Uchiha’s grimoire guide to winning: Chapter 16: Layers upon Layers and why C-rank missions never go right

Shusei took another drink, his eyes never leaving mine. “You caught the slip, huh?”

“That’s true,” I said, keeping my voice level, “but it wouldn’t have made anything ring in my mind if it wasn’t for everything else.”

And that was the truth, wasn’t it? The casual mention of spying on me could have been a figure of speech, could have been exaggeration, could have been nothing. It could have even meant that he had used one of the others Uzumaki but combined with everything else I’d seen, everything I’d noticed, it painted a picture that was hard to ignore.

In canon, there was a crystal orb we were shown that the Hokage could use to see everything happening in Konoha. A scrying device, basically, the kind of thing that should have been impossibly complex but was treated as a normal thing, just another tool in the Hokage’s arsenal for monitoring their village.

With the knowledge I had from both sets of memories, the one from the original Ren and the one from the part of me that had died in another world where this one was a manga and an anime, from what I knew about chakra and its applications, it was clear to me that said crystal orb was probably made using seals. Fūinjutsu. The Uzumaki specialty, the art they had mastered beyond what any other clan could claim.

And if that theory was true, if the scrying orb was seal based rather than some unique jutsu or whatever else, then why would an Uzumaki who had already shown me things I would have thought impossible to do with seals, like Shusei, not be able to create something similar? Something that would let him spy on me, watch me slaughter bandits from a safe distance, observe without being observed?

The crystal orb used in canon could see everything happening in a place the size of Konoha, a massive village with thousands of inhabitants spread across a significant area. The bandit camp hadn’t been that far from where we’d stopped, relatively speaking. A few kilometers at most. If the orb could manage Konoha, then a localized seal array focused on a much smaller area should absolutely be possible.

More than possible. Trivial, for someone with the skill Shusei had already demonstrated.

I looked at him, at the way he was watching me with that fox smile as if waiting to see what I would do with the information I’d pieced together.

“My aunt and I were hired to protect an Uzumaki civilian,” I said slowly, deliberately, “for a C-rank mission from Konoha to the Land of Rain. I would be legally in my right to decide to stop this mission here. To go back to Konoha.” I paused, let that sink in. “I’ll do so if you don’t tell me the truth.”

Shusei’s smile changed. Not disappearing, but shifting, becoming something sharper, more sardonic. Like I’d said something amusing in a way that wasn’t entirely pleasant.

“What makes you think,” he said, voice still light but with an edge underneath, “that I would care if you leave? Let’s say, hypothetically, that your aunt and you do decide to abandon the mission. Let’s say that, hypothetically, I am much more than the average Uzumaki civilian.” He leaned back, casual, but his eyes were focused, predatory. “Why should I care when I have Toga, Shirogane, Akira, and Yoru? Even the weakest of them is Jōnin level. Why should I care about what is an overgraded tokubetsu Jōnin and a green genin, greener than grass, who, while interesting, is still a genin?”

The words seemed as if they were designed to sting, to put me in my place, to remind me that I was, on paper, nothing. A child playing at being a shinobi, protected by adults who could crush me without effort.

But he’d made a mistake.

He’d admitted something I already suspected, that he thought I was interesting.

“Simple,” I said, matching his tone, keeping my expression neutral. “Because, like you said, you find me interesting. And from what I’ve seen so far, you seem like the kind of person who doesn’t like not understanding things.” I tilted my head slightly. “Also, appearances can be treacherous, wouldn’t you say, Mr. I Am An Average Uzumaki Civilian?”

Shusei sighed, a long, exaggerated sound, and rubbed his forehead like I was giving him a headache. “You’re really lucky you’re interesting, otherwise you’d already be dead for suspecting too much.”

I felt them before I saw them.

Two blades, one on each side of my neck, floating in the air without support, without visible strings or wires. They looked razor sharp, the kind of edge that could slice through flesh and bone with minimal resistance. The metal gleamed in the low light of the inn room, and they hovered there, motionless, perfectly positioned so that one wrong move, one twitch, would be enough to open my throat.

Shusei’s voice was calm, almost conversational. “You know that I am able to use my seals to spy on you. To make something that is bigger on the inside than the outside and that can fly. I can make seals so that objects affect flesh the way I did with my senbon, making it harmless the moment it came close to your skin no matter how sharp or fast it is.” He paused, let that sink in. “Even if you have the Sharingan and it can allow you to make a false reality of your design, the seals of my clan can warp the world in such a way that reality becomes what we Uzumaki deem it. You should have taken all of that into account. You were prideful.”

I smiled. “Who said I didn’t?”

“Huh?”

Shusei’s expression shifted, shock and surprise bleeding through the confident mask. Because on both sides of his neck, the floating swords were now there, in the exact positions mine had been. And on both sides of my neck, there was nothing, as if the world had been inversed, as if reality had decided to swap our positions without asking permission.

What kind of Uchiha couldn’t do the old switcheroo? If Itachi, that bum ass consumption ridden clan killer could do so in canon, so could I!

“How?” His voice was sharp now, all pretense of casualness gone. “When? I had applied seals before this mission that should have made the use of the Sharingan, of a Genjutsu, of a Yin technique against me near impossible. And even more so without me noticing.”

I kept my smile, let it turn slightly smug. “I told you that appearances can be treacherous. I may be a genin, but I am still an Uchiha. And when it comes to changing perceptions, illusions, and the link they have with reality, always bet on an Uchiha.”

That was the explanation I gave him.

But the truth was more complicated.

In simple terms, Genjutsu depended on the fact of injecting your chakra into the brain of the one you wanted to control, to trick using an illusion. Genjutsu could be applied through any of the senses, touch, smell, sight, sound, even taste if you were creative enough. In theory, it was much more complicated than that, involving precise chakra control and an understanding of how the brain processed sensory information. It was something tricky to do, especially in active combat, trying to get close enough to your opponent to make physical contact or to create the conditions for them to inhale your scent or hear your technique.

Well, unless you were an Uchiha and could use your sight, your Sharingan, as a vector to deliver the Genjutsu directly through eye contact. That was the advantage, the reason why Uchiha were so feared in one on one combat. We could trap you in an illusion just by making you look at us, bypassing all the normal difficulties.

But I hadn’t used my Sharingan. Hadn’t even activated it. And I certainly hadn’t physically come close to Shusei, hadn’t touched him, hadn’t created any obvious vectors for a traditional Genjutsu.

To succeed, I had done only one thing.

I had cheated.

One of my abilities, one of the ones I’d gained from that part of me that was soul deep, feeling both infinite and not infinite was controlling animals. Kind of like Taylor Hebert from my past life’s fiction, the Queen of escalation herself, the girl who could command insects with perfect precision across a massive range but my version was both broader and more limited at the same time.

Broader because I wasn’t restricted to just insects, I could control anything that fell under the category of simple animal life, anything without complex enough cognition to resist. Worms, bugs, spiders, flies, sparrows, birds, even bunnies.

More limited because the control wasn’t as precise as Taylor’s had been, I couldn’t micromanage individual insects the way she could, couldn’t make them perform complex tasks or spell out words by multitasking through hundreds of them simultaneously . My control was more instinctive, more feeling based, directing swarms and groups rather than individuals.

But the key thing, the thing that made this ability so much more dangerous than it appeared, was that there were bugs, insects, worms, and the like everywhere. Even when you thought it was not the case, even in clean spaces, even in places where you couldn’t see them, they were there. In the walls, in the floorboards, in the air itself.

My ability allowed me to sense them. To know where they were, how many there were, what they were doing. And to control them, to make them move according to my will.

And once I’d realized that, I’d thought about something.

Why couldn’t I use them?

The sound of a fly’s wings. A minuscule spider and its web vibrating at specific frequencies. Tiny bugs crawling near Shusei, on the floor, on the walls, close enough to touch him without him noticing.

Why couldn’t I use my chakra through them, push it through those tiny vectors, inject it into the Uzumaki from multiple angles simultaneously, and make him believe the opposite of what was really happening?

Sure, Shusei might have prepared for my Sharingan. More than likely, his seals would have made my eyes useless for direct Genjutsu, would have blocked or disrupted any attempt to use eye contact as a vector or any regular way to use Genjutsu.

But could those same seals react to a Genjutsu used through multiple vectors, using different senses at different places simultaneously? A coordinated assault from dozens of tiny sources, each one contributing a small piece of false information, each one bypassing the defenses designed for a single, obvious attack?

It seemed that was not the case.

Shusei was silent for a moment, staring at the blades floating near his throat, his expression unreadable. Then he chuckled. Softly at first, then louder, until he was laughing, laughing as if he’d heard the funniest joke in the world, as if everything had suddenly made perfect sense in the most absurd way possible.

“I knew it,” he said when he finally caught his breath, his smile genuine now, delighted. “I knew there was something special about you when your clan burned so much money and political capital to make you graduate in the middle of your Academy year, and for your Jōnin sensei to be your aunt.” He pointed at me, emphatic. “I said this, and old man Tobirama and Mito said I was wrong, that your clan was probably doing this to hide something else, to distract from whatever their real plan was. But I was right. The secret was in plain sight. Your clan made a bet that Tobirama would be too smart, and because he was too smart, he wouldn’t get it. And they were right.”

He leaned forward, eyes bright with something that looked like anticipation. “Whatever your clan is planning, I can’t wait for it to blow up in his face.”

I showed nothing on my face, no emotion, nothing of what I was feeling inside. No concern about how much he’d guessed, no reaction at all. Smooth as stone.

“Isn’t Tobirama both the ally of your clan and someone you’re distantly related to?” I said, voice perfectly neutral. “Shouldn’t you tell him about your… theory?”

In other words, should I try killing you now? Something told me that if I only counted on my Shinobi abilities, I would lose but unfortunately for Shusei, I was a cheater with filthy cheater abilities that would not hesitate to use them to smack down someone with approximately the same hair colour as my mother in my past life.

Did it mean I got mommy issues? Maybe but hey, everyone knew that the depression induced mommy issues made you hot so it still was a win.

The others Uzumakis? Well, they may look cool and all of that but my aunt was cooler because her pyromaniac self had now fuck everything in this direction flames.

Shusei waved it off, dismissive, like the suggestion was absurd. “Hey, don’t worry, I won’t snitch. More than that, old man Tobi can be such an asshole.” A look of distaste appeared briefly on his face, something darker, something that spoke of genuine grievance, before being replaced by mirth. 

“Him being family, him doing what he’s doing right now, doesn’t stop him from being an asshole.” He paused, then added, voice shifting to something that sounded like a joke only he understood the punchline of, “More than that, no matter what, let’s say that death and him have found an understanding. Ask Kinkaku and Ginkaku.”

The way he said “death” made my instincts prickle, like there was a story there, something significant that I was missing. But before I could ask, before I could probe, he continued.

“Anyway.”

The way he sat changed. The air around him changed. The expression on his face changed.

Individually, none of it would have meant much. A shift in posture, a slight hardening of the eyes, a smile that lost its playful edge. But together, they made Shusei look older. More dangerous. Like the mask of the friendly, teasing boy had been pulled back to reveal something that understood violence in an intimate way. 

It is said that the eyes are the windows of the soul. Sometimes, no matter what someone may do, how hard they try to hide it, looking at them in the eyes tells you a lot and looking into Shusei’s eyes, it reminded me of the eyes of my uncles and aunts, of the adults in the Uchiha clan who had killed so much that they had bathed in blood.

“You wanted me to tell you the truth,” he said, voice lower now, more serious. “And because I like you, I’ll tell you. But let me tell you something first.” He looked at me directly, and his eyes were sharp, focused, the kind of gaze that missed nothing. “Sharing what you will hear, what I will tell you, would be considered treason against Konoha. And with you being an Uchiha, I don’t think Tobirama will care much about any justification.”

My eyes widened in surprise. “Treason?”

“Indeed.” Shusei nodded, like he was confirming something obvious. “On paper, this is a simple C-rank escort mission from Konoha, from the Land of Fire to the Land of Rain, so that I could represent my clan, buy simple materials, and talk with our suppliers.” He paused, let that sit for a second. “The truth? It is a mission. A joint mission between Konoha leadership and the Uzumaki clan to Annex the Land of Rain.”

I stared at him. “Annex? Why?”

My mind was racing. Maybe I was wrong, but I didn’t think such a thing had happened canonically in the Naruto manga. Or if it had, it had happened but had not been talked about, which, given how monumental it was to even think about annexing an entire country, was weird. 

It didn't make sense. It should have been mentioned unless it had failed. Unless whatever they were planning went wrong, and the Land of Rain remained independent, remaining the perpetually war torn territory it was in canon, the place where the great villages fought their proxy wars and where Hanzō the Salamander eventually rose to power.

Shusei leaned back, his expression thoughtful, like he was considering how much to explain. “Simple. The Land of Rain is not only rich in resources, lacking in true ninja infrastructure like a great village, but its placement means that whoever has control of Ame would have direct access to other countries without threatening their own borders. It means being able to move troops, supplies, food, all without having to cross hostile territory or negotiate passage.”

He looked at me, and his eyes were serious now, no trace of the earlier humor. “Think about it strategically. Ame sits between the Land of Fire, the Land of Earth, and the Land of Wind. It’s a crossroads, a buffer zone, a place where influence and power intersect. Right now, it’s weak, disorganized, a collection of small villages and minor clans that can’t unite into anything that could challenge a great village.”

I felt the pieces clicking together, the logic becoming clear. It was a cold logic, a cruel one but it didn't mean that it was not an effective one if profit was your only goal.

“Tensions are rising,” Shusei continued, voice quiet but intense. “The great villages were able to consolidate themselves, to prepare, to regain the numbers of people they lost, who died in the first war. And they only want one thing, Ren. They want vengeance. They want blood. They want to settle the scores that were left unfinished.”

He leaned forward, and his voice dropped even lower, like he was sharing a secret that could reshape the world.

“Hashirama and Madara, the god and the ghost, are dead. The two people who could have stopped another war through sheer presence, through the threat of what they could do if pushed, are gone. The world knows this. The other villages know this. And they’re already moving, already positioning themselves for the next conflict.”

His eyes locked onto mine, and I felt the weight of what he was about to say before he even said it.

“Making the Land of Rain ours means already having a foot in the door leading to victory in the next great shinobi war.”

The words hung in the air between us, heavy, undeniable.

Annexing Ame. Not as a long term goal, not as a vague ambition, but as an active plan, a joint operation between Konoha and Uzushio, happening right now, with me caught in the middle of it.

I thought about the implications, the ripple effects. If Konoha and Uzushio succeeded, if they managed to bring Ame under their control, it would fundamentally shift the balance of power in the Elemental Nations. It would give the alliance a staging ground for operations into Earth Country, into Wind Country, into any direction they wanted to project force. It would make them the dominant power, not just in name, but in practical, geographic terms.

It would also make every other great village panic. Would make them desperate. Would potentially accelerate the timeline toward the next war, because no one would want to let Konoha gain that kind of advantage without a fight.

And it explained so much.

Why this “simple escort mission” had a protection detail that could handle Jōnin level threats. Why Shusei, who was clearly not just a civilian, was the one being sent. Why the Uzumaki were involved at all when Konoha could have just sent a diplomatic team.

This wasn’t an escort mission. This was the opening move of a geopolitical chess game.

And my aunt and I had been pulled into it, whether we knew it or not and something told me that we could not back down now.

I should have really decked my aunt in the face when she said this C-rank mission would be easy.

I should have known it already, C-rank missions always go wrong.