Hello, just a reminder that cloud9stories dot net is the name of my site, you can find the complete caption on my profile if googling it isn't enough (for whatever reason ff doesn't let me copy-past the URL here).

If you have the means and wish to support me through a donation, you can do so there, as well as downloading the .pdf format of most of my fics (I'll wait to hit through 50k words before uploading one there).

Thank you!

Through the eyes of the child

The night was quiet if not for the everpresent rustle of leaves carried by the breeze, and if one was attentive enough, there was a multitude of faint sounds that brought to the mind both the endless nightly activities of the shinobi force and the scattered few civilians that had nightly shifts.

To be truthful, Konohagakure no Sato did not sleep, and despite the necessity of that, Sarutobi Hiruzen found himself wistfully wishing for an entire night of respite: it wasn't the first time, but usually, it was because of simple tiredness, that made itself known more and more in his ever-advancing age and not because of the number of issues that seemed to have multiplied itself since the Uchiha Massacre. Issues that ranged from the redistribution of the Police Force to the pushing of his forces to double their shifts, managing to uphold the image of strength that the village so desperately needed.

The Sandaime Hokage puffed angrily on his pipe, even as his face remained unmoved and his chakra quiet and still like a waveless lake: "Report on the target, Tora."

"The target spent the past two months familiarizing himself with his economical assets, and his banker remarked how insightful his thoughts about investments were." the ANBU replied while remaining kneeling in front of his Kage: "He has been paying artisans to watch them work, Hokage-sama."

"Which artisans?"

"Metalsmiths mostly, from swordmakers to the ones working jewels. He paid even to sit in an angle inside of a kitchen in one of the Akimichi's. Calligraphy and woodworking... he spent three days watching a man prepare a dragon kite for the festival. A pattern doesn't seem to exist in his choices."

"So he's awakened his bloodline."

"The chakra pathways around his eyes are brightly lit during the day, and his chakra gets daily depleted." Tora confirmed.

The Sandaime Hokage inhaled heavily on his pipe, letting the information settle. There was nothing bad about the young Uchiha taking advantage of his bloodline, per se, but keeping the boy from outshining his peers once he returned to the Academy had just become impossible when before was listed as merely difficult. And the Sharingan was known to seed a form of instability, it was obvious that the young Uchiha would awaken his bloodline after the trauma that Itachi had inflicted upon him, but that was neither here nor there. What was he going to do about it? If there was an issue to address at all. The Hokage remembered how he had wanted to learn everything at the kid's age, the fact that the young Uchiha was making use of his Clan's bloodline to learn several crafts in the span of a few days didn't ring an alarm.

"Any notable skills or behavior that we need to add to his file?"

"When the artisans aren't willing to accept his deal of being observed while at work, he simply sneaks around and uses the Sharingan to memorize their motions, and he spent a couple of days in a butchery."

Again, the behavior of the child didn't represent a future threat only if learning everything was simply the first thing that came to the mind of the precocious Uchiha. Itachi had been truly a hidden gem, and not so hidden once he had managed to break through the Academy's curriculum in the blink of an eye. The Hokage wasn't thinking that the young Uchiha was going to emulate his older brother, and not only because quite obviously he was short of family members to kill, no, but Itachi had also been tossed in ANBU and then Root as fast as possible, both Hiruzen and Danzo had been eager to push the kid to his top potential, knowing that his loyalty to the village was unyielding and that the Uchiha heir would have eventually been able to shatter whatever notion of rebellion within his own clan.

He seems to be hungry to learn everything. The Sandaime repeated in the safe confines of his own mind, But the manipulation in itself is worrying. A useful talent to have, but the child needs bonds. And I cannot simply wash him with the spooks, Itachi's loyalty is based upon the well-being of young Sasuke...

"The target has remained away from the training grounds, yes?" the Hokage asked, already knowing the affirmative answer, or he would be having a very difficult discussion with the young Uchiha, who, while understandably distressed, hadn't seemed to be receptive to opening with perfect strangers, that he had likely simply identified as not-clan and thusly unworthy of trust.

"Yes, Hokage-sama." came the monotone answer of the ANBU.

"His nightmares continue going on?"

"Less since he finished scrubbing the compound clear of blood." Tora answered in the emotionless voice that every ANBU was trained to use.

"What about today?"

"Today he awoke violently, likely from a nightmare, and then he set off to the Academy..."

I scrubbed the damp floors, the smell of bleach stinging my nostrils while the wet lurch of the rag I was using filled my ears, challenging the grinding sound that my fingers made against the wooden planks.

Red Red Red. Coppery Coppery Coppery.

My knees hurt for all the time I spent on the hard floors, my back was unnaturally stiff, as if my spine had been welded to a rail with a blowtorch, and my eyes burned with the fumes of the cleaning products I had been using no-stop since I had managed to get on my feet.

Red Red Red. Coppery Coppery Coppery.

When the red stain on the floorboards finally faded, I could see my own reflection, in it, my own eyes were endless pools of blood...

I awoke with a gasp, wildly swinging a kunai that I had taken to keep under my futon's pillow. My eyes wildly moved across the quiet, empty room while the last strands of my recurrent nightmare slowly left my mind. I wasn't made for the shinobi life.

It was a revelation that hit me not long after I first awakened my eyes, I grew up as a 'normal' person in a civilized (sort of) world. In any case, violence had never truly touched me, and despite the occasional daydream about having superpowers, I was as far removed from an adrenaline-inducing situation as it was possible.

Was it any wonder that I had tried my best to bury my memories of bloodied floors and walls under an encyclopedic knowledge of different crafts? Besides the obvious usefulness of being capable of repairing the battle-torn mess that was the Uchiha compound, and my half-hidden pride in being able to do relatively useless shit like building kites for festivals, I had simply attempted to... pretend wasn't really the right word, but I had wished to try how a violence-less life could turn out for me.

My feelings about it were... conflicted.

On one hand, I could see myself living off the vast amount of coin that the Uchiha clan had hoarded in the course of decades, learning whatever suited my fancy, try my hand at the occasional application of bullshit-chakra, and generally letting myself been used as a stallion from Konohagakure in order to pump out a new and loyal clan.

On the other hand, that meant living in a gilded cage. That meant willingly ignoring the fact that any shinobi uncaring of Itachi's retaliation would be able to stroll in and do whatever to me. That wouldn't have been a problem, had I not known the value of my Sharingan and the particular brand of Orochimaru's madness.

I'm running in circles. I reprimanded myself as I felt my chakra slightly warming up in my gut. There's nothing to it.

It was nice to dream of quiet, from time to time, I even considered a quick suicide, but then I remembered that even the dead weren't safe from the bullshit-jutsu that people were capable of throwing around willy-nilly.

I moved across my house without hesitation in my movements, following my routine while I slowly let my thoughts settle. Today was the day, there was no point in delaying it any further. Trying to mindfuck me into thinking that the situation wasn't real, or that the consequences of simply existing wouldn't force me into dangerous situations was plain stupid.

My hands flew from cupboard to skillet to drawer while I focused on the unique feeling of my own chakra lightly swirling in my abdomen. And while I mechanically started to cook with the precision of a chef coming from a clan specializing in food preparation, I gently coaxed my chakra in the whole of my body. It wasn't quite a pull, nor it was a push. I wasn't my chakra, I didn't move it simply because I willed it to. It was more akin to training a dog to follow mental commands. Mental commands that I was still figuring out how to turn into something different than a brash scream to my gut in order to impose my will.

Oil sizzled in the pan in which I tossed a slab of pork, only for me to ignore it completely while I cut an onion that I would later add to my plate. I don't know if anyone is a natural with moving chakra but me, if the manga sandbagged the technical aspects, or if I'm having difficulties because I'm just not used to it.

I knew that my eyes were blazing red once my vision assumed purple tints and the world seemed to finally come into focus, the Sharingan allowing me to pick up the smallest detail of what I observed while burying it into my memory.

At least I figured out the switch for this Bloodline. Stress and feeling in danger were surely pieces that heavily contributed to the 'awakening' stage, but once I had managed to turn them off for the first time, almost a week before, I had come to accept that my eyes turned red as soon as I felt in a fight or flight situation. It's redundant to say that my first day I spent inside of the compound, unwilling to parade around my eyes.

With enough time, however, I managed to 'lower' the stress level necessary to trigger the activation of the Sharingan, and needing some sort of experiment to at least attempt to figure out how it worked, observing random-ass actions from random-ass people seemed the best solution.

I forced my left ring finger to work alongside the others while I turned the meat in the pan, adding the vegetables on one side in order to let them absorb some of the flavor and fat from the pork.

Of all the cooks, I had to copy one without a fucking finger. My movements, which were basically hardwired after observing them once, were exactly how I had witnessed them as. That meant that I had to adjust them to my body's actual capabilities, be they handicaps or advantages.

Still, I spent my first day with the Sharingan cooped inside my family's house, cleaning up the blood. I now would always remember the water turning red, my fingers occasionally screeching against the wooden floorboards, and the tears that kept bubbling from my eyes. Those hadn't been tears of sorrows for people that I didn't know, no, I knew then, as I knew now, that I had been crying for myself, for what I was going to do in order to not become mincemeat in a world of blatant law-of-the-jungle.

Hence the nightmares, and my naive attempt to drown them under other images.

I finished cooking and I ate directly from the still-hot pan, my knife cutting the tender meat without scraping the pan while the chopsticks held in my right hand plucked a single piece of meat or vegetable as quickly as I could manage.

With a sly glance to the windows, I idly wondered how long it would take me to learn how to tell when I was being observed. Fucking ANBU.

Once I was done with my routine and I forcefully managed to cast away my useless considerations about the nature of my existence in the Naruto-verse, I cleaned up after myself and set out of the house, my hands in my pockets and my black eyes roaming over my surroundings.

After a while spent walking briskly the somewhat crowdy dirt roads of Konoha, I turned behind a bakery and my eyes landed on my target: the Academy.

It was a huge complex of buildings located directly at the base of Hokage Mountain. There was an unmistakable tree in front of it accompanied by a single rope swing, while the building itself was easily identifiable by the giant sign bearing the village symbol, "火" (fire). This was where prospective ninja got trained and where genin without a team received their missions. From what little I had been able to learn, either from discreet enquires, overhearing, and casual mentions of this or that subject in the belongings of the Uchiha's, Genin Corps weren't something born out of fandom. It even made sense that a military dictatorship wouldn't toss away soldiers.

I had learned some irrelevant shit about the Academy, just to be able to fake common knowledge if I were suddenly asked something from someone. Not that I intend to waste my time with inane chatter.

I hesitated once I was in front of the building, consciously ignoring the pointed whispering and curious glances that I kept receiving until I spotted one Hyuga Hinata being walked to the entrance. With a sigh of relief, I tailed her.

Some shit I could learn from many different sources, but how to reach my class was a whole different matter. So I followed the Hyuga heiress down a corridor and up a ramp of stairs, sliding inside the class just behind her and sitting my ass at a free desk on the side of the classroom nearest to the large expanse of windows.

Besides the wall-spanning windows, the room itself was unremarkable: there was a podium in front of the blackboard, situated far from the students' desks, and put in a position where the teacher could oversee the masses, while the desks were placed in slowly rising rows up to the back of the class.

A part of me wished I could sit back and relax, exploiting what I could of my superior education in order to coast through my future years of schooling, but a simple thought held me back: I am Sasuke Uchiha. There were S-class fuckers out to get me, and sure as hell, I wasn't going to waste time by graduating with Naruto's class of all things.

I didn't feel anything in particular for any of the characters, but indifference wasn't enough to push me into sticking out my neck for them. I needed to become strong, I needed to become strong fast.

The images of Danzo, Orochimaru, and Tobi randomly appeared in my mind's eye.

I need to become strong. I thought by myself. Then I'm outta here.

Then one Umino Iruka entered the classroom and got started with his lesson, and I avoided rolling my eyes in exasperation when he kept glancing at me, as if unsure about my presence.

The curriculum necessary for a student to be considered worthy of the title of Genin, even ignoring the last examination that included the three standard jutsu, was quite large, with some focus on things like math or history, but it largely concentrated on a wide array of military-related skills. Geography, herbs, how to quickly memorize information, from maps to small notes, and protocols. Ultimately, it was stuff that I could see could become useful, but it didn't matter all that much, if you cleared the practical portions, you could keep going.

It even makes sense: meat shields don't need a brain to die on the swords of the enemy. It was callous, keeping children enlisted when you knew that they would never amount to anything beyond the regular rank and file, but I understood why not everyone could be a Legendary Nin.

The Sharingan was utter bullshit. While I hadn't needed it for most of the material, since its complexity was thought for children, I needed only a glance to memorize anything that I was looking at, and to my delight, I realized that I was starting to be able to lip-read people.

From random free-running through an obstacle course, to the throwing of kunai and other sharp things, to hand-to-hand combat, I observed Either Iruka or Mizuki execute the task the first time, and instinctively adjusted it to adapt my smaller frame. The speed through which I was capable of picking up new stuff was exhilarating, there was no doubt about that, but if my new academic experience was being more than tolerable, if only in the short term, dealing with other 7 years old children was not something that I would ever dedicate any effort to.

At seven years of age, children were expected to fight each other in front of a teacher and other classmates.

In the heavy afternoon's sun, with the dust of the dirt grounds rising in small clouds around my feet, I moved uncaringly around each of the students that were pitted against me. I could see that some of the ninja-raised children had some sort of discipline that made them do something different than running while reading a haymaker, but they were regular children, even if gifted with bullshit chakra magic.

Inuzuka Kiba tended to be the best of the bunch, if only because he was extremely wild and aggressive, but that didn't stop me from pissing him off through constant dodging: I ducked under a wide swipe of his right arm and flicked him in the ribs hard enough to be noticed, but without leaving the smallest welt, all the while I pivoted on my right foot and hopped away, regaining my distance.

"You need to actually hit your opponent Sasuke-kun." Iruka's voice reprimanded me from outside the circle of giggling seven years old.

I somersaulted over Kiba's roaring charge without even looking at my 'sensei'. Becoming strong was a good plan. I thought to myself, But punching around children doesn't really feel right.

"You're looking down on me, you bastard?!" the enraged ninja-in-training swiped again at me, with his hands open and sharp fingernails attempting to actually cut me.

I withheld a sigh as I stepped within the kid's next step, grabbing the forefront of his shirt as I pivoted once more and redirected his momentum with a heaving motion of my back. I hadn't yet needed to use chakra. And if we go on like this, I'll never need it with the kids. I distractedly thought as Kiba flew through the air only to be caught by an irritated Iruka.

"Sasuke wins!" the sensei grudgingly admitted as he lowered the furious Inuzuka, who wasted no time and attempted to charge me again, only to be stopped by the brown-haired chunin.

I ignored the general prattling of the voices around me and I started to leave the circle, distractedly thinking about how I was going to train myself. The basic taijutsu of the Academy was something that I learned after seeing the sensei perform the kata once, but I was slowly coming to accept that there was no substitute for actual experience.

Children could be ANBU, and I supposed that it meant a certain level of lethality, chakra was the great equalizer after all. But how was I meant to reach such a level? I had little doubts that Itachi's genius had been helped along by his family backing, and eventually both ANBU and Root training. How do I do the same?

"...Sasuke!" the voice shouting my name stole me from my musings, and I turned back, my eyes landing on the extremely annoying and irritating visage of Iruka, who still had a snarling Inuzuka by the nape of his neck.

"What?"

"You need to form the sign of peace."

"Yeah, I forgot." I did the finger equivalent of a handshake with a still furious Kiba and I let my eyes wander freely upon this section of the Academy training grounds, holding in a sigh as I spotted the posts that we had spent an hour throwing sharp things at.

"... Sasuke!" This is becoming a habit.

"What." if my tone was flatter than it was appropriate for a seven years old kid when referring to his teacher, nobody pointed it out.

"Naruto challenged you, Sasuke-kun."

"Are you serious?" the words stumbled out of my mouth before I could reign them in, and I grimaced when the shrill, outraged voice of Naruto vehemently protested at my reaction.

The serious eyes of Iruka made me sigh yet another time as I returned in the circle of awed children. Could I be friendly? Yes. Would I? No. Children had each other for emotional support, and while I had distractedly considered becoming Naruto's friend (read: 'babysit him until he managed to not make an ass of himself') I was wary about doing something to affect his childhood.

I dodged a blatant haymaker and turned in order to keep myself facing the blond menace that came at me running, my onyx black eyes more than enough to read his movements. I then slapped away a kick that didn't hope to connect and pulled at the wrist of another punch, once again exchanging positions with the Uzumaki, who stumbled to the ground before immediately hopping back to his feet.

Given the last chapters of the manga, I was acutely aware that he was a walking nuclear warhead, maybe worse. And if his childhood, horrible as it had been and as it was going to be, had produced someone as cheery and not mass-murderer as adult-Naruto, I was wary about interfering. One could object that it was immoral to leave Naruto to suffer loneliness and whatnot, but by that reasoning, I should have tried to destroy the ninja system as a whole, because as horrible one child's loneliness was, countless child-soldiers were arguably worse.

And I was still unsure about the insanely dangerous situations that Naruto would end up in. For now, I was going to be targeted by Orochimaru, and the rest of the villages if I dropped Konoha, sticking close to a jinchuriki unnecessarily seemed just... dumb. The Akatsuki could do whatever, I hoped to bolt this world before it was too late. I really should prepare a plan B in case canon goes to shit and the world ends tomorrow.

I dodged the mad charge of Naruto by moving to my left and pushing the blonde's back once he passed me, and I sighed in annoyance at the laughter of the children seated around us. It wasn't fucking fun being laughed at by your peers, I knew that much. The more annoying part was that Kiba was laughing along with the others when he had been the but of the joke less than five minutes before.

I slowly brought myself in front of Kiba even as I kept up with the random attacks of Naruto, and when he charged me for the umpteenth time, I swept the ground under his feet, having him fly against a suddenly spluttering Inuzuka.

I let my mind wander once more while Iruka forced Naruto to complete the sign of peace with me, and instead of leaving the circle, I stared into our sensei' brown eyes: "I'm not learning anything by dancing around my classmates, sensei."

"Don't insult your peers, Sasuke-kun." he reproached me.

"It's not an insult to say that the sky is blue." I barely avoided rolling my eyes: "Spar with me, sensei, so that I can actually learn something."

"It's highly irregular." Iruka was displeased by my open rudeness, even a brick could tell that much, but it was undeniable that I had a point.

"If one of them can beat me tomorrow, they'll try their hand with you, so it's still fair, but I thought that we were here to learn, and standing around humiliating them isn't teaching me anything I'd care to learn." I insisted, perhaps unwisely, but in my defense, I was reaching the end of my rope rather quickly.

"C'mon, Iruka, it wouldn't be fair to Sasuke to not give him actual training," Mizuki appeared at the edge of the circle with a smile on his face, "besides, this will motivate the others!"

I kept my eyes trained on Iruka, which I supposed was the equivalent of our 'homeroom' teacher, and tried again: "C'moooooon..." whining brats for the win.

Iruka pinched his nose exasperatedly even while he and Mizuki focused on reigning in the thunderous opposition of my classmates, which were quickly dividing themselves between open admirers and envious little shits. Eventually, however, Mizuki's words seemed to convince Iruka, who stepped outside of the circle and gestured to his white-haired companion to step in: "Since Mizuki-sensei endorses your request, it'd be rude of me to take his place."

As Mizuki placed himself on the opposite side of the circle, blatantly assuming the first stance of the very basic Kata that I had memorized on my first day in the Academy, I jumped on the balls of my feet, feeling chakra rush happily through my body, as I felt a shiver of excitement.

Mizuki was an adult, so I could go all out, and I didn't doubt for an instant that the Hokage already knew of my Sharingan, so I blinked, and as the world assumed purple tints, with revealing flickers of chakra around the form of my opponent, I dashed forward.

Mizuki's eyebrows rose in what I could only assume was a mock surprise, and he lashed out with a straight punch when I came into range. I tilted my torso sideways while my left hand rose to jab at the elbow of the chunin and my run transitioned into a sideway kick aimed at the knee of my opponent.

I stopped my jab when I foresaw the reaction of Mizuki, and then I was airborne, air leaving my lungs with a hissing breath as the leg I had been aiming to kicked me in the stomach.

My chakra flared in my body as I rolled with the blow, rising my hands in a crossguard that was ignored when Mizuki capitalized on my eyes not being able to see him for an instant in order to kick me again, not bothering with simply knocking me out.

My crossguard shifted while my hands clamped as hard as they could on Mizuki's calf, and when he brought back his leg, I followed the movement, remaining low on the ground even as my legs snapped as a nail against the kneecap of the chunin's supporting leg, just in time for a punch to land on the top of my head and make me hiss in pain as my back grated against the ground.

I jumped away, narrowly avoiding a second punishing punch from my instructor while I brought my guard up again, my breath ragged both because of the effort and because of the pain. I could tell that I was collecting both bruises and welts, but I didn't stop moving.

Then far too large hands grabbed my wrists, and even as I heaved against them, bringing my legs to kick my opponent in the balls, I was dropped outside of the circle.

I blinked, and the world returned to its normal tints, accelerating brusquely as I stared at my hands: I had lost.

But rising my eyes, I was met with the grinning visage of Mitsuki and open surprise on Iruka's face. Maybe the Hokage didn't tell everybody about the Sharingan.

And I've just revealed it to Mizuki, who is a spy for Orochimaru. I grimaced inwardly even as I kept trying to slow down my breath.

Well, fuck. It seemed to sum up my thoughts.

AN

Sasuke is naturally subject to much scrutiny, and there is no way that the MC can figure out a way to fool the Hyuga. But yes, the MC already started abusing his bloodline: if canon Sasuke can copy Lee's taijutsu with only a glance, the MC can surely figure out how to do the same with much more mundane skills.

So, we've gotten started, and I didn't stop to make the MC acclimate with the kids in his own class, this Uchiha knows shit is going to hit the fucking fan, and while he aims to become powerful like any other SI character you've read about, he can abuse the fuck out of his bloodline and be blatant about it.

Some of you have noticed that the MC thinks Sarutobi to be responsible for the Uchiha's Massacre, if that is because Sasuke thinks that the Kage is sanctionable for each action taken by any member of Konoha, or if it's only because his knowledge is flawed, well... you'll have to keep reading to find out.

Anyway, I wanted to tell everyone that I've actually planned out a complete story for this fic, I didn't expect to gain 1K followers with less than 7k words. Thank you!

In this chapter we have: a brief peek into Sarutobi's thoughts, some self-reflection, and a little bit of interaction. What do you think of it?