him even holding back didn't sit well with me either. Kakashi was about four- to five-years older than me, and I strove to be on par with him in strength.

I held back a cry, more out of shock than pain as I felt the strength of an uppercut making contact with the side of my jaw. I was flung back, tomoe whirling as he jumped up to meet the momentum I was pushed back on.

I grinned. There! I blocked his downward kick with a block of my own with ease. My crossed arms, with closed palms pointed at me, turned and hooked onto his leg. I pulled him underneath me so that he felt the impact of my fall on the ground. We crashed and rolled on the floor, but not before I got a couple hits in.

I felt the tomoe in my gaze slow, and suddenly it was like I was hit with vertigo. I clumsily fell on him, forearm jabbing at his face. He yelled in surprise when I put weight on his eye, the sharingan. He threw me off with brute force.

"Dammit, I almost had that," I mumbled as I scrambled onto my feet. "I'm sorry, Kakashi-nii-"

He cradled his eye, headband pushed up.

Then he looked at me with his one-eyed sharingan.

My gaze narrowed as his two tomoe spun.

"Hey. . ." I let out a small laugh. My smile became more severe. "You look like you wanna kill me, ya know. Ah. . . so scary-"

I was thrown back with the force of his punch. Fuck, when did he get so fast? My gaze followed him and I tried to keep up with his movements. Most punches and kicks I deflected, but then Kakashi would quickly take advantage of my weak spots.

I concentrated hard on his movements. Feeling the motions slow before me as he stepped left and right. He feigned right and lifted his leg up to jab me on my jaw. I blocked with ease, tomoe shifting in reaction, and I put weight on my bent knee as he landed on his feet and kicked with his right. But I was already there, blocking his kick with my bent thigh. I jabbed upwards in quick strokes before flicking back his left arm and jabbing him with a sharp elbow to his jaw.

There! I cheered internally, wiping the blood from my mouth with a grin as he fell to the ground.

Then I realized. . .

Kakashi wasn't getting back up.

And his chakra was dangerously low.

I fell to his side. "Hey. Wake up!" When he wasn't responding to my calls, I immediately began to pull him onto my back. I adjusted him, even though his legs were dragging on the floor and quickly sped to the hospital.

I should've noticed, I thought.

It's been less then a month since they've been back, so I just assumed that Kakashi must have trained with the sharingan on his own. I never thought that the sharingan depleted his chakra within minutes. I held his headband, looking at the seal on the back of it. The seal helped to cut off the chakra feeding into the chakra point behind his eye. . .

Did Kakashi always have this? Was the sharingan too much to handle? But that couldn't be true. There was no way he'd earn his title as the Copy Cat Ninja without mastering it. Maybe later on he just wears the headband over his eye because old habits die hard.

I felt a hand on my head, and I looked from where Kakashi was recovering on the hospital bed to Minato-sensei, who shunshined here a moment before.

"Thanks for looking after him, Asu-chan."

"I did my best, Minato-sensei," I said absentmindedly before looking at the headband. "I should've known better."

Minato-sensei regarded me for a moment before he ruffled my hair again. "You're a good friend to Kakashi, aren't you?" He softly asked.

I blinked. "He's Kakashi-nii," I added as if that explained everything, and to me, it did. It made sense. Kakashi was someone I would want to have on my side in the future. If the future was ideal. And maybe because of that childish fantasy of the future, I held on to the relationships I've made either through chance encounters or through selfish means.

"Get some rest Asuya, I'll look after him."

I followed Minato-sensei's order to leave, but I didn't rest.

Instead, I went to the crows.

Itachi's gaze met my own. Our sharingans activated, and it was like he could almost feel the conflict in me when he asked, "What troubles you, ototo?"

I looked to our crow summons. Kagami the Crow was perched on a branch. His wings fluttered and flapped in greeting.

I looked back to Itachi.

"How's your genjutsu training going?" I deflected.

He blinked at me. "It is. . . difficult to differentiate illusion and reality. The bleeding effect of these genjutsus. . . it is not permanent, is it?"

I neared Itachi and smiled. "No, niisan." I grabbed his hand. "It'll be much more easier to deal with. Trust me."

Itachi smiled. "I trust you."

If Itachi noticed my silent contemplation as he meditated and trained then he didn't comment on it.

I expected the following days to be stagnant, but the next day, Kakashi came looking for me instead of the other way around.

I stared at him.

He stared back.

"Eh? Shouldn't you be in the hospital or something." I twirled a kunai in hand before flicking it behind me to the target practice posted there. I looked back and saw that it hit the red mark in the middle. "Whoa, I really just did that!" I cheered.

"Shouldn't you be training your. . . eyes."

I looked back in shock. Wait a minute. Did he just give a comeback? I contemplated his words. Albeit lame, he had some truth to his words. I observed him further and saw the hesitancy in his stance. He looked awkward, but he was dressed for sparring. He even had his arm braces on.

My smile widened. "You wanna train with me again, Kakashi-nii!" I was completely flattered. Kakashi never went out of his way to train with anyone except with Minato-sensei. Even his team had to force him into team spars when Minato-sensei wasn't around.

Kakashi didn't say anything, but his glare was enough to get the message. I bit back any teasing and instead said, "Actually. . . I wasn't kidding about the hospital. You snuck out huh? And your chakra is depleted by half, ya know?"

"The sharingan. I won't use it."

Maybe it was for the best that he didn't. Not until he learned how to narrow the amount of chakra going into his eye.

"Okay, but if I say stop, we stop, yeah?"

He nodded and shifted into a ready stance.

My eyes shifted into the sharingan with ease.

Our spars lasted more than an hour every day due to the breaks we took in-between.

Whenever my sharingan shifted into second tomoe gear, I realized that I had a five second threshold of reacting time. Either for countering and deflecting Kakashi's low blows hidden behind feints. Kakashi was on Shisui's level of taijutsu if not better. It went to show that I had a long way to go to reach that sort of brutal level of offensive strikes despite Emino-sama's training.

Not to say I wasn't holding my own in this fight. Kakashi's visible frustration wasn't only due to the fact that he had to protect his blindside a lot, but also because he couldn't get a single hit on me to knock me out for good.

Both of us were a challenge for each other. We both needed to break the invisible barrier blocking us from getting stronger. Kakashi's handicap when he has his sharingan covered, and my endurance when using the second tomoe.

We breathed heavily beside each other. My muscles ached as I pushed myself up into a sitting position. Kakashi had his head bent low between his legs. His arms hung on his knees as he focused on stabilizing his breathing.

"Tomorrow. . . I'll get to ten seconds," I affirmed. My head was still aching from overusing my sharingan. The problem wasn't that I couldn't use the second tomoe more than five seconds. It was that after that five second threshold I would get dizzy and we would have to take breaks before I could recover and use it again. I hated that we had to take breaks like that. I wanted to be better.

Kakashi lifted his head and peered down at me. He was contemplating his words. It was as if he wanted to tell me something. He looked away. "You said that yesterday. . . but yeah."

"What is it?" I asked. "What's bothering you?"

He looked a bit surprised that I caught on. He gave a small shrug, as if to deflect my words, but then he stopped and said, "I don't like the idea of never using Obi," he struggled a bit to say his name out loud. ". . . Obito's sharingan," he finished.

"Is that what they said?" I asked, referring to the elders.

He nodded. "They want to seal it forever," his voice was bitter, and I felt ice in my veins at the thought of them taking it away. "Minato-sensei wants an Uchiha to train me to use it, but they keep refusing. I don't want to take part in the meetings. . . but I have to." He ducked his head between his knees within his wide sitting position, as if trying to make himself smaller. "I used it once when. . . But I passed out after. It hurts, like it's alive and eating away at my chakra."

"I know what you mean," I mumbled and wiped the sweat from my forehead.

He looked at me in shock.

"Yeah," I looked at him and at the ground. "When I first activated it. It felt like my eyes were bleeding, like they were on fire. . . But it's just because the chakra point behind your eyes opened for the first time. . . I passed out after overusing it too." My gaze narrowed. "Don't let the elders fool you. The sharingan is just an eye. I have to adapt my body to keep up with its visual prowess and so do you."

"Then. . . it's not going to kill me?" He wondered.

"Just get stronger," I affirmed, not wondering for the first time what kind of excuses the elders were using to try to take Kakashi's sharingan away. "You'll be able to master it like any other Uchiha." Kakashi's shoulders dropped. Then I realized, like an idiot, Kakashi already planned to do that. He was trying to get stronger but he had no direction.

I suddenly began to dread. . . the possibility that the elders were keeping the sharingan secrets under lock and key. But of course they would. Why didn't I realize before. . . Where it was general knowledge to me due to my rite of passage into the elders training, I realized that no one else knew about the Uchiha clan's dojutsu and the reason why it had three tomoe.

"You know what? How about I teach you some jutsu?" I casually suggested.

"What in the world can you teach me?"

"Harsh, Kakashi-nii," I sang out but stood up and formed the seals of the Gokakyu no Jutsu: snake, ram, monkey, boar, horse, tiger.

"You call that teaching?" He snorted as my hands flew through the seals in practiced movements.

I smirked. "Lift your hitai-ate off your eye."

His gaze narrowed suspiciously before he stood up and moved to my side. He then slowly lifted the fabric of his headband with a hesitant movement.

"Now watch me carefully, okay?"

I went through the seals again. My hands flew through them. My chakra coiled in my stomach and rose to my mouth with ease as I lifted two fingers perpendicular from my mouth. I blew the chakra out and fire rose in large streams into the air.

I looked at him after I cut off the jutsu. "Okay, now you try."

He eyed me in slight shock, and I watched, slightly mesmerized as the two tomoe in his eye halted in its spin. He then faced the clearing ground with a determined stance. He went through the seals as if it wasn't his first time doing it. Then he blew fire out as if he had practiced for months.

The stream of fire was smaller than my own, but it goes to show-

"What. . . What the hell?" His eyelid closed over his sharingan eye, and he quickly pulled his headband on. "How was that even possible?"

"Your sharingan isn't trying to kill you." Even I was shocked by the results, but it further affirmed what I had guessed. "The two tomoe in your eye are just permanently activated. You can't shut your sharingan on and off like how I can, so you're constantly using the abilities the first and second tomoe gives you."

"What's that?" He asked quietly.

"Heightened perception." He eyed me as if he couldn't believe the words coming out of my mouth as I explained, "In general, the second tomoe can give abilities like copying jutsu and memorizing ninjutsu, taijutsu and genjutsu with incredible accuracy. Sometimes even on the first try. You can see chakra in someone, see the color and flow, so it can help knowing if that person is under genjutsu or not or if they are genjutsu. It can also help predict your opponent's movements, so you can act and dodge accordingly."

"You can do all that?"

"My eyes can. I have to adapt my body to master those abilities. But it's the reason why I can block and deflect most movement you make. As for copying movements. . . I can do that too. . . Have you noticed that I've been using your taijutsu stances against you?" I asked.

He nodded, looking frustrated again. "It's annoying. . . It's like you keep getting stronger every day while I'm," he paused, realizing that he was voicing his frustration.

"You can do it too, ya know." I looked at him. "The sharingan eyes fall largely under two categories: The Eye of Insight and the Eye of Hypnosis. The abilities get stronger as you mature your sharingan within the three forms of the first tomoe, the second tomoe and the third, but their abilities all inter-lap and advance as you train and get experience."

I continued as Kakashi put his entire focus on me. "The Eye of Insight relates to the physical perception of the world around you and the Eye of Hypnosis relates to the spiritual ability to perceive and utilize chakra," I tried my best to repeat the lessons I've learned from Emino-sama. Judging from Kakashi's gaze, it looked like I was doing good so far. "With the second tomoe version of the Eye of Insight you can memorize any physical movement you see and replicate, dodge or deflect it as long as the movements are compatible with your own endurance and stamina. Because I am still only six-years-old and my chakra and stamina is limited, I can only use the second tomoe for a short amount of time."

"Then. . . what about the second level of the Eye of Hypnosis?" He wondered.

I smirked. "That's what I'm trying to learn in our sparring sessions so I can use the Eye of Insight and the Eye of Hypnosis together. . . The second tomoe's version of the Eye of Hypnosis perceives chakra flow. With more experience in using the second tomoe, you can familiarize yourself with chakra flow and how it shifts during spars. I may be good at sensing, but I can't rely on my senses when it comes to targeted genjutsu around me." I thought back to Kiyoshi's frightening genjutsu. She targeted all my senses with ease. It felt like I was in a warp-hole. If I didn't already have the crow's training under my belt, then I would've succumbed further into the genjutsu. "That's why the sharingan helps because you can train your eyes to differentiate between illusion and reality."

I hummed. "The elders might say that some abilities will be lost to you because you don't have the other sharingan," I mumbled. "But you never know. . . With the way you're going, you might be known as the Copy Cat Ninja with how naturally you mastered the Gokakyu no Jutsu."

Kakashi followed me out of Training Ground Three. The moon was high above us, and the crickets were chirping in the cool, summer night. The silence between us felt peaceful until it was broken by Kakashi's quiet voice:

"I'd like a cooler name then that," he muttered. "I hope copy ninja doesn't stick."

I snickered.

The next morning, I stuck to dad like glue. He sipped his tea with a calm poise on the veranda of our backyard. It was his day off. . . at least until noon when he'll be off to another meeting with the Uchiha elders, Minato-sensei and Kakashi.

My head dangled off the veranda, and I stared at the trail of ants that disappeared into the vast jungle of their home, but for some big like me that jungle was just our dewy grass. I lifted myself up and laid sprawled on the wooden floor, completely ignoring the pillow mat set for me and using it as a pillow for my head instead.

There was another turn of a page. I heard the pause in the shifting of pages, indicating that dad was probably scowling disapprovingly at my lack of manners.

"So. . ." I drawled, not letting attention on me go to waste. "Say someone has one sharingan and they're not part of the Uchiha clan." I lifted my hand and gestured at the air in front of me to emphasize my hypothetical indication.

Dad sighed.

"But they mastered the Gokakyu no Jutsu on their first try because of said sharingan."

I heard a thump, and I looked up to see dad holding his book closed with a prayer hold. His gaze shifted to me. "This person," he drawled. "Wouldn't have had a certain Uchiha boy teaching them the secrets of said sharingan because that would be foolish indeed since said Uchiha boy has a father who is patriarch of said clan and now has to clean up after him."

I smiled. I was absolutely not apologetic. "What if it wasn't the Uchiha boy but the father of the Uchiha boy who taught the one-eye sharingan person to see if they indeed have control of the sharingan?"

"The Hatake boy would then fall under my responsibility and to an extent yours and Itachi."

I pouted. "We're not speaking in riddles anymore?"

"Your amusement in my struggles as a patriarch of this clan hardly falls under the definition of riddle."

"Touchaan. . ." I grumbled.

"Enough." He placed a hand over my face, a gentle caress. "I will not lie and say you did not give me a certain edge in the following meetings. I will follow your request. In exchange, you will pick up your duties as my second son and attend the Uchiha Police Force Headquarters more often."

I blanched.

"Don't look so pained. You must share the burdens your ototo will face as clan patriarch. Understood?"

"Yes, touchan," I said with conviction as he removed his hand from my face.

Father opened his book. "Now go pester someone else and leave your father in peace."

I grinned and shunshined away.

Later in the night, after another grueling sparring session, Kakashi engaged me in conversation.

It wasn't much of a conversation, but as we rested and drank water. Kakashi stood up as if he was ready to leave. I sat up, ready to push myself onto my feet, but Kakashi was standing in front of me with his hand held out.

My eyes widened slightly at his offer. I grabbed his hand, letting my weight be pulled up to my full height which was to his lower chest. He let go and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

"Thank you," he said in his muffled voice.

I glanced at him, not wanting to scare him away with teasing. Instead, I just shrugged and led the way out of the training grounds. I was glad the clan meetings ended on a peaceful resolution then if Kakashi's relaxed state since the start of our sparring was anything to go by. If anything, dad must have used his authority as patriarch to appease the elders. It wasn't often he did since the elders had more of the clan members' support.

"I got your back," I finally said with a sincere smile.

Silence followed but before it took hold, Kakashi's soft "yeah, me too" broke through it. His voice was sincere, and it implied many things. I may not be his friend, as he said, but at least I was a comrade.

As the nights continued, I became more confident in my endurance. I was at four minutes. That was my threshold. A month and a half of training with Kakashi paid off.

I peered down at Kiyoshi-sama continuing her practiced, robotic routine. I was in full gear, and I made sure to rest and stretch the entire day in preparation for this fight. I had to break through the layers weaved before me to try to find her true form. I knew that now.

It was a high-leveled genjutsu. The chakra mimicked the flow of an actual human being. There were no irregularities, but I realized it was an area genjutsu. I was in the range of it, and I had to force my way through it using my sharingan in order to find the actual Kiyoshi-sama.

My chakra senses were warped, I couldn't rely on them because the genjutsu was already affecting all my senses. If I broke through the layers, I would be able to detect Kiyoshi-sama's signature with my sharingan.

I palmed the kunai in my hand. Took a deep breath. In and out. Then I threw it with precision. It pierced the back of Kiyoshi-sama's head as she was in the middle of cutting open her fish, but I shunshined, sharingan shifting to the next layer that was in the water. I slashed through her, and the world got darker.

It was like my senses were being muted, but my eyes shined in the dark as I cut through the layers of genjutsu until finally, finally she engaged me with the cutting knife in her hand.

I rolled out of the way from her kick as she launched from the trees. It was like she wasn't even there. One moment the area was empty, and the next her chakra signature was behind me, and I reacted in due time to cut through her.

I kicked up onto her chest, grabbed her right arm and twisted around it, slashing through the artery in the armpit. Then I ducked as a hand reached to grab the back of my neck. I looked back, seeing the dead Kiyoshi dissolving into thousands of maggots as another Kiyoshi was right in her place.

The world became more black, more muted. I couldn't even see the trees. Only their silhouettes. Her killing intent was just as awful, forcing me into the tunnel vision that I was experiencing. But I didn't let it get to me.

Kiyoshi-sama was also deteriorating. Her eyes were hollow. Her skin became more wrinkly. Her hair matted as I killed her again and again. But she attacked with brute force. My tomoe spun as I threw a kunai with ninja wire attached to it. She dodged it, and it passed by her with ease. Her arms lifted to block the ninja wire from wrapping around her chest. Blood leaked as it cut against her arms instead as I swung on her opposite side and pulled.

She flew back against a tree just as I completed my jutsu. Fire spread across the reinforced chakra wire, and she ignited in flames.

I didn't even flinch as I felt another chakra signature appear above me. I dodged to the left, but I still felt the kunai cut against my cheek. I grabbed it and threw it back at Kiyoshi-sama. The paper tag on it exploded. And I landed on the ground with an annoyed grunt before looking to the chakra signature in front of me.

She cackled. "The little Uchiha has learned. Finally." She licked the blood off her kunai. The same one that cut me. But even that was an illusion. Although the pain of the thought of getting the cut didn't fade away.

My gaze whirled. "I see you. Finally." My gaze shifted behind the 'Kiyoshi-sama' that was a genjutsu. I could see it. The mirage over herself. The chakra signatures that weren't real. They were all warped. The chakra signature in the shadows, however. That was her.

The black dome around me cracked.

"Enough of your genjutsu, Kiyoshi-sama," I dug out another kunai. Eyes spinning. I was overexerting my sharingan at this point. My four minutes were up, but at least I weakened her genjutsu. I shunshined to the signature and dispelled the rest of the layers of genjutsu with a flood of chakra to my eyes.

I fell onto my knees, not being able to catch myself in time as I landed in a sprawl of limbs before her. The grass was green. I could feel it. I blinked sluggishly. My head was pounding, and my neck was stiff as I slowly looked up.

There were two sandaled feet and the hem of a purple skirt over a slim figure. Then I saw a wide, black shirt with long sleeves that covered her hands all except for her painted black fingernails.

Purple, wavy hair started from her waist. She had a sharp jawline, glass skin, rosy lips and fully mature sharingan eyes.

She smiled. "Well done, boy." Her voice was light and playful.

I was tired, so tired, but I still wondered out loud with a slur of words: "You're. . . not an old hag?" My eyes slowly closed on their own accord. I felt the strength leaving me, but not before I heard a chuckle.

"Cheeky brat," she mused.