Disclaimer: I own nothing but my original characters and works; all other characters and worlds belong to their respective owners. I'm just playing with them.
Betad by Priapus, Beans, Mike God of Lore
Guild of Gamers: The Challenger
Chapter 06: Uchiha
– Kyo Senju –
"Where did you get a Uchiha? The Hokage specifically told me that I wasn't allowed to target anyone from a clan, and the Uchiha clan is a pretty fucking big one," I say, half exasperated and half worried that the ANBU are going to descend on my house for sheltering the criminal who desecrated the Uchiha family graveyard.
As I stare down at the body of one Mikoto Uchiha, I have to wonder what could have possibly possessed her to do this.
"Relax, you big baby. I suggested testing with a corpse, and this was the one the Hokage provided. I'm pretty sure the whole clan thing was about… You know, real clans and not clans of one depressed emo girl," Anko waves off uncaringly. "It's better to find out if this works and get something out of it, right?"
Looking at Mikoto's body, I mentally sigh. She's been dead for years, obviously, but I guess her grave was under some impressive seals because she doesn't really look like she's decayed at all. I suppose all Uchiha had to be, given the value of the Sharingan. A part of me wonders why we didn't loot the corpses and spread Sharingan throughout the village since it wasn't like the rest were using them, but I guess politics played a part. Funnily enough, it probably would have happened if all the Uchiha died, but one survived, and that was enough to make the idea less acceptable, I guess.
"Who even is this woman?" I ask.
"Mikoto Uchiha, former Jounin and the mother of Sasuki and Itachi," Anko admits with an almost lazy shrug.
"Again, you realise I need to actually be able to beat them, right? A Jounin with the Sharingan is going to beat my ass," I point out with a sigh.
"Nah, when I said former, I meant it. She retired after popping out Itachi, so her skills would have rusted over the years of playing house. And the Sharingan ain't that big a deal if you know how to deal with it, at least not in the hands of someone who isn't a monster like Itachi," Anko reassures me. "So, you can challenge her, then?"
"Yeah, I can," I admit. "And yeah, it says I'll get the Sharingan. Her difficulty is classed as hard, instead of the very hard you are."
"And here I thought you were the one who was very hard around me," Anko snorts, getting a tired sigh from me as I move on.
"There's two tiers, and the second has her as a summon, like Ty and Mai," I explain, frowning slightly.
"What is it, brat?" Anko asks, seeing my momentary pause. I wait for a moment before sighing again and making up my mind.
"It's my summoning. I know why Ty Lee and Mai are so relaxed about being literal slaves. My power makes them love me more than literally anything else in their lives," I explain quietly. Ty Lee said she was taking Mai shopping to get some new outfits if she's going to be teaching, but it's not something I want to broadcast.
"Figured it'd be something like that," Anko says, getting me to blink. "Don't look so surprised, Kyo. You're cute, but not that cute and those two are clearly infatuated with you after you literally killed and enslaved them. Getting cold feet because your power is scary~?"
"It's not like that, I just don't know how it'll work with someone from our world. What if I'd managed to bullshit a win against you and you'd ended up enthralled?" I point out.
"Eh. I knew the risks when I told you to fight me. Playing with unknown powers always comes with potential fuckery. Look, as your sensei? My advice, use your power for all its worth. This world ain't a nice place, Kyo, and when, not if, your power becomes known, you're gonna have a target the size of Konoha painted on your back," Anko says in a rare moment of seriousness. "I mean it. Even just the baby shit you've shown so far would be worth pissing off Konoha for. The other villages would do a lot to see you enslaved, and that's not mentioning the many, many asshole criminals out there who'd do worse for a hint of your power. Shit, even inside the village there's gonna be ambitious assholes sniffing around you, they'll just have to play nicer unless they want the old man to beat their asses for messing with his new golden boy. You're worried it'll make Mikoto into your loyal sex toy? I hope it does, cause that'll be another body you can throw between you and anything that comes for you. Another person you can genuinely trust because they won't be able to betray you. Use her as a bodyguard, as another mentor, or just pump a bunch of Senju babies into that Uchiha womb and repopulate both clans."
"You're a special kind of sensei, huh?" I ask with a small smile, getting a laugh from her.
"You know what the Hokage is gonna think when he learns about the little enthrallment shit? Assuming he doesn't already know, since a Yamanaka went through Ty Lee's head? He's gonna be wondering how useful this will be for turning our enemies into loyal agents of Konoha. If you can mindwhammy anyone into a loyal minion, fucking great," Anko points out, leaning against the table with a look on her face that might be reassuring if you squint. "We're ninjas, brat. 'Dishonourable' is just a word that the losers cry about to explain why they lost."
"Thanks, Anko-sensei," I say, actually meaning it. She frowns, shuddering before shaking her head.
"That's fucking weird. This shit is more Kurenai's style than mine, but at least I just have one brat to babysit instead of three. So, wanna learn how to kill a Uchiha?" Anko asks with a grin.
"You might just be the best sensei, Anko. And I'm not just saying that because you blew me," I praise, dodging the shuriken she lazily tosses at me. "It did help, though."
"Little shit," Anko snorts, clipping me over the head as she walks past me and toward the Senju training grounds.
– Later –
Anko truly is the sensei for me. That isn't to say I don't greatly appreciate all that Kurenai did for me, but Anko just gets me.
Her advice on how to beat a Uchiha? Fucking cheat like your life depends on it. In her words, the Sharingan is the ultimate cheat bullshit, and the only way to beat it is to cheat harder.
Standing in what I believe is the Uchiha compound, I face my opponent as Mikoto gives me a dangerous look. She's dressed like a housewife, not a ninja, but she doesn't hesitate as she tosses a handful of kunai at me on sight. My hand snaps out as I use my Kyoshi war fan to deflect the three daggers, frowning as I see her eyes already blazing red with two tomoe in the iris. Instantly, I snap my eyes away from them as making eye contact with a Uchiha is just asking to be mind-whammied. I'm good at detecting genjutsu thanks to training with Kurenai, but that doesn't mean I should invite trouble.
Anko got me Mikoto's service record, and while she was a talented jounin, she was also out of service for years before Itachi went rogue and killed her. Still, she is proficient in taijutsu and fire release jutsu, which is unsurprising given her clan.
By the time I've finished my fan flourish, she's already flying through a set of hand signs as she brings her hands to her mouth and unleashes a ball of fire in my direction. My first instinct is to use my waterbending to block it, but instead, I retort with an earth release jutsu, raising a wall of earth in front of me. Her attack is more powerful, but earth is a good counter for fire, even as my wall is blasted into pieces, the heat palpable even from a distance.
My hand snaps out, firing my stilettos toward her location through the cloud of dust and dirt, but as it clears, it's obvious that she didn't just stand around and wait. The biggest issue with fighting a Uchiha is the fact that they can read your every move, gaining an almost precognitive understanding of what you are going to do before you do it, as she leaps into the air toward me. I go to fire again, but she isn't stupid, and a wind jutsu knocks my stilettos out of the air as she spins toward me.
Ty Lee's agility is all that saves me as her hands lash out with lethal intent, housewife my ass. Even though I'm using a taijutsu style she can't have ever possibly seen before, it doesn't really help as my attempts at disrupting her chi are met with failure, her body twisting out of the way to avoid my strikes before she counters with a blow to my elbow, snapping it with a single strike.
This is a jounin, retired or not. I am well aware that I am laughably outmatched against her in a fair fight. Her hand strikes my jaw, dislocating and potentially shattering it as my body cries out in pain. Her foot lands on my knee, breaking it with ease as she steals one of my kunai from my belt and stabs it into my stomach multiple times. Again, this isn't a fight I can win fairly.
Which is why Anko's advice was to not fight fairly at all. The Uchiha can't see the future, after all. They just read your body language to predict your next move. So, if I make the fatal move when she couldn't see it, then she can't know it's coming until-
Her, my, kunai stabs into my heart with lethal precision, but for all her skill, she realises her mistake a moment too late as it strikes the explosive tag under my uniform. One of several dozen that Anko stuck all over my body in spots that would be a lethal blow.
Mikoto's eyes widen in realisation, but Anko does good work, and as I blow up, again, she's far too slow to escape the blast radius.
Yup, this was Anko's advice. 'Kill yourself.' Thanks, Anko Sensei. Really feeling the love.
Challenge Succeeded!
Rewards: [Chakra Control - Chunin], [Fire Release - Jounin], [Taijutsu - Jounin], Sharingan.
"Ow."
"Is that a triumphant ow or a 'I blew myself up for nothing' ow?" Anko asks, kicking her legs as she lounges on my couch. "Never mind, the red eyes give it away."
"It was a triumphant ow," I confirm, slumping into my seat with a groan as I look around with blazing red eyes. "I got her talent with Fire Release, Taijutsu and her Sharingan. Man, the other clans are gonna want me super dead, huh?" I ask, rubbing my eyes. It's… weird to see the world through these new eyes, but not bad at all. With my new eyes, I can see chakra even if it's nowhere near as good at it as the Byakugan. It's going to take time to get used to it all, because I have no idea what the colours mean at the moment.
Anko, being Anko, responds to my awe by throwing a kunai at me, but her muscles give the game away, the micromovements she makes exposing her intentions as I move my head to the side and lash out my hand, catching it with a smug smile.
A smile that fades as the tag on the handle lights up and the lightning chakra within shocks me. It isn't enough to do any real damage, but it does make me yelp and drop the kunai as Anko grins.
"Not bad. How much did she see?" Anko asks, and I shake my head.
"Basically fuck all. I used one Earth Release jutsu, then she beat me to death and stabbed me in the heart," I admit, getting a grin from her. See, if the tiers let my opponent remember whatever I did, then I need to show as little as possible in the earlier tiers, right? Saving as much as I can for the next round will just simplify things for multi-tier challenges.
Anko makes me show her my new skill with Taijutsu, but my fighting style hasn't changed much from Ty Lee's Chi-blocking style. I'm faster, my reflexes are better, and with the Sharingan active, I can do a lot more, but it's only improved my existing skill and given me some new moves and techniques rather than reworked my entire style. I can also copy jutsu, I see now, and Anko showed me some cool Earth and Water release jutsu to aid me with my next round.
I do now know the Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique, which is the big ass fireball Mikoto threw at me. Apparently it's something of a signature attack of theirs. With my new Sharingan, Anko demonstrates further techniques of how to fight Uchiha by using me as the test dummy and beating my ass in a few different and exciting ways, getting me to heal myself once she's finished beating me like a drum. It's good training in more ways than one, but damn does it hurt. She pointed out that my training is baby mode compared to what Orochimaru put her through and told me that if I don't bitch, she'll kiss it all better later.
As I said, Anko sensei really is the mentor for me. A blessing from the Lord Hokage. I landed one serious hit on her, slicing an artery with a kunai, and after healing her, it got her so worked up she rode me right there in the sparring ground.
Then she set her snakes on me.
As we end our session, I focus on the corpse one more time, kneeling in preparation for the backlash that comes with losing, just in case. Challenging her again, I pause as I find myself in a forest this time.
Mikoto is opposite me, again, but this time she's not wearing a nice civilian dress but a jounin uniform and flak jacket, her headband in place. She looks younger, and it takes me a moment to realise that she probably fought in the Third Shinobi World War, and that this Mikoto is the one who fought and killed for her village rather than a stay-at-home mom who stepped away from the violence to raise a family.
Both of our eyes burn red, meeting each others' gaze unflinchingly as we both try to put the other under a genjutsu, while also running through hand signs. I start with her own move, firing a giant fireball at her but she retorts by breathing fire into the air as it takes on the form of a dragon and rushes toward me. I didn't know that one, but now I do.
She dodges into the trees as I jump back and use a water wall jutsu that Anko showed me to block the dragon. It doesn't really work, in truth, but it doesn't need to fully stop it, just slow it down and more importantly… make water, as my jutsu splashes to the ground and makes multiple puddles.
Once more, my fan blocks a string of kunai, but she's clearly adapting, the kunai explode and send me back. Hitting the ground, I roll before I recover and use the momentum to get back into position. She's trying to keep her distance this time, using the trees as cover as she fires down at me with kunai, shuriken and fire jutsu. She's good, she's damn good, using wind release to make her shuriken and kunai move at unusual angles, or to enhance her fire release.
But I'm not going to get taken down from a distance as I use water and earth to block her long-distance attacks, leading to something of a stalemate. She's fast enough that I can't catch up to her, and she doesn't want to risk another close range fight, but I'm good enough to hold her off when she's a taijutsu specialist. She used to fight at close range, which is why Anko designed the first-tier strategy to punish her for it and to make her more wary of using her favoured fighting style in the second tier.
But caution doesn't win fights, and a war-hardened Mikoto isn't going to play at range forever, especially when it becomes clear that I've prepared to handle her at a distance. Anko showed me a bunch of defensive jutsu. She really knows a surprising amount, but it turns out having Orochimaru as a sensei helped, since he was obsessed with learning every jutsu he could, and passed that down to her.
Using a wave of shuriken, which she duplicates with the Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique, she forces me to defend myself against a wall of shuriken as she also uses it to close the distance because I'm too busy blocking the many, many sharp objects to target her. Once more, she tries to beat my ass, but this time I'm more prepared as we both have the cheat-sheet, which is the fucking Sharingan, and her own taijutsu skills betray her.
I know what she's going to do, I know the techniques she's trying to use, and that puts us on much more even ground. Our hands fly, dodging and striking as we go from ranged jutsu to hand-to-hand. She's still brutal, and I won't lie and say she doesn't land some good blows, but it is nowhere near as one-sided a beating as I land a finger strike on her left shoulder, grinning as her arm goes limp. It isn't enough to put her down, but with her left flank open, it makes it easier for me to start to turn the tide, pushing her further back until I pull out my next trick. As she prepares to strike me with a devastating kick, I dodge under it and close my eyes as a bright flash catches her off guard, temporarily blinding her. Behind me, a tendril of water holds a flash tag I dropped earlier.
Much like how people from Avatar don't expect ninja bullshit, ninjas don't expect bending bullshit. Controlling a single tendril, mid-fight, was not easy, but Anko was happy to make me practice while she tried to beat my ass. I didn't need perfect control, just enough to activate the tag and some positioning.
If Uchiha predict everything they see, why not just make sure they can't see at all?
She tries to move back during her temporary blindness, but I'm not done yet as I close the distance and land multiple strikes to her weak points, my hands a blur as I dance around her. As my fist makes contact with her knee, I fire my stiletto at the same time and watch as the bolt pierces her flesh and bone, causing her to let out a cry of pain. Sure, they're ranged weapons but they're on my wrists, so they're generally going to be where I'm punching, right? Mai didn't fight like that because she didn't want to kill people, but I'm not so nice.
You know what else Anko taught me? How deadly some snake venom can be.
I dodge back, barely avoiding a kunai slicing my throat open as Mikoto pants, but with a bolt through the knee and venom coursing through her veins, this can only end one way. Now, I'm the one who pulls away from her desperate attacks, sending a wave of water toward her which she has to dodge backwards from, putting distance between us. Oh, and the seven flash tags inside the water go off because fuck your eyes. While she's blinded, I go back to what I do best.
Running away from my problems, as I head back underground with Hiding Like a Mole, tossing a couple of smoke bombs to cover my retreat. Anko promised me a fast acting poison, and as I hide deep under ground, I smile.
Challenge Succeeded!
Rewards: [Mikoto Uchiha - Jounin] Summon.
"Have I mentioned how cool you are, Anko Sensei?" I ask as I rise, facing the smug woman. "And can I please have more snake venom? Pretty please?"
"I'll think about it," Anko snorts, giving me a look. "It worked, then?"
Instead of answering, I focus for a moment as I call on my latest summon. Anko goes quiet as we watch Mikoto, in her Jounin uniform, appear between us and the body just… vanishes into nothing, leaving no trace behind. She looks younger than when she died, I'd say mid twenties at the eldest. Mikoto looks between us before her eyes land on me, and she drops to one knee, head down as if awaiting orders.
"Lord Senju, I am at your command," Mikoto says instantly, her tone professional and her posture as if she were before the Hokage, awaiting her mission.
I share a look with Anko, who shrugs with a general look of 'fuck if I know' in response to my questioning look.
"Rise," I order, watching her do so as I reach through the bond and find the exact same thing I found in Ty Lee and Mai. Adoration. She loves me and sees me as her lord and master.
"Shit, she really is alive," Anko says, poking Mikoto's cheek, which gets a frown from the woman. "What's the last thing you remember?"
Mikoto looks to me, but as I nod, she answers instantly.
"Itachi slaying me," Mikoto admits, her hand coming to her chest where Itachi stabbed her through the heart.
"And what are your priorities now that you're back amongst the living, Mikoto?" I ask, seeing the confusion on her face.
"My priorities are whatever you want them to be, of course. I would like to see my daughter, if you would permit it, but I am here to serve," Mikoto answers without hesitation, and I sense her sincerity. Anko lets out a quiet laugh of disbelief, her mind clearly racing.
"What if your lord and master wants to fuck that tight Uchiha pussy?" Anko asks crudely.
"If that is what he wishes of me, he is welcome to my body," Mikoto answers, giving Anko a clipped look. As it stands, she literally sees me as the equivalent of a Kage, a supreme being that must be obeyed. Maybe it's because she's a ninja, unlike Mai and Ty Lee, who are basically teenage girls, just with some extra talents.
Still, I would… could I alter the bond and how she sees me now that I know it exists?