Author's Note: This is basically a bonus story I wrote for some fans. It's ALL ABOUT Team Hiruzen (Orochimaru, Jiraiya, Tsunade and Hiruzen) and their personal lives/who they are/what they really thought deep down inside. When it's focusing solely on Orochimaru and his inner struggles, the undertones get pretty deep and serious. But when focusing on other characters, it's normally just a blast. Thanks for reading!

LEGACY (The Tale Of Team Hiruzen)

Hiruzen

The Genjutsu Test

"So... Why are we testing them again?" Kagami asked for the umpteenth time.

"To be able to assort their strengths and weaknesses accurately before we enroll any of them into any kind of academy." Tobirama Sensei replied putting clear stress on the word "academy".

It was Hashirama Sensei's idea to create the academy. Tobirama wasn't too keen on the idea. He worried that gifted children and below average children alike would miss out on the opportunities they would have to grow if they were just "plopped" in a room together. He claimed that a parent teaching their own children was superior because it insured each child was taught what they needed to know instead of just given a basic, general curriculum like Hashirama was pinning for. Hashirama's outlook was different. He agreed with his brother, that the gifted kids would fall through the cracks, most likely ignoring instruction and opting to sleep while the slower ones may fall even farther behind. But he worried more about the orphaned children. Who would teach them? And if all the different clans of Konoha didn't find some way to integrate, how would we create the vision of true peace?

And so, Konoha Ninja Academy began as more of an integration system than a school.

"Hey, guys, I brought snacks!"

We all turned to see Hashirama Sensei struggling to kick the wooden door open, arms full of packaged foods and a baby barely hanging on. I quickly stood up and pulled the door fully open for him allowing him to step into the small observer room we were occupying.

"Thanks, Saru-kun." He said, grinning at me, then balancing the foods in one arm, he leaned the baby toward me. "Here, grab him."

I fumbled with my hands, feeling somewhat awkward at holding a newborn that was slightly fussy at having been carried so loosely by Hashirama.

We all faced a large window that gave us sight into a small room with only a table and a chair in it. The window had a jutsu on it that allowed us to see inside but the people in the room couldn't see us.

"Finally, brother. You see, the first one's just come in. You were about to miss it."

"Sorry. Sorry." Hashirama said sheepishly. "They were going to run out!"

He held up the package of sweets. Everyone laughed except Tobirama and we all began conversing about the food.

Tobirama insisted that if we were to create an academy, then we should test the children's cognitive abilities before they entered so we could accurately assess how much good it would do them when they graduated. When Hashirama was told of this, he whispered to me that "Tobi-kun" was only doing it because he was jealous of his award winning idea.

I smiled, positioning the infant in my lap who had finally begun to get jovial, and recalled the memory.

The five and six year olds were all gathered neatly in the hall outside of the room and one was let in at a time.

"Let me get a bite, Hashirama Sensei." Torifu said, leaning over Koharu.

"I want to try some too!" Kagami said.

"Wait, I didn't even get one-"Koharu began to complain.

"Silence!" Tobirama said, then he pointed. "It's your granddaughter."

We all snapped to attention. The first child being let in truly was none other than Tsunade Senju. She wore a dainty white dress with her white-blonde hair tied into two ponytails on either side of her head. It was clear Hashirama's wife, Mito, dressed her up.

The baby leaned up, looking through the window with wide eyes and pointed.

"Na-Na!" he shouted.

I took a couple bells from the baby pouch on the floor and handed them to him to play with.

"So what is this test all about?" I asked.

"Morality." Tobirama responded dryly.

Everyone glanced at each other, not wanting to admit they were still clueless. Luckily, Hashirama picked up on the atmosphere.

"Basically, each kid will be given a morale dilemma and based on how they solve it will show us where they are cognitively as a ninja." Hashirama explained.

"What's the dilemma?" Danzo, who had been dead silent the entire time finally asked.

Down below, a genjutsu specialist stood before Tsunade waving his fingers allowing her to fall under his trance. She blinked once, twice, and then her eyes remained open and blank, staring at the wall in front of her. Seeing but unseeing.

"There's two campsites." Hashirama began. "One of them has five people sitting around the fire, the other has just one. There's a paper bomb next to the campsite with five people sitting next to it and it's only around three seconds from going off. If it goes off, it'll kill all five people at the site. However, there's a wire attached to the paper bomb that can string it along, swiftly pulling it over to the campsite with the single person sitting at it. So, the question is..."

"Oh, I see." Homura said. "Do you do nothing and allow the five people to die or do you pull it and kill the one person, saving all five?"

"Well, can't you just tell them about the danger?" Koharu asked.

"They won't have enough time to react." I said.

Hashirama and Tobirama nodded in agreement. I looked down at Tsunade fidgeting in her seat.

"Isn't this a bit too much for a child?" I asked.

"Not a child being readied for warfare." Tobirama replied, never taking his eyes off his grandniece.

"Tobirama's right, this is the kind of issues you get faced with as a ninja. It's best to get them familiar with it early." Hashirama said.

Just then, Tsunade began to cry and not just a couple of tears, the poor kid was bawling. The door opened and one of the genjutsu specialists entered.

"What's happening in her head?" Tobirama asked.

"She pulled the tag and killed the one person." He told them.

Tobirama nodded.

"Expected as much."

"But then we gave her a different scenario."

Everyone turned, eyebrows raised with interest.

"Instead of it just being a random person in the other campsite, we turned it into her one year old infant brother, Nawaki."

Slowly, almost like it was timed, everyone's eyes shifted from Tsunade to the baby bouncing in my lap. He had gotten the bells stuck on my belt loop and was batting at it like a playful cat.

"Ouch." Hashirama said. "No wonder she's crying. She's probably torn up after having to sacrifice all those five people."

The Genjutsu Specialist cocked his head.

"Actually... She scarified her baby brother."

"What?!" Kagami exclaimed.

The man nodded.

"I was pretty surprised myself. That was a huge act of empathy she just showed. Almost maddening. I wish I had half the balls that little girl has."

I locked my eyes on Tsunade. All our jaws were almost dropped to the floor as a woman entered the room with a cup of water and a tissue to wipe her face. I quickly moved Nawaki from my lap to the baby carriage on the floor so he wouldn't see the scene before him.

"You're...erasing her memory, aren't you?" Tobirama asked.

"Yes." The man agreed. "But not just hers, all of them."

The next couple of hours were boring, completely listless. Kagami, Koharu and Torifu quit, claiming they had things to take care of. Nawaki had long since fallen asleep in the carriage on the floor. Hashirama was watching, if only just barely, and Danzo had to keep kicking me to keep me awake.

"I'm going to learn all the information from the experiment if you keep nodding off." Danzo said to me.

"Go ahead, be my guest." I said, readjusting myself in a more comfortable position.

All the other kids did the exact same thing. No difference. Each of them sacrificed the single person when given the original problem and sacrificed the five people when given the fixed problem. It seemed only Tsunade was crazy enough to kill a family member.

"Maybe she had a fight with him last night." Hashirama had proposed, nudging the sleeping baby boy. "He is always pulling her hair and hiding her sandals."

"But still, enough to kill him?" I had asked. "That's a bit too far."

Tobirama shook his head.

"Are you both fools?" He asked.

We stared at him blankly.

"Tsuna-chan is clearly far more advanced than we gave her credit for."

Hashirama leaned forward in his chair.

"You mean...?" He began.

"Even though it was a genjutsu and it felt real, she knew it was a test. She just gave us the answer she thought we wanted." Tobirama finished.

"You're probably right." Hashirama said then he shrugged. "Or she just has an insane morale level."

Finally, it was so long, dreary and boring, I couldn't take it anymore. I got up and seeing that I'd given up, Danzo was quick out of the door with Homura right on his heels.

"I have some scroll studying to attend to." He said.

Homura didn't even give an excuse but neither Hashirama nor Tobirama even minded them. Their eyes were wide, watching one boy. Suddenly, interested again, I walked up to the window and looked down. The kid looked like he was wringing his hands.

"What's he doing with his fingers?" I asked.

"It looks like he's counting something." Tobirama said.

"Isn't he in the genjutsu?"

"He should be." Hashirama said.

"...Is he slow?" I asked.

"I know him quite personally." Hashirama said. "He's of average intelligence for a ninja but above average for a servant boy."

I squinted harder.

"Wait... Is that Jun-kun and Haijime-san's son?" I asked. "Wasn't his name Jiraiya or something?"

They both nodded. The door opened and the Genjutsu specialist came in.

"Something go wrong?" Tobirama asked.

"No... Well... I don't know!" he said.

We both turned to him, he looked incredibly flustered.

"What's going on?" Hashirama asked.

"He's running us all around." The man said. "He keeps...messing it up!"

"Explain." Tobirama said.

"He won't just choose the two answers we gave him. First, he tried calling out to them and seeing that wouldn't work, he tried to take his shoe off and throw it."

"What?" I said, more out of confusion than shock.

"I kid you not, the kid reaches down, in a genjutsu, and throws the shoe! It damn near broke him out of the entire thing."

I looked down at the boy who was given a cup of water, the same water that every child got that was laced with a medical serum to make the drinker forget the half hour prior to having drunk it.

"Why is he getting up so early?" Tobirama asked.

"Well, after he did that, he goes and tries to pull the string just so it stops right between both campsites."

Hashirama burst into laughter.

"The kid's gutsy!" he exclaimed.

"And we had to break the system down for that, too." He said exasperatedly. "The final chance we gave him, instead of all that, he immediately runs as fast as he can to the tree, grabs the bomb, and runs away with it."

The room was silent. Finally, Tobirama spoke up.

"You mean...that child...that five year old child decided to sacrifice himself for the six people?"

The man, still flustered, just shrugged.

"He's not fit to be a ninja." The specialist finally said. "He's too unorthodox. He doesn't know how to follow rules and direction. It's completely against a ninja's nature."

"He'll do fine." Hashirama disagreed. "Creativity like that is only seen once in a life time."

"But how useful is creativity when a suicidal streak accompanies it?" Tobirama asked. "We put that kid in the academy, he'll be dead in five weeks."

Hashirama bowed his head in that half comical, half resigned way he always did and said nothing.

"It also takes a good amount of empathy to be able to value six stranger's lives above your own." I pointed out.

"Neither of you are understanding, we're not looking for empathy here, we're looking for-"

"Here's the final child." The Genjutsu Specialist interrupted.

A child with very pale skin and jet black hair that reached his waist walked into the room slowly. He was very small and when he pulled himself up into the chair, his feet didn't touch the floor. When the woman came in to entrance him in the genjutsu, he said and did nothing, just watched her. Strangely, I found he intrigued me more than all the others. I couldn't put my finger on it, but he was different somehow. The way he carried himself.

"I don't recognize him. Who is he?" I asked.

"Orochimaru." Hashirama said.

"Orochimaru what?" I asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine." He said offhandedly. "When we asked him his name, he bent down on the ground and wrote that out with his finger. That was all he wrote."

That's strange. Is it a surname or a first name? And what clan is it from? It sounds entirely foreign.

"Where did you find him?" I wondered.

"Wandering around the lands between Konoha and the Sand village." He told me. "He doesn't speak."

"At all?"

He shook his head.

"I've never heard him speak." He said. "The Caregiver Program set him with Hidoi-chan and she's never heard him speak either."

Maybe he's a slow learner but then again, he said he saw him write... Writing normally isn't learned until age seven.

"He's probably cognitively retarded." Tobirama said, motioning toward him. "Look at his face, he must've been in that genjutsu for over ten minutes now and he hasn't done a thing."

That's also true, most of the kids will cry or squirm or do something. He's just sitting absolutely still.

The Genjutsu specialist was completely silent behind me. I watched him as he stared at Orochimaru intently, quickly jotting things down onto a clipboard he held. Finally, the child was done and the woman came in with the cup of water but then the Genjutsu specialist quickly stood up and knocked hard on the window. The knock must have been a signal to her not to give him the water. She abruptly stopped and backed out of the room, leaving him seated. Now, his eyes traveled upwards and locked with ours sitting up there staring at him.

"There's something wrong with that child." The Genjutsu Specialist said. "He's scaring me half to death."

"What is it?" Tobirama asked.

"Another jutsu we do along side the genjutsu one is a brain analysis." He said. "We have a couple members of the Yamanaka clan standing by and monitoring each child's thoughts, feelings and decisions as they deal with their issues."

Tobirama and Hashirama turned to him, listening intently but I found I couldn't take my eyes off of the little boy's. He continued staring up at me.

"So, for example, the Jiraiya kid's brain activity was all over the place. He was literally going through dozens of scenarios and answers to the dilemma a second."

I see. That's what he was doing with his fingers. He was probably counting all of the ways he could save the people.

"But this kid..." the man said. "There was absolutely no brain activity in the emotional region of the brain. None at all."

That made me turn away from the window.

"What?"

"All the other kids, take Tsunade for example, showed heavy activity in the emotional side of the brain, especially when they made the decision. But this kid was completely dark."

"What decision did he choose?" Tobirama asked.

"That's another thing." The man said. "He did nothing at all."

"So, he let the five people die." Hashirama said.

Tobirama shrugged.

"There's nothing wrong with that. He just chose a different way than the others."

"You're not getting it, Tobirama." Hashirama protested. "He didn't feel anything when he chose that. Right?"

"Exactly!" the man said. "It's a morale dilemma but the part of the brain that deals with emotion and morality was completely static. As a matter of fact, he didn't even consider helping the people. He didn't think of it at all. In his genjutsu, he immediately sits down in the grass and watches the people's heads fucking blow off!"

I quickly turn back toward the window, the boy, Orochimaru, was still staring up at me. He was expressionless.

"Hey...this window still has the jutsu on it, right?" I asked.

But everyone was so wrapped up in the discussion, they didn't hear me.

"Maybe he didn't understand the question?" Hashirama proposed.

"We thought that too, so we tested him again and again, but he just sat down."

"The kid's void of empathy." He concluded.

"Not just that..." The man said. "He's completely devoid of any emotion whatsoever."

The man was pacing the room with a pained expression. He sighed, turning to us.

"Personally, I think we should haul his ass right back to that gutter you pulled him out of and just be done with him." He decided. "No good is going to come from a child like that."

Tobirama suddenly started roaring with laughter.

"That's perfect!"

"Tobirama, this isn't funny at all." Hashirama said.

It was incredibly strange seeing the two brothers on polar opposite arguments for once. I had to blink to remind myself which was which.

"He had people's lives in his hands." Hashirama pointed out. "And he refused to accept responsibility."

"You're missing the point, Brother." Tobirama said, pulling himself together. "Ninja are apathetic. We're liars, cheaters, thieves, manipulators...assassins. The more empathy you have coming into this profession, the worst off you'll be when we stomp it all into the ground during the academy years. That's what this entire test was for! Children like our granddaughter will struggle with pain and fear all her life whereas, this child, will most likely grow to be one of the best ninja in history."

"You're wrong, Tobirama." Hashirama protested. "There's something very strange about a child who was born with no moral compass. Bad things could happen with him if he isn't watched very, very carefully."

"I agree. He should be watched very carefully. But not in the way you're thinking. This is what a natural born ninja looks like. He was born for this. He's the definition of a ninja!"

After more tests were run on Orochimaru, ones in which the specialists tried to get him to speak to them or participate in a game or even make a facial expression, they finally gave up. He didn't react to any one of the tests. He just stared at everyone. Hashirama and Tobirama left during the tests, taking the still sleeping baby Nawaki with them, but I watched the entire thing, unable to understand why he was so introverted.

He writes, why doesn't he speak? What is it that he knows that he's not telling?

They gave him the cup of water but he wouldn't drink. In the end, tired of dealing with him, they just let him go with his memory. I left the building around the same time and caught up to him on his way home. It was a cloudy rainy day. When I fell into step next to him, he stopped walking and looked up at me. From that close to him, he didn't look as tiny but he was still small.

"Orochimaru, right?" I said.

He stared up at me, saying nothing and then, after a long silent minute, he turned around and continued walking. I walked next to him again and this time he didn't stop. We trudged through a large, barren field that Hashirama was planning on building new apartment complexes in.

"So you want to be a ninja?" I asked.

He didn't make any motion that said he'd heard me.

Maybe his dialect is different from mine? Or...is it possible he speaks a different tongue than I do altogether? If that's the case, then maybe he really didn't understand the question.

"What do you like to do for fun?"

Silence again. I twirled a kunai around my finger. I blame my twenty-one year old immaturity for the cold-hearted trick I did next. As I had been walking the bells Nawaki had gotten stuck on my belt continued to bounce in the wind. Just out of curiosity, I unhooked them, tied them to the loop of the knife and in a swift, fluid way, threw it at him.

The knife shot right past his face and hit the oak tree next to his head. It had missed him by less than a hair. I wasn't aiming at him, of course. I was testing something else.

Slowly, he cocked his head, turning his blank eyes to me.

Perhaps, he's...!

"Don't worry." I said, laughing easily. "I'm not trying to kill you. I was just-"

Before I finished the question, the knife I had thrown was whipped across the field. I angled my head roughly to the side missing it by less than a centimeter.

He was really aiming to...

He stood before me then, in a fighting stance and I smiled.

"Relax. I was just testing you. I'm not actually trying to-"

But he wasn't listening, he darted for me kicking upwards at my head. I ducked under him. He pushed up from the ground, trying to land an elbow in my stomach but I grabbed his arm and swung him around. He bounced right back. His Taijutsu was incredibly fluid, every fist, foot, knee and elbow was connected. He was also mind blowingly flexible easily slipping in and out of splits mid-air and on the ground or bending into a backflip. It was almost like his limbs were rubber. He punched at me and I easily took all his fists.

He's agile. And not just in a normal way like any five year old that practiced at home a lot with parents or older siblings, but in a controlled way. Those aren't reflexes. He gauged the threat, thought about it, and acted accordingly.

"Come on... You can do better than that." I said to him.

Egged on, he jumped at me and kicked but I blocked each kick with my forearm, he jumped off me, did a backflip in the air, landed in the grass in a crouched position and then rolled up again. The sky boomed with thunder. I pushed back against him offensively, swinging my leg at him, trying to drop my elbow on his head or catch his chin with my knee. He was successful in avoiding all of them, much skilled in Taijutsu beyond his years.

"Great job." I said. "But you're never going to get me that way, keep going."

As close as he was, I could see his eyes clearly. They weren't the same as they were during the test or even five minutes before when I was walking with them. At that time, there was fire in them...life.

I swept my foot underneath him, finally catching him. He stumbled backwards, hitting his back on the grass and I knelt before him with an elbow to his neck. The rain began to fall as I knelt there over him. I stood up and nodded at him.

"You're really good, not just for your age either, for any age." I said.

He continued staring at me.

"But...of course... All this time, I know that you have no idea what I'm saying." I revealed to him.

I knelt down next to him and reached, covering his ears with both of my hands.

"I'm not really good at this. My Sensei's wife's a far better medical ninja than I'd ever hope to be but... Maybe I can help a bit..."

I pressed my hands to his ears, trying to concentrate my chakra to find out where the networks had been destroyed. I worried it would take long. He was glaring up at me with the most untrusting eyes I'd ever seen in my life. I was half expecting him to jump up, grab my knife and kill me but he remained there, for what reason, I have no idea. After a couple of minutes, I detected them all and was able to reattach the more important networks. I was lucky to discover that the damage was small and even my low experience level could fix it.

As I reattached them, I watched his eyes which began widening, growing with wonder. The thunder roared above and he jumped, gaze directed there. I slowly let go of his ears. Then, I reached for the kunai knife in the grass next to him, detached the bells and jingled them in front of his face. Squinting, he covered his ears.

"Yup, that should do it." I said, getting to my feet. "I repaired your eardrums as best as I could. You'll be fine now."

The reason he's been silent all this time is because of that. Though... Strangely... It doesn't explain why was completely emotionless during those tests...

I turned and began walking away, leaving him to sit in the grass, staring up incredulously at the booming sky.

I smiled as I walked.

It must feel great... To experience the roar of the world for the first time.

The Bell Test

While I was walking through the village, delivering a batch of letters to everyone's home for Hashirama, I happened across him again. With my satchel hanging across my chest, I pulled one of the notes out, finally curious about what it said.

"Attention Villagers. If you have a child that is at least five years of age and able, please have them report to the academy for the ninja initiation ceremony first thing tomorrow morning. Thank You for your continued support."

I laughed.

It's clear as day Tobirama was the one that wrote this...

If there's anything I learned while being the first disciple of the Hokage and his brother, it's that one person cannot run a nation alone. That was the time that I began considering the alternative of having a group counsel running the nation. What's better than an oligarchy?

"Say something!"

I looked up from the paper, distracted by loud, high-pitched, childish sounds. Initially, I made to look back down at the paper and keep walking, assuming it was just children at play but then a flash of pale skin and black hair caught my eye. I froze.

Three boys who looked almost exactly the same, seemingly triplets, were on the pier out-looking the lake near the Uchiha district. I couldn't make out what they were saying but I saw they were crowding around him...that boy...the same boy from before...

"Cant'cha talk, you dummy?!"

"I bet his Momma never taught him, the looser!"

I fingered my satchel, caught between letting children work out their own difficulties and being "that" adult that has to cause a scene. But then...

"I bet you can swim better than you can talk, freak!"

They shoved him. Everything began happening fast. I was just close enough to see his legs kick up, leaving the ground. And then I saw the slosh of water that resulted from his fall smacking against the wooden edge of the pier.

They burst with laughter, watching the water swish and splash.

"Looks like he really can't swim!" one of them declared.

"What an idiot."

My legs moved before I even ordered them to and in seconds, I pushed past them.

"Whoa!" one of them exclaimed, stumbling to the side.

"What the-... Oh... Oh no! Run!"

Seeing I was an adult, they scattered. It didn't even register to me. My hand plowed through the surface, grabbing for him, digging... He was far beneath the surface by that time. I had to dive. My fingers tangled with a fabric of clothing and I pulled, bringing him up and out. Reaching for the pier again, I pulled us both up and back onto the wood.

He struggled to sit up, heaving but nothing was coming up.

I managed to notice a few birds fly over our heads, feet lightly skimming the water as they dipped. The water at the spot where he had fallen was just beginning to settle. The sun beat down on the back of my neck. Other than the nature sounds, the only thing to be heard was my hand tapping his back once and hard. He coughed, finally expelling the water that was trapped. He continued coughing, sucking in breath like two kunai knives screeching together. It was a horrible sound but I was content to feel my worry finally dissipate and relief fill its space.

"Are you okay now?" I asked.

And then the next thing that happened was unpredictable. One of his hands, still grasping my sleeve for dear life, began shaking. He turned toward me, eyes lowered shamefully, but the wobble in his bottle lip gave him away. He sucked in another breath and couldn't help to force it out shakily, pained. I grabbed him, hugging him.

"It's alright. You're fine." I said.

But somewhere, deep down inside, I had a feeling that he didn't need reassurance.

All he really needs is just to...

"Wwwwaaaahhhhh." He began sobbing.

Cry.

My eyes drifted back toward the lake as I allowed him to grasp onto me, putting his arms around my neck and sticking to my chest, most likely because of fear. His voice filled the area. The birds near us, picking near the ground, flew up into the air startled by it. And the frogs hopping around near the bank, dove face first into the waves. All of nature was attentive to the cry of the silent boy, much like the first cry of a baby after it's just been born.

I got to my feet, pulling his incredibly light weight body up with me, since he was still clinging to my shirt, and I slowly picked the couple of scrolls up off of the grass that had fallen out of my satchel in my haste to reach him.

He stopped crying pretty quickly. I hadn't even gotten to the next house I had to deliver to before he became the silent observer he was when I had first met him. With him hanging on my back, arms wrapped around my neck, I finished my messenger duty, taping the scrolls to doors or handing them to children sitting on the porch outside.

It wasn't until I stepped foot into the training area that I said my first words to him since I'd saved him at the pier. I squatted down, letting him off my back.

"What direction is your home in?" I questioned. "I'll drop you off there before I return to my servant duties with the clown Hokage and his tyrannical younger brother."

I meant it as a joke but he didn't seem to catch it at all. He blinked at me as I squatted there in front of him. The wind blew, causing Nawaki's bells, which I still hadn't managed to dislodge from my belt, to sound. His eyes flicked down to them, quicker than lightning, and he reached for them.

It's clear he's still getting used to his ears. I wonder how long he was walking around with his hearing impaired.

Just as his fingers were about to close around them, I jumped back. Something like a frown crossed his face momentarily, but just momentarily. He ran forward, reaching again, but again I jumped out of the way. I laughed, standing up.

"If you want these, you're going to have to try harder than that."

He swung around, dipping into a low kick with his left leg that I quickly avoided by jumping over it. He dove toward me, swinging out with his left arm, then his right arm, then his knee. And as he did all this, I began to see that even though his movements were fluid and connected, they weren't firm. That may have been his only issue.

I dipped down into a squat, falling directly into line with his foot which smacked into the side of my head. His knee folded, absorbing most of the pressure that the blow would have given me and he stumbled backwards.

That didn't even hurt slightly.

"Like I thought." I said, smirking at him.

He raised his eyebrows, seeming to be baffled by the fact that his kick didn't seem to affect me at all.

"Your style is almost flawless...except for the fact that, it's just style." I said, getting to my feet.

"It's clean and smooth, but it doesn't do what combat is supposed to do." I thrust my fist into my hand, creating a sounding wave. "Which is make impact. Because that's what fighting is for, right? To actually hurt the person you're up against."

Unless, deep down inside, he really doesn't want to hurt anyone...

He stared at me. The wind caused my bells to sound again. His eyes lowered to them. He reached again but I caught his hand.

"The day you're able to take these bells from me, will be the day you've perfected your Taijutsu." I told him, then I winked. "Until then, keep practicing."

I stood up and turned, picking up my satchel and beginning to wonder if Hashirama and Tobirama really did have some other errand for me to run when I heard his voice.

It actually caught me completely off guard. For some reason, I expected the voice to sound much heavier and angrier and deeper than it did. But as he said...

"Who are you?"

I was surprised to hear that the voice was light, and innocent, and polite sounding. I turned to him.

"I'm Hiruzen Sarutobi." I told him. "But you can call me Hiruzen."

The wind moved his hair out of his eyes and I noticed, for the very first time, that they were an odd yellowish color. Sort of like a reptile.

That's weird.

"Hiruzen...Sensei?" he asked.

I nodded. He moved his hand from behind his back showing me a kunai knife. My eyebrows popped up as I touched the opposite side of my belt realizing that while he hadn't taken the bells, while we were sparring, he had somehow gone into my weapons pouch and taken one of my knives.

"Do you want this back?" he asked me.

I couldn't help but grin.

It seems he does have a sense of humor afterall...

"Nah, keep it." I said, grinning. "But the next time I see you, you'd better be skilled enough to take the bells."

He retracted his hand, gazing at me and saying nothing. I turned and continued walking back toward the town again. When I glanced back over my shoulder, I was surprised to see him still there, bouncing around on his feet, using the kunai knife he'd taken and practicing his Taijutsu.

Tobirama's right... That child might really be a true prodigy.