The Cloud Over The Leaf

A mad Shisui is a bad time.

Those kids look exhausted after his "lecture" on proper Ninja behaviour. The three limped away quickly, fearing he might go into further details.

I'm starting to sweat though!

[You should be fine.]

'I hope so!'

Shusui turns around to us and I finally get to see a Sharingan. 

His eye has three... tomoes, right? So this is a mature Sharingan I believe. 

"We're not getting the lecture too, right?"

I joke, but I'm really don't want it!

Shusui pauses,then his Sharingan disappears. The girl hasn't raised her head up though. She's just staring at the ground.

Shisui walked in front of the girl and I can see the tiniest shiver go through her body. He sighed and patted the girls head.

"They started it?"

"...They stared."

"Maka. You know you shouldn't get aggressive with them."

I feel like I shouldn't be here. It's embarassing for me when Mom smothers us in public, so i can only imagine how it feels to be scolded.

"Hii. Can you stay for a bit?"

And Shusui with the block! Great. I can see her cheeks turning red. Sorry, but I tried to leave.

"Maka. I know you want to prove yourself, but you can't just beat them up like this."

"I know. I need power! I need enough so they can't make fun of me!"

Shisui sighed as he ruffled her hair. 

"Power is a great option, but don't forget that soft options exist as well. Not everything is solved with power."

Maka nods her head, but who knows if she can really agree with that logic.

"Now Maka, this is Hii-chan. He's a child of one of my superiors."

Maka turns toward me and bows her head. 

"I'm Maka Uchiha, and I'm sorry for not listening to you!"

She seems to be pretty flustered, so we'll just let that go.

"No worries! It was a pretty fun to fight you though. In fact,would you mind us continuing, Shisui?"

I still haven't calmed down yet, so we might as well see who's better. 

I see Maka's eyes get sharp as a small grin comes on her face.

'Good, she must be thinking the same thing.'

Shisui looks at both of us and smiles.

"Sure, but how about we make it a bit more interesting?"

"Oh? What did you have in mind?"

Shisui points to himself and smiles.

"How about you two fight me instead?"

******

Now we're at one of the nearby training fields, stretching.

Maka has had an intense look on her face as she stretches everything she can to be as limber as possible. 

I decide to follow her lead, since she should know her brother best. 

Something's been bothering me though, so I decided to ask Shisui about it.

"Hey, Shusui nii-san?"

"Hmm? Ready to train already?"

"Not quite. I had a question. I don't know if this is intrusive or not, but what did Maka mean when she said "normal eyes"?"

Shusui's face gets a little dark after I asked him.

"If you can't say,then don't mind my question!"

"I can answer it for you."

I hear Maka's voice from behind and turn towards her.

"You see, I'm defective."

"Maka! Don't call yourself that!"

Oh no! I stepped on a paperbomb!

"I'm sorry! I didn't-"

"It's fine. I'm not fragile. I was born with an eye defect. It makes my eyes unable to have a sharingan."

"O-Oh. I'm sorry. I was just curious."

Maka sighs and shakes her head. 

"It's fine. I don't need you to feel pity for me. I'll just have to be the best Uchiha without a Sharingan."

Her voice is oozing with confidence. I think I'm starting to like her a bit more.

Shisui just sighs and stretches his neck.

"Ok, are you two ready?"

"Yes!"

Maka and I  get ready as Shisui calmly waits. 

"Rules are simple. No ninjutsu for now, but genjutsu is fine. Each round is 15 mins long. Your goal is to hit me.....once. Are we clear?"

Maka and I nod our heads.

"Go!"

Here we go!

*******

Sweats pouring down my face. I try to collect my breath and look at the other two.

Maka is trying her best to attack Shusui with punches and kicks, but he either dodges or blocks. 

This is the 4th round we've had against Shusui and we can't even scratch him.

'I need to learn more Genjutsu. I just need alot of everything really.'

[One at a time. Focus on matching her for now.]

I breathe in deep, and rush over to assist Maka. Shisui blocked both of our attacks and jumped back. We rushed him at the same time. I aimed to sweep his legs while Maka hung back. My legs miss as he jumps in the air, but that's a chance for us. Maka accelerates,jumps off my crossed hands, and tries to punch Shisui in the face. He, of course, dodges and throws her of to the other side as I get back up and start my own assault.

I've gotten a decent understanding of Maka's attacks and try to coordinate with her, but Shisui keeps dodging and seemingly teleporting everywhere we're not. 

He's way too slippery!

We try one more time to catch him of guard. I use some handsigns and start it off.

Clone Technique!

I make 3 clones of my self and position them around him to try and cage him in. 

Maka does some handsigns as well. How will she follow up?

Genjutsu: Sandstorm!

Shisui looks surprised as he covers his eyes to strain and see. We're looking good so far! I swoop in to hit him, but somehow he sees my moves. He blocked my kick to his knee and I followed up with a roundhouse kick. 

My back is to him now so i better assist. I cross my hands once again and bend down. Maka catches wind to the plan and. I vault her over me, high into the air. I head in with my clones and try to strike him. He blocks my move and tosses me overhead. 

As I fall down, I can see Maka landing on top of Shisui and punching down. She got him!

*Poof*

"What?!"

"N-No way!"

What just happened? He disappeared into smoke. Is this a technique?

I see Shisui walking out of the nearby bushes with his hand scratching his head.

"Huh. I didn't expect you to beat me so quick."

"Nii-san! Shadow clones are cheating!"

Shadow clones?! What are those?! 

"Shadow clone?"

Shisui looked at me and did a strange handsign.

Shadow Clone Jutsu!

*Poof*

 I see a clone of Shisui appear beside him and lean on the other Shisui. 

"It's real?!"

Maka folds her arms and looks pissed.

"He always does this when we fight! Just disappears in the middle of the fight!"

I can't take my eyes off the clone. A real clone! An actual clone that can do stuff! I can always have a fighting partner! It's everything I need!

"You gotta teach me how to do that!!"

Shisui seems caught off guard, but I won't let this go!

He WILL teach me that move!

[Ugh. Calm down. You're freaking him out.]