I agree that the super henge is kind of bullshit, but if 12 years old Naruto and 6 years old Konohamaru can henge into an adult girl with tits, it makes sense that it's possible to henge into something smaller. It would be easier to sell if the one to henge into a random kunai was a clone, because it's made of chakra and so it loosely makes sense.

However, Kishimoto left a lot of holes in the applications of chakra, in technological development, and pulled out dramatic past events like confetti.

The only thing I can try to promise is that as the author, I won't be using super henge as a plot device anytime soon. I dislike it myself.

Kinds of Hell

The sizzling was our only warning, and it lasted a split second.

*Boom*

The hillside went up in flames, forcing the genin team to fall to our left, cutting through a stream while we let out half-assed curses, too tird to figure out something better than 'fucking hell'.

"Neji..." I simply called his teammate, too short of breath to complete his request.

"When did he have the time to litter paper bombs everywhere?" Kabuto hissed once we slowed down to a halt, our hearts thundering and our breaths short, "We saw him choosing this field by chance..."

"I'm too short on chakra to run and use the Byakugan." the Hyuga's reply came between broken breaths.

I wanted to shout in frustration, but I was hardly in a better position than his. My eyes roamed over the area we had recently left: where before stretches of forest covered the uneven ground of the small hills, broken here and there, by a creek, Kakashi had erased the landscape.

Under what had been a sunny day, the hills had been turned into misshapen lumps of dirt and ash, with raging fires that blew a thick smoke that attempted to choke the very sky.

The appearance of my team matched the hellish landscape: our clean clothes were covered in dirt and ash, with wet areas where our control wavered while we were crossing the streams of the area. My somewhat shaggy and absolutely black hair was in dirty and oily lumps, Neji's straight brown hair was signed, and Kabuto messy grey was glued to his forehead under a layer of sweat.

"Next time you want to mouth back to our direct superior..." Neji coughed, spitting what looked like a piece of wood before continuing, this time glaring at me, "Don't."

"Agreed." Kabuto was quick to follow the Hyuga's lead, while I briefly remembered the main reason why we were in this mess.

"I don't like you." Kakashi had explained immediately once he reappeared in a swirl of leaves, his eyes decidedly focused on me even as he talked to all three of us, "But we're a team now."

I caught my forehead protector with a bewildered expression, my alternative plans being discarded as I tried to figure out what had happened... Of course, the Higher-Ups couldn't allow two prodigious Doujutsu wielders to be held back. I realized, a small smile blossoming on my face when I spotted Neji's shoulders straighten a bit, his determined if defeated demeanor fading like mist under the sun.

"You remained together even after your failure." Kakashi explained, his lone eye traveling over the forms of both Kabuto and Neji before settling on mine, "What you do when nobody is looking, tells more about your character than what you think."

After the hellish test, which we had passed, and after the verbal murder he carried out on us on our very first meeting, I couldn't help it. I laughed. I laughed from my belly, feeling some measure of confirmation for the effort I had put into learning everything I could since my awakening in Sasuke's body: "It must be horrible, to lose face in front of a nine years old kid. Did the Hokage whack your head before sending you back? Did he ordered you to try to sell this particular bullshit?"

I didn't believe it for a second. There was far too much running on the shoulders of Team 7.

"I wouldn't know about horrible." Kakashi replied with a forced eye-smile, "But you'll be able to tell me something about it very soon."

"In hindsight, I could have kept my mouth shut." I admitted, the flash of memory vanishing as fast as it had appeared.

Neither of my teammates answered since it was a pointless comment.

I was actually acutely aware that crossing a booby-trapped training ground while being chased by a vastly superior shinobi was, while not exactly safe, and effective kind of training. I even recognized that it forced my team to somehow keep our heads level in the middle of the chaos, and that enforced cooperation.

Neji blinked, activating his bloodline without hand seals, and studied the environment for a couple of seconds, planning our course out of the hell that Kakashi had turned the training ground into.

"No more bombs." the Hyuga informed us, "But there are tripwires and assorted traps..."

I could feel the sheer relief washing down my shoulder as if it was warm water, my muscles loosening and a tiny ember of hope blossoming in my chest.

As soon as we felt ourselves capable of it, we resumed our running, knowing that looking for our sensei would be pointless, and it would only distract us from spotting tripwire.

"There!" I saw it almost too late, but I quickly molded his chakra: "Ninpō: Sureddo no Jutsu!" a single chakra string burned out from my ring finger's tip, and immediately reached Kabuto's left calf, holding it back for the split second necessary for the bespectacled spy to adjust and jump over the tripwire.

"We need to buy you better glasses, Kabuto." I hissed through my ragged breaths. Fucking asshole, does he have to show his incompetence by making me pull him out of any mess we meet?

"The soul is willing," he almost laughed, his breath and words broken by hiccupped wheezing, "the body..."

"Just link some chakra string to my limbs, and follow my movements." I replied, my eyes flashing red as I twisted out of the way of two kunai, grabbing the third from it's ringed handle and throwing it further across the trees, where it triggered a tripwire that we were going to activate if we kept the current course.

Then I saw the wave of chakra burrow into our coils, and as one, we disrupted our chakra flow, breaking the genjutsu Kakashi just tried to place on us.

As we ran, we dodged, jumped, slid, tripped, fell, rolled, climbed, and generally hated the 'training' that Kakashi was pushing us through.

After hours, hours that stretched our stamina to the limit and demanded more, hours that made us crave for anything capable of stopping the 'dynamic' torture that the jonin casually called training, we saw it, a white cloth signaling the end of the course. We passed it squeezing every ounce of energy we had left, and we didn't stop running.

None of us doubted that Kakashi would throw something else at us as long as we were on the training grounds.

Since Kakashi's surrender to the will of the Powers that Be, that wanted him to be our sensei despite his clear dislike for the task, Team 7's routine was a chaotic mess that didn't follow rhyme nor reason.

Without any kind of fixed schedule, we went from sudden summons at a training ground to perform the D-rank missions that had us run across the whole Konoha in order to basically look friendly to the civilians.

I wasn't buying that our 'missions' were meant for us to apply teamwork in a safe environment.

Well, maybe a little. I admitted to myself as I used my bare hands to rip the weeds from a random garden. Weeds that I suspected had been empowered by Kakashi's spite at the idea of being my sensei, because... I grunted, feeling my back strain as the roots opposed an impossible will to my strength, until finally, I wrenched the dirt open, freeing it from the invasive plant.

Cheap labor of any kind, meant to be executed by genin, who tended to be young and somewhat approachable, was an extremely effective PR, that made the civilians that lived in Konoha happy for the shinobi' presence. It made them even ignore the fact that any random genin could kill any civilian in the blink of an eye.

As for training... Kakashi routinely tore my team apart, mocking our efforts with a bored attitude, and occasionally throwing in the basics for some technique, without however actually teaching something useful. Fuck you Kakashi. I thought with a suppressed growl. I couldn't reconcile him with the man I had known through my metaknowledge.

I ducked under a pebble that a gleeful Kakashi had flung at my left temple to test my 'situational awareness' while I sidestepped a second that was meant for my kneecap, using the movement to bend down and grab another weed.

Kabuto had quickly enough learned how to use chakra strings to support his otherwise abysmal shurikenjutsu, while Neji and I were constantly pushed through our paces, by virtue of avoiding death from our jonin-sensei.

I flooded chakra through my system and stilled it for a single istant, breaking through the illusion that Kakashi had tried to ensnare me in without even breaking my rhythm: bend, grip, pull, bend, grip, pull. And as I worked, I dedicated the minimal but necessary amount of awareness to Kakashi's actions, and at the same time, I thought, trying to make the point of my situation. Fuck you Kakashi.

There were two ways to condition a body: first, the Maito Gai-way, which consisted in lifting boulders, push-ups, and a plethora of mind-numbing exercises geared towards powering up specific muscle groups.

Second manner: learning by fighting. At the end of every day, my muscles ached. My hands hurt because of the number of hand-signs I kept performing in the hope of gaining an edge against Kakashi, my legs felt like they had been turned into mush because of the sheer number of kicks I threw, because of the hours on end that I spent trying to escape my sensei's attacks. My shoulders cried because every day I almost dislocated them in my effort to pull myself or my teammates out of the line of fire. My eyes either itched or burned, simply because of the constant use and the amount of chakra I forced through them while I blundered my way through the art of Visual Genjutsu.

Besides the hellish training that was basically survival camp, our D-ranks were an excuse to keep us on our toes all the fucking time. I dodged another pebble, snatching a second out of the air and throwing it at the back of Kabuto, where it impacted with another projectile that the bespectacled spy missed. With a sigh, I returned to my musings, ignoring the Sun hammering on my back and my shoulder-length hair gluing itself to my skin because of the sweat.

Genjutsu was a curious, strange thing. Directing your chakra through your body could be done by a sheer application of will, and through training, your own body and chakra adapted to the demands that you made: your bones were sturdier, your muscles stronger, your ligaments became the perfect balance between rubber-like and resistant to tear.

When I stuck to walls, I didn't direct chakra through a series of very specific commands, I simply pushed it in the interested areas, and regulated the amount I spent, making sure it was the right ratio to accomplish what I needed to. When performing a jutsu, without considering the insanely good control I had over my fire, most of the technique was about building up and letting go. Whatever fire I spat I then manipulated by pulling, pushing, or twisting my own chakra. All that part was instinctive, and the commands echoed through my chakra, following my will.

But a single fireball didn't turn into a rain of small embers because I pictured it in my head. Well, I did, but to obtain that effect, I manually manipulated my chakra, and through trial and error, I had figured out what actions executed on my chakra produced the intended result.

Genjutsu however, was at once much more simple and much more complex than ninjutsu: for any illusions, chakra didn't need to be manipulated outside of a chakra system. When I performed a Genjutsu, I simply had to imagine the situation I wanted the illusion to convey, keeping that clearly in mind while I kept control of my body, aware of my actual surroundings, and sneak my chakra into my target's pathways.

When I say imagine what my illusion had to convey, I meant 'picture exactly every detail'. Because as soon as the victim spotted a detail that couldn't be real, it was revealed that it was an illusion, and the greatest part of any illusion was that the target didn't know he was inside one.

The Sharingan gifted me with perfect visual memory, and humans tended to focus entirely on sight. The bulk of my work regarding illusions was to build in my mind a scene in which awareness of the surroundings perfectly matched reality. Human are naturally inclined to believe what they want to, to recognize patterns that don't exist simply because they're looking for them, to rationalize, to find schemes. Once I tricked the target without his knowledge of the existence of the illusion, most of the discrepancies were covered up by his mind, very much like in a dream things made sense until you analyzed them once awake.

I dropped to the ground, letting a trio of projectiles sail over my head, only to be forced to push myself aside when another landed where my head had been an instant before. Fuck you Kakashi.

For visual Genjutsu, a trigger of sorts was a must: there were no hand signs to give away my application of those, but I needed a moment in which my chakra could slip in my opponent's pathways and apply the illusion I had weaved in my head. Once it landed properly, ideally the target would act upon it, feeding the illusion with his own belief.

If I kept eye contact, in theory, I would be able to direct the Genjutsu in real-time at the speed of thought. And that was the base of the Tsukuyomi, at least basing myself on the half-assed theory I had tentatively built.

In normal Genjutsu hand signs were necessary to create the 'setting' of the illusion, making it so that the chakra of the opponent would do the bulk of the work to build any given fantasy. Besides the obvious tell of hand signs that had no immediate effect, this method was worse because it couldn't be so freely manipulated.

I had a theory that mass genjutsu was triggered through a single element that all the targets witnessed in a way or another. It may be the sound of a horn being blown, or a single firework that captivated the masses. At the same time, a wave of razor-thin chakra would spread over the targets, sneaking in and using the trigger as a founding element of the illusion.

"Very well," Kakashi's voice cut short my musings, and with a startled glance around, I noticed that the sun had almost completed its descent, meaning that we had been at work for the better part of the afternoon, "you're done for today, and tomorrow you're to train on your own."

I felt my shoulders slump in relief, but I held back from giving any sign of my inner joy: I didn't want to give Kakashi an excuse to throw some more work to us.

As a single unit, Kabuto, Neji and I left the unreasonably large garden that we had cleaned up from weeds, occasionally limping because of the pebbles that caused bruises when we didn't manage to dodge.

We moved with chakra coursing through our limbs, jumping from roof to roof, avoiding the crowd of the civilians, and making sure to not make any noise when our feet hit the tiles. It wouldn't do for civilians to as reparations from broken tiles, after all, it would ruin the leaf-shinobi's image of perfection that the administration of Konohagakure no Sato strived so much to maintain.

It's too soon for dinner, but I'm fucking hungry. I thought as I studiously ignored the feeling of grossness born out of my being covered in sweat and matted with dirt. Then again, I live alone, and tomorrow is training-free. "Oi," I spoke to my teammates, that stopped limping along the road to listen to what I was going to say: "I'm hungry, let's go to the Uchiha compound, I'm cooking tonight."

"Right now?" Kabuto rose an eyebrow, confused by my sudden spontaneity. After all, there was no way to hide my being standoffish with the other genin, too often I had openly refuse an opportunity to open up or to get to know each other better. But it wasn't strange. I liked Neji because we were both prodigies, and Lee & Tenten because of my superiority complex. At least that was what Kakashi had told us on our first day.

"The Academy is about to let out the students now, aren't they?" I changed topic, ignoring Kabuto as I did anytime I could get away with it, "I'm inviting Lee and Tenten too, some BBQ would do us well, I think." After the hellish training Kakashi tortured me with, I found myself looking forward to a meal that would leave me rolling on the floor, to full to do anything else.

"Must you?" Neji's tired voice made me turn sideways in his direction while I dropped from the roof, landing in a quiet crouch in an alleyway.

"They're my friends." I shrugged, "Weren't you classmates at one point?"

Neji chose to don't answer, and in a few minutes, we reached the Uchiha compound. I quickly choose a rather large yard next to my house to set up the BQQ: "We all have some time before the students at the Academy are let out, I'll have to hop at the orphanage to inform them that I'm hosting Lee for the night."

"They simply let you take one of their wards for dinner?" Kabuto asked with a poleaxed expression.

"Haven't you heard?" I wanted to laugh, "I'm Uchiha-sama, if one of their wards is lucky enough to catch my interest, and the orphanage casually gets more funding, the matron is only happy to allow one of her kids to have fun. Neji, can you stop by Higurashi and ask permission for Tenten?"

The Hyuga grunted an assent, still displeased about my choice of having Lee and Tenten over. I ignored his drama-queen attitude and walked into my house, quickly, making sure I had all the necessary for the planned dinner. I looked over at the yard, I had no doubt that it had once been a small park where the recluse Uchiha could walk and pretend that they were as free as any of the other citizens. But I had chosen it both because it was close enough to my home and because it was one of the few parks that I regularly maintained the upkeep of.

"And you are sure that her father will let her out for dinner with a bunch of genin because...?" Kabuto was still freaking out about my casual expectation for two 10 years old kids' freedom regarding their dinner.

"Higurashi-san knows me, and I purchase regularly from the man." I shrugged, "He's a good enough blacksmith, and I'm a loyal shinobi of the leaf. There will be a group, and the association with both an Uchiha and a Hyuga as talented as me and Neji is encouraged."

I turned my shoulders dismissively at the bespectacled spy that was blinking owlishly in my direction, likely imagining how fucking easy it would be to use my clout to kidnap kids for Root or whoever the fuck he was working for.

"Well, I'm taking a shower and hopping to the orphanage, on the return way I'll stop by the Academy." I stated as I started walking in my home: "We'll meet here again in... let's say an hour? I have purchased a lot of meat yesterday that I haven't prepared yet for long-term conservation, so I also need to move it all to the park."

"I'll go to the compound, for a shower and a change of clothes." Neji hadn't entered my house and was already turned.

"Oi, Neji," I spoke as I lifted the meat from the cooler, "you can sleep at my place tonight. But remember to ask Higurashi-san about Tenten."

I grinned when I received a grunt of confirmation, not stopping organizing the dinner while I leisurely imagined my revenge on Kakashi. Seriously, if I could be sure that I would be given a Jonin more capable than him, I would try to get him fired. Sadly, there was no mistaking the fact that the sheer Hell that the silver-haired teacher was pushing us through was effective. I was more responsive, my fire ninjutsu came faster, my eyes could weave more illusions before I got tired, and my teammates were receiving similar upgrades. Or at least, Neji has, I have no idea what Kabuto is actually learning and what he's pretending to learn.

"Uh..." the bespectacled spy hesitantly commented, "Could I too remain here...?"

"No way, Kabuto," I interrupted the raging asshole with a roll my eyes, "You got an apartment of your own." And I don't want your freaky existence anywhere near me if I can avoid it. Sadly, I knew that the moment our teamwork dropped, be it inside training ours or in our private lives, Kakashi would find some psychotic reason to torture us into loving each other, and for the time being, that was the worst risk. After all, with the potential I had showcased and the sheer value of my bloodline, I didn't doubt that the esteemed Sandaime had me watched.

"But then why..." his head tilted towards Neji, who was imperiously staring at the flames, as if willing them to burn at the perfect temperature to cook our dinner.

"Because officially members of the Clan cannot live out of the compound." I explained tiredly, "And his family sucks ass." I whispered the last words, even if I knew that Neji heard them. "Sleeping here is officially a 'training-plan' or some bullshit of that sort."

A single hour and a half later, I had completed my self-imposed tasks, creating a circle of stones of the diameter of one meter around a shallow pit on a grass-less stretch of the park, and also busied myself by maniacally cutting the vegetables in perfect shapes for my improvised BBQ. Wood was thrown into the circle and a small Katon manipulation got a fire going. I practiced a hole in the ground that would feed air at the bottom of the pit, and then I mucked with the fire by means of a long iron rod, making sure that the embers were on one side or the circle of stones and the burning wood was on the other, right next to the hole that fed fresh air, so that it would keep burning brightly. Finally, I set a rather large slab of volcanic rock over the circle of stones in a way that let the flames breathe: and so I had my cooking plate.

While I had kept myself busy, happy to take my mind off my circumstances and instead focus on the manual labor, Neji had pilfered a shogi board from my home, and he was being soundly beaten by Kabuto, who routinely trashed the both of us.

"It's a stupid game anyway." I snorted dismissively. Being born in Western society, and having a remotely good grasp of traditional chess, I simply had no hope whatsoever to perform adequately at that game.

"Are you aware that it is considered..."

"Yeah, yeah." I interrupted Kabuto, consciously ignoring Neji's smirk: his competitiveness found solace in the fact that I was shit at shogi, if only because I tended to best him in hand to hand 7 times out of 10, "Speaking of stupid games, shouldn't Lee and Tenten be here already?"

"What has that to do with..." Kabuto went quiet and turned at the main gate that led into the park, where a couple of academy students were walking in, wide smiles and relatively hungry expressions on their faces.

"Thanks for having us over, Sasuke!" Lee shouted with both his fists raised in triumph over his head, "With the promise of one of your dinners, I'll push myself harder still!" he immediately began squatting, jumping as high as he could when he straightened his legs and performing a push-up every time he lowered himself.

"You've been in a team with a jonin-sensei for months!" Tenten's eyes shone with her eagerness, "What techniques did he teach you? Spill!"

I burst out laughing at their demand, noticing how Neji shook his head exasperatedly and Kabuto was sporting a soft smile. Instead, Lee had considerably slowed down during his squats, the training fiend redirecting his attention on me. So I threw our bespectacled spy to the wolves: "Kabuto, do you want to tackle this? I'll start cooking."

I saw him nod before I turned towards the fire, already thinking about the order in which I would be cooking: the cut vegetables would go on the hottest part of my improvised stony plate, while the pork chops would go slightly further from the direct flames, since I didn't wish for them to burn outside and remain raw inside, and they took the longest to cook among the meat cuts that I had readied for the occasion. I ducked my hand into the barrel of water we had nearby and sprinkled the slate of stone that was partially held over the flames, studying how the water reacted to the temperature. In the area of the stone directly over the flames, the water droplets turned into small spheres that seemed to frantically dance as they evaporated, while on the opposite side of the cooking plate, the water simply smeared the stone, only to turn into vapor in a few seconds.

"It doesn't work like that." Kabuto started explaining as I placed the vegetables over the cooking plate, the sizzle of the little oil I had used to make sure they wouldn't stick to the stone made my mouth water even as I reached for the meat. "The most important feature of being a shinobi is being unpredictable, so while a jonin-sensei gets you started on several fields and finds what you're better suited for, he simply gives you hints and helps to start something original, be it Taijutsu or simple tactical advice."

I set the skewers on the stone and kept a careful eye on them, they would cook very quickly, giving us something to eat while we waited for the more substantial pork chops.

"So you didn't learn any super-technique?" Tenten dejected voice asked while I started placing pork chops on the stone slab, which was slightly angled so that the molten fat wouldn't trickle over the vegetables, completely erasing their taste.

"Not as you think." I heard Kabuto's neck move against the tall collar of his shirt in what I assumed was a negative motion of his head, "If a sensei taught everything he knew to his students, the enemy would only need to find a counter for a single shinobi to be able to fight off a whole team."

I still thought that Kakashi was simply being an asshole, but I couldn't deny that his hellish training was having good effects on me. I removed the skewers I had placed on the slab of stone and handed them around, knowing that they would be devoured by the hungry looks everyone kept giving them.

"Mmmh..." Tenten smiled when she took the first bite, "These are so good!"

At the confirmation that my copied skills still worked, I felt a smile tug at my lips: "It is clear that you never ate at an Akimichi BBQ, they use this combination of herbs that I've had a hard time replicating to season the meat..."

Lee was engrossed with his skewers, while Neji was eating with a oddly placid expression on his face, and Tenten had already devoured her skewer only to turn towards Kabuto, having correctly assumed that he was the only one in the group that she could fork details of our training out of.

"Instead of pestering my teammate," I butted in, "why don't you show me if you got any better with your shuriken, Tenten? Last I checked, you were still hopeless at calculating a trajectory." I pointed at the pouch that I had laid on the wooden table, which contained several low-grade kunai and shuriken that I used in my D-rank missions.

Incensed by my challenge, Tenten whipped out a couple of shuriken and threw the first, perfectly changing its trajectory with the second so that it would land between Lee's feet. The academy student squawked in fright at having a shuriken suddenly sprout in front of him.

I blinked, deactivating my Sharingan: "Well done Tenten!" frankly, it was terrifying that she could do it without my bloodline, "I need to be able to foresee where the projectiles are going to be able to do it effortlessly."

"So that's how you do it!" she crowed, ecstatic satisfaction whipping around her like a harsh wind, "You cheat!"

"What do you mean?"

"You said it yourself!" Tenten was crossed between overjoyed by having finally confirmation of her doubts and outraged by my admission: "You see where the damn shuriken are going to be! You left me believing all this time that you were simply calculating their position!"

"What? No!" I couldn't contain my peal of laughter, "What kind of lunatic actually tries to calculate the pattern of two consecutive corrections of trajectory?"

"I did!" Tenten shouted, brandishing her wooden skewer in my direction, "I did that all the time!"

And as if to prove her words she threw the skewer, flooding it with chakra, quickly bending and picking up to pebbles that she threw at different speeds and angles with a furious, concentrated look. Her first unorthodox projectile bounced of the stone slab I had placed over the fire and impacted the bottom half of the skewer, making it tilt downwards just as the second pebble hit it squarely at the base, making it rocket into the ground, where it nailed one of the shuriken she threw before.

Kabuto let out a low whistle while Lee's eyes widened enormously. Neji maintained his impassive facade, but I knew that he was reluctantly impressed.

"Well, congratulations." I spoke seriously at Tenten, even if I already was grinning: "You had just proven that you're a lunatic."

"How dare you!"

I let my Sharingan flash briefly, spinning an innocuous Genjutsu in which she was chasing me around the field, while I returned to tend the meat, smiling at the outraged face of Kabuto and the twitching lips of Neji.

"Sasuke!" Lee exclaimed once he realized that Tenten was in an illusion, "What have you done?"

"Genjutsu." I smiled back, shrugging at his offended expression, "What? It's good training for her, and it's not harmful. Besides, if you really want to, you can break her out of it."

"How!"

"I'm sure that the Academy already went over this." Neji's flat tone masterfully hid the satisfaction he felt in being reminded that he was, in fact, extraordinary.

I lightly shook my head at Kabuto, who had been about to jump in to disrupt Tenten's chakra, and turned towards Lee: "A strong flick on the ear should be enough."

Lee's expression brightened as I gave him the information he needed to save Tenten, and he was immediately in hot pursuit of the girls that was flinging herself across the rather large courtyard.

I wasn't truly relaxed, I couldn't be, not when I was so aware of the many interests invested in me personally, both by those in command of Konoha and the S-rank missing-nin outside the village walls.

And yet, it was in moments like this that I felt somewhat human, somewhat normal. And I knew that on an incoming night I wouldn't be having nightmares about cleaning up the blood of more than a hundred people from the compound, the smell of bleach switched with the one of the BBQ, the sound of me scraping the wooden floors switched for the suppressed laughter of Neji and Lee and Tenten shouts that filled an otherwise empty park.

As I turned the pork chops on the slab of stone, I felt my lips tug upwards in a smile.

A week later, it happened.

A C-rank mission.

The first time I would set foot outside Konoha's gates.

Probably, also the first time I would be in a position to actually implement what I had been practicing for the past years.

When the Hokage handed us the mission, I could feel Neji's anticipation behind his stony facade, and Kabuto soft sigh of relief didn't go unnoticed. I was ... conflicted.

On one hand, I needed practical experience, I would never know if I was somewhat ready to fuck off to the ass-end of nowhere until I tested myself in an actually dangerous situation, and having Kakashi as a safety net was a good thing.

On the other hand, I would actually have to use violence in a non-friendly setting, and there was always the risk that Kabuto already set up something to rip out my fucking eyes.

Team 7 walked out of Konoha at 6:30 a.m., when the sun barely shone through the tall canopy of the surrounding trees and a chilly mist still rose from the grass. Given the overcast sky, the weather and the temperature made me want to go back to sleep, but the genuine excitement about being out from the village, coupled with the worry about an ambush out to steal my eyes or kidnap me, was enough to keep me on my toes.

Katon chakra circulated briefly through me, keeping me warm and ready to any sudden action even as we moved like ghosts among the branches.

"You've heard the mission parameters," Kakashi spoke flatly from the rear, his voice loud enough to be barely heard by Neji, who was leading our formation, "Within a week, we must complete a sweep of the 34th Green Road, seeking for the bandits that have been giving problems to the villages along the way."

I gulped quietly at the exact synthesis of our task. The fact that we were about to kill bandits had been only implied, as if not only it was obvious, but also the only option. And to be frank I was conflicted about it. I didn't care about them, not really, and criminals sort of deserved what was coming to them, I also knew that even in canon, Team 7 got to trounce mercenaries in their first infamous mission to Wave.

"They've cause enough problem that they probably have an academy dropout with them or two." Neji pointed out, "If they were only regular bandits they would have been stopped by now, if they had actual shinobi they would cause much more damage."

Killing was something I had accounted for, at some point it was unavoidable if I was willing to be anything but a fat civilian whose only purpose was to operate an economic empire and pump children into more or less willing women. I had no doubt that Konoha was more than willing to facilitate the resurgence of the Uchiha Clan.

Still, I had taken my decision: years before I had chosen that I wouldn't be a mindless puppet, and that meant that until I was at the top of the game, I would need to make my way over the corpses of those that naturally opposed me.

So I kept quiet and I followed Neji, only somewhat reassured by the fact that Kakashi wasn't allowed to let me die. I was rare merchandise after all, and a unique spring of wealth for the village, where I was allowed to reach adulthood.

For all the exasperation that defined whatever kind of relationship I had going on with Kakashi, I confirmed once more that his approach had been producing results. We ghosted through the trees at a regular pace for the better part of a day, drinking and eating along the way when we felt our bodies started to need it. Neji activated his eyes at regular intervals, while we all kept our chakra tightly circulating within our coils, using the bare minimum to move. Both to spare our reserves and to avoid being spotted by a possible sensor.

Under the direction chosen by Neji, Kakashi never needed to correct our route even as we crossed the completely wild sections of Hi no Kuni's typical forest, where the trees were many and imposing, and the underbrush completely absent due to the lack of sunlight that managed to reach the ground. The canopy was in fact so thick that we were in an eternal shadow, only occasionally broken by a beam of sunlight that took advantage of a branch broken by the occasional storm.

Instead of the quiet crashing of waves that one naturally associated with the seaside, our ears quickly grew used to the complete absence of any sound that could be reconciled to human presence. Even in the Training Grounds, one could make out some of the noises that came from the Village, the humongous amount of people made sure of it. We moved through a white noise made of the everpresent rustling of leaves, the occasional creaking of wood as the branches shifted in response to the breeze, the fluttering of wings of the birds that avoided the snakes capable of climbing the trees, the occasional boar or deer scratching their tusks or antlers against the tree trunks, and the countless streams that crossed the apparently infinite forest.

Oh, there were telling signs that allowed those adequately trained to find their way, some plants grew on their north side leaves that were marginally different from their other counterparts, some type of ivy grew only in the more dry areas of the forest, and in presence of deep wells of water it wasn't rare to find an immense oak that had completely killed any hope of life for the surrounding trees by virtue of a canopy so vast and thick that even grass had difficulty surviving under. Some animals didn't drink from certain creeks, and it was reasonable to assume that following those streams of water uphill would lead to a small, rural village that survived on lumbering and hunting.

Even so, with Neji's eyes checking our path, we didn't need to seek for those details, he could see them in an impressive range, and all at once.

Following protocol, Neji avoided areas close to any rural villages, it wouldn't do to risk the attention of a shinobi during his own mission. Instead, sometimes he diverted our course or stopped entirely, ensuring to avoid contact with other operatives on the field.

Each time shinobi met outside the safe confines of their home village, there was always the risk of conflict. Even fellow countrymen were suspicious of each other, because it would be relatively easy to take over a small team and pretend to be them in the vain hope of extracting information from unsuspecting ninja. Sure, there were code words and safety hand-signs that were changed routinely in order to ensure a safe way of recognizing each other, but any secret could be revealed with the right tools. After all, even ignoring Konoha's bloodlines, Suna's poisons could be tailored to have the victim fall into a state of euphoria that could be leveraged to make any victim spill their guts.

So we kept quiet, following Neji's hand signs as if they were commands issued by the gods themselves.

This is very different from Naruto's first C-rank. I thought somewhat bitterly as I jumped from a branch, taking notice of the lowering visibility that announced the sunset. I can't tell if it is only because of Kakashi's actual mentality, or if the mission has somewhat been tailored for the current Team 7. Kakashi hasn't said a word nor issued a command this far, it feels as if he was only an external observer.

-STOP- Neji suddenly signed maybe an hour after the sunset, -TARGET- his left hand went from a raised fist to forming a round O with his pointer and thumb, his other three fingers perfectly extended, -19- a single thumb up for the ten, then a quick shift between a fully open hand and only four extended fingers, -3 NINJA-

Kakashi appeared quietly on the branch next to ours, his own hand making signs even as he smiled indulgently under his mask, as if he was moking Neji for his seriousness in front of a task that was likely a joke for the jonin. -CONFIRM TARGET, CHAKRA POOLS?-

Neji seemed to spend a second focusing, likely concentrating his vision on the three active chakra systems that he had spotted, milking every ounce of the painstakingly boring hours he spent studying people with his bloodline in order to be a scout as effective as possible: -AVERAGE KONOHA CHUNIN-

The information was somewhat useless, as Kabuto had explained Tenten, every shinobi was unique, and that wasn't only a result of the way they were trained, each person leveraged his own skills in different measures, Kabuto had more chakra than both me and Neji, due to both his experience and age, but in a straight fight, we would overwhelm him, even if I suspected that it was so only because he had to keep up the appearances in order to spy.

Obviously, Naruto had an insane amount of chakra, but Kakashi could Chidori his ass pretty much until he became a Sage. The problem with shinobi, at least until someone was a certified survivor and generally dangerous to mess with, was that any meaningless trick could be the thing that killed you. A civilian crowd could kill a genin, hell, a normal couple of adults could have killed canon Sakura, a lucky genin could kill a chunin, a large enough group of chunin could coordinate to take out a jonin, even if only at a great cost of lives. The general vibe of the S-rank made me think that the monsters that ruled the Elemental Nations could only be slowed down by other shinobi, and that only another S-rank could actually kill them. Or the S-rank in question would willingly spend his life in completing an objective, like Tobirama Senju, the Nidaime Hokage, had done to ensure the survival of his team.

He had still wiped out the Kumo forces that were pursuing them. The Academy made sure that such examples of heroism were memorized by all students.

-PLAN?- Kakashi asked, his lone eye landing on me and making it my task to answer.

The optimal solution would be to wait and see if they had reinforced incoming, what were their rhythms, and learn their habits. The more time Neji had to observe the act, the more information I had to come up with a plan. Sadly, waiting also made the risk of us being spotted much greater, eventually costing us the surprise element, which was priceless in such a situation.

-CIRCLE AROUND- I answered while I thought quickly, -KEEP TARGET ON EDGE OF SIGHT- I pointed at Neji, confirming that he was the one still tasked with opening the way, -SEEK TARGET'S SUPPORT, QUIET AMBUSH- I turned towards Kabuto, who was busy cleaning the light sweat sheen that covered his forehead. The training pushed me to task him with the interrogation, and so did the knowledge that he was in fact a super-spy. Still, we were already going to kill them, there was no escaping that path, not with my current level of strength, not under Kakashi's stony gaze.

So I turned my head back towards our Jonin-sensei: -?- I asked for either suggestions or confirmation, and a quick nod of his head was enough to land a rock at the pit of my stomach.

I turned towards Neji, and gave the signal.

An instant later, we ghosted once more across the trees, my mind full with the looming task of casual murder and execution that I had trained myself extensively to accomplish.

AN:

Actual Training:

I didn't want to spend too much time talking about training, so a couple of random scenes with some implications will have to do, at least to portray the sheer variety of the thing.

I hope this makes sense. I mean, in canon the only things Kakashi teaches are teamwork through D-rank missions, which this team 7 already has. Basic chakra control, which this team already has in spades, and Raiton to Sasuke during the chunin exams.

It makes sense to me that he forces all three to sharpen their taijutsu, while starting to push them in the direction he foresaw they were most suited for.

Given the age of the MC, it makes sense that he focuses only on genjutsu, they're by far the least chakra intensive alternative between them and ninjutsu.

BBQ:

I've never dedicated this much time to character development, how did it go? I spruced it up by having Kabuto chat a bit about the principles behind the hellish training of Kakashi and showing a little of Tenten progress.

Did I manage to not make it boring?

C-rank:

The Hidden Village is an Economic Endeavor. This means that benching Kakashi to teach genin is acceptable only when the number of missions of the genin overweights on the long term the gain Konoha would have by throwing Kakashi at A and S-ranked missions.

That's to say that no matter how much Kakashi dislikes his team, and how much he's avoiding any kind of emotional connection with Neji, Kabuto and the MC, he still has to make them do actual missions at some point.

Namely a C-rank. I put it in here to have some action within this otherwise flat chapter, some momentum-building for the next chapter.

Still, in this chapter we saw some Genjutsu theory, some character interaction, and some explaining about the training that all genin undergo.

Opinions, hopes? Let me know!