"That's pretty much it," Sasuke finished, after having stunned Kurama into silence.
"What the fuck?" Kurama seemed awed. He - Sasuke figured he should probably stop referring to him as an 'it' - seemed to stare at Sasuke with a newfound respect.
Footsteps echoed behind him. Kushina visited Kurama very often, much to his chagrin. Sasuke wondered exactly what the two talked about.
"I should go," Sasuke turned to him, nodding, "I'll probably be back." After all, he still had a gazillion questions. He vanished.
Sasuke found himself in some random training ground, viciously attacking a punching bag. He had to perform a series of jutsu on the punching bag, so he wouldn't accidentally punch a hole in it. He imagined it to be...well, it could be anyone. Sasuke had many, many people he didn't like. He imagined it as Hiruzen, Orochimaru, Tobi, Madara, Deidara - the list was endless.
He smirked as he remembered that Deidara was probably a toddler right about now. Sasuke laid down on the grass, staring at the sky. He closed his eyes, sighing in relief.
When he opened his eyes, Minato was staring down at him, looking irritated.
"Oh. It's you," Sasuke said, trying to figure out what Minato wanted. Minato lied down next to him on the grass. He kept frowning.
"We have another mission from the Hokage," Minato told him bitterly. Sasuke rolled his eyes in annoyance. Whenever he was trying to relax, he could always rely on Hiruzen to ruin his good mood.
"Is it an interesting mission, at least?"
"We think that Kirigakure has officially turned hostile, and have allied with Iwa. So, we're going to Iwa, and then to Kirigakure," Minato replied, annoyed.
"What?! That's going to take forever..." Sasuke tried to stifle his annoyance.
"I'll give you the mission scroll in a bit," Minato said. He got up and positioned himself in front of Sasuke's punching bag, easing into a fighting stance. Clearly, he needed to let off steam.
"Is the Orochimaru situation handled?" Sasuke sat up, watching Minato rapidly punch the bag.
"Yep. Hiruzen holed up in his office and is probably bawling his eyes out right now. He's in a horrible mood, which is why we ended up with such a horrible mission."
"Why do you keep calling him Hiruzen? Everyone else calls him 'Hokage-sama'." Sasuke asked, wanting to find out more about Hiruzen and Minato's ill-fated relationship. Minato didn't bother trying to hide his distaste for Hiruzen anymore.
"Mind your own business, Sasuke," Minato's punches sped up.
"Considering Konoha kidnapped me, it kind of is my business," Sasuke retorted. Minato stopped punching suddenly, and sat down next to Sasuke. Miraculously, he magicked up a chess set.
"Wanna play?" Minato used a storage seal, most likely. Sasuke shrugged, wondering why he changed the subject. Although, from experience, most people changed the subject when they lost an argument.
This may have been a test of his intellect. Chess was a very good game to play when you wanted to measure the intelligence of your opponent. Should he downplay his intelligence and make Minato underestimate him?
It wouldn't work out anyway. Minato already had an idea about his intelligence, so he'd figure out that Sasuke wasn't playing seriously. Sasuke had to either win or lose tremendously.
The pieces were perfectly aligned. Sasuke stared at them, calculating all the possible moves in order to win or lose. He decided he'd rather win - otherwise it would've been a blow to his pride. They began playing. Two minutes passed. Sasuke secured Minato's king.
"I can't believe I lost to a 17 year old," Minato rubbed his temples in frustration, his expression conveying his immense disappointment.
"That was stupid of you," Sasuke stated calmly.
"What, losing?"
"No," Sasuke's tone was patient and calm, "The fact that all of you are trying to test my intelligence by getting you to play me. I mean, do you even know the rules?"
Minato looked embarrassed. He facepalmed, "I was trying to guess the rules by watching you play," he admitted, looking ashamed. Sasuke sighed. It wasn't much of a boost to his ego now. Although, he was glad he decided to win, because otherwise they would've known he was downplaying himself.
"Well," Minato shot up, sealing away the chess set. He offered a hand to Sasuke, who reluctantly took it, "Why don't you take an IQ test?"
"That's a horrible idea," Sasuke said, but Minato began dragging him towards the Hokage office anyway. He sighed, letting himself be dragged.
They sat him down on a desk in the centre of a well-lit room. Minato acted as the invigilator, handing him a test paper and guiding him through what to do. It almost felt like he was back in the Academy - not that those were good memories. Sasuke shuddered, remembering how annoying the Academy was - with all those girls draping themselves all over him and those teachers randomly giving him awards. Awful times.
"Is the truth serum we gave you working?" Minato asked, examining Sasuke's expression.
Truth serums worked by reducing the brain's metabolic activity and slowing the speed at which signals were sent to the body from the brain - so you'd say the first thing you thought of, which was often the truth. Except that for Sasuke, lying was his first instinct, so he let them give it to him, knowing he could resist it. Plus, something weird happened to his body when he stopped ageing, so he was pretty sure the effect was null anyway.
"Yep. Working perfectly," Sasuke said, clearly being sarcastic. Minato frowned. "I don't get why you gave me a truth serum anyway."
"It prevents you from deliberately giving the wrong answer, so we can accurately gauge your IQ," his frown deepened, "Or it should. Ugh," Minato laid his head on the table, defeated.
Sasuke began the test. He breezed through it, smirking all the while. He ticked off random boxes without reading the question. There was no way he was going to let them actually figure out his IQ. They were stupid to think he'd go along with it.
"Done," he proclaimed. Minato glared at him, knowing that he didn't even try and that the serum didn't work.
Suddenly, Minato smirked, "You're going to cause Hiruzen a massive headache," he chuckled to himself, taking Sasuke's paper. Apparently, Minato's ire towards the Hokage was stronger than his annoyance at Sasuke.
"Anyway, go rest up," Minato patted his head, ruffling his hair - he hated it when people did that to him. "Big mission tomorrow!" Minato cheerfully proclaimed, now in a very good mood. His mood was as fickle as the tide.
Sasuke huffed, getting up and rapidly getting out of there.
He shook his head, smirking. They're trying so hard and failing so badly. Heh.
"Oh good, you're here. Did you read the details?" Minato chirped at him. Sasuke gave him an annoyed look. He was unusually happy for 5am in the morning. Sasuke hated having to get up so early - honestly, he was so relieved when he went rogue and never had to get up at 5am ever again, until now.
It was so early that it was still dark. Sasuke gave him a tired nod. They began the excruciating, tiresome trek towards Iwagakure.
Omake
Warning: slight sexual themes...again.
Sasuke had discovered something. It was extraordinary, astronomical, stupendous, magnificent, sublime, pulchritudinous - hehe, that was a word he learned. Uchiha Sasuke had discovered...the Internet!
The first thing he did, of course, was check out random websites. There were strange things, like BuzzFeed and Webtoon. There were glorious things, like Duolingo and Facebook. He loved it!
"Ooh, what's this?" He muttered to himself, clicking on a cute little website titled FanFiction. How adorable. People had made their own stories based on a published work! He breezed through various works, thoroughly reading and enjoying them, until he happened upon a category titled 'Naruto'.
"Wait, that moron has an anime named after him?!" Sasuke, slightly enraged, clicked on it anyway, scanning through multiple 'fanfics'. Surprisingly, he didn't hate them. He preferred the fanfics that had his name on though.
Sasuke learned many things. He learned that an OC stood for 'original character', that A/N stood for author's notes, that AU stood for alternate universe. He also learned that two characters' names with a slash in between meant a romantic pairing. He just finished reading a beautifully strange fanfic with the label 'Shikamaru/Temari'.
"Eh, that was a little strange, but it was well-written," he whispered to himself, "Huh?! What's NaruSasu?"
He stared at it, reading the description carefully. It was attached to the romance genre, and also had the labels 'BDSM' and 'lemon'. He didn't know what either of those were.
"I do like lemons," Because lemons were as sour as him. Sasuke was an avid learner, and so, he clicked on it.
He got 5 words into it before he screamed in terror.