FUSAGAKURE
(LAND OF GRASS)
The night was quiet. High above, the sky was a deep, dark blue, filled with thousands of bright stars that twinkled like tiny diamonds.
Below the cliffs, the wide river rushed over the rocks. The sound of the flowing water moved through the air, mixing with the soft rustle of the trees.
The valley was deep and dark. On both sides, massive stone cliffs rose up toward the clouds like ancient walls. Down in the ravine, between the cliffs, lay the shattered remains of the Kannabi Bridge.
It was no longer a path for travelers, but a graveyard of broken stone and twisted wood. The pieces of the bridge were scattered across the valley floor, looking like the bones of a fallen giant resting in the shadows.
High up on one of the cliffs, inside the thick green forest, the grass was long and soft. A dark figure lay there, hidden by the shadows of the tall trees. He wore a black, long-sleeved shirt and black pants that blended into the darkness.
He stayed very still. His right hand was rested against his head, his fingers lost in his hair. He didn't look at the trees or the bridge. He only stared up at the endless stars above him.
The figure let out a long, heavy sigh. The sound was soft, but it carried a weight, as if he was carrying many memories in his mind.
'...'
The wind blew gently through the forest, making the grass dance around him. For a moment, the world felt very peaceful, far away from the life of a shinobi.
As the moon climbed higher, its pale light fell across the figure's face. It was a face known to many—the sharp features and the dark, messy hair of Uchiha Sasuke. To any passerby, he looked like the man from the stories.
He even had the same look in his eyes, as if he was looking at a world that didn't quite understand him. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, he thought of a loud, blonde haired ninja and felt a familiar spark of annoyance.
'Usurantokachi...' But this was not the Uchiha Sasuke that history expected. He was thirty years old, but the years he had lived were not the ones written in the scrolls of Konoha. He was a man shaped by a different flow of Time.
In most stories, Sasuke was The Last Uchiha—a lonely shadow driven by cold revenge and the silence of a dead clan. But this man carried no such burden. He did not walk the path of the lonely survivor. He had friends who walked in his shadow and comrades who shared his weight. He was not the last of anything; he was a part of something much bigger.
The world did not call him a survivor. They called him The Black Devil.
It was a name that carried mystery. He was not evil, but he was something the world could not easily explain. He lay there in the grass of Kusagakure, a living ripple in the timeline. He was the same Sasuke, with the same blood and the same soul, yet he was a stranger to this era.
Beyond the edge of the cliff, the forest began. The trees were massive, like ancient pillars holding up the night sky. Their leaves were a green so deep it looked like spilled ink, turning almost black where the moonlight couldn't reach.
The air was alive with a constant, rhythmic sound.
Chirr-chirr... chirr-chirr...
The crickets hid in the tall grass, their tiny songs filling the silence of the woods. It was a sound that never stopped, a steady heartbeat for Kusagakure. Small, golden-green lights drifted through the air—fireflies, dancing between the trunks like floating sparks of soft magic.
A chilly wind swept through the branches, making the leaves whisper and bringing the sharp, clean smell of pine. But deep within the trees, there was a different kind of light.
A warm, orange glow flickered against the dark bark of the trees. In a small clearing, several thick logs had been piled together, burning with a steady flame.
The fire crackled and popped, sending tiny orange sparks flying up toward the stars. The light from the dancing flames carved a circle of warmth out of the cold night.
Sitting around the fire were five people.
The light jumped across their faces, casting long, moving shadows behind them. One of them was a woman, her features softened by the orange glow.
Another figure sat very still; in the flickering light and heavy shadows, it was impossible to tell if they were a man or a woman. They remained a mystery, their face half-hidden by the dark.
The other three were men. They sat close to the heat, their shoulders moving as they spoke in low, quiet voices. The sound of their talking was steady, though their words were lost to the wind before they could reach the edge of the forest.
The firelight reflected in their eyes, making them look like five spirits gathered in the heart of the ink-dark woods.
Sasuke lay in the shadows of the forest, a few meters away from the crackling fire. His eyes were closed, but his brow was furrowed. The rhythmic chirp-chirp-chirp of the crickets felt like a needle poking at his brain.
He wasn't sleeping. He was trapped in his own head, cursing himself.
'Damn it...' his jaw tightened. 'Where the hell are we?' He felt a cold knot of desperation in his chest.
Was this the right era? If they were in the wrong timeline, one single move—one Jutsu or one conversation—could shatter everything.
He felt like a failure, lost in a sea of time he couldn't control.
With a frustrated grunt, he rolled onto his left side. He dug his fingers into the dirt, resting his head on his arm. As he squeezed his eyes shut, the cool air of Kusagakure vanished.
Sasuke shifted again, his breathing was uneven. He rolled onto his right side, his arm moving hurriedly in the grass. He was annoyed with the world, annoyed with the stars, but mostly, he was annoyed with the ghost that wouldn't leave him alone.
He shut his eyes tight, trying to force the darkness to stay quiet. But the silence of the forest was soon broken by a voice ringing in his ears—a voice that didn't belong to this time.
"Hey, Sasuke! If you eat my Onigiri again, I'm going to make sure you regret it!"
A past memory flickered in his mind. He saw two boys sitting on a wooden bench, their shoulders bumping as they argued over a plate of food. They looked so much alike they could have been twins—the same dark hair, the same sharp eyes, the same stubborn tilt of the chin. They had laughed when they first realized it, calling each other 'long-lost brothers.'
In those days, everything was shared. They shared their training, their secrets, and their dreams. They were a team. More than that, they were each other's light. Sasuke remembered the heat of a battlefield where they had stood back-to-back, neither of them willing to let the other fall. He remembered the stupid jokes they made just to keep the fear away.
"Look at you, Sasuke... struggling with a couple of low-level Chunin? Honestly, what would you do without me?"
But the memory shifted, turning cold and grey. The laughter was replaced by the sound of footsteps walking away into a deep, suffocating darkness.
Sasuke had chased that shadow for years. He had pushed himself to the brink, reaching out until his fingers bled, trying to bring that light back. But he had failed. The person who once called him brother now looked at him with nothing but cold, burning anger. The bond they had built was shattered, left behind like trash in the wind.
The only person Sasuke ever truly wanted to be acknowledged by was gone. He wasn't just a teammate anymore; he was a man possessed by a darkness so thick that even the Sharingan couldn't see through it. A man who had lost all hope and buried his heart.
Sasuke's hand tightened into a fist in the grass, his knuckles turning white.
Uchiha Hikaru.
The name felt like a scar on his soul. A man who had once been Sasuke's mirror, but was now his greatest enemy.
Sasuke's lips suddenly twitched. In the dark, a cold, sharp smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth. He looked as if he were staring right at the ghost in his mind.
"So you're really going to try and kill me this time, Hikaru?" he whispered to the empty air, his voice dripping with a mocking edge. "Go ahead. But try not to trip over your own shadow while you're at it."
The silence of the cliff was suddenly broken by the sound of footsteps. Soft grass crunched under heavy shinobi sandals. A shadow fell over Sasuke, blocking out the light of the stars.
"Are you thinking about him again?"
The voice was calm and steady. Sasuke didn't jump or reach for a kunai. He simply moved, shifting his body until he lay flat on his back.
He tucked both hands behind his head, using them as a pillow, and looked up at the figure standing over him.
A small, lazy smile touched Sasuke's face.
"No" Sasuke lied easily, his dark eyes reflecting the firelight from the clearing. "I was just wondering how someone could be stupid enough to try to target and assassinate a Hokage. Not just any Hokage, but one with a target on his back for being framed."
The figure let out a long, tired sigh. He sat down in the grass right next to Sasuke, the fabric of his shirt rustling in the wind. He reached out and placed a hand on Sasuke's head, his movements relaxed and familiar.
"People have become bold." the man said, looking out over the dark ravine where the Kannabi Bridge lay in ruins. "I think they've started taking us for granted. Perhaps they think the Yondaime Hokage has become soft since he took the position."
Sasuke chuckled, a low sound in his throat.
He closed his eyes again, feeling the weight of the man's hand. He knew better than anyone that calling the Yellow Flashsoft was a mistake that usually ended in a blink of yellow light and a finished battle.
"Let them think that." Sasuke murmured. "It'll make it easier when we show them what happens to people who touch what belongs to Konoha."
Beside him, Namikaze Minato looked up at the stars, his expression calm but his eyes sharp. The fire in the distance flickered one last time before a gust of wind blew a cloud of embers into the night sky.
---
A MESSAGE TO THE READERS !!📢
AUTHOR'S NOTE — Read Before You Attack Me 😭
Okay okay… I KNOW what you all are thinking.
"WHAT WAS THAT JUMP FROM KONOHA TO KUSAGAKURE??"
Relax 😭 I didn't teleport your brains.
Think of it like this—
👉 We just zoomed out of the main stage…
👉 And entered the zone where the REAL plot starts moving 😏
New faces. New players. New chaos.
Now let's address the elephant in the room…
"WHY IS SASUKE 30 YEARS OLD???"
First of all—
EXCUSE ME 😑
30 is NOT old.
Second—
Yes. He's older.
Yes. He's sharper.
And yes…
👉 You're right.
There are THREE Sasukes.
- Genin Sasuke 🧒
- Smol Sasuke 👶
- And… Sasuke — "The Black Devil" 😈
Now pause.
Did that name ring a bell? 👀
Yeah… I didn't just drop it randomly.
👉 Go back to Volume I
👉 That ONE major chapter
👉 With that conversation
The Chapter is…
👉 Chapter 2 — "Remembering the Beginning"
Someone said it there.
I'm not naming who 😗
Use your brain a little.
Now here's the real twist—
You all thought Hikaru was talking about someone else… in Chapter 2 of Volume I
NOPE.
👉 He was talking about THIS Sasuke.
Yeah.
That hit different, didn't it?
Now I can already hear the next question:
"Wait… if Hikaru was hunting Sasuke…
then why does Sasuke remember him like that?"
AND— "Isn't Hikaru from a completely different era??"
👏 EXACTLY.
Your confusion = correct.
But here's the thing…
Time in this story?
👉 Not stable.
👉 Not linear.
👉 Not playing fair.
Something has already changed in the timeline.
Not now… not recently…
👉 It happened way before this moment.
And because of that— people who should've never met…
have already crossed paths.
And now…
THE BIGGEST CHAOS DROP 😌
👉 Yes. There are TWO Minato.
Yeah. Go ahead. Process that.
And let me make ONE thing VERY clear—
👉 The one Kakashi attacked…
👉 Was THIS Minato.
So yes—
👉 Kakashi is traumatized for a VERY good reason 💀
That's all you're getting for now.
Don't be greedy 😌
🔥 Chapter 13 is coming with:
- New faces 👀
- Bigger reveals 😏
- And more "WAIT WHAT??" moments
Trust me…
I've planned this chaos.
So keep reading.
Keep suffering.
And PLEASE—
don't curse me if your brain stops working next chapter 💀
—Your evil author 😎
⚡ NEXT CHAPTER ⚡
The fire dies down… but the tension doesn't.
A fragile alliance begins to crack,
as clashing wills refuse to bend.
Plans are made. Doubts grow.
And not everyone is willing to fight the same battle.
One move… one mistake…
and everything could fall apart before it even begins.
Because sometimes—
the real danger isn't the enemy ahead…
it's the ally you can't trust.
👉 Chapter 13: A SNAKE AMONG ALLIES
SNEAK PEEK LINES 💬
"You know me better than that, Sasuke-kun. I prefer my loved ones alive and... interesting."
"...If that bastard wants a piece of us, let him come. I'll send him flying into the next village over before he can even finish a hand sign!"
---
—With love, one forehead poke away from collapse,
Sakura Shinomiya 💫
---