Naruto : Monsters

From the three Hiruzen had been given, one a traitor, one a drunkard that had abandoned her village and the last is almost never seen, doing whatever caught her fancy.

While the one child he had given to Danzo was Uchiha Itachi.

The results were clear.

...

Hiruzen had tried and found himself wanting as a teacher. Though he held no ill will towards his old friend, it pained him that he had proved to be such an inadequate teacher that Danzo of all people had proven to be far superior.

Sometimes he felt as if the Heavens were laughing at him.

"Did you not promise me a free hand to mould these three?" Danzo asked rhetorically, not even bothering to wait for an answer before he carried on. "Then please old friend, stand aside and let me do what I must."

"I gave them to you to be trained, not killed." Hiruzen replied, heat managing to seep into his words, the first sign of emotions leaking into his voice from his otherwise sterile tone. "If I allow you to proceed, they may die."

"They may," Danzo allowed, nodding. "But that is a risk we all share. No one who bears the name of 'shinobi' can expect to do so without putting their lives at risk. The only difference with these children is that they will experience this truth earlier than most." Danze paused, before adding. "At least from the current generation. We were younger than even them when we first experienced battle, or have you forgotten?"

"No Danzo." Hiruzen sighed as he recalled his own childhood. He couldn't even believe they had ever been so young anymore. "I have not."

"I understand your reluctance old friend, believe me, I do. This is a risk that they must take, but not for nothing." Danzo assured. "In exchange for the danger they will experience, I will make them strong."

"And what if you don't? What if this plan of yours ends up failing you in the worst possible way? A single slip, one misstep, and they will lose their lives. What will you do then?"

"Then we do what we have always done. We move on and begin anew with the next group. The weak fall and the strong survive, that is the reality of the war we find ourselves in."

"We are not at war, Danzo." The Hokage reminded, "Not anymore."

"Tell that to the troops that keep dying every day on the field." Danzo turned to look over Hiruzen's shoulder, at the sight of the sprawling village of Konoha. "To the people living within the walls of the Village we have enjoyed a decade of peace, but to us who have to protect their peace, our war has never ended. In shadows, the battle between the Hidden Villages continues to wage, unseen by all who walk in the light. As it should be."

Silence returned and took hold between the two as Danzo took the opportunity to look over the village he had sold his soul to protect, taking in its beauty.

"You know we have no other choice Hiruzen." The words were almost kind, and as Danzo turned his sights back to his Hokage, he wore a look on his face that might have been mistaken for concern had it belonged to anyone else. "Too many mistakes have been made, we cannot afford to take our time any longer. You are dying."

Hiruzen quietly chortled, amused despite himself. "I'm hardly dying."

"But you are." Danzo denied. "As a Hokage, you are most certainly dying. Slowly, every day, little by little you are dying. Each passing day sees you grow weaker, your limbs frailer, your legs no longer seem to move as fast, your hands not as certain as they once used to be, your eyesight not as clear, and every morning finds you more weary than the last."

Danzo levelled his gaze to his oldest, and perhaps only, friend. "You are dying old friend. We are running out of time, we have already suffered too many failures as it is. We cannot afford to take our time any longer."

Hiruzen sat silent for a time, his gaze once again returning to the door. Danzo said nothing, content to wait and let his old teammate think. At long last, the ageing Hokage sighed, "But this?" He asked, looking every bit of his six and a half decades, "You may end up breaking them old friend. They're still only children."

"What else would you have me do?" Danzo asked, holding his hands open. "Coddle them? Have them trained within the safety of these walls on training mats with blunted weapons, never exposing them to any real danger, only to watch their potential wither and fade? Is that what you would have me do?

"Being raised in a place of absolute peace, never exposed to danger can kill a child's growth just as surely as a dagger to the throat would. Kindness may make a child strong but too much of it can stunt them just as easily as cruelty could, perhaps even more. They need to be exposed to the hardships of the world hidden beyond these walls if we ever want them to meet our expectations. You know I speak the truth, you have seen it yourself, that the greatest among us have all had one thing in common. We all knew war as children."

"...Perhaps." The Hokage relented. "But doesn't mean I have to like it."

Danzo stared at his old friend for a long time, seeing something there he did not expect to find. "Ah, I see." Danzo muttered quietly to himself before raising his voice. "Are you sure you're not letting your sentiments for the child cloud your judgment, old friend."

"No." The Sandaime shook his head. "No." He repeated. "I knew Naruto's fate would be this the day Minato sealed the Kyuubi in her. As much as I wished it to be otherwise, there is nothing I can do to change it."

"It was not the Jinchuuriki I was speaking of."

Hiruzen stiffened, his expression turning frigidly cold. "...Exactly what is it you are implying, Danzo?"

The tone was spoken in warning, like a drawn knife.

"The resemblance is uncanny, I must admit." Danzo confessed, carrying on as if he had not noticed the threat that hung between them. "Not so much in their features, perhaps, in that regard, they are certainly different, but in everything else?" He raised one shoulder in a half-shrug, "I can not blame you, Hiruzen, if you see him in the boy. Not when the similarities are so clear for all to see."

Hiruzen stared at Danzo, back straight, eyes smouldering.

Then, like the puffed out flame of a candle, all the rage in him disappeared, leaving him feeling weak, tired and so very old.

"...I admit I keep seeing Orochimaru in him. When he was still…" Hiruzen grimaced in pain. Even after all these years, despite becoming too familiar with the sensation, the sting of his betrayal still burned as freshly as the day he had found his student in those sewers.

To realise what the boy he had come to love as a son had become.

Hiruzen shook his head, clearing his mind from that particular train of thought. "It is hard not to see him sometime when I look at him. Not when there is so much of the good I used to see in the boy."

The bad too, went unspoken.

Shutting his eyes, Hiruzen could still see him, as clearly as if he had stood before him – not the man he had become but the boy he had once loved. And every time he looked at the young Hyuuga that had latched onto his surrogate granddaughter, he could not help but see him in the boy.

The fates were cruel, to have a reminder of his greatest failure dangled in front of his face.

They were so very much alike.

At times it was surreal looking at him, the boy could have passed as the son of his old student were it not their eyes and the tone of their skin.

Their prodigal talent, the way they spoke, the unnatural maturity they held themselves with – even among the children of shinobi -, their fascination with chakra, their cunning, the unsettling air they unconsciously gave out that would have set them apart from their peer even if their talents had not. Even the way they style their hair was not too dissimilar.

Then there was his adoration for his family – his mother and sister in particular – that reminded him of how Orochimaru would cling to his parents. A mama's boy, that was what Tsunade used to call him. And she would have been right too, were it not for the fact that he clung to his father just as fiercely.

For better or for worse, Orochimaru had always been a pure child. He threw himself fully into anything he did fully, either loving something completely or not at all. No half measures, he would obsess or disregard, no middle ground.

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