Welcome to the Masquerade
The Chthonic Professor
Summary: When Earth falls to a worldwide epidemic, one young man will get a second chance at life. Reborn Uchiha Sakumo, twin brother to Uchiha Sasuke, he plans on making the most of his new life by using knowledge of his previous life to become the greatest shinobi who ever lived.
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Chapter One - Two Little Geniuses
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The memories started returning around my third birthday.
It had started as flashes, completely incomprehensible and unbelievably terrifying. For almost an entire year I would have terrible night terrors and random seizures as my mind was assaulted by twenty years worth of memories.
Throughout that year of my life, Sasuke had been my rock. No matter the fact that I knew I'd lived an entirely different life, or that I was technically twenty years older than him, or that I knew he was just an anime character, Sasuke was my twin brother and, to this day, I am incomprehensibly grateful to him.
For the entire year, after my third birthday, after the night terrors and the seizures started, father began acting incredibly cold and indifferent to me. I was a disgrace unworthy of the Uchiha name in his eyes.
No matter the fact that I'd lived, experienced another life, this man was still my father. The pain had been unbearable, the feeling of being truly inadequate was all-encompassing and suffocating.
It was only the soothing words of Itachi and Sasuke's constant presence that got me through that rough patch in my life.
Just before our fourth birthday, sometime early in July, the seizures and night terrors had finally stopped. I knew who I'd been before. I remembered everything. During the year that I'd turned twenty, Earth was hit by the worst epidemic ever witnessed in the history of mankind. It put the Black Death to shame. By the time I'd finally passed, on July 23rd, 2018, the disease had claimed three quarters of the world's population.
That very same day, July 23rd, 48 AKF (After Konoha's Founding), I, Uchiha Sakumo was born to Uchiha Fugaku and Uchiha Mikoto, younger twin brother to Uchiha Sasuke, and younger brother of Uchiha Itachi by five years.
It was on the day of Sasuke's and my fourth birthday that my new (or should I say, old) knowledge first came in handy. Through sheer happenstance I managed to overhear father mention to Itachi that a Kumo representative would be visiting Konoha next month to discuss peace negotiations.
It was like something in my brain had just… clicked. I had a plan, and if it worked, it would benefit myself, Sasuke, and the Hyuuga clan as a whole.
I remembered a little slice of information from my previous life, that Sasuke had awakened his Sharingan during the Massacre after witnessing the deaths of mother and father at Itachi's hands. However, I also remembered that the Sharingan could be awakened under pure stressful situations, rather than purely traumatic ones.
In theory, Sasuke and I could both awaken our Sharingan by attempting to stop a Jounin Kumogakure shinobi from kidnapping the Hyuuga heiress. It was an incredibly dangerous idea, and if we didn't handle the situation with extreme caution we could both die, but the benefits (in my mind) far outweighed the risks.
If my plan worked, Sasuke and I could have the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan by the age of eight.
It was absolutely crazy, an insane, cockamamy idea; but it might just work. If my memory served me correctly (and by the Kami I could only hope it did), the awakening of the Mangekyou was caused by intense feelings of loss. Itachi had believed that this feeling of intense loss could only be achieved through murdering one's best friend, but if my theory worked, neither Sasuke or myself would be required to murder anyone.
All we'd have to do was witness the deaths of mother and father.
It was horrible. It was truly and utterly horrible, and I didn't want to do it, I didn't want to have to traumatize myself and Sasuke; but I'd, in a way, seen the future. I knew what was coming.
I knew, without a doubt, that the earlier Sasuke and I could protect ourselves, the better. If that meant a little traumatization at the hands of our brother, then so be it. I wouldn't allow Sasuke to go through what he did last time. I wouldn't allow him into Orochimaru's clutches, or into the hands of the Akatsuki.
I wouldn't let Sasuke hate. Not this time. I'd show him just how wrong Itachi had been in driving Sasuke down the path of hatred.
So, I guess you could say our story begins with two little geniuses, a princess, and her kidnapper.
-.-
Sasuke and Sakumo had been having the best night of their young lives. Tonight was October 10th, the night that the Kyuubi had been defeated, and mother and father had allowed the two of them to wander around the village under Itachi's supervision.
After playing games at various stands and buying themselves sweets, the two boys were finally left alone as Itachi was called in for an urgent mission. Telling them to take care of themselves, Itachi vanished.
That had been over half an hour ago, and now the twin Uchiha boys found themselves wandering by the Hyuuga compound.
Sasuke didn't know why his brother had started wandering by the front gates of the Hyuuga compound lately. He thought that maybe Sakumo might have a crush on a Hyuuga, which would be bad because father said that the Hyuuga were bad people. However, that didn't matter to Sasuke. Sakumo was his little brother, he would protect him no matter what, just like Itachi had taught him to.
Sakumo suddenly came to an abrupt halt, startling Sasuke. Then the slightly shorter boy grabbed his brother by the arm and yanked him flush up against the outer wall of the Hyuuga compound.
"Wha-" Sasuke was about to call out when he suddenly felt his brother's hand covering his mouth. He had a hard time fighting the urge to lick his brother's palm, he was too old to be doing something as immature as that.
It helped that the instant Sakumo had yanked him into the shadows of the wall, he'd quietly shushed him.
Glancing inquisitively at his brother, Sasuke only had to follow Sakumo's pointing finger to realize just why his younger brother had shushed him.
There, just outside the gates of the Hyuuga compound, was a shadowed form. The figure was dressed in all black and was rapidly strafing away from the compound. Just for an instant, a cloud moved overhead and the moon illuminated the street below.
Sasuke realized two things in that moment.
The first; that the figure had a sack tossed over their shoulder, and for just an instant, the sack moved, and both Sasuke and Sakumo heard a muffled sob.
The second; that in the light of the moon, the glint of a Kumogakure hitai-ate resting on the man's forehead was impossible to miss.
Then another cloud passed over the moon, and the man silently slipped around the corner of the compound and out of their sight.
Wide-eyed, the two brothers turned to look at each other.
"That was the Hyuuga heiress." Sakumo suddenly whispered, unable to hide the slight tremor in his voice.
"What?" Sasuke hissed, finding it difficult to wrap his head around this situation.
"I'm sure of it Sasuke, think about it! Why else would a Kumogakure shinobi be leaving the Hyuuga compound with a human being over their shoulder!" Sakumo whispered harshly, gripping Sasuke's upper arm tightly.
The twins shared a meaningful look before Sasuke closed his eyes and sighed.
"We have to stop him, we won't have the time to inform anyone, he'd escape by the time we did."
Sakumo nodded in agreement.
"Let's go."
-.-
Sasuke and Sakumo trailed the Kumogakure shinobi into the forest just outside of Konoha.
Though Sasuke didn't know it, Sakumo had been preparing for this for the last month, and had been looking for an opportunity to begin his plan the entire time they'd been trailing the person he knew to be the Kumo ambassador.
Sakumo got his opportunity when the shinobi believed himself to be in the clear. The man landed in a clearing and paused for just the slightest of moments to channel chakra into his legs.
That was the only opening Sakumo needed.
While they'd been chasing after the man, Sakumo had taken an explosive tag from his pocket and wrapped it around the stick of dango he'd been chowing down on just earlier that night. He'd filched the tag from Itachi's room earlier that month, because how else was he supposed to temporarily stop a jounin-level shinobi and alert the village to an intruder simultaneously?
With sharp eyes and a grim determination, Sakumo whipped his arm forwards and the wooden stick whistled towards the intruder.
The man jerked his head to the left, the skewer coming so close to his head that a thin cut opened up on the man's cheek. The Kumo ambassador whipped around to face the boys with a growl, but a well-timed shuriken throw from Sasuke executed the second part of their on-the-fly plan.
As the man spun around to the right, as the skewer had cut his right cheek, he exposed the side of the sack directly to Sasuke and Sakumo for just a moment, as he'd been holding it over his right shoulder.
That moment was all Sasuke needed to split the sack with a shuriken, just behind the man's hand, where the sack was bunched up the most.
The sack dropped with a muffled shriek and Sakumo dove forwards, catching the bundle in his arms and rolling across the clearing. With a grunt of effort, Sakumo dug his heels into the ground, wrapped his arms tightly around the bundle in his arms, and lunged sideways away from the clearing.
The Kumo ambassador once again whirled around with a growl, ignoring Sasuke in favour of the boy who'd stolen his target.
Grim determination settled on Sakumo's features, but not because he was faced with a jounin-level shinobi. No, he was determined because his explosive-tag-skewer had lodged itself into a tree not far from where he'd rolled.
Ka-boom!
The explosion rocked the clearing, and a massive plume of fire erupted into the night sky. The Kumo ambassador was sent careening across the clearing with third-degree burns littering his right side.
Sakumo had pulled Hinata from the sack and was carrying her in a piggy-back when the explosion went off. He leaped back to avoid the concussive force of the explosion, but he could do nothing to stop the flaming splinters that suddenly littered the air.
His face set in a determined grimace, Sakumo began weaving in and out of the flaming shrapnel, moving faster than he ever had before.
A cry of pain from behind him warned him that he wasn't being fast enough.
'Damnit,' He thought to himself, wincing as a piece of barked whistled past his face, opening up a jagged, burning wound on his cheek. 'Damnit! I have to protect Hinata! Move faster! Move faster!'
The world suddenly slowed. The flaming shrapnel whizzing through the air was suddenly no longer an imminent threat to his or Hinata's health. Everything looked sharper. He could see, could understand which pieces would or wouldn't hit him. It was child's play to weave in and out of them.
Sakumo couldn't stop the grin that threatened to split his cheeks. It had worked. He'd done it.
At only fours years and a couple of months old, Uchiha Sakumo had awakened the first stage of his family's infamous doujutsu: the Sharingan.
With a whisper of, "Stay here, don't make a sound," Sakumo set Hinata down behind a tree and rushed back into the clearing.
For a moment, his heart leapt into his throat.
The Kumo ambassador was back on his feet. He was a gruesome sight, with half of his body raw and bubbling, but apparently that wasn't stopping him from attacking Sasuke with wildly murderous intent.
The man's eyes were wild with desperation as he swung at his far shorter opponent with a Kunai.
Sasuke was limping as he attempted to dodge the rapid strikes, and even from across the clearing Sakumo could see more than one knife wound littering Sasuke's frame.
With an unintelligible shout of rage Sakumo threw himself into the fray, latching on the man's arm and yanking to throw him off balance. With a grimace, Sasuke lunged forwards and jabbed a shuriken into the man's gut, making him yell out in surprise and pain.
Sasuke was desperately clutching to the throwing star, enough so that he took it with him when the Kumo jounin sent him flying across the clearing with a kick. It left behind a jagged wound, and Sakumo had to swallow bile as he made a choice.
With another yell, the younger twin lunged forwards and jabbed his fingers into the already ragged wound in the jounin's stomach.
The man roared with rage, and even though Sakumo could see it coming, he didn't have enough time to dodge the haymaker headed right for his face. He heard more than felt his nose break under the force, and his head kissed the floor once, twice, three times, before he finally smashed into a tree with enough force to make a small crater in the bark.
He opened his eyes blearily, only just managing to catch the sight of a kunai sailing towards the centre of his forehead at high speed. He wouldn't be able to dodge it on time.
Sakumo cried out in fear, eyes wide in the face of death. So, he saw everything in clear, almost agonizingly slow detail, as the kunai's path was interrupted by a wickedly spinning shuriken.
With a resounding clang! the two weapons bounced off each other, and the kunai thrown by he Kumo ambassador buried itself to the hilt so close to Sakumo's head that it sliced through some of his hair.
He was alive, though.
Looking slightly to his left, on the other side of the clearing, Sasuke stared at him.
Sharingan stared into Sharingan.
The Uchiha twins had both awakened their Sharingan. He'd done it. He'd managed to not only awaken his own Sharingan, but had gotten Sasuke to awaken his as well. Now all they needed to do was survive.
Only an instant later, Sakumo counted himself among some of the luckiest people alive. With all the presence of a ferocious wraith, Hyuuga Hiashi blasted his way into the clearing, Byakugan visibly awakened.
"You are within the range of my divination," He called out, voice low and dramatic, yet seething with unparalleled fury. "Hakke Rokujuyon Sho!" Sakumo blinked, and then it was over. The Kumo ambassador was laying on the ground unconscious, and the Hyuuga clan head stood above him, victorious.
"Wow." Sakumo couldn't help himself. He'd barely seen the Hyuuga clan head move. If he hadn't just awakened his Sharingan, Sakumo was one hundred percent sure that Hiashi would have just vanished from his sight.
Then those cold, ferocious eyes turned on Sakumo, and he gulped. That gaze was just pure unsettling.
"Where's my daughter?" His voice was low, but dangerous. Without a word, Sakumo pointed to where he'd hidden the quivering heiress behind a tree. Absently, Sakumo thought that Hiashi asking for his daughter's location was a bit redundant, seeing as the man had his Byakugan blazing.
Hiashi silently stalked over to the tree, circled it, and lifted his daughter into his arms.
That's when Hinata finally lost it and started bawling. With a slight grin on his face, Sakumo dragged his way across the clearing to where Sasuke was lying on his back, gasping for breath as he stared up into the foliage.
Flopping down on the grass beside him, Sakumo punched his twin lightly in the shoulder and glanced at him out of the corner of his eye. Sasuke did the same, his eyes rolling slowly to the side, taking in his brother's beaten-up form and wide, happy smile. He grinned back.
"Hey, Sasuke-nii," Sakumo's grin seemed to get even wider, showing off a row of perfect pearly-whites, "Did you notice yet?"
Sasuke's brow furrowed. "Notice?" Had he missed something?
"Your eyes are looking a little red there, Sasuke-chan. Were you so scared you started crying?" Sakumo teased.
Sasuke almost yelled out that he wasn't even close to crying… and then realized that Sakumo was up to something, because Sakumo was always up to something. His eyes narrowed. He clearly knew that Sasuke was no where close to crying, crying hadn't even crossed his mind! So why had he mentioned that Sasuke's eyes… were… red…
Glancing back at Sakumo with wide eyes, Sasuke found his brother smiling at him so hard that his eyes were squinting. Maybe that was why he'd missed the one-tomoe Sharingan lazily spinning in Sakumo's eyes.
"The Sharingan," Sasuke whispered reverently. Ever since Itachi had awakened their family's bloodline and become even more powerful, Sasuke had almost been obsessed with gaining the Sharingan.
All he could do was stare wide-eyed into his twin's spinning red orbs… and watch as his own Sharingan eyes were reflected back at him.
"We did it, Sasuke. We've both awakened the Sharingan." Sakumo whispered, turning his gaze to look up into the foliage above.
"Sakumo?" Sasuke smiled lightly, following Sakumo's example and returning his gaze to the swaying branches above him.
"Yeah?" Sakumo responded.
"We're really awesome, aren't we." It wasn't a question.
"Yeah, totally." Sakumo's chest swelled with pride. Things were already starting to change, he could only hope they'd produce better results than the future he knew would be coming.
The both of them were jolted from their musings rather abruptly by the visage of Hyuuga Hiashi appearing above them, staring down at them with an unreadable expression. Beside him, clutching his robes tightly in tiny hands, but standing on her own, was Hinata.
'Tch,' Sakumo thought to himself, scoffing, 'He's probably warring with himself over the fact that two Uchiha children prevented his daughter's kidnapping. What a guy.'
Finally, the ever-stoic man spoke.
"Thank you, for attempting to save my daughter."
The twin scoffs from both himself and his brother almost caused Sakumo to burst out laughing. Attempting. If it had been anyone except for Hiashi, Sakumo would have been insulted.
Hiashi turned away from them, a hand resting protectively up his daughter's head, and Sasuke pulled himself up to his feet to follow them. Sakumo groaned as he attempted to pull himself to feet, his young muscles protesting the sudden movement. Sakumo blinked, and suddenly there was a small hand, held open and welcoming, being presented to him.
With a grin, Sakumo grasped his twin's hand, pulling himself up until the two of them were standing shoulder-to-shoulder. As they began the slow trek back to the village, small smiles on their faces, neither brother made a comment. They didn't need to. Sasuke leaning slightly into his shoulder told Sakumo all he needed to know. So, he leaned back, allowing Sasuke to take just a little bit more of his weight. No words were needed. They understood each other; the message was clear.
I'll always be there. I'll always support you.
No matter what.
-.-
AN: Ladies and gentlemen, I've done it again! I've started another story without writing a chapter for my other ones. Woe is me! Why won't my muse leave me alone, dammit?
Anyway, leave a review, follow, favourite; do what you do, my lovelies.
As always: Peace!
The Chthonic Professor