Just as Naruto turned a corner, he saw a boy standing beneath his apartment building, leaning against a lamppost with his hands in his pockets.
Hearing the footsteps, the boy raised his head.
"Sasuke, what are you doing here all by yourself?" Naruto asked curiously.
Sasuke's gaze first fell upon the dust on Naruto's trench coat before moving to Naruto's face.
He frowned slightly and said, "Naruto, we need to talk."
Naruto nodded. "I don't have anything urgent anyway. Where to?"
"My place."
"Let's go then." Naruto gestured for Sasuke to lead the way.
Sasuke turned around, and the two of them walked along the path toward the Uchiha Clan estate.
The streetlights grew sparser, and the surroundings gradually changed from a bustling residential area into an overgrown old street.
Sasuke pushed open the front gate of the Uchiha estate, the wooden door creaking.
After entering the Uchiha estate, Naruto looked around the mansion that once belonged to Konoha's number one clan as he walked.
Speaking of which, according to the original storyline's timeline, Itachi and Kisame should be making their appearance soon.
The Akatsuki's first official appearance was shortly after Hiruzen's death.
Itachi used the excuse of returning to the village to check on Sasuke's safety, while also warning the Konoha higher-ups: I am still alive, don't touch my younger brother.
Naruto silently calculated the timeline in his head.
Hiruzen's funeral had already ended, Konoha's reconstruction work was underway, and Jiraiya was going to take him to find Tsunade tomorrow.
If Itachi sneaked into Konoha during this time, Sasuke would run right into him.
Just as Naruto was lost in thought, Sasuke, who was walking ahead, stopped in his tracks.
Naruto looked at Sasuke, waiting for a moment only to find that he remained completely silent.
He couldn't help but ask, "Sasuke, what are you doing standing there? Why aren't you saying anything?"
Sasuke took a deep breath, but just as his lips parted, Naruto's voice rang out again.
"Don't tell me you just don't know how to start the conversation?"
Sasuke's body stiffened slightly.
Seeing this, Naruto sighed in his heart.
Sasuke only had three ways of dealing with emotions: acting aloof, anger, or silence.
Right now, he clearly had a bellyful of questions to ask, but when it came to speaking, he didn't know where to begin.
"Alright, just say whatever you have to say. Standing here in the cold night wind with you... I have to wake up early for a mission tomorrow."
At this moment, Sasuke really wanted to tell Naruto to shut up, but he wanted to get all the doubts in his mind answered even more.
He took a breath, then blurted out the questions that had been bottled up inside him for days.
"Naruto, I want to know, just how strong are you right now?"
"Why did you knock me unconscious in the forest that day?"
"What was that golden light?"
"Before I lost consciousness, my Sharingan saw it. Although I couldn't see the face of that figure clearly, it was definitely you."
"How should I put this?"
Naruto crossed his arms and tilted his head, putting on a thoughtful expression.
"If you don't want to say it, then fight me."
Seeing this, Sasuke immediately activated his Sharingan. In an instant, his pupils turned from pure black to crimson, with three black tomoe slowly spinning.
The Three-Tomoe Sharingan!
It had already surpassed the lifetime limit of an ordinary Uchiha.
"The Three-Tomoe already? When did it evolve?" Naruto looked at Sasuke's Sharingan.
If he remembered correctly, in the original series, Sasuke only gained tbe Three-Tomoe Sharingan during the final battle at the Valley of the End, but now it was so much earlier.
Naruto guessed there was a high probability it was related to the stress response of the Cursed Seal in his body after being bitten by Orochimaru in the Forest of Death.
Well, that works too. I'll give him a little shock, so he can calm down and listen to me properly.
"Alright."
Naruto nodded and walked to the open space in the very center of the courtyard.
Sasuke walked to a spot ten meters opposite Naruto and assumed the standard Uchiha-Style Taijutsu starting stance.
Sasuke made the first move, his hands forming hand signs at an extremely rapid speed.
Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!
Sasuke took a deep breath, then spat forward. A fireball nearly two meters in diameter spewed from his mouth and rushed straight toward Naruto.
Naruto stood in place without forming any hand signs. He simply gathered his Chakra precisely at the Chakra pathways of his feet, and then pushed off.
In an instant, his figure vanished from in front of the fireball, leaving behind an afterimage.
The Great Fireball passed through the afterimage and smashed into the stone wall, turning the entire wall red-hot as countless fragments crumbled down.
The moment Naruto moved, Sasuke's Sharingan captured his trajectory. The dynamic vision of the Three-Tomoe Sharingan allowed him to clearly see Naruto bypassing the fireball from the upper left.
Sasuke stomped his right foot on the ground. Under the stimulation of Lightning Chakra, his speed was elevated to a whole new level, and he transformed into a black afterimage to meet Naruto head-on.
His fist aimed right at Naruto's anticipated landing point along his flanking trajectory, timing it perfectly.
But Sasuke quickly realized something was wrong. Naruto was no longer at that predicted landing point.