[Ding!]
[Weekly Sign-in available!]
[Signing in…]
[Obtained: Space-Time Ninjutsu Affinity!]
Name: Mikoto Uchiha
Age: 13
Rank: Chunin
Affinity: Lightning Affinity, Fire Affinity, Yin Affinity, Water Affinity
Unique: Immense Chakra Reserves, Sharingan (Dormant), Advanced Growth Rate
Skills: Fire Style Mastery, Water Style Mastery, Clone Jutsu, Substitution Jutsu, Transformation Jutsu, Shurikenjutsu, Basic Taijutsu, Basic Genjutsu, Body Flicker, Perfect Chakra Control, Uchiha Style: Kenjutsu, Stealth, Survival Knowledge, Cooking, Medical Ninjutsu (Mystical Palm), Fūinjutsu Affinity, Pedagogy Mastery, Space-Time Ninjutsu Affinity
Equipment: Kunai, Shuriken, Smoke Bomb, Explosive Tags, Poison Gas Bomb, Flash Bomb, Gas/Sleep Bomb, Food Pills, Wire Strings, Shark Skin, Giant Folding Fan, Bingo Book, Training Weights
The days found a rhythm.
Wake before dawn. Weights on. Run the perimeter alone while the camp slept and the sky was still the color of a bruise. Transformed Shark Skin out in the clearing, forms in the grey light, the sword heavier with the weights pulling at her legs. Lightning training between sets, the Snake seal woven into her kenjutsu, the crackle of transformed chakra running through her arms growing sharper each morning. She was pushing into stage two now, generating it faster, in bursts rather than sustained holds. The transition from regular chakra to lightning-natured took two seconds. She wanted it under one.
Then the genin woke up and the second part of her day began.
By the end of the first week, Shikaku could walk to the top of the tree without falling. He stood on the highest branch with his hands in his pockets and looked down at the clearing like he wasn’t happy about it.
"Now walk down." Mikoto called up.
He walked down. His control wobbled twice but held.
"Now do it again but faster this time."
"What a drag." He said but did it anyway.
Inoichi reached the top on the same day.
Chōza made it on the third day of that week. His control was rougher, his chakra fluctuating with his breathing, but he got there through sheer stubbornness. When he reached the top branch, he looked down and his face went a little green.
"Mikoto-sensei. It's really high up here."
"Walk down. Same pace as climbing. Don't look at the ground, look at the bark in front of you if you need to."
He walked down. He only slipped once.
"Good. All three of you can walk on trees. Tomorrow we start on water."
Shikaku groaned from the base of the tree. "Water is going to be worse, isn't it?"
"Much worse."
…
[Ding!]
[Weekly Sign-in available!]
[Signing in…]
[Obtained: Hero Water x10!]
The special Hero Water from Takigakure was useless for her considering her chakra reserves. But it might not be useless for those around her… A Nara or Akimichi with tenfold chakra reserves would be very scary. But the lifespan cost is horrifying…
Their next D-rank was cooking.
Mikoto led her genin into the mess tent before the morning rush and introduced them to the cook, a heavyset man named Goro who had been feeding the camp since before the war started.
"They sent you four to help me?" Goro questioned.
He looked at the three genin like they were baggage. "Can any of you even cook?"
"I can!" Chōza said immediately.
"I can follow instructions!" Inoichi offered.
“I never cooked a day in my life.” Shikaku honestly shared.
"I'll handle the main dishes." Mikoto said. "My team will prep ingredients and serve."
Goro looked skeptical. He handed her an apron.
Mikoto cooked.
She started with the rice, because rice was the foundation and if the rice was wrong everything built on top of it was wrong. She washed it three times, measured the water by feel, and had it on the fire before Goro finished tying his own apron. Then she moved to the fish. The dried strips the camp received were salty and tough, but she soaked them in water she'd seasoned with herbs she'd found growing at the edge of the clearing, and when she grilled them over the cook fire the smell changed from "edible" to something that made Chōza stop mid-prep and stare.
"Mikoto-sensei. What in the world did you do to that fish?"
"Soaked it. The herbs cut the salt and the heat brings out the oil."
She made miso soup from scratch with ingredients that had no business becoming soup that tasted this good. She seasoned the rice with a pinch of something she pulled from her vest pocket. She grilled vegetables she'd scavenged from the supply tent and arranged them on the serving trays with the kind of care that said she actually thought about how food looked on a plate.
Goro watched her work. His skepticism died somewhere around the miso soup.
"Where did you learn to cook like that?" he asked.
"I like cooking."
"I’d like cooking too if I had that kind of talent. Probably would’ve become a cooking-nin and everything!" He shook his head with a laugh.
She smiled and stirred the soup.
The morning rush came. Shinobi filed through the mess tent, took their trays, and sat down. The first bite rippled through the room like a wave. Heads turned. People looked at their food, then at each other, then at the girl behind the serving counter who was ladling soup with a gentle smile.
"Who cooked today?" someone called.
"Mikoto-chan." Goro answered. He was eating a bowl himself, which everyone but Mikoto’s team knew that he never did.
The line got longer. People came back for seconds. A chunin she didn't know told her the rice was the best thing he'd eaten since leaving Konoha. A genin with a bandaged arm said the miso tasted like his mother's. Three separate people asked if she could cook tomorrow too.
Shikaku served rice beside her.
"You're really good at this." he said.
"I like helping people."
"I think this is going further than just helping people…” Shikaku rubbed the back of his head slightly distressed. “Why are some people crying?"
Inoichi was handling the serving line happily. He remembered names after hearing them once and handed plates over with a youthful boyish warmth that made tired shinobi smile without knowing why.
Chōza was in the back with Goro, and from the sounds of their conversation, they had bonded over a shared philosophy that food was the most important thing in the world and anyone who disagreed was wrong.
After the rush ended and the tent emptied, Goro pulled Mikoto aside.
"Come back anytime, kid." Goro told her. “I think the others in camp would prefer you over me at this point anyway.” He laughed loudly.
"Thank you, Goro-san."
"The fish thing with the herbs. Show me that again before you leave."
She showed him and added a bit more. He wrote down the recipes and making process on the back of a supply requisition form.
…
Water walking was, as Shikaku had predicted, worse.
The stream south of camp was shallow enough to be safe and deep enough that falling in meant getting soaked up to the chest. Mikoto demonstrated by walking across it like it was a road, the surface rippling under her feet but holding her weight.
"The principle is the same as tree walking, but water moves. The surface is never the same twice. You have to emit a constant flow of chakra from your soles and adjust it in real time to match the water's movement." She said from the middle of the stream.
Shikaku stepped onto the water. He lasted two seconds before sinking to his thighs.
"This is gonna take some getting used to…" he groaned, standing waist-deep with his hands still in his pockets and water dripping from his chin.
Inoichi lasted four seconds. Chōza lasted one.
They practiced every morning. By the end of the second week, Shikaku could stand on the water's surface for thirty seconds if he stayed still. Inoichi could walk three steps. Chōza could stand for ten seconds, which he celebrated by punching the air and immediately falling in.
…
Genjutsu recognition was becoming instinct.
Mikoto placed them under increasingly complex illusions during their afternoon sessions. She shifted shadows, altered sounds, changed the color of the sky by a shade. She made Shikaku hear footsteps that weren't there. She made Inoichi smell smoke. She made Chōza feel a breeze from the wrong direction.
Their response times dropped. Shikaku caught most genjutsu within a second. Inoichi was just as fast, sometimes faster. Chōza was down to four seconds, which was still the slowest but a world away from where he started.
"Inoichi, your perception is the sharpest of the three. Trust it. If something feels wrong, it is wrong. Don't wait for confirmation."
"Shikaku, you're catching it fast but you're wasting time analyzing which sense is affected before breaking it. It doesn't matter which sense is affected. Just break it."
"Chōza, you're getting better. The gap is closing. Keep at it."
…
Their third D-rank was the armory.
Twelve hours of sorting kunai, shuriken, explosive tags, wire, and smoke bombs into labeled crates. The work was tedious and the armory was hot and the dust made Inoichi sneeze every ten minutes.
Shikaku organized the inventory system in the first hour. He stood in front of the shelves, looked at the existing layout, and spent thirty minutes redesigning it so that the most-used items were at eye level and the least-used were on the bottom shelves. When Mikoto questioned him about it, he simply said it was less troublesome this way. The armory officer watched him do it without comment.
Chōza handled the heavy crates. He moved them without complaint, stacking and restacking as Inoichi directed.
Inoichi counted the inventory. Every kunai, every shuriken, every coil of wire. His numbers matched the requisition forms down to the last item.
They finished three hours ahead of schedule. The armory officer looked at the reorganized shelves, checked Inoichi's count, and nodded once with gratitude.
“Fast and efficient work, kids. Nice job.”
…
Mikoto began their nature transformation work at the start of the third week.
She sat them in the clearing with leaves in their hands, the same exercise Tetsu had taught her.
"Shikaku, Chōza. You both have earth and fire affinities. Earth crumbles. When you channel your chakra into the leaf, focus on making it break apart. Imagine the leaf is dirt and your chakra is pressing it from all sides."
"And fire?" Chōza asked.
"We'll start with earth first. One element at a time."
"Inoichi. Water soaks. Your chakra needs to become moisture. Think about water finding the lowest point. Your chakra should feel like it's seeping into the leaf, filling it."
They channeled. Nothing happened. Mikoto expected that.
"It took me days to get my first result. Don't rush it. Just hold the image and keep channeling."
She sat with them and practiced her own lightning transformation on a separate leaf. Lightning sparked all over the leaves was instant now, the transformation happening the moment her chakra touched the paper. She was working on generating it without the Snake seal, just raw transformation through willpower. It was harder than anything she'd done with fire or water. Lightning wanted the seal. It was stubborn.
She kept at it.
By the end of the third week, Shikaku's leaf had a hairline crack running through it. He'd stared at it for a full minute before showing anyone.
"Is that enough?" he asked.
"That's a start. Keep going."
…
[Ding!]
[Weekly Sign-in available!]
[Signing in…]
[Obtained: Fūma Shuriken x100!]
Their fourth D-rank was courier duty.
They split up. Each took a different set of dispatches to different positions within the camp's communication network. Small outposts, relay points, sentry positions along the perimeter.
Shikaku took the longest route, the one that looped around the northern ridge and hit three outposts. He found a shortcut through a drainage gully that cut twenty minutes off the return trip. When he reported back, he drew the shortcut on the camp map without being asked.
Inoichi took the route to the eastern sentry posts. The shinobi he delivered to were tired and bored and some of them were irritable. He sensed each one within seconds with his chakra and adjusted. For the tired ones he was brief and polite. For the bored ones he lingered and made small talk that left them in a better mood than he'd found them. For the irritable one, he delivered the message, bowed, and left without pushing his luck.
Chōza took the supply depot route. The shortest one, but the one with the heaviest terrain. He came back with mud on his knees and a grin on his face. The depot officer had given him a rice ball for being "the most cheerful courier they'd had in weeks."
They regrouped at the mess tent for lunch. Chōza was eating his rice ball. Inoichi was recounting a conversation he'd had with a sentry about how long it took for him to stop doing D-rank missions. Shikaku was dozing off, still tired from the mission.
A table over, a group of chunin were talking. Loud enough to hear.
"...the one with the sword, yeah. They say she slaughtered dozens of them at that outpost. By herself."
"I heard it was thirty. Ame and Iwa both."
"And she's what, fourteen?"
"Thirteen."
"No way. That little girl who cooks in the mess tent sometimes? The one who heals people?"
"Same one."
"That's insane. She made my breakfast last week. Best rice I've had in months."
"Apparently she's killed more people than most jonin."
Shikaku's chopsticks paused. He looked at Inoichi. Inoichi looked at Chōza. Chōza looked at the table where the chunin were talking, then back at his teammates.
"They're talking about Mikoto-sensei." Chōza whispered.
"I know." Shikaku whispered back.
"Slaughtered dozens?"
All three of them looked across the mess tent to where Mikoto was sitting by herself near the back wall, eating a bowl of rice with a peaceful expression on her face. She noticed them looking and waved.
They waved back.
"No way." Chōza shook his head.
"They’re exaggerating." Inoichi couldn’t believe it.
"Gotta be." Shikaku nodded.
…
Their sparring sessions had changed.
Three weeks ago, Mikoto had dismantled them in seconds while training her lightning affinity with a leaf in her hand. Now, the three of them could keep her occupied for a full minute before she put them down. That didn't sound like much but it was very much something.
Inoichi's taijutsu had gone from the worst of the three to functional. He could block, he could evade, he could actively fight and put down a target with taijutsu. The same for Shikaku.
Chōza was the most visibly changed. His stamina had doubled. His staffwork relied on more than just power. He could take a hit from Mikoto that would have floored him three weeks ago and keep coming. The clan’s techniques came faster and better while his willingness to throw himself into a fight hadn't dimmed at all.
Together, they were growing steadily and healthily.
…
Mikoto was healing Chōza's shoulder after a particularly rough sparring session when the runner appeared.
"Mikoto-san!" The same messenger from last time, waving from the treeline. "Command tent!"
She finished the healing, patted Chōza's shoulder, and stood.
"Mission time?" Inoichi asked.
"Let's find out."
They walked to the command tent together. Three weeks of D-ranks, morning training, afternoon practice, evening meals. They'd carried boxes, cooked food, sorted weapons, and run messages. They'd walked on trees, started walking on water, learned to recognize genjutsu, and begun their first steps into nature transformation.
Shikaku, Inoichi, and Choza felt that they were ready for more.
Camp Commander Takeda was waiting behind his desk. He looked at Team Mikoto and something in his expression was different from the last few times.
"C-rank." he said.
The genin straightened.
"A merchant named Harada is transporting a wagon of trade goods from a town thirty kilometers south of here to a market town fifty kilometers east. The route passes through forested lowlands where bandit activity has been reported. Refugees and supply disruptions from the war have driven people to desperation. Some of them have turned to raiding merchant wagons."
He tapped the map on his desk. "They’ve been getting bolder and Harada has been hit before. He's requested an escort."
"How many bandits?" Mikoto asked.
"Reports vary. Could be a handful. Could be a dozen. They operate in loose groups and tend to flee when they meet real resistance."
"The route?"
"Through Fire Country's southeastern border region. Secured territory. No enemy shinobi activity reported in the area. The only threat is the bandits."
He looked at the genin. Then at Mikoto.
"This is your first C-rank. I’m expecting good results from you four."
"Yes, sir. We’ll do our best.” Mikoto spoke up.
"Harada is waiting at the south gate with his wagon. He's paid for four days of escort, departure to delivery. You leave within the hour."
"Understood."
They filed out. The morning was bright. The rain had stopped for once and the sky was pale blue at the edges.
Chōza looked at Inoichi. Inoichi looked at Shikaku. Shikaku looked at Mikoto.
"About time…" Shikaku said.
"About time?! What’s wrong with D-rank missions?!" Mikoto asked, feeling a little bit hurt.
"We’re not babies, sensei. We don’t need to be coddled so hard." Inoichi agreed.
"You’re way too nice to us, Mikoto-sensei. I think we were ready for a C-rank mission two weeks ago.” Choza rubbed the back of his head.
Mikoto looked at her three genin. Three weeks of training, four D-rank missions, tree walking and water walking and leaves changing under their fingers. Three eleven-year-olds who were stronger than they'd been when they walked through the gate carrying nothing but clean clothes and full stomachs.
“There’s nothing wrong with safe D-rank missions…” Mikoto pouted. "Fine, go pack your gear," she ordered. "One hour. Don't forget your canteens." She’ll make them regret looking down on D-rank missions. She’ll give them so many C-rank missions they’ll be begging to go back to D-rank missions.
They split to pack.