hey, i hope you all had a happy new year! i also hope you enjoy sasuke's chapter! let me know what you think of sasuke's characterization in this chapter, im curious.
After his family's massacre, Sasuke had spent five days alone in the manor. Five days alone in what had become his family's mass grave. He sat there with the dead bodies of his parents as they grew colder, and their blood seeped deep into the floor.
He thought of his caring and kind mother, how easy it was for him to talk to her when he was having trouble and how she would calm him down. He thought of his father and the few moments they spent together and their training. And of course, he thought of his brother.
Sasuke had loved his brother, Itachi, more than anything. Itachi had always made time for him, long before his father had turned his eyes on him. Itachi had helped him train in his early days at the academy. But now all of those memories were sour and made Sasuke feel sick. Anger burned inside of him, his brother's words to him repeating over and over in his head.
For five days, Sasuke Uchiha was alone.
By the time Sasuke had been discovered as the sole survivor, he had fully taken his brother's words to heart. He would hunt Itachi down and kill him, avenge his family and build his clan back up.
Sasuke Uchiha was six years old.
Over the next six years, Sasuke excelled in the academy. He was always at the top of his class in every aspect. Teachers praised him, and students admired him. They would comment on how strong he was to do so well after such a tragedy. Sasuke paid them no mind. All he thought about was Itachi and taking him down.
There was one thorn in his side, however. Another kid in the academy called Naruto Uzumaki; he was an annoying kid with basically no talent for any of the ninja arts, and he was always trying to pick fights with him at any point. He never won against Sasuke, but at the very least, it helped Sasuke practice anticipating surprise attacks.
He had been more than a bit surprised when he noticed the loud blonde walk into the classroom the day they were all going to get their team assignments wearing the official ninja headband. Though Sasuke supposed even someone like him could perform a meager clone jutsu. Sasuke closed his eyes and didn't pay him or anyone else in the classroom much attention. He simply waited for their teacher to assign them to teams. Sasuke vaguely knew of a few students with high marks that, while nowhere near as good as him, would be teammates that wouldn't get in his way at the very least.
He didn't need any distractions or anyone slowing him down.
When he opened his eyes again, he suddenly faced with the annoying Naruto. Sasuke narrowed his eyes.
"What do you want?"
"Ugh, Naruto, stop fooling around and gt out of Sasuke-kun's face!"
The blonde ignored whoever had said that and leaned in closer. Sasuke could feel a vein in his temple, starting to pop. He was close to punching this annoyance in the face.
Then, without warning, their lips touched, and they were kissing.
His mind went blank; Sasuke was ready for all sorts of attacks but not this time. He pulled back, his face red and coughed, wiping at his mouth. He looked back at Naruto; he had a hand covering his mouth, and his face was bright red.
'What the hell was that?'
Before anything else could happen, Iruka walked into the classroom. "Alright, alright, everyone sit down. Naruto! Get off of the desktop!"
Iruka went over some bland and unimportant information that Sasuke didn't care about; he simply wanted to meet his Jounin teacher and head out already.
"Alright, next team number seven," Iruka continued. "Will be Sakura Haruno...Naruto Uzumaki...and finally, Sasuke Uchiha."
Sasuke felt his annoyance spike.
"Iruka-sensei," Naruto whined, "why am I on a team with someone like Sasuke-teme?"
Sasuke couldn't stop himself from snorting, glancing over at Naruto. "Try not to drag me down...dead-last."
"What did you call me!?"
"Naruto, come on!"
During the break, Sasuke found a quiet place so that he could eat in peace. His team assignment was less than desirable. He didn't know anything about that Sakura Haruno girl, but he couldn't imagine that she would get in his way. If balancing the team was the goal, then she had to be somewhere in the middle. But that Naruto...Sasuke's face flushed in frustration. He had been easy to beat up and ignore during his academy days, but now they were teammates...and that stupid idiot trying to mess with his head with that stupid kiss.
Sasuke just knew that he had better not get in his way on his path to kill Itachi. He wasn't interested in hurting anyone else, but...
Sasuke gasped when a rag covered his face, and he was pulled backward. This had been the second time today Sasuke had been taken by surprise, and he was already tired of it. He had graduated but was already slipping. Sasuke elbowed his attacker and heard them fall to the floor.
He turned around and saw none other than Naruto on the floor, clutching his stomach. Sasuke felt a vein in his forehead pop. "What are you doing!?"
Naruto didn't answer him, just looked up at Sasuke with a mischevious smirk on his stupid face. Sasuke clenched his face; he has had enough!
But then someone from behind grabbed him, taking a rope and working on tieing his hands behind his back. Before Sasuke could do anything, Naruto had sprung up, his face moving closer and closer to Sasuke's own. Sasuke's mind went blank.
In the blink of an eye, Sasuke found himself bound with rope and on the floor. He blinked a couple of times and glared up at Naruto, who stuck his tongue out at him and then transformed into him before leaving him there on the floor.
Sasuke was going to have his head. They've barely been teammates for a day and look at what happened to him!
Sasuke took a few deep breaths to try and calm himself down and cut himself free from the rope. He stormed off, knowing that their break was almost over and that they would have to get ready to meet their new jounin teacher. Sasuke would simply deal with Naruto later; he wouldn't let Naruto get away with this.
He stuffed his hands into his pockets and headed back toward the classroom.
"Oh, Sasuke-kun, you're back!"
He looked over and saw Sakura walking toward him. She looked nervous and kind of excited at the same time. He could see a faint blush on her cheek, and Sasuke nearly rolled his eyes.
"Where's Naruto?"
"Eh...excuse me?"
"Its time to go back to the class," he said. "Where is Naruto?"
"I...why do you care? Are you two going to fight or something?"
Sasuke didn't answer her.
"Sasuke-kun..." she trailed off. "Sasuke-kun, I know Naruto can be...annoying, believe me, he gets on my nerves too. But you can deal with it. You don't have to stoop to-"
"Who are you to lecture me," he snapped.
Sakura looked shocked.
"Tch," Sasuke turned from her, "Whatever, I'm going back to the classroom, whenever you find Naruto hurry up and bring him. And tell him his little stunt was stupid."
Sasuke walked off and frowned, being on a team with these two was going to be annoying as hell, he could already feel it.
He walked back to the classroom and sat back down in the back corner, waiting for his 'teammates' to come back. Students started filling the room with Sakura and Naruto filling in near the end, so they ended up sitting toward the front of the classroom. One by one jounin showed up and collected their team until finally, it was only Sasuke, Sakura, and Naruto left in the classroom.
This day didn't go at all how Sasuke had imagined it.
Sakura and Naruto were complaining and going back and forth since Naruto seemed to be getting antsy.
'I'm stuck with a bunch of children...'
Sasuke watched as Naruto stuffed an eraser between the door and wall, laughing to himself all the while. Sakura scolded him, but Sasuke could only scoff.
"Give it up dead last," he said, "a Jounin would never fall for that. They're some of the most skilled people in the village."
"Sometimes 'skilled' people can fall for simple attacks," Naruto said while giving Sasuke a sly look.
Sasuke felt his forehead vein throbbing again.
When their Jounin sensei finally showed up, he fell for Naruto's stupid prank hook-line-and-sinker. Sasuke grimaced, he was stuck with another unreliable person it seemed.
Their new sensei was a tall, fit man with spiky gray hair that leaned to the left. He had a mask covering the lower part of his face and nose, his headband was worn in a way to cover his left eye, and had the standard shinobi vest.
The Jounin looked over the genin and rubbed his chin. "So...first impressions and...I don't like you guys. At all." The Jounin turned and motioned for them to follow. "Let's get out of this stuffy room."
Sakura nudged Naruto in his ribs and chastised him, though Sasuke didn't pay too much attention to what she had said to him.
Their new sensei led them up to the roof. "Okay," he said, "Let's introduce ourselves, likes, dislikes, dreams for the future, and all that junk. Go ahead." He motioned with his hand.
Sasuke rolled his eyes.
Naruto folded his arms and eyed the Jounin suspiciously. "Why don't you go first?"
"Yeah," Sakura jumped in quickly. "l-I mean, you can give an example of how you'd like us to introduce ourselves."
"Hmm...okay," he shrugged. "I'm your teacher, Kakashi Hatake. My likes and dislikes are none of your business, nor are my dreams for the future. Oh, but I have a lot of hobbies. Now you go."
Sakura mumbled about something Sasuke didn't pay attention to, and then they started their introductions. The most interesting thing Naruto had said was that he wanted to be Hokage; Sasuke didn't understand why untalented ninja like him insisted on aiming for impossible dreams like that. Sakura was way more reasonable and attainable as far as Sasuke was concerned. She wanted to be a highly skilled ninja and honor her fallen parents. Sasuke could respect a goal like that.
Finally, it was Sasuke's turn. "I'm Sasuke Uchiha, and I have a lot of dislikes and not a lot of likes," he said. "I don't have many hobbies and my dream...well, my goal..." He paused. "My ambition is to resurrect my clan and kill a certain man..."
There was silence after he finished speaking. Sasuke didn't care what they thought of his goals. He was singularly focused and wouldn't let these people hold him back.
Kakashi spoke up. "Great, now that that's over tomorrow, we'll all start our shinobi duties."
"Alright! What's up first!?" Naruto yelled.
"Tomorrow," Kakashi continued, "we're going to do survival training, just the four of us."
This was going to be a waste of time; Sasuke could feel it.
"Oh don't worry, this'll be different from what you've done in the academy," Kakashi said. "This time, I'll be your opponent."
"Isn't that...unfair," Sakura asked. "The three of us against you?"
Kakashi laughed at that and shook his head. "Okay, listen, of the twenty-seven students that graduated from the academy, only nine will truly become genin. Everyone else will be sent back to the academy. This survival exercise has a sixty-six percent of failure."
'Ah,' Sasuke thought, 'I suppose I've been too quick to judge Kakashi. I'll show my skill, move on to genin, and then I'll get real training.'
"Make sure you bring all of your ninja tools," Kakashi said, "and don't eat breakfast. Otherwise, you'll throw up, and that wouldn't be very becoming of a ninja."
Kakashi handed them all papers with the location and other information on it. Sasuke skimmed it before crumpling it and throwing it away.
Even with how difficult this test was supposed to be, he was confident that he'd make it through no problem. He wasn't going to let anything stand the way of his ambition.