Rough Gem

Rough Gem. That was how the elders had referred to this kid in the report they had made Akihiro read. A diamond in the rough so to say, a kid with endless potential they could shape into one of the Uchiha's future stars. Personally Akihiro was a bit skeptic about this. It wasn't that he disliked the kid, but talent in the Uchiha Clan's younger ranks had been scarce lately, with no notable achievements or any sharingan awakenings in a while. This would have worried the elders and he had no doubt they would rush at the opportunity of marketing this Chiaki lass as a new and upcoming power house within the clan even if she were nothing special. Not that she had any fault in this, these were just politics. Nevertheless it was Akihiro's job now to train and educate the brightest youngsters in the Clan...and that for now at least seemed to be Chiaki.

He'd arrived to the training grounds a bit late, he had to admit. He'd goten distracted talking with Ikomiki at home- a routine he still was not used to, and his carefully planned day had suffered a slight delay. Hopefully this wouldn't be a big issue. His position as clan leader did afford him at least some space for these kinds of things... but by the time he arrived, Chiaki should already have been there. He looked around.

The Uchiha Clan training grounds were, like many other Uchiha Clan facilities, way more than they actually needed. A large section of the forest within the village was reserved to them, and where that forest ended was a large river which ran from the mountains trough the village. Of course, the Uchiha Clan training grounds were upriver from any other clan. On the other margin of the river were rocky grounds, about twenty meters of a rocky plain which gave way to a large cliff. What was left up in the cliff would be described some other time.

He wasn't finding this girl anywhere. In fact the training grounds were empty. Had she went home due to him not showing up?

Akihiro waited in the same spot for a couple of minutes, unsure of what to do. Truth to be told he wasn't used to be kept waiting, but he wasn't used to arriving late at places either so this was an entire new world of decisions to him. He could go home to Ikomiki and just claim Chiaki hadn't shown up when asked about it, and people would likely believe him. But that would cause the poor girl a world of trouble and Akihiro knew how mean everyone could be to the new lass in the main family. Plus for all he knew she could've been here already, simply having gone home after Akihiro didn't show up. Things were...complicated. The Uchiha sighed, taking out a bunch of folded sheets from the ninja pouch on his back. There was a picture of her attached to a report on the girl's current abilities.Akihiro wished he had at least a face to compare it to, but there was really no one to be seen.

And that's when he noticed. Having taken a few steps forward, a little patch of dirt behind a bush became visible. Akihiro hadn't exactly been looking under rocks to find this girl because he'd assumed she wouldn't be hiding. The earth had been moved by a simple but effective ninja technique. Effective against your average civilian that is, because most ninjas had the keen eye for detail that allowed them to notice these subtle changes in nature and find their targets. "It's official. The Yūhi are all nutjobs." He muttered, assuming the girl he was looking for was under that patch of dirt. Either that or he had just found a poorly hidden corpse.

Akihiro picked up a rather long branch, knowing by experience that poking unknown things with long sticks was better than doing it with his hands. Sure he assumed this was Chiaki, but it could also have been something else entirely. One could never be too careful!

With light but swift and decisive movement, he poked the unknown strange object. "Yo. What are you doing?" the neutral expression on his face was the one usually reserved for dealing with ridiculous lesser family requests, as if he'd rather be doing literally anything else. Akihiro had been curious about the girl, but the prospect of dealing with lesser family nutjobs was not one he looked forward to. He'd been intent on giving this girl a chance, wearing a less formal attire than expected to get her to relax. Instead of the usual cloak and armor beneath Akihiro was simply wearing black boots, white shorts and a black shirt with the Uchiha Clan symbol on its back.

Given that she had the tarp over her as well it was a given that Chiaki couldn’t see past it, basically leaving her blind down against the dirt here. Really, her plan could have been better. The jab of a long stick down into her, swift and decisive by Akihiro’s hands, would catch her by complete surprise, and she would scream in surprise. Right in the ribs! The shrill shriek she would let out definitely alerted Akihiro to her presence if he wasn’t already aware - Plus, there was the fact that Chiaki would squirm and nearly jump out of her pants from the sheer shock. The tarp was thrown off in an instant, and the screaming girl would roll out and quickly scramble into a sitting position, and then to stand.

Half of her had a mind to be angry. After all, who just randomly jabbed people with sticks like that! It hurt! She would definitely have a bruise somewhere on her chest now thanks to him. At the same time though, that was maybe the dumbest thing she could have done. Getting angry at Akihiro, the clan leader was an obviously wrong choice.

“Hey!” She would put on a forced smile, half from the anxiety that now swelled throughout her again. “I was just… testing you. Yeah! I just- I thought that it could be part of the training… Plus, I wanted to show my competence! I bet not everyone could hide from you, even if only for a few seconds.” She just bullshitted that out on the spot, and wow it actually sounded better than she thought it would. It was at least a passable excuse rather than saying nothing and staring, or telling the truth.

“My name is Chiaki! It’s a pleasure to meet you!” She would adopt a somewhat loud voice now for some reason, saying this all while bowing her head in an over exaggerated manner towards the young Uchiha Clan leader. The fact that she was covered in dirt from laying flat against the ground earlier became very appart now, flakes of it flying off her as she bent her body in that dramatic motion.

"Right...testing me. Great." He blinked twice. She wasn't exactly wrong despite how awkward it was to admit that. For perhaps more than a few seconds, even a minute, she had managed to avoid his detection. Of course he could argue he hadn't been exactly dedicating all of his resources to searching for her, or even that he'd been distracted thinking about the conversations at home this morning but... It wasn't really worth it. Chiaki at the very least seemed to have spirit. Spirit and the sharingan eyes, what else could he ask from a student really?

Perhaps a little tidiness wouldn't be too much. The girl was covered in dirt and with every move she made tiny clouds of dust rose fell from her clothing. "I'm Akihiro, pleasure to meet you too." How important were formalities in this sort of environment? Akihiro had hoped he could find a way to eventually get past those sorts of things at least with the people he worked with regularly. But his and Chiaki's teacher-student relation was new, and there were a few kids who had problems dealing with more relaxed relations with authority so he threaded carefully for now. At least until he could get a better sense of who this girl was and how she behaved.

"You're Chiaki Yuhi, wait no..." He made a dramatic pause pretending to check his papers for confirmation. "Chiaki Uchiha! Right, right. So tell me, do you have any idea of what this new name means exactly?" Always a good question to ask someone who had been adopted quite recently into the main family. Akihiro realized he was putting her on the spot here, but it was a good way to gauge how she dealt with pressure. In fact this was far better and safer than starting by bombarding her with jutsus and techniques just to see how she handled herself. The very first thing a ninja needed to conquer was their mind, so Akihiro believed. And they'd have time to conquer anything else later on. For now tho, he had to know exactly how she felt about carrying this burden that was the name of the Uchiha Clan.

Did he... ? It seemed like he was buying her excuse. Maybe. It was hard to really tell, but at least he bought it enough to where he didn’t pose the question any further which was honestly more than what she could have asked for. If he had continued any form of questioning or interrogation on the matter she probably would have crumpled under the pressure and admitted to everything, including eating that bug. That would have been the end of her. Raising her head now she would almost relax, that stiffness in her posture relaxing ever so slightly. Although that bruise on her ribs still remained, so she wouldn’t relax too much. It still stung a bit.

“Chiaki Uchiha! I am now… You can still call me Chiaki Yūhi though if you want — I, uhm… I guess I’m used to it.” She had spent the majority of her life being called that name, after all. Not many of the Uchiha Clan seemed to have adjusted to her new last name either, even if the elders had decided she would be brought into the clan. Once an outsider, always an outsider.

“It means… It means this, right?” She would blink her eyes closed, and then when she opened them there would be a single tomoe in her eye. The Sharingan. Albeit the last mature version of it. Most members of the Yūhi Clan had naturally red eyes, maybe as a result of their Uchiha genetics manifesting in some premature and useless form of the red-eyed Sharingan. So the only real difference between her eyes when she activated it was the presence of a single swirling tomoe in each of her eyes. A somewhat subtle difference, but the fact that she was pointing at her eyes now and looking directly at Akihiro would maybe make it a bit more noticeable.

As someone who was only brought into the Uchiha Clan as a result of manifesting a Sharingan, it was natural for her to assume that those eyes were what the Uchiha really meant. That was the only difference between Yūhi and Uchiha, at least.

It was always nice to see a newly developed Sharingan. It brought him back a lot of memories of his own time as a Genin, struggling to develop his eye sight and be useful to the Clan beyond being a walking calculator. Plus it meant the Clan itself was growing and that a new generations would be ready to take over. Not that Akihiro was planning on retiring anytime soon, but the life of a shinobi could be dangerous and it was nice to see there was talent in the Clan beyond him and that it wouldn't fall in disarray just because of his absence.

"Your name is Chiaki Uchiha now. Don't let people call you anything else, and wear our symbol proudly." Preferably not on boxers. Alas it was important to establish the girl's identity right off the bat, not just for show off but for her own benefit as well. coming from a distant branch of the Clan could make her life difficult, but the Sharingan was proof she was worthy of taking the Uchiha name and the sooner people from the main branch accepted that the better it would be for everyone.

"It also means responsibility. Neither our eyes nor our names made the Uchiha Clan what it is today. We did. People, especially people like you." There was a deeper meaning to being an Uchiha than simply having shiny red eyes.There was a code to follow, a duty to pursuit strength and above all put it to good use. He hoped in time he could make her see this which stood beyond the reach of the Sharingan.

"From this day onward you'll have two teachers. I see you've already been assigned a Jonin sensei, this is good. But you'll also have me as your instructor in the way of the Sharingan...and more."

There was an important question he needed to ask. One of a most personal nature and one which not many Uchiha were silling to simply answer. Nevertheless, Akihiro needed to understand his new student to the fullest of his ability. The Sharingan didn't simply "awaken" when one reached a certain age. Some people carried the right genes within the Clan and could go a lifetime without awakening it. The reason for this was that the Sharingan required a "kickstart", a feeling of despair. The notion that one's life is about to end, that all of their dreams and hopes will die there unless they do something. That was a deep personal experience. And the answer he sought.

"Tell me how it happened. How did you awaken your Sharingan?"

Even in these early stages the Sharingan afforded her certain perceptual advantages that were undeniable. Not just the sharpness of her eyesight, although that was a given. Everything was tinged over a shade of red, but in this new red-scale world she could sense chakra. Even without really being able to tell the colors apart, it was a fascinating experience. While she couldn’t quite see what elements Akihiro possessed it would be easy to identify them through sight alone if he used any techniques. That and…. Oh. Oh my.

Her eyes were drawn to a specific place on Akihiro’s neck. Only with her perceptional advantage from activating the Sharingan now could she see it. What appeared to be… Half covered. A bruise? It was clearly a hickey now that she actually looked at it. The longer she stared the redder her face would get, and soon she would be as steamed as a tomato and quickly averting her eyes down to the ground.

“Y-Yeah! Got it, definitely!” She couldn’t stop thinking about that image in her mind. So Akihiro was popular with women? It only made sense as a young, talented and handsome man with tons of power that there would be women jumping all over him. Shifting her stance a bit Chiaki did her best to not think any lewd thoughts.

It wasn’t working.

She would nod vigorously throughout what he was telling her. All of it was important and she understood it, but only when he asked that last question did she snap back to reality.

“You’re asking… How I awoke my Sharingan?” The question was repeated, hovering at the edge of her lips. Was this something commonly discussed in the Uchiha Clan? How the Sharingan was awoken was something that was pretty well known, at least she assumed. Perhaps it was from a tainted upbringing in an Uchiha aligned clan that made her think it was common knowledge that the doujutsu could only be awoken through traumatic events. The entire tone of the conversation had changed on that note, along with the aura of the scene in general.

“It was… Something personal.” Her eyes avoided his, looking down to the position in the dirt where she had just been laying. Given how recently that the clan had taken note of her eyes awakening it had to logically then be something that happened incredibly recently as well. No long past childhood traumas, but something still fresh. Months ago at most, if not less. “I don’t see how this is related to our training.”

Akihiro would take notice of the way her eyes focused on her neck. Even if he couldn't feel Ikomiki's lips on him right now or exactly where the consequences of those actions were on his skin, Chiaki's gaze and the redness on her cheeks made obvious both what she was looking at and...perhaps what she was thinking? It almost made him chuckle. Truth to be told Akihiro had never done anything like this before and while he'd certainly caught the attention of women before he was convinced it had been more due to his position than his actual looks. His position didn't matter for shit when it came to Ikomiki tho, in fact it only got in the way. It was refreshing to be 100% sure a person liked you because of you, not because of your wealth or status. So if she wanted to mark him he was perfectly fine with that.

Regardless of her red cheeks the girl's attitude was commendable. Vigorously nodding and seemingly taking in everything he said, Akihiro couldn't ask for much more from a student at this point. Of course every student had its issues and sooner or later barriers which needed to be surpassed would appear. As it turned out in Chiaki's case, sooner rather than later.

"It's always personal." He assured her. Every Sharingan awakening was a deep personal experience, something that couldn't easily be explained and sometimes kept deep within the Uchiha, locked away in secret. "There are a lot of things you don't see yet, but soon you will. If you're worried I will tell anyone, don't be. Whatever is shared in these training grounds remains in these training grounds. We were granted privacy to develop out eyes for a reason. So what you tell me, and what I tell you, is to strictly remain between us." He'd make a pause. he wasn't sure he'd be able to convince her to tell the story right now, although he considered that to be an important part of her training. But only her reaction to his words could answer that.

"There are five stages to a Sharingan eye." He'd confidently state. Surely this would bring confusion to the girl, but Akihiro expected that. "Yours is at its first stage. Awakening and developing the Sharingan isn't like developing any other physical ability. Our Dõjutsu is strongly connected to our emotions and how we deal with them...thus why I asked you that question. It's important."

Bits of her body language had changed. Slumped shoulders, eyes diverted elsewhere even while sporting that prideful dojutsu of the Uchiha Clan. It was a far cry from her earlier energy, but Chiaki’s nature could only be suppressed for so long. It was obvious that she was uncomfortable now, but this was a girl who was almost always uncomfortable. This wasn’t anything new. These training sessions, and her entire life, would just pass on from one uncomfortable moment to the next.

So she worked to move on to the next moment instead of staying in this moment.

“W-Well…” Beaming bright again, with an embarrassed smile. Eyes in the sky, looking at the clouds. “The truth is… It’s a funny story, actually. One day I was, well I was just out for a walk and — Well, I hit my head and can’t remember the specifics and then it just came out but —” She was lying very obviously, talking much faster than normal even for such a naturally anxious girl. But it wasn’t so much with the intent to deceive, but rather just to move on from this subject and onto the next one.

“Well, I only have the first stage!” She would nod now, eager to suck up to her new teacher and also display what little knowledge she had. “The uh, the First Tomoe! Since I only have one of those little dots in each of my eyes. Ittt… Since yours is much bigger it must be at the highest state? I mean, you have more thingies in your eyes so it must be at the fifth stage? Right? I don’t really know much more about the other stages because nobody has really told me, but I know right now everything I see looks red, like I’m staring through red glass, and I can sort of see chakra. But not chakra inside of you yet, but I could if you used some ninjutsu! And… And… Well my eyesight is better but that’s about it. Yours must be much better, right?”

She followed the strategy of just asking as many questions as possible and talking as much as she could. Maybe it would work, if she was lucky.

Akihiro blinked twice as he heard her story. This mad lass was straight up lying to his face without even bothering to make it a good lie. It was also not uncommon for some less mature Sharingan users to just make up stories about how they awakened their dojutsu- In most of these they were the heroes destined to awaken their power and save the day. In reality 90% of Sharingan awakenings involved being scared shitless for your life and escaping by mere chance.

Chiaki on the other hand was on the other end of he spectrum. She made up the most pathetic story Akihiro had ever heard and then proceeded to bombard him with question after question after question. Naturally he would remember every question she asked him but it was still a bit exhausting. He shrugged. "Fine, don't tell me if you don't want to." That battle was lost. For now. "But this would go much more smoothly if you did."

He'd then proceed to shake his head and answer her questions. "The little dots are called tomoe. There is one for each of the initial three states, which are the only three you need to worry about right now." and hopefully ever, considering what it took to awaken both the fourth and the fifth stage of the Sharingan eyes.

This next thing he wanted to ask of her was also going to be a difficult request, and she seemed to be having trouble dealing with those so he went with another question instead. "Have you ever fought while using the Sharingan?" It was an honest and important question. One which would eventually lead to another question and finally to his request. For now however, he would wait for her answer.

She would awkwardly, or more awkwardly than normally, look away as he pointed out her obvious lie. Chiaki had done her best given her situation, but this was all that she could pull off right now. Her eyes closed quickly and then those sharingan of hers would disappear. Keeping them open for too long would cause a bit of eyestrain when she was still so inexperienced. Not that the chakra cost was anything significant, just that it literally made her eyes feel dry and a bit dizzy after too long. It hadn’t ever been anything she questioned. There had to be a reason Uchiha didn’t just constantly keep their eyes on twenty four seven, after all. And that reason certainly wasn’t that they were chakra intensive, because they certaintly weren’t.

“Tomoe. I have one now, and I need to get two more. Got it…” She nodded again, placing her fist down against her palm in a confident motion. “That doesn’t sound so hard, right? I mean, I’m already one third of the way there.” Her confidence was clearly unreasonable given she both drastically underestimated the difficulty here and seemed to be unable to actually speak about how she gained the first tomoe. But still, there was a certain charm to how easily she was able to move on from one difficulty to confidence, even if it was misplaced. She certainly was someone who could spring back.

Although just as soon as it came it would be gone. Replaced by a slight confusion once he mentioned fighting. “Fought with it on? You mean like, sparring? I haven’t really done anything outside what we had to for the Academy. Learning the basics of taijutsu, physical training. All that sort of stuff. But that was before I found out I had a Sharingan at all. So… No, not really. I haven’t really done much of any fighting at all with it on. Is that something that I should be trying to do? I haven’t really been taken on any missions yet with my team or other Sensei, so I’ve never really run into a situation where I’ve had to use my eyes.” She hadn’t ever been in a fight with it off either, given she could barely count the sort of basic sparring they did in the Konoha Academy. Most of that was on a theoretical level between children or those who were just barely tained in the shinobi arts.

Despite their shaky start, Akihiro was glad she was now telling him good news. She had yet to use the Sharingan in combat which meant the Sharingan she awakened wasn't actually put to use an actual confrontation scenario yet. The fact that he had caught her before she used her eyes in a fight was very significant.

"That's good news. When the Sharingan is awakened and first used in combat many people don't initially notice there's a discrepancy between what you see and what is actually happening. The Sharingan eyes can predict the future, in a way. Regular eyes will tell you what is happening, but the Sharingan has the ability to tell you what will happen. That means what you see might not yet have happened, and you need to adjust your reflexes accordingly. Does that make sense?"

He'd crouch and grab a couple of pebbles. Words meant very little to him when he dealt with these issues before. It was easy to explain how the Sharingan worked in theory but the way to correct this reflex issue was far easier to understand if one could see the problem in action.

"Catch this." He'd throw one of the pebbles at her, allowing it to make an arc between the two so she didn't get surprised or hurt by the stone. Any civilian could have caught that pebble at the speed it was moving.

"Now activate your Sharingan again, and catch this one." Another pebble of similar size would be thrown with similar strength. The arc was also more or less the same, but there difference was in the eyes of the catcher. Chiaki's ability to catch this pebble would depend on whether or not she could adjust her reflexes quickly enough. Seeing a ball come at you and grabbing it was different than predicting a ball coming at you and grabbing it. The movement of her hands needed to be adjusted accordingly, and it was easy to move too fast or too soon. Personally, Akihiro was curious to see how she would do.

It was a good thing that she hadn’t ever been in a fight before? She expected to be scolded for that, being so inexperienced. Akihiro was the exact opposite of her, the most experienced person in the clan. The Clan Leader. Yet her lack of ability and experience didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest. Infact, how incredibly patient he had been with her so far seemed to suggest that he was either a saint or used to this sort of stuff. And if he had come all this way to specifically train her… Either the Uchiha Clan was much nicer than she thought or there was a severe lack of talent in the younger generation to the point where even someone as dubiously useful as her was being given special attention. A pretty frightening concept.

“Predict the future? That’s… I’ve done a lot of repeating what you said so far so I’ll try to avoid it from now on, but that’s pretty crazy. You mean like with crystal balls or astrology?” She wondered what sign Akihiro was. Chiaki was a Cancer. That was the crab, she was pretty sure.

Though, without much further explanation he would throw a pebble at her. Of course, given what he had just said… Naturally she was a step ahead of this exercise. Instantly she would activate her Sharingan. The point was that he was showing her how the perception advantage with the Sharingan let her see into the future, right? She was especially clever, figuring this out in advance. Except, being a step ahead she found herself running into the problem Akihiro expected her to sooner rather than later.

She saw the pebble coming at her, but the image in her eyes and what was actually happening didn’t line up. When the pebble looked like it should have been flying into her hands it hadn’t actually reached that point yet, and for a second she would be left confused. Up until that little rock pinged against her forehead, bouncing off and falling to the ground after. It was harmless, too small and slow moving in that arc to even leave a mark, but the palpable confusion on her face was clear and evident.

“What?” She would say, mostly to herself. Slowly her hands would move up to rub at the spot where it had hit her but… It was noticeable there too, if less so. What she was seeing was on the reverse of an input lag. When she moved her hands up, she saw where they would be before she actually got there, leaving her seeing her rub her own forehead before any sensation of touch was present. Incredibly odd.

“That’s… How do you handle this? You have to move your entire body with a slight delay to the things you’re seeing… What happens if what you see happen is wrong, too?”

Well, that was unexpected. Usually new Sharingan users would be able to grab the first pebble and miss the second, but Chiaki had been so eager to use her eyes that...well, she managed to miss the first pebble. She really was a curious person, different from any other student he'd ever had. In a way she reminded him of Ikomiki's early days studying under him, but only in the sense that both managed to surprise him quite often albeit in very different ways.

"What you just witnessed, is Sharingan newbie killer number one. It's a bit more unpleasant when it happens with a kunai or other sharp objects." A pebble really was a blessing compared to what Uchihas who awakened their Sharingan in battle had to face. Many were not afforded the time frame to adapt and since everyone learned at different rates this time frame could be rather big for some.

Akihiro would rise from his crouched position and stand once more. "You'll get used to it soon, don't worry. But if you can see it happen clearly, you can be sure it's not wrong.

There are mostly two situations you need to worry about. The first is when your eyes can see but your body can't keep up. It takes a lot of dedication to develop a body which can keep up with these eyes. Predicting the future means nothing if you can't do anything about it, right?" This was another painful lesson every Uchiha learned sooner or later. Sooner rather than later if they were lucky. It could leave them feeling powerless. It's one thing to be hit by an opponent you can't see, that's being overwhelmed and traumatic by itself. But being able to perfectly see and even predict an attack coming but not having the physical ability to do anything about it was another dreadful feeling entirely. It could be like seeing your own death before it happened.

"The second situation is when you meet an opponent too fast for even your Sharingan to keep up with." The other Uchiha fear. Relying heavily on their eyes meant many of them panicked when their eyes failed. But Akihiro wouldn't let that happen to Chiaki, not if he could avoid it.