by In all the time in his old world, Ashitaka had never gotten into the habit of instinctively evading the Uchihas' scarlet gaze, mostly because it was like dodging water in a downpour, and partially because it was just rude. However, having been paralyzed twice by it now impressed upon him the importance of being able to do something about it. It was immensely annoying to be defeated in an instant with a mere glance and rendered utterly helpless to the whims of the person employing it. However, there didn't seem to be any way of countering the Genjutsu: Sharingan other than avoiding getting into it in the first place. That, of course, required understanding how it worked.
Conjuring two Wood Clones and having one transform into Nyguyen and the other into Akihiro, Ashitaka paced back and forth before them like a caged tiger as he reflected on the past instances of his being subject to their bloodline's power. In the former case, he was barely fazed but Ari was struck nearly unconscious and plagued with her traumatic memories. When it came to the Sparrow, however, he was the one who was knocked out. In both events, the technique hadn't been employed at the first signs of conflict, which indicated that certain criteria had to be met by either the target or the user, or both, for it to be activated. The Senju paused and looked into the false Uchihas' eyes to see if there was some hint he could glean from them. Notably, his so-called sensei's Sharingan looked like pretty standard fare with a trio of black tomoe surrounding his pupil. On the other hand, his rival's eyes looked like they each barely contained a black three-point shuriken set against red pupils. He remembered seeing that most ordinary members of the clan had either one or two tomoe, indicating that the Clan's power did evolve within an individual.
Ashitaka really wished he'd been able to save any of his notebooks beyond the one containing his weapon designs and the notable figures he'd encountered during the War. He'd lost years of research with that world shift.
More pertinently, however, the Prince of the Forest believed he was starting to piece together how the Scarlet Eyes worked. And more importantly, how they didn't. When Nyguyen had employed his technique, he had first shouted to center Team 10's attention on him rather than each other. Likewise, Akihiro didn't use it until when Ashitaka was staring him down. That indicated that it wasn't enough to point the Sharingan at a person and simply launch the mental assault. Which in turn meant that like other Genjutsu, it required the victim to be paying direct attention to the user. Perhaps specifically looking directly at them, and hopefully more specifically looking directly into their eyes. Now that was creepy. It reminded him of the snakes that would paralyze their prey with eye contact before eating them, inspiring stories of basilisks and medusae. On the plus side, it seemed to weaken drastically with the number of targets it had to be used on and likely the level of development the user's eyes had reached. But Ashitaka was not a member of the Uchiha Clan and therefore wasn't privy to the finer details of how that panned out. And it wasn't like he could just ask them to give over their bloodline's secrets so he could find out some way to escape them. After all, if he were to be captured during one of his many defeats, then someone could read his mind and the tricks behind the Sharingan would be as common knowledge as Konoha's "Exclusive" jutsu were.
Unfortunately, any solution born from having reached that conclusion led to another problem. The technique seemed to operate instantly, or at least functionally so. That meant there would be no chance to react once it was deployed, and in turn that the only way to successfully circumvent it was preemptively. Which presented a host of its own problems, compounded by the fact that the Clan was a powerful and important component of his village. To go around avoiding eye contact with any Uchiha he met was to show fear, mistrust, and potentially even submission. He supposed he could try wearing a blindfold like he did when he was a child, but he doubted that in his current form he could get away with being passed off as an edgy chunnibyo.
At once, he was blindsided by an epiphany: the forehead protectors. He'd always thought they were stupid and refused to wear one, but in hindsight, the things were actually a perfect defense against Dojutsu of any kind, at least in sufficiently-illuminated areas. With that thought in mind, he went about looking for the local armorsmith. While Titanium might not be the most fantastic metal out there, it was still fairly respectable and more important was its near-adamantine lustre when polished. A forehead protector made of it should do well enough in preventing anyone with especially sensitive eyes from looking directly at his face.
[Exit thread.]
Conjuring two Wood Clones and having one transform into Nyguyen and the other into Akihiro, Ashitaka paced back and forth before them like a caged tiger as he reflected on the past instances of his being subject to their bloodline's power. In the former case, he was barely fazed but Ari was struck nearly unconscious and plagued with her traumatic memories. When it came to the Sparrow, however, he was the one who was knocked out. In both events, the technique hadn't been employed at the first signs of conflict, which indicated that certain criteria had to be met by either the target or the user, or both, for it to be activated. The Senju paused and looked into the false Uchihas' eyes to see if there was some hint he could glean from them. Notably, his so-called sensei's Sharingan looked like pretty standard fare with a trio of black tomoe surrounding his pupil. On the other hand, his rival's eyes looked like they each barely contained a black three-point shuriken set against red pupils. He remembered seeing that most ordinary members of the clan had either one or two tomoe, indicating that the Clan's power did evolve within an individual.
Ashitaka really wished he'd been able to save any of his notebooks beyond the one containing his weapon designs and the notable figures he'd encountered during the War. He'd lost years of research with that world shift.
More pertinently, however, the Prince of the Forest believed he was starting to piece together how the Scarlet Eyes worked. And more importantly, how they didn't. When Nyguyen had employed his technique, he had first shouted to center Team 10's attention on him rather than each other. Likewise, Akihiro didn't use it until when Ashitaka was staring him down. That indicated that it wasn't enough to point the Sharingan at a person and simply launch the mental assault. Which in turn meant that like other Genjutsu, it required the victim to be paying direct attention to the user. Perhaps specifically looking directly at them, and hopefully more specifically looking directly into their eyes. Now that was creepy. It reminded him of the snakes that would paralyze their prey with eye contact before eating them, inspiring stories of basilisks and medusae. On the plus side, it seemed to weaken drastically with the number of targets it had to be used on and likely the level of development the user's eyes had reached. But Ashitaka was not a member of the Uchiha Clan and therefore wasn't privy to the finer details of how that panned out. And it wasn't like he could just ask them to give over their bloodline's secrets so he could find out some way to escape them. After all, if he were to be captured during one of his many defeats, then someone could read his mind and the tricks behind the Sharingan would be as common knowledge as Konoha's "Exclusive" jutsu were.
Unfortunately, any solution born from having reached that conclusion led to another problem. The technique seemed to operate instantly, or at least functionally so. That meant there would be no chance to react once it was deployed, and in turn that the only way to successfully circumvent it was preemptively. Which presented a host of its own problems, compounded by the fact that the Clan was a powerful and important component of his village. To go around avoiding eye contact with any Uchiha he met was to show fear, mistrust, and potentially even submission. He supposed he could try wearing a blindfold like he did when he was a child, but he doubted that in his current form he could get away with being passed off as an edgy chunnibyo.
At once, he was blindsided by an epiphany: the forehead protectors. He'd always thought they were stupid and refused to wear one, but in hindsight, the things were actually a perfect defense against Dojutsu of any kind, at least in sufficiently-illuminated areas. With that thought in mind, he went about looking for the local armorsmith. While Titanium might not be the most fantastic metal out there, it was still fairly respectable and more important was its near-adamantine lustre when polished. A forehead protector made of it should do well enough in preventing anyone with especially sensitive eyes from looking directly at his face.
[Exit thread.]
