True Mastery

A BAD GUY DIES

As Sasuke grew older, he got even better in shurikenjutsu than Itachi was, to Fugaku's surprise. Itachi always knew this was going to happen eventually, but he hadn't thought it would be so soon. Yes, if they both kept their Sharingan on, Itachi would win due to the precognition, but if they both kept it off, or when they fought blindfolded (to prevent over-reliance on dōjutsu), Sasuke won more and more often.
Though, that was just in shurikenjutsu. Overall, Itachi was still miles ahead of every other Uchiha, except maybe Shisui.
Sasuke was also honing his Lightning Shunshin Battle Form (he had refused to name it anything else) that granted him a private audience with the "crown prince of Shunshin, long may he reign, his Highness, the great Shisui Uchiha!"
"Shisui, I'm not calling you that in front of Sasuke. If I do, he won't show up."
"Okay, fine, man!" said Shisui. "Killjoy", he muttered under his breath.
After giving the information to Sasuke, Itachi started up a timer. "Sasuke, if you want the audience, get to the top of the Hokage monument in two minutes."
Sasuke's eyes widened as lightning flickered on his skin. Then he vanished.
A hundred and thirteen seconds later, Sasuke appeared on top of the Hokage monument. He fell to his knees and vomited on the Fourth Hokage's nose, then looked up to see a short haired Uchiha girl, wearing men's pants and a boys' t-shirt and with no breasts- oh wait, it was an Uchiha boy.
"You thought I was a girl, didn't you? Admit it! Everyone, dammit, everyone thinks that first because of that stupid genjutsu Itachi did!" After screaming a bit, the boy looked at Sasuke and held out his hand. "Hi, I'm Shisui Uchiha, generally accepted lord of Shunshin, self-proclaimed God of Shunshin. You must be Sasuke."
Sasuke took the hand and pulled himself up. He did his best Naruto impression. "Hi! I'm Sasuke, and I plan to take your title soon!" Needless to say, this impression came from when Naruto told the Hokage that he would take his spot.
Shisui chuckled and ruffled Sasuke's hair. "So, your plan is to be better than Itachi in shuriken and better that me in Shunshin? Are you trying to beat every Uchiha at their own discipline?"
"Yes", came the short but decisive response.
Shisui laughed some more. "I suppose I'm digging my own grave here, but do you want some help with that?"
In the part of the village where they trained, Naruto was currently trying to make a rasengan with his feet. He had taken off his shoes and was trying to spin the chakra he had generated. When it finally worked while sitting, which took him a week or so, he tried to do it while kicking. That was significantly more difficult.
Naruto jumped again, concentrating on forming the rasengan. It worked, but he misjudged the kick, and his foot landed on the ground.
It did not sink into the ground. Instead, revolving at a high speed, his foot rolled forward like roller skates. It was only his quick reflexes that allowed him to balance himself using the other foot.
Frowning, Naruto created a rasengan with his right foot, angling it so that the point touching the ground wasn't moving. He lifted his left foot and did the same thing.
His feet weren't on the ground anymore.
His feet were not touching the ground.
He was flying! Or at least levitating.
But it still felt like he was balancing on a spinning ball.
Frowning with intense concentration, Naruto changed the angle of his feet, and shot several meters ahead in a fraction of a second. Instead of stopping, he re-angled them and started zooming through the ground, often jumping to get his bearings. This was fun-
Then he crashed headfirst into a tree. Oh well. He just needed more practice.
"So, Sasuke, tell me, what exactly is the basis for your... uh, Lightning Shunshin Battle Mode?"
"It's Form, not Mode", replied Sasuke. "Basically, the Overdrive makes my mind really fast, so my body appears really slow, while the Shunshin is just really fast movement, but since we can't follow it well even with the Sharingan, we use it in bursts, and not continuously. So, combining the two, I can keep it up for about five seconds for you, which is about thirty five seconds for me, give or take, and even then I'm faster than normal."
By the time he finished, Shisui's mouth was hanging open.
"Are you trying to tell me that you increase your speed more than sevenfold, and keep that up for five seconds?!"
"Essentially, yes. Why? You can't?! Yay!"
"No, I increase my speed elevenfold for a quarter of a second at a time, and normally take a second too cooldown, and I could do that seven times in a row before tiring."
Sasuke frowned. "How fast is that?"
Shisui grinned before vanishing. Sasuke started counting. 5 and a quarter seconds later, Shisui was back with a plate of dango. The same dango Sasuke's mom had been making that morning.
"You- you moved farther than I did, and came back again, so almost double my distance, in five seconds? While taking one second gaps?"
"I moved basically forty three times faster than you."
"Wow! So you mastered Shunshin?"
Shisui frowned. "Didn't Itachi tell you the meaning of true mastery?"
Sasuke thought back to his first day of shuriken training.
"Yeah, he said if I can do it without killing my opponent, I have mastered something."
"Let me guess, he said this about shurikenjutsu", deadpanned Shisui.
"Yeah."
"Well, Sasuke, you see, everybody has different views upon what true mastery of something is. I prefer to think of it as when what you do is completely up to you. For me, it would be when I don't need to take any gap, and when I can keep up a Shunshin chain indefinitely, so when I stop, it's because I want to, not because I'm too tired to continue."
"That's cool!"
"It is, isn't it? But that's just the way I look at it. You may see it in a different light."
"Cool! Maybe it's when it becomes as easy as normally walking!"
Chuckling, Shisui patted Sasuke's head. "Don't go looking for explanations, kid. Let it come to you."
Sasuke wrinkled his nose. "That's too philosophical!"
"Yeah, I suppose it is. Now come on, it's time for you to go. Just one last thing that your father told me to do."
"What did he- AAAAAAAHH!" Shisui had pushed him off. He had already turned the ground below to soft mud, but Sasuke didn't know that. Maybe his Sharingan would evolve. That was what Fugaku was going for, anyway.
Fugaku's plan failed, of course. Sasuke simply went into overdrive mode and performed the Fireball jutsu, pushing himself backwards and grabbing the mountain. Using the Shunshin, he made his way back to the Uchiha compound.
Meanwhile, Fugaku and Itachi were talking.
"Itachi, can you do it?"
"Let me get this straight. You want me to take Sasuke on a police department job that you specially selected to awaken his Sharingan."
"Now, now, Itachi, I am not so cruel! I just want to see the girl saved and that man brought to justice."
"And do you have any particular reason why Sasuke must view this justice."
"None at all!" Fugaku's face was the perfect mask of innocence.
"Fine, fine. I'll do it." Itachi had been planning to have some dango with Izumi, but his plans were foiled.
Sasuke chose that moment to enter. "Hey dad! I'm back! Also, if you're wondering who stole mom's dango, it was Shisui."
"Mikoto made dango?!" asked Fugaku, drooling.
"Shisui stole the dango?!" asked Itachi, snarling.
Mikoto entered the room and mock-glared at Fugaku.
"You don't know that I made dango? Why did I marry you in the first place?"
Fugaku stood up and kissed her. "Because of my dashing good looks and my unique skills?" He waggled his eyebrows suggestively.
He made a shooing motion to the boys. "Sasuke, Itachi is taking you on a police mission today."
"Yay! Come on, Itachi!"
Itachi groaned. "Come on, Sasuke. Let's go catch a bad guy."
Mebuki Haruno was handling the traffic at the store when she saw one and a half people (one was a kid) in police uniform walk up to the store. Naturally, the kid was scarier, simply because the last kid she'd seen accompanying a ninja had been Kakashi Hatake. Offering him a smoothie had not gone well.
"Excuse me, miss", said the taller one, "are you Mebuki Haruno?"
The kid looked up at the man. "Itachi, didn't you say that you helped scout this area? Shouldn't you already know?"
The taller one sighed. "Yes, Sasuke, I already know that. This is for the proper procedure!"
"Okay, go on, bro."
Mebuki took that moment to answer.
"Yes, sir, I am Mebuki Haruno."
"We have some questions about your husband, and about some accusations that have been levelled at him."
Mebuki's face froze in shock and relief.
"Yes sir. I can attest that all the accusations are true."
Sasuke frowned. "You haven't even heard them! What if an accusation was that he, I don't know, stabs children for fun?"
Sasuke had said that because he had no idea of the mission parameters, and had just said the worst thing that came to mind. What he did not expect was Mebuki freezing up even more and Itachi flinching.
"Seriously? Then what are we waiting for?"
Even Itachi sounded half-hearted as he said, "We need evidence that stands up in court-"
"Bullshit!" The entire street was now looking at them. "You know that he did it. Otherwise dad wouldn't have sent you. You're a ninja, Itachi! If you know that a guy is abusing children, why the fuck do you need evidence for court?"
Itachi gripped Sasuke by the shirt. "Firstly, because that kind of power can very, very easily be misused. And secondly, because by asking for evidence, we could quietly enter the house of an ex-ninja, which is definitely trapped to alert him to intruders! Quietly! And you have quite possibly blown our whole cover! What if the target gets away?"
Of course, the target was not that smart. Instead of running, Kizashi put a knife to his own daughter's neck, holding her hostage, and then waited patiently.
Utter stupidity.
Itachi entered and immediately pointed a knife at the man.
"Let the girl go and you will live."
Fear appeared in Kizashi's eyes, but he held the knife tighter and closer to Sakura's neck.
Then Sasuke entered.
For a second, Sasuke froze. Was this guy threatening to kill his own daughter? Why? Why would anyone do such a thing? This person was a horrid, cowardly-
"Piece of SHIT!". And with that, Sasuke's eyes spun and settled into the three tomoe pattern. And Sasuke saw.
The man's leg twitched. He was going to jump. Judging by the tense hands, he would try to bring his daughter too. Based on his posture, he would fail, and the girl would be injured. The target let out panicky breaths. He wouldn't listen to reason. His eyes showed he would do anything to survive.
Even kill his own daughter.
And that fact was what made Sasuke Uchiha take his first life and create his first technique at the tender age of nine.
Sakura was scared. Really scared.
That man (her father, she reminded herself) had a knife to her neck. She knew that he would kill her if needed. And that frightened her.
Then, in front of her eyes, the smaller ninja (wait, wasn't he the Uchiha kid that had bought tomatoes?) glowed for a second, and then disappeared.
The taller one moved and pulled her out of the way as the small one appeared behind her father. There was a spurt of blood and Kizashi Haruno fell to the ground, a Sasuke sized hole in his body.
Sakura looked at the boy, who was standing in a really heroic pose. She reached out a hand, not sure if this was really happening.
Then Sasuke looked at his own hands in horror and fainted.
Itachi wanted to groan, but he obviously didn't. Instead, he put up a smile and crouched to the girl's height.
"It's all right now. Why? Because I'm here." He saw her knees tremble, and caught her before she collapsed. Shit, she's just a fragile kid. Note to self, not all kids are Sasuke.
"Hey, Sakura", Itachi had seen all the mission details beforehand, "what's your favorite color?"
In the second it took her to think of the answer, he put her under a genjutsu.
Putting both the kids over his shoulders, he vanished in a Shunshin. In three jumps, he appeared in the police station. He was about to pass her over to the people who took care of orphans with a bad past, but then remembered that her mother was still alive. Handing her over to a female Uchiha, he carried Sasuke into Fugaku's "office", laying him down and glaring at- Oh right, Fugaku was at home.
He rung the Chakra Bell that the Fourth Hokage had invented, something that, when rung, alerted the person it was made for, that is, Fugaku. He then rung it a few more times, just to annoy him.
After a few minutes, Fugaku appeared. Itachi immediately stopped pressing the bell.
"Did he get it?"
"He's covered in blood, he's killed a person, and you want to know whether he got the third stage of the Sharingan?"
"Well, yes, of course I want to know. If he did have the complete sharingan, he would remember his first kill in perfect detail the rest of his life. But, judging by your face-"
"Yes, he got the three tomoe Sharingan."
"YES!"
"Wait, what? Weren't you just talking about the negative consequences-"
"Well, yes, but that was when I thought he hadn't got it, and I was cheering myself up!"
"... You're evil."
"I'm Uchiha."
Meanwhile, in the village hospital, Kakashi was standing near a woman's bed. He held her hand and looked at her empty eyes.
The girl was in a coma. She had been, for fourteen years or so.
"Hey girl", Kakashi started. "I just came here after talking with Obito. Well, talking to Obito. He can't reply from.. wherever he is. So, how was your day?"
The comatose girl was predictably silent.
"Still not talking, huh? Figures. Well, my day was nice. You know, sensei's son, Naruto, has the Rasengan. I saw him today, using it like roller skates. The Hokage says that he has Minato in his head. Like, Minato's soul, not the idea of Minato."
He looked to see if there was any response. Nope.
"Well, I have to go now. I'm going to be late. The meeting is supposed to start... two hours ago, apparently. Oh, then I still have time."
He smiled a melancholy smile. "Come back to me, Rin. Please?"