As expected, I found Kakashi standing by the Memorial Stone, unmoving.
"Sensei." He glanced at me as I approached, his eye briefly flickering over the lilies I was carrying.
"Sasuke. Are those for anyone in particular?"
"No. I heard you spend a lot of time here and thought I'd pay my respects while I looked for you." I laid the flowers at the foot of the stone and stood in silence for few minutes reading the names. I soon spotted the ones Kakashi would be here to mourn: Uchiha Obito, Nohara Rin, Uzumaki Kushina, and Namikaze Minato. It occurred to me that Naruto had probably never read the stone, or he would have asked the Hokage about Kushina. She was, after all, the last Uzumaki listed. "Hokage-sama dropped by my house yesterday," I finally said. "We had an interesting conversation." Kakashi shifted just slightly.
"I'm sorry, but I didn't-"
"It's alright, don't worry about it," I interrupted, waving off his apology, and proceeded to explain what we had decided. "So, can you get the others together? I'd go myself, but I don't actually know where Sakura lives."
I watched from up in a nearby tree as Naruto and Sakura arrived in the same clearing where we began the bell test. Kakashi was actually there first for once.
"Sensei, what's this about? I thought we weren't doing any missions until the day after tomorrow?" Sakura asked.
"Your teammate has something important to talk about." I chose that moment to appear amongst them with my new Leaf-Style Shunshin, arriving in a swirling cloud of leaves.
"Showoff," I heard Naruto mutter.
"You'd totally do the same thing if you knew the Shunshin no Jutsu," I pointed out in retort. The leaves cleared, and both Naruto and Sakura were left pointing at me, eyes wide in shock.
"Why does Sasuke-kun look like a girl!?"
"And a pretty girl, prettier than Haku, even!"
"Prettier than Haku? You really think so?" I asked, surprised. If I remembered correctly, Naruto thought Haku was prettier than Sakura, so by extension, I was now prettier than Sakura. "I didn't really change my face all that much. Is it the eyelashes? The hair?" Kakashi coughed. "Right, getting off-topic. Naruto, Sakura, there's something you need to know…"
I explained to them what was going on with me, why I looked like this, and the conversation I'd had with the Hokage the day before. It went fairly well.
"Huh. Well, I don't really get it, but okay," Naruto said simply. I hadn't expected him to understand, but I also figured he wouldn't really care.
"Wait, so what are we supposed to call you now?" Sakura asked. "I mean, Sasuke's a guy's name, so…"
"My name," I announced, "from this moment on, will be Uchiha Makoto."
Meeting complete, Naruto and Sakura left. Naruto would probably be training, and Sakura… Well, I actually had no idea what she did in her free time. Speaking of training, I was about to head back to the compound and see if I could figure out the water walking technique when Kakashi called out to me.
"Wait a moment, Sas- I mean, Makoto."
"Sensei?"
"You're staying here. I was planning on finding you today anyway. You need training with the Sharingan."
"Okay, but how do we do that? Most of its abilities are just a matter of instinct, right? Copying jutsu, predicting people's movements, seeing through genjutsu – those just come naturally, don't they?"
"For the most part, yes, though you will improve at all of them with experience. The part that needs active training is the Sharingan's other ability: genjutsu. That's what I wanted to work on." I nodded in understanding, interested. From what I'd seen, most people seemed to dismiss genjutsu in favour of ninjutsu or taijutsu – techniques that could cause actual, physical damage. Genjutsu tended to go underused and underappreciated, which wasn't really justified considering the crazy shit that could be done with it. I doubted I'd ever be as good as Itachi, but with proper training, the Sharingan's genjutsu powers could allow me to take down enemies I'd never be able to beat normally. It might even allow me to avoid getting cursed by Orochimaru during the chuunin exams. I activated my Sharingan, and the world around me sharpened into fine detail, as if I had switched a TV from standard to high definition.
"Hm, that's interesting," Kakashi mused. "When did your eyes fully mature?"
"Fully mature?" I pulled out a kunai and looked at my reflection in the metal, finding that my Sharingan had, at some point, reached the three tomoe stage. Huh, when did that happen? I thought back to the last time I'd used it, on the bridge, and remembered. When the battle was over and I properly took in the scale of what I'd done, the sheer amount of death I'd personally dealt, it had seemed to me that everything had become clearer, more vivid. At the time I had thought it to be adrenaline, or some kind of psychological effect, but in reality it must have been my Sharingan reaching the next level due to the emotional stress. I put away my knife and explained as much to Kakashi, who nodded.
"That sounds about right. Well, that's good, it means you'll have an easier time using your powers, and your genjutsu will be more potent."
"So how are we going to do this?"
"Simple," he said with an eye smile. "We're going to sit here, and you're going to cast genjutsu on me. We'll start small and work our way up to more complex illusions. Sound good?"
"Sounds good."
"Great!" He sat down. "Then let's get started."
Over the next several hours, Kakashi and I simply sat and worked on my genjutsu. I started with small, simple illusions that only affected one of his senses, making him see or hear or feel things that weren't really there. By the time the sun was setting, I had him experiencing a battle with Zabuza entirely in his mind.
"That was very good," he told me after breaking the last illusion just as the fake Zabuza's blade was about to strike his neck. "You're getting better at ironing out the flaws. I think, at your current level, you could probably produce a detailed illusion realistic enough to fool most chuunin."
"Just chuunin, huh? How would I make it better?"
"Experience. Right now, you're trying to provide too many details yourself, which taxes your concentration and leads to more noticeable flaws. You need to hold back a little, provide the outline of the experience and let your enemy's mind fill in the details that they expect themselves."
"But wouldn't that give me less control over what they're seeing?"
"That's right. It's about balance – finding the sweet spot where you provide just enough to control what they're seeing, but not so much that it undermines the realism of the jutsu. Part of that comes from understanding your opponent – knowing what they expect to see, and working with that to manipulate them."
"Like during the bell test?"
"Right. Back then, you knew I would expect Sakura to run around like an idiot looking for you, and you knew I wouldn't expect strong genjutsu from a genin. Because of that, I didn't even question what you showed me, and walked right into your trap. It's all about managing the enemy's expectations."
"So I should keep my genjutsu abilities secret then?" I suggested. "If no one knows I have it, they won't be on guard against it."
"Ideally, yes," he agreed. "But as an Uchiha, that might be difficult. Anyone who knows about the Sharingan will likely be wary of its genjutsu prowess. Of course, if you exaggerate your ability with genjutsu, you might be able to get the enemy to question the reality of everything they're experiencing, making them hesitate and damaging their morale."
"And then I could win without even having to fight."
"Right. But these are all things you have to learn through experience, they can't really be taught." He stood up and stretched. "Well, that's about enough for today. Tomorrow we can work on something else."
"Actually," I objected, "I think you should spend tomorrow training Sakura."
"Hm? What makes you say that?"
"Right now, she's easily the weakest member of the team. She has absolutely no techniques beyond the academy basics, and no drive to improve on her own. Naruto and I are both motivated to train, and both have techniques we can work on by ourselves, but Sakura needs to be pushed if she's going to learn anything new."
"I see your point. Alright, I'll see about training Sakura. What are you going to work on?"
"I think I'll practice those water jutsu I copied during the last mission, and see if I can figure out water walking as well."
"Water walking? I'd be very impressed if you managed that on your own. Tell you what, if you can pull it off, I'll teach you a jutsu I invented myself. One that no one else can use." I suspected he meant the Chidori, which really caught my interest. Learning it early would allow me to use it in the Forest of Death, giving me a potential trump card against Orochimaru. It would also free up some time in the month leading up to the finals, which I could use to learn something else.
"Alright, I'll take that deal. How long do I have?"
"Hmm… It took you six days of training to master the tree climbing exercise, so I'll give you that long for this. If you can walk on water in six days, with no outside help, I'll teach you my special jutsu."
"Done. I guess I'll see you the day after tomorrow for our next mission, then."
Water walking proved to be more difficult than I had anticipated. I spent the entirety of the next day falling into the lake behind the Uchiha compound. Thankfully I'd had the foresight to train naked and bring a towel, so I wasn't stuck in soaking wet clothes all day, but it still sucked big time. Even though I understood the theory behind the technique – constantly shifting my chakra output to match the motion of the water – actually managing it in practice was extremely hard. It required immense concentration. By the end of it all, I felt like I was no closer to success than when I'd started.
When we met up for our first mission since our return from the Land of Waves, Sakura practically looked dead on her feet.
"Woah, Sakura-chan, what happened? You look exhausted!" Naruto asked.
"Kakashi-sensei's training," she muttered, and glared at me. "This is all your fault, Makoto-san." Huh. It seemed her little obsession had been broken, she'd never blamed anything on me before. Apparently all it took was… Not being a boy. Yeah, I could see how it never happened in canon.
"Come on, it couldn't have been that bad. I spent all day yesterday falling in a lake trying to learn water walking."
"Endurance training. He had me throwing out jutsu constantly until I almost collapsed from chakra exhaustion so I could try to increase my reserves. I could barely move when I went to bed last night." Ouch. It would seem Kakashi's training was more brutal than I thought. It would be good for her in the long run though.
"Good morning! How are my cute little genin today?"
"You're late!" This time, Naruto was the only one to react to Kakashi's untimely arrival. Sakura must really have been exhausted if she couldn't even muster the energy for that.
"Sorry, I ran across an old lady who needed help with her groceries. So, shall we acquire our mission?"
Our mission was to repaint the shinobi academy. The entire inside of the building, in one day, without using any ninjutsu. Needless to say, it was painful. Especially since Sakura was too worn out from her training the previous day to contribute fully, leaving Naruto and I to do the bulk of the work. But, with great effort and much complaining, we somehow managed to get it done before sundown.
"That would have been so much easier with Shadow Clones," Naruto complained as we left the Hokage's Tower with our pay.
Wait, clones? I froze, then broke into a smile. I had just realised that there was a way to dramatically cut the amount of time I would need to master water walking. "I'll see you guys tomorrow, I've got to get back to training." With a swirl of leaves, I Body Flickered away back towards the compound. As soon as I was done with dinner, I'd be back out at the lake.
Once more, I stood naked at the lakeside, but this time, instead of trying to step out onto the water immediately, I brought my hands into the tiger seal.
"Mizu Bunshin no Jutsu." From the water, five clones emerged and stepped ashore. I grinned. If it had taken six days to master tree-climbing, then it would have only taken one day for six of me to master it. Normally, training with clones would be out of the question for me – I could only produce one or maybe two Shadow Clones without fainting from chakra exhaustion, and Water Clones drew their chakra directly from me, so training jutsu with them would be no more efficient than doing it myself since I'd run out after the same number of jutsu. But walking on water used very little chakra, so even with five clones draining my reserves, I would still have enough time to gain valuable experience from it. "Alright ladies!" I addressed my duplicates. "We're going to master this technique and learn Kakashi's Chidori!"
"Yeah!" they cheered in unison. We stepped out onto the lake…
And immediately all fell in. I dissipated the clones to absorb their experience, clambered back ashore, and made five more to try again. With every repeat of the cycle, I would gain six times the experience I would have otherwise.
By the end of the second day, I could stand on water for a few seconds before falling in, though my feet would be semi-submerged.
On the third day, our mission thankfully didn't take us until dinner time to complete, so I had more time to train. By sundown that day, I could stand on the water indefinitely as long as I focused.
The fourth day was another reasonable mission, and when this day ended, I could walk on water unconsciously, while maintaining my Henge, and even fight on it at the same time. In just four days, I had fully mastered water walking, all thanks to the power of clone memory transfer.
"You look happy, Makoto-chan!" Naruto commented when I showed up for our mission the next day. "What happened?"
"I mastered water walking!" I announced with a big grin.
"Wow, you can walk on water? That's so cool, dattebayo! You've gotta teach me!"
"How did you manage that?" Sakura enquired. "Water walking's a chuunin-level technique that takes weeks to master!"
"Water Clones!" They both looked at me blankly, so I explained. "When solid clone techniques disperse, everything they learned is transferred to the user. So by making five clones, there were six of me all practicing the technique at once. After every attempt, I dispersed the clones to learn everything they did, then made five more and tried again."
"Wait, so you're saying that if I make a bunch of Shadow Clones, I can learn things faster?"
"Right. And you could do it much faster than me, since you can make hundreds of clones at once."
"Not quite, Makoto." This time, no one reacted to Kakashi's tardiness, since they were both paying more attention to our discussion.
"What do you mean, Sensei?"
"There's a limit to the number of clones that can be useful for training," Kakashi informed us. "If you have hundreds of clones trying to learn the same technique, lots of them will be trying the same thing, gaining the same experiences, and therefore not contributing anything unique. The more you make, the less efficient it becomes. About twenty or so clones is where you hit peak efficiency, after that you start to get diminishing returns. On top of that, the mental stress of having large volumes of information forced into your mind at once can cause headaches, nausea, unconsciousness, or even put you into a coma in extreme cases. Because of this, large-scale clone training isn't just inefficient, it can be dangerous too."
"Huh. Well, it's not like I can make that many safely anyway, but I guess that's good for Naruto to know."
"Yeah! If Makoto-chan could do it in five days with five clones, then I can do it much faster with twenty, dattebayo!"
"But Makoto," Kakashi continued, "I must admit, I'm surprised. I had expected you to fail and come to me for help, but not only did you manage to master water walking, you figured out how to use clones to increase your training efficiency. I'm impressed. I wasn't sure you were ready, but as promised, I'll teach you my special jutsu: the Chidori. Once we're done with today's mission, that is."
The mission was to harvest fruit and vegetables, and by a stroke of misfortune, my role was to pick fucking tomatoes. When I had first arrived in this world, Sasuke's pantry had been full of the damn things, so I was quite sick of them by now after having cooked endless tomato-based dishes for the first week I was here. Needless to say, my teammates did not understand my irrational ire towards the red fruit. But all was worth it when we received our pay and followed Kakashi to our usual training ground.
"Okay, before we begin, I need to know your chakra nature," our sensei told me, holding out a piece of paper. "Depending on what it is, this could either be very easy or extremely hard. Just channel your chakra into this paper and we'll find out what it is."
"Couldn't I just copy it with the Sharingan?"
"You could, but this jutsu is special to me. I want to pass it on the right way."
"Alright." I took the paper and pushed some chakra into it, causing it to both wrinkle and smoulder.
"Ah, fire and lightning natures! Good, lightning is exactly what you need."
"Wow, that was cool! Can we try, Sensei?" Naruto asked eagerly. Kakashi agreed and handed out paper to my teammates. Naruto's ripped in half, as expected, while Sakura's turned damp, soaked with water.
"Looks like Naruto is wind natured, and Sakura is water natured. Interesting, I'll have to think of good ways to train you both."
"What's your nature, Sensei?" Sakura asked.
"I'm lightning, just like Makoto. That's how I developed this jutsu. Now, Makoto, watch closely." He stepped back. "The hand seals for this jutsu are monkey, dragon, rat, bird, ox, snake, dog, tiger, and monkey." He ran through the seals slowly to give me a good look, then grabbed his wrist and held it as his hand began to spark, lightning arcing and leaping off it. "You need to cloak the chakra around your hand like a glove. Since you're lightning natured, you don't need to put in any extra effort to change your chakra nature for this jutsu." He cancelled the jutsu, letting the lightning fade. "Your turn now." I nodded and ran through the necessary seals as fast as I could without making a mistake, and held my wrist just as he had. My chakra, shaped by my will and aided by the hand seals, was drawn to my hand, and began to spark briefly. "You're on the way, that's a good start. Keep trying."
It took me seven tries to achieve the characteristic chirping lightning of the chidori, at which point Kakashi pointed at one of the stumps nearby. "Hit that stump with it!" I nodded and dashed off toward the stump, surprising myself with the speed at which I moved. I could barely see, my vision was entirely focused on the target. When the attack struck, a hole the size of a human head was blasted into the stump.
"Holy shit," I mumbled, looking down at my tingling hand. I had known intellectually about its effects, but to actually experience it firsthand was something else entirely.
"Excellent work, Makoto! It's still a little weak and unstable, but with practice it'll become much stronger. Now, is there anything you noticed about this technique?"
"I couldn't see properly when I was using it. It forced me to move so fast that it messed with my vision."
"That's right. The Chidori uses lightning chakra to briefly enhance your movement speed to the point of causing tunnel vision and leaving you open to a counter attack. As such, you must never use this technique without the Sharingan active." He turned to the others. "Because of this, I can't teach either of you this technique, it's too dangerous. When I first invented it, my own sensei forbade me from using it. He only allowed it after I received my Sharingan." He turned back to me. "Anything else, Makoto?"
"It used up an enormous amount of chakra. I doubt I could use this more than twice before needing to rest."
"Correct. Even I can only use it four times a day. With age and training, your chakra pool will expand and you'll be able to use it more often, but for now, twice a day is your limit." I nodded and bowed.
"Thank you, sensei. I'll do my best to honour this technique."
"I know you will," he said proudly. "Now, why don't we go get something to eat, my treat?"