黒
檀
彎
月
||| Blue Spinel |||
By: Chocolate Carnival
2020
Fandom: Naruto
Genre: Dark Eroticism, Au in Canon Setting, Romance,
Thriller/Mystery, Clan culture, Senju Tobirama is Uchiha Sasuke's Seed Father, Uchiha Izuna is his Bearer, Politics, Differing History, Wartime,
Pairing: 団扇 佐助||Uchiha Sasuke,日向 陽向 || Hyūga Hinata
Dark Eroticism, Slow Romance, Arranged Marriage, Alternate Universe - Canon Worldbuilding, Sasuke as an Uchiha-Senju, Messing with the Timeline, Hyuuga Head Hinata, Same Sex Parents, Political Intrigue, Rokudaime Hokage! Sasuke, Minor Character Death, The Fourth Great Shinobi War with Sasuke as Hokage, Clan Culture, Angst and Feels, Power Hungry!Sarutobi Hiruzen & Shimura Danzo, Messed Up Konoha, Introspective Characters.
黒檀 彎月 - Kokutan Wangetsu - Ebony Crescent
Hello My Honeys!
I apologize that it took me forever to get to posting this, I've been so busy! I'm currently entering exam week next week and had to finish this before it drove me insane. I've had this long political fic planned for a long time now and finally convinced myself to write it down.
It'll have a more grown up flavour, I suppose, in a sense that I'm messing with Sasuke and Hinata's ages and the entire Canon timeline to make their heritage and position in Konoha more interesting. And, this will legitimately explore Sasuke as a Hokage. :)
The first chapter has finally been completed so I do hope my honeys enjoy it. I don't know which of my fics will be updating next as I'm currently busy with studying but I'll be be on break soon as well.
宝石一:Memento Mori
'Transcending the ebon stars and horned crescent, his ultion wrath dapples the rising mist of the Sanzu cascades. With heathen Shakujō ringing sublimely in the dark, the mighty Susanoo shatters time's temporal fervour to awaken the Sage's lineal Samsara touch.' –Ōtsutsuki Hamura's Prophecy
Sovereign land at the edge of Hi-no-Kuni, once wailing with spilling viscera and the cries of the dead; murmured with nothing but the breath of a single survivor. Leagues of bloodstained earth shifted beneath red-hanao tengu geta, jutsu-stirred mountains and overflowing oceans stretching as far as the eye could see as a listless red orb, carelessly, followed the unknown destruction he wrought.
A trembling palm had come to lay across the raging agony searing his left eye, vibrant sanguine droplets raining down previously tear-encrusted cheeks as a newly-awoken kekkei genkai blinked dazedly at the out-of-character black sky engulfing sunlit horizons.
Senju Sasuke was breathing heavily in despair, a regal black enneagram twisting painfully in his Mangekyō depths as the last of the Kinkaku Force disintegrated itself in the body of a colossal chakra dragon. The pitch-black suiton construct had been summoned from the depths of the Sanzu river itself, a single drop of its water enough to eat through twelve-pounds of rock and earth...of flesh and bone…of blood and organs and viscera.
The dark-haired shinobi had yet to dispel the technique himself, Ryūjin's1 writhing body mercilessly and corrosively commanding the stormy firmament as the twenty-one-year-old allowed it far too much destructive freedom. Half Konoha's relief force had fallen to its mindless annihilation, the other half having been decimated in the chaos of the battlefield before he could wake from his odium-induced nightmare.
His father's corpse was a bitter reminder of his own failure, the Nidaime's unique silver hair dyed a ghastly sanguine-brown as the last wisps of his protective chakra evaporated like smoke. The Hokage's swiftly changing scent was already crumbling with rot, the depths of its tranquil watery softness long since lost to the theatre of ruin.
The only imprint Senju Tobirama's valiant sacrifice left behind was bitter anguish and despair, Sasuke shivering helplessly at the flash of betrayal it stirred in the depths of his soul. A raging ocean of darkness was unfurling beneath Uchiha-pale skin, apathetic features a perfect mirror of his Bearer, Izuna, when faced with vicious mortality.
A towering stratos-blue avatar bowed itself protectively over the twenty-one-year-old, the mammoth chakra construct an otherworldly demon contentedly fuelling its master's internal and external agony.
Senju Sasuke was stumbling in a daze towards the centre of the battlefield, the slowly diminishing pool of his chakra a tangled mess of grief, despair and howling acrimony.
"Fuck!" The raven-haired shinobi wailed, finally shattering the stony silence he kept for the last twenty-four-hours. Susanoo, in response, speared a black shakujōin the ground beside him. The very earth fractured at the weapon's command, melodic black rings recalling a cosmos's worth of senjutsu chakra from the air as it dispersed Ryūjin's writhing body in billows of vapour and smoke.
"Why?!" He cried mournfully, pin-point chakra control slipping exhaustedly from black-gloved fingertips as he tumbled exhaustedly to his knees.
"Why do we keep having to sacrifice everything?!" Acid tears were twisting hauntingly beautiful features, numb fingers falling uselessly against muddied earth as the wind rustled mindlessly through blood-matted shoulder length black locks.
The deep iridescent-raven hue was a startling contrast to bloodstained pale skin, the throbbing Byakugō seal on Sasuke's forehead — threading a latticework of unique senjutsu lines across his body — a bitter reminder that Chichi-ue gave him the last of his chakra so he could survive three encroaching Kumogakura battalions by himself.
It wasn't enough that Konoha's supposed peaceful existence sanctioned the murder of his Bearer when he was five, nor that they drove his dearest uncle insane by the time he was ten. No, they also bred pissant students cowardly enough to abandon their Hokage simply because he asked them to leave. It was—.
Sasuke burned with the curse he had been warned against his entire life, his usually tranquil chakra a mess of fire, water, ice and yin he never struggled to balance so much in his life before. It did not help that there was something obviously wrong with his left eye, the entire left side of his body numb with piercing agony regardless of the seal on his forehead constantly seeking to heal the damage.
His praiseworthy sensory perception had been reduced to nothing but a few kilometres from its usual country-spanning awareness, the twenty-one-year-old having, unknowingly, decimated his ability to perceive the rest. A demonic deity had well and truly woken beneath his skin, its encompassing darkness and woe only retreating into the background the moment Susanoo crumbled in ungodly wind-churned fragments.
Sasuke didn't have time to hesitate however, using the last of his chakra to call Katsuyu to the battlefield as a blood-stained glove laid absentmindedly against his father's forehead. He was coaxing the slug from her pocket dimension without guiding seals, the use of his Byakugō eliminating the physical reliance many shinobi could not escape.
Even though he may have been considered the strongest fighter of the next generation; the prodigy closest to reaching his uncle Hashirama and Madara's godlike power — his father's inherited genius and vast sensory perception helped him avoid using it to its full extent until now. The Senju Heir had been forced to mark this battle the decisive point in the First Great Shinobi War, his already impressive S-Rank bounty in the Bingo Books no likely to increase with its next printing.
Sasuke was a primary water-type affinity with his Bearer's fierce Uchiha protectiveness and graceful kenjutsu. He mastered his aunt Mito's Byakugō seal at the age of thirteen and modified it for his own use. Not only that, but the twenty-one-year-old had been the first of his father's students to unravel the space-time summoning contract.
His sealess bond with the Slug Deity of Shikkotsu Forest was the envy of many, especially since the Hime of the forest was both a medicinal and destructive entity in one.
His birth was supposed to be the bridge that tied the warring Senju and Uchiha in peace, a treaty that lasted only as long as other clans encapsulated Konohagakura no Sato and used covert political plots to destroy what precarious tolerance the warring rivals possessed. It was what ultimately led to Uchiha Izuna's assassination at the hands of his kin, turned his maternal uncle insane with grief and nearly destroyed the village his founding families strived so hard to keep—.
Uchiha Madara and his brother Izuna died within five years of each other, leaving a too-young-to-understand Sasuke with the loss of half his immediate family and a Seed Father who's icy, ruthlessness, severed whatever previous joy and happiness the man possessed. The 24th Head of the Senju Clan never once forgave the Uchiha for disinheriting their rightful clan Heir nor for casting him aside like a piece of trash.
It was bad enough Sasuke had to deal with the grief by himself, it only added insult to injury when he was barred from entering Uchiha lands and seeking help in controlling his newly awakened Sharingan. His childhood from the age of eleven was a miasma of bitterly sealed memories and struggling ambition he found no joy in recalling.
Interspersed, occasionally, with happy recollections of the silver-haired Hokage taking time away from his duties to train him or awakening the once loving bond they shared; the newly anointed Senju Clan Head was somewhat glad his Aunt Mito had practically adopted him after realising the sheer potential he possessed in chakra control.
It was a feat, she said, very little shinobi but the child of Senju Tobirama and Uchiha Izuna could ever possess.
He used the following years to violently and deliberately push aside all thoughts of grief and mourning, his entire being crying out with the need to hone his skills and control vast reserves of clan-mixed kekkei genkai. The Senju-Uchiha studied seals, elemental manipulation, healing, summoning, genjutsu, kenjutsu, taijutsu…the list carving an impressive drive he worked to perfect even now.
So much so the twenty-one-year-old rarely left the family training fields outside of attending village missions and presiding over battlefield strategy as his Jōnin Commander status required. The fact that he rose to the vaunted position at such a young age however, did not make him the most loved person in the village.
He desperately wanted to join the Nidaime on his latest mission outside the village to escape the Council's increasingly invasive scrutiny, even if it meant going against his father's wishes to never leave Konoha undefended by at least one S-Rank Senju shinobi. It was—.
'Sasuke-sama,' An airy voice cooed concernedly against the shell of his ear, a familiar weight undulating rhythmically up his spine until the considerable mass could drape itself over his left shoulder. Lady Katsuyu's smaller amitosis form flooded his veins with healing chakra a split-second later, the Senju Heir automatically flushing the last of the battlefield adrenalin from his system as he hissed quietly in lingering exhaustion.
Control over his chakra and emotions was escaping like water from gloved fingertips, his attention split unfairly betwixt sorrow and betrayal as he gazed numbly at the tempest-churning skies above.
Sasuke's couldn't breathe…he couldn't—.
'You are injured, Young Master.' LadyKatsuyu informed, forcing his mind back to reality as time seemed to lengthen and flow against his skin once more. 'Two broken ribs, six unhealed penetrative wounds, shuriken-chain lacerations. Detrimental, crushed, ulna and radius – left arm.'
'Hypoxia.' She whispered. 'Unknown dōjutsu development—.'
'Please, Sasuke-sama, retract the Byakugō. I can take over from here.' The Half-Uchiha nodded dazedly in reply, intricate black filigree seal-lines withdrawing from his limbs as the last of his chakra formed a significantly faded turquoise diamond on the centre of his forehead.
Absently cupping iryōcoated fingertips over the wound sunk mercilessly in his side; he turned a single, visible, onyx orb towards the body resting motionlessly before him. There was absolutely nothing he could do to revive his father's death-greyed skin, the previous flood of fiery emotion vanishing from bloodstained skin as he was forced to accept reality.
Sasuke was leaning forward to close the man's gruesomely slit throat and pierced heart, the Hokage's distinctive blue amour shredded and lost in the chaos of battle. The fleet-footed blow had nearly taken off the Hokage's head with its ferocity, a sight forever carved inside his son's Mangekyō awakened eyes.
If only the twenty-one-year-old had been faster, if only his Suiton: Suiryūdan had been better controlled…deadlier—.
"I shall strive to surpass you, Tou-sama." Sasuke whispered quietly in determination, struggling to renew a decent sense of control over himself as he smoothed a gloved palm over the silver fur stole matted with his father's viscera and blood. The war may come to a halt with the Nidaime's sacrifice here, yet Senju Sasuke was left alone to deal with the sorrow and guilt of letting it happen.
He didn't want to return to Konoha's kami-forsaken madness with the news, to give up the last fragment of his soul to that accursed dream that not only took and took and took from his family, their very treasure, but discarded them before leagues of greedy swine.
'Sasuke-sama. I believe two relief squads are approaching five ri from the east. I cannot tell if they are ally or enemy—.'
"Ah." The twenty-one-year-old grunted, not caring for the dozen shinobi laws he was about to break as he forced himself to his feet. A wave of out-of-place dizziness engulfed his limbs a second later, mental and physical exhaustion further disjointing his situational awareness as more blood than sense ended up scattered over the battlefield soil beside his father's corpse.
The icy drag of a kunai across his already injured forearm was searing white with agony, the Senju Clan Scroll eked from a storage seal tattooed on the Nidaime's back as he suspended the newly acquired weight against the dip of his spine. The large Hokage Codex, he knew, was layered with both finished and unfinished jutsu created by the Nidaime over his lifetime.
As titular Head of the Senju, it was his responsibility to keep it from enemy hands.
"Let's go." Grasping hold of the dimensional thread contracting him to Lady Katsuyu, he dutifully followed the reverse summon without second thought. He had no intention to return home, not after facing the betrayal and darkness of a village he was fast coming to hate.
Sasuke had already lost everything he held dear, what else would he be expected to sacrifice for the war's so-called peace and protection?
No, Konohagakura no Sato could live without his loyalty. He would be driven into the arms of madness faster that his infamous uncle if he stayed — a feat he was not eager to entice now that he awoke that side of his family tree's curse.
. . .
Time passed…the half-Uchiha-half-Senju gazing absentmindedly out across damp spirals of mist rising across roiling forest floors. A dense, moss-illuminated, hinterland fractured itself in the icy morning dawn; the winter-humid weather promising another drizzle of rain as the pleasant petrichor-ash scent accompanied miles of horizonless hurst.
The gnarled, alabaster, trees were more like carcasses of bone and death than woodland bark, highly sensitized senses tracking a small drove of hares stirring in the mossy distance as the sky remained an impenetrable stormy grey. The crisp, morning, fog was too nubilous to filter weak shafts of sunlight; the massive Slug Deity's head Sasuke chose to seat himself atop of, flicking curious sensor-horns and protuberant eyes in the direction of rustling shrubs.
Lady Katsuyu may have been but a forty-fifth of her true size, her true body hibernating deep in the forest away from the noise and winter cold; yet she still remained attached to the safety and company of her first contract holder. It had been five years since she allowed Sasuke refuge in her home dimension, Shikkotsu Forest stretching further, taller, deeper than any shinobi eye could ever hope to see as the twenty-six-year-old struggled day-after-day to hone the unexpected dōjutsu he awoke on the battlefield that day.
It proved far more deadly and rare than the Mangekyō pattern birthed in his right eye, a blessing and curse visited solely upon the shinobi-world and its creator. It was a burden Sasuke now had to bear instead of the Sage of Six Paths, either to protect humanity or destroy it in a fit of madness.
The Senju could see it going either way, especially considering the news his summon constantly brought back over the years.
Not that it truly mattered, Sasuke scowled. He was content enough to stay away from the shinobi world. For every year he spent in the forest an approximate decade passed on the other side. He was not eager to return to the mess Katsuyu told him Sarutobi led the village into, nor the machinations Danzo used to constantly undermine his father's peace.
The world had suffered enough by living through a Second and then senseless Third Great War, it would only—.
Huffing irritably, Sasuke settled himself in a lazy lotus position as the heavy calf-length fabric of his Uchiha war cloak pooled evocatively around him. He was rubbing a gloved forefinger and thumb to hitch a tiny orange chakra flame in the palm of his hand, the former Jōnin Commander happily using it to light an elegant black kiseru as whorls of lavender-spinel smoke spiralled from parted lips.
The amber-fire tobacco illuminated hauntingly apathetic features; noble lines of age drawn against the corner of the Senju's visible right eye as the twenty-six-year-old hummed in agreement with the deep-mind chakra theory Katsuyu was currently arguing for. They had been at this for hours now, debating the effects genjutsu had on developing mindsets as the midnight cold gave way to the morning dawn.
Sasuke had always been more genetically inclined to his Uchiha heritage than his Senju half, wildly-thick black locks falling to his shoulders in feral waves as it deliberately concealed the left half of his face. The less anyone knew of the godly violet-Samsara eye it obscured, he mused, the better.
It felt like yesterday the damn thing nearly drained his chakra to the point of death, only Katsuyu's learned healing ability and the last fetters of his Byakugō able to stop the inevitable. The first year he spent here was used to heal the devastating shock it delivered to his coils, settling the chaotic darkness the Mangekyō activated in his soul and attempting to compartmentalize the memories his father's death permanently stitched behind his eyelids.
He didn't want to live in agony anymore, to feel the scorching fire of hate consuming him from within, to—. Shivering unexpectedly at the Slug Deity's senjutsu chakra stirring abruptly beneath him, a single onyx orb narrowed calculatingly at the drooping sensor horns that belayed his companion's unusual bout of fallowness.
"Katsuyu?" He asked, frowning in confusion when he felt his slug summon shudder minutely in anguish beneath him before an eerie silence stretched quietly between them. The amitosis slug was no likely communicating with another part of her cornucopia of parts, a quiet omen flooding her usually calm aura as it successfully marred the usual tranquillity of Shikkotsu Forest.
'Please, Young Master. I—.' Drooping her colossal body so Sasuke could leap from his perch and stand on the ground before her, she breathed a quiet murmur of sorrow before pinning him in place with intelligent protuberant horns and a towering white and turquoise body.
'I am well aware of your hatred and dismay surrounding Konoha, no one should ever forgive them their part in the death of your family or taking the Hokage seat when it was rightfully yours. Not even I.'
'Yet, I wish to ask of you the impossible.'
'Do not let your father's legacy be smeared any more than it already has, Sasuke-sama. Don't let Tsunade die, there are so many casualties, so much death and destruction. Innocents fallen and destroyed for war. They desperately need your help and I am not strong enough to assist the injured without you.'
'Konoha is falling and I—!'
Holding up a hand for silence, the Senju Clan Head breathed a shaky sigh as he scowled viciously at the mocking morning light. It was the first time he'd ever heard the proud Hime of this forest ask something of him, something she knew his hatred would automatically refuse by virtue of internal anguish and regret.
Yet, the melancholic stillness in Katsuyu's once proud form, the erratic cracking and splitting of bone-trees at her distress and the earth churning unnaturally beneath him as her true form stirred was more than a clear indication that something irreversible was happening to her health...to her very peace of mind.
What sort of friend would he be to refuse her plea?
The twenty-six-year-old said nothing, firmly resettling black battle gloves on his hands before readjusting the folds of his cloak for easier movement. The deep mossy green of the Uchiha war tunic was accentuated by his father's battlefield fur collar, its messy grey pelt partially concealing the angry scowl pursing his lips as he proudly wore the Senju-vajra mon embroidered on his back.
Red-hanao tengu geta stepped forward without hesitation, a pained nod accenting the words he could not find in himself as a lithe hundred-and-eighty-eight-centimetre frame stood respectfully before the closest thing he had left to family.
"Brief me." Systematic movements were checking the array of kunai, shuriken and scrolls he had in his pouches as he reached behind him to adjust the large meter-long Hokage Codex cradled against the dip of his spine. He was tapping the ashes of his kiseru out against the branch of a bone tree, slipping the now extinguished pipe up his sleeve before searing a kuchiyose inscription on the ground beneath his feet.
The information the namekuji goddess shared with him was a disjointed muddle of Akatsuki, Pein, Rinnegan, Shinra-Tensei, chakra receivers, a fallen Hyūga Head and the Kyūbi Jinchūriki descending into madness. The collateral damage already numbered in the thousands regardless of Katsuyu and her second contractor, Tsunade, attempting to lessen the devastation.
Sasuke sighed. Where were the Uchiha? The Hyuuga? The Sarutobi, Nara and Yamanaka? It was almost as if the entire village had been left undefended. Was Konohagakura not Hi no Kuni's pride, did its borders not boast the strongest barrier shield known to man? Never mind highly skilled ANBU constantly on patrol?
Rubbing an absent thumb over the turquoise Byakugō etched on his forehead, Sasuke struggled to dim the headache swiftly growing there as he hoped the pitiful five years' worth of chakra he barely managed to save would be enough to deal with the enemy.
Ever since the activation of his Rinnegan, the half-Uchiha had been unable to split and store the same amount of chakra as he had been before his father's death. He'd rather not squander the hard-won dregs he managed to collect before undeserving swine.
. . .
Stepping from a cloud of churning smoke and temporal chakra, the dark haired Senju barely registered the stirring confusion at his arrival as he absently surveyed the mind-bending devastation the enemy visited upon his once happy home. The entire valley had been decimated, not a single building left standing as only shards of feral dust and concrete ash rained down from above.
Tengu geta tread a noiseless path across uneven wood posts, spiralling building fragments and curdled steel. The heavy chakra dissonance stirring air was accentuated only by the screams of the dead, dredging up traumatic memories the Senju would rather forget as he boosted chakra into his feet and took off in the direction Katsuyu told him he was needed the most.
"Fuck." He swore, a three tamoed Sharingan instantly estimating the spread of casualties as he sorted through them according to injury and need. Katsuyu's colossal frame dissolved into smaller fragments behind him, moving towards the injured still untouched or dead by her estimation as Sasuke took over the healing chakra his relative seemed to have completely spent.
'The Hyuuga Clan Head, Sasuke-sama, is in critical condition. The field first aid of Tsunade's apprentice is currently doing more harm than good. I believe—.'
"Move, girl." Sasuke hissed, kneeling impatiently by the broken and bleeding form before his summon even stopped talking. He was drowning out the sounds of the med-nin's shocked protests, leaving it to slug companion to appease the brat's no likely hurt pride as he lay a chakra-infused palm on a bloodstained forehead.
The late afternoon sun was a heavy and cumbersome weight on his back, a dome of tense silence engulfing his senses regardless of the surrounding chaos bearing down on him from all sides.
The twenty-six-year-old noted four critical stab wounds, a heavy chakra interreference, strained dōjutsu use, several shattered ribs and a weak heart wrenching against litres of blood flooding a collapsed left lung. It was a miracle the woman was still alive in the palm of his hand, her very essence seeming to slip and cloy against his will as youthful features belayed a dying peace.
Sasuke was not a natural healer, he'd been drilled by his Aunt Mito and Uncle Hashirama to master iryōchakra rather than study it out of passion. Yet, he could not help but feel a resonating desperation to save the young kunoichi's spiralling life as the wind rustled through an empty and devastating wasteland.
She became his link to the past he could not, or would not, save; her delicate frame not much younger than him as nimble fingertips shimmered a dome of turquoise blue over her failing heart. Mending heaving lungs and realigning shattered ribs took too much time, the very world seeming to bend and slip as he coaxed her chakra to increase its flow through bunt-out coils with one-handed seals.
"Breathe." He murmured pleadingly, shivering in dread when several long minutes passed before a heaving cough strained her throat. Nudging her head to the side at the inevitable purge of blood, spittle and bile; Sasuke wiped the droplets of sweat gathered on his brow before turning his attention to the anxious human-sized slug quietly whispering reassurances in his ear.
"Can you settle the strain of her optical coils, Katsuyu? You should have enough experience working with mine." Realigning her broken bones and soothing bruised organs was his next priority, the son of Tobirama Senju attempting to silence the overwhelming screech of his vast sensory perception when it came alive with the madness of vanishing bijuu chakra and senjutsu exploding in the distance.
He paid the distraction little mind, a palm sized version of his summon settling over the young woman's eyes as the slug supplemented his healing with her own. He had no patience for splitting his concentration further, not even when a crowd of anxious Hyūga shinobi formed behind his back and several other chakra presences continued growing in health and determination.
The occasional sorrowful whisper of 'Hinata-sama' was interspersed with slowly creeping increments of time, the sun sinking silently behind ancient Konoha mountainscapes as the hooked-crescent moon took its place in the blackening sky.
Akimichi, Nara, Yamanaka…Sarutobi…an Uzumaki, Sasuke felt; his own exhaustion beginning to waver as the Senju lost count of the amount of chakra he was feeding through Katsuyu's other healing frames. Though, for some reason, he no longer needed to feed her more.
There was little time to ponder the reason however, as he finally grinned in triumph when an invigorating violet-wisteria chakra flare illuminated the late-night darkness. The Head of the Hyūga Clan was desperately gasping for breath on her own, settling down slowly at his iryō touch as he guided her mind into an exhaustive but healing coma.
The sensation of a hundred pairs of Byakugan finally deactivating from their close scrutiny of his work was eerie, especially when a powerful jōnin stepped forward to kneel by his side in gratitude.
"Thank you, Senju-sama." The shinobi noted, his long Hyūga hair fastened low on his back as those eerie moonlit eyes watched Sasuke carefully rearrange their fallen Head's black and violet haori over her bloodied torso to better protect her modesty.
"Hn." Was all the Nidaime's son offered, dusting off his knees and trying to disperse the hazy dizziness assaulting his mind as he stood.
"She should be awake in a few days," He offered, gratefully accepting the bamboo canteen the Hyūga passed to him as he wiped his brow with the back of his hand. Sasuke briefly wondered where the array of fire sconces lighting his way had come from — never mind the emergency hospital tents already set up in a semicircle behind him.
Just when he thought he could gain a moment to himself, he caught sight of a distinctive Nara lope heading in his direction. The scarred shinobi was already stepping forward to intercept him, no likely having inferred the sensation of his chakra and power before approaching him.
"I'll be back in a while to check on the rest of the injured." This was not the way Sasuke imagined ending his day, a silent shunshin guiding him towards the very top of Konoha's Kage mountain so he could take a few minutes to just breathe.
He felt undeniably sick, the aching roil of anger and pain searing like fire through the depths of his stomach as he shuddered in agony at the betrayal he felt. Why was this place affecting him so much? Why couldn't he regrasp the peace he felt over the past five years?
It was only the his accursed Uchiha pride that kept him from currently fleeing back to Shikkotsu Forest, the sensation of three Clan Head's appearing but a few seconds behind him as Sasuke rooted himself broodingly atop the Nidaime's carved head.
He almost didn't want to rein in the need to destroy the Sandaime's traitorous head. He was just too tired to summon the chakra, the rightful Senju Clan Heir silently cursing this village's very existence as he bitterly locked away the anguish and despair it inflicted on his family.
"I know what you want, Nara. I can see it in your eyes." Sasuke scowled. "I've felt your Hokage's chakra, Tsunade, was it? She'd be lucky to survive the night." He was being callous, he knew. He knew better than anyone just how resilient Senju were but he couldn't find it in himself to care about the woman he could still remember as a three-year-old running after her grandfather whilst the man happily taught them to gamble.
"Tell my why I should accept your proposal." He demanded, blunt fingernails digging crescents into his palm as he turned his head in the scarred Nara's direction. The movement stirred feral bangs partially concealing his forehead, the gleaming Byakugō seal still a deep turquoise of unspent chakra as he observed a younger version of the Nara light up a cigarette and breathe a quiet 'mendokuse' next to what looked like his father.
The Yamanaka and Akimichi didn't move either, their heritage and vassalage one he remembered from his childhood. He was there, after all, when their Clan lands had been linked and their houses permanently tied by the Nidaime Hokage.
"You carry the rightful Hokage Codex." The Nara said. "One I recognize should have been present if the Nidaime truly passed on the hat the day Sarutobi returned. Yet, what we have is a Scroll of Seals written in the Sandaime's own hand rather than the legitimate piece you carry."
"Secondly, Senju-sama. It's either you…or Danzo who takes the hat. Make no mistake, he'll do whatever it takes to spread the poison of his rule. It all comes down to which reality you would rather live in — what your conscience would allow you to live with."
"You are the infamous Senju Sasuke, son of the Nidaime Hokage and Uchiha Izuna. Prodigy of the Senju Clan, nephew of the infamous Uchiha Madara and most celebrated Jōnin Commander of Konohagakura no Sato."
"You were the only ever Triple S-Ranked Shinobi recorded in the Bingo Books, the only survivor of the Carnage at Rainen's Field." The man continued. "Three thousand Kumo-nin you decimated in a single day, the Massacre Maven they posthumously called you — a name still feared from here to Kaminari no Kuni."
"However, you show up now, nearly a century later without a single indication of age on your frame and a chakra unrivalled even by our current Jinchūriki. The way I see it, there really isn't much of a choice. Danzo will never be a match for you in your prime, nor will the daimyo pass you over now that a legitimate Head of the Senju Clan has been found."
Breathing a quiet hiss in frustration, a single onyx orb once more turned to survey the miles of damage inflicted on the valley below. Sasuke couldn't deny the sacrifices his father willingly made — nor the infinite pride the Nidaime preserved in his every action inscribed in Konoha's ever-evolving history.
Beneath his roiling hatred and despair, it made Senju Sasuke want to see just what it was that his father valued in this accursed hidden village. What drove the brother of Hashirama to stay and protect the clans even even after they brought about Izuna, Madara and Hashirama's death?
"You do realize I've spent the last five years with Katsuyu in Shikkotsu Forest. I'm only vaguely aware of the politics Konoha is embroiled it, especially considering the slowed temporal flow of the Namekuji Hime's dimension."
"You're going to have to teach me everything from the last battle of the First Shinobi War until now."
1 Ryūjin (龍神) – Japanese God of violent ocean storms. It is the name of one of three unique water techniques Sasuke's Mangekyō manifests.
Thanks so much for reading, my Honeys. I really do hope it was enjoyable to you. :)
I'm still not sure if I should give Itachi an OC brother to take 'Sasuke's' place in the original timeline...hmmm. Not sure, he'll either be called Uchiha Ikazuchi or Uchiha Samsara...any input my honeys would like to put is much appreciated. This is such an exciting fic for me, especially exploring Sasuke as a Healer/Senju.
Please leave me a little review, my darlings. It would mean the world to me.