The Uchiha compound was quiet. Peaceful. Silent.
Until—
"SASUKEEEE! OPEN UUUUP! I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE!"
Sasuke's eye twitched.
He was in the middle of reading a scroll — a beautiful, ancient one — filled with Uchiha-style kenjutsu forms and lightning-nature chakra infusion techniques.
A moment of clarity.
Shattered by a blonde siren of chaos.
The pounding on the door continued.
BAM BAM BAM
With a sigh of spiritual defeat, Sasuke opened the door.
Naruto stood there, beaming like a human flashlight. "Mornin', emo bro!"
"…Why are you here."
"You didn't show up to the training field! I figured you were either dead, sulking, or stuck in a tragic monologue!"
"I was reading."
Naruto blinked. "Voluntarily?"
Sasuke moved to shut the door.
"WAIT!" Naruto shoved his foot into the frame. "Is that a scroll?! Wait—are those ALL scrolls?!"
Before Sasuke could object, Naruto invited himself in like a loud raccoon with too much sugar. "Whoa, this is like a secret lair! You're totally a nerd ninja!"
"They're Uchiha kenjutsu and chakra flow techniques," Sasuke said flatly.
Naruto poked one of them with a chopstick he somehow brought inside. "This one looks like it wants to kill me. That's cool."
Sasuke ignored him, rolling open a long scroll on lightning release. As he did, he subtly activated a single tomoe in his left eye — the bare minimum needed to analyze the hand signs, chakra diagrams, and flow patterns.
It wasn't perfect, but it was more than enough.
"…Why is your eye twitching?" Naruto asked suspiciously.
"Because you're still talking."
Later — the training grounds
Naruto was narrating again.
"Behold! Sasuke 'Too Cool to Smile' Uchiha steps onto the field, sword in hand, drama in his soul—"
"I will throw this training blade."
"—with a heart as cold as a blizzard and fashion sense that screams, 'I wear navy because it hides the pain—'"
Sasuke launched a pebble at his forehead.
"Ow!"
He stepped forward, sword in hand, and began moving through the forms — elegant, dangerous arcs of chakra-enhanced strikes. He practiced in near silence, his Sharingan spinning just faintly beneath closed lids when Naruto wasn't looking.
He could see the weak points in his stance, the exact chakra balance required to maintain blade flow, the rotational torque needed to switch from defensive to offensive in a single breath.
His movements were sharper than ever.
Naruto's jaw dropped.
"THAT. WAS. AWESOME."
"Don't try to copy it," Sasuke said immediately.
"Too late! Already imagining myself with a sword. Maybe two swords. Or a glaive! OOH, or like—nunchucks that also breathe fire!"
"…You're banned from weapons."
Later that Day — Academy Practice Field
As expected, Naruto dragged Sasuke into a makeshift sparring circle — where several of their classmates had already gathered.
Sasuke sighed. "You're making me socialize again."
Naruto beamed. "It's good for your broody little heart."
That's when they arrived:
Shikamaru, lying under a tree like gravity personally betrayed him.
Choji, sharing his chips like a benevolent snack god.
Kiba, arguing with Akamaru about chew toys.
Shino, eerily still and possibly communicating with a bug through antenna twitch language.
"YO!" Naruto yelled. "Squad up, people! We're doing friendly spars!"
Kiba looked up. "Oh hey, Uchiha finally decided to show up."
Sasuke gave him a blank stare. "I was avoiding stupidity."
Kiba blinked. "Wait, was that an insult or just your personality?"
"Yes."
"Anyway," Naruto grinned, "me and Sasuke vs. Kiba and Shikamaru! Tag battle!"
Shikamaru groaned. "Why me?"
"Because Choji's still eating and Shino said you 'generate low kinetic noise levels.' Whatever that means."
"It means you're loud," Shino said calmly.
"Thank you," Naruto replied, like that was a compliment.
Thirty seconds into the match
Smoke bomb.
Tripwire.
Naruto yelling "SNEAK ATTACK!" and running directly into his own trap.
Sasuke caught him before he faceplanted. Barely.
"You're an actual hazard."
"I call it aggressive strategy."
"You tripped on a rock."
"It was a tactical pebble!"
Sasuke sighed harder than a genjutsu teacher at an open-mic night.
Shikamaru yawned mid-block. "You two are exhausting."
Choji munched and offered Naruto another chip. "Snack break?"
"YES."
After the Match
"Why are you even friends with him?" Kiba asked, watching Naruto try to high-five a confused Akamaru.
"I'm not," Sasuke said instinctively.
Then paused.
"…He's just… persistent."
Shino, standing nearby, tilted his head. "He'll grow on you. Like a fungus."
"Thank you, I think," Naruto said, accepting that as praise.
Sasuke didn't argue.
Instead, he looked away — and just for a moment — smiled.
_______
The moonlight spilled across the quiet Uchiha compound like silver ink, and Sasuke stood alone beneath the rustling leaves of the old courtyard tree.
The air crackled faintly.
Not from the wind.
But from the chakra building in his palms.
He extended his hand, lightning chakra rippling over his skin, controlled and lethal. It buzzed like a warning — or a promise.
And behind his calm expression, his left eye spun gently.
Three tomoe.
Hidden beneath the surface.
Only the village council had seen the weakest version. The one tomoe.
They didn't need to know how far he had already come.
They didn't need to know how much further he could go.
Not yet.
He had also felt something else — deeper, darker — a flicker of power clawing from the edge of his soul.
The Mangekyō.
But his body wasn't ready. Activating it brought searing pain, like hot wire through his skull. It wasn't sustainable. Not yet.
So for now, he honed the power he could control.
Step One: Master the Lightning Jutsu
Scrolls littered the training post like scattered feathers. Uchiha clan scripts, Konoha archives, and a few old manuals stolen borrowed from the Academy's restricted shelf.
Sasuke focused on the C-rank techniques first:
Lightning Release: Static Discharge — a short jolt of paralysis.
Pulse Wire — lightning channeled through a path, striking anything connected.
He began with Static Discharge.
Lightning gathered at his fingertips, subtle and sharp. His Sharingan flickered briefly beneath his lashes, not active — but assisting.
Control. Flow. Timing.
He jabbed the training dummy.
A snap of light, and the dummy jerked with a flash of crackling force.
Paralysis window: 1.5 seconds. Enough to disarm. Not enough to kill.
He repeated the strike — tweaking the output, adjusting the chakra ratio. Every movement calculated.
Lightning arced over his forearm like a serpent.
Step Two: Nature Transformation — Lightning Style
The leaf test again.
He sat cross-legged by the courtyard stream, a single leaf pressed between his fingers.
Fire chakra burned the leaf.
Wind sliced it.
But lightning?
Lightning was meant to vibrate it into shreds.
At first, it trembled — then charred. Too much power.
Again.
This time, the leaf trembled, split, then curled in half like it had been sliced by a thousand invisible knives.
Perfect.
He opened his eyes.
His vision, already sharper than most jonin, caught the tiniest detail — the flicker of micro-cracks on the leaf's surface.
The three tomoe had shown him exactly what he needed to change. But he kept it hidden. Always hidden.
Even from him.
Step Three: Core Chakra Control
The tree stood before him like a familiar rival.
He didn't hesitate.
Feet against bark. Chakra pulsing steadily through his soles.
One step. Two.
He ran vertically, flipped midair, landed upside down on a branch, and dropped back down like it was nothing.
No falls tonight.
He added complexity — shuriken throws while running, lightning chakra through his legs for added speed, and focus exercises at the peak of each jump.
When his vision began to blur from chakra fatigue, he finally stopped.
He sat against the trunk and exhaled.
Hands numb from electricity.
Muscles sore from exertion.
Left eye aching faintly from resisting the Mangekyō's pull.
But his mind? Clear.
Stronger every day.
He wouldn't reveal it yet.
Not the full Sharingan.
Not the Mangekyō.
But soon, when he trusted someone enough…
Maybe that loud idiot would be the first to know.