"...H-Hon-Hon-Honestly w-wonder w-w-what c-crawled up I-Izuna's ass and d-died..." Five year-old Sasuke sounded out as he read from the book he'd been told never to touch because it was a relic of the clan. Every time he had seen it however, he'd had a burning desire to know what his ancestor who had helped found the village had written. While nobody had been looking, he had slipped the slim volume from its place of honor and started reading.

"Sasuke," his mother said, sneaking up on him looking somewhat disapproving of the fact that he was in the relic room where the clan and family heirlooms that belonged to their branch of the clan were kept. "What are you reading?"

Sasuke quickly snapped the book shut and tried to hide it behind his back, but his mother was too quick for him. Snatching the book out of his hand, his mother tried opening it and looked surprised when she couldn't. Looking at the book, she got a surprised look on her face.

"Sasuke, how did you open this?" his mother asked.

"I just did." Sasuke said, wondering how much trouble he was in.

"Can you show me how?" his mother said, handing him the book. "I promise you won't be in trouble if you do."

Sasuke flipped the book open to the page he had been on wondering why his mother had suddenly gone pale as he decided to solve the mystery of what had crawled up his buncha times great grandfather's brother's butt.

His father had acted really strange when he got home that evening, trying to open the book, and making him open the book. The next morning, a bunch of old people came to look at the book, look at him, and make him open the book and a bunch of scrolls he'd been told to never, ever touch like the book.

"Why him?" his father asked as the stunned looking elders left to talk about boring grown-up stuff amongst themselves. "Why him? Itachi..."

"Resembles someone else now that I think about it, though exactly who escapes me at the moment." one of the elders said. "Most people forget that He was a bit of a late bloomer as well."

The Sandaime Hokage studied the Forbidden Scroll of Seals which had originally been sealed by the Shodai Hokage. He could not for the life of him figure out how the hell Naruto had gotten into it because you had to be keyed into it specifically the way he, his sensei, his students, and his successor had been. Finally, he'd spotted it, and nearly swallowed his pipe when he did so. For a second, he nearly disbelieved what his eyes had told him, but then again, it was staring him in the face and there had been rumors coming out of the Uchiha Compound a few years earlier. Strange, unbelievable rumors, but in the face of what he was seeing...

"C-Call Naruto back to the tower." the Hokage said to one of his ANBU guards.

Though Naruto had gone to bed after his early morning ramen feast which had been to celebrate his unusual graduation which had taken place less than an hour earlier, the boy was dressed and in the Hokage tower in under ten minutes.

"Whaddya want Old Man?" Naruto asked before giving a loud yawn.

"I just wanted to see something." the Hokage said. "Do you think you can open this for me?"

Sure enough, less than a second later, Naruto had popped open Senju Hashirama's seal and had the Forbidden Scroll of Seals which contained a copy of Naruto's seal at the back of it opened and rolled out on the floor.

"Do you think you could do something else for me?" the Hokage asked, his voice strangely tight.

"What?" Naruto asked.

The Hokage grabbed the box of official stamps that were only used for treaty signings. There were four of them, each of which could only be lifted by the Hokage for which they had been made.

"Can you pick one of these up?" the Hokage asked.

After giving a bit of effort and giving up on the Yondaime's, Sandaime's, and Nidaime's stamps in turn, Naruto finally placed his hand on the Shodai Hokage's stamp, looking as if he believed the end result would be the same. There was a look of surprise on everyone's face when Naruto picked up the stamp with effortless ease, and a strange choking sound coming from the doorway where it had looked like Danzo had nearly swallowed his own tongue.

"An experiment?" Koharu asked.

"But when could he have?" Homura replied with a question of his own.

Sasuke tuned out most of the chatter that was his new "team" introducing themselves. He'd known the two idiots for years and didn't need to hear Sakura's squealing to know she was a clingy fangirl, and he didn't need to hear more of Naruto's incessant yapping to know he was an idiot.

"...And, I'm sure I'll reach my dream because I'm Hashirama's reincarnation! The Old Man said so!" Naruto yelled.

Wait. WHAT?!

Oh Hell No!

"Well, he did act like a bit of an idiot in his younger years, but..." the ancient Senju who was nearly blind and had more wrinkles than a crumpled up newspaper said, looking like he was wondering why the boy standing in front of him was asking.

"I see..." Sasuke said, growling slightly.

That idiot, that idiot who had been trying to get his attention for years really was...Really was...

And it was on his team.

Not to sound like that Hyuuga, but it really seemed that Fate really hated him. Why else would they be in the same generation in the same village and in roughly the same clans as before no less?

Sasuke stood on his side of the waterfall listening to Naruto blather on and on about how he was going to bring him back to the village. As the boy chattered on about teams and friendships and ties that he didn't need holding him back in his quest to avenge his clan, his focus wandered and he found his eyes going up, and up, and up until he reached the face of the statue Naruto was standing directly under. Hashirama's face. Turning around, he finally processed exactly where he was standing.

He groaned and buried his face in his hands. Then he brushed past Naruto who had geared himself up for a big fight and continued walking, heading in the opposite direction from his previous course and heading.

"Hey Teme, where are you going?" Naruto screeched from behind him.

"Back to Konoha." Sasuke replied.

"What?! Why?" the idiot yelled.

"We both know how this ends, and even though I don't remember the first time, I'm NOT going through that again." Sasuke replied.

He smirked as he heard the blonde facevault behind him. The very definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. While he was almost completely obsessed with getting revenge for his clan, he wasn't quite that insane. Now that he actually stopped to think about it, there were two other Sannin in the village that he could learn from, so Orochimaru could stuff it.

OMAKE

"Look Izuna, I'm sorry about the eyes and how taking them led to that dick Tobirama killing you when I should've been protecting you, but did you seriously have to kill the entire clan to get back at me?" Sasuke said after his elder brother made his speech about having kept him alive because he needed his brother's eyes.

"...The Fuck?!"