9Chapter 1: Dawn of a New Day
"No matter what you decide to do from now on…
… I will love you forever," said Itachi, before his Edo-Tensei body completely dissolved. At this point, Sasuke noticed that it wasn't just Itachi that broke up into pieces of paper. He saw his hands, the cave and everything around him wither away until only a black void was left.
Moments later.
"Sasuke, good to see that you're awake," said a worried Hokage.
"What happened?" Answered Sasuke, confused about the situation.
"Itachi trapped you in his Tsukuyomi."
"Tsukuyomi?" Sasuke was a bit confused. It would make no sense that Itachi would do that, and besides, his brother was dead.
"The Tsukuyomi is a powerful genjutsu, a product of the Sharingan. It traps the victim in a world where the user has control over every detail. You've sadly been out for a few years. So I've arranged for a private tutor to help you catch up with the academy."
It wasn't before now that Sasuke noticed he was young and innocent again. The 3rd being alive should be a dead giveaway. Along with him being in a hospital, and not a T&I interrogation chamber. Even his dense teammate would have noticed something was off before him.
Later in the day, Sasuke got to leave the hospital for some hours and he decided to test his own strength. If he was Naruto, he'd probably challenge the first chuunin or jounin he met. But no one in their right mind would do that, so he settled for some simple exercises. His first discovery was that his body was working quite well for not being used in a couple of years. On the other hand, being able to prevent muscle deterioration is quite important for a ninja village.
His first idea was to try out the Chidori, however activating his Sharingan proved to be harder than he thought. After an hour, he was forced to accept that he wasn't ready yet. Luckily he didn't need his eyes to activate the Jutsu, only to aim.
"Chidori."
Nothing happened, not even the electric feeling he got the first time he tried it with Kakashi. Perhaps something simpler.
"Henge."
"Kawarimi."
"Bunshin."
Still nothing. It was like if everything he had learnt about chakra manipulation was wrong. His last attempt was, however, successful - a pitiful attempt at the grand fireball technique. It was better than his performance when he was 8-years-old, not that it was any comfort. Because that meant that he was perfectly in shape to perform Jutsu. It just meant that he was most likely an academy student in every way apart from his life and battle experience.
Years later...
He was back in the classroom, waiting for his instructor and the last member of the team. While he was wondering how Itachi could have known that he would end up with Sakura. Did he have a hand in this? Sasuke did, after all, see a black crow flying over his head a week ago. That could've been Itachi's... right? But doubtful, crows were a common bird around Konoha. It would be silly to assume that every one of them carried messages to the Hokage demanding special treatment for his little brother. It also raised a chilling possibility that he was still in a Genjutsu. What was the real world, this, or the one where he was a wanted criminal?
The silence around him attested to the worst thing about the experience, namely the lack of a hyperactive ninja who would with no doubt plan a way to get back on their tardy sensei. Why would Itachi want him to create a bond with a person who simply didn't exist? Or maybe Naruto didn't get to become a ninja. He really should have been looking for his friend, but he had just recently recovered from the effects of the Tsukuyomi. Getting his body in shape and catching up to the rest of his class took most of his time, not to mention all the rest he needed. Quite ironic, being out for years, and still needed lots of sleep.
"Sasuke-kun, are you sure we're meeting up in the right place? What if he came looking for us already, and… and decided to fail us because he couldn't see us?" asked an increasingly nervous Sakura.
He never paid much attention to Sakura in his previous life. No one could argue that she was useless in the start, but what civilian wouldn't be useless in comparison to clan children who all had special training others could only dream of? And later, when she actually improved under the tutelage of Tsunade, he only saw her strength in relation to Naruto and Itachi. Who wouldn't be weak in comparison?
"Hmm, I hope you haven't been sitting inside too long, the air in here isn't good for you."
A kunai whizzed from the direction of Sakura, forcing Kakashi to dodge. Maybe he shouldn't surprise his students by climbing in the window. Fresh, anxious genins had a tendency to be a bit rash when being startled. Of course, they weren't genins yet, which brought him back to what he came there for. "The last member of the team isn't back from his mission before later today, so take the day off and meet me at training ground 3 at 6 am tomorrow morning" he informed them before leaving as fast as he came.
Next day
Sakura was the first to arrive on the training ground. When she saw a young blond academy student doing some warmups. If his fashion sense were anything to judge from, he couldn't be that good of an academy student even. Who wore a black midriff jacket? And the short sword on his back signalised to her that he became a ninja because it was cool. She didn't bother to pay much attention to the kid. She had learnt from the previous day and wasn't the smartest kunoichi in her class for nothing. So today she brought with her enough reading material to last at least half a day.
Sasuke decided to spend his morning helping old ladies with their groceries, hoping that he would stumble upon his sensei.
He was no longer in a hurry.
His one and only goal in life was not to kill Itachi anymore. If anything, he would go out of his way to save him. Was that one the purpose on the genjutsu? To tell Sasuke to never give up on his precious ones? Even if they were responsible for the names on the rock behind him? Could he forgive even if there were no secret orders to wipe out their clan?
When Kakashi arrived at the memorial stone, Sasuke had already fallen asleep. With the calm expression and the drool running down from his mouth, the Jounin noted humorously that he kind of looked like Obito. If Sasuke was anything like his dead teammate, what better way was there to embarrass him in front of the girl he had a crush on. So he threw "Obito" on his shoulders and strolled off towards the training ground much earlier than he had planned.
This was not how Sasuke wanted to wake up from his nap, by being dropped by his sensei.
"Sensei, who is that kid?" asked Sakura, referring to the blond academy student she had seen earlier.
"That's Uzumaki Naruto, he's filling out the last spot."
"How can he be a genin already and not Sasuke-kun?"
"ANBU." Kakashi murmured, a glazed look in his eye.
"What?"
"He's an ANBU-agent, not a genin."
So that's why Sasuke hadn't seen Naruto at the academy.
"Sensei, when did the Kyuubi attack the village?" asked Sasuke suddenly. Hopefully asking innocuous questions now and then would occasionally yield some useful information, and hopefully he wouldn't be sent to a Yamanaka for an interrogation or a mental check - so long as he didn't push his luck.
"9 years ago, why do you ask?"
"Nothing." Sasuke was not trying to draw too much suspicion from a ninja with a motto of 'a ninja must look underneath the underneath'.
"Time for all of us to get better acquainted. Stuff like your likes, dislikes, hobbies and dreams," Kakashi drawled, .
…
"Since there aren't any volunteers, why don't you go first... Obito?"
What should Sasuke say this time? His eyes were no longer filled with hate for his brother. He couldn't actually tell a jounin of the village that his life goal was to save his mass murdering brother and help a boy he'd never meet before. And for his likes? He could take a page from Naruto and say 'what I like is fresh tomato and what I dislike is the 3 months it takes for them to ripen' if he wanted to look like a fool.
But before he could think too much about his response, his thoughts were interrupted by cold steel against his neck.
"Answer," ordered Naruto.
In a panic, he just had to go for it. "Uchiha Sasuke, not Obito. What I like is a fresh tomato and I dislike the 3 months it takes for them to ripen. My dream for the future is to save my precious ones, and my hobbies include mostly training."
He didn't know why he was acting like this. He could keep calm in the darkest parts of Orochimaru's lair while being terrified of his old friend. If only this could make Sakura see him as a fool, but that was probably a bit too optimistic.
Kakashi was, for a moment, worried that he would be the first jounin-sensei to lose a genin within the first 5 minutes of the first team gathering. Normally it took years before teammates tried to kill each other. 'Just my luck,' he thought to himself with a mental eyeroll.
"Why you do that, Naruto?" Kakashi sighed.
"The punishment for insubordination is death," Naruto stated plainly.
Not wanting to risk Sakura's life for an introduction, Kakashi decided to start the real test.
"This is your target for today," he said while holding out two bells."Those with the a bell at noon makes it into the team, those without will be sent back to the academy."
The last part was very clearly directed at Sakura and Sasuke.
"You're not allowed to take the bells from each other, and remember you if you want one you need to come at me with the intent to kill."
At the instant Kakashi said "start", the three of them went into cover. And it didn't take many seconds before a rain of kunai was heading in his direction. In which he dodged by replacing himself with a log in the last second. This lasted for a couple of rounds, each volley just getting bigger and faster than the last. Clearly a product of the Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique.
Sasuke was a bit unsure about what he should be doing. Kakashi could use Kawarimi as much as needed in this terrain, as long as he had enough time to react. Trying to fight would be pointless as Naruto was doing a much better job than he'd any chance of doing. Best case scenario, he would just be in the way.
Before too long, Naruto was back with a new plan with the help of Sakura. If that's what you call being a hostage.
"Give me the bells or she dies!" yelled Naruto, while holding his tanto against her throat.
This had to be the best day in Kakashi's life. Two of his genin had been one wrong move away from death, and he had not even passed them yet. He was definitely writing down some bottles of sake as work related expenses later the day. First he had to resolve this problem. He could try to save Sakura by charging on Naruto, but that would most likely lead to a dead genin. Just giving over the bells would tell Naruto that he's pushover. Given that he'd no idea what purpose Naruto had on the team, that wouldn't be good at all. So what better way to solve it than let Obito have a look.
"Mangekyō."
And just as his eye had activated, Naruto collapsed on the ground. He ran towards Sakura, who was beyond terrified at this point, to help her up and give her some much-needed support.
"The test is over," said a quite tired Kakashi. He had not expected to use that in what was supposed to only be a genin test. "Sasuke, please carry Naruto with you."
After Kakashi had tied Naruto to the tree stump, secure enough to hold an S-class ninja, he gave Sakura and Sasuke a simple question.
"Why should I pass the team?" Kakashi asked with a stern expression.
"If you don't pass Naruto, someone else will. And that will get someone killed," Sasuke answered.
"And why should I pass you?"
"I won't give up on him, even if I have to break some rule in the process. And no enemy will scare Sakura after being on his team, so she'll be useful, eventually."
"I'll guess I'll pass you then, congratulation Sasuke and Sakura, you're now officially genins."
"Sasuke-kun, do you want to go out and eat?" Sakura asked with a bit of enthusiasm. "It's not a date or anything, the rest of the class will be there too. We're going to celebrate becoming ninjas"
Before Sasuke could give a proper response, Kakashi interrupted. "Actually, I want to talk to you Sasuke about something you said earlier"
"Do I have a choice?" Sasuke queried, worried that Kakashi had figured out something was wrong with him.
"No" Kakashi answered, with his usual smug smile.
Author's Note(s): I want to thank EndoplasmicPanda for help and inspiration for this chapter.