Unfortunate

Sasuke cannot stress enough how much he hates this, especially since he's really got no one to blame but himself.

Normally, it was Naruto who screwed up in ways as absurd as this. Only Konoha's blond knucklehead would be capable of accidentally traveling across dimensions. And yet, it is not Naruto who has found himself horribly, horribly lost.

No, instead it's Sasuke, and he's certain that when he returns-because he will be getting home, even if he doesn't know how yet-he will never be allowed to live this down. Naruto and Sakura and Kakashi and the rest of the Rookie 9 will hold it over his head till he perishes. They'll laugh and jeer about how the great Uchiha prodigy accidentally flung himself across dimension.

And despite it all that's fair, Sasuke thinks. Annoying, but fair.

But more importantly, it's a worry for the future. In the moment, he has other concerns. Like say, finding a safe place to pass out for the next few hours, because Sasuke's chakra reserves are the lowest they've been in a long long time, and he's fairly sure that if he stops springing through the branches, he'll pass out.

Oddly enough, it helps that the trees are smaller here, harder to walk through. He moves less with the aid of chakra and more his own free running skill, because the focus helps him stay conscious even when nearly every cell in his body demands he curl up into a ball and hibernate right this instant.

But Sasuke is in unfamiliar territory, and his mind refuse to allow him to do something so foolish as to sleep when he already knows people here are liable to be hostile towards him. It's not completely fair, he knows. The Orochimaru wannabe was probably-hopefully-an outlier, but shinobi did not stay alive by being trusting.

Unless your name was Naruto Uzumaki, in which case the opposite was true.

But the point is, Sasuke is tired, hungry, and overall not having a very good time, and to make matters worse, the branch he landed on just snapped under his foot.

Great. Fantastic, just exactly what he wanted to happen right now.

He hits the ground less gracefully than he'd like, rolling sloppily to arrest his momentum before landing in a crouch. Part of Sasuke wonders if maybe he should sit here a while, maybe rest his eyes for a second. The more sane part of him calls that bullshit for what it is and forces Sasuke to his feet.

He can tell from the way the world is still spinning that trying to tree walk any further is likely to end in another spill, so instead he walks, one foot in front of the other.

He heads in the direction of a road he remembers passing, because quite frankly, the Uchiha is out of ideas short of asking the first person that doesn't hold a blade to his throat for directions to the nearest cave for him to crash in. Preferably before his body decides a being awake is overrated and forces him into sleep.

This isn't sustainable, Sasuke thinks. He's had chakra exhaustion before, but never this badly and never in a place he doesn't recognize. He's in desperate need of rest that he can't allow because if he does then he'll be defenseless in enemy territory. Which is unacceptable, so instead, Sasuke focus's on each and every step, counting the seconds since his encounter with not-Orochimaru.

It'd been 9,108 since then, and now 9,109, then 9,110, and oh look, Sasuke's made it to the road now! Great, that means all he has to do now is wait for someone to pass. It'd probably be best for Sasuke to actually walk on the road so he can actually speak to someone, but that means stepping out of the relative safety of the tree line, something his mind is tired enough to linger on.

Ah, that's not a good sign, and neither is the darkening of his vision's edges. Distantly, Sasuke realizes that his body is done tolerating his bullshit, and there's really not a whole lot he can do about it. He takes but a single step towards the road before exhaustion finally takes hold of the small part of him that is always thinking rationally, dragging Sasuke down into the depths of unconsciousness.

The very last thing he sees before black consumes his vision is the distant form of someone in cloths a little to similar to not-Orochimaru walking the road, and all he feels is embarrassment knowing some stranger is about to watch Sasuke Uchiha, last of his name, incarnation of Indra Otsotsuki, Rennigan wielder, rival to Naruto Uzumaki, pass out on the side of the road.

And then, his conscious thought is gone.

— — — —

When Sasuke wakes, he does not open his eyes. Counterintuitive, he knows. His eyes are among his greatest strengths after all, but if opens them now, whoever is in the room will notice he's awake.

So he lies there, and he listens.

He deduces rather quickly that he is in fact, but alone. One other person is present, their steps heavy in the unpracticed way a civilian's tend to be. He can tell they're on the far side of the room, and the swish of water informs him of the presence of a sink. If Sasuke had to guess, he'd say he's in some form of clinic, probably curtesy of whoever it was he saw before blacking out.

And ugh, isn't that annoying to think about. Sasuke knows he should be grateful, but such a show of weakness in a place he knows nothing about is unacceptable. Kindly strangers or no, Sasuke can't be at anything less than his best.

He cracks an eye open, and is thankful to see the back of his probable caretaker. His hair isn't quite covering his Rennigan anymore, so he leaves his left eye shut as he slowly sits up, purposefully shifting of the covers over him to make noise.

The stranger-a girl now that he's bothered to look-startles slightly, turning away from the sink with a soaking cloth in her hands. Her face is the picture of surprise, and Sasuke has a sneaking suspicion that she was expecting him to be out for a while longer

"Oh, Your awake! Please-please wait here, I need to go alert my father." She says, and before Sasuke can get a single word in, she's scurrying out of the room. The girl doesn't slide the door closed when she leaves, and Sasuke holds back a scoff at the carelessness.

He would really rather leave now, and he's confident he could. However long he was out for, it'd barley been long enough to put a dent in his chakra exhaustion.

He isn't going to be at 100% for a while, and knowing the chakra exertion the Rennigan demands intimately, he'll have to spend days taking things relatively easy. He can rush out of here, but he shouldn't, especially when Sasuke need's information, and currently has an easy way to get it.

So he sits, and he waits. 2 sets of footsteps approach, one the rushed pitter patter of the girl, and the other the uneven gate of someone with a limp. When he sees the girl again, she's led into the room by a Man at least a few decades Sasuke's senior. He's old enough to be a father at the very least.

"Hello there, I'm glad to see you awake," the man greets, his gait uneven as he sidles up to Sasuke's bedside. His daughter pulls over a stool, and he sends her a grateful nod before sitting down. "I'm Takashi Hiyo, owner of our town's clinic. A boy dropped you off here, saying he'd seen you collapse on the road." The man explains.

"How long ago was that?" Sasuke interrupts. If the man-Takashi-was bothered by it, he didn't show it.

"Last evening actually." The man answers, and that tells Sasuke he's been out for just a single night. "The sun hasn't even risen yet. We weren't expecting you to wake so soon."

"I See. Thank you for your care, I'm Uchiha Sasuke." He introduces himself, because his mother raised him well for the limited time that she had. Besides, it's not like anyone here is going to know his name and the bloody history behind it. "Could you tell me where exactly we are? It was a bit lost before."

"Ah, Of course Uchiha-Sa-"

"Just Sasuke, if you could." He corrects, because there are too many emotions-both good and bad-wrapped up in his clan name, and he thinks if he has to hear people call him by it all the time he'll do something inadvisable.

"Sasuke-san then," Takashi starts again, slow and with no small amount of bemusement. "We're just a few days travel out from Tokyo. It's south west of here."

And for all that it's only a little information, Sasuke learns a lot from it. If this 'Tokyo' was mentioned by name but not the town itself, then it must be rather important. Enough so that people feel comfortable speaking of their location relative to it. Wether that importance is regional or stretches further matters not, because now he knows where to go once his informational resources here are exhausted.

And exhaust them he does. The moment he's able, he's walking out of the clinic, having checked and double checked that none of his weapons had been lost. His training attire was oddly suited to blending in with the populous of the town, or more accurately, his preface for dark colors kept him from standing out, even if the cut of his cloths was a bit unusual.

He drifts through the streets, lingering around the edges of the town's market as he listens for anything useful. He doesn't intend to stay long, not when so much of what he's overheard is so mundane.

The day isn't a total loss though, as he's able to quite actual directions to Tokyo and a decent regional map in exchange for a bit of labor. With it he's able to determine he could probably reach Tokyo in far less then a day if he really wanted to. He'd traveled further in less time under worse circumstances then this.

So Sasuke will travel through the night, he decides, and in the meantime, rest. Much as he would like a warm bed, he is both lacking local currency and unwilling to impose on the Hiyos. Sasuke was many things, a prodigy, a fratricidal orphan, a war criminal, among many other labels. But he was not a freeloader.

and so, the only uchiha this side of the multiverse makes his way to the most comfortable looking tree branch he can find in the forest around the town. The trees are smaller and that makes it inconvenient, but even after his direction, Sasuke was a Konoha nin through and through, always at his most comfortable in the trees.

He finds a good spot in the canopy, far from any birds nests he could disturb and give away his position, with good sight lines in every direction. He carves a basic alarm seal into the bark behind where his head will rest, and then sits back and lets his eyes close.

Today, random village. Tomorrow, Tokyo.