The burning stares were too much. Airi calmed him down as he hid in the supply closet, her soft head bumping under his chin, and her purrs soothing as he calmed his racing heart.

After he had saved Fuji, things had become tense. Almost as many people were sizing him up as there had been after the massacre those few years ago. It felt like he was stuck back there. They had learned about the seemingly impossible feat after it had gotten leaked by the hospital. It was a combination of nurses, chattering, and Kabuto spreading the story in order to put pressure on Sasuke, and try to make him resent the village so Sasuke would leave it for Orochimaru. Sasuke hated the fact that it was almost working. He wasn't sure how much of this he could take.

The Hyuuga were angered by this. Hyuuga Hima was a main branch Hyuuga working at the hospital as a medic-nin. Only main branch members were allowed to prevent side branch members from figuring out how to remove the seal.

The Hyuuga and the Uchiha always had a frosty relationship. The Uchiha valued family, while the Hyuuga treated theirs like cattle they could brand. That combined with the fact they knew Sasuke was learning sealing and could even make out tenketsu(even if it was only because of the special situation) meant they abhorred him now. It meant that Sasuke stood a real chance, no matter how small, of figuring out how to remove the cursed seal, like how Madara Uchiha had tried to get the Hyuuga to do when they first moved to the village.

Sasuke knew that activating his sharingan was also a big deal. Most Uchiha never did. The fact that he activated it so young, along with saving Fuji's life with the fuinjutsu he had memorized with it made him a victim of serious scrutiny.

His cat spies reported much talk about him around the village. They also reported ANBU searching his room. They probably found the medical fuinjutsu scrolls he had gotten from Rengi and the other medics.

His stomach dropped further and any sense of calm left him

He had convinced Rengi to get them for him even though he knew he wasn't allowed access to them until he was a full fledged medic-nin. Fuinjutsu was dangerous, but he thought his studies with Tenten, Kakashi, and the higher medic's would be enough to handle it. Rengi could get in serious trouble for this.

There were many connotations Fuinjutsu held, not all positive. It was true that the Great Jiraiya-sama, and the revered SEcond and Fourth Hokages were known for their fuinjutsu. But so were other things. When people thought of the ancient art, they thought of the Death of the Fourth Hokage, the enslavement of the Branch Family Hyuuga, Orochimaru's curse mark, and the Nine-tails. He had run to the market to pick up supplies quickly and had already noticed the colder stares.

They just didn't understand! Medical fuinjutsu was different from combative fuinjutsu. It was true that there was some overlap, such as in Tsunade-samas techniques, but medical fuinjutsu required medical knowledge, and medical jutsu's, and had an effect on the body. This could mean seals that controlled hormone levels, seals that clotted blood, seals that filtered out poisons, or seals that could even act as a pacemaker for weak hearts.

Many of these seals were made by Tsunade-sama, but even more were made by other medic-nin. Sasuke had looked at their notes, and had even learned from them on the sly. They were happy to have someone to help them apply simple medical seals when they got tired. These seals included hormone seals to help older women with their thyroids, to help people manage their chronic pain by applying numbing seals to the affected areas, and medical seals that even halted hair loss. Those ones were pretty funny to help apply to older men.

Sasuke was almost 12 now, and had been studying medicine right after the massacre since he was 7-that was a time frame of 5 years he had to learn medical jutsu. Hopefully they would chalk this up to Sasuke being a studious learner and helping these other medics and nothing more.

He moved to stand up, only to wince again.

He really outdid himself working on Fuji. The chakra it had taken to maintain his sharingan for the entire surgery, plus the chakra required to apply the seals along with the medical fuinjutsu meant that he was in the hospital suffering from severe chakra exhaustion.

Any medic worth their salt knew how bad that was. When you used up too much, your coils partially collapsed in on themselves because of the emptiness, and corroded without nothing to maintain them. One incident of severe chakra exhaustion like this one would mean it would take months for Sasuke to fully recover and for his coils to heal. Sasuke had tried water walking in the hospital gardens pond like he had been practicing and had sunken and ruined his hospital gown.

It was mortifying.

He probably couldn't even do basic healing jutsu's now, and wouldn't be able to do them for a couple more weeks, minimum. He had mastered water walking when he was nine and a half, and the fact that he couldn't do that now had tears prickling the corner of his eye.

There was a knock at the closet door door, and he tensed up, wiping at his face.

Fuji peaked her in and he felt a wave of shame come over him. Even if it was to save her life, he had placed tenketsu on her without her consent. They were as small as the tip of a needle and had required extremely precise chakra manipulation that he almost hadn't been able to do, wouldn't have been able to do without his sharingan. He could faintly see them all over her skin in the hallway light.

She must have read the confusion on his face, because she smiled, and closed the door behind her. The lack of light relieved him, and he loosened his grip on Airi.

"I know you were in here because it's your favorite place to go when you cry."

He felt his face warm.

They sat in silence for a bit before she spoke up again.

"I'm not mad at you, you know."

Sasuke slowly looked up.

Her face did a complicated thing, before she sighed.

"I can't say I'm so happy about being sealed like a Hyuuga, but Sasuke, I thought I was going to die. Everyday I went to bed knowing it could be my last day on earth, and there was nothing I could do about it. I felt so sick and tired all the time. I couldn't play with other kids like I wanted to, and everyone stared at me with pity. I had no future."

She looked him in the eyes, and smiled.

"You gave me hope, Sasuke. I've never had that before. Ever since my parents dropped me off and left, I've known I was on borrowed time. But now? I have a future!"

She jumped up suddenly, her head bumping into a glass cleaner bottle in her excitement.

"Did you see that Sasuke? I just jumped straight up, and I didn't get dizzy or faint! Strength is coming from me I never thought possible! I feel like I could run and never stop, and it's all thanks to you!"

She leaned forward, and pulled him into a tight hug, He responded and hugged her back.

"I'm not mad at you. I understand that some people are, but I'm not. Lets get you back to bed now, so you can rest up too. Believe me when I say I know how awful chakra exhaustion feels."

She walked him to his room, opened the door, and gasped.

He looked inside to see Kakashi Hatake.

Sasuke had heard whispers of the man from his clan, when they were still alive. They hated him. Not for having a Uchiha sharingan, but for what it meant. No one who was not of Uchiha blood had ever successfully used a Sharingan. They couldn't turn it off, and it used up too much chakra and they died. That was why Uchiha didn't have to worry about eye thieves when the Hyuuga did due to the Byukugans less chakra intensive nature. Kakashi Hatake changed that.

He was proof that a sharingan could be taken from a Uchiha and transplanted successfully, with the recipient living.

That had never happened before, and set a dangerous precedent. The amount of kidnapping attempts against Uchiha skyrocketed after the world found out about Kakashi.

After Sasuke had become a medic-nin in training, he had demanded to meet with Kakashi and see how the transplant was possible. They humored him, and sent Kakashi over.

Rengi's older sister had done the transplant, and Sasuke wished she was still alive so he could complement her himself. She had rearranged chakra networks in his optic nerve to better accommodate the Sharingan, a technique unique to Rin. Sasuke kept that information to himself. If anyone else found out they would target him next.

In hopes to smooth things over, Kakashi saw his notebooks on sealing and the medical fuinjutsu, and maybe it was remembering his previous Uchiha teammates, maybe it was an apology for not saving his family, but he had offered to teach Sasuke what he knew.

And, of course, check his loyalty to Konoha. They wanted to see how he felt about the village after the Uchiha massacre, and who better to gauge that than Kakashi Hatake, who could earn his trust with his Sharingan and shared history with the clan?

Sasuke wasn't stupid.

Although many seemed to think so. That was a combination of factors, factors that had led to Sasuke being overlooked by Konoha to learn these powerful jutsu under their noses.

For starters, his mutness. He had made strides in therapy, and could speak words and even short sentences, but rarely. When he had emerged, skinny and weak from four months of a coma, and unable to speak, many speculated that his mind had been broken by Itachi's genjutsu and had rendered him unable to speak. That was partially true. But his mind had not been fully broken. Being able to speak was not an indicator of intelligence. Just because Sasuke was silent didn't mean he was any less capable.

Most of Konoha, including the elders and their ancient views, did not feel the same way. They thought of him as an invalid, a cripple.

There was then the fact he decided he would be a medic-nin. Sasuke could go on and on about how the medics were treated. The art of healing was one looked down upon by the hired mercenaries that were Konoha's shinobi. They viewed it as a woman's job, something the faint of heart did because they were supposedly too weak and fragile to fight. Medic nin were barely a step above civilians to many.

The only notable exception was Tsunade-sama, and that was due to her Strength of a Hundred, and because she was a Senju, which gave her a pass in the eyes of Konoha.

When they saw Sasuke, they didn't see a threat. They saw a mute, weak, stupid, medic nin in training, who hadn't even unlocked his Sharingan. Not a threat, especially compared to his older brother,

That was not the case anymore. Sasuke would have no such cover now that his fuinjutsu abilities, and Sharingan were revealed.

"Ah, hello Sasuke-kun. I heard you had quite the experience yesterday. "

Sasuke, of course, said nothing.

"As you know, I have the Sharingan. I'll be training you with it soon, after you recover from your chakra exhaustion. Perhaps I'll even teach you more advanced fuinjutsu now that you seem to have a grasp of it."

Sasuke nodded. Kakashi's eye softened, and Sasuke remembered for all that Kakashi was loyal to Konoha, he did genuinely care about Sasuke too.

"It'll be okay, Sasuke-kun. You'll figure it out."

With a swirl of leaves, he was the only one in the room.

Sasuke sighed, and Airi curled around his feet. He was graduating in less than a year. Kakashi was probably going to be his sensei.

Everything was about to get much more complicated.

Hello! This chapter was a reaction chapter to the last one. because last chapter was a major game changer that I now realize I didn't properly build up to. Sasuke pulled off many things that were cool, but I didn't explain how he did them. This chapter fills in those plotholes.

Also, Sasuke is my favorite character, and in later chapter, we will be treading gary stu territory, but I will be sure to explain how lol.

Stay healthy!