Chapter Text
The smell of blood was the first sign that the world had fractured.
It did not begin as a sudden, violent realization. Instead, it crept into Sasuke’s consciousness as a heavy, suffocating weight, a sickening sweetness that coated the back of his throat before his eyes even cracked open. He had been utterly exhausted from an intensive, unrelenting day of physical conditioning at the academy—hours spent executing precise kata under the scorching sun until his muscles screamed and his skin was slick with sweat. Because of that physical exhaustion, he had surrendered to sleep far too easily, dropping into a deep, defenseless slumber that left him dangerously unguarded.
When he finally stirred, his body felt laden with lead. His throat was parched, a dry irritation prompting him to slide off the edge of his futon to seek a cup of water from the kitchen. It was only when his bare feet made contact with the cold tatami mats that the true nature of the atmosphere hit his hazy, sleep-addled mind.
Iron.
It was the unmistakable, overpowering stench of raw copper and uncoiled mortality. Just like that, the lingering fog of sleep was violently torn away. Every nerve ending in his body fired at once, a sudden spike of adrenaline shocking his heart into a frantic, erratic rhythm. His mind, trained under the strict doctrine of the Uchiha clan, snapped into a state of hyper-vigilant clarity. He did not call out. He did not make a sound.
Moving on pure instinct, he dropped to his knees, slipped his hand beneath his pillow, and gripped the cold, wrapped handle of his standard-issue academy kunai. The metal felt reassuringly solid against his trembling palm, a small anchor of reality in a world that was rapidly losing its form.
He crept out of his bedroom, his back pressed tightly against the dark wooden paneling of the hallway. The Uchiha compound had always been quiet at night, a peaceful sanctuary shielded by high walls and the proud heritage of its protectors. But tonight, the silence was unnatural. It was thick, heavy, and dead. No crickets chirped in the courtyard. No night breeze rustled the shoji screens. There was only the sound of his own shallow, rapid breathing and the rhythmic, terrifying thud of his pulse drumming in his ears.
Guided by an escalating sense of dread, he moved down the corridor toward his parents' master bedroom. With every single step he took, the copper stench grew exponentially stronger, transforming from a subtle taint in the air into a physical wall of odor that made his stomach violently churn. Fear—a primitive, icy terror that he had never experienced in his short seven years of life—stirred deep within his gut. It was a sensation that mocked his training, a paralyzing weight that told him he was already too late.
Abandoning all semblance of ninja stealth, ignoring the rules of caution his father had drilled into him during their brief, stern training sessions, Sasuke reached out with a trembling hand and ripped the shoji door open.
The sight that greeted him instantly seared itself into the front of his mind, a permanent scar on his sanity.
His mother lay perfectly still on the center of the bed. At an initial, desperate glance, she looked entirely peaceful, her features soft and untroubled as if she were merely caught in the middle of a pleasant dream. Everything about her posture suggested normalcy—except for the brutal reality of a heavy, dark iron kunai buried deep within her abdomen. The weapon had been driven through the expensive, pale linen sheets with terrifying force, pinning her body to the mattress beneath.
A massive, grotesque pool of thick crimson fluid had spread outward from the wound, dyeing the pristine white fabric a violent, shocking red. In the dim, ambient moonlight filtering through the high windows, the blood appeared almost black, a dark stain that aggressively disrupted the pale, minimalist aesthetic of the bedroom. The stark contrast between the immaculate, refined tones of the Uchiha household and the raw brutality of her murder was a cognitive dissonance that Sasuke’s mind simply could not process.
Mother, his mind screamed, though no sound escaped his paralyzed throat. Get up. Please, just get up.
In an involuntary reflex of pure, unadulterated shock, Sasuke took a sharp step backward, his heel skidding across the floorboards. Expecting the familiar, dry texture of polished wood, his bare sole instead sank into something thick, warm, and sickeningly wet. The contrast of the heat beneath his foot against the chilly night air caused a violent shiver to race up his spine.
He forced his gaze downward. A fractured, strangled scream finally tore itself from his lungs, a sound completely unrecognizable as human.
He was standing directly in a wide, spreading puddle of dark blood, and resting squarely within that pool was his father’s severed head.
Unlike his mother’s peaceful expression, Fugaku’s face was a mask of frozen, violent shock. His eyes were wide open, staring upward at the ceiling with a vacant, hollow emptiness. Those eyes—which had always looked down at Sasuke with a stern, demanding intensity, parsing his flaws and judging his worth—were now entirely devoid of the formidable life and emotion that had once commanded the entire Uchiha clan. They were nothing more than glassy, lifeless marbles.
Panic seized Sasuke like a physical vice. He clamped both of his hands over his mouth, his fingers digging into his cheeks with enough force to draw bruises, desperately trying to stifle a sudden, violent wave of bile that rose in his throat. But as he bent forward, his vision locked directly with that hollow replica of his own gaze staring back at him from the floor. The resemblance was terrifying. Looking into his father's dead eyes was like looking into a mirror of his own inevitable future, a blank, lifeless prophecy.
His vision swam, the edges of the room blurring into a chaotic vortex of shadows and red. Stumbling backward in a desperate bid to distance himself from the horror, his feet—now heavily saturated and stained with his father's blood—left a neat, macabre trail of small, crimson footprints across the tatami mats. Each footprint was a physical manifestation of his innocence being systematically destroyed.
As he turned his head away, his eyes swept across the rest of the room, only to be confronted with the remaining torso of his father's body sprawled carelessly across the floorboards. Fugaku's right hand was still loosely curled around the hilt of a fine katana, a weapon he hadn't even given the chance to properly unsheathe. The absolute failure of the strongest man he knew, the legendary leader of the military police, completely shattered Sasuke’s worldview.
This time, the physical reaction was entirely beyond his control. Sasuke collapsed to his knees, dropping his kunai as his stomach convulsed violently. He threw up onto the floor, the bitter taste of gastric acid and pure terror mixing with the pervasive smell of iron in the air. The horrific sights, sounds, and smells of that room burned themselves permanently into his memory, setting a foundational layer of trauma that would dictate every single thought he would have for the rest of his life.
He did not remember making the conscious decision to run.
Blind to the terrifying reality that the perpetrator might still be lurking within the deep shadows of the estate, Sasuke sprinted out of the house and plunged into the silent streets of the Uchiha compound. The crisp night air hit his face, but it brought no clarity. He ran toward the grand estate of one of the clan elders, his mind convinced that this had to be an isolated attack, a localized tragedy that the rest of the clan could fix.
His bloody, bare feet left a frantic, chaotic trail of red footprints across the smooth stone pathways of the district. He reached the elder's front doors and burst through them without knocking, screaming for help.
"Someone! Anyone! Help me!"
But there was no salvation waiting for him within those grand walls. There was only a heavy, permanent silence that echoed his own voice back to him. He ran from the main foyer into the tatami rooms, his bloody feet marking the pristine floors of his relatives. It was a pointless, desperate search for a sign of life that was long gone. Bodies lay scattered across the corridors and rooms, broken, bleeding, and entirely still. Every single house he entered presented the same horrific tableau. The entire Uchiha clan—the proudest, most formidable military lineage in the entire Hidden Leaf Village—had been reduced to a collection of silent corpses in the span of a single evening.
Some had passed peacefully, caught completely off-guard in the middle of their sleep, their expressions mimicries of his mother's calm countenance. Others had clearly realized what was happening; their surroundings were completely destroyed, walls shattered by jutsu impacts, floors gouged by blades, and their hands still gripping weapons, proving they had fought tooth and nail until their final, desperate breaths. Yet, regardless of whether they slept or fought, the outcome remained absolute. They were all dead.
Sasuke was operating purely on adrenaline. The sheer magnitude of the shock acted as a psychological shield, preventing his seven-year-old mind from fully digesting the absolute weight of the comprehension. He wasn't thinking about politics, or village security, or the future. He was a child running through a nightmare, desperately seeking a single living soul to tell him that the world wasn't ending.
That desperate search came to a violent halt when he crashed through the entrance of old lady Shiba’s house. She was a kind, elderly civilian woman who lived near the edge of the compound, someone who had always smiled warmly at Sasuke and surreptitiously sneaked him sweet dango whenever he looked upset or overwhelmed by his father's harsh expectations.
He crossed the threshold only to be confronted by a dark, imposing silhouette standing in the center of the dimly lit room. The figure was positioned directly over Shiba's collapsing form, a sharp iron kunai catching a glint of moonlight as it was dragged cleanly across her throat.
"No!" Sasuke screamed, a raw explosion of panic and fury.
Without a shred of tactical planning, driven by a desperate, reckless urge to save the last living remnant of his community, Sasuke lunged forward. He threw his entire weight into the air, his small hand reaching out in a futile attempt to intercept the descending blade.
"Sasuke?"
The figure’s voice cut through the air, carrying a subtle, genuine trace of surprise. The tone was soft, measured, and intimately familiar. It was a voice that had comforted Sasuke through every childhood illness, a voice that had guided his clumsy shuriken throws, a voice he respected above all others.
Sasuke’s feet hit the floorboards, his momentum dying instantly. The figure slowly turned around, and the standard-issue porcelain ANBU mask slipped away, exposing a familiar face. But the eyes that looked down at him were entirely alien. They were a deep, bleeding crimson, and within the irises, three black tomoe spun rapidly before shifting into a complex, hypnotic, and geometric pattern that Sasuke had never seen before in his life.
"Itachi...?" Sasuke’s voice cracked, fracturing under the sudden, immense weight of disbelief. His chest felt tight, as if the oxygen had been entirely vacuumed from the room.
"Genjutsu," Sasuke muttered to himself, his hands flying to his temples as his vision began to spin violently. He squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head until his brain rattled against his skull. "I... you... no, it has to be. This is all a lie. An illusion. It’s just another one of Father’s intense psychological tests to see if I can break a high-level illusion. It isn't real. None of it is real."
His mind spun into a chaotic frenzy, his body growing cold and completely numb. His breathing turned shallow, rapid, and entirely erratic, leaving his lungs far too quickly as hyperventilation gripped his chest.
"Sasuke."
Itachi’s voice was terrifyingly calm, devoid of any malice, yet entirely empty of the warmth it usually carried. Step by slow step, his older brother closed the distance between them. The sound of Itachi's sandals against the bloody floorboards sounded like the tolling of a funeral bell. He reached down and placed his gloved hands softly onto Sasuke's trembling shoulders. The touch was gentle, almost affectionate, anchoring Sasuke's frantic mind back to the physical world.
"You need to breathe, Sasuke," Itachi murmured softly.
With a slow, deliberate movement, Itachi turned Sasuke’s body away from the gruesome sight on the floor—away from the lifeless, bleeding form of the old woman who had loved them both.
"I don't... you... why?" Sasuke’s voice completely shattered, the word leaving him as a pathetic, heartbroken sob. Every boundary of his reality had been dissolved. The brother he idolized, the shining beacon of the Uchiha clan, was standing in a sea of their family's blood.
Itachi let out a soft, long sigh. It was the exact same, weary sigh he always gave whenever Sasuke asked a naive, childish question, or when Sasuke pressed for attention during Itachi's long, grueling missions for the Hokage. It was the sigh of a brother who found the world's questions tedious.
"Answer me!" Sasuke screamed, the sudden explosion of volume ripping from his throat. The familiar, casual mannerisms of his brother, despite the horrific context, temporarily grounded his panic, allowing his mind to desperately grasp at straws, trying to rationalise a situation that defied all human sanity.
For a fraction of a second, a sharp tremor passed through Itachi's expression. He flinched, a subtle crack appearing in the detached, stoic facade of his calm demeanor.
"I... I..." Itachi stammered, his voice wavering for a fleeting moment.
Looking up, Sasuke felt a sudden, desperate surge of hope. He truly believed, for a single heartbeat, that his brother was about to break down, that he would pull Sasuke into a tight embrace and weep, explaining that this was all a horrific mistake or an enemy ambush. But that hope was brutally crushed. An icy, supernatural chill swept through the room as Itachi's grip on his shoulders suddenly tightened, transforming from a comforting gesture into a crushing vice that dug deep into his collarbones.
"Itachi?" Sasuke asked, fear finally completely supplanting his confusion. It was a terrifying, hollow emotion he never thought he would ever experience while standing in the presence of his protective older brother.
"Sasuke, what is your life worth?" Itachi asked, his crimson eyes downcast, fixed on Sasuke's small hands. He spoke the words slowly, pondering the question as if it were the ultimate, definitive metric of a grand, philosophical examination.
"What do you mean? What are you saying?"
"No, never mind. You’re only seven. You don't possess a life—not yet," Itachi murmured, his voice dropping into a rhythmic, detached cadence. "If you were to die here and now, you wouldn't be remembered by history. You have built no legacy. You are far too young to have left a permanent imprint on this world. Your life is an absolute nothing. Yet."
Before Sasuke’s brain could even begin to parse the profound cruelty of those words, Itachi began to laugh. It wasn't the soft, rare chuckle he shared during their quiet moments on the pier; it was a wild, unhinged, and echoing sound that rattled the shoji screens. The sheer insanity of the sound made Sasuke flinch violently, his instincts screaming at him to twist away and run as far as his legs could carry him.
But he couldn't move. The grip on his shoulders only intensified, the leather of Itachi's gloves grinding against his skin. Itachi possessed the immense, terrifying physical strength of an elite ANBU captain, and in his fractured, chaotic state, his physical restraint had completely vanished.
"It was so incredibly easy, Sasuke," Itachi whispered, his face leaning down until his breath brushed against Sasuke's ear. His voice was laced with a bizarre, genuine sense of confusion. "Why was it so easy? All three hundred and forty-three... gone, just like that. No structural alarms were triggered. No grand, flashy battles were fought. Am I truly that exceptional of a shinobi, or perhaps..."
The number echoed in Sasuke's mind, a heavy, devastating weight. Three hundred and forty-three. Every aunt, uncle, cousin, classmate, and elder. The entire population of his world, summarized as a statistic. It couldn't be true. Itachi had to be suffering from a severe psychological break. Perhaps it was a reaction to the secret, experimental medications the clan elders had been whispering about in dark corners lately?
No. As his mind worked frantically, a series of older memories clicked into place. His parents had been arguing bitterly behind closed doors for weeks now, parsing Itachi's increasingly uncharacteristic behavior, warning each other that the boy was reaching a dangerous breaking point. Sasuke had dismissed it as standard, harsh clan criticism at the time, but now the puzzle pieces aligned with agonizing clarity. He remembered the suffocating weight Itachi always carried—the multiple times he had accidentally stumbled upon his brother curled up in darkened corners of the estate, clutching his head and muttering to himself about the crushing, relentless pressure of being the perfect son, the perfect shinobi, the perfect heir. Perfect everything.
The village and the clan had demanded perfection, and the weight had finally broken his mind. He had snapped completely under the strain.
"Maybe..." Itachi’s voice dropped even lower, becoming a muffled, distant whisper, a passing thought spoken aloud into the void. His grip loosened slightly, but Sasuke remained completely paralyzed, frozen solid by a primal terror that locked his joints. "Maybe the Uchiha clan was just that inherently weak. Are you weak, Sasuke?"
Those bleeding, red Mangekyō eyes locked onto his own, and Sasuke recoiled from the blatant, terrifying insanity etched into his brother's features. Those fractured eyes didn't feel like they were looking at him; they seemed to look straight through his skull, examining the very structure of his soul.
"I wonder," Itachi dazed softly, his eyes glazing over with a vacant curiosity. "If I...?"
Slowly, with a deliberate, agonizing lack of haste, Itachi’s hands slid upward from Sasuke's shoulders, his fingers wrapping tightly around Sasuke's small throat. He gave an experimental, firm squeeze.
Immediate, visceral panic seized Sasuke as his airway was instantly clamped shut. A pathetic, strangled squeak escaped his lips as his instinctual scream was abruptly severed at the root. Itachi looked down at him, his expression morphing from detached neutrality into a look of fascinated, delighted, and experimental curiosity, like a child inspecting an insect beneath a glass.
Sasuke thrashed wildly. His body acted on its own, his hands flying up to claw desperately at Itachi's forearms, his legs kicking out against his brother's shins. Itachi didn't even blink, his expression remaining entirely static as Sasuke’s fingernails tore into the skin of his arms, drawing thin lines of blood that dripped down his dark sleeves. The pressure around Sasuke's throat never wavered; it steadily increased, closing off his air and his blood flow.
As darkness began to creep into the peripheral edges of his vision, and the physical room began to dissolve into a black void, Sasuke realized the absolute reality of his situation: he was going to die here, in this room, killed by the hand of the person he loved most. His arms lost their strength, going entirely limp and falling uselessly to his sides. With his very last ounce of fading consciousness, he tried to force a sound from his throat, a final attempt to scream his brother's name, to force Itachi back to reality.
He woke up screaming.
In fact, he had likely been screaming for a long time, the sound ripping from a throat that felt entirely raw, scraped raw as if he had been swallowing glass. The phantom sensation of large, crushing hands strangling the life out of him lingered heavily on his skin, a burning ring of pressure around his neck that made every breath a struggle. His ears were ringing violently with a high-pitched, deafening frequency, making it completely impossible to tell if any actual sound was leaving his mouth or if the screams were entirely trapped within his own skull.
Through the absolute sensory chaos, a voice finally filtered into his consciousness. It wasn't Itachi's cold, detached cadence. It belonged to someone else—someone with long, flowing hair and a warm, distinctly feminine tone that carried an undercurrent of profound worry. Gentle, firm hands reached down and grasped his own flailing, white-knuckled fists, pulling him back from the edge of the numbing, suffocating abyss that threatened to drag him back down into the memory.
In his delirious, nightmare-addled state, completely blind to his actual surroundings, he reached out toward that warmth. "Mother!" he cried out, the word fracturing with an immense, childlike vulnerability.
But as his eyes blinked open, the illusion shattered. The face leaning over him wasn't Mikoto Uchiha. The realized reality of his mother's death crashed back into his mind with the force of a physical blow. A sudden, frantic surge of his own volatile chakra exploded outward from his core, overwhelming his already exhausted nervous system. His vision went completely black, and he plummeted back into unconsciousness.
When Wednesday morning finally arrived, Sasuke left his temporary apartment long before his usual schedule. He didn't just walk; he practically ran through the morning streets toward the academy, his chest tight with a mortifying, burning sense of embarrassment. After the profound humiliation of his nightmare and the weakness of crying out for his long-dead mother, he simply could not bring himself to face his designated caretaker. He physically couldn't handle it.
Sure, the woman assigned by the village administration was incredibly kind, patient, and understanding, but the sheer humiliation and the crushing, agonizing grief of seeing her unfamiliar, well-meaning face instead of the warm, irreplaceable person who was permanently gone was a torment that rotted his pride from the inside out.
She had officially called him out sick the day following that massive psychological episode, forcing him to be escorted to the Yamanaka clinic for the third time that month. He despised that place. He despised the sterile smell of antiseptic, the soft, pitying murmurs of the medical staff, and most of all, he detested the gentle, probing questions of the psych shrinks—people who sat with clipboards and pretended to understand a single shred of the absolute horror that had occurred within the Uchiha compound. They didn't know anything. They hadn't stood in their father's blood.
He had bolted from the apartment at the absolute first light of dawn this morning, determined not to let his caretaker catch him or try to keep him confined to his bed. He had missed far too many classes already, and he absolutely refused to let his academic grades slip. Not now. Not when he had a literal madman running free in the world—a monster he needed to hunt down, corner, and kill.
Kill.
The word was a heavy, blackened iron spike in his mind. As he walked, sudden, unbidden flashbacks of blood-stained linen sheets, severed limbs, and crimson-spattered walls invaded his consciousness. His knees trembled briefly, his stride faltering on the gravel path. Angered by his own physical weakness, Sasuke raised his right hand and sharply slapped his own cheeks, the loud crack echoing in the quiet street. The sudden action drew a few concerned, lingering looks from nearby civilian onlookers, causing his face to turn a bright, embarrassed red before he lowered his head and stormed off toward the academy building.
There was another, far more pragmatic reason he refused to remain stuck in that empty, silent apartment: today was the day the administration was going to officially announce the final cuts for the upcoming term.
The structure of the academy had undergone a massive, unprecedented shift over the last decade, a direct consequence of historical events that the village was still struggling to manage.
Since the official conclusion of the brutal Third Shinobi War, Konoha’s civilian and shinobi population had shot through the roof. With a temporary peace treaty established among the Great Nations, families finally felt secure enough to settle down, resulting in a massive, sweeping baby boom. This massive influx of children had not been viewed as a major logistical issue until roughly three years ago, when educational institutions across Konoha suddenly found themselves completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of enrolling students.
The administrators and teachers of the academy quickly realized that the traditional structure was entirely inadequate. A single classroom could no longer comfortably accommodate the student body; individual classes had ballooned from a manageable twenty students to an average of thirty-five kids per room. One instructor simply could not provide effective, high-level combat and tactical training to that many children without risking severe accidents.
To rectify this logistical nightmare, for the first time since the academy had been officially established by the Second Hokage over a century ago, the administration made the executive decision to split each grade into two distinct classes—and three for the lower, foundational years.
But now that Sasuke was officially advancing into the fifth and final year of his education, the two separate tracks—Class Iruka, which he belonged to, and Class Shina—had to be forcefully merged back into a single, highly competitive group. To an outside civilian observer, this decision might have seemed entirely counterintuitive and stupid, but the reality was dictated by cold, hard economics. The academy simply did not possess the financial funding or the specialized jonin-level instructors required to operate two separate, advanced final-year classes, especially when taking into consideration the immense volume of expensive resources, specialized weaponry, and live-combat tools that went into supporting a final-year student's curriculum.
At the end of the Third Shinobi War, the village's overall military budget had been tightly restricted. The peace treaty signed by the Five Great Shinobi Nations explicitly forbade all participating villages from funding large-scale military operations above a certain, strict threshold to prevent immediate re-armament. With the academy's specific funding effectively cut in half by the council, major structural sacrifices had to be made.
On top of that, the academy as a whole had been pushed significantly down the village's list of internal priorities. The Hokage’s office had instead shifted its primary focus toward expanding the physical footprint of the village itself: constructing more civilian housing, creating commercial jobs, and expanding the heavy stone borders of Konoha's defensive walls and clan districts to accommodate the population boom.
More importantly, the final year of the academy was designed to be a crucible where each individual student transitioned from a theoretical student into an actual, functional military asset. It was the year where they learned to become their own individual shinobi, whether that involved going off to become an apprentice under a master craftsman, entering the logistics division, or trying out for the highly dangerous, specialized sectors of the frontline shinobi workforce.
The final year was entirely about finding out what kind of shinobi the students wanted to aim toward.
To Sasuke, however, those varied career paths didn't matter in the slightest. He didn't need to explore his options or contemplate his identity. He knew exactly what he wanted; he knew precisely who he needed to become to fulfill his life's singular purpose: a Hunter-nin. It was an elite, brutal branch of the black ops that tracked down, neutralized, and completely erased rogue ninja. It was the absolute only career path that would provide him with the tracking skills, the execution techniques, and the international clearance necessary to cross borders and achieve his goal.
Sasuke reached the designated classroom and gripped the old brass handle. He pushed the door open, and it gave the exact same, familiar high-pitched squeak it had made every single day for the last five years. A small, involuntary part of his mind realized that he might actually miss that predictable sound next year, but a far larger, restless part of his soul was buzzing with intense anticipation. He was more than ready to move up in life, to distance himself from the immature antics of his current classmates and step into a refined environment filled exclusively with people who were actually dedicated to this dangerous line of work.
He had been stuck in the exact same room with the exact same people for half a decade; he was entirely ready for a profound change of scenery.
The classroom began to fill rapidly as more anxious, pale-faced students filed through the door, each of them silently praying to hear their name called, desperately hoping to be accepted into next year's consolidated class and earn the right to graduate. The stakes were incredibly high. Out of the forty-six total students currently split across his age group, only twenty would be permitted to continue into the final year. And from those elite twenty, only fifteen would ultimately be allowed to pass the final exam and graduate to receive a headband.
The remaining students who failed to make the cut today would be faced with a grim set of options: leaving the academy entirely to pursue a mundane civilian career path, repeating the entire grueling year from scratch, or being automatically absorbed into the low-level Genin Corps—a branch that lacked specialized jonin guidance and was often used for basic labor or high-risk frontline padding during times of tension.
Now that the grand war was over, the village’s administrative need for sheer numbers had dropped significantly; the tactical focus had shifted entirely toward the quality and individual capability of the genin allowed to graduate. The two classes had just endured an incredibly intense, exhausting week. Last week had been completely filled with gruelling, multi-layered tests that evaluated both their advanced written theory and their raw physical capabilities. While both sectors were graded completely separately, it was the final, combined overall score that ultimately decided who moved forward into the final year and who was cut from the roster.
Sasuke wasn't worried about his own position in the slightest. He had earned the title of Rookie of the Year every single term with absolutely zero competition. There was no mathematical chance he wouldn't move forward; in fact, Sasuke wouldn't be surprised if he was ranked number one across the entire grade. Nobody in his class had ever come close to touching his scores. And this specific class held almost all of the prominent clan heirs—all except for the Nara heir, who was stationed in Class Shina. However, Sasuke had personally observed Shikamaru Nara's analytical skills during joint exercises and was well aware that the boy suffered from his family's signature, paralyzing habit of absolute laziness, which inevitably dragged his practical scores down.
"SASUKE!"
Sasuke couldn't help the sharp, violent flinch that racked his frame as the classroom door slammed against the wall with tremendous force. A chaotic, multi-colored blob of pink and yellow immediately made its way down the stairs toward his desk.
Sage of the Six Paths, next year cannot arrive fast enough.
Ino Yamanaka and Sakura Haruno were unequivocally the most enthusiastic, loud, and overbearing girls in the entire class—and almost never in a productive way. They converged on his desk like a pair of colorful vultures, their voices instantly clashing as they began to bicker over who had the right to sit next to him, completely oblivious to the cold, detached aura he tried to project.
"Class, settle down," a firm, authoritative voice cut through the noise.
Sasuke felt his entire body tense up in instinctual anticipation as Iruka-sensei entered the room, his arms carrying a thick, imposing stack of official documents that held the absolute power to decide their destinies. Sasuke was highly successful in keeping the sudden surge of anxiety completely off his face; neither Yamanaka nor Haruno, who were still lingering beside him, noticed the subtle, rigid change in the tension of his posture.
Despite knowing with absolute certainty that he was guaranteed a spot on the roster, he was still incredibly eager to hear his name called, to have the reality formalized. For the first time in five years, the loud, chaotic classroom plummeted into an instant, absolute silence. The atmospheric tension in the room was completely suffocating, a heavy weight that pressed down on every child's shoulders. Iruka reached down, adjusted his flak jacket, and pulled out the primary sheet of paper containing the names of the top students who had secured their advancement.
"Aburame Shino."
The beetle-clan heir’s demeanor remained as stoic and unreadable as ever, his high collar obscuring any potential facial reaction. There was a faint, barely audible whisper of congratulations from the Hyuga heiress sitting behind him. Hinata, unlike Shino, was not looking good at all; she was incredibly pale, her hands trembling against her desk as she stared down. Sasuke was genuinely unsure if she would possess the mental fortitude to join them next year, but out of all the girls in this classroom, she was by far the most bearable due to her absolute silence.
"Akimichi Choji."
The large, broad-shouldered boy instantly sagged back in his seat, letting out a massive, whistling sigh of immense relief.
Sasuke was beginning to view this name-calling process less as a celebration of achievement and more as a public, agonizing execution for the remaining clan heirs. There were six major clan heirs in this specific age group, so there was always a very real, terrifying statistical chance that one of them might fail to make the top twenty—an event that would be completely disastrous for that heir’s respective family. The sheer political humiliation of an heir being cut from the main track would not be easily swept under the village's diplomatic rug. Choji was immediately given a firm, heavy pat on the back by Kiba Inuzuka and Ino Yamanaka.
"Haruno Sakura."
Sasuke didn't let his face fall, despite the deep, internal wave of disappointment that washed over him at the realization that he would be forced to spend another entire year dealing with the pink-haired girl. However, he couldn't stop himself from reacting with a physical flinch as Sakura let out a piercing, high-pitched scream at the top of her lungs. She bolted out of her seat, her face completely flushed with excitement and her green eyes sparkling with triumph.
Sasuke felt a cold sweat break out on the back of his neck as she turned her intense gaze directly toward him, looking for validation. He immediately snapped his head to the side, opting to stare fixedly out the glass window, completely ignoring her existence. Sasuke knew his practical chances of being entirely free from her were incredibly low; after all, she consistently ranked at the absolute top of the class in written theory and historical work. Her academic thirst for raw knowledge was as boundless as her intolerable emotional outbursts. With the written portion of the examination weighing heavily on the final aggregate, Sakura was just as guaranteed as he was to move forward.
"Sakura-chan, please," Iruka’s voice carried a sharp, stern edge of warning that easily got her to calm down and slide back into her seat, much to Sasuke’s profound relief. But as he watched her, he could only hope that their final-year jonin instructor would possess the ability to handle her outbursts with equal ease. Or perhaps, he thought grimly, this upcoming year would finally serve as a brutal opportunity for her to grow up and mature.
"Hyuga Hinata."
The young heiress slumped forward onto her desk in absolute relief, looking exactly as though an immense, crushing weight had been lifted from her shoulders. Sasuke felt a brief, passing twinge of pity for the girl and the toxic predicament she faced with her family; it was certainly no secret within the village that the main house of the Hyuga clan held a concerning, borderline hostile animosity and an impossible level of expectation toward her.
Kiba immediately reached over and gave her a suffocating, strangling hug that probably didn't help her breathing, but the wild dog-ninja user wasn't out of the woods just yet. Out of all the prominent clan heirs, Kiba was the one who should be the most deeply worried. Sasuke had personally seen his previous academic scores; if it wasn't for the group of civilian troublemakers he regularly skipped classes with, Kiba would have been dead last in written theory.
"Inuzuka Kiba."
Kiba’s sudden, boisterous yell of triumph and immediate boasting was quickly and sharply shut down by Iruka, who was clearly trying to get this entire agonizing process over and done with as quickly as possible—ripping the bandage off, so to speak.
Sasuke felt a sharp prickle of irritation at the realization that he would be spending another year dealing with the loud idiot. The Inuzuka clan was well known for being a feral, brutal, and highly aggressive bunch, but they were a hell of an asset to the village's tracking division. If Kiba had failed to make the cut today, Sasuke could only imagine the absolute chaos and political fury the Inuzuka matriarch would have brought down upon the academy administration in response. Her clan would not have taken that kind of loss well.
"Kokko Masao."
The dark-haired, heavily muscled boy who sat near Kiba perked up instantly, looking just as profoundly surprised by the announcement as Sasuke was. Just as quickly, his bright green eyes filled with pure happiness as the two civilian boys sitting next to him patted him firmly on the back, offering loud congratulations despite the obvious, lingering tint of jealousy visible in their expressions. Masao was a pure brute, possessing raw physical strength that easily rivaled an Akimichi; he would undoubtedly make a solid, durable addition to the frontline rotation.
Sasuke had personally faced Masao once or twice in the academy's official sparring ring; the boy's raw physical power was certainly nothing to laugh at. Still, Sasuke had always just assumed he was a simple muscle head with absolutely no brains or tactical talent. Clearly, that evaluation wasn't entirely true if he had managed to score high enough to make the final cut.
"Osaki Mayumi."
A sharp, high-pitched squeal erupted from the long table situated directly in front of Sasuke. The vibrant, orange-haired girl was immediately swarmed with tight hugs by the two civilian girls she sat next to. Sasuke didn't know much of anything about Osaki, only the singular, incredible detail that she was currently the only student in their entire year who had already successfully signed and secured an active summoning contract with an animal clan.
"Sarutobi Ami."
The entire classroom instantly went completely tense as the purple-haired girl slowly raised her head, a sharp, arrogant smirk taking up the entirety of her face.
Sasuke felt the temperature of the room drop a noticeable degree. He deeply disliked being involved in or looking for the petty social drama that constantly swirled around the academy corridors, and he certainly had no time for the endless gossip. However, the explosive events that had transpired between Haruno, Osaki, Yamanaka, and Sarutobi only three months ago were still heavily on everyone’s mind. The empty, undisturbed wooden chair that sat near Shino and Hinata remained a deeply sensitive, cold topic even now. And now, all of that toxic, lingering social drama was going to follow him directly into the consolidated next year.
Speaking of next year, Sasuke was actually beginning to get a rare sensation of nervousness. There couldn't be many slots left on the paper; that was already eight out of the twenty available positions taken. Sasuke‘s hands clenched a little tighter against each other as he held them in front of his chest, his knuckles turning white.
"Sasuke Uchiha."
An immediate, deafening round of loud congratulations and frantic clapping exploded from the female side of the room, accompanied by a few of the boys. Sasuke had to exert an immense amount of mental control to hold himself back from visibly cringing at the attention, but it served as a useful distraction to keep anyone from noticing his relief. Though he was entirely sure his expression was flawless, no one had caught the very slight, brief tremble in his fingers.
"Yamanaka Ino."
And loudest of all, it was an absolute medical miracle that her piercing, high-pitched scream did not physically shatter the glass windows of the classroom.
Sasuke really hoped the students of the other class couldn't hear these loud idiots from across the hall. Then again, there was the terrifying structural possibility that Class Shina might be just as bad, if not worse; he could only pray they weren't. There were only so many of them his patience could survive before he lost his temper.
As Iruka-sensei loudly yelled at Ino to return to her seat, he simultaneously shifted his demeanor, trying to gently comfort the crying, thoroughly dejected students whose names had not been called from the list.
Sasuke couldn't bring himself to care about their feelings, not being remotely close to a single person in the entire class. In fact, a cold, pragmatic part of his mind felt incredibly good knowing that they would no longer be present to hold his training back. He remembered all those tedious times Iruka had spent repeating elementary tactical concepts or spending extra days on simple subjects when Sasuke had long since understood the material. He watched completely apathetically as the broken students were comforted by their peers.
He was one step closer to killing Itachi. One step closer to his absolute revenge. All he had to do was make it through this final year's graduation, and he would be free to pursue his hunt.
Before the official lunch bell rang, Iruka-sensei moved down the rows, handing out the detailed result papers for the comprehensive exam along with their end-of-year report cards, noting that an official duplicate copy would be sent directly to their designated village guardians later that afternoon.
Sasuke looked down at his own sheet. He had received a 58 out of 60 for the written theory section and a 37 out of 40 for the physical gauntlet, landing a combined overall score of 95 out of 100. Iruka-sensei offered him a warm, proud smile as he handed it over, loudly congratulating him and telling the room that Sasuke had secured the single highest score out of the entire fifth-year bracket.
Sasuke couldn't help the way the corners of his lips instinctively twitched upward into a proud smirk. But then, a sudden, dark memory hit him like a physical blow: he remembered Itachi’s flawless, perfect 100 out of 100 report card from years prior, which had sat on the kitchen counter under their father's proud gaze. The smirk faded from his face instantly, replaced by a cold, hollow sensation.
He could hear the other students around him loudly whispering and comparing their scores. While the written section was technically the most important for their rank, it sounded like absolutely no one in his class had gotten anywhere near his mark in the physical section. The specific results for the physical gauntlet actually surprised him; he normally scored a flawless, perfect 40 out of 40 every single time. The instructors had clearly graded their movements a lot more thoroughly and critically than during any of the previous exams. He knew exactly what that meant: the kid gloves were officially off. The real, dangerous military training was beginning.
"Oh, before you all head out for lunch—" Iruka sensei’s loud voice caused him to look up from his desk, where he was neatly putting all of his result papers away into his bag. "The complete results chart for all the students who successfully made the final cut is officially posted out in the main hall. If you want to see who from Class Shina made it and get a clear idea of exactly who you will be learning with next year, I highly suggest you take a look."
That specific statement had Sasuke genuinely intrigued. He highly doubted he would know any of their names, but it would be incredibly beneficial to see exactly how the top students of the other class performed in direct comparison to him. He absolutely did not want them dragging his educational pace down too much next term.
"Come on, Sakura, I want to see if that lazy ass actually made it," Ino’s loud, grating voice could be heard from across the room as she forcefully pushed the pink-haired girl toward the front door. "And if he didn’t, I swear I'll kick his ass myself and be the absolute first person to tell his parents, because I did not spend two full months trying to motivate and teach his lazy ass just for him to fail the exam and leave me completely alone with that psycho friend of his." Ino complained loudly as the two girls made their way into the crowded hall.
Sasuke made the tactical decision to go to lunch first. Everyone would be heavily crowding the wooden scoreboard right now, including the massive, annoying horde of girls that always seemed to be watching his every movement just a little too closely. He had already been completely chased off his normal, quiet hiding spot by the aviary last week and had been forced to hide on the roof these past few days just to get some peace.
He walked past the quiet cafeteria while the mass of students was glued to the scoreboard. The kitchen staff had prepared fresh chicken katsu don along with takoyaki as a special celebratory treat for his class. Whether that was a celebratory treat or a pity treat depended entirely on the individual student receiving it.
It was incredibly calm up here on the roof—perfectly quiet, with absolutely no watching eyes fixed on his face. It was relaxing, a rare moment of peace that allowed his mind to stop racing. He genuinely wondered why he hadn't thought to sit up here before now.
But as the heavy iron door to the roof suddenly slammed open with a loud, ringing crash, his answer was instantly provided.
A pair of bright, vibrant purple eyes landed squarely on him. The boy blinked owlishly at him for a moment before striding over across the concrete with way too much confidence. Sasuke had absolutely never seen this specific student before in his life—or at least, he had never picked him out of the massive academy crowds. He possessed short, bright blond hair that was styled only by the violent, shifting wind billowing wildly across the open roof. He wore a distinct, dark red jacket over the top of a black button-down shirt, paired with standard shinobi pants and heavy combat boots that were remarkably similar to Sasuke's own.
However, it was the six faint, whisker-like scars etched into the skin of the student’s cheeks that immediately drew his attention. They were incredibly unusual, and Sasuke was genuinely unsure how he had ever managed to miss someone with such distinct facial features in a small village.
"Unique, aren't they?"
Sasuke suddenly realized he was staring directly at the markings. The blonde pre-teen loomed over his sitting form, a tanned finger pointed directly to the scars on his right cheek, a wide, predatory grin stretching across his face that made his indigo eyes look remarkably darker, almost black in the shade.
"The director of the orphanage I lived at put them there," the boy stated, his tone completely casual, as if he were discussing the morning weather. "Wanted to make absolutely sure no one ever mistook me as human."
Sasuke could only raise his right eyebrow in response. Who just went around saying things like that to a complete stranger?
The blonde student seemed to have absolutely no problems with Sasuke’s cold silence as he hoisted himself up, sitting down directly on the safety railing of the roof that Sasuke was resting his back against. The blond ripped open his canvas bag and dug hungrily into his meal, which appeared to be completely home-made, neatly arranged in a wooden bento box.
Looking at the food, Sasuke could still vividly remember the last home-made meal his own mother had made for him: fresh udon, a rolled omelette, rice, and hot miso. That had been during his second year at the academy, before everything went to hell.
"What's wrong with you, gloomy? Didn't make the cut?"
Sasuke hadn't realized he had been completely lost in his own thoughts. He looked up harshly, fixing a cold glare onto the blond who was calmly eyeing him while stuffing a large, crumbed prawn into his mouth. He felt a small vein twitch in his temple.
"I did make the cut," he stated coldly, considering whether the student was from the other class. He would have to be, given that he wasn't on Class Iruka's roster.
"Cool, me too. It's supposed to be a fun final year, but I have my serious doubts about that. These academy teachers are total idiots. I just hope there’ll be some actually interesting students in the mix next term."
The blond stopped chewing, looking down at him. "You interesting?"
Sasuke didn't even know how to begin to answer a question that blunt. He held the boy's gaze, his pride rising. "I got the highest overall score on the advancement exam. I should certainly hope so."
Sasuke took an immense amount of quiet satisfaction from the way his blond companion instantly choked on his rice, coughing violently as he tried to swallow.
"So you're the reclusive Uchiha," the blonde coughed out, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "Word around the building is you've got a screw loose or two. That the whole compound massacre completely screwed you up."
Sasuke was quickly filled with a sharp, burning rage, his fist tightening around his lunchbox. But that anger was quickly and completely quelled by sheer confusion as a tanned, calloused hand suddenly entered his vision. Bright, indigo eyes filled with an intense curiosity and an undercurrent of trouble peered down at him.
"Uzumaki Naruto. Something tells me we're going to get along great."
Before Sasuke could even make the conscious decision to take his new acquaintance's hand, the blond suddenly tipped backward off the safety railing.
Shooting to his feet in alarm, Sasuke slammed his hands against the metal and peered over the edge of the high roof, expecting a drop—only to find the concrete pathway below completely gone and empty. The boy had vanished without a single sound.
"Uzumaki Naruto, huh?" Sasuke muttered to himself, his brow furrowing. Something told him that this Uzumaki was going to be a far more frequent, annoying face in his life from now on.
Filled with a sudden, intense curiosity that overrode his desire for isolation, Sasuke made his way back down the concrete stairs into the main hall, navigating toward the large wooden scoreboard situated right outside the staff room office.
By now, the initial massive crowd of students had mostly dispersed, leaving only a few stragglers looking over the lists, all of whom quickly congratulated him as he approached. His eyes completely ignored them, scanning the board until they found the specific roster sheet for Class Shina.
His eyes widened in genuine surprise at the blond’s recorded marks.
| CLASS SHINA ADVANCEMENT ROSTER |
| Amataki Airi | Written: 50/60 | Physical: 32/40 | Total: 82 |
| Fuma Satomi | Written: 57/60 | Physical: 35/40 | Total: 92 |
| Inuzuka Erika | Written: 49/60 | Physical: 32/40 | Total: 81 |
| Kantaro Kai | Written: 49/60 | Physical: 34/40 | Total: 83 |
| Kinumachi Hide | Written: 40/60 | Physical: 29/40 | Total: 79 |
| Mitsuzu Asano | Written: 51/60 | Physical: 33/40 | Total: 84 |
| Nara Shikamaru | Written: 51/60 | Physical: 34/40 | Total: 85 |
| Sawaru Naomi | Written: 52/60 | Physical: 36/40 | Total: 88 |
| Uzumaki Naruto | Written: 46/60 | Physical: 40/40 | Total: 86 |
| Yatsume Kagami | Written: 56/60 | Physical: 35/40 | Total: 91 |
That physical test was absolutely nothing to scoff at. The chunin teachers who had officially assessed them had explicitly stated that the physical standards were calibrated directly to high-genin evaluation levels. The physical work involved had been brutal, including strength tests that tested deep muscle groups Sasuke didn’t even know he possessed, speed routing through all kinds of hostile terrain, multi-round endurance spars, pure hand-to-hand combat skill, basic tactical knife work, target practice of several moving kinds, and having a complete, flawless mastery of the very first step of advanced chakra control and output.
That last category—chakra control—had been the exact point where most of the students had utterly failed, including himself. It had significantly hurt his own score, dropping him down to a 37. Yet Uzumaki seemed to have had absolutely no trouble with it whatsoever if that perfect 40 out of 40 was accurate. If it wasn't for his remarkably low written theory marks dragging his average down, the blonde would have easily pulled a fast one over Sasuke on the rankings.
Sasuke stared at the name, his fingers digging into his palms. Just who exactly was this Uzumaki Naruto?