Latest update:September 6, 2021
Summary:Most fics insert Naruto into the DXD verse; this instead imagines a more tempered Sasuke reliving his teen years in Kuoh Town. Forecast calls for a little broody with some scattered self reflection possible.
Link:https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13531191/1/Beginning-after-the-End
Word count:143k
Chapters:44
It was not a specific sound that awoke Sasuke, but rather a feeling of foreboding that emanated from his very being. Rolling off his bed, the seven year old rubbed sleep from his eyes and began shuffling to his parents' bedroom. Mother would soothe him and rub his back, and he could go back to sleep feeling safe again. His father disliked such practices, and Sasuke did not doubt he would feel his disapproving gaze the entire time until he went back to bed.
"So unlike Itachi" the eyes of his father seemed to say as they silently reprimanded his weakness. Sasuke vividly remembered the day his nightmares began; when Itachi came home covered in blood after an assassination mission gone wrong.
When Itachi first joined the Anbu, Father had secretly ordered Itachi to give him a mission debrief before reporting in to his superiors. Information was power after all, and Father never doubted that Itachi would soon be on VERY important missions. The only exception was when he was specifically ordered to debrief with the Hokage. In those instances only, Itachi would report to Father immediately after. Thus, a bloodied Itachi had dragged himself to report the mission details before going to the hospital.
A stone faced Fugaku had received Itachi's halting report with no expression as the blood pooled on the mat. After confirming the report was complete, the stony exterior softened slightly as Fugaku ordered Itachi to report for treatment and not return until he was fit for duty. Itachi, expressionless as ever, had bowed and dragged himself out without another word. Only Sasuke had heard Fugaku's quiet murmur of "That's my boy".
The nightmares began that night. Some were of Sasuke falling on the battlefield, bloody all over like Itachi had been. Others were of his father's disapproving face looming over him, the stony look never morphing to anything softer.
Shaking himself from his thoughts, Sasuke paused as he reached his parents' bedroom. Usually there was some slight shifting around, deep breathing from his father, something.
Then, he saw them.
His parents were right next to each other on the floor; dead.
(Thump Thump, Thump Thump)
Sasuke froze as time seemed to stand still, and then HE was there, in the shadows.
"Foolish little brother."
Sasuke stiffened as he realized what was going on. Sighing in weary realization, Sasuke cleared his groggy mind and discarded the thoughts of his terrified seven year old self to confront his "brother".
"Itachi, it is good to see you again, even if only in my nightmares." A fully mature Sasuke murmured.
Itachi cocked his head and began to speak when a piercing alarm brought Sasuke to wakefulness.
Acting on Instinct, 16 year old Sasuke immediately bisected the offending device without opening his eyes. He felt immediate regret as yet more ryo were wasted for absolutely no reason, the simple device now lying in a smoking heap on the nearby windowsill.
Sighing, Sasuke mused that being trained to kill was very useful; in war. In everyday civilian life, it tended to become an expensive habit.
One that most veterans had problems breaking.
That was doubly so when he found himself in this new existence following death in his previous life. He had few regrets from what he remembered of his last life, outside wishing he could have been a better father to Sarada and Husband to Sakura.
While he was young, he lived for the village and often neglected his family. It was only as an old man after Sakura had passed that he realized how distant he had been in the name of duty.
He and Naruto had broached the subject more than once after Naruto had given up the hat , both feeling proud of their career but wishing they could have been there more for their family. The old men had gotten a chuckle out of seeing their children have virtually the exact same relationship they had, only in reverse. It had been one of Sasuke's proudest moments when Sarada took up the hat, though it was only years later that he was able to accurately express his pride to her.
Surprisingly, Sasuke remembered little of the events that led him to being on this world.
All he remembered was his daughter's sad face as she held his hand on his deathbed, while his little grandchildren all gathered around (the rascals all looked like their other grandfather of course, it was the whisker marks that gave it away) right before it all went black. After that, nothing. Then one morning, he regained consciousness he in a field outside Kuoh Town. He had been shocked to find that he had both of his arms intact; his body felt like it had right before the Fourth Great War, putting him at roughly sixteen.
It is only after experiencing the indignities of old age that one can truly appreciate a young body that does not have aches, pains and old scars that keep one awake at night.
The next thing to check was his chakra and combat abilities, which were present but changed. He was able to touch chakra just fine, though there was a certain amount of pain he was not used to when he channeled larger jutsus. As far as he could tell the pain was not causing any long-term damage, it just felt like trying to force a thin stream to fill a large pipe and took significant concentration.
Sasuke mused that it might have something to do with the available nature chakra in this world and his own. From his intelligence gathering missions via the Internet (which had taken some time to get used to), this world was far larger and more developed than the Elemental Nations had been. While there was much talk about "magic" and "supernatural powers", it was generally all considered made up fiction with no substance. From what he could tell, the human population on this planet had moved away from personal power ideals (such as chakra and magic) thousands of years ago and focused instead on collective technological advances.
It was eighty years ago that this world had changed, when the first and only nuclear bombs had been dropped on a civilian population in the very Country he now resided.
Seeing the pictures, Sasuke could not fathom the destruction capabilities this world had. Sure, he could replicate a small nuclear blast with Shinra Tensei, but only a few individuals in the history of the elemental nations could accomplish such a feat. Here, they apparently had thousands of exponentially stronger devices in Countries like the US and Russia just waiting to be used. Sasuke mused that every world seemed to have its share of "Wild Cards"; here it was nuclear weapons, back home it was the tailed beasts.
Looking up into the mirror, Sasuke grimaced as he saw his Mangekyou Sharingan and Rinnegan eyes activate and immediately turned them off, bringing his onyx eyes back into focus.
While he was glad to still have them, his eyes often activated now if he had a battle flashback or adrenaline surge. This understandably made for an awkward situation when it occurred out in public, as people of this world do not have ocular jutsus of any sort. Luckily the one time it occurred was near an impressionable youth that loudly proclaimed his contact lenses were "sick" and demanded to know where he had acquired them. Drawing on years of experience, Sasuke had looked bored and kept going, only deactivating his eyes when he had lost his enthusiastic follower. While the young man was more a groupie than a fangirl, the old evasion tactics still worked perfectly well after all these years.
Quickly showering and donning his school uniform, Sasuke assumed his "bored" posture that had done wonders for him during his Academy days back in Konoha and began his walk to school.
During his early years he had adopted a very broody exterior because he was constantly tired from nightmares and wanted to be left alone. As an old man, he looked back on his naivety and chuckled at his mostly self created past misfortunes.
As a young man, Sasuke had been handsome, rich, talented and unavailable. He honestly could not have done anything else to get the young female population stirred up after him more; especially since he was never actually rude to them outside trying to pretend they weren't there. Looking back, Sasuke realized that there were many more intelligent options on the table if he had spent any time actually thinking of solutions instead of always training and obsessing over Itachi.
The simplest solution would have been to pick one girl out of the pack and dub her his "girlfriend", then set parameters on how and when they would spend time together. Sacrificing part of one day a week would have been far better than the constant hounding he received instead. Or, he could have said that he was not interested in girls at all. Sasuke winced at that internally as he dodged a telephone pole; then again, the only thing worse than all the girls pursuing him directly would have been all the girls demanding to be the one to setup their "BFF" Sasuke.
Walking silently down the road, Sasuke repressed a shudder and asked himself why he was getting entangled in teenage drama yet again.
In the elemental nations, he had been focused all the time on work from a young age. Training every day from the time he could walk, then missions from puberty to retirement. He always suspected that Orochimaru had a hand in the way he mentally developed certain attitudes and practices, either from the curse seal or through subtle manipulation in the years they trained together. Either way, he had never been overly interested in women during his teenage years and had only later developed feelings for Sakura after saving the world with Naruto. Granted, he had come to a lot of revelations during that time that changed him as a person, one of those being how long Sakura had truly cared for him.
"You there, why aren't you in class?"
Ah yes, that's why he was going back to the adolescent snake pit known as school; truancy officers.
"I'm headed to Kuoh Academy, sir."
Being polite to authority figures was generally a smart way to not stand out, something he learned the hard way years after he and Naruto saved the world. A willingness to fight always led him back to an exasperated Naruto that railed at his ability to piss off both the client and the target simultaneously.
"Isn't that an all-girls school?" The officer asked with suspicion.
Rolling his eyes Sasuke replied, "Apparently they recently opened to the male population and have been desperately trying to find guys to go there; for some reason my name came up and I received a letter."
The officer looked skeptical, but decided to let him go with a warning to be on time from now on. Nodding his head seriously, Sasuke resumed his journey while internally chuckling to himself.
Honestly, it would be child's play to disable any number of "truancy officers" they sent after him. Or he could always hypnotize them into seeing what he wanted using the Sharingan; but why bother?
This world was so mundane it made him want to beat his head against something hard, but hurting people doing their job was not who he was.
Not anymore at least.
Plus, he needed time to plan his next move. Today was his first day of class, so he could get a feel for the operational environment he would be in for the next few years. Apparently it was common place for students of this world to learn subjects such as science, arithmetic and writing until they were 18, then to either go to "University" to study or go into the work force.
The whole setup was very strange to Sasuke; he had been a trained killer and veteran of many battles at sixteen. Here, people did not usually BEGIN their careers until at least eighteen, sometimes older. Sasuke had briefly considered going to another country and trying to join the military, but immediately rejected the idea. For some strange reason, he felt tied to Japan, to this town in particular; any thoughts of leaving made him uneasy. Maybe in a few years he would leave, once he felt that he understood this world better and could confidently decide on a better location.
Walking up to the front gate of Kuoh Academy, Sasuke mentally reviewed the curriculum in his head. Luckily he only had to brush up on Japanese, as they spoke a slightly different dialect here. The rest he had learned in the few months since he had received his letter and been accosted by the truancy officers.
Many had called him a genius in the Elemental Nations. They were not wrong, though he was not sure what that would have made Itachi.
He had learned very quickly, Itachi had looked and just known what to do with nearly everything. It was only later in life he realized what a two edged sword that must have been for his brother, to be expected to instantly understand everything while always being incredibly bored since he had nothing to strive for.
Following the easy to read signs, Sasuke headed towards the front office and scanned the crowd of students. Internally shuddering, Sasuke felt like the walls were closing in when he realized how many girls there were, and how many were looking at him and giggling. It was like Konoha, times ten because of the population density. He pulled his collar up ("oooh so cute" came from the peanut gallery and fully engaged Sasuke's long dormant gag reflex) and sped up a bit while continuing to scan the crowd. Luckily, attention was taken off him instantly as a young blond man appeared at the gate and was instantly mobbed.
Wincing in sympathy, Sasuke locked eyes with the target of their worship. The two briefly exchanged a look of shared suffering before carrying on with their respective duties.
Yuuto Kiba, or Kiba as most of the girls surrounding him shamelessly called him. He would have to look him up later. Having someone as a source of information would be useful, especially since he would wager this Kiba knew absolutely everything that went on in this school thanks to his fawning fangirls.
Walking into the front office, Sasuke immediately honed in on the young woman waiting by the front desk as if she was expecting him.
She had the confident, well balanced posture that told him two things immediately: she was a leader, and she knew how to fight. Granted, her posture said more along the lines of "martial artist" than trained killer, but that was to be expected in this vanilla world.
She cut a tall shapely figure with midnight colored short hair, a modest chest and keen lavender eyes that studied him intently from under a pair of spectacles. He briefly saw surprise on her features before she approached him and extended her hand confidently.
"A pleasure to make your acquaintance Sasuke-san, I am student Council President Sona Sitri. It is my pleasure to welcome you to our prestigious academy."
Taking her hand firmly, Sasuke replied "Thank you for your kind words President, please take care of me".
Sona minutely straightened at his words, and Sasuke knew his initial read was correct. Many authority figures loved to be addressed as such without any prompting or pandering, like it was their due. Sona was apparently one such person.
Perfect.
"I was wondering if you could tell me a bit about the school and what is expected of me while we walk President?"
"Of course Sasuke-kun; Kuoh Academy has a long standard of academic excellence, and I expect you to..."
Sona monologued for quite some time while pointing out notable structures around the campus as Sasuke attentively plied her with questions and made noises in all the right places.
One of the first rules you learn as a shinobi was to leave your pride at the door; while some missions were quite bloody, the overwhelming majority had you either running recon for a patrol or sometimes guarding important figures that demanded you stroke their ego periodically. Failure to do so usually led to a dressing down from the Hokage and reduction in pay, not to mention potential loss of standing for the village. It was the last that got Sasuke to shape up more than anything; the village losing respect because of his failures was not an acceptable reality for him.
"And that completes our tour Sasuke-kun; any questions for me before you head into class?"
"Just one question President; what can you tell me about group of three boys that sits at the middle table before school taking pictures? They seemed to stand out from the usual student populace."
As Sona's face went dark, Sasuke winced internally at his faux pas. Apparently those three were quite the land mine; Sona went on for ten minutes about their "reprehensible behavior" that "disgraces this school daily". She further proceeded to tell Sasuke that "he would do well to never be seen with them"; apparently they were seen as extreme undesirables by most of the student body.
Rolling his eyes internally, Sasuke swore up and down that he would never encourage their "perversions" and would do his best to avoid them when possible.
After assuring Sona he could find his way to class, Sasuke navigated his way to homeroom. He was only slightly late, so the teacher took the opportunity to introduce him to the class. Surprisingly, he was in the same homeroom as the three infamous figures, who all stared daggers at him and muttered "pretty boy" under their breath at him.
Infamous they may be, but all three together had nothing on Naruto when it came to the annoying department. He studiously ignored them and sat down right next to them, much to the disappointment of the swooning girls who had all scrambled to create seats in their respective areas.
Soon after class had started, the ringleader of the group leaned over.
"Get out of here pretty boy, you are ruining whatever small chance we normal men have at women!" the boy whispered furiously.
Sasuke snorted as the girls threw concerned glances at him; likely they were worried he would be "tainted" by the other boys perversion.
As someone who had been married in his past life, worked as a full time ninja for nearly forty years and seen plenty of things he would rather unsee in Orochimaru's labs, he doubted anything they were into was inherantly shocking or would surprise him. The only part of them that ruffled his feathers was how fangirlish their behavior was towards attractive women; how they stalked their prey was very similar. The only difference of course being that not even the boldest fangirls would have peeped on him changing or anything similarly invasive; they settled themselves with making him miserable in public places.
Studiously ignoring the three increasingly agitated boys, they eventually got the message (after much huffing and threatening) and pulled out pornographic magazines to peruse. Snickering amongst each other, it was like they were immune to the collective dark aura that collected around all the girls in the classroom like a living miasma. Sasuke was not afraid per se, but was also not a fool and knew where and when to pick his battles. Even if they weren't completely perverted Sasuke would steer far away from these three, as they were a magnet for female ire and attention.
Sighing in boredom, Sasuke resigned himself to a very boring eight hour stretch each day until graduation. And of course as such things go, lightning struck somewhere and the fates howled with laughter.
Link:https://m.fanfiction.net/s/13531191/1/Beginning-after-the-End