Chapter 10: Passable Imitation Part 2

Let me take a moment here to explain a term, though some of you are likely already familiar with it. It started out as a term in the field of robotics, but it can be applied to any field where people attempt to create imitations of human beings. When people create such imitations, the response others have to these imitations comes in a spectrum, ranging from complete unfamiliarity, as the subject sees something that doesn't even resemble a human, all the way to one hundred percent familiarity, as the subject is unable to distinguish between the imitation and the genuine article. Between these points, there's a curve of increasing familiarity as the imitation becomes more human and lifelike and people respond more positively. However, there's a sudden dip at the point where the imitation is nearly human, but just different enough that the brain can immediately tell, even if the person can't explain why. When an imitation falls into this zone, the ambiguity creates a primordial distress response in the subject. They know something is wrong, but they don't know what or why and their brain freaks out trying to determine if what it's seeing is a threat or not. The term for this, coined by a Japanese roboticist, is Uncanny Valley.

Ordinarily, a well-made clone created by an expert would fall beyond that point and enter the realms of indistinguishable humanity. The subject wouldn't be able to tell the difference unless they happened to possess eyes that could pierce through the outer layer and see the underlying chakra network. Ordinarily.

However, when you were in my position where you knew clones were in play but had no way of knowing if the person you were dealing with was a clone or not, even the best-made clone, or even a real flesh and blood human being, suddenly fell into that valley of uncertainty.

Of course, whether it was a fake or the genuine article, I already knew that what I was dealing with fell into the "obvious threat" category. Being a fresh Genin and facing a Jōnin, there was no other way it could have gone. Didn't make it any less unnerving.

But that didn't mean I was ready to just lie down and give up. I still had one ace up my sleeve, one she'd hinted at earlier, one I'd been saving, carefully concealing (though not carefully enough as it turns out), since before I arrived in Kiri. A trump card I had yet to play.

Facing the second version of the female Jōnin, not bothering to determine if it was a clone or not, I started slowly weaving hand signs. When she saw what I was doing, she looked mildly amused.

"Oh? Still trying to fight back? How admirable." As she spoke, the water encasing me seemed to become thicker in response. More viscous, like I was swimming in jelly instead of water. My movements slowed even more, but I pressed on, weaving hand signs like my life depended on it, knowing full well she could guess what I was trying to do.

I exhaled the last of my breath into the water sphere. Then, the sphere froze. It plopped into the ankle-deep water below, no longer controllable by someone without my bloodline. Normally, this would be an awfully disadvantageous position for anyone to be in, trapped as I was in a ball of ice. But, of course, it was now laced with my chakra. It was an extension of myself. With a mere thought, the ice shattered, freeing me from my prison.

"Ugh. Pft. Gack," I sputtered, breathing heavily. I'd never attempted to freeze so much water at once, especially not under such dire circumstances as running out of oxygen. It wasn't an experience I was keen to repeat.

The female Jōnin clapped perfunctorily. "Good show, kid," she said. "And so, your hidden trump card comes into play at last. About time."

"What are you so chipper about?" I asked through pained breaths.

"Oh, well, it's a small thing, really." Despite the aching cold I could feel in my bones, something in the way she spoke made me sweat.

"And what's that?"

"Well, you see." She smiled sweetly, covering her left eye with her right hand, leaving only the tiniest crack between her fingers. "You're not the only person here with an unplayed trump card."

And just like that, my body seized up. It felt as though the very air had turned solid, though nothing changed about it as far as I could see. The grin on the female Jōnin's face turned downright sadistic, growing broader as she lapped up the fear and confusion that was obviously written on my face.

"You still haven't figured it out, have you?" she said, practically licking her lips with anticipation like a scavenger about to consume a particularly rotten bit of carrion. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised given your status as an outsider to this village. You didn't even recognize the clan crest on my back. Anyone else who saw it would have run without a second thought.

"Your own Yuki clan possesses a unique ninjutsu bloodline. My Asakura clan possesses a potent genjutsu bloodline. You can struggle all you like, but whatever specialized training you've received will brook you nothing here."

As she said, I couldn't move a single muscle. It was as if she'd injected me with a paralytic venom. I stood like a statue as she rounded me, eyeing me like a delectable piece of meat. She shook her head in exasperation.

"I can't believe the Mizukage had the nerve to waste my time with such trash. Me, teaching some brats who've had the privilege of coming of age in an era of peace, fragile as it may be. Can you imagine? Perish the thought."

I didn't even see her move; only the sudden explosion of pain in my gut gave any indication that anything had happened at all. That and the fact that I found myself lying flat on the ground. My muscles still paralyzed, she glared down at me. It didn't seem to me that her disdain for us was a show. She really didn't want to be here. She glared at the Kiri headband around my waist.

"Privileged trash like you doesn't deserve to wear that headband," she spat. "What the hell did my Genin squad die for? So brats like you could play at being shinobi? Fuck that. I'd sooner cut that headband off your rotting corpse than play pretend in the sandbox with a bunch of shitty kids."

If I could close my eyes, I would have. As much as I disliked the way she'd said it, she wasn't wrong. After all, wasn't that the reason I'd chosen this career path? So I could play at being a shinobi? She may have been a master of imitation, but it was I myself who was pretending here. Pretending to be a shinobi. Pretending to be a child. Pretending to be a boy named Hyōsuke Yuki.

But still, this was the life some unknowable cosmic force had made for me to live. If I didn't make something of the hand I'd been dealt, then I'd be the biggest fraud in the multiverse. I couldn't give up now. If I was going to play pretend, then I might as well embrace the role whole-heartedly.

And so, I fought. Despite her warnings that it was pointless, I struggled against her bindings. Even though I could hardly move my muscles, I felt my fingers twitch as I struggled to form a handsign. I felt chakra pour out of my core and through my network, flooding into my head as I attempted to release myself from her genjutsu.

She scowled. "Even now, you're still fighting. It would almost be admirable if it weren't so infuriating. Hmph." My side flared with pain as she kicked me in the ribs. "What the hell do you have to fight for? Huh?" Another painful kick. My chakra reached my head, attempting to undo the illusion, only to get scrambled again by whatever her technique was. Now, rather than being paralyzed, it felt like I was being pressed into by a thousand knives from every direction. The very world around seemed to melt and lose color. This was no playground genjutsu. This was the real deal.

My eyelids started to flutter involuntarily. Muscles throughout my body spasmed and contorted. I felt warm blood crawl down my skin from where the invisible knives pierced me. In the rare moments when I regained control of my eyes, I glanced at my arm and saw, to my horror, that I was actually bleeding. Or at least, it looked like I was. I had to remind myself that this wasn't real. That I was merely under an illusion. Otherwise, I might have panicked, thinking I was actually dying.

Whoever said genjutsu was useless in battle just because it lacked the flash and combat power of other fighting techniques had never met a member of the Asakura clan. Now that I had, I would as soon never meet one again. After all, if the pain felt real enough that the brain couldn't distinguish it as fake, the body would still go into shock, and shock could be lethal. She may not have actually been cutting me, but I was still very much in danger of being killed here. She wasn't playing around.

And neither was I. I struggled, despite everything, despite all the pain in the world. I struggled to bring my hands together and concentrate my chakra. Asakura-sensei only grew angrier.

"Just. Give. Up. Already." She punctuated each word with a vicious kick to my ribs. I coughed up blood that I'm pretty sure was real. "This will all end if you just say, 'I'm sorry, Asakura-sama! Please relieve me of my headband!'"

"As… if…" I choked. Finally, my hands came together, even as every cell of my body screamed in pain. Asakura-sensei just reacted in time as a jet of swamp water arced up at her, freezing at the last possible second. In that moment of lapsed concentration, I finally managed to break the genjutsu. It didn't come off easily. Unlike a normal genjutsu, hers was like a tick, refusing to be removed and forcing the host to harm themselves in the process of yanking it out with pliers. By the time I threw it off, I was drained, physically and emotionally, and my body was still wracked with phantom pain, to the point that I nearly lost consciousness.

The Asakura clan's genjutsu bloodline was terrifying.

"Hmph," Asakura-sensei spat. "Well, that wasn't the worst performance I've seen. You put some fully grown Konoha shinobi I've met to shame. But, don't congratulate yourself yet." She hovered over my brutalized form, scowling. She was holding the metal plate of my Kiri headband in one hand and a kunai in the other. "You still haven't won, as per the conditions I laid out at the start." She pointed the kunai at my headband, holding it hostage. "Well? Still got some fight left in you, even after all that?"

I grimaced as I watched, helpless. I was still on the ground. Despite the lack of genjutsu, I still couldn't move, let alone weave hand signs. What could I do? I was out of options. Holding my headband hostage was a formality. She'd defeated me soundly, and we both knew it.

I just had to hope the others were faring better.

~o~

Asuka couldn't remember ever having been more scared in her life. No matter how many water clones she and Hangetsu cut down, there were always more. For every one she killed, three more sprouted up to take its place. Not only that, but the longer she fought, the more she realized nothing made sense. Her entire sense of direction was fucked as east appeared to be west and she ran away over and over only to pass the same cypress tree she'd started at. What was more, her very sense of coordination seemed to be failing her. She'd never been drunk before, but she imagined this was what it felt like.

All in all, she was having a real bad time.

She was surrounded by four copies of the female Jōnin. She attempted to slug one in the gut, only to miss by a mile, throwing her off balance and straight into the knee of another clone. She coughed up a globule of blood. She didn't even have the energy in her anymore to cry.

The water at her feet swelled, and a face appeared in it. It bulged, becoming a wave that washed away the clones, sucking them up like nutrients. She smiled thankfully. If not for Hangetsu, she probably would have died ten times over by now. It seemed their Jōnin sensei, despite being frighteningly strong, had no effective counter for whatever bizarre technique Hangetsu was using.

But even then, she just kept making more clones. Even Hangetsu had his limits. When he reformed himself again, he looked as exhausted as she felt.

"Got anything else, Uzumaki-san?" he coughed, gripping his sword as a dozen water clones approached.

"If… if we could just…" Asuka wheezed. "If we could just find the real one… I might have a fix."

"Big 'if,' there. For all we know, the real one was never here at all."

"No," Asuka said, shaking her head. "She's gotta be here somewhere. Maybe up above. Nobody can remotely control this many clones. Not without losing something."

"Uzumaki-san, this is a Jōnin we're talking about," he groused. "Normal logic doesn't apply to Jōnin."

"I don't think so." Asuka didn't know where she was getting her confidence from, but somehow, she knew she was right. The real body was nearby, watching them, directing her clones in battle like Shōgi pieces. Asuka just had to figure out where the best vantage point to do so was.

Unfortunately, with her senses skewed as they were, that might be difficult. Hm… What if…?

She just went for it thoughtlessly. Reaching into her kunai pouch, she pulled out a single nondescript piece of paper. The only indication of its importance was the small circular seal inscribed on the top. While Hangetsu was busy swaying about and occasionally killing a water clone, Asuka pressed an index finger into the seal and flooded it with chakra. With a puff of smoke, some weapons emerged from the seal. Namely, three smoke bombs and five explosive tags. She slipped the tags into her pocket and gripped the smoke bombs in her off hand.

Without warning, she rushed headlong into the crowd of water clones. Some immediately lunged at her, raining down punches and kicks. She kept going. She put two smoke bombs in her other pocket and closed her eyes, covering her nose and mouth with her free hand and squeezing the remaining smoke bomb with the other.

It went off in her hand, and she tossed it in the air before it could burn her too badly. Smoke trickled out of the sky, covering the battlefield like mist, condensing in the ridiculously humid environment. Rather than dissipating, it simply lingered. Just as she'd hoped it would.

With the clones and Hangetsu disoriented, she emerged from the smoke cloud, only to be beset by fresh clones immediately. It was just as she suspected. Someone was definitely watching from above and directing the clones. She may have been a Jōnin, but she was still human.

Asuka dove under the clones' assault, not minding getting dirty in the swamp water. She only had to make sure her lower body didn't get submerged. After all, wet bombs were useless.

Looking around, she quickly identified a couple particularly high spots that could be used as vantage points. She pulled out a smoke bomb, setting it off the same as before. With the clones unable to find her, she launched her first volley of paper bombs, two, attached to kunai, at one of the spots she'd identified. Then, in rapid succession, she launched another volley at another spot. Then another. She pulled out the seal from before, taking out even more explosive tags. She was really glad she'd decided to stay up well into the night last night to make dozens of them. Sometimes, her condition really came in clutch.

She launched volley after volley of paper bombs into the canopy of the swamp, probably de-homing several families of birds in the process. And, at last, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the movement she'd been waiting for. The true body.

As the female Jōnin jumped from branch to branch, Asuka aimed her kunai just ahead of where she'd land, setting off the explosives just as her feet touched the trees. Eventually, the tree she landed on failed to withstand the impact of the explosion, tumbling down under her feet and dropping her into the swamp below. Asuka rushed at her while she recovered and threw the strongest punch she could.

The skin of Asuka's knuckles made contact with a cheekbone just as the older kunoichi's hand latched to Asuka's wrist like a vice. The female Jōnin's eye twitched. Asuka grinned brightly.

"Gotcha, sensei!" she declared.

The kunoichi snarled as she stood. "Yeah. I suppose you did. Good job." Asuka's smile vanished as she was lifted bodily off the ground, her arm still gripped in the kunoichi's hand. She just barely managed to tense her abs in time as the kunoichi delivered a savage punch to her gut.

Everything went black.

~o~

Asakura-sensei's eye twitched as she knelt, still holding my headband at kunai-point. She cursed violently under her breath, then threw the headband at me like a hot potato. She stood, kicking the root of a nearby tree.

"What?" I started.

Asakura-sensei's shoulders heaved as she covered her face. Was that… shame? Huh. Who knew she was capable of feeling such an emotion?

"Well, looks like you brats won."

"We did?" I probably should have felt elated, but I was in such a sorry state that it barely registered.

"Yeah…" she sighed. "Guess I'll have to… teach you after all. C'mon. Get up, kid." She grabbed my shirt and tossed me over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. I barely held onto my headband.

"You're really going to keep your promise?" I asked skeptically as she hopped from tree to tree in defiance of gravity.

"Yeah. Unfortunately." She spat out some choice curses as she leapt. "Something you'll need to learn about shinobi is that our promises need to mean something. They are the code by which we live. Promises to our clients. Promises to our comrades. Promises to our superiors. Promises to our clans. Promises to our villages. The shinobi world, more than any other currency, runs on promises. Without them, we would digress back to the dark days of the Warring States Era. Those are the only thing separating us from the animals.

"So, if you make a promise, whether you like it or not, you have to keep it." She cocked her head. "Well, exceptions can be made for known enemies. In warfare, anything goes."

"Hm." That… gave me a lot to think about.

Some time later, she landed in the field outside the swamp and dropped me on the ground like yesterday's garbage. She prowled ahead, hands on her hips. A few minutes later still, two more copies of her emerged from the swamp, each carrying an unconscious kid: Hangetsu and Asuka. They were both alive. Of course, that gave no indication of whether or not they were in good shape. They certainly didn't look it. As a matter of fact, they both looked like they were death rolled by a crocodile and only escaped by the slimmest of margins.

Despite everything, even though she'd admitted defeat, Asakura-sensei was the only one of us four who was completely unscathed. This was a Jōnin. She may have been a master faker, but she was still a master.

Two of the bodies popped into smoke. Not water clones, but shadow clones. Despite that, she didn't even look winded. It looked like the one carrying Asuka was the real one, since that was the only one that didn't disappear.

Of course, even that could have been a trick. I had no way of knowing.

She knelt next to the unconscious forms of the two kids and pressed one hand against the backs of each of their necks. Suddenly, their eyes fluttered open and they slowly sat up.

"Huh?" Asuka muttered. She looked at me, seeming confused for a moment. Then, she rushed to my side, hugging me. "Oh, Hyō-kun! You're okay?! What happened to you?!"

"Asakura-sensei happened, that's what," I croaked. I still didn't have the energy to sit up, so I wound up being cradled helplessly in Asuka's arms.

She felt so warm.

"That's her name? Ugh." Asuka rubbed her stomach. "Darn it. What happened? I feel like I got kicked by a mule."

Asakura-sensei watched us, visibly displeased to see us all still wearing (or holding) Kiri headbands. She cleared her throat, getting our attention. "Well, somehow or other, you all passed. But just so you know, that was just a warmup. Your hell has only just begun." And I will ensure you're all punished severely for making me do this. She didn't say that, but I could see it in her eyes. That really wasn't a show. She wasn't trying to rile us up against her so we'd try harder.

She genuinely fucking despised us.

As she turned to leave without another word, Asuka, ballsy girl that she was, dared to speak to her retreating back.

"Wait! You still haven't told us your full name."

Asakura-sensei glared daggers at Asuka. She scoffed. "Monika Asakura," she said simply, then vanished.

We all lay together in uncomfortable silence, all dreading whatever lay in store for us at the hands of our new Jōnin sensei.

Whatever else Monika-sensei was, she was no liar. She meant it when she said our hell had only begun.

-0-

AN: Monika Asakura is written "朝倉 模似可." Here's an AI generated image of her. Her hair isn't quite right, but it's the best I could do.

imgur: /a/vmgUGhM