His first memories were fuzzy flashes of-
-bloodfiredeathscreamsmotherfatherbrotherwhyhelp.
His second consisted of a bandaged face staring down at him, a crying redheaded baby laying next to him on the ground. And intricate seal had been written on the navel of the other baby, a halo of blood still painted on the dirt.
The face was connected to a pair of hands, hands that picked him up from the ground and passed him into the indifferent grasp of an animal masked shinobi.
His third? His third was of him waking up next to another baby, one with pale skin and dark eyes in a blank, cold room.
He was still a baby, an impressionable child. When he was kept in such a room for the majority of his childhood, that was what he took comfort in. And in that room was where he learned.
He cried, and no one came. That day he learned that tears were useless.
He was hungry and called out, and no one answered. He learned to suppress and hide that hunger.
He was lonely and longed for a friend, but there was no one. So he learned to take comfort in the dark, in the loneliness.
Until that pale skinned, dark eyed boy came back into his life.
That other boy have been so different, dark hair to his blonde.
Black eyes to his blue.
By then he had learned of his Duty to the Leaf, he learned that his leader was Danzo-sama, and he learned to kill.
The boy had learned the same, but there was one thing that they never knew before.
What having a brother felt like.
So they taught each other.
It was mostly trial and error, their first fumbling attempts at having a civil conversation were based mostly on the direction book about emotions that every Root member was given. Those talks were hollow, and they were like empty shells going through the motions.
They didn't try that again.
Discussing training and missions was better, more freeing. They knew what they could say and that the other could understand.
They were both broken, twisted, they knew all about that. They never shied away from the truth, truth that started to mean so much more when they finally realized the world of lies that they lived in.
They trained together, were put on missions together. They were truly brothers.
The other was a bit older so he was labeled aniki. He was the younger one, he was his aniki's otouto.
Now? Now they were people, they were someone.
And they were never letting go.
He glanced up from where he was sharpening his tanto, he could feel how his aniki was nervous. From the set of his shoulders to how his eyes flickered around the room, he was practically radiating worry.
He stayed silent, aniki would tell him what was on his mind if he wanted to. He wouldn't pry, shinobi dealt in secrets and one wrong step would lead to death. No matter how close they were.
The steady grind of the whetstone against metal faltered for the briefest moment as a sharp flare of pain from the seal on his tongue alerted him to a new mission. He frowned as his eyes raked over the form of his aniki one more, they always took missions together so why didn't his aniki receive summons too?
He pushed away the stray thought and sheathed his tanto, carefully putting away the whetstone before grabbing his armour.
"Otouto, where are you going?" He grimaced at the inquisitive remark, he hated lying to his aniki but Danzo-sama's commands took priority.
"Standard patrol, Squad 5 has one incapacitated member and I am to be the substitute."
His expression turned flat as he slid on his cat mask, the final piece to his assemble. It would not do to have emotions in the presence of other Root members, hidden behind a mask or not. It could mean his death if he did.
Gliding out of his room he took an abrupt turn towards the meeting room, not once looking back. He wouldn't want to leave again without his aniki on this mission if he looked back.
An elimination mission.
He prefered assassination to elimination, a silent and hidden death to a slaughter.
It wasn't that he disliked killing, that impulse was torn out of him early and unlikely to ever come back. It was just that mass killing was so obvious when he had been conditioned to be discrete, to be unknown. The sheer scent of blood would already be enough to bring any leaf-nin on patrol to his location.
But Danzo-sama's orders could and would not be questioned.
He took the mission scroll with a brief dip of the head to his fellow shinobi and cracked open the seal to read. His lips thinned.
A clan of shinobi on the outskirts of Fire Country had stolen some of the Inuzuka clan secrets and were attempting to imitate the dog-nin. That alone would bring their deaths. Konoha would not tolerate the risk of another Hidden Village gaining classified secrets belonging to one of their clans.
And he would be the one to carry out the killing.
He set out immediately, there was no reason to dally. The more ground he could cover during the day the more time he would have to kill at night.
He enjoyed running, or what some people would call tree jumping. He liked the steady rhythm of his heart as he ran, liked the way that leaves rustled as he passed, it was like a secret greeting that only he could hear.
And he liked wind. It was playful, teasing, and free. He envied that freedom, something that he would never gain.
The subtle change in scent on the trees and in the air alerted him to the fact that he was now in enemy territory. A place where he was an outsider, forever observing through a pane of glass the life beyond.
He slowed, focusing more on stealth than speed for any clan that thought they could imitate the Inuzuka to any degree must already have some connection to nature.
The mission scroll was short, to the point, and clearly missing very vital information. But all Root missions did.
The Root were different from any other Konoha shinobi. They were the assassins, extinguishing lives like the flickering flames of a candle without care to emotion and other human ties.
But they themselves were also expendable, for who cared about a ninja they would never even know the name of? No one.
He crushed those errant thoughts from his mind before gathering all his focus and honing it into a razor sharp blade. He would need all of his mind with him to make it out of this mission alive. There was a reason why multiple Squads were typically used for any sanctioned elimination mission.
And the official death rate was still around fifty percent with a single Squad carrying out the orders.
And a Squad was made up of four members.
He stalked around the perimeter of the clan compound, memorizing both entrances and escape routes alike. He would need both.
Next he ghosted through the halls of the complex, noting both rooms and members alike.
Then came the killing.
First blood came from a young child playing alone in their bedroom. Their throat was sliced cleanly open.
The next was the wailing mother that ran in when she smelled her child's blood permeating the air. She died with a shuriken through the eye.
The father was the last to die in their family, heart run through by his already bloody tanto.
He had been given the exact number of members the clan consisted of, that information at least was consistent.
247.
Now down to 244.
He sighed before accepting that his dreams would be nightmares for a few weeks after, that is if he got out alive.
Whirling, he sliced his tanto through a few more shinobi, finishing off the group that had been sent to stop him.
229.
…
He watched on emotionlessly even as he sent shuriken after shuriken into the nursery. The babies didn't even cry after seeing their brethren fall to a hail of steel. They couldn't yet comprehend what was going on and he wasn't going to ever give them the chance to.
217.
…
He tore through group after group sent after him, some of the ninja weren't even teenagers yet. Not that he was either.
166.
…
He went after those too old to fight when the others regrouped. He witnessed the bodies that held the souls of some that had seen generation after generation go to battle only to die on his blade.
128.
…
The final wave headed out to kill him, and he hung on to life through sheer force of determination. His aniki would see him again, he swore it.
52.
…
Limping, and with three parallel claw marks that raked down the left side of his face along with the multitude of other wounds, he faced the clan head and his inner circle of jounin level shinobi. And they fought until they couldn't.
35.
…
He knew that they still hid the children, stashed them away in secret places that they hoped he would never find. But he would. Even propped up against the wall of a house and using what little medical knowledge he knew to heal the slash that almost bisected him, he vowed to kill them all. Both his and his aniki's life depended on it.
And so he hunted the children of the hunters. Spread his senses to seek out any lifeforms that showed up on his radar before killing them.
34.
33.
32.
30.
29.
25.
24.
23.
20.
18.
17.
15.
14.
12.
11.
10.
9.
7.
4.
3.
2.
1.
He was stumbling and leaning against the walls as he went by the time he reached the last child. The other children had been hidden both in groups and alone, and he had killed them all.
There was one more death that would be caused by his hand on that day.
He lined up his throw with a mildly trembling hand and the kunai flew true and sank deep into the little boy's skull with a muffled thump.
0.
He lit the compound up with burning flames and then activated the explosive tags he scattered all around the area. There was to be no evidence of a mass killing, and he obeyed.
He almost crawled back to the Root headquarters, too tired to even run.
Turning in his report, he gave them the exact coordinates to the former clan's grounds before he dragged himself to his shared room.
He toppled through the door, now beyond even exhausted to the point where three feet of concrete was an insurmountable distance.
He still smiled slightly at the feeling of warm hands, so different from his own, gently picking him up and laying him on his bed.
The last thing he saw before darkness claimed him was the sight of his aniki's face looking down at him.
He then slipped from the waking world and ventured down into the realm of sleep.