As evening passed and night rolled around, Sasuke was finally left alone again as the younger ones were put to bed, not that he minded keeping them company.
No, he was thankful for them, for always reminding him that despite everything HE had done, he, Sasuke Uchiha, was still a member of the Uchiha clan.
"Are you ready for tomorrow?" Aiko asked as she opened the door to his room without knocking.
"What is there to be ready for? It's just getting our team assigned; it hardly matters who I get," Sasuke said arrogantly.
Aiko didn't call him out for his tone, because she mostly agreed with him.
They were Uchiha, what was wrong with them being arrogant? They had the power to back it up... Or they used to.
But even now, even diminished like this, they were still not to be underestimated.
"Normally I would agree with that, but things aren't entirely normal this time." Aiko said, her tone more serious than it had been earlier. "I spoke with Hiashi, and your team this time is rather special."
Sasuke's expression soured. "With Hiashi again? Why him? Why not the Hokage directly?" He really didn't like how dependent the Uchiha seemed on the Hyūga clan.
Aiko snorted. "In Konoha, the Hyūga are our closest ally, and the Hokage is hardly worthy of our trust, if not for Hiashi helping us, the Hokage would have withheld payment for our losses."
Sasuke clenched his fist. He didn't like politics; in fact, he hated them, but Aiko liked them even less, so she made sure Sasuke had to share the pain with her. "So it's more politics again?"
"Yes," Aiko admitted, "But also power, power that the Hokage needs to keep a leash on, and a leash is best kept by those who understand the dog being leashed."
"Enough with the metaphors, who am I stuck with?" Sasuke asked, already not liking the direction this conversation was heading.
"Your teacher will be Kakashi Hatake," she said, throwing him a small book which he caught. "You can read everything about him in there. It's customary for a new Genin team to be tested by their Jōnin sensei."
"Customary? So it might not happen?" Sasuke asked as he placed the Bingo Book down on the table.
"You will go through it. Hatake has a bit of a reputation; he has failed every team he has gotten so far." Aiko told him.
"You think he would fail me?" Sasuke couldn't help but ask.
Just the thought of it was unbelievable; after all, despite his arrogance, he had a good reason for it.
He was far beyond his classmates, and he knew it. Even among chūnin, he wasn't bad, so the idea that he wouldn't even pass a Genin test was something that had never crossed his mind.
Aiko shook her head. "Even if he wants to, he can't; this team of yours is special."
"Because of me?"
"In part," Aiko admitted, "But only half of it, the real reason he can't fail you is your teammate."
"Who? Hinata?" Sasuke asked hopefully.
"No, Naruto Uzumaki."
Sasuke was sure he had heard wrong. "What? Naruto? The dead last? Didn't even pass the test, Uzumaki?" he asked in disbelief.
"That's the one," Aiko said. "And he has passed, the night of the test, he helped defeat and capture a village traitor, and passed as a result."
"That guy? Capturing a traitor? Impossible, that guy can't even catch a single drop of rain in a rainstorm." Sasuke said with a frown.
"It would be a good idea for you to stop underestimating him, Naruto is special." Aiko explained.
"If being a bad shinobi is a special talent, then yes, he is indeed special, he is dead last, and not by a small margin." Sasuke dismissed her words.
Aiko sighed. "Sasuke, listen to me," she said as she took a step closer. "What I'm about to tell you is a secret, one that the punishment for leaking is death." She warned him.
Sasuke sat up straight, giving her his full attention.
"The Uzumaki clan was once a powerful clan, so powerful that the other villages feared them, and they were all but wiped out." Aiko explained.
Her words reminded him of his own clan; the current Uchiha clan wasn't all that much different. Though at least they still had it better.
He thought for a moment, trying to remember everything he knew about Naruto through this new lens. "He has no inheritance? He seems poor, and alone..."
"Indeed, he has nothing and is entirely alone, which is a disgrace. The Uzumaki clan did a lot for Konoha in the early days, and as for Naruto himself, his parents were heroes of the village, yet the kid can barely afford to eat." She said with disgust in her voice.
Sasuke might be young, but thanks to the education of Aiko and joining Hinata in lessons from time to time, he knew this was caused by politics.
As Aiko had mentioned, when that man had killed the clan, a lot of people had wanted to seize the clan's assets, and even more, the village hadn't wanted to pay out pensions for everyone who died that night.
It was only because Aiko survived, fought, struggled, and gained the Hyūga clan's support that the village finally relented.
If Naruto had no one... then indeed, it wasn't hard to guess that it was politics that left him without anything to his name.
"But how does that make him special?"
Aiko turned and looked out the window, letting out a sigh. "I didn't know his parents, not personally, I knew who they were, but they were both very important people, and I was nothing special."
"His mother was the heir of the Uzumaki clan. She always wanted to be Hokage. She made a lot of friends with other important women, the fiancée of Hiashi, the clan leader of the Inuzuka clan, and more... including your mother." She explained.
"My mother?"
"Yeah," she nodded. "Your mother and Kushina-sama were best friends."
"And Hinata's mother as well?"
Aiko sighed. "No, there was another woman, a genius kunoichi of the Hyūga clan, she was good friends with both of them, best friends really, but she died in the war."
"Yuki Hyūga?" Sasuke asked.
"Correct."
Sasuke had heard about her a few times, mostly in passing; lots of adults in the Hyūga clan mentioned her at times. Clearly, she was someone important and loved.
"Anyway, back to Naruto, he is far more special than you think; in fact, he is the most important person inside the village, on the same level as the Hokage himself." Aiko explained.
Sasuke couldn't believe it; that someone who wasn't a clan head, a ninja legend, or something of the like, could be so important. "How? He is just a dead last."
Aiko gave him a look that made him shut up; it was the same look she used when she was about to teach him a painful lesson.
"I am about to tell you a secret, a secret the Hokage and the elders keep hidden, so listen closely," she warned him, her tone serious.
Naruto was special, important, and the secret of it all was hidden by the Hokage himself, which meant it was a political secret, and given the way Aiko was talking, a dangerous one at that.
Aiko took a deep breath before she explained, "On the night Naruto was born, the village was attacked."
"The Kyūbi." Sasuke said instantly. He had heard about it, everyone had.
Aiko nodded. "Yes, that night the village was attacked, and a lot of people died, including the Fourth Hokage and Kushina, who was the jinchūriki at the time." She started.
"Jinchūriki?" he asked, having never heard that term.
"The Kyūbi didn't come from nowhere; it has been inside the village for decades. A jinchūriki is a person in whom a being such as the Kyūbi is sealed. They are the most important secret weapons of the shinobi villages," she explained.
That was enough for Sasuke to put two and two together. "So Naruto is the jinchūriki?" he guessed.
Aiko nodded. "Correct, the Fourth Hokage sealed the Kyūbi into him, making Naruto the new jinchūriki and, as such, the most important person in the village. Most of the villagers have no idea about this; they only know Naruto is somehow connected to the Kyūbi, so many consider him the fox in human form."
Sasuke knew that Naruto was hated, or at least disliked; he always assumed it was because of the stupid pranks he always played.
Now, with this extra context, things made a lot more sense.
"So what does that mean for me?" Sasuke asked, still shocked by the secret, but curious about what it all meant for his new team.
"For one, it means your teacher will prioritize his life over yours if a situation arises where he can only save one." She said, raising a finger.
"Secondly," she raised a second finger. "It means that while he might appear weak, he is in fact far stronger than you are, but he just can't control this power, which might appear in dangerous situations, in which case, you get out of there."
"Third, and most importantly for the Uchiha clan," she paused, looking at him. "Your assignment to his team is not a coincidence; the Sharingan is a way to control the jinchūriki, the village higher-ups clearly hope that you will build a friendship with him, and help keep him from losing control." She explained.
Sasuke was not pleased with this at all. He wasn't some tool for the village to use, and he didn't like being kept in the dark about it. But he also understood the importance of this. The Uchiha clan was already weak, and he was the heir. If he could use this to bring back some of the clan's power, then he would do it.
"So, is Hinata on my team?" he asked, trying to change the subject a little.
"No, your final teammate is a civilian girl named Sakura Haruno. I know little about her, but from the information I have seen, she is of no importance." Aiko said dismissively.
Sasuke couldn't help but grimace at the mention of that name.
In his class, the only kunoichi he could really stand was Hinata, because she was the only one who wasn't a stupid, weak fangirl.
And Sakura was one of the worst, she had a high grade when it came to theory, but she was weak and useless, totally unfit to be a kunoichi, and now he was stuck with her.
Even Ino, the Yamanaka girl, would have been better, at least she was from a clan, which meant special techniques and some training from home, but a civilian girl?
Nothing more than a burden to hold him back.
Naruto, despite being dead last, clearly had potential, from a powerful clan, and hiding a secret like the Kyūbi? He was precisely the type of person Sasuke wanted on his team.
Someone who could help him deal with whoever had helped HIM that night, because Sasuke knew that even if he gained enough power to fight HIM, he still needed someone to make sure he didn't have to fight multiple people at once.
Naruto could do that, but Sakura?
Totally useless.
"Why her? Why not Hinata?" he asked, unable to keep the anger out of his voice.
Aiko shrugged. "The Hokage's decision, but with two important people already on the team, the chance that Hinata would be added was pretty impossible. Once again, it comes down to politics." She explained. "The Hyūga are already the strongest clan, and with Hinata being the heir, assigning her to the same team as you and Naruto would be too much power in a single team. It's a way of balancing things."
Sasuke's scowl deepened, but he understood, or rather, he accepted the reality of it. Politics were a dirty game, and the Uchiha were on the losing end of it for now.
"Anything else?" he asked, wanting this conversation to be over.
"No," Aiko said as she walked towards the door. "Just remember what I said. Don't underestimate him, and don't let him die." Her last words were a command, not a request.
As she left, Sasuke slumped back in his chair, his mind racing.
Uzumaki Naruto. The dead last, the clown, the outcast. He was a jinchūriki, the container of the Kyūbi. The son of a hero. The legacy of a once-feared clan.
(End of chapter)
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