Disclaimer: I have no ownership of Naruto or Harry Potter.

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The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves. ~Sophocles

Chapter 3: Sacrifices, Ghosts, and the Shinobi Way

The year was 1947 seventeen year old Minato Namikaze has been the head of Section 12, the department of Research and Advancements, for about one year now. He had once been the apprentice of the former head but he had passed way leaving him as his successor. So far the boy had proven his worth. Unfortunately it was time he showed them why exactly he had been made the successor.

"Daddy what are you doing?"

"Were going to play a game," fake smile spread across his aristocratic features. This was wrong; he ruffled the hair of his son's spiky blonde hair. Yuu looked nothing like his mother, which is something he is grateful for. The four year old giggled blue eyes wide and full of trust, a huge grin spread across the young face.

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"Minato-san were you able to do it," Daisuke Yamato, his soon to be apprentice, ran down the hall to catch up to him. Daisuke's brows furrowed in confusion at the little boy next the stoic Head. "The Board had been pressuring you for awhile now…do you need me to look after Yuu-chan?"

"No."

"Oh you and Yuu-chan gonna spend some quality father and son time." Daisuke crouched ruffling the boys' spiky blond hair, his eyes narrowed, the boy always giggled when anyone did that to him. He looked at the boy closely; he didn't look sick or anything. He moved the hair that had gotten in front of Yuu's eyes after his manhandling of his hair. The eyes, that's what was wrong. He stood up quickly; he glared accusingly at Minato, the other just stared back at him like he had done nothing wrong. "You—"

"Sacrifices must been made for advancements." Minato explained not once looking at the boy who once held his hand so tightly. Yuu, who was so afraid to get separated from his father. Yuu, who was always smiling at everyone and anything even if it was a fly standing on his ice cream. Yuu, who cried or got sad if his father did not pay him any attention. Yuu, who now held his father's hand so limply with no expression, cerulean eyes that were once so bright now so dark blue they were black. "He is the first of many; a success at that, there will be more to come."

"Yes but this…your own son! This isn't r—"

"It will not be in vain." Daisuke could only look at Minato in both disgust and sick admiration for the adolescents' detemination for his work.

Hermione jolted awake, a pale slim face with lavender pupilless eyes greeted her, Hyuga. She was alive and breathing, it had been a while since she had last seen her. Usually when people went missing here they were usually dead. She noticed the slight tense muscles in Hyuga's face give away in relief. She was glowing, a warm ember glow making shadows play with her face making Hyuga look more gaunt and skeletal then she actually was. They had been gaining weight, Hyuga more then all of them, although she still was skinny compared to how she first looked when she came to this place. She slowly stood up rubbing, it was hot…too hot and foggy?

"…spread down here, we must leave now."

She blinked, it wasn't fog but smoke, the warm ember glow was fire. A horrible rancid smell filled her nostrils; she blinked at the sight before her. Two little girls were huddled together surrounded by fire there were a couple of small lumps still on fire, a few more black smoking bodies and across from her on the other side one very pregnant and chained Veela screamed in agony as the fire in enveloped her from the feet up. "Save my baby, please someone help me!" She screamed in Japanese, huh so she another one of the rare Japanese Veela like Iron-Head. She heard chains rattle beside her and a screech, male Veela were always protective of their pregnant females. The rattling continued but ceased just a few moment before the female stopped crying for help.

"Basic instincts can't seem to control them," he cackled. The chains rattled again, "Look at me," he demanded, his voice had only gotten worse as time passed.

Hermione jumped to attention, something inside her ordered her to look at the chained man because if she didn't she knew there would be some consequences for her impudence. She knew he couldn't actually harm but she also knew the tone of his voice, the aura he possessed promised pain and lots of it. She didn't know why she felt that way she just did. It was similar to how she felt towards the Director and yet at the same time different…like, like he had much more authority of her then the Director. It was a strange feeling.

Iron-Head's lips were spilt like always when he spoke; blood was dribbling down his chin. "I hereby," he started in English, "give you permission to use your magic to release me of these chains. I hereby order you to go in defensive position and protect me, your creator. I hereby promote you to Class 1, you to speak to me and only me, unless I say otherwise."

A strange sensation surged through her veins, it wasn't uncomfortable just strange. The sensation quickly turned cold, below zero cold she wanted to shiver from the icy blood that now ran threw her veins but instead stood motionless staring in shock at Iron-Head. This man, he couldn't be…

"Rasengan!" A voice shouted followed by a loud boom, the noise had come from above. Almost immediately after she heard the shout she had heard a gasp from Hyuga which quickly turned into a round of coughs. They were running out of air, Iron-Head soon started making a nasty hacking like noise, "Son of bitch!" The growl tore from his bloodied lips and hacking grew until he ultimately stopped. His breathing heavy and strained, pretty soon she was coughing as well, Hyuga was on her knees grabbing on to her chest. Her face contorted like she was in an immense amount of pain. She could feel the heat start to blister her skin and hot air was making it even harder to breath every time she took breathe her lungs burned. How long had the fire been going? She couldn't even use her magic to attempt an escape, she didn't have the strength she was magically exhausted. That of magic that ran through her system was not enough and was trying to keep her alive.

Was this it? She was going to die by fire like so many did during the witch hunts. Would this blazing inferno finally end her sinful existence? Her knees buckled before she collapsed on to her hands and knees. Two children sobbed their tears mixing with soot as they watched her dying, they're still alive? They're scared; she stretched out her hand towards them. The image of the two children that held each other rippled and began to fade, as they faded the children eyes moved to focus on something behind her. Their eyes widened in fear.

The prison cell faded as well until it reformed into a nursery. The baby blue walls were patterned with white fluffy clouds, the carpet was soft beige. The room was stained in red, toys broken and were thrown everywhere, a crib was thrown to the side smashed into splinters. The two children were replaced by a pregnant woman. She was headless; her hands were pinned to the wall by the broken wood of the crib. Her stomach was cut open the infant was pulled but was still attached to its mother by the umbilicord. The father's wand was used to pin the child to the floor. Above the murder dead mother written her blood was the words "MUGGLE BITCH!"

The father was found a few miles north under a tree, dead by his own means. She stood there in the middle of the room just like she did so many years ago. It had been her first solo mission. The job was simple get rid of all magical traces of the murder, remove the wand that pinned to the child and replace it with something else. She wasn't to search for the suspect; she wasn't to do anything but get rid of evidence. At the time she bit back the bile rising in her throat and had done just that. She took at step forward wand raised to get the job done once more but this time something stopped her.

"Don'tcha care, miss?" A high pitched unearthly voice broke through the silence. She jumped; swallowing the scream that lodged itself in her throat she approached the infant once more. The wand was pressed at the center of its tiny chest; the infant was caked in dry blood and amniotic fluids. Long lash pressed against the infants' cheeks as she kneeled down closer to the infants' eyes opened wide and accusing. They were a filmy blue, "Don'tcha care, miss?" It repeated again.

"I…I…"

"I guess since I ain't nothing special. Not for you I s'pose. If ya cared ya would have lookt for who hurt mummy and daddy. I guess ya just forgo' abou' yer muggle blood an' all."

"I was ordered not to do anything. I swear if I could have I would looked for your murder but I couldn't." She pleaded.

"LIES, LIES, LIES!" The unearthly high pitched voice distorted into something demonic. "You give me lies! In your younger days you would stand up against what was wrong." The voice high pitched voice mixed with demonic voice causing shivers to go down her spine "Was I not in the wrong. Was it because I am not Harry Bloody Fucking Potter! I suppose you only did what ya did because as long as it was with Harry Potter nothing could go wrong and now that you're on your own you cannot stand up for what is wrong because Harry Potter isn't there!"

She shut her eyes closed and pressed her hands to her ears all the while shaking her head in denial, "YOU DON'T CARE!" The voice chanted repeatedly. It was a lie she did care. She did care.

"The baby's right 'Mione," the whole room disappeared until she stood in nothing but darkness. "You don't care." Harry Potter laughed cynically; his laughter was joined by the baby's laughter.

"Will you do it…are you willing to give your humanity? Your guilt never bother you again. You will never have to experience what you did that fateful day. All you have to do is give up your humanity. Don't you want those voices to go away Ms. Granger? Take my offer; it won't be as bad as you think," a long pale hand extended towards her.

"I…" She bit her lip uncertain of what to say. "Give me a week to think about it."

"You have three days," the Director turned on his heel leaving her alone in her office confused and conflicted.

Tsunade was not a happy camper. She glared at the eight ANBU before her, the report in her hand shook as she struggled not to damage the scroll. The mission in her opinion had not been successful at all, but she couldn't blame the ANBU for it, it hadn't been there fault in the first place. Who could have predicted the outcome; many of the prisoners died in the fire. In the end they had captured the Good Doctor, good ha! Good fucking psycho that's what he was. Five prisoners were rescued, one which died as they reached Konoha. Two were in critical condition, one of them being Hyuga Hinata. One of the prisoners had an iron mask that apparently was irremovable without the aid of the Good Doctor who apparently decided it was a good time to be unconscious. Another was suffering from hallucinations and maybe a little hysteria. From what she read the prisoner had started screaming and hollering in a strange (probably made up) language at two children in a different cell.

The Godaime Hokage could already feel the migraine coming and rearing its ugly head in.

"Falcon and Hound stay. Everyone else dismissed," she remained quiet for a long time, or it seemed like a long time when it really was only a few seconds. Hound's fist was clenched so tightly that it was physically shaking while Falcon stood stiffly. "Falcon go to the Hyuga compound and retrieve Hiashi and Neji Hyuga." Falcon nodded stiffly catching the hidden meaning and was gone in a second.

"Remove your mask."

Hound ripped off his mask revealing the Kyuubi container. Naruto cerulean eyes looked defiantly at her, she took notice of his pupils slitting from the anger he was holding back. "I understand that you are upset with the situation at hand Naruto but right now isn't the time nor is it proper as the future Hokage of Konoha, you are a Hokage in training control yourself. You will accompany me to the interrogations. Go home get changed and return here in ten minutes, understood."

"Hai."

She waited a heart beat before taking out some sake she had hidden from Shizune's prying hands. "Tsunade-sama," Shizune poked her head in, she looked at the state Tsunade was in and decided to ignore the sake for now, "Hiashi-sama and Neji are here to see you and…Hinata has woken up."

For a second Tsunade contemplated throwing the desk or snapping at Shizune instead she bit back a sigh, "Let them in."

A/N: Wow, Minato sounds like a real "poopie-head" and "bum-hole" and Hermione needs to workout some personal issues if you ask me. *sigh* Naruto has grown up on me, he's so mature now! What happened to the goofy Naruto I read in the regular Fanfics! Well I guess I could reason the fact that he's in his twenty's now there for more mature. The only people that seem to be acting normal are the Shinobi/ANBU.

And thank you all for story alerting, favoriting ect...gives me so much motivation to get the gears moving in my head and fight back my arch nemisis Writer's Block. Hahaha! I have beaten him black and blue for now and hope stays hidden is a scared corner. But I know he'll be back, he always comes back!

Oh and now more thing, yeah I'm talking too much and need to shut my mouth but still...should I up the rating to "M" or leave at "T"? I need to know!

Review.