Illusionary History
Our few meetings were really interesting...
"Hey! Heeeeeeeey!"
"..."
"Spinny eyes guy!"
"..."
"I know you can hear me!"
"..."
Poke. Poke, poke, poke. Pokepokepokepokepoke-
Natsuo shoved himself up on his elbows, letting his book slide off his face. He then had to stifle a flinch as it revealed a face just a couple of inches away. A few side glances revealed he was surrounded by... by genin. "Tch. What's this supposed to be?"
The face pulled back, and now he could see the rest of it - a girl, Inuzuka judging by the black puppy in her arms, young for a genin, practically vibrating with energy.
"You're the illusion guy, yeah? C'mon, hit me with the spinny eyes no jutsu!"
"You woke me up... so I'd put you under the Sharingan genjutsu?" It was hard to keep the incredulity from his voice.
The girl nodded, several times, if anything looking more enthusiastic.
"...Why?"
"I have to see a jutsu if I want to beat it, yeah? And I'm gonna make the strongest jutsu of them all, so I need to see the strongest illusions. Just makes sense."
Part of Natsuo felt flattered, but mostly? He laughed.
"Beating the Sharingan's a little hard. Good luck with your super-jutsu project, though."
"Don't count me out that easy." The girl practically posed, eyes closed and looking smug. "I'm a prodoggy, you know."
Ugh.
"Look, if it'll get you out of my hair, I'll do it."
"Really?" The girl opened her eyes, meeting Natsuo's spinning red ones. The world around her dissolved, replaced by the Forest of Death, shrouded by night. Insects crawled on all the trees, and distantly, bestial cries echoed. Natsuo was pretty proud of that last touch.
Not that anyone else saw it. To the rest of the world, the Inuzuka just froze, looking around. "Whoa..."
"...This is so cool!" That was... not the impression Natsuo had been hoping for.
The genin started chattering amongst themselves, the dog wriggling it's way free of the Inuzuka's arms as she whirled about, peering at the illusion. They also made no effort to go away.
"Kai!" Inuzuka made the hand seal to break illusions, then frowned and tried again when it didn't work. "When does it wear off?"
Natsuo thought about it for a moment. "It doesn't."
"What?"
"It doesn't wear off."
"Y-you're kidding, right?"
He quickly flash stepped away, smirking at the distant, angry barking.
...not that I appreciated them at the time.
"Wait, is that- it is. Hold on for a second, I need to get my revenge."
Kiko split from the small pack of Inuzukas storming the civilian recreation zones, and sauntered up to a certain street restaurant. Loudly, to nobody in particular, she spoke. "How is genjutsu even real? Just like, close your eyes, dumbass. Total joke style."
Natsuo sighed, and pushed his ramen away. "Who's the dumbass dumb enough to pick this fight?"
"Oh? You don't know me? I've got you at a disadvantage, Uchiha Na-Tsu-Oh."
"That's because I'm famous, and you aren't." Natsuo turned the stool. Hm, an Inuzuka girl squinting at the menu, chunin vest, young and runty, black dog - "Wait, I remember now. Cute dog, by the way."
Kiko puffed up, still not looking at him. "Thanks-hey, that won't save you!"
At that, Natsuo raised an eyebrow. "Save me from what, exactly?"
"From the absolute obliteration of your Uchiha pride."
Natsuo snorted. "How do you say such cheesy things with a straight face?"
"Fine, just- let's both use our genjutsu at once. Whoever has one running afterwards, wins."
This should be easy. "You're on."
"On three, two, one-"
Two gazes met. Natsuo's sharingan spinning to life with a Genjutsu: Sharingan - and instead, it just revealed the inconsistencies in her eyes, peering through the illusion already there to see them as they are. Closed. The Sharingan tore it apart - but the genjutsu, despite being completely useless, simply reformed right after.
"Pffffft." Kiko smirked.
Meanwhile, Natsuo blazed through the possibilities. He pulsed his chakra, feeling his coils - and yes, the genjutsu is trivial to dispel, but the foreign chakra could work it's way back in quickly. A continuous-exposure type with a very subtle application and next to no obvious effect, sound or smell most likely, and with him being within the field, he couldn't break it. Sure, he could see through it and bust out of it with no difficulty, but he technically couldn't stop it from being applied again. A useless technique, except...
Except perfectly suited to winning a bar bet.
"And so a mere chunin's half-assed trick defeats Konoha's 'Sharpest Sharingan'! Truly, I've gen and surpassed ju-tsu..." Kiko fist pumped, and started strutting her way back to her clanmates. "I wonder, will they make statues of me?"
"Genjutsu Reversal" was all Natsuo said in reply, as he dropped her off of an illusionary cliff naked and covered in spiders. If it happened again, he might actually have to learn her name.
I just can't help but wonder...
"I just wanted to, uh, say thank you." Kiko seemed awkward in her new Anbu garb, idly fiddling with the mask. Cat. They'd really done her like that, huh?
"What for? We've only talked once." Natsuo wasn't in the same squad, but you could only pass by the same hallways so many times before running into each other.
"Three times, I think, no-anway, you helped me come up with this cool technique. I was just about ready to write off genjutsu entirely, but getting reversed showed me there was a big possibility nobody's touched yet, as far as I know."
Natsuo thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No, I can't see what you'd be talking about. What did you figure out?"
Kiko took a deep breath and launched into it. "So, chakra used for genjutsu operates within the brain, and that's how it controls the senses, right. Normally it's a one way flow of information, and without a bloodline, genjutsu formulas are hard to adjust on the fly, and are already hard enough to make realistic, so there's not much point. But genjutsu reversal inverts the flow of information, right? Even if there's no 'chakra path' between the two ends of the jutsu, it can be inverted and cause direct action on the brain of the other side without passing through a medium! If you rebound your own genjutsu, it'll flow right back to you without needing an intervening path, and since you're already operating within the target's sensory pathways, you can have the jutsu copy the, the..."
Kiko had to inhale again, and Natsuo took the opportunity. "So you copy their perception and bounce it back to yourself?" The sharingan could do similar, like it's ability to raid minds, but if it could copy somebody's perception in real-time, it would open some interesting tactical possibilities. He would need to see if he couldn't replicate the concept, later.
"Yes, exactly! Exactly that! Combined with a high-range vector like sound, you'd be able to get readings from tons of people."
Natsuo stopped and considered it. Yes, it could work. Without the need for a visual distortion, the technique would be borderline undetectable, and if the input sorting issue was resolved... Plus the factor of subtler application methods...
He whistled. "That would be an A-ranked technique, if not higher. How far along are you?"
"I'm, I'm just getting started, heh." Kiko rubbed the back of her head nervously. "I've managed to borrow my dog's sight but I haven't started testing on people yet. Hey, maybe you'd like to work with me on it? I'll need the help."
"Hm... Sure. I'd like that."
"Great! I've got a bunch more ideas too, a bit of everything, but there's this one ningenjutsu idea I've got - that is what it's called right? - and I think you might like it. Ooooh, and we can call it Kiko's Magic Eyes!"
"Can we workshop that a little?"
"Natsuo's Magic Eyes!"
"That's... not really better."
The war sparked to life not long after.
...what could we have done together?
Normally, Natsuo was fine with silence. Normally, it didn't feel like he was standing next to a cliff. He wracked his brains for something to say, to fill the air out a little.
"Did you ever finish that genjutsu technique?"
No response.
"Kiko?"
"Yeah."
"Oh."
He drummed his fingers on the table. Recreation room? What a joke.
"We're going to be seeing more of each ot-seeing each other more, since we're both jonin-sensei now. Heh, that came out wrong."
Nothing.
"Any, uh, thoughts about that? Want to work on developing some techniques further? I hear you're a genjutsu specialist now, and..."
He trailed off. The room was silent for a few moments, just long enough to make him wonder if he should say something, say anything, again.
"Maybe."
He tried. He really did.
Tree Tap Technique
An incredibly subtle genjutsu technique that produces no actual illusions. Instead, the chakra charge within the victim's brain triggers a rebound, sending back a copy of their perception. Effectively, it allows the genjutsu user to borrow the target's senses with no alteration, bypassing some drawbacks of genjutsu.