Another Boring Uchiha Power Fantasy.

The field report sat on Commander Hayama Shirakumo’s desk between a cold cup of tea and a stack of casualty lists that grew thicker every week.

He read it twice to make sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him. He set it down and looked at the messenger who had delivered it.

”Sozen wrote this?”

”Dictated it from the medical tent. He can’t hold a brush yet.”

Hayama picked the report back up. The handwriting belonged to whoever had taken dictation, neat and small, but the voice was unmistakably Sozen’s.

Position held. Relay tower intact. Communication scrolls secured. Enemy losses estimated at thirty to fifty across the engagement. Konoha losses: four KIA, eleven survivors, seven combat-effective at end of engagement.

Engagement duration: approximately ten hours.

Primary factor in successful defense: Uchiha Mikoto, genin, attached as field medic. Subject performed emergency medical treatment on several wounded during the first phase of the assault, returning multiple to combat status. When the tower perimeter was breached and most senior personnel were incapacitated or engaged, subject transitioned to direct combat and held the eastern approach for the duration of the night engagement.

Subject demonstrated proficiency in Water Style, Fire Style, kenjutsu, genjutsu, and the Mystical Palm Jutsu. Subject utilized Body Flicker repeatedly across the engagement to reinforce collapsing positions and intercept flanking maneuvers. Subject’s weapon, an oversized blade of unusual construction, appeared to poison enemy combatants on contact, severely weakening targets and enabling allied follow-up kills.

Subject’s actions directly prevented the loss of the relay position and the deaths of all wounded personnel in the tower. Without subject’s intervention, the position would have fallen within the first hour of the breach.

Recommendation: immediate field promotion to chunin. This assessment is shared by all surviving combat personnel.

Hayama set the report down again.

”The weapon,” he said. ”What do we know about it?”

”Nothing beyond what’s in the report. The survivors describe it as an oversized cleaver wrapped in bandages. Multiple accounts confirm the poison.”

”And her background?”

”Uchiha clan. Graduated the Academy at twelve. First deployment to the northern Rain front three weeks ago. Initial assignment was to a patrol squad that was wiped out. She was the sole combat-effective survivor. Reassigned to a hunter element, then to a forward camp where she was taught in medical ninjutsu under a field medic named Ren. Reassigned again as a medic attachment to a patrol squad, ambushed by six Ame shinobi, killed four of the six. Then this.”

”Three weeks.”

”Yes, sir.”

Hayama leaned back in his chair. He’d been running the northern sector for eight months. He’d promoted chunin before. He’d promoted jonin before. The criteria didn’t change just because the candidate happened to be young. Either they demonstrated the judgment, the composure, and the ability to lead under pressure, or they didn’t.

This one did. The report was clear. Sozen didn’t exaggerate.

He pulled a blank promotion form from the drawer, filled in the name, the date, and the authorization code, and signed it.

”Get this processed. And get her reassigned to a command role. If she can hold a relay point with fifteen people against a combined Ame-Iwa push, she can lead a squad.”

”Yes, sir.”

The jonin took the form and left. Hayama picked up his tea. It was cold. He drank it anyway.

Three weeks. Genin to chunin in three weeks.

He’d seen faster during the First War. But not by much.

Mikoto trained in the mornings.

The clearing south of camp was worn now, the grass trampled flat, the tree trunks scarred with deep gouges from Shark Skin.. She moved through the forms in the grey pre-dawn light, the sword a thing of weight and motion, each swing pulling from the hips and the shoulders and the core.

She was faster than she had been before the holdout. The repeated Body Flicker usage had torn her muscles and Shark Skin had rebuilt them, and the rebuilt muscle was stronger. Her body adapted to what it survived.

She added the lightning training between sets. The leaf wrinkled in three seconds now. She could hold the transformation for five minutes without losing coherence. The next step was generating it faster, in combat conditions, while moving. She practiced weaving the Snake seal into her kenjutsu forms, channeling lightning chakra through her arm mid-swing to see how it felt. The tingling ran from her shoulder to her fingertips and her sword briefly sparked with lightning, piercing through a tree.

Mikoto thought about the ones she couldn’t have saved and she trained harder.

Three hundred kilometers north, in a rain-soaked command tent straddling the border between Ame’s territory and the northern front, two men sat across a folding table covered in maps and casualty reports. 

The first was an Ame jonin named Kirisame. He had a scar that split his left eyebrow in two. His rebreather hung loose around his neck. He’d been running missions in this area for three months, and every week the reports on his table got worse.

The second was an Iwa chunin named Goseki, broad-shouldered and heavy-jawed, with the reddish-brown skin common to Earth Country shinobi. He had been sent as a liaison between the two forces, a role neither side had wanted to create and neither side could afford not to. The temporary alliance between Ame and Iwa was held together by a single shared truth: Konoha had started this war, and Konoha was winning it, and if they didn’t bleed the Leaf together they’d bleed alone.

That didn’t make them friends. Goseki hated the rain. Kirisame hated the mountain dust Goseki tracked into every tent he entered. They tolerated each other because the alternative was losing.

”The relay outpost didn’t fall.” Goseki said.

”I’m aware.”

”We sent six squads. Rotated them in fresh. Forty-plus fighters against that paltry few. The position should have fallen in the first wave.”

”It should have.” Kirisame unrolled a scroll on the table. Intelligence reports, compiled from the survivors who’d staggered back over the last two days. Not many of those. ”The position was collapsing. The trenches were rubble by midnight. Their commander went down in the second hour. By every measure, we had them.”

”And then we didn’t.”

”And then we didn’t.” Kirisame smoothed the scroll flat with his palm. ”One combatant.”

Goseki leaned forward. ”The Uchiha.”

”Uchiha Mikoto. Female. Young. She was their field medic for the first half of the engagement. Spent hours inside the relay tower healing wounded. Our reports say she put several bodies back on the line who should have been out of the fight. Their commander took a direct water jutsu to the chest and she pulled him back from the edge.” He tapped the scroll. ”When the tower perimeter was breached, she came out.”

”And?”

”And she killed approximately thirty to fifty of our shinobi over the course of a single night.”

The tent was quiet for a moment. Rain drummed on the canvas.

”Thirty…” Goseki said.

”The number varies depending on who you ask. The survivors are not in agreement on exact counts. What they are in agreement on is what she did.” Kirisame pulled a second scroll from beneath the first. This one was shorter, a hastily compiled list of observations. ”She carries an oversized blade. Looks like a cleaver, wrapped in bandages. The blade appears to be coated in some kind of poison. Every fighter who took a hit from it reported immediate and severe loss of physical capability. Weakness in the limbs. Some of them collapsed after a single strike.”

”A poisoned blade isn’t unusual.”

”A poisoned blade that reduces a chunin to a helpless state in one swing is very unusual.” Kirisame set down the scroll. ”She also demonstrated Water Style. A Water Dragon Jutsu that our survivors described as massive, larger than what you’d expect from a chunin, let alone someone her age. She used it to destroy the entire Iwa wedge formation on the eastern approach.”

Goseki’s jaw tightened. Those had been his men.

”Fire Style as well,” Kirisame continued. ”A Great Fireball that engulfed three ninjas. Genjutsu.” He paused. ”And Body Flicker. Used constantly. She was everywhere on that ridge, appearing and disappearing faster than our people could track. By the end of the night they were shouting warnings to each other.”

”I heard.” Goseki folded his thick arms across his chest. ”My men came back talking about a girl with a sword who moved like a ghost. Some of them didn’t want to go back out.”

”That’s the other problem. She’s not just a threat on the field. She’s a threat to morale. When one combatant holds a position that forty fighters couldn’t take, word spreads. Our shinobi are going to start hesitating when they hear an Uchiha is on the other side of the line.”

Goseki was quiet for a while. He stared at the map on the table, at the marker where the relay outpost sat. Still in Konoha’s hands. Because of one girl.

”She’s Uchiha,” he said. ”What about the Sharingan?”

Kirisame shook his head. ”No reports of it. No red eyes. No copying of techniques. None of the signs. Every account describes her fighting with her own jutsu, her own skill, her own speed. If she had the Sharingan, our people would have noticed.”

”She did all of that…” Goseki realized, ”without the Sharingan.”

”Yes. Her genjutsu appears to be cast through hand signs. One-handed, during combat, while wielding that sword. When the Sharingan wakes up, she won’t need the signs anymore.”

Goseki exhaled through his nose. He unfolded his arms and placed both palms flat on the table.

”She goes in the book.”

”She’s already being written up for ours. I want her in yours as well. If she shows up on the Earth Country front, your people need to know what they’re walking into.”

”Agreed. And the standing order?”

Kirisame considered it. ”Do not engage alone. Minimum squad strength of four. If possible, disengage and report her position. She’s a priority target.”

”Threat classification?”

”B-rank. Minimum.” Kirisame rolled the scroll closed. ”And I suspect that won’t hold for long.”

Goseki looked at the map one more time. The relay outpost. The river crossing it overlooked. The supply lines it protected. All still in Konoha’s hands because one Uchiha girl, who hadn’t even awakened her clan’s greatest weapon.

”This alliance exists because Konoha is too strong for either of us alone,” Goseki said. ”If they’re producing fighters like this during a war they started, we need to end this before she gets any stronger.”

”On that,” Kirisame said, ”we agree.”

He poured two cups of cold tea from the pot on the table. Goseki took one. They drank in silence while the rain hammered the tent and the war went on around them.

In the mess tent at the forward camp, a chunin named Doi was telling the story for the third time that day.

”I’m telling you, I was there. I saw it.” He held his rice bowl in one hand and gestured with his chopsticks in the other. ”The wall comes down, right? Big hole, stone everywhere. And these Iwa bastards are fifty meters out in a wedge, coming straight for us. The tower’s full of wounded. Sozen’s flat on his back. We’re done. It’s all over.”

The four shinobi at his table were leaning in. One of them, a genin with a bandage across her nose, hadn’t touched her food.

”And then this girl walks out of the hole.”

”The Uchiha.”

”Uchiha Mikoto. Thirteen years old, blood on her hands, and a sword on her back that looks like someone made a cleaver for the animals in the Forest of Death. She plants her feet and does the longest seal sequence I’ve ever seen, and this water dragon comes out of her mouth. The thing was huge. It hit six Iwa nin and scattered them like leaves.”

”Six?”

”Six. Then she Body Flickers into the mess and starts hacking away. The sword is coated in poison I think. One swipe and the guy she cut can barely stand. Two swipes and he’s down. She killed five of them in maybe six seconds.”

”Come on.”

”Ask Sozen. Ask anyone who was there. She held that ridge for the whole night. Body Flicker, Body Flicker, Body Flicker, appearing out of nowhere, killing someone, disappearing. The Rain and Stone nin were screaming warnings to each other by the end. ’Don’t engage the Uchiha alone. Don’t let her get close.’”

The genin with the bandaged nose finally spoke. ”I heard she’s a medical nin too.”

”That’s the insane part. Before the wall came down, she was inside the tower healing people. Half the people who went back to the line were only alive because she put them back together.” Doi set down his chopsticks. ”She healed us first. Then she fought for us. And she’s a genin. Or she was.”

”Was?”

”Promotion came through this morning. Chunin.”

The table was quiet for a moment.

”I want her leading my squad…” the bandaged genin said.

”Get in line, brat.” An older ninja said which caused everyone to laugh.

Mikoto was mid-swing when Tsuga appeared at the treeline with Hai at her side. She stopped training with Shark Skin and turned.

”Heard the news.” Tsuga said. She was grinning. All teeth. ”Chunin. Took you long enough.”

”I don’t think I really deserve something like this...” Mikoto thought. It hasn’t been that long since she left the Academy.

”Three weeks is still too long I’d say.” She walked closer. Hai padded ahead and pressed his nose into Mikoto’s palm. She scratched behind his ear. ”Tetsu sends his regards. He’s being transferred to a sensor unit on the eastern front. His bugs are wasted in a trench.”

”I hope he’ll be safe.”

”He’ll do Tetsu there, which is the same thing.” Tsuga leaned against a tree. ”I’m heading back south with Hai. They’re folding what’s left of our squad into a tracking unit. Border patrols. Almost boring.”

”You’ll miss the excitement, huh?” Mikoto smiled.

”I’ll miss you, brat.” She said it simply. Hai’s tail wagged against Mikoto’s leg. ”You kept us alive. All of us. I won’t ever forget that.”

”I know you would’ve done the same for me.” Mikoto looked at her.

”Of course. Konoha should protect its own.” She pushed off the tree. She looked at Mikoto for a moment, then stepped forward and pulled her into a hug that was brief and strong and smelled like dog and rain.

She let go. She turned. Hai lingered for one more second, his yellow eyes on Mikoto’s face, and then he followed Tsuga into the trees.

Mikoto watched them go.

She went back to training.

…

The summons came that following afternoon.

Mikoto stood in the command tent with her new chunin vest over her shoulders and Shark Skin on her back. It still felt strange, the vest. Heavier than it actually was. She had more pockets now.

The chunin behind the desk handed her a folded assignment sheet.

”You’re being given a genin squad. Three of them. Fresh from the Academy, deployed to the front as of last week. They’ve been assigned to this camp pending a squad leader.”

Mikoto looked at the paper. Three names. Three ages. Eleven, Eleven, and Eleven.

”Are you sure I’m ready to lead a squad already?” Mikoto was bewildered. Leading a squad already?!

The chunin looked at her. He didn’t respond to her question.

”They’ll be here within the hour. Get yourself sorted and meet them at the north gate.” He paused. ”You’re their squad leader now. Their lives are your responsibility. Whatever you did at that outpost and your previous missions, do it for them.”

”I’ll do my best, sir.” Mikoto inwardly sighed.

She left the command tent. She walked to the barracks. She sat on her cot and looked at the three names on the paper.

Children. Academy graduates. All eleven, thrown at a war that had been grinding for over a year now.

She was thirteen. She had killed more people than she could count. She had healed more than she had killed. She had lost people she should’ve been able to save. And now, she had to be responsible for the lives of three other kids just like herself.

She folded the paper and tucked it into her vest.

One hour.

Come on Mikoto! You can do this! Obviously your superiors think you can do it! You can do it! Mikoto hyped herself up with a smack on her cheeks.

She went to the north gate to wait.