A World Full of Monsters

by Fahad09

When I was first reincarnated I did the very first thing any self-respecting man in my place would do. Check to see if I still had my balls. I did. The next thing I did was try to get my hands on some power. True Power. I chose the Rinnegan. And if I had to kill a few people along the way to get it, well, there was a war going on. No one will notice an extra body or two turning up.

11. Chapter 11: They Call Him Danzo (Part 2)

Author's Notes:

It's a little late, but Merry Christmas everyone (Or whatever holidays you may have celebrated), and here it is, the rest of the chapter.

Since it was already two days later than planned, I had spent the last 6 consecutive hours finishing the chapter to get this out today. So I'm sorry if there might be a little more error ridden than usual, I'll try and fix that up as soon as I can (I'm a little sleep deprived).

The chapter covers the entire Danzo encounter, so don't worry, no cliffhangers I promise. And I had a huge explanation for how genjutsu works in this world planned for this chapter (as a lot of you asked for it), but I realised it would destroy the flow of the scene, and there would be a perfect scene two chapter on where it can fit so I delayed it till then.

That's all for now. Let the show begin.

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They Call Him Danzo (Part 2)

For a long second I found myself gaping dumbly into the face the bogyman come to life, unable to bring myself to believe what my eyes were telling me, before my sense of self-preservation kicked.

Quickly shaking off my shock, I immediately reached up to my forehead protector and pulled it down over my eyes, blocking the line of sight between us and plunging me into darkness, before activating my Byakugan.

The darkness around me dropped like a curtain, and in its place came a world beyond the spectrum of light. Distance and direction no longer held any meaning to me, as my eyes allowed me to simultaneously see in every direction and everything around me. And in this world that only those born into my Clan would ever witness, I focused my sight onto my body.

Immediately I took note of the traces of foreign Chakra in my system, clinging to the veins of my network like sludge in a sewer. The Chakra was completely inert, no doubt the remaining traces of the genjutsu I had been caught under, but unwilling to take any chances I immediately disrupted the flow of my Chakra before flushing my system, ridding myself of the foreign influence.

Still not satisfied I thoroughly scanned both my system for any further traces of foreign Chakra, looking over every inch as quickly as I could manage while giving special attention to my brain. And as far as I could tell, I was clean. I couldn't find any traces no matter how hard I looked, but that failed to bring me any sense of relief as I knew just because I couldn't see any didn't mean there weren't anything there.

It was only for a brief second, no more than a heartbeat, but just before I managed to pull down my forehead protector and over my eyes, I had glanced straight into Danzo's eyes. Into both his natural eye and the one he had beneath the bandages – Shisui's eye.

I didn't know how Shisui's Mangekyou worked; I didn't even know how powerful its effects were. Even in the Hyuuga Clan Library information on the Mangekyou Sharingan was scarce, usually more myth and speculation than fact. The Uchiha guarded the secrets of their eyes just as viciously as my Clan did, and the Mangekyou Sharingan was so rare that it wouldn't have surprised me if the Uchiha themselves barely knew anything about it. Not to mention, Shisui's Mangekyou were peculiar enough compared to normal Mangekyou that I probably couldn't rely on any information I found anyway.

In the show it was said that his eyes were so powerful that it could force its targets to willingly obey any command, manipulate them so thoroughly that it convinced them that they were acting on their own free will, never realizing that they were only puppets. But the knowledge from the show has already been proven to be unreliable at best and outright fabrications at worse, so I didn't know how much stock I could place on it.

Without having any idea on the limitations of Shisui's Mangekyou, I couldn't tell if I was free from Danzo's influence or if I was already trapped under its power and have become another one of Danzo's unwitting puppets. If the powers of Shisui's Mangekyou had any truth in it then it wasn't impossible for him to hide its effects from the Byakugan; what if he had used it to command me not to notice? I could be looking straight into the foreign Chakra in my body but my mind would ignore it because of its power.

There was no way for me to know. Not on my own. Maybe when I got back home I could ask my father to scan me thoroughly for any signs foreign influence, but until then I can no way of knowing for sure if my will was my own or someone else's.

And with that unpleasant thought, I stopped scanning myself and turned my attention to the man sitting before me. Danzo, possibly one of the most dangerous men on the entire planet, hadn't budged the entire time I was examining myself and had in fact been waiting patiently for me to finish, his face so stoic that I couldn't begin to guess what he was thinking.

Unlike his unremarkable physical appearance, the picture that Danzo painted under the sight of my Byakugan was so bizarre that it took me a second to even realise I was looking at a human being. Whatever Danzo had done to himself, he was without a doubt the oddest looking person I had ever seen.

His entire body was a mismatch of human and plant cells, like a patchwork doll made from two separate dolls. I couldn't even say for sure if he could even still be considered a mammal anymore or if he should be classified as a plant. It was especially obvious in his right arm, which was almost completely deprived of human cells, but the rest of his body was barely any better.

The strangest part was I had no idea how to explain how he was even alive. He was made up of so many foreign cells that is should have been impossible for his body to function. That the majority of said foreign cells were plant cells – something that should have been completely incompatible with a human's – made it only worse. His organs - which had root-like veins growing through them - shouldn't have been able to operate in the state they were in and should have shut down ages ago, leaving him to die, but, going against ever scientific law I knew of, his organs managed to function. More than just function, they were brimming with life. Despite his age and the many scars that littered his body, Danzo had vitality of a person in the prime of his life.

Tearing my eyes to away from the fascinating phenomenon that was his body, I forced myself to scan the rest of him; more specifically I turned my focus towards his skull to examine his eyes.

Dismissing his ordinary left eye completely after a quick glance, which was perhaps the only ordinary organ in his entire body, I begun studying the Mangekyou Sharingan held in his right eye socket-

huh?

Where? Where the hell was it?

Beneath the bandages, Danzo's right socket sat empty. Just a hole in his skull. Shisui's Mangekyou wasn't there. Quickly I began scanning the rest of his body, looking over every square inch of him for any signs of the missing Mangekyou but I couldn't find it. It wasn't even on the arm that had been infused with Hashirama's cells, the eye wasn't there. I couldn't find Shisui's Mangekyou anywhere. Hell, I couldn't find a Sharingan period, neither Shisui's or the ten others he was supposed to have embedded into his arm.

What in Nine Hells was going on?

"Are you done?" Danzo asked, snapping me out of my thoughts and reminding of the bigger issue on hand.

When I had first laid eyes on Danzo, I felt myself overcome by a blind instinctive – if reasonable – terror. But in intervening seconds since, I had managed to reign in my emotions as reason began to take hold of my mind, blunting most of the initial burst panic I felt.

I was safe, I wasn't in any danger. Danzo was not here to kill me, he couldn't be. If he had wanted me dead then I would have already be dead. He would have just had it over and done with by now rather than going through all the trouble of setting this charade up.

Then, of course, there was the matter of just who I was.

I wasn't some nameless orphan off the street that he could abduct and no one would notice. I was Hyuuga Hikaru, the first born son to Hyuuga Hiashi and the Heir to the Hyuuga Clan, one of the three remaining Noble Clans of Konoha. I was this generation's up and coming prodigy, the best friend to the Kyuubi's Jinchuuriki, a member of the newly formed team 7 and a student to Hatake Kakashi. I was practically standing in the middle of a spotlight; there was simply no way you could make me disappear, not without getting half the village after you. Which meant that I was safe, not even Danzo could touch me.

At least, that's what I chose to believe.

The pounding of heart began to ease a little with that thought, slowing until it approached something that I could at least pretend was normal. Without taking my protector off my eyes, I full faced Danzo and bowed in my seat towards the man, "Yes, Danzo-sama."

Danzo watched me for a time, his scarred face set in its usual grim frown, thoughts indecipherable, before he gave a curt nod. He turned to look toward the rest of the restaurant occupants, where the over one hundred Root members continued to watch me with wide unblinking eyes. The entire time not a single one of them had moved, they didn't so much as twitch, didn't even blink - I knew, I had been watching.

Danzo calmly raised his working hand and flicked his fingers once, and the silent restaurant burst to life again.

It was like watching someone hitting the play button after pausing a film. The waiters went on with their business, delivering meals or jolting down new orders, while the customers turned back to each other and began picking up threads of conversation, continuing where they had left off as if they hadn't been interrupted at all. Two kids, who couldn't have been older than eight or nine at most, screeched with laughter as they chased one another around the restaurant, while on the stage the koto player returned to her instrument, her fingers gracefully flowing over the strings as they pick up a tune – one thankfully free of Chakra this time.

Not that it would have made a difference if she had. While I couldn't stop the foreign Chakra from invading my system, most genjutsu relied heavily on the target not knowing they were caught up in an illusion for it to work. And with my eyes now fully open, that was no longer possible. With my Byakugan active I can see Chakra, and if any tried to invade my system I can flush it out immediately. Nothing short of an S-Rank genjutsu like the Kotoamatsukami could affect me now, and with my eyes covered even that was no longer possible.

Presuming of course, I wasn't already trapped under the effects of Kotoamatsukami.

A passing server placed a bowl of food on the counter in front of Danzo and me before she immediately headed off to server another pair of customers – or rather the Root ninjas pretending to be customers.

"Eat up." Danzo nodded towards the meal, "My personal chef's work. I had the entire staff replaced with my own men so no one would disturb us for the night."

Well, at least that explained why the food tasted so good tonight.

Despite the invitation, Danzo made no move to touch his own food. Rather he kept on watching me, his bandaged face so stoic that I had no idea what he was thinking.

Yeah, as if I could possible enjoy eating anything with him watching me.

"With all due respect Danzo-sama," I ventured cautiously, not sure if he'd be offended, "but why are you here?"

Danzo said nothing and just continued to watch me, showing no signs that he had even heard me speak. The silence between us began to stretch, growing more strained with every passing second, and just when I was about to force myself to speak up again, Danzo moved. Turning away from me to face the counter, he picked up a pair of chopstick with a single hand and began to methodically eat from his meal.

After watching him eat for a few awkward seconds, I too turned back to my meal and forced myself to do the same. Despite having found it delicious only a few seconds earlier, I wasn't able to so much taste my food as I chewed, ever mouthful a challenge to swallow as I had to force food down my painfully dry throat.

It was an awkward affair, one that I thought would last until we both had finished our meals, but to my immense relief it was barely a minute later when he spoke. The clinking of plates, the laughter and chatter of the occupants filled the air with a steady din, so when he finally broke his silence, I had almost missed what he had said.

"Were you aware," Danzo asked lightly, "that I was supposed to have trained you?"

Barely managing to keep myself from slipping off my stool at that bit of news, I whipped my head around to stare at the man. What? I had never heard anything about that. I didn't even know Danzo took on students for God's sake.

My throat constructing at the thought of being under the thumb of this monster, I had even further trouble forcing down the mouthful of food that I had been chewing. After a brief struggle, I managed to swallow and asked, "Is...is that normal? For you to take on students, I mean."

"From time to time." Danzo admitted, still maintaining his methodical eating pace, "Usually the people I train are far older, hand-picked from the newest crop of Anbu, but from time to time when a child shows a remarkable amount of talent I get handed a student as young as yourself and take over their training. Many people consider it an honour."

I'm sure they do, you sociopath.

"I was rather surprised when your father rejected my offer." Though his expression didn't so much as shift, I got the feeling that Danzo didn't quite know what to think of that.

Oh Hiashi, you beautiful son of a bitch. When I get home I'm so going to hug the stuffing out of you.

"It is odd, to see a man change so thoroughly." Danzo admitted pensively, "A decade earlier he would have gladly handed you over to me. He was much like Fugaku in that regards, he wanted a powerful heir so badly that it blinded him to everything else. It is almost amusing how two men so similar in nature could hate each other so thoroughly." He scoffed, "People are always blinded to their own flaws."

Danzo shook his head before carrying on. "When you began to prove yourself as a prodigy, everyone had been sure Hiashi would have leapt at the opportunity for me to take over your training, just as I had done with Fugaku's boy."

"Wait." I interrupted. Fugaku had only two children, one was Sasuke and the other was - "You trained Itachi?"

"Yes. I had." A fond smile grew on Danzo's face, looking so out of place in his harsh features. He set down his chopsticks to raise a hand up to his empty eye socket, fingers slowly caressing the bandage there. "Uchiha Itachi, my greatest creation." He said, sounding oddly proud for some reason.

It was that odd ting of pride in his voice that, along with the way he reached for his missing eye at Itachi's name, gave me the final piece of the puzzle I needed to put everything together.

Oh.

Oh!

Holy- so that's what happened.

I had always wondered what Itachi did when he heard of Sasuke's disappearance, there was no way he would have just sat back and left the matter alone. No, Itachi loved his brother far too much to take his disappearance sitting down. From what little I knew of him, he would have came storming back to the Leaf to demand answers, and I doubt he would have done it peacefully either. Homicidal would have probably been a better word for it.

And yet, I haven't heard a single thing about it. There been no swaths of destruction attributed to him, no murders to his name anywhere in the Land of Fire. As far I knew Itachi hasn't been seen in the Village since the massacre. So I had no idea how he had reacted to the news and had no way of ever knowing.

Until now. Because one look at Danzo's face gave me all the answers I need.

Itachi fucking mutilated Danzo. Holy Shit!

I couldn't imagine the rage Itachi must have felt when he corner Danzo and demanded answers, only to discover he didn't have any. And with his Sharingan, he would have been able to see through any lie, so he must have known Danzo was innocent, and yet he still ripped Shisui's eye straight out of his skull anyway.

I wonder what it must have felt to see so many of his dead relative's eyes – relatives that he himself had murdered – looking up at him through Danzo's arm. That would have driven anyone mad and I'm honestly surprised that Danzo managed to survive the encounter.

Did Itachi do it for revenge, or did he still carry some vain hope that Danzo was lying and tried to force some answers out of him? Did he rip one eye after the other from Danzo, starting with the ones in his arms and ending with one in his skull, hoping he would spill the beans on his brother's whereabouts? Or did he do it as a form of punishment for his failure to protect his brother?

Who can say? I didn't know, and I doubted I ever would. But there is one thing I can say for certain.

Itachi, you freaking rock!

It was all I could do not break out in hysterical laughter as I felt as if a giant burden had been lifted off my shoulders. Without Shisui's Mangekyou, Danzo had no way to influence my mind. I wasn't safe, not yet, not when I was trapped in a building alone with Danzo and a hundred Root operatives who were probably all too willing to kill me should he give the command, but at the very least I knew that no matter what happened tonight, my thoughts were my own.

"When I first approached Itachi he had been even younger than you are now. He had already made Chunin at the time, and it was clear to everyone that it wouldn't be long before he reached Jonin as well, but even so, I was reluctant to start his training. Prodigy or not, young minds are different from a grown one. Children are more than just tiny adults. Training meant to harden and tempter an adult's mind could just as easily cause a child's to snap, ruining him forever. It was for that reason why I rarely bothered with children that young, they were too hard to train without breaking, but I had my orders. On the command of the Hokage, along with Fugaku's approval, I was to approach Itachi and have him trained."

Well, that answers one mystery. I always had bugged me how Danzo had managed to get his claws on Itachi. Like me, Itachi was a Clan Heir and a prodigy to boot; it shouldn't have been possible for Danzo to get close enough to Itachi for him to exert his influence on the boy without his Clan noticing. But if Fugaku had sent him to get trained by Danzo – and possible act as a double agent – then things began to make sense.

"But despite my misgivings Itachi proved me wrong. Not only had he passed through the training I usually reserved for the best of Anbu operatives, he excelled. Both in ability and mindset, he outclassed those who were a full decade his senior by leaps and bounds. Over the many years I had trained countless of shinobi, but there had never been one that came closer to fitting my ideal image of a perfect shinobi than Itachi had. Sacrificing, loyal, humble, he was everything a ninja should be and more. It was then, when I had truly began to comprehend the full extent of talent that I had been given to mold, that I proposed a plan to Hiruzen. While he had been caught off guard by my proposal at first it didn't take him long to come around to it, not after he had been given the opportunity to get to know Itachi and understand what kind of a person he was. And so it was decided, we were going to make Uchiha Itachi the next Hokage."

….What!?

After all the shocks I had suffered through over the last few minutes, you'd think to I'd be at least somewhat used to it by now, or if not, then at the very least numb to it all. But no, this latest revelation hit me just as hard as the rest had and I felt my thoughts screeching to halt as my mind tried to cope with what I had just heard.

"I take it your father has already informed you about the truth behind the Uchiha." Danzo asked causing me to nod numbly in response, still dazed due to the latest in the series of shocks. "If there had ever been a bigger group of fools than that Clan then I had yet to have the displeasure of meeting them. They were paranoid group, obsessively so. They saw plots and schemes everywhere, stared at every shifting shadow with suspicion and found insults in every innocuous gesture. They had somehow managed to get it into their foolhardy minds that the entire Village was out to get them. They had honestly believed that all of us, from the lowly street sweeper all the way up the Hokage, were all conspiring behind the scenes together to bring them down.

"It was utter nonsense naturally, but they were thoroughly convinced and nothing we did or said could convince them otherwise. Any attempt at reconciliation from our part was just met with suspicion, as if it was some kind of convoluted attempt to trap them, and as a result every year the Uchiha continued to grow more isolated from the rest of the Village. There is nothing quite as dangerous as a man who has convinced himself that he is trapped and cornered, an entire clan was even worse. We were just being to grasp how dire the situation had become and, with no obvious fix in sight, we started to fear the worse. But Itachi, he changed everything.

"It was the perfect solution. By making him Hokage, we would be able to bring the Uchiha back into the Village, repairing the rift that sprung up between us and proving once and for all that we valued their Clan. For his skills and prowess, Itachi was adored and respected by both the villagers, while the ninjas that had fought beside him loved him for his dedicated and peaceful nature. The boy certainly had enough talent for the position, more than enough. Genjutsu, taijutsu, ninjutsu, he was skilled in them all. Not since Hiruzen himself was a child had I seen so much potential in one so young. Not even the Sannin could have matched him at his age.

"Above all else, the boy was loyal. Not to his Clan or any single individual, but to the Village as a whole. The boy loved the Leaf, what it stood for and all that lived within its walls, so much so that he had been willing to put down his entire Clan if it meant to protect the Village from harm. Hiruzen calls it the will of fire, I didn't think so but maybe he was right, maybe the boy did have the will of fire in him, but whatever you choose to call it we both knew that we had nothing to fear from the boy abusing his position. Itachi would have made a fine Hokage.

"It really was the perfect solution, one that would have solved all our problems in one fell swoop. And it was working too. Simply by mentioning that we were grooming Itachi for the position of the Fifth Hokage was enough to placate the Uchiha and help restore their relationship with the Village to better than it had been in decades. Yes, making Itachi Hokage was the correct choice. It was the perfect solution. Absolutely perfect."

Danzo had drifted into silenced, staring blankly into open space as he was lost in his own thoughts, thinking about the past.

Then he moved.

Faster than I had seen anyone move, Danzo raised his clenched fist and brought it smashing down into the wooden counter, causing the tableware sitting on it to jump as fractures ran through its surface.

"Then," Danzo spoke calmly, as if hadn't just almost smashed the counter in two, "we found out the boy was dying, and everything went to shit."

Neither his voice nor expression betrayed the torrent of rage that I knew he was feeling, he masked it perfectly, it was only by watching his Chakra fluctuate did I knew he felt anything but indifference as he thought about Itachi's fate.

"An autoimmune disease centered primarily on the lungs, one with no known cure. Not even Chakra could fix it, it only ended up aggravating the symptoms; by definition it was an illness in which the body destroyed itself, so strengthening his body only made the symptoms worse. As if that hadn't been bad enough, this particular brand of the disease responded especially violently to Chakra. The medics concluded that through proper medication Itachi may yet be able to live a long life so long as he limited his use of Chakra, if he doesn't, then it was unlikely he'd live to see the end of his second decade. In other words, for Itachi to live he must never use Chakra again, his career as a shinobi was as good as over end.

"Needless to say that all plans of making Itachi Hokage was scraped. We couldn't afford to have a dying Hokage, not after losing the Fourth so young. The Uchiha of course were predictably furious when they received the news. That their Heir and hope for the future was dying was bad enough, but once we informed them that Itachi would no longer be considered as Hiruzen' successor the relationship with the Uchiha reverted back to how it had been before. No, if anything the situation was even worse off, they seemed to take the news rather personally and, illogically, seemed to blame us for it.

"And in the end the situation accumulated into the incident known as the Uchiha Massacre, and what a mess that turned out to be. There had been no winners on either side. Konoha ended up losing an entire bloodline, along with more than a hundred talented ninjas, over the course of a single night, all due to the stubborn pride and paranoia of a single Clan. I too was rather vexed with the situation at first as I thought of all the countless of hours I spent training on what had ended up proving to be an unsound investment, of all the years I wasted training a dying man. But then, Itachi manged to prove me wrong. Even when he was dying, Itachi found a way to serve his Village. Till the end, he was the perfect ninja."

Danzo finally drifted off into silence, hand still held over his empty eye, while around us the crowds of disguised Root played their roles perfectly, to the point that I had unconsciously began to tune them out despite knowing their true nature and the threat they posed.

When the silence began to stretch and it was starting to look like Danzo wouldn't speak again, I decided to speak up. "Forgive Danzo-sama," I said, causing the man to turn his head to me, "but why are you telling me all of this?"

"From what little I've heard about you," I continued when he kept on staring at me, a rather uncomfortable experience, "you are not the type to give information away freely, not without a reason. And I find it unlikely that you have went through all the trouble of ambushing me here, alone, with a crowd to mask our meeting," I waved an arm at the crowded restaurant filled with disguised Root agents, "just to tell me about the possibility of Itachi becoming Hokage or how if things had turned out differently, you might have become my instructor. You do not strike me as the type to reminisce over what might have been Danzo-sama, so please forgive my rudeness but I must ask you again, why are you here?"

Danzo stared down at with me with his single eyes, his gaze almost like a physical weight. I could not read the man, not even with my Byakugan fully open and focused on him I had no idea what he was thinking. With the exception of that torrent of rage he felt at the mention of Itachi's disease, I might as well have been staring at a rock for all the emotions I sensed coming for him.

"Were you aware," he asked, breaking his silence, "that the Academy keeps a detailed psychiatric report on all prospective Genin?"

"Yes sir, I am aware." I nodded.

They psych profiling had less to with mental health of the students and more to do with determining the role they were suited for. No one wanted to have a deranged ninja on their hands but they also didn't want to have to waste resources training someone only to find up they didn't have the stomach for the job.

Students with too much empathy are usual sent to the Medical Crops to be trained in the healing arts or even to the counter-intelligence division, while those with too little are sent to the Torture and Integration division. It was very rare that anyone would be exempted from the Academy due to results from their physic profile however, and for good reason. No matter how potential horrible of a human being the child could grow up to become, they would always be able to find a use for them. After all, the worst humans during peace tended to make the best soldiers in war.

"Then I'm sure you must know there is a psychiatric report on yourself. But are you aware on what it says?" Danzo asked, causing me to shake my head in response. "You should give it a look if you ever have the opportunity to do so; it makes for quite an interesting read. As it happened, it was what was written in your psychological profile as much as it was your talent which brought my attention to you, maybe even more so."

….What the hell did my psych report fucking say!?

As if reading my mind, Danzo pulled out a sheet of paper from his robe and offered it to me. Taking the sheet, I quickly began to scan through the page, recognising Iruka's handwriting. Skipping over the beginning, which held nothing more than background information, I dove straight into the heart of the report.

In his time under my care, Hyuuga Hikaru has often exhibited behavior that could easily be mistaken as psychopathic. Though he has proven himself capable of interacting and socializing with fellow his classmates as well as anyone else his age could – perhaps even more so as he proven himself capable of becoming quite charming when he wants to– he seems incapable of genuinely caring for any of them, baring one notable exception.

Highly intelligent and pragmatic, Hikaru uses his intellect as a tool to achieve his goal and show little compassion to anyone who happened to be in the way. While he has rarely demonstrated it, he has on occasion shown a wiliness to manipulate his classmates if it would grant him an advantage, by using either his wit, charm or their current relationship to make it happen. And as far as I am able to observe, he does not feel any remorse or guilt for doing so, showing a worrisome amount of callous manipulation for one so young.

He also appears to hold little regard to the rules despite strictly following them. Whenever he finds an inconvenient rule he, instead of outright breaking it like most children his age would do, finds a way to work around it, often through the use of loopholes or by using connections granted to him through his Clan.

This leads directly to my next point. In addition to being self-confident, Hikaru has a grandiose sense of self – a belief that he is always in the right – which his high intelligence only serves to feed. When tested with a moral dilemma through a hypothetical situation – like we do with every student in the Academy – Hikaru has proven capable of justifying almost any action to himself through the use of logical reasoning, and was capable of convincing those around him to his point of view. There was rarely a point where Hikaru had ever stopped to consider whether or not he had a right to take such an action, he only saw things in cost and gains.

Another worrisome trait is his distinct lack of general empathy.

During sparring session, children often demonstrate signs of reluctance when they are paired up against fellow classmates or friends, either due to fear of hurting them or the possibility of damaging their friendship. This issue, in addition to preventing students from reaping the most benefits from training, often causes them to develop bad habits. It is for that reason that we extensively train them to put aside their emotions during a fight during their early years in the Academy.

This was not the case with Hikaru.

Since his arrival Hikaru has never demonstrated any such hesitation during any of his fights. While careful not harm his opponent any more than needed to – thankfully Hikaru has never shown any signs of sadism – Hikaru demonstrate an indifference that borders on callousness when it comes to inflicting the necessary pain he needs to win during these spars. He shows no hesitation in striking at a person he had just been chatting with, no remorse for breaking an opponent's nose who he had been trading jokes with the very same morning.

But neither does he take any pleasure in them.

Again, I would like to reiterate that though he shows no sense of guilt at inflicting in necessary pain that is needed to win a match, he also does not appear to take any pleasure it. Neither in the pain or in the victory itself. It is almost as if he was indifferent to the entire experience, perhaps even detached. To him, those fights held no other meaning to them outside of what lessons could be learned for them; Victory and defeat mean nothing to him other than an indication to his level of skill and an assessment of his weaknesses.

I had become increasingly convinced over my years of associating with him that is how Hikaru sees everyone around himself, including myself. Not as individuals or people, but as means to an end, our only true value to hims is on how useful we are. I sincerely believe that should I drop dead one morning, the only thing Hikaru would feel beside surprise at my unexpected demise would be irritation at having to adapt to a new teacher. It is unlikely he would feel any real grief.

His distinct lack of empathy, combined with the other behavior patterns mentioned above all points that Hikaru exhibits many of the classic traits associated with that of a psychopath. In short, this had led me to believe I am dealing with a very mentally disturbed child.

...Well, fuck you too Iruka!

Yet despite demonstrating several traits that could easily be described as psychopathic, I am reluctant to call him one. One needs only to see Hikaru interact with one Uzumaki Naruto to understand why.

To say he is different would not be doing it justice. The person he becomes when he is with her is such a stark contrast to that boy that I see sitting in my classroom that I must confess, I find myself having trouble reconciling the two as the same person. Where one is apathetic the other is caring, where one is indifferent the other demonstrate a fierce almost fanatic loyalty.

He dotes on Naruto constantly, listens to many of her childish worries despite proving to be smart enough to find such things beneath him intellectually and demonstrates a fierce over-protectiveness when it comes to her well-being. It is thanks to him that she has been able to assimilate with the rest of the classmate as well as she had despite being the Kyuubi's host. I still recall how in the early days of the Academy, in stark contrast to his usual cold methodical approach to a problem, Hikaru would without the slightest hint of hesitation punch another child's face in for insulting her – an event that was repeated several times. An unusually knee-jerk and open reaction to someone who usual so emotionally detached from the world around him.

It was as if every emotion he failed to show anyone else in class, he gave to her.

It for these reason that I had recommended that the Hokage permit the continued association between the two. Despite the Hokage's understandable concerns that Hikaru's relationship with Naruto is only a thinly veiled ploy from the Hyuuga to gain influence over the Kyuubi, I have long concluded that is not the case. Hikaru is associating with Naruto out of his own free will, his interaction with her is too genuine for it to be otherwise.

Then there is his younger sister, Hyuuga Hanabi, and his cousin, Hyuuga Neji.

By all reports he appears to be highly attached to his younger sibling and, while perhaps not the same extent, to Neji as well. While I am not familiar enough with them to give a proper assessment on their relationship – as I had never had the pleasure of instructing either Hanabi or Neji – I have personally witnessed him interacting with the two during their lunch breaks or in the middle of the corridor between periods, and I confess it is a relief to see him act so human to someone outside of Naruto. It proves that despite my earlier concerns, Hikaru is in fact capable of caring for others.

This is far from the typical profile of a psychopath and does not fit within the establish parameters of one.

It for the above stated reasons that I have concluded that rather than being unable to care, Hikaru has a frightening ability to shut down his emotions at will. Either disregarding them or even turning them off and on entirely as easily as you or I would flip a switch. He can emotionally distance himself from those around him while still permitting himself to care for a chosen few.

If true it would explain the dichotomy he has demonstrated; sympathetic in regards to some while cold-blooded dismissal when it comes to others.

This is of course not typical behavior for anyone, let alone a child, and I would have normally attributed the source of this behavior due to a mental trauma due to a traumatic experience. But looking through his history I have failed to discover any evidence to support this theory, as he appeared to have a relatively peaceful life. The closest event that I could find was during the Kumo Incident when one of the ambassador tried to kidnap him as a child, but all reports agree that the ambassador was stopped long before he could reach him and that Hikaru was unaware of the attempt until long after it was over.

In conclusion, Hikaru is not a psychopathic though he has shown himself capable of behaving like one due to his frightening ability of shutting his empathy off when needed. This skill would prove to be highly useful in an assassin, as unlike many of his peers Hikaru is unlikely to suffer from any guilt or mental trauma as a result of killing someone outside of combat. He is most likely able to perform such tasks with little or no emotional trouble.

It is for the above stated reasons that I recommend Hikaru be considered as a candidate as a Hunter-Nin. With his bloodline, along his natural ability to distance himself emotionally from others, Hikaru would have no difficulty tracking and bringing down a fellow ninja of the leaf should they turn traitor. And while he would also be unlike to care for any civilian causalities or innocent bystanders if it meant the success of the mission, he is also pragmatic enough not to kill indiscriminately and would assess the pros and cons of a situation before committing to any action.

Recommendation:

Wet-works, Hunter-Nin, Intelligence and Counter-intelligence unit.

By the time I reached the end of the report and put it down, I couldn't figure out whether to be offended or flattered by what I had read, and before I could come to a decision Danzo began to speak again.

"Your performance in Kakashi's test was especially telling. Put it simply, you performed magnificently." Despite the praise, Danzo's voice sounded bland as always. "When you found yourself facing a vastly superior opponent, you retreated. You didn't foolishly try to fight him yourself and fled immediately upon fulfilling your objective of acquiring bait, before leading him into an ambush. And when that failed, you used every dirty trick you could think of – no matter how potentially lethal – uncaring for any sense of fair-play. It didn't matter how you did it, it didn't even matter if it was you or your teammates who delivered the winning blow, just that one of you got your hands on that bell, all that mattered was victory. Thus you managed to turn a hopeless situation into one where victory was possible.

"And perhaps even more impressive was your seamlessly teamwork. At that point you in time you had only been a team for under twenty-four hours, yet you managed to worked together as if you had been doing it for years. While that might have been partially explained away by your experience with handling Uzumaki, that was not case with the young Nara, and a team's dynamics can be greatly altered by the addition of a single new member. But under your leadership the three of you managed to co-ordinate together far better than I would have believed possible from a newly formed Genin team."

"Pragmatic, intelligent, ruthless and most importantly, efficient." Danzo stressed the word. "Yes, I do not believe I could find a more ideal candidate even if I had another decade to look."

I felt dread fill my spine at the implication. "Candidate?" I parroted, not sure why I felt such fear from a single word only certain that it meant nothing good for me. I tried to figure out what he was implying by it was no good. My thoughts felt muddled, slow and unclear while my head was all but spinning from being overloaded with all the shock and information I was forced to process over the last few minutes. Underneath my forehead protector I shut by eyes and took a deep steadying breath before speaking. "Danzo-sama, please just tell me what you want from me."

"Very well, I will be frank then." Danzo said, agreeing to my request. "We are running out of time, both Hiruzen and I. Neither of us ever expected to live for so long, or for him to still remain as the Hokage at his age. And it cannot last. Already his years is beginning to show. While his mind maybe as sharp as ever, his body is not and it is beginning to fail him. He grows weary faster with each passing year, and his skill in combat have blunted. Another few years, a decade at most, and he would no longer be fit to lead the Leaf. Which is why we have already begun making preparations for when that day comes."

It was like having a bucket of ice cold water poured down my spine as I understood where the conversation was going, and I jolted up right in my seat.

Wait-wait-wait-wait! Don't tell me-

"…you want to make me Hokage?" I asked, incredulity straining my voice.

These guys, just like they had planned with Itachi, they were planning to do the same with me.

'Were they freaking insane!?'I silently roared in my mind. 'What part of me looks like Hokage material? Did hey have even the slightest clue on what a dangerously stupid idea this was? I'd be a horrible Hokage and I sure as fuck didn't want be one.'

Thankfully Danzo was quick to put that fear to rest.

"No." He said, and I got the impression that had I been dealing with anyone else he would have laughed, but the only reaction I received from Danzo was a microscopic lifting of his lips, "You are not suited to become Hokage."

Danzo turned his seat to look out the window set in the far wall, the one that offered a glimpse of the Hokage Monument. "A Hokage is more than just strength, more than a skilled killer with a cunning mind. A Hokage must be more, strong in a way that the word 'strong' simply cannot properly convey. If the Village is like the leaves of a tree, bathing in the sunlight, then the Hokage is the fire – the sun that shines down that light. Irrelevant of whatever power they possess, they manage to bring about miracles that no one else could though the force of their character alone. And people like us, who hide behind masks and lies, cannot hope to replace them."

Danzo kept staring through the window for a moment longer, "We already have three potential Hokage candidates to choose from, one of them even happens to be a member of your generation, but you are not among them." He said before turning back to look at me. "And let us face facts, someone as cold hearted as you would make a terrible Hokage."

I cannot begin to tell how little that means to me when coming from you.

I however, had more than enough wits about me to realise what a bad idea it would be to express that thought, and instead said, "So if you don't want me to become Hokage then what do you want?"

"Just because you lack the qualifications to become a Hokage does not mean I do not have another role for you to fulfill. The Hokage cannot be everywhere nor do everything. Just as the leaves need to be bathed in the light, so do the roots need to be tended to. But a fire can not cast a shadow, they can only shine. And it is there in the dark, buried beneath the earth, where the roots that support the tree grow, a place where no light belongs, and only shadows roam. And so the Hokage needs a shadow; to tend to the roots, to go where the light cannot and dirty his hands so the light will remain pure. So no, Hyuuga Hikaru, you are not meant to be Hiruzen's successor, but Hiruzen is not the only growing old."

Wait, he can't mean-

..oh God, please God no. I'm not supposed Sarutobi's successor, I'm-

"Yours." I said, feeling my entire body go numb. "You don't want me to become the Hokage's successor, you want me to be yours."

They wanted me to become the next Danzo.

This time Danzo did smile, and it was a dark thing.

Oh no! No-no-no, and Hell no! Over my dead body!

"But why me?" I asked, stalling for time as my mind raced for a way out of this. "Even if I am qualified, I have no reason to support the Hokage more than anyone else. Less so, you read my psych elevations, I'm an even less suited to becoming your successor than I am the Hokage's. You should understand better than anyone that even should I ever inherit your role, it would be meaningless as I wouldn't have a reason to be loyal to the Hokage."

Normally even hinting that you might not be completely loyal to your Village and its leader would be sacrileges, especially in front of this man, but this was far from normal circumstances.

"Are you quite certain of that?" Danzo asked lightly, "You may find it in yourself to show more loyalty than you give yourself credit for."

Having had more than enough of the cryptic comments and obscure hints, I ignored his latest statement and cut straight to the bone of the conversation.

"My father has already rejected your offer to have me trained." I pointed out. "And without his explicit permission you have no authority to take over my training, not unless you somehow manage to get me to agree." Which I sure as hell wasn't about to do. I was the first to admit that I might have had a few screws loose, but even I wasn't that crazy. "And unless you're here to force me to train under you against both of our wishes-"

Which I didn't think was the case as that seemed to be an especially stupid thing to do. He may have been Danzo but even he couldn't abduct a Clan's Heir without repercussions.

"-then I see no reason for you coming here tonight."

Whatever response I expected from Danzo my denial, he didn't show it. Instead he just watched me calmly with his one eye, as if he had expected nothing else from me, and suddenly I overcome with the sensation of trap closing about all around me.

"Do you think me so crass as to resort to force, or foolish enough to expect to work? What point is there in an unwilling successor? No, if I do not have your loyalty than there would be no point in having you. I have no use in an heir that would betray me or abandon his duty the first time he got. Which is why it is quite fortunate that I managed to get a hold of a far more effective method to securing your loyalty."

"Which is?" I prompted, by body tense as if ready to bolt.

"The truth." He answered, surprising me. "Shinobi are trained to be ever secretive, to use lies like tools and hoard the truth like the priceless treasures that they are. But there are times when you need to spend that treasure to achieve the result you want. And there are instances where you can win over a man's loyalty by doing nothing more than telling him the honest unadulterated truth; such is the case with our current predicament. I believe I have already told you that a candidate from you generation has already been selected. Would you venture to guess who it may be? It shouldn't be too hard, you two are rather close after all."

I frowned, unable to understand what he was implying. "What are you-"

-We already have three potential Hokage candidates to choose from, one of them even happens to be a member of your generation-

Like a bucket of water, the truth washed over me.

"Naruto." I answered, knowing I was correct as soon as the name left my lips. "You want Naruto to become the Hokage."

To my horror Danzo only nodded. "That is correct. Uzumaki Naruto is a candidate for the position of the Fifth and Sixth Hokage."

...That's right, I had forgotten.

This wasn't like in the show; Naruto wasn't the dead last anymore. She was the top of her class, a first-class kunoichi and Jinchuuriki to boot. Then there was the other factors; the blood of the Uzumaki, the sole child of the Fourth Hokage, her insane amount of Chakra along with her healing factor – she was all but destined to become one of the most powerful ninjas the Leaf had ever produced.

And there were the more political factors to consider. She would one day become the head of the Uzumaki Clan – something that had little value in the practical sense, but had more than a little sway in the political field when you take her Clan's history into account – and she also had a strong link with Hyuuga Clan, which had become the most powerful Clan in the village since the fall of the Uchiha and Senju. She was close to all of the Hyuuga Clan Head's children, especially his heir, practically adopted by the Clan's matriarch and was all but raised in their compound. This gave her very strong links to Konoha and a reason to be loyal to the Village she called home.

And they had even gave her Kakashi to train – a person who himself was probably one of the three candidates to becoming Hokage. So even in the event that Kakashi became the Fifth instead of her, all it would do was give her a better claim to becoming the Sixth.

All in all, it made her a near perfect candidate.

And like Sarutobi had Danzo, Naruto had me.

Similar to Naruto and me, Hiruzen Sarutobi and Shimura Danzo had once been part of the same team and were the personal students of the Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama. The same Tobirama who had aided his bother Hashirama in founding the Leaf and helped make it prosper even when his brother passed on.

But while Tobirama had been cunning and an excellent Hokage, he was not like Hashirama. He lacked the charisma, the natural charm his brother seemed to exclude that made men flock to him by the thousands, all ready to swear everlasting loyalty. Tobirama could think of plans within plan, outsmart opponents in the political arena just as easily as he could in the battlefield, and invent Jutsu that would even the Uzumaki look on with awe, but despite the Leaf flourishing under his rule even more than it had done under his brother's, he could not make men love him like they had Hashirama.

He had understood that, like the spirit of men, the Will of Fire needed to be fed with more than just wealth or prosperity. It needed Ideals.

It is for this purpose that he had personally trained two students to succeed him rather than just one. One charismatic and beloved, while the other cunning and efficient. He had raised them to be like brothers, to share a relationship similar to the one he held with his own sibling, and trained them to work in union as a single unit.

It was Tobirama who had founded Root long ago; while his brother had been ruled the Leaf as the Hokage, he commanded the Root as its commander. And when the time came for him to pass on, he had given command of the organization he had founded to Danzo, the student who was most similar to him, while he appointed Sarutobi as the Hokage, the student who in many ways had reminded him of his lost brother.

Two successors – one to stand in the light while the other in the shadow.

He had done this hoping to capture the same synergy, the same chemistry that made his bother and him such a dangerous pair, capable of rewriting the history of the Elemental Nations when standing together. Just as two brothers working together had given birth to the Leaf, so too shall two make it flourish.

In that sense he had succeeded – Konoha had grown to the most prosperous Hidden Village in the Elemental Nations. Even after three wars followed by the Kyuubi attack, Konoha had managed to retain its hold as the strongest Hidden Village.

And by the looks of things they planned to do the same again, only this time it will be Naruto and me filling their roles.

"You…" For once I found myself completely speechless, my mind unable to form a single cohesive thought and I was left gawking at the man with what might have been cross of incredulity and reluctant awe.

How long had they been planning this?

"Konoha is spread thin." Danzo carried on speaking despite my incoherent state. "We have succeeded in maintaining the illusion of our dominance over the rest if the Hidden Villages, but the truth of the matter is we are hanging on by our finger nails. We had lost far too many good men to the Kyuubi, men we could ill afford to lose after the Third Shinobi War, and we only managed to survive this far by using every single available man, women and even child we had left until we had no one left to spare. Even today, a full decade later, we are still haven't fully recovered to what we had once been. Our supply of experience Jonin is so small that it is a miracle we manage to spare any at all to train the new Genin teams.

"In such a situation do you think we can afford to waste an asset like Hatake Kakashi as a Jonin Instructor?" Danzo asked, his tone making obvious of what he thought of the idea, "At a time when we can barely afford to spare a single man, why would we take our greatest Jonin out of active duty to train a group of kids, no matter how potentially talented?"

"…because you believe the gains would outweigh the cost."

"Exactly," He nodded, satisfied I understood. "Currently Uzumaki is far from ready for handling any kind of responsibility, but give her a few years to mature under the teachings of Hatake and that would soon change. Then there is the added benefit of how you too would flourish under his instruction. Taking all that into consideration, the potential long-term gains more than justified the short-term loss of removing Hatake from the active roster."

"Do you really think that by making Naruto Hokage you can make me do whatever you want?" I tried to retort.

"Then by all means, feel free to refuse my offer." Danzo said dismissively. "As I have already said, I have no use for an unwilling successor. While you are the best choice I have available to me at the moment, you are not only one. If you refuse my offer I will simply select another."

And whoever he chooses will one day gain command over Root and become responsible for Naruto's safety. And, as hypocritical as it sounded, there was no way in Hell would I trust Naruto's safety to someone that Danzo of all people chose.

He had me.

How long had I been planning this? How many years had this been brewing in the background? Was it during my first year at the Academy when my talent first became publicly apparent and they saw how I bonded with Naruto, was that when they started to devise of a way to capitalize on it? Or did they just saw an opportunity and decided to take advantage of it? It felt disorientating just thinking about it, as if I was dancing to invisible strings all my life and I have only just begun to notice them.

For the second time since my reincarnation, ever since I found out about the hidden players behind the Uchiha Massacre, did I began to feel out of my depths when came to dealing with these damned ninjas.

"Loyalty can chain down any man. Where muscles and might can shatter steel and bend iron, it can do nothing to break free from the chains of the heart." Danzo said simply as he turned back towards the counter and picked up his chopsticks. "Once Hatake had finished training her, Uzumaki will make a fine Hokage. She has that spark that draws in people to her, its still only an ember right now but one day it will flare like bonfire. Hiruzen believe it to be so, and I admit I may do as well. But any flame, no matter how bright it shines or fiercely it burns, could be puffed out. Which is why you will remain by her side as a shadow, bound there by your loyalty, protecting her for all that seeks to harm her. I am certain that you will keep her safe, just as I had done for Hiruzen."

"Are you sure you should be telling me all of this." I said, "Aren't you afraid I'd try to slip the leash you're trying to tie around my neck if you tell me how you're using my own loyalty to manipulate me."

"No," Danzo stated as he began taking small methodical bites from his meal, which had probably gone cold by now. "The truth can be an insidious thing at time, it hold you at bay better than any lie. A pretty lie can be broken but the truth will always hold true. That is what makes the Root strong."

I frowned, not understanding what he was getting at, and it must have shown on my face because Danzo elaborated.

"Look around you," he commanded, still focusing on his food though he didn't seem to be enjoying it as far as I can tell, "how many of my men do you see?"

With my Byakugan still active I didn't even need to shift my head to see, but I still had trouble answering him. A quick head count told me that, if you included the children, there were over hundred Root members in the restaurant alone but there were more people loitering outside in the surrounding streets. The problem was that I had no idea if they were Root or just ordinary civilian, they were acting so natural – a couple making out in an alley way, an elderly lady out for a late night stroll with her dog, a staggering drunk trying and failing to make his way back home – I had no way of telling if they were Root, not without a far more thorough examination.

I decided to ignore the people outside and just stick to the ones I saw in the store. "A hundred and four."

"This is only little more than half of the number I have stationed in Konoha. In total, including the non-combatants, there are eleven hundred Root members scattered throughout the Elemental Nations." Danzo said casually, as if he hadn't rattled a number that vastly outstripped the size of my own Clan. "And all of them serve me willingly."

"How?" I asked, unable to guess how he managed to gather so many men under his command. He couldn't have kidnapped and brainwashed that many, could he?

"I saved them." Danzo answered.

"From what?"

"War," He said, "starvation, abusive parents, child-slavery, prostitution. Take your pick. Where ever you go you'd always find people suffering, even in the greatest of cities you'd find them if you care to look. Peel away the pretty exterior that the world tries to show, look beneath the surface and there they'll be, clinging to life in the dirt from where they had been tossed away, surviving in the fringes and outskirts of a world that does not want them. Unwanted and unseen, suffering even as the people around them happily live their live blissfully unaware, and perhaps even willingly ignorant of their pain.

"They despise the life they had been given, even as they desperately cling to it, refusing to die, refusing to accept that they were born into this world with no greater purpose than to just suffer and die.

"I find them. The war orphans in starving in the streets, children suffering under a drunken father's fists, slaves victims of sex-traffickers whose souls were every bit as broken and battered as their bodies, I find them all, gather them together and give them a purpose greater than just suffering and death. I feed them, teach them letters and numbers, to fight, put their minds and body back together and help learn how to be strong. You would not believe the devotion they give just for that; just a belly full of food and little bit of kindness when others has shown them none and a child would happily bleed just for your approval. Then when they are deemed ready, both physically and mental, I administer them the final test."

To kill their brother – that was the Root's final examination, to kill a fellow Root member who had been raised by their side throughout their training as siblings. It was what Sai had been forced to do, to kill the person he loved more than anyone else in the world, only after he did that could he be full initiated into Root.

At least that's what I thought, until Danzo proved otherwise.

"I show them their homes."

"…You what?" I asked, confused in more ways than one.

"I let them see their old homes. I take them back to the cities or villages where I found them and I let them see what become of the people they had left behind. Their old friends, their abusers and tormentors, the others who had starved and suffered alongside of them that I had chosen not to save, I show them what had become of them. It is rarely a pretty sight. Sometimes there was nothing to go back to but burned husks of ruins and shallow graves. Once they see with their own two eyes what their fates would have been had I not stepped into their live, I give them a choice: Leave or stay."

"You let them go?" I managed to ask through my steadily growing shock.

Danzo just waved a hand in front of his face dismissively, as if he was swatting away a fly. "You think me a fool Hyuuga? What use do I have for an unwilling assassin? Better to let them roam free than have them turn their blades on my back when I least expect it. It is why I give them a choice to opt out early on, before they were properly trained, so there would be no danger in letting them go. Only if they chose to stay will they be allowed to be properly."

"And how many choose to stay?"

"More than you might imagine." Danzo replied, "As I said, a little bit of kindness and they would bleed for me."

"You know," I smiled sardonically, "I find it ironic that after all this talk about only accepting those who willingly following you, yet here you are, manipulating me like a puppet to force me to do what you want."

"You misunderstand me Hyuuga, if you feel so adamant about it then by all means, feel free to leave." Danzo snorted derisively, "All I have done is made you aware of the circumstance that exist around you so you could better make an educated choice. No matter what you decide, those circumstances will not change. I have no intentions of coercing you into anything, should you refuse I will allow you to leave this place freely. You maybe be valuable to my plans, but you are far from irreplaceable. No one is. There are others I can pick from, perhaps not quite as qualified to the role as I would hope, but good enough for me to work with. So take solace in knowing that should you decide to refuse, I will only allow someone to succeed me if I had absolute faith that they would keep the Hokage safe. Of that, you have my word."

I blinked, not expecting that. "I'm honestly not sure what to think about that." I admitted, "From the rumors I would have thought that you wouldn't have given me the option to refuse."

Danzo scoffed and turned towards me, setting his chopsticks down, "You make me repeat myself Hyuuga. I know very well what the rumors paint me out to me, I was the one who started them in the first place, but I am also very much aware of the dangerous of an unwilling tool. No ninja should ever put his life to a weapon that they could not trust. Better to go without."

"Then all those things about Root being nothing more than emotionless husks of men are false?" I probed, trying to feel out the truth from the fiction.

The existence of Root was something of an open secret in Konoha. Everyone knew they were real, but no one knew what they did or who they were. So outside of rumors and the occasional horror story, I knew very little of how Root operated. And as I have already learned the hard way that my knowledge from the show could not be trusted.

"Nonsense." Danzo replied, a hint of disapproval leaking into his voice. "What use would a ninja that cannot feel be to me? The vast majority of Root act as spies and covert agents, how would they be able to perform their duties if they cannot express emotions? Look at my men surrounding us, even knowing who they are can you tell them apart from ordinary citizens? Anger, fear, love, frustration, they need to be able to fake all these emotions well enough to be indistinguishable from they real thing if they wish to fool those around them, and how would they be able to that if they have never felt them?

"Beyond that, emotions serve other roles; they can be both the greatest of teachers and motivators. Fear teaches a man how to survive, how to look before he leaps, without it we'd all run recklessly to our deaths. While pain, it too serves a lesson; it teaches to not repeat out mistakes and motivates us to try harder in order not to fail and feel it again. And then there is loyalty. I believe I do not need to explain why having a man trained to kill lacking such sentiment would be a bad idea. The perfect ninja is not one who cannot feel, but one who can put aside their feeling when needed."

"This is why while I have had all of Root undergo an extensive emotional control program, not to burn out their emotions but to control it. While the outward result of such training is such that it could easy be confused to rendering its subjects emotionless, in truth it is anything but. Every member of Root can care and feel just as well as you can." Danzo paused to think on it for a moment, before he amended, "Perhaps even better if your psychic evaluation is anything to go by."

More and more, I was beginning to steadily lose all faith in my knowledge from the show.

Maybe I was being to naive but talking like this, I was beginning to feel all the fear and trepidation I had initially held for the man begin to drain away. Danzo…he might not be anywhere near as frightening as I first thought he might be.

By all reports this Danzo was genuinely loyal to Konoha and the Hokage. Unlike in the show where is where he was underhanded, manipulative, heartless monster that controlled the events from the shadow while all the while plotting to usurper the Hokage and take his place, here he was underhanded, manipulative, heartless monster that controlled the events from the shadow while being completely loyal to the Hokage and was fiercely protective of the man.

But meeting the real life version of him instead of the caricature from a child's story – which had proven to be an inaccurate representation of reality – I realised that maybe, just maybe, Danzo wasn't so bad after all.

Then I noticed that someone was staring at me.

Even though I didn't need to, I turned to my head towards my right, away from the counter, towards where a girl stood not two paces away.

She couldn't have been more than nine at most, and even that may have been pushing it. She was a slip of a girl, dressing a white summer with dirty-blonde haired that curled down to her shoulders. She was one of the handful of children in the restaurant who were brought along with her parents – though if what Danzo implied was true then they probably weren't her real parents.

But that wasn't what had caught my attention.

She was staring at me.

As in looking at me with wide unblinking eyes. Empty eyes. Blank. Not cold, not hardened, they were empty, her eyes we a void, like holes in her head. I couldn't see in a hint of emotion in those brown orbs of her, they might as well have been made of plastic for all the life they held. Her expression was no better, it was something that would have been more suited on a manikin than a child's.

What was made worse was how everybody around us acted as if they couldn't see her, they just carried no with what they were doing as if none of them noticed the statuette girl staring blankly at me. They just continued on laughing, drinking, eating, chatting while she stood there in the middle of it all, invisible in a crowd of people with he exception for me.

It was like they were playing a part of a script, extras to the a scene of a movie, and they were told to ignore everything happening around the main characters in order to not break the illusion.

"I never did well with children." Danzo confessed, catching sight of the girl who was still staring at me. He frowned as he examined her, "Their underdeveloped minds never cope well with the program, it leaves rather… incomplete at times. Which is why I rarely bother training with anyone so young."

Danzo reach out to spin her around by the shoulders before he sent her forward with a firm push on her back, towards where her 'parents' sat chatting a few meters away. She complied obediently, not putting up any resistance, but even them she didn't stop staring at me. Her head swirling around almost as far as her neck would allow as she kept those blank eyes trailed on me.

Stiffly, I turn around to face the counted, fully unnerved by the experience.

Okay, everything I just said about Danzo not being too bad, I take it back. I take it all back, he was evil. Pure fucking evil.

Looks like Danzo might have understated the side-effects of 'emotional control program' just a tad bit. If Itachi was put through something like that then no wonder he managed to go through with wiping out his entire Clan. It made me wounder what other things Danzo might have embellished or understated or even left out, and how many of them were outright lies.

I had no idea, but I couldn't take anything he said to me at face value. I sincerely doubted that Danzo was the type of person to have any hangups about lying.

"You need not answer me tonight," Danzo said as he pushed himself up. He bent down to pick up a cane that I hadn't noticed leaning against the side of the counter. Turning, he looked down at me. "My end may be drawing near but I'm not about to pass away anytime soon. There is time enough to think on the matter before a decision is to be made."

Danzo made to walk away, his cane thumping on the ground with every step, but he barely made it more than a couple paces away before he stopped. "There is one more issue you need to be aware of." He looked back at me over his shoulder. "In two weeks times, a B-Rank mission will be arriving from the Land of Waves. Hiruzen will assign the mission to your team. Due to several factors, it is imperative that the mission is completed successfully. Make sure that it is successful no matter what the cost, do everything in your power to make it so. Consider this as an example of the work you'd be expected to complete should you accept my offer."

Then, before I had a chance to get a word in, Danzo turned and hobbled away, his cane thumping on the ground with every step. A path seemed to open up in the crowded restaurant as he walked, waiters moving out of his path or customers pulling their seat in to give him room but they did it so naturally that if I hadn't known they were all Root I wouldn't have realised what they were doing.

I kept my eye on him the entire time, both on him and any of the Root members that happen to stray too close to where I was sitting. Somehow, despite all of my fears, it looked like I just might be able to walk away from this meeting a live and with all my body parts intact, but I wasn't about to let my guard down until I was back home, safe and sound behind the compound wall and the dozens of guard protecting the place.

Just as I thought I was free of him, when he was only a single step away from walking over the threshold of the restaurant and into the street outside, Danzo stopped in place.

"Before we part ways, I would like to leave you with word of warning." Danzo didn't bother looking over his shoulder as he spoke. "Consider it a gift, an apology for taking so much of your time."

"What is it?" I asked, eager to see him gone.

"In the world of Shinobi, there is a dark side to everything. No matter how innocent it may at first appear, hidden beneath the surface you'll find the ugly truth. Your Clan is no different."

"Just what are you trying to implying Danzo?" I nearly snapped at him, far too tired to bother with adding an honorific. At this point I couldn't bother to bring myself to care what he thought of me or wanted to say, I wanted him to get to the point and leave.

"Just what I said. It is hard to notice oddities of our surroundings when we are born into it, so it is no surprise that even one as perceptive as you would not have noticed. But do you not find it strange that Hyuuga Mio is your mother."

"…Are you threatening my family?" Letting a hint of steel leak into my voice. I didn't care even if he was Danzo, if he thought-

"Nothing of the sort, I assure you. I just thought you should be aware of the circumstances surrounding your birth." Danzo still faced the door, not bothering to look back at me. "The Main House of the Hyuuga Clan is famed for consistently producing children with the strongest eyes in their generation. Far stronger than any of the members from the Branch House. The secret is simple selective breeding. While the Branch members are allowed, withing reason, to choose whoever they wish to marry, the Main House members are not. While they may nominate a candidate, in the end it is up to the current Head along with elders of the Clan to decided who they will marry. They research the potential bride's or groom's ancestry, taking into account of the risk of in-breeding along with unwanted hereditary traits such as genetic illnesses. They also examine the bride's or groom's physical, intelligence and Chakra capabilities along with a variety of other factors known only to them and then, and only then, would they come into a decision. For generations they have chosen their Heir's spouse in order to produce the most powerful children possible. And while controversial at times, the system has worked. The Byakugan belonging to the members of the Main House are far superior to those of the Branch House."

"Yes, I am aware of all this." This is all basic knowledge to me. I knew that part of the reason why both by father and I could see so much farther with our Byakugan than the mast majority of the Clan could be attributed to simple good genes. "What does that have to do anything?"

"Have you ever not stopped to wonder then, why Hyuuga Mio was ever allowed to marry your father?"

My mouth was already half way open to sprout out a reply before I found myself pulling up short.

He was right. Why was my mother allowed to marry Hiashi?

I hadn't really thought of it before, it's not like it really mattered to me how my parents got together, but now that's it been pointed out to me I couldn't imagine either my grandfather or the other elders approving the match.

Mio wasn't a ninja, she was a civilian. My mother hated violence – she was the closest thing to a pacifist I had ever met since my reincarnation – and never had any interest even as child on becoming one. Even if she had, it was unlikely that the Academy would have accepted her due to her poor health.

This alone would have made her an unsuited candidate to becoming my father's wife, but on top of all was her eyes. The strength of my mother's Byakugan was weak, a little bellow average, and for that fact alone she should have never been permitted to marry Hiashi.

"Hyuuga Mio's eyes could only be described as mediocre at best," Danzo spoke as if reading my mind, "yet her blood was allowed to mix in with that of the Main House. Hiashi was insist that he would accept no other but her and finally, after several months of pleading, his father finally caved in and gave his consent. It had caused quite an uproar at the time. Many member from both Main and the Branch House had strongly opposed the marriage, some went as far to call it an act of betrayal. The only true difference between the members of the Main House and the Branch House was the superior bloodline of the Main House, without it then the division of the Clan into different Houses holds no meaning."

"Even I do not know how Hiashi managed to go through with the marriage despite the fierce opposition" Danzo admitted, "At the time I was not as well informed on the Hyuuga Clan's internal politics as I would have liked, but not long after the wedding he had announced that his wife was with child. This did nothing but exasperate the situation as it meant that main bloodline would be polluted with weakness, but Hiashi tried to quell the unrest by promising that the child will be a strong one, that his heir will be the strongest the Clan had ever produced.

"No one truly believed him, recognising the baseless bluff for what is was, but they were willing to wait and see. For a time. Once the child was born and proven to be inferior, then they would have all the proof that they needed to bring an end to the sham of a marriage and pair Hiashi with a proper wife. There was even talk among the more radical member that should Hiashi refuse to end the marriage even after they had proven that Mio cannot produce a proper heir, then Mio should be forcibly removed from the situation – for the good of the Clan. And once she was no longer part of the picture, it would only be a matter of time until Hiashi could be made to see reason and remarry again. This time to a more appropriate wife, one that will give birth to a powerful heir."

I felt my heart turn cold.

It had always bugged me on what had happened to Mio in the show. The women I knew, who had birthed and raised me in my second life, would have never permitted her children to grow apart from her. She would clung to her daughters, woven herself into their daily lives and made sure that they knew how much she loved them every single day.

Yet in the show she had never made a single appearance. She hadn't even been mention in passing, and until I had been reincarnated I hadn't even been aware what her name was. Though it was never outright stated it was heavily implied she had passed away.

And I was getting a pretty good idea on how she died.

"But then you were born." Danzo carried on, his back still facing me. "The greatest prodigy the Hyuuga Clan had ever produced. Despite of everyone's fear and expectations you were not weak, you were superior. Excelling in every way, both in mind and body, just as Hiashi had promised, thus quelling all those that had voiced their discontent. But I do not believe I need to explain to you what would have happened if things had turned out differently, if you hadn't been born a prodigy."

No, no he didn't. I had no trouble imagining what would have happened, I didn't need to, I had already seen it happen.

Hinata.

Timid and shy, weak in both spirit and courage, she was everything that the Clan had warned Hiashi she would be. Weak. With the evidence there for all to see, Hiashi no longer had a leg to stand on. But my father was nothing if not stubborn, I could easily imagine him refusing to leave his wife. He would have even gone as far as siring another child – Hanabi – in a second attempt to created a strong heir with his wife.

But they were not willing to wait.

They already had all the proof that they needed in Hinata, they would not wait and waste who knew how many more years for Hanabi to grow and prove them right again. No, they had to put a stop to this now before Mio continued polluting the blood of the Main House with her weakness.

So they killed her.

Was that why Hiashi was so harsh on his eldest daughter? Because she was the reason why he had lost his wife? Because of her weakness, the one he had tried to beat out of her in an attempt to rid of it, was that why their relationship had become what it was?

And Hinata, was that why she had been so timid? Because she knew it was her fault that they took her mother away?

I would never know.

All I knew was that if any of my Clan mates still held into any ideas of killing my mother...well, I knew of a room under a certain temple where a little boy could use some company.

Sasuke was probably getting lonely anyway.

"See?" Startled out of my thoughts, I looked up to find Danzo watching me with a satisfied look on his face. "After having implied that your own Clan might have assassinated your mother had things gone different, you didn't try and deny, didn't started wailing like a child that there was no way your family would ever do such a thing. Instead you simply accepted the harsh reality you were faced with and began preparing plans on how to deal with it. I could almost see your mind as it began churning away plans and contingencies."

"It seems that I have chosen well," Danzo almost appeared to smile for a short instant before he turned away and began to leave. "Do consider accepting my offer Hikaru, I believe you would do well surviving in the shadows."

Then he was gone.

Walking out of the restaurant and into the dark streets outside.

And that would be the last I saw of Danzo for a long while.

---

I see. So that's how Danzo gets them.

He gives kids orders that they couldn't refuse anyway.

The night air was chilly as I made my way home in the empty street, by I barely noticed it, too engrossed in going over everything that had happened. After Danzo had left I had waited for a solid ten minutes as I kept an eye on him and made sure that he was really gone before I left. Even after leaving the restaurant I hadn't turned off my Byakugan, and kept constantly checking my surrounding to make sure I wasn't being followed or walking into an ambush. I wasn't, thankfully, but I had no intention of letting my guard down until I was safe behind the solid walls of the compound.

Succeed – that was what he ordered me to do in my next mission. Something I would have done my best to do anyway. It's not as I would have wanted to fail any mission I was given. What else was I supposed to do to any mission the Hokage assigned me but try and succeed? By ordering me to do something that I was already going to do anyway, it gave the false impression that I was actually following his orders.

It was a tiny thing, but a crucial one. In the young impressionable mind of a twelve year old, it was a stepping stop he could use to build his authority on. I had seen it happen many time in my old lifetime, how small things would quickly lead to something big.

It reminded me of how some of the kids in my old high-school got involved with drugs after they started hanging out with the wrong crowd. The method the dealers used was very similar. They started them off by asking them to do something small, harmless chores or favors, like deviling messages or maybe even small packages, and the kids would gladly do it, eager to please. Then they would start them selling. Usually it was something not too illegal like cigarettes at first, from there it wouldn't be too hard to upgrade to weed, another drug that's considered harmless by the general public, but it was one more step into their grip. Then, before long, they find themselves neck deep involved.

That's how they get you. Start with the small harmless things that wouldn't seem like a big deal, easing you in, steadily raising the stakes a little more at every step as you grew used it. Little by little they would raise the ante, until one day you look back and your surprised to find how you went from selling cigarettes to dealing cocaine.

That was what Danzo was trying to do to me, build up the habit of listening to his commands. It was an effective strategy against kids, and if I had really been twelve years old it may have even worked.

Then there was the little bomb Danzo dropped at the end.

Why did Danzo bothered telling me about my mother and the circumstances of my birth? It wasn't to help me, that was for sure, not when the entire incident had been over and done with for years now.

No, the reason why Danzo told me was to read my reactions. In addition to seeing how I handled the news, he wanted to discovered if I had cared for Mio. Due to the psychiatric report he had on me it probably wasn't a sure thing that I would care about my mother like it would have been with other children, so he dropped that little bomb at me because he wanted to find out. And now that he knew, he has one more emotional leverage he can use against me like he had with Naruto.

He was probably already dreaming up ways he could us the information to manipulate me into becoming a mini-Danzo.

For all of his claims to the contrary, I didn't believe for a second that Danzo would be willing to let me go. Danzo wasn't the type of person who would take no for answer. All his talk about free will is probably little more than that, talk. In his mind it is less about giving me a choice or telling me the truth, and more amount saying the things he thinks I need to hear to make me do what he wants. That how men like him manipulate people, by telling people what they wanted to hear instead of the truth.

What else had he told me was a lie, I wonder?

Not too much I'd wager, he wouldn't want me catching him in an outright lie and risk losing any trust he might have developed with me - which was freaking none – so the majority of what he said was properly true. The trick was spotting the lies he had sprinkled in with the truth.

The one thing I was almost positive he was lying about was letting the uninitiated Root members go. No matter how little they knew, they were far too much of a security risk to allow to live. And Danzo doesn't strike me as the type to allow a security leak to exist when he could easily silenced it with but a single knife stroke to the throat. Most likely, he only gave them the illusion of choice, allowing those who refused to join Root to leave, only to send an assassin after them.

Yes, that fit the image of Danzo far better. He didn't earn his current reputation for being scared of getting his hands dirty.

But it doesn't matter whether Danzo had lied to me or not. What does matter is that Danzo dared to use Naruto and possibly my mother to manipulate me in doing what he wanted.

Honestly, looking it over it was actually a good plan, and might have worked too if things had been a little different.

But Danzo, you made two critical mistakes.

First off, I'm not a kid. The plans you're using were designed with a young impressionable child in mind, not for someone like me who had lived for over five decades in total.

Then there was your second mistake-

I have no intention of becoming anyone's shadow.

I was going to become a God.

Danzo, you thought I would make a good replacement for you. Well, you're right, I would make a great successor. Let me show you just how much like you I can really be.

Now, how do I turn this around to my advantage?

---

*Chapter End*

Author's Notes: Hope you enjoyed the chapter. Next chapter will involve a lot interaction with all of our favorite characters, and then, onto the Wave.