I had this chapter more or less written out when I published the last chapter, but I decided that it was kinda shit and rewrote it all. That, plus the fact that I was swamped with assignments and was on 10 hours of sleep total in the past week kinda fucked me up.

Also, while Naruto's having fun at school (kind of) and Sakura's busy trying to sort out her life (unaware that all the stuff she's put to the side will come to bite her soon), I'd like to emphasise that Sasuke is literally bored as FUCK.

Chapter SEVEN

It had been ten years, more or less, since Sasuke had first landed in this world. In his mind, his past life was still his life, while this second run was the alternate world. However, at this point, he has a feeling that such differentiation was more out of practicality rather than because he truly feels so.

Of course, his life as a shinobi would always be the life of Uchiha Sasuke, but sooner or later he would have lived here longer than he had in the world of shinobi. That thought makes his chest feel heavy. Still, there is plenty to remind him of his past life, and he wonders if it will be easier if he could just forget it all.

Once, All For One had suggested Sasuke call him 'sensei'. Honestly, it had been more along the lines of "you may call me 'sensei' if you want," in a tone that made Sasuke suspect that man had most certainly expected to be called just that thereafter.

Sasuke had not called him sensei, because he had never in his life called anyone sensei, and while a new life might warrant a new set of life rules he is not about to start breaking tradition anytime soon.

All For One never brings it up again, and for that Sasuke is grateful because a one-time reminder can be dismissed as something he had forgotten, but if he is told twice or three times? There is no way All For One will accept that it had just slipped his mind. Sasuke is smart, after all, and he has, so far, let everyone know it. Still, despite All For One prompting him to take initiative, come to his own conclusions and make his own decisions regarding his current task, Sasuke knows that the outcome is not important at all.

He knows because had he been in the man's position, he would have done the same.

While they had dealings in the past, their contracts had mainly stemmed from a tentative alliance where Malum could act under the banner of All For One's name and the protection that came within the underworld, while in return they would join All For One's cause should the need arise. It was a simple sort of deal that tied them to many different organisations.

After all, All For One is to the villains what All Might is to the Heroes, and many are more than willing to serve him, and Sasuke does not think there are any loyalty problems because he cannot imagine anyone stupid enough to idolise All For One seeing any sort of benefit with allying with Yakuza.

The main issue lies in the fact that Malum had, up to this point, purchased weapons from another organisation affiliated with them. It could be something as simple as 'Shie Hassaikai sold ammunition for a cheaper price', which is something Sasuke can understand from a practical viewpoint. Trying to hide the switch can be understandable too, with the proper reasons.

This country has a rather strange relationship with Yakuza. Their code of honour allows them to remain quasi-legal, apparently, and that, in turn, keeps the police forces from coming after them.

Or something. Honestly, Sasuke does not understand it very well. Still, it makes sense for Malum to want to hide their interactions with a group that is not necessarily an ally, and he has a feeling that as long as they remain loyal and come when called, All For One does not care about the truth either way, which is probably the main reason Sasuke had been handed this task in the first place.

The smart, Jounin part of his brain understands that, because he cannot imagine handing a child, no matter how smart they appeared, a massive task. The part of him that had run off with an evil snake man and had thought waltzing back to Konoha after everything he had done was a good idea, however, was upset at the unfairness of it all.

To be fair, he could argue that it had been a good idea because his team had been happy and he had been happy and no one had died. Or, no one who mattered had died.

Still, what is the point of this all? Is it a teaching method?

Sasuke is not too sure, because regardless of his obvious disregard for Kakashi back when he had been a Genin, he is sure the man had been a shit teacher. His next teacher figure, Orochimaru, was most possibly worse. Long story short, he had no one he could compare to.

Sasuke sighs. He has a bad feeling. Had he gotten too excited before he had even confirmed there would be a fight? The outcome he wishes for that he is sure lies somewhere between maybe possible and kind of reasonable is one where the whole thing is actually the Yakuza pulling the strings, and he is then sent in to annihilate them. The absolute best scenario is one where somehow All Might is the reason, and he is sent to fight him.

Either way, until anyone other than Malum was proven to be actually involved, Sasuke and his investigation would mainly be based around the gang stationed in Aomori. Deep down, Sasuke knows that neither is likely, but a boy can dream.

Honestly, when is he going to be sent out onto the battlefield? At this point, he does not care who he fights. If his training partner for later that day leaves the room with more injuries than usual, well, he would blame All For One.

Sasuke may be a villain, but that is more a circumstance than it is who he is. Or, so he likes to think. That is why, when he sees a young boy being accosted near the gates of an abandoned park his first thought is to tell the offenders to scram.

If he were to be specific the boy is a teenager, but to him, who has lived two lives and has technically been an adult since he had been twelve in his first life, everybody younger than his mental age is a child.

He is a little too far to hear what is being said without the aid of chakra, and he has no idea what the topic can be to make three grown adults attempt to threaten a teenage boy.

He is still wondering if he should step in when the boy suddenly reaches out and grabs the man looming over him by the face. Or, he thought he had, but in the next second the man lets out a scream that is abruptly cut short as his face disintegrates. His body is quick to follow, and the boy claps his hands together as though he had swept dirt off some surface.

The look in his eyes is bored as though what he had done is equivalent to just that.

The dusted man's friend, who had vines growing out of his back, lets out a cry of fear and rage and shoots plant projectiles at him, but Sasuke watches him weave past the thorns shot at him to nimbly close the distance before grabbing him, too, by the face. There is a scream before another body turns to dust.

Close range fighters are at a disadvantage until they can close distance between them and a longer-ranged opponent. The boy, barely older than him, had moved almost like a shinobi in how sure and swiftly he had closed in despite the barrage of long-ranged attacks.

The third attacker makes a run for it, but all it takes is a casual slap on the back for him to burst into bits, clothes and all. The boy glances around and Sasuke notes that it must be useful, not having to clean up the dead bodies. There was literally nothing left to suggest the three men had ever been here. He pulls out a pair of gloves from his back pocket and tugs them on in a way that makes Sasuke pause.

Sakura had worn her gloves like that, had she not? She might have done so before blowing something up, while the boy appears to be wearing them after the destroying as though to suppress his powers, but the way he tugged them on and the way he flexed his fingers afterwards is so nostalgic that he feels himself taking a step forward before he even notices he had done so.

The boy spins on his heel, eyes wide. He smoothes out his expression, however, as soon as their eyes meet. "Good evening."

Polite. So they are going to pretend that the murder had not happened. Maybe the boy did not know he had seen. Then again, he is sure that a normal child his age would have screamed and runoff, so he can understand the boy thinking so. He decides to go with it.

"Good evening," he replies. He glances pointedly around the abandoned park. "Nice place for a walk."

The boy huffs in what he thinks is amusement. "There are no people here, of course it's a nice place to be."

Because you killed them.

The boy glances down at his phone and frowns. Sasuke sees a keychain hanging from a strap. He notices because it is a character from a game he plays. "Isn't it a little late for you to be wandering around?" the boy asks.

"It's-" Sasuke glances at his own phone screen, "-seven."

"Children like you should have a bedtime." The boy pointedly turns away, but Sasuke has been out of entertainment for so long that he is willing to bite. Besides, this is Yokohama and as far as he knows, there are a limited number of places children with dangerous quirks can be raised to kill in a society like Japan.

Was this part of a Yakuza territorial war?

"You barely look older than me," he says nonchalantly, and pointedly follows.

The boy grits his teeth in what he is sure is annoyance. He is trying to chase him off. Sasuke wonders what he had seen on his screen.

The air behind him shits, and Sasuke carefully keeps his eyes ahead of him. The boy in front of him shows no signs of noticing anything. Sometimes, Sasuke forgets that these people do not have even the faintest ability to detect chakra and because he can sense chakra he does not have the faintest idea if people here can detect presences and the likes.

Fire rears to life in his chest, and he is ready to greet the newcomer with a faceful of flames when the boy whips out a gun from the front pocket of his hoodie and lets a bullet fly in one, smooth, practised motion. Sasuke watches it shoot right past him, just barely not grazing his cheek, and hit the woman that had appeared behind him cleanly between the eyes.

The sound is muted, a silencer equipped at the end of what he suspects is a Glock.

Did children run around armed with guns these days?

Then, a more appropriate thought enters his mind. Did the boy just kill some random person? Then, okay to be honest his first thought had been to light them on fire too. It just happened that the boy had gotten to her first.

The boy now has the gun fixed on him and there is a look of unease in his eyes, as though the shooting had been purely on instinct.

Finally, Sasuke decides on what to say. "Might want to get rid of the body before the blood seeps into the ground," he says lightly. "Unless you can dust liquid."

The boy lowers his hand and does as he had suggested. Sasuke watches the disintegration spread from the point of contact until there is nothing left. "Was that your quirk?"

The boy gets to his feet, eyes wary and shoulders stiff. "Yes," he says. He hesitates, then asks, "Doesn't it scare you?"

Sasuke shrugs. If the boy is running around with a gun in his pocket and committing murders without a blink of an eye, surely he is caught up in something dark and evil. Perhaps he, too, is a member of a villain organisation? Ooh, a fellow. Still, if he had been in his place, he would not have said anything at all about his powers, just to be safe. In that sense, the boy is clearly still a child. "It'll take more than that to kill me," he says simply, a fact more than sheer confidence. "Shouldn't we be getting out of here?"

The boy stares at him for a long moment, before he appears to shake off whatever thought had clouded his mind. He looks around, eyes landing on a security camera located near a lamppost. "Maybe you should," he replies.

He is used to killing, if his composure is anything to go by. He is confident where he is and appears to know the area well, too, enough that Sasuke suspects that the kills from earlier had been planned. He thinks back to his previous thought. Yakuza, huh. If he correctly recalled, this particular area was owned by… "Shie Hassaikai."

The Yakuza he had been looking into. He had not expected one of its members to appear right in front of him. He was a child, however, would he have any relevant information?

The boy raises his gun again, but there is a lack of intent in his eyes.

Still, Sasuke turns his eyes red as a warning, and the boy, smartly, freezes. He stays rooted to his spot, wary of his eyes and of not knowing what the change in colour signifies. "Not gonna shoot?" he challenges. He knows he can dodge bullets with his Sharingan, but killing a child still leaves a bad taste in his mouth.

Victims of circumstances, he would know all about that. He had spent way too much time with Naruto.

"The only other person who wasn't scared of this quirk turned out to be a rather nice person," the boy says dismissively. He hesitates. "And you're a kid."

That's probably the main reason. He tries to recall if the adults the boy had murdered had any form of trademark. Perhaps they were of a rival gang. "So are you," he retorts.

The boy in front of him appears to not have the wittiest mind because he bites his bottom lip in annoyance and simply glares.

At least he does not resort to childish name-calling, though that might have something to do with the fact that they are in a rather peculiar situation, being a murderer and a witness. The boy's phone lets out a sound again, and he keeps an eye on him while he quickly glances over the screen. Sasuke wishes it had been a call so that he could listen in, but he waits while he sorts out whatever it is by shooting a quick reply.

"This is Shie Hassaikai territory," the boy tells him. His voice lacks any form of pride or haughtiness that would suggest loyalty to the name and Sasuke notes this down in his mind. "This entire area is currently being monitored by its members. I suggest you leave before my ride arrives."

"Should you really be announcing that to the world?" Sasuke asks.

"Security cameras in the area are all under our control, and any additional data is being erased or adjusted as we speak."

Sasuke notes that the kills had, in fact, been planned. The boy tucks his gun away back into his hoodie pocket. "If anyone asks, I'm a troubled, edgy teenager pretending to be more than I am."

Sasuke cannot help but chuckle. He holds up his own phone. "Give me your number," he says.

The boy blinks, before looking horrified. Sasuke snorts and pushes on. "I'm someone you'd want on your contact list," he promises. He will not reveal his own affiliations just yet, but he will if it makes his life more interesting. He gestures to the keychain. "Or, we can just game."

The boy glances down at the chibi figure accessory. "We can game," he finally agrees, but there is a smirk tugging at his lips.

Sasuke rattles off his number, then tells him to add him on a messaging app because he may be changing phone numbers often. The boy agrees easily enough, probably because he understands and is in the same situation.

"What name should I put you under?" the boy asks, and Sasuke remembers that they have not yet told each other their own names. A funny thought enters his mind.

When he can afford to, All For One makes sure to personally check in on Sasuke, though it is quite obviously not to make sure the boy is alive. Sasuke is difficult to understand and Kurogiri is sure All For One wants to attempt to read him every once in a while.

If he were being honest, despite the years they have spent together, he trusts Sasuke as much as he would a random stranger on the street. He trusts in the boy's abilities and his control over his quirk, which he still does not know for sure what exactly it is, but Sasuke as a person is the most unchildlike child he has ever met.

On that particular day, Sasuke had wandered off earlier after promising to return by the evening, when All For One had announced he would come by. Sasuke is usually on time for everything, though that appears to be more out of a desire to avoid troublesome situations more than any form of moral rule, and he had been told of All For One's arrival a week in advance, which is why Kurogiri feels a little worried when six arrives and Sasuke has not returned.

"He said he would return by now," Kurogiri tells the man when he arrives to a Sasuke-less hideout. "Shall I call him?"

He is told not to, and so they wait for him to return instead. An hour later, Sasuke steps through the door like nothing is wrong, takeout hanging from his arm and eyes on his phone. He appears to send a text before he slips his phone back into his pocket and dumps his dinner on the table. "Hn."

"We had a meeting scheduled," All For One says patiently.

Sasuke shrugs as he sits on the couch and takes out the food. For someone who claims to hate ramen, he sure did eat a lot of it. "Got sidetracked," he says unapologetically. "Saw a kid kill a bunch of guys."

All For One hums. "Oh?"

"Three quirk kills, then a bullet between the eyes for another."

Sasuke sounds almost disturbingly pleased for a boy of fourteen who had apparently witnessed a murder. He loudly slurps his soup and Kurogiri wonders if he is even chewing properly.

"Apparently, the quirk is called Decay." Kurogiri sees All For One freeze. "Looked useful. You could clean up dead bodies really nicely."

"Decay?" the man prompts, voice icily calm "Did you get to see what it did?"

Sasuke nodded and he looked up, eyes narrowed. "From what I could see, anything touched with five fingers turned to dust."

"What is this boy's name?" All For One demands. In the same second, Kurogiri puts it together as well.

Shimura Nana's grandson. 'Decay' would match the description of the aftermath of the missing boy's home back in Shiga. He is sure a quirk that can turn things to dust at a touch is rare at best.

"I never said it was a boy," Sasuke replies calmly. He makes a face as he finishes the last of his soup.

Kurogiri has a feeling All For One is starting to get annoyed and steps in. "We may know this boy you met," he tells him.

Sasuke sighs. "I didn't get his name," he says after a while. He seems to consider something, for a second, before he dismisses it. "Why would I ask some random kid his name?"

A reasonable question, but it appears that notice of the Shimura boy alone is enough to placate All For One for now. "Kurogiri," he says, "have Giran contacted."

Kurogiri, already knowing what exactly for, dips his head. "Understood."

Sasuke glances between the two of them before he shrugs to himself again and turns to his second bowl of ramen.

So perhaps his new gaming companion is more than he had initially thought.

Sasuke glances at the contact information of the boy, now dubbed 'Deathly Hands', before he tosses his phone onto his bed. He had checked the security of mobile devices the moment he had heard what they were for and what they did, and he made sure to purchase his own phones to use alongside the ones supplied to him by All For One.

He had done his own research, but he is not yet confident in his ability to notice if the devices given to him had been tampered with. If All For One is looking for Deathly Hands, he supposes it had been a good idea to note him down on a private phone.

Did that mean All For One would launch an invasion against the Yakuza to get his hands on the boy? Sasuke recalls the talks of a missing grandson he had heard a couple of times during his early days. From the way the talks died down as his own "training" progressed, it appears as though the role he currently plays as All For One's successor had initially been Deathly Hands', not that the boy knew that.

Sasuke might think he had saved the boy from a sad, sad fate, but considering the fact that he had been killing people in an abandoned park and had ties to the yakuza, perhaps he had ended up somewhere sad anyways. He considers inviting the boy to a game night with him and RamenLover7 but then decides to hold off for the night.

He would have to look into this as well, and since he had long lost interest in the Aomori gang case, this new situation being much more interesting in his opinion, he would have a lot of time on his hands.

1)

So, Sasuke meets someone. And gives them his number. For all the wrong reasons. Again, the boy is bored.

2)

That meeting I implied Sasuke would have with a teammate? It was with Sakura, just not directly cause it's through Tomura. They're so close yet so far.

3)

I know this chapter took a while (rip). It's here now, though, and hopefully, I won't take as long with the next chapter. Next chapter we're back to Naruto, and he'll be showing off his op ninja stuff. I wanted him to meet some people, but I also want to do the sports day (cause it lines up with Sakura's next chapter-but don't get your hopes up). So, he'll probably meet people after sports day.

4)

I go back n reread all the comments n stuff sometimes. That certainly motivated me during this busy af time, so thank you all!

5)

The next chapter is already half-written, but I know I said that last time so rip.