Okay. It was fine. He commanded himself to calm down. Something just got added to the list of priorities. Why wasn't his hair growing? Why did it grow back? Questions flooded in his head, all that he had no answer nor even an idea for.
He forced himself to stop questioning. Sasuke pressed the blade of the scissors against his palm, pressuring until blood seeped from a thin line. He swiped it away. There was no cut.
Maybe he should-
Yes, he should try stabbing himself. With a sigh, he plunged the scissors deep into a non-vital area on his arm. He needed a medical ninja: one that wouldn't ask questions. Sasuke shrugged on some clothes, not bothering to sort out his wet hair, and rushed out the door.
He sensed that she was at Training Ground Whatever with the rest of her team. It wasn't smart to Shunshin while injured, but he did so anyway.
"Minato, can I please borrow Rin?" The ninja in question raised a brow apathetically.
"Sasuke, you can't just barge in and steal my students whenever you like,"
"It's urgent," he pleaded, clutching his bleeding shoulder that Minato seemed to have overlooked. Well, Sasuke wasn't so weak as to get defeated by a flesh wound.
However, Rin noticed, and immediately rushed to his aid. Yeah, she'd make a benevolent medic. Hopefully, she wouldn't die in the future. The rest of Team Minato just stared as she prepared her supplies, about to treat Sasuke when he jerked his arm away.
"In private, please." Obito went slack-jawed.
He dragged her away, far from any prying eyes, finally letting her treat his shoulder. Rin stared, befuddled, at her notes.
"Am I healing at an accelerated rate or anything?" Her brown eyes bore into his suspiciously.
"Why would you come to me before a more skilled medical ninja?" Oh, she was suspicious.
"I trust you and your skills," he complimented her, flashing a brief smile, watching her forget her suspicion and practically melt with glee. She looked down, staring intently at the grass, seemingly trying to remember something.
"Okay!" Rin clenched her fist, her eyes sparkling with determination. "I'm going to ask you some questions." Sasuke nodded, bored. At least she wasn't suspicious should something be amiss.
"Do you get enough sleep?"
"Sometimes."
"How often do you use chakra?"
"Very."
"Any chance you could be pregnant?" He rose a brow.
"I'm a man," he replied, trying to mask his offence.
Rin kicked the air absentmindedly,
"Well, we live in a world where people can teleport and shapeshift. It's not impossible," Sasuke rolled his eyes. "And you look like a girl," she whispered. God, he despised children.
"Exactly. We can teleport and shapeshift at will. Why would we get men pregnant, even if we could?" He chose to ignore the latter comment. Rin squinted at him.
"Well, it happened before," she muttered inaudibly.
Ugh. Nevermind. He didn't need to argue with a twelve-year-old girl about pregnancy right now. He shook his head, trying to clear away the scarring thoughts.
"Okay, back to my situation. Is there anything abnormal?" Rin blinked.
"I've never seen anything like this," she admitted.
"Like. Wow, it's so cool. I wonder how it happened." She slapped her cheeks in delight, "You're so cool, Sasuke-san!" He deadpanned.
"Thanks. Tell me what's going on," he commanded, feeling himself tingle with curiosity. Rin shook herself out of her reverie.
She whipped out a notebook and scribbled a simple diagram of mitosis.
"You heal quickly now, but your healing ability is getting faster and faster. When you injure yourself, your cells carry out mitosis quicker than normal, which is when-"
"I know how mitosis works," Unlike some people, Sasuke actually studied in the Academy beyond the scope of knife-throwing.
"I don't know why," she continued, "but it's like your cells lose the 'growth' aspect of mitosis. Cellular senescence has either been delayed or stopped entirely." Sasuke veiled his shock perfectly.
"You're saying I'm not ageing." Why the fuck wasn't he ageing?
...Was this a bad thing? He couldn't decide yet, not unless he had a ten-page explanation on what was going on, with annotations. It was too early to decide whether this was a good thing to be celebrated, or inherently bad. Honestly, the idea of being immortal or whatever he suspected the time travelling fiasco did to him didn't completely suck.
Rin narrowed her eyes suspiciously. Apparently, a simple compliment couldn't prevent her babbling to everyone about his perceived accelerated healing and halted ageing. Sasuke tried his best for a smile, offering Rin his hand.
"Thank you. Do you want to get some dango with me?" She lit up, snatched his hand and refused to let go, dragging him someplace or another. He never bothered acquainting himself with dango shops.
Rin seated herself down, fumbling with a dango stick, attempting (and failing) to balance it on her nose.
"You can't bribe me with dango, you know. I'm not that stupid," she mumbled through a mouthful of dango. Rin was better mannered than most kids her age, but ultimately, she was a kid.
"I know," Sasuke stated, closing his eyes to think up a good lie.
"It's a chakra accident, and it's temporary," he made up, beginning a speech and explanation consisting mostly of lies. Sasuke had an idea of what to do now. He had to figure out why and how, and what better way than to consult a higher being?
Eh, he'd do that tomorrow. Sasuke stood up and slapped a wad of cash on the table. He turned to leave, before figuring he'd pay Rin an actual compliment without ulterior motives,
"You're talented for a kid. Keep it up and you'll seriously be one of the best medical ninja in Konoha." Rin giggled, waving him off.
Sasuke Shunshined to his shitty apartment, collapsed onto his bed and finally began catching up on sleep.
Tomorrow arrived quick enough. The first thing he had to do was meet up with the Hokage for whatever bullshit reason.
"Why did you call me here, Hiruzen? I'm busy." Hiruzen rolled his eyes apathetically.
"You can't be too busy for a meeting with the Hokage."
Something in his eyes hardened more than usual: a sign that things were serious.
"Iwa's time seal. Let's discuss that." Great, because there was no way was he telling this clown of a Kage that he was potentially unageing.
Hiruzen traced a pattern on his desk with a finger, "So, you think someone gave it to Iwa." Sasuke convinced Kushina not to tell Hiruzen about him memorising the seal. They both knew that the impulsive Hiruzen would force them to recreate it, and that would snowball into something disastrous.
"Do you think this time seal is dangerous?" Sasuke didn't hesitate to nod enthusiastically. Yes, this damn thing was dangerous, because if someone else got flung into the past, then he'd lose his foreknowledge advantage!
Hiruzen leant back, seeming amused and unnerved simultaneously, "Well, we have this technique. It was given to us, just before you two came back." Sasuke tried to reign in his shock.
"What?" He didn't need a reaffirmation. Sasuke processed the enormity of the situation, rubbing his temples in frustration.
Why would someone do this? Someone who clearly craved chaos got their grubby hands on a show-stopping technique, and used it to incite war. In fact, Konoha and Iwa probably weren't the only villages, and unfortunately, there was probably some other time traveller roaming around, probably waiting to fuck Sasuke's plans up.
"It only works for the future, so we can't resurrect the Shodaime," Thank god he didn't blab about Edo Tensei. Then again, what was to say they controlled who came?
"If Iwa summoned me, they probably wouldn't have chosen to. I'm a Konoha ninja. They just made an enemy. I don't think you control much of it."
Hiruzen gazed at his desk, almost crestfallen.
"I think we should do it anyway," the man stated, with all the conviction of a fucking clown. Sasuke felt his veins burn up with anger.
"You-" He bit his lip to stop himself from cursing at the Hokage, "You're making a mistake. In the future, there are more enemies than allies for Konoha." He may have killed a few, like Nagato and Konan, but if the whole parallel universes theory was correct, stronger versions of enemies could accidentally be summoned.
This war, to Sasuke, seemed strangely menial, whereas others envisioned the Third War as the end of the world. It was because he knew even more frightening stuff would happen in the future, but he only cared if it involved him. He didn't care about the world's problems, except in the future, the Uchiha clan was the world's problem. And this war was a massive pain in the ass.
Sasuke had to change objective, think smaller. To get what he wanted, this fucking war had to end, and he'd be damned if anybody else was getting summoned from the future. Sasuke had enough of hiding his strength by going covert when he knew he could decimate whole settlements.