Reborn as a Yamanaka Genius

Yamanaka Training Field,

Wednesday 5:00 AM 

Daiki's fist tore through the crisp morning air, missing my head by mere centimeters as I bent back.

I planted my hands on the dewy grass beneath, legs snapping upward in a backflip.

My foot sliced toward his face, but he tilted his head just enough for my strike to graze nothingness.

I landed, knees bending, then surged forward, using the sound of my geta against the leaves to cast a subtle genjutsu on Daiki to make him think I was striking with my right when my left was heading for his gut.

He looked bored as he blocked my fist with his palm, completely disregarding the genjutsu.

I grabbed his arm, using his momentum to vault onto his shoulders.

My legs locked around his neck, squeezing hard as my chakra-enhanced hand formed a knife strike, torpedoing toward his temple.

Before my hand could connect and pierce his skull, the air shifted. Something fast was heading towards my head. His blow would strike me before mine, him. 

My legs unraveled instinctively, but his hand snatched one before I could escape. He lifted me in the air and slammed me to the ground—hard.

My eyes widened as my spine shattered, bones piercing organs within. I expirated a fine mist of blood.

Daiki put a stop to that by lifting a foot above my sternum and brought his heel down hard, at just the right place, with sufficient force; it was enough to stop my heart. 

"How do you keep doing that?" I asked, meters away, as my clone faded beneath his feet.

Daiki called me out early this morning (five hours early, to be exact) for training.

I had just finished writing the first draft of my book, which took me all night, and I was just about to lie down when his intrusion came.

Considering he required at least ten hours of sleep to be a functional and productive human, this training session wasn't normal.

He picked a stray leaf off his kimono and looked up at my now visible form, previously hidden with a genjutsu.

"How do I keep doing what?"

"Knowing when I've put you in a genjutsu," I replied, keeping my distance.

The spar wasn't over. That was obvious by the pressure he emitted.

"I don't," he said.

My brow raised. "You don't?"

"I sense you," he replied, his tone infuriatingly matter-of-fact. "Or, more precisely, your killing intent."

The realization clicked.

"Almost every strike you make is intended to kill me," he said, frowning. "Which, I'll admit, is a little rude. Why would you want to kill someone as lovable as me?"

"Because you told me to," I said flatly.

"Ah, so I did?" He smirked. The scar on his face twisting frighteningly. 

I took a step back, feeling the rush of pressure radiate off him.

The killing intent was more than tangible. It blanketed the space in a heavy, murderous aura.

My legs trembled. Breathing became harder.

"You've been baiting me just to teach me that my intent gives me away?" I asked.

Something's wrong. I took another step back. He seems—

"Smart boy," he said.

The voice came behind.

I spun, but his fist was already in my side.

Pain detonated, air ran from my lungs, and the field became a blur as I skidded across it, bouncing like a stone on water.

I tried to breathe, but air refused to fill my lungs.

The surrounding wind graciously gave way to the speeding beast barreling towards me, so I rolled out of the way just in time to dodge Daiki's kick that slammed into the ground where my neck had been.

Usually, I wouldn't hold too much of a grudge from his blows, but this time, it was my real body he tried to decapitate.

Not a clone.

Not a genjutsu.

Me. 

I lifted off the ground and flickered back with furrowed brows, not understanding how I didn't sense him.

Without hand signs, eight clones instantly surrounded me, my chakra falling to one-ninth of its levels from before.

I used the sway of the surrounding leaves to cast a genjutsu to hide five of them. 

"Uh-oh," he said, amused. "The little boy wants to bring out big boy toys, huh?"

He crossed his arms and said, "How useless."

The strike hit before I sensed it—a crushing upward blow to my ribs that sent me skyward.

"You think you're the only one who can use genjutsu?" Daiki asked, his voice following me high into the air.

Stars clouded my vision as my body obeyed gravity. My breath was gone. My thoughts scattered.

"You "beat" Inoichi, who, by the way, was going easy on you." He said. "Fucked with the mind of an Uchiha, who now passes out at the sight of you. Skipped a couple of grades, then played around against a Hyuga, and now you think you're hot shit?" He spat. "You've gotten complacent, boy."

I was plummeting toward him, the ground rushing up fast.

Daiki stood ready; hands lifted to strike when I entered his reach.

Falling. Closer. His arm cocked back. 

Then, the explosions hit.

Three blasts erupted around him, smoke surging into the sky, swallowing his figure and me whole.

Before I hit the earth, an invisible clone jumped up, grabbed me, and flickered away behind a copse of trees.

Smoke shrouded the entire training field as I heard the rest of my clones engage him within the blurriness.

Even though Daiki was old and riddled with scars, he was a warrior who got off from battle—so basically a freak.

This was the first time I was put in a situation like this.

Our spars consisted of honing my technique through repetition, exhaustion, and then more repetition. Not of him trying to murder me.

Then Daiki's words shifted to the front of my mind.

"You've gotten complacent."

Had I? No, I pushed myself every day. I trained until exhaustion. I hadn't changed.

Daiki's words rang out from center field.

"You have less than one year until you're shuttled off to war."

I used the sound from his words to cast another genjutsu, wrapping myself in concealment.

Two clones dispersed in puffs of chakra from his jabs to their throat, collapsing their larynx.

I jumped into the tree above while the invisible clone below circled behind him toward his blind spot.

His voice was a knife.

"You think you can survive with the mindset you have now?"

I could feel the distaste dripping from each word.

"Please." He scoffed. "As you are now, you'd die, and you wouldn't even know how it happened. You're weak. Cocky. And you want to show off? How stupid can you be?"

I felt a pang of irritability bloom, then quickly wilt inside my center.

The earth shook—the trees with it. And then the ground buckled, curving into itself as Daiki's chakra poured into it. 

I cursed internally. 

The three remaining invisible clones were now in place, situated around him. They raised their hands and ran through seals I'd seen Dad use only once before, their chest expanding with air.

Together with the last seal, they exhaled a devastating air stream, all roaring towards Daiki.

Wind Style: Breakthrough.

Daiki's hands slammed on the ground. A wall of earth darted up to surround him.

The billowing air slammed into the earth's wall and sloped upward; its pressure redirected harmlessly into the sky.

"You disappoint me," he said, repulsed, shaking his head. "What was your plan with the Uchiha, huh?—whatever the fuck his name is. What? Teach him a lesson? Show him how strong you are?" He mocked. "You think people wouldn't find out you did something to his mind? That there wouldn't be any repercussions? What the fuck were you thinking?" He was yelling now. "If you're gonna do something like that, at least try to be fucking discrete about it! How can you be so—"

His words froze as I dove into his mind.

Control slipped into my grasp, my breath steadying in his lungs. His body was—

I screamed as a white-hot pain lanced through my skull like a blade, severing the connection.

"Found you," He said wickedly.

He shot toward my falling body.

My clones were gone, my chakra was moving sporadically within its coils, my control over myself, broken, and my head hurtled toward the earth—I couldn't stop it.  

Daiki did something I didn't think was possible—break my control of his mind, shattering mine in turn.

I thought—I assumed because of my reincarnation, my talents, my affinity, my mind, no one could control me like I could control them.

Guess I was wrong.

As my head was about to slam into the ground, Daiki's fist struck my stomach.

Spit and blood forced themselves from my mouth as my back collided with the tree behind me, and splinters tore at my skin.

Leaves crunched beneath his geta as he approached.

I could feel him above, peering down at me like an insect.

How ironic. 

All I could do was twitch like a fish out of water, desperate for air.

"Remember this," he said, voice final. "And don't you ever make me teach you this lesson again."

And then—darkness.