We Meet Again

Author's Note

Alright, so this chapter is going to be a massive infodump. I'm going to be moving on to more original movements after the time-skip. Sasuke has a plan, and it's one that needs certain conditions to be met, so he's going to have to take care of some things. I'll also try to develop Hinata as a character more, but I'm new to this so I'll have trouble at first. And I'll clear this up now, it's 100% not going to be a harem. Ignoring the fact that I'm nowhere near a good enough writer to balance a relationship like that, it just doesn't fit this character.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------I was lying down on my bed while Hinata sat across from me, reading a book. I had grown a lot over the last 2.5 years. I had made the decision to grow my hair out, letting it hang down on my face instead of spiking up. (It's adult Sasuke's hair.)

"Hey Hinata, we've been here for a long time. I think we'll be leaving soon." I said.

Hinata looked up from her book and said "That'd be nice, the only time we really leave is for missions. I wonder if anyone from our class can put up a good fight."

'Well Hinata sure has changed from when I first met her.' I thought.

The last 2 and a half years had passed by pretty quickly to the two of us. When we arrived, I was right that Orochimaru would have no objections to Hinata coming with me, and was even excited about it.

From there, we spent the next few years doing a few things. The main thing we did was training. I told Orochimaru that my ability let me use my calcium to make my body stronger and form bones, instead of it being absolute control of my body, so that he would train me in the taijutsu style of Kimimaro. He had spent extensive time studying Kimimaro, and so knew his style inside and out. I learned it in order to make my bone use more effective. Due to telling him about my ability, he asked for some samples to study my body. I complied for the simple reason that he would never be able to find anything. My ability was entirely centered on my brain. Studying the rest of my body would provide nothing, so I wasn't worried about Orochimaru having the sample. He couldn't even clone me, since with my control, when I gave him the sample I completely shifted the DNA when he was taking the sample, so that if he tried to clone me from the sample, it would fail due to an incorrect number of chromosomes.

Hinata, on the other hand, spent a lot of time developing her Gentle Fist as far as it could go. She figured out how to use rotation on her own, and could use 128 palms. She didn't solely focus on taijutsu, however. Her chakra nature was tested and it was found that she had the water nature, so Orochimaru brought a wide collection of scrolls he had accumulated for water jutsu that she could learn. She was particularly interested in giving her Gentle Fist and elemental affinity, so she spent time infusing water style into the Gentle Fist to give it a different effect. From there, she went on to work on other affinities she didn't have and infuse them into Gentle Fist, providing varying effects to give the Gentle Fist more versatility.

Other than learning how to use my bones more effectively, I also learned a some other things from Orochimaru. The one I was most excited to learn about was sealing. Mastering sealing would allow me to put the Flying Raijin I had looked at to use and it also was a major factor in my final plan. I took to sealing easily, with my eidetic memory and perfect penmanship leading to me having an easy time both memorizing seals and inscribing them. Once I had progressed far in sealing, I had begun creating my mark for the Flying Raijin. I couldn't use Minato's because each person had to form their own network, but it was possible to sink up your network with another person, like Tobirama did with Minato in the fourth war. I had only recently managed to succeed in making my mark, but my teleportation was only in stage one where I could arrive at marks. There was a lag between teleports that meant I wasn't on the level of Minato decimating the Third Shinobi War with it. Part of my time from when I learned sealing was spent on developing an original seal focused on connecting two people's mindscapes, which would be integral for what I planned.

Orochimaru also taught me Kenjutsu, which I found fun to use in battle, with it becoming my main method of close-combat. I combined it with my Lightning Chakra Mode, which made my sword's piercing power even stronger. My body had progressed to the point that I was almost as fast as I was previously with my Lightning Chakra Mode in my base form. I had condensed the Lightning Chakra Armor so much now that I had changed it's name, with it now forming a sort of cloak around me.

Along with all of this, I signed the snake contract from Orochimaru. I spent a lot of time summoning the snakes, improving my relationship with them so that I could learn senjutsu when the time came.

We didn't spend all of our time in the hideout, however. A large part of Hinata's change in personality came from the fact that we were sent out on missions frequently, both because Otogakure took in requests and because we needed to put our skills to use in the field. A lot of it was assassinations, due to the sound village favoring those types of missions. Hinata had trouble at first, crying for a long time after her first kill.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------2 years ago:

I could hear crying coming from Hinata's room. Knocking on the door, I didn't hear a response so I just entered to find Hinata lying in bed, with tears running down her face. I made my way over to her, sitting down on the chair beside her bed and wrapped my arms around her.

She stopped crying after a little while and asked "Sasuke, does this ever get any easier?"

Looking at Hinata's tear stained face, I replied "No, but in this world where children are trained to kill from the age of 6, you learn to come to terms with it. I won't lie to you Hinata, our world is messed up, we didn't really get childhoods. Killing is part of our way of life, so even if it doesn't become easier, it is something that you grow numb to."

Hinata looks at me for a moment before nodding.

I motion to get up and leave, but Hinata grabs my arm. "Can you stay, just for tonight."

I hesitate for a moment, before nodding. Hinata moves over and I get into bed next to her, and hold her as she falls asleep, hopefully providing some small comfort.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------From that moment on, Hinata went into training with an even more increased vigor. She seemed more resolved, although what conclusions she came to from that conversation I wasn't sure.

Hinata and I sparred with each other frequently, changing up the rules of the match often, which led to her becoming somewhat of a battle junky, much like I am. She was up in terms of wins in a pure taijutsu fight, while I was up when we allowed the use of ninjutsu or other abilities. When I used my bones we were pretty evenly matched in pure taijutsu, before she infused elements into the Gentle Fist. When I used my Lightning Cloak or Kenjutsu, though, I was winning almost all of the matches, which drove her to improve even more.

Zoning back in on Hinata, I responded "I doubt they'll be able to keep up with you. I'm sure we'll find opponents that can, though."

Before anything else could be said a knock on the door was heard. I stood up and made my way over to it, opening the door to find Orochimaru standing next to Sai.

"Sasuke, I wanted to introduce you to your replacement on Team 7. It seems they managed to locate you and have come to try to take you and Hinata back home."

"Whatever, he looks like a downgrade version of me." I replied.

"Hello Sasuke, Naruto and Sakura speak about you very much. Naruto says you're like brothers." Sai said in his weird monotone voice while smiling.

"Naruto can think whatever he wants, it doesn't make it true. Orochimaru, get him out of here." I say before closing the door and walking back to sit across from Hinata.

"It's funny that they replaced you with someone who essentially is a lesser clone." Hinata said with an amused smile on her face.

"Haha, laugh it up. I wonder who they replaced you with on Team 8." I said.

Hinata looked thoughtful for a moment and said "You know, now that I think about it me too. We were a tracking team, but I can't think of any other Genin that were tracking focused, so we'll just have to see."

I nod at what she said, before getting antsy from sitting on my bed for a while.

"Alright, let's go for a walk we've been in this room for too long." I say standing up again. Hinata put her book down and stood up, following me.

We make our way out of my room and down the hall, when we come upon Sai.

"Sasuke, I've decided. I am going to reunite you with Naruto, so you're bond can be strengthened." Sai says while taking out his sword.

I look at Sai in annoyance.

"I'm not going back to Konoha, but if you want to press the issue..." I trial off while rearing my fist back and throwing a punch forward. Sai jumps into the air, but I throw the punch upwards, releasing the chakra I had built up into the sky, leading to the base getting destroyed around us.

Hinata and I jump up, landing on the newly created cliff overlooking the former base. Sai had managed to maneuver out of the way. He kept his neutral expression, but I could tell her was shocked that I had done that much damage. It was then that I heard steps running, and out of the base came Naruto, Sakura, and Yamato.

"Sasuke!" Naruto yelled.

"What Naruto, you can use your indoor voice." I say with indifference.

"We're bringing you back to Konoha, so you can be free from Orochimaru." Naruto says.

I put my hand over my face and drag it down, looking at Hinata and saying "Is he serious?"

Hinata shrugs, which draws Naruto and Sakura's attention to her.

"Hinata, why did you leave the village with Sasuke. We were all really worried about you let's go home." Naruto says.

"I'm fine staying with Sasuke, I don't want to return to the village." Hinata said.

"Alright Naruto, let me ask you something. What do you think would even happen if I went back to Konoha? It's not like we'd just go back to being a team, I would be either imprisoned or killed for abandoning the village. We wouldn't all just go back to be being buddy buddy like nothing happened." I said with an exasperated tone of voice.

"You were kidnapped by Orochimaru, they won't do that." Naruto yelled.

"Yes, I was 'kidnapped' of my own free will. I'm done with this conversation, I'm losing brain cells."

"If you won't come willingly, I'll bring you back with force." Naruto said.

I smirk before vanishing and appearing in front of Naruto with a sword at his neck.

"And how are you going to do that?" I said.

Sakura, who had been silent up until this point, reacted saying "Sasuke, we'll bring you back. I'll show you how powerful I've become." She reared back her fist, but Hinata appeared in front of her, disabling the chakra points in her arm in quick succession.

Yamato took this opportunity to use his wood style, attempting to restrain us, but I channel lightning chakra into my sword and cut through the wood before it could reach either of us.

Naruto looked at me with an angry look, and I could see his eyes starting to turn to slits.

"So you already want to rely on that crutch of yours. We can't have that, now can we." I say before activating my sharingan and looking into Naruto's eyes.

I find myself in his mindscape, looking at the form of the nine-tailed fox.

"So you're the Kyuubi. Sorry, Naruto's not letting you out to play right now." I say.

"What an interesting way you've grown. Those eyes and ominous chakra, you remind me of that bastard Madara." the Kyuubi said.

I ignore him and reach out, grabbing the bubbling form of his chakra and pull it, dispersing it altogether. Before I left Naruto's mindscape, I reach down to the ground of the sewer and inscribe a seal that quickly hid itself from view.

Exiting Naruto's mindscape, Naruto collapses.

Turning to Hinata, I say "Let's go, this was boring."

Hinata nods and moves away from Sakura, following me as we appear back on the top of the cliff.

"That was disappointing, maybe the rest of our class will put up a better fight." Hinata said.

"I doubt it."

At this point, Orochimaru came towards us.

"We'll need to relocate to another base. This one is compromised." he said.

"No, I think we've learned everything we could from you." I say before swinging my sword at Orochimaru, cutting his arm off.

"Sasuke, do you really think I didn't realize you'd try something like this."

Orochimaru's blood made contact with my body. It normally would paralyze me, but I could just flush it from my body. I still pretend to be paralyzed as Orochimaru uses his Living Corpse Corpse Reincarnation to enter my mindscape.

Hinata stands to the side, confident I knew what I was doing.

Orochimaru entered my mindscape and tried to imprison me in my own mind, but I smirked.

"I knew you were going to try to take over my body from the beginning. But my body is mine, and I have complete dominion over it." I say before Orochimaru is suddenly chained in my mindscape. His chakra starts to be absorbed through the chains, draining him.

"Stop Sasuke." Orochimaru says as his entire being is drained. His chakra is added to my reserves, enlarging them further while all the knowledge he had accumulated was added to my own. I now had memories on all of the experiments and things that Orochimaru had learned over his lifetime. I would need to organize it later for it to really be useful, so I exited my mindscape.

I looked over at Hinata and said "Let's go Hinata, we're done here."

I move over to Hinata and we walk away from Team 7, moving out of there line of sight and I use the Flying Raijin to teleport the two of us to another one of Orochimaru's bases I had marked previously.