The Journey — (Naruto x Solo Leveling Fanfiction)

I don't own solo leveling or Naruto

Sasuke sliced through a plume of fire that was coming his way. Most would have winced at the temperature of the flames, his bloodline as an Uchiha gave him a natural resistance to what many would consider deadly temperatures.

He stuck his blade in the ground and used it as a platform to leap off of away from another one of Choi's fire dragon attacks. Weaving a couple of hand signs before a beam of flames came shooting from his mouth.

[Fire Style: Dragon Flame Jutsu]

The fire mage merely leaned to the side to avoid the attack and flicked his wrist to direct the dragon to exploit the predicament Sasuke had put himself in by being mid-air against a magician. Sasuke saw the flaming attack coming in slo-mo thanks to the Sharingan and in an inhuman display of agility spun mid-air to avoid the dragon.

'That's insane!' Choi was impressed. He squeezed his palm and caused the dragon to combust in a fiery explosion. This move propelled Sasuke down to earth with enough force to dent the training room floor. Sasuke quickly recovered, however and immediately started to close the distance between weaving hand signs for Chidori all the while.

'What are you up to, Sasuke? At this distance I can easily see an attack like that coming no matter how fast you get,' Choi thought confused as to why the Uchiha was aiming for an easily avoidable assault like that. Sasuke ran past his sword and then came to an immediate stop just 6 metres before reaching Choi.

'What's he up-' the S-rank hunter didn't finish that thought before a hard beam of lightning came dashing at him at an incredibly fast pace. He jumped back trying to avoid it but it kept on extending for about an extra metre until it stopped. 'What the? That's new,' he thought with a bit of panic, 'He even went for a headshot,' he thought until he heard the sound of something slicing through the air. Looking to his right he saw Sasuke's sword barreling towards him like a deadly pendulum attached to the most inexplicably thin wire string at the blade's butt. He got serious and waved his arm at the sword, blasting it away with a wave of fire.

"That was creative." Choi complemented with a smile, "Any more tricks up your sleeve?" he egged the young teenager on.

"Hn." he dispelled the long lightning sword and yanked his sword back to him by the wire string, nonchalantly placing the blade back in his sheathe.

'What an unnatural prodigy. I'm no sword expert but even I can tell that he's on a totally different level of swordsmanship compared to mid ranked hunters that are well versed in the blade.' Choi assessed internally.

"This armour is a little stiff, hard to move around in at certain points during the fight," Sasuke said. "Really? I'll let R&D have a look at it later. You wanna call it for today?" Choi asked and Sasuke, unsurprisingly, shook his head, "Nah, I'm just getting warmed up. Besides, your attack force B team should be coming in tomorrow, correct?"

Choi just blinked, "Oh that's right. How'd you know about that?" the fire mage questioned, curious how he found out about that. "Hae-In told me yesterday during our training session." Sasuke explained.

"Ah, you two get along pretty well, huh?" Choi said happily. "Yeah, she's a good teacher. Still can't beat her though,"Sasuke answered, but there wasn't any frustration in his tone.

"Well not many can, but I'm glad you two get along," Choi was a little nervous about their dynamic together considering Sasuke's borderline recluse nature and Hae-In's socially awkwardness, but it seemed he was worried about nothing. He hasn't had much chance to talk with Hae-In about Sasuke's attitude in training because of her insisting on guarding the mining and collection teams every gate. 'Actually, now that I think about it we don't talk much at all,' he thought. Only during dungeon raids or the occasional guild meeting about new recruits and even then she was scarce during those meetings.

"Okay then. Let's call it a day!" Choi clapped his hands together. "Huh, I said I wasn't done." Sasuke voiced his displeasure with Choi's decision to call the training session to a close. "Don't be so hasty and save your energy for meeting the squad tomorrow afternoon and besides it's your fault for reminding me I've got stuff to do today."

Sasuke just huffed at his explanation but there didn't seem to be much push back from his side. "You haven't been to school in some time, so why don't you start with that?" Choi suggested before leaving Sasuke to his own devices.

'He doesn't seem to be pushing for me to go to school that much anymore. Wonder why?' He was glad that was the case because school didn't really provide anything at all for him really, other than a better understanding of this world's geography, history and economy. He didn't discard the benefits of understanding basic concepts like that but he figured that wasn't Choi's original intent for sending him there, it was more likely that he wanted him to socialise and be more open.

'That's never going to happen around children like them,' he thought indifferently. What's the point of interacting with someone if he didn't stand to gain anything from them and he didn't gain anything from interacting with those children at school except maybe Lee. 'He could definitely tell me things about hunters that Choi doesn't want me to know,' Sasuke noted internally.

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"Yo man, where have you been? How've you been?" Lee greeted Sasuke happily, bounding his way across the nearly void courtyard over to the raven-haired Uchiha. Sasuke acknowledged him with a simple nod from the corner of his eye which was the sort of greeting Lee was expecting.

"You must've been gone for like 5 days! What happened? Were you sick?"

"I'm well aware and I was gone for 4 days actually," he corrected. "I've just been busy with other stuff." Lee nodded, accepting his answer, "Yeah, I can tell. The buzz has died down but you're pretty famous in halls you know."

Sasuke looked at him confused, wondering what he was on about and Lee had noticed his perplexed expression it seemed. "You seriously have no clue?" he asked incredulously, as if the answer was obvious.

"Enlighten me." Sasuke deadpanned.

"Oh, um, on Instagram and other places there have been multiple pictures circulating of you and Choi Jong-In together. Most people at school didn't think much of it at first until another paparazzi captured a picture of you two at lunch together 2 days later. Now we're wondering how the heck you know someone like Choi Jong-In."

Sasuke's expression didn't give anything away to his thoughts. It took a minute but it finally clicked in what Choi was doing that day. He was sending a message to someone regarding him, to whom Sasuke had no clue but he wasn't curious enough to care, ultimately.

"Hn. Yeah, he's my sponsor," Sasuke answered much to the shock of Lee. "Wait really? That's so cool! To have an S-rank hunter like Choi Jong-In invested in your future like that, what's he like? Don't hold anything back!" his brown haired classmate borderline smouldered him with questions that he had to push him back.

That didn't seem to deter him, "Have you seen him fight? How many cars does he really have? Is it true that- Hey! Come back here! You can't just say something so awesome like that and walk away with no explanation!" Lee exploded when he saw Sasuke walking away, completely ignoring his ramblings.

"Hey, Lee," Sasuke said, completely cutting off his outburst with a simple calling of his name, "What do you know about the way the Association works. You said your cousin was a high ranking member, right?"

"Oh, uh, yeah sure. What do you want to know?" he smiled. They walked through the corridors of the school to their next class with a few whispers and comments behind their backs. All of them related to him in some way but Sasuke didn't pay them any mind. "Ever since I got my hunter licence I haven't been able to raid dungeons like I was promised, I have a feeling that information is being withheld from me and I want to know."

Lee looked at him, not sure of what to say and that's partially because Sasuke himself didn't know what he wanted to know just that he did want to know something.

"Well, I guess it sounds like you want to know how to join a raid group. I can help you with that, after school though." Lee answered and Sasuke nodded. He was fine with that.

"Sasuke Uchiha!!" he heard an unholy shriek in the hallway that forced everyone to turn to the source of the noise. Sasuke stayed silent as the cross country club captain raced to him with eyes lit up in fury. He easily sidestepped Yong-sun's attempt at tackling into the ground and watched him skid completely across the floor. "Uh, what's up with him?" Lee asked nervously.

Sasuke shook his head wondering the same thing. The captain got up rubbing his slightly bloody chin and pointed an accusatory finger right at the Uchiha. "Where have you been! Your club attendance has been shit! I don't tolerate such lax behaviour from any of our members, you hear me! We've got the Sister School sports day in 2 weeks and I wanna win, you bastard!" Yong-sun shouted.

Sasuke just blinked, "I thought you said I couldn't attend." This time it was Yong-sun's turn to blink and then he exploded, "When did I say that!!"

"After the first session. You suspected I was awakened and said people like that couldn't attend because it's cheating." Sasuke deadpanned which left the third year briefly speechless, "I-I did?" he asked, pointing to himself to which Sasuke nodded. "B-But you aren't awakened are you?" he stammered on the verge of tears.

"I am." Sasuke said truthfully which caused the water works to burst from his eyes. He didn't let the club captain get close to grasping his uniform the way he was motioning to do so. Sasuke rolled his eyes at the third year's dramatics and moved past him to his next class leaving him to cry comically on the floor.

"Is he gonna be okay?" Lee whispered to him as they walked away.

"I don't care," Sasuke answered truthfully.

The end of the school day couldn't come around any sooner as all the mind numbing classes came to an end. As soon as the bell rang students came filing out their classrooms in the masses but Lee and Sasuke weren't part of them. Sasuke followed Lee all the way to the library. When he asked what they were doing there Lee told him that they were going to use one of the free computers there.

"Why can't we just go to the computer lab instead of rushing across campus to the library," he questioned, speeding across campus at a brisk pace. "Well for one the computer labs are closed after school and we're rushing cause people like to hog the computers in the library because the lab is closed." Lee answered, pushing the door open to the library.

"Makes sense." Sasuke agreed.

They made their way over to the last open computer at the end of the room by the window. Lee took a seat with Sasuke watching over his shoulder. He watched him type in his password, fingers gliding across the keyboard with elegant and swift motions, and logged in to the system.

"Do you have your licence with you?" Lee asked. "Rarely leaves my side," Sasuke replied, handing the laminated card to Lee's open palm.

He flipped the card over, "If you notice when you flip the card over there's a set of unique 7 characters on there." Sasuke nodded, because he did notice that. "Well, it's not there for show. These 7 characters represent a hunter's identity on the Association's systems. A hunter needs this to access essential information on the website like raid listings, hunter regulation changes and even black list notices for false rankers are on here. Every hunter registered in the country is on this website with their rank and contact details visible to pretty much anyone with access to this website, even hunters that are a part of a guild are on here." Lee explained.

"I see…" Sasuke murmured, watching him navigate to a section on the screen called raid listings. It's still taking him a bit to grasp every facet of the technology of this world, cellphones and computers were the most interesting and difficult to grasp for him because it took the basic radio technology they used in Konoha and cracked it up to 11. With communication lines spanning across the whole globe and things called software applications to perform calculations, breach a language gap (albeit not very well) and facilitate the passing of information such as the news to the general populace. He'd been using his Sharingan at every opportunity to accelerate the process of learning about this technology but he still was a little befuddled at some points.

"Raid listings?"

"Oh, yeah. This is where you will check and see if there are any guilds or freelance hunter parties listed for a raid in the country and if there are any openings, which usually there are. You can obviously narrow down the scope to just Seoul, which I have, to find a raid squad in the area. Oh, look there's a free spot right now!" Lee pointed out excitedly.

"Click on it!" Sasuke commanded a little louder than he intended. "Okay, okay geez look who's the little kid now, huh?" Lee teased Sasuke causing the Uchiha to just lightly smack him upside the head.

"Ow…" he pouted at the contact. "It says here that the gate is D-rank with a guy named Kim Sang Shik as the raid leader, it's pretty close to our sister school too." Lee said, reading the listing details. "Is there another one of higher rank?" Sasuke frowned, hoping that the difficulty level of the dungeon would be higher.

"From what my cousin told me, openings in high level raid listings are incredibly rare and it's the norm for guilds to snatch up gates B-rank or lower for themselves leaving the rest for freelance hunters. Unless you have a lot of money to buy your own gate then it's not likely that you'll get a high level gate of your own."

"Hmph." Sasuke smirked. It looked like he was right in his assessment of Lee's information. 'He's definitely provided me with a lot of useful information. I'll have to learn to navigate this website myself,' he thought, thinking how much of a pain but ultimately how useful it'll be to know this.

"It's fine. Sign me up, I'm dying for some action anyway," he sighed.

"Okey dokey!" Lee quipped and set to work placing the request. "All we gotta do is wait for a response. Should come to your phone or this PC right here," Lee said, leaning back in his chair and stretching in 'a job well done' manner.

It wasn't even 10 minutes until Sasuke heard a ding from his pocket. The message read:

(You're pretty strong for a kid. How quickly can you get here we're going to enter in 30 minutes.)

"Oh! That was quick! In 30 minutes? From here to there is like a 20 minute drive. Imagine walking? Are you sure you'll make it in time?" Lee questioned worriedly, but that concern wasn't present on the young Uchiha. He simply wrote back…

(Be there in 5 minutes.)

"Five minutes?!" he yelled out incredulously causing a chorus of shushes to ring out through the library making the brown haired boy blush in embarrassment. "I mean doesn't that seem a bit unrealistic? That's a 20 min drive and you said you'll be there in 5," he whispered this time as they left the library.

Sasuke didn't answer and only put in the code to his locker, pulling out a long pole object wrapped in mounds and mounds of cloth held together by wands of string. "I have better means of travelling than by car." Sasuke replied.

He then handed him his phone, "Type in the coordinates of this location. I don't want to get lost on the way there."

"Oh, uh, sure." Lee stammered accepting the phone and configuring the GPS on it.

He handed it back to him and questioned what was up with the wrapped up pole.

"My katana." Sasuke said easily enough to the shock and eventually excitement of Lee as he became curious about the look of the blade. They made it outside quickly enough and Sasuke took his phone back and committed the GPS route to memory.

"Anyway, thanks for the help Lee. Much appreciated." Sasuke expressed his gratitude to his only tolerable acquaintance at school leaving a pile of cloth in his wake as he simply vanished from Lee's sight.

'Wha-What…? So cool!' he screeched with internal glee at his awesome exit.

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Sasuke bounded from rooftop to rooftop at incredible speeds, faster than the human eye could perceive, the wind whipping his unruly raven hair back and forth. It was at a time like this where he could forget about his feelings of helplessness at being stuck in the dimensions as far away from his life goal as one could possibly be. He's pushed it to the back of his mind but in his dreams, nightmares and moments of stillness the thought always resurfaces. How am I going to get back to my home?

No, not home because he didn't consider anywhere as home at this time in his life, rather the shinobi world was where his destiny lay, not here in the world of hunters and monsters. He felt stranded but at least when he was in the air jumping from building to building he felt just that little bit less stranded.

He dropped by a nearby tree and made his way over to a small parking lot that had a blue portal in the middle. The standard barriers and black and yellow tape had already been set up by the local first responders in the area to keep civilians at bay.

Gripping the sneath of his katana he walked over towards a food truck just a little ways away from the gate. There were a group of people populated around the truck judging by the fact that some of them carried backpacks, swords and even mining equipment such as pickaxes and shovels clued Sasuke in on the fact that these were the people he was supposed to meet.

A middle aged man with grey hair styled in a crew cut turned and spotted Sasuke walking towards them. He wore a blue blazer over a white collared shirt and jeans. "Judging by that weapon in your hand, you must be that unnaturally strong pipsqueak, right?" the aged hunter inquired, although his tone was very dismissive. "You got here in 5 minutes so I guess they're teaching you right in school, eh?"

Sasuke frowned visibly at his condescending attitude, he had a feeling that he wasn't going to enjoy being around the guy at all. "The name's Sasuke Uchiha and you must be Kim Sang Shik, the raid leader, right?"

"Even though there's no law against minors raiding dungeons I wasn't even going to consider pulling you on board until this big oaf convinced me." Kim explained, grabbing and pushing forward a familiar figure in Kimura. Recognition sparked on the young teenager's face as he accepted the broad shouldered hunter's handshake.

"It's good to see you again, scary kid. Have you been?" Kimura asked.

"It's Sasuke actually, I don't think that actually stuck, did it?" Sasuke replied rather hauntingly.

"Haha, yeah sorry. It's up there somewhere. I'll get it for sure!" Kimura gulped at the scary aura surrounding the B-rank hunter. Sasuke just rolled his eyes, knowing that he would end up calling him anything else but his name.

"Ne, old man? Since the scary kid is here we can get going right?" Kimura asked.

"Nah, we're still waiting for our healer. The brat's running late for some reason."

"Healer?" Sasuke questioned because it was odd for a freelance party like this to have a healer. Healer's are very rare in the low ranks and even in the high ranks, but more frequent which is why a healer usually raids with a high level party or is immediately tied down to a guild.

"Yeah, one of our very own! Same rank as you actually," Sang Shik answered, pridefully.

"I look forward to meeting them."

Sasuke looked to his right and saw a woman with an orange ponytail similar in age to his mentor Cha Hae-In. Her breathing was hurried, clearly, indicating that she ran all the way here and he noticed her blue eyes were frantic. She was nervous about being late.

Very curious.

"Sorry I'm late!" a sincere apology left her lips, an apology that was waved away by the raid captain. "No worries, Joo-hee. We're just glad you could make it. You're the crown jewel of this operation, it's rare to have a healer of your calibre join our raids. So, we really appreciate the time you took out of your day!"

Joo-hee blushed with a bashful smile, "Thank you, Mr. Sang Shik, I won't let you down!" she nodded with a firm determination.

"Just like you, it's her first time here so please be nice," Kimura whispered. Sasuke just brushed him off, not concerned as to why he'd tell him something like that. This was a D-rank gate so that meant no problem for someone on his level. From a first glance Joo-hee didn't seem like much and from her eyes he could tell that she wasn't up for something like this, he guessed it made sense why she was a healer then.

"Yeah, yeah anyways!" The raid captain interrupted, cutting the reunion short, "Since you're here we can get started." Kim started. "There's about 10 of us, more than enough for this dungeon. So, let's get this underway."

"Great. I'm done waiting around," Sasuke said with a cadence of annoyance, walking off to the gate.

"Uh, he's joining us?" Joo-hee asked, her face expressing concern for one so young doing something so dangerous and he was clearly still wearing the uniform of whatever highschool he was from.

"Yeah, believe it or not he's the same rank as you," Joo-hee looked back at Sang Shik, evidently, surprised to hear that. She then furrowed her brow.

"That still doesn't make it any better, he's still in school."

"No laws against minors raiding dungeons."

She then gave the captain an intense look that made him want to rethink his stance on the matter.

He cleared his throat, "Okay! I'll make sure he doesn't do anything stupid. I've got kids of my own, so I'll set the example."

Joo-hee then clapped her hands together and smiled at the answer. She wasn't stupid and it was clear to her that this teen had joined of his own accord, but she was, at least, glad the raid captain would be looking out for him, not that she wasn't going to.

Sang Shik then mobilised the party of 10 to enter the gate, joining the eager Sasuke Uchiha. They crossed the rip in space-time into the world of chaos and monsters, a place where there was only hunter and prey. Which one was which would soon be discovered.

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I think my dialogue still needs a bit of work.

Thanks for reading and review pls!