Kneading his charka, Isui sent it through his Keirakukei. The sizzling energy flooded his body's muscles, tightening them. Isui leaped from the edge of a roof, landing on a railing across a street, before kicking off it, stretching his arms out to grip the iron framework of a crane at a construction site. Balancing himself on it with his feet, he looked up to see Boruto crawling down the inner ladder. His eyes detailed, fixating on his rival's blonde hair. Ever since the race started, he had been in the lead. That was until he twisted his body midflight to see nothing behind him. Boruto managed, in this short while, when Isui could not see or sense him to get ahead of him. He probably found another shortcut. It riled Isui up a bit because it meant that he had overlooked this opportunity. Boruto was still climbing the ladder downwards, Isui in hot pursuit, when the ladder suddenly saw an opening forming. Down on the ground was a heap of freshly piled-up dirt and sand, enough to feather a downfall from the height where Isui was. Without thinking much, he slipped out of the crane's framework and jumped down, landing softly with a roll down the little hill. He sprinted out of the main gate of the construction zone and up a flight of stairs to reach the rooftops again back in the lead.
The game between him and Boruto continued until they reached the Uzumaki training grounds.
"Okay," shouted Boruto turning to Isui, grinning from ear to ear. "Watch this!"
Boruto crossed two fingers respectively from both hands and closed a very familiar hand sign with them.
"Shadow Clone Jutsu," he yelled, the lines on his cheeks stiffening as a look of concentration appeared on his face.
With a puff and a little smoke, a figure formed next to Boruto. It made Isui blink as his eyes fired up, one tomoe spinning instinctively, taking in every detail. Two Borutos were standing before him, their charka signatures almost the same, with the clone displaying less aura radiation around his body. Isui was satisfied that he could distinguish them. It made him feel better. His brother just created a perfect solid close of himself. Isui was not stupid. He knew how special the signature move of the seventh Hokage was.
"Has Naruto-oji-san taught you that?"
"No, I figured it out alone after watching my father do that technique daily. Took me a while, but now it is easy peasy."
"I wanna try it too." Isui decided after eying Boruto and his clone closely again.
"Are you sure you can do it?"
"Yes, I have seen enough of it to visualize it."
Isui started molding the chakra and formed the hand sign. Shadow Clone Jutsu, he thought silently, replaying every bit of information his Sharingan had provided in his mind. Finallysing thoughts, he closed his hand sign as cleanly as possible with the intent to cast.
With a poof, a second Isui appeared.
"Oh no," exclaimed both Borutos simultaneously. "One try?"
Isui smiled smugly at him. The smugness did not last long as his clone suddenly disappeared, and Isui felt a burning pain shoot from his stomach to his feet, head, and, even more frightening, his heart. His eyes bulged, the color of the Sharingan long ago lost, as he grasped his shirt over his torso.
"Isui!"
Two Borutos rushed to him, catching him as his legs gave out and black dots danced in his vision.
Boruto lifted Isui and carried him beneath the shadow of a tree, where he was laid down and rearranged by four hands into the first aid position.
"Isui"
He was breathing hard, and cold sweat purring out of his pores. As the sudden pain in his chest faded, the fear in his head stayed.
"Isui" His body was stiff and heavy.
The water hit his face, making him blink. His sight and mind cleared up a bit. He rolled on his back, looking up into a worried pair of deep blue eyes.
Boruto lifted his head and placed it on his knees, pushing the opening of a water bottle on his lips. The water helped. isui swallowed the fear with it. Boruto moved again. Isui watched with tired eyes as Boruto pealed the plastic wrappings from an energy bar before stuffing his mouth with it. After the third bar, Isui lifted his hand to Borutos, waving him off.
"Thank you." he murmured."More, and I will puke."
"Better not over me."
"Hmpf"
The bones in his body felt like rubber sticks as Isui stumbled after Boruto to a clearing in the training grounds, where he spotted a few round targets nailed to the tree trunks. His charka system still suffered from fatigue, and he felt a headache forming, pulsing from the back of his head to his left eye. With participating in the training out of the question, he forced himself to sit down again, gazing at his brother, who had taken the shuriken-throwing stance.
Isui watched with legs crossed as barrages of shuriken flew past the targets. Only once, on a blue moon, did one of the windmill-shaped blades hit its mark. He would have chuckled at Boruto's pitiful tries if he did not have to focus on a breathing exercise. With his body weak, Isui needed to concentrate on his mind and soul to coin in new power. It would reform into chakra, strengthening his body and lessening the pain in his head, breath by breath.
"Ahhhhh..."
The frustrated outcry broke Isui's concentration.
"You need some help?"
"Are you sure that you are okay again?" Boruto gave him a concerned look.
"You have been training on your own for over an hour."
"Then can you use your Sharingan to analyze my mistakes?" asked Boruto hesitantly. It was out of character. He always did that. Isui assumed his brother did not like needing help since people regarded him as a genius like Isui. Then there was also the fact that Boruto's moral compass did not allow him to treat the people around him like tools, and at last, he could be as snappy as Sarada when it came to inherited ocular powers. His mother, sister, and aunt had messed him up in that regard when he recalled some of Boruto's stories correctly.
"It is fine," Isui said, standing up and closing his eyes to activate his bloodline. He was being extra careful not to overload his body again as he felt his chakra slowly staunch behind his eyes before opening them.
"Ohh!" exclaimed Boruto lifting his hand to point with his finger at Isui's eye. Isui raised an eyebrow at his reaction because Boruto had seen his firey red eyes multiple times. Furthermore, his brother looked like he had discovered that they would include an extra Kagemasa action figure in his favorite burger menu by tomorrow. Hence he practically shone from within with excitement. "Your left eye has changed."
"Changed?" Isui drew that word out. It was not like he did not believe his brother. He did not feel anything wrong with his left eye. Digging in his back pocket, Isui decided he would check. He brought out a pale blue pocket mirror used for makeup.
"You have a mirror with you?"
"It is my sisters. She told me to swallow my pride because a mirror can be a great tool."
"Are you sure you do not need it to bind up your hair, ducktail?" (Son of duck butt)
Isui ignored Boruto's teasing and looked at his reflection, and his eyes widened. As expected, he saw his heavy eyelashed crimson eyes, but in one of his eyes were two tomoe instead of one. His Sharingan had changed. It had evolved. He remembered the headache he had an hour prior. It had been on the left side of his head. By the kami, his bloodline limed had evolved. Pride swelled in his chest. But how did it happen? He asked himself, bringing his hand to his chin. The only thing out of the ordinary today was his falling over due to chakra exhaustion. He had never felt so out of it before.
Isui remembered what his mother had told him that his bloodline would evolve if he worked hard enough, but today he had felt utterly helpless as his body failed him, and feeling so weak he had been angry at himself again. Maybe there was more to it than only hard training. After all, his Sharingan had developed twice in an intense situation. It seemed like Isui's emotions also played a part in this. If that was the case, it seemed like his mother tried to protect him again. He doubted she was so naive about it because she married an Uchiha. Even when his father never was around, he must have left something for his kids to hang on to when they awakened his inherited powers. Isui decided to drill his mother on that again once Sarada was not home.
Isui looked up at the questioning look his brother shot him. Boruto opened his mouth, but Isui shut him down.
"Let's continue training."
"Do you not want to find out more about it?"
"I scarcely have chakra now, so you better fall into stance. I want to help you as long as possible."
With that said, Isui and Boruto trained until the evening, with Isui having to take more breaks than Boruto.
Boruto's shuriken throwing skills had not improved much, but both boys walked home satisfied and hungry.
But since that day, Isui secretly started to exhaust himself with the shadow clone technic. Every evening he formed one clone for about ten seconds at a time.
His Sharingan did not develop further. But until the evening before the academy entrance ceremony, Isui managed to sustain a clone for one and a half minutes without his Sharingan before his chakra storage fell under fifty percent. It was a small victory.