A/N: Okay, a lot of people have been asking about this so here's the answer: no, Harry will not be Sai. I don't have anything against Sai, but he's not one of my favorite characters, and I have a whole different image in my head for Harry. Though he might turn up somewhere in the story. Also, someone pointed out to me that babies can start talking at around fifteen months. I put Harry at being pretty much exactly that age, but he would have only just barely started speaking one word sentences at that point, and I can't really see Harry knowing enough to tell someone his name, and later on he wouldn't remember because people don't really remember things that happend before the age of two or three. And, as you'll see in the this chapter, Danzo and ROOT really don't care about Harry's name. I've pretty much decided that Harry won't be going back to his dimension in the story, seeing as he doesn't really need to with Voldy being dead and all. I think the Hidden Countries will be a different dimension in this particular story. Oh, and yes, Voldemort does still have his nose. All of his previously good looks because he was never given a body by way of evil dark ritual. Oh, and by the way, the picture I have for this story is what I'm picturing Harry as when he's young, if a bit stronger and in different clothes. I think I've answered all the questions. Enjoy :)
Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter series or Naruto.
The Boy grew up in a small room with no windows in the depths of the ROOT headquarters. When he was still a baby, No. 37 stayed in the same room as him, but when he was approximately three years old, she deemed him old enough that he didn't need constant watching out for, and moved in to a separate room. His bed was a small pallet next to the wall opposite the door with a course, gray blanket. He had a bucket in the opposite corner that served as a toilet. There was a small sink built into the wall next to it, and a small basin next to it. The only human interaction he had was No. 37, who brought him healthy but tasteless meals three times a day, and taught him to speak properly by the time he was around two years old. After she taught him to read by the age of three, scrolls and books occumpanied the meals that were brought for him.
Every one of the scrolls and books were similar in that they were all about things that were taught in the Ninja Academy, so he learned it all: the history of the hidden village he apparently lived in, how to calculate the trajectory of a kunai or shuriken, what chakra was and the basics of how to control it, basic strategy, and the most common and simple jutsus and genjutsus. He learned the way of the ninja, and of how he would always be loyal to the village and the Hokage, and of his duty to protect it. The Boy read every single bit of reading material that was given to him. He was always alone when No. 37 wasn't dispassionately teaching him things that he would need to know in order to start his training - when the order came. He had no toys, no candy, no human companionship beyond the cold No. 37. There was nothing to occupy his time except to read and listen to the wind.
The wind was an interesting thing. It would wrap around him and play with his hair, and whisper about everything it touched to him. He could see what it touched too, or at least he thought he could. It showed him pictures of a blue ceiling it called the sky, with a bright ball of light hanging in it, and white things called clouds. It showed him people laughing or talking or crying, sometimes shouting. He paid special attention to them. They were like him. They didn't have masks over their faces, except for a few of them. He often wondered why he wasn't in the same place as them. He wasn't aloud to move his face the way they did either, or make noises. Maybe he was bad, because he couldn't stop himself from having emotions and feeling the way the books and No. 37 told him to.
The wind also showed him animals, and strange brown and green things that grew out of the ground called trees that he'd only ever read about. The ground was another interesting thing. It spoke to him too, though not as much. He tended to feel it more than speak to it. The earth was much quieter and much, much older too, where the wind was as young as the newest breeze. He could feel what was in the dirt far beneath his feet, and he could feel the movement that anything made against the ground if he was paying attention. The ground wouldn't move when he told it to the way the wind did though.
One day, when the green-eyed boy was around four or five years old, a scary old man came to his room in the middle of one of his lessons with No. 37. The old man had brown skin, brown eyes, and brown hair. Strangest of all, he wasn't wearing a mask or a hood like No. 37 did. This strange old man was the first person the Boy ever saw without a mask on, without the help of the wind anyway. He seemed to be important, too, judging from the way No. 37 spoke and acted around him. The old man spoke to No. 37 across the room from the Boy for a few minutes, where he couldn't hear what they were saying. The old man didn't stay long though. He left as soon as he was done speaking to the ROOT agent, and No. 37 continued the lesson as if they had never been interrupted. Things didn't remain so simple for long though.
. . .
After that fateful day, everything changed. He met many more of the mysterious masked people that dwelled in the same building as he did, his new teachers. Some of them he saw regularly, while some of them he only had as teachers for a few days or weeks, until he had learned enough of what they taught him to make them satisfied. His regular teachers were for taijutsu, weapons, chakra control and chakra sensing, genjutsu, and ninjutsu. Nos. 86, 52, 24, 112, and 65 respectively, though sometimes he would have a different teacher if one of his regulars was sent on a mission. His training schedule ran like clock-work; he would wake up at five o'clock every morning and go to the specified training room to meet one of his senseis, then train until nine p.m. every day.
He learned several different styles of taijutsu, and had to train his muscles in reflexes, speed, and strength, along with flexibility. He was trained to sense any weapons coming at him before it hit, and dodge them without having to track them with his eyes. He also had pinpoint accuracy with every weapon he'd been trained in so far, and there were more weapons to come. In regards to chakra, he was taught to feel its presence and cloak his own chakra. His control progressed from making leaves hover over various parts of his body to walking up the walls and eventually, walking around on the surface of a freezing cold pool. Breaking genjutsu came easily to him. The wind and earth would always tell him if he was being caught in a genjutsu, and then it was just a matter of getting out of it. He wasn't good enough at creating genjutsu to be taught much beyond the basics though.
As far as ninjutsu went, he was very good. He had excellent reserves for his age, and was better with his chakra control than one would expect for his age, let alone the amount of chakra he had. For some reason, he didn't have to use very much chakra for jutsus, so he conserved his chakra well, too. He had a very good memory for the hand seals, and seemed to have a nack for putting the correct amount of chakra in a jutsu after only a few tries.
The Boy had training in other subjects, too, though not quite as much as in the main ones. He learned to recognize plants that had healing or poisonous attributes on sites, as well as how to make and utilize basic poisons and antidotes. He had training to improve all of his senses, and how to fight without being able to see. The Boy was quite good at that due to his ability to feel the vibration of his opponent's movements through the eart, and the wind whispering in his ears. He learned to read lips and body language, and to speak sign language: each of the versions used by civilians, shinobi in general, anbu, and ROOT. How to lie and how to deceive and how to remain hidden.
. . .
Danzo gaze was intent as the last of the Boy's teachers finished his report. "A Kekkei Genkai you say," he said with particular glint in his eyes. "How does it work?"
"We're not entirely certain because it isn't apparent often," No. 86 answered carefully, "but it seems to have something to do with the wind. His chakra is thicker than is normal too." Danzo nodded as he thought over what he'd been told. The Boy was excelling in his training, and he seemed to good chakra control despite his fairly large amount of chakra. At approximately six years old, the child was nearing chuunin level.
"Step up his training," Danzo commanded, coming to a decision. "Move him on to elemental chakra training. Since he seems have a Kekkei Genkai that manipulates the wind though, don't bother with any wind jutsus." He turned to No. 37, "I want you to start him on medical ninjutsu," he said before turning to adress all of them once more. "If he isn't struggling, you aren't pushing him hard enough. I want him ready for initiation within three years. Dismissed." He paid no attention to his operatives as they vanished from the room, his mind already deeply involved in his plotting.
. . .
"Move faster," No. 86 said coldly as he smoothly deflected the Boy's kick. The Boy complied to the best of his abilities as he tried to dodge an incoming punch, but his weights had just been increased more than they ever had been at one time before, and he was having trouble adjusting. With his teachers though, it was do or die, so he kept fighting with all of his strength. The Boy didn't doubt that if he couldn't keep up with the training he was given, the ROOT anbu who served as his teachers wouldn't hesitate to end his life. He knew he would get used to the new weight within a few days at most, taking into account just how much weight had been added.
By the end of the training session, the Boy had obtained more cuts and bruises than he'd had since the very beginning of his training. Not all of them were entirely new either. All of his teachers seemed to be pushing him harder than ever before. All of his training sessions were becoming more and more brutal. Not only that, but they were longer as well. He now got up one hour earlier and went back to his room one hour later than he used. Something had changed. And it filled him with a greater sense of dread than he'd ever felt before.
The wind was his only comfort as he lay on his pallet, safely hidden in his room. As he was filled with worry and exhaustion from all the drastic changes in his training, a small breeze from the crack under the door ruffled his hair soothingly while it whispered the words of a lullaby in his ear. Even the earth hummed gently at him, and it didn't like him as much as the wind did. He drifted to sleep that night watching images of the Outside on the wind: the lonely blond boy on a swing, the boy with the red triangles on his cheeks playing with his dog, the girl with the brown pigtails throwing kunai at a target. The boy with the spikey brown ponytail that he saw most often because he was always sleeping or watching the sky outside. Even the man with the spikey silver hair who was always sitting in front of the rock covered in names.
. . .
The Boy hung upsidedown from the ceiling with the ropes of a net in his hands. "Keep walking!" No. 24 shouted harshely from below him, before throwing another heavy rock into the already full net, narrowly missing his head. The boy grunted and increased the chakra flow to his feet before taking another step. He immediately had to jump quickly to the wall when No. 24 threw a kunai at him. Almost dropping his load when the weight shifted, he adjusted his grip and held on steadfastly. Only three more hours to go. Then they got to move on to the icy pool.
. . .
All of the muscles in his body, including his facial muscles, were carefully held still as the glowing metal rod was pressed onto the skin of his stomach. Cuts and bruises litered every inch of his body, and several of his bones were fractured, if not completely broken. Several senbon were still sticking out of points in his body carefully chosen to inflict the most pain. Yet not a single sound escaped him, even as the rod was thrust once more into the fire before being brought into contact with his skin once more. If he moved or made any sound, the pain would only get worse. He'd learned the hard way. The Boy also knew that as soon as they had done all they could to him, he would be sent to the healers, then returned for a different variation of the torture. It brought to mind a phrase he'd once overheard - on the wind - a woman from the Outside say, 'rinse and repeat'. He blocked out everything around him in order to escape the pain of his reality, even the comforting touch of the wind. If he listened to the wind at all, he would lose control and use it to force all of his tormenters away from him, and if he did that, he would fail, and it would start all over again from the very beginning. This was torture resistance training, and the boy was resisting it the only way he knew how.
. . .
A hail of thrown weapons rained towards him before being deflected by the wind. The Boy's hands and feet were chained to the wall, the purpose of this training being that he used only his wind to fight and protect him self. All of his teachers were there, sometimes taking turns and sometimes a few of them would attack simultaneously, though never did they all attack at once. This training excercise had become a weekly occurance once his senseis had learned that his chakra nature was wind, with earth being secondary. They taught him many earth-style jutsus, but mostly worked on his control of the wind. This was due to Danzo's edict that he not be taught wind jutsus if he could already control it, though the Boy didn't know that. A dragon made of fire was sent in his direction by No. 65, but its form was immediately lost in a great gust of wind, the fire sent back in the direction of the various ROOT operatives. It very nearly roasted them too. Well they had wanted him to get inventive with his wind.
. . .
The Boy was reading a scroll he had been given on healing jutsu when the door to his room was opened. He was a little worried and confused because he had never been disturbed after training was over before, though the feeling slightly lessened when another boy who looked to be a few years older than him was pushed into the room by a ROOT agent and the door was closed again. Children had been slowly filtering into the rooms on the same floor as his in the ROOT headquarters for a few months now. He'd never had much to do with them so far since they were only just starting their training and therefore had nothing to do with them. He guessed that the other boy would be sharing his room. The other boy walked toward him with a smile, causing the Boy to stiffen slightly in shock. It was his first time seeing a smile not on the wind. The other boy would get in trouble quickly if he kept doing that.
"I guess you'll be my roomie for now," the other by said with a smile on his face, holding his hand out. "My name is Aoki." The Boy stared first at the other boy's hand, then at his face. He didn't get why the other boy was saying he had a name, or why the other boy wanted him to touch his hand. Only the people on the outside had names and touched each other without causing pain. Maybe it was because the other boy was from the Outside. Still, the other boy would learn in time that he didn't have a name here; all of the others must have, since they were still alive. The other boy's smile drooped a little from the lack of a response, but didn't die. "What's your name?" he Boy was still, and at it seemed like he wouldn't answer.
". . . Don't have one," the reply was so soft that Aoki almost didn't hear it. But he did hear it, and it shocked him. Aoki had been an orphan for as long as he could remember, and he'd always thought he'd had it pretty bad. Yet this boy with the quiet voice, who looked like he was younger than Aoki, didn't even have a name. He hadn't thought that was possible. Even orphans like him had names. By the time Aoki had gotten over his shock, he could do nothing but go over to the other pallet in the room because the Boy had already turned the light out and gone to sleep.
Aoki dropped into sleep with only slightly more trouble than he usually did. However, the Boy was not asleep as Aoki had thought. He stayed awake throughout the whole night, unable to sleep being unaccustomed to having anyone else in his room at night, and worried about the other boy being a threat.
. . .
The next day, the Boy was working on chakra control by himself. Usually No. 24 would be supervising him at the very least, but she had had to take care of training the newer children today, along with the other remaining teachers because most of them were away on missions on that particular day. She had simply told him to his net execise all day, so he was doing just that. It was amazing how much easier it was when there wasn't someone constantly throwing more rocks on the pile or weapons aimed at him. It came so naturally that he didn't have to think much about holding up his rock-filled net while walking around the ceiling, so he began to listen to different conversations drifting on the wind. Eventually he honed in on one conversation in particular because he heard the other boy, Aoki's, voice.
". . . bout him?" came Aoki's voice.
"No, he's a complete mystery," said a voice belonging to a girl, "the only thing any of us knows about him is that he's been here longer than any of us, and that he never speaks." The Boy heard murmurs of agreement from the others in the group. The only reason they were able to talk without trouble was that it wasn't their group's turn to spar, and the teachers were preoccupied with the other groups.
"And he's younger than most of us," a boy this time said, sounding slightly superior.
"But he's the strongest, and has the most training," another boy argued. "He's never even been trained with us before because he's already way past us in training."
"He gets up earlier than us, and finishes training later," one girl added.
"So nobody knows his name," Aoki said, sounding slightly bewildered. The others in the group turned to look at him.
"As far as any of us knows, he doesn't have one, not even a number like the senseis." The Boy presumed that they were speaking of him by this point, and would have continued to listen out of plain curiousity, but the group was called to spar by No. 52.
Aoki continued with his fascination for the Boy, and would always talk to him when they were in the privacy of their room. At first, the Boy ignored him for the most part, not wanting to get any punishment, but as time went on without any trouble, the Boy would occasionally reply to a question Aoki asked, or give advice on training Aoki said he had a hard time with. Eventually, the Boy realized that he was growing fond of Aoki, especially on the day when Aoki decided to give him a name. Granted, it was a girl name that hadn't taken any imagination to come up with, but still, it was a name. Midori, Aoki called him, because of his eyes.
A/N: And it's a wrap! I finished this a lot quicker than I expected. I hope you all like it! Please review!