Originally posted by clawedandtoothless

You’re nervous. You could feel your heart pounding in your chest. You take a deep breath to calm yourself, although the action didn’t exactly help you. But you had no choice, you’re going to have to learn how to precisely sense your enemy sooner or later. “Better sooner rather than later,” your mother, Kana, stressed.

In theory, when your mother told you about it, it sounded pretty simple. But you should’ve known nothing was ever that simple with her, because she insisted you trained your sensory skills by putting a blindfold on you while she attacks you.

This wasn’t the first time she put on a blindfold on you, in fact, it had already been a couple of weeks since she started this training method for you, however, the nerves you felt never seemed to go away. It was scary to lose your sense of sight, after all.

After another deep breath, you focus on sensing your surroundings, trying to feel even the slightest hint of your mother’s chakra. The task was extremely hard considering she was moving so fast, making it harder for you to precisely pinpoint her location. You listen to the leaves, in hopes that the rustling sound will help you in determining where she was.

“You're doing it again,” Kana tsks. You immediately face her direction tracing it from the sound of her voice, but you remain in your place, knowing well enough that this doesn’t count as “sensing” her location. “Stop trying to use your sense of hearing. Some shinobis, say the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, are well versed in silent killing. If you rely on your sense of sound and sight, instead of kneading your chakra to sense them, then it’ll be over for you.”

You nod, realizing your mistake. You go back to your defensive stance and focus on detecting her again. That’s when you felt her on your right side speeding towards you, you immediately jumped to avoid her attack, or at least you tried to. Unfortunately you weren’t fast enough, resulting in her landing a kick on your face ultimately making you land on your .

You instantly got up. It was hard enough to sense someone’s chakra but changing from sensory mode to fighting mode was tremendously harder. But you were determined to master this.

“You’re getting better.” Your mother says.

“I was a second late to dodge your attack though.”

“That’s understandable, it’s only been a couple of weeks since we trained like this, but your progress is remarkable. Even I took a much longer time to achieve what you’re capable of doing now.”

You nod but you weren’t exactly convinced that you were getting better. You need to be faster, you have to work harder — for what? You weren’t sure. It’s not like you were a genin nor a shinobi for that matter.

Although you were very capable and skilled, you aren’t officially a ninja, mainly because you never stayed at a village longer than a week. Your father is a traveling merchant — a civilian. You and your family move from village to village selling specialty products from various lands and nations so there wasn’t really a chance for you to become a ninja. You help your father sell products during the day while you train with your mother by night.

She insisted it was imperative that you learn the ninja way, claiming that you were an important figure and that you were destined for greatness. You weren’t really sure what she meant by that but you liked the strain you occasionally feel when you trained as well as the thrill that courses through your body when you learn a new jutsu. It was fun.

You feel your mother’s chakra again, she was a few meters away from you. You turn your body to face her but jump back. You threw shurikens at her direction. You weren’t sure if it hit her but you were sure you threw the tools exactly at the location you sensed her.

Now that you could sense where she was, it was your turn to attack, otherwise, you’ll be forced to go on the defensive longer, eventually leading to a loss if your chakra gets drained from using it too much.

You pressed your hands together, “Water Style: Water Shock wave,” you say.

You direct the water to your mother’s direction, willing it to be as wide as possible so that the probability of her being hit or consumed by the water was higher despite your lack of vision. You hear a puff of smoke after, knowing already that it was a shadow clone that you hit.

“Alright. That’ll be all for tonight. You did an amazing job, Michiko,” your mother called behind you. She was the only one who called you Michiko, otherwise, you were called Y/N.

You sigh defeatedly and remove your blindfold. “This is so hard,” you say, dejected.

“The fact that you were able to attack while you were in sensory mode meant that you’re mastering the technique,” she says matter-of-factly. “I’m pretty sure if you didn’t have a blindfold on, you could have easily taken me down, so don’t be sad.”

“Really?”

“Yes. Your shurikens actually almost hit my shadow clone. In fact, it grazed the clone’s shirt,” she says impressed. “And the way you used the Water Shock wave jutsu was commendable. If you focused it on one spot, it could be dodged easily. It only works if you could see where your opponent goes and point it towards them. However, since your vision is impaired, the more area you cover, the more likely it will hit them.”

She pats your head. You smile at her words.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself.”

You nod, smile still present on your face. She reaches for your hand and leads you back to the village after training in the woods.

As you walk towards the inn you were staying at, you asked. “Why do I have to train blindfolded while on a battle? Is the probability of being blinded on a mission really that high?” You ask naively. You know about how missions work in theory but you really didn’t have any idea what happens in between receiving the mission and accomplishing it. 

“Well, no.” Huh? If it wasn’t really going to happen, then why train like that? 

“However,” your mother continues, “the Uchiha clan have the Sharingan, and it has the power to cast genjutsu if you looked into their eyes. If you’re alone with no comrades to help you and you get stuck on the genjutsu, then it might as well be over for you.”

“Uchiha? Who are they and why should I fight them?” You’ve only heard of the Kages, the ones who lead the hidden villages. Other than them, you had no idea who were who. You don’t even know your mother’s side of the family, you don’t know whether she belongs to a clan or not. She doesn’t want to tell you yet. 

You could immediately see the distaste on your mother’s face at the mention of the Uchiha.

“They’re a powerful clan. One of the strongest in Konoha, maybe even in the entire shinobi world because of their Sharingan and their natural battle prowess. The Curse of Hatred was common in the clan. You see, they have powerful emotions. They’re extremely devoted people. So when they lose the object of their affection, they’re quickly overpowered by hatred. With that being said, they could easily become evil, most of them are.”

She said the last phrase as if it was set in stone. She must really hate the Uchihas.

“Anyway, there’s only two remaining living Uchihas. I heard one joined the Akatsuki and the other left the village in search of power. I’m pretty sure evil has consumed the two.”

You stopped listening to the words your mother said after that. She was the type to criticize harshly when she doesn’t like something or someone and sometimes, in her head, facts were distorted because of that hatred or dislike. Although you didn’t want to be rude, it was easier to tune out her rant about how the Uchihas were evil. After all, you believed that everyone was inherently good and that their bad actions were because of a momentary lapse in judgment.

You focused back on what you’ve heard. Akatsuki? Leaving the village for power? It made you frown. You heard about the dirty work the Akatsuki members do from the gossip in the villages. You also know that leaving the village and abandoning your duties as a shinobi meant becoming branded as a rogue ninja, ultimately being considered as a criminal. They must’ve experienced great horrors for them to decide to do such grave things. You naturally felt bad for them. They had such a cruel fate that no one deserved.

“...someday you might come across them and if you do, you should be prepared.”

You just nod your head in obedience, although you really had no intention of fighting with someone you barely knew. But you’re sure you’d do it if they meant harm to your family.

When you both arrived at the inn you were staying at, you immediately went to shower. However, you felt something was off. There was no one watching you, you were sure of that because you don’t sense chakra near your location aside from your mother’s. Besides, if there was someone, you were sure your mother would alert you immediately. But there was just something that was different somehow and it made you feel anxious.

Your mother was quick to notice your sudden change in attitude so she asked you how you were feeling. You tell her you felt like something bad was going to happen. She quickly reassures you that everything’s going to be fine. You mask your anxiousness and give her a smile to stop her from worrying about your state. When she’s sure you were okay, she bids you good night.

You laid on your bed, tossing and turning the whole night, unable to get proper rest. Eventually though, you fell asleep just as the sun was about to shine.

You only get a few hours of sleep when your body wakes you up. The sun has risen already and it was time to start the day.

“Where’s Papa?”

Your mother pauses from packing her clothes. Your father was indeed supposed to go back to the inn last night. He went off to the Land of Hot Water to pick up something he left. The place wasn’t even that far from where you were staying at so he should have been home yesterday. Although he was a grown man, he was a civilian and no civilian could match a rogue ninja so it was natural for you to worry about him.

“I’ll come look for him,” your mother says.

“I’ll come with you!”

She nods, not wanting to leave you behind as well.

The next series of events went by on a blur since then. All you could remember was that you froze on the spot when you saw people were congregated somewhere along the way back to the Land of Hot Water and with your sharp hearing skills, you could hear their terror as they talked about someone who got killed. How this man was the fourth man to be killed this week alone. You haven’t even seen the dead person but you sure felt anxious.

You watched as your mother immediately went to see the commotion and the next thing you knew she was on her knees crying and cradling your father’s body. Watching your mother wail made you feel numb. Suddenly, you can’t even hear a single thing. You were afraid you even forgot how to breathe. Your vision then became blurry. You weren’t even sure if it was because of the tears or because of the lack of oxygen. Either way, the next thing you saw was your mother mouthing you something and then you passed out.

When you came to be, you weren’t on the road to the Land of Hot Water. You were disoriented and when you got up, your mother was quick to go by your side. The puffiness of your mother’s eyes meant that it wasn’t a dream.

You looked around and realized you were back