Team ROOT

Chapter One: Conscription

October 11th – 24hrs following the Kyūbi's attack and resulting sealing at the cost of the Yondaime Hokage's life.

Danzō Shimura was a prudent man. Hence he had, over the years, developed his ability to come up with a plan for any eventuality. Thus, once the Kyūbi had been sealed, he immediately sent a group of his ROOT to get the child and bring him back to the ROOT base.

Hiruzen Sarutobi was not having a good say. Not only had he just lost his successor Minato Namikaze, the Yondaime Hokage, and was therefore being forced to resume his post as the Sandaime Hokage, but the Council were insisting that the child now bestowed with the burden of keeping the Kyūbi no Kitsune contained be executed to ensure that the demon could not rise again. It complicated matters that the newly-appointed jinchūriki was his successor's son, so he could not in good conscience condemn the Yondaime's legacy without spitting in the face of his friend's last wish.

He sighed and ran a hand through his thinning hair. Unable to put it off any longer, he pushed open the door to see a portable crib beside the desk where Naruto, last time he saw him, had been sleeping peacefully. It was empty.

He stared at the empty crib in utter shock for a second before reacting. "KAKASHI!" he roared.

An ANBU in a dog mask appeared, "Yes, Hokage-sama…?"

Sarutobi rounded on him, "Naruto's gone, I want ANBU teams scouring the village for him, NOW!"

Kakashi didn't even bother to acknowledge the order; he just disappeared in a swirl of leaves.

Sarutobi walked over to the crib and looked down into it. He could see the tiny dent on the mattress where Naruto had been sleeping. "Oh Minato," he thought sadly, "I've already failed you and Kushina…"

-TR-

December 27th – 24hrs following the birth of Hinata Hyūga.

Danzō smiled happily to himself as one of his ROOT made a report. It seemed that the Hokage still had no idea that he was behind the disappearance of the infant Kyūbi jinchūriki, and the rumours going around the village that the Kyūbi had taken over its host and fled the village, killing most shinobi as it went made him laugh. He'd like to know how a baby less than a week old could even walk around on its own, let alone kill multiple shinobi to make its escape from the village.

The fact that his kidnap had gone undetected was not the only thing making him happy, however. His ROOT had reported that the Hyūga clan head's wife had just given birth to a baby girl. With Danzō's recent start in baby-napping to supplement his ranks, he saw it as a perfect opportunity to get a Main Branch Hyūga into his ROOT. The fact that it would also provide the Kyūbi jinchūriki with a training partner of the same age (most of his troops were far too old) didn't hurt either. Chuckling to himself, Danzō began to issue his orders.

-TR-

A despairing wail of grief rent the snowy night air in the Hyūga compound, and Main and Branch members alike turned to look towards the main house as the newborn Hinata Hyūga's nursemaid's scream carried through an open and lit window, "HINATA-SAMA! SHE'S GONE! GUARDS, GUARDS!"

The guards, despite using their Byakugan to their fullest extent across the entire compound and most of the village, would find nothing, not even footprints in the snow. They were eventually forced to give up as the frigid December weather brought fresh snow clouds over the village and began burying everything in a sea of white once more.

-TR-

Three years following the abduction of Hinata Hyūga, late Spring.

It had now been three years since Danzō abducted the Kyūbi jinchūriki and Hyūga heiress and brought them to his ROOT, and the pair in question were just beginning their training.

First, he decided he needed to carry out a little experiment. Having dispatched some of his stealthiest ROOT to the Hyūga compound to steal the scrolls for the Jyūken (he couldn't have a Hyūga as an asset without her knowing the Jyūken, after all; the very idea was unthinkable), he ordered one of the med-nin to collect the Uzumaki and the Hyūga and bring them to his office.

As soon as the two three-year-olds were seated, looking at each other in confusion, Danzō leaned forwards in his seat and tried to give the pair a paternal smile, "Now, you two are going to be running a little test today. I'm sure you both know rudimentary chakra control already?"

At their nods, Danzō smiled, knowing starting the pair off on chakra control as soon as they could walk unaided was a good idea, "Well today, this little test will be to see if we can boost your," he pointed at Hinata, not bothering with her name, "chakra reserves."

Naruto raised a tiny hand, "How do we do this, jiji?"

If the med-nin standing behind the pair of children hadn't already completed her emotional conditioning, Danzō was sure she would have giggled. As it was, Danzō almost turned red at the informal name but managed to force it down at the last second.

"Young man," he said, not bothering with Naruto's name either, "You must address me as Danzō-sama, is that clear?"

Naruto stuck out his lower lip and looked slightly sulky, "Fine, Danzō-jii-sama."

Hinata giggled, but schooled her features into an emotionless mask when Danzō looked at her. The bandaged man took a deep breath before continuing, "Anyway, this experiment we will be running will be to see if we can make her," he pointed at Hinata, "have reserves of the same volume as you," he pointed at Naruto, "Any questions?"

Naruto raised a hand, "What will we have to do?"

Danzō smiled; the boy was already following orders like a good shinobi, "You and the girl need to bite each other on the shoulder and channel some chakra in."

He was banking on the boy having bad enough control to channel a large amount of chakra into the girl for the experiment, so he discreetly crossed his fingers as the pair of them pulled their shirt collars down over their right shoulders and moved closer.

The med-nin watched impassively as this occurred.

Each of them was slightly apprehensive, but at Danzō's encouraging looks they each took a breath and moved closer.

Almost in sync each bit down on the other's shoulder and channelled chakra through their teeth.

Danzō watched in satisfaction as he saw a mark form on each of their left shoulders. It seemed his plan was working, which of course it was always going to. He had had three years to make his plans work, after all.

The mark Hinata left resembled a crescent moon with a small Yin-Yang inside the shape at each tip so that it touched both sides of the shape. The mark Naruto left resembled a spiral made of nine fox-tails.

The pair separated, blushing slightly and wincing as they felt the bite marks in their shoulders smarting slightly… before both suddenly screamed in pain and fell to the ground.

Danzō simply clicked his fingers and pointed at the med-nin, "Take them to the medical bay and keep watch over them. Call me on the intercom if their condition takes a turn for the worse."

The woman bowed before bending down, gripping both (now unconscious) children by the shoulders and disappearing in a shunshin.

-TR-

Naruto came around to find himself lying in a bed.

Looking around blearily, he found that his senses were oddly sharper than usual. He could see even the smallest cracks on the ceiling, smell the sterile smell of what he guessed to be the hospital area of the underground base, hear faint footsteps outside the closed door and feel the scratchy sheets. Something twitched against his leg and he jumped, sitting upright at top speed and pulling the blankets back. His eyes widened when he saw what had touched him. It was a tail; an honest-to-Kami tail of the fox variety. The main part of the tail was orange, but the tip was pure black. A soft sound outside the door drew his attention, then he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror above his nightstand. His jaw dropped and his hands flew to the sides of his head.

His ears were gone. A second later he realized that they weren't really gone; they'd just changed position… and species. A pair of orange, black-tipped fox ears sat on top of his head poking through his hair, twitching and turning in the direction of odd sounds from time to time.

A sound from the next bed made him turn to look, before he saw his reflection with its ears perked up and sniggered at how weird it looked.

A figure he now realized to be Hinata rolled over and sat up, blinking sleepily. Naruto's jaw hit the ground with a dull crunch of bone on stone as he saw similar changes on his friend, except her ears and tail were the same colour as her hair except for the tips of both (or all three, depending on how you looked at it), which were purest white.

They stared at each other for a full minute, each taking in the other's changes, before Hinata screamed, "KAWAII!" and glomped him.

The blond yelped with surprise and fell backwards as his friend leapt on him and hugged him tightly, before she caught sight of herself in a mirror and rose to stare.

"Yeah," said Naruto from under her, "Me too."

Hinata opened her mouth to speak, but at that moment the door opened and Danzō entered, followed by the female med-nin. Naruto and Hinata leapt off the bed and stood side-by-side, looking at the floor.

Danzō's single visible eye widened slightly at the physical alterations before he gave them a small smile, "You two seem to have recovered well. Follow me. Your training begins now."

Naruto and Hinata took a few steps forwards and almost fell over.

Danzō turned back towards them as they struggled upright and took a few shaky steps to steady themselves. Only now did he realize that the pair seemed to have gained a few inches as well. He shook his head, "Never mind. Give them a full physical. I want to know everything about their changes since the experiment."

The med-nin nodded and walked over to Naruto, gripping his arms as she lifted him back onto the bed and helped him strip down to his pants. Danzō left, as he needed to go to the training area and find a pair of his ROOT who could train the pair.

-TR-

It transpired that it wasn't only ears, tails, enhanced senses and slight increases in height that Naruto and Hinata had experienced. Both were slightly more muscular (for three-year-olds) as well. They also later discovered, after Naruto was knocked unconscious during a training exercise, that Kyūbi was awake and grouchy.

Danzō had immediately taken Naruto into his office for the rest of the day and interrogated Kyūbi about everything he could think of. Finally Kyūbi had lost his temper and told Danzō the full story of how he had come to attack Konoha from the very beginning, back during the battle between Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha. Danzō had found the whole story very interesting, and when the Kyūbi retreated back behind the seal, Danzō already had not only a plan to deal with the Uchiha clan in mind, but also a plan for Kyūbi. With that in mind, he sent one of his ROOT, a man talented in worming his way into even the best fūinjutsu, to see what he could do about loosening Naruto's seal to allow more of Kyūbi's chakra to leak out.

Meanwhile, he headed off to talk to the Council about what he had learned on the Uchiha.

-TR-

Naruto woke up lying in bed. "Nice to see you're up!" said a voice inside his head just as he was taking a drink of water, causing him to jump so badly he dropped his glass of water.

"Who… who's there?" he thought, looking around to find nobody else in the room.

"I'm not in the room kid; I'm inside your own head. I must say it's quite comfortable in here; roomy, even."

"Who are you?"

"Heh, you may be three but you're pretty smart aren't you? The name's Kyūbi, kid. Kyūbi no Kitsune, at your service, just your friendly neighbourhood demon sealed in your gut by the Yondaime Hokage to prevent me from getting out and razing your entire village to the ground!"

Naruto frowned, "The… Kyūbi?"

"Yup, that's me! Overlord of all demons, mightiest of the bijuu, able to fell mountains and create tsunamis with but a single sweep of my tails!"

There was only dead silence as his response. Kyūbi sighed, "Kid's terms, I'm a big scary monster."

"…Right. So… why are you in my head again?"

"Your Yondaime Hokage sealed me in here to make sure I couldn't get out and destroy your village."

"Destroy is a bad thing, right?"

"Yes…" Kyūbi's voice was resigned, "It's a very bad thing."

Naruto's face was guileless as he spoke to the demonic entity like he'd just made a new friend, "Okay. So what do we do now?"

Kyūbi's answering chuckle was dark and mysterious, "You will begin learning to utilize my chakra. That bandaged man, Danzō, he will teach you and your little friend the ways of the ninja. Listen to what he has to say and grow strong."

Naruto pumped a tiny fist into the air, "I will! I'll grow strong so I can protect Hinata-chan, dattebayo!"

There was a pause before Kyūbi spoke again in a wry voice, "If there was any doubt in my mind before, I'm sure you are definitely her son now."

Naruto didn't hear him, so childishly confident he was in his ability to become a strong ninja, as he ran to find Hinata and tell her about the new friend he'd made.

-TR-

Five years later.

When he had first had the Kyūbi-child and the Hyūga heiress abducted into ROOT, Danzō reflected, it had seemed like a most excellent idea. They had seemed like a perfect team from the start; they'd established a rapport with each other in their early years, and were almost constantly close even before he had run the experiment on them marking each other. Afterwards, they were inseparable, even to the extent where a six-year-old Naruto had refused point-blank to go on one of his missions unless Hinata was allowed to come with him. Danzō had relented because he already knew from experience how irritatingly stubborn the Kyūbi's jinchūriki could get when he wanted something that Danzō was unwilling to consent to, and no amount of emotional conditioning on either of them was able to alter the fact that their ultimate loyalties lay not to Danzō, but to each other.

Eventually he had given up trying to separate them (the one time he did force them to be apart, he discovered that if they moved more than fifty feet apart they both passed out. He had coaxed the Kyūbi forth into Naruto's body and questioned it about the odd occurrence, at which point Kyūbi explained the first in a long line of follies concerning the duo.

When he had the two children mark each other, Kyūbi explained, Danzō had unwittingly caused them to forge a demonic mate-bound between them. These mate-bonds were very different from normal human bonds, since they tied the two demons together for eternity. Since Naruto and Hinata were now more hanyō than human (the second in Danzō's list of follies, incidentally), the bond could not be broken save by death. That revelation was partly what had fuelled Danzō's recent decision to have them undergo the final stage of emotional conditioning. They would be pitted against each other in a fight to the death, with the trauma of having killed the person they were closest to hopefully erasing the last emotions from the survivor.

The old man had no possible way of knowing that in pitting two of his "pawns" against each other, he inadvertently gave himself a proverbial shot in the foot.

-TR-

Naruto and Hinata walked into Danzō's study, each kitted out in their standard gear.

Naruto wore a black and grey ensemble comprising a grey shirt with a low neckline over a mesh shirt, black trousers and grey arm-warmers. On his back was a pair of twin wakizashi, one hilt protruding over each shoulder; there were shuriken and kunai holsters strapped onto each leg and the hilt of a combat knife protruded from the outside of his right boot. A white mask, stylized into the visage of a demonic fox with the kanji for ROOT on the forehead next to a Leaf insignia, hung from his belt.

He had long since grown his hair out long so that it hung down like a golden mane around his head. If anybody were to look at him from behind, they probably would have mistaken him for a young Yondaime Hokage except for his tail and ears. His blue eyes were serious, befitting the fact that he was on the job; off the job he was one of the liveliest people in ROOT (not saying much, considering they were mostly emotionless husks except for Hinata and to a lesser extent, Sai). After his first successful mission, Danzō had given him the codename Yōkō. (Demon Fox)

Hinata, at his side, looked pretty much the same. She wore a similar black and grey set of tight clothing, but there were slight differences; her neckline was a little higher than Naruto's, but her mesh undershirt was still visible; her grey top had no sleeves in contrast to the short sleeves on Naruto's, she had a senbon holder strapped to each thigh along with the kunai and shuriken holders, she wore a pair of tipless tantō knives on her back the same way Naruto wore his wakizashi and the mask that hung from her belt was stylized to resemble an angel's face, befitting her own codename of Tenshi. (Angel)

She, like Naruto, had grown her hair out over the past five years, it now hung down her back in a wave of indigo reminiscent of a certain purple-haired female ANBU in a cat mask, save for two bangs framing her face. Her pale lavender eyes had the same serious expression as Naruto's. Her ears still poked up through her hair, occasionally shifting when a soft sound drew her attention, and her tail swished gently behind her.

To Danzō, they were simply tools to be used and cast away when they broke, but to anybody else who could read body language, the way they stood told a better tale. The pair weren't just a team. They were partners, fully used to working together to complete their mission, and Danzō knew that despite his opinions that emotions made a shinobi weak, the pair comprising Naruto Uzumaki and Hinata Hyūga was undoubtedly the best he'd ever trained in all his long years of running ROOT.

"You wanted to see us, Danzō-jii-sama?" said Naruto, his deadpan voice making the epithet seem just that little bit more humiliating. Danzō winced slightly before steeling himself and saying, "You two have done very well. I feel it is time for you to complete your training. You will face each other in a battle to the death. This is non-negotiable, and you will obey."

The pair of ROOT in front of Danzō simply cast each other a look, causing a feeling of irritation to pass through the man. The pair were no doubt conversing using the third thing they had got from the mate marking he had had them perform half a decade ago; a form of telepathy which really consisted of Kyūbi exploiting the unique connection created by his chakra to relay messages between them.

"I think it's time to put our plan into action, Hinata-chan."

"I think so too, Naruto-kun. Let's do it."

Naruto smirked, "Sorry, Danzō-jii-sama, but we decline. We'd also like to tender our resignations from ROOT." He and Hinata both opened their mouths. Danzō's single visible eyebrow rose at the action, then his single visible eye actually opened wide as he saw the juinjutsu on their tongues suddenly illuminated by red chakra. Half a second later, orange cracks spread across the bars of the juinjutsu, looking like lava cracking rock blocking its exit from a volcano, before the juinjutsus on both their tongues suddenly shattered and vanished.

Naruto worked his tongue in and out of his mouth briefly before he said in a slightly muffled voice, "Ouch; that hurt."

Danzō's single eye narrowed, not that it was all that perceptible considering what it usually looked like, "Am I to understand then, that you are both turning on me?"

Naruto didn't respond with words; the vulgar hand gesture he made was more than ample to get his point across.

Danzō pressed the button on the intercom, "Attention all ROOT. The fox has gone feral and the angel has fallen. I want them detained ASAP."

Naruto reached for his combat knife, but almost immediately felt a dozen sharp objects pressing against his back. Slowly lowering his right leg and raising his hands to the top of his head, he turned his head slightly and caught Hinata's eye through the eyeholes of her mask. He gave an almost imperceptible nod, and Hinata responded with one of her own before pretending to raise her hands to the back of her head.

"Hakkeshō Kaiten!" (Eight Trigrams Palm Heavenly Spin)

Naruto suddenly ducked and threw himself to the right out of the way as Hinata suddenly spun on the spot, a dome of chakra exploding into being all around her and flinging all the ROOT shinobi holding the two at bay backwards into walls, the ceiling and the floor.

Naruto rolled to a stop and leapt up as Danzō rose from his chair, "Kanashibari no Jutsu!" (Temporary Paralysis Jutsu)

Danzō went rigid.

Naruto then bent down and began inspecting the groaning ROOT shinobi on the floor. Finally locating one with an image of an odd, three-pronged weapon carved into his mask, he jabbed a pressure point in the shinobi's neck and caused him to go limp. Heaving the boy onto his shoulder, Naruto nodded to Hinata, who sent the door careening off its hinges with a powerful blow. She then ran through the gap with Naruto close behind carrying the limp body.

They quickly found their escape route blocked with ROOT shinobi. The pair shared a glance and nodded again before Naruto threw the limp body to Hinata, who caught it. Naruto then spun on the spot and stood with one hand held out towards each thicket of shinobi, "Fūton: Daitoppa!" (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough)

The ROOT shinobi at both ends of the corridor were flung straight off their feet, allowing Naruto to retrieve their charge from Hinata and both of them to sprint off down the corridor.

As they sped through the tunnels around the base, Hinata in front and dropping anyone they encountered with powerful Jyūken strikes to the abdomen and Naruto following behind her, Naruto was relaying directions to Hinata via the mental map of the base he had created for them since they had joined ROOT.

A kunai zipped past Naruto's ear. Ducking and turning his head, he adopted a one-handed tiger seal and silently thanked anyone watching that he could perform this particular jutsu with only one hand free, "Suiton: Teppōdama!" (Water Release: Gunshot)

A ball of condensed water flew from his open mouth and hit the ROOT shinobi who had thrown the kunai squarely in the chest, hurling him backwards into his companions like a bowling ball.

"Naruto-kun," Hinata's voice sounded inside his head, "We forgot the door is solid steel. We can't break through!"

"Maybe you can't," replied Naruto, "But I can. Catch!" He threw the unconscious shinobi to her and took the lead as she dropped back behind him, flashing through seals: "Fūton: Ni Kaze no Yaiba!" (Wind Release: Double Wind Blades)

The air rippled as the two blades flew from Naruto's hands and hit the door in an X-shape, carving two deep grooves into the metal. Light could be seen through the tiny gaps as Naruto adopted another tiger seal, "Fūton: Renkūdan!" (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet)

The bullet flew from his mouth and hit the door perfectly at the point where the two gashes intersected, blasting a large hole straight through the metal with the resulting explosion.

Naruto retrieved their package from Hinata and leapt through the gap, Hinata close behind him.

Danzō, who was leading the charge behind them and showing remarkable agility for an old man, saw Naruto turn and wave before both of them disappeared with shunshin.

-TR-

Naruto and Hinata landed in one of their hideouts they had built in various parts of the village and took deep breaths. They had used a fair amount of chakra during their escape; not enough to really faze either of them but definitely enough that they both felt the effects, however slight they may be.

Naruto propped their captive against the wall and tugged off his mask, revealing it to be Sai. His eyes were closed and he looked a little bruised from what Naruto knew to have been an impact with first the ceiling due to Hinata's Kaiten and then the floor thanks to gravity.

Hinata jabbed him in the jaw, disabling his jaw muscles so Naruto could get into his mouth and press two fingers to the boy's tongue. A glow of red chakra appeared around his fingers and then the juinjutsu broke.

Hinata tapped his jaw again to re-enable his jaw muscles and Naruto snapped some smelling salts under the boy's nose.

Sai opened his eyes, his nose screwing up as it tried to escape the sharp smell, "Where are we?"

Naruto smirked, pushing his mask up to reveal his face, "In one of our hideouts around the village. We busted out after Danzō tried to make us kill each other."

Sai frowned, "I was under the impression all three of us were under the effects of Danzō-sama's juinjutsu. How did you break it?"

Naruto smirked, "That thing? That never worked on us, we just kept it around so Danzō wouldn't try and put it on again; it hurt like shit being put on the first time."

Hinata swiped him across the back of the head, "Language, Naruto-kun."

Sai looked puzzled, or as puzzled as a guy with almost no emotion left in his body can get, "Then why am I here?"

Naruto smiled, "We're friends, Sai. Friends don't leave friends behind in the lions' den, even if we did kinda throw you into the ceiling first."

Sai said nothing; he simply ran a hand over his bruised face. Hinata crouched next to him with one of her special balms and tugged his hand away so she could start working on healing him.

"So what happens now?"

Naruto walked over to a small window and peered through the dirty glass to look outside. It looked like nobody was in the vicinity. "We go to the Hokage and tell him we'd like to join the current Academy class. I think ROOT isn't really the place for the three of us any more."

Hinata stood up and pocketed the small container of balm before pulling Sai upright. "Masks on, we'll try and get in to see the Hokage by saying we're ANBU."

The other two nodded, deferring to Naruto as their informal leader. It wasn't just that he was the tallest out of the three of them; Hinata was about the same size. No, it was the fact that Danzō had once referred to Naruto as a born leader who might be worthy to take his place one day. Every member of ROOT had heard it and made a mental note never to piss off the boss's favourite.

Donning their masks, they left the hideout exactly the way they had entered it; leaving no trace that they had ever been there.

-TR-

Sarutobi was working his way through a stack of documents when three masked ANBU entered through the door. He spared them a glance and compared their individual masks to his mental roster of the current ANBU on duty and on missions and came up with nothing, so he sat back in his chair and said, "Hello. Are you three here for your first mission as ANBU?"

Naruto, who was standing in the middle with Hinata on his right and Sai on his left, chuckled, "Oh, we're not with ANBU. We're ROOT, or were."

Sarutobi looked up at the mention of the organization he'd assumed was dead, "ROOT is still running? Hang on, how are you talking about it?"

Naruto frowned, "I know you probably haven't seen me since the day I was born, Hokage-sama, but seriously I thought you'd recognize me!"

The masked female on the right of the masked man turned to look at him, "Naruto-kun, you still have your mask on."

Sarutobi's eyes widened slightly at the mention of the name Naruto. Leaning forwards he looked at the male in the middle, "Naruto? Naruto… Uzumaki?"

The man shrugged, "Beats me. Danzō-jii-san only told me my name was Naruto or he called me Yōkō, he never mentioned my last name…"

He reached up and took off his mask, and Sarutobi's jaw dropped. The boy in front of him looked like a slightly younger Minato Namikaze, except for the tail and ears.

"Kami blessed," he whispered, "Naruto…"

Standing up quickly, he moved around the desk and embraced the young man, "I was worried about you for so long after you disappeared!"

Naruto shrugged, "Well I'm safe now."

Sarutobi nodded, "Who are your friends?"

Naruto stepped back and gestured to Hinata, "This is my partner in ROOT, Hinata."

Hinata took off her mask and bowed to the Hokage.

At the sight of another person returned from the dead he gasped, "Hinata Hyūga!"

Hinata smiled, "An honour, Hokage-sama."

Sarutobi sat back on his desk in shock. One of the piles of paperwork fell over, but he paid it no mind. "You two were presumed dead years ago. Hinata's family were devastated when she disappeared."

Suddenly he pointed at Sai, "And you are?"

Sai removed his mask and hung it on his belt as the others had done, "My codename is Sai. I do not have a real name."

Sarutobi simply nodded, returning to his chair, "Would you three mind telling me all that you know of ROOT and what you've been up to for the last few years."

Naruto nodded, "Of course."

Sarutobi leaned over and pressed a button on the intercom on his desk, "Can you get me a notepad and pen? And a couple of bottles of sake, I think I may need them."

The voice came back with an affirmative and Sarutobi turned to Naruto, "So, how did you two get these ears and tails?"

Naruto started to explain, "It was an experiment by Danzō-jii-sama to see if he could make Hinata as powerful as me by having us mark each other."

Sarutobi picked up on one word, "Mark?"

Naruto and Hinata pushed their shirts off their left shoulders to reveal the marks.

Sarutobi inspected them closely while Naruto explained, "Kyūbi, and yes I know of him, says that they're mate marks demons usually use to lay claim to a female and vice versa. When I bit Hinata-chan and channelled some of my chakra into her, the yōki mixed in with it made the mark and since I didn't have that great chakra control, I ended up channelling a rather large amount in, which Kyūbi then used to mess with her body so that it could safely accommodate about a tail's worth of yōki or so, which will renew itself every time she uses some up. I'm about nine times stronger than she is, but she's really tough on her own."

Sarutobi frowned, skating over the borderline-illegal experiment Danzō had performed for the moment, "So how did she manage to mark you if she's purely human?"

Naruto shrugged, "We don't know. Kyūbi came up with a theory that his yōki flooded her entire body before she could channel her own chakra into my bite, so she ended up accidentally channelling Kyūbi's own yōki back into me, thus making her own mate mark."

Sarutobi's secretary entered at that moment, casting the trio a curious look as she set a tray of sake bottles and a few saucers down on the desk before handing the Hokage the notepad and pen and departing the room.

Naruto reached for one of the sake saucers, only for the Hokage to tap him sharply on the back of the hand with his pen. Naruto froze and looked up, "Please? I'm thirsty from our escape from the ROOT base and haven't had a drink in about four hours."

Sarutobi leaned over, "You're eight."

Naruto gave him a sardonic look, "Hokage-sama, me and Hinata killed our first enemy shinobi at four years old. We massacred an entire village of Tsuchi no Kuni villagers that were building weapons for Iwa at six, and I still lie awake at night remembering the terrified faces of five women I was forced to kill just because they had the misfortune to be moving crates of newly-made kunai when I entered the room. Do you really think we're both still on the eight-year-old maturity level? You grow up fast in ROOT."

Sarutobi finally removed the pen, allowing Naruto to collect four saucers and one bottle of sake. He poured one for each of them and passed them out before leaning back in his chair with his own saucer, "Well, I guess my earliest memory would have to be…"

(A/N: Well, what do you think? It is a little idea I had for after Both Sides of the Kunai reaches its conclusion. This story will never truly be able to contend with the majesty that is Kenchi618's story The Sealed Kunai in my opinion, but that sure as hell isn't going to stop me trying! Anyway, tell me what you think in a review; love it, hate it, whatever. Catch ya later!)