The water beneath his feet swayed silently as he lept from pillar to pillar, when each step landing gracefully on the coarse surface of the wood. Tatsumaru was relying purely on his memory to map the landscape, as his eyes were shut. He had been at this for five minutes now, dancing across the surface of the Naka river, each step landing on a series of pillars that stuck out of the water for this exact purpose. A Shinobi was required to be able to tell with ease where their next step would land. They must be able to keep a complete map of the environment they have surveyed in their heads and use it to position themselves without having to break visual contact with their opponents.

Deciding to turn the difficulty up a notch, Tatsumaru began leaping from pillar to pillar with increased speed, spinning mid air with each leap. If he could keep his focus and land on the poles while his field of reference was constantly changing, it would prove his senses were keen and sharp. Any old Shinobi can keep up with this exercise when they remain facing one direction, while it takes a true genius to be able to hold their footing perfectly while moving as they would in a hectic fight. Tatsumaru's left foot landed on a pole, while his right launched a sharp Muay Thai kick at thin air. The force of the swing caused him to spin on the spot, and at the apex of the fore, Tatsumaru kicked off, landing on another pole with his other foot. "Tatsumaru." A deep, cold voice rang across the water. It rang of gravel and wisdom, with a tiny dash of anger. "Hello Father." Tatsumaru replied slowly, continuing to spin and leap with his eyes shut. Whenever his father sought him out, it was either for an assassination or because something was wrong. Either way, Tatsumaru wasn't in a rush to find out. "Clean yourself up and present yourself in the main hall. You have five minutes." As his father spoke, Tatsumaru could hear the crunching of grass as he walked away. How... typical of him. Give an order and then leave. No emotion, no soul, just order.

Sliding the door to his house open, Tatsumaru began to undress quickly as he made his way through the house, stripping off his casual kimono off and tossing it aside before tearing off his singlet and boxers. Reaching his bedroom, Tatsumaru slid his closet open, pulling out the pieces of his traditional attire; his Flak Jacket, belt, long shirt, pants and combat boots, laying them out across the bed. Sliding the drawers in the corner open, he pulled out a singlet, a pair of dark woolen socks and a set of black boxers. Slapping the entire assemble together with haste, Tatsumaru took a moment to dash into the bathroom. A thick layer of stubble had set in across his face, more of a basic beard than a five o’clock shadow. Rubbing the palms of his hands together, Tatsumaru placed the index fingers from both hands at either side of the jaw line. As he dragged it over, the thick beard turned into smooth skin, a tiny layer of chakra tearing off the hairs. In a few moments, Tatsumaru's shabby appearance returned to his normal clean shaven appearance with well trimmed side burns. Beautiful. Splashing a quick dash of gel into his hair, Tatsumaru dealt with some of the more scruffy shambled dregs of his hair, making it look vaguely organized. Time to go see what his father wanted.

Slowly Sliding the door to the main hall open, the sight Tatsumaru walked into was nothing like what he expected. His father sat in his ceremonial garb, resting with his knees crossed on a silk pillow. Several meters across from Tatsumaru's father was an empty pillow, with the whole array surrounded by a circle of candles on tall black candle poles. "You're late. I said five minutes, not five minutes twenty seven seconds." Tatsumaru bit his lip, resisting the urge to make a snide remark as he approached. "Sorry father." Tatsumaru said with a polite tone of voice, pausing at the seat for a moment before slowly replicating his father's position on the free pillow. "So, what's with the overly dramatic setup?" Tatsumaru said with a smile, staring at his father. His eyes were shut, and he remained perfectly silent for a few painfully long moments. When he finally began to speak, his words carved through Tatsumaru's ears like gravel. The tone was not as it normally was, harsh but emotionless, this sounded more like the snarls of a beast. "You are an amateur Shinobi at best. Your Ninjutsu is solid, but your Taijutsu is mediocre, and every single attempt you have ever made at performing Genjutsu has been pathetic. You are an Uchiha. You must be better than you currently are. Every syllable he spoke, while calm and silent, had a strange property to them, as though the words he spoke were coming not from a man, but from a demon that was about to unleash it's fury upon someone. "Today, we will fix that." Although his words were spoken with the same soulless venom, there was something... terrifying in his last few syllables. For the first time in his life, Tatsumaru was actually afraid of his father. Still, he kept his gaze locked on his father's eyelids, which, after a few long moments of silence began to slide open...

Tatsumaru found himself staring straight into the Mangekyou Sharingan of his father. This was a sight he had never seen before, and it chilled him to his core. Three thick lines of black came from the border to the center of the tomoe, twisting counter clockwise as they approached. The dark array spun slowly counter clockwise in their sockets, the pupils locked squarely on Tatsumaru's eyes. Out of pure fear, Tatsumaru's sharingan activated on it's own, his meak two tomoes trying to must as much of a defense against the sight he saw as physically possible. "I am going to teach you Genjutsu today." Tatsumaru felt some measure of relief once his father said it was purely for training reasons. Still, he had no idea why he was staring into his father's Sharingan. Tatsumaru opened his mouth briefly, trying with great difficulty to form a coherent sentence, but before he could his father cut him off, speaking one word with guttural fury, his eyes flaring as he did so. "TSUKUYOMI!!" As soon as his father said the word, Tatsumaru's world went black, and all his sensation bled into nothingness. His mind was flooded was a powerful sensation of falling, like he had fallen through the fabric of reality itself...

Word Count: 1131/3000

Eventually, the darkness gave way to an increasing amount of light, and Tatsumaru eventually found himself falling towards the surface of an endless ocean that surrounded him on all sides. He hit the surface of the water with a thunderous crack, yet he felt no pain. Although Tatsumaru expected himself to sink into the sea, it instead dipped down and then rose, as though it was made of rubber. It still felt wet, yet it was as solid as stone. Although Tatsumaru expected to feel his bones shattered and his muscles flayed from the harsh impact, he found himself able to reach his feet without any form of pain whatsoever. As he stood up, he found his father was standing in-front of him. "This is an illusion, isn't it?" Tatsumaru said as he looked around at the endless ocean that surrounded him and his father. "You have to ask? Tatsumaru's father asked with no small amount of condescension in his tone. "So, how is this going to teach me Genjutsu?" Tatsumaru's father sighed at his line of questioning, clearly frustrated with his sons lack of education on all things Genjutsu. "Do you really know so little of your own heritage, after everything I've taught you? Tsukuyomi, the ultimate Genjutsu. Here, I control everything. Time, space, what you see, do, feel, experience, everything. There is no better training environment in this universe. The perfect tool to teach someone like you how to perform Genjutsu"

As he opened his mouth to inquire further, to ask how the hell he could learn a jutsu by being hit by a jutsu, only to find the world dissolving around himself. Once again, the world turned completely black, however this time Tatsumaru didn't fall. He could see nothing but himself, which he could see in perfect clarity. As he stared at his hands, however, Tatsumaru found himself... aging. His hands began to take on wrinkles, and his attire changed to match... his fathers? The world then began to take on an environment. Tatsumaru found himself staring into a frozen lake, his face looking exactly like his fathers. Trying to move his hands, he now found that he was no longer in control of his body. He could feel his arms moving, his lungs breathing, the feeling of the wind blowing through his now long grey hair, but he wasn't in control of any of it. His eyes rose to face an opponent. A Shinobi wearing thick gray robes stood opposite him, thick patches of wool sticking out from his sleeves and the collar of his shirt. He wielded a large great sword which he held with both hands in-front of himself, the tip aimed squarely at Tatsumaru's head. About ten meters separated them, covered in thick layers of snow and ice. Tatsumaru realized at this point that he was reliving his father's past experiences. It was certainly a useful way to impart information to say the least.

The swordsman began to run towards Tatsumaru's father, sledging through the snow as fast as he could. As he could see a detailed silhouette of the man's movements, it was clear Tatsumaru's father had his Sharingan active. The details were far richer than what his two Tomoe Sharingan gave. It was either the Mangekyou Sharingan or the third Tomoe. Either way, it was terrifyingly powerful. Tatsumaru's father ducked under the broad swing the man threw at him, smashing into his ribs with a sharp right elbow. The warrior staggered back a few feet, and Tatsumaru's father took advantage of the situation to leap back several meters, creating a solid distance between the two men. Tatsumaru's father then slammed his hands together, forming the bird hand sign. Tatsumaru found he could fear the exact detail of the technique that was being performed as though he himself were casting it. Tatsumaru's father's chakra was being molded in an unusually spiritually based mixture, with only a tiny splash of physical energy. Once the hand seal was formed, he could see a disruption in the chakra flow of his opponent. Genjutsu. So, this was how Tatsumaru's father was going to teach him Genjutsu, by making him relive battles where he used Genjutsu, making him feel every detail of executing the technique.

The swordsman dragged himself to his feet, and began swinging... at thin air? While the soldier fought a non existent version of what Tatsumaru could only assume was his father, the real one walked up behind him and casually slit his throat. As the blood from the man's throat sprayed out, it froze in mid air, before... returning to his throat? The world started playing in reverse, taking Tatsumaru through the events that just folded out straight to the moment where his father began casting the Genjutsu. There it stopped, and Tatsumaru once again lived through the sensation of casting the Genjutsu in question. However, this time, once the jutsu was cast he was instantly at the start again, casting the move on the Shinobi again and again for what felt like hours. Finally, after casting the Genjutsu on the man for the thousandth time, the world before him shattered like glass and the world turned black. Tatsumaru's eyes opened and he found himself lying face down on a field. Upon dragging himself to his feet, he paused to check his body, and found that he was once again himself. Taking a moment to examine the environment, Tatsumaru found he was in a world that was torn straight from the pages of history. Large crystalline obelisks of every imaginable color floated through the crimson red sky, their faces adorned with text of a language he had never seen before. While he couldn't clearly make out the markings on most, the closest spire, a large gray obelisk, had a series of strange markings that read "Sponsored by Disney" what did that even mean? It clearly wasn't from any language Tatsumaru had ever seen before.

"Stop Day dreaming." the sound of Tatsumaru's father barking at him dragged his attention away from the unusual surroundings. Looking around in an attempt to locate a physical representation of his father, Tatsumaru instead found that he was surrounded by... people, if you could call them that. They had no facial features to speak of whatsoever. They had no eyes, no mouths, no noses, no hair whatsoever. There was only a tiny amount of muscle definition, and no clothing whatsoever. "You've lived Genjutsu. You know how it feels. Now figure out how to use it yourself. These dummies all have normal Shinobi chakra systems. The more chakra, the harder it is to disrupt a system. The darker their skin is, the more chakra they have. Once you disrupt their chakra, they will explode. You aren't leaving this realm til they're all dead." Tatsumaru sighed, staring at the various faceless men. The one he had been facing was as pale as a piece of paper, while the one directly behind him was completely black.

Not wanting to spend any more time in his father's Tsukuyomi than he had to, he quickly got to work trying to disrupt the chakra flow of the dummies. Focusing his attention on the first, most pale of the training dummies, Tatsumaru split some of his chakra off, beginning to change it's composition. Traditionally, Tatsumaru's chakra was focused in a fifty to fifty ratio between his spiritual energy and his physical energy. That was the traditional formation for Ninjutsu as well as most other techniques in the Shinobi world. Genjutsu, however, was far more reliant on “yin”, or Spiritual energy, with little, and on rare occasions, no “yang”, or Physical Energy. As Tatsumaru channeled his chakra towards his hands, which from the previous exercise had instinctively formed the bird hand seal, he found himself molding in spiritual energy en route to ensure the composition was far more spiritually balanced. Once it reached his hands, he found it flowed freely from his body straight into the dummy. The ghostly white man's chakra system was clearly disrupted, as it exploded, removing itself from the field of play. It seems the training method his father had come up with to forcefully pound knowledge into his head was highly effective after all. Living a technique over and over again was completely different from having it explained to you and trying to figure out the execution without experience of executing it. Tatsumaru had always failed when it came to Genjutsu for this exact reason. Still, now wasn't the time to talk like he was some Genjutsu expert after destroying the easiest dummy. He had five to go, each darker than the last.

Tatsumaru decided he would get a better read on what was going on not only with himself but with his opponent if he activated his Sharingan. While he only had a Two Tomoe Sharingan unlocked, it was enough to see chakra flow, and as such see when a chakra system was disrupted. And so, repeating his previous process with increased visual clarity thanks to his Sharingan, Tatsumaru once again formed the Bird hand sign and morphed his chakra into Yin chakra, which he channeled into the dummy. The second dummy exploded like the first, and Tatsumaru felt a burst of confidence. He was starting to get this after all. The third met with the same fate as the first two, showering the environment with their blood before the chunks of their bodies vanished into nothingness. However, on the fourth dummy, Tatsumaru found his first attempt did nothing. He saw a brief flicker in the dummies chakra network but it was overpowered. Hmm. Just like his father said, the larger the chakra pool of the individual, the more resistant they were to disruption. Clearly the flaw was in his execution, however, and if he refined his abilities he would be able to disrupt this “stronger” opponent. The flaw was in one of three areas: Either his problem was simply not enough chakra being used to disrupt the opponent, or the chakra composition had either not enough or too much Physical Energy mixed in. Tatsumaru doubted it was too much Physical energy given that it was Genjutsu, so at first he decided to keep his chakra Ratio the same and instead simply increase the amount he was using. While he saw the target's chakra was disrupted for a longer period of time with a larger amount of chakra, it didn't work as he had hoped. Clearly throwing more chakra at the problem wouldn't solve the issue. Instead, Tatsumaru decided to use his original amount of chakra and simply add more Spiritual energy to the composition. His assumption was correct, it seemed, as the fourth dummy exploded like the first three upon adding more spiritual energy. Two to go.

The next dummy exploded with exactly the same ratio as the previous one, until finally Tatsumaru found himself facing the final dummy. This one, unlike the first five, was Jet black, an indication that it would be harder than the others. It had so much chakra that simply looking at it hurt Tatsumaru's eyes, and he found himself wanting to deactivate his Sharingan just to spare his eyes. Regardless of his desire however, Tatsumaru forced himself to stare at it, and, with a new found determination, he slammed his hands together, forming the bird hand seal. Using the previous ratio and amount as the last two dummies proved useless, and not even a blip in it's chakra flow showed up. At present, Tatsumaru was using a Seventy Five to Twenty Five ratio in favor of Spiritual energy. Deciding the only solution was to up the stakes of both, Tatsumaru forced his ratio up to a whopping Ninety percent Spiritual energy, as well as increasing the amount of raw chakra he was throwing at the dummy. Forcing this raw mass of Genjutsu based fury through his arms, Tatsumaru released it directly at his opponent. For a few seconds, nothing happened, and then finally, Tatsumaru saw some disruption in his chakra flow. The disruption was tiny at first but slowly grew and grew, until finally the dummy exploded. Unlike the last five, this explosion was massive, engulfing Tatsumaru and the landscape around himself, reducing the artificial world to nothing.

Tatsumaru's eyes snapped open, and he found himself staring into his father's Mangekyou Sharingan. Although he knew enough about Tsukuyomi to know that no time had passed, he felt like he had been training for a week straight. ”That is all.” Tatsumaru's father said to Tatsumaru without any emotion in his words. As he spoke, his Mangekyou Sharingan faded away, slowly turning from a searing red into a deep blue. His father rose from his pillow and left the room silently. Tatsumaru, meanwhile, simply stayed there until his father left before trying to stand. He was barely able to hold his own weight, and after staggering back to his home, collapsed on his floor with a sharp thud.

Word Count: 3293/3000