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Sasuke’s eyes open slowly. He feels multiple points of sharp pain all over his body before he remembers where he is and what he was doing. His newly gained Sharingan is instantly activated.
'My head really hurts… ouch.'
Then he feels it. Oppressive chakra and killing intent so strong he hasn't felt it since his brot- that man. Except his knees couldn't buckle even if they could because it isn't directed at Sasuke. That doesn't make sense.
He turns his head as much as he's able, in the direction of the noise he can hear and he sees it.
Thanks to his Sharingan, he can see the waves of chakra flowing off of Naruto. Naruto, who has apparently broken all the mirrors formed by the fake Hunter-nin. It stings at his pride, before he hears Naruto yelling at the other. In defence of Sasuke.
The Killing Intent was probably purely subconscious, and it wasn't directed even a little bit in the direction where Sasuke lay. And then he sees it.
Naruto’s eyes. They're a brilliant shade of sunset red, likely powered by whatever chakra is in Naruto.
Sasuke closes his eyes. So that's how it is.
He will have to ensure that he performs what is expected of him, now.
They make it back to Konoha nearly two weeks after the whole Zabuza ordeal. Naruto was very quiet in the days following the attack, but had since cheered up considerably. The villagers’ gratitude and them naming the bridge after his name probably helped with his mood too.
They’ve stopped for the evening and are preparing for camp right now. Sasuke has many questions burning at the edge of his tongue, and the only one qualified to answer it is Team 7’s sensei. He doesn't know how to feel about that man anymore, not after seeing what was hidden under that hitai-ate. But the fact that he still has the eye and is considered a respected jounin of the village must mean that the Sharingan transfer was accepted by the clan, possibly way before Sasuke was even born depending on how old it is.
Regardless, that means Sasuke must talk to Kakashi pertaining to his questions. He waits until Naruto and Sakura make way to gather dry wood, which Sakura took on, and Naruto towards a stream deeper in the forest—that he claims he can hear from this far out—to catch fish. Sasuke helps Kakashi set up traps around their makeshift camp before he turns towards him and just stares.
Kakashi, from his place crouched on the ground, preparing a fire pit, notices this immediately, of course. “Hm? Done already? My cute student really is efficient~” he says, voice taking on a singsong note at the end.
Sasuke keeps staring. How does one broach this topic? “The Sharingan. It was accepted by the Clan, right?”
Kakashi seems a little thrown off by that question, but not really surprised that he was asking. “Maa, yes, it was. You should be able to find the records for it in the directories towards the end of the Third Shinobi War.”
Kakashi’s eye lazily looks over at him, clearly expecting more questions.
“Hn. Did you know Naruto gets red eyes from his chakra?” Sasuke asks, seeming like a perfectly reasonable follow-up question, in his opinion.
Kakashi’s eye squints up at him before curving into a smile. “My, you were awake for that long during the fight? Your resilience truly is commendable.”
Sasuke scowls at his attempt of changing the topic, displeased. “So you knew. Tch.”
Seemingly confused, Kakashi finished up the pit and looked at him once more. “What exactly do you mean, Sasuke-kun?”
Before he can answer, the blond idiot comes back, three fish strung in each hand of his, and the discussion is halted.
(Kakashi is heavily confused. He was expecting questions about the Sharingan, about how he got it or something, or about Sasuke to elaborate what he thinks is Naruto’s “red eyes because of his chakra”. How was he even awake to see that?
He feels a headache brewing, wondering how he should deal with a possible leak of S-ranked information. Then he remembers how the entire village treats Naruto for said secret, and looks at how Sasuke didn't display any negative emotion towards his loud teammate… Kakashi decides that this is not his problem, and Lord Third should've done something about the leak before if he didn't want this to happen.
See, problem solved! He might even teach his cute little genin some new jutsu to congratulate them on their first A-rank kills.)
They get the day off after submitting their report for the C-turned-A-Rank mission, and Sasuke gets to work.
The next day, his two teammates are already waiting in their usual training grounds with Kakashi nowhere nearby. Sakura predictably notices him first, and her face brightens and raises her hand, mouth opening to greet him loudly.
Sasuke glances at her, and before she can get a word out, he beelines towards Naruto, who was dozing off under the tree.
“Hn, dobe. Take this,” he says, dropping off the parcel.
The nearly wrapped bento with the Uchiha mon sits on Naruto’s lap. The sudden addressal and subsequent unexpected box wakes Naruto up quickly, who flails and grabs onto the box before it can fly off his lap due to his startled state.
“Teme—! Why'd you spook me and— What is this?!”
Sasuke raises an eyebrow. “It's a bento box. Lunch. For you.”
Naruto doesn't manage to get another word out, because Kakashi decides to pop up then, raising his eyebrow when he doesn't get the usual accusations of being late by his two light haired students.
Doing his infuriating eye-smile, he ushers them to go and accept a hellish amount of D-ranks for the day because ‘Clearly you have a lot of energy since we finished such a high difficulty mission!’
Sasuke fails to notice the confused look sent by Naruto towards him, or the look Sakura gives both of them.
(So Kakashi will have to talk to Naruto about the fact that the Kyuubi chakra causes his eyes to change colour, as that will be a dead giveaway to what is sealed in him, and such information should be controlled lest it ends up with Naruto in danger.
Kakashi has also decided that the love triangle situation in his team is really getting out of hand, like seriously! He wasn't equipped to deal with this. No matter, he will be a good sensei for his team.
Nothing builds love than like a day filled with teamwork based D-ranks, after all.)
Sasuke has been less of a bastard ever since their mission to Wave, which is very confusing to Naruto.
Firstly, he brings a bento for Naruto every. Single. Day. He even conceded to giving Naruto some of the tomatoes from his bento! Naruto has seen Sasuke snarl at Kiba back in the Academy when the boy tried to take a piece of tomato from the Uchiha’s bento.
Secondly, he gave him a full standard-shinobi set of weapons, claiming that the ones Naruto usually used were a safety hazard. High quality weapons from old-man Tetsuo’s shop in the shinobi district, which Naruto knew because Jiji had given him a single kunai from that shop for his tenth birthday, with promises from him to be very careful with it. When Naruto tried to go there to buy something after becoming a genin, he was almost chased out immediately (and would have, if not for the clearly not-fake hitai-ate on his forehead), before he saw the prices of the things there and walked out himself.
And, not even including the gifts, Sasuke was being nice to him (well— nice in Sasuke-speak). When they waited for Kakashi-sensei to show up, he would now teach Naruto taijutsu kata (they seemed different from the ones from the Academy, but also he performed better at them so Naruto didn't really care), or they would have a shuriken throwing contest, and even Sakura-chan joined in sometimes!
Sakura-chan also stopped looking at him with that much hate, nowadays. She sometimes zoned out, or looked oddly between Naruto and Sasuke, but she wasn't hateful anymore so really, it was great!
Kakashi-sensei did his weird eye-smile thing much more often towards them, and between missions Naruto swore he heard his sensei mumbling under his breath about cute little genin and monster children and triangles.
(Naruto sort of understood the first two, but he had absolutely no clue as to why Kakashi-sensei was stuck up on triangles.
Oh well, it must be one of those “advanced ninja things” that Naruto wouldn't understand yet, or something.
He was also way more accepting of Kakashi’s weirdness after the man pulled him aside after the Wave mission and told him about the fact that his eyes change when channeling the Kyuubi and “Maa, we wouldn't want you to be targeted or hurt, Naruto-kun,” said in a sincere tone, meaning that sensei didn't hate him oh gods—)
Now, sensei even arrives an hour or two earlier than his usual time of nearing noon, and before they take their D-rank missions of the day they are made to actually train. Training usually includes running laps around their training ground, followed up by stretches and taijutsu practice.
Kakashi-sensei even teaches each of them some actual jutsu which is so kickass. Naruto gets different ones than his teammates, something about these jutsu being more compatible to him and Naruto tries to not let it sting because he knows he is weak, alright? but—
But it's nice. He actually pulls off most of what Kakashi teaches them, and even manages to use one of them to help with a D-rank mission! Sasuke immediately tries to copy the jutsu and passes out, for whatever reason, and Kakashi-sensei reprimands the Uchiha for it at the hospital, saying something about how there's a reason only Naruto was taught it.
(Naruto feels on edge every day he comes to the training ground, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
He doesn't know when they'll all stop being nice. He doesn't think he can go back to being the loud idiot if they all start hating or ignoring him again.)
Kakashi can positively say that he's stumped. How did Minato-sensei deal with Kakashi? Because Kakashi sure as hell doesn't know what to make of his broody-duck of a genin, who keeps showing up with expensive gifts every now and then and lunch for their resident knucklehead everyday. He isn't sure if it is friendship or something more.
‘Maybe it's some form of showing off his… superiority…?’
Kakashi shakes his head. No, Sasuke is both too sensible and too prideful to use such underhanded methods. And Kakashi would've dealt with it personally if it were the case of him throwing money around to make Naruto feel inferior.
Whatever is the issue, it finally comes to a revelation one day during yet another D-rank. (They did a C-rank once a week, in compensation for all the D-ranks Kakashi forced onto them. Nothing says team bonding as much as collectively glaring at your sensei at getting the Tora-cat mission!)
This day they're weeding the garden of a civilian, with Naruto taking the entire backyard on his own, er well, himself and ten more him-s, while Sakura assists Sasuke in separating the piles of weeds. Kakashi is lounging on the wall of the backyard, Icha Icha in hand but eye focused on his genin.
It was peaceful, almost too peaceful, and then there's a loud yelp. All of Naruto’s clones hover around the original body, who is sitting on his butt, clutching his arm.
Kakashi smells the blood before he sees it, and he jumps down. That is not the smell of scraped flesh.
“Naruto! What happened?” Sakura exclaims, seeing the blood first.
There's a distinct hiss, and a huge grass snake slithers into the tall grass of the garden. Not even a second later, a big ball of fire is thrown into the entire garden. Two yelps from the genin, one dignified scream from the jonin, and a the quickest and biggest suiton jutsu Kakashi can throw out later, Team 7 stands in the remains of a charred-and-drenched garden, and the corpse of a snake burnt crisp.
“Teme?! What the hell was that for?! Did you wanna kill me or something?!”
Sasuke’s head whips towards Naruto, eyes widening in… despair? He shakes his head quickly. “No I— That was not my intention.”
Naruto grows more confused. “Then what was that?!”
“I— The snake bit you,” Sasuke stutters out and oh Sage Kakashi cannot handle a preteen breakdown right now (or ever, actually).
“Maa, maa,” he butts in, trying to diffuse the situation. “I'm sure there were better ways to deal with the ‘threat’ than burning down half of our client’s garden, ne?”
Now Sasuke is looking at Kakashi like he's been betrayed. “The snake bit him. The suitable punishment is death by fire.”
Deciding if he wanted to question that sentence or not because, What the hell is going on in Uchiha courting traditions? Kakashi chooses instead to stare at Sasuke with his eye-smile until he reveals his reasoning. Maybe it's immature of him to force the boy into admitting whatever feelings he's been having in front of his teammates but whatever. If he expects Kakashi to deal with the civilian client who will chew their head off for this, he should be forthcoming with his answer.
“Amaterasu-omikami’s Blessed should be treated in utter high regard. Any threats to their person should be dealt with in the hand of Fire—Amaterasu-omikami’s element. I am simply carrying out my duty.”
What.
“Eh? What? Who's this Amatra-whatever?”
‘Thank you Naruto, for asking the question,’ Kakashi thinks.
“Amaterasu is uh— one of the main gods worshipped by the Uchiha and Hyuuga Clans. They believe that their dojutsu comes from the goddess Herself,” Sakura pipes up, seemingly clutching onto information in her head to process whatever insanity her teammate has descended into this afternoon.
“Blessed?” Kakashi asks, because he was still confused about that.
Sasuke glares at him, then. “You have a Sharingan. You've been neglecting your duties to the clan, and our Goddess.”
“I have been— what? Explain.” Kakashi did not squeak, but it was close.
Now both Naruto and Sakura are watching on with rapt interest, meanwhile Sasuke is glowering at him.
“Your Sharingan was accepted by the clan on the condition of you being an Outsider. Considering my brother has both eyes still and that you are not Uchiha, who you got the eye from is dead. Which makes you a de-facto member of the branch line and a widow. All Sharingan holders are supposed to pay their respects to the Shrine of Amaterasu, for blessing us with Light to shine our eyes sun-red,” Sasuke intones, like this is common knowledge that he’s reading out from a textbook.
Fucking Uchiha.
Clearly, Sasuke isn't done yet, and continues on, “Anyone with abilities or naturally occurring red eyes are the Blessed. We are supposed to pay our respects to them, and protect their will and body as well. Naruto’s chakra gives him red eyes, which means it is natural, I saw that in Wave. I am both performing my duty as an Uchiha and as— as his friend.”
Kakashi believes that he is due for a two week vacation, actually. “I— Okay. Alright. What do you mean widow?”
Naruto’s face has gone all pale. “You… you saw my eyes? You're— you're not disgusted?”
Sakura gasps, looking at Kakashi in pity. “Sensei is a widow? Oh no, that's why he loves reading crappy romance novels doesn't he?! He's mourning his beloved!”
Kakashi glared in the direction of the Hokage tower. The smoking smell in the garden had wafted off by now, and his three genin were looking at him with varied levels of shock and pity.
'I really should've failed them on day one. Not that I was given a choice but still.'
Fucking Uchiha.