Another Boring Uchiha Power Fantasy.

The second day was worse.

Ame had spent the night reinforcing. Where yesterday’s positions held several shinobi, today’s held more. The valley narrowed as Konoha pushed south, the ridges on either side drawing closer, funneling the fighting into corridors barely wide enough for ten people abreast. The rain came down harder. The mud deepened. And the enemy had learned from yesterday’s losses.

Mikoto looked at her genin. One day. She’d had one day with them before this. She would have given anything for a week, enough time to test them properly, learn their limits, drill out the bad habits before the battlefield did it for her. But the operation wouldn’t wait, and neither would the war.

They hit the first reinforced position at 0700.

Mikoto formed three water clones before the fighting started. They split from her body and moved without needing direction, one to the left where a squad was about to engage, one to the right where a captain was positioning the forward teams, one staying fifty meters behind the line where the wounded would be pulled. Three Mikotos all ready to support them.

The real Mikoto drew her sword.

She channeled chakra into her arms and hands, concentrating it the way the Chakra Enhanced Strength demanded, feeling it build in her muscles, in her bones, in the joints of her fingers where they gripped the hilt throughout Shark Skin. She’d been practicing the technique for weeks since the sign-in gave it to her. The principle was very interesting. Anyone could gain this strength if they practiced their chakra control enough, which made her wonder if people just didn’t know.

”Stay behind me, please. Stay together. Move when I move. Stop when I stop.” Mikoto politely commanded.

She rushed in.

The first Ame position was a defensive line reinforced with earth jutsu, packed dirt walls rising chest-high with firing slits for water jutsu. Several shinobi manned it. They saw Mikoto coming and numerous water bullets launched her way simultaneously.

She blocked with Shark Skin and the blade absorbed the water jutsu on contact. She closed the distance in four steps and brought Shark Skin down on the defensive wall with Chakra Enhanced Strength behind the swing.

The ground exploded as the earth detonated outward in a cone of dirt and stone that shredded Rain-nin with earthen bullets and swallowed the others below. The defensive line was gone and now was a budding ravine.

Nawaki gulped.

Emi’s jaw hung open.

Nonō felt faint.

Mikoto was already moving forward, Shark Skin carving through the first shinobi before he could run up the walls of the earth. The second caught a backhand swing across the chest that cleaved through his torso. The third scrambled to his feet and tried to run. Mikoto pointed Shark Skin forward and channeled water chakra through it, the rain and moisture in the air condensing around the blade before launching forward as a giant water hawk. The water hawk caught the shinobi by the shoulder with its talons and flew into the air with him screaming and flailing.

”Move!” Mikoto called back to her genin.

They followed behind her and the battlefield became a classroom and the lesson was survival.

Nawaki charged ahead of the formation twice in the first hour. The first time, he ran straight into a tripwire connected to three poisonous smoke bombs. Mikoto caught his collar and yanked him backward before the poison engulfed him. She wove through some hand signs before blowing the poison smoke away with a wind jutsu.

”What did I say about thinking?” She said, setting him on his feet.

”I saw an opening!”

”You should’ve saw the trap. Use your brain or you’ll die before lunch.” She pushed him back toward the others. ”Stay with your team!”

The second time, he broke formation to chase a retreating injured Ame chunin who was forming hand signs. Mikoto Body Flickered ahead of him, killed the chunin with a single swing, and turned to face Nawaki with red eyes that brooked no argument.

”What did I just say?”

”He was going to get away!”

”And I handled it. You’re a genin. Your job isn’t to chase injured enemy shinobi into the forest alone. Your job is to stay alive and stay with your squad.” She pointed at Emi and Nonō, who were twenty meters behind them. ”If you leave them, they’re exposed. If they’re exposed, they die. Is chasing one enemy worth two of your teammates?”

Nawaki’s face fell. ”No, sensei…”

”Then stop running ahead.”

“I’m sorry…” Nawaki apologized sincerely. He really didn’t think of it that way…

Emi fought smart but she froze the first time she saw someone die up close.

A Konoha chunin took a water jutsu to the neck fifteen meters from their position. The pressurized stream tore through his throat and he went down gurgling, his hands clawing at the wound, his eyes wide with the particular surprise of someone who hadn’t believed it could happen to them. He died in the mud in four seconds. Nobody could reach him in time.

Emi stopped moving. Her kunai was in her hand but her hand wasn’t moving. Her eyes were locked on the dead man and her body had gone rigid.

An Ame shinobi saw the frozen girl and moved toward her.

Mikoto appeared between them, her sword separating the top half and bottom half of his torso. Then she turned to Emi.

”Look at me.” she said.

Emi’s eyes were still on the dead man.

”Emi. Look at me.”

Emi’s eyes moved to Mikoto’s.

”He’s dead. You’re not. Keep it that way.” Mikoto’s voice was warm but it cut like a blade. ”If you freeze, you die. If you die, nobody’s going home to tell your brother what happened. Move your feet. Keep your kunai up. Don’t look at the bodies. Focus on surviving.”

Emi swallowed. Her hand tightened on the kunai. She nodded once.

”Good. Now move.”

Emi did as she was ordered. She didn’t freeze again.

Nonō nearly got hit by a shuriken volley that came from a concealed position in the trees. Nawaki tackled her out of the way, both of them rolling through the mud, and the shuriken embedded themselves in the tree where Nonō’s body had been.

”Thank you…” Nonō said, breathless.

”You’re welcome!” Nawaki said, pulling her up. ”Watch the trees!”

Mikoto killed the shinobi who’d thrown the shuriken. She hurled a lightning-charged fuma shuriken from range, the enhanced weapon tearing the man across the ribs.  

She turned back to her squad. ”Nawaki. Good save.” She pointed at all three of them. ”That’s what covering for each other looks like. Do more of it.”

The fighting ground deeper into the valley. Konoha was taking casualties. Not devastating, not unsustainable, but steadily. Wounds that took people off the line. Wounds that didn’t.

Mikoto’s water clones worked nonstop. The one on the left side had healed six people in two hours. The one on the right had stabilized a jonin whose leg had been crushed by an earth jutsu. The one in the rear was running a field triage station that hadn’t been asked for but was very grateful to have.

The real Mikoto fought and taught simultaneously.

”Nawaki, don’t waste chakra on that Water Bullet! A kunai or shuriken would’ve done the same thing at that range! Save your chakra!”

”Emi, control yourself! If you’re going to fight, fight with a calm head!”

”Nonō, the explosive tag on your left, roll right! RIGHT! Good!”

”All three of you, TOGETHER! Stop spreading out! You’re stronger as a unit than you are alone!”

”Nawaki, what did I say about running ahead?!”

”Emi, the kunai goes WHERE you’re aiming, not where you were aiming two seconds ago! Lead the target!”

”Nonō, use your shuriken! You have them for a reason! Don’t just hold them!”

”STICK TOGETHER!”

They learned messily. Genin learn in wartime by almost dying and then doing the thing that stopped them from dying and then doing it again until it stuck.

Nawaki stopped running ahead. He started watching his surroundings, keeping himself near his comrades, using his water jutsu as area denial rather than direct attacks. His reserves let him use chakra-heavy techniques more than the average genin.

Emi got into her groove. Picking moments where a well-placed kunai or an attack would create an opening that Nawaki or Nonō could exploit. Nonō fought. She wasn’t as talented or strong as the other two but she was clever in the quiet way that mattered most, the way that kept her standing when everything in her body told her to run. She used flash bombs, explosive tags, smoke bombs, wire strings and kunai.

And all three of them watched Mikoto.

They watched her swing that hunk of metal she called a cleaver through a combined earth wall and leave a mass of corpses behind it. They watched her water clones heal the dying while she killed the living. They watched her speed across the battlefield to save a chunin from a finishing blow, then turn and cast a genjutsu on three Ame shinobi simultaneously, dropping them where they stood. They watched her throw a single fuma shuriken that multiplied into a hundred mid-flight somehow, the storm of steel shredding multiple enemy squads.

They watched their sensei, who wasn’t that much older than them, fight a war, heal a war, and teach a war all at the same time.

”Sensei is amazing…” Nawaki said during a lull, crouched behind a fallen tree with mud on every surface of his body.

”She’s incredible…” Nonō agreed.

”I can’t complain…” Emi said with some pride.

…

By afternoon Konoha had pushed another kilometer south. The valley was widening again, the ridges pulling apart, and the Ame resistance was stiffening rather than breaking. More jonin in the enemy lines now. More coordinated responses. Whatever was behind the next bend in the valley, Ame was willing to bleed for it.

Mikoto sat her genin down behind a rock formation where the fighting couldn’t reach them for a few minutes. Her healing water clones had expanded beyond just three.

”Eat while you can. Refuel yourselves” she said, pulling ration bars from her pouch and handing them out.

Nawaki ate like he’d never seen food before. Emi ate with aggressive chewing nearly spitting out the bar at its horrid taste. Nonō ate slowly, her hands still trembling from adrenaline.

 ”Thank you for following my instructions.” Mikoto said.

”We almost died like six times.” Nawaki said through a mouthful.

”You almost died six times. I almost died like two or three times.” Emi corrected him.

”And you’re still alive right now. That’s for listening to your superior.” Mikoto looked at each of them. ”You fought as a three-man cell today. That’s the foundation. Everything else builds on it.”

”Sensei,” Nonō said. ”The people you healed with your water clones. How many?”

”I’m sorry, I wasn’t keeping track.” Mikoto couldn’t answer her.

”Oh.”

”I found out that other people will do it for you eventually.”

Nonō looked at her own hands. They weren’t glowing. They were dirty and scraped and shaking.

”I want to be able to do that someday…” She said.

”You will. As long as you’re earnest and work hard, I’ll do everything I can to teach you about medical ninjutsu.” Mikoto said.

The rain fell. The ration bars disappeared. The war waited.

Mikoto looked south, past the rock formation, past the next bend in the valley, toward whatever Ame was protecting so fiercely.

Whatever it was, they’d reach it tomorrow.

”Rest up,” she said. ”We’re not done yet, unfortunately...” Mikoto began healing any injuries they may have received and shared her chakra with them, topping them up.