Beautiful. That was what Maruboshi thought when he saw his student's efforts being thwarted over and over again.

The skill shown by Uchiha Mikoto was exquisite; every move looked elegant and effortless, but all of it was planned down to the very minute details. He expected a jonin, especially an Uchiha, to possess such skill, but that didn't take away from the fact that it was a delight to watch.

However, Mikoto wasn't the only one who deserved praise.

Maruboshi was well aware of Takuma's style, so he was proud to see him step out of his comfort zone and try different tactics. His choices were generally terrible. They opened him up to attacks, turned his fighting style into a disjointed mess, actively made him worse, and even frustrated him enough that he switched back at the end—and yet trying out all those changes was the right choice.

Maruboshi could almost see a glimpse into the future, where Takuma's combat style had evolved. Currently, he was in messy flux, but once the pieces fell into place, he would have something strong, stable, and sustainable that he could safely rely upon out in the field.

As he watched the fight, he felt two gazes from separate directions. He pulled his eyes off the fight to look at the peeping but couldn't find anyone in the trees; they had hidden themselves well. He didn't find it strange because the field was public property; neither was it isolated—and the Hidden Leaf was a village filled to the brim with shinobi who had learned to hide themselves for no apparent reason.

The gazes disappeared the moment he swept his own across the field, but he wondered if the hidden onlookers were ANBU operatives observing Takuma before his test. He had no way to confirm that other than catching them, which would be embarrassing and rude if he was wrong and would do nothing if they were indeed ANBU.

———

.

Uchiha Fugaku swiftly hid himself when he saw Maruboshi Kosuke look right in his direction. The Eternal Genin was already a senior citizen, but it seemed like he still had the senses of a prime hunter. It had been such a long time since Fugaku had seen his wife fight that he didn't want to miss it—but he didn't want to interrupt or intrude, so he watched from the shadows.

The spar was more or less what he expected. Mikoto's offence was ran through counterattacks, which made sense because when it came to the Uchiha's Interceptor Fist—not only was she better at it than him and arguably the best in the clan, but taijutsu was a bigger part of her combat style than his.

The Uchiha Interceptor Fist was the taijutsu developed and used by the Uchiha clan. The core of it was to make corresponding responses or counterattacks that struck at incoming attacks. The style was also heavily based on not letting the opponent get into a flow by disrupting their moves and intensively punishing their openings and bad habits.

To be effective, the user had to be proficient at reading the opponent, and with the Sharingan, which had the power of insight to mimic and understand other's moves, that was an easy feat.

Even though Takuma wasn't even close to being a challenge, he could tell that Mikoto was feeling comfortable. She had effortlessly used the clan's taijutsu to perfectly dismantle her opponent without breaking a sweat while also restricting herself to his level.

Retirement had undoubtedly had its effects, but it felt like she had retained most of her skill—her experience as a jonin was still there, buried under the surface—and she would only need to bring her body up to speed to once again hone her combat instincts.

As Mikoto finished the fight by knockout, Fugaku turned around to leave. Seeing her fight made him consider inviting her to regular spars so they could spend time together like they did before they had their children.

He turned back with the three tomoe spinning in his red pupils as he locked in on the person hidden in the trees. They were well hidden, with only small parts of their body visible, which would have been a problem if not for the Sharingan that saw chakra in colour that outed the person. Fugaku blinked, the traces of chakra disappeared, and he could no longer spot them.

Chakra masking, he guessed. That's no ordinary miscreant…

Fugaku glanced at Mikoto and company once before leaving. Whoever it was, with his wife and Maruobshi Kosuke present, there wasn't much they could do.

———

.

"What do you think?" Maruboshi asked Mikoto after she knocked Takuma out.

"I'll give him a point for effort," said Mikoto as she dusted the dirt and grass off her outfit before kneeling down to straighten Takuma so he wasn't lying in an off-position. "I could tell he was trying things, but it made him disjointed at best."

"It'll take some time to integrate new things smoothly."

"If he's trying to avoid trading damage, then genjutsu will work wonders."

"How is he at genjutsu?" he asked.

"He has the fundamentals down, but if he really wants to take full advantage of genjutsu, he needs to open his mind to the possibilities," said Mikoto as she stared down at Takuma. "Most shinobi mistake ninjutsu and genjutsu to be similar when they're not. Unlike ninjutsu, technical skill is only part of the puzzle; application is the half where the true potential lies. The mind is a complex system, both a hindrance and an advantage for genjutsu users. It takes a lot to create believable illusions, but there is no limit to what the mind will accept. He needs to realise that genjutsu is more than a string of hand seals that perform a certain function—the day that understanding clicks in his mind will be the day he'll start using genjutsu in his special way."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

It was good that Takuma had Mikoto as his genjutsu teacher because Maruboshi didn't have the talent for using genjutsu—as Mikoto said, it took a lot to deceive the mind—and he didn't have it in him to create believable illusions beyond the most basic genjutsu. He recalled the genjutsu Takuma had used on him in their spar earlier that week. It was much more potent than expected and had tightly gripped his mind.

There was no doubt that Takuma had the ability to create very believable genjutsu.

"I will work with him on a genjutsu application when we resume our lessons," she said.

Takuma noisily heaved as he abruptly sat up with his eyes wide open. His body tensed, and he looked ready to jump at the sight of danger as he scanned his surroundings before calming down when he saw both his teachers standing around him.

"That was a shit show," Takuma groaned.

"You did great," said Mikoto, tossing him a water bottle.

"I didn't manage to hit you once."

"That wasn't going to happen either way. As long as I didn't want you to hit me, you wouldn't have touched the clothes on my back."

Takuma looked at Maruboshi, who shrugged. If he didn't want Takuma to hit him, he could guarantee that didn't happen, but that was never the purpose of their spars.

"How did you do that?" Takuma asked Mikoto, staring into her eyes. "Are you wearing coloured contacts?"

Mikoto tried to stop herself, but she burst into laughter, which turned Takuma red with embarrassment.

"You don't need the Sharingan to do what I did today, Takuma," Mikoto chuckled as she wiped a tear from her eyes. "With enough combat experience, the willingness to improve your taijutsu, and the right approach to learning, you too could predict your enemy's moves one day... But you're not wrong; my eyes played a major role in how I fought today."

"How so?" asked Takuma.

"Your water tentacle jutsu. I have fought someone who used it, so I knew that you could change the tentacle's length, so I was ready for you to use that tactic," said Mikoto.

Takuma stared at her for a moment before looking down at the ground. Mikoto wanted to continue, but she saw a signal from Maruboshi to wait. After a few seconds of silence, Takuma spoke up again,

"...You have the Sharingan that allows you to copy your opponent's moves. That must mean you have tons of fights from many types of fighters recorded in your mind. I must have fought like one of those fighters—or a combination of certain aspects from various fighters—so even though you didn't use your eyes against me, you had the knowledge to predict my moves."

"Correct," Mikoto smiled.

Takuma sighed. "The Sharingan sure is impressive."

"It is impressive," said Mikoto with a hint of pride, "but it's not that simple. Our eyes give us the gift of insight, allowing us to parse visual information at a high rate, which is how we can copy whatever we see—and as it may sound, many of my clan folk who have unlocked the eye never go beyond simple monkey copy when there's so much more to it..."

Maruboshi gazed at the woman before him and was surprised to see her talking negatively about her clan members in front of outsiders. It was natural to have such thoughts, but from what he knew, clan shinobi didn't reveal those thoughts to outsiders as they were representative of their clan. The matter of reputation was taken very seriously.

Moreover, the person doing it was Lady Uchiha, who was always expected to defend her clan. He glanced at Takuma; the relationship between Mikoto and his student seemed closer than he thought.

"...When I was still active, I used to look back at my fights and rather than just monkey copy, I used to take my time to understand why my opponent moved the way they did. I was often wrong in my understanding because the Sharingan doesn't give answers, but by investing time and effort, I was rewarded with knowledge about combat beyond even my clan folk, who had been shinobi far longer than me…"

The Uchiha were infamous for their Sharingan—but when people talked about them, it was only about copying ninjutsu hand seals and taijutsu movements to mimic their opponents. He had been alive long enough to know that the Sharingan was capable of more than copying, but what he just heard was frightening, to say the least.

"I was so thrilled by what I had found that I fought every clan member willing to fight me. I made them imitate every opponent they had fought so I could copy them and then take my time to understand and break down their opponents until I had the correct answers to problems I might face in the future."

Maruboshi felt a chill go down his spine as he looked at Mikoto. There was a terrifying intelligence in her eyes that made his instincts scream danger. Mikoto, by herself, would have faced a decent set of enemies she would've copied from. But she had just claimed that she made her clan members imitate their opponents. If he were conservative and guessed ten unique opponents per clan member and fought ten members, she would have copied an additional one hundred opponents.

Even if there were significant overlap, she would still have gained rich experience beyond what most shinobi would ever experience in their entire careers. He knew she was a jonin, but he now felt a monster was standing before him. And she had claimed that all Sharingan-bearing Uchiha could do the same—they didn't do it, but they all had the potential to— was again reminded why the Uchiha clan was one of the founder clans with a deep and dominant history in the Warring States Periods.

It also made him think that Takuma would benefit more if he learned taijutsu from Mikoto instead of genjutsu.

"But knowing the answers isn't enough; you need to be able to use them quickly and correctly. The Uchiha Interceptor Fist is based on the tenets that focus on reading the opponent, finding their weakness, targeting their openings, and disrupting their flow... I applied my knowledge through my taijutsu and became proficient to the point where I no longer needed my eyes to see through my opponents—the eyes elevated everything I did—but even without them, I felt as though scales had fallen from my eyes. I had unlocked a new state of being... I was free, and I was in control."

Takuma looked gripped and utterly immersed. He hung on her every word as though it was a mantra for eternal prosperity with Mikoto's every word were resonating with him.

"You don't need my eyes, Takuma," Mikoto asserted confidently. "Yes, they helped tremendously, but I—not my eyes—am the reason behind my understanding and skill. If you look at your opponent and apply your mind to it, you will see things that most people miss—and that's where you will find what separates ordinary from extraordinary. It will take a lot, and it will not be easy, but I think you can do it... because you were doing it today, weren't you?"

"...Yes," said Takuma.

Maruboshi looked at him, and he seemed lost in his thoughts.

It was the right decision to bring in Mikoto for the spar.

Maruboshi could tell that something was about to change. He could tell that Takuma's mind had finally opened and felt he was going to go through a change much bigger than fixing his sacrificial tendency.

He wondered what Takuma would be like after those changes.