Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

He sat on the couch, sipping a cola watching an almost asleep, deep voiced commentator talk about a string of murders along the central coast of California.

“Her arms were cut off, her legs were cut off, her torso was ripped in half, her eyes were goug-“ he rolled his eyes and with a click of the remote turned off the channel.

While he loved true crime shows just as much as the next guy they can just get repetitive at times.

No hate or disrespect to the victims but a generic axe murderer who did it because he was desperate for love and attention I has got be one of the most common type of murderers out there.

He swirled around the can of cola and took another sip, empty, and at least his fifth can tonight. His mom was gonna complain if she looked in trash and saw he had that many one sitting, but that was a problem he’d worry about later, thank you very much.

He got up and walked over to the trash can sitting by the fridge, wondering what homework he was missing so he could get it out now and speed run it in the morning when he heard it.

It was high pitched, almost impossible to hear had he not been closer to it by now, but it was a small whistling sound coming from under the stove top.

He took a second, questioning if he should just leave whatever technical malfunction it is for his him to find, before giving in and going over to what the problem was.

God knows that if he doesn’t tell her now than she’ll think he’s the one that caused it later.

He scrunched up his nose, god, what in the hell was that smell?!?

He opens the bottom cabinet, and lo and behold, a fucking pipe broke. Oh joy.

This wasn’t the first time this happened, far from it actually. The pipes in their house were old and not suitable for some of the cold weather they’d been experiencing lately so as sucky as it was it was practically monthly that they needed to flex-seal a rusty water pipe or two.

The damage shouldn’t be too bad though, on second thought. There was no water leaking out of if so he could probably get away with putting a pvc pipe around the breaking part and call it a day until someone more qualified for something like this came along to do it themselves.

Hs got up, and it all happened in a flash.

A spark from an older charging port and the god awful smell replaced with charred meat.

Everything was on fire? No, not fire, but definitely burning.

It was hot in the way you’d imagine leaving your phone charging to long then coming back to find so much as touching the case hurt, not even mentioning the actual phone itself.

It was intense, blazing and staticky charged incinerating him to his very core until he was nothing but red.

And just as fast as it started, it stopped, leaving nothing but smoke and flickers of fire throughout the now gone house, with a body that no longer belonged to him.

__________________________________________

There was noise again.

Not exactly the whistling (øħ, ğøð, płēāșē ńø, ī ðøńť ŵāńť țø ğø bāćķ płěáșé-) but rather a faint clinical beeping sound coming from his left.

It getting louder (ńø ňø ņø ñ-) and louder (şťøp ıț, pľęąśè-) and-

He opened his(¿) eyes.

A myriad of people danced out of the corners of his vision, seeming to frame the off-white ceiling he was staring up at.

It didn’t feel like he thought it would, getting burned. He could have sworn he should be blown to bits right now but doctors can’t exactly extort you of your life savings if you’re dead.

A cool light flashed his face as someone went about wrapping something around his eyes.

He hadn’t noticed until now but they were watering. He watched as someone wiped a cloth over it, now staining it with red blotches.

They were bleeding then.

Huh.

That’s a bit weird.

Eyes aren’t supposed to do that are they? Even when getting exploded in the face he’d be blind before his eyes decided that they produce blood now, wouldn’t they?

He looked downward, at the bottoms of his eyes to find a more concerning sight.

Slim, pale hands covered in blood, and an indescribable body that looked to be of someone a year or twin younger than him. Legs exposed by the less than covering hospital gown showed bruising and scars that came from god knows where.

This was not his body.
__________________________________________

It’s been a few weeks now, but he hasn’t gotten accustomed to his new body quite yet.

It’s smaller than he used to be, more lean and frail on account of age and what he can only assume to be some kind of training regiment.

Seriously, what kid’s body did he get shifted into to where it has already well formed muscles?!?

Sure, they weren’t huge if anything, if anything they kinda looked stupid on his small frame and he’d be surprised if this kid could open a jar on his own, but still.

He’s gaining more bodily awareness though, while moving his arms at first used to be a hassle he’s getting better at it day by day.

The nurses and doctors look weird. Well, not them themselves, but rather their clothing.

It’s like theirs no uniform here, sure, an individual seems to only wear one specific outfit every time they come in for work, but between everyone who works there it’s all wildly different.

Secondly, not a one of the staff here spoke English.

While he couldn’t confirm that just yet, the fact that he has only ever heard people talking in some Asian (Japanese?) language is all he really needs to rule it out as a plausibility.

He remembers waking up that first day, when the heart monitor still scared him ( ǐť șțįłļ ðøêś-) and he couldn’t do anything but stare at the people talking over him like he wasn’t even there.

Being fair, one of the nurses had tried talking to him but when all he heard was-

“サスケ？サスケ、大丈夫？私のことを理解できますか？”

He gave right the fuck back up.

Sure, he could, if he really pushed his new memories( though they were few and far between, the only coherent one being a pale, black haired lady cooing at him), understand it, but at that point he was more focused on the fact that a) he was alive and b) he was nowhere near his homeland of the obnoxiously loud eagle sound and president that thought tariffs would do anything but fuck over the already crippled economy.

All in all, it’s been a traumatic experience for the past few weeks, but on the bright side he was starting to get a grip of the new language.

Now, it was time to go back to ‘home’.

See, he wasn’t actually going home, mainly because as the doctors reiterated it he wasn’t Micheal Crowley anymore, but apparently Uchiha Sasuke.

Like Uchiha- the clan that got brutalized in Naruto- Uchiha, and Sasuke like Sasuke- I want to kill my brother, run away from my village, get manipulated by evil snake guy, make everyone hate me, and become hokage- Sasuke.

Yeah. That one.

Look, be fair with him, he doesn’t actually have a good grasp on who Sasuke even is outside of his sister who hates him with a burning passion. Last he remembers was something about how he’s a dick to her ‘pookie’ Karen. Or Carin. Honestly he forgot but it was something Asian which doesn’t really boil down the name contestants in hindsight.

He gets it though, if a character is a self absorbed jerk for over 75% of their screen time and the only interesting thing about them is inherited he’d hate them too.

Though he doesn’t find himself thinking about that much more as he recognizes that some poor nurse has been calling for him for the past minute or so.

She’s annoyed, that’s for sure, as her posture as she slams the door to his room shows that she’s about to blow a gasket.

He doesn’t have time to get up of the bed before she grabs him by the wrist and wrangles him through the hallways to the front desk, mumbling all the while to herself.

“愚かなウチハガキは、彼がそのように私を無視できると思っている。あなたは今口がきけないかもしれませんが、私はあなたが耳が聞こえないことを知っています。”

He picked up a few words, Uchiha and brat being the most obvious and telling on how she feels. If he wouldn’t be manhandled, he would roll his eyes into the back of his head, but he doesn’t quite trust that the lady dragging him right now cares for how he feels about this.

They get to a front desk of sorts, if you could call it that. One side is cluttered with paperwork while the other houses some poor intern trying to enjoy their break by sleeping on the cleaner side, to bad they were about to get Throttled by nurse lady though.

Nurse lady kicked the swivel chair they sit in and he watches as the poor guy falls face first to the ground, ass up and everything.

He’d laugh if it weren’t so pathetic, honestly, what was the job having him do to be so tired as to not even get up after that.

He doesn’t have much time to think about that though, as the nurse lady all but slams a sheet of paper down onto the desk in front of him before forcing a ball point pen into his grip.

She’s babbling on about something, probably with the paperwork she just gave him, but he thinks he gets the gist.

His name, a date- he believes, and a little box perfect size to put a check on, he’s free of this white prison, huzzah!

He doesn’t even wait for her to finish before filling it out. Just a check down and she’s trampling over he co-workers limp body ushering him out the door.

He leaves quickly, just not before switching out the gown with a proper pants and t-shirt, some sandals as well of course, and he’s walking his happy ass… somewhere?

He doesn’t actually know but his sister said this Sasuke guy lived in a compound that his clan used to be in for while so he guesses he’ll follow suite, if he can find it that is.

The roads of konoha twist and turn around him as he trudges through their streets and he can’t help but feel off.

People don’t notice him at first, black hairs pretty normal in a society based on Japanese culture but when and if they do they freeze.

It’d be okay if it were only that, a few stares are expected when your the final girl of one of the most brutal genocides to happen in your community, but it wasn’t just that.

It was Danzo’s little bitches.

He shivers when thinking back on it. He remembers his sister describing ANBU to him and Sasuke’s relation to it. It was unnerving then and horrifying now that that is an actual possibility for him in this universe.

Being watched, that is.

Being wholeheartedly honest he’d be kicked out of the village’s deep state CIA force in less than an hour because he couldn’t keep his shit together for the life of him, let alone the rest of his career life.

His footsteps are clearer to hear now, choosing to focus on that instead of the imminent doom that is his future, but muscle memory seems to be doing him well.

The house is old looking, though probably on account of the actual time period in this universe but whatever, and the smell of bleach overwhelms him in every way imaginable.

It’s clean yet clinical, just like being back in the hospital again, though he supposes it’s better than the copper smell that was most likely infesting the place before.

He walks up the steps of the house, passing by little shrubs on the way to the door before stopping at it.

He bends down and checks under the carpet, bingo. It’s a dingey thing, well made but definitely over worked, but he doesn’t care all too much because when he presses it into the door it unlocks it.

He’s got a new home.

Chapter Text

The next few weeks were just at home recovery luckily. He had time to get used to the new environment, test his body’s strength ( it was pathetically weak, but not unfamiliar considering his last body was too though he wasn’t trying to become a ninja soldier either), and explore and learn as much Japanese as possible before he had to start socializing.

Ah, socialization, humanities number one consultant and his mortal enemy.

Don’t get him wrong, he could talk people’s ears off just like Mike Tyson did but god forbid small talk.

All that being said, it was kinda troubling to do such when coming from such a different language, especially so soon. He’d have to restart school in a few weeks at the latest, and potentially make work if he’d lost any of his skills learned at the academy on bed rest, so if he doesn’t learn fast he just might be sent to some after class tutoring session to get back on track with the rest of the class. A shiver went down his spine at- grease- lighting speed upon the mere mention of tutoring. Oh GOD no. The absolute hell of tutoring sessions relearned themselves in his mind, and haunted him in this life just as well as the last one. He couldn’t go back to the long nights spent in a shrimp position over a packet of paper rather than leaning back in an old, cushioned rocking chair back at his house, or the repetitiveness of the same concepts playing like a record more broken than Minecraft’s disc 13.

Never, ever, EVER again was he going back to tutoring, no matter hard the class was he’d rather get amputated because he could dodge a knofe before ever going back to that again.

However, while the universe may spite him enough to make him a child soldier, the previous owner of this body was oh so very kind enough to leave behind a ‘journal’ ( it was diary, really, but based on the crossed out foreign handsome on the front saying that it was followed by heavy scribbles saying under no circumstances was this a diary, the writer would probably not appreciate him calling it such.)

It contained many things from his daily life before the body swap, tips and tricks given by his older brother and cousin, and most and importantly, explanations and examples of everything he learned in the academy and what to study.

Thanks for being a nerd, previous body owner, he’ll make sure to take full advantage of everything you’ve handed to him.

Speaking of, he really should’ve limited himself.

The sun in konoha was scorching, luckily just dry heat, yes, but something that would have someone from Arizona start passing out tips on how to deal with it type heat.

This was pain incarnate. Whatever cruel god out there that decided ‘ah yes, let me send this guy to a different dimension under a military dictatorship’ could go fuck themselves with rusty nine inch nails.

He wasn’t complaining, he was just observing with a critical mind. He thinks it’s just that he didn’t want to get out of bed today after pulling an all-nighter, and be forced into a crammed box with shit ac surrounded by a bunch of grubby 7 year olds who also signed up for death camp.

Needless to say, he wished home schooling was an option in this universe.

But he had school.

And it was awful.

And it was too hot.

And the sun was too bright.

And he wanted to go home.

And this is purgatory.

And he was going to jump-

Ow-FUCK.

Alright, he would shove the dramatics aside for now because whatever little jerk just shoulder checked him to high hell could expect nothing but bad omens for the next 48 hours because there is no way that wasn’t personal.

He was closing on the gates to godforsaken school by now, so the crowd ( which by the way, fucking crazy to line up to get into school let alone one meant explicitly to have you work as a glorified narc the rest of your life) of parents ushering their kids in was a bit suffocating, not to mention he’s 90% sure he’s late, so it was hard to pay attention to anything or utilize his oh so great linguistics right now to shout at whatever fucker who thought being mean to massacre survivors was going to get them on a vogue magazine.

Yet, his hatred knows no bounds, and managed to get a glimpse of them and their piss yellow, highlighter orange jacket and pants, and the exact same sandals he was wearing.

And he turns right the fuck back around.

Every divine being and fanfiction his sister reads about Isekais into Naruto be damned you’d catch him dead before you caught him talking to the protagonist of anything, let alone NARUTO.

He remembers his sister’s rants turned gospel truth now entering this world, on how while Naruto was a troubled boy not getting any sort of support or care in any aspect of his life due to circumstances, he was still a little shit through and through as far as he was concerned, and fucking with canon was a sure fire way to attracting attention of rich old men in seek of gaining more power.

So he persevered for now, wavering only a tad when someone doesn’t quite get the social norm of how move past each other when accidentally coming face to face ( seriously, what kind of asshole just stands there?? MOVE.) and makes it to what he thinks is his class not horrifically late enough to be called out about it.

The stares were dreadful, while his sister told him about the weird one who seemed to love him no matter what, she missed out on the ones who looked down on him in pity, judgement, and even a few with anger or disgust if he’s not completely cooked at judging expressions.

He sat in the back, in a cool, almost cold, dark corner far apart from the window. Fuck danzo and iruka’s seating chart, if the anbu want to spy on him they have to work for it dammit.

Class started when loud chatter was punctured by a familiar piss blonde being dragged into the room and sat in a chair all while being reprimanded.

Iruka started his lesson, it was was on division. Division. Introducing division as if it were a new concept. They haven’t even touched multiplication yet.

Sleep schedule be damned he was knocking out the rest of this period.

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In Sakura’s humble opinion, Sasuke was weird.

Not weird in the way he usually was, broody and isolated yet still somehow so full of himself.

It was weird in the way that he was sitting in a different seat than usual, didn’t so much as bring the study guide or a pencil (decidedly somehow less than what even shikamaru would do), and slept through the whole period all on his first day back.

Luckily she didn’t have to feel to bad for thinking this about her ex-crush, not that she would ever tell anyone, as a quick conversation bestie-and-absolutely-nothing-else-what-are-you-even-talking-about Ino was currently giving her psychoanalysis to her as she thinks.

She gave an inward sigh and tuned back into what Ino was saying, Sasuke wasn’t important anymore, his fan club could have home for all Sakura cared, after all her soul mark was starting to form and his wasn’t, therefore he is entirely useless to her now.

She’d have to ask what Ino’s soul mark looked like soon, she couldn’t leave any rock untouched afterall.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Years flew by in a blur, catching up with the new society and remembering his old one becoming meshed together.

He felt dazed, sleeping all day, learning ‘chalkrah’ or whatever it’s called, and trying his hardest to be as normal as possible (probably failing anyways) and using the half-finished diary he found to write down memories of his home world can only keep him sane for so long.

He needs something, someone to ground him in his new reality. Soon. Preferably now. Please.

As he wished there was a way for his forehead to dig in deeper into the desk Iruka called out for what should have been break but was actually something more like “please pay attention to our special guests, this is important, Sasuke can you at least pretend to be awake-“ god knows the the rest, he was hardly listening and unless he was straining himself he got a few words on average.

And as if Iruka could hear his, at best, self indulgent monologue he slammed his hand down right on his desk ( a part of him only remembers this happening to Naruto but then again with how little he does in this class he gives a burnt out college student with depression running off of nothing but their roommates leftovers a run for their money.)

“Hey” teacher guy starts “ this is serious, I know you’re tired but don’t you wanna find your soulmate?”

Again with that fuck ass religious soulmate nonsense.

He’s really getting sick of it, he kinda guessed that this place was brainwashed beyond repair after hearing about the ninja corp system from his sister but he never remembered it going into oligarchy territory.

The mere thought of souls as a concept didn’t make sense to him, let alone some unspoken connection that drew to people together. Not to mention the fact that would his soul even be his?? Sure, he’s used to the new body, but it’s still not his. His… soul per se isn’t from this world so would it even match with anyone’s?? Should it????

That seems like a giant iceberg of identity crisis that he doesn’t want to acknowledge right now, or ever really.

Besides all of that, he got up and went up with the rest of the class because he fells like not getting yelled at by Iruka today.

It’s odd, to say the least, he’s spent most of his time in Konoha disassociating so hard that when he’s pulled back into reality like this it feels like it’s his first time all over again.

Nothing like New Jersey, that’s for sure, every last one of these kids look like cousins. Sure, a rare blue kid here and there but a lot of these fill in extras waiting to die look copy pasted, like the author of Naruto got lazy or something. Tragic, could never be him though.

With Iruka’s incessant religious rhetoric yapping session done, two people walk into the room and start calling out names one by one, taking each kid back and returning to the class room for the next.

God he hopes this isn’t like the ninja pacer test or something because he’s going to fucking bomb it, Oppenheimer style.

It goes on for while though, starting with the orphan kids, a group way to large in his opinion unless konoha also promotes absent parenthood, and divulges into some of the more upper class and privileged ones like clan kids.

Of course, start with the least important ones than work your way up to the more high profile kids. Classic example of elitism.

This process lasts until the literal end of the school day, and while most were already released early because they went back, he had been ever so gifted as to be the only surviving victim of a massacre of a major clan, meaning he was last.

And, oh, so fucking bored at this point.

He’d done everything thing to pass the time, spinning a horse around in his mind, thinking of quan mills book titles, hell, he had entire ocs by the end of it.

Never in a billion years did he think he’d miss TikTok brain rot but anything was better than this bland sauna hell of pencils and paper.

His thoughts are interrupted when this girl with blank purple eyes ( huega?? Hiyuoga????) taps him on his shoulder.

“-今度はあなたの番です、サスケ君” goddamn she stuttered a lot. She should get that checked out before she catches pick me syndrome or worse, Mary sue syndrome.

He goes around to the back of the school, looking above at the signs trying to match the symbols and lettering to what Iruka said before finding a small office area with one of the new comers standing right outside.

He’s quickly ushered in by him and instructed to sit on a stool opposite of the desk area of the room before the one rushes off while the other looks though the filing cabinets of the desk for something.

He observes the place, it’s clearly meant to a sort of nurses office, the white plastered room being the biggest giveaway, but the real question is is what do these guys even do??

Yeah, he guesses that the ninja dictatorship might have some different rules and laws about nurses offices than America’s, but what do they do without ice?? Seriously, not a mini fridge in sight, like they’re actually prepared to do something other than just put an ice pack on it and call it a day.

Unbelievable.

In the middle of his American raised rant about how the medical care here was way too good to be in a school, assumedly paid for by the government mind you, he almost didn’t notice the reappearance of nurses. Almost.

They strode in with a little old woman in toe, who, on further examination, was some sort of priest/ religious affiliated person.

Yikes. When he called this place ‘cult like’ he didn’t think they’d actually take to religious paths in order to cure him of his sudden muteness, but when in Rome presumably.

The experience was sort of smooth after that, take a few more tests, listen to the nurses chatter about something he can barely understand, look at him as if expecting answers, then give up and write something down after he took too long for them, and then watch them leave the room after talking to the old lady.

Alright, now to just watch this poor old crone fail at cult apothecary. Joy.

She came towards him, a soft smile upon her face as she yammered on about something or another in a language he’s still trying to pick up on.

It wasn’t long before she reached for his hand and start chanting. It wasn’t long before her murmurs seemed to gain speed, becoming faster and louder, throwing out ninja gang signs too while at it.

As the process went on, he felt his bones begin the ache, and eyes droop. A faint chill rolled down his spine and rest inside his chest as he began to loose breath, as if the world got farther and his body weaker.

Whatever this was, it fucking hurt. Like his very soul was being strung out of him while his heart skewered by a wire.

The moment ended in a flash of hot, billowing pain coming from his index as the witch lady let it go, leaving a bruise that was sure to be long to heal.

Though, the thing he was most worried about in this moment, was the red string tied around it (had a cute little bow knot too. Aesthetic, but not important right now.

The lady left after that point, rushing a conversation that went along the lines of “ blah blah blah, soulmates, blah blah blah, cult military dictatorship rhetoric, blah blah blah, get the fuck out now.” So he’s home free now.

And all he had to do was get his ‘soul’ violated by some old lady.

Yay.

But as he glares down to his finger, the infernal ache seams to drift into a sort of dread.

This world was magical, so could there be some merit to the whole ‘soulmate’ thing?

Call him crazy, but the longer he looks at the string the more plausible the theory gets.

But it made no sense!

His sister never talked about it, and that freak would have been all over something like this with her weird obsession with yattpad or whatever the fuck it was called.

So was it only this universe then? If such an important concept was to exist it would have definitely changed the canon.

Was he even in canon? Since he got transferred here does that mean he never was or that the this world was some alternate reality based on the first?

Then what else changed???

This was way too fucking exhausting. He just wanted to go to sleep already and it’s barely even 3:00pm.

He died, and he can confirm at this point that he went to hell.