Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

A/N: Thank you for the review to my first chapter, the follows and favourites. Enjoy the next chapter. :)

Chapter One

Sunrise109

Koryoku.

Anti-power.

Gentle Step: Koryoku Jutsu

That was the technique's name.

Hinata had found out that she could use it during a mission with her teammates many months ago. An enemy ninja whom she'd struck out at, intending to temporarily block the chakra points surrounding his heart and render him harmless, had immediately and irreversibly lost all his chakra. Her team took him back to the Leaf village with them so that he could receive formal sentencing for his nefarious crimes. They had been travelling for days. The sounds of his anguished cries kept them awake at night. He never attempted to use ninjutsu or genjutsu to escape. Hinata had begun to suspect that he couldn't regenerate his chakra and used her Byakugan to confirm her suspicions. As the days of travelling passed by, it become clear he would never use his chakra again.

One description of the technique and its devastating effects had been enough for her father to identify it.

Hinata had hoped never to use Koryoku again… Her fear alone had been enough to prevent any thought of attempting to use it again. Despite the fact that she could remember every detail of how to use it, the exact amount of chakra required, the exact location to aim her chakra at, the exact speed required in order to ensure a shockwave of pandemonium disrupted their entire Chakra Network to the point of irreversibility… it was all burnt into her skull, including the horrified expression of her very first casualty.

Everything had changed when she decided to reach out to Danzo.

Her teammates couldn't believe it. That she'd throw away all their years as a team together to go work for someone like Danzo.

It had been a difficult decision to go to him, especially with the knowledge of how deceptively dangerous he could be. But he was, in the entire village, the only one fully proficient enough in hidden and forbidden techniques to help her.

With this technique, Hinata could be used as a weapon. Even the Akatsuki would have a right to fear her. And in the wrong hands... She would be deadly.

Hinata would never forget the night her father had nodded solemnly, something in that simple action oddly final, as he agreed that such a deadly Hyuuga technique had no place in the Clan compound and must be restrained. He made it clear to her that she had to move out of their Compound and her only home, perhaps even the Leaf village entirely, else her presence alone and the knowledge of the monstrosity she had unlocked, influenced other Hyuugas to dare to try it.

Hinata had simply been unlucky. Learning it had been a mistake. By chance.

Danzo always ensured to monitor the shinobi she used her Koryoku jutsu on afterwards. Some could tolerate being without the presence of their chakra, their life energy, enough to remain silent and downcast. Others, a weaker calibre of shinobi, simply could not handle it and tried to escape in order to find a way to get their chakra back. Almost all were immediately returned back to the Root Anbu headquarters and disciplined severely. After months passed and those shinobi who were still there remained without their chakra, Danzo became impressed. Once a full three-hundred and sixty-five days had passed… he had them all transported to the Hidden Sound village where they were likely to attempt to emulate the simple life of a civilian, or alternatively be hunted down like stray cats by rogue ninja. The Leaf elder couldn't care less about what happened to them after that.

Hinata had proven that she could successfully and permanently remove a shinobi's chakra with this beautiful technique.

Danzo knew, even before the timid Hyuuga first set foot in his underground headquarters anxiously, that he'd gained something invaluable.

There was a particular person whom he wanted her to take out for him...

Thus Danzo had recruited Hinata as one of his Root Anbu.

~.~

"Hey there, Kitsune." Came a voice behind her.

Hinata turned to the person in question, a tall male with warm eyes and a disarming smile.

"Good morning, Usagi." She greeted, smiling back.

Over the past year of working for Danzo as a Root member, Hinata had managed to befriend a few of the other Root members. It helped her forget about her old teammates and family, who were seamlessly living their lives, unaware of the brutal training regime she was being subjected to. Here it was survival of the fittest.

Despite Hinata and Usagi's relentless training throughout day and night, they had managed to develop a personal companionship—a notion strictly forbidden under Danzo's code and rule. That was why each member had a unique codename and even the members who had worked alongside each other for years apparently did not know each other's real names. Sometimes, they forgot who they were themselves. It was all part of Danzo's efforts to destroy any form of sentiment or emotional attachment.

Usagi joined her, sitting down beside her on the cold ground. They both wore their standard Root Anbu uniform—a dark cloak and a red and black garment underneath. It was around twilight, the moon casting an ominous glow in the otherwise darkened room. Danzo's underground headquarters was quietest and emptiest at night; the organisation's top priority was its secrecy, and most of its missions were carried out in the dark—autonomous of Konoha's authority. That was because some of these missions were less than respectable, such as eliminating individuals who were deemed as "potential threats" simply for expressing their detest for Konoha, despite not actually having done anything against the village.

Hinata and her friend were supposedly the only ones inside the training room. Yet there were shadows everywhere. Some moved without warning before disappearing like they had never been there at all… spying, watching, reporting back to their master.

Danzo effectively had eyes all over the place. He probably disapproved of Hinata's friendships with other Root members, including Usagi, however so far he had strangely said and done nothing about it.

"Kitsune... Are you alright?"

Hinata immediately snapped out of her dark thoughts, staring back into Usagi's concerned brown eyes.

"I think it's best if we stop seeing each other around the headquarters…. I don't want Danzo to take action against you because of me."

Usagi's face suddenly became a mask, a façade of apathy. Although the use of facemasks inside Danzo's underground headquarters wasn't required unless Root members went out on a mission, they all sometimes forgot that they were no longer wearing one.

"I no longer care." He said simply, turning to her once again and smiling. Simply smiling was punishable by a harsh beating and the activation of the Curse Seal on their tongues and they had already done it so many times this year, probably not as many times as Hinata used to smile at her former teammates, but enough for her to know that some punishment would be administered eventually.

Unlike Hinata, Usagi had been in the Root since a young boy. He and his younger brother had been kidnapped by Danzo.

Danzo had trained his members to lose their emotions by growing up as brothers from a young age, only to later on be made to fight each other to the point of death. The one left unconscious, immobilised and unable to move, a mere bloody pulp, lost.

This was done to destroy any sense of emotional attachment.

Usagi had won, while his biological brother had lost—and they had never seen each other again.

As Hinata looked at him, she wondered for the umpteenth time why he didn't run away. She had willingly come to Danzo. Whereas he had not. Did ingrained loyalty keep him there?

Hinata always wondered but never dared to ask.

Usagi's honey brown eyes gazed at the Hyuuga's confused features and he guessed what she was thinking.

"I stay here because it's better to become strong than to remain weak."

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