The Uchiha Gift
Setting: 5 years after Naruto and Sasuke reformed the world after the 4th Ninja War.
Context: I haven't watched any Boruto and don't really plan on it, so there may be inconsistencies with that. I read the last manga chapter of Naruto, so I know what the pairings are, but that's where I ended.
Chapter 1: The Unbeaten Path
With the bat of an eye, five years had gone by. Time had spun by in a whirl of haze, and the number of apologies and homes Sasuke rebuilt had numbered in the thousands. And yet, he was still far from done. The Shinobi world had barely survived its Fourth Ninja War, and it would take decades, maybe centuries before wounds healed. Sasuke only had one hand to help, but any embers of a possible Fifth Ninja War would be smothered by him. He owed Naruto that much. He owed the world that much.
Instead of taking the main path to the Hidden Sand Village a second time, Sasuke wandered off the beaten path and through the outer forests of the Fire Country. And there, he found music.
The trees sang as the late morning rays rippled down onto their leaves in mists of gold. The boulders hummed as birds and mountain goats hopped along its steep edges. The waters tip-tapped their own rhythms as they rushed between river rocks. Sasuke was desperate to find a corner of the world not devastated by the war, and it seems he may have found it.
But before he could unwrap the sticky rice and boil a few tea leaves as he did every day, he heard the peculiar sound of… laughter.
"Stop! That's cheating!"
"So? You just cheated too!"
"Yeah, but it's fine when I do it!"
"Why?"
"Because I'm Naruto!"
"So? I'm Sasuke! I kicked your ass the majority of the time!"
Children. Sasuke couldn't believe he heard the sound of children in such a beautiful albeit desolate place as this. He hadn't seen or heard anyone for miles and suddenly it seemed as if there was a tiny village just beyond the treeline. He wondered if Kakashi or anyone else back at the Hidden Leaf village knew such a community was here.
"Ahhh! Kyuubi! Back demon!" the kid playing Sasuke shouted. "Uchiha powers, activate!"
"Ooohh!" the kid playing Naruto mocked. "A scary little red eye. Are you sure you just didn't pop a vein?"
The two boys jumped on each other, trying to pin each other down, not unlike the sparring matches back at the academy. Their forms were poor, but it wasn't as if they had world renown senseis out here to help them hone their abilities. Sasuke was sure whatever they came up with just came from natural instinct or improvisation.
"Who are you?"
The cool sting of black metal pricked the back of Sasuke's neck. There was an assassin behind him, and despite only having a kunai in hand, the placement of it on Sasuke's neck was less than to be desired. The Uchiha was a Sannin in every right, a legendary warrior in every eye, but he was not invulnerable. The tip of a kunai at the wrong spot could be as fatal as a full-powered Kirin to the chest.
But drew most of Sasuke's surprise was how someone from a remote village as far-removed as this one had the power to suppress his presence and chakra enough to catch Sasuke off guard. Granted, he did not have his Sharingan nor Rinnegan activated, but he still had the prowess of a first-class shinobi. Whoever the kunai-wielder was, he was not to be taken lightly.
"Just a man passing through," Sasuke said quietly.
"Shinji! Kenta! Go home!"
The register of his voice was still high. Definitely a boy, but not one that had fully matured yet. Now Sasuke was truly tickled. The kunai-wielder was a boy not much older than ten or eleven.
"Ehh?" Shinji moaned, wiping the whiskers off his face. "But we're in the middle of a battle here!"
"I'm not joking," the boy said.
Kenta snuck in a quick punch into Shinji's shoulder and the two ten year olds ran after each other and disappeared into the thick of the forest.
"Stop sensing them," the boy ordered. "Or I'll cut you down right here."
Sasuke could easily sense their energy patterns, but he was more interested in the boy behind him than the two Naruto and Sasuke imposters. He cut his flow of sensory chakra which almost felt like turning off a switch that had been on since he was twelve.
"I'm going to ask again," the boy said. "Who are you?"
Sasuke sighed, and when his shoulders slumped, his neck followed, along with the kunai without giving him any room to bend. "I told you. I'm just a man passing through. I have no interest in your village if you think I'm here to harm it."
"I don't believe it," the boy said. "Your chakra is far too powerful to be just a man passing through. Even one from Konoha. I felt it from miles away."
"Shouldn't you have hid then?" Sasuke asked. "Those who can feel such a threat usually hide and wait until it passes."
"I wouldn't have approached if you hadn't come across Shinji and Kenta," he said calmly. Far too calmly for a ten year old. "You watched them for a long time. I couldn't tell what you were thinking."
Sasuke knew he was still being interrogated, but couldn't help the curiosity building around the boy behind him. If he could truly feel Sasuke's presence and chakra as he claimed, he should have known that exposing himself like this could likely end in his death. Even if it was for the sake of those other two boys, most children were not ready to greet death so calmly and with a steady hand.
"The only thing I'm thinking is how lovely this corner of the world was left untouched by the war," Sasuke said genuinely. "There were no villages marked here on the map, so it was a surprise to see children running about."
"Then please leave," the boy said. "We don't want any trouble."
"That was my plan," Sasuke returned.
The boy lowered his kunai and the second he did, Sasuke whirrled around, catching the boy's wrist, ready to teach him a lesson since they probably didn't have any senseis nearby. The boy had talent and Sasuke wasn't to recognize that. The kid shouldn't have lowered the kunai at all, but jumped away and let the kunai fall where it may. Now Sasuke was in close enough range that he could easily kill him without a missed step.
But before Sasuke could find the words, the boy flipped back and threw a whole slew of kunais right at his face like a barrage of bullets, each one deadlier than the last. Sasuke deflected each one with his sword, but was surprised at the accuracy and rhythm at which the knives appeared. The boy threw one high and followed with one low. He threw one left, and another right to catch him if he dodged the first one. The boy wasn't blindly tossing knives out, hoping one would hit, but purposely timed them from one to the next.
As the final clatter of metal hit the ground, Sasuke found the boy striking the perfect defensive stance to hold his position. Running wasn't an option with Sasuke easily able to catch up, so the boy's knees bent yet firmly planted, ready to strike or side-step at any moment was the best scenario for him to enact.
"I just wanted to show you what could happen if you released the kunai prematurely as you did," Sasuke said. "Relax, I have no intention in staying here long."
As he said those words, Sasuke immediately wanted to retract them. He had only felt the boy's presence and hadn't seen him in the proper light until now. His jet black hair swept down, but still flared out similar to his own. He had a white bandage draped underneath his eyes and over his nose similar to one of the proctors at the Chuunin exam, and his skin was a pale beige hue.
But most importantly, his eyes were blood red with the light of the Sharingan.
