That night my life changed, I was introduced to Danzo and the hidden ugly side of the village.
In Danzo's words the "Leaf is only as strong as the trees roots are deep"
Thinking back I am sure that even then he was stretching the leaf metaphor thing a little bit too far but I did get his point. in a world where everyone is trained to be cunning, manipulative, and deadly it makes sense to have an elite squad hidden but available to take care of anyone who grows too ambitious.
Thinking back I should have realised that the Uchiha clan and the ANBU were already there to serve that function – well the Uchiha clan is kind of a moot point at this stage but they were there at the time…
The ROOT division, as Danzo explained it to me, was implemented at the founding of the village to protect the Hokage and to protect the village from the Hokage if he ever became a risk to the villages' safety.
I realize now (off course, when it's too late to do anything bout it) how much Danzo has twisted the interpretation as to when the Hokage is posing danger to the village to mean if the Hokage chooses to lead the village in a more peaceful or merciful way then Danzo is comfortable with…
But all this brilliant insight came way too late, in our first meeting I was a foolish young ninja in training working my ass off to impress everyone and to show the world that even without being able to perform ninjutsu or genjutsu I could be a powerful and capable shinobi.
And Danzo gave me exactly what I wanted. Recognition.
He asked me why I was working so hard to surpass my natural limitations, and I told him – that there was nothing I wouldn't do, no obstacle I couldn't overcome to reach my goals – I was determined to prove that hard work and dedication would surpass any genetic advantage of the other ninja.
I swore to him that I would become a powerful shinobi that the village would respect and remember for generations to come…
This caused a smile to stretch across his scared face (again that creepy smile should have sent me packing… but my passion blinded me).
He grilled me for a bit testing my resolve and finally offered to assist in my goals if I would assist in his. - Again, looking back I should of asked him to clarify what his goals were.
I agreed without a second thought and from that day until I finished at the academy three years later I trained in the catacombs of Konoha with the ROOT division.
Over those years they pushed me hard – I was forced to go months without food - trained to survive as long as possible with the smallest amounts of food, water, or sleep.
I was pushed to and beyond the limitations of my physical body – I was taught how to force open the chakra gates to gain temporary access to the full potential of my muscle and chakra power.
But most importantly they taught me how to kill my heart and emotions – to commit murder without question. I was trained to see everything around me in one of 3 categories – a weapon, a threat or a target. These assassination missions and death battles put a new realism to the training I was doing and slowly helped me sink into the "emotionless ROOT mode" that was encouraged within the division.
Essentially, they taught me how to survive and serve in the ninja world.
Over the years of training I did noticed a higher level of monitoring on my progress than on any of the other initiates, it seemed like Danzo had an unhealthy obsession with my "little chakra problem" and was studying it, working on either trying to fix it or perhaps to replicate it.
My lack of elemental affinity was tested in every conceivable direction. Apparently even Genjutsu and illusions all stem from blue or water element chakra and are such also beyond my capabilities.
I remember it being painful when Danzo got the idea that if I can't produce them I might be able to absorb elemental energy – being zapped by lightning and thrown through fireballs was not the most fun part of my training.
But I was able to do anything that involved just pure chakra – walking up walls – running across rivers, theses things came easy to me.
Operating seals – now this was awesome, I still couldn't channel my chakra out of my body independently - as I learned when I was six, chakra naturally swarms to an open wound and through your blood…putting 2 and 2 together I was able to – with a small cut – activate explosive tags or storage seals almost as easily as any other ninja.
Danzo never gave up on his experiments though, he was convinced that this 'uniqueness' in my chakra must give some kind of advantage in some other way to compensate for the extreme weaknesses.
So far the search has come up with nothing.
It wasn't until after I graduated from the academy and was placed on a team with Guy Sensei, Neji and TenTen that Danzo attempted to cash in on his side of our three year old agreement. – I was to play the role of a sleeper agent and be vigilantly ready to capture the DNA of Hyuuga Neji – I was instructed to collect blood and sweat samples as regularly as inconspicuously as possible… and when the time came assist in handing him over to a female operative to collect a sperm sample. (Again, at the time this didn't feel like I was betraying anyone, the Hyuuga kid was a dick and I was under orders by a Konoha council member… it all made sense to me at the time).
At this point I was the embodiment of the perfect ROOT ninja – powerful fast and loyal to the leaf, but hidden in plain sight on a simple gennin squad.
It has been over a year since I last exchanged words with Neji, somehow after all my training with Danzo I didn't feel the need to compete with a 12 year old (I know I was 12 too… but when you loose count of the corpses you created your age is a less meaningful number).
He still beat me in our sparring sessions – I am sure I would win if I took it seriously… but these were friendly sparring matches with classmates not deathbattles so I kept my power levels in check.
He seemed to just think that I gave up on my goals of "Surpassing my fated position in life" or some such rubbish – I just stopped caring about his opinion.
TenTen the girl on the team was just your typical female ninja – they traditionally play supportive roles or medium to long-range to stay out of the more physical combat scenarios. True to form TenTen was a ranged weapons user – she was pretty good for her age but it was all long range combat with limited physical strength.
It made sense to pare the 2 together Neji a master in close range hand to hand combat equip with eyes that can see forever and TenTen who can cover him from afar. – I don't know what my role on the team will be yet but I am willing to go along with it.
Guy-Sensei was the biggest enigma I have ever come across – he radiated power but was the most flamboyantly cheerful ninja I ever met. His very existence threatened to question everything I learnt over the years in ROOT training.
I was painfully trained to suppress all emotion as the only path to success in a shinobi career… But here was a Jounin – one of the most powerful in the village who was genuinely happy – a person who wore his emotions on his sleeve and was not afraid of letting them out and overtaking him.
From the moment we met it I knew that Guy sensei was the perfect sensei for me. A powerful self made ninja that worked his ass of to earn the title of being the village's tijutsu master. I know that my training with ROOT was at a higher level then anything anyone else would have considered possible but Guy made training fun – something I forgot was possible.
After only a few weeks of training with team Guy my emotionless mask was starting to slip – his enthusiasm was simply infectious.
And the way he accepted my chakra handicap – by vowing to avoid using chakra himself to prove the power of hard work! I mean this went far beyond the simple "recognition" that Danzo was offering and was more empathetically encouraging.
Guy wasn't just humouring me while studying my every move looking for hidden powers to exploit, he was genuinely happy to be training and helping me become powerful using martial arts alone.
So its not hard to believe that after only eight weeks of this intensively emotional training my mask was starting to slip.
Now for those who don't know a slipping mask is the worst possible thing – because it severely highlights the existence of said mask.
So when Guy sensei presented me with my new green body suit to – as he put it "allow the power of my youth shine forth" He noticed my conflicting personas and the emotionless mask I was trying to hide behind.
In a flash the overly optimistically happy Guy was replaced with the hardened shinobi that assisted the Leafs victories in the last two wars.
He confronted me and under his inescapable stare I cracked and admitted to my secret training and mission for the ROOT division.
My confession did not seem to surprise him as much as I thought it would – he seemed to have noticed the way I held myself back in my sparring sessions and came to a similar conclusion himself.
When I admitted the mission Danzo had instructed me with upon joining the team Guy became angry – and I have to tell you that he is not the kind of person you want to see angry – he is someone who expresses every little emotion to the millionth percentile, so when he is pissed off it feels like a 'wrath of god' being dropped on the battlefield.
He marched me straight to the Hokages office to tell the story again to the commanding general of Konoha.
I remember that meeting as just waves of fear and awe – I don't have any clear recollection of what I said or how he reacted but the fallout as a result of my debriefing was the complete shutdown and banning of the entire ROOT division and a much greater scrutiny placed on Danzo.
It seemed like the Hokaga (and Guy) put the pieces together rather quickly – It was widely known that the Stone village coveted the Byakugan abilities and have already failed in one attempt to capture and harvest the Hyuuga eyes – an attempt that cost the life of Neji's father…
This unhealthy intrest in the bloodline led them to the belief that Danzo may have been a part of that attempt and was now planning a backup plan to deliver the "all seeing eyes" to another village.
Over the next few months I went through an emotional transformation – I vowed to disassociate myself with Danzo and the ROOT division as much as possible and to model myself in my sensei's image.
I donned the green spandex and began to express my emotions as much as possible – at the start I had to force it a little being so used to repressing any and all emotion… but the more I let it out , the less I cared what other people thought and the more fun I had.
I know this is silly to say but who would of thought being optimistically happy could feel so good – and as Guy was training me, channelling your emotions through your fists can make them powerful.
And then it happened – six months into my training with team guy I found myself in the Curry of Life dinner while on a mission. I was happy and I remember myself thinking that I would like nothing more that for this moment to last forever – me, with a supportive team and a loving sensei – and a giant bowl of the worlds greatest curry…
It's the little things that I find bring out the most joy in my life – but the tears in my eyes were only partially the currys fault – I was just lost in my emotions the way Guy sensei showed me.
And just like that I felt an odd tingling run down my arms and through my chopsticks – and the next thing I know my empty bowl is full again for me to just continue eating.
I didn't make a scene and just kept my head down and piled food into my mouth – but I knew that what I did was not a jutsu – it must have been magic of some other kind – a kind that I didn't know if I was ready to share with my team.
It is kinda ironic though – the potential and power that Danzo knew I had buried in me was only accessible through extreme emotion – the kind of thing he worked so hard training me to repress…
Over the next few months I experimented with this power - at times it helped boosted my normal fighting abilities - letting me move just a little bit faster. Other times I have found myself calling on this magic to pull things to me if out of reach... but what really shocked me and demonstrated my serious lack of understanding this thing is when I shattered a training post only for it to reassemble itself a moment later.
I knew there was potential here - I just hope I have time to work it all out.
As Gaara's sand compressed around me, my final thought was about how different my life would have been if Danzo knew about my magic and trained me to use it to escape a situation like this.
As shameful as it is to admit, when I heard Gaara call out "Sand Burial" all I cried out with everything I had in me – "I want my MUMMY"
The sand fell to the floor – like every one of Gaara's executions there was no body left – only Gaara notice that there was no blood in his sand either.
Lee collapsed to the floor in a large stone room lined with floating candles.
A tall bearded man stood before a flaming cup at the head of the room was looking between the newly arrived green clad youth and the impossible fourth slip of paper that the goblet had just sit out.
With reluctant curiosity mixed he read out the name of their world's long dead savoir "Harry Potter?"