A/N: So the reason I have in my head for Harry being so quiet and calm from such a young age is because 1) he's a pretty intelligent child, if not a genius 2) he has been able to hear and feel the wind and earth all of his life. It keeps him pretty entertained, and since he does so much listening, he isn't much of a talker. His voice is quiet because the wind amplifies sound for him. The reason he can hear/feel/see the wind/earth is that he is the only wizard to ever have chakra. His chakra affinities are primarily wind, and secondarily earth. Harry's magic mixes with his chakra, giving him his abilities with the wind and earth, along with making his chakra thicker, which allows him to use less chakra for techninques than other people. Harry doesn't have a name because he is nothing but a tool to them, not a person. He doesn't have a No. because he hasn't been initiated into the ROOT corps. Harry will be around the same age as the Rookie Nine. His new name, Midori, means green and it's a girl name. I might have a bit of fun with that.

There were now a total of 84 children in the ROOT training program. The problem Danzo had previously had with getting orphans had ceased to exist over time as the Sandaime grew older and more swamped with paperwork than ever. With a little help from Danzo, of course. The new trainees ranged from ten to fifteen in age. Midori was still the youngest, and the strongest, of all of them. Very few of the trainees had ever taken any lessons with him, and those that had did it seldomly. Many of them were even afraid of him.

It couldn't be said that Midori excelled in his classes, though he certainly would have if he had normal teachers. However, his teachers had taken what their leader said in that meeting almost three years ago very seriously. Any time he began to get comfortable with his level of training, they found a way to increase the difficulty. There was no period of time throughout his training that Midori didn't struggle for his life. As his abilities increased, some of his lessons were changed or dropped completely, such as his lessons in chakra control. His weapons training was more focused on specialized weapons, such as his katanas, and using his chakra to boost his weapons. He was able to weild his wind with great skill as well, though thankfully none of the ROOT members ever found out that the wind and earth spoke to him and showed him the world beyond the walls of his prison. Only Aoki knew just how far his abilities with the wind went, or that he was connected to the earth as well to a lesser extent.

The worst lessons by far were his lessons in torture. A large amount of these lessons were simply for teaching him the most efficient and painful torture methods for extracting information. Midori could only be thankful they hadn't ever made him practice on real people so far, or he would be dead. He wouldn't have been able to go through with torturing a living being, and they would have killed him for it.

As terrible as learning to torture people was, torture resistance was worse. Though he's long since managed to pass that aspect of the training, he still had to go through the sessions of torture with the deranged torture specialists of ROOT, so that he didn't "get used" to the lack of pain. His only solace came from his elements, the wind and earth, and Aoki.

Aoki had come far in the time since he'd first come to the ROOT base. He was among the strongest of the group of trainees at twelve years old, and one of the only ones who didn't fear Midori. Midori helped him with any training he had trouble with in the privacy of his room. Aoki was specializing in healing due to his kind heart, and he studied poisons as well to add to his offensive skills. Midori also had an interest in both healing and poisons, so he was able to help him with his training in that regard. Aoki was the one who took care of him whenever he returned from a particularly grueling training session, or torture resistance. Luckily, Aoki himself hadn't yet started on that training yet, or Midori would have become broken for sure.

In his physical and taijutsu training, Midori had reached the limit of what his young body could take for the time without damaging himself permanently, and No. 86 knew that. His training in that area was all about skill and technique for the moment. It was also the training in which he was joined most often by the other trainees that were considered strong enough. This was mostly to give him experience with facing opponents that were weaker than him, and it played a large part in making the other kids fear him.

. . .

Midori winced inwardly when one of the newer trainees swerved to avoid him as he made his way to his usual small table with his lunch. He didn't like it that all of the others, with the exception of Aoki, were afraid of him. The eating in the 'cafeteria' was a recent addition to all of the trainees' usual routine. It seemed that some of the ROOT agents had finally tired of taking each of the trainees' meals to them individually. The room would have been an eerie sight to anyone not a member of ROOT or its training program, as it was a sea of disturbingly blank expressions on the face of every child. Midori's table was empty of people, other than himself, and those at the surrounding tables cast furtive glances at him, whispering hushedly. Though he didn't remain the table's sole occupent for long as a tall, strong looking boy boy with messy black hair, naturally tan skin, and earth brown irises took his usual seat across from him.

"Don't let it bug you," Aoki said quietly, looking him in the eyes. Midori nodded. "It's not as if I'm unused to it by now," he said. Aoki sighed sadly at the comment as he began to eat his meal. "What lessons do you have today?" Aoki asked after swallowing. To this day none of the trainees ever knew what training they would have until they met their teacher for the day. Midori lowered his eyes to his half eaten tray of food before answering. "Taijutsu."

"That explains why they're more skittish than usual today," Aoki remarked. Midori nodded slowly, his eyes still lowered, and Aoki sighed again. "It can't be helped. I had weapons today," he said, in hopes of changing the topic of conversation to a less depressing one. It worked, and Midori looked up again. "No. 52?" he asked quietly, eyes looking at the cuts and bruises that littered Aoki's body. "Yep," Aoki answered with a miniscule wince as he looked at a particulartly nasty cut on his left forearm. Either one of them could have healed it, but healing wounds without permission would get them in trouble. Midori's hair rustled in an invisible breeze for a moment, capturing Aoki's attention. When Midori turned to look at the doors, Aoki did as well.

Every person in the cafeteria looked up when the doors opened to reveal an obviously nervous new trainee. It was a boy with a head of nondescript brown hair and eyes that darted nervously around the room as he walked to get his lunch. He found no sympathetic faces, just cold indifference. Gradually, the usual whispering returned, and the boy was ignored until the time came for the boy to find his seat. There were no empty tables in the room, and all of them were quite full except for the one where Aoki and Midori sat. So that was naturally where the boy headed until the atmosqhere became so tense that even untrained the boy could feel it, so he halted halfway there in confusion, until he saw Midori glaring at him, radiating a bit of KI. Upon which the boy gulped loudly and promtly sat down in a small spot at the table he'd stopped beside, wondering how a boy that looked even younger that him could seem more dangerous than any of the others in the room. The trainees at the table had enough sympathy for his plight to leave him be for the duration of the lunch time. One was even kind enough to explain the situation to him. It wasn't the first time a similar event had occured.

Aoki watched his little friend with conern as Midori stopped releasing killer intent and looked at the table. It was a fact known only to Aoki that Midori purposely made sure that the other trainees stayed away. This was due to the fact that anyone who was seen hanging around with Midori caught the attention of the instructors, in a very bad way. The teachers didn't like Midori getting close to others because they didn't want their perfect little soldier to be ruined. The only one to withstand it to this day was Aoki, and that was only because he was Midori's roommate and was far too stubborn to give in, though even he would be in trouble should the instructors ever find out about the name he had given his friend. Midori had taken to purposely making all the others avoid him in order to spare them.

. . .

Aoki laid on his pallet, staring at the ceiling while he tried not to think. Because if he thought, he would worry and become pessimistic as his mind started coming up with worst case senarios about why Midori was late returning to their room tonight. His mind started doing exactly that, though, despite how hard he tried to prevent it.

In the best case, Midori's training went over the usual time, which wouldn't be too strange. Otherwise, his lateness meant that he'd had TR (torture resistance) today, which would be very bad. Midori would probably require a lot of healing if that were true, which thankfully Aoki would be allowed to do in that instance. The worst case senario would be that Midori had finally been killed during one of hellish 'training' sessions. Aoki hated the thought, but he wouldn't be surprised. He was one of the few who had participated in a couple of Midori's training bouts, and he knew exactly how harsh the instructors were on him. He could only pray to Kami-sama that it wasn't the case.

His prayers were answered when the door to their little room was opened, and Midori's broken and bloody body was carelessly tossed in. Not late from training then, but not dead either. Aoki immediately rushed to where Midori lay and set to work on the wounds, not daring to move him to his pallet lest he jostle something he shouldn't in the process. Plus it would get blood all over the pallet, which Midori wouldn't thank him for.

This was the worst he'd ever seen Midori returning from a TR session. Carefully made cuts decorated his entire body. Almost all of his ribs were broken, along with several other bones, and many others were fractured. Senbon stuck out of several very painful places, and his body was riddled with painful burns. Midori's long black hair was wet, which meant that they'd dunked him too. Aoki saw that salt had been brutally rubbed into all ot the open wounds. While this would keep them from getting infected, it would have been exrutiatingly painful. Aoki found himself working with tears in his eyes as he gradually stopped the bleeding.

Aoki was exhausted, and had finished healing about half of the broken bones when Midori woke up. His body suddenly tensed before he slowly and cautiously opened his eyes, only relaxing when he saw Aoki hovering over him with a glowing green hand pressed to his ribs, and the wind reassured him that it was the real Aoki. "I can take care of the rest of it," Midori said, taking in Aoki's tired and bloodshot eyes. "You go to sleep." Aoki nodded wearily, trusting Midori as he walked to his pallet. He knew that he was on the verge of collapse, and he still had training the next day. "Thank you," Midori whispered to Aoki's back as his own hand was engulfed with green chakra. Aoki barely heard him, already almost asleep as he muttered something incomprehensible in return.

. . .

Danzu coldly surveyed Midori's instructors as they stood at attention in a line before him in his dimly lit office. He allowed his oppresive chakra to fill the air as he paced back and forth in front of them, taking a sadistic pleasure in the nervousness he could feel growing in them as he did so. "I have recently been made aware that the Hokage has become suspicious of me." He began, staring into each of their eyes as he walked down the line again. "This means," he continued, "that we need all the ROOT members we can get. It has been almost three years since I have spoken to you about the Boy." The way he said the word 'boy' left no doubt as to whom he was speaking of. "I will be watching his training for the next week to assess his skill. He will be inducted once the week has passed if he passes my judgement, and you won't all lose your lives." He finished with a grim smile that sent shivers down the hardened shinobi's spines. "Hai, Danzo-sama," they said in unison. "Dismissed," Danzo said as he sat behind his desk. They were gone by the time he picked up his pen.

. . .

Midori, now almost nine years old, was anxious. It was an unhappy combination of worry and nervous anticipation. The maskless old man had been watching him for a week, in a way that made Midori feel uncomfortably like the prey of a hawk that was just waiting to swoop down and devour him. Needless to say, it was not a good sensation, and the dread that welled up within him felt disturbingly like a premonition of bad things to come. He just hoped that he was proven wrong, even as he felt the man's cold and calculating eyes sweep over his form as he went through his most complicated katas at his best speed.

He got the sinking feeling that his hopes were for naught when both he and Aoki were called to the same training room after the seventh day of being observed by the old man, whom he'd heard being called 'Danzo-sama' by the instructors. The sensation only increased when he and Aoki entered the room to see all of his regular instructors lined up behind the old man that was the source of Midori's bad feeling. Midori was a master at reading the emotions behind the eyes after spending his whole life around people who never showed what they thought or felt on their faces, and he could see the cruelty and anticipation in the old man's eyes. The feeling increased tenfold as he and Aoki stood at attention.

"You have been training under ROOT Anbu for four years now," the old man spoke, addressing Midori. "I have seen you in training, and I have decided that you will be inducted into ranks of my ROOT Anbu tonight." Both Aoki and Midori stiffened minately. A cold smirk grew on the old man's face as he made a signal to the ROOT members lined up behind him. Midori and Aoki held themselves rigidly in place as one of the instructors moved faster than they could blink to stab Aoki in the chest with a kunai. The weapon remained buried in his chest as the shinobi returned to his place in the line. "It's a shame to lose such a promising trainee," Danzo remarked, "but you're better." Every one stood completely still for a three minutes as Danzo closely watched Midori's carefully blank face before finally letting a small, satisfied smile curve the corners of his mouth. "Don't heal him," Danzo ordered Midori, walking to the door. "I expect to see you in your room at the usual time tomorrow morning," he said as he exited the room, followed by his subordinates.

Only once he was sure they were gone, did Midori drop to his knees beside Aoki, leaning over his body as he reached for the kunai. Tears leaked from his eyes for the first time since he was a small baby as he watched to irregular rise and fall of Aoki's chest. He was preparing for the healing jutsu that would hopefully save him, when Aoki's hand reached up to grab his wrist.

"Don't," Aoki gasped, "they'll k-kill you." Midori tried to shake him off, but Aoki's hand was surprisingly strong, even as blood flowed continuously from the wound in his chest. "It doesn't matter," Midori said, shaking his head blindly. Aoki laughed weakly at him. "It matters to me, baka. I'm okay with dying as long as you're safe. Don't fight me on this." Aoki's voice was startlingly clear despite its obvious weakness. "Besides," he continued, letting his hand fall to the ground, "it's a-already too late." Midori knew that Aoki spoke the truth. The wind whispered it to him. He leaned down and buried his face Aoki's stomach, hiding his tears. His fingers clutched at his friend's shoulders. Aoki's hands found their way into Midori's hair, stroking it comfortingly. "You can't stay here, Midori," Aoki said, and Midori knew he meant more than just staying in the training room with him until the instructors killed him for disobeying orders. "I want to you to try to get out if you can, have a c-chance to live your life for once, otouto." Midori's fingers tightened slightly around Aoki's shoulder at the endearment, and he actually sobbed as he nodded into Aoki's abdomen. "I love you, nii-san," Midori whispered. A faint smile twitched on Aoki's lips, and he tightened his hand briefly in Midori's messy black hair before his breathing slowed to a stop and his hand fell limply to the floor. Silence reigned.

Midori was eventually able to dragg himself to his room, carefully schooling his features into his usual emotionless expression as he made his way through the halls of the base. He spent a sleepless night curled up in Aoki's pallet breathing in his older brother's scent. When a pair of unfamiliar ROOT agents came for him in the morning, he was up and waiting for them, looking exactly the way he always did.

He was taken to a sterile looking room, where he was given a tattoo on his right bicep to signify that he was Anbu, and a seal that was painfully placed on his tongue. It would supposedly prevent him from telling any ROOT secrets to outsiders. He was then sent to train by himself in an empty room until he recieved further orders, with a new white mask on his face and tight fitting black clothes. He also had newly issued dark colored pouches filled with weapons, a pair of chakra conductive katanas, and two small but lethal fans.

Once he found an training room that suited his purpose, placed a barrier that would let him know if anyone approached around the room, and stop any chakra or sound from leaking out. Then Midori finally let go. His wind raged around him, gouging deeply into bare surfaces in response to his turmoil. He delivered powerful punches and kicks to a reinforced dummy with small body. Even the earth that was never so eager to respond to him seemed to rumble angrily beneath him at the force of his sorrow and grief. At the end of it all, Midori lay curled up in the middle of damaged floor, sobbing until the tears would come no more, and his breath shuddered through his chest. The wind caressed his face comfortingly, drying his tears while the ground thrummed beneath him, coaxing him into an exhausted slumber. The wind would wake him if anyone approached.

A/N: I'm so sorry for killing Aoki! It had to happen, even thought I cried while I wrote that. It was an essential part of the story line. If you have any questions, please ask, and feel free to give me feedback. I've also recently put an Itanaru oneshot called Heart and Soul up if anyone is interested.