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)

Chapter 11:

They Call Him Danzo (Part 2)

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What do you do when something straight out of your worst nightmares came to life without any warning? What do you do when the boogeyman pulls out a chair and drops himself into your life? Do you run or fight? Pray to God or curse him?

Me? I ended up doing neither.

Instead, all I did was gape up at him like an idiot.

For a long moment that felt both brief and eternal, all I could do was stare slack-jawed at the monster that had suddenly appeared before me as my mind tried but failed to process what my eyes were telling it. Then my sense of self-preservation got tired of screaming its lungs off, kicked down the door to my conscious brain and took over the driver's seat.

My hands were grasping my forehead protector before I even realised what was happening, yanking it down over my eyes and plunging me into darkness, but more importantly blocking any eye contact between us.

Activating my Byakugan, I saw the darkness part around me like a curtain and in its place came a world beyond the spectrum of light. Distance and direction no longer held meaning, as my eyes allowed me to simultaneously see in every direction and every angle. And in this world that only those born with my eyes would ever witness, I focused my sights onto my body.

The traces of foreign chakra in my system were immediately apparent, clinging to the veins of my network like sludge in the sewers. The foreign chakra was completely inert, like the broken remains of a spider's web, meant that it was probably the remains of the genjutsu that I had been captured with. Even though it couldn't affect me anymore I took no chances and purged it from my system, twisting the flow of my chakra to a brief halt before flushing it through my body, ridding myself of the foreign influence.

Even then I wasn't satisfied.

Paranoid, I thoroughly scanned my entire body for any more traces of foreign chakra, looking over every inch of myself as fast as I could manage, giving special attention to my brain. As far as I could tell, I was clean. I couldn't find any signs of anyone tampering with my mind.

But I couldn't tell if that was because no one had messed with my mind or if I had just missed the signs.

Normally that was impossible, nothing could escape the Byakugan.

But those eyes - they didn't care about what was or wasn't possible.

It was only for a brief second, a heartbeat, but just before I managed to pull my forehead protector over my eyes I had glanced straight into Danzo's.

Both his natural eye and the one hidden 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, more myth and legend than fact. The Uchiha Clan guarded the secrets of their eyes just as viciously as my own did, and the Mangekyou Sharingan was so rare that it wouldn't have surprised me if the Uchiha themselves barely knew anything.

And that was for ordinary Mangekyou Sharingan - if ordinary could ever be used to describe those eyes. Shisui's Mangekyou were peculiar enough that even if I had information on the Mangekyou Sharingan I couldn't have relied on it.

All the information I had was from the show, and what little I knew terrified me.

It was said that Shisui's eyes were so powerful that it could force its target to willingly obey any command, manipulate them so subtly that they never even realised they weren't acting on their own free will. They become puppets without even realising it. The perfect sleeper agents.

But 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 put on it.

For or all I knew I was already Danzo's thrall.

Without having any idea of the limitations of Shisui's Mangekyou, I couldn't tell if I was free from its influence or if I was already trapped under its power and have become another one of Danzo's unwitting puppets. If the power of Shisui's Mangekyou had any truth in it then it might have even superseded the power of the Byakugan. What if he had used the Mangekyou to command me not to notice its influence? I could be looking straight into a patch of foreign chakra clinging to my brain but my mind wouldn't be able to register that it was there because of the effect of the command.

There was no way for me to know.

It was disquieting to realise but I could never know for sure if I was free ever again.

Once I got back home I was going to get my father and anyone else I could get my hands on to look through me for any signs of foreign influence, if there was any chance of anyone finding it then it was my family, but until then I had no way of knowing for sure if my will was my own or someone else's.

I ignored the whispers of mind that warned me that even they might not be able to spot the effects of the Mangekyou. That was just my fear speaking.

With that last unpleasant thought, I stopped scanning myself and turned my attention to the man sitting before me.

Danzo, possibly the most dangerous man on the planet, hadn't budged an inch the entire time. He had been patiently waiting for me to finish, his face so stoic that I couldn't begin to guess what he was thinking.

And that was when I was just looking at his surface. Underneath the hood, Danzo was a completely different beast.

Save for his scars and lame limbs, Danzo appeared to be an utterly unremarkable individual to the naked eye but under the sight of my Byakugan, the picture that Danzo painted 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, I wasn't sure if he could be called human anymore.

His entire body was a mismatch of human and plant cells, randomly grafted together like a patchwork creation made from two separate dolls. I couldn't even say for sure if he could even still be considered a mammal or if he was more a plant at this point. It was especially obvious in his right arm, which was almost completely deprived of human cells, but the rest of his body was hardly any better.

The strangest part was I had no idea how he was even alive.

He was made up of so many foreign cells that it should have been impossible for his body to function. The body would often reject foreign organs from other humans, yet this freak of nature somehow managed to graft his body to plant cells – something that should have been completely incompatible with a human's – made it only worse.

His organs - most of which had root-like veins growing throughout them - shouldn't have been able to operate in the state they were in and shut down ages ago, leaving him to die. But, going against every scientific law I knew of, his organs still managed to function. More than just function, they were thriving, literally brimming with life.

Despite his age and the countless scars that littered his body, Danzo had the vitality of a person in the prime of his life.

Tearing my eyes away from the fascinating yet horrific phenomenon that was his body was more difficult than I expected, but I forced myself to look away and scan the rest of him; more specifically I turned my attention towards his skull to examine his eyes.

I needed to examine the Mangekyou Sharingan and see if it had done something to me.

Dismissing his ordinary left eye completely after a quick glance, which was perhaps the only truly ordinary organ in his entire body, I began 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 infused with Hashirama's cells. I couldn't find Shisui's Mangekyou anywhere. Hell, I couldn't find a Sharingan period, neither Shisui's nor the ten others he was supposed to have embedded into his arm.

What in the Nine Hells was going on?

"Are you done?" Danzo asked, snapping me out of my thoughts faster than a cold bucket of water ever could as I was reminded of the bigger issue facing me.

But it also helped me set my head on straight.

When I had first laid eyes on Danzo, I felt overcome by a blind instinctive – if rational – terror. But in the short intervening time since, my training had started to kick in as my mind started to regain in my emotions, using reason and discipline to blunt most of my initial burst panic.

I was safe.

Danzo wasn't here to kill me, he couldn't be. If he had wanted me killed then I would already be dead. It was as simple as that. He wouldn't have gone through all the hassle of setting up this entire charade if he just wanted to kill me.

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 firstborn 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 wasn't just standing in the middle of a spotlight, the spotlight was practically centred on me; there was no way anyone 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 tell myself.

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

Danzo stared down at me, his scarred face set in its usual grim frown, thoughts indecipherable, before giving a curt nod.

Turning to look toward the rest of the restaurant occupants, where over one hundred Root agents continued to watch me with wide unblinking eyes. They hadn't moved the entire time, not a single one, they didn't so much as twitch, didn't even blink - and 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 as if someone hit the play button after pausing a film.

The waiters smoothly 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 could see chakra, and if any tried to invade my system I would immediately flush it before it had a chance to take effect. Nothing short of an S-Rank genjutsu like the Kotoamatsukami could affect me now, and with my eyes covered even that wasn't 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 heading off to serve another pair of customers – or rather the Root ninjas pretending to be customers.

"Eat." 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 had tasted so good.

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 possibly enjoy eating anything with him watching me. I don't think I could have swallowed without choking with my throat so dry.

"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 I tried holding his gaze for as long as I could, but eventually, the tension was too much and just when I was about to force myself to speak up again, Danzo moved.

Turning to face the counter, Danzo picked up a pair of chopsticks with a single hand and began to methodically eat his meal. After a few awkward seconds of watching him eat, I too turned back to my own meal and forced myself to do the same.

Despite having found it delicious only a few seconds earlier, I couldn't taste my food as I chewed, every 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 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 constricted 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 in the middle of 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 impression 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 regard, he wanted a powerful heir so badly that it blinded him to everything else. It was almost amusing how two men so similar in nature could hate each other so thoroughly." He scoffed, "People are always blinded to their own faults."

Danzo shook his head, "When you began to prove yourself as a prodigy, everyone had assumed that Hiashi would have leapt at the opportunity of having me take over your training, just as I had done with Fugaku's boy."

"Wait." I interrupted. Startled. Did he mean... 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 with his usually 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 too much to take his disappearance sitting down. From what little I knew of him he would have come 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 were no swaths of destruction attributed to him, no murders to his name anywhere in the Land of Fire. As far as 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.

One look at Danzo's face gave me all the answers I needed.

Itachi fucking mutilated Danzo. Holy Shit!

I couldn't imagine the rage Itachi must have felt when he cornered 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.

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. A sight so horrific it 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 could 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 a giant burden lift 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 him 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 much more than just tiny adults. Training meant to harden and temper 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 so 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. It always 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 possibly act as a double agent – then things began to make sense.

"But despite my initial misgivings, Itachi proved me wrong. Not only had he passed through the training I usually reserved only 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 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 begun to comprehend the full extent of talent that I had been given to mould, that I proposed a plan to Hiruzen. While he had been caught off guard by it 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 truly was. And so it was decided, Uchiha Itachi would become the next Hokage."

-What!?

After all the shocks I had suffered through over the last few minutes, you'd think 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 Incident," 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 a paranoid group, obsessively so. They saw plots and schemes where there were none, watched every shifting shadow with suspicion and searched for insults in even the most innocuous of gestures. 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, but they were so thoroughly convinced of their own delusions that nothing we did or said could persuade them otherwise. Any attempt at reconciliation from our part was just met with suspicion as if it were some kind of convoluted trap to lure them in, 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 he's trapped and driven to a corner, an entire clan of such men is beyond words. We were just beginning to grasp how dire the situation had become and, with no obvious fix in sight, we began 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 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 a 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, he loved them all. So much so that he had been willing to put down his entire clan if it meant protecting the village from harm. Hiruzen calls it the will of fire, I didn't think the same but maybe he was right, maybe the boy did have the will of fire in him, but whatever one chose 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 mentioning that we were grooming Itachi for the position of the Fifth Hokage was enough to placate the Uchiha and helped 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 silence, staring blankly ahead into open space as he was lost in his own thoughts, in the past.

Then he moved.

Faster than I thought it was possible, Danzo raised a clenched fist and brought it slamming down onto the wooden counter, sending a tremor running through the entire countertop, tableware rattling, splinters flying into that air even as fractures ran through its surface.

"Then," Danzo spoke calmly as if he hadn't just nearly 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 hid beneath the surface, he masked it perfectly, it was only by watching his chakra fluctuate did I know he felt anything but indifference as he pondered Itachi's fate.

"An autoimmune disease centred 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 his condition 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 finished.

"Needless to say that all plans of making Itachi Hokage were scrapped. 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.

"In the end the situation accumulated in 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 hours I had spent training on what ended up proving to be an unsound investment, of all the years I wasted training a dying man. But then, Itachi managed to prove me wrong. Even when 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 crowd of disguised Root played their roles perfectly, to the point that I had unconsciously begun 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?"

He said nothing.

"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 gone 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 me with his single eye, 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 off 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." I nodded.

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

Students with too much empathy are usually 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 a very rare event for anyone to be exempted from the Academy due to results from their psych profile, however, and for good reason. No matter how potentially horrible 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 people during peace tended to make the best soldiers in war.

"Then I'm sure you must know that there exists a psychiatric report on yourself. But are you aware of 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 general background information, I dove straight into the heart of the report.

In his time under my care, Hyuuga Hikaru has often exhibited behaviour that could easily be mistaken as psychopathic. Though he has proven himself capable of interacting and socializing with his fellow classmates as well as anyone else his age could – perhaps even more so as he proved capable of becoming quite charming when he needs to– he seems incapable of genuinely caring for any of them, barring 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 willingness 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 demonstrate any signs of 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 adhering to 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 – as 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 come about 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 sessions, children often demonstrate signs of reluctance when 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 to harm his opponent any more than needed to – thankfully Hikaru has never exhibited any signs of sadism – Hikaru demonstrates 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 the necessary pain that is needed to win a match, he also does not appear to take any pleasure in 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 him is on how useful we are. I sincerely believe that should I happen to 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 behaviour patterns mentioned above, all these points leave it impossible to deny that Hikaru exhibits many of the classic traits associated with that of a psychopath. In short, this has 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 label 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 demonstrates 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 classmates 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 usually is 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 is for these reasons 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 was only a thinly veiled ploy of the Hyuuga Clan 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 to the same extent, to Neji as well. While I am not familiar enough with either of 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 established parameters of one.

It is for the above-stated reasons that I have concluded that rather than being unable to care, Hikaru chooses not to. That he 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 with little difficulty.

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 behaviour for anyone, let alone a child, and I would have normally attributed the source of this behaviour due to a mental trauma caused by some traumatic experience during early childhood. 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 ambassadors 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 himself was unaware of the attempt until long after it was over.

In conclusion, Hikaru is not a psychopath though he has certainly shown himself capable of behaving like one due to his frightening ability to shut 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 most likely would be able to perform such tasks with little or no emotional difficulty.

It is for the above-stated reasons that I recommend Hikaru be considered as a candidate as a Hunter-Nin. With his bloodline, along with 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 unlikely to care for any civilian casualties or innocent bystanders if it meant the success of the mission, he is 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 Counterintelligence 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 make up my mind, Danzo began speaking 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 a 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 seamless teamwork. At that point in time, you had only been a team for under twenty-four hours, yet you managed to work 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 the 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 coordinate 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 but 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 my 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 are beginning to show. While his mind may be 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 has noticeably 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 upright 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 roared silently 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 to 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 in 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 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 to whatever power they possess, they manage to bring about miracles that no one else could through 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 out loud 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 Hokage does not mean I do not have another role for you to fill. 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 fire cannot 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 remain. And so the Hokage needs a shadow - to tend to the roots, to go where the light cannot and sully 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!

"Why me?" I asked, desperately 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 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 was overcome with the sensation of a trap closing 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 then 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 the chance to. Which is why it is quite fortunate that I managed to get a hold of a far more effective method to secure your loyalty."

"Which is?" I prompted, my body tense, 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 your age 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 were 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 then 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 took 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 given her to 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.

It was history repeating itself.

Similar to Naruto and me, Hiruzen Sarutobi and Shimura Danzo had once been teammates and both were the personal students to the Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama. The same Tobirama who had aided his brother Hashirama in founding the Leaf and led it to even further prosperity after his brother's passing.

But while Tobirama had been cunning and an excellent Hokage, he was no Hashirama. He lacked the innate charisma, the natural charm his brother seemed to exude that made men flock to him by the thousands, all ready to swear their everlasting loyalty. Tobirama could think of plans within plans, outsmart opponents in the political arena just as easily as in the battlefield, and invent Jutsu had even the Uzumaki look on with awe but despite the Leaf flourishing under his rule even more than it had ever done under his brother's, he could not make men love him like they had loved 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 was 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 unison as a single unit.

It was Tobirama who had founded the Root long ago; while his brother had 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 dark.

He had done this hoping to capture the same synergy, the same chemistry that made his brother and him such a dangerous pair, capable of rewriting the history of the Elemental Nations when they both stood 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 managed to retain its hold as the strongest Hidden Village.

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 a mix of incredulity and reluctant awe.

How long had they been planning this?

"Konoha is spread thin," Danzo spoke on despite my incoherent state. "We have succeeded in maintaining the illusion of our dominance over the rest of the Hidden Villages, but the truth of the matter is we are hanging on by our fingernails. 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, woman 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 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 children, no matter how potentially talented?"

"…because you believe the gains would outweigh the cost." Came my answer.

"Exactly," He nodded, satisfied I understood. "Currently Uzumaki is far from ready for handling any kind of responsibility, but given 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 into consideration, the potential long-term gains more than justifies the short-term loss of removing Hatake from the active roster."

"Do you really think that just 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 answered 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 I would 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 had become publicly known and they saw how quickly I bonded with Naruto, was that when they started to devise a way to capitalize on it? Or did they just see 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 begin to feel out of my depths when it 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 spoke softly 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, it's still only an ember right now but one day it will flare like a bonfire. Hiruzen believes 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 from all those that seek 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 times, it holds 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 any more than I had as far as I could 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 count told me that, if you included the children, there were over a hundred Root members in the restaurant alone but there were more people loitering outside. The problem was that I had no idea if they were Root or just ordinary civilians.

They were acting so naturally – a couple making out in an alleyway, an elderly lady out for a late-night stroll with her dog, a staggering drunk trying and failing to make his way back home – that I had no way of telling if they were Root or not.

I decided to ignore the people outside and just stick to the ones inside. "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. Wherever 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 of society, on the outskirts of a world that does not want them. Unwanted and unseen, suffering even as the people around them happily live their lives 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 perish.

"I find them. The war orphans starving in the streets, the children suffering under a drunken father's fists, the slave 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 their letters and numbers, how to fight, how to think, I put their minds and body back together and help them learn how to be strong. You would not believe the devotion they give just for that; just a belly full of food and a little bit of kindness when others have shown them none and a child would happily bleed for your approval. Then when they are deemed ready, both physically and mentally, 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 fully 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 has become of the people they had left behind. Their old friends, their abusers and tormentors, the others who had starved and suffered alongside 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 lives, 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 choose to stay will they be allowed to be properly trained in the shinobi arts."

"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 follow 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 circumstances that already exist around you so that you may be better equipped to make a 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 may 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 would only allow someone to succeed me if I had absolute faith in their ability to 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, more than a little stunned, "From the rumours, I would have thought 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 rumours paint me out to me, I was the one who created many of them in the first place, but I am also very much aware of the dangers of an unwilling tool. No ninja should ever risk his life relying on weapons that they do 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 lies.

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 rumours 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 the real thing if they wish to fool those around them, and how would they be able to do 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 us not to repeat our 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 feelings 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 easily be confused as 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 too naive but talking to him 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.

Dangerous, no doubt, but maybe not necessarily evil.

By all reports, this Danzo was genuinely loyal to Konoha and the Hokage. Unlike in the show 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.

Meeting the real-life version of the man instead of a 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 that bad after all.

Then I noticed someone staring at me.

Turning to look to my right, I found myself facing a little girl standing not two paces away.

She couldn't have been more than nine, maybe less. She was a tiny little thing, looking even smaller in her white summer dress with dirty-blonde hair that curled down to her shoulders. I didn't personally recognise her but she was one of the small handful of children 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 wouldn't stop staring.

She just wouldn't stop.

She kept looking at me, eyes wide and unblinking. Empty eyes. Blank. Not cold, not hardened, they were just empty. There was nothing there, no spark of life. Just listless lifeless eyes of a corpse wrapped up in a doll's dress. It was as if someone had drilled holes into her face, filled them with glass beads and called them eyes. Her expression was little better, so plastic that it better suited a manikin's face than a living child.

She was broken.

What made it worse was the way everybody around us acted as if they couldn't see her.

She stood in the middle of the path, yet no one made a move to get her out of the way. Instead the waiters smoothly walked around while people from both sides of the aisle talked to each other through her - literally as if she wasn't standing there between them. Never acknowledging her existence. It was as if she didn't exist. They just carried on with what they were doing as there wasn't a statuette girl staring blankly at me.

They continued to laugh, to drink, eat and chat while she stood there in the middle of it all, invisible to a crowd of people with the sole exception of me.

It was like they were playing their part of a script, extras to the scene of a movie. None of them were allowed to disturb the scene without the director's permission so they ignored everything happening around the main cast 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 looked her over, "Their underdeveloped minds never cope well with the program, it leaves them rather… incomplete at times. Which is why I rarely bother with anyone so young anymore."

Danzo reached out to grasp her shoulders before spinning her around and sending her forward with a firm push to her back, towards where her 'parents' sat chatting. She complied obediently, showing no resistance, but even then she didn't look away and kept staring. Her head swirled around almost completely backwards, and I could see the tendons on her throat stretching to their breaking point from the attempt, but 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 it was no wonder he managed to murder his entire clan without breaking down.

It made me wonder what other things Danzo might have understated or embellished or even left out entirely. How many of the things he told me 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. Bending down, he picked 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 walked away, his cane thumping on the ground with every step, but he barely made it more than a couple of paces away before stopping.

"There is one more issue you need to be aware of." He looked back at me over his shoulder. "In two weeks time, 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. 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 in the future 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 appear in the crowded restaurant as he walked, waiters smoothly moving out of his path or customers pulling their seat in to give him room but they did it in a way that appeared so natural, that if I hadn't known they were all Root I wouldn't have realised what they were doing.

I kept my eyes on him the entire time. Both on him and any of the Root members that happened 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 alive and with all my body parts intact, but I wasn't about to let my guard down until I was safely back home, behind the thick compound walls and surrounded by the dozens of guards 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.

"Before we part ways, I would like to leave you with a word of warning." Danzo didn't bother looking at me as he spoke, his back facing my way. "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 appear at first, hidden beneath the surface you'll find the ugly truth. Your clan is no different."

"Just what are you trying to imply 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. I wanted him gone, 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?" I asked, 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 at me. "The Main House of the Hyuuga Clan is famed for consistently producing children with the strongest eyes in their generation. Far superior to that of the Branch House. The secret is simple selective breeding. While the Branch members are allowed, within reason, to choose who they will 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 decide who they will marry. They research the potential bride's or groom's ancestry, taking into account the risk of in-breeding along with unwanted hereditary traits such as genetic illnesses. It's almost impressive how methodical they could be. 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 to 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 of the Main House is far superior to those of the Branch House."

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

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

My mouth was already halfway 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 it's 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 a child in becoming one. Even if she had, it was unlikely that the Academy would have accepted her due to her poor health.

This alone should have been enough to disqualify her from becoming my father's wife, but then there were her eyes. My mother's Byakugan was weak, a little below average compared to Branch House members but absolutely abysmal by the standards of the Main House.

For this 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 with that of the Main House's. Hiashi insisted that he would accept no other but her and finally, after several months of pleading, his father finally relented and gave his consent. It had caused quite an uproar at the time. Many members 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 former, 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 further exacerbate the already delicate situation he found himself in as it meant that the 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 it 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 they needed to bring the sham of a marriage to an end and pair Hiashi with a proper wife. There was even talk among the more radical members of your clan that should Hiashi still refuse to voluntarily annul the marriage even after proving that his bride could not 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 cling to her daughters, woven herself into their daily lives and made sure that they knew how much she loved them every single day.

Yet she had never appeared in the show.

She was never there for her daughters. Hinata and Hanabi grow up never knowing a mother's love or the comfort they could find in her arms. She hadn't even been mentioned, not even 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 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 didn't need to imagine what would have happened, 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 create 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 bloodline 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 clanmates still held into any ideas of killing my mother, well, I knew of a room under a certain temple where a young 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 differently, you didn't try to deny, didn't start wailing like a child that there was no way your family would ever do such a thing. Instead, you simply accepted the harsh truth 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. I can tell, Hyuuga Hikara, that the only question lingering in your mind is not 'what should I do if they try to hurt my mother' but rather 'where should I hide the bodies'.

"It seems that I have chosen well," Danzo almost appeared to smile for a short instant before turning away and began to leave. "Do consider accepting my offer Hikaru, I believe you would do well 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 have refused anyway.

The night air was chilly as I made my way home, the streets empty, but I hardly noticed it, too engrossed in going over everything that had happened.

After Danzo had left I had waited for a solid twenty minutes before leaving myself, keeping track of him with my sight and making sure he was truly gone before stepping out into the street. Even then I hadn't turned off my Byakugan and kept a constant watch on my surroundings to make sure I wasn't being followed or walking into another ambush.

I wasn't, thankfully, but I had no intention of letting my guard down until I was safely tucked behind the compound walls, and maybe not even then.

Succeed – that was what he ordered me to do in my next mission. Something I would have done anyway even if hadn't ordered me to.

What else was I going to do to any mission the Hokage gives me but try and succeed? It's not as I would have wanted to fail a mission. 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 times in my old lifetime, how small things would quickly escalate 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 to lure them in was very similar to what Danzo was trying with me.

They started them off small, getting them to do some harmless chore or favour. Something simple, like delivering messages or maybe even a small package, and the kids would gladly do it, eager to please. Then they would start them selling. Usually, it wasn't something too illegal, like a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of beer. 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 further 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 didn't seem like a big deal, easing you in, steadily raising the stakes a little more at every step as you grew used to it. Little by little they would up the ante, too small for you to notice at the time but would slowly and steadily build up over time until one day you looked around yourself and wondered 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 had Danzo bothered telling me about my mother and the circumstances surrounding 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 had told me was to read my reactions. He wanted to see how I would react to the news, and perhaps more importantly, he wanted to know if I cared for Mio.

Normally that wouldn't have been a question, but with the psychiatric report he had on me it probably wasn't a given that I would care about my own mother like most children my age would have. So he dropped that little bomb on me to find out. And now that he knew, he had one more emotional leverage he could use against me like he had with Naruto.

He was probably already dreaming up ways he could use 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 an answer. All his talk about free will was probably little more than that, talk. In his mind, it was less about giving me a choice or telling me the truth, and more about saying the things he thought I needed to hear to make me do what he wanted.

That was how men like him manipulate people, by telling people what they wanted to hear instead of what they needed.

What else was he lying about?

There was no way to really tell with someone like him, but if I had to guess I'd say almost everything he said was mostly true. He wouldn't have wanted me catching him on an outright lie and risk losing any trust he may have built with me - which was freaking none – so if I had to guess I'd say the majority of what he told me was properly true.

The trick was spotting the tiny lies he sprinkled in with the truth.

The one thing I was almost certainly 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. And Danzo didn't strike me as the type to allow such a security leak to exist when he could have just as easily silenced it with 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 assassins after them.

Yes, that fits the image of Danzo far better.

He didn't earn his current reputation for being scared of getting his hands dirty. But it didn't matter whether Danzo had lied to me or not. What did matter was that Danzo tried to use Naruto and possibly my own mother to manipulate me into 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 probably would have made 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*