Chapter 1- Innocent school days
The room I woke up in isn't my room. Now, I know for most people this usually involves alcohol or a surprise hospital visit but there's two problems here. 1- This isn't a hospital room, and 2- I don't drink. Oh yeah, there's also the fact that when I went to sleep I was alone, in my bedroom, in my apartment with everything properly locked-up.
Therefore there are two possibilities:
I got kidnapped by some maniac.I'm Dreaming.
Whichever it was, the first thing to do is examine the room I'm in. There's a wardrobe in front of the bed, occupying most of the wall and one of the corners of the room. A wooden door right next to the wardrobe. A window above the bed. A low wooden table in the middle of the room with a letter on top sits on a blue carpet. The last thing is a mirror sitting right above a wooden drawer. Looking under the bed in case there is something hidden there reveals nothing.
I should probably read the letter before breaking the window and running the fuck away from here. On the way there I see someone in the mirror out of the corner of my eye. After a teensy bit of panicking I realize it's not someone, it's me. A black-haired seven year old kid with red eyes stares at me from the mirror. Silver lining, at least I've got the three tomoe sharingan already.
—---
One existential crisis later I find myself reading the letter. Apparently I've got one month off from school because of… my families? slaughter. I was just discharged from the hospital yesterday according to it. After reading it I began exploring the house.
The room isn't locked and the house seems to be surprisingly intact. No furniture is broken, the floor is intact and so on. It's as if the house was cleaned and prepared for living in, which in hindsight it probably was. After the house came exploring the Uchiha district, and it was there that I saw the damages.
Burned down houses, broken down walls, blood splatters littered everywhere. While going on this morbid walk I began to slowly lose myself in my thoughts.
Before I used to feel lonely, I had no one really close to me. No wife or girlfriend, no kids, no parents, no brothers. I am(was?) an orphan. Oh I'd had friends, I'd just never really clicked with anyone. I had no one to miss and there was no one to miss me. Now that I'm apparently a future child soldier it was probably for the best.
I want to make as much of this new life as possible. I don't want to want to simply drift through this one as well.
There's also the aliens that wanna eat the planet and the totally sane dude who wants to enact genjutsu matrix on everyone.
Fuck.
-2 weeks later
I am sitting in front of a small lake, halfway through my workout. After two weeks of this it quickly became apparent that chakra is bullshit, I constantly find myself needing to up the ante as whatever I did yesterday became easier in mere days. Just four days ago fifty pushups, two hundred situps and thirty pull-ups left me breathless and exhausted. Now I just got really tired.
After finishing the work-out I begin chakra control training. I managed to stick five leaves on my arm yesterday and today I wanna run up a wall. If i had to describe how chakra felt I'd say it's like suddenly having another sense, or seeing a color you'd never even known existed. I walk in front of the tree, stick the first leg on it and proceed to push chakra into it. After being blasted three meters backwards and getting a nice scoop of dirt right into my mouth I decided to stick to sticking leaves for a bit more time.
Last on the list is Sharingan training. I go towards the pond and begin looking at my reflection. I start a stopwatch I bought and activate my sharingan by circulating more chakra than usual through my eyes. It has become somewhat natural by this point. I watch my eyes turn red and proceed to stare at myself in the pond until my eyes begin to hurt a little, at which point I stop the stopwatch. Fifteen minutes, one minute more compared to when i first started doing this a week ago.
After my midday prayer I go to get groceries. Taking the scenic route after exiting the Uchicha district. On my way I do some people watching. Technology here is a weird mix of feudal and modern, if I remember right Kishimoto did not include any tech that would make ninja useless. Soon enough I enter the market and proceed to go to the one stall that has all I want.
"Hey kid, Here's those weird peppers you asked for, finally managed to get some for you" said Yakasu. He's the owner of the stall I buy most of my food from. The guy is the only one who actually tries to find stuff that's more exotic.
"Thanks, here's the money" I replied and he responded with "No problem kid, just don't stuff those things in my food". After the exchange I get some takeout, not feeling like cooking today.
-another 2 weeks later.
I am sitting in front of the academy somewhat conflicted. On the one hand I'm about to learn ninja magic, on the other hand I'm going to school again. Here goes nothing. As soon as I enter I realize that I don't know where the classroom actually is. Asking the first teacher I come across swiftly resolves this and soon I am right in front of the classroom, about to open the door. When I enter the room goes quiet for a second before the teacher begins talking.
"Hello Sasuke, I hope you're feeling better, you can just take a seat and we'll get back to the lesson." Iruka compassionately told me after a look.
"Will do" is my short reply.
After I pick a seat at the back of the classroom he quickly starts the lesson again. He's telling us about Konoha's founding. Ten minutes into the lesson I find myself somewhat bored, I can recognize the man is most likely a good teacher but this is-
"I AM GOING TO BECOME THE HOKAGE!!! BELIE-""NARUTO GET INTO YOUR SEAT AND STOP SHOUTI-""DON'T MAKE ME PUT SCRATCHING POWDER IN YOUR PANTS IRUKA!""NARU-"
I stare at Naruto, seeing this happen on television is one thing, in reality it is quite another. The screaming match continues for some time longer until Naruto finally relents and gets into a seat. Right next to me.
The rest of the class can be summarized succinctly as follows: Iruka tries to go on with the lesson, Naruto interrupts and yells out that he doesn't need this to become Hokage, Iruka tries to get Naruto to let him continue the lesson, Naruto refuses, Iruka then just starts ignoring Naruto's outbursts. I hate kids.
I understand why he is like this. Every adult most likely ignores him and has their kids do that too. So he's doing anything he can just to get some attention. But that won't make my ears stop ringing or stop the pounding head-ache he's causing.
—
Lunch break is the sweet relief I had been waiting for. I find a nice spot and lay down to eat my lunch. Thankfully Naruto is off arguing with Kiba about some nonsense so I can just lay here and rest for a little while. After sitting down I have a quick look around and confirm, there's sadly no trees to take some leaves from here.
After finishing my lunch-box I spend the rest of the time examining the rest of my classmates. Shikamaru is sleeping, Ino and Sakura are still friends and playing around, Hinata is sitting down in a corner, looking at the floor and Choji is spectating the newly started fight between Kiba and Naruto. The rest of the kids I don't recognize, so Lee, Neji and Tenten's class probably have their break at a different time.
The bell soon rings and I sigh, back to boredom. I've learnt my lesson, I'm bringing leaves with me next time. Actually no, scratch that, I'm sending a shadow clone and doing literally anything else. Snorting glue and huffing paint would be more engaging than this.
—-
With my resolution to outsource school to an identical clone of myself I wait for the opportunity to copy that jutsu. Five days and many walks through the training grounds later I can proudly proclaim to have succeeded to get not just the shadow clone jutsu, but a buttload of miscellaneous jutsu, a crapload of taijutsu styles and some pretty cool shurikenjutsu. Man, do I love the sharingan. It's also more than likely that everything I copied was essentially pre-planned and arranged for me to copy.
-five months later
I've kinda reached a plateau in my physical training.
The problem isn't that it's becoming harder to improve, it's that it's getting ridiculous how much time it started to consume. Yeah, being able to jump ten meters into the air is cool, but good luck coming up with reasonable exercises to get a proper workout when you can do infinite pushups. And it's only gonna get harder and harder from here.
At least chakra training is still going well. I can actually make a shadow clone now! Finally reaching the point where I wouldn't instantly pass out when making one was such a relief, no more kids shouting in my ear about whatever nonsense they've got in their heads.
When I can comfortably make at least three I will start using them for training, until then I need to figure out a way to actually continue working out without spending three hours daily doing hand-stands while water-walking.What? I have to either multitask or stay awake until two AM.
-1 year later, winter.
I give up. Up until now I've avoided using weights because I was worried I'd stunt my growth or something but I am just completely done with doing over four hours of repetitive exercises every single day. Off shopping I go.
—
I have made a habit of going to the market the long way. By sheer coincidence this means going through the training grounds, and by pure coincidence copying everything I happen to glance at.
Soon I find myself right in front of a shinobi general shop. Going inside it is apparent they are stocked on most things a ninja may find themselves requiring. Weights, shuriken, kunai, swords, kama, seal-tags. All the bells and whistles. My joy and happiness is soon extinguished when the clerk kindly informs me they are only allowed to sell to active shinobi. Drat.
Five stores later i find out that clerk wasn't just fucking with me. They literally can't sell to civilians, and guess who's emo ass is not a registered child soldier just yet? Plan A has failed. It is time for plan B, let's get an axe.
—
I am about to happily exit the shop, an entirely too heavy axe made entirely out of steel resting nicely in my hand, when I begin to hear crying, turning towards it I find three teenagers kicking a little girl. Now, I might have developed a not so healthy hatred towards little children after being forced to go to ninja kindergarten but I still have a probably unhealthier hatred of bullies.
They don't notice me walking towards them, as such imagine the surprise of Bul- nope, they're names are Jimmy, John and Jahn now- Jimmy when his crotch receives the butt of my axe. The scream still wasn't as loud as Naruto however. John and Jahn just fuck off at mach maximum once they see the angry red-eyed toddler standing over their screaming friend.
I look at the girl sitting in the fetal position. She has short, dark blue hair and is wearing pretty baggy clothing, probably got picked on for being fat.
"You alright kid?" Now, one may hold me accountable for basically stealing Naruto's moment and potentially NTR'ing him, but I honestly didn't even know it was Hinata until she looked at me and I saw her eyes.
—
"Here's your ice cream, feeling better?"
"yes" She mumbles, sinking her head deeper into her hoody. Her hands slowly pick up the ice cream cone I'm holding for her. "thank you".
Then we just sit on the bench for the next ten minutes. Me not knowing what to say and her probably too shy to talk. One thing I've noticed is that whenever I'm doing my 'totally innocent walk trust' walks some seem to avoid using certain techniques. So they definitely know what I'm up to.
At the beginning I didn't actually know much about martial arts, but by now I've learned enough to understand that practicing alone without a sparring partner is pointless. "So, you wanna train together sometimes? We can decide when later at school if you want to"
She somehow manages to sink her head even more into her hoody, only half her face is visible now "yes". Sparring partner acquired. Now all that's left is to do a Danzo and stick one of every dojutsu in my friggin arm, I'll even start calling it "The Arm of True-Sight".
—
*Thwack. *Thwack. *Thwack.
And that's 3 hits to chop a tree. Thank god for chakra, otherwise this would've taken much longer. Why am I chopping a tree you may ask? Simple, I'm improvising. Three more thwacks and I've got a nice thick and very very heavy wooden log.
Now instead of spending hours upon hours doing body-weight exercises I can simply do half an hour.
After my physical exercises I turn to chakra control. I can walk on trees and on water without even actively concentrating on doing it by now. One option to continue is to try and make the rasengan, which I somewhat properly remember how to do. But then I'll have to explain how I knew that.
The other option is nature release and I doubt I'll find information on how to train anything other than wind release. So we're doing wind release. The good news is I can actually comfortably make two shadow clones now, three makes me a little dizzy. Sasuke 2 and Sasuke 3 soon begin splitting leaves while I try to keep the sharingan on for as long as I can. Now it actually takes a little over one hour before my eyes begin hurting.
--- 3 years later
The log makes a loud thumping noise as it hits the ground and cracks in half. Instead of handstands I've begun shoulder-pressing a log in each hand. Progress on chakra has also gone fantastic. I can make ten shadow clones with nothing exiting my stomach now. Another loud thump comes from my right. Hinata has been training with me these years, her progress matching my own.
With the physical exercises done we take a small break before beginning our spars. I activate the sharingan and she activates the byakugan. Now, unlike what most fanfiction will teach you (Spar initiated, Lethal force engaged) going hard during spars isn't a good idea for two reasons:
One: You're injuring yourself. Good luck training your speed after you sprain your ankle.
Two: You can't spar as long. Instead of having a good two hours of sparring you might have just half an hour before your gas tank expires and you're left wheezing like a smoker going up stairs.
Now, don't get me wrong, I don't mean it's a bad idea to ever have full throttle spars, me and Hinata have four each month, but they're dangerous and risky compared to the returns.
It's for that reason that in our spars, we tap each other instead of bashing each-others heads in. With my sharingan I can see her move in slow-motion, preventing her from catching me off-guard. With her byakugan she can see my chakra, preventing me from catching her off-guard. It's because of this that most of our spars end up feeling more like a game of chess than exercises of muscle-memory, each action planned and executed instead of a trained response.
We spend the next two hours sparring like this. Attempting to score hits on the other whilst simultaneously dodging our opponent. At the end we bow to each-other and go eat lunch. The girl might be shy, but she's latched on like a cat on catnip.
- 11 days later.
So uuuuh, you know of that thing called the butterfly effect? Apparently Kumo just tried to kidnap Hinata's sister, Hanabi. Apparently toddlers are easier to yoink when compared to a kid that can shoulder-press 500kgs. Also apparently it is a bad idea to try something shady in the clan-compound chock-full of x-ray vision.
Unlike in canon, where Konoha decided that the proper response to someone trying to kidnap a clan heir is to apologize. Hiruzen's response to kumo's "Give me eyes or war" can be summed up as "Try me bitch", so we're now preparing for war. I find a letter in my mailbox that requests my physical presence in the academy in order to receive my assignment. Bugger.
—
Unlike the usual atmosphere, the classroom is grim today. No one is feeling like making jokes or arguing with anyone right now. Iruka comes inside of the classroom. His face is a mask of stone, no emotion to be deciphered.
"You may have heard, we are at war. Those of you who are considered to be appropriately prepared will be assigned a team under a jonin, the rest will remain and continue their studies as usual. I will now begin assignments."
"Ino, Shimakaru and Choji. Your team will be under Jonin Asuma Sarutobi."
"Totsune, Ineke and Tojusai. Your team will be under Jonin Hiashi Hyuga."
"Sakura, Hinata and Sasuke. Your team will be under Jonin Kakashi Hatake."
From there the man continued his assignments. Half the class was chosen. Kiba, Shino and some rando got Kurenai as their jonin. Naruto is staying in the academy, i guess they need to give him some sort of special training before sending the ninja-nuke anywhere.
"You are to wait in this room. The Jonin you have been assigned to will arrive soon. Their duties are two-fold, to protect you and to teach you. You are the future of Konoha, do not forget that."
And like that he proceeds to bow towards us and leave the room. Those who remained in the academy followed him, we stayed. Slowly each Jonin comes to pick-up their team and surprise surprise, we are the only team left soon. I decide to try and make some conversation, what could possibly go wrong?
"Ehm, so erm, nice weather outside?" I sputtered.
"Yes Sasuke! The weather is great!" It's cloudy and ugly AF.
"erm, it's better than raining?" I guess.
And we're back to silence now. Hinata is too shy to start a conversation. Sakura is too infatuated to say anything other than agree with me and it's way too awkward now for me to try again.
-One hour later
I've cleared the desks in the class to make space in the middle. We're doing spars to pass the time until cyclops shows up. I say spars, but it's more like me and Hinata trying to teach Sakura how to not get instantly gibbed in a fight.
– Four hours later.
"Yo"
I look at Kakashi. Hinata looks at Kakashi. Sakura pants and glares at Kakashi. Kakashi looks at us.
"Ya'll are weird, meet me at the rooftop."
Aaand he's gone.
"Now that you're all here, let's get to know each other kay? I'll start. My name is Kakashi, I like reading and my dream is to… I forgot, your turn now"
"My name is Hinata and… my dream is that I want to be a good leader for the Hyuga. I like ice cream and sweets."
"My name is Sakura and i like.." she gave me a side-glance, this is gonna suck isn't it? "And my dream is…" it will suck.
Kakashi smiles at us through his mask. "Allright, now that we're all on the same page. I am your teacher. Dangerous times are coming, so long as you follow what I say you should be alright. Our first order of business is for me to get up to speed at where all of you stand. Meet me at training ground 23 tomorrow." Aaand he's gone.
I give Hinata a look, we silently agree to split up and meet up later.
—
Surprisingly, Kakashi is only fifteen minutes late this time. We didn't even get to begin sparring!
He gives all of us a probing look. "Here's how we're gonna do this, all of you come at me with intent to kill. Don't worry ill be fine" He smiles and starts reading porn.
I create four shadow clones, making sure to hide myself and sakura (Using a henge as myself) among them. One runs to hide, One Henge's into sakura and I join the rest in rushing him. Hinata swiftly joins me in my attack. We proceed to try and hit the guy for five full minutes, while he effortlessly dodges everything, occasionally turning a page. Fake Sakura occasionally throwing some shuriken and kunai into the melee.
I hear an explosion, the signal we all collectively agreed on. I quickly create a single clone, making sure to make as much smoke as possible, and proceed to escape along with Hinata, Sakura and two clones. The last one remains to keep him busy (as if it even could).
One nice thing about taking all those walks in the training grounds is all the Jutsu I've stolen. Wind reinforces fire, fire reinforces earth. I fire off an earth bullet, one clone a fire bullet and the final one a wind bullet. Wind and fire turn into a giant fireball. The giant fireball joins the Earth bullet and like that we've got a super-heated fireball magma bullet. It instantly explodes as soon as it hits the earth, radiating out a heat-filled shockwave.
Once the smoke clears we see the aftermath. A large crater of melting earth with a missing Kakashi.
Sakura panics a little "Di… Did we kill him?"
I snort "Yep, we're now gonna become Jonin and then the first triple Hokage. I doubt it, he's probably hiding somewhere. He probably switched with Kawarimi before impact"
"Basically yeah, that's what happened." I hear Kakashi say from behind me. We slowly all turn towards him. He smiles "Now it's time to see your defense" Fuck me.
—
It takes the man fifteen minutes before we're all left as wheezing bruise-balls, and it's basically guaranteed that it only took him so long because he was checking our defense. He looks up from his smut to look at us. "Sasuke, you know a lot of Jutsu and how to mix them up well. In ninjutsu i'd put you above most jonin, although with the sharingan if you weren't I'd send you back to the academy. In Taijutsu you're solidly chunin, but you lack battle experience and rely more on your physical abilities and sharingan. As for genjutsu, I'll show you some of the more useful visual ones."
He then turns to Hinata. "Your Ninjutsu is atrocious, probably the fault of your clan, we're gonna get that fixed." He turns a page "Your Taijutsu is also solid chunin, somewhat better than Sasuke. For genjutsu you're gonna learn a few, it never hurts to know some."
He gives sakura a somewhat longer look than he did me and Hinata. "You just suck at everything. Your chakra control is leaps over everything else though, so you're going to learn medical ninjutsu"
I tiredly raised my hand "Can I also learn some?" He raises an eyebrow at me "Yea sure, why not? If you wanna bring your girlfriend with you all three of you should be there at five AM." Aaand he's gone. Fuck you.
—
Kakashi, fuck you again. The hospital is closed, we're all left to wait four hours until it actually opens up. I sigh "Do you guys wanna go grab a bite to eat?"
"Yes Sasuke! Of course I want to go!"
"mhm"
—one month later.
Time passed quickly. We all focused on training and learning as much as we could. There's no thing to motivate a man as much as avoiding dying. We've started using actual training weights now, Kakashi making sure we're not overdoing it. All of us have gotten proficient at Medical-Jutsu, but neither me or Hinata come close to Sakura. Whilst the most the two of us can manage is closing flesh wounds she can heal crushed bones and cut arteries.
All of us learned how to form chakra scalpels and integrated them in our Taijutsu. I was interested in them by virtue of wanting to learn as much as I could. Hinata found them useful for creating variations of the gentle fist and Sakura for not instantly dying.
We're now all waiting at the gate for Kakashi, we're going to get blooded.
We're traveling by foot. Trying to conserve chakra just in case we get attacked. Our destination is a bandit camp, apparently we've had some deserters when the war got announced. A part of those fucked off and started living in the woods or something, the other half started bandit groups, being able to punch a dudes head off keeping the vagrants in line, who'd have thought?
—
It's started to get dark, meaning it's time for us to make camp.
Kakashi flips a page "Sakura, you take the first watch. Afterwards Sasuke will go, followed by Hinata and then me. That ok?"
"Yea"
"Yes sir"
"yes sir"
We quickly set-up camp, eat our packed food (we're not going away THAT long) and off to sleep.
—
"Sasuke,wake-up, it's your shift now"
"Aight, gimme a minute" I mumble to Sakura.
After I splash my face with some water I proceed to sit next to the camp-fire and activate my sharingan, killing two birds with one stone. Two hours later I wake Hinata up and then go back to sleep.
—
We've arrived at the bandit camp. We're all looking at them from above, in the tree-branches. Kakashi gives a surveying look to each of us "I'll take care of the shinobi, you all take care of the rest." Then he addresses me specifically. "Don't use any jutsu this time, you'll have the opportunity to explode things later allright?" I quickly nod in assent. After that brief exchange he proceeds to give all of us an encouraging look. "Sasuke, you take the northern section. Sakura, you take those in the middle and Hinata will go for the southern section." We nod in assent before he disappears.
We give each other a passing glance before leaving to our respective assignments. I move silently above the northern part of their camp. A quick look unveils that there's a total of three of them, all of them sitting near a camp-fire. I activate my sharingan, take some time to make sure i didn't miss anything before dropping down. On the way down I make a chakra scalpel and aim for one of the bandits. He splits vertically in half, blood and shit splashing everywhere. The other two panic and begin to reach for their weapons. Their hands don't even come close to reaching them before they are swiftly decapitated.
I take another look around myself, making sure I didn't miss anything, before jumping up, back among the tree branches. I try to wipe the sweat off my forehead but all i actually do is smear myself with blood. Kakashi, Hinata and Sakura quickly arrive.
"All of you did well. Let's get going, there's a river nearby we can make camp next to."
I nod, seeing the carnage I enacted when my head tips down. I think I'm gonna vomit.
—
After we make camp I do actually vomit. Me and Sakura are both dry heaving and Hinata is slowly rubbing our backs. Kinda funny how out of all of us, she's the one taking it best.
Thankfully there's a river right next to us, just as Kakashi said, so we decide that Hinata and Sakura can go clean-up first, and I'll go afterwards. Once they leave I quickly strip and begin cleaning both myself and my clothes. I don't want to feel the blood on myself for much longer.
Once I'm done and back in camp Kakashi proceeds to gather all of us together. He is silent for some time before he begins talking. "You did well. Don't feel bad about it. It's a good thing that you find this difficult. And don't worry, you'll slowly get used to it in the future."
Hinata slightly raises her voice "Erm, do we do the same night-watch as last time?"
Kakashi gives her an eye smile "Don't worry, all of you should rest, I'll take the nightwatch". We all nod and proceed to prepare for sleep.
—
Once we arrive back at Konoha Kakashi tells us to meet him at the Hokage tower at six(ten) AM in two days. Until then he tells us to just rest before promptly disappearing in a shunshin.
I give both of my teammates an appraising glance each. Sakura is doing better, still gets lost in her own thoughts occasionally and Hinata seems to have stopped being even more drawn in herself than before. I myself am still a little queasy. "Do you guys wanna meet-up tomorrow and play some board-games?" I ask them and receive both of their approval.