"Talent erupts from the most unexpected places, so often in fact that I've sometimes considered disregarding clans altogether and only training the civilians."
-Memoirs of the Niidaime Kazekage
Chapter 1:
Growth
Konoha Eastern Residential District
4 years since contact
BZZZZZZZZZZZ. BZZZZZZZZZZZ. The loud ring of his clock brought Sasuke out of his nightmare into a bright new spring day. He shot up in bed, a yell barely contained behind his clenched teeth. His alarm kept blaring and he breathed out a few forcedly relaxed breaths. His barely-awake thoughts were simple and concise. 'Alarm? Early. Academy?' Somewhere off in the other room, Naruto yelled something incoherent in his sleep before returning to his snoring. Sasuke might have been surprised if they hadn't been living together for three years. Naruto was usually a maelstrom of energy, but once he was asleep he didn't wake up until he damn well felt like it.
Sasuke rubbed a bit of lingering grogginess from his eyes and turned to read the time on his small grey clock. 'Why in all the gods' names would I be waking up at 4:30?' Normally, he didn't get up for another hour. The academy didn't start until 7:00, so he could get out of bed, have a good breakfast, train for an hour and get to class exactly on time. 'What the hell?'
Groaning, he hit the snooze button and lay back down, resolving to get this final hour of sleep; Naruto would wake him up in an hour as usual. His whole body felt heavy, like it was slowly sinking further into his mattress. Doing his best to relax his body and mind, he began to feel the first tendrils of darkness returning…
Then it hit him like a bucket of ice water. He'd set that alarm last night. He had specifically thought that he'd have to get up an hour earlier than usual because today was special. It was the anniversary; exactly four years ago his brother had murdered their entire family. He'd almost forgotten.
Suddenly not feeling nearly as tired, he got out of bed and started getting ready for the day. If he'd been lacking enthusiasm before, it was nonexistent now; he was running on autopilot. His movements were sluggish and without passion, nothing like the regimented mannerisms his father had trained into him when he was a child.
He thought about his family a lot, probably more than was healthy. It wasn't that he hadn't made peace with their deaths, they were gone and he knew for a certainty that there wasn't anything he could do about it. No, it was the murder that he couldn't get over. For the millionth time, he wondered what reason could have possibly driven his kind, thoughtful big brother to kill so many he had loved. That question was like a dull ache at his core that never truly went away. Regardless of how close Naruto was to a brother, Sasuke still felt alone, and he didn't even know why.
And it wasn't just that. For a while after the Massacre, the villagers had been kind to him, though he knew most of it was just courtesy; none of them really understood what he was going through. But then he'd moved in with Naruto and the whispering had started.
"What's he doing with that kid?"
"What if he's like his brother?"
"Maybe they're plotting something."
It was all perfectly ridiculous, and no one in power had ever acted on the suspicions, but Sasuke could see the thought process. After, all, if Naruto could be confused for a monster inside of him, then Sasuke could be mistaken for a monster he was related to. Putting them together hadn't helped, but Sasuke refused to wallow in the clan compound. He'd have driven himself insane being there every day; the time he'd tried had made that clear enough.
Almost in a trance, he pulled on blue shinobi pants and a white high-collared shirt, strapped on his black sandals and did his usual morning routine before making a brusque walk to the door of his and Naruto's apartment. He paused, hand still on the handle, 'I forgot to eat breakfast.' With a shrug, he turned the knob and continued on his way. He'd get something later. It didn't take long for his brusque pace to take him down the stairs to the street, stepping over the creaky stair and meeting the doorman's wary eyes with a casual nod, not really cognizant of his own actions. A step out the door and a sharp left turn set him on his path. It was going to be a long walk.
IRI
'Wake up, Squirt.' Naruto's eyes blinked open at the simultaneously old and young voice reverberated through his mind. Almost robotically, he threw off his blankets and made a turn out of bed, planting his feet firmly on the floor. His hands rose high above his head and his mouth dropped open in an enormous yawn. It lasted for a good half minute before his tenant chimed in, 'Oh no, keep going, I don't think the people two floors down heard you.'
'Good morning to you too.' The semi-teenaged demon fox muttered something about snakes and annoying midgets.
Naruto blinked, setting his feet in motion and fumbling with the doorknob for a second. Sasuke's alarm wasn't going off. Letting out another, smaller yawn, he walked into the kitchen and checked the calendar. A red and white fan decorated the small square of that Monday.
'Oh.' Naruto had completely forgotten about the anniversary. 'So that's why it's so quiet.' He heard a sigh at the back of his mind and turned a look upward, as though he were trying to see his brain.
"Sleepy, Furball?"
A groan was the only response from his mental roommate. Sniggering to himself, he poured himself a bowl of cereal and drained a glass of orange juice before walking off to the bathroom and brushing his teeth. When he was done, he spat out the toothpaste, then rinsed and spat again before wiping his mouth and inspecting his face in the mirror. His eyes were a piercing blue, his cheeks sported three whisker marks each and his hair was a spiky mess that no comb could ever hope to tame. 'Yep, no change from yesterday.'
For a moment, he was contemplative. 'You think it might work this time?' There was a sound that was something between a chuckle and a groan in the back of his mind.
'Honestly? No. But go ahead and try.' He focused a bit and watched his eyes turn golden. His pupils lengthened in concentration as he squinted at the door of the bathroom cabinet. A wisp of golden flame snaked out from his body and moved toward the mirror.
About an inch from his reflection, the already unstable tendril dissipated into nothing, dashing what small hope Naruto had. He growled, but pushed the frustration aside. After all, it was no different than the last few hundred times he'd tried to use Kurama's chakra like that.
Discarding the failure, he strolled out of the bathroom and back to his room to grab clothes for the day. He pulled the first clean shirt he could find out of his laundry bag, threw on the same pants he wore just about every day, checked the clock and groaned. He must have been groggier than usual; it was already 6:30. He grabbed his bag and started a brusque walk out of the door. On the way, he grabbed his jacket and ran down the stairs, trying to remember if he'd planned any pranks for today. He was already a full block down the road to the Academy when Kurama decided to chime in.
'Hey, squirt... Hey.' Naruto twitched a bit, making sure to keep his response mental. He'd gotten more than a few weird looks for talking to himself in the past.
'What?' The young fox didn't respond. Just as Naruto was about to ask again, he spoke, smugness dripping from his words.
'You forgot your homework.'
Naruto's stomach dropped out of him and he made a sharp about face before sprinting back up the sidewalk. 'Gods fucking dammit, furball! Shitshitshitshitshitshi…!'
IRI
"Uzumaki Naruto?" It was an innocuous enough pronouncement. A given name, slightly ridiculous depending on your translation, and a family name covered in a rather bitter dose of history. Several people had said them together many times before at around this same time in the morning. The Inevitable Lord was bored when they were uttered and took interest, not because it was a moment of crossroads, or even especially important. It was not a beginning, but one of those strange, barely memorable middle-moments that nobody pays attention to. But attract his attention it did, for the name was one he knew well.
A gaping silence greeted the usual call. Iruka looked around questioningly. Everything appeared mostly as usual to him.
Sakura had her nose buried in a book (somehow keeping up a conversation with Ino and Hinata at the same time), Kiba was sitting with Shikamaru and Chouji and Shino was off in his usual corner playing some kind of game in his notebook with Ichiro. Nothing and nobody was out of the ordinary, except that no shock of bright blonde hair greeted his eyes. He glanced down at his attendance chart and then back up at the class.
The Master of Ends cared not in the slightest for the names on the paper, nor the people they were attached to, but watched nonetheless, as the source of his interest was up to his usual shenanigans.
"HEY IRUKA-SENSEI!"
The man in question whirled to find his most annoying student (and also his favorite, but that was beside the point at the moment) doing a handstand on his desk. His t-shirt and jacket had both fallen down his torso and a huge grin was plastered across his face.
"HOW ARE YA?"
Iruka's palm met his face with a loud clap and the Joyful One almost chuckled. A few scattered echoes of that mirth could be heard from the rest of the class, but most of them watched silently.
"Naruto, please take a seat. We need to start class."
The blonde boy frowned at his teacher, still on his hands.
"You know sensei, it really pays to invest in a sense of humor."
Iruka finally picked Naruto up, flipped him over and planted him feet first on the floor.
"Seat. Now."
Naruto grumbled as he went, straightening his clothes. He took a quick walk to his usual place next to Sasuke in the back.
This one was also of some special interest. His was the mark of the Moon's final gift, the concentric rings that she had once been so proud of, long since lost and mutilated by mortal existence. A momentary look between the two boys communicated a few things. Sasuke muttered something that sounded like "Nice entrance, jackass."
"Alright, everybody be quiet!" The students quickly did as they were asked; nobody was looking to be on the receiving end of a half-comprehensible lecture.
"Since Yamanaka-san is clearly here, we can start. But before we do, I have a quick announcement. As most of you will know, we only have a week left before graduation. We've covered the entire standard curriculum, but many of you still display weaknesses in certain fields. To best make use of the remaining time we have before the final exam, your class will be split into groups based on whichever core skill you have the worst grades in.
"At the end of the year, your grade for the next week will be averaged with your previous grade in the subject. We hope that this will help you all become better-rounded shinobi, and thus more likely to pass your final exam." Iruka checked briefly to see if anyone had questions before moving on.
"These groups will be overseen by a specialized chunin. Your group, room, and instructor will be up on the blackboard. I personally will be teaching traps."
Naruto's expression was quizzical as Iruka wrote down the list of people in Mizuki's taijutsu group.
"You know what I want to know? Where the hell are they gonna put you?"
Sasuke frowned thoughtfully and shrugged.
"They'll find something."
Naruto turned back to the front and watched the groups being written on the board. Quickly becoming bored, he held up his finger and channeled a bit of Kurama's chakra to its tip.
The Final Knife watched with interest, always intrigued by the effects of his own work. The usual warm feeling flooded the boy's stomach and a light glow appeared behind the digit's skin. With a bit more push, the chakra coated the fingertip, and golden fire appeared. Sasuke looked sideways at his friend and raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything; he'd seen the Fox's fire countless times before. It might be beautiful, but after a while, it looked like just that: strange fire.
"Hey Kumiko, the freaks doing it again."
Naruto quickly extinguished the fire and looked back at the board. His face met his desk with a solid thunk.
'History. Of course it would be fucking history.' A few glares were thrown his way, but altogether his complaint went unnoticed. After all, things like this weren't uncommon for the class troublemaker. Minutes passed that felt like hours and the Bearer of the Cloak watched with unwavering attention, still unsure of his purpose. He watched as the moon-child was sorted. He watched as the lone purifier in the room observed everything with trepidation. He saw every little detail and yet could not understand why this time had called him so.
He watched as the yellow boy was sneered at and as many left the room for other such spaces, speaking of unimportant things and no longer calling his attention. He watched the two boys exchange a look that held some small amount of brotherly concern and he knew why he had been called.
'It's almost sad really.' And then he was gone, waiting for his next time to watch.
IRI
"A summit of the kages was called, and it was only thanks to the future Nidaime Hokage's shrewd negotiating that trade routes were established with the Land of Snow, and their weapons trade with Iwagakure cut off…" Naruto drifted back out of whatever their chunin instructor was saying (although the woman did look strangely familiar) and thought about what they could possibly use this information for. So what if the Nidaime had managed to prevent the first inter-village war with trade agreements, saving thousands of lives in the process and cementing Konoha's dominance over the others for years to come? How was that useful to-?
Well, actually, when he thought of it like that it sounded pretty damn impressive, but all that would become meaningless once he became Hokage and blew all of his predecessors out of the water with the sheer magnitude of his awesomeness! Especially Jiji! Once he had graduated the academy, Naruto would climb the ranks and become so ridiculously strong that the old man would have no choice but to hand over the Epic Hat of Epicness! The people would cry out in fear and adoration and the women would-!
Naruto cut that thought short just in time for the visiting instructor to turn an annoyed glare on him.
"I'm sorry, Uzumaki-san, is something funny?"
Naruto did his best to turn his smiling face blank and quickly shook his head no.
"It's just that you were chuckling a bit maniacally and I'm all too painfully aware of your penchant for misbehavior." Her glare burned.
'Oh, right, she's library staff. Last year's masterstroke with the switched book covers and itching powder… This is awkward.' Naruto nodded soundlessly, wide-eyed, tight-lipped and generally scared shitless, as the young woman turned back around to face the board, returning to her lecture on early village history. The blonde Uzumaki almost let out a sigh of relief; he could have sworn there was some killing intent in that glare.
"Now, as I was saying, the Nidaime used his shrewd speaking skills and greater military power to leverage the Land of Snow out of their treaty with Iwagakure, establishing Konoha's economic dominance for the next eight years until Sunagakure and Iwagakure joined forces in order to wage war on equal footing with Konoha. Over the course of the war, many local shinobi and civilian children were conscripted to bolster the villages' own forces. Some of these ninja would go on to start their own Hidden Villages, most famously Amegakure, Kusagakure…" Naruto's eyes widened as the lecture went on and more people were drawn into what would become the First Shinobi World War.
'Six paths, it's like the countries are dominoes. I haven't even heard of half of these villages.'
Kurama scoffed in the back of his mind.
'Your people won. Why do you care?'
'I don't know. All that killing over some stupid treaty just seems wrong...'
After about ten minutes of constant bloodshed and back and forth terribleness, Naruto came to the conclusion that political maneuvering must be the single biggest cause of death in existence.
'When I'm Hokage, I'm not going to let people get away with that bullshit.'
A few desks over, Chouji's hand rose tentatively.
"Um, miss, didn't the Niidaime's treaty in effect cause the later war by causing trouble for Iwa?"
Next to him, Kiba yawned and scratched his leg. Before he had even finished the sound, a kunai was lodged between his fingers on the desk. He jumped back with a yelp, which didn't work incredibly well on a stationary bench. The librarian instructor ignored his vicious glare completely and turned to answer Chouji's question.
"Yes, Akimichi-san, however, we must remember that no force of shinobi had ever organized on this macro level before. Senju-sama did not think that the other villages would consolidate their forces so willingly in the face of a superior foe." She actually smiled for a second as she scanned the rest of the class for questions.
'Who the hell is she?'
IRI
Naruto went to lunch with one thing on his mind and one thing only.
'Starving. Food. Now.' His stomach grumbled and he frowned, hand hovering over the abused organ. 'You need Ichiraku's.'
Course decided, he picked up his backpack and filed slowly out of the classroom with his fellow students. 'Why does history have to be so depressing? Bad enough I forgot my lunch, and then she had to kill that last little bit of a good mood… Wait, why didn't you tell me I forgot my ramen?' There was the strange feeling that accompanied Kurama rolling his eyes.
'Don't blame me for your own forgetfulness squirt. I can't help you with everything; you'd never get anything done yourself.'
'Eh, well, I guess – HEY! Don't try to make this into a lesson! You're just being lazy.'
The sun shone in Naruto's eyes as he and the other kids exited the Academy building, narrowing their eyes against the sudden glare of natural light. He scanned around the stretch of road in front of the building, searching. If Sasuke were around, he'd have been easy to spot; the hair was kind of hard to miss. But alas, no gravity-defying black spikes greeted his eyes. 'Where'd he go?'
Sighing, he started off toward his favorite place in existence. The glares weren't as sharp on his way there; people who saw him on a regular basis were usually too used to him to put real effot in.
"Hey! Naruto!"
Chouji's voice stopped Naruto's angsting as quickly as it had started. The large boy was smiling brightly, waving to the blonde jinchuriki as Shikamaru stood off to his right being his usual bored, daydreaming self.
"Where are you headed?"
Naruto managed a decently genuine smile and waved back.
"Well, I forgot my lunch at home, so I was about to head to Ichiraku's. Wanna come along?"
Chouji's eyes lit up at the mention of good food. Shikamaru turned a strange look on his friend, but shrugged and nodded.
"Whatever."
They walked off together down the road, talking about the morning and their weird new teachers as if they weren't all on the cusp of the greatest turning point in their young lives.
IRI
'You are an Uchiha of the main family. This should be easy.'
Sasuke gritted his teeth against the memory of his father's voice and sprinted at his target again, imagining the tree were his instructor's stupid, overenthusiastic face.
Sasuke had always imagined medic-nins to be professionals, focused and disciplined. His teacher had not fit that bill. He'd worn the standard outfit for his line of work with one large difference: the whole thing was dyed bright red and yellow. He'd shunshined into the chakra-control classroom accompanied by a huge similarly colored banner proclaiming that he was the most accomplished surgeon in Konohagakure, and a sweeping, twenty-minute speech that boiled down to "I am awesome, you all suck, prepare for death by training!"
Sasuke had of course stayed completely impassive through the whole display, which in retrospect might have been the worst possible thing to do. He'd been singled out almost immediately and, following an uncharacteristically snide comment, had been told to go outside and climb a tree without his hands. The act was really the thing that irked him most; he hated losing control of himself, even to that small degree.
Regardless, he'd proceeded to spend more than half an hour in the sparring ground just to happen upon what he was supposed to be doing, and even with the whole morning to work, he'd barely made it to the point where he could take a step up the bark without it exploding under his sandals. In the last half an hour, he'd managed to get about four feet up the tree. He could already hear the other students leaving the building for lunch. He'd needed almost five hours to get to where he was now. 'Pitiful.'
"Hey, Uchiha!"
Sasuke almost lost his footing, just managing to push off of the tree and flip into a three-limbed landing. He turned a glare on the girl, making his annoyance as visible as possible.
"What do you want, Sakura?"
The girl's bright pink hair was cut to about shoulder-length and pulled back from her face with the usual red ribbon, revealing eyes that could glare just as hard as Sasuke's could. Her clothes were distinctly civilian despite her kunoichi aspirations: just shorts and a t-shirt.
"What was that you were just doing?"
Sasuke's frown deepened and he turned back around.
"Tree-climbing. What's it to you?"
Sakura rolled her eyes and snorted derisively.
"Well yeah, I can see that. I meant how are you doing it without your hands?"
For a moment, Sasuke contemplated how best to make her leave. A muttered "You figure it out," would have probably done the job. But as he continued to think, he realized that even though he'd figured out how to stick to the tree by focusing chakra to his feet, he had no idea if there was some secret nuance to the exercise. Sakura was notorious for her book-smarts; she might be able to help. The question was: would that be worth the possible ridicule? After a few tense, awkward seconds, his logic won out over his pride.
"Well, I figured out that I need to focus chakra to my feet, but the instructor didn't give me any directions except 'climb the tree without your hands…'"
He let the unspoken question hang and waited for the sarcasm to start. But when he looked at her face, she only seemed thoughtful, staring at the tree contemplatively.
"Well generally, the feet are the hardest place to circulate extra chakra to because it naturally rises. I can see why the control instructor would assign something like this…"
For a moment, her forehead creased and Sasuke could practically see the gears turning in her head.
"Have you tried dialing back the amount you use, maybe trying to spread it more evenly across the soles of your feet?"
Sasuke's frown deepened. He supposed that made sense. Taking greater care to control the chakra in his feet instead of just shoving it down, Sasuke found that he could go a full two feet farther than before, and that he relied on his momentum a lot less to make it happen. Once again sticking the landing, he turned to begrudgingly thank the pink-haired girl, but found she wasn't where she'd been previously. He frowned and did a quick pivot in the opposite direction only to be confronted with something positively infuriating.
The godsdamned civie was walking slowly but surely up the side of the next big tree over. Finally, she reached the first large branch and went upside down. She turned to Sasuke and he saw that her lips were pulled back in the smuggest grin he'd seen on someone that wasn't Naruto.
"Come on, the theory isn't even that complex; chakra's attractive properties are unsafe in higher concentrations, it literally rips things apart trying to pull them together. What, did you sleep through first year?"
Sasuke almost growled, almost being the operative word. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction of seeing just how angry he was. Instead his two-pronged Sharingan eyes flared into blood-red life. He saw her chakra moving in a constant stream through her body toward her feet, then back out again. He noticed with some surprise that her reserves were tiny, even for an academy student. She was still above the average civilian level, but even compared to Ino - who wasn't exactly a wellspring - Sakura was like a glass of water next to a large bucket. He didn't even want to think about Naruto.
A quick blink later, his eyes returned to normal and he placed the images of her moving chakra at the forefront of his mind. If he focused hard enough, he might be able to copy the technique from her. However, instead of thanking her, he simply turned back to his own tree and walked calmly up until he couldn't hold the balance in his feet again and jumped back as the bark splintered. With some satisfaction, he saw that his footprint was several feet higher than before.
Sakura kept hanging there for a while before seemingly deciding that she had better things to do than watch Sasuke give her the cold shoulder. With a muttered "Goodbye." She ran down the tree and off, probably looking for Ino. Sasuke frowned as he continued to run up the tree, advancing then falling, always pushing forward.
This chapter took a while. Blame Attack on Titan and the end of the school year. These first few chapters will eventually give way to the Wave Arc (which will deviate from canon, hopefully in interesting ways) and onward. The Genin exam should be within the next two or three.
Thanks for reading and for all the reviews, follows and favorites this story has gotten so far. Really, you guys are awesome for taking the time to read the ramblings I manage to put out every now and then.