Her body had long stopped aching. Sarada was fully ready for new training, but her uncle was away on missions all day and only came home late at night. She was starting to understand little Sasuke's feelings a bit. When you have someone like Itachi as an amazing role model, you feel your own weakness and strive to get stronger, but get ignored every time—it's frustrating.
"You're never home, Uncle," Sarada complained one day. "And you promised to train me."
Itachi winced.
"Sarada, you and Sasuke have something in common."
"Guess why," she frowned.
"I have an idea," Itachi winced again. "And don't call me uncle. Mom and Dad won't understand if they hear."
"Fine, Itachi...-san."
"You've figured out your weaknesses. You don't have to train with me."
"But with who, Uncle? I don't know anyone here except you, Shisui-san, and Sasuke."
"Don't call me 'uncle'," Itachi repeated patiently.
There was irritation in his voice.
"Hai-hai."
"There are plenty of genin your level in the village. Find someone and train."
He said it like it was final.
But one day Itachi came back while it was still light, and luck finally smiled on Sarada. After his usual forehead flick to Sasuke, her uncle chose to spend time with her. However, they didn't go to the training ground. Itachi had dinner and called Sarada to the veranda.
Under the veranda was a man-made pond with spotted carp, and behind the pond rose a plastered wall with the clan crest on each section.
"We're training in the garden?"
"Yes."
Uncle activated his Sharingan. A chill ran across her skin. After that encounter in the Uchiha gatehouse, Itachi with an active Sharingan filled Sarada with awe and anxious thoughts: "Does he not trust me anymore? Will he kill me? What did I do wrong?"
"I want to teach you how to use dojutsu."
Sarada held her breath.
"It was surprisingly easy to trap you in genjutsu. You have no idea how to use Sharingan."
She felt a pang of shame.
"And that's Sasuke's fault," uncle said. "He should have taught you. What do you know about genjutsu?"
"The basics," Sarada muttered confusedly. "It's chakra control in the opponent's brain, replacing their sensations with false ones."
"Yes. Genjutsu is a complex field, not accessible to everyone. Many underestimate illusion techniques, but they can be very useful, especially when you don't need to kill or maim the opponent. Using genjutsu requires three very important qualities. What do you think they are?"
"Good chakra control."
"Correct. You have it. Next?"
"Uh... Affinity for the Yin element."
"Fine. Four qualities. Next?"
Sarada was silent for a long time, and Itachi prompted:
"Intelligence and imagination. And for creating good illusions, that's almost the most important."
She stared at him in surprise.
"But isn't control and affinity more important?"
"Control and affinity are the mandatory base. But to create good genjutsu, basics aren't enough. You need a creative approach."
Listening to her uncle's lectures felt a bit strange. He was still just a young boy, his voice hadn't even started breaking yet, but he spoke seriously and knowledgeably.
"There are two approaches to creating genjutsu. The first is to confuse a person, make them doubt everything around them. The second is to immerse them unnoticed, and that's much harder. You have to imagine the illusion in every detail, account for every little thing, so your imaginary world can't be distinguished from reality. For example, look at the wall."
Sarada obediently looked beyond the fence separating the estate from the street.
"Nothing seems suspicious?"
Sarada peered at the wall for a long time until she realized:
"The crest. One crest is missing."
"Yes. I caught you in genjutsu the moment I activated Sharingan and our eyes met. This whole conversation, you've been in genjutsu. Try to break it."
"Kai!"
She closed her eyes and stopped her chakra flow.
"Look at the wall."
The crest was in place.
"I hope you understand that such details in real combat can cost you your life or the opponent's. This illusion was simple, and it could be broken with the most basic method. Look me in the eyes."
Sarada kept staring at the wall.
"Don't be afraid," Itachi gently urged her.
She turned to him, meeting the blood-red Sharingan again. Someone croaked dryly behind her. Sarada looked back. A large crow was pacing on the veranda. It came closer and jumped onto her lap. Sarada flinched in surprise and cautiously held the bird by its feathered body.
"It doesn't exist," uncle said. "I created it."
Sarada skeptically picked up the bird, but the crow twisted and pecked her.
"Hey!"
"Effect on the brain, replacing the signal from pain receptors."
Itachi lightly touched the spot where the crow created by his imagination had pecked Sarada.
"And simultaneously effect on the visual center. Plus, careful work on tactile sensations. You feel the soft feathers, right?"
"And the auditory center," Sarada picked up. "It was croaking."
Uncle detailed the illusion's mechanism, but the bird didn't disappear. The crow jumped off her lap and circled around.
"Dispel it."
Sarada hesitated.
"I like him," she admitted reluctantly, watching the bird.
Believing the crow didn't exist was hard. Too real. Too alive. The bird stopped, tilted its head to the side, and suddenly pinched her arm hard.
"Ow!"
Sarada squeezed her eyes shut and quickly dispelled the genjutsu. She was gradually coming to the conclusion that her perpetually impassive uncle did have a sense of humor, just strange and very peculiar.
Itachi interpreted Sarada's reaction to the bird in his own way.
"If you like crows, I'll teach you summoning later."
He deactivated his Sharingan.
"Now your turn. I won't resist, so try to trap me in genjutsu."
It had been raining all day since morning. Sarada was helping grandma prepare lunch. Little dad was racing around the house, peeking out the window every ten minutes, but the downpour wouldn't stop, so he couldn't go train at the training ground. After lunch, the sun finally peeked out. Sasuke dashed off, grabbing kunai and shuriken, while Sarada ate and sank back into her usual thoughts about Mom, the clan, the wave, and the future. These thoughts were driving her crazy, and she would have been glad for a distraction, but uncle was absent, there was no one to train with, and the thoughts kept swirling in her mind, fraying her nerves.
But a sudden knock at the door yanked Sarada from her gloomy musings.
"I'll get it!" she shouted to grandma and flew into the corridor.
At the doorstep stood a peer, a slender girl with long chestnut hair and a mole under her right eye. Seeing Sarada, she got a bit embarrassed and looked away.
"Excuse me... Is Itachi-kun home?"
"Don't blurt out again that he's your uncle," Sarada mentally prepared herself.
"He's on a mission."
"I... sorry to bother you."
"Wow, Uncle. You have a girlfriend?"
The girl turned to leave, but Sarada unexpectedly blurted out:
"W-wait! Hold on."
The guest turned back. There was a question in her eyes.
"You're... Itachi-san's girlfriend?"
"Yes," the girl replied and added uncertainly: "Probably. And you're his half-sister, right?"
Sarada, pondering that sudden "probably," first wanted to object that she wasn't a sister but a niece, but caught herself in time and answered:
"Yes. I'm Uchiha Sarada."
She confidently extended her hand to the girl.
"Uchiha Izumi."
"You won't get away from me, Uchiha Izumi," Sarada thought. "I don't know what business you have with my uncle, but I see the Konoha forehead protector on your forehead. You're a shinobi. Just what I need."
"I see everyone already knows all about me," Sarada noted.
"Not that much," Izumi replied. "Just a rumor that the captain's family adopted a girl from outside the clan who awakened Sharingan."
"So no one knows about Danzou and the torture," Sarada realized. "What luck."
It would have been unpleasant if that moment of her biography surfaced and became known to the whole clan. The moment of her weakness.
Sarada went on the offensive:
"Will you help me with training?"
"Aren't you a shinobi?" the girl asked in surprise.
"Not exactly. But I trained with Itachi-san."
Izumi's already huge eyes grew even bigger. The news that Itachi was training with some girl clearly upset her.
"It was Fugaku-san's order," Sarada hurried to correct. "He said since I awakened Sharingan, I should develop as a shinobi."
But rivalry sparked in Izumi's brown eyes: how good was this girl who hadn't gone to the academy but was still training with Uchiha Itachi—the clan genius?
"I'm free. We can go right now."
"Gotcha, shannaro!" Sarada inwardly rejoiced.
"Wait a sec! Stay here."
She dashed into the house, grabbed her weapons and pouch, and ran back out to Izumi.
"Mikoto-san, I'm going to train!"
Grandma assented, and Sarada headed to the training ground with her new acquaintance.
After the rain, it was fresh and smelled of damp earth. Her feet quickly got wet in the tall grass of the training area.
"Where did you meet Itachi?" Izumi asked.
"Uh..." the question caught Sarada off guard. "And you?"
"I don't remember anymore. We met as kids. Feels like I've always known him."
"Same here," Sarada sighed, trying to add a note of nostalgia to her tone.
They stood facing each other, hands extended in a fighting stance.
"Three... two... go!" Izumi exclaimed.
They instantly activated Sharingan. Shisui wasn't here; no one would scold them for it. Yes, they could train longer without dojutsu, but both wanted to fight at full strength to see what they were worth.
Sarada launched shuriken, crudely mixing in a genjutsu shuriken that wasn't there. Izumi's Sharingan easily saw through the hack job. But Sarada's goal was distraction: while Izumi parried the shuriken with a kunai and broke the illusion, Sarada hooked her mind with another genjutsu, much subtler. As uncle taught.
"Think that just because you have Sharingan, I can't catch you in genjutsu?" a smug thought flashed.
They closed the distance and engaged in close combat. Fighting Izumi was easier than with uncle. She didn't vanish from sight, didn't appear suddenly behind, didn't form seals at lightning speed. Plus, Sarada was using Sharingan and didn't feel inferior. But really, this was the first time in her life she fought an equal opponent: another Uchiha. Sharingan against Sharingan. They were far from Itachi, but the battle pace was furious.
Izumi didn't try to catch her in genjutsu; Sarada watched carefully. Either her rival focused on taijutsu, or thought genjutsu useless against Sharingan, or illusions weren't her strong suit. But Sarada admitted that Izumi's taijutsu-Sharingan combos surpassed her own. Izumi had trained longer, mastered her eyes, adapted her other skills to them, while Sarada's body couldn't keep up with her Sharingan. She saw the attack, but her muscles reacted late. In spars with genin from her time, she hadn't noticed; dojutsu gave such an edge that outpacing her was nearly impossible. But against another Sharingan, Sarada discovered her new weakness. The one neither Itachi nor Shisui had mentioned, because she trained combat skills separately from Sharingan with her uncle and his friend.
Eyes kept up, body didn't.
A kunai blade sliced the skin on her left forearm. The cut burned, but Sarada gritted her teeth and endured. This wasn't Danzou's torture chamber. This was real combat. This was how it had to be. Here she was free, and a small scratch was just a scratch. The rest depended only on her.
In five minutes of fighting, they sized each other up, and Izumi started pressing. She was still ahead in skill. But Izumi didn't know she was already hooked. She advanced, and Sarada let herself be pushed toward the training logs. They switched places; now Izumi's back was to the logs. And then Sarada finally used that tiny chink in her rival's mind she had created in the first seconds of the spar.
Through that small barely noticeable tunnel seeped a simple illusion: the outermost training log was fifteen centimeters to the right. Sarada couldn't yet create such elaborate realistic illusions as Itachi, but she had learned the lesson: even a small genjutsu at the right time and place can turn the battle unexpectedly.
Izumi gauged the logs' positions from the side and behind with peripheral vision. Sarada attacked. Izumi shifted slightly right. It seemed she had room to maneuver, but she didn't. She bruised her elbow and hit the log with her left shoulder blade. Sarada, taking advantage of her confusion, struck. Not full force, not even half. Just concentrated a bit of chakra in her fist to knock the wind out and gain advantage. Half force would shatter her sparring partner's bones; full force might kill. Full force, Sarada only broke walls with so far, so she wasn't sure of the result.
Izumi flew to the ground and convulsed, trying to breathe: her lungs seized from the powerful chest strike. Sarada was at her side in an instant and held a kunai to her throat.
Izumi was still gasping. Finally it released her; she took a deep breath and squeezed out:
"How... how did that happen..."
"Genjutsu," Sarada replied curtly.
"No way."
Izumi was gradually recovering.
"Sorry, I think I overdid it."
"No. I underestimated you," Izumi stood, leaning on Sarada's hand. "You're great. You may not have a genin headband, but you're an excellent kunoichi."
Respect shone in Izumi's brown eyes instead of jealousy.
"Another round?"
Kohinata Mukai flicked his lighter, inhaled deeply on his cigarette, and bent to pick up a flask mangled by an enemy kunai from the ground. Around him lay the bodies of Sand shinobi. More than twenty opponents he had defeated alone.
Itachi hadn't been assigned to this mission by chance. Right before the mission, a spot opened up in Chunin Mukai's team: one chunin got seriously injured on his day off and was pulled from the assignment, hastily replaced. Behind this chain of events loomed the shadow of Danzou's grim will: the chunin's injury, assigning Itachi specifically to the team... Like a silent hint. And indeed, working with his future target, Itachi could observe and assess his victim's skills.
And the conclusions were discouraging.
Shisui had already told him that the Kohinata family had long split from the Hyuga clan, meaning Mukai excelled at taijutsu and even used Gentle Fist style. But who could know that, after so many generations, Byakugan had awakened in one of his eyes?
Mukai alone dispatched over twenty pursuers from the Hidden Sand Village. A rain of kunai fell on him, but Mukai deflected just four with his foot, altering their trajectory and starting a chain reaction. All the weapons veered off course and fell into the grass, while Mukai remained unscathed. He killed every Sand shinobi with one precise throw. And the last one, the captain—he finished with taijutsu.
Byakugan's power was astonishing. Mukai's experience—incredible. Seeing his future victim deflect a deadly barrage with just four strikes, Itachi concluded he could do the same now that he'd seen how Mukai did it. But on instinct, right away—probably not.
And we and Shisui have to kill this man?
Only now did Itachi grasp the full gravity of the upcoming mission. Could they handle him with Shisui? Who knew.
"It's called 'atavism'," Mukai said. His eye was normal again. "Families split, but blood doesn't. It manifests sooner or later. D-don't tell the kids in the village, okay, kid?"
He ruffled his hair, but Itachi indignantly shook off his hand. Not because he was treated like a child—though that's what Mukai thought and smiled condescendingly, as if apologizing. No, Itachi never cared about such nonsense; he had no time. He thought only one thing: could he and Shisui complete this mission? And would anyone emerge alive from the deadly clash with the Byakugan heir?
***
Read the story months ahead of the public release — early chapters are available on my Patreon: Granulan