The jump into the past was even more disorienting than I'd expected. I awoke in a small, weak body with only the barest flicker of chakra, and opened my eyes to an oddly flat and colorless world. Then the nausea struck, and I barely reached the bathroom in time.

But it passed quickly, and after a shower I was beginning to feel almost human again. Still weak and pathetic, but I should have expected that. I was thirteen again, after all. So I dressed in the clothes I hadn't worn since I was a boy, checked the calendar to make sure of the date, and made my way to the bridge to meet my team. I'd find time to train myself up to a better condition soon enough.

My teammates were already waiting, as usual. It took all my self control not to give myself away when I saw Sakura sitting on the rail of that little bridge with waist-length hair and not a care in the world. How did such a delicate, pampered thing ever grow into the genius medic-nin I remembered?

I slouched up to the bridge and assumed my old position, leaning against the rail.

"Sasuke!" She exclaimed. "Good morning! How are you?"

"Hn," I replied.

I let her babble at me for a few minutes while Naruto eyed us with poorly-concealed jealousy. As if he of all people had anything to be jealous of in that respect. I ignored them both for a few minutes while I contemplated my options. I hadn't been given the luxury of planning this operation in any detail, not with Naruto dying and the Kyuubi about to go with him.

I shook my head. That future would never happen now, so there was no need to dwell on it. This time I wouldn't make the same mistakes. I didn't need Orochimaru's help to regain the power I'd had before. I just needed to train.

But with that in mind, I didn't have time to waste hours every day waiting on a sensei who was always late. Mind made up, I swung over the rail and stepped onto the water.

Naruto stared at me. "Woah. Uh, what are you doing, Sasuke?"

"Training," I replied. Reverting to my old body had seriously weakened my chakra control, and I found that it took significant concentration to stand on the surface of the stream instead of falling through. "You should too."

"Good idea, Sasuke," Sakura agreed. "We can at least do something productive while we wait. How do you do that?"

When I was really thirteen I would have ignored her. But I'd had cause since then to regret throwing away my ties to the village. "It's like tree climbing. But you have to adjust the chakra flow constantly as the water moves."

Naruto frowned and scratched his head. "Huh?"

"Oh! I see!" Sakura said happily, and walked around to the edge of the small stream. She tested it with one foot, adjusting her chakra delicately as she probed its interaction with the water. After a few moments she nodded in satisfaction, and carefully stepped out onto the surface of the stream.

Yeah, she figured out water walking in about thirty seconds after one off-hand comment. That's Sakura for you. If that girl had motivation to match her talent she'd be almost as strong as I am.

Naturally Naruto blundered out onto the water and promptly fell in. I ignored him as I started a slow kata. He climbed out as Sakura laughed at him, scowled, and called up enough chakra to level a mountain as he tried again. And again. And again. I wondered idly if Sakura would still laugh if she knew how much power the idiot was throwing around. Then again, she might.

By the time Kakashi bothered to show up I was up to advanced kata, and was starting to feel confident of my ability to fight on a body of water again. Sakura had long since mastered the exercise to her satisfaction and retired to the bridge to rest and watch me, while Naruto could just manage to stand in place for a few minutes as long as he didn't get distracted. He always did have lousy control.

"What's this?" The lazy jounin commented as he appeared on the bridge. "Extra training?"

I hopped up to the bridge rail and crouched there. "Hn."

Sakura started to gush something about my awesomely wonderful coolness, but thankfully he cut her off. "Well, just make sure you don't wear yourselves out too much for missions. Now, let's go see what the Hokage's office has for us, shall we?"

He turned to go, but as I moved to follow him I brushed past Naruto and muttered "Leave a clone here to practice it, dumbass."

He opened his mouth to argue, then stopped with a confused look. "That works?"

I rolled my eyes and walked away. He hesitated, then shrugged and made a clone. Why he thought he needed to tell it what to do is beyond me.

--oOoOo--

We'd recently returned from Wave Country, and I knew we'd be hearing about the Chuunin Exam soon. That meant confronting Orochimaru, which could be tricky. But before then I had an experiment to try.

"Sasuke-kun, let's go on a date tonight!" Sakura called.

"Don't be stupid, forehead. Anyone can see Sasuke needs a real woman!" Ino objected.

Some variation on the scene had played out every few days since before I graduated from the academy, and I'd always ignored them. These weak, giggling children would be of no use in my quest for vengeance, and I'd always assumed they weren't serious enough to be much help in reviving my clan either. But in the future I'd seen things that made me question many of my assumptions. So this time I stopped, and turned to face the squabbling pair.

"Have either of you ever thought about what you're asking?" I said coldly.

Realizing that I was actually looking at them for once, the two girls jumped apart and stammered.

"Hn. I have two goals in life: to avenge my clan, and to revive it. The man I mean to kill is one of the most dangerous ninja in the world, and when our confrontation arrives anyone of lesser skill who seems close to me will simply be a weapon in his hand. Reviving my clan will be equally difficult, with half the assassins in the elemental countries targeting any woman I become involved with. Soft, giggling schoolgirls would be of no use in either venture."

They gaped at me. Ino recovered first. "What, are you saying we're not strong enough for you?"

Sakura clenched her fist. "We can be as strong as anyone!"

I body flickered behind them, reappearing with a knife at each of their throats. "Can you? Prove it." I gave them a few seconds to realize that they were already beaten, and then body flickered away.

They started training together the next day. At first it seemed to be sporadic, and I was simply amused. But they rapidly became more serious about it, until by the time Kakashi mentioned the upcoming exam they were working late into the night on a daily basis. At that rate they might actually get somewhere.

--oOoOo--

The written exam was interesting, as I found I could easily answer all of the questions now. I spent most of the time trying to figure out how everyone else was cheating, and by the time Ibiki started his 'tenth question' speech I felt I'd spotted most of them. The examiners were being pathetically generous in what they allowed us to get away with.

By that point I had my fire element attacks back to a reasonable level of proficiency, and my chakra was recovering nicely from the shock of being shoved back in time and compressed into an underdeveloped body. I estimated that I could easily fight at the level I'd managed when Naruto tried to stop me from leaving Konoha at the Valley of the End. I'd also maneuvered Kakashi into testing our chakra natures, which gave me an excuse to get my lightning manipulation back in form and start practicing low-level lightning techniques.

Naruto had gotten the hint about clone training, and used it to master water walking. He had a small crowd working on leaf splitting most of the time, but his control was so poor he'd probably need weeks more to get anywhere with it. Sakura had turned out to be earth natured, and as usual she'd gotten the leaf exercise down in a matter of minutes.

Come to think of it, have I ever seen her take more than a few minutes to learn anything related to chakra? It was enough to make me wonder if she had a bloodline no one had ever noticed.

In any event, I was content to let the second exam play out more or less the same as it had before. I wasn't ready to defeat Orochimaru yet, and I could always remove his seal. I gave a better account of myself than I had the first time around, but held back from revealing my full potential.

I'd almost forgotten the battle with the Sound ninja the next morning. I awoke to discover that Sakura had actually killed one of them, and the others were easily routed by the other Konoha genin who'd wandered by. Ino was much more solicitous than I remembered, when she stopped to trim Sakura's hacked-off hair into something resembling a deliberate style.

Excellent. There was no need to exert myself or give away the seal's function to my team. Far fewer complications that way.

At that point I expected to coast through the rest of the exam and go off to train under Kakashi, which would give me the cover I needed to begin using more of my lightning techniques. But the remaining battles in the forest were much easier than I remembered, which led to our arriving at the forest arena half a day early. By the time the pre-finals started I was fairly well rested and Kakashi had already sealed Orochimaru's mark, so I had a chance to watch the fights that I'd missed the first time around.