"We wast torch'd by the very humans we sustain'd."

- The Book of Log

C3: Childhood's Beginnings (Pt.2)

Beta Reader: Izaranna

Mission? Yes. Danzo-sama has given a mission. Mission type: zero, zero, six.

Must be completed? Yes.

What? A Boy.

Who? A Boy.

Uzumaki Naruto.

A Boy. A Jinchuuriki. Blond, blue-eyed, intelligent, peculiar, no discernible birthmarks. Three.

Initiate desensitisation procedure.

Possible avenues to achieve mission success? Weaknesses. Attractions? Toad toy. Toads are the summons of Jiraiya of the Sannin—Flight risk. Tenuous attachments to the village. Flee if sighted on a solo mission.

Desensitize? To what? Violence. Yes, turn a potentially unstable boy—he's a freaking Jinchuuriki—more unstable. Danzo's orders. Do not question.

How? Decapitate. Headshot. Loss of head perturbs humans. Increases target's susceptibility to emotional trauma.

Time to cut. Approaching target, no noise.

Operative number zero, zero, seven? The previous spy, Kakashi Hatake defected. Part of Anbu, perfect mole.

Boy sees nothing, knows nothing. He sees something, he knows now. Pick up the toy. Kunai. Rip. Snip. Tear. Rend. Drop dramatically onto the floor. Grin with satisfaction. Say something dramatic.

"To be living is to suffer. To suffer is to live, so truly, this is nothing compared to what others are going through."

Potentially a failure. Not dramatic enough. Irrelevant. Point made. Boy's eyes are glazing over.

With tears?

Whilst looking over operative number three, zero, zero's head, target narrows his eyes; unhappy. No noise.

Mission success.

Disappear into the shadows. Part one complete. Long-term mission. By the end, a perfect weapon. Ready to kill for the village at any moment.

Hopefully.

"Jiji, could I go with you to your office?"

The Hokage looked at the four-year-old boy with surprise before replying, "Why on earth would you want to watch an old man doing paperwork?"

The child looked at Hiruzen in the eye before replying nonchalantly, "It should be fun."

Sarutobi Hiruzen's demeanour changed from surprise to shock as he realised that Naruto seemed to genuinely believe that paperwork could potentially be interesting.

Well? What's the worst that could happen?

"Of course, you can Naru-chan, of course you can."

The unlikely pair entered the Hokage's office. It was filled with all sorts of knick-knacks and books. Pictures of past Hokages, mahogany furniture, bookcases filled with all sorts of wondrous volumes on jutsu, techniques, epics and war tactics…

The piece de resistance of the room was a large altar-like table covered with a cloth inscribed with the symbol of Konohagakure and kanji amounting to the word Hokage. It was covered with paperwork, and right next to it was more paperwork.

Hiruzen cleared a side of the table and told the child to stay there, after which he sat down on his Hokage chair and began working, filling in the forms, stamping his signature where necessary and, from time to time, throwing away unneeded paperwork. All the while, the baby stared at the discarded sheets and occasionally at what the old man was filling out.

The boy asked questions when he did not understand terms used on the sheets of paper which the Hokage gladly answered, happy for any distraction from his accursed never-ending mountain of paperwork.

After a few visits to Sarutobi's office, Naruto had the pleasure of meeting the Hokage's newborn grandson.

"Is this how a healthy baby looks like?" muttered Naruto out loud.

"Yes, Naruto." sighed Hiruzen as he cradled the little baby in his arms.

"Konohamaru looks…like a baby."

"Yes, yes he does. I am glad you understand that."

Naruto looked affronted, "In my defence, I was expecting a bit…more."

The office became silent with only the occasional baby noises puncturing the silence until Naruto could not contain his curiosity any longer.

"Can I touch him?"

"Certainly, but be delicate."

The blond gently placed his finger on the baby's cheek. "He's quite squishy. I can see why people like babies."

Konohamaru's eyes widened at being in contact with a new human and did what any other baby would do. He tried to eat Naruto's finger.

Naruto yelped in pain and gently coaxed his finger out of the infant's mouth.

"Okay, I can see why people like babies from a distance."

Naruto frowned in contemplation at Konohamaru, his chubby cheeks puffing out in thought.

Uzumaki Naruto was not a happy boy.

He was freezing and was just handed a teddy bear to replace his beloved 'Kaeru', a toad given to him by one Jiraiya of the Sannin. Naruto knew the man's identity only because of his almost ritualistic feasting on the books in his library.

The blond sat in front of a heater, staring into its luminous coils with his toy, pondering about philosophical things; Why do heaters heat? Why was the cake a lie? How much wood did the woodchuck chuck if the woodchuck could chuck wood? Why did he dream about a tree that had cocoons hanging from it like fruit?

These were just a few of many questions that were going through the boy's mind.

He pondered and thought until he could think no more.

His eyes felt dry, so he blinked. He looked at his toy who incidentally could not blink and felt surprised at the changes that took place.

The teddy bear appeared possessed; its eyes were glazed over and cracked, forming an almost manic glint in its eyes. Its pupils held intricate patterns which appeared to go to infinity and beyond. Some looked like chicken scratches, while others formed recognisable patterns, the largest one being a snowflake intertwined with leaves if the blond squinted enough.

The Uzumaki had found something else to think about as he gazed into the cracked orbs of the bear.

On one very fine sunny morning, the Hokage had had enough.

"Naruto?"

He looked up from the paperwork he was helping the Hokage with and muttered an affirmative.

"Why do you like helping me? What is there in paperwork that interests a five-year-old?"

The blond looked pensively at the desk, before replying to the Hokage, "I…the paperwork… has a lot of information on it. There are many things which I have learnt from helping you work that I am certain I would not have been able to if I only stuck to reading books. It also helps give you a good grasp on people."

The Hokage looked mildly surprised and questioned the boy, "For example?"

Naruto lifted up one of the papers on the table and pointed at it, replying with a factual, "Shimura Danzo has filed for the third time, a report detailing the necessity for adolescent orphans who have shown no signs of a ninja level chakra system in his experiments. His experiments to trial new shinobi techniques which I feel is rather suspicious because, if they cannot utilise ninja techniques, how can they utilise their methods?"

He took a deep breath before continuing. "It appears as if the man desires them for actual experimentation to see the effects of new shinobi techniques on them. This theory is possible due to the wording he used in his requests."

Sarutobi Hiruzen looked at Naruto with a smile, before ruffling his hair and resuming his work.

"Jiji? Who are my parents?" asked Naruto abruptly one day.

The third Hokage looked at Naruto with pursed lips and thought about the question for a few moments before replying, "I'll tell you when you are older."

"How much older and why?" replied the boy almost instantly.

"When you are at the very least a Genin—you would be in active training and able to defend yourself from potential assassinations…your parents were quite famous people, after all. If you knew about them, it would increase the risk of someone else finding out."

The blond looked downcast.

"But I can keep secrets…" he mumbled, before speaking clearer, "Secrets like Anbu patrol information—who does it and when they swap, how to identify Anbu and remember all of the data I have seen throughout the years…I've been keeping secrets since I was a baby Jiji."

The Hokage was surprised but schooled his features because he knew that young children had a tendency to use hyperboles. But then…Naruto wasn't the type of child to do so, which led him to inquire further.

"Prove it; tell me the Anbu patrol information, all of the ones that you know."

Naruto proceeded to do just that.

"…and that is all I remember. I remember everything I have experienced. I really do think that you should reshuffle the Anbu patrols a bit more Jiji because they're pretty predictable and it appears as if the patrol has remained the same for the past five years, which would be a security risk, would it not?"

Hiruzen knew that at least half of all the blond's data was indeed true, however, the other half's accuracy was a bit more uncertain as even the Hokage could not remember them off the top of his head. Regardless, after Naruto's display of intelligence, he believed him.

The man in charge of assigning missions in Anbu was Danzo, as far as I'm aware. I would rather not think that Danzo has the capacity for such an act, to make our village vulnerable, however after the Kakashi incident…

There is no proof…however, I think sacking him for this should be enough… and Root. I will order its dismantling. We have no need for it anymore.

Naruto decided to finish off the last book in his library on his birthday to increase the success rate of his plan— to make the Anbu get him more books on subjects like human anatomy or, at the very least, higher level books that he hadn't already read. The blond left his library and pondered on who to approach.

'Tenzo', 'Dog' or 'Uzuki Yugao'

Uzuki Yugao: she was assigned to him only a month before his second birthday. She was new at the time and took off her mask once in front of him. She came and went like the others, but liked him quite a bit. However, he was not sure whether she would be the best person to ask.

Dog was their leader, the one who'd watched him ever since he could remember. Always during the day. He slowly warmed up to the blond as years passed. The blond asked him the most questions, so he decided that if possible, he would rather not ask him.

Tenzo was a relatively new Anbu watcher. He'd joined recently, but walked like 007. However, unlike him, his alias was a normal Anbu number. He was quite kind and willing to help the boy. The only reason he knew his name was because it was his code-name and one of the other Anbu let it slip.

Naruto walked up to Dog in the end as he had decided that, since the man would learn about it anyway, he might as well go directly to him.

The blond hugged the Anbu's legs to gain his attention. "Nii-san, I've finished reading all the books, so buy me more?"

Dog walked to the library with the baby in tow and whilst doing so, he conversed with the boy. "If you were more polite, maybe I'd listen to you. After all, I am older than you."

"I just turned six today, Nii-san! Someday I will be older than you, and then it will be my turn to boss you around!" said the child resolutely, bobbing his head up and down.

The man looked at Naruto with a trace of a smile hidden behind his masked face which turned into a smirk as he realised that Naruto wanted to play the waiting game. The first one to speak loses.

Naruto was not prepared to budge, so he kept quiet. By the time they arrived at the library (which did not take long), his resistance began to crumble, and he burst out, "Fine! I give up. Please? It's not fair! You know books are my greatest weakness…"

"Please, what?"

The blond sighed, before replying, "Please can you buy me more advanced books like information about other villages? You know, their culture and things like that. Just generally books that I haven't read before. I'd really like it if you could get me books on the human body and its anatomy and genetics too if you can."

The masked man knew that normal children wouldn't ask for such books but, knowing that Naruto was far from normal, he ignored it and just asked him where all the missing books had gone.

"They went into a state of non-being, which is to say, they are everywhere and nowhere at the same time."

The Anbu was not amused.

"Your guess is as good as mine."

The man crossed his arms.

"Well then Naruto. I'm not really sure I should give you the books you asked for. I mean, the information you've asked for will contain some information from Konoha's R&D division's data, and considering your track record with books, or their lack thereof when you're done with them, I don't think there's any guarantee that the information won't fall into enemy hands."

The blond became silent for a few moments before replying, "Okay, I will tell you, but it's a secret, so you cannot tell anyone."

At Dog's sceptical stance, Naruto added, "Please?"

When the Anbu nodded, Naruto whispered conspiratorially, "It's something I realised when I was younger. I'm not entirely normal. I would rather not go into too much detail, so I'll simply answer your question by saying that I would like you to get me a book—a new one that I haven't read yet— and then I'll show you what happens to them."

The Anbu nodded and vanished. After a minute or two, he materialised with a book in hand, the cover of which was severely damaged.

"Why did you destroy the cover?"

"I'd like to know whether having a book cover actually makes a difference. Just a thought I had, nothing to concern yourself about."

The blond picked up the book and dropped it, after which he backed away immediately from the book.

"What's wrong Naruto-kun?"

"That book…" the blond gestured at the book, "why did you give me a book on how to torture people?"

"It was just a test."

"I am immensely unhappy, Nii-san."

"Well then, it's a good thing I brought you another book, ne?"

The Anbu reached into the storage seal etched into his Anbu tattoo and took out a cookbook.

"Show me how you read books with this one."

The Anbu reached out to pick up the burnt book, but the blond stopped him and looked pleadingly with his big blue eyes.

"Please, can I keep it?"

"You want to keep a book on how to torture people? A book that is given to rookie T&I specialists?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Only an idiot denies knowledge. Ignorance is caused by the rejection of something you know nothing about and refusal to investigate. Even if I don't know how to torture someone, the potential to learn it could be vital when I need to use it. Better to know more, than to know less."

The Anbu was surprised at the blond's retort and simply nodded to show that he was agreeable to the blond's demand.

Naruto left the book on the floor and picked up the cookbook. Dog watched in shock as it disintegrated.

"Normally it would burn, but when I was a baby I managed to figure out how to get rid of the fire which, although harmless, was extremely flamboyant. It just disintegrates now, and when it does I immediately learn everything in the book. In fact, if you want I could go cook something now."

Naruto crawled to the kitchen, the Anbu looked on with concern. He wondered why the boy preferred to crawl rather than walk—he crawled the same way he walked and breathed, with that unnatural perfection he'd had since he was a child.

"You know Naruto, people typically do not crawl."

The boy looked surprised as he stood up. "Really? I thought it was just a matter of preference. I mean, some books I read have people walking and others have people walking like animals."

The Anbu laughed internally as he realised what the boy had done. "The words they used were not metaphors Naruto. Those were actually animals."

The blond blushed, but still continued to crawl. As he entered the kitchen, he stumbled and jabbed the air multiple times before announcing, "It's time to cook! And today, the only things I know how to cook are teriyaki, omurice, gyuudon, okonomiyaki and yakisoba. What would you like to have today?"

"Omurice." replied Kakashi, bemused.

Naruto turned around to get a knife until he realised a huge flaw in his plan. "You know what, Nii-san? I just realised that I'm too short to cook."

The Anbu laughed out loud, "That is a problem. With the way you speak, it's easy to forget that you're only six years old. It's alright Naruto, I believe you. I'll go get your books now."

"Time for you to leave Naruto. The Anbu will take you now since I have a meeting to attend to." said the Hokage, weariness evident in his voice.

The Anbu descended onto Naruto and prepared to leave with the boy in tow, but stopped when he lifted his hand in the universal gesture for 'hold it'.

"Actually Jiji, could I stay for this meeting, please?" Naruto used his big blue eyes to convince the Hokage. It worked.

Hiruzen sighed and agreed, "Alright, but I trust you not to interrupt."

"Definitely."

There was a knock at the door and the Hokage called out a "come in!", and in walked the receptionist, who told the Hokage that a man from Yugakure (Village hidden in the Hot springs) had come to request permission for the village to be demilitarised and turned into a tourist attraction. The Hokage nodded and told her to send the man in.

"Hokage-sama." The man bowed, ignoring the child as being a military dictator had its perks, and one of them was being able to do whatever you wanted.

"Rise and speak."

"I have come here from Yugakure to request permission for the village to be demilitarised and turned into a tourist attraction…."

The talks continued for the next few hours.

Yugakure, Naruto knew, was a remote base for Konoha. It handled more violent jobs, like an external Anbu, presumably because the violent cult of Jashin was situated there. Naruto knew this was true as he had read about the cult and had even asked the Hokage to elaborate about them three years ago when he was four.

The talks concluded.

All the shinobi who wanted to stay as a ninja were to join Konoha; a 30% discount for all Konoha shinobi above the rank of Chunin and those who were accompanying them at their hot-springs, and 25% of all the revenue of the village was to go to Konoha's treasury amongst other things. The man was quite willing to agree to the terms the Hokage gave them as he had promised large discounts on mission prices to Yugakure in return and because ultimately, without the Hokage's compliance with their demands, they would not be able to become the tourist attraction they desperately wanted to become.

The man left and the Hokage turned his head to look at the pensive Uzumaki. "What did you think of that Naruto?"

"Jiji, I was wondering, what has been done with the Jashinists? They massacred a little village three years ago and the only likely reason I can think of, for them to have not razed Yugakure, was because they got to fulfil their God's demands by going on the violent missions the village received. They were most likely part of the village and thus would not be very happy with its demilitarisation."

The Hokage's eyes narrowed as he thought about what Naruto had said and realised that it was true— they had never dealt with the Jashinists. They had never been a problem besides the occasional village angry about their children seeing their once neighbour's guts all over the market square. They weren't ninja, so they were very sensitive to bloodshed. Things would be different now, as Naruto pointed out. He needed to organise a mission to assess the situation.

But first, he needed to confirm Naruto's assertion—he needed concrete evidence to be able to give a mission such as this, in case Yugakure inquired as to why there were shinobi present in their village.

Target confirmed.

A few weeks after the Hokage's meeting with the envoy, the old man had asked his student, Jiraiya, about any strange happenings in Yugakure. He told him enough to warrant a team of Anbu. They were sent to the village on orders to defuse the Jashinists by any means necessary.

Is everyone in place?

The team muttered an affirmative and moved in for the 'kill', so to speak. Their target was a Jashinist, according to their intel, and was the perfect person to interrogate to learn the location of their hideout; after all, to get rid of a weed, you need to cut its roots, and she was root enough.

The female was a former root agent who had become 'estranged' from the organisation for having too much emotion – bloodlust, specifically. Or so Danzo's files had said; the cryptanalysis team was having a field-day trying to decipher his script. A strange mix of ancient, old and modern languages mixed in with some classic cipher. Only the best from root, after all.

One Anbu held out his palm and created a seed that would allow him to track whoever ingested it, as planned. He lifted his hand into the air, a crow swooped down and trapped the seed in its sharp claws, coating it in a layer of dust from its homeland that masked chakra and could be easily digested by any stomach.

The crow flew towards another Anbu member who was standing in front of a restaurant, disguised as a chef, and dropped the seed into her outstretched hands.

She walked into the establishment through the back door and entered the kitchens. All of the cooks ignored her—the Anbu had already informed them that a mission was taking place—as she walked up to one of the dishes and dropped the seed in, indistinguishable from the others within. The agent left, knowing that one of the chefs would give it to their target.

The fourth member of their squad – the leader – was watching said target to ensure that she did not leave the restaurant.

A few minutes later, the Jashinist had received her food and left. The wood manipulating Anbu checked to make sure that the tracker was working and, an hour later, they locked onto her home base – an abandoned hospital in the poorer area of Yugakure, whose walls were already being reclaimed by stubborn flora.

The squad entered the building and took in the scent of decay that writhed in the air like a nervous serpent. Their hairs stood on edge, anticipatory foreboding filling them.

They strode on, guided by the seed's unique chakra until something stumbled across them…or rather, someone.

"Who're you? Yer ain't one of us!"

The man's entire body appeared to have been damaged by disease, so the next act by some could be seen as euthanasia.

"You're…!"

The man tried to speak but was left breathless, literally. His attempts to gasp for air were rendered futile by the sword in his neck.

His body was sealed in a scroll.

The leader signed to the others to go and make sure that the entire building was secure. The wood user, Yamato, and he continued on towards the transmission seed.

The duo reached an operation theatre with holes undermining the roof's integrity and, from inside, sounds were being issued that would not be out of place in a brothel.

"The pain is heavenly!" screamed a man, who sounded like as if he was on the verge of an orgasm.

The Anbu infiltrated the room to find the woman and two other men operating on a silver-haired man on a table. They were chanting verses of the old language from a book as they lifted out organs from a dark liquid and placed them back into their 'patient', whose purple eyes were dilated in ecstasy.

At the completion of the verse, the duo heard a sucking noise behind them. Luckily, the clanking of metal tongs hid the sound.

The man lying on the table's pupils dilated and shifted towards their direction. He opened his mouth in a grin towards them, before foaming at his mouth. Blood mingled with white like a bleeding hyacinth.

The Anbu were shocked into action by being discovered and did the one thing that was ingrained into their psyche.

They killed.

Yamato formed a hand seal and the vines the Jashinists were standing on sharpened and elongated. They drilled their way up their feet and emerged out of their scalps.

The leader approached the operating table and checked the pulse of the man on the table. Nothing.

The duo left the room and approached the Anbu who were standing outside the doorway and signed to them:

Interior secured.

Ritual stopped.

The leader questioned the Anbu who almost gave them away. "Explain yourself!"

"Did none of you understand what they were saying?"

Everyone gave him blank looks, which wasn't saying much considering they all had their masks on.

The leader decided to speak. "I know they were speaking in the old language, I caught a few words, but nothing that warranted such a reaction. Since you volunteered, go ahead and tell us what they said."

"Yes, of course, senpai. They were singing a nursery rhyme."

"A nursery rhyme?" reiterated the only female Anbu in their squad.

The short Anbu nodded. "An archaic one involving gyrating around a mulberry plant. It was funny due to the disparity between hearing it as an ominous chant right now and as a song by little children earlier in the morning at the clan compound."

The Anbu stopped communicating when they heard a voice boom from behind them, from one of the holes in the roof.

"You haven't seen the last of us! You will all rue the day you made us your enemies!"

The man jumped towards the Anbu, who immediately teleported away when they noticed the exploding tags covering his body.

One large explosion later, the four Anbu left for Konoha to report.

They were not worried about the man's last words as it was extremely normal for people to say such things to them. After all, these were the kinds of missions they were normally sent on.

Babysitting a certain blond child was the exception, not the norm.

"You do realise that this means that you will need to do the paperwork, right?"

Omake

Hatake Kakashi, Anbu captain extraordinaire, was saddled with the mundane job of patrolling the village as he now had more free time—the Hokage had more Anbu he trusted enough to take care of Naruto, so the new rotations meant he didn't have to babysit him all day every day anymore.

One of the things he had to deal with was making sure that the merchants were not bringing in any contraband into the village; he frequently used his Sharingan to check for any strange chakra signatures, as every organic material exudes chakra, and most of them were untradeable goods.

Normally, they were perfectly fine, with the Hyuga being a safety net in case they were powdered or otherwise disguised.

A few days later and tens of carts later, Kakashi finally found an abnormal chakra signature. Luckily, it came from the last cart in the procession and so it was quite easy to stop it.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" asked Kakashi with a hint of amusement as he stopped the cart.

"Umm, I can explain." The civilian shivered in fear as the Anbu oozed a bit of killer intent.

Dog lifted up the cover of the cart and found a bear paw along with the rest of its body buried underneath hay and other tradeable goods.

"Tsk, Tsk, Tsk. Bears are untradeable goods class A." The Anbu picked up a piece of dried up hay which crumbled in his hands, "I can see that you are new to the poaching business."

The civilian hesitantly replied, "But I thought in shinobi villages, everyone had a right to bear arms."

The Anbu cringed at the bad pun but was amused by the fact that the civilian had enough guts to make one in front of him.

Especially in front of him.

"You know what," Kakashi turned around to face the man, "I'll let you off with just a fine, instead of the two-year jail sentence. But I'll be taking the bear. I would take all of your goods, but they don't amount to even a quarter of the penalty, so…"

With that, Kakashi took the bear and walked away.

Perhaps Naruto might like a weapon if he becomes a ninja, He mused, these bear claws are quite nice. The teeth can be made into quite good daggers. Its hide would be good to use as well. Hmm.

He paused in his tracks for a moment before turning course.

Best tell Hokage-sama about this. He'll know the best way to use this to help Naruto…eh, maybe we could sell this on the black market. After all, we're only doing this on the Daimyo's orders…we have plenty of bears in the forest.

R&R (Suggestions and advice are always welcome!)