New Blood

The temperature was mild for it being winter and all. Serah stood in a savannah between a handful of villages. She was on one of the main roads with her fist clenched around the lapel of a man’s jacket. She looked at him… just looked at him. Her dark eyes peered into his very soul. Her face was contorted and focused as if just clenching hard enough was going to be enough to activate her sharingan. But it was a wash. She sighed and let the man go. He ran off, not daring to look back at the angry woman. “This is hard,” she mumbled. She had thought that leaving her village behind and her family as well would be enough to activate her sharingan but it just wasn’t working out for her. She looked out at the path and wondered who the next unlucky soul would be.

Taichi had been traveling with the boy for a few days before finally coming across an inn that he would be able to leave the boy and his Snow leopard there for a little while he hit the road and got some fresh air. The being in someone else's presence and company all the time was starting to wear on him and he was feeling more agitated than usual. Not wanting to take it out on the boy or the cat, he figured a walk along the borders would do him well for the time being. 

As he walked along the path, he saw a figure coming down the road in the opposite direction. He was smaller than Taichi was, but not by much. Standing about five to six inches shorter than he was and probably weighing about the same. His face looked as though he had just seen a ghost with how terrified that he looked. He ran up to Taichi and told him to go the opposite direction, that there was a crazy woman just over the ridge there. Taichi smiled at the man and motioned for him to continue on down the road to safety. "Don't worry about me. I'll be okay. Have a good day." Taichi would tell the man as he walked over the ridge. 

Arriving at the top of the ridge he saw that the man was in fact correct. There was a woman standing in the road waiting for anyone to pass by her. Taichi thought to himself that this woman must be strong for her to be challenging any and all passersby, not knowing what they were capable of. He walked up to the woman, stopping five meters away from her position. "What is it your are trying to accomplish by standing in the middle of the road challenging all those who pass you? Is your goal death or to be kidnapped and stolen from this plane of existence?" Taichi spoke with his sensei voice again, a little deeper and more stern than his normal voice, but he found it an amusing voice to speak with when asserting his dominance. He would wait for her response, but if her response was to lunge out at him than he would also be ready for her first move, prepared with a counter attack.

WC:389

Serah’s natural response to seeing another man walking her way was to take some deep breaths and get ready for a fight. She was far from being considered a capable fighter, in fact she was so green that the people that dwarfed her in power usually laughed her off. She didn’t care though. Her patience was wearing thin for activating her Shraingan. She waited for the man to stop, hoping that he would so that she could at least size him up properly. She noted his height, his clothes, his authoritative stance that told her that she would be a fool to tango with him. She was a fool.



“My goal is to see death before my very eyes so that I might activate my Sharingan. Those too weak aren’t cutting it, and those too strong won’t fight me. So which are you?” Serah smirked for a moment then ran as fast as she could towards Taichi, closing in by two meters with just a few steps. Then she dropped her body low, bringing herself into a slide tackle that she hoped would compromise the newcomer’s footing. While she slid she brought her hands together as if to form a jutsu. She hadn’t learned any offensive jutsu yet, but she had learned that forming handseals was enough to make people take her seriously at least some of the times. She sought to wipe that look off of the man’s face, to make him challenge her, to make him strike her with fear and adrenaline that would make her sharingan activate. It was the only chance she had.

As the woman spoke, she mentioned that she wanted to see death to activate her Sharingan. His mind wandered to when his Sharingan first activated. He hadn't seen anyone die, he had continued to improve his eyes up to his third tomoe before he he had seen someone close to him die. Bri was the first person to die in front of him, which caused him to unlock this even farther progression with his eyes. He had been trying to understand just what these eyes could  do himself, but he had yet found any books that explained this fourth step in the progression. 

"Ahhh the Sharingan." Taichi spoke with a slight cockiness to his voice as he stared into her eyes. He activated his three tomoe Sharingan as he looked into her eyes, ensuring that he had her focus on him. "Before we are to fight, I want you to tell me, eye to eye, just what you want to do with the power of the Sharingan. This power is not for the feint of heart, nor is it for the weak in mind and body."

He would see the woman begin to weave hand seals, but due to his chakra vision and his chakra sensory skill, he could see that her chakra network was extremely weak. This showed Taichi that the hand seals were merely for show, or for a technique that he would be able to dodge with little to no problem. He stood there, continuing to stare into her eyes, awaiting an answer to his question.

WC:259

Serah had been so ready to attack, so sure that her slide tackle would work, but something held her back. She noticed that the man wanted to talk more than fight. He activated his sharingan and without even noticing, Serah’s own eyes turned to the one tomoe version that she didn’t even know she had access to. But then not a moment later it faded and her eyes turned back to normal. None the wiser as to what had happened, Serah jerked her head and eyes away from his eyes and stared at his midriff instead. She didn’t need to be sucked into any genjutsu, especially when she didn’t even know how to get out of one.

“I want… I want…” she didn’t know how to answer the question. What was it that she wanted exactly? Then it came to her. “I want power. The power to defend myself from those who hunt us Uchiha down. The power to make the village I left think twice before coming after me. And the power to put my name in the book of legendary Uchiha. And I don’t know how to get it other than stressing it out.” She sounded inspirational and she felt her head tilt back up so that her eyes could lock with Taichi’s. The single tomoe was back and it persisted this time. Her muscles twitched in anticipation. She wanted to go at it despite knowing that she was probably going to get her butt kicked against this clearly superior ninja.

“You’ve achieved the fully awakened sharingan. How’d you do it? My parents always told me I’d have to have the heart of a killer and that it wasn’t worth it.”

The woman on the street ceased her hand seals when she felt the affect of the Sharingan within her own body already beginning to show. Taichi smiled at her realization that she already had a small amount of the power that she was seeking. "Yes, we Uchihas are born with a great power in our eyes. But our eyes are not only a source of power for us, it is also the biggest target that get placed onto us. Always remember that. The people who call themselves friend or ally to you? Or most likely not to be trusted, so always make sure that whoever you ally yourself with, that you can take them out at a moment's notice. You never know when that moment, will be when their dagger is crashing down upon your skull."

Taichi remembered the bandit leader whom he once called friend, what felt like years ago. The bastard who nearly killed him, to only wait until he was fast asleep. The lesson was solidified into his brain after that day, he learned to stop trusting in those who seemed like his friend, no matter the relationship. 

The woman, still slightly impressed with her own ability, and with Taichi's 'fully awakened' Sharingan. He was being careful not to mention what the actual fully awakened form was. At least, what he thought was the fully evolved version was. He still knew very little of this new variant of his clan's dojutsu. The woman spoke how her parents told her that she needed to have the heart of a killer to awaken the Sharingan, something he too was told when he was a child by his mother before she was killed. "That is partly true. But not the whole story. You see when they say the heart of a killer, they actually mean "the ability to kill another". They don't actually explain as to what they mean by having that heart. I have never killed someone who didn't deserve it, but merely to protect others."

Taichi thought for a moment about what he wanted to tell this woman, whether or not he was going to tell her about the next phase of the Sharingan. "It is tragedy, it is pain and brokeness that allows one to access these eyes, and to some, an even more powerful variant." Taichi activated his Mangekyo Sharingan to show her what he was talking about. His eyes would go from the three tomoe pattern to his more intricate Mangekyo pattern. (Looks just like Sasuke's eyes) "This is what you can earn, one day. If you would like, you can join me to a place where there are others like us. Uchihas that will be able to help us both learn more about our eyes, probably even help us make them even stronger. What do you say?"

Taichi would offer out his hand. Seeing if she would take his as a sign of trust. 

WC:490

Serah contemplated the advice she was given. She knew that people were quick to hunt Uchiha down, she knew that their eyes were the source of their power. What she didn’t know was that people would betray her at a moment’s notice. It made her wonder if looking for friends and allies was going to be worth it. She liked to be with people, to adapt her personality around them. If she got lulled into a false sense of security, she could see how someone could take advantage of her or even take her eyes. Taichi looked like he spoke from experience as he told his story. It served as a warning to the woman who was still very much a novice when it came to these sorts of things.

While Taichi talked, Serah rubbed her eyes, they felt weird. The tomoe faded once the aggression from the situation faded. That, and the man before her talked about killing others. “I can do that,” she blurted out, “or at least I think I can.” She had never been put in that situation, but as events would play out she would find that she did have the ability to kill if it meant saving herself (referencing a thread that started after this one). But that was besides the point. When she saw how Taichi’s sharingan twisted from the three tomoe state, basically what she thought was the highest form a sharingan could take, it turned into the Mangekyou variant.

Serah gasped and took a step back. It was ominous, to see something so bizzare happen to the sharingan. Her peaceful parents had never activated their sharingan in front of her, having said that doing so was technically a challenge to fight, so she felt a sinking feeling, as if she was about to get her ass kicked. It made her tremble just to witness. “Yes, teach me.” Serah held out her own hand and took shaky steps to try grasping his hand. She couldn’t take her eyes off of his, and she wanted to learn more about the secrets behind whatever he was doing with his sharingan.



(I'll exit after you)

Serah was blinded by the Mangekyou. It was everything she ever wanted and feared wrapped into one. She disregarded everything she’d just been told about trust and had chosen to accept the man’s hand. Then the branches came out. She went stiff, her eyes wide with fear as the lesson was drilled into her head. She was sincerely lucky that Taichi hadn’t wanted her dead, because if he did it would have been way too easy. “I understand,” she managed to squeak out in a frightened voice.

Then she followed Taichi along the path. “Where are we going?” she asked as they walked. “And how did you do that to your sharingan?”

After the woman had realized just what a perdicament she was in, her eyes were frightened. This was the reaction he was hoping for, not for the mere satisfaction, but to hope that the lesson would be cemented into her mind for as long as she walked the Earth and breathed her air. The two would begin walking down the path, she did in fact decide to follow Taichi in his travels. He was sure her reasoning had almost everything to do with her search for power within her eyes that she wished to unlock. She asked where they were going and how he was able to do 'that' with his eyes, referring to his three tomoe Sharingan turning into its Mangekyo Sharingan variant. 

He pondered her questions for a few moments. Contemplating his answer and whether or not he would tell her the truth. Finally he made his decision and began to answer. "I shall answer your second question first. I witnessed a horrible tragedy, the gruesome rape and murder of the woman that I loved. By time I was able to free myself of my bindings, she was already dead. Beaten and bloody, she had her throat... among other things.... cut and ripped open from her body. When your parents said that one must have the heart of a killer to gain these eyes. Well I ended up killing every single person involved with the bandit organization that committed such heinous acts to not only that one woman, but hundreds and probably thousands of women across the country. Once I was done I felt a horrible and painful sensation in my eyes, to look in the mirror and see my eyes had changed to what you had seen."

Taichi's face would remain stone like, showing little emotion. He would then look back to his new companion to speak once again, "As to where we are going. That one is an easier answer to tell." He would pause as he looked over the sand dunes to watch as the desert sun began to fall under the horizon and the darkness gradually began claiming the sands once again.

"Volcano country"

WC:360
TWC:

Claims: WIP