Making a Plan
Before the Massacre, the only things Sasuke wanted was to surprass his Brother and be aknowledged by his Father.
He never even aknowledged the reason why he was born- the spare, a just-in-case-things-go-wrong solution, because the mere thought of that happening was impossible.
After the Massacre, things changed.
Sasuke was painfully aware that he was the last one alive who could get them justice- and also painfully aware that he was pathetic and Itachi would probably kill him long before Sasuke ever had a fighting chance.
Because sure, Sasuke could become stronger- but his brother would likely too.
In the face of this impossible task, Sasuke began to think about his purpose.
He remembered that the clan heads one purpose was to protect and lead the clan.
He couldn't do either, now, because the clan was dead- but what if they weren't?
Sasuke had heard things that should be impossible could be achieved by chakra. The second Hokage, for instance, had a seal and jutsu combination for instant travel and the fourth had one that worked even better.
It meant, essentially, that seals-fuinjutsu- allowed space-travel.
If space travel was possible, then why wouldn't time travel be possible too?
If he would suceed in time traveling he wouldn't have to kill Itachi and he could save his people. And then, finally, it wouldn't be his duty to care for his people anymore. He could just warn people which would change things. Sure, they might not believe him- but the yamanaka could always look into his head and the sharingan itself was capable of seeing almost any lie.
The very idea of not having the burden of being the last of his clan who needed to kill their killer ( because that man was uchiha in name only after he betrayed them) relieved Sasuke.
When he was visited by the Hokage in the hospital, he was informed that his clan was already burned. When he asked if he could have their eyes- because, for now, until he fixed things, protecting the dead was also his job, the Hokage informed him they were also burned so that Sasuke wouldn't have to bear that burden.
Sasuke glared at him but he couldn't change things, even if he did not believe him.
So Sasuke gave a nod of acknowledgment and asked to be dismissed from the hospital, now, and the Hokage granted it.
When Sasuke returned home from the hospital he tried not to dwell on the fact that he even faiked his dead clan. He would just have to suceed even more with time-traveling now.
Sasuke didn't practice with his kunai or shuriken to work out his anger. He didn't train his fireball, either.
Instead, he tip-toed into his parents room, grabbed his mom's fuinjutsu books ( who had received them from a friend he never met and which he wasn't allowed to touch before because " seals are tricky and dangerous" ) and immedeatly ran out of it, into the bathroom and puked because of the bloodstains on the way there.
Then, he settled into his father's study ( it felt safe because there were lots of wards, no blood and it smelled like him) and began to read, his eyes blazing red.
In another life, Sasuke thought bitterly, his clan would be throwing him a party for getting the Kami's gift, their blessed eyes.
But it was alright, he reassured himself, Sasuke would make it so no other Uchiha kid would have to spend the aftermath of that alone. He would fix things so that his people wouldn't suffer or die trying.
------
Sasuke spent a week, praying for his people and burning things in lieu of their bodies and reading the huge books on fuinjutsu with his sharingan ( it took long because his eyes hurt and bled after a while and he had to stop frequently), just leaving the room to go to the bathroom , shower and change or get a drink. His father had missed more than often missed a meal or two so the office was well supplied with power-bars, meal-pills and supplements.
Then, his research-frenzy came to a stop when he felt someone come near the wards.
It was a surreal feeling, really, but because he was now the head of the people living here, he could feel when people came near or tried to breach them.
So far, Sasukes watchers ( that he had gained immedeatly when he moved back into the compound and became the head of the wards) had stayed politely near the wards so far which meant that them coming near meant they wanted something.
Sasuke sighed, tried to make himself look presentable by quickly combing through his hair, grabbed a weapon pouch full of shrunken, kunai and ninja wire ( if the hokage was willing to deny ancient traditions of his clan, who knew if he was safe here) and went to meet them in front of the gates.
There was a lone anbu with silver hair and a Dog- mask who was clearly visible and mentioned for him to come near.
Sasuje obeyed but stayed in the wards. Of course, the anbu could breach them any time he wanted, the general Uchiha wards just alerted Uchiha to intruders and made breaching them extremely painful, but the Anbu didn't.
" Hello Anbu-san. Why are you here?" Sasuke greeted the man with a nod.
The anbu answered. " The Hokage wants you to know that you shall go back to the academy tomorrow. And after that you have a meeting with the council who wish to speak to you about financial matters."
Sasuke hnned. " What if I don't want to? "
The anbu inclined his head. " All ninja in the village must obey the Hikage kid. If you don't..." He ended the sentence, seemingly threathening.
" I'm sorry about that kid but orders are orders."
Sasuke hnned again. " But I am not a ninja. "
The anbu shrugged.
" You are still an academy student."
Sasuke nodded.
" Yes but the clan-heads or respective guardians can pull their kids out of the academy anytime, they just have to pay a penalty...and I am both for me."
The anbu inclined his head. " Not if the Hokage orders it."
Sasuke sighed. " Hnn. Fine. Is the council meeting an order too?"
The anbu shook his head. " No. It's the elder council...they just recommend things and have the hokages ear and lots of influence on him but officially no authority."
Sasuke hnned. " May I ask what would happen if I don't go?"
" It could be taken as an insult and affect your shinobi career but nothing else."
Sasuke nodded. " Okay. If you have to give them an answer, can you tell them that I am too...busy with my duties at the time and can't meet them, please? And thank you for answering my questions, Anbu-san. May I leave now?"
The anbu nodded and Sasuke went back to his house.
He ate another powerbar for dinner and resumed reading.
The next day he went to the academy, he ignored everyone, ignored their glances and stated and hnned at their empty condolences. He didn't bother listening to the lecture and just stayed inside for lunch because he wanted his peace.
Unluckily for him, Iruka-sensei approached him.
" I wanted to give you my condolences. What happened is horrible. If you ever need someone to talk to me to or some help, I am here for you.
Sasuke didn't want to talk but Irika-sensei sounded honest and it wouldn't hurt to be semi-nice in order to not make enemies out of his teachers so he aknowledged him with a quiet " Thank you."
It probably wasn't what Iruka-ssnsei expected because the man stared at him with wide eyes for a second and then gave him a smile. " You could stay at home longer if you need some time for yourself. I know grieving can be...hard."
Sasuke shook his head. " I couldn't, the Hokage ordered me to come back."
"Oh...I didn't know that, my apologies." Iruka aknowledged. " Well, at least I can give you as much time for the back-up work you miss as you need."
Sasuke hnned, taking the papers the man gave him.
He finished the Papers during the rest of the lunch break and lessons, gave them to me Iruka-sensei at the rest of the day.
Then he went home and finished the last book.
So far, Sasuke understood the following things about fuinjutsu
1. It was absoloute bullshit and let you rewrite the rules of reality.For instance, the Uzumaki had a storage scroll to store entire houses!
2. It was so, so biased. The introductory book talked about Uzushino and that there are many seal-masters there. It also mentioned that they sometimes learned young and often knew instinctively what to do if they studied seals a bit. ( That made him pout).
3. There were loads and loads of seals. Sure, Sasuke had copied them all, and yet he had no idea if he could paint them all. Some of them were super complicated.
4. Uzumaki seals were often bullshit. It was like they had sealing in their blood. They had some kids who could just draw about anything and make that a seal even if it didn't make sense...for anyone but them at least.
5. The third book talked about the fall of Uzushino and that thus, many seals were lost to this day. And, appereantly, The Uzushino symbol was one Konoha jonin and cousin still wore on their flat jackets as a homage to their once- ally which died.
6. Seals relied both on symbols ( less if you were an Uzumaki which was soo unfair) and intentions ( book four went on a long spiel of the fact that " Seal-masters should have a calm mind". Sasuke was never calm, he was always scared, angry or anxious though he tried not to show it so he decided to learn genjutsu to counteract this.)
7. Seals react to seals. Or not. ( The second book was only about that and provided examples.)
8. The chakra of a seal instinctively reached out to chakra sometimes. So there were some seals that were only able to be activate by a certain chakra and some seals that, for instance, would be automatically activated by a foreign chakra ( which was super useful for traps and a concept used in warding).
9. Chakra was similiar if people were of the same blood or clan. Family and clan seals existed.
10. Chakra and other seals could be a sort of anchor to be able to use them. So some seals just didn't work if there were no following ones or if their seal-master died.
10. If you make a mistake, things are likely to blow up ( book two was just full of warning people and cautioning them and of gruesome stories how people died.
11. Unless you are an Uzumaki in a sealing room, or taught about seals, creating a new seal is super dangerous because of 10 and because seals weren't always logical. Sasuke just decided to ignore that fact, but vowed to perform his sealing experiments in a warded place.
12. Creating a seal could take from years to a day to a minute. It depended on what seal, how good you are and how much groundwork you needed to build ( cause you could sometimes tweak and adjust things)
13. There were lots of uncompleted seals with symbols that made sense according to seal-masters and theory explanations. That was basically all what book five talked about and Sasuke decided some of those could be useful.
14. Seals were used to imprison Chakra-Beasts. Appereantly, the Kyuubi was one that Konoha had- and Madara Uchiha had once controlled them with a shaingan which is why the Uchiha clan was largely suspected for the second kyubi attack. They were also weapons, once used by Hashimara to try to gurantee peace when the villages formed but now also used in wars. They were often sealed into little kids or baby's who sometimes could use the seals power. And those kids or babies often died.
( Sasuke realized that the Nine-tails was not dead as they had learned but must be in a little kid or free now but he didn't dwell on it.)
Based on this knowledge, Sasuke knew he had a problem. Because Seals needed an anchor...and he didn't have one in the past. He didn't know a mysterious space-travel seal in the past and had never thought to put his chakra anywhere.
He thought about this for a week, performing his usual duties ( the academy, looking for more scrolls in their huge clan library that could be important) until he found the solution.
Sasuke hadn't stored chakra. But his clansmen had. It was somewhat a tradition that before events that could mean their demise people stored chakra in a sword forged by their own smiths.Sasuke didn't know how old the chakra was, at which point it was stored or who did it...but if humans could be containers for biju-chakra then couldn't he turn himself into a container for foreign human chakra and figure out how to use that?
If that suceeded, that could be his anchor to a different time...although he wouldn't be able to determine the time because he didn't know it..nor the space because seals reacting to seals and chakra reacting to chakra could be absoloutely confusing.
But that was alright. It just meant that he needed to know how to hide ( in case he ended up in a warzone or in the open because of bloodline-thieves), be prepared for extreme weather ( cause he didn't know if he would end up somewhere in fire although he hoped so. But, back in the warring states Uchiha were nomads to an extend...and again, chakra reacting to chakra was weird. And be prepared to land in the ocean or something ( He saw his people water-walk but hadn't done that yet...but it couldn't be too hard to learn)
The only thing he could be sure of, if he suceeded, was that he would land in a time where other Uchiha were alive, somewhere.
Sasuke sighed. This was a lot of work. He wouldn't ever be able to properly define certain variables...and he would likely die...but somehow he now had hope that he could do it.
For the first time since the Massacre, Sasuke smiled.
Then he made himself proper food for the first time ( well...it was a canned tomato soup... and while it heated up he cleaned out the fridge with a scowl on his face.
( He felt far too small when he had to use his step stool to do that.)