F.o.D. Deux: # 2-0-6-4 Addendum

ROOT Operative #67120 - Chikuma Koshiro "Kamaitachi"

10:06 hrs; November 29th, 1963

She screams loud enough for him to be entertained - moreso because her fear of him was interesting. Her hands were tied tightly behind her back, ankles bound and bent at an awkward angle, and he constantly poked and prodded with the steeled edge of his black kusarigama. Blood trickles down her arms and legs where he made the cuts, but despite what she felt, he'd no intention of killing. No. What he wanted from her, what he needed, was for her to be loud. To cry out, to plead, scream for help; it would draw some of her friends in. From there, he'd get to work.

The job was thankless, much like his tenure with Central Security; everyone had aspirations to reach the highest level of the Sapporo bureaucracy, but if you really had to ask, it had little to do with what you did, and more about who saw you.

He remembered his first interview with Yakushiji Tenzen, small and shaking, nothing but skin and burn marks covering up and over his malnourished husk of a body. Being so close to where the bomb dropped, the radiation already wreaked havoc upon his flesh; days went by where his skin would burn, itch, tear at slightest scratch. One time he'd bled for three hours straight before the nurses were able to staunch the bleeding. Red covered the entirety of his bed sheets, his clothes, even his own mother who refused to leave his side.

All throughout that time she held his hand and never let go.

It hurt him, gods her grip was too tight. But he didn't care; if he'd died right then, he'd be at peace. Because if those were for certain his final moments, then he'd rather spend them held in the grasp of someone who truly loved him. And he loved her, too. Which it was why he was sad to see the black shirts came and have her removed.

In her place, a tall and imperious figure. A man - a true man. Someone who caused him to feel suddenly aware of his own weak frailty, to which he became ashamed about; I have no business talking to this person, he thought to himself. What on earth could he want with me?

But soon as he saw Tenzen's easy smile creep along those shiny, porcelain features, did all doubt wash away. A god of war came looking for him, and found what he said "was something peculiar".

"You don't know how you managed to survive, do you?" Tenzen asked.

Survive? Did he? Technically, yes, but even as a boy of six he realized his life would forever be...different.

His fingers on both hands were gone, his legs irreparably broken, barely could any food touch his lips without the immediate urge to throw-up. Slowly, he felt his body whittling away, being eaten by something inside him. Doctors first said the first week would be to simply treat his physical wounds - when their small house in Hiroshima came crashing all around him, beside his broken bones, the burns and open sores paved the way for infection to take hold. The second week, they informed his mother - the only one of his once family of seven still alive, would be to treat the "residual" symptoms of the blast.

At the time, he knew nothing of what an "atomic" bomb was.

In his mind, it was simply a bigger bomb; what more could it do once it exploded? He couldn't understand everyone talked of organ failure, radiation poisoning, death. "No," he uttered, crying himself to sleep one night. "No, I can't die - I can't. I survived the blast, I made it. Why am I going to die?"

"You're not going to die," Tenzen says, removing his officer's hat with the tied up ear muffs and red star in its center. Gray, purplish eyes fix the boy where he lay in his hospital bed. Studying him, assessing him, seeing if he's worthy. His smile grows wider. "In fact, young Koshiro, you'll live. You'll be strong, you'll be healthy, you will survive. Because I want you to."

Koshiro couldn't understand why this man - who'd later revealed himself as one of Sapporo's top military elites, could take such interest in his broken little figure. And to top it all off, giving him the false hope of lies to assuage his suffering. Strong? Healthy? Nothing about him was healthy, nothing about him now could ever be strong. It was bones...they were sapped of everything needed just to keep him upright. Drained of the very essence that made him human. Now, he was just some freak who'd forever need life support and constant care. A forever burden to his poor mother, who he wanted to have come back into the room so very much.

But Tenzen wouldn't allow it.

"You're mother will be compensated for the sacrifice she has made, for there is no greater champion of the cause than a woman who's lost everything."

"Lost everything?"

"Yes," Tenzen says calmly, assuredly; as if he were commenting on the time, or telling Koshiro about the weather. "We're telling your mother you will die, for I am a renowned doctor come all the way from Hokkaido who specializes specifically in the effects of radiation on the human body. I have to come to assess you. In not how I can save you - you were too close to the blast to be saved, and considering the physical state you're in that would be a long shot. But to see how American's bomb...affected you. For research purposes. A small lie, but necessary."

A small lie, he says.

But to him that small lie changed his entire life, and made him devilishly loyal to the one person who gave him back most everything he needed. To be strong, to be healthy, to be a survivor in this terrible place which turned children into cannon fodder.

"Please, no! Please don't kill me! Somebody HELP!" She screams out.

He rolls his eyes; he barely touched her. Honestly, did she really think he was going to kill her? Good Lord, Konoha's latest batch were so volatile. How did Comrade-Sensei Tenzen expect them to choose who were worthy from this sorry bunch. Weak, panicky, easily disoriented; lacking the most basic of communication skills to maintain cohesion in light of an ambush. Not like Shino was particularly clever or subtle in his approach; anyone worth their salt should've seen him a mile away.

But not them - not her.

They were too loud, too precocious, and too blind to everything but themselves. Which, in a way, worked to their advantage: discord and confusion. That was how they were going to entrap their mark, the sole objective for why they were summoned down south in the first place. Tenzen never would've ordered Koshiro to undertake such a loathsome task, to proctor an exam simply for the benefit of working with the enemy, if it weren't for a good reason.

And Sasuke Uchiha was definitely worth it.

"HELP! SOMEBODY!"

The scream echoes through the trees, through the mist, and Koshiro can heard the padding of heavy footfalls coming through. A black wasp - weakened, but still able to carry the message - flies off as Koshiro takes in the message. "Three incoming," it relayed, walking in formation along his skin. "Very angry, very angry. Three incoming. Him. Him" From where he stands in the clearing, mist hovering above the heads of the long grass, Koshito motions to his comrades beside him. "You take the right," he orders to one, before advising the other to take the left. "Stay in the mist, Kin. Don't move till I give the signal."

"Is it him?" The kunoichi asks; they'd all disbanded of their masks soon as they came into the forest, but she kept hers. Said it made her look intimidating.

"Yeah, it's him." Koshiro goes, running the edge of his kusarigama once more across the girl's neck. Another more trembling scream calls out for help, to which Koshiro counted on coming real soon. "He's bringing friends, so be ready."

"Sure you don't want us a little closer? Just in case. You can never be too careful with the likes of that guy." Kin says, though Koshiro tuts her away.

Not necessary, he tells Kin. Despite her concern, this is exactly why Tenzen trained Koshiro all these years. Back when he was another casualty in one of the darkest times of their country's history, a statistic jotted down in some book accounting for the totality of destruction of Fat Man. Koshiro's entire life was flattened in that one moment, but also remade in the power which awakened that day.

It saved his life then, and that of his mother's. And now wearing a black shirt of his own, an officer's uniform denoting his rank as second to the Director of ROOT himself, Koshiro was going to use that power again.

Years of tutelage under Tenzen's supervision, learning the forbidden techniques to hone his talents, afforded Koshiro the privilege of never needing to finish Konoha's Ninja Academy. Officially, on the record, he'd never risen above the rank of genin. It was of little consequence, Tenzen told him. "ROOT needed warriors, hunters, and perfectionists; the 20th century didn't have use for relics roaming around clinging to antiquated chivalry."

"Change - true change - doesn't come from hiding in the shadows, living by 'nindos'." Comrade-Director addressed him right before boarding the plane towards Konoha. The wind on the tarmac was biting that night, coming in relentlessly from a brutal northern gale. That sentiment had its uses. Once. But they chain us - to the past, to a legacy which no longer applies. Not now in a time where the fate of nations rise and fall on perception alone. If we are seen to be weak, it is only because we show ourselves as such. Then what sort of change would beget from such a sorry existence, Koshiro, hm? Lying to ourselves, to the point we end up believing the lie, allows other to dictate our fate."

"We will not be beholden to such thinking. Nor will the Uchiha. Assist him in this, for you are the only one who can."

Koshiro for a long while doubted himself on par with the likes of the Sharingan; an eye technique passed down through the myriad years of Uchiha tradition and breeding. This family for too long had a monopoly on the axis of power since the beginning of the war years, tracing all the way back to the Sengoku Jidai. He'd vaguely remember them strutting along the Hiroshima streets, clad in their dashing IJA tans and officer's katanas, all of black hair and arrogant stares.

And Sasuke was the spitting image of that memory.

The last Uchiha looks out defiantly when he crashes through the tree-line, blade drawn, the glint of his Northern blade catching what little light there is. However, he is alone - either the two who traveled with him decided to stay back and provide backup, which if so, made it a wise decision for Koshiro to mind the flanks. Or, he'd gone ahead alone. Typical. reading up on the "golden boy's" file, his MO was normally one to forge ahead.

Koshiro stands alone, save for the lure unconscious at his feet. He grips her by her long blonde hair, though careful not to tug too hard. The cuts and scrapes he gave were superficial, the blow delivered swift and almost painless; pain wasn't so much a part of his act, as much as fear.

Something the Yamanaka gave almost too readily.

She will learn and understand, Koshiro thinks, smiling upwards to his quarry. They will all learn. I will teach them.

Especially you, Uchiha.