The handcuffs were sliced open, allowing Sasuke to massage his sore wrists. Finally.
"Sorry, the suppressors are gonna take some time. Maybe half an hour," Yugito apologised.
"Anyway," she began, glaring at Naruto, "It turns out the whole country is dictated by some guy, and he's got a leash on the place. So we need to get out of here quick." She looked at him expectantly. He stared back, doing absolutely nothing.
"Haha, yeah, about that...There's a cool-down time. We're stuck here for another 18 hours." Sasuke's anger rose. He withheld a flurry of curse words directed at Naruto. If he wasn't the ticket out of here, Sasuke would've wrung his neck several times by now.
He strolled out of the cell, looking around. Nobody else was there.
"Who is this dictator?" If they dictated Konoha, then he might've had an idea who it was. He rejoiced at being able to kill him for the third time.
"I think it's some dude called Danzo." Naruto and Sasuke both recognised the name, of course. Sasuke nearly smiled.
"I'd like to kill him," he proclaimed, a bit too happily. Before he received their contempt and/or outrage, Sasuke delightedly walked off in order to look for Danzo.
As expected, Danzo hogged the Hokage tower entirely for himself. Sasuke stood behind the door, listening in on Danzo's crazed rambles. Using his Sharingan, he found there was something odd about his chakra, also as expected. This was a hundred years after his original present, so Danzo should've been 170 years old. He probably modified his body to keep it alive.
The man was by himself and entirely secluded for what he could see, but would frequently say something to nobody and then replied to himself. If Sasuke hadn't have used the Sharingan, he would've thought Danzo was on a phone call with a co-conspirator. He kept referring to himself using 'we'.
"We've done the paperwork regarding the enacted laws in Fire Country. Now, three prisoners masquerading as tourists were caught. One is a Jinchuuriki. I think this is fabulous." There was a pause, "We may extract the Bijuu and transfer it to ourselves."
"No, we should force it into a vessel. It may take too long to properly seal a Bijuu into us," he countered himself. Now things got even creepier.
Now Danzo's voice contained pure fury. "I call the shots here. You must do what I say. This Bijuu is ours." That was the first time Sasuke heard him use first person. Danzo was batshit crazy. If Sasuke was to sift through the possibilities of what fucked Danzo up, his most plausible one would be a split personality, and his most terrifying one would be that, within Danzo, there was Danzo, and then there was somebody else.
Nevertheless, Sasuke didn't give a shit about this man's mental wellbeing and kicked the door down, storming in to meet the skeleton of a man named Danzo.
The ugliness of Danzo nearly made him recoil. Mottled, grey flesh barely veiled his boney structure. Sallow, sunken, hollow cheekbones protruded, though half his face was practically just a skull. He was certainly ageing, but not dying. Some half-assed source of chakra was keeping him alive.
Danzo blinked back at him with a glassy stare. He didn't move. In fact, the man continued to ramble to himself while working through paperwork. Sasuke didn't even need to use chakra to kill him. A civilian could've barged into Danzo's tower and stabbed him easily. So why hadn't they, if this was a dictatorship?
"Danzo," he spoke, "Why hasn't anybody killed you?" Sasuke decided to be upfront and just ask. With a hollow stare, Danzo's decrepit fingers tapped his chest, where his heart should've been. Sasuke activated the Mangekyo, which revealed something more: bombs. And these bombs weren't ordinary.
They were practically nukes. The only thing that prevented them from going off was the loose attachment to Danzo's revolting heart and its beat. If it stopped beating, they would go off without a doubt. Several miniature nukes were stuffed into Danzo's heart. If they went off, this country and every nearby country - if not the majority of the world - would be entirely decimated. Billions of people would die, whittling down the population to a percent. And with vegetation and animal populations dead too, these weapons could literally kill the world.
Danzo knew he was weak, so instead of strengthening himself, he opted for the ultimate deterrent. Nobody would kill him if it meant destroying the world, and the killer would perish also. Hence, he managed to remain in control and dictate Konoha. Talk of the Bijuu was his hope to get stronger and incite more fear.
"You're a piece of shit," Sasuke muttered, not expecting Danzo to really care. The man was living in a catatonic, distanced state. Sasuke had no choice but to leave him alone. For now. He was about to step outside when a tiny explosion went off in the adjacent building. That was where the Hokage kept all the valuable stuff.
There was a massive hole in the side of the building, and Naruto and Yugito sprinting out whilst filling their arms with valuables, such as the Scroll of Seals, stacks of cash, precious jewellery. They were being chased by various Root ninja.
Sasuke jumped out the window, summoning a bolt of lightning to smite the Root ninja.
"What are you doing?" Because they both looked like complete idiots. They didn't even need all the money and jewellery they stole.
"It's necessary!" Naruto yelled back, struggling to keep hold of everything he's stolen. Sasuke didn't believe him.
"Can we just get out of here?" Yugito nodded towards Konoha's gates. None of them wanted to stay in this shithole of a village any longer.
Sasuke and Yugito examined the Scroll of Seals. Well, he looked at it with his Sharingan and copied numerous forbidden jutsu while the latter examined it. Naruto set up a fire and was voraciously devouring anything he could get his grubby hands on, like fish or chicken or chocolate bars.
"12 hours, by the way," Naruto said in between bites, checking his watch. He went up to Yugito and dragged her next to him, preventing her in-depth studying of the Scroll of Seals. She irritatedly faced him, leaving Sasuke to go over some dumb forbidden jutsu.
"Why are some dimensions ahead of others? Give me your best theory, nerd," he said, reclining against a tree. Given his condescending attitude, Yugito couldn't tell if he already knew the answer and was testing her or, given his stupidity, if he genuinely had no idea.
"I suppose some civilisations start earlier, for one. Or the viscosity of the dark matter of one parallel universe helped it to develop quicker than others."
Naruto hmmed, staring at the stars. Evidently, he didn't comprehend the latter part.
"I lied." His gaze went pensive and serious, "This wasn't a random universe I picked out. It's right next to my original dimension." Sasuke halted his jutsu practice to listen in. Now this bit interested him.
Yugito narrowed her eyes in suspicion. There wasn't much point in getting mad at him for lying. "Where are you taking us after this?" Naruto chuckled, instantly going back to his coy, jokey self.
"I'm gonna take you to one of the dimensions most often frequented by dimension hoppers like me."
"What does that mean?" Yugito asked.
"Dunno," Naruto replied. Before she asked him another question, he patted her head as a dismissal and climbed his tree, "Just go to sleep."
Reluctantly, they both obliged.
Omake
In a far, far, far away land...
Uchiha Sasuke was beyond excited. Today was going to be the second best day of his life! Because today was his audition day. This was the day he was going to fulfill his dream and make it as a J-pop idol! He would smile, sing and dance and everybody would love him.
Sasuke buzzed with excitement when his number was called.
"Ohayo, minna-san! I'm Uchiha Sasuke," he chirped cheerily, briefly bowing in front of the judges. He flashed a quick peace sign.
When his choice song came on, Sasuke began tapping his foot to the beat, readying his vocal cords.
"The snow glows white on the mountain tonight," As he started the song, he smoothly moonwalked, waving his arms to match the rhythm. The words flowed out of Sasuke's lips beautifully. He was acing this.
"Let it go!" He yelled, reaching the climax of the song. Sasuke backflipped. That ought to impress!
"The cold never bothered me anyway," he ended, his sonorous voice leaving the judges speechless. Sasuke was sure it was a good speechless. He eagerly anticipated their answer, staring at them with bright eyes.
"You pass," a judge calmly decided. Sasuke withheld his immense joy. "But," the same judge began, leaving Sasuke tense.
"You need to get a haircut. It looks like a duck's arse."