8 As the Weeks Pass

The days blurred into weeks, as Sasuke continued his routine that felt more to him like a ritual. He woke up and spent the morning to midafternoon learning seals even on days he wasn't in the academy. He started spending one day a week free from physical training and hanging out with Naruto out of sympathy for the way he was treated, but the more time he spent with him the more he enjoyed the company. Naruto's personality was infectious. Sasuke devoted sometime on his weekends to visit the library and take a more advanced education through self-study about the world he was living in. Every question he answered soon created another question, one day he would figure out this world. Sasukes physical training took an upward turn as he ran into a man walking on his hands around the village walls. The guy named Might Guy gave Sasuke some training tips to improve his physic that worked wonders. Sasuke started following Guy's tips by walking around his lake on just his hands while wearing weights on his hands and ankles religiously. This effort he applied to himself daily reaped many benefits and one of them was he leveled up to level five. As he saw the experience circle ever slowly become complete he hoped that this was the level he could acquire a talent point, but Sasuke was soon disappointed. That however didn't stop his ritual of training, Sasuke grew to rely on the daily routine. He discoved that upon leveling up he was granted five talent points, it took him awhile to decide where to allocate them but he did.

Even though Sasuke trains hard daily and leveled up in a few weeks' time, he wasn't the only one that worked hard. Many of his classmates are heirs or heiress to important clans. It wasn't long until others in the class soon gained another level only just leaving him in the lead. Sasuke sat on the ground covered in sweat, breathing rapidly after his last lap around the lake reminiscing about his current life as Sasuke. He remembers walking to the ramen shop with Naruto after class only to see a few of the older academy boys picking on one of our fellow classmates Hinata Hyuga, shoving her to the ground and calling her names. Naruto eagerly jumped into the fray, right in the middle of the upper classmen and told them to "fuck off," only using words an eight year old child would use instead. Naruto took quite a beating before I had to help. It was also the day I learned that I needed to start taking taijutsu more seriously. It was a rough fight and both Naruto and I got hit as much as we hit back. After the older kids ran off and Naruto was helping Hinata to her feet I also saw another ugly side to humanity besides kids being dicks to other kids. Hinata's bodyguard that should have protected her arrived after the fact seeing Naruto helping Hinata up. Ko Hyuga as we learned his name later the next day, walked up to Hinata and snatched her hand out of Naruto's telling her to stay away from that "demon child." Although that interaction with Ko brought a frown to Naruto's face we still celebrated our win in the fight at Ramen Ichiraku, that bowl of ramen I had that day is still one of my favorite of all time.

As Sasuke gradually sat up from the ground after a short rest and headed into his house, his tired body slowly making it inside and straight to the shower. 'This is the day' he said to himself as he wiped the water off his skin with a towel, I am finally going to master a seal. The seal he has started learning since he received the two seal for dummies books. Was a storage seal, a simple seal found in most ninja shops but an important and useful one. As Sasuke sat at his eating table that was right outside the kitchen, he pulled his school backpack close and searched through it for sealing paper and ink. He laid the paper carefully on the table and pulled out the ink and slowly started drawing lines on the sealing paper. Each stroke had to be perfect, every line had to have the same thickness. As the drawing of the seals came closer to completion sweat dribbled down Sasukes concentrated face. The last brush stroke on the seal was completed he then channeled his chakra into the paper. Sasuke saw the blue chakra get absorbed into the paper and soon a part of the ink flashed blue due to absorbing the chakra. Sasuke saw the entire inked seal flash blue before it reverted back to its normal black colored ink on yellow paper. Sasuke carefully put away the uncovered bottle of ink afraid of spilling anything on the storage seal he created. After he capped the ink, he picked up his backpack and set in on the storage seal, 'well here goes nothing' Sasuke thought as he put his fingers in the Ox hand sign channeling some chakra and yelled "Seal." The backpack disappeared into the scroll in a flash of blue light. 'Oh the kids in class tomorrow are going to be so jealous when I unseal my backpack at the start of class' Sasuke gleefully thought.

As the days rolled by, Sasuke felt he wasn't become well rounded. He was relying too much on his physical aspects and sealing, he still didn't know any taijutsu stances besides the academy standard, and still had no idea how to shoot giant fireballs out of his mouth like his father and brother. Sasuke overhearing a private conversation as he was walking home from class, of Ino begging her father to teach her a scroll from her family library. 'That's it' thought Sasuke, 'I know my clan must have a library and I'm sure in Sasuke's fathers office are some scrolls I can read and learn.' As Sasuke made it to his old family home, a house he hasn't visited since the first night he ever stepped foot in the Uchiha compound. He begrudgingly stepped up to the front door and slid it open. As he crossed the threshold of the house and entered he sat in a meditative position and cleared his thoughts. After an hour of meditating he rose up from his seated position and headed to Sasukes' fathers' office. Mr. Uchiha never let either brother to take a single step in that room. Sasuke arrived in front of the door to the office and slowly slid it open and in the room he saw bookshelves filled with different scrolls filling up every side of the wall in that room. Sasuke spent the next few hours sitting at his father's desk slowly and carefully looking through scrolls and packing them into his backpack to study back at his home. Now he knows that he has a taijutsu style to study and some fire ninjutsus to learn.

As the weeks blurred into months, and the ninja academy year finished and a new one began, Sasukes routine never lessened. Sasuke constantly asked Might Guy for more training tips as Sasuke was afraid of making his workout ritual easy. Sasuke loved pushing himself, finding his limits and surpassing them. Might Guy was the perfect person to ask if you wanted a work out that almost broke your body in the process. As the weights around Sasukes ankles and hands increased, so did his training time with Might Guy and his apprentice Rock Lee. Sasuke soon had to learn to allocate less important activites to continue to train with those two. Sasuke spent less time in the library with books on the history of the shinobi nations and more time trying to dodge Rock Lee's punches and kicks as they sparred. Sasukes taijutsu style called the Interceptor Fist was getting cleaner with every puch and kick that landed on him, teaching him an important and painful lessons that he didn't forget. Might Guy's instruction explained that Sasuke could only really excel in that taijutsu when he unlocked his bloodline the sharingan. The Interceptor Fist stance relied heavy on the ability to predict, interrupt, and counter the enemies' attacks. Sasuke continued studying that style of taijutsu bidding his time and trying to master it knowing that someday he would unlock his bloodline the feared sharingan.