Chapter 12
It took a few tries for Fugaku to spot his wife among the crowd of giggling Uchiha. The reason being that every few seconds, he turned to look at his youngest to make sure he wasn’t hallucinating before he would frantically look for Mikoto. Sasuke was almost on the ground with how loud he was laughing. Everytime he thought he could stop, he would look up at his frazzled father and start all over again. This vicious cycle continued until he spotted Mikoto and she walked up to the newly returned group.
“We had a little excitement while you were away.” She put her hand on her youngest’s head and looked Fugaku in the eye.
“Seems so,” he finally regained some composure. With a gruff cough, he picked up the deer again and looked at it for a few minutes. “When do you think we should do this?” He continued with a thoughtful look on his face. Awakenings were usually sacred so it felt wrong to do it while they were still more or less camping.
At this point they were walking to the area where the animals were being prepped. Sasuke obediently went to help gut the rabbits while the adults finished their conversation. He wasn’t paying much attention to it anyway. He thought it would be a long time before he awakened his Sharigan and he activated it a few times just because he could.
The other Uchiha smiled as they watched him play with his kekkei genkai. Normally, it was frowned upon to be so open with their family jutsu, but there was nothing but family around them now, so they let him play. It only took a few more minutes for Naruto to realize Sasuke was awake and he ran over to Sasuke.
Sasuke didn’t say anything before Naruto started skinning the rabbit that the young Uchiha just disemboweled. They seamlessly started working up others without any instructions. The quiet didn’t last long before Naruto asked shyly. “Are you okay, auntie said to let you sleep.” Auntie being Mikoto.
“Yeah!” Sasuke was excited and realized he would get to tell his friend. “I got tired because I activated my Sharigan earlier.” To show his point, he let his eyes bleed red and looked at Naruto expectantly.
“What’s that!” He tried to be excited too but was clueless about what it was. Taking a closer look he asked. “Does it have to do with your eyes? Cause they look different.” He was squinting at Sasuke's eyes while he asked.
Sasuke pouted a bit at Naruto’s response. “Sharingan a kekkei genkai in our family.” he started to explain and didn’t realize he automatically included the young blond in his family. “It’s awesome, It lets you pick out patterns better and see things going really fast. It also remembers stuff.”
“How can your eyes remember stuff?” Now Naruto was confused.
“What, no, I mean it helps me remember stuff.” Sasuke got flustered and tried to explain.
“But you’re already good at that?” Naruto didn’t go to school often anymore but he did know that much.
Sasuke blushed with agitation and a little at the unexpected praise. “No, wait hold on..” He stopped to gather his thoughts with a deep breath. “It's a blood thing, Uchiha get it when they feel like their life is in danger. It helps us get stronger.”
Naruto stopped for a second and looked at Sasuke. “Sure. I don’t know about that but …” here he stopped and processed what Sasuke just said. “Wait, you were in danger.” His voice went shrill. Sasuke had to spend the rest of their time trying to convince his friend he was fine and explain about the Sharingan.
He gave up at the end with an exhausted sigh and a new resolve to take Naruto to one of their teachers to explain it better. Poor Naruto was just as confused coming out of the conversation than he was going in.
Sasuke didn’t hear anything else about his awakening until that evening with his mother. “Lets get things going before we celebrate.” Mikoto suggested but Sasuke knew he didn’t have a say in it. He could understand that things weren’t ideal right now but it was hard to fight the sting at seemingly being ignored because it wasn’t as important right now. He hoped they wouldn’t forget about it completely.
His parents felt bad watching their youngest. In recent years, the awakening ceremony would be done within a week of the catalyst but that just wasn’t feasible. Most of the food they had right now was either being killed as they went or dried food storage that they managed to smuggle out of Konoha. They wouldn’t starve by any means, but they didn’t want their son’s awakening to be tarnished by them not supplying what they needed.
It didn’t take long for the word to spread and it seemed like everyone started working overtime. After a week, the rundown buildings were turned into a few houses and a shrine. They set up a tanning shop and a blacksmith shop. Sasuke spent it doing a lot of running. He went to bed with his legs sore from running all over to deliver messages from his father and mother.
The second week, lessons started. The older kids were helping build more than they were helping with class. Sasuke was a little bored because it was mostly reading, writing, and basic chakra control. He knew most of what they went over so he helped whichever elder was teaching the class more than he learned. Naruto flourished under the instruction and absorbed everything like a sponge. He didn’t even complain about studying with the younger students instead of the teenagers.
Sasuke had no time to think about his awakening. Mikoto told him that she would start teaching him about it soon but it seemed to him that soon would never come.
Naruto shared a large with with Sasuke in what was dubbed the main house. “Since I’m the leader, it’s important for me to be in the center and there’s a certain level of privilege with that.” Fugaku was trying to explain to the kids at the table. It was decided that Shisui and Naruto would stay in the main house with them until their own house was finished. Sasuke loved sharing a room with someone his own age. Itachi was great but sometimes he just couldn’t get excited with Sasuke about certain things.
“I don’t get it.” Naruto was scratching his head. Sasuke tried to look anywhere but his father so he wouldn’t be able to tell Sasuke didn’t get it either.
“It’s fine.” Mikoto laughed. Sasuke liked how often she was laughing. He never realized how tense everyone seemed to be at Konoha until they had left. “You’ll understand more when you get older.” Mikoto had been spending more time with the older kids cleaning debris and working on what she called a secret project. Itachi and her were playing a game to see how long she could keep it from him. She didn’t even tell Sasuke.
“How is the building going?” she asked Fugaku. He was more relaxed than Sasuke had ever seen him.
“It’s good. Most of the buildings are on their way to completion. After that, we’ll work on getting electricity set up.” He spoke like he was reporting to a teacher and that made Sasuke giggle. “How about you?” He side eyed his oldest as he spoke. “How's your project?”
Mikoto hummed in approval, knowing he decided to play along with being vague. “We’ll probably be finished by the end of the week.” Itachi was paying close attention and so was Shisui. Seemed like the two had decided to team up. Itachi tried to follow Mikoto once but she disappeared into the woods and showed up at dinner like nothing had happened.
Now that there was a time limit, she couldn’t wait to see what else he would try. He might have been anbu in Konoha but he was still her son and had a lot to learn about people. “How’s the school?” She turned her attention to Sasuke and Naruto, who seemed to be having their own conversation.
Naruto started talking a mile a minute. That shy boy that started the journey was long gone and he was fast becoming friends with the entire clan. It was hard not to like someone who was so sincere in everything he did. She let him talk a bit before she turned to Sasuke. “How about you?”
Sasuke pouted and pushed the remaining meat around his plate. Mikoto made a note to talk to Fugaku about surveying the surrounding area and finding a village to do trade with. Even though it was fairly warm, it was technically late fall and they needed some fresh produce to go with all the meat they had been hunting. She had been hesitant to dip too far into their supplies but figured they would have to soon.
“It’s fun helping the teacher out.” Sasuke eventually said. Mikoto read between the lines and responded.
“Are you feeling left out because you're not learning anything?” She knew he was learning more than he realized as he helped the others and started becoming more involved with the clean up. Just the day before, she watched him use a water purification jutsu for someone that had mild chakra exhaustion.
He was just too young to realize how impressive it was to learn any jutsu that was the opposite of his own nature. For now, whispers of genius in Mikoto and Fugaku’s brain, so the two of them stayed quiet so Sasuke could learn at his own pace without the pressure of being a prodigy thrust upon him like Itachi was.
Itachi was a little more understanding about Sasuke’s boredom “How about you join me and Shisui for pra… training in the evenings.” Sasuke was at that age where everything was training, never practice. The two older brothers had managed to get back to a semi-normal training schedule. It might help Sasuke feel more fulfilled.
Between Fugaku’s approving smile and Sasuke’s excited chattering about what he wanted Itachi to show him. Mikoto knew everything would be fine.