Sasuke, Young Naruto, and Sarada sat in the cave. Sasuke turned the wild boar he had just caught, roasting it evenly over the campfire. None of them spoke. The silence made the atmosphere rather awkward.
To ease the awkwardness, Naruto thought for a moment before asking, "Sasuke, is this Orochimaru's territory? Are you training under him now?" Young Naruto felt as though he had slapped himself in the face the moment he asked. He clearly remembered that, apart from the time Sasuke had spent training with Orochimaru, they had always gone on missions together. The Naruto of this era wasn't with Sasuke, and Sasuke looked about fourteen—the very age when he had trained under Orochimaru.
Sasuke had no idea what Young Naruto was thinking. He nodded calmly. "Yes. This is one of Orochimaru's research bases, where he studied immortality techniques, but it's been abandoned. I was injured earlier, so I hid here to recover for a while. I'd only just healed when I ran into you two. How did you get here, anyway?"
Young Naruto recalled what had happened. "That's a long story. I remember listening to Shikamaru's report on the roof of the Hokage Office. Then Sarada came running over and told me that Sasuke—the grown-up you, I mean—had gone after Urashiki Otsutsuki with my son. Before she could finish, a rift suddenly opened in the sky and sucked us both in. After that, we ended up here. Unbelievable, right? I still can't believe it myself."
If he had never encountered Thanatos or learned about Ao Guang, Sasuke might have found it unbelievable. But his horizons had broadened, making certain things easier to accept. He replied calmly, "There's nothing so unbelievable about it. It's just traveling through space and time. Someone I know can do that. It's nothing extraordinary.