Chapter 422: Sasuke Exposed, The Guard's Blockade
Young Sasuke had just wrapped up a grueling B-rank mission. Dust clung to his uniform, but his posture remained impeccably straight as he handled the bustling streets of Konoha, mentally preparing his report for headquarters.
He turned a corner, passing by a narrow, shadowed alleyway. Suddenly, his boots ground to a halt against the cobblestones.
A strange sensation washed over him. It was a bizarre, magnetic pull, an invisible tether tugging at the very core of his chakra. It felt like a deep, instinctual vibration echoing straight from his bloodline.
He snapped his head toward the gloom. His dark eyes instantly locked onto two silhouettes huddled in the damp shadows.
"You two over there." His voice cut through the ambient noise of the village, sharp and frigid. Before the words fully left his mouth, his right hand had already drifted up, resting casually but dangerously on the hilt of the short sword strapped to his back. "What are you doing, sneaking around like that?"
Boruto flinched, his blue eyes widening at the sudden, sharp interrogation. He opened his mouth to stammer out an excuse, but a heavy hand clamped down on his shoulder.
Adult Sasuke stepped slightly in front of the boy. With his single arm, he pulled the brim of his bamboo hat lower over his face, casting his features into absolute darkness.
"We are just travelers passing by." His voice was deliberately rough, pitched low to mask its natural cadence. "It is our first time in Konoha. We simply lost our way."
Without waiting for a response, Adult Sasuke gripped Boruto's collar and pivoted, striding in the opposite direction. His gait appeared measured and calm to the untrained eye, but he was covering ground at an unnatural speed.
He could not afford to interact with his younger counterpart in this twisted reality. Not yet. Too many mysteries clouded this timeline. Worse, just from that brief exchange, he could sense a glaring difference. The boy behind him lacked the suffocating, venomous darkness of deep-seated vengeance that had defined his own youth. This Sasuke was whole.
Young Sasuke did not immediately give chase. He stood perfectly still, watching the cloaked figures retreat. His eyes narrowed. Deep within his irises, the crimson glow of the Sharingan flared to life, the tomoe spinning lazily.
'Travelers?'he scoffed internally.'That one-armed man... for a fraction of a second, he deliberately shifted his angle to avoid my gaze.'
Beyond the suspicious body language, there was the matter of his energy. As a prodigy of the Uchiha Clan, his sensory perception was razor-sharp. The stranger was actively suppressing his signature, locking it down tight, but the sheer volume of chakra coiled beneath that cloak was terrifyingly vast. It felt heavy, ancient, and disturbingly familiar.
"Highly suspicious." A cold, derisive snort escaped Young Sasuke's lips. "In this sensitive period, with the threat of war looming over the borders, no unknown element gets a free pass."
He thought back to the brief glimpse he caught of the shorter figure.
'And that blonde brat... why does he look exactly like that idiot Naruto?'He weighed his options. Shouting for backup right now would only cause unnecessary panic in the streets. Instead, his knees bent, and he vanished in a blur of motion. The Body Flicker Technique carried him silently to the edge of a nearby rooftop.'I will see exactly who you two are.'
As an elite member of the Uchiha Military Police Force, maintaining the absolute security of Konoha was his sworn duty. More than that, his instincts were screaming at him. Those two were incredibly dangerous.
Several blocks away, deep within a winding alleyway, Boruto scrambled to keep up with his mentor's punishing pace.
"Uncle Sasuke, why are we running?" he hissed, his breath hitching. "That was the younger you back there, right? He looked so cool! A bit fierce, sure, but still!"
Adult Sasuke ignored the boy's incessant chatter. His jaw locked tight as he pushed his speed even further, weaving through the labyrinth of backstreets.
"Do not look back," he commanded, his tone leaving no room for argument. "He is following us."
Boruto choked on a gasp. "Huh? We got made that easily?"
A faint, almost imperceptible twitch pulled at the corner of Adult Sasuke's mouth. His younger self in this timeline might have retained a bit of that arrogant edge, but he certainly did not lack vigilance. If anything, this version felt sharper, more disciplined, and far more capable than he had been at that age.
"First, we need to find a blind spot to shake him off," Adult Sasuke muttered, his lone eye tracking the shadows. "Then..."
He tilted his head slightly, peering through a gap in the buildings toward the towering structure in the center of the village. The Hokage Monument loomed above it.
"We need information. Specifically, information regarding the Fifth Hokage, Uchiha Akira."
This reality was a complete paradox. An intact Uchiha Clan. A timeline where the massacre never occurred. A world where an Uchiha sat on the Hokage's seat. Every piece of common sense he possessed had been violently overturned. If they failed to grasp the political landscape and the history of this era, they would not survive a single day here.
The atmosphere in the alley suddenly grew heavy.
Up on the rooftops, Young Sasuke realized he was losing ground. The one-armed man had unleashed a sudden, explosive burst of speed, effortlessly breaking visual contact.
A cold, sharp laugh escaped the young Uchiha's throat. He wasted no time on frustration. His right hand blurred, plunging into the specialized ninja tool pouch strapped to his lower back. He drew a metallic cylinder, aimed it straight up, and pulled the pin.
A high-pitched shriek tore through the air. A dazzling crimson light exploded high above the Konoha skyline. The specialized distress flare of the Military Police Force illuminated the clouds, broadcasting a high-priority alert across half the village.
"Oh no!" Boruto's face drained of color. He instinctively lunged forward, grabbing a fistful of his mentor's dark cloak. "Uncle Sasuke, run! He just called for backup!"
Adult Sasuke did not move. He stood his ground in the center of the narrow alley, his single arm hanging loosely at his side. Beneath the heavy fabric of his cloak, his muscles coiled tight like a compressed spring.
It was already too late.
This was Konoha, and the reaction speed of the current Uchiha Military Police Force was beyond anything he had anticipated.
In the span of three short breaths, the sky darkened.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
The dense, kinetic sound of displaced air echoed from every conceivable angle. Dozens of black silhouettes dropped from the sky, landing heavily on the rooftops, the fire escapes, and the walls enclosing the alley. In an instant, an ironclad perimeter was formed, trapping the two time travelers dead in the center.
The newcomers were uniformly clad in the dark blue, high-collared uniforms of the police force, the iconic red-and-white fan crest proudly displayed on their shoulders. Every single officer exuded a suffocating aura of lethal intent, the kind of disciplined bloodlust forged only through relentless, brutal training.
'So this is... this world's Uchiha Military Police Force?'
Adult Sasuke slowly swept his gaze across the rooftops. A deeply complicated emotion flickered in his visible eye. There were simply too many of them. Even worse, the sheer density of their individual chakra signatures proved that not a single one of these men could be underestimated. This overall combat quality completely eclipsed the stagnant, declining clan he remembered from his childhood.
Several elite officers dropped down to flank Young Sasuke, their hands resting on their weapons as they stared down at the trapped targets.
"What is the situation, Sasuke?" one of the older officers demanded.
Young Sasuke slowly straightened his posture. His grip on his sword hilt tightened, his gaze cutting through the gloom like a freshly sharpened blade.
"These two are acting highly suspiciously. Their origins and combat capabilities are unknown." He pointed a finger toward the cloaked man. "The one-armed man possesses an astonishing reserve of chakra...."
Young Sasuke narrowed his eyes, staring intently at the thick bangs obscuring Adult Sasuke's left eye.
"He is deliberately hiding something beneath that hair."
At those words, the surrounding officers moved in unison. The metallic scrape of kunai being drawn echoed through the alley. A wave of oppressive killing intent crashed down on the two intruders.
"Hey! Wait a minute!" Boruto panicked, waving his hands frantically in the air. "It is a misunderstanding! A huge misunderstanding!"
He took a step forward, a nervous, sweating mess.
"We really are just travelers passing by! We took a wrong turn and got lost! We are just hungry and looking for a decent place to eat! We truly mean no harm!" Boruto forced a desperate, awkward laugh, praying the clumsy excuse would somehow defuse the mounting hostility.
"Eating?" Young Sasuke sneered. His youthful, arrogant features twisted into a mask of pure disdain. "Save your pathetic excuses for the interrogation room."
With a sharp metallic ring, his short sword was fully drawn from its sheath. The blade caught the moonlight.
"Take them down!"
Following the young prodigy's command, the alley erupted into violence.
"Yes, sir!" the surrounding Uchiha officers barked in unison.
Dozens of arms whipped forward. A storm of shuriken tore through the air, the whistling blades forming a flawless, inescapable triangular formation designed to completely seal off every possible evasion route.
Adult Sasuke's brow furrowed. He truly did not want to fight. The moment he drew blood, the nature of this encounter would shift from a mere suspicion to an act of open treason against Konoha. But surrounded by this many elite Uchiha, he was left with absolutely no choice.
A blinding flash of cold steel illuminated the shadows.
Adult Sasuke's single right hand blurred. The legendary Kusanagi Sword materialized from beneath his cloak. With a microscopic flick of his wrist, the blade danced, blooming into a deadly, silver lotus of defensive strikes.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Sparks showered the damp cobblestones. Every single incoming shuriken was deflected with terrifying precision, the deflected projectiles embedding themselves inches deep into the brick walls on either side of the alley.
"So fast!" Several officers gasped, their pupils contracting to pinpricks.
In that split second, none of them had even registered the exact moment the one-armed stranger had drawn his weapon.
Up on the rooftop, Young Sasuke watched the display of absolute mastery. A fierce, burning smile crept onto his face. The fighting spirit within his dark eyes instantly ignited into a raging inferno.
'He truly is a master.'
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