Another Boring Uchiha Power Fantasy.

The ceasefire didn’t last nearly as long as everyone hoped.

Red light split the grey sky above the pass, fired from the Ame side, and the mountain woke up.

The Aburame commander stood at the edge of the command tent with his hands clasped behind his back. His insects had been deployed two hours before the flare, spread across the eastern ridge in a living surveillance net that fed information back to him through returning back to him. The intel was coming in fast.

"Eastern riverbed," he said. "Confirmed. Approximately forty combatants moving through the depression. They're below the ridge line. Standard reconnaissance would miss them."

The jonin around the map table exchanged glances. Daigo, standing near the entrance with his Fūma Shuriken already unstrapped, let out a breath through his teeth.

"The kid was right…" he grinned.

The commander didn't acknowledge the comment. He was already moving markers on the map.

"Hyūga team, confirm visual on the riverbed. I want numbers, formation, and estimated time to contact with our eastern shinobi."

A Hyūga chunin at the far end of the tent closed her eyes. The veins around her temples swelled as the Byakugan activated, her vision punching through rock and earth and distance to find what the Aburame's insects had already reported.

"Forty-three," she said. "Two columns. Moving south through the riverbed at standard pace. They'll hit our original eastern position in approximately twelve minutes. Mostly chunin. Three jonin signatures at the front."

"They're expecting to find our eastern flank where it was two days ago," the commander said. "It isn't there anymore."

He'd moved it. Quietly, during the last hours of the ceasefire, he'd pulled the eastern defense back and repositioned two squads into ambush positions along the riverbed's southern exit. Inuzuka trackers with their hounds were dug in on the western bank. A mixed unit of Konoha chunin and jonin held the high ground above the exit point. And Daigo's assault team was ready to close the trap from behind once the Ame forces committed to the corridor.

"Daigo. Take your team around the northern entrance. Once they're fully inside the riverbed, seal it behind them."

Daigo grinned. It was not a pleasant grin.

"With pleasure, Commander."

He was gone in a Body Flicker, the tent flap swinging behind him.

The commander turned to the remaining jonin. "Center push begins in ten minutes. Standard pressure. Make it look like we're committing everything to the center again. I want their command to believe their flank is going to work. The longer they think it's succeeding, the deeper their forces go into the riverbed."

"Understood."

The mountain shook as the first jutsu of the day detonated against the pass walls.

The center push was brutal and loud and exactly what it needed to be.

Konoha shinobi poured into the pass in rotating waves. Fire jutsu lit the narrow corridor in orange and red. Earth walls rose and fell as both sides reshaped the terrain. A Sarutobi jonin at the front of the first wave launched a devastating fire jutsu that filled the pass from wall to wall, forcing the Ame defenders to scatter from their forward positions. An Akimichi chunin followed with a Human Boulder that cratered through a stone barricade the Ame side had spent three days building.

The Ame forces held to the best of their ability. The pass was a chokepoint and numbers meant nothing when you could only send ten at a time. Water jutsu flooded the corridor. Sharpened shinobi tools rained from positions above. The fighting ground into the same ugly back-and-forth that had defined the engagement for two weeks.

But this time, the center wasn't the point.

The riverbed was dry and narrow, walled on both sides by steep banks of packed earth and loose stone. The Ame flanking force moved through it in two columns, their squad leaders navigating by hand signals, keeping low, keeping quiet. Their objective was the gap in Konoha's eastern defense that their scouts had identified during the ceasefire. Punch through, hit the Konoha staging area from the side, force a retreat. End the stalemate.

The first sign that something was wrong came when the scout stopped. He held up a fist. The columns halted.

"Do you smell that?" He asked.

The squad leader behind him sniffed the air. "Dog!"

The Inuzuka hit them from the western bank.

Three ninjas with their hounds launched from concealed positions above the riverbed, dropping into the columns from a height that would have broken civilian legs. The dogs struck first, ninken trained for war, slamming into Ame shinobi at full sprint, jaws closing on arms and throats. The Inuzuka followed with claws, the Four Legs Technique turning them into something that moved on all fours with speed that didn't belong to a human body.

The Ame columns broke apart. Training took over. They reformed into defensive clusters, water jutsu springing up to create barriers, senbon flying toward the Inuzuka positions. Three against forty-three was suicide. The Ame forces knew it. They pressed forward, ready to overwhelm the ambush with numbers.

Then the high ground opened up.

Konoha shinobi appeared on both banks of the riverbed simultaneously. Kunai and shuriken rained down. Explosive tags detonated along the riverbed floor, kicking up walls of dirt and stone that broke the Ame formation further. A Hyūga dropped into the riverbed from the eastern bank and began dismantling anyone within arm's reach, his Gentle Fist sealing chakra points with every strike, turning functioning shinobi into helpless bodies in seconds.

The three Ame jonin at the front rallied. One formed a water wave that surged down the riverbed, sweeping Konoha shinobi off their feet. Another created a shroud of rain that blanketed the corridor, killing visibility even further. The third began forming a large-scale jutsu, chakra building visibly, preparing something big enough to break the ambush by force.

He didn't get to finish his water dragon.

The northern entrance of the riverbed exploded inward. Two massive Fūma Shuriken spun through the mist, their four blades carving through the air with a sound like tearing silk. The first caught the jutsu-forming jonin across the back, the sharpened edges of the weapon living up to the Fūma clan's reputation as he was split in two. The second shuriken embedded itself in the riverbed wall above the remaining Ame forces, and Daigo appeared on top of it, Body Flickering into the mist with a third fuma shuriken already in hand.

"Nowhere to go, punks." Daigo said.

The trap closed. Konoha forces pushed from both ends of the riverbed. The Ame flanking force, designed to hit Konoha's side, found itself surrounded in the very corridor it had planned to use as a highway.

The fighting lasted eleven minutes. When it ended, thirty-one of the forty-three Ame shinobi were dead. The remaining twelve had surrendered after the last jonin went down under a combined assault from Daigo and the Hyūga.

The flank had failed. And with it, Ame's last play for the pass.

The center broke an hour later.

Without the flanking force to relieve pressure, the Ame defenders in the pass couldn't sustain the two-front defense they'd been counting on. Konoha's center push, which had been designed as a distraction, became the real assault when word came back that the riverbed was secured. The commander committed his reserves. Fresh squads poured into the pass. The Ame line buckled, bent, and broke.

By noon, Konoha held the Kaminari Pass.

The Ame forces withdrew to their tertiary positions behind the mountain range, leaving behind equipment, wounded, and dead. The pass itself was scarred beyond recognition, cratered and torn and reshaped by weeks of constant jutsu bombardment, but it was open. The route through the mountains belonged to Konoha.

The cost was written in stretchers.

Mikoto's hands glowed green for eight hours straight.

The hospital emptied slowly. Patients stable enough to travel were sent south toward the rear camps. The critical cases stayed, and Mikoto worked through them one by one. The last of the serious wounds were closed by the third day after the battle. For the first time since she'd arrived at Kaminari Pass, Field Hospital Two had empty cots.

Orders came on the fourth day. The pass was secured. The bulk of the Konoha force would remain to hold it. Team Mikoto was being recalled to base camp.

Mikoto packed her kit in the hospital. She cleaned her workspace. She organized the supply shelf the way Arata liked it and restocked the bandage rolls and made sure every fish in the training bucket was alive and healthy.

When she walked out of the tent, they were waiting.

Sixteen medical-nin in white coats. Arata at the front. The woman with round glasses. Genji. The twins from Field Hospital One. Patients who could stand. Patients who couldn't stand but had dragged themselves to the tent entrance anyway, propped up with crutches, because they wanted to be there.

Mikoto stopped.

"You're not leaving without saying goodbye." Arata smirked.

"I wasn't trying to…" She lied badly.

"Sure you were." He folded his arms. The dark circles under his eyes were lighter than they'd been two weeks ago. "Mikoto. What you did here, I've already put in the report. But reports are just numbers. The people standing behind me are what the numbers mean."

The woman with glasses was crying. She wasn't the only one.

"You taught me the Mystical Palm," she said. "I couldn't do it for eight months. You showed me once and it worked. I've saved three people since then. Three people who would be dead if you hadn't sat on that crate with a bucket of fish and taught me how to better control my chakra."

"You healed my spine," said a man leaning against the tent wall. His legs were working. They shouldn't have been. "The other medics said I'd never walk. You spent forty minutes putting me back together."

"You restarted my heart…" said another.

"You taught me the Chakra Scalpel," Genji said. His voice was thick. "I'm better than I was. Everyone here is better than they were. Because of you."

Mikoto's eyes burned.

"Red-Eyed Angel," Arata said. "That's what they're calling you. The stretcher teams started it. 'Get me to the Uchiha.' 'Get me to the Red-Eyed Angel.' It's all over the camp." He paused. "I've been a medical-nin for fifteen years. I've never seen anything like what you did here. And I don't think I will again."

Mikoto bowed. Deep. Longer than she needed to.

"Thank you for letting me work with you, Arata-sensei," she said. Her voice cracked on the last word. "All of you. Thank you for trusting me."

She hugged the ones who were close enough to hug. She shook hands with the ones who offered them. She pressed her palm against the shoulder of a patient who couldn't lift his arms and let a little green light flow into him, one last treatment.

Then she walked away from Field Hospital Two with Shark Skin on her back and tears on her cheeks and a nickname she hadn't asked for following her down the mountain.

[Ding!]

[Weekly Sign-in available!]

[Signing in…]

[Obtained: Ninja Art: Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu!]

Name: Mikoto Uchiha

Age: 13

Rank: Chunin

Affinity: Lightning Affinity, Fire Affinity, Yin Affinity, Water Affinity

Unique: Immense Chakra Reserves, Sharingan (Two Tomoe), Advanced Growth Rate

Skills: Fire Style Mastery, Water Style Mastery, Lightning Style Mastery, Yin Style Mastery, Ninjutsu Mastery (Clone Jutsu, Substitution Jutsu, Transformation Jutsu, Body Flicker, Ninja Art: Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu), Shurikenjutsu, Advanced Taijutsu (Ninja Art: Bare-Handed Blade Block), Elite Genjutsu, Perfect Chakra Control, Uchiha Style: Kenjutsu, Stealth, Survival Knowledge, Cooking, Medical Ninjutsu (Mystical Palm, Chakra Scalpel, Poison Extraction Jutsu), Fūinjutsu Affinity, Pedagogy Mastery, Space-Time Ninjutsu Affinity, Seven Heavens Breathing Method, Musical Talent, Craftsmanship Aptitude

Equipment: Kunai, Shuriken, Smoke Bomb, Explosive Tags, Poison Gas Bomb, Flash Bomb, Gas/Sleep Bomb, Food Pills x102, Wire Strings, Shark Skin, Giant Folding Fan, Bingo Book, Training Weights, Fūma Shuriken x100, Hero Water x10

Mikoto was shocked to learn that the Third Hokage’s personal jutsu was now in her brain. Any one of her ninja tools could now be multiplied tens, to hundreds, to a thousand times over. She wondered if she could clone Shark Skin and if it would work the exact same…

Shark Skin didn’t seem to be a fan of the idea.

I only need one of you, hm? There’s no point in cloning you? Well, if you say so. Mikoto thought with a mischievous smile.

The road south was different from the road north.

The column was smaller. Team Mikoto walked with a mixed group of shinobi heading to various rear camps, some rotating out, some carrying dispatches. The mood was lighter than the march to the pass had been. They'd won. It didn't feel like winning, but it was.

The boys walked beside Mikoto. They were chatting their little heads off talking about their experience in the camp. They also wanted to know how Mikoto’s experience was in the hospital pretty much the whole time. What was it like to eat the food pill and then crash after? And a bunch of other stuff. Chōza munched on some trail rations. Inoichi had the anatomy scroll tucked under his arm. Shikaku had his umbrella opened to block the rain with his other hand in his pocket.

"So what was it like?" Inoichi asked. "The hospital. You were in there for like... the entire time."

"Busy." Mikoto said.

"Busy how? Like, did you sleep at all?"

"A few hours. Here and there."

"You’re lying. The medics told us. They said she worked for four days straight before she collapsed." Shikaku said flatly.

"I didn't collapse. I... sat down very quickly."

"On the floor. They said you hit the floor, sensei." Chōza said.

"Arata caught me before my head hit anything important."

"What was the food pill like?" Inoichi leaned in, curious. "You gave us some but I've never seen anyone take one."

"It's like someone poured lightning into your veins," Mikoto said. "One second you can barely stand. The next, you feel better than you've ever felt in your life. Your hands stop shaking. Your vision clears. You feel like you could heal the entire camp twice over."

"That sounds awesome." Chōza said.

"It's a lie. All of it. The pill isn't healing you, it's burning through your reserves to fake it. And when the seventy-two hours are up, your body quits." She paused. "I don't recommend it."

"I’ll keep that in mind…" Shikaku said.

"What about us?" Inoichi said. "Don't you want to know what we were doing while you were saving the world?"

"I always want to know."

"Well, I named every bone in the human body," Inoichi said proudly. "Arata-sensei gave me a fish. I healed the fish, sensei. I actually healed a fish."

"Really?" Mikoto looked at him. Something warm and bright crossed her face. "You learned the Mystical Palm Jutsu?"

"The cut closed! It was small, and it took me like twenty minutes, and the fish was not happy at all, but it closed."

"Inoichi, that's incredible."

"It's not incredible. You probably healed a fish on your first try or something."

"My first try took me five days of watching someone else do it before I even attempted it. Twenty minutes on your own is better than what most medical-nin achieve in their first month."

Inoichi's ears went red. He looked at the anatomy scroll under his arm and tried to act like the compliment hadn't landed as hard as it had.

"I broke two training posts with the staff," Chōza offered. "And the Expansion Jutsu works with it now. Kind of. The reversion still makes me feel like my arms are going to fall off."

"That'll ease up with practice. Your body is still learning to handle the strain."

"I also made friends with the cooks. They always gave me extra servings."

"Of course they did." Inoichi sighed.

"What? I'm a growing boy!"

"You're a growing boy who eats like three growing boys."

"That's because I AM three growing boys. Expansion Jutsu. I contain layers, bodyjumper."

Mikoto laughed. Shikaku groaned.

"What about you, Shikaku?" Mikoto asked. "Anything you want to share?"

"Not particularly."

"He went to a command meeting." Chōza snitched immediately.

"Dude!"

"What? You did! Daigo-san took you!"

"That was supposed to be…" Shikaku sighed. "It wasn't a secret. It just wasn't... I wasn't going to bring it up."

"A command meeting?" Mikoto raised an eyebrow.

"I just sat in the corner and listened. That's all."

"And then he told the special jonin where the enemy forces were hiding and he was right," Chōza added, still chewing. "No big deal or anything.”

Shikaku pulled his umbrella lower over his face.

"Is that true?" Mikoto asked.

"I noticed something on the map. Anyone would have seen it."

"Nobody else saw it, Shikaku," Inoichi said. "The jonin didn't see it. The commander didn't see it. You did."

"It was obvious."

"It was obvious to YOU."

Shikaku said nothing. He walked with the umbrella covering his face and his free hand in his pocket and the tips of his ears turning red in a way that was completely invisible under the umbrella, which was probably why he'd opened it in the first place.

Mikoto smiled and said nothing more about it. Some praise landed better when it wasn't spoken.

They reached base camp the next evening.

Takeda was waiting with someone else.

A man Mikoto hadn't seen before was standing beside him outside the command tent. Tall, wild brown hair and an open, friendly face that looked like it had never held a serious expression for more than ten seconds. He wore a standard Konoha flak jacket and had a pair of tonfa strapped to his back. His headband was tied around his forehead at a slight angle, as if he'd put it on in a hurry and never bothered to fix it.

He was grinning.

"That them?" the man asked Takeda, pointing at the three boys.

"That's them."

"They're so small!" The man's grin widened. "I really wasn’t expecting this."

Takeda turned to Mikoto. "Mikoto. This is Sarutobi Enmaru. Jonin. He's been officially assigned as the jonin-sensei for the Ino-Shika-Cho formation."

Mikoto's stomach dropped.

She'd known this was coming. She'd always known. She was a chunin leading genin as a temporary measure during wartime. The system was clear: Ino-Shika-Cho trios were led by Sarutobi jonin. That was tradition. That was how it worked since the Third Hokage got into office.

She'd just hoped it wouldn't be so soon.

"It's nice to meet you, Mikoto-chan!" Enmaru stepped forward and offered his hand. His grip was warm and enthusiastic. "I've heard incredible things about you. You're something special."

"Not really…" Mikoto humbly said. Anyone would be as capable as her if they had the weekly sign-in. She wasn’t special.

"Well, I'll do my best to live up to the standard you've set." He rubbed the back of his head. "No pressure, right? Just following the greatest little Uchiha in the war. Easy."

The boys were standing behind Mikoto. They'd heard everything. None of them were moving.

"Mikoto-sensei… Does this mean..." Inoichi said. His voice was small.

"It means you have a proper jonin-sensei now," Mikoto said. She turned to face them. "It means you're going to keep growing. Keep getting stronger. Enmaru-sensei is a jonin with far more knowledge and experience than me. He'll teach you things I can't."

"I don't want a different sensei…" Chōza said. His eyes were already wet.

"Me either…" Inoichi was on the verge of tearing up as well.

Shikaku said nothing. He had turned his head away from the group, hiding his face.

Mikoto looked at them. Three boys she'd pulled out of a gate with clean clothes and full stomachs, who she'd tested with killing intent and taught to walk on water and trained before dawn every morning until they could fight three-on-one and almost make her work for it. Three boys who'd survived bandits and a jonin and a mountain pass and stretcher duty and death. Three boys who were hers in every way that mattered.

She crossed the distance and pulled all three of them into a hug at once. Her arms went around Inoichi and Chōza and her hand found the back of Shikaku's head and she held them and they held her.

"Keep up with your training," Her voice was breaking. "Listen to Enmaru-sensei. Don't cause him any problems." She squeezed tighter. "Send me letters. Write to me. Tell me everything. I want to know about every mission, accomplishment, every change."

"We will…" Inoichi said. He was crying openly. Tears ran down his face without shame.

"We promise, sensei…" Chōza said. He was crying too, big, round tears that dripped off his chin.

"We may not have been a squad for long, but in my heart, you'll always be my boys. Always. No matter what. We're connected. Nothing changes that." Mikoto told them.

She let go. She held each of them at arm's length and looked at their faces. Then she gripped their shoulders.

"Stay safe and absolutely, under no circumstance, are any of you allowed to die. Do you understand me? You are not allowed to die." She commanded.

"Yes, sensei!" Inoichi and Chōza said together, voices cracking.

Shikaku's back was still turned. His shoulders were shaking. He wiped his face with his sleeve and didn't turn around.

Enmaru stood off to the side, watching the scene. His grin had faded into something awkward. He looked at Takeda.

"Ah man," he whispered. "It feels like I’m breaking up a family. Am I a homewrecker, man? I thought this was just going to be a simple squad swap… Why are their bonds so strong? Wasn’t it only for like a couple of months or something like the temporary squad?"

"Just do your duty and it'll be fine." Takeda told him quietly. "Every shinobi needs to learn how to handle situations like this. The boys will be fine without her."

"I heard she was being promoted to special jonin. Is that true?" Enmaru whispered.

"It is. Her merits during Kaminari Pass are absurd from the report I got. She's earned it and has more than enough people to vouch for her despite her age."

"Is she really that gifted?"

"Even more than you can imagine."

"Oh man, I feel like it's going to be hard to live up to a child prodigy." Enmaru glanced at the boys, still teary-eyed. "Look at them, they're still crying!"

"It'll be fine. You don't need to be a better sensei than her. You just need to do what's expected of you. Besides, you won't really have much to teach them if the rumors I heard about them are correct. She really went all out. They just need more field experience and I have a feeling that they'll be chunin in no time."

"I'll do my best, man. But damn… I think I would’ve preferred an S-rank mission over breaking up a family."

Takeda coughed. The sound was loud enough to carry.

"It's time for them to go now."

Mikoto looked at him. Tears still running down her face. Then she looked at her boys.

"See you soon, okay?"

"We'll never forget everything you've done for us, Mikoto-sensei!!!" Chōza and Inoichi shouted.

"Let's get going already..." Shikaku wiped his face again, his back still turned to Mikoto. "How long are a bunch of men going to cry like girls?"

"We'll miss you, sensei!" Inoichi and Chōza shouted, waving.

"I'll miss you three too..." Mikoto smiled through her tears. She waved back. She kept waving.

She watched them walk away. Enmaru fell into step beside them, already talking, already introducing himself properly, already being loud and warm and everything a sensei should be. Chōza and Inoichi were still crying and waving. Shikaku walked with his hands in his pockets and he didn't look back.

She knew it wouldn't be forever. But she didn't know it would be so soon either.

She watched until they disappeared around the bend in the road. Then she stood there for another minute, looking at the empty path.

Takeda let her have it.

"Mikoto," he said, when enough time had passed. "Come inside with me."

The command tent was the same as it had always been. Same desk. Same scrolls. Same tired expression on Takeda's face.

"Sit down." He requested.

She sat.

He pulled a scroll from his desk and unrolled it in front of her. It bore the seal of the Hokage.

"Effective immediately," Takeda said, "you are promoted to the rank of Special Jonin."

Mikoto stared at him.

"Your specialty designation is medical ninjutsu. You are officially classified as a medical-nin under Konoha's field medical corps, with full authority to operate independently in medical capacities, lead medical teams, and train medical personnel."

"Takeda-sir," Mikoto said. "I... I haven't even been a chunin for a year."

"I'm aware."

"I'm thirteen."

"I'm aware of that too."

"I don’t think I'm ready for this. I failed that one mission not too long ago, remember?"

Takeda leaned back in his chair. He looked at her with the gaze of an adult and an experienced shinobi leader.

"Let me tell you what's in this report," he said. He picked up a second scroll, Arata's, the one from Kaminari Pass. "Three hundred and forty-one patients treated at Field Hospital Two. Two hundred and fifty-six of those treated primarily by you or your water clones. Sixty-four of eighty-five critical cases survived because of your intervention. Seventy-five percent of the wounded who came through that hospital would have died without you. You learned the Poison Extraction Jutsu by watching it performed once. You deployed water clones to save even more lives. You trained sixteen medical-nin, multiple of whom achieved the Mystical Palm and Chakra Scalpel for the first time under your instruction. You worked for four days without sleep before resorting to a food pill, and three more days on the pill before your body physically shut down. You saved the entire hospital from an assassination attempt by launching a suicidal spy through the ceiling."

He set the scroll down.

"And that's just Kaminari Pass. Before that, you killed a jonin as a chunin. You held an outpost against an Iwa assault force. You completed three consecutive B-rank solo missions in three days. You trained three genin, heirs to the Nara, Yamanaka, and Akimichi clans, to a level where one of them provided strategic intelligence that influenced the outcome of the Kaminari Pass battle."

He folded his hands on the desk.

"Haruna vouched for you. Arata vouched for you. The Aburame commander at Kaminari Pass vouched for you. I am vouching for you. Hayama, the commanding officer over this theater, has reviewed your file and approved the promotion personally."

Mikoto sat in the chair and felt the weight of it.

"I still don't think I'm ready…" she said quietly.

"Nobody who's ready for it thinks they are," Takeda said. "The ones who think they're ready are the ones I worry about."

She looked at her hands.

"If so many people really believe I'm ready for this," she said, "then I won't let them down. I'll do my best to live up to their expectations."

"That's all anyone can ask." Takeda picked up the promotion scroll and held it out to her. "Congratulations, Special Jonin Mikoto Uchiha. Medical-nin. Konoha is fortunate to have you."

She took the scroll. She held it in both hands.

"What are my orders, sir?"

"Rest. Eat. Sleep in a bed for the first time in three weeks." He almost smiled. "I'll have your new assignment by morning."

She stood. She bowed.

"Thank you, Takeda-sir. For everything."

She walked out of the command tent into the evening air. The camp was settling into its nighttime rhythm around her. Cook fires. The sound of voices. The distant clang of a smith working late.

She looked south, down the road where three boys had disappeared.

Then she looked at the scroll in her hands. Special Jonin at thirteen years old.

She tucked the scroll into her vest and went to find something to eat.