This morning, he knew what he was going to do, and was dreading it horribly. He couldn't delay the inevitable any further. It was time to have a talk with the Uchiha clan head: his father.
Sasuke took his time eating breakfast, chewing as slowly as he could. This was his day off, and for a reason. He rose, put on a jacket, and left his crappy apartment, all reluctantly. The Uchiha District, unfortunately, wasn't far away. It was a slow, torturous walk.
Time seemed to fly especially since he didn't want it to, he found himself standing in front of the Uchiha clan head's door, his old home. It took all his willpower to knock and root himself to the floor. For the few seconds that the door unlatched, Sasuke found himself clenching his fists in dread.
"Who are you?" Uchiha Fugaku demanded, looking him up and down. Sasuke was clearly an Uchiha, but he had never seen him before.
"I'm Sasuke," he said quietly, "May I come in? I have something to discuss with you." Fugaku glared at him, but something must have compelled him to let him in.
Sasuke stepped inside, inhaling the scent of his old home. Fugaku led him to the living room, which was currently empty. A red velvet sofa surrounded a wooden table. Fugaku motioned for him to sit.
"What is it that you wish to discuss?" Fugaku's voice was wary and grating. Sasuke wasn't too heartbroken, his father talked to him like that often even when he was his son.
"I-" His voice caught on the words that he had practised last night. It felt weird to talk about his predicament to his father like this. It felt weird to even look at his father, who looked so young and yet, he never saw his father look much older. Nevertheless, he pushed on.
"I'm from the future," the words hurt to say. Fugaku's crimson glare bore into his black eyes.
"Don't kid with me! I-"
"I can prove it!" Sasuke declared out of desperation. He didn't know how he'd prove it, but Fugaku was momentarily silenced, his gaze fixated on Sasuke critically.
Tentatively, Sasuke began trying to prove that he was from the future. He activated his Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan.
"I will be born in a few years. My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I have knowledge 20 years into the future." Fugaku was aghast upon seeing this strange man's Sharingan. The Mangekyou...it was a bit of a myth and incredibly rare to come across. Yet, he had it.
Sasuke could tell Fugaku was still unbelieving.
"How else can you explain it?" Anything Fugaku came up with would sound more ridiculous than time travel. Fugaku soon recovered from his shock. His father was a versatile man.
"Assuming you're telling the truth...how?"
Sasuke shrugged, "I don't know. I was in the present, and then I wasn't."
"Why didn't you tell us sooner?" Fugaku reeked of suspicion.
"I wanted to tell as little people as possible." His answer made sense, didn't it?
Fugaku glanced at the ground - 'Uchiha'-talk for confusion.
"Alright then. I believe you. Help out in the war effort. You can go now." That's it? That was it. His father read his expression easily.
"What do you want me to do? The other Uchiha cannot know about this. I'll come up with an excuse." Right. Yes. He was right.
"Thanks for having me," he made to move.
"Wait." Sasuke could see the metaphorical cogs twisting in Fugaku's brain.
"You're the man who killed Orochimaru." Sasuke gave a brief, almost imperceptible nod.
With baited movements, Fugaku stood up, walking him to the door. The second Sasuke stepped out, Fugaku had the ghost of a smile on his face.
"Mikoto and I must've raised you well," and then the door slammed shut. Had Sasuke been a lick more emotional, he would've broken down into violent, racking sobs.
Instead, he steeled his nerves and walked with surprising equanimity. Sasuke had a mission tomorrow, after all. It was time to train.
Mission time. Sasuke tapped his foot rhythmically against the ground, two minutes early to meet up with his partner. He honestly didn't have high hopes for his partner.
"Heyy," a drawled, breathy voice. His spirits fell impossibly low.
"It's you." Sayu's white teeth glimmered in the moonlight in an annoyingly blinding way.
"Me!" she whisper-shouted, then sped off into the treetops in the classic shinobi way of travel. Sasuke followed her, muttering profanities under his breath. They were predicted to arrive in the Land of Tea around 4am.
The mission was to assassinate the Wind Daimyo, who was temporarily residing in the Land of Tea for some idiotic diplomatic purpose. From the get-go, Sasuke treated this mission with much suspicion. Daimyo were such useless people, and even more so during wartime. Something was not being said. Hiruzen sent two over-qualified ninja to deal with a Daimyo.
Sasuke and Sayu fought sleep using modafinil, or whatever Hiruzen gave them. The bitter taste made him recoil, but he already felt the implicitly euphoric wakefulness.
"Alright. Keep moving." This time, newly invigorated, he sped up, almost racing Sayu. They meandered their way around obstacles, whether that be other ninja, traps or annoying animals.
His eyelids drooped with heaviness, demanding sleep, which his palpitating heart refused.
"I can't imagine this is very healthy," Sayu commented offhandedly, seeming completely at ease in her natural state of delirium.
"So? We're gonna die anyway." If Naruto was here, he would've gasped in shock and yelled at Sasuke about pessimism.
Sayu dramatically swooned. They started walking now, trudging down a muddy pathway.
"Are we nearly there yet?" God, how on Earth was she this childish?
"Yes, actually."
As if on cue, the capital city in the Land of Tea seemed to reveal itself to them. Despite it being an ungodly time, all sorts of noises resounded. Sasuke and Sayu resolved to check into an inn, get some not drug-induced sleep, and be done with their mission by tomorrow.
Sasuke read over the mission details for the tenth time, carefully scouring for any nondescript, useful details that Hiruzen forgot to make obvious. Sayu was singing songs in the shower. Every off-key tune seemed to piss him off more and more.
"Okay! When do we start?" She poked her head through the bathroom door, wearing another one of her crazed grins.
"Let's get it over with at 12pm. We break in, kill him, and make it look like an accident." He shoved aside the mission scroll and instead picked up a book, waiting for Sayu to get ready.
"Alright, let's go." And so they did, checking out of the inn and discreetly making their way to the Wind Daimyo's five-star hotel. Apparently, the Daimyo had guards fanning him while he slept. Sayu headed wherever to lure them out, whereas Sasuke headed towards the Daimyo's room.
He was asleep, snoring away in his king-sized bed. Sasuke brandished a quick-acting, undetectable purple vial of poison, moving to the soon-to-be-dead man's bedside, unsealing the vial and propping it into his mouth. Hopefully, that was that. Given the Daimyo's indulgence in a bit too much dango and mochi, no one would overlook his supposed heart attack.
Sayu was poised right outside the door, slowly sipping sake.
"You're done?" He nodded, and they snuck out of the hotel.
Sasuke cursed as Sayu insisted on a pit stop. At the bar.
"What? We're in the Land of Tea with nothing to do! Might as well." She squinted in mock suspicion,
"You're not going to do everything the Hokage says, are you?"
He should've stormed off and left her there, except splitting up was pure idiocy, and she no doubt knew that. In essence, he was forced to sit down.
Sayu gulped down shot after shot, to which he watched with disdain. After a while, he noticed she began staring at a girl in the corner. He leaned in to whisper.
"Is she dangerous?" She smirked, getting up and staggering towards the girl.
"Yeah. Dangerously hot." Her voice wasn't as drunk-sounding as he thought it would be, and it wasn't his business anyway, so he let her be.
Eyeing her romantic escapades boredly, Sasuke gently shook a shot of whatever, letting the golden liquid slosh around. Hopefully, his demeanour exuded the message 'leave me alone', even to a crowd of drunks.
Half an hour passed, Sasuke having spent it staring into the abyss and plotting evil plans and lamenting how shitty his life was, when he decided enough was enough. Sayu was passionately making out with that girl, so he walked over and practically peeled the two apart.
"Sorry. We're busy." He tried for a friendly smile, but it came out taut and irritated. The girl eeped and scurried away.
Fixing her smudged lipstick and mascara, Sayu glared at him, albeit not so intensely. He grabbed her arm and hauled her towards the exit.
"We are going back to Konoha." His voice was firm and left no room to question it.
"You can't just f*ck everyone you see," Sasuke chided. She rolled her eyes and shook his grip off.
"Only girls, actually."
"What?" He didn't normally need a reaffirmation. Her expression calmed, looking almost bored.
"I don't even like men. Only girls."
"Well, you can't just f*ck every girl you see."
Almost immediately after he said that, Sayu brightened remarkably. She patted him on the back, for reasons unknown.
"Thanks!" Why she was thanking him was a mystery, and he didn't care enough to find out.
They Shunshin-ed towards the outskirts of the country, from which they began their trek back to Konoha. Immediately after they were alone, Sayu did the annoying thing and began blabbing.
"So, what about you?" Ugh. She wanted a conversation. What did he do wrong?
"Are you into girls?" He stared intensely ahead in contemplation.
"I mean, you're not bad-looking for a man. Girls would love you, so how come you just ignore them?" God. His love life: the worst conversational topic ever invented.
Maybe he'd amuse her, if only to kill boredom.
"I've got priorities," Sasuke stated, ending the short-lived conversation. If she was implying he was asexual, he wasn't. Girls could be attractive, lots of whom attention he unwittingly gained. It was simply that he had no time for them. Many would say his good looks were wasted.
Perhaps in some distant futuristic universe, he'd have a pretty wife and kids and Naruto and Itachi and his parents and his clan, all of whom he loved. Well, he couldn't visit that universe, could he? But Sasuke wanted to forge his destiny so it was more than a happy life. His life could be torn-up, pathetic and wretched, but if he managed to scar this world, that would be so worth it.