In which I try to justify how we got to A-Rank speed after like a couple goddamn months of being a genin.
Swift
Hisana wasn't built for strength. It was genetic - not that she was a girl, because once chakra enhancement entered the picture, baseline differences like that became negligible, but that the Uchiha Clan in general had a tendency to lean more towards lanky speed then bulky strength. And while her chakra control was good, it wasn't anywhere close to Sakura's "perfect control" - given her rate of progress there, there wasn't a chance in hell of her copying Tsunade's technique unless she spent a few years doing nothing but chakra control exercises.
She didn't have access to any of the esoteric durability enhancing jutsu that popped up in the story from time to time either - a bunch of them were bloodline based, and the ones that weren't were often just plain weird. Seriously, how the hell had Konan transferred her conciousness into a mass of paper? Honestly, most of them had some sort of gimmick that defeated them anyway, from what she remembered.
So... speed was her main - perhaps her only - recourse for survival. Be a dodge-tank. It doesn't matter if you can't take hits if you don't get hit. And as an offensive tool, it was even better. The faster ninja controlled the time of the engagement, the place of the engagement, could disengage more easily, achieved surprise more often... the list went on and on. With Iaido becoming her primary sword technique (although she retained a few Kohoha style stances and grips, due to their better integration for ninjutsu), it was clearer then ever that she needed to refine her speed as much as possible.
And if you were someone who wanted to get as fast as possible, as thoroughly as possible, and had access to the Uchiha Clan's remaining archives? There was exactly one place to start. Was there a secret to Shisui Uchiha, the ninja whos reaction times were so fast, he could control his movements in the middle of a Body Flicker?
Unfortunately, it wasn't quite as simple as she had hoped. Shisui's remaining personal effects were sparse indeed, and the Konoha records she could access were blotted out with line upon line of black ink. The Uchiha Police Force records were less censored... but didn't hold much she could use to understand his abilities.
There were a number of explanations - perhaps he or Itachi had gotten rid of anything like that before the coup attempt, or he'd naturally been cagey enough to not write anything down. Maybe Danzo had gotten his hands on it, possibly the Hokage had classified it. It didn't matter. She left the storage rooms no more enlightened then she had entered.
He had undoubtedly been a genius among geniuses, of course... But speed was a physical attribute. It didn't matter how skilled you were, the limiting factor was your body. Since he hadn't been famed for his overwhelming strength as well, it clearly wasn't simply a matter of channeling more physical energy...
Luckily, there was in fact a lead - Shisui's former students, from the genin team he had lead. One member, now working in the Intelligence division, had flatly refused to speak with her. Another was away on an extended mission for the next 2-6 months (she didn't have the clearance for a more detailed timeframe). And so... she raised her arm to the door, and knocked.
The man looked tired and worn, to a degree out of proportion to the age on his file - she'd have guessed him to be at least a decade older, if she hadn't known. His face painted an expression of mixed longing and distrust, which only served to draw more attention to the ruined remains of his eyes, and his movements were shaky in a way that retired ninjas rarely exhibited.
The neighbors had been surprised to see a ninja show up to their apartment building - apparently to them, the person she was here to see was nothing more than a blind old civilian.
Nonetheless, he was able to orient on her and move around with an ease that belied a decent degree of sensing skill, and while small, the apartment was well cared for. "There's no point in being polite, kid. I know I look like shit. This is what happens when you get a neurotoxin straight to the optic nerves. Now shut the door, there's a draft."
Hisana was suddenly struck with an intense sense of awkwardness. She'd come with the intention of simply leading into a few questions about Shisui, but now... it felt disrespectful as all hell. Should she ask about the injury, how he was coping? No, of course not, he'd be well and truly sick and tired of inquiries about it at this point. So-
"So who are you, anyway? Here to finally shut me up for good, or what?"
Right. Introductions.
"Um. I'm Uchiha Hisana, Genin, Student Mentorship Team Seven."
He leaned back at bit at her rank, an eyebrow twitchily rising over the ruined gash in his face. "Huh. Not bad. Had you pegged as a chunin, or one of the masks." His expression darkened. "And what's one of our village's prestigious graduates doing talking to someone like me?"
'I was hoping to pry some secrets about your mentor out of you' seemed like the wrong answer, but she had in fact come up with a more thoughtful alternative. "I was looking into the surviving associates of some of the Uchiha clans more well known figures. I spoke with the Hokage, and he permitted me to put together a memorial anthology."
The Hokage had in fact given her permission to ask around, when she asked him a bit over a year ago. At the time, it was an excuse to poke around some of the items in storage, but it was pulling double duty now.
"...huh. Yeah, I can spare some time to say a thing or two about sensei. The man was incredible, really. Insane, but incredible."
"Insane?" It was an honestly questioning tone. From everything Hisana knew about Shisui, both in this world and from her memories, Shisui had been an unusually level-headed, practical, and generally good person. Still, from one of his students... this was worth listening to.
"He was a genius through and through, and that made him naturally inclined to be a godawful teacher. When Masaru didn't immediately get water walking, it took him two weeks to figure out how to break it down into simple enough steps to explain it." The years briefly began to recede from the man's face, as he took on the wistful countenance of someone lost in memory.
"He hated that he wasn't able to do something well immediately, although he tried to hide it. It was kinda... cute, almost. He'd have a different handbook on teaching methods on him every day, and apparently he sat in on Academy lectures a bunch of times to see how they did it." A smile. "He wasn't much older then us at all when he was initially put in charge, and one of our clients mistook me for the team leader once, since I was the tallest on the Team. He went with it, put me on the spot, and made me have to scramble to act like I thought a jonin would. He called it leadership and infiltration training once we were finished."
Hisana nodded, diligently taking notes. (The odds of him not noticing her pen not moving, with chakra enhanced hearing and years of experience blind? Infintesimal.) "Heh. Sounds like a good story, I'll definitely include that. But you said he was insane? That all sounds pretty normal." She considered her words. "Positively well adjusted, considering his childhood prodigy status."
He snorted. "Nah, he was as crazy as the rest of them, just hid it better. He messed with jutsu modifications live - no theory work, no planning, he'd just modify the handseal sequence to make a lightning bolt curve or whatever - apparently by feel. Should have blown himself up ten different ways, but he had the devil's own luck. He had to be hospitalized, though, once, right before we were supposed to go on a mission, because he'd almost torn open his second Gate while 'messing around with his chakra' - his words, not mine."
Hisana's eyes opened wide. This was exactly the sort of information she'd been looking for. Just a subtle probe... "Wow. But it worked, didn't it? Nobody was able to keep up with him - especially with the Shunshin."
The older man's expression immediately snapped shut. "... Did you come here just to pry that secret out of me?"
Shit. Damage control. "Not at all. I was-"
"You were just leaving is what you were. Get out!" His trembling fingers reached to his waist, before grasping at nothing, no weapons being holstered there.
No. She needed this. She knew what kind of insanity lay ahead, the kinds of foes that would be coming up, and without skills of this caliber, as many as she could scrounge up, she was as good as dead - she was the reincarnation of a 14 year old civilian, instead of the child of practically a goddess. "Please!" She realized, belatedly, that she was on her knees.
He stopped.
"Please! I really do care about what you're saying - I lost everyone, and I was eight years old, without a Sharingan! I'm forgetting them, day by day! These memories you're sharing, you and other people, I need them, to understand. And..." She took a deep breath. "And I'm going to hunt down the person who did this, and make it so he can't hurt anyone else the way he hurt me again." Not Itachi, though of course she didn't say that - Danzo Shimura. That old bastard was responsible for half the things that went wrong in the story, had his hooks impossibly deep in Sarutobi, leaving her living in constant suspicion and suspense, and had ordered her mother killed.
"And I'm not strong enough. I'm not a genius, like Itachi, or like Shisui. So please. You said there was a secret."
The former shinobi took his time considering his approach, before finally shaking his head. "No. I'll tell you, but you can't use it. Not if you really aren't on his level of brilliance. He had this technique - I don't know what he called it, he never told me the name - where he'd mess with the chakra near his own brain directly. He was on a whole other level when it comes to genjutsu, which is messing with other brains. and he applied that skill there, although it was both physical and mental energies. Apparently, if he held it just right, he'd speed up his processing speed a shitload. Couldn't hold it too long before his brain would melt, of course, but for a couple of microseconds, for the shunshin?"
Hisana blinked. She vaguely realized her expression was horrified. "That's... he did that manually, through pure chakra control? He could have died! He should have died! If anything interrupted him at all-"
He sighed. "Like I said. He was insane."
She picked herself up. "That's..."
He finished the sentence for her. "That's not something you can use. I don't keep this quiet because it's some super special technique he wanted hidden - if he could spread it to every ninja in Konoha, he would have. I keep it quiet because I don't want some kid's death on my conscious." He continued, quietly enough that the average chunin wouldn't have heard, "Not a single one more."
"That's... Yes, I'll take that into consideration." The shaking hesitancy in her voice wasn't entirely faked. "I'll... I'll be going now. And I won't do anything rash." If he could tell that she was lying, he didn't mention it.
She'd use it. She couldn't not use this knowledge. But, to be fair, she had some advantages. The Sharingan, for one - it already slowed down her relative experience of time. If she mapped what parts of her brain had different chakra flows when she had it active, and filtered out the ones associated with memory...
For another, she already had experience making seals that altered internal chakra flows. Shisui might have done it manually, because he was a lunatic, but a seal could do the same thing with a greatly reduced chance of catastrophic failure. Yes, this could work. All she'd need...
She stared at the distant figure, clad in all green, speeding down the Konoha streets. All she'd need was to train her body enough to handle the speed and stress of repeated Shunshins. The tracksuit didn't have to be green, right?
