Disclaimer: All HP characters are the property of JKR, the WB, and respective publishing companies and all Naruto characters are the property of Masashi Kishimoto. This is nothing more than a simple FanFiction that I have written. I have made no money from this or any of the other stories I have posted on this or other sites.

Warnings: Mild to moderate violence, character death, some mild character bashing where unavoidable (mostly Dumbledore & Danzou), alternate universe (i.e. kiss canon goodbye), OCC behaviors and personalities, a number of original characters and obscure canon characters to flesh out family trees, random chosen last names to give a number of characters surnames, and who knows what else.

AN: Partial credit for the Story Prompt/Challenge used to create this story goes to the Guru of Challenges; Challenge King. For details, see the first author's note at the top of the first chapter.

AN2: This story is self-beta'd; so there may be occasional grammatical or spelling errors that crop up every now and then and for those I apologize in advance.

Chapter Two: Added Complications

August 26, 1983, 04:23 PM
Konohagakure no Sato, Hi no Kuni
Elemental Nations

Tenzou stopped on a wide tree branch as the walls of Konoha rose up in front of him so that he could check on his sleeping son and make certain the regulation ANBU cloak he was wearing covered the child completely. The last ten days of travel had been hard on the child but he'd not complained once. In fact, aside from the short conversation that they'd had on the day Tenzou had taken the boy from his aunt's house, Haruo hadn't said more than ten words; he'd been far more interested in taking in the world around them as they traveled. Tenzou had expected his son to at least question him about where they were going and when they would get there but he hadn't.

Tenzou didn't know if it was normal for a young child to be so quiet. He didn't know much about children at all. And now that he had his son he wasn't sure what he was going to do with him. He didn't even know the first thing about raising a child.

Letting out a silent sigh, Tenzou adjusted his cloak and began moving once more. Just before he reached the towering curtain walls that enclosed and protected Konoha, Tenzou turned north and skirted the wall as he made his way towards one of the hidden ANBU entrances. It only took him twenty minutes to reach the entrance and Tenzou spent another five minutes making certain that he hadn't been followed before he slipped around a tree and between two large boulders before he used a burst of chakra to release the barrier seal that theoretically prevented non ANBU entities from utilizing the unguarded entrance.

A second burst of chakra opened the trap door that led to an underground passage that would allow him to travel under the wall. As soon as the passage had opened, Tenzou dropped down inside the underground tunnel and released a third and final burst of chakra that would close the door and reset the barrier over the entrance. The seemingly simple system was actually a deadly trap in disguise and any invader that tried to enter the same way would find himself crushed between the two boulders. Only those carrying ANBU tattoos or being escorted by a member of the ANBU Corps could safely use that particular entrance.

As the hidden trap door slid shut above his head, a line of emergency lights flickered on to light the short tunnel. Tenzou gave his eyes a moment to adjust to the dimly lit passage before he began navigating the complex maze of tunnels that ran beneath the village; yet another safety measure to prevent those that circumvented the barrier trap above from easily sneaking into the village since it was very easy to get lost in the tunnel network if you didn't know the correct paths to take at each intersection.

Tenzou was intimately familiar with these particular tunnels. He'd spent the last eight years navigating the extensive network that ran beneath the entire village. He knew every dead end, every trick corridor, and every hidden trap. He'd also diligently seeded the correct pathways with the wooden tracking seeds he made from his chakra so that he could run through the network blindfolded and not get lost. No one else could following his tracking seeds; the amount of chakra he saturated each seed was so small that even the best of sensors would have trouble finding one of them.

The only reason why he could find his seeds was because of the connection he shared with the wood he grew from his body. That connection was what made them the perfect tracking aid; slip one into a person's clothes or into to their food and he'd be able to track them no matter what tricks they used to throw off their pursuit. There was just enough sentience in each seed that they would lodge themselves into the tissue at the base of the esophagus where it connected to the stomach. The reason for that was to prevent the seeds from being expelled or digested within twenty four hours of being swallowed.

Tenzou had slipped one of said tracking seeds into his son's food that first day when he'd collected the boy and replaced the seed after the first seven days (which is about how long the chakra in the seed lasted once it was swallowed). He would need to replace it again in four days. Tenzou was not about to take any risks or chances with his son and he was determined not to lose the boy when he'd only just found him. And the one thing he did know about children was that they tended to wander off and get lost; he'd seen hundreds of missions requests come in for missing children for just that reason.

He also knew that children were often considered soft targets because they were easily caught and used against their families for any number of reasons. And Tenzou was not about to let one of his enemies get their hands on his son through his negligence. Nor was he going to allow Shimura Danzou to get his hands on the impressionable child and use the child to pull Tenzou back under his thumb or worse, turn the boy into an emotionless weapon. He also wouldn't put it past the cold-hearted bastard to strike out at Tenzou by handing his son over to Orochimaru as a bargaining chip.

Tenzou froze as soon as that thought passed through his mind.

That was one threat that he hadn't considered when he'd made the decision to take his son.

Tenzou knew that Orochimaru would go to great lengths to kidnap his son if the traitor was to ever learn that Tenzou had both survived the Mokuton Experiments while gaining the ability to use the Mokuton and produced a son that carried the vaunted Kekkei Genkai. And while Tenzou was confident that he could keep Haruo out of Danzou's hands with some careful political maneuvering, he was not arrogant enough to think he was capable of going toe to toe with Orochimaru.

And it was far too late to put the kid back where he'd got him from.

Not that Tenzou would have considered that option even if it had been a viable solution.

Tenzou slowly continued on his way as he considered the problem from every angle and ran through the options that would have the best chance of seeing his son grow up healthy, strong, and most importantly out of reach of the likes of Danzou and Orochimaru. Sadly, none of the viable options involved Tenzou personally raising his son since he sincerely doubted that the current ANBU Commander or the Sandaime Hokage would allow him to disappear for the next seven to nine years just to raise his son in secret.

Sighing, Tenzou resigned himself to watching his son grow from afar as he phased through the earthen tunnel wall and rose up through the floor of the ANBU Commander's office within the ANBU Facility. A heartbeat later, Tenzou was standing in front of a large man wearing a featureless white mask with a trio of stylized flames that started at his chin and spiraled up and out to his cheeks with the middle one reaching his forehead. The ANBU Commander, code named Kasai, glanced up from the stack of reports he'd been reviewing the moment Tenzou had stepped free of the floor.

"Welcome back, Kuma; I trust your mission was successful?"

"Hai, Kasai-sama," Tenzou replied automatically. "However, there was a minor complication that cropped up during the course of the mission."

"Explain," Kasai ordered crisply as he set aside the report he'd been perusing in order to give Tenzou his complete attention.

"Upon arriving at the current location of my mark, I discovered that the intel I had been provided by the client had been incomplete and that there was an unaccounted for presence living with the family of the target. Further investigation led to a startling discovery about the unknown child that made me question the motives of both my client and the target. I was unable to question my client about the matter and questioning the target was not possible without compromising the mission. After much consideration, I chose to deal with the situation in the only way I could."

"Stop stalling and just get to the point already, Kuma," Kasai growled when Tenzou trailed off.

Tenzou mentally sighed as he reached up to remove his cloak to reveal Haruo. Kasai's reaction would have been funny under different circumstances but the sound of the older man's knees smacking the desk and the sight of the reports on his desk going flying had Tenzou mentally cringing. The string of verbal curses the man let loose would have blistered his ears if he hadn't heard worse during the course of his shinobi career. At least his son had slept through the man's diatribe.

"Give me one damned good reason why I shouldn't hand you over to the T and I Department to have your loyalty tested for pulling such an asinine stunt," Kasai instructed gruffly once he'd calmed down.

"It is better if I show you, Kasai-sama," Tenzou replied before he gently shook his son awake. Haruo wearily opened his eyes just a few seconds later and glanced up at him with sleep confused eyes. The moment that Tenzou had his son's attention, he addressed the boy in English, "Haruo, I need you to show my commander how you grow the trees."

Haruo reached up to rub the sleep from his eyes before he craned his head around to stare at the masked Kasai for a brief moment before he returned his emerald gaze to Tenzou and tiredly nodded. The three year old then searched the rather plain room they were in before he scrunched up his nose in confusion as he blurted out, "There's no plants here for me to grow."

"I have a seed you can grow," Tenzou replied as he fished an old plum pit he'd been saving for the demonstration he knew Haruo would need to provide at some point out of his pocket.

As soon as Haruo accepted the seed from him, Tenzou set his son down on the floor and crouched down to use a weak doton jutsu to form a loose pile of dirt on the floor. He then stepped back to give the child room to grow the tree and make it clear to his boss that he was not helping his son in any way. Tenzou then watched as Haruo planted the plum pit in the center of the pile before he buried his hands in the loose soil as he released an uncontrolled burst of chakra that immediately triggered the seed's growth.

In less than five minutes, a fully grown plum tree stood in the center of Kasai's office with dozens of perfectly ripened red plums weighing down a number of branches. Tenzou smiled proudly behind his mask over his son's accomplishment as he reached up and plucked two of the newly grown fruits from the tree and handed them to Haruo. He then plucked a third and tossed it to a silent and undoubtedly stunned Kasai.

"And that is why I brought him with me," Tenzou explained as Kasai instinctively caught the thrown fruit. "My research revealed that the child is the son of a woman that I had had sexual relations with upon the completion of my first mission in England four years earlier. His ability to manipulate plant matter in combination to his given name of Haruo (which was the code name I had used during that first mission) led me to the conclusion that the protection I had used that night failed; meaning that the child is my son."

"Are you implying that the child's mother just let you walk away with her son?" Kasai demanded as he carefully set down the plum he'd been holding in his hand and glared at Tenzou from behind his mask.

"No, his mother died in a gas explosion along with his stepfather on October thirty-first of nineteen eighty-one. Haruo was then placed in the custody of his mother's sister where Haruo was moderately mistreated and neglected due to the mutated Mokuton that he carries. I suspect that my client was aware of my connection to Haruo since my target was related to the child's aunt through marriage. I would have questioned the client in regards to the child but I did not make physical contact with him at any point during the mission and did not have enough information or time to track him down personally once the mission had been completed."

"And what, pray tell, are you going to do with the child now?"

"I had originally intended to raise him myself so that I could train him to use his Mokuton properly but doing so would place far too large of a target on the child's head if certain individuals were to learn of his connection to me," Tenzou replied as he dropped his gaze back to his son who was contentedly devouring the plums he'd grown. "I was hoping that you would be willing to help me safeguard Haruo until he was old enough for me to start his training."

"Getting a little ahead of yourself there, aren't you?" Kasai asked as he sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "After all, you only assume that the child is biologically your son based upon a few random facts and a neat trick that mimics the Mokuton. For all you know, he might be a sleeper agent that had been strategically placed to lure you into bringing him back to the village and his connection to you entirely fabricated."

"True but a simple blood test would determine whether or not he is my son and he is far too young to be a sleeper agent; it takes years to train an effective sleeper agent and the earliest they could have started that training was two years of age – meaning he only would have had a single year of training."

"Then how do you explain his ability to use his Kekkei Genkai at such a young age?" Kasai demanded in return.

"I suspect that he awoke the Mokuton during the gas explosion that killed his mother and stepfather since he was the only survivor. As for the limited control he has over the ability, his former guardians frequently withheld food and Haruo learned to use the Mokuton to grow his own food – influencing fruit bearing plants such as strawberries and tomatoes and not just trees (which is something my Mokuton is incapable of accomplishing); a fact which only earned him further punishments. And his control over the ability is almost non-existent once he applies a burst of chakra to his target."

"It's good to know that you didn't completely take leave of your senses," Kasai groused as he turned to watch Haruo as the boy stretched up to grab yet another plum from the tree. Tenzou reached out to help Haruo only for his hand to drop back to his side when the tree lowered a branch of its own accord. "That's an interesting trick. I've never seen your trees do that once they were fully grown."

"That's because the trees I grow don't move independently unless I pour more chakra into them," Tenzou replied with a thoughtful frown. "It's possible that he retains a connection to the trees that he grows in the same way that I retain a connection to my clones. I already know he's a chakra sensor like me."

"Get your boy to clean up my floor," Kasai ordered as he gestured to the plum tree that was taking up a good portion of the room. "I'll fetch Tokage and have him run a blood test to determine if the child is your son. I'm also going to send for Inoichi; the boy will need to be screened for potential mind traps regardless of who his parents were. Once his parentage is confirmed or refuted; we will discuss possible options."

"Hai, Kasai-sama," Tenzou stated with more than a little relief; he'd been half afraid that Kasai would make him send Haruo back to his relatives without bothering to run any tests. He then turned his attention back to his son to find the child making a pyramid out of a pile of plums that had somehow ended up on the floor. Crouching down beside the boy, Tenzou tapped him on the shoulder and stated, "My commander has seen all he needed to see but now he would like to have his office back. Do you know how to ungrow your trees or do you need me to teach you?"

"You're going to make me chop it down?" Haruo asked in horror as his eyes welled up with tears and his lower lip trembled as a betrayed expression slowly crept onto his face.

"No, I need you to put the tree back into the seed so that we can find a better place to plant it," Tenzou corrected quickly in order to assuage the boy's fears. Haruo blinked at him in surprised confusion before he glanced between Tenzou and the tree several times. "Here, let me show you."

Tenzou then pulled out one of his tracking seeds and held it in his hand as he grew a small sapling from the seed before he made it shrink back down into a seed. He did that a couple of more times while he explained exactly what it was he was doing to his son, "It's just like growing the tree but instead of feeding your chakra into the tree, you're pulling the chakra out of the tree so that the tree collapses back into a seed. It helps if you can picture the tree shrinking back into the seed. Now you try it."

Tenzou handed a tracking seed to Haruo and walked him through the process several times while he guided him using a small thread of chakra so the child could feel what it felt like to pull his chakra out of the sapling. After fifteen minutes of practice, Tenzou helped Haruo to ungrow the plum tree before he fished the seed out of the dirt and gave it to Haruo to keep so he could plant it somewhere else as promised. The poor kid was utterly exhausted by that time and Tenzou made a mental note to teach the kid some strengthening exercises to increase his stamina. Chakra control exercises were going to be a necessity as well.

Further contemplation of Haruo's future training was disrupted by the arrival of Tokage (one of six medics dedicated to the ANBU Corps – his mask accented with greenish brown scales) and Yamanaka Inoichi (who was in charge of Konoha's Mental Wellness Program and a part-time member of the Torture and Interrogation Department). Tenzou automatically scooped Haruo up off the floor as he rose back to his feet and turned to face the pair as Kasai addressed them from behind his desk.

"Tokage; I need you to run a full scan on the child Kuma brought back with him. He'll need to have blood work done as well; including a paternity test."

"Who is the suspected father?" Tokage inquired as he coated his hands with green healing chakra and reached for Haruo's head to initiate the diagnostic scan.

Haruo took one look at Tokage's glowing green hands and screamed bloody murder to the shock of all four men. Tenzou had a hard time holding onto the squirming three year old as the child tried to wriggle his way free. It would take him nearly twenty minutes to calm the child down enough to find out what it was that had terrified him and that was mostly because Tokage dropped his hands and stopped channeling chakra; Tenzou's inexperience as a parent clear as day.

"What is wrong, Haruo? What are you so afraid of?"

"Green lights are bad," Haruo stated in between sniffling sobs as he turned to meet Tenzou's gaze with haunted green eyes that shimmered with tears. "The bad man hurt mummy with the green light. Mummy wouldn't wake after the green light touched her. The bad man used the green light on Daddy Prongs first." The child then reached up to press a hand to the odd scar on his forehead. "The green light hurt me too. And it made the bad man explode into dust but mummy still didn't wake and Daddy Prongs wouldn't come wake mummy even though I cried for him."

"Well?" Kasai demanded a moment later; the older man's English more than a little rusty due to how little he used it and how many languages he'd learned through the years.

"Haruo is under the impression that green lights cause pain and that it was green light that killed his mother and stepfather," Tenzou replied automatically as he continued to hold Haruo's gaze.

"I thought you said they died in a gas explosion?"

"The cause of death listed in their public records was a gas explosion," Tenzou stated as he frowned in response to the contradictory information. "It's possible that the public records were doctored to hide the truth if the couple had been murdered by an unknown nukenin. Or the explosion listed as their cause of death could be the result of a jutsu gone wrong since Haruo stated the man who killed his mother was incinerated in an explosion. His exact words were that the green light made the bad man explode into dust."

"Or the child simply didn't understand what was happening at the time," Inoichi interjected as he studied the still upset three year old. "How old is the child? And how old was he when his mother and stepfather were killed?"

"My son is three and he was roughly fifteen months old at the time of their death," Tenzou replied; an answer that had both Inoichi and Tokage staring at him in disbelief due to his claim that he was the child's father – both men well aware of whom Tenzou was due to their professions. Tenzou ignored them for a moment as he returned his attention to Haruo in an effort to assure the distraught child that Tokage would not harm him with healing chakra.

"Haruo, you don't have to be afraid of all healing chakra," Tenzou stated before he held one hand out towards the medic and switched back to Japanese for a moment. "Tokage, could you scan my hand to show Haruo that your scan will not harm him?"

Tokage complied with his request; this time taking hold of Tenzou's hand before pulling on his healing chakra. Haruo jerked in Tenzou's arm but settled down after a few minutes when it became obvious that Tenzou was not being hurt by the healing chakra. The three year old soon grew curious enough that he reached down to touch Tokage's glowing green hands with trembling fingers. After a minute, Tokage shifted his hands from Tenzou's hand to Haruo's hand and the child let out a soft giggle before he clammed right up.

The masked medic then slowly transferred one hand to Haruo's forehead in order to perform the full diagnostic scan that Kasai had originally requested. The soothing warmth of healing chakra combined with Haruo's earlier exhaustion soon lulled the boy back to sleep in Tenzou's arms. Tenzou let out a sigh of relief; he had not been entirely certain that his ploy to ease the boy's fears would work.

"So, where did you find the child and what makes you think that he's your son?" Inoichi inquired curiously as he moved closer to study the sleeping child. "And why exactly am I here?"

"The gaki uses a bastardized form of the Mokuton," Kasai answered before Tenzou could even open his mouth. "Kuma picked him up in the Outer Countries and dragged him back with him. As for why you are here; I need you to confirm that the child's mind has not been tampered with once Tokage is finished. It would also be prudent to view the child's memories to find out exactly what it is he remembers of his mother and stepfather's deaths."

"Wakatta."

"While you're waiting for Tokage to finish; you can give Kuma a head check because the complete loss of all sense and sanity that led him to steal a child from his guardians has me concerned."

Tenzou nearly cringed over Kasai's assessment of his actions. He couldn't exactly refute his commander's observations though; if only because he himself was still questioning his decision to basically kidnap his son from his aunt. That sort of impulsive behavior was something a rookie would do and Tenzou was not a rookie. Knowing that any protest on his half would only make him look bad, Tenzou transferred his sleeping son into Tokage's arms and followed Inoichi over to the unoccupied chair that Kasai kept in the corner of his office.

Once seated, Tenzou pulled off his ANBU mask so that Inoichi could activate his Mind Delving Technique while he kept his eyes on Tokage and his son. He barely even noticed the uncomfortable tugging sensation of the older man digging through his recent memories; his attention firmly focused on the medic and Haruo. A slight frown would pull the corners of his mouth down the instant that he realized that the diagnostic scan Tokage was performing on the child was taking far too long.

Apparently Kasai thought it was taking far too long as well as barely another five seconds had passed before he was demanding, "Aren't you finished scanning the gaki yet, Tokage?"

"No, I'm trying to get a read on the strange energy radiating from the scar on the child's forehead," Tokage replied without looking up from Haruo. "The signature of the energy is very similar to the child's but at the same time it's not; a clear indication that it does not belong there. The feel of the energy is rather foul too; tainted and twisted when compared to the child's energy."

"Do you recognize the chakra signature?" Kasai inquired and Tenzou mentally winced in response to the glare that his commander directed at him in response to Tokage's revelation.

"No; and the energy is not chakra. It's similar to chakra but at the same time not."

"What do you mean?" Tenzou asked as Inoichi ended his jutsu and stepped back.

"The energy radiating from both the child and the child's scar feel incomplete; whatever the energy is, it's not a blending of a person's mental and physical energies. The child's chakra is actually much harder to feel beneath the overpowering weight of the secondary energy but it's still there. The tainted energy clinging to his scar is much easier to pick out; which is how I was able to notice it in the first place."

"Do you know what the energy is meant to do? And are you able to determine if the untainted energy is something the child is actually producing or could it be something that was placed upon the child by another individual?" Kasai inquired as drummed the fingers of his left hand on his desk in agitation.

"I do not know the original purpose of the tainted energy but I sincerely doubt that whatever it was intended to do was in any way pleasant. The second energy signature is most definitely coming from the child; it radiates from his heart and flows through his veins."

"Would it be possible for you to remove the tainted energy?"

"Yes, I believe so; the tainted energy is completely separate from the child's secondary energy and chakra pathways. In fact, the deeper scan I just performed detected a third source of energy encapsulating the tainted energy and it's that third signature that's very similar to the child's; not the tainted signature. I only missed it earlier due to how similar it is to the child's energy."

"Before you make an attempt to extract the tainted energy, I want Inoichi to view the boy's memories to determine when and how that tainted energy was placed on the child. I don't want to risk this escalating into a bigger mess than it already is," Kasai stated as he pushed himself up onto his feet. "While Inoichi is doing that, you can take care of the blood work that needs to be done and I will prepare one of the training rooms so that you can perform the extraction behind a barrier to contain the energy in the event that it tries to escape or attack the moment it has been removed. Kuma; you can bring the boy to Training Room Seventeen once Inoichi and Tokage have finished with him."

"Hai, Kasai-sama," Tenzou agreed as he slipped his ANBU mask back on his face.

Tokage finished the diagnostic scan just a few seconds later and returned the still sleeping Haruo to Tenzou's arms and the Mokuton user carefully shifted his son into a more comfortable position. The medic then removed a pair of plastic wrapped syringes, several empty blood vials, and a length of rubber tubing from his utility pouch. He then opened the first syringe and prepared to draw blood from the three year old. Once he'd drawn several vials of blood from Haruo (so that he could do a complete screening of the child's blood on top of the paternity test), Tokage drew a single vial of blood from Tenzou.

The medic left the room immediately after that and Inoichi took Tokage's place as he prepared to enter the child's mind in order to view his memories. Neither shinobi were prepared for a wave of something to lash out at them and leave behind trails of stinging welts wherever they had contact with the child the moment Inoichi activated his jutsu. Inoichi got off lucky; it was only his left hand that was covered in welts while Tenzou's hands, arms, and chest were all stinging.

"What the hell was that?" Inoichi wondered as he inspected his injured hand.

"You're guess is as good as mine," Tenzou retorted as he tried to ignore the light stinging fire from the welts on his chest as he shifted Haruo to ease the weight on his arms. "The energy almost felt like Haruo's chakra signature but at the same time far different. I wonder if that was the energy that Tokage mentioned. Whatever it was, it was unpleasant."

"You don't say?" Inoichi sarcastically asked as he shook out his left hand a couple of times before he gingerly placed the hand back on Haruo's forehead once more. "Brace yourself; I'm going to try a second time."

This time, both shinobi ended up with blisters on top of the stinging welts and Inoichi had the added displeasure of a severe headache due to the way he'd been shoved right back out of Haruo's mind a second time. Tenzou felt rather worried about the way the child was reacting to Inoichi's attempts to view his memories; the twenty year old worried that Kasai would take that to mean the child was a threat.

"Okay, there's a few possibilities as to what's happening," Inoichi muttered as he cradled his aching head with his uninjured hand. "The child potentially has some sort of seal that protects his mind with a rather advance barrier or the child has a form of natural resistance that protects his mind. It's also possible that the tainted energy is responsible for the attacks since the presence of the energy is rather close to the child's brain. I'm going to attempt to use the Shintenshin no Jutsu this time and see if it triggers the same reaction."

"One moment," Tenzou instructed as he handed his son over to the blond before he grew a child sized table with rails so he could avoid getting caught up in the backlash a third time.

"That's probably a good idea; how badly were you injured?"

"No worse than your hand; only spread over a considerably larger area. Did you wish me to grow you a chair to sit in?"

"No, I'll kneel on the floor; that way, I won't fall far if I'm thrown right back out of his mind."

Tenzou nodded, dropped the height of the table several feet, and then moved around to the other side of the table so he would not be in Inoichi's way. The Mokuton user kept a close watch on Haruo as Inoichi initiated the Shintenshin no Jutsu. He saw the Jounin's body go limp for a split second the moment the jutsu was activated and less than two seconds later, he felt a pulse of energy from Haruo's body. In the wake of the short pulse, Inoichi was thrown back into his own body and the older man let out a pained grunt as he toppled over and curled up in on himself.

"Are you alright, Inoichi-san? Do you need me to fetch a medic?" Tenzou asked with some concern as hurried back around the table to check on the man.

"I'll be fine in a bit," Inoichi eventually rasped out. "It wasn't a physical attack this time. You might as well take the child up to Training Room Seventeen; I'm not going to try entering his mind again until he's awake and the tainted energy in his scar has been extracted. I suspect that I've been given all of the warnings I'm going to get."

"I will inform Kasai of the failed attempts. I will also leave a clone with you in the event that any complications arise from your forceful ejections from Haruo's mind."

Translations: English to Japanese

Gaki – brat
Hai – yes
Kasai – flame
Shintenshin no Jutsu – Mind Body Change Technique
Wakatta – I understand/understood

Notes:

The tree's reaction to Harry/Haruo stretching for the plum is entirely due to his magic and that ability is loosely based upon Lily's ability to make flowers bloom and close with her magic before she attended Hogwarts (taken from Snape's memories in book seven). I used that memory to imply that Lily had an affinity towards plants (earth) that was passed on to Harry and further enhanced by his Mokuton. A more in depth explanation on how and why that is possible will be provided within the story.

04-15-17: More minor edits made to chapter to fix spelling/grammar mistakes.