Chapter Three
It's been a few months since graduation. The time since was filled with training and D-rank missions (or chores as the genin called it.) Kurenai couldn't help but be happy with how her students were coming along. Shino being a clan heir makes it a little easier for her to train since his parents have been teaching him the family's jutsu, so all she has to do is help him refine it and shape it to work with the rest of the team. Sakura's progress has surprised her since the girl is a well known Sasuke fangirl, but without the Uchiha around she has no distractions during training and is shaping to be fairly proficient in genjutsu for a genin.
Her progress in helping Anakin with his chakra has finally shown some progress a month ago. It took many helpless hours (and many hours of drinking with her friend Anko afterwards) to get him from using the chakra around him and to use the chakra within him. Once he finally got the concept, learning to control it was thankfully a lot easier for him. Anakin figured out that using the Force and using chakra shared a lot of similarities. Just as a ninja needed a balance of chakra control to hold leaves over a ninja's head, the same is needed for lifting rocks with the Force. But he quickly learned that unlike the Force, chakra is not unlimited and he ended up in the hospital after using all of his chakra. Kurenai nearly had a heart attack when he went unconscious and fell 30 feet. Luckily she was close by and caught him. He ended up with an hour long lecture about it after she had confirmed he was alright. Though even with what he's learned, doing jutsu is now the next hurdle for him to overcome.
Anakin has made sure to visit Naruto and Hitana when he can. It seems they both easily work flawlessly together. Though trying to get Sasuke to work with them was very tiring when they first became a team, but they are making some headway with a little help from their always so late jounin. The last time he talked to them was when they said they were given their first C-rank mission and were heading to the front gates; he noticed that the pair seemed to have been growing closer to each other as well. Naruto seems to have Hinata with him nine times out of ten. Whenever training ends, Naruto always wants ramen afterwards and since the other members never want to go, he takes Hinata with him then they just mostly walk around the village talking until Ko finds them to bring the young heiress home. Hinata has lost her stutter during this time, but still blushes a little when around the blond she ever so adores. Though blushing isn't just something Hinata will do. Naruto will also occasionally blush about Hinata whenever Anakin will tease the blond about them being together so much. Anakin is happy for his friends and knew it was only a matter of time before they finally got together. A lot of it stemmed from the help he got from Sakura. Anakin and Sakura main goal of hanging out after training is to try and be matchmakers for Naruto and Hinata. And they have already ensured that it would be a certainty for them to become a pair.
By now Anakin and Sakura have become friends. One doesn't play matchmaker for months with someone else and not become friends. Although Anakin does wish that she'd get her mind off of Sasuke already. The black haired boy has shown no interest in the pink haired girl, but for some reason she keeps fawning over him and Anakin can't figure out why. If there's no thing he does know-
"Ow," Anakin says, "Why are you flicking my forehead?"
Sakura has her hand outstretched to his head, "Because you were lost in thought again and wasn't paying attention to us."
He looks around seeing Kurenai trying to cover a giggle and Shino standing calmly waiting to be called into the Hokage's office. After seeing that her student is with them again, she knocks on the office door and opens it when she hears the ok to come in. The Hokage just smiles when he sees them.
Hiruzen lays his pipe down, "Ah good to see you Team Eight. I trust you all are doing well today?" They nod their heads. "Excellent. Now you are here for your mission. Let's see what we have for you today."
He grabs the stack of D-rank missions and begins looking through them, but is interrupted by another knock on the door. When it is opened, a brown pug with a leaf headband and blue shirt walks through.
"Pukkun, what is wrong? I trust you wouldn't be here just to chat." Hiruzen asks.
Pukkun nods, "Correct. Kakashi sent me here to inform you of the mission you sent him and his team on. On the road to the Wave country his team encountered ninjas called the Demon Brothers. After they managed to defeat them and tie them up, the client they are protecting told them that there are ninjas hired to kill him."
The Hokage frowns, "This is upsetting news. The mission he reported states it's nothing more than C-rank, but having ninjas involved automatically ranks it B-rank especially ones such as the Demon Brothers."
"The client said he didn't have money for a B-rank and only had money for C-rank." The dog explains.
"Well obviously the client lying would be grounds for Team Seven to abandon the mission and come back. So how come I'm talking to you about it instead of Kakashi?"
"They discussed among themselves to keep going on with the mission. It was only because of Hinata convincing Kakashi that someone should send a word to you that I am here." Pukkun replies.
"Thanks for letting me know. I'll see to it that help will come in case there's any more ninjas so you may go now." Pukkun nods and disappears into a cloud of smoke. The old man takes a drag on his pipe and looks at Team Eight, "Kurenai how confident are you with your team's combative skills?"
She puts on a serious face, "I believe they are ready to put it to the test. I take it you wish us to go and assist?"
Hiruzen nods, "I would prefer to send a team of jonin and chunin for this, but most are already on mission. I'm sure that with your help, two jonin and six genin will be more than enough to finish this mission. Keep in mind that as of now this is a B-rank and possibly A-rank mission I'm assigning you. So it's your choice if you wish to take it."
She turns to the rest of her team, but already knows the answer. Anakin is the one to speak for them, "Lord Hokage, you don't even have to ask. Our friends are in trouble and we'll be more than happy to lend them a hand." Shino and Sakura nod with Anakin's statement.
"Very well. Team Eight, go to the Wave country and assist Team Seven with their mission at once!" The Hokage proclaims.
Team Eight rushes through the trees to meet up with their fellow ninjas, but none are more worried than Anakin. He's been friends with Naruto and Hinata since they were kids and he'll be damned if something were to happen to them. After a while they hear sounds of a battle taking place. They follow the sounds and eventually find the source of it. They see a man with a huge sword attacking Team Seven as they try to defend their client, Tazuna. Kurenai recognizes the attacker as Zabuza Momochi who has Kakashi in a water prison. Sasuke and Naruto work together to free their sensei from the bubble, letting the battle continue. Not wanting to watch, Team Eight rushes in to help. Zabuza seeing how the battle is turning against him with the new arrivals, he decides to take his losses and settles for taking out one the genin. He quickly tosses Kakashi off balance with a water dragon jutsu and rushes towards Hinata. She moves to protect Tazuna thinking that is the target, but ends up getting flung by the flat side of Zabuza's sword very hard against a tree. He swings his sword to kill her, but everyone feels a sudden force of energy.
All looking towards the source, they see Anakin looking distraught. But to the most surprising thing (for Sasuke and Kakashi especially) Anakin's normal blue eyes have turned to red with a black ring and a single tomoe. He instantly uses the Force to boost his speed and pulls out this sword. To the amazement of Zabuza, his swing was blocked. He looks over shocked to see the kid who was over hundreds of yards now standing in front of him. The mist ninja jumps to back away, but is grabbed mid air. Anakin uses the Force to push him as hard as he can and breaks a couple of trees Zabuza crashes into. Before Anakin can do anything else, two senbon find themselves in Zabuza's neck.
"Thanks for weakening him for me," The newcomer with a mask calls to them and picks the body up. "I've been tracking him for weeks. I hope you didn't mind that I took advantage of the situation to finish him off."
Kakashi brings his headband down over his right eye, "Not at all hunter nin."
The hunter ninja nods and disappears with the body. After Anakin checks Hinata and finds that she is still alive, he sighs in relief as his eyes return to normal and he collapses next to her. Both teams and Tazuna runs over to them.
"How are they Kakashi-sensei?" Naruto asks worriedly.
"They're okay Naruto. Hinata just has a few bruises on her and Anakin is just exhausted from using the sharingan." He tells him.
Sasuke furrows his brow, "How does both you and him have the sharingan? Only Uchiha should have them and the fact that the two of you have them is unsettling to me."
"Well mine was given to me by a friend and teammate of mine, Obito Uchiha, on his deathbed after losing my left eye." Kakashi explains. "As for Anakin, my guess is that he has Uchiha blood in him somewhere and just awakened it. It's the only way to explain why he was able to deactivate it since only an Uchiha can do that. It's the reason why I keep my eye covered since I'm unable to turn mine off. Did you know this about your student Kurenai?"
She shakes her head, "No this is a surprise to me as well. He never once mentioned it nor did anything to indicate that he had one. I'm sure you know about his previous problems with chakra from the academy reports. It wasn't until recently that he started to be able to use his, so seeing him having a sharingan is a shock to all of us."
Tazuna speaks up, "Um, I'm sure what you're talking about is important, but we can't stand around with two kids unconscious on the ground. My house is just up ahead. Let's get these two safe to rest up."
The group agrees to this and puts their conversation on hold for the moment.
A day after arriving at Tazuna's house and greeting his daughter Tsunami and his grandson Inari, Hinata and Anakin wake up. They all gather around to finish their previous conversation after getting the two up to speed with everything else. Sasuke speaks first.
"How in the hell does a nobody dobe like you have the sharingan?!" He demands.
Anakin takes a minute to think. Honestly I'm wondering the same myself, though that answer isn't the one they will accept. I know this body of mine is an Uchiha body, but I assumed that awakening the sharingan, let alone using it, would be out of the question for me. I guess I should reveal a little bit of the truth. "Well if you want to know the answer to that then what I'm about to tell you is something that is a secret only two others know. One of which being the Hokage himself. If I tell you then you must promise not to tell anyone else about it until the Hokage decides it is acceptable to let the public know."
They all are shocked that he's willing to share something secret enough that only the Hokage and one other knows about. They all agree to keep it a secret.
"Very well," Anakin begins. "I'm sure most of you know about the story of me coming from a village outside of town?" They nod. "Well that was a lie. The truth is that Sasuke and I have something in common. We both are survivors of the Uchiha massacre."
They gasp. Sasuke is the most surprised out of all of them. Could it be true that there was someone else who survived? Is he not truly alone as he once thought?
"How is that possible? Everyone can only guess why Sasuke was left alive, probably having something to do with being Itachi's little brother. But why did he leave you alive when he killed kids even younger than you?" Kakashi asks, breaking the silence.
"He didn't." Anakin lifts his shirt, much to the amusement of Sakura and Hinata blushing faces of seeing his muscles. He points to two scars on his body, one small one where his heart is and another long one across his stomach. "As you can see, he did in fact aim to kill me and I was pronounced dead before they could reach me to the hospital. If it wasn't for the fact that the Hokage noticed I was still alive in the morgue, I would have been dead." He puts his shirt back on, much to the disappointment of the two girls. "When I woke up, the Hokage thought it'd be best for my safety if I forgo my former name in case Itachi would want to come back and finish the job. He also got my hair and eyes changed color to help make me unrecognizable as an Uchiha. Ever since then I went by my previous name."
The rest have varied emotions to this news. Sasuke is bewildered that someone could easily throw away the Uchiha name? He understands a little bit as to why he would. When he faced his brother on that day, he admits to himself that he was terrified. But just because he understands it doesn't mean he likes it. The other genin can only feel sad for him, but is glad that he is willing to tell them this secret and feel just a little bit closer to him. Kurenai can't imagine how he was able to carry this burden for this long and didn't crack to end up like Sasuke or worse. Inari is listening to their conversation and takes this time to rethink his life, particularly on how someone has it worse than he does but is still able to put up a fight. Kakashi however is interested in what Anakin said at the end.
"What do you mean when you said you are going by your previous name?" The masked jonin asks. Sasuke perks up too, but is wondering why the others are looking like they already know.
"Well that is another secret of mine, though this one isn't enforced by the Hokage. But I don't try too hard to hide it." He then explains to the pair about what he has already told the rest about his previous life and the Force. They both are shocked, but they confirm that it would explain a lot they couldn't figure out about the boy. Sasuke just gets mad after it.
"So is that it? One bad day so you completely abandon the Uchiha clan and your family plus you resort to using your former name? Do you completely feel nothing for your family that you try to relive your past?!" Sasuke shouts.
Anakin grows annoyed. "I am not giving up on anything! I do my best to live up to the expectations of my parents in this life everyday and using my past life experience is my way to ensure that I can do just that. Also it's pretty rich saying that I'm the one living in the past when your entire purpose at the moment is solely focused on revenge!"
Kakashi quickly speaks up, "Hey now both of you cool it! Sasuke I can tell you that Anakin is not like that. I see that he spends time almost every day at the cemetery hovering over two Uchiha graves."
Sasuke is confused, "He does? How do you know that he spends so much time there?"
"Because one of the reasons I'm always late is because I visit the cemetery or the memorial stone of my former team. I usually find him there as well over the past few, though I never went to speak to him." Kakashi says softly.
"Sasuke," Anakin says with a tear in his eye, "You don't know how much I wish for circumstances to be different. I didn't wish for this to happen, but I will do with what I have."
Sasuke is taken aback. This is too much information for him to process at the moment and it seems that it proves the same for everyone in that room. They all sit in an uncomfortable silence for a bit.
Anakin hates having to be in this situation. He knew the path would be difficult when he first agreed to being placed in this world, but taking the place of someone else's life is a challenge that he wouldn't wish on anyone. Although the biggest surprise for him were the dreams of someone's life he began having a year after coming to this world. But these weren't normal dreams or even dreams brought about from the Force, these dreams felt all too real and he remembered every single one of them. It was the same family and friends in each one of these and it felt like he was in a body with someone else using the controls. Anakin could taste the home cooked meals of this family. He felt the love from the mother and the pride from the father. He felt the joy of playing in a park with friends he never saw and the sorrows of losing a loved one he never met. He brought this up to the Hokage who suggested letting Inochi look into his mind to find the root of all this. Unlike the first time where Anakin denied entrance into his mind, he let the clan leader in and guided him through these dreams.
When they were done, Inochi concluded that these were the memories of the previous Uchiha boy. The two adults came to the agreement that both the boy and Anakin were no longer just two different people, but now just one merged person. The Hokage told Anakin that since he is both people now, he would be able to claim the Uchiha title if he wished. The young Jedi decided that he would not claim that title until he felt he had properly earned it.
Kurenai coughs bring everyone's attention to her, "So Kakashi and I were talking earlier, and we both agree that Zabuza is still alive."
"But how can that be?" Sakura asks her. "We all saw that hunter ninja kill him and take the body."
"That's just it, hunter ninjas don't take the bodies of ninjas. They just take the head off then dispose of the body on the spot. We can only assume that the hunter ninja is most likely a fake and is Zabuza's partner." She explains.
"Well we all saw how easily Anakin dealt with him before, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem right?" Naruto asks.
Anakin shakes his head, "No sadly I can't say my abilities are that strong yet. I was consumed in my emotions which caused my power to spike and I merely caught him off guard. If that fight continued, I would have probably died. Next time he'll be more wary and not take any chances with me. The best I can do is try to survive for as long as I can. Kakashi and Kurenai are probably our best bet against him."
"Good assumption although Zabuza uses a jutsu that creates mist on the battlefield and it makes it hard for me to properly use my genjutsu. I'm afraid my taijutsu and ninjutsu are a bit lacking to take on one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen even with Kakashi's assistance." Kurenai sighs.
"So what are we to do about it? The seven of us just sit and watch Kakashi fight by himself again and end up in another bubble?" Naruto asks.
"Ouch Naruto. Is that something to say to your sensei?" Kakashi asks him. "Besides I doubt that it will be just the two of them next time. Gato, the one in charge, probably has a very large pocket book to pay for more men. Now I know that a normal thug or bandit is no match for even a simple genin shinobi, but numbers can easily overwhelm. I say we pair off a jonin and a genin for the two ninjas and the rest of the genin will handle the rest and protect Tazuna. Now Anakin seems to be decently skilled with his sword and unlocked his sharingan so he'll be paired up with me against Zabuza. Kurenai will handle the fake hunter along with Hinata. We don't know what the fake hunter will do, so having the byakugan may help the most with any surprises. The rest of you will handle the rest, and if there are any more ninjas I want Naruto and Sasuke to deal with him. You both seemed to work great against Zabuza in freeing me, so I have faith in you both if it happens."
Sasuke scoffs, "Why would you pick the idiot who runs away from his clan over a proud Uchiha as myself? It's obvious I'm the better choice especially considering I'm the one who was the rookie of the year."
Kakashi frowns at his student, "Being rookie of the year and having a clan name doesn't automatically make you a better ninja. To me you are still just a simple genin fresh from the academy with no actual combat experience until this mission. Given the information Anakin has told us, he has the most experience out of all the genin here. Now I will hear no more about this Sasuke." Sasuke just huffs and Kakashi sighs. "Still even if you have prior combat experience Anakin, you don't have any for being a ninja. My estimate is that it'll be a week before Zabuza recovers, so during that time we will all train."
"Impressive swordsmanship Anakin, though I got to say I never seen that type of fighting style before. Not even my own sharingan can predict its movement properly." Kakashi tells Anakin.
"Thanks Master Kakashi. I'm not surprised you don't recognize it since it is something I learned in my previous life. Which is to my knowledge, is a galaxy far far away from here. I'd be more surprised if you did." Anakin replies.
It has been a few days since and the genin have been hard at training. Kakashi didn't teach his students tree climbing yet, so Kurenai took it upon herself to teach his students how. Hinata is exempt from tree climbing since she was taught by her clan. Kakashi has Hinata helping both Shino and Sakura who are really lacking in the taijutsu department. However since Anakin has awakened his sharingan, Kakashi is helping him to understand and use it.
"That probably explains why my sharingan doesn't recognize it. Can't accurately predict something that technically doesn't exist here. Although with you I'm sure if you were to encounter anyone who does know how to fight like you then it'll use the information in your head to help." Kakashi explains.
"So kind of like precognition, but only in what it knows right?"
Kakashi gives an eye smile, "Exactly! But even if it doesn't know it, then it can still somewhat predict your enemies movement. So it can still be helpful."
"Cool now I have two different precognitions to help me in a fight." Anakin comments.
"Two?"
"Yes, one of the abilities of the Force is precognition."
Kakashi sighs, "Is there anything the Force can't do? Because so far it is sounding like some godlike power. Telekinesis, precognition, reading minds, self enhancements, and next you'll be telling me that you can use the Force to create a storm that can destroy a planet?" Anakin looks away and scratches the back of his head whistling after remembering the story of the former Emperor using such an ability from his parents. Multiple sweat drops roll down Kakashi's forehead. "On second thought, I don't want to hear the answer to that. Multiple people having this power would mean it takes one bad apple to be near unstoppable to anyone who doesn't have the Force."
"Well there's certainly been their fair share of bad apples throughout the centuries, but they aren't completely unstoppable to average people. Trust me when I say that having the Force will only help you so much."
"Well I'll take some comfort in knowing that the only one here who can do that is on my side." The masked jonin says.
Anakin awkwardly laughs. That you know of. Sadly there's a Sith Lord here to destroy that comfort of yours. Hopefully you enjoy it while it last.
"Well that's enough break time," Kakashi says, reaching for his kunai. "We still have a long way to go before ensuring that you can survive fighting Zabuza."
During this training, a brooding raven haired genin became even broodier. Not only has this runaway unlocked the sharingan before he, a proud Uchiha, hasn't; the runaway also has some sort of power to become unstoppable! Sasuke should deserve this power for himself so he can avenge their clan, not hide and cower with it! Anakin might not know it, but he has now been ranked directly behind Itachi of people the Uchiha boy hates.
Arthur's Note:
Not much to say for this one since I don't feel like there's anything I need to explain. Although I'm sure you all can figure out that this is mostly an Anakin story. I will try to keep y'all up with the many important characters, but I apologize in advance if it seems inadequate. Also I should mention that I don't plan on intentionally doing any Sasuke bashing since I have plans for him later down the road (that doesn't include writing him off in some unsavory way). Other than that, once again thanks for reading and I'll talk at y'all next time!