This story was originally posted on AO3.

It's the grand funeral of the Hokage, and the skies are raining.

Kakashi had been to many funerals in his life, either in a military rigid row behind ANBU masks as they carried the corpse of a fallen form, or as one of the blank faces staring forlornly at a picture. The bodies often were rarely enough to fill a casket.

Kakashi knew funerals well. He was familiar with the procession of hurt and crying that always followed in waves until people recovered and dwindled in number. The memorial stone would have more visitors tomorrow and then lessen over time. A week later would provide for half of the original. Three weeks later, less would come. A handful would stand silent months later. Kakashi knew in a year, nobody would come at all.

The Hokage would always die- he had retired once before and had been old then. The man was strong, wise ( still so stupid ) and had forgiven too many times to ever rid himself of targets painted on his robe. Kakashi wished he hadn't known it was coming. If not Orochimaru, it would have been another foe or friend and Kakashi was too tired to think otherwise.

His genie, or chunin (the decision had been suspended in wake of the Ichibi's attack) stood silent and somber. Naruto normally vibrated with the rage and energy of the sun. He stood bleak and tiny and so very quiet as the funeral procession turned to a vigil.

Kakashi knew funerals, and he knew the appropriate reactions and thoughts that accompanied them. His students had flown his nest, each going their separate ways in preparation for the finale and now, Kakashi knew they wouldn't need him like they once did.

The following day it still rained. The energy of released chakra from the prior attack left the skies buzzing with invisible energy. A thick static that Kakashi felt along his tongue and skin and twinged like overused nerves. Lightning wouldn't strike today, but it was a near thing.

Naruto still held vigil, somber quiet turning to characteristic rage and anger. He lashed out at his teammates, growling one thing or the other. Sasuke (returned to the hospital, only released to show his bland respect with the rest of the village) hadn't risen to the insults. He sat motionless, apathetic, or uncaring; the boy was too young to already feel familiar with the repetitive cycle of grief and halfhearted condolences.

There had been an incident between Naruto and Sasuke after the funeral, ("I can't believe the old man is gone…") just like Kakashi knew there would be ("Everyone dies. Get over it.") but it hadn't been as violent as he was anticipating ("Eh? How could you say something like that! He was a hero and you're just-." "He's dead. It doesn't matter.")

Which meant that Naruto had punched Sasuke across the face, nearly toppling him from the bed where he was recovering from a pesky mixture of chakra exhaustion and chakra corruption from the curse seal branded on his throat.

Naruto had run off (Kakashi found him on top of the Hokage mountain, but the boy wasn't going to jump. He liked the view.) and Sasuke seethed in his hospital bed. Everything was normal, except then it wasn't but Kakashi could pretend.

A messenger found Kakashi in his favourite tree near the academy grounds, rereading an old favourite while watching some bluebirds fight over a scrap of twine. The messenger alerted Kakashi to an emergency at the hospital, and Kakashi nodded, closed his book, and departed. The healers were all under significant stress with the many bodies to heal and captured enemy nin to interrogate. Any sort of urgency came laced with exhaustion.

"Uchiha has experienced a fit," they told him in the hallways. He walked a tad quicker. "We don't know what happened, we haven't seen anything like it."

Kakashi hummed thoughtfully and kept his hands securely in his pockets. The medi-nin always turned into timid twitching things whenever Kakashi made sudden movements. A few incidents turned into accidents and well, delirium was synonymous with lethal for ANBU. "Have you summoned Anko?"

"She's already been by," the nin confessed worriedly. Jittery, watching Kakashi nervously from the corner of their vision. "She hadn't seen anything like it either. It's...we want to call it a mutation."

Kakashi blinked once in surprise. "A mutation?"

"I- yes?" they said, increasingly stressed. Their walking speed increased, eager to get to Sasuke's room. Less out of concern for Sasuke, more out of fear for the famous Copy-Cat-Nin. "It...we haven't a seal master investigating it yet. The Hyuuga are busy-."

"His curse mark changed?"

"Well," the medi-nin said, gnawing on their lower lip. "It... has, but we haven't detected any changes in his chakra pathways. I want to say they look better."

Kakashi blinked twice, pausing as the medic-nin bolded at the earliest convenience. He watched them go, lazily tracking their skittish prey movements.

"Mmm," Kakashi hummed, tapping his chin as he surveyed the subtle tags placed around Sasuke's door. "Someone's getting higher level precautions."

There was an assortment, each monitoring currents and sudden spikes in Chakra. A few tags placed to establish a loose perimeter, watching for anyone who entered or left the doorway. Nothing elaborate, tags provided in large supply from talented Chunin or a jounin on sick-leave.

The hospital was truly baffled then.

'Huh,' Kakashi thought and entered the room as silently as he normally did.

Sasuke was shirtless and looked better. The flush of exhaustion had faded, the tension creases along the corner of his eyes, and nasal crease were insignificant. The boy's hair was a mess with a visible tangle as large as Pakkun's paw. The brat would hate combing that out whenever he woke.

'He should be tired still,' Kakashi noted, searching for the trademark diagnostic tremor. There was none.

The mutation that affected Sasuke's curse seal was not what Kakashi had imagined. Curse and seal mutations generally followed the contour of a chakra pathway- deviating away towards the extremities in spindly cobweb fingers. Severe mutations could alter entire marks of ink, rendering a seal malignant or null. He could imagine his student having a mutation altering one of the spirals (so eerily similar to a tomoe in Kakashi's opinion) into a distorted mess.

Sasuke's neck was stained red like a wild animal had torn away a piece of flesh. The three swirls hadn't mutated, they inverted and splattered in a symmetrical bloodstain of unknown origin. Ink trails darker than any seal swept away like smoke, flickering organic and obscure. There were no firm lines to denote brush strokes or outer barriers where skin turned to chakra. It simply changed, at a point nearly circular around the bloodied disfigurement.

Kakashi hadn't expected this. No wonder Anko was of no use- the curse mark Orochimaru once lay had been engulfed entirely by a new infection, some obscure rot that ate the site with no mercy.

'That isn't a mutation,' Kakashi thought. 'It's a massacre.'

Kakashi kicked a chair to Sasuke's bedside and found himself lifting his forehead protector and perching on a backrest within one movement. Red-eye swirled as he vigorously scanned all of Sasuke ( so small ) and tracked his chakra network in comparison to the new parasite. There were no tangles, no strange mesh network like fungus mycelium tangling around Sasuke's throat. The grasping snaring roots of Orochimaru's pollution had vanished, black tar purged away with no sign at all.

'How?' he thought, feeling a tad panicked.

He couldn't imagine his sensei being capable of removing Orochimaru's seal initially. Even Kushina would struggle to wash out the Sannin's bite. There was a reason Anko- decades later, paraded her shame with venomous insults and bloodlust.

Kakashi's gifted Sharingan scoured every cell on his student's body. If not for the blemish painting Sasuke's throat, his Sharingan would never have seen a difference.

When Sasuke woke, staring blankly at the ceiling, there was a small gaggle of medi-nin and ANBU waiting outside his room. He breathed unburdened, reacting catatonic to the simple greeting Kakashi offered. Kakashi refused to emote his worry, preferring to read Sasuke's bedside until he grew aware.

A few moments ticking on the clock. Sasuke blinked quickly, grumbling low as he adopted awareness. Sasuke mumbled a low noise of discomfort as stiff limbs cooperated to elevate him to a seated posture.

"You're looking spry," Kakashi said, turning a page with a soft rustle. "The bed-hair adds to it, sleeping princess."

Sasuke lifted one hand shakily and found the snarl near his ear. It would ultimately meet the blade of a kunai. Sasuke scowled, glowering at the far wall while his nails started clawing with absentminded effort.

"Why are you here?" Sasuke asked, voice a hoarse low noise. It sounded raw, Sasuke's accompanying twitch confirmed that theory.

'Ah,' Kakashi thought. 'He has been screaming.'

"Can't a worried teacher visit a sick student?"

"Not you," Sasuke denied, fingers fluttering from his hair down his ear. Fingertips brushed against the stain on his lateral throat, resting on the mark with frightening accuracy for never having seen it. Kakashi didn't tense, but the medi-nin in the doorway did.

"...What happened?" Sasuke asked quietly. The medi-nin fretted, tapping fingers on the clipboard. They confessed Sasuke's most recent medical history- their findings in complicated medical jargon that appealed more to Kakashi than it did Sasuke's education.

Sasuke ignored her- too distracted. That level of negligence didn't suit his personality. A concerning new symptom or question to investigate at a later time.

Sasuke didn't twitch or glare or contort his hands into fists. You were screaming, the nin said. You tried to claw your face, the nin said, you seized, and began laughing at the end.

"Tch," Sasuke clicked his tongue absentmindedly, tracing the whorls and symmetric points of the six-ended-star near his collar bone. He still hadn't seen it, yet his index finger covered each smooth arc with barely any mistake. "Then it's gone?"

"You don't sound surprised," Kakashi said.

Sasuke looked at him, eyes distant and dark. He looked a mess like he existed inside a genjutsu or cared so little for the present he let his mind slip away. He said, in a monotonous sense of musing, "he sheds his skins so many times…" he trailed off without awareness.

Kakashi's chakra spiked when he realized that Sasuke had begun to sway. It signified the simple movement that predicted a lapse into unconsciousness. The medi-nin looked similarly alarmed, already flickering through diagnostic hand signs.

Sasuke said in a murmur too quiet for the ANBU or medi-nin to hear: "...cut him down once..twice...three times?"

"Sasuke," Kakashi said with a low urgency. His one hand-tested for fever. Sasuke blinked slowly, eyes lightening as awareness returned. The boy jolted, flinching and grimacing slightly with one hand clamped over the mark on his neck.

"I'm fine," he bit out angrily, prickly all over with confusion. "What are you looking at?"

'You,' Kakashi didn't say. "What happened to the curse mark, Sasuke?"

He looked at Kakashi as if the man was an idiot. "You put a seal on it, neutralized it so it wouldn't be a problem."

Kakashi felt a slight chill. The medi-nin slipped from the room to fetch something or someone, most likely due to Kakashi's own inner turmoil. 'The medi-nin never did like me.'

Kakashi cleared his throat and forced his voice to be light and uninterested. "Ah, no. It looks like something else removed it. Somehow you made a seal of your own."

"Oh," Sasuke said, looking taken aback. "... I did it?"

Kakashi took note of the situation. When he slid Sasuke a portable mirror, the boy looked startled by the change of the mark on his neck. It wasn't larger, but the inverted colours were impossible to exist without the removal of the underlying structure. Sasuke didn't know that; the new monstrosity was startling enough that the boy accepted whatever Kakashi told him.

It couldn't have been more than an hour until the door opened to the only man Kakashi was relieved to see. It was fortunate this strange incident occurred before the Sannin vanished on another one of his treks. Likely taking Naruto with him.

"Oh," Jiraiya said, recoiling backward in the doorframe. He boggled at Sasuke's throat intently. The boy glared, curving away towards Kakashi.

"Ah, right," Kakashi said, realizing the problem at once. "Sasuke, this is Jiraiya. He is a seal master, and would appreciate examining your curse mark."

"No worries, boy!" the man declared, thrusting one arm straight upwards before nearly shouting, "the great Jiraiya will-."

"No," Sasuke said bluntly. "Get out."

Jiraiya deflated so quickly, Kakashi had to hide the smallest laugh behind his open book. "Maa, don't be so cold. He only wants to take a peek at your little mark."

"He's loud," Sasuke accused. "He reminds me too much of Naruto."

'Well, he isn't wrong.'

"He's been training your teammate actually," explained Kakashi, finally closing his book and setting it aside. Sasuke ignored it as well as Kakashi's close proximity. Kakashi said, "He's an expert in fuinjutsu and has the best grasp on curse marks. If there's anyone who can-."

"Where were you when it first appeared?" Sasuke asked Jiraiya bluntly. His eyes cold as he glared at the older man. "Why couldn't you fix it then?"

Jiraiya wilted, zealous charm waning into a serious demeanor. His smile faltered into a grim line, nodding once in recognition. "I wasn't aware of it. I came once I heard about Orochimaru interfering, but by that time Hatake Kakashi counter sealed it."

Sasuke frowned. "And still somehow It...mutated."

"Yes," Jiraiya said, stepping forward politely. Sasuke looked to the side, arching his neck to better reveal the mark on display. Jiraiya whistled low, crossing both arms at the elbow. He began to tap one foot on the hospital flooring. "You said this appeared today?"

"This morning apparently," Kakashi said, "manifested in less than an hour, engulfed the entire curse mark and hasn't reacted since."

"Unusual," Jiraiya said. "It's not a mutation, there's no trace of the original seal to mutate from. It's more...of a spirit print- like contract seals."

Kakashi straightened at that, peering at the mark intently. "I scanned it with my Sharingan, it didn't interfere with his chakra coils at all. If I hadn't known better, I would say it wasn't even there."

Jiraiya recoiled at that, gaping slightly at the younger boy. "Really? Now that is a surprise. Almost all forms of marks or contracts have chakra marks different from the host or user- even family members have different chakra signs."

Sasuke huffed slightly, glaring at the wall. The mark on his neck looked angry- a bright red looped around into a curved six-point star, defined better by the shapeless black surrounding it like smoke. Occasional thin lines split each section symmetrically, like a lotus bloom or like a dojutsu-

Kakashi flashed a collection of hand signals to Jiraiya, who caught the interpretation immediately. Within moments, both men were setting up a small border of privacy seals, sound-canceling from the ANBU outside and the eavesdropping medi-nin. Kakashi had a horrible gut feeling, one he didn't want to confirm.

"Sasuke," Kakashi rushed, "let me see your Sharingan."

Sasuke, noticing the urgency both men had adopted, quickly bled his vision red. He looked at them both, two tomoe eyes whirling slowly...

"Well, what would you know," Jiraiya said. His face was impossible to read, flat and apathetic as his vision flickered from Sasuke's bloody eyes to the bloody mark. "Are you thinking of a bloodline limit?"

"That's the only thing I can think of," Kakashi confesses quietly. There was no mistake, the Sharingan swirled the exact same colour as the red of Sasuke's new mark. The configuration was backward- one Kakashi had never seen before. It was, without a doubt, a strange inverted Sharingan.

"A Kekkei Genkai?" Sasuke asked, body stiffening in surprise. "But- the Sharingan-"

"It's possible that the Uchiha clan had another hidden gift," Jiraiya said, "or the curse seal Orochimaru placed on you was the catalyst to its emergence. Kakashi, has he done anything peculiar since? Any chakra surges?"

"No, nothing."

"Then I guess we'll have to see what that tadpole can do!"

"What?" Sasuke asked, slapping one hand over the mark with a surge of alarm. "What are you doing?"

Kakashi grimaced as Jiraiya huffed slightly, looking far too eager to experiment on his little genin. "I'm going to trigger your hidden skill! A quick surge of chakra should be enough to temporarily open it up, give us an idea of what we're working with."

Sasuke frowned, and Jiraiya laughed boisterously. "Don't worry about me! I'll make sure your teacher is fine!"

"I don't particularly care," Sasuke said. Kakashi gave up and sighed at that.

Jiraiya made short use of the supplies he brought with him. Tracing out protective seals to prevent any malicious chakra from escaping a perimeter, a protective seal along his own hand to avoid accidental absorption. Sasuke was layered with more ink, spanning up his jaw and down his exposed left arm to monitor his own health.

"Alright kid," Jiraiya said, taking Kakashi's former seat before setting one hand firmly over the circle of Sasuke's throat. "Just sit back and relax."

It was obvious to anyone when Jiraiya started to work. Sasuke flinched, his entire body tensing. A strangled gasp left his mouth, chest fluttering in shallow breaths as he stared sightlessly at the ceiling. Jiraiya grimaced, slowly rotating his hand counterclockwise against Sasuke's neck.

Unsealing was never a pleasant sensation, it made Kakashi feel like his nails were curling back on themselves. Triggering a seal was worse- it felt like skewers gently separating the layers of his skin. Wriggling where nothing should go.

Sasuke made a noise that sounded every bit like a pained animal. With a quiet keen, he slumped forward into Jiraiya's expectant hand. Sasuke shuddered, trembling vigorously with support. Squeezing his eyes closed, Sasuke paled a translucent shade and arched against the foreign chakra.

"You're doing fine, kid," Jiraiya said, rotating his hand a quarter circle more. Sasuke released another low keen. "His seal isn't emitting, there's no external effect."

Kakashi leaned forward, critically surveying the pulsing chakra that reacted to the foreign touch. A minor bump in the proper reaction, a little static shock to get whatever Sasuke found himself with- actually operating.

"No, it isn't," Kakashi said slowly, feeling more perplexed the longer the Sannin prodded. "This isn't reacting like a bloodline limit, there should be some sort of external impact."

"It still could be," Jiraiya defended, although he didn't sound too heartbroken by the thought. "It's accepting my chakra almost like...like a storage scroll. How are his coils?"

"Fine, you're not affecting them at all, only the site."

Jiraiya sighed, withdrawing one hand and letting Sasuke struggle to recover. "I've got one last trick up my sleeve, some sage chakra tends to balance with more body-oriented natural chakra. I was hoping for a yin or yang release, but if it is a spirit contract, this may work instead."

"Sasuke?" Kakashi asked his shuddering student. "Do you want to continue?"

"Shut up," Sasuke grunted, jaw clenched tight enough to fracture enamel. "Do it."

"You heard the kid," Jiraiya said, a wry smile driving the foreign hand seals and the new twist of his hand. This time, it jolted through Sasuke's body and left his limbs contorting. There was a fractured sound that turned wet as Sasuke bit his tongue. His red eyes rolled up, showing only whites for a scarce moment before he fell limp over Jiraiya's supportive hand.

"He's down-."

Kakashi approached eye whirring so fast the whole room turned a crimson haze. "No, he isn't. He's awake, there was a surge as if breaking a genjutsu, he's still conscious."

Jiraiya muttered something along the lines of, 'Are you sure about that?' but handled Sasuke's ragdoll state with appropriate caution. Reclined him back against the pillows, he withdrew his palm from the red mark and grimaced at its new configuration.

"That's definitely a dojutsu," Jiraiya shuddered, the red six-pointed star revolving impossibly slow on its axis, black smoke border somehow maintaining a perfect circle shape. Kakashi looked at it, finding his own eye spinning in synchrony the longer he looked.

Forcing himself to look away, he rubbed one hand against the bridge of his nose. Jiraiya jolted hard, kicking Sasuke's hospital bed by accident.

"By the- did you see that?" the man gaped. "That thing just- just blinked at me!"

"Technically it's a wink, if there's only one," Kakashi said, " I would know."

"Yeah yeah, aren't you special with your fancy eyes," Jiraiya said, snapping his fingers in front of Sasuke's dazed face. "At least his aren't rolled up anymore. Kid, you with us? Uchiha?"

"Sasuke," Kakashi asked calmly. "Can you hear us?"

Sasuke blinked- slow and confused. His movements were drunken, lethargic and lacking all coordination. His pupils failed to focus despite his efforts.

"He's aware, distant, but aware," Jiraiya confirmed with a grimace. "It's odd. A bloodline limit reacting like it's an internal storage seal. But storing what? "

Kakashi scanned Sasuke's chakra network once more, feeling dread as once again, everything was operating properly. "Is this Orochimaru?"

"No, that bastard wishes he managed something like this," Jiraiya chuckled darkly. "This is too perfect, even for him. Did he do anything when you first saw him? Act like this?"

"I presumed it was medication, but he had a similar expression."

"Well, ladies and gentlemen, it looks like we found the bloodline limit," Jiraiya said, cursing quietly immediately after. "What does it do?"

"Sasuke, look at me," Kakashi ordered. "Our first day of training. What test did I give?"

Sasuke looked at him hazily, with pupils dark and unfocused obscured in black iris'. He swayed, the Sharingan seal on his throat spun lazily twice clockwise.

"You…" Sasuke said, his voice slurred and rough. A frog trapped in his throat. Sasuke looked through Kakashi, the eye on his neck spun one more revolution. To both men's horror, Sasuke's eyes watered pink and spilled twin trails of blood. Down the inner corner to his nasal ridge. Sasuke said in a feverish confused urgency, "the...they...it-"

"Whoa kid," Jiraiya soothed, supporting him with both hands. "Calm down, you're fine-."

Sasuke blinked and blood overflowed from an unknown source, dripping down with ruthless abandon like Fang or Pakkun's drool over steak. Kakashi hissed a wordless noise, flashing forward to help hold him up.

Sasuke talked while hopelessly unaware of his surroundings, "the...the bell test. That was passed from- from your Sensei to Sensei to Sensei-"

Sasuke shuddered, shoulders contorting as he arched forward, finally a single drop of blood splattered onto the white sheets of his bed. The eye on his neck spun at a speed of normal Sharingan, staring out at them intensely and Sasuke said: "the- you- they tied him to a tree and you- Minato..?"

Jiraiya tensed. Kakashi let Sasuke slip from his fingers and curl up pitifully on the bed.

Jiraiya waited for a respectful pause. "Kakashi did you-?"

"No, I didn't."

They both stared at Sasuke, who had both hands fisting his hair. Left hand just shy of the tangle that he would have to cut out. A true bird's nest.

"Sasuke Uchiha, where did you hear that name?" Jiraiya asked him.

Sasuke shuddered, whining low in his throat. His eyes kept bleeding and he muttered a dazed and confused: "I don't- he- a Shinigami- I- he told me he, he was-"

Sasuke whined, hands clawing, the spinning eye starting to slow. Sasuke gasped out a wet choked cry. "He is dead and told me? A- a reaper- he died from a reaper death seal, and he told me- I don't-."

"It's fine, relax Sasuke," Kakashi said, tilting his genin's head to meet his dazed and confused eyes. A minor genjutsu and the boy slumped unconscious on his pillow.

The two men sat there, unthinking as the bloodied bed sheet turned black.

"So, that happened," Kakashi said, finally letting loose a tired sigh and running one hand through his hair. "What was that- a vision?"

"That happened in the past," Jiraiya dismissed without any energy. "Maybe a form of...foresight?"

"Is such a thing possible?"

"Mm, oh yes. Met a lovely lady who could see her death. A timid little flower- but I think your Uchiha here somehow has...foresight and past sight?"

Kakashi let his head slump into both hands. "Great, now Naruto will never leave him alone."

Sasuke was released only a day later once he passed a frightening array of medical checkups and one short meeting with T&I. Kakashi had thought it unnecessary, but it was mentioned that with the recent death of the Hokage, all instances of strange activity needed to be reported. A sudden seal mutating, one that previously was placed by the murderer of the Hokage, was alarming enough to investigate.

Kakashi only relaxed when Ibiki found him afterward. Seeking him out with a grim level of respect and admiration.

"You have quite a kid there," Ibiki said. "He's made of something."

"Maa, all my students are," Kakashi shrugged off breezily. He didn't bother to hide the minor anxiety that left his fingers thrumming on his knee. "Must be something in the water."

Ibiki looked at him and smiled grimly. "I didn't search like mental checks, it wasn't given clearance to do so on his record. Preliminary answers were fine, our discussion didn't show any inclination towards questionable cognitive states. No homicidal maniacs on the loose, thank kami for that."

Kakashi slumped slightly in relief. "Sasuke has...always been a bit aloof."

"You mean as cold as ice and more snappy than a damn Inuzuka dog."

Kakashi clutched his heart in the false offense. "So cruel to dogs. If they hear that, they'll never give you peace."

Ibiki scowled. "Peace? I haven't had peace since I first had to evaluate your sorry ass."

Kakashi shrugged one shoulder. Ibiki sighed, running one hand over the bridge of his nose before he took a seat beside Kakashi firmly.

He dropped his voice lower, not drawing privacy seals but speaking soft enough to avoid detection by any environmental hazards. "I saw the report from the sealmaster" Jiraiya "I scanned through some trigger points for subliminal programming. There was no response at all- no reaction to any form of mind-altering Jutsu."

Kakashi hung his head slightly, staring at his hands in his lap. "I hadn't thought there to be anything."

"It was good to check," Ibiki said. "The idea of of...foresight is daunting."

Kakashi exhaled quietly. "I can't let the council know, or he'll get sucked in within seconds. He's already being watched."

"Hear hear," Ibiki agreed, sounding every bit as exhausted by the ordeal. " Especially with the new drafting for Hokage position. We're lucky there's the policy for Daimyo council, otherwise, Danzo Shimura would be chopping heads to take the robe."

Kakashi didn't flinch, but it was a near thing.

"I've left the Uchiha out of the record," Ibiki said quietly, "the council won't hear about it unless they go looking, and I'll know then. As far as medical says, it was a spontaneous mutation of his Sharingan, one that Orochimaru hadn't anticipated. Nothing more."

Kakashi nodded ever so slightly. "Thank you."

"Keep note of what he says," Ibiki said. "If it...seems pressing, tell Nara. I've told Shikaku that anything you say has clearance if you say it's a vision. He doesn't know where they're from, but only that they're legitimate."

"I owe you," Kakashi said.

Ibiki chuckled lowly, a hoarse tired wheeze that betrayed how many years he had been in service, and the cruel might of vocal interrogation Jutsu. "You owe me a lot more than this, Hatake. Keep the kid alive, it's a damn shame what happened to him. Refer him to me if he...starts to...slip."

Kakashi knew that he wasn't referring to the seal. He nodded once more, and Ibiki left as quietly and as formally as he arrived.

Sasuke made his way home without any problems. Kakashi trailed him on the roof just to assure the boy didn't go so far as to faint in public. Sasuke seemed normal again, hands lodged in his pockets and head hunkered slightly downward. He kicked a rock with devastating precision, nailing a broken flower pot in its center and shattering it further. Sasuke made his way back to the Uchiha district, freezing solidly at its front gates as if turned to stone.

Kakashi waited, posture a mimicry of gargoyles as he perched on a rooftop observing. Sasuke stood there as silent as a ghost for minutes. Kakashi began to consider approaching the boy when it neared an hour- but Sasuke strode forward in jerky steps.

He recovered, vanishing further in the district out of sight.

Well, it wasn't anything Kakashi couldn't investigate during training tomorrow.

Sasuke looked as exhausted and annoyed as Kakashi felt on average daily, except he had the boldness to show it.

Naruto, equal parts brave and equal parts orange, charged Sasuke and tackled him against a tree. Sasuke hit the bark with wheezing exhale. Naruto thrust one fist under Sasuke's jaw threateningly, and shouted: "What have you been doing in the hospital, you idiot? Don't you know you worried us?"
Sasuke scowled immediately, "it isn't like I chose to be there!"

"You coulda' fooled me! You were cozying it all up for days! I know Gaara didn't beat you that badly-."

"I didn't get beat-"

"And you took pervy sage too! Teacher-stealer!"

Kakashi thanked everything he held holy that Jiraiya hadn't gone so far as to tell Naruto the true reason for Sasuke's ailment.

"And what's this crap I keep hearing about? You a fortune teller now, you moron? Eh?"

'Or not,' Kakashi thought.

Sasuke jerked his arms up and managed to push Naruto away. Naruto, shrieking loud enough to disturb a flock of nearby birds, pointed one hand accusingly. "Oi! You'll pay for that!"

"Make me!"

Sakura, looking just as resigned, looked up the tree at Kakashi. "Are you going to break them up? They'll be at this all day if you let them, and Sasuke-Kun just got out of the hospital!"

Well, she wasn't wrong. "Eh, they can play for a while until they wear themselves out."

Sakura looked at the two boys skeptically. Naruto was chewing angrily on Sasuke's right ear, and Sasuke was trying to get the boy to let go by pulling back forcefully on his left big toe. Sakura sighed, "are you sure they're playing?"

"Like puppies," Kakashi said. "Alright my little genin! Let's do something fun for today."

Naruto and Sasuke froze and gazed up blankly. Naruto said while still biting Sasuke's ear: "som'th'n diff'rn'?"

"Yes, different," Kakashi said. "Naruto, stop biting Sasuke, it's unhygienic. Sasuke, stop trying to break Naruto's toes."

Naruto waited, before shrieking. "You aren't going to say anything about my toes? That's not fair!"

"Well, I think we all know already that your feet aren't hygienic."

"Sensei!"

Sakura didn't laugh, but she looked close to it as the two struggled to separate from their pile of limbs. Kakashi hopped down lightly, looking down at the mess fondly. "Aren't you two the cutest puppy pile."

"Cute?" Sasuke asked outraged while Naruto demanded furious, "with teme?"

"Come on!" Kakashi whistled a little note, waving goodbye as he started off deeper into the training ground, Sakura walking at his side. She didn't hide her laugh when behind them, Naruto started shrieking again about broken toes.

The water of the small lake connected to the training ground shimmered in the sun. There were a few clouds overheads, lingering remnants of the rainstorms a few days before. The grass smelled fresh and the dirt heavy under their feet. They left footprints through the patches of mud and crumpled persistent ant hills that rose despite the saturation.

"Ugh, it smells so weird out here!" Naruto complained, stretching both arms behind his neck. He arched backward, maintaining balance as his spine cracked loudly. "Like dirt and... more dirt."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "It's called petrichor."

Naruto misinterpreted it. "No! You're a chore!"

"Naruto he said petrichor!" Sakura laughed, "although, I can't exactly argue with you being a chore…"

"Hey!" Naruto sulked. "I'm not a chore! Pervy sage said I was a good student!"

Sakura huffed, blowing a strand of bangs that hung into her face. "Naruto, who is this...sage you keep talking about? Sasuke-Kun, you met him?"

Sasuke grunted quietly. Naruto shot up in delight, a wide smile splitting his face in two. Kakashi ignored him, reclining back on his elbows. The two clouds up there were awfully persistent.

"Pervy sage!" Naruto said, absolutely thrilled. "He's my teacher! Err- not saying that you aren't my teacher, Kakashi-Sensei!"

Kakashi didn't look away from the bright sky. "Mm, it's common for shinobi to have multiple teachers. Shinobi tend to specialize in particular areas of study or practice, so it's only natural to learn from more specific teachers."

"Yeah! What Kakashi-sensei said!" Naruto said, "Pervy sage is the best! He's really cool and has all these stories and carries around a big scroll! He got me the toads!"

Sakura blinked quickly. "So that's where you summoned that massive toad!"

"Yeah! He threw me off a cliff and pow! I summoned it! I spent like, an entire day riding on it's back to show it I'm boss, oh I had to skip supper even!"

"Naruto clearly has sacrificed a lot," Kakashi said dryly, accepting the rapid halfhearted smacks from his student in question.

"But how do you know him, Sasuke-Kun?" Sakura asked, surveying him rather attentively. "I thought you were…"

"In the hospital?" Sasuke finished for her bitterly. "He came by."

Naruto sniffed and grumbled under his breath, saying nothing as Sasuke sulked. Sakura hunkered down a little more, looking dejected. Kakashi sighed, it looked like they'd have to get on with actual training now.

"Sakura," he instructed calmly. "Sasuke-Kun experienced a minor complication after a sealing difficulty."

"You mean that thing Orochimaru did!"

'Why can't they all mind their own business? It's making my life so hard.' "Yes, that."

"You mean that weird thing that made you all mean and black?" Naruto asked, nose scrunching up in memory. "Didn't it make you all...twitchy and uh...rabid?"

"Rabid? Naruto! He isn't a wild squirrel!"

"Well look at his hair! Maybe he is like...a badger or something!"

Kakashi sighed and slumped a tad. "Naruto, Sakura, your teammate is not a wild animal."

"Right," Naruto moped, apologizing wholeheartedly. "Sorry teme…"

Sasuke had been awfully quiet the entire time, which was suspicious. Kakashi spared him half a look. Sasuke was sitting there still, all four of them making a loose circle in the dryest patch of grass. Naruto had built himself a small nest from the grass he tore up by the fistful.

Sasuke hummed flatly, staring down at his hands. The wide collar of his jacket hid his neck from view, but the strangely subdued tone of his voice was the largest indicator of something being amiss.

"Sasuke?" Sakura asked, tilting her head a little to the right. "Naruto apologized, and we didn't mean it!"

Sasuke was still a moment longer before he rolled his neck and actively seemed to shake himself out of a trance. He scowled at both of them, crossing his arms pointedly. "Naruto is an idiot."

"Ah, say that again! Try me, teme!"

Kakashi yawned loud and fake. "Well, look at the time!"

Sakura deadpanned. "You were two hours late, sensei."

"Time to start training then! I promised you all something new, mm?"

"Yeah!" Naruto cheered, climbing to his feet and grinding one knee into his nest of grass. "Something new! I bet it's gonna be an amazing new Jutsu! Oh oh! Can you show us how to make like, really big awesome water dragons? Or- I know! Show us how to do your sparky-hand thing!"

Sakura growled, "Naruto you idiot! Sasuke already knows how to do Chidori!"

"Aww, but I wanna learn how!"

Sasuke clicked his tongue and obediently rose to his feet as Kakashi led them towards the flat surface of the water. Naruto kept guessing incorrectly, Sakura kept explaining why his guesses were ridiculous, and Sasuke hid his face in his jacket. An overall normal day.

"Alright, little genin," Kakashi said. "I mentioned that it's normal for shinobi to have multiple teachers. Can you tell me who in the village would be another suitable sensei?"

Naruto adopted his usual expression of confusion, while Sakura fell into rapid brainstorming. Sasuke closed his eyes and didn't bother with the task at all.

"Well, pervy sage was a teacher, because he had all these cool toads and weird things he made me do."

"Because each person has a different skillset and is better suited for different things," Sakura translated into a higher level. "Naruto can make a lot of clones, so he could learn from someone who can sustain more than...uh...one without fainting, sorry sensei."

Kakashi wilted, and Naruto nearly fell onto his back laughing. "Hah! She sure showed you, sensei!"

"Okay yes, fine, that may be true, but I do have skills others don't."

"Yeah right!" Naruto kept laughing. "Your best skill is being able to read and walk at the same time!"

Sakura smacked her forehead. "Naruto anyone can do that!"

"Wha? But how do you not walk into walls?"

Kakashi should have known better than to ask such an open-ended question to his students. " Anyways, how about this. What skills would suit Naruto's abilities?"

Sakura gave Naruto an unreadable expression, then grimaced outright. "Ugh, him? Maybe he could...be an armrest or something."

Sasuke hid his chuckle, but the quiet noise of it relaxed whatever tension remained. It took a short while until the three were actively trying to think of an appropriate answer, struggling a little from a lack of experience.

"He...has a lot of chakra…" Sakura said. She tapped on her bottom lip as she thought. "Maybe if there's...jutsu that needs a lot of chakra? Is there a way to share chakra?"

"No, foreign chakra almost always reacts badly," Kakashi corrected. " But, that means Naruto could potentially use techniques that are very chakra demanding."

"Hah!" Naruto preened. "Suck on that, teme! I can do three water dragons!"

Sasuke, knowing full well that neither of them knew the hand signs for the water Jutsu, said: "I can do four."

Naruto shrieked, lunging forward with curled fingers. Kakashi lifted one leg and held back Naruto's furious filled dog-sized frame. "Now then, what about Sakura?"

Naruto pouted and slumped to the ground dramatically. "Well, she punches hard. Maybe she can take lessons from that weird green person-."

"Gai?" Kakashi asked, feeling near faint at that mashup. "Ah, maybe...not. What do you think, Sasuke?"

Sasuke was ignoring them all, staring out over the water with an unreadable expression. Kakashi kept his body relaxed but became alert to every postural change in his student. "Any ideas for your teammate?"

Sasuke looked back at them slowly, tucking his head into his high collar once again. "She has pathetic chakra reserves. Using any jutsu is stupid."

Naruto rose to the bait. "Hey! Don't be mean to her! She's actually trying, and you're staring at the water like- like a jerk!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes, and Naruto once again looked ready to shout. Kakashi intervened with forced casualness. "Sasuke? What do you think Sakura could do with limited chakra reserves?"

Sasuke looked at her. A second stretched into a handful, where even Sakura fidgeted and began to slump dejected into the ground. Her eyes were a tad glassy, looking distraught by his silence.

When Sasuke spoke after such a long bout of silence, it had a strange level of confusion to it. "Taijutsu, with chakra reinforcement."

Kakashi nearly jolted. "Well, that's a thought." He pondered the idea longer, tilting his head after some contemplation. "That's... hmm."

"Reinforcement?" Sakura echoed, blinking oblivious. "Like...a shield?"

"No, chakra reinforcement is using chakra to strengthen your body," Kakashi corrected, a tad distracted. "Similar to how you all learned to walk on trees. Instead of using the bare minimum, you apply more chakra to strengthen your moves."

Sakura's eyes turned glassy- she ducked her head to hide her small honest smile of delight. "I- yes! I won't let you down!"

"Not him," Sasuke interrupted sharply. "He...doesn't have that specialty."

Naruto crossed his arms. "Eh? Then who does! Kakashi-sensei is the best guy around! Well, besides pervy sage…"

"Don't be stupid! Have you ever seen Sensei use taijutsu in a fight?"

Kakashi slumped. "You both know that I am a jounin, right?"

"Yeah, but maybe you're secretly like…" Naruto said, "...really bad."

"Don't say that! He's our jounin sensei!"

"Okay, enough of being mean to me," Kakashi huffed. "What are Sasuke's strengths then?"

"He's a really big jerk! That's gotta count!" Naruto offered without hesitation. "He's a feral badger! That's why that bastard's bite didn't work! He's got rabies!"

"Sasuke-Kun does not have rabies!"

Sasuke didn't look particularly bothered by all the attention. He had been remarkably calm as of late, less easy to anger as well.

Naruto huffed, cheek puffing before he blew out air obnoxiously. " Fine! He….he's... okay with kunai."

Sakura brightened visibly. "Sasuke-Kun is really good at taijutsu too! And he picked up your Chidori so fast, sensei!"

"Right," Kakashi elaborated. "Because my skills and abilities correlate well with Sasuke's abilities."

Sasuke offered a bland tch, and Sakura once more fell deep into thought. "But...sensei what… are your abilities? I mean, you have a lot of jutsu…"

"And a cool eye!" Naruto shouted. "And a ton of dogs and...and…"

Kakashi waited and gave Naruto time to finish his thought. Finally, Naruto pumped one fist and victoriously shouted, "you're a tracker! You sniff out things!"

"Good job, Naruto," Kakashi said. "Although tracking isn't just...sniffing things. But yes, that's one of my particularly stronger skills."

Sakura looked excited, for once she and Naruto seemed to be on the same page. They looked at Sasuke, noting his sullen and withdrawn contributions. "What do you think, Sasuke-Kun? You spent time training with Kakashi-Sensei!"

Sasuke looked at them, and something felt off. Something about his normally sullen or grouchy expression didn't settle right. His wrinkles were smoothed, the tension from chronic glaring wasn't quite there. Kakashi wouldn't call it empty, but it wasn't far off from detached apathy.

Sasuke looked at Kakashi- so calmly. He tilted his head, black hair shifting to cover one eye, and said, "you're a genius."

It had a different weight to it- not like basic praise or reluctant affection. It was a matter of fact, in a tone of disinterest that left Kakashi very alarmed. Naruto seemed to pick up on it- for once he wasn't laughing or making jokes. He looked a tad confused, perplexed by it. Sakura, on the other hand, had stiffened uncomfortably, looking as if Sasuke had scared her somehow.

"That's rather simple for you, Sasuke," Kakashi said lightly.

Sasuke...looked at him. Kakashi had a vague impression of a spinning eye whirring crazily in its socket. "You're not a tracking dog," he said quietly. "You're…"

Sasuke twitched slightly, then jerked ever so subtly away from Kakashi. "You're a hound. You weren't- you weren't their teacher but you led them."

"Sasuke-Kun?" Sakura asked quietly. "Are...are you alright?"

Sasuke tilted his head, still looking with that strange expression on his face. Kakashi hadn't ever thought of how... Uchiha his student looked. The family traits, the genetic markers.

"Teme?" Naruto asked, frowning. "Sasuke?"

Sasuke kept looking, the smallest twitch along his face, under his right eye. "You... oh," Sasuke said, bland apathy and disinterest with the slightest widening of distant eyes. "You worked with killers…"

"What?" Sakura squeaked, looking at Kakashi in surprise. "You mean like….like ANBU?"

"Wha?" Naruto gaped. "Kakashi-sensei? He was in ANBU? No way!"

Kakashi ran one hand along the nape of his neck, letting the awkward tension wilt. "Ah, nobody is supposed to know that so…"

"Uh, right! I don't know anything! You can count on me Kakashi-sensei!"

Sasuke still had a look in his eyes, like he was somewhere far away even as he turned his head to look out at the water. He had a strange gaze to him, a strange twitch through his shoulders. Naruto reached out and Kakashi intercepted him to keep him from disturbing Sasuke's state.

Sakura closed her mouth and drew quiet under Kakashi's gaze.

Clearing his throat quietly, Kakashi asked very clearly, "what do you mean, Sasuke-Kun?"

Sasuke was looking at the water, distracted. He said blankly: "you told me to let go of revenge."

Kakashi couldn't recall telling Sasuke those words, or when he would have. "Did I?"

Sasuke made a flat noise. Kakashi stared, mentally willing the boy to keep speaking. Elaborate on whatever obscure vision or foresight malady was plaguing him. Sasuke made a soft noise, a whooshing exhale of breath and he said calm and flat: "you said you didn't want to kill me and tried."

Naruto made a noise so sharp and sudden, it jolted Sakura who knocked into Kakashi who brushed against Sasuke's shoulder. Sasuke shifted slightly, blinking quickly and shaking his head with a grimace. One hand lifted to his head, brushing his temple before coming away with bright red.

"Sasuke-Kun!" Sakura cried in alarm, "you're bleeding!"

Sasuke grimaced, wiping below his right eye which wept two drops of blood from the corner. He looked baffled, disoriented slightly and in the woes of a minor headache.

"What did you mean!" Naruto roared, jumping to his feet with fists ready to grab Sasuke and shake him by his scruff. "What did you mean with Kakashi-sensei trying to kill you!"

" What?" Sasuke said, baffled. He swung his head around to glare at Naruto and froze, paling quickly.

"Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked, looking at Naruto who looked just as perplexed.

Kakashi stilled, having a very inexplicable feeling of dread spreading deep in his gut. His gut instincts tended to be correct in the end.

Sasuke, looking slightly terrified as if under a wave of vicious killing intent, asked in a slightly quivering voice, "Dobe, what is that monster?"

Sasuke forced himself to look away, looking pointedly at the bark of the nearest tree instead of the whiskers on Naruto's face. He refused to look at Naruto, even as his skin crawled and his eyes burned and the beginning of migraine was pounding against his skull.

He hadn't quite the memory for what had happened- what he said or what they were discussing. He tried to focus, he had, but the more he tried the worse his head pounded and thrummed like a heartbeat under adrenaline. It burned, aching staccato patterns against his molars and enamel until he choked on it.

They were talking and Sasuke was dreaming in lucid moments. He couldn't think- barely concentrating through the wave of pain that rippled through him slowly and pointedly. Concentrating around his throat, behind both eyes.

Sakura and Naruto's voice only added to it, each consonant making him want to punch a wall. Their ridiculous questions and flimsy emotions all dependent on energy he didn't have.

"That's rather simple of you, Sasuke," Kakashi said, and Sasuke bit back a low growl.

He didn't want to talk, to tell them of things that made no sense and seemed to make sense all the same. Kakashi-Sensei called in a Sannin and told Sasuke he had a hidden bloodline trait. Something even he didn't know about- a level of vision or prediction or uncanny gut response that defied recognition.

Sasuke bit his tongue, irritated and frustrated and knowing things he didn't recall learning. It hurt, and he wished Naruto would run into a tree or get himself stuck in a door again so Sasuke could go home and sleep.

Talk, he thought detached from himself. They're waiting for your thoughts.

Sasuke said, unfeeling and voice, "You're a hound," a hunting dog made to slit throats. You led a squad, ran them to their graves. "You weren't their teacher but you led them."

'Kakashi-sensei risked his life for us before!' Sasuke argued, feeling a weight in his heart as he struggled and fought against the information he already knew. 'He would die for us, and he proved it again and again!'

And Sasuke knew that of course, Kakashi would die for them- he was their teacher and he was a broken thing with no ties left to hold close. No family or friends, no lovers beyond platonic love for his dogs. He had done such horrible things, threatened and lied and bartered and stole. Wore a mask and taught him and ran so far and for so long he didn't remember how to turn back.

He thought they were talking, but Sasuke couldn't care about Naruto's specific idiocy. His new breed of stupid. 'Naruto is so loud.'

He is, Sasuke confirmed after a split second of thought, feeling relieved and exhausted all at once. Kakashi is tired.

And Sasuke thought with a resigned sort of despondency, 'He is, isn't he?'

A sad sensei, a quiet capable man who was a killer and a thief and had an eye that never belonged to him. Stolen from- Gifted to him, from a dying failure, to watch the world and carry a corpse's burdens. What would Kakashi know of revenge then? What sort of hypocrisy could he preach over and over and over and over-?

Sasuke could imagine it, the blank determined resolution. The way Kakashi would stare with courage and reluctance and tell him calmly that he didn't want to kill him. But he tried.

It hurt his eyes, blurred and distorted like condensation on glasses. The distorted sort of remembrance that accompanied dreams and gave him a vague gut feeling that somehow he had gone blind. You did.

And then Sasuke looked, able to see and clearly not blind, and met Naruto's eyes baffled (what had he said?) and met something of a different nature. A wave of a thousand glaring faces, the culmination of a million curses and festering rage that built over decades of heartbreak and torment-.

Look away, Sasuke thought suddenly. He obeyed, staring at a tree and feeling the words leave his mouth and the instant regret of having spoken too soon. Don't let them know you saw it.

Sasuke wondered what he had seen- what that thing was, but knew it wasn't time to ask it.

"Eh?" Naruto said, flinching back with an expression of utter heartbreak. "I- I don't-."

Fix that. Sasuke scrambled and blurted a tad shaken, "I meant your face. Is that what you look like when you're trying to think?"

Naruto blinked alarmed, then curled forward baring his teeth angrily. "Stupid teme! Making me get all worried- gah! You're a real piece of work, you know that!"

Sasuke huffed, trying to let the lapse of awareness not bother him as severely as it had. "Work that gets something done, dead last."

Naruto shouted in wordless anger. "Sensei! Let me punch him! Show me how to do one of those fancy jutsu and lemme smack the smile off his face!"

Sasuke glanced to the side, scanning Kakashi's forced casual pose. He only looked calm like that when he forced himself to be so- he carried his tension in his neck, hidden under his mask and the collar of his jacket. It had taken years for Sasuke to recognize-.

'Not years, I've been a student for…' and Sasuke couldn't remember. Naruto was shouting, standing at his feet and pointing dramatically. Sakura still looked worried, but Sasuke didn't care.

"Maa, don't be hasty, Naruto," Kakashi scolded him gently. "I'm sure there's plenty of jutsu you can learn after you learn some chakra control."

"But sensei!" Naruto wailed, pouting and slumping dramatically. "I don't wanna do chakra control! It's boring!"

"Then I'll make it fun," Kakashi assured him. "Now, I've heard that you can walk on water now, correct?"

Sakura perked up at that, a small smile touching her face. "Naruto! You can do that now? It took me all day!"

"Eh? Who taught you? I kept falling into an onsen!"

Sakura snickered at Naruto's pout. She said rather happily, "I joined in with Kurenai-Sensei for a little while. Hinata and I learned together!"

Kakashi glanced at Sasuke with another of his false smiles, tension stiff along his spine. "Sasuke, we only touched it temporarily once, but I'm sure you can handle-."

Sasuke frowned slightly, tucking his neck into the high cowl of his jacket. "I can walk on water."

Kakashi hummed and clapped his hands pointedly, gesturing with his thumb behind him towards the rippling surface of the lake. "Well then! Off you pop, cute little genin. Go get settled, then we can start."

Naruto leaped up and charged across the water, wobbling dangerously before hopping precariously on one foot. He caught himself, cheering and whooping while skipping across the surface. Sakura walked out calmer, sticking firmly after one wobbling destabilization which sunk her right foot to the ankle.

Sasuke wasn't nervous, but something gnawed suspiciously like worry. It had been a while since he walked on water, months ago, considering he had focused primarily on the Chidori. Water could be difficult, and he loathe to mess up in front of Naruto of all people.

He stepped off the grass, one shoe dipping slightly below the surface. It's water. It isn't hard.

Sasuke stepped firmly onto the surface, minor ripples trailing from each footstep before he strode calm and steady across the surface. Water tension supporting him, undulating waves of chakra matching the waves of water and the natural curl of the currents near the bottom. Match the pattern to your heartbeat, and you never think of it again.

He knew that. It was one of the first lessons he learned, back when the water was filled with poison that burned like fire, and every falter left him near screaming. Clawing at his skin and leaving bloody trails in an effort to peel it off his-.

"A lot on your mind?" Kakashi asked him, one eye watching his feet with clinical proficiency. "You looked lost in thought."

"It's nothing," Sasuke dismissed. "Just remembering."

Kakashi hummed flatly, watched him a second longer, and started to instruct his two teammates on what the lesson was for the day.

Naruto seemed quite pleased, managing to stick on the water even in basic taijutsu sparring. Sakura, leaping to the thought of acquiring a specialty focused on physical attacks offered herself as a viable partner. Her impressive chakra control verse Naruto's unwillingness to lose left Sasuke watching their squabble and shielding his eyes from the sun's glare.

"Stay down won't you?" Sakura shouted, trying to smoosh Naruto under the water. His face bunched up comically in small patches, other areas of skin sinking below the water.

"Hey! Let me go, Sakura!"

"Then say I won already!"

"Congrats!" Kakashi said happily, clapping his hands and matching an elaborate mixture of signs together rapidly. Sasuke watched them disinterestedly, he hadn't seen the jutsu before- water release: water shark bullet. "You all get to sink!"

Sasuke stumbled slightly, although both Sakura and Naruto fell clean below the water as a large chakra formed shark swam below the water, disrupting their lake into unsteady waves.

"Aww!" Naruto cried, spitting water and climbing slowly back on top. "I wanted to see teme get his hair all flat and ugly!"

Sakura didn't look dignified with a wet mop, but her green eyes glowed with rage. "Kakashi-sensei! What sort of training is this!"

"It's adaptation!" Kakashi argued, guiding the water shark with a lazy finger. It swirled around them, leaving small frothing waves that continued to drench Naruto. "Standing on a rippling surface is much harder than that of a solid one. This is a difficult technique, and requires constant movement of your chakra to stay on top."

Sasuke clicked his tongue, crossing his arms and balanced. The nearest wave rocked him, rolling in a tight tumble of hot and cold currents. He adjusted, rolling and moving with the flow, countering the forces instead of adhering to a flimsy skin of water. Kakashi looked at him, arching both eyebrows.

"You look comfy," Kakashi said. "Not fun enough for you?"

Sasuke scoffed. "It's water."

"Hey, teme! Come over here if it's just water! I'm sure I can show you something cool!"

Sasuke glanced over. Naruto's smile was bared fangs with slit pupils and the low rumbling bass vibration of something too old for Sasuke's comprehension. Ignore it.

Sasuke's mouth was dry, so he refused to say anything at all. Naruto scowled, climbing to his feet wobbling. He kept both arms outstretched like a newborn bird, balancing and charging with a battle cry.

"You're so loud," Sasuke grumbled, and inexplicably found it funny.

Naruto tackled him, and Sasuke let him. They landed on the surface of the water, rolling (in Sasuke's case) like it was as firm as rock. Naruto gulped, slipping clear through its gentle membrane and drenching himself once again. The water shark passed them by, stirring up currents and riptide as its water teeth snapped below their feet.

"Not fair!" Naruto accused, "you've had more training! Kakashi-sensei probably trained you this personally!"

"I'm training all of you personally."

"Same difference sensei! Sasuke is just- just being a show-off!"

When the sun started to set, Sakura maintained a steady balance that could not be disrupted by chakra or jutsu even as Kakashi lulled her into a gentle easy spar. Naruto was still struggling but spent more time above than he did below. Sasuke hadn't fallen through once.

"Well, you all performed better than I thought you would," said Kakashi, reading his damn erotica again. "Even you Naruto. You had a decent grasp on it by the end."

"Yeah, I did!" Naruto cheered, looking exhausted but rearing to go. "Kakashi-sensei! Kakashi-sensei! You should take us out for dinner!"

"Hmm, how about…" Kakashi thought dramatically, smiled, and said: "...no."

"Aww, please? We didn't bother you that much today! Look! Your book isn't even wet!"

"You did try to dunk me, Naruto. I'm not so sure that's good genin behaviour."

Sakura laughed as Naruto sulked. Her hair was tied back after being wrung out, messily cut still from the exams. "You have to admit, he has been whining less."

"Sakura! I don't whine!"

Sasuke scoffed. "You really do, dobe. It's so annoying."

(-he recoiled, mouth burning and everything tasking of guilt and war. Ash and blood and the acrid stench of burnt meat. He looked at her, vision warped with heightened acuity that dreams could never obtain. "You're so annoying." ).

Naruto huffed. "Well, you're a jerk! So hah!"

(-Naruto looked at Sasuke and said with more love than Sasuke could ever feel. "I'll do whatever it takes to-." ).

Sasuke jerked his head away, staring out at the trees. He activated his Sharingan, tracing the ridges of bark and frozen sap and counted the ants that trailed a line of work. He breathed, matching his heartbeat and forced his mind to settle. He wondered how he could bring it up, especially after such a horrible hospital stay before. What would Kakashi say if Sasuke was to admit he was hallucinating now?

"Well, I think that's enough for today," Kakashi sighed, stretching his arms dramatically. "I'll let you have tomorrow off, I heard there is a little store just begging for me to model their hats, you see. And I can't possibly turn down such a kind old lady's desperate need."

"You're so full of crap, sensei," mumbled Naruto. " But, I love sleeping in. See you all later!"

Naruto left, and Sasuke bid them goodbye. Kakashi claimed he'd walk Sakura across the training grounds, mentioning that he knew a taijutsu expert he could potentially introduce her to for specialization training.

Sasuke knew it was a lie but in an affectionate way, Kakashi used to try and distill worry. They would have ANBU watching him, likely trailing Sasuke forever now since he returned-.

'Returned?' Sasuke thought, something bitter burning in his mouth. Where had he gone?

His home was quiet and empty, but it had a somber weight he didn't remember before. His kitchen was quiet and his pantry filled, but it felt...strange. The freedom to choose and prepare rice, to wash it in the sink by the window where he could see clouds overhead. It felt strange, different. He enjoyed it, and the taste of the cheap store butter and daikon he purchased from a civilian's stall a few days ago.

The sun started to set and Sasuke was overcome with the inexplicable urge to watch it. Konoha bathed in different colours, coming alive in a mixture of civilian houses and distant burning embers of clan compounds and jutsu training late into the night. The stars tried dimly to pierce the magenta sky. The Hokage mountain turned orange across their faces, and Sasuke found it wrong.

When Sasuke slept, he found his bed unsettling on his back. His clothes were too soft, his hair prickling against his neck as if it never normally did. The crickets and dogs of the Inuzuka howled to the moon. He looked out the window and found the sight of its white surface incomprehensibly terrifying. Tsukuyomi was not happy tonight- he couldn't explain it, but it filled him with dread.

It was red, he thought without thinking. The world died.

Sasuke bolted upright, fists tangling in his blanket and legs tingling from sleep. He panted, pulse racing with adrenaline and a foreign panic- "what am I thinking?"

His eyes were itching for sleep, burning sticky and stiff like he hadn't any rest for ages. It was stupid, ridiculous, and it bothered him so badly. "I'm not-."

'I'm going insane,' Sasuke thought a tad hysterically, shoving one fist against his mouth to stop himself from laughing. He felt so tired, overwhelmed and confused and-.

He looked out the window and saw a moon red as blood with the spiraling gaze of a swirling eye. It weighed on him, a gravitational presence that could topple worlds and crush villages and Sasuke found himself on the cusp of screaming. He jerked, stumbling to his feet yet his limbs would not obey him. He screamed, voice soundless and lost in the roaring wave of a charcoal fire.

Calm down he thought. Sasuke froze, panic festering like a bird trapped in his throat. He recognized the idea had not been his own.

Fire burned and roared an eternal cackle, loud and hot as it ate away light greedily. It burned dark, chewing on stone and air and Sasuke kneeled on the broken remnant of a clan building fractured apart. He gaped.

"Kai!" he shouted, jerking his chakra to surge and release whatever horrible vision this was. His chakra refused to respond, laying dormant and unwilling. "Kai!"

This isn't a genjutsu, he thought. Sasuke bared his teeth, clawing fingers into his scalp and hissed a venomous curse. "Get out of my head!"

The fires roared, snapping like starlight, and from their tongues of flame emerged a creature of unknown proportion. Distorted and warped, contorting like smoke that persisted through the gentle drip of rain clouds and distant thunder. A dragon with claws made of thin silver swords, and an empty hole for its right eye. You're acting ridiculous.

Sasuke looked at it trembling, and asked terrified, "what are…"

The creature, burning black and swallowing the air itself said almost dismissively with Sasuke's distorted voice through his mind. The flames of Amaterasu.

The dragon, born of fire- named a god that Sasuke remembered his mother praying to on warm Sunday afternoons. They had offered smoked fish and preserved fruits to an altar that would watch the eye of their sun. She held his hands once and told him the names of their deities, how their clan worshiped pagan beliefs, and still held a vigil for Amaterasu's eye to descend and the rise of the godly sister Tsukuyomi.

Sasuke saw a dragon of flame that burned as hot as lava and swallowed the sun in its empty eye socket and said: "I- you're Amaterasu?"

The thing looked at him, judging him with its blind face. It burned in the rain, hissing and steaming and consuming the ancient painted stucco ichiwa fan Sasuke's ancestors once painted. It dragged a claw on the stone, making a horrible noise of metal on rock. The gods are...demanding.

"My clan is dead," Sasuke told it. This had to be a vision, what Kakashi-sensei had told him of after he left the hospital with aching eyes. "There is no one left to leave sacrifice at your altar."

The Uchiha clan is dead, it agreed. Sasuke choked, in the rain or on grief, or on the indescribable sense of insignificance he felt in wake of such a thing. There is nothing you can do.

Sasuke knew that. "Nobody can bring back the dead."

Not truly, it said. Sasuke saw it, impressions of the impossible. Men and women made out of paper, peeling apart with blackened eyes and begging forgiveness as they twisted the knife. Families smiling as they killed one another. The weight of parchment, the give of bone as it healed again and again-.

"What is that?" Sasuke asked, squeezing his eyes shut and jamming the meat of his palms into the hollows of his orbital cavities. "Stop it- stop it-."

It's a jutsu, Amaterasu said, pausing before speaking in its stolen voice. It was used to kill the third Hokage.

"Orochimaru killed the third Hokage!" Sasuke shouted, nearly keeling as the images wouldn't fade. The texture of the skin began to peel away. The sound of laughter from men once dead. The third Hokage apologized to him, the fourth Hokage looked at him with concern and worry and asked him, 'is Naruto-.'

Sasuke bit his lip so he wouldn't scream. "Why? Why? Why am I getting this- this bloodline limit-."

Amaterasu made a noise, a rumbling that drew Sasuke's hands away from his face. The dragon had turned its head, its empty oozing eye cavity piercing. The flames of its skull shifted like armor, exposing an impossible spiraling glow of a purple eye like gemstones. A bloodline limit?

"These visions or- or whatever they called it!" Sasuke accused. "The old man who- who trained that idiot said that it was some sort of...of bloodline ability that got rid of the curse mark."

Amaterasu opened its mouth, an empty maw so dark it matched the hair and eyes of the clan Uchiha. His mother told him their old fable stories, that Amaterasu gave them fire and let them cast a shadow, and sister Tsukuyomi watched the night sky and painted their skin so pale. Together the siblings made their children walk so recognizable to everyone, blessing everyone to recognize their followers by sight. And Susanoo, the last of the three favoured children, cast aside his armor and sword and granted Uchiha by blood the right to call upon his blade.

Sasuke wouldn't dare defy a god, no matter how furious and angry he was- not after seeing a tailed beast explode from one of the Sand Nin and not after seeing the rage encaged behind Naruto's smile. The spirits demanded many things, and Sasuke knew better than to reject them.

Kekkei Genki, Amaterasu said, almost amused. That's how they explain the removal of that brand.

"Did you do it?" Sasuke asked.

Amaterasu looked at him with a purple eye. Yes. I burned out that snake's foul chakra, he isn't important anymore.

Sasuke licked his lips, his mouth dry and voice hoarse. "Why...why me?"

The dragon sighed, a sound so familiar and haunting in Sasuke's own voice. I made a decision and a calculated risk. You were...an unanticipated result.

The dragon moved, long limbs unfolding as its long swords scraped stone and split the cracks of the Uchiha building roof. Sasuke couldn't see inside the fractured remains, or what lay beyond the perimeter of the fire. Through the rain, lightning struck bright and illuminating and Sasuke realized then, how a bloody trail led to his body. There was no corpse.

It was an unexpected thing, but nothing I can't work with, Amaterasu said, raising back with long black fire wings folding around its body like a traveling cloak. Its single purple eye stared at him. Sasuke noticed that it had no left front leg- cleanly severed near the shoulder. Why would a god decide to appear as a cripple? Why had it only one eye, and not one burning red or yellow like the sun?

I will give you information, until such time as your effort is no longer necessary. Amaterasu said. This must be kept a secret.

Sasuke bowed his head instantly. "I know better than to- to defy the gods. I...I won't tell anyone about the visions."

I will prevent trespasses on your mind. Then a pause. For these...visions. The gods demand their pound of flesh.

Sasuke woke up to sunlight.

Sasuke was late to training the following day, still arriving hours before Kakashi showed himself but delayed enough for both Sakura and Naruto to worry.

He looked exhausted, tired and weary that suggested overworked muscles and lack of genuine rest. They hadn't been training as vicious as before when the Chunin exams were looming over their shoulders.

Now, they had the ambient dread of the empty Hokage seat and the blank spot on the mountain that would eventually be carved.

"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura said, eyebrows furrowed in worry at his sorry state. "You were late! We were thinking something horrible happened!"

"Yeah!" Naruto snickered, "like you tried to brush your hair for once and got it stuck in that bird's nest!"

Sasuke shrugged one shoulder, feeling too tired to rise to the barb. "I was busy."

"Busy? Were you training, Sasuke-kun?"

Sasuke leaned against the bridge of their meeting spot, closing his eyes without another word. The slight bags of his eyes looked swollen as if he hadn't slept at all the night before. His fingertips were trembling slightly from exhaustion. "None of your business, dobe."

Naruto deflated, "I didn't even say anything!"

"You were thinking. That's dangerous."

Sakura tried not to laugh and failed horribly. Sasuke didn't smile, instead, he nestled down in the high collar of his jacket and looked well prepared to nap standing up. Naruto whined wordlessly, flopping down into a clumsy pile on the bridge. "You think Kakashi-sensei is going to make us balance on water again?"

"I don't think so," Sakura said. "He told me to wear uh, different clothing for that just in case. He didn't say anything about today. What do you think, Sasuke-kun?"

Sasuke opened one black eye and said bluntly, "I couldn't care either way."

Kakashi appeared moments before noon when the weather was warm and long shadows stretched across the bridge. Naruto used to complain about the absences, but after months of this being the usual, he couldn't find the energy to fight. If they ever skipped and came at a later time, Kakashi always knew and trained them cruelly hard for such liberties.

Kakashi took one look at Sasuke, stared slightly longer than normal and said pleasantly bright, "Maa, aren't you a sleepyhead today?"

It was phrased like a question, clearly inquiring as to Sasuke's exhausted state. The boy shrugged wordlessly, leaning against the wooden railing harder. "I was busy."

"Busy?" Kakashi asked, lifting both eyebrows bemused. "Were you preoccupied with fighting your bedsheets?"

Sasuke scowled at Kakashi angrily, exhaustion fueling his temper. "I was praying."

Kakashi missed a step and stumbled so largely it would be comical in other instances. Sakura's face pinched into an expression of awkward obliviousness, while Naruto blanked entirely.

"Ehh…" Naruto squinted, face puckering in thought. "Like...religion stuff?"

Sasuke shuddered a sigh so heavy his chest lifted and fell. "What else is praying, dobe?"

"Ah, right," Kakashi recovered, clearing his throat awkwardly. "I had….ah...forgotten about your...shrine."

"Shrine?" Sakura tried in a meek voice. "Sasuke you're...ah...pagan?"

Sasuke looked at Kakashi darkly from the corner of his eyes- glowing red with subtle reminders. "You should pray, sensei. It's rude not to with a Sharingan."

Kakashi flinched, jamming his hands in his pockets and falling silent. Naruto looked alarmed, not quite grasping the depth of the statement. "Whattya mean? Your fancy eyes mean you gotta chant songs an' stuff like the old lady who sells flour by the book store?"

Kakashi dropped one hand heavily on Naruto's head to silence him. "Ah, Naruto- the Uchiha Clan is a...follows a more pagan belief system-."

"I don't chant songs," Sasuke grumbled angrily. Eyes red and irritated, the swollen lines under them more prominent in his frustration. "We leave offerings of importance."

"Like ramen?"

Kakashi wilted, "no Naruto. Not ramen. The Uchiha clan follows the...ah, blessings of...three deities?" Kakashi said, voice tilting upward to indicate a question. Clearly he was not a credible source of information.

"The three noble children," Sasuke muttered sourly, kicking a rock to splash into the river. "Susanoo, Amaterasu, and Tsukuyomi."

Naruto opened his mouth, likely to butcher the pronunciation. Sakura slapped her hand out, palm covering his mouth and muffling his words. "Naruto, don't."

"Spirits are important to different people, Naruto," Kakashi quickly corrected. His voice dropped the loose casual timbre that he generally used, lest when it was a serious discussion. "There are many theologies across the continent, you'll find different clans follow different belief systems. They're all credible, and you're best to never offend on purpose."

"What about you, Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked timidly. "What do you believe in?"

Kakashi nearly stumbled again, grimacing wide enough to become visible below his mask. "Ah, well, nothing special, really. I...pay respects, but nothing much."

Sasuke twitched, eying him still with an unreadable expression, eyes dark and swirling. "Is that what you're calling it?"

Kakashi glanced at him, then looked away subdued. Naruto looked deep in thought, crossing his arms pointedly. "But- but if you have one of Sasuke's family's eyes, shouldn't you be doing that stuff too?"

"Ah, that's a bit sticky to try and explain-."

Sasuke scoffed. "He should. Sharingan is a blessing from Amaterasu, as is jutsu. It's an offense to use it without respect."

"Wait wait," Sakura tried to mediate. "I'm sure Kakashi-sensei didn't know!"

"Yeah! It's not like you can't just tell Ama-rat-soup that when you pour ramen on the ground!"

Sasuke twitched, his red eyes fading slightly. He looked at Naruto then slid his eyes away to focus over the boy's orange shoulder. "You can't just talk to them. It's not like- like biju shrines."

Kakashi reached out with one hand, laying a palm on Sasuke's back to push him towards the training ground with a hushed pointed, " Sasuke."

Sakura and Naruto, far too curious for their own safety, mimicked Sasuke's words in near synchrony. "Biju shrines?"

"A religion, outdated now," Kakashi brushed off quickly. "Let's hurry along to today's training, we're wasted enough of today."

"That's because you were late, Kakashi-sensei!"

"Maa, only Sasuke-kun was late. How do you all think of developing a specialty? If I know anything about the topic, I could offer my thoughts for today."

Sasuke scowled, crossing his arms but staying silent. Sakura quickly abandoned the idea of shrines and gods in favour of rapidly brainstorming potential routes for her to explore. Naruto listened avidly, looking overwhelmed by the options.

"I could ask Kurenai-sensei for more help with genjutsu," Sakura listed with a sigh, "but...I'm not really good at it, even with chakra control."

"Yeah, and you're already scary," said Naruto, shuddering visibly.

When they settled at the training ground, scribbling ideas on paper (Naruto was doodling what looked to be a large frog), Kakashi slipped open his book. He knew his students would never dare read what was inside, and the paper was easily hidden between various pages.

He had been compiling a list, small font paraphrasing or quoting each of Sasuke's strange behavioural changes. Ibiki suggested he keep track of each strange prediction, no matter how vague or unassuming they seemed to be.

He jotted down the date in halfhearted code- standard for ANBU and advanced enough to bore Sakura's interest: active awareness of memorial stone schedule. Set up perimeter for check.

The rest of the quotes and brief statements depicted a grim potential. "You told me to let go of revenge" what revenge- passive thought. Trance state? "you said you didn't want to kill me and tried." Ordered by council? Suggests failure- alternate factors at hand.

Below all of that, scribbled out until it was illegible even to a Sharingan read, defected?

Kakashi looked at Sasuke, who had no words scribbled on his paper. He stared upwards at the sky, tracking the movement of a small cloud near the tree line. Sakura had nearly her entire page filled. Naruto was adding a large crudely made sword to his toad drawing.

"Kakashi-sensei?" Sakura asked him, worrying her lower lip. "Do you think I'd be good at seals?"

Sasuke said immediately, "no," which caused Naruto to look up from his drawing with a glare.

"That was mean, teme!" Naruto accused. "Sakura could be really good at a ton of things!"

Sasuke watched the clouds, opened his mouth then froze, closing it with a snap. His body hunkered in slightly and he said slightly tense, "...fine, sure."

Kakashi inconspicuously wrote, knows Sakura is not good at seals. It would be convenient if Kakashi had an idea of just how far the kid was seeing into the future.

Naruto glared and huffed, "Is this because of your weird magic trick?"

Sasuke crossed his arms defensively. "I don't know what you're talking about, dobe."

"The thing!" Naruto shouted, flapping his arms frantically. "Why you were in the hospital! The weird thing pervy-sage said not to tell anyone!"

"Well, you just told Sakura," Kakashi said dryly. "You do realize this is very dangerous information, right Naruto?"

Naruto blinked obliviously. "Well, yeah of course sensei. But Sakura is part of team 7 and we're a family so I thought she should know."

Sasuke glared and locked his jaw firmly. "There is nothing to talk about!"

"Oh yeah, so all the sudden you getting all that beauty sleep is normal? Why don't you say you're fine again and I'll give you a reason to snooze it out!"

Kakashi watched them, finger tapping on his book. This could work if he had the proper subtle questions. "Naruto, Sasuke just needed...extra time to recover."

Sasuke spun around furiously, debunking any sort of offense to his pride and abilities. "I did not! "

"We're worried!" Sakura cried nervously. "You were gone for so long, and that seal-."

Sasuke bristled like Fang threatening a foe, eyes narrowed and nostrils flaring. He reached up and jerked down the collar on his jacket, revealing the new mark that normally remained hidden. The inky mark looked vicious, wet and raw with the spiraling design of a dojutsu Kakashi had never seen.

Ironically, it was Naruto who took an instinctive step backward, seemingly not aware of his movements until he bumped into Sakura. He spluttered, lifting one hand accusingly. "So you got a new weird tattoo! That doesn't mean you can be a jerk to us!"

Sasuke balked, nearly gaping at Naruto's blatant stupidity. "Do you have any idea what- do you even have a brain?"

Kakashi eyed the mark, it hadn't changed since he last saw it. Naruto scowled, crossing his arms boldly and began to harper once more into Sasuke's capabilities. "I do too! I bet you have no idea what's up with your stupid future-telling crap! You're just trying to hurt Sakura's feelings!"

Kakashi marveled at Naruto's abilities to single-handedly rile up Sasuke like no other thing could. Sasuke flushed angrily, the slightest bit of colour lifting to his cheeks as his hands curled into quivering fists.

Kakashi watched, subtly lifting his forehead protector to examine Sasuke's chakra pathways with his Sharingan. They pulsed angrily, focusing on his throat before returning to their proper coils. Sasuke looked ready to hurl Kunai, only frustration was holding him back.

"You have no idea what you're talking about!"

Naruto scoffed. "No! You have no idea! You've been making Sakura sick with worry! Don't you remember you were all stuck and weird-looking not that long ago when Gaara went crazy?"

Sasuke's chakra flashed, and the beginning wave of barely-there killing intent drifted around. "Shut up."

"You're just upset because I was the one to beat him up and you couldn't do a thing!"

Sasuke's fury spiked to new levels when his face lost any expression. Completely blank, he seethed with a burning mixture of hate and jealousy. Kakashi had known this was coming- ever since Naruto continued to surpass the boy at every corner and Sasuke failed to achieve progress. The release of the one-tail was the climax of it. Sasuke, unable to do anything as Naruto, impossibly defeated a beast entirely beyond proportion.

"How about you come over here and I'll show you what I can do?" Sasuke challenged darkly. Naruto glared, concerned, melting into reciprocated frustration.

"Why don't you stop acting like a stupid jerk!"

Kakashi saw sparks flash, the smallest shift of chakra instinctively towards Sasuke's right arm. Kakashi almost missed it- so preoccupied with looking at Sasuke's left, where the boy had trained to manifest an attack.

Naruto's face shifted into a rare display of concentration. The tension changed to a serious altercation- and Kakashi was hesitant to interfere if only for Sasuke's safety. The moment sparks began to collect and Sasuke's right arm concentrated chakra, the exposed swirl of the dojutsu seal began to spin very slowly.

"Guys, don't fight!" Sakura cried, looking between the two frantically. "Please- he didn't mean it-."

"Stay out of this," Sasuke hissed, Sharingan burning bright. Naruto's jaw clenched as he looked equally ready to conjure shadow clones at the slightest movement.

"What are you gonna do, teme?" Naruto snarled furiously. "You really sure you want me to knock some sense into you?"

"You can try," Sasuke baited, full sparks manifesting with the steady thrum of a developing Chidori. "Don't get in my wa-..."

Sasuke blinked, then stumbled. One hand flashed to his head, brushing against his temple as he let loose a low pained hiss. Kakashi flashed to the ground, steadying Sasuke by his right arm as the boy's adequate grasp on Chidori failed him.

Naruto looked alarmed, ready to intervene but unable to with Kakashi's close presence. Sasuke shuddered, gritting his teeth as both eyes bled twin blood tears and the dojutsu seal spun quickly clockwise.

"Sasuke," Kakashi urged, grip tightening slightly. "Calm yourself."

"Kakashi-sensei what's happening to him?" Naruto asked, looking significantly worried. "Is he alright?"

"Shut up," Sasuke hissed low in his throat, hand quivering against his eye. "Stop talking."

"No!" Naruto shouted loudly. "You're my friend even if I need to knock it into your thick skull-."

Sasuke snarled, jerking under Kakashi's hand as his chakra surged and Chidori screamed. Sasuke hissed with venomous crazed eyes, "why can't you just die!"

Kakashi reacted quickly enough to force Sasuke's arm to the side, well out of the way of danger as Chidori manifested unassisted in Sasuke's non-dominant hand. It was- a miracle considering Sasuke required his right hand to generally stabilize his left while fighting. Sasuke snarled like a creature possessed. His Sharingan spun wildly. Three tomoe.

Naruto's face shifted into something unreadable, then narrowed into single-minded focus. "I don't care what's gotten you so pissed off! But we're your friends and if you aren't going to tell us then-."

Sasuke shuddered, eyes bleeding and he squeezed them shut. His body tensed, seizing ever so slightly under Kakashi's arm. Sasuke ground his teeth together so tightly, Kakashi could hear it.

"Sasuke," Kakashi said slowly. "That Chidori was not the size-,"

Sasuke, impossibly, finished his sentence for him. "-that you aim at a comrade."

Sasuke shuddered, glared up with furiously spinning Sharingan and a chilling expression, "says friend-killer-Kakashi."

Kakashi said, cold and neutral. "You looked as if you were planning to kill Naruto."

Sasuke snatched his hand away, a wordless dismissive noise as he glared. He shuddered again, jaw clenching and blood bubbled anew from his tear ducts. The mark on his neck whirred viciously. Sasuke's eyes widened, expression altering into surprise before he dropped to one knee, slapping a palm over the mark aggressively.

"Sakura, Naruto, training is done for today," Kakashi said. "I expect a list from each of you about potential areas to specialize in tomorrow."

"Eh, but Kakashi-sensei.." Naruto said, looking hopelessly small and lost. Sakura took his arm, shaking her head and pulling him away quietly. Kakashi waited until they no longer lingered at the perimeter of the training ground.

Kakashi sighed, settling on his heels for a long painful talk. "You want to explain what that was?"

Sasuke hunkered down, remarkably, he had recovered to a neutral calm state. He scowled at the ground characteristically. "No."

'Kids,' Kakashi thought tiredly. There was so much to unpack from this one day already. "That's funny. It looked like you were trying to kill your teammate."

Sasuke said nothing, Kakashi sighed. He pulled out his book and the small pencil he kept near the cover, writing down new jotted words so he wouldn't forget what had occurred.

"What are you doing?" Sasuke asked quietly.

Kakashi hummed flatly, scribbling down the last bit of the altercation. Periodic fights with Naruto. Family and team sensitive topic. Shift to right-hand chakra formation- ambidextrous? Mentioned attempts to kill Naruto repeatedly, implies success at points. Knows about Ri

He left the last bit blank, unwilling to even write it down. "Oh, just my grocery list. I've been craving katsudon recently, what about you?"

A minor pause as Sasuke sat there quietly. "I can't eat it often."

"Mm," Kakashi hummed. "Uchiha dietary restrictions. I used to eat similar, predominantly fish."

Sasuke shifted slightly, obviously surprised by the confession. It wasn't common for Kakashi to talk about himself, let alone any sort of personal information. "What kind?"

"Mah, the river fish. White, sometimes ocean if they came in from the markets."

Sasuke nodded slightly. Kakashi knew personally that the dietary restrictions were the same as him. It had been convenient when Kakashi was young, freshly chunin with two genin pups on his heels. The shared lunches and village missions where Kakashi would catch and skin pike and trout over a small campfire. Uchiha metabolisms were made for fine foods, capable of enduring so much but falling ill under heavy grease or protein-rich meat.

"I had a teammate, under my jounin-sensei," Kakashi said as the silence stretched. "He was from your clan. I remember the meals we packed for long missions also."

Sasuke shifted slightly, peeking at him with a black eye under dark hair. "Was he the one who…"

Kakashi tapped his eye, now covered by his forehead protector and hidden from view. Sasuke stared at it, then down at his hands.

"I visit him at the memorial stone," Kakashi continued with forced calm. "That's how I pay my respects. You were praying earlier, that's why you were late. Which shrine?"

"You shouldn't know about my clan's shrines."

"Maa, I know a lot of things I shouldn't."

Sasuke huffed a quiet sound, resigning himself to say nothing. Kakashi anticipated this being a long conversation, stretched out with silence and bird song. He had no missions for today, nor tomorrow if it stretched into the night. He had waited out longer with a more resilient foe or hostages.

"I was at the himorogi," Sasuke said quietly. "The shrine to Amaterasu."

"If I remember, your clan had only one larger place of worship. I remember my...teammate, visiting that."

"The honden," Sasuke clarified very quietly. "It exists in the center of the Uchiha district. It's to pay homage to Susanoo, the deity of the sea and storms, and who gifts us our eyes and swords."

Kakashi nodded slowly, feeling a tad at a loss. Somber reality tricked his senses and left him feeling as hollow as his young student did. "Ah, that would...make sense. He was...late, with his Sharingan."

Sasuke shrugged one shoulder. It had been common practice for children to pray inside the sanctuary, wishing for blessings for their kunai and swords to stay sharp and their eyes to develop. "We had hokora throughout the district, where you could pray to Tsukuyomi. She guided the night so nin who left for missions frequented the traveler's shrines."

Kakashi made a small noise. "I heard of that one from...during missions. A patron to illusions?"

"Sleight of eye," Sasuke quietly corrected. "Visual jutsu and vision itself. Illusion jutsu fell under her eye."

Kakashi nodded and settled on his heels. Sasuke looked done talking, so he started to read through his well-worn copy. He read quietly and Sasuke breathed, recovering or thinking or somewhere in between.

"It's called Amaterasu," Sasuke said after hours when the sun began to descend and lessons long since finished for civilian schools. "The mark."

Kakashi looked up from his book. "After your deity?"

Sasuke nodded and stared down at the grass. "It's...a blessing."

"Careful Sasuke, blessings from spirits often wander into cursed territory," Kakashi said lightly. "What did you see earlier today, which made you attack Naruto?"

Sasuke's fist curled in his lap. "I don't know. It's not that simple."

Kakashi tilted his head and stared at him. Sasuke looked...exhausted. Weary and tired and although Kakashi normally would never consider it, his genin needed more than just a teacher to watch him occasionally. He sighed, mentally wondering if his sensei had once felt the same, and wondered why on earth Minato had been so cheery if that was the case. "Come on, kid. You'll stay with me tonight."

Sasuke jerked his head up, eyes wide and startled before narrowing in irritation. "I'm not going to attack him-."

"I don't think you are," Kakashi diffused. "I just want company for dinner."

Sasuke looked at him as if he was a moron, and perhaps Kakashi was.

Sasuke was silent the entire walk home, lingering slightly behind Kakashi as they made their way slowly through the streets. A couple of jounin looked as if to approach them, pausing and leaving without a word. Sasuke didn't recognize many of them, although one man seemed suspiciously like an adult form of the irritating genin that pestered Sakura.

Kakashi's apartment was small and quiet, functional and disjointed with only a minor collection of personal mementos. There was a handmade quilt with gaudy shuriken designs folded carefully near the end of Kakashi's bed. A picture frame with its contents hidden behind the most recent picture of Team-7. There was a blue scarf on the coat rack, a small doormat in the shape of a large paw print, and many absent dog beds near a window and a small couch.

"Make yourself at home," Kakashi shrugged, slipping off his flak jacket and hanging it on the coat rack. He kept his sandals on, so Sasuke did as well.

The couch faced a small bookshelf and a window with an unremarkable view. There was a dead plant on the sill, black and mummified that Kakashi hadn't thrown out.

"Would you like me to summon Bisuke?" Kakashi asked him disinterest, doing something in the kitchen. "He's one of my summons. He likes table scraps."

Sasuke looked at him, before ignoring him. "I don't care."

Kakashi hummed, did something beyond Sasuke's sight, and a short tan dog was padding over curiously. It had a kanji for shinobi tattooed on its forehead with black seal marks. It wore a blue jacket around its front paws and its back, embroidered with tiny stitches in a henohenomoheji with loose threads that needed repairing. Translated to kakashi, or scarecrow.

The dog hopped up onto the couch next to Sasuke, looking interested and very soft. It snuffled its small wet nose into his exposed forearm, ears flopping around with its movements.

It chuffed, settling down with its head on his lap. Sasuke sat stiffly, unprepared for the dog.

"Dinner!" Kakashi chirped, looking utterly nonplussed to see a ninkin snoozing on his student's lap. Sasuke accepted the chopsticks and plate mutely, eating with careful movements to not disturb the dog. He knew how sharp its teeth were, he had seen what it did to Zabuza.

"So," Kakashi said, managing somehow to eat without Sasuke seeing him adjust his mask. Sometime in between cooking and serving his student, he had abandoned his forehead protector and placed in his pocket. Sasuke glanced at the long scar that bisected his sensei's left eye, slicing through the eyelid and the tiny white lines where stitches had once held it together. It wasn't a clean slice and must have been very painful.

"I was thinking," Kakashi said calmly, something more vulnerable in his normally aloof characteristics now that he wore no Konoha nin affiliations. "You aren't ambidextrous."

"For some things," Sasuke corrected quietly, pushing food around his plate with halfhearted movements. "I write with my left."

"And you funnel chakra with your left," Kakashi pointed out, twirling a single chopstick as he talked. "Which makes me wonder how you used your right so proficiently."

Sasuke looked at his right hand. There were small burns, stinging, and raw like the textbook pictures of jellyfish stings. The whiplike lines of ninja wire, trailing all along his skin in tiny burns. "I...don't know."

Kakashi nodded, accepting that. He left and returned with two cups of tea, a special type that Sasuke didn't recognize but knew to be more exotic than a convenience store. "Go ahead, it's an acquired taste but helps."

Sasuke looked at him suspiciously. "With what?"

"Exhaustion," Kakashi said. "An old friend who had too many ideas and too little time to experiment showed me this tea. I keep some on hand."

Sasuke took a sip. It was strong and bitter and nothing like the flowery types his mother once brewed. It felt fitting in the most nostalgic of ways.

"I have a theory I would like to test, but it requires your participation," Kakashi said after a few moments and one cup of the tea. It did help, keeping him awake like some morning brews did and gave the smallest zaps of energy. Sasuke nodded to Kakashi to keep talking, stroking Bisuke with one hand.

"I think that your...Kekkei Genkai," Kakashi started with a slight pause. "...Changes your physical skills when it activates."

Sasuke frowned, setting his tea aside. Bisuke woke up, peering around with dopey eyes and a lolling tongue. He stretched out, paws flexing before curling under his body again. His head was heavy and warm on Sasuke's leg, his fur soft under his hand. "I don't know anything about that."

"I didn't think you would," Kakashi shrugged. "You used Chidori today with your right hand with a proficiency you shouldn't have."

Sasuke said "oh."

Kakashi looked at Sasuke with one eye, then he opened his left until the mismatched gaze was focused on his lonely student. "Sasuke, do you think I'm a good shinobi?"

"Yes," said Sasuke. He didn't hesitate more than it took to process the question.

Kakashi looked as if he expected the response. "I have the suspicion that you inexplicably know just how...accomplished I am."

Sasuke stilled his breathing, looking very much controlled with his movements. "Is that a threat?"

"Of course not," Kakashi dismissed easily. "You realize that my current mission to the village is training and guarding you, right?"

"I…" Sasuke's hand stilled, burrowing into Bisuke's back. "I know that."

"I don't think you do," Kakashi said. "Sasuke, you haven't been telling me things, which is fine. I'm your sensei. But today you attempted to kill not only another but your teammate. You understand why this uncharacteristic act is of concern."

Then, Kakashi leaned back in his chair, tilting his head slightly with both eyes focused on his student. "But, it isn't uncharacteristic, is it?"

Sasuke didn't know what to say, so he said nothing at all. Kakashi picked up his tea, turned away to take a sip, then placed it on the nearby table. "I don't want to pressure or interrogate you. I think whatever... occurrence has happened is bothering you more than you're trying to convey. I want you to be able to tell me what you can, and I can help within reason."

Sasuke shuddered slightly, looking away to pet the dog subconsciously. "You wouldn't believe me."

"I don't need to," Kakashi said. "I've seen many unbelievable things. I've done ridiculous things. Ultimately, you're still a genin, Sasuke. There is no Hokage, but I'm asking you to put your trust in me."

Sasuke curled his legs up on the couch, looking at the wall. "You tried to kill me."

"Did I?" Kakashi asked him lightly, carefully. "Or will I, and you don't understand it. I can assure you, Sasuke. If I wanted to kill you, I wouldn't have failed."

Strangely, that was a comfort. "You...didn't succeed."

"Which is a great puzzle, isn't it?" Kakashi said. "I think your foresight, or visions are affecting your every thought. You're learning things you shouldn't know, and you have no way to discern if they're real or not."

"I'm not crazy -."

"I didn't say you were," Kakashi soothed. "I want to offer my help because you're still a child."

Sasuke didn't respond, curled up on his couch looking very lost and very small. He pet Bisuke, rhythmic over and over. Kakashi collected their empty plates and cups, fetching the old quilt with small broken threads and offered it for Sasuke to curl up in. It smelled like cleaners and the underlying stink of dogs. Bisuke stretched out, hogging the pillows but didn't pester Sasuke like he imagined it would.

"I saw you try to kill me," Sasuke said when the outside buildings lit up with civilian industries. Operations that started when the sun set for tired workers and farmers. Kakashi closed the blinds, creating a synthetic sense of privacy. "You were...standing near a broken bridge, and you tried to kill me."

"Can you think of why?" Kakashi asked him. "It may be a warning or something to consider."

Sasuke shrugged, the shuriken pattern blanket rolling with his movements. "I wasn't...no. It was too quick."

"Then they're situational triggers," Kakashi surmised. "Did Naruto try to kill you also?"

"No," Sasuke said. "I kept trying to. Over and over. And that knuckleheaded idiot never gave up."

"You specialize in stolen jutsu," Sasuke told him, leading him through the abandoned Uchiha district. It was sad, painfully quiet except for the birds and wild cats that found shelter below broken patios. "You don't use genjutsu often, so Tsukuyomi would be ill-equipped to aid you."

Kakashi stayed respectfully silent, carrying a light basket he found from when Kurenai dropped off homemade bread. Sasuke showed him the path over the worn cobblestone, where old clotheslines whipped around broken and barren near fences with peeling paint.

The altar-like structure of the himorogi looked similar to most areas of ancestor worship. Kakashi knew most of the Konoha clans had similar things, either stone or carvings where ancestor names and families were written with care over the centuries.

Kakashi hadn't ever seen the open-altar of the himorogi, but he could respect the careful craftsmanship of it.

It was made from a dark black stone carved into multiple shelf-like structures and a hollow inner chamber. Similar to the pagoda homes of the Daimyo lords, it was empty and transparent through careful gaps. There was a drifting breeze from inside the small core, signifying a bottomless gap in the center.

"This is the shrine to Amaterasu. It used to stay burning," Sasuke explained. "I didn't know the fireball jutsu when it first went out, and never thought to light it after."

Kakashi swallowed dryly, the basket feeling heavy in his hands. Sasuke ignored him, tracing fingertips on the rough black stone before flashing his hands through signs and blowing hot flame through the gaps.

At once the slight breeze caught fire like that of an inferno. It grew tall and hot in a snapping roar. Sasuke didn't look surprised, even as the flames reached the heights of a small pagoda. Kakashi could smell an earth stench under the blistering smell of smoke- methane and natural gasses released into hot spring onsens. A crack in the natural earth that somehow released gas to sustain a powerful flame forever.

"Here," Sasuke explained quietly, opening the basket and pulling out the extra serving of fish Kakashi had prepared for this purpose. Sasuke carefully set the food on one of the small black shelves, sliding it in towards the center wildfire and waited until the furthest point began to burn.

"You kneel, and pray until it's done burning," he explained quietly, sliding in more offerings (flowers he stated matter-of-factly as necessary) and pushed them in like a morbid pizza oven.

Kakashi obediently settled on his knees as if to meditate, and Sasuke took up a silent position in front of him. The boy was dwarfed in front of the controlled blistering flame. Kakashi noted with undisguisable sadness, that there were many many slots for offerings. Sasuke was the only one left.

They waited until the natural gas vent burned their offerings to ash, which was sucked into the powerful flame until not even ash remained. Kakashi knew the Uchiha had long since fireproofed the nearby structures, but the concern to leave such a fire unaided still left him uneasy.

"We're done," Sasuke said quietly, climbing to his feet with a cracking knee joint. "For better luck or prayer, you make offerings and give them."

"Your clan made things often," Kakashi said as they walked through the skeleton village. "Trinkets."

"It's tradition," Sasuke shrugged quietly. "During monsoon season you leave your offerings near the waterfall for Susanoo. For Tsukuyomi, you put your offerings in the forest and let the birds and animals of the night take them."

They came to one of the small traveler's shrines, the type that Kakashi had seen tucked away in small alcoves and near wells when he first came to investigate Sasuke's living conditions. Sasuke nodded towards it, and Kakashi awkwardly but obediently rested in meditative kneeling. Sasuke mirrored him, looking across the runes and seal marks that were too hard to see in the sunlight.

"At night you set a candle there, and let it burn. The wax drips into the carvings-" Sasuke traced the seal marks, actively carved into the altar, not written like Kakashi thought. "The sunlight will melt it away, so you can only read the messages during the full moon."

That was...poetic, in a way Kakashi hadn't thought of. Sasuke folded his hands and bowed to the altar quietly, Kakashi following along in a sign of quiet respect before they started to walk out of the district.

"My clan is descended from dragons," Sasuke said a few minutes into the walk. He nearly tripped, then corrected himself. " Was. My clan was descendants of dragons. They gave us our inner flame, and our eyes. We're born from fire and we die in fire."

Kakashi hadn't the same beliefs. He remembered burying his father under a grave marker that was desecrated over and over until he decided to leave it unmarked. When he reached ANBU, he placed the marker back up and no one dared touch it again. "You cremate then?"

"My cousin Shisui died before…" Sasuke shrugged off, going about his motions so disinterested Kakashi wondered if Ibiki would consider a walk-in psych eval. "We set his body on the stone altar and burned him until his weapon melted. It was the altar in the center."

Kakashi knew that altar. The large black one made from volcano rock or some other substance. The broad stone was wide as a table, under the direct noon sun and visible from nearly any building in the center square. That was the pyre?

It wasn't large enough for more than two bodies close together. It couldn't hold a village.

Sasuke said, "he burned for two days. My bro…" Sasuke shuddered and silenced himself. He choked on his words, squeezing his eyes before speaking in a tight voice. " He made tokens, and I was too young to carve but he put obsidian statues there as offering for passage."

Kakashi didn't know rock, as well as some, did, but he knew earth release and the properties of obsidian. Forged by lava, brittle, and sharp as kunai. "That's...twice as hot as melting steel."

Sasuke said. "It's what makes the altar."

Kakashi remembered when he visited the district to find Sasuke's home, he spread a map on that table ignorantly. He hadn't known.

He and Sasuke left the district for training ground 7, roughly 4 hours late. Kakashi felt disgusted and horribly ashamed.

They met with Sakura and Naruto at the bridge, each student staring worriedly at Sasuke. Sasuke said nothing, ignoring them soundly as they all walked further into their training ground. The birds were chirping loudly, a nearby squirrel ran up a tree and Naruto stomped on a branch like fracturing bone.

They met at the standard spot, Naruto's grass pile undisturbed from the day before. It felt different, heavier. Somber without any understanding of why. Naruto exhaled loudly but refused to break the quiet.

"Alright," Kakashi said, sounding every bit tired. "So, just to clear the waters because kami knows Naruto has been convincing you Sakura that Sasuke is dying…"

"Well is he?" She blurted, looking scandalized only mere seconds after. "I- I mean-."

"No, he is not dying," Kakashi corrected. "He's...unwell."

Sasuke scoffed and crossed his arms with a glare. "I have a Kekkei Genkai that gives me visions and they're a pest."

Sakura blinked quickly. "Oh, like...the future?"

"Of a sort," Kakashi dismissed. "Don't treat your teammate any differently. And don't ask any questions, please."

"You got it Kakashi-Sensei!" Naruto beamed, looking well and truly relieved. "And Kakashi-sensei! I did the thing you said! I made a list! I spent all night on it!"

Kakashi smiled in false cheer. "It only says Jiraiya, doesn't it?"

"Eeh? I mean- n-no?"

Sakura wilted and shook her head ashamed on Naruto's behalf. She pulled out a piece of paper, passing it over a tad shyly. "I wasn't sure, but I was thinking I really really want to get better at taijutsu! I asked Iruka-sensei and he suggested a few jounin that I could follow and-."

" Anko?" Kakashi spluttered, staring at the list in dread. "Oh, oh no."

"Isn't she the crazy lady from the exams?" Naruto asked. "Didn't she like...eat a baby?"

"Naruto! Nobody eats babies!"

"Eh? What about eggs! Those are babies!"

Kakashi shuddered and nodded quickly. He cleared his throat, a tad stressed before agreeing with Sakura's work. "Ah, yes well done cute genin. I'm sure Jiraiya would be a wonderful choice to learn more from. I can certainly point out a few of these on your list Sakura- not Anko."

Sasuke was ignoring them again, looking out over the water transfixed. He had been doing that often, ever since the seal appeared. Kakashi took it in stride, assigning both Sakura and Naruto different exercises to work on. Once time passed, Kakashi would summon his ninken to chase Naruto (and teach the boy any concept of stealth evasion) and try to educate Sakura on minor chakra adjustments common for trackers. She had the touch for it, and Bisuke would love the chance to show off his skills.

"What about you?" Kakashi asked Sasuke, surveying his state with vague cynicism. "You going to run off on your own?"

Sasuke twitched ever so slightly at that, brow furrowing in confusion before he shook his head and distilled it. He looked at Kakashi, activating his Sharingan between blinks. The three tomoe swirled slowly- fully awakened. Kakashi couldn't fathom how it happened, what sort of turmoil and chakra rage could instill such fast development in such a young boy.

"I want to work on genjutsu," Sasuke said flatly. "My...sharingan developed and I'm still adjusting."

Kakashi nodded. "It takes a while. You'll injure yourself trying to move at the speed you can see."

Sasuke looked at him flatly, eyes swirling. Kakashi read his apathy and answered his question. "I had two tomoe. I awakened the third later."

Sasuke nodded slightly, letting it drop. They advanced towards the water, the gentle lapping of small waves on pebbles a soothing backdrop. Sasuke used to practice jutsu near the river that bordered the Uchiha compound. The sound of water had long since become calming, settling to his nerves and allowing his skin to stop crawling.

"I've seen you use genjutsu before, but not exclusively," Kakashi said. They both settled across from each other, legs folded under them. "I wouldn't say I'm skilled with it. If you wish to pursue it further, I know someone who has talents on par with a Sharingan."

"Kurenai Yuhi," Sasuke said flatly, eyes swirling slightly.

Kakashi didn't react, in fact, he looked as if Sasuke had not spoken at all. After three laps of water on the shore, he nodded slowly and confirmed, "that's right."

Sasuke folded his hands together and looked at the dirt below his nails. With his eyes active, he could see the small thrum of chakra below his flesh as if spiderwebs decorated his skin. "Sakura once said you used a Demonic Illusion on her."

"Hell viewing technique," Kakashi confirmed, "an easy D level. Unfortunately, it doesn't give you control over what you view, and I'm not aware of it either. Considering...the circumstances, it's best to avoid that."

Sasuke grimaced slightly, clearly realizing the wild potential of that causing a disaster. "Fine."

"Besides, you don't need hand seals with one of these," Kakashi said, smiling and tapping his forehead protector slanted over his eye. He lifted it, unveiling a lazy Sharingan that swirled only a handful of times before stilling. "I'll show you the small adjustments in environments, so you can tell the difference with a fully awakened Sharingan."

Sasuke found that with his Sharingan fully awakened and able to perceive even the most minute changes, he could tell immediately when a genjutsu was layered. Something small, like mist on the water when there had been none before was noticed and dispelled within seconds. The auditory sound of a squirrel chattering was dispelled. The surreal sensation of a dog brushing against his ankle vanished.

"You're able to enter visualized spaces with a Sharingan, more than basic genjutsu interrogation," Kakashi instructed him carefully. "Visualization of chakra fields which can distort time, or hold secret discussions."

"It's dangerous to use it casually," Kakashi continued. "You lose your ability to influence the environment to your whims. It is simply potential to interfere with chakra pathways in a more...lasting effect than that of standard genjutsu. You can be injured there, which injures you as well."

"Because inside a chakra field, the victim can access their own chakra."

Kakashi frowned and conveyed a sense of displeasure. "Because your target can exert equal control as you. It is dangerous but can be used if a comrade is unconscious or under the effect of a nin's attack. I've instilled barriers, so, unfortunately, I can't help you with this."

"It's fine," Sasuke said, dismissing the idea but not entirely. "You said other genjutsu don't need hand signs."

"The Sharingan visualizes chakra in other individuals. You can manipulate them with your dojutsu without the need for a conduit. That is why the Sharingan is so feared- a single look can result in entrapment."

Sasuke frowned, looking at the ground. His eyes were aching after such prolonged use- he could feel his chakra running low as his stores were steadily used.

"I…" Sasuke tapered off, sounding small and unsure. His shoulders tensed, his body rigid with determination. "Show me."

Kakashi lifted both eyebrows, now visible with his forehead protector lifted. "One day, that superiority complex of yours will backfire. This is the sly mind technique."

They practiced until both Sakura and Naruto came over, falling prey to one of their ranged genjutsu. Naruto, shrieking about the ground trying to eat him, stumbled right into Sasuke and knocked him over. Kakashi ended the genjutsu, surveying the very perplexed Sakura who thought she was across the clearing.

"Sensei! One of your summons mentioned that you knew how to channel chakra for attacks and-.." Sakura continued, looking shy but very excited. Kakashi, slightly worn out from the mental headache of constant genjutsu use, agreed easily. He scratched Bisuke's head, hoisted Pakkun onto his shoulder and walked towards the tree line where ultimately, they would carve up the landscape.

Sasuke struggled, elbowing Naruto in the stomach. "Get off me, dobe!"

"Get out from under me, teme!" Naruto wailed, clutching his gut with a wince. "Why are you so bony! Don't you know bones aren't a good weapon!"

Sasuke looked at him, finding it amusing in a way he was quickly associating with not his amusement. Sasuke grimaced, looking at Naruto and paused.

"Naruto…" he said slowly. A maniacal idea flickering through his head. "...can I practice a genjutsu on you?"

Oh? Sasuke thought, curious and intrigued. Naruto plopped himself down, looking ready to fight it out if necessary.

"You can try me!" Naruto cackled, "I'll notice right away! Can you make it so I have some ramen here? I'm hungry and Kakashi-sensei says we can have food after!"

Sasuke focused, steadying his chakra and the fluttering twinge of anxiety. He wasn't nervous- but a sense of dread and a gut feeling of wrongness had settled over him. 'Stop it,' Sasuke thought to himself bitterly. 'It's just the moron.'

I know, he thought, and Sasuke breathed slowly. "Sure, whatever. Just sit there, I want to try something."

Naruto grinned wide enough to show his teeth- they should be longer, and giggled excitedly.

Sasuke opened his eyes, Sharingan whirring as he saw the loser's chakra pathways. They were massive, a baffling network of channels and vessels with far too much movement and power. He focused, tracing the lines across Naruto's jugular and the chakra coil behind his sinus'.

He sunk forward and touched them with a gentle caress-.

" Eh?" Naruto said, jolting and splashing in a grungy subterranean sewer with rusted valves and seized pipes. Sasuke swayed, stumbling and splashing as tepid oil and water-soaked on his trousers, saturating his sandals.

"What is this?" Naruto gaped, splashing to his feet, one hand pressing against the dark metal wall of the maze. "The hell?"

Sasuke looked around, scanning the condensation clogged meters and dials. Levers and ducts clogged from disuse and decay- "this is what your chakra is?"

Naruto spun around in surprise, nearly slipping in the water. He looked baffled, floundering at the sight of Sasuke. "You- I- how did you get here!"

Sasuke didn't bother to answer. "This place is a mess."

"Well nobody asked you!" Naruto growled, crossing his arms. The dull green light, molded and algae ridden lanterns made his usual orange turn a sickly off-putting shade. Everything felt wrong, tainted, and sour.

Sasuke's mouth was dry, a nervous sweat beading along his palms. "This...isn't right."

"Uh, yeah maybe you messed up," Naruto agreed. Too easily, too agreeing. He splashed, kicking slimy water as he approached Sasuke and reached out with one arm. "We should probably get out of here-."

Sasuke felt it, a hot boggy heat that soured the air like curdled milk. It made the oily water feel slick and perverse, invading between his sandals and his nails. Naruto winced, tugging on Sasuke's hand a tad more urgently. "Sasuke, really, we should-."

"Well, look at this," something rumbled in the pipework, resonating harder and further than a simple voice. Sasuke shuddered, Naruto's tugging more aggressively. "The little Uchiha...and the cursed Sharingan,"

"Sasuke, come on-." Naruto urged, trying to drag him through the water- which rose and wrapped around their legs like thick tree roots. Naruto cursed, "damn it! Let us go you freak!"

Sasuke looked behind Naruto, gazing at a massive expanse of ornate metal pillars, sealed with a meshwork of chakra and writing more expensive than the most complex jutsu. Sasuke couldn't breathe under the weight of it- the indecipherable power and effort to close cage doors.

"Me? You were the foolish ones to dare encroach on me," it said with a low roar of something unholy. It came with a wave of power, corruptive and corrosive as acid and venom, tingling through water and turning it the colour of sunset. Sasuke stood, horrified and trembling under the large slit eyes of a massive creature. "And you brought me a snack."

"No! Shut up!" shouted Naruto, twisting in place to point accusingly at the massive beast. "Sasuke is my friend! Not a- a stupid pork bowl!"

"You humans are all the same to me," it said, yawning serrated teeth as large as trees. Its nose breathed hot gusts of rancid breath, its eyesight so cruel it made Sasuke near vomit. "So small, thinking yourself something greater."

"Stop it!" Naruto shouted, looking alarmed as bubbling poison began to encroach through the sewer water. "Sasuke- Sasuke you need to stop doing whatever you did-."

Sasuke had never felt so powerless. "I...I don't know how."

"What a scared little Uchiha," the monster laughed at him, snapping its jaw with the sound of striking thunder. "How far your clan has fallen."

Sasuke swallowed and said with a quivering voice. "My clan is dead."

"That is no great loss then," the beast mused, looking delighted with his suffering. "Your bloodline has always been cursed."

The bubbling poison pressed near, vicious and rolling like boiling udon. Naruto was quivering, clearly terrified, and freaked by- not the beast. He was clinging to Sasuke's arm, positioning his body a barrier between the foreign threat. "Stop it! Cut it out!"

Sasuke trembled, feeling paralyzed- and rain brushed across his nose. It fell in gentle drops, pattering on his hair and quickly onto Naruto as well. It touched sewer oil, steaming a pungent mist that reeked of sulfuric gas.

"What?" Naruto blinked, holding his hand up to the open sky, catching small drops on his open palm. "Sasuke? Did...did you do this?"

"What is this?" the beast rumbled, long ears pinning down to its pointed skull. "This chakra...I do not understand."

Sasuke heard the quiet distant rumble of thunder, an illuminating flash with no origin that finally lit Naruto orange. The hideous shade of sewer green oozed away, returning some semblance of safety. "I'm not doing this."

I am, Amaterasu whispered in the stolen voice he adopted from Sasuke. Older and deeper, slightly hoarser like that of the caged beast in Naruto's mind. You are beyond stupid for attempting this.

"Uh… Sasuke?" Naruto squeaked, gripping Sasuke's shoulder as he stared pointedly over the boy's shoulder. Sasuke felt raindrops on his hair and on the chiseled stone they stood on, the distant radiant heat of a burning fire. "What...what is that?"

Sasuke hadn't turned, his eyes transfixed on the intrigued glare of a mighty fox beyond Naruto's own body. "Naruto...is that a...fox?"

The Kyuubi, said Amaterasu. It's body settled with a steady weight that disturbed the ground with microscopic tremors. The two boys wobbled, stumbling on the emerging dry land tainted by a single blood trail. The nine-tailed demon fox.

The Kyuubi rumbled a growling breath, glaring intently behind its cage while Amaterasu settled across in the open starlight. "You are not a creature I recognize, but hold the form of a dead species."

Does it matter? Amaterasu asked in such a dry tone, it nearly copied exactly the way Sasuke said dobe.

Naruto laughed, a shrill hysteric sound that he cut off quickly. "I...are you going to try and k-kill us too Mr...uh...snake?"

Snake? Amaterasu repeated, offended and annoyed. The Kyuubi laughed a hoarse damp sound, wind buffeting from its cage. I have wings.

Naruto squinted. "What happened to your leg Mr. uh, snake-with-wings?"

Sasuke flinched, feeling horrified by the disrespect. "Naruto! Stop talking!"

"I myself am very curious too," the Kyuubi rumbled. "Why such chakra is uncontained. You are no kin of mine, but…"

Amaterasu turned its head, black flames burning and flickering as a single purple eye peered out. The Kyuubi roared, thrashing and slamming itself against the bars. Bubbling ooze of acid and steam gushed from pipes with reckless abandon. "Impossible! You do not carry the mark-."

Lost from my clutches, Amaterasu said bored. Long sword claws scraping stone, fire snapping and eating. I was told to tell you of the day, where you will be brought together but not as you once were.

Kyuubi snarled, withdrawing further into its cage. It darkened, impossible to see beyond that of glowing eyes. "Do not speak to me. Leave."

Amaterasu opened its maw, the bottomless darkness that could swallow men alive. You're a coward, Kyuubi.

Naruto flinched, jumping into Sasuke's side as the mighty fox screamed loud enough to shake the world: "Go!"

The dragon watched with its empty socket and purple eye, and the world melted in purple light-.

"Gah!" Naruto shouted, flopping backward onto his backside.

Sasuke, bleeding to red blindness, keeled over to his side and vomited on the grass. Half digested fish and rice- oozing blood from his eyes joining a macabre sight.

Across the grass, they heard a worried, "Naruto! Sasuke!"

Seconds after, hands were steadying them, helping them into a less disorganized sprawl. Sasuke retched, head burning and neck pulsing an angry heartbeat.

"What happened?" Sakura demanded, holding Naruto up with one arm over her shoulders. "We left you here only a few minutes!"

"I- he-." Naruto stuttered, unable to make words. Sasuke shuddered, trembling before dismissing in an uncharacteristically quiet voice: "I tried a hell-viewing genjutsu. It didn't work."

Kakashi's grip on his arm tightened, then relaxed. "Be more careful. You don't know what you're getting into if you rush into things."

"Yeah," Naruto mirrored shakily. "That."