Three months later,
December, 2005.
While Christmas wasn't really celebrated as a tradition in Tokyo, some orthodoxies still engaged in sharing of gifts and enjoying themselves, lighting up the entire and bathing the beautiful sunset in a cascade of vibrant lights, amidst a wonderful, cheerful atmosphere.
Being pulled by his parents into a crowd, a young pink haired boy mistakenly dropped his football. Despite the large crowd, his love for his ball made him shake off his mother's hand, and chase after his football, bumping into and hitting several strangers as he run.
He run until he finally came face to face with his ball only to finally realize the dark landscape he now found himself in.
"Mum..
Dad?.."
He called out as he shivered and unconsciously dropped his ball, taking steps back in fear. He did not know how he had appeared in this place, and his brain tried to make sense of it, but there was no practical explanation.
*Ssssssst....*
As he surveyed the area in fear, his heart jumped within his chest, in a moment, as multiple slithering voices echoed in the back.
*Ssssssst!*
"Mum!! Dad!! Anyone!!"
The moment he heard the slithering sounds for the second time, his body seemingly reacted on its own naturally, screaming out, and rushing away for an escape.
The slithering sounds grew nearer and nearer to him, and the fear in his heart increased exponentially, however he never stopped running, despite the pain he felt and despite the odds, he strived to survive, a rather amazing quality in a young boy and worthy of emulation.
It wasn't until he tripped on a rock and fell, that it finally dawned on him, the gravity of the situation he found himself in.
Slithering sounds echoed from all around him, leaving no room for escape. It was as if he was trapped, by whatever crawled within the darkness and could only await his fate.
*ARGHHH!*
Suddenly, his irises widened in shock, as he felt a rather soft and plushy tentacle like object grab his foot and drag him away, as he screamed with tears.
In the distance, a grotesque figure finally came to light. It's long and muscular neck stretched a couple of meters, and it crawled on all fours with huge arms, a long tail and a green tortoise shell.
It was completely faceless with the exception of a huge mouth and large sharp teeth and a pink tongue that lapped it's lips, salivating at the meal it was prepared to devour.
Beside it, multiple crawling cursed spirits slithered, possessing the faces of babies yet considerably huge, with a cockroach like body and tortoise shells.
With it's long tail tightly grabbing onto the boy's legs, it prepared to drop the boy into its huge mouth amidst his screams and pleas of help, when a slashing sound caused the entire area to descend into a pin drop silence.
An instant later, a figure, a handsome youth dressed in a simple brown sleeveless shirt that opened to his abdomen, revealing the tightly knitted bandages covering his injuries, a purple black cloth over purple pants, tightly held by a purple coloured rope belt, soundlessly dropped to the ground.
Shinobi sandals covered his feet, his arms were wrapped in black wrist warmers, and his forehead wrapped in white bandages
His irises, beautiful and back like gemstones shone like with the same onyx colour as his hair, as they glared towards the large number of cursed spirits in the vicinity.
In one hand, he held a chokuto, a standard Japanese medieval Shinobi sword with a black handle, no sword guard and a straight blade that shone with mettalic lustre. And his other hand, held the young boy that was about devoured by the cursed spirit.
Gently letting down the star struck boy, he gently waved his blade shaking off the bloodstains on them and sheathed it on his lower back.
*ROOOAARR!*
The large cursed spirit immediately roared out in pain, as a clean cut ripped through its large tongue causing nearly half of it to fall, accompanied by spurts of blood.
*#££&#&#&#_#&#&#&#!!!!#!#!#!#*
Seeing their master writhe in pain, the cockroach like cursed spirits rushed out towards him in their numbers aiming directly for the kill.
"Stay back, or you'll die.."
Without sparing a look at the young boy, Sasuke took a step forward, and in a burst of purple coloured his irises swapped their onyx color for a bloody red one, within which three black tomoe shaped symbols revolved intermittently.
Of course, telling a young kid to stay back or die wasn't really cool and did nothing to resolve the boy's fear, however at this point, Sasuke couldn't care one bit how the kid felt, as his focus only remained on the systems mission in his consciousness.
*Mission Activated!
Eliminate all 20 fourth grade curses and 1 third grade.
Reward: 1800 system points + Explosive Tag Multiplying Jutsu..*
Seeing the pop up, his lips curved up into a small smile and he took in a deep breath, calming himself and steadying his heart rate.
"Doton-- Doryuheki no Jutsu!" ( Earth style -- mud wall!)
Forming a set of intricate hand seals, he placed his palm on the floor, and almost instantly and large wall erupted from behind him, forming a protective shield for stunned and perplexed kid who watched him in shock.
Without hesitation, he took a step forward, and disappeared in a phantom like manner, appearing right above the mass of curses as if he had just teleported.
The body flicker technique, known for it's rather high velocity movement was used almost flawlessly by Sasuke, allowing him to appear and disappear like a ghost to the untrained eye. However, what many people didn't know was that, combining Body Flicker Technique with Wind Release, allowed for one to move or float like a feather in the wind, while moving at high speed.
Soaring in the air, he flipped multiple times and got into a position before executing a couple of hand seals, and pulled his hand towards his lips.
"Katon-- Gokakyuu no Jutsu!! ( Fire style-- Great Fireball Jutsu.)
*BOOM!*
A magnificent flaming orb, like a meteor, smashed towards the cursed below him, reducing nearly half of them to ash, as the remaining scattered from the onslaught.
He landed soundlessly on the ground, like a feather, before he smiled, equipped himself with two kunai, and flickered into the midst of the curses. None of them was going to escape his onslaught.
Three whole months, he had pushed his body to the limits, mastering the basics of the way of the Shinobi, moulding his form, technique and skills to the utmost, striving to achieve excellence in every Jutsu he had received from the system.
And just like that, days and nights of training and near death experiences had turned him into the formidable and perfect warrior.
In the Naruto world, such skills would be classified as Chunin level, however, coupled with his three tomoe Sharingan, he had the confidence to stand at the top in that particular classification of Shinobi.
He flickered to and fro the battlefield, executing flawless flips and movement that would put a Parkour grandmaster to shame, while his kunai, wrapped in a sharp flow of wind and blue lightning, like a pair of scythe reaped the lives of every curse spirit it touched.
Letting out a small smile, he hurled his kunai into the air, and while they descended he performed two skilful moves, a 360 degree kick to the first kunai, and the 720 degree to the second.
The force behind the kicks hurled the kunai like arrows wrapped in lightning, which ripped through two cursed spirits with frightening accuracy, exorcising them in a moment.
Just like that, all the fourth grades were exorcised, leaving behind the large third grade that bared it's teeth and rushed to him, it's every step quaking the ground.
Despite what was shown in the source material considering the ranks of cursed spirits, every grade was considered an exponential leap in strength compared to the previous. Thus, even hundreds of fourth grades would not hold a candle to a third grade in terms of pure destructive physicality.
Without wasting time, Sasuke's figure was immediately encased in a sheath of lightning and wind, before he reached towards his lower back and drew out his rather famous counterpart, the Kusanagi blade.
Armed with the Kusanagi in reverse grip, and two kunai, one his left, and the other in between his teeth, he flickered, wrapped in lightning and wind, and appeared right above the head of the beast.
Waving his hand, the kunai in his grip pierced towards the head of the beast, while he grabbed onto the metal wire attached to its end pulling himself along.
*ROAARR!*
As it screamed out in pain, Sasuke landed on its body and rolled over flickering atop its body at high speed.
"Raiton--Raikou Kousen no Jutsu (Lightning Release--- Lightning Beam Technique)"
With the kunai in hand, his hand was instantly covered by beams of purple lightning.
Without hesitation he pierced through the body of the curse with his kunai, before causing secondary and even greater damage with large bolts of lightning that engulfed the entire body of the curse rendering it completely immobile as the lightning decimated it's flesh.
While wreaking havoc on the body of the curse, he flickered to the ground soundlessly and finally employed Kusanagi. With merely a wave, the four limbs of the beast were slashed apart, as it collapsed to the ground utterly defenceless and defeated.
Walking to the beast, he waved Kusanagi once more, and separated it's head from its body along as blood sprayed all over, before it turned into ashes and disappeared.
While walking away he sheathed Kusanagi and turned his head only to see the kid staring at him in shock and awe.
"Go back to your parents.."
Leaving these words behind, he disappeared in a puff of smoke, as the kid looked around trying to find him and began leaving after searching but to no avail.
Meanwhile, about a mile away, a figure flickered onto a large tree and sat on a branch, with an exhausted expression.
"System Status."
He called out, before retrieving a bowl of hot assorted noodles from his ninja backpack and began feasting in ecstasy.
*Uchiha Sasuke Template: 15% assimilation.
System points: 2600 + 1800
Release systems unlocked:
- Fire release
- Wind Release
- Earth Release.
- Lightning Release.
- Water Release
Jutsu assimilated:
Body Flicker Jutsu
Body transformation Jutsu
Basic Clone Jutsu
Substitution Jutsu
Great Fireball Jutsu.
Mud Wall Jutsu.
Lightning beam Jutsu
Propelling Wind Jutsu.
Great Waterfall Technique.
Weapons unlocked: Kusanagi*
As he slurped his ramen, he couldn't help but smile, seeing how large his repertoire and his strength had increased compared to when he first awakened.
While he didn't measure himself with the standard of Jujutsu due to the fact that, he wasn't really practicing sorcery, but the way of the Shinobi, he was close to a higher third grade sorcerer. With his three tomoe Sharingan, he believed no fourth or third grade even came close to him and even had the confidence to take on weaker second grades, although he himself was a step behind that class.
"Where do I go from now?"
He asked himself, as he finished the bowl of noodles. While wasn't standing at the peak of Jujutsu like he had promised to, he at least had the means to survive on his own now, which was most important.
Perhaps it was time to reveal himself to the world of Jujutsu? That made a lot of sense right now, however, the more he thought about it, he realized that the Zen'in clan would probably be searching for him now.
They would've already found the corpses of the three mercenaries and would now be searching for clues leading to himself. While the most plausible explanation was the arrival of a curse that took over his body and killed those mercenaries, the Zen'in clan was filled with a bunch of paranoid old men, who'd stop at nothing to achieve what they desired and satisfy themselves.
Hence, the Jujutsu society was a no go for the time being. He just needed to find a place he could belong to and not be shackled by old traditions and rules.
A/N: 15 power stones for an extra chapter, 30 for two. ✌️ Peace we out!