From A Life Long Past

2: Odd Meetings

Sasuke had always been an intelligent child. He had definitely noticed the sense of déjà vu he always felt at the strangest of times. When he saw a clansman use a fire jutsu; when he sees his brother's Sharingan. He always felt as though he was forgetting something; like he was missing something important.

Sasuke had always ignored this strange feeling. He did ask about it briefly in the most inconspicuous way possible, only to find out that no one else had ever felt this way. No one was supposed to.

Sasuke grew attached to his older brother. He always had this unexplainable fear of losing Itachi. Hence, he always tried to spend as much time with him as possible. To make his brother more and more attached to himself in turn. He never despised his brother for being stronger. He never despised Itachi for being the prodigy he never was.

He did not bother to ponder upon this, just believing that he loved his brother too much to ever hate him.

Their father, however, was a different matter altogether. Fugaku always compared Sasuke with Itachi, telling Sasuke that Itachi had accomplished something at Sasuke's age when Sasuke always failed at it or was nowhere near able to do it. Although his father's behaviour infuriated him, he was just happy that his brother was not neglected. He felt as though as long as Itachi was treated well, his own treatment mattered not.

Then came the time that he was to enrol in the academy. His father did not wish to attend his entrance ceremony, his brother had an important ANBU mission. He was sure that no one would be there to support him. Although saddened, he kept in his tears. To his complete and utter surprise, Itachi ditched his ANBU mission, dragging their father along to attend the ceremony. He used the rule that at least one of the new academy student's guardians or parents must attend the ceremony as an excuse for this.

Sasuke arrived early, seating himself on the swing in the courtyard as he waited for his future classmates to arrive.

~♡~

Naruto strolled toward the academy in the bright orange jumpsuit, arms propped at the back of his neck as he ignored the numerous stones tossed at him by the hateful villagers. It was not like the flying projectiles hit him anyway. He used seals as a method to give himself an almost-perfect defence, deflecting attacks with invisible but concentrated chakra once it is within one inch of the user's body. It makes it look like the attacks hit the person although they did not so much as scrape him. Naruto used nature chakra for this, to infuse nature chakra into any person who he decides to should they come too close. This would permanently turn the person into a stone statue. Moreover, using nature chakra to power the seal also saves him from having to constantly use his chakra to keep the seal active. It would also prevent him from being killed should he ever be passed out from chakra exhaustion, regardless of how unlikely it was to happen.

Naruto did, after all, now have chakra reserves that rivalled Matatabi, the two-tailed bijū's.

He arrived at the courtyard in the academy, ignoring the glares from the few civilians entering their children into the academy that had arrived early. He scanned the crowd, hoping to find Indra's transmigrant. He clicked his tongue at the hopeless excuses for shinobi before his eyes settled on a boy with dark hair that was tinged with blue, much like Madara's. His hair, however, was flat at the front with a straight fringe but spiked up behind, giving the appearance of the butt of a duck.

Uchiha Sasuke.

Naruto approached the boy, whose cheeks were flushed by his brother's teasing as he slapped his brother lightly on the hand when he pinched his cheek. Naruto stopped a few feet away from the boy, allowing a small smile to find its way onto his face.