Sharingan Is Cheating

Hiruzen read the report from ANBU 3rd Squad of the Assassination Division - the one Kaito led and Tsuyu were under on her first mission. At the same time Danzo was doing the same as well.

Both of them were satisfied seeing the detailed report. Hiruzen had asked Kaito to observe Tsuyu and write in details so Hiruzen could analyse her talent and potential better. Though, Hiruzen put down the report on the table. His gaze turned to Kaito.

"About her psyche. Tell me what you think."

The report mentioned the target was eventually eliminated along with a subordinate of his due to them being a threat. However, killing was always a difficult thing to do. And much more difficult was the information extraction process. Hiruzen was unaware Tsuyu had long completed the mental state training in ANBU and was already detached on killing from the very moment she was born.

While they do have Yamanaka members that had better method to extract information but they weren't cabbages to have them in every squad. And like any other clan, only a small portion of the entire clan had enough skill and talent for it. And not everyone who did would want to join ANBU, a known darker side of work.

Kaito only told the truth about Tsuyu's state of mind during the entire mission. Overall, Hiruzen was deeply shocked. Hiruzen kept asking to make sure the report was right.

The thing was, almost every fresh graduate would have fear on their first real mission that involved the threat of death. Even Hiruzen felt fear the first time he received an injury from a kunai slashing at him in his youth.

Whether it was fear of death that wasn't present in the academy, or fear from the killing intent emanating when a shinobi fight to kill. Newer recruits and even those with weak will would find themselves stuck in place when fighting against them from feeling too much pressure. And what was even more difficult than facing an opponent that truly wanted to kill you was to have a heart to truly kill another with no emotional justification and completely detach oneself from it; that would take more time as well. But in Kaito's words, it was as if Tsuyu was already acting like a veteran ANBU member in her psychology.

Comparing to Shisui or Itachi in the past; both of them had joined war and saw deaths prior to becoming ANBU so their performance was natural. Tsuyu on the other hand…

She was raised in a time of peace, had never seen cruelty death nor had need to fight for her life in the academy. Hiruzen was feeling a complicated mixture of emotions towards Minato's daughter. It was almost too scary.

Tsuyu's talent, and abilities were considered a genius. But her psyche… Hiruzen couldn't find a word to describe it other than a 'monster'. He hated that he had to use the word. He couldn't understand just what went wrong. How can a child become merciless at such a young age?

Hiruzen start to brainstorm on his own, and the result always end up due to Tsuyu not receiving the love of a parent nor having a guardian to rely on. Hiruzen wondered if Minato would blame himself if he knew what kind of person his daughter had turned out to be. And he even felt wary that Tsuyu would turn out to be someone like Orochimaru or Danzo.

In the past, he had always thought his disciple, Orochimaru's lack of heart, was a strong point. But after knowing how far Orochimaru had gone in his pursuit of knowledge; Hiruzen was afraid Tsuyu was the same kind of person who could commit atrocities without batting an eye if she was ever misguided.

I must not let Danzo ever approach her.

Hiruzen thought in his head. If Danzo ever reached out to her, he was afraid Tsuyu would be misguided to the dark path. While Hiruzen had always understood the need for the shadows lead by Danzo; he wouldn't be able to face Minato or Kushina in the Pure Lands if that happened to Tsuyu. He was sure both of them wouldn't want their child to thread such dark waters. At least, not when she was still too young. She may be a well-qualified shinobi now, but Hiruzen had an assumption that she hadn't seen the world fully yet to decide on her shinobi's path.

Though Hiruzen was already too late - Danzo already did. Or rather, even if Danzo didn't, from the moment Tanya was reincarnated as Tsuyu, there was no such thing as dark waters; it was only a matter of efficiency and benefits.

Contrary to Hiruzen's feelings, Danzo was more than satisfied. As expected from his initial evaluation of Tsuyu. If only every single new graduate was like her, how good would it be for Konoha? Danzo had long felt dissatisfied over fresh graduates in these peace times who really only become Shinobi as if it was a cool thing instead of genuinely wanting peace and act as a weapon for Konoha and Land of Fire during those warring times.

Amidst the old men's thoughts on Tsuyu's; she continued her training as soon as she was back in Konoha after 2 weeks of worth of mission.

In the training field, she and tens of her clones were practicing leaf sinking method - compressing chakra tight together and holding its shape to change its nature into Earth chakra. While Earth Releases had a lower threshold to use due to most of its jutsu required shape transformation most as the Earth was literally in the ground for your use; but the element had a very high ceiling, like other elements. For Fire, it became hotter. For Wind, they were sharper. For Earth, they would become heavier, tougher, and compact.

On the far side, Naruto and his clones were trying to walk up and down the tree - though many of them keep falling over and over again. Sasuke, not wanting to fall behind, also followed. This time Sakura and Ino came along after seeing it wasn't the trauma-inducing physical training.

A Tsuyu shadow clone was constantly 'guiding' Naruto and the others included. Although it was more of a commentary of 'too much', 'too little', 'too slow'.

"Yosha!," one of Naruto's clone exclaimed in excitement as he managed to walk one more step up before falling.

"Everyone! We can do this!"

"Yeah!!! Let's do this!"

Naruto's clones were cheering on each other.

Sakura was the best among the trainees; managing to reach 5 meters upward already. While Ino was only a step behind.

'Heh! See that Ino-pig!'. Sakura smirked as she look down on Ino who was behind her.

Ino gritted her teeth, trying to take another step, but ultimately fell.

Sakura's inner ego screamed in satisfaction. Her eyes darted to Sasuke, wanting to see if Sasuke paid attention to how amazing she was. But Sasuke never noticed. Or rather, Sasuke was too absorbed in his training to care about how others were doing. Sakura felt a little sad, but a part of her also wanted to help Sasuke who seemed struggling.

"Sakura-chan~! Look look! Hehe I am more amazing than Sasuke!" Naruto wanted to show off to Sakura to make her realise how amazing and better he was than Sasuke.

The clones also followed after real Naruto, calling Sakura-chan~ Sakura-chan~ like swarms of flies buzzing in her ears.

'SHUT UP BAKA-NARUTO! NO ONE CARES!'.

Due to Naruto disturbing her focus, she lost her chakra control and fall flat on the ground! Naruto suddenly felt rage exploding from her.

Sakura raised her big forehead, bulging with veins.

'DAMN YOU NARUTO!!!,' Sakura was fuming with rage as she approached the clones.

"Ah? S-Sakura-chan- w-wait!" She gave Naruto and his clones a beating, throwing punches after punches. She felt very satisfied even if she didn't even know which one was the real Naruto. It felt real anyway. And from her understanding the clones would return memories back to Naruto so it meant, if she punched Naruto's face 10 times, then the real Naruto would still remember being punched 10 times!

Sakura smiled in evilness as she chased the clones around and use them as punching bags. While all the clones were all scattering, trying to run away from the pink demon.

Tsuyu ignored the commotion, and maybe it was time for Naruto to have a reality check that even if he was better than Sasuke in any aspect, Sakura wouldn't like him. Frankly, even she admitted Naruto had zero socializing talent, was unable to read the room, and he had a negative aura overall even with his current reputation as class's second (in terms of fighting). Naruto wasn't even a bad looker either. His whiskers added a cute factor to him objectively speaking.

Though if any girl gave him any attention like starting a conversation; suddenly Naruto would become way too excited about it and his over-excitement and lack of awareness and acting like they were best buddies the next second; freaking them out and made them run far away right after.

And really, was her brother that blind? Hinata was right there. Unfortunately, Hinata wasn't a talker and Naruto found her boring and a little weird even if he considered her a close friend.

Imagine talking to someone to get to know them, but suddenly they get all close and smiley and all excited, always hang out with you throughout the day and start to initiate conversations talking about how he loved Ichiraku or how he would become Hokage in your face as if you two were childhood friends all day. Most people would feel heavily uncomfortable with such suddenness when you guys were almost strangers right the day before.

Naruto didn't even seem to realise what exactly was wrong; that relationship had to be built brick by brick properly most of the times. And with Tsuyu not in class to point it out, Naruto's annoying-ness never got any lesser.

Tsuyu's shadow clone turned her face to see Sasuke this time since Naruto was not training anymore.

In the field, Sasuke was doing the worst.

Damn it!

Sasuke gritted in frustration as he fall again. His eyes went to see the marks on the trees Naruto used, how Naruto already reached half of the tree's height in a few hours. It was even more frustrating seeing Sakura, someone who he considered was akin to furniture in class, doing even better than he did.

Sasuke couldn't control his frustration and delivered a punch to the tree, causing the wood to splinter but also caused his fist to bleed.

It was too humiliating… too pitiful.

Tsuyu's shadow clone came to Sasuke's side. Her eyes didn't show any hint of mocking or the like.

"Sasuke.You need to control your emotions to control your chakra. Spiritual energy was heavily affected by emotions"

She said as a matter of fact. Sasuke went quiet. He knew Tsuyu was right. And being angry would only worsen his training.

'Damn it…'. Sasuke muttered in defeat. He looked over at Naruto who even had the time to play around with Sakura. Sasuke was serious about his training, because of his goals. And yet he couldn't even catch up to a clown that merely wanted to become some stupid Hokage just because he was lonely and desperate for attention.

"Sasuke. Naruto had his advantages. But you too had your own." Tsuyu crossed her arms, as if she was waiting for Sasuke to realise it himself.

'I can't train like he did… damn it…'.

Sasuke clenched his fist that had stains of blood on them.

"Your eyes…" Tsuyu's shadow clone muttered as she start to walk along the tree sideways casually, pointing to her eyes. Tsuyu wasn't a fan of spoon-feeding everything, especially for those who she believed had talent and enough brain to learn by themselves. Naruto was a rare case of being too much of a dunce for her to need to spoon-fed him everything and that was her own brother so he was excluded.

Sasuke was confused a little, but then it was as if an epiphany.

My eyes…

The pair of single-tomoe sharingan opened. He tried to observe closely how Tsuyu's chakra flow along her sole of her feet to remain on the tree. But a part of Sasuke's heart felt ashamed of copying, when others had managed to do it on their own.

Tsuyu was someone who understood human emotions from their face and already saw how Sasuke was feeling.

"Using your advantage was not shameful. Even the act of copying didn't mean you were admitting you were worse. Prove yourself that you could take what you observed and copied to an even higher level. Take it, make it your own, and use it better than everyone!" Tsuyu's clear eyes and stern loud voice echoed in Sasuke's ears, completely erasing his shame for using his eyes to copy someone at all.

'Yes!' Sasuke's spirit returned as he start his practice once more, this time having Tsuyu's clone that was tree-walking as a reference.

Sasuke improved even faster than Naruto with his cheating clones, having Tsuyu's shadow clone directly guiding him by showing directly how her chakra flow on her soles.

Tsuyu nodded in satisfaction at seeing the drive in Sasuke's eyes. She had always appreciated hardworking and motivated soldier.

Both Naruto and Sasuke had their own 'cheats', and only a fool wouldn't abuse it, Tsuyu thought.

***